why I will never be addicted to coffee...

today started out just like any other... I have been a poor steward of my time and energy, and thus awoke this morning less prepared for my day than I would have liked. so, I attempted to rally for my 8am class and (i wont lie) barely made it through without dozing off. I have an hour and a half break after that before my next class, for which I had not done the reading that was to be discussed today. I was torn...to take a nap in my car in hopes of being mentally capable to dialogue in class, or power through and attempt to finish the reading so that I might have something constructive to say when the time came. I decided to power through. how, you might ask? i'll tell you. I am not normally a coffee drinker. therefore, when I got my medium sized vanilla hazelnut coffee with cream and sugar and sat down to finish my reading, I was not surprised when my foot started shaking a little faster than normal. it worked, I got through my reading, and I was wide awake and ready for my next class. but it got me thinking, as I sat there, helplessly watching my foot bob back and forth... should I be relying on an addictive substance for my energy, endurance, strength? should I not be relying on God? please don't take this to mean that i'm saying coffee is bad, or that you should stop drinking it because its not Godly. i'm not meaning to make that claim. i'm just reflecting on my desire to find my energy and strength in the one who gives me life rather than relying on an outside substance. i should confess that i have a very addictive personality. if left to my own devices, i'd be addicted to coffee, fast food, television, you name it. if i could choose, though, i would want to be addicted to being in the presence of God. why don't i get addicted to reading my Bible? why don't i get addicted to prayer? these are things i would much rather be investing in... ...also, i have a wicked case of heartburn.

knowing and loving

it is mind-boggling to me how much the acts of knowing someone and loving someone has changed in recent decades.

in this age of internet, facebook, blogging, twitter, etc. we have reached a point where i can converse with someone, share photos, share stories, share secrets, and yet never see them face to face.

even still, there are people half way around the world whom i have looked straight in the eye, and yet never exchanged a word.

what does it mean to know someone? is it accumulating facts and figures about someone, being able to note how they drink their coffee? is it simply seeing someone, for who they are, where they are? or is it some combination of both?

to take it a step further, which of these types of knowledge can lead to love? these people i've seen and never known may hold just as much of my heart as the people that i know but don't see.

with these different types of knowledge and love, my heart and my mind have started to form this web across the world, linking me with people and places half a world away...

more to come.

my story...so far (warning: this is a level -1)

