“By selling another gospel to our generation, Satan has been employing many sincere men in preaching a dethroned Christ.”

Going along with my recurring post theme of how I’m always making plans, and God’s always telling me “Uh, No.” ….

A couple of months ago, I’d signed up with Crusade to go to a conference in Denver (DCC) over this winter break.  My sister went to DCC last winter and told me all about the impact the vulnerable community and blunt truth had on her.  I was kind of determined to go from the start.
I’d hesitated, however, to register officially because not having a job this semester has brought my steady income down a bit.  And by down a bit, I mean to an abrupt halt.  I’ve had no income for the first time in about 2 years, safe for what my generous Mommy will sometimes transfer to my account for necessities and inexpensive thrifty fun. 
So anyway, these conferences cost money.  At first, I’d asked my parents to just make that my Christmas present.  But when I got home, I talked with my mom about everything and even though she told me they’d be able to send me, something didn’t feel right about it as I saw how tired my dad’s been from working 60 hour weeks and the bill for my textbooks for next semester.  I reasoned with myself that I still have 3 more years (at the least) and the same opportunities will be there next year, then informed the staff with Cru that I wouldn’t make it this December.
On the other side of the family happenings, my sister’s been planning her leave for Haiti these last few months with a missions team from my home church.  Before I decided not to go to DCC, the way the break was going to work was that I would be in Denver at pretty much the same time Sissy would be in Haiti and I’d get back a few days before her, meaning she couldn’t go to DCC- which was a bummer at first. 
In all the last minute cancellation and the hype of everyone coming home for Christmas, I forgot to tell my sister I wasn’t going.  But I figured it didn’t matter since she wasn’t going to be here at the same time anyway.
So all this build leads to the twist:

Yesterday, my mom, my sister, and I were all sitting in the living room when my sister brought up DCC… and her new plans to go.  I hadn’t even realized she didn’t know I wasn’t going yet, figuring my mom would have said something.  But aside from feeling bad to disappoint her, it suddenly hit me that these plans obviously interfered with Haiti.  Only to find out that the trip was postponed due to spreading riots concerning the Haitian government and the danger it poses for the team’s efforts to get back to the U.S.
So then I was doubly bummed because not only was I missing out on the conference, but now my sister was going without me. 

Earlier, Mizzou Cru had offered me a scholarship for half of the trip but with complicated conditions involving my parents having to initially fork over the entire amount, not to mention the extra cash for gas to help my car get there, and to eat for the whole week.  The conditions pretty much defeated the purpose of the scholarship in my case, which made me feel like I should just stay home anyway.  Not only did the trip seem unfeasible financially, but I’ve felt pulled further and further away from the Cru community, making a week-long trip with a family I don’t particularly feel a part of these days somewhat filled with distractions.  See, I thought that was God giving a clear indication that He had something to do with me here, instead of there. Obviously… right?
But really, I think maybe He was just trying to let me see how uncomfortable I was willing to let myself become before He thrust it into overdrive.

When my sister realized the reason I wasn’t going to DCC, she wouldn’t have it.  A few texts and an argument (ending with my mom and my sister both telling me I should go) later, I was paid for (or exempt from pay) and signed up to go to the conference… with Missouri Baptist University.  I leave the day after tomorrow, and talk about being unprepared and uncomfortable.  I don’t know anyone besides my sister that I’ll be travelling with, rooming with, or spending the next week with, but I think this is a clear indication that He has something to do with me in Denver at this conference.
Not for the first time this semester, I am realizing I’m not the best person to ease into obedience or submission.  Sometimes it takes a giant metaphorical stop sign right in front of my face, a little more than what I can arrogantly and stubbornly write off as mere coincidence.  And lucky for me, my Creator knows His creation quite wholly. 

