Faith is the vision you cast Papa. Victory you've called and painted and proclaimed. Yes! my heart agrees and looks to participate. Only, "How?" I ask. I'll walk on water if you just explain the how so can you teach me. My question remains unanswered but the vision doesn't stop and the urgency for me to receive it keeps knocking on my door. Yea Yea I got it Papa and I want it! Just, real quick, answer my question: How? "Faith" is your answer. Ha! Papa you make me laugh. Faith is your call. "How" is my question. Faith is your answer and your grace is unlimited so this is not an unfathomable reality for me to have.
It's not about understanding. As I stand firm. As I advance. As I proclaim the testimony of your salvation in my mind. I'm distracted by the pressure to answer the How. But this question doesn't matter because you have already won!!!! The answer is that in you is victory!! and the question is who wins!! HAHA! What joy when I realize that the dead ends I was pushing were dead ways of thinking and not unattended prayers.
Belief continues when change again. Belief goes deeper when Jesus is the only answer and the only true delight.

When the calender ends...

there is something so pressing about the end of education as I know it and an unplanned future. Need already exists in my future, it's not blank. My call and financial obligations call out reminding me of the cost and challenging my joy. I've encountered the oppressor time and again making grabs at my hope, my faith and the promise that paves the way ahead. I start this semester off by saying, "NO!" there are truths that have held to be self evident. I've been financially provided for, I've been surrounded by God's people time and again. He equips my hands to do the work that I never thought I could. He calls me out with names I don't understand. "RockClimber! Bold One! Prophet! Heart Nurse! Come away with me and i will put your feet on a straight path and lavish you with peace that you could never obtain or articulate."

Life behind, Desire for healing ahead

I've been encouraged to shoot high. Graduation cap is thrown in the air and I'm charged not to settle. Run run run! What to do with all this potential? Circumstantially, divinely set up with riches I can't even perceive how do I engage the world now? Fears of incompetence have been my worst enemy. Do I have what it takes to undergo "adult material." Out of the US I'm called. "Maybe stay awhile" I've considered but regardless of the roots that grow in this soil, my soul won't be satisfied until I get over there and out of here for awhile. The matrix is my call but I must get out in order to recognize it's thorough complexities.
So I've looked to the organization WORD MADE FLESH and considered their mission quite a bit. My heart is settled. Romania and Moldova are the destinations that I'm applying for at the end of the year. To me, this is an open door beyond the four month trip. I know once I get my feet wet God will guide me further. Now, as I wait I must sort through my motivations. Why? Why WMF? Why serving? Would I be willing to sacrifice for the sake of those in utmost needs? Will I succumb to frailty or faith in said circumstances?
"Whoever finds his life will lose it. Whoever loses his life for my sake will find it" Matthew 10:39
This is the explanation of my decision. I choose to take the accumulation of my college experience and go forth to serve; losing my life's goals and ambitions for the sake of Jesus' heart for children on the streets and unimaginable hopelessness. Sure, I could stick around and diligently pursue social justice in local communities. This is an honorable choice, but there's a depth of need I have to witness. I need to hear God's heart beat louder than I've ever known. Do I seek suffering for my own gain? You could say that. I'm blinded by the comforts Im surrounded by here and I'm sure as a graduate I'll be limited but have I truly witnessed depravity? I wouldn't say so. If I don't witness extreme depravity I won't know the depths of Jesus' love. Need here is relative. People are deprived of comforts and I have friends who can count loved ones on one hand. But there is enough governmental aid and church intervention, where I've been at least, to give attention to these needs. Love here, abounds in faithfulness and patience but there is somewhere to go for them and many to give. I long to be shaped by the activity of God's care and attention to those he pursues-widows and orphans. I long to relearn words like value, rich, poor, contentment, worship, friendship and faithfulness. Im not ready for America yet and I believe my desire for missions will prepare me.
Why WMF? Have you read their values and goals!? Ah I love it. Embracing the vulnerability of a role of a servant to those who are in need and circumstances we have never experienced is reality! Though privileged, what am I but a co-inheritor of Jesus' richness and I love the honesty and safety of this organization to allow for growth to start from brokenness. This is servanthood: being secure in your limits because you know that your lack will be abundantly supplied for. I know I'm called and commanded and I will answer and see what graces I uncover when I do. Word Made Flesh goes low and allows for questioning and authenticity while knowing that Jesus is central and it is Him we serve throughout the process.
What are my fears? Competency. Debt. Burn out. Self-focus. I need to believe Jesus will sustain me and that I've overcome these false threats as it seems. Each are maneuverable and I will be provided with truth of freedom.

