An appraisal of 2010

As the year closes, it's good to meditate on the amazing things God has done.

This truly has been a year of birthing. Of course birthing is two fold - the pain of labor and the joy of a new creation. Both equally important.

I look in the mirror and I don't really recognize who I am anymore.

This year I became a nurse. A confident nurse. This year I committed every part of my future to my Savior. This year I moved out for the first time because I could, not because I had to.

This year I learned I can live alone and don't need a studio apartment to survive.

This year my conception of time and its passage was shattered.

This year my parents became a couple again. This year I got my Dad back. This year my parents started reading the Bible together every day. This year I realized how beautiful I really am. That when I ask who am I? God says, "I am with you."

That my worth is not based on relationships, men or anything of this world.

This year I realized I can and do love my God more than I love my mother.

This year all my relationships took their rightful places and God ascended His rightful throne.

This year I learned to say no more than yes. This year I actively chose out of mediocre friendships and relationships. This year I gained trusted friendships back.

This year I quit school and came back to it because I finally figured out my calling.

This year I heard my heart call. I created a website. Heard a prophecy about my life.

This year I realized I will indeed change nations.

This year I realized I don't need marriage, a relationship or a husband, but I really want all these things. Really.

This year I learned to praise God in ALL circumstances.

This year I learned that nothing I own, dream, want or earn is really my own or entitled to me.

This year I learned what it means to be free because of the above.

This year I found out that marriages can in fact be wrought through prayer, made in heaven.

I found out that waiting on God is the hardest thing I've experienced yet.

I found out that I actually have really little faith and need so much more.

This year I realized that through Christ we really can overcome all evil. That satan is actually quite powerless.

This year I fasted meat for an entire week, which resulted in a word from God that has and will continue to change the trajectory of my whole life.

This year I found out what it means to be for someone and not with them - well him.

This year I stopped caring about what others think of me.

This year I saw God enter the lives of people who didn't believe Him, were distant from Him, had given up on Him.

This year I stepped out in faith and walked on water, only to realize I am more like Peter than I thought.

This year I became an intercessor. Realized how deeply I love prayer and want to pray people into healing.

This year I coined the word beast.

Most importantly this year I learned this:

That prayer is the only thing worth devoting your time to, that praising and thanking God must and should be a lifelong, non-circumstantial commitment and I have NO good apart from God. He really is MORE than enough. This life is about intimacy between me and Him. Simple.

Freedom.

Here's to 2011 - in the words of my pastor:

"2011 will therefore not only be a year of answered prayer, but also a year of growth in depth and knowledge of God."

God really does take this seriously.

So here's to a year of power. So terrified, so excited, so humbled.

Hebrews 11

Read it. Every word. Every person who wants to truly make a dent in the world, please read it. And then understand that you will be called to live it. You will be called to live it to the end of your strength.

I understand now what it means to train in the dark. To have literally everything you hold dear, every assurance, every earthly thing to be stripped. There are slats, he said. And God is removing each one. I'm sorry it's so hard, he said.

Abraham impresses me the most. 11:11 says: "By faith Abraham, even though he was past age and Sarah herself was barren was enabled to become a father because he considered him faithful who had made the promise"

Your world will become a series of "even though?"

Sometimes you will cry and cry because THAT is the only release from the pain of not knowing, the pain of the possibility that you are absolutely insane. The pain of what if they're right?

And not just one or two people, all of them. All people.

You know why in 11:37 they went about in "sheepskins and goatskins?" because they probably felt psychotic. Because they knew something no one else did. Because sometimes it feels like you're in mourning when you are waiting. Or perhaps they were too busy praying to care about clothes. "The world was not worthy of them" 11:38

But faith is the better choice. It really is. Because that's the difference between zero and one, endangered and mundane, miracles and mediocrity.

Apparently according to 11:6, "Without faith it is impossible to please God."

And the funny thing is, this is only a morsel of the faith I will need for the future. A morsel.

Insane or a believer of miracles?

It's a fine line.

But I'd rather live on this line than settle for anything else.

In five hours

I have to wake up for one of the most important days of 2010. But not before this:

I just re-watched the Book of Eli. If you haven't seen it, please do. And then let's all please live lives nothing short of it. Please.

