Intimacy

In all honesty, I was too tired to DO anything more.  My whole life I was trained that love was earned, and I learned that I would always fall short of meeting the requirements.  This was an exhausting realization... especially because it is human nature to crave love... so on went the endless cycle of trying to be great, to earn what my heart ached for, but coming up short.

This was just with humans... how was I supposed to 'get perfect' in the eyes of God?  I've heard about this wonderful love but couldn't understand HOW.  It seemed like so much WORK!  So many rules... some imposed on me by 'the church' and others I imposed on myself by my own interpretation. 

I would read the bible, get overwhelmed, feel unworthy... and quit.  I went to church - several, in fact - and got lost in the rules or rituals.  There were so many, for starters... AND they were so different sometimes. But what stood out to me is that there was no emotion behind most of it, and that confused me. So, I quit.  I tried talking with people who I thought should know more than I do about such things, and my questions were 'inappropriate', which felt like I fell out of grace again, so I quit.  I felt intimidated by all these "good" people around me, I would never measure up, so I quit. 

I QUIT.  But God didn't ever quit on me:)
1 Corinthians 1:9 (MSG) God, who got you started in this spiritual adventure, shares with us the life of his Son and our Master Jesus. He will never give up on you. Never forget that. 


There was a continuous pulling on my heart to KEEP LOOKING, keep searching.  That's the only way I know how to explain it.  So as much as I "decided" I had given up, there was something in me that hadn't.  People started coming into my life, and at the time, I didn't recognize it.  But they felt good, comfortable, familiar... safe.  Simply by observing these people (as we naturally do) my heart started learning... what it was learning, I didn't know.


But by the time I got the courage to walk into church again (and it took a LOT of courage) somehow my heart had become open to hearing this message:  I don't need anything from you.  I don't need a performance from you.  I want a relationship with you. -with Love, God.


...really? That's it?  You just want a relationship? You want me to get to know you... and that's it...?


That's it.  No rules.  No agenda.  The pressure and stress was lifted from me and while this 'concept' was unfamiliar to me, I started to look up and SEE God - I can absolutely have a relationship, a friendship with God... an intimacy with Jesus Christ!  That sounds AWESOME! YES! let's do THAT!
...and the tightness of my heart began to unravel...

Community

It's been on my heart to share what I'm learning, and to be honest, perhaps this is more for my benefit in the long run... every day I see miracles happening.  My heart, my eyes, and my ears are changing so fast and I'm excited with what I'm learning!

I expect that this transition into blogging may not be graceful as I have no idea what I'm doing... but I am confident that the message will come through anyway.  My story - how I got here - will come in time, but know that I have not understood nor needed companionship, neighbors, community, friendships in over 10 years.   The concept was lost on me.

As I've been searching for understanding through a church (now my church) I felt nervous and uncomfortable with everyone being so friendly and asking "how I am".  Why did they want to know?  What would their expectations be of me?  All of my relationships (at least up to this point) have all been performance-based.  I could not wrap my head around people caring about me simply for the sake of caring.


I had been attending church for about a month and a half when I had to go out-of-town on business, making me miss our mid-week Wednesday prayer group.  I was surrounded by strangers in an environment that was everything but familiar to me and not-at-all comfortable in the traditional sense of the word.  


I used to be a flight attendant, so traveling and being in new environments was nothing new to me... but this was very different.  I felt isolated.  I started longing, but I wasn't sure for what.  It wasn't until I walked into the door of my home, hearing the music that I leave on (our local Christian radio station) I felt comforted and immediately at peace.  As I sat down to write my pastor a quick note, it came to me:

I am being shown the meaning and reason for community:) What I'm understanding is this: God can hug us, physically touch us, look us in the eye, be 'tangible' (so-to-speak) through our Christian community... and that is SO important in this 'world' where we are almost assaulted without rest by worldly (unloving) language, behavior, images, sounds/music, thoughts/opinions from others all imposed without our permission. The human-ness in me NEEDS to come back to my community - and NOW I understand what that means:) I want to be a part of creating the environment that I'm craving... and I want to SPREAD that environment... past the walls of the church:)