About Me

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My heart beats for love. I want to be different. I want to be who I am called to be. WORTHY and LOVED!

Friday, April 25, 2008

Aches

Have you ever missed someone so much that it hurts?

Thursday, April 17, 2008

Politics

  Today is a big deal for my small little hometown, apparently. Bill Clinton has chosen to grace us with his presence. My mother is quite elated. But for me, there's no excitement. No thrill.
   The more and more I've been dwelling on the upcoming elections, the more I think I'm not going to vote. I know this has potential to be controversial, but since when has that scared me? I finished this amazing book, Jesus for President, and it really got my mind disoriented. We've been raised in a culture of the church that tells us to be a good citizen. To vote. And to vote Republican at that. But where is Jesus in all of that?
   I'm not a big fan of the "what would Jesus do?" question, but let's think about that for a moment, shall we. What WOULD Jesus do? Would he vote back in Rome? Or would he think that the establishment really didn't have much to do with God at all? By voting are we placing our loyalties and allegiances somewhere other then the Godhead?
   I've also been thinking a lot about my trip to Israel. One night, about twenty of us gathered around the table in the dining room for quite a period of time and talked government and the church. Andrew brought up an excellent point. The government has replaced the church. Instead of taking care of each other and taking care of the poor and the needy, the orphans and the widows, we in the US expect Uncle Sam to do it for us. But what if we spent less time worrying about the upcoming elections and instead spent all of that time being the Body of Christ? What if we didn't look for the government to provide, but instead looked to God?
   By voting in the election, we need to take the good with the bad. No candidate is perfect. But when I put my trust and faith in Christ we only get what is good and perfect, because he is good and perfect. 
   Does this mean that we shouldn't pray for whoever gets elected? By no means! We should pray for the leader. But we shouldn't put him in Christ's place as redeemer or savior. Think back to the book of Judges. God wasn't too keen on the whole having an appointed leader thing. He jealously yearns to be our One and Only. But alas, he gave the Israelites what they wanted. And here we are today. Once again focusing all of our energy and time into who will be our next leader for 4 years. 
   Something God has been stressing to me lately is how little we really trust him. Our faith is so weak. We speak of trusting God, but look to every source but him to meet our needs. We are more apt to blame God then to seek his will. 
   Give to Caesar what is Caesar's. But my allegiance doesn't lie with Caesar, or a President. It lies with God alone. 

Wednesday, April 16, 2008

Young

  I was driving through State College today, actually the PSU campus, and I couldn't help but notice how much older all the students look compared to me. I felt the same thing last weekend at Pitt. Grant it, yes, some of them are graduate students, but not all of them. And their apparent maturity in age made me feel inferior. 
  However, as I continued to drive, 1 Timothy 4:12 came to mind "Don't let anyone look down on you because you are young, but set an example for believers in speech, in life, in love, in faith and in purity". 
  I guess I've always have had to deal with being the youngest. I was one of the youngest in my graduating class thanks to a combination of where my birth date fell and being told not to come for a second year of pre-school. I was by far the youngest person walking across stage last year to receive my fake diploma roll. And it's funny, because as much as it makes me feel inferior to be the youngest, I keep working towards making life happen at a quicker pace. By my sophomore year of high school I was ready to be done with secondary education and started looking at colleges intensely. I worked hard to graduate a semester early from college, the best worst decision I've ever made, but that should be an entry on its own.
   As I was walking around Pitt last weekend I couldn't help but think that I was glad that I left all of that. Yes, from sitting in my dorm room at Houghton I missed the freedom of the city, but walking down the streets I equally missed Melbourne. We always think that if we hurry through life or get to the next step it will be better only to look back when we are there and wonder if it really was all that bad. 
   From where I sit now as a graduate, I can tell you that I have no regrets about transferring. It was like this last trip to Pitt, as all of my friends graduate at the end of the month, gave me closure. Yes I miss certain elements of the city, but more then anything I miss the people. And now as they all scatter to various jobs and grad schools across the US (and internationally) I can realize that Houghton offered me just as much as Pitt, it just looked different. And maybe different isn't as bad as what we think it is. 
   As I was thinking about all of this while driving home from SC today, I realized just what I've done in life. And I was floored. Andrew used to joke that I will be dead by the time I'm 30, and I understand now why he said that. The places I've went. The experiences I've had. The opportunities that have just fell on my lap. The relationships I've formed with all of their depths and intimacy. Wow. Yes, I'm young, 21, graduated from college, and it just hit me today what that means. I've felt like I've been living in this transitional phase where I'm a pseudo-student, since I'll be going back to school. But really, I have two awesome jobs that I could have never dreamed of. As Ellen put it on Sunday, "Look at us. I'm going to teach and your freakin' planting a church". 
   So while I'll continue to (probably) be the youngest in my class, that doesn't dis-credit who I am or how God has and will use me. Age isn't the true sign of maturity or potential. 

