"Dear children,

Let us not love with words or tongue, but with actions and in truth." -1 John 3:18

Or, as Jennakate put it, "If you don't have the love of God, you will love people the same way you love pizza."

Today, February 16, 2011, was the best day ever. I woke up this morning and told Jesus, "I'll do whatever you want to do today. Let's hang out." I had loose plans, but the rest of my day was open to Him.

So, I got dressed and drove over to the Hub to hang out with Kansas and her students. It's been a rough week there, but I was excited about going, and had this immense joy as I went over.

As I entered the building, the sense of rejection and longing was so strong it almost knocked me off my feet. I instantly doubted myself, the way I was feeling, the love of my God. As I walked down to her room, I was doing battle- but the warm weather, the smiling face awaiting me, and the fact that I had all my beads in my hands cheered me up immensely.

Talking to those girls is something that I wish I could do every second of every day. Not only are they just plain fun, my heart longs for them to not have to go through what I've gone through, for them to find the love and acceptance of Jesus before everywhere else they're searching for it. When it was time to go, I found myself hoping and planning on returning.

I don't often do spontaneity, nor do I do it well... And I definitely tend do not do things without a purpose. I knew I didn't have a lot of money to spend, but found myself turning into the Hospital Auxiliary parking lot anyway. After roaming around, I then moved on to Reach (which is kind of the lamest thrift store ever), and wound up at Sonic, mulling over the dollar menu. I was sitting in my car, enjoying my $3 lunch and chatting with Jesus, when the loudest car ever pulled up next to me. I glanced over to see that it was one of the loveliest roommates ever, hannaHRose. You know how sometimes you see people and you just have to smile? She's one of those. We'd been on opposite sides of the parking lot, sipping sweet tea and enjoying... Well, no company. We went our separate ways, and I moved on to the post office.

The House O' Bricks has this Dwight head-shaped stress ball that gets hidden all over the house; some people hide in places that are scary, while others hide it to be hidden for a long time.

Normally, it's hidden just for whoever.

Well, I don't remember how it started, but Kansas and I are in a feud... Which basically means we're picking on each other with the Dwight head.

He's appeared in a pair of shoes, a container of coffee, a bed... You don't ever really know where to expect.

Well, when I went to the post office, I knew I had a package. And I knew whoever sent said package had not paid the full postage. So, I was going to have to pay to receive this gift. Nevermind that it was $.07, it was the principal of the thing.

I opened the package and found Dwight staring at me... And laughed. For about 15 minutes straight. (Watch it, Kans- I'm gonna get you.)

At this point, my joy was at an all time high... It had just been a really good day.

I got home and was hanging out with hannaHRose when she ceased breathing and began to hug the computer. I waited patiently until she recovered, when she told me that Shaine Claiborne was going to be in Asheville tonight! At which point I might have started hyperventilating.

We both realized we HAD TO GO... And began to figure out how to get there.

We figured it out, and also figured out that we were going to see several friends- friends we don't see very often at all!

Shaine Claiborne was, of course, awesome. Among my favorites:

-"Jesus never talked to a prostitute because He didn't see a prostitute- He saw a woman, a child who He was madly in love with."
-"The gospel spreads not through force, but through fascination."
-"We didn't create Christianity in North America, we just domesticated it."
-"Jesus wasn't here to tear down religious institutions, but rather to build something that filled in the gaps they were leaving."

Dinner at Waffle House would have been the low point, if it hadn't been for the company. :)

On the drive home, I was trying to figure out why today was so good- I mean, yeah, some of the events were not average, but my mood and everything else was just GOOD for no reason. And I realized... I felt as though I was truly experiencing the love of God. I wasn't putting up my normal walls, I wasn't resisting Him every step of the way, I wasn't pushing away from it. I was just existing as He'd made me to do.

I had relinquished control.

It was beautiful.

"As Christians, the world doesn't expect us to be perfect, but they do expect us to be honest about our brokenness and our mistakes."

