Journeying Deeper into Dependence

This blog is unique in that it was started while I was still in Ireland and is being finished now, my second full day in the US of A:

The journey is nearly over...

As we've come to the end, we have been discussing our beginnings, our first impressions and who we were--vastly different from who we are now. We've been warned for several weeks now that "re-entry" will not be easy: and I don't expect it to be. I am going home to no vehicle, living at my parents house (about 45 minutes from my former community) and not many friends. I have to start over completely, in every way.

But for every loss, I have gained so much more that actually builds into my future: the eternal future. The deeper understanding and confidence I have in who I am and what I am made for I would never trade or give to any other. He's done work in me that takes me far beyond where I thought I would ever be. So though my future looks doubtful and small at home, I am still excited. For when I offer my small life to Him over and over again, He makes something beautiful, even of the pain and panic.

I am learning--over and over again--to look at my life and the relationships therein from His blindingly bold and big perspective. He's not afraid of me or where my heart goes or the hurt that may come to me. He knows how to put me to rights every time, which means I am free to love: something I had never known until these six months spent close to Him.

India was not a long fun fest of amazing moments: it was a gradual breaking down of everything in me that kept me from complete dependence on Him: a process I had gone through before, but which was enhanced by the circumstances I was in and had a deeper filling in of Him being more than just the God I prayed to, but a God who was near. When I was sick--feeling worse than I ever had in my life--and went to hospital for treatment and only felt sicker, He was my only Comforter. He was the only One who could: those around you can never known the depth of pain you feel, only He can truly known the pain in our bodies and souls.

There was an intimacy that was created during this trip--my struggles and fears all came to light in ways that I never would have orchestrated...I was so embarrassingly broken before all my friends. I had nowhere to run and no one to turn to--and He let me just be close. I didn't have to fix myself or figure it out or have the right words to say to explain myself: He just wanted me with Him, wanted me close.

Ironically, I know the sweetness of love more through this trip than I was ever planning on. I could feel it on my face as I went down the street in India: sometimes all we could do was pray and pray I did and in this small, very dependent act the Lord changed my heart incredibly. The piece and part of the world that seemed the most strange and far from my experience as I studied it in college became suddenly very dear and precious. Even now, I look at pictures and sigh: there's a grandeur and mystery to India not found in other places. It is a unique and exciting place, full of sights and sounds beyond explaining: a smell and feeling and movement that is its own. You'll never be hassled like you are in India, never see as many colors, never taste food quite so potent--and yet the honking horns and blessed noise and feeling of a city on a move come to feel like home. Because every step was taken with my Beloved by my side, leaning into my heart and speaking out His love over them, until I looked at them and was quite overtaken by the deep love He wanted so desperately to pour over the people just walking through these streets, caught in mindsets and world systems but made to be set free and loved well into full life.

And we got to show off that love: working all over that massive nation, showing the children there the deep love the Father had for them: feeding them, bathing them, laughing with them, playing soccer and braiding their hair. Our teams went two different places and worked in very different ministries but in every place, we saw kids and His people at work reaching out to these destitute ones. That was the most beautiful part for me, the one I didn't even realize I was in until our trip was almost over: God had let me see a legacy of love centered around the children of India, rescuing them, caring for them, taking care of their needs. I was literally walking in the footsteps of Amy Carmichael, who's writings I found at 18 and went absolutely nuts over, and God was speaking to me about my ministry to come.

Home now in California...

I have been praying about and for street kids for many years, since I spent the year devouring Amy Carmichael and went to Haiti. There are many promises and things to grow into connected to this call. I always knew my life would look very different from the norm--but it's becoming increasingly glaringly obvious that this will be no ordinary life. I always knew deep in me that certain things were never meant for me--and yet I wanted to know them--but the Lord has always held me back. This latest trial has shown me clearly that I am meant to live alone, but never alone: I will always be closely connected with many people. A piece of me resists giving in to this, really letting go, but another piece knows that she has been willing all along, and though it is a fight, is still willing, to let go of what seems to be my happiness to let my life be poured out fully for others. There are certain things that just don't fit into all the wholeness of me that will be required to give my life away for Haiti. It's not that my sacrifice is any grander or of more worth than another person's sacrifice, it's just what is required of me. And I get to give in--or resist--and this piece of my life, fully in His hands, is now His to do with as He wishes.

