heavy clouds of thought

I feel heavy today, not physically heavy, but burdened with a heavy feeling. Some things around me are affecting my mood: friends who have been falsely accused of abusing their children & are fighting to get them back, friends who can’t have a baby, friends who were great parents & their son still committed suicide, a sinking feeling that things in the world are getting worse when I hear of new things closely lining up with prophecy I’ve read in the Bible, and, finally, knowing what to do with myself in my own life.

I’m not complaining, just sharing a plethora of thoughts adding up to a little cloud hovering over my head. At my church, we’re doing a study on Habakkuk & learning “the reply to why”. Basically why do bad things still happen to “good” people, etc., etc.? It’s so interesting how many times in the bible that God gets glory in the end through evil, like wiping out nations & just allowing things to happen. I’m not so naïve as to think He doesn’t allow these things. There’s so much I don’t know, but a few things I do know to be true: I know that we have victory in the end; I know that this is a fallen world; I know that Habakkuk cried out to God asking him why he tolerates the evil in Judah & God’s response was that he was raising up the Babylonians to take them over. Using evil to get rid of bad?!

It doesn’t really make sense. But then I think – does it have to? I’m the kind of person who wants to understand everything, but when it comes to the ways of the Lord, I have to just make myself accept that I can’t always understand. So then what am I supposed to do now that I’ve accepted the fact that I don’t have to understand? I still strongly believe that I shouldn’t just be ok with everything that's happening. I want to be the kind of person that cries out to the Lord about the injustice I see surrounding me, to pray with boldness for answers. Our pastor made the interesting point that the cross is one of the worst torture devices in the history of man, used by one of the most corrupt governments in history, and ultimately that’s what gave me my salvation. Why do people walk around saying that God wouldn't allow terrorism or even worse natural disasters than we've already seen? Definitely something to chew on.

The first three things I listed that are on my mind have to do with children. Now, I don’t have children. I do desire them at some point in my life. Sometimes I almost think I wish I were in that stage now, but then I realize I’m not even close to being ready. Anyway, these problems & then the way the world is now really make me question whether I want to bring children into this world. Are they just going to be taken away from me? Will they take their own life after i've poured so much of mine into them? Am i fit to train up someone in the way they should go? What if they never accept Jesus as their savior? Will i be able to protect them? Will i be able to accept when situations are out of my control? I’m not losing sleep over it or anything, just something that crosses my mind every so often.

Ok one of the things that I started thinking about today in reference to the prophecy comment before is Oprah. I’ve seen some things recently about these new people she’s endorsing that are fairly new-agey & what I perceive to be lies disguised as feel-good truth. Anyway, one of the most alarming things is that the author of this book & supposed spiritual advisor to Oprah is head of this peace alliance, trying to start a U.S. Department of Peace. Now, peace sounds great. World peace sounds even greater, but when you get someone who is a proponent of “mind training” and a year-long self-study “course in miracles”, thinks we’re all destined to be as Jesus on one hand & that she’s a magical witch on the other, I have to start questioning. Oprah & another author are teaching a class online every Monday night to something like 2 million people. Oprah thinks that sharing this guy’s book is a fulfillment of her life’s purpose & the book is predicted to be the best-seller of all time. I guess we’ll see.

I saw another thing about this book called don’t drink the kool-aid. The title is a reference to an occult mass suicide in the 70s. This woman, a Christian author, is basically saying that this “Oprah movement” is occult-ish & that Oprah is reaching more people daily than most pastors will reach in a lifetime. She addresses Oprah’s endorsement of Obama and how it has given him an assent to power quicker than he ever would have gotten there alone as well as references the teachings I previously mentioned. My first inclination is to blindly believe everything this woman says, but then am I just as bad as the people I’m accusing of being deceived by blinding believing everything Oprah says?

Lastly, I just want to make the right decisions in my own life. I know that i can't be ok & make the right choices all the time, I do. I just desire the discernment for making the right decisions & the ability to accept & forgive myself when I don't, moving on to hopefully make the right one next time. I find myself making decisions of the moment as of late in an effort to not need to see the big picture, but be satisfied with the present. The result is a series of decisions that I’m not sure were right, but not sure if they were necessarily wrong. I want to bring glory to God. I also want to love & be loved. Emotions & rationalization can really get in the way of clear thinking.

I’m going to look up some of the prophecy I’m talking about so I can quote scripture next time instead of just a jumble of questions & general wonder-ing…ments (FRIENDS).

reading & thinking

So I’ve been doing a lot of thinking recently. A lot of reading & thinking. I’ve been intentionally trying to not turn my TV on in the evenings because I find that it’s either mindless entertainment or just makes me mad about the world & what’s acceptable. Not to say I hate TV. The shows I love, I really love. It’s just getting a little harder to find shows I love. Anyway, this is of no importance. Back to the point. So I’ve been filling my time with reading, some fiction & some non.

