I read the first 3 chapters of Jeremiah today. I want to read them again. The way God speaks to the Israelites reminds me of myself. Several references to Israel as a wife and to God as the husband, which always fascinates me, but it was the unfaithfulness of the wife of which God was speaking that reminded me of myself. Makes me see myself for the whore that I really am, always abandoning God for "lovers less wild" as one of my favorite musical artists Derek Webb puts it. Why am I always willing to compromise such a great Love to go off and be promiscuous with ideas, people, thoughts, and dreams as I leave behind my true Husband? I long for my Lover as the deer pants for water (Psalm 42:1), and yet I turn my back on Him and instead turn to earthly things to quench a thirst that is never quite quenched by things of this world. Why do I doubt Him? Why do I question Him? Why can't I just have faith like a child (Matthew 18:3) and fall into His loving arms as His daughter? I continue to run.....I run from my depression, from my future, from failure, from my past. Yet, there is something inside that won't let me give up. Sometimes I feel hopeless, friendless, but yet something beyond me tells me to keep hanging on. You know, my life is easy....but I make it so hard. I see others around me suffering so much greater things, and still I focus on my measly problems. I think of people across the continent who are hungry and dying, some who are suffering for their faith, and here I sit in an air-conditioned library, ready and able to walk to a preppy college class in my decent clothes with my cell phone nearby and a nice apartment to go home to at night, thinking I have problems.

I need rescued from this pit of selfish lies and bitterness. I need a change of heart; the kind that can only come from God. Otherwise, I will continue to face the REAL me, who is bitter and resentful and hateful. The me without God. Scary.