"No one dies in the last gust of the storm" (part 1)

That phrase came back to my mind this morning. And I'm not sure what to make of it. I received it what feels like a long time ago . . . and it feels like I'm still waiting to see the shore.

I should have gotten on here and written last night. I really should have. But I didn't, and so now I have a lot to say, and less clarity than ever. Kind of. Which is the story of my mind right now. My brain has no permanent residents, just thieving tourists. Jerks.

I didn't write last night because as I walked in the door I realized everything I wanted to write was depressing and miserable. So I didn't write. And I didn't worship, because I'd done that already and I was pissed at God for giving no visible comfort. And I didn't do much of anything. And as a result my mind just raced. And when I finally went to bed, I couldn't sleep, because my mind just kept going, and going, and going. When I transferred from private school to public school my teachers had me tested to be put in the gifted program and my IQ tested at 163. Average is 90-110 and Einstein was estimated at 171. Not only do I not feel like that is accurate, I feel like whatever is there is never good for anything except meaning it never stops. There's always another thought. Always another angle. It just never stops.

So what happened yesterday. I think it actually should have been a good day. I think I should have had wonderful things to write. I was feeling a little zapped from my sinuses and the medicine, so the day was a drag mostly set to the sounds of Before Their Eyes while rereading my favorite parts from Mutiny on the Bounty and Far From the Madding Crowd (perhaps the best fiction book ever). My mind was a mess, and my prayer journal reflected it. I won't go over the ground, its all been said before. Misery, blindness, supplication for comfort, for anything. Nick and Rachel pick me up a few minutes late and we swung by to get Bonnie on our way to Kairos.

I sometimes get upset with people because our society has lost its sense of wonder. People, myself included, pride themselves on a particular type of humor that involves understating or being unimpressed with an impressive feat. Historians find it impossible to believe that Xerxes could have had an army of 2 million soldiers, or that a few hundred Spartans could really have faced such overwhelming odds. Because we have changed our minds to reject what is astounding. By and large I thought I avoided this pitfall, but it turns out I am very wrong. I think my sense of amazement has died in the last few weeks.

Why do I think so? Sometime Sunday or Monday I was thinking of how I'd been looking for confirmation on some things, and it seemed God had not provided. And then I had a mini-revelation: I wasn't giving it enough time. So I said well . . . just wait and see, you don't need answers right now. Then on Monday night I felt it the first time. It was like I could hear it. "Tomorrow night at Kairos . . . there will be something." Now I'd also been struggling with wondering whether certain Scriptural revelations could really be considered interpretive. I mean, some things seem pretty clear cut right? And then on Tuesday I could feel it all tying together. "Go tonight, all these things will be spoken to." So I went.

After the singing portion, how did the service start? Mike brought up a young man whom God had prompted to leave his job and go serve. And the guy told a little of the story, and then Mike gave everyone the guy's email, and then he told us why. "Because at some point, he's going to doubt he heard right, and he needs to be reminded." I leaned forward in my chair when he said it. Really? I thought about dismissing it, but that nights entire message was about the supremacy of the Word. The reading was again from Revelation, the next sequential part, where John eats the scroll of scripture. That was the message. I wrote down this "quote": "Reality is not determined by how you feel, or circumstances, or what everyone around you does or says. It's the Bible." That's two weeks in a row God told me what was going to be talked about at Kairos before I got there, because they were things I needed to hear. The first because my heart was clinging to sin, and the second, ostensibly, because I was doubting and needed encouragement. But do I listen? Am I amazed? Am I struck by the awesomeness and left with nothing to do but adhere? No. I have lost my sense of wonder.

Another thing stuck out to me from the message, Mike touched on what he had talked about last week and a thought struck. The warning signs. God gave me warning signs about what was coming with Heather. He gave me multiple dreams. Were they indeed warning signs, meaning He didn't want it to happen, or were they visions of an inevitable. To Him those things are the same, but to me . . . its the difference between something that can be set right, and a consequence which may have no end.

The last point I want to bring up from yesterday should also be a reason for amazement, yet it only barely gets at me. Mike mentioned Jeremiah again. He was talking about how implementing the Word is hard and bitter, and how just like Jeremiah, you'll often find yourself as the only one. The one preaching against, to a nation full of people who don't want to hear it.

The other night, when God led me to the intro of Jeremiah, and told me I was reading about myself as well, there were two thoughts I had but didn't share. And one of them is relevant here. It was that same message of preaching against. And here it is echoed. Here there is confirmation. But what do I do with echoing and confirmation these days? Dismiss it. Its too loud to hear, and too bright to see.

On the way home I was fairly absent from the conversation, I was trying to keep my head in that place. I was trying to listen, I was trying to hear what was meant for me and what was my own creation. As we got near to dropping her off Bonnie gets my attention and says, "Don't worry, you'll get through this." All I can think when she says it is, "is that what I want? No. I don't want to get through this." I wasn't thinking I wanted to be crushed under the weight, just that . . . I didn't want to be on the other side of this and not have Heather. And that's how it sounded to me. What made that worse was that earlier in the day I got a message from Jill saying the same thing. "This is normal . . . after the miserable period it gets better?" Gets better? These things . . . all we are talking about is things being made better by the passage of time. Not God's miraculous touch, not restoration, not new 'wealth.' I don't want to get by. I've never wanted to get by. I want to thrive.

I'm still hurting because I love(d?) her deeply and its normal and it should hurt but . . . getting by? I heard the messages of the storm and the fire. I'm mining this for every bit of purpose and potential its got . . . and the past few days, since Sunday, its just felt done with. Like it had just become heartache with no purpose, and yet no healing.

Titles are important to me. For the songs and poems I write. For papers. For blog posts. So I was putting a little too much effort into summing up everything I was going to say in this post in just a few words as a title. And in doing so I went back through this notebook I do all my rough writing in for lyrics and poetry. Some other stuff is in their from at Lake Champion, but nothing big. Except. As I'm flipping pages I noticed a few lines in quotes, on a page all by themselves, so I stop and read. What I was looking at was a record of one of the many times God spoke through Heather through glossolalia and I understood. Part of it was speaking to her, to insecurities, and part was to me, a promise. That she was indeed mine. Great.