Stumbling

I just finished reading "How Coffee Saved My Life" by Ellie Roscher last night.

Sometimes it seems like certain songs or books or movies come at the perfect time. Like for instance, I'm currently listening to "I Found My Way Back Again" by Nevertheless. A lot of times I feel like a hollow shell. I feel trapped in a little hell. Some days, it's just an accomplishment knowing I've made it through the day and still want to make it to the next day. The past 2 months were way more reminiscent of last spring than I would've hoped. I started back to school and wanted to just quit everything. Things weren't better. Problems hadn't really gone away. The same discontent resurfaced.

I know I've made people angry, I know some people just want me to get over it, but I'm just trying to be okay with emotion right now. I'm trying to be okay with feeling angry now and then. I'm trying to be okay with feeling sad now and then. I'm trying to just be okay with myself. And it's a day by day process. Some days I taste hope again. Some days I can smile and laugh and I can push away old scars that want to open up again. Some days I can't. Some days I can't snap out of it and I need to resort to survival mode.

Sometimes life really is just about survival.

That's where this book has helped me a lot. It's a memoir about a girl who lived in Uruguay for a year. She had the expectation of being this great missionary to help out people living below the poverty line. Little did she know her year would become about survival. She suffered various physical ailments while in Uruguay, she struggled a lot from not being able to keep up with the language, and most of the time it was about taking life day by day and trying to conquer every emotional, physical, and spiritual battle that surfaced. She learned that it's okay to fail now and then. There's no way to avoid failure. The real battle was whether or not she let a daily failure keep her from trying the next day, and then the next day, and then the next day.

I'm getting there. It's so hard not to quit all the time, but sometimes just slowly forcing my feet along is all I can do. It reminds me a lot of workouts this summer. Now and again it's like I'm soaring with a faith I don't even know. It sweeps me up and carries me far past what I could've imagined and dreamed. But a lot of the time, reality smacks me in the face and all I can seem to focus on is just making sure I keep placing one foot in front of the other. If I learned anything this summer about running, and if I learned anything the past month - it's that struggles get easier when you've got someone next to you. I often feel guilty for burdening my friends with my problems, but it's cool to see the friends that still stick around and still offer a laugh, a smile, or a hug even after you've unloaded all your woes on them. It's moving to me to watch my friends quickly offer a helping hand, or $200 in cash, or several hours of their time that they could be sleeping just to talk and listen when I need it.

If college has taught me anything, it's taught me that true friends really are gems in the world. It's hard, and I mean freakin' hard, to come across people that care deeply for one another. I'm so richly blessed to have the few true friends that I do have. And I hope that I can start to snap out of this depression that's eating me up so that I can be a better friend to the people that have been taking care of me.

I know I'm headed there, but I don't know how long the process will take. Most of the time it's all about the process. I just keep trying to remind myself that no pain or suffering is for nothing. Something will come of this.

I'm going somewhere.
I'm going to do something that matters.
I'm not going to save the world, because it's already been done.
I'm only going to make what I do matter.
I'm going to try to take care of myself. This is going to be extremely hard for me. Because I'm not very good at this... like, at all.
I'm going to try to stay in the sun more. I want to be in the light. I don't want to stay up to all hours of the night like my habit is. I want to enjoy sunlight more.
I'm leaving the city after I graduate. I don't know where I'm going. But I want to learn more about the world. I want to learn what it's like to not be an American. I want to get away from the fast-paced everything... So I can learn what other cultures understand that we need to understand. And also, so I can learn exactly how blessed I am by living in this incredible country.

