naked

I would like to give you the impression that I am happy all of the time. But I'm not. My flaws get me down a lot. It's like sometimes I just can't trust God that He loves me no matter what. Sometimes I am afraid to approach His righteousness and glory because of my sins.

We've all run from Him, thinking in vain that we can hide from Him, or at least if we don't make too much of a commotion that He won't pay any mind to us.

God's grace bewilders me. I can't even listen to certain songs that talk about it without being emotionally floored. It's too wide and deep and great for me to grasp, but I must grasp that I am a part of it and have received it and can take part of it.

Let me share with you my burdens, but in doing so, I want you to accept them as the width and depth and greatness of God's love for me. Because I believe that He will heal me and restore me and deliver me from these things and their effects.

Probably the most prominent thing on my mind right now is the wedding. 78 days. I feel like a heifer. I have always promised myself that I would look my best for my husband on my wedding night and my insecurities are creeping up on me again. Never mind that I have already lost 32 lbs since my highest weight or that I have over two months to lose the last 15-20. I'm becoming what I warn other girls about, comparing myself to bikini models and feeling guilty about every calorie that goes into my mouth.

I envy the girl who posted this entry in May and said:

Something I am realizing that's true for every woman is that no matter what you have done in the past, no matter what you look like, no matter what kind of shape you're in, or what LIES people who love you have told you that have ingrained those doubts in your mind, YOU are worthy enough to be the best you can be. That doesn't have anything to do with a specific size or shape, it's about loving yourself and treating yourself accordingly. It's one of the hardest truths to accept, but so worth it!

I need to find that girl and let her kick my butt. Not because I'm worried about what JT will think when he sees me naked (teehee), but because I'm not going to let this wanton fear of failure keep me from being my best. I guess what I'm trying to say is: I'm scared that if I try to be the best I can be, I will fail. But won't trying be worth it no matter what kind of efforts I achieve?

Want to know something ironic? When I wrote that post, I was talking about how I finally ran two miles. That was a HUGE accomplishment for me, given I couldn't run a mile without stopping until last spring. If only I could've foreseen my attitude on running now! Maybe someday I will look back on this post and say the same thing. Self, look at you now!

Planning a wedding has been both fun and challenging. It's hard making decisions about the ceremony and reception when I didn't dream of those aspects when I was a little girl; I always dreamt of the marriage itself. I know it will all come together in the end and it will be the best day of my life. Of course, part of that will be because the planning is over.

The weirdest thing I am scared of about the wedding: birth control. It's my fourth day and I am watchful of every calorie I put in my mouth just because I have heard horror stories about what it does to the female body. My mind is a careful balance of watching out for the symptoms and trying not to imagine them into existence, if that makes sense.

Lately, I have also been burdened for a friend in college, probably my best male friend I met there. For reasons that I don't want to share right now, we don't talk much anymore and it's best that way. Through the grapevine, I have learned that he dropped out of grad school and is spending time with a group of friends who are a bad influence on him. This is a guy I was in ministry with in college, so it hurts me to see him decline. There is, however, always power in prayer.

So that's my lot lately, or at least the little set of hardships that make my blessings that much sweeter. Rejoice in them with me, and I will let you know how awesome God is, or in what specific ways at least.

2007

I can't believe it's over.

It's been the strangest year yet. When it began, I was freshly graduated and moved back to Tulsa against all better judgment, where I had no idea what I would do or how I would make friends.

In 2007, I...

• started the year off in a hotel room with some of my friends who had taken it upon themselves to take a VACATION to Tulsa of all places. I'd just spent 6 hours in the Portland airport coming home from my roommate's wedding.
  
• fell in love.
  
• got engaged to the love of my life!!
  
• lost 30 lbs and changed my lifestyle significantly. Still losing!
  
• went from barely being able to run a mile to running 9 miles in the Tulsa Run!
• started my first real big girl job.
• started my second real big girl job.
• changed career paths 3 times and tried to go back to school when I was still burnt out. Bad idea!
• visited oregon and south padre island.
• was introduced to The Ragamuffin Gospel.
  

So, let's recap.

In 2007, God was wonderful:

In a single year, my career aspirations went from making bank with a job that I hate, to starting at scratch schooling for physical therapy, to romanticizing a technical writing position that was basically a glorified data entry job, to where I am now in a job I have grown to love. Jobless to job I love because JT had a friend who had a friend.

In a single year, I picked up The Ragamuffin Gospel because it was recommended by an anointed artist, the late Rich Mullins. Instead of being guilty about my shortcomings and trying to make up for them with selfish motives, the author Brennan Manning showed me how God gives us permission to be free from sin and embrace it, not as imperfection but as a picture of grace and redemption. Because I picked up one CD that told me to read a book, I see God's love in an entirely different light, and what the book says about the Bible is right: true love and relationship free from rules and guilt has transforming powers!

