Planes hearts and horses

Heart, planes and pine trees.

Sunlux and I hang out on a plane. I would be seated next to a small child :) hahaha I love it! God knew it would warm my heart :)

There are a lot of hearts on a plane and I always wonder what is going on in the lives of the people around me as people talk to each other. I wonder if everyone wants to be talking to complete strangers or they want to be left alone. I just listened to two people have a conversation that just felt like they were just agreeing with each other to get acceptance...

That conversation made me think about how I've been battling the desire to impress people and not even thinking about God. Ironically I've been in the season of life in which I really am not a very impressive person...but that made me think about whether God was impressed with me...I think He smiles much more than He frowns at me at us. Somehow in the end impressing God is so much more peaceful and less taunting then impressing man. God is so loving and gentle...and He's always watching and sees those moments you try...and He's so glad to have you...even if that moment is short. Sometimes people don't see when you try...God does though. It's nice to know that the only one I need to try for is God...and He finds my child like attempts beautiful. There is so much love and grace found in Him. One of my babies at work has stolen my heart...I think he's the best even when he's throwing a fit or cussing me out...I am so proud of him and just want to hug him a lot...Gods way way more in love with us and loves to hug us and help us and correct us more then I do for Sam...I can't imagine God having more love then I do for my little friend...but Gods love is way way big!!!

I wish they still handed out pretzels on airplanes...

Finding Neverland

I have a lot of words stuck in my head lately, and it's been making it hard to hold conversations...so today I am going to sort through my mind. I love how God loves to know us. :)

Lately I have been stuck in this state of “What is was”, “What it was supposed to be”, “Why???”, “What it could be”...and that makes it hard to be in “What it is”. I feel that there has only been a few times in the last 6 months that I have been fully present. It makes me very sad. If the grass is always greener on the other side or only green where you water it then I think my grass is a little bit brown...or a lot brown...

See...I guess I am still processing everything with my move to Nashville...I am discouraged...disappointed...at myself for how I haven't been able to get my bearings yet. I haven't been able to adjust to how things are...I am just so angry at myself for that. I guess everyone here in Nashville has met a more healthy and more Spirit filled me...but they have also met an angrier and overwhelmed me. I am not an angry person...but lately I have found myself in a constant state of irritation that is so quickly turned into anger...everything seems to be the straw that broke the camels back. I am angry at a lot of things...including myself...because I am not who I want to be...who I long to show you...I love being fun and crazy and meeting new people...I just feel so frazzled all the time and tired and sick. I am so tired of being sick.

I have been realizing the magnitude of my expectations and the effect they have on my life. I have felt the bitterness of disappointment almost constantly.

I guess I felt that moving to Nashville would be one big party and adventure...it has been far from that for me.

I have come to Nashville to heal and to grow...and that the Lord is doing so beautifully and lovingly. He is a tender and the best hand holder. He has been by my side through all my anger and frustration and tears...constantly reminding me that I am here for Him and His healing in my heart and mind and life. I would make this move to Nashville a million times over and over again because of what God is doing in my life. I would move to know Him better the way I know Him now over and over...but there is still a lot of readjusting to be done for me. I guess I do not readjust as quickly as I thought. I wish I had not come to Nashville with so many expectations...

I am so discouraged. I feel that I am never present where I am and with the people I adore. I work 40 hours a week with babies...babies that I have fallen in love with...but they are not my own children and sometimes how much I love them hurts because they remind me how much I long to love my own babies! I am constantly exhausted because babies are tiring...so I go to bed early and rise early and all I want to do is sleep after I get off work...I am a pseudo mom...but I don't have a husband and child to go home to...I have a group of awesome crazy friends who I want to have the energy to hang out with...but I do not...and I am disappointed and discouraged because I am always too tired to adventure with them or even be fully present with them...babies also make you sick a lot!!!! DISCLAIMER: I LOVE MY JOB...I have never had a job that makes my heart so happy and I love these babies and their moms so very much! I wouldn't trade it for the world...It is my ministry and my my life right now...I just want to not be sick...any tips??? I am sick again and was too sick to fully enjoy the beauty of last nights Christmas show! It was wonderful! My friends are beautiful and giving and talented and I cannot believe I am getting blessed to be friends with them!!! I want to enjoy them the way they deserve to be enjoyed! Last year for the show I had driven up with friends and our moms to visit! I was full of life and excitement and enchantment...I was full of wanting to help and soak up every moment with them I could. This year I was feverish, falling asleep, and grumpy...wanting to be home in my bed. It broke my heart...how I am now in all my frustration, sickness, tiredness, and discouragement is breaking me heart.

I feel I moved away from everything I knew to step into something so beautiful and needed...and I am missing out on it all. I am watching the world happen around me without being a part of it. I want to be a part of it...but I don't know how. I don't know how to not be exhausted and sick. I don't know how to not be discouraged or disappointed.

To my friends: I love you all and I think you are all the most beautiful people inside and out that I ever met and I long so much to be able to be more present when I am with you all and to bless you the way you bless me. I just want you to know how much you are loved and cherished...you all break my heart in the best of ways and my heart is aching to be not overwhelmed so that I can truly enjoy you all as you are meant to be!!! I miss you all...I miss being friends...unconstrained and unhindered by anything...I miss being fully present when we all hang out. I miss not being sick and tired and being a pseudo mom.

I am sad at how things have turned out...I feel that I am watching the coolest movie and I don't want to watch it I want to be a part of it!!!

I ask for your prayers, encouragement, comments, rebuke...lol all of the above. I am blessed...but I am discouraged. It's a weird place to be in.

But I am here...and God is here with me. He is steady, loving, patient, and aching for and with me. I am learning so much and things are being broken off me that have been weighing me down for years. I am getting healed...but I feel very lonely in it...not to anyone's fault but perhaps my own. Maybe this is a time to be just alone with God a lot...but I am not doing a very good job at that.

