thistle and weeds

77:1 I cry aloud to God,
 aloud to God, and he will hear me.
2 In the day of my trouble I seek the Lord;
 in the night my hand is stretched out without wearying;
 my soul refuses to be comforted.
3 When I remember God, I moan;
 when I meditate, my spirit faints. Selah

4 You hold my eyelids open;
I am so troubled that I cannot speak.
5 I consider the days of old,
the years long ago.
6 I said, 1 “Let me remember my song in the night;
let me meditate in my heart.”
Then my spirit made a diligent search:
7 “Will the Lord spurn forever,
and never again be favorable?
8 Has his steadfast love forever ceased?
Are his promises at an end for all time?
9 Has God forgotten to be gracious?
Has he in anger shut up his compassion?” Selah

10 Then I said, “I will appeal to this,
to the years of the right hand of the Most High.” 2

11 I will remember the deeds of the Lord;
yes, I will remember your wonders of old.
12 I will ponder all your work,
and meditate on your mighty deeds.
13 Your way, O God, is holy.
What god is great like our God?
14 You are the God who works wonders;
you have made known your might among the peoples.
15 You with your arm redeemed your people,
the children of Jacob and Joseph. Selah

16 When the waters saw you, O God,
when the waters saw you, they were afraid;
indeed, the deep trembled.
17 The clouds poured out water;
the skies gave forth thunder;
your arrows flashed on every side.
18 The crash of your thunder was in the whirlwind;
your lightnings lighted up the world;
the earth trembled and shook.
19 Your way was through the sea,
your path through the great waters;
yet your footprints were unseen. 3
20 You led your people like a flock
by the hand of Moses and Aaron.

Finding God in Difficult Transitions

“The Land Between- that space where we feel lost or lonely or deeply hurt- is fertile ground for our spiritual transformation and for God’s grace to be revealed in magnificent ways.” -Jeff Manion, The Land Between

In his book, The Land Between, Jeff Manion says that for many of us, the journey into the Land Between comes suddenly.  The journey comes suddenly with a conversation that drops into our lives:

“I don’t love you anymore.”

“Your mother and I are getting a divorce.”

“Dad, uh… I’m at the police station.”

“There’s been an accident.”

…the list goes on. One sentence throws us into that place “between” where we’re lost and are unable to navigate the terrain.  

Recently, I’ve been reading The Land Between: Finding God in Difficult Transitions. The book explores the way in which their reactions can provide insight and guidance on how to respond to God during our own seasons of difficult transition. For a long time, I was in this place where I felt lost. My future after graduation and my relationship with my mom after my parent’s divorce led me to this desert place.  Seeing the book on my shelf and following INDYCC, I thought it would probably be a good read.  Mike Erre spoke at Christmas Conference on how in your worst moments is where God does His best work.  The author in the book I’ve been reading concurs and discusses how God intends for us to emerge from this land radically reshaped.  It is our response that will determine if the journey will result in a positive growth or a journey that will end in spiritual decline. 

The book gives examples of Bible heroes that learn to trust God, cast their burdens on God, and that God provides.  Moses is at complete loss amidst leading the Israelites out of Egypt.

Numbers 11:11-15

11 Moses said to the LORD, “Why have you dealt ill with your servant? And why have I not found favor in your sight, that you lay the burden of all this people on me? 12 Did I conceive all this people? Did I give them birth, that you should say to me, ‘Carry them in your bosom, as a nurse carries a nursing child,’ to the land that you swore to give their fathers? 13 Where am I to get meat to give to all this people? For they weep before me and say, ‘Give us meat, that we may eat.’ 14 I am not able to carry all this people alone; the burden is too heavy for me. 15 If you will treat me like this, kill me at once, if I find favor in your sight, that I may not see my wretchedness.”

Moses lays out his heart before God and tell Him, “I can’t do this!” Anyone who is overwhelmed is crying those same words out. I cry those same words out when I struggle with the thought of my parent’s divorce.  Moses is honest with God and we have to do the same thing in prayer.  God is concerned for us and feels are every outcry, struggle, pain, sadness, etc. It’s often that our view of God will effect whether we decide to seek him in our time of collapse.  When I’m slow to pray, it would appear that I feel that God is somehow unconcerned with me.  I need to open my hands to receive God’s provision. 

“In the Land Between, we often feel left to fend for ourselves.  We feel wretched, beat up, desolate, and impoverished.  But God sees and hears.  And He provides.  Just as He did for Israel.  Just as He did for Moses.  He sees you even now.  Hear his words:  ”I have seen, I have heard, and I am concerned about you.”

I find myself often tired of waiting so I come up with my own plan.  In my impatience, I take matters into my own hands and try to figure it all out.  I question why God is not fixing everything.  I complain just like the Israelites being led by Moses.  But, God wants me to ask for his guidance and provision in the Land Between.  There are times when God is going to allow me to suffer need because He wants me to draw closer to Him. His glory will be demonstrated though suffering.  If life were easy and the Land Between was easy, we wouldn’t come to Christ.  God wants to take this desert I’m in and drive me back to Him. He yearns to meet us in our chaos and emotional cataclysm, and he intends for us to encounter his goodness and provision during these upsetting times.