I am broken, worn down, exhausted, and unable to do this on my own. I screw up on a daily basis and I don't know what to do with my life- right now, I am "squandering my future" in the eyes of society. I am "doing nothing worthwhile with my life" and am "setting a bad example".

But if I was a busy college kid, I wouldn't be sitting back and watching what God's doing in my life, instead of trying so hard to do it on my own.

I think I've decided... I'm exactly where God wants me to be.

So often we do things that make sense to us...

And then ask God to come alongside our plans, rather than looking at the things God promises to bless and acting alongside of them. We know that God's blessing will follow if we are with the poor, the merciful, the hungry, the persecuted, the peacemakers. But sometimes we'd rather have a God who conforms with our logic than conform our logic to the God whose wisdom is a stumbling block to the world of smart bombs and military intelligence. -Shane Claiborne, Jesus for President

I've never been someone who stays up late. I actually used to sleep about 14 hours a day, only being awake for school and to eat dinner and do homework in the evenings. Since moving to the House O' Bricks, however, I have become quite the night owl- either because that's when I see my roommates, or just because I have discovered how productive I am in the dark hours when normal people are sleeping.

So, when New Year's Eve rolled around this year, I knew that it would be one of the first years when it would not be a struggle to stay awake and welcome in the new year. (Last year, my family and I were traveling to Texas and were staying in a hotel in Houston on New Year's Eve... We all went to bed about 10 PM.) I was kind of looking forward to it, even though we didn't have any big plans.

We ended up having absolutely no plans, actually. hannaHRose went for a drive, and Swah and I watched Treasure Planet. Then Kans joined the party, and we all went out in the driveway and threw dinky little fireworks and got scared that hannaHRose was going to light herself on fire.

hannaHRose and Sarah had plans on new year's day, and I wasn't invited. Which is fine, because it wasn't with my friends, but my automatic feeling is rejection. It's actually kind of retarded. People do something, and instead of finding something to do, I default to feeling rejected and left out, which puts me in a bad mood and then makes everyone miserable.

So, I was going to sit at the house and pout all day, knowing that it was a horrible start to my new year, but hey... I felt validated.

I was sitting in the living room, feeling kind of pathetic about my life and having no motivation to do anything. I hadn't done my chore for the week yet, the living room was filthy, and my computer had stopped working. I hadn't showered in a few days, my laundry needed done, my room needed cleaned... And I just wanted to mope and hope that someone would do it for me.

hannaHRose (an enthusiastic ball of energy on this particular morning, much to my dismay) and Sarah left to go hang out with their friends, and I curled up on the couch... Only to have the realization that I had to get out of the house. I could not continue to be a brat about this. I have a life, and it is separate from my roommates, even if they do exist in it.

It had been raining for several hours at this point, and I thought I'd go down to the river and watch it rush past and listen to the rain and have a chat with God. I grabbed a notebook and my pens and markers and got in the car.

Well, Mrs. Cleaver is kind of a gas sucker. Which meant that after I got about 5 minutes down the road and and hadn't found the river yet, and wasn't sure how much further it was, I decided that this was dumb and I should just go home.

As I turned onto campus though, I realized... I hadn't dealt with what was going on inside of me yet. And it wasn't going to happen at home.

I pulled into a parking lot, turned the car off, and watched as the rain pounded the windshield. And I cried. For the first time in several months. And it was ugly.

Now, when I cry, it isn't just a few tears and a one tissue blow my nose and throw it away kind of deal. It is a red rimmed eyes that are all puffy the next morning, whole box of tissues next to me but it's coming too fast to even deal with that and so I just use my sleeves and then gross myself out, disgusting, horrifying, rare event. And I had one of those.

As I talked to God, all of the things about me that drive me crazy started coming to mind. And so I thought, Well, instead of resolutions, I'll make a list of life changes.

And so I did.

I didn't want it to be a list of things that I thought about for a little while and then forgot, feeling bad about the whole situation later. And I definitely didn't want to put a cap on it.

