Rarely Simple

Well hello.

I know I haven’t written in a while, and I think about that fact often, but really I’ve had no desire to post…

In fact lately I have been going a couple days without checking my email or taking care of my Travian village. O.O I like to think that this is because I am busy actually living a life.

Also, I’m pretty sure that my brain is now incapable of producing any more interesting or witty Facebook statuses. Such a terrible thing, I know.

And, in case you didn’t notice, I have not been posting on my blog.

I have always restrained myself when writing blog posts. I do not like to talk about all the little things of my life and describe in detail what happens to me everyday. I do not like to write posts that offer advice or that make it sound in any way as though I have even one area in my life figured out – because it is really really easy to give out advice and to talk about the valuable lesson I’ve learned when in fact I am in the middle of the lesson. It is all too easy to have something touch my heart – a verse, a saying, a moment – and to spit it out in a blog post before I have truly let it sink into my heart and have let it marinate within me. Do you know what I mean? Sometimes when I write little Facebook statuses or blog posts or even write in my diary, it feels like I am just taking in life through my ears and pouring it out again through my open mouth. Sometimes I just need to close my mouth and let things remain in my mind for a while.

Of course sometimes I need the entire opposite. Living inside your mind, without much people-interaction, is not healthy. Sometimes I hold thoughts inside of me and turn them over and over. The kind of thoughts that people have been thinking for thousands of years and that don’t have a conclusion, and those wonderings can drive you kinda crazy. If you stop and look at this world: the trees and the tiny details and think about how real it is and how many people have lived and are living and how many cultures there are and how small I am and my world, what a small piece of everything I am, and how many things there are in this universe …

One thing I appreciate about God is that He never says life is simple. I mean, He tells us not to worry and that He’s in charge, and He reprimands us when we get caught up in our human frantic-ness, but I always feel that He understands. I appreciate that He does not make life or faith sound like a 1-2-3 step easy-peasy thing, because it’s not. Life is messy and rarely feels simple.

I am thankful we have a God who is patient with sheep, and who loves the one that says, “I believe, help me with my unbelief.”

Sorry for the ramblings. But then I don’t post for you readers, as much as I post for myself. If you don’t see blog posts for a while, just know it’s because I am closing my mouth and holding life-things inside me, to contemplate for a while.

Book review coming soon.

Fail

I just finished re-reading one of my favorite books by one of my favorite authors, and wanted to share these words with you. Because they are beautiful and true.

Excerpt from A Million Miles In a Thousand Year, by Donald Miller:

I realized that for years I’d thought of love as something that would complete me, make all my troubles go away. I worshiped at the altar of romantic completion. And it had cost me, plenty of times. And it had cost most of the girls I’d dated, too, because I wanted  them to be something they couldn’t be. It’s too much pressure to put on a person. I think that’s why so many couples fight, because they want their partners to validate and affirm them, and if they don’t get that, they feel as though they’re going to die. But it’s a terrible thing to wake up and realize the person you just finished crucifying didn’t turn out to be Jesus.

I was interviewing my friend Susan Isaacs… She said she had married a guy, and he was just a guy. He wasn’t going to make all her problems go away, because he was just a guy. And that freed her to really love him as a guy, not as an ultimate problem solver. And because her husband believed she was just a girl, he was free to really love her too. Neither needed the other to make everything okay. They were simply content to have good company through life’s conflicts. I thought that was beautiful.

…When you stop expecting people to be perfect, you can like them for who they are.

I think it’s great to want a husband, or to want a wife (I’m talking to the unmarried teens here). It’s natural. It’s how God created us! But while phrases like “he completes me” sound great, it’s not how we should view marriage. Marriage does not complete us. Nothing on this earth can complete us, and we will not be complete until the earth and skies themselves have been made new. I know that sounds depressing – as if all of our hope and joy will be in the future – but the thought is actually amazingly freeing. I suppose a simplified way to say it is – lower your expectations on other people, because not a single one can give you what you are looking for.

As Donald Miller described, when you stop expecting a person to complete you and to be perfect and to say the right words all the time and to understand you and to love you unconditionally, you find freedom to love them for who they are. When you expect someone to be Jesus, you will be disappointed 100% of the time. But when you realize that the people you live with and the person you may one day marry will mess up all the time, when you stop expecting perfection, you will no longer be disappointed as they fall short, because they will. They are fallen, I am fallen, you are fallen.

