Completion

I finished my prayer journal tonight, which I have been working through for more than two years. I felt compelled to post what I wrote as my finishing words.

***

In the quiet, in the stillness
I know that You are God.
In the secret of Your presence
I know there I am restored.

When You call I won't refuse
Each new day again I'll choose.

In the chaos, in confusion
I know You're sovereign still.
In the moment of my weakness
You give me grace to do Your will.

When You call I won't delay
This my song for all my days.

There is no one else for me,
None but Jesus.
Crucified to set me free,
Now I live to bring Him praise.

All my delight is in You, Lord -
All of my hope, all of my strength.
All my delight is in You, Lord -
Forevermore.

[[Hillsong, "None But Jesus"]]


My Precious Savior,

As I have sought to wrap my mind around the events of the past few days, I can't help but have this song run through my mind.

In chaos of circumstance, You are so supremely sovereign. I find that the attribute I fell in love with when I began college continues to deepen as I tread further into it.

In my moments of weakness, You provide such wonderful graces for me. I find I am ever less deserving of the mercy with which You cover me.

All of my delight is to be in You, the all-sovereign, merciful God of all - who took our punishment in order to justly fulfill His own law.

There should be no greater joy and no greater light in my eyes than when it is of You I am speaking.

How fitting that this volume should both begin and end with a death. It is amazing to me that I mark life with deaths around me.

Lord, I praise You for the life and legacy of Grandpa Harry. I praise You for His daily faith that defined His life and was so contagious.

And, Lord, I praise You for the life and faith of Grandpa Fred. Although he wasted many years in irritation, I praise You for the changes made in him that helped show me how powerfully You transform lives.

Most of all, Lord, I praise You for where they are both at this moment - in Your presence and finally understanding each other as the brothers they were created to be.

Soli Deo Gloria.

***

There is no greater loss, my friends. Nothing even comes close.

When there is no safe place to begin...

...You just have to start.

So, I got married. I had a wonderful time with family and friends celebrating under one roof with Christopher and me. We dropped off of the face of the state for a week and went to Tahoe while it was burning, where we had a lot of fun.

[[Just so you know, I love being married, and think that it is one of the most incredible things God has given us while we are here on this earth. Marriage is such an instructor in how our relationship to God should really look, and I fall so grievously short. The best part of the whole thing is that I am married to Christopher, who is my best friend. I am so graciously blessed. But I digress...]]

Then, we came back to Colorado, moved into our apartment, went back to work, and have been working ever since - though things have recently gotten more interesting.

The Rock is changing. Not a bad thing at all. It causes us all to lean more fully on Christ and to apply the buzzphrase in our circles these days - "fresh faith".

But the Rock split into two parts: the on-campus teams and the off-campus, working singles. Teams got reorganized. Teams merged before multiplying. Some teams split between on- and off-campus. Complete confusion ensued until things got sorted out.

In the clearing fog, however, Chris and I have taken over our beloved team of brothers and sisters, who are now few but still strong (if not stronger) after the summer paths that God took them each down. We returned sober-minded but ready to go.

We hit the dorms hard the first few weeks and tried to be encouraged with the small batch of fruit that emerged (which we truly have been encouraged by recently). Unfortunately, this is the hardest year I've ever experienced in the dorms, merely looking at people's willingness to go out and do something fun - much less something 'religious' or 'spiritual'.

Each week, we feel like we're just learning as we go, looking to coaches and our team members for encouragement. There seem to be so many things that I have learned in the last week alone, yet I feel as though I have failed to have time to process them. God is so good. God is so faithful.

And in every little thing.

I have been working on an amazingly long post about things that I learned this summer, but I am not sure when (if ever) it will be finished, so I figured I should just write something else in the meantime.

Last night, we listened to Pat Sokoll's message entitled, "Discipleship" at our leadership training time. Having never heard it before but having heard a lot about it, I was eager to listen. There are so many things that stood out, but here are the main two:

1) I have no rights. I own nothing. I am not entitled to any thing.

2) We multiply after our own kind, both the good and the bad.

