Highlights

I just began reading "The Relentless Tenderness of Jesus" by Brennan Manning, and he touches on a lot of things that just drive deep into the dark searches of my soul. Here are a few highlights:

"it is this love that enables us to love ourselves without excuses and without questioning. We love ourselves as we are because faith has convinced us that God does so. We no longer worry about spiritual growth (which is just another form of idolatry anyway). in living out being-loved, we move beyond the oppressive demands we impose on ourselves, beyond idealistic claims of the ego that tells me who I should be, must be, ought to be. My friend Sister Mary Michael O'Shaughnessy has a banner in her room that says, "today I will not should on myself." I don't have to be somebody else-- Mother Teresa, Saint Francis, or Billy Grahm" (Manning 29).

As I read over the line I bolded above, it struck me how much I worry over my spiritual growth and how this really is a form of idolatry. I'd really never considered this, but how true it is. So often, I put my ability to claim "good Christian-ness" over my relationship with God. I think that somehow my relationship is dependant upon my ability to conjer up enough faith and the right answers.

I'd like to go back to the idea that I am spiritually bankrupt. I'd like to go back to living a life just being loved, throwing achievement to the wind and just accepting God's love and being okay with all that I am not. How do I stray so far? How do i forget this one fundemental thing? i don't know. To be honest, I feel as though I have even failed the ability accept something free, the most important thing of all.

ahhhh.... coming back to the heart of the matter... the freefalling

its been a while since i've felt the air beneath my wings replace the wood rail beneath my clenched fingers. I feel the urge to sing that song "i'm coming back to the heart of worship..." only i just feel like i'm coming back. I'm coming back to the place where I realize that Heidi is a beutifully loveable person and that Heidi is okay and Heidi isn't totally screwed up in irreversable ways. And i had nothing to do with it. I can breath again. I feel a smile returning to my tired, worn, stressed little young face. Somehow i seem to have left grace very very far behind and it seems that i have stopped long enough to let it catch up with me.... maybe.

As I look back over this past semester of struggle, i realize that a significant part of me was left somewhere. I forgot that Heidi is not a person to be abused or condemned or second-guessed if i was going to try to live happily within her body and live her life. I used to have this freedom that i want to regain. step out of the box.

One of the things that i had forgotten is that in Christ, I am a new creation, a beutiful butterfly, soaring in the wind. I have a Holy Spirit within my very depths that allows me to trust the deepest longing of my hearts. This no condemnation thing means that unless i am being convicted of a sin that i simply need to walk away from, the crap in my life is not my fault, but is an opportunity to see God in a different light. the tendency for me to become overwhelmed can be maintained, i do not have to be defeated by guilt, fear, or doubt. I am okay.

I began a new job this week. A job that was a huge sacrifice of my summer, a sacrifice of my comfort zone that I am already seeing God reward me for and use to teach me. I believe in my last blog i said something about thinking that I would spend the summer sipping lemonade while i watched God slip all my issues away on a cloud. today i can smile knowing that God is able to do stuff in my life outside of my expectations and apart from my terms. It was not my plan to spend the summer working full time in another town. This was not what i thought i wanted. But, oh! How God loves to surprise me! i love my job. I love the people. I relish the opportunity to be a part of all these new lives, my world is being drastically stretched and my heart is being broken for the hurting that I am already in contact with.

One of the most crippling things i encountered in the first few days of work was my hang ups on what others may be thinking of me. I am the only freshmen out of about 13 new people working at the college. I began to question whether or not the person I was in my "childhood" (which happened to be about two weeks ago) is good enough for the person i am supposed to be as an "adult." My identity shifted a little with the change. But then I was reminded that my identity is found in who i am in Christ, who my creator says I am. I remembered that the first element required for interaction with others is my own opionion of myself. its the "love your neighbor as yourself" factor.

