heavy [2]

& some weeks, i feel like i get it--i understand a tiny portion of the frustrations he must have had with me.  spending months going over the same material, praying and reading, reading and praying. sharing his testimony over and over. telling me to do what i felt was right.
& all of this at a young age--twenty years old & trying to handle every question and fear of worrywart-me, on top of every other investigator.
& i took my sweet time. i made my share of less-than-great decisions.  i hesitated.  i waited and put things off and found every reason not to do what, in my heart, i knew was right. & you know what? he loved me anyway. he loved me on my good days, & he loved me harder on my worst, when i really needed it. he learned the difference between when i needed soft & gentle out-loud prayers, & when i needed tough love.  he knew me inside out and in so many ways shaped my faith and helped me build my own testimony.
& he did that in a very real way.
but sometimes i feel like i've been doing that for over a year, in a tiny way.  & while it's tiny, it makes my heart ache--it makes me literally ache for that little light to go off & for that happy ending i've been craving for so freakin' long. & to be honest, at times i'm exhausted.
i wrote a blogpost a while back about tolerance.  & i meant every word.
sometimes it gets old to be tolerated. some days i just want you to freakin' get it--to know that i'm tired. to understand that i will keep living what i believe, and that nothing you do or say changes that. that i will keep praying and hoping, hoping and praying, for you, but that that doesn't mean i'm not completely freakin' frustrated with you. i love you, but my goodness, get it together.
some days it gets old to hear how i'm going to "be a light" or how i'm a "pioneer." if they don't see, does that mean i wasn't bright enough?


& i guess maybe that's how he felt, when he was teaching me the same exact lessons for the umpteenth time, or when he was re-explaining something, or when he had to tell me not to read anti- sites, or when i would argue every little thing, or when i would decide i was over it & i didn't care.
& that only makes me love him more than i already did.
& i guess that, in a bigger way, that is how He feels, every time we make choices we shouldn't.  that is how He feels when He sees what we've turned this world into and how corrupt we really are becoming.


that comforts me, knowing that He knows my heart and he knows when it aches and when it rejoices, and everything in between. that makes me remember why i live the way i do, and why i'm here, in this place, at this time. it reminds me of my purpose.
i know that we are given people who will love us to pieces when we least deserve it. he was mine, without a doubt. & i hope that, at least on some level, i am theirs.


love, not tolerance.