Pay attention to detail, you might miss something! For example: Adam and I have been dating for over a month now and last night we had dinner with some friends at my place. At the end of the night, Adam grabs a bottle of red wine that he had brought as a host-gift for a shindig I had thrown around Thanksgiving and smiles at it as it’s still sitting half drunk on top of my fridge. He says - “Did you ever notice this bottle of wine?” I said, “It was delicious, why?” He responds, “No, did you ever LOOK at the bottle?” So I stop, I look at it and wouldn’t you know it’s Dave Matthews’ Dreaming Tree: Crush. Adam was trying to tell me all that time ago that he had a crush on me and I never even noticed!
Sometimes I forget that I was created with the weaknesses and hindrances that are innately a part of my being for a reason. I was never meant to be perfect. I was simply meant to overcome, and through that perseverance - glorify Him.
Athlete Aimee Mullins
“Born without fibulae in both legs, Aimee’s medical prognosis was discouraging; she was told she would never walk, and would likely spend the rest of her life using a wheelchair. In an attempt for an outside chance at independent mobility, doctors amputated both her legs below the knee on her first birthday. The decision paid off. By age two, she had learned to walk on prosthetic legs, and spent her childhood doing the usual athletic activities of her peers: swimming, biking, softball, soccer, and skiing, always alongside “able-bodies” kids.”
(via npr)
He remembered her hesitant smile and the startled look whenever he breached her considerable defenses. Sometimes it was just a word or a look that did it unexpectedly, and he had felt elation during those moments, as though he, and not God, had accomplished the impossible. Lowering his head, Michael wept.
Yes, he learned he was powerless. He learned a man can live after woman breaks his heart. He had learned he could live without her. ‘But, oh, God, I’ll miss her until I die.’ He would feel this ache inside himself, wondering if she was all right, if she was taking care of herself, if she was safe from harm. Reminding himself that God was watching over her, too…
- from REDEEMING LOVE by Francine Rivers
{So feeling the aching truths in this quote tonight.}
Two-hundred days later, I now know what faith looks like.
I know that it’s easy to lose because we only go looking for it in our own lives.
We are so consumed with ourselves that the moment we believe God has failed us individually, we believe He has failed us all. If God doesn’t exist for me, He doesn’t exist for you either.
But He has never left us. And has not failed us.
For God is in every footprint, on top of every mountain and swimming through every wave in every ocean. He spills Himself out over us in every sunset, and knows the name of every star in the sky. His voice speaks in every gust of wind. He’s in every lightning storm and every homeless shelter. He is in each of our stories, and is concerned with you and every second of your day. He sits at the dinner table, and hangs out on street corners.
And I believe He is faithful.
Max Dubinsky blogs at MakeItMAD.com and tweets at @MaxDubinsky.
http://www.relevantmagazine.com/god/deeper-walk/blog/27036-has-america-lost-faith
http://www.relevantmagazine.com/god/deeper-walk/blog/27036-has-america-lost-faith
A quiet voice;
his eyes
had a look as if
they saw far ahead.
He
does seem strange,
but was built
for
her.
-Tyler Knott Gregson-
The vehicle that you use to drive away from a relationship—your words—is the same vehicle you use to get back into a relationship. If you said something to hurt someone, you heal it by saying: “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said that. I know it hurt you. Please forgive me” … You determine the quality of life that you live by what you speak. “Life and death are in the power of the tongue.
(Pastor Robert Morris of Gateway Church)
I think the same applies to the absence of words, sometimes.
“Gonna take a man, not a boy, to lead a woman as ferocious for God’s will as you. The problem isn’t you, it’s a lack of men.” -Seth
I joked on Facebook last night that “The way things turn out, you’d think all the guys I date are lactose intolerant and I’m milk. I look healthy & refreshing but no one can handle it.“ This quote above is what Seth said in response & it is quite easily the biggest compliment I have received in recent years and I gotta say, it rocked the foundation of my perspective on seeking a partner. I realized a couple of things from this:
- It’s a pro not a con that am FEROCIOUS for God’s will. This might come off intimidating, but it also means that I am truly, uncompromisingly focused on pursuing His will and His plan. The only kind of man who will be able to embrace me is the kind who is equally ferocious, or who isn’t intimidated by that aspect of who I am.
