Dissonance

I’ve always been a music person.  I’ve been even more so in the past 5 or 6 years of my life.  I moved away from Tennessee and realized there was more out there than country music, oldies, and top40 stuff that’s played on the radio.  Don’t get me wrong; I still love me some country (and oldies and some top40 from time to time).  But since high school and moving from Tennessee, my musical horizons have been ever-broadening, thanks in major part to my brother-in-law Josh, my sister, my step-mom, and my lovely music-loving/seeking friends.  God speaks to me through music.  He moves me toward Him, toward others, toward knowing myself.  And then there’s the music that has no obvious, serious purpose.  The stuff that just makes you want to sing out, dance, twirl in the street or in the solitude of your house!  I think THIS is a type of worship, too, as our Savior must surely take pleasure in our happy, satisfied hearts.

So… I was listening to “Love Song” by Jason Morant in the car the other day.  I wasn’t so much singing as I was thinking about the line that says something about wanting my life to be a love song to Him.  I was contemplating this request and was overcome with sadness.  If my life is a love song to the Lord, and I want it to be, then it must be riddled with pitch problems! 

[DISCLAIMER:Here is where the metaphorical portion of the blog begins.  Deal with it. ]

This past week in church, a newer addition to the worship team sang her first solo.  I was excited to hear her because I hadn’t before.  She did really well.  Her voice is clear and strong, and you can tell she MEANS what she says.  But there was one note she kept not quite hitting.  Every time she sang the verse it was right there, sticking out like those annoying hairs that stick straight up out of the part on your head.  No matter what you do, no matter how deep into worship or how beautiful the song, those hairs, and that note, are really noticeable. 

If I can’t get past one flat note every verse, in the midst of a truly gorgeously sung song, then what does my love song life sound like when I mess up pretty much every hour?  Am I one of those American Idol singers who honestly believe they sound like Mariah Carey when they sound like a donkey with an acid reflux problem?

I was so struck by this, so horrified at the thought of my off key, pitchy, please-stop-singing-before-I-run-from-the-room-screaming song of a life that for a moment I lost my breath.  For just a moment I felt a very real feeling of despair, of wanting to throw up my hands and stop trying, because it’s so sad to see/hear someone struggling to find the right note.  To be honest, I have to avert my eyes when someone sounds bad.  I feel embarrassed FOR them.

But pretty immediately after the hopelessness hit me, a memory hit me, too.  It was the memory of my junior year of high school, choir class.  It was the first time I heard the word “dissonance”. 

dis·so·nance

n.

1. A harsh, disagreeable combination of sounds; discord.

2. Lack of agreement, consistency, or harmony; conflict:

3. Music  A combination of tones contextually considered to suggest unrelieved tension and require resolution.

 

And I remembered the context, too.  My choir director, Mr. Bullock, was trying to explain why this one part in the song sounded so clashy to us but was written that way on purpose.  It grew on me.  After hearing the part a few times, it started sounding oddly harmonious.  The alto and tenor parts were obviously conflicting, but at that moment in the song it just made sense.  Ever since then, I’ve valued musical dissonance SO much.  It’s so clever.

Thank You, Lord, for bringing this memory back to my mind at that moment.  Because I now realize that, yes, there are thousands upon thousands of off notes in my love song life.  There will be thousands upon thousands more.  But God has the ability, and much more importantly and staggeringly, the desire, to make the overall song pleasant.  It will make sense.  And it WILL be shockingly beautiful.

AND… check out the musical definition of dissonance again.

“A combination of tones contextually considered to suggest unrelieved tension and require resolution.”

 

That gives me SUCH hope for myself, ugly as my heart is sometimes, because the dissonance is PURPOSED to suggest tension and require resolution! 

 

He makes my noise into music, my ashes to diamonds! 

 

 

Something I (and maybe you) Need to Hear Again

Oh the passion of Your heart, Your abandoned pursuit of me.  Oh the risk that You took to love someone like me.  That risk has set my soul free.  Your desire for me is overwhelming.  It consumes Your every thought. Oh the joy that You feel when our hearts touch, the joy of when we touch. You desire to draw me so close to You. You desire to have me all to Yourself. You tenderly call out my name, beckoning me to come nearer. You romance me with purity and sweet wine, poured into a cup of communion. We dance and spin all around the universe.  Your rage is aroused at my enemies.  You defend me with arms full of strength. Your gentleness toward me is ever-present, Your care for me ever-living.  You’re so eager to disclose all the secrets of Your heart, to show Yourself unrestrained, fully given to me. Your goodness is a placid stream, a blanket wrapped around me.  Your faithfulness is the sure song of sunrise. Your promises are structures already formed.  Ever-deepening is the vastness of Your great love. You allure me with soft array.  Ever present is the pulse of Your affections.  Your smile is gleaming with excitement to show me even more. 

 

-The Passion of Your Heart, Worship Circle, 3^rd Circle

The Second Most Important Commandment

So i was reading last night the third chapter of Crazy Love, by Francis Chan. The third chapter is the title chapter, Crazy Love. I never tire of hearing new and different, creative ways of describing God's love for us. I never tire of it because He's always revealing Himself. It's always shocking and always familiar.

Last night, this revelation hit me anew: He is enamored with me. He is and has always been complete and whole, lacking nothing, having everything good and bright, yet He reaches outside of that bliss to love this creature that can't love Him back correctly.

Last night, after a day of holding back tears, hating my flesh and myself because i'm so consumed by it, the truth of this hit me. It penetrated through and through, violently and thoroughly, like a bed of nails suddenly thrown into unequal distribution. I get so comfortable with the love of God. It becomes so routine and droning, when in reality, nothing is as flambuoyant and unabashed as His love toward me.

Another thing was in that chapter. It talks about loving others, the second most important commandment, from the lips of Jesus Himself. It's to love others like you love yourself.

Think about how you love yourself.

It's crazy, this built-in need to support your own opinion, plans, and choices. Right or wrong, the knee jerk response is to argue, embarass, and kill anyone who disputes your right-ness. You never have to remind yourself to be shy in order to avoid embarrassment. It comes without thinking. You don't have to tell yourself to pick the chair at the table that you've loved since you can remember. We're unable to analyze ourselves objectively because we have a vested interest.

So to love someone like you love yourself would actually CHANGE how you love yourself.

If you gave someone else the good chair, backed their mind and heart like your own, wanted their betterment, fought to protect their self image; if you did it all without thinking or having to make the decision to do so, if this became the new norm, then you'd love yourself far less than anyone else.

That's what i want.

Maybe i can't be gentle with other people because i'm unable to be gentle with myself. If i'm doing my best (about 50% of the time) to try and love others like i love myself and i'm still harsh and pushy and critical, then maybe it means i'm that way with me.

I know we don't have minds big enough to grasp it, but maybe i just need to start asking again that God will show me who i am through His eyes. He's unwaiveringly gentle with me because He sees my little-ness, that i'm easily distracted and unsure of everything. Still His love for me throbs like dark gray clouds and pours out like the rain. I want to love me better and give myself a break because then maybe i can offer that to others.

When will i be finished at this altar of dying?

There is an answer to this question: when i literally die.

I feel like i've changed a lot in the past 3 years. I know i have. For one, i've been alone with God, and that changes you, whether you are aware of it or not.

I can see it in some ways, my progression toward Him and away from self. But mostly i just see over and over again how crappy i am.

I know this is meant to remind me of my need for Him, to humble me, to take away from me the things the world holds dear. Normally that's the result. But right now just i'm mad at myself, frustrated to tears that i can't be better than this. All this laying down, all this dying to self and there's still so much bad in me.

I feel like i'm trying to wrap my arms around the sun. My Prize seems infinitely far away and unattainable. Because of me. Because i can't do holiness. I can't BE holy. I just keep NOT being it.

God revealed to me months and months ago what exactly He's been trying to do in me. The alone-ness, the constant confrontations He asked me to back down from, the shutting of my mouth, the prostrating of my heart. It's like he flipped the tapestry over and let me see the art instead of all the understitching. He told me He wants to give me a spirit of gentleness. HIS spirit of gentleness.

Once He told me this, i was able to look back and see how far i'd come, how far He'd brought me. I could see the harshness, the defensiveness, having fallen away little by little. It was a beautiful revelation, finally able to see the cohesion and the goal.

So today my good friend, the best i have in Colorado, emailed me in response to an email i'd sent her earlier. We were discussing how we argue, how we handle things so differently and why we do and say the things we do.

She told me that i'm so pushy with my opinions that i make her feel stupid and how that hurts her, that i don't do anything GENTLY, and that i can simply be not nice.

This is not to out her or to make her feel guilty. She'll surely read this, and she'll surely feel bad at my extreme reaction. But the truth is, i trust her observations of me. I know she would never do something to purposely hurt me. I know she has big, open eyes and can see thing about me that i never could. We're purposed in each others' lives, so i know this is supposed to help me.

