you can't just do that to people.

we are flesh and blood

Inspiring Read

Currently I am reading a biography on Keith Green written by his wife, Melody.

It is so inspiring. This man's passion and obsession with God, his undying determined spiritual quest for truth is so inspiring, his emptiness relatable. And in the end he comes to know Christ.

He and Melody were a team, a pair of co-journers on a spiritual journey to know God, and by their own definition they succeeded. They both spoke of Jesus like they knew Him personally. Their lives transformed from an empty lifestyle full of career-pursuits and drugs to a life of peace and knowing God.

It is so inspiring. I want to know Christ as the person, to know Jesus as a best friend the way so many of my new friends speak of Him.

Sometimes I wish I grew up rebellious (in an outwardly way), strayed and lost, strung-out (to a certain extent I was), rather than growing up in the church, because the fresh love and passion that new Christians who became saved later in life is so raw, so passionate and rich and life-changing. It exposes the staleness of my own faith indirectly... but it is a challenge! Do I really know and love the Person of Christ?

Lord Jesus help me love and know you as Keith and my new friends know you....

Midnight Petition

Lord, help me know and experience your perfect love. May your perfect love cast out fear in me so that in turn I am free to love others with a love that dispels fear.

Please keep my heart from hardening. May I always maintain an emotional availability towards all that I meet. I ask God help us stay rooted in Your unfailing, unconditional love so that we are free to love others no matter how they respond.

May your perfect love cast out fear.

December 21, 2010

I am realizing how potent sin is. All is takes is five little words to cut to the heart, sink a soul, gauge out a deep black pit into the stomach, deaden the appetite. Sin destroys and wounds and severs and dismantles and infects and pollutes and corrupts and is just so destructive. It makes me want to change and guard every word and mentality that comes out of me.

Thank God for forgiveness and grace. I want to be able to maintain that refreshing perspective of choosing to see people as the new creations that God declares that they are, instead of perceiving them based on the ways I have been hurt in the past. It makes me wonder if faith, if renewing your mind, having the mind of Christ, is an active, daily choice to perceive and treat people based on what God has declared them to be, which is forgiven, instead of clinging to pain and then acting out of fear or self-defense.

That ends my rather serious musing of the evening. Thanks for reading, perhaps more to come.

Thanksgiving Day

Gosh i want to do something that matters. i don't know what. i don't know what to pursue. the closest thing i can dream up is to just design stuff for people and causes i believe in. i miss the outlet, the structure of it, the cause of it, having that cause to pour into. a solid job in a new city or even rochester where i can contribute my skills to a company i believe in sounds so wonderful right now.

people like joel h and jamie t from hillsong united and twloha have a cause, an organization almost, that they believe in and pour their talents and hobbies into, and it seems like they are super productive and pour their creative juices into their cause.

i just want to do something significant, that i can pour my creativity, love for design, art, music into, and craft/sewing....i just don't know what.

aaaahh God please lead me and direct me. i need direction.

argh

ugh do you ever wish you could just vomit out your life history to someone or every a group of people just to explain who you are so that maybe they'll get you? once again i am afraid of being misunderstood by people and i guess i feel the need to defend myself, which probably isn't necessary. i was telling someone that i felt like a basketcase around them because they are so quiet and calm and gentle and i had mentioned that i was seeing a counselor and talked a little about that to answer one of their questions...but i didn't give the whole story and i know in the big scheme of things its not that important but man sometimes i wish i could just tell people the whole dang story so maybe they could understand. maybe people don't need the whole story but i think i would want to hear theirs too ...anyways i guess i just feel like i need to defend myself...i want to explain who i am and who i once was to people and i'm not sure why i am feeling this way. i guess i just feel really insecure right now, like i have to defend my reasonings for seeing a counselor or something. i don't want to misunderstood and i don't want to be judged and i don't want to be passed off and passed over because of misunderstanding.

i really feel this way about the shine band and actually i have felt this way for about four or five months now, like i want to tell them everything so maybe they'll understand why i act the way i do. maybe i just always feel a step below everyone or something.

i don't know. i have a feeling this is going to be one of those posts that i delete the next morning haha

a possibly unethical post as it resulted from eavesdropping

oh man. oh man oh man oh man

so today i went to Muddy Waters (a cafe) to study for earth science, which by the way I don't understand how on earth (no pun intended) i am supposed to remember whether andesite is intermediate or felsic or aphenitic or etc etc etc but that's beside the point.

anyways i was sitting three feet away from an older couple and they were talking - pretty loud too - and i overheard their conversation. i tried not to but they were right there and i guess next time someone eavesdrops on my conversation i'll just let it slide and say i had it coming

anyways again, they were older, maybe in their late forties, maybe fifties and neither one of them was married. they kept talking about finding a girlfriend for the guy and they really said some interesting things that i jotted down...i know this is probably pretty terrible but i will be repaid somehow i'm sure

the one guy seemed really down about his life and seemed to have lost his passion in general and i really felt for him...that is an awful feeling to feel gray and hopeless and almost indifferent...he said, "I guess I just want to die alone....i think the Lord is coming back, so why bother (trying to find anyone) ?" Oh man. I am so glad the woman he was sitting with spoke up because I was ready to jump in on their conversation and tell this man that I seriously doubt that he means that. I don't think he believed it himself. He definitely felt defeated and I wanted to tell him that he is doing the right thing - having coffee with people and maintaining friendships and that he doesn't have to be alone and that he was in that moment taking a good step towards cultivating a relationship...

the woman later on was giving the man advice, telling him to fill his life with activities, hobbies, "quality things," like "a new car," or a "cat." She said that didn't think she could ever get married as she would probably end up taking care of the person and financially it would be difficult, along with having children, and that it wasn't worth it, and so that was what she did - fill her life with quality things. I do think she was right in a sense, you can't just sit around but you have to make your life count and fill it up with activity.

The only thing is, what is more quality than people? a new car?

That was the one thing I just couldn't get past...quality things when the only real quality things are people and God.

I am writing this from a more general sense in terms of relationships, i don't know, I just really felt for this guy because he felt like he was too old and too lonely and that there was no hope for him - yet at the same time he was in a sense taking a step of progress but maybe he just couldn't see it. i wanted to tell these two people so badly...so badly i really had to restrain myself...that maybe they should date each other instead of trying to find dates for the other. haha. but that's besides the point.

I also am writing this in terms of more "romantic" relationships...like maybe it is worth the pain of, not just rejection, but maybe the pain of acceptance too. Sometimes I think I escape behind my religion ("the lord is coming back so, why bother?) to ignore relationships on all different levels, not because of the rejection but because of the acceptance...and i was talking about this with two friends after reading an article about it, which i shall have to shall sometime. In general I am really frustrated with escapism, especially behind religion...carole why don't you just deal with your problem!!!!

wow that was a lot. this conversation really struck me for some reason. I guess I have learned that people are pretty much, next to God, the only thing that really matters and also I don't want to let life pass me by but grab it by the throat and really spend time with people because that's what really matters to me.

one more thing, the woman said people in the north often have low vitamin D levels and that it can make them feel kind of down and I wondering if my grayness is impacted by the weather...but that is a different subject for a different time

thanks for reading. sorry if you think i'm a nosy eavesdropper...because maybe i am =)