yasha ...

long road out of eden ...

2010-09-21T16:30:00.003-05:00

moon shining down on the palms
shadows moving on the sand
somebody whispering the 23rd psalm
dusty rifle in his trembling hands
somebody trying just to stay alive
he's got promises to keep
over the ocean in america
far away, the master sleeps

silent stars blinking in the blackness of an endless sky
cold silver satellites, ghostly caravans passing by
galaxies unfolding and new worlds being born
pilgrims and prodigals creeping toward the dawn
and it's a long road out of eden

music blasting from an suv
on a bright and sunny day
rolling down the interstate
in the good ol' usa
having lunch at the petroleum club
smoking fine cigars and swapping lies
they say, "give me 'nother piece of that barbecued brisket,"
"give me 'nother piece of that pecan pie"

freeways flickering, cell phones chiming a tune
we're riding to utopia, road map says we'll be arriving soon
captains of the old order clinging to the reins
assuring us these aches inside are only growing pains
but it's a long road out of eden

back home i was so certain; the path was very clear
but now i have to wonder, what are we doing here
and i'm not counting on tomorrow and i can't tell wrong from right
but i'd give anything to be there in your arms tonight

weaving down the american highway
through the litter and the wreckage and the cultural junk
bloated with entitlement, bloated with propaganda
now we're driving dazed and drunk

went down the road to damascus, the road to mandalay
met the ghost of caesar on the appian way
he said, "it's hard to stop this bingeing once you get a taste
but the road to empire is a bloody stupid waste"

behold the bitten apple, the power of the tools
but all the knowledge in the world is of no use to fools
and it's a long road out of eden

(lyrics by don henley)

change is the only constant ...

2010-07-22T11:57:00.003-05:00

Well, hello there.

Wow.

What a crazy few months it has been since I last posted. My life has changed. I have changed. My days have changed. All for the better, for certain.

First, I'm gainfully employed again. Hallelujah! I started as a contractor 3 months ago at a marketing agency (here out referred to as The Agency) and 2 days ago went permanent with them. I'm blessed! It's a fantastic place to work and I work with some pretty fantastic people!

Second, 2 other girls and I used to meet weekly to pray and talk and generally do life together. In April, 1/3 of us moved. And not just moved, but MOVED! Like, to Japan moved! And in a week, another 1/3 of us is moving to Oklahoma. And I'll be here. In Kansas. Alone. Without my girlfriends. No, really, I'm happy for them. Couldn't be happier for them really. But I'm just sad for me. I'll miss them. I already miss them immensely. I have Rebecca- and Stephanie- shaped holes in my heart.

Third, my dad has been diagnosed with polymyositis. It's basically an auto-immune disease in which the immune system attacks his muscles. It's painful and awful. It seems to be progressing rather rapidly. He has a muscle biopsy coming up that will tell us a lot more about his prognosis.

Fourth, I've been asked by a friend I met in Alaska, who has become like a little brother in some ways, to write a synopsis of his music for his band's coming Myspace page. I feel honored and blown away and humbled all at the same time. I should be getting advance copies of some of his music next week or sometime soon to start this process. Talk about flattering!

This is all just a small fraction of my world lately. Figured I'd update this thing since it's been so neglected for so long. Hope to start getting back into the regular swing of things here on yasha.

miracles (by walt whitman) ...

2010-04-21T18:54:00.000-05:00

WHY! who makes much of a miracle?
As to me, I know of nothing else but miracles,
Whether I walk the streets of Manhattan,
Or dart my sight over the roofs of houses toward the sky,
Or wade with naked feet along the beach, just in the edge of the water,
Or stand under trees in the woods,
Or talk by day with any one I love--or sleep in the bed at night with any one I love,
Or sit at table at dinner with my mother,
Or look at strangers opposite me riding in the car,
Or watch honey-bees busy around the hive, of a summer forenoon,
Or animals feeding in the fields,
Or birds--or the wonderfulness of insects in the air,
Or the wonderfulness of the sun-down--or of stars shining so quiet and bright,
Or the exquisite, delicate, thin curve of the new moon in spring;
Or whether I go among those I like best, and that like me best--
mechanics, boatmen, farmers,
Or among the savans--or to the soiree--or to the opera,
Or stand a long while looking at the movements of machinery,
Or behold children at their sports,
Or the admirable sight of the perfect old man, or the perfect old woman,
Or the sick in hospitals, or the dead carried to burial,
Or my own eyes and figure in the glass;
These, with the rest, one and all, are to me miracles,
The whole referring--yet each distinct, and in its place.

To me, every hour of the light and dark is a miracle,
Every cubic inch of space is a miracle,
Every square yard of the surface of the earth is spread with the same,
Every foot of the interior swarms with the same;
Every spear of grass--the frames, limbs, organs, of men and women,
and all that concerns them,
All these to me are unspeakably perfect miracles.

To me the sea is a continual miracle;
The fishes that swim--the rocks--the motion of the waves--
the ships, with men in them,
What stranger miracles are there?

dear mom (10 years later) ...

2010-03-30T13:02:00.009-05:00

Today is 10 years since I last saw you and I just thought I'd share some things with you, that you may or may not already know. First, I just want to say how much I miss you - so much that it aches sometimes in places I never knew I had within me. I catch myself thinking about you or looking at the picture of you and me together that I keep on my dresser and struggle with the fact that 10 years have gone since I heard your voice or felt your touch or soaked in your laughter. It doesn't seem possible.

I find myself thinking lately about how much I regret. I regret the days I was too hard on you or caused you any pain in my defiance. I regret the time I wasted doing other foolish things when if I'd known you were leaving so soon, I would have spent them getting to know you and talking to you and listening to you. I would have spent more time memorizing you: the laugh lines in your face; the way you moved; your laugh when you found something really funny; how you suffered so much but never complained, taking each day in stride and living out your name - Faith; how you looked sitting at the piano every morning playing Fur Elise; or the joy you took in the simpler things. Forcing myself now to think back I can almost hear you but the more I try to remember the more the image fades from memory - like a dream when you first wake up. It makes me sad that I can't remember these things in much detail anymore. I kick myself for not paying more careful attention back then to the things I would 10 years later find more important. "Hindsight's 20/20," I imagine you saying now. And I know you don't hold any of this against me now, nor did you even then. It's just the way I feel and I suppose I need to someday reach the point where I can release myself from that and offer forgiveness to the girl I was back then.

I have healed in so many ways over the last several years (the last few especially - even the last ONE) from the wounds of a particularly painful childhood. Dad and I have a relationship that I never imagined possible for him and me. I suppose something shifted that day we watched you draw your last breath and being the only two in the room with you. We have done a lot of hard work through the grace of God and his work in us that has offered me much hope and comfort. We continue to grow and learn from each other and about each other, offering the other grace and forgiveness when one of us has unintentionally hurt the other, which happens much less frequently now than ever before.

I am learning so much about myself, about our family and its dynamics in my life, about God and grace, through careful and honest introspection and through relationships with trusted confidants that have permission to draw my attention to those things in my life that need some extra medicine. This group of people, a few women and dad, has been extraordinary and cathartic for my growth. I am so very thankful for their presence in my life and for taking on a role that I can only imagine would have been filled by you if you were still with me.

One thing I'm learning through various avenues is that I have become quite adept over the years at defending myself as a way of protecting myself. It has occurred to me that during my most formative years I did not have what I would call a protector, one to protect me from the world and from the lies its prince would sow and nurture in me. Dad wasn't a protector and you weren't a protector because you were trying to protect yourself. I get that, I really do. At least I get it now. But I remember countless nights crying myself to sleep wishing you would leave him and take us with you. Protect us. Be pro-active. Protect yourself better. Stand up for me. Stand up for them and for yourself. Use your voice. I prayed that you would leave him. When it became clear that you wouldn't, I used my own devices to protect myself that has left me defensive and scared in a lot of situations. Having learned from you I stayed in various abusive relationships of my own, not really knowing any other way.

Again, looking back now I am so thankful that you stayed. I know your last few years of marriage were some of your best and it's those years that I remember the most fondly. You and dad taught me so much about love and conflict (how to do them and how not to do them) by sticking it out that are invaluable lessons that likely I would not have learned had you thrown in the towel. And I can't imagine how my life would be different now had you done that. But I have to be honest here in a way I never have before and while I have certainly thought it several times over the last several years, I don't think I have ever said this out loud before. I was so angry with you over those things though I am not sure I was willing to see it and name it until now. But I think I've come to the place where I absolutely have to let go of that or it will tear me apart. I have spent the better part of the last 10 years feeling guilty for feeling that way towards you, like I was somehow dishonoring you even in death. Even now I struggle to write these words or to bring them out into the open. But hanging onto that won't bring me healing or freedom. So in an effort to bring this into the light, to finally give a voice to something has been a thorn in my side for 30+ years, and with anxious expectation that releasing you from this will also release me and bring me into a more abundant freedom: I forgive you. I forgive you for not protecting me and I forgive you for oftentimes making Dad "the bad guy."

Not only that but I also seek forgiveness. The Trinity is and has always been my Defender and I am sorry that I tried to cast you in a role that had already been filled. I am so sorry for any pain I caused you, and I know it must have been great at times. My anger and fear manifested themselves in many unhealthy ways. I don't offer that as an excuse or a means to justify behaviors I wish I could take back. Instead I offer that as a confession. I suppose many experts would say that every child or teenager goes through a period of particular defiance or rebellion and maybe they're right. I just know what I remember and most of it isn't pleasant. I wish I could remember more of the good because I know there must have been more of the good stuff than the bad. I'm not sure why my mind has chosen to remember the bad and not more good when most times you hear of people repressing the bad. I have to leave all of this at the foot of the cross for him to take and make something beautiful of it. And I am choosing to believe that he can do what he says he can do.

How I wish you were here to have an adult mother-daughter relationship with me. I expect we would meet for coffee regularly and I could tell you all the other ways I am changing and growing and becoming more and more myself, who I was created to be. There's so much I could and want to share with you and find out about you, we could sit for hours and talk if you were here. The Refiner's Fire burns hot these days but I am so thankful for it in a way. It's opened doors to beautiful new friendships and deepening older ones. I am so blessed by my friends and have a few with whom I share a special bond: we all know what it it feels like to grieve the loss of a mother too early, we know a little of what one of us might be feeling as we look back with our minds' eye to times that were simpler, and if not safer, then at least more innocent, times that found us in the arms of our mothers. Even though I may not see those friends as often as I truly would like, I can't deny that those bonds are some of the sweetest I possess. We often like to imagine out loud that our moms are all friends up there in Heaven watching us down here, interceding for us, grieving for us when mistakes we make bring loss in one form or another, and laughing with us when life enraptures us. How I wish that you were here and that their moms were all here and we could all go out for dinner together.

I wish for that and yet I know that can't happen and probably wouldn't have happened if you were all still alive. I am thankful for the rich and wonderful blessings your passing has afforded me. I long for you but can profoundly sense that my life would not be as rich. I imagine Dad and I wouldn't be as close as we are today. Some of the friends I share such special bonds with probably would not be as special to me, if we were even friends at all. Who knows in what other ways my life might have been less rich. While I miss you with every fiber of my being, I can't help but think that if you were here, would I be somehow missing these things that have brought so much beauty to my life because of your absence. Would that be the loss I was grieving today? I imagine so.

I love you, Mom. I miss you. Please give Becky, Debbie and Carolyn a hug and thank them for me when you see them and have a glass of wine together.

And for Becky, Debbie and Carolyn: Thank you so much for giving life to your girls and for setting them on a path that would one day lead them to collide with mine in ways that would affect my life for the better. Your respective daughters all mean the world to me and am so blessed by their presence in my life and can't help but think that this life would be less without them. You raised them well and beautifully and I can't help but imagine you teaching them all the grace and acceptance that they have shown to me in various ways. I wish I'd had the privilege of knowing you all before your passing but am content with knowing your girls and, in a way, knowing you through them. They continue to teach me about grace, love and beauty - lessons I'm sure they learned, in part if not in whole, from you. I look forward to the day when we can all, daughters and mothers, be together and laugh and share and have a glass of wine together. Until then, give my mom a hug when she comes to you. Thank you!

dream weaver ...

2010-03-06T12:28:00.002-06:00

A week ago today a friend and I went out for Chinese food. We enjoyed our hot & sour soup and our entrees and conversation. As usual the fortune cookies came at the end of the meal. Mine read, Organize your life around your dreams - and watch them come true. That coupled with the book I'd been reading, Donald Miller's A Million Miles in a Thousand Years, inspired me to do just that - organize my life around my dreams and to watch them come true. So I've decided to spell out exactly what some of my dreams are so that they're out in the open and can breathe and begin to develop into life. In no real particular order, some of the things I dream about are:

* Hiking the Appalachian Trail. For, I don't know, the better part of 10 years now I've wanted to do this, ever since I read about it on someone's blog or something. While reading Donald Miller's account of hiking the Inca Trail in his book A Million Miles in a Thousand Years, this dream was awakened in me. Optimistically, I'd really love to thru-hike it (all in one go) but realistically I'm not sure that will be possible considering it takes an average of 6 months to do that. The trail is 2178 miles and goes from Georgia to Maine or vice versa; most people go from Georgia to Maine, however, starting in March or April. The elevation ranges from 124ft to around 6000 feet over the course of the hike. I would love to plan that in 2 years time, during the summer of 2012, I will be hiking the AT. Or plan that summer I will do half of it and summer of 2013 I will do the other half. I hope to borrow as much gear as possible so that I don't have to fork out the cash to buy it. Obviously, shoes will be where I likely have to spend a good amount of money as I'll need a few new pairs throughout the duration. It's estimated that most hikers save $3000-5000 for their hike to cover all kinds of expenses on the trail (food in town, motel stays periodically, equipment replacement, postage, etc ...). Is anyone interested in planning this with me??? I'd love the company, even if you only come for a fraction of it.

* Finishing my degree/obtaining a Bachelor of Social Welfare. I met with an adviser for KU's 2+2 program with KCKCC. I still have some classes I can take at JCCC so I am hoping to start those this summer, pending some other things work out as hoped. I'd say if I go full time I can be done in 5 semesters probably. It is my hope to go full-time and that will depend on the results of my FAFSA (I submitted it March 1st) and other things.

* Upon finishing my degree and getting licensed, I'd love to work with people of all ages who struggle with self-worth and other things. I'd like to call the program "Bouqets of Roses, Oaks of Righteousness" based on Isaiah 61:1-4 in The Message. Not real sure yet how this program will look but that's my vision so far.

* Opening a bookstore/art gallery/bar in a quiet mountain town somewhere where there are no franchises, only local shops (or in a lovely college town or something like that). I have some ideas on the name of it too but I'll keep that to myself for now.

* Living in the mountains. There's something very personal about the mountains for me. So much more than the ocean. I really can't explain it. It's deep. It's mysterious. It's poignant. It's very personal.

* Living and working on a big ranch or farm in some wide open space somewhere where I can see the sun rise over the hills in the east and set over the hills in the west. I have felt the past few years especially that there would be something deeply moving, romantic even, about me finding satisfaction in working the land. Again, this is something that I can't put into words. I dream that I'll marry a man that has a lot of land and a farm and horses and together we will fall in love with each other more every day as we work the land. Weird? Maybe. But it's something I dream about often. Really I just think that I need wide open spaces, room to breathe and expand and grow into myself. Room for the expanse of Triune God to dwell in and around me.

* Improving the quality of life for people, both in my personal life and professional endeavors. I am on my way to doing this through CASA and some other volunteer opportunities. I'm hoping these volunteer experiences will open doors for me professionally. I really don't want to do for a living what I've been doing for the last 10 years: receptionist and administrative work, UNLESS it's in a social work / nonprofit setting that could allow me to advance in the organization.

* Living simply and cleanly and green. I don't want the weight of a lot of belongings. I want the basics: solid, nice shelter; food; warmth; love; hopefully a bed to sleep on and a table on which to eat; and a fireplace, must have a fireplace. Other than that, I'd like to think that I could find other ways to entertain myself and others than parked in front of a tv or by some other material possession unnecessary for life to thrive. My sister and brother-in-law are in the beginning stages of building a house out in the country, totally off the grid. Their own water, subthermal heating and cooling or whatever it's called, solar panels, windmills, etc ... That's what I want.

* Paying off all of my debt. To be quite candid here I have the following debts. 1. a loan I took out in 2002: around $6000; 2. a school loan from Alaska Christian College: around $4000; 3. backtaxes: around $1500 plus this year's taxes of $500; 4. my dad: don't really remember how generously he has helped me. I feel as though the loan from 2002 and the backtaxes that I owe especially, if not also the school loan, keep me bound and hold me back from living my best life. I feel their weight nearly every day. I've been paying on the loan and the backtaxes but most of the time feel like I'm not making a dent and it's frustrating.

These are my biggest dreams aside from the more obvious: marry a devastatingly handsome and godly man; have a boy and then a girl; raise them well, in the nurture and admonition of Triune; etc ... I want to begin to organize my life around at least a few of them. I want to begin to watch them finally come true. Living in Alaska was a dream realized and what a dream it was! I can only imagine what living a lifetime of dreams will be like. Here we go!

2010 so far ...

2010-02-09T15:11:00.005-06:00

So far 2010 has gotten off to a fairly rough start. The second or third week of January I drove up to Omaha to see some friends of mine from Alaska, Jesse and Tom Mute. They live in Nome now but she's originally from Omaha and she and her husband Tom came home just before Thanksgiving to spend time with her ailing father who died the day after Thanksgiving. Anyhow, it was a wonderful visit, too short, but so good to see them. They are trying to convince me to move to Nome.

I was at the gas station in Omaha filling up on my way out of town when my dad called. He said he'd received two collect calls from the Johnson County Detention Center and wondered if I was okay. I told him that I was. He called a few minutes later saying that my sister Lisa had been arrested for drug paraphernalia and was being held with $1500 bond. Back in November this same sister threatened suicide and had her kids taken away from her and placed with their father after first placed in foster care for a week or so. She has been charged with criminal abuse and neglect (I won't share details of that here) of her children and now the drug charges on top of it. I have not heard the outcome of her trial. She has been unreachable by my dad and hasn't called anyone in the family to let us know what the verdict/sentence was/is. It's my guess that she is in jail but I don't know that for sure.

A week or so after my short Omaha trip I was happily jaunting down the stairs here at home to watch a movie in the tv room. Only I missed a stair and fell on my foot, hard. I always wondered if I would cry from the pain if I were to ever break a bone. I don't have to wonder anymore and yes, I cried like a baby. The first night (a Friday, January 21st) I thought I had just rolled it again and even hobbled on it a little bit. I remember thinking that it was a different pain than last May when I had severely sprained my other one but I just tolerated it through tears and lots of ibuprofen. The next morning I woke up and decided I should probably have it looked at. So I took my wallet and called a friend to take me to the urgent care clinic that my doctor's office runs. I was surprised that I got right in, with little wait time. And I was more surprised when the doctor came in after I'd been xrayed to ask if I wanted to see my foot. "Not really, why?" "You broke it," he said. "Did I really?" I asked. "Of course, you did. You're not just being a wuss for nothing," he joked. So I hobbled out to the light board and looked at my foot; sure enough, it was broken. So they fit me in this boot thing and I cried even more. They were not very gentle but I suppose they were also kind. They said they don't really do casts anymore and this boot costs just as much and I can take it off to bathe, etc ... So that took a wad out of my pocketbook having no insurance.

Then the next Thursday, the 28th, I started getting a tummy ache after dinner that night. It lasted all night and the next day. I didn't eat because the thought of food was not appealing to me at all. That night I'd had plans for a couple girls to come over and make dinner for me and hang out. One of them canceled saying she had a tummy ache too and she was over the night before and we ate the same thing so I thought that's why I got sick. But I was feeling a bit better so the other girl still came and I invited another girl last minute who also came. One of them made dinner and we ate and then watched a movie. My tummy started feeling worse and I started getting worried. Back in May of 2005 I had an ovarian cyst that ruptured and caused a significant abdominal infection. That's what this felt like - only on the opposite side. I slept fitfully that night and the next morning decided I should go back to the urgent care clinic. So my roommate took me back a week after I had been there for my foot. Still on crutches of course and nearly crumpled in pain. Nothing was comfortable. They drew blood. They poked my abdomen. They did other tests. And then they sent me to Shawnee Mission Medical Center for more more tests. And it was confirmed: a ruptured ovarian cyst. At least it was just that and nothing more serious but still on top of a broken foot, it's even more miserable. So I went home and slept for the next 2-3 days. The swelling in my abdomen finally went down, the tummy ache subsided, my appetite came back, and after 4-5 days of not having any bowel movements I finally did. That was a huge relief. (Sorry for the intimate details.)

Back at the end of 2009 and beginning of 2010, when I made commitments to myself to get healthy, a broken foot and a ruptured cyst right out of the starting block is not what I had in mind. I had started working out at home on a Total Gym 1700 Club and had also started a work-trade agreement with a local yoga studio: one hour of in-studio childcare/week in exchange for unlimited yoga and pilates classes and unlimited infrared massage. And I had just started a high quality vitamin/mineral supplement regimen with both of these things happened. I had been to yoga nearly every day for a couple weeks and pilates a couple of times, and was really enjoying them, before I broke my foot. Very discouraging.

In the midst of all of this I have also been dealing with some other stuff that has been pretty difficult as well. I won't share details except just to say that, again, God seems to really be growing my faith this last year.

I have felt persecuted this month but ultimately I feel like I must be going through all of this for a very specific purpose. God has to be preparing me for something very special, though I have no idea what that is at this point. A good friend reminded me the other day that when we're feeling persecuted, it's not us personally that is being persecuted but our Light and our Truth that is being persecuted. I am clinging to that with everything in me. I do feel as though I am supposed to go back to school to finish my degree. I met with an academic advisor last week for KU's Bachelor of Social Welfare 2+2 program with KCKCC. I am in the midst of finalizing my taxes so that I can complete a FAFSA and hopefully begin school this summer. I feel that this is what I have been called to do. But I know that if I have to pay everything back that I've received since September I might have to put those plans on hold yet again. This has all been very frustrating, discouraging, confusing and hurtful to me. I am clinging desperately to my faith right now that my Jehovah Jireh will provide for me just as he faithfully has in the past. "Lord I believe; only help me with my unbelief!" Satan needs to know that there is no room for him in my life, he has no business here. I am sealed by Sarayu.

It's my hope and prayer that my heart would be bent toward worshiping God even in the midst of this.

psalms ...

