well, here we are. Do ever sit down for a moment and wonder how you ever got where you are? Today was my last day as a full-time commuter office worker, for this summer at least. Somehow I made it. It has definately been a summer unlike anything I have ever experienced; exptremely exhilarating, stressful, confusing, testing a great deal of the time. But i don't think i will ever have a doubt in my mind that God uses those hard times in our lives to push us farther than we ever could have imagined. I feel like such a different person. So different.
Last week I spent an evening of reflection with some good friends of mine and it was so encouraging, so clarifying to see who I am now and where I am going as that person. ONe thing that they said to me was that last year about this time, I was confident in me, but this year I am secure in Christ. What an immense compliment. What a strengthening thing to know about yourself. and I don't write that so you all can see what an amazing person I am but so I can see what an amazing thing God has done in my life and a great way to view the way I am going forward.
I'm not really sure where I am going with this post. I don't know if i really have anything theologically profound to say, but then again, do i ever? Do I really want to? I mean, all i have to say is what I have in my own life-- other than these experiences, I am bankrupt and empty. And all of this is just a gift of grace.
I have been faced with some questions about identity even in the past few days. My job is telling people how to pay for college (basically), and there are just days when I feel so unqualified, so much like I just gave someone some information that just might result in an angry call in the next few days when what I say doesn't come true. And i've had to face the fact that even if I screw up the life of every student I talk to (not that I intend on doing so, but lets just talk extremes for a minute), who I am is still hidden in Christ. I am still something important to God, still held in his arms.
This past week, I have searched the word and come up without much that I can say really pertains to my circumstances, but I think sometimes God just throws random stuff at us so that we don't find our security even in our ability to find profound stuff in his word. Not that I don't think that what God has given to us in his word isn't mind blowing, God wants our interest to just be in him, not all the other stuff that gives us reason to take the glory or keeps us from being totally taken in by HIM. And so I am learning that even though God is silent, that things don't really seem to be making sense and I have no huge revelations, God is there and that is revelation enough. I can't trust in these spiritual highs, these "woah" moments becuase they just aren't always going to be there, but Abba is. Abba is always there, even when I don't really feel like it.
I think i have been in a pretty restless state in the past couple of days, maybe even weeks. it was killing me today to make it through the work day. So easy to roll my eyes at the idiots that call into work. So easy to get caught up in my impatience with people who just don't get it because i think maybe i've been somewhere else. I've been concerned about how i look to my coworkers, how I come across to the students and parents on the phone. ANd i've wondered how I can find my worth in those things... and i just can't. I've wondered how people I am going to meet are going to percieve me, who I should be in order to "make an impact." whatever that means.
I think i am getting tired of this lie that i need to be someone different than the Heidi God made me to be. I love this quote from Rob Bell that says, "Your job is the relentless pursuit of who God made you to be. To be about anything else is sin." I love it. I just want to pursue God's blueprint for my life... why is that so hard sometimes?
ANyway, this post is really scattered, but you have a real glimpse of my life right now. So scattered. I am trying to find something to focus on in this spinning world around me. As I write this last part, i am afriad all of this is contradictory, but i think its more a picture of the process. who knows.
I think i'm just really excited, in such anticipation and i so badly just want to share that with someone. We are so made for sharing. I am made for such sharing. So, there you all are, whoever you are. whoever is reading all this radomidity. thats right. radomidity. thanks for walking this journey with me... more to come when things are maybe more clear and i feel less restless, less like screaming, less like bursting.
Tuesday, August 16
Sunday, August 14
Church is not a place where we sit and listen to the person who is most right, but a place where we can go to share our lives with others and join others in thier lives.
This morning I woke up a little frustrated, a little confused. Today is my last sunday here at home and it has brought up a number of questions about why I go to this place, how I feel about these people and why I have those feelings. Way too often I forget that church isn't the place where we are forced to listen to the person who is right about everything talk and act like we don't feel threatened by that. This is gathering of people who are hurting, who need restoration-- a place where we come together to learn about the qualities of himself God has placed in each one of us. There is something so much more beautiful in that than thinking of this place as the institution we use to boost our flesh. Church isn't about taping more fruit on, but changing from the inside out simply by being and allowing others that same healing by investing in the person God has made them to be.
I keep wondering what role this particular group of people is going to play in my life. Too often, I am just happy to be able to get away, to start fresh, and then realize that there are still peices of the group that are going to be a part of my life. How do i fee about that? If it isn't a contest, that means I just get to continue investing in lives, just in a different place, maybe a different context.
So today I am making this statement as a reminder to myself:
Church is not a place where we decide who is more right; Church is a place where we come together simply to see how God is showing himself in each of our hearts, a places where we simply share lives.
Abba God, thank you for speaking your truth as you have promised. Thank you for clearing my frustrated heart, my crazy head. Lord, make this true of me. Make me to be a person who simply encourages people to be who you are making them to be and not where I try to do your job and try to make people what I want them to be. You are God and I am not and I go to this place just to see your face in the visages of your people.