- I need to keep being me, not keep trying to change. God is going to put someone in my path who is going to have a hard time NOT noticing me, who is going to see all that I am and be glad I never compromised, who is going to above all else see Christ in who I am and what I do. If I keep trying to change, that means I’m not trusting God made me the way I am for a damn good reason.
- Men (I repeat: Men) are few & far in between, so I shouldn’t expect every guy to be one. Frankly, let’s take it one step further - I shouldn’t expect any guy to be one - until he proves himself otherwise. There is a lot of responsiblity required to step up & be who God calls you to be as a man, a lot of work through baggage you gotta do, and a lot of self sacrifice required. And not every man is ready to do that work. This is an honest way of approaching the truth of our culture & it will save me the trouble of getting my hopes up, until someone steps up and pursues me in a way that really reflects the way God pursues us.
God knows I’m worth it, He’s not afraid I’m going to fuck it up - He’s got plenty of grace prepared for when I do, and He’s willing to take a risk on me because He knows my heart is for Him. Some man is going to see that in me and know my value.
I know eventually I’m going to be able to continue on in my days without having to remind myself repeatedly of these things. But every relationship is a journey, the end of every relationship - big and small - teaches us ways in which we’ve yet to finish battling our insecurities, and each new hope reminds us of God’s big plan for us. As my friend Tiffani reminds me on a regular basis, “Faith is believing in things unseen.” We all just need a little patience, He’ll get us there.
Elevation Worship All Creatures Of Our God And King (Vocoder Version)
Stephen Furtick was talking this performance up big time - don’t blame him. It’s epic.
A Month by the Lake
My sick friend found out that he’s got less than 3 months to before the cancer & leukemia end his 3 year battle with cancer. He has decided to spend the remainder of his days travelling, visiting friends, & ending his travels in late October in the beautiful countryside of Lake Como. I’m not sure you could pick a more beautiful or serene place to wait patiently for the end. I hope he gets plenty of time with our Father there, I know He’ll be waiting patiently on His end for my friend to TRULY come home - whenever that is.
Last night - I finally found my voice.
Last night I got my voice back. Actually that’s not true – I think perhaps I may have found my voice for the first time.
When I commented on this fact a friend asked “Hey Ginger, where’d your voice go in the first place? Did a giant lady octopus steal it? Do you have a flounder & a crab for homies? Ever seen ‘Hipster Ariel’ before?” While I do have two fabulous broskettes who might enjoy being referred to as Sebastian & Flounder, and while I do have red hair and fill my cavern of a domicile with trinkets – my voice was most certainly not stolen by an obese, power hungry, & jealousy ridden sea witch. Rather, my voice has eluded me ever since I was small child due to the grossly obese misunderstanding that I was not worth enough as a person to ever bother sticking up for myself, setting boundaries as a woman, or saying no to anyone who might attempt to transgress upon me emotionally, mentally or physically. I grew up thinking I was worthless, and living in a way that let everyone around me know I intended to forever be as such.
You see, I discovered over the last two months that there is a pattern in my life that my quality of life has greatly suffered from. As a care-taking type with an immense depth of empathy, the pattern I suffer from is one in which I tend to feel the urge to care for and encourage healing in men who are hurting or broken. Unfortunately I figured this fact out while in the process of caring for a friend who fit such a description and whose hurt & disrespect for other people ran deeper than any who had come before him. Not only was he broken emotionally but he had just found out that his stage IV prostate cancer had grown into his bones in addition to several other organs, at the young age of thirty-two. If ever there was a time where I really didn’t want to face my unhealthy relationship patterns due to guilt – this was one, because to do so would leave someone who was fatally ill potentially alone on their deathbed. I don’t think anyone could feel good about that. So I prayed…
And I prayed, and prayed, and prayed. Because while I know that growing my character as a daughter of Christ is such an important task – I also hated from the very core of me, having been made in the image of my Loving Righteous Father, the idea of abandoning anyone… let alone someone who was hurting to the depths my friend is. I prayed that the Holy Spirit would give me peace & serenity in knowing how closely Jesus was with us both through this. I prayed that He would give me clarity on how to care for myself as Jesus would have cared for me and still care for my friend as Jesus would have me care for them. I prayed that Jesus would help me understand how to find forgiveness for my friend, having just found out that money went missing three times in connection with his presence. I prayed that my Father would reveal to me understanding of how precious He really thinks I am. I prayed that the Holy Spirit would give me the words to tell my friend no, to tell him that I would no longer allow him to take advantage of me. But the Lord works in miraculous and beautiful ways, and through two miracles – He revealed to me that I do have a voice and that I should not fear any opportunity to use it.
