after a long, full, complex weekend with all sorts of family, today, being monday, marked the return to the mundane life I know as work. I have not been enjoying my workday lately, to be perfectly honest. I've found it hard and frustrating and a little lonely. I used to think of myself as a patient person. I feel I am loosing it. I'm tired.

Today I realized a couple of things. I was reading an article about being connected to other people and it stirred something in me. Why is it so hard to feel connected to people? Is it just me, or do other people find this same struggle? Does anyone ever find themselves climbing this massive hill, facing this giant obstacle when it comes to finding people in your life to really connect with? Does it ever come easy? Does it ever last?

I was thinking about how this is really the thing that we are made for, and so, maybe, that's why it makes the most sense why we can't do it on our own. I mean, I keep hearing this stuff about how we aren't made to be alone, how we are made to be connected to people, that there are supposed to be people in our lives, but I can never seem to find myself in this place in life where I can count on not being alone. It is hard. I feel this frustration that I never find myself in this place. Is it the culture I place myself in? Is it my facial expression? I don't get it. Is there something I am supposed to be doing? Controlling other people?

I feel frustrated at work. I sit in this office for eight hours a day with these same people. We do the same job. We work together. We sit sometimes for hours and wait for calls. Sometimes we never get a breath between calls. And yet I feel this wall. Maybe its all in my mind, but nevertheless, I feel the weight of this voice that says, "They don't understand you. You don't understand them. They have already made up their minds about you and they are sure you have already made up your mind about them." Sometimes I just feel like an alien.

And what is true? I don't know. I was thinking about this girl I knew in High School. A girl I think of a lot becuase she reminds me of me a lot. She would come to every church function, every event, everything, in hopes that maybe through particiapation in the things that people were forced to come to and be with her at, that maybe then she would feel like she belonged, that maybe some day there would be a connection. Maybe someday the hearts would really be in it. This was definately me. And you know, the more this girl came to these things and never get invited to go out with everybody afterwards, the more she felt like this would never be a heart thing, the stupider she felt, the more of a reject she felt like for even putting herself out there are trying.

I am feeling very tired. Very exhausted. Very much like things are not quite right. Like I want to be more connected with the people who are in my life, and yet I am not and I don't know how to get there. It is so much easier to live my life in this consumeristic, busy, work-aholic way because it is a lot less painful than admitting I am made for this belonging with other people that I can't seem to find. As I look back on my life as a younger person, I remember running to hard into the arms of the newspaper, of the student council, the arms of the A+++ becuase there was security here. I think I feared the day when my grade in the class could not get any higher because I didn't know where I would turn after that. I think I am still there to some extent. I have maybe gotten to the point where I can hold back to maybe an A or and A-, but I am afraid. I remember one day leaving my hour working as editor of the school newspaper and having my teacher say to me, "You know, Heidi, people get hit by busses. Maybe you shouldn't do everything by yourself." And then I walked out of the room, went to my emaculate locker, and killed as much time as I could so I could spend as little time as possible in the lunch room.

And so today I read an article about being connected to other people. About how we all sit at our private laptops and don't see each other. And I saw myself hiding there. And so, I want my prayer for this summer that God would re-connect me with the people he loves. Somehow. By some miracle. I feel so discouraged. Maybe because I know deep down, somewhere beneath, that this connection will never come from my strength or understanding. It seems like each time I come to Abba with this question of connectedness, he replies with this same answer: pray. So maybe if I listen this time. When we come together on sundays, we've been talking about choosing to partner with God in something. I guess this is it for me: partnering with God to be more connected with the people around me. Partnering with God to get back to that place he created me to be where I don't get all of this junk that clutters my life to get in the way of my relationships. Wow. This is way bigger than me. Would you all pray with me?

Summertime!!

I love summer. Love it Love it Love it. Without a doubt. There are things that are a part of me that are so special and sentimental and wonderful that I feel like they are a part of me since I was created, even before time. I think summer is one of those things. My sister is the Strawberry Girl in our family. I am the Lemonade Girl. I feel like I own summer.

