"I've been Going through Changes..."

This is a time of change and transition in my life. I just graduated from college and am now trying to make the transition into the "real, working world." Friends have come in and out of my life. Three of my best friends are getting married. Love has come in an out of my life. I have changed residences. I'm even thinking about changing my church and have started visiting new ones. It took me awhile to get to the point where I felt peace in my heart about changing churches because I was raised in the same church family for 22 years of my life. After a rough transition from college to post-college where everything is up in the air, I figured what better time to change this as well. The people at my old church have blessed me more than I can put into words, but the relationships that matter will continue to exist even once I've left there. But, I know it's time to look elsewhere, to find a place that fits me and my growing faith right now. Which brings me to another change in my life. I am changing, my faith is changing. Through my personal struggles and trials, I am learning so many new things about my God and His steadfast love for me even in my weakest of times. I was having a conversation with a good friend a month ago about how she felt like she had no home, no sturdy foundation that she can fall back on. I kinda feel like that myself. SO many things that I put trust in and thought would always be a part of my foundation have been stripped from under my feet. This has shown me that you truly can only put your full trust and faith in the single unchanging factor in all our lives - the Love of the Lord Jesus Christ. People will betray you, people will let you down, people will leave you. Jobs, future plans, all of this can change in a single moment. But the Lord promises to be there for us before and after all these changes. His Love will never leave me and will never betray me. I am learning to let Him be my Rock, my stronghold, and my sole foundation.

Psalm 18:2
"The LORD is my rock, my fortress and my deliverer;
my God is my rock, in whom I take refuge.
He is my shield and the horn of my salvation, my stronghold."

In the Love of the Father

Not Without Love (The Benediction) by Jimmy Needham

Not my will, but Yours

A friend gave me this book last Christmas but I never got a chance to read it during the school year. It's called The Barbarian Way by Erwin Raphael McManus. It distinguishes between a civilized faith that is stuck in the way of religion, tradition, and ritual from a barbaric faith that is not afraid to step out of society and the norm to live passionately for Christ. It's not that novel of an idea, but it's one that I believe many Christians need to hear. Many of us tend to get caught up in the rules, regulations, and church dogmatics but somewhere along the way we forget to love and live radically. One of the main lines from the book is "Barbarians love to live and live to love." That is such a great motto to live by. I am almost done with the book, but there were a number of short passages that really caught my attention. Here is one of them:

"Just do whatever Jesus calls you to do the moment it is clear to you. Do not procrastinate; do not hesitate; do not deviate from whatever course of action He calls you to. But I want to warn you, the closer you walk with Christ, the greater the faith required. The more you trust Him, the more you'll risk on His behalf. The more you love Him, the more you will joyfully embrace a sacrificial life."

I truly believe this. The closer you walk with the Lord, the more faith and trust is required. I believe spiritual warfare is stronger and the devil has his eye on you that much closer. He desires to find the cracks in us where he can penetrate and feed off our weaknesses. But at the same time, a closer walk with Jesus produces a greater desire to love. I have observed both sides of this equation in my life - the stronger attack by the devil and the even stronger longing to love God and love others.

The passage continues to say...

"Barbarians hear a call different from that of civilized Christians. We understand clearly that we follow the God who chose the way of the Cross. If Jesus would not avoid the 'place of the skull,' then we should not be surprised where He might lead us. If even He found Himself sweating blood at Gethsemane, then we should be certain we will stand at crisis moments where all we can do after asking for relief is declare, 'Not my will, but Yours.' In those moments you may find very few who stand by you to provide you comfort and strength, and strangely enough, you may find far too many trying to reason with you that God would never require so much of anyone. yet even with all the noise pounding inside you rheqad, you will still clearly hear the voice of Christ and His barbarian call if you listen carefully enough."

This passage stood out to me because over the last few months, I feel like the Lord has been showing me that He may require things of me that the world might identify as ridiculous or outrageous. I am learning day by day how to listen more carefully to His call and how to be more obedient to what He requires of me. The world might scream at us - "You don't owe anything to anyone!" But the truth is, I owe God everything! He created me with the one purpose of living and loving and using whatever measures to reach those two goals. I keep asking myself, "Why, why, why?" But really, that is the wrong question to ask. I need to trust that God knows why and He has my life in His hands. All I can do is rely on Him to the best of my ability as He leads me out of this darkness into the light.

