Thinking and Feeling

I write a lot of things in moments of clarity or passion; when what I’m thinking about can no longer stay in my head. If I don’t write, I get a lot of pent up frustration. So here I am, in Hawaii, feeling a little sick, but still captivated by God’s beauty. I’ve spent the last few hours alone and sometimes I need that time to just... be. And in this time God has been on my mind. I can feel him inside of me, moving and speaking. It really breaks my heart thinking that people can deny him, even with the Earth’s grand evidence that he exists. I watched a Planet Earth episode not too long ago on the ocean and how everything grows and works together. So that’s what I kept thinking about when we went snorkeling today. There’s so much life and beauty brimming underwater and it all has a purpose. It was all created by God and He knows where everything is and how it moves and he knew exactly what fish I would see and when I would see them, in that exact moment. He knew what it would make me think and feel. If you think about it every moment is prophesy come true. When the earth was Created God knew this moment would come. This moment of his glorification. He really is incomprehensible. This was short but I needed to get it out.

Jesus loves me this I know...right?

I grew up singing "Jesus Loves Me". You can walk into just about any Christian bookstore and find some sort of knick knack that says "God loves you". It's such a basic concept in Christianity. I hear a lot of Christians use that word but in the same breath they will paint a picture of an angry wrathful God who will smite you down because you don't measure up.

I grew up afraid of God. Afraid of who he was. I didn't think he liked me very much. I would hear "God loves you" but never did I believe it. And I didn't realize that I didn't believe it. Not until last October.

In a conversation with a friend that started off on a different God topic, it somehow came down to love. I had seen something in this friend that I knew I didn't have but I couldn't put my finger on it. And then I got it, she loves God. Her love for Him and His love for her makes up who she is. It kind of surprised me when I realized that I didn't believe that God loves me. And I can't tell you how hard I fought this. It was inconceivable to me. How could God love me? When I think the things I do? When I act the way I do? When I turn my back on Him constantly? How is it possible that I can be loved by the Creator of the universe? I also fought it because I look around and see the chaos that is this world. I'm sorry but life can be a bitch. It can hurt. This has become a world where violence and pain are rampant. Values have gone out the window, the idea of marriage is a flippin' joke. Children are raped and killed. People are starving. It's hard to see the love is this mess.

But then I stopped and I realized, this wasn't the plan. God is not in some far off place watching all this crap go down and not caring. He cares. It hurts Him. This was supposed to be a world where we were a creation that takes delight in Him. Where we would love Him and receive His Love. But that's not what happened. Because he loves us he gave us free will. And we took it.We did this. We try and place the blame all on Him. We ask why and how he could let this happen when he is an almighty God, why can't he just step in and fix it? Well he did. He gave us Jesus. That's the solution. Isn't it funny how we have the answer to the problem and we can't see it?

God's love is incredible. It is so fundamental to who we are. It is the reason why we have hope. If we didn't have it then our entire existence would be pointless. He loves us. We don't deserve it but we have it. I finally understood that a few months ago. I can't tell you the exact moment when it clicked. But I just kinda woke up one day and I believed that God loved me. I got it. It is that love that gives me a purpose. He has been with me in every hurt. He was holding me and giving me strength to go on. It is His love that has protected me. That love has kept the wounds from being fatal. So yes I know that Jesus love me and it is only because of that love that I am able to live.

A procrastinator through and through

Ok, so this past quarter has been undeniably difficult, probably my hardest one yet. My “easy” class turned out to be, well, not so easy. I took what is quite possibly *crosses fingers* my final math class, English (the not so easy one) and sociology which turned out to be the single most pointless waste of time and money ever. Seriously, I didn’t learn one thing. Nothing. At all. Anyway, this quarter was hard. It also didn’t help that I was/am going though a personal transformation making these past 12 weeks very bipolar, but that’s beside the point. So all this to say that I have written all my finals, all my essays and quizzes andI could have been done with everything today. I could have. See I have this one last little math project to do. I had a plan last week, it was that I would write my final final on Friday, go home and pass out and not think about anything for the rest of the day and then on Saturday I would do this project at work because let’s face it, I have a lot of time to kill on Saturdays at The Trees. Instead, I chose to ignore my work and waste time playing chess with Dann ( I won two out of three by the way) and work on activating Rob’s new phone. I then proceeded to go home and watch a movie with my mom. I thought to myself, well I have all day Sunday to do it so I have plenty of time. Not so. Two minutes after walking out of church I get a text from my sister- in law asking if I want to go for a walk and do some errands with her. What do you think I chose to do? Be the responsible student or go have fun with a friend? I think the answer is pretty clear. And you know what? I don’t even feel a teeny tiny ounce of remorse because we had a perfectly wonderful walk and talk. Anyway then I went to Canada last night and saw my mom. That’s a pretty legit excuse I think. Today however, not so much. I’ve been out of class for six and a half hours and haven’t so much as glanced at my math book. It’s due on Wednesday so I figure I have lots of time. :)

I bid “Adieu”

Ok so I haven’t written anything in nearly a year….but that’s okay. I’m supposed to be doing English homework right now but I’ve still got two hours and fifty minutes before it’s due… so I have plenty of time. I’m in weird mood right now I will admit. It has finally hit me that I may indeed have to return to Canada. In four months. I’ve known for a while that this was a possibility but it was always something in the far off future, something that I would deal with later. Well, it’s later and now I have to do something. I have been praying that the Lord would make a way for me to stay but at the end of my prayer I always say “but your will not mine be done”. It’s one thing to say that but to mean it is what is challenging. I’m saying that I will go wherever God wants me to go. But can I say that every ounce of me is ok with that? Can I say that I’m willing to leave my family, my friends, this life that has been established, can I say that I can walk away from it and be alright with that? I don’t know. I have to admit that I have come to love my life here. I have parents and friends. I have a job that I love so much more than a job should be loved. There is a part of me that doesn’t want to go. That pleads with God to just let me stay. For some miracle to happen that the US government will come calling and say they missed something and that there is in fact a way for me to stay that doesn’t require marriage. There is a part of me that could be content here, a part that is terrified to leave. And I am crying at the thought of not being here. But then there is the other part of me. The part that will get me through this, the part that knows that God loves me and has a plan for me. A plan that has purpose, there must be a reason why my time has come to an end here. Maybe if I was to stay, I would become too content, too comfortable. And I wouldn’t accomplish God’s plan for my life. That thought is what is getting me through this. He is all I can hold on to. And he won’t let me down. I don’t want this to be the cliché “everything is going to be alright and everything is going to be rainbows and butterflies” but somehow, it’s going to be okay. It’s probably going to hurt, but when it does I will go running into His arms.
I’m thinking I could write a story about my three years here. Maybe I will. We’ll see.