Funny. I feel like I have written a thousand things here containing the words "Full circle," and I think it is such a great testament to how faithful God is that how often he really brings things full circle when we think they can never be redeemed. I love that place in the Bible where God tells his children, the Isrealites, "I will restore the years the locusts have eaten." I think this is one of my favorite promises to claim becuae it is assurance that we always get a second chance and that when we choose to sacrifice things or things are taken from us, we know that God sees it and knows and isn't going to leave us hanging.

So some of you might recall about this time last year I was going through a little bit of kicking and screaming becuase God was calling me to something-- actually, bringing me this awsome gift of this amazing job before I even graduated high school-- and I was angry because he was handing me this at the expense of my summer. Last summer I had one entire day to transition from being a high school student to commuting an hour each way to a full-time job doing customer service at the financial aid and billing office at the university that I wasn't sure I wanted to go to. And I was so upset becuase I had already felt disconnected from him, like he had foresaken me and I was sure if I could find him in the rest of my beloved summer, things would be right again and I would be in control again. And I would be ready... And he laughed.

He sent me to this place where I felt alone and little and scared, but still too prideful to admit it. And he gave me this job in this amazing job where people care about each other and they care about the people they are serving and they care about me. And it is this job that pays well that is great experience and is convenient. The best possible job I could have ever gotten. Handed to me. I knew it was a price that I was paying.

And so... this summer. I love summer. Becuase I gave up that summer last year, I am having the time of my life. This might be the best summer yet. I am still working full time this summer, but I am living here on my own, with people thatI do know and love. I am worshipping with a group of people (another promise, another story) that are amazing and being here in the summer allows me to enjoy them more. I am able to spread my wings, be independent, afford rent, take trips, ride my bike all over town, enjoying the outdoors and all there is to offer here. Funny how even when we kick and scream, but still obey the best we can, God does not overlook the desires of our hearts. Even when we cry out to him in anger and refuse to try to understand, he still grows us, he still holds us, he still restores the years the locuts have eaten.

Today I am just overwhelmed by the gifts I have been given. Enthralled by all the things that have been placed in my hand. It is so easy to be discontent. To writhe and struggle in the overwhelming sea of life. But its funny how when we step back for a moment, take a deep breath, and look at how faithful Abba is, everything suddenly seems to fall in place. The world is right again. God is good.

abba God, thank you for summer. Thank you that you gave us this wonderful season. This season where your creation screams your name louder than ever. This time when we can enjoy each other, this time we can reflect back on the things you have done in past seasons, past summers. Thank you for air and warmth and sunshine. And trees. Thank you for your beauty. Thank you most of all, for you faithfulness. Thank you for not leaving me a choice last summer to take your blessings, even despite the sacrifice. Thank you for not allowing me to just stay in my comfort zone. Thank you for pushing me and growing me, even when I was stubborn and angry. Thank you for those emotions, that I can be honest with you about those things and you care and you still do whatis best for me, even if I hate it for the time being. Thank you for coventants and opportunities for remembrances and times of reflection. Thank you, most of all, Abba, that you are faithful. That you truly do never leave me nore foresake me. Continue to remind me of this I beg you. I love you, Abba.

Life is good

"So here's what I want you to do, God helping you: take youreveryday, ordinary life-- your sleeping, eating, going-to-work, and walking- around life-- and place it before God as an offering. Embracing what God does for you is the best thing you can do for him. Don't become so well-adjusted to your culture that you fit into it without even thinking. Instead, fix your attention on God. You'll be changed from the inside out. Readily recognize what he wants from you, and quickly respond to it. Unlike the culture around you, alway dragging you down to its level of immaturity, God brings the best out of you, develops well-formed maturity in you."
--Romans 12:1

This summer I have been thinking a lot about taking the place in which I find myself, this place to which God has carried me, and realizing that it is a gift. Taking this summer where I go to an office and sit at a computer all day long with the same great people and talk to all sorts of people on the phone and using it as an opportunity. An opportunity to be a part of my co-workers' livese. An opportunity to calm down the confused and frustrated mom, to give a wake-up call to an irresponsible student, to help other students to learn from their mistakes. To learn from adults who have been where I am now and who now find themselves in all sorts of places in life that they never would have expected. More than anything, I want to take these 8 hours 5 days a week and not allow them to be wasted. They are more than just one call after another. These are hours and minutes that have been placed in my hand to communicate something about Ultimate Reality to others and to learn something from them about this world that has been created by our loving Father.