This morning I woke up a little frustrated, a little confused. Today is my last sunday here at home and it has brought up a number of questions about why I go to this place, how I feel about these people and why I have those feelings. Way too often I forget that church isn't the place where we are forced to listen to the person who is right about everything talk and act like we don't feel threatened by that. This is gathering of people who are hurting, who need restoration-- a place where we come together to learn about the qualities of himself God has placed in each one of us. There is something so much more beautiful in that than thinking of this place as the institution we use to boost our flesh. Church isn't about taping more fruit on, but changing from the inside out simply by being and allowing others that same healing by investing in the person God has made them to be.
I keep wondering what role this particular group of people is going to play in my life. Too often, I am just happy to be able to get away, to start fresh, and then realize that there are still peices of the group that are going to be a part of my life. How do i fee about that? If it isn't a contest, that means I just get to continue investing in lives, just in a different place, maybe a different context.
So today I am making this statement as a reminder to myself:
Church is not a place where we decide who is more right; Church is a place where we come together simply to see how God is showing himself in each of our hearts, a places where we simply share lives.
Abba God, thank you for speaking your truth as you have promised. Thank you for clearing my frustrated heart, my crazy head. Lord, make this true of me. Make me to be a person who simply encourages people to be who you are making them to be and not where I try to do your job and try to make people what I want them to be. You are God and I am not and I go to this place just to see your face in the visages of your people.
Friday, August 12
Looking Back, Looking Forward
Tonight I began packing up some of my things, getting ready to move, and as I was thinking about what I wanted to take and what I wanted to leave, I braved to look trhough some of my old journals and I think what I found there was a little surprising.
I have a lot of journals. For those of you who are familiar with this particular outlet, you know that I have a lot to say, a lot to write, a lot to wrestle with, so it won't surprise you that I have written a few novels in my few years. sometimes I feel guilty becuase I have so many of these books just sitting around in my room, but it takes so much strength to actually read through them. I think it is too easy for me to feel maybe even a little bored, you know, i've been there, done that. But I think reading through my past also poses a lot of questions, it brings back a lot of emotions, a lot of self-analysis that I'm just not sure I am capable of doing accurately.
As I think back on my past, its not always pleasant. There were a lot of years that I daily berated myself, so many years I went through the motions, thought and felt the right things in hopes of someday being enough, reaching that point where I could just relax and be who I was. And as i think back over those years, I just wonder what was really true. How do you look back upon your own past with an objective view? I don't know if it is possible.
I think someday I might plunge into these detailed records of my life, but right now i feel like it is something i should do to justify my daily rambling, but maybe i'm just not ready to handle myself. Have you ever been in that place? I mean, I just wonder how I can justify continually pouring myself into these pages without anyone but me and the recipient of each letter knowing what is inside there, producing nothing but trails of ink and healing in myself? I know that someday I will want to go back, retrace those steps, see where I have come from, but maybe just right now I am no far enough away to see the beauty.
being the visual learner that I am, I like the imagery of this life being lived as a journey. Naturally growing up in Colorado, I can easily imagine myself winding through the cool breezes and high trees, trekking through mountain passes. Its strange when you are in the mountains and you think about what it is like to just be on the outside of them. Where I live now, I am just the right distance away from the Rockies that in the distance you can see the different layers of blue against blue against blue-- you can see the ridges and peaks in surreal colors in the sunset, each morning the formations, colors and shadows change under the clouds to create some new beauty. But when you get closer to the mountians, you can no longer see their entirety, they turn more brown, little splotches of green. One you enter the foothills, everything seems dirtier, shadowyer, cooler. And then once you are there, you wonder how you ever got there. You look across a valley and it doesn't feel like you have come up as far as it would if you were watching from here on the plains and seeing yourself wave from way up high.
So, here is my point. I am in the middle of the hike-- I look across the valley, over the past few years, the short months since I filled the journals, and it is hard to see how far I have come. Its hard not to be overwhelmed by the amount of steps I have taken, but the less appearant progress. Its an interesting thought.
But I have a lot ahead of me. I will be starting something completely new and different in five days. Five days I will enter a landscape I have never before encountered. Maybe a little of something I could have seen a few pictures of, maybe have caught some essence of, but something totally new, something exciting, something shocking and freeing. I can't help but think how strange this life is and how patient I must be withit.
Just thinking about how little I even understand about myself in my review of my past writings, it is such vivid proof of how little I really understand about life, how limited my mind and spirit is. One thing that struck me as I was reading that old journal was that I said all the right hintgs, but that journal was also full of list and formulas, begging God to make me something. The prayers were very similar to the ones I pray now, but my heart has changed. I think back then, those prayers were me begging for God to make me enough, prayers to make me something worthy, something good. Now, as I read more recent things, I see my confessions as pouring out what is really in my heart. those same requests to make me something come from a love I have for Heidi that I didn't have in my past. Today I can pray, "Who you have made me to be is so good... show me what that person looks like." So I guess I can look across that valley a little.
THere are still so many things that I want to work out though. I need to figure out how exactly I feel about people in my past, figure out why my opionion of them seems so double-sided. I need to find out why there are things that I still hang on to but am unable to really face what keeps my nails dug in. And most of all, I hope there will be someone I can hand my library of journals and trust them to read every word, to know every thought, every confusion, every hurt, and know that I can find freedom in that disclosure. Sharing is always something good.... hopefully someday I can even share with myself.
