Changes.

Everything about the way this next year will be lived out is so vastly different from the way in which my life has been spent for the last many years. Extreme simplicity. Minimal possessions. No vehicle. Infinitely more time to focus and concentrate. Something other than logging hours at a job for 40-65 hours a week. It's enough change to shock me and make me want to sob with a strange mix of emotions & almost feels like I'm in another country or something.

I'm very excited. Excited to pull myself far from the several very strong factors that contributed to severe overwork, clouded views of myself and life, and too much stress. (Sometimes there are things that just pull you too far in the wrong direction and instead of exhaustedly standing there trying to fight it the best thing you can do is physically walk away). I'm happy to be much more simple with much less technology. I'm practically shaking with anticipation over getting to be still and listen to the voice of my King rather than hit the ground running by 4:15 every morning. And I can't wait to listen to the Spirit as a job description and practice functioning in my gifts with my co-workers.

The best way to move towards being as dynamic and powerful for the Kingdom as possible is to remove what's in the way.

Too scared NOT to.

You would think after years of short term missions trips I would understand that God loves to provide. However, the last few weeks I have been finding myself terrified numerous times everyday. Obviously this is pointing out that I have some serious faith issues. It's not the giving up of my things or car or leaving home that bothers me. Its the fact that I have to fully trust God to provide for me financially every day. I have never been in a situation that requires this much trust before. On one hand, I want to say "No" to living like this. On the other, I am catching just a glimpse of who Jesus is and what it means to ignore Him when He calls you to go or do in utter blind faith. It means insulting Him. Telling Him He can't or doesn't care enough to handle it. It also means missing out on something that could possibly be more incredible than anything you'd imagined.

I've been reading George Meuller's writings a lot lately. I want half the faith this man had! He started that orphanage on nothing. He'd tell the kids to sit and pray for their meal, while having nothing to give them. Then He would thank God for the food He was about to provide. And every time, a bread or milk truck would break down right outside. Or someone would show up.

I keep going back to the concept of not seeing God do the impossible on a daily basis because we're too scared to live in a way that ALLOWS for it. As scared as I am to step into this new way of living in trust, I'm beginning to be more scared of saying no.

"How do you expect to strengthen your faith without allowing opportunities for your faith to be tried? It's in the trying of your faith that it becomes stronger." -George Mueller

Texas (Part 2)

I've talked for years about wanting to live in Texas. I have a thing about the south. So I'm okay with moving. With getting rid of many of my possessions and just going. With not having a car. With not knowing anybody there. It's a bit stretching, but I'm okay. The part I really struggle with is finances. You see, you have to raise support while you're an apprentice. You're living missionally. And THAT terrifies me. 

Since I was 14, I've worked. Always. I can't remember a time more than a few months long where I didn't have a job. I've worked too much and too hard if I'm just bluntly honest. I was taught the mentality of over-working being what there is to life and I still haven't fully unlearned it. (For the past 3 years, I've gotten up by 4:00am on a majority of my mornings. And I am WORN. Hey, I'm broken and Jesus is working on me, okay?)

The thought that I should raise $2500 in the next two weeks and around $900/month support for living and ministry expenses is mind-numbing. Like...I can't actually get my mind around it. Never have I lived life like this. Never. Moving everything I have alone to another part of the country on trust that God will prompt supporters for me to sustain?! So THIS is what it's like. I always wondered what my missionary friends felt. I don't know about them, but I've been breaking down all week. Fear is absolutely trying to paralyze me and take me over. I'm wrestling with God in a way I never have before. But here's two beautiful parts of that.....

1. I'm wrestling with God. Wrestling. Hmmm. Thinking about the act of wrestling. It's quite intimate, really. So maybe-just maybe-God is allowing me to go through this stage of wrestling because He wants intimacy with me. He wants to get all twisted and jumbled and close and personal. Hmmmm....

2. The Spirit prompted me the other day to remember being a younger child. When I was young, I didn't think about finances. That wasn't my concern. That was Daddy's job. I just hung out with him. Went where he went. Lived where he told me to. Rode along. Shopped when he shopped. Ate where he wanted to go eat. And it was my dad's job to take care of the money. Even to this day- I have never once doubted when he said he'd take care of it. And my father is just a guy. A flawed guy. So if I trust HIM so much, how much more can I trust that father GOD will provide?! It's not like He doesn't own it all, anyway! Yet here I am, worried and freaking out about providers. HE is the provider. HE has called me. I have to go hang out where he says. And trust he'll take care of the rest. I don't know about you, but I found that to be pretty cool! 