Isn't that sort of a strange but beautiful realization? That we have this Father, who loves us so much. This Father that is not demanding our lives from us like a grueling slave-master, but asking us for these small lives that we lead under our own control so that he can return to us the great, unimaginable lives that he intended for us in his great creativity. I am on the edge of being overwhelmed by that. I say on the edge because I think it is something that I have so easily forgotten about and allowed to become tired and stagnant. But for this split-second, I have been given this gift of realizing that sort of love. Its not about not wasting this time, like not eating all the food on my plate, but its about trusting Abba to take me on this great adventure. It's about this deep foundation that lies just below the surface of our boring everyday lives that all he asks is that we dig our toe in a little to find.

I feel like I have allowed my faith, my life, to become a little stagnant, a little dry... A little me. On sunday, when we all met together, we began talking about what it means to partner with God in something. The woman who leads our discussion on Sundays gave this beautiful example of this partnership she had with her father growing up, playing tennis. And she was suggesting that we take this beautiful partnership they had of encouragement and considering for one moment that it just might be like that with God if only we allow him. That it isn't just me doing work for him to win the cookie, but it is this marvelous tennis match where my Father is on my side.

And as we were talking about this, we began to ponder the idea of partnering with God not just about one specific thing in our lives, like working on a bad habit, but what if we chose to partner with God on our entire lives-- waking to sleeping-- in things like brushing our teeth. Do I depend on God to get my teeth brushed? And it just got me to thinking, how long has it been since I really depended upon God, really put my full weight into him? I don't know when, but I do know that the thought of such a thing was wonderfully refreshing. Like a cool breeze on a parched soul.

Do you ever feel like this relationship you are supposed to have with God actually needs to become an actual relationship again? Maybe a little less like a contract or this habit that I have been forming for 19 years? And more like he is my Abba, my Daddy, my friend, without whom my brreath is lost. I mean, I think without this depth of intimacy, our lives dwindle and we become muddled in the dryness of everyday life, but we forget. How easily I forget that this real , water-soaked sort of life is mine, mine for the asking and I settle for the dry and weary road that I believe I must travel alone? How badly we must remind each other that there is something deeper, something more beautiful, somethingi that actually fills us deep, rather than rapping at our hollow surfaces!

And so, dear friends, here is your reminder. God did not make a mistake when he placed us here. He has not forgotten about you and he will never forsake you. He will never forsake me. All he wants is to take our hands, lead us to the streams of living water. Give us the bread of life to eat, to enjoy, to bring color into the darkness of our blind lives. This not to say that he is calling us to a fluffy life of rainbows and ponies-- quite the opposite-- but to a life that is deeper than we could ever have imagined and that is worth every drop of blood. God is holding us close, leading us on, if only we will follow...

"There is actually only one thing you can dedicate to God, and that is your right to yourself...If you will give God your right to yourself, He will make a holy experiment out of you-- and His experiments always succeed. The one true mark of a saint of God is the inner creativity that flows from being totally surrendered to Jesus Christ. in the life of a saint, there is this amazing Well, which is a continual source of water springing up perpetually fresh. A saint realizes that it is God who engineers his circumstances; consequently there are not complaints, only unrestrained surrender to Jesus...

...If you abandon everything to Jesus, and come when He says, 'Come,' then He will continue to say, 'Come,' through you. Ylu will go out inot the world reporducing the schol of Christ's 'Come.' That is the result in every soul who has abandoned all and come to Jesus."

--Oswald Chambers, My Utmost for his Highest, June 13

Theme Song

So it's friday night and I am in my house all alone. I don't know where my roommates are. It rained and thundered this afternoon. My favorite Colorado activity. So I've had a lot of time to think this afternoon/tonight. And it has been really good. I've just been doing a lot of reflecting and doing a lot of heart work in preparation for the TEAM conference, which has been so good. A couple of things.

