Merry Christmas!

"The Spirit of the Sovereign LORD is on me,
because the LORD has anointed me
to preach good news to the poor.
He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted,
to proclaim freedom for the captives
and release from darkness for the prisoners,

to proclaim the year of the LORD's favor
and the day of vengeance of our God,
to comfort all who mourn,

and provide for those who grieve in Zion—
to bestow on them a crown of beauty
instead of ashes,
the oil of gladness
instead of mourning,
and a garment of praise
instead of a spirit of despair."

-Isaiah 61:1-3

brave

This resurrection life you received from God is not a timid, grave-tending life. It's adventurously expectant, greeting God with a childlike "What's next, Papa?" God's Spirit touches our spirits and confirms who we really are. We know who he is, and we know who we are: Father and children.

-Romans 8:15

I've moved back home. I am struggling with moments of fear, moments when I cannot see how God is here, right now, in my new life at home. Our relationship has been different recently, as I've said before, and I'm having a hard time translating that relationship into a new context. But really, that isn't my job.

So I'm trying, no, choosing, to hold on to the promise He has given me that He will never leave me. I truly want to live "adventurously expectant."

I feel as if the rug has been pulled out from me. All that I had spent a year and a half building at Trinity is suddenly gone, and I am just me for now.

That will have to be enough.

I am finding new courage in searching His Word, and I am fighting the impulse I have to run to counseling or even other people to face my problems. I've been facing them for years now, haven't I? And they haven't overwhelmed me yet.

I can be brave. He won't leave me.

"How firm a foundation, ye saints of the Lord,
Is laid for your faith in His excellent Word!
What more can He say than to you He hath said,
You, who unto Jesus for refuge have fled?

In every condition, in sickness, in health;
In poverty’s vale, or abounding in wealth;
At home and abroad, on the land, on the sea,
As thy days may demand, shall thy strength ever be.

Fear not, I am with thee, O be not dismayed,
For I am thy God and will still give thee aid;
I’ll strengthen and help thee, and cause thee to stand
Upheld by My righteous, omnipotent hand.

When through the deep waters I call thee to go,
The rivers of woe shall not thee overflow;
For I will be with thee, thy troubles to bless,
And sanctify to thee thy deepest distress.

When through fiery trials thy pathways shall lie,
My grace, all sufficient, shall be thy supply;
The flame shall not hurt thee; I only design
Thy dross to consume, and thy gold to refine.

The soul that on Jesus has leaned for repose,
I will not, I will not desert to its foes;
That soul, though all hell should endeavor to shake,
I’ll never, no never, no never forsake."

Whom have I but You?

Though mountains fall
They fall into the sea

Though my coloured dawn
May turn to shades of grey

Though questions asked
May never be resolved

Whom have I but You?


by David Ruis

2 more poems I love

"the Sword" by Sheldon Vanauken

Yes, Mark was posted to the Tenth that year.
The day we got there priests contrived to bring
This 'god' to death, and mobs that made me cling
To Mark surged round us, all one mocking jeer.

No omen warned me when Mark led me near
The yelling street that I should be implored
By God to wear my girlhood like a sword
So edged with mercy men would freeze in fear.

Mark's armor made the crowd draw back a space.
Just there beneath his cross the god limped by.
I saw his eyes and rushed into the street
Through sudden stillness and wiped his face.
'My child,' he said and staggered on to die.
- My girlhood lay in fragments at my feet.

"Advent" by Sheldon Vanauken

Two thousand years go by while on the Cross
Our Lord is suffering still - there is no end
Of pain: the spear pierces, nails rend -
And we below with Mary weep our loss.
The chilling edge of night crawls round the earth;
At every second of the centuries
The dark comes somewhere down, with dreadful ease
Slaying the sun, denying light's rebirth.
But if the agony and death go on,
Our Lady's tears, our Lord's most mortal cry,
So, too, the timeless lovely birth again -
And the forsaken tomb. Today: the dawn
That never ended and can never die
In breaking glory ushers in the slain.

Madeline Bray

Nicholas: I have been happy for times, little times, since he died. But never at peace.

