Fierce Loyalty.

Do you ever have those times when your heart just physically hurts?

Not like a greasy, chunked up, arteries screaming to a halt because of the 3/4 lb bbq bacon cheeseburger you just ate kinda hurt...

but like a cumbersome, heavy, emotional entrapment where your heart just can't beat freely. It seems a bit ludicrous, maybe I'm crazy...

needless to say, that's what I got goin' on right now. An emotionally strangled heart.

For the past couple years I've been a free spirit, what you'd call adventurous, for lack of a better word. Hence the name of the blog. I do what I want, when I want. I dream big. And then I take steps to make those dreams come true. I've had people ask me many a time, 'how do you do it?' 'What's it like?' 'I wish I were you.' 'I wish I had that freedom.' But it's not all it's cracked up to be.

The past couple days we've been talking about stories in our devotionals. Our lives are stories. There are main characters. There are supporting characters. There is conflict. There is resolution. There is an author. There is an editor. There's comic relief and there's melodrama and sometimes there's just word fluff to describe the times in our lives where nothing much happened.

We are a story.

People always fret about having a 'boring' story. They think 'My story doesn't mean anything to anyone if there's not this incessant drama careening out of control all the time.' A good story, a 'meaningful' story, has drugs and violence, neglect, abuse, sex and alcohol, loneliness and despair, ending in a climactic revelation that there is a God and He does love the homely and forgotten. Right? I'm gonna go with wrong on that one.

My story is riddled with a few of those ugly words and my story is anything but good. All I've ever wanted is a 'boring' story...to have lived a 'normal' childhood...to be shackled by the bonds of a loving family.

And here's where we tie in the whole freedom issue. Yes, I have freedom. I believe that I will live the life of a nomad, a wanderer. And that is because I struggle with belonging. We all long to belong. And my whole life, those I'm 'supposed' to belong to, either refused to take up that responsibility, or drastically abused it.

I've always loved stories. I'm an English major. I have an incessantly growing library. From an early age, I sought refuge in the lives of characters in novels. I found solace alone in my room with the pages of a book as my companions. I would check out 30 books at a time from the library, only because that was the limit they imposed upon me. I spent my entire middle school career volunteering at the Arlington Public Library. And this was before you were made to volunteer to get community service hours to graduate. I just loved books that much. They were my escape from the dismal reality of my own story.

And now as the daunting day approaches, I'm struggling to figure out how to present my story to my new community, in a way that won't be an instantaneous invitation to a pity party. My biggest fear is that people will feel sorry for me. How do I overcome that?

And here's where Mr. Jesus comes in. Today's been one of those days where God doesn't have a still small voice. He has a belligerent, raucous, outrageous, and unavoidable shout goin' on. Yes, I just referred to God as belligerent, a word most often used in reference to a drunk person, when really it just means aggressive. We serve a jealous God and sometimes He has to swing a rope and lasso us to get our attention, and we may get a little rope burn or whiplash in the process, but at least we get the picture...

So anyway, it's been one of those days. God's been shouting at me about fear today. The command used most frequently in the Bible is "Do not be afraid." And now I must include an excerpt from the book we're reading with our intern group-"The irony of this surprising command is that, though it's what we really want to hear, we have as much difficulty, if not more, in obeying this command, as any other. We all cherish fear so closely that we find we can't shed it even when we're told to do so."

Welp. That about sums it up huh. We all have fears. We cherish them. We cling tight to them. They bring some sick sense of comfort. I wish I could just type in the whole chapter from the book. I wish I could refrain from making my blog that much longer by including these next few little blurbs, but I feel like I just have to share 'em..."The good news: there is just one command this time, not even ten. The bad news: this one command tells you not to be afraid, and we haven't a clue how to obey it. We don't like fear, but it's the air we breathe. We don't know any other way to live. This, actually, is why people imagine God as a God who is always giving orders and getting cross with people. We project our fears, yes, and our hatred, up on to the creator of the universe; we call this object, this idol, 'God;' and we are afraid of, and resent, the God we have thus made in our own mirror-image."

Take a moment to digest that one and then check this out...

"Depression is what happens when one particular little clutch of fears get together in a circle, and it forces us to go round and round the circle, worrying about one thing, which leads us to blame ourselves for the next thing, which leads us to be anxious about the third thing, which takes us conveniently back to the start of the circle, and round we go again."

Depression. It's become as frequent as sunsets these days. Everyday there's a new drug to sedate it, but it's still there, dormant, hibernating, festering, just waiting for the days when it gets to wreak havoc on your life.

My mom is "clinically depressed." But really, what does that even mean. It's an inability to face fears. Simply stated. And in her inability to face fears, I've developed this catacomb of wretched fears of my own. One of them being...

I'm afraid to share my life story. What?!

All that said...

I have two closing thoughts...

Thought 1. When's the last time you did something fiercely? I think that might be one of my new life goals. To be described as fierce in some capacity. Our intern coordinator was praying for Sonia today in our small group after Sonia had finished sharing her life story. She referred to a 'fierce loyalty' and I just can't get it out of my head. I get stuck on words sometimes and fierce is my word of the day. My prayer is that you would find something that ignites your heart, something you might do fiercely.

Thought 2. Bill Palmaymesa. A man of eloquent and powerful words. Bill gave a talk tonight about David and Goliath. David had five rocks, but he only needed one rock to take down the giant. Cling tightly to the one rock. The God rock. We all have giants that linger in our lives. We sometimes like to dwell in their shadows. We have giant fears, giant insecurities, giant doubts, giant voids of emptiness.

And now I'll leave you with what I wish were my own words of encouragement...

"Go kill that giant. I know you got rocks in your pocket. Now go kill that giant."