To Those Who Know Me

Friend ... that loaded word.

I love people. I adore them actually. When I people watch, I sometimes literally feel sorry for myself that I can’t get to know them. I know it’s terribly sappy and ridiculous, but I’m trying to be honest here.

The even weirder thing is that in spite of this wish to know every interesting person in the world. (Okay, there might be a few exceptions.) I am often afraid to get to know my own friends. There is always one question looming over me. “What if I fail them?” This comes in a few varieties, including but not limited to, “What if I end up being that one person that they learned to count on and then isn’t there at the critical moment? What if I don’t talk to them very often? What if I do something that makes them feel judged? What if I hurt them?”

With my weird and bad health thrown in, some of these questions felt even more pressing. What if this person knew that all I can think about when I talk to them is how tired I am? How would that person be able to trust me again if they ever found out that for a few moments I absolutely could not remember who they were? How could I ever explain that even my love can’t overcome my physical weakness?

I’ve even gone so far as to tell people, “I love you, but I can’t promise to be there for you. I’m simply not reliable.” I’ve explained to people, “You can call me, but don’t be surprised if I don’t return your calls. You can write me, but I’ll probably forget to write you back.”

I said these things because I thought they were true, I wanted to be honest, I didn’t want to disappoint. I said these things because I wanted to be perfect for you and I knew I would fail. I thought I was breaking it gently, but the truth is that I wasn’t trusting God.

I thought that you needed me to be there all the time, preferably in the same town, or even the same house with you. I thought you needed me to be able to have hours and hours of phone conversations and encouraging letters every month at least, and regular Friday night hangouts, too. I thought you needed me to never be awkward or just plain wrong. I thought you needed me to never disappoint you. Now I realize, I thought you needed me to be God.

The strange thing is that none of you ever asked this of me. I’m the only one who decided what kind of friend I should be. I’m the only one who let friendships die, not from lack of communication, because some of the people I communicate the least frequently with are some of my closest friends. Instead, I let fear starve my friendships. I was afraid I wouldn’t be able to be there all the time, so I eventually wasn’t there at all.

I’m writing this to tell you that I am so sorry.

I’m writing this to tell you that I’ve missed you. I’m sorry that I convinced you that I’d never return your phone calls. I still might be terrible at it, but I’m grateful for every chance you give me. I’m sorry my health sometimes makes me boring, forgetful, moody, and airheaded. But if you can put up with a friend that is all those things, I am so willing. I’m sorry that I’ve wasted so much time wishing I could be God to you, but if you want a friend who struggles with a God complex then I’m the person you’re looking for.

I’m sorry I don’t have all the time in the world but if you’re willing to work with whatever God gives us, then I am more than willing to treasure the moments He gives us to share. I’m sorry if I’ve ever communicated that we can’t be friends because we believe differently. Believing differently had nothing to do with it; we couldn’t be friends because I was too afraid.

I’m especially sorry for those of you in the past that I judged and condemned. I was playing God then too, and I’m terrible at the part.

If you are willing to remind me that you don’t need me to be perfect, then I want to be there for you during those times when you do need me. I don’t want fear to steal any more of the lovely relationships I could be sharing. Thanks for being patient with me and giving me more grace than I was even capable of accepting.

Emotions & Reality part 2

Once, when I was raving to God about how unfair and stupid it was that I had to deal with this ‘evil’ emotional part of myself, He kindly reminded me that He was the first one with emotions. After that, all sorts of my ideas about emotions had to change. First to go was the idea that emotions were stupid, embarrassing, or weak. They’re not. In fact, they are godly.

“Okay, okay,” I reasoned, “They aren’t all stupid, embarrassing or weak, just most of them.” God momentarily complied with me for the sake of argument, but then He brought up this question, “Who decides which ones are good and which ones are bad?” You may think it’s obvious, as I did. Joy, excitement, happiness . . . these are good. Anger, sadness, anxiety . . . these are bad.

The problem is that God and/or Jesus have been described as having all of those, the ones I called good and the ones I called bad. If you think Jesus never felt anxious, read about the night in Gethsemane. I think it’s safe to define “sweating drops of blood” as ‘anxious.’ God reserves the title as “Judge of Emotions” for Himself. Anytime I try it, I have to stop and choose to trust Him instead. I will not be fooled into letting another person judge my emotions, either.