Or as Oswald Chambers wrote,

“Never look for right in the other man, but never cease to be right yourself. We are always looking for justice; the teaching of the Sermon on the Mount is—Never look for justice, but never cease to give it.”

While this is all great advice for any relationship, I think that it applies to marriage the most. Because that is what we – however greatly or mildly, however subconsciously – look to to complete us. Just look at what culture tells us! The majority of books and movies and stories out there are about a guy and a girl finding each other. Every story looks different and every ending is different, but in the end they portray marriage as something that gives a completion to your life! Without it = Miserable, With it = Whole. I know I often commit the mistake of thinking that marriage will infinitely improve my life, and that somehow a fallen, human guy will make my entire life better. That I will no longer feel lonely or inadequate or unloved.

Don’t place those expectations on any human, cause they cannot meet them.

We should not lower our standards as we wait for a godly spouse, but we should be aware that humans do not complete. Only God can fulfill and provide what we need.

^

This video fits pretty much perfectly.

Thanks for reading, I hope you find this encouraging in your own life!

Sarah

Late Have I Loved You

“There is nothing new under the sun”, Ecclesiastes says, and how true! I’ve been doing more thinking than usual lately (yes, I am aware of how odd that sounds)… and one thought that keeps coming back is how many people have lived and everything I do and think and feel as been done and thought and felt by other people, for generations. I mean, sure, none of them had a Kindle or cars you could plug into a power outlet… not to mention a power outlet… but you know what I mean. Humans haven’t changed a bit since that angel with the flaming sword took up his post before the garden.

And a lot of times, things that I think are new… are far from it. Eventually when looking back in history you can find the origin, or the original  - and realize that what we  think is something new is really just an echo – slightly distorted and changed from all of the bouncing through the years it’s done – but all the same an echo of something that came before.

I was just listening to the song by Gungor, “Late Have I Loved You”

Beautiful, no? Well while looking it up tonight, I discovered this excerpt from “The Confessions of St. Augustine”:

Late have I loved you, O Beauty ever ancient, ever new, late have I loved you!

You were within me, but I was outside, and it was there that I searched for you.

In my unloveliness I plunged into the lovely things which you created.

You were with me, but I was not with you.

Created things kept me from you; yet if they had not been in you they would have not been at all.

You called, you shouted, and you broke through my deafness.

You flashed, you shone, and you dispelled my blindness.

You breathed your fragrance on me; I drew in breath and now I pant for you.

I have tasted you, now I hunger and thirst for more.

You touched me, and I burned for your peace.

Amen.

I don’t think I need to tell you which came first, St. Augustine’s words or Gungor’s song.

But HOW NEAT IS THAT??? Where I thought Gungor had written (had wrote? sounds odd either way) that song from scratch, it was actually from the poetry of a bishop who lived almost 2,000 years ago!

Maybe you Bible scholars and smart people have already read and analyzed and memorized St. Augustine’s writings, and recognized his words in this song. I’m not that smart. Yet. (Confessions of St. Augustine is on my to-read list)

Needless to say, this revelation does not decrease the beauty of the song. QUITE the contrary. This song has an entirely new meaning, because it is the blending of one man’s thoughts, and another man’s musical talents, and those two men lived two thousand years apart and never met. Yet they both loved the same God, and that amazing, fiery bond that comes from the Holy Spirit and occurs between believers when they meet transcends nationality and language and age and even time… because when we read the words of another that loved God, they speak directly to our heart, because we know the One of whom the words speak.

We know the One of whom the words sing.

And He is not only forever, but unchanging.

Anyway, I thought that was neat. And I wonder what other songs, etc, are out there that are simply old words re-spoken… and what will be when, centuries down the road, our words are the words of the past

Pieces from our very heart and soul that we leave behind, scattered in humanity’s footsteps, every day of every year of every century that has been and will be – as the will and hand and breath of God begins our life, we spend our few breaths, and then depart our temporary tent.

Leaving behind us our love letters to our Creator.

Indeed Beautiful

From Donald Miller’s book, Searching for God Knows What:

But today, the Rock cries out to us

clearly, forcefully,

Come, you may stand upon my

Back and face your distant destiny!

