ha!

do you ever feel like you are just about to burst inside and you don't even know why? i feel like some days life makes perfect sense and i feel so very sure of what is going on all around me and then there are the more frequent moments when i feel like i am at a complete and utter loss. am i the only one who feels like i am on crazy pills?! and what exactly is it that makes me feel so psychotic? i don't even know.
the people i know and love most dearly prove to be more enigmatic than my intuitively-challenged heart can handle, life decisions seem wholly and utterly unscaleable and worst of all, i don't even seem to know myself. who's hands are those on the keyboard typing? who's eyes do i look into in the mirror every morning?
la la la la la l al al al ala al alala a la lla la al
sometimes i just want to run in circles and shout and holler a bit...hoping either to prove to myself that i am clinically deranged or to simply let out a little crazy-steam ;o) either way, i would like to tell myself its perfectly normal and expected to have a few loco days...right?!

a small, strange epiphany

i have a friend who has strong opinions regarding american "free enterprise" and the concept of "the man." his passionate stance always makes me smile and i am often filled with inquistive-ness, curious to more fully understand why he holds his views on american businesses.
as the daughter of a fairly successful businessman, raised in upper-middle class american suburbia, living off of starbuck's lattes and einstein's bagels, it is hard for me to fully appreciate the inherent evil in the large corporations that i consider "home." so yesterday was a trip back to reality as i experienced a little bit of the joy that perhaps my friend so passionately believes in.
as i finally begin to grow-up and take hold of life for myself, as a young adult trying to figure out how i am going to sustain myself through this crazy life, i am finally faced with the decision to choose for myself what i consider to be a reasonable means of income and how much it really is going to cost me to survive ;o)
the crazy realization...not as much as i thought!
i always assumed that i would need tens of thousands of dollars rolling in every year just to make ends meet, but the cool thing is we can live off of a lot less than that and the scary truth is that we probably should be living off of a lot less than that!
my friend told me that rich mullins used to donate 90% of his income to the church and live off of the remaining 10%...even for a successful musician that is a pretty modest budget to live with! but he did it and i am realizing i can too!
what a joy to realize that i have been stressing over money just because i never realized how little i need it! :o)

no cleaner than mine

Rise, let us be going - Matthew 26:46

Never let the sense of past failure defeat your next step. - Oswald Chambers

one of the hardest concepts for me to grasp, is the fact that presently i live the life of a sinner and yet Christ considers me a member of the holy priesthood.

Christ's continual call for us to live with conviction and yet with no regrets is unnerving. either i sin and i wholly give up on living righteously or i forgoe every human passion that intersects my life and walk numbly through this life. it is difficult for me to wrap my mind around the image of a sinning heart seen holy in the eyes of God...do You not tire of my endless stumblings Lord God?! i am unclean! i am not simply fallen, but falling...my sin precedes me and i see no way of escape from its entanglement. but all the while, You walk, no crawl, beside me. On all fours right by my side as i struggle to even lift my head to view the path in front of me. as i glance in Your direction, i realize Your hands are just as unclean as mine, for You have chosen to take the same path as me. it is no longer my burden, but your yolk. not my sin, but your blood.

how do i live with regrets when You have taken every step alongside me?

every real thing

c.s. lewis once said "so many things -- nay every real thing -- is good if only it will be humble and ordinate."

when i am striving to be as real as possible...as vulnerable and organic as i possibly can...it is my persistent pride that always makes me so very un-real to those in my life that i love dearly.

this morning i read in proverbs that "a happy heart makes the face cheerful, but heartache crushes the spirit" (15.13), perhaps it is my series of unfortunate romantic encounters that makes me so fearful, but more likely it is simply my hurt pride that drives me to remove myself from any sort of true, raw exposure. am i making any sense or just rambling? i'm not sure...but i digress...i have so much to sort through (i suppose we all do) in my heart as i deal with unspoken ache, anger and hurt.

