Heading out

I'm leaving town for the weekend, and I don't think I'm taking my laptop with me, so it'll probably be quiet around here for a few days.

Jason Upton is playing a conference in Red Deer. I've been looking forward to this all year. A whole group of us, staying at the home of some dear friends in Gull Lake, hanging out, praying and worshiping together.

I'm taking one of my youth kids along with me. Pray for us, would you please? This is a girl with some pretty big stuff going on in her life right now. Scary stuff. Hard stuff. Good stuff too. I arranged to just have her in my car on the way up. Two hours to just catch up, debrief the week a little before going into the weekend.

Pray for me, too. I tend to neglect myself in order to care for others, and the young woman I'm taking with me needs a lot of care right now. I'm really asking Jesus for the wisdom to know when to step back and allow myself to be ministered to, to receive, to go to the deep places.

I'm getting my nose pierced this afternoon. Meeting Kari in Red Deer, and the three of us (her, me, and my youth girl) are going together to the piercing place. I'm a huge fan of the whole "marker stone" concept. I like really physical things that remind me of the important God moments in my life. My bedroom is full of things like that - artwork, photos, stones, candles, and so on. I want to mark the healing that Jesus gave me two years ago with a physical reminder on my body - so I'm piercing my nose. I want to be reminded every time I look in the mirror of the work of healing and redemption that Jesus has worked in my life.

My baby brother is having surgery at this moment, and he's heavily on my mind and in my prayers. They're trying to correct a problem that has prevented him from playing his guitar for the last year. Pray for him, too, if you think of it. I'll call home from Red Deer tonight to find out how things went.

I picked up my rental car a little while ago. Red. Mazda 6. Managed to figure out how to adjust the seat up - when I first got in I thought I was going to have to sit on a pillow to do the driving today - I couldn't see over the steering wheel properly! (the many disadvantages of being 5 foot 2!)

Need to finish packing, and head out to do some errands before I pick up my youth girl and head out for the weekend!

See you Sunday or Monday!

Recurring Dream

I’ve had the same or at least very similar dreams three nights in a row now… Nothing cohesive, just flashes of images…

I dream that I’m lying in bed, in the darkness of the night, but for some reason I can see the wall right beside my head. I sleep in a loft bed, so I’m only about 2 feet from the ceiling, and I see the top 18 inches or so of the wall, and when I wake up in my bed in the dream, and look up at the wall, it is crawling with spiders – all kinds of shapes and sizes… some of the obviously poisonous tropical varieties.

There are flashes of faces… I don’t remember whose, but the impression is that they are people I know well…

I keep thinking the words “youth ministry” when I think back on the dream…

The strongest image is the spiders, followed by the words, and then the faces…

Don’t really know if I think this dream means anything… but it’s been bugging me this morning, so I thought I’d jot it down… plus, any time I dream the same thing multiple nights in a row, I begin to wonder if I need to pay attention...

You can imagine how pleasant it is to dream that you’re lying awake in bed, and that the walls are crawling with spiders…

Thoughts? Is this one just bad pizza, or do I need to pay attention?

Quieting

This has been an interesting couple of days.

I feel like I'm quieting myself tonight. My roommate is out with a friend, and I'm enjoying the empty house. I cooked myself a great dinner and have leftovers for lunch tomorrow and probably one more meal after that. Roasted baby potatoes, baked italian seasoned chicken, and asparagus spears.

There have been lots of things that have come up with my youth girls this week, and I feel like they're weighing a bit heavily on my mind and heart right now. Lots of big issues, plus all the smaller everyday ones that come with being a teenager.

I think I'll take time later to lay in a hot bath and just breathe.

Then time to curl up in my chair, with candles and incense. Time to pray and lift those girls in front of the father. Time to remind myself about what I talked about with the girls in Sunday school this morning - living with open hands in front of Jesus. Time to prepare my heart for a week that I think may be a bit intense, and to begin to look forward to a gathering of praying people that I'm privileged to be a part of next weekend. Time to slow down. I feel like I need that tonight.

I'm quieting my soul right now. Slowing down before I have to speed back up. I'm feeling reflective, maybe a bit melancholy, but peaceful.

Looking Backwards...

In May I put up this post. I asked you all to pray, because I was going to step way outside of my comfort zone and speak at a youth retreat. To be honest, I never wanted to speak. I campaigned to bring in a friend of mine to do the speaking, but the guy I was working with for the youth at that time insisted that the two of us do the speaking.

As I prepared to speak, I felt God prompting me to share with the kids that I had suffered for so many years from depression, had been suicidal, and then encountered the powerful healing of Christ. I didn't know why I needed to say those things at the time. They opened up a couple of conversations (I wrote about that here), but didn't seem to make sense. It was a weird context to talk about it in. Most of these kids I'd known their whole lives, and they would have had no idea that I'd been experiencing those things.

I got a little glimpse this week of why I shared those things all those months ago. I sat and had coffee with a young friend, and because I'd said those things all those months ago, she opened her life to me, and gave me a glimpse of the pain underneath the smooth exterior. I feel privileged that she felt safe enough to share with me.

