Lately, I've felt more challenged to be super real with people around me. So, hello world...here I am.

I'm kind of disgusted with myself today. Actually, really disgusted. This week, I have been super apathetic. Super irritable. Super lazy. Super selfish. Super egotistical. Except for the few short times I've purposely sought out God, I've been seeking out me. What do people think of ME? What's great about ME? My thoughts. My attitude. My heart. They're all rotten. Yeah, I've gotten to have some good conversations and enjoy my friends. But when I'm all about me, even those things aren't as great. My friend Steve says 'the good life begins the day its not about you.' Welp, I've definitely proved the inverse. (It's definitely not the first time.) The lame life begins the day its all about you.

But here's something absolutely crazy. While I was driving home from campus, I turned on the radio and heard this song by Phil Wickham...http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VBDLAZFLfIM. First of all, I love this song. Second, I never hear it on the radio. Third, WHY would God pursue me when I am completely indifferent, self-absorbed, unloveable?

I don't understand. Sometimes I don't care to, at all. But it's there, nonetheless. This love. This divine romance. This fierce devotion.

I'm the whore in the book of Hosea. I'm the rebellious child mentioned in Isaiah. I'm the prodigal son. And He loves me.

And I want to respond. I want to live alive to Him. Which means my old self has to die. And with what I've seen of 'me' lately, I'm okay with that.




Food for thought: http://www.marshillchurch.org/media/its-all-about-jesus/its-all-about-jesus-humility

T-shirts, turkey, and thankfulness

Well folks, I took the GRE this morning, tidied up things at the apartment, loaded the car, and made the long trek home. (that's a joke.) The pumpkin pies are in the oven and later tonight the tree goes up! Let the festivities begin.

As I was doing my laundry, I couldn't help laughing to myself with each t-shirt I folded. It seems like every one brings back memories of someone, some place in time, a story...whether it was going to Athens for OU Honors Choir, saying our goodbyes before starting college and swapping shirts, moving freshmen in at BG, silly BGeX things, summer project in India, my beloved Iowa State Cyclones and growing up in Ames, high school orchestra, the Mucky Duck restaurant on the beach of Captiva Island, or even MAZE last week...and I'm amazed at how all of these things, whether seemingly "significant" or not, have been woven together into a story. And even more, they've been woven into God's Grand Story.

I am thankful for the laughter and memories, but I'm more thankful for redemption and grace. I'm thankful for the people God has brought into my life, and His relentless love through all of life's crazy twists and turns. I'm thankful that He hasn't stopped pursuing me in spite of my heart that's so "prone to wander." I'm thankful for the deserts that made me crave Him more than ever. I'm thankful that I get to wake up every morning and whisper His name.

I'm thankful for the pumpkin pies that I just took out of the oven, for the people that will fill our house tomorrow, the turkey that will be roasted, for Christmas music and the celebration of the Word who became flesh, and I'm thankful for my family who has given me more grace than anyone, besides Christ. I'm thankful for you, my dear friend, and this life we get to live together. I'm thankful for words and stories and the beauty they hold.

I pray this thanksgiving is one of remembering. I hope you get to press 'pause' and celebrate where God has brought you. And if you're in a dry place, I pray you are able to take a step of faith and praise Him anyhow.

I dare you to look through your tshirt drawer and remember His grace.

Happy Thanksgiving, friends.

Today I am...

hopeful joy-filled expectant thankful free determined blessed secure in love.

Musings.

-I have the best friends ever. Seriously, who gets up at 6am to drive you to the airport? Grace and Morgan. And who makes you a sign when you get home? Dreya.

-Airports are wonderful microcosms of life. Theoretically, you could get on a plane to Ouagadogou...or Mumbai...or Des Moines...or Detroit...and each place is full of new adventures to be had, people to be met, sunsets to watch...yadayada. It's like a choose-your-own-adventure novel.

-Speaking of which, my life is a series of ironies. Detours. Funnies. Basically, I say, God, I wanna do anything, just not ________. And where does he send me? The _____________. Ha. Ha. (and it usually ends up being pretty alright. Meaning amazing.)

-So, of course, I have no "security" for the next year. Which means God is going to blow me away once more. El-Shaddai. My all in all, sufficient, more than enough God. What a wonderful name.

-God's love never gets old. I've known His love in deep, passionate, personal ways. But lately, it's been more of a "sloppy wet kiss." Not in an irreverent way. But a little bit silly. Kind of outrageous. Rejoicing over me with LOUD singing. Looking into my eyes with this silly grin that I'm not sure how to respond to. Making my heart literally jump up and down like a small child in a candy store. (or college senior.) He loves. So well.

-My kids will have names from Chronicles. It sounds like a good idea on 3 hours of sleep anyway.

-Home from grandma and grandpa's...time to hit the elliptical. Funny how in their mind, you will always have the metabolism of an 8-year-old.

-I was skimming a sweet article on migration in National Geographic (If you haven't figured out that I'm a little bit of a nerd, well, there you have it.) and I was hit by this: one characteristic of migration is undistractability, this "fervid attentiveness to the greater mission." While an animal is migrating, stimuli that would usually be a distraction just aren't. Eating and resting aren't important. The destination is.

I hope my life looks like that. Marked by that same undistractability as I journey towards a "better country." A homeland. A heavenly one.

Something so beautiful.

