soaking up freedom

I dedicated my dances to lovers who never responded; like petals of a flower flying away in a hurricane, I was fading fast. I knew I was meant to dance for the King, and I tried, but it was never really beautiful. I ended up tangled and bruised, the invisible yet ever-tangible strings holding me back. If only I could twirl and run and spin high, maybe the King would love my dance…

So I beat myself and struggled and writhed against the Puppeteer, trying to make myself alive, but his grip was tight and the strings were strong. The fight left my skin sliced open and my energy spent. I thought it was finished, he had overcome. I was too ashamed of my self-inflicted bloodiness to look the King in the eye,

yet somehow I thought I imagined kindness coming from His gaze. Though too good to be true, I glanced with a speck of hope at His glorious face and saw tears rolling down. I saw his hand moving toward me and flinched from fear, yet I felt my heart thump for the very first time. The King took hold of every string connecting me to the Puppeteer- there were more than I had been aware of- and in a swift motion, he utterly severed them with his might, leaving me unbound and speechless. It was finished.

I was dead somehow I knew, but for the first time I was alive inside. In response, I wept great tears of what you’d call JOY, and I danced  f r e e l y  for my King with the fresh life I’d been given, to the sound of his very own wild music- because I wanted to.

Sometimes I become aware of a deep sadness inside of me. Its a deep deep ache. Its a thing inside of me that is always screaming, always reaching, always crying out in a way that no words could ever express. Its an inexpressible expression of this voice inside that I only know how to refer to as the deep sadness. I used to attribute it to singleness. Or to life circumstances that kept me from establishing stability in my dynamic day-to-day. Or to ambiguous periods of waiting for ambiguous promises that dont make sense [ yet ]. 

Ive come up with a million sources for this aching. And a million solutions.  When I have a home…  When I have a stable income and I can give all I want and save and not worry…  When I have a partner to do this life thing with…  When I am fully doing what I was called to do…  What I am in the dirt again… When I have figured out how to do this family thing…  When my brother and my sister…  When my mom and my dad and I…. When I finally have…  When I finally do… When I finally become…

Sometimes the ache is quieted. Sometimes I think its gone completely…that I have finally filled it. But then the screams rise up again, and I know that its not filled….that its not done…that its still there…

Last weekend I was on my hands and knees, getting my cardio for the weekend by scrubbing the heck out of tile floors that I picked out at Lowes. I was taking great care to pick out every last piece of mud from the white grout. By the end I had the strangest concoction of dirt and dust and bleach and water all over. As I was finishing up, I leaned back against the almond cabinets that I also picked out, and the screams began to surface with a vengeance. Tears filled my eyes and my insides felt like they were being violently torn in two from the tension. 

In those moments of screaming tension I think crazy things. I wanna burn this house down and go be homeless. I wanna give away every dollar I have and sell every belonging RIGHT NOW.  I wanna just GO. I need to just go.  What the heck are we even doing in the life? What are we even going after?  I feel, if I don’t escape all of these confines quickly, that Im going to forget what Im actually alive for.  I become SO AWARE of how short this life is, and of how LITTLE everything that I think matters, actually matters. 

I feel absolutely crazy in these moments. And I usually let it take me over for just a minute…I let a few tears out…I let one scream out just for God to hear…and then I force myself to keep going. I force myself not to listen. I force myself to take another step and wait until the next time the screams make it to the surface.

I used to think that these moments were simply the result of un-met desires within me.  And I think they are.  But I am starting to think that the desires are much more eternal than I realized.  And Im starting to realize that they’re only going to get louder.  As I let out the ache last weekend I began to realize in a deeper way that these screams…this deep ache…its got nothing to do with this life. I can have every desire known to man filled. I can have every prayer answered and every desire fulfilled beyond what I could ask or imagine…and these moments of deep yearning won’t change. Sitting on that tile floor covered in dirt and bleach I heard God whisper to the deep inside, “Jessica what you crave is me. It can only be me.” And for the first time ever…in nine years of knowing Him…that sentence had real meaning to it. Not sunday school meaning. Not correct theological explanation meaning. Real-living-and-active meaning. 

I was sitting on the floor in a house that I got to help build and create.  I am living in a town that is unlike any other town on the planet and with every day it seems more and more likely that it is going to become home for me.  I am working with what I would consider to be one of the best staffs in existence.  I am allowed to go to work every day and literally create and build out of everything that God has built and created in me. And then I get to watch him replicate it over and over again.  I watch the impossible happen every day right in front of my face.  I experience the impossible happen every moment that I live the life I am living.  I get to encounter the living God do living things on a DAILY BASIS. 

And yet I ache. 

DEEPLY.

Because heres the thing:  I was made to live this life that Im living. I was absolutely created to live this life I am living. But eternity is within me. An ache to be united with Him is within me. A hidden knowledge of how things were meant to be lives inside of me - and with every moment we move more towards eternity the ache GROWS.  Creation GROANS with eager expectation for the revealing of the sons of God. 