...my tumultuous spirit continues to wander and my soul is grieved...

my crushed spirit seems to have given up within me. my will to define myself, to be passionate about who and what i am, seems secondary to the sole survival of my heart. in my vain efforts to protect my heart from the barrage of emotional attcks that i have suffered i drive myself further away from the only source of healing i will ever find.

how sweetly contradictory that love can so severly cut our hearts to the core, and yet it is the only thing that can heal the very wound it inflicted.

yesterday a trusted friend of mine was painfully honest with me about my self-conscious and overly introspective tendencies. i am so driven to my own secrecy and privacy for fear of losing the last strand of dignity to which i cling so tightly. the thought of outside criticism concerning the innermost thoughts of my heart makes my chest constrict and my stomach turn in knots.

it is my crazy thought that i even have a strand of dignity worth clinging to that causes every occassion of dissappointment to haunt me, every dissapproving look to wreak havoc on my spirit and devastatingly crush me.

ironically, the more fiercly i strive to protect myself from this onslaught of emotion the more i find myself encountering the very dissappointment and dissapproval i have been striving to evade.

we are creatures of pride and dignity...suffering from the weight of glory which rests on each of our souls as creation made in the image of God...and in our sinful perversion this inescapeable burden turns our eyes inward and we begin to believe our merit and value, our reason for being found worthy, will come from within. and so, when it comes to pride i know i am the very worst...living for nothing more than affirmation and praise...consent from outsiders that i am living well...of course how could that be possible if they were familiar with the feeble and bizarre inner workings of my heart?

and so i am grateful to lewis for his perception and insight.

for if i am truly to partake in reality, then i must slay every last strand of my imagined dignity and live what is really real...being completely humble and ordinate...
trusting that it is in the humble and ordinary things that we discover the truly beautiful wonder of being a creation made in the image of God Himself.

"taste and see..."

last week i had a discussion with some friends on the unconditional nature of God's love. one friend said she did not believe God's love could be unconditional because if that were true we would not be required to seek Him. therefore, the condition, to find God's love, is to seek. another said she thought God's love could be nothing but unconditional because it is a fact: just as the sun is hot...so God is love. our sins or our righteousness have no effect on the love of our eternal God.

"now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. and we, who with unveiled faces all reflect the Lord's glory, are being transformed into His likeness with ever-increasing glory, which comes from the Lord, Who is the Spirit." II corinthians 3:17.18

i wonder if the great mystics do not look at us and shake their heads at our philosphical rantings. our predisposition to deduce every spiritual dilemma to a series of intellectual arguments robs us of the joy of the mystery of the gospel.

a.w. tozer once spoke of the veil Christ came to destroy...which christians are ever re-construcing in their lives...if only we could learn to see life through the eyes of eternity we might realize the truth of lewis' words when he said "it is not that we desire too much, but too little, like children content playing in the mud, unaware of the meaning of a holiday at the sea" (paraphrase).

our vision is veiled and we refuse to allow ourselves to dream.

perhaps God's command to seek was not for His good but our own.

it is unimaginable to me, the depth and height. the sweet aroma. the vastness. of God's love for us...what is it that drives me to continually patch up the veil my Savior came to tear away from the eyes of my heart?

el todopoderoso!

Joshua 1:9 "Have I not commanded you? Be strong and courageous. Do not be terrified; do not be discouraged, for the LORD your God will be with you wherever you go."

Jude 24-25 "To him who is able to keep you from falling and to present you before his glorious presence without fault and with great joy– to the only God our Savior be glory, majesty, power and authority, through Jesus Christ our Lord, before all ages, now and forevermore! Amen. "

Oswald Chambers

"Paul says he is overruled, overmastered, held as in a vice, by the love of Christ."

oh to be so secure in the love of christ that i found myself immoveable, unshakeable, undisturbed and wholly fixed. it is amazing that the humble love of Christ could hold us as in a vice if only we allowed ourselves the opportunity to know just how great the love of Jesus Christ truly is!

"that we might have power together with all the saints to grasp how deep and how high and how wide is the love of Christ!"