2010-01-09T14:02:00.003-06:00

"I will praise you, O LORD, with all my heart;
I will tell of all your wonders.
I will be glad and rejoice in you;
I will sing praise to your name, O Most High.
My enemies turn back;
they stumble and perish before you.
For you have upheld my right and my cause;
you have sat on your throne, judging righteously ...
O LORD, see how my enemies persecute me!
Have mercy and lift me up from the gates of death,
that I may declare your praises
in the gates of the Daughter of Zion
and there rejoice in your salvation ... " ~ Psalm 9

"Blessed are they whose ways are blameless,
who walk according to the law of the LORD.
Blessed are they who keep his statutes
and seek him with all their heart.
They do nothing wrong;
they walk in his ways.
You have laid down precepts
that are to be fully obeyed.
I will praise you with an upright heart
as I learn your righteous laws.
How can a young man keep his way pure?
By living according to your word.
I seek you with all my heart;
do not let me stray from your commands.
I have hidden your word in my heart
that I might not sin against you.
Do good to your servant, and I will live;
I will obey your word.
Remove from me scorn and contempt,
for I keep your statutes.
Though rulers sit together and slander me,
your servant will meditate on your decrees.
Your statutes are my delight;
they are my counselors.
I am laid low in the dust;
preserve my life according to your word.
I recounted my ways and you answered me;
teach me your decrees.
Let me understand the teaching of your precepts;
then I will meditate on your wonders.
My soul is weary with sorrow;
strengthen me according to your word.
Keep me from deceitful ways;
be gracious to me through your law.
I have chosen the way of truth;
I have set my heart on your laws.
I hold fast to your statutes, O LORD;
do not let me be put to shame.
I run in the path of your commands,
for you have set my heart free.
Turn my heart toward your statutes
and not toward selfish gain.
Turn my eyes away from worthless things;
preserve my life according to your word.
Fulfill your promise to your servant,
so that you may be feared.
Take away the disgrace I dread,
for your laws are good.
May your unfailing love come to me, O LORD,
your salvation according to your promise;
then I will answer the one who taunts me,
for I trust in your word.
Do not snatch the word of truth from my mouth,
for I have put my hope in your laws.
I will walk about in freedom,
for I have sought out your precepts.
Remember your word to your servant,
for you have given me hope.
My comfort in my suffering is this:
Your promise preserves my life.
The arrogant mock me without restraint,
but I do not turn from your law.
You are my portion, O LORD;
I have promised to obey your words.
Do good to your servant
according to your word, O LORD.
Teach me knowledge and good judgment,
for I believe in your commands.
Though the arrogant have smeared me with lies,
I keep your precepts with all my heart.
Their hearts are callous and unfeeling,
but I delight in your law.
It was good for me to be afflicted
so that I might learn your decrees.
May your unfailing love be my comfort,
according to your promise to your servant.
May the arrogant be put to shame for wronging me without cause;
but I will meditate on your precepts.
May my heart be blameless toward your decrees,
that I may not be put to shame.
Save me, for I am yours;
I have sought out your precepts.
Your commands make me wiser than my enemies,
for they are ever with me.
How sweet are your words to my taste,
sweeter than honey to my mouth!
Your word is a lamp to my feet
and a light for my path.
I have suffered much;
preserve my life, O LORD, according to your word.
Your statutes are my heritage forever;
they are the joy of my heart.
I hate double-minded men,
but I love your law.
You are my refuge and my shield;
I have put my hope in your word.
Sustain me according to your promise, and I will live;
do not let my hopes be dashed.
Uphold me, and I will be delivered;
I will always have regard for your decrees.
I have done what is righteous and just;
do not leave me to my oppressors.
Ensure your servant's well-being;
let not the arrogant oppress me.
I am your servant; give me discernment
that I may understand your statutes.
The unfolding of your words gives light;
it gives understanding to the simple.
Turn to me and have mercy on me,
as you always do to those who love your name.
Direct my footsteps according to your word;
let no sin rule over me.
Redeem me from the oppression of men,
that I may obey your precepts.
Streams of tears flow from my eyes,
for your law is not obeyed.
Though I am lowly and despised,
I do not forget your precepts.
Trouble and distress have come upon me,
but your commands are my delight.
I call out to you; save me
and I will keep your statutes.
I rise before dawn and cry for help;
I have put my hope in your word.
Hear my voice in accordance with your love;
preserve my life, O LORD, according to your laws.
Those who devise wicked schemes are near,
but they are far from your law.
Yet you are near, O LORD,
and all your commands are true.
Look upon my suffering and deliver me,
for I have not forgotten your law.
Defend my cause and redeem me;
preserve my life according to your promise.
Rulers persecute me without cause,
but my heart trembles at your word.
I rejoice in your promise
like one who finds great spoil.
I hate and abhor falsehood
but I love your law.
Great peace have they who love your law,
and nothing can make them stumble.
May my cry come before you, O LORD;
give me understanding according to your word.
May my supplication come before you;
deliver me according to your promise ..." ~ Psalm 119

some things i'm working on this year ...

2010-01-05T15:09:00.007-06:00

Main goals this year:
Get healthy in all areas - physically/emotionally/spiritually/socially; Be more attentive/in-tune/kind to myself and know that I'm worth it; Live out of a place of shalom (it means peace, well-being, nothing missing and nothing broken); Open myself up more; Exercise my creativity muscles more; Be more attentive in my relationships; and there are likely more. These include but are not limited to:

*I'd like to participate in various races with friends throughout the year and throughout the Kansas City metropolitan area (preferably one per month - we'll see if that happens).

*Work out several times a week, if not every day, intentional exercise, to tone my body and to increase energy and to increase overall health.

*Start a high quality vitamin/mineral supplement program.

*Next week I'm starting a work/study arrangement with a local yoga studio. I give them an hour and fifteen minutes/week of in-studio childcare in exchange for UNLIMITED classes and UNLIMITED massage! I'm so very excited about this! They have yoga, pilates, boot camp, and some other classes. Sounds like I'm getting the better end of the deal to me!

*Work through the First Place for Health program. It's a Christ-centered approach to finding healthy balance in all areas of life, complete with a 10-week Bible study on healthy living. The website mentions classes and group studies and a member's kit for $80+. I found the main book and the Bible Study book for $6.99 each at Mardel.

*Begin and complete Beth Moore's Breaking Free study. I start this on Wednesday, February 3rd. I've been wanting to do this study for years and a friend said they were offering it as a women's ministry study at her church, so another friend and I are doing it together.

* Write more! And work toward selling something I've written.

* Set more healthy boundaries in my relationships. 2009 was a ground-breaking year for me in this area and I want 2010 to surpass that!

* Participate in a Financial Peace University class/group. Pay off the debt I have.

* Stop worrying so much what others think of me and live authentically from the heart.

* Be a CASA volunteer (Court Appointed Special Advocate). Basically the court appoints you to advocate on behalf of abused and neglected children. You're assigned specific cases and you go to hearings, meetings, other appointments and speak on behalf of the best interests of the children in your case. I'm in the process of applying for this right now, then I have an interview, they do an extensive background check, check my references, etc ... Then I go through training for 4 1/2 weeks before I'm assigned a case.

* Read the books I have before I buy new ones. This is a serious problem with me. I'm currently reading Mother Daughter Wisdom and Women's Bodies, Women's Wisdom both by Christiane Northrup, M.D. Both are very good and I'm learning something new every single time I open them up; stuff I've never thought about but that is so important to women's health. Every woman should read these books - at least Women's Bodies, Women's Wisdom.

* Go back to school to work toward finishing my degree. I think I've decided I want to double major in Psychology and Sociology. I know I at least want to do Psychology but we'll see.

* Have conversations that need to be had, even if they're tough, and trust that God will give me words to speak.

* Try to get out of town more, visiting friends or on personal retreats - probably after paying off debt unless it's some place more local.

* Obtain full-time, fulfilling, meaningful work.

These are just a few of the things that I'm already working on in 2010. What are you working on this year? What story are you living? What kind of scenes will your story have this year?

a brand new day ...

2010-01-01T16:00:00.004-06:00

I can't get these Josh Radin lyrics out of my head today. Seems kind of fitting for today: new beginning, new day, new year, new decade. New life? I hope so.

Some kind of magic
Happens late at night
When the moon smiles down on me
And bathes me in it’s light.

I fell asleep beneath you
In the tall blades of grass.
When I woke the world was new;
I never had to ask.

It’s a brand new day,
The sun is shining.
It’s a brand new day.
For the first time
In such a long long time,
I know
I’ll be ok

Most kind of stories
Save the best part for last.
Most stories have a hero who finds
You make your past your past.
Yeah, you make your past your past.

It’s a brand new day,
The sun is shining.
It’s a brand new day.
For the first time
In such a long long time,
I know
I’ll be ok

This cycle never ends,
Gotta fall in order to mend

And it’s a brand new day.
It’s a brand new day.
For the first time
In such a long long time,
I know
I’ll be ok.

Not that I have felt recently like I wouldn't be okay, but just seems to speak of new hope is all. Happy New Year!

year in review ...

2009-12-29T16:16:00.002-06:00

It's been an interesting year, full of struggle, bent with pain, stretched in faith, ripe with growth and illuminated with light. It was indeed a year in which God had much to teach me and show me about grace, provision, faith and trust.

January: I rung in the new year with friends at a couple different parties, fairly uneventful. New Year's Day I grabbed brunch at First Watch with my old friend Josh visiting from Colorado and saw Slumdog Millionaire with a couple strange guys I'd never met before. They were my roommate's (at the time) friends, but she didn't come with us. And I, of course, marked the new year with the requisite promises to myself of getting in shape and staying in shape. I didn't really succeed at the first, so you know the second wasn't really accomplished either.

February: Started the month off with a bang on the 3rd with my small group by having dinner at the Power & Light District and going to Chris Tomlin's concert at Sprint Center - FANTASTIC concert! I also, that month, met up with a friend from Hillcrest Nazarene, Darla Sargent (Turner), I hadn't seen in over 20 years for some Mexican food and major catching up.

March: This month started off with a bang of a different kind when I lost my job on the 6th. I had been looking at other jobs already but it's always easier to leave on your own terms than someone else's. I went to the Fireman's Auction to help raise money for breast cancer research the day after I lost my job and that helped to get my mind off of things for a couple hours. I saw Watchmen on Friday the 13th of that month with Josh. I had countless appointments with temp agencies, all leading nowhere. My "little brother" Justin came down to visit me one weekend from Minnesota (I met him in Alaska and we just hit it off right away and became pretty close. I hadn't seen him for over 2 years, 2 1/2 probably). That was the highlight of the month - if not the year. We hung out and talked, he played the guitar and sang for me (he's a musician), we saw another friend of mine play in his band at a bar downtown, we went to the park, we stayed up late, we ate amazing food. Good times! I had my interview with the unemployment office and was approved just before the close of the month. This month marked 9 years since my mom passed away on the 30th of 2000. I told my roommate that I was moving out and at the end of the month, I did just that.

April: April Fools Day brought Justin McRoberts in concert to my church. He showered us with that voice of his and it was beautiful, like he always is! On Friday the 3rd I saw a friend, Mark Mansingh, posted on Facebook that he needed someone to manage the office for his start-up wealth management firm, Mark IV Wealth Management. I commented that I was interested and left my phone number. That was at about 4pm. He called me right away and asked if I could start Monday. I said, "Yes," of course. He told me to "dress like a million bucks" and that made me a little nervous. Anyhow, I showed up on the 6th and worked all that week. We all closed up a bit early that Friday. And I had a massive migraine so I went home and went promptly to bed. Monday the 13th came and my migraine and morphed into a major sinus infection. I called in sick Monday and Tuesday. He called me Tuesday and said that he didn't need me anymore, he had hired someone else that was an excellent public speaker (which was a necessary part of the job). That was fine with me though because I scored an interview with the number ONE company I would want to work for if I could work anywhere, International Justice Mission in Washington, D.C. I had applied there on what I thought was a total longshot. But they called me for an interview and I was ecstatic! Even though I didn't get the job, my dream company thought enough of my resume and cover letter and other application information to want to interview me! That was the highlight of the month, no doubt about it, if not the year! The next week I was on I-35, a major interstate, and my car's timing belt decided that was the best place to break. My car stopped. Luckily I was able to get off to the side of the highway before I wound up dead. I had it towed and suffered a huge blow when the estimate came to $1500! God was good and provided for me and I was able to get the repairs done a couple days later. Two days later I was at Whole Foods and my door (the driver's door) decided to break and wouldn't close . I drove home with it bungied shut and that was pretty interesting. So the next day found me plunking down another $500 on body work. NOT fun when you're employed, let alone unemployed - in case you were wondering.

May: Sunday the 3rd I was at my friend Jason's place. He made dinner and we watched Dark Side of Oz and Alice on the Wall. I was leaving at midnight or so. I took a few steps out his front door and rolled my right ankle. HARD! It instantly swelled up to about the size of a softball and I had thisweird hole on the top of my foot up near my pinky toe (not sure where that came from). And since it was my right ankle I couldn't drive so I gimped back inside and "slept" on my friend's couch, meaning I laid there wincing in the dark most of the night and unsuccessfully tried to keep my foot warm despite the ice. In the morning, I couldn't put any weight on it at all. NONE. This was not a good sign - in case you were wondering. I hopped on one foot to the bathroom and every hop jolted it and sent pain shooting up my leg. Again, not a good sign. Jason went and bought me a cane (a CANE!) and an ace wrap. I called my friend and told her what happened and that I couldn't drive home. She left work and came to get me. Jason gave me a piggy back ride to the car and I probably nearly killed him. The cane was useless given that I couldn't put any weight on it. I got home and promptly called my sister who stored a bunch of stuff (including my crutches) for me while I was in Alaska for 2 years. She said she knew they were somewhere but wasn't sure. She called back and said she found them and said she'd be willing to meet Dad in Lawrence, KS (about the halfway point between Topeka and Olathe). So that night he drove to Lawrence to get my crutches and upon dropping them off to me he said it looked broken. And he was right, it did look broken. I didn't have insurance at the time so this was all very scary to me. The next day I got in to see my doctor and the office visit and xrays were only $80! They said there were no obvious breaks but the amount of swelling could be hiding a stress fracture. They also said that I likely had torn several ligaments. They said to remain non-weight bearing for 2-4 weeks and then gradually begin to put weight on it as tolerated and that if the swelling and pain didn't dissipate greatly within 2 weeks to come back. Two weeks later I was back in the office. Still swollen huge, still unbelievably painful, still purple and black and blue, still had that weird hole in my foot. They took more xrays and pulled and pushed it all over again. They said it likely was a stress fracture and undoubtedly some tears. They said they thought I had torn all the ligaments where my toes meet my foot, the ligaments in my ankle and did some heavy damage to the outside of my foot. Then they uttered the "s" word. Surgery. They said that I might need it, especially if I wasn't walking within another two to three weeks and they gave me this awesome rainbow shoe to wear so that all my friends would envy me. Somewhere in the middle of this I went with my friend Christina to visit another friend, Rachel, for Mother's Day weekend in Springfield, MO. All three of us lost our moms and so decided to spend that weekend celebrating together. It was a wonderful time of just hanging out, lots of laughter, manicure for me and mani/pedis for them (remember the foot? yeah, no pedicure for me, sadly). Brunches. Dinner out. Homemade sangria! Creating our Match.com profiles. Rachel's friend Gil. It was just a wonderful weekend, despite all the pain I was in. This month brought me a lot of support in the form of wonderful friends who came over and did laundry, went grocery shopping, kept me company, got me out of the house for brief periods, went and picked up my car from Jason's, and just loved on me.

June: The first Sunday of June was a magic day. I woke up and like every other day for the last week or two tried to put weight on my foot. And I could! Not only that but I could sort of gimp on it. That was a great feeling! You have no idea how difficult it is to take a shower/bath when you can't put weight on one foot. All sorts of climbing and huffing and puffing and hoisting and work transpires just to accomplish this normally menial task. It was thoroughly exhausting. But on that magical day in early June, I could put some (read: a very little) weight on it finally. Four weeks to the day. I of course didn't feel comfortable yet standing in the shower (hello? slick surfaces and all.) so it wasn't easy like it was before the injury but it sure beat what I'd been having to go through. So that started a speedy road to recovery after that day. No surgery for me! Hooray! A week or so after that magic day I started helping a friend, Andrew, in his home office. I worked with Andrew at Laminate Works (he's actually the one that got me the job there when I got back from Alaska in 2007) until March when they let me go. I already knew a lot of the business so it made sense for me to help him out on a "consultant" basis. So I started doing administrative stuff for him a few hours a week, here and there. It was a welcome supplement to my unemployment benefits. I turned 32 this month as well and attempted to throw myself a party. My "little brother" Justin (the one from March) said he'd come down and spend the weekend with me. I think six people showed up (over 20 had responded that they would be there) and I didn't know a couple of them (they were friends of friends or something). Justin couldn't as he had a long-time friend that had stage 4 colon cancer at 22 years old and was dying. Understood, of course. I had a ton of leftover food but it was still fun. We grilled and played some game (don't remember what), and drank sangria and beers, and ate divine cupcakes that my friend Janine made: lemon lime cupcakes with a blackberry butter cream frosting and blackberry sauce drizzled over the top! A couple days before my birthday, which is on the 17th - in case you were wondering and wanted to put it on your calendars for 2010 - I met a friend of a friend for a job interview. He runs a telecommunications company and needed an office manager. We talked for a bit and each said we'd pray it over and reconvene in a couple days. So a couple days later we met again and both committed to the job. He took me out for lunch to celebrate the job and my birthday. I was to start July 1st, working 10 hours/week so that I could continue collecting my full unemployment check. The rest of the month was fairly uneventful, I think. The last weekend of the month I went out to my dad's lake house north of Manhattan, KS. Both my sisters were there and all their kids. It was such a wonderful weekend! Full of outdoor cooking and dining, relaxing, walking down to the lake, Sophie (my boxer) running about chasing the kids on their four-wheeler and Barbie jeep. Fantastic sunsets! And family.

July: I started work on the 1st and put in a whopping 4 hours at the office! It was tough. I was off again until the 6th so I relaxed all weekend. I saw Dierks Bentley give a free concert with a couple of friends of mine. Not a lot happened this month. I "broke up with" my best friend of more than 17 years after a couple trusted mentors of mine told me I needed to get out of this "abusive relationship." I had prayed about it and actually had been thinking about ending it for several years. When I finally did, I felt relief and the biggest weight lifted off my shoulders. Why hadn't I done that sooner! I did some karaoking on the 10th with some girlfriends, went to a fish fry on the 18th with my roommate, saw Toad the Wet Sprocket on the 23rd and Better than Ezra on the 24th. My dad's best friend for over 30 years, Kim, was in town from Seattle. I got to see him for a bit and have dinner with him and my dad.

August: On the 2nd I received a text from a friend, Leah, that she and her husband Jay were watching Defiance that night if anyone wanted to join them. I went and watched with them and Jay's friend John. Afterwords, we hung out and ate and played euchre until about 2am. Had a great time! On the 5th, Lindsey Jones was leading worship at my church and that was amazing. On the 9th my friend Kelsy had just returned from picking corn at her family's farm in Iowa. She invited everyone over for corn on the cob! We ate and attempted to watch a movie outside with the projector, until it started raining. On the 23rd, my good friend Lydia, who had just returned from her summer in Europe, and I met up to see The Proposal. I was sad when I learned that it wasn't filmed in Alaska at all but actually on the East coast in Massachusetts. The rest of the month was spent working 10 hour weeks and still continuing my search for full time work in the Kansas City area. During my search I learned that my friend Ryan had vacated his position at Alaska Christian College as Front Office Coordinator to move to Chicago. I applied for the position, interviewed, was offered and accepted the position. It was agreed upon that I would start January 20th. I was thrilled to be moving back to Alaska, the place I fell so deeply in love with a few years prior. The thing was, however, that all paid staff positions at ACC are missionary positions and each staff person was required to raise their own support to cover their salary. So I started the process of fundraising: sending newsletters, emails, letters to area churches, organizations, etc ... I got a few people to respond and commit to giving what the could during my career there.

September: On the 3rd I met up with my cousin Josh and his wife for some Famous Dave's barbecue at the Power & Light District downtown. We walked around a bit and then came back to my place and watched a movie and hung out. I hadn't seen them since Christmas of 2005 when I visited them in California for 10 days. They were here visiting relatives and contacted me. It was wonderful to see them and the kids again. I saw them again on the 14th for some Jack Stack Barbecue at the Freight House (my personal favorite for barbecue) the night before they left. We then walked around Crown Center and The Westin Hotel and the Hyatt. We went up to Skies, the revolving restaurant that offers stunning vistas of the city. And then said goodbye. I continued my efforts to fundraise for my position in Alaska and continued to work for the telecommunications company. On the 21st, I worked my last day there, although I didn't really know it at the time. It's a long and sordid story, that I won't go into here. I'll just say that I'm so thankful that I'm not working for him anymore. Good riddance! On the 20th I went to my friend Jason's (remember him from the night I ended up on crutches?) for brisket. I was there maybe an hour and left (along with everyone else) because he was being a jerk to everyone there, especially me. It used to be that I would put up with that kind of behavior. Or I might get mad for a night or a week but I would eventually just brush it off and never mention it. Not anymore. This year has been a paramount year for me and setting boundaries with the people in my life. That night gave me the perfect opportunity. A friend of his, whom I'd never met before, even stood up for me. Anyhow, I don't have room for that in my life. The highlight of the month came on Tuesday, the 29th, when I went to see Snow Patrol with my friend Rachel (one of the Motherless Daughters from Mother's Day weekend). We had dinner at Blanc Burgers and Bottles. Had the dangerously delicious truffle fries. And she also gave me Donald Miller's new book that had just been released that day. Plain White T's opened for Snow Patrol and I think this maybe was the highlight of my year (not Plain White T's but Snow Patrol).

October: Or maybe the highlight of my year came on October 3rd when Rachel and I drove the 3 hours to Wichita to see Donald Miller speak about his new book, A Million Miles in a Thousand Years. Oh. My. Awesomeness! It was unbelievable! We sat in the front row, center, right under his nose. Afterwords, we met him and each had our pictures taken with him. He had his arm around us! In all seriousness, it was one of my favorite things of this year - that entire night was. The breathtaking drive down against a backdrop of the Kansas Flint Hills, an amazing sky, good music, and great company. I think I could just stop right here for this month and it would be sufficient. We drove back that night and it was late but still on the high of having met him. The next day we had brunch at Classic Cookie. A few days later I met up with an old roommate of mine, Rebecca. We lived (and worked) together in 2002-2003. I hadn't seen her since then, save one time when we met to eat at Chipotle. I think it was December of that same year maybe. We had reconnected on Facebook and she emailed me to say that we were in very similar places in life and could we meet. So we did. And what a blessing she has been to me since then! On the 11th my friend Kelsy (remember the corn party in August?), had just returned from picking apples at her family's farm in Iowa and had an apple party. Translation: about 40 apple desserts in lots and lots of people. I took my dad along with me. Oh boy, was it all delicious! Efforts continued for fundraising and wasn't getting much response. Due to the loss of my job at the telecommunications company in September, my unemployment benefits were put on hold. I had no money coming in (by the end of it, I went 7 weeks without any income whatsoever) and was starting to panic. I decided to apply for food stamps and that was a very humbling experience. I was approved and it was definitely a blessing, despite the occasional mean look from the person behind the cash register. This month, I also finished reading The Shack and went to hear C. Baxter Kruger talk about the book and about grace and Papa, Son, Sarayu. It was a 2-day lecture that was life-changing and life-giving in unexpected ways. Also, this month, God grew my faith by leaps and bounds by providing for me in huge ways. He is so good. And my church had a lot to do with that too. The last weekend of the month, Halloween weekend, I went to my sister Traci's in Topeka for the weekend. That Friday my brother in law turned 40 so they went out and I watched the kiddos, all 6 of them (soon to be SEVEN!), for the evening. That weekend we played, we packed some (they had sold their house), we handed out candy to trick-or-treaters. We went out to the land they were thinking about buying. On Sunday night we went to a bonfire and hayride and ate hot dogs cooked over the fire and made s'mores and watched as God drew attention to himself yet again with a breathtaking sunset over the Kansas hills.

