The sum of all my days is to love Him…

It has been, to say the least, one of those days when the realization of how deeply I need Jesus has hit me full force. No, nothing caused this per se. I haven’t had a horrible day - I’ve been walking in joy, I’ve been savoring the lingering fragrance of His presence. But there is something that has been trying to get out of me for the past three or four weeks. I’m just going to be very raw and vulnerable here…

I want Jesus. I want Him more than anything… but I am just barely scratching the surface of what it means to know Him and be like Him. I am so frustrated. I am so frustrated with myself - with God - with this waiting. I know it’s not an overnight journey - praise God that getting to know Him will last a lifetime! I feel like a stupid, ignorant little kid half the time though. Every day God rebukes me over something else - and I am thankful for that, I need that, I need to grow and be humbled… and He does it so gently… but sometimes I just want to scream or cry or go deep into the woods somewhere and weep and vent my frustrations to God in complete and total honesty.

I want to be taught, I want to grow, I want to be encouraged and poured into… but I’m alone. I’m alone out here in a wilderness. I teach myself, I find ways to grow myself, I find ways to encourage myself, I speak words of life over myself. Oh gosh, this all sounds horribly selfish and childlike… It’s hard people, it’s hard being alone! No man is an island, I am not an exception to that old proverb. God has been so merciful and gracious in this season… He has been there through this wilderness, He has been my place of habitation. I need to learn dependence on Him, He’s brought me to this desert place to teach me to trust and cling to Him, to breathe Him in and let Him overflow into the air around me. But it still hurts, it’s still a hard journey.

I’m alone. It’s just me, it’s just God. It has been an uphill climb these past few months. I’ve fallen deeper in love with the King of kings than I thought possible. He is an all consuming fire, He invades my thoughts and my life and will not let me run this race alone. He is relentless.

I’m still so alone. It’s not very often that I get frustrated at God due to loneliness. Usually I’ll just go spend time in His presence - that more than suffices. But I crave Godly fellowship. I crave spiritual moms and dads to build me up in the way that I should go. I yearn for communion with other believers. I desire to not be the “strong one” but to have my weaknesses displayed that I might be exhorted and taught gently in the way I should go. I want to be raw and free and completely vulnerable. I want to walk in the fullness of truth, of love, of Christ and I want to walk alongside others who crave this as well.

I feel like I am suffocating sometimes. I feel repressed and beat down. I know I am not, I know victory is on my side because I dwell in the tent of the King. I know the promises of God - I know what His word says about who He is and how He cares for and avenges those who are found in Him. In a few months I’ll probably look back on this season and see how I was the better for it. But in all honesty, I’m a little frustrated with God right now and I keep telling Him that. His response? He keeps saying to me “blessed is he who doesn’t fall away on account of Me.” I’m reminded of John the Baptist…

John is the type of person I aspire to be - He knew the Father and in a very intimate way. He prepared the way for the King, He was the voice of one crying in the wilderness. And, he knew Jesus. He knew who Jesus said He was and he knew that it was TRUTH! So, then one day John finds himself in prison, awaiting certain death and he gets a little bit frustrated, to say the least. Sending his disciples to speak with Jesus he tells them to ask the Lord if “He was the the promised one, the one they’d been waiting for or if they should look for another?” And Jesus responds with, “blessed is he who doesn’t fall away on account of me…” Or, as I like to paraphrase it: “John, you’ve seen me at work, you know the Father, you know it’s me - you know the promise… John, you proclaimed me to the world… you know me. And now you’re in prison. I know circumstances aren’t exactly as YOU thought they’d be, but don’t worry. I have a destiny for you to fulfill. You can’t see it now - all you can see is the circumstance you’re in, but John, you’ll be blessed if you don’t fall away, don’t lose heart, don’t lose faith on account of what’s to come. Blessed are you who stick by me, stick close to me in spite of my name and the situations in life it my bring.” As I sit and read what I’ve just typed I am encouraged. Hah. God’s truth pervades the hopelessness a despairing heart can conjure up… I will finish up with my thought processes though, because these are very real emotions that I’m feeling and I’m not going to put on a facade and walk around like I’m this robot who never craves the affections and fellowship of a fellow human being.

