Just found this great, quick devotional podcast online this morning. Pretty much centered my day like you wouldn't understand. Called out, called on. It's time to really let Jesus drive the van, whether it's home, around the block, or through the city, he's the only one to steer this vessel.
Going Not Knowing
Acts 9:3, 20:23
Tuesday, February 21, 2012
Sunday, February 19, 2012
Hope Goes Surfing
I'm a planner like you wouldn't believe. Thursday's always make me emotional- it's the day that Michael died about 8 years ago, but it feels like just yesterday. I'm a high anxiety student who really doesn't know what margin is. All I'm trying to do is trying to find out. I struggle with self image. I want to be the one that provides hope and restoration, if that's where God calls. I'm someone racing the clock almost every hour of everyday- trying to do as much as I can. I'm full of hope and caffeine. I desperately need to sit back down at the piano and play like the olden days. I'm a reader. A believer. A living spirit. A passenger in the greater ride. A writer with some words, a stockpile of books, and a bunch of images in my head. Let the images pour from my heart and the uncertainty to flow with it.
How can I possibly begin to sew together the pieces of what this week, this weekend, has been for me? If someone asks me tomorrow how am I going to possibly explain what has gone on, the fire and the faith I've seen?
Hope.
Like I said, I like to plan. Like I said, my anxiety most days is out of control, and it's really something I'm trying to restore and reconfigure, for my life and those around me. We left on Friday afternoon and I had no idea what this weekend was going to provide, how God was going to speak to me, how He would speak to others in our group. How he would speak to the seas of people from other schools. So, with the journal I carry almost everywhere, I made a promise to just listen. To try and let go of myself, walk away from the path that my own feet seem to go, from the way that my body and mind both sway, and to just go. To just move. To just soak. To just digest.
For a planner, that's the HARDEST thing to do.
From Friday night when we arrived up until today when we got back to Glenside at 6:30, I have felt an overwhelming sense of hope. There's something about the sight and the stories of others, about the smiles, the labors and the restorations of others, that jolts us back to life and creates an entirely different campus. Sometimes, it's the laughs you hear, the arms you see stretched toward the One we're all reaching to, the simple ways that people are attempting to digest goodness, that makes you fall more in love with the world.
Maybe, what it all comes down to is hope. The simple idea of sewing together the truth and the glimpses when all of the rest of our worlds seems to fall out of place. Under the water and out of sight. Out of sight, out of mind.
Maybe what it all comes down to is the hope in the scar. The restoration in the broken. Maybe it comes down to the community of worship, the binding of writing down promise, the depth of reaching inside and trusting the fire inside to walk us toward the greatest path.
Whatever it is, I'm blown away. There's something about hope. There's something about being in a room, being in a city or a place, or a state of mind where the world doesn't seem so big and the axis doesn't seem to spin so fast. There's something about the hope I see in eyes I've never met, there's something about the path that's chased because, as much as we all want to believe that it's different- as much as it is according to what God calls for our lives- it's the same in that we're looking for God's light, God's restoration. What hope is better than that?
This weekend was one of hope. It's one that flipped me upside down, turned me right again, and flipped me once more. It's one that allowed me to see the sights, sounds, and words of a greater story. This weekend has been one where God has certainly played me one tune, then I sit down in ONE workshop, and He changes the tune entirely.
What do say other than, "Okay, God?" How is that not a sign of hope, because when the world seems empty, when the heart and the mind are tired, God's holding the pen to write a greater story. A story the planner, in her quick moments, might not initially appreciate, but one where she climbs out from under the skin of fear and anxiety and says,
"I'm on my way, God. I'm on my way."
I'm a planner who likes to plan my own notes, my own chapters, my own maps, but this just isn't mine. I'm surfing the current. Heart wide, eyes clear, mind subdued. I have hope. Jubilee gives hope.
Romans 12:12
How can I possibly begin to sew together the pieces of what this week, this weekend, has been for me? If someone asks me tomorrow how am I going to possibly explain what has gone on, the fire and the faith I've seen?
Hope.
Like I said, I like to plan. Like I said, my anxiety most days is out of control, and it's really something I'm trying to restore and reconfigure, for my life and those around me. We left on Friday afternoon and I had no idea what this weekend was going to provide, how God was going to speak to me, how He would speak to others in our group. How he would speak to the seas of people from other schools. So, with the journal I carry almost everywhere, I made a promise to just listen. To try and let go of myself, walk away from the path that my own feet seem to go, from the way that my body and mind both sway, and to just go. To just move. To just soak. To just digest.
For a planner, that's the HARDEST thing to do.
