(Slightly related elaborations from this post.)
Something else God pointed out to me:
I was upset because I had nightmares lat night. I’ve been upset on many, many nights because insomnia was robbing me of much-needed sleep.
But you know what?
God made night and day. And He called them both good.
I hear that from time to time: people talking about how God made everything and called it good. But I usually hear it referring to people‚ or to nature—living things. All true and excellent, of course. Yet, God said everything was good. He took the time to call out every individual thing He created and tell it how good it was.
So I have “good” nights and “bad” nights. There’s grace in that, too. There is grace because God always shows up.
So I bless the night. I bless it even when I don’t meet the new morning feeling phenomenal. I bless it even when it made me miserable. I bless it, because God did it first.
Showing posts with label God. Show all posts
Showing posts with label God. Show all posts
Thursday, October 10, 2013
grace & small revelations
Today was what I would usually understatedly call “not the best day ever”.
I had nightmares last night (which is an extremely rare occurrence in my life) and woke up feeling really gross. I was tired all day. We had an activation in the morning session where we had to tell people why we loved them, but I wasn’t able to find most of the people I wanted to talk to. When we did treasure hunting in the afternoon, nobody wanted to talk to us and we couldn’t match any of our words of knowledge. We had chicken for dinner. I napped by mistake and missed a meeting of my outreach team. We went to House of Prayer (two hours of intercessory worship) in the evening, and I was feeling really sick, with no recourse. Then, just as I was ready to go home and crash, one of my outreach team leaders came up to me and filled me in on what I missed at the meeting…
…we’re sharing testimonies tomorrow night. Not in the school—in front of the church. Having had no prior practice. And because most of our team is leaving for the holiday weekend (Thanksgiving in Canada is inexplicably in mid-October), it’s only going to be me and two other people. There was also somebody that I was feeling a little bit judged by in the evening, which is not something you encounter a lot of here, so even a little bit of condemnation (real or perceived) feels like a ton of bricks.
I was literally on the verge of bursting into tears. The whole way back to the dorms, I was just like I can’t do this. There’s no way. I don’t want to do any of this.
In lieu of having any comfort food (I haven’t been able to buy chocolate because I’m poor), I took a hot shower and God and I had some space to talk. I poured out what i was feeling, and ended it with “…it just has not been a good day.” and suddenly, I was reminded of a quote I heard a couple of weeks ago from a guy called Graham Cooke:
Although I was really tired this morning, I was still able to immerse in the storytelling glory of the marvelous Chris DuPre (our speaker for the week; more on that in another post). Even though I hated the chicken at dinner, the sweet potato fries we also had were fantastically good. I was able to reach out to people this morning that I might not normally talk to a lot. Even if it felt like our treasure hunt was a failure, we still stepped out despite feeling incredibly awkward, and that’s a stinking big deal. We finally got our shower head replaced this week, so I actually had water pressure for a decent shower (glory, glory hallelujah!). Emily lent me use of her hot chocolate mix. I was able to participate in the rapid-fire prayer at the House of Prayer and actually feel like I was connecting with God even though I felt sick. Somebody randomly turned out to have a book I’ve been wanting to read and offered to lend it to me. One of my roommates gauged that I was in a weird mood (she became alarmed because I wasn’t talking to myself) and asked if I was okay, which meant a lot to me.
I still am feeling really not-okay with testimony-sharing tomorrow, but there will be grace. There has been grace for every time I’ve had to get up and babble in front of people before. I actually have a testimony to share, and I have a friend or two that will let me practice on them in the hallway tomorrow. So that’s a good start.
There’s always grace. Ask for it, and you’ll find it.
I had nightmares last night (which is an extremely rare occurrence in my life) and woke up feeling really gross. I was tired all day. We had an activation in the morning session where we had to tell people why we loved them, but I wasn’t able to find most of the people I wanted to talk to. When we did treasure hunting in the afternoon, nobody wanted to talk to us and we couldn’t match any of our words of knowledge. We had chicken for dinner. I napped by mistake and missed a meeting of my outreach team. We went to House of Prayer (two hours of intercessory worship) in the evening, and I was feeling really sick, with no recourse. Then, just as I was ready to go home and crash, one of my outreach team leaders came up to me and filled me in on what I missed at the meeting…
…we’re sharing testimonies tomorrow night. Not in the school—in front of the church. Having had no prior practice. And because most of our team is leaving for the holiday weekend (Thanksgiving in Canada is inexplicably in mid-October), it’s only going to be me and two other people. There was also somebody that I was feeling a little bit judged by in the evening, which is not something you encounter a lot of here, so even a little bit of condemnation (real or perceived) feels like a ton of bricks.
I was literally on the verge of bursting into tears. The whole way back to the dorms, I was just like I can’t do this. There’s no way. I don’t want to do any of this.
In lieu of having any comfort food (I haven’t been able to buy chocolate because I’m poor), I took a hot shower and God and I had some space to talk. I poured out what i was feeling, and ended it with “…it just has not been a good day.” and suddenly, I was reminded of a quote I heard a couple of weeks ago from a guy called Graham Cooke:
“[God] is faithful. From this day on, for you there is no such thing as a good day or bad day. There is only a day of grace. And some days the grace of God allows you to enjoy what is happening. And some days the grace of God allows you to endure what is happening. But don’t think about good and bad anymore – just enjoy the grace that is present.”So I started thinking about what grace showed up in my life. obviously I endured, or I would be dead right now. So how was God showing up in my “bad day”?
Although I was really tired this morning, I was still able to immerse in the storytelling glory of the marvelous Chris DuPre (our speaker for the week; more on that in another post). Even though I hated the chicken at dinner, the sweet potato fries we also had were fantastically good. I was able to reach out to people this morning that I might not normally talk to a lot. Even if it felt like our treasure hunt was a failure, we still stepped out despite feeling incredibly awkward, and that’s a stinking big deal. We finally got our shower head replaced this week, so I actually had water pressure for a decent shower (glory, glory hallelujah!). Emily lent me use of her hot chocolate mix. I was able to participate in the rapid-fire prayer at the House of Prayer and actually feel like I was connecting with God even though I felt sick. Somebody randomly turned out to have a book I’ve been wanting to read and offered to lend it to me. One of my roommates gauged that I was in a weird mood (she became alarmed because I wasn’t talking to myself) and asked if I was okay, which meant a lot to me.
I still am feeling really not-okay with testimony-sharing tomorrow, but there will be grace. There has been grace for every time I’ve had to get up and babble in front of people before. I actually have a testimony to share, and I have a friend or two that will let me practice on them in the hallway tomorrow. So that’s a good start.
There’s always grace. Ask for it, and you’ll find it.
Monday, October 7, 2013
SoM: the dreadfully overdue update, part one
Hello friends! Apologies for going three weeks without a post. Oy vey. Our schedule has been turning on its axis rather faster than normal the last couple weeks, but I’ll get into that in a bit.
We wrapped up Core Values month in the last week of September with five sessions of prophetic training from the famed, the mighty, the two-and-only Ivan and Isabel Allum! That was crazy, let-me-tell-you. Not only were we supplied generously from their fount of wisdom, advice, and admonition, but they also made us do lots of activations (a word that used to give me goosebumps. Seriously). (If you’d told me a month ago that I was going to prophesy over half the school in the space of two hours, I would have completely flipped my lid. Now prophesying and blessing people seems like sort of a regular thing…we’ve done it in the hallways a few times as well as being requisitioned into it at church.) I also got a prophetic word from Ivan, in which he used the word “visionary” five times in two minutes. So that was super exciting!
We followed that up with a four-day shift as ministry volunteers at the Catch the Fire conference on Sept. 25th-28th. All the students were on the prayer team in the evenings, in addition to having another duty in the morning or afternoon. I was on Welcome, which basically boiled down to standing by the front door for four hours giving out “good morning”s and directions (and occasional hugs). I was a bit amazed by how many people were genuinely excited to be greeted at the door, by someone who wasn’t just checking for registration wristbands!
The conference was full of great highlights, by the way. David Ruis led the first worship set and I was basically transported back to my childhood. Two measures into the opening piano of “We Will Dance” and I was literally crying. We also did this song on the third night, which was one of the most powerful corporate worship experiences I’ve had. A guy I’ve never heard of named Duncan Smith gave a great message on “Jesus as our magnificent obsession” (it especially appealed to me because he opened it with a literary analogy [about Charlie & the Chocolate Factory, which isn’t one of my favorite stories, but I’m not going to argue with the Holy Spirit’s artistic revelations]). The very last session was led by none other than Heidi Baker (I’ll pause if you need a moment to fangirl like most of us did) and it was amazing. She just shared about how she got into her current mission field and some of her very early testimony, in addition to a few stories about the lowdown in Mozambique. She is a passionate, hilarious, fiery, humble, very blessed lady.