I have been thinking a lot for the past semester or so about this concept of loosing your life to find it. I think it maybe hit hardest right before I left for Mississippi for Spring Break, or rather during the time that I was making the decision of who to go on that trip with when God really spoke loudly to me in the book of John where Jesus makes this statement: "unless a kernel of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains only a single seed. But if it dies, it produces many seeds. The man who loves his life will lose it, while the man who haes his life in this world will keep it for eternal life. Whoever serves me must follow me; where I am, my servant also will be. My father will honor the one who serves me." I have been chewing on this idea for quite a while now, and now in the context of the theme of "Under Construction," this is sort of taking on other shapes, new sorts of forms.

Loosing your life. Finding your life. Allowing God to be the carpenter upon my life, my heart. Allowing him to build upon the empty field of my life. Maybe. I'm not sure what all of this looks like. I'm not sure where this post is going. But nevertheless, I plug on. This year has been a real eye-opener in terms of the value of making sacrifices and becomming a servant. And I really feel like this is something that I want to be able to stretch my legs in more. I'm not sure exactly how, but one day, one minute, one breath at a time, I suppose.

Something that has been on my heart a lot lately is the desire to go to a different country. Its sort of this strange dream that keeps knocking at the door of my heart day after day, but I am not seeing any doors opening yet. But somehow I feel it is tied to all of this. This desire to serve others. This desire to know and experience that there are people out there in this world who are not like me and they still want to have something to do with. People that I can help. People who have something to say about the image of God that is instilled in them. People who just need someone to tell them "God didn't screw up when he made you." I don't know. There is just something there... tugging at my heart. And I just have this little twinge of fear that becuase I am not seeing any opportunities directly in front of me, this passion might go away, it may fade before I see it and the transformation I long for it to bring. What is it about travel to totally new places that is so captivating?

And I've been thinking a lot about who I am, where I am going, the things that I am pursuing here in college, these first little steps into adulthood, being on my own. I've been thinking a lot about just where I am headed in my studies. A few months ago, I was sitting in the dining hall eating dinner with my sister before we headed off to our ballet class, and we were talking about our plans and just how our classes were going and everything, and the decisions we were going to make, and she just said to me, "You should just do what you want to do." It feels like we can be in such a hurry to get through college, to get done with our classes and everything so that we can get on to that next part of our lives, and then we will rush through our careers so we can get to retirement. But what an awful way to live, always longing for the next season and missing the beauty of the season we are in. I sort of feel like once college is over, we have all the time in the world to be adults. Why rush that? Not that there is anything with that season of life, but why are we always trying to get through where we are now? It seems like the focus so often is just to continually prepare for tomorrow, to do everything today for the sake of our resumes and the credentials we will need to climb the ladder tomorrow. What if there was no ladder and it was just one swirling soup of today and our passions and our dreams and who we are. What if things were just what they were.

And so I was thinking about study abroad. And not that I don't think that study abroad isn't a good experience, but I'm just wondering with all the hassle with trying to figure out how to pay for it and making it fit inside of this box of school and credits and how it looks on paper, and what if I sought something bigger? Like some opportunity just to go and build relationships and help people? Would this be more worth my while? I don't know... I'm just sort of throwing things into this pot of soup, becuase who really knows where God will lead.

But what I think is this: That God is a God of dreams. That he sees these things in me, these desires that he has given me as gifts and he has big plans for them. And he is not limited by the registrar's office, and he is not limited by the Art Department, and he is definately not limited by money. Nor is he limited by time or people or resumes or jobs or needs. And he wants me to get out and experience the world for only his sake and his glory, and not for any of these things.

In my contemplation of this idea of loosing my life to find it and for giving God my dreams and my desire to experience new things, I have decided to stop holding my time to tightly and have begun to giving my time to the community in which I live. I have gotten involved in efforts to fight for a community center here in town and have faced some fears with getting involved in the art museum here and am considering and praying about investing in the lives of the youth at my church and it has been such a great thing. There is something freeing about knowing that you are a part of a community. Somethng freeing about knowing that you are using the time, the gifts, the passions God has given you and you are doing something good with them. You are being an active participant in life. And it has been a struggle for me to get the voices out of my head that tell me, "you ought to do these things only becuase it makes you look good on paper." I have done a lot of thinking about doing things from my heart, even if my resume were to burn tomorrow. And that is a beautiful thing.

