name change

So here's a brief explanation of why I decided to change the name of my blog. It's been in the works for a while, but I just couldn't decide what exactly I wanted it to be called until now.

To fully describe the spiritual journey I have been on in the last twelve months would take sheets and sheets of paper, and I still don’t think I could fully explain exactly what God did in my life last year. Thinking about what my answer to this question will look like has actually made me realize that on paper nothing I say about last year will really sound that difficult. Words don’t really capture the essence of what an experience is on a personal level. And yes, maybe to most people what I’m going to say sounds ridiculous and maybe even shows a lack of experience, but it is still my life and still how God has chosen to refine me.
Last year was the “year of nursing.” Since I was a freshman in high school I have wanted to be a nurse, and last year I finally was able to apply to the nursing program at SPU. Nothing sounds more amazing to me than a lifetime of serving people at their weakest moments, when they’re most ashamed of their bodies, and being able to remind them that they are vessels of honor, made in the image of God. I knew that this is what God had called me to, and I wanted to learn how best to do this at SPU. Leading up to the month of April, which is when we receive notification about our acceptance to the program, I had been experiencing a prolonged stated of clinical depression and had felt extremely disconnected with God. I remember thinking that if I could only get into the nursing program my depression would go away, and I would be so happy that my relationship with God would have to improve.
And then the day after spring break I opened my letter and read down to the line where it said “waitlisted.” I felt as if God had given me a calling and then ripped it from my hands in a moment. I was devastated. That night I went to the prayer lounge in Moyer, laid on the ground and screamed at God. It felt so good to at least have a reason to communicate with him again, and I can remember never feeling as honest with him as I did at that moment, pounding my fists into the floor and sobbing. As I mentioned earlier this may seem like a ridiculous response to not getting into a program, but I felt so abandoned and so frustrated that God had seen fit to take the way in which I most desired to serve him, and had simply said, “no”. There was no explanation why, and there was seemingly no point to it, except to say “your future is mine.”
In the midst of this complete uncertainty God revealed himself to me in a way I have never experienced before, and for which I am so grateful that I had the opportunity to learn. He spoke to me through the words of a hymn, “thy Jesus can repay from his own fullness, all he takes away,” and he infused my spirit with a sense of peace, that God does hold my future, that he does know the desires of my heart, that he will repay from his own fullness. No, I still am not in a program, and no, I don’t know where I will be six months from now. I don’t know what “[repaying from his own fullness]” will look like, but I do know that maybe it won’t look exactly the way I want it too. Maybe it will mean a long, hard race of endurance. Maybe it will be completely different than I expected, and so much more beautiful than I could have dreamed. But whatever way in which God chooses to transform my future, I know that he will, as the Psalmist said, “lead me beside still waters,” that he will “restore my soul,” and that sometimes in tearing away what we think is most dear to us, Christ gives us something far dearer and far more beautiful than we could ever hope to possess on our own.

नेम चंगे

What words?

Here's a poem that I wrote in high school that I still find very meaningful in my own life today:

What words to sing my Saviour’s love
Can my lost state exclaim?
What praise, what adoration give
To his sweet, holy name?
For in the throes of sin and death,
He came to bear my shame
And suffer all my pain.

Why would he deign to take on flesh,
And stoop to low degree,
For men created by his hand,
Who stole from off the tree
The fruit, forbidden to consume,
And joined the Enemy,
In open blasphemy?

What mercy sweet, that though my curse
Christ pierced himself for me,
And paid the ransom for my soul
Upon that crimson tree,
That sinless I might live again,
In free captivity,
For him, eternally.

So now for me to live is Christ,
To die for me is gain.
His humble slave, I prostrate fall
In rev’rance to his name;
And though the world despise, reject,
Or offer wealth and fame,
I glory in his shame.

Be still, my soul

THY JESUS CAN REPAY FROM HIS OWN FULNESS
ALL HE TAKES AWAY.

