4 mile run with my God

It's funny how sometimes you sing the same songs for years, you study for years, and you feel like you haven't really grown any closer to God or transferred any knowledge from your head to your heart, and you start to wonder if you really have a role to play at all and them BAM! Satan just blasts you out of the water.

But then, to both of you and Satan's surprise, you don't drown. You don't even sink. You just kind of float there and think I should totally be dead right now. And yeah, there's no land in sight, and no rescue boat, and everyone who knew you were out on this ocean is also currently adrift but surprisingly everyone was wearing life jackets they never remembered putting on...

And honestly I don't think Satan could be more shocked at this than I am.

I am probably the angriest person I know. I feel rage bubble up sometimes when I spill things or when an infant scratches me. (Yeah, it's ridiculous) But it's comfortable. I know how to keep it from exploding most of the time and that control gives me a sense of satisfaction. I imagine it's similar to how people with eating disorders feel. I'm comfortable being angry, I like feeling like an instrument of justice, like the Boondocks Saints' sister or something. So it kind of irks me that as much as I want to be totally infuriated to the point of plotting a murder, I'm not.

"You were the one who broke bread with the thief
You said to love those who we despise.
You were the One.
You are the One who meets us where we are
You redeem the wasted years
You are the One
You are the One who restores the broken heart
You turn fears into peace
You are the One"

"This is a cry out, shouting to the crowd, screaming at the sky
This is a last attempt, scanning the horizon for a rescue
I know there's more than I can see
For the sake of love I must believe "

"I can see things that keep you from seeing Me.

Cuz you've got burdens on your shoulders

Lies in you head

Pain in your heart

That wants you dead.

Spirit open their eyes

Open their minds

Open their hearts

And help them know truth from a lie, foe from a friend, that I am for them

And I want

FREEDOM on their shoulders

PEACE in their head

LOVE in their hearts

AGAIN."

"Before the throne of God above I have a strong a perfect plee,

A great High Priest whose name is Love

Who ever lives and pleads for me

My name is graven on His hands

My name is written on His heart

I know that while in Heaven He stands no tongue can bid me there depart.

When Satan tempts me to despair...upward I look and see Him there."

"Time goes by
I hear the lie that I'm not worth love or fight
Truth and lie, tangled up
Waging war inside of me...
A war is raging that's hidden from my eyes,
Not over power or money
I am the prize
Freedom's fee is not on me so I'm trading these chains for a new ID
Hoplessness, fear and doubt: burdens I long to live without
If I could just trade them all for what you give
For freedom
Gloves off
Armor on
Truth is ammunition
Boots laced up tight
Ringing in my ears tonight
A war is raging that's hidden from my eyes,
Not over power or money
I am the prize
Freedom's fee is not on me so I'm trading these chains for a new ID"

"I love the way that your heart breaks
With every injustice and deadly fate
Praying it all will be new
And living like it all depends on you
Here you are down on your knees again
Trying to find air to breathe again
And only surrender will help you now
I love you, please see and believe again"

An Intelligent Response

I finally got around to checking back on the article I commented on the other day covering the CityLink groundbreaking. Here's what our Rock Starr speller had to say:



"Gee, it seems like you could really use a man in your life...do you also hung trees in your spare time?"



And then:



"Hug Trees"



Pretty sure that needs no response.

Lesson #7501 from Xroads: Bring Tissues (also see lesson # 15: Don't wear eyeliner to service)

Oh. My. God.



Amazing service! I have to put it up there with the conclusion of Game Change when they had the video showing we had enough money to go forward on all the initiatives.



From the very beginning they showed a clip that opened with "Collisions can be negative, painful, even fatal. They can also be positive, beautiful, rejuvinating. It all depends on WHAT YOU COLLIDE INTO." I had to whip out my journal right there and start writing.

Then Andrea and co. sang an awesome-juice song about a beautiful collision that I MUST own.

Then Chuck brought up Pastor Mosa from Soweto South Africa (who may be our new partner *squee!!*) and he gave a fantastical message involving The Message's translation of Matthew "I'll tell you why you are here: to be the salt-seasoning that brings out the God flavor of the earth" (pretty sure that's The Message's South African translation, bc it's far too amazeballs to be American) and a focus on the fact that the Good Samaritan went to where the man was.



****SIDE NOTE**** The Good Samaritan story. Heard it at least 100 times in my life by now. Realized/remembered/coalesced a few things today.

1. It would not have been safe to approach someone on the road who appeared to be beaten. No doubt there were plenty of criminals who played oppossum. Most likely the priest and Levite who pass by "on the other side of the road" did not do so out of spite but out of what they perceived to be an intelligent move toward self-preservation. I doubt that had they known the man was really dying and nobody was waiting to jump them, that they would have left him there.

