change : verb (used with object), changed, changing. 1. to make the form, nature, content, future course, etc., of (something)different from what it is or from what it would be if left alone: Oh guys, change is such a deep thing. It’s such a hard thing, usually painful, at the very least uncomfortable. We live for consistency, for something so stable in this life in which, by definition, things never happen the same way twice. Change is when Papa digs his whittling knife in, and shaves away hard knots, knots we believed to be part of us, the knots we believed were hard enough withstand all of life’s inconsistency. And it's paradoxical because the tenderness of his hand is ever present as He holds us, turns us this way and that, and admires us, and we feel it. Yet it is this same tenderness in his hands that seems to be scourging us. The knots that Papa is shaving off, shaping, they’re not all bad things, it is not that he seeks to perfect us, He just simply can not leave us alone. He’s a God of change, known as a God who is Trustworthy. We know that God is good, God is kind, God knows, and God is gentle. God is on our side, God is with us, God is for us, God is faithful to His own word, He will do what He promised, He will finish what He starts, God has mercy, and showers it down on us continually. These, all of these things, are our saving grace. But sometimes change means loss. Sometime its not just the fear of the unknown that accompanies change, but it is also shrieking pain. The kind that leaves you breathless, hanging on only to the fact that you know God is not against you…none else. The last season of my life has been all of those words in a nutshell. I don’t even know when it started, or if it has stopped or not. There are no definite moments in linear time, only moments of defined depth, both in being known, and in surrender. (Are those one in the same?) My only evidence is my journal and its pages describing my white knuckled grip attempting to cling to the gargantuan immovable Rock that is my God, knowing that He is not against me, and nothing else. My grandpa died in October. It was unexpected, and the pain was absolutely stunning. He woke up that Friday, like normal, and went to work. Next thing you know I'm at my grandma's house, and she's in the garage yelling for him to come home, in utter disbelief and walking around the house repeating herself, and moaning. Family came from wherever they were, and as each walked in, it was like the weight of the world fell on each of us with each new arrival, and the tears falling onto our cheeks weighed a thousand strained pounds each. Things seemed to move in slow motion that day, my whole body was tense. My stomach threatened me, and watching my gramma wasn't even doable. They were married for 55 years. I found myself with an insatiable need to constantly be playing music. It soothes the soul, and did then like nothing else could have. The funeral passed, I wept, I thought, reflected, a week passed, a month passed, and I could not accept it. There was another loss that I had not accepted, and to accept one, I had to accept both. Friends, it was the loss of everything I thought I had finally been granted. During my year in Mexico I encountered things that are more real than anything else I know. Vision, community, peace, community, clarity, community, focus, community. There is a sweetness to living in a place, and I mean physically living together, with other humans who are passionately pursuing the things that are real, the things of the heart, and the things of a gentle and kind Father. One day I was in the greenhouse bubble of my base, surrounded the friends who knew me deeply, and who had become family, and the next I was definitely all the way out of it. It's the transition through loss that every missionary deals with. It's a bit of a bear. While I could just label it as the mock-speed descent off the side of the highest cliff I've ever been on, I think I’m choosing to believe there is more to it than that. If you know me, you know that I do things with 100% of me. (Except school work?) I have a burning within me for the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. In fact I struggle, when God tells me to do things that I don’t feel like I can or want to put myself 100% into. We struggle about that, He and I. (School work.) And you know what else? I’m sure all of my close friends could recite my complaints and whinings by memory at this point. Actually probably anyone who knows my name could tell you my complaints. I’ve been complaining. The magnitude of the circumstances were(are?) too overwhelming to swallow at once, so I haven't. I've just held it in my mouth, no digestion, didn't process it, and so I’ve also been hungry. So. Hungry. Ever met a hangry person? They’re dissatisfied. Very dissatisfied. The reality is that things like literal overnight life change, and death are too big to swallow... they just are. And God uses this to create hunger within us, to let the pangs of dissatisfaction resound in every fiber of our being, to drive us to find food. These are the things that expand our capacity to eat more meat, and to drink less infant milk. (1 Corinth. 