Chalk another one up for God's Sovereignty...

For the past several months I seem to have miraculously evaded the layoffs, pay cuts, and general drudgery that characterizes a nation in recession...until now. My hours were drastically cut and I'm now working two days a week.  Yikes!  Almost more scary to me than the whole finances deal is trying to figure out what the heck I will do with all this free time!?!

Thankfully, the Lord is Sovereign and He is always for His children!  Just a week prior to this reduction, I moved in with my aunt and uncle and am paying zero rent.  Initially I wasn't that stoked about this living situation, because let's face it, crashing on the couch at age 24 doesn't exactly scream success...but the Lord knew just what was around the corner for me, and not being locked into a lease right now is such a relief! Praise the Lord for His control.  

This loss of hours also has brought me perhaps the last nudge I needed to know that the Lord does not have me here in the OC for much longer.  I have been praying that the Lord would clearly lead me during the month of March to whatever is next in my life and this is just one of the ways I've seen Him lead and answer me.

It's honestly been a rough couple of months as the Lord has stripped away a lot of things that I clung to for security...relationships, job, housing.  But now, finally, I am beginning to see that He wants me in a place of total surrender and trust.   He has some plan, that I have yet to fully uncover, that requires me to be freed up from all of these things that I had grown comfortable in.   It's been an immense comfort to rest in and rely upon God's unchanging character.  I don't know quite what is around the corner right now, but I know the One who is holding my hand, and leading me into the unknown.

a few of my favs...

It was recently brought to my attention that I do not have many pictures posted here on my blog, and so, in an effort to please the readers, here are a few of my favorite pictures.  Most of them are from college as I have sort of fallen off the picture taking bandwagon as of late.  Enjoy!

This is perhaps my favorite picture of my best friend Amanda taken during our last finals week senior year.  Clearly we weren't that concerned about grades at that point!

My dear friend Emily and I bought these amazing 80's hammer pants in Venice Beach one summer...a photo shoot ensued for good reason! 

One of my favorite pictures of me and my roommates. NYE 2006

This picture has always made me laugh...I have a crazy family that I love so much!

  

 

I am in love.  This is the first time I met Avery, my precious niece.

Avery

Another of my favorite pictures with Amanda. This picture has always been referred to as the "Walk of Shame" because we got locked out of the apartment and ended up sleeping over at the boys house which we were very nervous about!

This is the coolest I have ever been or ever will be.  Chelsea and I downtown in SLO.

A great day at Disneyland with my family.

  

Just a few weeks before we graduated and moved on, the roomies headed out to Meadow Park in SLO for a photo sesh.  I love this candid moment.

excitement!

i am so blessed to get to have such a fun week!  not only do i get to go visit some dear friends in portland i also get to see some dear ones in slo! i can hardly wait. i feel like a kid before christmas!

 look forward to pictures and stories after my return....

until then,

"The Spirit does not take his pupils beyond the cross, but ever more deeply into it." 

-J. Knox Chamblin

I finished reading the Cross Centered Life by CJ Mahaney the other night and since that time  I've been reflecting on the journey that the Lord has had me on over the past 8 months.  During this time He has been revealing to me how little I actually knew of the Gospel.  I knew the Gospel at the knowledge level, but I didn't really know it at an experiential level.  

 I started to realize my "Gospel deficiency" while I was on staff on summer project and we were leading Bible studies on Justification, Sanctification and Glorification.  As I prepared for these, I learned so much and my appreciation and love of the Gospel really began to deepen in a way I had never known. For the first time I began to really understand and be deeply impacted by the truth of justification as a once and for all declaration of my complete righteousness only because of Jesus' abundant grace.  Understanding that has freed me up from a lot of legalistic thinking.  There isn't a thing I can do, good or bad, to change my standing in Christ; I am loved fully by the Lord even in the very midst of my guilt and shame.   I don't earn His favor because I'm a good Christian or because I did ministry full time for awhile.  Everything I have is from Him because it pleases Him for it to be so.   Thankfully, the Lord has brought me through some experiences over the past few months where I have really had to put this intellectual understanding to the test. It has been super challenging at times and I have really wrestled with the Lord and questioned His  ways when they seemed hurtful and difficult.  It didn't make sense to me how things could seem so hard even though I was doing "everything right" as a Christian.  Through all of this, what has become deeply and wonderfully written on my heart is the depth of the Gospel.  When nothing has made sense and everything has hurt, there stood the Gospel, as perfect and as satisfying as ever. It is a deep bottomless well filled with refreshment and nourishment.  I am so thankful! 