November: When I got back in town from Topeka I noticed I had missed a couple of calls on my cell phone from one of the temp agencies, saying that they had a job for me and that it started Monday (this was Sunday night, mind you). Of course I thought it was too late but called them back on Monday morning anyway. Yep, too late. Half an hour later they called me back and said the person they sent didn't show up at the assignment and asked if I was still available and interested. Of course I was. So I started work the next day. Let me tell you, it felt great to be a functioning member of society again. It actually felt good (and I never thought I'd say this) to be in rush hour traffic because it meant I had somewhere to be, it meant I had a job to get to. The assignment was 4-6 weeks long, taking calls from mental health providers and clients, answering some questions and transferring others. It was perfect as I was/am planning on completing my degree in sociology and psychology. I was ecstatic to work in my preferred field. That first week of November I also had my phone interview with unemployment (from when I lost the job with the telecom company back in September) to go over details about the separation. I had documented everything and took meticulous notes and mailed that to them weeks prior so they had that information. They just needed me to fill in missing pieces. That was on Friday the 6th. Saturday the 7th, out of sheer curiosity I checked my status on the Kansas Department of Labor's website. They issued payment to me that morning for the previous 7 weeks based on the results of my phone interview and my documentation! It was such a relief to see that! Yet another way that God provided for me this year. Also on the 7th, Rebecca (my old roommate) and I started the first of weekly prayer meetings. It's been a stretch for both of us, as we're both fairly uncomfortable praying with others, but Man! has it ever been more of a blessing! On the 11th I went to a retirement party for a coworker of mine from Laminate Works (the place that let me go, way back in March). It was great to see everyone again and a little sad too, to see all the changes and to notice the missing faces. All the salesmen were in town and it was fun to see them again and do a little catching up and wish Joe well. I continued working at the behavioral health place 8 hours a day, 5 days a week. Thanksgiving weekend I went back to my sister's in Topeka for a long weekend. I tried my hand at making my first cheesecake from scratch, a pumpkin goatcheese cheesecake. It was a big hit! Everyone asked for seconds, even my nephew Daniel that doesn't like sour cream or goat cheese! I caught the stomach virus on Thanksgiving Day so I didn't eat a whole lot, which was fine with me in the long run. It lasted a couple days until I finally decided to go home a whole day earlier than I planned, but it felt good to get home into my own bed, even though I'd say my bed at their house is comfier. Fundraising efforts continued despite the gnawing sense that it just wasn't going to come together. I began to have serious doubts if the timing for Alaska was right. I put in a word to the place I was temping and told them I'd be interested in permanent if they had anything available. I also emailed my boss in Alaska and told her my thoughts and was relieved upon reading her response: Please don't feel bad about this! ... That was a huge relief! I told her I'd give her my final decision by December 11th. Late November I made plans to visit my little brother Justin in Chicago (he moved there from Minnesota in October) for New Years. He promised that if I bought the tickets he'd help me pay for them. This will be the very first year I had "big" plans for New Years and I was ecstatic.

December: Thursday the 3rd my temp agency called me and told me that the next day would be my last day at the current assignment, that I had done a fabulous job for them but they no longer needed me. That was hard to hear, given they had repeatedly told me there was possibilities that it could be a permanent job. A couple days before December 11th (the final date to give word to ACC) I sent off an email to Alaska Christian College officially withdrawing my application and told them that I would not be coming in January, that I didn't feel the timing was right and had little peace with the idea of going. They were very understanding, thankfully, which made it so much easier to do. Also this month, I began putting together a creative writing portfolio to submit to Hallmark, which is headquartered here in Kansas City. I haven't sent it in yet, still compiling my writings, trying to select the best ones, writing new ones, etc ... We'll see what happens. Rebecca and I decided to add my friend Stephanie to our weekly prayer meetings. It's been wonderful to have that standing date every Saturday. We gather early in the afternoon, talk about our weeks, pray, and then usually eat together and just hang out. The last time we met (a week before Christmas) we went and had dinner on the Country Club Plaza with all the Christmas lights lit and walked around. Those two girls are so very important to me and I can't wait to see them again! Yesterday, the 28th, I heard from Justin (who has since moved back to Minnesota but was still planning on meeting me in Chicago for New Years) that he has to work this weekend and can't meet me in Chicago. I had already bought train tickets: $120. Keep in mind that I'm unemployed, yet again. But I understand, there's not much he can do about it. And I called Amtrak and they refunded the full cost of the tickets! So nothing to worry about! Justin had said that he'd reimburse me for them but now there's no worries! I'm still sad to think that I would have been leaving on the 30th and coming back the 3rd. I was so looking forward to seeing him, meeting his girlfriend, and just getting out of town for a bit, changing the scenery for some fresh perspective. But I guess it'll have to wait. Until when, only God knows. Today, I saw Avatar in 3D with my old friend Josh, visiting from Colorado again, and it was quite spectacular. As one friend put it, "It's the new sci-fi standard!" And that wraps up my year so far. A few days left of 2009. Here's hoping 2010 is as good, if not better, than 2009. And of course, I'm starting off the new year with a commitment to getting healthy and staying healthy, just like every other year, the last few years anyway. Hopefully this year I'll stick to it. I'm also resolving to complain less, pay off debt, and open myself up more to new possibilities.

What has your year been like? What are your resolutions for the new year? What are the areas in which you have grown the most this year?

the power to give glory ...

2009-11-07T10:56:00.000-06:00

"Imagine how much a man's life would be changed if trusted that he was loved by God? He could interact with the poor and not show partiality, he could love his wife easily and not expect her to redeem him, he would be slow to anger because redemption was no longer at stake, he could be wise and giving with his money because money no longer represented points, he could give up on formulaic religion, knowing that checking stuff off a spiritual to-do list was a worthless pursuit, he would have confidence and the ability to laugh at himself, and he could love people without expecting anything in return. It would be quite beautiful, really ... I bring this up only to say there is a certain freedom in getting our feelings of redemption from God and not other people. This what we have always wanted, isn't it? And it isn't the American dream at all, it is the human dream, the deepest desire of our hearts. I would imagine, then, that the repentance we are called to is about choosing one audience over another. Jesus says many times in the gospel that he knows the heart of man, and the heart of man does not have the power to give glory. I think Jesus is saying, Look, you guys are running around like monkeys trying to get people to clap, but people are fallen, they are separated from God, so they have no idea what is good or bad, worthy to be judged or set free, beautiful or ugly to begin with. Why not get your glory from God? Why not accept your feelings of redemption because of his pleasure in you, not the fickle and empty favor of man? And only then will you know who you are, and only then will you have true, uninhibited relationships with others." (From Searching for God Knows What by Donald Miller)

new freedoms ...

2009-11-06T10:48:00.002-06:00

"... Mack realized that he too had a fork halfway to his mouth. He gratefully took the bite as Sarayu began to speak. As she did, she seemed to lift off her chair and shimmer with a dance of subtle hues and shades and the room was faintly filling with an array of aromas, incense-like and heady. '... Why do you think we came up with the Ten Commandments?'

Again Mack had his fork halfway to his mouth, but took the bite anyway while he thought of how to answer Sarayu. 'I suppose, at least I have been taught, that it's a set of rules that you expected humans to obey in order to live righteously in your good graces.'

'If that were true, which it's not,' Sarayu countered, 'then how many do you think lived righteously enough to enter our good graces?'

'Not very many, if people are like me,' Mack observed.

'Actually, only one succeeded - Jesus. He not only obeyed the letter of the law but fulfilled the spirit of it completely. But understand this, Mackenzie - to do that he had to rest fully and dependently upon me.'

'Then why did you give us the Ten Commandments?" asked Mack.

'Actually, we wanted you to give up trying to be righteous on your own. It was a mirror to reveal just how filthy your face gets when you live independently.'

'But as I'm sure you know there are many,' responded Mack, 'who think they are made righteous by following the rules.'

'But can you clean your face with the same mirror that shows you how dirty you are? There is no mercy or grace in rules, not even for one mistake. That's why Jesus fulfilled all of it for you - so that it no longer has jurisdiction over you. And the Law that once contained impossible demands - Thou Shall Not ... - actually becomes a promise we fulfill in you.' She was on a roll now, her countenance billowing and moving. 'But keep in mind that if you live your life alone and independently, the promise is empty. Jesus laid the demand of the law to rest; it no longer has any power to accuse or command. Jesus is both the promise and its fulfillment.'

'Are you saying I don't have to follow the rules?' Mack had now completely stopped eating and was concentrating on the conversation.

'Yes. In Jesus you are not under any law. All things are lawful.'

'You can't be serious! You're messing with me again,' moaned Mack.

'Child,' interrupted Papa, 'you ain't heard nuthin' yet.'

'Mackenzie,' Sarayu continued, 'those who are afraid of freedom are those who cannot trust us to live in them. Trying to keep the law is actually a declaration of independence, a way of keeping control.'

'Is that why we like the law so much - to give us some control?' asked Mack.

'It is much worse than that,' resumed Sarayu. 'It grants you the power to judge others and feel superior to them. You believe you are living to a higher standard than those you judge. Enforcing rules, especially in its more subtle expressions like responsibility and expectation, is a vain attempt to create certainty out of uncertainty. And contrary to what you might think, I have a great fondness for uncertainty. Rules cannot bring freedom; they only have the power to accuse.'

'Whoa!' Mack suddenly realized what Sarayu had said. 'Are you telling me that responsibility and expectation are just another form of rules we are no longer under? Did I hear you right?'

'Yup,' Papa interjected again. 'Now we're in it - Sarayu, he is all yours!'

Mack ignored Papa, choosing instead to concentrate on Sarayu, which was no easy task.
Sarayu smiled at Papa and then back at Mack. She began to speak slowly and deliberately, 'Mackenzie, I will take a verb over a noun anytime.'

She stopped and waited. Mack wasn't at all sure about what he was supposed to understand by her cryptic remark and said the only thing that came to mind. 'Huh?'

'I,' she opened her hands to include Jesus and Papa, 'I am a verb. I am that I am. I will be who I will be. I am a verb! I am alive, dynamic, ever active, and moving. I am a being verb.'

Mack still felt like he had a blank stare on his face. He understood the words she was saying, but it just wasn't connecting yet.

'And as my very essence is a verb,' she continued, 'I am more attuned to verbs than nouns. Verbs such as confessing, repenting, living, loving, responding, growing, reaping, changing, sowing, running, dancing, singing, and on and on. Humans, on the other hand, have a knack for taking a verb that is alive and full of grace and turning it into a dead noun or principle that reeks of rules: something growing and alive dies. Nouns exist because there is a created universe and physical reality, but if the universe is only a mass of nouns, it is dead. Unless 'I am,' there are no verbs, and verbs are what makes the universe alive.'

'And,' Mack was still struggling, although a glimmer of light seemed to begin to shine into his mind. 'And, this means what, exactly?'

Sarayu seemed unperturbed by his lack of understanding. 'For something to move from death to life you must introduce something living and moving into the mix. To move from something that is only a noun to something dynamic and unpredictable, to something living and present tense, is to move from law to grace. May I give you a couple examples?'

'Please do,' assented Mack. 'I'm all ears.'

Jesus chuckled and Mack scowled at him before turning back to Sarayu. The faintest shadow of a smile crossed her face as she resumed.

'Then let's use your two words: responsibility and expectation. Before your words became nouns, they were first my words, nouns with movement and experience buried inside of them; the ability to respond and expectancy. My words are alive and dynamic - full of life and possibility; yours are dead, full of law and fear and judgment. That is why you won't find the word responsibility in the Scriptures.'

'Oh boy,' Mack grimaced, beginning to see where this was going. 'We sure seem to use it a lot.'

'Religion must use law to empower itself and control the people who they need in order to survive. I give you an ability to respond and your response is to be free to love and serve in every situation, and therefore each moment is different and unique and wonderful. Because I am your ability to respond, I have to be present in you. If I simply gave you a responsibility, I would not have to be with you at all. It would now be a task to perform, an obligation to be met, something to fail. Let's use the example of friendship and how removing the element of life from a noun can drastically alter a relationship. Mack, if you and I are friends, there is an expectancy that exists within our relationship. When we see each other or are apart, there is expectancy of being together, of laughter and talking. That expectancy has no concrete definition; it is alive and dynamic and everything that emerges from our being together is a unique gift shared by no one else. But what happens if I change that 'expectancy' to an 'expectation' - spoken or unspoken? Suddenly, law has entered into our relationship. You are now expected to perform in a way that meets my expectations. Our living friendship rapidly deteriorates into a dead thing with rules and requirements. It is no longer about you and me, but about what friends are supposed to do, or the responsibilities of a good friend.'

'Or,' noted Mack, 'the responsibilities of a husband, or a father, or employee, or whatever. I get the picture. I would much rather live in expectancy.'

'As I do,' mused Sarayu.

'But,' argued Mack, 'if you didn't have expectations and responsibilities, wouldn't everything just fall apart?'

'Only if you are of the world, apart from me and under the law. Responsibilities and expectations are the basis of guilt and shame and judgment, and they provide the essential framework that promotes performance as the basis for identity and value. You know well what it is like not to live up to someone's expectations.'

'Boy, do I!' Mack mumbled. 'It's not my idea of a good time.' He paused briefly, a new thought flashing through his mind. 'Are you saying you don't have expectations of me?'

Papa now spoke up. 'Honey, I've never placed an expectation on you or anyone else. The idea behind expectations requires that someone does not know the future or outcome and is trying to control behavior to get the desired result. Humans try to control behavior largely through expectations. I know you and everything about you. Why would I have expectation other that what I already know? That would be foolish. And beyond that, because I have no expectations, you never disappoint me.'

'What? You've never been disappointed in me?' Mack was trying hard to digest this.

'Never!' Papa stated emphatically. 'What I do have is a constant and living expectancy in our relationship, and I give you an ability to respond to any situation and circumstance in which you find yourself. To the degree that you resort to expectations and responsibilities, to that degree you neither know me nor trust me.'

'And,' interjected Jesus, 'to that degree you will live in fear.'

'But,' Mack wasn't convinced. 'But don't you want us to set priorities? You know: God first, then whatever, followed by whatever?'

'The trouble with living by priorities,' Sarayu spoke, 'is that it sees everything as a hierarchy, a pyramid, and you and I have already had that discussion. If you put God at the top, what does that really mean and how much is enough? How much time do you give me before you can go on about the rest of your day, the part that interests you so much more?'

Papa again interrupted. 'You see, Mackenzie, I don't just want a piece of you and a piece of your life. Even if you were able, which you are not, to give me the biggest piece, that is not what I want. I want all of you and all of every part of you and your day.'

Jesus now spoke again. 'Mack, I don't want to be first among a list of values; I want to be at the center of everything. When I live in you, then together we can live through everything that happens to you. Rather than a pyramid, I want to be the center of a mobile, where everything in your life - your friends, family, occupation, thoughts, activities - is connected to me but moved with the wind, in and out and back and forth, in an incredible dance of being.'

'And I,' concluded Sarayu, 'am the wind.' She smiled hugely and bowed.

There was silence while Mack collected himself. He had been gripping the edge of the table with both hands as if to hold on to something tangible in the face of such an onslaught of ideas and images.

'Well, enough of all this,' stated Papa, getting up from her chair. 'Time for some fun! You all go ahead while I put away the stuff that will spoil. I'll take care of the dishes later.'
(From The Shack by William P. Young)

theology and reality ...

2009-10-27T16:00:00.009-05:00

I finished re-reading The Shack yesterday and have been rolling so many things over in my mind ever since. At the forefront, it seems, is that, like Mack, my understanding of God is wrong. I judge him and I judge him to be someone that he is not, someone that the broken me this side of Eden has made him out to be. Someone that reflects my dad's flaws and the lies I have chosen to believe - lies that I believe about myself, lies about others and lies about the character and personality of fathers. I see him as untrustworthy and that frightens me. To me, He has always been a "father" and not a "dad" at all. If I encounter difficulty in life, I automatically think he's punishing me for something I've done. For instance, if I splurge and buy ice cream and then my car won't start, I somehow connect the two and think I knew I shouldn't have bought that. I certainly didn't need it! As if me spending the extra $3 buying the ice cream made God mad and he decided to make my car not start. Seriously. I know how ludicrous that sounds. Even just saying it I am so embarrassed, but it's true that I feel that way. I view him through my heinous, dark, experience-tinted glasses.

Now, fundamentally, I know these are lies. I know God loves me and that he sent his son to die on a cross for me. I know those things because I was brought up in Sunday School and had them drilled into my brain from a very young age. My head knows them but somehow there's a major disconnect between my head and my heart. "What we have here is failure to communicate ..." I view God this way and that perpetuates the lies I believe (I'm not chosen. I'm not loved. I'm not enough. Not worthy. Not acceptable.). I then judge God and I project my inner world onto God's face and tar it with a reflection of my brokenness. This reinforces my false belief that God is unloving, untrustworthy, distant, judgmental, unapproachable and disappointed in me which leads me to the lies about myself. And the cycle continues, round and round and round. It taints every aspect of my life so that I don't see any experiences as he intended me to see them. I rob myself of beauty and joy. I'm almost always in inner discord and turmoil. Never fully at peace, always striving.

Don't get me wrong, there are times when I unmistakably experience his love and grace. Times when I do trust him with everything in me. Times when he touches me in tangible ways to reveal his presence in my life. Times when I feel we are friends in a lifelong conversation. There are even times when I feel romanced by him. But these times don't even come close to adding up to the number of times when I don't, when I feel his absence and distance.

Because, as I have shared before, my relationship with my earthly father is vastly different than the one we shared while I was growing up, it worries me that the one I have with my heavenly father is still so damaged. I am sometimes worried that somehow my heart is too hard for him to soften it. Will it ever be pliable again? Is that possible? Will I ever be able to take these glasses off and see Papa/Jesus/Sarayu, instead of a G.O.D. that only exists in my mind?

I know the truth. I know that he does love me and is especially fond of me. I know that I alone would have been enough for him to go to the cross. I know somewhere within me that I am chosen and beloved. But that's not enough for me. I want to feel it too. I need to feel it. I need this heart-level knowing to be the lens through which I view his world; a world which he has shared his burden for with me. I desperately need to take off the glasses that I've grown so accustomed to and discard them, break them, throw them away. I need to have my theology match my reality.

Does your theology match your reality?

choosing to fight ...

2009-10-06T10:13:00.007-05:00

So in the spirit of my last post, how's this for transparency and vulnerability: My life is a wreck right now. I feel as though everything's a disaster. It feels like someone took the plug out of the drain that was holding my life in the tub and now it's all rushing mad down the pipes. I'm nervous. I'm scared. I'm confused. I'm angry and frustrated and hurting. I feel like throwing up. All while trying to remember that happiness is circumstantial, but joy, however, is not. Is this what a crisis of faith feels like?

Once I made the decision and accepted the call to go to Alaska, everything went to pieces. I'm having a hard time discerning whether this is the enemy blocking my way to joining God in his work or if this is God blocking my path with thorn-bushes as he did in Hosea. But when I start to think about it, I really believe that Alaska is where I am called to be. Knowing how alive I felt while I lived there the first time fills me with joy and anticipation. But then I start to question my motives, Am I running from something? Or to something? And then comes the deluge of self-doubt, Who do I think I am to even imagine that I might be worthy or qualified for missions work? Who am I to dare to fulfill one of my dreams (living in the mountains where God continuously meets me) and move to Alaska? Do I deserve to live in such a beautiful place? The last time I moved to Alaska I had a week and a half from decision to landing in Anchorage. I had no time to doubt or question or do anything but move forward. It was so much easier that time. I made my decision and left 9 days later. I wish this time was like that. Don't think, just act. It would make all of this so much simpler.

The other night I had the distinct pleasure of seeing Donald Miller in person and listening to him speak about his new book, A Million Miles in a Thousand Years. I was front row center, literally right under his nose, when he said these words, "The second you decide to live a more meaningful, more beautiful life, you will encounter conflict and pain." I thought, Boy, does this guy have a camera following me around or something? Direct access to my life? Sure, life wasn't all fun and games before I made this decision but conflict has at the very least doubled since I accepted the call. In Million Dollar Baby, Scrap-Iron Dupris, played by Morgan Freeman, says, "Boxing is an unnatural act, because everything in it is backwards. You wanna move to the left, you don't step left, you push on the right toe. To move right, you use your left toe. Instead of running from the pain - like a sane person would do, you step into it." I'm trying with everything in me to step into it, to be open to it. Open to it changing me and me coming out the other side better and stronger. He also says in the movie, "Sometimes the best way to deliver a punch is to step back. But step back too far and you ain't fighting at all." So, I am choosing to fight. To not let some conflict rob me of time or important lessons. Or rob me of joy. Time in the desert makes the Promised Land seem that much more beautiful once you get there, right? I'll just keep telling myself that.

But now, this is what the LORD says—
he who created you, O Jacob,
he who formed you, O Israel:
"Fear not, for I have redeemed you;
I have summoned you by name; you are mine.

When you pass through the waters,
I will be with you;
and when you pass through the rivers,
they will not sweep over you.
When you walk through the fire,
you will not be burned;
the flames will not set you ablaze.

For I am the LORD, your God,
the Holy One of Israel, your Savior ... (Isaiah 43:1-3, NIV)

just to have it out ...

2009-09-24T14:16:00.003-05:00

I have been reading and reading and reading another blog today and her transparency and candor are graceful and her writing is gorgeous. She tells her story of redemption with marked poignancy and forms words into perfect metaphors to make it all so real and graspable.

To be honest, it's left me with a desire to be a little more transparent with some things in my own life as well. The truth is, I'm broken. Very broken. Sometimes (maybe too often?) I try to hide it and cover it up with things to make me appear not so broken. But I know the truth and I am beginning to realize that covering it up only breaks my pieces into smaller bits until soon I will be nothing but a soft heap of fine sand.

This is where I am these days.

