Last Glimpse: 2013

It's become a tradition for me to sit down near December's end and go through all of my prayer journals for that past year. It's an incredible time to remember, of seeing with a different vantage point the terrain that Jesus has led me through. It's memorable, painful, hopeful. It's a gift to be able to track some of the trails of the year, to see some of the ways they wind into each other, as I spot patterns, themes.

I have 11 pages of notes I made from the year. It was a wild one. 

I was reading through part of James 1 Sunday night, and it interprets me. It interprets this rickety 2013 of a year. 

I read it slow.

"Count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds,

for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness.

And let steadfastness have its full effect, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing." (1:2-4)

From the get go, even before spring semester began, I got my first test. I didn't see it as a test of faith. {it was} I saw it as a test of whether or not He should have faith in me. {it most definitely wasn't}

The beginning of 2013 was full of a lot of brokenness, tears, attempts to regain my balance and breath. I was so afraid I had failed the Lord that I neglected my faith in Him. I was so afraid when I couldn't see Him working in my life, when I couldn't feel His love.

Praise the Lord for His patience, for the way He grows us in the midst of the pain, for the way that He tends to our faith, even when we're so incapable of growing it ourselves.

It took a long time for me to become a little stronger, to trust that He is the true Redeemer, that He has my little, weak life in His hands, that He is the One holding me up, definitely NOT the other way around. I pray, oh how hard I pray in this moment that the progress we made together will result in a steadfastness, a more sturdy resolve that will outlast the potentially more painful seasons ahead. I am beginning to trust Him more. I have seen His goodness. I have seen His redemption. I have seen His Light in the darkness. I will follow Jesus. :) It's so hard . . . but it's so worth it!!! :)

2013 was a year of answered prayer . . . 

The Lord brought Jessica into my life, a woman who has become one of my closest friends, who understands a conservative background, who encourages me to really follow Jesus. I prayed for a friend in January who could help me walk through some of my questions. Praise JESUS! He answered with one of the most wondrous gifts of a friend! :)

Jesus provided clarity and affirmation for decisions I didn't understand in the making. Holy, holy, holy. 

Sweet friend prayed for peace for me when I was desperate for it (her not knowing this), and my pastor preached a sermon on peace that very day in a way that kept me breathing. Grace.

Being able to get most of the paint I spilled at the Radiator Shop out of the carpet was also a big answer! Ha! Mercy, there were so many times this year when God was so gracious to go behind me and clean up my many messes. We really do love a very good King!

2013 was a year of blessing, even in the painful moments. Three of my friends came down to my house to visit me, home became a place of refuge and joy and rest, one of my profs treated me to dinner and truth and blessing (one of the best memories of this year), my 21st birthday was full of unexpected miracles . . . my first really good day of the year, my sister and I went on several adventures (weird drives, beach trip, hanging out in PDX . . . I love being with you, sissy!), swimming in the nearby lake with friends and sister, going to an interesting church meeting with a friend, hanging out with cousins during the summer (watching "Epic," laughing hard, picnic by a church, swimming in aunt's pool, . . .), MC'ing at my school's All-College Retreat, spending time with wise women, being a bridesmaid for a sweet friend, being a camp counselor at my church's camp, becoming VP at Multnomah (the hard and the blessing of it), laughing so hard with my family when I'm home and our many meals around the table, and so many more . . . 

Jesus has been teaching me about faith, about how I must believe that He rewards those who seek Him (Heb 11:6). He's teaching me about how He wants His people to be whole, healed, that His focus is on the healing when He wounds us to heal, not the wounding. He has taught me about the power of worship, of how life-giving it is to us when the Holy Lord God becomes our focus. He has been teaching me about this world and about Light and how Light and Love do make a difference, even when the darkness seems so severe. He has shown me that my love is inadequate to heal or even fix. I can trust the Lord to heal and fix though. I've learned that I cannot focus my energy on fixing needs but on following Jesus. I've come to realize that my ultimate goal should not be to be relevant but to present a gospel that is intrinsically relatable to everyone. I have seen the damage shame does, and I have seen the glory of His grace. Jesus has shown me that He knows what it's like to hunger and that He honors my hunger to be right with Him. 

I have seen the goodness of my God.

I have tasted it. 

This was the year of Kisses from Katie by Katie Davis, The Holy Wild by Mark Buchanan. This was the year of new songs, of "Shine" (Christa Wells), "Let Go" & "Trust" (Matt Hammit), "Carry Me Now" (Josh Wilson), "Oceans" (Hillsong United), "Symphony" (Tim Be Told), "The Beat" (Ben Rector), "Already There" (Casting Crowns), "Loved" (JJ Heller). 

