sometimes I like to beccatize things.

This is my very least favorite part of the cycle I go through with God. This part I'm in right now is the pits. Yet I keep coming back to it, slugging back through it, every few months.
The thing is, I'm not even at a "low point" so to speak, I'm just coasting. Not motivated to seek Him. Not really making any effort to become more like Him.
and oddly, uncomfortably, defiantly ok with it.
I hate it.
But I hate that I don't hate it more.
If I hated not being close to Him, I'd actually do something about it. I'm quite aware of our lack of closeness, lack of conversation, and my own distance from Him. and yet… nothing changes. I sit. I stagnate.

Lord, I need a shepherd. I need guidance and prodding, because I'm being a stupid, stubborn, distracted sheep. 
I do not want to be in want of You any more… I want You to pour Yourself out on me. Satisfy me with Your love.
Make me lie down in Your green pastures. Make me to know Your love, Your zeal, Your grace, Your rest.
Lead me beside Your quiet waters and restore my soul (and restore to me the joy of Your salvation!).
Lead me in Your paths of righteousness- not the paths my flesh chooses selfishly. 
Even when I walk through rough times- death, darkness, sadness, loneliness, desperation, drought- help me to live fearlessly. Bind fear and evil away from me, and help me to trust Your presence. Fill me, instead, with Your love and goodness. 
Comfort me with your presence and guidance. Mark me as Your own. Pull me back in with your crook. 
Prepare my future before I walk into it- a future that brings glory to You! Prepare my ways for goodness, grace, and glory. Get me ready for loving my enemies. I'm not there yet, but I know I need to be and will be. 
Anoint me. Pour Your spirit on me. Fill me with Your goodness and love.
May they follow me all the days of my life- even these humdrum plateau kinds of days that will happen along the way. Fill each one with Your goodness and lovingkindness. 

Thanks for using Psalm 23 to teach me to pray.

today, I cried hot, angry tears; and I wrote.

I got mad at God in a really weird way today. I got mad at how good He is to me when He doesn't seem to be so good to other friends of mine. It's not that I am any more faithful or deserving than anyone, so why do they not see His works as fully, quickly, and accurately as I do? How can He claim to be so good and yet fail to have equally immediate compassion on all His children? How can He alleviate my pain so effortlessly and have others struggle through the same pain for years on end, when they're banging on the door of His heart for Him to end it? This infuriated me, and as I cried and wrote out my anger, a poem of sorts formed.

Sometimes I don't believe You.
Sometimes I think I don't really need You.
Sometimes, You make me angry
and I'm not sure how to relate to You.

You said You wouldn't delay
so why do we still wait
for the salvation to arrive?

You say You're good to your flock,
yet the passing time mocks
the healing that still hasn't come.

I want to believe You,
to hear You and see You,
and trust that You're working for us.

I want to be near You,
understand You and fear You,
and know why You're taking so long.

I'm sorry I'm angry.
I'm sorry I yell-
but if You're really that "good",
You'd have compassion on those who fell.

You wouldn't stand by,
as it seems like You do;
You'd wipe tears from their eyes,
yet they wait, broken, on You.

Move, if You will.

I promise I'm not a transcendentalist.

I have this weird thing I do where I try to assign God to different inanimate things and see if it works as a metaphor of His character. It's surprising how well this works with many things, and one of the many I've been pondering lately is an ocean.

'God is an ocean.'

People claim they love the ocean, but there's always that moment when you're with someone who "loves" the beach and they start complaining about how awful it is. They hate the sand, they hate the saltwater, they hate the sunburns, they hate the unreliable weather, the list goes on.
It reminds me of the nominal, cultural Christianity that plagues America. We "love" Christ but we hate how much he demands of us, how uncomfortable he makes us, how painful it can be to follow him, how illogical his plans often seem. We "love" Christ but we spend our days whining about things that aren't going our way.

People claim they love the ocean, but then there's always that person who doesn't get in past their ankles. You're at THE OCEAN, people. Get in. Let the waves knock you down. Let your throat and eyes burn with surprising saltwater. Be submersed. It is only after immersion that you can feel the waves rock you to sleep long after you have walked back in from the water.
It reminds me of the many times I sit in God's presence only dipping in my toes and wishing to still feel his presence. Then, of course, wondering why I don't "feel God". I'm not saying that after every experience with Him I should feel him- honestly I really don't think God is a super-feely being. I'm reminding myself, though, that if I want to find God, hesitantly dipping my toes in isn't going to cut it. Immersion and total loss of self and sense of direction and being caught up in the rip tide is necessary to fully understand God (which is why none of us do understand Him fully... we never let ourselves be swept away. We anxiously swim parallel to shore hoping to get back to 'safety'.)

