If I Were the Queen of the Forest

If I were the queen of the forest. If I were the queen of the forest, I'm certain it would burn directly to the ground. After every intention of helping it prosper and doing everything in my will to sustain it, the inevitable would take its course. Whether it be by invasion, lightening strike, my very own campfire, eventually my kingdom (queendom?) would falter into smoldering ash.

Why am I saying all of this nonsense? Because through life, if faith prevails above all else, then the hollowing out of ourselves and the filling of the Spirit will take place. Therefore, neither I nor my brother (or sister) can claim king or queenship, even to ourselves. I am not the master of me, you are not the master of you, and we never will be no matter how much we try, how successful we are, nor how trendy it seems.

Your Kingdom come Thy will be done...

Simply, we are creation, created by a King, which in turn makes us all heirs to something. That something came to us through the Prince of Peace, who is also King of all, who has known us since he placed us in the womb. He made us heirs of salvation, and inheriting this wasn't cheap. It didn't come without spilled blood, it didn't come without mockery, and doubt, and it certainly didn't come without proof. He came down to seek us and tell us with his own mouth that this earth will fade away and we will be brought to everlasting communion with God our King.

On Earth as it is in Heaven.

But to claim for ourselves kingship over this earth, or ourselves, is selfish and naive. Our love is to be stretched farther, our faith should persevere and drill through the mountain of uncertain, untrustworthy, selfish power in this world. Our humility is supposed to go to ourselves unnoticed as we walk daily in the Lord. This hollowing of ourselves creates the need for fulfillment in the Holy Spirit.

These are simple flowing thoughts. If I was queen of the forest, nothing would survive. Since God is King I need not worry about where the Robin will place her nest, I am blessed enough by the King to enjoy the Robin when she sings and know that she is thriving.

All to God

It's Late, Again.

Ok, so I know I've already posted...well now it would be yesterday, let's just say recently. But I was reading back over my It's Late post from a waaaayyyyyysss back there. So I decided to do another one, hopefully I won't bore you.

A list of things about myself in no particular order:

- I am currently unemployed with no prospects of a job
- I now know what I am going to do after college because I have graduated but getting there is nerve-racking, and I'm hoping that my nerves will calm down with time.
- I'm still living with my parents........no shame....it's only for a little while.
- It's actually easy for me to love those who don't love Christ (I don't say that to brag...what's to brag about?)
- I still would love to take a bunch of my good friends and travel, take pictures and make silly videos.
-Whether or not anyone knows it, I'm becoming much more emotional than I used to be. I find myself fighting back tears a lot more these days.
- The only thing that sucks about being a missionary is knowing that my family and a lot of my friends are going to be so far away, and I chose for this to happen.
- But then I think about God leading me and I get super excited.
- How am I going to continue to pay off my student loans? Hmm....let's hope God grants me some awesome supporters.
- I might like coffee a little too much, there I've confessed.
- I'm still my greatest enemy
- I still really heart banjo...never gonna change.
- I'm learning from something I've heard way to much; "If your bored, it's your own fault."
- People keep telling me that the place I am going to is full of people who want to kill me............This is really racist and I'm tired of it. I get it, precaution and safety are valuable, one day hey..they might just be right. But most of these people have only ever served me food and coffee and some good laughs, not a knife to the throat or gun to the head.
- Whoa this list just took a harsh turn. Calm down, girl, calm down.
- ^ Sometimes I have to talk myself out of working myself up....
- Let's end on a good note: This Christmas I was blessed to be able to give.
- And..Adventure Time for the win (so I'm still a child sometimes, oh well.)

Well there's the list, there's a lot more but that's not meant for the interwebs. Thanks for reading about my babbling inside my head. It's late again..

All to God

Radically Dysfunctional

I've been thinking a lot about what a "radical" Christian looks like. Radical as in, radical in faith, and love, truth, boldness, courage, bearing burdens, lightening the yoke. I've thought about what it is to be radical in this world as a follower of Jesus, to deny myself of myself, to put away crude humor and step away from thinking that it's ok. Taking the time to evaluate the motives I have behind doing certain things, thinking certain things, and saying certain things that I have deemed good...yet not righteous....but good, just above where the line is drawn.

And I'm overwhelmed......

My selfishness wants to watch movies that are funny and humorous, that seem to be "not the worst" because there was no nudity or anything physically sexual happening on screen. But the crudeness is what can slither in and take hold. How is crudeness and laugh-ability in any way glorifying God when it makes me cynical.

My selfishness also wants to laugh at crude jokes on the internet, view "comical" videos that aren't joyful in any way or making me think good thoughts by the end. If it doesn't edify then why do I identify? (See what I did there?) BECAUSE....like many, I am self-conscious and figuring out this life that I live, and how I can live it better all the while knowing that there should be no "holier than thou" speak to pass through my lips!

It's easier for me to go through life looking like everyone else, rather than going through this life looking like a scar-filled messed up person who is doing something about the mess that she has acquired for herself because she knows that Jesus has done the impossible to make her life impossibly shine so bright before mankind. (Terribly long sentence, English majors...shun me now).

I cannot follow my heart...it will lead me to destruction. My heart is simply an organ, one that humans have used as the access point of love and the way to the "narrow path" but you know...I'm not believing this is so anymore. Being radical in love, faith, truth, bearing a load, taking up the cross, etc., comes from relying HEAVILY on the Holy Spirit. My heart can only lead me to selfishness and desires that remain in this fleshy form, because..it is flesh.