I have also learned that no matter how silly I feel my emotions to be, they are all valid. (Do you ever notice that you feel all sorts of things about your feelings? So confusing.) This means I am not allowed to pretend that any of them don’t exist. The sooner I am honest with myself and God about what I’m feeling, the better. My emotions cannot and will never change the Truth. This is very relieving for me to realize. Just because I feel unlovable doesn’t mean that I am unlovable. Sometimes I must trust the Truth in spite of what I feel. However, even when I don’t trust the Truth, it still doesn’t change.

As I practice trusting God with my emotions instead of controlling them myself, He is actually convincing me that they are more useful than I ever believed possible. He uses them to show His own feelings to me. Have you ever had a certain feeling, perhaps joy or protection while watching a child, and heard God whisper to you, “That’s exactly how I feel about watching you.” Nothing compares to feeling the emotions of God.

Other times He has used them to delicately and gently bring up places in me that He wants to heal. Many times these were places that I was so used to being broken, I didn’t know they could or should be healed. Trusting Him always brings healing.

Sometimes my emotions are simply a sign pointing to a physical need. When I don’t get enough sleep I may feel like everyone around me is a selfish jerk. They probably feel the same thing about me. When I need to eat, I sometimes feel depressed and that life is just too much to handle. When I have a cold and I feel weak, I am much more likely to cry. These are the emotions that really annoy me. I don’t want my body to have that much control over my soul, but it’s better to grudgingly admit it than to ignore the truth. These too, I can trust God with. Also, because I’m able to be honest about it with my family, they don’t take my moods so personally, but can remind me that maybe I just need something to eat. I don’t know about you but it’s always a relief to me to remember that I’m not a jerk; I just have low blood sugar.

There are only a few emotions that God has tagged with “These are not from Me” signs for me. Also, these are three emotions that you will never catch God having. They are guilt, shame, and fear. Don’t get me wrong, there is a healthy fear. If a gun is pointed at you and you don’t feel the flight or fight fear response, something is probably very wrong. (Since Jesus had as human a body as I do, I’m assuming he felt the flight or fight sort of fear a few times.) However, most of the fear in my life is not this sort of fear. Most of the fear in my life is the kind that perfect Love wants to cast out. This kind of fear can be defined as “A lack of trust towards God.”

He wants me to understand that I am totally safe in my relationship with Him. He wants to smooth away all my fears because He is big enough and kind enough to handle whatever it is I’m afraid of. He loves my fear away. When fear of this sort comes up it is a chance for me to understand His love in a new way. It’s a chance to ask, “Who are You that I shouldn’t be afraid of this?” I promise His answers are worth it.

Guilt can also be a good thing, if I had never felt my guilt I might never have felt my need for God. But now that Jesus work is completed my guilt is eternally removed and to return to it is to disbelieve that Jesus work is final. Since I acknowledged my need for God, He has never used guilt again. This is not to say that I have never technically been guilty again. With Jesus’ completed work, guilt is no longer an issue because I am eternally forgiven. At this point the memory of my guilt only serves to make me think that I am somehow cut off from God which will never be true again.

I don’t remember any time that shame was from God. In my experience it has only had one terrible function, to keep me hiding from the One who could heal my guilt.

My emotions are still annoyingly messy. I still usually feel that I would be better off without them. I regularly tell God that if I’m not allowed to control them then I should at least be allowed to give Him pointers about how He should be controlling them. But I’ve been without emotion, and I don’t ever want to go back. The trust being built out the mess of my emotions is more than worth it.

Emotions & Reality part 1

I believe that humans are made of three parts: spirit (the breath of God), soul (mind, will, emotions) and body. These three things are both united and separate much like the organs of a body are united and separate simultaneously. If you study human anatomy for any reason you will find that teachers and text books immediately start breaking it down into systems and organs and pieces that they will identify and separate and then separate what they separated. At the same time, people usually study human anatomy to learn how to keep it going, working, functioning, and surviving, as a human. They don’t study it to dissect it; they dissect it to understand the whole.

So I, too, am going to do a bit of dissecting, but only so I can understand the whole. These things can be mentally separated for ease of understanding, but they will never actually be separate in experience.

