Sommerset

I drove more than an hour cutting through the winding highway of Oklahoma City, southbound, every mile bringing me closer and closer to where you are... somewhere out there. I wish I knew where. But I turned off the highway and skimmed through the beautiful, stunning streets of the far southside, where I'd never been before, shocked at the wealth and beauty around me. And when I pulled into the Sommerset assisted living center, I felt that I was back in Indiana, in a tiny but wealthy city of Valporaiso. Because both times, I was all alone. My dreams had been shattered. And all I had was my trying. Back then, I met Andrea. And as we sang to old people with no hope and I fell in love with them and their stories, I fell in love with her, too. But they all died on me. Every one, and most of all her. She was my best friend and those days, in the nursing home, were our very best. Before Satan attacked us... before I fell, again and again. When I look back I see so many things she did wrong but most of all I see myself. Because I was wrong. And I'll never get to go back and fix it all. Those years are broken and always will be. And this time? I walked into the nursing home and no one was there but little old people who looked at me through cloudy eyes and stretched out shaky, wrinkly hands to welcome me. And I felt a lump in my throat. Because we were going to start this ministry up together, and we never got the chance. And I miss you... I miss everything we never got to do, everything we never got to be. It's okay, you know, I don't hate you or think badly at all... because when I look back, and I think about things like when you ran from me at the caffeteria that day like I was a plague, rather than a human being and your hurting friend... all I see is me. I see myself. My mistakes. Too many to count. So much confusion, so much pain, and so much failure. Again and again.... I see all I did wrong. And I pray for you to come back. I pray and pray and pray myself breathless... and I don't know if it will ever happen. More and more all I hear in my head are those horrible, senseless words you slapped in my face, "Time will continue to go on." So I wrap my bleeding heart in my chest and put on a soft white blouse and drive an hour to sit and visit with the old people.... whose lives have been lived, lost, loved, and broken, too. And I miss you there... but I'm so glad I'm here with them. Because I can help them. Because they can help me. Maybe it's the missing piece, you know? When the past blurs with the future. When the pitiful existence I spend each day ends up with some tiny blossom of meaning.

A Thousand Years

"......And the seven years was as one day, for the love he had to her." That is my favorite love story of the Bible. Not any other one. Just that one. Because that is love. And in just 10 days, it will be month 8 and I'm so terrified. Because you've gone home, and now you're back, and you're asking Tim when he will be back and its' so so soon and the summer hasn't changed anything and I'm terrified for the autumn, for the cold to come, for the darkness. Because it is coming. And everything I read in the Bible, every song I hear, ever sermon, is preparing me for it.
And when I lie down at night, and the tears burn down my cheeks, and I can't understand why, why still? why after so long? All I can think of is that verse. And this song. And even if it's seven years, I would wait for you forever, Levi. Even if it was a thousand....

Music Video Here

Heart beats fast
Colors and promises
How to be brave?
How can I love when I'm afraid to fall
But watching you stand alone?
All of my doubt suddenly goes away somehow

One step closer

[Chorus:]
I have died everyday waiting for you
Darling don't be afraid I have loved you
For a thousand years
I'll love you for a thousand more

Time stands still
Beauty in all she is
I will be brave
I will not let anything take away
What's standing in front of me
Every breath
Every hour has come to this

One step closer

[Chorus:]
I have died everyday waiting for you
Darling don't be afraid I have loved you
For a thousand years
I'll love you for a thousand more

And all along I believed I would find you
Time has brought your heart to me
I have loved you for a thousand years
I'll love you for a thousand more

One step closer
One step closer

[Chorus:]
I have died everyday waiting for you
Darling don't be afraid I have loved you
For a thousand years
I'll love you for a thousand more

And all along I believed I would find you
Time has brought your heart to me
I have loved you for a thousand years
I'll love you for a thousand more