In a single year, my steel determination to focus on a career and stay AWAY from men was forgotten for a man who is so good to me, makes me laugh everyday, and inspires me to grow individually. My fiance's example has gently challenged me to improve my habits, my attitude, and my appreciation for life not because he demands it from me, but because he inspires me and has finally led me to believe that I am worth being the best I can be. Because some friends randomly moved to Tulsa, I went from not knowing how I was going to meet someone to a woman months away from her wedding day.

As I look at where I am now compared to where I was on 01.01.07, I choose to recognize God's hand and His power to change a life and set of circumstances in a minute.

Ragamuffin Gospel, Part 3

Chapter 7-11 Quotes:

"The dichotomy between what we say and what we do is so pervasive in the church and in society that we actually come to believe our illusions and rationalizations and clutch them to our hearts like favorite teddy bears."

"In order to free the captive, one must name the captivity."

"I have fallen victim to what T.S. Eliot calls the greatest sin: to do the right thing for the wrong reason."

"The spiritual future for the ragamuffins consists not in disavowing that we are sinners but in accepting that truth with growing clarity, rejoicing in God's incredible longing to rescue us in spite of everything."

"We acknowledge that what makes a man righteous is not obedience to the Law, but faith in Jesus Christ." (Galatians 2:16)

"The way we are with each other is the truest test of our faith. How I treat a brother or sister from day to day, how I react to the sin-scarred wino on the street, how I respond to interruptions from people I dislike, how I deal with normal people in their normal confusion on a normal day may be a better indication of my reverence for life than the antiabortion sticker on the bumper of my car."

"Honesty brings an end to pretense through a candid acknowledgment of our fragile humanity. It is always unpleasant, and usually painful, and that is why I am not very good at it. But to stand in the truth before God and one another has a unique reward. It is the reward which a sense of reality always brings."

"Honesty before God requires the most fundamental risk of faith we can take: the risk that God is good, that God does love us unconditionally. It is in taking this risk that we rediscover our dignity. To bring the truth of ourselves, just as we are, to God, is the most dignified thing we can do in this life."

"In love there can be no fear, but fear is driven out by perfect love, because fear is to expect punishment, and anyone who is afraid is still imperfect in love." (I John 4:18)

"Freedom in Christ produces a healthy independence from peer pressure, people-pleasing, and the bondage of human respect. The tyranny of public opinion can manipulate our lives."

"In Christ Jesus freedom from fear empowers us to let go of the desire to appear good, so that we can move freely in the mystery of who we really are."

"For most of us, it takes a long time for the Spirit of freedom to cleanse us of the subtle urges to be admired for our studied goodness. It requires a strong sense of our redeemed selves to pass up the opportunity to appear graceful and good to other persons."

"Living by grace inspires a growing consciousness that I am what I am in the sight of Jesus and nothing more. It is His approval that counts. Making our home in Jesus, as He makes His in us, leads to creative listening."

"The call asks, do you really accept the message that God is head over heels in love with you. I believe that question is the core of our ability to mature and grow spiritually. If in our hearts we don't believe that God loves us as we are, if we are still tainted by the lie that we can go do something to make God love us more, we are rejecting the message of the cross."

"Faith means you want God and want to want nothing else...To be Christian, faith has to be new, that is, alive and growing."

"I could more easily contain Niagara Falls in a tea cup than I can comprehend the wild, uncontainable love of God."

"If we believe in the exciting message of Jesus, if we hope in vindication, we must love, and even more, we must run the risk of being loved."

"God wants us back even more than we could possibly want to be back."

"The nature of God's love for us is outrageous. Why doesn't this God of ours display some taste and discretion in dealing with us?...No, the love of our God isn't dignified at all, and apparently that's the way He expects our love to be. Not only does He require that we accept His inexplicable, embarrassing kind of love, but once we've accepted it, He expects us to behave the same way with others."

"I am being told anew in the unmistakable language of love, 'I am with you, I am for you, I am in you, I expect more failure from you than you expect from yourself.'"

"Most of us spend considerable time putting off things we should be doing or would like to do or we want to do -- but are afraid to do. We are afraid of failure...Each of us pays a heavy price for our fear of falling flat on our face. It assures the progressive narrowing of our personalities and prevents exploration and experimentation. As we get older we do only the things we do well."

"The Christian with depth is the person who has failed and who has learned to live with it."

"What the man of God longs for in shepherds -- daring enough to be different, humble enough to make mistakes, wild enough to be burnt in the fire of love, real enough to make others see how phony we are."

