So...now what?

Truth

Just a word or two to clear my head this morning.

I am fortunate enough to have found the love of my life when I was 15 years old.  When you spend that much of your life with someone, it is hard not to know them to the very core of his soul.  And I do know him.  

He is so full of life, joy and dreams that people are drawn to him like a moth to a flame.  Unfortunately, that means all sorts of people.  Good, loyal friends who would do anything for him and who have stuck by him as long as I have. Also, there are leeches.  The sort of people who have very little of his charm and none of his light.  They want to bleed this light from him for their own purposes or maybe they just want to bask in the glow for a time until they can't handle it anymore.  Then they attempt to carry him down with them into the flame.  

Let me add here that when we met, I was enamored of the light as much as anyone else.  It takes a while to learn the workings of someone's heart.  And I tend to guard mine from outsiders.  Not him.  He is what he is.  Loving, generous, open...unprotected.  He faces the world head-on and damn the consequences.  He thinks others mean what they say and say what they mean.  I know better.  

Life has taught me to be suspicious of others and their motives.  No one really means what they say all of the time.  Very few say what they mean... ever.   In the South, women are notoriously skilled at veiled compliments and nasty word play.  I've always wished to be better with this talent.  However, anyone who knows me has witnessed the spectacle of foot in mouth that I often display.  There is very little filter between my brain and my mouth. Perhaps that is why I place such a high value on honesty in others.

All of this is to say that today--through yet another gut-wrenching life experience-- God has made me realize the sacred truth about life in this world a little more clearly.  This world is temporal.  Heaven is eternal.  This is not our home and we will never be completely content as long as we dwell here. I must remember where the origin of my joy is and let my mind and heart live there in order to survive this world.  This world is full of the evils of sin.  Just open your eyes, or expose your heart and you will see it.

"6 Humble yourselves, therefore, under God’s mighty hand, that he may lift you up in due time. 7 Cast all your anxiety on him because he cares for you.

8 Be alert and of sober mind. Your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour. 9 Resist him, standing firm in the faith, because you know that the family of believers throughout the world is undergoing the same kind of sufferings.

10 And the God of all grace, who called you to his eternal glory in Christ, after you have suffered a little while, will himself restore you and make you strong, firm and steadfast."   

1 Peter 5:6-10 NIV