But I wanna talk about a specific part. This is a spoiler so if you haven't watched it, stop reading, go watch it and come back. =)

At the very end of the movie, Eli is a shell person. Bleeding bullet wound to the abdomen wrapped in duct tape, probably in some form of shock, he is rowing with all his remaining strength. He has reached the very last stretch of his journey before his life purpose is complete.

Perhaps he has 500ft to row before all is worth it. All the killing, all the maiming, the near death, 30 years of walking solely on faith.

But he can't do it.

And it is at this very moment, his companion takes over. Solara switches places with him and finishes the journey. Helps him get to the other side. Rows the rest of the way. Together, they finish.

See THAT'S what I want.

I want someone without whom I can't finish the race. If I am to be married, that's the only kind of partner I want.

All the other stuff is so damn secondary. Sex...meh lived without it this long. Kids, my mother's dream, not so much mine, could easily be fulfilled by giving care to the ten thousand HIV prone orphans I met when I lived in Kibera.

No, I want that person who will help me fulfill my purpose. Who makes me a WAY better version of myself. That says, "You CAN do it" when I've lost all hope and might.

Anything else is so mediocre, decoration, a facebook relationship status, a cursory text, a date on Valentine's Day.

I see so many couples...wow so many. Apparently I'm a magnet for them. But it's good because within 30 seconds of meeting a couple, I know if they are in it for all the other stuff, or in it to be for one another, not just with one another. Sadly, that number is really small...I can count them on one hand.

I refuse to be just another couple. I'm pretty damn great on my own so why would I dilute myself?

Ah but I know I'm not supposed to do it alone. Not because I can't, but because it's God's will.

I don't really care when or how at this point. Because I know that he'll come right at the time when I say, "Grab an oar Sir, we're going to the other side."

Because God is so good

I will blog twice in one day today.

Psalm 126: 5-6
Those who sow with tears
will reap with songs of joy.
Those who go out weeping,
carrying seed to sow,
will return with songs of joy,
carrying sheaves with them.

He's a totally different species now. I don't even recognize him.

I come home and he hugs me, like it's the first time he's seen me in years.

Without me asking, he checks the oil in my car, brake lights, makes sure my drive is safe.

He sits with me, listens to my Jesus music, just to be present.

I tell him, watch this movie about a man who has overcome. He doesn't just watch it, he lives it, dreams it and asks for the link to it. Says, "I'm so inspired now. If he can overcome, so can I."

She says, "He helps me in the kitchen now, listens to me, goes to church and washes the chalices after mass."

Each day I stand silenced, in awe of the amazing transformation I witness. It's a renewed phenomenon each day.

Our relationship is so different I don't even remember the past. The scars are so far removed.

He's so beautiful to me. My earthly father.

I never thought I could love him after all we had been through. I had given up on us. Just another dysfunctional father-daughter relationship.

But those who sow in tears will reap in joy. Leave with seeds and come back with sheaves.

Each day I experience a miracle so big and so glorious I fall to my knees in gratitude and in reverence of the God we serve.

Thank You is not sufficient so I sit in silent devotion to You my heavenly Father, my Love, my God.

A new fear

There is this freeing fear within me now. It's a fear that I love. It's a fear that grounds me.

I fear You. It's fear infused with Awe. With this undying desire to not run outside Your timing.

I'm terrified of running ahead of You because I don't want to miss out on the miracles You have for me as I track with You. As I let you lead. As I rest and let you build.

Because the word "fear" has been bastardized, claimed for evil.

But really fear of God means reverence.

I revere You.

I don't need anything else but You.

And yet You allow me to desire because You love me. And You say that You will grant me those desires in a way that gives me the Best.

Who am I to deserve You?

So I fear You.

It's a Psalm 130 fear: "But with you there is forgiveness, so you are feared..."

My only prayer for you my other half is this:

That you would experience this intimacy, this new fear, this joy of having only God as your ally before you ever realize I'm the one God has for you.

Because it is only in this place of fear that nations are changed.

Freedom

"Let the one without sin cast the first stone, yet the one without sin never had a stone..."

Do we really understand this?

I think this is my problem.

I finally figured it out.

I still really fear God.

I think He's out to get me. That He's waiting for me to mess up. Always watching me, rooting for me to fail. Waiting to take the rug out from under me. Telling me to jump without a parachute.

