i will be found by you

this is the world as we know it.

this is goodbye gravity, you no longer keep me grounded. 

2 weeks, 4 days until this is not my bed any longer. 

it's kind of hard to wrap my head around that. even with explosions in the sky and sigur ros playing in the background, the boldness of that very statement hasn't settled yet. am i ready for that?

am i?

eff. 

i want to say more, but my head is consumed with college. i feel typical. but we'll move on.

come thou fount of every blessing

tune my heart to sing thy grace

streams of mercy never ceasing

call for songs of loudest praise

jesus saught me when a stranger

wandering from the fold of god

he to rescue me from danger

interposed his precious blood

oh, to grace how great a debtor

daily i'm constrained to thee

let that grace now like a fetter

bind my wandering heart to thee

prone to wander, lord i feel it

prone to leave the god i love

here's my heart, oh take and seal it

seal it for thy courts above

i want to be at the place where i can raise my ebenezar, my "stone of help." it's harder than you think, because i'm prone to wander, prone to leave the god i love. i come to this place in christianity where i think it's ok to stall. when god is moving, and i'm actually backing away, telling him this is enough. god, why do i do that? why do you let me do that? 

where did i run for so long? where did i go? 

back to you, so you can dwell in me richly. so i can experience your peace. so i can be different. so i can be better. so i can be free.

i think for a long time, i didn't know what peace was, beyond an annoying symbol twelve year old girls seem to be obsessed with. "the peace of christ." someone asked me what that was. 

so first, i think we have to define what peace is. 

peace is a calming.

peace is understanding.

peace is a security.

peace is a friend.

peace is a savior.

peace is a comforter.

peace is a healer. 

chris seidman says that peace is not the absence of fear, but god present in the storm.

so what peace do we have in our lives?

we have peace that he heals us.

peace that he forgives us.

peace that he provides for us.

peace that he has eternal life for us.

peace that he knows us.

peace that he created us.

peace that he embraces us.

peace that he bears our burdens.

peace that he has a purpose for us.

my god is big.

"let the peace of christ rule in your hearts." -colossians 3:15

"seek peace and pursue it." -psalm 34:14

"a heart at peace gives life to the body." -proverbs 14:30

"for he himself is our peace." -ephesians 2:14

 

right now, i'm struggling to see god's peace. to be honest, i just don't know where i'm headed. the location, maybe. but the path...i don't know what god has for me. so my peace comes from this. i have to have faith in this. i have to trust in this. i have to believe in this...

"for i know the plans i have for you," declares the lord, "plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future."

please don't stop there...keep going...

then you will call upon me and come and pray to me...

run back to god...

and i will listen to you.

you will seek me and -find me- when you seek me with your whole heart.

i will be found by you.

that is when my peace will come. when i quit wandering from the god i love. when i seek him. i will find him.

and jesus said, "peace i leave with you; my peace i give you."

maybe not

i never thought i could love anyone but myself.

but you make me think that maybe i won't die alone.

cornerstone

i'm leaving tomorrow afternoon for oklahoma city, and honestly, i am just so excited for a blessed week.

take me.

use me.

renew me.

i am ready for that.

doubting thomas

this is for payton, for three reasons.

1) he inspires me daily.

2) i see him in t-minus three days.

and 3) my laundry is spinning in the wishy washy machine and the cat box is clean and i'm settling down for a good night of blogster. mm. refreshing.

hey, let's begin with a terribly awkward and funny moment. i went to get some immunizations for school today (rock chalk? yes, i just said that) and as we're walking into the doctor's office, my mom is like, "you are a grown woman. have you had a pap smear?" WHAT. NO. STOP. MOM, WHY ARE YOU ASKING ME THAT???? kind of funny considering SOMEONE asked me just three days ago if i've ever visited the gynecologist. weirdo.

and then i remembered when chris and kenzie and i discussed whether a husband being a gynecologist would put stress on a marriage, looking at females all day.

this has gotten awfully inappropriate so fast. i have to stop.

ok, wait. that wasn't a good intro. start over. so last night i crawled into bed with my parents. yes, literally. judge me. first, it felt great because my mom was there. like when i was little. and her presence was gone for three years. and like when i was four years old, i snuggled up next to her while my dad tried to find something other than porn to watch. turned out to be ESPN, caught a glimpse of mr. incredible, also known as stephen curry, and superman, blake griffin. great night. i'm such a boy sometimes.

ugh. i write so awkward.

ugh. i'm so awkward.

love me.

real topics now?

yeah, ok.

