So I know this is probably dumb, but I definately cling still to a quote from the Christy Miller Series [I know, this labels me as a teen: a girl sappy for love stories]. I admit to reading this books a long time ago... and possibly since... :) However, the quote that struck me was this:
“Doesn’t everything you see make you feel something? And don’t you reach the point where you don’t have any feelings left to invest?”
Todd didn’t answer right away. He seemed to be thinking about her questions. His answer came in the form of a few more questions for Christy. “Do you think that’s why the work at the orphanage has been so draining this year? Do you think you take it all in and feel something deep every day about those kids? I wonder if that’s what’s been happening. Then you reach the point where you can’t invest any more emotionally because you’ve spent so much of yourself.”
“Todd,” Christy said, leaning her weary head against his shoulder, “I think you have just figured out the answer that has plagued me for months… The need is so great…”
“But Christy, the need is not the call. You are uniquely gifted by God. The key is to finding out what it is you are uniquely gifted to do, and that’s what you pour out of yourself. If you are operating within your gifts, you will feel energized, not emptied.”
“The need is not the call. I see the need here. I just don’t see the call from God. Not right now.”
~Robin Jones Gunn “Until Tomorrow” p 213; 241
So why am I blogging about all this now? Because these words and the meaning behind them are constant peckings in my soul. Because I want to have that calling that energizes and fuels me, rather than drains me.
I had a dynamic, direct call from God to teaching my freshman year of college. And my first few years teaching reinterated this gift.
But lately, I've been feeling bogged down and drained. It could be as a result of many things. But I also question if maybe there is something else I need to do with my call. If I can use teaching in another area... in camp ministry, in women's ministry, in Kenya... Or if there is something new all together God is using this peroid now to prepare me for.
So I can't figure out and discern if my plodding through teaching, my apathy, and my lack of excitement is simply because I've been in the 'business' for a while, or if it's my attitude, or if it is Satan trying to discourage me and disillusion me to God's call on my life, or if God is calling and alluring me into something else and using these feelings as a prick to gather my attention to his plan and lean my ear in to His heart.
So alas, either way, I have one more year to go [minimally]. I can't back out now and must some how find the Holy Spirit and let him breath into me again. Every minute.
In Julie by Catherine Marshall, Julie speaks with a man regarding the preacher's work with the people of the lowlands. She asks the man if the preacher is part of the Preparers [a group philosophied to do the work of the Holy Spirit in the small tasks everyday throughout the community]. The man remarks of the preacher:
"No. His theology is mostly focused on helping people with their physical needs. All that's important, of course, but he'll hit a dry spell someday and need someting more than social causes to keep him going..."
Again, this strikes me. Causing me to ask the questions of my mission, my heart, and what fuels my soul. Is it simply passion and adventure and feeling? Or is the Holy Spirit so intricately intwined within my being that it is He who is the stirring of all I am? Do I simply want to feed the hungry child, or do I also want to feed with spiritual food? Am I driven by myself, or by the life of Jesus? Is my teaching a task fueled by my knowledge, skills, and excellence in the classroom, or is it an outpouring of the Holy Spirit in my life?
Wednesday, August 27, 2008
Tuesday, August 26, 2008
Sara Groves.
From My Blog: August 7, 2008, 10:50 pm.
Sara Groves was born in 1972. That means she is 10 years older than I am. 10 years. That makes her 36.
Which means, I am not over yet.
She didn’t even start recording until 1998, or make Conversations until 2000. Which means, she was at least 26 before she started making music that touches my heart, touring her words across miles, and bringing her message of the Lord to millions. And it wasn’t until her mid-thirties that she stepped foot on the African continent and began making movies and impacting people there. 26.
I note this all, because I want to rush my life. I want to be something. To create something with this life. And I have been frustrated for years, but especially the last two, figuring out what it is I am to do with it. I want to do so much, but am still here…wondering and impassioned and imprisioned in my anxious desire to really do something.
So she’s 26. And after 26, and having those 4 years teaching high school under her belt, life wasn’t over yet. It was just beginning. She didn’t become stagnat. She was released. But only unleashed when God allowed, her calling was ready, and the doors were opened.