Don’t know how it is You looked at me
And saw the person that I could be
Awakening my heart
Breaking through the dark
Suddenly Your grace

Like sunlight burning at midnight
Making my life something so
Beautiful, beautiful
Mercy reaching to save me
All that I need
You are so
Beautiful, beautiful

Now there’s a joy inside I can’t contain
But even perfect days can end in rain
And though it’s pouring down
I see You through the clouds
Shining on my face

I have come undone
But I have just begun
Changing by Your grace

The horizon.

This summer, I learned that when you're feeling seasick, you look at the horizon. It restores your body's internal sense of balance and center of gravity.

The ocean is rarely quiet. It's currents trying to pull you this way and that, waves, wind, and storms. You can't just jump out of the boat when you start to feel queasy. So what are you going to do? You have no other option but to find the horizon and glue your eyes to it. Why? It's the only thing that's fixed. It's the only guarantee you have. It doesn't change the fact that you're in the middle of a storm, but it changes you.

Such is life. We're all navigating this vast ocean in our little fishing boats, often with no land in sight. The storms are inevitable; the wind and waves are all too familiar. Yet, there is a horizon, and yes, I'm going to say that Jesus is the horizon. But it goes beyond that. Jesus wants to restore our souls' balance. This world has turned everything upside down. We all struggle to find any center of gravity, anything that will steady us through the storm. And He offers to be that anchor for the soul. He who who can tell the storms outside and the storms within us, "Peace, be still." He may or may not change the fact that we're in the middle of the storm, but He changes us.

I can't help but think that maybe the author of Hebrews had the sea in mind when He said, "let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the Author and Perfecter of our faith..." To fix your eyes on something takes concentrated effort. We are so easily distracted; no wonder we get seasick so easily. I feel it now, even as I write this. My heart wants to push away from God, the only Horizon I have in this life. But where else can I turn? I have found nothing else.

May God give us the grace to fix our eyes on Himself.

Beauty rests.

And I don't. Not well, anyway. Inspired and challenged by my lovely friends Ame and Lauren, I am choosing to rest well. Lately, I have found that my sabbaths have been un-restful. Instead of feeling refreshed, I get to Sunday evening and feel this sort of impending doom that is the upcoming week. And, partly because of my earlier misunderstanding of the sabbath, I feel guilty if I didn't spend the sabbath praying or reading scripture. Yet, I have been reminded that God created the sabbath FOR us, and that he wants to pour life back into us through it. Lauren challenged me to make a list of things that bring me life and just do those things, instead of worrying about how I "should" be spending my sabbath.

So here's my short list:
-blowing bubbles
-biking
-baking
-playing guitar
-reading
-being still
-writing...a letter, a song, thoughts, prayers, dreams...
-sunsets and clouds
-painting
-just 'being' with a friend
-driving
-Pride and Prejudice
-jumping on the bed
-listening to a symphony

And I've decided I want to make a specific discipline of the last one. I'm a music major, yes, but for most of my musical life I have failed to really experience music (hmm...sounds a lot like my spiritual life.) So, every weekend from here on out, I want to listen to an entire symphony...not as background music. I want to drink it in, be overwhelmed by it, process it...and experience God. and maybe I'll record my thoughts here. Yes.

Even resting is an act of faith for me. It takes trust to believe that God will do whatever He needs to do without me and that I can accomplish all I need to do in the other six days. But it's not a blind leap by any means; it's a leap into grace: grace that God provides a day for my soul to be restored, and grace to relinquish control over life.

Grace.

The sabbath is grace. I can do this. Or just...let Him.

'Peace, child; you don't understand.'

“The terrible thing is that a perfectly good God is in this matter hardly less formidable than a Cosmic Sadist. The more we believe that God hurts only to heal, the less we can believe that there is any use in begging for tenderness. A cruel man might be bribed – might grow tired of his vile sport – might have a temporary fit of mercy, as alcoholics have fits of sobriety. But suppose that what you are up against is a surgeon whose intentions are wholly good. The kinder and more conscientious he is, the more inexorably he will go on cutting. If he yielded to your entreaties, if he stopped before the operation was complete, all the pain up to that point would have been useless. But is it credible that such extremities of torture should be necessary for us? Well, take your choice. The tortures occur. If they are unnecessary, then there is no God or a bad one. If there is a good God, then these tortures are necessary. For no even moderately good Being could possibly inflict or permit them if they weren’t. Either way, we’re for it.” -CS Lewis, A Grief Observed

After watching Shadowlands this summer, I became more curious about Lewis' personal journey of falling in love, watching his wife battle cancer, losing her, and finally, grieving her. There's something refreshing about the fact that such a strong apologist for the Christian faith comes to a place such as this and questions all that he knows to be true. This short work was originally penned under a pseudonym, and is the most brutally honest writing of Lewis, filled with anger, doubts, fear, and yet surrender to an all-knowing Father and Good King. I've been wrestling with a lot of the same questions lately. And no answer is ever satisfactory. But even in the midst of his grief, Lewis provides a beautiful view of God's Father heart.

"When I lay these questions before God I get no answer. But a rather special sort of 'No answer.' It is not the locked door. It is more like a silent, certainly not uncompassionate, gaze. As though He shook His head not in refusal but waiving the question. Like, 'Peace, child; you don't understand'"

Light, Knowledge, Glory

The Hebrews searched for light.
The Greeks sought knowledge.
The Romans craved glory.

And then Paul comes along and writes to the Corinthians,
"For God, who said, "Let light shine out of darkness," has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ." (II Corinthians 4:6)

a little tidbit from Ravi Zacharias :)

I'm over this.

