"The sea, the sea, the sea. It rolled and rolled and called to me. Come in, it said, come in.
And in I went, floating, rolling, splashing, swimming, and the sea called, Come out, come out, and further I went but always it swept me back to shore.
And still the sea called, Come out, come out, and in boats I went, in rowboats and dinghies and motorboats, and after I learned to sail, I flew over the water, with only the sounds of the wind and the water and the birds, all of them calling, Sail on, sail on.
And what I wanted to do was go on and on, across the sea, alone with the water and the wind and the birds, but some said I was too young and the sea was a dangerous temptress, and at night I dreamed a terrible dream. A wall of water, towering, black, crept up behind me and hovered over me and then down, down it came, but always I awoke before the water covered me, and always I felt as if I were floating when I woke up."
-Sharon Creech, "The Wanderer"
"The sea, the sea, the sea. It rolled and rolled and called to me. Come in, it said, come in."
I have read Sharon Creech's children's story, "The Wanderer" about a thousand times, and I could probably recite this first chapter in my sleep. I have always felt so connected to this book, and I cry nearly every time I enter into the story and get swept away by the fears, excitement, dreams, dangers, trials, and triumphs that the characters share together. Just like the narrator of this first chapter, my heart longs for the sea. My soul hears the call to "come in and come out" further into its overwhelming waves. And I often listen.
This past week I have been blessed to enjoy a perfectly picturesque week at North Myrtle Beach with my parents and my grammy. There has been plenty of time for relaxation, sun bathing, reading while sitting with my feet in the waves, and enjoying long walks along the shoreline, but there has also been time for an intense amount of reflection and self-evaluation.
I am entering my senior year of college, and I'm spending the first semester of my last year of college in Australia without a single soul that I know. I am also figuring out the big and scary future with my boyfriend of four years, and besides that trying to see what sort of career I can have with a theology degree. I think my business minor might come in handy... Needless to say, there is a lot on my plate and it can be exhausting to take in at times.
Unfortunately, I am no good with responsibility and change. I like to think I am, which makes matters worse, but in reality I often act out of weakness and selfishness instead of stepping up to the plate and swinging as hard as I can. I don't normally give up, but in the past couple of months I've been catching myself in the act of retreat and concealment, and I've even given up a number of times. It's caused this windy path the Lord is taking my down to get even windier and I daresay I've formed my own inconvenient detours along the way...
By the kindness and mercy of God I have begun to see the dangers I am creating for myself and I'm starting to wake up from my slumber and confront many of the deep-seated issues that influence me to live in such a way that I refuse to accept. I've done some "hard" work the last couple of week to be rid of these issues but, as a weed that has been growing for years and developed roots deep within the soil, I need more than a few good tugs to pull out of the mess and grow healthy once again. So God, in all his goodness, gave me another tug in the midst of this beautiful and peaceful week.
I was on a little boat cruise to go see some dolphins when the Lord really got to me. Some other things had happened earlier in the week that had put me in a sour mood, but as I rode through the beautiful blue waves and looked out into the peaceful sky I realized how small I am and how Big and Powerful God is. My fears began to melt, my anxiety eased, my sourness sweetened, and I was left with the friendly presence of my only true lover. My Jesus whispered softly in my ear, "What does it matter child? Why are you holding on to those grudges so tightly? Why are you getting upset over nothing? Come out into the deep waters of my love and lay it all down. I'll take care of it, just don't you worry."
And so I did.
I smiled into the sun with the wind strong on my face and I released all my anger, all my fear, all my stubbornness, all my doubts... and freedom came flooding in.
Jesus is still sweetly whispering in my ear and reminding me "I'm only human" and I must strive to be a woman who "does good and not harm all the days of [my] life." And I'm still listening. After all, He's right. What does it matter? Why hold on to the negative when I could be embracing the positive?
I still need help to follow through with all the things I tell myself I will change, and I certainly need assistance recognizing the rest of my faults, but for now I am thankful that God has opened my eyes this much and has graciously forgiven me and given me the desire to be transformed into a Daughter of the Light.
Shine in me Jesus, I'm all Yours!
^^The view from my little boat cruise.
"You have called me higher, you have called me deeper, and I will go where you will lead me Lord.
I will be yours for all my life."
-allsons&daughters
Have you ever sought for answers but felt so fuzzy that you couldn't even get your brain working enough to begin? I have.
I doubt that sentence even made sense. I'm not really sure what I mean when I speak, but I know what I feel when the words come out. My heart knows what I mean better than my brain does, and I spend so much time each day pounding on its doors and asking if it will please open up and give me what I'm searching for. Hopefully as time goes on my mind and my heart will become friends and make pretty conversation with the rest of me. Hopefully.
But back to being fuzzy inside my head... I sit here, trying to think through things and make up my mind or at least make sense of how my soul is moving, but it appears as though my ability to think has escaped me altogether. As soon as my thoughts seem to be going down a sensible road, they just stop and trail off without giving me any hint of progress!
How unfair.
So I'm brought back to what I'm always brought back to... faith and trust. I have faith that there are answers to all my questions, and I trust that God will reveal them fully to me soon. It's the waiting that gets me, but I know that if I wait patiently, and ask persistently, my seeking will not be empty. Will you seek alongside me?
As I wrote in my first post, I know that when God answers me it will be like a tidal wave crashing over me and sweeping me along without any work on my part. But how long will it be Lord? I long for Your waves to crash over me and sweep me away.
