words in my bones

"So you want to be a writer?" I often ask myself.

Yeah. I think so.

It’s a weird decision because it is actually not a decision. Writing is something I cannot help but do. It is like a birthmark never to be removed, like a fire in my bones. When I write it is absolutely satisfying and terrifying all in the same instance. But I want to do it. I feel called to do it. And that pushes me to continue even when each word is a tangled web of thorns I must unravel to procure beauty.

From a very early age I remember loving journals. Books filled with lined, empty pages craving to be filled with the curious and perhaps creative scribbles of an ink pen. I wanted to fill them, but not with just anything. I wanted the words to be good and edifying. I remember visiting my older brother’s college when I was in first grade. As I walked down the halls of the study areas, I watched as hundreds of people shuffled back and forth with stacks of books and papers as they read and wrote with purpose -- and I recall the feeling I had as I observed them: I want to do this too.

Various movies and books also inspired this desire. Characters from beloved stories like Jo March in Little Women, Anne of Green Gables, and any character who simply desired to write from their soul in hopes of changing the world, absolutely inspired me. And they still do.

That same childhood impulse rises again whenever I walk into a Barnes and Nobles bookstore. The smell. The items. The paper. The atmosphere. It all permeates of the writing life that I desire to be a part of. And maybe I will one day. Maybe…

Action is Required.

I was listening to someone talk about Christians the other day. Unfortunately the conclusion of the discussion ended with this thought: Christians are so apathetic.

We love the Word, we love hearing awesome speakers, we love getting together to discuss what we learn -- but we lack the motivation to do anything as a result of truth. This is why Jesus' words concluding the Sermon on the Mount were so powerful to me. Not only does Jesus demand that we hear His Word, but that we must act on what we have heard.

"Therefore everyone who hears these words of Mine and acts on them, may be compared to a wise man who built his house on the rock. And the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and slammed against that house; and yet it did not fall, for it had been founded on the rock. Everyone who hears these words of Mine and does not act on them, will be like a foolish man who built his house on the sand. The rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and slammed against that house; and it fell--and great was its fall." (Matt. 7:24-27 NASB)

If we would only follow our Master's example. He did not recline in heaven watching as we drifted further and further into destruction. He acted. He stepped into our story -- He became our story -- and changed the world forever. His action should motivate us to act on His words.

Why don't we act? I can only speak for myself: I hear His words -- and they are good -- but the action (or lack thereof) silently proves that either I don't believe Him to be true, or that I value my own opinion and complacently more than His demands. Both options are sinful -- and the result, as Jesus said, is destruction.

"But be doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves. For if anyone is a hearer of the word and not a doer, he is like a man who looks intently at his natural face in a mirror. For he looks at himself and goes away and at once forgets what he was like. But the one who looks into the perfect law, the law of liberty, and perseveres, being no hearer who forgets but a doer who acts, he will be blessed in his doing." (James 1:22-25 ESV)

So ... what action is God requiring you to take? What has He spoken to you? Have you heard His words and failed to move? Are you adding to the library of knowledge and failing to exercise application? These are the questions I ask myself today.

home again

So after 11 amazing days of camp -- I am home again. What an experience! Even today as I was thinking over all of the joys, trials, laughter, friendships, breakthroughs ... my heart was overwhelmed with gratitude. God is faithful. God is near. God is at work.

Thank you to everyone who was praying for me and the students attending. I definitely felt your prayers and support. Not surprisingly, the entire week held a substantial amount of warfare felt by both counselors and students. I was amazed at God's power to break through many seemingly impossible barriers and He glorified Himself. It was breathtaking to behold God at work.

Now as I settle back into "normal" life, I am faithfully striving to sync what I have learned with my surroundings and habits. Camp is such an awesome experience that I don't want to waste. I am going through a lot of sifting and sorting, praying that God solidifies what needs to stay and grow. Hopefully more than a few posts will come as a result of this. For right now, I am just enjoying the soothing rhythm of my keyboard and the almost unfamiliar joy of watching words appear.

How is everyone's summer going?

let's see if I can turn this into a blog post...

Have I forgotten how to write? You might assume I have seeing that the blog posts have been rather scarce lately. Honestly I have tried to get together several posts but nothing seems to be flowing correctly. Just for the record, I am working on finishing some posts answering the questions you all asked a few weeks ago, but that too is under lagging construction. Just so you know that I haven't fallen off the planet (or blogosphere), I am sending out an "I am alive, but my pen stopped moving" post.

In other news, I am preparing to head to summer camp until late next week serving as a counselor to about +15 teenagers. I am excited/nervous about that -- I have been working on the study everyone will be going through and it is incredible to say the least. I pray God uses me in ways that only He can in these camper's lives. So, if no new posts pop out next week I have a better excuse than what I am attempting to offer right now. If you wouldn't mind praying for me I would be SO GRATEFUL. This is going to be an intense week of study/mentoring/exercise.

I shall close with a few scraps of poetry I have been playing with. Hope everyone is enjoying their summer!

Your words are the deepest channel
constant and strong
soothing famished roots and broken souls.

When I plunge deeper
You are deeper still, faithfully restoring
perfect strength and living hope.

When I grow shallow and my soil turns to dust
You send water from the heavens
and revive my weakened trust.

You are near, always deeper
than my mind could ever plummet.
You are below me, all around me
a song that can't escape my head.

love the bird, dear

This morning brought a thump
upon my window
I peered out to see a bird
fallen from his flight
crumbled, broken, shaking in fear,
limp from impact, his feathers askew.

My heart retreated for protection,
never to love a dying creature.
For pain can only be gained, this I know.
Chided by the Lord at my frigid heart,
I heard strong whispers, "Love the bird, dear, love the bird..."
Why? For what profit? It is dead for sure...