But at this moment i'm so glad for the work i do, that people are keeping to themselves in their tiny cubicles and that i can do the same. Because i can't stop this burning in my throat. I can't stop my eyes from pouring out, and i have to keep my eyes aimed at my screen so that no one knows my heart is breaking.

I'm only writing this now because it has to get out or i might just burst into flames.

I can't be mad at her. I'm not. She was being honest. She was being heartfelt.

And i have to come to grips with the fact that i'm that person. I'm that friend who you describe as "opinionated", knowing it's just a euphemism for cocky and stubborn and judgemental. You cock your head slightly to the side in hesitation and grit your teeth when a new friend wants to meet me, hoping secretly that the newbie doesn't start a debate with me.

Is it possible that i've always been this handful of a person, making it hard on my friends to be my friend. Is this maybe the one thing no one's told me? And if i've improved from several years ago, what sort of horrid beast was i then?

I don't want to be this way. I don't. I want to be the one that everyone gets along with, that people remember as a bright spot, the one who's magnetic in her graciousness and love, who draws all people unto herself in order to draw them unto Him. I want to be known for my humility and joy, not my strong opinions and attitude.

It feels like too much to bear. Too much to sort through.

Outro-spective

I know this blog is mostly introspective. However, today's post will be none of that. Instead, i will tell you all of several funny/odd/horrifying things that have happened lately in my life and brain.

Yesterday morning, my front gums bled so bad while brushing them that i freaked out when i saw my spit in the sink. it was way bad. i'm not sure what happened, as this is not a normal thing. i did get new toothpaste. it's the first time i'm trying Tom's Natural toothpaste. in the past i've used regular old toxic toothpaste or Neem. but come on! Tom's in natural! doesn't that mean it SHOULDN'T be harsh? anyway, i still have those creepy teeth falling out dreams. i was scared this incident would give me nightmares. it did not thankfully.

I've been wanting to cuss lately. like a lot. specifically the F word. I know in the ranking of swear words, this one's pretty high up there, but i don't care! i don't ACTUALLY say it. i just realy want to! so sometimes when i'm in the car by myself i do it just to satiate this desire. it's just been hitting me lately as funny instead of vile. i've been wanting to say "f*** yeah!" and such. so, beware.

i started attempting to play the guitar again. here's how it happened: emily asked her friend jesse to teach her how to play. i got mad because i can't have another flippin friend who picks up playing immediately and wonderfully! her success would only shine light on my lack of! anyway, i was there at the first lesson, sitting in the corner, begrudgingly putting together the border of a puzzle. she didn't pick it up quickly. she kind of struggled. now i'm not HAPPY that she struggled, but to be honest, it did give me hope for myself. because, you see, i'd gotten it in my head that people picked up a guitar and it just worked. like they didn't have to struggle or suck first. all i needed was one f***in person to NOT be a prodigy to show me it's ok to learn slowly! so anyway, i've been playing everyday. i have about 5 or 6 songs that i'll play through, force myself to finish even if my fingers are throbbing. my fingertips hurt even now, but i feel accomplished every time i look down and see the white spots there.

also lately i've been thinking that i want to do criminal things. i won't. i'm just too jumpy. plus that whole conscience/Holy Spirit thing really cuts into my imaginary life of crime. however, i'm thinking of scenarios all the time how i could live basically free if i wanted to. how easy would it be to take things from convenience stores or get things from freeCraigslist and resell them for profit! I watched the movie Gone in 60 Seconds on tv the other day and thought to myself "oh man, i want to steal a car". i could be robin hood?

a dead man has no BREATH

"I've got to get away from this round and round and round. I've got to find a way from tumbling down and down and down. How long will my bed be made with tears? How long will You leave me here? Don't leave me here.

The grave is too late to sing Your praise. A dead man has no breath. So while there's beating in my chest, my heart will sing, heart will sing this craziness: la la la la la la la, la la la la la. la la la la la la la, You have set me free! la la la la la la la, la la la la la. la la la la la la la, You are all i need!"

Pardon my la las :) i'm totally that girl that hates songs with jibberish in them, but this one, oh man. it's just, if you've ever heard that song you know it's beautiful and overflowing with praise and joy and LIFE! and the la las are intregal! Listen to it right now if you haven't ever or in a while. It'll put your heart in the right attitude for this Thanksgiving holiday.

Speaking of which, i'm going to write about things i'm thankful for. I know it's cliche, and i really loathe being cliche. but come on! With all that God's given me, with all this beauty and goodness, all these reflections of God's character and face walking around me each day, I'll offer it back up as a thank you song to Him. And maybe today, if we all thank Him, He'll feel a little bit of gratitude from the humans He created to praise Him, the ones who so often turn their heads and beat their own chests when something good comes along.

First i want to thank my Jesus for revelation, for getting down the tunnel of these last five years of my life and all of a sudden being handed a flashlight. i look back now and can see what it's all been for. He didn't want my disobedience. He didn't want my stubbornness or defensiveness or self-seeking, but He turned and is turning my darkness to brilliance. He's been doing it all along, and now i can see little bits of how He's working. He's turning streetlamps on along the way, just enough so i can take my next step in confidence, and how stinkin beautiful is that?! A God who wants us to hold onto His hands for guidance. A God who stoops constantly in order to lift my chin, aligning our eyes.

I'm thankful for my singleness, in this moment though definitely not always. I'm thankful because He's saving me from misery, saving my husband from misery. He's trying to make it so that i know how to love right. So that when my earthly love comes along i can try my hand at loving him like Christ instead of someone who takes and takes and takes and doesn't know that that kind of love is a sad cutout version of what i'm capable of, what i'm created to live out. I'm thankful because instead of a man having to sharpen these horrificly poke-y edges of mine, God's doing it. His mercy is so all-encompassing that He's allowing it to be done in the quiet of my house and within the walls of my heart. He's letting it be done in the secret spaces between us rather than in screaming fights and ignoring hours in a marriage.

I'm thankful for my family, the fact that we are so tightly bound to each other when we could've (and really should've) been strangers separated by bitterness and lack of understanding and blame. My youngest brother got baptized this year and in that process really let us know that he KNOWS who God is. I never have to worry about my baby, cuddlebug of a brother being with me in Heaven. He'll be beside me, with that perfect pitch of a voice, singing "holy holy holy is the Lord God Almighty, who was and is and is to come" forever. He'll be older, but our hands will still fit together in the moments they aren't lifted to our Abba.

I'm thankful for my friends, the new and the old:

"During a time when i had nothing to give but venom and tears, when i monopolized conversations and entertained the same conspiracy theories over and over again, this small circle of people were the words and fragrance and presence of God in unmistakable ways.

I have never been so clingy and strange, so unmoored and lacking in appropriate smalltalk, and i am beyond thankful to my friends for sticking around in the worst of it.

Telling me the truth as they saw it, which was a lot more beautiful than the truth as i saw it then." -Shauna Niequist

I know my friends well enough to know they think good things of me. They think i'm all the things i think THEY are. But i know that in a true friendship, each person feels like they're surrounded by their betters, feels blessed to even be allowed to keep such company. And my friendships are no exception to that. I'm flooded with love and honesty and loyalty (to the Father first, which changes naturally into loyalty to each other) and well-written cards, emails, facebook posts. I don't have to question who i am, because they remind me. I see better who i am by looking at their hearts, and more often, i see the kind of worshipper i want to be. You know who you are, you're wrapped so tightly around me, like sinew around muscle, and i love you with everything i am.

the whole StepDad thing

So my step dad’s a jerk.  I mean, I know that in literature and fairy tales it’s usually the wicked step mother, but my step mother’s great.  We’re very different from each other and didn’t get a lot of time together while I was growing up, which kept us from being close until the past several years.  But she’s really cool.  Everyone loves her.  I do, too.  But that step dad of mine, jeez oh peas.  I don’t know one single person who’s more stubborn, has to be right, judgmental, prejudiced, or is more selfish.  He drinks to make Vietnam go away, and the alcohol only makes it worse.  You’d think he’d know that after 35+ years.  He doesn’t treat my mom like the self-sacrificing, bright, funny, smart woman she is, and I never remember him having said I love you.  I wouldn’t have believed him anyway, considering the whole “actions speak louder than words” thing.  His daughter is an interior designer, his son in construction (like him).  They’re regarded in his mind (and I gather this from his words over the years) as the perfect offspring:  successful in business, tall and slender, independent.  They’re both also twice divorced, unhappy, and don’t call or visit ever.  But those are the things that apparently DON’T matter.  So you can see why there’s a bit of a difference in the way he sees Jesse and me.  If that’s how he judges success, then we are massive failures, and I wouldn’t change that for anything.

 

Anyway, all that’s not meant as a rant.  It’s meant as background.

 

I used to say that I prayed for my step dad, David, all the time.  I used to pray for him, until I got old enough for the hurt and confusion to turn to bitterness and hatred.  Even now, I can’t believe I’m admitting actually hating another being.  But if you lust and then divert your eyes, you’ve still lusted.  If you kill and then immediately repent, you’ve still taken a life.  So if hate and anger and ill will rises up in me in an instant and then I remind myself “you can’t hate.  Look at the grace you’ve been given.  You can’t withhold it from anyone,” then still the sin’s been committed.  So yes, I’ve hated him on and off for a long time.

