The Paradoxical Beauty of Life

I’m coming back to Lewiston in a few weeks. Coming, going…depends on where you are. To the people here in Boise I’m GOING back. To the people in Lewiston I’m COMING back. Ah, this life God has given me is so paradoxical. It always seems that God has something in my life that’s in conflict, yet works together at the same time because it HAS to. There’re always two truths in my heart straining against each other it seems, and yet they are both the truth so they both have to be there.

What I mean to say is that I’m excited to come back. I feel like my hands have been idle this summer, since everything that I’m deeply involved in and actually can do something for is in L-town. That might have something to do with my insane work schedule this summer. Of course I’m as involved here as I can get, and the Lord has started giving me some important connections down here that I’ll need when I return for good. I can see some doors opening here, and yet in my heart of hearts I know that it’s not the time to walk through them, and so I stay on the road he gave me three years ago…to Lewiston, ID. I know that there is a LOT waiting for me there. People, ministry, school, jobs, and so much more…it’s going to be wonderful.

At the same time, I’m sad that I’m going back. This summer has been…different. And wonderful. Challenging. Mind-blowing. It’s been different than any season I’ve experienced WITH GOD yet. He’s done more through me, I feel, than he’s done in me. I have so many stories of times that he’s used me, and breakthroughs I’ve seen other people have, and divine opportunities that I know planted seeds. And I wasn’t even involved in the Downtown Ministry this summer…it’s all been random stuff God has set up.

My home life this summer has been a paradoxical thing as well—completely safe, and yet utterly dangerous—but, more than that, wonderful. Safe because of the way God set it up, and with who, and all of that. And yet dangerous, at least to my mind at first, because of where I’ve come from. If I were God I wouldn’t have trusted me with this…so THANK GOODNESS that I’m not, huh? He knows me better than I do.

God has stretched me so much this summer in ways that I haven’t been stretched in yet. He’s gone to lengths that I would NEVER had expected him to go to, and completely unnerved me at times. And, in doing so, he’s touched my heart with a tenderness in my relationships I haven’t experienced in years, and an intimacy I didn’t feel myself worthy of again. A level of trust I hadn’t given to myself, let alone thought I would ever receive. I know now, without a shadow of doubt, that “it is finished” and I have an idea of where I need to work on next.

There are a lot of amazing specifics to this summer, but I would rather tell you about them in person…

I guess the point of this is just to say I’m coming back and there’s a lot to tell—I’m so excited! But it’s also to say I’m going back, and it breaks my heart that I have to leave this place, this unique season that I doubt I’ll ever experience again. But life IS paradoxical. After all, Matthew 10:39 says “Whoever finds his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for my sake will find it.” I think that’s a fitting scripture.