"Goodbye status quo, I think I just let go, You make me wanna be brave. The way it always was is no longer good enough, You make me wanna be brave!!" -- Nicole Nordeman  

So Glad I Came

Started last Tuesday teaching a group of summer school kiddos for the month of June. They are so way cute! I have 6th grade...so picture in your mind the boys trying to figure out where the line is between boy and man and how far they want to cross it right now...the little smartalleck comments and yet the wanting still to make you happy, such a battle. The girls they just want to do everything you ask, and yet want to be cute in front of those boys who are trying to be so cool. I catch myself often just trying to hide the giggle inside from erupting on my face. Needless to say I enjoy my time with them and the moments God has given me to invest there. They are delightful and each child has his/her own story of where they've come from, what they've seen, and it makes this little person, one more contribution of a soul who has something to add to this world. That's one of my favorite parts of working with kids is watching them grow into these little adult people and praying your heart out to have some effect on which type of contribution they choose to offer the world. Praying they'll see something in you that imitates Christ whether they realize it or not, so that they might choose to walk in those shoes also in some ways. Now that's the true joy of teaching.

Yesterday I got the opportunity as the theme for our room this year is "A Whole New World" and so we're discussing different places in the world and reading The Lion, The Witch & The Wardrobe, by C.S. Lewis, where the children step through the wardrobe in the Professors old house and step into Narnia (a magical world engaged in a battle for good and evil). Anyway, yesterday was the beginning of studying Honduras and how children live there and what is the same and what is different from how we live here. I showed them pictures and we talked a little bit about their houses and what they eat and schooling and so on, and this sweet little guy who hasn't said much up to this point said, "I am so glad I came to summer school today." I said "well good buddy, you wanna tell me more about why you are glad?" He said "well I'm just glad I could see the way those kids love so I could be thankful for what I have." Spoken from a kid who doesn't have much materially by our terms here. He got it though whether he realized it or not. Then at the end of the day when we were going through our list of things to do over the weekend to complete and bring back for Monday, the same little boy said, "and pray for those Honduran children." He touched me. Hopefully the reverse could also be true. Lord may you continue to touch those precious little hearts with your truth, your vision, your heart.

Made me think about how many times I have had to speak those same words, "Lord I am so glad I came today, so I could learn to be more ________" Perhaps often the blank doesn't even need to be filled in. Lord I thank you that my stubborn, selfish, prideful, lazy, hesitant heart chose to run to you today and that you allowed me to come so that I could be MORE! Far more than I could ever be on my own. Oh Lord thank you for this classroom of life, may we always seek to be learning to be more!

And by the way, keep praying for those Honduran children, and the American ones too!! :)

Mi Amigos...

Tonight I am reminded of the gift of friends. As I've begun this process of moving to another part of the world and change is inevitable, I have had a chance by the force of circumstance to evaluate some things in my world...one of them being my relationships with others God has placed in my path. Of all the gifts God has given me, (aside from the gift of His Son of course), these people I'm surrounded by are my favorite gift.

I love the moments I get to sit with a friend and laugh and be silly. I cherish the moments when life forces us to our knees and we go there together with and for one another. I delight in those days when we are able to delve into the depth of something God is having us chew on and we think through and mull over His love and truth together. I love encouraging one another. I even love the tears together.

I think it's awesome and humbling that one of the ways God chooses to reveal Himself to us is through people. I read recently in the book, "Blue Like Jazz," that we learn that we are either loveable or unloveable by other people and that is why there are so many commands to love one another in the Bible. Struck a chord within me and I prayed as I read that that I might always make other people feel by word and action that they are completely loveable.

Thank you to those of you who have done so for me. I am so thankful for each of you and what you add to my world! Goodnight friends. I thank God each time you come to mind. :)

Are you dead yet?

