unsearchable.

Apparently, I was once asked to help with a purity retreat at a church I attended.

I know, right? What were those people thinking? Ridiculous...

Also, I have a long and well-documented history of slamming the megachurch model. And I have always held disdain for the conservative prohibition on cursing.

Most importantly--I have been a ferocious seeker of God. Unfortunately, too often ferocious towards other Christians. But a seeker all the same.

I found my stash of old emails, and journals. The confusion is so obvious. I had such a sense of wanting to feel at one with God. At one. Atone. Chist. But I so often rejected the sacrifice of Christ, in favor of believing in God as a fuzzy deity--one who was personally involved in my life only in benevolent moments, those in which He saw fit to bless me with a beautiful sunrise, or a wonderful evening with friends. And that fuzzy God never seemed to sustain my faith.

There are hundreds of pages of writing, not one of them that don't have some mention of God. Questions about who He is. Ecstatic rhapsodizing of whatever good I felt He'd given me. Struggles of understanding Christians and Christianity, and the difference between them. Hundreds of pages about God.

If you asked me about the last few years, I'd tell you about what was going on in my life. I'd fill you in on all of the family issues, the highs and lows of my friendships, and personal struggles I've undergone, and the victories. But so much of that is absent in my personal reflections, and correspondence with mentors and friends. What's there instead are these questions of God. I didn't realize just how pervasive faith has been. How, in the end, the value I've placed on talking about faith has been much greater than virtually anything else.

I've worried about the future. I've prayed so hard to not let this be an isolated phase in faith. But I don't think I have much to worry about.

Invisibly to me, God has been powerfully at work. I've been far from righteous. Anything but obedient. Down right disdainful of the holy. But in infinite mercy, He's guided my steps anyway. If my past is any indication of my future, God is with me.

Don't get me wrong. I recognize that His mercy is not a free-pass. He did for me what I needed then, and now, I need something different. I've grown, and my responsibilities are new. The things that I now know impel a new response.

But how incredible is His love?

How unsearchable His ways.