Skid Row is never the same two weeks in a row.

This last Friday night I met a man named Earl. He's a Vietnam war veteran, a drunk, and a drug addict--and wanting the truth. On Thursday, he and a friend were sitting on the corner of Towne and 5th just drinking and talking like any other day on Skid Row. But his friend got up and walked across the street. And a Toyota pick-up pulled up and a shot sounded. And Earl's friend went to face his eternal fate.

Earl didn't explain why his friend was shot. But he did explain the impact that event had on him. I read Job out loud to him and he started crying. I read John 1 and we talked about the Savior, how our only hope is that of Job, "I know my Redeemer lives, and in the end He will stand on the earth."

He begged us to tell him how he can be sure of his eternal fate...I can still hear his earnest "please, please tell me" ringing in my ears. And so my friends explained salvation, about how we have to make Jesus Christ both savior and lord. And there's the problem. Earl doesn't want to give up his sin. "It's so hard here," he said. And I believe him. It's so hard for me to fight sin living at the Master's College, surrounded by almost every conceivable help to living a holy life. How much harder it must be on the streets of Skid Row, where sin in its basest and most addicting forms is available at every corner.

We talked to him for almost two hours, reading the Word and preaching the truth. And still when we left he told us that he was going to finish his bottle before going to sleep. My heart broke. How could he so earnestly desire to know the truth and still cling so stubbornly to his besetting sins? We tried to show him the true beauty of God and how much more valuable He is than anything else, we prayed for him, we (I) cried as we brought his plight before God. And yet I still can't shake the thought that he's going to sleep tonight on the sidewalks of Skid Row not knowing where he might wake up.

So I'm asking you to pray for him. Pray that God will break the power sin has over him in order to bring Earl to Himself. Please.

even when i don't see...

And again it's been forever since I've written.

And again God has amazed me beyond words. I was struck in chapel today by His grace, by the fact that grace is the only reason for....well, for anything really. His grace is everywhere. And by it I am held.

There was a night this past week that a string of events left me questioning God's hand. A night when I couldn't see why things happened the way they did, and I thought that God was answering my prayers in a way completely contrary to His character.

Oh me of little faith.

I kicked against the goads and tried my hardest to doubt His care. But like I said, I am held. I can't describe how difficult it was for my flesh to open my Bible that night, but I did, and I went to sleep with Psalm 73 ringing in my head.

When my soul was embittered,
when I was pricked in heart,
I was brutish and ignorant;
I was like a beast toward you.
Nevertheless, I am continually with you;
you hold my right hand.

The next afternoon I read Job...and I filled two pages in my journal with verses from that book about His sovereignty and my human weakness. And I rested in the truth that "He wounds, but He binds up; He shatters, but His hands heal."

But the comfort of the Word wasn't the end of His plans for my struggle. Later that afternoon, the girl I babysit and I had an incredibly hard but incredibly worth it conversation about the story of Job and about the existence of Satan and about the problem of sin and evil and about God's plans for humanity. And God turned my failures and broken heart into something beautiful and hopefully maybe even eternal.

And I am so glad that I am held.

all day...

...I've had a rock in my right front pocket. When my fingers slip between the fabric and find it, I smile to myself. This rock is my lasting reminder of one of the best hours of my life...an hour spent on the beach with three of my best friends the night of my 20th birthday. Memories of praying and dancing and attempted trespassing and worshipping and taking scores of pictures and holding our breath through tunnels all spring to mind when I reach into my pocket and find this small five-sided rock. And it reminds me of the goodness of God, of the longing for Him I get when I'm at my happiest. And it reminds me that even the week before finals cannot dwarf His love for me or defeat His care for me. And for that I am very thankful.

you know you're in college when...

I realized that last night was the first night in a very long while that I had gone asleep in one day and woken up in an entirely new one. And that was because I went to bed at the "early" hour of 11:45.

Tonight was Placerita's "Turkey, Tarts and Testimonies" celebration. My friend Jared entered a pumpkin cheesecake in the men's bake-off in hopes that he might win the grand prize of a turkey. If he didn't, we weren't going to have a turkey at our Thanksgiving celebration. He won a Cornish Game Hen. Hardly enough meat for 5 people. Happily someone took pity on these college students whose best shot at a turkey is a pie baking contest...and a donated turkey now sits in my RD's fridge waiting for us to brave the mysteries of turkey cooking and carving.