lately i've been thinking a lot about who i am, how i got here, who God is, and what he's done in my life. and i've been struck with the desire to write it down. so i'll start from the beginning. this is all of it. the dark and the light. the suffering and the hope. this is me. i was born in sacramento, ca. i have a little brother who is just 2.5 years younger than me. i was a happy kid, loved playing with my cousins and being with my family, liked putting on plays and playing music and sports with my dad. when i was four, my parents divorced. after that, my overall demeanor changed. i became a shy, introverted, insecure kid who didn't like to have the attention on me. it was a complete 180. in a lot of ways i'm still dealing with the effects of it. i'm going to skip ahead a lot now. mostly because childhood wasn't the most fun for me, and i don't remember a whole lot of it. here are the basics: i loved school and learning. i was even lucky enough to take an assessment in 2nd grade that resulted in me skipping 3rd. i was blessed to have a very close family. i got to spend a lot of time with my grandparents on both sides, with aunts, uncles, cousins, etc. in junior high, i had a bout with anorexia that was brought on more out of ambivalence than out of a desire to be thin. the most influential piece of the puzzle of my childhood involves my mom. when i was about 7 years old, she decided to go back to school. she would spend two evenings a week in classes. then, she started seeing this guy. in general he was a nice guy, but there were some things that made their imprint on my heart. namely, he occupied my mom for even more time (she was already going to school two nights a week). i can remember weekends when my mom would take my brother and i to his house, and they would lock themselves in the bedroom and not come out at all. also, my brother and i would be dragged along on adult camping trips where we were the only children. i didn't learn until later exactly how much anger this built up in my heart. that was the essence of my childhood, and the story picks back up at the tender age of 13. my mom had met a new guy, this time on the internet. and they were married within 3 months of meeting. with him, came his 15 year old son. that same fall, i started high school. so with all that, and the residual anger from my mom's last relationship, you can bet that i was the picture of teen angst. my new stepbrother and i bonded over our mutual hatred of the situation we had been forced into. i even protested by not going to their wedding. that year, my freshman year of high school, i decided to try out for the softball team. i enjoyed it so much. it provided me with much needed camaraderie and a place where i belonged. and i was out of the house. mid-way through our season, one of my teammates committed suicide. she was also in one of my classes, and this being my first experience with death, it hit me hard. even though we weren't close friends, i felt a huge sense of guilt. i can remember a day a couple weeks before it happened where she came up to me in class and asked me how i was. i remember seeing pain in her face, but probing no further. not to mention, i had recently taken over her position as shortstop on our softball team, and had to continue playing it after she died. i even got up and spoke at her funeral. i count this as one of the top 5 most influential periods of my life, and while it was one of the most difficult things i've experienced, i think (and you'll see why) that dealing with this helped to save my life. after that, high school progressed. sophomore year brought new friends, my first real exposure to and interest in God (which was fueled by the intensity of the death of a friend), and the moving out of my stepbrother (who had become my closest friend). junior year is where things took a turn. i was overcome by the anger and confusion inside me. i didn't know how to process it, and i became depressed. i started engaging in self-injury on a daily basis, and nearly failed a lot of my classes. i started drinking and smoking weed, and taking pain killers. i stayed out until all hours of the night and at times became an insomniac. this behavior continued well into college, though it varied in severity. there were times when i wanted to give up, but having been on the left behind side of a suicide before, i knew what it did to other people, and i could never do that to my family and friends. senior year also brought my next encounters with death. on thanksgiving, my grandparents told me that my grandma on my dad's side had liver cancer, and it was only a matter of time. in the spring, very suddenly and unexpectedly, my grandpa on my mom's side passed away. he had been swimming at our local club and had a heart attack. i learned a lot in the weeks to follow. i learned that i can do anything i set my mind to. not only was my family grieving, but i (at the age of 16) was left to care for my nieces who were 2 and 3 while my parents dealt with things. then, not 2 months later, my grandpa on my dad's side died suddenly of a heart attack. at that point, i was almost numb to this kind of thing. it was difficult seeing my grandma left alone, but that side of the family handled it a lot differently. there was a lot of strength, hope, and celebration of life that came out of it. graduating from high school was anti-climactic for me. i was glad to be gone from that environment, but i didn't get to go far. because of skipping a grade in elementary school, i was only 16 when i graduated and my dad wouldn't let me go away to college. so i was stuck going to the local university, and resented it. i was still stuck with the same people and situations that had held me back in high school. i went to a college where i didn't connect to anything. i was fed up with my existence. i was surrounded by people who treated each other like shit (there's no other word for it). since high school this group of people was awful. we were the kids who had been burned by everyone else, but instead of banding together to change it, we were 10 times worse to each other. i was fed up. spring break of my freshman year of college, i went down to LA to visit one of my best friends at her school. i got to see what her experiences were. i got to be a part of the relationships that she'd developed. i got to see what its like to be in happy healthy relationships. when i got home from that trip, i asked her why her life was so much different and better than mine. she told me that it was jesus. she had gotten involved with campus crusade for christ that year, and sent me the 4 spiritual laws. after reading them over, and thinking (now i'd call it praying), i decided that these laws were true. i was sinful, and i what was missing from my life was God. for about 6 months, no one but my friend knew about this change in my life. my family was not christian, in fact my mom was very anti-church. i had even gone through a period of vehemently denying the existence of God. my friend got me my first bible for my 18th birthday. and i reconnected with a friend from high school who i knew went to church, and she invited me to come to her young adult group. and that was my first real experience with church. it was at this church that i first met my current best friend. that fall, i also said goodbye to my grandma who had liver cancer. she had made it longer than anyone had expected, and as difficult as it was to say goodbye, it was good to see her relieved