Pray for me as I begin to walk alongside her. Pray for her as she wades through some deep and painful things this next while.

It helps to understand, now, why I spoke those things all those months ago. I needed that tiny glimpse of the bigger picture this week.

Good Intentions

I had really great intentions of getting some much thought about pieces of writing accomplished today, but they were waylaid with people stuff.

I had coffee with one of my youth girls this morning. She leaves bright and early tomorrow morning for Germany to go to Bible school for the next year. It was great to have a chance to hear her heart and pray for her as she goes.

While I was still with her, another friend, with whom I've been trying to reconnect for several months called me and wanted to know if I was free today. I immediately accepted the invitation and we spent the afternoon doing some errands together and catching up on everything that's happened in each other's lives in the year since we were last together at her wedding. So special, and we parted with promises to see each other much more frequently in the coming year. She's also fluent in Spanish, and has promised to email me a translation of the Lord's prayer. I learned to pray the Lord's prayer in Spanish in high school, and have done so often in the intervening years, but somewhere along the way lost my printed copy of it, and forgot the last half of the prayer. I'm rather delighted to know that the remainder of the prayer will be arriving in my inbox shortly!

I need to go prep for Sunday school tomorrow morning, so that's it for tonight. Tomorrow I'm hoping to accomplish the writing and other things that didn't get done today.

I'm dreaming of really fun and deep and beautiful things these days. I feel like life has been reawakened in me in the last couple weeks. Someday soon I'll share those things!

The Promised Update

I appreciate your prayers over the course of the weekend, and I’ve been wondering how to find the right words to describe the goings on…

We arrived safely in Canmore, on schedule, checked in to the hostel, cooked dinner, and then gathered for our evening. The teaching (the bit I was most nervous about) went quite well, though the format was slightly different from what I pictured in my head, and I was thus less able to follow my well laid out notes, and was somewhat more scattered. To be honest, I have no particular idea if the things we talked about that evening hit home in any of the kids, but I pray that they were challenged and encouraged by some of the things that were spoken.

I did, however, choose to share a bit personally from my own journey as I spoke about the silence of God. I spoke with a great deal of frankness about the five years that I suffered from depression, telling these young people about how frustrated I found myself with the silence of God in that time of my life, and about the frank prayers I spent so many hours repeating in those years, asking to simply be allowed to die, for life seemed completely hopeless and without meaning. I wasn’t sure how this would go over, what the shock level would be, and I was quite carefully watching certain faces as I spoke about this time in my life. I have known some of these young people since they were toddlers, and knew that none of them would have been aware of this season in my life, as it was something I very carefully worked to conceal from the church and world at large during the time I was going through it, thanks to the stigma attached to things like depression, and the corresponding frustration and anger with God. The shock I knew I would see was quite evident on certain faces!

I did not get much sleep that night (though that will surprise few of you who know me well!), but felt very much at peace as I laid on a top bunk and surveyed the young women sleeping all around me in the room. I spent much time praying for them, and simply listening for the voice of God as I lay awake through a big chunk of the night.

Saturday was filled with hiking, and a little bit of wandering around Canmore. We paused a couple of times on the hike, asking the kids to reflect on various topics, and on where they see God at work.

What was perhaps most exciting for me was a number of conversations I was able to have over the course of the weekend. Two of the girls rode in my car on the way up and the way home (though they slept most of the way home) and we were able to chat about a wide range of topics, and speak fairly openly about a number of things.

While hiking down the mountain on Saturday, one of the guys approached me. This is one of the guys I’ve known since he was probably about three years old (he’s eighteen now) and one whose face had reflected shock as I spoke so openly the night before. For most of the way down, I answered his questions about that time in my life, and began to tell the story of the grace and healing from God that I encountered so powerfully. We didn’t manage to finish the conversation, but the option is there for the future, and I find that encouraging indeed.

I am rapidly discovering that perhaps the most powerful thing God has given me to speak is my own story of depression and healing. I am rapidly discovering that things such as mental illness are still much concealed in Christian circles, though very, very common. Every time I am given the freedom to share this part of my life it opens the door for unique and beautiful conversations. I am asking God to continue to allow me to share how overwhelmed I am at the grace he has poured out on my life in this manner with as many people as he would have me tell.

So, that’s the update…

There are other things to tell, things about the course of the weekend that don’t pertain directly to the youth retreat… let’s just say that I had a rather difficult and exhausting day yesterday… I’ll unfold those things over the next days and weeks as I begin to process them and come to terms with them.

Home, Update to Follow!

I made it home in one piece. Only three or so hours of sleep (youth retreat, in a hostel, yeah baby! especially when you already have a hard time sleeping). I promise a much more detailed account sometime in the next day or two... Thanks for praying!

Prayer Request Email

I sent out the following email to a number of friends who have supported me in prayer over the years tonight, but thought I'd put it here for all of you as well. I really would appreciate your prayers over the course of the weekend.

