I Guess I Wanted You More

It's a strange feeling to look back over the past few years, to really peer into them, and see what it was that drove me to be who I was. To not just look and suppose, or hide and minimize, or hide behind and defend; but, to really, honestly and truthfully, evaluate myself and my choices. I am a remarkable human being with intricacies that I cannot for the life of me untangle.

It's fascinating to be in a time of such mental clarity that I can memorize 3,000 words of study materials, nearly verbatim, and look back to a time when, during the semester, I honestly could not remember what classes I was taking. I suddenly have discernment and sense, and it throws the whole picture of "past" off its axis. I can see clearly now where I went wrong and where others wronged me, and the exact moment that I stopped caring and became completely incapable of choosing.

One particular set of circumstances has me particularly baffled at the moment. Like the others, I see where I went wrong and where he went wrong and she went wrong and they went wrong, but I have yet to see how it could have gone any other way. If even one element were changed, I would not be standing here, standing with the people I am, and that would be the worst fate I could imagine. Did God know this? Yes. Did He choose my destiny before all time and thought aside from His own? Absolutely. Am I angry with Him? Absolutely not. As much as I try, my finite brain cannot yet rectify how He can choose and I can screw up, but all I know is that it happens and I cannot possible understand and that it is perfectly okay that way.

What can I say? I wanted something more than God, and He fixed me. It hurt like...well, hell. Separation from God is what it was, but it brought me back closer than I have ever been. In the midst of hell, I found His love and I'll never go back. He cured me of my (literally) damned loves and wishes and desires, crushing all vestiges until I could be whole again. He loved me enough to crush everything ugly from my hands. He knew what He was doing, and, now that I can see clearly into that dark night, I know it was not a waste. He loved me too much to leave me.

I love You, Lord

And I lift my voice

To worship You

Oh my soul, rejoice!

Take joy, my King

In what You hear

Let it be a sweet, sweet sound

In Your ear

Find Me Here, Speak to Me

I did not plan on blogging tonight and the last thing I need right now is less sleep. Isn't that how it always starts? Well, the best ones do at least.

I'm in debate mode. I was dead set on either not going back to school at all or only going back for one course. I openly declared it in April, sure of my path. Over time I have continued to feed it and feed it, nurturing it, until it has grown into its own entity. Fighting "The Man" out of hurt and fear and anger turned into a life-force of its own. Something that has become abundantly clear to me lately, however, is that any life-force besides Christ-in-me is dangerous and needs to be crushed. It's not that forgoing a year of school is sin, but worshiping its ideology and proclaiming it as a virtue is. Thus, I have been forced to reevaluate.

After a summer of healing, and finding peace in God, and learning to depend on Him above all else, and being with a man who has cared for me without pushing God out of the way; after all this, I am beginning to learn to breathe again. And with each breath, I can see clearer and clearer that my path cannot be staked out with directions from my old handbook "Bitterness and Remorse." God has better for me than that. So here I sit, honestly not sure what to do. There is this huge, overwhelmingly beautiful part of me that wants to go back and live a year of redemption; not to "show" anyone or to receive praise from man, but because my God is the God who redeems the irredeemable. He can take my broken past and use it for His glory, to create a new, glorious future. I want to finish, and finish well. I believe those are good desires, Godly desires.

Then there is this part of me that would rather die than go back. It's humiliating and will bring to the surface a lot that I thought I left behind but will probably still need to be dealt with. I don't want to get hurt again. I don't want to be overwhelmed again. I don't want to fail again, and have 100 people staring at me with the look. The "I knew if we watched her long enough it would happen again" look. I'm not afraid of being who I was, but I am afraid of the sinner I still am. The question is not whether or not I will sin, but if my sins will be deemed "acceptable" or not by those watching. It has become a sad but obvious truth that we accept some sins as natural and something that everyone does, while others are crimes; I promise you God doesn't like either. And I am afraid of my wounded pride that would surely be the by-product of going back on my previous prideful declarations of leaving school behind.

Mulling over that last point, I foolishly realized that I just preached on this as part of my sermon on Sunday. Ha. Isn't that always the way? Repenting of hasty, angry, embittered words is a blow to the ego, and is absolutely necessary sometimes. If my biggest worry is embarrassingly having to tell everyone I was wrong, then I think I may be just fine.