Here are some of my heart cries from 2013:

"I want to hear Your words because I'm pretty sure they would be gentle or even if not, and You'd have to raise Your voice, at least I could trust Your voice, even if Your Words hurt. I'd rather be hurt by You than be hurt by satan's lies."

"Help me to believe that You desire to lead me into freedom and not bondage, that You know what I need and that there are some things I need that really can be enjoyed, that I'd love."

"It's high time I become a woman of integrity, that I stop playing games and kill the pride and fear that make me try to hold on [when I need to let go] . . . It's time - by Your grace and power, through Your work in me - to follow You fully, to make this about You." 

"Remind me - 

no one is as deep as You,

no one can show me more of the gospel and its realness than You.

no one can draw me out of myself more than You can.

no one will be more faithful,

will know how to make me laugh, 

will always be close to comfort and convict

no one - but You."

I'm glad 2013 is coming to a close. It was one wild year, but one I try to gather courage to thank Him for. :) It was a painful year, a faith-testing year. There were failures, victories, but all encompassed in a faithful love. My Savior is much more powerful than I dreamed and much more compassionate than I know how to understand. 

I'm so glad we don't know what the year will be like when it begins, and I praise Him for the way He can make good out of such painful seasons, that He wastes nothing. :) 

May our faith become more and more steadfast, sturdy, on a God who has proven Himself faithful and kind in the year ahead. 

On to more adventures! :)

"The World Waits For a Miracle: O Come, Emmanuel"

I wanted to share on here two of my recent posts on Facebook because I want to make sure I keep them, that I come back to them more often. I don't want to forget . . . 

December 18th
Please watch this. Watch it to the end. I cried. Oh Lord, keep the tears fresh. 

Please, Jesus, yank off the curtains concealing this slave-trade. Please heal our blindness. Touch our eyes so they cry and our hearts so they mourn. It's not enough to watch and see. What do You want me to do? Me? What can I do?

December 19th Crud, heartbreaking videos two days in a row. Part of me feels guilty for posting it, but I think a greater part of me should feel guilty for not. 

I cling to things that help me feel in order to understand, to things that change my perspective enough to break my heart. These last two videos have done that.

Christmas amazes me. It was an event marked in poverty. A poor couple gives birth to the Savior of the world in a barn stall. Jonalyn Fincher compares Mary having Jesus in a manger to Him being born in a Motel 6 janitor's closet ("Open the Stable Door"), and yet America has made it one of the biggest spending holidays around. God's given me abundant riches, even as a college student, compared to the rest of the world. Am I hoarding? Or am I making room for Jesus? Am I seeking out every manager and gifting Him when I see Him in the eyes of the Gospel for Asia kids or those who need fresh water in Africa? Am I reaching out to those in the small town I'm living in, looking for needs, grabbing a couple extras groceries to take to the Food Bank? Am I listening to His Spirit moving me? Because I am CONVINCED that He will move me to love the poor. I'm absolutely convinced. I am convinced He would have me mourn with the mother from India abandoning her child. I am convinced He would have me pray for the deliverance of the 17 year old girl being sex-trafficked. He has made us to be compassionate . . . to suffer with.

Move my heart, O God. Please, literally jolt it out of place, closer to Yours. Remove from me the ideal of a perfect, glitzy, American Christmas. Teach me TRUE Christmas, TRUE Compassion. You have modeled it in incomprehensible ways. I praise You for what You are doing in the world. I praise You that Your Light and Hope is shining, and that in the end, there is nothing that can overcome Your light. 

Watch Here:
imagine if - Video Series - Gospel for Asia


I am convinced of this: The Light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it. I can't see that right now, but I KNOW it is true, I KNOW that we will see this. We will see LOVE win victoriously over every hatred. We will see His LIGHT pierce every darkness. The sex trafficking days are numbered. The days of poverty are numbered. Come, oh come, Emmanuel.

The Messiah has come, and He will come again. O come, o come, Emmanuel.

This is the Hope I pray in, a Hope that is REAL, based on that which is Promised, which WILL be given. Hallelujah. Merry Christmas, dear one!

Worship: Access into His Presence, into His Wholeness

There must be a different way to measure a life than these things called days and weeks and months, because I'm never able to wrap around the measuring tape before the thing squirms away from me.

I'm in my room, my home. It's Thanksgiving break, and I have a very nice to-do list, part of my family's sick, and it's almost time to go back to school and finish out a semester.