Thursday, April 10, 2008

Power

Yesterday afternoon, in the middle of Casablanca, the power went out in our house. It was really quite spectacular. Everything that runs on electricity made this sound like something was blowing up. And off went the lights, the tv, printer, vcr, houghton laptop, Internet, cd player, phone, and ihome. And that's just in my room. As I wondered out into the kitchen I realized that there wasn't really anyway to make dinner beyond pouring cereal in a dish because all of our cooking appliances run off of electricity, too. Then came the clincher. The garage door wouldn't open. Let's just say that situation led to a very interesting ten minutes in my life. Haha

When I returned from being nourished by Gram's love and food three hours later, the power was still out. We were without power from 3:30pm - later than 10:00pm. In those hours after night graced the sky, it became even more evident how much our lives revolve around power sources. As we sat around talking by candlelight, we couldn't do the things we normally did as a family. Even play cards or read. 

As I dwelt more on the idea of power, it dawned on me that God really is the power source of our lives. We tend to say that in a cliche way, but there's so much truth behind that statement then what we give it credit for. God created us in our mothers womb. God breathed life into us. He created our bodies in such a way that our hearts beat and blood flow and brain controls everything. And even with all of that, if God isn't the center of our lives, if we don't have intimacy with him, then we are just functioning by candle light. We are missing out on the full range of things that are available to us with electricity. 

There's a gospel song that says "there is power in the name of Jesus." I wonder if we aren't fully using this power because we are plugged into the wrong source. Let me expand. We think that power in Jesus' name means that whatever we ask for in his name will be given to us. So we start to selfishly dwell, more often then not, on the needs of those close to us and our own. But what if the power in Jesus' name is actually about having him love us so that we can love others? What if it means being in a genuine relationship with him (instead of what most people think it is) and falling in love with him so much that our ideas of what is truly needed align. What if power comes more from listening then from talking? 

The thing with power, both electrical and God's, is that we take it for granted. We don't take time to realize what it means that God is the center. We don't take time to even evaluate if God truly is the center. And until we look inside of ourselves to see if our heart is beating love for God, then we are just running on dim, even if we have a relationship with God.

Wednesday, April 9, 2008

Realizations

Love

Grace

Healing

Wholeness

Peace

Delight

Freedom

Wednesday, April 2, 2008

Steadfast Love

Have you ever taken time to dwell on what it means to have a God who is intimately in love with us? A God who's "steadfast love endures forever." (Psalm 136). 

No human has the capacity to have steadfast love. There are people I love in my life and I treasure them dearly, but sometimes I fail to love them the way they deserve to be loved. And sometimes I can't fully express to them the love I have towards each of them. And sometimes I can't feel their love towards me, making me feel deserted and lonely. 

But the love that God has for each of us is steadfast. Unchanging. Constantly calling us to himself, wanting us to put down our guards and throw out our ideas of what God should be doing for us or what love should look like, and just let him love us.

God loves us even when we miss the point to, when we are too stuck on ourselves to see how great he really is. His love is still steadfast. In chapter 29 of the book of Job, Job really misses the mark. He vaguely acknowledges God at the start of the chapter, but then uses a sickening amount of first person pronouns, claiming credit for all the great things in his life. He failed to see that God had choose to use him in that way, just like God was choosing to use his current situation. Too many times we are like Job. Claiming credit for things that God has done, but God still loves us. 

"O give thanks to the Lord, for he is good, for his steadfast love endures forever."