God wants to bring life and light into your world...and when you give Him room...He brings it on! God is awesome. Make room...I am trying to learn/remember to keep doing that...I don't want anything...sickness, exhaustion, discouragement, disappointment, anger, or whatever to get in the way of that. I am trying...God is so proud...

God is so proud of our smallest efforts...cause He knows that He is the one that does the work...we have only to come to Him...it's ridiculous how much we have it all wrong...we think we have to do all the work so we get too discouraged to come to Him cause we aren't healed yet...God's like...whoa whoa whoa...just come to me like a little kid...little kids know where it's at. So be a kid. It's kinda fun...and always awesome to see how much God keeps His promises.

Today I feel like Peter Pan...today I feel like I grew up...that I am growing up...to live will be a big adventure J.M. Barrie said once...he was onto something.

I am having growing pains, but I want to be grateful for this time that God has designed for me that is for me to grow up and learn...He brought me here to teach me...to equip me...to grow me...it is not easy...it hurts...but one day I will learn how to adjust to it and find joy in all circumstances even when it means letting go of what I thought and holding on to what is...even when it hurts.  

Learning is painful but God keeps His word.

I learned something tonight.

I've never once told the people who directly have hurt me the truth about how I really feel...

I cannot think of one time that I have been hurt by family, friends, boyfriends etc and actually told them exactly how I was hurt and how I was feeling.

I've always been really good at letter writing and fake conversations (neither of which are good at actually dealing with or expressing hurt fully or at all) or months after the fact trying to back track my feelings and only get jumbled bits and pieces of the story out.

I don't know why I can't express myself to those who hurt me...

I have some ideas of where the roots are from but that's not important for this blog. What is important is that the damage this has done in my life is enormous.

I have taught myself and been taught my others that my feelings are stupid or invalid...I mean what's the point of telling someone how or why they have hurt you...it's a thing of the past right? How can you move on if you bring up what cannot be changed???

Well I will tell you...

Not being honest when you've been hurt does several things:

1) destroys relationships between you and the person who hurt you. If you never tell the truth then your feelings will never be validated and resolved...you can move on but the sting of hurt that was never addressed will lay buried...but still lives on. There will be something in between you...now God can remove it and bring healing which I've seen in my own life but its a long and painful journey.

2) you will continue to pile more and more pain in your heart and mind and never feel that it has been recognized and dealt with. You will always be hurting and always want people to know your hurt...but if you never tell the person at the root of your pain you're using a bandaid for a gash that needs a 100 stitches. You will be too afraid of letting go of your pain because that means yet again your pain is unnoticed or only partly addressed...it's very hard to find joy and hold on to it when you're holding onto pain.

3) it will make you feel like you are broken and messed up because you will keep having “conversations" that are only half the truth...you will keep feeling that the issue is unresolved and therefore something else is needing to be said

This starts the cycle all over again...

And I'm so incredibly tired of this cycle in my life.

I'm tired of feeling hurt, angry, devoid of joy, and broken.

I want good relationships around me with friends and family and I hope one day to have a really great marriage and be a counselor...

I have to stop my cycle of pain and anger and I have to start being honest. Really...even when it's just me saying I'm hurt just so that the other person knows they hurt me.

I'm sorry in advance friends and family. Please pray for me and bare with me as I step out into being honest. I need this...more than I can express...

Please be praying. Thanks!

Falling bread

I am currently sitting in my car...just doing some light blogging...one of the many moments of being house less. Going to Kroger to use the bathroom and napping in my car are not so uncommon things in my life lately...ill admit I'm very tired.

But guys here is where it's at: I am a grumbling Israelite. It's crazy to look at the Old Testament passages about how God saved His people from captivity and abuse to bring them to the promise land...it's crazy because our stories are seemingly identical. The death and pain and abuse that I have just been drawn out of is staggering. I am now in a place of being led to the promise land but am having to journey there some now. I don't have a place to live but over the last four months I have never had to really worry. I have been provided a place to live and now a place to store all of my belongings that have just arrived. Within days of needing something I have been given what I need just as the Israelites where given manna from heaven...an yet I am complaining just like the Israelites...I have even caught myself saying I want to back...just like the Israelites...but man I don't want to be an Israelite made to wander forty years...and I don't want to doubt God that the promises land is unattainable.

But what is the promised land?! I think I need a major shift in thought...ill be honest my promised land has always been getting married...I think that the promised land I really being healthy joyful and truly in relationship with my Daddy.

Yes my life is much like the Israelites...I am very loved by God.

Falling in love and Babies

I have been thinking a bunch about what falling in love is all about. I don't mean just the kind of falling in love that you normally think about like the falling in love when you meet the dopest kinda guy...I mean all kinds of falling in love. Like these kinds of falling in love:

1) Working with the most adorable babies that scream and puke and poop and pee on you...then smile so big that it brings tears to your eyes. How do you fall in love when they are not your babies and they will only sleep when they are in your arms? How do you fall in love when every ounce of sanity has left you because you are stuck in a small room with four babies hating you cause they all want to be held, fed, and told they are loved all at the same time?

2) Having the best family ever! How do you fall in love with your family when everyone is so busy and you always forget to call them...I hate that. I hate that falling in love with my family is not more of a priority. I am learning how to fall in love with my parents as friends...but still knowing I need them cause I will always be their little girl who is so hopelessly in need of their help and advice. And I have the coolest brothers that I really wish I saw/talked to more...I want to fall in love with them more and my awesome sister in law even though she has a cat ;)

3) Friends...old friends and new friends. The kind of friends who even though you break their heart will always come to be by your side when you need to escape the worlds most painful moments. I want to fall in love with the friends I never see anymore...I am horrible at keeping up with people who are not in my everyday life...but I want to be better...I want to fall in love with new friends and go through the hard stuff...I want to love my friends better...they deserve it cause they are wonderful...I could shout out to a few but I am blessed with too many...but very much to the friends who went through the darkest times with me and yet still stand by my side in love even when I do not return that love the same. I want to fall in love with my friends better.

