Abandoned

So things have been a little crazy lately...

Every time things get this way, I crave some quiet downtime, and though I might not be able to grab as much of it as I'd like to, I enjoy spending such time unwinding with some thoughtful music and typing my thoughts out here.

Lots of exciting stuff has been happening lately, which I've become over the last few weeks, very familiar with pitching to anyone and everyone I meet. But this space and this time isn't for talking about those things. It's for talking about real.

Real is the fact that in spite of the whirlwind of activity going on around me, there are still the quiet, empty moments - that somehow seem to be felt even more acutely against the flurry of events taking place.

Real is me very much wondering if where I am and what I'm doing is where God wants me to be.

Real is wishing I could trade all these amazing things for the simple things - for a shoulder to rest my head on, for a hand and a heart to hold.

Real is asking how much longer I have to wait for those things.

Real is trying not to lose sight of the goals I run towards as distractions crowd in from all sides.

I want so many things. More time. More energy. Someone special. A simpler way to do things. A less scary way to reach for my dreams. I want a lazy day in.

At times like these when I look at all I lack, my hands and heart feel so empty, so aching to be filled.

I suppose this is what it means to devote yourself to something with abandon. To spend yourself to the last drop on something you consider most worthy over every other love. I guess the reason I'm still here pursuing what I believe is worthwhile over pursuing what I want... is that I've found that Something.

Something I wouldn't trade for easier, for less scary, for someone to love me and hold me the way I want to be loved and held right this instant. Something infinitely better than all the other good things I can think about.  Something I would spend every last reserve on, even if it means all my other loves take a backseat.

Times like these my hands and heart feel so empty - but I know, even though I don't feel it - that they are being filled, with the kind of fullness that comes from spending every last bit of yourself until nothing remains... only whatever you have been spending yourself on.

I know even though I may feel tired, afraid, discouraged, lonely - I know I am being changed. Slowly, but surely. The thought processes that take place in my head, the instinctive reactions I have to things - slowly, they are being changed.

Speaking of spending myself, I have been very challenged by the life of an amazing man, William Borden, who understood exactly what it meant to abandon yourself to a worthy cause. I have this quote book that's one of my most cherished possessions in which I write down every quote that's meant a lot to me and carried me through the seasons of life.

On the front page, I wrote his words:

"No reserves. No retreat. No regrets."

I pray with every morning I wake and every breath I take that those words will be my life's prayer.

No reserves.

No retreat.

No regrets.