Today The Coolest Thing Happened

I go to a huge university, thousands of people go here. Thousands of people walk across the same street I do and onto that same campus I do every day. I don't know how many of them are aware of the people around them, probably not even close to half of them. They pass people nonchalantly and live in their own worlds with their head phones in or on their cell phones chatting. They have no idea who is near.

There is this homeless man that I see sometimes, his name is Richard. Yes I do know his name because I see him. I don't just see the blurred figure of man sitting on a tree stump or bench. I see Richard. I don't know his story, I wish I did though, I wish I were brave enough to invite him to have a cup of coffee with me or a buy him a sandwich and ask him to tell me his story but I think too much about it every time it crosses my mind. The only thing I know is that every time I see him I feel compelled to acknowledge him. I always give him whatever I have on me that I can spare, and on more than one occasion I've offered him my hand and introduced myself. My mother would kill me if she knew that I talk to homeless people.

People don't do that she'd say, people don't meet homeless people and that's true. Most college kids pass by Richard and ignore his low voice as he asks for spare change or walk farther away, girls clutch their purses and guys put their hands in their pockets and walk faster as though he's not there. But for some reason I always see him; I see Jesus when I look at him. I see him as the holy and good creation of that he is. And every time I see him I think to myself what if my Savior were sitting on this corner and I walked by. What if I were sitting on that corner and someone walked by me? So I stop.

Today I saw Richard, he never remembers my name which is fine because I'm not important, but today he remembered it. He looked me right in the eyes and said "Christina right? I went to mass the other day and I prayed for you. God is going to help you." My jaw dropped, I was floored. I absolutely felt God's presence in the moment it was like He told Richard to deliver that message to me. I was so humbled in that moment. Here I was thinking that I was helping him by offering him change and acknowledging him and praying for him on the days that I see him, here I was thinking I was bringing some Jesus into his life by showing him Christ love and come to find out he's been praying for me, and God chose him to give a message, to pour light into my life and not the other way around.

Humbled.

I can't believe the coolest thing happened to me today.

Are You "Foolish" Enough to Follow God?

So I've been thinking for the whole month about missionaries 1. because I was assigned a mini paper deal on a missionary and I can't decide who to do it on. Technically Kathy used the words "heroes of the faith" but any way. 2. because I technically have answered the call to be a missionary as YL leader. 3. I've been thinking more and more about my place in ministry... working in the real world will do that to you. I've been thinking about it a lot and then while reading my daily devotional from "My Utmost for His Highest" which was about being sent by Christ to carry out God's will. This one part really caught my attention:

We give credit to human wisdom when we should give credit to the divine guidance of God being exhibited through childlike people who were “foolish” enough to trust God’s wisdom and His supernatural equipment.

I like to lie to myself and say that I'm wise but I'm really not all that wise. The best decisions I make sometimes are the ones that made the least sense. Sometimes I feel silly for being compelled to do certain things and sometimes I don't do them because I feel silly but lately I'm learning to be more obedient to the things that make me feel foolish. To just go with it even though I'm not the best at it, or let go of something even though I want it, or to hold on even though I wanna let go. I'm compelled by the thought that God's hands are holding me and that He is a zillion times more wise than I am so I trust and follow. I believe in the hands of God that are creating a good work in my life. That's not the person I was in the past but that's who I've become for today and tomorrow and forever. I'm foolish enough to follow Jesus and I feel great that Chambers is down with being foolish for Jesus too.


Are you "foolish enough to follow Jesus my friend?

Wreck my life Jesus

How Oswald Chambers manages to always be relevant escapes me. He wrote My Utmost for His Highest in the 1800's but his writings still manage to wreck my life daily because it's as though Christ whispered the words onto the page himself through Chambers' pen.

Today's Devotion: Impulsiveness or Discipleship wrecked my thinking. I'm brash and pretty impulsive... sometimes I just act on pure emotion. So to that I simply say...

Wreck my life Jesus and teach me to walk in your ways.

So I suck...

Well technically I don't suck. I just don't have internet. I moved on October 3rd... I do things like that... I just up and move some times... actually I don't, I don't ever do that but I do make brash decisions and then act on them quickly most people never even know I was thinking about it. I moved in with my lovely friend Ashley and we don't have internet at home. Which is probably better my room is huge and scary and empty. I've lost all of my stuff that used to populate my life. So I probably won't have internet for a while so my blogging shall suffer. But it's probably best that I don't have internet while I'm getting used to the place when I'm there I'm forced to actually live there and not get lost on the internet. I have to embrace the shadows on my empty walls and faint light that peers from under my closed closet door.