If you want to feel the effects of the ocean, ya gotta get in the ocean.

Also, there's the whole wideness and deepness thing that David Crowder's How He Loves already covered for us: His grace is an ocean. We're all sinking.
And let's talk about the storminess.
A sea storm is a pretty frightening thing to behold, even just a tropical storm, much more a hurricane.
His jealousy over me is like the force of a hurricane.
His love is 90-mile-an-hour winds, and I am a sapling pine tree, not really sure what I'm doing growing near the beach anyway. I can't help but be overwhelmed and bent over by the weight of His wind and mercy.
"All of a sudden, I am unaware of these afflictions, eclipsed by glory- and I realize just how beautiful You are and how great Your affections are for me."
The moment comes when I'm terrified of being blown straight over or ripped out of the ground and suddenly everything else grows "strangely dim in the light of His glory and grace." All the 'afflictions' I am 'suffering' from don't matter. All I can see is His glory. His Shekinah Glory. His presence on me and in me and around me.
All I can see is His beauty and love. All I can remember is His faithfulness and justice and righteousness, no need to try to recall what life was like before this stormy sea took me over. I am undone.

Shouldn't that be the essence of 'christianity'? Shouldn't that be what children are taught to seek, instead of seeking to be a 'good' person? Shouldn't we be passing on to others the ability to be completely caught up, knocked over, and wasted for all other strains of 'goodness' aside from Him!?

But we cannot pass on the thirst for this moment, because we don't let ourselves experience it. We see our sin compared to His glory and we cannot handle it. We see the storm coming and we evacuate. We hide. It's been true since the very first humans experienced Him: "Then the eyes of both were opened, and they knew that they were naked... And they heard the sound of the Lord God walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and the man and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the Lord God among the trees of the garden." (Gen. 3:7-8)

It is impossible for one to tell another how frighteningly wonderful the ocean is if he has only ever stood on the shoreline and watched the clouds come, before he goes running for cover.
Only after standing in awe of the might and marveling over the strength of the storm and being caught in the middle of the deafening thunder, blinding lightning, and driving winds and rains are we able to talk to others about the ocean, and completely understand it ourselves.

Can I say this again? LETTING YOUR EXPERIENCE WITH GOD STOP AT A CERTAIN LEVEL AND NOT LETTING HIM OVERTAKE AND WRECK EVERY AREA OF YOUR LIFE IS HYPOCRISY AND STUPIDITY. I am not condemning you, reader, for I stand on the shoreline every day and many days fail to dive into the ocean.
But I have chosen to dive in the past, and those short times of total immersion and being tossed about by the waves have taught me that God moves most and best when we open every area of our lives to Him. We feel the ocean most and best when we lay in it for hours being rocked and tossed about.

God is an ocean and He cannot be understood simply by being talked about or 'seen'. God is an ocean and to be His, we must swim straight into the rip current and float along with it and let it wash over us and rock us and shift us to where we need to be. God is an ocean and He therefore belongs to all of us, and there is more than enough of Him for all of us. He will never run out, never stop being, and we will never be able to see the end of Him.

Love, somewhat personified.

