Waiting on the Lord.


I am so blessed. I have a God that loves me dearly. Fills me with wisdom and gives me friends who push me to Him and a family who believes. This week I have tried not to scheme. Tried not to figure out my next step, but revel in the Lord. It has proven to be a rather hard journey to be honest. I am struggling so much with the balance between Sprit and Truth; feeling and head knowledge. I am a wild and free spirited. I have never lived well in a box, but sometimes boxes are freedom from a world of darkness. My head is reeling and my heart is aching. Where is God? Here. Near. Holding me.

“Take the world and give me Jesus” I am trying to realize the weight of this cry.

I am just trying to live. I am trying to be faithful. It is so simple and yet so complicated!

Today God hung out with me in a cement construction tube. I am very grateful to have a God who calls me to such beautiful times with Him.

Proverbs 16:1-3…

So after a week of trying to wait on God what I am realizing is that I am bad at it. Hahaha. And that is okay, God is very patient. I am full of contradiction, and it's funny because I have been seeing how crazy God works. He is just insane in the best of ways. The way He uses wisdom to dumbfound the wise and how He loves me and killed His Son for me and how He asks us to be both full of wisdom but to be childlike to. He is not contradicting Himself. I believe He is romancing me. He is just leading me on some beautiful paths. I just am trying to learn how to just really trust Him. He calls us to some crazy hard stuff, but He is the one doing the hard stuff in me.

I applied to jobs to Nashville today.

I realized that I am a wreck today and don't know what I want with God and church.

Today...I am going to go outside and sit on my porch and be with God.

Proverbs 27:14

Remember that game you crank the bar and the arrow spins?

Psalms 27:14 - "Wait for the Lord; be strong, and let your heart take courage; wait for the Lord!"

I journeyed on the road of feeling like I had all the answers. I journeyed on the road of not caring what the answers were. I am not journeying a road of wanting to know the answers but being at a total loss as to how to approach Truth and Spirit. A lifetime of emotional experiences was not the answer. A degree in Biblical Studies was not the answer. I am wanting movement but afraid to move. So perhaps for just sometime I will be still. When you are at a fork in the road and do not know where to go perhaps you should find yourself under a beautiful tree eating an apple and just waiting for sometime. Gandalf did it in the mines of Moria when he did not know the way he sat and smoked and thought. Well, I will not smoke, but I will sit and think and wait.

Random thoughts:

Under your mighty wings I will stand.

Living the abundant life you have given.

With every breath, breathing out my sin.

And breathing in Your righteousness.

My scheming has left me spinning.

Like a toy too tightly wound.

I do not pretend to have the answers.

I do not know how to stop.

But I will promise to learn.

To learn to wait.

I am very grateful. Thankful for friends. Thankful for all the good things that are waiting...that are now.

Trampolines/Trucks

Rejoice, and again I say rejoice.

I feel so filled and so full of laughter and brightness. The body of Christ is such a gift. I can't believe God loves me so much to have brought me to a place where I can truly enjoy some wonderful time with Him and shared worship with friends. To live in Christ is to worship the Lord. I want to live so big and so full of worship. I love that we are all designed so uniquely. That the timeliness of lessons learned and words spoken have such weight. I am reminded very much of II Cor. 4:16-18, our lives are being destroyed outwardly but inwardly we are being renewed day by day. I feel this is never been so present and real as before. I want to see the unseen as what I can only focus on.

Sometimes you find yourself in a desert driving in a armored water truck with Jesus. It is so hard to know what to do sometimes. I never want to live in what I want if it is not what God wants. I never want to presume that I know what the right thing is so confidently that I ignore seeking God fully. God desires abundant life under His might wings...not abundant life outside of His wings. Although I would say that abundant life outside of His shadow does not exist. It is just full of cold rain without layers of coats to keep you warm.

There is a way to live life where you can confidently know that if you fall down you are safe because God set up a huge trampoline under you and it makes you bounce back up higher and with more life than before. I intend to have some crazy fun with God on His trampoline. Remember when God said He was calling us to a feast? I am hoping this time in my life will be me picnicking with God on a trampoline in the sunshine and then dancing in the rain with Him when the storms come.

I hope I am finding myself in a dark room full of walls. A maze if you will, in which I have nothing but God to push me where He wants me. I do not want anything apart from God. It is very hard to be willing to admit what you want or think is best may not be...but when you surrender what your holding too tightly in your hand to God you find that God now has room to take hold of your hand.

I don't know about you but I would much rather hold God's hand than hold onto anything or anyone else.

Where am I? I am being shown that God calls us to live an abundant life...but we have to actually live it.

