Whew...

I think I'm still catching my breath. Waiting for my brain to catch up with my body. Waiting for my soul to settle.

It was just that kind of weekend, and it seems to be spreading into my week. I've had crazy dreams - ones that leave strong impressions of their significance every night since the weekend. I don't know what to do about dreams. In fact, I sent someone an email this morning with the (slightly) tongue in cheek comment that after years of nightmares and insomnia during the time I was depressed, I was hoping that God would confine His comments to me to my waking hours!

I was thinking too, about how important it is at times to hear something. My housechurch has been working our way through a book titled "Naturally Supernatural" by a guy named Gary Best, and I was having a very difficult time reading the book. Gary writes like a speaker, and I just couldn't get into his writing style at all. I'd spent at least a month trying to read the 30 pages of the first chapter, and I couldn't do it. But then, I heard Gary teach the material from the book all weekend. He's a dynamic communicator in person. So I tried reading his book again today, and it's going somewhat more smoothly. Reminds me of my experience with Tony Campolo - a great speaker, who writes as if he was speaking. This makes it hard to read. But, once you've heard Tony speak a few times, you can read Him more easily, because you can tell when He's joking or exaggerating. You can "hear" him telling the story. That's what happened with Gary's book for me. I've heard him teach the material, so it plays in my head as I read it, and makes it flow much more smoothly.

It's a busy week, and I must be off. I need to email off some more resumes today...

Not Alone

I've sat down to write this post several times in the last couple of weeks, and the timing has never seemed quite right. But, as I've been reflecting on the events of the last week, it seems like the timing to write out these thoughts might be now.

I woke up this morning and the first thought that crossed my brain (after the "I can't believe I slept that rough again!" thought) was, "Wow. A lot has happened in the last week."

And it's true. Last Tuesday I spoke for an hour and a bit, telling a chunk of my life story, sharing how God has been working and how I've fallen in love with Him again. And that night was also a breakthrough of sorts, a taking back of ground moment, because the place in which I was asked to speak these things is not a place that has traditionally been at all safe for that kind of expression. In fact, it has been a place where I have felt incredibly silenced, hidden and inadequate. But God was so faithful, and I came away from it with such peace and joy.

I moved on through the week, working some shifts at the Bay, going for a few more job interviews, and attending the conference.

Ah, yes, the conference. It was a good experience - something powerful but also quite fuzzy in my mind. But God was there, powerfully at times. Saturday in particular. I admit to finding it almost scary how powerfully He was there. I remember at one point Saturday night, as I was laying on my face, crying, my whole left side shaking and trembling, with a good friend holding me and praying over me, thinking, "God, I want more, but I'm also afraid. Take that fear..."

But perhaps, the biggest thing that was played out in tangible ways in my life over the course of the last week was a message that God has been speaking for the past several weeks, that I have struggled, and still struggle at times to absorb. "You are not alone."

Because I have felt very alone in a number of arenas of my life. I have felt terribly alone as I have journeyed with a couple of really broken friends, praying, supporting, caring for them. I have felt terribly alone in facing some of my own wounds. I have felt terribly alone as I have sought deeper understanding of these new and seemingly weird things God has been doing in my life over the course of the last six months.

Probably two or three weeks ago now, my friend Kari sent me an email. She said that she had been sitting at her piano, playing and praying, and God brought me to her mind. She said she had prayed a Jason Upton song for me, gave me a couple of the lyrics, and the name of the CD it was found on. I looked up the rest of the lyrics, and went out and bought the CD. I've been listening to it nearly every day since.

Look beyond the window there
To the sky above to the open air
Look beyond what you can see
Close your eyes and just believe
The lion roars and the lamb lays down
The live together in a whole new town
They're calling me and they're calling you
From the cold hard facts that we're on our own
To the age old truth that we're not alone

Don't be afraid little warrior bride
Your victory's on the other side
You're not alone you're not alone

I have laid in bed nearly every night for the last couple weeks and listened to Jason Upton sing the words God was trying so hard to get me to hear. But there was an event over the course of the weekend that God used to tangibly demonstrate this message.

