cyclone warning.

Apparently, some mad gusts of winds are coming into the Windy City (go figure) and people have been asking me if they'll cancel school.

Probably not. You know why? Because Moody won't cancel class unless the rapture is happening--at which point, if the whole of the campus is not already caught up with the Lord, then I'd be concerned.

So. We're alive in the Windy City. And no windows have fallen out of buildings. Yet.


Unrelated to the wind blowing, I... feel like a monster. Today, especially. But not like a Cyclone monster or anything that does huge damages to structures and buildings. More like the monster that lurks under your bed and grabs your ankles as you try to dart from bed to bathroom. Or I feel like the little old lady from Hansel and Grettle, that lured the children in with gumdrops and candy canes and sticks of sugar- things that looked good, and ended them up in a load of trouble.

"You seem like you've got it all together, though. I don't really understand why you feel like that."

Because you don't see my heart. You don't see the sin that I struggle with. You don't see the way my mind races and I give over into anxiety, and telling the Lord, "I AM RIGHT. LET ME DO THIS ON MY OWN!"

It's like, my whole life I'm playing this tug of war game with the Lord, and we're wrestling back and forth and I'm screaming and tugging with all my might, and occasionally it seems like He'll give a little. But then He fastens His grip tighter still and I've lost, and I'm getting pulled over the boundary line. But I'm not spinning into the fireplace and splitting my eyebrow open. Instead, I've somehow been pulled right into His arms, which have managed to stay open and waiting all the while strong and defiant against my sense of self and entitlement.

So there I am. The pulling is done and I'm weak and tired, and my hands are blistered from holding on too tight. And as He lifts my hands open to survey the damage from this struggle, He tells me:

"You are no monster. You belong to me... and besides. You don't have half as many warts as that that Old Witch in Hansel and Gretel."

And then as I sit in His lap, a small child in the arms of a big Father, He sings to me:

Hope. Peace. Love. Forgiveness.

Oh, Forgiveness.
Amen.