"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.