Servolution

The leaders had us find a way to serve two people from the church. One of them was Patty Jennings. I learned today how awesome she is. She is so cute!! The way she says things especially when she's excited is just so adorable. I hope that I can stay in contact with her long after Dibor is over. The great thing about being told to go and bless people is how blessed you get just by watching how the blessing affects the person and the relationship that develops from it. That's what I love about it. The way they talk to me after blessing them. The way they show their affection and desire to talk to me. I get to see a special part of their heart that would take a long time by other means of developing a relationship with them. I want to bless more people to have more connections this way. I think heaven will be a lot like this. You don't know the person very well but then you experience something with them and their hearts open up to you. I have so many friends at New Life that are adults, basically because of helping them. They open their hearts to me and we are genuinely happy to see each other and care about each other.

For example, the other day at church Tigger came running up to me all excited because her husband was coming back from overseas a few days earlier than she expected. You should see this woman. She talks about her husband like they just got off their honeymoon. They have 3 kids and she talks about him like they got married 2 weeks ago. She is so in love with him. And I would not have been the person she ran to, or been able to see that excitement and rejoice with her if I had not helped her move into her home. I would not have the same relationship with her if I hadn't gone to her house to watch the Superbowl. I developed this relationship with her and just by seeing her excitement when she talks to me is all I could ask for. It's so precious to me.

When you serve people and bless them you find a special place in their hearts and it is a wonderful place to be. This is kingdom culture. This is heaven on earth and it beautiful. I hope to have these kinds of relationships all over the world.

I never thought that doing practical things like this would open hearts so much. I always thought it was being a listening ear or helping them solve their problems, like emotional/relationship problems. But to my surprise people really value these kinds of things and don't take them lightly. They aren't suspicious about your motives or thinking you are faking about caring about them. It's astonishing.

The Past

So the last couple of weeks I've been reading The Sacred Romance. It basically talks about how much God loves us like a lover would and how his enemy (the devil) has seduced us away from him. And that the enemy uses our moments of pain to feed us lies that God doesn't loves us, that He is not looking out for our best and that we have to put on our fake selves for the world. That our deep desire for love only gets in the way and that duty and discipline are the most important things.

To be honest, I have been having a hard time reading this book. It is bringing up past feelings of hurt, loneliness, and rejection. Being the eldest child puts you in a position to have to experience certain things in life on your own and/or without much direction.I think pretty much everyone has had these times in their life, but for me I believe a lot of it was because of being the oldest of a single mother. So, I experienced these moments of feeling like people were thinking I was nothing and only a nuisance (not everyone, but a few people) so to fight off these feelings of insecurity, incompetence, and vulnerability I chose to find a way to protect myself, to defend myself. I thought thoroughly why I did certain things, why I was right and others who might accuse me, or laugh at me, were wrong.

One thing that really hurts when I think about it is that I realized that when I was younger, my need to be strong and prove myself came from, mostly, not having a father. I don't blame anyone for that, but it affects me anyway. I felt my vulnerability and tried to find away to fight the fear by trying to be strong, or I think actually my goal was to be tough, calloused. As I got older and started to see that all that was hurting me I started to let it go, but the feeling of vulnerability was still there. I would think "if some guy tried to hurt me, I would have no one to scare him off. If I had a boyfriend I would have no father to scare him to treat me the way he should."It hurts when I see a girl get that sparkle in her eye when she thinks about her dad protecting her like that. I don't have that. I've always been the strong on in my life, and I'm not really all that strong. I can be calloused.

I found my way to find approval and recognition was having a sound argument. Logical explain why I was right or to

I'm not saying that my experiences or what hurt me justifies why I do what I do. It explains why I do it and I know I need to let God heal the pain and let the past go.

Do you trust me?

Disney movies have more Christian ideas than you think. Take for example Simba, who blamed himself for a tragic event in his life (his father dying). He continues to deny his right as king, just like Christians nowadays don't believe they walk in the same authority Jesus does. We have the power to heal and drive out demons. Our words create new realities. But a lot of Christians don't claim that authority.

So, I realized that God and Aladdin are similar. God is stretching out his hand towards me saying "Do you trust me?" This week during devotions I was glancing at some of my past journal entries and I stumbled upon this one that I was having a great time in worship and I really felt like God was smiling at me and holding my face between his hands just enjoying me. And I wrote that he said "All you have to do is trust me" and I looked at the bottom of the page and realized my signature was there. pastor Christopher had us sign the bottom of a blank page and we were suppose to do whatever God filled in at the top. So I had promised to do whatever God put on that page. At the time that I was writing that journal entry I didn't realize it was the empty page I had signed. So it definitely was a God thing.

