Just a Little Note

I just felt like writing, but I really don't have anything on my mind that I feel like writing about. I am trying to get in the holiday spirit. I don't have my decorations or tree up yet, but I have been listening to Christmas music. My favorite album is Point of Grace's, A Christmas Story. I also love Michael W Smith's Christmas albums.
I do feel tense tonight. I am anxious about my week. I am trying not to be. I know that God is in control and nothing can happen to me without Him knowing about it and working it into my Tapestry. That is why I named this blog Tapestry. God is writing my story or weaving the tapestry of my life. I can only see individual or small groups of threads, not the whole tapestry. My tapestry is not complete, it is always being worked on. I know that my tapestry will turn out to be the story of where God wanted to take me. Little parts don't make sense, but the whole thing will once it is completed. I hold onto the promise that "God works for the good of those who love Him and call on His name". Even when life stinks and seems horrible, in the end, it will all work out for my betterment. This is the hope I have. We all need hope, don't you think?
I feel tired, yet, I am awake. I have much to do, but most of it involves tomorrow, so I can't worry about it today.
Well, there is my note. :)

Tough Stuff

So, I was reading my Larry Crabb book, The Safest Place On Earth, and I was confronted with this....

"If we are to develop spiritual community, where the healing life of Christ pours out of us and energizes others to give up their self-actualizing demand in favor of knowing Christ, we must understand what else is coming out of us and learn to hate it."

Crabb talks about really looking at our wretchedness and that our culture today minimizes sin and fallenness. He states that, "It might help us to get rid of the idea that wretchedness is evidence of complexity or psychological disturbance and that greatness is the manageable product of good training, effective government, economic advantage, or, if necessary, therapy." Is this reality? Unfortunately, as I read his book, I have to agree with what he says. Here is the kicker, I now have to make a decision, and it is a decision I don't want to make. John Eldredge and Brent Curtis calls it chasing after "less wild lovers" in their book, Sacred Romance. All that I am reading is telling me that I have to kill everything within me. I have to get rid of my old coping skills, I have to take away all my desires, in order to, focus only on God. I am distracted by many things and I do commit all of the 4 core sins Crabb discusses. My challenge is, I don't want to change. Unfortunately, God has given me this revelation and to not change has hazardous consequences on my relationship with God. Crabb states that I must confront my sin and realize how futile and empty it really is. According to C.S. Lewis, I am living in a "cesspool" that is based on my own self-will. It is all about me. And I have to say, "Yes, he is right." So how do you let this transformation happen? The fatal flaw would be to try and do it on my own. I can't do it on my own, I can only do it with the power of the Holy Spirit. Which then brings me to, "What does this look like?" What it looks like is a conscious decision to seek Him all the time and to renounce what I am relying on. This is hard for me. I have areas in my life that I think work for me and I don't want to give up. So, do I allow this to drive a rift in my relationship with God? I'm not sure how to answer that. This book is incredibly convicting, painful, but refreshing and needed at the same time. We will see what God has in store for me next.

Dying to Self

C.S. Lewis writes,

The Christian life is different: harder, and easier. Christ says, "Give me all. I don't want so much of your time and so much of your money and so much of your work. I want You. I have not come to torment your natural self, but to kill it. No half-measures are any good. I don't want to cut off a branch here and a branch there, I want to have the whole tree down. Hand over the whole natural self, all the desires which you think innocent as well as the ones you think wicked - the whole outfit. I will give you a new self instead. In fact, I will give you Myself: my own will shall become yours."

So, when I became a Christian, no one told me that Christ wanted to "kill me". Hello! I think if I had heard that at 9 years old (when I became a Christian) I would have said, "no, thank you". However, as an adult, Lewis's script makes sense. I don't like it, but it makes sense. Our whole natural self is driven by us - not God. In order to fully experience God, we have to die to self. Hmmm, I think that sounds like fun (please note I am being sarcastic). I am confronted with the horrible reality that it isn't about me and if I want to grow deeper in my relationship with Christ, I am going to have to chop down another part of my tree. Eventually, the whole tree will have to be cut down. As I feel the pruning shears cutting away at my branches and eventually trunk, I feel pain. I feel vulnerable and ugly. I can no longer hide behind my leaves of self-protection, self-preservation, and self-reliance. I want to pull back and tell God, "NO, You cannot prune me! You cannot have that part of my life! I will not let You kill me!" And yet, I know that "resistance is futile" (a Star Trek reference for those of you who aren't fans). I can kick and scream all I want, but then I am faced with being alone. I am faced with that God-shaped hole inside of me. If I tell God he can't prune me, I am telling him he isn't allowed in and the ache and loneliness that would follow would be unbearable, too.
I do not want to die. But if I don't die, I can't live. Oh, the irony! God help me!!!!!!!!

Dread and Escape

I find myself feeling more and more anxiety when I know I have to work the next day. I'm tired. I feel dryed up. I feel a great need for rest and restoration. Unfortunately, the way finances are for me and the way my job is set up (I don't get paid vacation), I can't afford to take time off. I wish I knew what I am supposed to do with my life. I wish I didn't have to work a job, but I have to live off of something. My preference would be to do ministry for the body of Christ and to be home. But, that is not an option for me right now, since I need a paycheck to survive. Dear Lord, I wish I knew where I was supposed to go and do. I want to enjoy what I am doing and not dread it. I want to see what I do in light of who You are rather than who I am. I want to build up the body, I want to be built up, too. I just want to escape most of the time. I want to run away from reality. I want to live in my "shadow mission" rather than life. I know that isn't the life you've called me to. The reality is that walking with You is hard and I'm lazy. I'm tired and I don't want to put forth the effort. Please help me, Jesus. I cannot live the life without you!

