Notes of Exhaustion.

Finally made it home, kids.
To heat, to overgrown gardens, to laundry, to newly engaged friends, to great news from other friends, to business, to time demands, to familiar sights, to the usual.
It’s cool; I like my usual.
But, in all honesty, I am exhausted. Exhausted not because my body is tired, but exhausted because my mind keeps reeling and asking myself, “What just happened to me???!” And how in the world am I going to reconcile my last month to “the usual”? Because I know, even though I don’t know in what way yet, that “the usual” no longer exists.
Which taxes my brains and emotions just thinking about it. I feel like I have nothing left to give. No energy to let Jesus rock my world and still be able to form a complete sentence at the end of it. And why does my usual need to change, sometimes I wonder? Didn’t I just say I was cool with my usual?

Oh, did I mention I came home to kittens?

That’s right.
Wild kittens.
And, considering the small size of the little dears, they are proving to be way more difficult to tame than originally anticipated. I mean, I spent like an hour pretending my hand was a mouse trying to get them to come to me.
No way. And I don't even like cats.
I finally ended up just grabbing one of them; he was not thrilled.

And as I sat there, in the heat and overgrown hydrangea bush, trying to entice the little guys, I thought, “Wow, I am just like one of these stupid cats and God is just like me.”

I mean, all I want to do is pet the kitten. I want to give it a little treat every now and again, but most importantly, I want to teach them to not get run over by my car; I am trying to make their life better.

And all they want to do is fight me and bite my hand.

Are they exhausted like me?

Probably not; they’re kittens. (Don’t they sleep like 19 hours a day?) But by the way I felt their little hearts pumping furiously as I was holding them against me, I could tell they were terrified.
Which, maybe that’s me, too.

Do you ever fear what God wants to do in your life? How he wants to change things? How he wants to tame you to his touch?

I think I do. I understand the wild-ness. I understand the security you can feel in being untouched, unmoved, in not letting things affect you.

If I am not careful I can want to stay there. Whether I stay there consciously, or just want to stay there because I am exhausted and frankly not up to the challenge, I can’t let my fear of a “new usual” keep me in my current state, my current lifestyle. Because Jesus wants me to be affected. He wants things to touch my heart and change my preconceived notions and, as one of my favorite phrases goes, he wants to “rattle the cage a little bit.”

And I need to trust him. He has never done anything that proves he is not faithful, that proves he is not out for my good, that proves he has harm for me in mind. If Jesus wants to change things, I need to let him do it. He might be taming me to keep me out of some harm’s way, you know? Just like how I want to keep those little dears away from my tires. Or, he might just want to tame me because tame things trust that only good things come from the hands of the One who tamed them.

~~~

Here. Have some pictures.

Oh what's up, Jordan River?! You are smaller than I expected. Just like everything.

Hi food-from-Not-America. I'm in love.

Jezreel Valley. Armageddon. Where Jesus is going to come back and just rock the joint.

Nazareth with the bro.

An olive press. A gethsemane, if you will.

You've never seen an unattractive Israeli? Yeah, me neither. Oh that's right, they don't exist. (No, this is not the clothing they wear today. Israel is super modern).

Recreation of a first-century synagogue at the Nazareth Village.