Post 2! Let's see if I can keep it going

What I'm Reading:

Jeremiah 2

What stood out:

¹⁴ Is Israel a servant, a slave by birth?
Why then has he become plunder?

¹⁹ Your wickedness will punish you;
your backsliding will rebuke you.
Consider then and realize
how evil and bitter it is for you
when you forsake the LORD your God
and have no awe of me,”
declares the Lord, the LORD Almighty.

²² Although you wash yourself with soap
and use an abundance of cleansing powder,
the stain of your guilt is still before me,”
declares the Sovereign LORD.
²³ “How can you say, ‘I am not defiled;
I have not run after the Baals’?
See how you behaved in the valley;
consider what you have done.
You are a swift she-camel
running here and there,

³² Does a young woman forget her jewelry,
a bride her wedding ornaments?
Yet my people have forgotten me,
days without number.
³³ How skilled you are at pursuing love!
Even the worst of women can learn from your ways.
³⁴ On your clothes is found
the lifeblood of the innocent poor,
though you did not catch them breaking in.
Yet in spite of all this
³⁵ you say, ‘I am innocent;
he is not angry with me.’
But I will pass judgment on you
because you say, ‘I have not sinned.’
³⁶ Why do you go about so much,
changing your ways?
You will be disappointed by Egypt
as you were by Assyria.
³⁷ You will also leave that place
with your hands on your head,
for the LORD has rejected those you trust;
you will not be helped by them.

My prayer:

I get confused about what happens next in life. I don't want to make my worry an idol, but sometimes I feel that worry is a better companion than running through an endless forest not knowing where I'm going or if I'm running in the right direction. Worry feels like a good companion if I feel like you're not responding in a way I understand. If I'm brutally honest, worry feels like a better companion to you right now because I expect to see you provide and I don't see it, but I can't expect anything from my own meaningless anxiety. So, I guess the prayer is actually, "Jesus, show me how you're better than worry."

My reasons for the parts that stood out:

I guess I've been thinking a lot about identity. Who I am. How that should shape how I behave. And who I think God really is. And consequences. I've been wondering a lot if I can see what will happen from things I observe now. Like ripples in a still pond. Do these little ripples now reflect something bigger to come? Or am I just being over observant or just not trusting God?

Song I listened to most:

I Bless the Rain Down in Africa by Toto

What it all made me think of:

"Don’t worry about the future; or worry, but know that worrying is as

effective as trying to solve an algebra equation by chewing
bubblegum. The real troubles in your life are apt to be things that
never crossed your worried mind; the kind that blindside you at 4pm
on some idle Tuesday." -Baz Luhrmann, Wear Sunscreen

Conclusion:

I am proud of myself for actually writing today... I didn't want to and I had no idea what to say. I actually feel like I accomplished something. I guess that makes it: me = 1, unemployment = all the other days except this one.

Something Different

A while ago I told myself I would never write a blog again. Guess that didn't stick. I made this decision because while some people seem to be able to analyze the world with the perfect blend of truth, humor, cynicism, and grammar, I do not share their gift. I take the world FAR too seriously, but I guess you have to play to your strengths.

I never really wanted to blog about my faith. Most Christians blog about politics or controversial "Christian" topics. To me my faith is a deeply personal and emotional matter. While some people love to debate the existence of Christ or the theological importance of TULIP, I just don't. Jesus didn't win me over by explaining how I'd get to Heaven in detail, but if he had, that would definitely be something to blog about. No, I became a Christian 11 and a half years ago because I felt lost, isolated and confused. Ironically, while Jesus has changed a lot of things in my life I've gotten to a similar question again, "What am I doing with my life?" This is probably quite normal for a 24-year-old. I think we all go through it at one stage or another. But sitting, unemployed, two years out of college, in my bed at 6 in the morning, having a mild anxiety attack made me think, "the only thing I can think to do right now is read the bible."

