If

Laura Jo's dad sent me a book of 101 famous poems, mostly because there was one poem that I absolutely loved in the book. I'm going to share it with you, because right now I'm feeling empty and without anything to say.

If

If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you
But make allowance for their doubting too

If you can wait and not be tired by waiting
Or, being lied about, don't deal in lies
Or being hated, don't give way to hating
And yet don't look too good, nor talk to wise

If you can dream-- and not make dreams your master
If you can think-- and not make thoughts your aim
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same

If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken
And stoop and build 'em up with worn-out tools

If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breathe a word about your loss

If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: "Hold on."

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue
Or walk with kings-- nor lose the common touch
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you
If all men count with you, but none too much

If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds' worth of distance run
Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it
And-- what is more-- you'll be a man, my son.

-Rudyard Kipling

Coffee

I wasn't going to write about this, but it's weighing too much on my heart not to. I'm struggling being in Intervarsity right now. I feel like I have to be this upstanding, amazing Christian in order to be considered "okay." I don't know exactly how to explain this.

About a month ago, I went to Greene Street, a club. I didn't drink and I don't plan to before I am twenty-one. I didn't do anything that I ought to feel guilty about, but people in IV have let me know how "displeased" they are that I was even there in the first place... I get that I'm not suppoesd to be "of this world," but it's not the same thing.

We talked in our small group about coffee (I promise this relates) the other day, about how if someone's never tried coffee before and you invite them to try it, you'll either give them an iced coffee or some hot rich blend. You don't give them lukewarm, room temperature coffee. Right? Right. We all know that iced coffee is good. Hot coffee is good, but the stuff in the middle is terrible, and we don't wnat someone to be completely turned off to coffee just because of one bad experience, so we want their first experience to be good. It's the same way with Christianity, we discussed. We need to be passionate about what we believe, because the completely worldly side looks pretty good too. It's the people in the middle, who call themselves Christians but hurt others so deeply that turn people off to it. The hypocrites, the liars, etc who say they are Christians make it difficult for people to give Christianity a second thought.

But, I argued, because the whole issue with IV is still fresh in my mind, we can't be scalding hot. We'll just burn people that way. We have to admit that we are weak, sinful and self-consumed. We have to admit we are broken, and in need of a savior. I think that's my frustration. That people around me talk to me, and probably to people not in IV, like they have it together, and don't commit "big sins."

Let me give one more example, and then I can be done. My friend (non-Christian) has been asking me questions about God and earnestly seeking answers. Then she made a bad decision with some serious consequences. And you know what? In both instances she talked to me. And I started thinking while she was talking to me about the choice she made... if I had made the same type of mistake with the same types of reprocussions, who would I turn to? And I wasn't sure if it would be a Christian or not... and that made me deeply sad.

Yes, we need to be passionate about God and our faith and stand firm in what we believe. BUT we cannot make our lives a long list of rules and regulations because we think that makes us a good person--- because we're all hypocrites if we believe that... the ones who think they're healthy don't ever go see the doctor. I want to be hot coffee, but not hot enough to burn the people around me.

Passion...

Do the one thing you think you cannot do. Fail at it. Try again. Do better the second time. The only people who never tumble are those who never mount the high wire. This is your moment. Own it.

The one thing I have felt a longing for, this year especially, is to be so deeply passionate about something. I want a purpose, a drive, a calling, a sense of why I am alive. I want to be thoroughly excited about something... I feel like for a lot of people it's whatever lifestyle they choose. A lot of people are passionate about their jobs, their families, their mission field, etc... Some days I think I'm passionate about social work, about "working myself out of a job," but other days, I don't know exactly why I am getting a degree in social work.

My small group had a discussion last week at the end of our time about the three things we were passionate about. I didn't have three. In fact, I didn't have one at first...

Laura Jo says my passion is justice. That I have this sense of wanting people to be loved and well-cared for. That I want to see "on earth as it is in heaven" more of a reality... I don't know though. Sometimes I mix up justice and idealism, I confuse reality with false hope. I'm frustrated because I want my heart to be on fire for something in the Kingdom... I don't want to just sail through these days...

Upheaval and unease

I feel like my life is in upheaval right now. Every thing seems to be changing at a rate I cannot keep up with, heading in an unexpected, and sometimes terribly wrong, direction in an out-of-control-feeling way... I told Laura Jo this and she said, "But really, Linds, it isn't." I didn't so much like that answer... but I realized that she wasn't trying to invalidate my feelings, as I initially thought, so much as trying to comfort me and remind me of the reality of the situation(s).

