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I wrote the following thoughts last month after a friend of mine drown while on a camping trip with a group of us. I had stored away the writing in my journal and hadn’t revisited it since. Today, I felt lead to type it up and post it. Just as I typed the last sentence and put the period on the end, I received a text saying that another friend of mine just passed away this morning. Interesting how things like that work out. It is my prayer that she knew the Lord and is joyfully joining Zane and Jesus, rather than the alternative. I hope the following words help.

In death, life begins to run a little bit more like God intended. When you lose a loved one, you grieve for them, mourn, wail, and cry for them. It isn’t controllable. It just overwhelms you with sorrow.

In death, community is greater. You need one another. You need assurance, love and unity. People’s personal bubbles grow smaller and it doesn’t matter how well you know each other, hugging bonds you together rather than creating the awkwardness of undesired intimacy.

The last thing on your mind is getting tasks done. You do what you need to do to get by and there is no guilt in not taking care of anything else.

Compassion grows. You see those around you suffer and their needs are valued as if they were your own because in that time, you are one.

It doesn’t matter what you are wearing, or if you hair is dried and fixed. It doesn’t even matter if you smell terrible and are going out covered in beach sand. It just doesn’t matter.

When someone dies, it feels like everything is surreal. Nothing seems to make sense and grasping any greater concept is an elusive task.

But perhaps, even in the confusion, this is the realist time of all. The time when all of life’s follies disappear and we are confronted with the vanity of our lives on this earth. Life and death is all that matters when it comes down to it. Leaving this earth should be a joyous occasion. But instead, we mourn the loss of what we perceive could have been. We mourn the career he could have had, the wife he could have loved, the kids he could have raised, forgetting that the things we find comfort in on this earth don’t compare in any way to the joy he experiences in constantly worshiping Jesus in person.

He isn’t sad. He isn’t longing. He isn’t wanting. He isn’t waiting.

He loves life abundantly.

Paul said, “For to me, to live is Christ and to die is gain. If I am to go on living in the body, this will mean fruitful labor for me. Yet what shall I choose? I do not know. I am torn between the two: I desire to depart and to be with Christ, which is better by far, but it is more necessary for you that I remain in the body. Convinced of this, I know that I will remain and I will continue with all of you for your progress and joy in the faith so that through my being with you again your joy in Christ Jesus will overflow on account of me.” (Phil. 1:21-26)

It is a comfort to know that in Christ we aren’t faced with live and death. But it should be our joy to use all the time we’ve been given, whether long or short to lead others to the same blessed fate. Whether it is a job, an argument, a task, a funky mood, a fear, laziness, hurt, pain, or whatever else, when we are truly hit with the reality of life and death, priorities seem to work themselves out.

dang...

You only love me as much as you obey.

sold out...

The other day upon arriving at school I checked my email, as is common practice. I had an email from Amazon, which also isn’t surprising. Pretty regularly I find myself cleaning out the random junk mail from websites I purchased something from before. Normally they get the trash button without a second thought, but this day something caught my interest. The little preview beside the title said “We recommend you purchase Everwood: Season 4.” Sure enough this show, Everwood, that I have (or thought I had) every season to, that was canceled (I thought) after season 3 (much to my dismay) had a 4^th season available for pre-order on DVD to be released August 2, 2011. After I checked that it was legit and I wasn’t about to get overly excited about something that didn’t exist, I told all the girls in class of this surprise. I also updated my facebook status to show it, I emailed my mom to tell her I was going to pre-order it, and I texted one of my best friends (who is equally obsessed) to share this wonderful news. I then proceeded to get on Amazon and purchase it. Now I eagerly await its arrival on August 5, 2011.

I hate to admit that I am the kind of person who can get this excited about a TV show, but for some reason I am really passionate about it. I really enjoy the characters. I enjoy the storyline. And I want to watch all of it! Even if you think I am crazy right now, you have to admit that we all have something like that in our lives. Something that we love and would buy the day it comes out, or even pre-order because we want to make sure we get our hands on it as soon as possible. Maybe it is the newest Harry Potter book, or a video game, a new movie, or even the day a friend returns after being gone for a while. Whatever it is, we go and seek it out and then we give up our resources in order to obtain it.

