The Gift of My Mom

Mom and me on my wedding day!

I hope my Mom is taking a really long, extended lunch break right now.  It is her birthday, after all!  Today, my mom claims to be turning 39.  If you looked at her, you might believe her too. She also claims she’ll be 39 forever.  Ok, ya’ll.  Don’t buy it!  Let’s just say, next year is going to be the big F-I-V-E  -O-!  But we can keep that a secret.

My mom should take heart.  Every year, I just seem to love her more and more.  Which means she has to keep getting older, so my love for her can keep increasing.  With each new life stage I go through, saturated with her deep care for me, it becomes more and more apparent the gift of grace God has given to me through my mom.  Let’s just say my children will probably beg me to “go to grandma’s” once they spend one day with this uplifting and sweet person- My mom!

I am overwhelmed at her persistent love and care in my life.  There is no one who has known me in the unique way that she has.  Some people you meet at special times in your life, and they are wonderful friends.  But there is a unique rarity to the relationship of a mother with her daughter.  I don’t know if many women called their mom their “best friend” in seventh grade.  Yep, I did.  I was a weird one.  While most kids try to remove the existence of their own mother once they hit puberty, I was busy writing poems about her and publishing them in my seventh grade poetry collection book.  Like I said, I was a weird one.

For some reason, hanging out with my mom growing up was like the BIGGEST treat!  Anytime my mom asked me to do anything with her (and still now), it was like someone turned on the Christmas tree lights in a dark room.  Even if it consisted of taking commands at the grocery store to go to the cereal aisle, I got to be with mom!  Doing anything with my mom was and is one of life’s highest honors for me.  Let me recall some of my favorite things about my mom.

Peeing my pants from laughing so hard with her.  I don’t know if many people have that memory with their own mom- but I do! What I LOVE about my mom is that when we get together, I get to act however I want!  She’s my mom, which seems to give me some invisible rights.  I can cry.  I can laugh.  I can be frustrated.  I can be completely out of line.  I can be annoying.  I can be tired.  I can be goofy.  I can be hungry.  I can need a back-rub.  Heck, I can poop my pants if I want.

I can be alone if I need to be.  My room can be messy.  I can sing at the top of my lungs in front of her.  I can throw my keys across the car after sucking at driving with her freaking out in the passenger seat. I can be mean, and I know she will forgive me. I can share my heart with her, however it is on any day.  I can call her for no reason.  I can go anywhere, do anything, be successful, be a failure, and still- she will be my mom.  She will love me and encourage me, and at least TRY to understand me!  (I know I can be a tough cookie to understand sometimes.)

My mom brings a light-heartedness to my life, which is seriously something that I think I need.  I have one of those really serious, intense, reflective, always deeply thinking about everything personalities, which is a blessing and a curse.  When I get to spend time with my mom, I get to take off my shoes, let my hair down, and have fun.  Let the world subside and do silly things like raid her closet for cute shoes, purses and jeans.  Let’s just say I owe any sense of fashion that I have to the big mama “J” (actually she’s not big at all).  How could I be so blessed?

Ok, probably my all time FAVE past-time with Mom is this:
Driving in the car for hours, windows open, blasting Dixie chicks and singing at the top of our lungs.  My mom claims she is not a singer, but let me inform everyone that she IS!!!  No one can sing “Wide Open Spaces” like mom and me.  And she harmonizes like crazy in the car, too!  I get my songwriting passion from my dad, and my love for harmonizing from my mom.  She also breaks into tap dances in the kitchen for no apparent reason, which is pretty much hilarious.  I think that’s why I break into my own version of tap dancing once in a while.  I’ll spare you any further revelations of my dancing.

For some reason, singing “Wide Open Spaces” with my mom just seemed to fit.

