God Calling.

I have so many things I want to write about, but I never seem to make enough time. I need to do that - I'm so annoyed with myself for only writing once each month since I started this new blog.

I just started taking this "Inner Healing Class" on Tuesday nights through my home church. Last night was the second class I've been to, and next week ends the first unit, but already, I am blown away by what I am learning.

In the first week, we covered the questions of "Does God speak to us? Does He want us to hear Him?" and "How do we hear Him?" These may seem like such simple questions, but I think a lot of us struggle with them. I know that I have asked, "Why would God choose to speak to me?" I sometimes wrestle with the idea that the creator of the universe would actually want to take the time to speak into my life, but this is the kind of relationship the Father deeply desires. He wants us to run to Him, and then He wants us to listen.

There are so many examples of how God has spoken to people through history, and the Bible is chock full of them. Samuel hears God's voice audibly but doesn't realize who it is speaking until Eli discerns that it is God and tells him (1 Samuel 3). Moses sees God through the physical manifestation of a burning bush, and then hears a voice (Exodus 3).

If Yahweh, the Hebrew God of the Old Testament is true to His character, from the beginning until the end of time, that means He still wants to speak to us today.

I believe I have heard God speak before – through His word, and through other people, but I have always had trouble with hearing God in prayer. I think my biggest issue has been that I feel like I had never been told or hadn't understood - until now - that God expects us to have a conversation with him like we would with a friend. My tendency has been to hand over my list of questions and requests to God, say “Thank you!” and walk away. Instead, when I ask him a question, I need to ask it with the expectancy that he will answer – and may choose to do so right then.

For years I have been waiting for God’s direction, some inkling as to what his will is, and yet I really haven’t sat down and asked him directly and waited for an answer.

An exercise we did last night in class really helped me in beginning to do this. We were told to picture a place to meet with God. This could be a physical place where we have met with God in prayer before, or it could be somewhere that seems peaceful, like the mountains or the beach. Then we were to ask Him to meet us there, and ask Him what he wanted to say to us.

It can be that simple.

Of course, there can often be things in the way, blocking us from meeting God – the sin in our lives. Unforgiveness, bitterness, hatred – these are things we have to work through with God before we can hear and accept what God wants to say to us.

One of the books that has been part of the leader’s preparation in this class is Jim W. Goll’s “Wasted on Jesus,” which is about cultivating a contemplative prayer life. I borrowed it last night, and am working my way through the fourth chapter. I don’t think it is necessarily the most compelling or well-written book I have ever picked up, but already I am being learning what a “contemplative prayer life” is, why it is essential in order to know God, and is challenging me to delve further into the subject.

One of the things I really appreciate about it so far is that Goll makes it clear that our focus needs to be God himself, on better knowing who the great I AM is - not the things He can do for us. There needs to be balance between seeking God's voice and carrying over out the truth we hear during those intimate conversations and living it out in our lives - in other spiritual disciplines, in conversations with people, and service.

I am realizing that I feel like Jesus could easily be speaking to me to in John 5:39-40: “You diligently study the Scriptures because you think that by them you possess eternal life. These are the Scriptures that testify about me, yet you refuse to come to me to have life.” I don’t want my life to be based on morals from a holy text, but about intimately knowing the holy God that these scriptures point us to.

The truly rich spiritual life is a life of balance, and I, with God’s help, am wholeheartedly going to be working on balancing my imbalanced prayer life. I am so excited to know my God in a new way and finally quiet myself enough to give Him the chance to speak the things He has always been waiting to say.

on your way.

i love music as much as i love books, and often for the same reasons - other people have managed to take the things running through my head and have captured them in a creative form that stops me in my tracks. this song is one of those.

"on your way"
by Eastmountainsouth

i hope he never hurts you
like i know i hurt you
i was undecided
and it was all i could do
and if he says he loves you
like i know i loved you
then there's a way to trust him
and i'll get over you

so let his heart surround you
let his arms protect you
and hold you every morning
the way that i could never do
another life has blessed you
he wants the same as you do
so i must find the courage
to send you on your way

send you on your way
send you on your way
(send you on your way)

our nights reflecting
on a chance connecting
help me find the meaning
of the life i had with you
wish i heard when you said
that your heart could not wait
but it was my decision
to send you on your way

send you on your way
send you on your way
it was my decision
to send you on your way

i hope he loves you
like i loved you
i hope he knows you
like i do
'cause if he loves you
like i loved you
i can send you on your way

to send you on your way
to send you on your way
to send you on your way

so i must find the courage
to send you on your way

a deeper magic.