Today I was trying to have quiet time, and found myself struggling. So many days I wind up feeling obligated to read my bible or spend time in prayer without much positive expectations. When I do get over myself and spend time with the Lord, I never regret it; he always surprises me with how he shows up. But my quiet time is riddled with coercing. I spend so much time trying to convince God to meet with me or talk to me. I beg him to reveal himself to me and have to fight through my naturally pessimistic attitudes telling me I wont be able to find the Lord’s presence. I place all the weight on myself to seek God out, to find him, and to bring his presence around me.

As I was fighting the typical battle today, I found myself reading in Revelation 5. In this part of the book the Elders are on their knees before Jesus, worshiping him for the way he came to save man (and is the only one is capable of it). They say in verse 9, “with your blood YOU purchased men FOR God.” (Emphasis is mine).

I would do myself right when seeking the Lord to realize that I’m not the purchaser in this transaction, God is. God is the one who has sought us out, knew us, and gave up his resources to make us his. My relationship with the Lord is merely a response to his advances. He is constantly drawing me towards him and many times this separation I feel in the air between God and I is entirely made up in my head. If God says he is with me, then he is and I should talk to him as such. If God says he is attentive to my cries and prayers, then I should believe that he is straining his neck to hear what I have to say. If he has already purchased me then why I am I still making sacrifices to try to buy him and his time. He wants me to be with him, or he wouldn’t have purchased me to make me all his. If I can be this excited about purchasing a DVD set, I can’t imagine how eagerly God awaits our returning to him.

life, death, and other small concepts...

Disclaimer: I can’t take the credit for this one. The following theological thoughts were ruthlessly and un-regrettably stolen from a certain fiancé of mine.

This last week at the youth ministry at our church (Easter Sunday!), Kevin planned on preaching out of Luke 24 but never got the chance to. Tatiana and I refused to accept this and made him take us to Dairy Queen and preach it to us anyways. Turns out it was a good thing we heard the gospel that day, because the message needed to be preached.

His sermon was centered on the concepts of life and death. We are taught as Christians that we once were dead,, but now we are alive in Christ. Just as Jesus Christ rose from the dead, we too find life upon entering into relationship with God. But if we enter into LIFE at the same time we enter into this relationship with God, then what were we for all the time leading up to that? We would say all those years were a part of our “life” but if we didn’t have life yet, then what’s left for us to be? Dead.

Praise God we aren’t stuck in death. Thank Jesus that through him, we can be eternally separated from the hopelessness of death. But after we take that step and become followers of Christ, we should be living in that life. The problem that raises now is how could we possibly know how to “live like we’re alive” if our whole “lives”, we really were dead. Any paradigm we have for “what life is” was formulated and defined within the confines of death. In Luke 24:5 the angel says “why do you look for the living among the dead?” We live among the walking dead all the time. Many of us are still dead. If we aren’t, We can at least remember what it was like to be dead. And even in life, many of us still are living according to the norms of death.

This was an Easter sermon, and honestly, I usually gloss over those thinking, “I’ve heard this before. This is for people who still need to find Jesus.” But in reality, I live in death all the time. Thank God that he is merciful and loves me all the same. But the choices I make and the things that I think about can so easily turn into the confining things of death.

After we get married in September, Kevin and I are planning to get a house. By choosing to buy one here in Hermiston we are making a pretty big commitment to living here, doing ministry here, and in the future, raising a family here. That idea finds much favor with me. I grew up here. My whole family lives here. I went to elementary school and middle school, high school and college here. It’s not that I couldn’t have left, but that I was one of the few who didn’t want to. I met Kevin here and we are getting married here. It works for me. I know it well. It’s comfortable.

