truth

i want to be a person of my word. i want to "let [my] yes be yes, and [my] no be no". has this been the case so far? perhaps. perhaps not. i have had a personal goal for this last year of speaking more truth into situations. and i've come to a realization. i can't speak truth unless i can recognize truth. and at this point, i'm not too good at it. i'm a very slow processor. it takes me sometimes a day or two to fully internalize an event or someone's words, figure out exactly what happened or was said, and then decide how i feel about it. because of this, it makes it difficult to recognize truth in the moment, and call it out. i'm working on this. processing more quickly. calling out truth (affirming and difficult). i had chai with a new friend yesterday and realized that i've actually grown a lot in this area in the last few years. i used to be so incredibly un-self aware that it would be months before i could tell you how i felt or what i thought about something. i've cut that processing time down significantly. so i know this is possible. and that's encouraging. :D

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

do you believe you're missing out when everything good is happening somewhere else?

so here's the scuttlebutt... i've been feeling really unsatisfied with my current place in life. anticipating the future, wishing and waiting for something more exciting to come along. some days i think i can wait it out. others, i want it now. either way, i'm really excited for the possibilities. God has refreshed the passion in my heart. i've been praying for that for a while now. that excites me. i don't want to lose this passion again. so now, with this reunion of self, passion and desire, i have a renewed sense of peace. God's timing is perfect. i'm not ready to pursue my passion yet. God is working in my life to develop the woman he has made me to be. he is molding me, growing me, shining his light into places in my life that i didn't know were this dark. he is moving me to maturity. when God is ready for me to go, i am going to be a missionary. most likely in an urban setting, and most likely overseas. my mission will not be church planting, my mission will be serving, and loving. there is a good chance it will involve children and youth ministry. my evangelism will be relational and through service rather than confrontational. this is my passion. almost 6 months ago, God showed me Isaiah 6. this chapter has been on my heart almost constantly since then. Isaiah is given a vision of God's holiness, then a vision of his sinfulness. once God has cleansed Isaiah, he is given his commission. as soon as i read this for the first time, i knew that it would be my process too. i waited as God took me through this process. it began with a literal vision of God's holiness (ask me about that sometime, it is a very interesting story). slowly, God started to show me areas of my life that are not pleasing to him, and areas that i need to grow in. he started to tell me who i am. though that process is still continuing (as i think it will until i get to heaven), God has been faithful and shown me my calling. i have peace in knowing that this is from God, and that he will bring it about in his time, and there are still steps that i need to take before i am ready to take that leap. there is still growth that i need to make before i am strong enough. but i am ready to begin. :)