I believe in some ways that the war, this race, is about pain and not about love. That it's about punishment and not reverence.

Oh and by the way, the war was already won. Remember?

Because if I really understood that God isn't here to condemn, but to save, I would be free.

Freedom is knowing who you live for.

And if I, in my soul of souls, know that the One I live for is FOR ME and not against me...

well,

then I would be unstoppable.

I refuse to believe in a God made in my own image. Made in my own fears, misconceptions and familiarities.

While it's easier to believe in a punitive God, I choose Truth.

I can't survive this life without a God that is for me. I am just frankly too mediocre.

Now that too is freedom.

"So I rejoice in my weaknesses, rejoice in my hardships, rejoice in my persecutions, for when I am weak, then I am strong."

How can Paul write this?

Because he knew who lived for. And he knew that Who he lived for was not his biggest Advocate,

He was his only Advocate.

Freedom.

A new type of rationality, current age: 26

"He asked me, 'Son of man, can these dry bones live?'
I said, 'Sovereign Lord, you alone know.'" - Ezekiel 37: 3

What a bloody honest answer. Because if Ezekiel had said anything else, he would have been such a tool.

How interesting that God asks him. Isn't it supposed to be the other way around? Aren't we supposed to be asking God, can these dry bones live? Can you heal my dad? Can you give me that job? Can you Can you Can you

CAN YOU???

But maybe it's about faith. Obviously, God knows these dry bones can live. Not only did he know they could live, he knew they could be a freakin' army. He took worthless, lifeless, dry, dusty bones and turned them to a throng of flesh with purpose.

And He could have done it alone. I mean He's God. He could have just said: "Ok Ezekiel, you see all these worthless bones. Watch me work kid. I'm going to create a huge something out of an even greater nothing."

Why did Ezekiel have to be in the equation if God already knew the answer?

So maybe it's about faith. About God equipping Ezekiel to have faith in things not seen. A kind of faith that can literally move mountains. A kind of faith that declares: I know my God!

Maybe God was training him to see in the dark. Training him to hope not in the circumstances, but in the immense power of a God who resurrects from the dead. Who can cause water to flow from a rock. A seed to turn into a kingdom. A woman to bear a child at age 100 or by the Holy Spirit. A bush to re-ignite faith.

Because I'm sure after that Ezekiel had swag. He had a pep in his step because he knew not in his head, but in his soul, in his bones, in his chromosomes, that NOTHING IS IMPOSSIBLE WITH GOD.

He probably became a beast, a monster, the most humble man alive, so in awe of how small we are and how big God is. How powerful, how unpredictable, how reliable.

Faith.

It's not just about believing in things not seen. It's having the courage to bring life to those things not only invisible, but DEAD, because God is real, because God's will trumps logic.

It would have been irrational for Ezekiel to not have faith in things not seen after that.

I want to be that irrational.

There is only One thing I know:

"I made You promises a thousand times
I tried to hear from Heaven
But I talked the whole time
I think I made You too small
I never feared You at all No
If You touched my face would I know You?
Looked into my eyes could I behold You?

What do I know of You
Who spoke me into motion?
Where have I even stood
But the shore along Your ocean?
Are You fire? Are You fury?
Are You sacred? Are You beautiful?
What do I know? What do I know of Holy?

I guess I thought that I had figured You out
I knew all the stories and I learned to talk about
How You were mighty to save
Those were only empty words on a page
Then I caught a glimpse of who You might be
The slightest hint of You brought me down to my knees

What do I know of Holy?
What do I know of wounds that will heal my shame?
And a God who gave life "its" name?
What do I know of Holy?
Of the One who the angels praise?
All creation knows Your name
On earth and heaven above
What do I know of this love?"

You are good. That is the only thing I know.

And it's enough.

Desiderio Domini

Sometimes You feel so far from me I can barely breathe.

Most times You are closer than my skin.

I feel Your presence like warm water across my back.

Like an arm wrapping me up.

Because I only actually have One desire:

To be with You.

I long for it every hour of every day.

And sometimes I block it out with other things. Mediocrity.

I block it out because sometimes that yearning is too hard to bear.

So I say I long for a husband or a clinic or a friend.

But no.

All of that is so secondary. So secondary.

All I really want is You.

To see Your face.

