January 1, December 25, and Today

The Lord spoke to me and said that January would start a "solidifying" season for me. I didn't know what this meant at first, so I asked the Lord, "What will You be solidifying?"
"Your integrity," He replied (in His gentle and powerful whisper). "I will be testing your integrity and showing you that I have set your freedom in stone."

That makes me nervous and joyful all at the same time because the Lord has done some incredible things in me this past year. I have felt Him etching "freedom" into my skin, my hands, my bones... I have felt Him engraving those letters onto my heart... though my heart has budged a few times under the pain of it all. Now, I have stayed with the Crafter's tool long enough to recognize the safety of His hands rather than just the pain of alteration. So I know I can trust Him with what's coming...

-------------------

This morning, I thought about Christmas - and how Christmas is God's love in action. Yes, the Cross and the Resurrection are also epitomes too, but how odd that He would precede those with a specific kind of coming... You see, He didn't just shoot down to earth for a couples days, get on a cross to die, get the grave/hell smashing part over with, and then fly off back into heaven right after. No. God came and stayed for awhile. He came and spoke for a while. He came and fed for awhile, healed for awhile, loved for awhile... suffered for awhile...

He stayed His divinity and His power, so that He could stay in flesh and decaying earth. And He stayed obedient to His Father, loyal to His followers, committed to His message of incarnated love the whole time.

How do I come and stay for people more hurt than me? How do I suspend my privileges to take up a cross like His?

I'm thinking about this season God is leading me into, and I'm thinking about what other things He will solidify into my integrity....

I hope He will solidify an advent in me - a coming posture that stays for awhile. Because I love Advent, and I don't want it to be another end to my year. I want it to be the beginning.

------------------

"Father, free me from all things impatient and hurried. Show me the value of staying and the beauty of waiting on You. I want to see the ones that You see; I want to love the way that You love. Because in You are all things good and righteous and joyful. In You is peace and laughter and a way to deal with pain that's different from our many killers and addictions. Spirit, Your breath sustains me; Jesus, Your friendship teaches me. Father, I wait on Your words... and I will stay... help me stay... I will stay my anxious urge to flee. In thirst and abundance, Amen."

Polished

Whenever I paint my fingernails, it is rushed, and I don't let them dry long enough before touching things. They get squished against table chairs and have imprints of sweatshirt fabric on them before I'm out the door. Then, I spend the rest of date night trying to smooth out the smudged-up ridges and apologizing to Kendall for their messyness, which I catch glimpses of throughout the evening. It hit me the other day (mid-frantic-dry with a hair dryer in the bathroom) that sometimes I treat my spirituality this way. First off, the fact that I would think of my spirituality as an accessory is a little embarrassing to say the least... because it's actually supposed to be a part of my essence - something that can be seen, yes, but mainly something that is sown in and tended to. Furthermore, I'll find myself "polishing" my spirituality up right before leading worship or approaching an event/meeting that requires my life-with-God's presence. I want to present that life well, and often, I wish I had done a better job preparing in advance. I wish I prepared with enough "marinating" time for things to solidify. I wish I let the polish sit. On the flip-side, it's not above God to use whatever I've prepared and even compliment my efforts. He loves that I showed up - like my boyfriend loves that I show up.

It's just... I want to do more than "show up." I want to prepare myself with intention and thought. And it's not just so I will be decorated. (I don't want my spirituality to be like a cheap broche saying this or that about me real quick.) I want to be adorned in preparation - like with anointing oil - like something I've been soaked in long enough to make my skin smell good. Ironically enough, putting my nail polish on right before I head out the door, doesn't help me smell good. My unprepared polishings actually take away from what I truly want to present: an adornment that was sown in, tended to, and given ample time to solidify as a part of myself.

I'm not saying I'm going to wear nail polish all the time. Or, that I'll stop doing it in a hurry at ten-til-date night. I merely want to remember that there are certain things that shouldn't be polished in a hurry before certain engagements... my spirituality is one of those things. Plus, it will probably be a little messy with preparation anyway. (As will my fingernails.)

But the polish was never the point...

Isaiah 42:9

There are some things in life I really enjoy: T-shirt sheets, good froth, movies that make you think... the sound of rain when you wake up in the morning. This morning, the sound of rain was there when I woke up. Something about the rain reminds me of childhood. At the same time, something about it reminds me of growing up and breaks from college and starting to like coffee. I'm listening to it fall from the living room right now, and I want to be back home in Oakhurst with my sisters and a fire going in the fireplace... and, since it's Saturday, I want them to stay home from work and we stay in our pajamas all day playing sing-song monopoly (self-explanatory) and then we finally get dressed to go to dinner because, suddenly, it's 4pm and we're supposed to catch a movie with Tiber at 6:20.

