So I am currently reading, actually, have finished reading, "A Million Miles in a Thousand Years" by Donald Miller. It's definitely thought provoking and had pretty much been the straw on the camel's back in regards to my life being boring. Not meaningless mind you...but boring...a lifeless life. Not because it couldn't BE more exciting...but because I am a big fat chicken, oh..and lazy. I was thinking last night about how much I say "no" to something because it will inconvenience me in some small way. Example: A few years back , we were visiting my in-laws in Missouri. It was a beautiful chilly evening with about a gazillion stars in the sky. My husband took mattresses from the bunk beds and layed them out on the back patio to sleep outside. I declined. "Too cold," I said. The next morning, all the people who slept outside had this great little bonding moment, how they all shared a night under the stars. I missed out. That is MY story. I miss out. Not because there haven't been opportunities to jump into something, but because I choose to.Isn't that sad?What am I usually doing instead?Television. Ugh... It recently dawned on me that most of my life, and the majority of Americans aren't really LIVING life. Instead, we are watching fake shows that enlist actors to live fake lives...or "reality" shows of people who, for good or bad, are actually DOING something. (Whether or not it's worth filming ...that's debatable.) This realization has really got me stir crazy...and of course, this revelation has to come and hit me in the dead of winter. YAY! I find myself daydreaming about running full speed down a beach into the waves of the ocean or prancing through a stunning field of wild flowers with the sunshine on my face and no one around for miles. (Think Julie Andrews in "The Sound of Music") Pretty much wanting to act like a kid again who just ENJOYS their life and every moment of bliss that comes their way. In this book Don talks about how our lives change...we start out wanting to change the world..get married..have kids...make a career...and then somewhere along the middle of life...we get stuck in our story and can't see the beginning or the end. We are just sitting in the middle with no wind or waves. It can get depressing.I have this fantasy, I suppose, of running through one of the above mentioned places and the action of it literally fills me with such joy that I think that while I am running, I might explode from within...as if light would shine out from the tips of my toes and fingers, eyes and mouth. Just bright beams of shining light so that all the joy can come out without destroying me or being cooped up inside my skin. Sometimes I feel like that...like all of me is just cooped up inside and my body is literally a type of prison. I understand, to a point, artists. They have found a way to somehow get what is them on the inside, to the outside of themselves. Unfortunately, many artists are filled to the brim with junk and immorality, so that is what oozes out. Have you ever hugged and kissed your child or a spouse and felt like there was this wall between you and them...as if you couldn't get close enough to them? What I mean is that, only if the two of you were somehow joined together as one being, could you share the full measure of your love with them and also receive that love back from them. Your body holds you back and so does theirs...you can't literally kiss their spirit...only their cheeks. You can't hug their heart...so it feels like you are exploding from the inside...you are too small to have all this feeling within you. That is how I feel. I wonder if that is how God feels? There is a lot of talk in the Bible about being "one" with God, being "In Christ", how Christ is in God and we are in God through Christ...Wow...we are the BODY of Christ. He is the head...we are one being, absorbed back into God from whom we came, yet still known as we are known here on earth. What a true mystery. I remember being pregnant with my babies. I would lie there, feeling them moving around, knowing this little person was inside my body. I was torn because I loved them so much already, that I wished they were born, so I could hold them and kiss them...all the things I could not do while they were still inside. Now, though, I can hold and kiss them, yet I have lost that intimate feeling of knowing they are literally within me, using me for their very life and growth.Maybe that is the picture we are supposed to have of God. In the garden, we were in the womb of God. Fully relying on him, so close to him. When we rebelled, we were birthed out into the reality of the world of sin...and ever since, God has been calling us back to being His children, back to the womb. Back to that place of safety and protection where we are "in" Him and rely on him for everything with complete trust. I don't think my babies wondered if I was going to protect them or feed them when they were in my womb...it wasn't until they were outside that they cried for their food and showed fear that perhaps I might not come to them.And just like my baby crying for me...humanity has been crying out in fear, in all different ways, calling for God to come to them...and He did. He sent Jesus. Our bread of life, our living water. Telling us we will never thirst and never hunger again. He is that umbilical cord that connects us to the life giving Father. Connecting us back to the place that we were birthed from. Without him...we are lost. Stillbirths in a sense.Whoa. This blog took a much more serious turn than I had planned...but what a picture! God is so good...just look to his creation to see who He is! That makes me want to really run on the beach now! WHEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!