Life happens

This blog has been languishing. I'd feel bad, except I know that a) no one really reads this, and b) the real world has been full of so many good things that my neglect towards my internet journal can be excused. Nevertheless, I have missed writing. I miss the order it gives to the thoughts in my head. I miss the ease with which words and sentences arrange themselves when I've taken the time to write. One of the most stunningly accurate third-party assessments of myself is that I choose my words carefully. I like to write them down so I have a vocabulary to draw from. I don't do so well when my tongue is left to its own devices. So while this first-writing-in-a-while might also be fumbling and a little awkward, it's a good mental stretch. I will feel the effects of it in the days to come.

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When people ask me these days what is new, it's hard to grasp at an answer. I feel like day-to-day, week-to-week, not much is changing. Little events crop up here and there, but again, in the spur of the moment, my brain can only manage to grasp at work, church, and time at home as big nebulous ideas.

The truth is that things have been changing, all (or at least mostly - I will hedge my bets in case there is something I'm forgetting, lest someone call me out on it) for the better. It's just hard to express in conversation. When people ask me how I've been over the last few months, how do I work in that my life continues to be transformed through God's grace and my love for Jesus? I've been calling myself a Christian for the better part of a year now, and yet I see a marked difference between my faith circa December and my faith today. I hope that when I get married I get to feel a similar continuous increase in love.

The truth is that everything stems from that. This has been heavy on my mind lately. I have a hard enough time telling this to Christians who are supposed to share these emotions and experiences. So how am I supposed to communicate this to my non-Christian friends? If I could time travel back a year and have a conversation with myself about submitting to God, Past Me would think Present Me had gone crazy. Past Me would shut down and not want to continue the conversation. Past Me would write Present Me off.

For me, the problem is trying to convey how much positive change I've gone through since becoming a believer, since God called me out and instructed me to put my faith in Jesus, without coming across as having an agenda. Of course I want all my friends to experience this too, but if any of them are anything like I used to be, there's no argument I could possibly make to change their minds if their hearts haven't been changed by the Holy Spirit. Yet I'm supposed to be called to share the gospel. Maybe I'm just not being called yet. I hope when the time comes I will be given the right things to say.

So until then, life continues. To the casual observer it will look the same as always. To me it will continue to increase in all things good. It's not that the details change, it's that the big picture morphs around it. It's like a Magic Eye puzzle. When you start out looking at it, you see the details, then as you move away and let your eyes relax, a whole new image becomes apparent. Those same details are still there, but a larger picture has revealed itself.

That's where I'm at right now.