He said “ok… I’m flying home kinda almost just to meet you”

 

He said he thinks that by next year I won’t have to spend Valentine’s Day alone.

 

Hehe.

He.

one big fat water metaphor

If Your Spirit is the ocean, flowing wildly in pattern and force, lulling me to sleep and roaring in unrestraint, then Your Son is the air, allowing by His purity my very next breath, alternative to the death I fully deserver.  And You, my Master, are the shore, unchanging and warm, shifting and solid, beyond my comprehension in Your infinity.

 

If then, You are the sea, the air, and the shore, then I desire nothing other than to be forever adrift on the surface of the sea.

 

A lifeless form concedes more readily to the direction of waves, so dead I shall be.  Mind awake, soul longing for life, heart pricked and gushing, but will surrendered. 

 

And as I’m carried by You, Spirit, my eyes will ever be on You, Savior.  And my face will shine with salt as You show me who I am and who I am not.

 

Gazing at You, carried by You, conveyed always toward You.  As I die, the less often I struggle, the closer You get, the more I’m home.

 

Gazing at You, carried by You, knowing You’re my destination, what a paradise.  Nothing to hear, see, or taste but vivid Salvation.  Truth pervasive.  No hiding or pretense or striving.

 

You are enough, my Jesus, and all I want in this life.  Let today flow seamlessly into eternity, where I’ll sing praises to You that are untainted by death.  I’ll lay my crowns down a million times and then start again.

10/09/10

My heart’s been feeling awfully cramped lately.  Cramped and precariously balanced:  ready to charge into battle, sink into wallowing oblivion, or rejoice in a moment, or all 3 in three consecutive moments.  Reminds me of a boulder, set up by Wyle-E-Coyote on top of a steep and narrow pass, ready to fall, destined not only to fall on the wrong target, but since this boulder is a metaphor of my heart, destined also to splatter and take on collateral damage.

 

I couldn’t place it before now, and to be honest, though this feels like an epiphany right now, sitting up on Gold Camp Road, looking over the city, listening to Ray LaMontagne alone in the October near-cold, I doubt it’s the complete answer.

 

But do we ever have the complete answers?  Nope.  In a different state of mind I might say it’s the non-answers that make life interesting.  But tonight, no dice.  Answers would be nice, because a clean cut version of me is much more user-friendly.

 

And just so you know, I’d normally cut myself off Ray’s music so as to not drown the world in a sudden flow of emotion.  However, tonight I feel the catharsis coming, and will therefore aid the process rather than stifle it.  So Ray stays.

 

I’ve been thinking that maybe I’ve begun seeing myself as the sum of all my awkward parts, all my flaws.  I don’t mean awkward like “haha, oh sam, you’re so odd”.  I mean awkward like “this box I’m carrying isn’t really heavy, just awkward.”

 

Truly, I have a lot of those can’t-fit-in-people’s-arms-well qualities.  I’m moody and over-sensitive and loud and often brash.  I’m needy and dramatic and selfish in my action about 60% of the time, selfish in my thoughts pretty much always.  I’m and attention hog and a rabid silence seeker when the inclination hits me.  A lot of these thing just shouldn’t belong together but cohabit somewhere in the area beneath my ribs, due south of the mouth that communicates so frequently and expressively.  I’m a little girl who’s scared of nearly everything I haven’t experienced, but I want to be treated like a time-worn veteran of the world.  So often I feel like both at the same time.

 

Lately these things are all I can see.  And I feel like an awkward, but not heavy, box that my friends (and even I) can’t quite figure out how to manage.

 

Like there are just too many character flaws, that I’m far more a burden than something that makes life better.

 

Because you see, even if the box isn’t heavy, it’s still hard to carry, and that’s what you remember.

 

I just don’t want to be remembered that way.

 

Somewhere in the logic and positivity and I think truth I have stored up in my mind I really do know that all these things are beauty, that I’m just looking at them from the wrong angle or something.  But I can no more shift my perspective by willing myself to do so than a blind person can just decide to one day see clearly.

 

What I can do is cry. 

I can once again acknowledge my utter dependence on a God I cannot see and give up.  Because that invisible and never-changing, never-exhausted Mercy always comes to save me from my darkness.  My sin darkness and my dark thoughts.  They roll in like deep purple clouds, and He breaks through again like the sun.

 

I hate being charity, but it’s what I need regardless, to be rescued by people and God and not be able to repay it.  And I need your charity, WorldAtLarge, maybe to try and put on a happy face when you realize mid-carry that something you thought was a good thing and was initially easy to bear is actually incredibly awkward to carry and not ideal.  Try and realize I’m not so much a weighty load to carry, and that I might be worth it if you can only find the patience and grace to keep your arms around me. 

 

I can’t promise I’ll always offer you the same grace and long-suffering.  I hope I will.  Maybe the best I’ll be able to work up is empathy and pray it’s enough. 

pre-sown soil

dry and in rows

anticipating

gasping is more like it

 

dig me up

tear me up

dig deep because the poison’s deep down

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

DeeAnne & Hannah

I’ve never thought of the act of Christian giving as merciful.  I mean, I have, but only in the sense that when I give to someone, monetarily or by serving, I’M being merciful.  I’ve never thought of how this comment to tithe, this “if you love me, feed my sheep” is a merciful command, seeing as it’s an alternative to what God could require.

 

For expediency’s and my focus’s sake, I won’t even go into martyrdom, which requires your actual life instead of the watered down “daily dying” most Christians convince themselves they’re doing.  I just mean in simple regards to money.

 

God doesn’t NEED your money, nor does He need mine.  He’s not in need of anything, and yet He commands me to give.  He’ll be glorified in my closed or open-handedness, because nothing I do here can diminish His beauty.  But instead of flaunting this absolute lack of need of me, He allows me to participate in what He’s trying to do.  he lets me point to Him in my own feeble way, like a child pointing to the summer sun, like anyone could miss it, feeling useful.

 

So when He tells me in His Word to give back 10%, He’s almost being indulgent, allowing me to feel like I’m helping.  And when He sends DeeAnne, a beautiful woman with eyes like sea glass, I can give her a few meager bucks and stare into the face of the one Jesus loves, His Bride.  He lets me hold her close for a small moment and smell cigarettes and time and feel at home in her arms because we’re both so human and so His.  If He wanted my money to go to DeeAnne, He could take it in all sorts of ways.  Instead He lets me look into faces, hear the stories, hand over money that I feel I downright need, and each time die a little more to me and live a small bit more in Him.

 

How merciful and how striking, this act of giving I so often begrudge. 

 

So I have no freakin clue where my rent’s coming from in the next few days.  Am I supposed to care about this strain when I’ve been given such riches as last night?  Sharing in His glory even though I’ve no right to call it my own.

 

No one can kill that.  No one can dull it or steal it, like every single thing I see around me.

 

I need more of this, because frankly this world sucks in comparison to the glimpses of the eternal He allows me to see.  I’m far too attached to what I feel and see and walk through.  The fact is:  nothing I do matters unless it’s pointing to Him.  Because even though He doesn’t need my help or my not-pure love gestures, it’s those things I do that will matter most and will set me on fire, kill me and make me live, define me and dissolve my self image.

 

He’s the only freedom I know.  He’s everything.

NO HIDING

In church yesterday, the worship team did a song I love but haven’t heard very much before, called “Hold Me Now”, by Hillsong.  It’s about when we reach Heaven, and it’s gorgeous.