God’s still getting down to the basics with me. Right now we’re working through some forgiveness and honor stuff—which is simultaneously really refreshing and really hard—and He’s also still making sure I’m taking HIm at His word. Both prophetic word, and Bible word. We did a fire tunnel at the conference, and because it was following the Heidi Baker session, i was sort of expecting it to be explosive, expecting to get some great revelation or anointing. I thought that was what i needed—some direction, some clarity, some vision, eh?…
Nope. I was feeling some stirrings of joy and love and general manifestations of Holy Spirit goodness, but not hearing much from God. No visions…nothing. I was physically manifesting pretty intensely, so much so that I had to just lie on the carpet for awhile. So here I am: the sanctuary is full of shouting and laughing and whooping and people generally having a really great time in the Spirit, and then…quiet. It’s just me and God. I try to ask him questions, try to ask for revelation, and I’m still not getting anything at all. So I gave up.
And then it’s that tickling voice, that quiet, heavy voice, and He says: “Say you believe Me.”
“Okay—I believe you.”
“Keep saying that.”
“I’ll say it as many times as it takes for me to really believe You, at a heart level—“
“No. Never stop saying that. Never stop believing in My pursuit of you.”
So i said it a lot. I even shouted it out loud—which is really not a thing that I do, not that anyone was going to notice it in the midst of the Holy Ghost party.
And I’m going to keep saying it. God, Your yes means yes and Your no means no. I believe You.
I've another post in the works about this past week and what’s coming up – but I don’t want to burden you with my entire autobiography just yet, so I’ll wait a day or two before posting. Thanks so much for reading! <3
We wrapped up Core Values month in the last week of September with five sessions of prophetic training from the famed, the mighty, the two-and-only Ivan and Isabel Allum! That was crazy, let-me-tell-you. Not only were we supplied generously from their fount of wisdom, advice, and admonition, but they also made us do lots of activations (a word that used to give me goosebumps. Seriously). (If you’d told me a month ago that I was going to prophesy over half the school in the space of two hours, I would have completely flipped my lid. Now prophesying and blessing people seems like sort of a regular thing…we’ve done it in the hallways a few times as well as being requisitioned into it at church.) I also got a prophetic word from Ivan, in which he used the word “visionary” five times in two minutes. So that was super exciting!
We followed that up with a four-day shift as ministry volunteers at the Catch the Fire conference on Sept. 25th-28th. All the students were on the prayer team in the evenings, in addition to having another duty in the morning or afternoon. I was on Welcome, which basically boiled down to standing by the front door for four hours giving out “good morning”s and directions (and occasional hugs). I was a bit amazed by how many people were genuinely excited to be greeted at the door, by someone who wasn’t just checking for registration wristbands!
The conference was full of great highlights, by the way. David Ruis led the first worship set and I was basically transported back to my childhood. Two measures into the opening piano of “We Will Dance” and I was literally crying. We also did this song on the third night, which was one of the most powerful corporate worship experiences I’ve had. A guy I’ve never heard of named Duncan Smith gave a great message on “Jesus as our magnificent obsession” (it especially appealed to me because he opened it with a literary analogy [about Charlie & the Chocolate Factory, which isn’t one of my favorite stories, but I’m not going to argue with the Holy Spirit’s artistic revelations]). The very last session was led by none other than Heidi Baker (I’ll pause if you need a moment to fangirl like most of us did) and it was amazing. She just shared about how she got into her current mission field and some of her very early testimony, in addition to a few stories about the lowdown in Mozambique. She is a passionate, hilarious, fiery, humble, very blessed lady.
God’s still getting down to the basics with me. Right now we’re working through some forgiveness and honor stuff—which is simultaneously really refreshing and really hard—and He’s also still making sure I’m taking HIm at His word. Both prophetic word, and Bible word. We did a fire tunnel at the conference, and because it was following the Heidi Baker session, i was sort of expecting it to be explosive, expecting to get some great revelation or anointing. I thought that was what i needed—some direction, some clarity, some vision, eh?…
Nope. I was feeling some stirrings of joy and love and general manifestations of Holy Spirit goodness, but not hearing much from God. No visions…nothing. I was physically manifesting pretty intensely, so much so that I had to just lie on the carpet for awhile. So here I am: the sanctuary is full of shouting and laughing and whooping and people generally having a really great time in the Spirit, and then…quiet. It’s just me and God. I try to ask him questions, try to ask for revelation, and I’m still not getting anything at all. So I gave up.
And then it’s that tickling voice, that quiet, heavy voice, and He says: “Say you believe Me.”
“Okay—I believe you.”
“Keep saying that.”
“I’ll say it as many times as it takes for me to really believe You, at a heart level—“
“No. Never stop saying that. Never stop believing in My pursuit of you.”
So i said it a lot. I even shouted it out loud—which is really not a thing that I do, not that anyone was going to notice it in the midst of the Holy Ghost party.
And I’m going to keep saying it. God, Your yes means yes and Your no means no. I believe You.
I've another post in the works about this past week and what’s coming up – but I don’t want to burden you with my entire autobiography just yet, so I’ll wait a day or two before posting. Thanks so much for reading! <3
Saturday, September 14, 2013
SoM: Father-Heart Week
Okay, the last six days have been intense. I’m not going to be able to sum up everything in the teachings, plus all the extraneous stuff that happened in my heart…
Father-Heart Week. The week that every intern and second-year student says messed them up the most, the week where almost everyone cries their eyes out at least twice. We basically spend five days seeking revelation of the love of God as a Father. Because this pretty heavily involves Him filling in the gaps in areas where our own parents might have failed us, it tends to hit some pretty deep wounds. I heard a lot of crazy stories. I kind of was a crazy story. For obvious reasons, I’m not going to go into many of those details on this blog. Coming into the school, I already knew I had some serious issues with both my parents that I’ve been working through. So God acknowledged those.
And then He was like, “Look at these other hang-ups you didn’t even know you had!” And subverted all my expectation for the week.
I had one really good cry, on Monday. I actually spent a lot more time laughing. Joy was a definite theme of the week for me—I think God’s trying to get it through to me that He isn’t passive about me. He delights in me. There was one fantastic activation we did yesterday (normally I dread activations, because they usually involve uncomfortable prophetic encounters with people you don’t know well): the speaker told us we were going to invite childlikeness. So we did it really literally—we blew up balloons, and blew party horns, and had a dance party to songs that were popular in the ‘90s. It was crazy awesome, definitely one of my highlights of the week.
It wasn’t all fun and games, though. There was one message, on Thursday, that was really hard to hear: it was about having a spirit of sonship (or daughterhood, as it were)—especially towards your natural parents. Part of me was listening to the message going, “Oh! This is really relevant! Hurray!” and another (bigger) part of me was going “WHOA, I’m not ready to hear this; I can’t do this.” I think the events of my family life in the last two years have so changed the way I relate to both of my parents that I don’t even have a frame of reference right now for how to apply this message. Intentionally being God’s daughter? Okay, that sounds awesome. Intentionally being a daughter to my parents? That idea really threw me for a loop, and I wasn’t expecting it. I didn’t even know it was an issue. So that’s going to take some time to unravel.
We also had ministry team training—basically, practical instructions on how to (and especially how not to) pray over people. Now, I’ve actually had similar training for my young adult group’s prayer team back home (which I never really served on), but it’s still incredibly intimidating. For me, coming to the SoM was largely about overcoming fear and being equipped to do just this sort of thing without freaking out, so I’m trying to just say “yes” and listen to the Holy Spirit. Whew.
A nutshell version of what God’s been telling me this week:
* A note to my fabulous commenters: If you do leave a comment and are not signed into your Google account, please sign your name in the comment so I know it’s you—I had three anonymous comments on my last post that were very lovely, but one was unsigned and I couldn't tell who it was from! :) Thanks so much for keeping up with me!
Father-Heart Week. The week that every intern and second-year student says messed them up the most, the week where almost everyone cries their eyes out at least twice. We basically spend five days seeking revelation of the love of God as a Father. Because this pretty heavily involves Him filling in the gaps in areas where our own parents might have failed us, it tends to hit some pretty deep wounds. I heard a lot of crazy stories. I kind of was a crazy story. For obvious reasons, I’m not going to go into many of those details on this blog. Coming into the school, I already knew I had some serious issues with both my parents that I’ve been working through. So God acknowledged those.
And then He was like, “Look at these other hang-ups you didn’t even know you had!” And subverted all my expectation for the week.