2. The Samaritans, being the outcasts, would be street-smart. They would not have been ignorant about oppossum-criminals. But they would also have been subjected to enough atrocities in their daily lives to know the difference between fake-dying and real-dying.

Regardless, we have to be willing to take risks and allow God to protect us AND we have to live with the hurting so we know a need when we see one instead of assuming everyone is trying to "work the system."



Back to Crossroads...

THEN Chuck brings Rob Seddon (who coordinates all the South Africa stuff) onstage with Mosa to explain where we are going with the possible partnership etc. etc. etc. and Rob is just gushing about how wonderful the process has been of looking for the right partnership because it has allowed him to see all the crazy-wonderful ways God is working in South Africa yada yada all good stuff, when he says this:

"It has allowed us to begin to dream again."

And I fall completely apart.

Why?

Well let's go back to January when they announced that our Mamelodi partnership ended. I was crushed. This was my dream, my plan. I wanted to move there and live with the people and help run the medical initiative and make a difference. When they revealed the news (which I had already gotten by email and been stewing about for days) in service one week, I scrawled in large, darkly traced letters "Death of a Dream" complete with thorny vines choking the life out of the phrase.

And that was the first thing I thought about when he uttered that phrase. One of my biggest assets and biggest faults is my Hero Complex. "I must save the world!..." It drives me to devote time and energy to things that people find crazy and inspiring but I just find fun and worthwhile. "...because I am the only one who cares about saving the world!" It also buries me in unfounded isolation that leaves me depressed and burdened.

So when we get these services where they tell me that we've raised millions of dollars (newsflash: I did not donate millions of dollars myself, thus there must be someone else out there who also cares about this!) or that we can dream AGAIN (what??? other people had also had their dreams smashed to pieces? I thought I was the only one!) my normal response is to break down in tears of relief (and also tears of I-am-so-ridiculous-to-have-thought-I-was-alone).



But wait, it wasn't over!

THEN they unveiled a video of the CityLink groundbreaking ceremony that I was too exhausted to attend on Wednesday. A video of city leaders who seemed genuinely excited about this. A video reiterating that the goal is to help make people self-sufficient. A video where Brian reminded us that except for when Jesus laid hands on people, every great miracle took a loooooooong time to actually come to fruition. (The first thing you might think of to refute this is Moses raising his arms and parting the seas [I did] but I think the Israelites would argue that 400 years in captivity is a long time to wait for rescue.) A video that again had me trying to disguise from the people sitting around me, the fact that I was wiping snot and tears off my face sans tissues. (Ah! Lesson 7501, there you are!)



So yeah. Frickin' crazy fantasti-mazing service (I ran out of my usual descriptors, I used them all already!) Can't wait for the next few weeks of the Collide series, and also for the Advance messages at Sarah's school's camp (where I will be the official nurse!) next week.

The theme is "Risky."

I think that's good timing.

So. Pissed. Off. (CityLink version)

Groundbreaking for the CityLink center was yesterday and I (being a glutton for controversy) read the news articles covering the event tonight. As I anticipated, they were crawling with comments from the best and brightest Americans.



"All this place is going to do is help people get on ASSISTANCE programs, and become dependant on the system. The location speaks for itself as to who their focus is going to be on. Next thing you know they will be giving out free fans to the same people who get them year after year. They should of put a jail on the site instead. Then the people in the "community" wouldn't have far to go to see their family..."



So says a man who can't spell the words "Rock Star" and also thinks he is one.



It was all I could do to not respond "YOU ARE A MORONIC FUCKWAD ASSBABY!!!!" Instead I said



"Please.

Unless you've never traveled down a paved road, called 911, used a public library, or borrowed money from a bank (etc) you have dependent on a system. Humans are inherently interdependent and also obsessed with the fantasy of a self-made man. No one is a self-made man (or woman).

Of course you also think that low economic status = criminal so I can tell you're very educated on the subject.

Sounds like you're really just sore that we aren't focusing on you and your problems. (Although, as such an independent, intelligent, and otherwise perfect individual you shouldn't have any problems.)"



Sounds bitchy, but compared to what I wanted to say, nice and polite, right?



Then there was your typical Mr. woe-is-me-I-have-it-so-hard-being-forced-to-help-people-with-my-tax-dollars



"We are sick of helping people who don't even try to help themselves. It's gettin' old!"



Makes you sound like a good person because it implies that you help people and would enjoy it given the right circumstances. *snorts trying to hold back laughter at the preposterousness of it all* Well, sorry to burst your bubble deary, but:



"Then logically you should be happy other people are working on the problem without you."



