chasing the sunrise

Week of Fasting Hopes

2011-02-21T00:18:00.000-07:00

In about two minutes I begin a week of fasting. Every year Immanuel Fellowship has a week-long fast. Sound impressive? Well this is only the third year we have had this tradition. But I hope it sticks. It seems time every time I do a fast (even some of the silly, alternatives to all-out fasting) God really speaks to me and things happen.

At the risk of waxing nostalgic I can't help but think of the spring semester when Jacque and I fasted every Friday. I was 23 and feeling like a huge, broken mess. Failure may have been a better word for what I felt. Ruined? Unfixable? You get the picture. Every Friday all I prayed was, "God do whatever You want in me, whenever You want to do it. If You want to do noting and leave me as I am, that's okay. If You want to change things about me that I am uncomfortable with, that's okay. What You do is up to You. Only please, please, let Your hand be free to work in my heart." As the year progressed, I also asked God to have a free hand to discipline me if that's what it took to keep me from sinning against Him and dishonoring His name. I now look back on that year as one that went from being very dangerous to very life-changing for good.

I had a boyfriend for a little while that year. I dated him because I needed attention, and because I thought I couldn't do any better. (Bad Jennifer, bad.) He wanted to marry me and would talk about having kids and such. At the time I thought all my dreams of ever being a missionary were over so there was a minute where I actually wondered if I should just go ahead with that guy. I thought maybe I didn't matter anymore because I was a mess. God really helped me see that He had other plans (and that anyway I'd be much happier single than with that guy). I can't count how many times I've looked back on this situation with a heart full of thanks that I got out of that relationship.

Later that year I ended up joining the MDS, or Missional Discipleship School, that my church did and moved to Mexico City on a church-planting team. It was like my life began a new chapter the week I started that school. God quickly pulled me out of a rut I'd been in for years. Beginning then, and continuing till now I've been growing so fast spiritually that it makes me dizzy. I feel like God's done so much in my heart I can't keep up. So many things that I thought would never, could never heal in me are now problems of the past or dim shadows of the struggle they once were. When I remember where I was four years ago, and remember how hopeless I was that I could change, I feel so amazed at God. His redemption is more powerful than we think.

Hmmm.... I meant to write my hopes for this week of fasting, but my train of thought ran away with me. Whenever I think of fasting, I remember that year, the prayers I was praying, and God's protection and faithfulness to work in me. It always makes me excited to fast and see what God will do next.

Adventures in Tech

2011-02-19T22:54:00.000-07:00

This week I:

Started a Facebook for Immanuel Fellowship
Read up on the ins and outs of Facebooking for organizations
Linked the Facebook to our church website (Harder than it sounds for a semi-tech, I had to get my Grandma to help me. Yes, my Grandma.)
Put lots of photos on our Facebook.
Read up on podcasting, starting from near-zero knowledge.
Downloaded a podcasting platform, MediaCore, only to discover that it was not exactly made with windows in mind.
Removed this platform.
Signed up for a much easier, no-download-required podcasting platform called PodBean.
Got our PodBean all set up and ready for Sunday's message.
Began to look for tutorials on how to record both the English message and the Spanish translation simultaneously in Audacity with only one mic jack.
When tutorials on this subject turned out to be hard to find, I called the sound guy who already knew how this is done in Audacity.
Thanked the sound man for saving me hours of work trying to figure it out myself.

I didn't know that I had all these things to figure out until Tuesday afternoon. It needed to be done by this Sunday, because of our up-coming week of prayer and fasting. The short notice is the result of having these perfect (yes perfect, they solve many tech problems we've had) ideas suggested to us on Monday.

About midnight last night though, I hit a wall in everything. I really thought there was no possible way that launching a facebook and a podcast were going to happen in the same short week. So I went to bed and woke up with new solutions and ideas in my head. They have worked, as far as I can tell. We'll see Monday when I try to post it. My job is never boring.

Times, They Are A-Changin'

2009-10-26T15:15:00.001-06:00

It has been almost nine months since I last blogged. I may not have any readers anymore. I guess that's okay for now. I deserve it I'm sure. :p

The last year has been jam-packed full of changes. And everything has happened so fast my head hasn't stopped spinning all year. Let's see, my last posting was from Mexico City. That was a busy trip, the main thing we did was develop a discipleship course.

After I got back from Mexico I started doing odd, unwanted administrative jobs for Immanuel Fellowship. One in particular was to stalk (ahem, I mean "find") every person who's ever been a part of the church over the last ten years so that we could invite them to a ten year reunion. It was a chore. We've been a church for ten years, well almost eleven as the even was last Easter, and I've been a part for nine. I'm glad I've had the chance to see a church "grow up" in core values and vision the way I've seen Immanuel do over the years. It's been exciting to see it all unfold from nearly the beginning. But I think the next ten years will be even more exciting.

After my exemplary stalking, I was given more administrative tasks, until I was hired officially and for pay in June. Since then I have worked full time as the administrative/fundraising/techy/graphic-designing/secretarial/webmaster/finance-person of the church. It's been a great fit. I am the church's first full-time employee other than the pastor. Because of this there has been a lot of catch-up work to do like organizing things around here that have never been organized. That's not always so fun. However, to compensate I've gotten to learn Photoshop, Illustrator, and Dreamweaver, which have all been quite fun. That's not the half of the new things I've learned on this job, but the list is long so I'll leave you with the fun ones.

This job is different and throws new challenges my way every week. I've been constantly learning the last five months since I started working full time. I feel like I've learned enough to get another associate's degree. It's been fun. The thing I always hated about every other job was that once I learned it there would never be anything new to learn. Learning excites me, even when it's frustrating. For this reason I have promised myself several times that I would never work in an office again. There are boring office days with this job, but at least I know that when I finish the boring job there will be a much more interesting one after. There aren't too many very dull jobs around here.

Also, I've transferred to CSU Global, and am finally in my third year of college. At this rate I hope to graduate by thirty. I'm getting my degree in Organizational Leadership with a specialization in non-profits. Online is not so bad as I thought and actually I'm liking it so far. I'm generally excited about life when I'm not dizzy with at the good changes. :D

busy busy

2009-02-15T16:23:00.001-07:00

Yes, I know my mom asked me to blog a lot while I was in Mexico but I've been a lot busier than expected. It seems like I've spent part of every day out and about. Mexicans are such welcoming people and a lot of my time has been spent out with people from the church here. We've also been working on several projects.

One is that we are developing a discipleship course. This requires a whole little team of us. Mike is adapting and in some cases rewriting discipleship material we got from a church in Texas. Then Anissa and Irma translate it into French and Spanish respectively. After all this I am the one who does all the formatting to get the three versions all looking alike and pretty. Anissa, Miri, Abby, and I have then been going through the course together. This last part, naturally is my favorite and the most fun as we've gotten to know each other better through it.

Also, the young people at the church here decided to do the Lifehouse skit which the MDS used last year. So we made sure that all the challenging roles went to those who actually live here (so Anissa and I both gave up our roles from last year and took simpler parts) so that they can easily replace us and do it later without us. Mike named me the director of this production at the last minute which was unexpected. I was kind of nervous and generally I try to avoid being in a position of relative authority, but it went really well. We learned the drama, though we never had the opportunity to preform it. I'll admit I had fun being the director, though working with highschoolers is like hearding cats, lol. Once when they were almost too hyper to practice I made them run through the skit and say everything their character was thinking. They begged and promised to be good, but I made them anyway. It was hilarious. :p

Anissa and I also went through, cleaned, and organized the kitchen and other parts of the house. We grocery shopped, cooked and ate a lot. (O my, we ate a lot. You can't help it when you're in Mexico, and with all these wonderful tacos I can't object.) And did a little bit of sight-seeing, though as we've all lived here before we didn't need to do much of that.

I hope that catches all interested parties up on my life in Mexico so far. ;)

a bit of forethought

2009-02-11T14:51:00.003-07:00

I really never give God enough credit. I live my life as if He might forget me one of these days. I know better, I really do. I have read and heard and seen and experienced enough to know that God is not going to forget me, not even in little ways. However, there is a disconnect somewhere between my brain and heart.

Somewhere between my brain and my heart a lot of little pieces of truth about who God is just get lost and thus are never lived out in my life. I am reading a book called "Jesus, the One and Only" by Beth Moore. I'm at the beginning, the part where Gabriel tells Mary she's going to have a baby and He will be the Savior. (Luke 1:26-56) The author points out a little something that I have neve thought about before.

Picture this, Mary is about thirteen, engaged, and a virgin. Her pregnancy with the coming Messiah will be a bit tricky to explain; no one's going to believe for a second that she's still a virgin - not even her own parents. Back then this was a huge deal; Mary is probably going to be dumped by her fiancé and is now a potential candidate for stoning. These facts have always left me in awe of Mary's bravery and her willingness to obey God.

Now in this turmoil look at verse 36. God could've had John the Baptist born into any family. God chose Mary's older cousin Elizabeth. God gave Mary someone who would understand her pregnancy, someone she could talk to without being condemned, one friend to defend her and back up her story. I never before realized how much Mary would need a friend, someone to tell her parents to believe her story. God didn't just commission Mary to carry baby Jesus, He also took care of all the details.

I know God takes care of details, but I've never really thought of Him as someone who takes care of "unimportant" things like relationships. I tend to expect Him to leave me alone in that area. A new truth for the mind, but can it break through to my heart?

Regresado a Mexico

2009-02-08T22:51:00.002-07:00

I know, a post titled "Returned to Mexico" should've been published a week and a half ago upon my arrival, but I've been much busier than I was expecting.

I am visiting the church in Mexico for three weeks. This trip wasn't planned very far in advance and I wasn't too very excited. Don't get me wrong - I was very happy to be coming back to Mexico City, I guess I was just so busy the weeks leading up to my trip that I didn't really have time for it to sink in.

It hit me about the time that the million lights of the city came into view outside the window of the airplane. Suddenly this contented warmth filled me as I gazed out my window. How can I describe it without sounding trite? Only someone who loves this city would understand. Can I explain how it feels to come home to a place where you only lived for four months? Or the thrill of defying death in the notorious traffic of the D.F.*? The familiarity of the gigantic billboards that line every major street? The buildings painted colors that would be considered scandalously bright in the U.S.? The tacos?

I can't explain this city, but those who have been here and fallen in love with it know. There's something about this city that's intoxicating. Maybe it's the population of 40 million. Maybe it's the feeling of excitement and a little danger that makes it seem like anything could happen. Maybe it's the myriad of subtle cultural differences that just keep life new and interesting. It could simply be the fact that I traded three feet of snow in my yard for summer weather and a garden full of flowers. Whatever the case, I feel like I'm standing at the center of the world when I'm here and I'm so glad to be back.

*Distrito Federal, otherwise known as Mexico City. ;)

2009-01-09T19:44:00.002-07:00

I am now an official graduate of CMC and the proud holder of an Associates degree. Well, not too proud as a degree from a junior college is only really the halfway point I guess and anyone with such a degree is left with the glaring question, "Now what?" No matter what I choose though, it's nice to have it finished.

faith?

2008-11-24T14:14:00.003-07:00

I've been thinking about faith a lot lately. I'm beginning to wonder if the simple word faith really communicates the reality. It seems like we use the word to describe belief. You have faith in God or you have faith that God will do such-and-such thing in your life. Sometimes it seems like having faith in the face of impossible circumstances is some kind of virtue that we trust in to move mountains.

I've often thought that this is a little ironic and wondered if the mountains are moved by my faith or if they are moved by the One I have faith in. We so easily get wrapped up in ourselves and our agendas that we (I being very guilty) treat God like some kind of genie that will grant our wishes if we believe hard enough. And if the wishes weren't granted than we must conclude that there is a problem either with our faith or with God. But is this really what faith is? Is faith really just belief that something will happen? I think it's deeper than this, a lot deeper.

I've always been struck by Jeremiah 17:5-8 and the contrast it paints between those who trust in mankind and those who trust in God. I've wondered if faith is at it's heart closer to something like trust than the close-minded, trying-too-hard demands we often make. I wonder if faith is being more willing to let go of what I think should happen and trusting that whatever God does will be good, weather He rescues me or lets me walk through the fire. I admire the courage of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed-nego when they said, "..our God whom we serve is able to save us from the furnace and out of your hand king, but even if He doesn't, let it be known that we will not serve your god."

This is hard-core trust in God, to be able to stare into the fire you are about to be thrown into and say, "My God can save me, but even if He choses not to I will not bow." Do we have faith in God Himself, in His character or only in what He can do? Yes He can do all that we ask, but what if He has bigger plans that we don't see? What happens to our trust in God when He says no? What if He says no to a desperate need? Where is our faith then? Can we go on needing and not knowing why and still trust? And trust is something deeper than the surface of our circumstances and emotions. Faith is so much more than the moment. I have not been a shining example of faith. I get scared very easily. I question God, and wonder where He is and what He's doing. Despite all this, I've seen Him work incredible things in my life even during times where I flat-out refused to hope, couldn't bring myself to hope, that anything could be done to save me from whatever fire I was facing.

God is not tied to our faith. He chooses to limit Himself to working with us through our prayers, but I think we don't give Him nearly enough credit for what He can do within those limitations. God remembers our hearts to love and serve Him even when we are so disillusioned that we can't even pray for the strength to serve Him. God remembers the prayers we prayed in faith years after we've quit believing that He ever heard those particular prayers. He is not dependent on our daily ups and downs. We equate faith with an emotion way too much. We feel faith. Naturally human beings have days where we feel like we can believe in what we don't see and we have days where that feeling of belief is entirely out of reach. That feeling is not faith. Faith is the deeper trust in God, it's beyond emotion. (But wouldn't Satan like to tell you your faith is non-existent on your bad days? It's a lie.) It's the trust that lets me know I can come to God and talk to Him about how little I feel like I trust Him on a given day. It's the trust that knows that God will answer my prayers His way and it will be good. It's trust that even if my faith isn't big enough, my God has not changed and He is still more than big enough. So often the thing we have faith in is nothing more than our own faith. That's silly. My faith is nothing next to my God.

And God knows what's next. He knows what's best. I've had Him refuse to answer some of my most desperate prayers for inner change only to find out later that He had plans to use my weakness in some huge way before allowing me to grow in that area. I've prayed prayers once and then forgotten them only to have God remind me of my prayer years later after He had answered it. I have feared the worst, seen every fear and more come true, lost my ability to believe that God would ever do anything in my life again, and still been carried through every hard place (kicking and screaming) despite my lack of trust in God to help me. I've prayed trembling, afraid, and pitiful, and still seen God work. Maybe this is the mustard seed of faith that Jesus talks about, not that we have the power to command the mountains but that we know, small and scared as that knowledge may be, that whatever God does will somehow be good even if it's not what we thought we needed and we will never stop following God no matter what.

In all our prayers we need to remember that faith is far deeper than emotion. We rarely need as much as we think we do. God's bigger than our prayers and His timing is perfect. He will teach us to trust Him. And until then (and always) He is faithful even when we are not.

full-time everything?

2008-09-17T22:11:00.002-06:00

So fall classes have started. This semester I've decided to try both working full time and taking classes full time. Things could get hectic. I'm really liking all my classes though so maybe it won't be so bad. I am taking:

Astronomy 101, it's four credits of online science and the math may just be my undoing, but I really like science so I could survive. It will be exciting to see how I do.
Intro to Computer Information Systems, also online. You can't graduate from my school without taking this one. The chapters run about 40+ pages long but It's way more interesting than I expected it to be.
Spanish Cinema, my one and only actual class-room class. It's been weird so far but I talked to the teacher today and I think it will get better. At least I'll get to polish up my Spanish a bit.
Poetry Writing, again online and we watch, listen to, and read a lot of poetry. As a class we've only bee required to write one little haiku poem but it's put me in a near - continual state of poetic inspiration so notebook pages are being filled with my musings.

Naturally, the poetry class is hands - down my favorite. The only classes I need to graduate are the astronomy and computer classes, the rest I just threw in there to stay on my parents' insurance (I have to be full time to be under their insurance). The last few weeks I've felt like I bit off more than I can chew, and though that is somewhat typical I am hoping to get into the swing of it here soon. ;)

untitled

2008-08-25T21:02:00.000-06:00

Wounded heart
I accept loneliness
An easy habit
My own burden

We had something once
I breathed Your beauty
It wrapped me up
And made my joy free

Precious things
So very fragile
I let it slip away
The fault is mine

You are faithfulness
From my own death
You have saved me
No death too deep

Here I stand alive
But scars cut still
I walk the peripheral
Locked in mourning

A girl in love
Once the mention
Of Your holy name
Brought me a smile

Now I wait
Outside and cold
Uncomplaining
Unworthy

But in my heart
The deep ache
Of love I lost
Memory of what was

And I hunger
Keeping my silence
I've lost faith in love
The child is gone

The emptiness wins
Taunting my iron will
I will be faithful
And hope for nothing more

Could I hope?
I know Your heart
It aches more than mine
Can I love You again?

Will You awake
The dead love in me?
Bring me back into
The joy of my youth?

I remember dully
The joy that we had
The reality of You
A love beyond beauty

The broken cynic
That haunts my mind
Cries impossible
And hope is strangled

But You made the stars
Turned water to wine
And have raised the dead
Nothing is impossible

Oh God keep saving me!
Breathe life into my heart
Melt the hopeless dull
Build the fire again

Awake in me the love
That sleeps within
Capture my heart
Teach me to dream

singing in the rain

2008-08-20T18:39:00.001-06:00

Immanuel Fellowship does not own a building. I've always appreciated this. It makes it easier to grasp the fact that church is not a building or a meeting on Sunday morning, it is people following Jesus together.

