Saturday, November 01, 2008

So many things, innumerable things

Today I am grateful for so many things.

I am feeling a little extra emotional this morning so I am sure that has something to do with it, but I did my usual web check this morning (email, Facebook, Sheena's blog--sheenachristine.blogspot.com, and then the usual round of blogs, most of which can be linked to from Sheena's blog) and feel blessed at the work women are doing all around me. Their honesty. Their strength. Their radical obedience in such a confusing world.

It makes me feel grateful for home-schooling. Not just that I was home-schooled, but that women are still standing up to society and demanding God's best for their family. I am grateful to my parents for fighting for my sisters and me in this same way; it didn't shelter me. It directed me. And I desperately need direction. Don't we all? I am grateful for the families who are honestly sharing their experiences and changing lives (and by that I mean the world) day by day.

Which brings me to my gratitude for those willing to be honest. My inner community has tightened and tightened over the years, slowly whittling away til just a few honest messy ones remain. Of this group I can count my husband. He is an honest one. A messy one. And I can now call him a friend in ways I was ignorant of friendship before. Even my career has slowly born itself out of my willingness to be honest and real with employers, leading me into great blessings. Honesty is not the comfortable, acceptable road to toll. It's embarrassing at times and rejected very often. Hardly ever is it directly understood. And I doubt embarrassed, rejected and misunderstood are the kind of markers most of us desire for our existence. But there is life in the truth. And unending blessing.

Grateful to the Lord for relentless pursuit. (This list is not a linear hierarchy, by the way, but rather each element relates and complements the other.) He doesn't allow mediocrity. Balance, but not blindness. He has done this in ways I have asked and in others where I was fully ignorant. From the food I eat to the marriage I hold to the doggies I "parent" to the aforementioned schooling I received. He receives my honesty and I feel I am in His inner circle--even in my true state. He pursues and transforms me in the good things and He does it in the painful. And today it makes me feel loved. And grateful.

So thanks. Thanks for the radical honest ones that God uses in my life. And really, this all stems from Him. So thank You. I am dyingly appreciative.

1 comment:

Sheena Christine West said...

How amazing, we both wrote about honesty. I finished my blog, "Kiss me," and then I went to your page, and, BAM! You too are thinking like me. Or I'm thinking like you! Whatever the case, your encouraging, and your honesty over the years has been appreciated by me. I seriously mean that. I admire your heart, and your discernment in life. I look up to you and the things you've battle and overcome.
God is wonderful!!
You are wonderful!!