Competent Humility

I'm just home from the Adoration chapel (my weekly one hour date with Jesus, only I'm usually at least five minutes late, because I call my Mom on the way there, and well, ten minutes is hardly enough time, but leaving sooner proves mostly impossible).  Tonight was one of those nights I didn't need the coffee I drank beforehand to stay awake, because I am in epiphany land.  Land of epiphanies.  When did I write you last?  A couple of weeks ago, I think.  Pretty much since then.

My clinical pastoral education supervisor challenged me to make "claiming my competence" as one of my learning goals.  I was shooting for "positive use of power and authority", which seemed much more clinical and considerably less narcissistic, but I conceded.   I could see that she might be on to something when I couldn't so much as comfortably name one thing I knew I was good at, or why I was good at it, without feeling like a total clown/heel/Oscar award winner.

I quickly accepted I was going to have to recognize the competencies I already possess and name them.  But, I wondered why the idea of it felt so abhorrent?  This might be one.  A long carried belief...

...God highly values the man who out of true humility belittles and forgets himself, judges himself unworthy of all gifts and benefits, does not flaunt them when received, and does not seek the praise of others...                             -Thomas a Kempis

Very aware of the tension between my learning goal to name my pastoral competencies and a life goal of pursuing humility (hopefully with a more lenient deadline than six months), I began to rack my brain, perusing my new books for hints, and trusting that God would resolve the real or perceived conflict between naming my competencies and belittling and forgetting myself!  Goodness me!

In doing so, I came across a chapter entitled, The Caregiver's Life Experience as a Source of Authority.  Aha!  Life experience!  Yes!  I have that.  Good, here we go...

Without reading so much as a paragraph from the chapter, I made a list of all of the things I've endured or overcome in my life (including but not limited to the four things mentioned in my grief timeline from my last post).  Afterward, I was actually feeling a little embarrassingly proud of that list.  Huh!  I had never considered my hardships as bullet points on an emotional availability/proven character/pastoral competency resume of sorts.  Kind of cool to drop this list (pretend it's written on an old tin can) into the empty metal bucket of my self-perception, and hear the loud clank of something in there!

That would have been quite enough self-revelation for a good chunk of time to come, but, it was quite the same thing again (in rapid succession).  While I was sitting there, feeling good about all of the bad/hard things in my life, I realized, "Hey!  That's not all!"  There are a lot of really good things that should be clanking around in that bucket, too!  Fourteen years of marriage, twelve years of motherhood, seven years of working in the clinical setting between the medical and spiritual side, three units of clinical pastoral education, and a partridge in a pear tree!

Ha!  Hoo and Ray!  

Feeling instantly more competent in pastoral care than ever before, I thanked God for the mercifully brief period of revelation, all of the experiences in said revelation, and returned to the conundrum of forgetting myself while thinking about myself inordinately.

Providentially, I found this little gem of a daily morning offering, a few days old, in my inbox from catholiccompany.com:

"There was much in the Magdalen that she had never used, perhaps never dreamed of, until she came to our Lord. He revealed to her the secret of true self-development, which is another word for sanctity. And she found under His guidance that everything in her had henceforth to be used, and used in a fuller and richer way than she had ever imagined possible. It was in no narrow school of self-limitation, in no morbid school of false asceticism, that this poor sinner was educated in the principles of sanctity, but in the large and merciful school of Him who has been ever since the hope of the hopeless, the friend of publicans and sinners; who knows full well that what men need is not to crush and kill their powers, but to find their true use and to use them; that holiness is not the emptying of life, but the filling; that despair has wrapped its dark cloud around many a soul because it found itself in possession of powers that it abused and could not destroy and did not know how to use. Christ taught them the great and inspiriting doctrine 'I am not come to destroy, but to fulfill.'"
— Fr. Basil W. Maturin, p. 40

I felt extremely humbled at the thought of being so needy, so well-known, and so hand-fed.  Exactly what I needed.  There was only one thing I still needed to know.

Where do the corners of Magdalen's true self-development and Thomas a Kempis' humility intersect?

Back in the chapel, I asked the Lord this question, in so many words.  Can you show me what being competent and humble at the same time looks like?

He did.

And Did You Get What You Wanted From This Life Even So?

This post is a little different from the others, in that I'm not sure what the point is going to be.  But, I am pretty confident I will know at the end of reflecting with you, here.

