When did I become that person...

...who you call when you need a definition for a word? Because my nerdy book person status wasn't cemented enough!

Seriously, I got a phone call tonight, looked at the caller ID, expected another crisis, but she was calling to find out the definition of a word. She spelled it for me, I told her how to say it, and defined it for her.

The sad thing is, my nerd status is probably deserved. When she read me the sentence that the word occurred in (I needed context to give a good definition), I guessed what book she was reading (The Bible). How pathetic is that - she gave me a three word sentence, and I knew what she was reading! Like I said, I think I deserve nerd status - but with that said, if a bunch of you start using my cell phone and me like your own personal dictionary, I WILL hang up on you!

Oh, and the word? Statutes. (she'd also read it in John Grisham novels.)

Just Thinking

I'm tired this morning, maybe a little cranky, but that seems to have been the norm for the past couple weeks. Sleep has not come easily, and one complete night, sans nightmares, that happened 27 days ago isn't cutting it. I feel a little bit like I've been bombarded by a whole range of things, especially by emotions, and they're exhausting me. The way my emotions change right now frustrates me. In one moment I can be peaceful, fulfilled, and in the next neurotic and insecure. And I feel like I have no control over these things - that I can't control my spastic emotions. And I'm questioning if I really wanted to start to feel things again anyway.

Some random thoughts for the morning, before I head to work:

• I wrestle with the ideas surrounding the reality of spiritual warfare. This concept was so absent from my knowledge of the world growing up. I've been introduced to it in the last couple years, and it has been an occasionally terrifying introduction. Most of the time it boggles my mind. I have a couple good friends who "see" spiritual realities quite easily. They pray, and God reveals it to them. And they revel in the opportunity to engage in the battle for the lives of people we know. I sit sometimes, with them, as we're praying for someone, and just think, "how can you be excited by this? This kind of reality just terrifies me, and leaves me feeling so uneasy, so unsettled." I experienced this set of emotions again last night, as we prayed for a friend. I'll be quite honest and say that I trust their discernment, but that it scares me a little to see the reality of spiritual attack etc. in the lives of people who are believers in Christ. (p.s. James or Stu, if you read this, know that some of these questions are coming your way in the very near future! As my resident I don't quite get this one and it scares me advisors!)
• I met a girl last night at church. Her mom was a pastor too. So, we're chatting, sitting in the pub after church and hanging out, and she asks me, "So, did you like being a pastor's kid?" And I stalled, which should tell you a lot. "Did you?" I asked. When she said no, I was so relieved. I gotta tell you, I hated it most of the time. I would never ask my dad to be anything but what God has called him to be, but it didn't have a very good effect on my life, and it scares me to think of God calling me into ministry - I don't want that lifestyle for my own children, but don't quite know that I could protect them from it. Anyway, this girl and I had a great chat, trading a few "war stories" - we both had quite a few. I really enjoyed meeting her. Mmm... was so good.
• I'm frustrated with being sick. I've been sick off and on since the beginning of October, when we started renovations on our house. And I'm tired of feeling kind of rotten all the time. This stupid cold - I'm not sick enough to miss school or work anymore, but just sick enough to feel kind of miserable and exhausted and cranky while I go to work and school. Not exactly the way to foster attention to my lectures, or to foster a positive attitude towards my job, coworkers and clients.
• I feel a bit like God is getting farther away again, and I'm battling the typical Christian "guilt reaction." Well, I haven't been very good about reading scripture, or praying. Which is true, to some extent. But, the farther I move from that crazy night at the beginning of the month when God stepped into my life, the more the depression and exhaustion are beginning to regrip my life. And I'm still frustrated.
• I feel jealous of friends who are making progress in dealing with their stuff. Who are making strides instead of my occasional one-step-forward-two-steps-back routine. Is it okay to be jealous of the way God is working in someone else's life, when I feel like He's slowly disappearing from mine again?
• And yet, I know he's there, in the unexplainable pit of my gut type way of knowing. He has asked me to care for others in new ways these last weeks. My love of writing has been reignited, and he has given me things to write about. I see him in the friends encouraging me to press on. In the encouraging email I got from a friend who I'd been thinking about all week, but hadn't had time to contact. In the chance I had to chat with two junior high girls at my dad's church yesterday about boys, to tell them not to rush, that I was 22 and had never had a boyfriend, had never been kissed, and that was okay. In meeting a new friend and trading PK war stories. In an afternoon spent at a movie about the life of Johnny Cash. In the smiles on friends faces. In the God stories shared at church last night (even though I missed most of them). He's there, somewhere, in a misty, transitory way. And I long for the day when it won't be misty and transitory anymore.