"i want something real for my faith, i know jesus isn't going to ring my doorbell or anything, but when can i get over this hump of christianity where i can truly believe, will i ever?

i love this story of thomas, i am thomas. he was such a doubter. huertez talks about how the lost and lonely people are the wounds of jesus and until we reach out and feel the wounds of jesus, if we humble ourselves for christ and submit our lives to him, we can begin to believe, to get a little bit closer. "

thank you, payton.

i am thomas. more than you will ever know. it's sad that after every sermon proving christ through documentation or archeological findings or geographical formations, i am like, "YEAH, JESUS!" and not because i'm sticking it to the man, but because it's like, "hey, i'm not a crazy person!"

but seriously...do i really need all of that? i mean, doesn't god prove his existence through the moon that was so incredibly bright last night? or the way the human body works? or through every detail of our universe?

more so, he proves himself through his acts of mercy. through his extended arms. through his unconditional love.

right? but let's be honest...

do i always believe that? no. i have those "spiritual humps of christianity." not every once in a while, but constantly. and it's because when i want god to wrap his arms around me, i want that physical touch. when i want to hear god, i want to feel the whisper in my ear. one time, i heard someone describe their desire to be close to god as "i want to walk so close to him i can feel the dust from his feet." but i'm never going to actually feel that. and it drives me crazy.

i'm not so great at this thing called faith.

i'm a doubting thomas.

you know, the thing about thomas is everyone criticized him. but i know how that feels. i think everyone that grew up in the church somewhat feels what he felt, what i've felt. in john 20:25, thomas finds out about jesus' resurrection from his friends, the other disciples.

"we have seen the lord!"

his friends told him. like our parents have told us. or like our friends have told us - about christ. but until WE experience him, we doubt. until WE feel the nail marks in his hands and put our fingers where the nails were and put our hands into his side, we sometimes have our spiritual humps. and how do we feel the nail marks? how do we put our hands into his speared side? when we experience the love of christ and the blessings of christ and god truly moving in our lives.

for me, when my mom walked out the door. and came back three years later.

for me, when i was in an unhealthy relationship, and he not only took me away from that, but he gave me better.

and for me, when every penny of my college is taken care of, when my test scores are too high to actually represent me, when i stress about not being smart enough or good enough and i am accepted into the best scholarship hall and asked to take the highest honors courses.

things i do not deserve. that's when i experience him. when i believe in him. when i understand him.

but what about when the good falls short...that's the true test. so today, i am challenging you to see god in the storm. to see him when your mom leaves. to see him when your boyfriend breaks up with you. to see him when you've filled out a million scholarships and don't see any results and cry because you're positive you failed the ACT. look for him, search for him.

be patient and wait.

he is there. you just have to look.

the fountainhead

ugh.

i'm missing what i never had.

am i ever going to have that subconscious dream? will i ever grasp it? was it ever meant to happen? maybe. maybe not.

read the fountainhead. ignore rand's atheism.

"she could not have reached this white serenity except as the sum of all the colors, of all the violence she had known."

"why do they always teach us that it's easy and evil to do what we want and that we need discipline to restrain ourselves? it's the hardest thing in the world--to do what we want. and it takes the greatest kind of courage. i mean, what we really want."

"i breathe for my own necessity, for the fuel of my body, for my survival...i've given you, not my sacrifice or my pity, but my ego and my naked need..."

"i think the only cardinal evil on earth is that of placing your prime concern within other men."

"...that love is reverence, and worship, and glory, and the upward glance. not a bandage for dirty sores. but they don't know it. those who speak of love most promiscuously are the ones who've never felt it. they make some sort of feeble stew out of sympathy, compassion, contempt and general indifference, and they call it love. once you've felt what it means to love as you and I know it--the total passion for the total height--you're incapable of anything less."

"a building has integrity, just as a man and just as seldom."

"she thought how strange it would be if she ever said "hello" to him; one did not greet oneself each morning."