Little worried about the fact that I had to log in with my facebook to post my replies but I've been internet-hunted before. Also, according to these geniuses, they are far too busy helping people and accomplishing things without any outside assistance of any kind to bother with harassing little ol' me. *snorts again*

The Bachelor and Liechtenstein

I promised myself I was done with the Bachelor franchise. So why am I currently streaming Bachelor Pad on Hulu? ARGH!!!! AMES WHY DID YOU HAVE TO BE SO DAMN SWEET AND LOVABLE!!!! I JUST WANT TO SEE YOU HAPPY!!!! I am so afraid you will become a warped and horrible person being around people like Jake and Vienna. SAD!!!

We spent about an hour googling Liechtenstein last night at work when it got slow up in triage. Apparently they have one of the highest standards of living, no military, they're a tax haven...the list continues.  So we are going to take over.  We will be Liechtenstoners and speak Licky-sticky.  

No offense was intended to the actual lucky souls who get to live there.

Lessons from plants

Sometimes I really envy farmers.
Not the industrial grow-enough-with-Monsanto-to-feed-an-entire-county kind of farmer. The kind of farmers where they grow a nice size garden for themselves and maybe to sell on the corner. Like my grandparents.
I envy them because they know things about God and life that they probably don't even realize.
I started thinking about this again (yes, it's crossed my mind before) today after a storm blew through: I got home from work to find that my little flower garden out back had been somewhat ravaged by the wind and pelting rain. Half the stalks were bent down the ground (we won't get into how little help their shallow root systems were). I tried to pour some more dirt around them to get them to stand up to no avail. I finally took to propping them up against one another to form little make-shift tee-pees of sorts. It worked!

Lesson 1: When we can't stand alone we can lean on each other and both give and receive support at the same time.

A few were too far away or too far gone to get propped up so I snipped off the blooms and brought them inside. At first I felt bad about it but then I realized...

Lesson 2: God's grace in even making Heaven available in the first place. I mean, we could be like regular flowers and when we die, well, the end, that's it, goodbye. No harm no foul, just nothing. But He enjoys us, He wants to keep us around. So He brings us in to His home to give us another life (albeit I have not granted the flowers eternal life in their vases)

As these lessons sunk in I started thinking about everything I've learned in my short and scattered time working on my little garden. From admiring the deep and vast root systems of ivy to learning the necessity of digging up hard ground, and I found myself examining one particular plant with no flowers on it yet. It somehow wound up scattered over in the rockier dirt, even though that is not where I originally put it. Instead of being pissed at it's late blooming, I admire it's ability to grow even without proper care. It's smaller than the others (which actually saved it from toppling over today) and so far flower-less but I am excited about it. I wonder what color the flowers will be. I've been extra careful to make sure it gets water over the summer, since it's not with the rest and would get missed in my sporadic watering otherwise. I can't transplant it to better dirt because it would kill it, or at least make it lose all it's buds, so I try to care for it where it is.

Lesson 3: The course of life usually dumps people in less than perfect situations. It's not what God wanted, but it's the way life is now. But He doesn't throw up His hands and forget about them, or become angry that they're not as successful as other people. Instead He watches them with eagerness and even pours out blessings on them. He doesn't completely move their life (usually) because that would ruin so much of who they are and the beauty of what they could accomplish, so He cares for us where we are.

No wonder He refers to farmers so often.

I Am A Runner

Runner's World had an article recently that defined what makes you a runner, which basically got narrowed down to one fact: if you resent it when people say you "jog," then you are a runner. But then people started listing all their personal reasons that make them feel like a runner and I liked the idea. When my runs got hard I started making my own list of things that make me a runner. Here they are in no particular order:

1. I've made myself sick to my stomach running more times than drinking alcohol
2. A heat index of 117 is not a good excuse not to run that day
3. When Kelli told me my calves were "huge! like a boy's!" in tenth grade, I pretended to be insulted, but was secretly proud
4. When I'm injured so that I can't run, and I see someone running it makes me want to cry
5. I spend more money on running (clothes, gear, race entry fees) than on my regular wardrobe
6. My destination vacations are sometimes planned around races (the rest of the time it's mission trips, which is one of my favorite things about my life)
7. I'll get up at sunrise to run, even if it means sleeping for only three hours and then going back to bed after
8. I know exactly which foods I should eat before a run depending on exactly how much time will pass between putting it in my mouth and pressing "start" on my Nike+ app
9. I have scars on my back, legs, and now chest from running and it's still not stopping me
10. Running makes my boobs smaller (I swear it's true) and yet I run

More to come, I'm sure :-P