The 3 things I want most

I have begun reading a book by Madeleine L'Engle called The Rock that is Higher: Story as Truth. Two pages and I was crying, 18 pages before I had to stop reading and drive to work. By the time I got home, my head and heart were bursting. I'm not entirely sure what it was that got to me. Perhaps it's the reminder that I don't have to have my future figured at the age of 27. So many of the women I look up to went through life the way anyone else does: one day at a time, and they got to be 50, 60, 70 and beyond, wiser, kinder, and serving God in ways they never dreamed possible when they were my age. Or perhaps it was the reminder that God gives us the strength to bear whatever may come our way. Whatever it was, by the time I got home yesterday, I knew three things to be rooted as the cry of my heart, desires embedded so deeply in my soul that they outweigh that self-centered "need" to prove myself in a field such as mathematics.

1. I want to serve God. Valiantly, faithfully, passionately. Patiently. I want to be a warrior of my faith with a servant's heart, my Savior's compassion. To stand firm even when opposed or it appears I am stranded - the world would have be believe - in the dark. To love the "unlovable" and live in the world, but not be of it. Speak with a boldness of conviction in love and peace, overflowing with joy in every circumstance. Trusting. From this desire flows all others.
   
2. I want to build a home, with God's help, that is a safe-haven for my family and friends. To be a wife and mother in a home where my husband can let down his guard, feel honored and respected, my children are free to be who they are, and all who cross the threshold feel safe, loved, cared for. A home where God reigns and we cling to Him in the good and the bad. This begins with me, my heart, not when I get married, but now. Do I live my life so that when others are around me they feel free to be themselves, let their guard down, feel honored, respected?
   
3. I want to share my heart and all the Lord teaches me with others. Whether through my writing, speaking engagements, mentoring, or simply living. There are 2 books I am currently working on, too many stories I have long since left behind that deserve to be told, people to love. I do not have to have my first book published by 30, 40 or even 50. I can share my life, my brokenness with those I encounter every day.
   

I must be shrouded in a mantle of prayer, trusting that God's timing is good and perfect, studying His word, and not ignoring His people. Lord Jesus Christ, have mercy on me.

Madeleine L'Engle

from Walking on Water: Reflections on Faith and Art by M. L'Engle (1918-2007)

"Faith is for that which lies on the other side of reason. Faith is what makes life bearable, with all its tragedies and ambiguities and sudden, startling joys. Surely it wasn't reasonable of the Lord of the Universe to come and walk this earth with us and love us enough to die for us and then show us everlasting life?" p. 22

"Often we forget that he has a special gift for each one of us, because we tend to weigh and measure such gifts with the coin of the world's market place. The widow's mite was worth more than all the rich men's gold because it represented the focus of her life. Her poverty was rich because all she had belonged to the living Lord." p. 31

"And then there is time in which to be, simply to be, that time in which God quietly tells us who we are and who he wants us to be. It is then that God can take our emptiness and fill it up with what he wants, and drain away the business with which we inevitably get involved in the dailiness of human living." p. 170