Some lyrics from “Wide Open Spaces” are …

Who doesn’t know what I’m talking about?
Who’s never left home, whose never struck out?
To find a dream and a life of their own
A place in the clouds, a foundation of stone

Many precede and many will follow
A young girl’s dreams no longer hollow
It takes the shape of a place out west
But what it holds for her she hasn’t get guessed

She needs
Wide Open Spaces
Room to make her big mistakes
She needs new faces
She knows the highest stakes

One of the funniest memories I have of my mom actually showcases how gracious she is.  I was in seventh grade, the year that all young teens, if allowed by mom and dad, experiment with various forms of face paint (a.k.a. makeup).  It’s the year you also get zits and want to conceal them.  Well, being the blondie that I was (and am), I entered into this phase of thinking that I should draw in my eyebrows.  After spending a good thirty minutes too long in the bathroom one afternoon with a dark brown eye-brow pencil, I casually entered the kitchen for dinner as if I hadn’t transformed at all from albino to having huge bushy brown eyebrows.  Dad said, “Woah!  What’s on your face?”  Mom said, “Oh honey, its ok.  She’s just experimenting.”  Mom always let me go through the various and awkward life stages in my own authentic way.   Even the stage where I drew in my eyebrows and it looked ridiculous!  I am glad to have outgrown that phase ☺

My mom seemed to have a keen awareness of a girl’s need to explore her own interests, to find herself in this lost world.  She was so encouraging to me in all of my passions.  She always encouraged me to “Sing my heart out!”  And I always did.  She gave me room to “make my big mistakes” and learn from them.  She was a voice of healing and a promise that someone is praying for me.  She even has the courage to talk about her life and mistakes with me too.  It teaches me that being perfect isn’t the goal in life.  Its walking through messes knowing that “God is never done with you.”  That advice has been profound for someone like me.

Something that my mom taught me significantly was how to help and care for other people.  I have pictures to prove it.  She has spent years training service dogs to be able to live with people with disabilities.  Sophie and Marley are two of those lucky pups.

This is Mom and Sophie, the first service dog she ever trained!

Now Sophie lives with this man, Tim. My mom had the courage to give up a dog that she absolutely fell in love with. After seeing Sophie bond with Tim, she said "Seeing the way Sophie loves and helps Tim is so much better than being able to keep her." I don't know how she did it!

Mom, Dad and Sophie in her very professional working vest. Dad was so supportive!

Service Dog #2! Meet Marley!

Did I mention my mom is a phenomenal cook? Seriously. You don't even know.

Mom and Dad. Priceless pic.

 

The whole fam. We love mom.

My mom just amazes me.  You know a blog post doesn’t do justice to how thankful I am for her in my life.  Now that I have been married for a little over a year, I am seeing how family relationships change and expand and deepen.  Seasons  come and go, and though we are always changing, my mom will always be my mom.  Today is such a day of celebration.  I would not be who I am with out her.  And I love her so much!!!

Happy Birthday, Mom!

A Friend Who Changed My Life

It is one of my dearest friend’s 25th birthday today. Her name is Jen Jacobs. And let me tell ya’ll, this is a day to celebrate!!! When a friend’s birthday rolls around, I start to get really consumed with myself.  (Sad, right?  Like aren’t birthdays for celebrating OTHER people?  No, I’ve come to find out everyone else’s birthdays have become all about me.) For example, this is the conversation I had with my husband last night: “Nick!! It’s Jen’s birthday tomorrow. Actually, her GOLDEN birthday. What should I do? What would be the best? Coffee? Take her out to dinner? Wait, I want to make her something. No… let’s take her to one of her favorite desert places… Should I come surprise her at her school with flowers? Golden Balloons? NO I could bring cupcakes to her classroom!” And on and on I went proclaiming all of the things I could do for her. I imagine that’s how God’s love is towards us, so full of desire and affection to let us know how deeply he cares.   Nick reminded me, “It’s the thought that counts- just remembering someone’s birthday means a lot to them.”  I sighed.  “But?!!?”

I am usually consumed with “ME” when it comes to relationships.  I am consumed with how I can perform for my friends.  So celebrating birthdays becomes all about me and not about truly loving and celebrating life with that person, though somewhere in the cloud of my performance is genuine care and love in hopes to make my friend feel thought for and encouraged.  God is so merciful to me in my selfishness!  This is an area I am growing in, and the Lord is revealing more and more that He does not require anything of me in a human relationship but to love and share in the riches of Christ with that person.  I so often get consumed with what I can offer someone when I can look to what God has to offer someone.  He is required to be everything for my friends, not me.  So I can feel really free to celebrate and enjoy my friends when I am with them knowing that their ultimate happiness in life can be far greater met by God Himself.