 

This is the chorus:

No weeping, no hurt or pain

No suffering, You hold me now, You hold me now

No darkness, no sick or lame

No hiding, You hold me now, You hold me now

 

The thing that hit me most then and it still hitting me now is the “no hiding” part.  I kept getting choked up at that part of the song, had to stop singing and breathe. 

 

I’m not sure what it is, but lately, the thin film of secrecy and lies and trying too hard that’s stretched thin and taught around every person, myself included, has been very evident to me in daily life.  I see it in myself, the ways I try to manipulate how people perceive me, the ways I try to use even God as a means make myself seem less in need of Him.  I see it more so in others, partly because God’s slowly and surely erasing this need in me to be approved of, and partly because I’m a selfish person at my core who sees flaws in others far more quickly than in myself.

 

But it’s starting to actually piss me off.  This ever-present self conscious state people walk around in, this need for approval we’re constantly catering to, the lie that we’ve got it all together even as Christians, the want and assumed need to hide all that’s really important.  It’s all I’m seeing.  I’m looking at friends, strangers, myself, and am acutely aware of the striving.

 

Makes me want to scream:  Fuck this!  The lies and day to day plodding through circumstances, through trivial earthly things, as if they matter in the long run!  None of this matters!  I just want my Savior, here and now.  RIGHT NOW!  Why aren’t You closer!

 

(After reviewing this before publishing, I’ve become aware that the above word choice may be strange, using the f word and longing for a Savior in the same sentence. Sorry.  But not really.)

 

Anyway… I know we’re not only here on earth regardless but that we’re called to make disciples, to “bloom where you’re planted” and such.  Most of the time I really love this world, the beauty, the good, the people.  And this is not really a departure from that train of thought.  It’s a feeling of protection for it, I think.  I’m just tired of the distance I feel between myself and my God, the distance that can’t be overcome no matter how I plead because of the sin that still plagues me on this earth.  I’m tired of the distance I feel between myself and other people, the strange little awkwardnesses and friction, the fact that I can never fully know another human.  I’m tired of the things the enemy tries (and succeeds) in stealing from us day to day, down to our very identity in Christ, which we so easily forget but is so crucial to living at all.

 

I’m a dreamer, not suicidal, I promise.  I guess I just miss my God.  I’m tired today of this sham of a world, subpar and NOT what I was made for.  I can’t get my arms around Him, and that’s all I want.  Everything here, even the most beautiful things, are shadows and many-mirrored reflections of the Good in which I was supposed to and will some day dwell.

 

Ugh.  Ok… that’s all I guess.

Get off my back, Sarah!

This blog is fittingly named because Sarah Tiedemann keeps bugging me about the infrequency of my blog lately, how I haven’t written in forever.  So, here it is Sarah.  It’s not that I haven’t wanted to write or had content about which TO write, but not having a computer at home and only writing when the mood hits means that the planets have to align just so in order for me to actual get one of these published.

 

Planets?  Aligned.

So anyway, for a little while there, maybe a couple months, I really felt like if God was saying anything, I just couldn’t hear.  I think this happens for a number of reasons, but this time I really just think it’s because I finished reading Genesis and then didn’t have any direction as to where to read next in the Bible.  I find that when I just flip around and read where I feel like reading that night or do the where-your-finger-lands thing, what I get out of reading/studying is pretty reciprocal.  When I focus on one or two books of the Bible, the same is true, and I get a more focused outcome.

 

However, in those months, the one thing that kept hitting me again and again is how cool it is that God is unchangeable.  Now I know this is a pretty elementary Christian principal, but you know how it is when something old hits you afresh.  I was just overwhelmed during this time of supposed dryness with the fact the Jesus sits enthroned in Heaven, forever being praised and adored by the elders, angels, and Heavenly beings, and that nothing I could do/say/believe/feel has any sway on that.  Nothing I do wrong or say to misrepresent Him can diminish His glory and triumph in the slightest.  I think so often Christians put so much pressure on themselves to be perfect, and in a way we should because we have the great Motivator pushing us to be holy and know God more; at the same time, though, we make our mistakes or decisions tantamount to God’s glorification, and that’s simply not reality.  This was and has continued to be so comforting to me.  I mess up a lot.  It’s nice to have just this simple comfort.  In my darkest moments, the saints are still crying “holy holy holy is the Lord God Almighty!!!” and laying down THEIR crowns.  ::sigh::

 

Ok, so that’s that. 

 

Next I’ll tell you all about what’s been happening in me recently, like over the past few weeks.  Sometimes I’m so glad to have this blog because it lets me share things with the people I love most pretty easily.  I guess strangers can read this, too, which is a little odd really, but I know for a fact that my best friends are “subscribers” or are getting the email sent to them.  It allows me to not have to retell the story multiple times.  In this case, I’m glad for this blog because it allows me to share what God’s been doing in me without broadcasting it to the world in pride of myself like I’d like to sometimes.  Honestly, I’m so lame.  Whenever God does something cool in me, my go-to response is to tell everyone, not necessarily so He gets the glory, but so I do.  Just another example of confirming the Bible’s truth of my righteousness being as filthy rags.  So on here I get to tell the people that won’t pat me on the back for being a good person or turning a corner.  You’re the people that will glorify God for this and not me, who’ll pray for me in this new phase, who’ll maybe think “jeez Sam, finally.  been a long time coming,” and I so value that.

 

A few weeks ago, maybe a month ago now, I was sitting in church listening to Pastor Gary preach about living a life of service when God says to me something like “Sam, you’ve been right.  I HAVE wanted you to get alone with me and not get involved in church for the past several years.  I’ve wanted you to be alone with me.  That wasn’t a lie.  But from this point on, if you don’t serve, it’s laziness.”  This was both comforting and scary.  Comforting because sometimes I’ve felt pretty crazy telling people I’m not “supposed” to serve in the church right now, “right now” being the past couple years.  It kind of goes against what’s normally acceptable and expected from church goers.  I’ve known it’s true, but I’ve also been aware that from the outside it probably comes across as an excuse.  And this was scary because, well, I’m not sure I want to move on from this me-and-God bubble I’ve been in.  It hasn’t been rapturous by any means.  It has been that, but it’s also been hard and offensive and uncomfortable and painful.  It’s not been a joy ride all along because God’s been pulling things out of me and shining light on places I wasn’t even aware were dark, but it’s been so… just, good.  He’s inched closer and closer to the throne of my heart, while pushing the other things that were/are there aside. 

 

Now He’s told me I have to emerge from this painful/beautiful cocoon, and frankly I don’t wanna!

 

But He knows how I work, that I need strong words, and He’s told me I either serve or am lazy.  And laziness never got anyone more of Him.

 

So I’ve been praying about that and asking advice as to where I should get involved from leaders I trust and friends I trust. 

 

In the meantime, Pastor goes on to teach about living generously and living a giving lifestyle.  There’s no building or fundraising campaign, no thermometer sign on stage to enrage Matt Chandler (or me).  He’s simply said he wants us to be free from the things that so easily bind us to this life, to things that don’t matter but seem to.  And then the book my friends and I have been studying together had a chapter about the same thing:  living generously.