I am fully dependent on Him, in every area of my life.

And He could very well do a miracle and turn it all around--He's God, isn't He?--but for now, this is laid on the altar and it's very well to do so.

I urge you to take a look at your little life, your ordinary, putzing around the yard life and ask God where He wants to blow you out of the water, where He wants to do things you could never dream with you, because you're finally given over to Him. My little sister was saying today--in the middle of stating all her troubles--that she knows that God is real and has been protecting her. She's very aware of His Presence and safety in her life--and she's not even following Him! I think we all, as human beings, are aware that we are being taken care of, are dependent. We're even aware, as I am, of what is required of us to live out this life fully that He promised to us. You probably know exactly what you are required to lay down that you may follow Him fully with your life. I urge you to give in. The exciting adventure that is your life, that is my life, cannot even have beginnings to discuss with fellow journeyers if we never let it all go and let Him move through us to begin with. What is the thing keeping you from moving past your front door? Give it over to the Lord...you never know what He'll do with it.

Remember, He's good. And good doesn't mean "gives you what you want" but rather "always gives what's best for you." Trust Him and let go...

Loving this song, as it helps see me through this season...

Standing in the Middle of the Street

I've never stared at the blank place where blog pages begin for so long before...I even want to escape it, not put into words the feelings and thoughts pinging through me but the feeling is there, maybe the one that comes to every writer, but I know it especially as mine: that feeling of words in me pelting at my brain until they are put into a proper form, for others to read--even if that other is only ever me. I can't keep in what is happening in this mind of mine, there's something here that God or whoever directs this crazy world is forcing me to push forward.

haha...so here we are, you (hopefully) captive audience and I a lonely artist toiling away--but this is the work that I could pour the rest of my life and perhaps more into, so this will come forth, a spring of words that hopefully becomes more than just marks on a page, bringing forth light and hope and maybe a bit more of an understanding of this crazy God who loved so much that He would choose to save a whole world by the death of His Son: it's a wild story and it will never make sense.

I'm learning to live again and see life where death was, but it doesn't take away from what happened before. There are moments--such as a few minutes ago--where something triggers a flashback. I was playing a normal game with a group of people and started to get so agitated...and I didn't know why. The game involved a lot of shouting and we were in two teams so you were pitted against each other and after playing for an hour I couldn't stand it anymore. It was so frustrating to be stuck in that place. I went to my room afterward and cried, trying to figure out what it was that had me so agitated. And I realized it was this: disharmony was starting to build in the room as the game went on and people were shouting to each other and though I knew I was safe  and that no one was really mad, it triggered something (you've had this happen to you). You were fine and then you get put into a certain set of circumstances and you react--for me, the shouting and atmosphere we had created as a team as we played felt very much like how it felt when my family would fight together. I knew, mentally, that it was a different situation, but subconsciously I was prepared for and acting as though I were in that situation again. Everyone else was having fun playing the game and I was just trying to survive it.

We live broken. We try so hard to put our lives together and make enough money and run our lives well--and we all have places and situations and people that create this tension in us that we want to escape. Each human is so complicated and bent and broken, each with their own story and hang ups and lostness--we are able to see the similarities and celebrate them but at the end of the day, only God alone and yourself know why you are the way you are and how you operate There is a loneliness in being you that, if you never learn to interact with your Creator, will never subside. The feeling that only you are you--and that is wonderful and your unique voice is needed and life, the life that is life inside of you, is good and needed and brings even more life as (hopefully) you reflect this God who loves and loved to create you but...

I'm learning that life is constant pushing forward against the tide which keeps us all separate, a constant realignment with the truth you know about yourself, who you are, your situation. There have been moments this week when I have felt so alone...such as standing on the street last night, holding a bucket, standing there in the dark trying to collect money from strangers. (We were fundraising to get money for our sponsor trainees--students who come to our Discipleship Training School from third world countries). It was weird to stand there in the dark and face the onslaught...

It's where we all stand when we are without hope. We are all the kids on a corner, holding out an empty bucket, hoping that those who go by will see us, stop and choose to toss in a few coins. It is strange to be faced with the stark reality of a human soul on a cold Irish night: that we are all traveling together toward what we don't understand, all trying to cope with what the world has placed in us or thrown at us or refused to give us.

We all are completely without a clue.

