28 October 2006

a butterfly emerging...

I was watching Lost the other day (because it's what I do lately) - a disc from the first season - and something in the show spoke to me. John Locke was explaining something to Charlie Pace in the show. Charlie was trying to detox from drugs and had given them to John to hold. John told Charlie that if he asked him for them 3 times that he would give them back to him, but only after the third time. I think it was after the second time Charlie asked him for the drugs when John imparted some words of wisdom to him. They were standing in the jungle and there was a coccoon. John pointed to it and pointed out the whole at the top of the coccoon. He explained that the moth inside was about to emerge and he was furiously working to find his way out of the cocoon. John continued that he could help the moth get free by ripping open the coccoon and set the insect free. The moth would fly for a while but it wouldn't be strong enough to make it. It would soon get weary and die. Charlie walks away without his drugs for the second time.

That illustration really resonated with me. Sometimes we wonder why we struggle so furiously and for so long on some things while our struggles with other things come and go quickly. We are a lot like moths - I like butterflies better because they're prettier (even though moths are supposedly stronger). We are stuck inside these coccoons that we have built for ourselves trying to work our way out of them. In much the same way as a marathon runner trains, our working our way out is also training. If a runner tried for a marathon too soon, they would be too weak to make it and would not be able to finish the race (that in itself is a spiritual analogy). If God simply ripped open the coccoon, or took us away from struggle before we were ready, we would not be ready to face the world. We would be faced with things that we would not be strong enough to take on. So as much as it pains him to see us wrestle and struggle and hurt, he knows it's for our own good. He knows we have to figure some things out on our own, and wrestle and fight through the mess of coccoon that's keeping us back from flying free. He knows that in time we will be a butterfly emerging and break through the barrier and we will fly. And we will be strong. And we will live.

22 October 2006

my life lately...

Since my last post:

  • My belt is one notch tighter. That's two whole notches since before school started.My dad celebrated 55 years this last Tuesday. Happy birthday Poppa! I love you soooo very much!
  • I studied madly for a midterm only to discover that it was being postponed for two weeks.
  • I am taking on a new role here at Alaska Christian College. Every weekday at noon someone shares their story or testimony with the group and then we pray for that person. I decided that on the days that no one is signed up I want to share the world's "story," or current events to keep everyone current on what's happening outside our somewhat sheltered community. And what better way for me to feel like I am actively doing something about this world for which I am burdened than to increase awareness and then to pray? I do my first one this Tuesday. Pray for me.
  • I was able to share my heart with a couple people who aren't believers this last week. Both are people that had previously told me that they didn't want to hear about my faith or beliefs. And both later came and asked me questions about it.
  • I bought a purity ring for a girl here on campus and gathered her closest friends around and actually planned a ceremony for her when I gave it to her. It was one of the coolest things I have ever done in my entire life. Afterwards, we all layed hands on her and prayed for her and for her future husband and family.
  • A week ago yesterday, I let someone I had been out with several times kiss me for the first time. On the beach. Under a clear sky full of a trillion stars and a visible Milky Way.
  • I told the same man last Tuesday that I couldn't see him anymore. If I wouldn't want my best friend to date him, why would I date him? And he had completely led me to believe that he was someone that he's not. I hate it when they do that. Better now than later when I would have been more emotionally invested.I have doubted my own judgment. I thought I knew him well enough to know his character and then was completely horrified to discover what was underneath the biblical wisdom, the theological and intellectual conversations, and him making me feel like the only girl in the world. He was not at all the person I thought he was, and what does that say about my judgment of character? Were there other signs that should have clued me in? What if my, for lack of a better word, "bullshit detector" (sorry Poppa) is permanently faulty? Will I be able to get my money back?
  • On the flip side of that though I have also recognized the growth in my life in this area. Five years ago, being the lost girl that I was, I would have put up with it and justified his actions. To realize that I am not her anymore, and, more importantly, that I am me and who I am is a fantastic and liberating feeling.
  • I laughed until I had a headache last night with Aune and Louisa at Veronica's. They are both so very good for my soul. It had been so long since I had laughed that much. And today... my sides hurt.
  • I have watched the entire first season of Lost on dvd and have started the second season.
  • I have missed, and still miss, my best friend Nida so much that it aches. I haven't seen her since Christmas or talked to her for a month and even that was strained. I miss the relationship that we had when we lived close to each other. She now lives in New Orleans.
  • I talked to my sister Lisa and my niece Anevay on the phone the other day. It only made me miss home even more, especially when Anevay told me that she loves me and misses me.
  • I took a friend to the airport. He's left for Iraq for 18 months. Pray for Cameron.
  • I painted nails and watched and enjoyed a Strawberry Shortcake movie and then a Barbie movie with my little friend Megan on Thursday night. In a way this helped me rediscover the little girl in me. Not only the little girl, but the "girly-girl," the very feminine girl who is begging for the world to notice her and tell her that she's captivating.
  • I walked down to the river yesterday with a friend from whom I had been feeling somewhat disconnected. We had real conversation and I discovered some things about her that I hadn't known before. It reinforced for me how much we all need prayer and to feel loved and like we belong.