of her suffering (for those of you who know a little bit about liver cancer, its pretty intense and painful). during my sophomore year of college, my friend invited me to a conference in southern california put on my campus crusade for christ. it was there that i really started to learn about jesus. i learned a bit of theology that helped me to understand exactly what i had signed up for when i gave my life to christ. i was blessed to hear from amazing speakers like frances chan and donald miller. and i learned that there was a campus crusade at my school. at this conference, they asked me to be involved, and even lead the movement on my campus. being the naive 1 year old christian that i was, i signed up. leading a movement on my campus involved all of the administrative stuff with the school, as well as organizing/coordinating/facilitating meetings and bible studies. i literally jumped in head first into ministry. we also got training and experience in sharing our faith on campus. they encouraged me to go on a summer project. i applied and was accepted to newport beach summer project 2005. summer project was a life-changing experience for me. for the first time in my life i got to see what the body of christ really looks like. i saw a group of people coming together for a common goal, uplifting and encouraging each other, facing the tough stuff together, and seeking God together. through discipleship and my small group that summer, i started to learn that i had decided somewhere along the line that i was unlovable, and that wasn't okay, because God wanted to love me if i would let him. little did i know at the time what i was in for in learning how to let God love me, or how long of a process it was going to be. coming home after being in that environment was supremely difficult for me. i had a few new friendships that were developing, including one with my best friend. i went straight back to school, and to leading crusade on my campus. and i had to decide on a major. and i was still dealing with feeling unlovable. in october, it all came to a head. i dropped out of school and out of sheer panic took a roadtrip to santa barbara to see my discipler from summer project. the next few weeks started to spiral out of control. i had stopped cutting after doing it for 3 years when i became a christian. i resumed this practice. my friendship with my new best friend was crumbling. we were both experiencing some really intense things that we couldn't go through together, but i didn't understand that at the time. i was having a major life crisis, i was depressed, i was cutting, and i was unlovable. during this time, i was smart enough to go to counseling. i had a great counselor who gave me a lot of good insights, and some really powerful tools for coping. but still, i hit rock bottom. i had to realize that i was angry. i had to deal with that. i had to learn that God is not a band aid. wounds are there until you deal with them and let God heal them, and they will be there whether you acknowledge them or not. by the grace of God and with the support of some very key people in my life, i made it through that storm. i started to learn how to love myself. because i couldn't let God love me if i didn't first love myself. at this point, i had a full time job, and decided that it was time for me to move out. i got my first apartment with a friend. this was short-lived and we soon parted ways. my best friend and i made the mutual choice to invest in our friendship, and started to be intentional with that. and i found a new church that i enjoyed, and decided to intern there. i moved into an apartment with the other intern, started classes at bible school, and embarked on my next adventure. it was short-lived, however, and i quickly learned that it wasn't the place for me, and they weren't the people to help me deal with the things that i still hadn't dealt with. i had another small breakdown where i moved out of the intern apartment, and left the church. i asked my family if i could go home, but was turned away. it was at this time that my best friend and her family offered their home to me. i had no intention of saying yes, but i humbled myself to receive the blessing they were offering, and it turned out to be the right choice. they were incredibly understanding of what i was going through, and provided an environment for me to heal. during this time i suffered from anxiety and a crisis of identity. the previous year i had been learning to love myself and let God love me. now it was time to learn who exactly it was that needed this love. i had to learn how to trust God in who he is and who he promises i am. this storm i came out of with a tattoo on my collarbone. it is the hebrew word for peace: "shalom". but its not just peace. shalom is a fullness, wholeness, completeness in the presence of God. not only did i overcome my anxiety over a lack of control, but i also found myself in the presence of God. it was also during this time that God gave me a vision, he made some promises. he showed me a picture of the kind of community in the body of christ that he wanted me to be a part of. he showed me that i wasn't going to find it where i was at. he gave me a glimpse of the bigger things that he was calling me to. he started to stir things in my heart. over the next year, i learned a lot more about myself. these were more of the little details, though. i had a few tough experiences, and was blessed to have a best friend who taught me a lot. our friendship has been a witness to God's perfect timing, as well as his faithfulness in challenging me to something bigger and better. we decided that we needed to get out of the podunk town we were from, and to move to seattle. so we packed up our things and headed out. i could go into a ton of detail about all that i've learned from being up here, but most of that you'll find in older blog posts. ;) the gist of it is that i've reached the culmination of part of God's vision for me. i've found that community he promised me 3 years ago. God took me to the other side of the world and he showed me where my heart is and where my focus should be. he's calling me to even more than this. in being separated from my old life, i've found healing. namely in my relationship with my mom. we have started to get to know each other as humans, and not as this forced mother/daughter image we have for each other. she has come to know God too, and i'm incredibly proud of the person i'm learning she is. God has been immeasurably faithful to me in my life, and through it all i have faith in him. most of the time i don't understand what's going on around me, but he does. and he's done all of this in my weakness, brokenness and humility. i have a lot of hope for the future and what i know God can do. i have joy in knowing that i have sought after him, and that i'm right where he wants me at this very moment. and i have joy in the relationships he's placed around me. if you've known me for a long time, you probably know that i'm a completely different person in a lot of ways than i was when i was a kid, or 5 years ago, or even 2 years ago. i have been challenged by God, and challenged myself, and to his glory, i've changed. if you actually made it through my story, thank you. you are a true friend, and a blessing to me. i hope that you will trust me enough to share your story too, because i want to hear it. in fact, call me, or facebook me...right now. let's go to coffee, or have a friendship night.