I had one really good cry, on Monday. I actually spent a lot more time laughing. Joy was a definite theme of the week for me—I think God’s trying to get it through to me that He isn’t passive about me. He delights in me. There was one fantastic activation we did yesterday (normally I dread activations, because they usually involve uncomfortable prophetic encounters with people you don’t know well): the speaker told us we were going to invite childlikeness. So we did it really literally—we blew up balloons, and blew party horns, and had a dance party to songs that were popular in the ‘90s. It was crazy awesome, definitely one of my highlights of the week.
It wasn’t all fun and games, though. There was one message, on Thursday, that was really hard to hear: it was about having a spirit of sonship (or daughterhood, as it were)—especially towards your natural parents. Part of me was listening to the message going, “Oh! This is really relevant! Hurray!” and another (bigger) part of me was going “WHOA, I’m not ready to hear this; I can’t do this.” I think the events of my family life in the last two years have so changed the way I relate to both of my parents that I don’t even have a frame of reference right now for how to apply this message. Intentionally being God’s daughter? Okay, that sounds awesome. Intentionally being a daughter to my parents? That idea really threw me for a loop, and I wasn’t expecting it. I didn’t even know it was an issue. So that’s going to take some time to unravel.
We also had ministry team training—basically, practical instructions on how to (and especially how not to) pray over people. Now, I’ve actually had similar training for my young adult group’s prayer team back home (which I never really served on), but it’s still incredibly intimidating. For me, coming to the SoM was largely about overcoming fear and being equipped to do just this sort of thing without freaking out, so I’m trying to just say “yes” and listen to the Holy Spirit. Whew.
A nutshell version of what God’s been telling me this week:
- He is my defender and deliverer.
- He just loves it when I try; He doesn’t push me to do better than my best, even if my “best” seems to me to be not very good.
- He wants to protect my heart so I don’t have to do it all myself.
- He’ll keep His word, and/therefore I can/should take Him really seriously.
- Spending time with me is tons of fun for Him. His investment in me is always 100%.
- I can be as fanciful in my imaginations of heaven as I want, and I won’t be wrong or disappointed. (I had a crazy hour-long vision about this one, guys. It involved part of Revelation 19 and took me seven pages to journal about. It was amazing.)
- This time at the school isn’t about whether I have what it takes, it’s whether He does…and yes, He does.
I’d be happy to talk to anybody about anything more in-depth, by the way! Or just to catch up with Kalamazoo! Totally feel free to message me on Facebook (or Skype me! I have Skype now!) sometime. My schedule’s not super full until the end of September, so sometime in the next week and a half would be an especially good time.
* A note to my fabulous commenters: If you do leave a comment and are not signed into your Google account, please sign your name in the comment so I know it’s you—I had three anonymous comments on my last post that were very lovely, but one was unsigned and I couldn't tell who it was from! :) Thanks so much for keeping up with me!
Friday, February 17, 2012
Deeps
So, while I was soaking the other day, I had this experience. I'm not sure if it was much more intensely sensory version of the "pictures" I normally get when soaking, of if I dozed and it was a dream, but either way I have the unshakeable impression that it was definitely a God-thing.
I'm diving into the ocean, the warm-and-gorgeous-eye-popping-wildlife-teeming-coral-reef kind of ocean you see in commercials for the Caribbean (or shark attack movies, or volcano disaster movies, or whatever), only it isn't water—it's honey. Not viscous and sticky and (frankly) absolutely gross like swimming through honey would really be, but sweet and faintly amber-colored and just a little thicker than water. It was more the impression of honey than the actual experience of honey, sort of like a painting. (Also, it was breathable.) So I'm swimming through this honey, diving deeper and deeper. The light isn't coming from above like sunlight; below me there's this bright—not really a light, but a vaguely white sense of something beautiful that attracts you, like you would naturally swim towards the light if you were actually underwater. And as I'm swimming down towards this light, immersed in this honey ocean, I just have this overwhelming sense of bliss. It's not an emotion I can seem to recreate by will. It's like a combination of joy, electric excitement, peace, and contentment. I'm absolutely, gloriously elated to be here in this ocean, but I also know that if I go deeper, it will just get better. I could stop at any point and just rest int he euphoria, but I could swim deeper and discover even more joy. It's perfect happiness, and yet anticipation. It's bliss, and yet adventure. And it's a sense of adventure like I've always imagined adventure really ought to be, like I imagine people who actually go looking for adventure feel—the fairy-tale kind of adventure, that involves mortal danger and darkness and potentially unwanted yet vital personal growth, but the knowledge that there's always help when I need it and there's something better waiting at the end than I could have even imagined when I first set out. For the first time, I felt really equipped. Not of my own accord, because it was still just me, but just a solid recognition that (however invisible) God was right there, always aware of what I needed and ready to answer even my slightest cry for help.
This is how God sees my journey with Him—I don't know quite if I've already dived in and this is where I am, or if this is where He means me to be—but it was so beautiful. I want to be there.
Ignition is this weekend. I want to go into this expectant, looking for expansion, like I never have before.
{Also, I'm wondering about the symbolism (Biblical or literary?) of honey. I might come back to this, blogwise.}
I'm diving into the ocean, the warm-and-gorgeous-eye-popping-wildlife-teeming-coral-reef kind of ocean you see in commercials for the Caribbean (or shark attack movies, or volcano disaster movies, or whatever), only it isn't water—it's honey. Not viscous and sticky and (frankly) absolutely gross like swimming through honey would really be, but sweet and faintly amber-colored and just a little thicker than water. It was more the impression of honey than the actual experience of honey, sort of like a painting. (Also, it was breathable.) So I'm swimming through this honey, diving deeper and deeper. The light isn't coming from above like sunlight; below me there's this bright—not really a light, but a vaguely white sense of something beautiful that attracts you, like you would naturally swim towards the light if you were actually underwater. And as I'm swimming down towards this light, immersed in this honey ocean, I just have this overwhelming sense of bliss. It's not an emotion I can seem to recreate by will. It's like a combination of joy, electric excitement, peace, and contentment. I'm absolutely, gloriously elated to be here in this ocean, but I also know that if I go deeper, it will just get better. I could stop at any point and just rest int he euphoria, but I could swim deeper and discover even more joy. It's perfect happiness, and yet anticipation. It's bliss, and yet adventure. And it's a sense of adventure like I've always imagined adventure really ought to be, like I imagine people who actually go looking for adventure feel—the fairy-tale kind of adventure, that involves mortal danger and darkness and potentially unwanted yet vital personal growth, but the knowledge that there's always help when I need it and there's something better waiting at the end than I could have even imagined when I first set out. For the first time, I felt really equipped. Not of my own accord, because it was still just me, but just a solid recognition that (however invisible) God was right there, always aware of what I needed and ready to answer even my slightest cry for help.
This is how God sees my journey with Him—I don't know quite if I've already dived in and this is where I am, or if this is where He means me to be—but it was so beautiful. I want to be there.
Ignition is this weekend. I want to go into this expectant, looking for expansion, like I never have before.
{Also, I'm wondering about the symbolism (Biblical or literary?) of honey. I might come back to this, blogwise.}
Friday, January 27, 2012
O! precious is the flow, that makes me white as snow.
I'm pretty well convinced that the only thing more beautiful than worship is the One we give it to.
Gwen organized a Passion of the Christ movie night, and the attendees comprised myself, Aaron, Abby, Jon, T.J., and Laura Mortensen. We spent the afternoon playing Call of Duty (yes, really) and watching Sherlock (of course), and then we hunkered down for Passion. We were all appropriately equipped with blankets and stuffed animals and tissues.
We sat on that couch for two hours and – insanely untrue to character, for us – nobody said One. Single. Word. For two hours. We barely even moved (unless crying counts). We sat through the credits, and three minutes of the menu screen, before T.J. ventured to break the silence with a joke about how that was "the clean version." We all tittered a bit, got some ice cream, and then someone said something about how we should sing hymns. Aaron said, "Where's a guitar? I'm not kidding," and then, since we didn't have a guitar, T.J. and Aaron started singing "See His Love" a cappella, which was amazing, and then I dug out my laptop and we lay on the floor and listened to worship music for almost two straight hours.
We all feel a little bit emotionally exhausted, and strangely physically exhausted, now. But it was amazing. Just, just, Jesus. Jesus, Jesus, Jesus.
Gwen organized a Passion of the Christ movie night, and the attendees comprised myself, Aaron, Abby, Jon, T.J., and Laura Mortensen. We spent the afternoon playing Call of Duty (yes, really) and watching Sherlock (of course), and then we hunkered down for Passion. We were all appropriately equipped with blankets and stuffed animals and tissues.
