Married!!!!!!!!!!!!!

The Truest Thing

Once upon a time I was very disillusioned with “love.” I was bitter and resentful of love because in my hurt heart it didn’t really exist and only led to deep pain. But at the same time I longed for a prince to sweep me off my feet and carry me away to peaceful gardens of intimacy and healing and trust and security and comfort and … love. Somehow in my heart I still believed it was possible. But I was getting old, and all my friends were dropping like flies to wedded bliss, leaving me in the dust to rot and fester, alone with my secret impossible wishes and cynical mumblings under my breath after wishing them the best. Not totally alone though, I still had my just-as-single sister to share the “I-want-a-man sighs” with.
Eventually though, I got friends. Good friends. And I was so busy loving and living life with them and seeing God’s love through them that my pathetic thoughts of the awefulness of singleness got forgotten. Life was good.
Then lo and behold! One of those good friends became a great friend. And that great friend became much much more than just a friend. We fell in love! Right when I least expected it!
And now I’m one of those people that I would’ve secretly hated about a year ago!
Sorry sister… I hate to leave you single without me.
Now love has an entirely new meaning to me. And I ponder its wonderfulness quite often. Especially being loved has captured my thoughts. It’s a beautiful thing to love, but it’s in fact quite a miracle to believe and know you are loved.
There are countless poems and songs and musings on LOVING. But where are all the poems and songs and musings on BEING LOVED?
I think it’s something marvelous and healing to come to a place of really accepting another’s love for you. Maybe I think so because I come from a past of severe low self-esteem and low self-worth. To me, coming to a point of allowing someone to really truly love me is such an awesome miracle.
It brings healing and freedom and adventure and life!!
I don’t think I will ever tire of talking about love now. Funny how things change.
A word of wisdom to those who are where I was before, longing to BE loved. NEVER SETTLE. You know when you are even if you try to convince yourself you’re not. As hard as it can be at times, LISTEN to that still small voice telling you how you are worth so much more then what could be settled for.
The only way to begin allowing yourself to BE loved and to believe that you are worth more…. BELIEVE that God truly unconditionally loves you no matter what you do or have done…. HE LOVES YOU AMAZINGLY! I wish that I could tell you how much God loves without sounding even the slightest bit cliché… cause it’s the truest thing there ever was.

Oh Love

I’m getting increasingly unsatisfied with my job as the economy spirals downward and there are no jobs to be found especially for my new American clients who are now facing tougher competition in the job market than ever since I’ve worked here. Not only that but refugee arrivals are low, so I have fewer participants to work with and finding myself twiddling my thumbs quite a bit. But thanks be to God, I am going to part time June 1st! I am so excited about this. And even more exciting is that soon after I will be married!

Just a few months ago I was telling my friends that my goal in life at the time was to get married and work part time. My dreams are coming true! And who else but my best friend to make that happen!

I could go on for ever about how wonderful my fiancé is. I am truly the luckiest girl in the universe. He rocks my world. God is so so good to us. He’s given us the most amazing gift of love. Every day with him gets better and better.

I have learned so much about love and being loved. Letting myself BE loved has been more challenging than loving. I know that if I were where I was two years ago in my journey, this relationship would be a lot different. God has brought me to an awesome place being able to accept God’s love for me. It’s not been easy, but it’s been good. And I know that I know that I know that He loves me. No matter what I do or have done.

Learning to accept God’s love for me is an awesome journey.

Learning to accept Jaron’s love me is its own journey, but similar, and it’s not always been easy either. Just like in my journey of learning God’s love for me, I have moments of doubt and insecurity, working at developing a trust. Drawing on my knowledge of God’s love and trust in Him has been the building blocks of accepting love from Jaron. Without my acceptance of God’s love I know it would be amazingly difficult to accept Jaron’s love. Lies try to creep in reminding me how dark I am and telling me that no one could ever see past the things I’ve done, telling me that I will never be good enough or worth enough. All these things were dealt with when I realized God’s love for me. It seems strange to go through it all again with a person. You’d think I’d be over it. But those dark things have crept back. But I’m finding myself more secure in the possibility of them being forgotten, forgiven and even making me who I am today. And reaffirming reassuring reconfirming the fact that I AM accepted, I am lovely, I am worthwhile, I AM LOVED.

