...

The sun is climbing over St. Adelbert's bell, His finger's deep in my hair while melting yesterdays snow. Yesterday in yellow heels in Holland I kissed Jesus with my laughter because it is only real if it is in Him and honesty is like a kiss on the lips so I can kiss Jesus with real laughter and so I kiss Him also in the morning, wrapped in His invisible arms on the couch who's cushions move if you move - my forehead on Danny's shoulder. It's different when you repent there, childlike in your Father's embrace and you began, Jesus, to rip the scales off of my clouded but radiant eyes in showing me that I need to stop being so adult in my burden, not so childish in my fear, and yet childlike in my faith.

Ernest Hemingway is speaking about a dolphin without fire or salt, and I am thinking about Danny's smiling wrinkles, and Michael is openeyed at the ceiling with a pile of rice and peppermint tea and Stephen Speak's is singing about being out of his league. Sirens are somewhere, on Leonard? 11th Street? I am neither sick, nor scared, nor at sea eating raw dolphin, the sun is climbing over St. Adalbert's crown, his fingers deep in my hair while melting yesterday's snow.

finally

went to this wedding recently

and it was beautiful

so beautiful

because of how crazy out loud in love Leslie was for Josh

and Josh was for Leslie

 it returned me to something God had laid on my heart recently

that I don't want to EVER EVER EVER just be married

I. want. to. be. in. love.

you should never really do anything half-heartedly.

Mary wholeheartedly spilled a months wages willingly at Jesus' feet.

Noah wholeheartedly built an ark for a year because he was told too, because of his love for God.

Jesus wholeheartedly wants me in heaven with Him because of His death on the cross.

I don't want to just be married to Jesus.

I don't want to just say my vows.

I want to be in love with Him.

Head over heels.

Face down

hands up

in the kitchen in the bathroom

with or without company

I want to be all His

and I could say this a million times and not change my lifestyle and it would mean nothing

I want to open my heart to a newness of mind

a newness of life

so that I can be crazy about my Jesus. 

I sort of got away from it for awhile

it's interesting living in community because being in the presence of people that love and have Jesus in them can sometimes substitute easily for being with Jesus

it fills you

and praying at 6 am and at 8 pm can at times fill that space of desperation to sit with Him alone

but I don't just want to love my husband when I have to put the kids to bed

or when I am making dinner

or while I am washing dishes

or singing in the car

I want to love my Husband by being a lone with Him, looking in His eyes

studying Him

I want to be crazy about Jesus in the way that Leslie is for Josh

Head. Over. Heels.

Desperate to show him.

perhaps this is training ground for being a wife

for loving my neighbors

not perhaps, I know it is

it translates over

the way I love Jesus, and the sincerety and full-forth swing I give it

resonates with the way I keep my room

or clean my car

or love my roommate

Everything that I do screams how much I love Jesus

so when it snows

if I don't have time to stand under it

to smile at Jesus through it

to play in it

then how can I say I have time to love Christ?

I don't want to just live

I want to love life

[and I am finally feeling my heart laugh again]

God in me?

I am learning about the Father heart of God

lately I have been feeling His warmth

and His quiet but commanding powerful still small voice

gentle

(His gentleness makes me great) Ps 18.

Sometimes I imagine myself sitting with Him over coffee

an image Jen gave me

and a way I had been trying to see Him for years

instead of this angry

condemning God

that I had seen Him as for so long

(condemnation, the very opposition of his character)

and I have fallen in love with my Father's hands

the way His light falls over my arm

coming through the big window by the sun

I want to see more of Him

and bring more of this Kingdom

that has been installed in my very body

to the doorknobs

the porches

the rooms

of the neighbors on this street

I have been asking God to reinstall that passion in me

for the souls of other people

to bring them out of that darkness that they have deemed comfort

wreaking of demons and dirt

I have decided to believe that there is peace within my very soul

something I cannot always taste

but people see Him, they literally see Him

smell Him

feel Him when I am near

not because of myself

but because God had drawn me close to His chest

and held me there

even when I fight it

The breath of His nostrils has fallen over me

into my hair

my song

my heart

and people cannot help but see

what I do not see

in myself

but so often see in others

I can enjoy others

I do not want to slander another (Jesus help me)

because my Savior is resting within

and has taken his own yarn

and knitted that body together

and I believe that

anything he wants to change 

if I ask

He will change

nothing is impossible

for God.

