The weather is extraordinary. I always talk about the weather to my friends, and I feel lame for doing it but it’s kind of funny because I truly love the weather. The weather has the ability to make or break my spirit for the day. Today it’s making it. People are everywhere today. People of all different shapes and sizes, with all sorts of hopes and dreams, and they are just walking past me, some of them with smiles, some of them not willing to look up, and some of them that seem like they’re in a different world. As they walk by, I want to know more about them: what are they thinking? Are they having a good day? Is it a terrible day? What do they hold closest to their hearts?

Lately, I’ve been thinking a lot about Jesus and who He came to minister to on this earth, and then I looked at my own life and realized I haven’t been ministering to these types of people. When Jesus came, He spent time with the people that weren’t as accepted by them general populace. He spent time with drunkards, debtors, lepers, and tax collectors. So… exploring obedience and the fact that God has brought this to my attention: who are these people in my life today? We don’t really have lepers anymore… we still have drunkards, but where are they? Do they exist in Blacksburg? Are they in bars? Are they walking the streets? Who are the off-cast from society? The homeless? The gang members? I think I am going to start praying for God to open my eyes to these people: because that is what Christ did. His ministry was grass movements, literally: it started with those that were poor in Spirit. Those who were unaccepted; unloved. So, Jesus: teach me to love in a way that sets the captives free.

our heart oh God is flowing deep
With love so pure that covers me
You work despite our selfishness
Brings love where hate is born
You satisfy the weary and
Defend the cause of righteous ones
Who bring your loving ways into the world

And I have seen your light shine in the dark
And I have seen your hands work in my heart

And I will run and not be weary
Walk and not grow faint
And you will my shelter
Protection from the rain
And when the waters rise
I’ll stand and sing your name
Oh God
Hallelujah
I will sing your name
Hallelujah
I will sing your name
Hallelujah
I will sing your name Oh God

Take this wretched soul of mine
Despoil, renew, and make divine
Oh save me from myself, and keep me whole
Let evil thoughts depart from me,
And visions of your kingdom be
What keep me strong and anchored in the storms.

Lord you are changing all things to your will,
So teach us Lord to trust you and be still.

Lately, He has been inspiring me via a beautiful book. I am not going to tell you the name of it, or really much else about it, because I don’t think it is a book that would necessarily inspire other people’s relationship with Christ – because it isn’t Christian… at all. However, the book has reminded me about a universal theme and language that strikes me as absolutely beautiful.

This is the language of love. Love is an absolutely beautiful thing. In scripture, God is referenced to as Love itself. Love seems to be the desires of most human being hearts: which would be like God to set the love question in motion in each heart – when He defines Himself as Love in scripture. We’re doing this series called “reDefine” at my campus ministry, and I think one thing that God is redefining and showing me the gravity of, is love.

Love, makes the world go around. Love, goes crazy things. Love goes above and beyond and breaks the mold of people’s hearts. Let me be clear though: I am not talking about infatuation, or lust. Love is something very different than those two things. Love is something more beautiful, and much more great.

I am trying to wrap my mind around God’s love, and what it means that God absolutely adores me, that he LOVES me. First: it’s hard for me to grasp that I can be loved at all. Second: it’s hard to believe that God loves me dearly, that He loves me so much and wants to be a part of my every day life, that He has always been with me, nurturing me, whispering to me, and comforting me. It’s hard for me to believer that anyone would want to do that, but to know that God does that? I think one of the hardest things about Christianity is to accept the love that is claimed upon us in the Bible.

Another separate topic that I was thinking about a bit earlier was this idea of lines between religions, religious questions, etc. One thing I thought about was religious text and how often scholars, students, professors, joe shmoe on the street all like to attack the validity of such documents. Half of me is glad, because accepting something on the premise that someone tells you that you should isn’t necessarily right, but at the same time, if a human being can’t wait one thing, it is being duped.