The conference is for “college students from all over the Midwest [to] come to grow closer to Jesus Christ through prayer, powerful worship, passionate bible teaching, and community…” with plenty of “opportunities to be equipped with life and ministry skills, to connect and network with other students, and to reach out locally and globally.”  The latter being something I’ve been feeling God pressing on me more and more heavily as this school year has progressed.  And as if that weren’t all “ironic” and “coincidental” enough, the conference board is partnering with Kids Against Hunger this year, having us prepare 100,000 meals… to send to Haiti. 

I started reading a book I got this morning (called Today’s Gospel: authentic or synthetic?) disputing the seemingly small differences (at least, that’s what we make ourselves believe) between the gospel Jesus taught and the one we find ourselves altering to fit into the ears of our peers more comfortably, seemingly small differences making a giant impact on the sincerity of our efforts to please the Lord and shed light on whole truth.  I’ve only started the beginning, but am already identifying with what Mr. Walter J. Chantry seemed to think was “wrong with evangelism today” (as if he got in my head and stole all these thoughts I felt were mine for so long)—this focus on unity that, while well-intentioned, causes us to start sharing a watered down gospel for the sake of a community that isn’t even benefitting from the way we’re delivering a shallow and undetailed half-version of what Jesus came here to say anyway.

I was reading Malachi yesterday and came across this:

“I am the Lord, and I do not change. That is why you descendants of Jacob are not already destroyed. Ever since the days of your ancestors, you have scorned my decrees and failed to obey them. Now return to me, and I will return to you,” says the Lord of Heaven’s Armies.
“But you ask, ‘How can we return when we have never gone away?’
“Should people cheat God? Yet you have cheated me!
  “But you ask, ‘What do you mean? When did we ever cheat you?’
  “You have cheated me of the tithes and offerings due to me. You are under a curse, for your whole nation has been cheating me. Bring all the tithes into the storehouse so there will be enough food in my Temple. If you do,” says the Lord of Heaven’s Armies, “I will open the windows of heaven for you. I will pour out a blessing so great you won’t have enough room to take it in! Try it! Put me to the test! Your crops will be abundant, for I will guard them from insects and disease. Your grapes will not fall from the vine before they are ripe,” says the Lord of Heaven’s Armies. “Then all nations will call you blessed, for your land will be such a delight,” says the Lord of Heaven’s Armies.
“You have said terrible things about me,” says the Lord.
“But you say, ‘What do you mean? What have we said against you?’
“You have said, ‘What’s the use of serving God? What have we gained by obeying his commands or by trying to show the Lord of Heaven’s Armies that we are sorry for our sins?  From now on we will call the arrogant blessed. For those who do evil get rich, and those who dare God to punish them suffer no harm.’”

The end of that struck me really hard and I just read it over and over, making the obvious connection between this community God is addressing, and my own.  My own society, sometimes my own community of believers, sometimes my own mind.  And while it was disheartening to a certain degree, it was also further pushing me in this unpromising world.  It made me think about what James was saying in his letter to the dispersed believers about the testing of their faith and the difference between simply reading the word of God and actually learning from what you read, between sitting in superficial acknowledgment and getting up to engage in the lost and brokenness of the world because that is what His word says to do.  Hearing and Doing.

Because is it not made apparent that--

Religion that is pure and undefiled before God, the Father, is this: to visit orphans and widows in their affliction, and to keep oneself unstained from the world.  - James 1:27

Unstained, but not untouched.  For, how else are we to engage in the brokenhearted and the fatherless if we can’t jump into their afflictions confidently relying on His power? 

It’d be really cool for you guys to remain prayerful of His work in me, and the things He’s stirring up in my heart and in this trip to Denver.  I’m extremely excited to open up and let him reveal the next place He wants me to move from here.  I’m sure I’ll have a lot to share when I get back.  Until then!

God With Us

 

Immanuel.

This is the name Isaiah said the virgin would call our Savior by. 

Immanuel.  God with us.

Not against us; not separate from us; not detached from us, or isolated, or distant.

But with us, among us, beside us, for us, near us, upon us, in us.