18-21 That’s why I don’t think there’s any comparison between the present hard times and the coming good times. The created world itself can hardly wait for what’s coming next. Everything in creation is being more or less held back. God reins it in until both creation and all the creatures are ready and can be released at the same moment into the glorious times ahead. Meanwhile, the joyful anticipation deepens.

22-25 All around us we observe a pregnant creation. The difficult times of pain throughout the world are simply birth pangs. But it’s not only around us; it’s within us. The Spirit of God is arousing us within. We’re also feeling the birth pangs. These sterile and barren bodies of ours are yearning for full deliverance. That is why waiting does not diminish us, any more than waiting diminishes a pregnant mother. We are enlarged in the waiting. We, of course, don’t see what is enlarging us. But the longer we wait, the larger we become, and the more joyful our expectancy.

26-28 Meanwhile, the moment we get tired in the waiting, God’s Spirit is right alongside helping us along. If we don’t know how or what to pray, it doesn’t matter. He does our praying in and for us, making prayer out of our wordless sighs, our aching groans. He knows us far better than we know ourselves, knows our pregnant condition, and keeps us present before God. That’s why we can be so sure that every detail in our lives of love for God is worked into something good.

^ This uncovers the screams within me in a way that sometimes scares me, but also lets me know that this is real. 

Im GROANING for the glory that is to be revealed.  Im GROANING with creation because the Spirit inside me KNOWS, and the daughter inside of me ACHES for what is true.  Im GROANING because the world around me CRAVES the taste that I have tasted and Im part of their access to it. The SPIRIT WITHIN ME IS GROANING because the longing of the Father for His creation and the longing of creation for its Creator has yet to be fulfilled … and WE…WE ARE LIVING PROOF THAT ITS GONNA HAPPEN.  We are the living, breathing impossibilities of this age.  We are are made for the tension.  We are the screams, we are in the screams, and we are His response to the screams.  We are His.  And its never been more important for us to be His.  And I…I have so much farther to go. 

The groans are getting louder in me.  The screams are deafening they are so loud.  Because its becoming time.  for deeper surrender.  for truer sacrifice.  for standing up. for speaking up.  for showing up. for the beginning of the revealing of the sons.  for the beginning of the taste of the glory that is to come.  for being the ones that respond to the cries of hopelessness, helplessness, and despair.  for being the ones standing in the streets when no one else will.  for the truth to beat the facts and for the impossible to bow down. 

The world around me is screaming so Im screaming and He is screaming. And nothing can stop these screams that reveal the love that only makes it louder. 

“A hope deferred makes the heart sick, but a longing fulfilled is a tree of life.” - Proverbs 13:12

When it comes to marriage, a lot of people are heart sick.

Why? Proverbs tell us it’s because their “hope” has been deferred, or put off until a later time. They want to be married and their just not. But not only are they not married, some don’t even see the potential for it. It seems like such a distant reality, if it will ever be a reality at all.  

But does it have to be that way? Does waiting for marriage have to make our hearts sick?

There is a difference between a “hope” as something we desire and hope from God. The second has much less to do with our desires and much more to do with a good gift provided by a good Father. It is something given to us as an assurance of God’s goodness and faithfulness. With it comes peace, joy, and a way of experiencing life that is satisfying because it is rooted in Jesus, not our status, situation, or circumstance.

When it comes to marriage, God wants to use the waiting to develop an ability for us to have Hope, even while the things they hope for have yet to be fulfilled. When you have His hope, you’re capable of exchanging your heart ache for joy and peace in the knowledge of His goodness and faithfulness to you.

So, how do you get this hope? That’s the best part! Your good Father gives it to you. This doesn’t mean you stop wanting what you want or you have to lay it down and tell God it doesn’t matter to you anymore. All you have to do is be open to letting His hope impact you more than not having what you hope for. You can’t muster up that kind of thing for yourself, you have to ask for it and He’ll fill you with it!

Here’s a thought that I think is filled with a lot of hope: Every day you spend not married is a day closer to the day you will be and a day to prepare for when you are.

Every time you wake up in the morning and go to sleep that night without being married, you are that much closer to the day you’ll be married. And you can’t deny that because it’s definitional. You’re getting closer!

The real question is, what are you doing with that time? Are you letting it pass by? Are you wasting it?

Each day you spend not married isn’t just a timer counting down the hours until your wedding day, it’s time to become the type of person you want to be. You might need a little more time before you’re ready to get married. Now I don’t mean ready in the sense of you wanting it. I mean ready in the sense of being prepared for that kind of intimacy, commitment, and selflessness necessary to make a marriage work. It is also time for your spouse to become the person you want them to be. Time for them to grow and mature so they are prepared for the kind of intimacy, commitment, and selflessness necessary to make a marriage work.