Get Up and Walk.

In the past couple weeks, we've had some intense conversations with some dear friends whose lives have suddenly been turned upside down.  They are going through life-defining moments in which the things they hold dear have disappeared, leaving them options - options to find another person to cling to instead, to throw themselves into activities that would distract them from pain, or to run headlong after God, with nothing holding them back from pursuit of Him and His dreams for their lives that they now might have open ears to hear.

And if I'm honest, a weird part of me envies them.

I've had defining moments like this, and they've completely shaped my life.  Chris has had them too, and some of our stories are why we have these conversations with people - we've walked those roads and come out on the other end knowing God better and learning so much about life.  But when the years keep passing after these mega-trial moments, sometimes it starts to become a little fuzzy.  Life starts to seem a little more comfortable when there's not devastating heartbreak threatening to keep me in bed for a week or thrilling tough life circumstances that create an incredible need to depend on the Lord for survival.  Were times like that fun?  Heavens, no.  Horrid.  But I feel like I had the chance to really hear what God had been trying to say to me all along about who I was and what He had created me for.  Now, in comfy times, I know in my head that those truths have not changed... but they do seem a lot less life-or-death, above-all-else important.

"It is not enough to say I love you...
It is not enough to say I need you so...
'Cause every time my tongue does move
It's only words from me to you
And love requires a deeper proof
To do the last thing I'd want to do
For you..."

And I start to stumble.  I start to sink, fractions of an inch at a time, into having a head knowledge of what I feel like I'm supposed to be doing and knowing the joy it brings my heart, but having miles of space between a life like that and what my life really looks like.  And those miles start to look like an impossible frigid desert, full of brush and debris and massive landforms and terrible weather that would prevent me from going much farther past the tiptoes I have in past the boundary.

The terrain gets even more intense when I look at the mountain on the other side, where people who are younger and cuter than me are having a big successful musical ministry party.  Clearly they know some kind of secret I don't, because they picked up and moved to Nashville and now are magically able to support themselves touring for a living and putting out new records all the time.  And others of them must have magical genes because they're barely 22 and writing new songs like a boss to huge critical acclaim.  And others who seem to have lots in common with me, but clearly care about what they're doing more and are better at it because they've booked 20 shows to the one I've chased down.  And clearly they must have more faith than me because I'm not at that party on the mountain with them.  And after all, I'm 28, and that's close to 30, and isn't 30 a bit old to be still trying to think about all this and not have significant progress made towards those goals, to still be stuck in the frigid sand and snow?

"It is not enough to find time for you soon...
It is not enough to give what I would give up anyway,
It is not enough - it is not love."

Which is the mud-slinging, wallowing pity party I throw myself back on the other side of the desert before one of these on-fire, life-defining-moment women (you can read her inspiring blog posts and get convicted about your life here) stops my poor-me celebration with one look and says, "That's comparison.  You are comparing.  Stop it."

She's right.  I am.  I am comparing my life and my inside struggles and sins with only the shiny pretty outside of somebody else's life.  Who is not me.  Who has nothing to do with what God has whispered he wants me to do.  I don't recall ever getting a word from the Lord that said "Jenna, my calling on your life is for you to try to mimic ____________'s life.  They're doing things right.  You aren't creative enough to live your own life.  So, my child, try to live theirs."

But I live like that's what He said.  Like a jealous older brother watching his younger brother, who wasted all of his money but came to apologize, get a big party thrown for his repentance while I sit thinking I never got anything like that my whole life.  Even though everything my Father ever could - and DID - give is surrounding me at my fingertips.  Oh, but for my blindness, I could be enjoying these riches instead of glaring at somebody else's!

Like a beggar who sits, lame.  And begging for Jesus' healing power to come over his life because he can't forsee it ever going differently otherwise - he sees everyone walking by him every day, doing the thing he wishes he could do but is positive he can't.  And Jesus looking at him and saying "Get up and walk."

"'Cause love is an easy word to choose
But weakens the more I overuse
It acts as a cover for the flaw
That saving myself is all I want
To do..."


Get up and walk, Jenna.  The lie that some far off moment is going to come, when THEN I will be successful and satisfied and living out God's purposes immaculately, is just that - a lie.  What am I doing about it RIGHT NOW?  If the answer is nothing, then nothing will come of it.  If I could just change my answer to be something more consistently, I bet something would come of it more often.  Stop bemoaning what could be and isn't, and JUST. DO. SOMETHING. NOW.

"I'm done loving with the words I say
But not with selfishness my deeds convey
I wanna be love
I'm done faking authenticity
I'm not getting up off of my knees 
Til I can be love"

The song I'm writing here and sharing with you (before I even get Chris to edit it and make it better!) wasn't about this originally.  But it certainly describes the present moment.  I am called to love the Lord with the gifts he has given to me.  And brooding about my supposed inability to do so or the timing of it all is a sad replacement for what I could be doing in that moment - living out love by writing the songs He's placed in my heart and letting God take care of what He wants to do with them, to do with me.

"I'm done, I'm done living for me
I want, I want to be a living sacrifice
And give my life for you..."

God, you have to bring me to this place again and again.  I'm so sorry for the time I waste doing this instead of just believing Your promises and living like who You meant me to be, not some imaginary version that I've created in my head that I'm supposed to be measuring up to.  I will try to be me.  And I will try to let go of trying to plan and control my life and instead offer it to You and let You have a turn.