Pulled

Never have I had such turmoil within my soul.  My heart feels pulled in a different direction, but I am unsure what that is.  This feeling has been building up for over a year now, but I have pushed it aside in the midst of what I knew and the goal I was headed toward.  For the past three years, I've been working hard toward a degree in Creative Writing and Psychology.  This is the only leading I've ever had from God career wise: to use writing as a therapy.  So I thought, okay, cool, let's do that.  Let's major in Creative Writing and minor in Psychology.   But the closer I've gotten toward my goal, the further my heart has strayed.  I don't even know where it is, but it has certainly traveled somewhere else, far far away.  This is crazy.  Why would I give up on this now?  God is a God of order, right?  A God of peace, logic, and sense.  Yes.  But what am I to do with this stirring in my soul that I cannot ignore?  Every day it is stirred more.  Every day, God says "leave it."  And I say, "okay, to go where?  To do what?"  And all He says is "Leave it."  I try to make sense of it, I try to find another direction to walk in.  And all He says is "Leave it."  I can't possibly hope to ignore Him any longer.  Every avenue I pursue, every career field I explore, I come away empty handed, with no further insight than I had before.  What does this mean?  Do I stick it out and finish my degree, even though I hate it?  Or do I follow to wherever in no man's land he is leading my heart and figure it out?  By the world's standards, this is crazy.  I feel a bit like Joan of Arc.  I hear so many voices, so many lies, my brain is swimming, and I can't hear God.  I don't have time to listen for His voice.  I keep plugging away at school, at work, trying to keep going.  But inside, I'm dying.  This major is KILLING me.  It's draining me of every breath I have, of every ounce of joy.  I've lost myself in it, and not in a good way.  Yes, I know I have to walk by faith.  No one knows where they will end up in their career when they pick a major.  But I'm so paralyzed, I don't know where to go.  Is this a fault of my indecision, or is it God's leading?  I wish He would tell me.  In the meantime, my heart gets pulled further and further away; from Belhaven, from my friends here, from school, from Creative Writing, and towards something else.  I just wish I knew what it was. 

Wild At Heart

Wild at Heart: a book for men.  Why am I reading it?   Well, I read Captivating, the book written by the same authors for women, and I couldn't stop.  I needed more.  So here I am, reading a book written for guys; and learning so much about who I am as a woman of God.

The chapter I read today, "A Battle to Fight: The Enemy" talked about something I'm working through in my own life; the courage to fight the enemy.  He shows up every day.  Not as a demon with horns, but in our thoughts, the little annoyances in our day, and our interaction with others. 

A scripture that was discussed in this chapter was particularly striking to me.  I've read Revelation 12 numerous times.  It's not a typical take on the Christmas Story, but it's a good one.  It talks about how Satan was sitting at Mary's feet as she gave birth to Jesus, ready to devour Him immediately.  When the angels battled against him, he was forced to retreat.  This part I had heard numerous times before.  But what came after struck me at the very core of my being.  "Then the dragon was enraged at the woman and went off to make war against THE REST OF HER OFFSPRING-those who obey God's commandments and hold to the testimony of Jesus." ~Revelation 12:17.

No wonder we get discouraged, tired, and angry so easily.  The voices we hear in our heads that we accept as our own may not truly be ours.  We have to be aware of the battle we are constantly engulfed in.  Every single day. 

John Eldredge describes the process of the putting on of the armor and fighting the battle much better than I do.  This book is worth reading. 
"It is the image of God reflected in you that so enrages hell; it is this at which the demons hurl their mightiest weapons." ~William Gurnall.

Forget The Former Things

This transition from full-time ministry to full-time student was hardly a transition.  It was more like a rude awakening, cold water thrown in my face.

