The Paradoxical Beauty of Life

"There is nothing so painful to the human mind as a great and sudden change."
–Mary Shelley in Frankenstein



Today I feel like I can't handle any more emotion. Like I can't handle anything changing dramatically back home in Boise or elsewhere, can't tolerate another large assignment, can't handle another powerful sermon, can't manage another profound insight or breakthrough…Just can't do it. I can't remember the last time I felt like this, but I've felt it lately.

Automatically, a statement such as this usually garners a pity party, or the impression that experiencing this is a bad thing and I want someone to be sympathetic to my stress, give me their wisdom, et cetera. It is quite the opposite, actually; I feel as if it's a product of positive developments in various areas of my life. Please allow me to explain.

I have found a concept running around in my brain this past week: an overwhelming feeling that I was made for this. Every moment of my life, painful and happy, were leading up to the day I gave my life to Jesus, and every season since is better than the last, as I become more like the Lord. I'm in a new process of building now—building to become more like God—and as I've passed into "building phase 2" we'll call it there's this increasing feeling of today is where I'm meant to be…my entire life has been building up to today…I was made for this.

Every day I've woken up with that feeling. As I walk across the frost-covered field to my campus and my job, praying for the day and the people I know I will see along its course...Today. I feel taxed and pushed to my limit, but I know that "limit" is only in my mind, and I feel as if I am capable of so much more. This same no-limit thought process has stretched to my reactions to emotional events in life, physical exhaustion or pain, stress levels…pretty much everything. I think—I know—that this sense of "more" stems from my spiritual life.

I adopted a saying this summer while working night shift and starbucks that I repeated pretty much constantly: "I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me. He is my sustainer and my redeemer." I repeated these scriptural declarations about God for hours on end, at any given time when I felt like I couldn't make it another step. "All of the sudden" I would get a ton of energy that carried me through the rest of the long night straight until I had safely driven the 30 minutes home and parked my car, at which point I would become exhausted.

I repeated it so much, in fact, that I'm afraid it wove its way into the very fabric of my being. (a poetic way to say I suddenly believed it) I find myself with no limits, even in my spiritual life. "Why not pray for this person here and now? Why not see that arm grow back right here? Isn't our God the God of the Universe who imagined the arm and formed its parts from dust? Why not see people rise from the dead right now? Why not cast out demons, and walk down dark alleys to reach the person the Lord wants to talk to, why not do all of the unreasonable, impossible, dangerous things that everything in my culture and my human nature says either can't be done or shouldn't be done from a false sense of "caution" (aka fear). Why not? Who is my God?

You see, the Lord told me to read Ezekiel, and he's shown me things through it. He told me to abide in him, and he's done things through me. He's giving me visions in the night, and visions when I look at people, and visions for campus and college crew and work and outreach and…and…wow.

In all of this boundlessness, this all-things-are-possible, to feel these past two days a lingering sensation of "I can't handle any more things. I just can't tolerate another sweet word, another kind look, another 'I miss you, I love you', not another blog, not another letter, not another phone call, text, sermon, anything…I just can't do it." It's so good and so sweet to me, because no matter how intensely I feel like I can't, there's this overwhelming thing inside of me that knows with all unwavering surety that I can, I will, and I will love it.

In these days of precious stress and weakness, the Lord our God moves. Every emotion inside of me strains and says "I can't" as the reasoning in my mind says "I shouldn't"…and the Spirit of the Lord has to overcome me again and move through me. There's this distinct sense of something else moving through me in all the glorious, wonderful things He has me do, say, read, etc. The Spirit of the Lord.

"I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me. He is my sustainer and my redeemer." He who is in me is greater than all things, not just he who is in the world. How big is our God?

My question is simply this: why not? Why is that "your limit"? Is it truly your limit, or is it just a constraint held in your mind? How much could you accomplish if nothing were impossible or too much to you? All things…hmm.

I feel overwhelmed. It's such a wonderful thing.

God bless,
Jennie