"The Lord is my chosen portion and my cup; you hold my lot.
The lines have fallen for me in pleasant places;
indeed I have a beautiful inheritance.
I bless the Lord who gives me counsel;
in the night also my heart instructs me.
I have set the Lord always before me;
because he is at my right hand, I shall not be shaken.
Therefore my heart is glad, and my whole being rejoices;
my flesh also dwells secure.
For you will not abandon my soul to Sheol,
or let your holy one see corruption.
You make known to me the path of life;
in your presence there is fullness of joy;
At your right hand are pleasures forevermore."
-Psalm 16:5-11

I like the phrases "secure," "not be shaken," "not abandon," "beautiful inheritance." THIS is the reality, and even though my feelings are valid, God's not off his throne, He hasn't and won't abandon me, and His plan is divine and perfect... so upheaval can only be at most, temporary and earthly. That may not be any great revelation for you, O Reader, but it was for me.

All the Heavens

As Your children gather in peace
All the angels sing in Heaven
In Your temple all that I seek
Is to glimpse Your holy presence

All the heavens could not hold You, Lord
How much less to dwell in me?
I can only make my one desire
Holding on to Thee

All the angels exalt You on high
What a kingdom to depart!
But You left Your throne in the sky
Just to live inside my heart

All the heavens could not hold You, Lord
How much less to dwell in me?
I can only make my one desire
Holding on to Thee

I will always make my one desire
Holding on to Thee

"All the Heavens" by Third Day

Sweet Poison of the False Infinite

"In either case-- whether we try to secure means for repeating the pleasure at will or turn from what is given to something else which is desired-- Lewis thinks that we will eventually lose the capacity for delighting in what is received. For to treat a created thing as something more than that is to destroy its true character. To seek in any created thing a complete fulfillment of the longing which moves us to make of it an object of infinite desire and, because it is only a created thing, a false infinite. It may still be sweet, at least for a time, because it is intended by its Giver to be a source of delight. But in the end it will be poison for the person who gives his heart to it. Hence the constant temptation: the lure of the sweet poison of the false infinite. [There is a] contrast between living by faith and seeking a rigid kind of security. This sort of trust involves a willingness to receive what is given (even if it was not originally desired) as well as a willingness to let it go again without grasping after repitition of the pleasure."
-The Taste for the Other: The Social and Ethical Thought of C.S. Lewis, by Gilbert Meilaender

It's March, People...

Today, I was driving in my car and the sky was really, really, really, really dark grey. The word ominous came to mind. I was so sure that the bottom of the sky would fall out with torrential rains, and lots of thunder and lightning-- my favorite kind of storm-- but you know what? It didn't. It snowed instead.

I just thought that was funny.

Weirdness unveiled...

I've been tagged. (I kinda think this game is slightly ridiculous, but I guess I will succumb to the pressure and do it anyways...) I have to put 7 weird things about me. Here goes...

1) I have a HUGE (and I mean gigantic!) obsession with going to men's section department stores and basking in the beauty of...(drum roll please)... folded polo shirts stacked (neatly, of course) according to color. It makes me deeply satisfied for some weird reason. If they are slightly out-of-whack, I WILL fix them. In fact, Laura Jo has become accustomed to this obsession and subsequent need to rearrange them that she stops at the shelves and waits patiently for me to do what must be done.

2) I have a teddy bear named Brownie that I've had since I was born. I also have a mint-condition bear EXACTLY like him (minus 20 years of love and general wear-and-tear) that we found randomly at the PTA thrift store for $1. His name is Brownie 2 (for lack of a better name).

3) I don't like roller coasters. I never have. It's not the going down part, it's the going up part... and that stupid psychology term: availability heuristic, where people base their prediction of the frequency of an event or the proportion within a population based on how easily an example can be brought to mind. The only time I see a roller coaster on the news is when it's either crashed, gotten stuck or injured someone. No good.

4) I eat my pizza backwards. First, I eat the crust, then I turn it back around and eat from the tip to the larger end.

5) I am hopelessly afraid of three things: fire, car wrecks and falling down stairs.

6) I don't like movies where the animals are sad or hurt. Old Yeller is out, always, so is Benji, Bambi, Fox and the Hound, etc. I don't even like Homeward Bound just because Sassy falls down the waterfall, Chance goes to the pound, and Shadow falls in the hole. I don't even like the part in Aladdin when Jasmine scales the wall to escape the smothered life she lives in the palace and leaves Raja the tiger behind. Raja is so sad.

7) I don't like people to touch my neck. It's a weird quirk, but I really have issues with people touching my neck. Even if they are just gesturing like they're going to, I might freak out. Hug me. Fine. But don't touch my neck.

