Top Rope

God is so many things. He works in so many ways. I am in awe of who He is. I do not understand how in so much love He can humble me to my knees.

I have been doing a lot of rock climbing lately. I have counted now 19 blisters. I have thought it was just rock climbing I have been up to, but I think I learned today that I have been doing a lot of life climbing too.

My heart hurts. It may have blisters forming. But like the blisters on my hands when they heal they will make my hands stronger. Sometimes I think that our hearts get blisters too so that they can be stronger too.

I have been top rope climbing with God the last few weeks…heck, my whole life. I just realized today that I have been living the last few weeks in shame and defeat. I feel I have slipped from my solid foothold. My hands grew tired and my legs gave out. In my fall, I have listened to Satan telling me that I have fallen straight back to where I was a few months and years ago. Today though, God reminded me that He is belaying me. When you have a good belay partner like God even when, and there will be a when, you fall you find yourself securely held exactly where you are. Like the greatest safety net, God’s belaying will not let you fall to where you once were. All you have to do is shake your arms out, chalk up, and you find yourself climbing right where you left off when you fell. And if your arms, hands, heart, mind, legs, etc. are too tired to jump right back onto the wall of life climbing, the thing is God is never going to drop you or grow tired of holding you. You can take a break…stop your mind from spinning, listen to God, get Satan out of your head, get suited up in the armour of God, etc. My friend has been trying to teach me how to be able to shake my arms off to keep them from locking up from getting too pumped while climbing. He wants me to learn to rest so I can keep going. Funny how God is working in the same way.

I am planning on taking a few days to “shake it out”. God is not afraid of my need to rest. He has been prepared for it from day one with me. He is so strong and can hold me for a very long time…like forever! We do not live under the condemnation of Satan but the freedom of Christ. Romans 8!!!

Sometimes I am always moved to tears how much God loves me. He is so desperate for me to see me as He sees me. So I am trying to put on some God eyes glasses and tell Satan to shut the….up! Every time I climb a little bit higher I cannot go back…I cannot fall down with God holding me. God is trying to get me to see this…because when I figure it out I will be so back on that wall to keep climbing. The longer I listen to Satan telling me that I am no better or more healed then I was a few months ago then I will just sit defeated. God will hold me while I sit, but He wants abundant life for me. He wants me to keep climbing.

Man though, this route I am climbing right now is so hard. It’s tricky, it’s tiresome, it’s painful, but…God’s got this. I just got to trust Him and keep climbing!

Just a normal Thursday evening for me: sitting at work, listening to Damien Jurado, and blogging.

And that makes me think: when you climb a lot sometimes you get tired and just over wiped. You literally need a day or two to just rest and let your blisters heal. And man, I have been on the go doing some crazy things and scheming up a storm the last few months. I am tired…I need to hang.

And I need a new job where people don’t tell me I am confusing, deceptive, bad at customer service, and a not a Christian…this might help as well.

!!!!SHAKIN’ IT OUT WITH GOD!!!!

Wrecked.

God just destroyed me with His love and nearness. It says in the Word that God is near to the brokenhearted. I have been brought to my knees in praise by some words a brother-in-Christ just shared with me that God wanted him to give me! It had to do with Isaiah 62:1-5...it is overwhelming to be loved by God and to be His bride. To know that He rejoices in me. Because He rejoices in me I want so badly to not be full of pride. I do not want to ever think I have reached the pinnacle. I desperately want to display Christ and let Him shine through me in every second and in every way. I must cling to Him. Oh, man! This journey through the desert with Jesus just turned into a dance party in the rain with Him. LOVE IT!

Pray for me, challenge me, and rejoice in the Lord with me!!!

kkhadfhahgf

I am not God. I cannot and should not thwart His plans for good. I want to die to self. Help me God. Please.

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.