I'm about to make an honest confession. Not that I'm not usually honest. But anyway, here goes.

I'm tired of being an activist.

I'm not tired of hearing the stories of countless men and women oppressed daily.

I'm not tired of being heartbroken over the sadness that surrounds me.

I'm not tired of striving to do more.

I'm just over social justice as a means to feel good about ourselves.

I don't want to be about a cause.

I don't want to be about creating a ruckus.

People need to know about other people. People should love other people.

I want to be about people.

I want to be about love.

But I can't make love happen for anyone else.

I believe love is poured out when we give of ourselves, without getting a bracelet or trendy tee in return.

I believe love is poured out when we cry out to God on behalf of the oppressed.

I believe love is poured out when we choose to die to ourselves.

I believe true love comes from God.

I don't believe that mere awareness and activism bring about change.

Change happens one person at a time.

One person being healed.

And that person choosing to live beyond himself.

This is the gift of life Jesus offers. Real life.

I wanna give life.

Friends, I'm not sure what else to say. I will fight for justice, because it's who I am and its the calling I've been given. I just want to be in the heat of the battle NOW.

And maybe now, that's doing little things. And believing that Jesus is the solution to a dying world. That whoever we are, by allowing ourselves to be transformed from the inside out...we are doing an act of social justice (thanks, Don Miller). We are turning this world right side up again.

I have made it through life unscathed. I don't know why. I wonder if it's fair. It's not. I can't bare the thought of things that have been done to people all around me. You, my dear friends, have born the weight of the world.

I have not experienced the death of someone near to me.

I have not been abused or neglected.

I have not experienced pain that led me to consider taking my own life.

I have not been forced into doing anything against my will.

I have not been lied to, cheated, or betrayed.

Yet, none of us is exempt from the fall. I have experienced my share of sadness and wrestled with myself and the world around me. I have been let down. I have felt belittled and uncared for. I have felt alone and desperate for love. I am still a woman in need of redemption.

But I wonder, do I have what it takes to be part of the solution? Can I bring healing to a world of people that burn with pain I have never felt?

I don't have what it takes. I can't carry the weight of the world. But Someone else already did. And it's His life I have to offer, not mine.

To all of you who share your stories, thank you. And I pray that we can find healing together.

human rights...or not?

We do a lot of things in the name of "human rights." I intend to focus much of my energy into a "human rights" based career. Why do I keep putting them in quotations? Because I'm not sure that "human rights" even exist anymore. I'm not questioning the actions we take to promote human rights, or what has been accomplished as a result of their introduction to society, just the idea of rights. Really, human rights are a relatively new idea. They began with property rights in Medieval law, and then advanced to political rights in Western Europe, namely in France. The Declaration of Independence tells us we are "endowed by our Creator with certain unalienable rights," what many would call "natural rights." Basically, some people believe God gave us rights, while some would say we have them simply because we are human. Sounds pretty intuitive. Here's what gets me. Whether or not you believe in a God of any kind, you cannot even take your next breath for granted. Nothing is guaranteed. Where did we get the idea that we are entitled to anything? Even more, Jesus says that to find your life you have to lose it. Paul says that Jesus let go of his God-ness and "made himself nothing." Hmm. If Jesus knows what he's talking about in regard to life, truly living is not claiming as many rights for yourself as you can, but quite the opposite.

I will say this. Life is valuable. Murder, genocide, abortion...these things are ugly. The question I'm asking is, do I have the right to my life, or do others have the responsibility not to kill me? Christ followers have a responsibility to feed the poor, free the slaves, heal the sick, correct injustices. We are the rebuilders of broken places. And some 'rights' are legitimate needs, ie, food, shelter, clean water, protection... They are necessities for survival, but are they rights? And are they necessary for true life, wholeness, and freedom? Some of the happiest people are deprived of many things we consider 'rights.'


I could go a lot of other directions with this...and I will,

another day.

summer thoughts

I've neglected this blogging thing for most of the summer, because, frankly I haven't had a lot to say.

But, here we are on the cusp of a new school year with a few sweet summer days left to be enjoyed. Summer is a funny thing. In our minds, summer conjures feelings of reckless abandon, freedom from obligations, and unbridled exhilaration. When I think of summer, I daydream about laying out in the grass with a good book, playing tennis, roadtripping, running through fields of wildflowers, writing poetry, bonfires, and sipping iced tea. For some of us, it's a time to finally become all the things we try to be during the school year. Summer was these things. But it wasn't perfect, by any means. Summer can feel like more of a letdown than any other season because the expectations we place on it are so high, so idealistic, and usually unreachable. During the school year, it's a given that school will put a damper on things, no matter how great the rest of life is. But summer is that last bastion of childhood, carefree living.

So...as I'm processing the summer, I'm trying to resist the urge to label it "good" or "bad" or to compare it to summers past. Was it all I imagined it would be? Nope. Did I meet my own expectations? Not at all. But, did its serve its purpose? Only time will tell, but I'm starting to think yes...

I'll keep you posted as I process the last few months, and I'd encourage you to do the same, but I'm getting the impression that God was all over it in ways I have yet to fully comprehend. More to come.

sin.

I'm well aware this word has so many negative associations that we'd rather just avoid it altogether. But the truth is, to ignore sin would be to severely minimize the fierce beauty of God's love. Sin creates a chasm, a canyon, between us and God. It mars our world, mars us. But what is it?