I read Eat, Pray, Love two years ago and loved it. And similarly, I feel like I've gotten to that point where I'm crying out to God. But for me His answer wasn't "go back to bed", instead it was, "come talk to me." So after doing that for the past 30 minutes, I decided to write it down. I'm not going to blog out my thoughts. The last thing I want to do is add to the world my anxieties and fears. No. I thought I'd share what I read. Share what I meditated on. And hopefully, if someone else out there gets helped, that's great. If not, it sure helped me to sit down and think long enough to write all this out.

Day 1

6:31 AM British Standard Time

Leicester, England, UK

What I read:

Psalm 1

New International Version (NIV)

Biblegateway.com

¹ Blessed is the one

who does not walk in step with the wicked
or stand in the way that sinners take
or sit in the company of mockers,
² but whose delight is in the law of the LORD,
and who meditates on his law day and night.
³ That person is like a tree planted by streams of water,
which yields its fruit in season
and whose leaf does not wither—
whatever they do prospers.

⁴ Not so the wicked!
They are like chaff
that the wind blows away.
⁵ Therefore the wicked will not stand in the judgment,
nor sinners in the assembly of the righteous.

⁶ For the LORD watches over the way of the righteous,
but the way of the wicked leads to destruction.

What I meditated on:

Verses 1-3

The difference between "walk in step", "stand in the way", and "sit"

There is only one tree in the tropics that blooms all year long, according to Planet Earth. The fig tree. Loads of animals fight over it and live in it. But since a lot of trees don't bloom regularly it is a consistent source of nourishment that they can always cling to when all the other trees are risky.

My prayer:

Jesus, show me your stream so that I can be a good and consistent source of fruit

How I feel:

This blog should be renamed, Contemplations of an Unemployed Bum.

One Week Till It's Here

In a week I am back in AZ. I neglect to say "home" because I have decided that Arizona is no longer home. For someplace to be "home", one must live there more than one month a year, and since in 2010 I will only be in Arizona 4 days (and not even 4 full days) I regret to say, I am now no longer my own official resident of America.

For a long time I have stolen a good theory from Pumba the Warthog, from the Lion King, "Home is where your rump rests", and while this theory may work for Pumba, I am sorry to say that I now disagree. After lots of time and prayer I have realized home is Jesus, and Jesus is in me, so therefore home, for me, can only be found within myself. I carry my home with me, and while I am entrusting it to other people, Ruth, Vicky, Ashley, Kyleigh, Stevie, Matt, and others, home is found a bit in each of them as well. So home is no longer where I rest, home is where I am at peace, which can only be found when Jesus and I are on the same page.

I have not been excited to go back to Arizona, I kinda feel that my three week trip is kinda like overstaying a welcome. I would rather spend one day each with everyone I love and entrust myself to (except ashley axup, who I plan to steal as a stow-away in my bag and bring back to Leicester with me), and then I'll come back here, to the rain and darkness and cold and Matt. But I imagine that when I get there, to the desert, I will fall back into line with my natural way and enjoy the time I have, even if that means having to eat LOADS of Mexican food.

(and just so we're all clear, Mexican food is one thing that I really wish England had a LOT more of)

I Wanna Hold Your Hand

So, I figured that posting a blog update would be the best way to fill in most people across the ocean on my recent relationship activity.

His name is Matt Collinson. He's a student here in Leicester, and part of the Nav ministry at the university. We started dating about 4 weeks ago, but I was hesitant to make it facebook public, since I knew I wouldn't be able to tell people before everything went down. Oh well... now everyone knows. I'm sorry for not keeping everyone up to date, life gets so busy! For the whole story feel free to email me and demand details :-)

I miss you all!
xx

Update, I'd title it something more interesting, but I suck at Blogging so...

So... I officially suck in the realm of blogging. Sorry friends. But, allow me to attempt to redeem myself in a short update of life.

In September my family suffered a huge blow when my grandfather died and I had to fly back to Arizona to be with them and for the funeral. It was a great service though. It celebrated the life of an amazing man who loved God and his wife and his family very much and was a great example of determination and strength.