You are GOD Alone

"You are God Alone" by Phillips, Craig & Dean

When You Lose Someone

One of the many curveballs that life can throw at you is the loss of someone very close to you. This can happen through many circumstances - through a relationship break-up, a dissolved friendship, someone who moves far away, or even through death. I have been thinking for the last two months about what this should mean and what the effects of it should be, especially for a Christian. I believe that it is normal and okay to grieve and have sorrow towards the loss. One of the hardest things I've discovered is finding someone who can relate to you and your loss. When I was going through the loss of someone very close to me, I found enormous amounts of love and support from all of my family and best friends. But I still felt extremely lonely everyday. People can say they know what you are going through - but do they really? No, every experience and every loss is so personal to each individual. Only you know the intimate and close relationship you had with the other person. I told one of my best friends about this feeling of loneliness and she responded by saying that the Lord knows exactly what I'm going through. I thought to myself - does he really? He hasn't experienced exactly what I'm going through but he did experience a lot - he was betrayed by one of his closest friends, he wept over the death of a close friend, he was persecuted and tortured, he felt the loneliness of being separated from his father, and he experienced death. So even if the Lord has not experienced exactly what I've been through, He has been through enough to be able to emphathize with my pain and suffering. I also had to deal with thoughts such as "how can I survive without this person in my life?" The common response by most is that God's love should be sufficient for me. I understand that concept, but God also placed special people to be in our lives and we are meant to be in relationship with others on this earth. I mean, I guess every relationship that we do have in our life is given by God, so He has the right to give and take away those people at any moment. The battle I've been trying to figure out is how to respond once one of those people has been taken away. If the person is still alive and a romantic relationship or friendship has been broken, we are to trust God that He will protect and watch over that individual and be the center of their healing and hope. I have been through some serious break-ups in my life and I have seen how the Lord has brought a friendship out of a place once filled with so much hurt. With broken friendships, I am hoping and praying the same will occur. If the other individual has passed on through death, we must trust the Lord is also watching over them and that the love we had for that person is still intact even though they are not physically with us. Love is stronger than Death - I fully believe this. Your memories might fade, the hurt might last for awhile, but the love you had for that person will stay strong. When you feel like you aren't even strong enough to make it to the next day because of the hurt and loss, you have to let those around you to carry you through their love and support. Ultimately, it will be God's Love that will sustain you and bring complete healing to your life.

Be a Real Friend

"Friendship has been a source of great pain for you. You desired it so much that you often lost yourself in the search for a true friend. Many times you became desperate when a friendship you hoped for didn't materialize, or when a friendship begun with great expectations did not last.

Many of your friendships grew from your need for affection, affirmation, and emotional support. But not you must seek friends to whom you can relate from your center, from the place where you know that you are deeply loved. Friendship becomes more and more possible when you accept yourself as deeply loved. Then you can be with others in a non-possessive way. Real friends find their inner correspondence where both know the love of God. There spirit speaks to spirit and heart to heart.

True friendships are lasting because true love is eternal. A friendship in which heart speaks to heart is a gift from God, and no gift that comes from God is temporary or occasional. All that comes from God participates in God's eternal life. Love between people, when given by God, is stronger than death. In this sense, true friendships continue beyond the boundary of death. When you have loved deeply, that love can grow even stronger after the death of the person you love. That is the core message of Jesus.

When Jesus died, the disciples' friendship with him did not diminish. On the contrary, it grew. This is what the sending of the Spirit was all about. The Spirit of Jesus made Jesus' friendship with his disciples everlasting, stronger and more intimate than before his death. That is what Paul experienced when he said, "It is no longer I, but Christ living in me" (Galatians 2:20).

You have to trust that every true friendship has no end, that a communion of saints exists among all those, living and dead, who have truly loved God and one another. You know from experience how real this is. Those you have loved deeply and who have died live on in you, not just as memories but as real presences.

