When TV teaches...

I may have posted about this before - but recently i spent a few hours one night watching TV cause i couldn't sleep - well, it seemed like each and every episode broke me down and challenged something deep inside my heart that i had been trying to avoid... it was quite annoying really. All i really wanted to do was fall asleep - instead, i was awake a lot longer than i wanted thinking, crying, asking questions - and then watching another episode to try and get my mind off the last one... it turned into quite an evil cycle really.

Needless to say - it's challenged my heart quite a bit. I feel like over the last year i've take a "break" from really challenging myself - growing, changing, asking the hard questions... It's time to start that habit back up. It's time to pony up, bite the bullet, and jump in with both feet to some of the hard things i've been avoiding... SO - here we go.

[here is where i really wanted to post a picture of me biting a bullet - i'll have to take one later - just cause it would bring great delight to my lil heart]


This year i want to be...
healthy...
active...
able...
willing...
purposed...
ready...

that's the plan stan - we'll see how this goes. I've come to realize that i can't rely on my own strength to do these things [i have this realization daily, actually] even the things that seem simple. In my flesh - i fail, but in Christ - i rise to the challenge.

So, here's to trying to blog more, run more, eat healthier, trust more, love more deeply, follow harder after Christ, and live according to the greatness i'm called to.

bring it 2012 - i'm ready.

a new year - new life

it's 2012... i rang in the new year hanging out with some of my closest friends doing what i love best... drinking coffee, hanging out, being weird, and shooting guns. It was a great weekend... and it helped finish out a long and challenging year..

We decided that spending new years together was forever and always a tradition that every must come to - no matter what... i like that.

Then - today, i got a text finding out that one of my friends got the house they had put in an offer on - it's ridiculously perfect for them... it's fun to see how the Lord blesses people (in strange and easily overlooked sorts of ways)... I'm excited to get to hang out there the next time i travel up north, i'm excited to see them be able to grow as a family in a new space, and i'm excited to see them happy - truly happy.

before 2011 was over i ended up having to have surgery to remove my extremely irritated gallbladder - and the golf ball sized stone that was living inside of it, along with some friends... This was the end of 4 months of severe pain and long nights spent puking without knowing why... i went from having avoided doctors most of my life to visiting them a couple times a month and having all kinds of tests done... it was a great learning experience where i'm sure i grew a lot - but i don't really wanna do it again :)

anyhow - i had a couple weeks where i was stuck in bed recovering and after the drugs wore off and i could think straight again i realized just how much time i spend keeping myself busy by doing pretty much nothing... it was fascinating to me... and yet, didn't really come as that much of a shock once i thought about my surrounding culture. I decided that this year i didn't want to waste time doing nothing - i wanted to do things on purpose, even doing nothing needed to be on purpose. There's so much more i can and will accomplish simply by thinking through my actions (something i don't really like doing much).

So - this year I will be...
HEALTHY
ACTIVE
ABLE
WILLING
PURPOSED
READY

there's a lot more to each of those words than what meets the eye - but we can explore them later... but, i'm ready for a new adventure - even if it means staying exactly where i am. i am ready!

Forgive me for being dumb.

So. Life has been hard lately. I've been all over the map emotionally and spiritually. I shoved a lot in because I needed to for a short time, but then I forgot to stet talking again. And it finally messed something up.

Yesterday I was at home working on some stuff thinking through my day when a friend shows up and tells me to grab my dress clothes and my makeup and go with her. I don't do what I'm told very well, but I grabbed my stuff and went. She wouldn't tell me what we were doing... And then on the inside I started to panic.
We went to lunch and then went and got her a new fish... Then we went to get my hair cut. I've been wanting to get my hair cut and she knew that so this was really sweet- but I didn't know what I wanted cause I had just changed my mind to keep it long, and well... Whatever.
Anyhow. Get my hair cut and get my eyebrows waxed- a totally godly pamperig that sent me over the edge emotionally on the inside. When I do stuff to look nice I get horribly scared. (i know, more issues I need to work on). So my hair gets cut and when we're done I can barely look at myself in the mirror. I'm scared, I'm anxious, I'm nervous, and I'm insecure... Not a good thing- but I'm with my best friend... So it should be okay, right? But I found out that when I'm with her I feel safe... And so I feel all the emotions of stuff... But can barely talk about anything... she knew something was up - and kept trying to get me to talk to her about it... but i was so overwhelmed and scared... so i didn't talk.. but i was just getting ready to when another friend showed up to take me somewhere - and then i got even more scared.

the rest of the day was 3 more friends blindfolding me and taking me places... which were all fun - but i couldn't totally enjoy them because i was scared and insecure and freaking out all day... and then the last place was to go to dinner with rob and carolyne (i thought) but i ended up at a suprise party with a bunch of people from church. it was so awesome. i've never had a big party before - especially not a surprise party. i felt so loved... i just couldn't express it.

the night went on - it was fun.. i felt so loved. i have never had anyone do something like that for me before. but it came at a cost...

everything about yesterday ripped me apart emotionally...
i've been struggling with not being able to feel like i'm apart of my new family, that they don't really love me - but carolyne planned this whole thing for me - and had been working on it for months...
i've been struggling with feeling like i'm out of control - and i had absolutely no control over anythign yesterday...


all in all - i hurt my best friend yesterday. i didn't talk to her - but later i talked to other ppl about all the things she had been asking me about... i didn't mean to. i wanted to talk to her - but i didn't know how without leaving the party...

it's been eating me alive all day. i really don't like this feeling...

there's so much more i could say - but i don't know how yet...

the video

i found the video on youtube of that song - and i figured i'd share it with ya... it's amazing.
(i'm not sure about the pictures - but the song is phenominal)

satan is a butt-face...

yeah, that's right... pretty sure that's truth right there. satan is a butt-face. 