Hi All!
I haven’t talked to some of you in a while, and some of you I talk to all of the time, but you’re all friends, and I wanted to send out a quick update on what I’ve been up to lately, and to ask you to pray for an event I have going on this weekend.

I think a lot of you know that a number of months ago I very carefully and prayerfully made a decision to return to the church I grew up in for a season of time, and got involved in working with the youth group there. I can honestly say that this has been one of the most difficult, challenging and occasionally satisfying seasons of my life. As I’ve gotten to know these young people, God has given me a great heart for them, and to see them grow deeper in relationship with them.

So here’s where the prayer request comes in. This weekend we are taking them away on a retreat. Just a short, overnight Friday, back late afternoon on Saturday kind of thing, but I’d love it if you’d pray for us. You can pray specifically for me on Friday night, as I will be doing half of the teaching portion of the evening, talking about ways God speaks and how we can learn to hear his voice. This is a rather intimidating setting for me to broach this subject, as the church I grew up in is not particularly open to things of the Spirit. However, I strongly feel God’s leading as I have studied and prepared over the last couple of weeks, and am excited (and very nervous) to be presented with this opportunity. I believe that the Spirit has helped me put words around the things I want to communicate, and I am especially excited to talk about the times when God is silent, not speaking, since I know that a number of these students (and particularly some of the girls that I have been getting to know these last months) struggle with this at times. I am praying that God will give me complete freedom to speak what he’s laid on my heart for these young people, without worrying about whether or not this is exactly how the church I’m involved in would say it. I’m also asking God to give me many opportunities over the course of Saturday as we take the kids hiking and wander around the town we’re going to to have individual conversations with these young people and challenge and encourage them to continue pursuing the deep things of God. Pray specifically that any cliquishness that exists will be overcome, and that the group will really come together. As we’re hiking on Saturday, we’re going to pause a number of times along the way and invite the kids to journal (none of you should be particularly surprised that I get to give them a five minute introduction to why journaling is a useful spiritual tool) and begin to notice what God is saying or doing in the context of creation, their friends and families, and in their own lives.

For those of you who like specific details, we’re holding the retreat at a hostel in Canmore, Alberta. This is the most affordable solution we could come up with, and we were able to book a private meeting room on site for our gathering on Friday night. This will also allow us to cook together, and hang out in a relaxed setting. We think our teaching time will probably start around 9:30 p.m. or so, and I am teaching the second half, so probably starting around 10. Saturday we’re hiking in the morning, then wandering around town in the afternoon, returning to Calgary by around supper time.

Thank you all for your friendship and prayers. It’s greatly appreciated! I’ll be posting an update on how the weekend went on my blog at http://ofalltheliars.blogspot.com sometime after Saturday night (probably Sunday or Monday) if you’d like to find out how things go.

Blessings,

Lisa

Youth retreat, moving out, and so on...

Okay, so I’ve caved and made a cup of tea. I’m freezing. For some reason I can’t seem to regulate the thermostat in my work area to a comfortable temperature. The rest of the building is fairly warm, but I’m cold (and I’m even wearing long sleeves today!) Oh well, tea it is… I was trying to not drink hot drinks in the mornings, in deference to the fact that it seems spring has finally arrived, and the weather has warmed, trying to stick to water and iced teas, but today, I’ve caved, and made a cup of hot tea.

And, while I was in the kitchen, someone gave me a couple of shortbread cookies to go with my tea that were extra food from what they’d brought in for a meeting. Fantastic!

I wrote the second half of my talk for the weekend last night. This part covered “God in the Silence,” and flowed much more easily than the first part. I think it quite nicely covers the points I’m hoping to draw the kid’s attention to. However, I still can’t figure out how to wrap the first part up and make some points. I’ve had no trouble figuring out how I want to tell the story of Elijah on Mt. Carmel, highlighting certain parts, but can’t figure out exactly how to turn from that story to a bit more practical application. So, my evening tonight will have to be devoted to packing, reviewing what I want to say, and figuring out how to wrap this up into a cohesive package… and I might preach it to myself in my bedroom, just to make sure that I’m around the right amount of time for what we’ve allotted for each section. Maybe no one will be at home tonight to hear my weird behavior!

If you have any big ideas, let me know!

Other than that, life moves right along. It’s beginning to look very possible that if I curtail my spending by a chunk (no more impulse purchases I guess!) I’ll be able to afford to move out in July (providing the roommate situation works out) and that I’ll also be able to add to my independence by buying a car. YAY! It might actually be better for building friendships anyway – lots of eating in, hanging out watching movies, instead of eating out (which I really do LOVE) and then just going our separate ways because we don’t know what to do next, or don’t have a place that works for inviting people over. Megs and I were talking about that last night – how we’re both looking forward to living in places where we feel comfortable inviting friends over, instead of in places where you have to wonder what your parents or in her case aunt and uncle, are doing, and whether you’re infringing on their plans. We’re looking forward to living in places where we don’t have to hole up in our bedrooms if we want to have a friend over and talk about personal stuff, but can have nice, open conversations on the couch in our living rooms. Whoo hoo! (And by the way, if I end up moving out, I’m accepting donations of furniture – so I have the aforementioned couch on which to have a conversation!)

