The River's Gonna Keep on Rollin' (To quote Amy Grant, which I never do)

**Note: this is not the actual water I reference in this post (in the spirit of complete honesty :D).

Well, I've been thinking things over and have come to the conclusion that my blogging patterns have some issues.  First of all, I haven't posted since January, which ought to be some kind of an indication.  

Second of all, I never use paragraph breaks like the above,  and as anyone who ever gets an email from me can tell you, I always write too much.  I once made a new acquaintance in High School right before the summer and as we emailed back and forth over the summer, he told me he had no idea I could talk so much.  That is because I go into major overtalk in writing and while you can edit that in a story or a paper for class, you don't do it so much online.

So I'm trying to turn over a new leaf and be less verbose (talk less :D), but post more often.  This may be more of a possibility than ever before since I am GRADUATING in less than a month.  Heavens to Betsy, whatever will I do with that?  Clearly write more blog posts if its the last thing I do.

My roommate and I were talking about how we feel like liars when we tell people we are excited about graduating.  Separately, we've been on pilgrimages in the past week and sat down to talk with God about why we aren't excited and don't know why since we have incredibly, God provided, exciting circumstances coming up (she's going to Duke, I'm working at Fuge, how much more awesome can you get?).   Within about two seconds of sitting down and telling God that I just didn't know what the heck was making me so freaked out about all of this, God told me, and my roommate too.  Isn't it amazing how He speaks?

It turns out that even though I've been through tons of change on the mission field and back and forth, it's been a very long while since I've had to do something completely without someone comforting.  In fact the only time that I did not have someone to fall back on was the beginning of boarding school when I had only met anyone in the whole dorm once before.  That was where my faith grew the most, because I had to rely totally on God for the first time in my life. 

Now I'm there again and terrifying as it is, that day in the mountains on my little self-journey, I sat and stared at a great, rushing river.  There are some massive rocks in the middle of the waters and they sit, still and unmoving regardless of the changes of time and of water.  And the river itself, though the waters change and move on, the river never ceases to be there, to flow, and it occurred to me that God is the same way.  He is always there, and though circumstances and the things He takes me through may change, He never seems to move or change, like the massive rocks in the middle of the stream.

Here I raise my Ebenezer, hither by Thy help I'm come.

I know that I've gotten this far by God's help and lovingkindness and faithfulness.  

And I hope by Thy good pleasure safely to arrive at home. 

I know, as I read in an excerpt from Pete Peterson's book The Fiddler's Gun, that this changing, scary, sometimes lonely road does go home.  Home to Jesus.  And in between now and then, He's walking with me with the constancy of the river.  Thank God.  And how how could I ever forget?  And so, now comes the reason, besides privacy concerns, that I haven't mentioned the name of the place I went in the mountains.  For a memory helped I absconded with a pretty gray rock with blue spots in it that I found on the picnic table.  It's sitting near me somewhere and though my mom tells me that it was not so good to run off with a piece of this place, I feel that it is like the monuments the Israelites set up to remember the might deeds of the Lord.  May I always remember in just such a way.  

Amen.

Before I close, I have to confess that though I know God is with me, I can't help going a bit crazy at times.  Tonight in a fit of hysterical laughter, my roommate said that they (the school) get this close to handing us a diploma, we lose our minds in papers, exams, and fears of the future, and then they give us the diplomas anyways out of pity.  :D  Here's to the craziness of April!  Ahhhh!  Let the games continue (since they've already begun and stolen my thunder).

Just wanted to say some amazing news!  I've just been doing a little poking around on some other people's blogs and wanted to recommend some realy fun Christian entertainment for kids (which I must say I, as a college student, find amazing as well!).  Phil Vischer, the creator of Veggie Tales, with which I am obsessed, has been doing some new stuff that I've been following for a while and I thought it would be a good time to put in a shameless plug for it here!  

The first amazing news is that his new website, JellyTelly, is partnering with Focus on the Family my other favorite thing in the world, to bring kids hilarious, Christian entertainment and education ONLINE, click on the link above to see it!  It's so much fun and in a world where kids consume so much media on a daily basis, which you can hear Phil Vischer explain more eloquently here, we really need people who are willing to stand up and speak the truth in loving, entertaining ways that will shape kids as they grow in the way that Focus on the Family and others did when I was growing up through things like Adventures in Odyssey .  

I'm so thankful for how that shaped me and I feel passionate about doing that for kids today through my writing and the creativity God has given me.  That's why I'm so enthralled with what Phil Vischer is doing these days, so keep your eyes open!  Also, check out this website http://www.tyndale.com/products/for what Phil Vischer and Tyndale House are doing with the Jelly Telly characters, telling their way through the Bible!  Awesome!  Amen. 

Simply Trusting

the winding and uncertain road of the future!