But there are certain people who have given me so much that I would give them the whole world if I could! Jen is one of those people.  Instead of the whole world I am landing on something quite simple today. Instead of giving her a gift, I want to tell the world about a friend who changed my life.  And let her be encouraged that her laboring as a friend has been such a worthy effort and risk in my life and has overflowed into countless other’s lives.

This could be one long blog post because Jen has been through most of my life experiences up close through the past five years.  I got the joy and delight of being her roommate (of ALL people, God- you chose ME?! ) and the joy of sharing mostly all of my college classes with her.  You can bet we got to know each other pretty well.

In fact, when you get to know someone THIS well, chances are you’ll find out about each other’s weaknesses and realize that friendships take work and at some point giving up becomes an option. But relationships in Jesus Christ are so radically different.  Still full of the same imperfections as in all relationships, yet so full of forgiveness and hope, commitment and love.

Jen has always been an old soul.  Someone who is in this world, but not of this world.  When I met her, I remember thinking exactly that.  She was different. She was truly a light in a crooked generation to me.  A friend that loved and cared more deeply than anyone I had known at the time.

My journal in the fall of 2004 reads, “Dear God, I am so lonely.  Please send me one friend.”

I know, I sound like a sad case.  But I WAS!  I had just transferred to the U of M, with zero real friends and lost in a crowd of about 60,000 people.  Yikes!  I couldn’t think of anything but to ask God to give me what I didn’t have.

About two weeks later, I ran into Jen on the street.  We recognized each other because we actually attended half of eighth grade together at Wayzata Central Middle School- so it was like a six year reunion on Washington Avenue!  Six years had gone by since we had seen each other- and bam!  Our lives collide!  I use to think stuff like that was just “fate” or “random.”  But God would be robbed of so much glory if that were true.  His wisdom and planning are so deeply apart of His character.  Based on what God says about Himself in His word, I don’t believe that God is a random God at all.  I believe He is a wise God whose plans are very high.  The plan of my friendship with Jen began that fall, and my life has never been the same.  Only God could ordain something this far beyond my efforts to “win friends.”  This friend was not won.  It was mercifully handed to me from God.

Jen’s life was changed as a seventeen-year-old girl when she prayed to receive Christ into her heart and into her life.  I got the pleasure of meeting her two years later to hear about all of the amazing things that God had been doing in her since she first believed in him.  I saw something different in her.  There was a freedom, a joy, a sincere care for people, and what pierced me most was to see the deep intimacy that she had with her God.  She was a girl in love with what seemed to be a person, an actual being.  She carried real peace and real purpose in her life.

She embraced me into her life at such a weak and lonely time of mine, and it was just what I needed.  She has always been excellently hospitable to anyone, but she was especially hospitable to me.  She was the kind of friend that made me lunch, had me sleepover, went running with me, stayed at coffee shops too long with me, listened endlessly to me spill out the secrets of my life I had kept hidden for so long.  Truly a friend who stood beside me through anything that I went through.  The bravest thing she ever did for me was talk to me about who Jesus was.  And braver still, she bought me a bible.

She so gently and warmly leaned into my life.  There were times I wouldn’t want to have a friend that knew me so well.  I was afraid to be known for who I was, but once you meet Jen, you know she will welcome you no matter who you are in a heartbeat!  And I learned that I was welcomed just as I was, full of weaknesses, and she was such a gentle ear and forgiving voice to me.

The friendship with Jen ultimately led me to repentance and faith in Jesus Christ.  Somewhere in my junior year of college, I truly believed that Jesus was God.  The bible was no longer some old, dusty, “historical” book.  It was God speaking to my heart!  It was God telling me of His love and mercy!