 Jacob Wrestles with God (Genesis 32:22-30)

 ²² The same night he arose and took his two wives, his two female servants, and his eleven children, and crossed the ford of the Jabbok. ²³ He took them and sent them across the stream, and everything else that he had. ²⁴And Jacob was left alone. And a man wrestled with him until the breaking of the day. ²⁵ When the man saw that he did not prevail against Jacob, he touched his hip socket, and Jacob’s hip was put out of joint as he wrestled with him. ²⁶ Then he said, “Let me go, for the day has broken.” But Jacob said, “I will not let you go unless you bless me.” ²⁷ And he said to him, “What is your name?” And he said, “Jacob.” ²⁸ Then he said, “Your name shall no longer be called Jacob, but Israel, for you have striven with God and with men, and have prevailed.” ²⁹ Then Jacob asked him, “Please tell me your name.” But he said, “Why is it that you ask my name?” And there he blessed him. ³⁰ So Jacob called the name of the place Peniel, saying, “For I have seen God face to face, and yet my life has been delivered.”  

Day two into the year of 2012 and I am still completely and utterly amazed by how God worked in my heart over INDYCC during those last 4 days of 2011.  Before INDYCC, I constantly found myself wrestling with the circumstances in my life:

a. my future: What should I do with my art degree? I graduate in a semester. What was I going to do with my life. Consistently being asked, “What are you going to do after you graduate?” I kept taking the easy way out. I responded with something like, “I will probably go to graduate school for art history.” Almost a year ago, God put something on my heart and I continued to push it away. I ignored what God was saying to me and kind of just shrugged it off. I forgot about it for a while, but then when school started up again, there it was again.  I wrestled with the fear of not being good enough. The journey that God was taking me on scared me. 

b. my parents divorce: Constantly wrestling with my parents divorce that happened a year ago, I was still trying to fix everything, be the strong one and put my family back together. I wrestled with God in the fact that I didn’t understand why something like that had to happen to my family and why wasn’t He helping me fix it.

c. my relationship with my mom: Recently divorcing my dad, my mom began a new relationship. She’s already engaged to the guy. I don’t understand the way she has been handling the situation. She neglects the family and didn’t go to Thanksgiving or Christmas, which was weird since my mom kind of organizes everything.  I felt like I was constantly having to forgive my mom and she would just keep doing this ridiculous things. I was the only one to visit my mom and her fiance on Christmas. I wrestled with this circumstance and fought with God on why she couldn’t just open her eyes… I felt like I was the only one trying to be strong and still have a relationship with my mom, despite the betrayal I had received.

But guess what?!?!?! GOD IS GREATER THAN ALL OF THAT! IndyCC rocked my world! He is greater than my relationship with my mom, the fear I have for what God is calling me toward, and He’s greater than my parent’s divorce.  

Instead of trusting God, Jacob sent waves and waves of presents to Esau in effort to appease him.  Jacob feared Esau when he heard that Esau was on his way with 400 men (Genesis 32:6).  We all have the name and nature of Jacob.  We all have his tendency to wrestle with life and our circumstances.  I find myself always trying to take things into my own hands or to set my own agenda and plans.  I try to be so strong and work things out on my own.  But, everytime I do this the result is always the same: a mess of things that drives me to the river gorge, the banks of our own Jabbok (Genesis 32:22).   My family problems, financial problems, relational problems, and fear of the future took me to that river gorge…but in those, God has revealed Himself in the person of a loving, caring Savior: JESUS!

In Christ, we can have a new name, new nature, a new destiny, and secure future.  In Jacob’s wrestle with God, his faith and understanding was growing.  God blessed Jacob, not because He had to or was forced to, but because Jacob was ready to receive it.  When changing Jacob’s name, God was saying, “This is who you were.  From now on, you are the one who prevails with God, not wrestles with Him.”

It took INDYCC to make me realize that when I wrestle with life, I’m wrestling with God.  I have to surrender my life, my wills, my dreams, and schemes to the Lordship of Christ and let Him change me.  In those listed three areas/gaps of my life, God will do His best work in me.  He can make a new person out of my circumstances.  God is greater than my fears and future.  It’s not about what His plan is for my life, but what my place is in HIS PLAN.  When God calls you, He will stand with you. IndyCC made me realize that I have to stop wrestling with God and my life, but cling to Him and be comforted by the fact that He’s got this! 

We have to stop wrestling and start clinging to God!

