all i want for christmas is you...

i love that song, btw... but this post is not necessarily related to it...

here is the beginning of a list of things i think i suck at sometimes (some of them are things i think i suck at all the time...)

1) relationships (all of them)
2) words
3) life
4) following Christ
5) accepting grace and the free gifts God has given me

lately, i've been struggling with relationships and also the concept of accepting God's free gifts... i know i've received salvation, but i think that there are so many other good things He has for me... and they're sitting there wrapped under the tree... but it's like i'm afraid of them or i don't know what to do with them or i feel like i don't deserve them...

so, a dear friend of mine encouraged me to read through John in an attempt to examine Jesus' relationships... all of them, through John's eyes...

i started the other night and have still only made it through verses 1-2...

"in the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God."

there was a reference from vs. 1 to Phil 2:6... "who, though He was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped"

this stopped me in my tracks... i am still baffled by that idea. Jesus didn't consider equality with God a thing to be grasped... what? for real? my journal is filled with pages of notes... all mixed up... "yes, Jesus does what the Father wills... in the garden, he said, 'not my will, but yours be done.' but really... Jesus is perfect. He is God... it's another trinity concept i can't grasp..."

so, then, i get to verse 2 and there was a reference to 1 john 1:2, "the life was made manifest, and we have seen it, and testify to it and proclaim to you the eternal life, which was with the Father and was made manifest to us."

which leaves me with this. Word = Jesus = Life... which reminds me of John 6:63. "The words that I have spoken to you are spirit and life."

so i'm blown away by all of this... but there is a simplicity in it, as well... so i'm just trying to figure it all out... when my pastor says, "what is the relationship of the Father to the Son?" and i can't even scratch the surface of that... like i don't get it or something... and then Chris takes it one step further and says, " okay... here's your free gift... 'as the Father has loved me, so I have loved you...' what do you do with that? what does that look like?"

and i'm still wrestling... Jesus loves me the same way the Father loves Him... it seems like it should be so easy... like a teeny-bopper love song... but it's not... and they are more than mere words...

part of me finds comfort in knowing that i can never fully know God and His thoughts... yet He knows me fully, gets my thoughts and still offers me presents...

this probably doesn't make sense to anyone but me... but then again, i'm probably the only one who will even see it...