But as I'm here, enjoying the feeling of being still, I'm listening to a Kathy Troccoli CD, her 2005 worship album.

I can't tell you how much peace and hope you can find in a 2005 worship album.

I used to think that when I came to God in worship, I had to unload all my problems and struggles before Him first, or when my heart was full with my friends' pain and struggles, I thought I'd need to let go of the pressure in my heart before praising.

But I think I've been shown another way.

Awhile back, I went to the prayer chapel at my school. It's this sweet little building that looks like a miniature church where students can come and spend time praying, seeking, singing. I had so much to pray for; my heart was so overwhelmed.

I tried to pray but really couldn't get anywhere, so I started playing on the piano and singing. I sang, trying to sing my prayers.

"O precious is the flow,
That makes him white as snow,
No other fount I know.
Nothing but the blood of Jesus."

"Carry her every day,
Carry her all the way.
Hallelujah,
Carry her to the cross."

It was the week that so many I knew seemed to be falling apart. So many broken hearts.

And as I sang, I found myself in His presence.

And there is nothing more healing than His presence.

Jesus taught me that. Those wounded, sick, all they had to do was come into contact with the Savior, Him placing hands on broken flesh, broken eyes, ears. They were made well.

I realize that Jesus doesn't heal everything in His presence each time, and He definitely doesn't heal everything automatically, but there is wholeness in His presence that can't be found anywhere else. There is peace and joy there.

I realized that I could come praising and that relying on His character and praising Him for that would (in a way) allow each part of His character to touch each part of my brokenness.

This doesn't mean there's not a time for me to tell Him what is going on in my heart, and there is definitely always a very real place for confession. That has to be done, but maybe there really is something to the idea of "A.C.T.s", praying through Adoration, then Confession, then Thanksgiving. It's when I come in contact with His holiness that I realize my sinfulness. It's when I come in contact with His compassion that I realize I have a million reasons to say "Thank You." I worship Him for who He is and what He's done, and in so doing, I find that somehow, I leave, and my soul is a little more restored.

I love this Kathy Troccoli CD for the sound of the piano music, for the songs she picked, yes, but what I truly love about it is that it's access into His presence. Worship. It's the reminder that Jesus is worthy of praise and that His character meets me here, in a small town, in my yellow room, in my young and naive heart.

I can enjoy Him and be here and do homework and rest. I can let Him move my heart.

I'm edging into December, and December's been a difficult month for me these past three years. I think this month can be different. I think this month is marked in Hope, in a call to praise always, to praise anyway.

"Turn Your eyes upon Jesus, Look full in His wonderful face, And the things of earth will grow strangely dim, In the light of His glory and grace."

Come with me? Sing with me? May all praise be to our glorious King!

A Few Lessons: Rest

It is the last of the days of October [when I first started this post].

I won't lie. Maybe I breathe a longer sigh of relief than I should because it's over, letting out the steam of a rigorous month and just excited that this season won't last for ever. I sure know I'll mourn its loss, but for now, I am trying to live out the dying days. Kinda ironic. Kinda life.

Not that my life is horrible. Not that my life is always work and no break. Not that my life really is incessantly busy (sometimes it is . . . but not always).

But sometimes I feel so ill-fitted.

Sometimes the weight of the responsibilities get to me, and sometimes my emotions get to me, and sometimes not sleeping enough and eating too much sugar and not exercising like I should . . . it just gets to me.

Sometimes people meeting after people meeting dries me up a little, you know?

Sometimes trying to figure out the bizarre, unresolved corners of my life or even just the future, possible horizons . . . it wears me down. Gets to me.

This whole month, I'm not sure I've learned a lot about rest. I've wrestled though and have wanted to despise it, to call it out as fraud or impossible or that which belongs to the weak or the self-seeking.

But even if I've called it names . . . most of these are undeserved.

These are the lessons of rest (some of which I've learned from friends like Bonnie & Ethan):

1) To rest is to be vulnerable and to trust that the Lord is Sovereign and is the One in control . . . not me.

2) To rest is to realize I'm a person with limitations and that I am more than what I do or produce. I am a daughter of the I AM. His name is not "I DO."

3) To rest is to face myself without distraction. It is the courage to be still and face the Lord and face myself.

4) To rest is to help me safeguard against temptation. The more tired I am, the more prone I am to fall.

5) Rest is not just sleeping. Sleeping isn't even always restful. Rest is a holistic need . . . mental, physical, spiritual, emotional. Rest at its purest seems to be intentional.

6) Peace and Trust and Rest are very intrinsically linked. You have peace when relationships are right, and when relationships are right, there is trust, and only when there is some level of trust can there be true rest.

