home again, home again, Jiggady jig

so thanksgiving break. Don't I still have 5 more days? I guess not. This week has gone by quickly and it has been a few years it seems since I wrote here. I have had a great deal of thoughts, as seems to always be the way, but they keep piling up as life sort of runs me over. So here I am, home from the trip with the fam, finally maybe finding a stop. for a moment. strange how time is so fleeting at the times we need its preservation the most. I finished Willard's "Divine Conspiracy" today on the 5 hour car ride home and I must admit I'm feeling quite a sense of accomplishment. I vowed that I would devour all 400 pages before the semester was out and alas I have done it. On to the next, I suppose. Not that I intened to leave thse thoughts behind too soon. I don't have much to say at the moment about the book itself other than my bliss at having conquered it.

I started "Tuesdays with Moorrie", which I picked up for a mere $1.75 at "bookends" a curiously disheveled and musty bookstore tucked away in downtown Kearney, Nebraska. I will most likely finish the last 55 pages tonight. oh sweet books.

And so I am home. I opened the door to our lovely cleaned apartment to find it pleasantly tidy, but chilly from emptiness these past four days. And my fingers are cold.

But the thinking. On to the thinking. These days carry a sort of cherished stillness as my days as a colorado girl are nearing their temporary hiatis. It is like these days are sort of a study or a hushed anticipation in preparation for what lies ahead. I am finding myself whispering to myself evey few minutes, "these days are precious. God is faithful. Just a few more weeks before everything bursts into full bloom." I am even more hopeful that just the right person will find this room that I now sit in to be just right for their own as the days wear on. Somehow I have this unspeakable hope, this trust that someone is out there. All we need is one person, one lovely person to see our ad and say yes. One person.

So I am waiting and hoping and praying for this one person. I've been thinking a lot about family, which is hard because the way I feel seems to conflict from one day on to the next. I found myself leaving the house of some friends monday night, wondering if the frustrations I had expressed about my family were really true or how many were just bubbling tidbits of bitterness that ought to be addressed. And spending the week wtih my family was hard, but very lovely. I think when I am with my family, it is the time that I can indentify most with the groaning of creation for things to be put right. It is so entangled. But on wednesday night I realized that I must cherish the moments that I have with them, that instead of moping about in frustration or just focusing on "another day when i'll work it all out," the best thing is simply to take advantage of the time I have with them. Precious time finally getting to really know my aunt after 20 years, or really being brave enough to allow myself to love my confused and forgetful grandfather-- the only remaining grandparent of my own. I don't know.

Strange. I am ready for the semester to come to an end, but I realized that there are certain things that I am allowing to keep me from totally focusing, from finishing well. Worries that God has figured out, things that i simply must wait for him to provide for in his own time and will and way. I often find myself praying at the beginning of breaks that God will take this open space of time and speak to my heart, to take the open road and do some deep mileage with me. I think this break has made me realize that instead of being totally focused on this giant thing that lies ahead, I want to see this last month or so as just precious time. To take each day, each moment, each encounter just as it is, irregardless of what th future means right now. All I have is today. So I will drink it deep, but hold it with an open hand.

Something like that. So i'm home. This place that I call home for just a short time longer. This beautiful place that has been reserved for just the right person for the next eight months while I learn to follow this Jesus that had no place to lay his head. This Jesus who knew somewhere deep that the real stuff is love and this Father that never wants to let us out of his deeply roothed warmth of an embrace. My time to learn to love well for the moment. an opportunity to stare the greatest mistake in the face and take it by the hand, take it on as a time when I truly have nothing by the promise of the love of this passionate pursuer, this God who is so infinate and yet is only longing for me to reach the bottom of the bank account so that he can show me the true treasure of his creator heart.

so, in the meantime. I wait. I cherish. I embrace. I watch and I wait. He will provide. And in the meantime, I love the best that I can.

Get up on the table

So I find myself at the momet in a hard classroom. A classroom that I asked for. Sort of like college, where you pay thousands of dollars for someone to challenge you in ways that you find cruel. That's where I feel I am. Its like the ultimate lesson in freefalling, so yay for life goals, ect. Sometimes they aren't that fun in the making.

Sometimes I think that God must really just sit back on his throne and chuckle at me while I squirm, I mean really. Not in a cruel sort of heartless abusive way, but in the "I-know-something-you-don't-know" sort of way. He knows that I like to think that it would be possible for me contol everything, so he purposely puts me in positions where my feet just won't touch the ground.