 

Needless to say, I’ve been very convicted about this.  (Sidenote:  I hate that the word convicted gets such a bad rap.  I feel very OldSouthCondemnationPreacher when I say it, and that’s dumb considering it’s one of the principal functions of the Holy Spirit.)  And this feeling of sadness for my lack of generous lifestyle kept building with each thing I heard about it.  I’ve never continually tithed.  Ever since I’ve had a job I just give when I have enough to do so, and that’s not how it’s supposed to be.  I mean, when have you or when have you known me to have money lying around with no purpose?  But somehow in my head it’s never seemed like stealing from God or exhibiting a lack of faith or obedience.  Instead, it’s seemed like something that, if I did tithe, would show more faith.  So I ended up patting myself on the back for the few times I’d tithe rather than chastising myself for the far greater amount of times I didn’t.  Then I’d comfort myself by thinking that it was okay that I didn’t give money because I was willing to give in other ways, of my time or possessions.  But in the end, this was a lie, too, as I never made it a point to do so.  I’m not sure if I thought people would just seek me out and ask me for my time and stuff or what, but the long and short of it is obviously that I didn’t care enough to give at all.  And this has been going on since I started working in high school.  No wonder my money’s always been out of whack.  Granted, I may just always be one of those people who struggles with money management, but I don’t believe the tithing thing is separate either.  The physical and spiritual are never completely separate for the Christ follower.

 

THEN I realized that my home, my actual physical house, is not in order.  It’s always messy, and I don’t mean just cluttered or laundry-strewn.  I mean disgusting.  I literally won’t let people in because their perceptions of me would change.  Close friends would be justified in abandoning me, it’s that bad.  How can I live a life where my possessions aren’t my own if I can’t even let people come into my house unplanned? 

 

In addition to all this, I’ve been realizing for about a year now how much of my life is strictly dictated by convenience.  It’s a lot of why I became a vegetarian, because I realized I didn’t really like meat all THAT much.  I only really ate it because there were pre-packaged sandwiches in the cafeteria at church, and it’s what I’d always known.  I didn’t want to treat lightly something as important as nourishing myself.  What I put into my body matters, and I didn’t want that to be determined by habit or upbringing or culture.  So, because I don’t really regulate myself well and am instead an all or nothing person if I want to change anything, I stopped eating meat and haven’t for about 11 months now.  It’s been really good.

 

Last week I realized the same thing is true about my television.  About 80% of the time I watched it out of convenience.  I’d come home from work and turn the tv on, because I’ve been doing that since I can remember, even in elementary school, until I figured out what I wanted to do that night.  And if I didn’t find anything to do, I’d just keep watching, regardless of if I was actually interested in what was on the screen.  And yes, I read a lot, but I’d read in addition to tv, not instead of.  So really tv was costing me sleep, too.

 

So, as a result of all these things and realizations happening at the same time, as of Tuesday night, I’ve officially cleaned out my house.  Not just cleaned, cleaned out. 

 

I gave my bunk beds to a family at church who just adopted a little boy and needed them.  I gave my tv to a local homeless/poor ministry, two ladies that basically moved into the ghetto in order to minister there and live a life that to me really defines what being “poured out on behalf of the poor” looks like.  (This is a less drastic move than it might seem because Emily’s boyfriend Tony Tivos weekly the two shows that I watch routinely.  Emily watches the same shows, and we generally try and watch them together.  So it’s not like I won’t get to see the things I really want to see.)  I gave away two trash bags of clothes (and still my clothes barely fit in my closet.  How did I get this way?) and a box of random items collected from sorting through my drawers, storage, and under my bed to those same ladies.  And my house is the cleanest it’s been since I moved in.

 

I’m sleeping on my couch for the time being, which is uncomfortable but to the same degree as my old futon/bed was.  Also, this paring down of my furniture’s not as big a deal as it might be otherwise because when my sister Jesse moves out here in October, she’s agreed to bring me a bed from my mom’s house in TN and a couch from my parents’ house in KY.  So at most I’ll be waiting a couple months for these things, and I’ll actually have nicer stuff than I did before.

 

With my house decorated more sparsely and everything cleaned out I feel like I can breathe deeper, like there’s more room for my thoughts and soul.  Funny, that connection between the physical and the spiritual/mental/emotional.

 

This is all really just a gesture.  I just want to show God that I’m serious about living the life I want to live, and HE wants me to live, now instead of someday.  That I want to live sacrificially, with my time and money and resources.  I have no clue how I’m going to tithe with all the payments I have coming up, but I’m praying for wisdom and understanding (the book of the Bible I’m reading now is Proverbs, sometimes accompanied by 1John).  And even though I know He’s not a multiplication table God, giving me back what I put in like a coin machine, I do trust that He sees my heart, that He sees my actions for what they are:  a heart cry of devotion to Him at any cost, of absolute not knowing how to be better but willingness anyway.  I pray that He sees my spirit and is refreshed by what He sees (not that He gets tired).

 

And I pray that He’ll help me change “the way I’ve always been” regarding money, entertainment, food, comfort, relationships.

 

This has the potential to be far-reaching in more areas than I think I’d bargained for originally.  Like for instance, I think when I was younger I thought that mismanaging money was ok because some day I’d get married and I’d let my husband manage our finances.  I’d be fine with being given a budget.  I know maybe that’s dumb to some of you guys (and it is silly), but really someone’s got to be in charge of money in a marriage; and knowing my poor money skills, I just figured it wouldn’t be me.  But I have pretty high standards, I think, for what I want in a man.  And I want to be the kind of woman a man like that would want.  I don’t WANT him to have to swoop in and fix all these areas of my life.  Marriage is hard enough and stretches and refines who you are enough without me bringing in things I could’ve changed in my singleness and just decided wasn’t necessary.

 

Also, now that I don’t have a tv, I don’t have that distraction.  It allows me more free time at home to, say, cook and prepare meals for myself throughout the week instead of buying food and letting some of it go bad before I can get to it or spend extra money in the cafeteria at work. 

 

I just don’t want to live my life like anything’s permanent other than Jesus.  Like I said earlier, He’s enthroned regardless.  All I can do is choose to join in His praise or join in the praise of myself, and all these modifications I’ve made/am trying to make are just working toward accomplishing the former.

 

Anyway, this entry has been long enough, although I could go on.  The repercussions of this, I can already tell, will be far-reaching and difficult but really really good.

 

Pray for me if you think of it.  This is new and challenging and uncomfortable but wonderful, and I know when anything big like this happens in someone’s life the enemy isn’t happy.

 

 

 

 

laundry on my floor

Those of you who have lived with me or even been around me very long know that I am NOT a clean freak.  As a matter of fact, I just don’t mind walking over and on top of clothes in order to get across my room.  I wish it was different;  I know it’s disgusting, but most of the time I’d just rather be disgusting than do laundry.  So sue me.

 

Anyway, there’s this circuit training workout class that starts at work today, and I’ve signed up to attend.  Well last night I was digging through the laundry scattered in the corner of my room by my closet (the only place where, if I stack clothes, they’re out of the path to the bathroom) for a sports bra (I have two and could find neither) and was really getting frustrated in my unsuccessful search.  I began throwing clothes and shoes every which way, thinking I’d recently seen the illusive sports bra hiding in the dark at the bottom of the pile.  If I could JUST get to the bottom of the pile, surely it’d be where I last saw it.

 

So my frustration grows and grows (of course focusing it on inanimate objects that are OBVIOUSLY plotting against me) only to finally, in a big flop of surrender, sit down on the ground cross-legged, amidst the dunes of clothing.  I actually said out loud “fine, I’ll just sit here then.”  Not 5 seconds later did I find my dumb bra, at the bottom, right where I saw it last.