I attended the conference with a good friend from a very conservative background. She was somewhat concerned about attending this particular conference, and made that quite clear to me. On the Friday night, she left the conference spitting mad. She was so angry it was hilarious, and we talked for quite some time in her car about the events of the evening. On Saturday, I knew once again that she was struggling. She shared a little bit of the struggles with some others over the lunch break, and in the afternoon two women from our community came to her and asked to pray for her. But it was the evening session where things finally got a bit crazy. I knew that I needed to sit with one particular friend for the session. I didn't know why, just that I needed to be there. That means that I left my "angry" friend on her own. And then stuff started happening, and I was worried about my friend and what she was thinking, but couldn't go to her because I was focusing my attention on the friend I was sitting with. And then, suddenly I was on my face, and I definitely couldn't go to my friend. But here's the thing - someone else from our community could and did. One of the women who had prayed for her in the afternoon saw what was going on, and immediately went to her.

And afterwards, God just spoke to me again about how I didn't have to carry the burdens of all of my friends alone. I honored where He was asking me to be, and He provided for the situation where I could not be. He used this woman from our community to minister to my friend in a way I couldn't have. And because of it, He worked in both my life, and the life of the friend who I couldn't be with. Driving home with her was such a totally opposite experience that night. She was bubbling joy - overflowing with an experience of freedom.

They're calling me and they're calling you
From the cold hard facts that we're on our own
To the age old truth that we're not alone.

Don't be afraid little warrior bride
Your victory's on the other side
You're not alone you're not alone.

Conference and other thoughts

Another bullet point type update for you all.

These (in no particular order) are the things I'm thinking about at the moment:

• I love my hairdresser. I had my hair cut today, and my hairdresser straightened it for me. I won't have to do anything with it for the next couple days, and it'll look really good to boot.
• I'm at a conference most of this weekend. It's a vineyard conference - seems that there's going to be a lot of praying over people, trying to listen for God, that kind of thing.
• This is probably good, but also a bit odd at times.
• I enjoyed the speaker last night, but wasn't sure what to make of the practical application time.
• I have the best person in the world to debrief after sessions like that, and she's the one giving me rides. I love that she is struggling hugely with charismatic "stuff" even hates it at times, but keeps coming back, keeps pursuing God, keeps wanting more, keeps being willing to learn, keeps trying to be open to new things. I love her honesty the second we get in her car after a session.
• Because of the conference I'm going to be away from my computer and not really blogging this weekend.
• I turned down both job offers. Neither one was quite was I was looking for, and I didn't have any peace about accepting either offer. So, I'm still at the Bay (which is not that good a piece of news) but I interviewed at a temp/placement agency yesterday, and they think that they can find me work starting around $13 an hour, which is more than either of the offers I turned down.
• I bought a couple new tops today, and I'm excited to wear them out and around.
• I applied for several more jobs this morning, and am hoping some of them call me for interviews.
• I'm making dinner tonight for my mom and one of my friends, and I don't know what I'm cooking yet, so I should probably go make that decision now!

And with that, I'm off.

I came away smiling

No really. I came away smiling and at peace. That's how I felt. It's not what I expected to feel given the location, the circumstances. But it's what I felt. I had spoken my heart, and I don't really know too much how it was received, but I had the peace of having spoken the things that God had placed there.

For probably an hour and a bit last night I walked back through my life story. I talked about being a pastor's kid and my love/hate relationship with that. I talked about the church split and the impact that had on me - how it made me cynical and distrustful of Christians and sometimes Christ. I talked about Young Life, and how it came along at just the right time - how it kept me in the church, kept me believing in Christ, believing that good people followed Christ too, and not just hypocrites. I talked a little about Dana, my YL leader, and the encouragement and mentor she's been over the years. I talked about the fact that after I graduated from high school and chose not to be a YL leader I floundered quite a bit. I wasn't really part of the YL community any more, I didn't have any friends at church (the nature of a tiny church), and I was in university, away from most of my friends who had spread across the country to go to school.