Dare to love and to be a real friend. The love you give and receive is a reality that will lead you closer and closer to God as well as to those whom God has given you to love."

All I Can Do is Fall Down on my Knees....and Cry Holy!

"Cry Holy" by Salvador. The video is a little poor, but the song is AMAZING!

Live Your Wounds Through

Hmmm, this chapter was a hard one to read. I'm not sure if I fully agree with all of its points.

"You have been wounded in many ways. The more you open yourself to being healed, the more you will discover how deep your wounds are. You will be tempted to become discouraged, because under every wound you uncover you will find others. Your search for true healing will be a suffering search. Many tears still need to be shed.

But do not be afraid. The simple fact that you are more aware of your wounds shows that you have been sufficient strength to face them.

The great challenge is living your wounds through instead of thinking them through. It is better to cry than to worry, better to feel your wounds deeply than to understand them, better to let them enter in your silence than to talk about them. The choice you face constantly is whether you are taking your hurts to your head or to your heart. In your head you can analyze them, find their causes and consequences, and coin words to speak and write about them. But no final healing is likely to come from that source. You need to let your wounds go down into your heart. Then you can live them through and discover they they will not destroy you. Your heart is greater than your wounds.

Understanding your wounds can only be healing when that understanding is put at the service of your heart. Going to your heart with your wounds is not easy; it demands letting go of many questions. You want to know "Why was I wounded? When? How? By whom?" You believe that the answers to these questions will bring relief. But at best they only offer you a little distance from your pain. You have to let go of the need to stay in control of your pain and trust in the healing power of your heart. There your hurts can find a safe place to be received, and once they have been received, they lose their power to inflict damage and become fruitful soil for new life.

Think of each wound as you would of a child who has been hurt by a friend. As long as that child is ranting and raving, trying to get back at the friend, one wound leads to another. But when the child can experience the consoling embrace of a parent, she or he can live through the pain, return to the friend, forgive, and build up a new relationship. Be gentle with yourself, and let your heart be your loving parent as you live your wounds through."

Love Deeply

Another chapter from The Inner Voice of Love.

"Do not hesitate to love and to love deeply. You might be afraid of the pain that deep love can cause. When those you love deeply reject you, leave you, or die, your heart will be broken. But that should not hold you back from loving deeply. The pain that comes from deep love makes you love ever more fruitful. It is like a plow that breaks the ground to allow the seed to take root and grow into a strong plant. Every time you experience the pain of rejection, absence, or death, you are faced with a choice. You can become bitter and decide not to love again, or you can stand straight in your pain and let the soil on which you stand become richer and more able to give life to new seeds.

The more you have loved and have allowed yourself to suffer because of your love, the more you will be able to let your heart grow wider and deeper. When your love is truly giving and receiving, those whom you love will not leave your heart even when they depart from you. They will become part of your self and thus gradually build a community within you.

Those you have deeply loved become part of you. The longer you live, there will always be more people to be loved by you and to become part of your inner community. The wider your inner community becomes, the more easily you will recognize your own brothers and sisters in the strangers around you. Those who are alive within you will recognize those who are alive around you. The wider the community of your heart, the wider the community around you. Thus the pain of rejection, absence, and death can become fruitful. Yes, as you love deeply the ground of your heart will be broken more and more, but you will rejoice in the abundance of the fruit it will bear."

Hear my Prayer, O Lord

Psalm 86

¹ Hear, O LORD, and answer me, for I am poor and needy.

² Guard my life, for I am devoted to you.

You are my God; save your servant who trusts in you.

³ Have mercy on me, O Lord, for I call to you all day long.

⁴ Bring joy to your servant, for to you, O Lord, I lift up my soul.

⁵ You are forgiving and good, O Lord,

abounding in love to all who call to you.

⁶ Hear my prayer, O LORD; listen to my cry for mercy.

⁷ In the day of my trouble I will call to you, for you will answer me.

⁸ Among the gods there is none like you, O Lord;

no deeds can compare with yours.

⁹ All the nations you have made will come and worship before you,

O Lord; they will bring glory to your name.

¹⁰ For you are great and do marvelous deeds;

you alone are God.

