Born in California.
Raised by the world.
∞
Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no account of wrongs. Love takes no pleasure in evil, but rejoices in the truth. It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.
This is the 1 Corinthians I remember memorizing in my Christian grace school, when the Bible was merely another book and faith was a fancy word.
What I don’t recall are the subsequent passages, which resonate now possibly with even more impact than the former:
When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I set aside childish ways. Now we see but a dim reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.
And now these three remain: faith, hope, and love; but the greatest of these is love.
The unexamined life is not worth living.
—Socrates
Disclosure from the outset - there’s been so much ongoing conflict inside of me even now, and the nucleus of my soul knows that I have yet to arrive at the best version of myself. But in 2018, it was finally like I had personal encounters with glimpses of that self and the sure conviction that transformation is happening in areas I didn’t think I’d grow out of, or maybe even need to.
In a year’s time, I became more understanding, richer in grace, and steadier in the moments that would’ve typically sent me running. There were certainly still times I had to will myself to make the healthiest and most loving decisions. What’s more, there were plenty of situations in which I was perplexed and felt incredibly outside my capacity, and more times than I can count when I was grieved.
In my desire to be a safe place, however, I learned to love differently, to be patient and to surrender. To actually be quick to listen and slow to speak, to share words of kindness and life, to suspend judgment, to nurse potential even if my role was the tiller who prepares the soil of the heart rather than a witness of the fruit and manifestation.
Was this “me” always present? No. But man, was it more consistently outworked than it’s ever been. And everything and anything good that’s come of this is to point to (and exalt) Someone who’s an unconditional refuge, a tangible Softener of the most obstinate hearts, Someone who redefines life itself.
Discipline increases capacity.
—Bobbie Houston