 

So once the bitterness set in, somewhere around junior high, but for sure by high school, I all but stopped praying for him.  When I DID pray for him, I prayed for his salvation.  I know this is what we’re instructed to do, but it was wrong the way I did it.  I didn’t pray for mercy for him.  I didn’t pray for forgiveness or grace.  I prayed for a radical conversion, out of self interest, not genuine interest or Christian anything.  Do you have any idea how much easier my life would’ve been had David been changed in an instant?  Had he only collapsed onto his knees, appalled by the man he’d become, ashamed of the way he’d denied the Christ, I could’ve and would’ve praised Jesus til the Tennessee cows came home! 

 

But does God hear prayers that are self-seeking, especially salvation prayers?  What a farce!  What a lie!  Gaw, I was being so many things I hate about David, by praying for him?  Crazy.

 

Anyway, God really started working on me (or better, I finally allowed Him to begin working on me) a few months back about actually forgiving my step father.  Everyone knows the verses about God not forgiving those who don’t forgive or loving because He first loved us.  I know those verses, but it’s so easy to quickly acknowledge and bury again the things that really hurt, the things that run deep and are so much associated with how we view ourselves.  I’m not sure what I’m going to do without the bitterness I carry toward David.  Who will that person be?  Surely better.  More like Jesus, I know.

 

But I finally decided that I can’t do this anymore.  He may never change.  He might not ever give his heart to the Lord, which I don’t want to be the result, but have to face as a possibility.  All that leaves is the way I handle this hurt, the hurt of 20 years now.  I can’t be someone who doesn’t forgive.  I can’t be that enemy of the Lord.  I’ve never been someone who wonders “what do I have to do to get into Heaven.”  I know enough of God to know that HE is our reward, and my goal, when I’m at my best, is to be closer to Him.  But what if I died, got all the way through this life thinking I’d loved Him the best I could, and He said “who are you?  all I see is this unforgiveness, and if you knew Me at all, you’d have let go of this.  Please leave, I don’t know you.”  That is just a tragedy.  That’s the worst, most heart breaking thing I can imagine, for the One I love, the One I prostrate myself before and yell at and beg and worship, for that One to not even recognize me.  I can’t do it.  I cannot allow that to be a possibility.  Even now, I ask the Lord again, help me forgive.  I need You.

 

::breathe::

 

So, a few months ago, I dug out a picture of my step father and mom.  I’ve always secretly wanted to crop those pictures and put only my mom’s smiling face up.  To be honest, the one I have up at work is still half covered, to keep him hidden and her showing.  But I dug this picture out and put it on the mirror on my bathroom door.  Since then, every time I notice this picture, I ask God to please help me forgive him.  I don’t have the slightest clue how to go about this.  I don’t FEEL forgiveness having come or even on the horizon.  When I start to think good thoughts, my memories betray me, and I’m back in the dark where I began. 

 

But God is always good.  I’m asking from a genuine heart.  I’m laying out my genuine need for Him to come and save me, because I can’t save myself.  Again and again, I can’t save my friggin self. 

 

“our whole being by its very nature is one vast need; incomplete, preparatory, empty yet cluttered.  Crying out for Him who can untie things that are now knotted together and tie up things that are still dangling loose.” –C.S.Lewis

 

C.S. Lewis also made a reference in the Screwtape Letters to Christians being like little children learning to walk and how God is pleased when we fall if only the will to walk is there.

 

I know God is doing something.  I’m writing this for everyone to see aren’t I?  I can feel Him changing my perspective without my understanding how. 

 

I’m finally praying for David’s salvation because I desire the pain to stop in his life.  For him.  Not for me.  I desire his salvation because I desire my Savior’s pain to stop, the longing and the ever-beckoning that’s so far gone unreciprocated. 

 

It’s beautiful, this pain in me.  I feel changing.  I feel softening.  I feel remorse and hope and spilling out.

 

Do the same.  If you’re reading this, do the same.  It hurts, but it frees, and I FEEL my heart coming closer to Jesus’.  It’s the only place to be for a believer.  It’s the only place you’re alive.  Be alive and let go.

Fed up with my Dumb Self

Ok, so it's a basic pillar of Christianity that we're all born into sin. We're NEVER perfect or innocent, unlike that ridiculous 90s song. (we are born innocent, and we are still inn-uh-ceh-ent...) But sometimes i can at least do one good thing without it being selfish in some way. Right? Maybe not. Maybe even thinking that is unBiblical. I mean, anything good i can do is only made possible by the blood of Jesus covering me and coursing through my spirit and mind.

Whatever.

The point is, lately i've been so annoyingly aware of my own self-seeking.

God wants us (me) to do good things but cares little of the outward manifestation if the inside of me is still teeming with selfish thoughts, concerns and motives.

For instance: i recently housesat for a coworker. her house smelled like dog, and they pooped on the carpet all the time. the food she said "help yourself to" was pretty much all rotten, the tiny bit that was there. yes, all this is pretty sucky. but did i bear the burden knowing i was doing this to help someone else? to ease THEIR load? to make THEIR life easier? Or i could've just done it knowing that it was something i'd committed to and therefor should follow through to completion. but i didn't even have THAT mentality. i loathed and begrudged every second of it. AND i had no problem telling people all this crappy stuff when they asked "how's dogsitting going?" God ended up convicting my heart, and i told the lady she didn't need to pay me. God basically said "How dare you take credit for this like your heart is so giving and neighborly", and He was so right.

So you'd think i'd learn aye? Nope.

Just yesterday my friend Emily called me at like 655 in the morning (on a Saturday mind you). Ya'll know how i am about sleep. Anyway, she says to me "i need you to come up to Boulder with me. my sister's really sick, and all she wants is to be home". So of course i agreed to go. it was really snowy, and she shouldn't go alone. in the 10 minutes it took for me to get ready i thought little snide thoughts and pouted to the cold air about my plight. It hit me during that time that Emily was using her ONLY day off (i had the whole weekend) to go get her sister, and that i should spend my energy trying to make her day better rather than mourning my own free/sleep time. even knowing this, i kept retelling the story to people throughout the day about getting woken up, not really wanting to go, but because i want to "be the kind of friend you want to have" i decided to go. i mean, i got over being woken up early. but still i retold the story like i was some kind of martyr because my day hadn't quite gone how i thought it would. looking back, i don't really mind having gone at all. her mom bought us starbucks for the drive and made home made potato soup for us that evening. she makes food for me all the time! and somehow going to pick up her really sick daughter from Boulder, which is only like 2.5 hours away, was this HUGE thing to me! what the heck Sam!

so anyway, today i'm just fed up with me. you know that line of that Caedmon's Call song that says "no one would love me if they knew all the things i hide"? yeah. well i know all the things i hide, and now you know part of them, too, and i just don't love this part of me. i HATE it! HATE IT.

i know we're all incomplete works. i know we're fallen and born into darkness even we are unaware of. but sheesh.

"All this is flashy rhetoric about loving you. I never had a selfless thought since i was born. I am mercenary and self-seeking through and through; i want God, you, all friends, merely to serve my turn. Peace, reassurance, pleasure are the goals i seek. I cannot crawl one inch outside my proper skin; i talk of love--a scholar's parrot may talk Greek-- but, self-imprisoned, always end where i begin." C.S.Lewis

Christianity 101

so i guess if you're a Christian you probably already believe that you can do nothing in your own strength, that you simply can't MAKE anything happen without the intervention from or the allowance issued by the sovereign Creator. I believe that, too. But it's just crazy how often my actions, thoughts, and relationships don't project that belief. It begs the question, if i don't live like i believe it, do i? but that's another topic.

i guess i've just been reminded today of how all-sufficient the Lord is, His grace particularly. He's more delighted and honored than willing when we acknowledge our inability to change ourselves, our lives, our pasts and decide to let the weight shift slinkily from our shoulders to His crucifix.

Here's what reminded me: (sorry, it ain't gonna be short, but that's pretty standard for me)

Most of you know, probably all of you, how my Florida years went. I know it's an overused quote, but truly "they were the best of times, they were the worst of times." on one hand, the one i hope to emphasize most often, i met the best friends i've ever had, the closest and the ones who get me best to this day. i learned was fellowship is. I learned how friends truly can be family, how "a true friend sticks closer than a brother". amidst the lessons on how to live spontaneously and argue passionately and who NOT to date, i learned that a person (people), not just a diety, can forgive you before you even ask. i learned what love is. Love doesn't sit by when you're trying with every play to wreck your life and hold its tongue. instead, it challenges you and scolds you and assures you that no matter the outcome, you have a soft, safe place to land. I also learned what love is not. Love will never ask you to lie. it is not confusion or deceit or illness or weight. i spent probably half of my time in florida worshipping, learning to love, being silly and adventurous, making bigtime memories the other half i spent sick to my stomach, quite literally sometimes, because of the distance my sin was putting between my Savior and myself. The One who's always loved me, who never left, who was my Father when i had none and my Fortress when i was bombarded, I decided to deny that One.

