I am by no means past struggling. That is something that I will never claim as truth while here on earth. This is a daily fight. But I am taking steps! Little, tiny, baby steps!! And my Father in heaven is smiling, prompting, cheering for me, His beloved, as I take wobbly uncoordinated steps in His direction. But oh I am learning to celebrate these stumbles towards the Living God who loved me first. Oh Lord how gracious You are for Your unfailing love that picks me up when I fall, wipes my tears, and in time...after some cuddling and comfort...helps me walk again.
I know that things will not always be this way, but as of now I have a community around me that is very supportive. I love my team that will be accompanying me to Panama and Costa Rica in a mere 10 days. Even further than the 12, I have two girls here at YWAM that love me WELL. They are each so different, but we have decided to do this stinkin’ vulnerability thing together and it is actually fun! (Sometimes…and other times it hurts, but in a good way) One of these two precious girls was having one of those “eat your feelings” type days (come on, girls, we ALL have these awful days) and came to me with a huge, half-eaten bag of peanut butter M&Ms that she had been devouring and goes “Look Ally, this is really embarrassing but I literally cannot make myself stop eating these, so can you just take them? I am literally eating my feelings, and I can feel myself stepping into sin. These tiny balls of chocolate are completely owning me right now.” (This is a huge part of her story…and such a small VICTORY in her life.) I died laughing, hugged the mess out of her and gladly took the M&Ms and ate them for myself. We prayed and thanked God for the victory that was this moment! That is a tiny baby step. But baby steps get us closer to CHRIST!! We have had so many funny moments like this, where we give up our cell phones so we wont sinfully text, or go on a walk together to keep me from the boredom depression phenomena. Or sometimes its just a vent session, ending in prayer. And we are taking baby steps together. It’s so painfully, awesomely fun.
And let me just say, I still fall down. Bigtime. And it hurts, and I am pissed at myself. But slowly I am learning to look to my Father when I am at my worst and cry out for help, instead of running from Him to try and fix myself. Slowly I am discovering that I never succeed in that feat. Lost cause, if ya know what I'm sayin.
This morning during class we watched THIS VIDEO about learning the rhythm to the tune of a relationship with the Living God. We try too often to make God, and a relationship with Him, to be this complicated, almost mystical thing. But this relational God is intricately involved in every part of our lives. Donald Miller describes this process as a dance, to learn to dance with God. Rob Bell explains it like a song, learning to hear and play the tune of the song of Christ. It’s the same beautiful, painful concept of a God who has orchestrated this world with a rhythm that is written on each of our hearts.
Speaking of the Orchestrator of our faith, He has given one of my two buddies that I mentioned, her name Erin (I call her 'Air'), the gift of photography, and her pictures do such a great job of capturing the beauty of His creation.
In encouragement, I think the most often used word here at YWAM is "PROCESS". Talk about the most frustrating word in the English language. I think we should remove it from the Dictionary. As we live and breathe in this Microwave Generation, full of instant gratification, the idea that something that takes hard work over a long period of time is outright discouraging. But this whole thing called progressive sanctification, IS A PROCESS. Like it or not. (I personally dont. I wish God would instantly redeem me where I never struggled again...I think that'd be what Heaven consists of..."glorification.") But then again, if we dont struggle through a process, we do not get to experience first hand the mercy and GRACE of God. And also this painful glorious process makes us relatable to others. People like to see that other people struggle too, it makes us feel like we aren't alone. I remember last summer, while talking to Savannah on one of our hundred porch talks, we kept saying how comforting it was that we WERE NOT ALONE. It is the human condition to not want to be alone, so yeah if you've felt that way, welcome to humanity.
Anyways so back to the process. I am learning to enjoy it. Learning to laugh at my mistakes, rejoice in my tiny momentary victories. Because that's what God does. When we see that God LOVES US, when we see that He looks down at us and loves our quirks and laughs with us and cries with us...we can finally walk in some kind of freedom, and learn to ENJOY the process of this dance, the rhythm of the Living God.
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