We sat on that couch for two hours and – insanely untrue to character, for us – nobody said One. Single. Word. For two hours. We barely even moved (unless crying counts). We sat through the credits, and three minutes of the menu screen, before T.J. ventured to break the silence with a joke about how that was "the clean version." We all tittered a bit, got some ice cream, and then someone said something about how we should sing hymns. Aaron said, "Where's a guitar? I'm not kidding," and then, since we didn't have a guitar, T.J. and Aaron started singing "See His Love" a cappella, which was amazing, and then I dug out my laptop and we lay on the floor and listened to worship music for almost two straight hours.
We all feel a little bit emotionally exhausted, and strangely physically exhausted, now. But it was amazing. Just, just, Jesus. Jesus, Jesus, Jesus.
Friday, December 23, 2011
I often have doubts about things.
And every now and again, just when I'm not expecting it, God shows up and says, "Your life would be better if you didn't have this doubt, and I'm going to prove it to you." The form of this proof is sometimes spectacular and mind-blowing, and sometimes it's tiny and warm and fluffy and still amazing.
HE is so great. In every sense of the word.
Monday, December 19, 2011
On prophetic stuff and a little looking ahead
(I'm going to just leap into a story here.)
So, for a few weeks now, I've been wanting to get prophetic ministry at church (for the non-New Dayers who may be reading this, that's where a team of people speak over you what they hear God saying for you and your life. it's pretty much amazing). I haven't done it yet because I haven't had the chance, basically, what with having my own duties at church after service. Last week at Dwell, Seth and Sarah Gerber spoke about prophetic ministry (the history of the prophetic, giving prophetic words yourself, and also a lot about receiving and "stewarding" prophetic words). One thing Sarah said stuck out to me—she told about this point in her life where she literally had a basket full of tapes of prophetic words she'd gotten over the last several years, and she hadn't done anything with them—hadn't pursued them, hadn't prayed about them, or anything, and she felt like she couldn't go looking for any new prophetic words of the like before she worked to "steward" the ones she had already gotten.
That got me kind of thinking—I've gotten a number of prophetic words over the last three years, almost all of which I have in some recorded form. I've listened to them all several times, and prayed about them a little bit, but I haven't really made an effort to find out what God means by them and what he wants me to do in regards to them. So this morning in church, as I was considering whether to go up for ministry, I decided to hold off and really think about pursuing the words I already have. The weird thing was, I kind of expected to feel reluctant or disappointed about it, but I actually felt pretty good about this choice.
Then, tonight (or, rather, last night [Sunday], since this will post on Monday) was the Dwell Christmas party. We did some crazy worship, had a fantastic prayer time, and opened gifts; were having yummy munchies and I was just kind of standing around when Jo Leitz (awesome lady who has definitely got a heavy-duty prophetic gift) came up to me and just said, "God's really going to start moving in you with the new year. I really feel like He's saying you're going to experience a new outpouring of creativity, especially in your writing, and it's going to be really anointed. God is basically going to be writing through you."
…Whoa.
Aside from that very last bit (verbatim, anyway), and without the specific time frame, this is basically the same prophetic word I have gotten at least six times from various people in the last seventeen months. (I even got it twice in the same session, by two different people who weren't there to hear each other give the word, and they said almost verbatim the same thing.) You would think I'd pay attention to this, as God is practically throwing it in my face, but every time I got it I was like, "Wow, that's really cool!" and then didn't really pursue it at all. (Actually, I proceeded to pout excessively about writer's block. In fact, in hindsight, I might have actually used it as an excuse to complain about my writer's block. *cringe*). But when Jo said this one today, I was kind of like, "OH! Man! I am totally going to take this home and tell somebody about it and pray over it and journal and by golly, it's not my responsibility to make it happen, but, by golly, am not going to just shelve this again." So that is what I am doing. And I am massively excited, and, yes, also kind of terrified.
Jo also told me that my poetry is especially important, and I need to not give up on that. (This is especially interesting, because poetry is something have been writing only very occasionally lately—I used to write several dozen poems a year, and in all of 2011 I have written exactly nine. Most of which were depressed backlashes at the sudden falling-apart of a major part of my life.) I wouldn't say I've given up, exactly—I can't imagine I'd ever stop writing it totally—but I think I have gotten somewhat hypercritical of my poetry, which is why I've given up on songwriting ten times over in my teen years. I don't know what direction God will take it in, but I can't say I'd much object to His influence!
…I sort of feel like my mind ought to be blown, but it isn't quite. I'm just like. "WOW. Yes, that has 'God who loves you a whole darn lot' written all over it."
Oh boy. I am definitely going over all my recent prophetic words again. Time for an ongoing tête-à-tête with God? Yes.
So, for a few weeks now, I've been wanting to get prophetic ministry at church (for the non-New Dayers who may be reading this, that's where a team of people speak over you what they hear God saying for you and your life. it's pretty much amazing). I haven't done it yet because I haven't had the chance, basically, what with having my own duties at church after service. Last week at Dwell, Seth and Sarah Gerber spoke about prophetic ministry (the history of the prophetic, giving prophetic words yourself, and also a lot about receiving and "stewarding" prophetic words). One thing Sarah said stuck out to me—she told about this point in her life where she literally had a basket full of tapes of prophetic words she'd gotten over the last several years, and she hadn't done anything with them—hadn't pursued them, hadn't prayed about them, or anything, and she felt like she couldn't go looking for any new prophetic words of the like before she worked to "steward" the ones she had already gotten.
That got me kind of thinking—I've gotten a number of prophetic words over the last three years, almost all of which I have in some recorded form. I've listened to them all several times, and prayed about them a little bit, but I haven't really made an effort to find out what God means by them and what he wants me to do in regards to them. So this morning in church, as I was considering whether to go up for ministry, I decided to hold off and really think about pursuing the words I already have. The weird thing was, I kind of expected to feel reluctant or disappointed about it, but I actually felt pretty good about this choice.
Then, tonight (or, rather, last night [Sunday], since this will post on Monday) was the Dwell Christmas party. We did some crazy worship, had a fantastic prayer time, and opened gifts; were having yummy munchies and I was just kind of standing around when Jo Leitz (awesome lady who has definitely got a heavy-duty prophetic gift) came up to me and just said, "God's really going to start moving in you with the new year. I really feel like He's saying you're going to experience a new outpouring of creativity, especially in your writing, and it's going to be really anointed. God is basically going to be writing through you."
…Whoa.
Aside from that very last bit (verbatim, anyway), and without the specific time frame, this is basically the same prophetic word I have gotten at least six times from various people in the last seventeen months. (I even got it twice in the same session, by two different people who weren't there to hear each other give the word, and they said almost verbatim the same thing.) You would think I'd pay attention to this, as God is practically throwing it in my face, but every time I got it I was like, "Wow, that's really cool!" and then didn't really pursue it at all. (Actually, I proceeded to pout excessively about writer's block. In fact, in hindsight, I might have actually used it as an excuse to complain about my writer's block. *cringe*). But when Jo said this one today, I was kind of like, "OH! Man! I am totally going to take this home and tell somebody about it and pray over it and journal and by golly, it's not my responsibility to make it happen, but, by golly, am not going to just shelve this again." So that is what I am doing. And I am massively excited, and, yes, also kind of terrified.
Jo also told me that my poetry is especially important, and I need to not give up on that. (This is especially interesting, because poetry is something have been writing only very occasionally lately—I used to write several dozen poems a year, and in all of 2011 I have written exactly nine. Most of which were depressed backlashes at the sudden falling-apart of a major part of my life.) I wouldn't say I've given up, exactly—I can't imagine I'd ever stop writing it totally—but I think I have gotten somewhat hypercritical of my poetry, which is why I've given up on songwriting ten times over in my teen years. I don't know what direction God will take it in, but I can't say I'd much object to His influence!
…I sort of feel like my mind ought to be blown, but it isn't quite. I'm just like. "WOW. Yes, that has 'God who loves you a whole darn lot' written all over it."
Oh boy. I am definitely going over all my recent prophetic words again. Time for an ongoing tête-à-tête with God? Yes.
Sunday, November 6, 2011
Remarkably, I feel great right now.
"Now we look inside, and what we see is that anyone united with the Messiah gets a fresh start, is created new. The old life is gone; a new life burgeons! Look at it! All this comes from the God who settled the relationship between us and him, and then called us to settle our relationships with each other. God put the world square with himself through the Messiah, giving the world a fresh start by offering forgiveness of sins. God has given us the task of telling everyone what he is doing. We're Christ's representatives. God uses us to persuade men and women to drop their differences and enter into God's work of making things right between them. We're speaking for Christ himself now: Become friends with God; he's already a friend with you.