This is sometimes inconvenient, like when we have to set up for Sunday's meeting on Saturday night. Mostly though I like it. I like the feeling that people in the church are the church 24/7. I think this buildinglessness (I always feel childishly proud of myself when I invent a new word) also helps create the sense of community we have. I feel like I don't have to wait till Sunday to see someone.

We rent our Sunday space from the Senior Center and meet in homes during the week. This Sunday was their annual rummage sale and consequentially it's our annual Sunday in the park. This is one of the Sundays I really look forward to. I always like it when we meet outside, weather it's during the rummage sale or one of our camping trips. I guess it somehow makes me feel more connected to the early church fathers and the persecuted church. I know they didn't/don't always their gatherings outside. I suppose for me these outside Sundays remind me of the church's placelessness on earth. How the church cannot be confined and limited to a building or a time or a country. It's a clearer glimpse of what we really are.

Usually we are blessed with a perfect sunny day during the rummage sale. This year we got a different blessing. We got cold mountain rain. Fortunately we are all hearty mountain people so we were prepared with the appropriate clothing. I was especially glad for the rain. I am a recent addition to the worship team and this week all the other female vocalists were either gone, or too pregnant to sing. Being the only girl up there is the next best thing to singing a solo so I was fairly nervous. Logistical problems during the worship time make feel like I can relax and worship because no one is thinking about me, they are ether distracted or trying harder to focus on God. This may be a bad attitude. I don't know. As you can see the worship team had to stand close to the edge of the gazebo and we got a little wet. It was fun, I like Colorado weather.

contentment

2008-08-14T22:35:00.003-06:00

Philippians 4 "...Rejoice in the Lord always; again I say rejoice...Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God...Not that I speak from want, for I have learned to be content in whatever circumstances I am. I know how to get along with humble means, and I also know how to live in prosperity; in any and every circumstance I have learned the secret of being filled and going hungry, both of having abundance and suffering need. I can do all things through Him who strengthens me."

This is one of those chapters I might be tempted to conveniently ignore - if Paul hadn't written it from the inside of a prison cell. However the whole writing about contentment while in prison thing forces me to take this passage seriously. I'm not a person who does blind faith very well. I have troubles living out the pieces of Christianity that are too deep for me to grasp with my mind. This can make for slow going in my walk with God sometimes. Things like always rejoicing, being content, and being thankful really don't make sense to me. How are we supposed to rejoice when things are going badly? How do we have a thankful heart for the things that suck in life? How can we be honestly content when our needs are not met? I want to obey God in these areas of my life but I don't want to fake it. God sees where my heart really is anyway so there isn't much point in trying to pretend I am thankful, joyful, or content when I'm not.

Lately I've been trying to study artistic composition. The little watercolor paintings I create can be rather uninspiring I think one of my problems is bad composition. One thing I keep seeing over and over is this talk about negative space. Negative space is the empty spaces around the subject of your painting. So say if you paint a vase of flowers the negative space is the blank, uninteresting wall behind that vase of flowers. Negative space is the void. The shapes and patterns created by the negative space, though easily over looked, can make or break a composition. The keep it simple and uncluttered, they help lead the viewer's eye through the painting, they create depth and balance and more. Basically the empty spaces in a painting are very important.

How does this relate to my long-standing dilemma over Philippians 4? Well, I have a problem rejoicing, giving thanks, or being content when the things in my life aren't going as I planned. I have my list of requests I make to God, and many of my requests are things I honestly think I need. I am a light packer, both literally and figuratively, I tend to think the needs on my list are quite basic. God provides but so often He doesn't give me most of what's on my list - He even withholds many of things I thought were very basic. Sometimes it feels like there are a lot of unfilled voids and empty negatives in my life. In response to this I stop rejoicing, being thankful or content. It just doesn't make sense to me how or why I should. I try to do what the Bible says, but blind obedience was never my strong point. However, Paul wrote this convicting passage while imprisoned, and the persecuted church continues to worship God with a sincerity that shames me.

It's so easy to get focused on the negative spaces in my live, the voids, and the places where God's idea of my basic needs turned out to be quite different from my own. I don't understand all the reasons why, and I never will; I'm too small for that. I'm thinking it all comes down to trust in God. Trust that His ways are higher and that Someone smart enough to create the universe is smart enough to run my life. I can obey Paul's words if I can wrap my mind around the fact that God is a master artist. Unlike my little paintings He knows how to use the negatives and voids that life brings and make something amazing out of them. I'm beginning to suspect that maybe the things that God doesn't give us are themselves gifts just as precious as those things we are given.

I've walked with God long enough that I can look back with this new perspective and actually see where and how he has used some of my negatives to weave profound threads of beauty into my life. In hind sight there isn't a rough time that I would go back and trade for an easy time. But I'm so quick to forget what God has done in the past whenever I'm faced with some new trial. It would be laughable if it wasn't so sad. One more thing to put in His hands and beg Him to change in me. Basically I can be thankful, content and rejoice because God knows what He's doing and He never makes mistakes.

mobile like the wind

2008-06-30T23:24:00.000-06:00

Today I finished moving into the house of my pastor and his wife. This would be the sixth place I have lived since this time last year. My parents were nomads growing up but I think this is a record even for me. I've come to appreciate my singleness a lot more these last twelve months. I know this new appreciation is because, as a single I am very mobile and very flexible. I can move wherever the wind of God's call takes me - and do on very little notice. It's exciting and unpredictable and I love it!

heros

2008-06-22T22:35:00.000-06:00

I just read a very interesting article on Focus on the Family's websight PluggedIn. This is my first time looking at this sight; I wanted to check on a movie for my littlest sister. While looking up the movie I needed to check on I found this article. It is some thoughts on our postmodern culture and the rising popularity of superhero movies. It seems like a relativist culture would not enjoy superhero movies because they are full of absolutes; right and wrong, good and evil, heros and villains. Yet superhero movies do very well in the box office.

Deep in our hearts I think that humanity knows truth, we just get mixed up sometimes. I wonder, like the writer of this article, if the rise of hero movies could be tied to something deeper. Are people longing to know what is right and to give their lives - even sacrifice to be a hero, do right, and make the world a better place? I think so. I see a lot of apathy in my generation, yet I also see this side that wants to be a hero, that is extreme and thrill - seeking. I'm praying that we embrace our extreme side before age and life settle in and we forget our dreams of making a difference in the world around us.

pain

2008-06-12T10:40:00.003-06:00

There used to be this policy in my family that we were never allowed to throw old schoolwork away. As a result of this policy I had a box of old school work dating all the way back to sixth grade. Being an adult I was recently informed that I now have the right to go through and get rid of any old homework I no longer need. I did so this morning. It was a very interesting job.

I noticed a drastic change about ninth grade. In middle school I was absolutely convinced that I was the stupidest, shallowest person in my class. Feeling that there was nothing I could do about it, I usually lived up to my own expectations. Then, in the middle of my eighth grade year, the private school relocated and I couldn't go anymore. Basically I lost my social life and saw my closest friend from the school only on rare occasions. I homeschooled (read: no classmates) I was very lonely and got pretty depressed. Then God began to pull on my heart in a new way and became my only Friend. My freshman year of highschool arrived and it seemed like big things just kept going wrong in my life. Too big for a fifteen-year-old to handle kinds of things. Stuff I couldn't do anything about. On top of it all I was shy and friendless. The next year, at sixteen I began going to a new private school. I no longer believed I was shallow with nothing to say. Looking through my old school assignments I see a seemingly sudden depth. I went into the new school still believing I was not very smart, and that I would be the kid who struggles to maintain a C average. This time though, rather than give in to a mediocre school performance I determined to try my best anyway. Turns out I had a straight A student hiding in there.

Why am I talking about this? I've been thinking about pain the last few months. Pain seems senseless. This is true no mater what kind of pain it is. A young toddler who bumps his head and cries probably doesn't understand or appreciate his pain any more than the man who loses his family in a car accident.

Not that I'm saying all pains and tragedies are equal; they are not. Only that in our own private little hearts our pain can seem so huge and overwhelming and impossible to understand. We ask why these things are happening. Usually it seems there is no answer to our most heart-wrenching questions. Only silence seems to meet these types of prayers echoing back our own pain. In the bigger struggles of just a few years ago I was guilty of crumbling under the weight of such unanswered pain. It's so hard to believe that God is still with me loving me when the whole world seems to be falling apart around me. When He doesn't stop it from happening.

Pain changes us in ways that we could never predict or appreciate while we are in it. At least in my times of greatest pain I can only see how it's ruining me. How I am weaker, more insecure, less capable than before. Often I have gotten angry feeling like God allowed pain into my life and then didn't even use it for good.

I'm starting to think of pain as a cruel shovel digging my soul deeper. Something that is made deeper can do two things. It can just be a bigger empty space and in that way merely highlight every past pain and the injustice of it all. Or something that is made deeper can be a bigger empty space that has a greater capacity to hold more of God's life. I've found the second to be true in my life. When I am honest with God about where I am and how I hurt, even how unfair I think it is; when I pray and seek to find God in the pain and know He is with me even when silent; when I trust Him as far as I can praying that He will build in me the capacity for trust I lack; when, to sum up, I focus on following Him however struggling that following may be then I begin to see my pains redeemed.

It is not anything I do. I am quite UNsaintly when it comes to enduring suffering. I can fall into despair and self-pity quite easily. Yet somehow God doesn't let us fall out of His hands - even when in our self-destructiveness we would jump out of His hands. Somehow despite all my anger and inability to understand pain, God uses it all to empty me further. Then, to pile grace on top of grace, once emptied God helps me choose to allow Him to fill me rather than focus on self-pity. Often in the middle of pain I feel like God isn't there, but it has been through that same pain that I have been allowed to glimpse His loving grace most fully.

pause

2008-06-11T10:49:00.002-06:00

I feel like someone hit the pause button on my life. Since coming back from Mexico I've hardly left my parents' house. I have no friends in their little town, no school, no job. Nothing. I'm going through my stuff and throwing out old clothes. Other than that there is absolutely nothing for me to do in this town but go on walks. I'm not really frustrated yet, but I know if this lasts much longer I will be.

a world away

2008-06-06T22:05:00.003-06:00

I am sitting in my parents' basement in a small ranch town in Colorado. As Joel described it while driving me to the airport on Wednesday, a world away from Mexico City. I've moved nearly once for every year I've been alive. Usually I'm quite excited about the coming change. Leaving Mexico would be my first time not being excited to move.

The past four months that I have spent living in Mexico have been a confusing mixture. As I have prepared to leave I've been asked many times why I like Mexico so much. Usually my answers come out sounding incredibly shallow and lame. I just can't seem to quite describe what it is I love so much. I'm going to try anyway. I think I just can't get over Mexican culture. There is such an open kindness that seems to be so normal there. The culture has this electric mix of the ancient and the cutting edge that never gets boring. Mexico is shamelessly as full of color as a garden in full bloom. And there is this element of mystery and a little danger that I find irresistible. I have definitely fallen head-over-heels for this country.

On the other hand it was very difficult for me to live with so many people. I can get kind of weird with roommate situations. Something inside my head tells me that things will be better if I am as invisible as possible. I have been called the ghost roommate. All my former roommates have made comments about how I'm never around. I have felt that if I'm gone all the time or very quiet and invisible when home that my roommates will take longer to get tired of me and want me to leave. Nonsense, but the thing in my head that says it is really loud. During my time in Mexico God has been working on my fear of people. It's not been easy. I often found myself crying at night on our roof and wondering why God had put me on a church-planting team knowing I had these fears.

Mexico was a really good place to be as God began to ask me to surrender these things. There is a gentleness and a kindness in the way people treat each other that I found getting past my barriers even on my most frustrating days. My goodbye to this place was a teary one, but hopefully short. I'm hoping to be back sometime in the next year. Even if I'm not I felt strangely encouraged as I walked the dusty streets of Kremmling with my dog today. It's hard to nail it down with words but I really think God changed a lot in me through my time in Mexico. Seeing this evidence of God's hand in my life makes the future, uncertain though it may be, seem very full of hope.

MDS

2008-05-31T18:47:00.003-06:00

Sometimes the longer you put something off the harder and more awkward it is to actually begin. I am speaking of blogging. I really meant to blog more during my time in the MDS but until recently have never had a computer of my own. I seem to spend most of my borrowed computer time answering emails. Enough about that.

The MDS ended nearly a month ago and all my wonderful fellow students went home. I was able to stay here in Mexico an extra month and help out with all the guests we've had. For nearly a week we had six little kids in the house, and all but one of them were three or younger. It made me miss life with Marie's family. Her mom had a daycare and it was often noisy.

But before I attempt to rejoin the world of normal bloggers, it seems appropriate that I should pause and write a bit about the MDS. A sort of thanks and goodbye to a school that has been one of those life - changing bits of the journey.

When I first heard of the MDS (Missional Discipleship School) I had no intention of joining. Don't get me wrong, it was the thing I had been waiting for my church to do for ages. The problem was I didn't feel ready, I felt like I had messed up everything I'd touched for a long time (especially my relationships with people in the church), and I just wanted to leave for college and couldn't make that day come fast enough.

God had His own ideas and since He is God it is best to obey. It was one of those times where I attempt to respectfully pray something like, "Um, God, are You sure You know what You're doing?" I almost cried right in class the first few days because I was so scared of what the year would look like. As always, it turned out God did know what He was doing. (Duh.) As a result this year has really been life-changing. Not that I have become super-saint or anything, but I do feel like a somewhat dark chapter of my life has ended and this school has been the beginning of something new.

I think mostly what God has done is taken a lot of things He had taught me over the last few years and tied them together in a way that suddenly leaves me freer and more anchored. (I know that is somewhat a contradiction in terms. However, a leaf tossed by the waves is not free, but a captive of the sea. Meanwhile a boat with an anchor is free to stay or go by lifting or dropping the anchor.) I think God worked deeply in all our lives through this experience.

Our time living together in Mexico was definitely the most challenging. We are all more introverted personalities that need a little more space. The fact that God was really working in all of us seemed to make that more true. Living with ten people in one house was new for all of us. We had a lot of fun cooking together, praying every morning, and having crazy water fights. Usually these were started by Anissa or Joel, but I got the opportunity to help organize a group dousing of Mike, the pastor of the church in Colorado, when he visited on his birthday. Out of pure courtesy and politeness for his birthday I gave him the privilege of throwing a pitcher of watter on me in the battle that ensued. (Actually, Anissa pushed me in an effort to save herself, but that's a secret.) We also played many a game of Jungle Speed together, from which I still bear the scars of Claudia's nails.

Another important point about the MDS is that I killed my first scorpion.

I spent much of my time in Mexico wondering why God chose to send me and not someone else. He had to remind me over and over that I need to trust His choice. In the past I've made the mistake of not trusting God's choice, seeing someone I think is better for the job, and trying to be that person. It tends to be a disaster.

Despite us being a rather introverted group we all had the privilege of seeing a church birthed. Sometimes I would try to figure out how it was happening. None of us expected to see things happen as fast as they did. Just a week or two after we arrived another church donated all their stuff to us and joined themselves to us. Crazy and unexpected. The church here is not large at all but a bit bigger than we expected to see so soon.

Well that was long and a bit rambly and is about to come to one of my infamous sudden conclusions.

I miss all my fellow students of the MDS, hopefully it won't be too long before I can come visit Paris...

driving in mexico

2008-02-10T11:45:00.000-07:00

The group of us that drove the cars joined the group that flew in Mexico City last night. It was a long three days of driving with all three of us. Sounded like the group that flew had a really hard time. Over half of them were sick and their flight was delayed due to mechanical difficulties.

I found the drive through the Mexican countryside lovely, however the part I really liked was the city. I ended up getting one of my turns behind the wheel for the last stretch of our trip. The part where we drive through the city. It was so much fun! I had to use all my driving skills, be constantly alert, and pull some moves just to keep up with the lead car. I have a special place in my heart for challenges that are intense enough to get my adrenaline going. There were a few times I felt like James Bond. Shawn was praying and honestly thought he was about to die. It was awesome! I am gonna like it here.

For the sake of my team you should probably all pray that I get smoother at this city driving. It would be sad if they all went home with gray hair at their age.

sent out

2008-02-04T08:19:00.000-07:00

The last week has been busy. I'm trying to see most of my friends before I leave. This is pretty hard, I'm forgetting people.

There have been a lot of prayer for the team going to Mexico this week. A meeting where we prayed to be filled with the Holy Spirit. The housechurch we're all a part of prayed for us on Saturday night. Sunday the church all got around us and prayed for us.

Being sent out like this is not at all what I imagined it would be. It's all so new and different for all of us. I'm not really sure what it was I was expecting. Somehow this is entirely different. Sweeter, more solemn and happier. This last week has felt a little dream-like at moments. Maybe it's the mixture of being super excited at having a dream come true and also being super nervous and feeling all wrong for the honor of being sent.

I really thought I was not going to be a part of our first church plant. Two years ago I felt God very clearly ask me to surrender my desire to be a missionary outside of the U.S. I felt like God asked me to trust Him with the humiliation of not going when everyone knew it was what I had planned on since I was seven. So I surrenderd and began planning on not going anywhere anytime soon. Everyone else was planning the same I think. When I signed on with this school I didn't realize that we would be the first church planting team. I somehow thought we were doing something else. I would've been way more hesitant to come had I known. Crazy how God turns things upside down on you sometimes.

