He Finds Me.

Learning more about Jesus this year made Easter a whole different kind of thing for me today. I have had a really difficult year, and I have been so furious and confused with what the Lord wants from me and through me, I've never doubted that He was there but I have doubted that he cared.

I've clung to the rock that is higher than me. We have wrestled over my heart and my life. He has sat with me in sorrow and He has been big enough to handle my anger. He was rejected by the ones He loved most in the world, not only to save me, but I think also because He understands me. And that when his people hurt he hurts, when Lazerus dies Jesus foams at the mouth in anguish at how hurt his people are. I know that He knows the pain I have felt this year and that instead of demanding I be ok, my "Suffering Savior'' has wept for me and been more hurt for me than I know. I prayed so often that I would learn how to 'wait on the Lord' and how to 'trust his plan,' but thats not how it works, its not that we figure it out,  its that He does those things for us.

Reading the story from Mark where the deciples are all out on a boat and a storm comes up while Jesus is sleeping and they say "Lord, do you not care that we are perishing?" And Jesus responds "Peace! Be Still!! Who are you to have no faith" and it says, "the deciples wondered who this could be that even the wind obeyed him." Normally I would be so quick to judge them for having so little faith, but when I read those words they resonated deep in me- because thats how I felt- Jesus! Dont you care that I am drowning here?! and the answer is He does... and He has showed me so much of who He is through the deepest of hurts, and I think that makes Easter so much bigger for me this year.

A friend of mine told me that, I could either pretend to be ok and try and soldier on or that I could go down and let myself feel this pain at the very deepest level and trust that Jesus would meet me there because thats what he promises to do, and you know what? He did.

Today when my Pastor said "Why do you look for the living amongst the dead, He is Risen!" I lost it. My amazing father was tempted in all the same ways that I was, he knew that I would over and over and over again look to 'death' instead of life, he knew that I would fail and that I would hurt and he came, he was rejected. Writing this seems to do the whole topic so little justice. Words seem so finite and superfluous.

I think what I'm seeing is that my anger and hurt has increased my ability to appreciate who the Lord really is, not who my books and stuff have said he is, but who the Bible says he is and who He was. I was so moved by Pope Francis' choice to wash the feet of prisoners at the Juvinle detention center in Rome, instead of those of the 'saintly' priests. He did exactly what Christ would do and sought out the least, the fringe people and spoke to them. In taking me through a valley, the Lord made me a fringe person, I felt like the least of these and because of that was able to feel the Lord seeking me out and using me for whatever it is that He has.

I have come so far from where I was in November and I am seeing that I am not invisible to Him. I see that the only safe place to deposit my heart is with Him. I see that because I believe in Him I am a cherished spouse. He rose again because of great love that is so far past what I understand.

Halleluja He has found me. Better yet, Halleluja He finds me, over and over again. The one my Soul so long has craved.