Can't See It

Picture by my brother. At the horse barn in TN.

Today for my Environmental Ed. class we spent a few hours (about four in all) on the ropes/challenge course here at my college.  It was a lot of fun and I even got to climb on top of a 30' telephone pole and jump off!  That took a bit of doing. . . but I did do it! Yay me. :)

Anyway part of what we did was a trust walk.  I've done that before, but being outside made it 100x harder.  Plus we couldn't touch our guide unless we absolutely had to.  And I got paired with a lady I had never met before in my life and barely knew her name.  Lol!  She was very nice but still! 

We started off and fortunately my guide was fantastic and by carefully visualizing what I was doing, I managed to do all right. We walked for a while and she told me to stop.  Then "take a big step up, onto this in front of you."  I stepped up and felt with my foot a bit--not high enough--still not high enough--finally I found the top of it and it was round, like a log or something! With a bit of help I climbed on top of it and then she told me to step across onto something else.  I stepped...into thin air.  Didn't feel a thing.  She told me to step further.  Apparently you don't step very far when you can't see where you're going!  I stretched--and stretched--and finally found something and made it across, then down.  Turns out we went over top of two great big logs laid side to side!  Well then...! 

After a while we switched places and I got to lead my guide (not over the logs, however).  "You're like the Holy Spirit!" she told me part way through (apparently I did okay!).  Made me think though.  It's easier to trust someone--at least for me--if you can at least feel them. 

But what if you can't?  What if you can't see or feel them?  What if we can't see or touch God?  Do we still trust then?  Maybe somebody would say, then that's foolish.  Well but it would be foolish for me to quit trusting my guide on the walk if I couldn't take off my blindfold.

And we are blind.  In this world we are blind, and we can't just rip off a bit of fabric and fix it.  Better to trust, I think.  Not saying it's easy.  But better. 

Not Good Enough

Black swallowtail butterfly on tiger lily, North Carolina

I've written several posts so far, and they sit in the drafts folder.

There are words inside, but they won't come out. 

I'm not good enough for this. 

Not good enough to write, not good enough to put myself out there as having even a slight idea of what should be.  Not good enough to teach.  Not good enough to be entrusted with introducing kids to Jesus, for sure.  Maybe not even good enough to reach out to my beloved "half-Christian" friends--though I really can't help that--even my not-good-enough-ness is better than nothing in that case, right?

 I want to be better than this.

But I struggle with self-motivation, yet I don't do well with the pressure of being part of a group.  I can't improve myself, yet I'm too independent (proud, maybe?) to ask for help from someone else.  I want to be better, I want to improve, but I'm scared of failure and I pull back and decide not to go there after all. 

So the lines stay unwritten, the words stay unspoken, the blessings that could be given and received drift away like dandelion fluff. 

This needs to change.  And I think I know how it changes, in fact.

Because He is good enough.  He is GOOD, period. It doesn't matter how not-good-enough I am, if I will just take His hand and take His power and take His ability to...BE.

Something to Think About

It's been a while.

But here is something a friend shared on Facebook the other day and I thought it was meaningful.  Enjoy, and pray about it...as I am.  :)

invitations

"Then he also said to him who invited Him, 'When you give a dinner or a supper, do not ask your friends, your brothers, your relatives, nor rich neighbors, lest they also invite you back, and you be repaid.  But when you give a feast, invite the poor, the maimed, the lame, the blind.  And you will be blessed, because they cannot repay you; for you shall be repaid at the resurrection of the just.'" (Luke 14:12-14)

Thinking about this verse I read a few days ago.  Surely it applies at face value.  But could it also apply in the same way that the parable after it applies--the parable of the great supper to which none of the original guests would come (vs. 16-24)?

We have a feast, a rich dinner of knowledge about God, about who He is, about what He can do in us.  Who are we inviting?

Anybody else?
Our "rich" neighbors and friends, who already know all we do, and will "repay" us with blessings?
Or are we inviting the poor?
The maimed?
The lame?
The blind?

Who needs this feast the most?  Who are the people I know "forgotten" by the Christian world, isolated from us because of their spiritually crippled state in our eyes?  (Remember, the Jews believed that anyone who wasn't well-off must have offended God and therefore been cursed.)  Who are the people starving near our land of plenty?

Who do I need to invite?