The next few years went by, and Jen introduced me to so many other women involved in Campus Outreach, a college ministry in Minneapolis, where I got plugged in and totally loved on by so many other students and women.  I got to also be friends with amazing women like Samm, Mary, Lydia, Kathy, Holly, Erin… so many others!! I got to watch Jen care about more than just her college education.  She had the courage to ask other women on the campus for coffee.  She loved telling me about the conversations she was having with girls who did not believe in Jesus.  A strange friend Jen was?  Yes, strange.  Christians are very strange.  You’re either drawn to the light of Jesus in them, or you’re not.  I could not resist the power and freedom that seemed to flow like living water through Jen’s life.  I could not go on living without having all the riches that she had found in this God she called Jesus Christ.

So here I am today, by God’s grace and His will- working in college ministry full time.  TOTALLY NOT my life plan!! Would I be walking into freshman dorms and sharing life and Jesus with other women if it weren’t for Jen?  Probably not.  If I had not seen someone consider souls to be such a precious thing as Jen did, I don’t think I would give one rip if people knew Jesus or not.  But it is deeper than a friend just showing me how to give my life away, it is the reality  that now lives deep within me- that I know Jesus for who He really is, the pleasures of His love and kindness He spills into my weaknesses, the love and affection that he has for me though I am so lowly and full of calamity.  I can no longer help this pulsing desire for other women to know this tender-hearted loving father.

This fall, I have been going into the dorms with two women who are seniors in college:  Justine (Jen’s sister) and Brittany .  Both women have been discipled by Jen and other women and have become believers in Jesus through God speaking through Jen.  It just hit me profoundly watching Justine and Brittany walking into the dorms one night.  I had this bird’s eye view of it all.  Four years ago, Justine and Brittany were not walking with Jesus.  Neither was I. Jen gently came alongside all of us at different times and mentored/discipled us. Now four years later, I see their lives radically changed AND filled with desire to give their lives away to other students on the campus.  God has breathed life into these women, and I believe many more women will get to share in this breath of life through Brittany and Justine, and by God’s grace, even through me. All the boasting belongs not to us, but to Jesus.

As I have spent time with Brittany in the dorms, we have both shared with other freshman about the work that God has done in our lives.  The conversations include the gift of Jen’s life to us every time. As my husband and I raise financial and prayer support to work in college ministry, the friendship of Jen is regular conversation.

Jen is now giving her life away as a teacher at Hope Academy, laboring to share the gospel and nurture these children of the city.  Her compassion runs deep because she draws it from the well of Jesus.  His compassion is deep.  Because He loves the children of the city, He has caused Jen to love them too.

Because He loves women who are in college, He has caused Jen to love women in college.  I believe that the gift of her life has radically changed the lives of four women: Me, Brittany, Justine, and Laura.  We will now go out and share our lives too.  And many will see and believe that Jesus is God.

God is relational to our human hearts.  He is close to us because he put on flesh to dwell among us in the person of Jesus.   I am so thankful for a friend as brave as Jen, who loved me enough to share Jesus with  me.  The depth of relationships through Christ is one of the most satisfying, challenging, and rewarding gifts the Lord gives.   It is a worthy risk to go deep in friendships, to work through sin, to be open and honest and let the light of Christ shine and cultivate life-changing bonds.

God blessed me (and still is!) through knowing Jen, and my life hasn’t been the same since!  The labor of Jen’s friendship in my life has not been labored in vain.  She has been the friend that has prepared me the most to work in college ministry by living out her life in front of me.  God showed me that there is a specific purpose and calling on my life too.  Like He would not spare Jen, He would not spare me. And there are many more to be spared.

May God get all the glory for His awesome work in and through this sweet friendship!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY JEN!

Carried To The Table

A lyrically excellent song.  Visit their Myspace page and have a listen!

