A Bag of Groceries

It's always in the wee hours that my mind seems to come to life with all the words I didn't write in the day and wish I had. Anais Nin once said that, “We write to taste life twice, once in the moment and in retrospection.” I do wonder how many lifetimes I've lived over the years, 'tasting life' for the second time after the world around me is breathing deeply with sleep...

I love this time of night. I love the freedom of it, the beauty of the stillness, and the way He speaks in it.

A friend turned to me today and said, "Do you need to get groceries?"
I was a bit taken aback because it seemed a kind of random, funny, irrelevant question.
But I did, actually. I was out of all the basics. Milk, butter, bread, meat. I don't keep a ton of groceries around, really, just the necessities, but I was out and intending to get more. So I said so.
And she said, "Okay, because God told me to take you grocery shopping today."

And it made me giggle.

This God. This God! I will NEVER understand Him!

It hadn't occurred to me to worry about getting groceries this week. I knew there would be enough kronor for this... I've been worried about out-of-the-ordinary weekly expenses, like affording posting gifts home to the nieces/nephew, getting a haircut, being able to afford various Christmas gifts for the family here I'm spending Christmas with, etc. Not groceries.

And so I began to argue it.
And she put her hand out as if to stop the onslaught of words and said simply, "Take it up with Him. Come on. Let's go."

And when we got to the shop some acquaintances of ours were in the parking lot with their car broken down and we were able to jump-start their battery. And I do so wonder at God's intricately interwoven plan...

And His intimate care. I can't wrap my head around His ways. But I'm not sure I'm supposed to. He asks me to trust & obey, just trust & obey. And watch Him work in His huge, all-encompassing love.

Choosing this lifestyle of soldout ministry has been difficult. Always. But especially so lately when all the foundations have kind of felt a bit pulled out from beneath me with struggles in the ministry I'm working with here.

I have learned these past few months what it means to truly have NOTHING but Him. I thought I'd experienced complete dependency before this, but I hadn't.

I have learned desperate crying out. And faithfully depending on Him, whether or not it feels like He's hearing the shouts... I guess this is what it means to put one's Hope in Him.

I have learned what it means to stand in confidence in Him despite everything coming against that. Not because I have any reason or strength to stand on my own, but because He is unchanging, immutable.

And I'm still learning these things, in His grace and patience and indescribable, limitless, all-knowing, all-consuming Love, which sees us through every situation it walks us into.

And, despite heartache and fear and restriction on earth for glory in heaven, and homesickness and heartsickness, and no approval from man, or even understanding most of the time... despite constant battles bigger than I know how to fight, constant uncertainty, insecurity, and utter foolishness in man's eyes...

... I've realized that I wouldn't trade serving Him for all the world. He is worth it all. He is worth it all. He is worth it all.

And not because of His rewards (though I know they are vast, even when I'm not always seeing them fleshed out), or because of how He grows our character through adversity (I am growing years in weeks), but because it's the most needy of Him whom He gives Himself most fully to. And He allows me to be as needy as needy can be, so that He can be all in all to me. So then, even the need is part of His provision...

I am astounded by this grace. I am astounded by this God. And that He would WANT to be wanted by me...

It's amazing what a bag of groceries you didn't even know you needed so badly will do for you.

"For the eyes of the Lord search to and fro, that He might strongly support those whose hearts are completely His." -- 2 Chron. 16:9 (NAS)

Lord, take mine completely.

"...I'm wasted; I'm so wasted on [Y]ou..."
--Angus & Julia Stone, 'Wasted'