UpSiDe DoWn

Do you know what it's like to have your past run circles around you? To feel so trapped you go back to writing on a blog that the other person doesn't even remember, will never look at again, just throwing your wasted words into the black abyss of cyberspace? To feel so choked up that you're on break just because if you have to think for one more minute on the job you're going to burst into tears?
Why did you leave me, Levi? Why? Didn't you mean anything that you said on this blog? Didn't a single post, a single letter, leave any lasting reverberation in your heart? How can you be so blissful with the Noelle void in your life now? Except it isn't a void, because you patched it up pretty fast with the Tim filler and Anna filler and New Job Position filler. And here I am, still spinning my wheels, still thwarted by my past, still trapped in the pain and agony that your void leaves. Because you aren't replacable to me. Not for a minute, not for a day, not for seven months. You just weren't. I loved you that real. And you, did you love me at all? Please come back. Please tell me it was real. Everything is falling apart on me. I've tried to move on, to find some peace, to find some new life, some new anything. And my past keeps rushing back over me, everywhere I try to run from it. I just want to get away from it, to forget it. I threw my Andri box into the dumpster and I swore I would never remember but they won't let me. Credit reports, medical reports, the DMV, they all just keep hounding me. How could you judge me for hanging onto the past when it refuses to let me go as well? I tried to be the girl you wanted, who was free of the past, and it was just a lie. All I lost were the good memories, the sweet tangible evidence that in all that bad there was good. And I threw it all away. I threw it all away for you, for the boy who told me he loved me but didn't mean it. Not deep down where forever resounds in his soul. Because you walked away. You walked away, and you left me with all this mess. And I'm drowning. I'm drowning in it. I can't find up, I can't find down. I can't move forward because there is nothing there for me but more pain, more suffering from the choices of my past. And the good things in the past? The thing like... you? I will never get that back either.
Because it's days like today when I'm trapped and alone and the tears won't stop flowing and I have to go back to my high stress job in just a few horrible minutes and.... I'm sitting here writing on this blog. Because I didn't want you to go. I tried so hard to get you back. All I've ever done is fail.I've failed everything in my life. Every single thing. Every. Single. thing. And none of them, as important as you, and yet... none of them as final as you. Because you're gone today. You're always gone. And you always will be. You left me on my own and you are never, ever, coming back. You will always walk right by your Noelle and turn your smiles on someone else. There is nothing left for Noelle. nothing nothing at all.
Levi, why?

Seven Months

Oh, Levi. July 13th has come and gone... another month tucked into history, never to be erased. Why did you leave me? At what point did you stop loving and praying and turn... cold? To walk away and never look back? Oh, I saw you on Sunday all by yourself. I imagine Anna has gone back home, was ill, something. But it was the most bittersweet, hopeful sight I've seen all summer. My Levi... and the place at his side open. My place, waiting for me again. It was hard not to let the tears fall in the choir loft. Oh, Levi. How can I love you so much? Still? It's easy, really.... just go reread your own post from June 2nd, last summer. When we made our pinky promises to each other. When you compared us to tattered, fraying ropes, and the only strength that could keep us together is the 3rd cord of God intertwining us. Oh, to just read that... and I am awash with regret, shame, and repentance for all the times I let you down, God down. And the prayers and tears mingle from sadness to joy, because I know, I know, deep in my heart... I love you still. I'll do anything to try again. To make it. I'm still here... still here in Oklahoma City though I'm terrified... and I'm still praying and waiting all alone... and I love you more each day.
I know you are home today. Home... Washington... the beautiful castle in the sky to me. Did you fly? Who dropped you off? Did they give you a hug, a tight one, and tuck a letter in your hand to read on the plane? Did they text you in Los Vegas' layover? Are they praying for you, as I am, right now? Oh... I hope it is a good visit home. I'm so confused by all the time you have been able to take off work since you left me.. the Southern Jubilee, the Preaching Conference Week, the Banquet... and now, three weeks? That's what Davina told my mom... But oh. I can't express the joy inside my hurting heart. That my Levi could be home, could rest... oh, it makes me so happy... so wistfully jealous. I want to go home so badly.... And yet, I really want to go to you... You are my home.
I found this song randomly. I don't like the original by Jason Mraz quite as much as this cover by a little teen girl, because... it's easy to hear my voice instead of hers. But as I sat at the latest game night with all the Heartland Singles and Crossbearers and they poked me about not crushing on anyone yet... I looked over at the sunset and let the beauty and warmth wash across my pale, sad skin. Because I'm not alone. You're memories, your spirit, is in the chair right beside me. If i reach out my hand... I can remember what it felt like to have your hand hold mine. And it gives me hope. I will never want anyone else but you. You said it was not in your nature to hate? It is not in my nature to let go. Not ever.....

