Influence Me/ Rant

Today has been a very long day. I think for a large part of it, I feel like my brain is clenched. Yes, my actual soft, slimey, flesh brain.

If we don't process, the activities of our lives just slip by. We'd remember so much less. We'd commit a disservice to ourselves by not reflecting. The purpose gets lost. I come back so many nights exhausted physically, mentally, spiritually, emotionally. I have little strength to journal or to pray. But if I don't, I rob myself of realizing the moments where God was very present in my day.

I am learning so much about myself and so much about God. I'm frustrated because there is so much that I want to do, but I know I can't do them all. So I need to intentionally invest in a few areas, a few people, a few projects, so that the product would lead to more sustaining work. So I wouldn't be needed. So that the work does not  cease without me. So that the value and purpose of my work is carried and continued onward. So that's the vision of leadership. That's the vision of being an influencer.


___________

Reflecting on a lot of things. Unfulfillment, loneliness, waiting. Realizing if I had what I orginally wanted, I would have forgotten God. I was so foolishly happy. I was foolishly happy.

What am I doing with my life? When I look back years from now, even months from now.. I cannot count my students or their souls, their gratefulness, or their change. That reward will not be able to satisfy me. It will never be worth the best years of my life. My prize can only be God. Day by day, the Lord is my prize. Growing in intimacy with him, and becoming more and more like him. Not in the power-hungry way, but as the child bears the image of his father. May I resemble my Father. May this life I live be a pleasing offering. I've committed. I'm all in. Jesus, it's you, and it's all or nothing. There isn't really even the nothing option. It's simply all you.

As I stumble around to learn this abstract idea of being more like the Father, I struggle. Day by day, I see my will, my plans, my hopes, and my desires. Night by night, I surrender them. Again and again. As years past, as wrinkles and baggier eyes appear, it certainly becomes harder and harder to say yes. Saying yes involves tears, anger, and heart break. Saying yes demands surrender and vulnerability. Saying yes costs your life, and it's a lifetime of learning what that life is worth, what that life is capable of, what suffering it can endure.

I've tasted and seen, but I've only tasted and seen so much. There's still so much ahead. I have no idea what lies ahead.

unraveling. like an orange peel.

Summer 2015

My heart is hurt from old wounds. So many wounds, why do they still sting? Hasn't time offered healing?

Summer 2015 was an incredibly difficult summer. Loneliness, anxiety, fear, self-loathing.. Summer 2015; it was an incredibly difficult summer.

I have this unknown and deep fear about attraction. I feel the burden of broken sexuality. The lie that women are hypersexualized. Our bodies are sin-provoking and a danger to man. Our bodies need to be covered up. We can't touch, or we're hussies. We can't be friendly, or we're flirtatious and desperate.

Summer 2015. I was suffocating. My heart hurts from old wounds. Why do they still sting? Hasn't time offered healing?

Summer 2015 was an incredibly difficult summer.

Random Rant: Forecast for Flurry

I feel a flurry of emotions. I looked out the window today and the sight was of giant snow flakes indecisively floating in the air with no direction and no cause.

I feel a flurry of emotions. It's building up and the roof is caving in. I am not processing. I am avoiding. I am momentarily unable to react. I am stunned. It's like I'm going on autopilot, bullstg my way through life. I'm counseling young students. I'm leading our leaders. I'm assisting in meetings. I'm participating in events and activities, and I am there.. but so easily I can go through the motions and pray the prayers but be empty inside.

But this time, I'm not empty. I'm quite the contrary, I think. I am full with emotions. Full with feelings. I feel for my students. I feel for my campus. I feel for my cause. I feel for my team. I feel for all the things that haven't come yet. My heart is breaking. I am exhausted from feeling. I am deeply burdened. But my heart is not mending. I am not being renewed. I do not feel lightness in the load that I carry. I suppose the root of it comes from a shallow relationship with God. Maybe because of my sin issues, my fears, my insecurities, my doubts.. I am withholding myself from God. But maybe we're not supposed to be happy all the time. Maybe right now, I am righteously burdened. Maybe my heart is righteously breaking. Nonetheless, I can't sit here forever in hopelessness

Feeling. Feeling. Feeling.
Crying. Crying. Crying.

Lord, would you come? Would you hear my cry and come?

"This One"

After walking across the stage, being handed the piece of paper that wasn't my diploma, I continued to the line of professors who held their hands and arms out to meet the new graduates. I walked to Dr. Horton and she gave me a massive hug. I felt so happy. I continued to walk and shake hands and receive pats on my back. "This one. She is the one I was talking about. She would've been perfect, but she's not going to grad school."

I can hold onto that for now, but after a while, I will be forgotten. Many other great students will come forth and they will do great things. Then holding onto this praise would be worthless. My pride is probably one of my biggest thorns. For so much of my life, I chased and ran desperately after being the prize in people's memories, if even for a faint moment. Oh, what I wouldn't do. I loved it. It was like a drug. But it became a bad drug, when I needed it more than I needed anything else.

I love being prized. I love being valued as worthy. I love taking breath away.

But my world has been changing. He calls me, that I might set my gaze on him. He tells me I am worthy. He takes my breath away each day. My joy and my deep satisfaction comes from seeing His will done.

My heartstrings, they strum a sad song.

For Greater Glory

Lord, even if things don't get better, You've taught me that you are still good. So I cry out from the depths:

You anoint my head with oil; my cup overflows. Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life, and I shall dwell in the house of the Lord forever.