Blessing and Loneliness

So it's been awhile since my last post and much and little has happened.

Much:
I like Susan Mayhak and want desperately to take her to dinner but am awaiting the opportune moment.
Many failures in my life and failure to acknowledge God in distress and favorable circumstances.

Little:
I am still alive.
I have not failed any classes.
I am still breathing.
I am still following God, although the degrees of that discipleship have waxed and waned.

It's been a good week, another killer and I've emerged with much on my mind and yet little has really changed (as evidenced by the preceding lists). More and more I am becoming aware of my faults, failures and shortcomings, and more distanced from God when I focus on those things in the wrong way. Let me explain...

This week I've not spoken to God very much. At least not as much as last week. In addition, the watch became more of an annoyance and conviction than everything else. Shortly after my disconnection with God came pain, exhaustion and poor decisions. I am not trying to quickly re-assemble the mess of wires back into the proper arrangement, namely, to get back into an intimate walk with God. This journey thing is so tough! I've never really lived like this, at least not for any real time or with any such success and tenacity despite the failure. I don't know. I guess the only thing I'm sure of anymore is that this is the only way I ever want to live. I never want this to stop. This cycle of failing and crying out and seeing God love the crap out of me. Understanding something new about him every day. I don't know what to think, because I still epic fail all the time, but I still don't ever want to go back to the way I used to live. I think I am afraid someday I will. And that that someday might also me known as tomorrow.

I suppose this brings me to my most recent distraction, but it doesn't have to distract me from God, just everything else. Susan Mayhak. It's weird because I keep wondering if it's just chemicals meandering about in my brain, but I really like her and am beginning to make plans of attack, even though I highly doubt she'll even go out with me. I'm praying for divine intervention, because she is way out of my league. She is pretty much everything I've looked for and more. We'll see what God has to say and that'll be that. I'm confident that whatever He decides will be best and trust Him totally.

This leads me to my latest reading in Blue Like Jazz, that wonderful, heretical piece by Donald Miller about pretty much everything related to life. He wrote two chapters on love, one specifically dealing with relationships and the other with loneliness. That brings me to the crux of my recent infatuation with Miss Susan and my jumpy relationship with God. Thoughts were stimulated by the idea that humanity's greatest need is loneliness. We (read I) have normally thought of relationships as the answer to that need, but that is simply not the whole story. A wife is one way God has created that need of loneliness to be met, but not the only one. Family, community, friendship, and God are four other ways this need has been created to be met, the most important and potent of which is God. It's the epicenter for every other unfulfilling way to meet the need of loneliness.

I was thinking about how blessed I am to have four of those things deeply embedded in my life. I've been thanking God all day for his grace and his love and his acceptance and his death and giving me so much to meet my loneliness. I feel so complete. I guess it's just comforting to know that even thought I want to know Susan better, to date her and maybe even marry her (I have no clue about this one yet), it's really just extra from a God who has blessed me so substantially I can't begin to describe his love. I need nothing extra, but I'll be happy to take it if that's what He wants. :)

I'm excited about what God is doing and so thankful for Him, for all that He is and will forever be. I'm thankful for progress amid the pain and another step even if it's not perfectly on course yet. Praise be to God for his generous patience, kindness and love every single day. I do not deserve an ounce. May he continue to be my guide, my light and my all.

-Storyteller