Loneliness

In the last post I was writing from the base that I felt so happy and content in this season. I think it is note-worthy that though written only a couple weeks after the last, this post will sound so different. I've decided that that's okay though because it's real and honest.

It seems to me that most of life follows a pattern of up and down. One day we feel purposed and hopeful and ready, others we feel… a bit lower than that. It is good that God is a God of weak people isn't it? It is good that He alone is God and we are not, His goodness and character is eternally consistent and full. Praise Him! Before I go any farther, "Oh my soul, Praise Him!"

I feel terribly lonely some days. What do you do when God calls you to a place or a season that is lonely? Often I feel like I don't know how to find my place or a close friend, save for Asher. He and I often marvel at how deep and beautiful our friendship is. I think God knew how much I would need him.

Before I go further I will say that the enemy always tries to make my loneliness seem more real than what it is. This is something that Asher has helped me to see. The enemy does the same with my insecurities. So often he does that to all of us I think. He tries to convince us of all the things that we aren't and don't have… when really it is just in our heads, it is only in our emotions, it is only a lie. Knowing that he deceives to make our hard days seem darker than what they are is a good thing for us to know and we can use it to fight against his lies.

So I've been fighting against those many lies he throws at me. Asher has been helping me. But even still we both know that it is not all made up. The things that I am missing are real. I want to hunger for God with a close girl-friend again. I want to cry with her and let her cry on me. I want to feel like I can be myself, silly or serious in front of everyone I'm around and not fear being looked at as foolish or religious. I want to speak deeply and personally into someone's life, and I want them to speak into mine. These are the things I'm learning to be content without and God is teaching me to have joy even in the midst of feeling lonely.

I have Asher and he is so wonderfully all those things to me and more. Why is it that I am still wanting? Is it a good thing to long for more friendships or should I be growing deeper into contentment? Does God want me to be in want of those relationships or does he want me to be at peace without them?

Because He always wants us to be at peace and to be joyful, I know that the answer is that He wants me to grow into contentment and soak up everything He has for me to learn and experience now. But I think He wants me to do that while not giving up on the relationships around me. The longing for close girl friends and real ministry opportunities is a good one. Hunger for anything of His kingdom is always good I think.

God you are the same today, yesterday, and forever. I know that in this time when I am trying to find my purpose here that you are teaching me how to come before you as my purpose. You are my purpose. You are teaching me about the simple but most powerful things of your kingdom; love and peace and faith. Let me grow deeper into Your Love.

Transitions- Abased or Abounding

A few days ago I was walking to my home alongside a gentle breeze surrounded by green and life and color. I looked up to the blue sky and said in my heart "Oh I'm so happy."

I then felt my heart fearfully grope for and cling onto that happiness. All at once I discovered hidden in my heart so much fear. I was so afraid of loosing that happiness. I've experienced a number of lows in my life, a number of precious losses. At one point I found myself so free from the joys of life that I could not have been more abandoned to this world, I was high with joy not from earth. Constantly I was anticipating eternity. Eternity held the only good thing to me and so I was full even in my emptiness. As nonsensical as that sounds its true. I think life often works like this. When we are lacking in the natural, when we have pain in our heart, we have a rare opportunity to find more of Gods joy and contentment. And there is nothing in all of creation that is like His joy and contentment.

Concerning the season I am in now, I am overflowing with natural blessings and earthly joys. Which makes it surprising for me to find such a strong stumbling block of fear in my heart. Isn't that interesting? All the blessing and joy that I've found in marriage and in life here in India has brought with it a fear. Oh how deeply I fear loss. But The Lord is helping me to release it and to find that place of freedom that is found so beautifully in trusting Him.

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This morning a song played from my shuffling music player called "Faithful to the End" by Misty Edwards. Here is the prayer she prays at the very end of that song. I think there is something very powerful in this song concerning how to best deal with life's transitions and difficulties. I also think this prayer is a good one to pray when we found our lives full of blessings and joys.

"Faithful to the End"- Misty Edwards:

"Oh He loves me to the end. Jesus the faithful witness. You were faithful to the death. You were faithful to the end. You loved me even to the end. Oh God make us faithful, make us overcomers as you have overcome. To the end. We want to be faithful to you, even to the end. Loving not our lives, even to the end, even unto death. We want to be equally yoked with you Jesus. Equally yoked in love. In loving you to the end just as you love us to the end. You are the faithful witness. Let us love you this way God. Let us love you more than we love this life. Let us love you to the end. Even to the death."