Well I'm back, and no snide comments (though I don't know who'd make them, I don't believe I had many readers yet :D) about making promises I can't keep.  It's true, my promises to myself, New Years' Resolutions and all that, don't do so great, and that promise back in August to have a weekly feature didn't turn out so great.  I apologize, but, at the risk of making excuses, I had no idea what the Fall semester would be.  I had a rough time with classes, it was definitely my toughest semester yet, but it is over and I can truthfully say that I'm thankful for what the perseverance through the semester has taught me.  I know that God did what happened this semester, not me, and I decided a while back that there's something really awesome (however little it may seem at the time) about being forced by circumstances to trust God completely with something you absolutely can't handle.  

That's easy to say about last semester and other things in the past, but the future I'm not always so sure about.  I was reading Matthew 4 today.  Have you ever noticed how Peter and Andrew and James and John just hopped up and followed when Jesus said to go?  You know they didn't feel full, simple trust.  Not yet.  Instead it seems like when I went to camp between my sophomore and junior years.  They offered me the job of food service assistant, when the only cooking I'd ever done was with a recipe card and my mom in the other room.  They wanted me to come be in charge of an entire kitchen feeding about 150 people a week, and my supervisor was on the other side of camp, cooking in her own kitchen.  I couldn't fathom why God would call me to such a job for which I was so ludicrously unqualified, and yet He did.  And I knew He did.  So I went.  And so did these guys.  In fact it says "they immediately followed Him, leaving the boat and their father behind" of James and John in verse 22.  

I want that kind of faith.  And you might tell me, if you were here, that I have it, because I went to camp that time.  But I don't know.  That camp was for one summer.  I knew I'd soon be home, going to school as usual, coming home on weekends, spending time with my family, hanging out with my friends.  Life would be good.  But right now the "Let's go" God is offering is a little less definite.  Graduation is looming and considerations for the rest of my life, and God's plan for it, are all on the horizon.  And as I sit at my grandparents' kitchen table with the winter sun going down and the room getting dusky, I feel like the future has this same sort of haze.  And yet my time with God today told me to leave my parents and all the familiar of the (figurative) family boat and fish nets and follow.  Can I hop up readily even when I don't feel sure?  Is it ok to start following Jesus in a situation even when you're not entirely positive that your confidence is ultimately settled?  I'm beginning to think so for two good reasons.  The first is that there's no way I can believe these four Galilean fishermen had enough ready-made faith to be sure that this situation was going to turn out well.  I've seen more of Jesus' work in my life that they had at that point, so I have more reason to know that following God is a safe place to be.

More than that, though, my second reason for thinking this is ok is that God takes and redeems imperfections.  As I've started off on reading Matthew, I read through the genealogy and my Bible's notes on it.  As I'd heard from Francine River's Lineage of Grace series, the women mentioned there, in addition, in some cases, to their husbands, did not have stellar reputations.  They were foreigners, reputed to have had children out of wedlock, or guilty of some type of sexual sin.  I know God has grace, but from my perfectionist self to God's perfection, it seems that if I were going to build the lineage of my one and only Son on earth, I'd pick really good people.  But God picked some bad people and then redeemed them through circumstances.  And if He could do that, He can take my imperfect trust and fear of the future and make it something utterly precious and beautiful.  What an awesome thought.  With that idea, I'm ready to stop looking at the details of the future that may scare me and start looking at the shoulders of my Shepherd as the bob up and down in the twilight as we walk over a bumpy patch in the road.  Sheep follow the Shepherd's voice and steps, rather than being prodded forward with a cattle prod from behind, and I won't hold myself back from that until I have perfect faith and stop fearing God's future for me.  If I wait for that, I may never move anywhere at all.

AMEN.

Please Pray

So I would just like to ask a quick prayer request for a friend of mine on a mission trip in Africa for the summer.  Some things are not quite as she planned, which of course God can use, but it's caused some struggles, and she's having trouble finding time for time with God.  Please pray for that for her, we all need that recharge time, especially when in ministry.  I'll post more later this week, hopefully Tuesday.  Thanks!

Treasures

As the summer tries to get a little less hectic in the next week I want to have a weekly post called Treasures about a treasure I've found that week.  My creativity may branch out and rename this at some point but for now it's calling a spade a spade for me!

This last week's treasure was a bad thing.  In fact learning that a bad thing like that could be a treasure was really where the treasure was.  But I'm confusing you.

So on Tuesday I had a meeting with the professor of an independent study class I'm taking right now and he went over some assignments with me with their problems, some problems I could not possibly have known about without this long overdue feedback.  Regardless of that fact I left feeling very depressed because I felt like I was really failing at the class.  The class is a pretty core part of my major in some ways and yet I've felt from start to finish like I just couldn't do anything right.  Don't get me wrong, grades wise I think I'm fine (I haven't actually heard) but I don't enjoy doing it because its hard and it takes me hours on the computer, often, to accomplish the littlest task it seems like.  So its discouraged me because I thought this might be an important part of what God is wanting me to do with my life, and it doesn't look like I was right about that, and I just don't handle defeat, or changed plans, easily.  

Enter horseback riding.