I’ll start with the most basic one, the body. I think you should know what this is, your physical existence, the one that gets colds, and headaches, and the thing everyone looks at in pictures and recognizes as you.

Then there’s your soul. Your soul is the part of you that comprises your likes and dislikes. This is the part of you that you get to share with other people as you choose to. This is the part of you that makes you really, really, uniquely only you and no one else. Your body and soul combine somewhere between your brain and your hormones. Your soul is the part of you that has thoughts, emotions, and makes choices. Your mind, will, and emotions comprise your soul.

Then spirit. This is the part of you that has life like God does. This is what separates you from the animals, what makes you particularly ‘in the image of God’. This is the life in you that doesn’t end when your body does. Your spirit makes your soul eternal.

I think the easiest and most honest way to explain better what I’m thinking will be to stick with what I’ve learned and know about myself.

I know that as far back as I can remember my spirit was broken. There was a time when as far down as I could look into myself there was only darkness. I don’t mean depression, I don’t mean evil, I mean emptiness. Like an empty room, but worse. More like when you see something dead and it makes you remember that there could be, and should be, life in that body, but there simply isn’t.

I believe that this emptiness is a human condition passed down all the way from Adam as a result of his and Eve’s choice that they, too, should have the right to judge what is good and evil. That’s when their spirits went empty, died. Because it is spirit, it doesn’t pass away like a body does; it continues sitting there, empty. It’s like a lung without air. I believe that every person is born with their spirit in this condition -- empty existence.

In me, this emptiness produced all sorts of conflict in my soul. I wanted to choose what was right, I wanted to be selfless, I wanted to give love, but my emptiness always dragged me down. I wanted to make other people’s needs more important than mine, but I simply couldn’t. I needed perfect love so bad that I would find myself trying to take it from others. I needed respect so bad that I would find myself demanding it of others. I needed to survive so bad that sooner or later I would take what I needed which caused me to hurt those around me who were also trying to survive. I hated myself for this.

My soul was full of confusion and conflict because my mind knew what was right. I knew I shouldn’t be selfish. My emotions would fluctuate wildly between guilt because I should be doing better, pride because I was doing better than others, depression because I’d never get better, and elation because I finally got something right. My will would sometimes follow my mind, and sometimes follow my emotions. I had nothing stable within myself.

My body was full of stress. I was regularly tired and after 11 years of living like this, I was chronically exhausted even though I was only 19 years old. Of course, body, soul, and spirit work in many directions, much like the old question, which came first the chicken or the egg? I believe that my body was unhealthy anyway, but the stress of my soul in turmoil certainly didn’t help. I believe that both were involved in the depression I’ve been through, and I can’t point to either as the cause or either as the relief. My body needed relief from my soul and my soul needed relief from my body. My empty spirit had no relief to offer to either.

This was all before I understood the completed work of Jesus’ life, death and resurrection. Jesus came to deal with broken humans from the inside out. He came to fill our empty spirits, which frees our conflicted souls, which gives our broken and dying bodies relief from the inside until He gives us new ones in the future.

In accepting Jesus’ completed work, my spirit for the first time was filled with life. I had a consistent and flowing source of life in my deepest place. I had an eternal source of love, acceptance, and respect. I no longer had to grab for these things or suck them out of other people. For the first time I was copiously full. I was satisfied. I also knew who I was. I was Loved.

My spirit was immediately and forever totally altered. My soul took much longer. My mind is still getting used to new thinking habits; my will is still learning to live out of my spirit’s fullness. My emotions . . . well, they are still emotional but they are learning not to despair.

The fact is that my emotions seem to be the most unstable part of my soul, and maddeningly, my mind and will follow my emotions more often than not. Thankfully, this is not a problem for God. My mind can be convinced with reason, my will can follow the reason my mind produces but the only control I have over my emotions is an on or off switch. When I have tried to protect myself from my negative emotions, I stop feeling any emotion.

What do I do with emotions then? If I deny them, I lose a part of myself. If I follow them, I will go everywhere and end up nowhere. Is there another option? Yes, there is another option; it is simple, but not easy. I can trust God with them. As I have done this, God has taught me a few things about my emotions and a few things about Himself.

