Eye Candy

Take a look at this site. It's beautiful stuff. Especially the snapping turtle! So cute it's ugly... or maybe so ugly it's just ugly. The jury's still out at this point.

Must say, I can check almost everything off the list in my previous post.

Three incredible conversations in a 24-hour period.

Maybe it's not that I need to rely on spiritual community, but that I need to rely on God to provide that spiritual community and trust that He's gonna give it to me when the time is right.

[at work, and lunchbreak is over]

Craving spiritual community right about now…

I need to be real, and I need people to accept that.

I want to be able to yell and get angry and say “that’s
bullshit!” and I don’t want anyone to think I’m going to
hell because of it.

I miss being able to say “I don’t get this” and not feeling
stupid because of it.

I want to struggle instead of being complacent.

I need to be able to discuss something and disagree with the
person next to me while still loving them just the same.

I need to be able to admit that I don’t understand
homosexuality, or why someone would choose to be persecuted
and marginalized because of who they love. And I want to
know that despite my imperfect understanding, God is
continually challenging me and loving me anyway.

I don’t want to be judged because I can’t accept every
passage in the Bible, or because sometimes, I am a hypocrite.

I can’t reconcile everything with my heart, and I can’t
reconcile everything with my head. I want that to be ok. I
don’t want to have to have it all together, and I don’t want
to be looked down upon because I am real and broken.

I feel like I have been met with the expectation that I will
exist in a happy Christian bubble and that I will smile and
nod at every word spoken to me. What I really want to do is
take a pin to that bubble, explode it everywhere, and
say “welcome to reality.”

I am annoyed that there are those who seem to have written
me off because I watch movies that might talk about sex, or
because I get drunk once in a while, or because someone can
drop the F-bomb in my presence without my getting personally
offended.

I want to stop frowning.

My desire is that people would realize that I am unworthy of
God’s forgiving love, of Jesus’ sacrifice, but that I have
worth BECAUSE of those things.

And at the end of the day, I want to be on my knees praising
God and wondering why I can’t seem to stop thinking
about “me.” And why I can sing “All of You is more than
enough for all of me” and still really, REALLY want
community. I feel like in the last few months He has been
investing so much of Himself into my life, and yet I crave
more.

I miss church. Not the buildings, the people. The
accountability, the unequivocal acceptance, the guidance,
the rawness. All of it.

I am going to post this and try not to beat myself up about
it even though once again, as usual, my words seem to fall
short of what I’m trying to get across here.

Going to stop typing now and try to ignore the sound of my
own nagging thoughts.