Ramblings of a hot March

Its hard to remain intentional about living radically for God when you are surrounded by a society that involves basically no community. And the only community there is gets together to go to a movie or consume or spend.  I want to live more radically and intentionally even here.  Away from Taiwan and daily and weekly challenge and encouragement.

Today I am sitting looking outside my office window at the clouds floating by.  Green trees are everywhere and it is awesome here. I wonder if this really could be my office. It if would be a bad idea, when I am done house sitting if I just came up here multiple times a week and sat and worked.  looking out on beauty with little to no distractions.

But then comes back the isolation.  This morning Danie and I were walking down the path talking about life and praying about writing. And we passed this man and another native american man. The man just sat down a look of depression on his face.  I didn't know what to do...I should have stopped right then and asked him how he was and if there was anything I could do to help him.  I think that he must have come from the day labor office but it didn't hit me until later that he may have come from there.

My heart felt heavy because I know that look where you feel you have nothing...what do you do. We prayed for him as we left and walked by...I thought to go back but by that time I was quite a ways a way. I consoled myself thinking that most men don't want to think of themselves as failures or let anyone know when they are down so it was better we left him to himself but it just made me sad.  Next week we are going to try and buy donuts and give them to any men that we see or women and then hopefully we will also take our bibles and pray for them and encourage them.  Its a little but if we can give some hope and love...that will be good.

I am so sad that the hills are dry, but the one good thing is that in this hot weather God is helping families save money on heating and utilities.  This will be the most random post ever...

I watered aunt Karla's plants outside and pulled Bensons cage outside, he is a macaw.  I thought he would enjoy the sunshine.  I also learned that it is not good to do to many things at once because after turning off the water I realized I had left my mini coffee pot on the stove while I was gone...it had completely boiled over.  but I cleaned it!!  

wrestling with waiting

Waiting is inevitable...but enjoying the waiting that is the challenge.

Its easy for me to look at a situation, evaluate it, come up with a plan of attack and execute it.  Its hard for me to look at a situation not be sure what to do and have to trust that someone else does. Especially when their plan often seems to go in backward motion or no motion and something inside feels like it would be better to at least jump up and down and do some crazy running silly pointless dance than sit there and watch grass grow waiting for something to appear.

And when that someone is God...I think He knows this about me.  God :-) I think that is why He told me to stop thinking about or worrying about marriage and he gave me a more and equally less ambiguous task to pursue.  It was easy to look at a relationship and say "Ahhh HA this is what is to be done!"  Even if it wasn't but it seemed good to me.  To love a person and pursue their friendship and give them all they want that I can give...that I enjoy.  To love a person and withhold from them what they want, knowing it will make them angry and even possibly hurt them because I know and God has made it clear that this is what I must do in order to keep God first in my life and love them well...this I hated. Tough love requires more faith than I have.

So God said just pursue writing...  and this...this...well yes this makes me feel very lonely and lost.  This requires me to really and absolutely trust God and I see how incredibly miniscule my faith truly is.  I feel like a girl on top of a hill surrounded by miles and miles of prairie grass with no tree within visible sight or walking distance.  This place is incredibly vulnerable.  Told to wait and trust and enjoy.  But sometimes its hard to enjoy when the terrors of your mind are greater that the minor fears of reality.  This however is a perfect place to be because I am expressly told to not pursue love...my favorite (and to this day fruitless) pursuit.

No...I have been commanded to Trust. And to wait to be pursued... Which would be far easier if I could put myself out into the middle of a highway with an oncoming Mac truck forced to hit me a.k.a pursue me. But how I ask myself as I sit on my hill digging my fingers deep into grass and periodically typing away on my computer am I to be found and pursued alone in the middle of no where surrounded by ...grass?

And how will they know that part of pursuing me is to get to know my family and friends and love them as I do...to cherish my life that is not here...when those people aren't even around me and how will I even know....and more thoughts and questions with impossible answers swirl through my head and then...I hear that voice again...and its laughing! with all of the audacity of mocking my questions. Only its not a cruel laugh its a tender knowing laugh.  more of a rolling chuckle that makes me laugh too. Makes me forget about the stupidity of perfection and things looking the way I think they should. It makes me take up my pen and begin to write again of the stories that are so much easier to see on a grassy knoll than in the business of the city and the chaos of people's lives.

yes a grassy knoll is the place to let life go...and trust.

His Tenderness

I woke up this morning again plagued by all that I need to do, have not done and may never do well.  The enormity of life and doing it alone. Not having anyone to tell me what to do overwhelms me some days.  I think maybe God is trying to teach me to trust His voice to take responsibility in my life and not to rely on others.

But that doesn't relieve the weight of today's failures. Of each nights dreams of all that I need to do and am not accomplishing.  Of the pressure of a list of to dos that I can't see or touch but that weighs on my head and spirit. And the inevitable fear of failure.  Maybe that is why school is so nice because the plan is laid out in front of you and you just do it, but its boring too because it is safe.

I reached over and turned on a praise song.  I don't remember what it was now.  I kind of fell asleep again after it played...but there was such joy and beauty in the song.  Maybe it was Majesty, worship His majesty.  Because as the song played the burden on my soul seemed to lift up and as I fell back asleep I could sense God's comfort and I was lost in conversation with Him. He seemed to reassure my soul that He is THAT BIG>  HE IS SO BIG!

When I thought about His majesty and greatness and ability to do all that He does and has done I was almost overwhelmed.  WHAT a GREAT GOD! I felt Him say "Crystal, its going to be ok.  I am bigger. Don't worry about taking care of all these things. Let it go.  I am not the one in your mind condemning you.  I am not putting this on you."

Later that morning as I was reading a devotional, what a single woman had recently learned from her pastor's sermon series on marriage. She said "God is harsh towards false teachers and those who twist the gospel, but He is tender to the woman who is alone." and I started to cry.  Overwhelmed with the knowledge and truth of that statement and the comfort of it, that I am not alone. That He is tender to me even as I am often mentally beating and berating myself.  Tender, what a word.  It makes me think of the times I have been able to pick up a baby goat or lamb or kitten, so fragile and scared, and everything in my body just relaxes and my heart screams out to try and comfort that little one, to let it know its not alone that its ok and it can trust me.  Tender...God is tender like that to me.

My dad and my uncle just left the country for awhile.  Under their protection and covering of love I often feel the courage to stand and walk confidently. But now they are gone, a picture of my future when age finally takes them for good.  A single woman has a great life ahead of her, but sometimes the picture of its loneliness can be overwhelming.  So how could I not cry having just seen myself as a girl alone on a hill. Alone against the world, with no answers to all of life's questions. Tossed back and forth by the wind and potentially beaten down and destroyed by all of the great hardships of what ifs.  And then suddenly realizing the truth, that the God of the universe, so fierce against injustice and those who harm the innocent and the sin which destroys us...that fierce warrior was by my side...not fiercely but tenderly. That He would drop it all to hold me, to care for me. A tiny insignificant failure, running in circles, not always keeping my word, full of doubt and selfishness and lack of self control...extremely needy...in fact me someone I tend to despise...He would tenderly care for me.  So of course tears filled my eyes as I was overwhelmed by His goodness to me.