Stuck In a Glass Maze World

About a year ago, I had the fun opportunity to spend a day with some friends at the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art in Kansas City. Not only is the museum itself huge, with multiple levels (including some underground levels), containing art from various time periods, cultures, and places, but the grounds are also filled with many modern sculptures. During this particular trip to the Nelson, my friends and I decided to wander the grounds in search of the giant metal tree that we heard had been added earlier that year. On our search, we came across a curious addition I had never seen before. Standing just down hill from the monstrous and beautiful silver tree was a glass maze. While not very big, the maze was still easy to get turned around in. With the glass kept amazingly clean, it wasn't hard to miss a turn and accidentally run into the opposite wall or get turned around and pass a needed turn to reach the maze's center (especially if you didn't want to look like a fool by bumping into walls over and over again).


I think in much the same way, we let ourselves get trapped by what we're told and the lies we tell ourselves. Lies like: I'm not good enough. 
I'm not smart enough. 
I'm not attractive enough. 
I'm too young. 
I'm too old. 
I have nothing to say, nothing to offer, and no where to go. 
I'll. Never. Amount. To. Anything.
"ENOUGH! Enough with the lies!" I want to scream, but if you're alive and breathing in the twenty-first century, especially twenty-first century America with its image saturated culture, you know that thoughts like these, or at least thoughts very similar to these, pop up everywhere.
But these lies trap us in the same way the glass maze traps us. For we can see outside the maze, we can see life going on beyond the glass, we can even communicate with those on the outside, but we cannot hear them clearly through the glass. We can't really connect. Or at least not the way our hearts long to connect.
These lies keep us stuck behind this glass with no true connection, making us feel isolated, even when surrounded by those who love and care about us. And when we finally get fed up with feeling this way, we start to look for a way out. But just like with the glass maze, we are too embarrassed by our insecurities. We won't let ourselves bump into the walls, even if it will help us find the right path sooner, because we don't want those around us to know that we feel trapped. We don't want them to see it. In doing so, we hide even more, further trapping ourselves and maintaining that we never connect with anyone.

As usual, I want to take this even further. I want to look into why we believe these lies about ourselves in the first place. I've learned in recent months that these glass walls that keep me feeling isolated are created by lies I've come to believe about myself. Sadly, many never realize this, because our enemy is crafty. He has mastered the art of lies, spinning them until they look like truths we can't easily dismiss.
But why are these lies so appealing if they make us feel so horrible about ourselves? I think it all comes down to who we think we are and who we think God is.
The day I started to tear down these lies is the day I realized that if God is who I think He is, then my image of myself  did not align with what I believed. If God is loving, compassionate, creative, and all powerful, and he made me in His image, then shouldn't I, as a follower of Him, be more than capable to do great things?
I mean, this logic makes sense, doesn't it? Then how come this isn't the logic used by many of us? What I think it all roots back to is what we think of God. If you're like me and you believe Him to truly be the Lover of your soul, then this logic isn't hard to follow. But how many people really believe Him to be these things?

My mom recently told me about a children's storybook bible she heard about where the author, having to summarize things to make sense to little kids, summarized all the lies that the serpent told Eve in Genesis 3 with one doubt instilling question, "Does God really love you?"
Well? Does He?
If you aren't sure on that, then I can tell you from personal past experience that you aren't going to have an easy time breaking down those lies.

The Devil's Favorite Tool

"Just because it scares us or we don't understand it doesn't mean it isn't real."
This seems a little obvious. I mean, you may be scared of outer space, rottweilers , or taxes, but no matter how much you do not understand or are scared of these things, they are still there and no amount of pretending they aren't will make you not run into them or something regarding them from time to time. Obvious, right?
So, so then, how come we live much of the rest of our lives this way in regards to truth and beauty?

That quote is a line that stood out among all other profound thoughts expressed in my Partner in Crime's newest blog post, entitled The Ache of Beauty. In it she describes how we all experience this longing when it comes to beauty, because we were designed for ultimate beauty. But this longing scares us because we cannot understand it, so we put up walls around our hearts and hide, just like we do with many other things that scare us and threaten our minimal understanding of things.

I have talked a lot about walls over the last couple months. I've talked about how we build walls and masks around ourselves to hide who we really are, why we do these things, and how we should tear town these barriers so we can embrace who we are meant to be. I have talked about beauty and how we are scared to show our beauty to others for fear of being judged. But something I didn't realize until now was it's not just our own beauty we put a mask over but beauty in general. As Miss McCall said in her post, we turn away from beauty and put walls around our hearts so as not to feel the ache.
How many times have you read in the Bible that someone "hardened their heart" and wondered what it looked like? I think it looks a lot like this. Because the ache stems from a longing for more, a longing that we have to leave our comfortable places to pursue. And we, as humans, are oh so scared of leaving the known and the comfortable for the unknown and potentially uncomfortable. We are scared that our actions would not be worth it and that we will make a disastrous mess and fools of ourselves. We are scared because we have bought into the lie that we cannot walk on water. I mean, surely I can't be the only one who has a hard time believing that story sometimes.

But the devil works on this fear. We think he's been getting more and more creative with how he personally attacks us and tears us down, but his tactics haven't changed. Since the beginning of time, his methods have always been fear and lies, fear and lies. So why do so many people seem much more hopeless, lost, and longing for more than ever before?
It's because in the busy, who has time to seek truth?  And who would want to, really? I mean, truth disrupts our busy lives with our meetings, soccer practices, dinners, and even relaxation time planned to a T. You don't even have to look at a working adult to see this. Look at a grade schooler. From school to piano lessons to baseball games to play dates, it's no wonder kids are more stressed than ever and more and more people are growing up to never know how to appreciate beauty at all.

