curiosity leads me

What do you like about yourself?

What is it about voicemails that changes the timing in my speech?

I know I called this person for something, but I think I already told them what that reason was. Now that I’m thinking, I just realized that I have been silent on the phone for a while. I should say something. But what? Goodbye? No, it’s not appropriate yet.

“So, yeah, I was just thinking about you and thought I would give you a call so…”

You suck at phones. End this now.

“…Love you bye.”

*click*

Mark 2:14 - “As he walked along, he saw Levi son of Alphaeus sitting at the tax collector’s booth. ‘Follow me,’ Jesus told him, and Levi got up and followed him.”

As he walked along. He turned. He saw. He noticed. He looked at a man who had rejected God and country to serve Caesar for his own selfish gain. He looked at a man crowned with shame. A man who was unfit for just about everything.

He saw him and he said, “You’re just my type. I want you to be with me.”

And so he followed him. And when he left his booth to follow Jesus, he didn’t just leave Caesar behind. He left his shame and self-hatred behind, too.

I want to be brave enough to follow Jesus. I want to be brave enough to let go of my shame. I want to be brave enough to notice the outcast sitting at their booth and tell them, “You. You’re perfect.”

The longer I live, the more complicated and troubling life becomes.

My married friends are having children now. My engaged friends are getting married. But some of my married friends are losing children, too. And some of my engaged friends are separating.

It is so easy for me to focus on pain and ask, “why?” I want to figure these things out. I want to solve the problem, write out the solution on a paper and mail it to my friends and say, “See? See? It’s possible, it’s okay! It’s not your fault and the world is still beautiful and you can stop your grieving and crying and filling the void in your heart with howls of rage. The answer has been here all along. Here on this paper. Here in our minds and hearts.”

But I can’t do that. I can’t do that because I don’t have the answer, and if the solutions to our problems could be figured out, surely someone would have done so by now.

But then again, I find myself thinking that these aren’t problems that our world is dealing with. These aren’t problems that my friends are facing. These aren’t problems that I so desperately want to fix.

These are lives. These are hearts. Souls. Minds. Flesh and blood and tears and sweat.

Life has a stubborn insistence on handing the keys to Time, and though we try to stomp the brakes from the backseat, Time will not stop. Rather, it will drive patiently and let us wail and fight until we are tired enough to look out the window and catch a glimpse of the sun rising to greet us.
Again.
Like it does every morning.
Day after day.
Year after year.
Forever.