This song is for you.
I hope someday, you hear it on your own. And I hope that you think of your little Noelle. She misses you so much tonight.


I Won't Give Up on Levi

July

Dear Levi,
the sky is soft and dark tonight, a beautiful kind of quiet that comes with the settling of earth into sleep under heaven's watching care. The sky at Brixton Square, facing west, is always light up with spectacular sunsets but it has always been the twilight that I love most. The moment when I can almost hear the world nestling down into sleep. When timid deer cross the pastures, bunny rabbits snuggle close in their hollows, and lonesome owls take wing into the night. The moment when the skies are coming out, one by one, glittering and shining against the fading light of the day. The clouds are deep indigo and sapphire, layers of blue and darker blue and darker blue to black against the treeline. This is my favorite time of day, but it is almost the saddest.
May was agonizing, exhausting, blisteringly cruel.
June... just was Idabel. June was the slow seep of acceptance into my soul. June was restful.
July... July has been hard. The hysteria started up again, the tears, the sleepless nights with nightmares and screams for you. Horrible nightmares, your presence so close and so untangible. Always reciting the ways I have failed. The ways I have never been good enough. Not for Dri, not for you. July has been panicky. Changes with Panera. My new job at TGIF. Changes with my rent. Changes on the outside, changes on the inside. The anniversary of my car wreck... the renewal of the despair. If God is always going to take away the things I love and dream for, then why doesn't he just take me to be in heaven with him? The thought has been resurrected in my broken, lonely heart. But I know he wouldn't let me die for a reason... I try to find it. I try every day to make a difference for someone, to leave a reason for why I existed today. I am trying to be a better person than I was two years ago, and while the pain is still as bad, it's amazing how different I am than back then. God is with me always now. His comforter.... what would I do without him? I cannot feel him, but I know he is here. Every minute.
I miss you. You look happy, in church, from across the great expanse when I see you. You look boyish and energetic and happy. I am glad, because I pray each day for you. But you look skinnier... are you eating okay? Do you have enough money? I hope the 300$ I put on your last school bell helped you start out for summer. Did you get AC in Santanna, or are you dealing with the heat okay? I worry about you... pray... pray... pray. I never stop thinking about you, not a single minute of the day. There is not a person, situation, or moment I am in that does not somehow bring you into my mind. But as I think about you, I pray. Pray without ceasing, and I do. If you never let me be anything more in this world, I will be your biggest prayer warrior.
I miss you. I am still dealing with the hurt of what you did to my father. I don't want to forgive you, but holding resentment against you is wrong... but its' hard when you have hurt someone whom I love and respect. Why did you do it? How could you do it? When I grapple with the shock of it, I have to remember that I don't understand how you have done anything that has happened in the past seven months.
Seven months..... oh my word, how much times keeps draining by.
Will you never think of your little Noelle again?? Never???
Even if you don't... she will never give up on you.
She made a promise. A pinky promise, even.
To a little boy with caramel eyes in an empty parkinglot on the northeast edge of town, when he told her how his dad would make those pinky promises.
And she can't ever break it.
Because she meant it.
I love you, Levi Pierce.
I will never give up and leave you.
Seven months... they seem like 7 days.... for the love I have towards you, my sweet prince.
Come back soon.

