a star fetish

I have a friend at school who has a dinosaur fetish. I find it hilarious. We're studying Christian counseling, and we're totally in it up to our eyebrows... but there's been several times lately when we've been on a break from class and I've overheard him talking about dinosaurs! It always cracks me up. It got me thinking about my own fetishes... short list and long list!  One such fetish is stars.  I love to stare at a night sky and search out all of the constellations. It's amazing to me that there's millions of them and that they're all placed so perfectly.

He brings out the starry host one by one and calls them each by name. Because of His great power and mighty strength, not one of them is missing. ~Isaiah 40. Our God is pretty incredible.

Well, it's been a long week... so tonight I really want to give in to my star fetish...

the Big Dipper

the Great Bear (I just learned that the Big Dipper is actually a part of the Great Bear!)

Orion and his belt (one of my favorites)

Cassiopeia

Andromeda (supposed to resemble a dead guy, i think!)

Sagittarius (i'm pretty sure he's the archer)

after the stampede

It's time to fly home tomorrow. I stampeded my way through my project this week and finished more than I expected, actually. It's been SOOO much work, and there is still more to do.

And I sit here now and tell myself that it's finally OK to stop working. I can be off the hook... at least for a few hours. And I find myself in a reflective mood. I feel tired and still stressed... but also very grateful. I feel like my soul is somehow beginning to "center" and rest in what I know is really important. I've experienced some things during the past year that, had I known they were coming, I would have turned and went running for the hills. But I didn't know they were coming... so I had to walk through them and I found that I survived.

From a bit of hind sight perspective, all I can say is that God is good. He has kept me in the palm of His hand in ways that I have never known before. I've heard His voice, I've known His peace, I've felt Him walking beside me... not to mention some other out-of-the-ordinary things that have happened, that I totally think HE was behind! I don't say any of these things to boast, because honestly, I don't feel that close to Him much of the time.

But, there is something about suffering... there's a beauty in it that makes God real, the intangible becomes tangible. Seriously, I think I've touched and felt things that are un-touchable and un-feelable. As my friend Rich Mullins says, "God seems to have a very special place in His heart for the poor and the broken." And I broke this year... in some new ways, I broke. And I found a very special place in His heart just for me.

I don't really know where to go from here. I still have a month of hectic school work left. Before I even approach that, I have to leave a wonderful week with my parents and fly home... that makes me cry. It's very hard for me to say good-bye.

But I know that I am still in the palm of Jesus' hand, someplace deep in His heart. That's my real home, I'm pretty sure. So I'll rest there tonight. And here's a song that I've been listening to over and over again and just can't seem to turn off...

...honestly, i've gone back and forth with myself all day (I've thought TOO much about this!!)-- to post or not to post? there's parts of my heart that i try to keep just between me and God and a few other people who know me VERY well. but writing is becoming a part of ME, i think, and telling my story is really telling God's story of redemption in many ways... see, i'm trying to talk myself into leaving this post and not erasing it AGAIN! so it will stay... and i hope you like it. i hope that somehow my journey encourages yours... and that maybe God will shine just a little bit brighter through us encouraging each other.

truth in piles of notes

I am reading textbooks, doing research, making connections, developing curriculum... trying to bring many pieces from all kinds of sources into one giant curriculum (for my culminating program project)! It's a fun but incredibly tedious task. I keep getting little bursts of ideas... which have turned into scribbled notes on little papers lying all over my bed and floor. I just have to collect all of my little notes, try to read my own handwriting, and make some organized sense of all of my notes. I think it can be done. =) This is getting really fun... seriously, it is.

In all of my reading in the past few days, I stumbled across this line today... which has absolutely stopped me in my tracks and pierced my heart. Incredible truth from my piles of notes....

The spirit of wisdom and gentle discernment is given only to saints who seek God through the worst anguish and who learn to yield cherished dreams to God's purposes. ~Larry Crabb, Connecting

What hope. Anguish and surrendered dreams are not for naught. The process of moving and working through anguish and shattered dreams brings about a deeper, closer relationship with God and an ability to offer wise and gentle counsel to those around us. What hope... what redemption. God is amazing in the ways that He works to bring beauty out of ashes... and good out of pain. I love Him.

continuing to learn

What a great and slightly crazy weekend. I STILL have not really slowed down. On Friday night, I watched a movie with my mom about a criminally insane man. Or was he insane? That was the whole point of the movie, and my mom and I are still debating! Saturday was the wedding of a friend... and I was one of the first ones on the dance floor, accompanied by a small 5 year old friend. What a fun time we had. We spun and spun and spun. The best was when SHE insisted on spinning ME... trying to fit tall me under her short arm! Fun. Sunday I skipped church and went skiing on a mountain with horrible icy conditions. I fell hard and hit my head twice... but I made new friends and we laughed forever about the 45 minutes that we added to our trip home just to find a Sheetz. =)

And today, I flew with my mom up to Maine. My dad picked us up at the airport and we took 4 hours to drive home, stopping several times along the way. And here I sit in the house. It's quiet. They're asleep. It's just me awake. Even the dog has gone to his bed.

Honestly, I am going into this week on edge. I have 4 days of quiet. 4 more than I've had in a long time! But I also have a 50 page paper looming over my head... which is the real reason that I'm here-- to write. But I so need rest. And I so need connection with Jesus. But I am also under a deadline. Yikes. I can feel the tension.

I wonder if grad school--in and of itself--is teaching me more about the reality of grace. I can't do everything required of me... AND keep my sanity... AND keep the life-giving, intensely close connection with Jesus that I want. There just isn't TIME. At least, for the next month there won't be. I wish I had the discipline to schedule out my life in such a way to MAKE time, but I know I don't. I've never been a "disciplined" person. So... I face the reality again that I don't have what it takes. But the crazy thing is that I am still given such gifts-- time with my parents, a 5 year old dance partner, new friends to ski with.