Why do I dare to make the vital and life-sucking mistake of constantly comparing myself to other people that I think appear to have it all together, or more together than I do? Why do I do that? Take my sister Traci for instance. I love her. I love her husband and all 6 of her soon to be 7 kids. I watch her in her life and think to myself, Man, why does she have it so together and I don't? How is it she goes through life seemingly not struggling with anything? How is it she has everything and I struggle to make ends meet? And I have a friend, Amy, that I admire greatly, for her writing abilities, for her eye for capturing a great photograph, for her faith, for her beauty and brokenness and boldness. But I can't just leave it at admiring her. I feel this compulsion toward feeling "less-than" simply because I'm not her. I want her to validate me as if she's the one from whom I receive my worth. And honestly, we aren't even close. We were a lot closer 5 years ago or so and I'm not real sure what happened but something changed. Then there's the subject of my car. It's ugly. It's old. Not everything works properly. My door handle is a different color than the rest of it and there's a dent in the passenger side door. And I care entirely too much about those things. I sometimes find myself ashamedly parking away from other people if I'm meeting friends somewhere in hopes they won't see it. I'm embarassed by it even though I know, as Tyler Durden said in Fight Club, "You are not the car you drive and you are not the contents of your wallet." And all of a sudden I'm back to trying to find something to fill whatever it is I feel I'm lacking. All along I know it's a God-shaped hole, not a shirt shaped hole or a cd shaped hole or a lunch shaped hole.

That's another thing. Sometimes I find myself wanting, nay needing, to prove to others, even if I'm alone, that I have money, or that I can go out to eat or get a decaf javanilla shake, even though I really can't. And so I perpetuate the cycle and it never ends. It seems like the less money I have the more I spend for some reason. Actually, it's exactly that: the less I have, the more I feel I have to prove to others and maybe even to myself. I get a little money and I find all kinds of reasons, real or not, to justify spending it. I hate that part of me. It's ugly like a cancer that I want removed, cut out of me. I've had periods in my life when I was responsible and was able to save money instead of spending it but these days I'm struggling. Being unemployed I'm sure has a lot to do with it but so do my own poor choices and it pains me admitting that. We all have affairs, and mine repeatedly seems to be with money.

Sure, I have days when I am happily just me and rest in the knowledge that I am who God says I am and that he gave me my worth. But that's not always. And I have a pretty wonderful life, seriously, I know it could be a lot worse and I don't have to go very far to find people hurting more than I am. But I just feel I should be more thankful for it, more at rest. The book Captivating talks about a woman's heart and says that a truly beautiful heart is one that isn't striving but is just at rest with God and who she is, who he created her to be (should be required reading for every woman/girl). And there's I Peter Chapter 3 that says this: "Your beauty should not come from outward adornment, such as braided hair and the wearing of gold jewelry and fine clothes. Instead, it should be that of your inner self, the unfading beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit, which is of great worth in God's sight. For this is the way the holy women of the past who put their hope in God used to make themselves beautiful." I have that verse taped up in a couple of places but the truth of it still has yet to sink in to the very depths of my heart.

I know the roots of most of these things, if not all. I have had 32 years of moments when my value and worth were stripped from me or left in piles of broken china on the kitchen floor. That's not the point here. The point here is just to have it out, out into the light because darkness and Light cannot coexist. It's physically impossible. Shame and grace cannot occupy the same space. I hope to be a little more candid here on my blog in the future. I'm not saying I haven't been honest or transparent before now, but I'm only saying that I hope to be more so. I know a few weeks ago I posted about Donald Miller and his "lifeboat theory" that we all act as if we're on a lifeboat with 10 other people, but there's only room for 10 total, so one of us has to go and so we all try to prove that we should be one who stays. It resonated deep within me and for a while it was quite effective at allowing me to be at rest with who I am. But here the last few days, I have somehow, through a variety of circumstances, gotten away from that and let the lie creep back in that I have something to prove to others so that they'll let me remain in the boat. As if they get to decide. I'm tired of living that way. It's exhausting. So I'm committing myself to bringing things out into the light here in the hopes that it will help me be more accountable for my thoughts and actions. If I know I've committed to posting about it maybe it will help change my behavior / thougths?

I feel compelled to add, I know the Truth. I know from where my self-worth comes. I also know that it's the broken things that find redemption. Beauty out of ashes. This is the hope to which I cling.

truth vs. lie ...

2009-09-22T12:44:00.003-05:00

It's been hard for me to update because I feel like there's just so much for me to cover: process of moving to Alaska, things I'm learning, a study I'm doing, and other aspects of life. All of it has been so good but overwhelming too.

Process: I've sent out support-raising letters to friends and family via email and to churches I think might be interested via snail-mail. I've gotten little response and it makes me uncomfortable. One friend this morning told me that he'd help me by giving toward moving expenses and I was thankful for that. And another friend (from Alaska) emailed last week and said she wants to support me as well. I continually have this mantra playing through my head like a scrolling screensaver: While I might repeatedly find myself in over my own head, I am never in over God's! He is going to provide. I have days when I know that beyond a shadow of a doubt, but the other moments, the ones in which the shadow of doubt seemingly overtakes the light, the truth, seem to be coming at smaller intervals lately. I don't want that. I want to be growing in faith, not away from it. I suppose I have thought that I would be farther along in my fund-raising by this point though. Was that foolish of me to have thought that? Perhaps. It's only been a little over a month since I received the offer. But I feel this looming deadline and it makes me start to twitch with anxiety.

Things I'm learning: With all that said, however, I am doing a study at church with other women. It's a Beth Moore study entitled Believing God: Experiencing a Fresh Explosion of Faith. It's all pretty timely if you ask me. It's about how we are to present active participle believe that he is who he says he is, he can do what he says he can do, I am who God says I am, I can do all things through Christ, and God's word is living and active in me. We are to actively believe him. Not just believe in him, but believe him, what he says and what he does. This led me to the thought that I so often call myself a "believer" but really when I label myself that am I really actively believing him in that moment. More often that not, no. I believe in him and I think that's where most of us go wrong. We interpret being a believer as believing in him, and fail at the true meaning: Believe-er, one who actively believes something, the verb form of the word. So I am learning to present active participle believe him in my move, my future as a missionary in Alaska. It seems that it is just so much easier to believe the enemy when he tells me that I'm fooling myself, that I am not worthy of this calling, that money won't come in, that people will mock me for my efforts only to fail in the end, and who do I think I am anyway thinking that God would use me? This is HARD! Living this faith is hard, but I am resting in the knowledge that it will indeed be so worth it in the end.

Other aspects of life: My friend Lisa (from Alaska, the one I mentioned above that said she'd support me monthly) said in the same email that she's horrible at long-distance friendships but that I am "so worth being friends with." That was pretty timely too to be completely honest. I have felt like a failure the last few months in the area of friendships. I have seen the end of two friendships since June, one of which was very significant, the other not as much but still. A third friendship feels like it's on the edge of the cliff waiting for a stiff breeze. I started a small group last fall with the hopes that I would forge some wonderful friendships with some amazing women and we would eventually be really close. I stated in the beginning that I wanted a commitment from them, to remain together for the duration, to truly do life together. That group fell apart in early spring this year. It's no one's fault. People just had to go their different ways. Who was I to try to demand a life-long commitment from them? Things change, lives change, people move, etc ... After the demise of that small group, I emailed the "connect" director at my church to be placed in a new one and that I was also willing to lead a one-on-one mentoring group. I was promised that they would get back with me very soon. That never happened. I have just let the creep in lately that since so many attempts have failed, it must mean there is something wrong with me. A couple of weeks ago my pastor taught on intimacy and immunity and technology. I was hit hard by the idea that I sometimes use technology (Facebook, my blog ... ) as a means to replace real intimacy that's lacking in my life. I use those avenues to gain approval or affirmation instead of actively building into people and giving of myself in true relationships. It was at that point that I decided to join the women's study on Believing God to try to open myself up to others for true intimacy. I think it will be good but also a stretch for me. A stretch because I have a disdain for surface talk. I want to cut out all the surfacey "What do you do? Where do you live?" crap and get to the nitty gritty of things. This might actually be why I feel myself lacking in the friendship department. People ask me something on the surface level and I shut down for some reason. I am sure it shows on my face too because I'm told so often that I don't hide my emotions very well. So I'm sure the asker gets "put off" and any possibility of a future friendship forming is ruined. So again, I'm left thinking that there must be something wrong with me, when they choose to direct their safe questions to someone else that they interpret as a little more "safe." I just want to be real, cut the crap. Let's get to it.

Another thing I have been thinking about is the cynicism that harbors inside of me. I loathe chick flicks (the boy meets girl and fall in love after 3 dates movies). I can't stand them. And it's more than just a level of understanding that it's fairy tale. It's much more than that, much deeper. I can enjoy them at some level right up to the point where the boy and girl get back together at the end and it's presumed that they live happily ever after while the credits roll. But once I can see they are getting to that point I feel myself harden. I actually sense a shift inside. I can't explain it really. And when the guy and girl DON'T get back together in the end, I want to dance with glee on my way out! Take 500 Days of Summer for instance (SPOILER AHEAD!). Great movie all the way through I thought. I love those quirky kinds of movies. Loved the music, loved the actors, and actually loved the story. And what made it even better, for me, is that they don't end up together. She marries someone else. And I was ecstatic. It just makes me wonder why that is, why I feel that way. Am I dooming myself? Is this a self-fulfilling prophecy of sorts? I don't know. But I think it's much more serious than just a knowledge that it's not real. It's like I'm afraid to let myself be happy or hopeful. It worries me. I heard a week or so ago - and now I can't for the life of me remember where - that "Every woman has the exact love life that she wants." It left me thinking, Could that really be true? I do believe that I sometimes hide from love (as a self-defense mechanism) to avoid the potential hurt but I still want a love life. I want someone to choose me as I am now, not as the me that I could be. I agree that on some level the statement is true. After all, if we want something bad enough we will create space for it in our lives and rearrange goals to achieve/attain it. But I struggle with the statement too and can't subscribe 100% to the idea. At least not yet. Will keep chewing on that one.

reality show immunity ...

2009-09-06T15:39:00.006-05:00

I've been doing a lot of reading lately. Donald Miller mostly, Searching for God Knows What. It's no surprise to me really that I have taken away some important things from this book, as I have the other 2 of his that I've read.

In particular is one idea he talks about at quite great length. It's his lifeboat theory. Basically it's the idea that since original sin, we have all stopped getting all of our needs met in God, as we were originally designed, and started looking to others to fulfill those needs and for our affirmation. Because of this we all live in this state of mind as though we are all in a lifeboat and there's only room for 10 but there's 11 of us and so we have to decide who we kick out. And we're constantly fighting for our spot in the boat, trying to prove to everyone else how valuable we are, that we have our stuff together, and trying to convince everyone else that they shouldn't kick us out. We all try to get ahead of everyone else to maintain our position in the boat. It's as if this i the most dramatic reality show ever produced and we're competing for immunity in our daily challenges. We hear the narrator as he tells us what is at stake. We aren't just playing to say that we won, there's no million dollars waiting for the winner. We're playing for our lives. Literally. You get voted out of the boat and you die. Or that's what we think and how we feel. We do everything in our power to keep ourselves from being in that last position in the boat: the weakest, poorest, least successful, least contributing person (all by worldly standards) is the one in this position.

This theory has totally changed my worldview, completely revolutionized how I see myself and how I see others. It's changed my behaviors and transformed my heart in some areas, with many left to be changed. It used to be that when someone cut me off in traffic, I would go into a rage about just who does that person think they are cutting me off life that! How dare they?! My heart was against them. Now my heart toward them is softer and I find myself wondering whose lifeboat they are afraid of getting voted out of. It sometimes occurs to me to pray for them and so I do. It used to be that I myself felt the need to speed race everywhere, to be out in front, couldn't stand to have cars on all sides of me, trapping me in so to speak. I would cut people off and weave in and out. Now I realize that this was me just trying to get ahead in the boat, trying to keep as far away from the last position as possible. When I feel anxiety about how others think of me, I remind myself that I am not in a lifeboat about to be kicked out. When I feel as though someone isn't treating me, or someone else, as though I think they should I am able to realize that they feel desperate to cling to life just like everyone else. They can feel that something is missing in them and so they try to do everything in their power to keep others from seeing that they have a piece missing. But really in all their striving to cover up, the truth is revealed.

If one already had all their needs met, they wouldn't feel this desperation to hide the truth behind facades of "Look what I can do" or "Your life would be so empty without me." No pretenses. Just being at rest, effortless being. Jesus lived this way. He was who he was, without giving any weight to what others thought. He was unashamed. I have to say that seems like such a refreshing way to go about life. This reminds me of a passage in 1 Peter chapter 3: "What matters is not your outer appearance—the styling of your hair, the jewelry you wear, the cut of your clothes—but your inner disposition. Cultivate inner beauty, the gentle, gracious kind that God delights in" (The Message). It's an attitude, a lifestyle: to not strive for outward perfection but to live from inner grace, from a place that bleeds of the redemption already completed. That will be a goal of mine in the coming months. To feel secure knowing that I already have my Life Preserver. He already saved me. For good. I don't need immunity because I received mine when I was in about 2nd or 3rd grade and this immunity doesn't transfer to the strongest person next week. It's my immunity and it lasts forever. I'm in the only lifeboat that matters and there's no chance of me getting voted out.

Flashed up in my wildest dreams, the dark red blood streams
Stretching out like vast cracked ice
The veins of you, the veins of me like great forest trees
Pushing through and on and in.

Gliding like a satellite in the broken night
And when I wake you're there, I'm saved
Your love is life piled tight and high set against the sky
That seems to balance on its own.
(Snow Patrol, Lifeboats)

a little of each: past, present, future

2009-08-20T10:15:00.004-05:00

So much has taken place since my last post. The biggest, and perhaps most important, is that come January I am moving back to Alaska, the place I fell in love with when I lived there previously from 2005-2007. It was actually right about this time 4 years ago that I first decided to pack up and move to Alaska to attend Alaska Christian College. You can read the progression of that story here, here, and here. Many will tell you that I came alive during my time there. My dad says that I became more myself. It really did transform me, which, I suppose, is one reason I'm returning. It's a missionary position for which I am required to fundraise all of my own support for the duration of my career there: $17400/year or $1450/month. I have moments (most of the time) when I am fully trusting this process to the Most High, boasting in my weakness so that his power will be made perfect. I have other (occasional) moments when doubt grips me and I am afraid. It's a process, one that will undoubtedly teach me much about faith, about God, about others on this journey with me, and about myself. I can't wait!

Also since my last post, I have parted ways with a woman that I have been friends with for 17 years now. We met sophomore year of high school (Fall semester 1992) in choir. She sat behind me and played with my hair and as someone whose primary love language is touch, I let her. We were fairly inseparable over the next several years. We made declarations that we would be each others' maid of honor, would always be best friends and nothing could separate us. In fall of 1998 we were roommates at KU and my personal reasons for being there were probably all the wrong reasons. I desperately wanted out of my father's house and saw college as a seemingly suitable way out, even though I couldn't pay for it. In the not even 8 weeks I was there, I attended class maybe 3-4 times. I slept. I partied. I ate. I managed to get a job at a hotel as front desk help. Personal tragedy struck early that semester and I found myself in literal shock in the ER. My "best friend" abandoned me when I needed her most because of something I wrote about her out of anger and frustration in a letter to my sister but never sent and she had found wadded up IN my trash can. I left KU feeling more alone and scared than I ever had in my entire life. She and I didn't speak for more than 2 years until she'd heard from a mutual friend of ours that my mother had passed away several months before that, and she called to say she was sorry for my loss. I was reluctant to let her back in because the pain of her turning her back on me was so profound and so irrevocable. But I chose to try to look past it. I forgave her and we tried to build our friendship again from there. But I never forgot that hurt, that wound and I think I had my guard up with her ever since, never able to fully trust her though I really wanted to. Sadly, from that point on, it seemed to be a repeated pattern: in my deepest times of need, my darkest hours, she was unavailable. She once told me, "I have enough problems of my own, I can't deal with yours right now" and that though she loved me she couldn't be my friend at that time. I remember the very next day I saw her at church and she acted like nothing had happened, as if she hadn't said any of it. I remember talking with a friend at that time (in early 2005) about wanting to end the friendship. But at the time, my way of dealing with conflict was to avoid it at all costs. I never mentioned it. I think I was so hungry for friendship, for connection, that I put up with it. Or I didn't think I was worth standing up for myself and told myself that's normal, it's what I deserve and nothing better. I was in a very unhealthy place at the time and I say that because I know I made mistakes too. I wanted to end it but I also couldn't reconcile that with "Love keeps no record of wrongs" so I said nothing and stayed. But I still couldn't help but notice that this was her pattern. She also once told me that she was/is the most selfish person I would ever meet. Over time, I really began to see and experience those words come to life and with a new clarity. I think those words that she spoke became a lens through which I viewed almost all of our interactions thereafter. I felt the friendship was over long before it actually ended and I believe I grieved it a long time ago (I would say 2005 or 2006 probably). Something happened about a year ago in our friendship that I believe was the "straw that broke the camel's back" - at least for me. I won't get into details but will say that I found myself deeply, deeply hurt by her again and we didn't speak for a few months. During that time, I began to discuss our friendship with trusted Christian friends and mentors and was advised to end it. More than one said it was an abusive relationship and I needed to get out. And over 4th of July weekend this year something else came up that ultimately led to my ending our friendship. I had prayed about it and talked with people for months and truly felt peace with the decision and once it was done I was relieved, as though a weight had been lifted and I was free to invest in other healthier, life-giving friendships. That I was so at peace and relieved with this said a lot to me, it told me that this was indeed the right thing. And I firmly believe that.

That process has taught me so much about friendships, about myself, God, and even my mother. Growing up with an abusive father, I remember at times wishing my mother would just leave him. I prayed for it, wished for it on stars and on birthday candles. It never happened and though I am eternally thankful now, at the time I was angry, hurt and confused at different times, and other times I was all of those things combined. Her commitment to stay had a lasting effect on me that only in the last month or so have I come to notice in my own life. I've had a series of semi-abusive relationships over the years, never physical abuse (aside from my father) which I have always thought to be easier to deal with. It's the emotional / mental abuse that leaves scars that don't heal and later may flare up and cause problems. I learned from my mother to stay, that it was okay and normal to be mistreated. I learned to put up with it and to avoid. I learned to stay when everything in me was telling me to leave.

I feel I need to make clear at this point that I love both of my parents deeply and feel no ill feelings toward either of them for the past. I have ALWAYS loved both of them and, like I said earlier, am grateful now that they stayed together and were more in love with each other in the months leading up to my mom's passing than I had ever seen before. They did the best they knew to do and did a fantastic job of it at that. My dad has grown and transformed so much under the Refiner's fire. He has always been a gentle, tender-hearted, loving man and now he shows it daily. I am proud of him and know that it is not my praise that matters. I know our Heavenly Father is proud of him too and that it is only by his grace that my daddy is who he is today. With that said, I know there will continue to be things that come up from my past that God will bring to the surface in my present relationships. I know this and welcome this as part of the journey back to Eden, part of the restoration of the glory I was originally intended to bestow, and the reconciliation to my Creator.

Needless to say, there have been some big things happening in me and through me. To hash them all out here would take an eternity but I would say that I've covered the biggest parts. The last 2-3 months I have discovered things in me that I didn't know were there, or more likely, I didn't know how to use. I can't put into words how it feels to stand up for myself, to draw a boundary line and say, "I will no longer let you treat me this way. I will no longer let anyone treat me this way!" It feels good. Tonight I am thankful that God calls me to come with him, not to stay where I am, stuck and frustrated. I choose to go: free and open to the journey.

they just love ...

2009-07-27T14:51:00.006-05:00

I figure we have a lot to learn from dogs really. It seems they have a lot of things figured out if you ask me. Dogs seem to have this life thing figured out pretty well. They live totally un-self-consciously. They pass gas and they don't care. They don't care who sees them void. They could be the ugliest dog on the block but they don't know that and it doesn't keep them from prancing around like peacocks. They embrace who they are fully: skinny or overweight, white or black, pedigree or inbred, big dog or little dog. They are who they are and that's that. Kind of a refreshing thought isn't it?

They know what brings them joy and they just do it. "Oh look! A squirrel!" And off they go in blissful bounds. "Where's my toy? Where's my toy? Where's my toy?" They dart all around the house or yard until they find the one thing they most want at that moment. They play with abandon, unafraid of who's watching or how they look to someone passing by. They don't get bogged down by responsibility because they have none. And they can't say that they just don't have the time to do what they want, because they have nothing but time.

Some breeds (take mine for example) get joy from pleasing their masters. They obey because they know their master will be pleased with them and reward them, whether it's with a treat or just a loving rub on the belly.

They know what they like and what they don't like. Some love to swim, others won't go near the water. Some like chewy toys or ones that squeak and others just rip them to shreds. Some like the rope toys so they can play tug of war with their humans and others are more content playing alone. Some want to be cuddled and held and nuzzled, others don't. There are some that like to be scratched on the belly, some on the ears, some on the back, and still others just above their tail. Others are just happy to get any affection. There are no pretenses with dogs. There's no "Well maybe if I do this, I'll be more liked, more accepted by the others." There's no "keeping up with the Labradors" or "but the Great Dane down the street did it so I should too ... " It doesn't work that way. They are a species that is very accepting and all inclusive. There are no cliques in dog world. They make no judgments.

They do however have their way of "sniffing out" the bad seeds. By sniffing each others' "others" they can tell whether or not that particular dog is safe to hang out with. They trust their sense about such things. They sniff out if they can safely stick around or if they should retreat. (I can name a few times in my life when that particular ability would have been of great benefit to me!) But they can tell when they are in danger and they know to retreat or fight back.

Dogs are very forgiving. They don't hold grudges. They know that we as their humans make mistakes. But they just love us. They don't care that we don't always get it right; they just love. They love with their whole bodies. Wiggling, wily bodies!

Now, I realize that a lot of this is because they lack the capacity to make judgments or exercise free will really. But I still stand by what I said at the beginning. Yes. It seems to me that dogs have this life thing down pretty doggone well.

dog spelled backwards is ...

2009-06-22T15:02:00.007-05:00

She offers her head for me to pat and she leans into it craving my attention and affection. When we are out walking, she sometimes will run ahead so that I can no longer see her, but realizing this she will always come bounding back until I catch up to her, or she'll run back to me as if to check in, to make sure that she's still okay. Once she has my approval or knows that she is still safe, she will walk with me a bit before running off again. She loves me with every part of her and when a storm comes or if she is scared she will crawl into my lap where she knows I will protect her and keep her from harm. I will put my arms around her and cradle her in my love for as long as she needs me to. She will tremble there until the storm has passed or until she knows that her world is safe again. When she has done something wrong she always comes to me with her head hung low. Once I have disciplined her and told her again how much I love her and how precious she is to me, she knows all is right again and she returns to being joyful. She is obedient, always so willing and eager to please me. I can see that she sometimes gets frustrated because she doesn't understand exactly what it is that I want. But together we work on it and eventually she learns. The more I love on her and the more she receives that love the more it shows in how she walks and carries herself, how she behaves, how she plays, the more evident it is in all areas of her life.