The first miracle that prepared me was the way God worked through my friends, new and close, to speak into my life. I have two amazing girlfriends, my Flounder & Sebastian if you will, who have walked alongside me closely through my last two relationship/social flounderings. They’ve loved on me by offering comfort, blunt honesty & insight into where I’m getting myself in trouble and what lies I may be believing, and they have been faithfully present in my life the whole way through. No matter how messy or uncomfortable it got, no matter how many bad choices it takes to get me to the lesson at the core of it all. That’s real biblical community right there – loyal, faithful, committed, consistent, servant hearted Christ-centered love.
In additional to my two friends loving on me so thoroughly, I recently started developing a friendship with a truly humble Jesus loving brother from my small church group and through this friendship God has revealed some awesome things about how much He truly thinks I’m worth. While getting to know this brother we’ve talked a lot about what we have in common, which led us to an exciting understanding of the commonalities in each other’s pasts. And through the comfort of that shared understanding, we were both really encouraged to be completely transparent about our struggles with sin, the motivations & roots of those struggles, as well as what we are actively doing to work with Jesus through those struggles. It felt so good to hear someone say that they did X because of Y, when all this time I had never felt – even in my closest Christian circles – an opportunity present itself to share the same thing and expect to feel God’s grace lavished upon me. But to be able to respond “Me too; I’ve been there, felt that, done that because of the same reasons – and it encourages me greatly that you’ve made it through to the other side of healing,” has generated a new sense of empowerment & freedom in my heart to drop my shame and walk in the light. There have also been moments in our conversations where, in response to the shared struggles we’ve faced from different perspectives within those struggles, this brother has taken the time and energy to express to me his intention to make sure that as his sister I do not have to fear being treated the same way or put into the same situations that express a lack of value for my identity as a royal daughter of Christ. To find freedom in both complete transparency as well as authentic biblical respect from so many directions, I truly feel like I’m living in an entirely different reality from the one I was raised to participate and live in!
The second miraculous series of events are the ones in which I truly found my voice. After talking with Sebastian & Flounder in depth and feeling great conviction from the Holy Spirit to trust Him enough to act through Him rather than my own strength - I finally worked up the guts & trust of the Holy Spirit to confront my sick friend about his blatantly disrespectful behavior toward me and our friendship. The fear I felt – let me tell you, in a brief moment of distrust in the Holy Spirit, I felt an overwhelming sense of guilt and rottenness for ‘putting my friend through this’ just days before he was due to start radiation therapy again. But I gave myself a mental slap, went and stood emotionally under the wing of my great Comforter, and addressed the issue with frankness as well as truth in how the situation affected me. This was a great victory because never before had I felt it would be valid to tell someone their actions weren’t okay in direct relation to the effects on me. An even greater victory was when the Spirit convicted me in the moment, as my friend denied any validity or liability or responsibility for his actions, to walk away and step into prayer rather than letting myself get worked up emotionally (which would have led to saying a lot of things that were unnecessary and counterproductive.) I walked away, I stepped into faith that my Father would resolve it according to His plan, and I felt strangely at peace.
This morning my friend, whom I had already committed to letting stay on my couch prior to his conduct being revealed and our confrontation occurring, left for his first round of radiation therapy. I knew, given our confrontation & my newfound joy for staying in the light without fear of condemnation, that it was not a good idea for me to be alone with him in my home last night. So I had asked Sebastian to stay the night, with explanation of why – and she lovingly agreed. I also held myself accountable by letting my brother from church group know that my sick friend was staying and that I was having Sebastian stay the night as well. All three of us were comforted by the idea of the extra protection around me and the situation and I felt an immediate peace and satisfaction as fruit from my pursuit of righteous resolution to the situation.
