This Is Really Long.

Where to even start with this one. I have not written in so long, honestly, because I have not known what to write. Things lately have been weird.

The Hillsong song, Desert Song has come alive to me lately, and I think it has been the catalyst to my evolving thought process. I don’t know if I have just not paid attention to the words, or if I had just not wanted to, but they are incredible. It walks through the different seasons in a believer’s life: the desert, the fire, the battle, and the harvest. And honestly, I would have to say that the last few years have felt like I was in the desert—unbelievably dry and seemingly unfruitful. But I’m starting to think these seasons do not have to be mutually exclusive. And I don’t know, maybe I am just crazy or overdramatic (well, I know both of those are true, lets be honest), but I feel like I have been dry, like in the desert, while being tested in the fire, all the while being ambushed in full contact, no rules apply battle. Where the heck is the harvest? It’s like I am wandering through the desert, my limbs flailing, engulfed in flames, and poison dipped arrows are being shot at me from multiple directions. Anytime I manage to catch a glimpse of what seems to be water, or even just a drop of anything that could be hopeful, it’s only a mirage.

Overwhelmed.

It’s weird too, because any normal Christian would use this as an opportunity to grow—to seek the Lord in desperation. Well, I do too, but not like I should. My relationship with Him has been very selfish, I am learning. Do I really love Him because of His sacrifice for me, and the fact that He loves me more than I could ever imagine, or do I want Him around because He offers me security and someone to cry to when I feel hurt or alone? It makes me sick just to think this, much more to actually acknowledge it and type it, but it’s like I want a relationship with Him, but only at my own convenience. I cry out to Him when I need Him, but don’t let who He is, His grace, love and mercy, actually transform me and grow me.

I don’t think this was always true for me though. I know it wasn’t. That’s what makes it even worse—to experience what it’s like to walk with Christ on a day-to-day and even minute-to-minute basis, and then to take it for granted and subconsciously (or consciously) let the significance of His love become less and less to me. It makes me hurt inside. I say and think to myself how much I want to really walk with Him like that again, I really do, but that’s not what my actions say.

This brings me to another aspect of this problem: how much of this crap can I blame on spiritual warfare? Is that just becoming a copout? Do I just say that so I can feel like it’s not my fault? Not that I am denying the presence of spiritual warfare, not at all, but what I am saying is that maybe I have used that so much that it has almost become an excuse to not try—to just sit in complacency, completely aware that we are in the middle of a battle, but walking around waving a white flag in the air.

I guess I am now calling into question what I am doing. I definitely do not feel that I am really letting Christ have control of who I am. I want to, I really do. I was listening to a message by Eddie Rasnake on a Woodland Park podcast and he got into all this stuff about free will verses predestination, but with more than just regards to eternity. It was more about now. He talked about how the potter and clay analogy are kind of cliché, but are still so powerful. He brought in the verse from Romans about how we are supposed to present ourselves as living sacrifices. The irony in that, though, is that we can present ourselves on the altar, or on the potter’s wheel, yet at any time are free to climb down. God wants to mold us, to use us for His glory, but He allows us freedom to choose that. He allows us to change our minds and go our own way. Which is kind of frustrating to me. Sometimes I really just wish He would dress me up in a straight jacket, strap me down to the altar and just mold me into whatever the heck He wants. I don’t feel strong enough to submit to His will on my own. I guess this shows my lack of Spiritual maturity.

Here’s the kicker, the breaking point. We’re studying Philippians at Emmaus and in our depth/core groups and it’s awesome. Paul writes in 3 that we are to “count our gains as loss for the sake of Christ.” We are to “forget what lies behind and strain forward to what lies ahead…press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus. These together, in context, seem to be saying be humble about the good you have done because in light of Christ’s sacrifice, it’s just rubbish. And also, let go of the crap you’ve done. Admit that you were wrong—that you’ve sinned—accept the forgiveness that Christ already gave you back when you first accepted it, and move on. I think that I keep finding myself somewhere on either side of these extremes.