Tonight I was reading in 1 Kings and I came across one of my favourite random stories. In short, it is the tale of an unknown prophet who, after doing God's will to a T, listens to another man's lie that God told him to tell this prophet to disobey a direct order from God. Foolishly listening, the unnamed prophet disobeys God and is then mauled by a lion on his way home. Moral of the story? When God tells you something and you know it's God, do it. Don't listen to someone else, don't listen to fear, don't listen to hunger (like this man did); obey God. Whatever God asks me to do in this situation, I need to obey. If it is to go back to school and swallow my pride, I need to do that. If it is to go work or go to YWAM or sit in my room and pray for eight months, I need to do that. And when, because it is a definite, when people tell me I'm doing the wrong thing, I need to shrug my shoulders, thank them, and continue on the path God has sent me.

Lord, find me here. Speak to me. I need to hear You.

Firm through the Fiercest Drought and Storm

What heights of love, what depths of peace when fears are stilled and strivings cease.

It is terrifying to fall into the hands of the living God, as one wise and inspired man once wrote, but I say that it is also terrifying to put anything of mine in His hands. My thoughts, my dreams, my deepest desires, my life...all these things feel best when grasped by my own feeble, mortal hands. If only I could see how vainly I struggle to hold onto that which was never mine in the first place. And then there are His hands. They hold all these things and more. As they encircle me, gently holding both me and all the things I grasp so tight, He asks me to consciously hand over that which He already holds; it is not for His benefit, but for mine. I have the lightened load of not having to carry my burdens any longer, but look! They are still right there. He does not take to hurt me, but to help me manage that which I never held to begin with. The Master of destinies who holds everything in His capable hands becomes the Director of my life, not just in word but in heart attitude. It really is all about the heart.

He is teaching me many things, the greatest of which when I am planning a message and realize that if I speak without taking it to heart, I will be a gargantuan hypocrite. If nothing else, I will leave with a greater sense of who He is in my life. And of course there is also else.

Am I More than You Bargained for Yet?

I

think I am finally in a place of accepting that it was not a mistake to come back to school this year.

have no desire to ever go to bed because as soon as I get in I never want to get out (and I want to be out).

love how things are constantly shifting.

am living in a constant state of trepidation over how this will all play out regarding my car and everything that goes with it.

thrill to think of how many people are actually in in my life this year and it gives me joy and hope.

do not yet know how I will spend my Christmas holidays, but I am not worried. No matter how I end up spending my time, the break will be worth it.

I am continuously nervous that I will just fall into one of those horrible situations that have plagued me the last few years. It's tiring to constantly be on the look-out for danger. I want the freedom of expression I have had when there is no fear. Ah, but that goes back to the whole passion dealio. I just sighed really big. Things will not get the better of me!

My Heart has never Felt This Way before; I'm Looking through Your Eyes

Sometimes I get this ticklish inkling. Content goes out the window and Wild, Desirous and Dangerous open a new door of endless possibilities. My heart is leaping out of my chest because it knows, intrinsically, that I am meant for so much more than the here and now.

I think about tomorrow and find myself wondering why I will still be here, still going through the same mundane routine, still doing less than I am capable of accomplishing. I want to drive to Whistler tonight so I am there as soon as they open bungee jumping for the day, or go blow all my money on a one-way ticket to Ireland or Israel or Cuba, or get in my car and drive and drive and drive until I don't remember where I came from (or until I hit 48 states, whichever comes first), or go find the nearest cliff and jump off it (for recreational purposes of course), or run away to live in the woods like a wild child for a month, or drive around the city trying every ethnic food place I see, or try out for American Idol just so I can be on TV for their worst ever's, or go dancing just for the sake of letting loose and moving the way I always want to (especially when I am sitting through a seven hour class), or ask the first decent man I see to marry me and run away together to Spain and never come back, or just have a baby because I can (hello, I'm female) and am tired of waiting, or spend a ridiculous amount of money on paints and canvas and just go crazy because I love painting and never let myself, or run away to Los Angeles to work as a waitress while I wait for my chance that will make me famous and do strange sitcoms that never make it past the pilot until I meet James McAvoy on the street and he falls in love with me and gets me my big break, or swim in the ocean right now in the dead of night in October, or travel to some far off destination that will give me all the quiet I need to finally read all those books I have always wanted to and to finally devote myself to writing the way I have always dreamed of, or become a cologne consultant at The Bay.

I feel as if I am just floating, constantly pushing down the things I really want in favor of the "shoulds." Some of them are there for a purpose, namely safety or sanity, but so what? I want to live, love to the fullest, breathe each breath like it's my last, and dare to love every moment without the fear of this being the best it will ever get. I never want to ask myself if this is as good as it gets. I will do more with my life.

I want to be more than just some girl who you knew way back when and don't really know what happened to her after that. I want to be dynamic, a force of nature that takes the world by storm because I am driven be the love of the One whose passion has become mine. I cannot settle for anything less.