I tag: Emily J and KVP.

A Divided Heart

"Their heart is divided, now they shall be found faulty." -Hosea 10:2

Lately, I just feel like my heart is divided, like I am trying to balance two different things. I don't know what is wrong with me.

Sorry I don't have anything more interesting to write about tonight.

Prayer

The great people of this earth today are the people who pray. I do not mean those who talk about prayer, nor those who can explain about prayer. I mean those people who take time out and pray. They have not time; time must be taken from something else. This something else is important, very important and pressing, but still less important and less pressing than prayer. -S.D. Gordon

Unexpectedly, I've seen God start to show me more about prayer. It was something that I've been consciously seeking, but it was something that I'm amazed by and excited about. There are a couple main ways that have really encouraged me. The first is leadership meetings. The way we are able to be vulnerable and pray for each other is really exciting, as our team continues to bond and grow together. I love it.
Today, after the second service of church (though I'm still not sure why I stayed all the way through since I stayed for first service and could have easily left after the announcements portion of second service), I had this urge to go talk to Greg. I didn't know what I was going to say but I went up, he hugged me and then asked how I was. All of the sudden there were words coming out of my mouth, as I heard myself say: "Could you pray with me before we leave today?" I don't do that. I'm not bold and I don't request random things of people that I'm not super-close to, or that I am unsure of how they will respond. And he was really excited about it. He asked if it would be okay if he let another woman, someone I don't know, pray with us. I didn't know what to say. But apparently there was a physiological response because Greg said, "From the way your body just tensed up, I'm guessing you're not comfortable with that yet. That's fine, we'll pray just the two of us." So after everyone left, we sat down and talked and prayed and talked and prayed. He has asked this other lady to sit quietly in the back of the sanctuary and pray for us while we prayed. She heard a lot of what I said and what Greg said and afterward, came up and talked with me, and said that she just wanted me to know that whatever she heard she took straight to the Lord. I was so comforted that that was her response and that this woman who didn't even know me would pray for me.
Then tonight, after leadership meeting, Nicole and I walked back to Phillips-Hawkins from across campus, and we took the long way. Why? Because we were doing a prayer walk. We prayed for many different things and it was such an encouragement to walk with her and pray for Intervarsity, for leadership team, for our campus, for our nation, our world and individuals by name.
And earlier this week I had a phone-date with Karen and we talked for over an hour, and at the end of it, I was driving somewhere, and she asked over the phone if she could pray for me. I said that she could and then I put her on speaker phone, laid the phone down and just drove while she prayed. It was a really different form of prayer, but it was just another way of God reminding me that even people I don't see on a regular basis are praying for me and the power of prayer stretches beyond what we can imagine.

"Pray continually and give thanks in all circumstances..."

Meet Daisy

the newest addition to our household... DAISY

Running On Empty

Sammie Jo suggested I read a book called Running on Empty: Contemplative Spirituality for Overachievers. I love it. And it doesn't matter if you label yourself an overachiever or not, if you find yourself always busy, always running on the hamster wheel, always trying to do enough, be enough, become enough, etc... then this book is for you. It is wonderful.

"The crazy truth is that as much as we complain about it, we actually want to be seduced by busyness. But why do we love the killer? In part, it's because when we're busy, we don't have to think about important matters we prefer to avoid. Busyness enables us to quiet the voice of the deeper issues that trouble and haunt us. Plus busyness makes us feel important."

We love being in demand. I realize when I look at my daytimer, which is the one thing that ensures I stay organized and on top of my game, I frequently am concerned with the volume of activity that fills my days. My daytimer has three different types of calendars: months at a glance, where each day is listed with a line next to it, so you can write major events, a month spread where there are blocks you can add a few major things to, and then a day-by-day that breaks my days down into 15 minute increments. My friends have started realizing that if they want my time, they have to get scheduled in. That makes me really sad. It makes me sad that, as was the case last night, I couldn't fall asleep until after 4am, not because I had slept in or taken a nap or had an easy day... quite the contrary. I had had meetings, classes, or activities from 9am until 9pm, and then we had a massive "crisis" in the building with a fire alarm, smoke, and a forced relocation of students for a half hour to another building. I had run myself ragged sure, but my mind still had a hundred things to mull over before I could fall asleep.