Power Perfected

“I need Your strength to feel this weak . . .”

Two things have always been strong and constant in me, weakness and pride. I’ve always been small but I’ve always believed that if my will power was strong enough I could do anything, ‘anything’ in this case only falling slightly short of flying by sheer will power.

My small size never was brought home to me by circumstances so I understood that I was ruling the world through awesomeness. I was fast, witty, I learned easily, I spoke easily, my health was good, I was really good at reading, people told me I was beautiful and I easily believed them, my family was happy (in my eyes) and well respected. My circumstances were perfect, I was perfect, and I gracefully accepted the accolade.

Only one thing crept in to rankle my pride. About the same time that I was responsible to get my own school completed for the day I realized that I was too lazy to keep myself on task. Far from making me humble, this realization was only a minor blot in my perfect record of self-willed accomplishments and I was sure I could conquer it.

I was really young, not much older than 10, and looking back two things astound me. First that such a young person could be so confident and second that I really thought that my own will shaped my life.

Between then and now, things have only gone downhill, honestly. It turns out that the laziness I noticed in myself was the first symptom of health problems that worsened for about 9 years before they were noticed. In the mean time I was consumed with guilt, while constantly promising myself and God that I would do better.

I didn’t do better. I was guilty through my school years, floundered through high school and still maintain that what I did do for high school was well below the minimum. Today, my family is broken and my health is bad. I can still learn easily but forget even more easily. To use the word ‘fast’ to describe anything about me will bring genuine laughter. I can seldom think quickly enough to be witty, and more often than not, I can’t remember the word I need just to finish the sentence I started. People still tell me I’m beautiful but they almost as often assume that I have an eating disorder. I can still read; I can’t tell you how grateful I am for that.

These are the things I placed my pride in. When those things that I was proud of failed me you would think humility might have had a better chance but pride will easily change from gloating to self pity before it will leave room for humility. Not to say that I haven’t learned humility, because I have, and I have loved to learn it.

Humility is not realizing that I am nothing, but rather that I have nothing, nothing besides Jesus that is. I have learned to accept whatever He is pleased to give me whether I would call it weakness or strength. He was satisfied with this lesson of acceptance until yesterday. Yesterday, He upped the ante.

He said, “You’ve been asking for My power all year. Do you even know what power is? Who taught you to distinguish between strength and weakness? My power and your weakness are inseparable. I’ve made you weak and you’ve accepted it but if I told you that your weakness is My power would you believe Me and thank me for it?”

Because I’m stuck being a human and a baby my first response is always, “Cruelty!” In fact, though I’m not calling Him cruel anymore I’m still considering . . . my option. This is too big for me to do. I must rely on His strength and power even in the simple choice to be thankful.

Which reminds me of something else He taught me this year. To admit weakness and ask for help is not a demand for attention but an action of humility. I don't understand this. But the truth persists being itself in spite of how I feel about it.

I feel like I'd like to lock myself in a room and cry for years instead of move forward in the face of these truths. I would in fact, except that Jesus carries me forward even when it feels more like He's dragging me on. You might think that I have a choice but I don't. The life inside me would be picking the lock from the inside even while I was trying to cry in the corner. The only thing more miserable and impossible than believing Him is trying not to.

Divine Coach

I've never considered my self a sports person, so I was surprised when I realized that what I really want right now is a coach. Someone to coach me through the maze of my health. Who knows what is going on, can point me in the direction I need to go and is capable of planning to get me steadily from point A to point B. Someone who recognizes my limits but knows when to push me harder.

And why stop with health? Why not keep wishing? Why not wish for a life coach? Someone who knows where I want to go (the stars) believes I can get there (even when I don't) and knows what steps to take. Someone who can instill my every action with purpose because it's all part of the plan to reach the goal. Someone who can inspire me when I'm down and can set the bar just a little higher when I'm feeling confident. Someone who can praise me when I do well and correct me when I'm wrong. Someone who sees me more clearly than I can see myself and will do anything to help me succeed from the inside out.

(If you are interested in this job offer, call me. You also need to live in my area and be willing to work for no pay.)