 

Then something happened that I should be used to by now but just am not:  God spoke to me in the exact way I’d understand.  It’s crazy how He does that, alters not His message but the delivery in order for my pea-sized and underdeveloped human intellect to grasp it.  Sam’s language of choice:  metaphor.

 

God took this very basic act of searching for undergarments in a pile of clothing to calm my fears and thoughts, to speak to me as clearly and as surprisingly as if it’d been Balaam’s talking donkey from Numbers 22.

 

Stop striving.  The moment you just give up the search, throw off your boxing gloves, surrender yourself to the honest truth that you can’t dig your way, or pray your way, or will your way to an answer (or to your sports bra), you’ll find it.  I’m not saying praying is a bad plan of action when you’re confused or sad or overwhelmed.  I know more than I know the color of my own eyes that God wants to hear about our broken hearts.  He wants to hear from our lips exactly what we need, why He’s the one we’re bringing our brokenness to, that we trust Him, that we don’t trust Him, anything.  He’s such a flawless Lover that He wants to know our emotions even if they’re irrational, and He won’t hold what we say against us later as having been stupid or accusatory or morose.  He just wants my heart, no matter how childish and beating-for-its-own-good it is.  He WANTS my uselessness.  He WANTS my tied hands.  He knows I’m ridiculous when I question myself and Him and “how things are”, but He’s sovereign and outside of time enough that my freaking out was all part of the plan anyway. 

 

All this may be old hat to you, but it doesn’t change the dramatic, universe-altering truth of it all.

 

So, I give up.  I’m sitting down in the middle of the pile of mingled clean and dirty clothes that is my life.  As of that moment, and as of this first moment of putting it into type, I’m admitting once more that the things I’ve been struggling with and trying to will myself to get over:  the loneliness in my family-less Colorado Springs, not being satisfied with my station in life (career and relationship), the memory of sin spiral that inevitably follows the first things listed; these things, I cannot rescue myself from. 

 

You’re gonna have to do it, God.  Make diamonds from this dirt, because I got nothin.  You’re the one who gives me faith to believe at all, so it can’t be a stretch to ask You to just swoop in and save me from my stupid thought patterns. 

 

After this revelation last night, God told me to begin reading in Joshua.  For the first time in weeks I have some direction as to where to read in the Bible.  This led me to Psalm 25, which fits my wallowing heart just perfectly.  Thank you, Holy Spirit.  Out of the depths You’re drawing me continually.

6/21/2010

Everything’s blooming, and I wilt.

Every one is blooming.

How can there be such juxtaposition in my head?

Walking with God is so painful sometimes.

But were it not for His sovereignty.

 

You try to be outward focused.

Try and be “upward” focused.

Nice Christian term.

 

But my SELF feels like weeping

And my SELF feels like shaking my fist,

If not at the heavens, then at people around me.

 

Being left is no fun.

It’s horrible and isolating and foggy and not at all heroic.

It proves me a child despite my age and pretty words.

 

Proves me not-so-faithful.

REPENT

It’s such a hated word.  Honestly, when I hear the word “repent” or see it in capital letters, my mind immediately goes to the fire and brimstone preachers of the deep south, the crazed evangelical movements that give the Holy Spirit a bad rap for being more about people rolling on the floor barking and laughing than about changing people’s lives and hearts, and a few crazies I’ve known who decide they know the year and date of our Savior’s return, spend a short time living like their breaths are numbered, pushing their hypotheses down people’s throats, and then revert back to lukewarm-ness (or at least normalcy) soon after.  I think most people probably feel the same.  I mean, if my mind goes there initially, me, having grown up in church, having loved Jesus since before I can remember, then I can only imagine what other, less inculcated people think when they hear “repent”. 

 

The truth remains, repentance is Biblical.  And the churches that pedal a cheaper, easier, less sacrificial version of salvation are prostituting the Gospel, and it ceases to be the Gospel at all.

 

I was reminded of this last night when I read Psalm 51.  Most of us church goers will know it because of the song that comes from it:  Create in me a clean heart, oh God, and renew a right spirit within me…

 

But I wasn’t super aware of the rest of the Psalm, the beginning where David admits pretty forthrightly that there’s nothing he can do to separate himself from his sin, that it’s so built in and natural to him that his sin is “always before” him.  He acknowledges again that we’re born into iniquity and again pleads to be saved from himself.

 

I realized I haven’t said any of this to God recently.  It’s so easy to apologize to God for injustices against our fellow man.  We can see those.  We remember them if we look back over our day.  A bitter thought here, a divisive comment there, whole conversations of gossip started or not stopped.  However, I haven’t apologized for those things and asked for forgiveness in regards to my sins against God Himself.  David says, “Against You, You only, have I sinned and one what is evil in Your sight.” 

 

Now I don’t think that God sits up on His throne with a check sheet going “Hmm, well she apologized for her sins against man.  Check.  But what about her sins against ME?!”

 

He’s more gracious than that.  He IS grace. 

 

What I do know, though, is that for God to be glorified in my life, I must be humbled.  And repentance humbles.  Knowing that no matter what I’ve done for, against, in regards to others, my sins are all against the Father of light, knowing that every infraction of the law of Heaven is a direct violation Love, knowing that every sin is treason against a holy King, and I deserve death; knowing these things and feeling them again makes me feel much more acutely my need for Jesus, for His pain, blood, death, and victory.  I’m utterly helpless on my own.

 

Repent cannot be allowed to be a dirty word to us.

 

In fact, though I don’t claim to be prophetic and speak “thus sayeth the Lord” into your life about this, I’d be willing to bet you should take some time to repent right now.  Because whether you are soaring high above the cares of Earth right now, God speaking into your life each moment of His glory and mercy and of your purpose and holiness as part of His royal priesthood, or if you’re keenly aware of your fallen-ness and are being humbled again and again, in a semi-constant state of asking for forgiveness, our repentance lifts Him up.  It sets Jesus, our brother and God and King, in the highest place, where He should be, glittering and crystal for all to see. 

 

Do it again.  Do it now.  Acknowledge your blasphemy because it’s the truth, and the acceptance that our hands are tied for saving ourselves is the linchpin of Belief. 

 

Remember that the word used in Psalm 51 and then in the song is CREATE in me a clean heart, oh God.  Not fashion or temper or some use of change.  Create, meaning to make or design out of materials not yet existent.  This is not some ritual cleansing like a carpet cleaning where God takes what we already have that’s ours and removes some stuff and then leaves us A-okay.  It’s a GIFT.  New and sparkly and ours from Jehovah!

 

The sooner we acknowledge this and the more often we truly acknowledge this, humbling ourselves as the fallen, ever-selfish creatures we are, the closer we’ll be to knowing God in all His mystery and perfection.

Inextricable.

I hung out with a friend of mine last week who decided recently, after 15+ years of going to church, professing to be a Christian, that he's really an atheist. According to him, he'd been questioning the Christian faith for a while but finally gained enough perspective (and guts really) to declare this huge switch out loud and to the masses. We went to a free documentary showing at the Fine Arts Center a few blocks from my house. It was "Bringing Down a Dictator", which chroniced the nonviolent overthrow of Serbian Socialist party leader Slobodan Milosevic by a revolutionary group started in the nation's colleges called Otpor. They started with little money or backing in numbers and ended up radically changing the nation. It's crazy, and it was just anti-establishment enough that my friend Kevin would want to go. Plus, not many of my friends like to go to those type things with me.