She comes to me enthusiastically and offers her love freely, without condition. It is sweet and pure and joyful. When I am upset or frustrated, she is patient and sits with me while I calm down and think things through. When I am sad, she comforts me and listens and is never judging nor condemning. She still loves me even when I am not able to walk with her or play with her. If I forget to feed her, she forgives me readily and loves me anyway. When I do not acknowledge her or pay attention to her she sits patiently and waits while I go about my business before returning to her again. And if I take too long, she always does something to get my attention and to make sure I know that she is still there asking me to love her and seems to promise that if only I would, oh the things she wants to show me! She is always sweet and gentle in spirit. She is playful and funny and has a sense of humor like no other. Her love for me is not conditional on anything I do. She is always ready with her love for me, it is always available.

(The first paragraph portrays Sophie, my 3 year old boxer, as analagous to me or us as humans, and myself as God. The second paragraph portrays Sophie as analagous to God and myself as human or humanity.)

I have learned so much through her: about me, about God, about my relationship with God. She has brought so much joy to my life in the last 8 months or so since I rescued her. I cannot imagine life without her, much the same way I cannot imagine life without God.

and ... we're back ...

2009-06-07T22:12:00.002-05:00

I bought a laptop a couple of days ago. And you know what that means ... I can start writing and updating again. I have missed it so much. It's like therapy for me. So if anyone is still reading this ... stay tuned. Hope to have at least one update this week.

recommendations ...

2009-04-07T11:58:00.002-05:00

Here a couple of articles that I am drawing truth from. Thought I'd pass them along to anyone reading this.

Lent and Fasting from the Voice in Your Head: http://www.relevantmagazine.com/features-reviews/god/16428-lent-and-fasting-from-the-voice-in-your-head

Regaining Passion for Your Job: http://www.relevantmagazine.com/features-reviews/life/16411-regaining-passion-for-your-job

hard times come again no more ...

2009-04-06T15:52:00.002-05:00

Since I last posted I have:

Decided to move, found a new place, and informed my roommate of said decision.
Lost my job.
Had car trouble.
Been treated to numerous meals by amazing friends!
Congratulated a friend on his recent engagement, though it was kind of a blow.
Hosted a friend/"little brother" I haven't seen for almost 3 years.
Had a slight, but scary, stalker problem and had to get police involved. Yikes!
Had 5 interviews but landed a job without interviewing for it at all ... I'm working, at least temporarily if not longer, for a friend (Mark Mansingh) who started his own business recently and had to make some drastic staffing changes last week. We'll see how it works out.
Had numerous discussions with various people regarding my seeming inability to receive the full extent of God's love for me.
Thought about, even before yesterday's sermon, the name I've carried and the name that God wants me to have.
Had a run-in with a nail and my foot (and it's been over 10 years since I've had a tetanus shot). I know, I know ... Spare me the lectures. All seems to be fine; I'll get a shot soon.
Cursed this long blasted winter that has it's nails dug in deep.
Had major disciplinary issues with my dog: chewing carpet, peeing and pooing where she's not supposed to, incessant whining, etc ...
Moved.
Started a job for which I do not have appropriate "super classy ... look like a million bucks" clothing. We'll see how that plays out.
Decided I really want to get a Nissan Versa.
Not updated my blog in forever and missed it. I would like to get a laptop sometime soon. Again, we'll see how that plays out.

being born ...

2009-03-03T12:02:00.003-06:00

It's a magnificent day, a moment of surrender on the horizon. It's time to get on your boots, breathe in the air, white as snow in the cedars of Lebanon.

that just happened ...

2009-02-09T09:54:00.002-06:00

Last night I went to The Gathering (a Sunday night ministry at my church, primarily for college and post-college age). I have attended on a regular basis for years, minus a couple years when I was in Alaska, but don't really know many people. I have found it rather difficult to break into in terms of community building, etc ... Anyhow, so last night I went and was waiting for my friend to show up. I was seated on some benches outside the auditorium. After a few minutes this guy came over and sat at the other end of the bench. A couple minutes later he scooted closer to me. And then he scooted closer again. We struck up a conversation and I eventually asked, "So what's your name?" He said, "I'm ______." And I said, "Hi, I'm Christina. Nice to meet you." And we continued talking a bit. I was right in the middle of a sentence when he casually turned his head to glance at me and then got up and sauntered off. Yeah. Apparently, I'm THAT intriguing that people just can't handle it so they leave, mid-conversation. Go me!

Still wanting to write. I haven't forgotten. It's hard to find time to get to a computer. But I will post more as soon as I can. Maybe this week?

itch and scratch ...

2009-01-14T14:14:00.001-06:00

I am getting an itch to write again. I'm hoping for an opportunity to scratch it very soon. I have lots of ideas.

gratitude ...

2008-11-26T13:05:00.004-06:00

I've sorta made it a tradition here at like the seasons this time of year to recap the things for which I am most grateful. Some things on this list will be repeats from years past but that's just because my gratitude for them never seems to run dry. Here it is, in no particular order ...

Seasons, both literal and metaphorical.
A 2 year old reverse brindle boxer named Sophie.
Light and truth.
Beautiful vulnerability and transparency.
Sabbath.
Stories.
Shelter in the form of a house that I share with my dog, my roommate and her 2 cats.
Little, seemingly insignificant moments that later you look back on and realize they had a bigger impact on your life than you would have thought.
The way color spills across earth and sky early in the day and late in the evening.
Redemption, both the word (such a beautiful word) and its meaning.
That I believe in a God who is infinitely bigger and richer than any economic crisis and that my future is in his very capable hands, and not the hands of any finite, fallible human.
Language.
Forgiveness, mercy and grace.
Hammocks.
Perfect autumn days when you not only see the reds and oranges and golds and browns but you feel the colors of autumn inside you.
The definition of music: an art of sound in time that expresses ideas and emotions in significant forms through the elements of rhythm, melody, harmony, and color.
Gorgeous lyrics.
Flintstones vitamins (yes, I take one a day).
W. B. Yeats and Henry David Thoreau.
Annie Dillard, Anne Lamott and Donald Miller.
Frederick Buechner, C.S. Lewis and A. W. Tozer.
Contented sighs.
Gretchen, Audra, Karen, Molly - my small group - and for God placing them in my path.
The courage to ask for what I want, even when the result isn't what I hoped it would be.
Provision and protection.
Love. Simple. Pure. Unabashed.
Employment.
Kept promises and that my faith is in a God who always keeps his promises, without fail.
Landscapes, both of the earth and of the heart.
The beaty of this sudden realization of how similar the words earth and heart are in spelling and in meaning: both contain soil and with the right light and nourishment, both can produce lush gardens or remain barren.
Metaphors, grammar, and words.
Books.
Meals shared with loved ones.
True intimacy.
Gatherings, planned and impromptu.
Relationships of all kinds.
The ability to share in and witness each other's lives.
The fluttery feeling of new love.
Justice.
Knowledge, the capacity to expand my awareness through learning.
Church, the way it was meant to be, as originally described in Acts. Not the building, but the people, the concept, the verb of "being the church."
The beauty of simplicity.
Long drives in the country on blue-sky days.
The world's oldest museum and art gallery: Nature.
How lavishly I am loved by an incredibly indulgent God.
Leadership and authority and learning what it looks like to submit the way God intended.
Christmas: in it's pure form, not the commercialized greed-fest it is today.
Healing.
Little bits of wisdom like: Go forward into your past, with your present, so that you can move into the future.
Missing people, because it means you have people to miss.

I know I could add to this list and sit here for hours, or forever, thinking of things for which I am grateful. But alas, I have other things to do and other people to see. And I am thankful for that as well. Blessings and shalom to you this holiday season!

what we want ...

2008-11-24T13:24:00.005-06:00

a friend of mine, jon, emailed this to a while ago and i love it. thought i'd post it here.

what we want
is never simple.
we move among the things
we thought we wanted:
a face, a room, an open book
and these things bear our names
—now they want us.
but what we want appears
in dreams, wearing disguises.
we fall past, holding out our arms
and in the morning our arms ache.
we don't remember the dream,
but the dream remembers us.
it is there all day
as an animal is there
under the table,
as the stars are there
even in full sun.

by linda pastan

any thoughts?

seasons ...

2008-10-14T11:14:00.008-05:00

I am in a strange season right now. Much like the physical season we're in, this is a season of waiting, of shedding some proverbial leaves until I feel bare and ugly, of being quiet and looking inward. It also seems to be a lonely season for me and one with equal parts beauty and brokenness.

I can sense that I'm getting to the point at which the one thing I have so desperately held on to, the thing I have refused to let go of and let God handle, is not really mine to control. And it never really was. I have clung to it knowing that I could do a much better job with it than he could. The truth is, since I'm being completely candid here, I haven't done a better job with it, far from it. But it just hurts too much to give it up and trust someone else with it, especially someone I can't touch or physically see. I know, though, that the only thing left for me to do is to do just that. I don't know how to do it and the thought of it scares me. I don't know what it will look like but I'm also a little excited and can already feel some sense of relief and freedom in it.

What it comes down to is this (and I know this won't come as a shock to most of you as I've posted about it before in maybe not so many words): I have such an ache inside to be part of a marriage, to be a witness to someone else's life, and for someone to be a witness to mine, to share together all that it has to offer - the joys and heartaches, the mountaintops and valleys - and truly be together in every sense of the word. I want someone to fight with and make up with, someone who is willing to call out the areas of my life that need some light shed on them and then challenge me to grow in those areas, someone I can grow old with but still be young and childish with at the same time. I want to be able to reach out for someone's hand and know that someone will take it, someone who is more excited when I come home at night than my beloved boxer Sophie. I want in-laws to argue with. I want someone who will pray for me and cherish me. Someone who will CHOOSE me. God should be his first priority but I want to work toward being someone's second. This year I've had several attempts at finding that someone and so far all of them have failed. One of them is someone I work with and I, consequently, get the joy of seeing that person on a daily basis.

This has become such a huge part of my life lately it seems. I've had several friends / acquaintances in the last few weeks tell me they are engaged or having a baby. I am, no doubt, thrilled for them and would never ever wish them anything but happiness in their new chapters. But bubbling there just barely under the surface is this ugly part of me that aches and yearns for the day when I will call a friend and say, "Guess what? I'm getting married!" and have her scream her head off with excitement the way I do when I get a phone call like that.

But there's a dilemma even in that. Over the weekend I was doing lots of thinking. It came to the point where I was I actually trying to think of who I would call if I really truly needed someone (if my father died, or something equally tragic). And I honestly didn't have an answer. I don't know who that would be. It is true that I have siblings, 2 sisters, but don't really feel that I have that type of relationship with either of them, especially with one of them. The thought of not having someone to call hurts in parts of me that I hadn't been aware even existed. It wasn't always like that and perhaps that's why it hurts so much now. My best friend of 15 years and I recently had somewhat of a falling out that has left me deeply hurt, wounded and vacant. Over the last few years I have increasingly felt that our friendship was coming to an end and that it was actually somewhat of an abusive relationship on her part: self-seeking, self-serving, manipulative, and draining for me. This last encounter / disagreement with her really forced me to evaluate that friendship and, while I do forgive her, decide that I can no longer be her friend.

I do have several more "surface level" friends that I would like to go deeper with and I am in the process of evaluating those more too and deciding which ones I'd like to invest more in and take to a deeper level and which I can afford to let slide. I do have a few that are "deeper" but only see / talk to them sporadically and would like to find a way to change that if possible. I'm frustrated sometimes because I so often hear, "We need to have lunch. I can't wait to see you," and then when I ask "When?" I never hear from them again until the next time they say, "Hey, we should do lunch. There's so much to tell you." I'm tired of being the one that puts in ALL the effort. I realize that friendships require effort and some will be more give and less take at different times than others but I really don't feel it should be more give and less take all the time. I'm tired of not having anyone choose me. I really don't feel as though I'm a priority to anyone right now. Not first, second, third, or fifteenth. And it sucks.

I have taken matters into my own hands and emailed some women I work with and the wives of some of the men I work with and asked if any of them are interested in starting a book group. I'm hoping that will foster an environment where deeper, more meaningful friendships can take root. Lately I've found myself spending lots of time with the guys at work. It's always been easier for me to develop frienships with men. I'm not really sure why that is. I find comfort in having companionship with men but realize it's not entirely healthy. And it automatically almost always puts me in the "buddy" category with them, which is adverse to my ultimate goal. I know friendships with men can be a good and healthy thing but a lot of times boundaries end up getting clouded and things get confusing. So I think for me at this time in my life, friendships with women are a better bet.

I also find myself more and more recently pontificating on Alaska again, or cutting loose to somewhere else. I know I have a community in Alaska that knows and loves me. I know I wouldn't be as thirsty for friendship there as I am now. It would be so easy for me to just pick up and leave again. I know I have a place to stay up there and good friends. I would always have something to do, someone to hang out with, and not to mention the landscape that I have grown to love on a deep level. I am not making any decisions about this right away. It won't be like last time I up and left for Alaska. It's just something I've thought a lot about lately, among other things.

I'd just ask that you (whoever might read this) be praying for me in this season of my life.

love reduced to its smallest terms ...

2008-08-14T14:07:00.005-05:00

I've been thinking a lot about love lately; ever since my pastor talked about love at Heartland a few Sundays ago and we've been unpacking this a little bit at work too in our weekly "Babel Study."

The Bible says we are to love God with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength and to love others as we love ourselves. After reading that verse hundreds or thousands of times, the last time I read it it meant something different to me. We are to love God differently than we love others. We cannot love God the same way that we love each other. We are to love God all the time, doing everything for his glory, meditating on him day and night. We cannot and SHOULD NOT love others in this same way. Doing so would make them a god and god-ship is, obviously, reserved for only one and He is a very jealous God. We don't love people ALL the time; we aren't actively loving others every single second of the day, meditating on them, thinking about them, doing everything for them. We ARE called to actively love God all the time though. Furthermore, when I don't love God all the time (i.e.: when I sin), it means there's a place (or most likely more than one place) in my heart that I've reserved for myself, or self-love. To love him with all our soul means giving up our rights to be right, letting God defend us and if he doesn't, we're defenseless. In diving, where your head goes, your body follows and it's the same with spirituality and matters of the heart. The head directs the body and heart. So loving God with all our mind means meditating on him and things that come from him (Philippians 4:8-9). If we do that, our bodies and our hearts WILL follow. It's been proven that emotion follows thought. The more we think about God, the more we love him with our hearts, and the more we exhibit that love with our bodies (through acts of service, saving ourselves for marriage, how we treat others, etc … ). It's like the more I think about someone romantically, the more my heart responds and the more my body follows suit (i.e.: going out of my way to do nice things for him, wanting to be in close proximity to him, finding ways to touch him, etc … ).

When we love others with the same intensity and propensity that should be reserved for God, that's when we begin to try and extract more from them than they were originally designed by God to give. And that's when they become false gods to us. The same holds true for ourselves: we often times try to extract more from ourselves than what we were originally designed to give to someone (having high expectations for ourselves or being disappointed in ourselves when we fail to meet the unreasonably high expectations set by us or others around us) and in turn we make false gods of ourselves. If we were putting God on the throne at all times, we would not have the need to give more than what we were designed to give because all our needs would be met and satisfied by God, in ways far deeper, far outside the boundaries than other humans can satisfy them. That intensity and propensity of love was designed by God for us; he loved and loves us with that intensity so that we would turn it back to him. Our error is in turning that love inward to ourselves or outward to others, instead of upward. Loving God requires a love that is separate and altogether different than loving others.

We spend so much time asking ourselves, whether consciously or not, How can I be loved more? And how we answer ourselves plays itself out from that point on in how we interact with others and most importantly how we interact with ourselves and how our spirits interact with the Holy Spirit. We manipulate. We push. We pull. We beg. We avoid. We put on our masks to cover up the real us-es, the parts of us that we have previously exposed only to have those parts pointed at cruelly and then discarded and rejected. Our point of reference is so self-centered that all our lives it's been our mission in life to get people to love us, after all why wouldn't they? We think to ourselves, If only I could make them see me, the real me, then I know they would love me. If they could just get beyond my slightly overweight appearance, my big nose, mousy hair, problem skin, and get down to who I am underneath they'd see how beautiful I am. And we set out to do just that, to make ourselves known, forcing others to take a closer look at who we are. Which more often than not sends them running in the opposite direction because we haven't looked at who they really are so they seek it out from someone else. And the cycle perpetuates. All of this complexity is easily solvable. It can be reduced down to changing our question from How can I be loved more? to How do I love others more? If we would choose to take the focus of our own need for a minute and direct it instead to loving others and meeting their needs, they'd be more likely to see what we so desperately want them to see: that we are beautiful and lovable, even in the midst of all our brokeness.

On another note, Marilynne Robinson, the author of Gilead and others said, "Love is holy because it is like grace - the worthiness of its object is never really what matters." It doesn't matter how worthy we are of that love that God has for us. It just doesn't matter. He loves us and there's nothing we can do about it. We can't talk him out of it. There's nothing we can do or not do to make him love us any more or any less than he does right now in this very instant. God's love simply is and we'd be so much better off to just accept it, rather than fight it like we do. I long for a day when I finally learn to treat God's love as the salve that it is, letting it heal and restore even the most painful and ugliest of wounds. And the same can be said for human love. It doesn't matter how worthy someone is of our love, or how worthy we are of someone else's love. What matters is simply the love itself, that it exists, that we love and are loved. Instead we fight it, railing against it as though it were a weapon and not an offer of well-being, peace, and intimacy because we certainly don't deserve those things. We turn into something far more complex than God intended for it to be. It's simple: it's not, "Work for God's love, and force others to love you;" it's "Love God and love others."

red light redemption ...

2008-07-30T13:59:00.009-05:00

I was selling “fabric.” That’s what they told me I'd be doing a few years prior when they brought me here. At the time, I had been looking for a way out of my current situation and met them and they seemed nice enough. And they were going to give me a job and a place to live. So that’s how I wound up on the corner that night, the night I met him. It was the kind of night that aches: lonely, rainy, and full of yearning.

The ground was wet and gleamed in shades of red and yellow where the lights glinted off the rain-soaked cement. I could tell he had been traveling for a while. His dark skin was wind burned and his black hair was long and clumped in dirty dreads. But his hands, though rough to the touch, were gentle as one of them brushed my cheek as he lifted it to sweep hair from my eyes. And his eyes, though heavy with sleep, were kind as they searched my face for something that I didn’t yet know was there. He was familiar and I swore I knew him from some other night or some other life.

I told him that if he was interested I had some fabric for sale but he had to come inside. He said, “The fabric that you’re selling is precious and priceless. It’s the most valuable fabric of all.” It was strange but I didn’t care. He seemed a willing customer and for some reason I knew he would give me more than I asked for. He got off his motorcycle, took off his rain gear, and followed me inside and up the narrow staircase. It always smelled, I thought, like fear in there, passion and violence, hate and brokenness. We reached the top of the stairs and I crossed the room to turn on the lamp. His words fell quiet and tender on my ears.

Roxanne, you don't have to put on the red light / Those days are over / You
don't have to sell your body to the night / Roxanne, you don't have to wear that
dress tonight / Walk the streets for money / You don't care if it's wrong or if
it's right

He told me again that the fabric I was selling was too costly to sell and that I should treasure it. “It’s the fabric of your very life; don’t sell it to the wolves.” I was flushed with anger and with embarrassment. Who was he? Who was he to tell me how to run my life? How was I supposed to escape this place? And how would I start over if I did? I was scared though too. I knew they would be watching for the red light through the window. And I reached out my hand again to turn the switch.

Roxanne, you don't have to put on the red light / Roxanne, you don't have to put
on the red light / Put on the red light, put on the red light / Put on the red
light, put on the red light / Put on the red light, oh

His voice was like a salve, healing old wounds and soothing the ache left by years of prayers uttered in dark rooms illumined by red lights. He drew me in close to him the way I’d dreamed of someone doing before this nightmare of my life began. His arms embracing me brought old feelings and memories back to me. Feelings of being a little girl being wrapped up tightly in her daddy’s arms; memories of feeling truly treasured and cherished. I felt all of the past escape me and with it all the shame associated with the kind of life I'd somehow found myself in. Outside the door my boss was storming up the stairs, yelling my name. Telling me I had a customer asking for me downstairs.

I loved you since I knew ya / I wouldn't talk down to ya / I have to tell you
just how I feel / I won't share you with another boy / I know my mind is made up
/ So put away your make up / Told you once I won't tell you again it's a bad way

This seemingly familiar stranger knew me, knew my name, and knew who I was and what I was about. All the same, he didn’t care where I’d been; only where I was going and that I was going there with him. We went out the back window. He made bending the iron bars that had kept me trapped inside so long look so easy. We scrambled down the fire escape and had disappeared around the corner across the street under the cover of the night. He was a jealous lover. He refused to share me with anyone or anything. He didn’t want leftovers but rather he wanted my everything. That was made clear to me. A few years have passed since he ripped me from the life I’d stumbled into and hemmed me up into a life much better, one he’d long been preparing for me. Every once in a while he catches me in affairs, pretending to be someone I'm not or forfeiting the distances I've come since that night and I hear him whisper to me:

Roxanne, you don't have to put on the red light / Roxanne, you don't have to
put on the red light / You don't have to put on the red light / Put on the red light, put on the red light.

(Roxanne lyrics by Sting)

coming soon ...

2008-06-02T09:54:00.002-05:00

I've been struggling a bit lately with this thought that I don't really have anything worth saying / writing. Especially in a blog that's public and permanent.

With that said, however, I do have some works in progress for the blog. I'd like to get back to posting regularly and hopefully someday soon I will be able to do that. I miss blogging, not just so that someone will read it, but for myself and for the processing that occurs within me when I write. (No, I have not even journaled lately and it's kinda scary to me that I haven't even done that.) I am computer-less right now, except at work and I don't like using that to post here, which probably has something to do with my lack of updates as of late. Anyone want to donate to the laptop fund? :-)

Stay tuned anyhow (if you still read this) for a new post.

sending a question out to orbit in cyberspace ...

2008-04-30T17:12:00.002-05:00

Does anyone really ever read this thing anymore?

desperate prayer ...

2008-04-11T14:53:00.005-05:00

I write for my church's devotional guide called The Journey. The devotionals in The Journey coincide with that respective Sunday morning's teachings. I've decided to post some of my previously published pieces with you. This is the first.

It seems I have been fighting a lifelong battle with viewing God as one who punishes rather than one who disciplines; as a god of wrath rather than the God of Love. My view of him is largely an Old Testament view rather than a New Testament view. Because of this I find that my prayers are often forced, almost performance driven, attempts to impress a stranger with my holiness. What I want, and really what he wants too, is for us to come to him as a dearly loved child would come to his or her Daddy. He wants the focus of our prayers to be on communion with him and for our prayer life to be a time that we set aside daily to come into a very intimate and private place, to enter into his chambers so to speak.

Sacrifice was a large part of prayer in the Old Testament because Jesus had not yet come to offer himself as the final perfect sacrifice. God’s holiness required that sin not be ignored and that someone or something had to pay the price to remove the offense. This was done through the sacrificial offerings of lambs, usually the best of the flock. Often times there was a high-priest that would serve as a mediator and relay our prayers to God because man was too sinful to approach the holy God themselves. But this side of the cross of Jesus Christ we no longer need atonement because it has been provided for us, through the sacrificial death of Jesus Christ, God’s perfect son.