I will recount the steadfast love of the Lord,
the praises of the Lord,
according to all that the Lord has granted us,
and the great goodness to the house of Israel
that he has granted them according to his compassion,
according to the abundance of his steadfast love.
For he said, “Surely they are my people,
children who will not deal falsely.”
And he became their Savior.
In all their affliction he was afflicted,
and the angel of his presence saved them;
in his love and in his pity he redeemed them;
he lifted them up and carried them all the days of old.

-Isaiah 63:7-9

This is my letter to the world, that never wrote to me

It will be said on that day, “ Behold this is our God; we have waited for him, that he might save us.  This is the Lord; we have waited for him; let us be glad and rejoice in his salvation.”- Isaiah 25:9

He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree, that we might die to sin and live to righteousness.  By his wounds you have been healed.  For you were straying like sheep but have now returned to the Shepherd and Overseer of your souls. – 1 Peter 2:24-25

Oh, that He could breathe life into this flesh; that He could come for rescue, for redemption, for love in the midst of utmost hate. 
Oh that He could show me what it means to treasure; that He could set purity before my eyes, and grace, and beauty in the midst of utmost brokenness. 
It makes no sense to me. 
Who am I to feel for the brokenhearted; who am I to hurt for the broken in spirit?  Who am I to wonder of love and hope in a world that has corrupted the very essence of either?

Therefore, preparing your minds for action, and being sober-minded, set your hope fully on the grace that will be brought to you at the revelation of Jesus Christ.  As obedient children, do not be conformed to the passions of your former ignorance, but as he who called you is holy, you also be holy in all your conduct – 1 Peter 1:13-15

I can convince myself for any set period of time that I belong here; that I can fit in, look like the world.  But then I wake up.  I open my eyes and there’s a shadow over everything I called my life.  Nothing is blurred anymore; all before my sight is crystal clear.  This is not my home.  She will not have me. The Spirit He allows me is too bright for her to contain, too pure for her to defile as she has polluted everything else. 

But sometimes I get so caught up in being awake that I let myself forget that He still has work for me here, in this unwelcoming hollow place.
I am learning still; I am but a child trying to mimic my Father, failing miserably so much of the time.

I am still learning to think of you before me, always.  I am still learning to love above all else.  I am still learning to do when I say, to act when I speak. 
I am still learning to let Him show me, to let Him move me… even when I’m hurt, even when I’m stubborn and comfortable where I am.

I am still learning what it meant that Jesus came here to this world that He did not belong to and succeeded greatly at all the things I fail at.  He walked with the lowly and became a servant to the poor.  How beautiful a paradox that the Savior of man came to the earth as a precious, fragile infant. 

 
Who am I that He gives strength to my movement, that He puts conviction in my heart, that He puts purpose in my action?
I am still learning; I am but a child trying to mimic a mighty King.

“a time to weep, and a time to laugh; a time to mourn, and a time to dance”

For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven:

a time to be born, and a time to die;

a time to PLANT, and a time to pluck up what is planted;

a time to kill, and a time to heal;

a time to b r e a k d o w n, and a time to build up;

a time to weep, and a time to laugh;

a time to mourn, and a time to dance;

a time to cast----- away stones, and a time to gather stones together;

a time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing;

a time to keep, and a time to cast------- away;

a time to tear, and a time to sew;
a time to keep silence, and a time to speak;

a time to love, and a time to hate;

a time for war, and a time for peace.
                                                       -Ecclesiastes 3:1-8 (For my dear Chellie)

He makes beautiful things; He makes beautiful things out of the dust.

the world is speeding and I’m stuck, struck to my knees; face to the floor;  out from the hollow earth, the rusting of metal- the key to these doors;
it’s all I can do to stay where I am; progress to the frame, open me up
maybe it’s the joy I’m finding in hurt, the pain that’s teaching me how to love,
because my arms are stretched to the sky, Your name is on my mouth-
staining the air, wrapping up the staleness of misplaced doubt;
if those doors are what let everyone leave,
open them up— so I know it’s still me.