Lyrics to Carried To The Table :

By Leeland

Wounded and forsaken
I was shattered by the fall
Broken and forgotten
Feeling lost and all alone
Summoned by the King
Into the Master’s courts
Lifted by the Savior
And cradled in His arms

I was carried to the table
Seated where I don’t belong
Carried to the table
Swept away by His love
And I don’t see my brokenness anymore
When I’m seated at the table of the Lord
I’m carried to the table
The table of the Lord

Fighting thoughts of fear
And wondering why He called my name
Am I good enough to share this cup
This world has left me lame
Even in my weakness
The Savior called my name
In His Holy presence
I’m healed and unashamed

You carried me, my God
You carried me

What Its Like to Be Five…

I have heard so many cute and hilarious (and heart-warming) comments from the kindergartners at Hope Academy that I just HAVE to post some of the things they say.

I hope it makes you smile!

“He’s not nice!”

“Look!  I drew the doorway to heaven!”

“Did you know that its easier to do a handstand in the water than in the air?”

(In the middle of a speaker at the nature center field trip…) “MRS.  STROMWALL!  MRS. STROMWALL!  Did you know they are building a WATER SLIDE for me at the YMCA!?!?!”

“Mrs. Stromwall, you look like Mrs.  Jacobs.  Except your hair is messier!”  (haha… white and blonde… I guess we stand out together.  And apparently my hair is messier!  haha.)

“Mrs.  Stromwall, you have a neclace, so you’re a mommy.”

“You smell like you took a bath today, Mrs. Stromwall.”  (lol!)

“Mrs. Stromwall, can you even drive?  You don’t look like you can drive.”

That’s all I got for now!  (And hey, I CAN drive thank you very much!)

Breathing This In

I’m getting more and more into this. Blogging from remote locations in the moment when something captures me. I am watching small boats ripple through water like glass up at the rustic Stromwall cabin. So Many days are a fight to get up, but today God woke me up to His peace, His silence, His glory, His healing. And coffee. This is great breathing in this creation He allows us to dwell in.

Two large themes of my summer thus far have been healing and processing. These seasons come and go, and for the moment I am soaking in this slow and rejuvinating grace.

Thank you, Jesus, for being the healer of all of us who are suffering and for letting us come to you as we are.

Happy Girl

There’s no other way to say it.  I’m just so happy I could BURST ya’ll!  If you’re one of those peeps who knows me REALLY well, then you know its been a real fight to experience some solid joy over the past five months due to some circumstancial meltdowns in my life.  And that is REALLY a long story made short.  Perhaps the long story will make its way to the blog soon.   For now,  clap your hands with me and REJOICE in God’s faithfulness!  OH how GOOD he is!!

WANT TO KNOW WHY??

His mercy.  His steadfast love.  The way He does what is IMPOSSIBLE and CHANGES me!  Oh yea, AND He just created me to LOVE music and to be stirred to love Him more through it.  Amen!  I am doing something that stirs my affections for God more than any other thing in my life!  I have been writing so much music my apartment could explode with lyrics that NEVER could have been produced had the Lord not taken me through some of life’s greatest challenges I’ve yet experienced at this ripe age of twenty-four.  I am recording some songs that are undoubtedly the most raw, human, and soulful songs my heart has ever written.  Who would have imagined I’d have to fall on my face SO many times to write from such a raw, real and vulnerable place in me?  Seeing God carry me through so much askjkfjasdnfkasmfakmkaj…. thats just what it feels like to describe the past year of my life… is just unspeakably satisfying and amazing.  And it is SO worth singing about.

I bet my entire life on the belief that Jesus Christ offers the MOST freedom and joy that can be found above ANY other thing on the face of this earth.  The reality of how he holds me, loves me, and does not condemn me is just bouncing around in my soul.  I long for others to feel this total unabandoned love.

Tonight, I say to you, whoever you are, my dear reader, my fellow seeker of happiness in life, that Jesus Christ is worth surrendering to.  He is worth CRYING to and POURING OUT YOUR HEART TO.  No matter HOW old you are.  No matter WHAT you are going through. He doesn’t want a “better” you.  He just wants the REAL you.