4) Falling in love with the guys around my as my friends and brothers. I am not good at that. I am not good and honouring and respecting the guys around me...I want to fall in love with them the right way. I do not need to need their approval. I always wanted to be liked...to be known to be the cool girl that people should want to date. I was never the girl that the guys wanted to date so I always worked hard at getting attention...I want that to stop. I want to love the guys around me in not needing them...not using them. I am sorry dear friends...

5) What does falling in love with a man look like...the kind that you know you can go through all of life's adventures together and come out stronger each year...the kind that you want to foster kids with because you know they are going to love and help bring healing to the broken...the kind who is beyond your understanding...what does respecting and honouring the man you romantically fall in love with...when can you fall in love? What does this kind of love falling look like? How do you act around the other guys in your life? I do not know what romantic falling in love looks like...

6) Most importantly what does falling in love with God/Jesus/the Holy Spirit look like? Because truly this is where it all begins...and where it all ends...sometimes always I get too caught up in what the other falling in loves look like that I put falling in love with God on the shelf...but really this is the key...so how do I fall in love with God? Is my focus to be less on whether I am doing it right or wrong...and just do it?

I mean in all the categories listed...can you fall in love if you are always thinking and evaluating yourself? Should your efforts go to falling in love instead of did you do it right today or not...I mean or maybe it should be about how you do it...I want to love well.

I am not good at it yet...as my friend and I talked about tonight...falling in love is going to be a never ending lesson. I just want to start at the beginning...God...He loves well. I know that He can teach me best...

Falling in love...with/and babies....

It is a hard and scary thing...

To be in love will be a big adventure.

I want to fall harder...

With wisdom...

God perhaps is the only one who can show me how to fall in love...does it start with just spending more time with the creator and perfecter of love?

3:14am and Bon Iver: tired eyes and a mountain of kleenex from allergies: ...and this is where I am...

I WANT TO LOVE GOD.
MY FAMILY
MY FRIENDS/GUYS
MY BABIES (mine or not)
MY LOVE (I gotta get the rest down first before I can love you the right way whoever you are!!!)

Does one fall in love with themselves?... as my friends say "We are awesome"

I love you. All of you. Despite my failure of displaying or even acknowledging my love...I do. And I am trying to learn how to fall in love with you all more.

Rock climbing

I don't know the balance between reality and strength.

Should I be strong enough that moving to a new place with a whole new life in which I have moved around from 5 homes with no actual home of my own...a broken heart glass in my foot my other foot hurting for 3 years straight always being sick and running into a car...should those things never matter? They should at least never get in the way of joy peace patience kindness love gentleness...right? I want to be unshakeable. And constantly in God reflecting Him.

Can I be strong no matter what?

I feel like i am a frayed rope that needs to be burned/glued or else I will be useless for the things You want to use me for... Simply being Your daughter.

There are so many thoughts and frustrations flowing in and out of my head right now that I backed into a car today and dented it.

I want to stop letting my circumstances get in the way of God and my call to love.

But be gentle and patient with me...cause this is not easy nor do I want to give up my “right" to be pissed, frazzled, depressed, ect. I don't want to have to put myself aside...I am selfish...but when I took Jesus' gift of life and forgiveness...I gave up my right...

I mean we are to give up our shitty excuse for our lives to actually gain our life to the fullest.

I am ripping myself off...but I feel so entitled to my shitty life that I do not want to stop being so selfish...

What am I afraid of? Being joyful no matter what? Being the person who truly loves others?

Why is dying to self so hard? I think I just want people to care things hurt...

But I don't want to be here anymore...

I don't know how to change...

I have too many thoughts to ever think on God to give Him the glory He deserves...but He deserves it...

So is it a simple as just choosing to give it to Him...

After all He is the very one who will never overlook my disappointment, hurt, needs, etc.

So why not trust Him?

How do you trust God to help with glass in your foot though?

I guess I should shut up and worship God.

Layaway

What do you do when you feel your life is on layaway? I don't want to feel that I am waiting for the next thing to come...to happen...I want to make my life now...not in the future...

I moved to Nashville to heal...to grow...I moved here to learn. But I still feel that I am still waiting for the journey I want to be on to begin...I still feel I am just existing and I need to figure this out. I wish I was still in school where just existing seemed that it was good enough. To go back and get my masters would be my cop out I think. I am unhappy in where I am so to run and hide would not be the right thing.

My friend just told me that the grass is only greener on the side you water. I do not want to be discontent no matter where I am if I am not getting the things that I want...I do not want the grass to always be greener on the other side...I want to water the grass that I am currently on.

God is teaching me that He wants to be my strength...that He wants to be the thing that I am looking to fill me and help me ride the waves of life with grace and joy. I feel that right now not much in my life is very steady. Relationships, health, living, etc...the most steady thing I have now is a job caring for screaming but cute babies...I feel that I am growing very frail and thin in this season...but surprisingly I feel very full and strong...because God is teaching me to let Him be what is keeping me going...keeping me sane...keeping me full and healthy. I want to be a healthy person...and God is the answer to that.

But what else keeps us healthy? The truth? Facing what you don't want to believe to be true...I feel I have spent a great deal of my life hiding from what I felt...hiding from where I truly was...trying to be stronger than I really was. But the truth? The truth is...the truth is that I don't want to the truth to be true. I want to be able to brave every storm with grace and joy. But I fear I have come upon one storm that I just cannot shake...the storm that makes the pit of my stomach drop and stings the side of my eyes with tears. The worst and best part about this season in life is that everything else is where it should be...I don't want to be in Nashville for the sake of it being Nashville...but I am here because it is right...I think...

I am in a fairy tale with just one dragon to kill...my heart. Dragons are hard to kill...but thankfully God is here really big.

