Feet On the Ground

I opened up a document and wrote for the first time in about 2 months.

It’s just a page.

It’s probably a really bad page.

But I wrote it. My words, my thoughts, my feelings. My soul is poured out on that page, and in doing it I feel more alive than I have in weeks. I don’t know what it is about letting the words seep through my fingertips and onto the keyboard, but it unlocks a spring of vigor inside of my heart. It’s completely ridiculous, but I almost feel like I could fly.

Absolutely nothing has changed about my life, circumstances, or self since I wrote that page, but I feel like a whole new person with a completely new existence.

Something about this is powerful, and I’m meant to do this. I don’t know how it will be used, but I have been created to create.

Tags: excitement

I haven’t been blogging much because I’ve been struggling. And when you’re someone who claims to have faith, you feel like you shouldn’t be struggling at all. I think I’ve become so dependent on actually writing out my faith to remind myself that I really do believe all of this, that everything is going to get better and that I am going to prosper, and when I don’t have time to write it makes me not feel so convinced about it anymore.

This verse in Luke is most quoted around Christmas, from the King James Version:

And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God, and saying, Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward men. (2:13-14)

Yet I read it this way, from the English Standard Version:

And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God and saying, “Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace among those with whom he is pleased!”

And in the Amplified:

Then suddenly there appeared with the angel an army of the troops of heaven (a heavenly knighthood), praising God and saying,

Glory to God in the highest [heaven], and on earth peace among men with whom He is well pleased [men of goodwill, of His favor].

We have such a problem reading the Bible correctly. We squabble over translations and original context and cultural clues and significance and we totally miss out on so many of the basic things. This verse has been so overquoted that I never realized how spectacular the “multitude of heavenly hosts” really would have been. An army of the troops of heaven. How terrifying would that display of power be, even knowing that it’s on your side. Every time angels appeared to someone in the Bible, they’d have to say, “Fear not!” because they’re so mighty and we’re so doubtful. We’re skeptical that someone would be willing to do something for us.

So we read “peace on Earth, good will toward men” as a commandment or a hopeful statement. That’s always the message I got from it. Be good to people, especially around Christmas, and hope people are good back to you. If not, suck it up.

Yet in other versions it is stated as a promise from God that we will have peace. Simply because He loves us and He gives us favor because we love Him back- and even if we don’t. Even caught up in our selfish ways, He finds something to love and bless. Because He’s just that good.

If a multitude of angels appeared in front of me, telling me that I was going to receive peace and favor from God, would I believe then? Maybe for a while. Then something decidedly unfavorable would happen that would try to steal my peace, and I’d get caught up in the dichotomy of what is promised and what I feel.

Instead of punishing me for my lack of faith, God designed the whole system, the entire story, to meet my faith. He didn’t do it all in one act. He wrote a continuing saga that is everlasting, and is still commanding the army of heavenly hosts to battle for me. He is funneling peace into my life and showing favor because that’s what He does and who He is. When I stop feeling it, He doesn’t give up and He doesn’t toss the story out and start over. He simply finds a new way to show me and starts a new chapter.

Tags: appreciation, Christmas, learning

I’ve been kind of numb the past few weeks. I think it’s a combination of dealing with the most epic heartbreak of my life, being lonely and getting thrust into a new, draining, full-time job out of nowhere. I’ve read little and written less. I haven’t talked to my best friends much because there’s nothing to say. I can’t even really get involved in my TV shows as much as usual. I can’t connect. I can’t feel.

Part of it is welcome. I can’t feel anything bad, and when I do I just shove it aside and return to the numbness. But that also means that I can’t feel anything good either. I usually love Christmas, but it feels dead to me. It’s a celebration of life and I feel none of it. I miss God’s presence and the anointing flowing in my life. Whenever I listen to a Bill Johnson sermon, I no longer feel like all he discusses is attainable. It’s foreign and I wonder how the heck I’m supposed to get there. I don’t feel the passion and the power of God in my life anymore. I miss it. I miss Him. I want it back.

I struggled for a long time with thoughts of suicide. Up until a couple months ago, I was having an onslaught of random thoughts and dreams about killing myself. It was so weird because I knew I had no real intentions of doing that, and I would never follow through on those ideas. Yet they flowed into my mind with frightening regularity, and it was a painful struggle. A direct reflection of how much I did not love life.

Somehow, though, I could handle it. I could press into that anointing and feel God’s love and know that I would have to struggle with it forever. And when it fell away after a very emotional week, I rejoiced. I thought it was over for good. Then little by little everything else started falling away too, until now I stand here feeling empty and forlorn. Then last night, I had thoughts of cutting, which is something that I’ve never really had the interest in pursuing seriously (cause like, it hurts…). This is why it doesn’t make sense to me- I don’t do it, I won’t do it, and any attempts in the past (very few) have been half-hearted indeed. Even now, my rational thought process is so much more stable than it used to be. I’m not going to do it. But there’s something that wants me destroyed and it doesn’t really care if it’s in one fell swoop or proceeds gradually.

I used to be equipped to fight against it, but I don’t feel that way anymore. It’s probably the most terrifying part of this whole mess. Maybe, though, this is what I needed to get back to the right place. It’s certainly motivating, but I’m not sure how to do it anymore.

Tags: discomfort, fail, pain, silence

I haven’t blogged in forever, but I’m so excited to write again. Even logging in was soothing.

I want to do nothing more with my life than write, but for some reason I’m chasing a bunch of other things that feel much more attainable. In my head, I’m without a doubt a future author. But when I think about putting it in practice there’s an element of terror because I mean, there’s no way I can do this….yet I’m always thinking about it. Wondering when my next burst of inspiration will hit. If anyone will actually like what I’m writing. If an agent will listen to me and if a publisher will listen to her. If the public will allow my words to soak in and change them or fight the message that they offer.

Christmas is such a weird time. Some people celebrate the joy and being thankful for the past year and looking forward to the next one with no thought of Christ. Some people suspend the joy completely for the sake of religiously harping on the point that “JESUS IS THE REASON FOR THE SEASON” and church marquees go overboard with cheesy and not-at-all-helpful lines that make drivers roll their eyes as they pass right on by.

And then you have the people in the middle. Who remember Christ as the center of the holiday but who celebrate Him at all times because He is the center of our lives. Who take joy in buying gifts for their loved ones and little things like eggnog (which I personally hate but whatev) and getting packages in the mail and opening Christmas cards and decorating trees and watching cheesy Hallmark movies and the million other things that are just fun and may not even have anything to do at all with Jesus directly. Yet Jesus came to give us life more abundantly, peace and joy and love and everything else that is and should be abundantly celebrated not only in this season, but in our lives.

The thing that I think a lot of Christians forget about is that Jesus doesn’t need us to defend His place in Christmas or in our lives. He refuses to be removed, by default. The best illustration of this, I think, is when Mark Driscoll updated Facebook and Twitter and said something about “Xmas” in his update and everyone on Facebook got riled up commenting about it and HOW DARE A PASTOR REMOVE CHRIST FROM CHRISTMAS!! Um, yeah, Twitter has a 140 character limit, don’t you know? But through all of the brouhaha, I found out that the abbreviation of using X for Christ originated a very long time ago, and it began because the Greek letter chi is the symbol of X and the first letter in the Greek word….Christos.

Tags: appreciation, Christmas