I haven’t actually blogged in a really really long time.  I actually have a blog on LiveJournal of a similar name but there seemed to me something refreshing about starting all over again…something I read this Sunday…”a new creation”

So there is this pond that I pass on the way to my parent’s house and every year we love to watch a pair of Canada Geese that live there.  I’m not quite sure they are the exact same pair but we look forward to spring when the eggs hatch and those cute little fluffy ducklings show up with their parents.  This year a pair of White Geese have joined the mother and father and seem to be surrogate parents of sort.  I’m sad to report that of the three baby geese we originally saw only one seems to be left. There is another pair of rather strange looking ducks that live also with the two different types of geese but they mostly keep to themselves.  This little hybrid family reminds me of my own family.  We are a strange mix, if all you look at is the outside.  If you look at the inside then you see we are all really the same.  I suspect it’s the same with these geese.

I came across some old cards and letters today.  I didn’t have time to read them all but as I read through them it seems that I read things I hadn’t read before.  It was like I couldn’t remember this person ever expressing that particular sentiment to me.  When I stopped to think about it, I realized it wasn’t that the thought was never expressed, it was more along the lines that I wasn’t ready to hear it, for whatever strange reason.  It got me wondering…How many times has someone tried to tell me they loved me or cared for me and how many times did I just not choose to see it? This got me thinking about God of course and how often he is screaming at us, shouting his love to us and we either have chosen to ignore it or aren’t ready to acknowledge it.  Maybe we are afraid to know there is someone or some God who really truly loves us?  Maybe we let little disappointments cloud our judgment, add a piece to the “wall”?

Have you ever let a disappointment or a perceived slight keep you from loving someone or some God?  I have.  I have done this both with friends and stupidly with God.  I have left friendships alone when I felt I wasn’t needed or wanted.  I have stopped praying to God when my prayers weren’t answered the way I wanted them to be.  Isn’t it interesting though that God will wait until we are ready to come back to Him, in fact, He will actively seek us out and drive us toward Him, like the Great Shepherd that He is.  Human friends won’t always do that but I guess that’s what makes us human.  We are called to love unconditionally but we fail at this commandment every day.  We fail at it because we do  not understand the unconditional love God has for us.  “He is jealous for me, Loves like a hurricane, I am a tree, Bending beneath the weight of his wind and mercy.  When all of a sudden I am unaware of these afflictions eclipsed by glory and I realize just how beautiful you are and how great your affection is for me.” Lyrics to a song by John Mark McMillan, the chorus of which is “How He Loves Us” repeated over several times.  I guess we spend most of our life learning this lesson.  I guess while we run around thinking life is about getting this, becoming this, earning this, the endless chorus of  “How I Love Me” running around in our heads there He is, sometimes softly, sometimes loudly with electric guitars blaring, begging us to see Him, to hear Him, while we run around wondering why we feel so lost, so afraid, why we think our friends don’t love us anymore?

Today I’m thankful for remembering the love of a friend…a fun guitar lesson…always my Jason, my Laina and my family but mostly today I’m thankful for that huge cry of unconditional love.  Why would God beg for me to know he loves me?  That’s the mystery isn’t it?

Keep on running….