How? you ask. In Christ. God put the wrong on him who never did anything wrong, so we could be put right with God."
(2 Corinthians 5:17-21, The Message)
How? you ask. In Christ. God put the wrong on him who never did anything wrong, so we could be put right with God."
(2 Corinthians 5:17-21, The Message)
Saturday, November 5, 2011
Finally getting around to that one particular bit in Acts 2:38…
Yes,
I'M GETTING BAPTIZED TOMORROW
I'M GETTING BAPTIZED TOMORROW
and I'm
ÜBER–EXCEEDINGLY–TREMENDOUSLY–FANTASTICALLY EXCITED ABOUT IT.
It has taken me way too long to get here.
Tuesday, September 6, 2011
Excerpt from "Crazy Love" by Francis Chan
When I am consumed by my problems—stressed out about my life, my family, and my job—I actually convey the belief that I think the circumstances are more important than God's command to always rejoice. In other words, that I have a "right" to disobey God because of the magnitude of my responsibilities.
WORRY implies that we don't quite trust that God is big enough, powerful enough, or loving enough to take care of what's happening in our lives.
STRESS says that the things we are involved in are enough to merit our impatience, our lack of grace towards others, or our tight grip of control.
Basically, these two behaviors communicate that it's okay to sin and not trust God because the stuff in my life is somehow exceptional. Both worry and stress reek of arrogance. They declare our tendency to forget that we've been forgiven, that our lives here ate brief, that we are headed to a place where we won't be lonely, afraid, or hurt ever again, and that in the context of God's strength, our problems are small, indeed.
Why are we so quick to forget God? Who do we think we are?
…
Frankly, you need to get over yourself. It might sound harsh, but that's seriously what [God being the center of everything] means.
…
To be brutally honest, it doesn't really matter what place you find yourself in right now. Your part is to bring Him glory…The point of your life is to point to Him. Whatever you are doing, God wants to be glorified, because this whole thing is His. It is His movie, His world, His gift.
(pp. 41-42, 44-45)
WORRY implies that we don't quite trust that God is big enough, powerful enough, or loving enough to take care of what's happening in our lives.
STRESS says that the things we are involved in are enough to merit our impatience, our lack of grace towards others, or our tight grip of control.
Basically, these two behaviors communicate that it's okay to sin and not trust God because the stuff in my life is somehow exceptional. Both worry and stress reek of arrogance. They declare our tendency to forget that we've been forgiven, that our lives here ate brief, that we are headed to a place where we won't be lonely, afraid, or hurt ever again, and that in the context of God's strength, our problems are small, indeed.
Why are we so quick to forget God? Who do we think we are?
…
Frankly, you need to get over yourself. It might sound harsh, but that's seriously what [God being the center of everything] means.
…
To be brutally honest, it doesn't really matter what place you find yourself in right now. Your part is to bring Him glory…The point of your life is to point to Him. Whatever you are doing, God wants to be glorified, because this whole thing is His. It is His movie, His world, His gift.
(pp. 41-42, 44-45)
Monday, September 5, 2011
Saturday, September 3, 2011
On the Coexistence of Awesome and Suck
(With both "awesome" and "suck" being nouns in this context.)
So often we tend to think of "my life is good" and "this is the dregs of my coffee cup of life right now" to be a dichotomy—two states of being that are diametrically opposed. You're either in mostly good circumstances or you're in mostly bad circumstances. Or at least I often think that way, probably because a lot of artists tend to juxtapose them in popular worship songs. But I've been thinking today—there are some circumstances in my life right now which are definitely adding to World Suck, in both minor and major ways. But there are also ways in which God just keeps showing up, proving that He's good, loving, faithful, a good listener, sovereign…yes, all the time. For example, my home life is on a roller coaster with a very high nausea rating right now, but I'm getting two years of free college tuition.…I'm stressed beyond reason about these intermediate French classes I have to take, but I've suddenly started sleeping better than I have all year.… I might not have any idea how I'm going to finish a novel by the end of the year, but I'm no longer catatonically depressed about it.…Facing the labyrinth of choices I'm going to have to make in the next two-ish years literally makes me sick to my stomach, but I'm getting it really hammered into my head for the first time that I can trust my friends to love me even if I'm not perfect. My life has nadirs and zeniths dwelling side by side, and it always will (if not to this degree all the time).
…Yes, my second thought after all this was, "Well, duh." But I think we can tend to dwell on one or the other most of the time, so it's nice to have it out of my blind spot for a few hours.
I tend to be an optimist in the short term and a pessimist in the long term (e.g., I think human culture as a whole is undergoing steady entropy, but I tend to be hopeful and "look on the bright side" regarding things that happen in my life and the lives of people I know). Comes with the Christianity, I suppose. (Fallen world / sovereign God. Also not really a dichotomy.)
…I have no succinct or revelatory ending for this post. That's pretty much all I have to say.
So often we tend to think of "my life is good" and "this is the dregs of my coffee cup of life right now" to be a dichotomy—two states of being that are diametrically opposed. You're either in mostly good circumstances or you're in mostly bad circumstances. Or at least I often think that way, probably because a lot of artists tend to juxtapose them in popular worship songs. But I've been thinking today—there are some circumstances in my life right now which are definitely adding to World Suck, in both minor and major ways. But there are also ways in which God just keeps showing up, proving that He's good, loving, faithful, a good listener, sovereign…yes, all the time. For example, my home life is on a roller coaster with a very high nausea rating right now, but I'm getting two years of free college tuition.…I'm stressed beyond reason about these intermediate French classes I have to take, but I've suddenly started sleeping better than I have all year.… I might not have any idea how I'm going to finish a novel by the end of the year, but I'm no longer catatonically depressed about it.…Facing the labyrinth of choices I'm going to have to make in the next two-ish years literally makes me sick to my stomach, but I'm getting it really hammered into my head for the first time that I can trust my friends to love me even if I'm not perfect. My life has nadirs and zeniths dwelling side by side, and it always will (if not to this degree all the time).
…Yes, my second thought after all this was, "Well, duh." But I think we can tend to dwell on one or the other most of the time, so it's nice to have it out of my blind spot for a few hours.
I tend to be an optimist in the short term and a pessimist in the long term (e.g., I think human culture as a whole is undergoing steady entropy, but I tend to be hopeful and "look on the bright side" regarding things that happen in my life and the lives of people I know). Comes with the Christianity, I suppose. (Fallen world / sovereign God. Also not really a dichotomy.)
…I have no succinct or revelatory ending for this post. That's pretty much all I have to say.
Saturday, July 16, 2011
"I took from me pocket ten sovereigns bright…"
God is sovereign. All the time.
And I had kind of a revelation about that tonight (while at WorshipArts camp worship night, you guys rock, by the way).
When things are really hard, and it feels like half of my life is completely falling apart, I've always been fairly capable of saying (most of the time, at least) that God is sovereign—that He sees me, that He knows where this is going. It's easier to trust when I can't see a week ahead of me. But He's not just sovereign in the lows, He is sovereign in the highs, too.
Whoa. Way to overlook the flip side of the shiny coin, Kiersten.
When things are going fantastically, when all the pieces fit together, when the sun is shining and I'm getting at least seven hours of sleep every night, God is still in control. He still knows where things are going. I don't have to carry the torch alone. My effort isn't going to necessarily win or lose me the day. God is in control, even then. And frankly, I don't think about that much. When it's out of my hands, it's relatively easy to put it all into His hands. But when I've worked hard and things are going swell? Then it's all on my shoulders. Then it's all my responsibility to keep it going. But that's just not true. God demands just as much of my trust when I'm on solid ground as when it feels like I'm falling.
God is sovereign. All the time. It is never, ever out of His hands. He can juggle most anything, good as well as bad.
(Unrelated aside: the title is from Irish folk song "The Wild Rover." First thing that popped into my head for a title. Also, it was featured in one of the Bloody Jack books. I freaked out when I saw it: "I OWN THAT SONG! HA!")
Wednesday, June 22, 2011
I am so blessed.
I'm not exactly sure how many readers of this blog know what's going on in my life right now. To those who do, this might seem like a weird sentiment. Aside form all the normal stresses of shyness and school and uncertainty and major decisions, my home life has gotten fairly screwed over in the last couple of weeks.
But I have never felt so loved in my whole life. I mean it.
In the last week I've gotten three Facebook messages out of the blue from people whom I know don't know what's going on with me, just saying "Hey, I've been thinking about you and praying for you, and you're amazing and I love you". And I've gotten several calls and emails—and hugs and prayers—from people who do know what's going on.