¹¹ Teach me your way, O LORD, and I will walk in your truth;

give me an undivided heart, that I may fear your name.

¹² I will praise you, O Lord my God, with all my heart;

I will glorify your name forever.

¹³ For great is your love toward me;

you have delivered me from the depths of the grave.

¹⁴ The arrogant are attacking me, O God;

a band of ruthless men seeks my life—men without regard for you.

¹⁵ But you, O Lord, are a compassionate and gracious God,

slow to anger, abounding in love and faithfulness.

¹⁶ Turn to me and have mercy on me; grant your strength

to your servant and save the son of your maidservant.

¹⁷ Give me a sign of your goodness, that my enemies may see it

and be put to shame, for you, O LORD, have helped me and comforted me.

"You are my Everything and I will adore You"

"Revelation Song" has been the song in my heart this past week.
Many Christian artists sing it, but the below version is by Kari Jobe.

The chorus lyrics:
"Holy, Holy, Holy
Is the Lord God Almighty
Who was, and is, and is to come
With all creation I sing
Praise to the King of Kings
You are my everything
And I will adore You"

Receive All the Love That Comes to You

Another chapter from that amazing book.

"While you may feel physically and mentally strong (not the case for me), you still experience a forceful undercurrent of anguish. You sleep well (false), you work well (false), but there are a few waking moments when you do not feel that throbbing pain in your heart that makes everything seem up in the air (so true). You know that you are progressing, but you can't understand why this anguish keeps pervading everything you think, say, or do. There is still a deep, unresolved pain, but you cannot take it away yourself. It exists far deeper than you can reach.

Be patient and trust. You have to move gradually deeper into your heart. There is a place far down that is like a turbulent river, and that place frigthens you. But do not fear. One day it will be quiet and peaceful.

You have to keep moving, as you are doing. Live a faithful, disciplined life, a life that gives you a sense of inner strength, a life in which you can receive more and more of the love that comes to you. Wherever there is real love for you, take it and be strengthened by it. As your body, heart, and mind come to know that you are loved, your weakest part will feel attracted to that love. What has remained separated and unreachable will let itself be drawn into the love you have been able to receive. One day you will discover your anguish is gone. It will leave you because your weakest self let itself be embraced by your love.

You are not there yet, but you are moving fast. There will be a bit more pain and struggle. You have to dare to live through it. Keep walking straight. Acknowledge your anguish, but do not let it pull you out of yourself. Hold on to your chosen direction, your discipline, your prayer, your work, your guides, and trust that one day love will have conquered enough of you that even the most fearful part will allow love to cast out all fear."

One day, love will have conquered enough of me....and anguish will be gone...I'm waiting for that day.

Stay with Your Pain

I'm continuing to read the book The Inner Voice of Love and it seems to be expressing my thoughts and emotions much better than I could be doing myself. So here is another chapter called "Stay with Your Pain."

"When you experience the deep pain of loneliness, it is understandable that your thoughts go out to the person who was able to take that loneliness away, even if only for a moment. When, underneath all the praise and acclaim, you feel a huge absence that makes everything look useless, your heart wants only to dispel these frightful emotions. But it is the absence itself, the emptiness within you, that you have to be willing to experience, not the one who could temporarily take it away.

It is not easy to stay with your loneliness. The temptation is to nurse your pain or to escape into fantasies about people who will take it away. But when you can acknowledge your loneliness in a safe, contained place, you make your pain available for God's healing.

God does not want your loneliness; God wants to touch you in a way that permanently fulfills your deepest need. It is important that you dare to stay with your pain and allow it to be there. You have to own your loneliness and trust that it will not always be there. The pain you suffer now is meant to put you in touch with the place where you most need healing, your very heart. The person who was able to touch that place has revealed to you your pearl of great price.

It is understandable that everything you did, are doing, or plan to do seems completely meaningless compared with that pearl. That pearl is the experience of being fully loved. When you experience deep loneliness, you are willing to give up everything in exchange for healing. But no human being can heal that pain. Still, people will be sent to you to mediate God's healing, and they will be able to offer you the deep sense of belonging that you desire and that gives meaning to all you do.

Dare to stay with your pain, and trust in God's promise to you."