These words have been floating around in my head for the past eight months, and I think they're as fresh today as they were then. How beautiful is my God that he gives me what I need and not what I want, that he calls us to bear our crosses after him, that we're called to love, worship, and adore even if it means screaming on our knees. This past year I've found Jesus to be so much more than I could have imagined a year ago, and I would not know that today except in God's mercy he took away a desire of my heart.
Here's another of my favorite hymns that I think is really connected to the lines above: Its by william Cowper, a man who struggled with his faith for his entire life.

Sometimes a light surprises the Christian while he sings;
It is the Lord, who rises with healing in His wings:
When comforts are declining, He grants the soul again
A season of clear shining, to cheer it after rain.

In holy contemplation we sweetly then pursue
The theme of God’s salvation, and find it ever new.
Set free from present sorrow, we cheerfully can say,
Let the unknown tomorrow bring with it what it may.

It can bring with it nothing but He will bear us through;
Who gives the lilies clothing will clothe His people, too;
Beneath the spreading heavens, no creature but is fed;
And He Who feeds the ravens will give His children bread.

Though vine nor fig tree neither their wonted fruit should bear,
Though all the field should wither, nor flocks nor herds be there;
Yet God the same abiding, His praise shall tune my voice,
For while in Him confiding, I cannot but rejoice.

I CANNOT BUT REJOICE! In Jesus I have the wonderful, most difficult task of finding the joy set before me in very grim spots.

A glimpse of heaven

Two nights ago I saw a glimpse of the eternal at Seattle Symphony, while listening to Rachmoninaff's "Rhapsody on a theme of Paginini." Actually I wasn't listening to Rachmoninaff at all I was hearing the cry of a human heart, hearing an emotion that was so full of yearning and desire that it could not be put into words, and seeing a tantalizing preview of heaven. I saw the Creator of Music and a tiny glimpse of his immeasureable glory and goodness, as yearned in my heart for the fulfillment of his promises and the redemption of this world.
(i had a much prettier and nicely perfected three paragraphs to post and then i accidently deleted them, so this is the short version of what I experienced)
Here are those three minutes of music that I have a hard time believing came from this world: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=90MuPqYtV

Favourite Scripture

...Let us run with perseverance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus the pioneer and perfector of our faith, WHO FOR THE SAKE OF THE JOY THAT WAS SET BEFORE HIM ENDURED THE CROSS, disregarding its shame...

more Emily

This woman understood:


I SHOULD have been too glad, I see,
Too lifted for the scant degree
Of life’s penurious round;
My little circuit would have shamed
This new circumference, have blamed
The homelier time behind.

I should have been too saved, I see,
Too rescued; fear too dim to me
That I could spell the prayer
I knew so perfect yesterday,—
That scalding one, “Sabachthani,”
Recited fluent here.

Earth would have been too much, I see,
And heaven not enough for me;
I should have had the joy
Without the fear to justify,—
The palm without the Calvary;
So, Saviour, crucify.

Defeat whets victory, they say;
The reefs in old Gethsemane
Endear the shore beyond.
’T is beggars banquets best define;
’T is thirsting vitalizes wine,—
Faith faints to understand.
Emily Dickinson

A leaf

One year only, given,
For caressing rays to warm
Your silky skin.
One year to flutter and twist
And writhe in storm, and rain,
And snow.
Once you have, to fall
And present yourself-
A seam in the golden-red
Carpet of your fellows-
A death, surpassing
Beauty of your life,
And raising to untold
Heights of glory
The humble earth.


I wrote this about a week ago. The view from my window is incredible right now. There are golden branches, red shading, and left-over hints of green across the street from me, and I can't help but feel joyful and a little sad when I see such beauty. Joyful, because sometimes the tiniest, most insignifcant things can be so beautiful they make you ache, and sad because each leaf has to die before we even notice how lovely they are. We walk underneath them everyday, lay in their shade, and yet we don't even really see them until they aren't alive anymore. In fact, they look so beautiful carpeting the ground around my feet that I can't help but be glad that they had to die. I guess that's why I love fall so much. Everything about the season is reminding us of death: our own future death, the death of leaves, and flowers, and the realization that winter is a long season. But in what could be a horrible time of reminder we instead have the honor of glorious showers of golden, red, pink, yellow, and brown leaves all around us to remind us that it is only through death: death to ourselves and ultimately, the death of Christ that we have the most amazing priviledge of life.