To put it in words better than my own:
"Nothing we do is complete, which is another way of saying that the Kingdom always lies beyond us. No statement says all that should be said. No prayer fully expresses our faith. No confession brings wholeness. No program accomplishes the church's mission. No set of goals and objectives includes everything. This is what we are about. We plant seeds that one day will grow. We water seeds already planted, knowing that they hold future promise. We lay foundations that will need further development. We provide yeast that produces effects far beyond our capabilities. We cannot do everything, and there is a sense of liberation in realizing that. This enables us to do something, and to do it very well. It may be incomplete, but it is a beginning, a step along the way, an opportunity for the Lord's grace to enter and do the rest. We may never see the end results, but that is the difference between the master builders and the worker. We are the workers, not the master builders; ministers, not messiahs. We are prophets of a future that is not our own."
- Archbishop Oscar Romero

The State of Things

It's been year in the making/ In my skin, I'm shaking from the cold/ I am tired from the taking/ And my heart won't stop breaking/ And I know, I know/ Moving forward/ Can't be this hard.

They say time is a healer/ It's more like a concealer for a scar/ Cause it never really leaves us/ It can always find us where we are, we are/ Who thought, it could/ Ever be so hard?

There's so much I should have said,/ When time was wearing thin/ You're not here, but someday I know/ I'll see you again.

I'm just tryin' to find out/ Who I am, on my own/ I had you right beside me/ Now you're gone and I know./ I had you right beside me/ But now you're gone, you're gone

When the room clears, I'm still here/ Who am I when I'm Alone?

Poetry

I found this in a journal earlier today and thought I'd post it:

Inside I am screaming,
Outside I am weeping,
Why am I prisoner to thought?

Did you not create me,
Bless me,
With a heart in my head?

Don't abandon me, O God
For without You I will die.
But please make yourself known
Whenever I cry.

I am blessed with life,
And a beauty I do not see.
Break down these walls, God.
Help me be free.

Quotable.

You are living through an unusual time.
You see that you are called to go toward
solitude,
prayer,
hiddenness,
and great simplicity.
You see that, for the time being, you have to be
limited in your movements,
sparing with phone calls,
and careful in letter writing.

You also know that the fulfillment of your burning desire for intimate friendships,
shared ministry,
and creative work
will not bring you what you really want.
It is a new experience for you to feel both the desire and its unreality.
You sense that nothing but God's love can fulfill your deepest need
while the pull to other people and things remains strong.
It seems that peace and anguish exist side by side in you,
that you desire both distraction and prayer concentration...

It is clear that something in you is dying,
and something is being born.
You must remain
attentive,
calm,
and obedient
to your best intuitions...
You feel vulnerable but safe at the same time.
Jesus is where you are, and you can trust that he will show you the next step.

- Henri J. M. Nouwen

Always

Dear God,

I cry out to you, because you're the only one that always listens.

I love you,
Amen.

An Education

There's this great struggle going on in our country. Something that affects a lot of Christians, so far as I can tell. It's the struggle of what you can accomplish vs. what God can accomplish. I've often heard that I need to do everything for the glory of God, but that includes excelling in school and doing what is "right." The part where I got lost was that there was no real solid instruction on how I should go about doing what's "right." I'm a very visual learner. If you want me to learn something, then showing me how to do it is the best way. I hear stuff, but I don't always interpret. For years and years I was told to read my Bible and pray. From what I interpreted, it was because that's what God wanted. That's how we communicated with Him. Prayer made more sense then reading my Bible at the time. I just thought reading the Bible was more of a chore we were assigned.

Growing up, it sure seemed like schoolwork was more important than reading my Bible. I mean... yeah I was told to read my Bible daily, but the time allotted for devotional was usually about 10 minutes every morning. The famous "quiet time" that everyone was supposed to have morning or night. But the reality of this schedule was that I would spend about 10 minutes with God in the morning and 3 minutes with Him at night praying. The rest of my day was all about being prompt to meetings, spending 8 hours a day in school, getting all my homework done after school, and playing or doing extracurriculars after all of that. Where was the time for God? Where was the application of His Word? From what I can remember, no one ever broke it down and explained it to me to make sure I understood the importance of applying His Word to my life.

I had this general understanding that God was supposed to be our number 1 priority. We were supposed to love Him first. Easy enough to understand, but there was still this idea that Bible reading was a chore. I didn't understand that I could actually really relate to what it says. Bible verses seemed like little bits and pieces of a book that you constructed sermons from. I didn't understand that the New Testament was a book of instruction. That in many ways it made coherent sense that I could learn from. Reading it is the best way to learn, but I didn't understand why I should read it. Now after several weeks of reading I'm learning so much that I feel so dumb for not having done this before.

