B/c I’m having a week where my thought process isn’t working so well, I’m going to include sections from an email I recently sent to one ‘closer than a brother’.

“The new David CD is just blowing me away. I just want to go far away from work and turn it up really loud and just listen. I couldn’t agree with you more about someone taking the thoughts that I’ve had and putting them into music. My favorite is Deliver Me. I knew that before I even heard the song just from the downloaded bit I listened to- but what’s strange, what’s really strange to me, is the way that the instrumentation is. This might sound just crazy, but it’s like he somehow put music to the way that my soul responds to these words. It reminds me of the teaching I’ve been doing at FISH. Kind of one of those- I open my mouth and things come out in a way that I know I’ve never thought before- this is the way his music is. But it fits, and it explains the way that I have been thinking, just having such a hard time verbalizing. And the music is that response. In particular, the musical interlude following Deliver Me- Coming Toward. That’s exactly how I feel after I sing that song, That I’m drawing near to Him, b/c I’ve just asked to be delivered from everything it is that’s hurting right now. But that my whole life I’ve been wanting everything that He is. Being refined hurts. It burns, it beats down, it kneads me and pulls me in ways I didn’t know I was lacking. I really appreciated your email the other day. Even though I didn’t have time to respond to it, the one about storms and allowing God to tie us down and enjoy the turmoil. That’s where I am right now, and some days, I enjoy it more than others, some days I’m finding a lot of satisfaction, and even some peace in the middle of the ways he’s tearing me apart. It’s kind of like the eye of the hurricane in some respects, some days it’s like I can climb into the eye, and see what he’s doing around me, and some days I can see Him, there on the horizon, waiting for me to take another step, just a little bit closer to Him, and a little bit further into the storm, and to whatever it is He’s calling me to do. Today isn’t really one of those “good” days though. Today I just feel really beaten, and I know we need those days as much as I need the days when I have peace about the ways He’s working on me. I need more community than what I’ve got right now. I can find comfort in my friends and more than that in my God. I know that I for at least the time being, have been called to be alone. And while I wouldn’t say I’m content, I’m at peace with my loneliness. But I need to be surrounded by people who are passionate. Those who know there’s more. People who are willing to be torn and beaten down, to grow together again more as His body of believers than the separatists that we’ve become. And my heart aches for that. It aches for the day when I’m serving Him with everything that I am, instead of just trying to understand what He wants me to learn before I can go. I’m so overwhelmed with all that He is right now. It’s like some days God is so much larger than others. So much more enveloping, so much more engaging. Or maybe it’s the more that he molds me, the closer my soul draws to him. It’s kind of like a prism. You can look through just a rectangular prism and see some of the colors from the spectrum, but if you chisel this prism, into a shape with all of these different facets, then lift it to the light again, you see the colors falling and reflecting everywhere. I want to reflect him in every facet that I am. I want to show his love, and His acceptance, and overall His deliverance, from the meek feeble nomads we’ve become. It’s amazing how still I think I am, while my heart is crying out to Him. I didn’t ever realize to the depths of how that’s possible. “

Some days you just need someone who understands how you feel, to understand it yourself.