Accepted and Worthy Is Our New Name

So, today is the day. At exactly 1:41 AM, I will transform from being a boring, run of the mill, poop on a stick 22-year-old into a marvelous, fascinating, completely transformed 23-year-old! Brilliant! And the intermittent pictures? On the eve of such an occasion, I think it highly appropriate to document the many faces of Leanne in the face of facing said occasion.

I don't think I was a big fan of 22. Negative perspective (it's always best to start here and end on a sweet note):

• I was a heart and soul prisoner of the institution, of The Man.
• I had a lot of bad dreams, a lot of which came true.
• I made mistakes.
• I gained weight in bad places.
• I had the worst internship of my life and took the worst road possible to build character.
• I cried. A lot.

But the positive perspective! (it's always so comforting going through the negatives and almost always thinking of positives anyways):

• I had my incredible, life-changing roadtrip with God!
• I finally got to go on tour and see the whole amazing country! And who could forget the people?! Wow!
• I built a LOT of character!
• I made some new amazing friends!
• I overcame a lot of difficult things and came to a new level of understanding myself, others and God!
• I found a man who treats me right!
• I learned to laugh again with true appreciation of life!

So, in summation, it was a year, which I was apparently more pleased with than I first thought upon initial recall. Good thing I made lists. Tomorrow my family will celebrate 23 years of life since I landed, and Saturday my friends will celebrate surviving thus far and the potential for life yet to be lived. I don't know how else to say it, or if it will even get across what I want to say at all, but here goes: yesterday helped to shape me into who I am, and the day before that and the year before that; the good, the bad and the ugly. Yesterday does not hold me, however; I am no longer defined by who I was yesterday or any second preceding that. Christ in me is who I am now, and who I will grow into. He holds every one of my yesterdays and all my tomorrows. And today, this day that recognizes my birth, is nothing more than a tribute to one more year that He has plans for me. I hope to live this next year in such a way that brings more honor to Him than to myself.

Put It to You

I am back in Toronto. It is only for the weekend, but that does not make it easier to bear. Just recounting some of the events of last summer in the van on the way into the city was enough to get me nauseous and sweating profusely. I also had a not-so-pretty breakdown in the bathroom, realizing how much crap had actually gone down there. And that is not even the beginning. This place is an emotional war zone that supersedes time and space; it is as though I never left. I am here with new people under a different kind of protection, yet I still feel as naked as the first day I was belittled here. On the other hand, it also reminds me of a surprising strength that surpassed all circumstances that I toted around like a battle shield; let's face it, that was Christ in me and nothing to do with me at all. If I do not hold onto Him now, I will not make it.

All in All

Now, with 2.633 hours of perspective, I feel that I am better able to do 2010 justice. Yes, there was a lot of school. A lot. But there was also so much more.

Much of it is in the dark (which led to such a mundane list yesterday), but the things that shine through are worth noting.

I ate a lot of instant noodles, be it in the form of soup, KD, or chow mien.

I lived in another basement, with very different people from last time. It held some of the best times, but I wouldn't go back.

I went on two roadtrips. One ended prematurely in Jasper, leaving us stranded and cold and hungry and alive. The other brought me through five states and five thousand kilometers in three days, and left me crying and praying and breathing again.

I checked, there were two car accidents this year. January and November. After January and the two roadtrips this year and one last year, November finally did in Cameron. Poor Cameron.

I had my heart broken enough to need several transplant surgeries, and then I broke my own.

I had front row seats to the demise of my personal civilization; everything I worked for, gone.

I have had the most wonderful year of seeing the most wonderful man. Please don't read too much into that.

I watched six seasons of Gilmore Girls (fourth time through) in less than two months, and watched countless other series from my bed, the smoker's couch, my creaky chair and my good chair. Oh the days.

I went to Toronto and made it back alive, despite many desperate phone calls, skype dates and tearful outbursts, which, at the time, suggested I would not be so lucky.

I fell in love with God again. Even without feeling Him. Then I lost it again. I am going to get it back again.

Heh. Right. I also survived. It is 2011 and I am still here.

Who You Are is not Where You've Been

2010: A Summary

J - School...and moving away from school.

F - School?

M - School.

A - School, freedom!

M - Wedding!

J - Roadtrip

J - Toronto

A - Toronto, Home

S - School

O - School?

N - Reading break!

D - Christmas!

In short, it was...quite a year. This is positivity, even when it is difficult. For more info, please see blogs January 1 through December 30/2010.

Next year will be better.

