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| So, I never update this. And I'm ready for something new. So, I'm not going to update this anymore. I'm blogging elsewhere, and if you're interested ask me and I'll give you the link. But, nobody (generalization, yes a few) updates their xanga or probably even reads this anymore.
My life is at a point where I just need a fresh start. So, along with that comes the Xanga.
I'll probably delete this account soon/sometime in the future.
Peace out.
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| The semester is halfway over already. It's spring break and I'm at home for the first time this semester.
This semester has been good but hard at the same time. It started off great coming back from the onething conference. I've been hanging out with the girls a lot more this semester. I finally have friends. I haven't spent every night or weekend in my room like I did last semester.
I don't know if I really want to update this. There are so many things going on in my head. A lot of things I feel like I need to get out, but not on here. And where, I don't know. Things that I feel like I've gone over and through and dealt with over and over and over again. But never with another person. I mean, I've talked with people about it before. But I always make it seem like less of a deal than it feels like. It's just a struggle I'm dealing with. One of those things you don't want people to know about, but if you did tell them it probably wouldn't seem like such a big deal. Or maybe when you do share it with someone you make it sound like less of a deal so they don't judge you as much. So you don't sound like such a bad person. Even though you're not sure this makes you a bad person. Part of you is convinced it does, but part of you wants it too much to think it's bad. That probably means it's bad, doesn't it?
Isn't it crazy how much things change when you're in college? Random transition. I was just looking at some of the pictures hanging on my wall in my room. Senior pictures of friends from high school and Spoke Folk friends. Pictures from my first year at AU. From my first year in high school. From my first Spoke Folk tour.
I find that I'm a really nostalgic person sometimes and I don't always know if it's good for me. When you look back on things, everything always seems so much better than now. I don't always remember the sucky times when I look back on my life. Sometimes I do. But it's more of a reminiscing where I long to be back in that place and in that time when life seemed so simple and easy. But really it wasn't.
One of those places that I always come back to is the home church from my first Spoke Folk tour. This tiny church in Paris, Ohio and it was hot and they didn't have air conditioning in the sanctuary where we rehearsed. And during a break I just went in the sanctuary and laid on a pew and the windows were all open and I just stared at the ceiling. I like staring at the ceilings of church sanctuaries. They're always really cool. They look like the bottoms of boats. But a lot of times I just wish I could be back in that pew. And know that downstairs or outside or in another room there were people who loved me unconditionally. People who didn't judge me. People who shared my passions. A place where life is simple and easy. Structured. Focused. Centered.
I think that's part of why I love Spoke Folk so much sometimes. It's structured and it's focused. The same thing with places like IHOP or experiences like that. There are no distractions. It's just you and these other people who are all here for the same purpose. All there for our one true purpose. We just wake up and serve each other and get to know each other and serve others together all day. We break down our bodies and our minds and our spirits and then we come to each other as the vulnerable, broken people that we really are. And then we work together to build each other up. If I could have that everyday of my life, I would drop what I was doing in a heartbeat. If I could live Spoke Folk all the time, I would do it. I would even take the drama that comes along with it sometimes. I would take the aching calves and the late nights and early mornings. I would take eating sloppy joes every night at potlucks. I would take the headwinds and the heat and the humidity and the hills.
I would take it all because along with it I get so much more. I get to share music and Jesus with people. I get to push people up hills and be pushed up hills. I get to yell silly things on my bike and sing songs. I get to have devotionals on the beach or by Niagara Falls or in the parking lot or in a beautiful sanctuary. I get to eat ice cream and fluffer nutters and potlucks. I get to sleep on a different floor every night with the same people. I get to meet new people every day, play with kids, hear stories from people who have more years than I do. I get to pray and sing and worship and serve with people. I get to do the boogaloo and dance around like an idiot and not care what anyone thinks because it's fun. I get to spend endless hours with the same people and not get sick of them. And, most of all, I get to receive and give the love of Jesus in different ways and to different people every day.
That's what community is about. That's what love is about. Taking the bad because you get the good too. Taking the hills because you get the hug and the view and your friends at the top. Taking the exhaustion and the fatigue because you get to use it to fill others.