This week I started the fourth and final unit of my Clinical Pastoral Education program.  A requirement for becoming a certified chaplain.  This only matters because that's where the question was posed.  The question that has me sifting through past memories and photographs.

After a brief description of the six types of loss (not to be confused with the stages of grief), my classmates and I were challenged to make an elementary timeline of our biggest losses, what type of losses they were, and how old we were when they occurred.  That step was fairly easy.  Mine looked like this:

Pretty self-explanatory except where "systemic" is crossed out in a couple of places.  I was unsure if it applied.  It did.

This exercise was the last one of the day.  We went round-table, shared, and went home.  That seemed fine.  Until I got home.  I pulled in the driveway and didn't even have the emotional energy to get out of the car.  I texted a friend from my class and we met for coffee, which helped a lot.  But, afterward, I still felt like I had entered a time traveling machine, and for whatever reason, like I needed to stay in the past, ask questions and get answers.  Only the person I need to ask is me.  And I'm 39-years-old.

In trying to examine the past from a great distance, all squinting, telescopes, and magnifying glasses fall short. I'm just not really sure about a lot of it.  Do my feelings now accurately reflect my feelings then?  Do memories mirror actual events or are they products of creative writing without the inconvenience of writer's cramp?  Was my most self-sacrificing moment really my most self-sacrificing moment? Does it matter?

Looking through old photos for clues, there were poignant surprises in both directions.  Happiness where I remembered sadness and sadness where I remembered joy.

In the end, as I heard someone say recently, life is full of "mixed blessings".  If you could only use two words to sum up life, these two should be in the running.  Shade tree or not, this seems like a good bench to rest on, along the rocky road of what ifs and did I really's and why didn't I's.

In the world of mixed blessings and pleasant surprises, Traveling Mercies - Some Thoughts on Faith, has been a great one!  I thought it was going to be cutesy and maybe quotable at best, but it is raw and very honest, instead.  I always prefer the latter.

I'm only a third of the way in, but life looms large.  Faith is a minor character in the distant hills, but there just the same.  This morning, with all of this other stuff swirling around in my head, Anne Lamott starts Part Two with a poem by Raymond Carver entitled Late Fragment:

And did you get what you wanted from this life even so?
I did.
And what did you want?
To call myself beloved, to feel myself
beloved on the earth.

Yes.  This.  This is what matters.  Being beloved.

In looking at pictures from throughout my life, I'm surprised at how many pictures exist of people and things I've loved at different times.

For example, I've devoted years of my life to horses - riding them, caring for them, and caring for people who rode them.  But, I haven't ridden a horse in nine years. The pile of pictures of the girl on as many horses in as many places look like me, but they don't feel like me.  In a way, I would like to be her again.  Fearless and free.

But, the reality is, I traded fearless and free for beloved.  Horses for a husband and boys who make my home feel like a barn without the hay.  And I would do it again.  

I guess those are life's victories.  Those things that you would do again.  And again.  And again.

Losses can be grieved, weighed, examined, and considered.  Life can be reflected upon, and it probably is worthwhile to do so, as long as you return to where you are.  Here.  Now.

The river of life has never left me in an eddy or changed directions.  It has gently and steadily moved me downstream, as it will continue to do.  Always with something bittersweet from the past, something to be enjoyed in the moment, and something to look forward to.  And none of it, alone.

My front door keeps slamming.  Shirtless boys are shouting - running in and out, playing in the rain.  A pork tenderloin is roasting in the oven, Andy Griffith is on TV, and I am beloved.

Stick Figure Souls

I thought I'd send a final thought for 2016 and a first thought for 2017, as New Year's Eve is upon us. I always feel a little contemplative on this night and a little astonished at what the world is toasting...like who wore what and which videos were the most popular.  Chewbacca mom, water bottle flipping, and a little girl giving her very patient dog a wellness exam, if you're curious.  Here's to you, 2016.

Maybe somewhere, folks are still making New Year's Resolutions.  No one in my house, unless you count school-age boys committing themselves to playing more paintball and taking more trips to Grand Station.

Every year it seems like physical fitness and weight loss are popular themes for resolution makers.  I've been one of them. We applaud this and we should.  Our health is extremely important, but there is one thing more important still. That which we cannot see, but is the only thing that matters in the end.