Plus we all know that I spend most of my free time at Grand Canyon University because pretty much all of my friends live there. I should just sacrifice my 3 years of school and start over and go there. I could get the money... we all know I'm not ready to graduate and be a grown up. What's 4 more years of school.... kidding I'm kidding Aubrey Schaffer I'm kidding.


I promise to make October posts about love. I've been listening to some awesome Podcast sermons and I'm learning a lot so I basically have tons to share.

OCTOBER!!

Woke up this morning and thought holy geez wasn't it just January the other day? Didn't I just express how lovely I thought 2010 was going to be and how it was going to blow me away?

RECAP of the Year so far:
January: left my Young Life job and bummed around trying to figure myself out
February: Pushed myself hard through the static
March: Pushed even harder through the static
April-May: Dated a New YL area
May-August: Let God pick me up and carry me away from the static. Left my area. Interned at Lost Canyon where God restored my heart, changed my life, and called me from a tree (I think I've failed to share this story here). I learned so much about myself and people and community, I lived and loved and learned. Even in the hard things in the muck and mire I learned so much and consider it all a blessing.
August: Had a minor crisis due to the shock of coming home and school and not having a place to live, almost ran away but I stayed because I'm called.
September: Fell in love ministry all over again. Realized God is still breaking old habits of mine. Found perspective on a lot of things. Did something so out of character that it was crazy but it felt so good. Really seeking change and newness in my life. I've done a lot of things wrong in my life and now I want to try and do things right.

Wow and the year isn't over yet. Yesterday put me officially 3 months away from turning 22. There are a mere 90 days sitting between 21 year old me and 22 year old me. I can't believe I'm almost that old. I know, I know it's not really all that old, but for me it is. I feel actually feel older now this is the first time ever in my life that I don't feel like a lost little kid. I feel like I'm finally free from my past because I've finally learned from it. I've learned how to accept the things that have happened for what they are.

Who am I going to be in 90 days? What can God do in 90 days? I'm not sure but I'm going to find out. For the next 90 days I'm really going to seek God in some dark areas of my heart because I realized the yesterday that I have this twisted perception of love and relationships.

Sidenote: Not God's love because it's perfect I see God's love everywhere and it's save me way back when I was 16 and trying to figure out what being a Christian was I came across 1 Corinthians 13 and verses 4-8 leaped up from the pages and wrapped around my heart where the words still remain because that day I found what I'd been looking for my whole life. Patient, kind, free of envy, boasting, rudeness, and pride. I heard the love I'd been looking for whisper to me. Since that day I've tried to bask in that love. Sometimes I fail but when I succeed in my life is so sweet that even silence and oneness taste good to my soul. I actually seek to develop the qualities described in 1 Corinthians in my own character, that's why I wear the verse on my back to remind me even though I can't see it others can and that's who I want to be. I know I can't attain it perfectly but I can strive for it in a healthy way. :End Sidenote

My twisted perception is of human love and relationships. I'm a product of a severely broken home. I've carried that around for a really long time. I used to want to just blend in to the background and be as unimportant as my family made me feel. For years I walked around with that in the forefront of my heart. For years I carried this hurt in the form of a wall around my heart. It made me unable to be free and trust people and their intentions with me. God monster stomped the wall down a few weeks ago but it's left me with this desire to repair the damage.

Then yesterday I was presented with this question:

Why are we afraid to ask God for what we really want?

My answer because I'm afraid he'll actually do it.

But I'm in the mood to be bold. So here I go.
In the next 90 days of my life I want God to reconcile my view of human relationships. I want to be shown something, I want to learn sometime, be a part of something that will teach me differently from that which I have been exposed to. I don't expect to be completely reedeemed shoot it took 21 years to get here and the hurt has been forming for 16 of those years so I don't expect to be completely healed in 90 days but I do expect to start the process. I do expect God to show up and I won't write off the idea of complete restoration in 90 days either. God is huge he can do what he wants. I'm just inviting Him in this is His work of art that will not be commanded by my hands.

But I can't just ask if I'm not willing to jump in both feet first and get waist deep in my issue with God in front of me. So amongst my rando blogging this month I'm also going to take time and write about parts of this process. I want to share this with people. I could do it in secret I know I'll write about it even if I choose not to blog it but there something about having it out there on in the world wide web makes it feel like I'm not only professing it to myself and God but the world. I want to profess it to world, shout from mountain tops, so this is my proverbial mountain. Expect it soon! (like today after I take my astronomy test) :)