But then I came home--threw off everything that had been keeping me warm, but also kept me from being close--and was enfolded again in this family that I have gotten to adopt in these last months. And to be out of the cold...and known...and accepted even! Those are the moments in life that fill you with such joy and peace in believing.

Because we may have started out our lives as orphans, separated from God and each other, just standing there staring into the lights hoping to create a life from what others can hand us--but then, suddenly, someone takes our hand and we look up and find a Father--and He's so good! He leads us home, lets us into the front door and shows us the family we were always created to be in the middle of.

It's like the story of Cosette from Les Miserables, the girl poorly taken care of by innkeepers who was suddenly taken care of and brought into family. This is her song, sung right before he comes to her rescue after her mother's death:

There is a castle on a cloud,
I like to go there in my sleep,
Aren't any floors for me to sweep,
Not in my castle on a cloud.

There is a room that's full of toys.
There are a hundred boys and girls.
Nobody shouts or talks too loud,
Not in my castle on a cloud.

There is a lady all in white,
Holds me and sings a lullaby,
She's nice to see and she's soft to touch,
She says, "Cosette, I love you very much."

I know a place where no one's lost,
I know a place where no one cries,
Crying at all is not allowed,
Not in my castle on a cloud. 

We all pray to find our castle on a cloud, and when we do find it ...well, that's salvation. That's the miracle of being whisked away from the street and all that would hurt you and finding that you have a life to be lived: right in front of you, given to you by Him and full of much more joy and hope and possibilities than anything you could have created yourself. 

So here we are...parts of our street life still breaking in and causing us pain as we remember where we have been and still live out life as well as we can, constantly crying out as He allows us; but overall, hope found and enough strength in His arms to carry us through whatever this life may throw, scream or dance us into.

He's enough--and so is His rescue.

Love is enough.

The Shape of Loss

I used to believe that pain was mutually exclusive—unable to be shared because of its breadth and width and length. Like an earthquake: the magnitude exponentially increased and at the same rate, so did its ability to be understood and shared with another. So the bigger the loss, the further beyond explanation, reasoning and ability to share it went—until at some point the one who was feeling the pain (call them the paine—haha) could not share at all what was happening inside them, only suffer the loss in silence while others looked on—or even worse, at some point others around them would have no idea that they were in pain and therefore wouldn’t try to connect with them.

That was how I lived…so I reasoned it must be the same, that this rule I had created in my head about my pain was how everyone lived: bottled up, growing more and more unhappy, searching for answers but beyond able to believe they were out there. A hell of my own making. It’s how I lived through loving Haiti and various other challenges in my life.

Until it became true—the pain was so excruciating around my heart that I was locked into silence. Radio silence. Inside a screaming wall, urging to be released but with a mindset that had me believing: “No one can understand this. I have to face this alone—they can’t understand it. This is my burden to bear.”

Until it became too much and the floodgates (thank God!) opened as I learned that others around me are capable of and knowledgeable about pain—the situations are so different (true) but the same God is in the midst, teaching us how to have joy in Him, how to see His face in the middle of the world breaking (thinking of the Haiti earthquake) and choosing to love us through.

Pain—it is not mutually exclusive—it is universal. It is not for ignoring and numbing into silence…the Lord God who created the earth and every hair on my head sees my pain…and He has made this world for FULLY LIVING—in the joy, the death, the hope, the resurrection. Not pushing down and visualizing outside of our pain as some religions teach, but entering in, with Him, feeling the shape of it, the depth and width and breadth and the tang and smell and hope in it…the way it moves us toward to a better country, helps us see that we are not alone: there are a lot of people right here with us too. As His followers, I believe we are called to be the ones who live present tense before those who do not yet know His name: showing the grace of God and the agony of life in the way we walk out every painful circumstance in our life that they may not only learn to mourn with us and enter in, but they may also see: life is hard, just because you have Christ, that does not end. But life is worth living and worth fully living because when (not if, but when) you start hitting that pain, you also start hitting that joy: the joy of knowing that there is a Saviour who goes before you, to clear the nails and grit out of the way and show you His love, even in the middle of the worst circumstances. When you lose your job…when your children betray you…when your hope seems lost—the one thing you kept near and dear in your heart is finally heartbreakingly free…The world will see how you deal with your pain—they’ll see the shape of your loss before their eyes—and when the grace of God comes in and overwhelms you with its goodness, it’ll overwhelm them too.

