Sleepy days...

I don't know about all parents, but mine have this fascination with seeing me at rest. Although being 25, and making every effort to be as 'grown' as possible while still holding on to that childlike wonder, I still find myself the most comfortable with Mom & Dad around. I have been blessed to have parents love me so much it makes them crazy. Most of what I have come to know about God I've learned by watching the way they love me, my brother, and each other. If I were to guess I would say that being a parent is the closest you can come to experiencing the way God loves His children. Their love is unrelenting and nearly impossible to understand.

My parents love these moments (enough to find a camera). Sleeping sound, at peace, and safely in their watch. They STILL come check on me in the middle of the night when we are under the same roof. Maybe because they want to be reassured (of what? that I'm safe from the boogieman?), but mostly I think it is because they love to experience me at peace. This makes me wonder about the love of my heavenly Father. So often we get caught up in the rules, the obedience, the legality... and I don't know how much we are trying to understand the LOVE behind it. When he IS love.. shouldn't that be the first and most important we should seek to understand, or demonstrate?

Philippians 4:4-7 is a verse I could write PAGES breaking down... and probably will... but right now I want to understand the peace that is talked about.

Rejoice in the Lord always, I will say it again, Rejoice. Let your gentleness be evident to all. The Lord is near. Be anxious for nothing, but in everything, by prayer and petition with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus.

Here, the peace comes with three given characteristics...

#1 this particular peace is from God (it's not something we can reach, meditate, chant, or buy)

#2 it is transcending, meaning that it moves through and beyond our own barriers and limitations

#3 it is given as a guard to your heart and mind

With my handy dandy iphone Concordance (and yes, they have an app for that), I look up the word used for peace in this particular scripture. So... maybe I'm a nerd but if it means I get to know Him in the way He intended me to... I'm all for it. 

The Greek word eirene (who's root is literally 'to join'), is the word used to describe the state of national tranquility. Meaning, this is the word used to express those times that were exempt from the havoc of war. It is also used relationally to show harmony and concord between people. Because peace and harmony make and keep things safe and prosperous, it was impossible to explain  things like security and growth or abundance, without first noting to this state of eirene used in Philippians 4:4. 

This is what I got from this ONE word... God wants to give me peace. HIS peace. It is different and far better than my own which comes from my own rationalizations and efforts. When I am desperately trying to understand the world around me, with my puny little mind, I am at WAR. I was not created to comprehend our travesties. Having them as the focus of my life only takes me away from being in harmony with Him. Any understanding I receive should come from Him, not me. Without taking an active effort to pursue and understand HIM, it is impossible to have the peace needed for things like security, safety, personal growth, and abundance. I never came to realize how much my Father DESIRES to bless my until He became my desire, where there was no peace of mind I could find on my own and I had to go to Him. Ask anyone who was dropped into a moment of desperate faith and turned to Him, He shows up, to say the least.

I know that like my parents are, He is happy to see me at rest now. Yes, this life is crazy and sometimes I suffer from some spiritual amnesia, forgetting that I am not the one in control. It is then I have to remember to seek Him, ask for his peace to escape the havoc of war, and He gives it to me. I no longer ask to understand, His peace transcends that. My toughest battle has been to learn that some things were never meant for us to understand here on earth, and I know that when I get to heaven they really won't matter anymore. All that will matter will be His overwhelming love all around me, the Joy in dwelling with Him, the peace our internal and physical wars, and the over whelming TRUTH that...

HE HAS THE VICTORY!!!!

Sleep well, 

Ren

Desperate Faith

Be still, and know that I am God;

I will be exalted among the nations,

I will be exalted in the earth!

~Psalms 46:10

Abba,

I’m torn. I’m torn between a sense of urgency and one of peace. Urgency because I believe there is a battle raging on, as you promised, that no one feels empowered to fight. Peace because although I have lived this battle and have the scars to prove it, you are the ultimate victor and healer. I know you will show up for them as you have for me. I know you are showing up already, I just don’t know how I am to go about all this. How do I fight a battle when I know it is already won, but all I see around me are misconceptions and hatred? The lack of understanding is paralyzing, I refuse to let it sideline me. Maybe that’s why the suffering feels good sometimes, because I know it means I get to share in your glory when you’ve conquered it. It reminds me how lost those without you are. How unnecessary their pain is. If only they could experience your love, you love us too much to waste our storms. As I sit in the eye of this hurricane, I’m smiling through my tears because I know your love, and can’t wait to see it change hearts.

