find me.

I started writing this blog almost 10 years ago.

In some ways, those 10 years feel like minutes. In others, like decades more.

I've built a career in that time. Gotten married. Been miserable in marriage. Seen time, and God, and maturity bring that marriage through to happiness. I beat cancer a few years back, and I beat it again every day. I've gotten kicked around in the church a little bit. Made some good friends. Lost some good friends. On and on.

Through it all, until recently, I didn't realize that somewhere along the way, I had stopped letting things in. People, and God, and hope. I had become so focused on making a good life, and keeping it all together, on overcoming the hurts inflicted by life in the church, that I was no longer living with vulnerability. I'd stopped anticipating what God might do. I've become stingy with...everything.

But then, a few months ago, I discovered these sermons -- there's this guy name Matt Miofsky who preaches his heart out every Sunday at this great church called The Gathering, in St. Louis. And as I listened, something familiar stirred.

Conviction. Deep conviction. Anticipation. Closeness with God. Remembrance of what He did for me, and what He does for me, and oh my stars, what will He do next? Every sermon ignited in me an excitement to pick up the bible, to stop in prayer, to be more generous, to invite as many people as I could meet into Love.

It had been so long since I had felt these things. Which is why I jarringly realized how tightly shut my heart had become, how high I had built my walls, how completely selfish I had become.

I don't know how to be vulnerable again. I don't know how to stop putting up a facade with people. I'm not sure how I start the process of dismantling the artifices of pride and status and self-importance. I just want to be with Jesus again. Not with him because I'm standing next to my church staff husband in Sunday worship. Not with him because I'm leading other people through some or other bible study. Just with him. Just us.

I have no answers. I've just been crying out in prayer "Find me." Because I don't remember how to find him.

After all, he has found me so many times before. I have to believe he's got one more good story to tell.