Jesus said we must become like a child to be able to enter His Kingdom. But with kids being scheduled more and more like adults, where has the wonder and inspiration gone? We are being introduced at younger and younger ages to lie that says you aren't important unless you are doing everything. Lies that tell us that the truth is a lie.

But this isn't the first time the devil has used our fear of the unknown to keep us from pursuing beauty and instead keep us pursuing things much less worth our hearts and souls.
In Exodus 5, Moses follows God's leading and goes to Pharaoh to ask if the Israelites can go into the desert to worship God for three days. In response to Moses' request, Pharaoh orders the slave drivers to make the work harder for the Isrealites so that "they keep working and pay no attention to lies." In the same way, our society has told us that busy is better. "Pay no attention to the truth," it says. "You must work, work, work so you can be the best."

With so many people saying this and living this way all around, it is very easy for us to slip into the same rhythm and have trouble believing truth and seeing beauty altogether.

But we must not let our fear of the unknown and the judgement of others keep us from living the lives full of wonder and beauty that we were designed to live. We must start a revolution and start breaking free from the molds we've been put in.
I challenge each of you personally to slow down and embrace beauty when you see it. Let it make your mind run wild, even if that takes you into parts of yourself you haven't explored in a while. Let yourself dream again, but don't stop there. Pursue the dreams and longing for a deeper meaning of Beauty, Love, and Truth that can only be found in the One we cannot fully comprehend.

Sticks and Stones

If you've been reading my blog from the beginning, or even just a few once in a while, you've probably heard me talk about a writer's conference called Re:Write and how things I learned there and the people I met changed me so much for the better. Well, what I haven't mentioned in my blog is the steps that came before that. The things that lead me to the huge weekend of self discovery that happened to me at this conference. Part of why I never mentioned these things is because until recently I wasn't even sure what started this chain reaction. It's hard sometimes, even once you've reached the end of a road, to look back and see the journey. The road snakes back on itself, sometimes parts of it are hidden. But sometimes it's good to revisit parts of your journey just so you can see how far you've come and learn new things from old situations.

Now, I'm not saying you should revisit everything, because there are certainly things that should remain only in the past, but there are still some things that you may appreciate more or learn more from now than you did when you first discovered them.

A few weeks before Re:Write, my sister shared a very impacting spoken word video on facebook.

I'm not sure if this began the domino effect of seeking myself and God in a deeper way, but I do .know it was an important domino somewhere in the chain. Emotional after watching the video and truly appreciating the idea that I recently realized would later evolve into the quote I shared in my last post about beauty, I decided to bare my soul to my large group of friends and acquaintances on facebook.

So, without further explanation, here is the video and the post that followed:

Growing up I was called obsessive, freak, crazy. Why? Because I was passionate and my mind moved a million miles a minute, causing me to have difficulty expressing myself and things that I loved in a "normal" way. Because of these names, I felt less than normal. At first that was okay. I retreated into my book, my fantasies, and my mind because I didn't even really understand myself.

Seventh and eight grade I saw people had friends, people shared what they were interested in and found people with common ground. I had been quiet and to myself for so long, I forgot. I forgot the labels they had given me. I spoke up. But still, I didn't understand me, not even to share who I was easily. So it came out in messy bursts of extreme emotions: excitement, anxiety, and passion. These things aren't normal. Or at least they aren't in middle school, where if you aren't painted in shades of the same boring gray as everyone else, you're abnormal.

Freak and crazy, some called me. But these didn't bother me as much as obsessed. I love words, I always have. And as a thirteen year old, I looked up the definition. "To think about something unceasingly or persistently; to dominate or preoccupy the thoughts or haunt persistently or abnormally"

There was that word again. Abnormal. So who was I then? I didn't belong to any bigger puzzle. I was not a masterpiece. I was abnormal. Broken. A discarded extra piece that didn't make sense.

Wanting to be loved and understood desperately, I put on a mask of shades of gray, hoping it would hide my crazy. But I found that I still couldn't relate to people, because I wasn't giving them me.I shut down emotionally to avoid the pain that came with the severe isolation I felt. I was lost in in a sea on shades of gray. I needed help. I was crying out for acceptance, but my mask had become so good at hiding who I was, that those around me couldn't even see I was in pain. Finally, through much pain, I threw the mask away, and exposed the deep emotional wound to the harsh air. Grace and love pored in. For the first time I had hope.

I was sixteen.

Since then, I've come to learn more about myself and how my mind works. It's a mess, and it doesn't make sense to even me sometimes, but I have found a way to harness that mess and turn it into something beautiful. I am writing a book. I do what some still call obsessive research and reading so I can improve my skills as much as possible. I'm still excessively loud, overly passionate, and into some things that aren't classified as "normal."

Although I'm not called these names that frequently any more, to this day, they still make me flinch. The way I thought no one understood me, or really saw who I was for so long affects how I think about my relationships. It still makes me second guess the genuineness of some of my friendships from time to time. I have to remind myself that those lies I once believed are not true.

What were your names?

I wrote this post six months ago. No longer do I flinch at these names. But watching this video and reading six months ago me's thoughts, I understand a little more about what I've been learning about myself, God, and beauty now.
After rewatching that video for the first time in six months, I was hit especially hard when the speaker said the line, "She's raising two kids whose definition of beauty begins with the word Mom."
And yet she still doesn't see her beauty because of the names she was called and the masks she wore to hide her pain. How many of us does this describe?
From the twenty years of life I've lived, it looks like too many. More than it should be, anyway.
I was one of these, I tried to cover myself up, because the names they called hurt too much and I couldn't bare to let the people see that my heart was nothing more than an unwanted flower trampled in the street.

And when I think about where I was, and where I still see people today, I can't help but identify with the last line of this poem, "Our lives will only ever always continue to be a balancing act that has less to do with pain and more to do with beauty," because if you think about it, that's what we were and are doing, isn't it?
We put on masks to draw attention away from the pain in our eyes at the cruel words spoken. We put make up on our scars and build walls around our hearts, because if someone saw our stories, lives, beauty, then maybe they would disapprove and call us names to make themselves feel less broken.

