Sort of an excuse to be lazy...freefalling

Lately I have been getting back into the heart of what grace is-- what living the Christ-life really looks like, and I see myself being unburied. Like that thing that I was missing in my Christ-life was my own self- that is, the person I am in Christ. The past couple of weeks I have really been investigating and seeking God about how he means for me to be living life and the overwhelming truth that i have found is that this new creation thing that you read about in Sunday School is a lot huger and cooler and basically takes up everything everything everything. I just get overwhelmed with the very thought that so many people-- most people I know-- are missing it!

The past few weeks have had the potential to be total stress-outs, which they sort of have been, but it has really taught me to let go of everything. Essentially drop all my responsibility in the arms of my Abba and go frolicking in the fields of Grace. So many times I have had big homework assignments or needing my room cleaned or something that need to be done and I just don't see how i can get through it without falling over in exhaustion nad my Abba, who loves me and provides all things, puts my books away in a neat pile and hides my planner and lets me rest, and then when I have put my priorities first, he provides time and energy to complete the rest.

The other day i forgot to do a small thing that would have made me a little more perfect in the flesh, but forgot to take care of it because I needed to write a note to a campfire friend in need of encouragement, and I remeber my dad saying, "Kids these days just don't know what is really important." But the thing is that I used to feel the same way, but all these "important" things left me empty and wanting.

So many promises have been fulfilled or are in the process of being fulfilled to me this week. Do you ever ask God to teach you something or to make some truth real in your life and forget about it the next day? There are tons and tons of those requests that I suddenly remember making that are being made real today and yesterday-- right in the middle of class or dinner or driving down the street. I see these things I asked God to keep reminding me and teaching me about during the summer continually come up. Its sort of like standing in the middle of a vast lawn on a hot day wondering if you are just going to burn up and all of the sudden the sprinklers come on.

It is so refreshing to me to let go of the law. Its a great assurance to me to know that the person of Christ living in me is never going away. I don't have to clean up my act in a certain way for me to be close to God and the amount of my "christianness" is not defined by how good a job I do at having the right appearance. I don't need to worry about having to cover anything i don't want exposed-- if i just allow the Christ in me to flow out, I am in the right place. Lettting go... its a weird, unearthly thing.

So now, my question is, how do people miss it? I know I did, but I don't think its something widely publicised. Are christians afraid that if we let of the control of our own lives, something bad might come out? How do we skim over this huge stuff and move on to trying to fulfill the law which has been done away with and only has power when we actually do sin? I just don't get it. Does Satan have such a stronghold over our churches that we don't even see it? Or is it because we choose to shut our eyes to everything else, like pain and brokeness, that this just gets clumped in there too?

This is freedom, PEOPLe!! It seems like we read that Christ brings freedom and so we add that to our list of things we need to make sure we have so the world doesn't see us as a fraud. And so we come back to letting go of what we think we should be and being what we are-- Perfect saints in Christ. The righteous shall live by faith...

www.joyextra.com

A couple days ago, my aunt sent me this link to her website, which is such a cool story. You all should check it out because its so cool and its an amazing picture of the way God speaks and provides and makes his will so evident in our lives. I love this...

www.joyextra.com

I sort of feel like the wind has been knocked out of me and everyone is against me and i am alone. But deep down i know it isn't true. But what is?

I've had a long, stressful weekend full of questions and answers and questions again. And now i'm exausted, unable to decide how to relax or if i should just do some homework.

Today I attended the National Art Portfolio Review Day. Baiscally, you go and there are all the art schools that i have ever ever ever dreamed of even being thought of by and they tell you whether or not you are worthy of thier greatness and how you can work to get there.

It was a scary experience. Sort of. Well, I was very calm and accepting of thatever might happen, but now i feel a little sick, which might just be a few of those nastly little lies that get whispered in my ear when i am too tired to listen to anything else.