My Birthday

Technically, my birthday was yesterday, seeing as it is now almost 2:00 in the morning on the 11th. But November 10th is my birthday. I had a very nice birthday with my girlfriends. Dawn, Erin, and Lyndsey all went with me to Littleton to have tea. We went to a lovely place called Tres Jolie. It was whimsical and the food was delicious. Here is a run down of the menu.

Amuse-bouche: Toasted Baguette with warm brie cheese and rosted garlic/onion chutney

Savories: Rosted lemon rosemary chicken salad, Goat cheese and watercress on raisin bread with toasted pecans, Roast beef, blue cheese, and red onion on a crostini

Scones: Cream scone and lemon blueberry scone served with Devonshire cream, han, and lemon curd

Sweets: German chocolate brownie petit four, Passion fruit Matter horm petit four, Three sisters petit four, Chocoate covered strawberry sprinkled with lavendar

A Pot of Tea of Your Choice

Does not that all sound delectable? It was great and we were stuffed. I think my favorites were the Amuse-bouche and the roast beef savory. The chocolate covered strawberry and the German chocolate petit four were my favorite desserts.

It truly was a lovely afternoon! It was not only great food and atmosphere but I got to hang out with my girlfriends.I even have a printed menu with my birthday listed on it. This will definitely be a scrapbook event.

Other then that, I didn't do to much for my day. The tea seemed to satisfy me. I did buy a cake from Schmidt's Bakery, YUM! If you've never eaten there, you are missing out!!! Otherwise, I sat at home and played with my kitties, played on my computer, and read a couple of books. I got a new expansion pack for my Sims 2 game, but my game has been uncooperative since I started working with this one family. It keeps crashing when I try to do certain things. Grrr. I haven't figured out how to fix it yet. I think I may have to reload everything. It is frustrating. While I was trying to fix it, there were many waiting periods and so I read from a couple of my books. I finally got frustrated with the whole thing and I had gotten sucked into this novel I was reading so I gave up with fixing it for the night. I ended up finishing my novel. Unfortunately, I cried through the last 20 pages. It was a good book, but not the happiest of endings. Which come to think about it, a lot of my favorite books have bittersweet or less than happy endings to them. We could psychoanalyze that, but we won't.

Well, I will post some pictures from my tea at a later date. Right now, they are on my friends' cameras so I will have to wait for them to get the pictures to me (Hint, Hint).

Dragging

Well, it has been a while since I blogged anything. To tell you the truth, I have been struggling to put words to my life. I have been mildly depressed lately and that usually stunts my ability to articulate myself. I am feeling somewhat better now. I restarted some of my medications. I pray God finds a way to help me afford them. Since I don't have health insurance, and no one will take cover me, my medications cost upwards of $700. OUCH! So, I am stuck with a dilemma of pay the money or risk falling into depression again. I have been amazed at how just a few days back on my old dosage again has made a difference in my heaviness factor. My spirit doesn't feel as heavy, I wouldn't say I'm walking on air yet, but just the little bit taken off my shoulders is a relief. I do still find myself a bit anxious and weepy, but hopefully, they will be alleviated soon. My energy level has been pretty low too, so I look forward to having more of that.

On another note, work is draining me. As I told a friend of mine...

I am tired of dealing with everyone else's sin in a fallen context. I can't "fix" them if they are not being sanctified by Christ! How in the world do I think I can fix them? Well, I can't fix them, only Christ can and he can use me to do that, but if they don't have Christ, what in the world do I think is going to be accomplished? I'm tired of taking home everyone else's sin with me! I'm tired of people expecting me to have the perfect answer to "cure" this family or that person. I'm tired of looking at these families and seeing what is wrong through my Biblical worldview and then having no way to explain that to them because they aren't Christians. A part of me wonders, if this is really where I am supposed to be, why is it not sustaining me financially, emotionally, and spiritually? Why does carrying other people's burdens mean mine becomes heavier?

Needless to say, I am still struggling with these issues. I don't have an answer, just a directive to keep plugging along and to lean on Jesus more and harder. Tonight, at church, during worship, I sat down and just listened to the music. I was feeling very weary and anxious. It was during this time that I felt Jesus put his hand in between my folded hands and it was this incredible sense of safety and protection. It was one of those special God moments. I could imagine myself leaning on him and pressing his hand to my face and in that image, I felt loved, embraced, taken care of. I thought of the passage where Jesus says, "Take my yoke on you and learn from me, because I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy to bear, and my load is not hard to carry" (Matthew 11:29-30). Even writing about it brings a certain internal peace that I wish would stay inside me forever. I wish this feeling of safety, peace, and security never left me. But as soon as I start doing life, it goes away. It only appears when I am extremely quiet. I need it when I am busy and under pressure, too. Perhaps, that is something that comes with maturity and growth in Christ.

Well, that is all for now. I hope I feel like blogging again soon.
Here are some more pictures of my boys. :)

My Boys

Dante

Agape and Me

Agape

Dante Looking Very Happy