a pretty [,] painful movie

after a beautiful day at the beach together, a friend and i grabbed a knish and headed to see 'tree of life'. i'm here to tell you that the knish was bad and the movie was worse. the one thousand ounces of pop i drank throughout the film was the only thing getting me through. (yes, all you drug addicts and health nuts - cherry coke cures a number of pains)

i really tried to step back from all the lengthy montages of fake planets separating and exploding whilst opera music rang in my ears to truly listen to some dialogue, even though it was spoken in that southern accent that leaves me feeling violent.

brad pitt's son was talking to God and he said, 'why should i be good, if you aren't?' and if you give me one person who hasn't asked a version of that question before, i'll show you someone who has probably not been weaned from breast milk yet.

i honestly think it takes what feels like an eternity to start truly believing God is good. because as someone who is really trying to love Jesus, you know that it is messy, painful, and sometimes the last thing you want to do.

i get emails from my neighborhood newspaper every few days, telling me highlights of the week. they are almost always horrifying. rape, murder, anything else awful... and for someone like me - who has been through enough muck to get to the place of trusting that God is indeed good, i start to doubt if he is really who i think he is.

when my dear sweet sister-in-law and one of my best friends, kara, was trying to figure out all this God stuff and was so curious and eager to learn - i really encouraged her to let doubt be an integral part of her searching.

i have a love/fear relationship with doubt. it is scary and necessary and horrible and wonderful all at the same time. if i didn't have any doubts about God or just took everything at face value (which, you try to do when it comes to faith and let me know how that goes), i would have a superficial belief lacking everything that makes up the thick gooey substance that is my desire for the understanding of Jesus and his pursuit of me.

last week i was in charlotte and popped into watershed with the fam on sunday morning. hofert said: 'need breeds faith.'

so tell me about what usually comes first in your experience... your need for something, or your faith that it will come? and how much doubting was apart of your acquiring that faith? i know there are a handful of great things that i don't necessarily need, but would so love to happen that i really doubt will. so i just have faith that God will meet my needs - and i hope that he'll throw some wants in there too. he hasn't disappointed so far.