hmmm

I spent the weekend in Venice.
Three of us, Tara, Chase and I, decided to spend our long weekend in Venice, Italy. We hopped a train and embarked on the adventure.
There is much I could write about pertaining to this event, but of the vast variety of crazy fun that we observed/experienced this weekend, when asked what my favorite part was, my answer is this:

sitting by the sea.

For a few hours in the middle of a sunny, sparkling day, we just sat by the water and looked out. The three of us were together, but separate as we each listened to music on our own ipods and didn't talk. It was such an amazing God time.

All I felt was sheer joy.

With thousands of tourists behind me walking around, the silhouhette of cathedrals on the shore's horizon on either side of me, everything from giant cruise ships to lots of little gondolas on the dazzling, endless, open blue in front of me, seagulls and pigeons around me, I felt fully that the world is so big. And I realized, as I drank in all else, that these are the moments I feel the most joy...

...when I feel smallest.

The world, Satan, our own human flesh, tells us that happiness and success comes from being known--being big and famous and having positive things attributed to us by other people--and the more the better. Everything is about personal gain--making yourself bigger.

so as I sat and thought about how huge God is as I felt so small and insignificant in this speck on the map of His creation, I worshipped God for the mystery of what I was feeling. I was feeling the ultimate joy and awe one can feel, and it was in being aware that I am nothing.

God doesn't need me--He can do whatever He wants without me--but yet He's blessing me with the purest joy for simply realizing that.

And though He doesn't need me, I love Him so much for that and can't help but want to be used by Him.

Though He doesn't need me, I am here, however small.