Blood

I just spent the last few minutes of my Tuesday evening reading through my older sisters blog. After making my way through some of her posts I realized I had this ridiculous smile plastered across my face. Not one of those half-hearted smiles you get during an episode of "Wipeout", but rather the kind of smile that literally takes over your face. I took a moment and evaluated what it was that was happening to me, and more importantly why? I realized that the same thing had happened only a few hours earlier when I was walking home from work and I was talking on the phone with my mom, dad, and little sister. That little buzzer went off somewhere in my brain and I realized what it was that brought this unexplainable joy to my entire being. Blood. My family. The people that I have spent the better part of 19 years laughing, fighting, and ultimately bonding with. Only now that I'm 8 hours away from them do I truly realize exactly what they mean to me. Everything.

One of the guys on my floor said something earlier in this insane semester that really hit home. He said "The two things you realize when you leave home is how badly you treated your family and how awesome your childhood really was". Now I'm not 100% sure this is how the quote went (this was like early September and I don't write anything down) but this is what I took from it. God blessed me with an amazing childhood as a part of an amazing family, and I totally failed to realize this until I arrived in this crazy city.

It was at this point that I was feeling a tad bit low. I felt as if I had let my family down by not truly appreciating everything they had done for me. The way they would show up to basketball games despite knowing how bad we were gonna get plastered. The way they kept their cool when I went all high school on them. The way they poured themselves into me despite my refusal to allow any such act of love. I found myself desperately wishing I could go back and fix everything, try again, hit restart, make it right. I was clawing at the edges of my new reality trying to find a way to fix a past that had sailed away like Frodo at the end of Return of the King.

It was only a matter of time before I came to the realization that I was overreacting. I attributed this temporary feeling of overwhelming guilt to homesickness (people I miss my family. true story) and put my man pants on. God was giving me an incredible opportunity! Sure I may have dropped the proverbial ball at one point or another in my first go around back home, but that doesn't change the blood flowing through my veins. I am connected to my family by something that goes so much deeper than any amount of mistakes I could ever make, and that is what brings that ridiculous smile right back!

Go back and read that last sentence one more time. Please. Okay now I don't know about you but the spiritual implications absolutely destroyed me. God has blessed us with so many things in life that picture the love He has for us. It's like the almighty creator of the universe is dropping little hints in front of us all the time in an effort to make us realize just how much He loves us. This feeling of unconditional love I feel for my family, and they feel for me, is just an immaculate portrait of the love God has for us. I am connected to my Master by something that goes so much deeper than any amount of mistakes I could ever make. That something is blood. The blood of Jesus Christ.

I am once again convicted as I think about that smile I spoke of earlier. My sister's blog brought this unconstrained joy to my heart as I read about her daily struggles with her son, and yet where is this joy when I read through God's love letter to me? In John 15 verse 11 Jesus says "I have spoken to you, that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be full." There is a joy that is offered to us that goes so much deeper than any earthly relationship could ever go. This joy is promised to be completed in the relationship we gain through Christ's act of love (1 John 1:3-4).

I don't know about you, but I want my joy to be complete. I want to experience whatever this world has to throw at me and still have some ridiculous smile on my face. I want people to look at me and wonder what the shrimp is wrong with me. I want my joy to be contagious. I want other believers to see me and yearn for that joy, the way I currently yearn when I see these joyous people.

I've strayed from my original topic. I want to bring it back for one more moment before I turn in for the night. My family and I have a bond that goes beneath the skin. We are connected by the very DNA that makes us who we are. In this same way my relationship with Christ goes beneath the skin. It flows from His wrists, from His brow, from His side, from His feet, from His back, from His fleshly casing that He so mericfully inhabited so as to create an unbreakable bond with a wretch such as I. When I think about that blood flowing from my Savior it brings me to tears, but then I think of the joy He promises as a result of this sacrifice and a smile reaches the corners of my mouth. It's not a huge smile, but it's a start. I'm on my way to experiencing a joy that is only complete in my relationship with my Master, and let me tell ya, I can't wait to get there!