I'm learning a lot lately about love. About what it means, how it acts, what it thinks, how it speaks, and why it is so powerful. I'm not by any means insinuating that I know a lot about love- that is exactly the opposite of what I'm saying. I'm saying I know very little about what love really is, but I'm slowly learning.
"What Love Really Means" is currently a favorite song of mine (by the wonderful JJ Heller). It talks about people in different situations who are yearning to find someone who will love them as they are and show them what love really means. The thing I'm reminded of when I hear this song is how sadly true it is: no one knows what love really means. We all think we do. We talk about it like we do. We use the word "love" like we know what it means every day, but we don't. We take this beautiful, larger-than-life concept/feeling/covenant/idea and dumb it down to fit our vernacular and work well in Taylor Swift songs.
Then we leave hurting kids in corners, mock and shun those different from us, abandon God-ordained lifelong covenants, and so many more anti-love actions.
We apparently don't know what love means, if we claim to love yet this is what our lives look like.
Over the past few months, I've been very convicted of what it means to think and speak lovingly, and I've come to the conclusion that a HUGE part of living loved and lovingly is simply SHUTTING UP and LISTENING. Love doesn't sit waiting for a break in the conversation, thinking up a good way to tell her story or become the center of attention again. Love doesn't speak lowly of others in order that the listeners would find her to be better/cooler/funnier/____er than those she puts down. Neither does she speak of herself very much at all.
In most cases, Love listens compassionately and empathetically, letting silence in conversation bring deeper revelations. Love lets you pour your heart completely out, lets you cry until your tears have all left, lets you pretend to be ok until you're ready to talk without calling you out too early.
Love considers your pains, joys, wants, needs, fears, and memories before loudly questioning your motives.
Love, it seems, is much quieter than we realize. I often hear the phrase "Love is louder", especially in reference to the fact that love is louder than hate and depression and suicide, etc. Which I agree with... but I wonder if Love's "louder"-ness actually comes from being quieter. Maybe she stands out and seems so much "louder" because when we finally let ourselves stop and look, the brilliancy of love quietly sitting there waiting all along outshines anything else that could try to compete with it.
Maybe love is louder because her ability to be quiet is outstanding.
Maybe perfect love has the ability to cast out fear because she knows she is the essence of God's heart. She knows that He doesn't always come in the winds and rains and fires, but in the still, small voice. He came "like the winter snow: quiet, and soft, and slow"- He came with the quiet confidence and strength that is found only in love. He came bringing love herself as his mascot. Therefore love has the power cast out fear because she is God's favorite balm to apply.
The power of love is capable of changing, molding, renewing, redeeming, reviving, protecting, and more because she and God are synonymous. God is love, and love is God's language.

When I begin to realize all this, I realize I'm not necessarily learning about love so much as learning about God and how his life inside me changes the way my life inside me is spent. I'm learning what being God's means, how He acts, how He talks, how He thinks, why He is so powerful, and how to be His imitator. I know very little about who God really is, but I'm slowly learning.

The Guilt Of Being Happy

Am I the only one that sometimes feels guilty for having an awesome life? If you read my blog any sort of regular amount or know me in real life, you know that I don't live in a world full of rainbows and butterflies. There are hard days and dry seasons and sometimes life really stinks.
But overall, my life rocks. I've been so abundantly blessed by my God that I can't even really thank Him properly. My parents are wonderful, and though we don't always get along and they argue basically every day, I wouldn't trade them for anyone at all. For the mushy gushy sentimental stuff about how much I love them, please see "Dear Dad". My siblings are also amazing and I would never trade them either, though I often wanted to when I was a kid. The majority of my friends are people that inspire, motivate, and challenge me daily. They encourage me, stand by me, and don't give up on me or abandon me for lame reasons (or really any reason at all). They love me in my mess and make my life more vibrant and thrilling. I go to a wonderful college that's full of a lot of people who a similar to me, and a lot of people who are different from me. I love the variety and kindred spirits I find in both categories. I have a mind that loves learning, which I can thank my homeschooling days for, and I'm a pretty intelligent person (I'm no Einstein, but I love deep conversations and can learn to converse about pretty much anything academic or philosophical). I have something within me that makes music continuously, which makes the music major life a lot more hearty and a lot easier. I am quite healthy, if you disregard the amount of soda and Taco Bell I consume and the number of pounds the world says I should lose to be "fit". I'm not on any medication, I have great eyesight and hearing (though the hearing is sure to leave soon if I continue blast 'You Make My Dreams' as loud as I do...). I'm not a big fan of my looks, but I figure if that's the worst thing that's wrong with me, aside from the things God is concerned with, then I'm doing ok.
I do have a sin problem. It's a big part of my life and something I give up every day and fail at most days. But God is so very faithful to forgive us our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness (1 John 1:9), which He does for me A LOT.
Once you consider all this, please tell me I'm not the only one that thinks my life rocks.
Because I certainly believe it does.
As I've begun realizing THAT this summer (it's taken a year for me to find life to be beautiful again, so please forgive me if this realization seems a little late in life), I've also been hanging out with and talking to a lot of friends/acquaintances becoming friends that are in a quite different boat.
They don't have good, supportive families and friends. They have a lot of things in their life that they regret doing. They have a lot of things in their life that are kind of dismal and hope-draining.
And here I sit trying to encourage them and become a part of their lives, I begin to sound like that annoying Christian radio station that's always talking about how *awesome* God is and how ALL YOU HAVE TO DO IS GIVE IT UP TO HIM and all those other cliché Christianese words and phrases.
As much as I never want to be that person that's so happy about life all the time that you just want to kill a puppy in front of them, I feel like I've become that person. And I feel guilty for it! I feel judged, and like I deserve the judgment, and like it makes sense for people to hate me a little bit and never want to talk to me about their life issues. I think I feel this way because I am so very familiar with the Slough of Despondency and the Depths of Despair {if you understand both of those literary allusions, please be my best friend!}. I remember quite vividly the pain and numbness and listlessness of life that has occurred before, and what little desire I had to have anything to do with overly happy people. Or people who "understood" or people who wanted to encourage me. I just wanted to sit in my mud puddle and pout and cry and be miserable. And if you wanted to jump in, well, the more the miserable-er.
I guess once I get down to it, I have no idea why any of this matters. I know not why anyone should care to read about why I feel guilty about my awesome, God-blessed life. The ponderings just happen and I can't really stop them so most of them just end up here, I suppose.
The questions I close with:
Why do we all stink at being happy for others?
What stops me from being able to relate to those whose lives aren't as sunny as mine currently?
What can I do to change that?