Heard this yesterday morning during worship and today it still is just rolling around like a rock in my chest somewhere thumping my core often. The guy said "you know what I'm learning, I'm learning that alot more happens for the kingdom when I die, and I've got a lot more dying to do." He was referencing Galatians 6 where Paul talks about the only thing he has to ever boast about is the cross of Christ and how we have been crucified with Him there.

Today I sit wondering how much of Jen has truly died. When Christ asked me to pick up my cross did I ever really say ok.

I don't think I've ever been so fully aware how many times my own name and the word me and I come up in my conversations or in my heart. I notice how many times "my" feelings get hurt by things said or done and how many times "I" feel "I've" been wronged. "I" want this and "I" want that and they aren't necessarily even bad things, it's just that so many times they are "mine" and when it's all really boiled away "my" desires got nailed to a cross with my Lord.

Wheww.... I'm chewing on that one today and praying, so praying, that someday I might learn what it means to die. Truly. To lay this life down without selfish motive or prideful thoughts. Without wanting the atta girl and without being hurt by the oversight or the neglect or the thoughtless words.

To lose so much of me that my one and only aim is to glorify Christ, oh Lord may it be so! Are you dead yet?

Refreshed!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I'm not sure I'll type this post this evening without tears all over myself attempting to put into words what my heart feels, but since we're sharing via the barrier of this computer screen I suppose my tears will do nothing to distract you from reading and sharing this blog and so I'll write with tears and I pray you read and are encouraged, perhaps even challenged.

I went this morning way out of my comfort zone and my 3 inch box which in some ways was a result of my post from yesterday as I mentioned my having lunch with a new friend (have I mentioned how much I love new friends who love Jesus...well I do if I haven't, they each just bring such rich unique fabric squares into the quilt of your life). Actually I just love people, I think that it is through one another that we experience so much of God. I think Jesus loved people and I'm learning that as I fall more in love with Him I am able to do the same. Anyway, that was a sidebar sorry.

Went this morning to a place called Extreme Encounter. Now I realize what's coming next is a very BOLD statement and I'm going to make it anyway. I saw with my eyes this morning what I believe to be a modern day replica of the way Jesus ministered to people and what He asked us to be fore people. I saw young people and older people. I saw families and singles. I saw cleaned up and I saw messed up. I saw middle class and I saw poverty. I saw....well I saw Jesus. I just saw Jesus.

Allow me to share here about the setting because I believe it plays a huge part in the moral of this particular blog. You pull up to this "church" building and it is an old run down warehouse looking building with a sign outside that says EXTREME in big black letters above the door. As I walked up the sidewalk to the entrance there was this middle aged black man sitting on the steps with a bag of canned goods he'd just received from inside the "church," where for the first hour on Sunday they open up the doors and allow people who need it to come inside and get food and clothing. They have a super ministry to the homeless who live under the bridge. This sweet man was sitting on the steps and as people passed he would say "good morning." I had huge tears before I ever entered. As I walked in, the room was dimly lit and in the corner there was a coffee shop and donuts and people mingling in this very casual room with sofa's and chairs and just a living room type feel. Then I watched this lady come in who was almost without a doubt a recovering drug addict with two children. She spoke loud and she shook some as she talked. She was speaking to a very "cleaned up" lady and she was explaining to her that she'd been sick and up all night and this gentle kind lady who had Jesus hands today placed her hand on this lady's forehead and said you're burning up and took her to get a drink and stood there with her just listening and loving. There was so much dignity given in that moment and I learned something about Jesus in 5 minutes of watching two other human beings interact. We learn so much that way if we take the time to pay attention.

Ok so all of that was before the worship. The worship was incredible. It was Spirit led, it was deeply felt. The message was completely centered around the cross of Christ and urged us to come and die...to boast in nothing but the cross of Christ and challenged us that the only way we could boast in the cross is on the cross. I must place myself on the cross, dying to myself, realizing I have a lot of dying left to do. WOW!!!

