the ma'ams, sir.

God is funny.

Usually when I blog, I have something that I really want to say - something on my heart. Tonight I do not. Tonight I have nothing more to offer than a vague string of thoughts and scattered feelings. Sorry bout it.

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God has shown so much mercy on me. I look back on this past year and see so much sin and so much self-inflicted suffering - but above all of this I see a sense of hope instilled in me by God and a big fat cushion of mercy that kept my life from being so much worse than it was.

1. I felt his hand upon me during fall quarter when I had mono and he guided me out of the Psychology major. He protected me physically from destroying myself with my excessive coursework and inability to say no to opportunities for new commitments.

2. With my every move and reach towards things that directly pull me away from God he has patiently brought me back: he has taught me wisdom (albeit a small amount) in what choices are most glorifying to him in friends, classes, boys, daily opportunities, and the like.

3. After every blind choice my adulterous heart made to satisfy itself, God lovingly turned me around and just loved me. Even as I continually made (and make) idols of men and relationships, God showed me that He was the only one who would truly love me and not let me down, as I had been before. He reveals to what extent I manipulate and create ways to entangle myself - even ways that I am not consciously aware of.

4. He created one of the best and closest friendships I will ever have, made better and closer by the fact that he brought that person back to him and is now what cements our bond.

5. After I brought myself to and past the brink of my own morality and standards for myself, he showed me that he never accepts "fixed" people, and that my morality and standards that I tried so long to maintain were silly and were doomed from the start. I had to be brought to the pit of what I thought was wrong to realize that what I thought was "right" was just legalistic nonsense. His standards are so much higher than ours, but so much more reasonable.

Trippy?

Yes.

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I had not thought about it until tonight about how big of a deal tomorrow (now today) is. I had not thought about it: how at once it is such a big deal, but not one at all. That yes, I will be given new life - but God gives us new life daily. I'm kind of trippin'. And to think that a year ago, this would not have seemed possible - that it would have been just another one of those Christian-y things that people do, not for me of course, because I was already a good christianperson, right?

And with that, my pride problem rears its ugly head once more. BUT YOU KNOW WHAT? God has freed me from that. Yeah, it still shows up from time to time - but there is no need to worry about how sinful and prideful I am, no need to pray for healing and change, because as he loves me and I him, he is working in my heart. I am free.

I am continually reminded of God's promise on my life. I struggle daily to receive love from him and let it flow from me. I love it and it seems, at times, to be the easiest thing in the world. Other times, it is more difficult than one can maybe imagine.

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Yeah, the greatest of these is love. But even this simple fact is clouded by our nature of settling for so much less than we are promised. That sucks. I do it a lot.

But I am loved and love: I love it! And I could never live (or love) without it.

Happy birthday to me.

Love,

Always,

Meredith