Letters to Levi: A Beginnng

Is it possible that true love exists? The kind of love that is emulated in God's, the kind that never dies, never fades away, never grows cold to an end? A love that can be hurt, betrayed, broken, rejected, and abandoned but yet somehow emulates God's endless forgiveness and never gives up? For whatever reasons may be firmly rooted in your mind, you left me sweet Levi, and if I were to focus on your love alone I would despair that true love exists. So many hurts over the past five months and five days. I know you did not intend to bring me hurt, but you did, and I thought my heart would close on you like it did on Andrea when she abandoned me for the final time. I could not cling to God until I had let go of my love for her in my heart. But when you left me, cling to God is exactly what I did. It was turbulent at first, confusing and desperate, and I know that I have failed many times this semester thanks to the never-tiring work of my great adversary the Devil. But it was a little after the service I posted about here last, when I think I came to the point where if God took my love for you away it would be okay. I would grieve the loss, much like the death of a beloved, but I would be okay somehow. Ultimately, my existence cannot be centered around the people in my life but about glorifying God. This truth was learned after my car wreck on July 4th, 2011 and tested during the dark final semester you left me. I knew God would test it, and even in boundless pain and panic, I knew I wasn't going to fail God in the same way. In a way, being stronger was a lot more painful. To push yourself to go to class, to smile, to keep wiping away the tears, but more than that - the constant, incessant prayers to God all day long to keep any stray root of bitterness or despair from finding soil. In the end, when I was finally able to come to the place where I could give you up forever and it just be me and God, God wrapped me in great warmth. My body still goes cold with shock when the pain hits, the stunning blows from reality. I guess in my head even today, you have not really left me. Even with all the steps you have taken to move on, in my head, you still love me because in my heart, I still love you. But the coldness doesn't permeate my soul. It takes captive my body, but God gives my spirit strength. Strength to pray for you each day. Strength to walk across the stage at graduation. Not too long ago, Noelle had no strength. She passed out, multiple times, sought alcohol, cut herself, vomited. Although I haven't been able to be completely victorious in every moment of the hundred days, there is a different Noelle and I am so grateful for the change that God has been able to make in my life. Part of it is due to other people, but the biggest part is due to you. Thank you, Levi, for loving me when I was a mess and helping me find my strength in God. I can never repay you that debt.
Lately, sitting on the couch in the dark, trying to contemplate the future, the quiet, desperate question seeks the heavens. What now, God? And he keeps reminding me of that night on Grand Boulevarde by the church, your tears in the dark, the very last time you held me. "Can we just write letters?" you pleaded. Agh, I recall your letters, your posts on the blog. So eloquent, so blissful, so exquisite. You never wrote me another letter, and even though I tried, my driving away in frustration and anger spoiled the later effort to do as you asked. The regret is bitter yet, sharp still. I make so many mistakes.
But to make mistakes is to learn. "Success teaches you nothing, mistakes everything," someone once said. God has had more classroom access in my heart and mind this semester than in a very long time. Back to the drawing board. Back to analyzing my failures, repenting, accepting His forgiveness, and embarking on a sanctified turn. It's such hard work. I have so many areas in which to grow, but the key to them all is like I posted before. That fire.
I was talking to my mom yesterday about how forgiving you for Anna at this point isn't even an issue in my mind. I pray for you and her, and I do it with sincerty. My family is fiercely loyal and maybe even devicively so, but it was you who taught me how to accept people's differences without hatred or bitterness. To just accept what you are doing, and pray about it. But more importantly, to pray for me about it. To keep my focus on me, but never cease praying for you. While I talked with my mom, the tears fell as they do every single day. But they were bittersweet tears, as I recalled a few precious memories with you. And the biggest thing in my memories is your gentleness in the way you loved me. Not any kind of gentleness, a Levi gentleness. I've never encountered anything like it.
"If I treated you the way you treated me, you'd have left a long time ago," you once said to me when we were fighting. And I knew even then that you were right. How many times have I done the unthinkable? Said the inexcusable? It was as if my lessons learned in Chicago were of no effect in my life. I am ashamed. Have long been ashamed. But oh, the way you treated me? Even now it makes my heart soften and glow. Levi's gentleness. If I did anything wrong, I surely never heard it from you. Maybe once or twice. But even then your rebuke was so gentle. Sincere, but sincerely gentle. I've never known love like that. And if I could have any change in my life, it would be to love like you loved me.
It's hard. My family doesn't treat me that way, and neither does anyone else. But I have seen it. I know what it feels like, what it looks like, what it sounds like. And each day I pray that God will break me until I have nothing left of self, of that frustration, that impatience, that selfishness, nothing left at all but His gentleness and grace. Oh, that someday you would come back and I could have the chance to love you like you loved me. Oh, what I would give for that chance.
It may never come. I have accepted that, but refuse to fulfill it. I continue to pray. And God takes me back to that night, when you said, "Write letters." And I don't know what to say. I am so afraid to hurt you, to make you disappointed or frustrated with me. Writing you is so hard, because it is an empty exercise. You don't read these letters, and you don't write back. There is nothing but emptiness at the end of them, and the grief of loss.
But I can't get away from it. So I am just going to write, and come of it what may.
I am going to call this new change in the blog LETTERS TO LEVI from now on, even though I can't bring myself to chance the actual URL name. I'll never be able to replace the binary name you put there, for it bring back such wonderful memories. Precious memories, of my precious Levi.
I want you to know I still love you, and am praying that God brings me to the place where He can bring you back, and you to the place where He can bring you back. Because I am assured in my soul that we, us, that is the union of Levi and Noelle's lives, was the will of God and still is. No one else may believe, but I do. Charity hopeth all things, endureth all things... charity never fails.