I realize that hundreds of words here fell far short of doing this justice. I saw today though with these two eyes God gave me one of the most beautiful things I've seen in a long time, perhaps ever in my life. My hope has been restored that there are places who really are doing this ministry thing the way I read about in the Bible. Who really are setting up worship stations where anyone could feel welcome to enter. Places that really do structure themselves so that not knowing how to "behave" or "conduct" one's self in church is never a factor.

I pillow my head tonight so refreshed. So completely refreshed. Saw something absolutely holy today and it inflated my Spirit in ways that I don't remember feeling before.

Oh Lord that we would always seek ways that mimic what you've asked us to. Thank you for this precious glimpse into Your heart today and for being so utterly kind to allow me to be just one small part of that moment in time. You are awesome! Help us get it God please. Help us be it God with all that we are and all that we do. Please help me die that you might live in this temple.

By the way thanks Jen, for being a conduit for Jesus. I appreciate you!

Lunch with a friend...

I went to lunch today with a friend who echoed so much of what my heart has been feeling, or perhaps put into words what my heart couldn't yet find words to say. We sat at a cute little coffee shop and talked about what it really means to have an authentic relationship with God and to be able to offer that to the world. Guess I've been questioning so much of what we do in the name of "religion" and the institution that we have made of the church. Don't get me wrong, because of fellowship with believers I learned to love Jesus, and because of accountability I am far better today than I was even 6 months ago, probably even 6 days ago...it's just that if I'm honest there's a part of my heart that really believes we've as a whole botched what Jesus came here for and what He called us to. I'm reading a book right now called "Blue Like Jazz" and it is one of the most challenging books I have ever picked up to read. So simply stated and yet presents ideas we don't usually constitute as true religion or godliness. Goes against the grain and I find myself cringing at moments thinking you can't say that. I find his statements so refreshing however. It's as if I'm being validated in feeling like Jesus didn't come for the rules and platitudes and to live inside this 3 inch box we've given Him free reign in.

Anybody else out there reading this ever have one of these moments where your spirit is in crisis in some way you can't describe necessarily in words? I feel like that right now when I think about the way we do church. It's not that I doubt the existence of God anymore, I don't. He is as real to me as the air I breathe. Now it's that I find myself questioning some of the surrounding elements of that as if taking other people's word for what God asks me to do and be is not enough anymore. It isn't enough to me to sit in a church building where we talk about feeding the homeless, I want to hold the spoon and find the hungry and feed them. It isn't enough somewhere within me anymore to talk about leading people to Jesus and never invest enough in people that don't look and act exactly like we do to know what it feels like to truly lead someone else into Christ's arms. Finding it difficult to sit in a service that is structured in some ways so that sinners who don't know how to "behave" in church would never be able to feel comfortable there. I'm not sure we've set up a mimick version of what Jesus established. I think we've so gotten in the way of some of that. I guess what I'm saying in essence is, what has always been enough, in my mind isn't enough anymore.

Guess that means somehow we're going deeper. It means some things are being reframed in my mind. It means a lot of things I don't even know yet. Here's the one thing I do know, it is making Jesus' heart for people beat within my own chest in ways I can not fully explain and I am so thankful for His kindness in allowing me to be part of His passion.

Thanks for listening or reading my jumbled thoughts. Of course they are subject to change and I pray they don't step on your toes. I am in no way abandoning the church...perhaps just seeking to be closer to what Jesus asked me to be as a member of it.

Goodnight for now.

Been a WHILE...

It's been a while since I've posted something on here and I apologize to any of you who are continuing to read this and checking back to see nothing new. That's not the case with my life, each day brings new. I pillow my head tonight to go in for my last day of teaching at Warren Elementary tomorrow. I finished with my 8th graders today and promotion was tonight. Somehow you always look back on times like these and wonder if you invested enough...did you take the teachable moments when they presented themselves...will they remember anything about this math teacher other than how much they hated math...somewhere down the road will the seeds that are planted grow into something for Jesus despite what seem like some really hopeless home situations???? So many questions and so I put my questions at Jesus' feet with a prayer in my heart that this year that I spent with those kiddos did in fact serve a purpose not just for my heart but for theirs as well. They will always be near my heart in prayer.