For isn't that all they are? The same as us. Broken souls in a never ending struggle with beauty.

So, just as I asked six months ago, what were the jabs made at your beauty?
What were your names?

The Language Of the Soul

Not so long ago, maybe a month or so, a few of my fellow fiction writers made a proposition to me. It went something like this, "Hey! We're going to start role playing characters from our books so we can get to know them better. Want to join?"


My head basically exploded.

Whether you know me or not, you probably don't know about my role playing addiction unless you were one of my role play partners in the past. But it really is no less than an addiction. So when I was invited to join them on this, excitement immediately filled me. I had a hard time containing it.
I knew the purpose of the sequence we were creating was to get to know characters better that we don't know very well, but I chose my most familiar character even though the character in my current work in progress could really use a lot of developing.
"Why?" might be your first question asked.
Well, it's because like role play, which I hadn't participated in in over a year, it had also been some time since I had written fantasy.
Fantasy's my jam. Fantasy's my passion. I eat, sleep, and breathe fantasy!
So even just the two short months I've spent writing something outside the genre has been killer for me.
So choosing Behmyn seemed like a no-brainer.

Now let me give you a little background on Behmyn before I get to want I really want to talk about.
Behmyn is a thinker. Behmyn is deep. He is broken. He has experienced many hurts in his past and has a poor tendency to blame himself for things he couldn't really have helped or stopped. But he is also loyal and protective. He tried to protect himself from getting hurt again, but he loves people too much to distance himself from them completely. He also loves animals and being outdoors. He is a hunter. He is also going blind.
Behmyn has been in my head for upwards end of seven years. First he was forming slowly. He didn't have a name, he didn't really have a form, but he was there. Then in September of 2010, I breathed him to life. He started as a character I role played online. After three and a half years really forming him into what he is now, I stopped role playing and moved him to a story I was writing. A trilogy. The first book of which is in my editor's hands.

All that being said, I didn't expect to learn anything from or about Behmyn in this little game we'd come up with. I would tell people we were doing it so they could get to know their characters better, except for me, because I was just doing it for fun.
Then he surprised me several nights ago with a speech about beauty.
Behmyn, like I, believes beauty is everywhere. In all honesty, I'm not entirely sure who believed it first. I'd like to say it was him, but maybe it was there in me, just buried where I couldn't see it until he brought it out. But through experimenting with a character who loves beauty, but can no longer see, I learned so much more about what beauty is and isn't than I ever did before Behmyn happened.
His view on beauty is the very core of his being. Without it, he does not exist, yet in all my years getting to know him, I have never viewed his passion in such a raw sense as he did in this speech.

He was talking with a young woman who was very deeply effected by the rules and standards of her society. A society that put people down and tried to keep them from feeling like they could express who they really are. After a while, she shared with him that she had never heard someone speak so openly about their inner thoughts before. She said that she, along with many others, were taught that beauty is dangerous and must be hidden at all costs.

Behmyn, and I along with him, ached deep within our souls. Because even though this was a fictitious event my friend and I were typing out, her character's words deeply reflected our own society.
We have taught young people in your society that beauty is not who you are. Who you are is scary, weird, or probably unlikable in some way, so you should hide yourself behind a pretty painted mask rather than showing your true heart and soul to people. It is something I notice every day. I have coworkers who are compulsive liars, making up stuff about their lives to try to make themselves seem, cooler, funnier, more interesting, etc. I hear people complain about them constantly, "And she told you this? You know she lies about everything, right?"
But while they see an attention whore, I see a broken spirit who's bought into the lies this society has fed them. Someone desperately wanting to be loved and accepted, but terrified that who they really are isn't good enough for acceptance.

So, when Behmyn, distressed over hearing people being taught to live like this, began his speech, it resonated deep with me, as with the rest of my friends.
The first thing he said was, "You can't hide beauty without damaging that which holds the beauty."
When I typed that sentence, I didn't even think about it. It just made so much sense. It perfectly described his distress over the situation and his inner passion about beauty. But in my time thinking about it since, I realize just how true his words are.

I mean think about it. Those people taught to hide themselves, the inner beauty of their hearts and souls, behind a mask soon become so damaged by the fear that comes with putting that mask on that they don't even really know who they are anymore. All they have is the mask, tied on by fear. Fear that someone will notice they're hiding. Fear that if their mask is disliked even after all their effort, that they could never love the person beneath the mask. Fear even when people approve of the mask, for the person underneath knows that the mask is a lie.
Pretty soon, even if they wanted to take off the mask, they couldn't. For unreasonable fear has replaced any desire of showing who they really are and crushed any hope of acceptance.

You see, beauty is not skin deep. I am deeply sad for whoever said so.
Beauty isn't something you see with your eyes or understand with your mind, but you feel with your soul. It is everywhere.
It's not just what you can see, but it can be heard and felt. For even with people like the one I just described, I can see glimpses of their beauty shining through the mask. I can see flashes of their passion, joy, humor, and heart. It's in their eyes, it's in their subtle doubts and fears that they don't know I've noticed. There is beauty even in their brokenness. Because out of their brokenness I see one thing, a soul longing to be seen, really seen, and loved deeply. And that is beautiful.

So like I said, I don't know who saw it first, but beauty is something I will always fight for. And hopefully in my own exploration of beauty through Behmyn's story and my own life, I will help others to learn this wonderful language of the soul called Beauty.




Note: I have been praying through Behmyn's story that it will touch those who read it in a special way. That they won't be the same after reading it. But before it can get into the hands of those who are meant to read it, it must be published. Like I said in my post, my manuscript is in the hands of my editor right now. 
But now I would like your prayers and support as I continue on this road of trying to get published. If you could pray for God's hand of guidance on this project and His perfect peace and insight on my current WIP, that would mean a lot to me.