James 2:14-26: Faith without deeds is dead...I am so tired of death. I desire life and I am going to run after it...I want my friends and family by my side. I am realizing so much that we cannot simply want something. We cannot talk with excitement at the prospect of life but life in a way that invites death. Pray for us...pray for life...pray for Church as it was meant. It can happen. Life can happen here in Lynchburg...and I must lay my desire for Nashville aside for now...because I desire life first and foremost. Where does my life take me?! I know what I think and what I want...but I am going to take sometime in a truck with God. Guess we will just have to find out where He decides to take that truck!

What is happening right now: My friend at work is making fun of me saying that I am probably blogging about wanting to be a hippie, be poor, and dirty. (The best part is that she may not know just how spot on she is ;p)

Hiding in Tents

Tonight I watched a scary movie...I am hiding in my tent now.

I am super thankful that God provides us safe places. Things that restore us and help us feel strong.

I had a tent that fit over my mattress as a kid. I kept it on there year round. I was always afraid as a kid. It was always safe in my tent. If I couldn't see something. It didn't exist and therefore could not get me.

Sometimes I wish I could still be in a tent. But I suppose part of God's beauty to me is that He wants me so desperately He will not let me remain hidden. I am a small child, constantly jumping from one hiding space to the next. God is playing seek.

I promised to share my journey. Well, journeys are not always so scenic. I suppose if asked I would have to say I am going down hill. I hate hiking down hill. As much as hiking uphill sucks it feels rewarding, downhill just is downright awkward. Your feet twist and stumble and you feel kinda like your legs are going to fall out and you will fall flat on your face. But going downhill is just as much a part of the journey as going uphill or on the flat parts of trails.

My heart is heavy. I've never known the urgency and importance in communication and honesty as I know it now. Every fiber of my being screams for it. Desires it. And will fight for it.

Where am I? Where are my friends. We are on a mountain top. And we made it rain and that rain caused clouds that are getting in the way of the beautiful view that God wants us to see and love and experience. The view is there. God desperately wants us to have it and cherish it. But our life is out of balance. It has called for a new way of life.

God has called us to be new wine. I see it, I can feel it and taste it...but we are trying to remain in old wine skins. God wants us to be new wine and in new wine skins.

Oh please pray for me, pray for my Family.

I do not want to wish for something new until the old has been conquered.

I wonder if this is the time where all my journeying returns back to whether I will continue on...alone or not. I want to be alone in God and with others in God. I am thankful to be here. I am not afraid, but I am desperate to not lose what is abundant and right.

Tents...in bed...collapsing. God and I get to laugh together. It's a lot of fun!

Try it.

Narnia

Fortress. That word makes me think of an island with a stone castle surrounded by breaking waves crashing on sharp rocks. It is dark and cold, it means some serious business. And that is God for me right now, my fortress. It’s just that my heart a bit like glass that is cracking. I am overwhelmed by how much I love my friends, old and new. It’s just that I keep saying goodbye to three of my most beloved friends. It’s like finding people that you just get and they get you and they share in Christ’s love with you big time, but you keep leaving them behind…and then going to work.

But here is the thing that is really important to realize. These people are my roots. But they are not my rain (God), my sun (Jesus), and my dirt (the Holy Spirit). They are not my fortress; they are the people inside the fortress with me.

I am airing on the border of feeling like I need to be reminded that God is behind it all. God was the one to make these people, put them into my life, and perhaps is bringing us to a point where we don’t have to keep saying goodbye. But it is God doing it! He is the one that I should be running to and remaining strong in. I do not want to make people my fortress. People are frail, they are hurting, they are searching, and they cannot be what I want them to be. They will forget me, they will move, they will date/marry, they will get irritated with me, they will be human. God is not human. He is God. He will never forget, move, become more attached to someone else, get annoyed, etc. I want to bask in God with my Family, not bask in my Family with God.

Perhaps. I am a cynic tonight. Tired and feeling a bit too broken from separation. Perhaps this is not bad, and does not mean that I am too attached to people than God.

I admit I do not know what sadness looks like in being kept by God. I am no less held then last week, but I am not allowing the arms around me to be enough.

I think I just realized that when we cling to something other than God we remain stranded while a great wave rushes past, but when you cling to God you realize that God is the wave and you’re in for the ride of your life.

When you cling to God, the wave, will take you to the best of lands. He takes you exactly where you are supposed to be. It beats clinging to the wrong pier that keeps you grounded and missing out on the best adventures of life!

I don’t know about you but I am about to cling to some serious God and ride the best wave ever…come get swept away with me, yeah?!

Construction

In Harry Potter there is a scene in which a house is run down with there is glass and broken furniture everywhere…and then the house is magically restored and you see all the pieces of glass reconnect and the furniture is put back together. The house goes from dark and gloomy and chaotic, to warm, beautiful and bright.

