I keep thinking I should write an explanation about why I don't have comments open. There are two main reasons why I don't- my fear of my ego and my earlier experience with comments on my first blog, which quickly made it evident that, in the face of feedback, I found it difficult to write authentically.
When I write about my inner life, I am aware that what I am describing sounds impossible and outlandish, and also, amazing and wonderful. If I received comments that reinforced one idea or the other, I'm afraid my ego would have a hard time and I would be all over the place very quickly. I would either become inflated in my own eyes, or devastated. I know this because I lived it out in my first blog.
It wasn't a big deal then; it was mainly just an interesting thing to notice, how my blog content and voice altered as I pursued more and more positive feedback and how I changed the tone of my voice when I received no positive feedback. I don't want that to happen in this blog, which is given over increasingly to whatever Jesus is doing in my life.
Having no comments puts my ego on a permanent fast. I am simply very afraid that if I weren't on a comments fast, so to speak, my ego would grow out of control, and it's already an annoyance- I don't mean the healthy ego of a well adjusted, creative person, but the idea of being Someone Very Important.
It is always a temptation to think that way and I am many times a day in conversation with Jesus whenever this idea shows up, as transparency and leaning entirely on Him are the most important ways to curtain the growth of this idea. It is always tempting to secretly cherish the idea of being Someone Very Important.
Whenever I catch myself doing this, I turn to Jesus and lay before Him everything I was thinking. As I normally feel His presence around me all the time, it's hard for me to feel as though I can do anything "secretly," and that is also another safe guard, as I cannot usually pretend that His loving, gentle but keenly perceptive attention has ever wandered.
Writing in the silence enables me to give away freely the mysterious gift of love that was freely given to me. It's a way to acknowledge that ultimately, these things I'm sharing don't really belong to me, although they are incredibly important to me personally.
They don't belong to me in the sense that I don't and cannot earn them, and I don't and cannot make them happen or have any way of ensuring that they continue to happen. They are a gift from God, and so I give them away. Lastly, they don't belong to me because they are an illustration of God's love and faithfulness.
What I am hoping people might be considering as they come away from any story I've shared is- "Wow! If Jesus loves a very and sometimes absurdly human, middle aged American housewife this much, how loving is Jesus! His love is tender, personal, never ending and steadfast. He is a living, loving God."
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"Being chosen doesn't mean that God likes one more than the other, or that some are better than others. Usually, in fact, they are quite flawed or at least ordinary people, so it is clear that their power is not their own. As Paul puts it, "If anyone wants to boast, they can only boast about the Lord" (I Corinthians 1:31).
It's not that God likes anyone better or that they are more worthy than the rest. God's chosenness is for the sake of communicating chosenness to everybody else! That is the paradox, and it often takes people a long time to learn that (read the Jonah story). You lead others to the depth to which you have been led...
"If anything, it is the gathering of the weak and the wounded, to show how God transforms and heals. God gets all the glory."
-Hidden Things: Scripture as Spirituality, by Richard Rohr
