My coffee mornings and He dies every day

Today started slowly. I woke up early just to sit at my table and enjoy my coffee and finish Zechariah. I found myself writing small things about "moon-eyed lovers" and a tiny man no bigger than a pinky fingernail after I had mused on my carpenter and His fast approaching presence in my Bible. The New Testament is going to be so good. I can feel it in my bones.

I have become impatient. I swear it's this school year that has driven me to it. Just the idea that I am almost done, that the finish is within my grasp, it makes me squeeze my eyes shut so hard that they wrinkle in a way that might stay there forever. I don't mean to, but I just can't help it.
I apologize to my future self for the crow's feet.

But all that is not what I want to tell you.
What I really want to tell you, is that Jesus died for you. And if you already knew that, I just want to remind you of it.

Jesus died for you.

Is it bad that I feel like that's new to me everyday? I hope not, because it is. I can barely believe it. I have to grab for it every morning when I wake up. I have to let it settle every night. I have to remind myself of it. I cry. Weepy eyes + quiet sobs. Tears on the pages of my Bible. Laments pressed into the quilt my mother made me.
I can barely stand the thought anymore.
And yet,
it's my favorite thought.

It's that warrior part of my soul, the piece of my spirit that just cannot let go of the men of battle.
I promise you that only a fighter will capture my heart.

I think that we have made the cross into something unavailable, something irrelevant. We've made it hard to tell people the honest truth of the matter, and that's inexcusable. That's sad. That is is sad. The cross is undeniably one of the most important parts of the story. Without it, there is no story. Yet. Yet, when we stand there shivering in our own two legs and we try to tell it the way we know it, we can't relate it.
It seems like it doesn't fit anymore.
And God, it shouldn't be like that.

Calvary is relevant. The cross is relatable. And Jesus's death fits.
It just fits.
I need to tell you that. Because I know it seems like it doesn't, but it does. Even when you can't explain how horrible it was, even when you don't even understand the reality of what actually happened, even when you don't have the science to describe His broken heart, know that it fits. Know that your struggle for the right words and adjectives and the biting of your lip in nervousness will not take away from the truth of what happened. Ever or ever or ever.
Jesus died. It matters so much how it happened. Out of all the ways it could have. And it matters that we don't even do it like that anymore. That we don't kill people like that anymore. So keep that in mind.
Jesus died.
And He rose.

And that is enough.

Praying always

This morning I sat on the back porch, wrapped in a blanket and drinking iced coffee, and reading. I was supposed to read the first chapter of Jonah. I actually did read the first chapter of Jonah, but then I really wanted to read first John, so I did.
Chapter two was especially my favorite.
I like the parts about walking like Him and having confidence. There is something exceptionally beautiful + sweet in having a God that reassures you that you can do this and He is coming back.

We have had visitors all weekend and this week now. It is something very special + lovely, to always have people around. We are embarking on an adventure for tea today, and it is quite possible that bicycles will happen as well. In the midst of all this joy though, I am making time to pray for the important things. This morning has been very much about Saeed Abedini and his imprisonment. I'll confess with my brutal honesty that I don't always remember him and other people when I should. It is hard, it is hard to concentrate on the difficulties of people you have never and probably will never meet. See, sometimes I am selfish. Sometimes I find time for painting in the color of plum, but not praying for the people I should.
Sometimes I am a failure of a believer + human.

But it is by the grace of a carpenter that I will overcome my shortcomings and deny my selfish desires and pray.

It's mornings like this that I actually believe that of myself.

In love.

My hands were shaking today. I was tired. I am so tired of this. I sat at school, mad at the people around me, reciting poetry and reading 1 John so I wouldn't be so mad. But I was. I was so mad.

I am so tired of people giving up.

Three people today, in three different classes, at three different times said what I can't even imagine saying.

They all denied God.

I wonder sometimes if the people who give Him up ever actually had Him.