this is us.

and i was reading some old emails, and i thought it would be rather interesting to post them. mostly because the most thrilling of stories are true love stories - ones where the hand of God ignites two hearts and their lives come crashing together.

and that is what happened with us, but of course

this is from our correspondence in the "falling in love" stage of him and i, me and him.

Ricky was away at school in France, and i was short-haired, free spirited Tiffany buried deep within the walls of the prayer room.

i wrote to him often about the transitional season the Lord had been pointing to for the past year or so... (and even more, since I became a teenager) and how i felt it coming - the rumblings of change. i truly had no intention, at this point, with going through with embracing a relationship with Ricky. especially so quickly.


and so it is:

email title: "i want to... feel, feel what it's like to be new."

"It seems to me we can never give up longing and wishing while we are alive. There are certain things we feel to be beautiful and good, and we must hunger for them."

[George Eliot]

"The radiant Image of the Father's glory has come to light a fire in us, a burning love, a consuming yearning. There is nothing lukewarm about the God of revelation. Always radical and total, never does He reduce what He expects of us to fractions. Our communion with Him is to become a blazing fire, a perpetual ecstasy.... [we are to] drink deeply." 

[Thomas Dubay, Fire Within]

"...love is a flame that burns with a desire to burn more, like the flame of a natural fire." 

[St. John of the Cross]

 

Ricky,

You are in France - with three automatic french friends, and a french painter!!!! And you are probably sleeping in your french bed - with all the great european amazingness filling your dreams. God loves you. 

Last night I dreamt about that precious black man at the art museum, whom I'm convinced was an angel. He came to my sister and I, all radiant and lovingly. He said some simple statements to us, and left. After that we were provoked to follow him... I don't remember where we went, but I felt like it was somewhere fairly magical. 

 

REAMS DREAMS DREAMS

This weekend was goooood, good to be with Alex, good to laugh so much, good to be young and alive.

I do feel a sobriety hitting me, and even some rebuke from the Holy Spirit for how I'm spending my time lately... 

I need to rend my heart...

I need unction.

I want urgency.

I don't want to slumber either, even in the name of "joy" and "exhilaration."

to die is to truly be alive.

 

and really.

i just want to burn.

in the inner-man.

and i know it is a slow cultivation...

acquiring the oil, and sparking the flame.

but i want to go after this until I die.

...and...

i've said it before

and i still think my whole life is climaxing to this one

moment of transition

august 15th or 16th to be specific.

the month of august to be more general.

God's been piecing this together for the last 4.5 years...

so it's rather thrilling,

and i'm starting to seeeeeee the pieces come together.

and for me specifically

i have went through such a time of 

dying...

shedding skin...

watching thing

after thing

after thing

after people

after idea

be taken...

and it was all for something greater and beautiful,

but i think (and i've felt it, really, ever since i met you.)

and actually i don't just think

i know

(and people have saidddd for awhile now)

that i'm about to enter a season of being given.

an encounter with the God of goodness... 

the Great Restoration.

and you know, this whole journey...

it's an ebb and flow. and perhaps there is some transcendental foundation in me

that makes me ready to handle blessing.

i hope so.

maybe i am rooted deep enough (though much deeper i plan to go) that there is some safety

for some things

to work out in life.

for some (as mike calls them) secondary blessings...

oh that would just be scratching the surface on explaining what i think is coming.

let's talk about it one day... while drinking chai and listening to music and doing something rather glorious 

(which i think we will be rather good at)

.

BE FREE.

BE ALIVE.

GO DEEP.

LIVE FROM THE INSIDE.

AND LOOK TO HEAVEN.

and, being the queen of all quotes, John Piper once said, 

"The books or the music in which we thought the beauty was located will betray us if we trust to them... For they are not the thing itself; they are only the scent of a flower we have not found, the echo of a tune we have not heart, new from a country we have never yet visited."

I love that He is calling us.

still.

*t

 

 

 

 

 

and truly, this is what he does for me. this is what he's done.

oh what a joy it is to have a friend, who also is your lover. :)