3:2) Imagine. As a baby, at first while that hunk of meat is sitting in front of you, its frustrating. You know you can’t handle it, and you give God the same eyes that your dog gives you when you give it a piece of lettuce, after its been intently begging you for your food. “What?! Lettuce?? Come on!” Head tilt and all**. But your stomach is demanding, so you open your little baby chomping gums, and start trying to fit this thing in your tiny baby chomping mouth. Then you’re stuck, because it’s huge. Just literally too huge. Your face is bulging, and you can’t really get your lips back together down in front, honestly it’s a miracle that you’re still breathing around this mass. Papa asks you to try to chew, which results in a blank stare from you, and a sufficient amount of drool cascading from your lips. You sit there, and think about, and the more you think about it, the more you feel like it's already choking you. As it turns out, your composure is disintegrating at an exponential rate. Engage all resistance methods! Such as: complaining, hissy fits, crying even, possibly snorting and even as far as feigned gagging. Things you thought you were way over, and right now all you got are Momma's words ringing in your ears; "You ain't gettin down from the table till all your food is gone." So, it's here that you stay, while your stomach turns over, growling hangrily. Because it’s scary. You’ve never accepted anything this big before, and nothing as unknown, nothing as threatening, nothing that’s such a possible choking hazard. You thought you were eating big meat last time this happened, but it was definitely different then. Your stomach is screaming for it, and your tongue is confused, but that fear is absolutely paralyzing. Paralyzing. Because if it doesn’t go down, you’re done. Out. Eyes bulging, Heimlich, 911.(Heck isn't that where you basically already are?!) And everything you have known God to be is a lie. You know, all these --> God is good, God is kind, God knows, and God is gentle. God is on your side, God is with you, God is for you, God is faithful to His own word, He will do what He promised, He will finish what He starts, God has mercy, and showers it down on you continually. These, all of these, are your saving grace…. Yeah. Hopefully right? Like maybe? It is in this cloud of doubt that His mercy carries you through your drooling, and crying while you sit there like a two year old eating peas, scrunched up face and all. The entire time you are soaking your little tiny baby onesie in drool, your capacity is expanding. Your vision is expanding, your hunger is more consuming. ‘I need more. I need more.’ There is more to be had. So here I was, sitting with this hunk of meat in my mouth, complaining to everyone, dissatisfied. And this whole meat metaphor is light hearted, and maybe even amusing, but the reality is that I am talking about real pain, the first Christmas at my grandparents house without my grandpa’s laugh, or his nicknames, or his fantastic work on the roaring fire or the cutting of the ham. A Christmas when the weight of loss weighs heavy on the family who just lost their leader, their father. The first Christmas spent without the other half of her heart, after 55 Christmases together for my Grandma. For me it’s a Christmas that signifies another chunk of time here, where being understood is a challenge, and relationships seem shallow. I miss the people who know me best, and they are scattered all over the globe along with the pieces of my heart that they hold. It's a Christmas that I'll spend divided between 3, 4, 5, houses because of broken relationships, a family quite literally in pieces. The underlying theme; things are not as they could be. (Ow). These are things that happen, amongst all others, to everyone. They are things that heal with time, change with maturity, things that can but don’t need to overcome a person, but this is what I am holding in my mouth. And in my fear, my fear that everything is lost, that God might not be good enough to make this worth my while, that he might not actually know what his kids need, that this meat will kill me, my hunger and my capacity begin to reach levels equaling and surpassing my fear. Right now, right here, is when the Lion looks at me with eyes on fire and growls from deep within Him, rumbling: “LET Me be known for who I am, who I really am.” A God of Love. And when He roars, my hands fly above my head in surrender before I can even take my next breath, and I am steadfast. Let God be God. This is all about knowing Him, the God who is Trustworthy. It’s about trusting a God who is out of my control. My Father loves me, and more than anything just wants to be closer than close to me. “Trust is our gift back to God, and he finds it so enchanting that Jesus died for love of it”. -Brennan Manning He so good, that He would not leave me alone. As in, would not leave me friendless, would not leave me abandoned, would not leave me without the only thing that I want; relationship. And with every knot that is shaved off of me, there is a new deeper place that the Father’s tender hand has touched, and I have been known to this extent. This is intimacy. With every level of shrieking, there is a greater level of lullaby, because the Father is there, and He is with me, feeling what I feel, being where I am, and His lullaby is His banner of love over me. The knots are not necessarily bad. [But God] can not leave me alone. He’s a visionary, He’s got ideas, but more so, He’s in relentless pursuit. He can not put me down, can not stop turning me this way and that, can not stop having new ideas, and deeper desire for me. He will keep changing His ideas for whatever it is that He’s making out of me, just for the sake of the relationship that change brings. He knows that the knots hurt me, but He knows they are the closest and closest is where He desires to be. For He can not leave me alone.