Calling

I was thinking a bit this morning about the idea of "calling". In one month I will graduate from university, and have to begin "real life."

I have set aside the year and a half or so following the completion of my university degree to just chill. My intention is to spend time with my friends and family. To work and pay down some of my student loans. To possibly travel (Mexico and Ukraine are two of the possibilities in the new year). To get to know God more, and let Him work and bring healing in my life. To figure out where to go next.

That last one is the big one. I know that I want to pursue more schooling. My history degree won't get me much of a job I don't think. (Although I wouldn't trade one minute of the education I've received - I've loved it, and I continue to be passionate about the subject.) The trouble is, I don't know what to study.

I have a huge number of passions, and any one of them could be a career. Take writing - since God started moving in my life again, I've re-fallen in love with the written word. I plan to devote some of my year to developing my writing (for my personal enjoyment, but if I happen to publish some stuff, or make some money off of it, that would be great too.) I know that God is calling me to serve him with my life, but I'm so unclear on what that's supposed to look like. He's given me a heart for the broken and hurting - especially women and girls. I could do a master's in counselling, and would probably enjoy the work. The practical reality is that counselling would be a degree that would pay bills for me. Or I could pursue my fascination with church history, or theology, and do a master's in one of those subjects. But, the reality is that there is not a high demand for church historians, or for women with post-graduate degrees in theology. And I already have one semi-useless on a practical scale degree. I would like to be able to afford a car someday (although that is a goal for the year off too), and I would like to move from my parent's home sooner rather than later.

I am waiting here, God, for you to direct my steps. Where do I go, and what do I do? You can't just call me to serve you with my life, and leave me hanging. Guide my path, direct my mind and heart, and teach me to discern your guidance.

They're Trying to Kill Me But They'll Never Succeed

I wrote a term paper until 3:30 this morning. A sociology term paper. On the extremely mundane topic of the effects of European colonization on the First Nations peoples of Canada. Because that isn't a topic that hasn't been overdone. But it was the assigned topic, so I wrote about it - ad infinitum it seems.

I have a cold in full glory at the moment. I'm hacking and coughing, blowing my nose every ten seconds, and my voice is still rather deep and gravelly - it cracks all the time, and sometimes all I can do is whisper. Let me just say how pleasant it was to wake up to all of that after only 4 and a half hours of sleep last night. I'm a little brain dead today to say the least.

But, as I sat at my computer, and 2 am had come and gone, I kept telling myself that I have only one more term paper to write this semester (and it will be a much better topic). Then five final exams over a week and a half or so. And after that, no one can make me write about anything I don't want to write about for at least a year. Because December 20th is freedom day baby! On December 20th I write my last final exam of my undergraduate degree, and I will be done!

And let me tell you - I have some good ideas of stuff to write about once I don't have people making me write about overdone topics like how negatively colonization affected the First Nations peoples. Good stuff to come people. Good stuff to come.

Something Changed... or I Just Showed Up For My Own Life

If any of you happen to be Sara Groves fans, you'll recognize where I got the title for this post. There have been two albums that have been particularly speaking to me in the month or so since I started having some crazy God experiences. One of those albums is a new one from Sara Groves titled "Add to the Beauty." The other is the newest album from the David Crowder Band titled "A Collision."

As promised yesterday, I want to share some of the lyrics from these albums here, and explain a little why they're catching parts of my heart at the moment. Starting with: "Something Changed" off the Sara Groves album.

Something changed inside me broke wide open all spilled out
Till I had no doubt that something changed
Never would have believed it till I felt it in my own heart
In the deepest part the healing came
And I cannot make it
And I cannot fake it
And I can't afford it
But it's mine
Something so amazing in a heart so dark and dim
When the walls fall down and the light comes in
And I cannot make it
And I cannot fake it
And I can't afford it
But it's mine.

