Lent: Daydreaming

When I was a little girl, I always looked forward to long car trips with my dad.  We would choose a CD from his eclectic collection, pop it in, and listen in silence.  My dad and I both have this affinity for daydreaming.  In a family of chatty-kathies, we are the quirky ones -- content to be alone with our thoughts for hours on end.  During these long car rides, he would let me drift off into my daydreams, and I would let him do the same.

Giving up dating has been pretty easy thus far - and a bit of a relief.  It's one less thing for me to worry about, and I have more time and energy to enjoy other relationships. But have I really given up dating? If integrity is who we are when no one is looking, then what does it mean to have integrity in my thought-life?

As I said in the beginning, I don't want this blog to be about unloading my dirty secrets; but confession and transparency bring people together.  One person owns up to something, and suddenly another says, "Wait, really? You too? I thought I was the only one." So I want to confess to you that, if you were privy to the romance going on inside my head, you would have no idea that I had given up dating for Lent.  I might not be dating out in the world, but in my heart and my mind, I'm still very much tied up and taken.

Tim Keller says, "The things you daydream about in your spare time are ultimately the things you serve."

Ouch.

So, as my friend Jessie says, I think God has His finger on something with me.  Maybe more than just a finger, though.  He's pulling on me with both hands, trying to loosen my grip on a relationship I've been clinging to.  But mostly, I think He's trying to free me -- and I'm stubbornly fighting Him tooth and nail.

Like the Ghost on the train in C.S. Lewis' Great Divorce, I'm trying to keep my "Red Lizard of Lust." I've been treasuring up memories and would-be's, tucking them away, separate from God.  I'm too afraid to offer them up because of how much I have to lose. After all, friends, following Jesus is costly; and this relationship is one that I've prized for awhile.  Mark Upton at Hope Community Church says, "The feel of faith is death, but the fruit of faith is joy." I think I'm in the death phase right now and it totally blows.

But, as I'm writing this, I hear God inviting me into a new place with Him.  If God is big enough to handle us at our worst, to see our brokenness but still chase after us, then He must see this part of me and say, "Open up the windows! Let me breathe fresh air into the dark places of your heart. Invite me into this space: show me the memories and daydreams.  Lay them at my feet, and let me grieve them with you."

I'm reminded of a verse from the hymn, "Come, Ye Sinners, Poor and Needy:"

Come, ye weary, heavy-laden,
Lost and ruined by the Fall;
If you tarry till you're better,
You will never come at all.