There is Nothing Sexier than Character

Your question got me to thinking, and then to remembering, and the result was a story letter that was too personal and too obscure to send. Although it might be the answer for some others, my collection of stories was not the answer you are looking for, except this one.

We were sitting on the stairs talking. He was telling me, without saying so, that he had chosen to love me. Coming from a man of his twenty-eight-years’ experience it was enough to send my heart and my mind reeling. My mind was popping with objections and hopes, but mostly objections.

If he could feel this way in a few, short weeks, I wanted to be careful and I wanted to be quick. That was before I knew what he intended to endure while I sorted myself out. Instead of relishing a new relationship, I jumped straight to the practical, hard questions, because if there were good reasons to terminate the relationship I wanted to know about them immediately to spare our hearts.

Despite my previous research in the subject of Christ-centered relationships I no longer had all the questions at my finger-tips. I had not expected to need them at my disposal so soon. So I tried to explain, without sharing too much of myself--I was not ready for that yet--that I had no models of the relationship I yearned to experience. I did not know what it took to build the foundation of a healthy relationship, or if I possessed the tools to build one, or if I had the discernment to know the difference between a healthy relationship or a bad one. He told me that the foundation was already in place in the strength of our characters. And yes, I possessed a good character, including characteristics he particularly admired.

It was a message, in a way, I had heard before, that one good person deserves another. One good person desires another. In the past being an interesting person took precedence over character, and it often felt that my developing character was being overlooked. For the first time in my life I had affirmation, honor, and grace bestowed upon me, and honestly I did not know how to respond.

So when you find her, the woman you love for who she is, surround her with this, continually, as long as it takes. Until then, abide with Christ. Abiding with Christ prepared me to be a good woman for Him and also for M. The same grace will be allotted to you, the fruits of which, I told you before, I look forward to celebrating.

Inspired by "Child in Aspens"

When I was a child I crawled like a child, very cautiosly at first. Then I crawled faster than my mother could walk, but she always had a way of reaching me.

When I was a child I walked like a child, with abandon. With newfound power and freedom I burst forth across the wide open field, until I reached the fence and I came running back home. Or I fell; I was closer to the ground back then.

When I was a child I danced like a child. I danced as a princess in her golden ballroom twirling and twirling and twirling around. When I was done twirling, I would start running, and I would run far, far away.

When I was a child there was no end and the horizon was a mystery I wanted to discover. The golden forest had no end, for I could not walk to the other edge. The ocean met a sky as elusive as the moon. As far as our boat could go the ocean stretched and stretched without end.

My steps grew longer until one day I saw that the trees, the golden trees, stopped growing at certain elevations. My motorboat was stronger and took me to another coast. On the other side I found strange customs and new forests which led to other oceans. There was a pattern, but no answer, and no longer any mystery.

My weary steps grow shorter so to carry me back home to those endless days in the golden aspen and the shining sea. When my hair is sterling I will go on twirling, twirling, twirling endlessly.

Old Letters Do Not Lie Like Memories

If anyone has a copy of your “fingerpaintings for God” it would be me, and I am positive I overlooked it in the pile of letters and printed blogs I just sorted through. It is a shame that I can not locate it because it proved, beautifully, if I remember it correctly, a point that was made in Sunday school today. Although I was disappointed by the loss of that illustration I was also a little disappointed in the words I encountered during the search, words written long ago to and from a good many people during my search for God.

Lately I have been asked to retell that story, and I have told it more or less vaguely because that has been the right thing to do. But I was miffed by my assignment to write a testimony being reminded that I always wanted a more definate story than the one I got. When I told my friend that I wished mine had been more tragic and therefore more black and white he scoffed me, which made a point: that God wrote His own story and who am I to despise it? So I told it, as clearly as I could, with what thematic details I could remember. And it worked.

I did not save a soul, but my audience loved what took place in my life. They saw what I saw, that God had pursued me all my life. He also waited until I was in a safe place to bear the gospel before He gave me the opportunity to know Him. It is a good testimony for me, fast becoming a reformed Christian, and with a very sensual sense of the supernatural.

Embracing my story for the first time, I eagerly wrote the outline for a book, and the following day unearthed reminders of that difficult journey. It was a spiritual war too huge for our imagination, one friend wrote, and it was probably well for everyone that we could not comprehend its vastness. It amazes me to think it was so much bigger than anyone of us witnessed; there were nights, feeling suffocated by a vortex, I thought I would never wake up. Those days I did not much care if I did. As a result of this, however, I developed a sense of God’s love that perhaps I would have missed if I had murdered someone or been left for dead after a rape or over-dosing on drugs--the types of things that too many people can relate to.

Like my the story surrounding my physical birth, my spiritual birth is a story that once I wrapped my head around it, convinced me how special I am to God. It also convinced me that I was never in control of my choice to receive him, though I proved to be as difficult a child for Him as I was a good child to my human parents. I know that I was also difficult for my friends. (As my Sunday School group debates over the definition of a community of grace I want to stand up and tell them about you, for you all were the model of God's grace. I do not do this because I do not know how to recreate such a community, which is the point of our discussions at church.) The letters I carefully preserved from that time are as a smell: I am transported back to those horrible, dark, lost days. My letters demonstrate my confusion, and yours show how delicately you handled that fact. I am pleased to see that the problems that once seemed unsurmountable have grown small. Some people hardly recognize me.

Thank you again to those who bore with me, for trials produce patience and God will complete that good work which He began in you. You will be hearing more about this shortly.