Oh, my friend.  Do not lose heart.  Don’t give up.  Don’t worry about being better.  Just allow yourself to be honest and real, allow yourself to cry.  Allow yourself to be held and welcomed in the reality of Jesus.  Don’t lose another second of enjoying this MERCIFUL, GENTLE, PATIENT God!!  (no, I promise this isn’t a thirty second “sticker for Jesus” advertisement.)  This is the most sincere way I can think of loving you.  Its like sharing my lottery money with everyone I know.  But its better!  Its the real, true and alive God who is in a deeply intimate relationship with His beloved children.

I am going to figure out a way to post one of my songs to this blog in the near future…

I’ll let you have a listen soon.

Whatever you LOVE doing the most, seriously, take a day off of being an American who gets TOO many things done and then still has more to do and…  remember what that one lost passion is.  Just do what you LOVE doing more than anything else… chances are God has given YOU a passion that stirs your heart to love him more too… and chances are that He wants to USE this wisely designed gift of yours for His kingdom… you think?  I think God is a dreamer WAY more than we earthly folk are.

So what plans can you cancel in order to creatively worship God?

Or if your the planner type, what can you pencil in somewhere in the midst of it all to get some affections for God flowing?

Don’t be afraid to ask God to show you what you love.  But mostly, don’t be afraid to BE loved.  To fall and to be held.  This is where we begin to rise into the person that God has created us to be.  What if we could be what God intended us to be to the fullest?  Not in an obsessed with productivity way, but in an obsessed with BEING way… to just BE!  aaa… that sounds nice.

To rest in a deeply contented, satisfied identity in Christ.  Yes, God, make this real for me and for all who seek you!

My Life In Pictures!

This has been my resting place as of late. God pours His light through this window, and I have been spending time processing through a lot of things journaling and reading here. I am thankful for a season to rest and feed on His Word.

I have spent almost ever free moment I have in this musical corner pouring out my heart to the Lord in song. His grace and pursuit of my heart has overwhelmed me with the reality of Jesus. Writing and recording is my rather introverted way of trying to be extraverted about how AMAZING Jesus is!

Our kindergarteners at Hope Academy graduated! Praise the Lord for these blessed children of the city.

Nick surprised me randomly with this binder filled with worship song guitar tabs and lyrics. He spent weeks copying hundreds of songs from our church and compiling them into this huge purple thing! He is so thoughtful, and I am so thankful God gave me this husband!

We spent a day in Stillwater, a quaint riverside town in MN

Nick and I have had to forgive each other more than we ever thought we'd have to in these past few months. It is sweet seeing God's grace change us and redeem our marriage again and again. After our sin being revealed so transparently and vulnerably, its amazing I still love Him, and He still loves me! Only through knowing a merciful God is this possible. Thank you, Jesus.

I am a now a hair-stylist! This was so fun. I did my cousin Hannah's hair for her prom! I love this girl

My first "boy" hair-cut! Yes, I cut Nick's hair for the first time. Downside: Our floor was really hairy You like? I think he's pretty cute if you ask me.

Can’t Sleep

I am all over the place.  Somehow we were watching a movie and now I am just on the computer with a dilemma.  I can’t sleep.  It was the last day of school today.  Everything feels like a blurr.  Although kindergarten has come to an end, something new is beginning.  One season has ended and another has begun.  All in one day.  All since 5pm.  I have exited one season of my life… and so quickly its the next.  I cannot put into words all of the changes I’ve been through this year.  Tonight its just hanging over my head.. the need to process.  The need to be with God.  The need to rest.

Tonight, I am thankful that God so gently welcomes the weakest things in me.  The deepest fears, the worst of my worst behaviors, all my sinful thoughts and actions he already knows and welcomes with unfading patience.  I am so thankful for this God who is with me.  Who has promised me so many things.  Who knows me, understands me, and loves me.

Tonight I am thankful that God is faithful to continue putting His hand in my life and that He is big enough to handle me no matter how near or far I am to Him.  I am so thankful He wants to give me good gifts and freedom from the dominion of sin.  Oh, how I cannot wait to taste more freedom from things I am stuck in bondage to in my life!

I want to taste God’s love for me and His pursuit of my heart more richly than I ever have before.  May this next season be full of understanding this more deeply.

Yes, random thoughts, I know.  But that’s what I got on my mind…

G’nite.

