the mess of love

I feel restless today.

Our sermon this morning was on humility - amazing how God works these themes into my life over and over when he's trying to make his point. I am so grateful for God's patient and persistent pursuit of my heart, but there are times when I feel like I'm on overload by all that he is teaching me.

I'm grappling with my pride and selfishness, with my longing for my family and my inadequacies in so many areas - namely being the friend and sister I want to be and serving and loving in a truly humble way. I can't come to terms with the culture I live in, the social values of consumerism and exploitation and injustice that rule our world - but I struggle to present a reasonable alternative. I'm trying to wrap my head around the opportunities I've had to share the mystery of the gospel this week, and how inadequate I feel to do it justice. I'm wrestling with my fallenness and the extravagant grace that has been lavished upon me anyway. I want reconciliation in brokenness, vulnerability in community, sustainability in love.

All these things are filling up my head and heart and overflowing into conversations but I feel like I'm not getting anywhere. I know that isn't true, I see the evidence of grace in my life and even as I read about Jesus' mission in the gospel of John I get swept up in the story of his love for us and I know I'm being transformed. So why the restlessness?

In two weeks I'll leave Portland, perhaps forever - my work here will soon be forgotten, the time spent building relationships will fade to memories and lives will carry on. In a month I'll be moving back to Trinity for a crazy semester exploring intentional community and discipleship. I'll be doing coursework, working on my capstone project, plugging back in at church, running errands, getting swept up again in college culture - and then three months later it will all be over. I'll move downtown, intern until may, graduate and then...

Then I'll get back to trusting Jesus?

I don't want my life to be comprised of the things I do. I want it to be comprised of the people I serve. The people that I put before myself. As I wrestle with the global economy and consumerism and how to live in a way that really honors our enormous God and loves the nearly 7 billion other people on this planet, by my actions - I know nothing more than that God is constant and unchanging. If those two ideas seem disjointed, spend a full minute or two watching the world population ebb and flow on one of those online calculators. The vast number of people being added to this earth every minute is staggering, but it's equally humbling to watch the number dip down every once in a while. To realize that each minute there are people who are passing from life here to life eternal. The brevity of it all is a bit startling.

In fact, it makes it seem laughable that I would waste precious years - years because all these moments of julianne-centric living are adding up - of my life concerned with my own well being rather than wholly consumed with love for others.

"O righteous Father, even though the world does not know you, I know you, and these know that you have sent me. I made known to them your name, and I will continue to make it known, that the love with which you have loved me may be in them, and I in them." John 17: 25-26

Thank you for letting me share this with you. I know these are nothing more than poorly constructed thoughts on a screen - but they have helped even now to reorient my vision towards the only one who deserves to captivate it. I do very much want to share more of what I am learning about worker justice through my time here, but the bits and pieces of insight pale in comparison to the effort of communicating what our great God is doing in my heart and in Portland! Plus, I think it's a sort of a proper prioritizing when it comes down to it. Whatever wisdom I may gain about how to serve in a world of injustice is useless if I do not know Justice and keep him as my guide and rear guard!

~

my dear brothers and sisters, the greatest of these is love.