It's funny, though, my heart was guilt-ridden and engulfed in darkness at the time, but when the poor relationships were over and the apologies were made, life just went back to normal. Granted i've not been able to go back to college since having to drop out when i got kicked out of my parents' house, and that's a BIG deal to me. but heartwise and spiritually, the repercussions (sp?) have been pretty minimal. God just seemed to be waiting there the whole time, and when i came back, it was like He just sighed and said "well it's about time." I've struggled off and on for the past few years about NOT feeling guilt about that time in my life. maybe that's crazy. i mean, i know that guilt and shame are tools of the enemy, used to separate you from forgiveness and mercy Jesus freely offered, DIED to offer. But sometimes i guess i question the validity of my redemption if i never had that moment of lay-on-the-floor-and-cry-til-you-can't-anymore sadness about it. I hate the time i wasted. i HATE what i caused the people around me, what i put them through, the way i stretched their hearts so thin around MY existence. sometimes hate still rises in me toward the guy who lied to me repeated, who made a fool of me, to whom i gave everything i had and had known and loved, and who in the end didn't care a thing about that sacrifice. but i don't feel guilty or ashamed, and i'm not sure i ever did, at least not with the intensity you'd expect from an all-her-life Christian gal who broke every rule she'd ever tried to live by. one of my best friends couldn't even bring herself to tell me she slept with her ex boyfriend until i asked her point-blank over a year after they had broken up. even then, the second i asked her, her eyes welled up with tears, and she could barely complete a sentence, she was so wracked with weight and guilt and secrecy. I'll tell anyone who asks what happened with me, no tears, no hesitation.

INTERMISSION (now's a good time to grab a cup of water, a twizzler to tide you over until the end of this blog and your next meal, check your facebook, or even to chat with someone a little less pensive)

alright, so i got to listen to one of my good friend's testimonies recently. it wasn't so much the story of her Christian conversion as it was the story of the foggy period in her life, the one everyone has and looks back on like "that didn't even seem like me. what the heck was i thinking." none the less, it IS a testimony because God's grace has made it so.

first of all, let me just say that this friend of mine is the kind of person that annoys you because she has so many good attributes. you almost wish they'd just spread the wealth around. she loves the Lord passionately. she's intelligent and funny and musically talented and beautiful and smart, and somehow she still just radiates humility. actually, we've known OF each other for a while now, but i never asked her to hang out because i thought she wouldn't enjoy my company. i can be all those things i listed above... on occasion, but generally i have a hard time being all of them at once. I know it's dumb to rank yourself or class yourself, but i just thought she wouldn't like my company unless i decided to tone down the sarcasm and play up the Jesus. Turns out she's really stinkin hilarious and loves bodily function jokes! who'da thunk :)

so she and i are talking, and she tells me about her past. she's been through so much, things i've only imagined and then pushed from my mind because they're too horrible. she's walked in my shoes and then some. she's had humiliating moments displayed for all to see and tried to hide others. she's had to forgive and forgive and forgive and still muster the strength to BE forgiven. she's lived under an almost literal blanket of guilt and shame but now lives IN Freedom! and it's because HE'S done it for her! Our Savior, the bearer of our worries and grief (if we'll only let Him), has done it all! When i look at her, i see all those resplendent (Jess) characteristics of God, and she can take credit for none of them! she came from that background, she can lived in/with/welcoming sometimes that oppression, and she's transformed. no way did SHE do that! it's impossible!

i know this is kind of Christianity 101, but it's just so much easier to see in someone else rather than yourself: i don't have to DO anything. i can't make myself feel deeper guilt or remorse, just like i can't MAKE myself forgiven. I can't make myself good, and i can't force myself to feel something i'm not. I can't expose my own dirt. i can't bring further conviction upon myself, and i can't provide its solution. but i CAN petition Him. He longs for me to do so! He's waiting there. "well, it's about time."

Duh!

So i'll petition Him for mercy, in whatever form that takes. I'll ask for my heart to be like His own. I'll plead for nothing other than nearness to Him, for righteousness so that i can get closer. And whatever that looks like, i'll want it and digest it and allow it to be made new. i'll probably not understand it until it's completed, because i never do, but it'll be beautiful and crisp and holy.

He'll do it all, and i'll get no credit. and someday i'll tell my story, with whatever amount of difficulty, and people will see my dependency. they'll see my complete inability to change myself and how, despite that, i'm transformed. and He will be glorified!

Selah

Emotionally Flooded Night

So yesterday afternoon i get an email from Kim, my stepmom, that just says "call me. important." So naturally i freak out and call as soon as i can from Compassion's phone since i'm helping in the phone center for a little while. At first i felt kind of cool, like i was sticking it to the man (if the man were Compassion) by making a personal call in my little headset phone. But of course i couldn't just enjoy the rebellion because that email had me freaked out!

Kim tells me that my dad has gone in to the doctor for some heart tests. This past weekend he "slipped" on the stairs in the garage and pulled the shelving unit, full of paintcans, over on himself. Turns out he hadn't slipped at all. He'd blacked out and didn't remember a thing. He didn't tell anyone this because he didn't want to cause unneeded worry. When the dizzy spells and lightheadedness didn't go away the next couple days, he made an appointment, and only then did he decide to tell Kim, as he knew he couldn't keep a trip to the doctor a secret. They basically said that something's wrong, but they're not sure what yet. Dad said he's been able to hear the blood rushing in his neck and can feel his heart beating erratically. They immediately put him on beta blockers, which slow the electrical impulses to the heart so that a heart attack is nearly impossible. This is just a precaution until they can find out the real problem. He has an appointment today at 215 to do more tests.

Now i'm aware that this is not a crazy serious thing. Dad pointed out to me that out of all the ways God couldn't notified him that something was wrong, feeling like an idiot, covered in paint, is a very nice way to do it. But still, SO many thoughts started playing in my mind:

who would walk me down the aisle, what would i do around tax time, i missed out on so much growing up and now i finally have him here only to lose him, jesse's almost here just hold on, how would the boys know how to be men, and on and on. I was venting this to emily on the phone. she didn't know she was the first one i'd let this spill to, and because she TRIES to be rational thought she'd help me with that. she started, mid-sentence crying soul spill, "Sam, there's no use working yourself into a tizzy...." and i hung up on her. i HATE when people hang up on me. hate it. big time. it makes me mad like few other things can. BUT i knew i'd say something way worse if i didn't hang out then. so anyway, i called back a few minutes later, and all was fine. ah, good friend.

Anyway, i went to Em's house later last night after having pulled a truly selfish move. i went to my dad's work to see him and freak out. i knew it was wrong to cause him unnecessary concern and heartache, but for the first time ever i actually had to think about what it'd be like to wake up the next morning and NOT have my father. so i wanted to visit him while i can!

So anyway, Em was in a kind of weird mood. i'm kind of used to grumpy, whiny, happy, and goofy by now, but hurt, sad, and sulky's different. i didn't have any advice to offer that was pertinent to the situation, and i know she doesn't like to cry in front of people. A couple times i could tell she was holding the waterworks back; i just left so she could break down if she wanted to.

It was only like 8 o'clock, though, so i didn't want to go home. I felt rattled to the core, anxious and sad about whatever this is with my dad, lonely... because, well, i've been single for almost 3 flippin years now and feel each moment more ready to NOT be alone, and then lonely in the friend sense because even though i have some really wonderful, close, brilliant, beautiful soul friends here, i miss people so much sometimes it hurts. Ashliegh, Amanda, Lisa, Kyle, not to mention my sister... they're just all so far away, and sometimes all i want is to see their faces and in their presence just BE. it's where i'm most comfortable, but they're scattered all over the western hemisphere!

So, with my heart burdened and my mind spinning i decided to take a drive up into the mountains. i hear that running clears your head because the wind in your face is so crisp and cold and fast-moving. well, i don't go running. however, i can get ABOVE the city where no one can talk to me, bother me, distract me, help me. it's running in a less litera sense, but whatever works. i can't really go far because my poor little four cylinder car would hate me (probably to the point of blowing up in my face, literally). but i drove up to where there's a beautiful view of the city, leaned my driver seat back, looked up at the sky and out at the city, put some worship music on i hadn't listened to for a while and just laid there. i wish i could say that i calmly let my worries slip away as i handed them to God, but that's really not the truth.

Instead, i told Him how sad i am sometimes, how lonely and double minded. I asked Him what the heck's going on, and i wish He'd just DO something already. I told Him i know i'm being a whiny little child, asking for more from the only One who's ever loved me perfectly. I told Him i don't want to be this way, so weird and meloncholy and discontent. I go for weeks, months even, feeling completely satisfied, happy with my life because God's illuminating it and making everything worth it, and then one day everything crashes down. All i want on these days is for all this to be over. I'm not suicidal. I know maybe it sounds that way. But the truth is, i know that all the longings in me will be filled and rendered non existent when i'm with my Jehovah.