Revival

I don't really know what the use is putting this here. I just know that if I had the opportunity to talk to you about what God is doing in my life... I would really want you to know. I would want you to know why I am different. I would want you to know that I am. And I would hope that you would pray for me.
It all happened Sunday. 100 days after you left me, after that terrible blowup, and I was begging God for any kind of relief. Thursday I saw that you took the very last tokens of me in your life down and stored them in an old box and I saw Anna and Tim and you at work and I hit rock bottom. I had never known how deep the pain could go, how violently the blood could burn, and how deeply the sobs could wrench. Or how far the screams could echo. How vivid the despair could emulate. I thought that I knew loss when I lost Andrea. I had never felt loss like I did that night.
But I read a quote that says, Sometimes God lets you hit rock bottom so that you can discover that He is the Rock at the bottom. Quotes have come to mean so much to me recently. And that one is true, in a way, that when I hit bottom I clung to God's unfathomable love for me like a drowning kitten to its mother in a state-wide flood. I clung for my life, my very sanity, my very existence. I clung to God because I would not choose you over Him like I did with Andrea. Because in this horror, in this abandonment, I was not going to turn my back on God again. I was going to run to Him. And run to him I did.
I've been begging and pleading and wrestling with God for 100 days. This is not the place to recap all that we have discussed and learned together, God and I, over this time. But turning to God in the service Sunday night, yeilding myself to hear from him, was nothing new. What was new, however, was that I had finally given up keeping you ever again... and God spoke to me. Like, spoke to me. Spoke to me! In tones calm and undeniable, I hear from God himself that night and I took notes so furiously and the tears trickled down my face and Gabby and Joy shot me worried glances and I knew you and Tim were behind me up in the balcony somewhere and I didn't care; didn't care; all I could think about was that God was talking to me, beating me soundly, wrestling with me like he had wrestled with Jacob, and I was frozen in the moment. Utterly prostrate before His holiness. For the first time, like God answered Job after several dozen chapters of bitter agonizing discourse, God had ended my bitter agonizing philabustering and was answering me.
Gird thyself like a man. Stand on thy feet, and answer thou ME.
It was so painful, as if I had been smacked in the head with a two-by-four. It was after you left me, still deep in the winter, that I ran into a metal beam outside work and broke my nose. Smacked myself right in the face and blacked right own. Blood, bruised eyes, the whole nine yards. I spent two days in the back of the house with ice packs piled on my face, wearing a headset so I could answer the drive thru cars and still work some kind of shift, changing the bandages every twenty minutes. I blinding, shocking, 80-mile-an-hour-impact of heavy metal to my face is exactly what it felt like when God began talking to me on Sunday.
It started for some reason with the thought of opposites. If opposites attract, and you and I are so completely opposite, then why did we repell each other? If you are cool, easy, calm and laid back water, and I am deep, fiery, pasionate and agile fire, why didn't we click? Oh I went off thinking and analyzing and all sorts of stuff but God was about to tune my mind to a much deeper reasoning.
I began to think about Anna, and how she accosted me Sunday morning when I was just trying to avoid you all, and how much I hated her. Hated Tim. Hated every time I saw you laughing and smiling and chosing to invest in relationships while you had rejected an investment in our relationship. The hate, the rage, the trembling hysteria, was not far from the brink. And I sat there, thinking about Anna sitting up there with you, suddeny it was like God opened the heavens. I'll record it like I felt it happen.
"Noelle, do you think that I can't bring someone better than you into Levi's life?"
"Huh?"
"Do you think you are the most perfect girl in the universe for Levi?"
"Well.... I mean.... it felt that way.... he said I was..."
"Yes, he did in the beginning. In the end he rejected everythiing about you as being the worst thing in the world for him."
"But... but... I don't think he meant it..."
"What if he did?"
"If he did?"