The second has been such an eye-opener over the past week anyway. We cannot reproduce that which we are not. If I want the women I disciple to read their Bibles daily and seek out God and dive deep into the richness of His Word, than I must do (and exhibit) the same. If I want them to serve others or share the Gospel boldly, then I must do the same.

And, honestly, I've been taking some serious stock of the traits that I do not want to multiply into these women. I don't want them to catch my laziness or my desire to go home and take a nap. I don't want them to learn how to be apathetic from me. I don't want them to learn how to withdraw from a group and decide they don't 'need' the fellowship.

Obviously, not everything can be changed overnight. I am still a work in progress.

But unless I show these women that I am changing, that I am being molded into Christ's likeness, then how am I to expect that they will go forth and do so? I must be working on the board in my own eye (Luke 6) so that I can assist my sisters with the specks in their own. I cannot expect them to grow if I am not putting forth the effort to do so myself.

Please understand that I am not saying that my salvation rests upon my efforts to make myself more Christ-like. I have no more ability to do that than I do of counting the stars in the skies that remind us of the promises God made to Abraham.

We are still called to action, however. We are still called to obedience. I am not called to be stagnant. I am not called to be lazy. I am not called to live outside of fellowship. I am not called to be apathetic.

I am called to serve. I am not my own.

Mood: Scattered Listening to: People yelling in the street outside
Reading: Madeleine L'Engle, Walking on Water: Reflections on Faith and Art

The sneaking of days...

I'm not quite sure how I got to this point, but I'm getting married in what is now less than a week. This thing that has been so far off for the past year and a half is finally going to happen. I get so overwhelmed by emotion sometimes.

But it's been such an encouragement to see where I've been growing in the past few months. There are changes that I'm finally seeing in myself that I never thought would be possible, but that I prayed for anyway.

For one, I am becoming more bold. There's something that happens when you have to take ownership over your life. There's a process of growing up that takes away some of the "bashfulness," as Rick Whitney put it at the Rock Friday night. There's such a freedom when you begin to come to the realization that God is the source of everything you have and is your only true authority.

But it's more than being bold. I truly believe that being bold is rooted firmly in self-worth and confidence, based on who I am in relation to Christ. Ironically, boldness and confidence are found in humility. It was so strange to stand on stage last night at the Rock and lead worship with a brother and a sister, and feel fully at ease, yet fully in the presence of God. I didn't shake nervously during soundcheck or during the first few songs. The only time I began shaking was when I realized I wasn't!

I am such a long way from where I was four or five years ago, where I would shake out of nervousness, but truly only out of pride - not out of fear or reverence for the One who has given me talents to use for His glory. How gracious our God is!

I do not spend time with the Father in the same ways that I used to. I am sorely lacking in discipline these days, partially due to the long list I am constantly whittling away at for the wedding, partially due to exhaustion, and partially due to laziness. But tonight, I am off to calm my racing mind at my Savior's feet, where the whole of my being so longs to fall. Perhaps I'll even write something.

There is so much to be said for discipline, for showing up every day ready to work for the kingdom. I am so often unprepared. Tomorrow will be different.

Mood: Simply Tired Listening to: Last Summer's Demos
Reading: Not Nearly Enough

One Month

It's amazing to me how time just seems to fly right past and that, once it picks up, it doesn't let you back down. The past six months have been a whirlwind of planning and preparation, searching and staying. I've become engaged, graduated, moved out, commuted to work, gone to work for a church, been sick countless times, slept little, loved a lot of people, spent a lot of time with my parents, and begun to realize what it's like to not only be post-high school, but post-college as well.

Sometimes, it's incredibly hard. For instance, there are times when I talk to my brother on the phone and I just wish we were still in high school and living in both the same house and the same state. There are times when I get so frustrated because my mom doesn't grasp the fact that my life exists apart from her and not everything can get done within her timeframe. There are times when I'd love to just curl up on the couch and listen to my dad as he plays and writes music.

But it's so incredibly rewarding and worthwhile. Certainly, I have cried my share of tears, but so many of them have been tears of overwhelming joy.

