into existence

The 9th time my family moved, I waited until the weekend before we were leaving to start packing my room.  It was my subtle rebellion.  “Take that, Mom; half my room will end up in the garbage because I won’t have time (or space) to pack it and bring it all with me.”  The logic was there for a 13-year-old-me, at least.  We moved in 7 days anyway.  And brought all 3 of our lives with us in my aunts pick-up.  Everything that still belonged to us in a truck.

I’ve spent the better half of my life trying to control situations around me.  The 12th time I moved (back home, from college), I told myself I’d give up on that.  Because I could cry, or complain, or freak out completely, but at the end of the day there was over 5200 dollars that I couldn’t cry or complain into existence.  I simply had to adjust to the circumstances.  If I sat to think about it too hard, I sincerely believed I’d lose my mind.  So I went through finals, sold my books, and packed my room in the last few days I was there without much direction at all.  Some people said I was tough; some thought I was just in denial.  But really, to me, it was as simple as doing what I had to do.  We all have basic survival instincts, right?  We all have the ability to keep adapting as major life changes occur.  There weren’t many choices for me at that point.  Pay 5200 dollars, or leave… and I didn’t have 5200 dollars.  The funny thing is: I raised 5200 dollars to go to Togo over the summer.  I told Jesus that I’d like to do His work in West Africa, and He said here are the people I’ve appointed to support you, and here is 5200 dollars.

I got a job at CLH less than a month after being home.  It was literally a God-send.  He sent them to me. 
I talked to my sister recently about wanting to stay at CLH even though I am trying to move into her house further away and still saving for a car.  She had originally suggested that I just get a job closer to the house, but I explained that not only do I have a commitment to them at this point, but I’m making good money for someone my age without real college background doing something I didn’t have the qualifications for, but ended up really enjoying.  How likely does that scenario sound?  Especially after what I witnessed today (more of that later).  In her typical manner – that I do love about her; don’t get me wrong – she stated, “Well you know God owns all the money in the world, so He can give you whatever you need.” 

While I do believe that wholeheartedly, it is actually the reason I am staying at CLH for at least another semester.  (As opposed to another job because I still can’t go back to school.) But this is a good laugh for me.  Because what she said is true.  God does own all the money in the world.  Which is why I was able to go to Africa.  And why I have employers who have given me a steady, secure job that I have basically had to learn the field as I’ve gone along for. 
So I have to believe it’s why I had to leave college. 
He’s hasn’t allowed me a way back yet.

Over the last 4 months, I’ve been learning the ropes to the “real world.”  You know, the one they always talked about in high school.  I’ve learned to take responsibility, to save and budget,  to suffer, to be proud of my work, to breathe, to panic, to bounce back, to pay bills, to plan, and then re-work the plan on a daily basis because circumstances never stop altering. 

What I witnessed today helped me to realize that this is how He’s been refining me since I drove out of Columbia in November. 

I had a doctor’s appointment so I kept the car and planned to pick my mom up from work afterwards.  Only an hour after I’d been at work, I got a text from her that said I might have to come get her sooner because her firm was dissolving and that she didn’t know if she had a job anymore.  

A lot of things ran through my head in that moment.  Like how this is the kind of thing that happens in movies.  Or how I could imagine people rioting at her office, employees punching the partners or picketing or burning fax machines and the such.  But mostly how beyond all the angry people at the office, what was going to happen to my family?

I had all day to think about it (on the car ride to the doctor, waiting in the office, on the way to pick up my little brother from school), until she finally came home and told us exactly what happened.  She explained the dirty details of the partners’ decision, how hundreds of secretaries were left out of the loop until it came to the disastrous spreading of a rumor today, that they shortly found out was entirely true.  She explained that she couldn’t give much more information, because even she didn’t know.  She couldn’t say when her last day would be, or if she is even getting her check this payday.   Life circumstances.  Dramatically altered, from one day to the next, no warning. 

