Up To

Well you know what they say.

Don't be a stranger.

(one of these days I'm going to have to go back and compile a list of all the things they have said on this blog)

I've been a stranger of this blog for the sake of my journal and some stuff is going down there, y'all. Surely I'll write about that at some point (well, you know, like at the end of this post). In the meantime I've been up to a lot of other things about which I felt the blog should be brought up to speed.

Like today I bought a snack size ice cream crunch bar and it took me straight back to the first ten minutes of every single visit to my mammaws house. Seriously, every time it was straight to the freezer for us. It is a tradition I hope to pass down, no doubt.

Right now I am partaking of my current favorite food. I always knew I liked the casserole and enjoyed the nights when we had sweet potatoes at dinner in years past. However, it is now a staple in my diet. It is a good regulator in my diet, too, if you know what I mean. And if you know what I mean, I am sorry for the tmi.

I am also enjoying a warm cup of french roast coffee, which I only recently discovered is different from french vanilla flavored coffee. Recently meaning today. I know. It is delightful, however, my little cup of french roast.

I am all kinds of nAsty from kickboxing with Kelsie and our good friend Kathy Smith. We found out tonight as we watched the credits on the video that good 'ol Kathy has a personal hair stylist for maintaining her locks during the taped workout routine. It's okay, though. Next time I'll just pretend I'm kicking Kathy in face instead of a made up attacker. Should improve my technique, I'm thinking.

Yesterday I tripped over a speed bump. Tripped like fell on the ground, not trip like stumbled.

However, I have yet to be crowned LVP* on my flag football team, so I haven't lost all skill. Just the walking skills, apparently.

*Least Valuable Player

Yesterday I finally went in to check on a little boy in the bathroom during sunday school and found him standing, as in climbing, on the urinal. So that was good.

I've fallen asleep twice in the library in the last week, a habit that more than once produced imprints like these on my forearm. A habit that also led me to buy french roast coffee at the sto today. Maybe I'll go back for french vanilla creamer. The gingerbread will have to do for now. Until Katie Jones uses all of it up (it was my gift to her, until I began drinking coffee again and started ganking on it).

I read the TIME and the PEOPLE magazine at the library. Because I would never want to seem either ALL boring or ALL shallow. A mixture of the two will do for me, thanks.

I believe I've found the perfect (albeit calorie laden) fusion of seasons: pumpkin spice egg nog.

I've shopped for and helped bake a beautiful cake.

I've thrown (or facilitated the throwing of) a bridal shower for Noelle. You might have heard of her.

I was Sadie the Cleaning Lady for halloween. Who? Oh, get ready. Give this gem a looksy. (shout out to my bloom girls! ;) )

I executed the duties of a BCM state council member last weekend at (the retreat formerly known as) Axis. But mainly grew to love the people that make up our own "group."

I've written papers, gone to class, curled up to watch Arthur and chatted late into the night.

I guest blogged on Noelle's intern site. You might have heard of her.

http://fairviewintern.blogspot.com/2009/11/caught.html

But quite possibly the hardest thing I've done in the past week has been to begin to really know God's faithfulness at night and His love in the morning (Psalm 91). The sun's rays literally woke me up on Sunday.

A sweet peace I needed after a tough Saturday night. I of course took a picture of it. I say hard only because it is time consuming to get to know God. It is difficult to ask Him to challenge me and it is altering to sit as He does so. It is waking me up to sit and actually maul over the different, difficult areas of my life and other peoples' lives where I need God to work. Creating the time to take each request to Him requires me to acknowledge each burden and admit my own inability to fix them. It is a bit exhausting to feel the weight of each issue as I bring it to the God who can rescue me from them. Or begin to. It is a bit addicting, this time with Him.

The more I carry to Christ's feet, the more I am eager to see Him work. The more available I make myself to see Him work. And as I see it, I am inclined to head right back to my red leather journal and thank God. Thank Him that His word is coming alive for me the way I have begun to beg Him for it to. It is hard, this process, because the more I involve myself with God, the more dissatisfied with my way of doing things I become. The more I long for more. It is the best longing, the kind that is met by promises made by God throughout the Bible. And as these promises are made known to me, the more I long to see them realized in my life. It's a longing for more that I don't know how to attain. It's a good longing because it absolutely necessitates God's presence and intervention in my life. So the issues that surround me are hard, but owning up to them brings me into a place of need that can only be met by God himself. It is a God-sized yearning only satisfied by a real, active relationship with Him.

I continue to feel like I'm talking in circles in my head and I know I am doing so in my journal and on this blog. What amazes me, though, is when small bouts of clarity come through and I can know, just know, that it is God working in my heart. Because I asked Him to. And because He is faithful. And because He loves me. So I can sing His praise in the morning and at night. Because in a small way I then know of His love and His faithfulness. I don't have to be frustrated by my own empty words or songs because in what little I know from one week I mean the praise I am offering up. And while I talk in circles trying to explain it, there is peace in the midst of being before God. God can and He does silence the fears and the anxieties like no other person or amount of writing can.