As I began to put words to this desire a growing conviction started rising within me. "God is all I get. Some stranger is not going to knock on my door tomorrow offering to babysit me through life, I'll have to make do with God." I was actually disappointed. Don't laugh too hard, I know you've done the same thing. I didn't really want God, I wanted a coach. I didn't really want God as a coach either, I wanted a human that currently walks the earth.

I knew it was silly, but I also knew it was honest. So I told God that I didn't want Him, got over it, and started planning with my new Coach. I started thinking about what it would look like for God to be Coach. I figured out pretty quickly that He probably wouldn't let me dictate my life goals to Him so I asked Him what our goal would be.

Goal: To know and experience that I (God) can be whomever and whatever I want to be in you.

Close on the heels of the goal came this statement,
Fact: Your flaws are not big enough to stop Me.

This may sound nice and spiritual to you, but I get very nervous when God starts using all inclusive wording such as "whomever" and "whatever". I know that He has carefully considered the boundlessness of this wording and means it in its entirety. I get the feeling of falling into deep space when I try to imagine what these words might or could include.

I want God to only be in me things that look and feel nice. Things that large portions of the world, both secular and Christian can respect. More importantly, I want God to be in me someone who makes me feel reasonably proud of myself. Normal is not good enough. I want Him to be astounding in me. Less than normal, by my measurement is not okay for God to choose.

Oh, well. I did know better than to argue with the goal. At the same time that it scared me, it also sounded pretty good. To know God better, to trust Him even more, to let go of fear, it does sound like a challenging adventure.

For God to be my Coach He had to have a plan and I had to follow it, but I knew that He wasn't going to give me a detailed daily schedule. So we agreed that I will head for the goals I already have, including health, schooling, and work, while keeping in mind the real goal. God, as Coach, will guide me in the way that He always has, I trust Him and step with confidence. He doesn't write up a plan with steps to follow, He lays the next step in front of my feet.

So, the actions of my days have not changed much, if at all. But fear that I might be heading in the wrong direction has left. The feeling of being alone among decisions that were too big for me, has left. The feeling that I am wasting my time one precious moment after another, is gone. I am no longer traversing crazy, random, daily days hoping that I make the right decision for my time. Every decision I make is His responsibility. He is a good Coach and He will do anything to see me reach the goal.

Joy Revisited

For some months now, I have felt rather odd when I have had the chance to interact with people who are hurting because of life. I usually welcome these interactions because I understand and I have hope from my own experience to offer. Lately, I have felt as though I had lost my right to say that I understand.

Life is still . . . unpredictable. There are still painful situations that I wake up to every day, all is definitely not right in the world. Yet, it all seems inexplicably okay and suffering seems to be unrealistically absent in my life right now. Not just a dull detached 'okay,' but a rich often delightful 'okay.'

I was trying to explain this, and my confusion because of it, to a friend who was being crushed by the weight of her own life problems. She surprised me by saying that I should encourage others with this. How could it be encouraging to a suffering person to tell them that my life is very enjoyable right now? I was still trying to excuse it as some kind of weird and embarrassing anomaly. Then I remembered my post from December of last year.

I wrote about joy. I had found that it was not a luxury but a necessity and I accepted if from God by faith, in the face of contrary feelings. Could it be that this strange 'okayness' in my life was a direct result of that acceptance of joy?

I am still not entirely convinced. I still feel a strong urge to apologize to the world for not currently being in pain of some sort. But it does cause me to wonder, why don't we think of joy as a practical gift of God? Why do we never hear sermons on the necessity of it? Why do we still believe that joy can only exist when our circumstances line up favorably?

Nehemiah 8:10 says, " . . . the joy of the Lord is your strength." Being sick and experiencing physical weakness has made me realize that strength is not a vain desire but a necessity for life. My mind kept wanting to tie this in with the armor of God in Ephesians. I think I finally found a viable connection.

Armor is useless on a person without strength, not only useless but incapacitating. Joy is necessary. If you are living without it you are only barely surviving. I don't know what joy is exactly, I suspect that it is an unexplainable mystery.

I am particularly interested in your thoughts about joy. Have you thought much about it? Have you heard much about it? Have you experienced it? Do you consider it fleeting or lasting? What is your general understanding of it? Has God brought it to your attention? If so, what came of it? How do you think it is related to emotions, circumstances, and faith?

