"Let me explain-- no, there is too much; let me sum up."

There is far too much on which to catch up for the last month, so I won't bother for now. But I will say that I plan to start following the excellent examples of my favorite bloggers by writing shorter blogs with more pictures. (The problem being, of course, that I am perpetually long-winded, theology is rarely compact, and the only camera I have is my phone.)

That being said, however, there is this:
*On Monday afternoon during Bible Study (Beth Moore's Believing God-- do it!), we were challenged to believe God for something-- anything-- that affected us deeply. I chose believing that He would in fact continue to perfect me until the day of His return. Too often I see my own sinful, recalcitrant self as an insurmountable obstacle in His way. Theological rot. I asked Him to sweep me over the next spiritual threshhold despite myself, like a groom bringing home the bride.
*Monday night the Father occurred it to me that I don't understand how much He loves me. After all, would I see myself as an obstacle if I realized this were a two-sided tango? It's not difficult for me to bend over backwards for those I know love me to pieces; there is something motivating about being cherished. It's only when I feel I must love and obey out of duty that the going gets depressing: I know how little I am able to do that. I asked Him to prove how much He loves me.
*Tuesday evening I was at the Care Center watching Beyond Regret, a dvd we share with post-abortion clients who want to start the healing process. In it, it was suggested that until a person comes to terms with the magnitude of their own birth, their own humanity, the fact that God intentionally made them, it will be difficult for them to value the life of anyone else, especially of an unborn child.
Somehow I had never fully grasped the intentionally part. I've told numerous other people-- emphatically!-- that God planned them from the beginning, that they were not mistakes, that He wanted them etc. etc. etc... However, subconsciously I believed that, though He made me, it was almost as if He designed me, chose me, planned me (before the foundations of the world) after my parents had sex. Which makes me, essentially, nothing more than a "product of conception." Cold, clinical term. And again, total theological rot. The thing I felt the Father saying to me as I watched that dvd was, "I wanted a Jessie. So I made one." If that is the case (and it is), then the equation goes like this: if He wanted a Jessie and so made one, she is not bigger than He is, He will not leave her to herself, nor will He fail to take a keen interest in teaching and parenting her. Or completing her.
I am not on my own.
As the Irish say, At all, at all.