I've just gotten the strangest feeling lately as I walk around campus...it's been longer than a year since all of this was new to me, and now it feels like normal life. And it's extremely weird to walk into the lounge of a dormitory and get that "home" feeling, or to find it normal to push yet another tray around the caf in order to get my next meal, or to walk up the hill for the third time in one day after a 10:15 pm meeting and mentally prepare myself for the rest of the evening's schedule. My roommate just looks at me as girls run screaming down the hall at midnight and asks, "When did this become normal?" I have no idea.

My thoughts of late have really been much deeper than all of this, but I don't know how to type them into this little box. Can I just say that I'm not at all the same person I was when I began this blog? I was reading it the other day...and I was struck by how much different I am. You can't tell as much just from what I wrote, but I remember the things running through my head, the things driving who I was back then...and those things are dramatically different now. But yet not as different as they ought to be.

I really ought to get back to researching the presentation that I must give at 11:45 tomorrow...

The highest and the greatest expression of faith in the whole Bible is---"Though He slay me, yet will I trust Him." (Job 13:15)

- Oswald Chambers

amen

i repent, i repent of my pursuit of america's dream
i repent, i repent of living like i deserve anything
of my house, my fence, my kids, my wife
in our suburb where we're safe and white
i am wrong and of these things i repent

i repent, i repent of parading my liberty
i repent. i repent of paying for what i get for free
and for the way i believe that i am living right
by trading sins for others that are easier to hide
i am wrong and of these things i repent

i repent judging by a law that even i can't keep
of wearing righteousness like a disguise
to see through the planks in my own eyes

i repent, i repent of trading truth for false unity
i repent, i repent of confusing peace and idolatry
of caring more of what they think than what i know of what we need
by domesticating you until you look just like me
i am wrong and of these things i repent

--Derek Webb

...i shall again praise Him...

Psalm 42

To the choirmaster. A Maskil of the Sons of Korah.

1As a deer pants for flowing streams,

so pants my soul for you, O God.

2My soul thirsts for God,

for the living God.

When shall I come and appear before God?

3My tears have been my food

day and night,

while they say to me continually,

"Where is your God?"

4These things I remember,

as I pour out my soul:

how I would go with the throng

and lead them in procession to the house of God

with glad shouts and songs of praise,

a multitude keeping festival.

5Why are you cast down, O my soul,

and why are you in turmoil within me?

Hope in God; for I shall again praise him,

my salvation 6and my God.

My soul is cast down within me;

therefore I remember you

from the land of Jordan and of Hermon,

from Mount Mizar.

7Deep calls to deep

at the roar of your waterfalls;

all your breakers and your waves

have gone over me.

8By day the LORD commands his steadfast love,

and at night his song is with me,

a prayer to the God of my life.

9I say to God, my rock:
"Why have you forgotten me?
Why do I go mourning
because of the oppression of the enemy?"
10As with a deadly wound in my bones,
my adversaries taunt me,
while they say to me continually,
"Where is your God?"

11Why are you cast down, O my soul,
and why are you in turmoil within me?
Hope in God; for I shall again praise him,
my salvation and my God.


I need more hope. I need to remember the power of my God. Brother Andrew said that thinking people need the most hope. I have been thinking too much. It is time to learn to trust, time to rest in hope of my Savior. The world gets me downcast and I forget the days I would lead a procession of rejoicing into the house of my God. But when I remember Him and all that He has worked on my behalf, how can I ever dare to doubt? Where is my God? He is right here...He holds me in the palm of His hand. What can happen to me that's not for my good? What can happen to those I love that doesn't come directly from the loving hand of a sovereign God? Oh Lord, I believe. Help Thou my unbelief!

life just keeps spinning...

You might notice that today seems to be a huge influx of postings. That's because it is. Some of the posts that have been lingering around as drafts for awhile were finally published. I just really felt like writing today...

This afternoon miriam and I drove up a mountian and then scrambled up to the top where we picked wildflowers and breathed in the silence. All the cars and houses lay far below us and I marvelled at all the hub-bub going on below while we just stood up there and dreamed of heaven. I needed that. I needed the perspective a mountian brings...because I've been getting lost in all the details lately. I needed to be called back to the big picture of God's infinite glory.

