released

Oh my, it has been so very long since I have been able to write on here. I don't know if anyone reads this blog, but even so, it is good for me to be able to go back and read up on how I have been growing and changing.

walls. Walls are a wonderful thing: they keep the cold out on a winter night, keep the cool in on a hot summer's day, they block out (most) unwanted noise as well as keeping your darkest secrets confined. But there is something else about walls. When you are under siege, the walls are both good and bad, in Lord of the Rings, the walls kept the bad guys out, as well as protected the good guys. In Joshua, they were disintegrated, providing no means of protection. On Masada, the walls are what kept the people inside the city, making it impossible to get out without being seen.

What does it mean to build walls around your heart? How is it that we can see the walls and think that it is a good idea to close everyone we love outside in order to protect our cities? Obviously, for Joshua, the walls had to come down. For Masada, their fortified city fell, as did the fortress in the rock for LOTR.

I have come to a realization over the last few months, that I have built my entire life up on all of the walls that I have. I have so many thick walls that I don't know what to do with, and now that I can see them and want to get rid of them to some extent, it makes me sick to think about breaking down my wall to the siege that God is holding against my heart.

Thankfully, God is persistant, and I just pray that I won't have the same result as Masada...

The big blessing is though, that God will never give up on us. He cares deeply and wants to have complete access to that part of us that we are trying so very hard to hide. Think about that for a second, we are trying to hid our deepest parts from God. Okay, do you know who God is? (Truth be told, we don't have the capacity to know God, his infiniteness cannot be explained by our finiteness. And thats a good thing if you ask me.

Jesus will meet you there

The middle of a really tough week, one filled with stress and decisions, yet I know that Jesus will meet me wherever I am. This song really portrays what I need to hear right about now. A truly broken girl, one fraught with sins and problems, yet, wherever I am Jesus know exactly where I am will never leave me.

When you think you've hit the bottom

and the bottom gives way

and you fall into a darkness

no words can explain

and you don't know how you make it out alive

Jesus will meet you there.

When the doctor says, "I'm sorry,

we don't know what else to do."

and you're looking at your family

wondering how they'll make it through...

Whatever road this life takes you down,

Jesus will meet you there.

He knows the way to wherever you are

He knows the way to the depths of your heart

He knows the way cuz he's already been

where you're going

Jesus will meet you there.

I hope that you find encouragement in this, that you will remember to spend time with the one who is in control of all. Keep looking up, you will get through!

When the jury says, "Guilty,"

and the prison doors close

When the one you love says nothing,

just packs up and goes

When the sunlight comes and your world's still dark,

Jesus will meet you there.

When you've failed again and all your

second chances have been used

And the heavy weight of guilt and shame

is crushing down on you...

And all you have is one last cry for help

Jesus will meet you there.

He knows the way to wherever you are

He knows the way to the depths of your heart

He knows the way cuz he's already been

where you're going

When you realize the dreams you've had

for your child won't come true

when the phone rings in the middle

of the night with tragic news...

Whatever valley you must walk through,

Jesus will meet you there.

He will meet you there.

Jesus will meet you there...

Much-Afraid and her journey to the High Places

This week has been very crazy! So much has happened, and I have learned so much! There are two main lessons that I have been learning this week, God has truly taught me so much, and I am still learning even more!

For choir, we have a book that we all read together, usually we read it over tour, but this year it is a long one, so we started early. The book is called Hind’s Feet on High Places, and has quickly become my favorite book. It is an allegory of a girl’s life (Much-Afraid is her name), and her journey to the High Places where the Shepherd is waiting to give her a new name.

Currently we are not that far into it, but we just read about the very begining of her journey. The Shepherd gave her two guides to assist her in her journey, their names were Suffering and Sorrow. When she heard their names, she became really scared and asked the Shepherd why he did not give her Joy and Peace. The shepherd responded that if he gave her Joy and Peace, she would not be transformed on the way to the High Places. It takes Suffering and Sorrow to mold her into the person that she needs to be in order to be able to enter into the High Places when she reaches them. Much-Afraid very hesitantly complied with the Shepherd, and began her journey with Sorrow and Suffering because of her great love for the Shepherd and for her great want to reach the High Places.

This is such an amazing picture of how God uses the really hard things in our lives to mold us and shape us into the people that He is creating us to be. While things may seem unfair here on earth, and we seem to have reached rock bottom because life is so hard. We have to remember that God has given us sorrow and suffering as GUIDES, things that will lead us through this life, reshaping us to be the people that God wants us to be.

The second thing that I have been learning is that it is ok to be vulnerable, because God is in control of all things, and will be with us forever. We can shut ourselves off from the world and tell ourselves that we are not ready to do something, and that we don’t have to move on until we are comfortable with what is going on. We will never be really ready for anything. It is as plain and simple as that. There will always be something out there that could potentially hurt us, and if we are always running from the thought of pain, how are we ever going to overcome it and move on (this goes back to Much-Afraid's story)? We won’t and that is all. We can think and mull it over all we want, but in the end, we will be no different.

Does this mean that it is easy to let go and allow yourself to be vulnerable? Not at all, in fact as I am seeing for myself, it can quite often mean that you are telling yourself something over and over again, something that you know in your heart is true, but that your experience of the world tells you does not make sense. I feel so bad that I can’t just believe my heart, and Lord willing, perhaps I will be able to do just that. It may take a while, but I have some pretty amazing friends who I think will stick by me and help me to get through whatever life brings my way.