Being duped is the ultimate threat to the human ego/pride. Believing something that is false can be one of the scariest thing for a person: believing that your best friend would never hurt you just to have your friend hurt you, etc. We begin to realize that we made a false judgment, and we don’t necessarily care who told us that we’ve been lied to, or tricked: we just care that we aren’t tricked anymore. But what if the people who are telling us that we’ve been lied to are tricking us? Would we be willing to investigate it, or will our pride get in the way?

I can’t explain the absolute breathtaking views that I experienced on the way out to the small one-stoplight town. The rolling hills and sheer beauty of Southwest Virginia will never cease to blow my mind. Between the view and the blessing of having windows rolled down at high-speeds, I don’t think I ever felt more alive as I indulged in God’s beauty while singing “something beautiful” at the top of my lungs. It brings me back to a simple phrase in one of my favorite books, “I felt infinite” (Perks of Being a Wallflower).

Then, I experienced the people who are truly alive in Floyd. These people flocked from the town and other places to see this music live and to “flat foot”. The smiles on the faces, and the sheer appreciation of mountain bluegrass caught me off guard. These people had passion and were alive, so much unlike many of the students I experienced on an everyday basis. I was so blessed by last night.

Not only that, but today I got to experience God through hiking to a mountain top. I felt God the whole way rather than just at the top – which is unusual to me and made me think a little about spiritual walks.

You see, our lives are like hikes on the AT. We start off roaming through the hills with God that are fairly easy and rolling and pretty, but then a mountain appears in front of us and we must accept the task of hiking to the top. The route seems treacherous and at points we are wondering where God is and we can’t see Him walking beside us because we are only looking at the ground and focused on the physical pain. We stop talking to God and don’t even acknowledge He is there. Finally, we get to the top of the mountain and we enjoy the views and then notice that God has been with us the whole time. We then want to respond to God in so many ways and get so excited. Then, we begin another journey of walking down the mountain still praising God because it’s nice and easy. However, the same thing happens when we begin to climb another mountain.

The thing that really gets me though is that so often we become so focused on our own tribulation and pain and moving forward to get to the top of the mountain that we fail to enjoy the journey. We fail to take in the scenery on the way up and we fail to say hello to other hikers along the way, because our focus is on ourselves. We fail to realize that God is beside us and that there is so much opportunity in the hike up the mountain too.
This is my prayer, really: that God would open my eyes on my journeys up the mountain to really see and take in His creation – as well as saying hello and not missing out on the things that may happen on the way up – such as conversations, fun things to climb on, etc.

Anyway, the other day I spoke to my BCM church family about what it means to be the church, and this particular verse has stuck with me and I am still kind of trying to chew on it to see what it means and how it relates to my life and around me:

Ephesians 5:1-2 “Follow God’s example, therefore, as dearly loved children and walk in the way of love, just as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us as a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God.”

This is so easy to love and to oooh and aww that it’s so precious and cute and how we should live our life because of our Father, but do we have an inkling of how to do this?

Do we know enough about God’s example, to follow it? Are we enough of an evidence of Christ? What does it mean to walk in the way of love and love people as Christ loved us. I think this is something that I am going to continue to pray about as God is teaching me and I can’t wait to get back to you on it.

First: I had a huge hurdle – today I was asked to speak at 6:33 about the word “church” and how important it is to redefine it and use words appropriately according to their meaning. For any of you who do not know, I am not comfortable with public speaking. However, ever since God has called me into a couple different roles in college, I have had to become use to the idea. First with a little bit at 6:33 and following that with World Changers, and now BCM things once again. So, I was nervous all day, but at the same time I was a lot less nervous than I was before. I realized a lot of my nervousness when it comes to public speaking is pure pride. Which is annoying – but I am working on it. Either way, I realized it was an obedience to God that I needed to live out.

Anyway… I feel amazing after that, but before that I was maybe freaking out. I tried to freak out a lot less this time than I usually do, so hopefully less people were aware that I was freaking out or even speaking.