Texas (part 1)

It's one thing to rant and rave about being audacious and just jumping into an unknown adventure with Jesus rather than choosing to stay and have a life of "knowns" IN a place you know.

And we could spend all day talking about the fact that perhaps the reason we don't seem to witness the God of constant miracles and defiance of the impossible like in the "old days" is because we are choosing to live such a self-sufficient lifestyle that we aren't ALLOWING for it. 

But we could talk all day and it doesn't mean a thing. Even going on several trips half-way across the world doesn't mean THAT much when I know I'm coming home to a job and income and the ability to fend for myself. I THOUGHT I'd grasped trusting God to provide. But this week I'm finding out I haven't even begun to get the picture. 

On Monday I received a phone call that I'm accepted as an apprentice with an awesome organization called Center for Student Missions (CSM). They specialize in urban ministry/missions in larger cities throughout the U.S. And I get to enter a very cool program of training and learning about leadership in ministry/missions. 

So in two weeks, I will be on a plane moving to Houston, Texas. Not sure of what the next year holds or the adventures to be had. Simultaneously ecstatic and terrified about this new chapter filled with new everything. 

Maybe I choose tired.

I'm tired. Just.So.Tired. 

Tired of working so much more than most of the whiners I serve every morning. Tired of the feelings of inadequacy I experience with making coffee at my age. Tired of fighting with my weight. Tired of the shame that quietly worms it's way in and is larger than life before I get a chance to realize it's there. Tired of being single my entire life and having nobody to share mine with. Tired of taking care of everything and making every decision all alone. Tired. Tired of well-meaning people who apparently know it all and have the answer to my "predicaments". Tired of Christianese solutions. But most of all? I'm tired of the lie. The lie that I do have to get this all figured out. That I do need to get a plan. That I do need to lose weight, rope a man, find that perfect career. Choose the house with the right picket fence. I'm tired of falling for the entirely empty lie I'm handed daily on a silver platter that it's not okay to be tired. To wrestle with God and be a little grieved and depressed during these seasons. I'm tired of keeping my mouth so shut because I can't find people who get it and I wouldn't want to offend someone. I'm tired of believing it would be better if I wasn't tired. Because what I'm learning right now is that it's in the desperately weak and tired seasons that we get to experience fully and mind-blowingly the one who doesn't answer to the concept of "tired". If that's what it takes to know Him this well....I'll deal with being tired. 

ALL of it.

I'm so thankful for technology. When I get up at 4:00 in the mornings to get ready for work, I often listen to several of my favorite teachers via podcast. It's important to me-we should ALWAYS be proactively feeding ourselves on truth. The amount of garbage the world is constantly feeding us is so intense we could feed on truth all day and still have a hard time balancing things. But because we're not feeding on truth, we often don't see how intense the world shouts lies. (Side tangent: we should ALWAYS be listening to a variety of people. If we insist on sticking with just one, we're being unhealthy and they will end up in a pedistal.) 

This morning I was listening to David Platt, a wonderful man. He was sharing stories about his time in several countries in which the government in-humanely tortures & kills people if they find out they're participating in any acts of Christianity. He was simply talking about his experience with people who are desperately hungry for teaching in the Word & ways of Christ. People who sneak to houses at 2 am just to worship together. Who know with every passing day it may very well be their last before they're caught. There was nothing about David's talk that was trying to evoke an emotion or commitment or desire or action. He was simply sharing what's going on in the underground churches. As an encouragement to us.  

BUT....(aw. You were looking for that!)....

I have never been so convicted in my life. 

If you know me, you know I have a large heart for Africa. At least what I've seen of two of its countries. I've been passionate about this for years. You probably know that I'd love to live and serve there. So you would THINK that I have an attitude of wanting to be a missionary. And in a way, I do. I'm okay with not having a career or home or newer car. I'm okay with not owning much. With moving halfway across the globe. Plenty of people I know and love are already doing it, have paved the way, and are the kind of brave hero I will never be. And that's fine. But I realized this morning that my heart is not as in tune with Jesus as I may have so arrogantly assumed at one point. 