The Sunday school answer of "sin is breaking God's rules" is not completely false. It's just not the complete truth. I've heard the it defined "missing the mark" or "falling short." Again, it's not that I don't agree with these statements, they just don't give us the whole picture. These definitions paint God as merely a lawgiver and judge void of any personality or interest in our well-being. It's as if God exists to keep a running total of our mistakes.

And then, on the other hand, I started learning definitions of sin such as "rebellion against God" or "finding an identity apart from God." These ideas resonate with God's relational nature and do more justice to what sin actually does to my relationship with Him. When I rebel against Him, I push Him away and tell Him my way is better. A rift is created, and our friendship is broken.

But whenever I study sin, the rule-breaking idea keeps coming up...and if God is ruler of the universe, He must maintain order of it. So I can't dismiss those definitions altogether. But how to reconcile "missing the mark" with "rebellion against God"? Rule-following vs. relationship? God gives rules, yes? See Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy...but what is the greatest commandment? The greatest command is "love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength." So, get this, THE rule to follow is "Love God." Seriously. It's rule about relationship. Love comes first. So back to sin. Sin=breaking God's perfect laws=not LOVING Him with everything=rebelling against Him. Bingo.

So as God watches us, I don't think He sees naughty children coloring outside the lines; instead, He sees us giving our love away to things and people that cannot truly give us the love we so crave and need. He watches these things squeeze the life out of us, disfiguring and breaking us on the inside. In the process we become people who take and take some more, trying to find life for ourselves somehow. And as we take, we become murderers, stealing the life out of those around us. And yet, we're also dead inside. We're all running around loving things that leave us loveless and becoming unlovable people. We have destroyed the garden. God composed a symphony, we write our own discordant parts instead; He painted a masterpiece, and we smear black ink across the crystal blue sky. Sin is ugly.

But where sin increased, grace increased all the more. He can make the lawbreaker innocent. He can repair the broken relationship between Himself and rebellious man. And He can bring the dead to life.

True Spirituality

Not always having answers, but admitting you don't know.
Not having arrived, but journeying towards an end.
Not mystical, but tangible.
Not superiority, but desperation.
Not always having the right words, but braving the silence.
Not perfected, but moldable.
Not neat, but picking up the pieces.
Not feeling emotion, but knowing truth.
Not belief in facts, but knowing Jesus Christ.



Any more?

How is it possible to try so hard to be a "good Christian" and yet lose sight of looking like Christ?

Usually, when we, as Christians, read about Jesus hanging out with tax collectors, prostitutes, and other known "sinners", we think, "okay, that means we need to take care of society's outcasts." And yes, if you're going to follow Jesus, you should.

But when was the last time you thought of yourself as one of those sinners?

We are all desperately helpless people in need of grace, friends. Join the circle of broken people reclining around the table with the Savior.

Facebook, schmacebook...

In the midst of all this hype over Facebook privacy controls and what not...I have an opinion on social networking. And it has nothing to do with how much Big Brother is watching. It doesn't have anything to do with its addictive nature, though it may be a cause. I have come to the conclusion that we can begin to live vicariously through one other on the Internet.

Facebook started out innocently enough; it was a tool to connect with people far away or new friends at school. Even then, be honest, how much time did you waste flipping through pictures? Enter the stalkerfeed. No longer did you have to search for what Johnny was doing on Saturday night, whether Ken and Barbie were still dating, or what Joe and Bob's wall-to-wall was. No, newsfeed brought it to your immediate attention. So, in case of boredom...login to facebook and find out what everyone else was doing while you stayed home and watched reruns. Now, my problem is not the sharing of life via facebook. My problem is the incomplete sharing of life via facebook that parades itself as sharing of LIFE.

Seriously, who posts pictures of himself folding laundry? Who updates her status while paying bills? Who writes about running errands? Who wants to broadcast to the world the mundane boring details of his life? Not of my friends. This is a problem, not because they should, but because if I'm not careful, I can start to believe my life is dull and uninteresting in comparison to my friends who are clearly living a constant string of deep thoughts, parties, crazy photo shoots, bonfires, vacations on the beach, and outdoor concerts. Obviously, this is not the case...because they had to be staring at their computer just as I am, to even share these details. Yet, the irony is that life is not all lived in the Kodak moments or "like"-able events. It's happening, here as we speak, and if we're too busy trying to update our status, we might just miss it.

Another year gone by...

One school year. Two semesters. Nine months. Four journals. Four seasons. Thirty CRUs. A bottle of shampoo. Candles burned. A few boxes of tissue. The same box of dryer sheets I've had since freshman year. Endless boxes of cereal. Skype chats. Books read. Pieces learned. Games of scrabble won (and lost.) Papers written. Cups of coffee. and vanilla chamomile tea. Pictures taken. Dreams ignited. Whispered prayers. Dark nights. Moments of desperation. Moments of absolute, unbridled ecstasy. I'm not sure how to summarize this year...but here's a some random snippets from throughout the year. Mostly the fall. Get over it.

"Lord, let me make a difference for you utterly disproportionate to who I am." -David Brainerd

"You gotta get hungrier and want it even more." -John McEnroe

"Drinking Jesus is like drinking through a swizzle straw..." -Steve Rieske

"Being confident of this, that he who began a good work in you will carry it onto completion until the day of Christ Jesus." -Phillipians 1:6

10.03.09 Everything over my head is under Jesus' feet.

"Believing is seeing." -Jeff Wilbarger

"Being listened to is so close to being loved, most people can't tell the difference." -David Oxberg

"If grace is an ocean, we're all sinking." -John Mark McMillan

"We can do no great things, only small things with great love." -Mother Teresa

"Intense love does not measure, it just gives." -Mother Teresa

"When darkness veils his lovely face, I rest in his unchanging grace."