I could go on and on but these are just a few morsels, only a taste, of my life recently. Most of them are wrapped up in who I am in Christ and speak about where I am on this great big journey.

13 October 2006

refining and affirming...

One of the reasons I haven't been posting lately is because I have had a general feeling of unworthiness. Unworthy to be in Alaska doing what I am doing; unworthy at writing about Christian spirituality because, after all, I am no theologian; and unworthy to lead. I have been struggling a lot lately with what I am going to do after this year and it's still 7 months away yet. I want to continue my education and design my own major in Christian Leadership but I also feel called to do ministry whether it's here at Alaska Christian College or somewhere else in Alaska or somewhere else entirely. I feel as though God has gifted me with a burden for the oppressed. I want to advocate on behalf of the broken, to give a voice to the voiceless. I read about one.org or other similar social justice campaigns and it makes me want to quit everything I am doing and just go help them. I strongly feel that it's for a reason that I have such a burden. Not everyone would be willing, nor feel called, to go whereever that endeavor might take them.

On the flip side of this, I have also been struggling recently with my attitude. I don't feel as though my attitude always matches the burden of my heart. In other words, my pride largely gets in the way of the love that I am burdened to show to people. This realization has just absolutely gripped me over the last couple days and has brutally held me captive. I found myself absolutely wrecked last night because of this. There's a small group of us here on campus that do Bible study and prayer and accountability together and when we met last night I had them pray over me. And even as I said these words I hesitated because I know the importance of what I was saying: "Pray that God would break me. Pray that he would humble me and smash my pride." And the first evidence of that came rolling down my face in seemingly endless liquid form. Their prayers for me went up to heaven and they gave me words of encouragement, along the lines of It takes humility to realize this about yourself, let alone admit it and ask God to fix it. I wasn't completely convinced though I was slightly less hard on myself.

Last night I went to talk to one of my RAs, with whom I have had a fairly hard time getting along. Neither of us knows what it is about the other that sets us off but we have had a couple run-ins, nothing too major. And I always try to go back and talk with her once we've walked away and tried to gain some clarity on things. Anyhow, I went to her and told her what I had been feeling and asked her to help keep me accountable on having a humble spirit and being broken in general. She was floored that I even thought to ask her and when I explained to her that I never thought of anyone else she was even more shocked. I went to her because I knew she wouldn't be afraid to hurt my feelings and I think that, in a way, is what I need right now - not hurt feelings necessarily, but just someone that won't hesitate to hold that mirror up to me when I need it. I am closer to some of the other RAs and because of that I knew they would be more hesitant to approach me or hold the flame to me, or the mirror to me, whatever you want to call it (I have heard it called so many different things). I have asked one in particular to do this for me before and she hasn't quite fulfilled what I was looking for. And I knew that this RA still loved me but didn't have as much to risk, if that makes any sense.

So she said that she would be glad to help me in this. And I reiterated to her my feelings of unworthiness and how much I desired my attitude to more closely match the attitude of Jesus. And told me that when we've gone on service projects she has seen just the opposite in me - she has seen that I do mostly convey the love and spirit of Jesus to those we are serving at the time. And I can see some of that myself but I want that heart and that spirit all of the time - not just when I am serving. I have this bitterness that seems to have taken up residence in me. A lot of the times it hides away in its room somewhere but every once in a while it comes out. I hate that part of myself. It's ugly. It's cancerous. And this is the part of me that I want God to burn out of me with his Refiner's Fire. I can be so loving and so other-focused one day and then walk away and feel like a complete fake or phony because I remember how I reacted the day before to someone else. And I will feel like everything I just did for someone else is cancelled out or worthless. She prayed over me again for the fire to come and burn out all the ugliness and bitterness that still has hold of me. We both cried a little and then went to bed.