loves and fears and mores and enoughs.

I have no idea where this blog post is going or what may come out of it, so please bear with me. There's a lot welling up in my heart and weighing on my mind lately, so this is my feeble attempt at sorting it out. Summer school has been keeping me busy lately, and especially busy writing. When I write for school, I usually approach it as I would a blog post: a hopeful preliminary attempt at sorting out my thoughts, be they thoughts on research or opinions or just emotions. And, luckily, it turns out pretty good in most cases. Well, for this psych class I've been attempting to approaching my writing as a blog post, and it's been wonderful... but it's made me despise even the idea of blogging because I feel like I've already blogged about 33 pages of information on children with exceptionalities.
However, I feel like there are some big things rumbling around in me (and I'm still unsure of their correctness level, so feel free to judge and add your opinion) and I'd like to get my thoughts out there, so here goes:

LOVE and FEAR.
For a long time, I've thought LOVE's opposite was HATE.
I'm changing my mind.
I believe LOVE's opposite is FEAR.

"Every type of emotion has one of only two roots – love or fear. Out of love flow joy, peace, happiness, patience, kindness, gentleness, and hope. Out of fear flow hate, anger, bitterness, resentment, rage, worry, envy and hopelessness.

The fascinating part is that scientists have researched the anatomy and physiology of love and fear and found that these two emotions cannot coexist. You either walk in love or fear but you can’t walk in both at the same time."

- Dr. Sylvia Hart Frejd

This explains it all so well. I am incapable of loving if I am afraid of love, or afraid of what may happen, or afraid of my past. I am incapable of fearing if I love God and others with a love that surpasses even that of my self-love, which is continually greater than it should be. 


The other big thing that's tumbling around in me is the word MORE.
As a resident of 21st century America, I am quite familiar with this word and its meaning. It means that what I have now is not ____ enough. Maybe just not enough. Maybe not interesting enough. Maybe not beautiful enough. Maybe not clean enough. Maybe not fast enough.
It means that what I have now is not satisfactory.
It means that contentedness is not a option currently.

And yet... YOU are MORE.
You are more than what you say.
You are more than what you do.
You are more than what you did.
You are more than what you wear.
You are more than what you believe.
You are more than what you see.
You are more than what you love.
You are more than what you fear.
You are more than what others tell you.
You are more than your mistakes, hiccups, skeletons, pains, glories, prizes, accolades, and shadows.

It means that what you are now IS ENOUGH.
It means that what you are now is satisfactory.
It means that contentedness is possible.
It means that forgiveness is not only possible, but has been standing there waiting on you to recognize it.

and still, beyond that, HE is MORE.
He is more than what church says.
He is more than what church does.
He is more than what you did.
He is more than what pictures of him look like.
He is more than what we believe.
He is more than what we see.
He is more than what we feel.
He is more than what we love.
He is more than what we fear.
He is more than what anyone has ever told you.
He is more than words, images, and emotions can explain.
He is more than your experiences, regrets, rewards, light, and shadow.

It means that what He is IS ENOUGH.
It means that what He is can handle absolutely anything. period.
It means that what He is now will never change.
It means that contentedness is actually not an option, because we can only see the surface of the 'enough' that He is.
It means that He is forgiveness.
It means that He makes you worthy.
It means that He makes you enough.

He is more, therefore I am more.
Together, we are more than my loves and my fears. Together, He takes my 'enough', and makes it His, and makes it more.