Maybe this time?

(Maybe this time I will be able to figure out this blogging thing, and it will let me sign in... here's to hoping)

So, today has been good. And bad. Frustrating. Amazing. Painful. Tiring. Wonderful. Awful. Refreshing. I love this quote from the movie, American Beauty: "I guess I could be pretty pissed off about what happened to me... but it's hard to stay mad, when there's so much beauty in the world. Sometimes I feel like I'm seeing it all at once, and it's too much, my heart fills up like a balloon that's about to burst... And then I remember to relax, and stop trying to hold on to it, ad then it flows through me like rain and I can't feel anything but gratitude for every single moment of my stupid little life... You have no idea what I'm talking about, I'm sure. But don't worry... you will someday."

Wow. There is so much going on right now. Not just in my life, but all over. It's quite overwhelming. On a personal note, I finally began falling behind in my work this past week, and this is only adding to the already more than I can handle stress. I feel like curling up in a ball and hide until it all goes away.

There really is so much beauty in the world that sometimes I do feel like it's too much. It's the same with pain. I didn't know that one could hurt this much, this deeply... And what do you do with that pain? It gets so intense and overpowering at times. It's debilitating. Paralyzing. Not only pain in your own life, but the pain in other's, in the world. When you actually open up your eyes to the world around you, you begin to realize how broken it really is; how deeply people all around you are hurting. In Donald Miller's book Blue Like Jazz he says, "...we are called to hold our hands against the wounds of a broken world, to stop the bleeding."

I think that the key thing when it comes to dealing with the brokenness and pain in this life, is love. We need to become the physical body of Christ, through time and space, here on earth. It's like Christ becomes visible here on earth when we become alive for Him. We need to see the world through Christ's eyes, to love with His love. And the only way we can do that is if we strive to live as He did. Die to ourselves daily. Not only do we need to become Christ to others, but we need to see Him in them. Obviously we can't fix everything, or be everyone's hero, but we can commit to pouring ourselves out over and over again, until we have nothing left. And then, we keep going. Yeah, it's just about garunteed that our hearts will break in the process, time and time again. But you know what, it's worth it. C.S. Lewis said "To love is to be vulnerable." We so often pray to God asking him to give us an answer, to send us a rescue. What if that rescue is us? It's not an easy task by any means. And life can be quite threatening and scary and overwhelming, even when we have Christ on our side. But it's worth it. I know it is. It has to be. "Love is the movement."