Alright. I’m going back to work now. Not that I have all that much to do, just that I don’t particularly have anything further to say here right now.

If I don’t post tomorrow, please remember to pray for me this weekend. My great desire is that the words that come out of my mouth as I speak tomorrow night would be ordained by God, and directed by His Spirit to be the very words necessary for this group of young people to hear. Pray that I would feel free to be who I am, and not worry about what people will think.

Practical Application?

Okay, so I'm trying to figure out the practical implications of "God speaks in a big event" from the story of Elijah at Mt. Carmel to communicate to a bunch of teenagers on Friday night. That or some sort of personal story to make it more relatable (which is SO NOT a word, but hey, it's my blog, and I can use it if I want!) to their lives. I've got some ideas, but nothing is sparking in that "that's it" manner yet... so if you have ideas... let me know!

A Week in a Glance

"Personally I am always ready to learn, but I do not always like being taught." - Winston Churchill
I got this quote in an email this morning, and related a little. I feel like I’m living in that place a bit right now. Liking to learn, but not liking the process of being taught. Plus, I’ve always liked Winston Churchill – how geeky of a history major admission is that for first thing on a Monday morning?

So, here’s how my week looks:

Work: slow as has become the norm lately. Lots of surreptitious checking of email and facebook. Lots of writing blog posts in word to sneakily post by copying and pasting, thus minimizing the time that blogger is open on my computer. Getting really excited when there’s more than the usual amount of mail on a given day, because it means it might fill up a whole hour instead of only half an hour. Lots of tea drinking.

Youth: have to come up with something to say for half an hour on Friday night. What exactly was I thinking when I agreed to speak? Also, realizing that I hated this sort of retreat as a teenager, and I’m not looking forward to it all that much more as a grown-up person. I also need to attend the production of “The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe” at a local high school on either Tuesday, Wednesday or Thursday (anyone want to go with me?) because one of my youth girls is starring as the White Witch, and another marginally connected youth girl is playing Mrs. Beaver.

Home: laundry. Change the sheets on my bed. At least five hours of studying (have to do something to figure out what I’m going to say for half an hour on Friday night). Little bit of cleaning. Trying to find a gift for mother’s day. Pick up the shoes I took in to have repaired on the weekend. Take some things I don’t need anymore to the local thrift shop for resale. A quick trip to the library. Pack for the youth trip. Revisit my budget and begin planning for moving out and car buying.

Friends: Lunch with Faye today. Lunch with Crystal either Thursday or Friday. Need to call Megs to find out when we’re getting together this week. Need to mail a card to another friend. Write a nice long newsy email to a friend I haven’t had time to catch up with since last fall. Find out when another friend leaves Calgary to go back to Thailand, and arrange to get together with her and my brother T. before she leaves.

This is a snapshot type version of the “To Do” list that I have begun to create as a way of organizing my week. It worked really well last week, so I’ve decided to try it again. There are a few left-overs from last week’s list that have spilled onto this week’s, but for the most part, I accomplished everything that was really important on the list, and am hoping that this will continue to be a successful way to bring some semblance of planning and order to my week. (It also helps me to have a big-picture list that lets me see everything for the week in one shot, and plan accordingly.)

I hope you all have a fantastic week!

Quick Reading Update

I finished Pete Greig's book, "God on Mute" this afternoon, and added it to my list of non-fiction reading on my sidebar. I'll probably write more about this eventually, particularly as I refer back to some of what Pete had to say as I prepare to teach my youth about the silence of God next weekend at our retreat, but for the moment, let me just say that overall I enjoyed this book that was so highly recommended to me by friends, and that I found what it had to say generally helpful, challenging and encouraging.

Rainy Friday Morning, but the weekend is coming!

Well, we set a rainfall record here in Calgary yesterday, almost doubling the record that had held since 1969.

However, even despite the onslaught of spring allergy season, I could smell the freshness in the air this morning as I walked to the train, and the weather forecast calls for sun to return to us tomorrow, with nice seasonally warm weather by the beginning of next week.

I’ve joined the world of Facebook, and am finding it equally as addicting as I was warned it could be. I’ve reconnected with a whole bunch of friends that I’ve valued and had lost touch with over the last couple of years. You can find me under “Lisa Pippus” if you’re interested in looking me up there.

There is a very strong possibility that I have located a room-mate, and could be out of my parents house by the beginning of July. Those of you who know me really well will know how significant this is to me on a spiritual, emotional, and just general mental sanity level! I’m excited that it could happen so quickly, and can’t wait to see what comes next, since I also intend to buy a car in July. Hello independence!