To no longer need faith.

I love You in a way that ends all logic, all rationale.

I love You in a way that I am not capable.

Because we love only because You loved us first.

I can't wait to see Your beautiful face.

To gaze upon Your countenance.

To hold Your hand and dance with You.

My Father, my Maker, my one true Inheritance.

Heal me Lord so I can only have this focus all the days of my life.

So I can be wholly loyal to You.

So I can walk in fidelity with You.

So my one aim alone is intimacy with You.

The Valley of Baca (Psalm 84:6)

I have decided I have resolved
To wait upon you Lord
My rock and redeemer shield and reward
I'll wait upon you Lord

As surely as the sun will rise
You'll come to us
As certain as the dawn appears

You'll come let your glory fall
As you respond to us
Spirit reign flood into our thirsty hearts again
You'll come

We are not shaken we are not moved
We wait upon you Lord
Our Mighty deliverer my triumph and truth
We wait upon you Lord

Chains be broken
Lives be healed
Eyes be opened
Christ is revealed

Heart Call

To this day I can't fight it.

How many years it's been since i started or let's say stopped my ministry, my visits to the slums.

To this day, I see pictures and I cry. I cry in a way that longs for release. Release back there.

It's not noble. It's not social. It's not the activist inside me.

All of that has been burned away, washed up by time. Cleared out by a Greater cause. Faded with Time.

But this has remained. It really has.

It's been 3 years since Kibera. 5 since the Philippines. 23 since I left my mother land.

My heart aches in a way I can't explain. It runs in my blood. Etched in my bones.

I smell it when I close my eyes.

They are my people. I'm supposed to be with them. Not sure when, not sure how.

But this I know:

I will go back.

A call is heard. And I heard it perhaps when I was 5 or 20. It doesn't matter.

"The place where God calls you to is the place where your deep gladness and the world's deep hunger meet." - F. B.

My deepest joy is in being with them, them that know more about joy and suffering than I'll never know. Them who know what it is to go without food and give freely. Them who are poor, but don't rejoice in poverty.

I don't put them on a pedestal. I just love them. I don't applaud their suffering, I long to bear it with them.

I don't want to call them, "them." I want to know their names, their stories, their hopes, their dreams, their relationships with God.

I want to tell them of a God that loves them.

Although I have a feeling,

they know Him better than I do.

I am gripped. In Love.

All I need is the green light and I will be unstoppable.

Faith

I was desperate today for some sort of answer, something to tell me that I'm not crazy. So I played that flippy game where you flip randomly through a book and hope you land on the page "you are supposed to read."

Yeah, I was that desperate.

The book I happened to flip through is called "How to be a Proverbs 31 woman"

And the chapter I flipped to was: "A Woman of Faith."

God likes to really be clear that this is currently the season I am in. Even in trivial flipping of pages, He will bring it back to His purposes.

Here's an excerpt, mainly because I ran out of pages in my journal so I have to document it somewhere:

"The spiritual woman sees herself as a stranger and a wanderer on the earth. She is looking for a better country, a heavenly one. She doesn't build a house, but lives in a tent, waiting for a home with a better foundation.

She may be mocked by words like: 'You're living in a a dream world.' (This could be from others or from her own mind!) That is why faith is having hope in things not seen. Without such faith, it is impossible to please God."

We have faith not in the assurance of circumstances or our expectations, but in God alone.

To aid us, God gives us His enduring word knowing that the word that goes out of His mouth will not return void, but will accomplish the purpose for which it was sent. (Isaiah 55)

Have you ever felt like you are outside yourself watching yourself?

Every day that is how I feel. Nothing is actually real to me any more. I literally only have God's word and what He's said.

Seriously be careful what you pray for because God will answer it in a way that ends all other assurances leaving you with one thing:

That the One who called you is faithful and He will do it. (1 Thessalonians 5: 24)

Let's please pray prayers worthy of a God

He had a gleam in his eye when I came home today. Like the time you find money in your pocket you never knew existed or how or when it got there.

He had a pep in his step. Mischievous. Beautiful.

Out of his torn pajama pocket, he pulled out a slip from a fortune cookie. He had a low blood sugar attack and had sought refuge in the Asian treat.

"When you awaken tomorrow morning, the solutions will be clear."