"LET ME SEE YOUR FACE
LET ME HEAR YOUR VOICE;
FOR YOUR VOICE IS SWEET,
AND YOUR FACE IS LOVELY"
Song of Songs

Emily

A loss of something ever felt I-
The first that I could recollect
Bereft I was-of what I knew not
Too young that any should suspect

A Mourner walked among the children
I notwithstanding went about
As one bemoaning a Dominion
Itself the only Prince cast out-

Elder, Today, a session wiser
And fainter, too, as Wiseness is-
I find myself still softly searching
For my Delinquent Palaces-

And a Suspicion, like a Finger
Touches my Forehead now and then
That I am looking oppositely
For the site of the Kingdom of Heaven-

Emily Dickinson

what's in a name?

After years of thinking that my name meant "contented one" and wrestling with all the issues that that implies (mostly because I am NOT contented), I found out about 15 minutes ago that my name actually means "weary, or grieved". I don't believe that the meaning of your name holds power over you or that you are doomed to follow what it dictates about your life, but i do think that names are important and can say a lot about who you are. This particular instance blew my mind because I have always found weariness something that I am much more comfortable with than I am with prolonged periods of joy. Part of this is due to the fact that when I am happy, I feel less able to empathize with the sorrows of my friends and those around me. I would rather feel weary and with them than be happy and not able to fully enter into the suffering with them. So yes, weariness and grief are a huge part of what I view as beautiful in my life. Its not like I particularly enjoy suffering any more than anyone else its just that I feel most connected to people when I am experiencing sorrow with them, than when I experience joy with them. And as a result, most of my beautiful memories have some anguish wrapped up in them. So what does this mean for me? A Leah? Well, I hope to truly find hope, truth, beauty, and joy in dark places. Dark places in my own life, and dark places in other's. I hope to some day be able to see the darkness rebuked and Light to fully dwell in this weary, weary world with its miserable, grieving people. And so when I see the poems and words I have written, I see weariness, but i also see a rejection that this is how it is supposed to be. I WILL see darkness rebuked, I will see weariness and grief removed, wiped from eyes, and I will see JOY reign in our hearts and lives again. Maybe someday my name will mean something else. In revelation it speaks about a name that God has specially chosen for each of us, so secret that noone but himself knows it. Someday I will hear him call my hame and I will know without a shadow of a doubt that weariness and grief will be just the faintest bit of who I was, and no longer who I am.

broken windup toy

Windup toy

I’m a broken windup toy
That sings no more;
Any voice I had now crushed
Beneath the voices calling more and more
And more around me.
I feel sorrow and anguish
Confusion and loss,
And an apathy that shocks even me with its disparity.
I seek, I seek and every door is shut
And every gate barred;
And one by one they close with a silence so deadening
It shrieks in my songless heart.

Hosea

"Come let us return to the Lord. He has torn us to pieces, but he will heal us. He has injured us, but he will bind up our wounds. As surely as the sun rises he will come."

I think of all the passages of scripture this year this one has helped me get through the most. Earlier today I had a little breakdown. I think the stress of everything around finals and the chaoticness (i don't think that's even a word) of my life just got to me I guess. Anyway, I went to the prayer lounge in Moyer, which is where I go on rainy days to get some sanity and some space for reflection, and was reading over the Moyer prayer journal. I actually write in it a lot and it was interesting to see the progression from last to this year, and even more so all my thoughts this year. Halfway through my crying I came across an entry I had written last quarter when group was studying Hosea and I had written this verse down in it. I had forgotten how powerful it was and how much it rang true to me until I sat there trying to calm myself down. God is faithful and he will be there...He will come.

hmmm...

