Jesus makes everything backwards

He is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to gain what he cannot lose. - Jim Elliott

Sometimes I look around and it seems like people really have their lives together. And it never really seems like I do. I'm almost always a day late and a dollar short. I have no idea how people manage to buy a house or take care of a baby when I can barely get myself to class on time. Granted, I often take on too much stuff, as in the case of this quarter, when I have 4 classes that are doing me in. I'm certain I will feel much much better when all the papers are written and I can get back to a normal sleeping routine of 6 plus hours a night. But in the meantime, I'm taking breaks by finding out what people in my world are doing. A person I used to know is graduating from med school and another person I just met is in a successful career. And in the moment right before I was about to start envying them, I remembered that they're not in love with Jesus. Their lives may appear satisfying on the outside and maybe they are on the inside when they stop to think about that, but ultimately their hope is in that thing they're achieving and I guess it makes sense then that they'd better milk it for all it's worth cause that's pretty much it.

Sometimes I'm awed that I really made the choices I've made. I will never be rich from them, and 99% of people will always think what I do is weird-slash-confusing. But somehow God got me to a place where that's okay and what's important is being true to myself as little as possible, so he can get me to do crazy and foolish things for him. I love him for that. For making everything backwards.

And I don't love him for that because secretly I'm rubbing my fingers together and scheming for the day when last will be first and I'll finally get my desserts, I'm just making friends with the idea that I do this thing and I look genuinely foolish and unwise to the world and even to myself most of the time and yet I know completely that this is my place. It's not completely fun, (in fact it's a whole lot of not-fun right now) but it's completely right. Right-side, up-side down-side. It's right.

And I'm happy to sell all I have to stay right here, where I don't necessarily want to be. In this small uncomely space. Where Jesus can force-undo all the ways I've learned to want. And need. And envy. And greed - for success and wealth and happiness that are not mine to have.

I have to remember that she is no fool who gives what she cannot keep to gain what she cannot lose.

I have to remember Shealtiel.

Hmm

"When you meet the friendliest people you have ever known,
who introduce you to the most loving group of people you've ever encountered,
and you find the leader to be the most inspired, caring,
compassionate and understanding person you've ever met,
and then you learn that the cause of the group
is something you never dared hope could be accomplished,
and all of this sounds too good to be true, it probably is too good to be true!
Don't give up your education, your hopes and ambitions, to follow a rainbow."

Jeanne Mills,
former member of the People's Temple and subsequent victim of assassination a year
following the November 18, 1978 Jonestown suicides/murders
of 911 adults and children.

Pink trim

Last week my uncle told me that when I was born, my dad painted the trim on our house pink in honor of the occasion.

That is all... and that has made all the difference...