I realized while looking out my dirty window at the city a couple things: 1) my view of this life is exactly like looking out my window. i'm surrounded by love notes, beauty flooding every corner of this world, but i can only see through the dirty window of my tiny, dirty, selfish, constricted mind. no wonder i get angry. who likes dirty windows!? 2) everything on this earth, good or bad, contains an element of exlusion. when you choose anything, essentially you're NOT choosing the other. when you choose sinful pleasures, you're dismissing God's favor in your life. when you choose the Lord, it's a constant exclusion of hatred, self, and now-ness. when you choose to get married, you are lessening ties with some friends. when you move to a new place, even if it's the absolute right thing to do, you leave an old life behind. This may seem obvious to you, but to me it was an epiphany and made me want my Jesus more. Because He says that in Him is FULLNESS of joy. there's no shadow where He is, only light, more brilliant than the brightest day. He IS Love, not the absence or resistance to hate.

I know this post is all kinds of scattered. i don't care. maybe it more honestly reflects my state of mind.

i guess i'm just homesick. for my actual home in Heaven with AbbaFather and for the home i find in my dad, my family, my favorite friends.

oh, and p.s. the worship music DID draw my heart upward and away from myself. i drove down the mountain almost skipping inside, knowing that whatever the day's worries are, they're sufficient for the day, and i need not worry about tomorrow. also, i went to Shove Chapel on the CC campus, and there was a Taize Christian service going on there. it was strange to me, very different. there were songs in Latin and a lot of silence. i think i needed it after all that sobbing.

phone center freakout!

Okay, so as i write i am sitting at a vacant desk on the fourth floor of Compassion International's Global Ministry Center. I normally work down on the first floor, tucked away in a tiny little third of a cubicle with the rest of my team. It's relatively quiet there in SDP, a fact i normally am not fond of, but today, helping out with the phone center, with people talking all around me, freaked to death out of messing something up, i miss my little quiet production job! honestly, i can almost HEAR my own heart beating! i've taken probably 5 calls, changed the pattern of my questions/verifications every time, and forgot something on 2 of the calls! bah! i'm a pro at talking. what the heck! i pride myself on "hitting the ground running" but jeez oh peas, listening in on 3 phone calls then being given my own headset... i just feel a little under prepared. i'm sure it's just my nerves.

i realized yesterday that i'm getting kind of large group-a-phobic. kaycee asked me to go home to Salida with her family and emily for halloween. first of all, i'm not sure she invited me because i'm wanted there or because i happen to be there when her and Em were talking about the trip, but whatever. that's not the main deterrent to me going. you wanna know what is? the halloween party that's happening over the weekend with a bunch of kaycee's friends. she knows pretty much everyone in that tiny town anyway, or at least everyone knows her. it's just that i've never been a partier. in high school i didn't hang out with a group that partied. they saved that for college, and by that time, i'd moved on to a group whose main social activity was attempting to watch movies or do normal things but somehow always ended in ridiculousness (i.e. jumping off canal bridges, surfing down huge sand hills on old doors, pranking each other's houses, worshiping Jesus for hours at night and into the morning). needless to say, the party scene is simply not MY scene. and now that i've lived by myself for so long, i think i'm just very content to read a book, watch a tv show, go hang out with one of my few friends here and just BE. i feel not only awkward but inundated when i'm in large groups. i know i've got humor and general niceness on my side, but i still feel like the geek in the corner. i turn into a wallflower, and that is so odd. i feel like i'm going to turn into that guy in Can't Hardly Wait, overcompensating for my nervousness by drinking too much, yelling "i have no legs" and singing "Take Me Down to the Paradise City" over and over again!

i have a people problem, and i'm a people person dang it!

new job prayer

Father,  I realized today in chapel that I have the wrong motivations in applying for this new job.  I wish I was always serving You, always wanting to be used more fully and potently by You, but the truth is, I’m just so bored where I am.  I want motion.  I want progression, and for so long I’ve just been here, in this cubicle, bored, frustrated, feeling unused.  I know that’s not the truth.   You’re always using me, if I just allow You, but it simply doesn’t stop that feeling in me! 

 

Really, I think this job will be a good fit for me.  I think I’ll be good at it and will enjoy it.  I think it’ll be a good place for me to learn and help others and ultimately benefit Compassion and the children we help.

 

But I know that You’re pretty unconcerned with how noble my actions look if my heart’s not on board with the nobility. 

 

Please God, change my heart.

 

Even as I pray this I’m asking for change because I think if my heart changes then You’ll allow me to have the position.

 

I hate my stupid, dark heart sometimes.

 

Please help me.  I know You are the only one that changes hearts and minds and circumstances.

 

If it means I don’t get the job.  If it means I’m an “income processing associate” the rest of my life, please make my heart pure.  Please draw me unto You because it’s the only place I feel safe.  Let me know You, Your sufferings, Your joy, Your resurrection and power.  Do whatever it takes because I can’t make anything happen on my own.

 

I’ve tried.  It’s stupid.

 

I love You.  And even though my actions and words don’t always testify to that, please help me love You more, love You better.  Without You, this is all meaningless anyway.

 

Change me.  Make me not so selfish.  Again, only You can do this, because everything in me screams “you deserve it” or “it’s about time”. 

 

You owe me nothing, nothing in this whole world or outside of it.  You love me still.

 

Crazy.

 

i love love, dont ya just love love?

 

“They say you’re really not somebody until somebody else loves you.  Well I am dying to make somebody somebody soon” -Ingrid Michaelson

 

I don’t agree that you’re not “somebody” until someone loves you.  Or maybe I DO agree, but we’re all somebody because from before we were even born, the very Creator of the universe adores each one of us.  Whatever.  The point is, I’ve been feeling very alone lately, the past week in particular. 

 

Alone-ness is NOT the same thing as lonely.  I don’t feel lonely.  That implies sadness or despair or hopelessness in my mind.  I guess what I feel is more of an ache, low, but thrumming and unmistakable. 

 

My good friend Sarah got engaged.  I am beyond happy for her.  It’s the kind of happy that makes me praise the Lord because He’s good, and I realize it more because of the things happening in her life.  She is the kind of beautiful that ugly ducklings envy because it’s humble and understated and supermodels envy because it’s so effortless.  Not to mention she’s enamored with Jesus so wholly, I just don’t know how you get to that constancy.  She’s waited so long, sometimes patiently, sometimes not so patiently I’m sure, for her husband.  She’s been through a lot, and she’s had to listen to His voice, learn to discern His heart in a world that presents and makes appealing all sorts of false loves.  This is so good.  He is so good for her.  They’re going to be super-abundantly, blissfully, sickeningly J happy!  She even asked me to be in the wedding, which I wasn’t expecting at all and am so blessed to accept.

 

All this to explain that I’m crazy happy for her right now, so so much, but it starting this pattern of thinking/feeling in me that I haven’t quite gotten tamed yet.  I hate that I turn other people’s joy into my whining.  But if you can ever whine, it’s on your blog right?  Stop reading now if you want to avoid self pity and questioning confusion.

 

I guess I just go so long without thinking about “the one”, the man I know is waiting somewhere on this earth, to love me like Christ loves the Church.  By the way, the thought of someone “waiting for me”, pining over the woman of God he knows is coming his way, is a romantic idea.  However, I’m pretty sure the kind of man I want isn’t pining.  Sure, everyone thinks about it, but I want my one and only to be an adventurer, making the most of each day, breathing deep of the love and life in every moment, or at least trying to do so.  I want to be the same way, but that’s an ongoing challenge.  Anyway, I go so long pushing these thoughts away from myself, trying not to focus on the have-nots in my life and instead breathe deep, like I said, of my Savior and the love notes HE leaves at my doorstep each day, if I’d just open the door and open them, because when it comes down to it, He’s tipped the scales overwhelmingly with good.  Even the bad He’ll make good if I allow Him.

 

But now that this idea of marriage and mine being nowhere in the foreseeable future has entered my mind, I can’t seem to push it strongly enough to make it shut its snooty little mouth and vacate.

 

It’s just… well… I feel like the 27 Dresses girl.  I know it’s not nearly that drastic, but this will be the 5^th wedding I’ve been in in the past 5 years.  It was a little ridiculous for a while there, 4 of the 5 took place in a two and a half year span.  It’s just starting to feel like “always a bridesmaid”.  I know this is actually a good thing.  It means I have some really good friends, ones who love me enough to want me to be part of their huge, important day, a day they’ve been looking forward to their whole life.  And on that day and most days leading up to the wedding, I’m rife with joy and gratitude toward the Lord on their behalf.