So, here is my goal for the moment. Love Heidi. She is important to me. Have some grace for Heidi. She needs some room to breathe. it seems strange to think that my life is about being loved. Thats my principal function on this planet: to be passionately pursued for a love relationship. I've been thinking lately that if we are to love the things that God loves, that includes ourselves. What a blasphemy that must be to God when we despise the things that God holds closest to his hearts and the one peice of creation we know best: ourselves. this not to say that we should be proud in a sinful wya, but we should be grateful to God for giving us the grace to encounter his creation in such an intimate way, to be such an integral part of who he is through being his most special creation. wow.

I still have a long way to go. More of my day is speant working through this "folly" and "scandal" as B. Manning describes it, than really freefalling in it, but I thank Abba for the grace of this moment when I can be free from this searching, this grasping for breathing room, this small grain of love I muster for myself. But in due time, I will be made complete. Someday, I hope to live basking every day in the depths of this grace, but for now I just thank God for his grace when i cannot see it. seems impossible, but i guess thats just how God works.

Falling

This was this week's devo from the YLI Website that really spoke to where I am at. I am learning that living the newlife, learning to freefall, isn't at all predictable nor is it bound to my expectations. Encountering the dramatic changes in my life right now are hard, but they are getting easier as I trust God's grace for the bumps along the way. There really is grace for bumps, the places where I just don't know how to deal and I am scared about the strangeness of freedom. So, here is the devo, hope you enjoy it:

A New Life Well then, should we keep on sinning so that God can show us more and more kindness and forgiveness? Of course not! Since we have died to sin, how can we continue to live in it? Or have you forgotten that when we became Christians and were baptized to become one with Christ Jesus, we died with him? For we died and were buried with Christ by baptism. And just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glorious power of the Father, now we also may live new lives. [romans 6.1-4] When I was a little girl, my parents gave me a new bike for my seventh birthday. I went into the garage and found this shiny pink bike with a bow around it. It was new because I had never experienced it before. There were many other bikes like it and the bike itself was probably in the store for quite awhile, but to me…the newness came in the experience of the bike. When the Israelites were delivered from slavery in Egypt, they too experienced a sense of newness. Out in the wilderness, they were no longer bound to the daily work they experienced in Egypt. Out in the wilderness, they were given freedom. Yet, this freedom was difficult for them to handle. They complained to Moses (Exodus 14.11) and longed to be back in Egypt. The first time I rode my new bike, I rode down the street, but the seat was higher up, which made the bike difficult to maneuver. When I tried to stop, my foot slipped and I fell over onto the street. I walked the bike back home and decided to leave it in the garage for a while. Even though I was excited about my new bike, I would choose to ride my old bike. My old bike was rusty and a little too small for me, but with it, I knew what to expect. I knew to push extra hard on the brakes to slow down; I knew how to put the chain back on when it would slip off; and I knew to put a towel on the seat because the cover was wearing away. My old bike was familiar and predictable. For the Israelites, in the wilderness, they longed for something familiar and predictable. By their complaining, they rejected the new life God was giving them in order to go back to a place where they were bound. My mom came outside one day and watched me ride around in my old little bike. When I rode up the driveway to greet her, she had brought out my new bike and asked me why I was riding my old one. I told her that I wasn’t used to the new one and I was afraid of falling. Isn’t it interesting, just like the Israelites, how fear sometimes takes us away from new experiences? If you think about it, here is a group of people who spent their lives working day and night for very little, yet, when they were taken out…when they were freed…all they wanted was to be back. The story of the Israelites and the exodus hits deeply in my life, because it’s a story I live out on a regular basis. It’s a story that resonates with me when I find myself longing to be bound. Sometimes…it feels easier to turn from God and sit in the guilt of my wrongs. It feels easier because when I’m there, I know what to expect…I know that I will do wrong, feel bad, and then at some point, feel okay again. The thing is, I’m beginning to realize that that isn’t what God intended for any of us. I’m beginning to realize that a new life is one that takes us out of those chains and releases us into something that is greater than any familiar and predictable life. My mom put the kickstand down on my new bike and walked over to my old bike. She gently pulled it away from me and walked it into the garage. Then, she took my hand and walked me over to my new bike. She set my hand on one of the handle bars and said, “Falling is just part of getting something new, you just have to trust that this bike will be better for you.” Often times we have a hard time trusting that the new life God has freed us to live is the life we want to live. It is uncertain and there is a chance that we may fall. Then, when we do, there is an uncertainty as to what will happen next. Eventually, through Joshua, the Israelites entered into the promise land, where they multiplied and God’s covenant with Israel was maintained (Deuteronomy 31). Eventually, I learned to ride my new bike. I rode further than I had ridden before and as I trusted more and more, I fell less and less. What if we decided to trust God? What if we decided that, even though there is familiarity and predictability in our old life, we actually choose to be free a live a life that may be uncertain and scary at first? What if we did that and trusted that this new life is something worth living? What would it all look like?

