just the way it is

Passionflower in East Texas
Copyright (c) 2007 Wendee Holtcamp

I love the passionflower. It's so complex and beautiful. Passionfruit totally rocks too! I ate lots when I was in Peru... yummy.

Passion. Love. This is what I think. I think a person can love someone very much, and that does not mean that's the best relationship for them at the time. I think that it can be complicated and entangled and that there are sometimes spiritual battles being waged, and psychological and emotional issues needing unentangled within our own hearts. It can be so hard sometimes to determine God's will.

I have one of those Portals of Prayer things that I get at my church which has a little daily bible lesson, and today's passage was from the story of Gideon (Judges 6:1-8:-33) and how he asked God for a sign that he and his tiny army was to subdue the massive Midianite army which had been oppressing the Israelites. He laid down a piece of fleece on the ground and said God if this is your will, in the morning have dew on the ground but keep the fleece dry. And that is what happened. But that wasn't enough for him, he said, God if this is really right, please tomorrow morning have just the fleece covered in dew and the ground dry. And that is exactly what happened. A friend asked me why I asked for signs like I did or do. I don't often. This story is the basis for doing so for me.

This is the problem I'm having right now. I got all these answered prayer and things are not going the way I would have thought given the answered prayer. What my friends say is all over the map. Some say, maybe you were looking for what you wanted to see. Another said it worries me that you needed to ask for signs at all. I felt I had a lot at stake. So now, things are a bit going down a different path than I would have thought. I am ok with this. But it's confusing. It's confusing why God would answer multiple prayers and there would be so much synchronicity and, then, this?

The only thing I can think of is that there was a reason for these two souls to meet, that I know for sure anyway. It may mean that it's the right person and the wrong timing. It may just mean there were other purposes for the meeting and that the full reasons will be revealed in time. I'm trying to live in the Now, the present. As my friend Trish said last night in an update to the Edward Clark advice, "Imagine if for one day, everyone decided that nothing was 'wrong.' That everything was fine, just the way it was."