"What if it were true? And everything about you he hates right now? And he always will?"
"But why would he hate me?!?!"
'Why indeed, Noelle." The accusatory silence, coming from God himself.
My eyes were opened.
"But God, I'm not perfect! Every girl is going to have flaws!"
"Your flaws became more than flaws. Your flaws became the very poison that destroyed his love and ultimately created his hate. He left you, because you have more than flaws."
Me, speechless in pain.
God, quietly persisent. "Do you think that I can't find a girl better than you?"
"Oh God... I know you can..."
"Would you dare to fault Me if I brought Anna into Levi's life because she is goin to be better for him than you were? Better to him?"
"But... but... my whol family enveloped him and loved on him!"
"You think her family can't??"
"But... but... he called me his precious little Noelle!"
"And do you think if I created Anna there are not precious things about her to me that I can lead him to see as well?"
"Oh God!!!!' I sobbed on the inside. "Would you do that to me?"
"Do you not deserve it?"
"Would you take him away when you already took away Dri and Brad?"
"Did you deserve that?"
"Yes.... I know I failed.... I know I messed up. I know I did. I know that I played a huge role in the destruction of that relationship...."
"And you do not to this one?"
Quiet now, contemplating. "You're right God. I do."
"Think about it. What exactly did he say made him run from you?"
"Calling him a coward."
"Did you call Andrea names?"
"Yes, I called her a monster."
"What gives you a right to call them that?"
"Because it was true. At least, it was true to how I felt about them in the situation."
"Noelle, I command my children to speak the turth in love. Were you obeying me?"
"No."
"What is disobedience to my direct commands?"
"It's sin, God."
"Sin, regardless of whether you were correct in how you felt or not. Why else did he run away?"
"I don't know. He insists Brandon isn't part of it but people say that is the reason he gives. That he felt I cheated on him."
"How did he treat you about Nikki and Brenda?"
"He was always so careful about my feelings. He never rbought them up.... I did.... He even said he wanted me on the phone if he called Brenda about his little sister. He was so respectful of me as his girlfriend... and... holy cow, God, I totally disrespected him!!! He was hurting me and I didn't think it would be a big deal but I chose to totally disrespect him in light of how respectfully he had treated me!"
"Do you think that is justifiable? Do you think I can't bring him a girl who will never give place for jealousy or mistrust in his heart?"
"Oh God you can and he deserves such a girl!"
"Why else did he leave you?"
"I don't know. He said once, the day we met during church on Grand Boulevard, when he hurt me so deeply that I fell to the ground weeping, that this was the reason that he was having second thoughts. I remember wanting to die. He was hurting me, and the results of that were the reason he wanted to walk away? It didn't make sense. But I think it wasn't so much the weeping as the hysteria. Because he kept saying, at the Vast, and later at Walmart last thursday, that he didn't want emotion. No emotion. He wanted a family member present so that emotions couldn't get out of control."
"What do you think he meant by that?"
"Well I remember letting them get out of control. I barely think about it because it's so painful, but I remember the day we fought about the Vast reservation, sitting in our cars and glaring and sobbing for hours. I remmeber keying Santanna. I remember screaming bloody murder over the phone. I remember cursing. I remember... Oh God must I continue???"
"Yes. I want you to see the truth of who you are."
"I remember blocking his calls. I remember ignoring when he tried to reach out. I remember punching him that one day when he scared me. I remember texting him dozens of times in hysterical agony. I remember begging and begging and begging like a broken record. I remember that stupid KFC chicken order when I freaked out at the lady regarding the messup, and our same faight after Jimmy John's coming back from Texas. I remember screaming I hated him that fateful night across campus when he ran away. I remember bitching across facebook in my fervor. I remember blocking him. Oh God."
"My daughter, I am ashamed of you."
"I know! I know! Oh God I did these exact same things to Andrea! I did them to her! And she left me and now I've done them to Levi took and he's left me too! Oh God won't you please kill me? Please?! I can't change! I Can't ever change!"