So anyway, hanging out with him's gotten me thinking: How could someone just walk away from our Jesus?



I mean, to be fair, faith has always been one of my spiritual gifts. It's right up there with mercy and exhortation. So maybe i'm just not wired to understand his choice. Maybe it's not fair for me to pose this question without giving him a chance to respond. But, it's by blog. So there.



There are moments for me, fleeting, almost-not-there moments, when the thought enters my mind "what if this is all for nothing? what if this God i serve is actually fake and i will have spent my whole life not only having served and studied and worshiped a made up deity, but i'll have encouraged others in that lie also? I will have quite literally WASTED my time here." But like i said, those moments are so fleeting for me, for a number of super not-scientific reasons.



So many people try and prove the existence of God with facts and studies and research. Maybe i should be that way. I'm sure my faith would appeal to a broader circle of people that way, the intelligentista perhaps. But i'm just not about that. Figures and proofs have never made much sense to me, even while limping my way to an A in Calculus!



The thing that keeps me believing, that makes it impossible for me to separate myself from the belief in Jehovah, King of the Jews and Gentiles and me, is how i FEEL Him so acutely:

Singing songs to Him fills my heart like no other singing. No other song type, no matter the well-written lyrics or beautiful harmony, can move me to tears and change me quite like "Oh the Wonderful Cross" or a number of old and new worship songs. You don't see me crying over Miley Cyrus songs (although i'll defend her stuff as catchy and fun til the day i die).

Then there's the tangible distance sometimes. I can tell when i've let my sin or apathy separate us even a little, and i'm just NOT okay with it! It makes my spirit scramble. It makes my heart ache with longing for Him, just to be back as close as i can be to His heart, His side. I've never felt that sense of need before, desperation and excitement, losing my breath in that momentary realization that i need Him so badly. I've not experienced that kind of panic in any other relationship, not in a romantic relationship, not in a fight with a best friend or family member, and i've not experienced that sense of relief and completeness when I'm near Him again, not in a lover's bed or a beautiful, peaceful day, or a family reunion.

I could no more separate myself from Him now than i could willingly give up my brain or my heart and expect my body to keep functioning. I couldn't walk away from Him without forfeiting the only source of happiness i know. He's inextricably tied to my existence, my identity, my breath and heartbeat, my life and joy and sun.

I'm so thankful for this gift of faith. So that even in my doubtful moments, Love crowds out fear.

Right Standing

So my old youth pastor, Dina always defined righteousness as "right standing with the Lord". I never paid too much attention to the cliches Dina threw out, if i'm being honest. One, because she threw out A LOT of cliches, and two, because though i know she loves me, i've never really been convinced that she likes me. I actually think she doesn't like me very much. Regardless, the definition she gave of righteousness always stuck with me.

Last night, after watching Dancing with the Stars (i know, i'm ashamed. but i was also very bored) i turned off my living room light without realizing i didn't have any other lights on in the house. I don't like to have more than one light on at a time in the house. It just seems pointless, but i normally will turn my bedroom lamp on before turning out the other light or something like that, just so i can see. My floor's never very tidy, and there are tripping hazards! But last night i turned the light off and just sat back down in my big brown chair in the living room. i sat there as my eyes adjusted, and a feeling of peace washed over me.

What i realized then was that the peace wasn't washing over me from the outside. It had come from me, from inside, like some kind of reverse osmosis, making my little apartment, making my world just feel GOOD.

I used to be scared of the dark. Maybe that's lame, but growing up i would run through my house at night because i always just felt creepy. I would do dumb things like hide under my covers because i'd get scared all of a sudden, and i'm not talking about when i was little either. I remember doing this well into my teens. Then when i moved to Florida and lived with my dad i remember it being so odd that i wasn't scared at night when the lights were off. When i moved into the houses with the girls that feeling of creepiness and being on edge would come back at night sometimes but not always. I don't think these things are just coincidence. I know they're not. Lot's of things, dark things, spiritual things, i believe made their home in the house i grew up in. I realized it then, but i lacked the courage to demand they leave. My dad's house in Florida was a house dedicated to serving the Lord, to making Him known and loving Him better each day. Then when i moved in with the girls, i think we allowed, i allowed, a lot of things there that shouldn't be. But we were waivering between heartfelt worship and blatant disobedience. Thus, the occasional scared-of-the-dark-ness. I'm a jumpy person naturally, i think, with an imagination sometimes too big for my own good. But these things i'm not imagining.

So anyway, last night was just really cool. It was the first time i'd sat in my house with the lights off and just FELT what was there. I think reading auras is dumb. I'm just not very tolerant of all that new agey crap. It's just meant to imitate what God's been saying all along, luring people to Hell with something that's Gospel-esque. But i believe in the Spirit in me and my own spirit that looks like God, and last night i realized it's in right standing.

For the first time in a long time i'm taking note that i'm in right standing with nearly everything in my life. It's a process, obviously, and this is not a boast in myself by any means. God's brought me to this point of right standing by the blood of Jesus and ONLY by the blood, that which i can never repay and will always need. Right this moment, i'm in right standing with God (although i have lukewarm tendencies and pesky habits that come back and have to be continually re-addressed). With myself. With friends and family. With my past (still working on letting it stay in the past sometimes). With my body (don't drink soda hardly at all anymore and am loving being a vegetarian. i feed it what's good, and i'm rewarded by feeling good. Even with my hair (i've decided it can do what it wants, and i love it still).

I'm so fallen and wretched, but in that, i'm FREE. I'm holy and righteous, and i can walk in that and believe it because God's Word is true! I don't understand it, because the majority of the time i don't FEEL holy. Somehow i'm being made holy and holy at the same time. I'm wicked but made in the image of our just and perfect Creator. His Spirit, one entity of the triune God, dwells in my chest. How can i deny this Perfection making His way in my life?! I won't call what God's made holy unholy, and i won't label myself poor when i'm oh so rich.

I don't understand it, but it's true. And last night He let the scales drop from my blurry eyes for just a minute. Praise Him, for there is no other to be praised!

I Asked and I'm Scared!

So, last night at Ruined (the new young adults group i'm attending) i asked God during worship to please take from me everything but Him. Up until now i've been praying a feeble little prayer of "i want to want You more than anything, but i'm not sure i'm there yet. please change my heart." Well, i think He has. Examining my heart in this moment i can say that He's better and more important than anything, than my family, than my amazing friends, than my future plans and whether they come to fruition or not, that if all those things were to burn up and blow away in the wind that i'd be ok, as long as i were able to know my Jesus more.

Moments like these are fleeting for me because i cling so ravenously to other lovers.

But last night i asked Him honestly to take everything from me as long as i can know Him more and love Him better.

I'm overwhelmed that he answered my initial prayer and changed my heart. [He's such a magician!] And i'm also kind of scared. I know He answers prayers, and as much as i'm WILLING to have everything taken from me, i hope He doesn't have to.

Sad Moment

For the past five or six years, it's been such a comfort to me when i realize, driving near my family's house in the night or early morning hours, that four hearts are there, beating slowly & rhythmically. Two little boys lay in their beds, the cares of the day disgarded, probably drooling, looking innocent and peaceful despite the attitude dished during waking hours.

