closure

I don’t do well with leaving things unresolved… at all.

And sometimes I am way too blunt. 

mission statement

I don’t really know what it is I want to do with the rest of my life exactly. I know very vague generalities but I have no idea what it’s all going to look like. This semester I have become comfortable with not knowing for the first time in my life. Today I was meeting with a very near and dear friend and in the process of our conversation she told me that she had written my mission statement, she said, “You are a leader of leaders, and an influencer of influencers.” And yeah, I really like that.

blunt honesty

sometimes the only thing I want in life is to be able to poop in privacy.

I guess that’s too much to ask for when you live on a college campus.

1 november

Six years ago today a tragic accident changed my life forever. For me, November 1, 2002 is a day that will live on in infamy. While the overwhelming sadness of the tragedy is, for the most part, over… thinking about the situation is still sobering and thought provoking.

Today was the most beautiful autumn day, the kind you can’t help but be happy about… on top of which I have had the most incredible time with two of my good friends… but for the whole day in the background of my mind everything wasn’t all bright, clear skies and leaves turned orange and red.  

I have been thinking a lot about all that has been given to me and all that has been sacrificed for me. I tend to think only and always about the negative things that have happened in my life, feeling sorry for myself which gives me an excuse to be angry or mad or… whatever.

But today I realized how much has been sacrificed for me… even to the point of someone giving his life for me… to inspire me to live a life of passion and to make a difference and to think of others besides myself… others who haven’t been given as much as I have.

Jesus said that to whom much is given much is required… I have been given so much… and I have given in return very little.

Jesus, teach me to live a life of passion… teach me what is truly important… let me not be comfortable in my complacency. Thank you so much for Stephen… and all who have sacrificed for me and given to me. And thank you mostly for your sacrifice… you are wonderful, my beautiful friend.

 

Welcome to the fall out

Welcome to resistance

The tension is here, the tension is here

Between who you are and who you could be

Between how it is and how it should be

I dare you to move, I dare you to move

I dare you to lift yourself up off the floor

I dare you to move, I dare you to move

Like today never happened, today never happened before

I haven’t listened to this song in forever… but it came on the radio today… call it a coincidence… but the day I started getting past my bitterness and allowed myself to learn from Steve’s death was the day this song started holding meaning for me…

Isaiah and such

Thoughts. I write to understand myself. I write to stay sane–at least relatively sane. Where have I been all this while? In a whirlwind of time, I know. Its crazy how this whirlwind is always blowing and just picks up speed as it goes. I love windstorms and I love the thought of being “gone with the wind” not realizing that I am almost always gone with this crazy, maddening wind and I really can’t stand it. I wish I could step out of this insanity. I wish I could get caught up into God’s reality, to see him as he is–to see the earth as it is–to enter into what Dr. Moore calls “the sanity of God.” It’s the reality of God coming alive in my mind that I’m after. It’s the truth of how it all works that I long to understand. I don’t like being like the Jews of Judah–a refusing generation. And I don’t want to be like the burning remnant either. I want to be the regenerating generation that the root of holiness springs up out of. But perhaps in order to become fertile ground we have to go though a process–the Israelites did in the wilderness. The first generation of Exodites were refusers and it wasn’t until they were weeded out that they got to enter into their promises.

Jesus and Holy Spirit and Papa!

Weed me out–every bit of me that refuses to hear and see and understand you. Weed out of me the idolatrous who raises “bloody hands” to a god that doesn’t exist. Consecrate me and make me holy–that I would lift up holy hands to you only. My heart burns and longs for you and I want to yearn for you in a deeper way! I want to long for you the way you long for me Jesus!

Papa, teach yourself to me. 

doves eyes

 

I don’t want to talk about You like You’re not in the room
I want to look right at You I want to sing right to You

so much more

18 years ago a film was released. It was an instant success and today is one of the best selling films in its genre of all time. Originally written as a dark drama intended to shed some light on the prostitution that was… and is… rampant in LA, Pretty Woman morphed into a romantic comedy detailing the redemption of the title character, Vivian Ward. In the film Vivian is hired on for a week by a rich businessman, Edward Lewis. Vivian, who strives to emotionally distance herself from her customers, realizes as the week progresses, that she is begining to fall for Edward.

