A weekend away

For months I have been trying to get a weekend retreat. A weekend free of distraction and responsibility. A weekend alone with my savior, my fiance. And finally, after months of searching for a free weekend, I found one. The weekend before kickoff, before all of the students moved back into the dorms, my last chance before school started up and the busyness of work and ministry caught up to me. So I made arrangements to camp at Ledges for the weekend.

I'm a huge book person. I love reading, and I really love reading Christian non-fiction. When I began dreaming of this weekend away, I really intended to spend a lot of time reading one of those quality Christian books that people have recommended to me. One of those books that I've been wanting to read, but can never find the time. However, in the week before, as I was making final plans for the weekend, I began to feel like I shouldn't. I felt like God was urging me to here from Him. Directly from Him, not someone else's interpretation of His words. I've always had trouble hearing from God, so this leading was frightening and yet encouraging at the same time. Would God really talk to me? To me personally, not through a counselor or teacher or another experienced Christian? I can't explain it but I really believed it. And I wanted more than anything to experience it! As I was packing I was tempted to bring a couple of the Christian books I was reading (just in case I got bored), but God just really convicted me not to even bring them. If I brought them I was convinced that I was sure to miss something from God and distract myself from His presence.

As I drove out to Ledges, I couldn't contain my excitement. I was like spending a weekend with a best friend I hadn't seen in months. I sobbed in the car because I was so excited to spend a weekend all alone with my Love. And it was wonderful...nearly everything I had hoped for.

A several weeks before this retreat I had read something that really intrigued me.

"What if our daily communion never ceased? Would it be possible to
live--minute by minute--in the presence of God? Is such intimacy even
possible?"
--Max Lucado

I wrestled with that, at first nonchalantly answering "Yes, of course," but after consideration I thought "No, that's not really possible, there's too many distractions in the world, we should live in the presence of God as much as possible, but it's impossible to live in His presence all the time." Then I continued reading, and read the story of the man who did. He wasn't just a monk with no distractions, he was a teacher--with lots of distractions. He described frustration at the moments when He wasn't really in God's presence. And when I went on my retreat, I got a taste of this. I was free of distraction, so I was much more able to live in the presence of God. There were moments when I wasn't living in God's presence, and I remember feeling the frustration this man described. It was all real to me. It opened my eyes to what is possible. It is possible to live in God's presence every minute! And I had never experienced such communion with God! I actually heard from Him. I read His word and it came alive to me. Verses popped out at me and forced me to meditate on them. God was telling me about himself. About who He was and about how He sees me and how He loves me. It was amazing to ask Him what His will is for my life and to actually hear from Him. To hear from God first and then seek confirmation from counselors and trusted advisors rather than hearing from counselors and seeking confirmation from God.

I had an amazing weekend, and I learned an immense amount. Now my God is teaching me how to commune with Him in this high pace world full of distractions.

postal service makes me happy

i went to stomping grounds tonight for a quiet time so i could visit christy while she was working. i was looking back through my journal and i found this excerpt that i had written down while i was reading captivating "we feel unseen, even by those who are closest to us. we feel unsought-that no one has the courage to pursue us, to get past our messiness to find the woman deep inside. and we feel uncertain-unceratin what it truly means to be feminine, uncertain if we are or ever will be."
it seems like this is a good description of how a lot of women i know feel at least on some level. i have been trying to work on thinking with more visually stimulating words. something that clearly paints a picture of the emotion or thought i am trying to get across. i am not very good at it. i really like how this excerpt is worded because it just does a really good job of getting the point across.

this fall i am taking a poetry class. while i love to read poetry isn't normally my thing. i have a book of poems to read by monday and here is one i found interesting.

Winter Syntax

A sentence starts out like a lone traveler
heading into a blizzard at midnight,
tilting into the wind, one arm shielding his face,
the tails of his thin coat flapping behind him.

There are easier ways of making sense,
the connoisseurship of gesture, for example.
You hold a girl's face in your hands like a vase.
You lift a gun from the glove compartment
and toss it out the window into the desert heat.
These cool moments are blazing with silence.

The full moon makes sense. When a cloud crosses it
it becomes as eloquent as a bicycle leaning
outside a drugstore or a dog who sleeps all afternoon
in a corner of the couch.

Bare branches in winter are a form of writing.
The unclothed body is autobiography.
Every lake is a vowel, every island a noun.

But the traveler persists in his misery,
struggling all night through the deepening snow,
leaving a faint alphabet of bootprints
on the white hills and the white floors of valleys,
a message for field mice and passing crows.

At dawn he will spot the vine of smoke
rising from your chimney, and when he stands
before you shivering, draped in sparkling frost,
a smile will appear in the beard of icicles,
and the man will express a complete thought.

a story for bubbles

so monday i got a message from my dad while i was at work saying that i needed to call him because he had news for me. so i call him back and he said that our relative chris had called and left a message on my parents answering machine about a gun that he saw and thought i would like. so this gun was being held for 48 hours for my dad to go and look at it. my dad has been looking into a shotgun for me to buy so we can go hunting for my birthday and he can use his own. i wanted to get a gun that was similar to my dad's because it is beautiful and i like it a lot. a new gun like my dad's would cost somewhere between $500-$600 and that would only be with the slug barrel, i also wanted a barrel for regular shells. so the gun my dad picked up for me has both barrels and cost a lot lot less than if i were to get a new gun with both barrels like my dad's. so last night when my dad called me to tell me that he was bringing it home i jumped up and down for joy.:)

YEAH!!

I HAVE A SHOTGUN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Gone for the day to the Trolly Wood

the school year is fast approaching...i move into the dorms on sunday. this summer seems to have gone by faster than normal. it seems like i was just moving my stuff from my dorm room into my apartment with katie and now she is married and i have moved twice. i have very mixed feelings about this fall. i am really excited and really nervous at the same time. in the bible study i did this summer called "believing God" with beth moore she talked about believing God for something even if it turns out to not be exactly what He had planned is better than to live in your "safety zone" i have a feeling that this school year is going to push me more than ever before to be completely relying on God and to step out of my comfort zone. all of my friends that are girls are basically living off campus, so i pretty much have to start from scratch with becoming friends with any of the girls in linden. i'm taking a poetry class this fall and i think you have to read in front of your class, totally not my thing. and for some reason i'm still not quite sure about i am taking a dance class...i don't like dancing. the past couple days satan has been trying to get me to believe a lot of lies dealing with this coming school year. he is wanting me to believe that i am incapable and unworthy of the task that God has in mind for me. i just finished the book captivating and i really liked it. it pointed out some different lies i have been believing but it also really got me thinking on what it means to be feminine by God's standards. the world has some very clear pictures of what it says femininity is but they definitely don't follow what God intended. so there is really a lot of stuff going on in my head at the moment but it will have to wait til morning to be pondered on more deeply. i need to get some sleep...the basement of design will be calling soon enough.