I am not sure where I am going in this blog...I think my heart feels like its in the mountains hiking the AT...but then every couple of days its reminded that I may not really be there yet. Will I ever be there? Is it worth dreaming for still...still planning on.

The truth: I am not strong enough to fight this dragon. The worst part about the truth: the dragon is very sweet.

How do you deal with disappointment...?

You take life as it is...where it is...and constantly look at God's face...cause it is precious and it will keep you safe.

Oh and rock climb a lot.

תוהו ובוהו

I have spent my whole life in selfishness...too overwhelmed to help someone or hear someone or see someone...and now I am in a position where I am in a new place jumping from home to home...all I want is for someone to ask me how I am doing and hear me...but I know that I cannot share my words with people right now...so instead I ask others how they are doing and hear them. I am financially unstable but I get to share with others...I feel that I came to Nashville feeling that this was a time for God to love on me like I am a baby...completely helpless...I thought this would be a time of lavishing as I selfishly take from God and others...and somehow what happened is that I find myself in a place where I feel I am being called to stop throwing a tantrum and open my eyes to see the world around me. I have been just living with others and hearing there life while my words remain stored away from most people here in Nashville. I came to talk...and yet I am here to listen...I came to heal...and the healing is so ridiculous that it makes no sense. I have been forced to let go...and I have been handed the adventures and the new eyes I have been asking for forever...but to be honest...I am so overwhelmed...I still have to live with my life...my choices...I miss my friend. I don't know what will happen...I can't change anything nor can I do anything...but I hate sin...I want relationship. I miss her. And I am realizing the weight of my move to Nashville in my expectations...I am here...but my heart is somewhere...and reality is here. I can't say what I want...but what I can say is this: my heart in my current life circumstances feels the way I feel when I listen to Bon Iver...enchantingly joyful and crushingly brokenhearted. Oh friends...please pray for my heart...these new freedoms are heavy...my adventures are heavy...nothing right now fits...my greatest adventures are matched with hardest struggles...too much all at once...but I am going to view it like the hardest rock climbing problem...I am going to grit my teeth, chalk my bloody hands, and beast it!!! I am determined to love my current life in all the good and all the bad...I am determined to conquer it...but my mind and my heart waver between being strong enough...lol 

I told my friend Ginger this...it feels like Rocks and Moss...I am so broken and yet so healed. My journey over the last few years...and I mean heck the last few months...days...have been so painful...like walking on rocks...God is bringing me to a place of rest...like He is bringing me to a place of walking on moss...what I am realizing in this is that God is beautiful and rest is wonderful and yet my feet (heart) still hurt...there are sores and blisters and blood still left to heal...I am feeling the sore sting of the rocks upon the beautiful moss...

But what the heck...despite the brokenness of my heart with friends, pain of uncertainty, weariness from houselessness, sting of sin...I am on one of the coolest and most humbling adventures...but I am tired so I am going to sleep...gotta get up early to rock climb!!! :) 

Cliff Diving

The day you realize that freedom and change is working in you. To feel healed...to be fully known by so many around you but knowing only Gods opinion and actions matter...I can breathe lighter for the first time in a long long time.

Picnics with God

I will sing because you are good
I will dance because you are good
I will shout because you are good
You are good to me


I had such a hard time singing those words today...I feel overwhelmed and burdened...but God I want nothing circumstantial to blur the lines of the truth of your everlasting goodness...open my eyes and change me limited feelings/understanding...

Help me.

Money, health, living situations, relationships, my sin...these keep me from seeing Your everlasting goodness...I confess my sin without shame asking for Your help...

I want to be healthy more than you...help me???

Where am I? Learning about what trusting God looks like in a way I haven't known before.

So I've never been in a situation of not having a home. I am now in a place of having to possibly find a place to stay for the next month and a half to possibly two and a half months...I'd be lying if I did admit that I am actually truly stressed and frustrated. I have never planned to be 25 and without my own family let alone my own home...but ironically I guess just now I'm realizing that I have always planned to not have a normal life...so I guess the truth is God is giving me the chance to enjoy an adventure...lol

But really guys if you'd be in prayer that I can find a super cheap or free living situation for the next few months...

Also sometimes church leaves you with these thoughts: so today's sermon was on seeing how God sees and being willing to suffer with Him...I realized I was angry to hear this sermon. Angry because I was there...desiring to give up everything to go across the country to live desolately to love the broken. I wanted to travel the country helping churches learn how to minister to the homosexual population and to hike the AT and preach the gospel...or be a counselor to reach broken families and kids...I feel that my heart in my eyes for brokenness and my heart for the hurting...I feel God allowed it to be stomped out and destroyed...I feel that financially these things get farther and farther from ever being possible and I am super pissed and feeling like I'm being kicked when I'm already down...

But God doesn't destroy what He desires...He's not a mean or a contradictory God.

Maybe I'm just not seeing the truth of my own personal decisions that have destroyed or made it impossible to get to where I desperately wanted to go for God or maybe I never really wanted it for God...

Today has been a weird day. Ending in tears because I miss my family... But God will finish the good work He has started...I know this is all right...just hard today.

Sunny Saturdays

So sometimes you sit outside on a tree root and write: what has life been like lately? It's been like going to watch a counseling session between yourself and God. It's like I'm watching this happen from the outside. To step so close to God and so far from yourself it is a weird but good experience. I've been able to see my flaws and darkness without being crushed by it. I've met myself as perhaps Gods sees me. It's weird and I cannot explain it. I'm broken by my failures and seeing why I'm broken. I love those around me and I'm seeing how my sin effects them. It's great to be free from the crushing weight off shame...to be functionally able to address sin in your life. God is gentle...it is Satan and ourselves who crush us.