0 Comments
Take Heart my dear children. Lift your heads and remember again, cling to hope.
Cling with all your might. Nothing is now as it could be or as it will be, but take heart! For in this world you will have trouble, but I have overcome it already, I have gone before you, I am coming after you. My mercy and goodness will surely chase you like sheep dogs. Darling children, all is well in the kingdom. Remember me, all I have been I will continue to be. Now you have struggle, yet sleep in peace dear ones, what has been will be again. Take heart for I have overcome the world. Strive not, just abide in my gentle rest for it is finished. We're all familiar with the Narnia movies, (If you haven't watched all of the Narnia movies, stop reading this, and go watch them now)- Peter, Edmund, Susan and Lucy, a magic wardrobe, the wicked White Witch, and The Great Lion- Aslan. A story of good and evil, love and fear, a traitor, and redemption. A story that somehow tugs on our hearts so strongly, a children's series that addresses the child in all of us. I just recently watched all the movies over again, and found myself weeping by the end. Each movie moved me, but the last one-The Voyage of the Dawn Treader left me in a weepy creepy heap. It could have been each one compiled after another- but what was so highlighted to me, what knocked my knees out...was Lucy's longing. I often identify with Peter, and with Edmund...simply based on my personality and my tendencies. I tend to act out of my own security (or lack there of), tend to act on impulse, or run to lesser lovers than the Only One that should be on the throne of my heart. I tend to seek power, and the next thing that makes me look better. I tend to try to take responsibility on myself, and carry others on my own strength, and the gross thing? It's all for my own pride. The truth is, each of the four characters are representative of different facets of humanity, and any one person may exhibit all or variable combinations of the individual character traits that each of the children exhibit. The Narnia movies do a fantastic job depicting the complexity of human weakness, how hurt people hurt people, and how fear in some form or another affects the way we relate to one another, and how we relate to Papa God. It is clear that Edmund is in a very fragile state in The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, by the beginning scenes showing him longing for a father who is absent, and struggling for approval from his older brother Peter which he hopes could be a replacement remedy for the aching in his heart. Peter, unaware of his brother's struggle, or more like caught up in his own struggle, doesn't give Edmund the time of day, and instead even harshly expects more of him continually than a young boy could ever give. Why? Peter-out of his own emptiness of heart, feels, or rather takes on the pressure of carrying his family while his father is away, and in his attempt to give what he doesn't have (security, wisdom, guidance, peace), his gaze is so anxiously fixed on what he thinks is 'leading well' that he misses what leading actually looks like and fails. And as a leader- it affects them all. Susan deals differently. She is very logical. She is cautious. She is very safe. She is very intelligent, yet she is not free. She deals with her insecurity, by doing all things proven secure. (But can I get an AMEN this life is not secure!) Seeing is believing for Susan, though try as she might, things shift, and life is defined by change. The bottom line is that she can not secure her own heart by all things proven, for things do not often (if ever) happen the same way twice. Though all of these characters have their redeeming qualities that so Aslan so gently reveals; Peter the Wise and Protecting King, Edmund the Brave and Passionate, Susan the Sensible and Steady, Lucy...Lucy contrasts them all. She does struggle with being youngest, with not being validated, not being heard, and feeling powerless. Yet somehow, her heart is still young enough when she meets Aslan to believe him, to be anchored by him, to be moved by kindness, to let herself be affected. What she brings to the table are innocence and purity. I challenge you, dear readers, as we look deeper into Lucy -to remember that though Lucy is depicted as a little girl, the youngest, and generally the most innocent (simply from lack of years!), what she brings (innocence and purity), are facets of being human, and if you are a human, then you have access to, and possess the same qualities within you. You are not ruined by being too old or having experienced too much. You do not forgo innocence by being male or the oldest. Or the middle. Within you there is purity, innocence and longing, because once you were a child, and still within you there is one. It's who you are. Lets step into freedom together.