And so "The Top ___ of 2011 (an open-ended list)" was born. It contains things such as:
4.: Learn to do something new once a month. This does not mean perfecting or even enjoying it, but at least giving something out of the ordinary a try.
14.: Have an opinion.
2.: Believe the things God has promised me will come to be.

Etc. After writing for a while, I started feeling better and was able to come back to the house. I wasn't really glad that it had happened, but it had, and I came home and was able to be productive.

Around 5:00, I was changing a load of laundry over to the dryer and noticed that the neighbors were standing on their back porch. I was intrigued and walked out on our driveway.



I have never been one to just get in the car and drive. It just seems dumb. It's a waste of gas, a waste of time, a waste of money, and, it's pointless. But I hopped in Mrs. Cleaver (I didn't even grab my cell phone, which was super weird) and I drove. Kans had given me a general heading for the airport, and the GPS found it right as I had to turn.

I drove up these insane twisty roads that you have to go like, 5 MPH on, and the higher I got into the mountains, the more I remembered how much God loved and cared for me.

I eventually stopped at an overlook from which I could see campus, our house, and, well, most of Cullowhee. As the sun set, I started crying again (twice in one day. Whew. That's more than that happens in a month, normally!).

I got home, then the roommates did, and then our friends came over. And honestly, it was one of the best nights of socialization I've had in a long time. Instead of being constantly worried about what everyone else was thinking of me, I felt free to actually be who me was.

I've realized that God did not intend for me to feel rejected; and that the things that God doesn't intend for me are not things that I should accept.

The list is posted next to my bed, and it still kind of pisses me off every time I see it. I don't like the things that I'm asking myself to do, but I'm trusting that it'll help me out in the end.

Also, I'm praying that my life gets less serious soon, because I'm tired of only writing about Jesus things. And because it's stressful. And kind of dull.

I thought maybe if I made it colorful I'd hate it less.

Combining those two things is like mixing ice cream with manure...

It may not do much to the manure, but it sure messes up the ice cream. Shane Claiborne, Jesus for President

I wrote this back in September, but I feel like it fits the "thankfulness for everything God has been doing" deal. So, here 'tis.

So there's been a lot of questions about how I ended up here, why I'm here, and what's been going on since I got here. I'd like to clear that up for myself, and for all of you. So.