See because that's the way our God works. Bushes, donkeys, ethnic snack foods, everything around us sings the song of a Maker so utterly committed to His creation.

And that's all he needed. Beasthood.

Against all odds, he made phone calls. Against all the no's, he searched for that Greater Yes. Because one time God said, "Before you even acknowledge me, I strengthen you."

And he found victory. A way to stay afloat in the midst of this sad economy. Because again, God doesn't work on stats, but on faith.

He said, "God always gives me something to hold on to."

Tears flooded my eyes. This coming from a man that used to say, "God is not for me."

But this was the clincher:

She sat.

Quiet. Eerily relaxed.

"You were right, she said,

He really has changed."

And 34 years of no's broke. 34 years of unanswered prayers seemed like an instant.

Prayers I prayed since I was 8, but God only saw this moment.

I never thought it possible to hear those words from her mouth. A mouth so laden with fear and bitterness, always ready for disappointment, so expectant of disaster.

I thought to myself, "So have you."

A new heavens and a new earth.

"In the days to come, Jacob will take root, Israel will bud and blossom

AND FILL ALL THE WORLD WITH FRUIT." - Isaiah 27:6

Keep praying prayers only a God can answer.

He deserves nothing less.

Aren't we all caged beasts?

He's there. tiny, but insistent. in every single

in every single

in every single human being on this planet.

in the recesses of our souls, he sits. not passively. always planning. always praying. always longing.

the bars around him made of iron, or maybe straw. it doesn't matter. caged. a gracious beast.

caged.

each day he wakes and chips away at his stolen throne. cuts at its hinges, lances the straw.

bursting, writhing.

praying.

longing to break out. not to dominate, but to radiate. not to destroy, but to save.

he waits. and waits. and waits.

he knows he can break through in one breath. but that would forsake love. because you can't make someone love you without negating free will.

he continues. each day he looks around and says, "this world is not my home." his home is freedom, his home is life.

one day we will find him, sitting in a dark corner. he will look up expectantly, tears in his eyes.

we will free him.

and we will fly.

Creation

There were two people who prayed. Begged. God heard.

Or maybe there was just one person who prayed, begged. God heard.

Or perhaps no prayer was tossed up at all. Just a mistake, a slip up. God still heard.

So He woke each day. Took the pungent dirt in his hand, the rich soil. began to mold, shape. He took leaves and dreamd hair, flowers to fashion color. Tree bark - bone. Breathed each cell into existence.

placing each bone with careful attention. his saliva - tendons. He cupped water from his oceans to fills eyes. darkening or lightening as his heart desired. seashells for teeth.

he wasn't satisfied. so he stopped. perhaps he prayed, sang, dreamed of a time that he would dance with.

he came back. hours upon hours to hone, master it. he counted each leaf. measured each cup of soil. when the frame was complete, tears filled his eyes. he longed so badly for a dance, but perfection was not yet reached.

He slept. waking up each hour to check on creation, its formation.

the next morning, he knew the time was near. creation was nearly complete. he stood and prayed and kissed, breathing in his spirit, his life, his love.

and those two people felt the baby move. its kicking. knew that life would never be the same.

and 9 months later, God's creation was birthed. no mistakes, no do-overs. perfect.

Each time we touch one another, we touch his palm. Each time we look in the mirror, God smiles because he remembers how he toiled and labored to fashion that nose, the eyes, that smile.

"Naked" is not a matter of sex or reproduction. It is a state of grace, awe of what God has done.

We are not our own. Our bodies are sacred, temples of God, his life and breath swell and move within.

So yes, love yourselves. Not because that's the right thing to do, but because that is the only response to perfection.

The only thing worth giving those we love is the love of God

Take my life and let it be consecrated Lord, to thee.
Take my moments and my days, let them flow in ceaseless praise.
Take my hands and let them move at the impulse of thy love.
Take my feet and let them be swift and beautiful for thee.

Take my voice and let me sing always, only for my king.
Take my lips and let them be filled with messages from thee.
Take my silver and my gold not a might would I withhold.
Take my intellect and use every power as you choose.

Here am I, all of me.
Take my life, it's all for thee.

Take my will and make it Thine it shall be no longer mine.
Take my heart it is thine own; it shall be thy royal throne.
Take my love, my Lord I pour at your feet its treasure store
Take myself and I will be ever, only all for thee,
Take myself and I will be ever, only all for thee.