May we feel the draft of open doors; may we let people inside when they knock; may we close it gently after them when they leave, and wave from the window; may we trust that disconnecting a lock, or two, or all of them, doesn’t mean something will be stolen; sometimes strangers leave treasure behind. 
May we feel the weight of someone’s presence there; may we laugh in good memory, and cry when it hurts, cry for the things that are stolen in trust, but rejoice for the things that are restored in love.
May we find the strength to remember and save the things we learn when, all in His timing, He opens the doors. 

“But when two paths cross, no matter how brief
There's a lesson somewhere to be learned
It may be just that we're on the wrong path
and there's a corner that needs to be turned

It may be to teach us that we can still fly
and soar in the heavens above
or it may be a brief and torrid affair
to show us that we can still love.”
                   - Hawkins

Bind up these broken bones; mercy bend, and bring me back to life. But not before You show me how to die.

R-Dougs; Dougie,

I got news for you.  This letter’s going public.

When you’re strong,
you fight.
When you’re strong,
you cry words of silence
and never shed a tear.
You find all the ways
to make your heart
make sense,
and you hold your arms out
to everyone around you
to keep them all away--
when you’re strong.

You protect and
you provide
your own shelter;
you choose where
to lie down.
When you’re strong
you mask the ways
that could make you weak.
In defeat, you
claim a victory;
You Win.

When you’re strong
you’re never wrong,
you never hit rock bottom;
you talk until
your mouth runs dry
and you never
say a thing.

When you’re strong,
you don’t remember how
to be weak.
You forget the things
that make you feel,
and all the things you
Fight For
don’t even matter.

When you’re strong,
you mistake yourself
for bold too often,
and smudge the lines
between courage and fear.

And you go to bed
alone,
tracing moonlight in the blankets,
counting memories,
holding on to the things
you didn’t know were yours,
holding white flags in the air
[these bed sheets calling out
surrender]--
when you’re strong.

You have inspired me. 
I don’t like to make promises I can’t keep.
But I also try not to say things I don’t mean.
I love you, Dougie. 
Praise our God in Heaven that He is not contained by time; He’s changed me, awakened fear and hurt and in that, passion and thirst—because of you.  Because of a semester. 
And I’m sorry if I can’t show that to you.  I want you to know that you have done your job here; He’s done His job with you here. 
I want you to know that just because I’ve got a whole lot of pride and bitterness, that doesn’t make you a failure. 
I am proud of you. 
I am amazed by you.
I am encouraged by you.
I am challenged by you.
I’ve learned a lot through your strength, and your faith in our God.

Go change lives, Dougs.  Go walk in the strength He gives you.
He’s got big plans for you; I can feel it.

Take your story to Colorado, and remember that it isn’t yours to keep.  That story is His living testimony.  Spread it like a fire.

P.S. I am also sorry I can’t let myself cry in front of you.  I’ll have you know, I just cried like a little girl.  While lying on my dorm hall floor writing this out.  Pride broken.

Mad love, Lady.

By the undeserved grace of a God so good in His love (and timing).
Jane Doe.

I watched You carve streets of gold from sin and gravel; I gave You brokenness- You gave me innocence, and now this road leads to glory

  
So I was thinking [I do that sometimes… or a lot—too much]
       about how God is both precise (with every hair on our heads being numbered and all) and accurate (comes with the all-knowingness I suppose).   

Sometimes in my Chem lab, our results end up being precise but not accurate|| which basically means that we end up having averages that are consistent in relation to each other with the actual values we should have obtained, but not equal to the actual values. 

But God.
He has mastered precision and accuracy. 

Not only does He call the sun to submission, but He calls it in the early morning.
Not only does He form the oceans vast and wide, but He creates the rhythm of their waves to shape the lands.
Not only does He raise a bird to sing its song, but He gives them the wings to carry it.

Everything He does, He does it flawlessly and with purpose in time.