From Friday night when we arrived up until today when we got back to Glenside at 6:30, I have felt an overwhelming sense of hope. There's something about the sight and the stories of others, about the smiles, the labors and the restorations of others, that jolts us back to life and creates an entirely different campus. Sometimes, it's the laughs you hear, the arms you see stretched toward the One we're all reaching to, the simple ways that people are attempting to digest goodness, that makes you fall more in love with the world.
Maybe, what it all comes down to is hope. The simple idea of sewing together the truth and the glimpses when all of the rest of our worlds seems to fall out of place. Under the water and out of sight. Out of sight, out of mind.
Maybe what it all comes down to is the hope in the scar. The restoration in the broken. Maybe it comes down to the community of worship, the binding of writing down promise, the depth of reaching inside and trusting the fire inside to walk us toward the greatest path.
Whatever it is, I'm blown away. There's something about hope. There's something about being in a room, being in a city or a place, or a state of mind where the world doesn't seem so big and the axis doesn't seem to spin so fast. There's something about the hope I see in eyes I've never met, there's something about the path that's chased because, as much as we all want to believe that it's different- as much as it is according to what God calls for our lives- it's the same in that we're looking for God's light, God's restoration. What hope is better than that?
This weekend was one of hope. It's one that flipped me upside down, turned me right again, and flipped me once more. It's one that allowed me to see the sights, sounds, and words of a greater story. This weekend has been one where God has certainly played me one tune, then I sit down in ONE workshop, and He changes the tune entirely.
What do say other than, "Okay, God?" How is that not a sign of hope, because when the world seems empty, when the heart and the mind are tired, God's holding the pen to write a greater story. A story the planner, in her quick moments, might not initially appreciate, but one where she climbs out from under the skin of fear and anxiety and says,
"I'm on my way, God. I'm on my way."
I'm a planner who likes to plan my own notes, my own chapters, my own maps, but this just isn't mine. I'm surfing the current. Heart wide, eyes clear, mind subdued. I have hope. Jubilee gives hope.
Romans 12:12
Tuesday, February 7, 2012
Shake The Dust. Shake It Again.
Shake the dust. Shake the dust. Shake the dust and after you've taken the time to take the mistakes, the lessons learned, the statements we wished we never said, and the sentiments we wish we would proclaim every once and awhile, shake the dust. Shake the dust, and when it twirls in the currents of our busy atmosphere, when you see it whisper, scream, and turn, take out your hand and your heart, pick it up with the fingers of grace, and toss it again. Toss it again and let it be carried through the winds and the storms, through the sun rays, nights, and days that need it more than I do. Dust, when we muster a little hope, restores its beauty and tells a beautiful story when we're not necessarily looking. Shake the dust.
Tonight I don't know how I am. I don't know who I am to think that I can do this by myself- not for another semester, not to spend more time missing out on life. Who I am to think that I have the strength to do so? The strength to stand in the face of this overwhelming world and say, "Oh, I'm golden. I've got this." A lost soul. That's who I am. And that's when the dust piles up the most, so high that it starts to cloud my vision and distort my perceptions. I haven't figured it out. I haven't put the pieces together, but there's no way I can do this again.
Hey God,
I'm afraid. I'm afraid I'm going to get in that crazy spiral and let my emotions get the best of me and lose sight. I'm...I'm human, but I'm not doing You justice and that just hurts. The pain's real right now- real in losing Gail, real in hearing those boys cry, real in trying to keep level like I said I would. Hey God, I'm afraid to let go. I'm afraid to let go entirely and free the shackles that bare on my mind so many hours of the day- but who am I to think that I have control, right? Who am I to sit here. It's not You I'm afraid of God. It's never you. It's the anxiety building up. It's the fear I have with trust, with understanding, and with reconciling myself. It's with loving myself and feeling worth it in your arms, God.
Sometimes, I feel like all of this worrying, all of this anxiety, is just letting Satan win. All of the calculations might be just a way of functioning for me, but each time I'm doing that and making these conjectures, falling apart to the hands of my mind, well that's not letting you in. That's not trusting You wholeheartedly as I should. A lyric just came on through my headphones, "It's never easy to loosen my grip" and I think that's exactly accurate, God. This whole letting the knuckles loose and coming entirely to You is just so hard. It's so hard to be that vulnerable.
Which brings me to my point: Shake the dust.
I just got back from Bible Study tonight, more compelled to blog and get this whole thing out of my brain instead of doing homework with a heavy heart. This. right now. Is the moment where I shake the dust, Lord. This is whole heartedly where I take my newspaper pieces with the headlines of fear, where I crunch them with the belief that you have command of my life, and where I toss it all that you are. I toss it, and when it comes back down and whirling around, my arms extend to the one that offers me piece and solace, and toss it back up again. Dust is dust. Dust was last semester. Dust was these last few weeks. Beauty comes through the dust now tonight. Beauty is created through the particles of worry and the fear that this girl so lives in, changes right now. It changes right now.