Day 1

I cry, sob, heave.

I don't know this place, I say.

It knows you though, He says.

And then the cries don't hurt anymore, they don't subside, they linger like a kiss.

The cries turn into such immense notes of praise, of love, of utter and complete dependence.

I was always Here. Never far. I know you.

So I crave loneliness, yearn for emptiness, grasp intensely for the feeling of thirst, destitution, poverty.

Because it is in its filling that joy is birthed. It is in its divine satisfaction that worlds are changed, cities renewed, families healed, lives saved.

Because everything else is futile. The text messages, tv shows, musings of relationships, balanced check books, textbooks, nothing else can fill That place.

I love You so much it burns. It burns away any remnant of hope in anything else but Our relationship. I am so desperate I can't breathe without you. I really am nothing without You. And not in a self-deprecating way. But in a way that recognizes how limitless You are and how finite I am without You. In a way that understands that impossibilities only occur through faith.

And not churched faith. Not faith that can be intellectualized. Faith that is squeezed like pus from a wound. From loss, sacrifice, accomplishments, success, pain. Faith that oozes, carries with it every doubt and sin. That in its rawest form is filthy and so human, so totally aware of its illogical nature and yet is infused with power, light...

Grace.



And so I sit on my red couch so totally alone.

That is all I ever wanted, He says.

For me to be alone? I say

No, He says

For Us to be together.

I really don't want

to move.

I'm not excited about it at all. I can buy all the cute furniture. I can get all sorts of decorating ideas. I can think about all the new types of freedom I'll acquire. Being able to go to any church I want. Staying out without having to call. Washing dishes on my own time schedule.

But it doesn't mask the fact that I'm so acutely sad to leave my mother. I can't imagine not seeing her face every day. I can't imagine not being there for her when things are difficult or when she wants to share a funny story.

Yes, I'm not moving to Uzbekistan and yet I feel an ocean between her and I. I see it in her eyes each time she sits next to me now and says, "You'll still come visit right?" It was always me and her. Since I was born. We were a team, struggling, surviving, learning from one another. She was my angel. The one good thing about me I used to say.

And then I fell in love with Someone else. And He said, I love you but I don't need you. I desperately want you without condition. And I got confused. My mother's love is all I've known. But now He is asking me to give her up. Asking me to trust in His love alone.

God has to come in between each relationship.

And this should be easy. But it's really not. There is a space in my soul that only my mother occupies. But when you say, "I want to be all of Yours," something snaps. Floodgates open up washing away the pattern of things.

God says I want to enter that space, increase it and occupy it. For your sake, for her sake and for your father's sake. All for my glory. So that your joy may be made complete.

I watch him wash the dishes, something he never did before. He buys me prunes, says it's in the bottom shelf of the fridge. Trying so hard to be the provider. But even in the midst of these small but important treasures, God is calling me out. Separating me out.

It's a pain unlike I've ever experienced. It's emptying, lonely, terrifying. I dread that apartment. I dread what it represents. And yet all God says is, Come home to me. Let me serve you. Let me fill you. Let me be your mother, your father, your all.

So I will go. I will pack up my things and journey into that unknown place. I will brave the inevitable loneliness, the doubt, the fear of what will occur at 2832 while I reside at 3333. I will brave the accusations, the pleas, the begging, the misunderstanding. I will endure it all for You. For the ultimate fulfillment of your promises to me, to them, for us, for the world.

I am walking on water and each day I almost drown. And each day you remind me when I ask Who I am?

You say, "I am with you."

So here we go. I've given up my dreams, my love life, my friendships and now finally the most important people in my life. You have it all. There is no turning back now.

Worship is my sacrifice

How can I not praise You?

How can that not be my only job really?

You are infinitely worthy of praise

You never give up on me. Never.

You are always willing to remind me.

You put up with my need to control, my need to be busy all the time

And then when I've driven myself into a hole, you are patient enough to dig me out of it.

You want the very very very best for me. Why? I don't deserve it. I don't deserve Your best or Your willingness to train me to receive it and wait for it.

And yet each day You write me a love song. And You sing its chorus to me when I look at the sky. You sing a verse when I clean a patient. You sing its second verse when I look into my mother's eyes and tell her I'm not her answer.