"and that's the sin that can't be forgiven-that i hadn't done what i wanted."

slow down.

come, follow me

there's been a lot on my mind lately. welcome to my life, right? this isn't unusual. but still, a lot there.

and tonight, i'll attempt to sort a few things out.

first, i really hate cleaning the cat box. that is like my number one chore. ok, my only real chore, but i'm working two jobs here and it's just a terrible way to end my night. as much as i love my cats, i really hate their hair all over my clothes and having to scoop their feces into a plastic bag. there was an infomercial over this cat magic thing, a self-cleaning litter box - it was fantastic. i actually asked for it for my birthday. didn't happen, obviously, but it would have been a great investment. i would love to explain how it worked, automatically recycling the litter and disposing of the cat waste, but quite frankly, you have probably stopped reading by now. and if not, we need to get down to business.

wait...let me go clean the cat box first.

literally.....

ugh. worst five minutes of my day.

i don't even know where to start.

first, i miss writing editorials. i miss being needed at my school. lame, i realize that, so wait a couple minutes before you judge me. i just miss working independently and seeing the finished product - physically seeing the quality of my work, MY stories, MY layouts, MY pictures, MY newspaper. it was mine, mine to share. mine to enjoy, to let others enjoy. i miss that. i miss working independently for hours at a time, with my ipod, a blank tabloid indesign document and the best i had to offer. and yes, i still write for the derby newspaper, but who cares about a world champion yo-yoer performing whirling tips and tricks for six year olds at the library? it's not even the same caliber. i'm using pagemaker 6.5, for god's sake.

ugh. i just want it back.

secondly, my relationships have been spinning lately. out of control, in twelve zillion directions. today, i realized that three months ago, i truly thought i had everything figured out, and dangit jesus, you had to throw me in a new direction. i mean, thank you for that, i really needed it, cause it wasn't the right relationship, it wasn't what he had planned for me because it wasn't the best. it needed to be fixed. but that meant i had to be broken.

and so he broke me. my jesus broke me.

because he loved me.

and he has better for me.

how incredible is that? my god is smart. but difficult. sometimes, i just want to tell him what to do, like i know better. like, come on savior, i know that you created the world and all, but i am 18 years old. at times like that, i just need to shut up. to stop telling god what to do.

three months ago, i told god to give me a life with a certain boy. to wrap my life around him, to merge my path into his, to hand over half of my spiritual life to him. i thought that would work. i thought i could give him life.

but wait. i can't even figure out my own.

like i said, god is throwing so many things at me regarding relationships. but i'm trusting in the end, he will show me where to go, and with whom.

and on that note, i've really appreciated my relationships with christians lately. it doesn't make me want to go to harding any more, but it does make me realize the difference between those with worldly motives and those with heavenly ones. my love for them is pure. it's real. it's vivid. it's centered around christ. and because of that, i know that it will last.

cornerstone is coming quickly, and i'm ready to shine for christ there. i'm ready to lead the most fragile middle school girls, to mold them into god's precious clay. i'm ready to be inspired, and to cry. i'm ready to hurt for them, to love for them, to grow with them, to hold them, to be touched by them, to see what god meant by "let the little children come to me."

so i've been talking about christ a lot lately, but let's get back to the bible.

matthew 4:19-20

"come, follow me," jesus said, "and i will make you fisher of men."

wait. this is peter and andrew. two fishermen. and this random guy tells them to quit their jobs, and to learn how to fish for people. there is no prior knowledge as to who he is or what he is asking them to do.

verse 20 is what fascinates me.

at ONCE, they left their nets and followed him.

THIS IS INSANE. even more insane is when he calles james and john, and they leave both their jobs and their father. how did they get the courage and the trust to do that? when they knew nothing about him?

so why is it so hard for us to do the same? when we know him, we know he is the creator of all things, the king of kings, the prince of peace, the glory and the lamb? we know he heals and he saves and he provides an eternal reassurance of hope. but not only do we hesitate, but when we finally get there...we finally trust him and follow him...we run away. we are the prostitute, we are the adulterer, we are the sinner grasping for someone else's love. that's what i did when i begged god for MY relationship. when i tried to take control. it wasn't because i knew that was best. it's because that relationship had become my god, and i wanted the almighty to be ok with it. i ran away. i was gomer. my god is hosea. and he loves me and lets me run away and still, pays for my sinning soul to come into his arms, instead of the arms of another man.

so come, follow him.

and he will make you fishers of men.