So I pray, Lord. For this 26. For this year that I keep swirling. For the fearful clutch around me. For the stagnation I punch my fist against. For this life, ready and able to be spilled, spotted, and spurned for You, dear Jesus. Let me be all of you.
Sara Groves was born in 1972. That means she is 10 years older than I am. 10 years. That makes her 36.
Which means, I am not over yet.
She didn’t even start recording until 1998, or make Conversations until 2000. Which means, she was at least 26 before she started making music that touches my heart, touring her words across miles, and bringing her message of the Lord to millions. And it wasn’t until her mid-thirties that she stepped foot on the African continent and began making movies and impacting people there. 26.
I note this all, because I want to rush my life. I want to be something. To create something with this life. And I have been frustrated for years, but especially the last two, figuring out what it is I am to do with it. I want to do so much, but am still here…wondering and impassioned and imprisioned in my anxious desire to really do something.
So she’s 26. And after 26, and having those 4 years teaching high school under her belt, life wasn’t over yet. It was just beginning. She didn’t become stagnat. She was released. But only unleashed when God allowed, her calling was ready, and the doors were opened.
So I pray, Lord. For this 26. For this year that I keep swirling. For the fearful clutch around me. For the stagnation I punch my fist against. For this life, ready and able to be spilled, spotted, and spurned for You, dear Jesus. Let me be all of you.
Another Step.
For years I have had a lurking in my heart for Africa. For the continent, the people, the culture, the way of life. I remember crying over it in middle school, applying for trips in college, questioning it in all occasions.
But I have never been sure what this looks like for me. So I keep praying, keep questioning, keep researching, keep wondering.
Small steps.
Towards a bigger goal. Towards God revealing his way for me. For revealing the connection between my heart and that place.
Specifically Kenya.
Why? I don’t know; its just always been that way since high school. A calling tugs at me there.
So I went. The year after North Carolina. Spent a month amongst the people who I had pictured, read on pages, and prepared my whole life to encounter.
It was interesting. To summarize it all would be immense, but I’ll narrow it to the fact that I feel a distinct connection, but have been trying to discern what to do with that ever since.
I gathered that I was not supposed to teach full-time right now at Rift Valley Academy, though who knows someday. I gathered that it does feel like home and life there. But that I also am so internally torn and bratty because I want my Starbucks and Panera and nice bed to sleep in, but I also want to live a life of mission and generosity and simplilcitiy. To help the “least of these”; however that looks.
So the past 2 1/2 years since Kenya, I have been praying. Patiently praying and seeking. I came back and wrote a sticky-note with four words: Kenya. Women. Education. Months. Because the trip [and other missions/life experiences] taught me that relationship is necessary, using gifts and passions imparative, and narrowing my focus helpful. So these four words were my own lead, knowing they would all link together someday.
Which again leads me to the years of praying. And last week. As God revealed another step in this journey to me.
Women of Vision.
I was on World Vision’s website [because I love this organization, and have sponsored a child there for years] just perusing, and came across this new dimension. There are chapters of women who gather in the States to meet, pray, and partner for women in communities across the globe. The goal is to equip, empower, education, and enablethe women of communities in order to impact ther est of the community. This is exactly what I believe and have been looking years for! I am passionate about women’s ministry, but also the idea of microeconomics and using education for health care needs and growing families. Which, I believe, if you start with the women of a culture, their world translates to their children and eventually leaks into the entire neighborhood and culture, revitalizing it from the inside out. Its like reverting back to Republican Motherhood.
So I am excited. Passionate. A friend asked me this weekend what I am passionate about and what to do with my life. Several things flittered through my mind: education, women’s ministry, family, etc. But when I started talking about this next step God revealed, I was like hot fire, the words burning my mouth so hot I couldn’t breathe the passionate fire out of me fast enough. It caught my soul.
So we will see where God leads with this. It could still be years down the road. But I will be patient with this next step he has revealed.
