Seven Songs

At Your Feet.
You Always Love Me.
Like Mary.
First Love.
Chaos.
When You Speak.
No One Is As Good As You.

These are the seven songs.... for those of you who were keeping track.
How they sound is my secret right now. But I hope I can share them someday.


Until then... I ponder them in my heart and my room.

Thanks for the faithful encouragement!

Hello.

Hey world, it's been awhile. I've been balancing time and rest and other things (like "Parenthood"), so there's my absence from blogging in a nutshell. But I was just reading Kendall's blogs, and I realized, "Wow, Kendall's blogs are really inspiring." It's a good thing he's my boyfriend... I need to be inspired sometimes...

Alright, alright, but that's not the only reason I read his blogs - yes, I admit I am a bit biased.

Well, who wouldn't want to be in-the-know of how their significant other is processing and sharing deep life lessons and meaningful times with God and "a friend" (he so meant me) with the world wide web??? Because, we talk... A LOT. But I like to understand the "scholar" Kendall, the "writer" Kendall, too, who appears before all of you after our conversations...

Anyway, it's that Kendall (the scholar-writer one) who has inspired me yet again! Mostly just to write this blog, if nothing else. Mmm, that, and to bless someone by buying them coffee today, or just plain ol' bless God by whipping out my guitar and letting my lungs project all this crazy hunger to Him. You know someone told me last night that God LOVES His special, secret time with me? with ME! God l - o - v - e, llluuuvvvss His time with me! So great. I feel "jealous for." I feel like I want to give God what He loves.

Don't you?

Cause I bet He loves His secret time with you too...

Ok so you go to yours, and I'll go to mine, and we'll just plain ol' bless God by projecting all our crazy hunger to Him...


And then we'll change the world.

BREAK!

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...

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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.

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"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 -