In our lives today we don't ever want to be seen as stupid, or out of the loop. To achieve this, we'll sacrifice our innocence, thinking that once we know, we'll be most accepted. Friends. It is possibly the hardest thing to remain innocent in a world that relentlessly demands that we respond to the desires of our flesh. To be a bit more in your face, if in our weakness, we allow him the most room to be our strength, then what is not to desire about that? At what point did you think you were ever even strong enough to breathe on your own?
You and I, we're afraid. We're afraid of weakness, because all we know is that weakness = unworthiness. It means how I feel, and I myself are invalid, and unworthy of love, This is my proposal. Your Father in Heaven loves you. He pulls your lungs open, and collapses them with each breath. He keeps the rhythm of your heart. Beloved, He knew you before you were self sustained, before you were developed...He knows your weakness. He doesn't hate it. At no point is his love under question as to whether or not it'll be there, nothing sways it, especially not you. His love is not dependent on you, what you do, or who you are. His love is like a tidal wave, coming straight for you....always. This is his choice. It is out of this place that we choose innocence, out of this place that we choose to stay a child at the feet of Our Father, staring in wonder, letting who He is fall around us, and accepting the reality of it. We are unafraid to assume the best, to seek beauty, for He loves us. And Love overwhelms fear. LOVEDETROIT24/7It was a wonderful abundant time of Jesus's goodness, provision, faithfulness, and freedom. Here are some pictures in summary for the week. Jesus sowed much into me, and MUCH into the city of Detroit. He is moving, and powerfully. 24/7 Worship and Prayer... This is where the party and the crying, and pleading and declaring happened. In this room the music didn't stop, and neither did the intercession over the city of Detroit. To keep it going 24/7, people were given 2 hour sets and in rotation we moved in and out. At one point I spent 7 hours on the stage, straight through the night until the morning- Just to worship Papa. And what a wonderful thing it is, the way we dance and its all warfare on behalf of Detroit, but we're having too much fun to notice... Go God.
Why such intense commitment to prayer and worship? (Don't you sleep?!) Because JESUS IS WORTH IT! (WOOPWOOP) Number one. And number two...Because the continual outreaches combined with the prayer and worship is 100x more powerful, and on top of that, our outreach teams knew no boundaries when it came to loving the lost. Our prayers were their protection and their covering both from spiritual, and physical attacks while they were out on the streets. 24/7 Outreach!Outreaches went anywhere and everywhere, to meet anyone and everyone where they were at to give them the love! Teams went to the courthouse, Comerica Park, Downtown Detroit, to the strip clubs, to the sketchy neighborhoods, to the gangsters, the ones with the guns in their pockets, to the muslims, to the college students, to the drug addicts and alcoholics, and to the homeless. All hours of the day, all hours of the night. We worked with a couple different ministries and churches including Lighthouse Cathedral Church, YWAM Detroit, Peace Keepers International, and many many more. Primarily though, it was street ministry at its finest. We saw healings, and transformations, we saw lives given to Christ for the first time, and we saw re-dedications. It is amazing how once you start talking to people, you realize we're all the same really...and what we all want is fulfillment. All we all really want is Jesus...because He's the only one that fills like we need.