My God is Limitless - How Big Is Your God? (Part 3)

In the second part of this three part post, I talked about how the wounds and scars from our past can prevent us from really seeing God. This time, I want to share a bit of my own story with emotional scars.
As I said in the last post, everyone has their scars, the lies they believe that prevent them from seeing the Truth. Because I am human, I have them too. One in particular plagued me for a long time. I believed that I wasn't important, that I didn't have anything to offer the world. This lie was more harmful than it seemed, like a poison that slowly eats away at self-esteem and plants not only seeds of self-doubt, but seeds of God doubt. It caused me to reach the point that I described in Doubting Your Doubts, where I couldn't even believe God intellectually any more, I just said and did things to keep up the show for people who I thought would reject me if they knew I didn't really believe what I said.
Thankfully, God is patient and persistent. He pursued me when I didn't even know he was. Then he grabbed my attention and spoke straight to my heart (for more of that story, check out my first post ever here). It was then I was able to start seeing the intellect in it all. But this lie, along with many others I believed then, and some I still believe today, created those deep scars I spoke of. Scars I didn't even know existed. Scars that I'm still discovering today.

I briefly mentioned in the last post that if you want to truly heal, you must identify the scars and the lies attached to them and bring them to God. But how do you do that?
The first thing to do is find the scars. How I've gone about doing that is just by paying attention to who I am and how I am. How do I react to things? What's something I don't like about myself, or something I'd like to fix? When you find a scar, ask yourself, "Why do I think this way?"
For example, I'm insecure. Sure everyone is insecure in someway, but I am specifically insecure about my creations. I have a very hard time expressing myself and my understanding of things, so I like to do it in the most creative way possible. I turn my frustrations into art. I draw, paint, write, sing, spin stories, etc. Some of these things I'm better at than others. But all of them are a deep expression of my thoughts and emotions that I am too scatter brained to articulate to another human being in the form of verbal communication.
It's my artist brain, and I love it, but for a long time I did not love it.
In fact, I hated it! I hated not being able to express myself. I hated the blank stares or confused misunderstandings I got from others when I tried. I hated feeling constantly judged and worthless.
So, I created nonstop. I created worlds, characters, stories, ideas, pictures. I even created masks to hide behind. And I was so, so insecure about my creations because they felt like part of me. Because, they really kind of were. They were the only way I knew how to express myself, but even then, I was scared to show my creations to others because I was scared they would say something less than positive about it and not realize that this wasn't just some little thing I made for fun, but this thing was me.

Those insecurities are the manifestations of a scar of a wound I received when I was young. A wound fed by the lie that I wasn't good enough, I wasn't lovable, I wasn't wanted.
But realizing that lie took time. First I had to identify the scar. I had to look at my insecurities and say, "I don't like you. You are not me, you are my chains. You don't define me, you just keep me tangled in fear." Then I had to search. I had to pay attention every time I felt insecure and ask myself, "What am I afraid of?" Through several months of asking that question, I discovered the lie I had come to believe.
The process isn't a fast one. It took me months to identify my scar, and more after that to identify my fear and the lie that fear was rooted in. But that was almost two years ago. It wasn't until this spring did I start to dispel the lie by finding out I was not alone. By meeting many other creatives who thought the same way I did and had the same doubts that God was using to do glorious and magnificent things! And not just things in other's lives, but some had even had impacts on my life before I ever met them.
But I almost didn't meet these people. My fear almost told me not to go to the Re:Write conference. "What if you don't get anything out of it? What if it's a waste of time and money? What if something bad happens on your long drive down there?" And many more what ifs that scared me. But I knew one thing.
I have a dream. A dream that I'm more scared to lose the opportunity to reach than I am scared or other's opinions of me or falling into crippling debt or even dying in a freak car accident. So, while all of the "what ifs" my fear whispered to me were very valid "ifs," I had one, single quiet "if" whispering to me, "But what if you can reach your dream?"
And that single, small, truthful whisper got me shaking with such anticipation that I no longer cared about the big, scary "ifs" my fear screamed to me.

I realize now that I am the way I am for a reason, although sometimes I forget that. It's still something I only understand in my mind, but don't quite know in my heart. Because of this, I try to do things on my own. Don't get me wrong, it's good to work towards your dream, but when you forget that your ultimate purpose is to bring glory to God's kingdom, you can shoot for the stars all you want and have a real hard time getting off the ground.
God has been challenging me with the question I shared in part 1: "Is there a limit to my power?"
I already know that God is bigger than my biggest fear. But I have a hard time learning that He is also bigger than my biggest dream.
So recently I have been circling this dream in prayer on many different levels. I'm circling that I'll be able to get the book I've already written out there where it can impact people in the unique way that only story can. I'm circling that He would guide me on my next novel, which is centered around escaping the lies of the devil to see God's Truth. And I've recently added a new prayer to the list of things I'm circling.
The book I'm working on now is set in the desert, yet I have never been to the desert. I, however, have a standing offer to get a chance to see the desert this summer with my Grandparents in New Mexico. All I must do is raise the money for plane tickets down there. The day I decided this was something I needed to do, I began circling New Mexico in prayer.With 10% of all I make going towards travel I knew I would only be able to make it there with God's provision.
In the three days since, I have made almost twice at much money as I usually do on these days.
Such an immediate answer to prayer is something I'm not used to. I was excited, stunned, grateful. But most of all, I was overwhelmed. After just a few hours, He had already provided, and it instantly brought to mind a song by Big Daddy Weave

So, how big is my God?
He is bigger than my biggest doubts, darkest fears, and most unattainable dreams.
Is there a limit to His power?
Never! He is limitless, and in Him we, too, can be limitless.