[Maya Angelou]

I love the line “the Rock cries out to us”. I think that is beautiful, for some reason, maybe because Jesus was like Maya Angelou’s mother in that He went around looking people in the eye to tell them they were beautiful, that He stood as a rock for them, a Being who, for the rest of their lives, they could look back to and hear in their minds, and envision in their memories,

     God saying to them the world had been lying,

                    and you are indeed beautiful.

-Donald Miller

True Love Waits: Valentine’s Day Project

Valentine’s Day is approaching, and one of my friends has asked for help with a project that I think sounds simply amazing. Check out the details here.

Valentine’s Day has always been a rather boring holiday to me, since it’s just a bunch of hearts painted on shop windows and candy – and an opportunity for married folk to flood the restaurants. But this holiday can be redeemed, and meaningful – before you’re married!

I encourage you to read StoryGirl’s idea and consider becoming a part of her project. Reclaim this holiday, singles, as a day to remember and pray for the one you are waiting for. Until God’s timing.

Women of Faith: Over the Top 2011

I’ve been putting off this blog post – and others I would have written and posted by now – because WordPress is frustrating to use right now. I can’t insert images, can’t tag, etc… It’s not a problem with the site itself, something about our home wireless internet doesn’t let me do certain things on WordPress… *Sigh* A problem I am slowly working to demystify and solve. But for now, I should post this as it’s been several weeks since the event.

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As I wrote about here, I was gifted 2 tickets to Women of Faith by BookSneeze, with the criteria that I write about it before and after the event.

On Friday my mom and I drove into Seattle, dished out $13 for parking, and ran over to the arena. There were morning sessions but we had been otherwise occupied, so just came to the evening session on Friday, which started at 7 and went until 10pm.

We drove home that night and came back on Saturday at 9am, staying until about 8pm that night.

The sessions were filled with worship, speakers, and sometimes a performance by Mandisa or Selah. When I had looked at the list of speakers before the event (see the list here: http://www.womenoffaith.com/overthetop/), I had not a clue who any of them were… Now I have been “properly educated”.

I knew who Mandisa and Selah were, of course – it’s impossible to listen to our local Christian station, Spirit 105.3 and not hear any of their songs.

Patsy Clairmont is a well-known speaker and just plain hilarious (although really all of the speakers were great at making jokes ).

Lisa Whelchel was apparently on the show “The Facts of Life”, which aired before I was alive. She said how she felt sorry for all of us kids born in the 90s in the audience, as we didn’t know what “The Facts of Life” was. I was thinking to myself, “uh I thought I did know what the facts of life were…” and then it turned out it was a TV show. Yes, go ahead, laugh.

Sandi Patty is the kind of person you feel ashamed to have not known who she was beforehand… She has an amazing voice and was apparently really famous -” the most-awarded female vocalist in contemporary Christian music history”. Again, I was probably just born in the wrong decade to know these things. Or I’m a clueless homeschooler, te he. She toured with Bill Gaither in the 80s, among other things.

Brenda Warner is the wife of famous football player Kurt Warner, as well as the mother of seven children. And, as she proved on stage by first splits and then lifting one leg straight up to her head while standing, a very flexible woman. I tried those moves at home and I not only failed, I’m pretty sure I looked nowhere near as graceful as she did.

All of these women turned out not only to be famous, albeit in decades and circles I have not lived in, to have stories in their lives that were testaments of God’s faithfulness. Though deep and personal, they shared these stories with the women attending that weekend.

Patsy shared how her son Marty was in a coma and now lives in constant pain.

Lisa shared how she had gone through a (now hilarious) but painful journey of discovering how friendships work as an adult. She reminded us that transparency sometimes hurt, but was necessary.

Brenda shared her long string of trials, including the father of her first child leaving her to raise the legally blind, disabled boy. Her parents also died in a tornado, but as she dealt with that sadness through her faith in Jesus, her future husband Kurt Warner watched and in turn became a Christian, living his own, strong example of faith as he played professional football.

Sandi Patty shared how her initial dream, to sing in Disneyland, never came to fruition as the interviewers said she wasn’t what they were looking for – and that she wasn’t skinny enough. In the end God’s plans for her were much greater, however.