People are taking time for me. Even just a few minutes, but they're taking time for me. And for once, I don't feel guilty about it. I feel utterly awed. God's reshaping the weird mentalities I've had about myself and my relationships with others for as long as I remember—like He promised me He would.
I am so goshdarned blessed. God loves me so much. It literally floored me earlier—I couldn't even stand upright, I was so amazed and humbled by all the ways He keeps finding to show me I'm loved and favored, even though a lot of things are emotionally and circumstantially really sucky right now.
So—I love you guys. Thanks for being my friends, and sticking by me, and taking time for me. You're awesome, and I wouldn't be here without you.
"Every good thing given and every perfect gift is from above, coming from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shifting shadow." – James 1:17
Saturday, May 21, 2011
The blowing of my mind.
So, earlier tonight I determined to spend some face time with God before bed (something I've been neglecting lately): a little worship and prayer and Bible reading. Historically I've been really bad at sticking to a reading plan, so I was mainly flipping idly around in the Old Testament. I have no idea why I landed in the middle of Joshua 22, but I started reading from the middle of the chapter and almost immediately saw this verse:
This was encouraging to me for the reason that, basically, I generally don't care a whole lot for Bible reading. I don't hate it, but it's awfully rare for me to get excited about it, either. I've read everything in the Bible before, some of it dozens and dozens of times. And it's hard not to go into it with that mindset. I so often can read it and praise God for who He is, but I virtually never feel like I get anything new out of it or feel like I've learned something. I don't have fresh eyes for the Bible. This encounter was interesting because, for one, I honestly don't really recall this story, so it was sort of new in that way, but mainly because if I had read that chapter straight through and read that verse in all its context, I would probably never have taken particular note of it. I would never have taken ten minutes to be totally floored by God and what it means to be a Christian. I feel like God was sort of saying, "Even though your heart is only half in this, since you're deliberately seeking Me and even sacrificing some sleep to do it, I am going to give you a totally new experience and have fun watching you have fun getting your mind blown."
God is so good, and holy, and brain-boggling.
And that's one verse out of context! How much more could you find in this whole passage by reading it normally? My mind's now doubly blown, because even though i've been told countless times that God;s word is multilayered, I never really give that much thought or ask or seek to experience that. i wish I always felt as excited and curious about the Bible as I do now. (Don't think I haven't prayed about that.) It would be so much harder to get disillusioned so quickly. The Bible is amazing—why don't I experience it like it is more often?
"If the land you possess is defiled, come over to the LORD's land, where the LORD's tabernacle stands, and share the land with us." (Joshua 22:19)Even without the context (Most of the tribes of Israel are speaking to a couple fo the other tribes, who were allotted land on the other side of the Jordan River outside Canaan and built an altar where they weren't supposed to), this verse really struck me. This very thing that the people of Israel are doing is what we as believers and Christ-followers are supposed to do. We're supposed to call people out of the "defiled land" where they live, and invite them to share int he Kingdom of God and His glory and His presence. SO CRAZY. As in, so incredible, and fantastic, and a bit frightening (I mean, shoot, that's a pretty prestigious responsibility). We're supposed to tell people how good we've got it as citizens of the Kingdom, and invite them to share in that. It makes me want to pray my face off.
This was encouraging to me for the reason that, basically, I generally don't care a whole lot for Bible reading. I don't hate it, but it's awfully rare for me to get excited about it, either. I've read everything in the Bible before, some of it dozens and dozens of times. And it's hard not to go into it with that mindset. I so often can read it and praise God for who He is, but I virtually never feel like I get anything new out of it or feel like I've learned something. I don't have fresh eyes for the Bible. This encounter was interesting because, for one, I honestly don't really recall this story, so it was sort of new in that way, but mainly because if I had read that chapter straight through and read that verse in all its context, I would probably never have taken particular note of it. I would never have taken ten minutes to be totally floored by God and what it means to be a Christian. I feel like God was sort of saying, "Even though your heart is only half in this, since you're deliberately seeking Me and even sacrificing some sleep to do it, I am going to give you a totally new experience and have fun watching you have fun getting your mind blown."
God is so good, and holy, and brain-boggling.
And that's one verse out of context! How much more could you find in this whole passage by reading it normally? My mind's now doubly blown, because even though i've been told countless times that God;s word is multilayered, I never really give that much thought or ask or seek to experience that. i wish I always felt as excited and curious about the Bible as I do now. (Don't think I haven't prayed about that.) It would be so much harder to get disillusioned so quickly. The Bible is amazing—why don't I experience it like it is more often?
Saturday, February 26, 2011
Break out the party horns! Kiersten finally got around to writing something!
All right. I have been very remiss in blogging—on writing, journaling, vlogging, talking to people, period. Mostly. So I am here to remedy a little of that. Hopefully in a relatively succinct and pithy fashion.
1. Ignition! I want to blog about this eventually. i just can't write a good post about this. I'm sorry.
In a nutshell, lacking spit and polish and articulacy:
Friday night/most of Saturday = general feelings of I've-been-here-I've-done-this-what-am-I-going-to-get-out-of-this-but-emotional-high? Kind of depressing. Great conference, but I felt kind of on the outside, like I juts didn't have any really good reason to be there.
Saturday night = really good message. God also kind of pointed out my "daddy issue" with Him. I cried a little bit. My hands did this weird shaky thing. Chrissy and Emily and a couple of other blurry faces came and prayed for me, and I love them lots and lots and lots. I might have made friends with Erica, which is pretty cool. She's sweet. And I love God. A lot. And He's letting me know that He;s not passive about me. He does care when I miss spending time with Him. He really, really does. And He cares whether I care. Simple, right? I feel like I should feel stupid for not realizing that before, but it was always one of those things that went in one ear and out the other, you know? I never really felt like God loved me so much that he wanted to spend time with me every day. I think I might have had a breakthrough there. *insert interjection for emphasis here* I hope so. And having people pray for me was incredible—because, not by any fault of anyone else's, sometimes I forget that my friends love me too.
I think spending my weekend on a youth retreat was worth it.
2. School. Mostly, I like college. I spend an astronomically smaller percentage of my time now being miserable than I did in high school. But the last month has been insane. It's spring break this week; I'm gad to have a breather. I feel like such a wimp, taking 12 credit hours (which is full-time, but less than the average for an honors student.) (I am so sick of hearing "honors" anything.) and still feeling behind all the time. But I am hanging on. I really need to come up with a topic for my minimum-ten-page humanities paper about an aspect of life in a major urban city. And I need to take this gargantuan International relations exa—worth 20% of my grade— which my professor has postponed for three weeks already and which will be five weeks late if we finally take it after spring break. (Tuesday, March 8th—I get to take three exams on my nineteenth birthday. Yahoo.) I've never wanted to be done with any exam so much. I also need to study my part as Alice the Intern for a "team simulation" so I can…do…something that is a necessary part of my grade. My, my.
3. I want a vintage chocolate pot. I've always thought they were cool, and today I got to hold one in an antique market and it was GORGEOUS. Unfortunately, the cheapest one I've seen thus far—doing a little hunting on the Internet—is about $95, and the most expensive was upwards of $4000 (though that one, admittedly, was somewhere around five hundred years old. I didn't even know they had chocolate pots back then). So—we shall see. I want one. A lot. But I certainly cannot afford one myself, unemployed collegiate that I am.
4. Spring break…what am I ever going to do with myself for a whole week with no school? WRITE. Hang out with some of my amazing friends, both the Kalamazoo residents and those visiting from elsewhere. Try to get together enough of a D&D campaign to run an opening adventure. Get tight with God, because I want so much to be in love with Him and I don't think I am.
So…life. Crazy. Right now i need some sleep. Hopefully we (I'm not sure precisely who comprises that 'we" yet) making a trip to the Kalamazoo Art Institute after church tomorrow—should be fun! Hopefully I'll also make it to C&C (remonikered Dwell) tomorrow night! (For the first time in a month, dang.) Sometimes I want my life to slow down and sometimes I want it to throw me for an insane loop, and right now I can't even tell the difference. I just need to get some sleep. I think. I sort of want to cry for no reason, because crying, even when I'm not really upset, always seems to clear my head. An oddity of Kiersten or a normalcy of my species?
Guten nacht.
1. Ignition! I want to blog about this eventually. i just can't write a good post about this. I'm sorry.
In a nutshell, lacking spit and polish and articulacy:
Friday night/most of Saturday = general feelings of I've-been-here-I've-done-this-what-am-I-going-to-get-out-of-this-but-emotional-high? Kind of depressing. Great conference, but I felt kind of on the outside, like I juts didn't have any really good reason to be there.