So let the shape of your loss be seen, live out your pain, in grace, in the middle of your life and those watching—they will never be the same.

Because they’ll see Him there, carrying it for you on a cross, and they’ll want the same.

This is indeed the Deepest Hunger…

[Re]vision Your Life!

I was planning to get a lot done today--but maybe that's the wrong goal.

God's asking me to dream again--and really, it's bizarre for me--and I think that's a bad thing. It shows me up in ways that I don't want to be exposed. It makes me realize (and at the same moment forgive myself) for where I've let my heart be for the past few years.

It makes me take a step back and think again--who do I want to be? where do I see myself in ten years? what are my goals?

And it makes me realize just how disconnected I am from myself.

And I'm not shocked. And I know I'm not the only one. In fact, if we were all truly, unquenchingly honest--like a street-interview-because-no-ones-ever-going-to-see-this kind of honesty--we'd find that literally no one has a true clue about who they are and where they are headed.

And the ones who do, who "know that they know that they know"--they're powerful.

Because without a vision the people perish--hello! Who do you think that Proverb is about if it's not about American culture? We are so quick and plugged in and always constantly moving from place to place and event to event that our hearts have become distant realms that we never access (if anyone ever taught us to access them from the beginning).

My disconnect comes from a variety of factors--first of all, my life moving too fast. Secondly, environment--at times it was too caustic to let my heart be known. Thirdly, disappointment. I thought I knew the dreams of my heart and had vision but then it was too much...maybe I tried too hard to make it happen or had to narrow a view of my vision and when it didn't come about, it left me devastated and made me lose heart--and it's been hard to get all of that back.

So...while we're here...I'm going to do a little re-visioning (and I encourage you to do the same--it's good for your heart and the course of your life).

Revision: 1) brilliant marriage reflecting the love of the father and how He pursues His bride and sees her through the darkest nights 

[sidenote: okay, based on the specificity of this first one, maybe I am not so far from knowing my heart and the new vision the Lord has put into it...He's just been revising and I need to tune in...]

2) teaching in some form (English, school, the Bible)--teaching in any capacity that allows me to connect with others, learning about and speaking into their heart and the dreams therein

3) worship Him! either through dance, song or prayer--letting the Father's heart be known and loving others through connecting them to His heart

4) raise little people (really this next generation) up in the love, freedom and joy found in the Lord while helping them escape the schemes of the devil; which, in plain English, means everything thrown at them that tries to tear at their heart and destroy their lives. I know God has good planned for the earth and our children are going to experience it. [If I could, I'd be a stay at home mom, supporting my husband in his work and offering help in any way need to see him and his ministry thrive]

Alright...alright...alright...I do have vision (good to know). Now for the tricky part--how to pray through figuring out how to move forward specifically! AAHHHHH!

We'll get there--I'm exhausted and happy--but still have no clue about my future.

And that is okay.

I know who's I am and that's enough--because He's enough and He'll see me through.

My job is to stay connected to Him :)

S.A.D. day--or is it?? haha, read on!!!

 

I’m always taken care of on Valentine’s Day…

I had my own plans this year—a friend and I were going to hang out, do silly things like a photo scavenger hunt at the mall and watching sappy movies and eating heart shaped pizzas—but those fell through unexpectedly. I was invited in to the other plans but I knew it wasn’t the right thing for me at that time (you just know) so I let the moment pass. I was sad—really disappointed—for about an hour but then I…let it go.

Last year on Valentine's Day I was a sub in a first grade class—little children who barely knew me handed me their home grown cards. I was surrounded by little people (foreshadowing perhaps? I think so--this year I've got a whole class full of them!) and I was happy.

My students blessed me today. Of course, they brought in their little valentines (some with candy) for their friends but they didn’t forget me! I was shocked, honestly. An awesome "I love you" balloon, a huge chocolate kiss, two of those ridiculous heart shaped packages packed themselves with chocolate--a boyfriend couldn't have done better if he'd tried :) They just blessed me beyond measure--it's something that kids do...give freely of themselves. I ended that day feeling so full...and I'm realizinfg that this fulfillment and contentment is become evermore a pattern in my life. It's been so long since I had days like this that it's almost bizarre to me--and it makes me savor it all the more. 