God is so lovingly bringing life. I'm not where I want to be...but God is not angry. He is not demanding me to be someone or something but He is demanding me. Just me. Demanding what has kept me locked up and bound so as to keep me from joy and life and light. My mind. The darkest prison. So God breaks chains by these words: "THE AFFIRMATION ACCEPTANCE ADMIRATION YOU ARE LONGING FOR HAS ALREADY BEEN GIVEN TO YOU   AND IS CONTINUALLY AND UNCONDITIONALLY AND ENDLESSLY BEING LAVISHED ON YOU...FROM ME. AS CHRIST LOVES THE CHURCH. YOU ARE MY BRIDE."

My life has not turned out the way I hAd been planning it to be...I still have big dreams that mean everything to me...but I suppose that I'm in a place where I'm having to learn that sanctification is what matters most. To become more like God should be my heart and should be better than my dreams of being married and being a counselor and hiking the AT. Perhaps until you're more like God you cannot really enjoy those things...but I'd be lying to say that I have truly embraced that.

I have met someone...myself for who I truly am...and God is trying to teach me why I need Him...I'm beginning to see...

On a completely irrelevant side note: i wish Middle Earth wAs real...hahaha (must be the fact I'm sitting on a free root smelling the dirt)

I love that God made dirt!!!!

How can I heal if I don't know time?

You know what's wonderful?

 God is always trying to get to you...I went for a walk the other day that had the potential of self pity...when all of a sudden God showed up very loudly and clearly bringing up an issue that I had not been aware of. Setting yourself up for failure. We do it all the time...I don't think we wake up one day and say I am going to screw up my life...no I think we invite sin with such subtly that we don't even realize it. That is what Satan wants...just enough to keep us completely clueless...but God loves us so much that He won't stand for that. He desires to make us wise...and sometimes He knows we need to hear what He has to say so even when we aren't trying to listen He is loud and clear!!!

I would suggest trying to listen though...I am working on it!

And I need it...we need to hear our King...He has a lot of life to bring! And a lot of light to bring to our darkness!

Umbrellas and Bushes

I am eating Tofu at the moment and contemplating whether the eggs I ate this morning were stopping the process of a baby chicken coming into life or if the egg was just never fertilized...so forgive me if my post turns out a bit strange. Speaking of strange...to feel that no where is home is strange...I just went and visited Lynchburg where I have lived for the last 5 years but it no longer felt like home...in just a month it became a strange place to visit with beautiful friends there that I have missed. And then I journed back home to Nashville...but that doesn't feel like home either...it was strange to be caught up in the in between...but isn't that where we, sons and daughters of God, are? This is not our home...until we are fully restored into our rightful relationship with God nothing will ever feel like home. I want to embrace this truth. I do not want to feel perfectly at home until I am fully restored in Christ. Nashville feels more like home then anywhere else now because I feel I am getting closer to God and living amongst people who are the body of Christ to me...and yet I am not home. So what am I learning while I am away? Well, this past month has been pretty ridiculously overwhelming...in good and bad ways.

Things I am learning in no particular order:

1) God is very loving. He really does care and does demand life for us. He desires to get His hands messy in sanctification with us. He makes us worthy...beautiful...He makes us able to love.

2) I have a choice: I can choose to be in God/life or I can choose to be in Sin/Death. The things I hate...I have the choice to say no to. Simple...hard...but much easier then I originally ever believed.

3) Communication is good and beautiful. I am realizing I bought into a lie that my thoughts/feelings/opinions were not right nor were they safe to share...I forgive myself and others who helped teach this to me and prepare to embark on a new journey. To be known by someone is not to just let them in on your past but to let them in on your present. If something is eating at my mind or I feel a certain way I will no longer hide who I am or how I feel for fear that it will be shut down or rejected or that I will be rejected...I am who I am and I feel how I feel and with the help of God I hope to become more and more like Christ in those aspects...but I want to share who I am with those around me...not keep myself looking good on the outside but something else on the inside.

4) God gives us warning signs for a reason, and it is never okay to ignore them for the sake of your plans. If my car check engine light comes on I will not embark on a trip across the country...so why do I do the same in living terms?

5) I must learn to live for myself...not get ready for life with someone...but just get ready for life for me...for God in my life. I want a family...but as I reminded myself by reminding a friend. God sometimes has bigger plans then our momentary satisfaction of our requests.

6) God is always close...always waiting for me to turn to Him. It is never Him that keeps us apart...its is me...I want to change that and get closer and closer.

7) I need to learn how to interact with the guys around me...not needing affirmation...that was a poor lie that I have allowed myself to remain victimized under...but I do not have to be the victim anymore...and my past should not way lay to my present/future.

8) I am human. I have feelings. I am not perfect...I need to be okay with how I feel sometimes...work them out and give them to God...but it is time to stop being so hard on myself.

9) Seriously, stop being so hard on yourself.

10) I have opened so many doors into my life for Satan to swoop in and destroy...now is the time to start shutting those doors...I like Aslan lions...not devouring Satan lions.

11) I love babies...I want babies.

12) I want to hike the Appalachian Trail so badly and for some reason my heart is longing for it way more. I do not trust that God will open the door for this desire.

13) Never miss an opportunity for God to work in your life. He is always there...and always working in  crazy ways.

14) I love God.

15) I do not have to compare myself with others and consider myself a failure or a winner...I am a Meme. And not meant to be anything but a Meme...well a Natalie I suppose I am meant to be as well.

Renew your mind. Bodies as living sacrifices.
This is real...this is necessary...this is life abundant.

No, life here in Nashville is not all peachy keen. Somedays it sucks...my heart hurts a lot...I struggle with being who I want to be...or even wanting to be who I want to be. But...it is the closest thing to being out in the woods...I can breathe a little better here. And now that I am realizing that I need to be living my life and preparing for my life...with just me in in...just me and God...I feel I am going to be breathing a lot more now.

Things to do:

1) Find a place to live for free/relatively cheap for a month or two...in 18 days...(God, please help provide...really)

2) Find families/mentors.

3) Make 1 or 2 new friends apart from Grace Center/or people connected to everyone I know.