I couldn’t help but sit there as she described her day, the initial panic to what I saw as calmness before me, and remember that day in my dorm when I realized I was in way over my head with that bill.  And it hit me right then.   He has so much to teach me still.  Because I was still here, making plans for me, and my money.  And now it’s changed again.  And whether it’s to show me in stark contrast how steadfast or unchanging He is, or if it’s to teach me patience, or if it’s to continue to make me surrender, I accept it humbly. 
And I don’t think it’s because I’m strong or brave or awesome.
I may be any (or all of those things ;)), but I am broken first.

Just Breathe

"2 A.M. and I'm still awake writing this song; if I get it all down on paper, it's no longer inside of me, threatening the life it belongs to. And I feel like I'm naked in front of the crowd 'cause these words are my diary screaming out loud and I know that you'll use them however you want to."

When I go into one of my panic attacks, Brian has to remind me to do what is supposed to come naturally to me.  Sometimes, I am so overcome with panic that I lose control of what I'm saying or doing.  Or not doing.  

I don't think I have a disorder, but I'm not a doctor.  And I do know this isn't normal, but it's common.  I've gone back and forth in the past 3 months, questioning whether or not something is really wrong with me.  More than that, I have often been too ashamed to face the reality that this is my present glory: brokenness; His glory.  And that shame only adds to the anxiety.

I've learned that this anxiety thing can be pretty cyclic.  One anxiety attack leads to more anxiety which leads to another anxiety attack, which leads to more anxiety and so on and so forth.  It isn't easy to accept that this is just the way things are going to be for now.  The Lord knows I fight it.  And He also knows how I fail.

Most of the time, I have no idea what triggers my attack in the middle of a seemingly-ordinary day.  It's this day-by-day, sometimes moment-by-moment uncertainty of being fine one minute, and coming entirely undone the next.  By the time I realize that my stomach is twisting and my chest is aching, my body is beginning to shake as I've already stopped breathing properly.  

And when Brian reminds me to breathe, it's always the moment that my conscious mind can faintly hear above my subconscious cries that I've lost this minor, and yet at the same time major, grip on reality.  

I can't remember to breathe.

Maya Angelou once said,

"There is no greater agony than bearing an untold story inside you."

I run into the unwanted answer over and over again that healing takes both time, and screaming my diary out to anyone who will listen, and I believe that my battle is every bit spiritual that it is mental (and physical).  I think I stop physically breathing sometimes because my mind gives my body the impression that it isn't supposed to stop; I've forgotten how to take breaks.  In all these years of running, and holding on,  and hiding, and holding out, I've forgotten-- or maybe never even learned-- to be still and accept being fought for.   

When I am alone with my anxiety, I find myself in the midst of an attack pretending that I can faithfully wish the panic away.  But when Brian is there to see them, I am made more aware of the fact that wishing isn't really doing the trick.  He prays for me in that moment; sometimes I let him hold me, and sometimes I don't.  But more recently, he's been reading Psalm 27 to me even when I push him away because I told him that a friend of mine reads it to another friend of mine who has been suffering extreme anxiety as well.  If it takes him a few repetitions, he still catches my attention with the same verse every time.

You have said, "Seek My face."  My heart says to You, "Your face, Lord, do I seek." -27:8

My heart has to speak.  Because my mind is a mess.  

I have a follow up appointment with my doctor next week, and while I know that she will only remind me that even from a medical standpoint, healing takes time, I have the temptation to wish that she will put some plugs in my head and fix the little hiccups in my brain.  But for as long as it has taken and will continue to take to unfold this story inside me that is not even mine, I let myself be reminded to breathe, and just breathe.  

Because my Father is fighting for me.

Relentless

So that last post must have left everyone (all 2 of the occasional accidental browsers that hit my page) with so much hope for my return... and then I dropped off the planet again. 

Would it suffice if I simply said I've been waiting for the proper time to strike with an entertaining and worthy re-entering? 

No?  Okay, well that's fine because I don't have a Hollywood entrance for you. 

In all actuality, I don't have anything exciting to offer.  I have indulged in and very much enjoyed my hiatus.  And this post is in no way a promise that I am going to "re-join the world."  We can tell how seriously I take that notion by my use of that phrase two months ago, and the hours and depth of words between it and this post (sarcasm).  