So I am waiting. I am still waiting for that magical call or email from that person who needs a place to live next semester and indeed has chosen my apartment as their home of choice amoung the swarming sea of possibilities in this town drowning in vacancies. Its like everything is just hanging in the balance now, the scales fully level, tense for the tip.

I think that maybe this is becoming a bit vague, a bit abstract. But what I am trying to say is that I don't like this feeling. That I don't even know what state that I will be in next semester. That I don't know where I will be working, where I will be living, what I will be doing in school, where I will be going to school, if I will even be able to get into any classes. Its like all of the sudden all of the control or at least the sense of prediction I had about my life is vanished. And I find myself hanging here, just wondering. And all that I can do is trust that God really does love me enough to have all of that figured out. He's already been there and back. He knows where I will be and why I will be there and how I am going to get there. None of this stuff that is causing me to beat my chest in despair came to him as a surprise-- he knew that it would be novemeber 15 and I would be thinking about how in two months I would really like to be in another state but have no idea of how that is going to even happen.

He knew back in May, even way back in Decemeber, when I begged him not to allow me to wait until the last week of spring classes to know where I would be living this fall. And he saw me in May, the last week of spring classes, finally signing a lease after a lot of pain and one particular night spent full of sobs pouring from the depth of my being. He saw me then and said, I'm sorry, you don't get to choose my timing. I will take care of you, but it doesn't neccessarily mean that I am going to reinforce the illusion that following me means security. And so for some reason, he thinks I need to learn that lesson again.

These past few weeks have really rocked my world. I am reaching for this really big thing, daring to dream for something great, and the ground upon which I stand is so uncertain. It is so high up. There are a number of teachings from Mars Hill Bible Chruch that I particularly enjoy listening from 2004 and there are two speakers inparticular that I find myself continually returning to. In Brain Tome's teaching from the eighth of Augus t 2004, he speaks on the idea that what has been entrusted to us isn't really ours.

He argues that even to say, "this year I will go to this city and live there and do business there," is complete arrogance. To plan what I am going to do in the next year is ignoring the reign of God over my life. Something that I has been running through my head this week as I play that dangerous game of "what if" is that how could God just fail to provide when I have done all of this work to get to the place where I am willing to take this gigantic risk so that I might learn how to better be a person of his kingdom. I am seeing this choice that I have made as a pretty big sacrifice of my educational progress, my security here, all sorts of things about my life here and now. And I just have this urge to ask God, "I am willing to make this sacrifice so that I can be closer to you. Why would you not make a way for that to happen? Is that wrong of me to do that?"

And the question that I hear in reply is this: Would you be willing to give even this opportunity up and stay home if I were to ask that of you?

Stinger. But here is the thing. In the deepest parts of me, the answer is yes. abba, if you woudl ask that of me, I would trust that you know what is best. But in the meantime, I am afraid. I think harder than that end is not knowing what the end is. Not knowing. That is not something I enjoy.

At the end of Tome's teaching, full of lessons about why we never want God to be fair and how God chooses to distibute his resources his own way and asks us to be open-handed, he uses an illustration that is especially striking. Throughout his talk, he uses a table to illustrate where we are to place the things we are given. And in the end, the thing that he vividly shows is that God wants all of me on the table. He wants me to get up on top of the table and just stand there in all its instability. The very thing that your mom tells you not to do. Don't stand on tables-- its dangerous. It's just the thing that God is asking us to do.

And so I find myself standing on the table, just wondering how long before I can get--. Wait. I just realized that my mindset is just that. That I am willing to stand on the table sometimes, until he lets me get down. But isn't the point being okay with just standing there forever, basking in the beauty that I can trust that he is going to catch me when I fall.

This whole semester I have been contemplating the idea that all that I have is God's. I've been mulling over this concept that "The eath is the Lord's and everything in it. The world and all who live in it." I have had to really concentrate on what that means when I say "All that I have is yours. I will spend my life one you." Does that mean that I will stay here in Colorado if that is where he wants me? I think I would be a bit confused for a while if it came down to him asking me such a question, but I suppose I won't really have much of a choice really. Only he can provide what I have need of in this moment and that is exactly where he wants me. Up on the table.

