There's something special

about the way cold water feels on your feet. Do you know what I mean? It's like all day long we go around our business, not fully aware of where we are or what we are doing. At least I do, anyway. I get lost in my own mind. My thoughts seem to take up all my energy and consciousness. It's exhausting and it's hard to relate to people or really listen or show compassion whenever I get that way. It's like I want to have everything figured out and compartmentalized. I want to know where I'm at in my faith, in my relationships, with jobs.. the list goes on. It's exhausting because I never have it figured out, I never get there. I can't pin point where I am exactly and I can't ever find the right words to encapsulate my thoughts or emotions or ideas. So they just float around aimlessly and untamed in the expanse that is my mind. I get lost trying to find a proper label for them, find a place for them to stay put. But then, the icy water touches my toes. And it demands my full attention. It calls out to me, "you are here, now". The water is completely unaffected and unmoved by my world, by my thoughts. It is consistent, it always feels the same. It always has the same effect on me. Rivers are steady. They're demanding. They remind me that life does indeed go on. That life consists of more than just me and my own experiences. That other things are happening, and that I need to be a part of those things. The icy shock of the water tells me to wake up and come back and join the rest of the world now. There's also something special about friends who just get you. Hopefully you know what I mean. Where you can have conversations about nothing, conversations that go in circles and no one is bothered. Friends that will tell you when you have something in your teeth. Friends that you don't have to host or entertain. My favorite are the friends that aren't afraid of my walls, of my insecurities and fears. The kind that, when faced with all of my different walls that I hide behind, aren't intimidated. Not afraid or offended or shocked. They simply peek their head over and give me a simple "how you doin down there?". Those are the best, because it makes me feel like I'm not so impenetrable and isolated after all. There's something very special about the Fatherly love of God. Just speaking about it, thinking about it, hearing about it nearly always brings me to tears. I can't tell if it's in a good way or a bad way. When I hear things like "God loves you in spite of everything you do or don't do".. I almost feel like my heart breaks. It breaks in the way that you hear an old lover say they never stopped loving you and everything can be the same again. It's that same ache of wanting so desperately to believe it but simply knowing that can't be true. It's the same hurt inside of me. I want so desperately for this Good News to be true, that He is so enthralled by me for no good reason and nothing will ever change that. For some reason, it's so hard to believe. Jesus, Paul, and God Himself have all said it over and over and over. Sometimes I get glimpses of it, and when I do.. it's liberating and beautiful and something I want forever. I hope the glimpses get more frequent and deeper. My soul needs that. Bad.