The truth is that I just haven't had it in me.  I haven't had much of anything to give.  To myself, to my Community, to my God... and if I'm coming up empty before my God, there's just nothing to pour out into writing.  In the last month, I have found myself stumbling across articles or blog posts that pull at my soul, that cause my thoughts to race, that evoke almost anti-apathetic opinions that put me just along the brink of sharing it with everyone and no one on the internet. But at the end of the day, I ignore my laptop's judgment of me from across the room as I turn the TV on in the evening to let my brain go blank.   

I did read pieces of a blog today, though.   It was about a woman's struggle with alcohol addiction  and that's why I'm here. 

Before you get all excited to share some juicy piece of gossip with someone else about me, realize that you're slandering my name and Paul said not to do that.  But also that I don't attend AA... because I am not addicted to alcohol.  Had you on the edge of your seat for a second there, though, didn't I?  I do in fact have an addiction; and mine's not so specific.  I'm addicted to sin-- just sin in general.  A sin of worldliness that encompasses much more than a specific issue that I can attend a meeting once a week for (not that by any means that's all it takes to 'cure' Alcoholism).  But I am very much romanced by, and involved with, the world.   

I might have to schedule different meetings every night of the week to cure my worldliness.  Monday night, I'll schedule a support group for self-righteousness.  Tuesday for apathy.  Wednesday I'll reserve for doubt.  Thursday for materialistic and shallow lust.  And Friday for my selfishness.  And even as I could fight with my pride long enough to keep that up week after week, I would get nowhere without acknowledging and accepting the Grace Jesus poured out over my life when He trusted God's goodness and faithfulness enough to willingly be mounted on the cross.  And that thought occurred to me as I read blog post after blog post by the "Christian drunk".   

It was in that particular phrasing that I had one of those 'a-ha!' moments.  No matter how often, intense, or pre-meditated the offense is, we are all Christian [fill-in-the-blank-with-something-horrendously-offensive-to-God-and-shameful]s.  You and me, we are Christian Sinners.  Oxymoronic?  Maybe.  But maybe not.   

Last week, at the SIUE I Agree With {Brian} Campaign
(where I was immensely proud of my stud of a boyfriend for being a faithful little broken servant before the masses), there was a panel discussion in which CRU invited believers, non-believers, and skeptics all alike to ask questions about Jesus and the Gospel.  Things they were confused about or had been challenged by, controversy that had burned them in churches past, and all around some of the most popular misconceptions about what Jesus actually came here to say and do.   

There were a lot of really hard questions and, more often than not, simple curiosity combatting with more skepticism.  Of course, I was there to support Brian.  But out of the whole night, one question stood out to me.  In context, a girl stood up and asked about Forgiveness-- simply put, if someone who hadn't forgiven an abuser (sexual, in this case) would go to hell.  The panel began to answer, and the questions continued; it became more like a conversation and I was sitting there thinking that I'd like to be on the panel in that moment.  I could answer.  I had a good answer.  And then she asked: 

"And what about him (the abuser)?  Are you saying that if he apologized and repented for what he had done, he'd just get off scotch-free?  That he would get to go to Heaven and be there with the person who hadn't done anything wrong (the abused)?"    

Initially distracted by her small blunder ["scotch-free"], I almost missed the last question.  But  I was humbled in the moment, and in more way than having to repent for my grammatical judgment on her.  Both the abused and the abuser, having equally accepted the shame (created and received), will stand before God all the same.  Both, repenting for any and all of life's sin, are accepted and beloved, sought after and won -- by God.   

And that is a relentless love.  The Love that fights to convince His daughter that she is pure and worthy, that she is lovely and honorable despite anything she's been shown before now.  And the Love that fights to convince His son that he is redeemed and forgiven, that he is pure and honorable, as well, despite anything he's been told before now.  

better be prepared to be surprised

This is the part where I re-join the world.

---

“If you can’t fly then run, if you can’t run then walk, if you can’t walk then crawl, but whatever you do, you have to keep moving forward.”  - Martin Luther King Jr

---

It’s impossible to explain where I’ve been, mostly because I’d have to be sure where it was before I even began to search for words… and I can’t say that I’m sure. 