I have a lot of journals. For those of you who are familiar with this particular outlet, you know that I have a lot to say, a lot to write, a lot to wrestle with, so it won't surprise you that I have written a few novels in my few years. sometimes I feel guilty becuase I have so many of these books just sitting around in my room, but it takes so much strength to actually read through them. I think it is too easy for me to feel maybe even a little bored, you know, i've been there, done that. But I think reading through my past also poses a lot of questions, it brings back a lot of emotions, a lot of self-analysis that I'm just not sure I am capable of doing accurately.
As I think back on my past, its not always pleasant. There were a lot of years that I daily berated myself, so many years I went through the motions, thought and felt the right things in hopes of someday being enough, reaching that point where I could just relax and be who I was. And as i think back over those years, I just wonder what was really true. How do you look back upon your own past with an objective view? I don't know if it is possible.
I think someday I might plunge into these detailed records of my life, but right now i feel like it is something i should do to justify my daily rambling, but maybe i'm just not ready to handle myself. Have you ever been in that place? I mean, I just wonder how I can justify continually pouring myself into these pages without anyone but me and the recipient of each letter knowing what is inside there, producing nothing but trails of ink and healing in myself? I know that someday I will want to go back, retrace those steps, see where I have come from, but maybe just right now I am no far enough away to see the beauty.
being the visual learner that I am, I like the imagery of this life being lived as a journey. Naturally growing up in Colorado, I can easily imagine myself winding through the cool breezes and high trees, trekking through mountain passes. Its strange when you are in the mountains and you think about what it is like to just be on the outside of them. Where I live now, I am just the right distance away from the Rockies that in the distance you can see the different layers of blue against blue against blue-- you can see the ridges and peaks in surreal colors in the sunset, each morning the formations, colors and shadows change under the clouds to create some new beauty. But when you get closer to the mountians, you can no longer see their entirety, they turn more brown, little splotches of green. One you enter the foothills, everything seems dirtier, shadowyer, cooler. And then once you are there, you wonder how you ever got there. You look across a valley and it doesn't feel like you have come up as far as it would if you were watching from here on the plains and seeing yourself wave from way up high.
So, here is my point. I am in the middle of the hike-- I look across the valley, over the past few years, the short months since I filled the journals, and it is hard to see how far I have come. Its hard not to be overwhelmed by the amount of steps I have taken, but the less appearant progress. Its an interesting thought.
But I have a lot ahead of me. I will be starting something completely new and different in five days. Five days I will enter a landscape I have never before encountered. Maybe a little of something I could have seen a few pictures of, maybe have caught some essence of, but something totally new, something exciting, something shocking and freeing. I can't help but think how strange this life is and how patient I must be withit.
Just thinking about how little I even understand about myself in my review of my past writings, it is such vivid proof of how little I really understand about life, how limited my mind and spirit is. One thing that struck me as I was reading that old journal was that I said all the right hintgs, but that journal was also full of list and formulas, begging God to make me something. The prayers were very similar to the ones I pray now, but my heart has changed. I think back then, those prayers were me begging for God to make me enough, prayers to make me something worthy, something good. Now, as I read more recent things, I see my confessions as pouring out what is really in my heart. those same requests to make me something come from a love I have for Heidi that I didn't have in my past. Today I can pray, "Who you have made me to be is so good... show me what that person looks like." So I guess I can look across that valley a little.
THere are still so many things that I want to work out though. I need to figure out how exactly I feel about people in my past, figure out why my opionion of them seems so double-sided. I need to find out why there are things that I still hang on to but am unable to really face what keeps my nails dug in. And most of all, I hope there will be someone I can hand my library of journals and trust them to read every word, to know every thought, every confusion, every hurt, and know that I can find freedom in that disclosure. Sharing is always something good.... hopefully someday I can even share with myself.
Wednesday, August 10
I can be a very ugly person in the eyes of other people... who wants to face that?
It has been a strange week, a exhausting week. A heavy week. A deep, very full week. And life doesn't seem to stop to wait for me to keep up.
Suffocation. Space. There is something incredibly soothing about silence, just a stop to all the tossing and turning, all the wondering and wandering. And i feel this is something God has been callng me to especially in the past few days.
Last night I was journaling, doing a little reflection, or maybe it could more accurately be called pouring out worry and frustration. And Abba led me to this passage in Isaiah:
In repentance and rest is your salvation,
In quietness and trust is your strength...
...the Lord longs to be gracious to you;
He rises to show you compassion.
The Lord is a God of justice
And blessed are all who wait on Him.
Isaiah 30:15a&18
I can be a very ugly person in the eyes of other people. And so that is why I must thank God for his grace. In his grace, I am able to shout at the top of my lungs "This IS WHO I AM!" I can be nothing more and nothing less at this moment than simply who God has allowed me to be at this very moment. I cannot be changed by others, only offered freely by God to change me. And the only way that can happen is in quiet surrender.
