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. =)

and...

just a few LOOONG hours later, the paper is finished! i am going to bed tonight just 20 minutes past my normal bedtime. oh my word... what a miracle. and the singing and dancing is occurring tonight in my heart... because i am too tired to move and i need to sleep.

but thank you, Lord. you rescue me.

i don't usually post about papers or write updates on my progress with them. but tonight, i knew i was well beyond my own resources. i needed to reach out to the Lord and to my friends. so if you read this, thank you. you helped me finish my paper... yes, in a weird way, you did. =)

a blessing

I'm in the middle (well, more like the beginning!) of writing my first paper of the semester. I am incredibly distracted today and I cannot focus to save my life (or my grade on this paper!). Did I drink too much coffee today? It's quite possible. Or is there just unrest in my soul? That's more possible. My thoughts drift to this blessing. What beauty and what paradox...

May all your expectations be frustrated...

May all your plans be thwarted...

May all your desires be withered into nothingness...

That you may experience the powerlessness and poverty of a child

And sing and dance in the love of God, the Father, the Son, and the Spirit.

~a blessing given to Brennan Manning from his friend, Larry Hine.

Lord, is this where You are taking us? May You take us there... to trust and sing and dance with You!

...and, if I may ask, could You somehow grace me with Your peace and calm tonight so that I can make some headway and not stay up all night? Then, I would TOTALLY sing and dance! =)

startled by grace

i can't sleep tonight... i'm itching to write. i've come to value setting aside time to "reflect..."and i've sat down several times to try to write about my reflections, and i've found that i just don't have the words. i'm pretty sure i still don't. ...but of course i will try! ;)

sometimes, life tricks us into thinking that we're much bigger than we really are. we can make plans--good plans--and we decide what our role is going to be in our plans, and we set our nose to that old grindstone and determine to make our plans come to pass. i know i can develop over time a good case of "tunnel vision"--where i can see life from one, sort of slanted perspective, but that one perspective, i can see VERY well.

it seems futile, actually... because tunnel vision ends up making my world a much smaller place than the bigger, open space that i really want it to be. and i can end up quite frustrated when the little world of my own making takes a course other than the one i planned for it. LIFE has a way of doing that!

but when it does... i'm learning that's when Jesus and His grace are so very startling. i'm reminded once again that no matter how hard i try or how much brain-power i muster, i cannot live this life on my own. i just can't. but i am reminded that i am not judged for my lack of strength... no, i am not. rather, i am picked up right where i am, and i am placed on my Father's big lap. and He turns me around and looks straight in my eyes... and i see no judgment there. i see love. and perfect love casts out fear.

so i learn once again the refreshing and paradoxical truth that failures--rather than driving me away from the Lord--only bring me closer to Him. that He is close to the brokenhearted... that He is attracted to weakness... that He delights in picking up His little girl and sitting her on His great big lap.

...and in those moments, the truth and power of grace wash me away in a really big stream that i just want to drown in forever.

wonderful truth

"So long as we imagine that it is we who have to look for God, we must often lose heart. But it is the other way about; He is looking for us. And so we can afford to recognize that very often we are not looking for God; far from it, we are in full flight from Him, in high rebellion against Him. And He knows that and has taken it into account. He has followed us into our own darkness; there where we thought finally to escape Him, we run straight into His arms. So we do not have to erect a false piety for ourselves, to give us the hope of salvation. Our hope is in His determination to save us, and He will not give in."

~Simon Tugwell, Prayer

how thankful i am for that...

great art

"Sometimes, you know, you try to pray, try to impress God with all the right words... and I just don't think it's all that easy to impress God Almighty. Here's the thing that I think we often forget--that we don't have to impress Him. He's already knocked out about you. He already loves you more than you can imagine.

"I remember reading a thing that Picasso once said. I like to read what famous artists have to say because I can barely look at their paintings without going into a coma, trying to figure out what it's about. But he said this one thing that I really did like... he said, 'Good taste is the enemy of great art,' which I think is very, very true. Good taste has all to do with being cultured and being refined. If art has to do with anything, it has to do with being human. And one of the reasons that I love the Bible is because the humans in the Bible are not very refined. They're pretty goofy, if you want to know the whole truth about it.

"And I remember when I was a kid, people would always say to me... because I was one of those typical, depressed, adolescent types. I wrote poetry and stuff! That's how morose I was as a kid. People would go around saying, 'Oh cheer up, man because God loves you.' And I would say, 'Big deal! God loves everybody. That don't make me special. That just proves that God ain't got no taste.'

"And I don't think He does. Thank God... because He takes the junk of our lives and He makes the greatest art in the world of it. And if He was cultured, if he was as civilized as most Christian people wish that He was, you'd be useless to Christianity. But God is a wild man, and I hope that in the course of your life, you encounter Him. But let me warn you... you need to hang on for dear life... or let go for dear life."

~Rich Mullins