A spontaneous prayer

Dear Jesus,


I love you so much.  So, so much.  And I've hardly even begun to know who You are!  It still feels a bit awkward praying to You because I'm such a perfectionist with my words.  And I don't want to say the wrong thing.  But I keep getting the message that I can just spill it out like You are my bro or a friend whom I've known all my life.  So here it goes.....


I keep thinking about how much things have changed in the last 2 months.  It still blows me away, how complete this conviction is.   How real it is.  More real than anything I have ever, ever experienced in my life.  How easy it is for me to think of You, to speak Your name, to feel Your presence, to know with absolute certainty that You are who the bible says You are.  Even when my mind gets going and I'm off in a hamster wheel of questions and judgments and frustrations, the conviction remains, and when I stop, for just a moment to remember that, everything else falls away.  I feel like I am home. 


I think one thing I have underestimated though, is the impact that this would all have on the people around me.  The change within me is so complete, that I cannot even remember thinking/feeling the way I did before.  So when I express from this new place, I find that others are surprised and sometimes downright shocked and I don't blame them.  I am not who they knew me to be.   And I don't know what to do with that.  I don't know what to say other than what I have already said in the previous pages of this blog.  I have to admit, Jesus, this part of the change really sucks.  :(


However, my desire to grow in You is powerful and immense.  I've never known a desire so strong nor a commitment so deep.  Even when I am feeling weak, sad or just plain distracted, it is there, burning deep within me.  It overwhelms me sometimes because when I pause long enough to really focus on You, it grows and grows and grows and I am filled and filled and filled until I think I am going to explode.  It spills over in my tears of gratitude and joy at just Your presence, so full and alive and real!  I have so longed for this all my life and looked for it in so many ways that I still find myself flabbergasted that I have found it, in YOU!   It is so freeing and exhilarating and such a RELIEF to know that I no longer have to drift on the winds of uncertainty and the empty illusions of the world but instead, I can plant my roots firmly in the rock solid foundation of your Love and Truth and grow as You have always meant for me to. 


But as You have said, it will not always be easy.  You have asked me to trust and become more vulnerable than I ever have in my life.  Writing this blog, letting go of very special relationships, facing longstanding intimacy issues that scare the dickens out of me, learning to remain quiet when everything in me wants to scream out my defense/excuse/justification,  and don't even get me started on learning patience.  :smile:   Let's just say, I wouldn't do all this for just anyone!  :silly grin: 


But I know it's worth it.  You are worth every heartache, every loss, and every challenge I experience.  Because I trust You.  I trust You to fulfill the promises You have made.  And because I love You.  I love You so much, I ache.  I have never felt a Love like that ever.  So it's all worth it. 


If I have one prayer, it is that the Love I have found in You be made visible to everyone around me.  That your Love would shine so brightly through me that they, too, would know who You are, or if they have forgotten You, that they remember once again, and come home to You.  More than anything else, I pray for this.


Dear Jesus, personal friend, most Glorious Lord, Wonderful Counselor, You hold the reins to my life, and I remain, perpetually surrendered to Your will.


In Your most holy name, I pray.
Amen.