Abba, I thank you that you are such a good teacher, for your promise to never stop guiding me in the way I should go. THat you are a light, leading one step at a time. Abba, I don't understand and I just really want to KNOW. But you have other plans, so I will stand upon this table until you say I can stop. Which I think that you might never do. so maybe my prayer then is that you would never ask me to get down off of this table, but that you would be transforming me so that I will just be okay with the uncertianty of the table. I don't understand what you are doing. I don't know why you are waiting. but I ask that you would use this time of waiting to learn to trust you. Afterall, I don't know if I will even be granted your grace of breath tomorrow, or maybe you will call me to an even better place. But I cannot control this and I hate it. I hate having no control, no ability to predict. Nothing. And you know that. So just really grow me and stretch me here. Oh how I need something.

Abba, I do thank you for your promise that your plans are good, that you have promised to give me a hope and a future as long as I am willing to let go of my little trinkets. Thank you for little reminders of your word, little reminders how much you really love me, even when it doesn't feel like it. Thanks for answering my prayer at just the right moment.

stressed, overwhelmed, nervous, busy. Scared. Isolated. This is how i'm feeling at the moment. I'm not even sure why I'm writing this, since no one seems to read it. But i'm tired. I just don't feel like doing anything, but I just keep trudging through sort of half-way. DO the stuff to get through, but I don't feel the passion. I just want to lay down and cry, but the work still calls out to me like something bad that you ate. Ijust feel glazed over, burned, afraid. I don't know what I'm doing or waht i'm going to do or why Im doing it. I just feel isolated and disconnected from myself. If I could just do what I have to do with my heart actually in it. THat would be nice.

I guess I just realized that this thing with Idaho is becoming a bit stressful and I am afraid and nervous. And mostly I feel lonely. Like all i have time for is school work and I don't really have the energy to reach out to people that I need but never seem to call me back. Reaching out to people is hard and I don't have the energy for it. I don't have the energy for much of anything at the moment.

discipline...

..as of late, my lack thereof has become a bit evident. One of the great priveledges of being a student at this fine institute is the opportunity to go to lectures by artists sponsored by the art dept and tonight I went to a wonderful talk given by Jennifer Scott McGlaughlin. Something so true that she said was that in her work, she has learned that great work is only born of struggle, only good art comes from difficulty. I definately have learned this lesson well this semester, and am continuing to learn it. It is so tempting to try things that are easy and that are already within my vocabulary, but no growth comes from this.

I am finding in my fantastic formal training that I am having to do a lot of things that I do not particularly enjoy. My impulse is to go crazy, to just be abstract and just put paint on canvas (or, in my poor student case, masonite or paper). But I am learning that you must first learn to see life before you can do anything else becase, as McGlaughlin reminded us tonight, nothing is produced independent of what is present in life. I don't like it now, but I know that much good will be borne of my struggle. I will always remember something my painting instructor said at the beginning of our class this semester-- "Make friends with fear and frustration. They will always be with you." I think something in me automatically repells from this, but it takes some time and some learning to embrace them for what good they do in the long run. Something I think I have heard once about the abundant life must come from death and is not always easy. Interesting..

And so discipline. I don't like it. I have a hard time finding the balance for it. But it is my prayer for, well, proabably will be my prayer for quite a while actually. Discipline. I hate it, but I know the good that will come from it. The strength that it gives to the freedom I long for.

You're blessed when you've lost it all.
God's Kingdom is there for the taking

You're belssed when you're ravenously hungry
Then you're ready for the Massianic Meal

You're blessed when the tears flow freely
Joy comes in the morning

I've been thinking. Or maybe listening... I don't know. But as of late, I've been hearing these mumblings in my head about how life is actaully really best when we find ourselves totally impoverished, impossible to get what we need on our own. This idea of blessing when we've lost it all.

I have some problems with money and knowing what to do with it when I have it and worrying when I don't. I have this other problem too, with not knowing what is going to happen tomorrow, how things are going to pan out, how I am going to take care of things. And most recently, with my last day at work actually being assigned a spacific date, with looking at the weeks and months ahead and not knowing where money is going to be coming from and what I am going to need and so on has not been pleasant. And so my impulse is the worry first, then get some attention by complaining second, and then scrambling around third. But I am learning something. That times like these forces me to trust God that he has got it covered and that he is going to carry me home one way or the other.

I think maybe the thing that triggered these thoughts were a few weeks ago thinking about work. I was thinking about how I really just did not enjoy being at work, how suffocated and frustrated I felt there and how it was ten hours a week of general suckiness. And I just began to think, maybe this is an opportunity to hold close to God rather than just wallowing in misery or complaining. This is just a time when I must moment by moment say to Abba, I need you in this. Ineed a heart change. I need a mind transformation. I need something. It is a time when I just can't do it and I need God to step in.

