Closer to Love

"don't apologize for all the tears you've cried

you've been way too strong now for all your life...

you pull me closer to love."

It hit me. hard. in the face. at a stinkin red-light. a song played softly through my speakers and I sang the words like i have a thousand times before. in my head i thought, "i dont much like this song." and then it hit me right there. i realized what it was all saying. i realized that this song that i "dont much like" sounds a lot like my heart these days. in some beautifully tragic way it all came full circle for me at a red-light on memorial. but let me back up and explain things.

I have hardly been the same since Africa. afterall, who could be the same after a trip like that. I have wrestled with many things since my return and basically i label it my "post-africa" mess. but since fall retreat, i have had many stepping stones to redemption. a break in the clouds. recently, i finished Katie Davis' book Kisses From Katie. While reading this book, I was confronted with the emotions I have long since become numb to. If you have not had the chance to read her book, I highly recommend it. Her stories will make you laugh and they sure will make you cry. but most of all they will show the real truth in her life. and that is something that i cling to. the truth that i feel most americans miss on the subject of 3rd world countries.

with reading Katie's book and being left in such awe after these cloud-breaking moments, when Closer to Love by Matt Kearney came on shuffle i finally realized the whole point of all this mess. it was to bring me closer to love. closer to my God. to bring me to my knees and give up control. and to be honest, it did just that. how could i have missed that? how could i not see that his was his plan all along? im not sure but  here i am, almost a year later, and i am stronger for having gone through. i still think there are many lessons for me to learn with this and i am by no means out of the woods yet, but i am delighted to say that i am at this point. as Bon Iver says, "this my excavation, today is Qumran." today might just be my Qumran, something that completely changes the way i have ever before viewed these thoughts. and i thank god for that.

so here's to realizations. here's to Katie Davis. and here's to being closer to love.
shosholoza {keep moving forward}
-em

-I apologize if some of this may not make coherent sense seeing as
how it is still quite difficult to find the words to explain.