This is Steve. And this is by far my favorite testimony. We hosted a cookout in a rough neighborhood with Peace Keepers International. Free food, huge bonfire, Free music, and Jesus. We decided to take a PA system in the back of a pick up truck and play music/ announce the event to everyone, to get people to come. We shared the gospel too. We happened to drive by this homeless man (Steve) and he was drugged out to the max. He could barely talk or move and he was just sort of hobbling along with bag of empty bottles and cans. We called out to him and told him to hop in the truck! That we were having free food and come join us! He just looked at us and said "I can't get up". So a few of the guys hopped right out and helped him into the bed of the truck, and honestly, it was like an ambulance. He slid in on his back, and was just sort of staring up, pills by the container were literally spilling out of his pockets. Our team began to pray over him immediately. It was the image of a tidal wave. You can't stop it, you can't get around it, you can't defend yourself...nothing. All you can do is let it crash over you and sweep you up...and that is exactly what Papa's love did to Steve. Within 3 or 4 minutes of us praying he began to sober up, and he began to cry like a little boy. So I started singing what I felt in the spirit and it was a lullaby, and I sang right to him, eye to eye, the name of Jesus, Jesus, Jesus...And He began to sing it back to me. As he became more and more sober, he asked for the guitar...still barely able to talk. He used to play, and well, and as the drive went on back to the bonfire, and as he became more and more sober he began to be able to play a few things again. He wept, and it was just overwhelmed tears of being lonely for so so so long, and now so so so loved. That night he sang and danced to the music, he laughed, and many many people prayed over him, and he accepted Jesus into his heart. Crazy Love. For more videos of all the testimonies; The Finale!Sunday April 17th to Sunday April 24th...We did it folks. We ended our incredible week with a worship and baptism gathering at Hart Plaza, downtown Detroit. We flew in Rick Pino, and blasted it for all the city to hear. We prayed together, and stood in awe of Papa. The foundations of Detroit have been moved, healed. This is just the beginning. "Sing Detroit Sing, You'll see a brighter day!!" Caught Up in the Fellowship.You know, when you participate in these kind of things, its nearly impossible to feel alone by the end of the week. United in heart, in passion, in mission, and in love for and with Jesus...these new people you met a week ago are now your family. I met amazing amazing amazing people this week, and I love so much the way that the body of Christ works together, and the different flavors each individual brings to the table. Here are some of the wonderful faces from LoveDetroit 2016. And God said "Let there be light", AND IT WAS LIT. Amen. (Let it be so)Tonight at work I was serving a table at which a man was sitting with tubes on his face and an oxygen tank. He was kind, and very easy going (The best kind of table to have when it comes to waitressing). He was wheezing, and within the duration of his meal, his breathing got progressively more labored. His mother was with him, both of them elderly. He ordered chicken alfredo.
Something about him struck me and pulled at my heart. Hard. He was obviously still completely with it in his mind, and he wasn't that old. He still had lots of life in his eyes, and this sickness, this physical ailment was chaining him to a much lower quality of life. He liked to talk but could barely. He was coughing and still smiling. His mom told me he was going to have a lung transplant soon, but that he had some sort of special thing that narrowed his chances of getting a lung. They'd have 3 hours to get to the hospital to have the transplant as soon as a lung became available and they live 3 hours away. Human condition. Chained, yet still alive. Coughing and wheezing, but out to eat. My heart twisted inside my chest. It twisted because I identify so strongly within myself. And in those around me I see emptiness and in longing for a real filling, and it's the same. And my heart yearned because I know there is a remedy and there is a peace, a healing...and my greatest longing is to give it, always. To pull up the hopeless to see the sun, to steady weak knees, to offer freedom instead of striving. I have experienced these things, and how can I explain their magnitude? Do I need to? Do you get it? You can feel it right? "Go pray for him..." Papa whispered. WOAH. OUT OF MY COMFORT ZONE. DANG IT. But Papa was so gentle when he urged me. It wasn't about getting outside comfort zones, its not about the physical healing, its not about the 'wonder of God'...It was all about love. It was me knowing from experience, what healing and fullness is to be had, and not fearing the normal in order to live genuinely and genuinely invite others into it. I was afraid at first. In fact he got all the way out of the restaurant and across the street. He walked slow and I watched him, and battled faith and fear. Good thing he walks slow too. I decided that I had nothing to prove, nothing to fear. I also decided that although all the times I turn away opportunities like these do not count against me at all, in doing it I am teaching my brain to push away thoughts of faith. Teaching my thoughts to run along rails of "I can't" and "God doesn't pressure me". Which He doesn't. He just loves me deeply. And it compels me. Beyond belief. So I went. Out the doors and across the street. And I prayed with him. Asked him if He had a relationship with Jesus? He said "I guess I'm about to find out real soon huh?" BAM. The reality of what was happening hit me. This wasn't about me at all. Okay great. Step of faith. Yay. This man's ETERNITY was on the LINE, and Jesus was making strong and possibly last attempts at having him in his arms forever. We are talking heart and soul here folks. I wanted to cry. I stumbled over my words and it was a short and not at all holy prayer. But its better that way. Then the pressure isn't on me, and I'm not the heroine. I find comfort in knowing that the Holy Spirit is doing allllllllll the work on that one. I love that. I don't know what any of it meant to the man, but he hugged me. His name is Greg, and you should pray for him. "The prince is to be among them, going in when they go in, and going out when they go out." Ezekiel 46:10 Hello all, I've got news! I have decided that I will be headed down to Detroit for a week on April 17. I'm going to be taking part in a 24/7 ministry/outreach/mission called LoveDetriot24/7. I learned about it back when I attended the One Thing conference over new years, in Missouri at IHOP. (NOT THE PANCAKE HOUSE; International House Of Prayer). The Detroit trip will consist of 24/7 Prayer, 24/7 worship, and 24/7 outreaches. People will just be rotating through at all times. Outreaches leave from the church at 3pm, 9pm, 3am, and 9 am. These will consist of things like street ministry, prayer walking, and following the Holy Spirit's guidance. While teams are out on outreach, there will be people backing them in prayer joining also the 24/7 worship. The event is funded and backed by multiple churches in the area, and prayer house ministries. When I first saw the flyer, I brushed it off, as it didn't really appeal to me, but it has come up several times since then, and I've slowly come to the realization that this is what I'm gonna be doing.
