a year.

Just realized it has been over a year now since my last post.
Wow.

Thinking, and praising, and lamenting for the seasons that have come and gone in this year.

For the wounds that have been inflicted.
For the wounds only my maker could heal.

For understanding the beauty that is opening yourself up to loving others in full knowledge that they will wound you.
That YOU will wound them.
Because we are human. And that is our primal inclination.

I can only love because I was first loved. I have been given such a gift in a partner in life who loves me wholeheartedly and with his whole being. We go on this crazy journey God has planned for us, our hands gripped together so hard that our knuckles are white, knowing all the while that with God we are safe on this journey. Not only safe, but at home wherever God has us.

That for right now is Chicago.

And I love it.
To feel the pulse, the heartbeat, the thriving and the dying of millions all around you.
God is alive here.
God is moving here.

And there are times when I want to shout it.
And times when I know that I do in the smile that I give someone that doesn't expect me to.

Or in speaking to the man who chose to snort cocaine on the train. He wanted me to be mad. He wanted me to be disgusted.

As I prayed ferociously for him, I begged that God would allow my eyes and seemingly insignificant words to communicate

"You don't have to live like this".

As he left the train he knew.

And until everyone knows, our work shall not be done.

God is calling his children back to him.

Human kind yearns for their Father. Their very hearts cry out, whether they are aware or not.

And we who choose to love them. . .
are no more worthy than they.

"And in my best behavior, I am really just like him. Look underneath the floorboards and see the things that I have hid"
-John Wayne Gacy Jr. By Sufjan Stevens