I also want to be hiking. I know that sounds weird, but some of my best memories of hiking are with my cousin Richard in less-than-perfect conditions for it. To me, they turned out perfect, though... because it seemed like a better adventure in the rain.

(I'm so daring.)


So I sit here and want all these things, but then God reminds me that I'm losing the moment. "What about the prayer room to your left?" He asks, "How about you make some new moments to remember enjoying... with me... in the prayer room, with it's less-than-sound-proofed walls, which, will turn out perfect to you because then you can hear the rain better..."

Yeah... That sounds nice.

Because there's nothing wrong with reminiscing. (Memories make great stories.) But something else about the rain - it signifies a refreshing... and an opportunity for new things. And God's doing some great new things.

"Feelings, nothing more than feelings..."

God's not always interested in how I'm most comfortable hearing His voice. I don't think He was interested in that when He had fire talk to Moses through a bush. Moses probably wasn't used to shrubbery interrupting his sheep-watching time. But regardless of how I imagine God will or should speak, He's always taking care to touch on what I need to grow in. And He's helping me recognize His presence in new ways.

I'm feeling Him stretch me in this season of my life. Well actually... I'm feeling Him. It's not one of those stretches that hurts like hell... It's actually one that comforts like ice cream and falls like cherry blossoms. You might be apt to say that since it sounds so nice, it's no stretch at all... But I am not used to physically feeling God... not in the way you'd feel ice cream on your tongue. Feeling God, to me, IS a stretch. It's a stretch that I'm ready for now.

What a good stretch! However, what a scary stretch all at the same time. As a human being, I tend towards fear when something really incredible is happening in my life. Not necessarily a fear of the happenings themselves, but a fear of their absence. But something God has also been speaking to me in this season is that He is the God of their absences too... and whatever He brings into my life, He will be faithful to sustain for exactly as long as I need it. When seasons shift, or the blessings transform as time commands... God will not leave me with nothing. And He will certainly not let the absence of anything trump the reality of His presence!

"You are talking about feelings, though, Jenna. Fleeting feelings - unreliable to be sure." (That was my alter-ego.) Yes! They ARE feelings! They are feelings of Him, which He has now introduced into my life. And though many feelings are fleeting, I should not be afraid of them vanishing forever. A winter season might come, and I might have to simply believe in spring time renewal for a while - choosing to press in, though the chill has frozen my senses temporarily- but once you know what the blossom feels like, it's easier to recognize when it hits your cheek again...

What am I saying in all this mumbo jumbo flower talk? Mainly that God is stretching me to feel Him... that He is giving me a new way of knowing His presence. That He is blessing me with things like that right now; and when something is so good, it can simultaneously be just as scary. But I don't want to waste a season of rich sensations worrying that I will lose touch with it eventually. Instead, I am going to trust Him as He moves me along, teaching me to recognize things that may, in time, lay dormant at points but remain instilled in a new part of me.

Kind of like getting a hug from a friend. The hug stops at some point, but you will forever recognize its enveloping touch.

Beyond the Stop

I often wonder about things like destiny and tension and climbing mountains. I wonder about the person with a great destiny and about the things in his or her life that start making it uncomfortable...that start making reality harder than a dream. I wonder about the people woven into that destiny and the challenges ripping into it as well. I wonder about stories, basically... But I'm wondering about them more right now. It's funny, because in the story of my own life, this topic has been coming up a lot. I was away awhile, and during that time, I picked up the book A Million Miles in a Thousand Years. I heard it was good, and I like Donald Miller, so I thought it'd be worth the fifteen bucks. It was. It's a good book... and it's mostly about stories.

A few Sundays ago at the Stirring, I could tell that I wasn't the only one reading that book... Aaron Hayes talked about Luke 5:1-11, which shows Jesus pulling some fisherman out of their frustrating, mediocre stories and into the bigger story he was starting to tell with them. Jesus moves them "from a life of occupation to a life of mission... from lives of obligation to lives of meaning and purpose." I really resonated with what Aaron said there, because until you realize that Jesus wants to tell a great story with your life, whatever you're trying to "keep up with" outside of that is inevitably going to expose your inadequacies and always highlight your failures. But Jesus' story doesn't leave you at inadequacies and failures... it calls you THROUGH them. Because the point of His story is not your competence or successes... the point of His story is your transformation - your transformation that comes because He is competent and successful at loving you, calling you, and pulling you through, if you let Him.