What I have learned is that I often don’t see God as he is: a deeply personal, loving Dad that cares for me, watches over me, and is a friend to me. When I see him this way my prayers reflect this shift and I can approach him with the humility, worship, and awe that he deserves, instead of trying to form my prayers before I pray them to make sure I have the words just right. And, further, when I see him as he is I am able to see me as I am; I am able to see me the way that he sees me: a treasure, a dearly loved child of God.

"You may pray for an hour and still not pray. You may meet God for a moment and then be in touch with Him all day." --Fredrik Wisloff

Day 1
Read Luke 11:5-13, Luke 18:1-8
What point was Jesus trying to make in his stories on prayer in the Luke passages? What can we learn from the characters in these passages about approaching God and the posture of prayer?

Day 2
Read Romans 8:22-27
Verse 26 says that the Holy Spirit intercedes for us “with groans that words cannot express.” What images does this conjure for you? And in what ways does this provide comfort for you when you pray?

Day 3
Read Psalm 13
God doesn’t always present himself to us when we call for him. When have you called out for him and found that he did not present himself to you? What feelings did you have about that? When was a time that you felt God asking you to be persistent and faithful in your prayer for something? What was the result of your perseverance in pressing into that situation prayerfully and in faith that God would deliver?

Day 4
Read Mark 14:32-34
In Jesus’ dark hour of loneliness and sorrow that comes while awaiting death’s arrival, he needed the presence of his friends and for them to pray with him. Who do you have in your own life that you would gather around you to pray with you when faced with a great sorrow or trial? Who, also, do you circle around yourself when others are faced with grief or despair?

Day 5
Read Matthew 7:7-12
What can we expect when we pray? Why does the Matthew text not mean that we will receive everything we ask for?

Further reading: Prayer by Richard Foster; chapter 5 of Discipleship Essentials by Greg Ogden

that illuminating glory ...

2008-03-17T15:02:00.004-05:00

It's been a while since I posted anything new here and today's not going to be much different. I apologize for that. But last Friday I received an email from someone in Canada who has a ministry there in Alberta called The Mustard Seed. It was a fairly short email asking my permission to use one of my stories for his ministry. I wrote back asking him to clarify how he wanted to use it, in what context, etc ... and told him that it wasn't my story but God's and who was I to prevent someone from using it for his glory. He responded that he wants to make my story the basis for his sermon to about 60-70 homeless people on Easter Sunday. I was so shocked! My first reaction was to puff up and be proud, like any human would. But it is my utmost desire to exhibit humility and not become arrogant or defined by what someone else thinks of my writing abilities.

That being said, however, I do want to re-post the original story here. I wrote it over a year ago before I switched my url to the current one. So here it is (I will be re-working the last couple paragraphs to flow more easily, but you'll get the idea):

I didn't understand it then, what I was saying, and maybe I still don't. Perhaps I never will fully comprehend the extent of the power of my words that day. I didn't know that they would change my life, or what little was left of it, and then the next life too. Let me start again...

The air was thick with death that day. You could feel it crawling on your skin and smell it in your nostrils and taste it even on your tongue, and perhaps most gauche of all, you could see it, witness it, with your eyes. Maybe it was the unusually balminess of the weather that day that played to my senses. But death, no doubt, permeated the air. As did the smell of jasmine. Looking back on it now, it was the smell of jasmine that seemed out of place to me. How was it that such a beautiful and pure aroma did not get drowned out or overpowerd by the depravity of the other?

I couldn't believe how they were treating him with such disdain and hate. Who were they that made them believe they could do that, anyway? Like Jesus said, "He who is without sin cast the first stone." And I knew none of them were sinless. I had no actual evidence of them committing a crime except what was happening in front of me. They were doing it so willingly, and with such ease that I was repulsed with the sight of it. It reeked of old crimes committed in their pasts, and, truthfully, my own. I don't think they would have been able to do the things they did that day without having had shady pasts of some sort. To treat an innocent man like that... It's unspeakable.

I deserved everything I got that day and more. But not him. He was completely innocent, absolutely sinless. Why should he suffer for my sins? Or the sins of the world simply because his father loved us that much? I don't understand it, even now, 2000 years later. It seems so foreign to me, too surreal to comprehend. But I know it was real because I was there, I witnessed it all firsthand.

I didn't know 33 years prior to that day, before he was born, that I would one day meet him. I had met his mother and Joseph on the road. They were on their way to Egypt and I was part of a band of thieves. We were set to jump them and take everything they had, but I felt something, even then. It was something that I can't put words to, but I just remember this feeling of sacredness, like they were the work of a miracle somehow. I told the others with me not to do anything to them, not to harm them, and just to let them pass. The woman, Mary, looked at me with such gratefulness and I could have sworn that I saw the face of God in her. The glory of it was so heavy that it forced me to my knees.

I remember that I used to wish I was still kneeling there in that spot. In the remnants of that illuminating glory. It would mean that I would never have done all the stuff that I ended up doing, I would never have hurt anyone else, I would never have been the person that I became. But then I also know that I wouldn't be where I am today if I had stayed there.

Thirty-three years later I met him after having heard of him on countless occasions. The very moment I saw him I knew that he was the miracle I felt the presence of all those years prior. And then there we were, both being whipped and beaten and scourged and degraded and defiled. I deserved far more than I got but he deserved none of it and yet received at least 3 times what I did. I was so ashamed. I couldn't even look at him even though the one time I did I was met with a look of such deep, profound love. I could read in his face that he knew who I was. Maybe his mother had told him the story of the thief that let them pass all those years ago. Or maybe he just knew. Either way, it didn't matter. He knew me without ever having spoken to me. And I was utterly terrified because of it.

Pontius Pilate had him stand before the crowd with Barabbas, a murderer. Pilate then asked them, the crowd, which one to release: the known killer or the innocent, thinking that they would come to their senses about it. But all the rulers had whipped them into such a frenzy that they all cried out, "Crucify him! Crucify him! Crucify him!" until Pilate relented, released Barabbas into the streets, and set forth the events that changed history, surrendering Jesus to their will.

They nailed us to crosses, big beams of wood that were sorely unforgiving. And put us on display for others to mock and spit at. Most of them ignored my friend and I and instead threw words of hate and scorn at Jesus, laughing at him, saying that he saved others so if he really was the Messiah why didn't he call on God and his angels to save him. "If you save yourself and come down from there, we will believe in you," the chief priests and elders called out. All that he could say in response was, "Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do." They divided up his clothes by casting lots. And my friend even called out to him, forgetting all too quickly that he was in no position to mock another, for he himself was the subject of others' mocking. But he called out, "If you are truly Christ, then save yourself, and us."

My embarassment for my friend didn't keep me quiet. Instead I said between agonizing breaths, "Do you not fear God? Are you not under the same sentence, fool? We deserve everything we've been given today. But not him, he has done no wrong." And turning to finally meet Jesus gaze, "Remember me when you enter your kingdom today." And it was those words that I didn't understand at the time, or even now, how they would change things so drastically for me. I had no idea what he would tell me, nor did I have any expectation of them being fulfilled once he uttered them into the air, thick with the stench of death and evil. "I tell you the truth, today you will be with me in paradise." Once he said them, I felt a shift inside me. I didn't know then that it wasn't just death tightening its grip on me, or just Satan calling me a fool for putting hope in such things for who was I to even think that I might enter into the Kingdom of God? All of these things played in my head over and over again as the sky opened up and rained down a cleansing flood into the now dark landscape.

A while later he cried loudly, "Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani?" Someone below ran to offer him a sponge dipped in vinegar. Jesus cried out again and then fell silent for the last time. It was the events immediately following his silence that shook me. The temple curtain tore in two. It was a large blue, purple, and scarlet curtain that separated the Holy Place from teh Most Holy Place, an inner room which symbolized God's presence; basically it separated people from God. When God tore the curtain he was dramatically showing that Jesus' death, the death of God's own son, had given people access to God. The earth shook and the rocks split and many who had died were brought back to life. This was a way of showing that death would not be the final victor and a foreshadowing of the time when all the faithful will be raised to life. When all this happened those who had been mocking him were terrified and exclaimed, "Surely he was the Son of God!"

Shortly after all that had happened, I was surprised to find myself in Heaven looking down and watching people crucify him all over again, day after day, and rejoicing with the angels when they repented, as I did all those years ago, ensuring their entrance to a place far beyond their imaginations, where we will all forever be in the presence of that illuminating glory.

This is a story based on true events, as if told by Dismas, the thief that went with Jesus into Paradise that day.

a good spring thaw ...

2008-02-19T10:29:00.003-06:00

Do you find yourself feeling a certain way and then you read something and realize that someone else, someone outside your story, has put perfect words to something that you thought was indescribable? My friend Jeff wrote this about 3 years ago. I printed it out and have kept it in my journal or my Bible since then. I re-read it again last night and it resonated deep within me. It just fits beautifully with how I feel right now.

With the gray of the morning, I am ashen too, and forever at odds, it seems, with who you are as if the breathing in of One who just is holds no bearing, no advantage, no explanation.

Yet I write, for this art must paint you. My design is known by you, as is my longing to contain you and bring form to the formless, to rip light and its shadows from voids, to color the dull.

Fall down upon me now and create the weight of something – anything – for me to bear a piece of you. Draw near in some fashion, beyond these whimsies and conjecture, for this appetite will not be satiated with trinkets or toys. Put skin upon your flock and multiply their numbers; time their rhythm with mine, for I crave some companionship, this day, of the supernatural sort.

Bring tension to this story, I beg; release some rising action that will at once invite resolution and a looming epilogue to cap this enduring, timeless struggle.

I am crushed into the realization that my humanity, more often that not, bears no resemblance to that which you intended. I should daily die but, instead, every other day perhaps, I grasp and claw and fight my way into my will of living, the very resolve that is manmade, centric focused, self-fulfilling.

Reveal yourself to me once more, for I’m thrashing about beneath these wanderings and taunted endlessly by one who hides you from me. Offer peace to these members and calm to this spirit; cocoon me away in your infinite reality, for musings of the human sort render no such comfort.

I am tired. I am beaten. My eyes grow weary and blurred; my breathing becomes labored at times. My legs are heavy as I climb the stairs toward something, anything, above and beyond this moment.

I watch as the chapters of this story reach their glorious heights only when I realize quite shockingly that I am not the Author. Yes, surprisingly, you do a much better job than someone such as me, with my feeble existence, my limited tolerance, my pathetic shell. Even as I write this, I plead for something, anything to help me describe you.

Help me depict you, because as it is, my mind bounces this way and that as I cower at the thought of you. My writing is sporadic, stunted, all over the place, yet nowhere as I try to capture you, as I search to contain you.

As I get out my bucket and shovel and begin to work on my sand castle, you form a mountain with your bare hands. While I retrieve my crayons and my construction paper, you sweep your fingers across the sky and make a prism of color unlike any other. While I blow hot air, you breathe into the wind and engulf me into your embrace. While I puff on my horn and beat my drums, you summon nature to cascade and ripple and resound with the harmony of the ages.

You shock me, beckon me, and pull me by the ear. You embrace me, tap me on the shoulder, smack me on the bottom to get in the game. You place your hand on the small of my back, or turn me to face you. You stand in front of me, beside me, shield me, and nurture me. You even get out of my way.

You give me a free will to sin and so I do. But as one sin falls on top of another and they multiply and grow arms and legs and tentacles you never stop taking me back. I am wounded, limping for a lifetime, in fact, but there you are, down the road, on one knee, weeping as I run toward you. You’re so happy that I’m back. I run so fast to you that I knock you over when I get there, and we laugh.

Your lap is imminently ready to be crawled into, your chest large and comfortable to lay my head. You sit at my table, occupy my grief, and circumvent my catastrophes.

But I can’t mistake you for any other. No, I dare not try because you will deafen with thunder and you will rebuild kingdoms and you will not trifle with sin. Yours is a mighty fist attached to a muscular arm that keeps this planet in motion. I shudder at the reality that you are.

I try to capture the beauty of you, but no frame can contain you.

Your love is overwhelming, nearly as vast as you are. You prepare and execute a cosmic change in plans and summon your own beautiful Son to walk this earth and ride through my imagination. To fix a horrible mess that in mankind; a horrific mess that is me.

Then you turn your back on him. You reject him, your first and only born; your beloved Son, yes, just for me.

So, as I write this, I am tired and I am beaten, but oh! how thankful, how awestruck I should be!

I was not meant to prop myself up, to cling to artificiality, to pigeonhole my way, I was not designed to muscle out of this box. I am fearfully and wonderfully made and I must – yes, today I must – find my weakness made strong in all that you are.

So throw back the curtains, let the light pierce the corners! Smack the space rugs and let me watch the dust cascade and tumble into the cleansing wind. Unshackle the back porch and invite in the subtle and benign breezes. Take off the storm door of this heart and soul and hang the wind chimes once again to perform their dance, to find their part in this great orchestra.

Unfold and unravel me! Search me deep within. Turn me upside down. Find me unholy, unworthy, unabashed; and take every square inch and reconfigure me.

Reshape and retool me. Sweep away the cobwebs of bitterness, indecision, judgment and pride. Forgive in me the dusty shadows of winter, the cold and frost-covered center of my being.

Transform me to your design so that I can join in the rapture of the season.

(All emphases are the original author's)

the truth, an excerpt ...

2008-01-18T10:12:00.000-06:00

I love you, God— you make me strong.
God is bedrock under my feet,
the castle in which I live,
my rescuing knight.

My God—the high crag
where I run for dear life,
hiding behind the boulders,
safe in the granite hideout.

I sing to God, the Praise-Lofty,
and find myself safe and saved.

The hangman's noose was tight at my throat;
devil waters rushed over me.
Hell's ropes cinched me tight;
death traps barred every exit.

A hostile world! I call to God,
I cry to God to help me.
From his palace he hears my call;
my cry brings me right into his presence—
a private audience!

But me he caught—reached all the way
from sky to sea; he pulled me out
Of that ocean of hate, that enemy chaos,
the void in which I was drowning.
They hit me when I was down,
but God stuck by me.
He stood me up on a wide-open field;
I stood there saved—surprised to be loved!

God made my life complete
when I placed all the pieces before him.
When I got my act together,
he gave me a fresh start.
Now I'm alert to God's ways;
I don't take God for granted.
Every day I review the ways he works;
I try not to miss a trick.
I feel put back together,
and I'm watching my step.
God rewrote the text of my life
when I opened the book of my heart to his eyes.

(excerpts from Psalm 18 in The Message)

an invitation...

2008-01-10T13:22:00.000-06:00

Come, come like the sunrise
After still one more sleepless night;
Leaving dark behind, an old day dies
Say, "Goodbye," to yesterday, welcoming new light.

Come, come like the sunset
After still one more hectic day;
Leave today behind, look forward to the rest
Welcome in the night, this day fades away.

Come, come like the rain
After still one more arid drought;
Leave the desert in the past and its thirsty pain
Welcome in the quenching water that I am dead without.

Come, come like the breeze
Under still one more blazing sun;
Leave the heat behind for the shelter of the trees
Welcome in the cool reprieve, my worries come undone.

Come, come like the mountains
After still one more desolate valley;
Leave the valley far behind, and all its desperations
Welcome in this view, my heart to rally.

Come, come like warm fire
After still one more rush of cold;
Leave the frozen world outside and all its billion liars
Welcome in the warmth to the places life has dulled.

Come, come like new grace
After still one more angry word;
Leave the hurt behind and its sour taste
Welcome in forgiveness, the bitterness interred.

Come, come like a prayer
Uttered in dark corners of a broken heart;
Leaving volatility behind and breathing in fresh air
Usher in this power while my fragile strength departs.

Come, come like the Day of Pentecost
In holy flames of love poured out
Leave everything behind me, count it all as lost.
Welcome in this sacred romance, faith to cure my doubt.

new year's eve ...

2007-12-31T09:18:00.000-06:00

find me here
in the twilight of this last year
looking inward, all i see is pain
where peace used to remain

furtive introspection
hiding in my own reflection
can't seem to break free of this self-deprecation
and loose the chains of my self-evaluation

softly, sweetly i feel you answer
telling me in your candor
i am not the things that i describe
there's so much more to me inside

caught in the shadow of my insecurities
drowning in the deep end of my own self-doubt
you reach down and pull me out
telling me that in spite of all my infidelities
you are still there reminding me
i am exactly who you want me to be

candid introspection
shedding light on my reflection
finally peace remains
where all there used to be was pain

help me this new year
to shed all my fears
help me draw new lines where they need to be
and erase old ones that hide too much of me
help me to be weak
so that you in me are strong
and if you would have me speak
give me the words
so i don't say the ones that are wrong

trading in the shadows for sunlight
the deep end for the shore
i feel you here with me tonight
i am not drowning anymore
you're still there telling me
i am exactly who you want me to be

an attentive lover's gaze...

2007-11-05T16:47:00.000-06:00

Aaahhh... autumn! It's like the world expands once a year, giving everyone a little more room to stretch out and become more themselves. I wear autumn like a favorite oversized sweatshirt; it wraps around me and it's comfortable and familiar, like coming home. I stretch out in it, lounge in it, grow into it. Or I wear it like the glow caused by an attentive lover's gaze, basking in it. It's like a lover's embrace; I abandon myself to it but yet find more of myself in it.

I read once that in autumn the trees blush in reaction to their Creator's adoration. And I would say I know how they feel. It's during this time of year when I feel most beautiful and most alive. When I'm out on a crisp sunny fall day and the sunlight hits me it's as if God himself, or the light of his love and pursuit of me, is shining down on me, illuminating only my very best and most beautiful parts - all my colored leaves. And then in a gesture of gratitude I offer all those parts back to him so he can make something even more extravagant out of them. I see myself the way God sees me and I know I am absolutely radiant.

I feel seen, truly noticed, in these months right before the coldest part of the year. I was out hiking a couple days ago and was wearing the glow on my cheeks when a handsome man passed me. He didn't just look at me; he saw me. And yes, there's a difference. He noticed my beauty. I could tell by the way he looked at me (and no, it wasn't a creepy guy leering at me either). It was affirmation. It was revealing something to me that I had been pondering on every autumn for years: What is it about this time of year that makes me feel so different? God spoke to me in that one look. I wasn't imagining it; even his daughter asked, "What was that look about?" I didn't hear his response partly because I didn't need to, partly because he passed me going the other direction, and partly because I was in conversation with God, thanking him for shedding light on me and teaching me something about myself that had long been a mystery. I notice you and, from where I sit and in this light, I cannot take my eyes away from you. The trees in their full autumn splendor do not compare to your glory.

I felt like Moses, I wanted to take off my shoes. But instead I took off my sweatshirt to let a little more of that light and truth get in.

this weeekend i...

2007-10-22T13:16:00.001-05:00

* roadtripped to minnesota.
* had no agenda beyond spending it with a friend i hadn't seen since he took me to the airport in kenai, alaska in may.
* went camping at sacatah lake state park.
* did some hiking in the woods, by a couple lakes, and by minnehaha river/falls.
* cooked over a campfire.
* laughed... a lot!
* talked about life and faith and struggles and memories.
* watched bethel university beat the tar out of st. olaf in football on saturday under a gorgeous blue sky.
* drove with the windows down a lot.
* saw michael clayton (great movie!) "maybe we could talk about this somewhere else?" "oh, like where? in my car?"
* slept in every morning.
* had a fantastic omelette at hot plate in minneapolis. the potatoes were good too but not as good as our campfire potatoes.
* complained about the damn traffic noise killing my nature buzz.
* said out loud, "thank you, God, for this good life; and forgive us if we do not love it enough" and then found out that the daughter of the author of that quote (Garrison Keillor) is in my friend jim's second grade class.
* saw the wreckage of the I35 bridge collapse and said a quick prayer for those affected by the "tragedy of historic proportions."
* marveled several times at the beauty of god's creation and then had to remind myself that i am the pinnacle of his creation, the crowning glory; and that with each new thing he created, the beauty and wonder of the last one was outdone.
* felt at peace in my heart and at rest in my spirit the entire weekend.
* was able to just "be" with myself, in god's presence.
* wished i had brought my journal while simultaneously feeling relief that i didn't have it and, therefore, no pressure to feel i have to write in it. i could just experience fully what the weekend had to offer me.

shaking violently at the bars: part two

2007-10-09T06:46:00.000-05:00

Again, I ask: Where would I start if I were to do so? Perhaps here: with the beauty and mystery of suffering.

I have come to realize through the many trials and sufferings that I have encountered that there, indeed, is a certain beauty and illuminating mystery to be appreciated. I have begun to learn to welcome suffering instead of fight it. The experience is richer that way for me, more vivid and full of wonder. More like teachable moments than like moments I want to push away from as though in a canoe pushing away from a predator on the banks and into the middle of a placid lake where life on shore can't reach me and, therefore, I sit unchanged and unaffected, unmoved. That's not the kind of journey I want.

I want the desert because I know that on the other side of this wandering is a promised land, something good and miraculous, abundantly flowing with proverbial milk and honey. The best part about this is that it's been promised to me. I want to be broken by God, as Israel was in the book of Hosea, so that only he can put me back together again. I want to be pruned so that I might bear much fruit. I want to be weak so that God's power might be made perfect in me. I want to live without pretense, and to live forward instead of backward; to have life more abundant.

For now, though, there's a certain sweet melancholy that gently holds my heart. Certain because it's one of the truest things I feel right now. Sweet the way watching a favorite sad movie over and over is sweet. And melancholy because that's the only way I know to describe it.

You see, I feel as though life for me right now is a bunch of paradoxes, a set of contradictions. I want to be known and seen but on the other hand I am still afraid to be known and seen. And I am also afraid to not be known and seen. I want to be as real to someone as the velveteen rabbit was to the boy, that real and yet not be a toy or a game. I want to build new relationships but a lot of the time I feel like being alone. And I want to let go of friendships that no longer are uplifting, but I'm afraid of not having new ones. I want to write because I feel there's something in me to be revealed, even if just for my benefit. But I'm afraid of my words. What will they reveal once they've been written? Will I want to take them all back? What will I come to understand about myself? About others? About God? What if there is something powerful in me waiting to be said? Will I be ready for that kind of responsibility, that kind of change? Mature enough to handle it? Or worse yet, what if I write and write and write and it reveals nothing new to me? There's nothing I have to say that hasn't already been said in a different way, perhaps using different words? What if I come to the end of it and I am unchanged? Will I be able to handle that far worse scenario? Would I be secure enough in my faith? What if I write and find I don't have much to say and that the feelings I have now were just wishful thinking and the result is nonsensical or incoherent? I want to write and I feel like a writer. But then other times I feel like a phony, like the words won't come out and I end up forcing them.