Somehow, fellowshipping via a telephone line to beloved ones 1500+ miles away just isn’t the same as having them laugh alongside of you, cry alongside of you, praise Jesus and enter His courts alongside of you… I am in the midst of maintaining a friendship with the woman closest to my heart - she’s always been there for me - whilst she resides in California and I am in Texas. I’m learning the art of “grown up problems” and entering into a beautiful season of courtship alongside a certain Nathaniel Stephen who just so happens to be tucked away in a glorious part of the world known as the Pacific Northwest (which is, conveniently, some 1700 miles from where I currently reside.) Hah, I’m kind of laughing at the irony of it all. It’s kind of like, in the book of Hosea, where God speaks about luring the harlot out into the wilderness just so He can be alone with her and speak tenderly to her, to restore her… God has secluded me. Part of me wants to be bitter about that - haha - but it’s all terribly romantic if you really think about it.

This whole frustration doesn’t just center around the lack of fellowship in my life. I am starting to wake up to the fact that I know so much less than I thought I knew. Hah. Talk about a humbling experience. My pride wants to rear it’s ugly head right about now. That’s probably the biggest thorn in my side. I am proud. I am arrogant. I see things through my eyes and my eyes only. I don’t like anyone having control over MY life, not even God. I don’t like being told I am wrong, I don’t like being rebuked, I don’t like having my voice quieted in favor of anyone else’s opinion being said, and most of all I like to know that I AM RIGHT. Ugh, that all looks so disgusting written down.

Oh I want to be cleansed. I have been rescued from such depravity… now I want to be washed of every inch of it. I want my ugly pride, my fleshy lusts, my ignorance and stupidity to be washed away. I want the make up of my DNA to scream holiness. Every breath, I crave that every breath should be like praise to Jesus. I am alive, He has made me alive, I want to scream that with my whole being. And… I guess, I’m just frustrated because I still trip, still get bruised, still haven’t seen Perfection face-to-face yet.

I was laying out in the sun earlier this evening, tears streaming down my hidden face and I contemplated all of this. I thought about where God had brought me thus far, pondered where He was taking me and completely threw away the idea of walking away from Him. He has brought me through a dark land laden with sin and coupled with doubt. He brought me out from a pit I had created for myself. He rescued me of a lifestyle that, basically, was comprised of sex, drugs and rock n’ roll. I was a self absorbed brat who had dreamed up a lifestyle for herself that screamed “DEATH!” and I had no intention of leaving it until I was good and ready to. Then I met Jesus and my plans were ruined.

Then I started learning about living in holiness because Jesus calls us to be HOLY and my life really got tore up. There’s this war waging on the inside… my flesh and my spirit daily go to war, the cool thing is because His Spirit now dwells in me, the battle has already been won. But sanctification is a hard, tiring process.

Later in the journey I began to walk in holiness… and I started to learn about LOVE… all consuming, all encompassing love. And my life got wrecked even more. The battle continued to wage. My spirit began to win out more and more because I was being wooed by this incredible Lover and was relinquishing control over my will more and more and was, instead, falling deeper and deeper into Him.

And right now? Right now I feel the battle so strongly. I am alone, and yet not alone. My spirit is still winning, but the fight has intensified. I am not overcome. I can’t be, I have a strong and victorious Warrior in my midst. I have been immersed in His waters. I’ve like, had a blood transfusion with my King, I’ve given up any idea of a so-called “normal” life. He’s set His seal of love upon me…

I haven’t been able to vocalize, to put into words what I’ve been feeling these past couple of weeks. I’ve tried to and instead I think I’ve just ended up confusing people… This post is all over the place, I’m sure you’d have to be inside of my head to understand it, but in any case this is Katy - unadulterated, not trying to impress, just being for real. I’m hurting brethren, I’m struggling, I’m still loving Jesus - that will never change, but I am hurting.

What shall I do then but keep running towards Him who called me… for there is no other way.

Your prayers are appreciated friends.