Connect the dots

There are so many things I could write about tonight. One of them being how badly I just need to sleep...

So... I'm just gonna say my life is so crazy, and I love it and get frustrated with it.

This past weekend I went to Greenville.

Oh, the times I cried. I cried a lot actually. For me, not really exactly expecting to cry... that's all it takes. I never cry when I expect to.

Since this summer, my whole life has changed. Because my heart has changed. Not because I am living in Jersey, and because of where I'm working, though those things influence what music plays on the dance floor of my heart... it's not what makes the dance floor.

No, no, no. My heart has changed.

I just described it to my best friend as feeling like until this Summer, in many ways I've lived my life like it's a cardboard box.

I used to always imagine weird things when i'd lie in bed at night. I like writing letters to people and I used to send packages and stuff to pen pals and all that. I would lay in bed, and think of the four walls around my bedroom being like the boxes I'd send my friends.

It's weird, I know. You'd been warned.

But I'd imagine what it'd be like if someone opened the roof of my bedroom, and found me inside. I thought it'd be cool to send myself to someone. Hahha, yeah i was like 10 so don't make fun.

So... now let's go with this... I've lived my life that way a little bit. But the box top had never been opened. Until this Summer.

And now that the box has been opened, that means that I've been shipped, and landed in the right Hands.

And I know I have.

So now the box is open, and the roof is so much higher... there is so much to be done and so much to be lived and so much hope. Oh there is so much hope!

My life is one series of question marks after another. And questions are not mistakes. Questions are merely a response to what is to come... to the anticipation we feel. We're always anticipating. We're always trying to connect the dots, even when we don't know what number comes next.

So I guess I can say i've just gotten flooded with a series of numbers in my life of Connect the Dots.

And what is ridiculous with letting God drive the pen that connects the dots... is I have no idea how the heck this Guy counts. Cause it's not 1....2....3.... no I've never seen some of these numbers God connects the path to. I can't tell if He's counting by 10's or 5's or 13's or 405's. You know what I mean. It's not simple.

But I don't want to dwell in the fact that I don't understand God sized mathematics. I'll stick to teaching 2nd grade math. Because that's about all I can handle.

But we don't need to understand the numbers. We don't need to understand why one dot connects to the other.

We're in a box. We're in the right hands. Those hands have opened the box. And we can stay in the cardboard, or get out and follow His hilarious and hopeful leading to wherever He's inviting us to go.

Goodnight.

107 days

Tonight, something very cool occurred. I finished that read through the Bible plan thing. So it was supposed to be 90 days, and my goal was finishing this Summer. It took me 107 days. But, gosh. It changes a person, to read that much, so consistently.

Ok, so I want to tell you the things that stood out to me. I can honestly pinpoint them. Yes, after reading the entire Bible, I come away with like, 3 things. But these things are the 3 things that have seriously changed me, and affected me deeply.

So I've blogged about some of this already, but I the 1st thing I really learned, is how real life the Israelites are in the Old Testament.

When they'd constantly complain that they wanted to go back to Egypt, it is so easy to say "Dudes, get a grip. You were slaves. Why would you want to go back!?"

But when God leads us somewhere new, it's so easy to say, "I want to go back." It was easier back then. We knew what we were doing. We understood our purpose. We knew people. We loved people. We don't like all the new stuff.

I fought with God a lot this Summer. I didn't like where my life was. I didn't like the total loss of control. I hated it.

A lot of true colors showed up in me... and in God. Talk about double rainbow with that Guy...

Anyway, I learned that I might not have been a slave in the places of my past like the Israelites were, but if I stay were I'm safe, I become confined. And being confined is a type of slavery.

No good. No good a'tall!

Number 2!

I learned that when God makes us wait, there is a purpose. Like in Acts, when Jesus got the apostles all hyped up for what He's about to do through them, then says, "Oh hey. Wait here first." then goes back to heaven. Talk about disappointment.

I relate though. Like the music things in Nashville. God plants all this affirmation and excitement in me for Nashville. Then brings me back to Jersey, and says, "Wait here first."

But just like the apostles saw an outpouring of the Holy Spirit come because they waited, I'm believing that I will see an outpouring of the Holy Spirit in my life too.

And lastly, Number 3!

Reading through Acts and then the whole rest of Paul's letters really got to me this time. I understood how painful it was to live a life overflowing with love. How he deeply loved the people he ministered to. The aching in his writing every book he wrote.... when he'd say, "I long to come see you..." and all of his "Say hi to so and so" ... suddenly the whole New Testament became so precious and so full of love... every book I read held a lot more to me, after understanding what Paul did with his life as a response to God.