Living Loved changes your life.

It’s so awesome how powerful love is. Knowing the love of God kills the lies and opens me up to a deeper relationship with him. And it’s so cool to experience this human relationship with Jaron because it’s been an illustration of what happened in my heart with God. I have no need to be afraid of my past or afraid of being rejected when I know I am loved. Because Perfect Love casts out fear. And I can say (still with shy confidence) that I KNOW Jaron loves me! And this knowledge opens up a deeper relationship with him.

To be honest, I am still not fully there. Still find it hard at times to entrust my whole heart to someone. Still dealing with past hurts. But I’m not afraid to go there. I’m not afraid to let Love heal me. And He is. The healing I’ve experience since my relationship with Jaron has begun has been incredible. I want to allow myself to be loved by Jaron and unshakably believe that he does. I do not want to be afraid of getting hurt. I know it’s possible for him to hurt me, but that is the risk you take when entrusting your heart to someone.

I used to be afraid of loving Jaron too much or even trusting him, because I don’t want to put him on a pedestal or give him honor that is due to God, and knowing that humans fail and I can’t fully trust them, that only God is trustworthy. But God is revealing to me a proper way of loving Him and others. There is No Fear in Love! I am FREE to love Jaron with my whole heart! I do not need to be afraid of a divided heart. Love is a miracle. I can love God with my whole heart AND love Jaron with my whole heart. True Love is limitless and bottomless! And I know that God lives IN Jaron, and to love Jaron is to love God too (that is not to say that Jaron is God by any means!) And I can trust Jaron, because I trust God! And I know that God has given me Jaron, and I can trust God with my trust of Jaron.

I don’t have to be afraid of putting Jaron above God, or afraid of making sure I put God first.

I Love Jaron

God IS Love. There He is, right between us :)

It’s not about a priority list. It’s about understanding who Love is and having a proper perspective of how it’s even possible to love. If anyone is afraid of putting a person above God it is only because they don’t have a proper perspective of Love. When I truly love someone, it is impossible to dishonor God with that. Because True Love includes wanting the other person to know God’s Love. God commands us to love one another. If there are cases of someone’s “love” for another distracting them from a relationship with God, then I would say they have a misunderstanding of who Love really is and question that persons “love” for the other.

I am my Beloved’s and He is mine and we are His.

I'm Engaged!!

I am so in love.

And he is so in love with me.

And we are going to have the most amazing life together.

I am so excited!

...

wow

Redefining Life

I'm on this Sweet Journey. I love where He's taking me.

If I could sum up whats going on with me in one word right now, that word would be

Unlearning

And in all the unlearning is coming more learning then ever. My brain is so full of stuff that its becoming hard to sort and process. That might be evident whiles trying to read this. But it's an exciting time for me. I feel like I'm part of something bigger than myself. I think we all are, we just have to come to the realization of that and believe it's true.

I'm unleanrning a lot of definitions for things that I've been taught my entire life. I'm realizing that most of the things I've learned have completely different meanings and implications then we think they do. In fact, I'm starting to realize that most things we think we know are probably much different in reality-His reality. And that all started with re-difining CHURCH.

It's funny how the English language works. If I say one word, you immediately and almost involuntarily have a host of implications and preset ideas for what you think that word means and what you think I mean when I use that word. If I could change my vocabulary to say what I really mean instead of what people think I mean because of their assumptions, I would. But then I wouldn't make sense then either, cuz the real meaning behind the things I now know is so uncommon in this world today. (But I am so blessed to find kindred spirits here and there who speak the same language as me). Here are some other things I'm coming to redefine:

