milling around.

had dinner with one of those world-traveling friends last night. we played catch-up, relating hilarious and awkward stories, sharing sorrows and joys from the past months. the conversation drifted to our Christianity and what has been learnt or un-learnt since we last met. she said something i want to remember and i'll do my best to sum up here:

figuring out and knowing what you believe is important, sure, but the main thing, really the only thing that people need is to know that they are loved.

re-read that one if you need to. let that statement settle into your being so that you can understand how revolutionary that is. (or click the 'x' at the top of your browser.)

i escaped bible college to realize that my beliefs had been dashed to pieces and then thrown around. i have slowly been milling around all the other parts of my life and finding a piece of belief here and there. i pick it up, examine it, sometimes put it in my pocket for a while, sometimes i throw it out.

i never thought i would have thrown this much out.

on occasion, i find a piece of belief that i find beautiful. overwhelmingly beautiful. i've been brought to tears at the beauty of what i believed in, or sometimes just the beauty of my own fervent belief.

on an even more rare occasion, i keep that belief close. i find that it was always there, grafted into my skin.

typically, though overwhelmed at the beauty, i still throw it out, or put it in a place i can remember to go back to.

my friend's statement that the most important thing is to know we are loved is a beautiful belief.

i will be staring at this one for a long time, maybe forever.