(We are the Kingdom of God breaking into peoples poverty

smothering them with light that cannot help but break through ribcages

and leak into hearts. Oh, the beauty of the BODY of JESUS CHRIST!)

"Life would be so much easier if we just 

enjoyed one another" - Dustin

Ps 8

What is man that thou dost care for him

take thought of him?

Yet

Thou has made him

a little lower than God

and dost crown Him

with Glory and MAJESTY

I have been praying for a while now that God would give me more of Him

I trained my mind to ask Jesus, I want you I want you I want you

and you know what

he heard me.

I had been asking for change, wondering why I have been walking around all this time with a weight on my shoulders

guilt.

burden.

the hope, the joy, the laughter, the love I felt has somehow drifted off without me even realizing it...

somedays were beautiful, and I'd hold onto them, knowing that tomorrow wouldn't be the same, so enjoy it while I can.

God has changed that for me.

I believe he can change that for anyone.

God has called us to freedom... 

I knew that for so long, but I just couldn't get it

couldnt wrap my mind around it

I wasn't trusting in it

He has created me to be a woman of peace in this chaos, to be the presence of God to the girl on the bus, or the photographer in the color lab, or Marcy over coffee

I HAVE THE PRESENCE OF GOD IN ME

I choose to believe it. It isn't a feeling, or an emotion,

just a truth.

God showed me at church a couple weeks ago that there were two things that were bogging me down, burdening my soul

two. small. things. that I knew I had to do something with...

one of them seemed crazy to let go of

shouldn't I suck it up? endure? find joy in the struggle rather than cop out and walk away from it to find joy? Doesn't God call us to contentment in the suffering?

God calls us to be free. to uproot and totally disable anything and EVERYTHING that is getting in the way of my love for Him... and in order to change

I must

I must

I must

change the way I am doing life.

THREE years of wading through this feeling of muck

I had stopped learning

my heart had in a way stopped breathing

I felt hindered and clogged

sad

and it simply just took making a decision, changing my mind about the way I walked

realizing that God promises to care for me,

not if I am going to school, working full time and killing myself 

but if I am using my hands and working with delight

if I am seeking after him with all of my heart (which I am convinced now cannot be done by working my brains out and always feeling like I am not enough not doing enough not being enough)

I dropped a class, which I have never done, which I have talked about before

and I decided to step out in faith and actually date a boy which is unheard of, right?

I have decided that the things my heart loves are the things God has instilled in it so deeply

and slowly God is whispering at me... Chelsea, this doesn't please me, can you get rid of it?

I am no longer BURDENED by sin, but I want it gone because I am in LOVE with Jesus

I want him to be happy

and in the same way that I would want to please my husband

I can just let go of things, and make decisions to not watch movies with sex scenes and crap in them because

it doesn't make him happy

I have the strength to be different in this world

to be come holy and pure because the presence of GOD is in me

and if I am really really really being led by the spirit of the Holy GOD

I am changing and being renewed everyday

and not in a desperate frantic I have to become more panic type of way

but in a calm

slow paced

God is here

God is with me

I can do this with his strength 

sort of way

unless I am a woman of peace, walking in love, walking in the spirit

people will not see Christ in me

Christ accomplished more in his three years of ministry than anyone in the world

and he was never rushed or panicked

he worked hard, granted

he loved His Father enough to fast and sit with Him for forty days without food

because He loved Him more than food

and if I really want to be like Christ

I must be willing, I think

to be different

to change

to let go

and climb into His refuge

which is so simple and yet

so hard to do

but I can do it because I want it I want it I want it

and I have asked and so

he responds.

1 Cor. 3

         warrior.