Thank God, I don't have to understand His gifts to accept them, experience them and live in them.

Joy Accepted

Last Thursday night I did not sleep well. I went to bed around 1:00 a.m. and did not go to sleep till closer to 2:00 and then woke up at 7:30 and could not go back to sleep. This is a bigger deal than it might at first seem. I usually need 10 hrs of sleep and if I don't get them, then I have no energy for the next day.

I was hoping that I could survive the morning and be tired enough to take a nap, but no such luck. The entire day I had about as much energy as when you are trying to get over a cold. It was a hard day.

If it was just a cold then I probably wouldn't be writing about it, but try to imagine what it would be like, not to have a cold for an entire year, but to have a new cold every three days for a year. You're just pulling out of the old one, you're thinking about everything you want to get done now that you're getting better and WHAM! . . . you feel bad again.

After a while you buy into a couple of new fears, ones you thought you would never experience. Fears like, "If I go there I might catch a cold again; I think I'll stay home." "I would plan on that but I just don't know if I'll be feeling well enough to do it." "What if I think that I'm better and I go do too much and have to go through this all again?"

I know it sounds pitiful but this is a good sampling of what I've struggled with. Not often given in to, thank God, but definitely struggled with.

So, on Friday, I was feeling very down both physically and emotionally. I actually recovered from the loss of sleep pretty quickly; By Saturday, I was doing well again. My emotions did not bounce back as quickly. In fact they went from feeling down to feeling depressed.

I hate to use the word depressed, it sounds way too serious, but that is what I was. I was not feeling sorry for myself, I didn't have a bad attitude, my heart just seemed so heavy that there was a literal tightening in my chest.

I wondered if I should set aside time to talk to God about it, but I couldn't think of anything to talk about. I wasn't focused on something besides God. So, I waited it out. I was open to what God might be doing, but also trying not to take myself too seriously.

Sunday morning I wrote 'Peace Found', but Sunday evening I finally admitted to myself that I was depressed. Then I began to wonder, "Was I fooling myself about finding peace? Was I just trying to be spiritual to impress others?" The answers were a resounding "NO." I did have peace; I found peace and I still had peace.

I started trying to explain what was going on in my heart to a friend. As I explained it to her, it began to make more sense to me. The best way I could describe it was stored mourning. It seemed like everything emotional that had gone on in my life and in my heart the past few months had just built up. Now it was demanding attention when all the reasons to mourn appeared to be old.

I told her I wished I could just cry but I couldn't. Then, God gave me my wish. I started to laugh at something and my deep emotions caught a ride on the tail of my surface emotion. I cried, and cried, and cried.

Of course I was analyzing myself the whole time I was bawling my heart out. "Why am I crying? There is nothing to cry about. Get a grip on yourself. You're just having a pity party." But none of it was true.

The truth was there was a lot to cry about. I cried for the pain in my family. I cried for my own pain of being sick. I cried for the Christians who are getting slaughtered in India. I cried for a girl I know who is determined to try everything but God to soothe the ache in her heart. I cried because the pain of these things is real.

When I was done crying the quietness came that usually follows tears. Then I went to God, "Lord, I have peace, but I have pain, too. I have peace but I don't have joy." The thought came that I just wanted joy because it feels good. Then I thought of Nehemiah 8:10 " . . . the joy of the Lord is your strength." and Galatians 5:22 "The fruit of the Spirit is . . . joy." God said that I needed joy.

"Lord, how do I get joy?"
"How did you get any of the other gifts I gave you?"
"By faith; I accepted them. Lord, I accept joy."

I didn't feel any more joyful, but I've learned not to be worried when my feelings don't line up with God's word. These past days joy has been poured upon me.

I worried momentarily that I only had joy because my circumstances were more enjoyable, but if I had faith to accept joy when I didn't feel it, why should I not have faith that I received the true gift when I do feel it? Feelings come and feelings go, but I have accepted joy.

Peace Found

God spoke to me today. I didn't really like what He had to say but I always love the sound of His voice.

Someone was teaching about responding to God's call. How do we respond? Do we try to shirk it? Do we grudgingly accept it? Do we thank Him for it? Do we run from it?
So I started talking to God.