[P.S. Where I envision this all going: I think I'll probably still always live in the states, but engage in converstaions with people (women?) around here and moblize others, while I, myself, will also travel back and forth to Kenya a few times a year to engage and equip the culture there. This could all change... but dreams and callings and strings on my heart tug this way...]
But I have never been sure what this looks like for me. So I keep praying, keep questioning, keep researching, keep wondering.
Small steps.
Towards a bigger goal. Towards God revealing his way for me. For revealing the connection between my heart and that place.
Specifically Kenya.
Why? I don’t know; its just always been that way since high school. A calling tugs at me there.
So I went. The year after North Carolina. Spent a month amongst the people who I had pictured, read on pages, and prepared my whole life to encounter.
It was interesting. To summarize it all would be immense, but I’ll narrow it to the fact that I feel a distinct connection, but have been trying to discern what to do with that ever since.
I gathered that I was not supposed to teach full-time right now at Rift Valley Academy, though who knows someday. I gathered that it does feel like home and life there. But that I also am so internally torn and bratty because I want my Starbucks and Panera and nice bed to sleep in, but I also want to live a life of mission and generosity and simplilcitiy. To help the “least of these”; however that looks.
So the past 2 1/2 years since Kenya, I have been praying. Patiently praying and seeking. I came back and wrote a sticky-note with four words: Kenya. Women. Education. Months. Because the trip [and other missions/life experiences] taught me that relationship is necessary, using gifts and passions imparative, and narrowing my focus helpful. So these four words were my own lead, knowing they would all link together someday.
Which again leads me to the years of praying. And last week. As God revealed another step in this journey to me.
Women of Vision.
I was on World Vision’s website [because I love this organization, and have sponsored a child there for years] just perusing, and came across this new dimension. There are chapters of women who gather in the States to meet, pray, and partner for women in communities across the globe. The goal is to equip, empower, education, and enablethe women of communities in order to impact ther est of the community. This is exactly what I believe and have been looking years for! I am passionate about women’s ministry, but also the idea of microeconomics and using education for health care needs and growing families. Which, I believe, if you start with the women of a culture, their world translates to their children and eventually leaks into the entire neighborhood and culture, revitalizing it from the inside out. Its like reverting back to Republican Motherhood.
So I am excited. Passionate. A friend asked me this weekend what I am passionate about and what to do with my life. Several things flittered through my mind: education, women’s ministry, family, etc. But when I started talking about this next step God revealed, I was like hot fire, the words burning my mouth so hot I couldn’t breathe the passionate fire out of me fast enough. It caught my soul.
So we will see where God leads with this. It could still be years down the road. But I will be patient with this next step he has revealed.
[P.S. Where I envision this all going: I think I'll probably still always live in the states, but engage in converstaions with people (women?) around here and moblize others, while I, myself, will also travel back and forth to Kenya a few times a year to engage and equip the culture there. This could all change... but dreams and callings and strings on my heart tug this way...]
Letting You Peer In
It scares me to blog. There are so many things inside these four walls of my soul, and it scares me to relax the garden around my heart and let other people in. To truly expose and let others know the wanderings of my soul.
Is surrendering to God also surrendering the privacy of the soul? Is it allowing others into all the creavaces we keep so tightly bound?
I keep two blogs. A personal one, for my complete private thoughts, those that unleash the furry of my soul, the quiet desperations, the perceptions of those I love. I protect them. But this is a second blog to allow pieces of my soul to be peered in to. To let the light slowly expose small glimpses. To challenge others. To let my words speak.
So this is my second blog. Due to the prodding of people like Bekah and Becky and all the others who keep asking me to write...
Is surrendering to God also surrendering the privacy of the soul? Is it allowing others into all the creavaces we keep so tightly bound?
I keep two blogs. A personal one, for my complete private thoughts, those that unleash the furry of my soul, the quiet desperations, the perceptions of those I love. I protect them. But this is a second blog to allow pieces of my soul to be peered in to. To let the light slowly expose small glimpses. To challenge others. To let my words speak.
So this is my second blog. Due to the prodding of people like Bekah and Becky and all the others who keep asking me to write...
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