My favorite scene in the film is one where Edward and Vivian are laying in bed and Vivian begins to tell the story of how she ended up in her position. She talks about making bad choices, and not having a way out of them due to shame, fear, and the lies that have been spoken to her. At one point Edward says, “You could be so much more.” And Vivian responds by saying, “People put you down enough, you start to believe them.” At that Edward begins to encourage Vivian who says in reply, “The bad stuff is easier to believe.”

I love this scene because it is so true… and it is very easy for me to personalize. For years I have been lied to about my potential and my worth… and at some point I began to believe the lies. I stopped feeling like I was “good enough” or “adequate.” As a result I found myself in a hole of self doubt, hatred, and anger that I couldn’t get out of because of my shame and ultimately my pride. So, in a sense, I began to give myself away… and at the same time emotionally distance myself from others. For the past couple of years it has been all about what I can do for others to make them pleased with me. In a very negative way there has been no limit on how far I am willing to go to help others… I have caught myself jumping through hoops just to try and gain the approval of others… just to hear someone say that I did a good job. And the praise that I got was like a drug… pushing me further and harder into the life I am living now which is one of sheer exhaustion, continual self doubt, and reckless striving. I did the best I could to keep others at a distance because I was so afraid that if I allowed them to come close, the praise would stop and I would get hurt.  

No matter how much praise or acceptance I have received, I still have failed to feel adequate because, like Vivian says, “The bad stuff is easier to believe.”  It is a fight to believe the truth I know somewhere inside me about myself. The truth is that I have so much potential, and I am worth so much more than I believe myself to be. The truth is that I am a daughter of God and that I have power and authority. The truth is that there is no limit to the love that at least one person has for me, no matter what I do. But to believe that, it is a major fight. Sometimes I get so tired of fighting the bad feelings that it just seems easier to give in to the lies… but when I do, when I begin to wallow in self doubt, I find that believing the lies is so much more exhausting… it wastes my energy.

So, here I am… wanting to believe that I can “be so much more” than the person I am right now… that I can live without this constant weight of fear and shame… that I could stop believing the lies. Personally I do not believe in immediate results. I’m not the kind of person who can say, I am ready to believe the truth and then instantly just start believing it… but what I know is that there is a God who is a lover of the truth and who, if invited, will begin to shine His light of truth into all the dark places where the lies hide and expose them for what they really are, just dirty, stinky, rotten garbage that belongs in the rubbish bin. He is the one who can show me what I am really worth, and all the things that I can do. And the truth is, no matter how little or how much I do for Him, He is pleased with me.

Knowing and Believing are two very differient things

“Religion is a matter not of learning how to think about God but of actually encountering Him. Loosing our illusions is painful because illusions are the stuff we live by. The spirit of God is the great un-masker of illusions, the great destroyer of icons and idols. Gods love for us is so great that He does not permit us to harbor false images, no matter how attached we are to them (Brennan Manning The Relentless Tenderness of Jesus).”

  

I don’t do long distance relationships. So what I like about you is that you are close. I tend to trick myself into thinking you are far away. I think that you break my heart and then leave me hurting because that is the only thing I know and understand. And then I get mad at you for being far away, and distant, and not responding to my call… when the truth is, that in the broad spectrum of the universe and time, humanity and all creation, heaven and hell, you took notice of me when I was a little girl hiding in the dark. I was unseen by all, under a pile of stuffed animals in the back corner of a closet not big enough to stand up in, and I caught your attention with my tears. I had your whole attention. And I kept your whole attention; you couldn’t look away from me. You longed to carry my burden, but I couldn’t let it go, I didn’t know how. My burden broke my heart, and that broke your heart. And while I couldn’t let you in because I didn’t feel quite safe with the image you portrayed (though it was the only thing I wanted with all my heart), you didn’t grow mad or impatient, but continued to call “I’m here, I’m here let me hold you, let me dry your tears.” Still I couldn’t let you in so you loved me through my animals in the closet in the dark. You loved me though the moon that shone through the window onto the top bunk where I struggled to sleep every night. You loved me through the rain and the storms that somehow always made me feel calm and secure. You loved me through the safe things, the things that couldn’t hurt.