One of my friend’s is trying to design a tattoo for me. I’ve always loved the stuff she paints. I gave her a detailed description of what I wanted it to symbolize, and she’s working on drawing it. She goes to Australia in a week or two, and is asking God for the design for her own next tattoo while she’s there, and maybe for one for me as well. I told her that if I was going to get a design out of it, I’d be more than happy to pray that with her too. She wants to fly to Winnipeg, to get the tattoo done by another artist she really respects, and, since she’s a flight attendant, if she comes up with a design for me, I can probably tag along pretty cheaply and get mine done too. How random is that? Fly to Winnipeg to get a tattoo!

I’m looking forward to tonight and tomorrow… hanging out at home (and doing some errands). My parents are out of town, and so is my youngest brother, and the other brother is almost always out and about on the weekends, so I should have lots of time to just enjoy being on my own. Very refreshing when the whole family dynamics thing isn’t something I have to worry about, and I have to admit to loving doing errands and stuff like that on my own. Maybe I’ll rent a movie, or maybe I’ll just watch TV and hang out. I’ll do some studying (two hours left to meet the goal for this week), and some reading, and probably some prep for the youth retreat next week.

Fear, a Youth Retreat, and Crepes for Dinner

I’m having a weird sort of day so far.

I’m sitting at my desk drinking mango rooibos tea, and eating smarties. (I eat them by color – is that slightly obsessive compulsive of me? And, before you ask, no I don’t “eat the red ones last.” I eat whatever I deem to be the “prettiest color” last – today that’s probably the blue ones. I eat them in order of color ugliness. Okay, yeah, that’s a little strange once you write it down.)

We had our planning meeting last night for the youth retreat we’re holding next weekend, and picked a topic. We’re going with a general theme of “How can we be more aware of God in our daily lives?” So, on the Friday evening we’re going to do some teaching around the theme of “How does God speak?” The pastor I work with will do the intro, and set the context of the scripture passage we’re using, and then will do “God speaks in a whisper”. After that, we take a short break, and then I’m doing “God speaks in a scream/big event” and “God speaks in silence/When God is silent”. The following day, we’re taking the kids hiking for 3 or 4 hours in the mountains near the town where we’re staying. Over the course of the hike and the rest of the day, we’ll stop three times for reflection, moving inwards, applying some of what we’ll have talked about the night before. We’ll ask them to do some journaling, and then to share a bit with the group. So we’ll start with “God in creation”, then “God in my family and friends” and finally “God in me”. My only teaching responsibility on the Saturday will be to intro the journaling portion at the beginning of the hike, explaining why journaling can be important or significant, and that it doesn’t necessarily encompass only writing sentences, could be drawing, or whatever.

I was really excited about this topic all through the meeting. I felt confident that God was leading us, and I was excited about the topics I’m going to be teaching on. However, almost as soon as the pastor I’m working with left my house, the fear and anxiety set in. The sudden “Oh my goodness, what have I agreed to do sort of feeling.”

I slept really poorly last night.

I woke up this morning with a pall of fear hanging over me. I don’t understand how I can at some moments walk in such spiritual freedom, and at others become so overcome by fear. Fear has always been a huge issue in my life, and has at times kept me from doing and becoming who I really want and feel called to be. To be honest, I think there is also some generational stuff involved in the fear over my life, and I’m not quite sure what to do about that either. Anyway, I’m really struggling with it this morning. I feel this fear and almost depression hanging over my head. It feels almost ridiculous to be struggling with this. Those verses people have quoted at me for so many years play through my head, “God did not give us a spirit of fear…” And I can’t help but wonder what sort of help people think it is to quote a verse in this manner. I always wanted to scream, “you think I don’t know that? And yet, I’m still afraid. So great, we’ve identified that God is NOT behind my fear, which means that Satan probably is. I’m still afraid, what are we going to DO about it?” I was always too nice to actually say that, but now, today, I’m in that “What do I do about it?” place. I’m thinking I need to arrange a time to hang out with some praying friends, and pray through some of the reasons that this keeps appearing so very strongly in my life.

However, besides the meeting (which was great until it ended and I realized what I’d agreed to) I had a great evening last night. At lunch with a friend yesterday, I discovered that another friend was in town for a few days, and was possibly free last evening. When I got back to work, I gave her a call, and we ended up meeting for dinner in Kensington. We stumbled into this tiny little basement hole in the wall restaurant, with funky decorations, that serves crepes. Seventy plus varieties of crepes. SO GOOD. I had this fantastic concoction filled with whipped cream, mango, and apple, and drizzled with a mango sauce. To die for. I’ll definitely be going back there.

Hanging out with Rae for the evening was a god thing. There’s been some family stuff going on in my life for the last year, and it intensified greatly over the weekend. To be away from home and miss the intense family dinner hour was very much a gift from God at a moment when I needed it. Plus, Rae is one of those friends with whom there is little point making small talk. We don’t see each other often enough for that, and quite quickly get to the heart of what God is doing in each of our lives. It was great to be able to have that conversation, to empathize with each other, to be grumpy in that not really grumpy sort of way at the ridiculous, painful, and yet beautiful ways God has been showing up in our lives lately. To really be genuine. I miss that – not too many friends living in Calgary anymore that I share that with.