He is eternal. He is infinite. He will provide.
Do you trust Him?
I'm learning to.

Blessings, Faith, and Childlike Wonder

Recently, I've been noticing a lot of the little blessings God has been putting in my life. When I say recently, I don't mean that they've only been recently, rather He's been giving me them forever, and I just failed to notice until recently.
Jesus once said that we must become like little children to see the kingdom of God. But what does that mean?
To be a like a child is to embrace the wonder of the world around you, seeing more with your heart than with your intellect. For isn't it true that Jesus' words speak to our hearts while our minds are still mulling over the confusing logic?

More often than not, our minds tell us that something can't work before we ever try it out ourselves. It renounces the dreams and longings of our hearts and tell us to "be realistic" and "think like an adult."
But what if I don't want to be realistic? What if being realistic and ignoring my heart's calling leaves me feeling empty? What if thinking like an adult is holding me back?
Just like our minds, more often than not, tell us to ignore our hearts and be realistic, more often than not, following your heart can lead you to see all the little blessings all around you.

I call them "little blessings," but in reality, they're not so little after all. They come from small things, but they blessings brought can be enormous!

As you probably know, my dream is to be an author. But this longing of my heart is so much deeper than that. I, like most readers, have experienced the profound connection between reader and writer, storyteller and listener. You have moments where you feel like they know you, like they're speaking right to you, or where you feel like you know them. It's amazing how you can have such a connection with someone you've never met through the gift of words.
All of these things are "small things." Words are a small thing. Books are a small thing. Even connection is a small thing. All of it adding to the small act of reading. It's small because it's singular. It's not something you do as a group, but by yourself in quiet solitude, yet the impact can be immense.
So, what is my dream? The longing of my heart?
My dream is to create something that makes those little connections with others.
Will I ever know if I have reached this? Probably not. But what I do know is the stories that impacted me the most were God inspired. God spoke to a simple man's creative heart and told him to write, and he wrote. (For more about how such simple obedience has effected me, go here).

Recently I have been to the Re:Write conference (another little blessing with a glorious outcome), where we were encouraged to see through the eyes of our heart. The eyes of wonder. The eyes of a child. We were told that writer's block is a lie. That's all it is. Simply a fear based lie that we aren't good enough, that we'll never be writers, and that no one will ever want to hear what we have to say.
We were told the best way to overcome the lie of writer's block is to turn away from what we think we know to embrace what really is. We had to shut down our intellect and connect to God, heart to hear, soul to soul, realizing that our fear and other's opinions do not define us, but He.
And He thinks our art is beautiful.
Why? Because it came from our hearts, which he created.

This understanding, a small thing, though missed by many, has been another amazing blessing. It, however, is not something I understand with my mind, for it goes against the logic this world has instilled there. This understand is one deep within my being.
Along with this understanding of who I am and who God is, came the acceptance of a simple fact: I might not get published.
Tell me that a month ago, and I'd have fought you. I'd have told you that I will, I have to. I need to reach people. I need to reach my dream, or my dream is worthless!
Today I will agree with you. I might not get published. I might not have my books on shelves where countless people can read and have a connection that only happens between storyteller and listener. But that's okay. Because I know it's not my job to get this out there. I know it's not my job to make connections, or even write beautifully. My job is simply to write. Why else would God have planted this longing within my heart?

Over the past week I have been reading a book called A.D. 30, about a woman from Arabia who has a life changing encounter with Jesus. I read a conversation last night that helped pull the swirling thoughts that became this post together. I felt like I should share it.
The conversation takes place between a man named Judah, a Jew from a nomadic tribe in the desert who comes to Israel to find the king his elders told him about, and a Pharisee, who is later revealed to be Nicodemus (the man Jesus taught about being born again in John 3). Here is a snippet of their interaction:

   The Pharisee spoke barely above a whisper now, as though afraid his words might carry beyond the walls. "With Yeshua, God seems so be intimate, as though breath itself. The rabbi calls him even Abba. And we his children, to be born not of Abraham but of Spirit. Such things are not spoken elsewhere. And yet he asks us to follow."
   "But to follow where?" Judah demanded.
   "This too is a mystery." The Pharisee sighed. "You must understand...to have faith is to let go of knowledge as the means to salvation. To do so, one must embrace trust and mystery rather than man knowledge one's god... It is not where that matters so much as simply following. Faith, you see? Trust, like a child. It confounds the mind."

So I, like a child, follow Him down a path that's destination is unknown to me. But He tells me it will be beautiful, and I believe Him.
For isn't that what faith is? To follow with simple trust like a child?
I have chosen not only to follow like a child, but to view God's creation (and my creation) with childlike wonder!

Help! Bandits!

I ran through the foggy night. My lungs burned, my legs ached, but I kept running. I had to. They were after me.
Foot steps thundered behind me and I made the mistake of looking over my shoulder to see how far away they were. Nearly tripping over my feet, I turned my eyes forward again. It didn't matter how far they were, all that mattered was I couldn't last forever. The thugs goaded and taunted me when they saw me stumble, but I ignored them. Let them waste their breath shouting, that would actually be better for me anyway!
Weaving in and out of trees, I attempted to lose them. Or at least slow them up. Anything would be better than where I was now. But fate had a way of taunting me.
Just then, I was out in the open. The forest had spit me out into a wide glen. I was exposed, with no cover except going back in the trees where my death was charging me down. I had no choice but to plunge into the fog. I was beginning to lose hope of ever finding a way out of this situation when I saw something through the fog.
It was a light!
The light burned away the fog around it to reveal a small cottage, resting in the center of the glen. I was saved!
Finding a new energy, I ran full tilt for the little house. I prayed desperately that someone, anyone, would be home. I was going so fast that I was almost unable to slow down before reaching the door. I tried the knob, but it wouldn't budge. Locked.

