I really love other people. i do. I really love it when I can see how I fit inside this grad scheme of things and realize that I am not the scum that someone else has made me feel like. I am worthy. i am created to be worthy and other people are not the ones who choose my level of belonging.

After school, i drove up to my house after a really depressing day and just asked God, "could you just give me something good tonight?" And how beautiful are those prayers when they are answered. Tonight, I had the priveldge of having dinner with my friend Christi, my youth pastor's wife. What a refreshing time for me to see how much God really loves me and just to see how deeply he works in the lives of people, not to promote politics or teach people to live right so he can stop yelling, but because of his love.

As I look back on my life, i don't think I ever realized that real love existed until this past school year or so. Its such a weird concept, but there is something about real love that makes me know that I am a person and I can be a whole person. I drove home from Red robin tonight with tears running down my cheeks.

Right now there is so much i don't understand. I'm having a really hard time grasping reality. This idea that I am a new creation, whole, complete, accepted and loved, makes sense in my brain but it is taking all of my faith to believe it right now. I'm fighting a battle in my spirit.

It is such a beutiful thing when we lift each other up. I've been doing a lot of thinking lately about this power struggle that we all have. I have noticed lately how much easier, how much more natural it is to say some sarcastic remark, some derogitory joke, some "your mom," than it is to say something beautiful and uplifting. Why is that?

a few weeks ago, I finished Don Miller's "Searching for God Knows What" for the second time, and his ideas are really beginning to sink into the hole of my life. in this book, he presents this crazy idea that this competition we have with each other for who gets the most worth is dumb. Its a game we've invented becuase we're looking for the acceptance we need to get from God. To think that who I am is really enough, that I don't have to vie for any power or worth, but that simply becuase I exist, I am important and I deserve to fit somewhere on this planet, really makes my life different.

When writing one of the many college essays I completed, I remeber ending one paper about my desire to be a teacher with the words, "I want to be a person who communicates unconditional worth to people." Since writing that statement, I have really had to think. Am I a person who communicates unconditional worth to other people? how about, do I convey unconditional worth to myself? Do I allow myself to accept this worth that God holds out for me to grab hold of.

Right now I am in the midst in a bit of a power struggle with someone I would like to say is my good friend. I have to keep asking myself, "what is the role of people in my life," when this situation leaves me feeling very wounded and very alone. ouch. I have this debate I am sorting through over the balance between allowing myself to need people and knowing when I am just seeking my acceptance in other people. Its a very hard place to be.

tonight, I experienced some easy, healthy and uplifting relationship and Abba knew how badly I needed it at that moment. He knows when I need this and he also knows the times when I just need to trust him with all of my strength that he knows what he is doing when it appears he has left me alone. He has promised to never leave me nor forsake me. I need to remember that more.

About a week ago, I was sitting in my English teacher's classroom doing some work during a free period, when the principal and a middle school student came in to confront the teacher about some concerns. What a privledge to be able to witness a really great course of action to resolve the conflict. After about 15 or 20 minutes, the discourse ended and my teacher sarcastically asked, "you dont want to be a teacher do?" Laughing, I answered, as a matter of fact I do. She then said that to be a good teacher, you have to find your sense of worth outside of what other people, especially students, think of you. What a profound thing to share with me. As I have considered my future as a teacher, I have come to the realization that the kind of teacher I am is a direct result of who I am as a person-- it is my hope that in the next few years, abba will make me into this kind of person. Maybe that is why he is allowing me to go through this difficult time now. I need to have the strength to find Heidi in Abba, no one else, no matter how backwards and alone it feels.

I am also learning that the smallest things you say or do can have the biggest impact. Just like those short prophetic statements from my youth pastor or teachers or mentors have the power to really shape me as a person, even the smallest statements I can make to others can make or break them. Those one-liners either communicate worth or a power-struggle. I choose worth.

Abba God!! thank you for beautiful community. you know how many times in the past week I have genuinely questioned the validity of the community i have known in the past, how much pain I have felt and how worthless I have felt. Somehow your love really is true. Somehow. I don't exactly understand it now, but abba, pour it into my being. make me a person who is only defined by your love. open my eyes to see you.