The life is not for the body, it is for the soul, and man too often chooses the way of life that best suits the body.      -God Calling-

So.  How about this for a fun and potentially frightening idea?  What if you could see your soul and it looked like a stick figure or a cartoon laying on its face?

Which one of these figures would your soul most closely resemble?

Is your soul healthy and eager to respond, as the picture on the left would suggest?

Maybe just a little tired and sluggish, but still on its feet?

Perhaps, your soul has a cane or is in need of a wheelchair option?

Or, ya know.  The last one.  With "nope" written over it and a period on the end.


Whatever the case may be, there's good news and no one has to know about which "sticky" soul you claimed.  The only One who can see it, has already seen it and sees it still.

Hang with me if you're feeling discouraged. There's a lot of great news here...

The first bit of good news is you have a soul and God loves it.  The second bit is you're still alive, so even if your soul is laying on its face, there is still time to get it on its feet.

If you're willing.    

The third bit is that everything you need to improve your soul's posture is available to you, and it knows what it needs.

NOURISHMENT  

In John 4:34, Jesus says, "My food is to do the will of him who sent me, and to accomplish his work."

God Calling expounds, Soul-starvation comes from the failing to do, and to delight in doing, My Will.  Make it your meat to do My Will.  Strength and Power will indeed come to you from that.

May you nourish your soul well all the days of 2017, and experience strength and power in doing so.  Happy New Year!

Giving Credit Where Credit Is Due

If you read my last post about buying your own boots to stay married at Christmastime, you'll be happy to know I got boots for Christmas. Ha!  And all of that fighting for nothing.  That alone is a reason to write.  But, there are more reasons than that.

I am usually quick to write when my husband and I have a run-in.  I process it here and share it with you, because those of us who are committed to staying married need the reality, camaraderie, and encouragement. He gives me his blessing to share and I give him the courtesy of a preview before publishing. That's pretty big of him.  I don't know how many husbands would be willing to do the same.

Now, we're a week into Christmas break and I've been sick for the last couple of days.  Not deathly sick, just the annoying kind.  Runny nose, cough, and the like.  He tended the brisket on the smoker all of Christmas day and has made breakfast every morning without complaint, taken all of the boys shooting (when I don't remember the last time he went alone), and took them fishing and out for dinner last night.    

If I had the chance to rate him on a husband/father 5-star scale, he would have five stars and that was before he made breakfast this morning and cleaned up afterward.  Beyond that, he spent all day replacing our water heater, welding pipes, replacing sheet rock and all.  It's 8:23pm and he just came inside, limping and with a little less arm hair.   .    

At no point did he complain or act put out that everybody else in the house was free to do whatever they pleased, while he was stuck doing his marathon project, which we were all going to benefit from.  He welcomed the boys' "help" and even managed to keep a game of "Pocket Tanks" going with one of them.  He ate his dinner leaning on the dryer in the cold garage.  It is on days like these, that I know my husband is a better person than I am.

I would have been a bear from start to finish, and that's if I knew how to do the job in the first place, which I don't.  This scenario replays all of the time, too, when it comes to replacing this and repairing that.  He sees things dripping, rusting, and breaking, and he knows that until he plugs, replaces, or fixes it, it will wait on him.  And he will think about it every day.

I will never have an all-day house or car repair project.  I have meals and laundry.  Oh, so daily, but never heavy, hard, really dirty, or dangerous.  If I can be honest, I would choose my lot over his, but that's just in theory, because I can't do his anyway.

So, here's to you, husband of mine!  Thank you for taking care of us and making it look easy.  Thank you for letting me write about you, and us, and ours.  I want to be like you when I grow up.    

Buy Your Own Boots: Staying Married at Christmastime

I'm just back from an hour-long walk in the rain.  Needed the exercise and to blow off some steam. My dog didn't even want to get out of the car to hit the trail.  That's a new one.  But, it was necessary, rain or not.

It was necessary because my husband and I had kabobs for lunch last Thursday.  I know, it's Sunday. It probably seems like a weird detail to include.  I wish it was.  But, the Thursday lunch is still relevant because we're just getting over it.

Lunch was going well enough, but then...

What do you want for Christmas?

Popular question this time of year.  I said that I actually considered the guitar lessons I'm taking to be my present, since I am so excited about them and they're expensive.

But, then you won't have anything to open on Christmas morning...

Ok, some earrings would be nice.  Or brown boots, like the black ones I'm wearing.  Or my favorite shoes in brown.  Or a new guitar...