What’s important now is that I’m here.
No looking back.
That’s where I’ve started this semester.
Not looking back.

I decided a total change was in store for the little safe-haven I’d created in this blog.  Because I knew there was definitely no going back to the way that it was before. And not just here, but in my life.  It hit me yesterday when I received  two emails from MU senders.The first one was from a Grad student, offering me the opportunity to help with her dissertation that involved direct observation of teacher/student behavior.  More hands-on research;
too good to be true.  Well it wasn’t.
  I thought of how great it would be to take her up on that offer, get my name heard in the Department of
Counseling Psychology.
But I had to turn it down. 
Can’t work in a city I no longer live in.

A little after receiving that one, I saw another in my inbox.
This one was for the fast-lane to apply for a
paid undergraduate research internship
that I qualified for because  I had already been a part of their prep program that I had been accepted into my freshman year.
but I had to turn that down, too.
Can’t work for a school I no longer attend.

But I think the important thing I had to realize was that I couldn’t sit there and be upset.  Because life is happening. 
It’s moving now. 
& if I keep turning around to look at what was or what
could have been |would have been| should have been,
I’ll miss it.
Everything He told me I’d be.

“Therefore I tell you, do not be anxious about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, nor about your body, what you will put on.  Is not life more than food and the body more than clothing?  Look at the birds of the air; they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. 
                       Are you not of more value than they?”
                                           -- Matthew 6:25-26

it’s alarming when I really think about it. 
how He takes care of us.

And that’s all I can prepare myself for at this point.
To be surprised.

“Guys, Summer’s Almost Over”

 

In the wise words of August Paul: Guys, summer’s almost over.

Except this time it’s true.  I leave for school in 11 days.  Where did all the time go?  I feel like I’ve asked that question a lot in the last couple of months.  It’s like a theme for my life this last year.  Interesting timing. 

I’ve really failed at updating this thing.  Everything felt so hectic once I got back and I just didn’t exactly want to face much of life for a while.  Now, I really am just busy.  But I wanted to take this time to record my dreams for this year.  I want to store them here in writing, so I won’t deny to the Lord later what I know He has prepared me for.

I want to continue being vulnerable.  The scary-I-could-get-hurt-this-way kind.
I want to pour myself into freshman in my dorm.  I want to be their big sister.
I want to be a slave to righteousness.  In the face of challenge that calls me to my knees.
I want to be an intercessor.  My campus is a broken campus, just like me.
I want to call on the Lord for strength when I need it.  Which is always.
I want to grow with my brothers and sisters in prayer.
I want to trust the Lord more intentionally.  Because He is who He says He is.
I want to be led.

He is the radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of His nature, and he upholds the universe by the word of his power.  After making purification for sins, he sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high   - Hebrews 1:3

That’s MY King.

singin’ Forever Young.. singin’ songs underneath that sun

It’s taken me a long time to get here.  I kept sitting down to write and then I’d end up just looking at a blank page for 5 minutes trying to figure out where to begin before giving up.  Even while I was still in Togo, I had a few opportunities to update but when I thought about writing, I just got tired. I asked myself a few times what the point of this place even is anymore.  I realized that I don’t know who reads it, and more than that, I don’t really care who reads it.  Which is when I also realized that it’s not really for anyone else.  This is where I process the best way I know how. 
It started because my sister practically begged me to do it, and it’s like she somehow knew how important it’d be for me this year.  It’s like she knew I’d need the accountability of it.  Even though only one person might be reading this, or none, I have that conviction to tell what’s actually going on inside my head because I’ve already written here in plain print that I want to be real and honest.  And as far as I know, there’s a possibility that even one person is counting on me to do that.  I don’t want to be made out to be a liar.  In a way, it’s like I’m holding myself accountable.  It’s like I’m reading back on all my aspirations and dreams for myself and not wanting to be a disappointment.  I can read back over all the things I’ve learned this past year and be reminded constantly of the Lord’s work in me, and how it’s a process that He’s still carrying out. 