And so, this big, strange, disjointed post maybe has a point. Maybe not. I'm not sure it matters. I guess maybe the point is that I have all these thoughts spinning and floating and this is by no means the complete list and they all fit inside of where God has me at this point. I am so tempted to want to quantify all this, to attach price tags to all of these thoughts and ideas and activites. But I am going to try to hold back. To just throw them out there and say that they are what they are. And when Abba looks down upon all of these random things, he sees all of them fitting into the person he is making me into. He is doing construction on me to take each of these bricks and put them in place. Right now I feel like a big, sort of rubble-y pile. Sitting alone in an empty field. And I've been sort of longing for this ability to wrap my fingers around my own frailty and confusion and seek Abba in my weakness and disjointed-ness. But I don't know if I am there yet.

But nevertheless, to end all this, the last couple of days I have been hearing a lot through songs, which has just helped me to know that even though God feels far today, he never abandons me. Last night, I caught this one little line that brings me a little encouragement, just the reminder of "how precious are your thoughts of me," and then from Delerious earlier today, this simple little nugget: "God didn't screw up when he made you." So there you have it folks. The theme songs for this season.

Oswald does it again...

Once again, I find myself searching for something, thirsting for the right thing, trying to find some sort of validation in my spiritual life when I am discontent with the way things are going and I turn to our old friend Oswald Chambers in "My Utmost for his Highest" and he nails me again. Listen to this:

The Never-forsaking God

"He himself has said, ' I will never leave you nor forsake you.' " -Hebrews 13:5

What line of thinking fo my thoughts take? Do I turn to what God says or to my own fears? Am I simply repeating what God says, or am I learning to truly hear Him and then responds after I have heard what he says? "For He Himself has said, ' I will never elave you nor forsake you.' So we may boldly say: "The Lord is my helper; I will not fear. What can man do to me?' " (13:5-6)
"I will never leave you..."-- not for any reason; not my sin, selfishness, stubbornness, nor waywardness. Have I really let God say to me that He will never leave me? If I have not truly heard this assurance of God, let me listen again.
" I will never... forsake you." Sometimes it is not the difficulty of life but the drudgery of it that makes me think God will forsake me. WHat there is no major difficult to overcome, no vision from God, nothing wonderful or beautiful-- just the everday activities of life-- do I hear God's assurance even in these?
We have the idea that God is going to do somethin exceptional thing-- that he is preparing and equipping us for some extra-ordinary work in the future. But as we grow in His grace we find that God is glorifying Himself here and now, at this very moment. If we have God's assurance behind us, the most amazing strength becomes ours, and we learn to sing, glorifying Him even in the ordinary days and ways of life.

I'm thinking that I might just have Oswald just write my posts from now on. He seems to know just what is going on in my heart as well as the response of wisdom. But really, I think one of the hardest things for me to go through are those times in life where I feel like nothing is going on, nothing is changing, and God doesn't seem like he's doing anything spectacular, and he doesn't seem to have much to say either. I don't want my life to be ordinary. If I'm really honest, I don't want my spiritual work to go unnoticed. I want to feel like I'm accomplishing something, like I'm doing something with my life, with my time. I mean, aren't these things important? Aren't we called to be good stewards of what we are given? How is it that we are supposed to be careful to obey without getting caught up in our performance.

I've been thinking a lot lately about focusing on God and where he is leading and paying less attention to noticeable results of my efforts. This idea that the quantative, measurable, calculated fruits of my labors aren't supposed to be the focus. Maybe its still that old lie sneaking back, telling me that I have to perform, that grace isn't really great enough to cover my mistakes, to cover over that gray area of not really knowing if I am measuring up or not. I want to be able to look at my life and to be able to say "Yes, God is working in me, stuff is happening. My life isn't as much of a waste as I thought." But I can hear God saying, You just give me your life and I'll worry about whether or not it is a waste. This is the only guarantee that your life will not be lost.