So I always say that Isaiah is my favorite book, but the truth is that I’ve read 40-66 too many times to count, but the first half only one time.  A week or so ago, I started going through it from the beginning. 

When I got to chapter 3, I saw something so familiar that I had to stop there and relish for a second. 

The heading for this chapter in my Bible is Judgment on Judah and Jerusalem.  Isaiah first explains that Judah is subject to judgment because its people have fallen before idols in worship, loved and valued wealth and power before God, and have earlier been deemed a “sinful nation, a people laden with iniquities” who have “forsaken the Lord, they have despised the Holy One of Israel, they are utterly estranged”- Isaiah 1:4.  They have turned from Him, put trust in “princes, in mortal men who cannot save” (Psalms 146:3), and aren’t even ashamed by their sin.  They have actively rejected God, and so in turn are rejected by Him.

Chapter 3 is just a list of all the ways God chooses to shame them, to break their pride.  And so accuracy and precision present themselves. 

To the men:
He strips them of their role as strong leaders.  Where power and courage once stood, He replaces with feebleness and fear.  Then He hands that role to the women and children.  “I will make boys their princes, and infants shall rule over them,”- 3:4 and “My people- infants are their oppressors and women rule over them.”- 3:12. 

To the women:
He strips them of their beauty.  He replaces perfume with “rottenness”- 3:24, and the pride they take in their outward appearance with disgust.  He makes their husbands and protectors “fall by the sword… in battle”- 3:25. They are left desolate and desperate for any man to “take away [their] reproach”- 4:1

The first thing I thought after reading that was how precise and accurate the Lord is.  He took the men’s leadership because He knew that’s where they stored all their value.  To give their role to children and women was so great an insult.  He took the women’s beauty and security because He knew that’s where they stored all their value.  To leave them without confidence in their outward appearance and protection from their husbands was how He knew He could finally get their attention because it would hurt the most. 

He just knows us.  Inside and out.  The ways we hide ourselves and things we store our value in.  He knows them all exactly.

The second thing I thought after reading it was: man, I’m really glad Jesus came already. I’m really glad His hands were pierced with the iniquity of man.  

And that is why my heart sings this song of gladness.  He gave me the words and the tune to which I sing it.  It is by Him that I hear the music. 

‘So I arrive at the conclusion: Love isn’t made [love doesn’t sell or pay] but we buy and sell our love away.’

We do not merely want to see beauty, though, God knows, even that is bounty enough.  We want something else which can hardly be put into words-- to be united with the beauty we see, to pass into it, to receive it into ourselves, to bathe in it, to become part of it. – C.S. Lewis

To the few men reading this: it’s about to get really girly (and incredibly personal) in here.  You have officially been forewarned.

[Sorrow is better than laughter, for by sadness of face the heart is made glad – Eccl. 7:3']

{My heart}
is a mess.  I have so many things wrong in that department that making a list of what ISN’T wrong with it would be far shorter.  Four years ago, I told Jesus it was His to take.  I didn’t know what kind of construction was in the future. 

is emptied often.  I used to think of people who were really good at breaking down my walls, making me uncomfortable, challenging me beyond what I thought reasonable, and holding me accountable.  But if those people were put together to form one MEGA-friend, Jesus would still put them to sad shame. 

is full.  The love for my God makes my heart so heavy sometimes that I wonder if it’s taking up too much room there, if my ribs can even contain so large a pulsing Love.  

BUT

has been broken.  I think with my head much more often than I feel with my heart.  But for as much as I favor logic and reasoning, lately it seems God has a lot to show me where “sense” isn’t sensible. 