This trip will cost me 400$, which seems like a small goal compared to past money needs...(ehemm if you know what I mean..) (If you don't, go ahead and click that SUPPORT/DONATE button up top there, and read about God's money miracles.) BUT. My need is just as great, as this trip is just as important. It is very important to know the bride. Currently I can tell you about the bride in Israel, and the bride in Ensenada Mexico, and in Belmopan Belize, but...I couldn't tell you about the inner city United States bride is like. I don't really even know or understand the bride here in Grand Rapids that well. She is different than the bride in LA or in Toronto, and God has been clear with me on knowing her so that I can relate well to her. So I can serve her, so I can perceive her the way Papa does. (Because how can you lead a body that you don't even know??) So as much as this is a serving time, it will almost more so be a time of learning, and watching, and listening. I get the strong feeling that God is going to teach me something through Detroit, specifically to bring back to Grand Rapids. Another thing- I have a habit of thinking that leading means being ahead. It does not. The word leader is to be synonymous with 'servant' and 'humble'. For me, that looks like surrendering my dreams, and longings to be elsewhere right now, and be really here. Because thats where God is found; in the here, in the now, always. Here we go Michigan. Watch out. I'd much much appreciate your donations towards this trip, and here's the link for that: gofundme.com/7ptfeh8s Otherwise, I fully believe in the power of prayer. Join me in praying breakthrough over Detroit, and over Grand Rapids. That the spirit of God would move in wonderful ways, and that his will be done! Thank you all! Walking with Papa is a very slow thing. I am very handicapped and I don't think it was ever about going deeper, further, faster. It was never about getting stronger, or more able. Learning Papa is a process of excruciatingly slow hobbling. And yet, the beauty of the whole situation is that Papa stays. He doesn't get impatient and walk ahead. He doesn't think about other things in his lack of interest. He never pushes for faster, He never even glances away. Papa's attention is on me, on us, in the right here, right now. I don't understand. When I think about who God is and how he runs the entire universe, how good He is, and how free He is, I get upset to think that he would walk so verryyy slowly with me. 'Why are you doing this?!' I beg him to go ahead, to be as free as He should be, to be untethered. I don't want him to let me a be a burden to him, because if we're honest here, He's literally GOD, He can be doing literally anything at any point in time. Very truly I tell you, there are most definitely much better, more important, and more fun things to be doing that standing here with me, waiting to make sure I don't just fall right over with every single step I take. Seems I've managed to walk about a foot in distance in the last 5 hours. 5 days. 5 weeks. But God, for some reason, is still here. And now I'm more upset, because I know I'm not worthy of this. 'Please go. Why are you here God?' It almost seems unwise of him. So I focus on doing a better job taking steps, maybe I can go a little faster, and it wont be so bad for Him. Continually my heart feels more and more burdened and tangled... -until I see his eyes. Until He lifts my chin and says "Child, look into my heart". His eyes are bursting with hope and gentleness. He is completely secure, and sure in Himself. He has no anxiety, He feels no need. He is full and there is nothing that is not secure in Him. Inside his heart there is an abundance of life and of growth. He is free, He is not tethered to anything....ever. He doesn't lie, because he doesn't have to. He's in no rush. And his intentional choice, in his freedom and his own willing, is to be closer to me than my own skin. There is no place he'd rather be. It seems to me, that there is nothing that God values like he values relationship. He values the 'us' more than the 'everything else'. It is much more important to him, that his and mine hearts are fully wrapped in each other's, fully tangled together, and that above every other possible thing, He needs me to know that He loves me. God values my heart, not my achievements, my goodness, or how far I've come.