And that's really what it's all about. That's what life is about. That's what faith is about. Taking it all together. So even though the semester stinks sometimes and I'm struggling and confused, I'll take it. Because I also have my friends. And I have dance. And I have music. And I have the hope of what is coming and the knowledge of what's already here and what's already been. I'll take the crap of temptation because I know it comes when I follow Jesus. When you get the good, inevitably there will be some bad with it.
And that's okay. Because the good will always outweigh the bad when you have Jesus.
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| How can I even begin to explain what the onething conference was like? I think it may have changed my life. I know it turned me around. Set me straight again.
This past semester was SO hard. I became less focused on God and more focused on earthly things that I knew didn't matter. I wasn't engaged in worship. I rarely felt God. Looking back, I was pretty depressed sometimes. I felt dry, empty, deserted, and alone.
But God is good. God is so good.
Going to onething was exactly what I needed. I spent the time surrounded by six other beautiful women who loved me unconditionally and supported me. They listened to me. They prayed with me and worshiped with me and shared these new experiences with me.
But mostly, God met me there. He showed me that he desires me. He is passionately pursuing me. He won't relent until he has my heart. Do you know what that means? He will not slacken in his pursuit of me until he has won me over. Even though I stopped pursuing him, he did NOT relent.
You won't relent until you have it all. My heart is yours.
So the conference was at the International House of Prayer in Kansas City. I've heard of IHOP before when I was reading the book Red Moon Rising about the 24/7 prayer movement. But I had no idea how intense IHOP is! They talk about and emphasize things that most churches/Christians know nothing about. They talk about prophecy and the second coming of Jesus. Their entire purpose is to prepare the world for the end times. They have been in prayer 24/7 for over 7 years. Their entire staff fasts every Tuesday. Sometimes they fast for up to 40 days. Some of them are payed to be in the Prayer Room. They have interns who's sole purpose is to spend 30-40 hours in the prayer room a week and the rest of it taking classes to learn and grow more. It is intense and absolutely amazing. The Holy Spirit was definitely moving at that conference.
So the conference basically went like this: Morning worship/speaker, lunch, worship, two breakout sessions, dinner, and group worship/speaker again in the evening. Most of the speakers were really intense, lots of screaming and shouting--kind of hard to take it in sometimes. But some of the speakers were absolutely phenomenal. The breakout sessions were a lot of the same-some good, some okay. But the worship... the worship was unlike anything I have ever experienced. Old men and women. Children. Teenagers. Grown men and women. Dancing around. On their knees. Crying out to God. Hands raised in worship. I've never seen a man dance before. It was amazing. To just be surrounded by 15,000 people passionately worshiping Christ was so intense and awesome.
come be the fire inside of me
come be the flame upon my heart
come be the fire inside of me
until you and i are one
There were some awesome worship times. Dancing with Leta and Lydia was amazing. Jumping around and dancing. The time I spent in the Prayer Room. It's something special when you're in the same room with 15,000 and you realize that nobody is watching you and nobody cares what you look like. It gives you so much freedom. I have had this complex of what people think about me and if people are watching me, even in worship. And this was one of the first times I was free of that. I didn't care! We rang in the new year with Jason Upton leading a song called "Freedom." ...Wow. And there was freedom. "Freedom to dance. Freedom to sing. Freedom to grow. I'm telling you Pharaoh let God's people go."
no more shackles
no more chains
no more bondage
i am free, yeah
I think a turning point in the conference for me was on the second night during what I guess you could consider an altar call. Mike Bickle, one of the founders & most intense (aka screaming) leaders of IHOP, called anyone forward toward the stage who needed prayer for a breakthrough in their lives or to feel God again (hello, exactly what I needed). So I went forward along with a ton of other people and then he just called everyone else to walk through the lines of people and pray for them. I just closed my eyes and waited. During that time four different people came up to me and prayed over me things that were undoubtedly from God. I felt his presence and Spirit and I know he was speaking to me. And I was just sobbing! Those four people spoke more truth into me in 15 minutes than I had heard probably all semester. That was when I truly realized how strongly God was present at that conference and how real these people were. It was intense up there. People screaming and crying out. Speaking in tongues, which I had never experienced. It was intense. And when you experience such radically different things in that volume, you begin to doubt if they are real. But after that prayer time, I had no doubts that God was there.