The night I sat in a car with my friend several weeks back, talking and praying for hours, when stuff happened. This is kind of what it felt like - these words from Sara Groves. I have no doubt that something in my life changed that night. I couldn't tell you what it was for the life of me, but I have this weird confidence in my gut (despite circumstances which would seem to defy it) that God is good, and that He is present, and that He is working. And I can't fake it, but it's here, and it's mine and some healing began to happen that night.

The next song is from David Crowder Band and is titled "Come Awake".
Be quiet and wait for a voice that will say...
Come awake, from sleep arise.
You were dead, become alive.
Wake up, wake up, open your eyes.
Climb from your grave into the light

I love this section of this song. I feel like this is the refrain of God's voice in my life over the last weeks. Come awake, you were dead, come alive, come from death into light. Every time I hear the song, I feel God speaking so clearly these words over my life.

The David Crowder Band has another song entitled "Rescue is Coming" that has been speaking something very similar to me. I have been hearing the idea that God is actually coming, he is present, and he will rescue my life, and that blows my mind every time. I love to lay in the dark, put these two David Crowder songs on, and let them flow over me, refreshing my heart.
"Rescue is Coming"
There's darkness in my skin.
My cover's wearing thin, I believe.
I'd love to start again, go back to innocent, and never leave.
Don't give up now.
A break in the clouds.
We could be found.
There's nothing wrong with me.
It's just that I believe things could get better.
And there's nothing wrong with love.
I think it's just enough to believe.
Rescue is coming. Rescue is coming.
Rescue is coming. Rescue is coming.
And there's nothing wrong with you and nothing left to do,
but believe in something bigger.
And there's nothing wrong with love.
I know it's just enough to believe.
Don't give up now.
A break in the clouds.
We will be found.
Rescue is coming now.

The final song honors for the day belong once again to Sara Groves. This one I'm going to comment on after each stanza, for it has a great deal of resonance with my life.

"Just Showed Up For My Own Life"
Spending my time sleep walking
Moving my mouth but not saying a thing
Hoping the changes would take by working their way from the outside in
I was in love with an idea
Preoccupied with how a life should appear
Spending my time at the surface repairing the hole in the shiny veneer

I can tell you with a great deal of honesty how closely this describes my life of the last couple years or more. I did a lot of talking, and said very little. I mostly hoped that if I hung around the right people long enough, and adapted some of what they were saying, that I would suddenly change on more than a surface level. As a pastor's kid, one of my earliest learned survival techniques was to make sure my life appeared "right". I learned early that as long as I projected the right image, few people would see past that veneer to the turmoil and ugliness that truly existed inside of me.

There are so many ways to hide

There are so many ways not to feel

There are so many ways to deny what is real

And I just showed up for my own life

And I'm standing here taking it in and it sure looks bright

I'm going to live my life inspired

Look for the holy in the common place

Open the windows and feel all that's honest and real until I'm truly amazed

I'm going to feel all my emotions

I'm going to look you in the eyes

I'm going to listen and hear until it's finally clear and it changes our lives

There are so many ways to hide

There are so many ways not to feel

There are so many ways to deny what is real

And I just showed up for my own life

And I'm standing here taking it in and it sure looks bright.

Oh the Glory of God is man fully alive.

Oh the Glory of God is man fully alive...

And I just showed up for my own life

And I'm standing here taking it in and it sure looks bright.

I feel like I'm just starting to show up for my own life. Like God is calling me to come alive, and it's overwhelming the beauty that can be found - even in the midst of the craziness and darkness that has marked so much of my last week or so. I'm going to be grateful for the "real emotions" my friend prayed for - even when they overwhelm me, even when they're so strong I can't handle them, and wish that I had never let him pray for me. I'm looking for God more - and expecting to actually see and hear from him at least some of the time. I'm going to enjoy this sense of amazement that healing is finally happening in my life. I'm going to work on not hiding behind my spotless veneer. "I'm going to listen and hear until it's finally clear and it changes my life... And I just showed up for my own life, and I'm standing here taking it in, and it sure looks bright."