now i'm just a wacoan...

Wacoan. Correctly pronounced wuh-co-uhn. with slight Texas drawl. I'm one now. Yesterday Ashley W. and I were talking about how now since we graduated we are just people who live in Waco. I am a local Wacoan. I live in Waco. My existence here is now by choice because I am not forced by my school's location. I'm not ashamed, but it's a little weird.

I have been back in Waco, post-graduation and post-moving for a week. The biggest excitement so far was on Thursday during my run. 3 minutes into it, I must have been really into the song on my IPod or something because all of a sudden, I was running and then I was sinking. I ran into a sidewalk of WET CEMENT. not even joking. I'm talking like ankle deep. So I kinda stood there, mainly because what else do you do when you are ankle-deep in wet cement, but then the nice worker-men helped me get out and washed off my feet and shoes. Don't you worry, the shoes are fine, I know you were worried, because that was my chief concern at the time as well. Then we laughed it on and I squished away in my wet shoes. I continued the run because it was either walk home in wet shoes or at least get a decent run in wet shoes. It was pretty miserable and I think I took half of the orange dust from the bear trail with me. So I ended up throwing my beloved Aasics in the washer afterwards. So watch where you step. Ha!

I've been thinking about the word relentless. Without relenting. A circumstance that does not relent, take it easy, let go, stop, or ease up. The other day something happened that made me feel it..."man, this thing is just relentless...it never ends!" It is so easy to feel it...to feel overwhelmed by the things that just don't stop. The circumstances that hit you again and again and again...without relenting. This made me think about the character of God...relenting in mercy...but unrelenting in love. [Jonah 4:2] "He prayed to the Lord, 'O Lord, is this not what I said when I was still at home? That is why I was so quick to flee to Tarshish. I knew that you are a gracious and compassionate God, slow to anger and abounding in love, a God who RELENTS from sending calamity." [Psalm 106:45] "for their sake He remembered his covenant and out of his great love He RELENTED." For out of great love for us, He keeps us from true destruction and calamity. He never ceases in love, never ends in mercy. This made me think that as overwhelmed and burdened as I am by things that seem relentless in my life, the TRUE unrelenting thing is how He carries us. His love, mercy, grace, comfort, kindess--are relentless. And that heavy feeling of "man, these bad circumstances to me are relentless!" should birth in us an equal response towards feeling the heaviness of the kindness in which He loves us as His children, relentlessly. Would it be that our response to it be "man, the way He loves and cares for me, it's relentless!" Hope that encourages and speaks to someone...

love,

your faithful Wacoan :)