hope.

I was looking through my old blog posts for a particular one I distinctly remember writing. I think writing this post was a spiritual breakthrough, although I didn't realize it at the time. I wrote it in October of 2009. That's 2 1/2 years ago. I think I was wiser then than I am now.

The reason I was looking for this post, was because today I filled up the last page of my journal. A journal that I started on November 29, 2010. My journal is big, and my writing is small, yet I managed to fill the entire thing in 16 months. It has good ol' fashioned diary entries, prayers, sermon notes, printed out emails, ticket stubs, receipts, etc.

I decided to finish my journal off with a prayer, and when I put the pen to the paper, the C.S. Lewis' quote from my post so long ago floated to the surface of my mind:

"God is not hurried along in the Time-stream of this universe any more than an author is hurried along in the imaginary time of his own novel. He has infinite attention to spare for each one of us. He does not have to deal with us in the mass. You are as much alone with Him as if you were the only being He had ever created. When Christ died, He died for you individually just as much as if you had been the only man in the world."

His own novel. My prayer ended up being something like this:

God, you have practically written this journal as much as I have. Every thought, every action, every word, you have been beside me, even though so often I forgot. I pray that I will always remember this. The blessings you have poured out on my life are so many. The friends, the family, the support, my circumstances and opportunities - they are all from you. I have no idea Lord how you are using me, or why or what big plans and purpose you have for me. There are a lot of things I don't understand and a lot of things I struggle with. But at the end of the day, the end of the chapter, and the end of my book - there you will be - unchanging, loving, good. I want to seek you first. How quickly I forget that.

C.S. Lewis said a lot of things that are forever ingrained in my mind, and when I wrote "How quickly I forget that" another one floated to the surface.

"The thing is to rely only on God. The time will come when you will regard all this misery as a small price to pay for having been brought to the dependence. Meanwhile, the trouble is that relying on God has to begin all over again every day as if nothing had yet been done."

The trouble is that relying on God has to begin all over again every day as if nothing had yet been done. How true. And often it's more for me, sometimes hourly.

I could write a lot more, about "being brought to the dependence" or the hope that comes from all of this. The hope entry will come later, as it has become a reoccurring theme in my life as of late.