Deeper than I can convey, not as much as I wish I could say

I think the best way for me to represent the past week is to describe where I'm at right now.

A big day is over. I spent all of Sunday in Bethel Park with Daniel and Nick--an old and oddly good friend. A warm glow remains in my memory from church - eating up Joel's sermon on Abraham (God initiates, we respond, and HE is faithful, not us), playing electric guitar for worship, and really catching up with several great folks outside of my usual social rounds. I got to hang out at the Piersons - something I've been wanting to do all week - and that always leaves you feeling great. They're a special and joyful household :-) We even got to see Spiderman III, after the PLP (Post Lunch Party) chillin' in a parking lot rocking tunes and drinking peach tea.

9:07 found me driving home in my car after dropping Daniel off for his ride back to Grove City and depositing Nick at home. There in the car the familiar feeling of the past week surfaced again. The friends, the fun, the light and glow of fellowship were over. There I was, rolling down the road with nothing but my heavy heart tugging away inside my ribcage. Ahead of me what I see is a strangled 30 minutes until 10 o'clock, after which every minute doing anything is a punishment beating me with future tiredness and irredeemable missed duty. I see driving back down the already-familiar road to the plant and having another day slip beneath my feet, the prime hours passing in a selfless and rigid drain. I see another day just like that afterwards, and another one after that, and another one after that.

Part of me could try to take you further down this path.. try to wake up the mood that tore me apart for days last week. Saddened my heart more than I've ever been before. But the fact is, when I woke up Thursday morning, those wounds were healed. The bleeding battle for God, for joy in Jesus, was fundamentally over . . at least for now. While the facts of what has passed, what is gone, and what lies ahead are all the same, the unshakable grief and sorrow was broken, by the ineffable mercy of God on a beaten-down soul. So while I felt that familiar feeling tug at me as I left the day behind and faced the week ahead, beneath it was and is a quiet peace and general hope of joy, filling out those days as they stretch ahead in my mind's eye. I found God in the valley and here in the clearer ground, and that is not a trivial thing. It's not something that can't meet me as I sit alone in my car with basically everything good behind me and everything hard and undesirable ahead of me. That's the story of this week. The hardest valley I can ever remember, and GOD shining through that, real and enlivening in the days I've been given.

Sorry if this is uselessly abstract or out of left field or something. It's a greatly-constrained chip off the tip of an iceberg that's kinda pretty big in my life.. sort of like the first time this whole "Christianity" thing has actually worked. We'll see how it keeps shaking out as the days roll by, incessantly demanding application and facing me with the choice of going hard for God's will or slipping back into my ways. There's a lot I'm not writing out, but maybe this gives you the idea that last week was pretty non-normal.

As I rode in the car, I walked out again the now-well-trodden path of dealing with the bleakness tugging at my heart. You never know what the right way will be to deal with your heart honestly before God.. a lot of times it's open prayer, kneeling down and letting God in and talking out where you're at. Sometimes it's taking your shirt off, mowing the lawn and pounding Good Charlotte through your head. Sometimes it's having a beer and talking with Dad till midnight. Tonight it was listening to the anthem of this season of my life.

You ever have a song that really hits you for awhile? Something where the words and the music come together almost too well to believe, and it just hits you, right where you're at, singing out what you could never write out so clearly yourself? Well, the ironic thing is, for the past two weeks, that song has been my own song :-) I put on my electric guitar song first ('cause the iPod was at that song anyway), and then I switched over to "Don't Doubt" and cranked up the sound system till it cut and pounded through my whole body. The words spoke to me with perfect encouragement, reproof and hope: "Don't doubt! Trust in what you know He says. Step out. Step out on His promises! He'll meet you. Look at all the lives around! Just trust Him; trust Him with your life." The bridge quaked with the pent-up energy that you can't even quite express.. that comes from living through God meeting you and suspecting, deep down, that He has great, real goodness for you that blows away what you've already seen if you push through and choose that right road. And when it breaks and comes crashing into the chorus... it's like the living, breathing excitement of hope - everything that's happened and will happen.. something you could never write or say without breaking. How could these words, that I wrote myself, reach out and speak to me so perfectly, like the closest counselor hitting me with just what I need to hear? It just makes me smile and wonder :-) I do need to mix more highs and lows into that song, though. It's punchy, but I had to crank the treble, on the FM transceiver, which you never do, and I upped the bass with the sub at full, which will usually leave your eyes bugging out of your head. But yeah, if you want to hear the call of my life and feel the excitement and challenge and tension of what God's been doing, just listen to that song. And go buy a subwoofer for your car, because I tell you in all seriousness, you have not heard a song until you've let its sound actually push your body around with it.

I think I'll stop writing. Crap, it's 11:15. Arrr man, that kills me! [exclamation point of fist-pounding, not excitement or lightness] Alas.

Look at me! I'm not miserable! I'm listening to Copeland, and it's right and good before God. I don't care about anything other than following God and getting His joy. I don't care about anything but that! I don't even know what to say *about* God that's effective enough. Just, look at me, and look at Him! Listen to my song and look at Him. Look at Him!

I can't believe all the things that You've done
Oh glorious things that Your plans have become
I saw you right there in front of my eyes
I can't believe all the things that You've done

--Clear Ambassador