CHRISTIAN

DISCIPLE

LOGICAL

RELIGION

PASTOR

TEACHER

LEADER

THE WORD

REALISTIC

I'm unlearning this thing that's happened to me in the last couple years... many would call it ADULT. It's this thing that happened gradually. But it's changed me, and one day I wake up and wonder how did I get here, and where did that place I used to live go? Like realizing you must've eaten some forbidden fruit a while back, but not realizing that it affected you til now, and not even remembering taking a bite. This place of taking life seriously, knowing the difference between realistic and unrealistic, and as if the choice to chose what's realistic is more responsible and more adultish. It's this thing that tells you that dreams and adventures are just not logical at this point, that you have to think with your head and not your heart cuz that only causes pain and difficulty. That taking risks is silly and childish. That being childish is not an option. Stick to what makes sense and what you can explain. But is that really what it is to be an adult? The truth is, not everything can be explained. Not everything that seems unrealistic is unrealistic. And is it really so bad to be child like? I want to have a child like heart. And I think Jesus would have that for me too.

I've become adicted to these podcasts. There's so much TRUTH in them that after listening I can't help but Praise Jesus for his absolute GOODNESS.

Here's just a couple nuggets of those Truths that have rocked my world this week (I'm sure Brad and Wayne won't mind me throwing them out here):

You know you've created God in your own image when he hates all the same people you do

He's not gonna yank us out of our stuff without our cooperation

Presence of love does not mean absence of difficulty or pain

What HE did is what saves us, not my ability to chose him

Nothing motivates humanity like fear
No passion so effectively robs the mind of all its powers of acting and reasoning as fear. -Edmund Burke
My brain hinders what I’m actually capable of
I wanna be who I am whether or not anyone is watching.
The opposite of black and white thinking is not grey….. its color, everywhere!

Equally challenging, stimulating, enlightening, and enthralling are the ongoing conversations I am blessed to have with one-of-the-coolest-people-in-the-whole-world. Living the Life and embracing the Journey in the most real way I've ever been privileged to see, and finding that myself. One of the ongoing themes in our conversations has been about Heart and Mind stuff. Knowing stuff in your mind and knowing stuff in your heart. Almost everything that comes out his face is profound and amazing and I can't get enough. And I am learning more and more about who Jesus is. And Jesus is... the best! Words are puny and fail here, greatly.

Check this out: Matisyahu go to song index, and search under "K" for "King Without a Crown". It's so great! It's making me really happy right now.

Randomness on being Church

Some thoughts of mine from June 08 jotted down whiles restling with "what is this thing we do called church" and why I'd come to be so disillusioned with it and what I was coming to realize about what really matters.

The only relavent Truth is Truth lived out -Wayne Jacobsen

Love God, love people
Encounter God in one another
BE not DO
Learn of him.
Live in him.
Have an encounter in him.
Live in encounter with him.
Be his encounter to those around you.

Jesus is not an example/model to follow, He is a life to be lived through us.

On being intentional:
Intentionally Be Who I am. Intentional Tension

Disciple...
Problem with terms, definitions
Jesus didn’t ask them to reproduce a model, but to teach and make lovers of himself
Not a hierarchy
We all need each other wherever we’re at
“levels” and “subgroups” should not be divided
New can learn from old, old can learn from new
Revelation downloaded in all

When does it end? When do we graduate to being a discipler or disciplee? We all are both. Teaching each other to be who we are.

Love God Love people…. simply

Everyone who knows Jesus IS part of the Body…. They don’t need to work toward that, just to realize it

We don’t know what it means to be the Body. We’ve been super brain washed by American how-to-do-church. We don’t even know what it looks like to function as the Body. We waste so much time with systems and formulas, it leaves little space for real Body Life. We don’t trust the Holy Spirit to really lead. We have misconceptions about leadership and discipleship. We’re too focused on results and goals, that simply loving on Jesus and waiting on him without a quantifiable result seems like we’ve failed somehow.

Poop on religion

Not about changing the “agenda”,… its about throwing the agenda OUT. ugh…. How do you change a mindset? It has to be a revelation from the Lord.

When asked if I didn't want to continue with the Bible Study... It's not a matter of wanting to continue or not… how can we stop being the Body? It’s a matter of realizing who we are

No levels
No scales
We just are
I want to know it like I know how to breathe

I’m nobody and I’m everybody. We are One Body!

Most cleverest incites taken from Wayne Jacobsen www.thegodjourney.com