So I feel the need for some space. There is something so freeing about being able to say, "this is what I want, what I need, who I am, and you are just going to have to accept that until the Healer fixes me." I am not bound by the expectations and presumptions of other people. I need a little room to breath. To let out that breath and be that person, no matter how ugly she looks to you. I can't make my self anything different.
None of this probably makes sense, but i just wish the person I am really speaking to could hear me. I hope that somehow they can hear me. To really see that I can't breath. That i'm scared and hurt and i just want free. I need free. I need free. And that breaking free might cause some hurt, at this moment, I feel that freedom will come from a good, firm declaration of independence. She may think that I am already too independent, too offensive, not whatever enough, but that is the person i need to be right now. I need to be that person. And how do i do that without being hurtful? I don't know. But i think that I may need to be allowed to hurt before I am able to love. I heard a quote once that i really liked about love. It says something to this effect: "In order to love someone, we must know what hurts them." I feel like i need to have the right to be the mean person, the person who has the right to be wrong, the person who has that as a choice before i can be the right kind of person for the right reasons. I need to have that freedom.
Abba God! I am crying out to you tonight! I am feeling suffocated and trapped. I feel so totally overwhelmed in obligation, not truth, not real love. What are my rights? What part of me am I trying to express here? Set me free. I need your grace, that room to breath tonight.
It has been a strange week, a exhausting week. A heavy week. A deep, very full week. And life doesn't seem to stop to wait for me to keep up.
Suffocation. Space. There is something incredibly soothing about silence, just a stop to all the tossing and turning, all the wondering and wandering. And i feel this is something God has been callng me to especially in the past few days.
Last night I was journaling, doing a little reflection, or maybe it could more accurately be called pouring out worry and frustration. And Abba led me to this passage in Isaiah:
In repentance and rest is your salvation,
In quietness and trust is your strength...
...the Lord longs to be gracious to you;
He rises to show you compassion.
The Lord is a God of justice
And blessed are all who wait on Him.
Isaiah 30:15a&18
I can be a very ugly person in the eyes of other people. And so that is why I must thank God for his grace. In his grace, I am able to shout at the top of my lungs "This IS WHO I AM!" I can be nothing more and nothing less at this moment than simply who God has allowed me to be at this very moment. I cannot be changed by others, only offered freely by God to change me. And the only way that can happen is in quiet surrender.
So I feel the need for some space. There is something so freeing about being able to say, "this is what I want, what I need, who I am, and you are just going to have to accept that until the Healer fixes me." I am not bound by the expectations and presumptions of other people. I need a little room to breath. To let out that breath and be that person, no matter how ugly she looks to you. I can't make my self anything different.
None of this probably makes sense, but i just wish the person I am really speaking to could hear me. I hope that somehow they can hear me. To really see that I can't breath. That i'm scared and hurt and i just want free. I need free. I need free. And that breaking free might cause some hurt, at this moment, I feel that freedom will come from a good, firm declaration of independence. She may think that I am already too independent, too offensive, not whatever enough, but that is the person i need to be right now. I need to be that person. And how do i do that without being hurtful? I don't know. But i think that I may need to be allowed to hurt before I am able to love. I heard a quote once that i really liked about love. It says something to this effect: "In order to love someone, we must know what hurts them." I feel like i need to have the right to be the mean person, the person who has the right to be wrong, the person who has that as a choice before i can be the right kind of person for the right reasons. I need to have that freedom.
Abba God! I am crying out to you tonight! I am feeling suffocated and trapped. I feel so totally overwhelmed in obligation, not truth, not real love. What are my rights? What part of me am I trying to express here? Set me free. I need your grace, that room to breath tonight.
Saturday, August 6
Be careful what you pray for...
So tonight the ride toward a little more healing begins. I don't think there has ever been a prayer God has answered more vividly than my prayer for healing in my family. It seems that every time the issue comes up, something huge happens. Such a strange reoccuring thing.
So tonight I am embarking on a road that I have been avoiding for some time now. The eggshells have broken and I am pursuing a healing in the relationship with my sister. I will spare you the gory details for her sake, but I'll just say that today has borne its share of clarification and revelation. For possibly the first time, I am realizing that this a realtionship of lies, of fake smiles to hide the boiling pot of pain underneath. And I can take no more. I want honesty. I want to be able to have a real, healthy relationship with my sister, whom i can honestly say I love dearly, but have been bruised deeply by. And I have done my share of bruising as well. I want to stop skating around the steaming pile of sludge and just dive in once and for all... no more gloss, no more avoiding. I AM FACING THIS. I must. We must.
So tonight i wrote a relatively short letter considering my caliber of winded-ness, initiating the beginning of this road full of snares and briars. I don't know what exactly even the next day will hold, how things will pan out, but all i can do is trust that God is faithful, that he will lead me toward the wholeness and healing he desires for my soul. I believe that if he says in his word that he is One, he would want the same healing for me, this is the end result. So this is what I seek.
Earlier tonight as i was seeking God on this hard thing, I wondered if I would really even be able to write this letter in love, that I could honestly say that I was seeking this in right motives, but tonight, i know that even God is faithful in this. I have so much peace, a few questions, but simply the freedom to say that what I am seeking here is healing. I am seeking a relationship that is somehting more than false illusions-- i am seeking the real thing.