Saturday night = really good message. God also kind of pointed out my "daddy issue" with Him. I cried a little bit. My hands did this weird shaky thing. Chrissy and Emily and a couple of other blurry faces came and prayed for me, and I love them lots and lots and lots. I might have made friends with Erica, which is pretty cool. She's sweet. And I love God. A lot. And He's letting me know that He;s not passive about me. He does care when I miss spending time with Him. He really, really does. And He cares whether I care. Simple, right? I feel like I should feel stupid for not realizing that before, but it was always one of those things that went in one ear and out the other, you know? I never really felt like God loved me so much that he wanted to spend time with me every day. I think I might have had a breakthrough there. *insert interjection for emphasis here* I hope so. And having people pray for me was incredible—because, not by any fault of anyone else's, sometimes I forget that my friends love me too.
I think spending my weekend on a youth retreat was worth it.
2. School. Mostly, I like college. I spend an astronomically smaller percentage of my time now being miserable than I did in high school. But the last month has been insane. It's spring break this week; I'm gad to have a breather. I feel like such a wimp, taking 12 credit hours (which is full-time, but less than the average for an honors student.) (I am so sick of hearing "honors" anything.) and still feeling behind all the time. But I am hanging on. I really need to come up with a topic for my minimum-ten-page humanities paper about an aspect of life in a major urban city. And I need to take this gargantuan International relations exa—worth 20% of my grade— which my professor has postponed for three weeks already and which will be five weeks late if we finally take it after spring break. (Tuesday, March 8th—I get to take three exams on my nineteenth birthday. Yahoo.) I've never wanted to be done with any exam so much. I also need to study my part as Alice the Intern for a "team simulation" so I can…do…something that is a necessary part of my grade. My, my.
3. I want a vintage chocolate pot. I've always thought they were cool, and today I got to hold one in an antique market and it was GORGEOUS. Unfortunately, the cheapest one I've seen thus far—doing a little hunting on the Internet—is about $95, and the most expensive was upwards of $4000 (though that one, admittedly, was somewhere around five hundred years old. I didn't even know they had chocolate pots back then). So—we shall see. I want one. A lot. But I certainly cannot afford one myself, unemployed collegiate that I am.
4. Spring break…what am I ever going to do with myself for a whole week with no school? WRITE. Hang out with some of my amazing friends, both the Kalamazoo residents and those visiting from elsewhere. Try to get together enough of a D&D campaign to run an opening adventure. Get tight with God, because I want so much to be in love with Him and I don't think I am.
So…life. Crazy. Right now i need some sleep. Hopefully we (I'm not sure precisely who comprises that 'we" yet) making a trip to the Kalamazoo Art Institute after church tomorrow—should be fun! Hopefully I'll also make it to C&C (remonikered Dwell) tomorrow night! (For the first time in a month, dang.) Sometimes I want my life to slow down and sometimes I want it to throw me for an insane loop, and right now I can't even tell the difference. I just need to get some sleep. I think. I sort of want to cry for no reason, because crying, even when I'm not really upset, always seems to clear my head. An oddity of Kiersten or a normalcy of my species?
Guten nacht.
Saturday, December 25, 2010
Celebrate the Day
It's Christmas again! It's a tiptoeing holiday; I never remember it until it's here. Though this year, I literally completely forgot about it until about three days ago. I'm kind of ludicrously excited and yet, at the same time, feeling disappointed-in-advance, like a niggling wormhole of paranoia that Christmas isn't going to be all that i'm hoping for.
This is my traditional Christmas Eve song.* (This year, instead of just listening to it, I actually found a chordsheet and played it on the piano.) It always gets my brain in the right place right around now. It sort of oddly imparts a sense of peace, a sense of closeness, a sense of relief that i'm not the only one who arrives at Christmas Day realizing I've barely given "the Reason for the season" five minutes of thought, let alone personal attention. I can take some time to reflect, and talk, and go to bed truly feeling that there's really a bigger reason for this grandiose, astonishing holiday besides merely me.
One of the lines in that song I linked to says "And here is where you're finding me in the exact same place as New Year's Eve"…I feel like that every year. My resolve to spend more time with Jesus never quite makes it past a wobbly trial run. But even though I still lacked effort in doing devotions or whatnot this year, I feel like God did a lot in me. I'm more confident, I've started feeling a compassion for people I've certainly never had before, I've experienced freedom from a couple of really chronic issues I was dealing with, and I've discovered that being thankful for lots of little arbitrary things is actually a really enjoyable pastime. My prayer life, at least, has seen some improvement. I've discovered that Jesus is much better at cheering me up than wallowing in self-pity is. And today's his birthday! Whatever does or doesn't happen, I want to feel him smiling at me. It makes me giddy just thinking about that. Even if falling in love with a fellow human being ends up being absent on the roster of my life events for the next year, I really hope that truly falling in love with Jesus finally is.
Look at that, two "deep" posts in under twelve hours. Lucky you, blogosphere. I send concisely-wrapped wishes your way for an uber happy, joyous, jolly, convivial, cheery, very-merry Christmas.
* [This is my "serious" Christmas Eve song. My traditional goofy Facebook-status-material Christmas Eve song, also by Relient K, can be found here. ]
This is my traditional Christmas Eve song.* (This year, instead of just listening to it, I actually found a chordsheet and played it on the piano.) It always gets my brain in the right place right around now. It sort of oddly imparts a sense of peace, a sense of closeness, a sense of relief that i'm not the only one who arrives at Christmas Day realizing I've barely given "the Reason for the season" five minutes of thought, let alone personal attention. I can take some time to reflect, and talk, and go to bed truly feeling that there's really a bigger reason for this grandiose, astonishing holiday besides merely me.
One of the lines in that song I linked to says "And here is where you're finding me in the exact same place as New Year's Eve"…I feel like that every year. My resolve to spend more time with Jesus never quite makes it past a wobbly trial run. But even though I still lacked effort in doing devotions or whatnot this year, I feel like God did a lot in me. I'm more confident, I've started feeling a compassion for people I've certainly never had before, I've experienced freedom from a couple of really chronic issues I was dealing with, and I've discovered that being thankful for lots of little arbitrary things is actually a really enjoyable pastime. My prayer life, at least, has seen some improvement. I've discovered that Jesus is much better at cheering me up than wallowing in self-pity is. And today's his birthday! Whatever does or doesn't happen, I want to feel him smiling at me. It makes me giddy just thinking about that. Even if falling in love with a fellow human being ends up being absent on the roster of my life events for the next year, I really hope that truly falling in love with Jesus finally is.
Look at that, two "deep" posts in under twelve hours. Lucky you, blogosphere. I send concisely-wrapped wishes your way for an uber happy, joyous, jolly, convivial, cheery, very-merry Christmas.
* [This is my "serious" Christmas Eve song. My traditional goofy Facebook-status-material Christmas Eve song, also by Relient K, can be found here. ]
Friday, December 10, 2010
Okay, I know I'm not the only one who's frightened of the future. I know I'm not the only college student wandering around wondering what the heck I'm supposed to be doing, or what I'm doing right now for that matter. But it definitely looks to me like everyone around me either 1) has everything neatly, confidently planned out, or 2) doesn't give two beans about their college career, so long as they graduate and have a halfway decent chance of making six figures.
But, oh God, I'm scared to death. I feel like everything rests on me, you know? I have to keep up my grades and plan out all this community service and make sure I'm not wasting time and money on classes I don't need to take (basically, I don't get to take any electives, because my stupid honors courses ate up all my electives. Sucks. — That's another thing. I feel like like a crappy honors student. I can do the coursework, for sure, but I'm not exactly the most confident or responsible 18-year-old out there. All I do is write good essays!) I can make so many wrong choices. I could do so many things wrong. There are so many ways to just mess up. I feel so pressured to make the most of my time (I feel like I wasted a lot of it already.); to do something with myself.
And I'm so scared, because I don't know what I'm doing. I don't know what I'm supposed to be doing. And I don't have the self-motivation to take time to listen to God. [expletive deleted] self-motivation that I don't have. Being a spontaneous person instead of a goal-oriented one sucks so much right now. I know I need to change, because, face it, I tend to be a rather irresponsible person and I can't afford to stay that way. But I don't feel an urgent, desperate need to change, except in crunch time, and by then it's too late; and then I get through it, and on the other side it never looks so bad. So I just keep doing the same stupid things over and over and never change.
And then there are things I'm terrified of—like taking a required physical education class. I would, in all seriousness, do almost anything to get out of taking one. Just thinking about it, just looking at the gym, makes me want to run, literally. And I have no idea why I dread it in any form so much. Even classes that seem like they'd be lots of fun, like karate or yoga or scuba diving, still scare the daylights out of me. But I have to pick one eventually [eventually meaning "SOON!"].