"Thou on my head in early youth didst smile, and though rebellious and perverse meanwhile, Thou hast not left me, though I oft left thee, on to the close Lord, abide with me."

I'm realizing more and more, how much of my life, even walking with God, I have relied on approval and attention of others...

I'm ready to be done with it.

He.

Getting ready to spend a weekend of laughter and love and being together with some of the coolest people I know...

It's starting to hit that this is it...two more weeks and I'm done being a junior in college forever.

I've already accepted that I'll be a puddle on the floor more than once before then.

It's hard to say how I'll remember this year. Sure there were a few defining moments. But mostly, it was a lot of not-so-defining moments. And yet, those were the defining moments. The ones where I had to choose if I was going to live life for myself or for my King. It was a lot of learning to love and embrace the journey that is life. More than that, learning to love and trust my Father, whatever that journey brought.

And ya know what? He kept loving. He never ever let go. He chased me down. He put His arm around my shoulder. He let me cry. He brought me laughter. He sustained me. He whispered truth into my ear.

Friends, He's good. Life is not going to get easier, but I am convinced knowing Him is only going to become sweeter.

Restless

Some days are just blah. I feel so little motivation to do anything. To be anything. I'm probably a total drag to be around on these days. Everything seems futile. Just empty.

This deep longing within points to the fact that life isn't what it was meant to be. My heart knows where it wants to be but wastes life on worthless things. It's this tension between life as it is and life as it should be.

Tomorrow's Easter. How I so desperately want to be alive. How desperately Jesus wants to give life. What else, besides love, would bring him to spill his blood for me. And Who else could rise again, winning over sin and death forever, but Jesus. So with him I will walk out of the tomb into new life. The tomb that could not keep him in. It's empty.

Stuff I like...

-sunshine
-sweating
-flip-flops
-Nick Drake
-Esperanza Spaulding
-Tim Myers
-good conversation with friends
-showing up to church on 3 hours of sleep because of said conversation
-rollerblading
-flowers
-bird songs
-Passover
-Kim Nazarian and the NY Voices
-awkward moments with Sarah Acker
-little kiddos
-how inadequate I feel trying to understand the cross
-the bloody reality of the cross
-that Jesus gave all of Himself for all of me
-the life that poured out of Him in death
-the freedom in knowing I owe nothing to myself because Jesus paid it all
-that the disciples were not a lot different than I can be
-that Jesus holds his life so loosely because he knows Who truly holds it
-that Jesus has felt the weight of all I have ever experienced
-that the cross exposes how pitifully broken I am and yet how beloved
-the love of God of which I have just scratched the surface

A Love Story

Child of weakness, watch and pray, find in Me thine all in all.

If you've heard my story before, you might recall a certain encounter with God at Indy CC a little over a year ago that radically redefined my life. In that moment, while singing Jesus Paid it All, I found myself truly drowning in grace for the first time. I found real life. Since then, I've been journeying through different seasons and finding that God is faithful through it all. The last few months have been a true test of walking by faith, not emotion, not intellect...just plain faith. It's hard to seek His face, and not His hand. Sometimes I've felt like a screaming baby, so wanting God to just shove a pacifier in my mouth and give me something tangible to grab onto. The problem is, He's never been holding out on me.

The problem is me. I'm so often spiritually unaware. I'd rather focus on myself and fail to see God's hand in everything. But He is a gracious Father and one thing He will never hold from us is His love. His answers to prayer may not be the ones I want, but they are what I need. So when I asked to clearly know His love, He showed me in the sweetest ways. The unconditional love of a dear friend who after I had confessed my struggles to her, only held me closer because of it; puffy, white clouds against a brilliant blue sky; Him waking me up at 6:30 am before an exam so I could be with Him, truths from a wise friend via Skype, the pure, childlike love of a certain five year old boy, and Oasis.

I went to Oasis not really expecting any emotional high. But I did want God. For most of the night, I was at peace just sitting in the back, listening, soaking up the beautiful sound of God's people making much of Him, with little Danny sleeping on my lap, but at the end of the night, God decided to yank me out of it. He took me back to the place He had grabbed me fifteen months before, weeping in the truths of Jesus Paid it All. "Child of weakness, watch and pray..." I tried to sing the first verse, but I knew it wasn't going to happen. I tried to stifle the sobs, but they were the kind that come from your deep within that aren't worth even trying to stop. But there was so much joy in the letting go. So much freedom. So much assurance that the good work God began is still going on. So much relief that God is still near.

God is good. He is faithful when I am faithless. He is timeless. He has a plan. He is love. That is what I will take into whatever comes at me next.

O praise the One who paid my debt, and raised this life up from the dead.

World Water Day

On a day we are complaining about the rain, take a few minutes and think about the people around the world who do not have access to clean water, the children that die of diarrhea and other preventable causes. How crazy it is that all we have to do is turn on a faucet? Not walk five miles and carry the bucket on our heads...

Water is a necessity for life. Today is a great day to give it to someone who needs it. Check out blood:water mission, an organization started by Jars of Clay that's doing some sweet things.

