rend your heart

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"Even now," declares the LORD, "return to me with all your heart,

with fasting and weeping and mourning."

Rend your heart and not your garments.

Return to the LORD your God,

for he is gracious and compassionate,

slow to anger and abounding in love.

Joel 2:12-13

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It's been too long. Coming back to my blog is like coming back to a sweet and quiet spot. An old secret get away that was forgotten for a time. Familiar and pleasant. A place I came to forget the world and be alone with my thoughts, prayers and the deep places in my heart. (and to then be placed all over the world wide web. ha. therefore slightly modified and vague without removing the initial meaning of course!)

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God has been doing a new work on my heart. Deep rooted pains along with new blessings and new pains have been cause for me to retreat into a different place. I've been in a battle to find my identity in Christ while trying to find my identity apart from my past. In desperation to remove myself from my past I removed many parts of me in an attempt to find out who I was not based on my circumstances.

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I have come to a place where God is beginning to rend my heart. In the past I was good at "rending my garments"...as in a public display of being torn before the Lord..not that it wasn't genuine. But it defined me. This time He is getting to the deeper parts of my heart that have been unreached. My heart is turning.

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I am far from perfect. I am even farther from a good representation of a daughter of God. But I am seeking to be worthy of my calling. Our hearts are often shown through our actions. But our actions aren't always a mirror of our hearts. I doubt that makes sense. I have yet to find a way to put that thought into words. There are just those times when I wish my actions showed my heart. But there is always hope.

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"Come, let us return to the LORD.

He has torn us to pieces but he will heal us;

he has injured us but he will bind up our wounds."

Hosea 6:1

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conundrum

I realize it's been awhile since I wrote last....This was my semester of over dedication and zero free time. I sold my soul to my school and it's organizations. Overcommitment is not wise. I tend to give myself fully to what I commit to...um, unless I commit to 100 things. Apparently it doesn't work like that. Lesson learned. Thank you.

I'm practicing my "No"'s. No. Noooo.

Regardless of my overzealous addiction to organizations and activities, it has been a beautifully blessed time. It has been a time of freedom, gifts, lessons and rest. I have been given more than I deserve and am thankful every day. Oh so thankful!

Struggles are still apparent in my life, even in times of joy. This calm in my life has been sweet. But something I have recently seen is that there is a risk in the quiet times of life. I have seen in myself that I have been lacking in my drive to stay strong in my relationship with God. Not that I have stopped desiring or pursuing...it's just been weak. I have seen it's effects in my actions and decisions. I was blind to it for awhile, but last week I saw that need in my life. Even in the good times there is still a need to fight. I wonder if it's deception....the thought that in good times we don't need to FIGHT. I still want to though. I don't want that mindset to take root.

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Lately I have been thinking about my inadequacies.

That's a positive topic! And a very deep well.

Really though, I know that many times I let my failures hold me back from living. I have the thought that when I fail, God cannot work in me any longer. I hold back because I believe that no good can come from such a dirty sinner like me. I make mistakes. Big ones. My sins are not small. I tend to do the things I know in my heart I do not want to do. I am lazy and apathetic. Why would God want to use me?

We know that the law is spiritual; but I am unspiritual, sold as a slave to sin. I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do. And if I do what I do not want to do, I agree that the law is good. As it is, it is no longer I myself who do it, but it is sin living in me. I know that nothing good lives in me, that is, in my sinful nature. For I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out. For what I do is not the good I want to do; no, the evil I do not want to do—this I keep on doing. Now if I do what I do not want to do, it is no longer I who do it, but it is sin living in me that does it.
So I find this law at work: When I want to do good, evil is right there with me. For in my inner being I delight in God's law; but I see another law at work in the members of my body, waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin at work within my members. What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death? Thanks be to God—through Jesus Christ our Lord!

Romans 7:14-25

The wrong in me has kept me from worshipping what's right with God. I truly believe Satan has thrown my failures in my face, laden me with guilt, and worked it into my heart--resulting in my behaviors. I hold onto my weakness and let it take over God's strength in me.