This is a REALLY long sort of post. The trouble is, I’ve got nothing but time on my hands at work these days. So I sit and journal in my word processor so that it looks as if I’m actually working, and then I stick a lot of it here on my blog for you to enjoy. There’s been a lot on my mind lately, and I’ve been writing a LOT. So, kudos to you if you made it through this post, and all of the other lengthy posts I’ve been putting up here lately!

Random Wednesday Thoughts

So, here’s some of the random stuff I’ve been thinking about today.

For the first time in a month, I looked forward to coming to work this morning. The reason? My job has been incredibly slow for the last month. Other than answering the phones, I’ve had almost nothing to do. So why is today exciting? Because all of our managers are at all-day meetings offsite today. No pretending I have stuff to do, no looking over my shoulder, and surreptisiously checking my email or reading blogs. I can just relax and actually “do nothing.” And thus far, it’s been GREAT!

There is a noticeable difference in the atmosphere of the homes of people who are committed to prayer. I have two different couples who I am priviledged to call friends who are deeply committed to a lifestyle of prayer. I have noticed this atmosphere and peace in both of their homes. Particularly, I notice it at night. As you all know, I don’t sleep very well, and when I’m at home and startle awake, there is a certain level of stress, anxiety, even fear attached to it. In the nights I’ve spent in these people’s homes, when I’ve come awake, I’ve been struck by the noticeable calm, the peace that even envelops my restlessness. I’ve been thinking about this the last few days because I had the experience again on Friday night at Kirk and Darlene’s house, and it always surprises me when I’m awake in the middle of the night without the stress, anxiety and fear.

I had lunch with a friend today, and found out that another very good friend is in town this week on call for her job. We have tentative plans to get together after work tonight, as long as she doesn’t get called out to work in the next few hours.

I have the (much anticipated, possibly dreaded) planning meeting for our youth retreat later on this evening.

Getting together with my friend tonight is actually a bonus, because it gets me out of really uncomfortable “family dinners” for the first of two days in a row.

I’m beginning to price out apartments. There is a possibility of a roommate on the horizon in June, but even if it doesn’t pan out, I’m strategizing to figure out what I could possibly afford on my own. So, time will tell. All I know is that it’s more than time to create space outside of my parent’s home for a while.

Convicted to Study

I’m becoming increasingly convinced that I need to carve dedicated time out of my daily schedule for study. While I have found it very helpful and encouraging over the years to spend 10 or 15 minutes devotionally reading scripture before going to bed at night, and have no intention of changing that habit, in the last while I have become convinced that I need to spend far more time working my way through the word of God.

It has become clear to me that to continue to walk into the things God is calling me to, I must devote greater time to study, to seeking him in his word, and in the works of other believers through the centuries, to prayer and meditation.

I am particularly convicted that in order to continue building relationship with the young people that I work with at church, to continue inviting them into deeper things of the Spirit, I must cultivate those deeper things in my own life, via my relationship with Christ, and with time spent in study and contemplation.

Especially in these next few weeks, I am feeling the pull to study. We are holding our first ever church youth retreat on the weekend of May 11th and 12th, and while I don’t yet know if I will be doing some of the teaching, I feel very convicted of the need to prepare myself for that time. I am sensing that it could be a quite significant time in the formation of our group of young people, and I want to spend the time over the next two weeks listening to the Spirit of God, and preparing my own heart in order to be available as the Spirit leads over the course of that weekend. I think I may fast for a few days leading up to the retreat, and possibly over the course of the time away as well.

All of this seems foreign to me. Not so very long ago I would have described a dedicated amount of study time, and fasting as a very legalistic method designed to try and manipulate God into providing what I want. And yet, I am suddenly pulled by the Spirit to do these things.

So, what this amounts to in my life is a determination to set aside a minimum of an hour for study and prayer, at least five times over the course of this week, and five times over the course of the next week. If this means I need to change some of my daily scheduled activities, or curtail some social activities for a few weeks, I’m okay with that. If it means that I have to get out of bed earlier, or stay up a bit later and sacrifice sleep, I’m okay with that, too. Pray for me as I work to prepare my heart for the time away with our youth. Pray for me as I meet with the pastor I work with tomorrow night to determine the topic and details of the weekend, and to make the decisions surrounding which of us (or both of us) will be doing the teaching.

Catching Up

Okay, where to start? It’s been a while since I did an actual update here instead of directing you to things worth reading, or sharing stuff others had written… My head is feeling clogged, full-to-bursting and I need to write some of it down. (I blog because it’s therapeutic for me… helps me to process and release stuff if I simply write it somewhere, add it to the general consciousness instead of bearing the weight in my head, alone.)