So please pray for me tonight, in these next few days as this progresses. I have no idea where this is leading, but i do know who is doing the leading. Pray against discouragement and lies. And pray that I will find this healing and wholeness that I seek for both me and my sister.... love is a strange thing.
Lord God, thank you for leading. Thank you for holding my hand, for a family to love and to be loved by. Thank you that you do not desire for me this pain, but the place where I can look back on this time and be so joyful in just knowing i am no longer here. You know our hearts, Abba, you know everything that is going to take place in just even the next few moments. So Lord God, I trust you. I am choosing to follow here. So Lord God, all i can ask is that you continue to carry me through. I need you now, I need your strength to face myself with honesty, to face not only my wrong here but also your grace and in honestly not to take the blame for the things that i cannot change. Thank you for a person who has been here, who knows what it is like and who can continually encourage and share your truth with my sould when i just don't know what questions to ask. Thank you for answered prayer, even amid the pain that these answers bring.
So tonight I am embarking on a road that I have been avoiding for some time now. The eggshells have broken and I am pursuing a healing in the relationship with my sister. I will spare you the gory details for her sake, but I'll just say that today has borne its share of clarification and revelation. For possibly the first time, I am realizing that this a realtionship of lies, of fake smiles to hide the boiling pot of pain underneath. And I can take no more. I want honesty. I want to be able to have a real, healthy relationship with my sister, whom i can honestly say I love dearly, but have been bruised deeply by. And I have done my share of bruising as well. I want to stop skating around the steaming pile of sludge and just dive in once and for all... no more gloss, no more avoiding. I AM FACING THIS. I must. We must.
So tonight i wrote a relatively short letter considering my caliber of winded-ness, initiating the beginning of this road full of snares and briars. I don't know what exactly even the next day will hold, how things will pan out, but all i can do is trust that God is faithful, that he will lead me toward the wholeness and healing he desires for my soul. I believe that if he says in his word that he is One, he would want the same healing for me, this is the end result. So this is what I seek.
Earlier tonight as i was seeking God on this hard thing, I wondered if I would really even be able to write this letter in love, that I could honestly say that I was seeking this in right motives, but tonight, i know that even God is faithful in this. I have so much peace, a few questions, but simply the freedom to say that what I am seeking here is healing. I am seeking a relationship that is somehting more than false illusions-- i am seeking the real thing.
So please pray for me tonight, in these next few days as this progresses. I have no idea where this is leading, but i do know who is doing the leading. Pray against discouragement and lies. And pray that I will find this healing and wholeness that I seek for both me and my sister.... love is a strange thing.
Lord God, thank you for leading. Thank you for holding my hand, for a family to love and to be loved by. Thank you that you do not desire for me this pain, but the place where I can look back on this time and be so joyful in just knowing i am no longer here. You know our hearts, Abba, you know everything that is going to take place in just even the next few moments. So Lord God, I trust you. I am choosing to follow here. So Lord God, all i can ask is that you continue to carry me through. I need you now, I need your strength to face myself with honesty, to face not only my wrong here but also your grace and in honestly not to take the blame for the things that i cannot change. Thank you for a person who has been here, who knows what it is like and who can continually encourage and share your truth with my sould when i just don't know what questions to ask. Thank you for answered prayer, even amid the pain that these answers bring.
Friday, August 5
On My Own!!
So I am officially on my own at work.. and that is such a good thing. I am out of training, done observing calls, done answering phones under the supervision of a regular fin aid advisor, and no longer buddied up with another employee. In less words, I can now officially do the job i was hired to do. I'm all on my own!!
What a great feeling. And what an amazing God i have as a daddy who makes the impossible possible. I blogged a few months ago about feeling small and lost, overwhelmed at the prospect of the thing i may someday be but am not yet. Today I feel big, not in a cocky or overweight way, but i feel adequate. I feel like I have been gifted with the ability to accomplish what has been given me as a very daunting challenge. When my Abba said, "You can do it. I wouldn't have called you if you couldn't do it," now I believe him. I remember thinking those first few weeks of working this insane job, how will I even be there? How will i ever accomplish this huge task, how will i keep from letting these people down? Am I really enough? I am just this little girl, this lost little High School graduate. One day I was at the very top and the next day i found myself smaller than i have ever felt... maybe.
So today as i drove home, I was just so rejoicing, so happy, so grateful. Tonight I feel very passionate, but not sure where to place all that passion. I am here, home alone, friday night, no one to really share all of this with. i just want to share myself, share all this stuff that God has placed in my hands.
As I drove home, as I have thought multiple times, what a blessing my beautiful job is, what a beautiful, hard summer this has been. If you want to call it a summer in the traditional sense. I still remember so clearly sitting late the night of my interview, swinging on the porch, crying beside my mom as i asked God why he would give me such a great job, but still in love also require it at such a high price. I guess now that is why he says, "Much is given, much is required." And i did offer my everything afterall.