 

Another thing, I’ve always said to people in the past “the one will come when you least expect it, when you’re not looking, when your eyes are completely focused on the Lord, when all you want is Him” etc., and it always seems to turn out that way.  With Ashliegh & Lisa, Kyle, and now Sarah.  Of course there are other cases, like Jesse and Amanda, where they WERE kind of looking, hoping for it to happen.  Amanda may have even been a little boy crazy J (even if only in her thoughts) when Ryan came along.  But here’s the thing, I’m NOT “least expecting it”.  my eyes are wide open looking.  I want the Lord, but I want my husband, too!  the most important love in my life is Jesus, being nearer to Him and knowing Him and making sure He knows I love Him back.  But man oh man do I want to be loved by a human man forever and ever.  My sister said that a few months before she met Josh, her husband of 4 years, she prayed something like “God, I love You, but You’re not here.  I want arms I can feel around me.”  or something like that.  He told her it would happen soon, and a couple months later she reconnected with Josh, an old high school friend/acquaintance.

 

So that’s comforting, knowing someone else has felt that way and prayed that prayer and ended up fine, more than fine, blessed with the perfect mate. 

 

But I can’t help but feel guilty.  I want to not care.  I want to be too busy to let myself slow down and wallow.  But that’s not the truth of the matter.

 

Sometimes I envy the people who go out to bars, who go on blind dates, who are just out to have fun.  It seems like less pressure.  Then again, I know I’m not meant for that, nor do I want to waste my time.  Plus… I’m not a good first impressions gal.  I’m just not.  I always either get quiet, which is NOT a true representation at all, or crazy and obnoxious to the nth degree, which is hyperbole!

 

My sister prayed for God to give me a clue about who I’m supposed to marry.  So far, still clueless.

 

Bleh.

 

Blood Drive Day at Compassion

I get so excited every time blood drive day happens at Compassion. I truly ENJOY giving blood. It just makes me feel so accomplished, blessed, important. I mean, less than 30 minutes of my day will help someone stay healthy, or even alive, later.

I truly believe that God doesn’t give me an excess of anything unless He’s purposed it for His glory or for someone else’s betterment. This is no exception.

I look forward to this day, but I also kind of DON’T look forward to this day. I always end up angry. I know that sometimes there are medical conditions or strange travel happenings (for instance, being in Europe in the 90s when mad cow disease was all over or under certain elevations in Central America in the past 5 years) that prevent you from giving. Also if you’ve ever taken money for sex or drugs, but that’s a whole other arena. But seriously, being squeamish about needles or blood is NOT a good reason. it’s an excuse. An excuse to be selfish, to go on with your day pretending you’ve done all you can for “mankind”. You’ll sleep at night just fine until you or someone you love is rushed to the hospital and needs emergency blood.

I know that I do selfish things all the time. I do things that are so selfish yet go unnoticed by me because they’re so engrained in my psyche that I don’t even realize I’m doing them. Talking over people in conversations, for instance, or just waiting my turn to talk instead of really listening. All the time. It’s shameful.

I know this. I know I shouldn’t point out the speck in someone else’s eye when there’s a huge 2x4 sitting pretty in the inside corner of my right eyeball. But blood drive day always does this to me.

On a not-so-rant-y note, here are some other things I’ve been thinking about this wonderful, 60 degrees +, blood drive, Thursday morning:

My sister, Jesse. Maybe it’s a Taylor thing. Maybe I just copied her interests/feelings, having looked up to her my whole life. But she loves giving blood, too. there was a time when she was considering going to phlebotomy school because she likes it so much. I’m glad she didn’t, as that would’ve changed her path. I like where God’s taken/taking her and Josh, and I’m glad red cross phlebotomy school didn’t prevent any of their choices. Sometimes I feel like this giving blood thing is a secret fetish Jesse and I share. Maybe it’s weird, but at least we share it. and that makes it more comfortable.

Jesus. His blood gave and gives me life. Each moment. I think of the scenario of what I’d be like if He HADN’T offered Himself up on my behalf, paying in full all the debt I owe, the bills upon bills stacked up, written in bleeding red ink: pride, lust, rebellion, hate, murder, self. I think of Him taking back His blood, and I can’t breathe. I need His mercy so desperately. It’s all I have to stand on sometimes. When I admit my dirtiness and find I have nothing good of my own, at least I have His sparkling grace to hold me close, hold me up. I’m blown away. I heard a song last week that said “God is a lover looking for a lover, so He fashioned me”. what. the. heck. As I told Emily, I’m so bad at loving Him. Man.

Also, last and funniest/saddest: vampires. If there were a vampire working at Compassion, I bet they’d have to stay home from work today, like skipping blood typing day at Forks High School.

Punching the Wind

Have you ever had one of those days where you just want to be with God?  If you’ve been a Christian for any amount of time, or even a day, you probably have.  It’s one of those days for me.

 

Last night, as I left my parents house, I was really sad that my sister was leaving the next day (today).  The weepiness stayed with me all night.  Except it turned from sadness about my sister’s departure to longing and mourning for the Savior from whom I’m separated.

 

I just… I HATE the distance.  I know that were I face to face with the Maker of all things that I couldn’t stand it.  I’m reminded of the Mercy Me song “would I sing for you Jesus, would I be able to speak at all”.  I think it’ll be the latter for me since I’m so chatty here on earth, and Heaven will be the most incomparable thing to earth I’ll ever know.  But even knowing I’d be overcome, struck blind and deaf, or scared for my life because of the depravity fully exposed in me at that moment, I just want Him near me.  I’m so tired today of the air, the time, the sin between us.  I know He’s waiting each moment for the time when He can scoop me up in His arms, stronger and holier than words allow, without darkness between us, and kiss my face and tell me He’s mine. 

 

Some days, the pretty day or the overcast day or the rain or the wind remind me of the Lord, how He moves and blesses me and loves me.  But today all those things seem just shy of what I’m made for.  They are making me jealous for the eternity I was created to inhabit, the God I cannot touch no matter my uprightness.  They are teases.  I want to punch the wind and tell it to quit mocking me.

 

 

Who i am hates who i've been?

I started thinking this past week how many people in the world separate their current selves from the past versions of themselves. I was in the car with my father and step-mom, when "You Were Mine" by the Dixie Chicks started playing on Dad's iPod. The song started playing, and Dad changed it after only the intro was played. He said he didn't want to listen to it, and when Kim asked why he didn't answer. I can only guess it's because of the part, the bridge, where the singer is trying to convince her husband to stay because of the way the kids adore him. "I can give you two good reasons to show you love's not blind: he's 2 and she's 4 and you know they adore you. So how can i tell them you've changed your mind?" I know i'm assuming, but i can see that as the only reason for his insistence upon changing the song. My dad loves Jesus and loves me with a love that is powerful and unwaivering. He's forgiven and delivered and all those words that describe the beauty that usurps death's position in our hearts when we lay down everything before Jesus. I guess what started me thinking about this idea of separate selves is that he must've downloaded it for a reason. He obviously likes the song, as do i. But then he didn't want to listen to it in front of me, which again, is kind of understandable.

Normally, i'd just think of this like a typical case of choosing your audience. I mean, i like a good thug rap song on occasion, but i wouldn't listen to it infront of my brothers necessarily. And i love country music, but i wouldn't subject my sister and brother in law to something they hate. But for some reason, this time it made me wonder: do we separate our past selves from our current selves in our minds without even realizing it?

I'm sure it'd be easier for dad to loathe the actions of his past self, that juvenile, selfish being. I know when i think of myself a few years back and the ridiculously dumb phase i went through, i don't even recognize that person. I think to myself sometimes "man, i was so selfish" but then without realizing it think "but thank goodness i'm not that person anymore".

i'm not sure if there's anything wrong with doing this. i mean, if God transforms you, then you ARE a new person. The one true Word of God says so. But at the same time, we are always BEING transformed. I wonder if it's dangerous to isolate certain periods in our lives from our present state. It can become (or at least does for me, i think) a way of shifting blame, of not taking responsibility for our own stupidity. It allows us to be flippant about sin and move on without facing the full weight of faulty decisions. I think it sets us up for disaster, having never dealt fully or correctly with the past.

I don't know... the more i write, the more it makes sense to me and the more i feel like it's NOT making sense in print.

Aw well.

Black n' Milds & Strawberry Swisher Sweets

It’d be easy to pin it on the rebellious nature of smoking cigars when your whole world frowns upon it. Or maybe it’s the picture in my head of bohemian intellectuals and what they’re supposed to look like and how we looked an awful lot like them, feet on the dash, seat leaned back, cigar in hand, unmatching jewelry, no makeup. Regardless, the way it felt last night, riding home in the passenger seat of my 98 Ford Escort, was what I imagine Chris McCandless must’ve felt like driving west, leaving behind the sometimes invisible fishing line-thin absurdities that bound him to the life he’d known. It was the windows rolled down and the dog standing on the console, cute floppy ears limiting my vision to the front and side windows nearest me. Finding the perfect radio station: 100.3, Denver. It was being completely comfortable with the car’s other occupant. So comfortable that silence was okay, along with ridiculous laughter and loud, un-self conscious singing. It was the moon, big and yellow and werewolf-luring in the sky and the lightning storm bantering in the west. It was just… glorious. I tried to remember the feeling of it, which I hope will last long after the details of the trip fade from my colander brain. I’ve written this entry to help me if I forget.

