I read a blog today that had a guest poster who was a journalist. His outlook on life seemed...bleak, at best. He was 28, single, well educated. His balloon of hope had been burst as a result of surviving his twenties. That fantasy that reality was a storybook was overwhelmed by the reality that has set in from the global issues he has entangled himself in as a result of...idk exactly.

I can remember coming to that realization that the world was full of it. I was angry, hostile, bitter, unable to complete a sentence without four letter words sometimes using them in the middle of words (except in front of my Mom for fear of abandonment). I was confused, overwhelmed, unsure of myself or my surroundings. Nothing made sense and the only thing I could see was others and their stuph. I couldn't see me. I didn't want to see me. No one else did either! for that matter!

I had to seek Love to find me. When I finally stumbled onto myself after a few years of uncovering, discovering and discarding, I had to go through a process to learn how to be me. It was strange. I continued to seek Love in my life. I found myself Loving those who are easy to love, those who everyone Loved. Then as I continued to practice being me, I found compassion for others with great capacity available within me. Then one day, I found that Love for me. It has only been recently that I have begun Loving myself. Loving me the way God would Love me. Whew, it is hard. I want to judge me, put me down, feel less than you, pity me, greater than you and arrogant with force. I want, I want, I want. But when I love me with God's Love. There is no defect of character, only perfection in imperfection.

Now I am sure you noticed that there is nothing about the world in my last paragraph. Because when I am focused on God and His Love, the rest of the world fades to grey.

I had a man who led a Disciple Now for my group when I was in 9th grade at Carla Dobbins house. He had a glass full of sand and several ping pong balls. When the sand is in the glass there is no way to get all the ping pong balls in the glass. We got two in the sand filled glass. When the ping pong balls go in the glass first, the sand fills in around them and meets the brim. The illustration has become paramount in my life today. When I put God first in my life, the world fills in the cracks, but is no longer dominant.

All those reality crushing heartbreaks the young man was going through just because he could only focus on the world and not God, it was a painful post for me to read. It reminded me of the hell I have been through and that I never want to go through again. Today, I have a choice: Seek God or be swallowed by the hell of despair. I choose to be a Seeker. I hope the young man Seeks Love too.

God Bless me, Bless me indeed, Bless me a lot,
Enlarge my territory
Lay Your hand upon me that I may not cause harm,
Guide me as I go throughout this day,
Thy will not mine, be done

I say this prayer every morning. I think I came up with it when the Jabez prayer became so popular. I am not sure it is the actual prayer of Jabez, but it is some form of it that I remember. Here lately, I have been in a place of a larger territory than I have known in a while, partially literally. And while the territory it expanding, I am not quite used to it and mostly just feel stretched out.

Growing pains?

All of it, for the first time in a long, long time is good growth. I have had so much growth that was to "overcome" the odds, that this kind of growth is unfamiliar. It is having friends who know me, but not so much and being able to love them for who they are and not for what they do. As a result, I have great relationships. It is being able to continue old relationships that I thought would never go on and on, yet they do. Then I come to find that they have changed and it is just okay. Change is not so scary after all. It is finding someone who has been there all this time, watching me, loving me and being the brother God had picked out for me and stumbling onto the relationship as though it were new and fresh despite knowing him for a decade. As I look inward on this relationship with this new/old brother, I realize I love him too. What a great feeling to have such a raw emotion, a vunerable place to be with another person who would have never been the one expected. It is growing back into the comfort of laughter with my husband again. Knowing that who we were surfaces despite poverty, absence, death defying acts of car dodging in the street and that we just love to be with each other in the midst of all of it, and we laugh. It is wondering if I will ever have time for all these people in my life while I am pursuing this path God has set in front of me? Large growth.

I am hoping that the territory that God has enlarged is actually a garden of my soul. That maybe just maybe I am growing some really cool flowers that only come up to bloom once a year and then others that are just plain Rae: blue hydrangeas. It kinda feels that way as I go from person to person. Some are hydrangeas others yellow roses, and still more are butterfly bushes or some strange wild orchid. Which are you?