I now understand that it's not about my goals and my dreams. Yes, I've gone to school for forever and spent over 1/2 my life working on school work... but that's not what's most important. I've realized that I've been taught to have misplaced priorities. I always heard about the importance of great grades and this idea of success. Success? Hah. Success is in the eye of the beholder. I was taught that making enough money to be comfortable was of immense importance... that is was good to do things for the purpose of doing the right thing, regardless of where my heart was.

My idea of success has drastically changed since coming to college. I may not make millions of dollars, I may not feel like anyone ever listens to me, I may not have my dreams come true and get to have a husband and kids, I may end up homeless, I may end up single, I may end up with a job that isn't what I've been working for in my education, I may end up in trouble, I may end up in another country or in jail or facing death at any point in time. But it's not about what I can do. It's never been about what I can do or what I can accomplish. It is ALL about what God can do through me. My education is not what's most important in my life. It'd be awesome to make a difference through film, but if I can't, I can't. It's not about my will or my dreams. It's all about God's will. What I need to concern myself with is being disciplined. I need to read His Word daily to learn what to seek after. I need to pray daily to keep God constantly active in my life so that I am aware just how omnipresent He is. I need to stay in a small group of close friends so that we can encourage one another and hold each other accountable for our actions. I need to focus my life on doing 2 things - Loving God and Loving others. That is what matters in life. That is where success lies.

Money is paper with some numbers on it. Yeah, it'll get you stuff but I find myself much more satisfied after helping someone else, or giving up something I don't need for someone that does. As far as other things go... feel good things - premarital sex, drunkeness, social power, power through anger and cunning, conceit, popularity... Bah. The only thing any of those things have ever and will ever bring is pain. Some of them I know only too well the amount of pain they can bring. They all bring temporary satisfaction. Nothing that lasts. The more I became consumed with anger and the more cunning I became, the more dissatisfaction I experienced. I had power and control and it felt good when I was cutting others down having an ego about how conniving I was. But at the end of the day I was utterly lonely. Nothing lasted.

I feel wiser and wiser every day. The more I read, the more I learn how to live. It's liberating and it's great! It's not always easy, but I am happy know I have a God I can always depend on. I know that although some people will probably hate me for my beliefs, I have a future full of singing and praise, loving others with genuine, non-selfish love, and an overall appreciation for all the opportunities and beauty that surrounds me. I don't have to be consumed with what others do because all I have to do is forgive them. Grudges are such burdens, as is anger and frustration. I get to pursue a life of love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, gentleness, and self-control. What more could I ever ask for? :) My life is a good life.

"he saved us, not because of righteous things we had done, but because of his mercy. He saved us through the washing of rebirth and renewal by the Holy Spirit, whom he poured out on us generously through Jesus Christ our Savior, so that, having been justified by his grace, we might become heirs having the hope of eternal life. This is a trustworthy saying. And I want you to stress these things, so that those who have trusted in God may be careful to devote themselves to doing what is good. These things are excellent and profitable for everyone." Titus 3: 5-8


There is no substitute for reading and studying the Word of God. If you are a follower of Christ, it is essential for your growth and your life that you read what is "God-breathed" as instruction (2 Timothy 3:16).

My own little Middle Earth

So this post will go a bit against the norm of my other posts because I don't have my Bible open in front of me with several verses to pull from. This was just kind of a realization I had about faith, as well as my personal testimony. But all the knowledge and wisdom I've gained over the years has come from studying the Word and by talking to God in prayer asking for Him to help me decipher His Word. These are the interpretations I think He's shown me, and if anything I've thought has been just a wandering thought of mine without real Biblical foundation, I pray you will forget it. I am fallible, so I'm not right about everything.

But there's this awesome feeling of satisfaction and joy when you're reading something in your Bible or when you're crying out to God and He just seems to answer your question :) Best. Feeling. Ever.