I've Found I'm Scared to Know I'm Always on Your Mind

Snow really does fix everything. On Friday, sitting in Tim Horton's, I was able to see the sky transform from a dusting of white to a full on blizzard. Being out after that (even while I was being face-washed again and again) was the happiest I have been since...well, since Toronto. And we all know h0w fun that was. It has just been so long since I could really feel anything, but when God pours out His storehouses I am so aware of Him. It's like my God-sense tingles out of control and I cannot stand it. When I smell the snow it is so fresh and so crisp, and all I can think is how this is what it must have smelled like when everything came to be.

My life has been changing so rapidly lately in directions I was not expecting. Part of me is scared to death; I know that if things do not continue to go up, I may never again figure out how to get here again, let alone back to the mountain.

Hallelujah that none of this rests on a boy or a friend, on anyone or anything else. My life is getting back on track, and I am exactly one month away from being half way through this leg of the journey. And I am excited for what is coming.

The Voice of Truth Says "This Is for My Glory"

When we ran our day camps this summer in Toronto, our team of interns each had a teaching day on a certain topic. Wednesday’s theme was prayer. One of the things we talked about is how our natural reactions in the face of hard situations are usually not pretty: gossip, complaining, blaming, fighting back, panicking. We called this “picking up your sticks and stones.” But what we were teaching them was how these things only fuel problems, not extinguish them. We need to pray, because prayer is our powerful weapon; we ask God to fight our battles for us.

I feel like I am in the middle of a battlefield. The playing field? My life. And I cannot fight. I am the battlefield, so I need to have someone fight on my behalf. I need Someone to fight for me.

And praise God, He has given me the strength to run in the right direction. Instead of turning to malicious gossip or fighting or drinking or boys or any other thing I have used in the past to confront or avoid problems, I’ve given it to God. This finally gives me a picture of what “turn the other cheek” is really about. I am being forced to literally say: “Okay, you slapped me good. Ouch. That really hurts. ...Now here’s the rest I have to offer, here’s your opportunity to slap that out of me too. I promise I won’t fight back.” I feel like I am finally learning the meaning of true humility.

God spent all summer humbling me, and now it is being put to the test. But ultimately I need to keep in mind through everything that my ultimate authority is the Father, and He is who I take my directions from. So if He asks me to submit, I submit; if He tells me to cut my losses and get out, I do so. It’s my summer’s pattern all over again: learning to respond to God, whether He says go or stay.

This is also forcing me to really live out my newest mantra: is this for the glory of God? If not, sorry I’m out of here. In every situation.

This is by no means the most difficult period of life that I have faced (see blogs September 2009 through June 2010), but it is for sure the most personally challenging. It’s about self-discipline and setting healthy boundaries and giving everything to God. I have no other choice. This is the place I was in anyway, but now it’s an extreme. I do not know what to do.

I feel trapped all over again.

Wham, Bam, Thank You Toronto!

Tomorrow is the last day of VBS day camps, and then I'm done. Finished. I fly out on Tuesday, exactly two weeks earlier than first anticipated, but I think I've taken all that I can from my personal glean tree at the moment.

I had the privilege of meeting some incredible people, and also getting close with some who I never would have thought to before. It might sound strange, but the thing I'll miss the most from here are the people I get to take back home with me.

My greatest desire right now, as I look at my last few days here, is to finish well. Yesterday morning while I was getting ready to leave to pick up the guys, part of a quote popped into my head from Lord of the Rings (shut up, okay?!), and so I looked the whole thing up and it was perfect:

Look at my men! Their courage hangs by a thread. If this is to be our end, then I would have them make such an end as to be worthy of remembrance!

We didn't know it a week ago, but for all but one this is our end. And I want to make it a darn good one. I am exhausted and sick and ready to go home. But if this is to be my end here, I want it to be so good that it is worthy to be remembered in a good way...even if just by us.

Don't Stop, Never Give Up

This last while has been hard in the extreme. But I've been learning a lot about myself and God and relating to people.

Today I had the honour of preaching at a small Filipino church which is mostly made up of youth. And, as usual, less than an hour before the service God had put something pressing on my heart and the whole thing was being re-written. The half-hour car ride from our first church was spent madly flipping through the Bible and making hurried notes. I don't know how it was received as no one really said anything afterwards, but I wasn't trying to get a good reception; the whole point was to bring them out of their comfort zones. Besides, how comfy can one be with hell and judgement and numerous "repent!"s being thrown around?

This week will be a turning point. I can feel it in the air. And I don't mean the worse than ever humidity. These changes have to be for the best; I don't know if things could really get any worse now. Please pray.

Maybe We're Better Off this Way, We're Better Off this Way

I feel like this should be one of my classic "Re:" blogs, as I have a strong feeling I had to write one like this just last year and could probably have written a dozen in the meantime.