And so I look back on this summer, and all i can say is, "Yeah, God, I guess you were right." Sitting back and sipping lemonade wasn't the way that you wanted to show me this year. this time you wanted a little more blood and sweat. As i stand back and reflect, its like enjoying the burn of a good challenge, enjoying the rhythm of the work now that the rhythm has been established.
So where am i going with all of this? I do not know. its funny how you begin something huge, wondering why exactly you are pursuing it, wondering even more how you shall ever climb this gigantic mountain to see the vista at the top. And then little by little you find yourself gaining ground, little by little, as if someone were driving and you were enjoying the ride, enduring the bumps at times. I never had to climb alone. there was never a time when i could not come home from work and not find my Abba. unfortunately, i think there were days when i choose not to really pour out my tears of toil and hardship upon him, but even then he was there every morning, he took the walk with me around campus and lunch and he showed himself faithful yet again today.
There have been many weeks this summer when i wondered if i would ever find stability between discouragement and extacy, flipping between days of wonder and days of extreme dissappointment, wondering if i would ever make it to this place, to being on my own. But overall, I am still alive. This crazy hills and mountains of feelings are sometimes difficult, but i thik they also exercise the faith just as taking a good run sets the blood to flowing.
So tonight i have this passion. Do you ever have so much passion that you feel like you are choking on it all? like there is something you need to get out but no way to get it out... just to shout but no one hear it....
maybe its just a tad bit of loneliness..
Abba God, you are here. You are here to hear my shouts of joy, my cries of anguish. You have made me as one who experiences this joy, this excitement, and maybe you are really the only one who can really understand this thing that surges through me. Not even i understand it all. But Lord God, my Abba, the one who I call to, thank you for all you have done in me, all this stuff of life that you have just placed around me. Thank you for the pain, the sacrifice, all the lessons you have taught me through this extreme experience this summer. Thank you for the people that you have placed at SFS, this group of people that you only could have assembled, people so nice that there is no person you should be afriad to call. Thank you for placing me at CSU. Lord God, I fought you so hard. I fought with all my might. I tried to manipulate your word, cooerce you into wanting my desires. But you love me way too much to let me do what i want. Who am I to deserve your hand upon my life, your hand upon my heart. Who am i to reap the benefits of your all-knowing power, be so totally immersed in your un-dying love. why me?
So many things that I do not deserve. Time after time you replaced my will with your own. So many times i asked you why, wanted to hit you fist after fist, demanding you falter. But you would never budge. you were this big, unmoveable presence, the light that i just could not ignore. So here i am today. Who would have thought a year ago that i would be anywhere near this place, praising you this way, being this person. How you have deepened me, how you have increased who I am by at least a mile think, bound me a little tighter to your freedom, to your love. You truly are my first love, how could i go to anyone but you? Where would i be without you? Who would i be? And to think that you have made me to be a person even deeper, even more complicated than all this? You have made me in such a beautiful way that even i don't understand all that you have made me. I can't wait to plunge into these next few months to find a little more who this person is.... Abba, My God, thank you does not even begin to express... to think about your presence in me, your walking beside me, in me, through me, before and behind, how could i live any other way? There is no place i want to go without you.
What a great feeling. And what an amazing God i have as a daddy who makes the impossible possible. I blogged a few months ago about feeling small and lost, overwhelmed at the prospect of the thing i may someday be but am not yet. Today I feel big, not in a cocky or overweight way, but i feel adequate. I feel like I have been gifted with the ability to accomplish what has been given me as a very daunting challenge. When my Abba said, "You can do it. I wouldn't have called you if you couldn't do it," now I believe him. I remember thinking those first few weeks of working this insane job, how will I even be there? How will i ever accomplish this huge task, how will i keep from letting these people down? Am I really enough? I am just this little girl, this lost little High School graduate. One day I was at the very top and the next day i found myself smaller than i have ever felt... maybe.
So today as i drove home, I was just so rejoicing, so happy, so grateful. Tonight I feel very passionate, but not sure where to place all that passion. I am here, home alone, friday night, no one to really share all of this with. i just want to share myself, share all this stuff that God has placed in my hands.
As I drove home, as I have thought multiple times, what a blessing my beautiful job is, what a beautiful, hard summer this has been. If you want to call it a summer in the traditional sense. I still remember so clearly sitting late the night of my interview, swinging on the porch, crying beside my mom as i asked God why he would give me such a great job, but still in love also require it at such a high price. I guess now that is why he says, "Much is given, much is required." And i did offer my everything afterall.
And so I look back on this summer, and all i can say is, "Yeah, God, I guess you were right." Sitting back and sipping lemonade wasn't the way that you wanted to show me this year. this time you wanted a little more blood and sweat. As i stand back and reflect, its like enjoying the burn of a good challenge, enjoying the rhythm of the work now that the rhythm has been established.
So where am i going with all of this? I do not know. its funny how you begin something huge, wondering why exactly you are pursuing it, wondering even more how you shall ever climb this gigantic mountain to see the vista at the top. And then little by little you find yourself gaining ground, little by little, as if someone were driving and you were enjoying the ride, enduring the bumps at times. I never had to climb alone. there was never a time when i could not come home from work and not find my Abba. unfortunately, i think there were days when i choose not to really pour out my tears of toil and hardship upon him, but even then he was there every morning, he took the walk with me around campus and lunch and he showed himself faithful yet again today.