I got home freaking out because of the huge final assignment my professor laid on me that terrified me in its enormity and relative difficulty compared to what I've been doing, and just feeling generally like I needed to spend every waking moment (and some sleeping, ha!) working on this for the next week (stuff will be due on Wednesday and Thursday next).  But we had to go horseback riding.  Members at our church are very graciously giving me and my friend who is living with us this week horseback riding lessons this summer.  It has been so much fun, but in the face of my attitude on Tuesday, I didn't feel real great about going last week.

and it seemed like everything went wrong there too!  I rode Bubba who is 17 hands tall and incredibly intimidating and I was just shaking, something didn't feel right in the saddle.  Bubba is pretty stubborn and difficult sometimes and he as in fine form Tuesday night.  Finally our friend and teacher saw what was going wrong and explained what I needed to change in how I was handling the reins and my spurs and suddenly something click.  He knew because the look of satisfaction and approval I got when I finally got Bubba to go over the wood bridge (one of the most terrifying exercises to me even though the bridge only spans level ground!) said it all.  I did it, I succeeded.  And after that I really had the tools I needed to control Bubba.  Our teacher pointed out that riding Bubba really makes you a more skilled horseman, because he is so difficult it teaches you a lot, and riding any other horse is easy in comparison.  I left feeling jubilant and like God had just sent along some much needed success to my wounded ego.  That's all I thought it was, until the next morning that is.

Wednesday morning is when I read this:

"We can rejoice, too, in when we run into problems and trials, for we know that they help us develop endurance.  And endurance develops strength of character, and character strengthens our confident hope of salvation.  And this hope will not lead to disappointment.  For we know o dearly God loves us because he has give us the Holy Spirit to fill our hearts with his love." Romans 5: 3-5 (NLT)

Wow!!!!

This is forever proof that God knows what I need each morning because if I ever needed to be convinced that God was working in the doldrums and the storms of my summer, this was the proof I needed.  This means that I can be thankful for riding Bubba because he makes me a better rider, producing endurance and strength of character to hang on and push till I get it and feel more comfortable in the saddle and out of it as I take on and off bridle and halter and saddle etc., and the confident hope of becoming a good rider some day.  And I can be thankful for this class because if I can hang on through it, and learn to manage my time well and not give up when I feel defeated with a hard assignment, I have a greatly strengthened character, and with that comes the confident hope that next time this happens, I'm prepared because I have God at my side and the character He has carefully whittled and honed during this time of frustration and difficulty.  

So that is my treasure this week, endurance, strength of character, confident hope, and Bubba.

p.s. I highly recommend Romans for reading through, it's amazing!

Time

GREAT THINGS I DID WITH MY TIME THIS WEEK:

• Read The Buck Stops Here, a great mystery by Mindy Starns Clark
• go hiking in the gorgeous mountains God made with my mom and best friend
• pray for my dearest friends around the world serving God
• bake the best cookie recipe in the world (well...at least the lowest fat best)
• read my Bible
  
• sit at my granddaddy's feet and hear about his day

NOT SO GREAT THINGS I DID WITH MY TIME THIS WEEK:

• get impatient in a conversation with my mom
• wish away my time at work wishing I was at home relaxing
• drive to and from work on auto-pilot, not using that time for something good
• oversleep when I could be rejoicing in God's great day
• stay up late because I didn't use my time during the day to get homework done
• eat lunch at work when I should be working

Have you ever thought about what a precious, precious thing time is? God has given us so much of it...and yet so little.  For instance, it has now been fully a month since I last found the time to write on this blog because of a summer class that lasted through June and seemed to take every second of my time, not to mention family and construction on our house and a friend coming to stay...all three WONDERFUL treasures, and also sharers of my time.  

Of course, this blog is not particularly life or death and no one will suffer greatly for my having missed a month.  In fact, I don't know if anyone would even notice at this early stage of my blogging "career".  But the thing I've realized is that unless you make time for the important things, they disappear.  The blog isn't the only thing that has suffered.  There's also time with my family and dear best friend who is here (!!!!), sleep, and, most importantly, time with God.

The Bible (one of Paul's letters I think?  I can't find the reference right now) says to "redeem the time because the days are evil," (obviously not an exact quote).  These days are evil aren't they?  We face uncertain times in our economy, our government, our world.  There are poor people one every corner, and hurting, spiritually broken people on every single inch of our cities and towns, needing us to reach out to them, and yet I've let my activities the last month snatch all of my time from more important things.  We let our lives rush us from pillar to post stealing our time without stopping to help others.  And so since "redeem" means buy back, let's buy back our time this week, take it back and repurpose it.  I'm doing this by carving out a few minutes to write this post, another worthwhile thing I've done this week since I know that God has called me to write this blog, at least for the summer.  

How can you snatch back some of your time this week?  Ask God what He wants you to do this week and then worship Him by using your time to do that very thing.  

Celebrate the treasure of time and thank God for it by praising Him for it, and then using it well.  It doesn't last very long so we need to value it while it is around.  Go read Isaiah 40 for words on how fleeting our time and space is in comparison to God's eternity.