i changed my mind...

"i just want to be normal again," i have said through tears over the past month and a half. yes, i have been known to throw a pity party or two. i really am a brat. i have been slow to blog, because to be honest i have felt a bit discouraged, and who wants to read a depressing update, by a depressed person, using terribly depressing adjectives. but the truth is the truth. life has been a struggle. no quick easy pill to pop, no magic solution to make it pass quickly; just a slow, snail-like seeming path that i have been walking. praise be to God that i have been feeling better every day and that i am progressing (that's where the impatience and my bratty-ness really comes in), but there are times that i will take two steps forward and then two steps back. isn't that a paula abdul song? no, janet jackson? anyway, back to being normal.

today i changed my mind. today, as i often do, i realized how little i actually know myself. i don't want to go back. i don't want to be "normal"...i want to be better than that. i want to go deeper. i want to be closer. i want to live in a way that counts more for the gospel and less for myself. i want to have a relationship with my heavenly father that far surpasses what i could have imagined without walking the journey i am on now. i want my desires to be his desires. i want a heavenly vision...one that understands and anticipates my true home. i want ears that are sensitive to the only voice that matters. i want a heart that replaces fear with trust, and insecurity with everlasting and unconditional love. i want to really, actually begin to count others more significant than myself. i used to look back longingly on my "normalcy" and now i want to look forward, to a new chapter that i know holds much more than i had in mind for myself. my father knows what i need and his desire is toward me. now my prayer is that normal would politely take its seat in the past, and that a renewed heart would rise up in its place. i want a relationship with my father that is so secure and so intimate, that it becomes the mark of my life. that is the healing i need. that is the life that i truly want.

God, my precious heavenly father, be gracious and don't allow me the type of normal i have been asking for. give me the courage to ask for much more than that, and to be much more than that. draw me near, whatever it takes, and mold me into your image. draw me into your love in whatever way is best, and then help me to spend myself pouring it out. to you be all glory and honor, forever and ever.

"But one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus." (Philippians 3:13-14)