At the very beginning of the semester I met a fiery, Christ-loving young woman (we’ll call her J) who isn’t even aware of how much I’ve learned from her.  God has given her this bright spirit of boldness that I hope I learn to mimic, and she’s that girl that goes anywhere and engages every single person she comes into contact with.  She stains the love of God on everything she touches.  And it’s absolutely beautiful. 
What I haven’t written here (because the process has been every bit painful) is that a little over a month ago, God used her to speak some of the hardest words I’ve ever heard.  He told me that I was precious in His eyes, and honored, and that He loved me [from Isaiah 43:4].  He told me that He’s concerned for every matter in my life, that every part of what He’s done/is doing/will do is significant.  He told me that His love for me is so strong.  And for the first time, I believed that with all of me; I held on to it like it was all I had.  And nothing has looked the same since. 

Like I’ve said before, I’ve always believed in the forever kind of love- even before I knew it begins and ends with the Lord, even before I knew it lived and breathed by His lungs.  Even when I was lying in bed listening to my parents slam doors and raise voices louder and louder, even when I witnessed so much unfaithfulness among extended family, even when I was dispensed of at will and stayed far away from ever feeling for so long.  It’s been ingrained in me ::Love is real, and it’s forever::
What I didn’t realize, until J so boldly and truthfully convicted me, was that I was worthy of it from someone else.

Boys (I’m assuming you’re still reading out of pure curiosity to find out where the overload of estrogen is), this is where it’s about to get heavy.  Really.   

Our Lord, God of the Heavens- of the lands, and the sea, and everything in them- created me.  And He made no mistakes in His creation.  Everything that He gave me is beautiful, because God doesn’t make ugly things.  To any who look upon me, every part of Him that is me is the beauty I wish to wear.  It is the exceptional beauty I hope to be.
And for the last four years, I’ve let man determine my worth.  I’ve let man tell me it was less than something honored and loved by a King. I’ve let man tell me I was easy to dispose of.  I’ve let man tell me I had to be better.  I’ve let man tell me I wasn’t pretty enough, or smart enough, or skinny enough, or emotional enough, or sensitive enough, or just plain: enough.  Enough to stay.  I’ve let men tell me I wasn’t enough to deserve their time; their care; their love.  And don’t be mistaken, this isn’t just “men,” though I’ve had my share of heartache.  Women seek a woman’s approval just as often as a man’s.  For the last four years I’ve been selling into this lie that exceptional beauty isn’t worth cherishing, or marveling, or treasuring- that all the ways God makes me His aren’t worth recognition from anyone, because who am I to demand a love like that?  Who am I to ask that anyone could cherish me? 

The answer?  I’m a daughter of the God of the universe. 
I strive to look like the revolutionary this world hadn’t seen before, and won’t see again until He returns.
I strive to speak in Truth and teach in the wisdom He gives me.
I believe that the whole Bible is the complete word of God.
I find surpassing joy from the life He gives me.
I try to walk like He did.
I am struck by the fact that the only woman I should ever compare myself to is the Proverbs 31 woman because she is the woman worthy of praise.

I want to wear strength and dignity.  I want to reach out my hands to those in need.  I want to love strangers and serve servants.  And when I am a wife, I want to please my husband.  Where I’ve stored bitterness and resentment for men, I want that to be expelled indefinitely and I want to honor him and to respect him.  I want to tend to the ways of my household and have my children grow to call me blessed.  I want to fear the Lord; I want to honor Him and revere Him.  I want to get to the end of my stranger-loving, servant-serving, God-honoring days and have one man look upon me and say, “Many women may have done excellently, but you surpass them all.”  Because I will be worthy of those words from someone. 

And as my mind looks back on any despair these eyes have seen- any trust that’s been lost, any bonds that have been broken, any sadness this heart has felt in all the sorrow that’s stolen my laughter- my heart will rejoice in the love that it has learned and the Truth that it has sought and revealed. 

For those of you that know me and spend enough time with me, know that I often like to make the claim that I’m not a real girl because I don’t cry, I’m terribly insensitive, and I hate feelings.  Turns out, God made me a girl.  A big girl.  And I can hate feelings and fight crying as much as I want, but at the end of the day, I’m wired like His daughter. 

We serve a mighty King far beyond our comprehension, ladies and gents.