It wasn’t just here that I couldn’t face yet.  It was the letters to my supporters to tell them how the trip went, and the stories to my friends who all want to know what “Africa is like.”  I never know where to start, what’s important to tell.  I want to tell everything until they feel it; I want to show them.  I want them to see the streets, and hear the rain, and hold those little hands so they can experience Jesus just like I did this summer.  I want to give them a piece of my heart so they can understand how the Lord revealed Himself to me in Togo.  But all I have is words, and I’ve never been so dissatisfied with that. 

I’ve felt so outside of everything since I’ve been back, which was expected.  They warned us about this, and I braced myself.  But it’s still strange.  It’s not like my first year of college wasn’t unfamiliar enough; it’s not like coming “home” to a place that’s not quite home anymore isn’t weird enough.  It’s not like I didn’t feel somewhat outside of what used to be comfortable to me when I came back from school already.  Throw into the equation that I immediately left for Togo and it’s almost like I really don’t belong.  I spent the beginning of my summer in a different continent, in a different culture, in a different world.  Six weeks seemed so short when we were living there; it was never enough time to do everything we wanted to do.  But now, six weeks has proved to be much longer than I’d hoped for.  It was plenty of time to change me to the core.  It was plenty of time to move us all further into the future.  I feel like so much changed while I was gone.  

And sometimes I just want to go back to that slow circular time, where things just came as they did.  Little went the way we wanted and when something finally worked out, it wasn’t on our time.  And we waited, because we had to.  There was just so much beauty in patience and having to rely on being led.  I feel like I’m scrambling to keep up with the fast demanding pace of this American world.

I don’t know if I’m being bold in saying that I’m not who I was when I left that day for Kansas City almost 2 months ago.  But I pray that I am.  BOLD.

In l'Afrique

Bonsoir, Brothers and Sisters in the States

I do not have the best internet connection so I have to make this brief.

This is my update:
We were meant to leave on Thursday 2 weeks ago. Our flights were canceled and we ended up splitting our team in two to make 2 separate journeys on 2 separate days to Togo. My team left last Saturday. We spent 22 hours in flight, 18 hours in airports, slept in a lot of chairs, ate our "last American meal" of McDonalds in the Frankfurt airport, stepped on Ethiopian ground, tried to decipher a whole lot of French, and arrived in Lome, Togo last Monday. The other half of our team encountered just as much opposition as we did, but arrived safely (and together, after also being split a second time) on Tuesday.

When we finally all made it here, we were so thankful to be back together after separating 3 days before and were incredibly eager to get on the University campus and share the Gospel with students there. And we are still eager.

When we finally got everyone together, our project leader had to share with us that there had been rioting on campus (which seems to the popular thing here in french-speaking Africa... this is why we couldn't go to Cote D'Ivoire). Negotiations have failed to be made and the campus has been closed since we got here.

I cannot express the emotions my team has gone through together, but we are confident of the Lord's faithfulness. It was our leaders' idea to contact supporters in this time of potential discouragement and ask for joined prayer that this wouldn't be so.
Pray that:
a peaceful negotiation will be made
the campus will open and we will be allowed on it
while we are waiting, we are learning more about the character of the Lord
He is filling us with a Spirit of unity and peace and boldness in preparation for when we do get the opportunity to minister to the students

In the mean time, we have been blessed to meet students outside of campus. And we practice our french with the staff at the compound we are staying at. We are enjoying immersing ourselves in this culture and language. But this city needs hope. Please pray for that. Pray that our brothers and sisters in Togo would see the Lord, that they would experience His joy, that they would be filled with hope. Right now, the church down the road from our compound is joining for days on end of unceasing prayer for the Holy Spirit to fill this city. Pray with them that they would experience the fullness of God. Pray without ceasing.

Praise God that none of our team has gotten sick yet. Praise Him that we were called to this place where no other project has ever ventured before, and that He has specific work that He has prepared in advance for us to do here.

I pray that God blesses you with the immeasurable riches of His mercy and grace, and that He is keeping each of you near to Him, that each of you are growing in wisdom and knowledge of His character.

Thank you for a being a part of this adventure He has called us on.