There is a saying, "You can't love a good man, until you've loved a bad one." I don't know how true that is but I do know that depth is created out of sorrow--you're capacity for joy has inadvertently developed and grown as you have traveled through deep loneliness and grief. We created to live deeply--I am priviliged to know more than an ordinary, bland existence--even if that existence can sometimes have it's fill of pain--it just makes the pleasure that much more to be anticipated and enjoyed.

My life is full—and it became full without me really realizing or trying to make it that way. I have beautiful people who speak into my life consistently, I am known, I am well liked by my peers—and none of this happens because I made it so. If there is anything I have learned this year, it is that the most beautiful things happen when you let go. When you don’t know what’s around the corner or how the story ends and you let life play itself out—fall into God’s lap, so to speak—that’s when the magic, the impossible (improbable) happens and your life is made beautiful for you.

My life is being made beautiful for me.

I hadn’t expected that. My throwback thinking still has me trying to prove myself, to earn the love that is so freely given to me! I can’t seem to escape needing to justify my existence and show that I am worth all that has been given to me. Grace is a beautiful lesson that the Lord has had to fill my life with over and over again—because I don’t understand it and so He has to immerse me in it, make me experience it over and over again, trying to help me see that there is a new way, there is life to be lived and it doesn't all depend on me.

Grace is so safe—in a dangerous way. Even now, I simply don’t understand it. When I allow His life giving words to flow over me and finally penetrate my heart (I am proud of you. You are a gem. I have plans for you. I see your beauty and your heart for me. My butterfly.), when I truly let myself sit back and contemplate His life that He poured out for me so that I might live free and hopeful—it’s too overwhelming. Every day becomes Valentine’s Day for me, the uncovered gift, freely given—you get to live free! You get to hope! You get to see beyond what the world says is your destiny into all that the Lord has planned for you! You get to move forward completely reliant on His power rather than your own! You get to live filled with His love, just basking in it, overwhelmed by it!

I thought I would spend today fighting loneliness—I should have known better. He anticipates every need and has already moved forward to fill it in—and more abundantly than I could ever anticipate and plan for. He catches me off guard every day as I wake up and come into His presence—like my kids showing up with an abundance of Valentine’s—I simply never lack when I choose Him. 

Happy Valentines Day all those who are Beloved of the Lord. Remember as you celebrate this day that true love is sacrifice—and ultimate sacrifice, ultimate love, is a giving away of your life. Remember the one who gave away His love for you and choose to move forward in His power, overwhelmed by all He is and has for us. He is more than you know—find your life in Him, true life and remember to live free!!! It’s His gift to us—no worries or frustrations or endless anxiety—but rather perfect peace as we pray, His Presence as we worship and His love flowing out as we live this life in Him.  He died for that—for you—you are worth all the chocolates in the world and many more flowers. The loving sacrifice of the God man shows that.

Life is Not What You Expect--and Trust Takes Time

Hit the ground, hit the ground, hit the ground, oh, oh
Only sound, only sound, that you hear is "no"
You never saw it coming
Slipped when you started running
And now you've come undone, and I, I, I, I

Seen you fall, seen you crawl, on your knees, eh, eh
Seen you lost in a crowd, seen your colors fade
Wish I could make it better
Someday you won't remember,
This pain you thought would last forever and ever

[Chorus]
There you'll stand, ten feet tall
I will say, "I knew it all along"
Your eyes, wider than distance
This life is sweeter than fiction

Just a shot, just a shot, in the dark, oh, oh
All you got, all you got, are your shattered hopes
They never saw it coming
You hit the ground running
And now you're on to something
I, I, I say

What a sight, what a sight, when the light came on
Proved me right, proved me right, when you proved them wrong
And in this perfect weather
It's like we don't remember
The rain we thought would last forever and ever

[Chorus]
There you'll stand, ten feet tall
I will say, "I knew it all along"
Your eyes, wider than distance
This life is sweeter than fiction

There you'll stand, next to me
All at once, the rest is history
Your eyes, wider than distance
This life is sweeter than fiction (fiction)

[Bridge]
I'll be one of the many saying
Look at you now, look at you now, now
I'll be one of the many saying
You made us proud, you made us proud, proud

I'll be one of the many saying
Look at you now, look at you now, now
I'll be one of the many saying
You made us proud, you made us proud, proud