The personal battle isn’t the worst part. It never has been. The desires had terrified me ever since I was a little girl not because I knew how the world felt about it, but because I knew I loved you more than anything. My love for you grew every moment I felt your immense love for me. I think I get why Christ loved children and challenged people to see the world through their eyes. Before the rules, regulations, authority, acceptance, and pressures, your love was so enchanting. It was almost natural to get lost in your love. I can’t remember ever feeling more ‘myself’, than when I was little and all I cared about was smiling at strangers and telling them ‘Jesus loves you!’ Like I said, the personal battle wasn’t ever the worst part of it. Seeing the ways it was ‘dealt with’ by those who said they knew you too, was then and still is the most excruciating part.

I can’t remember the exact moment. But looking at pictures of me as a little girl I see where my smile changed. I remember when my Joy became eclipsed my fear and eventually, I learned to hate myself. Every night I prayed for you to take it away. I didn’t pray out of Hope, but desperate faith that I would wake up ‘better’. I knew you loved me and you didn’t want me hurting. I hid my battle because I believed it would be only a matter of time before my prayers would be answered. Eventually, after about two years, my desperate prayers became pleas of escape. I lost site of hope and prayed for an exit. As a little girl I remember praying to not wake up in the morning. My first heartbreak was never over family struggles, a school yard crush, or high school sweetheart. It was over the unanswered prayers of my first love. I had given you my heart and as I endured the heartache I decided that it made more sense to hate myself than you. I knew it had to be me… or something… but it wasn’t being taken away.

From that moment on I lived life with two things on my mind,
#1 Jesus loved me and I loved Him.
#2  I hated myself for something I had no power to change. 

At this point, how I handled these two conflicting realities (and I say ‘realities’ because what we experience and know of the world at a given time is our reality), depended completely on what the world said about them. And when I say ‘the world’, I mean other Christians. People from church. Pastors and church leaders. Parents of friends, teachers, and coaches. I waited to see what they said about it, as a child you trust that these people know the truth. You are naïve enough to believe that you should shape and mold how you feel about yourself by what they say… or don’t say. I began to notice EVERYTHING. From the way people crossed the street away from two men holding hands, or shook their head at the news. The world around me became a plastic bag over my head that suffocated me with self hatred. Except I knew I wouldn’t ever pass out from it. I couldn’t imagine any relief… and I now know that surviving was a miracle instead of the tragedy I thought it to be. 

You never waste a storm. I’d be lying if I acted like it wasn’t a storm. I’d be lying if I said that it still doesn’t enrage me sometimes when I think about all the little boys and girls, grown adults, or those already passed who because of this struggle have failed to come to know you. In saying that, I realize, the sin is not the struggle. Maybe that is why it breaks my heart. The sin, is an opportunity to know you. To know your love. The struggle is unique in that this sin comes with such an expanse of barriers to your love. More misconceptions, and factors that push people away from you than anything I have ever come to know. The labels, the beliefs, the political arguments, the social out casting… everything. I KNOW you love these people. I KNOW that this sin is simply that to you. SIN. The way we see it is so far from how you do.

Abba, I’m weary. I’ve never felt like more of a warrior than I do now. I recognize the battle and that my freedom from it didn’t come from anything other than realizing who you really are. You are LOVE. You do not have to ‘act’ out love or be moved to love somebody ( which would take into consideration who they are, or how same or different their sin), but you ARE love. Did Christ not come to teach us how to be more like you? Why are we FAILING in this? We are not in line with your will in this. I know this because of this aching in my heart. I know your love, but what about THEM? HOW??? When the angels came rejoicing at Christ’s birth they came to the shepherds FIRST. They were outcasts, unacceptable to society because of their 'chosen' profession. And they were the first to know of Christ.

I believe that if Christ were to come back today he would go to them first. He would be walking around the Castro in San Fran, telling stories and sharing meals in boys town Chicago, helping those homeless because of this battle. Cast out by their own families. He would have been the first through the hospital doors in the 70’s when AIDS was a gay man’s disease and men lay dying alone and convicted. We are the ones who failed then and we are still failing now.

I’ve had many struggles. Dealing with death, the murder of a best friend, drug and alcohol addiction throughout my family, mental health disorders, idolatry… all I seemed well equipped to get through. But this one. THIS one I could not get through for or by myself. This is the one where my feet have to dangle. Where I know I have to rely on you every day, and must turn to you for peace and strength. This is where you show up and every time you do I get to learn more and more how much you love me and desire for me to be close to you. Would I ever really have known your love if it were not for this? For being desperate for your love for so long? I wouldn’t have it ANY other way. I am so completely blessed.

