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.

Mudhouse Sabbath

I'm currently reading a book called Mudhouse Sabbath by Lauren Winner. It's a slender little book that I picked up yesterday in Barnes and Noble and decided to use my Christmas gift card on (Thanks, Mom). Reading it now, I wish I had picked it up the day before yesterday, just so I could have had it in my possession sooner. I'm pretty sure I've only stopped reading it to shower, pee, and drive... and to write this.

The point of the book is ingeniously described by a phrase found directly underneath its title: "An Invitation to a Life of Spiritual Discipline." The phrase is printed in pink lettering and means what it suggests (as most phrases by Winner do). The fact that it's in pink means nothing, but I thought it was pretty and worth the mention.

When I'm done reading this book - which will probably be around the same time I'm done drinking this latte - I'm going to seriously reconsider the intentionality I give to certain "ordinary" things in my life... things like sabbath and food and candle-lighting... and doorposts. (I haven't actually gotten to the "doorposts" chapter yet... but I bet I'll reconsider the attention I give to those.)

It's a book about the link between spiritual practices of Judaism and the formation of our responses to God in Christianity. It is about "the rhythms and routines" that, as Winner puts it, "drew the sacred down into the everyday." It's a book that shows you you are practicing things everyday, but, how are the things you're practicing forming you to respond to God? Are they at all? Mostly, it's one of those books that asks if you'd like to pay a little more attention...

I'd like to pay a little more attention.


Mudhouse Sabbath... Let me know if you want to borrow it. Maybe we'll read it for lifegroup.

I was reading a very good book this morning, and I realized that if I ever wanted to write a good book, I would need to figure out what, exactly, I am writing about. And I would need to have a lot of things to say about whatever I am writing about. Then I would just need to write about it. It sounded like a simple enough formula: 1) Figure out what you are writing about, 2) Have a lot to say about it, 3) Say it in writing (I would add in, "with humor," for sales strategy). Then I realized something else: I don't think I could ever stay focused enough to write a good book about something. Unless, of course, it was a book about realizations... I might be able to write a good book about realizations... but whoever wants to read a book about that...

Get up and walk...

Bethany Dillon has an awesome new cd out. Danae Allen bought it for me for my birthday. Thank you, Danae...

This is my favorite song right now:

GET UP AND WALK

I have got no one to blame
Except if that someone’s me
I washed my hands, but just the same
My eyes confess for me
I come in filthy rags
You know I’m guilty

I wake up almost every night
Saying Your name
What I would give to walk in the light
But what I hide has made me lame
My face down on the ground
I wait to hear the healing sound

You break through my deafness
Swing open the curtain
And I find the courage to get up and walk
I forget my weakness
For You’ve answered my loneliness
And through the mud on my eyes
I can see my Hope has come

You’ll have to show me where to go
It’s been so long since I’ve used my feet
I got up today a cripple
And now I’m dancing
So let the power of Your move
Not stop with what I can see

[back to chorus]

I couldn’t walk
I couldn’t sing
I couldn’t love until You found me