4) Work out more.

5) SPEND TIME WITH GOD WHERE I ALLOW HIM TO SPEAK AND WASH ME.

6) Find new places to explore no one has shown me.

7) Join rock climbing gym.

Well,
     I am very sleepy. And this post was not nearly what I wanted or meant it to sound like...but hi, I am Meme...and these are my thoughts as they pour out of my head. Tomorrow: I need to realize the importance of intimacy with my King. I need Him to be my love.


Good night dear friends.

I am Abraham.

God's love is so very alive and big.
He is beckoning us all the time.
He wants us.
All of us.
He wants our hearts.

I have found Him louder and louder asking for my heart. In all my immaturity I have turned to things in my impatience. A cigarette when I am stressed, a guy's affirmation when I am not feeling pretty enough or when I am longing for a husband but do not have one yet, a run to angry music when I am feeling completely overwhelmed, ice-cream when I am grumpy...the list goes on and on. My heart it wanders...I have never seen it so clearly until now. It's like God is allowing me to take a step outside of myself to see what I am doing. It is so humbling and somewhat painful to see how childish I have been...but God is not yelling at me...He is not angry with me...but He gently asks for my heart. He asks because He loves me. His heart aches for my best...He loves me so much. I cling to the cheap and counterfeit and all He wants is for me to have the best...the real deal. But I, like Abraham, do not have the patience to wait for God's timing to fulfill His promises...I come up with my own schemes to get what God is scheming for me...but my way sucks...it hurts me and it hurts others. God is overwhelming me...stepping closer and closer. When you open the door to God in your life He rushes in...He longs to invade every crevice. He wants everything. When you invite Him in...He comes...and He fills the room with love and grace...and He begins to show you the truth of your deception. What you thought was gold is fools gold. What you thought was a precious jewel is fake...what you have thought was the real deal of life is just a false reality that Satan wants to trap you in. God is freedom...He is life...but you must let Him in...let Him into the places that hurt the worst...He will sweep out the dirt...it will hurt...it will be the most humbling experience...but oh let Him in...He longs to love us and He longs to help us. I am being helped...my heart is hurting...and all the things I thought were helping heal it have been what has kept it from healing.

God reveals our darkness...He reveals our faults...but it is never to just leave us in brokenness...He says: "Come, give your heart to Me...wait, patiently, wait for Me...I am the perfect Father who will not give you a rock when you ask for bread."

If I am unwilling to give up the false/cheap things in my life how can God ever give me the beautiful/genuine thing.

I do not trust. I do not trust God and I am turning every which way looking for His promises...but I am not looking to Him.

Oh, I long to give God my heart...He is so precious and loving. How can I hold myself back from Him? He is the creator of rainy days, trees, clouds, mountains, and the people that I love. I want God to have my heart...I want Him in my heart...I want Him everywhere...OH GOD THAT YOU WOULD COME AND FIGHT FOR MY HEART...I NO LONGER WANT THE THINGS I HAVE RUN TO...THAT I HAVE CLUNG TO. COME AND FIGHT FOR ME...I CANNOT DO THIS ON MY OWN...COME HAVE MY HEART. I BEG OF YOU!!! Come, Daddy...please.

Unicorn Tattoos

"Those to look to Him are radiant, AND THEIR FACES SHALL NEVER BE ASHAMED." - Psalm 34:5.


   How to put into words the last few days is near impossible for me. To feel as if you have died...stayed dead for days and to be resuscitated and literally feeling the life returning to your body...surreal. Have you ever been Lazarus? I have. To be dead and yet God says oh heck no you are going to live again...man. Walking into the light is the one of the scariest things...we talked about the Prodigal Son parable in church on Monday (in church...feels good to say I am back in church)...I have walked as the rebel son on the dirt path back to my home. Feeling lower then the dirt I was treading on...ready to beg my place back as a slave...man, if you have never felt like that I am so glad for you...it is one of the hardest places to walk...in shame. Shame is a heavy dress to wear. Mix that with armor to protect yourself from hurt and you will find that you will feel tired beyond any hope of recovery or refreshment. But God doesn't work with those rules...He is the Father that stands waiting to lavish you with goodness. I have been lavished with love, grace, and kindness since I walked into the light here in Nashville. I was hoping to be tolerated and yet I have been shown true grace. God welcomed me home just ready to honour me...why God choses to honour me is something I will never truly understand...but I am trying to learn to accept it. I feel very raw right now...I want to be something but I am not that something yet. I want to be healed and whole...but I am hurt and lacking...I want to be a million steps ahead and I feel ashamed to be where I am...weak and needy. To be known is a scary thing...and yet to be honoured even in being known. I feel overwhelmed...tired...and helpless. But God has a season and a time for each of His children. Some are off to fight wars for Him, some are to heal the wounded, some are to stay and be quiet with Him...and for others/me...He asks that we be babies. To be someone who will not give anything in return. I have never learned to accept gifts, words, acts, etc without immediately feeling I must return the kindness. Babies...they are pretty selfish. They spit up on you, dirty their diapers, cry, snot on you, they just demand everything and yet have nothing to give in return...except to let you cuddle them...but even that is selfish...but guess what...I work with babies all day and even after all of the work and lack of return...I love them...I love it...I love to love those babies...and guess what??? GOD LOVES TO LOVE ME...US...He loves it. And right now all He wants from me is to be a horrible mess...cause He wants to reteach me life. I learned the wrong way...and the only way I can be reborn into His promise is to become a baby again. I am sorry if the next few months of my life I am not good at giving...but God is asking me to learn how to receive...and I have received the biggest and most undeserved welcome to my new place in life. But I am still in a it's all about me stage...and am learning that being in that stage may be completely allowed. Sometimes your life just changed forever. I miss my friends...I feel naked and venerable...so I will lie crying in God's arms...He's got the biggest and best rocking chair to hold you in! So yeah...let God in...step into the light...claim what you deserve and stop living the lie that you cannot have good...that's what I am working on...to be loved.