so life moves slowly when you're waiting for it to boil

here are some of my thoughts on a pertinent subject for this period in our lives. this has been an ongoing conversation around me for some time now, and i think it might be time to share how i really feel. not that i haven't been honest up til this point, but there is more that i've held back in an effort to not hurt people's feelings. but i think this is truth. and it needs to be said. we are at the age where relationships are a huge focal point of our lives. that's great. people are worth our investment. here's where i get concerned. there has been a lot of impatience about god bringing that man or woman of people's dreams, to marry and spend the rest of our lives with, happily ever after. let me first just say that i am not discounting this desire. it is one that i share. i definitely desire to meet a man who shares my heart for jesus, my passion for missions, and all those wonderful things and we can get married and run off and have adventures together. but here's where my thoughts start to differ a bit. it makes me sad when people are not content with where god has them at the present time. if there's one thing i've learned on this journey with jesus, its that his plans are way better than mine. the greatest thing i could possibly imagine for my life is miniscule compared to what he has in store. he will blow my mind, and rock my world...if i let him. i know people get tired of hearing others tell them that "god has a plan for their lives", "you just have to be patient", "god will give you the desires of your heart" or "god is just getting you ready"...but people say that stuff BECAUSE ITS TRUE!!! these are all statements of trust. the most basic foundational thing of a relationship with jesus is: TRUST trust that god knows you better than you know yourself, and that he's got your back. it's simple. we humans make it so difficult when it doesn't have to be. furthermore, i think the most important thing we can do in preparation for whatever god has in store for us is to search our own hearts, and seek to be like jesus. if you are not seeking, growing, learning, then you're not ready! i desire to be the best woman i can be for this man when he crosses my path, and i sure hope that he's growing into the best possible man he can be for me. another thing that i think is key to a healthy mindset about this is knowing god and yourself enough to be okay if there isn't a marriage on your horizon. jesus tells us there is no marriage in heaven (i say that not to disregard marriage on earth, because i think it's good, right, and true as well). in heaven we wont need to worry about who's married to whom. we will have jesus. and the same is true now. we have jesus. the rest of it matters an insignificant amount in comparison. matthew 22:29-30 Jesus replied, "You are in error because you do not know the Scriptures or the power of God. At the resurrection people will neither marry nor be given in marriage; they will be like the angels in heaven." in 1 corinthians 7, paul talks about marriage and how when you are unmarried, you are free to be fully devoted to god. i think that he says this to let us know that being single is a blessing too. marriage is amazing, and knowing another person in such an intimate way was designed by god to give us a taste of the relationship between the father, the son, and the holy spirit, and a vision of what heaven will be like. BUT, when we are single, we are free to fully pursue his calling in our lives, his will on earth, and opportunities that we might not be given if we were committed to someone else. that is a blessing! lastly, jesus says in matthew 6:33 "but seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well." i am not sharing all these thoughts to make you feel bad about where you are, or to tell you you're wrong. not in the slightest. i merely hope that this will serve as a reminder that god is good, and we should seek him first. he is the one to whom all glory is given, and i for one want his direction in my life. so seek him, and what he has for you, now, today, in this moment. ask him to show you how you can grow, change, be more like jesus. he wont let you down.