Today I went to serve at a high security prison here in town. There was a team of us that went to do a chapel service for the inmates. I remember as we approached the prison in the van, as everyone else was talking about how nervous and scared they were, I was completely calm. I wasn't scared or nervous. I knew what I was there to do and that was to convey God's perfect beautiful unconditional love for all of us. The chapel service went so smoothly. Afterwards we met with the chaplain in a conference room for a debriefing session. I sat across the table from him and the RA that I had talked to last night sat to my left. The chaplain looked across the table directly at me and said, "Christina, you're feeling unworthy to do what you've been called to do. You don't need to feel unworthy because you are worthy. You have a calling to serve and you're fulfilling a special purpose and God will use you. Don't ever forget that." I had never had a conversation with this man and here he was speaking directly to a struggle that I had been having. I looked at my RA and she looked at me and we both knew that it was God. I nearly cried. He had no idea that what he had just said meant so much to me. That was powerful affirmation to me. Even as I write this it's absolutely so amazing to me how God uses strangers to speak powerful truths into our lives when we least expect it. It was incredible. I had heard of God working like that in other peoples' lives but not really my own. So yet again, this Mysterious and Magnificent God is finding new ways to reveal himself to me, to speak to me, to love me, to blow me away. And tonight my heart is less proud and more humble, less hard and more broken, less stone and more flesh. I can't wait to see what tomorrow will bring.

I just ask that you all join me in prayer about this. I ask you all to be accountability partners with me on this. I urge you to ask me how I am doing on this. I want you to ask me. I need you to ask me. Not only for my sake but for the sake of the voiceless, the oppressed, the needy, the lost. You're all beautifully and intentionally created. And I love you.

02 October 2006

feeling october...

I was on retreat this last weekend in Big Lake, AK. I wrote this Saturday night as I was sitting outside under a ceiling of bright blue, looking out across the perfectly still lake at a backdrop of gorgeous orange and yellow trees against mountains capped with snow. I was writing this and my friend walked by and told me how beautiful I was at that moment and I truly felt it's truth in that moment. It was glorious and it inspired this.

it's all around me now
autumn surrounds me.
the trees are tired and give up their leaves
and drop them into the past
knowing they wouldn't last.
they wouldn't survive what's coming.
so in moments, luminous and stunning
i watch them fall
in shades of red and orange, green and gold;
vibrant glimpses of seasons past
now in graceful heaps, colorful and bold.

and now i hear it whispered in the trees
and i feel it coming on the breeze,
this gorgeous love you have for me.
and i am drowning in the romance
as my soul begins to dance.
i am seeing you in my spirit's reflection
as my heart begins its introspection.
your vibrant love for me takes over
and i am feeling october.

i bring to you my own leaves,
leaves of red and orange, green and gold
boasting, "aren't they beautiful? aren't they bold?"
and with that, there comes a wind
and i am met with season's end.
i am left naked, humbled, and numb.
it serves as a reminder to me
that only from you all good things come.
and i hear someone tell me i'm still beautiful
and i feel its truth sink in.

and now i hear it whispered in the trees
and i feel it coming on the breeze,
this gorgeous love you have for me.
and i am drowning in the romance
as my soul begins to dance.
i am seeing you in my spirit's reflection
as my heart begins its introspection.
your vibrant love for me takes over
and i am feeling october.

i breathe you in and i breathe me out
as another part of me's exhaled.
and just like the seasons
i have not changed, but i am changing.
as a little more of me each day is paled
and a little more of the color of you begins to take its place.
i look within and see the many ways that i am blessed
and that only in you, my weary soul finds rest.
i feel the subtle shift as my ugly nakedness
is replaced with the hues of your exquisite grace.

and now i hear it whispered in the trees
and i feel it coming on the breeze,
this gorgeous love you have for me.
and i am drowning in the romance
as my soul begins to dance.
i am seeing you in my spirit's reflection
as my heart begins its introspection.
your vibrant love for me takes over
and i am feeling october.