LOVE

It's hard to write this, because it means fessing up to not doing what I was called to do. But it's been so powerful to me and I have to share it in hopes that it will encourage you too.

This week, as my heart grieves the loss of a friend very dear to my heart, I spent so much time trudging through memories. I went walking through moments of laughing through nursing classes, of trips to Waterton and more plates of sushi than one can count. And I also think back to moments of deep talks, of Ryan asking questions that I didn't have answers for, grappling for words because he was so bent on understanding what his life meant. Where to find God. And I remember so many conversations where my pride and my one track minded desperation for him to know truth, to believe the same thing as me, got in the way of me seeing just how pure his heart was. Just how simple his worship. And you know what, we didn't end up believing the same thing.

And I just can't help but see that I was wrong. I was wrong to try to cookie cut his journey and fit it into my idea of what God is about. It's not about my way. Jessica's way is not the way. JESUS is the way.

Ryan taught me so much. He taught me not to overcomplicate things that should be simple, especially when it came to God. (He always had this insane respect for my faith even whilst I was not always wearing it well.) He was gentle, and thankful, and his joy was just to make the most out of life, not try to live up to anyone's expectations. He did what he loved and he did it with his whole heart in it. And because of that, I can say Ryan lived well. Because of that, I can say Ryan has impacted how I live too. I know I am not alone in that either.

I learned that it just comes back to love. My best moments with Ryan were not the moments we were disagreeing and frustrated because we wanted the other to understand our perspective... they were the moments that we stopped trying to be understood and just loved. Love, not believing the same thing, led us to the sweetest moments in our friendship. I know for a fact that Ryan knew Jesus through me most when I loved most. So if you are reading this I just want to say... LOVE. Love the crap out of people. Love them so much that they can't help but see Jesus through you! Don't let arguments get in the way, don't be frustrated when they just don't see things how you do. Pray your heart out for them and leave the heart changing to Jesus. It was never your job to change their mind anyways. It was never any power from you that made the blind see. It's the grave conquering, heart freeing power of Jesus! Our love, extended from the One who first loved us, can unveil the face of Jesus to someone. Thats's HUGE.

This is a quote from a movie called Furious Love. It's a powerful movie but this is the line that has stayed with me from it and it's so fitting.
"Thats when I finally understood what God wanted to do. He didn't want to pick a fight. He wanted to love. And His love is so disarming and powerful...."
-furious love

You know... I've posted a lot lately from the depths of my heart which is usually quite heavy with feeling. But I don't want to paint a picture that God is not the heart of.

Because the truth is... God is sovereign.
He is in the business of restoring joy
and healing the brokenhearted.
His hope overcomes any affliction, any depression, any darkness and despair.
His love overwhelms any rejection, pain, or emptiness.
Sometimes bad things happen,
but that does not change His goodness.
Sometimes circumstances taint my perceptions
and I am ruled by feelings rather than truth.
God is still faithful.
Sometimes there is fear that seems binding,
God has set us free.
Sometimes getting out of bed in the morning is hard;
God has not left me alone and gone on without me.
Sometimes people we love die and we don't understand.
God's plans and purposes are perfect, and He comforts us deep in a place where our hearts can't help but respond to.

So out of a place where there is pain,
I am declaring this.
My hope is in You, God. I trust you with all of it.

A tribute that doesn't fit.

I keep staring at the screen and hoping that somehow this blank screen will find the hidden faucet in my heart and turn it on to full power, so that all of these feelings, all of this grief, all of this loss and not understanding will hit the page. Maybe in releasing all of my shock and all of my wondering and all of my questions, I will find some sense of relief. But maybe this is just another thing to drive me into the arms of Jesus... to stop asking questions and resisting plans and just trust that He knows and I don't have to. To find my release in colliding fully broken with my Maker. And I wish it were that simple, but my heart is pounding and my eyes are blurry with tears and half the time I can't even feel anything but hollow because it doesn't make sense.

I can't believe a few days ago I was frustrated at not having a reason to be sad. Because that reasonless sadness that I couldn't resolve in my heart is nothing in the wake of the sadness and grief of losing someone, someone I wasn't supposed to lose... or at least, someone I never considered I would have to. It never occurred to me in all this time that him dying was actually a possibility. I never thought for a second I would be sitting here trying to process the news.

R... I still remember sitting in the hospital with you and telling you that you had one of the biggest hearts out of anyone I had ever met. And you laughed and said "Well, I probably do literally have one of the biggest hearts of anyone you know." It doesn't fit that the big heart you had in you, in all its strength of compassion, would be so poorly mismatched with the weak heart in your chest. I have no words to write this, no fitting tribute for someone who loved so deeply, who loved life so fully, who pursued things so passionately... I just have a whole lot of missing you. I will carry you with me for the rest of my life, because you believed in the best of me, and I can't walk into that without you, and without God. I hope you met Him. The possibility of otherwise is just too much for my heart.
I'll always miss you, and I'll never forget you.

It's the most infuriating thing to be so bottled up.
To long so intensely to create,
to be capable of making something beautiful.
But no matter how hard I try
this ocean of emotion is churning within,
unresolved, but walled inside.

And I don't even know if I want to be able to create something
to be understood
or to attempt to understand myself.

Like losing myself in a sea of fear
just when I think I've reached the shore

Like a darkness that doesn't disappear
when I flick the switch

Like being underwater
and never getting to come up for a breath of air

Confined, consumed, and lost
These chains of fear have mutated me into someone I'm not.