This is something I come back to over and over- this difference in value systems. It seems so basic, but the reality is, living in our society here will change your values right quick about what is good and acceptable, and worthy of love. To stay on the heaven value system means training your brain to think differently of God. And as celebrated as it is, to go against the grain in this hipster day and age, genuinely living differently is relentlessly hard. This biggest misconception that we have about God, is that He is like us! We are created in His image indeed, but He is completely other than us, and our expectations of him seem to be expectations we'd put on another human. But God is much different, and there is not actually a need to understand him, there is simply a need to know him. We must simply always let him love us. If we refuse relationship with him because we cannot understand, then that is just fear of the unknown. Yet we can know him! Knowing him is trusting him, and that is the part that is so different from the world. We are trusting something we can't understand, can't see, trusting him to not leave us out in the cold, to not leave us hungry, to not leave us wanting, to not leave us alone. If we can take God at his word when He says he's coming back, or when he does miraculous signs and wonders, then we can take at his word with what he says about us, and what he says about himself. If He says to you, "you are enough", and the world, your society, and even your own brain and heart scream "Be More! Be More!", you obviously have a choice to make. Truthfully, the hardest battle will always be against yourself. You will always fight yourself more than anyone or anything else, to get yourself off the throne of your heart and give it back to God. Here's a question. Does God lie? Really? Ever? If your answer is no, then he must be telling the truth. My second question to you, is how much authority does the God of this universe who created you and everything you see, mountains, brains, organs, animals, weather, lightning, who speaks and the waves obey....how much authority does he have? Actually? And so your choice is between God's truth, which sets you free, and gives you no pressure, and the worlds truth, which demands things which you will never achieve. When you choose God's truth, what then do you look like to the world, and how much importance do you place on that? Are you willing to step higher, to breathe deeper, and to sing louder, at the expense of your own image? At the expense of your own name, your own glory, and in exchange for love, for life, for fullness and for something real? All of this goes to show what it looks like to change your perspectives on God, on life, and training your brain to think like heaven. So I'll leave you with this truth. (The choice to trust it is yours.) God not only loves you, but he likes you. Your heart and your relationship with him are of utmost importance, and there is no place( I repeat, no place. It doesn't matter where you are) he'd rather be, than with you. Because there is one thing He needs you know to know. He Loves You. I've been home for 5 months now, and I haven't really posted a whole lot since being here, so here's an update! Right when I got home to the States, (August 5, to be exact) I stayed overnight one night at my friend Moriah's house, and then we immediately road tripped to Canada, for a mini DTS reunion. We visited our friend Courtney and got drenched at Niagara Falls! Passport stamps are starting to make a dent on those empty longing pages! About a week after that, in later August, my close friend Jaim moved to MI from Maine! Moriah and I met her in Mexico during DTS, and now we all live together at Moriah's house. Around that time, somehow a whole bunch of YWAMers were in the area, so we hosted a pretty large Welcome Home worship night. (Upwards of 50 people!) We had a fantastic group of YWAMer's from our base in Ensenada, and friends and family from home all in our backyard, and it was wonderful! Moriah and I spoke a little bit on the biggest things we'd learned in YWAM and I talked a bit about Israel, and of course, the music went late into the night. New friends and old friends, and family combined, reunions all around. August was a whirlwind of a month, and to top it all off, I traveled with my family up to the Upper Peninsula to Pictured Rocks, and we camped there over Labor Day weekend. It was stunning, and exceptionally warm. I didn't even know such a place existed in MI, but I am looking forward to hiking the UP at some point. We explored trails, and looked on the beaches for beautiful stones. Into September and October, my Momma and I got a really special opportunity to share some of our story with Alpha Women's Center, as they celebrated their 30th anniversary. What a testimony of God's grace and faithfulness... Another cool faithfulness move God pulled: At the end of October He let me go back and staff a youth retreat