Restless. Everyone around me is restless. Either caused from pain, or sorrow, or want, or even just plain dissatisfaction from where they are. I wonder why. I say this very tongue-in-cheek (a phrase I really never use) but truly, b/c I myself am incredibly restless. I become restless when I don't understand things, I become restless when the people I love are restless, therefore I've already got 2 strikes against me. I realized this week the biggest thing that makes me restless about my church. Don't get me wrong, I love my church, I can totally see why I'm here to serve in the areas that I'm called, to build relationships where people need nothing more than for someone to listen to them, and also to grow. I think God takes us out of the "fire" of life sometimes, b/c it's more than enough to try to fix the stuff that we're finding wrong with us personally. So what makes me restless about my church is that I can't sing here. In a literal sense, I sing on the praise teams, I sing in our weekend services, but I can't seem to sing here. I get little hints of singing as I lead my bible study and I realize that even if just for a moment, someone caught a glimpse of what I was trying to show them outside of their box. I find it when I'm laughing over something nonsensical my 9 year old sister has said, and I find it in my tears when I finally give to God something I've been holding on to for way too long. In my church services though, I have a hard time singing even in a literal sense. It's easier when I'm up closer to the front and everything is louder. Last week I sat in the back b/c I'd come in late from doing some sign-ups outside. And you would think that everyone was still sleeping around me. If they were singing, there was definitely no sort of volume coming out, and their spirits felt heavier as if they felt guilted into coming, but just weren't going to come that close to God. It was a strange feeling, and one that I'm going to avoid experiencing again. I think that's why I enjoy going to Common Ground so much, I feel a tiny bit guilty b/c I just go to be fed. I don't go to serve, granted I'm going to give back by worshiping with others, but essentially it's to see God through the people, through the preaching, and more than anything else, through the singing. Aside from worship conference in Tennessee and by myself, it's one of the few places I really feel totally open just worshipping. I know that's something that you should feel comfortable with anywhere, but when surrounded by people who I think are afraid to glimpse what God really is, it's hard to let your spirit go. At Common Ground the music is louder and heavier, and b/c everyone is packed together it's as if it's one voice rather than several hundred scattered across a large auditorium. And honestly, maybe these people are no different than those I experience in my church. Granted at Common Ground most of these people are all 20-somethings searching for a lot of the same things I'm looking for, community, and essentially God. I hate to use the cliche' Gen-X, b/c it's so much more than an age, it's a mentality, and a calling, a crying out to God. So in the last couple weeks I've gone to both, my home church and Common Ground and finally realized this Sunday why my heart longs for what it's finding at Common Ground. I can sing there. I can stand there and offer all that I am and it's enough. People here are afraid to even offer a hint of what they can be. There are exceptions to every rule, and while I don't necessarily connect here as I do other places- many do, and it's a great outreach. I just long for the day when we all truly worship in spirit and in truth. Anyway, with all these thoughts I've discovered a new song (and band actually). Why have I never heard of Travis before? Anyway, so I'll leave you with this song that's been my song of the week and everything that's going on in my mind and in my heart.


Sing~ Travis

Baby, you've been going so crazy
Lately, nothing seems to be going right
Solo, why do you have to get so low
You're so...
You've been waiting in the sun too long

But if you sing, sing, sing, sing, sing, sing
For the love you bring won't mean a thing
Unless you sing, sing, sing, sing

Colder, crying on your shoulder
Hold her, and tell her everythings gonna be fine
Surely, you've been going to early
Hurry, cause no one's gonna be stopped

But if you sing, sing, sing, sing, sing, sing
For the love you bring won't mean a thing
Unless you sing, sing, sing, sing

Baby, there's something going on today
But I say nothing, nothing, nothing,
Nothing, nothing, nothing, nothing

Here I am…

Today I feel a bit like maybe I’ve been in the starting block too long. It’s like I not only got ready to run the race, but I got down into position, and I’m just crouching there with all of my muscles screaming to either go somewhere or stand up for a while. I’m not at all sure what that means, but for some reason my body has this apprehensive feeling of anticipation. It’s been there for a while now, and the bad thing I’m not really sure that it’s going away anytime soon. I don’t really see the beginning of the race, but standing up and taking a break would almost be a step backward. All I know is I can’t stay here for much longer. It’s beginning to wear on me. It is bringing me closer to Him though. I can’t help but be more focused when my entire being is crying for some sort of understanding, or direction, or just a little comfort.