But, how would he know what kind of boots I like?  Size?  Color?  Style?  Fit?

Well, it's no different than anything else, unless I pick it out myself.  There's a chance I won't like it, and it can be exchanged.  I'm a size 10.

But, he doesn't want to get a gift that's likely to be exchanged...

Well, I'd rather spend a day shopping with you than have something to unwrap anyway...

But, the damage was done.  He thought I was being difficult and I thought he was being irrational. The cold good-bye kiss felt virtuous because I waited to leave until we were finished eating, when I wanted to walk out in the middle of the meal.  

So, the walk in the rain.  There were some puddles that engulfed the trail, which I was able to tiptoe around on the way out without submerging my foot completely.  But, not so on the way back.  Maybe I was a little tired, but certainly less careful, and the cold water filled my right shoe twice over.

As I walked on with my squishy shoe, I was thinking how easy enough it is not to have a squishy shoe (when was the last time you had one?) and how stepping in a puddle you are trying to avoid is like some moments in marriage.  You can see trouble coming, but try as you might, you can't avoid it. And then, you're in it.  All was well, then rainy, but manageable, then just soaking wet.  

As on time as it could be, a tree, twenty feet or so off the trail, broke off near the top and crashed to the ground.  Yep, I thought, in the throes of making marriage metaphors.  Another perfect example. Don't get enough of what you need some of the time, too much of what you don't need other times, and 20 years later, the top falls off and crashes to the ground.  Poor tree.  It just divorced the forest.

I was the only witness, but it did make a sound.  

Here's the thing.  We're not trees.  We have thresholds like they do, but they don't have feet like we do.  They can't move closer to the things they need or farther away from the things that bring them harm.   And even when we use our feet to step in it up to the ankle, we can still move.

Sometimes moving toward understanding is really loud.  Like a tree smashing to the ground.  Like this morning.  In trying to get back on the same page, voices were charged, and not just our own.  The boys, unaccustomed to such vigorous discussion, were yelling "Shut up!" from a bedroom.  This is not allowed in our home, but apparently they thought the rules had changed, at least momentarily. Although there was no change in the rules, what had changed was they were all in one bedroom, and not fighting.  Nothing like a common enemy to strengthen the bond of brotherhood.

I've been married for fourteen years.  I intend to stay married.  But, sometimes, we have to fight for it. We have to move toward what is important.  Because, we're not trees.  Because we can, and we must. Sometimes, it gets loud and requires a walk in the rain. But, it is always worth it.  Even if it means you buy your own boots and swamp them in a puddle every now and then.


May the God of endurance and encouragement 
grant you to think in harmony with one another, 
in keeping with Christ Jesus, 
that with one accord you may with one voice 
glorify the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.

Romans 15:5-6

Consoling the Grieving With Awkwardness and Goodwill

As you probably know, I don't write an advice column.  All of my posts are the fruit of my thought-life and experience, shared for your entertainment or very optimistically, to offer hope or help.   I have very few thoughts I am willing to impose on others as ideal or best-practice.  I generally assume people have already thought about what they are doing or saying and are motivated by their own reasons, in which case advice is neither sought nor appreciated.

However...

I've been in a few situations lately, which have stirred something within me.  I've stayed up late writing about it, only to leave it again, afraid to offend or create scandal.  These situations involve being at someone's side whose world has been turned upside down by the death of someone they love.  I've been there at different stages for different people - during the dying, at the death, at the moment they learned about the death, days and months later.  

I count every one of these moments as a privilege and something sacred.  But, they are uncomfortable.  And yet, what is just as uncomfortable, is finding myself cringing in these same moments.

Not cringing at the love, which manifests itself as pain, tears, and grief in every form, but at what little we have to offer in the way of words.  But, we use them anyway.  And they fail to land in the heart of the hearer.  My fear is not that they do little good, but have the potential to harm.  To create distance.  A feeling of not being understood.

If there is little else, there is always a lot of goodwill in anyone at the side of a grieving person.  It is not an easy place to be.  We are likely struggling with our own grief and trying to help another with theirs.  We struggle to understand why spouses leave widows, children leave parents, parents leave children, and how full-term babies can die on their birth-day.  

