Rapha

So tonight I feel like I'm starting to get it...or perhaps my mind was refreshed into the truth it already knew: it's not about me.

These past weeks, since moving, my relationship with God has been up and down to say the least. For the most part, I have felt distant from Him. I've been trying to figure out the problem, but have had little success. But tonight I think I am finally seeing the problem; my angle of focus has been slightly, barely noticeably, altered. Instead of focusing on the God who lives in me, I have been looking at the me. Instead of being in love with my Healer, I am in love with the healed i.e. myself.

It's not that I'm so worried about what people will think of me and it's not that I need people's affirmation. It's that I have been looking in the world around me for ways to glorify myself -whether or not that includes human affirmation.

And when I'm in love with myself, then life feels dull, listless and empty. I've been longing for life, but I've been too captivated with myself to accept it. And it's ironic because when I am least focused on myself and most in love with God, I am most myself. When I am lost in His promises and letting His love seep into my heart, I am most beautiful and captivating (the things I strive for but can never quite achieve when I'm looking at myself).

The word that kept coming to mind tonight has been: Yahweh-Rapha-the Lord is Healer. Rapha-Healer. Here I sit, not knowing my place in a city that's not my own, far away from the life I love, dirty with the hasty decisions of a do-do-doer and a terrible spokesperson for the cause of Christ's death and the hope of His resurrection. But His name is Healer-the one who makes bitter things sweet.

These are my life verses and I'm going to end with them-they seem fitting at the moment.

But [ashlee] said, “The LORD has forsaken me, the Lord has forgotten me.”  

[But the Lord replied] “Can a mother forget the baby at her breast
   and have no compassion on the child she has borne? Though she may forget, I will not forget you!
See, I have engraved you on the palms of my hands; your walls are ever before me"

For I have loved you with an everlasting love
-Jesus



Jesus, loving You changes me.

-ashlee