I've gotten to know the beautiful woman that my brother loves. I've seen the girls on our team open and flourish and grow so much in their faith in the Lord. I've re-opened a relationship with a friend from middle school. I've known the freedom and excitement of worshipping with a band behind me. I've healed. I've become a little more confident. I've seen a front-page byline at a newspaper with my name on it.

And, in one month, I get to marry my best friend - perhaps the cause of the most joy and excitement.

In the midst of all of this, however, I have found it hard to write. There are times when I find it difficult to process my circumstances without writing. Perhaps this season has even been one of those times. I simply felt incapable of writing, of trying to put down all that has been going on both within me and outside of me.

Last weekend, I watched two of our closest friends marry each other. They were so excited that they fidgeted through the ceremony and cried during their vows. That swept me into overjoy - I fear there is no other word for it! I cried for joy the three days prior to the wedding, almost the entire day of the wedding, and have been crying sporadically ever since.

How incredible it is that God grants us such a gift as to spend the rest of our lives with our best friend!

The reality is beginning to sink in for me. One month.

One month to finish preparing for a lifetime of preparation, of kingdom building. One month to move as much as possible north to the Fort, even though I can't come home often and gas prices are ridiculously high. One month to figure out insurance policies and whether or not we'll actually have someplace to live. One month to organize two persons' lives into one as much as possible.

One more month with my last name. One more month of sleeping and living alone. And one more month of saying "good night" and having it mean "goodbye."

How did we come down to merely one month? Wasn't it yesterday that it was November and December and we were just putting shape to our plans? How do we now have rings and vows and RSVPs and gifts arriving?

It is so surreal, yet so real all at the same time.

Christopher started packing in the last few days, and I just get so excited to think that I get to live with and serve with my best friend for as long as God wills us both to live. We get to celebrate with friends and family, and we get to set off on our own to make our own lives and decisions, and to seek God's will for our "family."

Which is such a strange word, but one that I am so grateful for its many meanings.

I have a family that I was born into. Mom, Dad, little brother, dogs, grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins...

But I also have families that I've gained: multiple church families, a high school family, a camp family, a college family...

And I'm about to gain Christopher's family as well.

It's so incredible to think that representatives from each of these family branches will be celebrating under the same roof with us in only a month. I used to get so excited for heaven simply because it meant they would all be together - how wonderful a foretaste this will be!

I don't know how I wound up 22, or getting married, or with a journalism degree, or stronger in my faith, or anything. I just know that I let go and God has swept me along to where He desires me to be in this moment.

It has not been and may not always be easy, but I don't think that ease truly plays any good role in life. It simply results in stagnant people. Change happens. We grow. We learn what it means to look a little more like Christ.

Being married apparently refines you. I look forward to that.

One month.

There's only One...

I keep listening to "There's Only One (Holy One)" by Caedmon's Call. It is full of the simple truths that I so easily forget every day. I could try and describe the effect that this song has on me every time I hear it, but it wouldn't do it justice.

(Side note: Caedmon's is in the studio again... I think it's the follow-up to Share the Well, which is the album that this song comes from [which is one of the best albums of the past few years - honest])

Thus, here you go:

Left his seamless robe behind
Woke up in a stable crying
Lived and died and rose again
Savior for a guilty land

It's a story like a children's tune
And it's grown familiar as the moon
So now I ride my camel high
And I'm aiming for the needle's eye

I chased the wind, but I chased in vain
I chased the earth, but it would not sustain

There's only one who never fails
To beckon the morning light
There's only one who sets loose the gales
And ties the trees down tight
When all around my soul gives way
He is all my hope and stay
There's only one, only one Holy One

Lord, You are my Prince of Peace
But this war brings me to my knees
See there's a table You've prepared
And all my enemies are there
But where my Shepherd leads
Where else can I go
Who else fills my cup till it overflows

There's only one who never fails
To beckon the morning light
There's only one who sets loose the gales
And ties the trees down tight
When all around my soul gives way
He is all my hope and stay
There's only one, only one Holy One

There's only one who never fails
To beckon the morning light
There's only one who sets loose the gales
And ties the trees down tight
To the Solid Rock I fly
Though He bids me come and die
There's only one, only one Holy One