Happy Easter!!

It's Easter Sunday today. Christ has risen. He is alive. Our sins have been paid for. The need blood sacrifice has been made. And we are free. We to love Him, free to worship Him, free to believe in Him, because He kept His promise. And now it's our turn. It's our turn to keep our promise. Our promise to love Him and worship Him and to believe in Him.

I have never suffered. Never. When I think of suffering I think of intense pain. The kind of pain that you never forget. And there has not a time like that for me, so I can't say I have ever suffered. So I can only understand suffering in an intellectual way. I can give you the dictionary definition of it. I can speak on the worse pain I had but even then I wouldn't call it suffering. I based on this I feel as though I only intellectually understand what Jesus, God, went through for us. Yes, I believe it. But the true depth of it all escapes me. I'm thankful for my belief. Thankful that it's not about feeling what He did, but to believe that He did it for me and to not take it for granted.

But there is one thing I have always taken for granted though. Or rather never thought of.
I have always thought God sent Jesus to earth to die for us. That was His plan and it had to be done. I always thought of it as a job so He was emotionally separated from it. He was doing this for us so He was happy about it. I forgot the Jesus was is His son. A friend of mine died at the beginning of the year and a number of friends and I went to see His mother, even though the strength she showed, she cried, she cried and wept and the pain she felt was palpable. God lost His son. His son died. His only son died. Because we killed Him. Yes, that was the plan but His son died. Can you imagine the pain He must have felt? I can't. Intellectually yes, but otherwise no. The sky went dark and the curtain in the temple tore but I figured it was just to make it obvious who had just died. But no, God was in pain. Intellectually. I got it. And now I get it. Yes, Jesus died for us, but it wasn't just a contract to be met. It came at great emotional cost.

Happy Easter to you. Our Lord has risen and now we can go back. We can go back to Him. Praise Him.

Watch this to the end. You'll get it.

Sensitivity… and then some.

You would think the world couldn't be more a complicated place and then you realize that everyone is so sensitive about everything: race, gender, sexuality, age, skin colour, and I could go on. I mean sure, there are differences in the world and the not-so-traditional ones would need a certain level of sensitivity for the world to remain a civil place but …really?

E.g., I have nothing against women fighting for equal rights and all that, in fact I support it, but then to get offended when someone says something like "your boyfriend is stronger" talking about who can accomplish some task… that's just… I don't know. I mean… it's probably true though, no? Sure, it could potentially make you feel like you need to buff up but really? Because you also want to be able to change a tire? You are going to get sensitive because your boyfriend is stronger than you making it easier from him to change a tire or wax a car… Really.

Ok, ok independent women are what's in fashion these days and I totally get it, I'm in utter support of it and in fact working towards being one. But be sensitive about the fact that in some parts of the world women don't receive the same wages as a man for the same job and things to that magnitude. The bigger things. The make-the-world-a-better-place things.

I just think some people are just overtly sensitive about some things. Or maybe I'm in a bad mood… or being over sensitive myself… aaahhhh *realization dawns*.

Psalm 69:3.

I must open saying that I feel like a hypocrite. I write these things about God and the bible and how I believe them to be true and then days like… today… happen.

Last week, I played with the idea of writing a devotional. No, not because I know everything there is to know about the bible and our Lord but for the exact opposite reasons: That I don't. Whenever I pick up a devotional to help me read the bible I always, always, feel such a disconnect from it because I cannot for the life of me identify with the things that they talk about. Sure, I could imagine some situation that kind of fits but never fully and I leave it feeling like it was not at all worthwhile and I was not reading or praying in the right spirit of things… I'm not sure I'm making any sense. But this is where the hypocritical feelings come in.

How can I claim to want to build a relationship with God when I can't read the bible because I get so frustrated by not understanding the devotionals that  I'm reading let alone the bible itself? How, furthermore, can I want to write a devotional of my own?

And then ever so often I'm plagued with a feeling of dispair because I feel so far away from the person He wants me to be; going so far off the path that He has laid out for me. Then I cry out to Him from the darkness underneath both my duvets, drowning my bear (yes, my teddy bear) in overflowing …emotion.

It's currently 12:24am. My lights are out, Kirk Whalum's My Faith looks up to Thee is playing and I'm going to try… again… to fall asleep. Sleep because despite all my… stuff, the world and it's expectations never stop calling. I mean, I can't quit now. Not after 3 years and 7 months, of this. Not with about a month to go. Not now.


…And then He said,
"Don’t be afraid, because I am with you. Don’t be intimidated; I am your God. I will strengthen you. I will help you. I will support you with my victorious right hand." (Isaiah 41:10)
…No joke.

I pray the Lord's angels to your bed and mine. May He pour His mercies down on us all….
Good night world.

xx
K.D.

Sovereign Hands - Hillsong United

Sovereign hands

Nailed to a humble cross

Scars you bear

Speak of your redeeming love

No wonder I call you the Savior

No wonder I'm singing

God of all the heavens

Now and 'til forever

High above the universe

God of our redemption

God of my surrender

The glory is yours

Sovereign God

Laying down a holy life

Heaven's Son

Willing to be crucified

No wonder I call you the Savior

No wonder I'm singing

Open hands

Given for a sovereign cause

All I have

God will be forever yours

No wonder I call you the Savior

No wonder I'm singing

Holy, holy, holy Lord

Holy, holy, holy Lord