I remember a long time ago... back when I was in high school.  I was dating a girl then: she was named after a flower.

We had broken up over something.  I don't remember what and it doesn't matter for this story.  All that matters is that one evening I went over to her house.  We sat and talked and I continued to refuse to touch her: no kisses.  She worked on me... she smiled at me... she warmed my heart and stroked my ego.  And finally, I gave in.  I gave her a kiss after weeks without.  It felt good to finally connect again: to lay my feelings at the feet of the girl I loved.

She kissed me for a time.  Then she got a shy look in her eyes and she stopped looking at mine.  She said, "I'm actually surprised that you didn't notice," and I quirked an eyebrow and tilted my head.  She pulled her hair aside and showed me the place on her neck where someone else had left a hickey.  She actually smiled.

I was so angry that I couldn't speak.  I remember standing and ripping her key off of my key chain and throwing it on her floor.  In an effort to control myself, I went and stood at a window... but I couldn't see anything.  Finally I turned.

"You have been working all night to get my defenses down.  I finally open up to you again and I finally kissed you again and then you chose THAT moment to tell me that you were making out with other guys while I've been away thinking?!"  There was nothing else to say... I left.  My heart felt stabbed and my fury wouldn't go away and I had to leave before I acted on it.

I imagine that is how God felt in Hosea.  I even imagine that is how God might feel with me right now.  All that he loves he has laid at our feet and offered it with a wide open heart... and Israel took it then proceeded to pursue the love of idols.  Tonight, I came face to face with that.  I took God at his word and he brought me into his love with no boundaries between his heart and me... and I proceeded to turn around and live life for me.  And I didn't just do it once... I've done it almost every day of my life.  Every day I do something that I think in my mind, "It's wrong, but I really want to do it.  I'll ask for forgiveness later and get rid of the object that causes me problems... but I won't sacrifice that pleasure before I've had it... God's just not important enough for that."

I found my closet tonight.  I just wandered around my apartment slowly with the lights off.  I stood at the window to my balcony and looked at the sky thinking, "Be still and know that he is God".  Then I walked into my hallway and stood for a while there.  There was not a thought in my head... I can promise you that I did not think of a single thing.  Finally, I walked into my room and I picked up my Bible and I closed myself in my closet.  And then I cried.

Hosea was told to purposely go out and find an adulterous wife.  God wanted him to find a woman that didn't just give away kisses behind his back... she gave away her whole self and tore at Hosea's heart.  God did this to try and show the world what it feels like to have his love rip at his heart and soul every day.  I have been God's heartache for too many years... I want to be his joy again.  God grant it so.

To be loved

At the end of the day, all I want is to be loved.  I want to be known for who I am, how I think, and how I dream.  I want to be able to have a relationship without walls or politics.  I want to have a friend so close that I could just comfort in their arms for as long as I want without breaking the bounds of propriety.  I long for a depth of relationship that goes beyond small-talk and simply knows how the other is feeling... relates with them... feels the pain and joy right alongside the other.  Someone that I can lavish praise upon without embarrassment or reserve... someone that I can share every detail of my day with and have them truly care.  I long for someone that makes everything alright just by being in the same room as me.  Someone that can coax a smile out of me in the worst of circumstances.  A person who knows all my deepest secrets... the vile sludge that rots within... and still loves me around it, through it, in spite of it.  Someone that brings out the best in me while still accepting the worst of me.

At the end of the day, all I want is to be loved.

Is there any doubt why I long for heaven?

It's the end of another day and I decided to post again.  I finally got to reading some my friends' posts and to comment on some of them.  I can't help but feel all sorts of bundled emotions that I have no idea how to let out. 

I have so many friends that are in some sort of turmoil and I just wish that I could hug them.  Not the normal wrap-my-arms-around-you-and-pat-you-on-the-back-for-two-seconds kind of hug... I'm talking about the kind of hug you could call an embrace.  I long to hug the hurt away... to help bear the burden... to be a shelter.  I want to hold someone for a long time and have the bare honesty that I earnestly long for. 

But I can't.  Whether it be the male pride and unwritten rules that frown upon showing emotion or the simple fact that hugs don't mean as much to some as they do to me.  Then there's distance that must be surmounted, and my own personal demons that forbid it.  There's rules about who can hug who and there's boundaries that just won't fall.  And it all amounts to a deep-rooted frustration motivated by caring that leaves a sour knot in me.