And when they call your name
And they put your picture in a frame
You know that I'll be there time and again
'Cause I loved you when

When you hit the ground, hit the ground, hit the ground, oh oh
Only sound, only sound that you heard was "no"
Now in this perfect weather
It's like we don't remember
The rain we thought would last forever and ever (forever)

[Chorus]
There you'll stand, ten feet tall
I will say, "I knew it all along"
Your eyes, wider than distance
This life is sweeter than fiction

There you'll stand, next to me
All at once, the rest is history
Your eyes, wider than distance
This life is sweeter than fiction, fiction

Sweeter than fiction,
It's sweeter, yeah,
It's sweeter, it's sweeter,
Sweeter than fiction



Read more: Taylor Swift - Sweeter Than Fiction Lyrics | MetroLyrics

haha, I meant to post this video

but the last thing I copied happened to be the lyrics to that awesome Taylor Swift song (yes, I am one of her fans!) and I'll let it be. Take the hope from it--your journey is not over and when you do get to the beautiful place where God has destined to set you--we will all cheer! Hang in for the moment, if you're in the waiting--you're in good company :) Excellent company, worthy company, doesn't get better than what you find here! (Egotistical much? haha, I love writing ridiculous things!)

I like the afore mentioned video because--interestingly enough--it speaks to the audacity of relationships (all, but I'm thinking particularly of marriage) and how the trust we need to build these relationships takes time. Simple message, right, nothing super profound--but yet so many of us miss this! I'm just thinking out loud of the girls who will walk away into the dark with a boy who they just meet and are willing to do what's asked of them because he's cute. (Not that this happened anytime recently anywhere I have been...) I mean, self-respect, worthiness, loyalty, protecting your heart--do these exist?

Relationships take time, balance, precision (seriously, watch the video, it's so awesome) all of which are displayed in this Cirque de Soleil clip. By time, I mean--time! You do not fall in love with someone without putting the time in, being set in their presence more than once. And you can't keep falling in love with them and giving of yourself to them day after day and night after night if the time is too short--spend that precious commodity wisely.

Balance--aah! It just takes two to tango (this is where I can get it wrong--the tango scares me!!! haha) but seriously, it takes work and delight and speaking words of hope and affirmation into the relationship on both sides. You have to speak life into what is forming between you two--or it will die. (I've seen it! Grisly affair...) You can't be the only one moving forward--and you can't drag each other around. Balance--this is key. Balance in your ability to communicate, your intelligence levels (hopefully! haha, I'm just cracking myself up today), your needs, your dreams for the future--if these are slightly off, you must work at meeting each other--right?

Precision--intentionality...this is the choice to meet the other person where they are at, when you are in that moment with them, you are with them and them alone. Another person is not on your mind, you're not checking out your facebook wall--you are there. Because their life hangs in the balance, because you are the closest one to their heart, because its just to easy to get hurt if...if one of us forgets to care and lets go.

Because this is a do-or-die thing, jumping into relationships. God asks us to give of ourselves fully, to die to ourselves, in order to follow Him completely, with our whole heart. Something in me--that self preservation--has to die every day as I choose to be with God and do as He asks me to do. And I'm not good at that, I can promise you. But I'm a little closer today. My trust has grown past what it was a year ago, for certain. I am growing into this dance between Father, Son and Holy Spirit--finding my place. 

Marriage--isn't marriage a death? (Don't ask me why I can't write about anything but love and marriage lately--it is not intentionally, I just write what's in me, take it or leave it!) But seriously, when you begin a marriage, that day you are making a proclamation to die to yourself and all your worldly wants and where you thought you had to go in life--and instead care about him/her more than you will ever care about yourself. It's a death. It's letting go of having to have your own way and being in charge of your own body and all the coinciding that a life now lived together details--it's a death.

But isn't it also a life to something grander, something with more purpose? Sure, you had to give up your three hour video game sessions or your long nights in front of the TV watching the Bachelor--but weren't those things on the way to destroying you anyway? Yeah, you can't sleep with everything that moves--but that was just weird anyway! You should have never been that person! (heehee) It's almost like--now its being demanded of you that you are someone better than you planned to be and come hail or high water, s/he will drag that good person out of you.