Way back in February, my roommate at YWAM, hannaHRose (who is kind of a hippie and rocked my entire world to its core), jokingly said I could come live with her after DTS. At the time I was horrified at the idea and said something along the lines of "Dear God no."
In May, when I got home, all my big plans for my life started falling apart. I couldn't go to my dream school because it cost too much money... My back up cost too much money. My back up to my back up wasn't accepting into the program anymore. I started thinking about North Carolina. Was this something that could really happen? Something that, maybe, would be good for me? I looked into the college here. They didn't have an OT program, but could I take a couple Gen Eds to get out of the way? They weren't accepting anymore freshmen. But then the counselor wanted to work with me and get me into their school. So I was going to take one course. But wait- that cost too much money (if the government wants me to go to college so bad, why does it cost so much darn money??). But I had already saved all this money to pay rent and buy groceries... So it was decided that I would move down anyway. 2 days before their registration deadline, I signed up for a class at RACC. I packed up my things, sucked up the fact that life wasn't going the way I wanted it to, and came down to NC with my tail between my legs. Thrilled to see hannaHRose and be living in the same state as her again, looking forward to the adventure and being on my own, loving the idea of being out of Lancaster again... But terrified of what was going to happen.
Yeah, I had prayed about this- a LOT. And yes, I felt like it was God. But I had talked myself into things before. What if this was one of those things? What if this was me wanting this to be where God was putting me? But on the other hand, this was the only door that had stayed open. This was the only place I had to go, other than sitting at home and being dormant for 5 months. This was, it seemed, my only choice.
I got here and, almost instantly, all the memories came rushing back. The good ones, mostly- the ones that came out in stories that hannaHRose and I managed to get out between bits of laughter. The ones that, for our first 24 hours back together, came non-stop, no matter how much we tried to stop talking about YWAM. But behind those memories were all the harder ones. The ones of what God had done through me during DTS, the ones of what God had done FOR me during DTS. The ones that I had thrown away.
You see, while I was at home this summer, I forgot. I forgot what God had spoken to me, I forgot what I had learned, I forgot what it was like to be in a personal relationship with the one true living God. I threw away all the hard work, all the time and effort, all the blood, sweat, and tears, for a summer of emptiness. A summer of "Well, maybe this is how I'm supposed to live. Maybe I'm not supposed to be relevant. Maybe, I'm supposed to be the kind of Christian who goes to church on Sunday and Wednesday and doesn't think about it for the rest of the week. The kind who gets married and has 2 children, a girl and a boy, and volunteers in the nursery and bakes cookies for youth group." But then I got here.
Here, LIFE is church. You walk in this house and the Holy Spirit is like, WHAM. You forget that you're supposed to say you're a Christian because you're too busy being a follower of Jesus. Everything that was my life for those 5 months at YWAM was preperation for my life here... For self-reflection (which I do a lot of). For ministering into other people's lives (God has me in a place where a friend comes to me at 1 AM and says, this is what I'm dealing with. And it's exactly what I'm dealing with. It's weird, but it's awesome). For having my life ministered into. For being free, released, to have friends, to be friends, to make friends. To open myself up to someone within an hour of meeting them, to hug everyone who walks through our front door, to share whatever it is we have- sweet tea, pie, a movie. To realize that this is where I'm supposed to be, right now, for this time in my life. Maybe for longer.
As I said before, I've had a lot of time for self-reflection. For going back to my hurts and why they're still hurts and not history. Which, for me, means reading. (I'm blessed to be living in a house with people who love books as much as I do and always have a reccommendation.) I read "Blue Like Jazz" by Donald Miller at hannaHRose's request... At first, it was to humor her. And then it became this obsessive thing... This guy came from where I was with God a year ago ("My life had become something to hide; there were secrets in it. My thoughts were private thoughts, my lies were barriers that protected my thoughts, my sharp tonge a weapon to protect the ugly me.") to having all of this book left, which meant God HAD to get better... And, while I'm not to this point yet, I rejoiced when Don says, "To be in a relationship with God is to be loved purely and furiously." I rejoiced in knowing that, apparently, God does get better! It's not the end of the story! God knows what He's doing! And, even more than that, I rejoiced in knowing that someone else had been through the same desert I was in! I was not alone!
Then, 3 days ago, hannaHRose handed me "Angry Conversations with God". I almost picked it up a few days ago, but I didn't want to be disappointed by her only being angry with God for the first 5 pages and then getting over it. I couldn't handle it.
I got hooked. And the more hooked I got, the more I couldn't make myself read it. This was way too much like my life. This was this woman saying to her counselor, "Either God isn't personal and I've wasted my time, or He is personal and He hates me." And her counselor telling her, just like so many people have tried to tell me, that there is another option. "God loves you, but crappy things still happen." Yeah whatever. I was halfway through the book. God doesn't get better in this one. But then I got to page 145. And on page 145, I discovered something. I discovered that God speaks into my life even when I want to shove Him off a cliff or slam the door in His face (this was one of those lessons I learned in DTS, but rejected). Susan E. Isaacs says, on her moving across the country, "Perhaps God tricked me into moving here. Maybe he lured me out here with a shiny object and then pulled a bait and switch. But maybe I needed a shiny object to get here, because the real gift might not be so shiny. And maybe I just need to be patient and discover what the real gift is. Besides, Jesus has never let me down..."

I realized... It's true. Jesus has never let me down. And if someone had told me I was coming here so God could get me to look inward and upward, I would have run as fast as I've ever run. The thing is... All the things I have seen in the last 3 weeks, all the things I wake up every morning clinging to and spend my last moments at night rehashing with God, are foundational truths that I would rather not know so that I could keep living my life (which I wasn't really living, anyway.... I was wasting it). This place- Cullowhee, NC- has become the place where I came out of the desert. The place where I found (again), and finally settled into, the arms of God.

To be continued, with where I am at now...