"Noelle, be still. Do you see now that I can bring anyone into his life an she would be a better soulmate for him than you?"
"Oh yes God yes! I am so ashamed! I have been an utter failure! You entrusted me with his heart and I tried but in the end I caved in to my passion and sinful nature and I was the woman in Proverbs who plucked down her home with her own hands! Oh God! There is so much more than I did wrong! I lied to him about not having his keys! I didn't listen to him when he told me to do things, I totally disregarded him!"
"Noelle, be still. You have finally opened your eyes to the truth about your character. You are sinful and destructive. Can you fault me that I have taken Levi from your life?"
"God I can't! It would be so unlike a loving Father that you are to Levi to put him in someone's life like mine. Oh God the shame is burning me so much. Oh God how can I even begin to beg your foriveness? To beg his?"
"My forgiveness is always before you when you earnestly seek it. The time to apologize to him will come later, and you must trust me to bring that day around. Now can you look at Anna and tell me what you see?"
"Oh God I see a girl that you have allowed to enter his life. A girl whom is obviously interested in him. Oh God is hurts so badly, he is my Levi, my love, but if he were to draw to her she would find the most gentle, sweetest friend in the whole world! And God if she can love him more gently than I can, I am so ashamed, please let her love him for me because he deserves it! Oh God, let me weep on your chest a while and confess all this wickedness to you and let me find the solace of your mercy."
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A while later
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"God, thank you. Thank you for this beating. For opening my eyes... for forgiving me... and for changing my heart. God, I am at such a loss. It seems that you entrust me with precious CHristians and I am used of the Devil to bring pain and anguish into thier life and my own and it results in explosions. God, how can I change? I don't want to lose my fire but God it must be lost because it is burning down everythiing. God, how could you make me with such passion and zeal and deep emotions if there is only an end to them that people hate? God, how should I douse the fire of my passion and not douse my very spirit? God how to do I change without changing me???"
"Listen, and I will talk to you a while."
"Speak, Lord, and I am your humble servant listening now."
"Noelle, did I make you as you are? Did I shape in you the great depth of emotion, passion and fire?"
"Yes, Lord, you did but I am so confused..."
"Shhh. Be still sweetheart while I talk to you."
"Lord, quiet my racing mind so I can hear you clearly."
"I will if you would yeild to my spirit. Noelle, do you think that I would make you just as you are and not provide a while for those things to exist in harmony with your relationships?"
"I had never truly thought about it. It seems everyone tells me they are an evil that must be stifled by the presence of someone else so I don't bother them with my emotions and passion."
"They are wrong. It is only an evil in the end that it brings. And Levi wants another person present bcaus eyou have failed to control your emotions and passion safely yourself."
"Oh."
"Noelle, how do people like fire?"
"What do you mean?"
"Fire that is admired. In waht form is it found?"
"Well.... fireplaces. Like the cozy homey fireplace in Brixton square. Or candelabras. Or lanterns."
"Noelle, your first is a plague because you have been a fire out of control. The fire in you is not the problem. It is the out of control factor that is the problem. The wild fire, devouring, consuming, spreading, errupting, billowing out of control and spewing ash, smoke, death and destruction. That is you, and that is the passion you have. Of course people tell you to douse the fire! And of course they ran. Andrea. Levi. Who wouldn't in thier right minds escape a wild fire like that?!?!"
"Oh Lord."
"Levi once said to you that if he treated you like you treated him, you'd be long gone and he was right and you knew it. Andrea actually said the same thing to you. Don't you see the pattern?"
"Yes, and I am so discouraged by it. God how can I change? I destroy everything."
"Noelle, I created that fire in you and I do not desire to see it extinguished. Noelle, how do people love a fire? Noelle.... you need a lantern."
And in my head, in that moment, I saw the most beautiful illustration from heaven. The hand of God reaching down to my little pitiful flickering flame, and capturing it in the most beautiful, exquisitely crafted, placid glass flute of a lantern.