So, i go to this church. it's a mainline church. they're trying to grow. and they're struggling. but the Lord has put a number of really solid people on staff that have a big vision for God to do BIG things in our church. And i'm pretty sure satan is pissed. 

we've been planning this big fall kickoff outreach event - it was going good - minus that it's all staff pulling it off and we only have 2 weeks - but it was going good... then a few of us started trying to take some comp time to get some rest and relax a bit and everything fell apart. People started dropping the ball, things started not working the way we had planned, info got confused, people got irritated, blah blah blah... we diffused a bomb today -  and as i was sitting on the floor of amber's office - dripping with sweat because the lady in charge of the AC decided that 90 wasn't hot enough to turn the AC on - and we need to save all the money we can - cutting hundreds of invite tickets to our event (that we had printed for the third time due to some miscommunications) i came to a sudden conclusion. 

Our God is BIG! 

amber introduced me to this song the other day, it's pretty awesome. it's called "by and by" and it's by selah - and it's in some african language - probably swahili - but i'm not sure... but anyhow - the song opens with a radio broadcast from the 50's (i think) of a missionary talking about how they had over 1,000 africans show up to be baptized the day that the ban was lifted which made it punishable by death to be a christian. During the broadcast you can hear the crowd singing this old hymn in the background... it's pretty amazing when you stop to think about it. There's no way they could have marketed this baptism event - cause they all could have been killed - so the Lord managed to bring over 1,000 africans that had secretly been following the Lord all together in one day to get baptized. Out God is COOL! 

So - we're sitting in the office cutting invites and i mention that i think it'll be sweet when loads of people show up and the Lord uses this even to change the hearts of some of our congregation - and amber starts to talk about how it'll be hard for ppl to come when they havn't heart about it - and how we only have 2 weeks... and the Lord just put it on my heart that he's bigger than any advertizing or marketing or cool tickets that we make... he can spread the word to 1,000 africans that there's a baptism going on - in ONE DAY... he can do plenty more than that now - with all our social networks and instant everything... 

so - i just said "1,000 people showed up to be baptized THE DAY the ban was lifted - there's no way they were able to invite people to it - and the Lord brought 1,000 people... our God is BIG. REAL BIG! 

he's bigger than our best laid plans.... 

he's bigger than our worries....

he's bigger than any media we create.... 

he's bigger than all of our social networks.... 

he's bigger than we could ever imagine..... 

he's bigger than the city block that our church owns.... 

he's bigger than satan.... 

and.... 

he's bigger than the boogey man :)

i'm really excited to see what the Lord has in store for this event - i just hope that i have the faith and ability to pray hard and not worry or doubt the awesome power of the Lord. 

Our God is BIG!

Dad stuff

I had a great conversation with a friend today... It was so good to get to catch up and just be real with someone... There's a certain group of friends that I can be truly real with... It was a great feeling. I habit been able to have a conversation like that in a while. And although it was awesome - it was really hard too. Hard to he real after being able to hide for the last year, hard to hear a friend hurting so badly, and hard to be asked some simple questions that cut to the depths of my heart.

The one question that I think hurt the most was the "have you been dealing with dad stuff?" it's such a simple little question but it sent my heart into a panic. I made a choice not to dig into dealing with that last year when I found out he passed away, I made another decision earlier this year when it started wearing on me emotionally - and although my friend said it was probably okay, that I'd know when it was time to deal with it... I think the answer is that I've known since last year it was time to deal with it...

Lately there's been a huge weight on my heart in regards to anything family oriented. There always is this time of year - but this year there's more pain to deal with and I just don't think I can handle it. my birthday was never mine - it was shared with my abusive cousin - and now it's also marked with the anniversary of my dad's death (a week after my birthday)... so, it's been a year and i haven't talked to anyone about dad stuff...

although i want to stick with the "it's okay - you'll know when it's time" philosophy, i think it's probably time to stop running from pain and listen to the truth i hear in the lyrics of one of my favorite songs by scott "i'm all in"

so now i try and figure out where to go from here.

I'm a real adult!

Well, it's been a while. The summer kind of turned into a whirlwind of chaos. My summer activity schedule that seemed nicely spread out through the summer turned into one thing after another after another- and then followed by another. But, its been a blast! Kids ministry BBQ's full of slip'n'slides and laser tag... Tips to silver falls to explore nature- remodeling rooms at the church for the kids- and learning to be real with a new friend... It's been a fun couple months... And I still have a lock-in and a trip to the aquarium to finish off the summer! Oh, and did I mention that was all in my "part-time" employee status....

Well- working hard for the kingdom doesn't go unnoticed. Last week I met with the head of HR at the church and she offered me a full time job (effective the day before our meeting!!) so I jumped right in to actually getting paid for the work I was doing... It's a good feeling to be rewRded for doing work for the Lord... I'm now making twice as much money as I've ever made and I get to do what I lOve... Share the love of God with others. It's pretty cool. My heart still longs to be overseas working with older students - but it's pretty obvious that this is where the lord has me- and I'm learning a ton through the process...

Though it all seems happy right now, things have actually been pretty Roth lately on the spiritual and emotional level. I'm doing awesome things for the Lord and Satan hates it. So he's been attacking me every chance he gets. And I yacht been alone. My closest friend here is town has been feeling the full force of it as well - so, we've been learning to fight hard and rely on one smothers prayers and the power of the holy spirit... It's been good. Hard, but good.