Wishing everyone peace, love, and rest.

Clinging to the Cross

“Clinging to the Cross“- sung by Bethany Dillon

Go here to listen to this amazing song!   http://www.myspace.com/bethanydillonmusic

Written By Tim Hughes and Martin Smith

My soul is weak
My heart is numb
I cannot see
But still my hope is found in You
I’ll hold on tightly
You will never let me go
For Jesus, You will never fail
Jesus, You will never fail

Simply to the cross I cling
Letting go of all earthly things
Clinging to the cross
Mercy’s found a way for me
Hope is here as I am free
Jesus, You are all I need
Clinging to the cross

Even darkness is as light to You, my Lord
So light the way and lead me home
To that place where every tear is wiped away
For Jesus, You will never fail
Jesus, You will never fail

Simply to the cross I cling
Letting go of all earthly things
Clinging to the cross
Mercy’s found a way for me
Hope is here as I am free
Jesus, You are all I need
Clinging to the cross

What a Saviour, what a story
You were crucified but now You are alive
So amazing, such a mystery
You were crucified but now You are alive

Simply to the cross I cling
Letting go of all earthly things
Clinging to the cross
Mercy’s found a way for me
Hope is here as I am free
Jesus, You are all I need
Clinging to the cross

Stuck, but Hopeful

I’m not so sure my blog will be exploding over spring break due to the huge wall between my blog and me (no, we don’t have a relationship… or do we?) Anywho…  I’m not sure what the wall is, exactly.   I know that life has been really busy and full.  Without written processing, a chasm grows between my mind and what is going on at the root of my heart.

Do you ever sit back and take a good candid shot of your mind?  If you could make your mind into a pie-graph, what sections would there be floating around in there?  In other words, what consumes your thoughts?  What consumes most of your thoughts, half of your thoughts, a small portion of your thoughts?  That’s what I am examining today.  What am I consumed with thinking about?

Its funny that I feel such a burden to search myself and unravel the deep and hidden roots of anxiety and unbelief in my heart when I have a savior who searches me and knows me.  It is He who searches me, not I who searches myself.  Yet, there is a need to process who I am and what I am learning.   And I don’t know where to start but to confess the candid shot of my mind.

So one of my favorite things to do when I am cleaning around the house or ironing on a day off is to look up new Christian artists on myspace.  I pride myself in listening to undiscovered artists who are unbelievably talented.  I love listening to music.  If there is a sound that ministers to me more than any other, it is a clear pitched unique voice, soft piano and acoustic guitar.

Yesterday, I listened to my new favorite singer/artist, Audrey Assad.  Then, like the myspace-music-pro that I am, I clicked and clicked and clicked on dozens of artists advertized on various Myspace pages.  At first, the songs ministered to me.  The lyrics met my soul.  I was loving it.

Then, my mind took a turn down a lost and dark path.  I guess that’s what we artists do.  We feel really happy and energized and then we also experience deep sorrow, confusion, and darkness.  Ask any singer, musician, painter, or songwriter- its just the way that we operate.  And I don’t think it’s a long shot to say that’s how a lot of people, artist-or-not, operate.  So, I stared at my two guitars, piano, and recording equipment.  I stared at half-songs I’ve written.  The wind  through the window blew all of my sheets of half-attempted music off of my music stand.  I thought about my life.  What am I doing?  Who am I?  What am I suppose to be doing with what God has given to me?  I have a fear of wasting God’s talents.

I began wishing I had a myspace page with really great songs.  I began wishing I had this awesome music ministry that keeps me really busy.  I imagined my life recording and writing, traveling the world.   I imagined using the sales to give to organizations I am passionate about.  I even imagined having really cool pictures of myself that captured the essence of my artistry (which I know is completely vain and self-glorifying- which is why I’m thankful for a savior from this selfishness). But don’t we get sucked into dreaming sometimes?  Sucked into wanting a different life?  Or a different job?  A different image?