There have been many weeks this summer when i wondered if i would ever find stability between discouragement and extacy, flipping between days of wonder and days of extreme dissappointment, wondering if i would ever make it to this place, to being on my own. But overall, I am still alive. This crazy hills and mountains of feelings are sometimes difficult, but i thik they also exercise the faith just as taking a good run sets the blood to flowing.
So tonight i have this passion. Do you ever have so much passion that you feel like you are choking on it all? like there is something you need to get out but no way to get it out... just to shout but no one hear it....
maybe its just a tad bit of loneliness..
Abba God, you are here. You are here to hear my shouts of joy, my cries of anguish. You have made me as one who experiences this joy, this excitement, and maybe you are really the only one who can really understand this thing that surges through me. Not even i understand it all. But Lord God, my Abba, the one who I call to, thank you for all you have done in me, all this stuff of life that you have just placed around me. Thank you for the pain, the sacrifice, all the lessons you have taught me through this extreme experience this summer. Thank you for the people that you have placed at SFS, this group of people that you only could have assembled, people so nice that there is no person you should be afriad to call. Thank you for placing me at CSU. Lord God, I fought you so hard. I fought with all my might. I tried to manipulate your word, cooerce you into wanting my desires. But you love me way too much to let me do what i want. Who am I to deserve your hand upon my life, your hand upon my heart. Who am i to reap the benefits of your all-knowing power, be so totally immersed in your un-dying love. why me?
So many things that I do not deserve. Time after time you replaced my will with your own. So many times i asked you why, wanted to hit you fist after fist, demanding you falter. But you would never budge. you were this big, unmoveable presence, the light that i just could not ignore. So here i am today. Who would have thought a year ago that i would be anywhere near this place, praising you this way, being this person. How you have deepened me, how you have increased who I am by at least a mile think, bound me a little tighter to your freedom, to your love. You truly are my first love, how could i go to anyone but you? Where would i be without you? Who would i be? And to think that you have made me to be a person even deeper, even more complicated than all this? You have made me in such a beautiful way that even i don't understand all that you have made me. I can't wait to plunge into these next few months to find a little more who this person is.... Abba, My God, thank you does not even begin to express... to think about your presence in me, your walking beside me, in me, through me, before and behind, how could i live any other way? There is no place i want to go without you.
Wednesday, August 3
I can't sleep tonight, even though i need to get some winks in before morning comes way too soon. i don't know if i have anything really profound to say tonight, but i've had this urge to write something for a couple of days... ahhh, addiction....
no. Two weeks from tomorrow, i will be living in a different place, all that i have been waiting for will be upon me and my life will have taken its full swoop, the ride begins. Its strange to think that summer is coming to an end because to say that summer is ending and school is beginning again is making a reference to some life i no longer know. that childhood of cycle seems to have ended and my life seems to have be suddenly flung into one pot of chaos. A good choas. A choas of maybe less structure, but more freedom, more room for the "what about this... or this."
My little bedroom is a giant mess. Who knew something so small could also be so big? And it seems daunting in a vague way to think that in two short weeks i must find time to empty that small space and transplant its contents to somewhere new, somewhere new, somewhere i cannot wait to experience. Somewhere that i hope is not too good to be true or somewhere that only exists in my dreams.
I remember thinking around the time of graduation, this world i have known for so long is so small, so unreal, so.... what? And i look into the great abyss of what is going to sweep me away in its current and wonder. Am I up to the challenge? Yes! Will it be all that i hope for? That i do not know. Who will i be? Who will i become? Who will become a part of my life? What will happen to those people who are here now but may quickly slip away? How will i keep up with all of it?
I know that God has all of it covered, but the anticipation i feel is not really worry, but rather, an excitement.. pure anticipation. it seems so far, so foreign, though it is so close. So real and yet so surreal. Who is this person going into this place? Who will i be when i come out?
its been one of those days when i just want to laugh, to cry, to sing, to scream. I want to yell at the red light, to ask it why i must wait for it to turn green. in fact i did just that-- at the corner of 20th and 23rd. i'm tired to driving. i'm tired of the commute, of putting my foot on the gas but being restricted by the little white signs and the man with the pad of tickets. tired. sometimes it seems that holding back takes away more energy than just letting it all fly.
So what is it in me that is longing to come out? What is screaming to come out? I have seen a lot of people this week, just met with people simply for the purpose of talking, sharing, and i'm feeling empty, wondering what expectation these encounters should be fulfilling. just wondering. or wandering. maybe just longing for a place to sit down. a rest. no more restless sleep. I wish I had an answer. I wish something felt concrete. I wish i had something to wrap my fingers around.
But here i am, writing this stuff to seemingly no one. Wondering what the asnwers are, where i am going and when my feet are going to hit the pavement. Maybe i just want to know the future, or not be stuck in this lag time, this theoretical limbo of preparing and figuring. Touching something not yet tangible.
