All of Me Loves All of You

I swam with manatees. Despite clear signs prohibiting such tom foolery, I managed to hitch a ride on the back one of the enormous beasts. My ride was cooler in theory than in practice since manatees move slower than molasses, but it still makes for a fairly awesome story.  On a different occasion, I jumped out of the 2^nd story of a hotel window. (In high school being caught in a boy’s room by your supervising teacher is infinitely scarier than propelling yourself off of a balcony). I have spent summers in central Oregon, Northern California, Florida, Chicago, upstate New York, and Russia. I have played with the children of women in prostitution, and accidentally watched a natural childbirth. (I was hiding and screaming in the corner of the hospital room, but it still counts). One magical night, with the Chicago skyline as our backdrop, I played a makeshift game of hockey with my sweet friends from around the world (most of whom had never even seen snow prior to moving to Chicago). 

 

But that, that, was my old life.

My new life writes a less exciting story. Despite the promising start of my new life chapter (living in a multi-national semi-shady neighborhood with my newly-wed pregnant twin sister, her husband, our cousin and adopted German shepherd), my day to day life is actually a fairly boring tale of emails, pb&j, and mindless television. There are no manatees, no hockey games, or hotel windows. Traveling is now confined to my daily commute in immoveable soul stealing Atlanta traffic.  My ministry to the nations of the world exists over phone conversations while I am stuck in immovable traffic. Talking on the phone is the only effective prevention for the uncontrollable Hulk-like change of character that leaves me yelling profanities out of my car window.

When I moved to Atlanta, I was on a mission to live in the most diverse area in the nation. Obviously, being my normal beacon of wisdom, faith and hope, the whole neighborhood would be changed by my presence.  I planned on working for a non-profit, and helping to end some of the city’s biggest crises. 

But, after months of no call backs, I settled for the first job to offer me anything above minimum wage.  I am not saying I have a terrible job (mostly because I have said that in dozens of previous blogs), but I am saying that my job is less than intellectually and spiritually stimulating. The majority of my days are spent at a desk, in a high rise, on the other side of town. The new me secretly wishes to top your ministry stories but I settle for the godlier response of “I am happy for you.”  Somewhere between the “happy for you’s” and the “sad for me’s” lies an unshakeable truth. He is teaching me new ways to love Him.

When I first became a believer, He taught me how to love the excitement of Christian community and the craziness of Christian ministry. But now, He is teaching me to love him through mindless tasks and through angry people on congested roads. I get to love him in the still quiet of the early morning rat race and in the complexity of websites and excel formulas. He is using my boring cubicle life to reveal uncharted aspects of my own heart, soul, strength and mind. How can I ever love the  Lord my God with all my heart and all my soul and all my strength and with all my mind, if I don’t allow Him to reveal these uncharted territories! This is the point in the blog where I sing John Legend’s, “All of me, loves all of you,” while I mentally block out the music video, and change 90% of the lyrics. Because, I really do want All of me, to love all of Him, even if that means the parts of me stuck in traffic and empty cubicles.