Darkness is so huge.

Death = Sin
Life = Jesus

If you only take from me this one small thing. Take this: take that sin is nothing to reckon with. It will steal every ounce of beauty, joy, peace, patience...and it will never leave you. It sits at your door like my roommates cat who is just waiting to dart into your room if you open the door just even a crack. When we are told to flee sin it was never just a suggestion or a mild command. When we were told to flee it was Jesus screaming to run from death. And yet, we...I...fail to see it as it truly is. It is a gunman, knifeman, arsonist, rapist, molester, etc standing right behind you...to murder you...to destroy the very ounce of life abundantly that God has promised us. It is there to kill you. If there was someone with a gun standing behind you and someone told you to flee from them you would never even for a second consider sticking around. I/We though, we turn and embrace sin...we love it as a friend, lover, protector, encourager...I have never until now understood the full magnitude of what sin is...in all its darkness and twisted systems...it is the most selfish and destructive thing. It is like taking acid and throwing it on your body. It is taking a knife and ripping to shreds the painting you just completed that was the most beautiful picture that was worth thousands of dollars that will bring income in to feed your family. It is death...it kills. I just want to get that into my head and to get that into the people around me. I have been so blind to the truth of God's word. I have been so ignorant. I have been deceived. And the worst part is that I let myself be deceived. I feel in love with the one thing that could rip my life apart and destroy. I not only welcomed that into my home...but the most twisted part of it all is that I got my home ready for it. Death it always steal your life if you let it...it knows no bounds, it knows no love, it knows no mercy. Death will always rob you of everything and anything no matter what. No matter how much you desire to be good, no matter how hard you want to change, no matter what the costs...death knows no consideration. It does not allow you to step forward without encroaching on your space. It only finds pleasure in aiding you in destroying everything that is good and wonderful and that is the true desire of God's heart to give you...and then it does not stay with you...it immediately leaves you. It does not care if you are hurting and naked and starving...it does not care if you have nothing anymore...it will not replace the good with bad...it just steals the good and leaves.

I realize the heaviness and somewhat morbidness of this post: but that's the point I want to understand. I do not know what it will take to get this fact into my head that it will stay and change my life...I want others to understand this. This is reality. This is truth. That sin is death that will destroy all things living and wonderful in your life if you allow it. And the only thing that can stop it is Jesus. It is the only thing. All the world of hoping in yourself, in others, in finding something better to cling to...and no matter how much you desire to be good and to leave death behind...it is only Jesus who can protect you...and you can not stray from Him at all. When you are with Jesus you are safe...you are protected...but if you leave the grasp of God...if you stray but a little...you are given a choice...given a command...but a choice to decide to follow or not.

I've never known the true depravity of sin...that instead of the roots of Jesus bringing life...and the most wonderful life ever...the weeds of death come and choke and destroy.

This is not a game...this is a war...where people get killed and maimed and there are traitors...this is war. This is life or death. There is no right or wrong...there is only life or death.


Bless the Lord for The Silver Chair by C.S. Lewis...God will not give up and He can and will bring back to life the dead. This is a war that will end. I will be on the winning side. But I do not want to be the lucky one brought back to life but refuse to breath again. I want to breath. I want to have God...I am scared cause I do not always choose life. I do not always choose God...but I have never been more confident in that He alone can save me...and if I gain nothing but God and lose all else either because of my own actions or the cost of discipleship...then I will have gained everything.

You see sin has one weakness. It can kill and destroy and ruin and take away...it can take all life from you...but what it cannot do is take Jesus away from you...and if my sin causes all else to be destroyed I still yet have hope...because God cannot be destroyed. Relationships can be destroyed, lives can be destroyed, families, finances,  etc...but God...He cannot. So no matter what sin/death cannot take God. And that is what I must rest in...please remain...please.

Foggy

I think I need to find myself on top of a mountain again. I would give anything to be on top of a mountain hearing the beautiful whisper of the Lord. …One time my friend and I followed this boy all the way across campus because his cologne smelled so good…creepy I know. I wish I pursued God like that…I hate that the longer you are around a certain smell you become so used to it that you don’t smell it anymore…I don’t want to become comfortable or used to my time with God that I forget to really be with Him.

I feel so inadequate right now…in just about everything. I’m not in the most enjoyable place in my life…in fact it sucks a lot…but God tells me to wait patiently…He tells me that I am to hope in the unseen…I am told that hope does not disappoint…He tells me to rejoice in Him.

So here it is…I have God. (Romans 8/Psalms 27:13-14). This is what I have. I may have a list of things that are weighing down on me, making me angry, or what not…I may not have tickets to go to Europe with three of the coolest freaking people ever…amount other things right now that I do not have…but what I do have is God. And He is more than enough…and for some time now He has been trying to show me that…and now things are being stripped away…He isn’t leaving me without the promise of good, but He is showing me what is best…which is Him. Psalm 9:7-12. He is my stronghold. I am claiming weakness and I am claiming brokenness…but I am claiming this because God can teach me now. I will not sugarcoat the valley I am in…but I will learn that God is enough for me if it kills me. I am tired…but more so from fighting then from the circumstances I find myself in. So I am off to find rest…and an easier yoke.

Conversations.

It’s like swimming when you can’t swim. You keep flailing around and sputtering. Coughing up water that you continually keep breathing in and flopping around wildly. Then God walks over and say, “Hey, are you tired yet? Or do you want to keep this up?” And instead of answering Him you keep on keeping on…getting nowhere while getting more and more exhausted. Then God comes back over and says, “You want to learn how to swim? There is an easier way to do all of this.” But you keep doing it your own way as it slowly kills you. You begin to go under as you thrash about crazily trying to grab onto something…anything and everything. God walks back over and yells, “STOP IT! LOOK AT ME!!!” You stop flailing and realize that you are in shallow water and can stand…and then God teaches you how to swim.

