All Around by The Glorious Unseen

When my world is caving in

When my hopes are wearing thin

When I’m choking in my sin -

Lord, you meet me here

When all around is crashing down,

I find myself alive in you

Holy one, renew

When all around is crashing down,

I find my spirit crying out

Holy one, consume

When I listen to the fear

When I feel my end is near

When all hope has disappeared -

Lord, you meet me here

Will you pour out again?

God of mercy, here I am reaching out to you-

Reaching out for a breakthrough

Father, hear my cry of desperation once again

I look into your eyes - and know a love that has no end

1 John 4:16a, NIV

And so we know and rely on the love God has for us.

I just read the obituary of one of my friends. I haven' t ever done that before. My heart is confused and torn between feeling hurt and feeling sad. Suicide is perplexing and leaves a lot of unanswered questions.

Because Tracie and I have lost touch in the last couple of years, our interaction was limited to the odd facebook chat every few months. Perhaps that is what makes this even more weird. A huge part of my time in highschool was spent with Tracie: church on Sunday nights, Awana program on Mondays and Thursdays, homeschool classes, and social events most weekends. This is where it's weird. I almost feel like I shouldn't hurt so much because we weren't close anymore. But that's really the opposite of what the situation is.

Because we weren't close anymore, and now I hear that she's gone, all I want to is call her and see how she's doing. I want to call and ask her what was going on that made her choose to end it all. Mostly, I want the chance to have my friend back.

I sat at home this morning and looked through old photos of Tracie and I from highschool. I felt like I needed to sit at home in quiet and reflect on her life with respect. I don't want to move on from this day or this week with any resentment or bitterness. The confusion will probably linger, that's what suicide does, but I want to respect Tracie's life and speak kindly of the person she was.

One of my best friends just went through these same emotions when a friend of hers took his own life. She has a much better way of communicating emotions than I, here are the words she shared with me today:

we loved them. and now they're gone. and we don't know why. and we never will. i think whats really cruel about suicide is that it robs the person of their identity. and it labels them. and people hear they "committed suicide" and the person they make up in their head isn't who the person was. they were someones child. someones brother or sister. someones best friend. they were someone. and for us who are left behind, i think we just have to chose to remember them, as the person they were. before suicide. before life became too hard. and we miss them. but mostly, we remember. and we live. and we chose to let their lives mean something.

Extremists

"One of the most disturbing things about Church history is the Church's appalling track record of being on the wrong side of the great social issues of the day." - Richard Stearns, The Hole in our Gospel

This quote is the first sentence in the chapter titled "AWOL for the greatest humanitarian crisis of all time." Richard Stearns' main point is that the Church can no longer attempt to function as a G-rated ministry when we live in an R-rated world.

It's no secret that I grew up in a sheltered environment--and I have no regrets about it. You can credit this decision to the fact that my parents were protective, that we were homeschooled in order to base our education on scripture, or that our family wanted our foundation to be firmly rooted in God before our exposure to the world. Any of those reasons are valid and, I repeat, I don't regret it.

But to state the obvious, I'm grown now and can no longer chose to be sheltered from the world. It won't work and it's not what we're commanded to do as warriors for Christ. "Be in the world but not of it." I appreciate my academic education and my social education, both have helped bring me to think and discuss issues that are vital to our society. I can't hide, and I don't want to look back one day and realize that my lack of research or willingness to see each side of an issue resulted in me being on "the wrong side."

So I'm trying not to ignore or disengage from the important social issues. I am trying to watch the news, read different opinions, and just participate in this R-rated world.

You've got mail... actual mail!

Last night when I got home I was pleasantly surprised (to say the least) to see a brown package on my bed - mail, I mean, real mail! Something about real mail still makes me giddy (even when I know what it is!).

The small brown package I received last night was even more special to me than other things I've received in the post lately. Inside was my very first book to review from Thomas Nelson Publishers. Yes, I now review books! It might not seem significant to anyone but myself, but let me tell you why this is a big deal to me.

Since my introduction to the Twitterverse a month ago, I have had the privilege of following so many talented writers, pastors, bloggers, worship leaders. To be honest, it has made me feel a combination of inadequacy and admiration. The admiration trumps the negativity and I am motivated to embrace my curiosity about writing. Is it for me?

Part of this process toward discovery will be to (a) continue this blog, tweaking it when necessary to try a different thought or style and (b) read and review more content by other authors.

I was ecstatic to realize that I could review books for Thomas Nelson. I signed up and was approved. I selected a book. It came in the mail a week later. Now I need to read it, review it, post the review, then choose another book. It seems like such a good fit for me! I am eager to begin... as soon as I can find the time...

Psalm 143:8a, The Message

If you wake me each morning with the sound of your loving voice,
I'll go to sleep each night trusting in you.

I know that I just used this verse, but I wanted to use it again! I had to adjust my monthly "sacrifice" because I was oversleeping almost everyday! So, now I am waking up to the TV but I'm still not falling asleep watching it. I feel okay about it since I'm not really watching the TV in the morning, it simply helps my brain arise from the depths of slumber.

What I really want to spend my free time and evening time doing is reading. It's a little hard because I have a large stack of books looming in my face that I am required to read for one reason or another. Sometimes that takes the fun out of it, you know, when it's an assignment. Anyway, I'm working hard to schedule more time in my day for reading.

What else in my life is a requirement and, thus, makes me resent it? An activity that I would otherwise enjoy? Let's not rob ourselves of joy and make our "requirements" become such "obligations." Especially when it comes to our spiritual responsibilities.