In the Desert but On Top of the World

Ah life. Who the heck are you.
For the past 5 years I've taken encouragement during this whole nursing school waiting list process in the fact that I had substantial amounts of time to enjoy things like home, family and familiar when I knew they wouldn't last for forever. But now I am so sick of familiar. In the words of Jo March, "I love our home but I can't stand being here!" 
I've become acutely aware of my inability to be gracious to myself by fighting God's grace whilst I'm nit picking at my flaws. I couldn't find anything better to do. To be honest? I can't stand myself. I can't stand my lack of progress as an adult or my inability to override my circumstances to the excessive extent that I want to. I give up way too easy under the shadow of my ominous goal. Yet I will fight with God for my pride and the position of being right before Him. It's a way of trying to beat Him to the punch by correcting myself in every thing before He can and still be comfortable in my bubble of "familiar". But then I'm overwhelmed with the responsibility of my redemptive process, which was never my burden to bear, and am angry when I haven't attained the blessing I was going for in my self purifying plan. Thankfully, and very painfully, God is not letting me have it. Meaning I'm forced to feel my sin, my immaturity and handicaps so that I can feel His grace after I've failed at saving myself. 

"By entering through faith into what God has always wanted to do for us—set us right with him, make us fit for him—we have it all together with God because of our Master Jesus. And that's not all: We throw open our doors to God and discover at the same moment that he has already thrown open his door to us. We find ourselves standing where we always hoped we might stand—out in the wide open spaces of God's grace and glory, standing tall and shouting our praise. There's more to come: We continue to shout our praise even when we're hemmed in with troubles, because we know how troubles can develop passionate patience in us, and how that patience in turn forges the tempered steel of virtue, keeping us alert for whatever God will do next. In alert expectancy such as this, we're never left feeling shortchanged. Quite the contrary—we can't round up enough containers to hold everything God generously pours into our lives through the Holy Spirit!
Christ arrives right on time to make this happen. He didn't, and doesn't, wait for us to get ready. He presented himself for this sacrificial death when we were far too weak and rebellious to do anything to get ourselves ready. And even if we hadn't been so weak, we wouldn't have known what to do anyway. We can understand someone dying for a person worth dying for, and we can understand how someone good and noble could inspire us to selfless sacrifice. But God put his love on the line for us by offering his Son in sacrificial death while we were of no use whatever to him. Now that we are set right with God by means of this sacrificial death, the consummate blood sacrifice, there is no longer a question of being at odds with God in any way. If, when we were at our worst, we were put on friendly terms with God by the sacrificial death of his Son, now that we're at our best, just think of how our lives will expand and deepen by means of his resurrection life! Now that we have actually received this amazing friendship with God, we are no longer content to simply say it in plodding prose. We sing and shout our praises to God through Jesus, the Messiah!"

-Romans 5

Developing Patience 

(MSG)

Now, that I'm seeing it's His mercy that allows my world to be worth anything, I can move forward, away from the old familiar, even if I have no idea what that kind of future looks like or that I am so incapable of it. Right now I'm not waiting to sing for joy when I've arrived at my purpose in life (because I'm suspicious it's going to take years, thanks to the community colleges). But with God's grace (because I forget instantly), I'm learning to sing right now, in the midst of the frustration of life and my excessive failures. 
Take THAT nursing school!!

Oh bless me...

It is simply this, I have neglected my first love. It is also this, I am wrestling terribly with disappointment and am finding that I come up so short in the department of courage to defy it. But let me tell you; I have a secret suspicion that I have not fed enough. These disappointments are relieving my heart. Somehow I knew that my own hopes and plans were still not sufficient to mark a life that mattered. These disappointments clear the fog, leaving no doubt, and I can see what God has been doing in the midst of my distraction.

I've thought a lot about that night on the beach in Hawaii and questioned my hope's safety in Him for how terrified I was of the next couple years being just like the last. Here is the powerful truth that I still cannot grasp in my human logic. God makes a very stern and loud promise that our happiness is not going to be in our pitiful circumstances. Life is not going to change. Satan is not going to let up. The world is still unjust, counterfeit, confining, hurtful and broken. But He will be just, real, freeing, healing and whole. "Come to Me and see what heavenly truths my Spirit will feed yours." I see that when life sucks it becomes so much easier to see the dire need for heaven. I see that when the decision to follow Him becomes more epic then simply sacrificing 7 months away from home, then the taste of Heaven will be that much more potent. And suddenly instead of just every day, we come to need our Savior every hour.

Lamentations 3:19-27

¹⁹ I remember my affliction and my wandering,
    the bitterness and the gall. 
²⁰ I well remember them,
    and my soul is downcast within me. 
²¹ Yet this I call to mind
    and therefore I have hope:

²² Because of the Lord’s great love we are not consumed,     
    for his compassions never fail. 
²³ They are new every morning;
    great is your faithfulness. 
²⁴ I say to myself, “The Lord is my portion; 
    therefore I will wait for him.”