Upside-down world

I think little by little the implications of graduation has set in and the past few days it has hit me that my life is changing rapidly and it is out of my control.

A few minutes ago, i got home from our Senior Cassino night and dinner. I had so much fun, but it was difficult to find who I am and who I wanted to be in this chaotic place. It hit me that this may be one of the last times that I ever see a lot of my friends again. On monday, my life is basically moving to fort collins-- in a way, totally cold turkey. At this point, there looks to be very little closure for me-- I feel like i'm just going to be gone, mainly alone. Not much transition. Not many people I know. I've found myself using the phrase "scared as ______ (you fill in your choice, there are a number of words that have been appropriate)" very often in the past days and the hardest part is that I don't even know where my faith is right now.

AS I have been contemplating how not to my standards or expectations my life has been, I've had to do a lot of reconsidering about what I beleive about God. I feel very lost right now, swirling and still trying to be sincere and cordial in my interactions with other people. I have totally been able to see how people say the Christian life is nowhere near easy. I am beginning to see that God isn't my feel-good genie, but that the reality that he is a lot bigger than I am.

So i find myself having a really hard time trusting him. When people talk about God's love, it seems like a joke to me. Like this thing that I know in my depths must be true, but the way I am seeing God's love right now isn't the way I would define love.

this morning, I went back to the place where I always go to meet with God, but it was different in a way. I went to this place in Isaiah where God is basically saying that he knows the tribes of Isreal are suffering and he says "when moad goes to her shrines, she wastes her time in prayer" basically. It was like I was reading my own life. But in the same way, it was like God was telling me that he was breaking down all the false walls I put my security in, taking the false words out of the way i had been defining him.

I don't understand a lot. I don't understand the things i thought i got before. I mean, if Jesus promises his way of life is easy and his burden is light, why in the world is this so hard? I mean, i feel like a total failure-- I am a totaly failure. I don't like not being able to figure anything out. But one thing i seem to be able to hang on to for a few minutes is the idea that maybe becuase of grace, this floundering, this searching, this uncertainty doesn't bother God as much as it bothers me-- he understands, in fact, i get this feeling that things may get worse before they get better and that is no accident. So I am going to try to stop trying, try to be who I am. needless to say, i think this will be the hardest part.

This isn't the way I thought it should be

It seems like God has this cycle where every few months, he reminds me that I do not dictate how reality works. Usually, this process involves me falling on my butt a number of times. Its great fun.

I would like to revoke my last post. I was wrong. I have this problem where when things are really hurtful, I like to gloss over them like they are small enough for me to handle. Instead of just admitting that things are bad and enduring the pain, I act like I should just have a better attitude, wonder what I should confess, or figure out the right formula to fix it really fast. In other words, instead of simply acknowleding reality, I like to make up my own according to my understanding. (that is, very small understanding).

So today, I look back on the past semester and think "this isn't the way it was supposed to be." I didn't really have it together for the entire semester, no matter how much I would like people to think i did. no, i didn't have it together, no matter how much i would like ME to think I did.