THIS is not only my story, but theirs’ too. And I cannot wait to see how you show up. Come father, come. We are so desperate for you. Move in out hearts, break our hearts for what breaks yours, and help us to see this battle through YOUR eyes. Help me to have conviction, humility, and absolute reverence for you. Help me to look only to you for answers and NOT MOVE, speak, or argue before I have acknowledged your sovereignty. And help me Father to hear and understand the whisper, then obey… IMMEDIATELY. Because that is what your revelations call for. Give us the COURAGE to obey, and help us to remember that the battle has already been won, all we have to do is lay down our pride, pick up our cross, and follow you.

Father help us to truly KNOW your love, nothing else matters. Help us to know that your moving in our hearts is not a plea to assist but an invitation to experience how great you are. You don’t need our help, but call those who have the heart to know and serve you better.

This heart is yours. Have YOUR way with it…

I have no one in heaven but you; I want nothing on earth besides you. My body and my mind may become weak, but God is my strength. He is mine forever. Ps 73:25. Amen. 

Laurén

LOVEintheRAW

 (THROWbackBlog)

So it's my first night in my house. First night other than the last where me and mom stayed up painting my new room, me unpacking right before the sun came up. Walked Kobe and got some Macdonalds breakfast just in time to come home and sleep for a couple hours before our excitement would again wake us up. but like I said.. first night, sorta. Moral of the story is I can't sleep.

I think about where I am and the long twisted path which brought me here. I remember where its crookedness ubruptly ends and slows into a first akward and fearful one, now a path which requires patience and my full attention to every step. First making my steps hesitantly from fear... now I am learning to enjoy the moments of peace. I'm getting use to soaking in the silence and fresh coat of uncertainty. I am more comfortable now knowing that my life has been surrendered, It is no longer mine. It is no longer my desires that dictate my steps. No longer I who will live but, finally, Christ who lives in me. I feel like I have lost the fight of my own way, Praise. Would I have ever learned to let it go without that battle? I am so blessed to have been brought to a place where I no longer had control. Where I saw how absolutely hopeless I am without Him. Where our lives as sinners will take us regardless of our best intentions when we choose to walk without Him.

I remember the rock at UT. How a good warm rain would soak its layers so heavily that they dropped off around its solid core. I am so thankful to be bare. Vulnerable in my makers hands. Where my moments of fear and anxiety are brought to Him.

I feel like a child standing sheepishly behind her fathers legs, holding tight and sometimes terrified to peek at the faces around her. I feel more like a child now than I can ever remember. I know this is where He wants me to be and I have no desire to move forward without Him being the one to provoke it. Until He gives me the, "Ok honey, go ahead" I'm stayin' right where I am.

Truth is... there is so much I want to be but know that He is the only one who can take me there. A strong woman of faith. Gentle, kind, and loving. Passionate and strong yet so soft and tender. I imagine every calluse of my worn heart being soaked by his love and mercy, and dropping away, my heart is left tender and exposed. Unravaged and in the perfect mans hands. Never to be dealt with wrecklessly again. I am back to my first love. Back to that place I longed to be but remember like a distant dream, before the fear and then shame found its way and dug in its roots. Augmentation is such a beautiful thing no matter how painful.

I desire... a VIOLENT faith. I have high expectations of my Lord and Savior, as I know he has for me, He desires to bless me. He greatly desires to pour out his love on me in all I do. The desires of my heart are to be shaped in His form. To be finally walking the way he desired me to when he created me. With no limitations brought on by this world, Fearless. Full of his Joy and Hope for everyone I come in contact with. Living my life from the inside out. Starting with what I know is truth, the only thing that matters. While I was still a sinner Christ died for me. He loves me and takes great Joy in me. He wishes to have a relationship with me. To love me so deeply and intensely that I may know His father. His heart broke for me, and my heart has broken for my sin as well, I guess they call it repentance. I want my heart to break for what breaks His. I want to feel His pain. See the world how He does no matter how difficult. That way when my feet are moving forward I KNOW it is His strength sustaining me, not my own.

My heart breaks for my loves. Their love for me is so intense. So raw and so real. Sometimes its hard to recognise it for what it is. It is love the best way we know how in this world. I pray God shows me how to return the love. I want to bring them joy and peace, I want them to see and feel how GOD wishes to pour out his love and blessing on them as well.

Love has saved me. Now, I'm gonna let it remake me and I'll do what I can to let it shine the best way I know how.

This little light of mine...

This love is raw, but it is real. He is mine and I am His... forever.

Back to my first Love... how I've missed Him.

<3 Laurén