Being in the Moment

Post grad-life has given way to a myriad of paths. One minute I throw my cap in the air and the next all I know is a gust of wind has flung open a door onto unpaved streets and demands with deadlines. My thinking became reduced to -- job, debt, food, gas, car payment, calling, security, debt, calling, MONEY??? The answer isn't money. I thought I'd save the suspense and let you know that now. Walking through the door has been a game of sorts. It gives way for living like the world is yours to discover and utilize and meet. It also unmercifully requires an excellence from you and your "career path". Know "A" and be trying to get to "B" so that you can make an impact by building "C" and you win! What normal rantings from a naive idealist grad right? She doesn't have the "know" on blind pursuits and she has been fooled time and again by pressures that have no right being hers. Round and round the merry-go-round mind games can turn when I've made a strategy out of living in order to get. How to pay of debt 101: I have know idea!!Living long term with the finances you have now: uh, be wise and give?? How to keep your dream alive in action and in heart: AHH! live aware of what I believe? There are many things I just don't know. I've been given this heart that's being disciplined to give control over. I have so much going for me: I'm healthy and I have the motivation to make those connections, break the comfort zone, do the work, get over myself, do the work again and again and again. But for what??? My life will be one that I will look back and say, "yes, I did persevere. Faith in the Truth remained in me and consumed my will. yes, I gave my life to love those who needed it most. yes I overcame all the obstacles i was called to." But how do I live in the now? With so many indefinites I do recognize that I could live without so many things and i've concluded that all I really want is a job. With this debt, all I really want is a continual source of income. I can live in a car for all I care. My will is strong and I will do what I have to. But my salvation is not even about any of these things. I'm worth more than just staying happy by praying through years of working this lump sum away. What fuels the visualizations that motivate me cannot be the best version of myself living a life that I can come up with by collaging other people's heroic stories all into my future. Otherwise, we would have the strength of mother Theresa, with the creativity of Shane Claibourne, the valiance of Anne Shirley and the abandoned hospitality of Keith Green. These (excluding Anne I regret) are some who have gone before me. A heritage before them that I too am grafted into. It's a bigger inheritance than all of us and it does not depend on the approval of man's eye. Living in the moment. Coming to God with nothing and leaving with nothing and having peace. Harnessing a mind that run's laps about routine topics while allowing God to be God without the limits I so long to calculate with. Oh how God can turn my head, break my heart, stir my ugliness and demand a perfect standard only He can shape out of me. Only Her.

The Economy of the Kingdom (6/30 Teaching Inspirations and Reflections)

Why is it that Prosperity is a word that seems to describe those who have materially proof of their righteousness and have been rewarded while Jesus was the most prosperous man and He had no place to lay His head? "He was rich, yet for our sakes He became poor, that you through His poverty might become rich, " says Paul (2 Cor. 8:9). It was Christ's limitation of communion with the Trinity that made us rich! Why? because God spared nothing in giving us Jesus. This is the precedent for our economy in the Kingdom! Our Father freely gave, let us too freely give. This is true prosperity: our capacity to give. A heart like the Macedonian church that begged Paul that they may give him offerings ad gifts to support/have fellowship with the saints in Jerusalem in abundant joy despite the fact they faced many afflictions and were in a deep state of poverty to the point of being beggars!! "Freely willing," describes Paul (8:3). Our economy as one's in the kingdom is not contingent on what we possess but our capacity in willingness. In verse 12, Paul says,  "if there is FIRST a willing mind, it is accepted according to what one has, and not according to what He does not have." What do we have in our hands right now and are our hearts willing to give it all away? But! Let not this stirring of faith be lost on good intentions. Paul advises that it is to our advantage that we start in faith to give freely, to purpose in our hearts to give that that desire may be complete in the giving because God's grace will meet and sustain you in this work abundantly!! Not out of obligation or because we want more for ourselves but just because we like to give to God! It's God who gave us our cars, food, time, energy, clothes, giftings, money, jobs and it is God who feeds us like the birds of the air who don't even reap or sow. He will multiply what you sow and it is directly linked to our righteousness (9:11-10). Our reward is an enlarging of our willingness and liberality in giving and that's why God blesses our seeds! It's not just about supplying for other's needs but it's also a our confession that our priority is glorifying the Gospel:) Living in a flow of God's unending graces is all about sowing for the sake of the Gospel. Sowing now means more blessing later and a greater level of grace demonstrated through us. Are we zealous to do good deeds? Are we radical givers in ways where only God could have supplied that?? or are we just working by the sweat of our brow that we might make ends meet? Give now. Testify that our Savior lives and that He has the obedient service of our money. Purpose in your heart to be freely willing with all you have been given and you will reap a harvest not only for you but for your children!