The Year of No Limits... to living by my feelings

I know it's a little early to do a Year In Review, but I've been thinking a lot towards 2010. In conversation this week I was talking about the year 2009 as "The Year of No Limits," and before I had a chance to think, I said, "This has been a crap year."

Wow.

The minute the words were out, I knew they weren't true. And to classify an entire year as "crap" ... that's a little overly-dramatic, right? This has been a groundbreaking year for me. I bought a house - something I NEVER thought I could do as a single woman on one income. I got out of credit card debt - yet another feat I NEVER thought would be accomplished without divine intervention (thank GOD for his intervention that made it possible). I had an opportunity to be a part of a groundbreaking worship recording at City of Life. I accomplished projects at my job that were difficult and time-consuming and hard; things I'd never done before and never thought I'd be asked to take on. Yet I accomplished them and (most of the time, if it was in my power) did them excellently.

Yet those words betrayed the position of my heart. Because while so many amazing things have happened to me this year, my own personal mental state, my spiritual state, and my emotional state has been pretty out-of-whack. I started the year with a break-up, which is never fun. Plus, this was my very first break-up, so I was experiencing feelings I never had before. For once, I didn't know how to handle something. And while God was incredibly merciful to me and worked a miracle in healing my heart quickly and fully, I think starting the year this way sort of threw me off, emotionally.

I began living from and out of my feelings. Insecurity gripped me and drove me, guiding my decisions. I literally felt like I was living on the brink of losing my mind, as my fears surfaced and took the driver's seat.

And, unfortunately, as all these amazing things happened to me that I listed above, I was so disconnected from all of them that I didn't truly enjoy any of them. I was so busy scrambling, working, striving, grasping, all to maintain some kind of security for myself that I couldn't provide anyway (Hey did you know I'm not God? No, really!), that these glorious moments passed as nothing more than a bother.

I'm looking forward to a fresh start. I've been truly putting effort into putting my feelings in their proper place. I've been re-ordering my life and letting God re-introduce himself to me, starting with the basic and only lesson I'll ever really need for life with him: his love and, more importantly, his LIKE for me.

Develop In Me A Longing That Is Unrestrained (Richard Rolle)

I ask you, Lord Jesus,
to develop in me, your lover,
an immeasurable urge towards you,
an affection that is unbounded,
a longing that is unrestrained,
a fervor that throws discretion to the winds!
The more worthwhile our love for you,
all the more pressing it does become.
Reason cannot hold it in check,
fear does not make it tremble,
wise judgement does not temper it.