that rocked my life two years in a row in high school. Cloud9 was where I first was completely ravished by the love of God, where He overwhelmed me and made Himself known. I wasn't able to go for the two years after that because of sports, and then of course, being out of the country...and now God brings it back around to allow me one more time and as it turned out- this year's was the last Cloud9 retreat...ever. Our speaker was Lauren Befus, and she brought it- speaking on letting our hearts be the color God created them to be, and giving him the hard things that teach us to mask ourselves. It is such a beautiful thing to watch God dance upon the hearts of his passionate ones. To watch him unlock the young hearts so in need of direction and the comforting knowledge that they are important, accepted, and unconditionally loved. I was asked to teach some workshops as well, and when praying over them, God laid that exact theme on my heart, and I hadn't known the theme of the weekend yet. Whatever He is, He is relentlessly. \/ \/ Jaim keeping the food line under control! I've been waitressing at Arnie's in Rockford, and picking up side/babysitting jobs, working to save as much money as possible. I have spent the last year with 0$ to my name, so I am really starting from ground zero. Moriah's family has absolutely been the biggest blessing in letting Jaim and I stay there for free, and feeding us and doing our laundry. If you know them, bless them. It's definitely a humbling position to be in, receiving like this. All I want is to pay them back for what they do but I physically and literally can. not. [Welcome to life with Jesus]. I am planning on taking online classes this summer from the Community College, and I am still looking for a car. I'll be honest; it's difficult. It has been the biggest culture shock coming back from the mission field, not as much in regards to physical location but as in regards to heart position. It's difficult to make old mistakes again that were dissolved in the saturated world of missions, and not feel like it's all gone down the toilet. To feel the sin creeping back in, and to choose not to even give it the time of day, to stare a Jesus' s face and not to turn away. To trust that your eyes direct your feet and closer to Jesus is farther from sin. It's difficult to know how to navigate the unsafe, out-in-the-open aspect of leaving your heart vulnerable in the 'real world' instead of throwing up all the walls up that you just spent the last year thrashing down. New concepts like- now that I've been healed from past pain, how is the healthy way to deal with new pain? How do I gracefully do it from a place of rest, of truth, of peace, and of shelter? And- I just came out of a season of being completely dependent on God financially, and really for everything, now being in a culture of self glorification and gratification, general worry and self security...what. how. why? I don't even want those things back...but they creep and seep, and at no point is it acceptable to be needy here...It's a bit overwhelming. I flailed, a lot. I'm still flailing. But we're going forward. Right after Christmas this year, and through New Years, Jesus gave me a rested breath. I went to OneThing Conference in Kansas City with a few YWAM friends, and it was like a re-dunking. 3 times a day 14,000 of us worshipped together in a convention center. Speakers who spoke biblical truth about the cost of following Jesus, suffering, abiding in the Lord, trusting our Father...it was a re-dunking in a saturated environment. An environment of solid foundation. It's not a mountain top experience to me anymore. It used to be, but now its the expectation, now it's my standard. I am going to cling to God as much as I choose to. As much as I choose to put him first, to put him highest, to make him the Only, to this extent will I find him my only, will I find him my truth, will I find him my comfort and shelter. It is a choice, because in my life, I have tasted, I have known, I have seen his heart, his goodness, his mercy and grace...and I know that nothing else compares. I know that in all the things that I think I want, I want Jesus. So we're going forward. And the standard is set. Looking forward into this coming year, big goals are to get a car, and some college classes under my belt.
I will be in Texas for a week at the end of January, and after that the next time I'll be leaving will be August. I have a wedding on the west coast to be at for sure, but the plan after that is to get back out on the missions field. Tentative plans are to be with YWAM again, this time hopefully in India or Thailand. Possibly Africa. I haven't begun fund raising yet, as I have yet to solidify exactly my plans, but expect updates soon enough! In the mean time I'll be around here in the GRAP area, home for this season. IF you still haven't been updated on my Israel trip, and you would like to be, keep scrolling down, there is a long update post. |