Okay, it's really demanding. And no one is perfect, so you won't get it right. That's just the reality of the beast--but hey! If you choose to rise to this beloved persons expectations of what they think you could be then (with God's help) maybe you are that brave or smart or cunning or able to rescue the cat out of that tree. Just think of all you could do with all that love behind you. It's a little (or a lottle!) overwhelming.

But isn't that how God stands behind us? His love and all His plans are much grander than we could have ever picked out. "Hey, you there, yeah, you kid? (whispers His dream in your ear as your eyes go wide) Yup, that's about the sum of it! Go on, get out there!" And then you skip away, looking back at Him wonderingly, "He thinks I can...?"

It's a powerful force, love. It's a powerful love, knowing God has dreams for you that only you can accomplish. And you just have no idea how to go about them, but He'll be the one behind you, giving you strength, endurance, passion--isn't that such a bit of beauty, a new spark?--hope.

Hope. There is a big God and He has big dreams. He sent His Son to die, not so we would stand around wailing and lamenting it forever ("oh, how shameful am I! I can't believe He had to die for me!"--and I'm making fun of no one but myself as I write this. It's how I used to live) Rather, (and this is the creepy, scary, spooky part that a lot of people miss when they look at Christianity) we were made to be filled with His new life, the life even that brought Him back from the dead! It's like--we've been pretending that there was nothing left to do after you said you'd follow Jesus--so you just sit there, saying, "I follow Jesus!" And then all of a sudden, a lightning bolt strikes and God says, "Get moving! There's a world out there needs some saving--we've got to see them healed and renewed in body and soul and you 'uns are the ones to do it! Now scram!" And then He fills us up with His power and out we run.

Yup, that's about the size of it. (sidenote: Can you tell I just watched the play Oklahoma--my, my, I sure do pick up on the idiosyncrasies of language right quick and then they get stuck in my writing and speech. You should hear me after I've watched the comedian Will Reagan! and when I write after reading Lord of the Rings--oh Middle Earth! haha) Learning to move out of His love, not just have a knowledge of it.

So, trust...watch that video and tell me that you will put yourself in a jeopardizing situation, out in the dark with a boy you don't know. Tell me you're going to trust your life to anyone but Jesus. There are some things that there are no two ways about--trust takes time and putting your life into someone else's hands is a big deal. It is worth it--who wouldn't want all that love behind them?--but the choice must be made careful. These are the forever things, dontcha know?
 

Stripped Away

What do you do when it all gets torn away from you? When you lose the one thing which you thought would bring you happiness...when you have to move away from all you've known...when life can't seem to give you anything but hard knocks?

I ask it because I'm living it. There's a place deep in my soul that's unsettled and striving, that keeps crying out for more when less is all I see around me.

I've read a lot of books on "desire" and "choosing to know your own heart"--books that remind us that the single most painful thing we can do is acknowledge the mess our lives are in--how far we are from where we intentionally tried to be--and to go from that place and keep hoping. Every book...they say that this is the hardest thing you will ever do, but you will only get your heart and your life back if you do choose to keep hoping, keep trusting and keep pursuing God even when all seems lost.

Because all will be lost--especially if we are in a pursuit with Him.

There are easier ways--we can slip in the back door, take the smooth road and end up where we always wanted to be by our own merit--but there's no pride or glory to God in that methodology. If you are in a pursuit of all (ALL!) that God has for you--prepare for the worst.

Prepare to leave all that is familiar behind--you're paving a new trail...

Prepare to be misunderstood--your circumstances will make sense to no one, usually not even to you...

Prepare to lose it all--He needs to have His hands on your life, so you must relinquish control...

Prepare to die to what you want--the vision goes way beyond what you can see...

Prepare to leave silly arguments about calling behind--it all becomes worthless in the light of knowing Him...

Prepare to dance and sing and praise Him even in the middle of your deserts--these are the sweetest moments, the sacrifice of praise...

Prepare to meet Him in a new, life giving way--and prepare for Him to fill you with Himself on a level you could never have imagined when you first started out...

I have lost it all--love, independence, career, hopes for my "future"...it wasn't His best and so He stole me away to a new life--comfort, hope, joy found only in Him. I read in a letter yesterday (the first letter to my husband--haven't meet him yet :)) that I have been praying that I would truly know deep love--we never know what we're praying for, do we? Never realize how deep and wide and crazy those prayers can be and the journeys they will take us on. I prayed that prayer unaware of the pain that would come out of knowing deep love. My Lord asked me to sacrifice all--took things I depended on away, one by one--so that I might truly love and hope in Him. He's a wild God--but so good in the end. I wouldn't trade sun filled days for the dark nights where I have known Him.