In Bible School yesterday we talked about the ways that we connect best to God. We covered the 7 different main areas that most falls under- (Relational, Nature, Intellectual, Contemplative, Worship and 2 more I can’t seem to remember) and how it’s good to look at the others and try to grow in those areas, while at the same time strengthening the way that you usually connect the best. Mine- not a surprise are Contemplative, and Worship. I’d say Relational is a close second there. Maybe that’s been the problem lately. I feel as if the people that I usually spend a great deal of time with who understand how I work, for one reason or another haven’t been available for a lot of one on one time. I can’t place the entirety of the blame elsewhere, b/c I know I’ve been too busy myself. I feel like I need a vacation. And I’d like to just take a handful of people with me, and just be for a while. Maybe several mini-vacations instead of everyone all together. Funny thing is, I don’t really want to talk as I just want us both to listen for a while. I’m not really sure what my prayer is right now. Sure I’d love direction, but I know that I’m learning a lot in this period of in-between as well. And I know the race is coming. I don’t want to rush with the preparation and not be as ready as I should be when the time comes. It’s a terrible state of limbo. I can’t go back to where I was, but not being sure just when I’m going to be ready to go forward is really starting to wear on me. I feel a bit like Alice trying to fit through the door. I’m either too big, or too small. Both being important, but just not yet right. Maybe I’m chasing the white rabbit- and I don’t know where he’s leading me. Maybe I’m moving so fast, I still feel like I’m standing still. Maybe this state of limbo is the best place to be.

My prayer for the last week or so has been the most recent in the “favorite song” list. Sometimes other people are so good at verbalizing what my innermost being is trying to express that I can’t help but adopt it as my own prayer.


Knees to the Earth- Christy Nockels

Wonderful Savior, My heart belongs to thee
I will remember always the blood You shed for me
Wonderful Savior, my heart will know Your worth
So let me embrace You always as I walk this earth

Be blessed, be loved, be lifted high
Be treasured here, be glorified
I owe my life to You, my Lord
Here I am

Beautiful Jesus, how may I bless Your heart
Knees to the earth I bow down to everything You are
Beautiful Jesus, You are my only worth
So I will embrace You always as I walk this earth

Be blessed, be loved, be lifted high
Be treasured here, be glorified
I owe my life to You, my Lord
Here I am

Sacred Revolution- Passion One Day '03

True Colors by Cyndi Lauper
You with the sad eyes
Don't be discouraged
Oh I realize
It's hard to take courage
In a world full of people
You can lose sight of it all
And the darkness inside you
Can make you feel so small
But I see your true colors
Shining through
I see your true colors
And that's why I love you
So don't be afraid to let them show
Your true colors
True colors are beautiful ,
Like a rainbow
Show me a smile then,
Don't be unhappy , can't remember
When I last saw you laughing
If this world makes you crazy
And you've taken all you can bear
You call me up
Because you know I'll be there
And I'll see your true colors
Shining through
I see your true colors
And that's why I love you
So don't be afraid to let them show
Your true colors
True colors are beautiful ,
Like a rainbow


I’ve found myself a little life weary lately. Not really depressed. Just a little tired of life. That sounds terrible I know. But I’ve just felt weighed down. Or at least worse than usual. It’s amazing how much someone notices when a normally happy person is just a little lackluster. Yesterday in particular, I don’t even think I’d realized it, but I had several people, even after just talking for a minute, ask if I was ok. And my response that I was just tired, because really it sounds so pathetic to say I’m tired of life. It’s such a negative response even if I am just being honest. So, life weary is a better way of explaining it.