Last night before I went to sleep, I did a writing exercise that Rob Bell describes in the footnotes of his new book “Sex God”. I’ve also heard Rob preach about this exercise. (For those who are wondering, I haven’t read “Sex God” yet, though some of my youth did read it about a week ago, and recommended it. I was flipping through the footnotes looking for a reference to something else, and came across the exercise that I’d heard Rob preach, and was delighted to find it in a more organized format.) To be honest, I did the exercise in the hopes that by unloading some of the stuff I was thinking about, I’d be able to sleep a bit better. It helped a little. Not a lot. If you’re ever awake at 3:30 a.m. and wondering if you’re the only one in the world, take comfort. I’m usually awake at that time for a while.

Megs and I took advantage of the fact that the weather is finally catching on to the fact that spring has arrived, and, after a quick errand at the Asian market to buy supplies for a Thai meal that I’m cooking with a friend, for some other friends this weekend (speaking of the Asian market, we’re also looking for an East Indian market – does anyone know of something like this in Calgary?), we headed to Peter’s for hamburgers and fries. (For those of you who don’t know Calgary, Peter’s is legendary – drive in or walk up only, and great ginormous portions of food.) We quite thoroughly enjoyed sitting outside as we ate.

After dinner, we headed out to see a movie… “In the Land of Women”. Not hugely profound, but funny, and at times deep. We mutually agreed that it was a worth the money.

I’m headed out of town for a day and a half this weekend, taking one of my youth girls with me, to visit some other friends. I’m looking forward to the time, but also feeling some tension because of some stuff in my youth girls’ life lately, stuff that we probably need to talk about. I’m having a hard time figuring out the balance between friend, and advisor/leader in this particular relationship, and figuring out when to say the hard stuff and trust that there is relationship there that will support what may need to be said.

I’m thinking about an upcoming youth retreat that we’re holding, part-way through May. I think I’d maybe like to do some of the teaching, depending on what topic we decide to focus on, but the idea makes me nervous, particularly since the youth pastor I’m working with is long accomplished at teaching, and my own style would be very different from his. It’s been a long time since I did any extended teaching on my own. I’ve taught Sunday school several times for this same group of youth in the last while, and sometimes it seems to go well, sometimes it doesn’t. I’m struggling with the fact that I see life and relationship with God quite differently in a lot of ways from the church that I am involved with, and while I want to introduce our youth to a deeper relationship with God, through the work of the Spirit, I still feel tentative at best in figuring that out in my own life, and am not at all sure how to begin to communicate some of these things to the teenagers that I am involved with. Pray for us the next week or two as we meet to hash out a theme for the weekend, and as I listen for the spirit and seek to discern whether this is my time to open up and teach and share my journey with these young people.

I’m still waiting to figure out what comes next in my life. My tax return should be coming through in the next few weeks. It’ll get stuck quite nicely in a bank account, and hopefully in late June or early July I’ll be buying a car. That feels like a step in the right direction, towards independence. I’ve committed (at least to myself) to stay at my current job at least until I’ve been there a year. That happens September 12th. I have concert tickets for September 18th, so I’ll at least be in Calgary until then. From there, who knows? I’d like to either do an internship somewhere, or maybe travel for a couple of months over the course of the next year – maybe go see Megs once she settles back into Pakistan, maybe some time in Europe, who knows?

Oh, and I added another book to my reading list. I finished Anne Lamott’s new book over the weekend. I have to say that I was somewhat disappointed in this one. Though the title alludes to the book being “thoughts on faith,” I found this to be her most political, least “spiritual” book so far, and felt after a while like I was being preached at, and it began to grate on me. I still enjoyed her thoughts, she still made me laugh, and even made me think, but this time it was, as I say, more grating. More of a “you need to see the world my way, or you’re wrong” sort of attitude.

Okay, with all of that off my chest, I’m going back to doing other things. Work remains slow, giving me the time necessary to write a long post like this…

Long Day

I walked in the door half an hour ago. I've been on the go since 9:30 this morning. First getting ready to attend a wedding, then meeting a friend for lunch, then the wedding ceremony, then meeting one of my youth girls at an Asian market to buy ingredients, then cooking Thai food with ten youth girls as our first girls hang out night, in place of the Bible study that wasn't working out so well, then driving one of the girls to her friend's place for the night, on the other side of the city.

I'm exhausted. It's been a long week emotionally, relationally, and spiritually. I could use a vacation just at the moment, but in less than 12 hours I teach Sunday school. A chapter in the book we're studying that says it's about temptation, but is really about spiritual warfare. Talk about a subject that not only hits close to home lately, but one that I feel completely ill-equipped to discuss. Particularly in this setting. I grew up in the church I'm teaching in, and have only recently returned after attending elsewhere for 3 years or so. I honestly thought that spiritual warfare didn't really happen in the "developed world." I figured it was something you encountered in Thailand, or Africa, definitely not here. I'm wondering how many of the kids I'm teaching have the same sort of concept in their head.

Pray for me. I feel ill-prepared, not ready yet to face this topic, not even particularly motivated to teach. In fact, if I wasn't teaching tomorrow, I'd probably stay at home in bed, and catch up on some much needed rest. Pray that I meet Jesus as I pray and finish preparing in the morning, and as we have the worship service before I teach. Pray that every word that comes out of my mouth will be guided by him, and clear and simple, straight to the heart of the subject, and the heart of the hearers. Pray for me, because I don't think like a teacher - I don't naturally think in a way that engages learning in others, I naturally think like a preacher - I develop a thought fully, rather than pushing them to develop it on their own, and it's hard to engage a group of teenagers and young adults by preaching at them. Pray that they will be opening to broadening their conception of God by engaging this topic.

