The central idea of the great part of the Old Testament may be called the idea of the loneliness of God.

-G.K.Chesterton

by faith

"...the pattern that began with Abraham continued: Isaac married a barren woman, as did his son Jacob. The esteemed matriarchs of the covenant-Sarah, Rebekah, and Rachel-all spent their best childbearing years slender and in despair. They too experienced the blaze of revelation, followed by dark and lonely times of waiting that nothing but faith would fill.

A gambler would say that God stacked the odds against himself. A cynic would say God taunted the creatures he was supposed to love. The Bible simply uses the cryptic phrase "by faith" to describe what they went through. Somehow, that "faith" was what God valued, and it soon became clear that faith was the best way for humans to express love for God."

[Disappointment with God, Phillip Yancey]

Years of silence. Dark and lonely silence and waiting, supplemented by stark, naked faith. They waited for God to fulfill his promises. They believed God. What I wouldn't give to talk to one of these women, to know how it felt to live a life that depended on an invisible God. I wish I could talk to Jacob, who wrestled a blessing out of God.

These stories are full of drama: messy people, trying to figure out what it means to worship an invisible God and walk with him by faith. I wonder how far removed they felt from their creator? I wonder how often following God actually made sense to them? I wonder if the wives ever rebelled...well, actually, we know that Rachel had idols that she brought from her father's home, right? I wonder what God thought of that...?

"Disappointment with God is not a puzzle awaiting solution...

...rather, it is a problem of relationship between human beings and a God who wants desperately to love and be loved by us...God doesn't care so much about being analyzed. Mainly he wants to be loved. Nearly every page of his Word rustles with that message...it's a relationship between a passionate God- hungry for the love of His people- and the people themselves. All feelings of disappointment with God trace back to a breakdown in that relationship."

[Phillip Yancey, Disappointment with God]

I think that this sheds a lot of light on the struggle of disappointment with God. It's not an intellectual issue. It's an emotional, relational issue that centers in the hearts of humans, and connects with the heart of God.

slightly disappointed

Just started reading this book. I am only a few pages in, but every word I read was just so refreshing and real to me.

I have officially declared myself to be in crisis. I don't know the scale of colors--you know, the scale that tells you how serious a crisis is--but I'm pretty sure that I'm an orange.

yep, orange seems to be the perfect color to describe where I am.

I'm ashamed to admit that I once saw a friend reading this book, and I remember thinking "Oh, shoot, he's probably really struggling."

Well, let's just say that struggling isn't the worst thing in the world. In fact, we are encouraged to work out our salvation with fear and trembling. So I'm working it out. Slowly, painfully, and fearfully.

It's not that I don't love God. It's not even a lack of trust--not completely. I'm just at a place where I need somebody to be honest with me about following Jesus. Someone who's willing to be frank with me about prayer. Someone who can discuss some tough issues with me. My new friend Phillip seems to be the perfect person to dialogue with about this. So I embark on yet another journey--or rather, continue on the journey I have been on for quite some time--to figure out this whole Walking with Jesus thing.

change

I have felt kind of strange for a while now. I haven't felt like myself. I feel off, not quite right. This feeling of not-quite-rightness has been hanging over me for a long time...almost two years now. Two years is a long time to feel not like yourself.

I can't figure out what the deal is. I'm happy. I know what I want to be when I grow up. I have friends that love me, and an amazing husband. My relationship with my family is better than it has ever been. But sometime still doesn't feel quite right.

I don't feel it all the time...but at night, before I go to bed, I feel it. When my eyes fall upon my unused journal, I feel it. When I remember how happy I used to be in my walk with the Lord, I feel it. And I don't know why, but I just can't figure things out.

I feel like somewhere along the road, I changed. Something changed inside me, something shifted deep inside, and I haven't been able to catch my bearings ever since then. I don't know when it happened, or what happened...all I have is the weird feeling that hangs in the quiet places of my heart.

I used to love spending time with God. I used to be so close to Him. I used to go to Him for everything- happy, sad, good, bad. Now I don't know what I think. I don't know how to relate to Him. I don't know how to pray. I don't know how to be anything spiritual. I don't even feel like I have the capacity for spirituality anymore. I know that isn't true, but I feel like a secret switch got turned off, and I can't get myself to switch back into gear until I figure out what went wrong in the first place.

This is all very obscure and abstract, I realize. If you have any light to shed, please do share. Until then, I just keep hoping that my meager attempts to continue toward the Lord are somehow a part of this redemptive story God is weaving. One can only hope.

books, books, and more books!