Life Goal Accomplished: Train Hopping

Ok, so i've always wanted to jump on a moving train. To be honest, i've always wanted to ride a boxcar to another city. However, being a girl (and being an easily intimidated girl at that), i've always known it would be SERIOUSLY not smart to do so.



I told my dad a while back that i wish i could be a boy just for a little while so that i could ride a boxcar with the transients around the country. I said "i totally would if i were a guy", and he said "that thought HAD crossed my mind." it was the biggest compliment i've gotten in a long time :)



Anyway, yesterday evening i'd taken Emily to Target for back-to-work pants. She has no car at the moment, and I just can't refuse a trip to the Big Bullseye. So we went there, made a quick stop back at my house to pick up pepperjack cheese, a knife, napkin and wheat thins before heading to my reading spot under a big American Elm tree in the park. (Emily bought the pepperjack cheese the night before at the glorious Sunflower market and left it my house. Never a good idea to leave cheese at Sam's house, but it was only a day so it survived.) So we go there, read for about 45 minutes or so, when i see a parked train across the street at the train tracks. I said "i want to climb on that" and she said "ooh, let's DO it."



So off we go. This train has obviously been parked for a while. It had weeds growing under it, so we knew it wasn't going anywhere anytime soon. There was another train parked on the other side of it. This train was operable. We could hear it still making noise, but it was stationary and had been for at least 30 minutes or so. So we climb up the first, weed growing train to explore. First of all, those ladders on the sides of trains are higher up than i'd thought! i mean, you have to really hike your leg up to reach them! there were just rocks in that train. We kept wanting to walk on top of the train, but the open tops prevented it. Boo.



So we get down and decide to explore the other train, the operable but stopped one. that one has big open top cars that used to have coal in them. we could tell because of the last little traces in the bottoms of the cars. we walked between those parked trains for a while and found little artifacts (railroad spikes and HUGE metal screws) before deciding to go the other side of the coal train and walk along the last set of unoccupied tracks. we walked along there for a while until we got to an overpass.



This road passes over Uintah Street, which i drive on everyday. Emily decided (she's wearing a sundress and is already pretty sufficiently covered in soot) she'd like to do the unthinkable: moon the traffic underneath the overpass! i told her "if you do that, i'm going to run". She did it. I ran.



::sigh::
classic

We walked a bit longer on the empty track and decided to turn back. We crawled under the stationary train, and i swear, not even 10 seconds later the track that we'd JUST been walking on had a train on it, ZOOMing by! it was crazy! i mean, there was a huge place we could've walked down to or even jumped down to that was safe if we'd been on that track when the train came. so we wouldn't have died or been hurt or anything. but STILL! we flipped out! so we climbed the ladders of the middle train to the side where it was closest to the moving, flying, crazy fast train. we hung off the ladders and let our hair and arms be blown in the wind the train was causing. Emily and i, once on the ground between the trains, held hands and inched out into the middle but then jumped back against the still train when one of the train cars was REALLY loud and scary! When jumping down off the ladder of the non moving train, i cut my foot on a rock, and it bled and looked really horrific. It's really friggin cool that i got a war wound from train climbing! (hurts today, but it was WAY worth it)

After the train finally passed we jumped out onto the newly empty train tracks and yelled at the train, telling it who's boss, and high fived like the awesome fearless women we are!

Then, as the shock wore off, we climbed under the still stationary train on the middle tracks and started walking back to where the car was (and also where we left the blanket, books, cheese and crackers, sunglasses & phone just sitting in the grass). And again, not even 30 seconds after we climbed under the train i started hearing odd sounds. Emily thought i was crazy and just hearing things, but then it happened. The train we'd JUST been crawling on/under started going! of course it was going really slowly at first, but we decided we needed to try and jump on it while it was running! so as it creaked by we decided which one we were going to jump on and just did it! we hung on the ladders for maybe 3 seconds and jumped off before it got going too fast. We tried to do it again, but it was going way too fast at that point.

After all the trains had past and we were left with our stopped old weedy train filled with rocks we were resigned to simply walking back. but then i found an electrical control box on the side of the train. i thought surely it wouldn't work, seeing as the train had been stopped and still for quite some time. but i pushed the power button, and a green light came on! i pushed a bunch of buttons, and rocks started pouring out the bottom of the train! i kept trying to stop them, but they just kept on a'coming! Emily tried it on the next train to the same effect. we both grabbed rocks from those piles under the train and walked back to the car with our railroad spikes, pieces of coal, huge metal screws, and under-the-train rocks, and that was that.

So we did it. I DID IT.
It was really one of my life goals, to hop a moving train. And even though i didn't get to ride with the railwaytramps to some other city and ride my way back, it was wonderful!

I don't think i've had such a wonderful, invigorating, semi dangerous but awesome experience since bridge jumping in Florida. i could actually FEEL my heart beating, so fast and strong, as that train rushed by!

oh man. best friend+Target+reading in the park+crackers and cheese+trains= second coolest thing i've ever done (first being hiking up a volcano and getting to spit on moving streams of lava).

Jealousy Demanding as the Grave

 

I’ve been thinking this morning about the jealousy of God.  Trying to fit it all in my head is just pointless, but He wants to be gazed upon, even with my feeble and incapable eyes and mind and heart.  So here I am, blogging.

 

 ⁶ Place me like a seal over your heart,
       like a seal on your arm;
       for love is as strong as death,
       its jealousy unyielding as the grave.
       It burns like blazing fire,
       like a mighty flame.  

 ⁷ Many waters cannot quench love;
       rivers cannot wash it away.
       If one were to give
       all the wealth of his house for love,
       it would be utterly scorned.

Song of Solomon 8:6-7

God is jealous for me.  He’s jealous for you.  He wants us, and He won’t stop wanting us.  How ridiculous.  Little old me.  Holy Jehovah.

He wants all of me and is unwilling to settle for less.  We wonder why He takes things away from us or asks us to wait.  Duh.  He wants us to be dependent on Him and knows that in no other state will we be happy.  Thin, worn out versions of happy are all around us, and they cost us far less than intimacy with a holy God.  But who else loves like He does?

I can’t contain it!  Unlike earthly lovers, He doesn’t express His jealousy by defensiveness or sarcasm or withholding His own love.  He takes His hurt heart, seeing our prostitution and rebellion and obstinacy, and decides instead of wrath to again and again give us more of Himself and pour out His love and mercy on us.  I have no choice but to return in the wake of the flood.  And there’s wrath, yes, but even that is love, for He knows nothing else.  What kind of uncaring, apathetic God would allow us to remain in our denial?  Not the Sacrificial Lamb, that’s for sure.

I just, I wish sometimes, in my fleshiest moments, that He didn’t want me so badly.  Or maybe if He could want me just as badly, but only desire part of me. 

Really, I am grateful for every last, painful-to-me attribute of God because after all, He IS perfection.  But this dying to self is hard to bear.  I’m crushed so often under the weight of His desire for me.  It presses me down and is my unlying mirror.  It’s the flood that “washes my house away but also makes me clean”. 

I want to love like that.  Toward Him and toward everyone.  How would the world (we) be changed if our days were a constant pouring out of oneself and that self really was wrapped around the Almighty?

I am just blown away.

Vacation with Mom Part Deux

Things i learned this trip:

• I AM STILL A BIG JERK. Seriously, i think i've progressed so much, more patient with people at work and friends and such, more laid back, not as demanding, and then BAM. In steps mother of jerk for not even a week and i'm impatient, demanding, claustrophobic, insisent on getting my way (even if only in my head), and downright bitchy when woken at unexpected or unwanted times.
• My husband, whoever he may be, will have his manly guitar playing hands full with me. I'm no treat to live with. Mess with my routine, space, or sleep, and all qualities worth loving in me burrow deep. He'll have to dig.
• There's nothing like your mom. Two decades plus a few years down, and she still just makes me feel wanted.
• Kissing parents on the lips is just weird ::shudder::
• I'm not old enough to know all the details of my parents' divorce.
• I never will be.
• I may have gotten my hippieishness from my mom. She's conservative in every sense of the word, but she finds little ways to rebel like always wearing more than one necklace and loves bold floral patterns and shirt dresses.
• I appeared depressed to my parents for my last few years of high school. Funny thing was, i was SO happy. I spent most of my time in my room, watching tv, hanging out with my mathlete and drama club/choir friends, and talking to my awesome then-boyfriend, Kyle :)
• I need my sister.

Vacation with Mom

 

I dropped Mom off at the airport this morning before heading to work, where I am now.  I should be working, but obviously I’m doing this instead.  Ate my CLIF bar on the way to work and just finished cantaloupe flavored yogurt.  (Remember, cantaloupes can’t but antelopes can.)  I hope it doesn’t smell up my trashcan later.  There’s nothing quite so identifiable and yucky as yogurt trash.  Bleh. 

 

I think I’ll make this an all day or most of the day draft, keeping it open and un “published” until I think I’ve gotten it all out.