I saw a few schools and it went well, but when i finally got to the School of the Art Instatute of Chicago, I had a huge wake-up call which i expected but still blew me in the face. The thing she said was that she couldn't see anything about me in my work. It was all just assignments and technical, but nothing saying who is Heidi. And i knew it. I was surprised she was the only one to point it out-- but THat little liat is whistpering in my eat, "you'll never be able to do that," "Its too hard to actually say something through your art." And in my fatigue, I'm beginning to buy into it. But i think i'll stop.

I realize that everything that woman said about my work was true. And the tone in which she put it sort of made me not want to attend this school with so much pressure. Thats a lot of pressure. But it made me think: what do i feel? What do i have to say? Why haven't i sai d it? Why am i so scared to say whatever it is?

I am coming to the point in my life where i'm realizing that hiding your feelings is detrimental. I am slowly beginning to see the depth of the pain in my life. So what keeps the passion out of my art, my life, my person, the every expression of who i am? I dont' know. Fear? Is it one of those things that just needs to mature in my life? I have a hard time being patient with the things in my life that aren't perfect yet. Just reading over that last sentence makes me sick a little. But i think maybe thats the environment i'm in. "bE PERFECT NOW!!" i get stuck in this trap that tells me i need to have everything together, know things that are out of my reach.

This week God has taught me about "loosing my life" and his living his life in me the way it was intended. I have seen him do amazing things through my art. Can he do this biggest thing? Can he expose the root of who i am? Can he take this fear inside me that really isn't even part of the spirit i have becuase of his gift and throw it as far as the east is from the west? Can he develop these things in me in His time and teach me to leave everything at the cross? I suppose so.

But where does that leave me on this lonely, tired night before i start it all over again? In trust. Maybe in bed, sleeping. Maybe just resting in the fact that there is nothing that i need to be doing other than resting in the arms of my Abba. Trust. laying myself across his arms. I see a painting coming on...

I've got a lot of stuff swimming around in my head tonight-- do you ever have those days? When you have so many thoughts and questions and things you want to say but don't know where to begin or organize it.

Tonight my youth pastor's wife shared her testimony-- a life full of pain and flesh, and being the right kind of christian for the right kind of people. And it reminded me a lot of myself.

I just love to look back on my life and see all that God has done in me-- how he has taken me from a life of terrible junk and taken me sin and all into his arms. I'm a big journaler and i'm also a bigger artist, so i love to see patterns of things in my own life where at the time it looked like I needed to clean up my act or like a trial i was going through was a result of some kind of sin i needed to take care of, and i see them now, or in hindsight as they say, and I see God's great big mighty hand carving away at my hand, marble block of a life. Some artist-- picasso, i think it was, said that when an artist creates a stone carving, he was simply taking off the outside of the block to reveal the peice of art inside. What a beautiful picture of what God does in my own life.

Lately I have come back to the heart of who I am in Christ-- a person I had been missing, heaped in a big pile of condemnation and shame. I had forgotten the importance of letting other people see into my life. There is the flesh pattern brought out so heavily in my life with school that tells me that i need to have all the answers on my own and i need to have it together. And taking time out for people to help me with those things i just need to buck up and figure out is a poor time-management manuever. I forgot that people don't just need me, I need them too. I used to think that needing people was selfish. Sometimes i still believe the lie.

But I guess this is my point: I need peple to keep me on track. I need people to point out those ugly little lies that destroy me. I need someone to laugh with. I need people to see who I am. I need to stop with the goal-orientation and become a seeker, a journeyer-- on the journey not alone. Its hard to reach out to people and to be in their lives becuase you know they need it when you still feel empty and unknown yourself.

I remember when I first understood this concept that it is okay and crucial to allow myself to be loved-- and when i put it into practice. I could't help but let that love I knew ooze out. but now i feel like i'm drying up a little. Its easy to begin a great new relationship with someone you have never met, but to peel off that hardened mask you have been wearing for those who have known you forever is a different story.

So, I'm praying. I am deciding to stop applying more glue and layers and i'm going to let God take it off for me... There is nothing else i can do. I need people.

I... Need... People

I feel alone today. I've felt alone for quite a while now. School is hard, life is hard, and i don't really have time to sit down and work through it. Anyway, trying to work through it on my own in the little time i allow myself doesn't do much good.