²⁵ The Lord is good to those whose hope is in him,
    to the one who seeks him; 
²⁶ it is good to wait quietly 
    for the salvation of the Lord. 
²⁷ It is good for a man to bear the yoke
    while he is young.

Thank you, Abbie :)

June 5th, 2012

Just to stress the amazing importance of astronomy and the privileged front row seat to the galaxy that God has given us... In addition to the super moon and solar eclipse there was another celestial event that won't been seen again for another 105 years (so the one blog that I read told me). Click HERE to look at it yourself.
Science is so cool!!

"He Saw My Heart's Woe"

: Charlotte Bronte

Waterhouse

He saw my heart's woe, discovered my soul's anguish,

How in fever, in thirst, in atrophy it pined;

Knew he could heal, yet looked and let it languish, -

To its moans spirit-deaf, to its pangs spirit-blind.

But once a year he heard a whisper low and dreary

Appealing for aid, entreating some reply;
Only when sick, soul-worn, and torture-weary,
Breathed I that prayer, heaved I that sigh.

He was mute as is the grave, he stood stirless as a

tower;
At last I looked up, and saw I prayed to stone:
I asked for help of that which to help had no power,
I sought love where love was utterly unknown.

Idolater I kneeled to an idol cut in rock!

I might have slashed my flesh and drawn my heart's best blood:
The Granite God had felt no tenderness, no shock;
My Baal had not seen nor heard nor understood.

On dark remorse I rose; I rose in darker shame;

Self-condemned I withdrew to an exile from my kind;
A solitude I sought where mortal never came,
Hoping in its wilds forgetfulness to find.

Now, Heaven, heal the wound which I still deeply feel;

Thy glorious host look not in scorn on our poor race;
Thy King eternal doth no iron judgment deal 
On suffering worms who seek forgiveness, comfort, grace.

He gave our hearts to love: He will not love despise,

E'en if the gift be lost, as mine was long ago;
He will forgive the fault, will bid the offender rise,
Wash out with dews of bliss the fiery brand of woe;

And give a sheltered place beneath the unsullied

throne,
Whence the soul redeemed may mark Time's fleeting course round earth;
And knows its trials overpast, its sufferings gone,
And feel the peril past of Death's immortal birth.

Solar Eclipse - May 20th

Dear blog,

School has outmatched me, there is nothing fair or efficient about it, but I keep going like Nacho Libre after his dream of becoming a Luchador. Maybe just imagine me in scrubs coming into an operating room instead. I do at least. Cape, wind and stance included.

I still haven't found my promise ring and you may give me and my parents all the respect you have if you knew all the things in this house we dug through meticulously in hopes it was there. All those drains, pipes, vacuum bags and old trash bags have taught me there is nothing too gross I can't and won't go through if the reward is precious.
I want to move out and be completely independent. And in my desire my family rallied together around me and helped set up a budget for me to see if it were possible. It's not. But now that I know what to chase after I guess I'll start sprinting. I'm trying very hard. I told Jamie that the next time I saw her I'd have my life in order... it's getting pretty close to it. It's quite a different picture from the one of the camel chewing on its fence. And even though it's been tough the road keeps moving and I'm savoring that movement.

I had written about adrenaline a couple months back and my craving for it in a season of stuck, bored and paralyzed. I will revisit its source of fear and the desire to get over it. But now I see there are so many faces to this demon and am now craving peace, quiet and assurance. I don't want to jump off a cliff. I want to be under an open sky and surrounded by mountains or redwoods that prove that there are bigger things than my tiny little distressed world and its failures. A place where I'm safe under God's omnipotence and awesomeness that shrinks my fear into the tiny, insignificant and powerless stature that it truly is. I want to breathe and let my mind simply stop for a while. There is a mad battle going on in there that will burn itself out if it doesn't stop to rejuvenate.

Solar eclipse behind one of my favorite flowers (Mexican Bird of Paradise)

Everything is so new. I feel so eerily new. I feel scared for the new potential God is putting in me and I'm so tempted to shrink into old handicaps for how familiar they have been to me. But like Bilbo, I've already left the Shire, and so cannot draw from the old comforts of my hobbit hole. 

On an awesome note - I'm half way through the Two Towers :) Can't you tell?

Super Moons and Solar Eclipses? I feel like I'm living in a fantasy sci-fi novel. There is nothing passive or earthly about it. 

Super Moon - May 5th

Super Moon rising on the drive back from California

During a rest stop I was hurried in my attempts to get a shot of it, so it's a bit blurry. 

Back at home after the orange glow had quite gone out of it.