And then I dreamt in the wee hours of this morning, with Sebastian beside me in my room & my friend sleeping on the couch just hours away from leaving for his first treatment, the most beautiful dream. You see, to give you some backfilled understanding, I had been having these horrendous apocalyptic nightmares ever since I was about 7 years old. Almost every night since I was seven I have dreamt that some terrible tragedy was befalling the world and it was my responsibility to save everyone. I would run around endlessly, and ineffectually, attempting to warn & save people. Consistently, either no one could hear me talk or no one heeded my warning. The end of the dream would come and I would be forced to sit and watch as people I cared about were devoured and destroyed by one disaster after another. All the while attempting to scream, but no sound would ever come from my mouth in the dream. It has always been chilling but it has also become a sort of norm for me, particularly because I have never been able to scream in real life ever – no matter how hard I’ve tried or how appropriate a situation. Last night was different.
Last night I dreamt that a major disaster was occurring and everyone in the building I was in was rushing to safety on the roof. As I too was rushing around, I remember trying to drag a man with me – and that he wouldn’t listen to anything I was saying and ignoring my attempts to get us to safety. Finally, I made it to the roof alone. I looked around and saw another man, who in real life is an amazing man of God & goes to my old church back home in Seattle where he recently married the love of his life. At this point, a mob starts to rush toward the man and his wife – and I realize that there is a perpetrator involved in whatever disaster we are all running from and somehow these people think this man is that said perpetrator. I start to think in my head about all his redeeming qualities and solid character and wonder how they could make such a terrible mistake.
Suddenly, I have the fierce desire to set the mob straight and protect the man and his wife. Upon acknowledgement of this desire, a bat appears in my right hand. This stands out to me because I have NEVER once held a weapon in my dreams, even if I seek one to try and protect myself or others – in which case I never seem to be able to find one. That’s when I start to sense something is different. But my wonder is confirmed as fact when, as I begin to run toward the mob to stop them, the strangest most unfamiliar sound escapes my throat – a scream. For the first time in my life, both dream life and real life, I was able to scream for them to stop. My vocal chords had suddenly found both the articulation and volume to express the emotions I was trying to impress upon these fear driven thugs. And miraculously I never even had to use the bat, as they were so startled by my screaming for them to stop because he was a good man and they had made a mistake that everyone dropped their weapons and backed away. It was the most amazing, empowered, righteous feeling I have ever experienced.
And then I woke up. I woke up both from a very strange intense dream & I woke up from the foggy lie that I was worth too little to speak up and be heard. I truly believe that the Holy Spirit spoke to me through that dream; that He wanted to express to me the value in being heard and in stepping out in righteousness to speak out. I think He wanted me not just to hear but to truly believe that MY VOICE was given to me by my Creator as a beautiful & important part of His plan – and that to not use it, to hide from it, to deny it and not seek it would be grave denial of His power, His love & His strength to protect us. When I woke up this morning, I suddenly knew who I am and understood just how fearfully and wonderfully made I am: All for His glory.
To My Future Husband:
Don’t ever feel you have to lie to cover a mistake. The most perfect person can also be the most imperfect person. I’ll love you for you.
"I want to ride my bicycle, I want to ride my bike!"
- Me: When you walk to the store, will you look to see if there is a good spot to lock my bike up near the Starbucks?
- Best Friend Nick: You know I was thinking about it yesterday when I took your bike out. The brakes were actually kind of bad. And this isn't a very bike friendly area... sidewalks just end...
- Me: My brakes are bad? But I bought the bike refurbished?
- Best Friend Nick: Well let me show you... ::shows me::
- Me: Hm, well the bike is all rusted now from sitting out in my sister's shed for 9 months. When I bought it refurbished it had no rust.
- Best Friend Nick: Well it has rust now.
- Me: Maybe that's why the brakes don't work well.
- Best Friend Nick: Maybe.
- Me: Remind me, when I use this kind of bike lock don't I attached it to the main frame and the front wheel so people don't steal it?
- Best Friend Nick: Why are you asking me? I don't know anything about bikes. I don't have a mustache. Or wear a neck kerchief. Or wear tight jeans with one leg rolled up. I'm not some bike wielding hipster.