That's why I haven't been writing. Because I'm seeking the silence and letting my words be few (well, okay, not exactly in this post).

It's why I may not have been the most charismatic friend in the past few days. I know I'm acting differently because I believe God is making a difference. If I've been distant it's because I've found refuge. If I've secluded myself it's because I feel like I've found a place to really meet God. And it's exciting and it's what I'm drawn to. Sure I want to be a more pleasurable person to be around. Absolutely I want to bear more fruit. And oh how desperately I want to be what my friends need me to be for them right now. But that just can't happen before I am "rooted and built up in him, strengthened in the faith as [I] was taught and overflowing with thankfulness" (Colossians 2:7). I can talk to friends and type on this blog all I want to-- puffed "up with idle notions" (2:18)-- but the roots only grow "as God causes [them] to grow" (2:19).

I can endure my own hardships and those of the people around me, I can deal with my own concerns and those of others and I could probably even keep up my enthusiasm and optimism because that is just how my personality works. It's probably a very useful tool, said personality. But as is, or as recently was, God could still say this against me : "you have forsaken your first love" (Revelation 2:4). God, "the First and the Last, who died and came to life again," is with the the afflicted and the poverty-stricken. He makes them rich. He tells them to be faithful to the point of death and promises them the crown of life (Revelation 2:9-10). These people haven't abandoned their first love because they are constantly faced with the possibility of dying for their faithfulness to Him.

What is it worth to me to know God as my first love?

A woman came to the BCM on Saturday night to speak for the Voice of the Martyrs. Or to speak as the voice of the martyrs. With her came God's presence and the spirit of a woman I want to be. A woman who has seen the scars and the scarring of people who decided it was worth everything to have God as their first love. A woman who makes it her job to care for people whose true afflictions and poverty only God knows (and He does promise to know them in Revelation). It sort of rocked my core to see the kind of passion I want embodied. And so I wrote. Like the wind. In pencil. In my not so little red leather journal.

11-7-09

"I just don't fear the death thing. Not here. Not now. I mean, I know I would in the face of it. But I kind of want to be there. In abandon. Without all of this quarreling and personality conflict. I don't want to just hear stories. I want to be there with these people. With them in their wounds? Maybe. In their pain? For sure. It's where I'm supposed to be. With them. With 'the walk.' Am I just saying that tonight? Is this a phase? A page of a journal? I don't have to be married by 30, God. I mean, I'd like a like-minded, supportive spouse. But I don't need it. Am I just writing that tonight? Maybe. But it is my heart. Make it my heart, will you? Wouldn't you? I don't need children. I feel like I need to be around them. But my own? I just don't need it. Shane and Shane's 'yearn' is on right now. That is what I need. I need to yearn for you. I need your spirit. That's what I need. That's it. God, I'll write it all night. Because I just feel like it is the only thing missing from this heart of mine. The yearning. The intense desire for your will. The kind that will wake me up at night because sleep isn't all there is, but neither is exhaustion for the sake of nothingness. If I'm going to be exhausted, I want to be exhausted well. Like Darcie said tonight, if they're going to be persecuted, they want to be persecuted well. As in for you. And the only way it will be for you is if it is out of a passion for you. And a yearning for you. And out of a passion for the people around me. A passion not compromised by dispute or personality differences. And God, if I knew, if I knew how, I'd be there. I'd be doing it. But I just don't know how. YOu do. And so all I have to know is you and its all one big circle that ends with the necessity of a heart that yearns for you. I want it. I need it. I feel that. But how do I get it and where do I go with it? You brought me to Virginia, take me from it. Show me the next step as it rapidly approaches... I sit here with my big 'ol Bible in the middle of a room, sitting indian style in the middle of the BCM thinking "dang, anything else?" What else do I need? What else is it going to take? North Koreans are chillin' with their orange balloons with Mark secretly written all up on it and they're good with that. Iranians have little 2inx2in Bibles and they've learned to trust in you and learn from those resources. What is it going to take for me? If I felt fear in claiming your name, God, in facing death, I'd be feeling something deeply, passionately, and intimately in you, through you. Oh to be so rich as the church at Smyrna! Make me so rich, God, if I dare challenge you to that. Challenge me. Here am I. And here I am meaning it. Show me the next move."

In Matthew 11, when John the Baptist is in prison, having expected all of his life to be intimately connected with the establishment of the kingdom, he sends his own disciple to ask Jesus "are you the one who was to come, or should we expect someone else?"

This is how Jesus responds: "The blind receive sight, the lame walk, those who have leprosy are cured, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the good news is preached to the poor. Blessed is the man who does not fall away on account of me." Not blessed is the man who does not fall away on account of his own stubbornness or smarts or well-acted-out faith. The man who does not fall away on account of his knowledge of Christ and what He has done.

I want to be that man.

My Bible commentary thing asks this question: "Do you know the God of the Bible well enough to know if you truly worship him?" The voice of Tracy Morgan as Brian Fellow pops up in my head "Do I?!"

I'm getting there. That is what I'm up to.