Day 1 - Follow the Yellow Brick Road

Day one of Mi Camino 2011. I even wore a Dorothy inspired dress to feel the part. (I hope you know how much I LOVE the Wizard of Oz.) I wanted to feel brave and wise like Dorothy. And cute...that never hurts.

My day began with my alarm at 8am, followed by me hitting the snooze every 9 minutes for an hour and a half. Was I subconsciously postponing my trip because I was nervous?...maybe. Whatever. Now is not the time to psychoanalyze myself. After showering and packing/filtering through what I really needed for a few weeks, I gulped down some Special K and hopped in the car. As I hopped into the drivers seat, I noticed that I had somehow poured a large amount of my water bottle onto my arm and dress. Awesome. Omen? Hope not.

I thought about that as I began to drive and figured things will always spill over in life and God dries it off. Too much of a stretch?

Trucking down I-10 today, I saw a couple dozen cops pulling people over all over the place! Why is it whenever I see a cop who is clearly stopped and in a conversation with a law breaker, I panic and think, "They're gonna get me!" I slow down a lot as my blood pressure sky rockets and eventually settles to a semi-average pump, and think to myself, "What could I have done wrong?" Why does this happen? Is this just me? Do I have some weird guilty conscience? Apparently I think that cops can falsely read your soul / license plate. Strange, I know. But these are my thoughts.

Nothing too interesting happened on my drive today. Part of me was kind of sad about that. Don't get me wrong, I didn't actually think that on day one everything would change, but I expected something.

I had a lot of time to just think and talk to God. I gave the trip to Saint Raphael the Archangel. I do love him very much. Something God and I were chatting about in the car was the hemorrhaging woman in Mark 5. Last weekend I shared about her in a talk I had to give to my students on a retreat. The thing I love about that story is how bold and wise that woman is. She DARES to touch Jesus and KNOWS that He can heal her. In the next instant, however, she is afraid of what Jesus might say....Will He take it back? Will He punish her? She falls to her knees and tells him everything. For a while, I thought that this meant she confessed her sins. She probably did do that, but she probably poured her heart out to Him. She probably said how lonely and scared and ostracized she felt because of her hurt. She probably cried on Jesus' shoulder and He probably held her tight as she breathed in His healing breath. It's a beautiful story. Jesus says her faith has saved her. Beautiful.

But in the car today, something else struck me...Jesus is passing through this huge crowd, everybody is touching Him (including this anonymous woman) but He is only "aware at once that power had gone out from him" when Jane Doe touches him. Why didn't He say His power was going out all over the place on all of these people? EVERYBODY was touching Him - like Oprah walking in Sydney (google it). And then it hit me.

We have to ask when we encounter Jesus to heal us.

This chick goes expecting that she can encounter the Messiah, that He can heal her and in her heart of hearts, prays ardently that He'll do it, if she "but touch his clothes".

How many times in my life do I just bump into Jesus, ignoring a real relationship with him, treating Him as a face in the crowd or a means to an end? Jesus is more than just a fix-it-guy. He's a person. He desired not just the woman's healing, but a relationship between them - why else would he stop and talk to her? She was bleeding, unclean and probably not the Prom Queen. It's more than a healing. It's a relationship.

That's something I'm realizing now. I want a relationship. A real one. A real relationship with Love Himself who loves even when I just bump into Him along the way - not in a guilt-trip kind of a way, but in a "I'm not going anywhere" kind of a way. A Love who waits.

For so long I've thought that if I turned and loved this Love in the way I was supposed to, that God would give this maniacal laugh and douse me with who knows what and I'd be lured into some crazy trap. (Why on earth have I seen God this way for so long and survived to tell about it?) That's not how He loves or wants to love. I've been so confused for so long. His Love is gentle and patient and kind and patient some more. Thank God for this chance. Thank God for this adventure. Thank God for my yellow brick road.