"Noelle, you need a lantern."
"Oh my...."
"You need the calm, cool, still, tranquil, and placid glass of my holy spirit surrounding your spirit. Noelle, I desire that you burn and burn brightly, just like Paul. But to do that you need to have a shield. A sheild that will keep your fire from spreading out of control, and that is the temperance of the Holy Spirit. You need a glass that will allows others to draw close close close to you without ever being alarmed of the flame or being burned, and that is the cool flawless protection of the glass flute of the lantern. Noelle, you need a lantern. You need the Holy Spirit."
And in that minute, my life changed.
Because I saw myself as a unique creation of God that did not have to just be doused out and only lead to ruin. I saw myself as acreation of God that Satan had taught how to run ablaze and out of control. I began to see beautiful fires, several stories high, burning in public libraries while people gazed and admired them, all because of the tranquil, strong glass that encased it.
And suddenly so much made sense.
All the girls that avoided me because of my passion. They were afraid of the fire, confused by it. I could nver relate to them because I felt fake. But now I saw that having a glass lantered didn't make me fake, it made me complete. I could smile gently at them in the dorm or in church and not feel fake. Becaus ethe pain and humailiation might burn within me as deep as ever, but it is not out of control to leap at them in angry sparks and puffing smoke. No, it is contained by the calming presence of the Holy Ghost.
And I began to understand that this grief I feel, this pain, this agony.... God is equipped to handle it. No one else is, not even Levi. Just God and me alone in that flame. Everyone else outside the fire on the other side of the glass, protected by the tranquil sheild of the HOly Spirit.
And suddenly for the first time I understood a woman being closer to God than to her husband. For I had longed for Levi to know me inside and out to the very depths of my soul, but now I knew that he was not equipped to live inside that flame with me. That was not his zone. That was God's. And Levi could be the closest one to me and hold the lanter tightly against his chest where it could warm his heart and shine light on his day, but it would never ever burn him because the holy spirit is there providing him tranquility and safety and peace. And God and me could deal with the depth of the emotions, and the fervor of the passion, and the bightness of the hysteria. and no one else would be destroyed by them.
And suddenly.... I understood everyting.
And i knew that I am not ready for Levi to come back.
If God were ever so graciouis for bring you back, he would not be so unkind a father as to bring you back now. He has chastened me, and he has revived me, and he has set me on a new path. But now I must walk this path with him and him alone until I am tried and true. Until he can trust me again with the heart and life of one of his precious souls, whether you, or whether anyone else in life.
And I know in shame and honesty that if you never come back, then I have deserved it.
But my prayer is that you will come back, and you will find me changed.
And regardless.... I am changed.
My parents and Bible teachers and so many people have tried to teach me this missing key to my life, but I never saw it until I saw it on Sunday, the hand of God stretched down from heaven to capture my pitiful little flame with the brilliant placid glass of his Holy Spirit.
And now when I look at you, I feel regret and shame and and love and.... hope. Because I see clearly now. And when I see Tim's menacing glares, I think of how badly Kendon despises you and I see someone who is misinformed but has your back, and I am grateful. I want to go up to him and ask him not to hate me, but to tel him that I appreciate him in your life so much. Giving you a friend. Giving you rest, and peace, and some measure of happiness. And when I look at Anna... I feel sadness, and a measure of righteous jealousy, but I also feel the presence of God. And I want to go ask her to be gentle to you and to give you the love that you deserve so much. And tell her that I am still praying that God change me into a woman who you can love again, but if He does not ever bring you back to me, I still will always love you. And that means wishing the best for you.... whatever that is at the loving hands of the Father.
And this is why I am different.