Madeline: Nicholas, I feel you know what it's like to be without happiness, but do you know what it's like to be afraid of it? To see the world as so conniving, you cannot take pleasure in the appearance of something good, because you suspect it is only a painted drop behind which other troubles lie. That has been my life. Every good thing has been a trick...until you. But I am afraid to take your hand. What if you can not, or will not, save me? I can bear to be maltreated by the greedy or the weak...but to be let down by an angel...

Nicholas: I am not an angel. I live as far from that lofty perch as any man. My temper alone, my impatience - well, perhaps I should not list all my faults in case I am too persuasive. You are the one who is so admirably able and strong.

Madeline: I am tired of being strong.

Nicholas: As am I. Weakness is tiring, but strength is exhausting. You see, I cannot save you, for I need saving too.

I relate to most of the characters in Nicholas Nickleby on some level, but Madeline Bray's feelings in this scene have most closely reflected my own. Whenever my life is going relatively well, I fail to enjoy the good things because I constantly wonder when the other shoe will drop . My thoughts become morbid and for this I would almost rather be suffering than walking in the paranoid contentment that has been my alternative. I fear that if I don't enjoy my God-given happiness "enough," He'll take it away and punish me. I worry that because I am happy, I am not "contrite" enough - I am taking God for granted and He will knock me to my knees again.

What deception! I must not know my loving Father very well at all to have such a low opinion of Him, to so fear His punishment.

But I do have reason to feel the way I do - many good things in my life have been "a trick." God has not always been present enough in my life for me to cling to Him in times of fear. I have felt betrayed and abandoned by Him, and not without reason.

It's easy to silence my feelings on this subject by giving the usual trite, "Christian" answers.

I will not learn to trust God, however, unless I let myself feel my feelings instead of "spiritualizing" them.

I know that all I need to do is see Him - to see what He is doing in my heart, how He is pursuing me, how He is healing me. My mind is telling me that He is doing all of these things, but my heart is still longing for His touch.

I choose to wait for Him instead of "making things right" by myself as I so often do, being strong and saving myself. I will do my part, yes, but I want Him to pursue me. I need Him to pursue me.

mild?

"This word 'mild' is apparently deliberately used to describe a man who did not hesitate to challenge and expose the hypocrisies of the religious people of His day: a man who had such 'personality' that He walked unscathed through a murderous crowd; a man so far from being a nonentity that He was regarded by the authorities as a public danger; a man who could be moved to violent anger by shameless exploitation or by smug complacent orthodoxy; a man of such courage that He deliberately walked to what He knew would mean death, despite the earnest pleas of well-meaning friends! Mild! What a word to use for a personality whose challenge and strange attractiveness nineteen centuries have by no means exhausted. Jesus Christ might well be called 'meek,' in the sense of being selfless and humble and utterly devoted to what He considered right, whatever the personal cost; but 'mild,' never!" - J.B. Phillips

Shadowfeet

"Shadowfeet" by Brooke Fraser

Walking, stumbling on these shadowfeet
Toward home, a land that I've never seen
I am changing
Less and less asleep
Made of different stuff than when I began
And I have sensed it all along
Fast approaching is the day

When the world has fallen out from under me
I'll be found in you, still standing
When the sky rolls up and mountains fall on their knees
When time and space are through
I'll be found in you

There's distraction buzzing in my head
Saying in the shadows it's easier to stay
But I've heard rumours of true reality
Whispers of a well-lit way

When the world has fallen out from under me
I'll be found in you, still standing
When the sky rolls up and mountains fall on their knees
When time and space are through
I'll be found in you

You make all things new

When the world has fallen out from under me
I'll be found in you, still standing
Every fear and accusation under my feet
When time and space are through
I'll be found in you

2 poems I love

"Sonnet 116" by Shakespeare

Let me not to the marriage of true minds
Admit impediments. Love is not love
Which alters when it alteration finds,
Or bends with the remover to remove.
O no! It is an ever-fixed mark
That looks on tempests and is never shaken;
It is the star to every wand'ring bark,
Whose worth's unknown, although his height be taken.
Love's not Time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks
Within his bending sickle's compass come;
Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,
But bears it out even to the edge of doom.
If this be error and upon me proved,
I never writ, nor no man ever loved.