"If you never love the dying--
you shall never love at all"

Sisters and mother gathered to the window.
I wanted to shelter them for despair,
"I think he is gone, don't look for long."
Mom said a prayer, "Jesus heal this poor bird,"
and I stood from afar and scoffed,
"The bird is dead -- don't waste a prayer."

Minutes inched by, the bird began blinking--
we all stared in wonderment.
I walked outside and nudged him with a branch...
Up and away he flew into a crayola blue sky
healed and alive -- living to fly again.
My heart smarted from conviction:

If I never love the dying--
I shall never love at all.

an embrace that can't be torn asunder

What is it that I love in loving You? You are the light that shines into my soul which no physical place can contain, where time does not snatch away the lovely sound, where no breeze disperses the sweet fragrance, where no eating diminishes the food, and where there is an embrace that can't be torn asunder. This is what I love when I love my God.

What is this God? I asked the earth, and it answered, "I am not He." Everything in the earth made the same confession. I asked the sea and the deeps and the creeping things, and they replied, "we are not your God; seek above us." I asked the fleeting winds, and the entire air with its inhabitants answered, "I am not God." I asked the heavens, the sun, moon, and stars; and they answered, "Neither are we the God whom you seek."

I replied to all these things that surround me: "You have told me about my God, that you are not He. Tell me something about Him." With a loud voice they all cried out, "He made us." My question had come from observing them, and their reply came from their beauty of order.

Isn't this beauty of form visible to all whose senses are unimpaired? Why, then, does it not say the same things to all? Animals, both great and small, see but are unable to question its meaning. Their senses are not endowed with the reason that would enable them to judge the evidence their senses report.

-St. Augustine

Capriciousness and Camomile

(This is a follow-up to my questions post from a dew days ago. I have decided to break  some of the questions into individual posts for space and clarity.)

Kit (echoed by Jen and Camille) asked: "How in the world do we as women deal with our crazy up and down emotions, particularly from a Biblical perspective? Have you had experiences like this, and what did you do? And what tea did you drink while you were doing it? :) "

To begin, yes, I do struggle with my emotions. And hopefully I am learning to handle them better through God's grace and truth, though I am by no means an expert. I only know that the goal of my life is "to walk in a manner worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing to him, bearing fruit in every good work and increasing in the knowledge of God." (Col. 1:10) Applying this to my emotional life has helped shape a backbone into a somewhat varied and unstable issue.

But let me quickly address a common false assumption among many truth-loving Christians regarding emotions. First of all, emotions are not evil. I have been guilty of such a judgment. Somewhere in my quest to honor God with my emotions I confused emotions with sin. We cannot fall into this trap. Emotions are created by God and can be used to glorify and enhance our love for Him. If we think that by snuffing or ignoring the existence of emotions is pleasing God, we have grossly missed the mark and discolored a fundamental distinction between humans and the rest of creation. So rather than disdaining our emotions, we must learn how to properly and biblically facilitate them.

Let's start at ground level. God made us. He made emotions. So obviously He can direct us in the right course on how to handle them. Emotions are not the truth, but they can align with (or contradict) the truth. The key is to create (or rather discover in Scripture) a bold, unwavering line in which we can examine our emotions to see if they align to God's standard. We should never act on or build upon a shifty foundation, and our emotions are capricious and make horrible footings. We need something stronger and immovable as our foundation -- we need the Word of God to consent or condemn the changing colors of our feelings.

All this sounds good and most of us know this, but how do we practically apply this to those, to borrow Anne of Green Gables' term, "depths of despair" days? I see it like this: Last year I had a thriving jasmine vine whose sole desire was to spread it's branches onto anything and everything it could reach. I bought a wooden trellis to give it some healthy direction instead of growing into high traffic areas on the back deck and getting torn or smashed, but it seemed like I had to re-position it back onto the trellis every morning because overnight it would get out of shape again.

We are exactly like that jasmine. Situations, irritations, people and hormones bend us out of shape and we lash out with purely emotional voltage. We wrap ourselves around unhealthy objects or follow unsafe patterns fed by our emotions that harm the people around us and ourselves, not to mention we sadden the heart of our Father God. Re-shaping our attitudes and feelings in accordance with God's Word (our solid trellis) is the only comfort and hope for the emotional soul.

SO ... the first point is to know what the Word says about how we are to feel; we are to be "increasing in the knowledge of God." Here are a few samples to refute or reaffirm disparate emotions.

• When feeling anxious, “Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything with prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God.” Philippians 4:6


• When feeling afraid, “When I am afraid, I put my trust in You.” Psalms 56:3


• When feeling uncertain, “If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask God, who gives generously to all without reproach, and it will be given him.” James 1:5


• When feeling depressed, “From the end of the earth I call to You when my heart is faint. Lead me to the rock that is higher than I, for You have been my refuge.” Psalms 61:2-3


• When feeling alone, “For He has said, “I will never leave you or forsake you.” Hebrews 13:5


• When feeling stressed, “Come to Me, all who are weary and heavy laden, and I will give you rest.” Matthew 11:28


• When feeling unloved, “But God demonstrates His own love towards us in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.” Romans 5:8

Secondly, don't be afraid to ask God for grace in times of need. Hebrews 4:15-16 assures us, "For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sin. Let us then with confidence draw near to the throne of grace, that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need." Unlike ourselves, God's emotions are holy and stable -- so we are never going to catch Him in a "bad moment." He is sympathetic and merciful to the asking, needy heart. In my worst moments of emotional caos, one of the greatest aids is to stop, even if it is for a moment, and humbly ask God for grace. Taking a moment to assess the damage, define the cause, repent of failings, and welcome grace is the remedy for those crazy up and down emotions that we all expereince. And while we're at it, a good cup of camomile tea is defnitely a saving grace.