Spent Tuesday night this week giving a presentation on Honduras to a group of gals in Williamstown and it was delightful to be with them. It's funny, I could give the same speech a thousand times I think and still be completely touched by this story...this country...and God's heart for these people. A few of my very good friends from there tearfully committed to going with next years team from here. I'm delighted about that. Please pray for more opportunities for me to be able to share what God needs me to about this place. It is an honor to share their story and I do not take that lightly.

As plans continue with the Santa Ana property and I continue to work with Marc, I appreciate him more and more. What joy to be a part of something that's bigger than we are and requires a divine providence to enable it to come true. It's vision. It's faith. It's just way past exciting to give God room to blow our minds as we attempt to get out of the way. I love it!! Was thinking tonight that in just a few short months I'll be living in this country. Not going to visit for some days, not going with a project mentality for a short stint, but going to do the fun and exciting and the mundane ordinary moments of life, all of it in this country. Thought about how refreshing the simplicity is going to be.

I moved out of my apartment last week completely and in so doing, I sold a lot of my stuff and I boxed up a whole bunch of it and I noticed something. I didn't have trouble getting rid of the "stuff" and almost welcomed it at points. It was neat to think through the purpose and realize that God had released the grasp in my heart so that it could release the grasp with my fingers on the "stuff." Just became so apparent that I need very little in this world and sometimes I'm better when I just get away from all the distractions from all of it.

Well gonna close this one tonight, that's enough update for a bit. Still attempting to be His vessel where I am right now and praying you're doing exactly the same.

The Journey Continues

So in the midst of Lipscomb and all if it's adventures, Margaret and Terry Reeves enter the picture and enter our hearts. Margaret was our dorm momma and she was wonderful. Goofy enough to put up with a bunch of college age gals at all hours of the day and night. Balanced enough to be wife and mom and yet meet the jobs demands. Solid enough to know when to be crazy and when to look you square in the eyes and say..."you're messing up here." I remember one such conversation as I was in that time in my life where I knew I wanted something to do with this God thing, I just didn't want all the discipline and the rules and I just wanted to have a good time and I'd get serious about it later, stage in my life. I wanted to be at Lipscomb because I liked the feeling of still being connected to God, I just wasn't sure about all the rest of what it supposedly required. I had stopped going to church regularly and was missing more and hanging out at some places that were not the best places for me to be for sure. Margaret one day pulls me aside and says "hey, come in here to my office for a minute I need to talk to you." I was unaware at that moment that alarm should be sounding somewhere within cause we were about to have A TALK! Lovingly and yet very sternly she looked me square in the eyes and said, Jen you're playing with God here and I don't think you're doing what you really want to do and I know you're not doing what God wants you to do. Some things have changed lately and I know you adore my son (WHICH I DO...we adopted him as a little brother long ago -- she pulled the little brother card...NOT FAIR) and I have felt like you were someone he could look up to, but truth of the matter is I don't want him looking at you right now and seeing your apathy toward God. I don't want him to see you choosing other things over God. Can we say profitable guilt trip here??? So she hands me this card, matter of fact i think it was written on an attendance card from church, that has probably 10 or 15 verses on it and she sits there and goes through every single one and reads them to me with tears in her eyes and then hands me this card says you keep this, reminds me she loves me, prays with me, and then tells me she's done now. As you can tell it was a memorable moment. I still have that card, tucked safely away and it reminds me that sometimes loving someone means you look them square in the eye and say I love you enough to tell you that you're making a mistake here and I wouldn't be much of a friend if I didn't beg you not to hurt God like this. I didn't like that very much that day and it hurt my heart in no uncertain terms, but I have respected her more every day since then because of it. Did it change things immediately, no not immediately. Does it still resonate in my heart at moments, absolutely! It also taught me a lesson about what being the church means...it means knowing and loving people enough that you'd realize when things were distant and you'd help them find their way back to true north!