Since I joyful finished the world of undergrad academia in December, I have finally found the time to start devouring books for my own personal pleasure again. From December until now, I have read:

1. The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini
2. Hush by Nicole Braddock Bromley
3. Inside a Cutter's Mind by Jerusha Clark
4. To Own a Dragon by Donald Miller

All of the above have been worthwhile reads, and I am now starting "Sacred Marriage: What if God Designed Marriage to Make Us Holy More than to Make Us Happy?" by Gary Thomas. I LOVE books, ok? I always have - since the very beginning of my reading career - which I'm assuming began at about age 4, if we're talking when I started reading by myself.

Every time I read a great book, it ends up making me think, "I hope I can write something that worthwhile someday." Writing at least one book and having it published before I die is definitely a goal of mine... but I currently don't feel like I have anything that compelling to write about. So I'll wait for divine inspiration on that one, I guess.

Anyway, the reason I'm writing is that I wanted to share some of the thoughts that have really caught my attention in these books. I love when writers capture and explain something no one else has before - or at least no one I've read previously has ever explained it as well.

This was the concept that blew me away from Inside A Cutter's Mind:

"Though it may be very difficult to grasp right now, self-injurers sometimes would themselves because they innately, subconsciously know that in this world... 'The law says that almost everything must be made clean by blood, and sins cannot be forgiven without blood to show death'" (Hebrews 9:22, NCV).

"She had been spilling her own blood in a desperate attempt to make things right, to show that she was sorry, to prove that she deserved to hurt, to end the raging pain inside her. But no wound ever bled enough or went deep enough to last. No cut she made would ever satisfy the ache within. There would always be another reason to destroy, to punish, to heal herself through cutting.

How clear it was: Jesus lived to bleed - once and for all - for every reason she "needed" or "wanted" to cut. She was right all along: Blood did atone. But her blood was insufficient, so He bled in her place. He had suffered all of her shame and offered her the freedom to lay down her self-injury forever."

I have been aware of friends who self-injure since high school, but I had never thought about this being one of the reasons they may have been driven to do so - the idea that some people innately know the shedding of blood is necessary for redemption is amazing to me. The way I look at it, God's truth is already embedded in their brain - but they've only got half the picture. What a beautiful realization it is that God understood this need so deeply that he sent his perfect son to die for all the things we can never heal ourselves! That is true love.

if you knew then what you know now.

so i think i may have converted.

i have abandoned my old blog for something simpler, and a little more... "2008."

i was asked today by the youth minister at my home church what i wish i had been told when i was in middle/high school about sexuality/relationships/sex, etc. in preparation for an upcoming series on the subject(s).

i think it's hard for me to even know where to start. i made so many mistakes - mistakes which started in middle school. i know a lot of well-meaning adults said a lot of things to try and deter me from making bad decisions. but i have always been the kind who had to learn the hard way.

i heard a lot of glossed-over metaphors, like: "your body is like a present, you shouldn't let anyone unwrap it until your wedding night." "don't touch anywhere a bathing suit would cover."
i understood the idea that i was not supposed to do these things, and that they were sins, but i didn't quite grasp the idea that by choosing to break the rules, i was breaking God's heart and my own in the process.

the first time i remember hearing a christian talk about sex and sexuality in a real, raw, honest and beautiful way was at PCTC in high school. but by this point i had already buried myself waist-deep in sexual sin. i heard what she had to say, but i also acknowledged that i had an addiction, and it was a love-hate relationship i wasn't ready to give up. that same weekend i found myself running back to my comfort zone of male attention and the adrenaline-rush forbidden fruit.

i wish more christians - especially women - had been more raw and honest. i wish i had been told the stories about the rapes and abortions and the heartache and the emptiness sooner. most of all, i wish i had listened when they told me there would be consequences, and what it feels like to have your heart completely shattered. i wish i had been able to really believe that God's infinite love far surpasses any that a human man can offer.

i wish i didn't have to see my sin for what it really is - completely disgusting - so foul it makes my stomach turn. but i fully acknowledge that if i hadn't seen my sin for what it looks like to the Father - to my maker, the being whose image i am stamped with - i wouldn't understand my deep need for Jesus. for forgiveness. for redemption.

i'm in remission. i'm still struggling with coming to terms with what my sexuality as a human and a woman and a christian looks like. it's guaranteed to be a lifelong journey. i am so thankful that i know this much thus far.

what do you wish you knew then - that you know now?