Let God Love Me.

"All I could do was let God love me." ~ Jerry Sittser, A Grace Disguised, p.105

These are the words that speak over me this morning, that reverberate in my soul. The first few weeks and months after mom's death, I knew him as "The God Who Sustains" but now I am transitioning into this new period. It's is yet untitled, but I simply need to know him as The God Who Will Be.

My prayer life has been functional and yet dysfunctional all at the same time in these months. I am usually, used to be, an avid journaler, disciplined about my time with God, and pursuing him in such ways. But the first three months after mom's death, I could only say "I walked in prayer" because that was exactly what it was. I couldn't sit down to pray, or spend periods of time devoted to prayer in the way I had known it before. Nor did I have the capabilities to really pray for other people. But I walked with God. I knew him, I simply walked with him.

This transcends, in part, to today, but I feel it at a different level. It mimics itself in both my walk with God and my walk with my friends. I get frustrated with myself, and am frustrated with myself much of the time because of this. Because I still feel like I have nothing left to give. It's been now four months, at I would think at this point I would 'recuperate' more to this normal self who cares and listens and befriends, but I still find myself largely on the taking end, the consuming end, the needing end.

I am not used to being this needy friend. But I am. And I can label myself that - the needy friend. I recognize it, I know it, I simply acknowledge it. I am the one who needs and takes and suctions from others to simply help myself be.

I try to be caring, I try to ask questions, I try to see outside myself. But still at this point, I only see me. I only feel me. It's frustrating to me that I still live this way, and sometimes I wonder how long until I get out of this sphere. But it is, and I'll call it what it is: only seeing me. I'm sorry to my friends, and pray one day I will be able to look past it and again see you with greater whole. But I am also thankful to those of you who continue to stay with me, who continue to walk through the depths and transitions and love me all the same.

I have never seen friendship in this way. I have never felt the grasp of it to this point before, but I know it now. I see it in a whole new way. I see friends who take me past the points of life and grab on to the greater me. Who knew and walk with me through so many stages, and still love me the same. Through college fun and hardship in teaching, to weekends and vacations, to funerals and tears. These are friendships that the tie that binds runs so deep I couldn't even put words to it here.

But I love them. I need them. I accept them. And for months now, I have been the receiver through my need. In my honesty, I accept the fact that I still will be. At least for a while now. And someday, that may come out 'on the other end' and I will glimmer through this window and begin to walk with you too, rather than you just holding my hand and walking me. I will pray for you more diligently, call you more often, send you cards and packages, create meals, host weekends, and gather evenly with you. But right now, you are the ones who do this praying over me.

And this spirit echos with God. I have little to give him but my disjointed self. I have little to offer but my tangled emotions, mixtures of anger and disappointment and grief and need and resentment and faith and hope. I can't even define some days which is which. But they are all there. And he takes me anyway. He doesn't ask right now for more than that, just that I simply be.

And so this morning, I giving myself a new grace, one that is different than before. One that releases me. I am letting go of my expectations for myself as a friend, as a teacher, as a roommate, as a godly woman. And I am simply going to be. I am going to simply "let God love me" and live in namely that: grace.