I've said it before, but i really mean it and I really claim it too: Last semester sucked. big. If I were to describe to you the things that i would define as, say, the abundant life, the fulfillment of a promise of goodness, very little, if anything from my past semester would be included in this illustration. But the funny thing is, that until last night, I never was truly able admit that fact. I was in the middle of all the junk, but i plugged my nose, I acted like the sea of un-funness I was drowning in was a puddle that I could just step out of if i could just _________. Like my life was hard and grueling and for some reason, a real Christian would enjoy it, get over it, find the joy somewhere else. No matter how many times I tried to rationalize and no matter how much gloss i coated the flith in, i could still smell it. It still nagged the back of my heart crying "claim me, I'm still here whether you like it or not." Instead of just taking hold of how painful it was and dealing with it, i buried it.

Every once in a while, i could come up with a quick fix to mask the despair, but that bandaid would soon be ripped off with the reminder in the back of my mind that i still hadn't dealt with it and it was going to keep coming up. but the worst part of it all, is that it takes me a million years to figure out that is festering underneath. I am so used to masking, so used to hiding from the inner-conflict that I am unable to deal with anything.

so, I am still in the middle, although now that i recognize the issue, I am edging toward the outer-circle. This semester i have felt like God has taken a great deal of things from me. My job, close friends, my sense of belonging, infusion, the school I wanted to go to, my standard of excellence, my ability to succeed at everything, the proof that God does love me in some way at all, the list is very long, but i'm not sure if i want to expose all the stuff that i rely on to you. So, last night I just finally went down to the depths and admitted "God, if you love me, if you honestly answer when I call, where are you?" This Rob Bell teaching was going through my mind where he is talking about doubt or brokeness and he talks about the Psalms being beautiful praise songs and yet a number of them begin with something like "you seduced me". I thought that this journey was supposed to be this way and it is not. Its brutal, its painful, and I'm not really understanding where the abundant life comes in here. Abundant with hardship? Life to the full? Full of pain and brokenheartedness? Yeah, thats a good time right there.

I am pretty far from finding answers to the question of why a loving God would strip my life of real joy, to be honest. I'm having a hard time praying without a few hints of sinicism, but at least I am being what I am instead of what I should be.

One thing I am learning is that the real stuff in life does not fit into my definition of what life should be. A long time ago, my youth pastor was talking about how we should pray for God's will, not ours. he was saying we should pray, even if today is Hell, bring it on if that is your will. To be honest, I haven't been praying that. I've been praying, "Abba, how about today you make good on your word that I'll just be so happy and things will be good like they were yesterday." and then I assume that I am just overlooking the goodness and try to find a way to perform my way back to enjoying God. Instead of taking a crappy day and just admitting it sucked and asking God how to deal, I try to rationalize and try to figure it out myself. I have a problem.

So, two days ago, I was thinking that the best christian life is lived in relaxation, being a good christian is taking time to rest. SO I was looking forward to a summer where instead of working so hard to avoid this crap i was so beutifully glossing over, God would just float it away on a cloud while i sat on the patio with a lemonade. I am an idiot. Let me just say that right now. As of Monday, I will be working a full-time job in the Fort Collins, 45 minutes from home. As of monday, I will be living with my sister, paying rent, buying my own food, being a sudden adult. not my idea of how life was supposed to be.

I am angry becuase God isn't fitting into my box. He isn't supplying me with my grocery list of needs-- somehow, becuase he created the world and the universe, and all of reality, he thinks he can just rip up my list and make his own. I don't like it. Its hard. Maybe some day i'll learn, but right now i acknowledge that not being in control isn't really fun for me. I acknowledge that I have a serious problem alowing conflict in my life. I admit an indefinate amount of time in my life may seem hellish and unbearable. whatever.

Until next time....

Freedom from feelings.

As I look back over this past semester, or even this week, I realize that I have been totally consumed and ultimately crippled by the way that I feel. It sucks. Worry and doubt have this tendency to totally eat my joy and eat my life. I want to be free of it.

There are a lot of things that i could analyse and write here, but i have found it to be only a waste of time and energy to try to think through the way that I feel. Its stupid and frustrating. So, those of you out there reading this, please just be in prayer for me. I would like to find freedom from this, but just don't know where to look.

