day nine

surprised by a friend. i have a friend who treats me a lot like i imagine jesus treating me, and today, they surprised me twice. my first surprise was in the form of a prayer that had arrived via email. this wasn’t your typical prayer. it was the kind of prayer that takes on the voice of jesus and finds its way to your very soul. it was as if i could hear jesus joining her as they approached my heavenly father in intercession. very powerful. the prayer was then followed up with a delivery of flowers – sunflowers, my favorite. she is fully aware of the burdens that are weighing me down and just wanted me to know that she was thinking about me. she even offered to help bear my burden – not take it from me or carry it for me, but just to help.

now, i immediately started to assume that this friend was trying to cheer me up – in an attempt to accelerate the process of working through this season of discontentment i am experiencing. but just as those thoughts started to creep inside my brain, i received another email. she wanted to make sure that i understood her motives – to simply let me know that she was thinking about me and cared for me as her brother in christ. no hidden agenda. no need to fix it. simply a surprise for me along the way.

it’s strange how hard it is for me to accept this kind of unconditional love from friends who simply care. and even more strange how hard it is to accept the same kind of love from my heavenly father. i think it stems from the legality of religion that i still seem to hold on to. too often, i feel as if i don’t accept the love because i don’t deserve the love. something that i definitely need to work on.

one more thought for the day (because ending this blog so short would be out of the ordinary). i’ve been wondering why it is so hard for me to find complete contentment in christ. i seem to know that he is able to fill every void in my life, yet i find myself continuing to search elsewhere to fill those places in other ways – ways that don’t last. i was reminded of that just before writing this blog. i was waiting for my vanilla steamer in the microwave (to reach that perfect temperature) and decided to peek at another book of poetry sitting on my dresser. i randomly opened the book to three short poems (all of which were powerful), but one seemed to resonate a bit with my last thought. instead of wandering so easily and looking elsewhere, this poem reminds me that it would be better if i simply stayed close to home. and if home is where the heart is, then i would consider my home –most often – with christ.

song (henry wadsworth longfellow)

stay, stay at home, my heart, and rest;
home-keeping hearts are happiest,
for those that wander they know not where
are full of trouble and full of care;
to stay at home is best.

weary and homesick and distressed,
they wander east, they wander west,
and are baffled and beaten and blown about
by the winds of the wilderness of doubt;
to stay at home is best.

then stay at home, my heart, and rest;
the bird is safest in its nest;
o’er all that flutter their wings and fly
a hawk is hovering in the sky;
to stay at home is best.

personal note: would someone just shoot that hawk!