I talked about how it was this first year of university when depression really heavily settled into my life, although it would be several years before I would acknowledge its presence openly. And then I described the reality of depression - one guy commented when I was done that what I had shared was very "real". It was a bit weird to say these things in this setting. Most of these people had known me for two or three years - the worst years of the depression - and never would have known that I was asking God to let me die in my sleep for most of those years, to please take me home because there was nothing left here to live for, and the pain was so overwhelming.

And then I talked about that night in November - November 1, 2005 - where I sat in a friend's car and let him lead me before God in a way that I hadn't come in a very long time. I let him lead me to a place of honesty before God that was so very healing and peaceful. I told the "feet" story because it explained more than anything how my life shifted on that day. How in my own moment of healing God was tying my life and my story to the story of a friend, and asking me to walk into crazy places.

And then I described a bit of the ups and downs of the last months. I talked about walking into crazy situations with friends, about doing life with really messy people. I talked about the fact that God has challenged me to find him in the places of darkness. I read them the piece I posted here a while ago titled "The Kingdom isn't Breaking Through." I spoke about the fact that the church tends to seek to conceal the messiness, and that I am in a place where I can no longer do that - to conceal and hide the things in my life would be dishonest. I challenged the idea of looking for God only in the big moments, or the "breakthrough"moments.

I talked about praying "Hallelujah" and "Immanuel". I finished with that. I told them that my heart as I was thinking and praying about what to share with them was really that God would be glorified - that they would see as clearly as I do His hands guiding and shaping my life. I talked about the moments when God asked me to pray hallelujah or immanuel when it seemed least appropriate - as someone was dying, as another friend was in pain. But God keeps asking me, reminding me of these two words - Hallelujah - glory to God, and Immanuel - God with us. Glory to God. God with us. Glory to God in the midst of the messy places He has asked me to inhabit, because it is there that God is with us.

My heart is for the glory of God. I have fallen in love with Him and I'm never going back. I want to close this post with a portion of scripture I read as I finished last night. I started memorizing this Psalm as a desperate plea for God to hear sometime last spring. And now, a year later, I have come back to it, because God heard.

Psalm 116
I love the LORD, for he heard my voice;
he heard my cry for mercy.
Because he turned his ear to me,
I will call on him as long as I live.
The cords of death entangled me,
the anguish of the grave came upon me;
I was overcome by trouble and sorrow.
Then I called on the name of the LORD :
"O LORD, save me!"
The LORD is gracious and righteous;
our God is full of compassion.
The LORD protects the simplehearted;
when I was in great need, he saved me.
Be at rest once more, O my soul,
for the LORD has been good to you.
For you, O LORD, have delivered my soul from death,
my eyes from tears,
my feet from stumbling,
that I may walk before the LORD
in the land of the living.
I believed; therefore I said,
"I am greatly afflicted."
And in my dismay I said,
"All men are liars."
How can I repay the LORD
for all his goodness to me?
I will lift up the cup of salvation
and call on the name of the LORD.
I will fulfill my vows to the LORD
in the presence of all his people.
Precious in the sight of the LORD
is the death of his saints.
O LORD, truly I am your servant;
I am your servant, the son of your maidservant;
you have freed me from my chains.
I will sacrifice a thank offering to you
and call on the name of the LORD.
I will fulfill my vows to the LORD
in the presence of all his people,
in the courts of the house of the LORD—
in your midst, O Jerusalem.
Praise the LORD.

Sharing Tonight

I'm telling my story to a group of people for the first time tonight (at least as far as I know - sometimes the schedule of this thing changes and you don't find out until the last minute). I've told it to tons of individuals over the last 6 months, but not ever to a group.

I'm excited, but nervous. This has not always been the safest or most welcoming environment in which to speak of brokenness, but it's one in which I was asked to speak. It's a community I've been a part of for the last three years, and I'm honored to be able to tell them a bit about what God is doing.

If you think of it, pray for me - my most honest desire is to give God glory in this - because it is Him that has changed me so deeply over the last while.