This week, I am off from school to prepare for graduation, relax, and just enjoy being done with school... but I hate to admit that it's been a little hard so far. I am so tired and I am so burned and so confused about who I am and who I am supposed to be right now. I'm confused about where God is in my life and how we are supposed to relate.

but I am beginning to regain a small sense of peace. This week has been hard because I am trying to find the balance between free celebration and doing the things that must be done. I feel frustrated because I would like to be able to wait until i am not thinking about finishing high school and graduating before I have to worry about getting a place to live and a place to work next year and worry about who I am going to be in three months from now, but I feel unreasonably pressured by all the people who seem to lack every form of understanding. Understanding.

I am finding that a major hindrance to my freedom in life is the obligation I feel to fulfill all the expectations of other people. Somehow, I feel the need to focus on what has been before instead of embracing the reality that every second is a second chance. God is a God of unlimited second chances.

I remember blogging a number of months ago about the most frustrating thing in life. In a way, I am back in that place. There are people behind me shouting to go faster, work harder, acheive this thing beyond my reach, but all I can see the brick wall of my limitations in front of me. I want to just take a rest for a minute. I need just a day when nothing is urgent so I can step back from my life, but right now, this week isn't stopping. There doesn't seem to be much chance to look around.

I have been struggling lately with what happens when in essence, my Sabbath is stolen from me. It is funny becuase last summer, I made a committment to begin the practice of taking a day off, wondering how, in my family, in this culture, doing such a thing would be possible. I forgot about that committment I had made, but somehow Abba made a way in my life where this became something sacred and important, mainly becuase it prevented me from running around like a crazy person, it freed me from the cycle of chaos my life tends to take on. but the past few weeks, I feel like my whole life has been hijacked by committments that i didn't neccesarily choose, and I feel lost and I want to be able to just stop, to silence it all, but i'm lost in this revolving door. So this is a real question: How do I find this place of solitude when I miss it during the week? I know God is sovereign and he understands, but i'm not sure how to tap into his grace in this area.

One thing that I have really learned to embrace, however, is the full meaning of taking a daily quiet time. My youth pastor likes to call this a "loud time" because he says God is loud and if it's quiet, he'll fall asleep. But I really love the idea of a time each day where I am just quiet before God. To be able to stop, even before my day begins to spin, is so refreshing. Being quiet before God sets this rhythm of listening for the entire day. quiet. Unfortunately, I have had a very hard time finding the quietness in my heart this week.

So tomorrow, i am so excited, or maybe just so looking forward to a time when I will be able to talk with my mentor after about a million years, but I am nervous and confused because I have to go apply for a work-study job sort of last minute when I don't even know if i want it. There are so many decisions I have to make right now and i basically know nothing. Its been frustrating not being able to find this quietness before God when I feel like these questions are flying at me like bricks. It just feels like this is the time when I need God the most and I can't seem to find him, i can't seem to hear his voice over the cars whizzing by.

So where am I now? the only place I can really be in is a place of faith. I just have to trust that even if I make the worst decisions, Abba is going to be enough to get me through. I have to trust him to cover my butt, pay the bill, becuase there are these people behind me and this wall in front of me. And there doesn't seem to be a way to stop the ride.

Abba, I need your direction right now. I need your peace, becuase the stuff I've got just makes life worse. I don't know what is going on, I feel like i'm sorting out a big pile of my life and being forced to use the stuff thats in that pile while its still tangled. I don't want to miss this time of celebration steeped in worry and anxiety, so i trust you to take care of it. thats all i can do.

Change

in more recent days, God has been speaking to me about change and about his stability, his holiness, his oneness. Right now I am in a bit of a transition. My last day of High School was last friday, and since then, my life has been so busy, I am just reeling. And in the midst of the reeling, I am trying to find that one thing in my life that I can be sure of, the one thing that I know. That one thing has really been God. how unexpected (ha!).