Pieces of a Big Blue Sky

Faith is jumping into the unknown. Life is so full of unknown. I think a lot, maybe too much...about life, God, myself, just about why ________ is the way it is. This week so many things have come into question, which is a funny thing, because I hate the unknown and love it all at the same time.

My bearded friend Teddy Brown used the analogy of a jigsaw puzzle so I'm going to go with it. The only difference is, when you do a jigsaw puzzle, you start from the edges. Life doesn't work like that. It's more like finding random pieces that belong somewhere but you don't really know where. Like pieces of a big blue sky. Sometimes you try to push a piece in and it doesn't work so you keep turning it around, hoping to force it in somewhere. When I find two that fit, the satisfaction lasts for a little while. Until I realize that there are more pieces missing than put together. My mind runs in circles looking for something, anything to grab onto to fill the space, the unknown...

Two conclusions I can draw.

The cognitive dissonance, the tension, is good. I am more afraid of complacency than anything else. If you or I never questioned the status quo, never questioned the lenses with which we saw the world, we would stay very flat people. Flat like a warm can of coke. Gross.

Jesus calls himself the Light of the world. The psalmist writes, "in your light we see light." Light is truth. Seeing the world through Christ, we see things as they are. As I draw nearer to Him, things come into clearer focus. But until our hearts and minds are completely freed from the selfishness that cloud them, a lot of things won't make sense. God won't make sense. He's not supposed to. The trite answers are not satisfactory. Sometimes, even the most advanced theological, philosophical ones aren't either. And being okay with that is hard.

"For I can promise you none of this...no land of inquiry, for I bring you not to the land of questions, but of answers, and you will see the face of God." -C.S. Lewis, The Great Divorce

Best. Life. Group. Ever.

I would just like to take this opportunity to brag about the awesome-ness that is my life group. These people are the real deal.

Tonight, our wonderful men cooked dinner for us, waited on us (in southern accents), wrote awesome haikus about us, and just exemplified Christ's love so well. Then we got to spend some sweet time laughing and writing encouragement to each other...

I'm sad to say that I take this for granted way too much. The people that I live life with are INCREDIBLE, and that's an understatement. My community is so full of LIFE, so full of Jesus' LOVE, and so full of JOY. They are real with their struggles and honest about their shortcomings but also allow us the pleasure of celebrating victories as a group.

Without this community around me, I am NOTHING. We need each other.

P.S. If you need a safe place to journey and people to do life with...come hang with us :)

L-O-V-E

Let's fall in love...why shouldn't we fall in love?

Love sounds so easy. So mushy, gooey, chocolatey, warm, and fuzzy. At least, it starts out that way...and then it's hard. Just plain hard.

As long as things stay surface-y, it's easy to love. And easy to be loved. I love you for all the good things you are, and as long as I keep wearing my mask of having things together, I feel pretty lovable.

But then, things get messy. I get annoyed by your little quirks and things that rub me wrong. You find out that I'm kind of a jerk sometimes and that I get on your nerves.

Eventually, I find out that my love is not pure. It's selfish and broken and sometimes mixed with pride and jealousy. So I doubt the ability of anyone else to love either. Especially to love me for who I am.

And yet, there is a deep love that sees past the mess and gives without any strings attached. A love so strong, so pure, so fierce, so relentless. I don't understand God's love, and therefore I struggle to love. I don't want to fight it anymore. I want to run into His arms as His little girl and fall in love all over again. And then run out into the world and give it all away.

A thought from Lewis...

“About death, I go through different moods, but the times when I can desire it are never, I think, those when this world seems harshest. On the contrary, it is just when there seems to be most of Heaven already here that I come nearest to longing for the patria [the heavenly homeland]. It is the bright frontispiece which whets one to read the story itself. All joy (as distinct from mere pleasure, still more amusement) emphasizes our pilgrim status: always reminds, beckons, awakes desire. Our best havings are wantings.” -C.S. Lewis

Full of grace and truth

"And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth. And from his fullness we have all received grace upon grace. For the law was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ." -John 1:14, 16-17

Grace and truth. Truth and grace. One without the other is fatal. Jesus brought both. Jesus is life.

Grace...a long time ago, I memorized a definition for grace that went something along the lines of, "God giving me a free gift I don't deserve" and I like it. I have never done anything to earn His favor, yet God keeps giving good gifts because He is a loving Father and I am His daughter.

Somehow, though, grace can easily turn into license to behave in any way we want. The idea of "cheap grace" is dangerous. It can lead us to miss the point of following Jesus at all. The gospel I understood growing up was "accept Jesus into your heart...now you know you're going to heaven, so you don't have to lie awake worrying about going to hell...so go on living life, go to church, just don't do anything really bad." Maybe I was ignorant in my, ahem, younger days, but I see this kind of feel-good "Christianity" a lot...it appeals to our consumeristic worldview. It gives us a get out of hell free card, and gives us religion without rules. If I've asked Jesus into my heart, He won't keep me from heaven just because I want to enjoy life while I can. YET, this kind of "grace" also keeps us from truly living. Cheap grace keeps us trapped in the sinful nature that Jesus came to save us from. He knows how life is meant to be lived, who we were meant to be, and empowers us to be that by His Spirit. He desires to transform us into the kind of people that love and give freely, shining light into a darkened world. Cheap grace leaves us looking a lot like the rest of the world, with no true hope to offer.

However, God's favor given as part of a love relationship, is meaningless without truth. If I don't realize what I truly deserve, and who I truly am, what God offers has little value. If I think that I am a pretty good person and that I am entitled to God's love, then why do I need grace? Jesus dying on the cross is of little meaning if I don't need a savior. So, moving on...