I Hast Returned :)

At least for the moment!  School is starting on Thursday and I'm gearing up for it, buying a few last books, checking my schedules, looking at syllabi, transferring assignments into my "keep-everything-in-one-place-book" a.k.a. "external brain" a.k.a. planner, working, praying and planning for the small group we're continuing, riding, and trying not to go crazy. 

That last task is the most difficult.  ;)  But today it was like God impressed me, "Hey, you can't even make yourself grow six inches taller by worrying; why don't you give up on a hopeless task and let Me handle all this?" 

Oooohhhh yeeahhhh.  I remember that...really...

I can plan.  And I'm getting pretty good at planning, if I say so myself.  But planning alone isn't going to eliminate the stress from my life.  And stressed people are not "all there."  If I'm stressed out, I'm not
*a good person to live around
*inspiring
*open
*happy
*available for other people
*able to listen to God.

What's more, everyone and their dog (and I think I mean that literally!) is stressed these days.  I think maybe a great way to witness for God is to have a full life (guided by Him in its content), but not be all worried and hyper-stressed about it.  For sure, being that way is something only He can work in us!

So with that inspiring, impossible thought (but remember, God specializes in the impossible!), I am off to get ready for small group tonight.  :)

(butterfly and wild bee-balm in Tennessee)

  

So there is a simple reason for my lack of posts.

Lack of inspiration.

Sometimes things just struggle to be inspirational.  And for those of us who live on passion and inspiration, that can be a little difficult.

But God is still very much alive, very much at work, very active, despite me. I just pray that He will open my eyes to see His actions. 

Reflections on Missions

Seven months ago I prayed. 

I asked God to send me wherever He wanted me to go. 

I thought that would mean going overseas this coming school year.  That's where I wanted to go.  I even had the particular area of the world (and preferably country) all mapped out.

Guess where I am?  Right here, same country, same state, same town, same house, same school--happier than I ever imagined I could be.  He sent me half an hour away, then decreased the distance a bit further for the long-term, and said, in effect, "You want a mission field?  Here, have one that nobody else thinks about, that nobody else cares about, and that you are going to love."

I still remember the day.  Really?  This?  God, You are AWESOME! 

A lot of people seem to worry God will "send them to Africa."  Well I was the opposite.  I worried He'd keep me in the States.  Now I'm delighted with the thought of staying here indefinitely. 

What I want to say is?  

God's will isn't always the one and only thing you don't want to do.  Sometimes He will work on those areas outright, and it will be difficult.  Sometimes, if you give Him permission, He'll change your heart so it isn't quite so difficult as you thought it would be.  I'm not saying there won't be tough times.  Absolutely there will.  But why do we seem to assume that God loves to "torture" us with difficult experiences, and throws them at us whenever He can?  

Wind

(Wyoming prairie)

Wind blows away
Here and there
Where it will
Rustles leaves
Whispers grass

And so am I
if I am walking
in the way
He's given me

I do not choose
I do not plan
I do not set the way
I simply go

Go gently
Go strongly
And maybe nobody ever knows
where I come from
where I'm going

Like the
wind blows.

"'The wind blows where it wishes, and you hear the sound of it, but cannot tell where it comes from and where it goes.  So is everyone who is born of the Spirit.'"  John 3:8

(extra) ordinary

Ordinary. . . that's what life is.

usually.

It's studying U.S. History to try to CLEP a class, plugging information into a database, searching for seemingly nonexistent information in said database, sending letters, shaking off umbrellas, delivering mail, working out, going to bed, getting up, trying to stalk the sticky-note trail to remember where you left off yesterday. 

(sticky notes save my sanity and the sanity of everybody around me, but when they're almost everywhere, it's hard to remember what's really going on here.) 

But, what if we were not just ordinary?
What if we were extra? 

We have extra--our God gives us the resources of the universe if we will only ask.  But common sense and everything in nature tells us that extra is meant to be used.   Our having extra means

we can give extra
we can love extra
we can be extra

Extraordinary. 

wisdom

(lupine in Wyoming)

"He is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to gain what he cannot lose." (Jim Elliot)

What am I giving up today?  What are you giving up?  Is it what we think of usually--money, time, maybe the thrill of an in-and-out relationship or the prestige of a well-paying future (or current) career?  Or is it something more common--

pride of thinking you're better than another

choice to go where you know God hasn't called

old hurts

refusal to accept God's grace and forgiveness as meant for you

fill in the blank

Yet, what are we gaining?  

These things we hold onto, they will disappear.

What He offers, just for the taking, it stays forever.  

Forever.  

Only a fool says no to that.