I want to love with reckless abandon but not lose myself. I want to give myself to my family - especially to those that I know won't be here much longer - but don't want to be hurt again. I long to go back to the places that meant so much to me in my childhood. It's as if there are secrets there that are whispering to me to come home, memories there to be unearthed. But how foolish might I feel if I go and find no secrets, unearth no memories? I want to set boundaries in my relationships but I look back and see that nearly all the boundaries I set in the past became walls that kept people people out or, at least, kept them from getting too close - close enough to hurt me. But they did anyway. I'm afraid of history repeating itself.

I need to trust myself with these things. More than that, I need to trust God with these things. I feel it is essential for my growth. What I somehow am capable of betraying myself? I knwo that can't stay where I am and also move forward. It has to be one or the other and I know that the one isn't getting me anywhere. I am tired but pushing off with my back foot in the starting block and waiting for the "On your mark! Get set!" and then the BANG of the gun. I am resting but persevering and enduring. I am a little melancholy but full of hope and wonder too.

Where is this narrow road leading me? Where will this desert take me, into what new promised land? What will these now blank pages reveal at the end? How will I have changed? Will I have fully and completely trusted God through the process? I am not strong enough to do this. No. But I do know that God is. And his power is made perfect in my weakness.

shaking violently at the bars: part one

2007-09-25T17:09:00.000-05:00

I filled in the last page of my old journal a couple days ago and bought a new one. This is the very first entry:

Ah. So we meet again. Myself and this certain hope: a whole book of blank pages. So many possibilities. Where will it take me? What will I read when I come back here in a week, a month, a year? Will I find that I am in a much different place then? Or will I still be bound? Bound by the hope of the many opportunities in words left unsaid? Bound by thoughts that seem to be shaking violently at the bars that keep them where they are like the innocent wrongfully sentenced and resigned to a life of silence and contemplation behind bars?

I long for words and thoughts to come forth from me in the form of new life. To finally have them out the way a new mother waits through the gestation period, and as 9 months draws close she is anxious, nervous and excited, to have her baby mature enough to survive on his or her own, apart from her. And, I suppose, yes, much the same way as someone long imprisoned finally reaches the day of his or her freedom. But isn't it true that once outside those walls those imprisoned a very long time suffer a dichotomy: excitement for the first taste of freedom and still fear that they won't be able to survive separate from the only thing they've known for so many years? I've heard that a lot of times, once one is released they do anything to be able to go back; back to their friends, their certain routine, the familiar, their life. And isn't it also true that once a mother has raised her child and encouraged him or her on to live independent of her that she wants her child to just come home?

Yes, I want these words to be set free from inside of me. But here I sit. Afraid. My mind a little foggy from the noise in the room around me now; the many thoughts that swim in the lake of my mind, stirring up the mud and muck from the bottom and clouding the superficially clear waters; and my frustration at the man beside me in the coffeeshop who's ignoring his daughter's constant plea for attention from the only man who needs to give it most, and the number of endless consequences that could come by way of his persistence in not giving it to her.

All these things and probably more keep me from a clear enough train of thoguht to begin this labor of love and ultimately birth. But then I think Are these not mere excuses? Something I've invented to keep me from that which I know I need to do or to say? Where would I start if I were to do so?

(to be continued)

i am...

2007-09-12T14:41:00.000-05:00

like the seasons, always changing;
a glance worth exchanging.
pieces left broken;
words left unspoken.
a dance left undanced;
captive of circumstance.
dreams left unrealized;
the one no one ever looks in the eyes.
i am hurt not grieved,
air not breathed.
an unsolved mystery,
a chapter in this history.
the lines in her face,
that time can't erase.
perfectly flawed,
a pursuer of the one true god.
the hand that no one ever holds;
i'm undiscovered gold.
as real as the rabbit was to the boy,
though i am no toy.
a friend you've never met;
so much more than my regrets.
a chance left untaken;
the heart that you're breaking.
a truth yet untold;
a beauty to unfold.
freedom undiscovered;
grace undercover.
courage not yet tested;
heart not fully vested.
life to inhale;
love to unveil.
the rhythm and the rhyme
if you can find the time.
the music that is played
and the prayer that is prayed
on a sunday morning
from the pew you're adorning.
a tapestry woven with colored threads;
the words my FATHER said.
hot as a burning flame;
the wild yet untamed.
but gentle as a flower;
patient as the seconds in an hour.
room enough to grow,
light enough to glow,
and smart enough to know:
that i'm not only what you want me to be,
i am... me!

released...

2007-09-11T16:24:00.000-05:00

His voice comes out from the cd, over the threshold of my ears, and settles into my heart breaking into the loud silence there and interrupting my self-deprecation:

Clouds rumble, earth will shift
Walls tumble, hearts will skip
Things changing
Everywhere but here

His words pour out with such a sweet, melancholy sincerity it almost aches. I am jarred, pulled by his song from a moment steeped in self-pity. I am reminded of a promise I once read:

“‘Though the mountains be shaken and the hills be removed, yet my unfailing love for you will not be shaken nor my covenant of peace be removed,’ says the Lord, who has compassion on you.” (Isaiah 54:10, NIV)

My question changes, turning from “My world is falling out from under me. What have I to cling to?” into something more reflective of this promise and the one who spoke it, “God, grant me the blessing of your peace that I might cling to this steadfast unfailing love. Even as the earth crumbles underneath my feet, I will hold to it like I lifeline.”

Small window, tiny room
Sun hits in the afternoon
For one minute fills this space
Beautiful, illuminated

My heart expands in its tiny space as the Son hits it. It bends toward the light and the light makes it beautiful. The dank dark corners full of the cob webs, devils and dust left over from last season are swept clean and replaced with new life, green and fresh.

When I am released
And the gates fly open before me
When I am released
Will you still be waiting for me?

When I am finally rid of everything that hinders me and have shaken loose the dirt and muck that always seem to find its way back in again, will you still want me then, because it might take a while? I always seem to want to take back from you my abandonment and to give you back your grace, feigning sinfulness too unworthy for such sweet redemption. I just want to be free from yesterday’s chains, bound only to blue sky and yellow sun, universal symbols of a new day; leaving the past where it lies and looking to graze in pastures of tomorrow’s truth.

Some look and all they find
Are problems and alibis
But my cup is one-sixteenth full
I am getting there but the getting’s slow.

This broken world is blind to what’s being offered, to what you’ve given and are giving. All they see is the brokenness and fail to see the opportunity to be opened up to you, the opportunity to live differently and to make not necessarily the good and safe choice but only the best choice. I am broken too but I’m aware that it’s only the broken pieces that get put back together again. Were it not for my brokenness I would not be thankful for the wholeness. Valleys fill first and though the depth of you in me so far is shallow, I trust that you are constantly pouring yourself into me. Yes, I am getting there but the getting’s slow.

When I walk outside I will see the sky
I will leave all this behind
When I walk outside
Sun to warm my skin, friends to take me in
When I walk outside
When I am released
And the gates fly open before me
When I am released
Will you still be waiting for me?

I can hear the flood of people singing on that day, calling out an anthem of praise and issuing an invitation to come out of hiding, to join the celebration, and to leave the dark corners of solitary prisons behind and stand in the sunlight. My heart hears this invitation and sends out its RSVP for 1: I will be there on that day of celebration.

I can see that God you’re moving,
a time of jubilee is coming.
When young and old return to Jesus
Fling wide, you heavenly gates
Prepare the way of the risen Lord
Open up the doors and let the music play
Let the streets resound with singing
Songs that bring your hope
Songs that bring your joy
Dancers who dance upon injustice.

(Released lyrics by Glen Phillips; Did you Feel the Mountains Tremble? lyrics by Matt Redman)

and so i wait...

2007-08-29T11:46:00.000-05:00

Hi. As you know it's been a while since I have posted anything. Quite possibly this may be the longest I have ever gone without posting, especially posting something of my own since my last post was hocked off of John Eldredge. My lack of posting is due to a number of things really, none of which I can fully explain in a way that will enable you to understand.

I sit silently straining deeply inside myself to try and cover something up that can't be covered. I bury it. But then some time later these little sprouts, evidence of weeds that haven't been pulled out by the roots, start shooting up all over the place and the garden of my heart is a disaster again. I do some weeding, trying to pull them out by their tips but the pruning and pulling is painful and so I give up before I get to the root leaving evidence just below the surface. And all I feel is bare and ugly for a time. I am left with nothing but time to wish I could just go back to the days of long ago when I was lush with flowers and blooms of every variety and I bent toward the sun, untouched and unscathed by humanity and its depravity. I was fed continuously by the Gardener and drank deep from the water he provided. My soil was richer then. Before the evidence of the weeds some asshole planted in the Garden some thousands of years ago, because he was arrogant and afraid, began to show, ruining its true beauty and marring its glory forever after.

Lately, I have just had this longing. I don't know how else to describe it. A longing for life lived with reckless abandon and to explore and ultimately know what that would even look like for me. A longing to hole up in a cabin by the lake in the mountains somewhere and just write like Thoreau did. A longing to open a small new/used bookstore/coffee shop/cozy-corner-in-a-harsh-world in a small mountain town. A longing for family, not family of my own exactly, but my family, my childhood family. A longing for my mom. A longing for Jesus and to just know him so intimately that I am filled with an aching, and, again, to know what that would even look like for me. A longing for connections, for community. (I actually have a good community of believers, and non believers, at work but I want something that carries over to outside.) I have friends, don't get me wrong; and I am not desperate. It's just different than it was before I finally listened to my heart and what was being whispered to me there and decided I needed to go live in Alaska for 2 years and just up and left. Friends I had before I left I haven't heard from since I have been home; and a few people I knew on the surface before leaving have become more precious to me.

While I was away changing and growing, everyone at home was changing and growing too. Why did I not expect that and look for it? Why did I think I could just come back and re-enter everyone's lives like I had never been gone? And why am I now surprised to find that people moved on, found others to confide in, spend time with, call to make last minute plans? I feel as though I have been replaced. But I find myself turning to other "friends": the characters in the books I have been voraciously reading lately. That's just not normal. In fact, I sometimes consider that I might become this person that they'll make a movie out of one day. It will be all about how I plummeted into some dark false reality of living in the landscapes of the books that I read and my relationships with the people there.

Again, don't get me wrong. I have friends. I interact with people on a regular daily basis, in person and on the phone. And I have not started talking to imaginary people about their journalistic adventures in Africa or their own murder that they describe and investigate from their own version of Heaven or their road trips across country or their life on Cape Cod or in Nantucket. There's no need to call a therapist or have me committed. I do feel that it's a good thing that I am aware that it's not normal. I fully acknowledge that while it is easier to hide behind books than it is to step out from behind them and enter into actual relationships, it's, by all means, not healthier.

But I still feel a little vacant. I know this vacancy cannot be filled by other humans. It must be filled by the Holy Spirit. Quite frankly the idea of that scares me a little. And the knowledge that that scares me, scares me. Why would I prefer to cling to the company of men (used in the general sense of the word) – broken, imperfect, fallen, bound-to-hurt-me men – than to cling to God and his holy, unconditional, whole, heals-my-wounds, perfect love? It makes no sense to me. Why am I so stubborn? Why can't I just accept what's best for and being offered to me instead of "knowing" that I am, and will always remain, the single exception to the promise that God's grace is offered freely to those who will receive it? It's true. I just know that it's true for everyone else but not me. It doesn't matter how many times I hear it or someone tries to drill it into me that Yes, indeed. It is true for even you, Christina. It just will not sink in to my thick skull. Or my thick heart. Whichever.

Part of me is constantly battling those feelings of entitlement. I want what others have and I feel I have a right to these things: relationships, possessions, feelings, deep spirituality, a seemingly easy life, to have it all together, etc… Through talks with my friend, and chaplain here at work because I am so blessed to have one, I am learning that if I want to give up my wrongs (attitudes, feelings, actions, etc…) then I have to surrender my rights. I have to live free of the idea that I am entitled to or deserve anything good that I have in this world. The truth is, I don't. And, like Bill reminded me, Christ didn't deserve the Cross. It wasn't fair. But he did it anyway. Bill explained it a lot better than I am doing here, in a way that led me to one of those moments where you sort of sit back, smile, and soak in the light and truth that has just been unveiled to you as though shrouded for years under some great, dark, dusty lies.

It's frustrating to struggle with the same thing over and over and over again. To know the truth and still live in and believe the lie. To see light but remain in the dark like there's a thick "pain" of glass preventing you from ever truly getting there. You begin to chip away at it and it seems like the more you do, the more the little shards stick in you, penetrating deeper, until you're bleeding out everywhere. And so you stop the chipping because your bleeding heart is driving people away. And you start to believe that you will never make it through that wall. If only Someone could come and just shatter that pain of glass all at once, then you would be okay. Only it doesn't really work like that. It has to be a process. Otherwise the shock and hurt of that sudden shattering would probably kill a person. More than shatter the pain, it would shatter the life right out of them too. And you thought just the sight of a little blood was messy.

Just a couple weeks ago I was in Dallas with about 15 of my coworkers and friends. We went down to our new facility to have a service in which we dedicated the company, its customers, employees, the building, everything to God and gave it over to him in prayer. We shared in worship and communion together, celebrating what God is doing. Bert, the owner, and Bill, the chaplain, shared a word with us. They were words that I had been hearing from nearly everyone since I have been home, if not longer. We are all characters playing a role in a larger story. We are all here for a purpose. We may not know what that is this side of life, but have no doubt. Your role in this is important. We could not do this without you. You are vital to this company, to this ministry, to this extraordinary church we operate without calling it a church. It is you. And the hairs on my arms raised and my heart skipped and the corners of my eyes got leaky. Oh how I wanted so desperately for that to be true of me. To be a part of something larger than me. Beyond anything that I could ever dream up or imagine. Is this what I have been preparing for these last 30 years? Has it all been leading up to this? Is it here that I will find my true calling and fulfill my life's purpose and imbibe immense satisfaction? And my questions have gone unanswered. Or maybe I am just not listening and hearing, not tuned to his voice. How I want to be tuned to my shepherd's voice so that when I no longer hear it, I know I have somehow strayed a little too far from the flock and know to stay and wait for him to come and bring me back. And so I wait.

Abba, I thank you for unknowns, for the times in my life when I cannot clearly see the path or where it is leading me. I know in the past those are the times that I have had to learn to lean into you, to trust you with everything in me, even though it was a little scary. It was in those times that you took my mustard seed faith and increased it and showed me things that are far beyond my wildest imagination, more than I could have ever fathomed would be possible. You have a proven history of blessing me so much more than I deserve in the times when I have fully trusted you with the unknowns of my life. May I continue to seek you with fervor and to entrust all my moments, known or unknown, into your big and more than capable hands. Lord, I believe. Only help me with my unbelief and forgive me for my doubt of you. Forever and ever Amen.

the parable of the heart collectors...

2007-07-31T10:09:00.000-05:00

Once upon a time, actually not that long ago, in a land far far away, actually not that far, there lived three men, heart-collectors by trade. And there also, during the same time, lived a girl, fair-skinned and dark-haired. The girl had developed friendships with all of them over the years and over time began to find herself wanting to spend more time with each of them. However, she knew that she would have to choose very carefully the one that would be most responsible with her heart. So she tested them.

She took her heart and gave each a piece of it. She laid it open there for them to take hold of and cherish and nurture. She made herself vulnerable to them. All three had very different responses.

One of them, the first man, simply took it and held it close for a minute, as he had done with other hearts he’d received, grateful that he’d been given a chance to see something so precious and beautiful. And after cherishing it for a few moments, he gave it back to the girl and told her she should save it for someone more worthy of her affections and her beauty. She took it and thanked him for being honest with her and responsible with her heart. She put it back in its place and it burst into life, beating and pumping again. She knew her happiness did not hinge on his reaction or the reactions of the other two.

The second man, the one whom she favored most, did nothing. He simply ignored it. It lay there out in the open on the table; he averted his eyes as he walked around it every day in his busy-ness. He told her nothing and gave her nothing. He did not hold it gently, did not cherish it or respect it, or nurture it, or give it back to her. In his pride and selfishness he let it lay, the beat slowing and its tissue dying as he went about his busy days. Though her happiness did not depend on his feelings for her, because he was the one she favored the most, this hurt her.

She knew from the beginning that she could get hurt. But instead of continuing to wonder, she risked it all and gave what she had in her attempt to find the one with whom her heart would flourish, the one that was created for her, whether him or someone else. She knew she might never know of the one unless she risked her heart and risked getting hurt along the way. She was willing to risk because she believed in love with every fiber of her being. She knew that when that one finally came along, he would make all the hurts along the way worth it.

The third, the one whom she least expected would be the one for her, took the heart she gave him. Of all the hearts he had collected over the years, this one was the most extravagant and priceless by far, infinitely invaluable. He took it gently; pulling it close to him, he uttered prayers over it for her and for the two of them. He thanked his Creator for making something so radiant and for loving him enough to allow him even just a glimpse of such beauty. He then took the heart she gave him and offered it up to the Creator for him to take care of. In his selfishness he wanted to keep it for himself but he knew that if he wanted it, he would have to give it up.

A couple days later, on his journeys, he came across a house and discovering he was thirsty, he knocked. When the man who lived there opened the door and invited him in, he was taken aback. For there he saw the heart that the girl had given this man, the man that did nothing with it. It was black and had nearly completely lost its beat, almost dead. He took it and scolded the man for being so reckless with something so priceless and precious. He fled the house without his drink. On his way home he held the dying heart in his hands, lifted up to the sky and to the Creator. As his prayers went up mixed with his own love and affection for the girl and for her heart, the dying heart began to be filled with new life again. The black pain of being ignored and rejected for so long sloughed off and revealed fresh life.

From far away the girl could feel the heart in her chest, the one that the first man had given back to her, change its beat. She could feel joy overwhelm her and at the time she didn’t know why. Little did she know that her heart and his heart were syncopating. Their two beats were becoming the same. As he got closer to her home his joy and her joy filled the space between them and went up to the heavens. They lifted up their voices in praise to the Creator for hearing their prayers and for answering them and bringing them both love, luminous and lively.

She had her answer and she gave the remaining piece of her heart, the piece that the first man had given back to her to the man that had been the most responsible with the piece that he originally received, and then with the piece of her heart that had been ignored and rejected and left to die. He had been the one who gave them up and surrendered those pieces to the One that could take care of them the best even though he knew in his own selfish flesh that what he wanted was to just keep the pieces of her heart and her for himself. Instead, he put all the pieces back where they belonged. All three pieces he gave back to her and told her that he could cherish and love her heart more if it was where it was meant to be. And he thanked her for showing it to him and sharing it with him and also told her that he will always want to know more of her heart but that she can do that best if her heart is in its rightful place. Together they took both their hearts and offered them up to the Maker. He reached down from his dwelling in the heavens and cupped his hands. Both the man and woman gently placed their respective hearts in his hands, where they would best be taken care of and where they were safest.

From that day on their love for each other only grew and their love for their Creator also grew because they both knew that neither of them held the other’s heart and that they were both whole and complete apart from the other but that their two complete selves were better together as one.

Which one of the three are you? Which one do you want to be?

identity is bestowed...

2007-07-19T11:26:00.000-05:00

I subscribe to the daily readings from John Eldredge, author of Captivating and Wild at Heart, and his Ransomed Heart Ministries. This is today's reading and I thought it was too good not to share...

Deep within the Arrows stay, poisoning our self-perceptions, until someone comes along with the power to take them away, free us from all the false selves we use to weather the world’s weather, and restore to us our true identity. Identity is not something that falls on us out of the sky. For better or for worse, identity is bestowed. We are who we are in relation to others. But far more important, we draw our identity from our impact on those others—if and how we affect them. We long to know that we make a difference in the lives of others, to know that we matter, that our presence cannot be replaced by a pet, a possession, or even another person. The awful burden of the false self is that it must be constantly maintained.

We think we have to keep doing something in order to be desirable. Once we find something that will bring us some attention, we have to keep it going or risk the loss of the attention.

And so we live with the fear of not being chosen and the burden of maintaining whatever it is about us that might get us noticed and the commitment never to be seen for who we really are. We develop a functional self-image, even if it is a negative one. The little boy paints his red wagon a speckled gray with whatever Father left in the can after putting a new coat on the backyard fence. “Look what I did!” he says, hoping for affirmation of the wonderful impact his presence has on the world. The angry father shames him: “What do you think you’re doing? You’ve ruined it.” The boy forms an identity: My impact is awful; I foul good things up. I am a fouler. And he forms a commitment never to be in a place where he can foul things up again. Years later, his colleagues wonder why he turned down an attractive promotion. The answer lies in his identity, an identity he received from the impact he had on the most important person in his world and his fear of ever being in such a place again.

the daily grind...

2007-06-26T22:03:00.000-05:00

I have really missed blogging... seems like forever since I have even checked in with my friends' blogs.

So I have entered back into society and the daily grind again. While I have missed the paychecks, I have not missed the rush hour traffic that causes my blood pressure to elevate and my shoulders to tense almost immediately. I have been blessed with a wonderful job that God provided for me. I am starting out as the administrative assistant and event planner for a group of people at a Christian- owned and operated company that makes laminate parts like elevator panels, cabinet parts, etc... It's owned by a guy from my church here in Kansas and several of the employees also go to that church, including our full time chaplain. He prays for us and loves us and he does some counseling. On occasion the office staff gathers to share a meal together, to worship in song, pray, and do devotions. I have never worked at a place like this before. It pretty much rocks my socks off. I am currently kept busy with planning our annual company picnic and our monthly birthday bash. Quite fun actually. The company is also connected with a non-profit organization that trains, develops, and grows Christian entrepreneurs and their business ventures. I have a built-in opportunity to do ministry which is exactly what I wanted. It's such a blessing! I was very impressed when I interviewed there and after reading their vision and mission statements and guiding principles. Everything they do is above reproach and full of integrity, it's noticably different than our competitors.

I also interviewed at a nameless outpatient drug and alcohol rehabilitation center a few weeks back. During the interview I was told by the interviewer that I was one of the top candidates. A couple days later I was informed that someone else was chosen. I was heartbroken. I really wanted that job: to be able to invest in peoples' lives in a way and to witness an improvement in their quality of life and be part of that difference, and it was in the field that I want to go into (counseling) and it would have been great experience, plus they have a counselor apprenticeship program (translation: they train you and pay for your education all the way through certification). Well, yesterday I received a voicemail from the interviewer. Apparently, the original person they chose had some things come up and is unable to work. He said that he would try to work around my full-time schedule to try to get me in there part-time.

God continues to provide for me, even when I continue to think that he's forsaken me. He truly is faithful! More to come soon... I hope.

on clearing land...

2007-06-07T13:02:00.000-05:00

Back to the subject of entitlement... This last Sunday I went to a new church, Risen Lamb International Church of the Nazarene. As I was walking in I was met at the door by a big bouncer/body-builder looking guy with tattoos all over the place; he was one of the greeters. Inside was a mixture of young, hip singles and elders, African-American and white. I was blown away by the music, mostly black gospel; the Holy Spirit was palpable and it left me in tears. I've never been to a church like it before.