Truth...what is truth, Pilate asks. Jesus goes as far to say, "I am the way, the truth, and the life." Truth is not always pleasant. It can be painful. It sheds light on reality. Jesus came into a world of sinners to show us how short we fall. Up to this point, the goal of Judaism was to follow the law religiously, to keep up an appearance of holiness. Jesus rebuked the religious teachers of the day, calling them "whitewashed tombstones." In Matthew, the Sermon on the Mount shows the true nature of God's desires for His people; God desires not just right outward actions, but a heart that deeply loves God and others and acts out of that love. When we look at ourselves in this light, we realize that even the good we do often has selfish motives and how much we serve ourselves first. It is possible to do everything right, but be an ugly person inside. Seeing ourselves in light of Jesus' teachings, this becomes apparent.

Yet, if all Jesus showed us was truth, we would not be able to handle it. One of my favorite novels, The Picture of Dorian Gray, has a good illustration of this. Dorian begins as a handsome, innocent young man, untainted by the ways of the world. His friend, painter Basil Hallward, paints a portrait of Dorian. He eventually sells his soul so that the portrait will age instead of him. As he embraces a hedonistic lifestyle, he remains unchanged. However, in the final scene, Dorian sees the mess of himself in the portrait and plunges a knife into his heart. In the same way, if Jesus only showed us the depth of our sinful nature without offering Himself as our mediator, we would be completely hopeless.

Both grace and truth alone leave us still a broken humanity. But God does not leave us to suffer the fate of either one. Instead He shows us his overflowing love by giving us His Son, full of grace AND truth. He alone is our redemption and hope through the valleys of life.

Come Thou Fount

Come Thou Fount of every blessing
Tune my heart to sing Thy grace
Streams of mercy, never ceasing
Call for songs of loudest praise
Teach me some melodious sonnet
Sung by flaming tongues above
Praise the mount, I'm fixed upon it
Mount of Thy redeeming love

Here I raise mine Ebenezer
Hither by Thy help I've come
Jesus sought me when a stranger
Wandering from the fold of God
He to rescue me from danger
Interposed His precious blood

O to grace how great a debtor
Daily I'm constrained to be
Let Thy goodness like a fetter
Bind my wandering heart to Thee
Prone to wander, Lord I feel it
Prone to leave the God I love
Here's my heart, O take and seal it
Seal it for Thy courts above.

This has been one of my favorite, if not favorite, hymns. I had it sung at my baptism and it has traveled with me ever since.
I think I love it so much because, regardless of where I am, I find something to grab hold of in it.

For a long while, it was always the third stanza...and at the point I finally awakened to the Spirit-filled life, I thought I was fixed upon that mount of redeeming love for good. Little did I know, it's not so easy to stay on the mountaintop. More than ever, I feel myself prone to wander, but more than ever, I feel deep gratitude when I look back at all the Ebenezers, and more than ever, I believe in the power of God's redeeming love.

It's admitting that I can't walk through this life alone, that I can't pay Jesus back for what He's done, that I don't even have adequate words to thank him. It's asking Him to be my Rabbi, to teach me how to love God with my whole heart, because I don't have it in me.

And it's the gospel summed up in a few beautiful words...Jesus sought me, while a stranger, wandering from the fold of God. He to rescue me from danger, interposed His precious blood. And I will gladly be indebted to His abundant grace.

Too easily pleased?

Indeed, if we consider the unblushing promises of reward and the staggering nature of the rewards promised in the Gospels, it would seem that our Lord finds our desires, not too strong, but too weak. We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea. We are far too easily pleased.
-C.S. Lewis

Revolutionary

Christianity used to seem like a box to me. Until I found freedom in Christ. Christianity is no longer a religion to me but a revolution. Revolution is a beautifully epic word. Almost as great as redemption. Or maybe they run together. Anyhow. As I read books like "The Irresistible Revolution" by Shane Claiborne, I got these ideas of Christianity as completely counter-cultural, hippie-ish, way out there cool. But I've made the realization that maybe Christianity is less about creating utopia than quietly shaking up the ordinary. Let me explain.

Jesus makes some revolutionary claims. Going around telling people you are the Son of God is no small thing. Healing chronically sick people. Raising them from the dead. Pretty crazy stuff. Teaching things like, "love your enemy" and "whoever would save his life will lose it," and calling the religious leaders of the day whitewashed tombstones and such. Whoa.

So you might be tempted to think following Jesus requires extreme living...which it does and doesn't all at the same time. It is not necessarily selling everything you own and moving to a remote island, though it is being willing to obey if you are so asked to by God. It also means being willing to obey if God asks to take those little pet sins we like to carry around, the insecurities, the places we look for approval, the ways we try to maintain control of life independent of Him. Following Jesus is not just leaving behind all of our old ways of doing but being as well.

What it means to follow Jesus is to live in His light. To be a temple. A place set apart to be filled with God and His overwhelming love. What does this mean? It means Christ-followers gain fullness of life within. It means they are freed from attachment to this world and its promises of success, approval, wealth, etc etc...freed to live for God and for others.

As my friend Steve Rieske says, and my friend Katie Barnett blogged recently, "The good life begins the day it's not about you." That's pretty counter-cultural. Pretty revolutionary.

