craving something beautiful

my shoulders are tight and my neck is tense. i'm fighting a continuous headache. my head feels dense...the thoughts are packed so tightly inside.

i have a craving. stronger than anything i've ever felt before. i cannot explain the depths of my thirst and my hunger for Him and His freedom. He breaks chains, and rescues the captives. He holds the weak and rescues the lost. i am craving His touch.

i love mosaics. i love the colors and the designs. i love to step close and look at the individual pieces, then move backwards and see the whole thing. i imagine that i am like that, too. each piece is different...some chipped, some smooth, some colored. but one day, when i look back from His point of view, i'll see something beautiful. knowing that makes me love the jagged edges of those little pieces....they make it what it is.

the death of dreams

i always put my thoughts into writing...eventually. last week, i happened to write an email to a friend and put into words this thing i've been battling recently.

"I used to have dreams. When I was little, I had dreams. In high school, and even parts of college, I had dreams. I don't have dreams anymore. I don't know if I lost them. I don't know if I need them. I don't know if God has more for me. I just know that in the same way that I dreamed about silly things when I was a little girl: my wedding, turning 16, having my own house, traveling the world, changing the world...now I dream of Jesus. All I want is Jesus. All I look for is Jesus. I go to church because the Bible says where two or more are gathered together in HIS name, He is with them. So I go. Jesus is in the eyes of the orphans, the cries of the poor, the brokenness of the widows, the pain of the oppressed...thats where I go. I travel the world because He is in creation. All I want is Him."

proverbs 29:18 "where there is no vision, people perish"

so dreams are important, right? i've felt naked without them. i've been a dreamer as long as i can remember. thinking up incredible things & designing my day before i even began it.

except that those dreams were mine. mine to hold, mine to have, mine to accomplish. and as i pursued them, they became smaller. on the side mirror on my car it says, "objects in mirror are closer than they appear." i feel like my dreams were missing a caption: "dreams you dream are smaller than they appear."

so after mourning the fact that those dreams no longer fit, i finally realized what had happened to them. i'm supposed to die to myself - to live is Christ, but to die is gain. so isn't it valid that my dreams must die in order to make room for His? habbakuk 1:5 says, "look around and be utterly amazed, for i am doing something in your time that you would not believe, even if i told you." ok...great verse. except when i looked at those silly dreams, they were believable. i don't want to pursue the believable...i want to pursue the unbelievable. something that requires Him. something that cannot be accomplished outside of Him. something that makes someone look at my life and say, "it had to be Jesus."