When they say that coming down from the mountain at camp is coming down from a sort of high, they aren't kidding.  It becomes your life, up there.  Everything you have, everything you do is all in one place, and your focus and mission is always clear.  Never is there doubt of what you are doing, or when you should be doing it.  Everything is on a set schedule; every meal is set before you, every activity clearly presented.  There is no technology, no other worlds pulling you to and fro.  You are just there.  In the midst of a mountain valley, quiet and at rest in the midst of the organized chaos.

You have no choice but to be in the moment.  There is no escape, no time to talk to people in other worlds.  You are just there.  My soul found the rest and quiet it had never known before.  It was so peaceful there.  God inhabits that place in ways I never thought possible.  There, in the valley surrounded by charred trees and underbrush, God is.  Peace that passes understanding dwells in that place.  There were times when I could swear that I heard the very voice of God whispering through the trees and rushing towards the vast expanse of sky, then turning, and rushing down into my soul.

My heart was healed.  Healed from the aches and pains of the previous semester.  Healed of insecurity, worry and fear.  Healed of the past.

"Forget the former things; do not dwell on the past.  See, I am doing a new thing!  Now it springs up; do you not perceive it?  I am making a way in the desert and streams in the wasteland." ~Isaiah 43:18-19.

And now I find myself immersed in my school and work once again.  How do I remember all that God did this past summer as I bury myself in my studies?  How is His presence revealed to me here, in the chaos and the noise of school?

I don't know.  But I hope He shows me.  

Wild at Heart or Dying at Heart?

"Safe?  Who said anything about safe?  'Course he isn't safe.  But he's good." ~C.S. Lewis

I love this quote from C.S. Lewis.  It's from the Chronicles of Narnia, and it refers to Aslan.  He is a good lion after all, but not a tame one.  He is wild.  He's not scary, just wild.  He's a free spirit, full of passion.  Wild at Heart.

I'm reading "Wild at Heart" by John Eldredge, a book written for Christian men, showing them how God made them wild at heart.  They NEED a cause to fight for, an adventure to set out on, a maiden to rescue.  But first, they must find their heart.

Where is it?  It's buried in things our culture has told is are important.  An education, career, money, fame, awards.  And life got buried with it. 

As I've been reading, I've been thinking that men are not alone in losing their hearts.  My heart often gets buried beneath due dates, work, school, an internship, and just....stuff.  When I pull out my crocheting, mentor Sr. High girls, or read books I actually want to read, I find it again.

But this, this is the question that has been haunting me.  Why do I do this to myself?  Why do I let my heart get buried beneath grades, reading assignments, papers, and projects?  Why do I let it get buried beneath the critiques of my writing, friends in pain, and lots of work?  It's not worth it.

And so I'm on a journey to re-discover my heart.  Might it mean unfinished homework?  Yeah,  probably.  Might it mean missed commitments?  Yep.  Lower grades?  Perhaps.  But today, I have made a resolution.  My heart can no longer live in mediocrity, burying itself to get through the last  three semesters of school.   I resolve to find my heart again, to breathe, to do things I love to do that I don't have time to do.  Because my heart needs to be found, and captivated.  And you know what?  I bet I'll find some other hearts along the way. 

Iron Man 3

Tonight, my heart beat a million miles a minute.  Tonight I was terrified.  Tonight I saw a man hiding behind his weapons have the courage to rid himself of them for the sake of someone he dearly loved. 

Tonight, I saw Iron Man 3.

When most people walk away from a amovie, they say "oh, that was awesome!"  "So cool!"  "I loved when he/she..."  These are all fine and good things to say.

But whether it is a blessing or a curse, when I walk away from a movie, because of how God decided to make me, my mind churns for hours, analyzing every step of character development, the predictive plot formula (with unpredictable twists and turns...sort of)...I can't stop thinking. 

Iron Man 1 was great.  Iron Man 2 was not my favorite, as a writer, as the plot lacked depth and the character development was next to nothing.

But this one.  This one amazed me. 