There are more lessons to be learned. I didn't dig as deep on this one as I should have. This is a rich topic that needs to be unearthed, and I'm so stubborn.

All I know is that sometimes, my life-line is just this . . .

He leads me beside still waters. He restores my soul.

Still waters.

Restoration.

Only in Him does holistic rest come. Jesus.

Ode to Day 13, 14, 15, 15 . . . 21

It would be sweet to say that these past few days have been days devoted to rest, and that's why this blog has been so silent.

The silence is eerie. Don't trust it. Though the past two days were pretty restful, some of the other past days haven't been, but I asked for that, right? Didn't I sign up for this?

I really don't feel like I've been busier than most, but I get tired quickly and sometimes just the constant going and going (even if it's not particularly rushed or too stressed) and the consistent people interactions wears me down.

Plus, life isn't restful. It's not.

And that's okay. That has to be okay.

I'm kind of getting sick of "rest." Ha :) Maybe because the seeking of rest can be positive or it can be entirely filled with selfishness and entitlement. How do I seek Him and find rest in Him without coming to rest with my definition of how I think it has to look like?

I wonder if finding rest is finding what Jesus wants for me in each minute, if it may be possible that that late night for a friend or long talk when I should have done homework or however (though extremely tiring) was just what He wanted of me, and maybe I can rest in that.

Maybe there is  rest that comes from knowing I am right where I need to be, that if He is really is the One asking this of me, it is fully worth it.

Still not sure what rest means, but step by step, if I can find my way to Jesus, I know I will find the rest that I need, maybe not the rest I assume is perfect but the kind of rest I really need.

Day 12: His Children Rest

For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast. For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them. {Ephesians}

I am the striving one. Building brick upon brick, every few minutes turning my head toward heaven, seeing if I've caught His eye, gained His approval. 

My working, my striving, my hoping that I can earn saving, . . . hopeless. 
Ceaseless working. Ceaseless restlessness.

Instead, the fortress I'm building collapses.
The ceaseless working leads to an incessant pride.
I collapse.

But God. 

Two words change everything.

But God.

"But God, being rich in mercy . . . " {Ephesians 2:4}

He reaches down and says that I don't have to work to earn anymore . . . because He did.

I am no longer slave but daughter.

I am no longer the far away one, but the one brought near.

I am given the gift of rest, a gift only given to a child. One speaker I heard once said that rest was a gift that proved one's acceptance into a family. Slaves don't rest. Only children do. 

Rest, His son. Rest, daughter of His.

We are given the gift and responsibility of walking in His good works for us, but we no longer have to work to gain His approval. This restlessness can cease.

Day 10: Burning Brilliance & Day 11: Resting Spirit

http://www.seamepost.com/good-news-2/shooting-stars-dont-miss-them-diary-for-2013/

Day 10: Burning Brilliance

Half-way through the torrent. Much behind, so much up ahead.

It's sweet mid-semester break.

How do I live life to the hilt but yet live with the realization that I am not able to do all?

How do I live the paradox of dreaming big dreams but realizing I am incapable of doing anything big in my strength?

Do I burn out brilliant? Giving all at once, a vibrant burst of star streaming across sky? It sure seems like if I'm living for the Kingdom of God, I should be giving ALL for it. I should be expending every possible piece of energy to bring His kingdom here.

But then, what about days like today? When I'm tired? Is there a rhythm to this life, or do I give all some days and label the days in between "recovery"?

Day 11: Being Still Always

I deeply admire William Wilberforce, very eager to read more about him. He worked so hard to accomplish his goals, Kingdom goals. He is quoted as saying, "So enormous, so dreadful, so irremediable did the [Slave] Trade's wickedness appear that my own mind was completely made up for abolition. Let the consequences be what they would, I from this time determined that I would never rest until I had effects its abolition."

Can anyone fault him for swearing not to rest? Or is rest not that simple?

I come to this place wondering what it means that rest may be a multi-faceted mountain.

There is physical rest, spiritual rest, emotional rest, mental rest.

Are pieces of these rests meant to be prioritized over others during certain stages of our lives?

Yes.

Resting our spirits seems to be priority always. Isn't resting rooted in trust? And isn't trust the very privilege and the non-negotiable requirement of the children of God?

Isn't rest, a stillness, that which goes along with knowing that He is God? The Be Still and Know?

While there seems to be very real times when my physical fervor must be expended beyond comfort, isn't it true that regardless, my spirit must always fight for rest in Jesus? Am I maintaining a relationship with Him that leads me to resting in Him, in wholeheartedly trusting Him?