I've had this thought that I need to keep my eyes upon the state of my heart rather than my expectations. Do I truly have the desire to love my cooworkers becuase they need to know how much worth God built into them, or do I just try to have this outward appearance of love becuase I want to be seen and known as a loving person? Am I making time to work in the community around me becuase I want to be a part of the lives that God has placed around me to let them know how beautiful they are and because I want to see a glimpse of his image in them or do I just do it for my resume? Do I spend time with people out of compulsion, becuase I feel like it is something I ought to do or really becuase I want to be part of their lives? Where is my heart? Is my heart leading my hands or am I just wandering aimlessly becuase someone sometime told me that these were the motions I was supposed to have to look like the right kind of person?

Have you ever gone on a walk with another person and you both were just walking side-by-side in silence becuase this was the posture that you just felt like was right for the moment? Or have you ever been on a walk and you were walking along and you really just wanted to emjoy the sunset or what was around you in silence and the person just keeps on talking and fidgeting? I wonder if sometimes God just wants to walk along side us in silence becuase that is what is right for the moment and we get impatient-- or maybe it is that we get scared that his silence means he might forsake us-- and we become discontent with the quiet. We miss what he is trying to do or say in not saying or doing anything at all.

In five and a half weeks, I'll be heading off to serve at the TEAM conference and I am going in the expectation that I will see God work in amazing ways there. And I am beginning to wonder if God just wants me in these next few weeks to find him in the silence. To be quiet in expectation of all that he has to say in that time. I have heard many times that oftentimes we find God silent becuase he is preparing to do something very big after the period of quiet ends. And in this moment, that gives me this deep sense of peace and rightness-- it calms the restlessness I've had in my soul for a few weeks now. What a beautiful thing. What a beautiful peace. A breath or air into my worried soul.


Abba God, thank you for your word into my soul. Thank you for contentment in this place that I have been stuggling in. Wrestling you while you were wanting to simply calm me. Abba, I ask that you would teach me simplicity in my life with you. That you would free me from the desire to have something to measure our relationship by, that you would keep reminding me that I am held in your grace and that even in the everydays, you will not leave me nor forsake me. Abba, thank you for the security you hold in that. Abba God, I ask that you would prepare me for TEAM in these next few weeks. That you would remove my focus from me and what I am accomplishing and that you would just take my life and purge me of all that distracts from you. I feel like in my hurry to find you, to hear you, to see you, I've lost you in my worries and fears. So Abba, I ask that you would wipe the slate of heart clean so that I can see you afresh, that I could truly hear what you are needing to say to me in order to truly use me. Less of me, more of you. Now is the appointed time when you move into the center while I slip off to the sidelines.

tonight I went to the first friday gallery walk and I saw a previous professor talking to a professor that I really need and override from. And I could not go up and talk to either one and I was reminded once again how timid I am in those situations and how intimidated I am by the whole college system and professors and people that I really admire a lot. And that same question that always haunts me came back: "Why does this cripple me so much?" I feel so lost in this whole university thing, but do not know how to get past my fears. I feel little and invisible and crippled. I think a lot of times I am scared most of not knowing what to say.... And I feel little and lost and invisible. Why? How do I move past it?

What is church?

A lot of the people I allow to influence me and the circle I run in ask this question a lot: "What is church" and in this season (quite literally) of my life I find myself asking that same question pretty frequently and the it is coupled with the question of what will I do with it once I find the answer.

This past year at school, I met these girls who have naturally become my closest friends. But if anyone were to ask us how we came together or what was the one thing that really brought us all together, coming up with a cohesive answer would be difficult. In fact, when I myself asked them at the beginning of the year that very question, there was no time or place or entity that unified. The only story I got was this one, "Well, we met at this random bbq or dinner or something and I turned to this girl I had just met and said, 'I'm not sitting in this dorm all by myself tomorrow, so why don't we be friends?'" And that is how our friendship came about. We choose to be friends right there at that moment.