PAUSE.

We all get into situations like this. Where life seems to be going any way but our own, where we feel trapped, endangered, anxious. It's just a part of life. But there's a right and a wrong way to respond in a situation like this.
My brother and I were talking the other day about where Jesus said, "Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives; he who seeks finds; and to him who knocks, the door will be opened."
But specifically we were talking about when life puts us in situations that require us to ask, seek, or knock. Even more specifically, we were talking about a friend of ours. For her confidentiality, we will call her Sabrina.
We talked at length about how Sabrina's faith has been wavering recently and what brought her to that place. We talked about how she has decided to live life on her own, by her own power, proclaiming that God didn't want to help her or could help her. Upon learning of these new convictions Sabrina had, my brother and I were greatly grieved. The girl who was once so on fire for God and ready to worship and share him wherever she went was gone. In her place is but a shadow of who she once was.
Anger, fear, and anxiety have replaced the joy, strength, and peace she once radiated.
My brother, wise as he is, brought up this piece of Scripture, saying, "She thinks God has abandoned her, but he's just waiting for her to trust him to have it under control, instead of fighting for it to go her way."
After several minutes of discussion about the passage, the image of the chase popped into my head.
"It's like being chased by bandits," I said, "and there's a home, a safe haven of sorts in the distance. But you find the door to be locked, and instead of knocking and trusting in the unknown possibility that someone who cares might actually be there to save you, you turn back and try to face the bandits on your own."

Imagine if the character in our story, after finding the door locked, decided to do just that. Tired and sore, alone and scared, he turned back to faced the numerous thugs that assailed him, saying to himself, "I have strength! I can do this. Who says I need some God  to save me. I don't need anything but my own will power! And who's to say there's a God anyway? I mean, if there was, why would there be thugs after me? Obviously this house, this offer of peace and joy is just to taunt me! I mean, it's locked after all. Why would a loving God offer this way out, if anyone couldn't just enter? Obviously there either isn't a God, or He isn't loving, because look at that! There's bandits!"

As silly as this argument sounds, these sorts of questions are asked every day by millions of people. Now, obviously, if you were in this situation in real life, you would pound on the door until your fists fell off, which, for the sake of my metaphor, is the exact reaction you should, but don't always, have spiritually.
I can't answer all of the questions posed, but I will debunk one.
The bandits are human.
Did you see that?
They're human! Just like you and me and the old lady in the supermarket and the President of the United States. Human.
Are humans God?
No. Even though we really would like to believe so sometimes.
As humans, we have God granted free will to do whatever we please. Now you could get mad at God for "letting" the bandits come after you, but then, if he were to remove their free will, he would also have to remove yours. Why? God loves all of us equally. He wouldn't give one special favor over the other. This same free will is what gives you the choice to pound your little heart out on the cottage door, or try to face the adversity on your own.

Now, because the bandits are human and they have free will, they are chasing you.
This brings us back to the question, why would a loving God allow us to be chased by bandits? And my honest answer is I don't know.
But I do know two things:
1) By using our free will to choose our own way instead of God's way, we decide to pretend we're God. We say, "I know what's best for me better than any unseen God ever could." We take matters into our own hands, and some of the choices we make lead us to be bandits.
2) God does love us.

Now you may be asking, "But, Miss Blogger-Chick, how can you possibly say that with certainty when you have no absolute facts?"
Oh, but I do.
How do I know? He provides us with an escape. An escape from the bandits that plague our lives, and the decisions we make that make us, too, bandits.
"How does choosing to rely on ourselves and face the bandits make us bandits? I don't get it."
Oh, I'm so glad you asked that! That is a great question.
What do you suppose the person in the story is going to do when he faces the bandits? Is he going to sit down with them and chat over their differences over a nice cup of tea (or coffee, if you prefer)? No, the bandits have already proved to be violent and bloodthirsty. So then the only way to face them by yourself is to sink to their level and also become violent and bloodthirsty.
Something we all have to realize, though, is that while God will always answer, His answer isn't always the answer we want. While we want judgment, God wants retribution. We can be pounding our fists bloody on that door, begging for God to smite the bandits with a thunderbolt, but He's not going to do it. Although you may not see it in the moment, His way is so much better.

Now before I continue our story, I want to bring something cool to your attention.
Remember that passage I brought up at the beginning of the post? Yes, I know I'm long winded and it was awhile ago, but I trust your memory.
Literally the day after my brother brought up that piece of Scripture, my daily bible-prayer time brought me to Matthew 7 where the passage resides. Now we could call this sweet irony or coincidence, but I like to believe it was God. Or better yet, maybe one of God's favorite ways to work are sweet irony and seeming coincidence?
Food for thought.

I tried the knob, but it wouldn't budge. Locked.
Frantically, I knocked on the door, glancing over my shoulder constantly. I looked away for only the briefest of moments when I heard a shout. I looked back to see one of the thugs standing at the edge of the cloud of fog, pointing at me and waving his buddies over. My heart sank.
"I can't do this." I whispered to myself in defeat, tears filling my eyes.
I rest my forehead against the door and my rapid pounding slowed to a rhythmic thunk, thunk, thunk. At every third pounding of my fist, I would lift my head from the door and let my forehead thud into it. With each thud, I repeated a silent, simple prayer.
Please, save me. Please, save me. Please, save me.
The third time I brought my head back to the door it didn't connect with solid wood, but something with a give to it. Something like flesh.
I pulled back and opened my eyes to find the chest of a man only inches from my face. I looked up to meet a face and eyes so kind and loving that time seemed to slow for a moment.
"Welcome home, child." He said to me, his voice as deep and gentle as the ocean on a calm day. "I've been waiting for you."