In fiction, I really like to read Christian fiction. Some may argue that it’s boring or cheesy or whatever, but I find that it’s really inspiring to me, plus relieving to know that it's basically already censored. I love reading the thoughts & situations of people. I love knowing that everyone is human & learning the struggles & victories of other believers (probably why i love reading blogs), or non-believers depending on where the story starts in the characters’ lives. It gives me a different perspective on things. I like when I can feel my mind being stretched. I often try to pull out important thoughts or lessons from the story & apply them to my life, or see where I may have made similar mistakes. I like to think about Jesus sitting next to me while I’m reading & kind of “discussing” my new thoughts in response to what I’m reading. This probably sounds stupid & I realize that not everyone thinks the way I do, but all of that to say, I think reading Christian fiction draws me closer to the Lord & expands my mind. Right now I’m in the middle of A Garden to Keep by Jamie Langston Turner. Love it. The protagonist is telling the whole story & her thoughts & memories are all over the place. I love the crazy way her mind works because, while I know it irritates & overwhelms people, I can completely relate.

Non-fiction, whether also a story or more like a life application book, makes me think in a different way. These I am reading solely for revelation about my personal life & how to improve or view it differently. Knowing my mind as I do, I have to read these books in smaller doses because I’m probably trying to absorb it a little too much. If it’s the kind of book that’s suggesting life changes, I sometimes catch myself getting bogged down with what I should be doing, which is obviously not productive. Right now I’m erring on the productive & encouraging side with What’s So Amazing About Grace? by Philip Yancey. I started it a long time ago. I remember thinking it was amazing, no pun intended, but left it at a friends’ house for a long time & just got it back. I’m excited about picking it up again.

Sidenote about grace: a few weeks ago at church our pastor came to my small group. I think we were talking about revolutions or something, but somehow grace or giving came up & he made an interesting point I’m still absorbing: if there’s no end to the amount of grace that God extends to us, why are we willing to only extend a certain amount to other people? It’s like we feel like we’ve done our part to extend grace one time to one person in one week, but he was talking about how we should exhaust our “supply” over & over. And I guess we shouldn’t be worried about what it might do to us because there’s enough grace from God to keep filling us up. Hm. I like it. So none of this is what I meant to write about today, but I think it’s enough for one post.

Key word to remind me what I meant to write & will next time: overreacting.

death & dreams

My Dad & Sheryl just got back from their vacation last night. They’ve been gone for nearly 3 weeks. It all began when my stepbrother, Travis, went to a Bible College in California last semester. One of his good buddies he met there was named Geoff. Travis & Geoff both decided to go to the bible college's campus in Maui this semester. Dad & Sheryl decided to make a vacation out of it. My dad's birthday is this month and he’s always wanted to go to Hawaii, so off they went on the 16th of January. Dad & Sheryl stayed in Maui for 5 or 6 days, saw Travis a lot, got him settled, and spent a lot of time with his friends, Geoff & some other girls from the bible college.

Then Dad & Sheryl moved on to another island by themselves for the duration of their trip. They were supposed to be returning home Friday, the 25th. On Thursday, the 24th, Travis called them in a panic saying that he, Geoff, and 2 other students had been on this hike & Geoff had fallen off a cliff & died, and begged them to come back to Maui. So, they cancelled all of their flights, unsure as to when they'd be returning to the lower 48 or what really had happened, and headed back to Maui to be with Travis. Apparently they had gone on this hike that guys from the Bible College have been going on for a few years. It’s pretty dangerous, but they were having the time of their lives. They were almost done with the hike, had one more waterfall to either jump over or scale down. Geoff was figuring out the best way, slipped, and fell down head first. It was an hour’s hike back to the road to get cell phone service to call for rescue. They came and as one of the boys was taking him back to Geoff’s body, he got to share his faith and the rescue worker accepted Christ right there. Amazing. Already salvation had come just two hours after his death. They had devotionals and memorial services at the school to pray for his family and worship. My Dad & Sheryl said that Geoff was on fire for the Lord and so refreshing to be around. He had had two close encounters with death before and had given his life to the Lord in July of 2007. He was baptized the 1st Sunday in January, and gave his testimony at his home church soon after. They spent the next week in Maui before heading to Geoff’s hometown in Oregon for the funeral.

They spent a few days in Oregon staying with one of the girls from the college’s parents. They said that this family was such a blessing. The dad is an evangelist & they have 4 daughters. They said the funeral was amazing. There were 1700 people there, it was 3 hours long, and around 50 people ended up accepting the Lord at the funeral! Wow. They just said it was a worship service. I really hope that’s what my funeral is like. I’ve always thought that if because I lived, just one person came to know Jesus & experience His love, my life would be worth it.