 

The most commonly used adjective when people have asked me how the visit went is simply “good”.  It’s true.  It was very relaxing and laid back but still pretty full.  Mom was more than content to watch movies most nights (mostly ones I had at home already, which both saved me money and guaranteed they were movies I liked enough to buy).  We also went and saw two movies in the theater.  David (my step dad) isn’t too keen on the movie going scene (ha, it rhymed!), so it was a departure from the norm for her. 

 

We saw “Julie & Julia” and “Inglourious Basterds”.  The first was ok.  I’m glad I saw it but wish I would’ve waited for the dollar theater or to RedBox it.  Now the second, Inglourious Basterds, it was GOOD.  I’m not a huge Quentin Tarantino fan.  To be honest, blood for the sake of blood is just not my thing.  I don’t dislike his stuff.  I’d just prefer it sans gore.  But this movie was pretty awesome.  I enjoyed the mix of setting and style, that it was set in WWII France but still had classic Tarantino music and did the thing where you meet a new character and his name pops up in big, bold, comic book-esque writing.  Also, he always tries to make death look pretty.  And then he’ll go and show someone’s head getting beaten in.  It’s so strange.  Anyway, I liked the movie.  I liked that it ended in a way that’s NOT historically correct.  After all, movies are entertainment, and who says you have to be historically correct!  Sometimes it’s just not as interesting, and unfortunately I’m 100% American when it comes to my desire to be entertained. 

 

It was pretty cool and pretty weird having someone DO things for me and even weirder having someone BUY things for me!  I’ve lived alone for about 2 and a half years now, and even before that I dated this guy who was always broke.  I haven’t lived with my parents for any length of time in about 5 years.  So I’m kind of used to buying my own things.  It’s how it should be.  It was just really hard to walk through a grocery store where my mom said “let’s go shopping.  Get whatever you’d normally get for groceries” and actually do what she wanted me to do.  Good thing I normally shop the sales and was able to get out of there for cheaper than I normally would’ve if I were by myself.  Mom bought me a patchwork quilt at the flea market.  I’ve always loved them, not the old woman floral kind, though they have their place, but the different colors and patterns cool kind!  We got it home, and she mended a few tears that were in the quilt.  So now it’s kind of store bought AND hand stitched by my momma!  Cool! 

 

We got to hang out with Emily’s mom, Sue, who not only bought us delicious cake (white, chocolate, and carrot) but showed us hilarious baby pictures of EmiFace and drove us up into the mountains to see the gorgeous canyon.  I’d wanted so badly to drive her up there myself, but with the recently unreliability of my vehicle, it seemed more prudent not to do so.  I shared the backseat (kind of shared, kind of got trampled on but whatever) with Braylee and nearly got carsick but didn’t tell anyone.  It was so beautiful nevertheless.  I’m not a huge pine tree fan.  Give me a big leafy shade tree and a book any day.  But when you get up above the city and you can just look down on everything, it’s just so peaceful.  It reminds you in a really tangible way of how small you are, how BIG God is, and how He’s created everything to glorify and partially reflect Himself.  And He thinks I’M beautiful.  Crazy.  Crazy wonderful huge God.

 

“We’re all born into magic, but as we get older it’s taken from us.” ~The Mentalist

 

Childlike.  Not Childish.

 

Anyway, there was a serious side to this trip, too.  Mostly it was fun and light and happy.  But a few months back, after talking to Mom on the phone, I really felt like God was telling me I had to talk to her about something serious, something not fun and not easy to bring up:  forgiving my dad.  The divorce happened a long time ago, almost twenty years ago now.  But it’s become apparent to me recently that she hasn’t forgiven him.  It’s not that she talks bad about him or is openly angry or bitter.  It’s the little things.   It’s the tone and undercurrent to what she’s said a few times recently.  I guess I’ve known it all along, but God just now told me to bring it up.  Maybe I just now have ears to hear or a heart that’s able to communicate all this in love and empathy but also in truth.  Who knows.  But I’ve been nervous for a while about the actual doing of this thing.  First of all, I’ve never been in her situation.  Yes, I was affected by the divorce, but to be honest, I was so young that I don’t remember the vast majority of it.  My mom was obviously hardest hit, followed by my sister who was just old enough to grasp the concept of abandonment and betrayal.  To this day I thank God for whatever protective bubble was put around me and my heart.  I think every child of a divorce has some sort of abandonment issues.  Something that’s meant to be permanent is proven disposable, and that’s enough to make anyone nervous.  I’ve also been cheated on.  The person I kind of sacrificed everything for was cheating on me the whole time.  I didn’t find out until long after we’d already broken up.  But still, I have to forgive him all the time, re-forgive… yikes.  That’s the closest I get to understanding her pain, and it’s not really even close.  So there was that.  Also, it’s hard to explain to someone who loves God but seems to have little understanding about the Holy Spirit how you just “feel” like you’re supposed to tell her something.  There’s a fine line between speaking out in power and boldness and sounding like a super religious quack! 

 

So anyway, mom and I were having this conversation (I’m not sure how it started.) that turned out being about my step dad and how he just is unwilling or unable to change.  We talked about how I kind of retreated within myself after my sister left for college and how much it worried my mom.  It’s kind of funny, because I remember those years being so good.  I’d finally figured out that if I just avoided talking to my step dad and went straight to my room after I got home that I could also avoid the conflict that came with him.  Unfortunately it meant avoiding my mom, too, but at the time it seemed worth it to alleviate the strain and constant arguments in the household.  Even now I think to myself “I wish I’d have figured that out sooner.  I could’ve avoided so much heartache.”  I never knew my mother was worried for me then.  Knowing that, I’m still not sure I would’ve done anything different.  I just don’t think I had the emotional/spiritual capacity then to “be the bigger person” and surely not repeatedly.  It was self preservation.  I know we’re not supposed to fight our own battles.  God is the lifter of our heads and our defense.  With the hurt that’d built up to that point, though, it was fight or flight.  Fighting never got me anywhere but more angry and more hurt, so flight seemed the rational option.  So anyway, we were talking about this, and I got around to how I have to forgive David every time I think of him, how it’s difficult and a process and only God that will allow forgiveness to happen because I don’t know how to let go of the offense.  It just seemed the right time to present the idea of forgiveness to Mom.

 

And I did.  I told her that I’d felt for a few months now that God had been telling me to tell her something, but that I wanted to do it in person.  And I just laid it out there:  You have to forgive dad.  I told her that it wasn’t about him, whether he deserves it or not, whether he’s changed or not.  (in my opinion, he’s SO changed, changed by the Holy Spirit, changed by time and love and life, but mostly Jesus, but claiming all this would’ve been irrelevant and beside the point).  I told her she needed to let go because it’s the only way she’d ever heal, that it’s only hurting her, but more importantly it puts a barrier up between her and God.  But then the HARD part came.  She cried.  My mom has a huge heart, it’s easy to see, but I’ve very rarely seen her cry for any reason, much less the biggest hurt of her life.  She cried and said she hasn’t forgiven him and doesn’t know how.  She said it’s not fair that the one who does the abandoning always seems to move on just fine.  She said she loves David, my step dad, loves him so much and would do anything for him, would never leave him, is so glad he was brought into her life.  But she said it.  The thing that keeps pushing itself back into my mind since this conversation, the thing I don’t know what to do with.  This one thing makes me feel like a child again because I feel like I can’t handle it, like I shouldn’t be privy to this information, like I have to do something but can’t do anything.  It breaks my heart.  She said “But I still love your dad.  I know he’s happy now and he and kim have a great relationship, but WE could’ve been great.”

 

If you’re reading this, please please keep this information here.  You’re all my closest friends, and I need to get this out of me, if only by typing it in this entry.  This is my mother’s innermost thing, and I’m only sharing it now because the few of you that read this are the ones I share everything with anyway.  No one else even knows this exists.  I know I kind of always make everything about me, and this is a good example, taking something that’s my mom’s hurt and making it about myself.  I guess I just don’t know what to do with this.  I feel like my heart has weighed hundreds of pounds in my chest since hearing this.  I guess all along I’d thought she was angry, hurt, bitter, resentful, and I think those things are there too.  it’s just that I never considered this a case of unrequited love, of one person’s heart still loving and the other’s simply ceasing to love.  Looking now it’s so obvious.  I’ve been there.  I wish I would’ve been the one who broke it off with RC.  I was mistreated, beat down (don’t worry, not physically), and taken advantage of, and still I didn’t have the wherewithall to end it.  and I kept loving him long after the relationship ended.  It didn’t end for me, not then at least.  I never thought of my mom and dad’s marriage the same way. 

 

So I’ve been walking around bearing this weight, and I don’t know how to get rid of it. 

 

I think I have more to say.  However, this is such a long post that I don’t think I’ll write more.  If you read it, please throw up a prayer for me and for sure one for mom.  I think I’ve done what God wanted me to do, but it’s nothing if she doesn’t let Him do the work.  And He SO wants to.