You see, I watch a lot of movies, and I get wrapped up in a lot of stories. And I was thinking the other day that the stories I get the most wrapped up in are the ones that have the best character development. I could watch a really "boring" movie or the most action-packed thriller in the world, but if I fall in love with a character, all I really end up caring about is how they are going to be throughout the movie. And I don't care if the conflict is about world-rescue or relational-redemption, if the character is determined to move through the conflict and come out changed for the better, I'm all over that! But here is the thing that matters most to me - here is the thing the makes the difference... If the CONFLICT ITSELF WINS... if the character receives nothing, learns nothing, surrenders nothing, moves nothing... if they give in to everything the story had mounted against them... that movie sucks. I would hate to watch a movie that only says, "There was once this man who was caught up in something that was ruining his life and his heart. He started fighting against this thing, because he had to or he would die. He got close to getting through it a couple times, and it seemed like he was changing, but then he went back to where he started... and even worse... and then he died." The conflict wins in a movie like that. And I don't think Jesus made us to have lives where conflict wins. He says we will have conflict. The deep conflict is where the deep victory is possible (like Aaron was saying). But, "take heart"...because Jesus has overcome a WORLD of it.

If we join Jesus' story, we overcome conflict, too. We go through it, like Jesus did (but we do it on a smaller scale because we don't have to go through the battle of defeating EVERYONE's sins)... and we come out on the other end risen and changed, because something is new in us now.

I don't think a story is complete until conflict is defeated. The kind of movie I mentioned before - the one where the man is defeated by his conflict - it's worse than, "Oh, that movie has a bad ending" - I don't think that movie really has an ending... I think that movie just stops.

And who likes to watch a movie that just stops?


When I said earlier that I wonder about things like destiny and tension and climbing mountains... that I wonder about the person with a great destiny and about the things in life that start making it uncomfortable and about the people woven into that destiny and the challenges in it as well... I guess I'm really wondering about the meaning that all those elements have. And I guess I'm wondering if they mean anything at all if the story doesn't pull them through something in the end. I'm wondering if they are all just pieces, floating around on paper or on a screen (or in a life), waiting to find their weight in the end... waiting to have their worth completed when the Author says, "This was how you moved my story along." How beautiful, if the main character lets the story be written like that, and lets the elements come into the fullness of that. How incomplete, if the conflict just stops him -

Impossible Things and Vorpal Swords

Have you ever thought, "This is so ironic"... or wondered if somebody somewhere somehow knew you were needing to hear the thing you heard or watch the thing you watched or read the thing you read right when you heard, watched, or read it? Have you ever felt like somebody somewhere sees you? I have. More times than I can count. To be quite honest, it's beginning to be a regular occurrence... Also to be quite honest, I'm beginning to think that that somebody somewhere is in fact God, and that He enjoys getting my attention this way. Which is encouraging, because it's something I've realized I can't ignore... and I like to think that I can't ignore God.

What I couldn't ignore tonight... was brilliant. Incredibly brilliant. So brilliant that I might poke a hole in my "delete" key trying to get the words right for this. It was colorful, and it was devastatingly loud (to me, anyway... the person who lives my life and could recognize the analogues in the context of my life). It was a match after a parallel after a saying... and they just kept coming as I sat there taking all of them in - my mind imploding as I tried not to cry while these things confirmed and put pictures to what God has been (already) so loudly shouting at me for months... It was all very genius of Him really. God is a genius. And tonight, He spoke to me through Alice in Underland.

I shouldn't have been as shocked I was. Partly because, like you're thinking right now, "It's just a movie. You can find meaning in any movie"... but mostly because, I was afraid of this movie. I've been afraid of it for months. My little sister went and saw it with her friend, and I thought, "I'm afraid of that movie. It looks weird. I don't want to see it." I thought it would be exactly like the cartoon, and I never liked the cartoon - the cartoon scared me. I never watch it anymore.

Well so the story of how I ended up watching this movie goes like this: Tonight, Aubrey picks this movie, Alice in Wonderland, and since I want to try "being brave" on for size, I just go with it. Aubrey doesn't even realize it's 3D, but I do, which scares me more (and ends up being scary for her once she also finds out it's 3D... really funny), but again, I just go with it. Garrett comes too, and we all share popcorn. The movie starts, and I yell, "I'm afraid of this movie!" (I don't normal-yell, of course - the movie has started - I whisper-yell.) After about 30 minutes into it, our suspicions are confirmed that this is not the normal Alice in Wonderland's story... this is Alice in Underland's story, and this one is different. This one is about finding out who you are meant to be, and becoming that who... This one is about believing impossible things, and facing a monster you never thought you could slay. This one is about being brave. And even if the whole time people are guiding you, supporting you, telling you about your destiny and who you used to be before you forgot about your destiny, the choice in the end is still yours... only yours... and YOU must decide to face the monster... because once you decide to grab your weapon, you will need to wield it.

