My future and past are coming together in Chicago. I just bought a ticket to be in Chicago for five days. This return is overdue considering that I never wanted to leave Chi-town in the first place. Things are good now. I left incredibly ill and am returning to the old places and nooks I missed most. Floods of old memories will happen; I will even visit some friends I left behind and barely keep up with. I will go to the places where my illness was triggered and thank Jesus that His Spirit is in me. Since I used to be tossed and drugged by a great many other spirits.
Five years later, I live with a hope of unshakeable origins: That God the Father loved me enough to reveal Christ to me as king of kings. God the Father loved me enough to accept my submission to Jesus. And God the Father loved me sweetly enough to gift me a new life in the light of His Spirit. So I steady my course and lean on faith through Jesus for direction. I am overjoyed so often it’s hard to remember that it is God who merits all the praises for all the transformation in my life.
If it were up to me to grow, I would still be broken, enchained by my sins which I thought of as solutions. I would praise/marvel at beauty made clear through suffering, embellishing altered states and obsessing over the present moment. Reading books by Bukowski, Sedaris or Selby. That's not life, its a living narrative of shameless "as is" living. To me it was a living death granted by Satan and appealing by submission to temptations. Oh how valuable is Christ’s blood to me in remembering all this deception.
I will see Chicago with new eyes. I will go attend church services in that city and for the first time be praising the Living God. I will see His glory at work in the town where I once tried hard to glorify myself. I just wanted to share the joy I feel in returning to Chicago. I will even get a chance to gain perspective in this Denver life.