"Well, let's see. You called me to be a missionary and I thanked you for it. Man, I can't wait. You told me to buy a spinning wheel, I was a little less sure and enthusiastic but I did it and now I'm enjoying it. Can't wait to see what that's all about either."

"What about being sick?"

"Yeah, what about it?"

"How are you going to respond to that calling?"

"You called me to be sick? To be lonely? To feel worthless? To not be able to serve you? To barely escape 24/7 crankiness? To be a burden on my family?"

No answer. Just that feeling that He was looking at me and we both knew an answer wasn't needed.

"You did, didn't you? Okay, I accept Your calling on my life."

It wasn't grudgingly, I didn't thank Him for it. I just accepted it. I'll probably have to accept it again tomorrow. It reminded me of the last line in this poem by Amy Carmichael.

In Acceptance Lieth Peace
He said, "I will forget the dying faces;
The empty places,
They shall be filled again.
O voices moaning deep within me, cease.
"But vain the word; vain, vain:
Not in forgetting lieth peace.

He said, "I will crowd action upon action
The strife of faction
Shall stir me and sustain;
O tears that drown the fire of Manhood cease.
"But vain the word; vain, vain:
Not in endeavor lieth peace.

He said, "I will withdraw me and be quiet,
Why meddle in life's riot?
Shut be my door to pain.
Desire, thou dost befool me, thou shalt cease.
"But vain the word; vain, vain:
Not in aloofness lieth peace.

He said, "I will submit;I am defeated.
God hath depleted
My life of its rich gain.
O futile murmuring, why will ye not cease?
"But vain the word; vain, vain:
Not in submission lieth peace.

He said, "I will accept the breaking sorrow
Which God to-morrow
Will to His son explain.
"Then did the turmoil deep within him cease.
Not vain the word, not vain.
For in Acceptance lieth peace."
~Amy Carmichael

Measuring Suffering

Today I was talking to God about a situation I don't like. Here are the facts:
1) I have very low energy 99% of the time.
2) I can't do much
3) I can't plan much because I probably won't be able to do it when it comes time to follow through on my plans.

If you have any imagination you can understand how frustrating this is, not just for me but for my family and anyone else who might be counting on me. Today I had to turn down another opportunity that I really wanted to accept, and it broke my heart. That may sound dramatic, but it was really the straw that broke the camel's back. I didn't fall into a puddle of tears, but I did go tell God what I thought about it.

I told Him that I wanted to be where He wanted me to be even if it meant in weakness and uncertainty. I told Him that I didn't like it, I really don't like it, but I want what He wants. Then He started talking to me about comparing suffering.

This is not the first situation that I have been in that I didn't like. But, not liking something sounds so petty, even selfish. I kept telling myself that it's really not that bad, that I should be grateful, that I should quit feeling sorry for myself. All of this is true, but it's only half of the story. The other half of the story is that my not liking it isn't sin, in fact what I'm going through is suffering.

"Suffering is having something you don't want,

or wanting something you don't have."

~Elizabeth Elliot

Can this be true? Suffering must be more complex. Surely, true suffering is more noble.

We are only human. When we stub our toe we call it pain. When a body is racked with cancer we call it pain. Greater pain and lesser pain we all agree, but pain none the less.

Another interesting fact about pain and suffering: they can only be measured by yourself in yourself. Only you can say that one pain is greater than another for you. No one else has felt what you feel. No one else can know like you do.

We always act as though it can be measured and compared. We measure our pain and suffering by one another. "My not having energy is not as great a suffering as your losing someone you love." True, no doubt. But I was going the next step. "My not having energy is not suffering because your suffering is worse."

Even as I write this it seems to make sense, but I know it is not true. We would not use this logic in any other area. It becomes preposterous.

"My feet aren't even really feet because yours are bigger." or, "Your black paper isn't really black because I have a black wall."
My black paper isn't as big as your black wall, but big or small, black remains black.

Strange as it may seem, when God gave me freedom to call my little problems suffering, my self-pity pretty much left. I am suffering. It is uncomfortable. I don't like it. I know it is for a purpose. I know it brings me closer to God. I know that God is in it. I do have joy.

"But when they measure themselves by one another
and compare themselves with one another,
they are without understanding."