And now the journey continues--chooisng to live out of my heart, though I can see less than far and have much to ask...still I will choose to dream. When I moved home I put this Post-It note up on the wall to remind me to keep pressing forward:

Give yourself room to DREAM! 

It may seem crazy and messy, but it's the only way to hope...

I choose hope today, will you...? In the middle of all you can't see, in the middle of desperate pain and broken relationships, will you choose to believe and trust that there is a good God who knows you and wants to show love to you? Give yourself room to dream, remember the words He has spoken to you and move forward in hope...

Even on a rainy day, there's still light and color behind the clouds.

Inspired by Psalm 137   

By the waters of Babylon,
    there we sat down and wept,
    when we remembered Zion.
² On the willows there
    we hung up our lyres.
³ For there our captors
    required of us songs,
and our tormentors, mirth, saying,
    “Sing us one of the songs of Zion!”

⁴ How shall we sing the Lord's song
    in a foreign land?
⁵ If I forget you, O Jerusalem,
    let my right hand forget its skill!
⁶ Let my tongue stick to the roof of my mouth,
    if I do not remember you,
if I do not set Jerusalem
    above my highest joy!

⁷ Remember, O Lord, against the Edomites
    the day of Jerusalem,
how they said, “Lay it bare, lay it bare,
    down to its foundations!”
⁸ O daughter of Babylon, doomed to be destroyed,
    blessed shall he be who repays you
    with what you have done to us!
⁹ Blessed shall he be who takes your little ones
    and dashes them against the rock!

Alice in Wonderland...again

I feel like Alice in Wonderland...

haha, this is something I've actually written about in another blog--probably a few weeks after I saw the movie. But it's like it's becoming more true--as though it has accelerated in some way...this is hard to write, because its not fully formed in my mind...but usually the only way for me to really know what I'm thinking is to write it out! That pins it down, keeps it from running around like crazy in my head and helps me discern why I am feeling/thinking/acting the way that I am. Writing...my necessary and God given tool.

Back to me being Alice :)

Everything changes today...I find myself facing a new journey. In a lot of ways, my life has been my own these past few years--I have gotten to choose where I want to be, how I want to get there and how long to stay--at times this was lonely, but it was free! Now a new season--Family! First the summer with my parents and then with the missionaries in Mongolia. I keep hearing the verse/idea: "he puts the lonely into families"(Psalm 68:6) and I can't help but know that it applies to me. I have a lot to learn and re-learn about doing family with my fellow human beings :) I also have a lot to learn about laying down my life so that others may thrive (this was the theme--and a fitting one--at my last day at the Stirring today). It's going to be really a wild ride--I don't think I can quite grasp it at this moment...maybe that's why I feel so much like Alice in Wonderland--this adventure just fell upon her and she totally wasn't ready for it--except that she was...she was the one that it had always been planned that she would risk her life to free a kingdom (whoa! noticing parallels!). She started out so uncertain and then as life progressed, all that was in her was revealed--and she was capable of far more than she could have told you she was at the beginning of the journey.

Oh gosh, this has been so much my journey! If you would have told me what the last few years of my life would have looked like, I would have cried and asked you to take it away. But Papa God saw me through all of it so beautifully--I didn't know it, but all I had needed was already in me/God was investing into me. BIZARRE! And so often life posed challenges that threatened to overwhelm me and God  intervened when I called out and became my strength and hope--He invested authority into me, endurance and so much hope...the things I have been through--they show me that God is more than capable of bringing me through any trial or darkness that He puts in front of me...I'm not afraid.

And I have stuff to be afraid of: moving home where I have no friends, moving home in general!, moving to Mongolia in a few months!!!!, going to Haiti whenever that happens :) haha, this stuff is crazy--but I've already seen Him intervene and be strong in all the places where I am weak: so again, I just offer up all I am to Papa and pray that He uses me in whatever way He chooses--it's not my glory that's at stake, it's His!

Alice in Wonderland...ready and willing to adventure with Him...

Pray for me :)