I often have concern all my words may scare you away or maybe they already have. I respond to words intentionally. Words compell me. Words challenge me. Words soothe me… I guess it depends on what kind of word person you are. Maybe all my words won’t scare you away, but If they should I understand. I see words in “color” sometimes. Words are never, ever black and white. There are “you’re a liar” words. There are “absolute Truth” words. There are “profound” words. There are “stupid and ignorant” words. There are “death and life” words, and so many more. The list is exhausting but you get my drift.
It is an iridescent dragon fly purple and blue It so cleverly hovers over the pond of your brow It is an agile flyer and can be high or low, come and go It has life expectancy of a week or so…
This is how I see traces of sorrow A vivid an electric color, impossible to miss An aviator like no other, comes from anywhere This trace may be brief, a week or so…
These high school halls are not hallowed halls but they are unsurpassed in the scheme of life lessons….Truth and Fiction …
Remember that boy with the unfortunate eyebrows hurrying down the hall as if afraid or embarrassed? He was.
Remember that girl passing a note to her “steady” guy declaring her undying devotion because he said he “loved” her? He did not.
Remember when you thought a certain friend’s family seemed so perfect? They were not.
The stereo- types still linger in these tales of fiction. Fifty years later and I can name them all by heart.
We all wanted to be (well most of us) to be prettier, cuter, thinner, funnier, taller, shorter, darker, lighter, a better singer, a better dancer, the beauty queen, the sports star, the math genius, or the valedictorian.
I guess it is like the “Breakfast Club” and the “Big Chill” movie all rolled up together. (we did have the best music though). I always felt like the adults in my days of high school tried to minimize the harshness of the unspoken boundaries. There are many people that I admired from afar and would have like to have known better but there was also a nagging burden of exposure.
Ends up that about ninety-nine percent of High School Fiction left some of us hurt and even wounded and that is where reality steps in. No, we had not yet let our tender souls relax in the discovery zone of finding there is no such thing as perfect. How could we know that what lay ahead would require a lot more truth and a little less comparison?
When hardship comes your way, will you tell yourself it’s a tool of God’s grace and a sign of his love, or will you give in to doubting his goodness? Paul Tripp
Photo by James Wheeler
When the road seems shorter than before.
Wherever you turn there is no open door.
Your life is in convulsions like vomit on the floor.
All the paperwork of your life is yellowed and rotted.
“The fact is that sin is a bigger disaster than we think it is and grace is more amazing than we seem to be able to grasp that it is. No one who really understands what Scripture has to say about the comprehensive, every-aspect-of-your-personhood altering nature of sin would ever think that anyone could muster enough motivation and strength to rise to God’s standard of perfection. The thought that any fallen human being would be able to perform his or her way into acceptance with God has to be the most insane of all delusions. Yet we all tend to think that we are more righteous than we are, and when we think this, we have taken the first step to embracing the delusion that maybe we’re not so bad in God’s eyes after all.” Paul Tripp
You better pray everyday
You better read your Bible every day.
You better join the choir, teach Sunday school, be a missionary, or do some kind of ministry.
You better tithe.
You better be at Church every time the door was open. (This one was easy because my Dad was a Pastor.)
So, if you are out there trying to earn your way into relationship with God it is a burden that you need not carry and when you realize this Truth it is actually a relief. Then you can start to actually do and say the things that please God by letting His Spirit live in you.
It can be a rough ride and not a pretty sight, but Jesus did not come and die for us because it was comfortable or pretty. He did it because he understood and still understands that it is HE who brings life from sin and death, and it is Jesus in you that will produce “good works and fruit.”
Your behavior will change because Jesus transforms our hearts and out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks, the hands serve, and the love overflows. I know, because I spent years trying to be good enough and failed and then as I lay all of that down I began to change.
Jesus said to him, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. John 14:6
Jill Autrey Dorman 