Soccer and the Holy Spirit

Adrenaline's running through your veins. Someone just elbowed you in the side but you don't care. All you want is that ball. Nothing is getting in the way of your foot meeting that round prize. You'll take anything the opponent tries to do to you as long as you end up with THAT ball in THEIR net.

What I learned today is that "denying your flesh", or "disciplining your body" (like Paul writes to the Corinthians about beating his flesh and making it his slave)is just like soccer, or any other sport where you are competing for a prize.

You run, and your body screams for you to let up and not push so hard. Someone slide-tackles you and you think you seriously have messed up your ankle. But when you, or if you've watched someone, compete at something there is nothing stopping you. You are so focused on the goal line, the prize that it doesn't matter if you mess up your body or you've worked your body so hard you'll be feeling it for 2 weeks. Nothing matters but getting that prize.

And relationship with God is that prize. Winning souls for the kingdom is that prize. But as Christians we listen to the little things that stop us from reaching our goal. Like,"I don't think they will respond if I talk about God, or they'll totally flip out on me!" Or we start to feel sick Sunday morning so we decide not to go to church. We'll be feeling so bad we won't be listening to the message anyway. The one I like to use is that they didn't walk close enough or just because God didn't put them in my way a second, third, sixth time, that maybe it wasn't God. Maybe it was just my mind having high expectations or being paranoid.

As I was running today I remembered in soccer how I would hear my body telling me it was hurting too much but in the middle of an intense game I just kept on going. And I realized I have to do that with everything. I can't let feeling sick or my excuses stop me from running hard after my goal.

I have thought of this before, but what I was missing in the past was remembering what my goal was. Because if I wasn't thinking about winning souls or pleasing God, then why should I tell my body "no"? Why should I deny what it wants, especially if it makes me feel better? You can't run hard after something, you can't push yourself farther than you thought you could go.... you're not even willing to make yourself uncomfortable if you're brain isn't consumed by your goal.

So, if you're not going all out, then who are you actually living for?

Intimacy

How is the thing I crave so much, my greatest fear?

God sees everything I do, everything I think, so how can I be afraid to be vulnerable and open to him?

Yesterday, Jenny Hopper read us this thing that Christopher's sister wrote about her secret place with Jesus and I was crying. When she was talking about hugging Jesus, all I wanted to do was stand there are push Him away. It's something I've wanted for such a long time, to be held like that, but now I just can't accept it.

So last night I decided I would try talking to God. So I'm trying to listen but I ended up falling asleep. I woke up at one point and started thinking about it again and I started crying. And I was trying to figure out why I couldn't just give in to this and I realized, I don't believe I am worth it. All my life feeling like people haven't really thought I was worth it to show intimacy with me, at some point I really started believing it, even with God.

I've become so use to how I am and the lies I believe that my desire for intimacy is not as strong as wanting to stay how I am. I don't want to face rejection anymore than I have. I'm so incredibly scared. I know I am not strong and I know that I don't have much figured out. But those were my walls. Those protected me from the vulnerability, or at least it was the only thing I could grab at to try to protect myself.

And to try to face anything now, realizing that I can't do anything, scares me. I have never been able to rely on someone to help through something really hard so trusting anyone, let alone God, to carry me through it is such a foreign idea. I'm so use to figuring stuff out on my own and having to be self reliant that letting God do this is so contrary to what I've done my whole life. It's so weird and just doesn't make sense. I mean, it does because I know I can't do it so my only hope is that God carries me through it.

So the only thing I can do is continue to try to open up and try to push past my desire to hide. And rely on God to be there to catch me.

Break Down

I think I just had a break down. With everything, I just couldn't take it and just started crying, almost uncontrollably. It felt better to cry than to stop. Even when I was tired and my head hurt but even that got to be to much so I had to try to wind it down. I feel like a something. I don't know what to even relate to it. I don't really feel human right now. I'm being pushed to my limits but I have no passion to along with it so all it seems to be is draining everything out of me. I need to go to bed so I'm going to end here.

"I am tired!" and random God thoughts

I have probably said "I am tired" literally a hundred times this past week. Between not getting enough sleep, PT (physical training), early PT at 4 am, daily tasks, God intervention, crying, and mostly eating fruits and vegetables (which probably isn't a part of it but I like to put the blame on it)I am exhausted. And the world keeps on spinning.

Anyway, in my spare time I like to think of random things. One thing I thought of recently was: what if time isn't the thing that is moving but we are, in some way we can't imagine, let alone comprehend?

And allowing God to change you is like having a knife at your chest and you struggle to pull it away and when you let go, right as it pierces your skin it becomes a big fluffy cloud inside of you.