Confused? Me too. When I catch myself doing some good stuff, or get some compliments about anything, I like to swim in it. Pride floods my mind. I know this is wrong, and as soon as I catch it, I find myself on the other side of the extreme. I know I was wrong in my pride, and I know was wrong for letting that pride lead me into more sin and distance me even more from God. As a result, I feel bad that I have not let Christ be in charge of my life. I sink into self pity and self loathing. I don’t feel like I am worthy to walk forgiven. I need to punish myself so that I can truly be remorseful—not true. God’s grace has covered everything. I have no right to hang onto anything. In doing that, I am saying that His grace is not sufficient for me.

This leads me to the word I hate most right now. A word that makes me feel most overwhelmed—BALANCE. I am called to “count my gains as loss…forget [the crap that] lies behind and press on toward to goal.” I need to climb back onto the altar, strap myself in, and take some Dramamine because I am about to be spun around on the potter’s wheel.

God tells us that “if we ask anything according to His will, He hears us. And if we know that He hears us in whatever we ask, we know that we have the requests that we ask of Him.” I am asking, according to that promise, that He help me learn to submit to what He wants for me by letting go of the control that I really want to have. I am asking that He teach me what it really looks like to walk by faith in the desert, fire, battle and harvest (when it comes) by giving Him complete control. And I am asking that He use anyone who reads this to help hold me accountable. I’m serious too. Please talk to me about this. For real.

And I will bring praise
I will bring praise
No weapon forged against me shall remain

I will rejoice
I will declare
God is my victory and He is here

Fall Retreat Funness

This post is way too long.

   This weekend was unbelievably fun. We had our Emmaus fall retreat, and I think that I, even though the oldest after my boss, acted like the biggest kid there. I played so hard and had so much fun.
First of all, I had the opportunity to introduce students to the wonderfulness that comes in a deck of cards called Dutch Blitz. This game will never not be fun. However, I was slightly disappointed with my performance, because some of the people I taught started to beat me by the end of the retreat…I’ll have to work on this.
   So Saturday happened, and the child in me exploded through the walls of normalcy that try to contain me. It reminded me of The Nutty Professor where Buddy (the skinny version of Professor Klumps) is battling Prof. Klumps for control of his body. Weird analogy, but that’s what it was like! I tried to keep composure and maturity at first, but then I just let it go, and boy did I have fun!
   I played frisbee first. This was interesting. First off, after playing league and having organization on the field, watching 20 people run around in circles, all competing for the disk, feels incredibly chaotic. It reminded me of church Frisbee—fun, but completely insane, and normally only the boys get the disk more than twice. *funny/humbling moment while playing=immediately after I told my team that we needed to slow down and try to make smarter throws (because we kept losing the disk), I got the disk and tried to throw it to someone, but instead threw a line drive to the ground…oops.
   Right after Frisbee, the group kind of spread out, but I stayed and played football with the guys (of course, and I have battle wounds to prove my intensity). So fun; however, I was reminded that I am not good at all. My bbffl (boy bffl), Danny Chu, was qb for my team, and he was determined to get me the ball. Meaning, after 900 great throws but really bad catching attempts, he didn’t give up on me—true friend. I finally did get a couple catches in, but I estimate the catch drop ratio to be about 3:20. Yeah, not good.
   Ok this next part had to be one of my highlights. So we were at a camp for this retreat, and were sharing the space with a church that was having a family retreat. Right after our football game, the families came up to the field for a wiffle ball game. This was quite possibly the cutest/funniest thing I have watched in a long time—I mean, I really can’t wait until I get to go to my kids’ t-ball games. Most of the kids were from 2-6 years old, and as you can imagine, they still haven’t quite figured out how their body’s move…oh my. One of my favorites was when this 2 year old little boy (Conner) came up to home plate to bat. So prec! He walked up, stood on the base, kicked some dirt, I think he spat too, then bent his knees, held the bat behind his head and looked at the pitcher, because clearly he was ready to hit! Well after he tried, and didn’t quite get it, he still decided he needed to run around the bases anyway—an obvious conclusion.  Well somewhere between third and home, Conner, while running at full two year old speed, and another little kiddo being distracted by something in the distance collided! They were both ok, but Conner, still determined to make it to home plate, while being slightly disoriented from the collision, pushed the interfering ADD kid out of the way and staggered to home. Remember, he was two. Talk about determination. Too cute.  My second most favorite moment from this game was Danny. Absolutely ridiculous—nothing out of the ordinary for him. He was the loudest fan out there. Any kid who ran by, he obnoxiously cheered for—even to the point of cheering this poor little boy to home plate when clearly, the little guy was not going to make it without getting out. And he did get out, then he cried…good job, Chu.
   So after all this greatness, I thought the day was surely winding down…well, no. After getting semi cleaned up, no shower of course, I headed down from the cabins with a few others. Then I remembered some people were playing sand volleyball! Some of you know how not gifted at volleyball I am. Well, I wasn’t as bad as usual, but I definitely demonstrated my struggle with this sport—still super fun though.
   The sugar on top of this fun, fun, wonderful day was this game called murder ball. Sounds dangerous, because it was! This game is like a deadly version of dodge ball. When I walked into the gym where everyone was playing, there was a curtain that divided the room, so I couldn’t see what was going on on the other side. All I could hear was what sounded like missiles launching across the room and violently exploding on the opposite wall. My life flashed before my ears. Terrified at what I might find, I peered through the crack of the curtain and was amazed. There were missiles being launched across the room—red, plastic coated, foam missiles, launched from deceptively small men, flying at the speed of light and punching their way into the lined wall, creating a sound that made you tremble at the idea of interfering with its course.