Still, I'm scared to death. I can't graduate in two years without either taking seventeen credits both semesters next year (impossible, unless I undergo some really drastic personality changes), or taking at least ten credits over the summer (am I capable of going to school full-time for twenty-one straight months without going insane? I doubt it.) I'm so frightened that my GPA will drift just a bit too low, or I'll procrastinate one day too far or on one project too many, or I'll get one night too little of sleep, or I'll fall in love with somebody and screw up my whole life, or I'll just plain lose my mind and go crazy. Literally. And I can't even listen to God, who I've been desperately asking for help. I can't even bring myself to do that much. I feel so desperately out of touch, out of time, out of anything but emotion.
But, oh God, I'm scared to death. I feel like everything rests on me, you know? I have to keep up my grades and plan out all this community service and make sure I'm not wasting time and money on classes I don't need to take (basically, I don't get to take any electives, because my stupid honors courses ate up all my electives. Sucks. — That's another thing. I feel like like a crappy honors student. I can do the coursework, for sure, but I'm not exactly the most confident or responsible 18-year-old out there. All I do is write good essays!) I can make so many wrong choices. I could do so many things wrong. There are so many ways to just mess up. I feel so pressured to make the most of my time (I feel like I wasted a lot of it already.); to do something with myself.
And I'm so scared, because I don't know what I'm doing. I don't know what I'm supposed to be doing. And I don't have the self-motivation to take time to listen to God. [expletive deleted] self-motivation that I don't have. Being a spontaneous person instead of a goal-oriented one sucks so much right now. I know I need to change, because, face it, I tend to be a rather irresponsible person and I can't afford to stay that way. But I don't feel an urgent, desperate need to change, except in crunch time, and by then it's too late; and then I get through it, and on the other side it never looks so bad. So I just keep doing the same stupid things over and over and never change.
And then there are things I'm terrified of—like taking a required physical education class. I would, in all seriousness, do almost anything to get out of taking one. Just thinking about it, just looking at the gym, makes me want to run, literally. And I have no idea why I dread it in any form so much. Even classes that seem like they'd be lots of fun, like karate or yoga or scuba diving, still scare the daylights out of me. But I have to pick one eventually [eventually meaning "SOON!"].
Still, I'm scared to death. I can't graduate in two years without either taking seventeen credits both semesters next year (impossible, unless I undergo some really drastic personality changes), or taking at least ten credits over the summer (am I capable of going to school full-time for twenty-one straight months without going insane? I doubt it.) I'm so frightened that my GPA will drift just a bit too low, or I'll procrastinate one day too far or on one project too many, or I'll get one night too little of sleep, or I'll fall in love with somebody and screw up my whole life, or I'll just plain lose my mind and go crazy. Literally. And I can't even listen to God, who I've been desperately asking for help. I can't even bring myself to do that much. I feel so desperately out of touch, out of time, out of anything but emotion.
Tuesday, November 30, 2010
Free will versus predestination
(Funny, that this came up up right after Emily decides to start researching different faiths and viewpoints. *Time Lord.*)
So, I was having this interesting discussion today with Abby (a girl from my honors classes. She's super nice and really smart—in the math geek sort of way—and I like her a lot). Recently we've started hanging out together during our breaks in the afternoon Tuesday and Thursday, between our Honors English and respective math classes. Today we were talking about school, grades, stress (normalcy), and the discussion of stress sort of naturally drifted into the topic of prayer —> God —> the Bible, and then we started talking about different denominations of Christianity. This then led into the revelation that I'm neo-charismatic nondenominational, and she's Reformed—thus meaning, for the two of us at least, that I believe in free will and she believes in predestination. This prefaced a forty-minute, somewhat intense, mutually respectful, highly engaging debate.
I believe that Christ died for everyone, and that every individual is, during the course of their life here on earth, presented with the choice to accept that salvation, and thus enter a personal relationship with Jesus and eventually go to heaven. Abby believes that at creation, God chose certain people to be saved and others to not be saved, and that Christ died for only those God predestined. As she explained it to me, this means that every "chosen" individual "accepts" Christ because they're already saved, like an outward expression of gratitude. (Am I making sense? I think this is it in a nutshell. I had to ask her to explain it a couple of times.) She also said that she believes someone who is chosen has to accept Christ, no two ways about it, and someone who isn't predestined can never accept Christ.
After a long exchange (cut short—at least for the time being, depending on whether she wants to take it up agin later—by her departure to Calculus), we established that what it basically came down to is this: we both believe that man is created in God's image; the difference lies in that I believe the Fall distorted or corrupted that image, but that there is still a part of every human that longs for God whether they know it or not; and she believes that god's image was erased form humankind in the Fall, and thus that humans are incapable of choosing God over sin without divine intervention ("being forced into it" by predestination, as she put it).
I guess where I get hung up is that it definitely states in the Bible that God doesn't want anyone to perish (2 Peter 3:9; I'm not absolutely positive of the context, but still, I think that verse states God's love pretty explicitly). If that's true, why would He only choose some people to be saved? If salvation is irresistible for the chosen, why wouldn't He force salvation on everyone? Abby specifically said that she doesn't believe the Father's love extends to every human being; I don't understand this either. If God is love, how can he create something and not love it?
Anyhow, I don't know if we'll continue this discourse later or not. Definitely neither of us were convincing the other, which is okay. We were friends having a conversation (even if it did get a bit...lively, haha.). But I, at least, found it a fascinating discussion. I've never actually talked to a live Calvinist about their beliefs before. i've read about it, certainly, but it always sounded pretty far out. When Abby laid it out, I could sort of see where she's coming from (it doesn't sound as good in print); I just can't agree with it. I totally see why people take courses on theology. Even if you can't agree with everything—and even if nobody can know all of the answers for sure this side of heaven—I still think it's one of the most thought-provoking things on the planet.
So, I was having this interesting discussion today with Abby (a girl from my honors classes. She's super nice and really smart—in the math geek sort of way—and I like her a lot). Recently we've started hanging out together during our breaks in the afternoon Tuesday and Thursday, between our Honors English and respective math classes. Today we were talking about school, grades, stress (normalcy), and the discussion of stress sort of naturally drifted into the topic of prayer —> God —> the Bible, and then we started talking about different denominations of Christianity. This then led into the revelation that I'm neo-charismatic nondenominational, and she's Reformed—thus meaning, for the two of us at least, that I believe in free will and she believes in predestination. This prefaced a forty-minute, somewhat intense, mutually respectful, highly engaging debate.
I believe that Christ died for everyone, and that every individual is, during the course of their life here on earth, presented with the choice to accept that salvation, and thus enter a personal relationship with Jesus and eventually go to heaven. Abby believes that at creation, God chose certain people to be saved and others to not be saved, and that Christ died for only those God predestined. As she explained it to me, this means that every "chosen" individual "accepts" Christ because they're already saved, like an outward expression of gratitude. (Am I making sense? I think this is it in a nutshell. I had to ask her to explain it a couple of times.) She also said that she believes someone who is chosen has to accept Christ, no two ways about it, and someone who isn't predestined can never accept Christ.
After a long exchange (cut short—at least for the time being, depending on whether she wants to take it up agin later—by her departure to Calculus), we established that what it basically came down to is this: we both believe that man is created in God's image; the difference lies in that I believe the Fall distorted or corrupted that image, but that there is still a part of every human that longs for God whether they know it or not; and she believes that god's image was erased form humankind in the Fall, and thus that humans are incapable of choosing God over sin without divine intervention ("being forced into it" by predestination, as she put it).
I guess where I get hung up is that it definitely states in the Bible that God doesn't want anyone to perish (2 Peter 3:9; I'm not absolutely positive of the context, but still, I think that verse states God's love pretty explicitly). If that's true, why would He only choose some people to be saved? If salvation is irresistible for the chosen, why wouldn't He force salvation on everyone? Abby specifically said that she doesn't believe the Father's love extends to every human being; I don't understand this either. If God is love, how can he create something and not love it?
Anyhow, I don't know if we'll continue this discourse later or not. Definitely neither of us were convincing the other, which is okay. We were friends having a conversation (even if it did get a bit...lively, haha.). But I, at least, found it a fascinating discussion. I've never actually talked to a live Calvinist about their beliefs before. i've read about it, certainly, but it always sounded pretty far out. When Abby laid it out, I could sort of see where she's coming from (it doesn't sound as good in print); I just can't agree with it. I totally see why people take courses on theology. Even if you can't agree with everything—and even if nobody can know all of the answers for sure this side of heaven—I still think it's one of the most thought-provoking things on the planet.
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