on wildness of heart.

the closer the magnolia trees come to blossoming, the more i want to come out of hibernation.

it's around this time of year that the wildness in me really begins to come alive. i love it. my academic dean at CLC used to call me a hippie, what with my long hair, acoustic guitar, and come-what-may kind of lifestyle, i guess. i suppose i still have most of what he deemed "hippie attributes" back then, in my first years of college, but... it just doesn't fit.

see, there is a fierceness in me. there is a wildness of heart, a wealth of untamed desire for adventure. there is a fighter, a warrior in me that wants to be a strong and noble woman who upholds Love and Truth and defends those who cannot defend themselves.

i've always wanted to name my firstborn daughter Genvieve. i think it means "feminine white wave." whenever i think of her, i always picture a little girl who looks much like me, with very long hair, much like mine, riding bareback on a huge horse through a field. she is bronzed from the sun, her hair is down, messy and blowing in the wind ("dark yet lovely" ~Song of Songs 1:5). she is untamed, but beautiful. she is strong and quite fearless, but gentle. she is wild.

i know there is a wildness about Jesus, too. He is no longer a little baby, meek and lowly. He is a Lover, a King,and a Warrior. and i love it. in revelation 1:14-15, John says of Jesus, "His head and hair were white like wool, as white as snow, and his eyes were like blazing fire. His feet were like bronze glowing in a furnace, and his voice was like the sound of rushing waters." there is nothing tame about a blazing fire or rushing waters. they are unpredictable, powerful, dangerous, mysterious, beautiful, and fierce.

i know this wildness of heart is something that i was created to cultivate. i was made to dream big, to love the Lord with all of my heart and my soul and my mind and my strength (Mark 12:30).

and then it goes without saying that a lot of life is seemingly mundane. bills have to get paid, grunt work has to be done, you know the story. and then what? what do those of this with this wildness of heart (i suspect it may be everyone) do? how do we live out this great adventure and life of greatness that we long for?

you can't tell me that it doesn't exist. i get tastes of it here and there, nothing close to the fullness that those tastes make me hunger for, but i taste it.

**sigh**

i want more.