| Dinner Vs Junkfood I've been going through a change recently. My ability to let out what I usually internalize has grown quite a bit. I've never felt more alive when saying, "I love you" to Jes, I've never longed for anything the way I long for the child we are expecting, and yet...those feelings compare not to the amazing Love that only God can give. That Love, is what we long for, but instead fill the void by stuffing our hearts with this earthly idea of love. So much so, that it is difficult to look to our Father above to say, "Yes Father, Love me the way only you can!". Even if we do beg for his love day in and day out, there is no way that any of us can ever fathom God's pure, and true love. Sure, we've had our miracles. We've had God show us how wonderful he is. But those miracles aren't just signs of love, they're signs of grace, of mercy.... Hear me out. I remember being a little kid and being called to the dinner table. My grandma would serve me the nicest dish of mash'taters and chicken, with mac and cheese....my favorites...but I wouldn't dip in to it. Puzzled Memo would ask, "Porque no comes?" (why don't you eat?). I was stuffed to my neck in potato chips and junk food. Of course I would get punished, and sent to my room until I was ready to eat real food.....but in a sense...that is what we do to God. God can only Love us purely, because God is Love...yet, we come to God's table full of earthly love, that JunkLove, that potato chip Love, cause after all, "you can't have just one". How quickly, when junk love fills us to our foreheads, do we ignore the solidity of God's true love. Then, once that earthly love disappears, or diminishes, we shake our fists at God, because he is "cursing us". "No me quites las papitas Memo! No seas Mala!" (Don't take away my chips Memo, don't be mean!?"). Little would we know as kids, that, the chips are taken away, so that A) You get hungry, and B) you are fed properly. I don't want to sound like I know too much of what I'm talking about, but this is just an observance of mine....When I sat in a doctor's office, with my wonderful wife, and listened to a highly reputable orthopedic doctor tell me , "no, you will NEVER run the way you did, ever....not even close", I felt nothing but anger towards a God I sang ballads to. I felt nothing but a huge let down. This was God's chance to show me a miracle. To show me some Grace. To Love me purely. When I think of it from the "Eddie today" perspective, I realize that...Love has been a distorted picture my entire life. Through the seperation of my parents at the age of 2, down to the loss of many of my friends because of the love of money....I only knew one way to ignore what I thought Love was....and honestly, I know, that mentally, emotionally, even spiritually, I am not as prepared as I would hope (but will continue to pray about this) to be, for me to recognize God's Pure Love. If my knees were 100% right now, I gurantee, I would be playing a lot of soccer. With John Hasler (added for props). I'm not the idiot that would trade his wife and future kids for playing a game...no...as much as I would hate to admit it though, I would probably trade sunday nights for it...and this is real talk...this is how brainwashed I am on this earthly Idea of love. I am programmed to run away from the idea of a love that somehow will end, or hurt. And I'll hurt my knees playing soccer quicker than I will praying for God's Love. But while I cursed God, while I shook my fist at our Father in heaven, his Grace flowed around me. My heart was the the tip of the rock that never touched the roaring river of grace that flowed around it. I am awake to this....God loves purely. That is the main difference between earthly love, and God's Love. Everything on earth vanishes. People marry, and sadly, lots of people divorce, joined in the name of God, and split by earthly worries and temptations. But God's love is eternal. God's love is pure. God's love is God. God's love will always be there, even if you never loved him back. Is it not amazing, that God never asked me to love him, before he would love me? I've been alive since 1982, so that means he loved me 9 months before that, through 2000 before he even introduced himself properly to me. And even then, all he said was, "I love you...." except for to me it sounded like, "go broke" or, "be a snitch". At the beginning, sure...it felt like a trade off that wasn't worth it. The figures didn't match. Change your life, so that life can change. Love God, and your life will get better. But now it's clear that God was loving into a better life whether I realized it or not. Thank God for Jes. Thank God that he has taught me what Love is NOT all my life...so that I can Love my wife the way he wants me to love her today. Thanks be to God for the struggles we will go through, for at that time, our family will call on him for Grace, Miracles, and Love. Thank God for Bridgeway. Thanks be to our Father, that on sunday nights, after long weeks of potato chips, he starves me on sunday morning so that I can be Fed. And God, you're a wierdo, but I love you, thank you for busted knees. Sorry about my rant...but I haven't blogged in a while. "Where there is no love, put love -- and you will find love" - St. John of the Cross. Ps> Due to the changing color tone of our living room...the Dose painting that is hanging near the corner is for sale. I will sell it for the best offer as of 7/13/2007. Holler at your boy! |