“Behold, I have engraved you on the palms of my hands; your walls are continually before me.” —Isaiah 49:16

[Jacob Wrestling with the Angel, Eugene Delacroix]

Lately, I’ve had this harsh view about leggings and jeggings being worn as pants. Now, I don’t want anyone to think that I dislike leggings or jeggings; it’s the way they’re worn. I know I’m venting, but come on… it’s not necessary for me to see the shape of someone’s butt from their tight-fitting, spandex-like fabric. Leggings as pants=overexposure. If you’re going to wear leggings, at least wear a dress or something long enough to cover your butt and your front. Jeggings are leggings made to look like tight denim jeans; just because they look like jean material and often have back pockets doesn’t make them okay as “pants”; they’re still leggings!  I mean, come on! Perhaps, I’m a little to harsh because I’m really down to earth and style is something I could care less about. This blog might even be pointless, but I felt like it was necessary to vent. I really just don’t want to see that. It’s not at all flattering. So, I apologize for the rant. But after seeing jeggings worn the wrong way several times today, I couldn’t deal with it anymore. 

“we’re like a wink and a smile”

Days like today are always hard for me; it’s days where I have to head back to college, pull out the driveway and wave goodbye to my dad. Catching a glimpse of my dad’s smiling face as a I honk my car horn passing our home creates such a state of ambivalence.  One last look at my dad before leaving home, dimples are drawn on my face. I’m so happy, but at the same time sad to be leaving my dad at home.  Surrounded by the mixed state of emotions, I’m reminded of all the memories with my dad…like the time he taught me how to ride that stupid purple bicycle…riding in my dad’s Nova while listening to Paul Revere and the Raiders on cassette tape…or sitting at the kitchen table every thursday night when he would help me solve my Problem of the Week for math class. Those were the days… and now I sit here wishing I didn’t have to grow up…wishing I could just stay a kid and live with my dad forever.

Perhaps my dad is to blame for my dinosaur obsession. Just look in my kitchen and you’ll see the influence he has left on me. He’s the reason my house mates and I have pterodactyls flying from our kitchen ceiling.  We used to always go upstairs to the bookshelf and he’d show me all of his dinosaur books.  He took me upstairs last weekend to that same bookshelf and reminded me of his dinosaur book collection.  I’ll never forget the box of dinosaur flash cards he has kept all these years; the box is full of cards, each displaying a dinosaur and its dino background.  ”Triceratops- ‘three-horned face’, late Cretaceous period, herbivore, 26-30 ft. long, 7 ft. high, weight of 6-12 tons” (It might be sad that I just have that card memorized from childhood). 

I am pretty sure that I could write about my dad forever. There is one thing I need to say. It’s actually a pretty recent thing and I want to share it. My dad lost his mom right before I was born; he always talked about how beautiful and strong she was.  My dad always talks about how amazing she was and that she would do anything for anyone (sounds like she rubbed off on my dad). My Grandma Tevis put everyone else before herself and in doing so, it gave her joy.  Dad-e-o is just the same.  Dad and his family always went to church with their mom.  After my grandmother passed away, I think my dad just stopped going; it made him feel uneasy.  He never went with my mom, sister, and me when we were kids ( I mean, I didn’t even really know what I was going for…but that’s another story).  After accepting Christ in college, I immediately wanted my dad to come to church with me…he wouldn’t budge.  I didn’t push him too much because I knew why it made him feel uneasy. To make a long story short, it’s been a couple years later and the past two times I have seen my dad he has talked to me about praying.  He has talked about how he prays for my sister and me.  Of course it made me cry.  That’s the first time I’ve heard my dad say anything like that.  God is so awesome.  

So, as I sit here blogging, I’m thinking of how much I’d rather be in the garage with my dad…talking to him as he is working on his 67 Fairlane, discussing oldies music. It’s just my dad, sister, and me now at home and it’s been tough.  But the three of us have gotten so much closer. My dad is starting to smile more, he jokes around and is sarcastic, and he prays.  ;-)  My dad is always gallant, but knows when to let me be independent.  I’m so thankful for a hard working dad; one that’s down-to-earth, understands “family”, and a dad that gives me confidence & puts a grin on my face even on my worst days.  We’re like a wink and a smile.

Great white sharks, big storms - somehow, I think we like to be put in our place by awesome things. Dinosaurs do that.” -Sue Hendrickson

2 CORINTHIANS 4:7-18

⁷But we have this treasure injars of clay, to show that the surpassing power belongs to God and not to us. ⁸We areafflicted in every way, but not crushed; perplexed, but not driven to despair; ⁹persecuted, but not forsaken;struck down, but not destroyed; ¹⁰always carrying in the body the death of Jesus,so that the life of Jesus may also be manifested in our bodies. ¹¹For we who live are always being given over to death for Jesus’ sake, so that the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our mortal flesh. ¹²So death is at work in us, but life in you.

 ¹³Since we havethe same spirit of faith according to what has been written, “I believed, and so I spoke,” we also believe, and so we also speak, ¹⁴knowing thathe who raised the Lord Jesus will raise us also with Jesus andbring us with you into his presence. ¹⁵For it is all for your sake, so that asgrace extends to more and more people it may increase thanksgiving, to the glory of God.

¹⁶So we do not lose heart. Though our outer self is wasting away, our inner selfis being renewed day by day. ¹⁷For this light momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison, ¹⁸ as we look not to the things that are seen but to the things that are unseen. For the things that are seen are transient, but the things that are unseen are eternal.