"For what will it profit them if they gain the whole world but forfeit their life?" -Matt. 16:26

I saw this All State commercial the other day, where they had people eating dinner or something in the middle of a highway. And the voice over said "Let's start treating people like they are in our homes, not in our way." It was talking about driving, but I realize that that is, sadly, my mindset a lot: that I have a hundred things to get done, and unless you're scheduled into my daytimer, I've got other things on my mind. My prayer recently has been that I would slow down and be blessed by the things that I see as in my way, that I would believe that God's love for and acceptance of me are not things I can earn, and that my worth and value are found in Him and not in what I can accomplish by adhering to a strict schedule and being productive.

"If I had set out to destroy my identity as a beloved child of God, I couldn't have done better than living in America at the start of the twenty-first century. The greatest threats I've encountered are not the arguments of skeptics or the lure of drink, drugs, or sex. The greatest threats are the constant busyness adn frantic hurry that demand my allegiance."

Messiness

I gave a small part of my testimony Thursday at InterVarsity. We have this thing each week at our chapter meeting called "Word From The Heard." Basically, one person in our group gets up and talks about something that God's been teaching them or shares something with the rest of the chapter. I've never done it before, but recently, I've really felt God lay it on my heart to speak.

Let me back up. I'm often saying that I wish people in InterVarsity were more "real" with each other; I have felt like we're really safe, as a whole, especially recently, and I desired for that to change.

So, what God's been teaching me recently is how to love who He created me to be, in all my messiness, struggles, emotions, etc. That's hard to learn, in fact He's clearly been trying to teach me this for a while. I wrote a poem in the last year called "Shattered but Satisfied" about the struggle to embrace your brokenness and grow and learn to love who you are, rather than putting on a facade and pretending to be someone you're not. I'm very guilty of pretending to have it together because I think everyone else has it together, so I need to too.

Anyway, I got up at IV and said that God had been teaching me that messiness is beautiful, that we are broken and that although we need His healing, His grace, His love, we also need to realize that our goal ought not to be to walk around pretending we've got it all figured out, but rather our goal ought to be to get comfortable enough with ourselves that we can wade into each other's messiness. That's the beauty of God's love flowing through us: we get to love others and jump down into the hole that they've fallen into-- not because we have the answers, but because we've been down there before. As Greg puts it, "I'm just a beggar showing another beggar where to find the food."

So, I got real. I shared very blatantly some of the messiness I've experienced and am still dealing with.

Would it set me free,
If I dared to let you see
The truth behind the person
That you imagine me to be?
Would your arms be open?
Or would you walk away?
Would the love of Jesus
Be enough to make you stay?

It was a really big leap, especially for me. I wanted people to see that I'm not the person I often appear to be-- I have some deep hurt in my life and some serious struggles. But that's beautiful. And the fact that there are people in my life already who are wading into that with me is a testiment to God''s love in them and the power of Christian community. But it was a big risk. It wasn't safe, so to speak.

But regardless, I felt freer than ever and I have continued to feel free-- free to not have it together, to not be super-human all the time.

Grace

Romans 5:20 "But where sin increased, grace increased all the more."

Nailed to the Cross

In small group on Wednesday night, we talked about love. We looked at a lot of verses, but the one that struck me the most was from Luke 6:

‘But I say to you that listen, Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who abuse you. If anyone strikes you on the cheek, offer the other also; and from anyone who takes away your coat do not withhold even your shirt. Give to everyone who begs from you; and if anyone takes away your goods, do not ask for them again. Do to others as you would have them do to you.' -Luke 6:27-31

We talked some about how revolutionary it would be if for example, we were robbed, and knowing who robbed us, we took something that they didn't steal and offered it to them in addition the things they had already stolen, rather than condemning them.

For me, though, the material possessions thing didn't really get to me all that much. It was the verse that says "Bless those who curse you, pray for those who abuse you." As I wrote in an earlier post, I have been struggling to understand forgiveness and maybe this goes along with it. So, I was talking through this with the girls in our small group and I said that it's hard for me to earnestly and honestly pray for someone who has truly wronged me, hurt me, etc. Laura Jo talked about that being a good time for Christian community to help pray for the wrong-doer as well as the wronged. And then I had this moment of understanding: not a standard to which we are held but a standard to which we are called.

I asked my small group what Jesus said on the cross and they thought of the moment when He says "My God, why have you forsaken me?" But I was thinking of the other moment (Luke 23:34) when He is literally being crucified. As Jesus is being nailed to the cross and people are casting lots for his clothing and sneering at him, mocking him, He says: "Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing."

So, too, are we called to pray for others, even when they are nailing us to a cross, so to speak. That's really hard for me to understand and harded to live out, but I have the perfect example in front of me that I can look to.

And I wonder, if instead of harboring anger, resentment, bitterness and despair, we were called to pray and stemming from that, to love and forgive... how different might the world begin to look?