I'm ready for you, fuzzy and all.
 NumberOne.
The day after I got home for summer vacation I took a whack at G.K. Chesterton's famous novel, "The Man Who was Thursday." It is subtitled, "A Nightmare," and quite appropriately so, for it is an allegory of the chaos ensued by a people who rebel in the spirit of anarchy. For the most part, it was an enjoyable read with a few twists that were unexpected, and admittedly a few that I had seen coming about halfway through, but either way it was cleverly written and immensely thought-provoking.
It revealed something about humanity and the way man presents himself. Each character was eventually exposed as something other than they were thought to be, and each was hiding under a disguise that completely masked what their true influence and position in life was. Even the whole of mankind seemed to be turning into something other than it truly is.
However, the core of each character's identity was eventually brought to the surface, as is the always the case in those who try to hide their true character. The very essence of who we are cannot be suppressed, however hard we may try, and time and time again it is clear that there is something deeper in humanity than is often credited. There is something "god-like" at our core. We long for goodness, truth, and security, but we so often lose these things when we seek it in places it simply cannot be found. The "hope of humanity" lies in the fact that they were created in the image of God and so long to be united with their creator. It is the vain pursuit of the lost that is truly a nightmare...a nightmare that leads to a hidden and chaotic society. Perhaps this is not exactly what Chesterton was emphasizing, but it is the main message that I gathered, and in all honesty I see the effects of such truth each and every day in the mistakes of the sinful and the redeeming works of the righteous. We were made in the image of God, so we ought to start imaging Him.
 NumberTwo.
The second book I am have been reading this week is "Looking Backward" by Edward Bellamy. This is a utopian novel written in the late 1800s by a very passionate socialist. It depicts life in a Boston in the year 2000 under a perfectly content and thriving American socialist nation. The main character went to sleep in 1887 and woke up in 2000, which is easily explained away of course, and naturally he has many questions about the now unfamiliar city he had been living in.
So far the book has been pretty enjoyable, with much less of the regular excitement and suspense of an adventure novel, but it is full of interesting ideas of what a perfect socialist nation could be. I am about half way through right now, and as hard as the author is trying to romanticize and idealize socialism, I'm not even close to being sold. There are so many holes in his explanations and I just don't see how the life described could be enjoyable. There is no sense of risk or success or fulfillment. Even things as enjoyable as cooking and musical concerts are done away with and replaced by more efficient and structured systems of "achieving" the same results that a day spent in the kitchen and a night at a concert would provide. It just seems like the journey there is lacking, as in so many other examples.
The author had no concept of the future of technology, at least thus far he doesn't. It is very interesting to see how a nineteenth century viewed the future and how little his expectations can even be compared to the reality of our current culture. It is also interesting the roles that women play in this utopia. They don't seem to have much of a purpose besides enjoying the efficiency of socialism. The men are the ones who play a part in the socialist system of profession. How different things are today...so different that this author could not even have imagined the sort of role women could play in a society that sought equality. The current vision of equality is extremely different than the nineteenth century socialist concept, but I would argue that is for the better.
I am interested to see where this book will end up and what sort of conclusions and suggestions the author has yet to make. I always will recommend utopian and dystopian literature, especially those written in the late 1800s and early 1900s. Others I have highly enjoyed include Player Piano, Brave New World, and of course 1984. A modern version of dystopian literature would be the Hunger Games.
I am also reading "So Long Insecurities" by Beth Moore. This book is gold. Read it, mark it up, read it again, and then lend it to a friend. Seriously, it is amazing. I think it would be well worth it for men to read it as well, so as to understand why us women are so nuts and why both genders react so incredulously at times.
Read On Friends! :)
I'm just a simple brown-eyed girl who's seeking out her Lord and Savior in the biggest way possible. I yearn to step into the challenging and adventurous plans he has for me, but lately those plans seem so scary.
I thought I knew God's will for my life. I thought it was all set out in front of me plain and simple. I knew when I'd get married, where, how, what I'd do afterwards and where I'd live, what seminary I'd attend, and what I'd do for a job, when I'd move back to my hometown, when I'd start having kids...the whole nine yards.
But now my life is a blank slate.
God is showing me that my will is not the same as His. So here I am, waiting patiently for an answer to the giant question mark that is my life, or even a hint of what is to come, and all the while I pray "not my will Lord, but YOURS be done." I made so many mistakes when I was following my own desires and I ran into so many disappoints when I was acting according to my own plans. I sit here confessing these things to God, and He's just shaking his head at me and saying, "Oh dear child, I hate to say this but, I told you so!!! I've been waiting for you to figure that out all your life."
Well God, I've figured it out. I will still make mistakes, I will still follow plans that I think are God's but are really my own, but I will no longer ignore His will because I am foolishly chasing after my own. I will no longer try to control the situations around me or do God's job for him. He asks me to wait. He asks me to trust. He asks me to let go and believe that what he provides is greater than anything I could have clung to.
So I'm letting go.
I'm letting go of my past. I'm letting go of my insecurities. I'm letting go of my dreams. I'm letting go of my plans. And what I will get in return for "losing" myself will be a greater gain than anything I could have ever dreamt of or attained on my own. In time God will answer me, and when he does it will come like a TIDAL WAVE crashing over my soul and sweeping me into the overwhelming seas of his grace and favor.
Come Lord Jesus, come and wash over me. "I have been crucified with Christ; and it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself up for me." -Galatians 2:20
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