But it was the message that caught, and holds, my attention even now, days later. In Joshua 17, Joshua had given the people of Joseph an allotment of land. Though they were large in number they occupied only a small portion of it at first. Then they went to Joshua and asked for more. Joshua told them that if they were so numerous and if the hill country was too small for them, then they could go up into the forest and clear land for themselves. They made excuses about why they could not and each time asked for more land. Joshua finally asked them, in chapter 18, "How long will you wait before you begin to take possession of the land that the Lord, the God of your fathers, has given you?"

Joseph's people felt entitled to more before they had fully taken possession of what they already had. They hadn't taken full advantage of what they had already been given and yet were asking for more. I am forced to look at what I have been given and ask of myself the same questions: How long will I wait before I begin to take possession of that which the Lord, the God of my fathers, has already offered me? Have I fully possessed everything I already have before asking for more? Or do I still have land to clear or something else that needs to be done?

The last few days, since hearing the message, I have been reminded of the Parable of the Talents:
"Again, it (entering the Kingdom of Heaven) will be like a man going on a journey, who called his servants and entrusted his property to them. To one he gave five talents of money, to another two talents, and to another one talent, each according to his ability. Then he went on his journey. The man who had received the five talents went at once and put his money to work and gained five more. So also, the one with the two talents gained two more. But the man who had received the one talent went off, dug a hole in the ground and hid his master's money.
"After a long time the master of those servants returned and settled accounts with them. The man who had received the five talents brought the other five. 'Master,' he said, 'you entrusted me with five talents. See, I have gained five more.'
"His master replied, 'Well done, good and faithful servant! You have been faithful with a few things; I will put you in charge of many things. Come and share your master's happiness!'
"The man with the two talents also came. 'Master,' he said, 'you entrusted me with two talents; see, I have gained two more.'
"His master replied, 'Well done, good and faithful servant! You have been faithful with a few things; I will put you in charge of many things. Come and share your master's happiness!'
"Then the man who had received the one talent came. 'Master,' he said, 'I knew that you are a hard man, harvesting where you have not sown and gathering where you have not scattered seed. So I was afraid and went out and hid your talent in the ground. See, here is what belongs to you.'
"His master replied, 'You wicked, lazy servant! So you knew that I harvest where I have not sown and gather where I have not scattered seed? Well then, you should have put my money on deposit with the bankers, so that when I returned I would have received it back with interest.
"'Take the talent from him and give it to the one who has the ten talents. For everyone who has will be given more, and he will have an abundance. Whoever does not have, even what he has will be taken from him. And throw that worthless servant outside, into the darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.'

Have I been a servant, good and faithful enough that I will double what I currently have? Or have I been the wicked, lazy servant, hiding my talents away, afraid that I might lose them, only to have them taken away from me in the end and given to one more faithful? Will I continue to be afraid of my master? Or will I trust him that he will provide and bless me with more when I have been faithful with little? He wants to bless me and I know that. So why am I so afraid?

Micah 7:7-8 says, "But as for me, I watch, in hope, for the Lord. I wait upon God, my Savior. My God will hear me. Do not gloat over me, my enemy. Though I have fallen, I will rise; and though I sit in darkness, the Lord will be my light" (NIV, emphasis added). I have been meditating on those verses the last several days and letting them sink in, along with the promises they bring to me. The Lord will show up. My God will hear me. The enemy has not won. I will rise and he will be my light.

entitlement...

2007-05-25T14:02:00.000-05:00

One of the things I have been struggling with lately is entitlement, feeling like I am entitled to things that others have or just that I am entitled to things period. For example, this year at graduation the valedictorian received a plaque and I caught myself thinking, I didn't get a plaque last year and I got a 4.0. He didn't even get a 4.0 and he got a plaque? Why didn't I get one? It's ugly and it's a part of me that I despise, like a cancer that I want cut out of me. I don't know why I feel this way, nor do I feel at all comfortable with it. And since I am being honest here, it's not really only a recent thing. It's been at the back of my mind and in the darkest caves of my heart for a while now.

I know that I am not entitled to anything, no one owes me anything. So why do I feel that way? And better yet, how do I stop feeling that way? Am I alone in this?

I feel as though I have had so many struggles and that I have endured about as many growing pains as I can take and I wonder to myself, What it would be like to just be normal? Normal like everyone else seems to be? It's not fair. And there I go with the entitlement thing again, like I am entitled to not struggle with things ever again. It's scary to me because to not struggle would be to stop growing and to stop growing, to me, is death or hell.

All of these things come up for me and they always leave me feeling unlovable, kind of like a monster. Now this, I know, is the devil's lies creating a stronghold in my life. Get thee away from me, Satan.

My dad has introduced me to a new method of prayer called centering prayer. It's communion with the Holy Spirit really. It makes prayer without ceasing come easier and being in the presence of God more constant and the fruits of the Spirit more evident and abundant. I have only tried it once and felt disappointed, like I did something wrong. But that was before I read about it instead of just following my dad's instruction. I am hoping that this form of prayer will cleanse me and that God's presence would be made real to me over time and that I will be freed from feelings of entitlement and feelings of being unlovable.

I have done a form of this type of prayer before, Lectio Divina, and have always enjoyed it and gotten much out of it. But I don't do it as often as I'd like. I don't pray as often as I'd like period. I am finding out that I am, in some ways, afraid of God and afraid of myself, of making a mistake while I pray. I have to do it just right, say just the right words, or God will ignore me, laugh at me, or strike me down or something. And if my mind wanders during prayer I think to myself, I must be a bad Christian. I can't even focus on praying without my mind wandering all over the place. Again, this, I know, is the devil's handiwork.

Satan cannot be present where God is present. I am really believing, present active participle believing, that God will continue to do a good work in me and that through these prayers I can come into a sweeter relationship with Christ. In some ways I worry that I have replaced a relationship with him with knowledge about him the last two years. I have learned so much in classes but have I learned too much? I am sure that it all isn't as bad as I make it out to be but it's a dangerous and risky thing to profess to be a Christian, to really knowing him, when really I know more about him than I know him personally. I don't know if that makes sense to anyone else besides me, if anyone else is reading this, but I suppose the only one it really matters to is me. And God.

I have often felt, thought, and experienced that when I go through struggles like this it's usually right before God uses me or does a great work in me. There's so much more to this story than what I can currently see. Again, I wonder what sort of tale I have fallen into.

faith enough to jump...

2007-05-20T13:48:00.000-05:00

I arrived in Kansas City for the summer on Friday afternoon after spending two years going to school in Alaska. I knew coming home would be hard and different and I had mixed emotions. When I left Kansas City in 2005 to go to Alaska, I had to meet new people, make new friends, encounter new experiences. I missed my friends from Kansas City. After two years I have grown used to life there, grown to love the people there, given birth to memories. I have also changed a lot inside the last two years - growing and stretching.

Now that I am home it seems like I have to do the same thing all over again. I don't feel "at home" where I am now. I feel as though there's not really a place I belong, there's not really a place for me to call "home" anymore. I am in limbo. I miss my friends from Alaska. I miss the mountains. I am also dealing with a lot too, spring cleaning for the soul, so to speak. God is revealing things to me that need healing. My self-image. My complete and perfect trust in God. My relationship with my dad. My relationship with myself. It's already been painful and difficult to be home and as more things surface, it will, most likely, only get worse. I am dealing also with some of my dad's pain and brokenness which in the past has always put me in an unhealthy place.

I am scared. I feel unsettled. I am out of my element. Broke. Unemployed. Immobile. Aching to have a family. I am plagued by dreams that I am being stalked... by celery. Facing thirty in less than a month with all kinds of shoulds in my mind and on my heart. Why do I always return there? I always come back to shoulding on myself, no matter how dangerous I know it is. I miss having solid, authentic, intentional relationships. I feel stuck somewhere between fear and hope. It's like I am standing at the top of a waterfall looking down. I am scared to jump but I also know that the sun is scorching and if I do let go and jump I could be refreshed and that at the bottom awaits beautiful new life to taste and see that it is good. But it's a long way down and the jump looks dangerous. Full of rocks and sharp edges ready to cut me. I know that if I push way out in front of me and trust the knowledge that others have been here and jumped and not only lived to tell about it but rejoiced in it as well for the blessings they received for doing so, I will make it and be greatly rewarded. If I could only have a little more faith.

I want to jump to the last page of this chapter to see how it ends. What are the things I will have learned about myself? About others? About God? What are the colors that describe this time? How does it end? Are the textures and details alluring? In what ways have I grown and stretched? Better yet, in the end, will I have had faith enough to jump?

i am...

2007-05-12T23:22:00.000-05:00

a new owner of a Two Year Certificate in Biblical & General Studies. As of about 3 hours ago.

a little inspiration...

2007-05-04T18:37:00.000-05:00

God's word is clear regarding several matters. Helping the oppressed is one of them. He spells out how richly we will be blessed if we work toward correcting injustices. A friend gave this passage to me over a month ago when I was in the middle of a campaign to raise money to emancipate modern-day slaves. All the money collected had been stolen over Spring Break, right before I was going to send it in. I was discouraged, hurt, and angry that someone would do that, steal money from the poor to keep it for themselves. Someone was praying with me and I shared that story with him and then he shared this passage (Isaiah 58:6-12, The Message) with me. I was able to forgive the thief and pray a prayer of blessing over them. I extended the deadline for the campaign and, in turn, God has probably more than tripled the money collected. I am sending it in on Monday. God is so good!

"This is the kind of fast day I'm after:
to break the chains of injustice,
get rid of exploitation in the workplace,
free the oppressed,
cancel debts.
What I'm interested in seeing you do is:
sharing your food with the hungry,
inviting the homeless poor into your homes,
putting clothes on the shivering ill-clad,
being available to your own families.
Do this and the lights will turn on,
and your lives will turn around at once.
Your righteousness will pave your way.
The God of glory will secure your passage.
Then when you pray, God will answer.
You'll call out for help and I'll say, 'Here I am.'
"If you get rid of unfair practices,
quit blaming victims,
quit gossiping about other people's sins,
If you are generous with the hungry
and start giving yourselves to the down-and-out,
Your lives will begin to glow in the darkness,
your shadowed lives will be bathed in sunlight.
I will always show you where to go.
I'll give you a full life in the emptiest of places—
firm muscles, strong bones.
You'll be like a well-watered garden,
a gurgling spring that never runs dry.
You'll use the old rubble of past lives to build anew,
rebuild the foundations from out of your past.
You'll be known as those who can fix anything,
restore old ruins, rebuild and renovate,
make the community livable again.

stranger than fiction?

2007-04-25T18:51:00.000-05:00

Recently I have set about writing my story with the help of Dan Allender, author, psychotherapist, and founder of Mars Hill Graduate School. He has written a book called To Be Told: Know Your Story, Shape Your Future that walks you through various exercises to help you remember the stories of your life and then write them down.

Anyway, as I was reading in the book that accompanies the workbook last night I was reminded of the movie Stranger Than Fiction. I saw it several weeks ago and it has quickly become one of my favorites. It stars Will Ferrell as Harold Crick. Harold is a boring, lonely, not-well-liked tax collector. Through the course of the story, he abandons the grinding drudgery of a life that he's been living, for one that is being written for him by an author that he cannot see but that he can hear. This new story that is being written for him is far more exciting than any he would have written for himself. He starts really living his life and not just existing anymore. At first he doesn't know how it will turn out, if he's in a comedy or a tragedy. But then he meets the author and reads the rest of his story. Even though he doesn't particularly like the ending, he trusts the author anyway and further gives up his life for the sake of the story.

It's such a good movie and I can relate to it on at least a couple levels. First, I used to live my life the same ol' boring way. And then I met this great Author, that I can't see but I can hear, and gave up my life to let him write a better story for me. Since I did that, life has just gotten so much richer. Life more abundant. Second, sometimes I feel I am in a comedy and other times I feel I must be in a tragedy. I don't know the ending but I know that for now my life is "stranger than fiction" because even on the days when I feel like a tragedy, the Author reminds me that he has a sense of humor and he always makes something beautiful out of pain, and then I feel like a comedy again. And I know that no matter what he writes, I trust him. I know he will write me into a story that is far beyond what I would ever have imagined for myself.

It's been really good getting into my life and digging around. Before I found the book I had told my dad that I wanted to remember more of my story and was thinking of writing it down. A couple days later I was at the Christian bookstore and the book seemed to lasso me and pull me right to it. It was perfect.

becoming recklessly his...

2007-04-19T01:16:00.000-05:00

I knew things would be vastly different from that point on. I didn’t know how much at the time but I felt a shift, even if it was only slight. My whole life had been building up to that moment and it was over and the decision was made just like that. I didn’t know why or how it would happen; I only knew that God wanted this for me and he had placed the desire in my heart for a reason. I was moving to Alaska to go to school.

Every summer growing up my family would head for the mountains of Colorado for a week or two of vacation. We never went to the ocean; I was 19 before I ever saw the ocean; but the trip to the mountains was always one last hoorah before my sisters and I would head back to school. I loved the mountains: those mighty, majestic peaks rising out of the ground in the way that I thought Neptune might rise out of the ocean, confident and bold holding his trident yet mysterious and magic at the same time; the pungent smell of pine, that I could almost taste, permeating the crisp, clean air. They always seemed to call to me, never audibly, of course, but spiritually and emotionally I was drawn to them. It didn’t matter how many times we went, every time we would go I would pass the time trying to be patient, trying not to ask, “Are we there yet?” too many times. And then about 9 hours after our departure I would be on the lookout for the peaks in the distance: purple, and sometimes white too, blips in the sky that might look like clouds if you didn’t know any better, but I always did.

We would hike and play, rest, feed the chipmunks, watch the eagles on the tops of mountains, watch the hummingbirds outside the A-frame cabin, pick wildflowers, have bonfires, shop, explore, go down the Alpine slide over and over again, eat lavish foods, talk, laugh, cry, and hug and love there. It was family in all the ways we weren’t when we were at home. Dad was never as angry and Mom was never as sick while we were there. Looking back, maybe that’s why I loved it so much, because it brought a little slice of heaven into our family even if it was just temporary. I always felt safe and peace; they provided a refuge for me.

School would be starting soon with its halls scented with scotch tape, old books, and lead pencils and subtle undertones of angst thrown in. If I thought knowledge could smell like something, it would be scotch tape and books and lead pencils: rich with possibilities and imagination. I loved school but never seemed to excel at it except in reading. By third grade I was reading at the 11th and 12th grade reading levels. I liked learning and took comfort in this idea that for those 8 hours a day I wasn’t getting beaten by a belt or whipped with words that ripped apart my very identity, like I did at home. When I was at school I could be anything I wanted to be and not be scared that I might get ridiculed for choosing wrong. And for a while, at least, it challenged my dad’s convictions that I was stupid and worthless and dumb. Before long though, I began to believe that what he said was true: I must be stupid and worthless and dumb since I am doing so poorly. It never occurred to me that I was doing poorly because of what he told me and he told me those things because I was doing poorly. It was a cycle, one I couldn’t seem to break.

Time went on and I graduated from high school finally making the honor roll the last semester of my senior year. I worked mostly and took classes here and there over the next few years accumulating 27 credit hours between community college and the University of Kansas. Then I quit school altogether and focused on work thinking I could save up money to eventually go back once I figured out what it was God wanted me to do. I would start a job and love it and then after a year or so, I would get bored and quit, start a new job and love it and then after a year or so, I would get bored and quit. I was becoming increasingly dissatisfied with where I was and who I was becoming, or not becoming rather, and the way my life had worked out up to that point. I couldn’t help this feeling that there was something more out there for me. I was unfulfilled and hungry with desire for adventure that I denied because of fear of failure, my father’s rejection or disapproval, and in some ways my own fear of succeeding. I told myself “Once I get married I will move away to Colorado” and then “Once I get financially secure I will move away.” The ideas progressed into all-out unhappiness. Depression. Countless sleepless nights. Sporadic forays into superficial happiness permeated throughout with unhealthy relationships. Last summer while reading Seizing Your Divine Moment and Captivating: Unveiling the Mystery of a Woman’s Heart, something within me was stirred. Adventure was calling me and I could hear it loud and clear. I was suddenly aware that my life had become a downward spiral into a search for meaning and value that I knew I could only get in one place: immersing myself in an authentic environment where I could dive into God and submerge myself in his love and grace for me. I needed to learn, to study, to exercise my spirit and indulge my mind. I wanted a clean slate, a new start, to be where nobody knew my name or the history that came with it.

At that time I had been meeting regularly with a small group of girls that provided me with some honest feedback, some of it friendly and some of it not so much, but all of it needed. One Sunday afternoon last August we were gathered together and one of them said, “You really need to be actively pursuing this dream of yours to live in Colorado. What’s keeping you here? Nothing! So why are you still here?” I knew she was right and that it was out of love but I was offended. I went home and thought about what she said. I went to bed that night and, yet again, laid there wide awake wrestling with God and myself. And then at 2:15am, out of nowhere, I remembered going to Alaska to visit my dad a few years ago on this little college campus that barely had 20 students and no money at the time. I remembered the scenery taking my breath away. Alaska Christian College. Alaska Christian College. The thought wouldn’t leave me so I rose from my bed and went to the computer and half-heartedly pulled up their website thinking it was just a silly pipedream.

I thought about the idea of making Alaska my home. I knew I had loved Alaska while I was there, it was so beautiful – more so than Colorado – but so far away. The more I thought about it and prayed about it, the more at peace I was with the idea. I went to bed and slept soundly through the night for the first time in a long time. I woke the next morning feeling hope and promise that something might be waiting for me. I went to work and logged into the website again and sent a quick “request for information” on the electronic form explaining that I was the daughter of one of their staff members from a few years back, that I was interested in information about the school, any scholarships I could receive, etc… I had little hope of anything happening since it was already mid-August and school would be starting soon. Maybe Spring semester but more than likely it would be next Fall. Leaving so soon would be irresponsible and reckless. I didn’t have money. I didn’t have a job. How would I pay for school? What would I do for transportation? But it became obvious that God had a very different plan for me. By the end of the day I had received an email back from the admissions director at the school saying that he remembered my dad and that there was still space available and if I applied right away I could have my room and board covered with scholarships. I started crying there at my desk on the 5th floor of the office building in the pretentious part of downtown where I should have been earning my $40k/year by updating the database and making travel arrangements. Instead I sat there with a box of Kleenex in my hands and prayers of thanksgiving in my heart. They were tears of joy.

I emailed my friends, including the girls in the small group, and called my family telling them what had transpired overnight and of the adventure that could be waiting for me. I filled out the paperwork and faxed it back first thing the next morning. By Tuesday night I had received a phone call welcoming me to Alaska Christian College and that I had to be there in a week and 2 days. I called my family and told them first and it meant so much that they were all very supportive of me. Then I headed out to celebrate with friends. Change was underway; I already felt transformed somehow. We all shed some tears but mostly we laughed and reminisced about the memories we had made together over the last 13 years. Arrangements were made for going-away parties that Saturday night with friends and Sunday afternoon with family. I am still surprised at how calm I was, how much I felt at peace with the whole thing. It was almost like I was performing in a play about someone else’s life but yet I was conscious that this was happening to me, that this was my life. It was strange.

The next morning I had to tell my boss. I was nervous about it at first, like you might be nervous if you were afraid of telling your parents that you suddenly met someone, were getting married and moving to Africa or something. But I prayed and asked God to direct me and to open my boss’s heart. I went in to his office and told him I needed to talk to him and shut the door. He looked at me worriedly and said, “Okay, have a seat.” I sat and told him all about what had happened over the few days immediately prior to that and that I was leaving in a little over a week for Alaska and that I needed to give him only 2 days notice as opposed to the corporately preferred 2 weeks. He smiled as he looked at me and said, “You know, this reminds me of the time that God told Abram to leave Ur in Genesis.” My jaw dropped to the floor in shock. We had never really discussed Christianity or our individual beliefs during my tenure there but in the back of my mind I had somewhat of an inkling that he might be Christian. Then he told me that it’s obviously God’s call on my life to go to Alaska and that I certainly can’t ignore that. He was genuinely excited for me. Then he floored me again by working it out so that I got my 10 days of vacation and that I could get my check early in order to make preparations for the move. His support and encouragement was just another affirmation that this was from God.

The next week was a fury of chaos and making arrangements and packing. I had to be sure to see all the friends I needed to see, the ones that couldn’t make it to any of the going-away parties and the ones that have meant the most to me. But I pulled it off only with God’s strength and determination and help.

Thursday, August 26th my best friend took me to the airport and sat with me the 2 hours while I waited to board the plane. She cried and I told her how I excited I was and how at peace I was with the whole thing. I assured her that I knew God was in this and that it was something I had needed for so long – an adventure involving the mind, body, and heart. The announcement was made that they would start boarding for my flight. We embraced and 14 years of memories and love came rushing over me. I broke down; not because I was scared of going to Alaska, but because I was scared of leaving her behind. She had been a constant in a world of change and pain, she had been a rock for me. I told her how much I loved her and valued her friendship and that nothing, not even 4000 miles of distance between us, could change that. And I boarded the plane.

That night or the next morning rather, at about 12:35am, we were making our final descent into Anchorage. My heart smiled and my face reflected that with upturned lips, pearly whites, and hope. I was starting the rest of my life and I knew that this beautiful state, that three years ago I had spent a week in, would soon feel like home for me. I could see the Cook Inlet off to the West and the midnight city lights to the East. Then I saw the soft silhouette of the mountains off in the distance. Yes, it already did feel like home.

Now, more than a year and a half later, as I sit staring out the window at the heavy blanket of snow, I think about each individual snowflake that it took to create such a beautiful scene. And I think about the God who, with a breath brought the seasons into existence and told the snowflakes to fall here one upon the other, each adding to the beauty of the last in retrospect. And now I am thinking Isn’t that a lot like life? All the moments of the past, each uniquely breathtaking in their individual ways, add up to one amazing, resplendent picture of God’s awesome design and his love for me and the many ways he has blessed me since I have been here. Every moment of my past has been preparing me, leading me, drawing me closer to this present. Hosea 2:6-7 says, “Therefore I will block her path with thorn bushes; I will wall her in so that she cannot find her way. She will chase after her lovers but not catch them; she will look for them but not find them. Then she will say, ‘I will go back to my husband as at first, for then I was better off than now.’”

My days of being walled in are over, as are the days of being blocked by thorn bushes of fear and self-doubt. I had tried to find love and value in all the wrong things and therefore, had not found it. Until now. I have returned to my husband as at first. And as in Hosea 2:14, he has allured to me and has led me into the desert where he speaks tenderly and softly to my heart. In a recent phone conversation with my dad, with whom I have experienced a great deal of healing, he said, “Since you’ve been in Alaska you have become more yourself than you have ever been in your life. Your heart is alive and you are radiant.” Yes, it was reckless but then isn’t there something dangerously attractive about being reckless for God? After all, isn’t he a little dangerous himself? I have learned to become recklessly His. Yes. Things are indeed different now and I would not have it any other way.

welcome ...

2007-04-18T23:18:00.000-05:00

... to my new home! For older stuff, click here.