eat, pray, love, goodbye

I have been quiet in this forum recently. I know. The truth is that life has been loud. Busy. Hurtful. Confusing. And while I would love to write in this blog on a daily basis and be insightful and witty, sometimes, the mere notion of trying to take the inner workings of the thoughts in my head and translate them in writing or verbally, send me into a tailspin. And truthfully, sometimes, it is easy to feel like a broken record.

But, I find myself home on a Thursday night with a sweet dog cuddled up by my side and it is still and quiet in my home. It's interesting, sometimes, quietness can strangle, and others it is like a favorite, old blanket keeping you warm. Tonight, it is good and the result is me trying to put into words what has been going through my head.

I love quotes. Everyone collects things, I collect words. They are like music to my soul and one way that I feel God and I do business. I saw "Eat, Pray, Love" a while back and though there is much to unpack in this sweet film, one quote stuck with me: "Ruin is the road to transformation."

Here's the thing. God has impeccable timing. And this year has been full of being turned upside down and inside out and an unlimited membership on an emotional roller coaster. I felt like the quote from "Eat, Pray, Love" was God whispering sweet nothings into my ear. I felt like He was saying, "Darling, I'm not done yet. All of the crap, it has been worth it. There is a reason. Get excited. You don't have enough imagination to imagine how this transformation is going to turn out." And, I felt hopeful for it. I still do.

I have a friend Anthony. He writes quotes often on his Facebook page that consist of two sentences. "My Christianity says..", and "In the Kingdom..." His way of saying that this is not all folks. Look for the contrasts. See that this world has it wrong and you often get caught up in it. Recently, he wrote this, "My Christianity says the gospel is like an epic movie. In the kingdom the gospel is about God showing up and wrecking my cinematic fantasies of the soul." The "ruin", if you will that I alluded to earlier. God and I had a conversation during the holidays last year. And it consisted of many promises that resulted in one theme, you will not be in the same place next year as you are this evening. And it wasn't that I was in a horrific place, but in order for Him to do His work, I had to let go. So we, God and I, started a year to the theme of progression.

I read a blog where my friend said, "The gap between where you know you should be - with God - and where you presently stand is entirely too large." And I think this is true for many.

I have been reading Timothy Keller’s The Prodigal God. I'm not done yet, but interestingly enough, the same quote seems to be floating on many blogs that I follow. ”Human approval, professional success, power and influence, family and clan identity–all of these things serve as our heart’s “functional trust” rather than what Christ has done, and as a result we continue to be driven to a great degree by fear, anger, and a lack of self-control. You cannot change such things through mere willpower, through learning Biblical principles and trying to carry them out. We can only change permanently as we take the gospel more deeply into our understanding and into our hearts. We must feed on the gospel, as it were, digesting it and make it part of ourselves. That is how we grow.”

For myself, that growth has come from having to say goodbye to often this year. Friends moving. My brother following his dream in the army. A dear cousin losing a longtime health battle and leaving this world. Goodbye to dreams. Putting to rest feelings that need to be buried. Goodbye to situations that I have held onto for 10+ years, realizing I have held on for too long. Goodbye to some ambitions that were unworthy. The point is, the word goodbye, has been uttered more than I imagined. And while it has hurt, it has also felt good. The stripping of one's baggage results in freedom. You are able to come up and take a deep gulp of fresh air, realizing that you didn't know that you were drowning in the first place. And in the midst of that freedom, my choice is to cling to God and have faith in what He is doing in my life.

The truth is, God has already fulfilled his promise to me. I am not in the same place as I was last year when we had this specific conversation. I know we still have business to do in the remaining months of 2010, but what I have learned so far is that maybe "goodbye" is not always so bad after all.