Maybe I still expect to be sort of punished for my lack of "getting it right." But rather, I find myself lavished with blessing upon blessing. Wow... God is not vindictive. He is good. I know this, but yet really, I am still getting to know it! And I am still learning that He is safe to rest in, to be REAL with, to let down the walls, to sit in the imperfection... to find that there is acceptance. Even whether I write 50 pages or 2... but oh shoot, I really hope I write more than 2!!

But as for me it is good to be near God; I have made the Lord GOD my refuge, that I may tell of all your works. ~Psalm 73:28

out of exhaustion

i'm finally sitting down in my room... for the first time in 4 whole days! the past 4 days have been FULL of running from thing to thing to thing with literally no stopping. today i am EXHAUSTED. my boss walked into my office today to find me staring blankly into my laptop screen, doing absolutely nothing. oops. i don't know how long i had been staring. at least i wasn't asleep.

i picked up my mom at the airport tonight and was recounting to her all of the events of the past week. and you know what? life is so very interesting. we just NEVER know what is coming next. sometimes, i LOVE that... because i love being surprised by the Lord. but other times, my tired soul just wants to KNOW, wants to have some sense of some sort of control, some cushion of "all is well" so that i can rest. i continue to wake to the reality though that control is an illusion... it always has been.

i was driving in the rainstorm to the airport this evening, trying to get all of my chaotic thoughts out of my head, trying to speak them to Jesus and tell Him just how crazy and interesting this week has been. but it wasn't working! it was like i would start to tell Him a thought... and then my mind would take off in a million other directions... and then i would reign myself in and try again... and again, it wouldn't work. i just felt flooded by my own thoughts... and by the fact that i've had practically no time this week to process them.

... but He is continuing to wash my heart with the realization that He does not demand perfection and "together-ness" of me. i so often try to demand it of myself but He does not demand it of me. tonight, in my exhaustion, i think how much easier it would be if i were perfect... because then i wouldn't have been impatient tonight or anxious yesterday or angry the day before... or afraid now of the very FULL day that i have ahead of me tomorrow and of my own lack of energy and strength to meet it. and honestly, when i'm this tired, i even struggle to ask the Lord for the strength that i know He has... i don't even know how to be in a position to receive from Him that which only He can give. it's one of those "Jesus, you'll have to come get me because it's too far to walk" nights.

and maybe He's ok with that. maybe there's a big place in His Abba heart that takes joy in picking up a tired daughter and carrying her down her road. maybe i'll curl up in that place tonight. it's a good thing to be carried. i so need it. and i'm gonna try to keep my exhausted heart open to Him and see how He might want to speak to me in it.

wasting a day

I have a paper due on Monday night. A very boring one... I wish I didn't have to write it. It's no surprise that I still have not cracked open my books. I also will be speaking to the ladies' group at church on Wednesday night. That, I've been looking forward to for a long time! And I had plans to seize the day today... research, write my paper, organize my notes for Wednesday night, pull out my Bible and devotional book.

And... I've done absolutely none of those things today! I actually spent most of the day driving... Seriously, everywhere I had to go, I took the long way. I went from Barrington to Mt. Holly by way of Hammonton. You're not supposed to do that! And then somehow I found myself in "Egg Harbor something"...some town I've never heard of. And tonight, I went to a coffee shop with a backpack full of books... and really "accomplished" very little.

But the cool thing is that I really believe I was close to Jesus today... and I barely even opened my Bible. The main reason that I drove the long way everywhere is that it has been a long week and I found myself needing to open my mind and my heart to Him and let Him have access to my thoughts. I'm coming to believe that change doesn't happen just because I read all of the right books and sort out the truth in my own mind. I suppose that's a part of it... but for me, change seems to really come when I get myself away from the craziness and open myself up to Jesus. He is the only Healer I know.

So it's 9:30 on Saturday night... and I still have a paper to write and a talk to prepare. I still would love to read my Bible too. And there's a part of me that wishes that I had "accomplished" more today than I actually did. But there's another part of me that knows that my heart is more open and more at peace now... because I took the time away and did NOTHING when I needed to.

I don't really know how to best encounter God. I suppose I'm trying to figure that out! Sometimes, He shows up in a book... sometimes it's a sunset... often times, it's in a person or a verse... today, it was in my car, in the stillness, in the middle of Egg Harbor something when I almost went the wrong way down a one-way street. And I laughed... and I think He laughed too. What a cool thing to be becoming friends with God. Whoah... is that what this is? Maybe that's been the point all along... and I wonder if it's through friendship with Him that we're REALLY changed... It's truly an incredible and very humbling thing.

hop on a plane

I spent some good time tonight with a friend who always encourages me to live freely out of my heart. So I was driving home and thinking, "where exactly IS my heart right now?" And I realized that my heart is really somewhere in the air... somewhere on an airplane traveling to a faraway place. I have a hankering for some exploring. I want to close my eyes and open them again and find myself somewhere new.

But tonight... really, I am sitting smack in the middle of my bed, smack in the middle of my room. No airplane, no new place... not tonight.

So I decided to take a little trip down memory lane...

I think I enjoyed that trip almost as much. =) Although... a real airplane would be REALLY great!!

...but now I must tell myself to go to sleep. It is almost 1:00am and all I want to do is look at my pictures. And I wonder... will heaven be the kind of place in which all beautiful places come together at once, and I can BE THERE fully and take it all in? No pictures, no sleep. I think so. I think I'll love it. =)