When I think about that experience that I had, there is something in me that rings so true and so solid and beautiful. If I were to give a definition of what church should be, I think this would be it. We choose to be friends. We made the choice to travel this road together. I made the choice to say to my friend, this person I just met, " I don't want to be alone and I know you don't either, so let's just make the choice to stick together." Another friend and/or mentor has this theory he calls the "Jerk Factor" and every time I ever ask him a question and relationships or any aspect of life that even remotely has to do with another person, he just says, "remember, the more you get to know someone, the more you are going to realize that whoever they are when they are not living out of their spirit-created self is just a jerk." Isn't that just what the church is? A group of jerks who have been given the gift of the spirit to make them back into who they have been made to be?

From my experience, I think church needs to be a place where we find grace for our aching souls and find a group of people who need that same grace and want to work toward speading that around becuase that is truth.

I also want to make the distinction that in this definition of church, that this is not simply the binding together of lives simply for the sake of entertainment or just because this is what makes me feel okay on this planet, but rather, because this is what we were made for. I realize I have made little metion of God or theology or study of the bible and I wanted to make note that these are crucial to me, but I do not mention them as significant components of this entity that we call the church because I don't think they are really components at all. They are the underlying sort of basis for the whole thing-- they should so penetrate our lives that all of this other community and felllowship and friendship would be flowing out of this as the intent for the very air we breathe. They are not a piece of this thing-- they are the thing. But I suppose maybe the struggle I'm having is that we get so caught up in our theology and our "personal relationships" that we forget that this should directly affect--er blow apart-- the way we interact with each other. I think the key here is penetration.

I mentioned this a while back, but I've still got this idea about co-creation swimming around in my head and heart from last summer. This idea that no matter what we do, it seems only half-baked if we don't have the opportunity to share it with someone else. And maybe this is what I'm getting at. That we have this stuff in our lives that we are wading through and these discoveries we are making about Abba and all he has in his hand for us and our gut response is this desire to share it. To turn to our Eve and say, "Look at how good this is." And to hear her say, "I know. I love it just as much as you."

Being here in this place in my life especially, I am finding that a chuch that looks like this is what I am longing for. Its like I have the freedom to do what I want to do and be what I want to be and go where I want to go right now-- I feel like this season of my life brings so much freedom, but it still feels limited and empty without other people to share that with.

And so I sit in this place. I sit in this place where I don't want chruch to be a political thing or a place I go becuase this makes me more right than you or that I think it earns me any points or because its just what I've always done. I don't do church for appearances or the expectations of others. I do church because I need people in my life. I need you to know what is going on in my life and I need to know what is going on in other people's lives. I need to be deeply connected with other creations. I feel like without it, part of my air supply is being cut off. I don't really think I should have this feeling that I need to defend it.

And I get so frustrated sometimes when I look around me and I look at my life and I look at this thing that I really know deep in my bones that church is and is meant to be, and wonder how all this other stuff so easily gets in the way. I hate that whole going to this place every week and shaking hands with the same blank faces thing for some empty reason. I don't want to have anything to do with that. I don't want to have anything to do with boxes and formulas and habits and expectations. That's not what its about. But how do you get to that place in your life where there is something more and there are other people who feel the same way and people who feel the same way enough to actually let it change the way they live, the steps they take, the words the say, the commitments they make? That's all I want to know. And also why it feels like sometimes I am the only person in the whole wide world who is either not okay with this status quo or can't find something better?

Don't get me wrong, I feel liek God has led me to this certain group of people that I meet with for a reason and that God has something for me there and I strongly believe that these people I have chosen to join up with are striving towards just this, but there are still those days when I feel discontent, those days that I still feel alone and those days when I wonder that if this too, will be another place where I just wonder if people see me at all. I don't know.

I have this desire to be liked and I have this desire for people to get along and I don't like to stick my neck out and I don't like to make waves. But there is something in me that has been discontent and lonely lately. Something in me that makes me easily frustrated. And so that is where I'm at. Frustrated with my lack of control and unsettled about this feeling I get sometimes that things just aren't quite right. So prayer... this becomes my refuge for the time being....