SO I guess i must have a lot on my mind or im really, really bored because i seem to be blogging three times in one day. i guess i just need to process everything right now. It's getting to that time where i need to reflect on the year and everything thats happened and start about thinking about life this summer and next fall. Actually this is probably my least favorite time of the year because it means everything that i finally adjusted to is now going to change again and this year not even the next six months are certain. I'm so worn right now with life in general that i don't actually have too many feelings about everything. I just know that i can't wait for camp when i can for at least 7 weeks put everything here behind me and focus on other people. If my days are full enough then i don't really have to think about next year at all, which isn't exactly healthy, but then again neither is thinking about it all the time...So while I was writing this my pa came into the room and gave me a letter that I wrote to myself at the beginning of the year. I had forgotten all about it, but now that i read it its strangely true of my year. Here it is:

Dear Leah,
This year seems to be a mix of seeing God work in wonderful ways and then shaking the foundations of my hopes and dreams. Everywhere I turn I'm being reminded to place my hope and confidence in God, not in my dreams, to make your plans for me my own. I don't know what this year holds for me, whether its my last at SPU, whether I make it inot nursing or get pa or whether I take a year off or am at UWT or PLU, or whether my friendships hold or I rely on you. I do know that this is a pivotal year for me. I can see that in the few weeks I've been here so far. Whatever has happened do not fear, do not give into FEAR, for God knows all. He gives what is good and will lead me beside still waters. Trust him now with this year and the decisions. He has a better plan for you than you do for yourself. I know there are tears and pain and anguish in store, but also joy and peace and contentment. Remember to never loose that deep joy, though the road gets very narrow. There will always be JOY. Own this year and bear your cross with the joy set before you. Keep persevering on!

I have no idea what to do with this right now. I wrote this in October and just about every emotion in here I've felt. This really, really sucks. and has been incredible...

The drop of a pin

The soul is a terror
and pretending we understand
its vastness, its depth, its impenetrable darkness or light-
we laugh at we know not what.
We laugh at what we cower before,
And cower before the drop of a pin.
We pass like a vapor in the wind,
but the soul carries on
bearing the weight of our iniquity,
or our joy.

KOG

This is the kingdom of God in all its current brokenness and future redemption.

"And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, "Now the dwelling of God is with men, and he will live with them. They will be his people, and God himself will be with them and be their God. 4He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away."
He who was seated on the throne said, 'I am making everything new!' Then he said, 'Write this down, for these words are trustworthy and true.'"

un-finality

Life is rich both in sorrow and joy, At one moment it rips the heart in two And jerks tear after tear dowm the cheekbone; At the next it fills the heart with pulsing beats And makes the blood course lustily in the veins. Is one better than the other in this place where to suffer Is counted blessed and yet to rejoice is the goal of all? Is it wiser to seek joy and not sorrow, for in sorrow All the awful reality of the world is caought? Or is it more... Is the truth that to suffer is joy, to suffer is beauty, That to conquer this world one must suffer and die? How can it be that achingly beautiful is the one with Tears pouring down and the sob wracking her shoulders? Or is there wrong... Wrong in seeing beauty in that. Wrong in blessing the mourner. What induced the world to reproduce such pain and glorify in the Mysterious un-finality of it all?

Content

You handed me a gift
bedecked with scarlet bands
and promised me that love itself
lay packaged up inside,
but when I peeked inside
only Sorrow's trace was there to find.

realization

sometimes I'm an idiot and very, very blind.

Compassion

So I have just been challenged and comforted on so many levels by "compassion" by henry nouwen. I don't really know where to start, but i had to write about it. This has been the perfect book to read this week with group and nursing. So many thins not going my way and feeling so separated. I've been reminded that God's grace is enough and that the beauty is that there is no fear for where I am going, that my future and the things that have happened this year are just part of the unique journey before, that community, love and trust will come from them. I have been so changed this year. I have gone from some of the deepest pain I have ever been in to total apathy and depression to anger ato resignation to bitterness to peace ( ridiculous peace) to hope and to joy in this craziness. I don't understand and I only hope that some day this will all make sense because as much as this year has sucked it has been really cool to see so many things change even though nothing new has come to replace them yet. I am fully relying on the goodness of God and finally learning to live in the present- not regretful that the past is finished and not scared that the future is uncertain. Sometimes a light does surprise the christian iin the deepest ways. I keep coming back to this hymn because it continues to remain true in my life. The craziest, hardest times are the ones that show God's grace more strongly than any other. It is in darkness that we begin to see the light. ( i know that sounds incredibly cheesy, buts it true). I thought it couldn't get worse with my faith, but God has shown that "he who feeds the ravens will give his children bread." he will allow us to rejoice with all we have. It still sucks and I really do not like any part of it, but God is wholly good and will be my all in all. He's given me the grace to obey and to give it up to him. There is so much joy in obedience and trust because there is no more fear and there is no more doubt. Christ leads to joy even if it means the cross, even if it means death to all that I want. He will see my dross burned and my gold refined. Thankyou for this year, this terrible, beautiful, scary, horrible, wonderful year that has shown our faithfulness in ways I never thought possible. Thankyou for my rejection to nursing- i hate having to say this. Thank you fror my being on group. I have no idea how it fits into your plan., but I realize now that I love the people and have been given an incredible chance to srve and have seen how community and christian living is astruggle and a priviledge. Now I ask for the grace to continue next year with hardship and the gift of being here one more quarter. When I found out I was so happy. I didn't realize how much I was keeping myself from hopin, but now that scares me a little. Oh well, one step at a time. Give me grace.