Begin:
It was near the end of 6th grade when my parents decided to move to Huntsville, Alabama from Atlanta, Georgia. Up until this time I had grown up in a Christian world. Raised up in church with a minister dad and a stay-at-home mom, I knew all kinds of Bible stories. At around age 7 my parents told me about this prayer to pray because it was what good Christians did. So, wanting to be obedient, I prayed this prayer and got a cupcake and was baptized. My parents had great intentions, but I often acted older than I was and just liked to obey them so they'd be proud of me. That prayer was just full of words to me. Finding out the truth about faith would take so much more than being obedient for my parents...

The end of 6th grade and basically all of 7th grade was a nightmare for me. For the first time in my life, I really took a look at what I looked like. I noticed my weight, my red Irish complexion, my simple clothes, and my weird Christian background. I was apparently an excellent target of harsh words... my 12 year old heart was more miserable than it had ever been. To this day, that year of my life was the most painful thing I ever went through. But low and behold, that too did pass. Because in 8th grade I was older than the rest of the kids at school, I hit a growth spurt of like 3 inches and worked out/ dieted with dedication. I was skinny and caddy and tried to talk to as many people as possible. I started cussing and started fitting in as much as I could. Because when I did all the things my parents told me not to do, I had friends. I was popular(ish), people talked to me, I had significance.

The significance I had in popularity lasted for right around 7 months and then I entered school as a freshman. Back at the bottom of the food chain and I'm not sure what happened with all those friends. I wasn't friendless, but the friends I was left with didn't seem to have the desire for companionship that I did. I've always loved the movie "Anne of Green Gables"... I wanted that kindred spirit. I wanted that one best friend. The longer I went without that kindred spirit, the more depressed I got. Until finally I decided it was time to end my life because I was never going to find that kindred spirit. By that time I wasn't even going to find a trustworthy friend. I don't know how many times you've had a 'best friend' stab you in the back, but it just seems like I'm some kind of magnet for disloyal people. More personal stuff unfolded between me and said "friends" to reveal that I really was alone. Alone. Alone. Things with my family weren't exactly great either... mostly because my sister and I were at that ripe age where we just annoyed each other to death. I had grown tired of the God my parents always talked about and I wanted nothing to do with all the promises I'd heard of from this "great God." I wanted to go to hell. I wanted to be anywhere my sister wasn't, anywhere where my christian friends wouldn't be. I knew in hell i'd be so preoccupied with pain that I wouldn't notice all my non-christian friends. I tried to find refuge in my solitude. Pain was one of the only things I felt anymore. And because I felt something, I held on to that feeling because I never wanted to become numb. I had reached the bottom. But for some reason, I could never completely follow through with the suicide attempts I made. Fear always kept me from that last little step to seal my death.

I don't really know what happened. But a month or so after my final suicide "attempt" (which was August of my sophomore year of HS), I was lying in my bed one night. Most of the days that month I was numb. I went through the day just letting stuff pass me by. I acted out happiness or whatever it was I was supposed to do to react to people. But every night I just laid there sad and hopeless. That night, I didn't know why, but I just got out my Bible. The Bible I hadn't read in quite a long time... and I opened it. I can't even remember where I turned or what I read, but whatever I read made me understand. I understood that putting your faith in God meant you trusted that Heaven was real and that His Word was real and it was truth. Having faith wasn't part of an agenda and you didn't just proclaim Jesus as your Savior. You don't walk around saying, "Jesus is Lord." The term "christian" isn't a title, it's a way of life. I finally understood that I had to live faith. I was making a conscience choice to dedicate my life to the promise that real reality is that one day, I'm going to die. And after my body dies, my soul will either go to Heaven or go to Hell, and that is where I'll spend the majority of my time. ... I mean, eternity is a pretty long time. So the real reality is this: This life on earth is just a small fraction of the time I'll be conscience and I have to trust that God's promises are real. That's faith.