But that is not how I want to live! I have gotten sick of it. I'm tired of living a safe life, hiding behind what little good I do to sustain me and convince me that my life is ok. That I should settle for a mediocre life. No, I have never been one to settle. There is something in me that drives me to the unknown, to unique adventures, to risks. I want to make my world a little bigger. I want to use my hands, get them dirty..I want to build walls and trust that God is the one who will keep them standing. God does not need me, but I want to put my hands in. I am not needed, but God's grace allows me to help.

God's love is different. He sees my heart. And in my heart is God's love. A thousand times I may fail but His mercy remains. I need to learn to lose the mindset of me--my failures and my success--to gain Him. He is the only good in me. And in Him, He can do great things.

Here am I. Send me.

This is my creed

Quit living as if the purpose of life is to arrive safely at death. Set God-sized goals. Pursue God-ordained passions. Go after a dream that is destined to fail without divine intervention. Keep asking questions. Keep making mistakes. Keep seeking God. Stop pointing out problems and become part of the solution. Stop repeating the past and start creating the future. Stop playing it safe and start taking risks. Expand your horizons. Accumulate experiences. Enjoy the journey. Find every excuse you can to celebrate everything you can. Live like today is the first day and last day of your life. Don't let what's wrong with you keep you from worshiping what's right with God. Burn sinful bridges. Blaze new trails. Criticize by creating. Worry less about what people think and more about what God thinks. Don't try to be who you're not. Be yourself. Laugh at yourself. Quit holding out. Quit holding back. Quit running away. Chase the lion.

blah--og

I'm battling the flu right now. A fun adventure, to be sure...

It's been awhile since I last wrote. A lot has happened since then. It's been a struggle to find words. Every time I tried to find the words to express what I was going through...I would end up typing just a bunch of blah.

Desperately I have been trying to seek God's wisdom and answers to everything. I have learned quite a bit....about contentment, grace, love, truth, prudence...So much. But even then I could never put into words what God was doing.

The other day I was driving down the road, listening to some sweet tunes when I realized something....something God had been doing all along.

Change.

My life has been all about change and I didn't even realize it. I have been growing in so many new ways that I could write probably 10 blogs on each new lesson learned. But it's all been surrounded by change. That little word: change...it does so much.

For the past two months I have begun to feel my nothingness--to despair of myself. In finding myself as nothing, I sought God and found that He was everything. Every aspect about me was laid bare. I held out empty, open hands. For awhile I let my wounds and emptiness rob me of communion, grace and living each day fully. It's still a struggle. Constantly I am having to run to my God with my empty hands. He finds me here every time. I have nothing to bring Him. And yet, He is still there. Who does that?? Who in their right mind would give love constantly to someone that had nothing to bring to the table in return?

St. Augustine said this about God that got me thinking, "God gives where He finds empty hands. A man whose hands are full of parcels can't receive a gift." Isn't grace odd?

God is quite scandalous, don't you think? God tells us all from the beginning we are forgiven. That we can come to Him as we are--dirty and broken. He takes a big risk with me...loving me when I can easily decide to walk away.

But the thought intriques me. Makes me want to love Him. In a weird way, it just does. If a person were to do that for me....it would makes me want to be everything to that person in return. Makes me think of Hosea.....

How I view God is changing...and that is the reason I am changing. I used to doubt God's character and goodness. Now I am learning that it was my definitions of the characterists I was confused about. Our definition of God will easily define how we live. Though I am a long way off, I am learning a better definition of who God really is.

I like change. I'm quite taken with it. We will get along just fine.

"The seasons remind me that I must keep changing, and I want to change because it is God's way." ~ Donald Miller

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My prayer is that your story will have involved some leaving and some coming home, some summer and some winter, some roses blooming out like children in a play. My hope is your story will be about changing, about getting something beautiful born inside of you, about learning to love a woman or a man, about learning to love a child, about moving yourself around water, around mountains, around friends, about learning to love others more than we love ourselves, about learning oneness as a way of understanding God. We get one story, you and I, and one story alone. God has established the elements, the setting and the climax and the resolution. It would be a crime not to venture out, wouldn't it? It might be time for you to go. It might be time to change.