Proud

I got the privilege of having coffee with Greg yesterday and it was something I'll never forget. Greg is one of the most compassionate, maybe the most compassionate, people I've ever met. For an hour I told him my "life story." He teared up and showed compassion the entire way through. I've never had someone get that emotional over my story and I am quite possibly the least emotional person when I tell my story. It is as though I am reading from a text book.

My story. That's what it is. God made me and everything that I have been through, am going through, or will go through is part of His bigger purpose. And when I look around me, I feel like I see so many people that I perceive as "lucky" or as "having it together." But maybe the truth is that I am lucky. I have seen a lot of stuff in my twenty years and I've got a million stories I could tell, but as Greg put it, "there are only two ways to come out of a story like that: bitter and angry or compassionate and big-hearted." He quickly defined me as the second one. But in being either of those, it means accepting what I've been through and allowing it to shape who I am. That's hard sometimes, because more than anything I want to be "normal." I somehow have confused normal with unblemished. They're not the same. We're all broken in some way, some more than others, but God's not going to not use us.

I feel like I've been living the Stained Glass Masquerade song, by Casting Crowns:

'Cause when I take a look around,
Everybody seems so strong.
I know they'll soon discover
That I don't belong.
So I tuck it all away,
Like everything's okay.
If I make them all believe it,
Maybe I'll believe it too.

But I don't believe it. I know who I am and where I come from. The journey is learning to love who God made me to be, broken and beautiful. I want to know that "who I am is who I want to be."

Greg said, "At the risk of sounding condescending, I'm proud of you. I'm proud of you for not rolling over and giving up in the midst of everything and for being vulnerable enough to share your story." And I realized that that's something I've never heard or felt... being proud of myself or feeling like someone was proud of me, just for making it through. And for sure, I didn't fully understand the definition or what he meant by that. But I like the feeling.

Anyways, all of that is to say that one of the big things God is teaching me, quite possibly the biggest right now, is how to love who I am and how to love where I came from, because it has shaped me and although it may not be clear now, God's plan is perfect. Always.

Incomparable

I pray that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened in order that you may know the hope to which he has called you, the riches of his glorious inheritance in the saints, and his incomparably great power for us who believe. That power is like the working of his mighty strength...
-Ephesians 1:18-19

A Thousand Voices

I was listening to my iPod today (I know it makes me antisocial, blah blah) as I walked around campus, and I was looking at the people walking around me and like so many other days I felt my heart surge as this song started:

We have raised a thousand voices,
Just to life Your holy name
And we will raise thousands more
To sing of Your beauty in this place.

First, I was taken back to Urbana, where twenty thousand students from colleges all over the world came together to worship God, and then just like the third line, I realized that UNCG and other campuses are not places where we should find despair at the darkness that seems so prevalent, but places of promise. They are places where God's goodness will be revealed and places where we can see God's beauty if we are willing to open our eyes.

All? All.

I hear the Savior say,
“Thy strength indeed is small;
Child of weakness, watch and pray,
Find in Me thine all in all.”

Jesus paid it all,
All to Him I owe;
Sin had left a crimson stain,
He washed it white as snow.

For nothing good have I
Whereby Thy grace to claim;
I’ll wash my garments white
In the blood of Calv’ry’s Lamb.

And now complete in Him,
My robe, His righteousness,
Close sheltered ’neath His side,
I am divinely blest.

Lord, now indeed I find
Thy pow’r, and Thine alone,
Can change the leper’s spots
And melt the heart of stone.

When from my dying bed
My ransomed soul shall rise,
“Jesus died my soul to save,”
Shall rend the vaulted skies.

And when before the throne
I stand in Him complete,
I’ll lay my trophies down,
All down at Jesus’ feet.

Jesus paid it all
All to Him I owe
Sin had left a crimson stain,
He washed it white as snow.

-"Jesus Paid It All"

ALL. PAID IN FULL.

Uh...I missed something

I.don't.understand.forgiveness.

At some point in my Walk, I missed the lecture, demonstration, sermon, explanation, heart-to-heart, and entire conceptualization of human forgiveness. I can barely begin to wrap my head around God's divine grace and the forgiveness we receive because of Christ's sacrifice. But I truly don't understand forgiveness.

What I have called "forgiving" people all my life isn't really forgiving them. I just don't get it. Sorry if that sounds elementary, but I just don't understand what it looks like, what it feels like, how to do it "right" or even where to begin.

I'm super-frustrated. I've defined it with the dictionary and the Bible... I just can't figure it out. K, I'm done now.