I am glad for mountains and friends and musicians who make me dream bigger.

friday the 13th

It's been a week of falling apart. I don't remember how to live a life that's so busy with things that just don't seem to matter as much. I miss small hands around my neck. I miss singing as I run up and down the hall getting things together for the next project. I miss driving to the projects with a van full of kids and then crying as we left them. I miss praying hard. I miss crying hard. I miss loving more than I thought was possible.

It's exactly the sort of night where I could laugh or cry at any moment. It's the perfect sort of night for dinner with Miriam and Danielle and Rachel. We all put on heels and jackets and listen to the perfect love song as we drive to the restaurant. We ask the waiter for free refills on everything and eat off each other's plates without asking. It's nice to know that's ok. We talk about life and love and random memories from before we knew each other and take pictures of our drinks and our feet.

We run into our rooms and change as fast as possible. Outside Slight, someone's playing music. I dance down the hill in my favorite tennis shoes. It's the kind of night when I feel everything a little more deeply and life hurts because it's so beautiful--it's funny how the more beautiful life gets the more desperately I want heaven.

We hug the squishy tree outside Del Taco and Rachel writes me a love note on a piece of the bark. On the way to Skid Row, I think about dying. It wouldn't be so bad, I decide. My heart is full of hurt for the people I'm about to talk to and the people I've left in Tulsa and Bellingham and Santa Clarita. There's so many big and little things going wrong just in my world. I close my eyes and see the mural at Comanche--"HOPE."

God is sovereign over the blue state of my heart and Rachel and I talk to a Christian named Chris who loves Keith Green and Tozer and knows his Bible so deeply and passionately that I regret wasting so much time in not hungrily studying it the way I ought to. I am encouraged...when I thought I was coming to Skid Row to encourage others.

We drive back to school through a thunderstorm. I love that. I love that about God--how He orchestrates the weather in such glorious ways. I love that He sent that thunderstorm when my soul needed a reminder of His power. I love that He made my Friday the 13th a very lucky day...if by luck you mean sovereignly ordained. I love that every day is my lucky day because the God of heaven holds me in His hand.

outreach week...

Last week I went back to one of my heart's homes. It's amazing how much of God you can see in one short week...through all-but-orphaned children, through the treasure of the Word, through God-centered preaching, through serving with others, through other people, through sunsets over New Mexico, through sovereignty worked out in continuous small miracles...

Two experiences stand out among all that happened in that crazy short week. Both happened on Wednesday. I was picking up kids at Apache, and only Qwue-Qwue was in my van as we circled the apartment complex. She noticed the writing on my left wrist. "What does that say?" It's a one word reminder to myself--"Love."

"Who do you love, Qwue-Qwue?" I twist around so I can look into her eyes.

"I love God." Tears come to my eyes...you'd have to know her story to understand completely. Miriam says later that we don't know what a 7-year-old born on Skid Row whose parents deal drugs would look like as a Christian...but it might look a lot like Qwue-Qwue. She goes on to tell me, "Yesterday I was trying to read my little Bible but my mommy came and told me to put it away." How does a 7-year-old follow Christ when her own mother is upset when she reads her Bible? When her mom's boyfriend hits her?

On the way back to Apache, I had three kids in my car--siblings, Jessica, Myella and Anthony. They were upset that they couldn't stay for Mission Memorization with some of their friends. But we couldn't get ahold of their mom, so we had to take them back. Most parents at the projects wouldn't even care and might not even notice, but we want to keep them informed any way. When we got to their home, their mom was there, so they asked her if they could go back with me. She agreed and they went inside to get coats. I have a brief phone conference and we're unsure if it's okay for them to come back as they'll miss dinner and most of homework help time. Finally we decide it's okay, and they're back in my van, much happier than they were on our ride to the apartments. I ask them what they like about Kid's Club, the VBS/tutoring program they've been coming to. "I like the songs and the games and learning about Jesus," Jessica answers.

"What do you know about Jesus?" I ask.

"Um...He died on the cross."

I pause to see if there's more and then ask, "Do you know why He died?" She doesn't, so I explain the entire gospel as best I can. The car ride flies past. Finally I try to sum it up for her: "Jesus died so we could go to heaven and be with God when we die, and so we can turn away from our sin and toward Him."

She gets it. "I want to turn away from sin and follow Him." I am amazed at God's sovereign plan for this drive that my flesh had been kicking against. He gave me that one-on-one time so that Jessica could understand the cross. His plans for my days are so much grander than anything I create.