"Batter my Heart" by John Donne

Batter my heart, three-personed God; for You
As yet but knock, breathe, shine, and seek to mend;
That I may rise, and stand, overthrow me, and bend
Your force, to break, blow, burn, and make me new.
I, like an usurped town, to another due,
Labor to admit You but Oh, to no end!
Reason, Your viceroy in me, should defend,
But it is captive, and proves weak or untrue.
Yet dearly I love You, and would be loved fain.
But I am betrothed unto Your enemy;
Divorce me, untie, or break that knot again,
Take me to You, imprison me, for I
Except You enthrall me, never shall be free,
Nor ever chaste, except You ravish me.

a good Christian girl

"This resurrection life you received from God is not a timid, grave-tending life. It's adventurously expectant, greeting God with a childlike 'What's next, Daddy?' God's Spirit touches our spirits and confirms who we really are. We know who He is, and we know who we are: Father and children."
-Romans 8:15

I bought this book last week called Confessions of a Good Christian Girl, and it has blown me out of the water. In a good way. One of the main points of the first chapter is that the Christian life is not the before-and-after story it is sometimes made out to be.

I used to think that I could bring all of my brokenness to God, and then He'd fix it and everything would be fine and dandy from then on. So when I began to let God walk me through my brokenness in January, I assumed things would be just peachy by, say, April.

Nope.

I'm still walking through my issues, and I'm realizing that they will never be fully resolved this side of heaven. I'm also beginning to be at peace with that. I can be broken and have issues, but I can also live my life without fear, "adventurously expectant" as the verse says.

I'm tired of being timid and grave-tending, wallowing in my pain or denying its' existence. God and I are on good terms again, and I'm choosing to trust Him again with my heart.

I know that He won't hurt me.

look at the birds

"Look at the birds, free and unfettered, not tied down to a job description, careless in the care of God. And you count far more to Him than birds." -Matthew 6:25

I have a bird feeder hanging out my window, and this plastic contraption has had more of an effect on my life than I thought it would.

You see, this bird feeder, contrary to my pessimistic predictions, actually attracts birds.

Lots of them.

I have always really loved birds - I don't know why, but they fascinate me. Jesus uses them to represent simplicity and trust in God, and maybe part of the reason these little creatures captivate me is that their nature is so opposite to mine.

I try so hard. I always have. Something deep inside of me needs to feel adequate, needs to feel like I can make up to God what He has done for me. So I strive, fail, feel guilty, tell myself to suck it up, and try again. And when I am wounded, I skip the first two steps and go right to blaming myself somehow, feeling guilty, and searching desperately for love, using other means.

My spiritual life has taken an interesting turn lately - I'm angry at God, you see.

As previously mentioned, when I am hurt, I don't become angry - instead I just absorb the pain and find some way to blame it on my own inadequacies. So my counselor has been urging me to let myself feel angry and disappointed in the people that have hurt me, including God. And I'm trying.

But it's difficult, because I've never been angry at God before - I've always tried so hard to be "good." I'm realizing though, that if my relationship with Him is to go anywhere from here, I must be honest with Him instead of ignoring my feelings like I'm in the practice of doing.

It's also scary - I feel like I've had my dear Foundation pulled out from under me, and I have no previous experience of this to fall back on, that'll assure me that I'm safe. It's hard to thank Him or ask Him for things when I'm realizing that deep down inside, I'm afraid He'll hurt me again.

I'm still in love with Him, though, and I still read my Bible and pray and journal and all that, but I don't feel His presence, and that is perhaps what scares me the most.

So, for now, I am clinging to the image of the birds, because I know that God is trying to speak to me through it. I just don't understand what He is trying to say. I'm sure the amazing connection will come soon, like it always does, but for now I wait, clinging to the mercies of God that keep my faith alive during times like this.

Romans 6

"What shall we say, then? Shall we go on sinning so that grace may increase? By no means! We died to sin; how can we live in it any longer? Or don't you know that all of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? We were therefore buried with him through baptism into death in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too may live a new life.
If we have been united with him like this in his death, we will certainly also be united with him in his resurrection. For we know that our old self was crucified with him so that the body of sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves to sin— because anyone who has died has been freed from sin.
Now if we died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him. For we know that since Christ was raised from the dead, he cannot die again; death no longer has mastery over him. The death he died, he died to sin once for all; but the life he lives, he lives to God.
In the same way, count yourselves dead to sin but alive to God in Christ Jesus. Therefore do not let sin reign in your mortal body so that you obey its evil desires. Do not offer the parts of your body to sin, as instruments of wickedness, but rather offer yourselves to God, as those who have been brought from death to life; and offer the parts of your body to him as instruments of righteousness. For sin shall not be your master, because you are not under law, but under grace.
What then? Shall we sin because we are not under law but under grace? By no means! Don't you know that when you offer yourselves to someone to obey him as slaves, you are slaves to the one whom you obey—whether you are slaves to sin, which leads to death, or to obedience, which leads to righteousness? But thanks be to God that, though you used to be slaves to sin, you wholeheartedly obeyed the form of teaching to which you were entrusted. You have been set free from sin and have become slaves to righteousness."