It is so easy for me to just barracade myself in financial security. Or academic success. Or whatever. And then I become numb. So numb that I can't feel the joy of the blessing. And I begin to freak out that something is wrong with me, that there is something else that I have to earn on top of this. And so then it becomes about what I did wrong. When Abba just wants to remind me that it could all be gone in a moment and that would be the time of the greatest blessing becuase that means he gets to be close to me.

I read something this past week that said something to the effect of, "have you ever considered the fact that God can't get enough of you?"

So today I drove to the Denver Art Museum, which is about an hour away, in pretty nice rush-hour traffic both ways. I also tried to get gas before I left, but was informed by the Conoco Cashier that my debit card had insufficient funds. I've only been driving a manual for about a month and I have driven in denver a sum total of 3 times. On top of this, I am not really that confindent in the reliablitly of my car nor am I anything less than paranoid about any sound at all. so I was a bit stressed, a little afraid.

And so I found myself just calling out to God every few seconds during those few hours. I had to trust him to show me what exits to take, to show me the brake lights in front of me, to show me who to call, to show me where a gas station was, to show me how to get home. I needed him. I could not do it alone. I just knew all along, that this long stressful trip for a half hour at the museum was about a lot more. I knew it was about me being penetrated with these words Jesus spoke in Luke about the bankrupt being the lottery winners. How I got to spend four hours with a friend and four hours calling out to my greatest friend, learning what it really means to depend on him when I have no idea what is going to happen next. Maybe you can't fully understand what this experience was like for me, but it was good and it was needed. one more tap tap tap of the hammer. One more log upon the fire. One more lesson in freefalling.

My grace is enough, it's all you need.
My strength comes into its own in your weakness

Once I heard that, I was glad to let it happen. I quit focusing on the handicap and began appreciating the gift. It was a case of Christ's strength moving in on my weakness. Now I take limitations in stride, and with good cheer, thise limitations that cut me down to size-- abuse, accidents, opposition, bad breaks. I just let Christ take over! And so the weaker I get, the stronger I become.

-2 cor 12:9

confused

I've been thinking. Yesterday and today have been days of thinking about myself. conversations, new peices of hard, yet vague news, interactions with friends, or holding things in have been in the headlines. Do I people really know me as well as I think they do? Or am I really as closed off and private as some people tell me I am? Why? Why am I like this? Why am I afraid? What keeps me from crying out when I really need to? Why do I chose to go outside and sit in the rocks and cry, away from the eyes of dear friends before I let them see that something hurts? Why don't the words leave my lips? Why do I lie when people say there is obviously something wrong. Appearantly. I am not good at hiding my pain, but I am still so good at hiding myself. I hate it. And how will I ever find healing if I still think I must do it alone? It is this vicious circle. THe very thing i need help with is seeking help.

so I am sitting here in the library, supposed to be doing research for an argument paper, but I'm feeling a little tired and unmotivated. I feel like I am in a bit of a dream state, content just to watch the world go by. Observing without having my energy to analyse.

I think I am feeling a little bit nervous, dreading what I have to do today. Today is the much-dreaded meeting with my advisor. The meeting I really have been avoiding since June, the last time I saw her. I'm just trying to figure out how to explain to her what I am going to be doing next semester and how I can get the most helpful information from her. I just am so afriad. Like I am going to try to explain this whole thing and she is going to give me this blank stare that pretty much everybody gives me when I try to explain this thing that I have chosen to embark on.

I've been thinking a lot lately about the idea that the kingdom of God doesn't really make any logical sense to people in this world who do no know it. Poeple who are immersed in a kingdom other than God's. how Paul says that the cross is foolishness to those who do not know or believe. That is sort of the world I feel lik I am going to be living in this afternoon. It could be 30 minutes of self-humiliating agony. That is sort of what I am anticipating really. this tongue-tied jumble of confusion-- trying to explain something even I do not understand much about. I guess the most concise thing I can say is that I am taking an internship for more personal than academic reasons. That I have decided to take a semester off from school here to explore what I want to do with Art education, myself, my life. That I need to know how I can do that successfully and how I can be prepared to come back and get back into it. I'm sure it will be fine and even if it is totally jibberish that I am speaking, so be it. One half hour in the numerous years of life that hopefully lie before me. but I'm nervous, feeling overwhelmed. Staring up at this nameless, hard wall of obstacle that stands before me. oh God, give me the words.