Seventeen days ago I left for Toronto and welcomed it; the opportunity to finally change things was exactly what I needed. I have done devotions every day and worked out almost as often. I have also been working on healing my heart and allowing God to change the ugly things inside of me. As with most people I know, I am not always the person I want to be nor do I always act in accordance with the moral regulations I try my best to stand by. I am not perfect.

So. I am allowing God to change my heart and actively working at forgiving myself and others...only to find that others are not as forgiving. Rumours are going around and, as usual, no one likes to check facts. Yes some of it is probably true and I am not proud of everything I've done, but as already stated I am not perfect. I wish I could take a lot of things back but I cannot. However, I know a lot of it is not even true. And that is hard to swallow.

But...in the spirit of trying to change, in the active progression of becoming sane instead of exploding in anger, I'm just going to stop there. I get so frustrated when I am not being allowed to change. I could completely change everything about me and it wouldn't matter...but, that's okay. It has to be. I'm changing for me and changing for God. There's nothing else I can do.

Home doesn't feel like a safe place to run back to anymore.

I will Go, Lord, Send Me

Last night it finally happened. After exactly two weeks in Toronto and swallowing how hard some things have been hitting me, I couldn't hold the tears back anymore. And, as predicted, once they started it was a torrent. I know that I will survive the next seven weeks; I know that how ministry goes here will not be allowed to make or break my future; but, somehow, I cannot seem to tell my heart that.

I came here, called. I was sent, I went. Sometimes I feel as though my gifts are just sitting in front of me rotting, waiting for someone to pick them up and use them. Instead I do a lot of stuff that is still awesome and is obviously not a waste, but is not helping me stretch. I want to grow.

Maybe part of my problem is that I still have not dealt with the back home stuff yet. It is hard to conceive that when I return I will have no home church, no ministry, and no job. I also do not have a clear-cut living situation or any idea how to deal with fixing the broken things scattered through my life.

I do not know what to do.

And We Know It's Never Simple, Never Easy, Never a Clean Break

Today is a day of extreme discouragement. I didn't realize that that was the word, pressing on my chest until I can hardly breathe, until I was texting someone and it just came out. I am discouraged.

I am closer to God than I have been in months. I am serving Him again and doing my best to swallow my pride and be humble. The people who work with me would probably be amazed to know that I don't even say half the things on my mind. I am trying my darnedest to be positive and smile, laugh and nod at the correct times, but I can feel the knife blade beneath my feet beginning to slip. At some point some one will say some thing and I will lose my hold and just cry. And I won't be able to stop.

I don't want to complain or be dishonouring to those who are in authority over me. I want to have a heart after what theirs' beat for, and to support them in all their endeavours. But I'm wearing thin already. And my church, my home church for the next few months...I don't feel like they want me. Maybe they were expecting someone older or...or... well to be honest, I think they wanted a guy. I have all the experience in the world that I could ever need to do everything they ask of me and more at this church (except for my lacking in the Portuguese department), but they don't...something. Trust? Want? I don't know.

And that's just work. If all I did in my whole life was work, this would be cake. My mind and heart do so much more than work, and they just ache all over. God is in the center and all around everything I do; nothing is being held back from His scrutiny (as far as I know). But I still hurt. I am still not whole.

I don't know how to make it another 53 days.

And I See You Standing There Wanting More from Me, and All I Can Do is Try

Hello, 5th day in Toronto. My, how tired you're looking already! Not getting enough sleep? Oh...working too hard, then? Hmm...then what could it be?

I'm tired. All. The. Time. It seems like every day a little more fight goes out of me and I placate myself by telling myself it's the "Christian" thing to do; church struggles usually end when the contenders forget who their General is, or one of them forgets he is a warrior at all.

I have such huge dreams for the next eight weeks! I cannot contain my enthusiasm to start things and evangelize and change lives so that I leave this place better for my being here. But...maybe my hopes are too high. Maybe I'm too white or western or unreligiousized by Bible College to truly appreciate their way of doing church. I have no problem with pews or hymns or dressing up to honour God or having services in their native tongue; however, I start to feel the below-the-surface burn when a church wants to grow but won't evangelize, wants more youth but won't relate to them, or wants a big scale revival service to start up their "life-support church" all over again instead of doing the work themselves. I am trying my very hardest not to judge, and I want to be as humble and respectful as I can. I just...I see the potential! I see the beautiful hearts in these people and the good things they desire. I want to want what they want...but I can't. I am passionate about raising up a new generation of believers who are brilliantly in love with God and who take their faith into their own hands. I cannot be okay with teenagers who believe in God because their parents do, or Christians who never pick up their Bibles or churches that are only inwardly focused. We are all the body. We are not in competition with one another. No one denomination is the be all and end all, nor does any one have perfect theology or complete knowledge of God. Maybe my problem is that I care too much.

