welcome to my personal processing...

"May God bless you with discomfort at easy answers, half-truths, and superficial relationships so that you may live deep within your heart. 

May God bless you with holy anger at injustice, oppression, and exploitation of people so that you may work for justice, peace, and freedom. 

May God bless you with tears to shed for those who suffer pain, rejection, hunger, and war so that you may reach out your hand to comfort them and turn their pain into joy.

And may God bless you with enough foolishness to believe that you can make a difference in this world so that you can do what others claim cannot be done."

This poem is a Franciscan Blessing that was shared in a sermon given at a beach retreat I attended last year.  It resonated with me then and inspires the way I hope to live my life.  Although it contradicts my tendencies and natural inclinations, it challenges me to make my life count for something more than myself and live for eternity.  Superficial feels safe and easy, but it keeps me from experiencing the depth, width, and length of God's love for me.

The middle two stanzas or verses touch on the pain people experience in this world.  And the two responses mentioned are anger and tears - maybe it's because I'm a girl, but man I can connect with this.  Sometimes I get so frustrated that all I want to do is cry - I wish desperately that I could just fix things for people when they are hurting, but I can't be their Savior.  This is both humbling and challenging because I do still have that deep desire to help and care for others.  Remembering that anger and tears can coexist helps me with this - my heart breaks for the pain people suffer in life both emotionally, spiritually, and physically.  But my compassion does not serve a purpose unless it drives me to action; my tears must lead me to take action and do something about the things that break my heart because I think they break the Lord's heart as well.

Contrary to what I thought about God when I was younger, He is not some high-and-mighty God in the sky who simply gives us rules to follow and reprimands us for our sins.  As I have matured in my journey of faith, I have continued to learn that I follow the God of compassion and love, who cares deeply for His creations.  Jesus weeps for me because His love for me is that great - it hurts Him to see me and His precious children hurting.  But the most beautiful truth of all is that Jesus did not just weep for my sins and the sins of the world, He died on a cross for them so that we could be freed from their grip once and for all.  He took on the wrath of God, so that we would never have to, and in doing so He restored us with the Father for all of eternity.

I realize that this post is kind of my own personal processing and repeating of the Good News of the Gospel, but it is helping it become more real to me in the process.  As I write, I can put the scriptures I have been fed since childhood into more personal terms.  This is helping me connect with the living Word and figure out the implications it has in my life.  I think this is the first step in me learning how to be more intentional about verbalizing my faith and sharing it with the world around me.  The thought of sharing my faith with someone I don't know honestly terrifies me.  It ties into my fears of rejection, failure, and disappointing others - not to mention my slight fear of speaking in front of people.

As a more soft spoken person I have always kind of loved the St. Francis of Assisi quote that we should "Preach the Gospel always, use words only when necessary."  I hear this and take it as my "get out of jail free" card to avoid confronting my fear of sharing my faith with people I don't know.  While I want my life and the way I love to reflect who God is, I also don't want to shy away from verbally sharing the truth of the Gospel.

My prayer is that of the Franciscan blessing; I want to dare to believe that I can make a difference in the world around me.  Not because of anything about me, but because of everything about the One who has called me.  This is my first step in giving God control and letting go of my fears of rejection, failure, and disappointment that feed into my fear of sharing the Gospel.  It is hard and scary, but it is an important step of faithfulness in my journey of knowing God and making Him known.