I'm driving to Mexico tomorrow or the day after so my next post will be from the city...

six days

2008-01-29T10:09:00.000-07:00

The MDS is leaving for Mexico in six days. I am:

scared
not ready
ready as i'm gonna get
hoping to become more mexican
needing to learn to give God more of me
ready to have tamales for breakfast
desperate to come back different
challenging myself to pack light
studying spanish
excited

yea and the count down is well underway. I've written and rewritten my packing list, it's still in the works. ;)

goodbye 2007

2008-01-09T21:36:00.000-07:00

Yeesh, this is not a year I'm going to miss. Due to something silly I did last January I seem to have spent a large chunk of it messing up relationships. So much drama, it was truly amazing.

I almost had my first boyfriend this year. (We practically were, I was just to freaked-out to call it that.) I took him five days to find a new girl after I decided it wasn't going to work and now they're pregnant. My roommate eloped and i helped her. I lived in three different places and one of my friends has been homeless most weeks since august when my sort-of-former-boyfriend got them evicted from their house. Drama.

However, the drama swings both ways. There was the bad but there was also a lot of really good things that happened this year. I think I learned grace, both for myself and for those around me. God did a lot in me this year that freed me in new ways from depression and some of it's effects. I had a huge jump in confidence with people because I worked as a waitress. (I now think that everyone should be a server for at least a few months because of all that you learn about people and yourself and generosity.) I did manage to reconcile every one of my relationships and learned the lessons on forgiveness, grace and humility that come with doing that. I also am part of the MDS which has been amazing and way better than I hoped.

I think I've grown much closer to God. He's reminded me we're still friends often through all the ups and downs. He also spoke clearly to me that He felt cheated because I was (early in the year) only attempting a relationship with Him because everyone expected it and I needed to be close to Him if I was going to pursue the things I felt He called me to. So God wants my friendship more than my usefulness. Like any other friendship it needs to be about love, not about getting something done.

Oh, and my friends threw me a surprise birthday party which I've always wanted! Such a good way to become twenty-four.

Well that was 2007, I grew a lot. I'm hoping this next year will see as much growth without all the crazy drama.

(I'm moving to Mexico in less than four weeks. Yay!)

blessed are.....

2007-11-11T16:45:00.000-07:00

So we've been going through the Sermon on the Mount in the MDS. Very good study which I am much liking. (Are you allowed to say that in English? Oh, well.) After five weeks we have finally come to Matthew 5:6 which says, "Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied."

I have read and even memorized this passage in the past but I'm seeing it in a new light this time. One thing is that the Greek word for righteousness can be translated either justice or righteousness. It's the same word in Greek. This is also true in Spanish and French. The word carries both the meanings. So the verse could read, "Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for justice/righteousness for they shall be satisfied."

Okay I know I'm more interested in linguistics than most people, but this is actually important because it gives the verse a deeper meaning than the English language allows. I usually take it as I need to be hungry to be righteous in my own heart and life. It also means I need to be hungry to see justice in the world around me, to see the oppressed freed and the hungry fed. Deeper no?

Now usually I just think about the first part of the verse and forget the second part. The second part is a promise. Those who hunger and thirst for justice/righteousness will be satisfied. They will be satisfied. Sometimes it's really easy for me to look at my heart and at the world around me and feel like I'll never see justice/righteousness. It's easy for me to feel like it's a lost cause today. Not only in my own heart but in the hearts of everyone in my generation. But here's a promise that those who really want it are going to be satisfied. That's big.

wearing thin

2007-11-07T23:26:00.000-07:00

We live in the most opulent, glamorous society that has ever existed. Everything is easy, everything is instant, and everything is available. Why aren't we happy?

I think possibly we are one of the most unhappy societies that has ever paraded the earth. People are depressed in huge numbers. I have so many friends who've been suicidal or even attempted it. I've known a lot of people with eating disorders and a handful of people who've cut themselves. Too many. Why is it that my generation which has everything and more of it than any group of people ever before is the most depressed, most self-destructive, most suicidal ever?

I came up with this theory recently. It may be too simple but I'll give it a shot. What if humanity is nearing the top? Like we are all on this quest together and the things we're looking for are happiness, love, comfort, fulfilment, security, whatever. Maybe we're all looking for these things together. Maybe there's this internal list in all of us. Kinda like Maslow's hierarchy of needs we all learn about in Psychology class. Maybe humanity has advanced so much that we've scratched off most or nearly all of the needs on that internal list. We are coming to the end of the list and there's still this glaring... something. There's something beyond the list we all need.

But we've tried nearly every humanly possible option haven't we? We have security, everything we could ever need to want. We have connectivity and community. We are the most connected people ever. I have a blog, a facebook, a myspace, a cellphone, unlimited texts, email, snailmail, and too many friends to pay attention to. I can hardly get through a class without getting a text. What else are we desperate for?

If this little theory is true and we all as individuals and as a species have this internal list of needs, if we are nearing the end of that list, then maybe the state we are in today could be the results of an underling panic. We've tried just about everything and we are still incomplete somehow. What's going to happen to us if we can't find that thing we need? What happens if we remain needy and incomplete? What if when Jesus said that He is the way the truth and the life He really knew what He was talking about?

a mystery

2007-11-06T16:11:00.000-07:00

So there's this mystery I've been trying to figure out this last week. It's really been driving me nuts. Why is it that we have the technology to map the human genome and walk on the moon but we can't figure out how to make NyQuil taste any better than awful?

ezekiel 37

2007-11-04T22:16:00.000-07:00

Scattered pieces
A junkyard
Of human lives
Once young
With the bloom of promise
Of sweet hopes
And courageous dreams
Now torn limb from limb
Mutilated
Beyond recognition

Who are you?
What have you become?
And where is the life of yesterday?
Bones
Nothing but bones
Death Scattered on the ground
Dry and parched
Starving in a desert land
Dead long ago

A hopelessness seeps in
Deeper than prison
Worse than slavery
Desolation
Silence
Who can look upon it?

An emptiness
Beyond hope's reach
Can these dry bones live?
Oh God, You know
Then He commands
Prophesy
Hear your God speak
Words of power
To a heart long dead
He who spoke stars into being
Now speaks life to you
Can He not create it?
Something from nothing

And the word goes out
Who can stand against it?
Silence is broken
With the sound of life
Where we thought death reined
But our God is more
Stronger
Than our childish imaginings
Than the image we've made
Than the box we chain Him to
The lion roars for His children
Breathing
His life for theirs
And the bones live
Finally real
They stand
An army...

david

2007-11-01T23:48:00.000-06:00

Today was a sad day for the MDS. We have six students and today one of them, David, left for home. His little brother has been in a coma for over a year now and he feels like he needs to be with his family. Life is really impossible to understand sometimes.

I went to the church's highschool with David and he used to be in the housechurch I helped lead. He moved away about three years ago. It's been really good to have him around again this last month. The last three years have been super discouraging and in a lot of ways I don't live by the standards I used to or dream the things I once did. Having David around this last month has remimded me who I used to be, what I used to live for, and why. I had come to think a lot of that stuff back then was fake, just to please people, or me trying to be like somebody else because I thought I wasn't good enough. I was immature, but it wasn't all fake. Thanks David.

my life in the mds

2007-10-28T21:03:00.000-06:00

Once again i neglect my blog. That's life, I don't currently own a computer. So much has happened since last I had the luxury of posting. The MDS (Missional Discipleship School) started on October fourth. It's been amazing so far. It was a little awkward at first. I think becase the shadows of everywhere I've been the last few years were hanging on. I wasn't too excited to be in anything that might cause me to be responsible for something of a spiritual nature. I used to be a houschurch leader and failed, and I frequently feel like I only make things worse. I came into this school sure God wanted me here but with no idea why.

Well, I'm LOVING being a full-time student again. (Yea, I know, I'm a nerd.) And the second week of school we went backpacking for six days. It was pretty awesome. I love all things camping (except the toilettes) so I was destined to have fun. We focused on holiness a lot. I think I've been kinda running from holiness, or just quit thinking of it as something that's very important. I did a lot of repenting for my bad attitude and for not really living for God and blaming Him for stuff that's happened in my life. Other than that this trip was the most challenging trip I've ever been on. It's the first trip I've been on where I wanted to be home. We had a day that resembled hell. You can see a video here. To sum up the backpacking trip was very worth it, super fun, and probably slightly life-changing.

After we got back from that trip we had one week to learn a drama for the retreat. Learning dramas and skits in very short amounts of time is quite typical of Immanuel Fellowship. (My church, which this missions school is a part of.) A video will be posted online shortly. I'll attempt to blog about it. I know I'm at risk of sounding a bit dramatic but this retreat was also slightly life-changing for me. A bit too personal for the internet though, sorry.

I really hate doing these I-haven't-posted-in-forever posts. They're always long and rambly. So I will sum up one more time and then say good night. God's been doing a lot in me through this school. It's great. Cheers.

nebraska, my favorite vacationland

2007-09-24T22:40:00.000-06:00

Well I quit my job at my Mexican restaurant. I think the boss got confused (or possibly mad) when I gave my two-week notice and just didn't put me on the scedual for the next two weeks. This, in my eyes was a pretty awesome thing to do. I have been in some seirous need of a little vacation. So I've come to my grandparents' house in Nebraska. It's a really great place for me to calm-down, take a breather, and spend some time with God before I jump in with the school of missions I'm going to be a part of in about a week (is it really that soon?). My grandparents are pretty awesome.

rocks & trust

2007-09-23T15:38:00.000-06:00

I took rock climbing this week with Scott, the same teacher who taught me to ice climb. He's a pretty good teacher. Last time I took his class I was the only girl. This time people joked that the class had more girls than any of them had ever seen together in one place in Summit County. Sad, but true. It's been awhile since I've gotten to hang with that many girls.

So last time, in Ice Climbing class, this big guy dropped me while I was climbing. It was on one of the first climbs of the second day. I didn't get hurt, but I was lucky that one of my ice picks held long enough for him to start paying attention and take up the slack in the rope or I might've been. This scared me a lot. I already didn't trust the rope or the belayer. After being dropped I climbed as if I didn't have a rope at all. I got so burned-out climbing that way and never got very far off the ground after this.

I realized my mistake and tried to correct it coming into this rock climbing class. Funny, I was only dropped once - every other time the person belaying me had done a wonderful job. Despite all my good experiences it was the one bad experience that has stuck with me over the past year and a half. (I haven't done any sort of climbing since then.) It was a lot harder to trust this time around. Did I mention I am also afraid of heights? Not terribly afraid. Just enough that see-through bridges and any kind of grill or screen that has to be walked over is a cheep thrill. (I fell through one of those once which makes them quite scary, but that's another story.) Those bad experiences just stick with us despite whatever good we've known.

One girl in my class had a much higher than average fear of heights. She also has a fear of ropes because her uncle hung himself a year ago. We started the day off with rappelling and she ended up crying and rocking back and forth with her face in her knees. I tried to encourage her but it didn't look good. Amazingly though, after Scott worked with her one-on-one she did end up climbing a couple of the faces we ended up climbing. She was never quite able to rappel or allow herself to be lowered in anyway opting instead to walk off the tops of what she climbed. I've got say I was pretty impressed. I think I'm going to remember her for the rest of my life. There are things that get me scared enough that I feel like curling in a ball and crying. I frequently back down. God's been speaking to me a lot about growing a backbone lately. There's a lot of areas in my life where I've been seeing I need more courage.

Her example actually proved helpful for me. I think after her I was definitely the most afraid of heights, and afraid that my belayer wouldn't catch me. Grrrrr.... Rappelling was cool and fun, though very, very hard - especially those first few steps. My real problems arose after I'd climbed whatever it was I needed to climb. At this point I had to let go of the rock, lean back into the rappelling position (For those of you who don't know when you rappel you lean back till you are nearly parallel to the ground, from this position it's impossible to make a mad grab for the safety of the rock if you get dropped.), and trust the person belaying me to lower me back to the ground. This not only scares me, it completely freaks me out. I'm not one who easily trusts the people around me to begin with. Embarrassingly, the teacher had to climb up beside me and gently talk me through this step.

This is very parallel to real life for me. You could say I've been dropped. I've been dropped a lot. I have a very hard time really trusting people. Often I have a very hard time trusting God. I'm always waiting to be let down, abandoned, dropped. I've tried very hard to be one of those people who is completely independent, or as independent as is possible. Even when I am open usually it's because I've been gossiped about enough that I really could care less. Last year in ice climbing class I noticed that those who made it to the top of the hard stuff did so because the trusted that if they fell they would be caught.

This is my second long post this week. My apologies. Almost done. Anyway I was determined to learn to trust the rope this weekend. At first I was pitiful. Then I learned a trick that eventually made me take great strides towards accomplishing my goal. Stupid as it sounds the only thing that made it tolerable for me to be lowered was to ask the person belaying me to just hold me for a minute while I leaned back, let go of the rope, let my arms fall back, and forced myself to relax for a moment. For some reason after this I was completely fine. After making people do this for me on every climb I did pretty well. I even managed to climb something people much better than me struggled with and not everyone could do it. Learning to trust the rope and belayer when I had no control allowed me to take the kind of risky moves that were necessary to take me to the top. It was one of those climbs that just didn't have safe, easy hand and foot holds. Sometimes it hardly had anything at all. Without trust I never could have taken the risks or jumped for hard-to-reach holds.

I've been praying a lot this summer for God to teach me a deeper trust. I hope somehow what I learned in rock class this weekend will get applied to the rest of my life. We'll see...

oh dear

2007-09-19T22:47:00.000-06:00

I do believe it's been awhile since I last blogged. Four months actually. I know, it's a bit excessive. I however, am under the impression that I have a very good excuse.

I have spent the summer house-sitting. In a basement. Without internet. The fish decided to become anorexic and died. Not cool. I tried everything, I sweet talked it, cleaned it's water, dropped food near it, and I do believe there was more than one desperate prayer sent to Heaven on that stupid fish's account. Nothing worked and now it's dead. I flushed it down the toilet. At least the dogs are still alive and the plants mostly are. Ben moved back in today so if the plants finish dying before his mom gets back well.....

My bestfriend/roommate got married. Eloped actually. That was a lot of craziness when the news hit the presses. No more will be said of this. But her husband is quite nice and I like him lots. Anyone else and I would've had to drug her and take her to a faraway country or something equally drastic. I am 23 so it's not like Marie is the first friend to get married, but it's excessively different and weirder when it's your best friend and she's three years younger than you.

I have also managed to fix a lot of relationships this summer that I had thought were unfixable. In the process I've been very humbled and learned (once again) how bankrupt I am when it comes to relationships. However, this time around I think possibly I'm seeing myself grow so this is encouraging. God taught me a lot about having mercy on myself last winter and about grace. This summer I learned to apply the same to other people. Possibly grace is not complete until a person is able to apply it both to themselves and to those around them? And those who behave with the least mercy towards others are those plagued with a harshness towards their own faults deep inside?

None of us are perfect. Friends, parents, leaders, or ourselves. I'm glad I'm beginning to learn this now, despite my easy-going exterior I can be quite critical and unforgiving when hurt. This tendency generally screws up everything. Hopefully this is the beginning of the end of the character flaw.

I worked as a waitress at a Mexican restaurant over the summer. That was a trip; I'll never be the same. I highly recommend being a server to everyone. Aside from learning a lot of Spanish curse words, I have learned to fake confidence. Now before all you advocates of genuineness freak out, I should tell you that I've also learned a huge amount of real confidence. I also learned to care a little less of what people think of me. What they say is unfortunately very true: "You can't please them all." Some people just want to be angry about everything. I think these people should have to pay a higher tax for their bad attitudes and all the trouble they put other people through. Also people who don't tip need to all be forced to work for tips for at least a year or however long it takes for them to get it. Remember, not tipping is very bad.

I should've tried harder to blog, now that I'm back at it I have a lot to say, to much to torture anyone with in one long rambling post. So I will limit myself to one very important thing. I have completely changed my plans for the next year.

Rather than go to CU this fall I am joining a school of missions that my church is doing this year. It starts in October. The first three and a half months will be here in the States studying missions, the life of Jesus, and the Bible in general. The last three and a half months will be spent helping a church that fizzled out get going again in Mexico City. After the school ends I will probably spend the summer with my grandparents in Nebraska and then go on to CU next fall. I'm both excited and afraid. I don't exactly feel ready for the challenge that this school will bring yet I feel very confident that this is what God wanted me to do with this year. More confident than I've felt about anything for a long time.

Well that's my summer in a nutshell. It was actually much more insane than it sounds here. This whole year has been so insane that I can't keep track of time in my head. (Did that happen two weeks or two months ago?) The crazy life of me. Hey I also went from having like two people I hung out with to nearly having too many friends. I almost feel popular which is extremely weird. I've always felt like the one that nobody noticed or the one who could easily be forgotten or left behind. I'm not sure how to handle this. Very strange.

peacemakers

2007-05-24T00:02:00.000-06:00

I have been told in the past that I am a peacemaker. The person meant it as a complement. I guess I should think of it that way.

Matthew 5:9, "Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God."