And that would be exactly what death wants for me. He would want me to believe that the best thing I can do on this earth is find comfort in controlling what I can of my life. Because I am so used to doing what I think is best for me and most enjoyable for me, it is so difficult to believe that maybe someone out there knows something better than the comfort I’ve created around me. If I want to be living in life I have to recognize that there is only one person who knows life and truth in its purest form. I have to believe and hope for the things that I can’t see. If true life for me is here in Hermiston, then I’m blessed to be here, but if it ends up being any other place doing any other thing, I want that… because life, even in it’s worst form, is still so much better than death at it’s best.

an introduction of sorts...

I attend a 5-person (entirely female….) Christian bible college in a po-dunk farming town in Eastern Oregon. One day a particularly musical girl from school asked me how I possibly found an artistic sub community here. She was certain that no such community existed. It’s true. When you look at this town you would see no habitat visibly capable of nurturing and fostering artistic people, except maybe the one local Starbucks (but how mainstream can we get here). When you grow up in a town three hours from “weird” Portland where becoming all you dreamed of being (a hairy, freelance-musician-writer, full-time contemplator, flannel wearing, free spirit) is only a graduation away, you tend to lose everyone of strong artistic conviction as fast as they switch their tassels. But I’ve learned that doesn’t mean there aren’t artists walking among us. If you focus past the wheat fields and Walmart you find musicians and painters, writers and dancers, dreamers and believers. You find unique perspectives and passions. They lurk on street corners, in coffee shops, in our local bookstore, and more commonly at home in their own living rooms.

But upon encountering these artists of vast sorts, we find more jealousy than happiness. They seem to be living out what we want, but are too afraid to chase after. If we really were living out the desires we suppress, we wouldn’t be so concerned with finding the right crowd or being around people who are zany and unique. Rather we would find the compelling within the people around us, simultaneously finding confidence in acting upon our own convictions.

As is, we tend see someone else’s work and try and be just like it. Or we try to be nothing like it so we don’t lose our uniqueness and take a dart to our pride. We try to create things that we think everybody else wants to see. We try to win people over by perfecting our art. But is that really personal expression?

Today at chapel the five of us girls kumbaya’d it and talked about our frustrations with unreleased passions in different creative areas of our lives. The common theme was that every one of us had something we wanted to create or be a part of; a medium through which to express ourselves to the world around us. The other common theme was fear. All of us feel intense jealousy when we see other people succeeding at the things we are too afraid to try. All of us think “shoot, even I could do that” when we see things we like, but none of us are actually doing it.

If you are compelled to do the same thing the guy down the street did, then do it. There can be more than one person making clay elephants in the world; it doesn’t invalidate either of your crafts. If you want to do something no one seems to appreciate, then do it. Just because they may not like it doesn’t mean there isn’t someone who will be affected by what you shared. If you have been influenced by others, as we all have, then show that influence. It doesn’t make you any less of an individual.

The thing about bringing something expressive into our society or culture is that it has to be an expression of what’s within us. If we spent as much time releasing the thoughts and ideas that clang off the insides of our skulls as we did trying to outwardly express what never really gets in, we would find ourselves truly offering up an expression of the things meaningful enough to find their way into our core. It isn’t about us creating perfection, after all, how can something imperfect create anything better than imperfection. But it IS about giving honesty and truth. It IS about resting assured in what we are, including our differences and similarities to those around us.

That’s why I’m writing this. This morning at chapel in the midst of this discussion we shared the specific things we wanted to do. Tabby wants to blog about life—all the way from anime to married life. Amanda wants to start a rollerblading club at our college while she promotes her photography (and yes, she wants to do them simultaneously, much to our demise assuredly). Jessica wants to be a musician unhindered by the limited opportunities small town culture provides. Darcie wants to write skits and make videos that impact and influence other people for Christ. And well, I want to eliminate the knot in my stomach that re-forms any time I think about writing. That’s about all. I just typed “I hope you enjoy” but then deleted it. That kind of packaged ending would put the bow on exactly what I’d like to avoid. Perhaps a better choice of words would be… I hope you can relate.

Cheers.