the least of these

last night tony campolo came and spoke at group. The last thing i thought i would be doing in response is blogging about it, but what can i say he had some good ideas. One of his main ideas is that as christians we are called to serve the "least of these": the people that are marginalized and rejected by others. All too often I have the tendency to pat myself on the back and say "well done, Leah" because of my experience with working with the disabled, and then a thought struck me today as I was pondering whether or not I had more to learn in this area ( and i definitely do now that I think about it ). Maybe the least of these is different for every person. For some the least of these may be a person of another ethnicity, for some the person with a different sexual orientation, for some the developmentally disabled, for some the prostitutes, for me its a wide range of people that I like to call annoying and that I think I am better than. Just to clarify I'm not arguing that these people are actually lesser, I'm just saying that they may be viewed that way in another person's eyes. So whoever you view as the least worthy person, whoever that may be, that is the people group you should serve, and that is where you will serve Christ. By denying yourself and seeing God at work in the lives of the people whom it is hardest for you to connect with is where you will truly become a servant. I guess this is one of the reasons why I hate people telling me how wonderful I am that I work with the disabled. Because it isn't about a matter of forcing myself to serve people that I don't want to or making myself like the marginalized. It wasn't a stretch for me at all. I just fell in love. If I hadn't I would have been like anyone else. In fact, I probably would have given up and found something different. This is why I have decided that there must be some other group of people that maybe society itself hasn't marginalized, but that I myself have.

oh, attitudes

Wow, i haven't read this blog in months and it feels really wierd looking back at some of my posts. If I knew in october how hard this year was going to be I don't think I would have been nearly as excited about the year as I wrote. I just don't know how to handle things right now. I feel like I've been waiting all year and nothing good has come out of it. I'm really tired of working so hard and feeling like nothing is coming of it and im tired of being here and im tired of hoping and of hurting and of having to explain when i have no idea what is going on in my mind. I just want it all to stop and have to some time alone to just enjoy life. i hate that I'm so hurt and angry and jealous and bitter and that I don't feel free and comfortable with people like i did before. I hate that I have something to be jealous about, that the thing I wanted most I didn't get and can't have and that some of my closest friends did. I'm tired of having to find ways to be gracious and happy for them and to take their sympathy when i really want to tell them that they have no *****'in idea how it actually feels because they got what they wanted. I hate the state of my heart and i don't want to change it and i hate that I don't. i don't even really know why I'm sharing this with a computer and not a friend except that im sick of crying and sick of people telling me with shocked expressions that of all people I am perfect for this. Don't you think i know that I would be good at this? I know they're trying to be encouraging and comforting but i just wish there was some other way to do it. I just wish they would hold me or let me sit with them and not ask me how im feeling, when i hear back from plu, and what i plan on doing. I just want them to know and love me for where I am at now, not for where I'll be, not for what I would have been perfect for. I just want them to let me be and to stay in the moment with me now instead of reminding me of how I don't know any more than they do about my future at this point. I just want this chapter to be done and finished and to see how all this horrible mess fits into the rest of my life, how this pain and anger will become my good if I allow God to work through it. Right now it just hurts so bad that I have a hard time allowing God to work in the pain. God heal me.