I had a one-hour phone appointment with my support coach today, during which i sat in my car and watched people come in and out of Tattered Cover. So many different kinds of people, it made focusing on my call difficult.

It was also very windy today, very. A grocery cart was laying on it's side near the entrance to the bookstore. In the hour I sat there, several people would right the cart, only to have it begin to roll around out of control as they, happy and unknowing, continue on their day. Each of them tried a different strategy to get the cart to stay upright, but few realized that standing it up meant it was going to roll around wildly, hitting cars and people. And those that did realize made only futile attempts to still it, never being successful.

One man, the first, picked it up and pushed it behind a bench in the middle of the walkway. Within seconds it started rolling, but he was already inside Tattered Cover and missed it. The next guy grabbed it as it rolled around and put one of the tires on the welcome mat. That worked until the next major gust of wind dislodged it, causing it to roll on towards it's next car-victim.

Over and over again people would try to fix the stray cart. Everyone thought they knew what was right, how to make it stop causing damage to itself and others. Yet no one took the time to read the store it was from (Bed, Bath and Beyond, right next door) and think to take it inside that building. Or, even less thought-intensive, it could have been laid back down, wheels up, so that it couldn't roll around.

I think in ministry I try to fix everyone's felt-problems. I tried to get their wheel's caught just enough on the mat to make them stop hurting themselves and others, but it's really just a band aide that makes me feel better and them left alone, again. If I only took the time to find out where they are from, where they belong, and what the real problem is, they could be restored.

If I only took the time to bring them to Jesus, instead of bringing them to myself or my books or my theology or my church or my psychology. Then they could be restored.

I just found a worship song in Spanish that is dear to my heart. It warms my heart to remember Mexico and the ways the Lord used that to radically change my life. Thank you, Father, for your mercy and goodness.

I've been having a hard time with relationships in my life lately. I know, it's a pattern. Someday I will be refined and will know what it is to have healthy relationships! In the meantime I am in this "process" and I don't like it.

Here are some things I am learning in the middle of this time:

-It is foolish to flatter people, it is wise to speak truth to them. This is both for me speaking to other people, but also for people speaking to me. I think I have finally learned this in regards to talking to my friends, but I am just beginning to see the value of it from other people to me. Especially when those people are close, both physically and emotionally, and the last thing I want to hear is something I have done wrong. But it is wise. It is refining. It is humbling, if I let it be.

-The Lord has to be my sustainer. I must be centered on Him or else the winds push me right on over. If I'm connected to Him and my security is in Him, then things people say will point me closer to Him. And if I'm connected to Him, whatever happens each day will not crush me (i.e. support appointments or lack there of, relationship difficulties, running out of gas with $1.72 in your pocket). But life is so much more rich when I remain connected to the Vine.

Okay, enough rambling. Thanks for reading, dear ones.

bleh.

Life has been a little bleh lately. And it's raining today, which amplifies it. Not just a quick shower, which is typical to Colorado, but more like a downpour that will last all day. Kind of feels like my heart today.

There is just so much in life right now that needs to be figured out. I am at a weird transition but not really stage of life. I am in transition, but I will be for a year. And adjusting to life right now has taken longer than I expected and has been harder than I expected. How do I be me when nothing around me is me? None of my friends are around; I'm sleeping on someone else's bed in someone else's room in someone else's house.

Part of me just feels despair when I think about it being this was for a year. And then I start to wonder if life will even get better when I move to Missouri because none of my friends will be there either. Which, I am good at making friends and that doesn't scare me, but what does scare me is the idea of going somewhere that I am not known at all. It just sounds a bit lonely, which is the overwhelming emotion in this stage of life, so the prospect of Missouri is just not that exciting to me.

But it is. That's what's hard. The logical part of me wants to just move back to Greeley, or Fort Collins, and find a job and be with my friends. But a bigger part of me (probably the part of me that actually walks with the Lord) is so excited to go to Missouri....excited to meet new people, to get to be on campus reaching lost students with the Gospel, to start a new life, to experience a deeper level of healing that will come with being 700 miles from home.

I'm just rambling at this point, but I think the moral of all of this is that life is not all good or all bad. Life right now is not all bad, and as long as I keep reminding myself of that I will make it. And, Missouri is not all good OR all bad, and as long as I keep reminding myself of that I will make it there. Perhaps it would be wise to restart my thankfulness posts everyday. Being thankful sure does make a difference in my heart and perspective on life.

