whispers of who i am - the spider web.

i should probably start this off with a disclaimer -

i have a couple things that i need to say just to get them out of the way and help me focus on the main issue at hand. here they are:

a) it's storming. only a few short years ago i would have been pretty uneasy right now. i'm not sure what caused the change, but now i love storms. i'm hoping it lasts long enough for me to fall asleep to the sound. (let's be honest. it's almost 9pm... it doesn't need to last too long. 'cause i'm old. i have an early bedtime.)

b) i stumbled across this blogger named annie. today she blogged about her one-year "nash-versary". in a few weeks i will be looking at three years in nashville. her blog got me thinking about the past three years, and even more specifically the past year. more on this later for sure... probably on the date of my own "nash-versary" (8/20 if you're wondering).

anyway. onto the "meat" of tonight's blog -

over the past few weeks, randy (the pastor of my church), has been reminding us all that god speaks in still, small whispers. today, i heard his whisper.

as i was heading back into the office after my lunch break today, i saw a spider web. now let me just say for the record i am the biggest wuss when it comes to bugs. however, i looked at this spider web and saw beauty. and then i remembered a story i had heard several years ago. at the time (spring 2005) i was attending a church in muncie, indiana. one sunday morning, guy (the pastor) told us a story of when he was starting to question what god was doing with his ministry. here's a quote from the story as it is written on the church's website -

As a beautiful web began to emerge from what had originally appeared to be a random mess, he began to understand that there was something intentional this spider was doing. This thought broke his former line of questioning and he asked a new one: "God, how does this spider know how to create that precise web?"

And the still, small voice of God's Holy Spirit spoke clearly to him, "That spider is doing what I put within it to do."

"That's nice," he concluded, satisfied with the answer, but not making the connection. "But God, what have you called me to do? Are you going to do something here?"

God replied, "Guy, I shaped you and formed you in the '70s and I made you who you are. I put within you to do what I want done here at MAC. You're about to give it all up and throw it all away."

Later that overcast morning as he walked to the church from the parsonage, the sun was burning off the fog and up in a tree he noticed another spider web. This one was covered in dew drops and as the sun shone through it, the drops sparkled like diamonds. The brilliance caught his eye and in his heart, the Lord asked, "What do you think of this one?"

"It's beautiful, Lord."

"I put that there for you to see this morning."

(i suggest reading the full story here)

this afternoon i saw the spider web, and i was reminded that i am who god created me to be. i might not always like (or even know) what that means, but it's truth. i need to live in that truth. over the past several months i've been trying to remind myself of my own story, trying to remind myself of who i am. this is a journey that will likely never end, but i feel as though i finally embarking upon it for the first time. this spider web was a gentle whisper.