I am not only a lover of all things literary, I also adore buying and keeping the books I have read. It's like having a shelf full of old friends and memories that you can sift through when you're feeling nostalgic. I love the feeling of seeing a book and remembering the experiences, the changes you went through, the feelings you felt, while reading that particular book. I haven't really been able to get rid of books since I was really young. I did donate books to our church library once, but I've regretted it ever since. Not that I don't like sharing my friends, but seriously, I feel like I lost a part of myself by giving those books away, and seriously have considered re-purchasing the books, just to regain that part of my past.

Knowing all this, I'm sure you can understand why I am in love with these bookshelves.





















[viaYouAreMyFaveJr]

Don't worry. I have already instructed my husband to build these for me someday. I might even have them be that perfect blue color. Someday.

for your overly large feet

Stockings! Wouldn't you love a stocking like this? I know I would!



Would it be super spazzy of me to start making stockings NOW to give to people for Christmas in approximately 12 months? I need a good hobby. Perhaps hunting for crazy-fun fabric shall be my new passion. Maybe I could even learn how to embroider names onto the stockings...

[snatched from Abbey Goes Design Scouting]

this silver flower hairpiece reminds me of something my friend Maggie would wear. If only I had a wardrobe that called for hair accessories like this.

change

I laid in bed last night, thinking about the change that has happened in my life over the last two years. Although many, many things have changed in 2 years, what I was thinking about related to my relationship with God.

I have been in a spiritual funk for...quite a while. I don't know why it happened, specifically, but I do know that my senior year of high school was the most alive I have ever felt spiritually. My freshman year was a struggle for a while (that was the beginning of severe depression for me) but still, there were some really sweet times with the Lord, and I was still fervently in the word, reading Christian literature, journaling like crazy. My sophomore year was even harder, with the fall of that year bringing about some of the deepest struggles of my life. But yet again, though there were definitely dry spells, my time with the Lord was rejuvenating, sweet, life-giving.

I think it was the summer after my sophomore year that things started to change. That summer was when I had just started dating Jeremy. It was also the summer that I got severely depressed for no reason. It was a hard summer, and I think that is when I began to feel extremely disillusioned with Christianity, and very hopeless in regards to my walk with God.

I never thought I would be here two years later, yet I find myself lost, not sure how I got so far off the path...I used to long for scripture. I used to love reading and journaling and learning about the character of God. Now I just feel very ho-hum about things. This is definitely not the way I want things to be. But it's hard to know where to go from here.

I'm not really one for resolutions. I gave up on them a long time ago. But although there is no plan or implementation process, I am indeed resolved to not be in the same place one year from now. Jeremy and I talked, and it seems that the best place to start is to just start being in the Word again.

This isn't easy for me, as doing things that I don't feel like doing has never come easily to me. But, as I mentioned, I am resolved to do this. I'm not reading through my Bible in a year. I'm not giving myself an allotted time amount or chapter amount to read each day. But I am going to try to read the Word with more regularity than I have in the last two years.

perhaps this will be the year that I figure out how to trust God with the future, not fear what is to come, and finally develop a rhythm with the Lord that is not dependent on how I am feeling emotionally, but rather that is founded on the truth of who He is, and how much I need Him.

fear of tomorrow

I have been holding my breath these last few weeks, wondering when the storm is going to hit again. The [not so] great part about this cute little disease is that you never know when it's going to strike. I have no idea when the next "low" is...and I'm afraid. Afraid that a week into my student teaching, I'm going to be depressed again. Afraid that the medication that I'm on, the low dose that we are slowly building on, will turn out to not be compatible with my body either. Afraid that my poor husband is going to have more terribly difficult months to deal with in the near future.

I know that I can't live in fear. I know that perfect love drives away fear--that in the presence of Jesus, I cannot-or at least should not- be afraid. But that doesn't stop the nagging thoughts, and the reality that this actually is going to happen eventually.

Bummer.

In other less depressing news, I have spent the past ten days of my life school free and LOVING it. I got to sleep in, eat whatever I wanted, be with my family, not once having to worry about homework, not once having to read something that I didn't feel like reading. It's glorious. And hopefully permanent.

And in the most exciting news of my last few days (drum roll) I finally have decided that I am capable of pulling off boots. I know, I know, where have I been right? But for some reason I haven't ever been able to convince myself that I could wear boots. Especially not tuck-your-jeans-in boots. But here I stand (sit), a boot-wearing 22 year old, proud of my new accomplishment.

Now, dear reader(s?) I am going to spend the next 9 hours of my life sitting in a cubicle reading Breaking Dawn, the most exciting aspect of my cubicle-bound existence this week.

love.