Last night was bible study, and I just didn’t feel mentally there beforehand. I didn’t feel like I’d prepared enough ahead of time, and I just didn’t feel like leading it to be honest. But I did, and what an amazing difference I felt afterwards. My outlook was better, my spirit was higher. It’s amazing the marked difference you’ll find after talking about something you’re passionate about. I know that the topic of this 3-month study is evangelism, but I just think of it as “Loving People”. Loving them as Christ loved us. I think I forget sometimes how important it is to let people know that they matter to you. I’ve been trying to do more of that lately, and the responses have surprised me. I guess I don’t think much about how much it matters to someone who is what I consider a casual friend to have been “missed.” A girl from our FISH Group was off for a summer job, and just recently got home. I always ask how she is when I run into her sister at church, so this Sunday her sister was walking in the same time as me, and stopped to tell me she was coming home that day. I told her to tell her I said Hi, and that I hoped to see her at FISH. When she came last night, she told me how happy it made her that one of the first things she heard on returning home, was that I was asking for her to try to come to FISH b/c I’d love to see her. That it was actually an answered prayer she didn't even realize she'd had. I hadn’t thought for a second about her response. I just genuinely wanted her to be there. We all want to be accepted. We all want to be loved. For who we are. For the very core of our being cries out for that understanding- that peace, that silently whispers, “I know.”

I know I mentioned in my journal the other day how refreshing it is to have someone who will disagree with you, and who makes you think. It’s amazing how much I’ve thought over again that few hours of conversation we had sitting in the middle of the noisy pub we always used to go to late Thursday nights in college. There in the middle of Nick’s, I realized just how much I’d missed him. I miss his thinking, and I miss his randomness. I miss having someone who thinks in metaphors, different from my own, but metaphors nonetheless. I miss having someone who’d sit on the porch with me, while I blow bubbles, then ask me why I did- and actually make me think about it. So in honor of him, my metaphorically speaking friend, I’m going to write down a little metaphor about relationships.

Most people spend their lives seeing in black and white. And they understand black and white, and don’t have any sort of idea that there are any colors even out there. Some others see a few colors, either from experiences (reminds me of the movie Pleasantville) or through people they meet. And while they’re better for it, they don’t realize that something is missing enough to want to search for it. Then there are the people, who not only see in complete color, but they themselves are a color you’ve never seen before. You don’t realize just how different they are from everyone else, till you just keep looking at the detail that goes into the development of this color- it’s like a Monet painting, the more you look, the more you see, and you realize that this color wasn’t just developed overnight, and you can’t fully appreciate it’s beauty with a single glance. So you’re drawn to them, inexplicably, again and again. Even when time passes, and you haven’t seem them in a while, you realize with just one glance, that even while time passes, and communication is lost- their color grows deeper. Through life, through love, through hurting, and being hurt. through abandonment, through loneliness, through searching and pain. Like a stained glass window when the sun hits it just right, the more they experience, the more light that shines through. Their color continues to just get deeper, and you realize more and more what an absolutely beautiful creation of God you’re witnessing, that He has honestly truly blessed you by allowing you to see it. And you’re called as a result of this experience, to allow yourself to be more transparent, so that others can see the light that He’s creating in You. The light of searching for just what it is we’re supposed to be doing.

Who can be life weary when surrounded by people are so full of life even when they don’t know it?

“Sometimes there’s so much beauty in the world, I can’t stand it.”
~American Beauty