With that said, today I am thankful for....

fresh flowers next to my bed

no rent

zeke and hartlee

erin and chris

good music from meehee

bustakappa and seeing them last night

tears

rain!!!

getting to spend the afternoon with zeke and hartlee

michigan in 25 days!!!!!

the process, i suppose, because i have to be thankful for it

money to deposit in the bank today

funny dreams last night

my sweet friends from new staff training

Waiting

I still don't have a placement....and I'm starting to think it might be awhile before I know. The difficult thing is that the choice is between a school I really don't want, a school I want, and a school I would settle for. I want to be able to process and create vision for where I am going, but I just can't yet. Most other new staff have been given their placement and are getting excited, deal with disappointments, etc. I am stuck in this limbo and I don't like it.

BUT

What I know to be true about walking with the Lord is that the process is more important than the end result. There are truths to be learned in this time of waiting, and some I'm sure I won't realize I learned until weeks from now. The biggest thing I can see in the middle of it is that my view of God is being challenged (which is a good thing). I realize that I see God as angry at me, disappointed in me, given up on me, and overall just doesn't like me. It feels like I am a leftover, mediocre missionary that He is trying to find a place for because He has to, not because He is delighting in me. And seeing all of these things means that I get to hand them over to Him and allow Him to speak Truth into my life - whisper glimpses of His unending, deep, overwhelming love for me.

Also, I can't find anything here that comforts me...people and things fall short...so I'm forced to cling to Him. Which is exactly where I want to be.

So, with all that said, I am still just waiting. I should find out soon. Please pray for my patience with the people involved in the process and with the people here who are just trying to walk through it with me. I keep getting so defensive and bickery with people, and I know it's just a result of what is going on in my heart.

We have two fairly big projects due tomorrow that I need to work on instead of blogging. But I am grateful because everyone around here has gone somewhere to work on theirs, so I'm home alone and have Christmas music playing. Sometimes I just need to play some Christmas music to cheer up my spirit.

I Whine

Today in my Doctrine Survey class my TA asked how we respond when we are wronged. I whine. A lot. To everyone who will listen.

We are reading Piper's book called Seeing and Savoring Jesus Christ. The chapter for today was about the suffering of Jesus. Piper wrote "When every judicial sentiment in the universe cried out 'unjust!' Jesus was silent...Nor did he refute false ridicule...Nor did he defend himself...no one has ever borne so much injustice with so little vengeance." (page 68)

My mind began to wander as the class discussed their responses to being wronged. Why didn't Jesus defend himself? Why didn't he reveal who he was? He could have explained who he was and yet still go to the cross. But then I got it, at least a part of it (I'm sure there is more that I don't even begin to comprehend...)

First of all, he has no sinful pride. He didn't need to defend himself because he didn't (and doesn't) care what people thought of him. He had no reputation to keep, so what did it matter what the people thought of him? But even bigger then that is that fact that he loved us so much that it didn't matter. I can just imagine him thinking about me and the deep, deep love he has for me and how it was so worth it for my sake. And you. He thought of you and the deep, deep love he has for you and how it was so worth it for your sake.

It overwhelmed me.

Isolation

Tonight I went to a prayer meeting at my church. I've been to several, and usually go with the intent of asking them to pray for me, but never summoning the courage to actually ask for the prayer. So each week I leave feeling crappy. But tonight I decided to share my heart and ask the 20 adults [most of which are older than me by 30 and 40 years] to pray for me.

And it sucked.

And it was so good.

Every time my dear friend Alicia rubs my back I say "that hurts!" and she asks if it's a good hurt or a bad hurt. This prayer time was a good hurt.

It required being vulnerable, and telling people I hardly know (though deeply trust) that I am actually weak and not as put together as I come across. I shared with them the difficulty I am having in my walk with the Lord and the ways that I am struggling. And for 15 minutes they prayed for me and read scripture to me and cried with me. And it was so good.

Here are a few things I walked away with:

-The importance of speaking out loud...reading the Bible aloud, talking about where I am at with people (instead of the isolation I have been choosing), etc.

-Ephesians 6...claiming this each day.

And several other things I'm not willing to post on the internet. But I feel the Lord stirring in my heart and healing me and changing me. I will share more as I find it important!

I'm off to watch a good movie with a good friend while drinking good water.

Blood on the butterfly tent

I teach preschool right now; more specifically a 4-5 year olds kindergarten prep class. As it is springtime, we have decided to get some caterpillars and teach the children about the life cycle of butterflies. As it turns out, I have learned more about life from these dirty bugs than the children have!