But don't worry too much, "insignificant bearer," the Vorpal Sword knows what to do... you just have to hang on... and believe the impossible...


There were a lot of other things (pictures, words, story lines) that stuck out, but if you aren't me, you probably won't understand God talking to me in them. In light of that, I am glad I am me tonight.
For those of you who aren't me... bummer, it's quite the ride.

Well, go see the movie and have fun! God might call you into a dream of special effects... or wake you up to a reality of your own that you need to face...

Either way, it's worth the 8 bucks and recyclable plastic (if you see it in 3D)!

Gosh, and I was afraid of this movie.... I would have missed some serious muchness...

The way I want, or the way He wants me?

"It may not be the way I would have chosen- when You lead me through a world that's not my home..." (Ginny Owens)

This is an amazing song. And I hear it coming out of my soul right now. The lyrics above catch my attention every time I listen to them... but today, this part means more than I ever really thought it would. You see, God has these plans He works out... this "dream" for my life, if you will (Anyone at the Stirring today?). And sometimes, what happens to me and then what happens next out of that makes total sense in my mind. In fact, it makes so much sense in my mind that I could have planned it myself (so I do plan it). Cause I'm pretty good at figuring stuff like that out (Have you ever taken the Strengths Finder test? One of my top strengths is connectedness... so, ya know... I make the connections)...

Well, sometimes I can't make enough connections to keep up with what God is doing... and what God is doing right now was definitely not included in the string of events that I had all connected and planned out for me about a month ago. Not that that matters much anymore... He has made it clear that His way is best. And He has made it even more clear that His way is leading me on a path I actually thought I was avoiding. "It may not be the way I would have chosen." (Actually, it's not. I know this because I thought about this way multiple times, and I didn't choose it... multiple times.) But now, I am choosing His way. Which leads to the same end I always wanted. It's just that, this way, the me at the end will probably match His dreams a little better...

Someone once told me that God looks at you and sees the "whole-story" you... and that He has instilled hopes in you to align the "now" you with the you "to come."

... So I am encouraged as I press in now to all I've hoped He's shaping me to become.


No matter that it doesn't look the way I always thought.



P.S.
"Pit happens" ...hahaha.... oh Nathan...

How things end up.

When I was a little girl, I wanted to be a boy. This is true. Once, I asked my mom why she had me, a girl, and why she didn't do something different so I'd be a son instead of a daughter. She laughed a little but then realized how serious I was and simply said, "Because God wanted you to be a girl, and He knew I wanted another sweet little princess..." She might have tried to pinch my cheek after that, which made me want to be a boy even more. My cousin was a boy... my friends were boys... why couldn't I be a boy, too? I liked action figures, pocket knives, building things (forts, chairs, traps) and carving things (wooden swords, tooth picks...). I liked exploring and going on crazy adventures (our backyards were HUGE). I liked sports and race cars and pulling barbie's head off. One time my friends and I made a flying fox out of twine and wash cloth... which was a dumb idea, but it was very Indianna Jones, and I bragged about my rope-burned hands for days. My dad used to tell me I was a "tom-boy," and I liked the sound of that... He took me fishing and encouraged my sports skills. Any time he was at his workbench, I was sitting on top, watching him saw and glue and hammer and sand. When he had a local basketball game to play in, both Joy and I would go so we could shoot around afterwards. Dad did always seem to hone in on my dribble and stance and shooting form... I think, in a way, I was like the son he never had...

I'm not upset about this, my dad never said he wished I was a boy or that he didn't want any of the four girls all his children ended up being. After all, I was the one that said I wanted to be a boy... I think he was just happy to accommodate that part of me... and have a "tough" daughter and "little buddy" to share his cool tips with.

... I didn't mind being his little buddy.

>

When I was a little girl (but a little older), I had become obsessed with Star Wars and with Tomb Raider. I used to want to be buff and cool and fearless and able to do amazing flips while kicking bad guys' butts like Lara Croft. And I wanted to learn how to wield the Force like Luke Skywalker. About that time, I really started liking the color blue.