Something is recurring in my life and I am pretty sure God is trying to tell me something through it: so here’s the deal -

It’s about obedience.

I talked to a friend the other day that spent his summer learning about obedience and love for God. Then I ended up talking to someone else about it later that day. Then at 633, Darrell talked about obedience, and there was one other thing where it entered into my life, I think Oswald’s daily devotional. Thus, God is giving me my next direction of where I need to learn: obedience. So… I am ready to learn.

Basically, it starts in loving God, and how to love God and what it means to love God through obedience – and how that strikes our innards and helps us to see how to love God back. So, as I seek and try to find more information from this, I will let you know.

Just remind me: obedience.

Well, I hope this is an end to my hypocrite days. I hope that from now on I can honestly and completely pursue God with my whole heart. And what does it mean to pursue God? We’ll see, I suppose. My week has been interesting and I can tell that God is putting things together for me to start figuring out what the heck He is saying to me. Let’s start with last Wednesday. The question that we were asked at the end is: what does it look like to search for God with your whole heart?

This brought a familiar time in my life to my consciousness: the beginning of my true walk with Christ. I wouldn’t say that I am perfect now, because clearly I am far from it, but I know Christ as my Savior and He has turned my life upside down. The beginning of that was rooted in my continual repetition of Jeremiah 29:13 to myself each night before I fell asleep.

Jeremiah 29:13

You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart.

This is beautiful, and the context of the passage is even more beautiful. If you look back, you can see for yourself, but this week, I am making it my goal to memorize this scripture before next week’s bible study. And recite it to Darrell on Thursday.

Not only that is going on in my life, but God has revealed to me that things that keep me from Him are often dumb things that I have absolutely no need for: like Netflix. I know this may sound really dumb, but Netflix honestly keeps me from God. When I am tired? What do I do? I run to netflix. When I need rest, what do I do? Netflix. When I am bored, what do I do? Netflix. When I am watching Netflix… I don’t pay attention to other people because I am so engrossed in whatever I am watching. Well, that’s it. I’m done with Netflix unless my roommates are watching it, and I will join them. I am not letting Netflix be the reason that I don’t wholeheartedly pursue God.

Also, I think this not dating and guarding my mind from dating things this semester is going to be a little harder than I imagined it to be. I am trying to stay away from thoughts like this, but I am going to need some help from God because it is already not proving to be easy. So, I am going to need some help and discernment there. Not that there is a dating possibility, but moreso that my mind is drawn there when I talk to a specific person that I am just friends with and am meant to be just friends with.

Finally, I think God wants me to let go of ALL future expectations in order to prepare me for what He is going to do. That means: letting go of Journeyman, letting go of Spain, letting go of being an Au Pair, letting go of real world job hopes and expectations, and letting go of seminary and seeing what He is going to do. So… from now on, I am going to try to mold my views to that. Aka not having expectations. So, here goes! I’ll update you along the way of my journey, but for now, I am going to take a bath and have a tea party.

The allure of a wedding is engrained in our minds ever since we were young girls with Disney movies about the princess always finding her prince with an extravagant celebration. As we get older, we naturally cling to anything that can help keep that fairy-tale alive, and Hollywood has capitalized on it.

Just in the last few years’ television has birthed a whole new generation of wedding programming. Wedding Day, Four Weddings, Wedded to Perfection, Bridezillas, Fabulous Weddings, and My Fair Wedding are only to name a few. Not to mention the heavily publicized Royal Wedding that took place only a few months back.

It’s no wonder that girls are going crazy about having their dream wedding these days. It’s all the sudden about picking the perfect cake, dress, colors, food, etc. Girls start planning these things without even being engaged. How much is spent on the average American wedding?

According to Theweddingreport.com – the average cost of a wedding in 2010 increased by 22% to $24,066, which is up over the average in 2009 of $19,581. This statistic is not even including an engagement ring. A celebrity wedding cost usually blows the average American expenditure out of the water, with Kim Kardashian rumored to having spent about 10 million.