This sounds lovely, no? However, peacemaking is not all it's cracked up to be. Being a peacemaker means conflict. Either your own conflict or that of a friend's. It means being the only person who is willing to make the sacrifice necessary to fix the relationship. This makes you feel like you're the only one who cares, the only one initiating peace, the only one who wants peace, the only one giving love, the only one allowing everyone else to steal from you and walk on you - all for the sake of making peace. It means a lot of work. It means untangling everyone else's emotions and having your own disregarded. It also means being at fault. If the peacemaking efforts fail it's your fault because you were the one attempting to create peace. The other parties involved recognize this and seem to resent you for failing. Seems like peacemaking ends in failure more than any other outcome.

Not so lovely. It hurts. It sucks. Most of the time all your efforts are for nothing. I was recently frustrated to tears over the realization that I have to be the peacemaker in one of my relationships. I've waited months and the other person hasn't done a thing, it's like I don't exist. So I'm stuck being the peacemaker again. Great attitude I'm having about it too, I'm so tired I'm not sure I want to, but I kinda have to I guess. I called up a friend today almost in tears I was so frustrated at the prospect of being stuck here again. I never quite got around to expressing anything, but it was good just talking to someone I'm cool with. I wish I wasn't so bad at relationships to begin with.

"... they shall be called sons of God." Not surprising. My attitude however is unlikely to win me that title. God please change my heart...

nebraska vacation

2007-05-20T22:43:00.000-06:00

So I left Colorado and am currently on vacation in Nebraska. Odd, I know, but my grandparents live here making this a free vacation. So far it's cost me half a tank of gas (I love my gas-hatting car).

I quit my job (horray!!) because it wasn't going to work with my college classes this summer. This next semester is my last at CMC. I already walked in my graduation. This is exciting as it was my first graduation since preschool. I'm glad I decided to participate; I almost didn't. One semester of CMC left then it's onward to Boulder and a major in linguistics.

Seems like life has been so fast-paced this last semester, it's taken me a week and a half just to unwind at my grandparents' house. I suddenly gained a social life and I don't think I've been giving myself enough introvert time, lol. But it's been a fun/interesting semester.

Anyway I'm having an AWESOME time hanging out with Jacque doing mostly nothing. Reading, journaling, running, painting, cooking, ah so nice. She also has great friends who like to make fun of homeschooling so I fit right in. For a little excitement we've been creating mischief catching spiders, seran-wrapping cars, forking yards, and more.

where i go

2007-04-26T00:35:00.000-06:00

I'm afraid to trust You
Take me and teach me
Who are You beyond religion?
Beyond our institutions
And tidy answers?

I fear Your power, love and mystery
I don't understand Your ways
Take me to the wild wilderness
And let me see Your thunder

Take my identity
Give me a name only we know
Take my dreams and direction
Let me wonder aimless
If it means I go with You

I don't want religion's safety games
Keep the labels and recognition away
I have failed You in everything
And I'm too tired and scared
To ever wish to play again
Take me somewhere I can trust

May my broken heart be Yours
Though I haven't the strength to give it
Let me learn the quiet of Your love...

freindships

2007-02-21T09:29:00.000-07:00

My relationships are going through a very strange time. There have been several times in the past few months when I've wanted to entirely give up on friendship in general with most people. I guess I've been frustrated. For a very long time. And I'm tired of trying and trying to be friends with people and feeling like I'm banging my poor little heart against a smiling stone wall.

I have been angry lately and have quit caring little by little over the past four or five months. Totally frustrated with trying. Strangely, my relationships seem to be getting better. It's kinda bizarre. I get frustrated and decide to stop caring and quit trying to be friends and as a result, a lot of my relationships improve. I've also made a few new friends this winter. I wouldn't have guessed it.

I think one of the reasons why things are going better is that, for the most part, I've stopped groveling for friendship. In the recent past I wanted so desperately to be popular. However, popularity is a trap. It's something you have to stay on top of and hold onto. It also isolates people.

I personally have never been popular, but my sister Jacque was known and liked by tons of people at the Honor Academy. She said having so many friends spread her too thin and she ended up having a lot of shallow relationships. (Aside from her accountability group.) That seems to be the rule rather than the exception. Popularity makes it easy to hide behind many shallow relationships. I guess this is why popular people are so lonely. Popularity is a trap in a lot of ways. Maybe I'm just angry, but lately something in me wants to be unpopular and do things because I want to and not give a care if it makes me uncool or rubs people wrong.

I think what I'm going through is okay. Yea, I'm angry and generally this is not the emotion of choice for good little Christian girls, but I think I'm learning important things about confidence, relationships, and popularity and such.

It's been a strange ride lately....

experement

2007-02-18T16:58:00.000-07:00

Marie and I did an experement today. It was inspired by Jacquie's day as a Muslim girl in Nebraska. My sister did not get a very good response from the general populace of her small town. You can read about her day here.

Marie and I went shopping in Denver and decided to try it. We're both olive skinned with dark brown eyes and hair. Perfect. We knew going into it that in Denver we'd probably would not get much of a response at all. This turned out to be true, aside from the fun and novelty of going out dressed as Muslim girls, (and getting to see what it feels like to go around veiled) nothing really happened. Everyone acted normal.

The only weird look we got was when we were in Borders and bought postmodern christian books. I suppose that is a bit unusual. We also attracted the attention of a Turkish guy who thought we were Turkish girls. (Oops.) And got into an interesting discussion with an Israeli girl who had moved to America to escape the violence in the Middle East.

Anyway, it's good to see that not everyone in America is weird about race; we've still got a ways to go, but there's hope for us.

new friend

2007-02-16T18:24:00.000-07:00

I just got back from eating crepes (made by real francophone's, I got to speak French) in Breckenridge with a girl who's half Italian, half polish, and her parents were converts to Hinduism. So her name is Menache, like the Hindu goddess. She's very interesting.

The funny thing is, despite our different religious backgrounds we have a lot in common. Her parents, being converts to Hinduism were very Hindu. It's the same as when Christians convert at an older age, everything becomes all about the new religion and getting out of the world. I've noticed second-generation Christians tend to put more focus on being just as genuinely spiritual but try to find a less religious way to go about it all. Anyway, as a result of her parents' conversion Mena was homeschooled, like I was mostly until 10Th grade.

I had a great time eating crepes with her. We talked about the strangeness of homeschooling, not really fitting in to our homeschooling groups, being allowed to travel the world without our parents at a young age, finding our way in college, religion, being sheltered, cultural sensitivity, learning languages, and the movie Mean Girls that we understand since it is about, you guessed it, a homeschooler who has to survive a public high school.

Sadly Mena is in Physician's Assistant school and is only here on rotation for a few weeks. Luckily we were born into the age of the Internet. ;)

beads & new shoes

2007-02-12T23:35:00.000-07:00

I finally got a much needed new pair of new running shoes. I think I used my old ones about twice as long as you're supposed to and they were falling apart inside. This makes for very uncomfortable running. Tonight was my first run in awhile.

Then Marie and I spent the evening with the house to ourselves making earrings and talking. Our friendship has had a rough couple of years. A few months ago though things were getting better, we decided to just kinda back off from eachother. Somehow that time took the pressure off and now we're closer than we ever were in the past.

Seems like we hang out all the time and never get tired of eachother. We're both in one of those slightly confusing times when you grow and change a lot. The great thing is that God's teaching us simmilar things lately which is cool because we can talk any time and usually we're completly on the same page. It's lovely that God's letting us grow together like this. I wonder if our friendship is a little bit of what community is supposed to be like.

new side of grace

2007-02-09T17:57:00.000-07:00

I think I've learned a lot about grace these last few months. A few months ago I said I was frustrated with it. Possibly part of my frustration was because I saw grace as the means to become perfect. If a person is not clearly on the path to becoming perfect than that is a sign grace is not operating in their life.

While I still believe that grace helps us grow, I'm seeing a new side of it. Grace is also the strength to live with your weaknesses without being stresses over perfection. It's what keeps you from discouragement when you don't seem to be growing. (Hey, who feels like their growing all the time?) It's knowing God loves you and accepts you where you are. It's the ability to be merciful towards yourself when you fail.

I really feel like I'm just beginning to come to grips with this. It's okay to struggle, I don't have to be super-christian, have all the answers, or be on everyone's good side. I'm allowed to have bad days - even be depressed and I don't have to get all bent out of shape over it. God won't stop loving me, but in order for me to realize that I have to be gracious towards myself just like He is. This has been finally hitting home this last few weeks and it's like I can breathe. I'm hoping this lesson sticks.

till we have faces

2007-02-05T10:40:00.000-07:00

I finished reading Till We Have Faces today. For the fourth time. It’s that good. It was C.S. Lewis’ favorite of all the books he wrote. I completely agree. (Agreeing with people as smart as him is a sign of smartness I think.) Like a lot of his fiction, this is a book that gives something new with every read.

I tend to read this book when I’m getting bitter and depressed. Yea, that’s been the story for about a month or more now. However, I don’t think it’s all bad. I’ve been very introspective and God has been teaching me a lot. As for the bitterness, well sometimes you have to admit (let yourself be real) that you are upset before you can do anything about it. But that’s another post entirely.

Back to the subject at hand. I read this book because the main character, Oral is very hurt and bitter. With the exception of her sharp temper, the two of us are a lot alike. We both respond to hurts by building walls around our hearts and making resolutions not to let anyone in, but pretend to be okay. She is also ugly and unwanted. Though I am physically pretty I tend to feel the same as her on the inside. Unlikable and unwanted. However, Oral becomes a very good queen and is loved by her people. She pretends to love back but is so consumed with feeling unloved that she can never really allow herself to be loved. Then at the end of her life she discovered that all the things that had made her bitter had been exactly what she would’ve asked for if she had been able to see things from the perspective of the gods with whom she was angry.

I felt like I understood the end of the book this time, and it made me cry for the first time, sob really. She spent so much of her life desperate for love yet completely unable to give or receive it. In her desperation to be loved she describes herself as a huge spider devouring everyone around her. I feel the same desperation in me, though I am too timid to assert myself like her when I feel rejected. I’ve also been seeing lately how the hard stuff that happened in my life a few years ago has been good. I’ve learned things and been freed in ways through it that would’ve taken years and years to do otherwise. Maybe some of the change never would’ve happened at all. Another commonality with Oral, except I get to learn it a lot younger.

is it okay?

2007-01-29T23:24:00.000-07:00

God I don't know where here is
But it seems to be where I'm lost
Am I lost? I don't really know
This place has me confused

Is it okay if I walk through this part?
Can I be afraid, lost, and unsure?
If I stumble here will You lift me?

The times have turned lonely
And all I want to do is hide
Blot out every lost chance at friendship
And pretend my hearts not breaking

Is it okay if I walk through this part?
Can I be hard, withdrawn, and untouchable?
If I stumble here will You lift me?

My past still confusing
My future a grey uncertainty
My dreams are faded to nothing
This heart a bombed-out shell

Is it okay if I walk through this part?
Can I be cynical, moody, and unglued?
If I stumble here will You lift me?

I don't understand this journey
Or why You bring me where You do
Remember that I am dust
Change me as You will

i, nomad

2007-01-25T15:32:00.000-07:00

Last semester I took nine credits at my college while working full-time. I did not die doing this which showed me I can do more than I thought. So I’m taking a heavier class load the next couple of semesters and will be able to graduate with my associates a semester sooner than I planned. I’m excited, like bounce-off-the-walls excited.

Not that I don’t like my school, it’s a nice little school, but including the semesters I took off I’ve been here for four years. And it’s a two year school. So, glad to be moving on. I went to take a tour of my new school last week and loved it. The University of Colorado is so cool. It has a huge gym. Again, I’m excited, like run-around-a-gym excited. (Can I be a nerd and laugh at my own really lame joke?)

I think I’m a bit of a nomad. Okay, I’m a nearly hopeless nomadic. I’m the kind who moves into a new place and then gets all bored and itchy to move after about three months. In April I will have been officially renting in Summit county for three years. I’ve lived in the same house all this time, though I’ve changed rooms thrice and had various house-sitting jobs, I think that has helped me a lot. :p

I love living in Summit but I’m ready to move on to Boulder and try new things, I almost can’t wait till August. I’ve already got a growing list of things I have to try or do while I’m there. Maybe I’ll join the sub-varsity track team or learn to play soccer or the guitar or ahh, the possibilities seem endless at the moment, but I’m beginning to ramble. Ta ta.

thoughts

2007-01-13T15:53:00.000-07:00

i think i can't wait
the time to live is now
how will i do this life?

the morals they taught me
still ringing in my ears
a harsh scrape
the taste of sour
was it all hypocrisy
or was it an honest attempt?
a mixed bag
not mine to know
who am i?

but i open my windows and look out
past the gilded cages of the west
past the frantic attempts of the fanatics
past the cripple in the streets
the infant just lost to starvation
and the desperate drunk with no home
will i close my eyes?

can i close my eyes to the child prostitute?
the forgotten sweatshop employee
or the desperate saudi housewife?
what about the abandoned baby girl
or the tired teenager considering an abortion?
a boy was just sold into slavery for the price of my jeans
while an african family is shattered by aids
and a successful businessman just killed himself
where do i stand in this mess?

shall i blind myself to a tortured world
while i spend my energy on attaining righteous perfection
meanwhile buying my careful image with blood money?
will i stand before god apologetic in the end
because i wasn't that poster child?
what touches his heart?

what then will i do?
things heat up fast and the time to act
cannot be allowed to pass me by unconscious
something in me wants more than just to keep my balance
in this rapidly changing culture of consumption
what if i didn't live for myself?

"i'm sorry i didn't feed you,
couldn't pause to offer a sip of cold water"
don't let me be caught speaking these words
at the gates of eternity

testimonial

2007-01-09T16:21:00.000-07:00

I used to think that internet quizzes were only for the hopelessly bored, then I tried blogthings. It changed my life. Every since I found out that I was a Vissionary Soul I haven't stopped being surprised at my own profoundness. I've become a much better friend because I've been so undertanding, reasonable, and sympathetic. On the down side I've been a little depressed, but I'm a great healer so I get over it. And, best of all, I found an Peacemaker Soul to marry. Isn't that exciting!? Thank you so much blogthings you've changed my life!

Ahem, on to more important things....

I have changed majors again. Yep, back in December. That made twice last year. At least these things don't matter to much at a Jr college. They probably expect this. Well now I'm going for Linguistics. I've always been really interested in this (more than any of the others so far) but had thought it's only use was in museumes working on the Rosetta Stone or for missionaries translating the Bible. In December I discovered that studying linguistics actually has gazoons of uses. This was enough to make me really happy and excited for weeks.

I'm walking in the May graduation, graduating in August, and transferring to CU Boulder in the fall semester. So excited...

Hmmm...

2007-01-03T10:53:00.000-07:00

You Are a Visionary Soul

You are a curious person, always in a state of awareness.

Connected to all things spiritual, you are very connected to your soul.

You are wise and bright: able to reason and be reasonable.

Occasionally, you get quite depressed and have dark feelings.

You have great vision and can be very insightful.

In fact, you are often profound in a way that surprises yourself.

Visionary souls like you can be the best type of friend.

You are intuitive, understanding, sympathetic, and a good healer.

Souls you are most compatible with: Old Soul and Peacemaker Soul

What Kind of Soul Are You?

23

2006-12-13T21:16:00.000-07:00

So, it's my birthday. Last year I was pretty excited about my birthday. Well, I guess I'm still not as old as I should be because I think I was even more excited this year. ;)

Last night during my time with God I came up with a new birthday's eve tradition. Last year I said I was excited because I felt like God was going to do a lot in my life. Well He did so I took my journal and reviewed my 22nd year. I wrote out what God did in my life month by month for the whole year. It was great. I wrote all the things He did and the challenges that He helped me face. Here's a short version.

I took an art class and started drawing again and made a visual journal. This is important because I had kinda quit drawing and it's a huge way I express myself. God also sometimes speaks to me and helps me untangle problems when I express them visually.
I was feeling really stuck spiritually, super frustrated, and wondering if any of it had been real. I made this collage and through it God showed me that my walk with Him had been real. It sounds silly but this was the thing I needed to move forward.
I had what is probably one of the biggest turning points in my life in a Catholic church in Paris. God basically told me that we could be reconciled and that He is my father. I ended up sobbing and hugging this priest I'd never met who was blowing on me. Crazy, but it changed everything.
God asked me to take a vow not to date for six months (even though I already wasn't, I think it just gave me the security I needed) so that He could reset some really bad ideas I have about relationships with guys. I think God has done a lot in this area, I still talk tough but I'm not so afraid and consequently my friendships with most of the guys around me have gotten better. I've also, more recently, become a lot more merciful towards those who like me a little too much.
In November some friends and I took a vow to spend 70 minuets with God a day for 70 days. This has been super. Especially in the middle of a busy semester, it's kept me disciplined.

So that's the really, really short version. God's done so much in me this year (especially since that Catholic church in May), it's been a little hard to keep up at times. There's still a lot to change but at least this year I feel like I'm moving forward. And what does God have tomorrow? I think it's gonna be good.

frustrations with grace

2006-11-07T09:01:00.000-07:00

This semester is so busy for me, almost overwhelming. I have a bad habit of biting off more than I can chew. :s Oh well, the unnecesary challenges I seem unable (unwilling?) to avoid make my life more interesting.

Immanuel Fellowship has been talking about grace and sanctification for about a month now. It was the focus of the retreat we had in October, been talked about on Sundays both before and after the retreat, and we’ve been talking about it a lot in housechurches. It’s been really good stuff, the grace to come to God after you’ve screwed up and the grace to stop sinning have been the main things talked about.