rainer maria rilke

i'm having trouble focusing today. which is probably good, because at the moment i'm trying to focus on reading the time traveler's wife, and its the last few pages and i'm not ready for it to end. i'm feeling a bit of ennui today. i'm not sure whether it is the result of the death of my dear friend chuck norris (our fish), or the thoughts that are weighing on my heart and mind lately, or the lack of amazing things looming on my horizon, or some combination of the above. probably the latter. i'm grieving potential losses, which is silly because they are not yet losses, so why am i causing undo stress on myself? do i think its better to start grieving now so i'll be less sad later when it actually happens? this is warped logic. each day has enough trouble of its own, why worry about hypothetical situations in the future that i can't control? or can i control them by being aware of the possibilities now, and actively seeking positive outcomes? i wish it were possible to read, write, and play minesweeper at the same time. i am still haunted by words that my counselor said to me a couple years ago: he called me "wonderfully complex". i hate that about myself. i wish that i could just let things be simple. love God, love people. nothing else matters. if only it was that easy. i'm very excited to learn about building godly, loving relationships in my small group. this study is going to be good. i think my fears have warped themselves. i know that i have a fear of abandonment, and a fear of being unlovable. but i think now, there's also this element of the fear of being left behind...of being stagnant while people around me are moving forward. i am appalled by how much power these lies have over my life, the way i think, the way i feel, and the way i act. how did i get to this point? how do i combat this? how do i take that power back, and give it to god? "our heart survives between hammers, just as the tongue between the teeth is still able to praise...look, i’m alive. on what? neither childhood nor the future grows less…more being than I’ll ever need springs up in my heart." - the ninth elegy, rainer maria rilke i have words floating around in my head. words, words, words...beckoning to be spilled on a page, to be freed from my head and my heart. but i don't know what they are. are these them?

and i do believe its true, that there are roads left in both of our shoes

so i spent this past weekend up in the mountains with a fabulous group of women, being ridiculous, singing, dancing, making awkward faces and practicing being authentic. i have no other way to describe it other than amazing!!!

there were 23 awesome women, and i was blessed to feel like i made a friend in each of them. some had the opportunity to get deeper than others, but all in all i feel confident in saying that i have 23 new friends. i look forward to growing those relationships, and continuing to learn about these new people.

as you know, authenticity, truth, openness, love, etc are all values that i've been striving to grow in my life and with the people around me. this weekend was so condusive to that...just in the way that we spent our time, and the attitude that everyone had. we had a good amount of bonding activities, and free time to be silly and hang out, but the way we spent our devotional and small group time was also great! we had some deep questions, and i was blessed with a group that was ready to answer them, and be authentic, and show the others a glimpse of who they really are. it really helped to reinforce what's going on in my heart, as well as give me so much hope for where this group, and the church in general, is going from here. it was very cool to see so many people that have the same desires as me as far as building relationships. and very encouraging in my personal desire to be more intentional in my own friendships.

like i've been saying in my recent posts...things are happening. god is good. i'm soooo excited.

whispers "he is still here!"