That night was out of the blue. Nothing special happened earlier that day. No one said anything particular to make me open my Bible. Now I think it was just God. He saw my pain, and He nudged. Instead of fighting it, I just listened. With real curiosity and my numbness near the front of my mind, I opened my Bible and I read. That night I trusted God's Word and that night I became a Christian.

Life has been far from perfect since then and the back-stabbing friend habit I picked up certainly didn't stop. But I had a different perspective. Rather than my life getting worse and worse and worse until I got numb, a process developed. 1. I made decisions, 2. Some of those decisions ended up being mistakes, 3. I felt the consequences of those mistakes - mostly through pain, 4. I sought answers and tried to open up my mind and asked God, "Why?" 5. God answered, 6. I learned and I grew. It wasn't a walk in the park, but my life progressively got better in a sense - the more I grew, the closer I got to God and understanding His mind and His will. The more personal my relationship became with Him.

Now for a long time I've always wondered why fantasies aren't real. I wanted Middle Earth to exist. I was a ridiculous LotR fan for a couple years... still know how to speak some elvish. But I say that to demonstrate how caught up I got in my imagination. I wanted so badly to live a life of peace in Lothlorien. I wanted to be graceful and wise and beautiful. I wanted to live in a magical place unlike anything seen on Earth. I thought it was cruel that God gave me such a vivid imagination when what was in my head would never exist where I was. I was resentful about it sometimes. But many times I still found refuge in my Neverland. It was a beautiful place and it was a great place to visit when the realities of Earth got too painful. It was a place no one could take away.

A few nights ago I don't remember what I read again, but I was reading again. And somewhere in the fine print of God's Word it made sense again. My imagination isn't a curse or a cruel joke. My Neverland was a taste - just a taste - of what my real reality is. When I pass from this life I will be in my Middle Earth. It does exist, but in a fashion so grand and beautiful and peaceful that even my wild imagination can do it no justice. I can't even express what joy I feel when I think of that place existing. And then not long after, I heard a verse that I now think was Romans 8:6, "Those who live according to the sinful nature have their minds set on what that nature desires; but those who live in accordance with the Spirit have their minds set on what the Spirit desires."

I didn't really understand this at first, but then I realized that in order to find true joy, my desires had to line up with God's. For a long time I didn't think my desires did. I wanted a world where loyalty, love, and honesty reigned. A place of ethereal beauty that is not tangible on this Earth. But I thought this was all just my imagination...

My mind was set on the present, not on the future. Not on reality. My greatest desire isn't just in my mind though. It does exist beyond this life. One day I will be in Heaven and getting there is now my heart's greatest desire. I desire companionship still, but a companionship of complete honesty with my brothers and sisters in Christ. I want to just stand around all day singing and praising God. Enjoying the beauty of scenery and not worrying about how people treat me or who I can and can't trust. I don't want to have to worry so much about my own welfare, because I know without doubt that I will be safe in Heaven. Mark 12:25 even says that, "[the risen dead] will be like the angels in heaven." I won't be bound to this earthly body. I won't struggle with jealousy or any other humanly emotions or wants. I will be completely freed from temptation. And just the promise of that life... it makes me ecstatic!

But I will remain very aware of Matthew 7:21-23: "Not everyone who says to me, 'Lord, Lord,' will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only he who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. Many will say to me on that day, 'Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and in your name drive out demons and perform many miracles?' Then I will tell them plainly, 'I never knew you. Away from me, you evildoers!"

Christianity is not a proclamation, and it is not attending church or telling people right from wrong. It's not just about being good or nice. It's about a relationship more personal than any other. It's about talking to God and more importantly, listening to Him. It's about reading the Bible while seeking truth. It's about living for a different place and trying to spread the joy you've found with others. A hard task when you're used to rejection and pain, but in the end - no one else's choice to reject joy can hamper my joy. Because I'll be there. I'll be in my Middle Earth. I'll be with my God. And I will be explicitly and unexplainably and unendingly happy.

This may sound like foolishness, but... "The man without the Spirit does not accept the things that come from the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him, and he cannot understand them, because the are spiritually discerned." 1 Corinthians 2:14

Seek out God's will always.