The U.S. Census bureau reports the average American income at $50,000 which means that the average American spend about half of a year’s income on a single day in the life celebrating marriage.

Why spend this much money on a ceremony that lasts 20 minutes? Has our culture brought us up in such a self-centered way that we consider it a rite-of-passage to spend thousands of dollars on ourselves? Couldn’t this money be put to better use somewhere else?

This summer the United Nations estimated that tens of thousands of Somalis have died due to the extreme famine and that millions are on the brink of starvation. Right now, as many brides prepare for how they are going to spend their thousands of dollars on a wedding, Somali children are starving.

And, we wonder why the world has a negative view of Americans? We are so self-centered we can’t see past our own make-believe fairy tale.

Why do we communicate? What is the purpose behind certain communication? Why are you texting a friend, or talking to them?

Recently, I have witnessed so many breakdowns in communication.

Have you ever witnessed a conversation between two people that seemed like neither one was listening to the other? I have seen that so many times, it’s like people just start talking at one another rather than to the person next to them. It’s just a direct sentence about the person speaking and the speaker cares nothing about the thoughts or background behind the other person. Then, the listener gets bored with the speaker talking in circles about themselves and they tune out, or just starts talking back with their own self-babble. Now, is this really a conversation?

Or, have you been part of the battle conversation? This is where two people engage in a conversation about “who-has-the-worst/best-case-scenario”. Thus, one person will tell a drastic story and the other person will pull a story out that “one-ups” the first story. This goes in a circle until both people are exhausted and any other people around have left and there is no one left to impress. The person with the biggest ego usually wins.

Or maybe you’ve seen the conversation where two people want to tell two different stories and try to start at the same time to one another. Each person begins his or her story, usually within a very close time period. Then, when they realize that the other person isn’t listening, their voices slowly escalate until they are practically yelling their stories at one another.

Maybe you’ve just been at an awkward dinner where each person is fumbling around on some sort of technological device rather than engaged in any sort of conversation.

Have we really made it this far to say that we no longer listen to one another? We just talk at one another, try to one-up one another, don’t ask any questions of one another, and then like to say we’re too intimidated for conversations? Next time you talk to someone, listen to them, ask them questions, and be a friend to them, a real one. However, don’t be surprised if it doesn’t happen back to you.

He began to tell me about a program and went on and on about how wonderful it was, and had to explain so much to me because I had no idea what he was talking about. He then described the different positions, and I fell in love with one of the descriptions. He looked at me and told me I would actually be really great at it, and then we spent the next class period filling out the application.

About 3 months later I found myself in Nashville at an interview.

4 more months later, I entered into a dorm room, completely unsure what to expect.

Now, I sit here…. summer almost over and life changed.

I experienced so much life this summer. I experienced sleep deprivation, worship at its best, fighting, new friendships, beautiful people, salvations, praying, testimonies, devastation, poverty, reading, patience, common sense, learning the hard way, gaining weight, running, air mattresses, late nights, stomach difficulties, self-discovery, closeness to God, broken teenagers, humble reminder of my past, lots of questions, and a lot of ambiguity of the future.

I experienced life, the realness, the brokenness, the love, the purity, and the beauty. My heart is attached to each kid that came to our projects, and I honestly can’t wait to hear about the things that happen as a result of them.

I am not sure how I feel about going home. Half of me is so ready to go home, and the other half of me never wants to go home. Yes, I miss my mom, I miss my dad, my best friend, and my bed. But, there’s a part of me that has never felt more alive, that has never felt more purposeful, that is afraid of the fire leaving as soon as I get home. I think… that’s a part of the faith God is calling me to right now, to believe that God is going to get me through it, that He is going to direct me to what is next.

I am ready, God, and I am ready to truth you. To have faith.

Aug 3rd, I’ll be home.