At TEAM, I understood for the first time the importance of other people and being honest and open, but since then, I haven't really allowed myself to put it into practice for myself. I mean, I love to make people feel less alone and be that happy, reaching out person that I am. But i dread the question "how are you?" Mostly becuase when people ask me they are running by or thinking about something miles away. No one means it. Do you know how I am? I'm tired, burned out, frustrated, and very alone. But I don't want to burden anyone with that. I thought i was over it. Done. Beyond it. But i Think i really just took on a mindset that i needed to take on the world about it-- like a crusader, telling everyone how they needed to change. But I went into it alone. And so, here I am, four weeks into my senior year, blowing myself off. I tell myself, all you need to do is get better, do better try harder, be a better time manager. Wrong. I need to allow myself to blubber all over someone's living room couch.

So i'm alone. how do i reach out my arm out of this desolate place, drenched in my own tears and still dry and empty? I guess that's why they say that opening your heart might result in it being wrenched and possibly broken. I feel like there is a great big monster in my heart, pounding, pounding, pounding, wanting to get out. But i'm afraid of what it will look like. I don't want other people to have to clean up the mess it makes.

And so i'm alone.

My Will

The past few weeks I have been trying to make my life work. For those of you who are like me, you probably know how well that works. I was getting so frustrated and angry and for what reason? Why couldn't i read the bible without a numbness? WHy don't I understand anything about God anymore?

I like to have things all together. Organization is the pride of my life. I love it. However, I have a hard time maintaining it. Last night I laid myself out. I simply asked God to open my eyes to where i was at. I couldn't see it.

Its amazing the way God works. We have been talking about prayer in youth group these past two weeks and today being See You at The Pole, i've got it on my brain. And it is amazing how quickly God really does answer prayer. Tonight at youth group, God pounded one thing into my heart:

Am I praying "Your Will, not mine?"

As you probably guess, the answer was no. John aksed us if we ever pray, "Lord send me through hell today if that is what draws me closer to you." I've felt like the past few weeks of my school life have been hell. But I don't think God sent me there. I think I did. A few weeks ago, the verse that says, "Whoever tries to keep his life will loose it and he who looses his life will find it," or something to that effect. I heard it. But I hardened my heart to it. I had it in my mind but not in my heart.

I try to keep my life- I hang on to it for dear life. But tonight I'm starting over. Thank God for clean slates. Lives washed in the blood.I quit. My will is garbage, crap, whatever. Empty and worthless-- a lot like i've felt about my life lately. But if i submit to His will, he will fill it back up.
Lord, I give up. I'm tired. Thats just the beginning. I'm tired of trying. Show me your will.

People

I was reading through a few blogs tonight and thinking how great it is that there are other people out there who have the same struggles and the same things they are learning from God at this very moment- no matter how far way they live or how different our lives our. And there are those blogs that really make you think- the ones that make you question everything and force you to think about what is it that you believe.

Community and people and relationship are such huge things. Until just recently, I never realized what relationship even was. I remeber thinking a few months ago, "how do you form a relationship with someone," simply becuase I felt so dried out and worthless and alone. I always thought relationship was something that had to be earned somehow. Like you have to measure up in order to be loved and accpeted. I mean, isn't this the way of the world? But that's not the way of God, the creator of relationship. He says that he demonstrates his own love for us, that already established love relationship, that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. He didn't wait until we shaped up a little or put on the right mask, or did the right dance, or wore the right clothes, or hung out with the right people, but while we were still not measuring up, He died. I think we get numb to that. that whole thing about him dying. While i was still sinning, doing that stuff that tells him i don't want a relationship with him in the first place, he loved me as a person, a friend, a child, and he stepped in front of the bullet. He took my paycheck with the black spot on it, cashed it in, and then ripped it up. And not becuase of righteous things I had done, but becuase of his mercy.