take the world upon your shoulders, and burn, burn, burn, burn, burn

so seasons are changing. i mean that literally and metaphorically. i absolutely love seeing seattle in the fall. autumn is my favorite. the colors change on the trees, the leaves fall to the ground...i fear there wont be much crunching of the leaves due to the massive amounts of rain in this region, but oh well. metaphorically speaking, i begin a new chapter of my life next week. the weight and significance of this has not hit me yet. i am about to embark on the first step of actually realizing the vision that i have for my life. for those who haven't heard, next week i start my new job as on-call residential counselor at ryther child center. this will entail working in several different residential programs that ryther offers, mainly with kids who are warrants of the state whose parents have little to no rights, and who also have severe behavioral/boundary issues, and possibly with kids who are in treatment for chemical dependency. this is going to be a really intense transition, because i have not worked in this kind of environment before. i am lucky, because so far, my plan is to keep my current job at the bank temporarily and on an intermittent basis. that means that while i'm learning the ropes and adjusting to the environment at my new job, i can have the bank as a back-up. not as a chance to keep it available to me if it gets too difficult, because i do not want to back away from this challenge. more as a confidence builder, that at least sometimes i'll be doing something that i know i'm good at. and also as a release, a chance to take a break from new stressful challenges, while still making the money that i need. now for why i am so excited for this job, and the real reason for this blog. it has been a long and eventful journey to get me here. it started out at urbana '06. i read isaiah 6 and felt a deep connection to the passage. the man i heard speak about it talked about how isaiah was given his vision by God. first, isaiah was given a glimpse of the holiness of God, an image of who God is. next, isaiah was shown the areas of his life that needed cleansing, or work, or where he was sinful. and finally, isaiah was given a calling from God. God had a task that isaiah was to fulfill and isaiah stepped up to the plate. when i read this passage, i was overwhelmed with the feeling that this is what my journey would be like. sure enough, i saw the first part of this prophecy start to take shape. it wasn't necessarily as linear as isaiah's experience, but had all the same steps none-the-less. first i was given a vision of the holiness of God. i was overwhelmed with the realization of who God is, how great and big and loving he is. this experience was both a literal vision that i had in a dream, as well as the longer process of reading scripture and learning about the nature of God. next, God showed me who i am. i had to look at the essence of what makes me who i am. i looked at my flaws, my sins, and areas where i could grow as a person. and i also looked at things about myself that are good, beautiful and worthy of love (you might not think so, but both were equally difficult for me, since up until this point i had deemed myself unlovable). this process took an even longer period of time, finally culminating in finding peace and safety in the promises God makes about himself and his relationship with me. so for about the last year, i have been basking in how amazing it feels to know who God is, and know who i am, and how God and i relate to each other. moving to seattle was a big step in my journey as well, because it has allowed me to take a step out of the comfortable life that i've known for 21 years and see if i could fare as an adult on my own. so far its been good. since i've been here, learning how to function without the system i'd had around me til now, and learning to build my own relationships and support, i've had a chance to take a look at my life, what i'm doing to make it better, how i'm growing and what i'm doing to aid in making progress. i decided i wasn't really doing anything. i took a job in banking, which i desperately wanted to get out of when i moved here, and had started to settle into familiar routines, just in a different place. so i started taking steps to better myself. i have had a desire in my heart for travel for a long time, and have in the past few years felt like i was being led in a missionary direction, but i haven't been sure what that will look like. so, in an effort to facilitate growing towards figuring that out, i decided to work on becoming more globally minded. in this process, i have been given a vision for my life. not just a vague idea like possibly being a missionary somewhere in the world doing who knows what. i have a more specific idea of where i want to end up: i have developed a big heart for africa. namely people who are refugees from their country, people who have been affected by the civil wars that rage on that continent, and families that have been torn apart by the AIDS pandemic. it is my desire to go to africa, most likely southern africa, and start/work in an orphanage. i want to provide a home and love to children who's parents have died of aids, or who were forced out of their country due to civil war, or have other needs. i don't have a timeline on this, though. its tough to say whether i will be in africa in the next 5 years, or if it will take me 15-20 years to complete this goal. but that's what i want to be the icing on the cake of my life. its where i want to end up. so this job at ryther will be the first step toward achieving that. it will challenge me in ways that i'm not used to, and i will be able to begin pouring into the lives of children who need it the most. i will have the chance to provide hope to kids who have lost it, and love to kids who have forgotten what that feels like. so i'm excited! this blog has turned out to be way longer than anticipated, but i'm okay with that. kudos to you if you actually read the whole thing!! with love, car