I feel that was my last night. I saw all these small lessons and steps that I have taken and that God has brought about in my life over the last 6 months all come together in this beautiful story. From learning to have to communicate and be honest, to realizing that I need to slow down enough to know when I am supposed to be somewhere and not to be everywhere.

In humourous ways God has been moving to. Bringing my relationship with a dear friend whom I have been disagreeing with everything for the last year back together based off of agreeing on the goodness of two friends (Timbre and Mason) whom my friend has never actually met. I know that doesn’t make sense but trust me on this on God is crazy wicked beautiful!

I have been feeling super held. And have been called to stand up, to speak when I do not like speaking, to be honest when it is the scariest thing in the world to me. God is calling me to be big, but I feel so small. And He is calling me to step forward.

You know how in plays there are the actors and then there are the stage hands. I like being a stage hand. You are behind the curtain, dressed in black and only stop on the stage when the lights are out to arrange the scenery. I feel like God is making me dress up and walk to the front of the stage in front of a huge audience and becoming a key member in His play. I would say I am angry at God but all I can do is laugh. He is providing me lines, awesome supporting characters, memory, calmness, etc. I am not a puppet mind you, but an active and willing participant. Although I must admit I do not remember ever auditioning for this!

I guess what I am learning is be careful when you pray…because God hears…and moves. HAHAH and it is incredible!

I am dancing with God right now. He is showing me how to hold my body up, extend my arms, tilt my head, move my feet, and count the music. It is really awesome to dance with God.

It’s really cool too because my goal in previous weeks was to dance with God.

My heart, mind, and soul are really confused right now, because the truth is I want to run so far away from what is happening and what I am being told to stand up and do. It is uncomfortable, tiring, strange, and overwhelming, but the funny thing is every fiber of my being, everything about who I am and how I have been made is so drawn to step up, step forward, and walk right into the thick of war. I am confusingly convinced that that war is the only place that I can be to find peace and knowledge.

I am rather excited, I feel like a Hobbit leaving the Shire. Scared, clueless, but bold and determined. No one ever wants to leave the Shire, but I like Bilbo and Frodo…seem to have an itching for something more.

Never has the passage concerning putting on the armour of God been so real, and so urgent.

Oh, well that was easy.

God is so wonderfully awesome and beautiful and deserves more praise than I will ever know to give or will give.

Life has been quite crazy. Thanksgiving happened and time with family was great but a lot of tough stuff was talked through and will leave me processing for quite sometime. I have been in this place where my heart has been torn between two places. Lynchburg and Nashville...and now I have come to this place where my heart may break regardless of which route I choose. Saying goodbye is never easy.

I feel Nashville will be a place of extreme growth, healing, and joy. Lynchburg is a place of challenges and hard work....this is not bad by any means. I love Lynchburg and all the people here and all the things God is doing and wants to do.

Nashville would be a tremendous blessing, a gift if you will....a rest. Not that Nashville will not have its challenges and it too will be hard work but I think in a much different way. Nashville has already proven to be hard work in that there have been and will be many tough conversations to be had. Lynchburg...it is not always easy to be here...but God is faithful and will be faithful always. He is moving in huge ways but it feels very hard everyday to be a part of it.

Do I chose rest or work? Work or play? Neither will be a bad place to choose, both will be good.

Is there a good, and a better? I believe there is. I believe to stay in Lynchburg would be good. But I believe also that to move to Nashville for a period of a year at least will be best.

I have a year to figure this out...please pray for me.

Things have been hard, but I learned tonight what is easy:

Being filled with God! The last few days have been super tough for me with conversations that were full of pain and honesty, and I have been wrestling through the process of moving or staying. I have felt so overwhelmed and sad, truly sad, for the first time in quite a while.

Tonight I left to go for a road trip to Roanoke. Just me, God, and prayer. I left feeling so broken and then I just prayed. I just asked God to fill me. Plain, simple, honest. I asked God to show Himself as real. Nothing has changed. I am still faced with a decision. I am still faced with living in a world that is full of shit because it is full of darkness. But here I stand. Alive, full of abundant life, why? Because God is Savior, King, Father, Lover, Friend, and so faithful to His promise of love.

I am loved. WE are loved.

I have been close with God recently in a way I have never been, but I was not giving Him the chance to fill me and was slipping away from Him. He went no where but closer to me...I am learning how quickly life goes crazy when I am not running to God.

Thankfully I do not have to be an elite athlete to catch God...just a slow, stumbling, asthmatic jogger. He just calls us to run with endurance...and He sustains.

P.S. Status is currently 95% or higher in definitely moving to Nashville.