  

And the thing is you still see that little girl in me. You see my fears, and my pain, and my exhaustion, and all the things I fight every day, you still see me. In fact I have had your attention for so long that you understand my fight better than I do. You understand that you could fight it much more successfully than I can, if I would just learn to let you in and let you take over. And you still don’t get frustrated with me when I see you as scary and dangerous (though you’re the only thing in the world I want with all my heart). You don’t grow mad or impatient and you continue to call, “I’m here, I’m here let me hold you till you finally let all your tears go, and then let me dry your tears, forget tissues, hide your face in me and let me dry all your tears away. Let me be the God you know I am. Forget your doubt, your caution, your fear, let me be who I am no matter how attached you are to the image you’ve made of me. You don’t have to hide anymore.”

  Oh how I wish I could believe it.

far far away…

When I was a senior in High School me and some kids from MorningStar went to Stonecrest to do prophetic ministry. The group I was with went into Borders and decided to talk to a man who was relaxed, sitting in a chair reading. I made the mistake of introducing ourselves as “Christians” who believe that God still speaks to us… it didn’t matter what I said after I said the word Christian, that was enough to fill his eyes with pain, cause him to stand up and say he was late for a meeting. I don’t think he was late for a meeting the look in his eyes told a different story… they told of pain he had gone through from other “Christians.”

Too often I hear ministers and pastors, evangelists and prophets preaching fire and brimstone from the hands of a wrath filled god.  Sometimes I wonder if we are even serving the same God. Is the God of Jacob that I wrestle with and try to love and do whatever I can for, my God who is gracious and compassionate, is He also the God of those who preach a message of fear and shame?

I don’t know, but what I do know is that since that experience I have stopped introducing myself as a Christian. I am embarrassed to do so. Not at all because I am ashamed of the God I serve, but because I am ashamed to associate myself with the kind of person who preaches fire and brimstone and fills the unbelieving with pain. Is that wrong? I don’t know, in a way I feel horrible saying that I am ashamed of my siblings. But honestly someone who can evoke so much pain into another is not someone I really want to associate myself with.

While I don’t like to associate myself with judgmental Christians, I think I am one myself, but in a different way. I believe in Gods grace for other people, but not for me.  I have these two parts inside me, I think maybe the Bible would call it the old nature and the new nature, and they fight over my belief system. One side says I am a daughter of God, totally accepted, loved, forgiven, and complete. The other side says that I cannot be close to God unless I am completely and totally perfect, it says that God does not accept me, that I am not worthy to be his daughter. Sometimes I see God as my dad but sometimes I see Him as my judge.  

Over the summer I fought over the idea of grace verses judgment. At one point in my confusion I sent an email to a friend that said:

I love the idea of God—a God who is ever loving and accepting, but I am not sure if I buy it. He sort of seems to hold a double standard. I need to know where the lines of grace and judgment meet. How far does grace extend—how long? There must be a point where grace stops or there would be no need for Jesus to be a Judge

While Jesus died so that I can be close to him, I mock his grace and say I’m not good enough. I don’t deserve Him. When I screw up or when I think that I just don’t make the cut I put myself on a time out, ostracizing myself from God. Maybe I am the one who holds a double standard, its okay for the fallen, the poor, and the needy to approach the throne boldly, God wants to be close to them, but not me. In truth, God doesn’t reject me, I reject myself. And the more I reject myself the more I continue to hurt.

 No longer do I call you servants, for a servant does not know what his master is doing; but I have called you friends, for all things that I heard from My Father I have made known to you.

Park Bench Dwellers, You and I

There has never really been a moment when you weren’t on my mind. Still the spaces that divide us, the differences, the time—its all about timing isn’t it? But the seconds when we’re together and all the stars line up to give us the most beautiful view—these seconds are worth the waiting, the pain, the doubt, and the hope for something brighter further on up the road. Yes the seconds we’re together, when nothing else matters, when we’re sitting on a park bench and the cool breeze caresses with a gentle kiss. Cause we’re park bench dwellers, you and I, no matter the season or time, day or night you’ll find me sitting, just waiting, chasing the memories. The place we will always go back to. And maybe we will meet again, in some park, on some bench, and life will get out of our way, and you can take me home, to my first real home with a bench of our own where we can stargaze, and moon gaze.