I don’t think my dream or imagination is entirely unrealistic considering that I come from a large family of singers/songwriters who sing and play music loudly at every family event.  I have recorded very informally about 4-5 songs in the past few years, but musically I often feel stuck.  I sing at church, I’ve sung for weddings, I have helped lead worship at retreats, I sang my life away all throughout high school… but what is it that I really want?  Fame?  A more exciting life?  Adventure?  A larger creative outlet in my life?  The better question is what is it that God really wants?

Since I’m mostly consumed with what I want, let me tell you.  As I listened and investigated all of these new artists, I began to think about my life and wish that it were more exciting.  I wished that I could be a good songwriter.  That the words I write and songs I write would minister to other people.  But as I listened to these amazing songs, I felt… so small.  So ungifted.  So ordinary.  So unpoetic.  So stuck.

I don’t want a job that sucks all the life out of me so that there’s no room or time for these other exceeding passions of mine.  I want an exciting, changing, somewhat unstructured, yet productive job.  A job with seasons.  Music seems to have seasons.  Seasons to write.  Seasons to create.  Seasons to play.  Seasons to record.  Seasons to rest.

The truth of my life is that I am working in a deeply suffering, yet hope-filled atmosphere on a daily basis.  My job consists of meeting immediate needs of children experiencing very difficult lives.  My nights consist of making dinner, working out, making my lunch for the next day, hanging out with Nick or a friend, and going to bed early so I can be refreshed for the next day of 8-5 operation kindergarten.  I never feel bored, just tired and rushed.  And I really do LOVE my teaching job.  I can’t tell you how good God has been to me through it and how much he has taught me and changed me because of it.  I PRAISE Him for this merciful job!  He has awakened me to so much more suffering in the world and challenged me in ways that have really strengthened me spiritually.

While I love teaching, it doesn’t leave room for much else, though holiday breaks are a large perk!  Most of the time, I don’t have time or energy to practice music, write as frequently, or mentor college women to the capacity that I feel my desire is for.  But if God is calling me to teach and to give some of these things up so that He may use me at a greater capacity at this school, then I want to joyfully surrender to this wonderful blessing!  What I’m not sure of is if He has created me for something different than teaching.  I’m convinced that this season is one of waiting for Him to bring in clarity and affirmation over what He has in store for my life.

Spring break has been miraculous for me because I have been spending so much time with college women, and I feel so rejuvenated and refreshed doing college ministry!  Its not that it’s easy, because I assure you its not.  My whole first semester felt like stamping a big L on my forehead while experiencing deep rejection and endless unreturned phone calls.  But this week was sweet fellowship with some women who are going through life with God as their savior, and its so life-giving to me to see how he is moving in their lives!

I was so hungry to get time with some of these women that I have completely neglected my goals to practice and write music and to blog.  So here I am today, feeling like a useless musician and blogger.  I know that’s not believing the truth, but today I just don’t know the capacity I am called to use music in my life.   I wish I could say that somewhere in my passions of children, college women, music, and writing I could pick one.  I wish that God could post a bill-board outside my window that broadcasted what I’m suppose to do forever and ever.

But this is a season of waiting, trial, and patience.   Its sort of a season of everything, which in a way is very cool.  Its just that feeling of being spread-thin and not that effective at everything, but slightly ok at a lot of things.  I feel stuck.

So the snap-shot of my mind seems to be, on this day, consumed with longing, for what- I don’t know.  What I can’t distinguish between is selfish ambition and God-breathed dreaming… where do I stop listening to the lies in my mind and begin hearing the living God and pulsing to His dreams for my life?

So, I guess that’s my unorganized, unplanned, candid blog entry for ya’ll today.  I don’t mean to be a downer because I have been experiencing so much joy and daily purposes, but there are days when I just don’t really understand my own specific purpose.  As I type, I feel convicted of not believing God can use me or that God has plans for me.  I pray God would change this.  He is so faithful!

Pray with me if you feel stuck that…
1.    God will give us His heart and His mind for our short lives on earth.
2.    God would give us hearts of faith and freedom, not of fear and bondage to the world.
3.    God would redeem our self-centered ambitions and use what He’s given us for His kingdom!

Stuck, but hopeful,
Katie