With that, I'm off to read, and slow my brain down for a little while, and then to sleep.

Good Friday

Today started early. I couldn't seem to sleep, so I watched a bit of a movie on my laptop in bed for an hour or two.

The Tenebrae service was fantastic. Next time I'd really like to be in the congregation, instead of a participant, as you get a bit more of the full visual impact. I couldn't see some parts as well as I would have liked from where I was sitting as a reader. I was delighted that a few friends joined us for the morning (I hope you enjoyed the service, guys!).

I spent the afternoon at Elbow Falls, near Bragg Creek, with one of my youth girls, my brother, and one of his friends. It's become something of a tradition for me, over the last several years, to try and get away from the city, and out into the mountains for a period of time on Good Friday. I find it refreshing. And it's always fun to share it with friends! Today was a bonus - because of the cold (very unspringlike and un-easterlike if I do say so myself) weather, there were very few people at the falls, which meant we could roam a bit and laugh and chat and generally be a bit less considerate than we would have needed to be for a bit more crowded touristy type day!

My mom and I baked hot-crossed buns after dinner tonight. (Actually, I think they're still finishing rising, and then we'll bake them!) I wonder if this is a distinctly Canadian thing, hot-crossed buns for Easter? Anyhow, my grandma has a fantastic recipe, which we followed, and I quite happily expect to be eating a lovely, warm bun, within the next hour or so, with a bit of butter melted onto it to make it extra fantastic!

A long bubble-bath (chamomile and lavender) rounded out my evening quite nicely. I'm working my way through Pete Greig's "God on Mute" (a more full review once I've finished reading) and enjoyed laying in the bubbles and reading.

I'm thinking of heading to China Town for a while tomorrow... anyone interested in tagging along? I have a craving for these fantastic buns with barbequed pork baked into the centre of the them. I want to pick up a couple dozen, so I can freeze them and have them for lunches at work over the next while... We'll see. If the weather stays cold, I probably won't want to wander around downtown Calgary on foot.

And with that, may you go in the remembrance of the cross. May you be caught anew by the suffering of Christ, by the magnitude of the bloody significance of this day.

In the tension

I am thinking a lot, lately, about living in the tension between two realities, about being willing to exist in that space, instead of fighting against it in both directions.

I went to the seminar yesterday, and quite enjoyed myself. There was one really awkward moment, as I was walking with the lady who was teaching it, and a bunch of others along a busy downtown street, to pick up some lunch. She asked which sponsoring church I was a part of. I flinched a little, inside. Then I answered very calmly that I wasn't part of any of them. I'd gone to one (and I named it for her to give her context) but I wasn't going there any more, and I said it was a bit of long story. That was it.

But here's why I started this entry by mentioning that I've been thinking about living in tension lately. That's kind of why I left the church in the first place. I was frustrated with the unwillingness, or inability of some people to live with some very clear tensions in the lives of a number of people I was involved in caring for, and in my own life. When it became clear that things weren't going to change for a while, I spent hours and hours in prayer and conversation with a wide variety of people, and left for new spaces with a great deal of peace and rest about the decision, but frustration over the unresolved tensions.

I do not like conflict. I like to solve things. I want to clear them up, and most of the time, I want it to go "my" way. I become very easily convinced of my own "rightness."

So as I was driving to the seminar yesterday, I was praying. (I pray out loud a lot as I drive, especially since I had the car accident in December. I probably look a little like the crazy people I would laugh at as teenagers, talking to themselves, alone in their cars at traffic lights, but I'm okay with that!) I was praying, talking to Jesus about how much I was dreading what I perceived as a situation likely to be very awkward, and I was getting a bit angry that I was finding myself in this situation, and as I was praying, I felt like God was reminding me that I had done everything possible from my end to create resolution in the relationships that were damaged when I left the church, and to speak the things He had laid on my heart. More than that though, I felt like he was asking me how I could expect those I was angry with to live in places of tension that they found hard, if I wasn't myself willing to live in the tension of my obedience to what I felt him speaking, and the resulting relational strains.

So, I sit here today, staring at my computer screen, with candles lit behind me, Jason Upton singing on my stereo, and I resolve again to be willing to live in the tension. To spend tomorrow's time of Lenten fasting seeking the patience necessary for that sort of living in tension. Not just this one relational tension, but the tension of knowing God is calling me out, but that he has also asked me to walk through a season of waiting. Of knowing that God has called me to youth ministry for a time, and knowing that my personality is not always suited to youth ministry. Of knowing that there will be relational tension from time to time as I seek to walk God's path for me. Of knowing that God's path for me is NOT his path for everyone.

The mystery of the kingdom - already and not yet.