I don't deserve your song. And I drown it out. Fill my ears with the opinions of others. Fill my ears with the glorification of being busy, of being occupied all the time.

But You wait patiently. Because then you hum it until I'm ready to listen. But sometimes You belt it, You scream it because I need rescuing.

How can I not constantly praise You? When You are so for me. Even when things come crashing down, my darkness is light to You.

You know me. Love is merely the skin of knowing they say. And You know the hairs on my head, You knew me in my mother's womb. It really is too lofty for me to understand this.

Sometimes this knowing is too unbelievable to me so I reduce it. I box it up. Categorize to more manageable levels. But You shatter it each time. Each time You remind me of a critical lab to draw at work that slipped my mind. Each time I look into the eyes of a trusted friend and see You shining through whether that friend realizes it or not. Each time I cry out from loneliness or defeat. Each time I hold a hand of a patient. When I google AMC. When I go to Mexico and am given the chance to diagnose and prescribe without human training.

I love You. I love You so much it scares me what I'm willing to give up for You. But then I realize that even that willingness and even my love for You comes from You.

You really are the best thing about me. You really are the one and only reason I breathe.

I dropped them.

I did it.

This is probably one of the boldest and craziest moves I've made since I flitted off to Africa or planned a trip to Greece in an hour.

I dropped all my classes for my Masters. At this point, I no longer have ANY idea of what the hell I am supposed to do with my life.

This is such a scary, uncertain and FREEING feeling. I don't know why I feel free right now. I don't know why I have this eerie sense of peace. But for some reason I feel that God is going to use this decision for something good, something exciting, something big.

I mean who knows though? Maybe He'll just say, "Um that was stupid, go back in the Fall." or maybe He'll say, "Good move kid, go to the Sudan." Or maybe He'll say nothing and force me to wait on Him because He wants to grow in me faith and endurance.

Sigh.

All I know is that I can't any longer use this to pat myself on the back. It was so nice to say I'm getting my Masters. It felt good, like an eternal gold star. And I mean come one 80% of my friends have Masters so it would be strange not to right?

It was familiar, like a warm blanket, a cup of cocoa. And now it's gone. Now I'm a nurse at Kaiser with a bunch of unanswered prayers, crazy dreams, weird goals with no idea of how to bring anything to fruition.

I'm regular. I'm not that extraordinary and I can no longer say my life is that hard because I'm a working adult like everyone else.

But for some reason I feel like that's exactly where I'm supposed to be. And I don't think even my closest friends may get it. You might shake your head and say, "But what about the plan?" Or say logical things like, "They won't take you seriously without a Masters," or say, "How will you start the clinic?"

And while those are valid questions, I can't do anything to please people anymore or to wear that gold star or to live up to some invisible standard. I've given it all up for Him. And while He didn't answer me or give a word the way I really wanted one, He did say step out.


So there it is. I gave it up. The one thing I felt really good at. The one thing I took a lot of pride in. The one thing that gave me a leg up in nursing, the 25-year old, heading toward being a N.P.

I give it all to You. And I'm so terrified of what this means. But all I know is that I finally want to figure out why exactly I was born. I finally want to know what it is I truly desire and what my future is to be.

So yet again, Your move God. I did it. Your turn to speak and speak loudly because I no longer have ANY plans.

My hopes, dreams, plans are now ALL yours.

We desire to win more than we fear losing

God makes provisions to be intimate with us. He chose us to be intimate with Him

His house WILL satisfy us. We are meant to be satisfied, although this is counter to human experience. The presence of God CAN satisfy us. This is not reserved for "holy" people or people into "religious" things. God is not just a sub-set that can satisfy us once in a while. He is meant to satisfy us fully, always, every part of us.

Our desires need to be healed so that we can be satisfied by God. We are satisfied by too little.

Can God REALLY do awesome deeds?

We cut our expectations down so we are not disappointed by God.

Are there things that prevent us from opening up to awesome deeds?

1 Samuel 14: Jonathan and armor bearer

"Come let us go over"

"We will show ourselves to them"

"Showing yourself" was not norm. They were safe in hiding. Not being known was safer. Experience of God was limited because of desire for safety, because of only looking at what is here and not what is on the Other side.