i wanna be like a tree
planted by the streams
of living water
I had another similar experience on the last day during TheCall. TheCall is a separate experience than onething. It's 12 hours of fasting and prayer for the future of our nation and the world. We spent the entire time praying for things like the 2008 election, the Iowa caucuses, an end to abortion, an end to pornography, the raising up of 24/7 prayer rooms, etc. etc. Well, we spent about the first 1-2 hours just praying for the Holy Spirit to fall and to be led into God's presence. We walked in a little bit late and it was the most intense the conference had been so far. There were leaders on stage praying and crying out. Everyone was praying, mostly outloud. People were screaming and crying out, speaking in tongues. In all honesty, it was scary. I was like, "God, this is scary. I don't like this. I think I wanna leave."
So I was just sitting on the floor looking around and watching people wondering what the heck was going on and what I was gonna do for the next 12 hours. So I just had my head down and my eyes closed and I was getting frustrated with myself and the whole experience. Then a woman came up to me and said I couldn't sit there because I was in a fire lane, but I could stand if I wanted. So I stood up and I just started crying, like sobbing. And I just put my hands up in the air and started praying for the Holy Spirit to come and that I could be focused on God and I never turned back. I had never prayed out loud to myself before but I started to and I was just crying. I can't explain it. I was praying for God to help me focus and then this woman comes along and snaps me back to reality. And I just praised God for that. Otherwise I may have sat on that floor forever.
there's a war on the inside
it's the arena
to demonstrate my love for you
So... highlights, silly and serious:
- Dancing with Lydia and Leta
- God renewing a strong desire in my to get back into the Word and into prayer.
- I feel like I finally know how to pray... just do it.
- A new sense of the power of prayer.
- Realizing that God loves me. He desires me. He is pursuing me.
- Worshiping with 15,000 other people.
- Being in the "pit" in front of the stage and just worshiping surrounded and so close to a ton of other people.
- OK, the pit was stinky and sweaty, and that was gross, but hilarious.
- The awesome church that let us stay there - SO hospitable!
- Sleeping in the bathroom with Leta.
- Mini Spoke Folk reunion with Nate.
- I have never seen a mini van packed with so much stuff - 7 passengers (max you could have), all their sleeping stuff, suitcases, and enough food to feed a small village.
- Cooking Ramen and Easy Mac in the hallway at the convention center in a hotpot and having people walk by and stare.
- Meeting Kim & Linda during dinner and seeing them throughout the whole conference - amazing women who invited us to stay with them for the L.A. Call if we want to come!
- Meeting Braden & his dad - cute little boy who was sitting in front of us and then we kept running into him!
- Getting to know Leta, Lydia, Sarah, Abby, Becky, & Tori better. Amazing girls.
- Passionate worship and prayer.
- I have never felt so passionately about abortion before. I was always kind of on the fence until this conference and now I am 100% pro-life.
- Misty Edwards & Jason Upton - AWESOME. And Eddie James. And the dance during TheCall.
- My first fast. Not bad. Until the first thing I ate afterwards were 3 chocolate covered Oreos and my stomach wasn't right again until about 3 days later... I learned my lesson with that one.
- Watching the Prayer Room on the Internet for the past few days. You have to pay for it but they are having a free trial right now. It's awesome and I want to get it... Eventually when I have the money.
- Awesome prayer with my group. Awesome discussion & sharing times.
- An altogether amazing trip that I would not mind repeating in the future.
unmovable, unshakable
let my roots grow down deep
i wanna be unmovable, unshakable in you
This has been an awesome and life-changing experience. I feel rejuvenated, regenerated, and reconnected to Christ. I am excited for what He has in store. I pray that God will keep my passion alive and keep reminding me of the experiences that I had so that I can continue to grow my roots down deep.
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| So, another semester over... Praise the Lord.
The sad thing is I don't know if I have anything else to say besides that. It was a really hard semester and I'm glad its over. I feel different than I did at the beginning of the semester. But I don't know how.
The truth is that I understand my life about as much as I understand... something I barely understand.