 If we abandon ourselves and not only trust that He is faithful to us but also promise our faithfulness to Him, then no disappointment or sorrow could ever steal our life. After all, our life is found in death.

And if we can be happiest with that… with His will not our own, then we can truly throw ourselves into Him and find life regardless of our painful circumstances. Whether we are abased or abounding, through a love of Him we will be able to lay down our life into sacrifice and we will find that only there is it overflowing.

Thank You God for Asher, for this life, I'm so blessed and I know that You find so much pleasure in blessing me... but you can take it away. You gave me life, you can take it away. You can take away my happiness. I want your will..or if I'm honest I think the better way to say it is that I WANT to want your will. Yes. God I do. Whatever future events will create the most glory for You in my life, that is what I want. If that means I loose everything and everyone and am left to wonder the streets and pray, then do it. This life is yours. I don't want to cling to happiness as if it is my right, as if I deserve it.

-Your Blessed One

The Mundane

This morning I had a kitchen full of dirty dishes, as I do almost every morning. Before washing them I felt the need to turn on some worship music, to stir up my spirit. I had to stir myself up to be hungry for His nearness and leading. I didn't feel very hungry this morning. Nor did I feel motivated to wash the dishes. Some days we have to stir ourselves up. No passionate, hungry and zealous person I know is that way effortlessly. If we want to live a life towards the Lord that is full of hunger and zeal and steadfastness, then we must work in the deepest, sometimes most exhausting ways to stir ourselves up and seek His face.

We all know that dragging weight that everyday life pulls us down to. Washing dishes, punching the time clock, feeding the kids, going to class… the regularity of life often makes us feel purposeless and tired.

I felt this way today. I wondered if I was doing anything at all to please God. I was wondering why there was such a dryness in my heart. During dry seasons and days like this I found that it helps to remember that life is found not in the shell of our actions; washing the dishes, going to work, singing worship songs...

But under all of those things is an opportunity to find more effectual fruit and purpose. Learning to fight the war of our flesh, pushing ourselves to find His joy in the mundane. Learning to stir ourselves up, to pray without ceasing, to bless and love gently all those who are around us, to grow in trust and obedience and joy.
God has called us to fight with Him the war of our minds and the battles of our hearts. To gain beautiful spiritual and internal things that are hidden behind the mundane of life. Life is actually quite amazing when we live all of our regular days with an eternal and inward purpose. We must stir ourselves up, plea with God, read the word like a battle plan, rebuke our insecurities, our fears, our anger.

God fill me up. Please God fill me up with passion and burden and a desperate desire for your nearness, for your ways. I am dry and weary, help me stop and sit and then go deeply into your heart to find your living waters. I am thirsty and I am not thirsty enough, come Lord Jesus come.

An Introduction

There are a number of transitions that my life is learning to adjust to these days.

Marriage, sharing my life in every way, every single beautiful and brilliant way. Moving to a new country, adjusting to all the do's and don'ts of the Indian culture and pushing myself to soak into life here. 

Leaving every familiar face and heart that years have provided me the joy of deeply knowing. 

It's a strange tug of war when you leave your loved ones while pushing to stir up within yourself the anticipation of finding new hearts and faces. And with time I am clinging to the faith that I will break through that wall of unfamiliarity and know those hearts well.

With all of these transitions and adjustments; marriage, a new home, new people, I feel that it might be some blessing for you if I write about how God is guiding me through it all. All of our lives are full of transitions and changes so my hope is that God may encourage you through anything I might learn.

I think the only way to write in a way that will be purposeful is to write about these surface events in a way that will expose the more meaningful events that are hidden underneath, the everlasting events. I will write of the ways in which Creator is handling these changes and my heart so gently in order to transition me from old to new, from independent to trusting, from hopeless to dreaming and anticipating those dreams to unfold.

I realize that the only purposeful reason for writing about these things is to encourage you with all the deeper ways that the Lord converts our hearts and minds and spirits. What may appear to be life transitions or struggles are really deeper transitions, ones of eternity, ones of spirit. Is there any other purposeful reason for life than to live for eternity and for spirit.. These are in fact the only things that cannot die.

So I pray God that you would use this small blog to encourage your children. Even if they only read one post use it to motivate them, to embolden them. Use it to draw their hearts closer to you. I want to be used by you God in any way I can, please use me I beg, even in this small way.

-Your loved one