This one was terrifying.  The first movie was scary because there were terrorists, and it was set in Afghanistan.  A place close to the heart of many people's terror at the time.

The second movie was surreal.  It was harder to imagine an evil character harnessing that magnitude of electricity and using it for such evil purposes.  It was scary, but it was fantastical. 

This one was even scarier.  Terrorist tapes from "The Mandarin" at least resembled those from Bin Laden and Hussein.  Iron Man, the country's "savior" suffered from PTSD.  Every good hero must have a flaw, and his showed up in mighty ways in this film.  

Being a very empathetic and compassionate person, I ached for the compassionate people in the movie, people like Pepper and Tony's former love interest, who had a desire to help.  But their praiseworthy desires were twisted and used for evil by people who sought revenge and power. 

We are aware of terrorists committing the horrible acts of self-detonation, but in this movie, it was taken to a whole new level.  People, brave soldiers who had suffered terrible injuries as a result of war, were ready to be transformed and restored, and instead, they were turned into evil.  Many burning to death, self-detonating, live, corrupted explosions.  Brokenness was turned into sheer evil.  But how do you separate the human soul inside from the monster without?

3/4 of the way through the movie, my heart reached a new turbo speed as my mind flashed back to last summer's Aurora shooting.  I became hyper-vigilant, probing every area of the movie theater, hoping, praying, slinking down in my seat, wishing the terrible act would not be repeated.  And then I thought, "why am I worrying?  There's someone who is even more powerful than Iron  Man who is in this very theater. Right now.  And He has every robot, every evil character, under his mighty hand."  I was further calmed afterwards when a friend mentioned he had seen police officers around with weapons, circulating throughout the night with eyes wide open to any suspicious activity.

At the end of the movie, Tony destroys every suit he has made, as a representation of his respect and love for Pepper, as he destroys every "idol" he was placing at a value of worth higher than her.  He even throws "his heart" into the very heart of the sea.  It is how he must part with his past self, and begin life anew with his present and future self, ready to be a man again, but also knowing that he, his character and his heart, were what made Iron Man in the first place. 

First Semester Away

I have successfully completed my first semester away at college.  Woot.

I survived!  Three semesters to go.  I can't believe I've already put so much of it behind me.  It's crazy to think that I graduated three years ago.  My life has changed so much since then.  I've changed, and so have the people around me.  But Jesus has stayed the same.

People ask me how my first semester was.  It was hard.  I left my home for the first time in my life (literally the same house) for a place and culture that were totally new to me. The South is a different world entirely.  The terminal for Jackson is in the international section of the Charlotte Airport.  Point proven.

Someone asked me today what the hardest thing about my semester was.  I couldn't really put my finger on it until I was talking it over with a friend's Mom.  For the first time in my life, I was surrounded by people who were overly concerned with what other people thought of them.

I couldn't condemn them.  I had struggled with the same thing when I was younger, but I had quickly outgrown it.  The difference was that these people lived in the captivity of it.  The fear and concern were holding them captive, and they didn't know how to get free. 

It affects everything.  God had me holding a bucket throughout the semester to catch my friends' tears and heartaches.  At the center of a lot of them was the concern of other people's opinions. 

Colorado is unique in that it houses a melting pot of people from all over the United States and the world.  This makes for an electic mix of people, most of whom are very independent and okay with being a misfit.  Most people really don't care about what other people think of them.  You can't if you want to survive.

Growing up as a homeschooler, even in a state where homeschooling is common, I got used to being a misfit very quickly.  And it wasn't long before I didn't care what people thought of me.  I knew the truth: that I had a loving mother and father who wanted the best for me, and wanted to raise me not only with knowledge of the world, but also wisdom of the heart that can only come from God.  I may be an introvert, but I am far from unsocial. 

Now the challenge is how to help free the people I know from this terrible bondage.  I know Jesus is really the only one who can set the captives free, but I believe he has called me to be his agent this time. 

Soli Deo Gloria