~ II Corinthians 10:12 ESV

Life Preparation 101

I like to be prepared. I fluctuate between being a person who is over prepared or a person who did not prepare at all. But at my core, I like to be prepared. I also don't like to fail. I dread being put in a situation that I don't feel prepared for because I might fail.

Having been home schooled, I always wonder if I am as prepared as they are. I fluctuate between feeling silly pride that I am better schooled or prepared than the average joe, and abject terror that I am not at all schooled or prepared.

I have been graduated from high school for two years. Still the question looms. Am I prepared? What is being prepared? What am I preparing for? Am I too focused on the future to realize that my life is happening today? I am not in college, I don't know of anything that I want from college. Two years ago, I was terrified of college but I can honestly say that fear is not what kept me from going. I didn't, and don't believe that college is the way God would have me prepare.

In the past two years, I have alternately taken and lead a discipleship course. I have been at home on and off as well. I found out that my being able to sleep twelve to fourteen hours a day is not normal and was on bed rest for a month. My relationship with God has been rebuilt almost from square one. I had a part time job at a horse barn. I found out that I want to own sheep.

So, if college is not the way God lead me to prepare does that mean that the way He has lead me is preparation? I can tell you very specifically what I want to do with my life. Simply put, I want to be a mother to troubled children, but there are many more details that God has given me. He has given me a dream. In America, when you have a dream you make a to-do list of how you are going to accomplish your dream.

My dream is different. My dream is a gift from God, and as a gift He has told me that He will accomplish it. It is a lot like giving someone the picture of the gift you had in mind for them because it is still in the mail. You don't give someone a picture of the 'gift' and then tell them to buy it themselves with their own money.

As I was pondering this I found that it is a very biblical concept, this giving a dream as promise of a future gift. Joseph was told that he would rule over his family and he became a slave and was sent to jail. Moses was groomed to be an Egyptian prince and became a convict and a sheep herder before he became the leader of his nation. David was anointed as king and went right back to doing odd jobs at home.

I don't see anything in these stories that would be recognized as life preparation except by the eyes of faith. I happen to have a pair of Eyes of Faith and they tell me a surprising story. God uses day to day life as preparation. I've had a lot of daily days, and to believe by faith that I am prepared for tomorrow is relieving.

"If God is for us, who [and what] can be against us?" Romans 8:31

An Update From Dallas

I decided you all really deserve an update. I can not say that I haven't updated because I am madly busy. God has been teaching me that my worth does not lie in busyness, so I haven't had as much to do as I would like. At the same time, He is teaching Paige (Director of AE) to accept her limitations and let Grace and I do our job of supporting her, so I have more to do recently. He puts people together in the most amazing ways.

All three of us are totally new to these positions, Paige's training was minimum, mine was none, and I think Grace's was somewhere in between. None of us really knew what to expect work wise. We knew how it was supposed to look from a student's view but we weren't sure what our jobs would be to make it look like that. It has been an adventure.

I could fill you in on our schedule but frankly it's rather boring and mostly routine. I'd much rather fill you in on the hearts of the girls but I'm afraid I'm not really qualified to say what is in their hearts. Therefor, all that I'm left with is God and me.I'm not sure how qualified I am to put that into words either.

As I was planning on helping with AE I was not sure how wise it was to come because I was so tired at home that I was almost on complete bed rest. I came anyway because I felt like God wanted me to in spite of the 'logic' of the decision. When I got here I found that Paige was in the same situation. Between the three of us (when Paige delegates) there is just enough work to keep us busy and give Paige and I more time to rest than most people need. God is teaching both of us that our sleeping is for Him as much as our working is for Him. My heart is doing very well because God created it, He bought it, He wooed it, He loves it, and He keeps it.

It seems that God's theme for all of us this AE is that He is the Pursuer. So often we get into the mindset that God is, at worst, actively hiding from us or, at best, passively sitting on His throne waiting for us to stumble upon His exact location. I do not advise running from God just to see how long and hard He will pursue you. However, I do advise letting your pursuit of God be full of joy in the knowledge that every time you seek Him, He is there. He is not hiding from us, He is chasing us.

Everything here is going according to schedule; not always according to our schedule, but always according to His.