So, since God's really made sense of this to me, I've realized something. My precious students are the new people God has given me to love. I will always always always love my friends at Greenville. Always. That won't change. It hurts to be away from them. But now I have new people to love. And I want to love them.

So. These are the major themes God has imprinted on me from reading the entire Bible in 107 days.

If you're not good at reading the Bible... try this web site. There at 23 different Bible reading plans. SOOOO AWESOME! I just found the site. I love it.

http://alextran.org/2007/11/25/23-bible-reading-plans-that-will-satisfy-anyone/

Look

It's been on my heart to talk about something. It's kind of odd to me, why I feel like I need to write about this, but then again, maybe it's not.

I want to talk about Christianity. Salvation. The heart. The whole ordeal of, "Jesus, come into my heart."

It's so elementary, right?

You know what... I'm not sure it is.

I think it's sometimes overshadowed.

I know that not everyone who reads my blog is a Christian too. I realize that. And I want to talk about what I believe. What I believe is true. Completely true.

I believe that salvation is personal. That it's between one person, and God. I don't believe anyone else is involved in the decision to believe in God, and acknowledge Jesus.

I think other people become involved after the fact of salvation. Because we need encouragement and support form other people.

I believe that the fact of Jesus dying on the cross means nothing unless we acknowledge it and accept it. The New Testament talks about how the "Son of man must be lifted up, just as the serpent was lifted up." That's a reference back to the Old Testament, in the book of Numbers, when the Israelites were attacked by venomous snakes. God told Moses to lift up a bronze (i think?) serpent, and that anyone who looked at it, would not die. And they would live. Anyone who didn't look at it, died.

So when people purpose the idea of a universalism idea about God... I don't agree with it.

The fact of that bronze serpent existing didn't save the people. They had to look at it. LOOK, and SEE it.

Just the fact that it was there, was secondary.

So I believe that just the fact that Jesus died is secondary. We have to LOOK at Him. SEE Him.

Jesus is the only way. It's not the fact that He exists, or that God exists. But that we Acknowledge it. That we look at Him. Walk into Him like walking into a brick wall. Get close. Get real.

So if you haven't looked at Him... do it. Look at Him, and see Him. If you're not sure you want to... do it anything. Do hard things. Do it even though it feels weird to think about "accepting salvation."

I know the fancy talk that Christians use can be frustrating. But don't get frustrated by that. Make a choice yourself, unaffected by what other people are saying.

Because it's a choice you make. Not someone else.

Look at Him.

Deeply

I've been reading through Acts. It's become one of my favorite things to read. God keeps showing me more and more things.

One thing lately that I've just been so broken about, is missing all of my friends from school.

I am a really deep person. Everything I do is deep... when I talk to people, pray for them, think about them... it's all very real and deep. It can get people like me in trouble. It's not that we wear our hearts on our sleeves... our hearts literally clothe us. it's more that we connect our hearts to everyone else's we meet, and then when the day comes when we leave those people, our very core seems to snap.

How can I leave the people I've loved so deeply for so long? Some not so long, but deeply still.

But isn't this the life God calls us to live? To love deeply. To make people the perfect basin to pour our love into.

The greatest commandments are to love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, with all your strength, and to love your neighbor as yourself.

There can be nothing more painful.

I know this all may sound girly and silly in some ways. Ah but such is my heart.

I love reading the book of Acts, because now the entire rest of the New Testament makes so much more sense! All his letters, the other books in the Bible... his deep yearnings to be with those he loves so deeply, even though he was so far from them. People he lived with for years. People he ministered to, and ministered to him...

I can relate.

He devoted his entire life to traveling and spreading the gospel.

He devoted his life to loving people... and above all following where God took him. Sometimes that included places away from the people he loved so deeply.

Ahhhhh my heart just aches having left one place. Greenville. So many people so precious to me. So deeply, deeply precious to me. The people that I prayed for, that held me as I cried, that knocked on the wall and waited for me to knock back, that sang with me, that played guitar for me, that met me for coffee, that ate weird fruit with me, that prayed for me, that were next to me in class, and across the campus from me as I walked there...

I had to leave. I had to do something new. Yeah yeah, I had to graduate. But, God had something new for me. He had to take me somewhere new.

Loving so many people is such a heartbreaking thing when we live a life that is devoted to God. Because it's hard to follow God when he takes us away. Like Paul's life. So many passages in Acts talk about how many tears were shed when Paul would leave people.

But such is a life devoted to God. So full of love it hurts. So deeply devoted to love, so deeply devoted to each other.