The View From Here

     Hindsight is so different when you look back before the battle is over.  I look back on the past year and I don't see any sudden revelations...I don't see the set of footprints at all of the stops along the way, and I don't feel any regret, shame, or embarrassment for how I have felt, thought or spoken in that time.  I am still in the battle.
     This battle, however, though not over, seems to be revealing what the victory can be.  Over  the past few months, through conversations with friends, family, myself, and with God, I have learned a lot.  God is revealing things to me step by step, and I now realize that like a parent needing to let go when their child first rides a bike, perhaps God let me take some steps on my own for the first time.
I still often feel all those emotions and frustrations I wrote about, but there is a different over-arching sense or thought through them all: I know I do want God, and I know I need him.

     When I was thirteen or fourteen, at River's Edge Camp one summer, the speaker handed everyone some paper with four questions on them and sent us to spend some quiet time alone with God.  The last of these questions to ask God was "what does my heart look like to you?" and the answer I got back was "it looks like your bedroom."  Following that day I think I have felt this constant urgency to "clean up my room" to make it worthy of Jesus coming over, compounded by a feeling of guilt because I can never seem to get the dust out of the corners and because there are certain parts of my room that I like to have a little messy or not figured out...don't we all have a little of that disorganized organization?

     As I continue to grow...especially as this past year has been such a trying time...I am realizing just how damaging that guilt is.  God doesn't want us to hide all our toys in the closet or under the bed and all the dust swept under the rug!  He comes in and teaches us, his children, how to clean the floors and windows properly, and how best to keep things organized....but he does it patiently and carefully.  About a month ago, I had a conversation with a friend who encouraged me so much in this; she reminded me that it is NOT about how things look from the outside, what actions a person takes, or even the prayers prayed out loud....it's isn't about how much you give to the church or whether you raise your hands or pray kneeling down or even prophesy or heal people.  It is about your own heart and soul first and then the actions that come out of a healthy heart that is given wholly to Jesus.  Sometimes it is more important to sit alone with your thoughts and prayers than to attend church every Sunday.  More important to spend time with a struggling friend than go to a Bible Study...more important to take the necessary time to relax and/or have fun than worry about whether or not people will approve.

     I know I will likely never have bruised kneecaps from praying 24/7, and I still know that I don't want to go off to be a missionary (in the traditional sense)...I also know there is nothing wrong with wanting to have a simple, normal life.  There is nothing wrong with the things your heart desires, no matter how simple, boring, or strange other people seem to think they are.  There is nothing wrong with becoming a missionary and going into the ministry.  So many of these decisions and actions we take in life are determined by what we think people, family, the church, even God approve of, but we never, or at least I never, take the time to ask ourselves "what do I want? And does that line up with what God says in his Word?"  I am learning to stop letting that deep guilt rule me and start doing what I want.  The Truth is, as long as what you do doesn't go against what the Bible says or what you believe God has convicted in your own heart, then feel free to do it.  The only eyes that matter are God's, because he's the one who is there when you are alone, he is the one who speaks the truth our hearts need to hear and he is the only one who will fulfill our lives.

I am learning that if I start putting aside that guilt and start focusing on God, and start remembering who he has made me, the anger and frustration and hopelessness start to melt away.  And once those things are gone, there is room in my heart to truly care about others again and live up to who God made me.

Like I said before, I know I am still in the battle...still weighed down by the fights with  my own heart and with God, but I am beginning to see hope again...beginning to feel the freedom I know I have in Him.

And to all of you who are praying and thinking of me, thank you....thank you for your care, encouragement and prayers........please never stop!

Where do We Go From Here?

Well, I have been home for four months now and I have to say, it has been a bumpy roller-coaster so far.

Within two weeks of being home I got a job, a car, registered at Camosun College and got started on that one class in January.

Now the the class is nearly over and I have a great GPA so far, which gives me confidence in entering university next semester.  Soon I will be getting a second job and hopefully I will make it through next year without a loan, which would be so wonderful.

So why has it been a roller-coaster?  Why with all this have I been unhappy?  As time has worn on, I find myself more and more dissatisfied, irritable, even angry, and depressed.  So I have started to try to figure out why...why do I have this constant tension between not wanting my Savior yet knowing he's the one who I should want...

I have experienced a complete shift in what I want out of life....right now I don't want kids, I don't like kids, and I don't even know if I want to bother with dating or marriage.

One thing I do know is that I want to go live in England long enough to get my citizenship, I want to live in New York long enough to do a short worship service in Times Square on New Year's Eve (I don't even what to go into how confusing that part has been with the whole God vs. Me crap), and I want to live in San Diego and try a more varietal community theatre and acting and maybe working in Disneyland for a while.  I don't want to live in Victoria, I don't want to settle down there, and though I am incredibly lonely and bored, I don't want to develop community here.

The only connection I have found with all this is that I associate God, marriage and kids, and Victoria as things that pull us away from our dreams.  I have had my dreams torn away from me so many times and  you know what? I am not willing to give them up just because someone else says that's not what they think I should be doing.

On Friday I did experience a glimmer of hope...maybe it was God speaking to me, or maybe it was just my own thoughts...about a week ago I had a dream that I was learning to care for a very young infant, but it though I knew it was a baby it looked like a kitten (which was really weird).  On Friday afternoon, I had this thought that maybe this dream was representative of how my dreams are still very new and need to be cared for and nurtured, but I don't know how and need to learn.  As well, maybe the way my dreams turn out will not look how I expect, but that doesn't mean they aren't my dreams and I won't have them.  In that there is hope.

To tell you the truth, I don't know where I am supposed to end up and my heart and mind are both very confused, guarded, and feel broken...with no one to help me pick up the pieces and figure this thing out.  Did you know that in a family full of passionate Christians, and having friends who are passionate Christians makes it impossible to tell people that you don't want God? Especially when you're pretty sure they're tired of hearing how much you hate being where you are.....because it makes you sound ungrateful... The thing is that it feels like they won't under stand and they will just try to offer advice, or something like that or maybe even just tell you to quit whining and buck up.  I don't even know for sure where I am at, so how can I possibly take advice, or buck up, and sure maybe I'll stop 'whining', but that isn't going to change what is going on inside.....?

So where do I go from here?