beloved.

Home is the center of my being where I can hear the voice that says: "You are my Beloved, on you my favor rests" - the same voice that gave life to the first Adam and spoke to Jesus, the second Adam; the same voice that speaks to all the children of God and sets them free to live in the midst of a dark world while remaining in the light.

I have heard that voice. It has spoken to me in the past and continues to speak to me now. It is the never-interrupted voice of love speaking from eternity and giving life and love whenever it is heard. When I hear that voice, I know that I am home with God and have nothing to fear.

As the Beloved of my heavenly Father, "I can walk in the valley of darkness: no evil would I fear."

As the Beloved, I can "cure the sick, raise the dead, cleanse the lepers, cast out devils."

Having "received without charge," I can "give without charge."

As the Beloved, I can confront, console, admonish, and encourage without fear of rejection or need for affirmation.

As the Beloved, I can suffer persecution without the desire for revenge and receive praise without using it as a proof of my goodness.

As the Beloved, I can be tortured and killed without ever having to doubt that the love that is given to me is stronger than death.

As the Beloved, I am free to live and give life, free also to die while giving life.

-from The Return of the Prodigal Son by Henri Nouwen

Even now here's my heart, God.

comfort.

I'll confess: I don't feel that I have had the proper response to the disaster in Haiti. I find myself praying that God would break my heart for what breaks His own, and yet, I have been pretty insensitive to this whole disaster. I haven't done anything to help.

I'll admit: I feel trapped. I feel like my present circumstances keep me from being able to do what I really want to do. If I could have, I would have hopped on to a flight to Haiti and rushed to join the groups of people bringing relief. Instead, I feel like I have to wait till I'm an "adult" (or at least out of school) to really start living, to really start making a difference.

I conclude: I've fallen prey to the mentality that strikes far too many people. This mentality that breeds passivity and inaction, that emphasizes personal distance from a given catastrophe, that says, "This has nothing to do with you" or "If you can't go down there and help, you can't do anything."

I find myself wondering, for the about the millionth time:

What can I do?

How can I help?

Me.

A small, happy college student stuck in big, suffering world.

If I call myself a follower of Jesus Christ,

If, given that, I'm supposed to be like Jesus,

And if Jesus' first sermon went a little like this:

The Spirit of the Lord God is upon me,

because the Lord has anointed me

to bring good news to the poor;

he has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted,

to proclaim liberty to the captives,

and the opening of the prison to those who are bound;

to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor.

Then who am I?

What I am doing here?

Why am I not doing anything to further that mission?

And why do I get so comfortable with my life as the world rages on around me?

quotable.

I am reassured to know that the straightness of my grain

is not a precondition of usefulness to God.

And I am humbled to see that out of the twistedness of my wounds,

he designs for me a special place of service.

-Theirs is the Kingdom by Robert Lupton-

vanity.

If I can stop one heart from breaking,

I shall not live in vain;

If I can ease one life the aching,

Or cool one pain,

Or help one fainting robin

Unto his nest again,

I shall not live in vain.

- Emily Dickinson-

My high school English class would probably cringe at the sight of that name and face. None of us were fans of this hermit-gone-poet (or perhaps, poet-gone-hermit?). Please see Matt Dorado for further discussion - he is very passionate about this topic.

Despite all that, this little poem of hers captivated me. She seems to express so uniquely, the very thing I've come to grasp in the past few years: if we live for something other and greater than ourselves, our life is not lived in vain.

There is a story being woven across all of human history.

It's the story of the entire universe. It's made up of millions of little stories. It's bigger than we can fathom, and its Author is more grand and magnificent than anything of which we ourselves can even attempt to conceive.

And because of that, our own story is insignificant. Minute. Miniscule. Negligible. Replaceable. Disposable.

We won't even come close to mattering until we put our story in that story.

We become significant only in becoming a part of something else.

But by that time, we ourselves are no longer significant. By that time, it's not even about "mattering." By that time, it's not about us, for we have been lost in Something (or Someone) else.

As John Piper put it, "We weren't created to be somebody, we were created to know Somebody."

When we live for Something greater than ourselves, we end up trading our very small "something" for a very large (and I'll even venture to say, infinite) "Something." In the end, everything we were and everything we were about pales in comparison to that of which we are now a part, to the One we now know.

And that's why it's not vanity:

Because it's no longer about us.