For me though it’s been really frustrating. When I was little I used to have this toy. It was similar to a hard, hollow, plastic ball, only it had all these holes cut in it. The holes were all different shapes, there was a star-shaped hole, a square hole, a diamond hole….you get the picture. The point of the toy was for the little kid to learn shapes by fitting these blocks through the holes, there was a star-shaped block, a square block, a diamond block….you get the picture. The thing about this toy is that the star-shaped block only fit through the star-shaped hole, the square block only fit the square hole, and the diamond block only fit the dimond hole. I watched this toy frustrate many a small child in my mother’s daycare. The little ones always thought that they could get the blocks to go through just any old hole.

Why am I talking about this childhood toy? Because this toy has a lot to do with my frustration over the concept of grace. See I feel like my little heart has all these different shaped holes cut into it. The really agrivating thing is that somewhere along the way someone forgot to cut me a grace-shaped hole. So I can see grace and I understand it with my mind but my heart has no way to allow it in. Another way of putting it is that I feel like a man blind from birth. I could read books upon books about colors but never really have any idea of what they actually are or what it feels like to see a painting so beautiful that it takes your breath away. So I’m frustrated and feeling a little desperate.

last night

2006-09-28T23:05:00.000-06:00

Tonight the housechurch had a game and prayer night as our last time together as one housechurch. We played worst case scenarios. My team was badly trounced. Then Mike, who had decided to join us tonight, took some time to talk to us about what we’re doing and our vision.

After Mike’s talk the two new housechurches that will be starting next week prayed for each other. This is the first time I’ve been involved in a housechurch multiplication. Even though we’ve been planning it for quite awhile now actually splitting is kinda weird. Half of these people that I’ve been with as a housechurch for a long time and now suddenly I won’t see them quite as often. As a larger church we do a lot together but it will still be different not being in a housechurch together.

In a way it’s a little sad. I know from experience that all those relationships will change. I’m not naturally a person who always takes changes in relationships very easily. I don’t exactly make friends very quickly; nor do I let them go easily. It seems like a peace of my heart is always taken when a friend leaves.

At the same time though, I see the vision and the reasons we multiply. I think it’s a cool example of God’s grace, how we can go through changes as a church, allowing new people to become a part, watching people leave, and still remain open to relationships. I also look forward to the adventure of starting something new…

someday

2006-09-27T11:46:00.000-06:00

Stop the presses!

I just realized that in the year 2060 I will be 77 years old. That is sooo far away - like 54 years away. Seventy-seven seems impossible. I'll never be 77, what are you talking about Jennifer? The oldest I can imagine myself being is about 32, unmarried, and of course no kids. The thought of being 77 having been married and possibly a kid or two (but those kids would be adults by then) is so weird. It hurts my brain to think about it. Like not that is scares me at all it's just so foreign, like trying to think about infinity. I can't quite get my head around this thought. Maybe cause I've never really thought about being as old as 77 before today. It's crazyiness! I am not going to feel young and immortal forever. My life on earth will get old and end someday. Like I knew that but I hadn't really thought about it like this before. So very odd.

Another odd thing. So I told Marie about this strange revelation. What does she tell me? She tells me that March, little March who I went to school with when she was 13 and I was 18, is now 18 and married! March is married! I haven't seen her since she was 13 and so her being married is so weird. Not only that, but when I got on Myspace to see a picture of her (I didn't know she had Myspace and haven't seen a pic since she moved away) I discovered that her older brother who's my age has a kid! Benjamin having a kid is also very strange.

So between attending the weddings of two good friends, finding out March is married, learning that Benjamin has a kid, and realizing that someday I'll be 77, I am have a really trippy day.

Life is so bizarre.

Hannah & Erick

2006-09-21T23:38:00.000-06:00

Hannah and Erick got married today. I'm sooo happy for them. They are two people who have a whole lot of my respect. Their whole relationship was a great example of purity for all of us singles.

Hannah used to disciple Becka and I in this little group we called a life group. She had us reading and memorizing; I loved it. The two of them used to say that because I, on no uncertain terms, did not want to ever get married that I would be the first to get married. I strongly disagreed of course. Well, that was when I was 16, now I'm 22 and I say, "HA! I was not the first to get married!" As you can see I haven't matured much. :P Well, maybe I've matured a little, I may be slightly more willing to get married one of these days - as long as it's not too soon. However, that little thought might be from the romance of seeing two good friends get married in the same week so don't tell anyone I said that and don't quote me. ;)

My gloating done, (don't you just love being right?) I've got to move on to other things. Hannah had Bill and her older brother Joel speak during the ceremony. It was very sweet having her brother do the exchanging of rings and vows part. Her dad did the part where he pronounces them husband and wife and said, "you may now kiss the bride." Then there was a reception during which it snowed the whole time which was lovely and romantic. The place was very well decorated. ;) Our work this week paid off. There was dancing. Sacha and Jacque taught me some steps and danced with me, so did Marie and Angela. Then I got to use them because for the first time ever a boy, Juan, actually asked me to dance with him. Juan is a good dancer and had the patience to teach me how to dance as we went along. He also didn't seem to mind too much when I stepped on his shoes with my heels.

Then Hannah and Erick were off, escaping into her car as we all threw bird seed at them. (Strange tradition.) The car had to have a few inches of snow brushed off of it and then the were off, very slowly because there was a lot of snow on the ground and they don't have 4-wheel drive. But they were off to the honeymoon and the rest of us were left to clean up the lovely wedding mess....

storms and a promise

2006-09-20T15:17:00.000-06:00

Ok, so today I have that rare bit of time for my blog. Crazy when that happens. I just switched to Beta and was exploring and I got to looking at all my old posts in the post editing section. I only read a few and mostly only looked over the old titles and drafts. Wow, God’s been crazy faithful to me these last couple of years. I haven’t exactly deserved it; none of us do though I guess.

It’s a good reminder for me these days. Life’s been a bit too much lately. I’m taking nine credits and working full time and I’m beginning to wonder what I’ve gotten myself into this semester. I’m feeling more relationally challenged than usual because I’m mad at the whole world (almost) and I don’t know why. Not knowing why I’m mad makes me mad. :p In a shift of responsibilities at work over the last month and a half I’ve taken on a few more chores than I had before. Office work is not my specialty to begin with and now I’m usually doing several things at once and always messing at least one of them up. My brain feels like it’s gonna melt. Some days after work I go home, go to my room and cry because I’m so stressed. My friends probably all think I’m mad at them. : (

But God has been teaching me some important stuff.

Mostly I’m learning about love – and how bad I am at it. God doesn’t love like I do. I tend to wait for people to love and make me feel accepted first. Then I’m willing to love back. My love is timid and His is not. Leadership needs to be first loving and serving. I’m not a very good leader because I’m very demanding and needy when it comes to feeling loved. God’s been telling me that this just means that I need to run to Him more and find my security there. I really need to love people more like God does. I’m shockingly bad at this (well maybe not shockingly bad; I just wanted to use that word, it’s a very dramatic word), but the good news is that God wouldn’t be showing me this unless He wanted me to grow.

So storms today but a promise tomorrow…..

emily's wedding

2006-09-16T12:02:00.000-06:00

Emily and Walter got married today. It was a cute little small wedding. One violin for music. Emily looked so pretty in her dress. Everything was simple. I really liked the way they did it. For the reception we hung out around a campfire while it tried to snow. I'm super happy for them and praying for God to bless their decision to get married. It's crazy having your friends getting married and seeing them so happy. (I love seeing my friends happy but the married part is a bit wierd.) Especiallly for schoolmates like Emily. Emily was great to be in school with. She's really out-going and always make me laugh. I'm glad she married a guy like Walter who laughs easily and often. The're so cute. :D

leaders retreat

2006-09-05T16:52:00.000-06:00

We had our housechurch leaders retreat this week. That’s not exactly the best way to describe it because many of us (including myself) are technically not housechurch leaders. However, for lack of a better, trendier emerging churchish lable, I’ll be calling this the housechurch leaders retreat. :p

I really look forward to this retreat. The housechurch leaders are fairly close-knit group. This year we had three new couples with us, which was cool. We spent some time talking about being culturally relevant and still following God. Then Mike gave us a church history lesson of the last forty years. It’s interesting; historically waves of revival in the church always bring some change. Usually some people find that change hard to accept. As we talked about church movements that have taken place in the last forty years I thought of what would be hard for me to accept. Hmmm…… I’d never want to be someone who stood against anything God did. I quietly asked God to keep me listening to Him and keep me flexible.

We also studied 1 Thessalonians 2:3-12. It’s an example of how Paul approached his responsibility towards people as a leader. It had a lot to say about love and humility. That was the part that stuck out and convicted me the most. I need to love people. God’s done a lot in me this last six months or so. Six months ago I was too burnt and bitter to hear something like “love people.” God’s been speaking to me a lot about having Christ-like love for people around me regardless of weather or not they love me back. I’m not very good at loving so I’ve been asking God to change me a lot these last few months.

julie

2006-08-27T18:06:00.000-06:00

My smallest, small sister got baptized today. Dad and Doug, the pastor of their church, baptized her in a very cold little river. So did her friend Molly. Julie is 9 and Molly is 10. That's kinda cool for them to be baptized together.

I wonder what God has for Julie. What will she do when she grows up, what will she study in college, or what does He have for her this coming school year? How will he continue to get her attention and teach her about Him like He has been doing?

I'm always amazed at how God can relate to anyone of any age. It's like He speaks your language. Not just your language English, Spanish, or French. But He can speak to you in a way that you understand. Like I guess, I'm just awed at how someone as big and important as God just gets us, each one of us, and if we let Him will communicate His love in a way our hearts can understand. Who is like Him?

joanie visits

2006-08-26T23:00:00.000-06:00

So every year Teen Mania's interns have to come to Colorado and climb this mountain not too far from my parents' house. We all went to see Joanie before she climbs it tomorrow. It was strange. Here she is all grown up and has come to visit us with all her intern friends. I don't think it's completely sunk in that she's gone yet. So odd. Yep, definitely like wearing shoes made of jello.

blood drive

2006-08-25T17:52:00.000-06:00

I gave blood today ..... not good.

I've done it before and been fine. Today I wasn't in a good mood or, well, not being very brave and trusting of God with a certain area of my life that He's been asking for. So I wasn't feeling very brave about having a needle stuck in my arm and losing a pint of blood.

Ok, what's wrong with my little human mind? I know that God created the universe and can do anything, why is it so hard to trust Him with my struggles? Things were easier when I was fifteen. God said jump and I did. Now I gotta analyze everything.....

nomads

2006-08-22T17:13:00.000-06:00

Jacque, her friend Becky from the Honor Academy, Pistachio, and I went on a little road trip. We went from Texas to Nebraska, the scenery was amazing. Just kidding, it was less than amazing, but there was this pretty storm which gave way to a nice sunset. You can see pictures of this exciting adventure here. We showed up at Kayla’s house late (I think we did it in 13 hours) and she now calls us her nomads. I like it.

We went to Nebraska to visit another friend from the Honor Academy, Kayla. It just so happens that Kayla is my long-lost twin. We have the exact same birthday but somehow don’t manage to look much like sisters. I liked my long-lost twin, she’s really fun and hyper. We went car camping with Kayla’s church. (And wow, Nebraskan car-camping makes Coloradan car-camping look like a wilderness excursion. They had showers, microwaves, and flush toilets.) While being introduced to Kayla’s church I yet again had to fall back on, “Hi, my name is Jennifer and I did not go to the Honor Academy.” Over and over. Yeesh, I’m starting to feel like I’ve enrolled myself in Alcoholics Anonymous.

Then our Grandparents came to pick us up and took us to their house, also in Nebraska. We spent a lot of time sewing, watching musicals, and I am attempting to teach myself how to juggle. So far no luck. :p

teen mania

2006-08-16T23:46:00.000-06:00

My sister Jacque graduated from the Honor Academy and my parents flew us all down there for the occasion. (This is why the blog has been silent, between finals and leaving for Texas the next morning I’ve had no time.) The night before her graduation there was a formal dinner where all the interns were presented with their honor rings. They have a commitment to each other to live their lives with honor. The second day was her actual graduation.

A lot of Teen Mania types did a lot of talking about living your whole life for God and living to honor His name no matter what He calls you to. It was great; I used to go on mission trips every summer with them. Hearing all those familiar people talk about living for God brings back great memories and was also rather convicting. I don’t think holiness is as high a priority to me as it was then. God’s been pointing this out to me lately as I read through the Old Testament.

Then we spent a nice week at my Aunt’s house in Dallas before we took Joanie to the Honor Academy. Between the two of them graduating from and just starting out in the Honor Academy and meeting so many new people – all going to the Honor Academy - I began introducing myself as, “Hi my name is Jennifer and I’m not going to the Honor Academy.” This introduction won me some odd looks from the people I met. :p

((it’s a very strange feeling leaving your almost-babiest-baby-sister at a campus for a year; kinda like having your feet incased in jello shoes))

camping

2006-07-23T16:18:00.000-06:00

One of my favorite times of year just passed: Immanuel Fellowship's annual camping trip. I really like camping. It's so relaxing in a mildly adventurous sort of way. I love being out in nature 24/7.

As always, it was a very nice break from the world of jobs and school. I spent most of my time this year with Marie, Mike, Mark, and Sacha. Mark has been freinds with Mike since highschool. Sacha is his daughter. They are super fun to hang out with and they make me very hyper. Probably because they laugh when I'm trying to be funny. (I need that.) I laugh at everyone's jokes so I return the favor. ;)

God showed me a lot of things on this camping trip. Mark shared about suffering and God's love. It was really good. I hadden't thought about how the two go together. I realized that God has been teaching me this, I just hadden't noticed yet. The things he talked about made me cry (luckily where I was I could turn my head so no one would see). This would be only the second time I've cried during a church gathering. Didn't want to get caught. :p

God also showed me some things about relationships because Mike shared about that one night. (Too secret to tell.) And of course the anual orienteering race. Always fun. Mike put a four-hour time limit on it this year, probably because my team took seven hours last year and worried everyone. Anyway, grand as always, never a dissapointment.

bubbles

2006-07-19T10:55:00.000-06:00

I just found the coolest thing: Virtual Bubbles. Remember that bubble-wrap stuff you used to stomp on when you were a kid? Well, now those of us luky enough to live in the Information Age can play with the stuff online! You can get it here, enjoy. : )

spanglish

2006-07-08T15:32:00.000-06:00

Marie, Magali, and I got together this morning to read to each other. We read Psalms 1,2, and 3. Magali, who's first language is Spanish, read to us in English, and we read to her in Spanish. We're trying to help each other learn to read our second languages better. Marie and I definitely have the easier side of it! Written English is so confusing. Whoever came up with the rules for writing and reading English ought to be ashamed of themselves. Spanish, on the other hand, is very nice. All the words look on paper just like they sound, and the language seems to follow it's own rules better. We ran into quite a few hard-to-pronounce words in both languages. It was great laughing at ourselves and our languages. English spelling, arg.....

Anyway, I stayed at Magali's house after Marie left for work. Since we're fairly close to the same level of proficiency in each other's languages we had a great conversation in Spanglish. (I really enjoy mixing languages in a conversation. Though, I admit the reason I enjoy mixing is probably because the only language I'm truly fluent in is English.) We talked for a couple of hours about what we see God doing in Immanuel Fellowship, how He answers prayers, and God's faithfulness. We are both seeing a deeper desire in everyone to serve. It's much easier to get help moving, putting together a dinner, help with the soup kitchen, or whatever than it was a year or two ago. I've heard other people say the same sort of things. A lot of people in the church have been through some hard things the last few years and are coming out more mature. There's this deepening hunger to follow God. A lot of it is in answer to prayers. Magali prays for the church a lot, she always has. I also used to spend a lot of time praying for us as a church. It was really encouraging hearing her talk about all the prayers she is seeing answered. Magali says that God never forgets and He's always faithful. I'm reminded of many I've seen answered too. It's humbling....

Not that everything's all roses around here. However, I think God is slowly teaching me that life will always be a mixed bag, and I can't disregard the beauty of the roses because I get pricked by a thorne. As I left Magali's house today I felt so encouraged to trust God with everything in my life and to pray and seek how we can serve Him more as a church. I hope someday God makes me like that, and when people are done talking to me they leave wanting to know and serve God better.

unhindered 2006

2006-07-02T15:30:00.000-06:00

Well as usual Unhindered did not disappoint. I always feel like I come away with fresh vision, and new hope that God actually can use me. I think this is my favorite of the yearly events we have as a church.

Friday Mike talked about dying to ourselves. Unfortunately, I had a long, tense day on Friday. My mind was quite gone so I just ran the soundboard and didn’t hear much of it. I’ll have to get this one downloaded onto my ipod and try again. :s

Saturday was great. I watched Veggie Tales with the kids during the morning session, went on a hike in the rain, and practiced for the drama we had planned.

Isaac spoke for the first part of the evening. He talked about being in the world but not of it, and about the balance between engaging the world and having friends outside the church and just blending in with everyone else and losing your saltiness. What Isaac shared kept me on the edge of my seat because he spoke more clearly on it than I think I’ve ever heard anyone do. He gave us two very good questions to ask ourselves. When was the last time I had a significant spiritual conversation with someone outside of the church? When was the last time someone hated me because of Jesus? I liked how he said to ask the two together, we can’t be off in our own world and leave the lost to rot, however we have to be salt and light and Jesus said people would hate us because of Him. I can’t quite explain it but the two questions make me feel both more responsible to reach out and freer to be myself and be real about my relationship with Jesus. I really hope this will translate to my friends at school and at work.