Windows To the Soul - Why I Write (Part 2)

In part 1 (The Obedience of Sinful Man) I shared with you part of my story, as well as an example of how God used a man's simply obedience to touch my life.
I mentioned having made these connections during the Re:Write Conference that I recently returned from. Well, there was another connection I just made this morning, that I felt I should share.
Originally, this was all going to be one post, but I got on such a roll on the topic of obedience, that I had no choice but to split them up.

During the conference, I got the blessing of getting to have not one, but multiple conversations with the writer I mentioned in part 1. It was totally surreal. Not because he's sold millions of books, or even because of the huge impact his words have made on me, but because despite all that he was still human. In fact, he's just like me. He has doubts and struggles and highs and lows like the rest of us. But that's not surprising. In fact, I already knew that.
So what made the experience so surreal?
I got to meet someone who was really desperately trying to live the way Jesus commanded us all to. It was refreshing.

Earlier this week, I was on the phone with my fellow writer Elaine Mingus, sharing with her one of my favorite experiences of the whole conference. Specifically we were talking about this man and his unabashed way of sharing the truths God has been teaching him, even when he doesn't fully understand them yet as well as how understanding and accepting he is of people.
Elaine put it well when she said, "He's just so Jesus-y!"
And I realized that was the perfect way to describe it.
Don't get me wrong, he's no saint. I've heard much of his personal story. I've read of his selfishness and pride that brought him away from God in the past, of his hurts and how he's had to struggle to redefine God outside of the pain of his past. But he's let God change him to be more like His Son, and it shows!

Before I can tell you what happened, I must share with you a little something I found in my morning bible-prayer time.
I was reading Jesus's famous Sermon On the Mount, and I came across a intriguing little nugget buried in the middle. The sermon is a lengthy one, stretching over three chapters (Matthew 5-7) and covering a variety of topics, including murder, divorce, oaths, giving to the needy, prayer, and fasting.

In a section entitled "Treasures in Heaven," sandwiched between verses talking about keeping your focus on heavenly things, rather than earthly possessions and one talking about how you can't serve both God and money is the rarest little verse:
"The eye is the lamp of the body. If your eyes are good, your whole body will be full of light. But if your eyes are bad, your whole body will be full of darkness, If the light within you is darkness, how great is that darkness!" (Matt. 6:22-23)

I have read this sermon many times, as you probably have as well. Like me, you've probably looked over that verse as, "If I focus on what is good and holy (God), then I will be good. But if I give into my sinful nature, I will be full of darkness."
This is fine. It may even have been one of the intended meanings of what Jesus said. But the cool thing about Jesus is that his words transcend time. Meaning, even as you read them countless times, you can get something new and fresh out of it. I never had gotten anything new or fresh from this set of verses. Until today.

What if it could be taken backwards? Think about it.
It is said that the eyes are the window to the soul. So, if your eyes are good, and your body is "full of light," then wouldn't the reverse be true? If one's soul is full of light, meaning you are living like Jesus the best you can, then wouldn't you be able to see that in their eyes? They being the windows to the soul?
If A=B, then B=A. Right?
Simple comparison, but it makes my point.

Now, my question for you is, have you ever seen this? Have you ever seen someone who was so full of the peace and joy of the Holy Spirit, that you could see it in their eyes?
You see, I wouldn't have been sure if I could answer this question a week and a half ago. In fact, I wouldn't have even made the connection between the verse and eyes being the windows to the soul before the conference. The only reason I did, is because I spoke with someone who demonstrated this. He wasn't trying. He wasn't putting on a show. He wasn't making himself seem good or holy or "more in tune with the Holy Spirit" than anyone else.
What he was was honest.
He was simply living his life and loving people the way he has learned to over years walking with Christ. And it showed! It definitely showed!

There was moment early on the first day where I went up to him to get the series I mentioned in part 1 signed. During which time, I felt compelled to tell him a little bit about where I was in my faith right then. I shared with him that though I have a solid foundation built right now, I have been struggling to connect with God on an emotional level due to the emotional disconnect I struggle with that I mentioned before. I told him how I miss the connection. To which he replied with, "My talk tonight is for you."

During his talk that night, he talked much about how everything we do flows out of who we think we are, how our experiences are largely influenced by our perception. He spoke of how we need to let go of out intellect, the part that puts God in a nice neat little box, before we can ever begin to see who he really is. He shared how only recently has he begun to really, truly believe that he is a child of the King. With dramatic gestures, he clutched his head, explaining that for years it was something he knew "up here," but only recently had begun to know it "down here," he said with his palms pressed into his chest.
He spoke of this and so much more. But what happened after I remember so much more clearly than what he spoke of.
I waited for the crowds of touched attendees and gawking fans to disperse, and I managed to approach him one-on-one (a rare thing indeed).
"You were right, I did need to hear that." I began.
He said gently, "I told you. I told you." His voice through the entire exchange remains how it generally does: gentle and understanding, like a father calmly guiding a child.
I told him that I needed to hear this as much tonight as I did a year ago (for this wasn't the first time he had spoken on a topic similar to this). Mimicking his gestures from before, I told him that I understand what he spoke on "up here," but I can't quite connect it "down here" yet.
Flustered, I was about to continue, when I finally met his gaze. While he had been holding eye contact the entire time, I let mine wander.

It's a funny thing, eye contact. Rarely do we hold it for any period of time. I believe there's a reason we don't. Like earlier mentioned, the eyes are the windows to the soul. Obviously sharing some part of you that's that deep can be scary. There have only been a few people I've known to hold long eye contact with me. While each time it's happened, the topic of discussion has been different, there was always one thing the same in each experience: they all wanted to connect and be open.