My God, my Father, my King, is the only being that can lead myself to radically loving him and loving others without fail. But he knows that failure is inevitable in this tiny form I am currently in, this, my friends is why he has promised us guidance through his Spirit and this is what we can and do miss on a  DAILY basis. I find this ridiculous, the Holy Spirit, this divine Spirit of God, in turn, simply God himself saying "ask for me, I will lead you into places unknown and make you a beacon for my glory everyday." THIS IS PHENOMENAL.

I'm baffled by how lazy I am in the Spirit. I'm baffled by the love that surrounds me in this divine measure. I'm baffled that He hasn't given up on me. I'm baffled that because of me, many who have rejected God, never knew him, or have strange concepts of God STILL DON'T KNOW HIM like I do. Like many do.

I love him, and I love who he loves. Do my actions show it? Does my life reflect it? Have I been poisoned by media, and materialism, and keeping my life so much that I have no room for the Spirit to lead me to be drenched in pursuing his Kingdom for the Kingdom no matter what?

There's no time to lose in correcting my mind, strengthening the soul through God. I am built for service, may it ever be so.

All to God

Just talkin', It's Christmas!

There's a puppy pawing at the glass door because he is looking at his reflection and wanting it to play. I just finished wrapping the simple gifts I got for my family, the Christmas lights are on, there is a Christmas movie playing on TV and I have coffee. Yes, indeed everyone, Christmas is coming.

For the first time in about two decades my family got family pictures done by the lovely Rachel at Foxx Photography. We had a wonderful time just fooling around which ironically makes for some good photos. It was sunny and windy and we prevailed against the wind and in the majority of the pictures came out dashingly.

Anyways, I guess what I am trying to say is that I am very content with this year's Christmas because it will be slightly different, the dynamic has changed. So in this short little thing that I am trying to write here I just want to say that Christmas will be different but great and I love all the pictures and this thoughtful gifts and the coolness that is celebrating togetherness because of Christ. That's cool.

All to God

The Future is a Gift

There is a lot going on these days, and I don't mean finding the best deals for Christmas gifts. There is an overwhelming list that must get done before I start my apprenticeship. Of course, I panicked a little, thinking of how little time I have, almost as if the walls were closing in. I am an extremely visual person, and I don't mean I can scroll down the screen of my computer and view all the things I have to do with ease.

NO.

I have to print them out, spread them out, and see it all out in front of me. Otherwise my brain feels like it will  swell and start oozing out of my ears. I'm talking highlighters, red pens, thumb tacks, and dry-erase boards. You can certainly believe I care a whole flippin' lot about this apprenticeship, and that deep inside I feel that this will lead me into a long term pursuit of bringing Christ to the Christ-less in this land.

Even though the list gets long and daunting and there is waiting..waiting..........waiting, the moment that green light turns on all of the preparation will be worth it. This part is the hardest part with the lists and the fund-raising, and the budgets, and all the other things that go along with the prep-work. It's the foundation on which the future can flourish.

Going through all of this has truly shown me that questions can be asked (I've asked quite a bit of them), things I had felt self-conscious about can be done, and that God wants me to feel out the process and understand the aspects of this journey he has sent me on.

So, yes, there are little sparks of panic that pierce through my guts every so often, but I am reassured the God is the author of this life of mine. Though my life may be like those "choose your own ending" books that were so popular in the 90's (or earlier as well) because of free-will, I know what I have surrendered. I surrendered my own understanding.

I'm excited about the future, but the future is a gift made only by how faithful you are to what God has you doing here and now.

All to God. 

My Pearl isn't just mine

Today, already, only slightly before 1pm, has been an emotional day. Being as it is Sunday, of course we trotted off to church as normal, a few minutes late as usual just before the hymns start to really get going. Anyway, as we start to sing the hymns one comes along that I have known my whole life, one that I haven't paid too much attention to simply because I had heard the story of Jesus.

Looking back now I see how one-dimensional my faith and fervor had been. This hymn is simply titled "Tell Me the Story of Jesus." First of all let me gather my surface thoughts and say that this hymn throughout the verses gives me the imagery of a child, wide-eyed and alert, listening to a gripping tale of wonders. Shouldn't the story of Jesus captivate us as such every time? Or even more so, the story f Jesus within our own lives?

But here is the gist of what I am really getting at...this hymn did captivate me this morning because as I was looking at a verse it was as if the words bore a hole in my brain and my heart. They were significant and alarming, they jumped out at me. Here they are:

Tell of the years of His labor,
Tell of the sorrow He bore;
He was despised and afflicted,
Homeless, rejected and poor.

As these words met my eyes it resonated in my life. My labor is to look like his, the sorrow I bear is to be with his strength, I am to love the despised, afflicted, homeless, rejected, and poor just as he loved them, and just as he was all of these things. He became despised, afflicted, homeless, rejected, and poor for us to love and accept him as our own. More and more I realized just how much I want to help and be in the lives of those who are so afflicted, so despised, those homeless, continuously rejected, and undoubtedly poor. Not for my own gratitude but so they might know and love their sweet Savior.

This hymn reminded me that I've found my pearl, and nothing else matters, my efforts should be put into helping these in this world. All that I have should be rubbish in comparison to this pearl.

May our labor be evermore, my Lord, for thee
May the sorrow we bear
Become joy that we share
With the afflicted, rejected, and poor
Growing closer to Your heart all-the-more.

All to God