sunrise?

this morning i woke up with the remnants of a dream still playing through my mind... very rarely is this a good thing, as i wake up in a state of confusion - what is actually real and what do i merely wish was real? it usually takes about 20 minutes to undo the confusion, as i lay there underneath the covers trying to get my mushy brain to focus on something true. it might sound silly unless you've actually had this happen before - when you wake up with a heartache, and you didn't even stand a chance at beginning your day any other way. when the first thing you are forced to do after regaining consciousness, is to lay down your burdens - the same burdens you laid down 9 hours ago before going to sleep - and the cycle repeats itself. sunrise... sunset... sunrise... sunset... and Christ's redemption alone covering everything in between.

- - -

although i live here with my friend Marie, our schedules are largely dissimilar. she currently works full time, and i currently.... don't. i retain (temporarily?) the freedom to be the night owl that i love, while she is forced (temporarily?) to be a morning person at least 5 days out of the weekly 7. what all this means is that although i have a roommate, i still have ample time to myself... i can play my piano and guitar loudly, i can wreck the kitchen and clean it back up again before Marie gets home, i can get down on my face in the living room and pray to God the way i sometimes need to, i can walk around singing like famous singers that i am nothing like... it's just me.

sometimes this is my favorite element of my life.

sometimes this is my worst enemy.

- - -

many of us currently find ourselves abiding in this land of the single-twenty-somethings.

sometimes i like this land.

sometimes i despise it.

i enjoy it becomes of its freedom, but i despise it because it makes me such a divided person. my spiritual life seems often to become only a daily consuming effort to reconcile the parts of me that are real and the parts of me that i long to be real, through Christ. it's a feeling of being split in two - this is where i happen to be today, but this is not where i thought i would be today. these are the prayers the Lord is answering, but those are the prayers i hoped He would answer more. that is what i want, but this is what i have... it's a contrast that shows up between our waking and our sleeping, between the things we long for and the bills we actually have to pay this month. the contrast is there... so Lord, what do we do with it?

i want to be a good steward of the life He has given.

i don't want to covet other people's security.

i don't want to be a divided person.

i don't want to wake anymore from dreams that felt more real than this.

... and more than ever, I need Christ's redemption alone to cover everything in between.