So driving back from Galveston, Benjamin and I dove into some conversation that had my mind running a hundred miles a minute. What does it really mean to know God? What does it mean to be free? What does it look like or feel for God to be your Everything? And what does that mean for God to be your all in all?

The more we discussed...okay really I just asked a ton of questions...the more I realized it wasn't really resolved in my inner most being...Ben talked about the frustration of singing all these great things when struggling with knowing Him back a couple years ago...really praising God with just words...lyrics popped in my head...you know the typical ones...

• You're my all in all.
• How great is our God
• Blessed be the name of the Lord
• More than all I want...more than all I need...you are more than enough for me...
• You are amazing, God
• You give and take away. My heart will chose to say, Lord, Blessed be your name.

There are a ton more. But as the lyrics stare at me and the tune bounces in my inner ear...I question if I really believe this. I might today because things are going okay. But how do I react when things don't go my way...jolie's reality is rocked a bit...what do I do? When I have been stripped of things I have known am I singing "You give and take away. You give and take away. My heart will chose to say, Lord, Blessed be your name??"

okay, I really don't have to answer that because my huge list of readers consists of 5 of y'all and you know how I react...I have got the 3 year old syndrome sometimes...you know kicking and screaming...usually the same thing over and over..."Why God Why?"...."It's not fair."..."Why do you love so and so more than me?? Look at what you gave them."

Or I might play the victim role..."Man, I just got hit by the bus!! That sucks...THEY suck!!"...Why didn't I get the warning signs??...They purposely threw me under the bus...They just used me...BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH...And then when I am singing, I am thinking "Yeah, God is more than enough and boy I feel sorry for so and so when God gets them for what they did to me!!"

Yeah, God doesn't work like that. But as the months of 2006 keep right along passing, I see that experiencing the freedom that can only come from Our Father is so worth searching for. I may not know it to the full extent but I have seen it. I have tasted it. I long for it.

But I seem to get in the way. Trust. To fully rely on someone or something. Who do I trust? Who do you trust? I can give the church answer. I am well skilled in that. But I am not interested in the church answer...it backs me up in to the corner of "which masks can I wear today?!!!" I have a 25 year collection of Jolie Masks. I am finally tired of the effort of putting them on.

So who or what do I really trust today? Myself. My circumstances. People when I like what they say. Where is God, you might ask? Well, He is there somewhere but not #1 on the list...because so far I have been able to control and handle today. But I want Him to be #1 even on days like today. And even just writing that brings a little wild fear of, "Uh-oh! Now that I said that something is going to happen this afternoon!" But that's not how God is.

Sorting the tangled rubber bands one color at a time...knowing full well they effect the wide variety of other colors...

WIG

Jolie