Not by my own command, but by your grace I'm given everything. I'm given everything at each new corner, at each day and each moment of exhaustion, it's by You. It's by You that I am challenged and for Your mighty wonder that I'm dying to know all I can. I'm done making excuses. I'm done of the exhaustion and the self calculations. Your love is what I need to trust. It's what you're handing me as you knock at my door- each new day.
...No joke, there was just a knock at my apartment door.
You're handing me a gift each day. You're given me hope and restoration in each new day. You're offering to comfort me when the world turns too quick, and I need to step up. Step out of my head and into the river of faith. I need to take those dusty caverns and just wash it clean. Wash it in Your hope because I can. Because you offer such great promise.
Is it going to be easy? No way. No way, and I know that. But living my life in calculation, in estimation, in anxiety and worrisome thoughts? That's not easy either, God.
I'm a broken vessel, Lord. I'm a broken vessel who sees the pieces and is desperately crying out to you to be rebuilt. Completely reconstructed.
Shake the dust. Shake the dust. I'm coming to You, God.
Matthew 10: 12
Colossians 2:6-7
Tonight I don't know how I am. I don't know who I am to think that I can do this by myself- not for another semester, not to spend more time missing out on life. Who I am to think that I have the strength to do so? The strength to stand in the face of this overwhelming world and say, "Oh, I'm golden. I've got this." A lost soul. That's who I am. And that's when the dust piles up the most, so high that it starts to cloud my vision and distort my perceptions. I haven't figured it out. I haven't put the pieces together, but there's no way I can do this again.
Hey God,
I'm afraid. I'm afraid I'm going to get in that crazy spiral and let my emotions get the best of me and lose sight. I'm...I'm human, but I'm not doing You justice and that just hurts. The pain's real right now- real in losing Gail, real in hearing those boys cry, real in trying to keep level like I said I would. Hey God, I'm afraid to let go. I'm afraid to let go entirely and free the shackles that bare on my mind so many hours of the day- but who am I to think that I have control, right? Who am I to sit here. It's not You I'm afraid of God. It's never you. It's the anxiety building up. It's the fear I have with trust, with understanding, and with reconciling myself. It's with loving myself and feeling worth it in your arms, God.
Sometimes, I feel like all of this worrying, all of this anxiety, is just letting Satan win. All of the calculations might be just a way of functioning for me, but each time I'm doing that and making these conjectures, falling apart to the hands of my mind, well that's not letting you in. That's not trusting You wholeheartedly as I should. A lyric just came on through my headphones, "It's never easy to loosen my grip" and I think that's exactly accurate, God. This whole letting the knuckles loose and coming entirely to You is just so hard. It's so hard to be that vulnerable.
Which brings me to my point: Shake the dust.
I just got back from Bible Study tonight, more compelled to blog and get this whole thing out of my brain instead of doing homework with a heavy heart. This. right now. Is the moment where I shake the dust, Lord. This is whole heartedly where I take my newspaper pieces with the headlines of fear, where I crunch them with the belief that you have command of my life, and where I toss it all that you are. I toss it, and when it comes back down and whirling around, my arms extend to the one that offers me piece and solace, and toss it back up again. Dust is dust. Dust was last semester. Dust was these last few weeks. Beauty comes through the dust now tonight. Beauty is created through the particles of worry and the fear that this girl so lives in, changes right now. It changes right now.
Not by my own command, but by your grace I'm given everything. I'm given everything at each new corner, at each day and each moment of exhaustion, it's by You. It's by You that I am challenged and for Your mighty wonder that I'm dying to know all I can. I'm done making excuses. I'm done of the exhaustion and the self calculations. Your love is what I need to trust. It's what you're handing me as you knock at my door- each new day.
...No joke, there was just a knock at my apartment door.
You're handing me a gift each day. You're given me hope and restoration in each new day. You're offering to comfort me when the world turns too quick, and I need to step up. Step out of my head and into the river of faith. I need to take those dusty caverns and just wash it clean. Wash it in Your hope because I can. Because you offer such great promise.
Is it going to be easy? No way. No way, and I know that. But living my life in calculation, in estimation, in anxiety and worrisome thoughts? That's not easy either, God.
I'm a broken vessel, Lord. I'm a broken vessel who sees the pieces and is desperately crying out to you to be rebuilt. Completely reconstructed.
Shake the dust. Shake the dust. I'm coming to You, God.
Matthew 10: 12
Colossians 2:6-7
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