While at home I got some good quality time with Ashley and Brian, sorry that I didn't see anyone else, I was mostly hiding out, I love and miss you both! And Ashley recorded one of my most embarrassing, but honest moments in a Wal-Mart.

October has been a crazy month. Classes started the first week and all the students came back, and I got to meet all the amazing people who had joined Navs in the year that I was gone. I was a bit worried that it would be weird to be an American on Connect, but mostly I just get made fun of a lot for the silly things Americans tend to do. (hehe.. people think I'm really loud here.... I can't wait to introduce them to actual loud Americans.)

Connect has been amazing. I have been extremely challenged in so many aspects of my personal walk with Christ, and I feel like God is showing me a whole realm of new ideas and training I was never exposed to as a student. Seeing a ministry from this angle has been eye-opening. The amount of love that goes into every planning aspect has been inspiring and provided a deeper respect in my heart for staff here.

I can't thank everyone enough for all the financial and prayer support I've had. I know I'm really hard to get in touch with, I'm so sorry. Currently it is a 7 hour time difference between England and AZ, so phone calls and chatting is a bit difficult, but I'm good with emails and facebook things.

As for prayer requests, my main priorities are:
1) We have a main meeting coming up for students to bring non-believing friends to. Please pray that our students take the opprotunity to do this and that it impacts the lives of their friends.
2) I've been praying for peace and patience in my own life. For a greater surrender to God. And through this I would be able to love people better.
3) Finally, please pray for the students themselves. It is now midterm time and most are stressed with club activities as well as school-work. Pray that they would find restful times in Jesus as well as time to physically rest.

Thank you all so much! I'll be in Arizona from December 14th to January 4th, hoping to see everyone soon!!!!

(but I will try to update again before then. :-) )

Preach it Sista!

I know I haven't updated in a while, and that I should probably post all the amazing things (and some not quite so amazing things) that have been going on in my life, and perhaps I will in time, but what I am most excited about, and most eager to share with my friends throughout the world that read this is how Jesus blessed my very first talk.

But I don't even know how to explain it. I've been walking on cloud nine ever since I finished and my realm of terror subsided. I spoke about grace. Jesus' grace, and how to live in it. Why we should live in Jesus' grace. Even thinking about it now I think of things I could have said, or maybe should have said, scripture I could have used, words that would have better communicated what I meant, but in spite of everything I could have fallen short in, Jesus used the words I did say to communicate His loving grace of living in this fallen world.

The main point God gave me to share in a talk where my goal was to motivate people to walk with God based on grace was that we have freedom in fallenness. That Christ's grace offers us freedom in fallenness. So, I guess if I learn anything from my own talk, it is that I had the freedom to completely botch it in the first place.

:-)

My Realm of Maybes

So I am officially all moved into my new home for the year. Decorations up, and one house mate moved in, with one coming soon. But even with all this excitement, this, sadly, is not what my mind has been dwelling on.

Although I have many practical things I should be thinking about, my mind wanders elsewhere to a realm of curiosity and "what if"s. I know it is silly, and I wish I could constantly focus... do that 'be where I'm at' thing, but no matter how hard I try, at night, or in the early morning, or when something changes, my mind drifts off into a gentle haze of "maybe".

I think it's because life is kinda hazy for me right now... I have no way to predict what's going to happen the next day, week, month, or until Christmas. Even though I've been in England almost a week I still have no more idea about the future than the day I left America. No more solutions... only more questions... only more maybes.

And unfortunately this isn't one of those, "I should give this up to God" things. It's a me thing... it's a how I'm wired thing... It's a "this is why I sit and ponder for hours in bed before I actually wake up and greet the world" and "why my journal is full of thoughts and hopes" thing.

This week we have a conference introducing Connect and Navs and all those good things. I'm kinda nervous about being the only non-English person, but as I get more accustomed to being here I start to realize... they all knew I wasn't English when they invited me to come.