"The most perfect union with God is the actual presence of God.  Although this relationship with God is totally spiritual, it is quite dynamic, because the soul is not asleep, but powerfully excited.  It is livelier than fire and brighter than the unclouded sun."  -Brother Lawrence

My youngest sister celebrated her 21st birthday yesterday, which in our North American culture carries with it monumental aspects.  (Well, I guess the big deal is just the fact that you can now order a drink in public.  I'm not sure what else happens when you reach that landmark age?)  Birthdays in general are a big deal in my family.  My mom set a standard when we were kids that the act of celebrating a person's life is of monumental importance.  It's taken me quite a while to embrace that attitude and perspective due to the way I tend to prefer minimalist, simplistic ways of living.  For the longest time I thought extravagant celebration was excessive and unnecessary, an enemy to the simple.  Over the years, as I've come out of the shy shell I lived in as a child, I've grown to not only enjoy people and their individual beauty, but also to see just how amazing it is that we get the chance, on this side of heaven, to celebrate the miracle of each other.  If that doesn't deserve extravagance and excess, what does?!  And over the past few months, I've come to notice that the more distractions I remove from my life in a pursuit of the simple and foundational, the more I find myself able to engage in celebration and wonder.  Oh the beautiful tensions we come to realize on this journey.

A 12 mile bike ride through heart expanding, mind blowing scenery was the first order of business to start the celebration off right.  There is something soul restoring and spirit reconnecting about biking through what could pass for an Ansel Adams masterpiece.  For the last few months, maybe even year to be completely honest, I've felt an anxiety settle into my thought life that really shouldn't be allowed to stay, but I lost the energy to put up a fight due to a heaviness that started settling into my heart.  It interrupted my peace and rest in ways I never saw coming, and moving to California was my most intentional way of saying I wasn't willing to live that way anymore, that I wanted peace back, to trust my Father with every aspect of my life despite uncertainties swirling all around me and my family.  Sometimes when I make a dramatic change like that, I expect immediate results...like my world will be turned rightside up and everything will instantly fall into alignment.  Despite incredible blessings and total life giving relationship connections since coming out here, there is still this part of my heart that feels fragmented from disappointments of this past season. I think God knows I need to feel those things out in order to surrender them to Him.    Needless to say, I've had bouts of anxiety and panic worse here in California than before I left...and it is just now hitting me that it has a lot to do with moving away from a place where my heart felt the need to stay numb, isolated in hopelessness, in order to survive.  I came here wanting to feel again, wanting to learn what it means to really worship God with all that I am, heart fully alive, fully trusting, fully His.  I feel like God is pulling specific things out of me so that I can walk with Him in a new way in the season to come...so that I can come to a new place of loving well and without reservation.   What love the Father has for us, to lead us into places where we have to lean on Him, where He covers us with His shalom in ways that we would have never known if He didn't confront the places of mistrust in our lives.

On the bike ride, without even seeing it coming, I felt the Holy Spirit envelop me with such love. The morning started out with the subconsciously present anxiety of how to navigate the future, accompanied by an overwhelming responsibility I have embraced, where it is up to me to figure it all out and have a plan that keeps me safe.  A plan that will make sure I reach a future destination that will be enjoyable and free from care.  How ridiculous, even disgusting, the self-dependence of that lifestyle. What slavery, to think that fulfillment comes from going it alone, from reaching a man-made definition of success and security. Yet, as I started peddling, fear started falling off, and I felt my heart developing a rhythm that felt much more natural and right...much more like it should feel when beating with heaven's heart and thoughts.

Which is why reading that portion of Brother Lawrence's lovely account of learning how to practice God's presence really struck me today.  This journey is so empty without that perfect union with God, and where I've felt the absence of that union over the past few months, there is something in my heart that never ever wants to trade that for anything ever again.

So for all the disappointments and fears that inevitably try to rob peace, may we be wrecked so fully and deeply by the present and active love of Jesus, to the point that nothing can shake us from His deep, abiding joy.

And cheers to Brianna and her 21st year of life!  :)  So glad we took that bike ride. ;)