Then we did the Obsession drama. It’s a bit hard to explain if you haven’t seen it; it integrates spoken lines, dance, and video, all set to the song Obsession by Delirious?. It’s about wanting to follow Jesus, settling for no less than real commitment to all that means, and being willing to suffer for Him. This drama always impacts me. Strangely the impact of it always comes during the actual performance, when I’m saying my lines and really meaning them (during practice I’m only acting) and praying that God would truly make the message of the drama the cry of my heart.

After this we had a time of silence so that people could silently talk with God about the drama. (This one always hits hard.) Then Joel stepped up because it was his turn to speak. I couldn’t imagine what he would say to follow up on the drama. He started talking about the Holy Spirit and how we need Him to fill our lives if we want to reach the world. We need the change He brings and His guidance if we are going to live any of what we’ve been talking about. Joel has one of the most gentle and sincere speaking styles I’ve heard. Though he speaks loud enough, he has this way of drawing you in like a whisper does. For the second time Saturday I was on the edge of my seat. This is something God’s been saying to me for awhile - since I was in Paris. We ended the night all sitting on the floor at the front quietly praying for each other and asking God to help us give Him all the things that hold us back from Him. It wasn’t a planned time, it just sort of happened when Mike said that he felt like four or five of us needed prayer and practically everyone came up.

Today Mike talked about spiritual disciplines and how to continue in what God had spoken to us. We prayed that God would help us live what we learned and talked about this weekend. We also prayed for the elections happening in Mexico today and that God would bless that nation with a wise president who can help strengthen that country and lead it forward.

asking

2006-06-27T09:22:00.000-06:00

God told me something cool this week.

So I used to believe that God wanted to be close to me more than I wanted to be close to Him. So I knew that if I prayed and asked Him to bring me close and to teach me who He is He would. I prayed this prayer and I saw God do it. When I was a teenager and I heard people saying they wanted a better relationship with God, that's what I'd tell them to do too.

Well the last couple of years have been rather hard, and I think I quit believing that. It's easy to feel like I've gone hopelessly backwards. Very frustrating feeling. But (hurray!) in May God was so amazing! He helped me through a lot of the struggles I was having with Him. Questions remain, but I am no longer feeling crippled by them.

So what did God tell me this week? I was asking Him to restore what we had. Then He reminded me that He still wants to be close, and He values the friendship we had when I was 18. He reminded me that He has the power to change my heart and bring me close again and let me know Him in a new and deeper way. I'm so excited. :D My relationship with God used to be so real and amazing, and it will be again.

God help me drop anything that would hold me back from chasing You...

church, school & work

2006-06-24T09:52:00.000-06:00

Basically at the moment the only things in my life are church, school, and work, but someone requested I post so I'll try. I guess with fame there is a public to please. :p

So as a church things seem to going pretty well at the moment. People are pretty envisioned for missions since our trip to France. It was great seeing people pulling together on both sides of the Atlantic to pray for France and seek God's heart for that nation. We have a guest from Saint-Germain staying with us now, Pierre-Elie. You can see his picture here. Well, technically he's staying with the Phillips but is is also a guest of the whole church. It's been fun hanging out with him. We're also getting ready for our Unhindered, our annual missions conference. (Conference is not the right word exactly, it feels more like a retreat except we stay in Frisco.) I'm excited about this year, it sounds like it's going to be good as usual. I always come away from Unhindered very envisioned to live my faith in a deeper way. Personally, this is the yearly Immanuel Fellowship event where God always speaks the most to me.

School, well I'm taking eight credits this summer (and working full time so the blog may end up taking a back seat, I'm busier than I was expecting to be) I'm taking speech, humanities 1, and a landscape painting class. So far I'm really liking humanities and art class. I've never felt very good at doing landscapes and so I tend to get bored with them. However, I feel like I'm getting much better at painting in this class. I'm a bit surprised because I didn't have much painting experience at all. It makes me really want to make a career out of art, I like it so much. I really need to decide what it is I'm going to college for, and what I want to study.....but that's a whole new post.

Work is the same as always. I was a secretary when I was 16 and I was so bored that I promised myself that I'd never do it again and here I am doing it. I paid more than Gap and had better benefits, so what can I say, single girl's gotta make a living. I'm a bit frustrated because I've almost been here a year and I'm still constantly messing up. Office work is not my nitch in life. I feel like more trouble than I'm worth, but fortunately the doctor I work for never fires anyone so I guess I'm not going anywhere.

So, to the person who requested that I post, there's my life for the summer, going fairly well I'd say. No worries, I'll try to make time for blogging; I rather like it. ;)

((I'd like to thank all three readers of my blog, and whoever left that comment, you make me feel loved.))

i did not die

2006-06-13T13:33:00.000-06:00

I have wonderful news: I did not die in speech class last night. Surprised? Not half as much as I am.

Let me explain, speech class has been my arch nemesis since I was twelve and it was a required class in the private school I attended part time for three years. It was required every year without mercy. Being the super-shy kid with hideously crooked teeth that I was .... well you can imagine, it was my worst nightmare all year long. 8(

As bad as making speeches actually are there is one kind of speech that stands far below the rest and that is telling my life story. Or telling my testimony, as we Christians like to call it. Arg, I do despise it. Every single time it very bad, really boring, and quite embarrassing. (Okay, so once it went alright but that was a one-time freak occurrence.) I definitely freak-out more telling my own life story than when I talk about anything else.

So today's assignment was to tell about ourselves - to a room full of strangers. (Icky it's bad enough doing it with people I know.) Well maybe I cheated a little because I just told a short story about when I was on a mission trip to Hong Kong. Even so, I completely quit breathing just practicing in the hallway. Not a good sign. I did a little better during the actual speech; I was careful to pause and breath. Though I did everything else wrong; breathing kept me from passing out.

may in paris

2006-06-09T22:24:00.000-06:00

Yes, I know, I've been a bad blogger. In my defense I spent the month of May in Paris with very limited time on a computer. It was a great computer - free month. ;)

I was very nervous about going on this trip. Last year was the hardest trip I had ever been on. I really hadn't even wanted to go to France at all this year, but I felt like God was asking me to so I went with many frightened little prayers.

Last year the few of us who went felt led to a suburb of Paris called Saint-Germain-en-Leye to pray. That was our goal this year: to learn about the area and pray for it. Surprisingly Mike ended up meeting some people in the area before the trip even started. A struggling pastor, and a family that caught the vision to pray with us. We have been told over and over on previous trips to France that the French are very closed to Americans and closed to churches that are not part of a larger, very well established organization. Two counts against us. However, we had a lot of friendships with French people just drop in our laps. The last week we were there we were invited into three different homes. We have way more friends than anyone expected. Very cool. God also connected us with people who knew the history of the area. This allowed us to pray much more specifically than we expected. We prayer-walked on every street and around every school.

While we were in France Stephanie came to visit us. Stephanie is a Swiss girl who's been working as a nanny in Summit County and teaching French classes for those of us in Immanuel Fellowship who went to France. She's become friends with a lot of people in the church. Marie and Mike (two of the better French speakers) have been talking to her about Jesus for a long time before the trip, she was very interested but knew it meant a commitment and change. While she was visiting us she gave her life to Jesus. It was amazing to see because we'd all been praying for her for months.

As for me, God spoke to me more on this trip than any other ever. I filled as much space in my journal in this month as I had over the eight months before the trip. I think I'll look back on this month as a huge turning point in my spiritual walk. So much happened. But if I start writing on that this post will get ridiculously long. ;)

prom

2006-04-22T17:38:00.000-06:00

I went to Kremmling today and helped get my sister all dolled up for prom. She looked soooo gorgeous. Her dress ($7 from the salvation army, very cool) was floor length, white, and navy, an elegant combination. I put her curly hair in an updo and did her make up light, cause she's a natural beauty. :D :D :D (Oh my sad fate, I cannot post a picture because my camera is ancient.)

Joanie's going with a bunch of her friends and is eating in the lovely restaurant where Bobby very romantically proposed to Brianna and she gets to ride in a limmo. Somebody get the poparazzi on this girl.

trusting & tithing

2006-04-20T16:03:00.000-06:00

I ran today. Running always helps me think, pray, get things back in perspective, listen to God, and trust Him.

Some thoughts.

I was once upon a time very good at tithing. (Giving 10% of all my money to God.) I thought I was pretty good at believing the Biblical principal that if I did this God would bless it. Well adult life is....harder than I had anticipated. I tithed faithfully right up till I became fully independent of my parents in January. Suddenly along with rent and phone I was also paying for both health and car insurance.

Arg. I had looked forward to the thought of being so "grown up" but it took about two days for the rosyness to be utterly annihilated. Anyway my faithfulness to tithe sputtered down to not much. I began paying bills first and then giving God my leftovers. :s This, I'm realizing, was not a good idea. Though I now have a better, higher paying job with benefits, I struggle more financially and I shouldn't. Also I'm leaving for Paris on a mission trip in less than two weeks and though the trip is cheaper than most I've been on, I've had much more trouble raising the money. Hmmm...... seems like trusting God enough to tithe is not so optional as I had attempted to make it.

Maybe trusting God in general isn't so optional as I try to make it either. (Yes, I'm stating the obvious, sorry.) There are a lot of areas where I've let fear in and have pulled back from Him. Most of those areas have been about as successful as the finances. Especially relationships. I've grown very afraid of being hurt and put up some of the same old walls I had up in my early teens. It's working about as well as it did then. :s

I gotta get over this bad trend.....

end of drama

2006-04-16T23:21:00.000-06:00

At last after weeks of practicing we have finished the drama (still unnamed) I mentioned last week. It was fun working on it with everyone, but it's a relief to be done with all the practicing.

Playing a demon was also way harder than I expected. I've played bad people in dramas before, but trying to be purely evil was very tiring. Like the mental kind of tired where you're exhausted but then can't sleep when you lay down.

Today though, since we didn't have enough actors, I got to do a quick costume change after the angles ran us off and come back as a dancer rejoicing in Jesus' resurrection.

passover

2006-04-09T22:34:00.000-06:00

Immanuel Fellowship celebrated the passover tonight. I'm not sure when the actual passover was this year but today worked so we did. We ate it like they did in Leviticus, not with all the traditions with which the modern Jews have incorporated. I think I like the modern version better with all the little added traditions because every time I learn more about their history, but this was fun too.

After dinner we had a dramma that we've been working on for a couple of weeks. It tells the story of the redemption of humanity. The drama starts with creation, goes through the fall, shows some of the pain and slavery of sin, listens in on a conversation between God and Jesus right before he goes to earth, and sees Jesus crusified. Well, that's only the first half, we're showing the rest on Easter morning.

It's kind of an amazing little drama. We only had a cast of thirteen to represent God, Jesus, Satan, angels, demons, and all of humanity. It mixes a few speaking parts, video, mime, dance, and a cool sound track. Jenn, Joel, and Brianna have done a great job making it happen.

As a church we've been praying for this night. We invited a lot of people to come see it since it does a good job communicating what Jesus came and died for. (And people are more willing to come to church around Easter.) A lot of the people we invited are not Christians. Many are comming back to see the second half next Sunday.

1st green

2006-04-05T21:18:00.000-06:00

I went snowboarding today with Stephanie. She's a very good snowboarder and has been teaching me. She is Swiss/French and speaks very little English, and I speak even less French. So she tells me what to do in French and demonstrates then I, not understanding a word of it, just try to copy her movements. It's fun. :p

She took me on my first green today. (I've been boarding twice before but didn't have much time on either ocaision.) It was waaay steeper than the bunny hill. I fell down so much that I bruised both knees right through the knee pads I was wearing. But I also got to the point where I could just ride and ride without falling for a long time. Quite a feat when you consider how hopelessly klumsy I can be. I'm happy....and my arms are sore from catching so many falls. :s :)

april showers & carrots

2006-04-01T23:52:00.000-07:00

Today is April 1st. As we all know (though I can't remember why), April showers bring May flowers. Summit county did have it's first April shower of the month today. However it was a snow shower, so I'm not expecting flowers anytime soon. I'm happy though, I like snow. :D

Anyway, enough about snow and non-existent May flowers. Onward to the next subject of this post: carrots. I went to a carrot party tonight. Right about now you must be thinking that this is an April-Fool's post but in fact all that I'm writing is true, strange as it may seem. I'm having an odd day. So this friend from work, Brett is celebrating his vegan anniversary. He's been eating "rabbit food" for a whole year now. In honor of the occasion he had a party, a carrot party. Every thing was made of carrots, carrot juice, carrot soup, carrot hummus, and carrot bread were all on the menu. Though it sounds quite crazy it was pretty good.

However, that's not the best part of it. The best was that my idea for the dessert was the big hit of the night. Granted, without the culinary skills of the Vegan Man it never would've happened, but still my crazy idea. The crazy idea that everyone loved? Carrot ice-cream. I know it sounds quite nasty but it was amazing. One of the better flavors I've tasted. So if ever you are faced with the option of having carrot-flavored ice-cream do not follow your instinct to run. Stay and try it, you may be pleasantly surprised.

french dinner

2006-03-26T23:16:00.000-07:00

Immanuel Fellowship had a French dinner tonight. Marie and Judy organized it and it turned out lovely and very fun.

All the people who are taking French so that they can get around in France when we go in May were waiters. We all wore white shirts and black pants, very professional looking, just like so many of the restaurants in Paris. I think Marie did a pretty good job recreating just a little of the feel of a French restaurant. We even gave people a quick lesson in French etiquette, which ironically turned out to be my job. White table cloths, good food, candle light, and …... translation cards.

Here’s the fun part: all the tables needed French/English translation cards. None of the waiters spoke any English or Spanish. So everyone was required to order their meals, make requests, and say thank you in French. It was hilarious! I had the privilege of being a waitress and using my poor French. I absolutely refused to speak either English or Spanish to my bi-lingual table so they just had to figure out what I was saying and use their translation cards as best they could. It was crazyness! Not that anyone at my table could tell, but I tried to say everything right and I think I did a good job. Hmmm…is this the beginning of a career as a French waitress?

baby shower

2006-03-18T21:41:00.000-07:00

Marie and I went to a baby shower in Colorado Springs today. Marie and I were pitifully late, like an hour. Neither of us had ever driven to Colorado Springs before. Rachel, a girl we've been friends with for a few years is having a boy. I actually haven't seen her much since she moved to Hawaii to live with her parents about three years ago. It was good to catch up a little.

sweet 18?

2006-03-17T18:51:00.000-07:00

So today I achieved something that no other person has and I deserve a prize. I attended all three of my little sister's birthday parties. Yes, I know, I have three little sisters so it's no big deal right? Wrong. All these parties that I've been going to were all in honor of Joanie who turned eighteen today. She's had a party every Saturday for the last three weeks, it's been great. First she had a chick flick movie party, then a snowmobiling party, and now a swimming party.

Now why does this girl get three 18th birthday parties? Well, let me tell you. First of all she's just that super kind of person that has the friends and the popularity to pull off three different parties. At every party she had a completely different set of friends, I'm the only person who made it to more than one. I'm jealous. She's agreeable, easy to get along with, our arguments stay fun and happy, and she's so witty that her sense of humor frequently leaves me in helpless laughter. Joanie's also very sensitive to the pain of others; she's quite sweet when she's not being totally sassy. Obviously this is one of my favorite people to be with. Other people must think so too, very clever.

why do i care?

2006-03-12T21:18:00.000-07:00

The last few months I've been challenged with a question: Why do I care? I'm not being cynical or cheeky here....well, trying not to be.

I guess a few friends don't seem too interested in being my friend anymore. I'm trying, in my own little introverted way to keep things up, but I feel a bit alone and unnoticed in my efforts. I am frustrated, I'm discouraged, and I feel like I'm so uncool that it's contagious. Hence the nagging question, why do I care?

Why do I care about the people around me? Do I genuinely love them and want to be friends? Or am I only in it for me? Do I only want them to come see a movie with me because it's lame to go alone, or do I really want to be with that person? Am I striving to be friends so that I can give to others or so that I can get? Do I invite friends in to my life for their sake or mine? Am I only friends with people to boost my own ego? Are people just numbers by which I measure my own success? Why am I trying?

The answers? I don't know. I think part of the problem is I don't feel like I have much of anything to offer.

i finally admit it

2006-03-03T21:19:00.000-07:00

Somewhere in the last two weeks I have finnally decided to admit it. I don't want to be a nurse anymore. I haven't for awhile, but I'm just now deciding to face the fact that I have no idea what I want to do with my life. Zippo.

ice climbing

2006-02-23T10:53:00.000-07:00

I know I'm late in posting, my ice climbing class ended Sunday. However, I couldn't write anything about it because my hands hurt from gripping the picks. I had no idea that a single sport could make so many muscles sore all at the same time. ;)

It was such a fun class. Thursday we went to the gym to learn to belay (basically catch the climber if they fall). Having never rock climbed I found it slightly hard to believe that with only a few tools I could catch a man falling off the gym's rock wall. The teacher proved I can by making me catch him after he climbed up and let go. That night I was also allowed to climb. Yikes. I discovered that I am more afraid of heights than I thought and that don't really trust the rope to catch me. I went and told my friend that I had climbed all the way up a rock wall for the first time. She waved it off and told me that I had only climbed the easy one. ehh....