Lately I seem to be only interested in reading from authors who wrote mainly in the '40s. C.S. Lewis is a constant book-marker, and Sunday I went with Jasmine to Chapters and bought a few books by Ray Bradbury. Oh boy, can that man ever write! One of the books is a collection of 100 of his short stories, and every single one I have read so far (5) is brilliant. I read them while I'm on the treadmill because it's motivation: if I want to read anything except the Bible, I better get exercising! It's a story called "Season of Disbelief," and follows the bitter thoughts of a seventy-two-year-old woman who cannot convince three ten-year-olds that she was once their age. She first tries telling them stories about her childhood and young adult years, but they accuse her of fibbing. She then digs through some old trunks and brings out several prized possessions from when she was young, but they steal those things away because they believe she stole them from another child. Standing in her house amongst her things, Mrs. Bentley is suddenly overcome by a memory of her late husband:

"It won't work," Mr. Bentley continued, sipping his tea. No matter how hard you try to be what you once were you can only be what you are here and now. ...You can't really prove you were ever young. Pictures? No, they lie. You're not the picture."

I like to keep things for the sake of nostalgia. That way, every once in awhile when I chance upon the item, I'll be reminded and can be transported back to who I was in that moment.

This story rocked me. God has already been working on my heart, helping me let go of the material so I can live in the spiritual. This helped. A lot. When it's hard, when I'd rather pretend to be who I used to be instead of making myself who I want to be in this moment, I'll hold on to this.

A final thought. A friend and I discussed awhile ago the want to be a certain way by a certain time to impress certain people. For example, I want my hair to be long again sooooooooo bad by September so that it'll look awesome for the start of school. These aesthetic longings only serve to make me reach for something unattainable, or else something that won't really change me or the way people look at me but will only serve to boost my ego. However. I have come to realize that the only change that matters is a heart change; people who don't like me now won't like me any more just because my hair is longer. People who hate the person I've been, including myself, won't suddenly hate me less for being less thin, more tanned, or anything else I could find on myself that needs "improving." I have to soak my heart in God for anything to mean anything. "And they became as detestable as that which they loved" (Hosea 9:10b). What I love I will become. What I have loved I have become. I'm choosing to love God again, and I'm really hoping that through it I'll begin to be a little bit more like Him, too.

The Greatest Thing You'll Ever Learn Is Just to Love and Be Loved in Return

So when I titled this blog I wasn't actually thinking of Ewan McGregor but, let's face it, appreciating his devastating good looks is never a bad thing.

Three days ago I arrived in Toronto (Mississauga to be more precise), and am in the process of discovering exactly what my internship is going to look like. I don't know exactly what I expected when I signed up for this in the Spring, but my current situation is definitely not it. I'm living in the basement of a wonderful woman named Sonia, along with Jasmine my fabulous cruise director, as well as another soon-to-join-us intern and the certainty of many passing-throughers who will decorate our sofas and line the edges of our blessedly cool hardwood floors. I spent my entire first day preparing crafts for the six kids camps we'll be running/prepping for over the course of the summer; thankfully I love crafts or it would have been a mega chore.

And, today, I got to meet my new home church. Igreja do Evanglho Quadrangular de Toronto is where I will do the majority of my sweating, serving, struggling, crying and, hopefully, growing over the next two months. I think the name means something like Evangelical Foursquare Church of Toronto, but that's just a wild guess...as is most of my interaction with this Portuguese church. As you may have noticed, even their website is completely in Portuguese, as is their entire service. Surprise! Oh, and I am also the happy collector of one youth. Yes, that's right, one. Either God is trying to teach me a massive lesson on the importance of "the one" and to shift my focus away from numbers, or He's giving me the chance to grow something incredible from nothing.

I'm still in the mode that says "IcandothisbecauseI'mheretoserveandGodwillhelpmeandHe'ssogoodAmen!" ...but I seriously doubt that can last long. I've been steeping myself in the Word at every possible moment, but I know that eventually exhaustion from 10-12 hour days will kick in and it will take extra effort to hold on to the goodness of God when all I see is pressure and struggle. But, for as long as this joy lasts, I am going to hold onto it with all my might and ask God to strengthen me when I am at my weakest.

If this internship doesn't make me breathe each sticky, humid breath for Him, I don't know what will.