The other day I spent a lot of time looking at this picture I came across in a random store. It was a black and white photograph of these incredibly tall trees that lined a road in the middle of nowhere. It was obviously a country road, and outside of the trees, the landscape was extremely bleak and desolate. The focal point was where the road met the horizon and you could see a person. You couldn’t see any of their features, just that they were there, walking or maybe running. And I wondered where they were going. And it felt a bit like my life. All that you could see in the picture were these giant, bare trees looming above, and this landscape that was blurred and washed out. You could see enough to know that there was nothing there, but not well enough to know why. But although it was bleak- there was a road. And it’s supposed to be traveled. God’s been teaching me about brokenness lately. It’s something that I’m not very good at allowing myself to feel. I think in some ways I’m walking a tightrope in my life. I may not know where it’s leading, or feel that it’s incredibly steady at all times, but my footing is still sure, and I feel like I’m getting to the other side. Then Someone came up and just shook it wildly. I didn’t fall off, but suddenly I was hanging on as hard as I could thinking this wire is what I’m supposed to be walking, and if I let go it’s going to hurt. No one can hold on forever though. It’s funny how sometimes I hold things in, even in my prayer life, as if admitting them makes them somehow something more than just thinking them. God knows my thoughts, audible or not. And He wants to teach me about brokenness. If people will open their eyes when they’re broken, they can learn things they never knew about themselves, and more importantly about God. Lately, I’ve really been hurting. In some ways, I didn’t even realize that I was. So it took God shaking that wire for me to realize I can’t hold on forever. The crazy thing is, I thought I’d finally gotten the hang of this tightrope. But I realized that that’s not what God wants. He doesn’t want me to get the hang of it. He wants me to fall broken at His feet. He wants me to admit that I don’t know what I’m doing, and even that I’m lonely. It’s a strange feeling to be surrounded by the people you love most in the world, who know you the best, and still feel lonely. To still be searching for something. Lately in my thoughts, I think I’ve been giving God my seconds, or just the ones that I’m ready to admit to myself- as opposed to my all, even those that I hate to own up to. I don’t think I wonder how it feels often enough, for God to get my seconds. It took me adjusting to being a “second” again to realize what He must feel all the time with me. Most people experience the transition that you undergo when a close friend gets involved in a serious relationship. I’m pretty sure that most people don’t get the *privilege* of experiencing it as often as I have. First there were my sisters, older and younger, so I adjusted to my sister's being married and having kids. I've moved from spending time with them alone, to spending time with the “marrieds” b/c the spouses and children are always included, I'm ok with that. I've adjusted to spending time with the couples when hanging out with my high school friends. I'm used to being the 5th person or the 7th when everyone is home for the holidays. I'm ok with that. I adjusted to being a second to the person I always thought I’d be with when he decided he'd rather have a boyfriend than a wife, I adjusted to my best friend when she started that relationship that’s “the one” and finally, I’m adjusting right now to another of my closest friends as she does the same thing. And while at least by now I know how it feels, it doesn’t really make it an easier transition. You go from hearing all the little details of someone’s life- to the stuff that’s still on their minds after talking to the other person. Don’t get me wrong, some of these relationships haven’t been hurt at all by this transition. It’s enhanced them for the other person to be experiencing something so different than what I’m experiencing not that it makes the transition any easier.

This time was different though. This time it made me wonder how many times, when I’m hurting I first go to a best friend instead of immediately going to God in prayer. And at the same time, He’s revealing other areas of my life to me, and I’m realizing that it’s ok to be broken. He’s teaching me in this brokenness that you have to allow yourself to hurt. And more than that, I have to admit to being someone who hurts. I need to admit to being someone who experiences loneliness. I need to admit to being someone who doesn’t know where God is leading them. And I need to be open to the possibility that wherever it is, it could be a world away from the life I have here. The lessons God has been teaching me lately, were honestly not even lessons I realized I needed to learn. I needed to fall off of that wire. I need to take a closer look at the “trees” that loom above and the path that’s at my feet. And I need to follow it. Sometimes we have to stop waiting to understand, and pray to just figure it out on the way. Sometimes it’s better to step blindly.

“Now faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see.”
Hebrews 11:1

I love unconventional friendships. Last night I hung out with someone who I can honestly call a close friend, even though we rarely talk or see each other anymore. He’s one of those people that even after not seeing him for 6 months or more, we can still talk as if not a day has passed. He’s someone who not only makes me laugh, but more importantly he makes me think. He makes me think about what I think. If that makes sense… I know that so much of the time we say things, and don’t stop to wonder exactly why we said the things that we said, or what we’re actually thinking when we say them. It’s nice to have someone ask you what you think. And it’s nice to have someone disagree with you when they think you’re wrong, or simply tell you that you’re not thinking nearly enough. I have only a few friendships in my life that are on that level of “disagreement”, not just in an opposing sense of the word, but to openly question why in the world I’m thinking what I’m thinking. I find oftentimes those to be the ones that are the most important to me. And in those friendships I learn the most about myself. I don’t think we question ourselves enough why we think what we think, and why we feel what we feel. It’s like we assume it’s the way that we are, and we just seem to accept that. I don’t want to feel as if my pre-conceived notions are merely random conjectures and not valid explanation for not only what I think, but who I am. Because it’d been so long since I’d seen him, I forgot just what it was like to have someone actually question why I think what I think. Sometimes I get discouraged that there are so many people who just don’t get it. But then I have moments like last night and it makes finding someone who does get it or even finding them again, mean that much more.