With that pride check in mind I went to our all-day class on Saturday quite afraid that the whole thing would be one big flop. We hiked up to Chalk Creek Falls, a lovely frozen water fall in the middle of nowhere. I was awed by the beauty of it. Much to my dismay the ladies first rule was applied. It actually turned out way easier than the bit of rock climbing I did in the gym. Once I had climbed high enough to be on the vertical part, where it was too steep to hold snow, I could see through the ice I was on. It was thick but clear as glass and I could see water still rushing beneath. It was so beautiful I had to stop climbing and just stare at it. I also went up a second time and repelled down.

The second day didn't go as well for me. We went to the teacher's house where he has his own 70-foot ice wall (twice as tall as Saturday). It too was lovely, a thick tower of bluish ice with the winter sun shining through it. It also had a cave inside which reminded me of a fairly tale. However, this ice was either vertical or overhung making it much harder. My arms were already sore from the day before and after about four tries I had to stop. All of us fell so many times; it was kinda funny. Yet some of the guys did really well and could get up the whole tower. I realized their secret only after I was too burned-out to climb any more. They trusted the rope and the belayor to catch them. I wasted a lot of energy because I climbed as if no one would catch me if I fell. They guys who made it to the top also didn't stop no matter how many times they fell. The rope didn't allow them to fall far and so they'd stick their tools right back in the ice and keep going. I acted as if the rope's mercy were limited to a three falls you're out basis. Hmmm, I think I hear an analogy about trust in there somewhere......

Anyway this post is getting long, and is sadly without pictures. No worries, I'm hoping to get some up in a week or so. Oh, and we all got A's. :D

single awareness day

2006-02-14T21:41:00.000-07:00

Happy single awareness day! This is a wonderful day of the year….especially if you’re single…..especially if you live in the United States where every obscure holiday is over-commercialized to the point of being obnoxious. By the end of the day you’re ready to say “bah humbug” the next married person who wishes you a “Happy Valentine’s Day.” I so wanted to make fun of the guy who was desperate enough to ask me out while I was shopping for dinner in the grocery store but I felt a twinge of pity so I made a dumb excuse instead.

Despite my scrooge-like attitude I had a good day. Work was nice and calm. I ate chocolate. I got together with some friends to pray. I suppose also got every single girl’s dream for the evening…..

That’s right I spent Valentine’s evening not with one but six athletic, single guys my age. Turns out I’m the only girl in my college who wanted to take Beginning Ice Climbing this semester. :s Petite little me with no climbing experience in an ice climbing class with seven guys (one married) who can all already at least rock climb. What was I thinking? Can anyone say awkward?

Oh, well. I seem to enjoy jumping in slightly over my head. This will be interesting…..

happy 19

2006-02-11T20:04:00.000-07:00

Today is Jacque's 19th birthday. Her last year of teenagerhood. :0 :0 She had a great birthday party last night with all her fellow teenmaniacs. Someone else's mom threw her and her daughter a party. A couple of weeks ago she also got her hair cut short. She's sooo cute. :D :D

Today we also finally finished the redecoration of the prayerroom. The housechurch that meets on Thursdays came to help. We probably wouldn’t be done yet if it wasn’t for all their help. It looks so good. Unfortunately, I don’t have any pictures just yet, but I'm very tired now. I’ll try to get some up later. :D

luther

2006-02-04T23:07:00.000-07:00

A bunch of people got together and watched the movie Luther tonight, the movie about Martin Luther. I really like this movie. I like studying the people in history who did things totally unprecedented. Their courage is so admirable whether they are a scientist, inventor, social worker, reformer, or missionary. They stand facing an impossible wall of what’s never been done before, they count the cost of change, and they go for it despite the doubt.

I especially like Martin Luther. He could’ve been killed for what he believed. When he was on trial for heresy he was told to recant. His answer was unless you can prove to me, from the scriptures, that I have erred I will not recant. Here I stand, I can do no other. That’s one of my favorite lines in history: “Here I stand, I can do no other.”

As I watched Luther with my friends I noticed something interesting. The movie was not made by a Christian film company. They did their research well, and the story was pretty accurate, but it’s the way they portrayed Martin as a priest that impressed me.

When Martin accepts the position he’s struggling with his faith. While he’s there he studies the Bible and his faith comes alive. Meanwhile as a priest he does his best to help those entrusted to him. He tenderly helps the poor and those who are either confused about God or trapped by religious fears. Loving people and seeking the truth are more important to him than the traditions of his time. He also preaches hope and freedom to people who’ve been caught in a performance-oriented religion. He also will not compromise what he believes even when faced with death. Yet Martin struggles just like anyone; he’s not a perfect saint.

I’m thinking, is this the Christianity that the world is looking for? Honest hunger for truth, no compromise, sincere love for everyone including those who make mistakes, a gentle confidence when speaking the truth, and a message of hope rather than of condemnation? Is that what the world wants? This really isn’t the “relevancy” that much of the church seems to strive for. His stand was that of no compromise. However, there is love, understanding, hope, and sensitivity that cut through any barrier.

Interesting, I read so much talk in the church on how to be relevant. Maybe the world doesn’t want relevance. Maybe it just wants sincerity, gentleness, truth, hope, and love. Really, that’s the heart of what we should be anyway.

crazy week

2006-01-26T17:29:00.000-07:00

Ok, this week has been rather insane at work and so I would like to tell the world. It's been an exciting week at work. Now since I work at a children's clinic excitement would be a bad thing. A very, very bad thing

Monday: The morning was packed, every available appointment was taken. Dr. Chris however, never turns down a sick child. So at the beginning of our lunch we saw a three week old baby that was sick. Brett, the nurse's assistent, went to check the baby in. He noticed that the baby had turned grey and was barely moving. He got the nurse. That baby's oxygen was at 64! (For those of you who don't know, brian damage can happen when it get's as low as 90.) So they put the baby on oxygen, discovered it had RSV (same aweful thing I had last couple of weeks, very dangerous in kids that young) and called an ambulance to take the baby boy to the Children's Hospital in Denver. As soon as they left we had a head injury on an eleven year old boy come in. He had somehow managed to smack himself in the head with a shovel. How he accomplished this I can only guess. The mom said his eye dialated but it fortunately wasn't as seirous as she thought. Then we got a call that the ambulance with that baby had turned around before it got to Denver, which means that something went majorly wrong. We were all worried and praying because we thought that the baby was going to die.

Tuesday: Also very full. We found out that the baby lived and that after bringing it back to our hospital to stableize it they finally took it to the hospital in Denver. It's now in ICU (intensive care unit) on a ventelator (breathing machine) they don't yet know when that baby will be out. If you think of it pray for that family, for that little baby to get all the way better, they are new parents and probably quite freaked out, and ventelators are very expensive. About lunch today we had another injury walk in. A seven year old boy slipped on the ice, cracked his nose and punctured his lip. Yikes, there was a good bit of blood so we moved things around to get him in right away.

Wednesday: We saw 29 people in five hours. I was at work from 8h - 19h. It was crazyness and insanity times five. RSV, flu, and a nasty little stomach bug, have hit Summit pretty hard this year. RSV is more contageous than the flu if that gives you any idea. Half the church has had it this month. The first hour we were open we had to see eight people in an hour. (We only have four rooms so four people in an hour is considered busy, but Chris never turns down a sick kid.) The first three kids who came in all tested positve for RSV (extra nasty chest cold and a few other yucky symtoms), one we sent to the hospital and the other two got brething treatments and oxygen. All this respitory stuff is made much worse for the little kids when you throw in the fact that we are at 9,000 feet above sea level and there's less oxygen in the air so more kids require oxygen when they get sick.

Usually I work to the sounds of angry/hurt screams in the background of kids who do NOT want to get shots. Having grown up in a daycare my mom ran I'm pretty good at consentrating with a high noise level. This week the background noise at the clinic has been totally different. It's much quieter. The children don't feel well enough to scream at the sight of the doctor. It's all the most pitiful noises children can make. Weak, half-hearted crying, coughing, wet coughing, dry coughing, very weak coughing, and a lot of bad wheezing. It makes me want to cry.

very happy

2006-01-23T22:22:00.000-07:00

I just finished my first art class for this semester! I've wanted to be an artist as long as I can remeber. Art Class has always been my favorite. However, having homeschooled most of my life I haven't had much opportunity to. Very sad. :( But now I'm taking art for a whole semester and each class lasts three hours. I'm so happy I could bounce off the walls! This class is going to be so cool. First upon looking at everyone else's work I have discovered that they are all better than me. I'll be way more challenged in this class than usual. (Usually I'm at the top and my pride gets stroked a lot which causes it to undertake spasmotic growth spurts, not good.) Also, we can work on whatever we want, in whatever media. So I can just do whatever I want and get feedback from a room full of people more talented than me. This is exciting. The teacher will help me get better at whatever I want to get better at. Oh the posibilities, and only one semester!

**floats away on happy cloud

story of grace

2006-01-22T00:55:00.000-07:00

Today begins a new chapter in what I hope someday we will all look back on as a story of grace. Today a brother and a sister who left Immanuel Fellowship over a year ago due to a lot relational problems that were piling up came back. It's been quite tense between them and a lot of people. Today they came and he got up and apologized for the way he'd hurt some people and said that they want to be a part again. They've looked but haven't found any other chruch that is like a family. Mike called the man's wife up front as well. He was hugging them and about to pray for the couple but he never got the chance. Erick put his gutar down and stepped off the stage to give them a wlecoming hug. Pat, Todd, and Tammy were right behind him. Then suddenly most of the people in the church (everyone who knew them) went to the front to join in what had spontaneously become a group hug. Lots of crying and welcoming words. We've missed them. God please let this be a story of grace on all our parts. Heal the hurts on both sides. Give us the grace to forgive all and love freely again.

Patty & Justin

2006-01-21T22:34:00.000-07:00

Today is the wedding of two of my friends, Patty and Justin. (Hence the title of today's post.) It was a nice little wedding, sort and sweet with a long reception afterwards. The extra cool part was that Patty's older brother Bobby got to preform the ceremony and prononce them man and wife. He was so excited to do it and said all these great big-brotherly things to both of them. Then the parents came up to pray for the new couple. It was sweet.

P.S. It's an odd thing being a single twenty-something. I'm that age where all my friends seem to be getting married. I'm losing count. Not that it really makes me want to rush out and get married any time soon. It's just odd.

oops

2006-01-20T09:32:00.000-07:00

I think I screwed up my html with that map. Oh well, maybe it'll get better on it's own. :p

my map

2006-01-19T13:47:00.000-07:00

Look what I found on Gordon's blog. It's so cool. Go make your own, it's fun. ;)

create your own visited countries map
or vertaling Duits Nederlands

failed

2006-01-14T17:29:00.000-07:00

I’ve been sick this week. I got sent home from work, and I’m still not well enough to go back yet. Whatever I have leaves me wired so that I can’t get to sleep very easily. It’s been a good time to read.

For Christmas I got a book called Safely Home. It’s a fictional book about two roommates who are reunited in China after 20 years. The American has become a successful businessman, the other returned to China and gave up his dreams so that he could serve Jesus there. The book is very well researched and it’s one of those that’s very hard to put down. I’m beginning to think I should have put it on my seven best books list I made a few days ago.

At the same time it’s kind of a painful read for me. It’s already made me cry twice and I‘m little over half-way through. (I can count on one hand the books that have made me cry.) When I was a teen I read the book Jesus Freaks, a collection of true stories of people who’ve died for their faith. It inspired me to want to give everything for Jesus, even to be willing to die. I knew that as a Westerner it was not very likely that I would ever be on the wrong end of a gun with someone commanding me to deny Jesus. I knew it was unlikely that I would ever be beaten or see any of my friends killed for Jesus’ name. Unlikely, but not impossible. Yet even if I never faced such a test I prayed for the love to be able to. After all, Jesus said that the greatest commandment is to love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength. If that kind of love is impossible for a Westerner who may never face such tests, than God wouldn’t have asked it. He asked it, so there must be a way even in the relative safety of my country. It was one of my most frequent prayers.

If the last couple years have been a test than I’ve failed miserably. I have lost for taking a stand and choosing not to be swayed or turned from where I feel God has called me to be. Have I lost everything? There have been moments of self-pity where I have thought so. In reality, no I have not come near to losing everything. Some relationships have changed or been lost which has hurt. Looking back I have not been the hero I had spent so much time praying I’d be. I have not suffered loss joyful to be worthy of suffering for Jesus. About as far as you could go in the opposite direction actually. I haven’t quit or run away, but that’s God’s doing, not mine. It’s been a very discouraging discovery that I would not have what it takes.

However, the book is also very encouraging. The Chinese man, Li Quan, was the son of an illegal pastor. He too faced a test and failed. His father was imprisoned and killed for his faith, his mother died in an earthquake. He became an atheist. Amazingly he gets the opportunity to go to college in America where his roommate is a Christian. Li Quan is reunited with the Jesus his parents gave all to serve. He goes back to China after college and is imprisoned many times for his faith. Speaking of Quan someone in the book states that, “Experience is a hard teacher because she gives the test first, the lesson afterward. But properly learned, the lesson forever changes the man.” Though Li Quan’s actions are heroic in my book, he is scared when he’s about to be beaten and he never claims to be a brave man. He is human. Though he still feels the guilt of abandoning his parents as they suffered, he does his best with his second chance. If you asked Quan if he has what it takes to face the persecution he faces, he would proabably say no. He'd say that it's Jesus who keeps him going. Li Quan failed but the world didn't end there and so I’ll be praying that prayer again.....

giving blood

2006-01-07T17:29:00.000-07:00

Today I gave blood. It's only the second time I've done it. I like donating blood. It's fun and I get to be someone's hero, what more could a girl ask for on a beautiful Saturday afternoon? :p

It took me less than ten minutes to give a pint of blood. The woman said my bleeding speed was a steady nine on a scale of one to nine. I'm proud of my skills.

......must be why it hurt so much more this time. :(

seven

2006-01-06T22:15:00.000-07:00

things to do before I die

1. go to Antarctica
2. live in London
3. learn to speak with a proper British accent
4. successfully smuggle Bibles
5. learn to speak French
6. go on a medical mission trip
7. go to Alaska

things I cannot do

1. be somewhere I don’t feel wanted
2. focus for more than five minutes
3. trust a guy who has a crush on me
4. speak French understandably
5. stay calm when I’m really excited
6. watch people hurt other people
7. drink coffee and like it

things I say most often

1. go away! (while laughing)
2. I don’t know
3. grrrrr
4. boys! arg.....
5. we can take my car
6. brilliant
7. I’m sorry, could you repeat that, I quit paying attention there.....

books I love

1. the Bible
2. Till we Have Faces
3. A Tale of Three Kings
4. Quo Vidas
5. A Chance to Die
6. Red Moon Rising
7. The Vision

movies I could watch over and over

1. Narnia
2. The Runaway Bride
3. Batman Begins
4. Chicken Run
5. Starwars
6. The Neverending Story
7. X-Men

people to do this next

1. Jacque

I can’t think of anyone else who hasn’t already done this.....

New Year

2006-01-01T22:15:00.000-07:00

Today I moved into my new room. I'm still at the Simon's house but no longer in the laundry room. Now I have a real bedroom with a lock on the door and windows. I have a bathroom and access to the kitchen. Good way to start the new year.

And what about 2005? It was an incredibly hard year for me. It's easy to look at the negatives but I need to make some space for the good. They say you learn a lot through hard times. What did I learn? Hmmmm.....

I finished reading through the Bible for the second time. It's amazing how much just reading the Bible helps; even when there are no great flashes of revelaton there's still something there.
"For He [God] knows our frame, He remembers that we are but dust." - Psalm 103:14. I think I'm am slowly learning this one. God does not expect me to be a super-saint. He knows that I am human, weak, dust, and He is not up there demanding what I am incapeable of giving.
"I have loved you with an everlasting love; therefore I have drawn you with loving kindness." - Jeremiah 31:3 I think I understand this verse on a much deeper level as well. God's love is everlasting. A song we used to sing says "Your love is deeper than my view of grace, higher than this worldly place, longer than this road I travel, wider than the gap You've filled." I can never run out of it. Funny, this time last year I was so sure I was on the edge of running out of love and mercy. Betsie ten Boom said, "There is no pit so deep that His love is not deeper still." Jesus stands above all gods in that He alone has the power to come to us and hold us no matter where we are; all other gods are too weak, they require us to come to them.
"For we do not have a high priest who cannot sympathize with our weaknesses, but One who has been tempted in all things as we are, yet without sin. Therefore let us draw near with confidence to the throne of grace, so that we may recieve mercy and find grace to help in time of need." - Hebrews 4:15-16. One of my friends has reminded me of this a few times. Even when no one else understands Jesus understands. He walks with me and fells my pain every bit as intensly as I do. He holds me and crys with me like no one else ever could.
"You have taken account of my wanderings; put my tears in Your bottle. Are they not in Your book?" - Psalm 56:8. It's very hard for me to cry. Somehow I've learned to think it's an aweful, shameful thing. People used to laugh at me a lot when I was little and would cry. Then I learned not to let people see it. This year I've learned that God doesn't scoff at my pain. It's precious to Him. I'm free to cry with God.
Jesus is the "author and perfecter" of my faith, not me (Hebrews 12:2). It's not my job to force spiritual maturity out of myself. I'm still trying to figure this one out. Where's the ballance between laziness and trying to be the potter? How do I let Jesus be author and still do my part? I am thinking that not as much of it is up to me as I thought.
I think I've also learned to rely on the friends God has put in my life and admit my own weakness more.

