unguarded...

I'm not sure it's a very smart idea to write a post at this moment. My thoughts are rather unguarded - a side effect of intense lack of sleep.

I've slept approximately 2 and a half hours. You see, I had one last term paper due this morning. The last term paper of my undergraduate degree. The only problem was, I got called into work early yesterday, so it didn't get started before my shift. So, I worked until 9, got home around 10, made my nightly hour long phone call to my friend in crisis, and started the paper around 11. I finished at 4:20 this morning, was asleep somewhere around 4:45, and got up to go to school and hand the paper in at 7:30ish. So, a couple hours sleep.

I'm actually surprisingly alert, if tired. But, as I was taking the bus home, it hit me that my thoughts are unguarded and emotional in a way they aren't usually. I'm thinking about a lot of stuff. Particularly about the raw areas of my life that God opened on Tuesday. I'm just now having the downtime necessary to begin to allow it to penetrate, to begin to process. And it hurts.

In light of that, and the fact that I really do need to go back to school for my evening class, I think I'm going to go take a nap. I think this batch needs to be processed in the privacy of my paper journal, before I share it with the world! Unguarded is safe in a book that no one but me will ever see.

Whispers?

I freely admit that I don't do a very good job of distinguishing God's voice from my own thoughts. In fact, I'm probably pretty bad at it, and, at the times when it's blatantly clear, I have been known to ignore it because I did not like what He was asking of me.

I had a weird day yesterday. Sort of full of whispers - maybe God, maybe me, but I think they were Him. I'm left feeling slightly raw inside, not sure where I'm going next. Wanting to hear Him, but hurting badly because of the places in my life that he's touching.

I had an ongoing conversation with Him through the day. It really started the night before. Because of the trouble I have sleeping, I have long chosen to fall asleep with some sort of sound playing in my ear, something to distract my mind and trick it into sleep. Now, most people use music, but I have long found that a book on tape, or a sermon, or a speech - something of the spoken variety - works far better. I can't remember the last time I fell asleep to music - I was probably a very small child. But, on Monday night, the book I've been playing over and over lately (Prince Caspian) just wasn't quite cutting it, and the strong desire in my gut was to listen to David Crowder's latest CD, starting about halfway through. So I did, and I slept! Weird.

I got up yesterday morning, and on a whim tossed a copy of The Messsage New Testament into my school bag. Now, you need to know that I don't usually read anything to identifiably "Biblical" or "Christian" on public transit. I'm embarrassed, and that's not something I'm proud of, but it's true. But, yesterday, on my way to school, I decided to read some of the NT. So, I flipped around for a while, but eventually ended up in Colossians. Now, I'd read Colossians in this particular copy of The Message at some previous time, and underlined quite a number of passages. And it grabbed me again yesterday.

"We pray that you'll have the strength to stick it out over the long haul - not the grim strength of gritting your teeth, but the glory-strength God gives. It is strength that endures the unendurable and spills over into joy, thanking the Father who makes us strong enought to take part in everything bright and beautiful that he has for us....So spacious is he, so roomy, that everything of God finds its proper place in him without crowding. Not only that, but all the broken and dislocated pieces of the universe - people and things, animals and atoms - get properly fixed and fit together in vibrant harmonies, all because of his death, his blood that poured down from the Cross....I want you woven into a tapestry of love, in touch with everything there is to know of God. Then you will have minds confident and at rest, focused on Christ...My counsel for you is simple and straightforward: Just go ahead with what you've been given. You received Christ Jesus, the Master; now LIVE him. You're deeply rooted in him. You're well constructed upon him. You know your way around the faith. Now do what you've been taught. School's out; quit studying the subject and start LIVING it! And let your living spill over into thanksgiving...Entering into this fullness is not something you figure out or achieve...No, you're already IN - insiders - not through some secretive initiation rite but rather trhough what Christ has already gone through for you, destroying the power of sin... So if you're serious about living this new resurrection life with Christ, ACT like it. Pursue the things over which Christ presides. Don't shuffle along, eyes to the ground, absorbed with the things right in front of you. Look up, and be alert to what is going on around Christ - that's where the action is. See things from HIS perspective...Let every detail in your lives - words, actions, whatever - be done in the name of the Master, Jesus, thanking God the Father every step of the way."

Different parts of this passage haunted my steps yesterday, particularly the parts I put in bold for you. And I prayed - an ongoing kind of thing through my day. It's been a long time since that happened. And it felt weird. And like I said, I struggled with distinguishing God's voice from my own thoughts, but there were raw nerves being touched. Old wounds popped up unexpectedly - grief that I thought was long gone from a death in our family several years ago... it was a strange kind of day.

So, I hopped on the bus home, still praying a bit, but reading a novel this time. And the bus took an hour and a half instead of 45 minutes because it was the first snowfall of any consequence, and the traffic was horrific. I got home at 4:45, and I had to leave my house at 5:30 to pick up the carload of girls that I drive to house church on Tuesday nights. So I left. What normally takes me 20-30 minutes took an hour and a half yesterday. By the time I picked them up and drove the rest of the way, I'd been driving for two and a half hours - for what should have taken less than an hour.

I sat and stewed while I drove. Particularly for the first hour and a half that I was by myself. I was not a happy camper when I arrived.

Now, here's the crazy part. I never leave my cell phone on on Tuesday nights - I don't want to be distrubed during house church. But, last night, for whatever reason, I couldn't bring myself to turn it off. So I switched it to vibrate and went on with the night. Except that I got another crisis call. Okay, it was God that had me leave my phone on. I was able to take the call in the midst of people praying for me and for my friend (who's also a part of our house church).

My whole day - crazy. It makes me tired, this being available to God. I've haven't been this emotionally drained in a very long time. I mostly feel overwhelmed. God touching raw nerves in my life, then handing me friends in mid-crisis. In my better moments, I can laugh. But mostly I'm a little overwhelmed.

Novemeber 1st. The date is etched in my memory because of some of the crazy God circumstances. When I sat in a car that night and talked for hours with a friend, I finally gave in to God, and began to allow his healing in my life. I was willing to give in because I was so desperately frustrated, and because people I love and trust were saying things to me that were both confirming and terrifying. "God is calling you to heal people, Lisa. But you need to find healing first." The things God was telling me and I was trying to ignore. So, I allowed my friend to lead me before God. And God started to work. And it was good. But that tiny little moment of healing did not prepare me for the way the rest of this month has played out. Because I have kept being bombarded by God touching raw places in my life - and then I get a phone call, or see a friend, and suddenly I am picking up the pieces of their lives, while my own life is in tatters around me. I was griping about this to another friend recently, and he laughed at me "God doesn't really care if we feel equipped - he just wants to use us." Okay then. So, most days I laugh because it seems so ridiculous that it could only be God. But I am at the same time overwhelmed with the responsibility that he has entrusted to me while my life is still in so many pieces.

So, God, I'm still here. And my life is still open for you to use. But I need your strength - your glory-strength. Because right now I'm gritting my teeth and hanging on for dear life. Fit all those broken pieces together in the vibrant harmony you promised. Fit my pieces together, and J.'s pieces together and M.'s pieces together. We are longing for something more. And I long to live simply for You. To not be distracted. To easily distinguish your voice. Draw me ever closer. Help me Jesus.

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.