Oh boy

I don't know how life has gotten this way, but lying in bed with a fever on Saturday (snot running down my face, mixed in somewhere with all those salty tears) I figured out that mine... is NUTS. Not in a bad way...
but I really do just want a simple life...

In that moment, I couldn't DO what I needed to be doing... I couldn't "get done" all the things I had planned on "just busting out" over the long-awaited three-day weekend. All I could do was rummage through my bed sheets for a pen that I couldn't find and finally break down from the frustration of realizing that "I don't even know where GOD is right now!" ....SOOOO dramatic. So very reflective of my pent-up, built-up internal battles.

I realized then that I also couldn't go back to my life this way... not in the way that stresses me to the point of illness, not in the way that has me seeing only my failure in every aspect of whatever "work" God has called me to. No--I realized that I must return to my life with FREEDOM. Freedom from... uh... condemnation? judgment? I'm not sure what that looks like though...
Cause EVERYONE judges, and EVERYONE secretly condemns. I DO IT. And I do it to myself as well.

But what God spoke to me--what I haven't been able to put into words until now--is this: "When I speak, you LIVE. When I love, you have FREEDOM. And I want to keep telling you that I love you..."

That's it. Simple.

Why do I try to make myself "better"? Why don't I let Him love me and grow me?
Why do I fear man so much that I want to die when I know I'm letting people down???

Why don't I understand that God does not 'fail' me? (neither in deed nor attribution)
...
And if I am His and He is mine, then I really can be faithful to those we both love...

Out of freedom, not pressure-
Out of life, not condemnation-
Out of deep deep courage, not careless despair-

Out of seeking Him first--the One who is more important to find than a pen in my bed sheets...

That is how I can be faithful. That is the only way I know how to be faithful.

Because if, "I am my beloved's and He is mine."
Then "I can rest assured..." because I belong to HIM...
...I belong to Him...

oh boy... I belong to Him!!!