When she said “I am an affirmation junkie,” she laughed and I did too and it’s only later that I want to weep for all our needle pocked souls.
I pick up dropped books, the socks discarded, a bowl left behind before they ran out to play, all the daily mess of our living, and I try not to think about my friend's tender confession. Isn’t this just the way we are? I shrug hard, but not out of skin. This world high on the drug of self, it spins wild desperate, craving the next rush of the stroked ego, and we can’t get enough of the love.
Credibility. That’s the self-respecting word my dad had for it and I pick up all these legos shattered, a boy cascade, and I can hear my dad. “A man’s gotta have some credibility.” To be a man whose name means something. Is known for something. A man simply known. A man who walks into a room and eyes flicker acknowledgement and there’s a murmur of recognition and a collective nod of esteem.
Credibility – it sounds more dignified than what it is: a cry for love.
Times and faces and backdrop change. The universal skin doesn’t.
I have seen this too. Grazed it. Social media addicts make cyber universes to orbit around the blazing sun egos. Souls burn up, fallen stars.There are a thousand ways to cry for love.
And then again, how many years did I make beds, make meals, make love into kids and when he came through the door, I looked eager for the glancing nod. Because the silence after a performance can be thunder deaf, cracking a heart in two.
We were born the crack babies, the heart cracked babies, split in half, wide open for the love.
The need is legitimate, the hunger, real, our lives hard, and our voracious appetite for love isn’t an abnormality, a sin, a shame. We were made for realest love to pump the veins, to shoot up with the narcotic that drove the nails: the love of God.
I flip open the gratitude journal lying open on the counter and I grab a ball-point. Ink flows, medicinal.
Today, to be a Jesus junkie, and fill pages and pages and pages with the counting of all His affirmations.Is there any affirmation that can compare to the Jesus love?He loves me!
When I affirm all the good of God in my life, I am the one affirmed.
When I can’t get enough love, I can go to the One who wildly can’t get enough of me, and when I start numbering all the ways He extravagantly loves, it’s this euphoria. Every other love drug can prove fatal.
Affirmation junkies get the greatest fix when fixing on Love Himself.
Outside the window, this girl blur runs. I watch her run straight into the hard wind. And I smile, write that down, this affirmation from God.
His love's the real high.
Listening for His Love Song over me come March, a high... more listing of His endless love...
1433. steam exhale of the iron
1434. whirr of his razor on a Sunday morning
1435. trill of the juncos under the feeder, calling spring, spring, spring
1436. raucous child cheers for a puck flinging down ice and the hooting silly over gold nuggets on necks
1437. drip, drip, drip of icicles, this long winter weeping away
1438. hourly chime of the clock, calling to pause and pray and re-prioritize
1439. overhearing a boy whistling while he works, "O the deep, deep love of Jesus"
1440. the unzippering of a suitcase and an itinerary of faith
1441. brief islands of stillness in a loud house
1442. boys squeals down the snow hills
1443. Hope making the sewing machine hum with her ideas
1444. this refrain for all of life
Want to drink the joy elixir? Become a Joy Finder? Consider joining the Gratitude Community -- just jump in with your own counting!
How to begin your own 1000 Gift List ::: How Gratitude Can Change your Life
( Drop me a line if choose to begin giving intentional thanks and gather fresh joy and I will happily add either your name or a web link to the Gratitude Community I'm slowly getting caught up on meeting all you beautiful folks who have joined the Gratitude Community. Thank you for your kind grace and patience! I'm so looking forward to meeting you all soon!)
Photos: Shalom running with His love across the fields
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