"The ragamuffin who sees his life as a voyage of discovery and runs the risk of failure has a better feel for faithfulness than the timid man who hides behind the law and never finds out who he is at all."

"The secret of the mystery is: God is always greater. No matter how great we think Him to be, His love is always greater."

Beauty in the Breakdown

I am days away from my 22nd birthday.

Do I feel old? No.

Am I nostalgic? Not really.

Am I scared? Scared to death.

I have been wrestling myself lately. My dreams are slowly coming true right before my eyes, but I am still almost crippled by doubts that I'm not doing right in God's eyes. That every decision I make is wrong, a setback, a disgrace to God. These are all Satan's designs, I recognize them. They make me incredibly fickle, my stomach's in knots, and I don't like it. I need a stronger prayer life. My defenses are weakened.

JT and I went on a prayer walk last night. We prayed for renewed hope, a clear future, the fruits of the spirit, and for all of our loved ones who are suffering right now. There are a lot! My emotions are a roller coaster right now. You lucky readers have the privilege of experiencing the highs and lows of LB's inner workings.

I am confident that I will follow up this post with a "what was I thinking?", even delete it. But I have to be bare and honest right now.

"His power is made perfect in weakness." Someday I will see how his power is being perfected in me! :)

The Ragamuffin Gospel

Today I decided to read through my favorite book, The Ragamuffin Gospel by Brennan Manning. It focuses on salvation as something humans cannot attain, but as a free gift from God through His grace alone and denied to no one, not even the ragamuffins, or the "poor in spirit;" those who have nothing significant to their names but the grace of God. Here are my favorite quotes from the first three chapters:

"When I get honest, I admit I am a bundle of paradoxes. I believe and I doubt, I hope and get discouraged, I love and I hate, I feel bad about feeling good, I feel guilty about not feeling guilty. I am trusting and suspiscious. I am honest and I still play games. Aristotle said I am a rational animal; I say I am an angel with an incredible capacity for beer" (26).

"...we have been given so much: eyes to see and hands to touch, a mind to shape ideas, and a heart to beat with love. We have the power to believe where others deny, to hope where others despair, to love where others hurt. This and so much more is sheer gift; it is not reward for our faithfulness, our generous disposition, or our heroic life of prayer. Even our fidelity is a gift"
(27).

"In essence, there is only one thing God asks of us -- that we be men and women of prayer, people who live close to God, people for whom God is everything and for whom God is enough. That is the root of peace. We have that peace when the gracious God is all we seek. When we start seeking something besides Him, we lose it" (46).

"The gospel portrait of Jesus is that of a person who cherished life and especially other people as loving gifts from the Father's hand" (61).

"Perhaps the real dichotomy in the Christian community today is not between conservatives and liberals or creationists and evolutionists but between the awake and the asleep" (70).

II Corinthians 12:9 - "But he said to me, 'My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.' Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ's power may rest on me."

This could all be over soon...

I have been praying specifically to have a job by the end of this week.

Here's to faith and trust and thanksgiving!

::edit::

I stumbled across an old friend's blog. After he graduated a year ago, he became a full-time sailor and has seen a crazy amount of blue map since I've last seen him. On leaving the British Virgin Islands:

"Always a good place to be in life: loving where I am, and loving where I am going. Hopefully I can keep it up." - Ben

That is my aspiration.

"You will show me the path of life
In Your presence is fullness of joy
At Your right hand are pleasures forevermore."
-Psalm 16:11

Broken Down

My throat is much better. The fever is gone. My boyfriend came by yesterday and we went for a nice walk in the sunshine. Since then, I've felt volumes better. My appetite's back (!!!), I can swallow, and I can lift my own head. I do have a tension headache right now, and am suffering side-effects from the antibiotics, but I'll be off those soon, hopefully!

I had a breakdown tonight. Those are hard to come by, and something I am proud of when they are successfully achieved. Its brokenness that I want, the essence of my human nature shattered into little pieces. All of the wants, the desires, the urges, the fleeting, the feelings, the worries. Gone.

Unfortunately, that can include dreams, security, and things essential to happiness on earth. But it doesn't include love. Nothing can separate me from Christ's love.

One of those days

"Worth it All"
Rita Springer

I don't understand Your ways
Oh but I will give You my song
Give You all of my praise
You hold on to all my pain
With it You are pulling me closer
And pulling me into Your ways

Now around every corner
And up every mountain
I'm not looking for crowns
Or the water from fountains
I'm desperate in seeking, frantic believing
That the sight of Your face
Is all that I need
I will say to You

It's gonna be worth it
It's gonna be worth it
It's gonna be worth it all
I believe this
It's gonna be worth it
It's gonna be worth it
It's gonna be worth it all
I believe this

Go listen to it on my MySpace, or Rita Springer's. It's amazing!