We no more understand these things than the man on the moon.  But, if we're Christians, we know God is involved, so we run to the safe-place.  God's will.  It's the only way we can preserve our sanity and our faith.  This is all we have, and consequently, many times, what we offer to the grief-stricken.

In our attempt to console a grieving person, we offer the only comfort we can find for ourselves.  We remind them that the death of the one they loved is "for a reason".  "All part of God's plan".  Or that "God needed him/her more than you did."  Said another way, "All is as it should be."

If the grieving say and believe these things, then by all means, we can readily agree (if we believe them, too).  But, unless we're asked for our opinion, we should let the grieving one take the lead here.  It is hard to receive, "All is as it should be" when every fiber of your being says, "Nothing is as it should be."  

1 Corinthians 2:11 says, "For what person knows a man's thoughts except the spirit of the man which is in him?  So also no one comprehends the thoughts of God except the Spirit of God."

We can know God is good.  We can know that He will bring good out of everything, as Romans 8:28 proclaims ("We know that in everything God works for the good with those who love him, who are called according to his purpose."), but we cannot know what God is thinking when he commands or allows a person to die.  We would do well to remember this when our turn comes to comfort the grieving.    

When someone is grieving, even a person with great faith, it is very possible that the God they believe in changes.  Maybe forever.  If you believed someone was responsible for causing you greater pain than you ever could have imagined, would it be any immediate consolation that the person responsible thought it out thoroughly ahead of time?    

The box made of our thoughts about God and how we relate to Him shatters.  But, we know God doesn't change.  God is the same yesterday and today and forever (Hebrews 13:8).  We change. Understandably so, and probably for the best.  Ultimately, if we don't abandon faith altogether, we are forced to let God be God and to accept what we cannot know or understand.  An uncomfortable, but properly ordered relationship between creature and Creator.

No one has ever had the nerve to say it to me, but I wouldn't be surprised if amidst their distress, they were thinking, "To hell with God's plan."  The incredible thing is that God's plan did go to hell, as we're told in the Apostle's Creed: https://www.ewtn.com/Devotionals/prayers/creed2.html.  He made provision for that, too.

The Apostles Creed

I believe in God, the Father Almighty, Creator of Heaven and earth; and in Jesus Christ, His only Son Our Lord, Who was conceived by the Holy Spirit, born of the Virgin Mary, suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, died, and was buried. He descended into Hell; the third day He rose again from the dead; He ascended into Heaven, and sitteth at the right hand of God, the Father almighty; from thence He shall come to judge the living and the dead.  I believe in the Holy Spirit, the holy Catholic Church, the communion of saints, the forgiveness of sins, the resurrection of the body and life everlasting. Amen.

Even hell or our thoughts of what belong there cannot change Who has been there and rose again. Jesus Christ.   This is our Christian hope.  The hope of the resurrection.  We do not need to know God's thoughts to know history.  

I am not an expert on any of this.  I believe everything we profess in the Creed.  But, I also believe the kindest thing can be to hold off on holding it out as our means to comfort.  Maybe I'm projecting my pain onto the grieving, but my heart hurts for them when their friends and family take away their freedom to express their pain, bewilderment, doubt, or anger with "God's plan".

 I thank God for the faith he has granted to me and the many truths related to it.  But, that doesn't mean they are a source of consolation in every moment, especially when you just want to be held.    

Please know that this post is the fruit of a growing conviction.  I have done and said everything here that I've advised against.  But, until we see God, Face to face, can I challenge you as I challenge myself, to grow more comfortable with your discomfort when consoling the grieving?

Appreciate the power of your presence.  Don't overestimate your need to say the right thing.  They will remember you were there, but probably won't remember what you said.  Stick with what you know.  Need some ideas?  "I love you."  "I'm sorry.  This is really hard."  "I don't know why this happened."  "Lord, increase our faith."  And if pressed, "God is going to bring good.  I don't know when or how, but I believe that He will."

God's plan reveals itself.  It doesn't need our words to herald it in.  Yet, I believe we are a big part of it - showing up in all of our awkwardness and goodwill, day after day.  Our presence, faith, hope, and love are our greatest gifts to the grieving, and other than God himself, the only remedy for suffering.  "The only thing worse than suffering, is suffering alone."  (Unknown source)

Lily and the Puddle

This is our dog, Lily, after our walk today...

This is noteworthy because today was a big day for us.  Lily became my teacher.  