Lots of memories with the momma of Fanning Hall! She taught us all a whole bunch and somewhere in the middle of that we gained friendships that felt a whole lot like family. Nate still is my little brother and Terry and Margaret some of my favorite people on the face of the planet. Isn't God brilliant that He patches pieces together from so many places to construct the quilt of our lives, or lays stones in so many places on our path through life that as we look back we think, man God you were working all of this out even then weren't you? Nothing He does or leads us through, does He waste, He knits it all together, all those people, all those experiences, all of it, and it all factors into the journey.

Thanks Margaret for being a major impact in my faith journey. You spoke truth when less would have been far easier and I still can hear your words of love that day saying Jen choose God. Took a while, but God used your influence in that in big ways.

I'll tell you more about Mr. Terry another day. My fingers are tired. To be continued....

God's confirmation for today...

This was in my inbox just a few minutes ago. Every single day God has done something to confirm in my heart that my life is to be given up to Him. I have never in my life had such an intimate time of walking with Him where I felt like daily we were having this two way conversation, me asking God are you sure, and Him saying Jen keep walking I'm right beside you. It is amazing. I'm struck at this moment in life with how real and immediate the falling face down to the ground when you're in the presence of God must have been. I feel a little like that right now like when He speaks I just want to fall to my knees and bow my heart as low as it can go. These lyrics were in a Kathy Troccoli email that I get every once in a while. Her friend penned them just a few days ago and they resonated within this heart.

ABOVE AND BEYOND
There is more than I have already seen.
There is joy beyond an average day.
There is life that pulls me out of my chair
To give until it feels like faith.

And there is hope that knows how greatness can grow
From a seed sown in my cold, timid heart
And a trust that hears your Spirit say, "Go!"
You will let me be your light in the dark.

Chorus:
It’s above and beyond what I thought I could be.
When I give up my fear, when it’s not about me,
When I trust and say yes to your call to press on,
Then I find I am blessed, I am blessed, I am blessed
Above and beyond.

There’s a story that has yet to unfold
From the glory in the pages of time.
And the Author of the Ages says, "Come!"
So a part of His great work can be mine.

Now I can let some foolish tragedy rule,
Or I can live out God’s eternal delight.
Lord, I give the pen and paper to you.
Write your story on each page of my life.

Chorus
Bridge:
I have made so many excuses
To avoid the joy of living your life.
Now I can play it safe and stay useless,
Or I can give you my fear
And let you teach me to fly.

Chorus

Words by Jim Weber.
© Copyright 05-01-05 Desperate Heart Music (ASCAP).All Rights Reserved. Used by Permission.


oh so very much ready to learn to fly!! to let go of the ground and soar with Jesus...mmmmm!! let go and lift off!! may He write the story on each page of your life as well!

