My First Love

I fell in love on the wooden floor between the second row of pews (right side if you're looking from the door) in the United Methodist church in Barnum, Minnesota. I remember everything about that place.

I fell in love and I stood and I sang and I lifted my hands and danced. I played guitar in my bedroom late at night and I sang love songs and I meant them. I cried and I wrote songs to Him and He heard me and we danced together. I saw it once, a vision of His feet, dancing over us, and I laughed for joy that He was with me and I knew it.

Restless this morning, I found my guitar and dusted it off, tuned it up. And I sang the old songs. The first songs. Jesus, Lover of My Soul.

I miss this love, this first love, unashamed and unselfconscious. I wasn't worried about my spiritual gifts or my best gifts. I was a gift. All of me poured out and I didn't think to do otherwise until later. Didn't think to hold back or be embarrassed.

And His love, it is so sweet to remember it. How we met each other in those moments of worship. How He whispered to me. How He loved and healed and held me.

Lately, I've been longing. It's the best word I have for what I feel. Wanting so much. I want adventure. I want passion. I want something new and brave and exciting, and I want to be alive. I've been looking everywhere trying to find an object, a solution, a next step forward. Maybe it's a step back instead. A returning.

A return to curiosity. Freedom from self-criticism. Permission to stop assessing what the people around me need me to be. A return to kneeling and hand raising, song writing and the untalented, passionate singing of songs. Maybe my longing is a reminder that I have been full before.

I have been empty and straining. Working. Trying so hard to love. So scared to do it wrong, not fit, not be good enough. 

“Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls.”

Teach me from your lap, Father, how to sing again. How to rest. How to be filled up.