falling.

I learn alot from Mabel everyday. 

For instance, she shows me just how easy it should be to let myself fall...

 happily, joyfully, wonderfully, recklessly

into the arms of Jesus.

She isn't disappointmed or proud.  She isn't frustrated or angry.  She doesn't withhold herself from Him or demand anything in return.  She falls often and she does it without surrender. 

With such sweet abandon. 

And it makes her happy.

She falls and it is effortless. 

I want desperately to do that once again.  To let go and just trust that the Lord will catch me...

with His arms that are strong enough and long enough.

And His love that runs deep enough.

"Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest."

Matthew 11:28

It is one thing to read it, and know it.

It is a completely different thing to live it.

And to live it during the ins and outs of your everyday.

There was a time that I thought I was good at 'falling' and letting Jesus catch me; hold my weight and wrap His arms around me.

And then I was faced with an actual burden and I realized I wasn't navigating into the fall nearly as effortless as I thought I was.  In fact, I was tied down and burdened by a weight that was subsequential to pride and strength.

That may be one of the hardest parts of this journey for me:  Realizing I'm not at all who I thought I was.  And I don't mean as a person...

I mean in my relationship with the Lord.  The One.

...who can...

Catch my fall.

If only I let Him.

What I think we need to learn, as Christians is that this life is not one that should be spent in disguise.  It should not be this simple act of trying to convince people that we have it all together or that "we're good," when asked how we're doing. 

Sometimes we aren't fine.  Sometimes we don't have it all together.

And Jesus didn't ask us to.

He simply asked us to come to Him when we don't or can't.

He asked us to fall.

For Him.

In love with Him.

Into Him.

And so my prayer today is that I would do so with such a resilience and joy that it shows up with splendor in my spirit!  I pray that as I walk through the days to come in this journey with Mabel that I will not depend on others for my hope or myself for strength...

but that I would fall into the arms of my Jesus

And smile up at the Father like my sweet girl does to me.

Because she trusts me enough to know that I will be there when she looks up at me after her fall, I will do the same for a God whose promise is secure. 

I will gaze upward.  Spread my arms wide.  Stand on the edge of my brokeness, anger, disappointment and fear...

And I will fall.