Dream come true!

I will be doing sign language, with my deaf friend Monique Christiansen, for the appeal song at the evening meeting tonight at GYC. You can watch all the main meetings online at gycweb.org. And pray for us! :)

Anxious?

My first week off school has been kind of rough. I now have to put into real life practice the lessons God taught me through the last four months. I haven't had the greatest start at it. But I can say we are making progress. My biggest fear has been the future. I feel like I just flew off the end of a cliff and I don't know where to land. I don't know where God wants me to be. What am I supposed to do with everything I just learned? I need to start classes for ASL soon. I have no job prospects. How am I going to pay my bills and afford school? So my thoughts were turning anxious as they so often do. It is my struggle. I think God is purposely putting me in straight places to get me to relax in His hands. Has He ever failed me yet? No. So what am I worried about? Good question. There are things I'm worried about, but they still are not good excuses.

I confess I have kept late nights lately and have spent a lot of time thinking in those dark hours. It has only created knots in my stomach and burdens. So this morning in my quiet time God decided to speak straight to me. I just finished the book I had been reading for devotions (God In Pain. A must read!). So I was browsing through devotionals looking for what I should study. I was headed to study more of my new pet-topic the knowledge of God. As I open the Bible software I noticed the Morning and Evening Reading devotional by C. H. Spurgeon. {chuckles} God couldn't make it any clearer. Look for yourself.

Morning, December 19 - 


         “The lot is cast into the lap, but the whole disposing thereof is of the Lord.” 
                                                                                             — Proverbs 16:33


If the disposal of the lot is the Lord’s whose is the arrangement of our whole life? If the simple casting of a lot is guided by him, how much more the events of our entire life—especially when we are told by our blessed Saviour: “The very hairs of your head are all numbered: not a sparrow falleth to the ground without your Father.” It would bring a holy calm over your mind, dear friend, if you were always to remember this. It would so relieve your mind from anxiety, that you would be the better able to walk in patience, quiet, and cheerfulness as a Christian should. When a man is anxious he cannot pray with faith; when he is troubled about the world, he cannot serve his Master, his thoughts are serving himself. If you would “seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness,” all things would then be added unto you. You are meddling with Christ’s business, and neglecting your own when you fret about your lot and circumstances. You have been trying “providing” work and forgetting that it is yours to obey. Be wise and attend to the obeying, and let Christ manage the providing. Come and survey your Father’s storehouse, and ask whether he will let you starve while he has laid up so great an abundance in his garner? Look at his heart of mercy; see if that can ever prove unkind! Look at his inscrutable wisdom; see if that will ever be at fault. Above all, look up to Jesus Christ your Intercessor, and ask yourself, while he pleads, can your Father deal ungraciously with you? If he remembers even sparrows, will he forget one of the least of his poor children? “Cast thy burden upon the Lord, and he will sustain thee. He will never suffer the righteous to be moved.” 

         My soul, rest happy in thy low estate,

         Nor hope nor wish to be esteem’d or great;

         To take the impress of the Will Divine,

         Be that thy glory, and those riches thine.

Spurgeon, C. H. (2006). Morning and evening : Daily readings (Complete and unabridged; New modern edition.). Peabody, MA: Hendrickson Publishers.

It hurts...

I don't want to believe it...

It's gone...four months. I'm not the only one with these feelings. But this isn't misery, so company doesn't help.

I thought I would cry all graduation weekend. But strangely I didn't shed a tear. They wouldn't come. Which is very surprising to anyone who really knows me. I cried a lot through the four months. In the beginning I thought I couldn't wait till it was over. I thought I would be glad to have all the work done and behind me. Oh...but now I would take a hundred quizzes and tests...just to be back there again.

The tears are finally coming...but now there's no room 9 or 7 to run to. There's no Mama Tammey. My bungee cord is stretched across 1501 miles. It was all too fast. I don't think any of us thought it would end like this. They tried to tell us, but we must not have been listening close enough.

So many memories...

As one friend who knows what I'm talking about put it..."We had bruised our knees together in prayer. We had blistered our feet together going door to door. We had stretched our poor brains together trying to understand the covenants, and why they even mattered anyway. We had spent countless hours that we should have been asleep trying to finish up our Daniel and Revelation papers. We had lived together. We had laughed together. We had been annoyed by eachother. We had been mad at eachother. We were family." We watched each other transform. We saw the struggles. We rejoiced in the victories. We shared everything. We did everything together. Every little thing had significance. Each spot on campus...the picnic tables, the swing, the rock, the bridge, the prayer garden, the loop, the office, the trails, the gravel pit, the stars... We wrestled through together. We won together. We broke through barriers and over came fear together. We talked late into the night together. We claimed the promises together. We watched God do miracles right in front of our eyes. We stood in wonder together at the amazing privilege we'd been given.