Not that I'm all that great at any of these things. They're just areas I'm begging to see changes in. Hopefully it keeps going.

Emmanuel - God with us

2005-12-25T11:29:00.000-07:00

“From the squalor of a borrowed stable,
By the Spirit and a virgin’s faith
To the anguish and the shame of scandal
Came the Savior to the human race….”

This is a Christmas song that Immanuel Fellowship sings. It goes through the entire life of Jesus, “King of Heaven now the friend of sinners, humble servant in the Father’s hands.” The song goes as far as His death, “He fights for breath, He fights for me,” and even to His second coming, “But the skies will part as the trumpet sounds.”

I think this is my favorite Christmas song. Though, I can’t remember all the words, I tried to give a good picture of it. I like it because so many songs we sing focus only on the baby in a manger yet this one goes through His whole life and purpose to save us.

This year I’ve really been struck by God’s passion to save humanity. Just the fact that He came to earth humbly, as a child shows His love. God could’ve come any way He wanted but He came as a servant. I don’t know why but this Christmas for the first time it’s struck me how much more gentle and loving it was of God to come humbly and live among us rather than sweeping down in a chariot of fire and showing us His glory in an unmistakable way.

It so awesome, because He’s God so He already knows everything, I’m sure that included knowing what it’s like to be human. However, He loves us enough to actually want to experience it with us. My favorite part of the song says, “Yes He walked my road and He felt my pain, joys and sorrows that I know so well; yet His righteous steps give me hope again – I will follow my Emmanuel.”

new ring

2005-12-18T20:59:00.000-07:00

So back in May I got a ring to remind myself of several promises God made me while in Annecy. I've been surprised how much that little piece of metal has helped me remember what God has spoken to me. It's become rather like a security blanket, something that I take off and twiddle with or just look at when I'm feeling weak and scared that God has changed His mind.

Well in the last seven months some of those promises have been fulfilled in ways I didn't really have the courage to hope for at the time. (Not all of them are all the way yet but more than enough to be sure that God is going to finish it.) Only one remains....but that one will take awhile.

I recently broke my little ring. (***cries a tear) Yesterday my sisters Jacque (she's back from Texas again!) and Joanie, my cousin Marie, and I went shopping at a mall near Marie's house. I decided to buy a new ring as my finger has felt naked these last few days without one. I picked out a pack of five rings all tied together that had one I liked that fit me. Jacque decided she liked three of the others and tried one on. It stuck. My poor sister stood there in that store and worked and worked but to no avail. The ring was stubborn. My sister was thoroughly stuck, probably for life.

Well, since I was going to buy them anyway I comforted her with the fact that we wouldn't have to steal them. We went to the register and the kind girl rung up the rings - right on her hand. Then she was so nice as to cut the string holding them all together so that Jacque would only have to wear the one that was stuck rather than all of them.

She managed to get the ring off when we got back to the house. I'm glad we didn't have to amputate it, but probably not as glad as Jacque is. Anyway, I have a new ring to remember what God has spoken to me and is doing in my life. Jacque got her rings to work as well. Happy ending. :p

narnia

2005-12-18T20:24:00.000-07:00

I just saw Narnia for the second time this week. I've read the book several times (I'm losing count) and they did a good job sticking to the original story. Even better, they did a fantastic job maintaining the heart and message that comes across in the book. Rather than downplay, most of the little changes highlighted what a traitor Edmund was and therefore they also highlighted the sacrifice of Aslan.

The characters were all amazingly cast. I've seen several attempts to make The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe into a movie. One of them I had to shut it off after about ten minutes because it was so awful. Usually Aslan's a small puppet or he's got a rather nasal and wimpy sounding voice. The kids are all the wrong ages or look like they just dropped out of the 70's not the 1940's during WWII. Every one of them were about the age the book implies and looking like they lived in 1940's England. They all kept the characters of the book, they even looked the way I've always imagined them. (Well except the witch I always imagined her looking a bit more like Cher. Though I thought the woman who did it played her well.) The character of Edmund, his treachery, and his salvation were excellently done. Aslan was big, strong, gentle, and wild. (That line in the book about Aslan being wild and untameable but incredibly good at the same time has hugely influenced the way I've thought about God since I read the book when I was fifteen.) The witch was just as awful and even trickier than I imagined her.

Ooooo, I want to go read all the Narnia books again and I can't wait till it comes out on movie!

it's over

2005-12-15T23:09:00.000-07:00

Hooorah! Biology class is over. I took the last test today. I think I did well, I hope it was good enough to cover the bad grades I got on another couple of tests. :S I guess I'll find out in a few weeks. Anyway, next semester I'm taking art and ice climbing classes. It's supposed to be a very busy season for the clinic.

i'm 22 for a moment

2005-12-13T23:03:00.000-07:00

Today is one of my favorite days of the year. Usually on December 13th I have a birthday….actually so far it’s never failed to come. ;) I am now twenty-two and I like the sound of it. Maybe I've lost some maturity between this year and last; I am way more excited about this birthday than I was about the last, and I hear that women older than twenty-one are supposed to dread their birthdays. Oh well, I’ll be immature; denial and lies can come later.

My birthday was kinda odd. First I worked but got off early. Then I went for a run and figured out that I can do mile in twelve minutes without racing. (I have never measured or timed myself before so I’m happy.) Then I went to biology class and forgot my homework. :s But the teacher is letting me turn it in next week. Finally I went home to watch Rabbit Proof Fence with the kids that live in my house and one of their friends. Only two other people were able to come and only one stayed for the movie because it’s finals week.

Crazy way to spend my day but that’s okay. I’m excited anyway. Glad to be alive and wondering what I’ll get to see God do in the next year. What will He do in me? Seems like there’s so much that needs to change in me. God’s on top of it. When He’s ready He will show me how. I’m so excited I want to run another mile or two, but it’s late and my guest took his time leaving so that will have to wait for another day.

victory

2005-12-10T16:46:00.000-07:00

I had brekfast with Bill and Jerie, a couple who lead the Tueday night housechurch. I had a great time helping them make breakfast. I got the job of cooking some aweful turkey bacon. It was all of our first and last times eating turkey bacon. ;) Bill's pankakes were wonderful though and they more than made up for the bacon.

Now why am I talking about what we had for breakfast? So I can tell you something amazing and profound that Jerie said of course! :P (At least to me, maybe everyone else is smarter.) I mentioned how I don't feel like I'm where I want to be in my walk with God. Somehow she must have read my mind because this is waht she asked me: "What is victory?" She assumed a superhero pose with her arms raised valiantly above her head, "Is it da, da da daaa?" (At this point I'm thinking, Yes that's Christian victory.) "No, that's not victory." Jerie continued, seeming to answer my thoughts, "Victory in the Christian life is faithfulness. It's following Jesus no matter what."

That hits a bit hard. Like, I know the right answers. I know that you don't have to be a supersaint to be a Christian. Yet I live and think as if somehow I have to impress God with my spirituallity. It's so hard for me to just chill out and quit trying so hard to perform for Him.

the mission bell

2005-12-07T18:31:00.000-07:00

Yesterday a random thought popped into my head, "Hmmm...... It's been awhile since Delirious? came out with an album." Since Isaac's not around to check these things for me anymore I decided to check their sight for myself. To my sheer delight I saw the new cover-design of The Mission Bell, their new album. I'm excited; Delirious? is my favorite group. Then today I noticed an e-mail from my friend Isaac, who's currently living in Paris, and there's a music file attached. I can't open it till my next trip to my parents' house, but I think it's the free down-load I saw on their sight.

odd mix

2005-12-04T22:10:00.000-07:00

The girls in the family I live with wanted to learn how to make greeting cards with rubber stamps. This can be quite complex, if you’re creative about it. So today my family had them all over to their house (my mom has a gazoon of the necessary supplies) and I taught them how to do anything they could think of to make cards.

Then in a turn away from such girlyness we all, guys included, ate pizza watched Edward Scissorhands. Very strange movie. I think either it’s supposed to have a really, really deep meaning or the writer was totally wasted while he wrote it. Though I kinda liked it, I must admit that I suspect the later of the two options to be true.

God's Spirit

2005-12-03T17:32:00.000-07:00

Two of my friends, Isaac and Dan have written about the charismatic gifts. Both posts are more than worth the read. They've made me think a lot. I need to do a bit of sorting-out here.

The first church I went to was my grandparents' Evangelical Free Church which my parents began to attend when my family moved in with my grandparents when I was three. Those types of churches were really the only ones my mom took my sisters and I to all through our many moves. I remember being quite bored and annoyed with being snapped at for being the figetty kid that I was (am).

Then when I was ten we moved to Colorado to stay. As usual we didn't know a soul but soon met a nice homeschool family who went to an altogether different kind of church. They were going to an Assemblies of God church in Summit County and Living Word Fellowship (the second met in our town on Thursday nights). They started taking my mom, sisters, and I. Both are Pentecostal churches but Thursdays were definitely more lively. Unlike the other places I'd been these people definitely believed that God is still active in the world. Suddenly church was interesting. They spoke in tongues, fell down when they were prayed for, jumped around while they sang, randomly shouted "Amen," prayed for healings rather than easy deaths (something that had really bothered me as a small child in other churches and I always refused to go along with despite what the adults said), and they believed that God would give them nice houses and expensive cars. My dad started coming to church with us and we were all baptized in the Holy Spirit.

I became much more interested in God. Suddenly He was so much closer and more accessible than ever before. When all the adults in the small Thursday church began reading through the Bible I joined them and loved it.....till I got to Chronicles and then the long genealogies sapped my determination. I joined an Assemblies of God girl's group in Grandby and kept at reading through the Bible.

It lasted about two years. My family went through a year where we were short on money so we couldn't drive the distances and my dad quit liking the pastor of the Thursday night church. So we started going to the Kremmling Community church (again) when I was thirteen. This church was almost fundamental, which was disturbing after being in the quite dogmatic pentacostal churches. What would happen to my young relationship with God in such a dry, lifeless church? I was really worried and asked God for some help.

It came through an older girl in my Sunday school class when I was fourteen. She had been on several Teen Mania mission trips and helped me get started going on a trip. Now, the extra interesting thing about all these church changes is that while I went to the Community church on Sunday with my parents that same homeschool dad was still taking my sisters and I to the girls' group at the Pentecostal church in Grandby. So I was going to two churches at the same time each saying confidently that the other was wrong. It was a very interesting time. I tried not to think too much, it made my brain hurt. :p

Then I went through something of a crisis. I came home from my first mission trip sky-high on pride. Of course I didn't take long to fall, and I did it hard. My family had also been going through a rough time financially for a few years which affected everything else in the house. The private school I had been going to moved to the other side of our large county in the middle of a year so I quit going and lost all my friends from there right after my fifteenth birthday. My parents decided they didn't want me hanging out with one of my other friends because her parents were scary. (In my parents' defense they really were scary.) The homeschool family that we had been friends with for so long suddenly went through a yucky divorce. My sisters and I watched close-up the breakdown of this family that had influenced us so much. The girl who had introduced me to Teen Mania left the church pregnant during her senior year. One way or another I lost every friend I had in a period of about a month and a half.

Very dark times, but they made me think. Without a friend to lean on, I took a much closer look at my two churches. My parents were not members of the Pentecostal church which caused my sisters and I to have a distinctly lower place in the girls' group. No one but my teacher from middle-school genuinely wanted me there. I was a number. People there gossiped and randomly told others that they would go to hell for their worldly acts like having a Little Mermaid watch. I went to the Community church's youth group, Sunday school, and Sunday service with my parents. Here I saw the exact same things: gossip, leagalism, condemnation, and cliques. The gossip forced my pregnant friend to leave. I was a geeky homeschooler/freshman with braces; the youth group didn't care that I existed. Again I was a number. I began to doubt it all. People who believed the prosperity gospel freaked out over their finances. People who obnoxiously prayed in the name of Jesus that God would take the "rebellious spirit of the devil" out of a cheeky kid couldn't seem to get it together enough to make their marriages last. Those that believed in miracles never asked for them without screaming their prayers as if God couldn't hear. I found myself very confused, cynical, and doubting God. I mistrusted Christians - especially traveling pastors who claimed the fire of God but didn't stick around long enough to let us see it in their lives. I'd glare them down when they offered to pray for me to be "Slain in the Spirit," a thing with I had never done and in my state of distance from God had no intention of doing. I didn't believe any of it anymore.

However, in order to keep up my perfect, innocent homeschooler image of flawless Christianity, I had applied and been accepted on a second mission trip. God let me know He was still real, and really interested in me a few weeks before I left and I began taking my questions to Him. On that trip I saw people healed. One boy was completely paralyzed on his left side. All his limbs were undersized and had barely a scrap of muscle on them, while his other side - still small - looked and functioned normally. Another group prayed for him but I saw the effects, he walked. The boy went home and got his mother and a lot of people prayed to give their lives to Jesus and filled out the little cards we gave them so that someone from a local church could follow-up with them. There was also a blind woman who received sight and a sick man was healed.

It's all very confusing. Since then my parents stated taking us to a more middle kinda church, Immanuel Fellowship, which believes that God works miraculously but doesn't obsess over signs and then they moved on while I have decided to stay here where I'm finally much more than a number. I have prayed for healing and both seen and not seen it. I've seen prayers I've prayed for my friends' hearts answered with more power than I had dared hope. A couple of people are almost completely different than they were five years ago when I and a few others really focused in prayer for them. Yet there are others who's lives and attitudes have only dramatically worsened as I've prayed. I've seen God use me in friends' lives and I've seen everything fall apart no matter how hard I try and how hard I pray. Seems like it's been a lot of the latter these last few years. I find myself discouraged and wondering what it is I'm looking for in all of this.

Dan talked about the Fruits of the Spirit, love, and how the miraculous gifts are named right along side and at equal standing with things like hospitality. (Gal. 5, 1 Cor. 12-14) After hearing Jesus warn the pharasies over and over that it's a wicked generation that seeks a sign (Matt. 16:4, Luke 11:29), why is it that we so often seek a sign to prove that God's Spirit is moving? Yet Jesus also said, "Truly, truly, I say to you, he who believes in Me, the works that I do, he will do also; and greater works than these he will do; because I go to the Father." (John 14:12) I've often heard those of the Pentecostal persuasion saying that this means we will see the same miracles of physical healing and provision that Jesus did and even more. While I think that we can't just demand whatever, whenever and expect God to bend the entire universe just to give us our fancy of the moment. I do think that Jesus meant this words as much as He meant anything else He said to us. However, I think we've taken a very narrow view of it. Jesus didn't just perform miracles of physical healing. He loved sinners. He patiently discipled twelve young and largely uneducated men. He got up early to pray every day. He forgave sins. He forgave and loved the mob that crucified Him.

So, what is the point? Why does God sent His Spirit? Like Dan pointed out, the emphasis in the New Testiment seems to be on transformation rather than miraculous signs. The same seems to be true of the passages about the Holy Spirit. I may be wrong, but it seems like God is not as interested in sending His Spirit through signs as He is in sending Him through the miracle of transformation. I think we don't always see a transformed heart as a miracle. It's not very loud or flashy, and in most people it happens so slowly that it only visible in retrospect. Maybe it's just me, but that's always seemed more desperate and hopeless than the physical, obvious stuff.

I think that we seek the signs and wonders because they are easier. (Not that there's anything wrong with them in and of themselves.) They are easier because they're loud, we don't really have to be in tune to and listening to God to see what He's doing when He works through the overtly miraculous. It's a quick change and doesn't require the patience of the slow, frustrating transformations that the heart makes. When abused it's a quick way to win yourself a name in God's Kingdom and it's a cheap way to trick yourself into feeling close to God in the absence of a real relationship. Tongues can be faked and 1 Corinthians 13 says that they will pass away. Love however cannot be faked very long but it's permanent. Yet true love requires a deep change of heart and at times incredible sacrifice. It can be pretty painful and unglorious.

Not that it's an easy answer, but I was impressed buy a comment left on Isaac's blog by a man who calls himself "The Big Dog." He said, "I would posit that there might be a third explanation: [in answer to Isaac's two options for why we don't see the Spirit moving] What if God is still sending His Spirit, but He's sending Him (It?) in ways and places that we're not expecting or looking for, so consequently we assume He's not there. We miss what would be obvious if we were looking for it. The religious establishment of the day completely missed the import of Jesus' arrival and ministry because He didn't come in a way and in the time they were looking for. I think God and the Spirit are always at work, always on the move, always up to something - and I often miss most of it because I'm running on default systems and autopilot."

We make God small in our minds by our attempts to draw lines around Him and find the formula that makes it easy. It's so hard to accept that He is, as C. S. Lewis says in the Chronicles of Narnia, wild and untameable by us. We can't just trust that He does what feels best to us but what is best, even when it hurts terribly and doesn't make any sense. But how do you trust someone too big and wonderful to be nicely predictable? How do you walk beside Someone who is both the Lion and the Lamb? Who is capable of making Himself known both through the parting of the sea and a still, small voice? Someone who spoke the stars into existence and also lay helpless as a baby in the arms of a teenage girl? How do you begin to understand someone like that?