altars - 121911

Today, during tea time at NHCC and at the Zeo meeting at Chili's, the group was prompted to reflect on the year and share what noteworthy thing God has been doing in our lives. Both times, in a surprisingly sincere manner - I say this because it is in contrast to the usual cynical/crazy/inappropriate behavior I tend to exhibit during these meetings - I reflected and spoke of my most profound experiences of this year. Both times I felt slightly nervous and my voice shook. Both times I wanted to close my eyes and praise God on the spot, whatever that looks like; I had a strong urge to acknowledge Him right then and there. As I shared twice today, first, having to do with God's grace, and secondly, His power and sovereignty. They are both correlated, but I focused on specific attributes during the respective times. I'll put it in writing now so that I can always remember it - my altar, constructed word upon word, of praise and remembrance before God and myself.

This year has been one marked with significant relationships. With each relationship set before me, I believe that I found a little more of who I am and how I am shaped by my experiences with those I choose to be intimate with. While this year has been marked by relationships, the term remains unclear as to the quality or even the circumstances of said relationships. Right now, I speak both of great gain and great loss. I'm not sure I felt more pain, loneliness, insecurity, vulnerability, joy, freedom, elation and wholeness this year, collectively than in any previous year of my life. As December comes to a close, and in hindsight, I see so much brokenness, and yet so much goodness through it all. I see so much purpose. I see redemption. In the struggles I've had - and am still dealing with - in Rachael and Charis, and in the void of the both of them, I am left in a strange place, but nonetheless a place postured to see God at work in my heart, shaping me and guiding me "through the dark", "toward the sun." Especially with Austin N., I have found myself to be so vulnerable, so helpless, depraved, weak, and accepted. Of course it's not Austin, but God in him. It's Jesus in my community. In this example too, I am met with the goodness of God. It's so strange how I am - and have always been - so hesitant and afraid to share my deepest struggles with people. It makes sense and I understand it, but it's still so strange. I was afraid of rejection and humiliation - still am. But it was opening myself up to a person in this manner that has brought me much untold freedom. At the prompting of God, at the working of the Holy Spirit, I am confessing and I am being healed. It took much vulnerability before God and man to get there, and actually still take a lot of dying, but it's happening. And I think for the first time.

In all of these things, I am expressing the unfathomable grace of God, which I totally totally totally do not deserve, and in fact, turn down on many occasions. Yet, nevertheless, it - He - is ever present to meet me at my point of need and desperation. Just as He walked into my life and rescued me, turning me around, He is my ever-present help, moment to moment. He has been so faithful. What astonishes me even more so is His attribute of power in all of this. Normally one would think that His power is manifest only in the way He created the world or upholds the universe - that is true - but in these days I am recognizing His power as the way He always works out His will. It's in the way that He uses my free will to steer me toward Him - in everything I do. In my relationship failures, in my propensity toward sin, and my acting on it, He turns it and uses it all to glorify Himself. That is true power. That is ultimate power. I can't imagine it, or explain it, clearly enough.

This Christmas, I am remembering God like that. I am remembering the never-ending testimony of His faithfulness to me and reaches of His endless, infinite love. I am acknowledging my sin, my failure to be ultimately faithful in return to Christ, and even the sin I don't even know to confess yet, but in light of that, I desire to even more so emphasize and acknowledge that God is greater. God is more powerful. That at the end of all things, God is love.