And now it's over. And we are hundreds of miles away.

Oh it hurts... Like I've never hurt before. Like something in the pit of your stomach that is wrenching it and twisting it. Apologies to any of you who are not melancholy. Bless your hearts. Most of you who read my blog probably won't understand at all what is going. But a few of you will... you will... and you may even mingle your tears with mine. Thanks for understanding. I've needed to get this out for a week, but I feared being told to buck up and deal with it.

But I can't anymore...so I have process it out loud. Let it go. And I'll thank those of you who will hold me close and let me just cry...and understand. Because you've been there.

If heavens joy is even half as intense as this pain... Ah, but it will be so much more. We will be together again. And the final touch will be put on our joy as we meet on those glassy shores to wake the song again. We'll see all those people we prayed for, cried for, worked for. We will be together again...someday. Meet me there, friend. And don't be late...please.

Please Jesus, we are so small. How are we gonna do this? But you said we could because you would help us. So here's my fives loaves and two fishes. Do with it as you will. I surrender. Take my fears and my inhibitions, all my burdens, my ambitions. You can use it all to feed them all.* And please, Jesus, keep us faithful. Please. We want to get this done soon. We want to be together again. Not in a class room. But sitting together at your feet. Please Jesus, come soon. 




*"Five Loaves and Two Fishes" by Corrinne May. Memory from our last all night prayer together. 

AFCOE Graduation LiveStream

Watch our AFCOE graduation at 2:30pm PST Sabbath afternoon.

Click here. 

Rain dancing

When I began my experience at the age of 16 my Prince took me on his wings and flew me over His mountains. I was in awe, captivated, and impressed. I was thrilled that this was what I was to call home.  But then two years later He landed in the valley and let me off, telling me that the journey home was to begin there. I don't think I was listening close enough to hear that. Journey? What journey? I was too excited by what I'd seen that when my feet hit the ground I gleefully started running towards the slopes. I quickly found myself on the ground in a heap and realized they were far away now. For the next few years I struggled and wandered. Attempting at times to get back to where I thought I'd been on the mountain. But flying over the mountains is much different than climbing them. I thought for a while maybe I had fallen off track somewhere. I'd missed a turn. Now slowly I'm beginning to understand. The heights are not reached in a day.

I always dreaded trials. I thought they were to be endured. I couldn't understand why Paul said he rejoiced in his sufferings. Jesus said to leap for joy. James said to count it all joy. I didn't. I thought I just had to figure something out and I would be back on the heights in no time. This journey, this stumbling along lost and lonely, the pain, the rain, the storms would end someday. But slowly, gradually something has been happening in me. I don't know how God did it. My view of trials blessings and rain has been changing. After a couple years I began making it across the valley. I started catching on to the purpose of trials. I was beginning to understand but I was only playing at the foothills. It's only been in the last 6 months especially that the picture has been coming together.

The pain, the loneliness, the rain...have been my biggest blessings. It has been trough those times that I have come to know my Prince. His strength, His beauty, His wisdom, His love, His depth, His sufficiency, His individuality..... And I've learned that rain is beautiful. Pain is so healing. And progress is often made crying and crawling on your hands and knees. Gripping the cold wet earth and fighting your way through the storm. It's nothing like the flight over the mountains. But it is so much deeper. I'm beginning to learn to embrace the flame and let it burn. Let it hurt. Don't run a way from it. And my Prince is confirming these lessons in so many ways.

Fall came to Weimar last week and brought the rain. I had been almost craving rain. It came at just the right time and just the wrong time. The cold was refreshing. But it triggered major homesickness. Christmas carols (no shame) started sneaking into my room and I was dreaming of an evening snuggled between my mom and dad reading a good book in front of the wood stove. When the rain came Wednesday night I was really having a hard time. My best friend came into the dorm all wet from the rain. She would understand exactly what I'm trying to explain here. Her companionship in the last several years of this journey has been one of the biggest gifts God has given me. With one knowing smile at each other we took off for a much needed "rain dance". There's really no dancing involved, just walking with no umbrella. Rain dancing in Nebraska is a rare treat since the rain is usually accompanied by lightening. So I hadn't gotten to do it in a long time. We walked a half a mile and just soaked it in, stopping in the dark to just listen.

When you learn to dance in the rain you can begin to rejoice when it comes. You don't run for cover. Your not afraid of it. You embrace it. You begin to crave it. Because there is a feeling like nothing else can bring.

I know there will be many more opportunities to embrace the "rain" in the weeks to come. My strength has long since been spent. But now I see this is where my Prince wanted me to be all along. Flying on His wings doesn't mean near as much when your own are itching to take the skies and you think you can do it. But when your strength is gone. When you've been trudging up the slope with your last ounce. When you realize you can't take another step. Then you feel the strength in His arms around you.

Perhaps fear is losing his grip on me. Love is casting him out.