Gosh, I want God so bad. I want His help. I have tasted His freedom and His desire for us, but I feel so out of reach. Man, okay it’s like climbing a route on the rock wall and you keep reaching for the next hold but you just cannot reach it. I keep trying over and over but now my arms pumped out and I am exhausted. The thing is I know it is just a matter of taking a step back and resting and then trying it a different angle. My favourite feeling when climbing is when I discover that if I just shift my weight or twist my body I can finally reach that next hold that I thought was impossible to get. I feel like God is just longing to twist me and balance me. I want that. I want that so bad. I am discouraged to see how much I need to be helped in…but when you think about it…it makes sense. We live in a fallen sinful world…we are surrounded by fallen sinful people influencing us…and then worst of all we have ourselves lying and harming ourselves. There is a lot of straightening out to be done. I am ready for the fire to be refined. But I am scared. I don’t like what I see in my own weaknesses. I want to be strong and proud. But God wants me to be a child and humble.

Like Aslan God is good…but He doesn’t always feel safe…but He is the safest place to me…so if you are looking for me these days…I may not be found. I am hiding away in God and reading Narnia books…Safe and terrified.

I am finding it hard to be able to honestly say that I am asking for God…without inadvertently asking for something else along with it. God is jealous…He wants me…and will not bribe me to Him. He is going to claim me for Himself. Not claim me for someone else or something else. This is a hard thing to realize for me…but I don’t know God very well. He is something distant that loves me but that is something that seems to me as pain. God is painful…that is how I have known Him. I feel He is becoming the most beautiful lover that is not going to be willing to put up with me being in love with anyone but Him. It is like watching someone you love flirt with other people…it’s like a knife in your heart. Is that how God feels about us?

I am afraid, I think, to come back to an emotional relationship with God. It is easy when its facts…all relationships are easy when at a distance. For me the moment it becomes real…I get scared. There is too much to lose I think. I am afraid of losing things with God. I am afraid that what I am chasing after is not real…I am just afraid. I feel more vulnerable and fragile than ever. How did this happen? But I guess it’s a good thing. He says He is close…I know it’s true…but it is scary man!

The Floor.

Jesus says His yoke is light (Matt. 11:28). He says His commands are not burdensome (1 John 5:3). He says that He will renew my strength (Isaiah 40:31).

He is there. And in all the confusion, hurt, anger, worry, questions, and burdens of this life He is there. Oh He is waiting for you to simply cry out. To lie on your floor and ask Him to come. To come. To come. To just come.

He wants to take our hurt, He wants to take our anger, He wants to take our disappointment...He wants so much for us. He wants us. He wants me. He wants you. Just call out for Him. Give Him even just a second of your time. Just a small space in your heart. Give Him you and He will wrap you, He will heal you, He will come. He will stay.

He is the best. He is the love that will never leave you. You have simply to ask. He is my Friday night. And in the end of all He is the only thing that is worth my all. He is the rock that I will always find rest and security in.

Come to the floor...spend some time calling...He hears hearts and heals (Psalm 34:18).

God or Me?

Sometimes I find myself sitting in a cubicle…hating life. I was not made for a cubicle, but God knows this. He has plans, but right now this is where I am. I am no longer convinced that the argument of this is where God has me and this is what He wants for me right now. I am not sure of that. I am sure though that He is here with me…He may want me out of this cubicle the way I want out of the cubicle, but we are here together for just a little bit longer. I have been reminded time and time again in the last few months of God’s love and grace and desire for good in my life. It’s like a sneak peak took place of the presents God has for me…but right now patience is the gift that God is helping me receive. I am here now. And now God is just as big and calling for just as much joy. Whether I am hanging out with my friends Timbre and Mason who are so far away in Nashville/my friends here or in this cubicle answering phone calls…whether I am surrounded by people pursuing God or surrounded by people who are just doing what they do…the thing is that God and the joy I have in should not change. 

At work today I was just in such a rough, annoyed, and angry mood. Every phone call was preluded with me clenching my fists and saying I don't want to do this...and then I answered as pleasantly as I could...but I felt like I was being forced to lie...to pretend I was okay. I have never been very good at pretending...which is a good and bad thing I suppose.

Something happened though, I heard God saying, "Hey...I made you with uniqueness. I made you crazy. I made you funny. I made you with a joy in being in people's lives that doesn't make sense. I made you. I made you with a huge heart. I made you with such unique perspective and passions. I made you to not care about the world's opinions of what is cool. I made you to shine...and guess what you are doing? You are getting in the way of Me in you." That's a lot to hear from God when your in a cubicle...but what I realized is I am getting in the way of God's design and purpose. He may not want me in a cubicle but I am in a cubicle. If I am too focused on getting through the day then no one on the other end nor my coworkers will get to see God through me. 

God knows us. He loves us. He desires good for us. He desires life for us. The fact that the world is full of sin and cages locking us in is more painful to God then it is to us. But He wants the truth to shine through the darkness...no matter what the circumstances.

If Paul and Silas could sing praises to God locked in a jail cell after being beaten (Acts 16) then I can be singing and shining God's love and beauty in a cubicle cell. I know that I would rather be in a position of prison because I was spreading God's love and not because I work a job I hate...but I chose to get a Biblical Studies degree...I chose it because I wanted God. How easy it is to forget that this is for a season...but just because you are in a tough season does not mean you have the right to get in God's way.

So today I am choosing to let God through. To get out of the way of His design and purpose. So the people calling should see God in me just the way my friends I love get to see God in me. 

The truth though is that I need a lot of prayer please...this time in life is one of the hardest I have found myself in...but God is more obvious and loving then I have ever realized Him to be. 

I want to sing praises to God in my cubicle...I want to be Paul...no I want to be Jesus. He is here and He is so rich and full of love. I want people to meet Him and know Him...so why do I keep getting in the way?