For a few weeks the caterpillars live in this little cup [obviously in nature they don't live in cups, but you must improvise for the classroom], eating aphids all day long and getting fat in preparation for their change.

One day, we went into the classroom and the little guys had started making their cocoons! They worked all day long, and by the next morning they had cozied up in their cocoons. And, despite what all the cute little books about caterpillars and butterflies says, they are not adorable little cocoons. In fact, they gave me the willies every time I walked by them. They looked like a ball of puss stuck to the lid of the jar.

So, after they all became complete cocoons, we put them in a butterfly tent. They lived in there for about a week, just stuck to the side of the tent. One poor guy started coming out of his cocoon too early. Just as he spread his beautiful wings for the first time, he fell to the bottom of the tent and died. It was sad, he was only half formed and was all bloody.

The next day, the rest of the butterflies began to emerge. At the end of the day, I walked the kids to the tent, one at a time, so they could see the new butterflies. One little girl didn't even notice the beautiful wings or the furry heads. All she saw was the blood on the side of the tent. You see, when the butterflies come out of the cocoon they bleed, a lot. So each spot that had held a cocoon now had a spot of blood about the size of a quarter. It was gross, to be honest. But it did teach me a valuable lesson about the process.

We are all in process. Dang it. I want to arrive, but like the first butterfly, I must wait for the process to do it's work. I can't just decide that today I am fully sanctified.

Also, the process isn't pretty. I am pretty, sure, but the process of my heart being transformed into the image of Christ is not always so lovely. There is some serious junk in my heart that has to be dealt with and just like the butterflies, I need to bleed a little before I can become my new person.

I think all the kids learned was that Ms. Amy is mean for not letting them play with the butterflies.

you SHOULD be...

There has been a lot of fighting lately between the Real Amy (RA) and the Ideal Amy (IA). Well, I do believe they have been fighting for about 23 years, but it has come to my attention lately.

Just this week I have seen how I don't quite measure up in my walk with the Lord. I don't pray enough, read the Bible enough, trust God enough, etc. All the other people in my life seem to do everything that is "spiritual" better than I do (Erin would say "what in life isn't spiritual?"). In fact, I could look at everything in my life and see how I just don't quite do it good enough...I don't handle the kids I teach at preschool in the most edifying ways, I don't love my roommates well enough, I don't exercise enough, I don't eat quite enough vegetables, I don't brush my teeth well enough (yes, I really have thought that this week), blah blah blah. I don't ever allow myself to be doing something well enough.

That is because I am not the Ideal Amy. IA is completely patient with children, always knowing what to say to them in order for them to grow into healthy adults. IA loves her roommates deeply and knows exactly what to do to show them that. IA treats her body as a temple of the Holy Spirit, working out just the right amount, eating the perfect balanced diet, and keeping those pearly whites shining brightly! Unfortunately, I am the Real Amy, who just doesn't quite measure up to Ideal Amy. And until I learn to be okay with RA, IA will haunt me.

But in reality, RA is who Jesus died for. RA lives in a state of grace that gives freedom for life. (Now, Amy, repeat after me: "I am deeply loved, even when my breath stinks. I am deeply loved, even when my breath stinks...").

Just today my roommate was talking about her relationship with her younger sister and she mentioned casually that she "could be a better big sister". Which made me think about all of these things and also the fact that it is so ingrained in our culture to believe that we can actually be better than we are. And that there is an Ideal Person which can be attained and when you get there, THAT is where happiness is. This concept is so deep within us that we don't even realize how often we say "I really could be a better.....". Why don't we start saying "I am loved exactly how I am and I can trust that the Lord will develop things in me that He wants developed."

Easier said than done.

Fear

As I journaled and spent time with the Lord this morning I realized that I am anxious about New Staff Training this summer. This was a frustrating thing for me to see because I can't WAIT to join staff! I can't wait to be on campus and to be seeing God do amazing things in the lives of students!! Yet, I am so afraid of starting this whole process that I am frozen.

Part of my fear is meeting new people this summer...fear that I won't open up to them, that I won't be authentic. This is rooted in my fear that I am too much and that people will not want to know me. And this is all sinful - I am judging people I haven't even met yet, judging that they won't believe the best about me. And it is not allowing God to be glorified in my life!

I also realized that I am afraid of failing. I am afraid that I will fail at making friends at NST, afraid that I will fail at ministry partner development, afraid that I will fail at walking with God, afraid that I will fail at ministry.

I don't feel like I have any great thoughts on this, other than the fact that I am grateful Jesus is showing this to me. I now have the choice to live in these fears, or chose to believe what is true.