More than conquerors.

The past few weeks I’ve been thinking about the past. Maybe it has to do with the fact that I am not-so-much loving the now and not exactly ecstatic about the future as things are going. Or maybe it is just because I’m starting to realize how much I miss certain people and what they all brought to my life.

I can’t deny it, I’ve seen better days and the best days were spent one fine year in Lubbock, Texas with some of the sweetest, loving Godly women I am honored to have called friends. The best summer was “Bible study summer” when our “Bible study” was really short for “a couple of girls who wanted to love God and others more and had a great time helping each other do so.” I loved eating spaghetti and sleeping on Amy and Magen’s couch - sweet, sweet Magen who came to my rescue after my accident and Amy who decided we should chase bunnies in her Jeep. There were gentle, compassionate Adrienne and Catherine who never hesitated to give me a ride when I had no car and feed me when I was low on money. And, Miss Amelia Doty. Everything she ever said to me was either extremely funny or made me feel beautiful… two extremes, yes, but she is an extreme girl. She randomly called me last night to share something funny with me. I hadn’t talked to her since the summer!

Anyway, I am really just rambling on about things I haven’t forget and don’t want to forget. There are many other of my Phi Lamb girls I failed to mention, like my handful of roommates at 303 that never saw each other but managed to learn how to live and love in an apartment of four girls and moldy strawberries. But after one of the roughest years of my life, I asked God to help me out and for some crazy reason I joined Sigma Phi Lambda. Well, it’s not so much a crazy reason as it was the answer to my plea as God blessed me with a huge group of full of encouragement, love, and just good ol’ fun.

I miss it. Not just those girls, but knowing I had that kind of love completely surround me. Or maybe I just need to open my eyes a little wider and not be so afraid to love as those girls loved me. Or as He first loved us.

My pledge verse:
No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.” Romans 8:37-39

Insecurities, inconsistancies.

I finally went to a church last Sunday. It’s been too many months, for sure. Of course I was hesitant but I really got a chance to worship and learn at FUMC Carrollton. I also went to the evening contemporary service my friend Dane leads worship for. It was good to hear those “old” songs we’d sing at the Wesley. I call them “old” because they are actually relatively new worship songs from such artists as Shane Barnard, David Crowder, and the like.

I’ve also tried to take a little bit of each day to read more of Don Miller’s book, Searching for God Knows What. It’s not as easy of a read as Blue Like Jazz, but I feel that it reaches deeper than Blue did. I love how Don is taking the whole entire book to say over and over again –

Christianity is Relational.

It makes so much sense that we manage to put aside having a relationship with Christ to pay more attention to morality, becoming relevant to the new culture, and just trying to prove others that Christianity is “right.” Since I haven’t had to work much this week, it became a perfect time to look at my relationships, specifically with Jesus and with my close friends. I figure I should look at these first since I come into contact with them every day, yeah? Both relationships are far from perfect and realized that a lot of it has to do with my insecurities. Don’s lifeboat and circus analogies hit home - I am definitely guilty of competing for a higher rung, specifically on the friendship ladder. Why I feel it is so important that I am better than so-and-so friend, I have no idea.

In fact, there’s a lot of things I do that I can’t explain why I do. There’s a whole load of things people do in general and it’s tough to stop others and ask them, “Have you stopped to think why you’re doing this? Like, what’s the point of this?” Others tend to look at you like you’re crazy unless you happen to have enough time to explain that you’re reading this book that reminds you of how radical Jesus really was and how far, far away we are from heaven on earth.

I don’t know. Sometimes you get so fired up you want to say a hundred billion things but to every one you can and realize that’s not how it works. Gotta spread the Truth one by one. Relationship by relationship. It’s tough, but what else are we going to do on earth?

My day off.

This morning I woke up feeling very unsure. I wasn’t so sure as to what I was unsure of, but either way, there was a bit of discontent stirred up within me. It’s my two day off stretch and I needed to find things to do, to occupy my mind, but not so much that it caused the slightest bit of stress.

I went to the bookstore. Everytime I go, I vow to return more frequently. I’m a sucker for the smell of books plus the smell of overpriced coffee. There was a time where I’d read books often. During class, waiting for dinner, before bed, and in the middle of the night… Now I just read books to try and grasp a better understanding of my life which is seemingly flying by. Yes, I’ve got my Bible, but my being wants to hear another soul searching like I am, one who is a step ahead of their search. It’s a bit weird to admit, but within a few months, I’ve grown to trust Don Miller. I think it has a lot to do with his rambling style and how I can relate it to my rambling mouth. Every now and again, I’d like to think I say something worth saying like Miller does in his stories.

“Relationships aren’t the best thing, if you ask me. People can be quite untrustworthy, and the more you get to know them — by that I mean the more you let somebody know who you really are — the more it feels as though something is at stake. And that makes me nervous. It takes me a million years to get to know anybody pretty well, and even then the slightest thing will set me off. I feel it in my chest, this desire to dissociate.”