Reeling from chaos generally induces a feeling of diziness, a sensation that the ground is moving beneath you, when in reaity, it is not (so to speak). In the midst of my diziness, I have totally noticed how dangerous trusting in these feelings is. Feelings of lostness, of this incredible wrongness in life are really not results of reality, which I am so glad to be able to recognize by God's teaching in my life. A few weeks ago, I took a personality test that showed that I am a "feeler," not a "thinker," which sort of surprised me, but really brings a lot of clarity to my life. A lot of my time is spent sorting out feelings that are usually nothing more than chemicals in my brain, so to speak.

In the midst of all my confusion about life and my feelings, however, God has totally just been reminding me of his stability. The past few weeks have been insane with school ending, and I have come to realize that I really have no idea what is important in life or how to prioritize my life, so I have really just learned to call out to God, to simply allow him to tell me what is important. As I contemplated my last week of school, I was so afraid of wasting it on my backwards priorities, more than ever I had to continually turn over my ever minute and every breath to him.

On monday, he really just spoke into my soul the neccessity of his presence to make my week worthwhile, and how deeply he blessed me. I was thinking back and I realized that last week was one of the deepest, most meaningful, and hardest weeks I remember having in a very long time. It was just so loaded with meaning and emotion and depth. I am so grateful that I was fully present for it, just able to enjoy, to take it all in.

So, as I try to make some order out of my life, it is becoming more and more clear that formulas just don't bring peace. Yesterday, our sunday message was about Ezekiel 1 and how God revealed himself when Ezekiel was wondering if God was still there. One of the things my pastor said was simply that there is nothing in life that is going to stay the same, nothing that will not change. But we can count on God. The place where I am today is not like any place I have ever been before and I may never be here again, but that doesn't mean that who I am in Christ has changed nor does it mean that I need to use some other formula to connect with God.

Its been hard for me today to simply be who I am before God. It is so important for me to seek him daily even to find who I am. Crazy how I am so small and so weak, that I cannot even figure out who I am myself. I guess, even I am changing all the time if God is constantly transforming me, making me a new creation. So, in a way, I cannot even count on myself. interesting.

two days....

Have you ever been in that place where you feel like there is a certain way you should feel... but you don't? Maybe its becuase everything seems to surreal, so urgent, so full of reality. I don't know. In two days I will leave the school i have poured my life into for the past 8 years and only return for a few more short activities... strange.

When people talk about thier high school years, it is usually in this tone of faraway wonder, like it was a million years ago, part of some terrible experience in their past that really never mattered. Something they struggled through and now are glad is over. Like to people who aren't in High School, the institution is like it doesn't exist for them anymore. In a way, thinking about being one of those people who no longer go to high school, this idea of its non-existence seems very frustrating, inconceivable to me. I mean, this is my life. This is where my life has been firmly planted for a long time now, and now its as if we are just supposed to move on with our lives.

Maybe I am confused becuase I feel guilty for being happy about moving on with my life, not really as upset as I think i should be. Maybe i am afraid i'm neglecting my friends, ignoring people I should really feel bad about leaving. And maybe I will miss people, but it is hard for me to have this feeling that I expect when I am still with them.

I love the feeling of just being able to relax. The fully-justifiable reason to kick back. Freedom from my addiction to stress. I have just finished all but about one assignment before I graduate. What a weird thought. I love the idea that I can spend the next two days simply enjoying. Not stressing. Just taking it in. I was sitting in my stats class today, the stats class that i resented and dreaded all year, thinking how nice it will be in the very last class not to have to worry about really understand what is going on, but simply enjoy all that is going on-- enjoy the interaction, the people, the experience. So many years in the past, I have spent my last few days of school frustrated that in some classes I still had tons of work to get done and in others, we just wasted our time with stupid games and movies that were just intended to fill time. This year, I have begun to understand what it really means to relax, to take hints from God when he drops this spare time in my lap in the middle of the day and assures me that i can take the slack and he'll take care of the work later.