I really do wish that I could help my friends.  I wish that I could do more than give a temporary reprieve from their burdens.  I wish I could do more than just wish and dream and think and ponder.  Such impotent acts on my part leave me defeated and my friends still in pain and I end the day dissatisfied. 

All I ever really want for any of them is to put a little joy into them... to give them a smile or to make things seem lighter.  I want so much to "be the blue in their gray" as M.W. Smith put it.  But at the end of the day, defeated by my introversion again, I find myself carrying only my own burdens and wondering what happened to all my aspirations.  Did I help someone?  Did someone truly have a better day because I tried?  Did God use me to help someone see Him? 

Is anyone really listening?

I took it upon myself for the sake of a friend to read through my posts and try to remove some small, offensive part of it.  It was to no avail as I cannot edit posts that are too long past.  I found myself immersed in my own thoughts, emotions and memories though and soon began to drink them in.  It was only as I tasted the bitter-sweet memories of dating, the agony of break-up, the light-hearted and the burning anger that I began to realize something: life has shifted from brilliant to grey.

I believe that it was the Googoo Dolls that sang, "... You bleed just to know you're alive".  I still hold self-mutilation as an act of desperation that I cannot begin to bring myself to, but there are other ways to bleed: other ways to lay bare the very quick of me.  I dredge up the deep wounds from my past relationships.  I grasp tightly onto my failures.  I poke and prod at my shortcomings and flaws as a person and imagine the world against me.

How I long for a word, a hand, a song... something, anything, that will reach inside and say, "It's alright.  You're not alone.  I'm here."  Conversations choke and gag on small-talk... my only tender kisses are tainted with guilt and end abruptly upon awakening... all the songs lose their meanings to constant rehearsal and practice till all that remains is meaning for others that hear.  I prick my heart with movies and stories trying to feel like the characters feel... straining to find love in the glowing screen... longing for even the sorrows and losses.  And yet I find that when the music fades... when the credits roll... all that's left is the dull shell of an emotion that once was.  That fragile, smooth surface that shatters when I focus on it.

I have a hope.  How can I keep from being filled with hope?  Is it possible to remain hopeless when one realizes that the grey doesn't get any greyer?  When one realizes that it truly can only get better?  I see faint glimmers on the horizon that make me want to dance.  These glimmers make me want to sing and smile and make me want to throw my hands wide and laugh to the clouds as they merrily pass by.  Such promise is held in those faint little glimmers that even the grey seems lighter.  Even if the promise of future joy alludes me, even for this one night I was able to see them and feel my heart speed up.  I can look out and smile now.  I can feel the warmth of an embrace that may never come to pass.  And for the beam of something brilliant and beautiful I am thankful, even if only for now.  And should tomorrow's grey turn to black I can boldly stare at it and say that for one moment... for a shred of time... I lived in blue and I loved in red and I tasted all the green and yellow that God had for me and I trust that He has rainbows for me again somewhere far from now.

I know that this all seems somehow sad... or worse, contrived.  But I am reminded of a phrase of truth that bears repeating: "Artists paint the truth using lies."  Is my life so bleak and unbearable that I stagger under the weight of the sheer blandness of it?  I can't say that it truly does.  I can say that miss deeper thoughts.  I can also say that I miss more colorful feelings.  Even the intensified emotion of college life and the extreme pains and pleasures found therein are somehow preferred over the somewhat diminished life of now.  But I was never asked what kind of life I wanted to live.  And so I need to make the best of what God gave me.  Like I so dramatically (if not too artfully) put it, I need to be thankful for the moments of happiness I have now.  To be thankful for the possibilities that God has allowed to come my way.  So, thank you, Father.  And good night.

A wanning ache on the edge of perception, my past loss still finds a way to drear my existance.  The void was hollowed further by the falling away of the familar comfort of friends upon graduation. 

"These are the best times of your life."  Curse the person who coined the phrase... curse them for being a pessimist... curse them for being right. 

To be needed is a deep and burning desire of my heart.  To be appreciated and to be known.  To have a niche... a place where I belong.  So often I find that queasy feeling inside that something I am is misplaced or unfitting like a middle-class worker at a regal ball.  Similarly, I find that my presence is often considered a pleasant but ultimately unnecessary modification to most people's daily plans.  Though I'm undoubtedly thankful that I'm considered a pleasentry rather than a burden or dred I'm still left with an unfilled vacuity to be truly wanted. 

"What is the purpose of life?" people often ask themselves.  But I know that answer.  Rather, I wonder where my place in life is?