... Kicking bad guys' butts and using the Force for good... Yup, that was the kind of stuff I wanted to do as a little older little girl. (Now, I just want to be buff... Don't judge me. You probably want to be buff, too.)

>

When I was a teenage girl... I was on the basketball team and wanted to survive high school... yeah that's about it.

>

Now, I'm not a little girl anymore. Nor do I want to be a boy anymore (well, there are certain times... VERY certain times...), but I do still like a lot of things I liked when I was younger. I still like sports. I still thoroughly enjoy fishing. And blue is my favorite color. I still watch kick-butt girls in movies and like that they're not "sissies." (If you take the "sissies" thing personally, please don't, I obviously still have issues to work through). But I also do like that God made me a girl... now.



Sometimes I think about my sisters - I think about how beautiful they are - and I think how blessed I am to share that sister-bond with them (something I wouldn't be able to share as a boy). Sometimes, I think about how empathetic I can be - I think about how there are definitely empathic guys, but how there's just something unique about a woman's empathy, and I'm glad I can share that with other women that might be going through what I have gone through. Sometimes I even think about being pursued, being a wife, being pregnant, being a mother... and I think those sound like wonderful things to be. For now, I think about playing guitar and singing as a girl... writing songs from my feminine heart. I think about the workings of my theologically driven mentality... of doing and writing and professing theology slightly different than a man, because I am a woman, and that's no "slight" at all. I think about being a leader in a uniquely female way, and I think about being fiercely dedicated to Jesus' way in this manner of worship and love that I've found myself in... Suddenly, I don't want to be a man at all. Of course I think that men are great, and I want to be led by and married to a great man someday; without men, there wouldn't be women, and vice-versa, and I don't even know how to finish this sentence without filling it with understatements...

But I guess what I'm ultimately saying is that... that I... that there are... hmmm... that I'm glad I liked the boyish things I liked when I was young, because they are a huge part of who I am as a woman now... And I don't mean that girls who liked horses and dresses and flowers and dancing are not appropriately (and also appropriately featured as) brave, strong, great women. I'm just coming to believe more everyday that I'm great as a woman, too. So I'm thankful God made me a girl after all. Because how things end up, my wants for me are more like His wants for me anyway... and I want to be a woman of God.

Life is Beautiful.

In real life, too.

This past month I've realized that facebook makes no big difference in my life. It hasn't been in my life at all this past month, and the only thing I've missed about it is all my witty jokes finding their way into the cyber world via another person's wall or the tagged photo they're attached to. Cause sometimes I feel like I'm that much funnier on the internet... (But then I make a joke in the office, and Dan Lance laughs at it, and that reminds me I'm funny in real life, too. And I no longer need facebook.)

So we broke our fast from noise yesterday as a church (which I was ironically and quietly at home sick for). Mid-Friends episode, it hit me that I could get back on facebook again! The first time in a month! All that pent up... SOCIAL TENSION. And, I mean, what if the world is imploding and I totally missed the invitation to the group "We have a space shuttle that will transport you off earth on this date at this time, et cetera, et cetera (Hurry- limited seating!)"??? I thought about how I would come to Yaks today and get back on facebook, and about how getting back on facebook again would just blow my mind... I thought about how much of a difference facebook probably makes in my life and I don't even realize it...


This how much of NOT a difference it makes in my life-

Messages waiting in inbox: 2
Photo tags: a few times in 1 new picture album
Wallposts: about 5 (and two of them were because of prompts to "reconnect" with me)
Notifications: about 37 ...surprisingly low, considering the amount of flower pots and farmville corn I am usually "gift"ed in a day.
Invites to that group with the space shuttle: 0


Anybody who's anybody on facebook knows what lame numbers those are.

Anybody who's anybody on facebook knows that the underlying force of facebook is "tag and be tagged back"... if you don't thrive and live and flourish under the blue and white url f logo of this post-and-comment-now-comment-on-the-post world, you might as well not expect big numbers during one month's time of absence. This is what I knew going into the fast. This is what, I am slightly embarrassed to say, I had to pray to Jesus about. "But Lord- If I do not comment, I will not get a comment back!"

Cause anybody who's anybody on facebook knows that if your status is old, you're old news my friend...


Luckily, anybody who's status or pictures or dire re-connecting needs make a big difference in my life, also has my phone number. Or email address. Or I see their ACTUAL face as life affords. I'm definitely not being a facebook downer... I just think it's a relief every now and then to realize that you DO have bonds thicker than clear wire...



Thank you, Jesus... I can trust you with my social life. (And my real life... the world is not imploding...)

Good fasting lesson.