This morning I was reading about the journey and community and i came upon Romans 12:25, which says "And if one part is suffering every part suffers with it; If one part is honored, every part rejoices with it." This really hit me becuase how often do we really see a community with this kind of devotion? How often do I excercise this myself. I mean, we all have our best friends, our little cliques in the body, and when one of those close friends is hurting, we hurt for them and all that jazz, but when its somene we don't know so well, who isn't in our clique, our immediate prayer group, we just think, "well, someone is hurting for them. I can't do everything." And what about rejoicing with the honored. I don't do this either. Sometimes, ok, lots a times, when "one part" is honored, i get jelous. I don't like rejoicing with them becuase it makes me less. THat's something that God needs to work on me. Nevertheless, i'm learning, and what a beautiful thing it is when we embrace this wonderful thing of community. Our brothers and sisters.

Lately, I have had a couple of friends tell me that they are ready to give up on church altogether. Not God, just his bride, his body, his church. It breaks my heart to see them miss out on the community God has planned for them as his children becuase I myself know what it means to be alone- without it, even when i attended church every sunday and wednesday and event and this and that. It breaks my heart to know that entire churches are missing out on this. Or even entire towns or even states where these people live. Have we so missed God's intention for our lives?

After discovering the depth of this huge community thing, I wonder why after all my life in the church, i had never been told Genesis 2:18 "It is not good for man to be alone." Why? WHY?! I want to scream at the top of my lungs. What keeps most christians dry? Lonliness. I used to feel like I should do my quiet time in my bedroom early in the morning with the door shut, boxed in with my boxed-in God. How many people are shutting that door for the sake of lving the christian life "the right way"? Now i do my quiet time on the kitchen table while the rest of my family eats breakfast and prepares for the day. Now they see. And now i get filled up with the love of people around me. I look at God's ceation-- his image in the people in my family as I seek him about how to love them and his other creations during the day. I no longer look at my wall in my stuffy little room where it is too quiet to even stay awake.

Lately i have been thinking about people. Just people. I was driving to the dentist today and i saw a man walking. And i thought to myself, "There is a creation of God with a soul and a spirit and hurts and a deep life, why can i just look at him and drive by?" we think becuase we see people, we know them. We know about them. But i don't think we really see people until we see thier hearts-- to see what really drives them, their lives, thier spirits, their hurts. It has been said that we are not physical bodies with spirits, but spirits with physical bodies, or something like that.

Who knew that simple people would be so deep and complex? We must truly be the image of God becuase I just don't understand it. People are so deep and so wide and mysterious and complex, and just so... out of the box. And we try to put ourselves in boxes and expect others to do the same. And we put God in a box and expect him to adjust.

In my AP english class, we do a lot of discussions on literature and it is so amazing to see who people are through that. To see the hurts expressed through their interpretation of a book or how they react to other people or what they think about thier own writing is astounding. It breaks my heart, most of the time. It breaks my heart to see who i am in all of this too.

What is my point? I'm not sure. I have never seen people as God's greatest creations before. That sounds a little silly and "like, duh!" but i mean, really, God has been talking to me a lot lately about numbness. its so easy to become numb-- to the man on the street, a God sending his son to die, or just things that are, "like duh!" People are amazing beings. And who am i to think myself so wonderful and not see the wonder in each and every person How could we have missed this wonderful gift of each other? We get so caught up in worldly solutions to our problems, that we miss the most powerful-- each other.

"Creativity is allowing yourself to make mistakes; Art is knowing which ones to keep"

I don't know who siad this quote, but I have always liked it... I fancy myself to be an artist and revel in creative anything really, but i don't really know if this quote could describe me.

Lately, I have been thinking a lot about allowing myself to be wrong-- to stop worrying about doing the right thing or being the right person to the right people at the right time and simply living. I sell myself short from experiencing God's power through my weakness i think.

Maybe its school. You know, its the place where you are expected to do your best, give your all, make yourself look really great for all those silly college people. Over the summer, I learned a lot about allowing myself to be a sinner, to admit that I really can't do it on my own, and that trying to be a "good christian" has nothing to do with being saved my grace through faith. But now I'm back in school. And its the place of the world that is so demanding! "Do your best!" "Beat the competition!" "Better look good for those colleges!" So what happens when I don't understand and I don't have all the answers. When yes, I really don't understand math. Its so comfusing how they intend it to be the place to learn, yet you are looked down upon somehow if you don't already know how to do everything. Maybe its not really school at all. Maybe its me, that sinful nature coming out.

