Sarah D. Shearer

Here’s the thing. Nothing is I thought it was. This whole journey of being human, being woman, being daughter, being a constantly questioning, constantly inquisitive child of a vast, beautiful laughing Father, Daddy, Abba… it’s all so different than how I thought it would be. It’s so much better.

The trouble with books is they give you the false sense of preparedness, experience. They make you think you’ve gone through things you have only read about. So I kept reading and reading and then I️ just had to stop and wait a while. I had to look up from the law and breathe in the aroma of flowers, of humanity, of Saturday’s.

It’s almost embarrassing to admit, really, all the things I thought were important. All the rules I made myself follow that were only statutes I had penned. But I suppose the most marvelous joy is realizing, because as soon as we realize we were wrong, we are moving forward, finding a new truth to anchor ourselves in in the great blue sea.

I thought I needed to stay at home until I was married, or else I was giving up on god and settling for a life of singleness. As I sit in my apartment where I live by myself, I’m smiling because I’ve never felt closer to this God I was sure I was abandoning. What I was so sure was a black and white has become a verdant green, a yes, despite all my arguments.

I thought I had to stay still, like a child waiting crouched in a bush, breathing heavily, hoping the game of hide and seek is coming to an end soon. Maybe if I was still enough, sweet enough, they would find me, but they didn’t, so I️’m going forth, onto another adventure. Maybe you will find me along the way, oh how I hope you do, but I’m going on, I️’m off to dream a new dream.

I thought independence meant a breach of relationship, but the most authentic independence realizes she is weak, useless, without her father. Her freedom, her vivacity, is found as she relents, succumbs, submits, surrenders.

I thought faith looked one way, and maybe it does, but it also looks another. It may well be the liturgy and the bread and the wine as much as it is the song and the ink and the laughter and the mountains. He is in all of it, waiting and hoping we will see him as He is, fresh and joyous and spotless and true, strong and wild and safe and home and new and old and unfamiliar . All. At. Once.

I️

I thought the joy was in understanding, but the real joy is in the questions, the trust, even though, the trust, despite.

He is much better than we think. He is much more blue and red and green and yellow than he is black and white.

So I dig deeper, write more, pray more fervently, worship with more abandon. I choose to forego the daily instagram updates so often, because I am weary of my own reflection. I want to see him.

I stop counting the likes and begin to count the stars. I don’t now what you are up to anymore, but I have a few good friends and they are molding me and making my life infinitely more beautiful than I ever thought possible.

I don’t know what the year holds, where I will go, who I will meet, but I have a particularly great feeling.

My exhortation is this: unravel your ideas and your priorities and the things you hold to be self evident, and get to know the real Jesus. Sit with him and see if your world shrinks suddenly and bursts forth into brilliant color more quickly than the blink of an eye.

He is after us.