A Christ-follower can love freely because the unconditional love of God dwells within him. He can give freely because his true treasure is knowing God. He can live fearlessly through trying times because God's perfect love drives out fear. He be joyful in pain because the joy of the Lord is his strength. A Christ-follower is called to revolutionary living that defies the norms, that causes people to question how he keeps remains at peace through life's storms.

If I could, I would move to India and raid brothels...but the reality is I am currently called to be love and light in the cornfields of Northwest Ohio. Still, I believe that through going to class, hanging out, studying, rehearsing, performing, working out, whatever...that my life can be revolutionary. That you and I can live the ordinary life extraordinarily by the life that is in Jesus. Yup.

Plato and Jesus

We're reading Plato's Republic in my Western Political Thought class...it's meaty...but it's gotten me thinking. Like everyone else, I view the world through my life's experiences, for me the defining one being meeting Jesus Christ. So, reading the allegory of the Cave, I resonate with coming out of the cave, not to enlightened thinking, but to God. In a nutshell, the men are bound in the cave and see only shadows of the real world. One is set free and finally sees the world as it is, the sun that gives all things life, and then goes back to get the other men out. For most of my life, I knew about Jesus, and knew him in a way...but when I let him set me free from my selfish nature and bring me into his loving arms, I began to see the world differently. I could see purpose because I knew its creator. I could see beauty because I had met the source of beauty. I could experience joy because I knew the giver of joy. I could love because I knew true love. The material world began to fade. I could wake up knowing why I did.

Back to Plato; I did seek truth in reason for a long time. There is truth in reason. But reason alone does not give the world meaning, and it does not encompass truth. Often it brings more confusion and cynicism. Nonetheless, I find it interesting that this desire for reality, for something beyond us, exists universally. Everyone is trying to get out of the cave somehow. Whether it be intellectually, materially, relationally...we're all searching. I don't claim to have all the answers, but I can say that I am experiencing ultimate truth in Jesus and it is something glorious.

The Power of Half

This article by Nicholas Kristof struck me...especially after hearing a sermon about giving on Sunday.

I don't think the point is that everyone needs to sell their house and give half of the money away, but I think we should all ask ourselves if we could. Things are not wrong in and of themselves, but are we so attached to our comfortable lives that we can't see the needs of people around us?

I've found myself complaining about everything today...it's too cold out, I have to put too many clothes on. I have too much to do. I don't have enough time for myself. I can't concentrate through three hours of school. I have to walk across campus too many times.

Let's look at the facts: I HAVE more than enough winter clothes to keep warm. I have the luxury of an apartment (a roof over my head) with HEAT. I am getting a college EDUCATION. I have LEGS to walk. I get to share life with wonderful people over a good cup of coffee that costs WAY too much. I am pursuing DREAMS. I am going to ENJOY the music of a world-renowned pianist.

I don't own a house, but I'm going to take a look at my life. What can I cut in half? My coffee habit? Eating out? Can I buy groceries more economically? How about my whining?

Sure, I'd like to work on my spending habits to give more away. But mostly, I want a heart that's the giving sort. The thankful sort. One of contentment. Because I am blessed.

Isn't it ironic...

that after I wrote that post, it started raining. Here we are, the last week of January, and it is 50 degrees outside and wonderful for the soul. Signs of life. They're everywhere, just gotta keep your eyes open : )

For these seeds to give birth to life, first they must die

I never wrote a sappy end of the year post...or an overambitious new year post...but that's not to say I didn't reflect on the old year or make resolutions for the year to come. I actually have done a lot of thinking on both recently. Last year was by far the best year of my life. Hands down. Jesus met me in an undeniable way and there's no turning back. The relationships formed, the experiences, the insights, the change, all of it...incredible. There were so many awesome moments I will never forget. Moments that shaped my reality. And I'm grateful for every one.

As I look into 2010, it's easy to think that what I want is a replay of all the best things in 2009. But maybe that's not true. What was good in 2009 was indeed good. It was very good. And yet, that was 2009, and if I never move beyond it, what's the point? I am secure in who I am. In what I was created for. In my life's purpose. In God's love and my love for him. Sometimes I forget, doubt, or resist God, but when the emotions run dry, I have a love that runs much deeper. And as a good friend told me, "Love just is." That depth is what I desire more of, and yet I don't always want the pain that comes with it. The more I experience God, the more I see myself as so far from who I want to be. The truth is, though the mountaintop views of God were spectacular, the trudges through the valley made God appear even greater. And so, perhaps 2010 will be less mountaintop and more valley, more desert, more fog, more wind and rain and ice and show, but I am choosing to believe what is ahead is better than what has been.

It hit me that while we experience winter as a season of death, other places on earth are thriving. But perhaps in a sense, death and thriving aren't so far apart. After all, as we speak, all those trees and flowers are storing up precious nutrients so that in a few months they can blossom in all their glory. Their beauty is masked for a season, but they are not stagnant by any means. Maybe winter is really a new beginning. Maybe that's life sometimes. Even when this world feels like death, I am choosing to believe that an even more beautiful spring is coming.

Why I am a musician.

I am a musician because each of us is dying to really live. Because each of us has hopes and dreams that are bigger than ourselves. Because the world is broken. I am a musician to give people a glimpse into eternity. To share something that touches the deepest desires of our hearts. Something that allows us to soar above the brokenness into something infinite. To see the face of God.

I found new purpose as a musician as I watched the Shawshank Redemption last week...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2E1-jPlCybc&feature=related

"And for the briefest of moments, every man at Shawshank was free."