Starting a new job, at least so far, has been like walking into the cafeteria on the first day at a new school. There are new people everywhere. And I'm not sure where exactly to sit, who to talk to, and how long to talk. I'm the new guy.
I remember the squeaking of the plastic folding chairs. The puddles of light cast from high above the backstage area where we sat. I don't remember his name, but I remember his voice: trying to remain composed but on the verge of breaking down. Like a dam was about to burst and all the pain was going to flood out of him.
In my mind, Luke 15 has always started with verse 11. The beautiful final chapter of Jesus' "Lost" trilogy challenges even as it paints a vivid picture of God's grace. A lost sheep and a lost coin? Neither can hold a candle to a parent abandoning all dignity as they sprint to welcome a wayward child. I've never given the sheep and coin their due.
I remember driving one night to say goodbye to some friends. Switchfoot's Learning to Breathe played on loop in my car. I was leaving for college and it felt like the end of the world and the beginning of a brand new one. That was fifteen years ago. And tonight I felt an overwhelming sense of deja vu.
Psalm 139 has always been a source of great comfort for me. I have written a few times before (maybe many times) about feeling out of place through during various seasons of life. To read that God knit me in my mother's womb, to affirm that I'm fearfully and wonderfully made presses a healing hand to the wounds that life inflicts on occasion.
Keep loving each other like family. Do not neglect to open your homes to guests, because by doing this some have been hosts to angels without knowing it. Angels. Messengers. Those who will show us the things of the Kingdom.
Have you ever jumped from some place really high and there's a point midair when you feel like you really should have hit water by that point? That's kind of what these last two years have felt like. When I left Concoxions, it was truly a leap of faith. I knew that I was being called into something else but I didn't know exactly what. There has been much wandering, difficulty, lesson learning, and the testing of patience in that time. A serious test of patience. It's like I leapt and I just kept falling, drifting.