So I did what anyone would do, I joined the game. Best decision ever. So fun.

So now I can’t move due to the soreness, but it was all so worth it.

New Kinds of Friends

I feel like the Lord has blessed me so much—beyond anything I could have ever imagined. Throughout my life, God has pushed so many unbelievable people into my bubble; it’s been stretched, shared, emptied, and even popped a couples times. I have traveled to random place, met random people that I could never forget, been in different schools, churches, activities, etc. I’ve had memories that I thought unsurpassable. Times when I laughed so hard I cried and maybe even peed my pants a little. However, one thing has always been consistent in all of my relationships. No matter how great they are, no matter how much fun we have together, how great or deep our conversations have been, they have always ended. And I don’t mean that I’ve had a bazillion “falling outs,” I just mean that they took their natural course of fun, and then for whatever reason, ended. People moved away, interests changed, boyfriends happened, life took a different direction. Whatever it was, all of my past friendships have in some way come to a close.There are always those exceptions though—the people that I don’t keep up with, but whenever we’re in the same city, we make it a point to visit. We're still friends, but after those visits we just go back to our own lives and the occasional facebook stalking of each other, but not much more.

I’ve always been a floater. Each year of my life, I feel like, has been so diverse because I have always had a new group of friends—each group being characteristic of my life stage or interests of the time. The tomboy stage possessed most years of grade school, of course, with the exception of my premature identity crisis when I decided that I was going to be a ballerina…no one ever wants to see that version of The Nutcracker. Middle school was, well just like any one expects middle school to be—horrible, awkward and confusing. I hung out with the insecure girls who didn’t fit in with the popular crowd (but wanted to), weren’t on a sports team, and had braces with left over pieces of lunch and lime green rubber bands stuck throughout them. I hung out with the band kids in high school. We were exclusive too. Band kids only hung out with other band kids. Basically we were like a marching musical cult. College was interesting. Each year brought about new people as well. There were House people, frisbee people, church people, class people, camp people, boys, and then the randoms, of course. These were all great, but they all took the normal course that a friendship would, and then just kind of went in different directions. Sometimes I would really try to not let that happen. I would try really hard for a while, anyways, but they would always just kind of end.

This weekend, though, I had a revelation. God is incredible. Not that I didn’t already know that, but He really showed me another aspect of His incredibleness. He really cares about the little things in our lives. He wants what’s best for us—to see us in fellowship with each other and motivating each other to grow in him. I have definitely seen my share of incredible people, and so many of them have deeply impacted who I am now, but they’ve been influences that have done their job and then moved on. The cool part, the thing that I have been getting at this whole post, is that I think God has given me friends that I think I’ll have for the rest of my life. Now I know we (girls) talked like this when we were in high school—talked about how were going to live on the same street when we grew up, raise our kids together and be friends until we died. At least I did, anyways. But this time, it’s for real.

My friends now are irreplaceable. We are so different, so quirky. We get on each other’s nerves, argue, and talk about everything in the world. We encourage each other, laugh together and cry sometimes too. It’s incredible.

