Day Eighteen

Tonight, in the middle of our pre-game prayer before Living Waters, I noticed that I had this overwhelming need to be touched. It's tough to explain, but I needed a hug or a hand on my shoulder, something. I just needed to feel touched. In a startling change of pace, perhaps because we were already in prayer, I reached out to God instead of the people around me. I told God that he would have to be the one to touch me. He would have to be the one to meet that need. I basically demanded it.

It is something that I've felt for a long time: God's wanting me to turn to him with my needs. And so, I finally did. And he came through in a major way. In the middle of worship, the leader invited everyone to sit down for the next song and put themselves in a mindset to just receive from the Lord. I stayed standing, and as he played I felt...held. Just a full-on bear hug from God. It was incredible and just what I needed.

So that was tonight's prayer and the answered prayer, and the thing I'm most grateful for.

The worship period started out with me going directly into worship, something that hasn't happened in a long time. Recently, I've had to fight tooth and nail to get my heart and mind to a place where I can worship. Tonight, that wasn't the case. Something broke. Right away I felt God challenging me to let him be God in my life again, and I felt myself say "okay." It felt even weirder than I imagine it sounds. But it also felt like coming home.

In that moment, I also realized how much of myself I've buried and given away over the last year. In a very real way, I've lost track of who I am. I know that "I'm good enough, I'm smart enough and, gosh darnit, people like me," but I don't know why. I can imagine why: I'm basically the bomb. But in my quest to relate, I've become all things to all men and so little in and of myself.

I mistook diving headlong into the lives and interests of my friends for a part of loving them. But, alas, I was wrong. As is usually the case with love, it's an exchange. And I was holding back on the goods, not giving them a chance to get to know me and what interests me, what I'm passionate about, what makes me the person that they know and love.

It's a rookie mistake and clearly not fatal, but it's one that I'll be correcting, forthwith. I'm looking very forward to some exciting changes in my life. Starting this weekend. I have a free evening and I can do anything I want to do. Although I don't really remember what I like to do with my free time, I'm going to have a heck of a time finding out.