I think I just try not to think about it too much. Because then I just get in a weird mood. I don't like to think about my life too much I like to just do it. I don't think that's necessarily a good thing though. I don't know.
Hopefully break will be a good rester. Hopefully I can make some money too.
I'm going to the OneThing Conference at the end of the month. Maybe that will help me figure out what's going on in my life.
I guess when I think about it I just feel kind of lost. Like I don't know where I'm going or where I am or how I got here. Or even who I am or who I'm going to be or who I've been.
It's kind of a scary feeling.
......
Did you ever think you wanted something so badly but you knew that if you kept wanting it as badly as you did that you would never get it because the way you were wanting it was in the way of what you really needed to get before you could have what you wanted? Does that even make sense?
Or maybe it's that what I really want is disguised as something that's pretending to be what I want, but I just can't get past the impostor because it just looks so good. A crude analogy: It's like I want a really nice designer bag but I find one that looks exactly like it for about a million dollars less. So instead of waiting and saving up for the real thing, you just settle for the knock-off.
Except this is my life. And I can't settle.
What do I really want? What do I really want?
I want to live passionately. I want to love passionately. I want to be loved passionately. I want someone to be a witness to my life. Someone who really cares about me. Someone who will remember. And I want to be that person for someone else. I want to not be afraid to be real. To be scared. To be passionate. To be who I really am. To be broken. To love, to lose, to cry, to break, to dance around and look like an idiot.
But the truth is, I'm scared. I'm scared of the very thing that I want the most. So instead of actually going after the one thing I really want, I dream about going after something that I can settle for. I dream of what it would be like to have a shadow of what I could really have if I would just let myself receive it.
So how do you get past that fear?
Fear of knowing yourself. Fear of someone else knowing you. Fear of loving someone. Fear of being loved. Fear of what people see and think and say. Fear of rejection. Fear of loss. Fear of not being good enough. Fear of never being unafraid.
But the one thing you really need, the one thing you truly want, not the imitation, the real thing.. that's the thing that will help you not be afraid anymore.
How can you climb over the wall when you're afraid of the rope and you're afraid to disappoint the person on the other side--the person who's holding the rope, the person who's trying to help you?
How do you do that?
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| So I am at home tonight. I came home to see The Drowsy Chaperone and hoping I would have space to concentrate and work on my Theology of Youth Ministry. However, that isn't the case. I am so uninterested in writing this paper. In fact I am not interested in school anymore. It is so overwhelming. I just have so much to do and to think about. I have no time for friends and have lost sight of my relationship with God. I feel like I have turned my back on him for things that satisfy in the short term, because right now I'm living for the short term. All I can think about is the short term or I get so overwhelmed. More overwhelmed than I already am... Example?
Projects to finish before the end of the semester:
Theology of Youth Ministry (minimum 11 pages); Read Youth Ministry book by Fashbaugh; Youth Ministry Resource Binder (aka HUGE); Oral History (aka, find someone who was alive during the Civil Rights Movement, interview them, record it, transcribe it, write a paper on it); Read at least two more books for Lit. and write a paper; Internship paper (aka REALLY HUGE); Sociology Paper (10ish pages); regular everyday homework
Other stuff:
Keep the KKY website updated; be Brotherhood chair, aka Brotherhood committee; invitations for Band Formal; lead Small Group; Worship Dance/TheWell/Five Stones/whatever
Stuff that stresses me out:
Scheduling; I have no idea what I want to write my thesis on; I have no idea what I want to do when I graduate; I rarely leave my room; I spend most of my time playing Minesweeper; I rarely think about God except when it has to do with class; when I am at worship I have a hard time focusing and worshiping, except at Worship Dance
Things I wish I had time to do:
Pray, read, play guitar, have friends, visit Laura, call Spoke Folkers, sleep in, take naps, leave AU, watch a movie
I'm stressed out. I need a break. I don't want to do this anymore. I just want to run away. I'm ready for this semester to be over. At this point I'm almost ready for college in general to be over. I don't even want to go back to school. I just want to stay at home.
I need people and I don't have anyone. I know, I know, I do have friends. But I never see any of them. I just want a best friend again. Or something. I am not ok anymore. This is the worst semester ever...
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