I thnk this may be one of the biggest lessons that i have learned all year: God just may be a little bit of a procrastinator. I guess he can afford to put things off becuase he knows exactly how and when it will get done. Even if it is at 2:00 in the morning the day it is due, he is still going to be there, providing the energy and the surprising coherency of the paper. Amazing.

It seems like so many times I feel pull of my desire just to relax and be with people, enjoy life and the conflict of "what must be done" and Abba just provides a way out. He brings people around me that i can't resist and somehow also accomplishes the work. He is working in me, making me more used to enjoying life instead of just trudging through.

There is a lot more I want to say, but not now.... so, more to come....

"Are you tired? Worn out? Burned out on religion? Come to me. Get away with me and you'll recover your life. I'll show you how to take a real rest. Walk with me and work with me-- watch how I do it. Learn the unforced rhythms of grace. I won't lay anything heavy or ill-fitting on you. Keep company with me and you'll learn to live freely and lightly."
Matthew 11:28-30 (msg)

as my last days of High School quickly dwindle, I have been brought back to the question of what is really important and I have realized that it is impossible for me to judge the answer to this question. It is completely out of my power to determine what priorites should look like in the scheme of Reality, that is, the perfect way God made things. I don't know how to be diligent to accomplish what needs to be finished without going overboard and i don't know how much to blow off so i don't neglect the relationships that I have been built to enjoy. In short-- i am incapable of enjoying life according to my own plans... I find that to be a very comforting thing simply becuase I know someone who has it all figured out.

way too often, I think the key to finding this rhythm is found in criuse control. I let God get the ball rollling and then assure him that i can handle it from there. Funny how I often find myself runing in circles or toppling quickly to the ground wondering where Abba has gone. Yesterday, after spending most of my precious and small amount of quiet time assuring God that I had it covered, he simply spoke into my heart, "You aren't going to make it through this week without me." I am not going to make it. to those of you who have never experienced this sort of thing, it will surprise you that this statement actually brings me immense peace. I'm not going to make it. there is no one expecting me to make it through alone. So I have made the choice to be quiet, to listen attentively to the voice of the one who guides me, who has promised to be with me all along the way.

"Don't look for shortcuts to God. the market is flooded with surefire, easy-going formulas for a successful life that can be practiced in your spare time. Don't fall for that stuff, even through crowds of people do. The way of life-- to God-- is vigorous and requires total attention."
Matther 7:13-14

there are so many things in these last few days that I think should be something more. I keep thinking that Heidi needs to be something more, I need to fit my life into this mold of "the way it was supposed to be". Strangely enough, God's version of "how it is supposed to be" looks nothing like ours. The main difference is that everybody's "suppsed to" is different-- God has prepared unique experiences, unique families, unique appearances, unique personalities for each of us. In one of my college essays I was required to simply describe myself and i remember one of the lines in the paper said that I am an expression of the master unlike any of this other expressions. Think about that. If each of us are created in the image of God and no one is exactly like anyone else, each of us are a picture of a different aspect of God. Not to say that we are God or even part of his person, but each of our personalities, our gifts, are a special, unique peice of God that he has chosen to lay upon us and no one else in the whole world, or if he created aliens, no one in the entire universe. wow.

"Look at the birds, free and unfettered, not tied down by a job description, careless in the care of God." Matthew 6:26

I really love this verse becuase it really speaks to the heart of my struggles. I have this idea, this job description that I think i am tied to, but God calls me to such a higher freedom. As I think about the way I want to remember my last week of my childhood of sorts, I want to have spent it careless in the care of God. I want to look back and not see unneccessary stress for the hope of winning the approval of my teachers, peers, or even myself through what i can acheive, or how well I remained tethered to my job description. I want to be a person who found a higher definition of importance.

I think the thing that most resonates with me about this idea of being tied to a job description is that it implies that we are stuck in this life of garbage, this past, this dead-end job that we have always known we were better for. Being totally careless in the care of God, free from any title or label, means that we can let go of the expectations we know are impossible to fulfill and leave or junky pasts in the pasts, not matter how many times we are afraid people are going to refer to them. Its the new creation factor-- let go of everything that was and run freely in the beautiful future of Abba's abundant grace.