Once Upon A Time

So giving credit where credit is due here, I'll start at the beginning of the Honduras journey. I am sure my love for Honduras was being planted several years ago when by a turn of events I had decided instead of going to West Liberty with my best friends from high school, I was going to head to Nashville TN to go to Lipscomb. It was the end of July and my cousin, Eric, had called and we talked and he said "Jen I really think you should come and visit before you make a final decision on where you're going to school." To which I almost in gest replied, "well I'll come look, it'll be fun to come to Nashville, but I can almost guarantee you I'm not going to go there." Never say never, why did I say that so adamantly??!! Guess where I ended up, YEP Lipscomb. I've not regretted God's decision about that for a single second, while I missed my friends from high school, and still do, I knew this was the path I was supposed to take. As a matter of fact when I think back over my life those were two of the best years of my life for sure. It was one fun time after another. My roommate ended up being from Columbus, Ohio how weird is that that we ended up rooming together in Tennessee and were both from Ohio. Doesn't happen too often. As God would have it, she had turned in her housing application late also we found out later and so the latecomers were stuck together in a little room on the second floor of Fanning Hall. God knew what he was doing because to this day she is one of my dearest friends. We were two peas in a pod and it was scary. I'll share just one crazy story of how stupid we were together...We got to be the fire marshalls of our hall, which is a tremendously prestigious position to hold. Basically it means when the fire alarm sounds you run down the hall like a crazy woman telling all the other gals to get out of the building so as not to get burned up. Well that couldn't be all there was to it for us. We had gone to the toy store and bought red firemen hats and whistles. We were ready!! So one night we'd found out we were going to have a fire drill and we slept with our hats in hand our whistles around our necks and our shoes on so when the fire alarm sounded we were poised and ready. Oh dear I could go on and on we did some crazy stuff and laughed oh my goodness we laughed so hard all the time!! I was so blessed. You hear horrible roommate stories, I never had that. I can only remember one time getting upset with each other, I have no idea what about but like five minutes later all was well. Good times. Dawn was our RA and soon became one of my favorite people. I still remember a time when I'd had to go home and have some tests run because I wasn't feeling well and I came back and had a Calvin and Hobbes drawing on my wall with Hobbes hugging Calvin and she'd written her name beside Hobbes and my name beside Calvin. It was a sisterhood moment. My favorite Dawn moment however was when we were talking one night in her room and I was just sharing with her some things I'd done that I wasn't proud of and that hurt my heart and I looked over and she had tears running down her cheeks. Still to this day it reminds me that sometimes people don't need your words nearly as much as they need your heart. She just sat and helped me cry that day and I learned something about compassion for people there that I don't think I'll ever forget. Good friendships formed there, and they became my family while I was so far away from my own. We really were sisters. It wasn't long until Sumer and I were hanging out with the RA's and just as a sidenote there were all kinds of perks to go along with that. (late privileges when we weren't supposed to have any because we were peon freshman, etc.) Enter Judy Louise Mitchell a.k.a. "Weeze". Although there were several people who significantly impacted my life at Lipscomb if I had to pick one who most significantly impacted my heart for Honduras she's the girl. Let me just tell you this first. Judy is a Canadian...which we always had a lot of fun with... I always wanted to sing O Canada to the tune of O Christmas Tree and it never worked out well. Because Judy was Canadian she didn't get government financial aid and so in order to come to Lipscomb to get a Christian education before she came she got most of her stuff together and had a yard sale to pay to get there. I don't know why but that still gets me. I never wanted it that bad and I saw few others that did either. We watched her over and over again work odd jobs babysitting or nannying for the summers, or whatever so that she could be there at a Christian university. She's good stuff. She started going to Honduras when she was at Lipscomb in the summers and she'd come back from her trips and let me read her journal that she wrote in while she was there about all the things she'd seen and felt while being among those people. You couldn't help but be touched. She was a Paul who couldn't stop speaking about what she'd seen and heard. It was evident that there was something tremendously special there.

I'll close this one there for now and finish the next part of the story in another blog soon. It's been a journey a beautiful journey that God has taken me on and as I look back now I can't doubt a single part of God's divine wisdom in it. Perhaps I share this part of the story today to remind you and myself to be thankful for the people who helped to begin the seeds of your "grown up" faith. For me it was my gals at Lipscomb and those times. They will always be precious to me because of that. I was with a friend this weekend who was sharing about a leadership conference she'd just attended where she was asked to list on a sheet of paper the people who had most significantly influenced her life up to this point and the quality that had most impacted her from their life. I think I began my list today. I pray it's not finished until I draw my last breath and I'm always able to appreciate those people God sends to my life and I notice the impact that they've made.

Thanks gals. You were the beginning of the change to a for real faith and although it took a while to ever get there and your hearts hurt along the way God used you and you'll always be names on my list of people who've most significantly impacted my life. Continue to be blessed and be a blessing!!