I can drive by, the world still and good in that moment, because i feel so acutely that i couldn't love them more & that they couldn't be any more mine.

The knowledge of them being near saturates me in that instant, at once making my limbs heavy and light. I'm happy in every cell and satisfied with life, not dissimilar to the mellow after sex. Obviously it's not the same cause. That's gross. But still.

This happened two nights ago as i drove down Woodmen Road at 1am & passed their little housing development.

And it hit me: they're out of town this weekend.

And it hit me harder: this is the first of many of these moments to come. Me here. Them not.

The weight and surprise of this has yet to leave me, and i'll admit it's got me flustered.

Haven't i done enough?

God’s been revealing to me recently the difference between His definition of forgiveness and ours.  I mean, really they’re as different as night and day.  Who in their right mind, with working retinas, can’t acknowledge the difference between the two? 

 

Well, my eyes work fine, barring the glasses I occasionally have to wear to a movie or to see street signs better in a new place.  It’s my heart, small and insipid, that has trouble seeing sometimes.  But God is merciful. 

 

He’s been showing me anew that when I think I’ve done enough, I haven’t.  Granted, there are times when what He wants from you is restraint.  He speaks waiting into our hearts, and in those situations, it’s always the action that seems easier.

 

But generally when God asks me to do something, to make a move, to extend grace on His behalf, I often end up asking myself (because I dare not ask the God of the heavens), preceded by a huff or a sigh, “haven’t I done enough?”  The simple answer is no.

 

There’s no such thing, in the Kingdom of Jesus, as far enough. 

 

We pray to be like Jesus.  We pray to be poured out on His behalf and to be made holy.  The ones who think they’re prepared pray for patience and humility, all the while quaking in their spirits, knowing God acts.  We pray “less of me, more of You”, but we’re unwilling to live this way.  I’M unwilling to live this way, to dies in this way.

 

When a “friend” repeatedly calls me a liar, calls me a fraud and a Pharisee, I ask God, feeling martyred and bowed low “Father, it’d be so much less painful to not be her friend.  Am I allowed to sever ties?”  And then, having essentially been told heck no by the Father, in future writings I decide to call her friend, in quotations.

 

Or with my step-dad, each time he angers me again, I feel the injustices piling on top of the old ones I thought I’d laid down and forgiven.

 

Or  (and this is the one I just realized last night) what about RC?  Those of you who know who him and know our history, you can try to understand.  But the truth is, you can’t really understand it.  I’m not sure why my dealings with him, roughly 5 years ago now, affected me so much.  I mean, I know why they affected me then; I’m just unsure why they affect me so much still.  Let’s just say that my relationship with him changed me, shut some things down and caused some glitches, mind/body/spirit.  Looking at our relationship and time together from an outside point of view, as much as I can at least, I’m not innocent.  “It takes two to tango”.  But looking outward and back from inside MY body & mind & heart, it feels like his intent all along was to ruin me on purpose, like His sole purpose in dating me was to create gaping chasms between me and my loved ones, to make me dislike myself, my thoughts, my body, my very soul, to ostracize me from Jehovah, the only Love I’d ever known. 

 

I’ve prayed numerous times over the past 5 years that God would help me forgive RC.  I’ve prayed that he’d be changed, that he could know the love of God, that I can let go of my anger.  But I haven’t prayed enough, and I haven’t really wanted to forgive him enough.  Honestly, I feel just as justified hating him as God is justified in hating Satan.  I know that’s harsh, but writing’s where I’m honest.  The reason I want his salvation is not because I want mercy for him.  On the contrary, I hope that once he comes back to the Lord he’ll really feel the weight of what he did to me, that he’ll be crushed by that weight, that he’ll seek me out and apologize, and I’ll graciously bestow forgiveness upon him.  I’ve been calling hypocrisy justice.

 

I’ve not allowed myself to realize that any infraction, any sin, is not against me, but the Lord.  I’ve refused to see myself as anything but victim or abused.  All this time I’ve viewed myself as the Israelites instead of Pharaoh, a disciple instead of Pilot, myself as Gomer & God as Hosea instead of RC as Gomer, myself as her client, God still, always, blindingly Hosea.

 

So here it is:  I HAVEN’T done enough. 

 

Forgiveness can’t be passive.  It’s active to the highest degree.

 

Jesus forsook Heaven and wholeness in order to travel the universe, take on palpable, bruisable, porous skin and die.  In one concise sentence it almost sounds simple, but remember that along the way He was mocked and starved and was surrounded by friends who betrayed Him constantly when all He was used to was the company of the Lord Most High, ever radiating love and justice.  He was silent in the face of criticism and spit, knowing behind His teeth that He was trying to save us all. 

 

The way I love people, the way I forgive, it’s not enough.  It’s never enough.  Because if I ask to be poured out, if I ask to know my Savior, His crucifixion and His resurrection, this is critical.  Forgiveness cannot be partial, but I must “rend the heavens and come down”.  I must dive to the depths of my pain, though I’d rather leave it where it lies.  I must flesh out what it means to die on behalf of another, and not just to die where I stand, but to travel long distances, live a life of service, and die a painful, mocking death in order to free my “friend”, my step father, to free RC.

 

I have to want their freedom more than my own, and I don’t.  So again I pray my shallow, weak, child prayer:  God, I want to want this.  Change me, for I cannot change myself.  Give me the strength and humility and eyes to see the truth of a sinful world, that we all go around hurting and maiming each other and crushing Your heart.  My wounds are here; they’re not justified, but they are real.  I want them to become hills on which I can stand, flowers to grace my neck, the very words of life to save me.  Let there be no distance I won’t travel to love people because You never stop pursuing me, even when I’m wallowing in the depths of my own darkness, when I’m bowing before the altars of other gods, You reach for me still.  Expose me to make me whole.  My attempts at healing myself have failed.  My attempts at loving have been half-hearted, shadows of who You are.  I want to be better.  I need You to do it, for I am utterly inept.  You are Most High.  You are Abba and High Priest and Lover.  You are righteous and holy and pure, and I want to gaze on You until I’m changed.  Teach me forgiveness.  Teach me love.  Make it real not only to my head but to the depths of my being.  Thank You, Jesus, for Your example.  Amen.

The will to walk

My heart’s been on overload lately, and since my bipolar, over-active, under-active brain is hardwired to kick into action anytime my heart is disturbed, my brain’s been going nuts, too.  God’s been showing me so much about myself, good and bad, things He’s been doing that I’ve yet to take proper notice of and show thankfulness for, and things He wants to change in me that until now have hidden in the sulking recesses of my soul. 

 

I foresee this entry being a rundown, meandering-style, of the different things God’s been doing.  It’ll also be a general answer to the ever-popular “what’s new?” question.  Here goes.

