So, the pain has passed but I still can not hear out of my right ear. I alternate between wanting to just wait it out, feeling sort of crazy because everything is a struggle to hear and I can't quite triangulate where the phone might be when it rings, and being a little concerned something might be wrong.

I have so many things I want to write about, even a few notes I actually jotted down in the silence.

But tonight I'm just gonna be real and honest and exposed. Well, as exposed as I can be.

I have a lot of really big stuff going on in my heart, in my head, and in my world. And I am struggling to make sense of it all, let God have dominion over it all, and allowing God to move in me. Changing my world view to match His.

Anyone who's ever been to church more than a handful of times has probably heard of, or heard preached, 1 Corinthians 13...The Love Chapter.

¹ If I could speak all the languages of earth and of angels, but didn’t love others, I would only be a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. ² If I had the gift of prophecy, and if I understood all of God’s secret plans and possessed all knowledge, and if I had such faith that I could move mountains, but didn’t love others, I would be nothing. ³ If I gave everything I have to the poor and even sacrificed my body, I could boast about it; but if I didn’t love others, I would have gained nothing.

⁴ Love is patient and kind. Love is not jealous or boastful or proud ⁵ or rude. It does not demand its own way. It is not irritable, and it keeps no record of being wronged. ⁶ It does not rejoice about injustice but rejoices whenever the truth wins out. ⁷ Love never gives up, never loses faith, is always hopeful, and endures through every circumstance.

⁸ Prophecy and speaking in unknown languages and special knowledge will become useless. But love will last forever! ⁹ Now our knowledge is partial and incomplete, and even the gift of prophecy reveals only part of the whole picture! ¹⁰ But when full understanding comes, these partial things will become useless.

¹¹ When I was a child, I spoke and thought and reasoned as a child. But when I grew up, I put away childish things. ¹² Now we see things imperfectly as in a cloudy mirror, but then we will see everything with perfect clarity. All that I know now is partial and incomplete, but then I will know everything completely, just as God now knows me completely.

¹³ Three things will last forever—faith, hope, and love—and the greatest of these is love.

Even typing it out here makes me want to groan with all the frustration in me. In every way I want to be someone who shows the love that God has shown me. Pure, Redeeming, Unwavering.

I want to give a love that comes without strings. I want desperately to endure, hope, and persevere.

I just don't always know how. How do you keep from being a doormat and chasing after relationships that don't exist on both sides...and still demonstrate this kind of love?

When your head steps in and reminds you to guard your heart?

Even now, as I type these words and come before My Great God, I am reminded that these issues are not new... they go as far back as Philipi.

⁴ Always be full of joy in the Lord. I say it again—rejoice! ⁵ Let everyone see that you are considerate in all you do. Remember, the Lord is coming soon.

⁶ Don’t worry about anything; instead, pray about everything. Tell God what you need, and thank him for all he has done. ⁷ Then you will experience God’s peace, which exceeds anything we can understand. His peace will guard your hearts and minds as you live in Christ Jesus.

And still I don't know how this looks. What does this scripture look like with legs and a heart? Yet my heart is heavy at knowing it doesn't look like me.

I want to reflect these words, but I don't know how.

So I am here, crying out to God and admitting my own weakness and folly at knowing I am not reflecting him, yet wanting to with all that I am.

Please God, show me to love how you would love...