"Are you tired? Worn out? Burned out on religion? Come to me. Get away with me and you'll recover your life. I'll show you how to take a real rest. Walk with me and work with me-- watch how I do it. Learn the unforced rhythms of grace. I won't lay anything heavy or ill-fitting on you. Keep company with me and you'll learn to live freely and lightly."
Matthew 11:28-30 (msg)

This verse really just speaks to where I am at now, and really, most of the time. I need to learn how to live freely and lightly, but I am only going to learn that by coming back to Jesus, watching how he works, allowing him to show me how to take a real rest. What a deep, fulfilling life-- not an easy one, but definately a life worth much more than empty mediocrity. So, here I go, off to face the rest of my life, which I am not going to make through without God guiding every step, providing every breath.


abba, thank you so much for carrying me through. Thank you for simply speaking truth and reality into my life, for making who I am now enough by making up for all that I am not. abba, I don't want to go through this life without you. Cruise control is dry and frustrating. Continue to hold me up, carry me through, remind me what is true. Take these last few days and show me the beautiful things you want me to see before they are gone forever. Don't allow my to spend my life with my nose in a book, but rather make me fully present, fully alive to the fullness of life as you intended it. order my life after you. abba, I love you with all I have.

New

In one week, I will be totally free from the stresses and joys of highschool; I view this coming week as I would look down a hall-- a long hall in one way and a very short one in another. But today I am glad to just be reminded that I am new. That all this stuff in my past- the past week, past day, past semester, past year, past school year- is washed away in an instant. I heard once that sabbath is an opportunity to simply sit and allow God to heal all the things that have gone wrong in the past week. I like that, mainly because i feel like i've been running in circles for the past few weeks trying to heal a broken leg.

i've been battling a lot and I haven't taken much time for solitude, not much listening has been done on my part for a while. This morning, for the first time in probably about a month or two, I sat down and considered what it means to stop. I let my heart be stilled and began listening to the voice of the Holy Spirit instead of this empty feelings and half-attempts at stuggle-healings.

This semester was hard, but as I look back on the entire school year, I realize how blessed I am, how forgiven I am, how ready I am for the future. God is amazing. He does these things in my life that just blow me away in quiet ways. There are days when I just sit and contemplate how beautiful he is and I am overcome with this quiet reverence, this overwhelming love that just makes me want to sit and never move from that place.

So as I look toward this coming week, I am so grateful for this day to just step back and allow God to gently heal the things that have gone so wrong in the past months. I am so enjoying being able to lay all of my worries about incomplete papers and impossible projects on Him and simply trust Abba to make this last week one of incomparable meaning and friendship and closure and joy. I am taking this day simply to enjoy breathing for the first time in a long time. Getting my rhythm back, at least for a moment.

Abba, thank you for the blessing of sabath, of a day off. Thank you that you take this day to heal me, to quiet me, to teach me that it really is possible to be find solitude. Thank you for the reminder this morning that you were able to transform Paul into a man who is used even today and that also means that you are able to transform and use me. you knew exactly what I needed. Abba, i thank you that you never leave me nor forsake me, you were with me every moment during this crazy, difficult, confusing, and sometmes hurtful year. you never get frustrated with my conufusion, my walking around in circles when you just want me to sit down, but you are patient and loving towards me. Take the rest of this day and put me back together. pick up the peices of all that has chipped off. Use today to prepare me for this week. I don't want to miss one minute of it by selling out to worry. finish my work, finish your work in me. its a sad ending, but such a beautiful, beautiful one. Please don't let me miss it. Abba, build my trust and faith in you this week like never before-- i need a few miracles.

This is Absolutely appalling

As I was searching for some tips as to how to write my own artists statement in preparation for the dispaly of my Senior Portfolio this weekend (yay!!), i stumbled upon this account concerning the state of this countries justice system. Check out this site, you'll be amazed.

http://69.93.170.43/index.php.