Occasionally I have days that feel a lot like the movie Groundhog’s Day. You know, the one with Bill Murray who wakes up to the same day, over and over, and over and over again until he can finally get things right and move on to the next day. Today is so one of those days.

Don’t get me wrong, there are things about my job that are great. Today I just can’t remember what they are. I really have to remind myself that I’m doing this job as a ministry and not as a job. But it’s hard when I’m not really doing much of anything that I’m passionate about- to keep things in that perspective. I find myself wishing on Monday that it was almost Friday. I’m wishing 4/7 of my life away and that’s a terrible cycle to get into. There’s nothing about me that screams “please let me organize your life” which is essentially what I do here. I organize the music department. Granted more often than not I know what’s going on when they’ve only got little pieces of the puzzle, but that doesn’t really make the job that much more enjoyable.

Sometimes I just wonder when the building stage of this bridge will be finished. That’s totally how I envision this part of my life-as a bridge. To whatever is next. I don’t know if it’ll be here or far away, but I know that you just can’t skip over the intricacy involved in bridge building. B/c you’ll miss something, and if the bridge isn't ready and you fall- more often than not you have to go back a lot further than you were when you fell. I in no way want to rush through my life wondering so much “what’s next?” that I miss what’s here. So my prayer today, as it’s been many other days- is just simply that my eyes are open. Open to where He’s leading me, open to what He’s teaching me, open to who He is.

“everybody knows it hurts to grow up-
and everybody does.”
~Ben Folds

"To love is to be vulnerable. Love anything and your heart will be wrung and possibly broken. The only place outside heaven where you can be perfectly safe from all the dangers, all the perturbations of love, is hell."[C.S. Lewis]

Ran across this quote today after my entry. Found it rather fitting.

Locking Doors- sean watkins

I wish that I didn’t need
To say that I didn’t bleed.
Open eyes, see my sores
Steady mind, I’m not too sure.
It’s easier just locking doors.

Toy doll, not much to say.
So you thought, anyway.
Open eyes, see my sores
Steady mind, I’m not too sure.
It’s easier just locking doors.

Not quite, or just what it seems.
Poor sight, I still believe
Open eyes, see my sores
Steady mind, I’m not too sure.
It’s easier just locking doors.

Vulnerable: adj.
def: Susceptible to physical or emotional injury.

How much as Christians are we called to be vulnerable? It reminds me of transparency which I think goes hand in hand. The more transparent we allow ourselves to become, the more vulnerable we are. How many people should really see that vulnerability? Is it something that should be reserved for only those who we already know truly love us for us or is this something you must show someone on the way to truly loving each other. Even in the tightest and most close knit of relationships vulnerability is a factor. The more we allow ourselves to show that true absolute side we hide so often, the easier it would be for them to hurt us. Susceptible to physical or emotional injury- susceptible, likely to be affected, especially sensitive. As Christians I think we're called to a higher level of vulnerability and transparency than others. I think non-Christians need to see that we hurt just like them, that Christ is the only hope we have. Not that it makes it any easier- vulnerability reminds me of playing hide and seek with a child. You have to hide, at least attempt hiding. B/c by just standing out in the open, there's nothing to the game, nothing to be accomplished. But you can't hide in such a place that this child will never find you either. It's got to be a place where they can eventually find you. Maybe it's an older child and you have to make it a little harder. You just can't make it so difficult that they give up.

Does anyone really want to stay hiding forever?