I am so filled with emotion, often I don't know how to make anything of myself!!
I am a thinker. I have tried to stop, or at least tone it down - with little to no success. And I am also a hopeless romantic and lover. I will love, to the best of my ability, everyone who crosses my path. =)
My personality is caring I suppose, but there are a few places when I feel completely myself. When I am singing, caring for another, teaching or learning. These tendencies have lead me to the church where I have met a God who has become the lover of my soul. This love is what keeps me going and gives me energy to go out and love others - it is a love that completes me. I have also fallen in love with the church, but it is not a perfect love. As I was reading "Saints and Villains" today - a fiction book about the like of Dietrich Bonhoeffer, I read a passage about him falling in love with the church seemed to echo my own thoughts. I feel like I love the church like Hosea loved Gomer. I have fallen in love with the people of the church and what the church is about. To have the security that there is a whole group of people out there who will love me because I am a child of God. No other reason. That there is a group of people out there who are willing to give everything to serve. Yet sometimes I do not love what the church does, I still have this unexplainable love for the body of Christ.
Yet this love and knowledge leads to so much internal struggle for me. I suppose it is because I want everything to be good for everyone and the more I learn the more I know it's not so. The more I read some of the things people of the church say it breaks my heart. It breaks my heart to see the church pick and choose who they deem appropriate and who they disregard. It breaks my heart to see the dicotomy of the rich and the poor.
I don't want to preach, but somehow I feel like that is because what I have to say isn't going to be well received. I want to hang out with my friends and spend a carefree afternoon like any other young American. Like any other young American of privilege.
I was born to privilege. I see that now. I can't hate myself because of it or my family. I love the opportunities and education they gave to me. But I can't just sit around happily watching a movie, going to work, and hanging out with my friends. Not when I know so many of my brothers and sisters are starving in poverty, oppressed, and abused. The church can't either. The more we do, the more it breaks my heart.
But I don't know how to change, I know I must. I must leave everything and follow Christ. Right now I have committed myself to study. Study the scriptures, study the saints, study the needs of my world. But after I have studied (yes even seminary) I want to LIVE. I want to live among the rest of the world and care for them with my heart, my hands, my head, and my love.
But I don't think my calling is to serve alone. As I try to discern my calling I feel that there needs to be a connection to the American church of today. A way of helping people discover themselves, how to connect with others (for love is all about healthy relationships!!!), learn about their passion, and put them in an opportunity to live a life of service as well.
I am enjoying learning. I have a stack of library books so high it seems daunting yet so thrilling of the inspiration and enlightenment awaiting for me there. It's just that the stories found there do pull at my heart and make me want to get out of my comfortable house and do something about it!!! (even if it happened 100 + years ago...)
Dear Lord, lover of my soul, to one to already knows my every thought, every care, every burden - I pray for your children around the world. I pray that you wrap them in your arms and meet their every need. I pray that your children hear your gentle calling to be disciples and accept the difficulties and gifts that come along with that life. I pray for wisdom and patience as I find my way to a closer walk with you. Amen.
In peace with love,
your sister in Christ~Erin
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