I've been telling people he "stopped" me before I could continue, which gives the idea that he said or did something to cause me to stop my rant before it had even begun. But that is not the case. All he did was look at me, with an expression that said, "Don't get flustered. I understand."
He took advantage of my momentary speechlessness to pull me into a big hug. "Shh," he calmed. "Don't think about it. It will come."
In that moment, I knew he was right. Of course, it's just what he said before. I need to let go of my intellect that tries to tell me how it should be, and be like a child again before God.

Quickly, before he could leave, I asked if he could pray over me. His prayer was simple. With hands on my shoulders and his eyes locked on mine, he just reminded me who I was and who God was. I can't remember his words, except how he ended it with, "Be healed, be healed." As if there wasn't anything simpler than that. Which I guess there isn't.
His words aren't what impacted me though. It was his eyes. For the first time, I held his gaze. It's amazing how much of a person's spirit you can see in their eyes. His were excited, almost like a child's, and so full of love and peace and joy. I could see the Spirit alive in him.
Before this I had never actually noticed anything like that that in someone's eyes before. Sure, I could see by the way they talk or act certain aspects of the Spirit in them, but I'd never seen it.
Maybe I just wasn't paying attention.
Maybe I wasn't looking close enough.
Whatever the case, I shall have to pay closer attention next time. And hold better eye contact, of course!

If you're interested in knowing more about what God's been teaching him and sharing with the world through his gift, click here.

The Obedience of Sinful Man - Why I Write (Part 1)

I recently returned from the 2015 Re:Write Conference, where I forged many new friendships and many great experiences. Most of all, I learned a lot about myself and my God. I learned how Yeshua can use the simple obedience of a sinful man to touch the lives and hearts of those he may or may not even know.

I could give many examples, for over the weekend I heard numerous analogies and personal stories. But today I will only share the story of only one man, who by following God's guidance, touched my life.

However, before I tell his story, I must share an analogy.

During the final talk on the last day, a pastor named Mark Bartterson (you probably know him as the author of The Circle Maker) told us about mustard seeds.

I'm sure we've all heard  the parable of the mustard seed. It's one of Jesus' shorter parables, found in Matthew 13-31-32, but it has a lot to it.

Mark told us that if we have been called to write, to not write is disobedience. But if you've ever done any writing, you know how hard it can be. It has been compared to bleeding on a page, and really no better comparison can be made. In writing, you put a part of yourself that even you barely understand out there for the world to trample. It's scary, but oh is it exhilarating! Too many of us, however, get stuck on the fear that we wont be able to write well, and that fear keeps us from writing.

This goes for anything God has called us to do. We let fear that we wont be "good enough" debilitate us.

Mark went on to tell us how our writing is like a mustard seed.

“The kingdom of heaven is like a mustard seed, which a man took and planted in his field. Though it is the smallest of all seeds, yet when it grows, it is the largest of garden plants and becomes a tree, so that the birds come and perch in its branches.”

"Why does a farmer plant a mustard seed?" Batterson asked. "Is it so it will grow branches and be able to bless other living creatures? No, chances are, the farm plants a mustard seed, because he wants mustard for his hot dogs!" In the same way our writing can be. We write because it allows us to express ourselves in the special and unique way God as gifted us to. We may also write because we want to inspire or touch others. Or maybe because we want to be a best seller someday! Whatever our reasons, God can make our simple obedience touch lives we never thought it could. All we have to do is plant the seed.

Now, about two decades ago, a man decided to obey God's calling to write. Like the farmer, he could not have imagined who he would touch with his simple obedience.

Two decades ago, I was a newborn. I hadn't learned to talk yet, let alone how to comprehend the wonders of our infinite Creator, yet He, in His great wisdom, called a man I didn't even know existed to begin telling about Him in the form of story.

 Ten years later, that man was inspired to tell about God in the form of an allegory that spanned over 1500 pages in the form of several books. Obedient, he wrote the story. As a ten-year-old, I still didn't know who this man was, let alone that God would later use his obedience to change my view of Him.

Flash forward to sophomore year of high school. This was a dark year for me. I had put my worth in the opinions of a friend, rather than in my loving heavenly Father. When this friend stabbed me in the back, my self-worth shattered. Feeling betrayed, I shut my emotions down. Without my ability to connect to other's emotionally, I grew very cynical.  My cynicism brought up countless questions on who I am and who God is. My view on him began to crumble and I soon descended into a pit of depression. What little faith I had was gone. I hated myself and wanted nothing to do with this so called "loving Creator" if He couldn't even make my life work. I began to view the bible as little more than fairy tales, for that's what they felt like to me.
Just before my sixteenth birthday, I followed my mom to a Christian bookstore where the cover of a book grabbed my attention. It's dark, abstract cover appealed to the taste for dark forms of art I had begun to discover. Oddly enough, I have never since seen the book with that specific cover. The cover I always see now is of the surface of an emerald green lake. If this was the cover I had seen on the shelf, I would not have looked at it. But that is not the case. God put something before me that would grab my limited attention and coax me to look farther.Turning the book over and reading the back, I was intrigued. I didn't, however, buy the book. Not then at least. I went to the library and found it there, where it had the familiar bright green cover I've come to know.

At first, I didn't see it for the allegory is was. It wasn't until halfway through the second book did I see it. God spoke to me through the images and stories and lives of these characters. He showed me it's connections to the gospel I had grown up hearing, and recently dismissed. He made it feel real again.If this man could be so influenced by God to write something this impacting, then God must be real!

This is not to say that I hold this man or his novels on the same or similar level that I hold Jesus and his gospel, but his obedience did make an impact on me. That impact lit my desire to search for God and who he is again, because for once I did feel loved.
Even though in that moment, I had not put all of this into a straight thought as I do here, I did realize the awesomeness of a God who can use something as small as a man's imperfect story to change the life of someone that man has never met.

This is but one story of obedience. It is I, now, who take up that same calling. Whether my books get published and impact others or not is not in my hands.

 It's in His.

All I must do is write.