it's fine

every now and again, God speaks when we are not expecting it, and i'm finding that those moments in which He "interrupts" me - mid-sentence, mid-activity, mid-prayer, mid-life -  are some of the sweetest, most ordinary moments of profound depth for which i could ever ask (if i ever remembered to actually ask for them).

it isn't that i'm not trying to listen.  but sometimes i'm listening for the wrong thing.  sometimes i'm waiting to hear Him say something i want Him to say.  to answer a question I've asked.  to speak into a situation i want resolved.  instead of simply waiting to see what He wants to talk about.

and in His grace, and maybe sometimes with a slight degree of amusement at my inability to get it yet, He speaks anyway.

i had an email this week from a dear friend i've never actually met.  (we are friends because we ran into each other in the blogosphere, but our real lives have yet to intersect anywhere offline.)  i'd written to her a few days before - poured out some of my troubles in vague detail, and written cheerily about some of the things that are going well - and there were seven glorious words in the middle of a sentence in her reply letter that were the word of the Lord to me this week:

"...that everything is fine like it is..."

i burst into tears.  the good kind.  the kind that come from that deep-seated place of "yes.  i needed to hear You say that, and i had no idea it was true or how much i needed it."

everything is fine like it is.  i don't have to change anything.  i don't have to control it.  i don't need so-and-so to repent for the harm they've caused.  i don't need such-and-such to happen in order to be happy.     everything is fine the way it is.

i am loved by an amazing God, who knows the plans He has for me, and who will not allow those plans to be thwarted, long-term.  i am forgiven.  blessed.  cared for.  i have rich friendships that i treasure.  rejection does not define me, nor determine my worth.  what He says about me is my definition.  there is food on my table, a roof over my head, gas in the tank of the car that is still actually, miraculously starting (most days).  i am able to give to others without experiencing too much lack.  i am truly and amazingly blessed.

any shadow over this blessing is simply that: a shadow.  it is nothing of substance.  not really.

everything is fine like it is.

and i am blessed.