But somehow I've transfered that over to God, the real core of my life, the thing that really matters. Is it okay if i don't already know the answers? What if I'm not as mature as i think i need to be to please him? What happens when I don't turn in every assignment? Am I a dissapointment to him? To my parents? My dad? or myself.

I'd like to be able to give myself the room to be wrong. It was easy without pressure from the rest of the world, but where does that leave me now? Can I let go of my pride, even allow myself the humiliation to be wrong, to let someone else win, to be okay with second best in my book if that means being equal in God's? Is that taking up my cross? Maybe.

I've always loved the concept of teachability. Something fulfilling about the word. But how can I be teachable when I can never be wrong? You can't be right all the time and teachable too. So, I give up. I think I'll allow myslef to be the sinner that i am now and let God handle the rest. Maybe that's what he meant when he said, "The righteous shall live by faith." (no, i don't know what the reference is)

Just Living

This has been a wild week on the journey... full of twists and turns and mostly a lot of distractions and Deciever whispering in my ear. During the summer, I hoped and prayed that I would not fall into that terrible pit that I inevitably do during the school year-- that place where you just feel terrible and can't help but hate where you are at- no matter how good it is. I thought that after all i'd been through and learned this summer i would have to problem getting by, taking care of it- or so i hoped. But I fell in this week.

I woke up after a great day of experiencing my Lord and seeing his face so clearly on sunday to a dark monday cloud. I was so focused on not loosing that great feeling-- i wanted to keep from loosing God. And Satan took that and used it-- he told me I was wrong to want to know God at all, that God wasn't going to be there this week, that he was done with me and it was silly of me to want that. Why would I deserve it.

And so I went for three whole days with this giult and frustration, this joy-robbing weight on my heart and soul and even now feel it a little bit. But its amazing what other people can do for you Before this summer, I didn't know that it was normal for me to need people-- i thought that was a sin, like friendship and relaxation and having a reason to enjoy life outside of accomplishment was an abomination or something. But the moment I shared that pain, that frustration and attack, with another person, an amazing thing happened. I let go. It went away. Prayer is a powerful thing.

Yesterday I was getting up and taking my stand back, but was still a little shaky-- and then someone came alongside me and prayed. They shared their heart. They gave me one of those heart-bandaids. And i went home from school and i went to work and something happened inside me. I had a joy and a peace again. I felt alive and loved and wanted. Something we often think we don't deserve or shouldn't have, you know?

As I look back on my week, God was showing his face to me all the time-- just as i was begging him to, but I couldn't see it until I stopped letting Deciever tell me to think about myself and began focus my eyes on my Father and provider. As I looked through my planner for the past week, i saw all my homework was done, I'd overcome a big obstacle, he'd provided a place to work where i could rest and relax, good tips, good conversation, and simply a love that never gives up on me, I got a huge encouragement about things God is doing through me, and God did big things in our school ministry. As I look back on the week, I realize I knew these things but didn't let them touch my heart. A verse keeps ringing in my heart: James 4:7, "Subit yourselves to the Lord, resist the devil and he will flee from you."

One thing God really has spoken into my life is the difference between trying real hard to be the person I think i need to be to please him and simply living and being the person he is creating me to be at this moment. I am fearfully and wonderfully made-- that has to be good for something, right? Now the tick is keeping Satan from getting this mixed up for me.

Its hard for me to remeber that my life doesn't revolve around the way I feel, but by faith in truth. How easy to forget, but how important to remeber. Lord, you are working in me. You are working around me. Right now I don't feel so great, but you are truth and i put my faith in you.

So where am I going from here? I still need more lessons on grace and love. I need patience. All i could see this week was what was wrong, how guilty i should be. Now I'm back at thay place where God can take a few more peices away and put them back together in his image.

And now is the assigned time for him to move into the center while i slip into the sidelines.