 

A few weeks back, I went to my CrazyLove book study.  It’s supposed to happen biweekly, but two of the ladies involved have children who are one year old or younger.  So the schedule has to be fluid.  Anyway, I was going on and on about how when I feel distance between myself and God, when I know there needs to be a coming back of sorts, I seldom FEEL deep, throbbing sadness.  The picture I have in my mind of repentance looks like weeping and snotting all over yourself until you’ve cried it out and the weight is lifted.  That’s not really how it is for me most of the time.  It’s more “God, I’m so sorry I’m such a jerk.  Can you please just forget about this block of time and love me anyway?”  And I know He does, but the thing I kept going over and over with the girls that night was that I can’t make my heart feel what my head knew:  that the moment I ask and mean it, the forgiveness is done.  I wanted so bad to FEEL brokenness.  I think maybe we’ve been trained as passionate Jesus-followers that everything has to be an emotional experience.  Let’s face it, we’re an emotional generation (e.g. the divorce rate, how many  careers the average American will have over their lifetime, even the crazy amount of different shades of hairdye).  I won’t deny it in myself.  I mean, for goodness sake, my horoscope sign says my mood changes like the phases of the moon, and regardless of my skepticism of the stars determining your destiny, I can’t deny the moon thing. 

 

So the problem I was having was not knowing that God forgives me but feeling a more poignant sorrow over my sin. 

 

What it comes down to is trying to earn forgiveness.  See, I know in my head that grace is free.  Trying to earn it reminds me of that scene in Liar Liar where Jim Carey’s trying his hardest to say out loud that the blue pen in his hand is red.  All he ever gets out is “the pen is rrrrrrroyal blue!”  It’s the same with grace.  No matter how broken you are, no matter the tears or the wailing or the amount of fed-up-ness you feel with yourself, none of that makes you any less depraved.  I’d gotten it in my head that by me feeling and showing some display of emotion it either makes Him more ready to forgive me or makes me less indebted to Him because I want it so bad.  What a load of poppycock.  I think a parent or lover giving you a gift would much rather see you take the gift, thank them genuinely, and make use of it in the future than take the gift in some melodramatic display of emotion and then forget about it the next day.  Now if they take the gift, sob and thank you repeatedly and THEN make use of and cherish the gift, that’s another story, but still.

 

Moving on.

 

One of my friends is doing something that displays so acutely the love of Jesus, and I get to be a part of it.  Wow.  Her mom was killed in a car accident when she was 6.  A young man, 19 at the time, lost control of his vehicle or fell asleep (they’re not sure) and ran across the interstate and hit their vehicle head on.  He also killed two other people in the process, parents of several children.  Well, this man, Michael, apparently tried to contact her father a few years back and was basically met with “how dare you call my house.  I never want to hear your voice again.”  I don’t look at her dad in a bad way for this.  We’ve all got unforgiveness issues.  He must’ve just really loved his wife.  Anyway, she heard about this a while back, thought about contacting Michael to offer him some sort of forgiveness, and just didn’t, whether it was busyness or just a lack of urgency, who knows.  But this past weekend, the sense of urgency to contact Michael was reignited in her.  We stayed up praying and talking about this for hours into the night, and it was wonderful.  Not only was the sense of Christ’s presence and love tangible, but the sense of solidarity between the four people gathered was incredible.  We were all being allowed to be a part of seeing Christ’s empathy and grace be offered in a real-life way.  Now that she’s contacted this young man (although now he’s almost 40, I can’t help but think of him as he was when the wreck happened) and his mother in trying to track him down, we’ll be going up to Thornton, CO tomorrow so she can meet with him. Michael told her he’d thought of that wreck probably 23 out of 24 hours of everyday.  He’s become not a person struggling with guilt, but guilt itself.  That seems to be his only identity, and all she wants to do is offer him freedom, tell him he has nothing to feel guilty of, let him live, assure him that she’s been ok all these years and that God’s hand has never left her, even in the moment of that car crash 20 years ago.  How beautiful.  How massive of a thing and how small. 

 

Oh that we would live this way each moment, so willing to offer redemption.

 

Another friend of mine is struggling with depression.  It kind of runs in her family, but it’s only taken control of her just recently.  Let me just try and preface this by telling you that this girl is NOT an open book.  She hides things and bottles them up.  So when she told me and a few friends about the depression, it was a big deal.  Just saying it out loud and letting people know her weakness, that was an answer to prayer right there.  But she did more than that.  this week, when the tension in her head/heart reached a peak, she called people.  She didn’t call me, and I’m kind of glad.  Though I would’ve listened and prayed for her, I have little experience with depression, and although I try, I find it difficult to understand.  But the girls she called called me, and the next night we met to pray and share our hearts and command the forces of darkness out of her life through the blood of our conquering Savior.  She broke down.  She weeped.  I believe she was freed.  And I was allowed to be a part of it. 

 

I’m so blessed.

 

That’s another thing:  for so long I’ve told myself and other people that my best friends are elsewhere, Florida, Alaska, Jamaica.  And that’s still true.  There are people who live in those places that know my soul sometimes more than I’m comfortable with!  They take my intelligent thoughts and heartfelt revelations and know how to balance them with my rash judgments and inconsistencies, and it’s really just so comfortable and good.  I think maybe it’s Agape.  But I’m realizing that because those people I miss so much are scattered abroad, I’ve been so negligent and unthankful for the relationships God’s growing here.  It’s going to take time, more time than I’m used to because my Florida friends were formed in a pressure-cooker type environment of love and loss and sin and redemption and hilarity and worship.  But nevertheless, I HAVE soul friends here.  I HAVE people here whose lives are intertwining with mine in a chaotic and beautiful score of music.  These relationships could never negate the old (and continuing) friendships I have, but my goodness, what kind of self-centered friend bigot doesn’t take note of people whose hearts she’s being allowed to share?!  The Lord is ever blessing me with friends who surround me with love, the kind of love that corrects you when you’re overreacting and lets you cry when your heart is flooded and provides a wide space for you to roam free.  I’ll be grateful from now on, Father.  I’ll see better.

 

And last but definitely not least:  my parents are moving again, most likely cross country.  I followed them from Florida to Colorado for a few reasons.  It wasn’t so much because I couldn’t live without them near, although having them close would be my preference, but because I was ready for a change.  I wanted to prove to God that I was serious when I repented by jump starting my life with a crazy change.  And it’s been grand.  He’s done so much in me… I’m not quite sure if I’d recognize the me from a few years ago or want to hang out with her.  I’d probably just shake my head and make the tsk tsk sound more often than not.

 

Anyway, let me go back a few days.  On Sunday I went to my friend Sarah’s church.  The pastor was talking about exile, for what reasons it happened in the Bible.  The one that stuck with me was the example he gave of exile for holiness’ sake.  In Hosea 3, I think it was, God told the Israelites something like “I’ll send you into the wilderness without temple or sacrifice, without ephod or terebinth”.  Basically God was taking from them all the things He’d once given them that were purposed to point the Israelites toward Himself.  They were supposed to be tools but had become gods in themselves.  So He was stripping them of all other gods in order to bring them consecration to Himself and holiness.  The pastor said “would you be so bold as to ask for that kind of holiness?”  THAT is the question that stuck with me.

 

I went home that night and prayed.  I prayed more honestly than I’m used to praying, praying what’s actually in my heart rather than what I think I SHOULD want.  I told the Lord “God, I DON’T want that kind of holiness.  I don’t want exile or loneliness or even discomfort.  But I know I want You.  I want to want holiness that badly, and I hope that’s enough for You right now because it’s all I’ve got.”

 

Two days later I find out my family will be gone within months.

 

What a merciful God.

