The fan's blades are swirling as my eyes try to follow their circular motion.
It's finally summer, and I now remember heat once again after too many winter months.

Stopping.  Breathing.  Staring.  Reading.  Watching.  Observing.  Feeling.
Thinking so much that I try to stop thinking at all.

My hand rests on the red polka-dot journal that eleven-year-old Deborah clung too like a third lung impossible to live without.
Under it rests the tan, flowered journal fourteen-year-old Deborah doodled and dreamed in to her heart's delight.
Now, the plain chocolate brown journal with gold-edged pages lies open to the next blank page.

It feels that it's more than just another page to fill with words, though.

I feel like my life really is opened to the next new page,
yet I find myself paralyzed.

This should be exciting.
It should feel like freedom.
You should be loving to live.

Instead I feel immobilized, afraid to do anything in fear of not doing the right thing.
I am devoid of all will-power.  Where my strength evaporated to, I may never know.

Yet, as I skim the jaunty eleven-year-old's handwriting, I am enveloped by a world very similar to mine currently: a world haunted by brutal self-standards, a constant need to do more and not waste my God-given time, and a deep desire to just be myself.

As words stare from both the filled page and the new blank one, I cannot help but think:

What if we truly learn to live?

The self-standards.  The fear of failure.  The obsession to be right and do right.  The mental knots we create that keep us from moving in any direction because we've imagined terrors and failures that will devour us if we move one step.

Why are we living like this?

Afraid.  Obsessed.  Unsure.  Insecure.  Doubting.

What would our lives look like if we learn to let go of all that's entangling  us -
if we, in fact, let go of anything except God himself.

What if we threw off everything- our own personal desires and dreams, our own rationalization and reasoning, our own goals and ambitions, our own doubts and fears, our own frustrations and self-condemnation - and only grasped to God and His truth?

What if we took one day at a time and just loved loving God and loved living like it?

What if we said goodbye to the past as well as to slavery to the future and just followed Him in the present?

What if we learn to live,
stopped focusing so much on what we wish we had or what we wish we were,
but focused on being all we can because He is all we need?

As I sit next to my blank journal page, I face two questions:
God, how much do I really love you?  (cause that should give me all the confidence to really live)
God, are you enough for me? (cause why, then, would I need to grasp anything else?)

Because what if we learn to live like life is good, that the sun is shining, and that we can laugh because our Abba loves us?

Life is going to continue to be good, complicatedly beautiful, and beautifully messy whether we choose to enjoy the sun even though it burns and to feel the wind even though it stings or not.

We can love.  laugh.  learn to let go - because we are loved, delighted in, and have our ultimate burden -sin- lifted from us by the cross.

Why not, then, learn to live?

I'm searching.

I want to know why I am
                         who I am
                         where I fit
                         what I should do.

I feel lost.  empty.  exhausted to the bone.

So much swirls within my head.
Questions, principles, doubts, fears, dreams being birthed and dreams dying, purpose, pain.

I keep playing in my mind: "no, you can't do that because _____" or "that will never be right because _____"

I bind myself inside my head.

Don't waste time.
Don't slack off.
Don't be rude.

You are against unholiness.
You are against living anything else than God's purpose.
You are against giving up.

I don't ...
I'm against ...
I won't ...

There's healthy boundaries in these things.  There's even a degree of freedom.

But I can't help wondering: shouldn't there be more in life than only what we're against?

What are we for?
What gives us purpose? drives us?

Instead of making lists of what we're against, what would happen if we made lists of what we're for?  Things that give us life.  Things that make us smile.  Things that we are willing to fight for, to cry over, to work, and work, and work towards?

What if we stopped playing our mantras of that which we will not do
and started living in the freedom and thriving in all that we can?

What if we actually stepped out and purposed for the good?

For there is so much left worth fighting for.

I'm for -
dreams coming true
the voiceless finding their voices
friends finding support
early morning laughter
pain become ground for growth
the wounded being healed
the broken finding new life.

I'm for Jesus.

And maybe, at the end of the day, it is not what we are for or what we are against
but who we are for.

Can not all the purpose we need be found in Him?

Oftentimes, what the broken really need is to be seen, to be picked up, and dusted off.  They need to hear the whisper: have courage.  They need to be reminded that they are not disregarded; they are not overlooked.  There is power in the delicately beautiful, power in the beautifully broken.