if I had words

I have been learning a great deal about the grace of God lately. There is a scene from the movie Babe that I think expresses it quite profoundly (and always makes me cry).

Babe is depressed after learning of his potential fate as pork or bacon, and his owner, Farmer Hoggett, notices that he isn't eating. Trying but failing to feed Babe, Hoggett begins, haltingly, to sing a song:

"If I had words to make a day for you
I'd sing you a morning, golden and true
I would make this day last for all time
Then fill the night deep in moonshine"

At first, the song is quiet and almost awkward, but a beautiful Irish-sounding melody beings to play in the background, and Hoggett, who has scarcely spoken 5 words throughout the movie, begins to dance around the room, almost shouting the words to the song, his lively display almost embarrassing to the viewer. Babe, seeing Hoggett's love for him and hope in his recovery, begins to hope again and is able to eat at last.

I feel pretty silly for loving this scene so much, but it speaks so clearly of the grace of God to me! I, like Babe, have felt the weight of condemnation, of my fate without God, and my legalistic side loves to remind me of the fact that I fall so short of God's perfect standard. When I am in that state of mind, God is merely a divine Master to me, the personification of a goal I will never achieve, a never-ending purveyor of "should"s.

The catalyst of this scene, though, is that Hoggett doesn't force Babe to eat or to "snap out of it." Instead of lecturing Babe on the value of proper eating habits, Hoggett invites him to eat by simply singing a song. By expressing his vitality and joy through his song, Hoggett shows Babe how much he wants him to have this same joy. There is also a fundamental shift in the relationship between Babe and Hoggett; Babe becomes a friend instead of a mere animal to Hoggett, and Hoggett looks at Babe almost as a father would his lost son.

In the same way, God does not force us to recognize His glory, or even acknowledge Him for that matter, but invites us into His life for us. Only when we hear of the hope He offers do we catch a glimpse of the life we could have with Him as our Friend and Father instead of Master.

This is what God has been teaching me lately. He offers me His grace gently, in bits small enough for me to swallow instead of overpowering me with a greater glimpse. He has been, to quote Nicholas Nickleby, "persuad[ing] me that I am safe." And I am slowly learning to trust in His goodness.

"The Lord your God is with you; He is mighty to save. He will take great delight in you; He will quiet you with His love; He will rejoice over you with singing." -Zephaniah 3:17

It's always weird starting these things. How much information to give? How much to leave a mystery? How to start what I hope will become somewhat of a chronicle of my life? I guess the only way is to just jump right in, so here goes...

My mom came to visit me this weekend, which was WONDERFUL - I hadn't seen her since the beginning of August and won't see her again 'til December, so this was a real treat. We did a lot of talking, shopping, and relaxing, so this weekend was exactly what I needed.

Today is Canadian Thanksgiving, so I don't have any classes and am trying to take the day off - ish. I'll be back in the grind soon enough, so I guess I should savour the time I have before reality hits again.

Because I'm more or less officially moving back to California at the end of this school year, and because I'm "mentally underemployed" as my mom says, I keep thinking about what my life will be like back at home. I want to find a good church to get involved in (maybe Rock Harbor), teach group exercise classes, and work towards getting my teaching credential at Cal State Fullerton. I'm sure I'll be writing a lot about that in the future as I keep dreaming, but for now I'll stick to the present.

I'm trying to motivate myself to do laundry and all of the other little chores that I left until today, but it's not working so well. I'm exhausted and quite relaxed, which are a bad combination if I want to be productive.

I should get to my homework and such, but I'm looking forward to this new way of expressing my thoughts.

"Faint hearts never won fair lady." - Robin Hood