one

i find that i want to write when i'm in turmoil. i guess that's why artists are a little crazy, and like to stay that way. from emotion comes creativity. for some. for me.

i need to express, to write, to communicate. i want to say everything that's on my mind and i want it all to just be okay. would you listen? just for a moment? because i need to speak, i need to give a voice to these words, these obsessions. i need to expose them.

i listened to a message today that was amazing. it was about the weights we carry on our hearts, bodies, minds, souls, spirits. weights we received from our parents, weights we didn't choose, weights in the form of consequences, anger, rejection, shame, un-forgiveness, bitterness, etc. some of these we do choose, i don't mean to say they're all just thrust upon us. but we have them, many of them. these weights that weigh us down. he said something that meant a lot to me. he challenged the common desire to judge a person rather than the sin. we look at people, blind to all the weights they carry, the burdens they bear, and we judge their outward actions, their visible sins. we label them, we judge and condemn. no mercy, we crucify them.

it's sad, how cruel we are to one another, while we are all in pain and crawling from the weight of the burdens we bear. sometimes it's easier to judge someone else. it distracts us from our own issues, even just for a little while.

God loves us. each and every one of us. loved us so much that instead of judgement he felt compassion. instead of crucifixion, he died himself. its a crazy kind of love that doesn't turn away hurt and angry when it sees sin, but it covers in mercy, it dies to save. it's amazing.

i didn't expose my obsessions, only one of many found it's place on this entry, only one of many. someday i pray that i will have the courage to expose more. but maybe i will do this personally, intimately, practicing my intimacy and learning to be loved in a deeper way. this is one of my prayers, that i would know God's love so deeply, his forgiveness so fully, that i could reveal my depths without fear. the deep depths. and allow others to love me in those depths.

the preacher said something else in his sermon, something about earning courage, or conquering...the only one who conquers is able to confront. was that it? something like that. you can only find freedom from the things you are willing to expose, to bring out into the open and deal with.

can i get a witness? :)