SO in the midst of all this change, what is constant? Love. . I love my God, my friend, this essence, this being, that is always there in this strange, mystical, unspeakable, unfathomable way. This Abba, this Daddy that sometimes i just want to cry out, "Where are you? Are you near me? I feel so far. I feel like i'm floating in some kind of illusion, this air-less outerspace where i just can't grasp anything." my life is so busy, so full, so occupied, i wonder if there is something i shoudl be doing to find your hand. I feel like i'm flailing. Lost in this big big essence of a world. is it okay for me just to hope, to assume that you are always there, as you promise to never never never never leave me? are you really there? do i need to do anything besides reach out, to cry out? what if i don't even have the time to cry out? You knew that this is what my life was going to be like, this suffocation i feel. I asked you not to make me take the sacrifice with the blessing, but you insisted, so all i can do is trust that this is the place where you want me. All i can do is trust that you are providing me with all the air i need. You are the one who keeps me alive, Abba, and i feel afraid. I feel alone and scared. Uncertainty. You ask that i give you the uncertainty and you will bring the clarity in your time. SO here it is. ITs wednesday, the day when my own strength runs dry and i come to that place called "the end of Heidi" and i beg you to come and forgive me and take over. I need you Abba. I can't handle this life, these next two weeks. I feel they may be too much to bear, this balance between excitement and sanity. Work in me, grow me, prepare me. i need you. you are my breath, my spirit within me.
no. Two weeks from tomorrow, i will be living in a different place, all that i have been waiting for will be upon me and my life will have taken its full swoop, the ride begins. Its strange to think that summer is coming to an end because to say that summer is ending and school is beginning again is making a reference to some life i no longer know. that childhood of cycle seems to have ended and my life seems to have be suddenly flung into one pot of chaos. A good choas. A choas of maybe less structure, but more freedom, more room for the "what about this... or this."
My little bedroom is a giant mess. Who knew something so small could also be so big? And it seems daunting in a vague way to think that in two short weeks i must find time to empty that small space and transplant its contents to somewhere new, somewhere new, somewhere i cannot wait to experience. Somewhere that i hope is not too good to be true or somewhere that only exists in my dreams.
I remember thinking around the time of graduation, this world i have known for so long is so small, so unreal, so.... what? And i look into the great abyss of what is going to sweep me away in its current and wonder. Am I up to the challenge? Yes! Will it be all that i hope for? That i do not know. Who will i be? Who will i become? Who will become a part of my life? What will happen to those people who are here now but may quickly slip away? How will i keep up with all of it?
I know that God has all of it covered, but the anticipation i feel is not really worry, but rather, an excitement.. pure anticipation. it seems so far, so foreign, though it is so close. So real and yet so surreal. Who is this person going into this place? Who will i be when i come out?
its been one of those days when i just want to laugh, to cry, to sing, to scream. I want to yell at the red light, to ask it why i must wait for it to turn green. in fact i did just that-- at the corner of 20th and 23rd. i'm tired to driving. i'm tired of the commute, of putting my foot on the gas but being restricted by the little white signs and the man with the pad of tickets. tired. sometimes it seems that holding back takes away more energy than just letting it all fly.
So what is it in me that is longing to come out? What is screaming to come out? I have seen a lot of people this week, just met with people simply for the purpose of talking, sharing, and i'm feeling empty, wondering what expectation these encounters should be fulfilling. just wondering. or wandering. maybe just longing for a place to sit down. a rest. no more restless sleep. I wish I had an answer. I wish something felt concrete. I wish i had something to wrap my fingers around.
But here i am, writing this stuff to seemingly no one. Wondering what the asnwers are, where i am going and when my feet are going to hit the pavement. Maybe i just want to know the future, or not be stuck in this lag time, this theoretical limbo of preparing and figuring. Touching something not yet tangible.
SO in the midst of all this change, what is constant? Love. . I love my God, my friend, this essence, this being, that is always there in this strange, mystical, unspeakable, unfathomable way. This Abba, this Daddy that sometimes i just want to cry out, "Where are you? Are you near me? I feel so far. I feel like i'm floating in some kind of illusion, this air-less outerspace where i just can't grasp anything." my life is so busy, so full, so occupied, i wonder if there is something i shoudl be doing to find your hand. I feel like i'm flailing. Lost in this big big essence of a world. is it okay for me just to hope, to assume that you are always there, as you promise to never never never never leave me? are you really there? do i need to do anything besides reach out, to cry out? what if i don't even have the time to cry out? You knew that this is what my life was going to be like, this suffocation i feel. I asked you not to make me take the sacrifice with the blessing, but you insisted, so all i can do is trust that this is the place where you want me. All i can do is trust that you are providing me with all the air i need. You are the one who keeps me alive, Abba, and i feel afraid. I feel alone and scared. Uncertainty. You ask that i give you the uncertainty and you will bring the clarity in your time. SO here it is. ITs wednesday, the day when my own strength runs dry and i come to that place called "the end of Heidi" and i beg you to come and forgive me and take over. I need you Abba. I can't handle this life, these next two weeks. I feel they may be too much to bear, this balance between excitement and sanity. Work in me, grow me, prepare me. i need you. you are my breath, my spirit within me.
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