Anyway, all of this to say, I picked them up from the airport last night & were looking at their pictures. They took pictures of the people’s backyard in Oregon & there’s a river running by their house. I hadn’t thought about it in forever, but I was immediately reminded of a prophetic dream I had about 2 years ago. Almost like I knew the place. Weird. So I get out my journal & below I’ve written out the two journal entries centered around the dream. I have no idea if there’s a correlation, but I know when a dream is from the Lord. I remember it differently & I believe that if the Lord gives me a dream, there’s something I’m supposed to take from it, whether a lesson, direction, or revelation. I had this one two months before I finally wrote it down because I couldn’t get it out of my head. I haven’t thought about it in forever, which is why I wonder if the Holy Spirit brought it to mind when I saw that picture. I’m going to leave it at that, post this, and pray for more direction.

4/4/06
I feel like the Lord wanted me to write this dream down that I had a couple of months ago:

As a preface, none of the faces in my dream are people that I currently know in real life. Me & my immediate family were going to take a trip to visit some old friends of my parents. All I knew about these people was that they lived in the middle of no where, loved Jesus, served/followed Him in maybe some unconventional ways, and that 2 of their children had died. So we pulled up to their house: it’s in the woods, leaves everywhere, a river runs beside their house. In the yard, we see a rather unusual sight. There is a grave/mound – not fresh, already covered with leaves – and a dead child lying on the ground next to the grave (boy). The child was stiff & gray/blue, so he had been dead for a significant amount of time. The reason his body was laying out is because every day (either 2 or 3 times), they take his body down to the river and baptize it, believing that god will bring their son back to life. Obviously, this was slightly unusual to us, but we continued on into the house. The mother is giving us the tour when she casually mentions that the spirit of her dead son visits her at night to chat. She said that sometimes this woman spirit comes also. Um, okay, so the inner turmoil starts here. (As if I wasn’t already racking my brain over the dead kid in the front yard!) First of all, I’m scared to death that I’m going to see these “spirits” in their house. Second, I’m so torn the whole dream as to what I think about what’s going on. Do I just have no faith, or are they total freaks?! I knew my parents trusted and loved these people, so I wanted to, too. I knew they loved Jesus, but obviously we lived very differently—who is right? Can I accept this? Etc. & I’m tormented with what to do & think. The End.

4/6/06
After telling my dream to about 4 different trusted friends & receiving blank stares, I told Dustin Randle. He, being the prophetic man that he is, had some suggestions as to interpretation.
- The fact that I didn’t know any of the people’s faces could have something to do with surrounding myself with a new community
- My immediate family could represent my immediate spiritual family, the people I’m walking with (John said I should be on the lookout for new “spiritual parents”)
- The traveling could have something to do with moving, visiting somewhere (church planting?)
- The dead boy could symbolize the church. That I may be part of a people who are believing that the church will come back to life.
- The buried child (Dustin thinks it’s a girl – not necessarily relevant) could represent discernment of knowing what to bury/let lie & what to believe for
- The torment could foretell of a confusion & finding of new faith in the near future
- The woman spirit could be some kind of spiritual guardian over the boy & visits the mom as encouragement to continue doing this seemingly foolish thing

Interestingly enough, this kind of correlates to my life right now:
- I’ve decided to move to Amarillo & be involved in the singles ministry at my mom’s church (new community, moving)
- Some man met mother & john at church & said that he felt like they would be on a church plan within 3 years (w/ me?)
- My friend Lindsey took me to dinner & said that she feels that the Lord very clearly told her to ask me to go with her wherever she goes after graduation next May. Does this give me a time frame in Amarillo? Will I teach ESL like her? Or will I do something totally different alongside her? I don’t know.

My roommate got a book/dictionary of dream symbols, so I’m going to see if there’s anything else in there (Habakkuk 2:23 “Write down the revelation and make it plain on tablets so that a herald may run with it. For the revelation awaits an appointed time; it speaks of the end and will not prove false. Though it linger, wait for it; it will certainly come and will not delay.”)
Autumn – transition, about to enter difficult times, end of something and beginning of another (Jeremiah 5:24)
Baptizing – a change from the natural to the spiritual. Dying to self, expression of the new man (Luke 3:3, Romans 6:4, Colossians 2:12)
Buried – permanent end to something (Colossians 2:12)
Death – dying to self usually
Family – Christian or spiritual family. Group of people in unified fellowship
House – one’s spiritual & emotional house, personality, or church
Leaves – dry leaves – pressures of life
River – movement of God, flow of the Spirit
Unknown Woman – messenger from God
Thinking – time of study, reflection, meditation, & intellectual exercise

A few weeks ago, my friend in life group, Teensy, gave me a word with these 2 verses:
- Habakkuk 2:3 (above)
- Zephaniah 3:17 – “The Lord your God is with you, he is mighty to save. He will take great delight in you, he will quiet you with His love, he will rejoice over you with singing.”

She said that she felt like my time in Amarillo would be a time of refreshment spiritually and that I am in a time of preparation.

Another girl in life group, Stephanie, has come up to me the past 2 weeks with a word about finding my “niche”, or a place I belong. She also said she sensed a prophetic gifting.

My roommate, Kelly, told me at the prophetic conference that she felt like I had a prophetic gifting.