We got Lily at a local animal shelter the day before Easter, approximately six months ago.  She's our Easter Lily.  She has been the source of much joy and consternation.  The $5.00 we paid for her has seemed like $5.00 too much on many, many occasions.  These include repeated peeing on the carpet, getting into the trash and depositing its contents throughout the house, throwing up on various rugs, and some still-unresolved problem with anal gland expression.  I mean, really, it couldn't get any more disgusting.  My boys will eagerly tell you I love her the least of everyone in our family.  They're probably right.  

But, we all have our place with her.  Of the boys, the youngest is her "care taker", she loves to chase and nip at the middle one's calves, and she sleeps on the the bed of the oldest.  My husband trims her nails, bathes her, and has a love/hate relationship with her, as I do, depending on how recently she has offended our sensibilities and desire for order, and neutral smells.  I'm the one who walks her, and she seems to let this one positive aspect drape others less so.  

With a history of acute UPS-truck-related deafness, a proclivity for running, and a curiosity about everything, we've done a lot of cussing in our front yard, trying to give our new-ish canine family member a little freedom out of the house and off the leash.  It's slowly getting better.

So, today was a real experiment, as we ventured to some local trails off-leash, which is allowed, but your dog must be under voice control (underlined just like it says on the sign), at all times.  We were definitely gambling here.  I counted the cars on the way in to the parking lot, considering the likelihood of running into anyone, how many dog-fighting opportunities there might be, the possibility that my dog may just run off altogether, and how I would explain that to my boys, knowing they would be suspicious, since they think I hate her anyway.     

Nevertheless, we started out, and something wonderful happened.  

She was delighted to be free and delighted to be near me all at the same time.  It was like we'd been walking these trails for years and we were the subject of all the books written about man and his best friend.  Huh!

If I'm on a trail of any kind, I'm happy.  But, as we went along, I realized how my happiness multiplied at watching her enjoy her freedom, as well as being aware of her desire to share it with me. She didn't have to. She would race ahead and saunter back.  At all of the forks in the road, she was ahead of me, so she'd make a guess (usually the wrong one), but I'd call her name one time, and she would eagerly correct her course.  

As so often happens in my thoughts, God showed up and whispered, "See?".  Yes.  Yes, I see.

I saw many things.  I saw that her desire was to lay in every puddle of water we crossed.

I also saw that she was willing to abandon her puddle, if it meant parting ways with me.  I saw that I would feel sad for her if she had to pee on every tree, smell every leaf, or stay in every puddle she entered, at the cost of pursuing what was still ahead. 

Then, I thought of the patients I've visited in the hospital trying to detox from one addiction or another, and all of us who end up chasing some inherently good desire, and lose our freedom in pursuit of it.  We get stuck.  We come to a fork in the road, and we can't change course.  We can't get out of the puddle.  We like it too much.

As a wise man once told me, "You're not free to say 'yes' until you're free to say 'no'.  This is true for everything from everyday commitments to illicit pleasures.  Words to live by.

One patient who fought his addiction for twenty-something years, wasn't able to kick it until he was on the brink of losing his wife and kids, when he realized he loved them more than prescription drugs.  Based on his experience, it seems we ultimately lack the greater, stronger, and more noble desire to be with/for others and the One who made us for Himself.  There are as many explanations for this "lack" as there are people.  

We have this great thirst for freedom because our most fundamental aspiration is for happiness; and we sense that there is no happiness without love, and no love without freedom.  This is perfectly true.  Human beings were created for love, and they can only find happiness in loving and being loved.

-Interior Freedom, Jacques Phillipe

I think the same is true for dogs, which is why we relate to them so well.  

With our dog, it has taken six months to get to the place where her desire for communion outweighs everything else.   I guess this evolution of trust and desire has developed slowly and quietly (and sometimes very stinkily), as we've shared time and space under one roof.  Learning routines, things we love, and things to avoid at all costs.  Today, my dog was willing to leave her puddle or switch directions entirely, out of a desire to be with me, as inexplicable as that is. 

Can I move from master to dog in this story and let God take my place?  

Left or right, wet or dry, stay or go, it's all the same to me -- as long as I can remain in Your Presence. 

       

Can I become as free as my dog off-leash?  Is it even possible to spend enough time with God to learn to desire Him more than a puddle, money, sex, drugs, or anything else?  The saints challenge our flesh and our logic with a resounding YES.  It only feels impossible.