 

 

How i've been feeling God sees me

I know that's a kind of confusing name for a blog post. however, as i've not been feeling clear-minded that much lately, i decided to leave it as a fair respresentation.

i went to a young adults small group last night. it belongs to my friend Sarah's church, not mine. but the young adults group at my church is a lot more young than adult, and i don't want surfacey relationships. i just don't value them. maybe that's wrong. whatever.

the very first thing the teacher said at this group last night was "i have two questions for you: 1) how do you view God? 2) How do you think God views you?

the first i would answer as loving, powerful, incredibly invested in our lives, holy

the second, and this is the one that surprised me, i answered "He loves me always, but i think maybe He's exhausted with loving me."

i hadn't ever thought that so clearly and quickly before. i couldn't ever put my finger on it. but it surprised me that i came to that concise answer so quickly. the fact of the matter is, I'M exhausted with my flesh. it's not that i'm making huge mistakes or rebelling. it's that sometimes all i can see are my mistakes and the times when i'm unfaithful. why is my first response upon disappointment frustration with God? why do i always doubt FIRST and then gather faith later? He's proven His reliability and unfathomable love a million times over, and yet i run to other lovers.

i have a hard time just coming back and not wanting to earn my salvation (not in a broad sense, but in the day to day comings back to Jesus). i want to PROVE to Him that He didn't forgive me in vain, that i'll be better next time. and sometimes that's true, but mostly i still mess up in the same ways as before. Therefore, i exhaust myself.

i can't allow myself to project my own fed-up-ness onto Him. are we not as far apart in character as the sun and moon? He makes me holy, but in myself i'm anything but.

i was able to identify, by way of the speaker's lesson, this problem of mine as a lie. i'd thought of it as my own flawed thinking, not an attack of the enemy. it's so much easier to fight an external enemy once you know who it is.

a woman prayed over me "Sam, God wants me to tell you you're beautiful. He finds you beautiful even in your darkness."

maybe that's not an epiphany to you; i know i've heard at least a hundred times that i'm God's prize. But it hit me hard at this point, when all i feel so often is the weight of my darkness and my tremendous undeserving in His radiance.

also... i read recently the quote "God expects you to fail far more than you expect yourself to fail." how freeing. i expect myself to get better and to progress and to never do it again. God's not so naive.

Jehovah the Patient

“At the foot of the Cross

I can trade these ashes in for beauty

and wear forgiveness like a crown.

Coming to kiss the feet of Mercy,

I lay every burden down”

-At the Foot of the Cross, Kathryn Scott

 

Lately I’ve been king of an emotional ping pong ball, feeling tossed back and forth by life, springing in seconds from one side of the table: gratitude, worship, and joy, to the other: confusion, forlorn apathy, and acute awareness of my own depravity and self-centered-ness.  The strangest moments have been the ones where I feel all these things at once, and it’s not like my emotions are torn.  It’s more like I’ve been feeling each emotion 100% and therefore have been emotionally stretched, operating at over-capacity.  It’s caused me to just blank out sometimes, spending whole evenings at home just being away from people.  Instead of reading, I’ve been turning on the tv more, because it’s mindless.  And mindlessness is what I want, if only to relieve the crazed goings on in my head!

 

Here’s the long and short of it:  (and sorry Emily and Kaycee if you’re reading a lot of this again)

 

I still don’t have a car.  It looks like my answer has been found, though.  Emily’s sister is selling me her car, a 96 Corolla, for $600.  And I’m so happy about it… now.  but last week was, well… last week was just a bitch!  I had two different cars fall out from under me.  two days in a row my mechanic, Jim, and I drove nearly to denver and then past denver to go look at cars.  The first one, I found out half way there that the guy had sold it and didn’t have the courtesy to call me before I left even though I left repeated messages asking him to please do so.  the second day, jim and I drove to Thornton, CO, about an hour and a half away, to look at what appeared to be and was described to me as a great deal, a Civic.  Yeah, not so.  basically some kid thought he’d made it into something out of the Fast & the Furious.  It was just ridiculous and ridiculously crappy, tons of problems, not the least of which was a dash board that had been completely switched out, making the low miles he’d advertised a complete lie.  I wanted to smash his stupid, wanna be thug head on his car’s crappy, tied-down hood!  Alas, I did not.  we just drove back. 

 

I didn’t get a job I applied for.  Not only did I not get the job, but they emailed me like 5 minutes after I sent in the application saying they were pursuing other applicants.  Can you even look at an application in 5 minutes?  Am I THAT obviously inept?!  This was no normal job.  This was the one I thought would allow me to go back to school finally.  So the rejection was a lot further reaching than just not getting a job, at least in my mind and heart.

 

Emily’s dating now.  Tony’s a great guy.  I like him more all the time, and she seems really happy and really wise about this whole thing.  Emily’s a lot of things:  deep, funny, ambitious, lazy, goofy, spontaneous, smart.  But in talking to her about Tony, she sounded wise almost, like she could see the situation from the outside, something I just don’t think happens often for any of us.  [Sorry Em… you’re pretty brilliant sometimes, but wise is a different adjective than I’m used to using for your brilliance!]  Anyway, my go-to/hey-I’m-bored-wanna-do-something friend is now busier than ever, and her priorities have shifted.  We still hang out often.  It’s just that for what is beginning to seem like a perpetually single person, it sometimes seems like “another one bites the dust” and subsequently “but I wanna bite the dust, too!” 

 

In this situation, been there, done that.  it only gets slightly easier.  Wanting to be known is a longing that just doesn’t subside.

 

My dad is interviewing in Georgia and Kentucky for jobs.  His job may or may not be in danger.  For those of you who were around during their move from florida to Colorado, in the time before I decided to move with them, I was NOT a pretty picture.  I think most of you didn’t get to see it.  my boyfriend at the time got to see the full psychotic episodes.  there were times I was sobbing so hard he couldn’t discern what I was even saying or crying about.  It would come out of nowhere and stay for days, the aching in me without them.  Even the THOUGHT of that possibly happening again has been enough to send me into panic if I allow myself to think about it.

 

The earthquake in Haiti.

 

A new crush.

 

Emotional overload.

 

And in all this, God’s been revealing Himself, or rather the lack of His qualities in me.  I mean, I know this is a process, and I know that my good works will never outweigh my bad, for even my righteousness is as filthy rags (which by the way, the literal meaning of that is “menstrual garments”… shudder).

 

Any one of these things by itself would’ve been pretty mundane, a blip.  But all together, I started thinking that this world is cruel and deserves bitterness and anger as a response.  But, believing wholly that God is not surprised or reactionary, by saying “this world is cruel”, really I’m saying God is cruel.  The God who slain His perfect Son to make me whole, cruel? 

 

WHO DO I THINK I AM?!

 

So then there’s the reckoning, coming back to Him with bowed head and tear-brimmed spirit, knowing more fully I’m not worthy, and He is not worthy of my doubt or frustration.  Knowing that what I’ve given Him in the past week falls infinitely short of what I want to give Him, that’s been humbling beyond what I know how to handle.

 

You guys know me.  I want to MAKE it better.  I always want to earn it, and I put walls between myself and the Lord until I feel I’ve earned His presence in my life again. 

 

Stupid. Stupid. Stupid.

 

Anyway… He’s getting me through it.  the simple truth of the matter is that He won’t leave me.  He’s so persistent in loving me and not moving from my reach.  He’s patient.  I need His patience more than I need His love, I think, for without His long-suffering, I’d never even make it to the Love-accepting part. 

 

But, needless to say, last week was cuh-razy in my head.  I’m so glad no one but me and Jehovah dwell there.  I wouldn’t wish that psychobabble on anyone!