I remember praying all throughout my first senior year that the Lord would give me one really great Christian girl friend. Well, how cool is he? He not only gave me one, He gave me four.

Once again, He amazes me.

Deep Fried Oreos and a Bald Spot.

I went to the Dixie Classic Fair last Wednesday night, and it was like nothing I have ever seen before. I felt like I was walking through the set of a classic horror movie. Everywhere you turn there was a human anomaly, those weird bent mirrors that make you look like you're 500lbs., and all the fried things you could imagine. And of course, my curiosity got the best of me, because I tried the deep fried oreos--might as well have chugged a bottle of oil. I don't really recommend them :)
ALSO, on a more random note, I realized this past weekend that I am developing a bald spot! I think it's been there for a while too...and no one has told me! I have always parted my hair to my left. Well apparently, from frequent partage, I suppose, that part of my head has decided to stop producing genuine locks, and gone on strike. There are only some baby fuzzies that are brave enough to grace the day. Well, after this realization, and embarrassment from walking around displaying my naked scalp, I decided to take action. I parted my hair the other way. This did not work. Unbridled pony to the fullest, there was a complete objection from all participants. Awkward strands kept popping out and random pieces made a home right in front of my eyes--my whole face was thrown off balance. Not pretty. I fought against the prevailing naked-side part for two days. They were a long, hard, and demoralizing two days. I surrendered. Fortunately though, we did reach a compromise. Clearly, opposite parting was not going to work, but I was most definitely not going to continue sporting the naked head look. A mild mom-looking side part was developed. The same side was kept, but only enough to avoid the "butt crack" center part, while still covering the exposed area. I think this will be workable...at least until the frequent partage here takes it's toll, but that will be a conflict for another day.

Great Funness!

So how about this beautiful weather??? I am loving it. I feel like I'm a girl again. Something about the cold weather knocks the tomboy out of me and makes me want to put on blush and a cute scarf. I even wore heels yesterday--I probably wasn't all that graceful, but I loved it:)

So here is my list of great fun things:

1. As stated before, the slowly declining temperature and cute, weather appropriate, girly clothing.

2.  Wonderful deals! I found a thrift store here that has a whole entire corner of their store dedicated to gently used, name brand clothing....oh my goodness gracious....I spent way too much time and a little too much money there. Most of the people here, when I mentioned it to them, didn't even know what store I was talking about. What a hidden treasure:)

3. Not this weekend, but the next, Elisa, Meg, Jodie, and Nat (hopefully, I haven't heard the final word on her) are coming to visit, and I am so completely excited!

4. I got to sing this past week with two guys here @Wake Forest. It was so fun! I have really missed getting to be involved with music here, so that was great to have an opportunity. It was weird though, because I have never sang in a non worship setting (minus that one time at the Hub benefiting the DR trip). I didn't really know how to hold myself....how dumb does that sound??? It's true though, I had never thought about that, but it's completely different. All of a sudden you aren't singing to Jesus, you're singing words about being in love and stuff...I wasn't sure what to do with my hands and who to look at....haha

5. As a result of #4, I have music on the brain again. I want to do more with it. I think I might try to pick up the guitar again and give the whole sing-and-play-at-the-same-time thing another try. I want to start writing again too. I miss it. Once again, this seems to be consistently be a seasonal thing! As soon as the weather starts to cool down, I always seem to do more with my music--it's like it becomes a new hobby every year. What does this say about me??? I feel like I am a hobby schizophrenic. What I am interested in always seems to be governed by the season...is that weird?

6. I am coming to Chatt the 1st weekend in November with some girls from Emmaus. Anyone who is nearby should come play:)

The first!!!! How momentous:)

What? I am blogging, and I'm not doing it for work and getting paid? Never thought I would see the day when I did this on my own accord:) However, I am, and it's all because I read Meg's. I enjoyed reading hers, so figured this could be a good way to keep people who are interested posted on what is happenin' here in the big W-S. So, I'm giving it a try.
I already feel weird!
I don't know how often I will write, or if there will even be another after this...haha. If there is, however, I'm thinking the most action will happen on the week days when I am sitting here at the computer, really really trying to actually be productive, but it just ain't happening. And no worries, because this seems to be happening a lot lately! So here's to lots and lots of distraction and procrastination!
Again soon!