Each woman shared a piece of their life with candidness, and were great examples of how to serve the Lord, no matter what happens in life, with a strong faith and a joyful heart.

Can I just be an Ostrich?

Life still hasn’t been so kind as to slow down for me – Just got back from a trip to Idaho that took three days – two days constant driving, one day… some more constant driving around land in Idaho. I’m working ALL day Thursday to Saturday and yet trying to figure out how to fit two interviews in…
Nanowrimo is just going to have to wait until next week, when I can hopefully catch up to the right word count. =P
So many blessings in my life right now, but so many things going on it can be rather overwhelming at times.

And yet right now I choose joy, because no matter what happens, I have this as my hope, firm and secure, that I am beloved and belong to God, and He who spoke and created light from the darkness sends His light to shine into my heart. (Heb. 6:19, 1 Jn. 3:1, Rom. 14:8, 2 Cor. 4:6)

“I have so much to do today that I shall spend the first three hours in prayer.”

-Martin Luther

As Halloween draws near…

Oh, actually, today’s Halloween, isn’t it? Ha ha.

I encourage you to read this article: http://theresurgence.com/2011/10/31/what-christians-should-know-about-halloween

It excellently provides the history of Halloween, and what our response should be as Christians.

As I grew up in a Christian family, I’ve been to Harvest Festivals my whole life, and only went trick-or-treating for the first time 5 years ago (when we were on the bus trip). Once I was old enough to be in junior high, though, I spent Halloween with my youth group. The junior high and high school groups gather, then go out in groups knocking on doors and asking for food donations to the food bank (we don’t mind taking the candy too, thank you! ). We have been doing this for years now, so a few people even have the food ready for us at the door.

Then we come back to the church and have a massive sorting party, with cans of green beans and soup rolling everywhere – until everything is stacked, sorted, and loaded into a truck. We collect quite a lot of food – but I’ll always remember what our youth group leader told us – that the food would only last a few days in the food bank.

“Can we do this every day?” we asked.

I think this event is an excellent way for the teenagers to have something to do on Halloween night, to be challenged and have fun in coming up with imaginative costumes (instead of just grabbing an ugly mask off a store shelf – no creativity in that!!), and to redeem this holiday for something good.

I encourage you, that whatever you do tonight, do it for the glory of God. Whether you choose to collect canned food, or have a dinner with friends, or stay at home praying for those entrapped in evil, or just… have a normal night – may you do it out of a love and desire to please God.

Romans 14

P.S. As for myself, I will be staying up ’til midnight then start on my Nano!!

Black and White (not)

Do not answer a fool according to his folly,
or you yourself will be just like him.
Answer a fool according to his folly,
or he will be wise in his own eyes.

(Proverbs 26)

I laugh at anyone who points to this verses as a contradiction in the Bible. (And by contradiction I mean evidence against the Bible’s inerrancy, cause obviously these verses DO contradict each other.)

In these verses, it’s almost like God is saying, “Life is tough. Not everything is black and white.”

In some instances, you refute and correct the fool. In other instances, you’re just being foolish if you choose to answer him. There is no answer that is right for every case – life requires discretion. For the tough times that arise, you need the very subject of Proverbs – wisdom.

I love that God does not pretend life is easy. Cause it sure isn’t. I love that He doesn’t say: In event #1, do this. In event #2, do this.

He knows life is rough, cause He’s been through it too.

“Because he himself suffered when he was tempted, he is able to help those who are being tempted.”

Hebrews 2:18

“For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who has been tempted in every way, just as we are–yet was without sin.”

Hebrews 4 :15

What a God! “Who can have compassion on the ignorant, and on them that are wayward; for he himself also is beset with weakness”! How amazing – that our Creator and Lord should choose to be clothed with human skin, to take on our cursed aging and limitations and smells and pains! He has truly won our hearts, through the very goodness of His character.

But I digress, sorry.

I doubt I will ever be able to read Proverbs 26:4-5 without looking on the verses as… God not patronizing life or painting it as more honey-colored than it is. He’s straight up with us – Life is not easy. “Here on earth you will have many trials and sorrows. But take heart, because I have overcome the world.”

Beautiful.

Almost (saved)

These poets are amazing – God’s truth is in their works. I hope these Godly poems will become a “fad” that spreads – and that we will see more of them in the future!.