I used to think that I could somehow "graduate" from the Gospel and move on to other topics, as though it were something that was only relevant early on in one's conversion.  I am truly grateful for what God has been teaching me lately.

"For the Word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and spirit, of joints and marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart." Hebrews 4:12

Just had one of those "living and active" times in the Word and am feeling challenged and very encouraged.

The Lord is so good to me.

(some of) my favorite words

I once saw a book that I really wish I had just bought.  It was essentially a journal, but each page had a different prompt for a list to write.  I have made it my mission to find that book again, and to list to my heart's content.  I don't know what it is, but there is just something so endearing to me about enumerating my favorite songs, or movies or foods or places....

Tonight, however, I will turn to listing a smattering of my favorite words.  Some are favorites due to their meaning, others because of the way they look or sound.  I have to confess that I did spend more than a few moments drafting this list at work.  I also have to confess that all these wonderful words made me miss the days of studying with flash cards for the SAT...oh to be young again!

Originally, I had hoped to make an A-Z list, but inspiration didn't lead that way after all...enjoy!

cumbersome, opulent, zealot, obtuse, cacophony, soiree, shindig, bludgeon, effervescent, bask, ogle, winsome, squeamish, tourniquet, traverse, grandeur, guts, smorgasbord, incredulous, exacerbate, gregarious, magnanimous, holistic, gander, clad, livid, languish, lackadaisical, perfunctory, pragmatism, dank, doodle, happenstance, jumble, jocular, kindred, coagulate, poppycock, sordid, wrangle, congregate, usurp, malign, benign, serendipitous, squalor, decimate, esoteric, stoic, peon, minion, marzipan, contemplative, sycophant, wasps, colonel, idiosyncrasies, squirrel, swindle, disjointed, impediment, austere, brackish.

Until next time,

music and memories

I love that particular songs can bring you right back to a place in time.  A song can stir a particular emotion each and every time you hear it's melody dance into your ears.  Tonight as I was revamping my sleepy time playlist I threw on some Sufjan Stevens and instantly my mind was flooded with memories of the summer of 2004 living in a dinky little hotel room at the El Caribe in Daytona Beach, Florida.  I was on summer project and I had just finished my sophomore year at Cal Poly.  To this day it's still somewhat baffling that I signed up for a summer project because I scarcely knew what they were about or what I'd be doing but I am so glad that something did stir in my heart to lead me on that journey there.

 During my first couple of weeks there, I celebrated my 20th birthday there and I recieved a care package with a couple of burned Sufjan cds. I instantly fell in love with his music and it wasn't long after that I was sharing this discovery with my new dear friends, Emily, Hannah, Renee and Katie.  Emily and I were roommates in what was affectionately known as "The Cave."  The room wasn't much, just the one queen sized bed that we shared all summer, a tiny kitchen and a bathroom.  Every night Emily and I would crank up the AC and play the Seven Swans album as we drifted off to sleep.  The cd was not only beautiful music, but was helpful to drown out the sounds  of the busy A1A highway outside of our window and the steady hum of the air conditioner.   The songs from that cd, along with many other songs, have created a soundtrack to my life that summer.  It was a summer where I made some incredible friendships built on Christ, and laughter and sisterly love.  It was a summer where I fell in love with Jesus and the Word in a fresh and life changing way.  Summer 2004 was life-changing for me.  Just sitting here writing about it now makes my eyes well up with tears to think about what an impact that made on my life.  Some of my fondest memories and most beloved friends were made that summer.  

Years later I heard the song "The Dress Looks Nice on You" by Sufjan Stevens played as my dear friend Emily walked down the aisle to be married to a really wonderful man.  It had then, as it does tonight, an emotional effect as I remember and thank the Lord for my life and the cherished memories I have from Daytona Beach.

I feel so blessed to have had that chance to sit and reflect on that summer and those sweet times tonight...and it was all thanks to a song I threw on my sleep playlist!  

So what song or cd does that for you?  I'd love to hear.

Until next time,