In anticipation of a new year...

I feel things shifting in me again. In a way I really can’t even begin to describe or understand. What are you trying to say to me, Lord?

Is this is? Is this coming year the one for adventure, for transition, for new things? Is it the one we’ve been talking about for the last six months?

You keep drawing me lower, drawing my heart to places I never expected. You are breeding things in me that I don’t understand.

Last year at this time I was waiting with a friend for her mom to die. I asked you what to pray, and you said, pray “Hallelujah.” I was a month out of a five year span of depression, a month separated from wanting my life to end. I was waiting for a death, and watching a friend engage in self-destruction. And you said, “pray hallelujah.”

I didn’t even know what the word meant. I had to look it up. “Hallelujah – glory to God.” So many times over the course of this wild and crazy year I asked you again what to pray, and you just kept speaking that word – hallelujah.

You taught me to search for the hallelujah in the midst of darkness. You walked with me through my own trials, and the trials of those you called me to. And you kept speaking hallelujah.

Sometimes you added the word “Immanuel.” You said pray, “hallelujah, Immanuel.” Glory to God. God with us.

And now, we’re seven days from a new year. And things are shifting again. I’m being pulled lower, pulled deeper, pulled further in. And I don’t understand, and I can’t quite explain. You’re still whispering “hallelujah” in my ears, but it’s different. Something is changing. Something I can’t quite put my finger on.

I’m here, Lord. I’m waiting for Your voice, your direction. What will you speak this year? What will you lead me into?

A year ago my plan was to become settled. Today, there are things within me that rebel at the very idea of being settled. There is this awakening desire to see your kingdom in forms spread across the globe. To love on the broken – the desire grows ever deeper. To meet you during pilgrimages. To spend months dedicated to you – internships, or traveling. I want to meet you. To meet you in the homeless man in the parking lot like a couple weeks ago, to meet you in the eyes of a baby, to meet you in broken women, to meet you in youth kids at church, to meet you in dreams and visions, to meet you in places I’d never dreamed of finding myself.

My heart is set on the journey. You are drawing me deeper, but outward. You are broadening the spaces in my heart and soul.
And I’m waiting here for your voice, for your words, for your hands.

Next steps aren’t clear, but I know they’re coming.

And in the meantime, I’m going to keep searching for, to keep speaking, to keep attempting to live a hallelujah.

Circling My Brain

There are so many thoughts circling in my head right now that I don't think I even know where to start! Actually, I think I'm just going to let most of them sit and marinate for a while. I'm going to keep reading, keep writing, keep listening, until they stop being just thoughts and start being things I am breathing.

That said, here is a (by no means complete) list of some of the things informing my swirling thoughts these days:

• The Irresistible Revolution - Shane Claiborne
• A couple of sermons Claiborne gave that I downloaded (just google Shane Claiborne mp3)
• Rob Bell's "Calling All Peacemakers" sermon series (being preached over the last several weeks, and available in Itunes - Mars Hill Bible Church podcast)
• Mike Yaconelli's "Messy Spirituality"
• A couple of sermons by David Ruis that I found in itunes (Soul Survivor USA podcast)
• "This Beautiful Mess" and "Jesus in the Margins" by Rick Mckinley
• Gray's Anatomy and M*A*S*H*
• "Let me Tell You a Story" by Tony Campolo
• A whole variety of Scripture passages - central to shaping my thoughts, and too numerous to list.
• "Voices in the Night" - the prison poems of Dietrich Bonhoeffer.
• The conversation going on over at Kirk's blog.
  

Those are just some. There have also been conversations, things overheard, TV documentaries, websites and music.

In the coming month I am hoping to have conversations, written, in person or both with a whole bunch of people around this topic (including but not limited to Kirk and Darlene, Marty and Kari, James, Rachel...add your name here...).

I am being sucked deeper, and I wasn't expecting it. I've been hijacked by Jesus or something!

Off to cook dinner... see you later!

A couple quick things

I've been rather busy this week, thus no blogging since Monday. Perhaps a longer post tomorrow, as I'm officially off work for Christmas at noon.

In the meantime, you could check out my best friend Megan's blogs about her time in Nepal, and now in Pakistan, at her myspace site here.

Megs blows my mind, travelling half-way around the world by herself, to use her nursing skills in a hospital where she can't even speak the language of her patients. And yet, she does it. She travels, and loves on people, and it excites me that this is one of my best friends on the planet.

So, check it out for tonight, and I'll probably be back here tomorrow!

Wild Weekend

Quite a few things changed since Saturday morning when I wrote my post about it being a cozy day. It was, in some ways a very cosy day. I was happy, content, not lonely for the first time in a week.

The biggest change was that on Saturday night, on my way to the youth Christmas party I mentioned, I was in a car accident. I was fortunate. God showed many mercies - the other car was not badly damaged, no one was hurt beyond some stiff muscles, my parents weren't angry with me, the cop gave me a significantly smaller traffic ticket/fine than he could have. I probably wrote off the minivan I was driving.

Saturday night, as I slept (if you can call it sleeping) was a time of intense spiritual warfare. Not something completely out of normal for me, but not by any stretch something common. Again, God showed me his mercies, and gave me the strength to fight against the lies that were being spoken into me.

All in all, it could have been much worse. It was not, by any stretch a stellar weekend, but it could have been far worse. I'm grateful for the little mercies (and the big ones) of the weekend.

Cozy Day

Today is about doing cozy things.

Drinking herbal tea.

Baking lemon shortbread cookies.

Playing Christmas music.

Taking a long bath with a good book.

Making Christmas cards to mail to my friends.

Watching M*A*S*H* Season 11 that arrived in the mail yesterday.

Doing one or more of these things at a time.

Tonight is a Christmas party for the youth. I think we're taking them caroling at the homes of some people from the church.

But today is for cozy things.