I'm willing to work full-time for a ministry here. To give myself to pouring out in order that other believers will go deeper. I'm also willing to pick up and move to Africa. I know I would love it. But here's the clencher.....it's because EVEN Africa is comfortable. It's third world. It's sad. It's a whole different culture & way of living. But it's comfortable. I can love and minister and freely be the hands of feet of Jesus if I wish. Awesome? Yes. But safe. I would not get more than a few curious inquiries about what the heck I was doing living amongst a different people. I can walk the streets openly, work with the people, live out the church. And I'd come home. I'd furlow. I'd eventually move back and settle here at some point. See? Safe. 

I realized this morning Jesus is asking for my ALL. We always talk about that. We sing about it. We even say we've given Him our all. But have we? Honestly. Have we?!?! I haven't. In a flash today, I saw a side of myself I'd never payed attention to before. The Spirit asked me if I'd be willing to go "there". As I listened to David speaking, I pictured it. Having to pretend I was going for alterior motives simply to get into the country. Lying to government officials at customs. Smuggling in Bibles and discipleship materials. Being disguised and hid in cars in the middle of the night just to travel to a house somewhere with all the blinds pulled. Being escorted secretly into the the house where it was overflowing with 50 people Just thirsting for worship, teaching, discipleship. Doing church at 2:00 in the morning. Risking being caught each day. And if caught, tortured in ways more haneous than anything I've ever seen in the movies. Beat. Raped. Beat more. Burned. Cut. Starved. Thrown in a stone cell with no bed or toilet. Who knows......killed slowly. Because I taught Bible Study. Am I willing to do THAT with my life? Leave tomorrow and possible die this week? THAT is what Jesus wants from me. The willingness to say yes to THAT. Whether I actually do it or not is hardly the point in this moment. The point is seeing that Jesus said "Go & make disciples of ALL nations". The underground church is "all nations" & IS desperate for teachers. Kind of hard to argue with what Jesus says there. People can try telling me that it's not required of every believer, only especially "called" ones. I just have to say that I can't find anywhere in Scripture saying "Go if you're feeling extra called".

And don't tell me I'm young and shouldn't throw my life away. There is NOTHING more worth throwing my life into. NOTHING. 

I may end up married with kids in Modesto. Homesteading on a ranch in Washington or Montana. Working for a big-haired mega ministry in Texas or Georgia. Living among the Voodoo culture of the french cooridor in New Orleans or the shacks of the Bayou. Running an orphanage in Africa. Who knows? I hope it's one of those things. But, Lord change my heart and mold me, I need to be willing to give him my A-L-L. He's big enough. That I know. 

The Kenyan files #1

I've yet to talk a lot about the trip to Kenya. I came home and hit the ground running with a project for Agape that has kept me extremely busy. That being over, I can finally begin sharing a bit.

One of the most explosive parts of being in Kenya was the intensely different way in which the culture walks out their days. We have so much here that we often go for very long periods of time able to work and purchase whatever we need. But in a world of poverty, it's as different from that mindset as can possibly be. A majority of Kenyans live solely on faith. Having to trust God for daily provisions. And often when they're praying in church on Sunday, you'll commonly hear praise and thanks over surviving the week and having enough to eat. Very different from the daily Taco Bell stops that helped me weigh 230 pounds once upon a time! 

The upside to the "Kenyan way" is something that has shifted my head so much. Because of this faith-based way of living; crying out to and deeply and desperately depending on God for survival, I witnessed God in a completely different way. He come through. And He provides. And because they're witnessing this constantly in a way we don't get the BLESSING to, it automatically makes many of the people there extremely deep and powerful and deeply peaceful and beautiful in their dynamic intimacy with Jesus. They seem to move and breath right along with the Spirit, just because it's their way. Knowing He performs miracles daily, expecting them, and because of that praying in dynamic faith that I believe almost releases and allows God to move and work in a way that we don't often evoke here. And THAT is something I want. 

I've always wanted to be powerful and dynamic and deeply intimately connected to Jesus in a way that evokes miracles

when I pray. And my time and my witness of daily miracles while there made me want it even more than in the past. And now I don't want to settle until I've become that kind of woman. Hard to talk openly about, yes!? But there it is nonetheless. 

We can all be that. We can all adopt a bit of bold, expectant, Kenyan attitude in our prayers and day that evoke the impossible on a regular basis. Maybe if we did, we'd truly start something incredible.