This desire for safety makes us weaker.

What does it mean to show ourselves?

Don't be afraid to be disappointed, to expect and pray for miracles!!

Jonathan made himself vulnerable to disappointment and mistakes so He could see God move. He had to go to the Other side.

The battle is with ourselves. We like calm things, to be in control. But, it's messy, it's a struggle, but it moves us toward the Other side.

We just have to respond, even though there may be many mistakes and struggles.

God doesn't always work on our agendas, sometimes He destroys them.

Waiting on God should make us stronger. It shouldn't deplete us or drain us.

The Other side wants to satisfy us COMPLETELY, sometimes this is painful.

Show ourselves and God does the rest.

God wants us to live from His presence, it takes courage, ties us to God.

How do you want me to respond?

Enter the struggle and experience an uplifting and ultimate victory.

It's really not glamorous at all.

When you finally reach that place of zero and submit your whole being to God get ready for immense pain and immense joy.

Oh and remember, joy may not always look like the joy you want or think you need. It may look like pockets of peace in the throws of hardship or an occasional laugh or bouts of tears. Soul satisfying joy will never be what you expect.

When you submit:

He will cause you to hate most of the things you thought were really important. He will cause you to take the small things you thought were trivial really seriously.

And the truly trivial things, He will show you are so worthless you won't even know who you are anymore.

He will change your so-called deep hopes into vicious desires. Desires that will sometimes cause you to want to end your life.

He will bring you through a period of obscurity that will cause you to be so alone. A loneliness that thrusts you closer and closer unto Him and allows you to put people you held so dear into their rightful places. Obscurity that causes you to heave in longing for release which will eventually produce fruit that lasts.

When you live in His will, your plans will mean nothing. Your plans will be reckoned with a series of closed doors and painful waiting. Waiting that will involve patience that requires a God to sustain.

He will bring you face to face with your ugliest depravity. With things you thought you were above, but really aren't. With issues you thought you dealt with, but require much more healing from the Other side.

Bearing fruit will look totally different from what you expect. In fact, He will change expectations into obedience. He will change planning into prayer. He will change worry into groans, groans in the spirit.

You won't any longer know the meaning of pride because you will be too busy on your knees in desperate humility, longing for relief, for some sort of affirmation that says you are loved and not alone.

Your idea of fair will be turned upside down. Many times you will get the short end of the stick, the heavier burden, the trials, while others coast. Because when you submit to Him, He actually wants the control so when He gives you the burden, He actually gives it to Himself.

Be careful what you pray for because He will turn your so-called deepest prayers into covenant. A covenant that will cost you your whole life, your control, your human intellect, your logic, your reason.

He will allow you to feel self-hatred and the criticism of others so that you may know His suffering and be delivered from it.

He will cause you to fail so hugely that never again will you think yourself so great. He will show you that your so-called strengths actually amount to mediocrity. That your weaknesses are far more pervasive than you thought. That the only identity you can really bank on is the one He gives you.

He will cause the things of this world to be so truly distasteful that you pray for death. Not suicide. But death to the things of this world so that your bodily desires can be shut off so your internal conflict ends. So you can have at least an hour of peace in your spirit.

He will cause some of your greatest fears to be realized, only to show you how much bigger He is than your fears and inadequacies.

Once you submit, you will live a dangerous life. Safety is no longer an option. Uncertainty is the only certainty. You will lose everything you held dear so it can be returned to you a hundred fold.

All the parts of your identity you really like or you allowed to define you will be stripped away so that you will be left with nothing but the name "Redeemed" or "Beloved."

You will be destroyed, only to be rebuilt indestructible.

So, I will no longer tell you that living a life for God is easy. I won't tell you that it will solve all your problems or bring immediate answers to your prayers because in many cases it won't. It may not bring whole contentment that others say it will right away or even in your lifetime.

However,

What it will do is give you hope beyond your own understanding, courage beyond your own ability, love beyond your own compassion.

It will cause us to not just coast through life and be a number, a statistic.

It will cause you to be broken unto others so that lives maybe changed, God may be glorified and your joy may be made complete.

How so?

I have no idea. But I have faith.

Is it worth it?

Sure.

It is easy?

Never.

Is God with you throughout?

Always.

What do I know?

There's no turning back now.