"Lord, break my plans"--Romanian hymn writer

Thoughts on a Rainy Night

Today is the perfect sort of day for lighting a candle, making some tea, and curling up in a big chair by a fire with a good book. Sadly, the only part of that I have right now is the tea. Candles and any sort of fire are rather frowned upon in a dorm room. And time for reading good books is scarce around here.

For some reason, my heart feels a pleasant sense of melancholy tonight. To paraphrase Anne Shirley, it's a delicate shade of blue. I think this is a good thing. I'm not sad to the point of depression, just quiet and contemplative. It's good to be quiet sometimes, good to have a quiet minute to just sit and think. I learn things about myself in quiet and solitude.

God has been stretching this soul lately. I am clinging to the knowledge that He knows perfectly how far to stretch it for my good and for His glory. (I cringed writing that phrase. It's so cliche--but also so true!) I am in awe of His delicate personal care for me. I am in awe that He stoops to care for this soul, to place it lovingly in the flames and watch until He can see His reflection. Isn't it incredible that we could be His reflection? What an amazing thing He has entrusted to us! Why do I so often take this whole precious gift of being a little Christ so flippantly?

Even in the middle of all this stretching and heating, there are moments of glad relief. I got an email from Natalie the other day about the Lummi club. The timing could not have been more perfect. It was one of those nights where the homework had nearly done me in, and my soul was much darker than a delicate shade of blue. I was ready to give up on many things when I got the email. I had told her that my summer plans were quite up in the air (which they still are), and she told the kids at the club to pray that I would make wise decision. Mikey, the troublesome one (read: a five year old boy who isn't keen on sitting through stories for an hour), told Natalie that I had to come back to Washington and be his teacher! She went on to tell me news of the club...how the kids had grown, changes that had happened in the family...and by the end I was in tears. It was just a little thing, but so often when I was teaching that club I would reach such a point of discouragement--to see those little sorts of results made my heart glad. I realized that I might not see now what God is doing in things I deem pointless, but He always is doing something. Even when I feel that nothing is happening.

We serve an amazing God! (And I can't wait til Heaven when I will have better adjectives and more time to describe Him!)

Sublime

Have you ever taken a drive on a lonely dark day?

Have you ever found yourself on a windy road beside the ocean?

Have you ever scrambled down a steep slope to a rock overlooking the shore?

Have you ever sat on the edge of a cliff with your feet dangling over the stormy water and read the gospel of Luke?

Have you ever been afraid that the power of the wind might blow you into the ocean?

Have you ever watched the waves relentlessly chip away at the rocks?

Have you ever wondered at the power of Him who made the ocean and the wind and insignificant little you...and then died to redeem you?

Have you ever found yourself singing praise songs with your voice swallowed by the storm?

Have you ever curled up by a fire at a coffee shop and given thanks for the many things He gives, like a warm latte and a leather journal and a good book and heat that reaches to your bones?

I have. It may have been the highlight of my spring break....

I Just Got a New Caedmon's Call cd...

I'll marry you if you can dance,
That's what I said,
Cause where I'm goin', they'll be dancing every day
And I'm gonna dance...

Thoughts from the Past Few Weeks

There is no particular order or coherence to the following list...

• Jesus is both gentle and fierce--gentle with prostitutes and sinners and fierce with Pharisees--and I think we often get the two mixed up. We're gentle with the white-washed sinners and fierce with the blatant sinners. But we need to follow in the ways of our Savior.
• I am completely inadequate in every way. Just when I start to think I might be actually helping people, I go to Skid Row and stand in the pouring rain, feeling utterly helpless. Helpless to give these people shelter from the cold and wet, helpless to fill their stomachs except for this small, cold taco in my hand, helpless to make them see that their situation will never be better until they surrender their lives to God. All I can do is tell them...about God's love and righteousness and plan for the redemption of the world...I can't change them at all. I am nothing without Him.
• Alarms mean nothing when you've only had one hour of sleep the night before.
• When I'm depressed for no reason, it helps to go and lay on a blanket and look at the stars and search my heart. Because you know what? I'm usually depressed because of unconfessed sin, because my only Joy I have pushed to the side, because I deem other, temporal things to be more important.
• Strong Bad is insanely funny...and even more so at 4 am.
• Talking to your friends from home is "good like medicine."
• Some Californians will not drive in the rain. If I was that way in Bellingham, I would have never gone anywhere.
• I've decided what I'm looking for in a man. Now God will proceed to show me how very wrong I am...
• It's nice to know people--to begin to understand your roommate on a deeper level than the surface and how to live together without strife, to make friends whom you can talk with about anything, and to see God bringing your lives together for "mutual edification."
• Valentines Day as a single girl doesn't hurt if you're looking to how you can serve others.
• My heart broke for the young teens in Uganda, so much so that I wrote a fragment of a poem:
  Dark eyes in a dark face
  Stare from the depths of a dark heart
  The hope of Uganda
  With hopeless eyes...
  I couldn't finish--there's too much in my heart and I can't find the right words. Actually, reading back over this, these aren't the right words. Oh, for the tongue of Heaven! I am glad the Holy Spirit intercedes for me with "groanings too deep for words."
• "God will take you where you do not want to go in order to produce in you what you could not achieve on your own...We had better start encouraging one another with the theology of uncomfortable grace. You don't need the grace of relief right now, you need the grace of refinement." --from chapel with Paul Tripp
• "My purpose in the life of every person I come in contact with is to have them walk away from each conversation more like Jesus." --paraphrased from chapel with Tom Rios
• God opens up amazing opportunities for relationships with non-Christians where I've not expected them. Remember the kids I babysit? The 12 year old girl has really opened up to me lately and we're developing a relationship, and she'll actually open up to me about deep and important things. So I'm really praising God for that!

If you have some time and want to be convicted (ok, you might have time and not want to be convicted...), you should read some of Gunner's blog. He's the RD at Oak Manor, one of the guys dorms here. http://www.xanga.com/gunner23 (Sorry, I'm not good at html.)