I have a temporary roommate for a few weeks. I also refer to this temporary roommate as my best friend. With all best friends come stories of trials but with those trials, a strengthening in relationship. We’ve gotten to know each other extremely well, but there are still things I probably wouldn’t tell her and even worse, vice versa. Is this an issue of trust? The fact that if we tell the truth to each other, something disastrous would occur, shattering the fragileness of the friendship? What is it that we’re afraid of? What is if that I’m afraid of? Why is it that a person longs to have relationships with others but at the same time scared to death that the relationship would go forward?

And it’s times like these that I see the parallel of me needing a relationship on earth as needing a relationship with my Heavenly Father. That’s a no-brainer, I guess. The hard part is putting that into action.

Anyway, that’s what happens when I get a day off. Time to think.

Teach a man to fish again…

So after typing up a storm about trust, the following day I managed to temporarily lose my trustworthiness from someone.

It was strange. My first reaction was to try and cover up my mistake but it was clear that feelings had already been hurt. My second reaction was to retaliate and reverse the pointed finger. Thankfully, I reached a better reaction in confessing I had screwed up and asking for forgiveness. Sincerely, I asked for forgiveness.

I grew up with a parent whose finger was always pointed in every direction but his own. Well, I say “grew” but not much has changed. As far as I can remember, any and all responsibilities I could handle or had to figure out how to handle were put on my shoulders. I suppose this sped up my learning process, but I think, at the same time, I ended up eating the blame if anything was to ever go wrong. I had two choices. I could either fight back in the unfairness of a 10-year kid having to navigate the family through our first visit to San Antonio or I could do as I was told.

So I did as I was told.

Again, not much has changed. I think I have grown into a very obedient, yet passive person, often times susceptible to getting taken advantage of. I have a servant’s heart, but neglect to take care of it at times. But what could I have become if I had been stubborn growing up? Headstrong and outspoken, I’m sure. Characteristics that I sometimes wish I had… characteristics that might make me a more well-rounded leader. But I can’t imagine talking back to my parents and I can’t imagine fighting to my right to be right everytime.

There must be a happy medium. A time to admit your wrongs, but a time to admit you’re right. Being able to ask for forgiveness and being able to forgive someone. Being able to work things out but never compromising your beliefs.

Anyway. In other fun news, I was added onto someone’s RSS feed. That was pretty cool to know someone that actually knows what an rss feed is. And my songs were added to someone’s iPod today. That was kind of strange to know, but slightly cool at the same time. Ok, ok, I’ll admit it, I’m really honored to be in an iPod.

Teach a man to fish, and there’s no “I” in team.

So how do you teach someone to trust?

I’ve rambled to a few people about what I think about this and now I’m rambling here. Trust is kinda sorta like a house of playing cards. It takes awhile to set the foundation and that’s if you even want to bother trying to make the house in the first place. Then, it’s a lot of sweat and shaky hands. It takes a lot of work. But man, does that house look cool or not once you start running out of cards and start sitting back and smiling? Oh, but wait a minute. One wrong move and WHOOSH! No more house. Unless you built a good foundation, then maybe, just maybe, you don’t have to start all over. (Does that analogy work?)

Alright. We’ve settled the fact that trust takes a whole load of work to build up and one wrong move and we’re back to square one. Or even negative square one. But either way, how do we retrain ourselves to trust? Or if we were at fault, how do we earn back trust? To answer the latter, I think we need to answer the former.

We have to learn to trust someone before we can expect them to trust us. You have to pull the trigger first or chance waiting at the starting line with no one knowing when to launch forward. This first step, for most, is the hardest part. We were born dependent, but quickly we learn that the world is a tricky place full of tricky people and sometimes those tricky people are your friends. Sometimes the people that let you down the most are people who are near and dear to your heart and man, that hurts. So when we get back up and we’re given the choice to rebuild what was broken, we are naturally going to be hesitant. Questions, questions. Do I want to trust? How much will I trust? Why can’t I trust?

Hmm. I John 4:19 says, “We love Him because He first loved us.” We can safely change that to “We trust Him because He first trusted us.” Who doesn’t know the story of Adam and Eve? Who doesn’t know that God created them and then gave them all sorts of stuff to be in charge of. He gave them land. He gave them animals. And although we mucked that up, God still trusts us with the ultimate responsibility of loving Him and showing His love to others. He still trusts us. He still loves us.

What am I trying to say. I Cor 13 says love “always trusts.” We are not to lean on our own understanding, but to trust the Lord with all our heart. So, while we are not necessarily supposed to completely trust others, we are at least to exemplify the trustworthiness of the Lord to others by being trustworthy first. And then, perhaps, that person may learn to trust.

Oh my gosh, it is late and I will wake up and not understand a word of this.