Longing for the Spring of His Kingdom

The cold branches of winter seem to be grasping at my heart, with all their sad stories, frigid days, and hopeless nights.

Over the past few months, maybe few years, my life has intercepted with so many stories that bring tears to my eyes that I feel like the sadness on my face has become permanent.

Stories of
rape (God, so much rape)
cancer
broken families
depression
abused children
stubborn despair-causing bureaucracy
terminal illness
gripping worry
car accidents
sudden death of beloved pets
lies (so many lies)
abandoned children
limbs amputated
failed relationships
trafficked women, men, children,

lives broken, hearts bruised, hope gone.

Lord, where is your Kingdom coming? Where!?! Cause I don't see it.

The cold winter closes in on my heart. I forget what the trees look like adorned with buds and leaves. The grey sky above becomes a constant, if not in reality then in my countenance.

Can anyone, can anything stop the changing of the seasons? Spring has to come. It just has to.

Hold on heart until it does.

Through the tears and sadness I have to cling to the truth that I will see His goodness in the land of the living and that one day, though it seems far off, one day He will make all things right. 

How do I make it through the winter of this world to the spring of His kingdom?

Trust. 

Thankfulness.

Remembering who our God is and how redemption is His particular specialty.

"For thus said the Lord God, the Holy One of Israel: In returning to Me and resting in Me you shall be saved; in quietness and in trusting confidence shall be your strength..." (Isaiah 30:15, Amplified) 

Stumbling across this scripture for the hundredth time the Lord whispers to my heart, "Return to me. Rest in me. Quiet yourself and trust confidently in me and I will make things right. I will because I AM."  

All these stories, sad sad stories... some of them have already begun to sprout life... some are heading into a darker season before they can hope for light. But I have to remind myself that all life comes from seeds that first have to die. Death is not the end. Sometimes it is the beginning.

This is not the end
This is not the end of this
We will open our eyes wide, wider

This is not our last
This is not our last breath
We will open our mouths wide, wider

And you know you’ll be alright
Oh and you know you’ll be alright

This is not the end
This is not the end of us
We will shine like the stars bright, brighter

 Lyrics to "This is Not the End" by Gungor

Being Myself

Again I am sitting down to blog, but there is so much floating around in my head that I am not sure where to begin except to just type. 

I like having things worked out before I say them. I am realizing that I have a propensity to do the same for the other types of communication as well. I don't really have anything "worked-out" right now. No nice conclusion to get to or theme to follow. Except that God is urging me, in his gentlemanly way, to get out of my comfort zone yet again. 

Be yourself.

That is what I keep feeling and hearing. But why is this so hard? I guess there is always room for another existential crisis, but I thought I had gone through enough of those in college to have figured out who I am already. 

What I have known for a long time is that I have people pleasing tendencies. Almost without thinking I try to be what people want me to be, and do what people what me to do. I usually don't exactly know what people want, but I assume. Often I am right on, but more recently I have been wrong, hurting myself and others in my folly. 

This probably all is being compounded because right now as I am living in another culture. I cannot just assume that people understand me or my motives for doing things. It causes me to think, not just the usual twice before I do things, but I now have to think three times in hopes to prevent offence or misunderstanding.  

I have learned a good deal about Indian and Nepali cultures, but even still I am running off assumptions. One thing I do know is that it is very rare to get a straight answer from people especially if you have offended them. So I have just been keeping my head down and trying to mind my own business. But is that really being myself?

I want deep connections here, but I feel like I cannot ever hope to earn a place in this culture. I want to speak out, especially to the challenge the church, but where do I even begin as I am an outsider who will never be allowed to be an insider. There is so much injustice, so much dishonesty, and such a disparity between the rich and the poor. So much need for the Kingdom to come on earth as it is in heaven. 

I guess it comes back to prayer. Prayer is the very first step to changing things. The next is a radical pure life lived as an example. This is all we can really do. But there is no way to measure our progress or our proximity to the goal. The goal is completely out of our reach. 

Why are the simple things so hard to really accept and to really do? If I really accept this then all my big expectations of changing the world, seeing revival sweep over India, seeing hundreds of children snatched from the fires of hell and given loving homes, and seeing the church really act like the Bride of Christ can never be realized as my imagination has painted them. 
Do I give up these dreams? I think that would kill me. 
Do I keep up the delusion and live a life of appointment? Sounds fun. Not. 
Do I dream smaller? Maybe. 

But it is still painful to realize that all my dreams and desires for my life might come to nothing. Maybe that is the problem, that they are all MY dreams and desires.   

I have been praying that God would give me the desires of his heart. Maybe this is what He is doing... stripping me of my desires and replacing them with His; stripping me of my expectations for my life so He can give me His own expectations. 

Who has God made me to be? What had He made me to do? I thought I knew, but now I honestly don't have many answers. 

"Delight yourself in the Lord, and he will give you the desires of your heart." Psalm 37:4 

I guess all that I can do is keep trusting in this promise the Lord has made and wait for Him to fulfill it.  

weakness and perfection

It has been so refreshing to reconnect with the blogging world now that our internet is working (well kind of) again.

Over the past month or so there has been a myriad of things that I have been thinking through. I would love to be able to sort it all out and make sense of it in one tidy little post but I am not sure that is possible. Many things that I have been musing on are much too raw yet for all of the internet to be able to peer into. I am sure with more time I will have perspective enough to sort things out better, but each day has to be lived, hour and minute spent to gain this time and perspective.

The little that I do understand is that I am quite a mess. I don't like to admit this or let anyone see this. I know many of my weaknesses and I have gotten good at hiding them, but sometimes God allows things to happen to expose your weaknesses. It is dangerous to ask God to teach you about humility, cause He usually answers you with a “Yes, I already had some lessons in mind. If you are ready let's get started.” It is a good thing to desire your pride to be rooted out, but oh my it can be painful.

I am quite a perfectionist. Not in the typical, perfectly-clean-house, alphabetized-spice-rack, immaculate-closets sort of perfection, but in a I-want-to-seem-like-a-Godly-sweet-Christian-girl-with-all-the-answers sort of perfection. Growing up going to all of the youth group events, helping Mom run VBS, reading the entire bible through before I was out of high school, going on countless mission trips, and pretty much having all the right “church” answers has left me with a unique little construct for forge my “perfection” on. Somehow I thought I knew all the answers and therefore I could easily guess what God wanted for me life. DANGER! Even when God speaks to us we should NEVER assume that we know exactly what He means. Usually when God speaks He usually leaves some details blank for us to trust Him with. Don't fill in those blanks yourself, even if you are a “good-Christian-girl” who knows all the right answers to the bible quiz. I tried filling in those blanks myself once and got my heart broken. I tried again and broke someone else's heart. And again, as it has before, my “perfection” has come crashing down and this time exposing my weaknesses to the world (at least that is how I feel).

Isaiah 55:9 “For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts higher than your thoughts.”

As I start over, I want to try and rebuild my perfection not on my faulty understanding, but on the Lord's perfection. It says in Matthew 5:48 “...be perfect, as your Father in heaven is perfect.” and it goes on in chapter 6 saying “beware of practicing your righteousness before other people in order to be seen by them”. Perfection is not a bad thing to desire, but this perfection we are called to is not one judged by others. It is judged only by the Lord. It is a perfection of the heart. It is a perfection we are gifted by the blood of Jesus and the grace that flows from the cross, not a perfection that we can earn by knowing the all the right answers or by making people like us.

The more days I live the more I realize I do not know anything. I have realized that I will never know all the answers to life, and that I will only begin to know some of them by living life, making messes, and running to the arms of Jesus. Sarah Young says it beautifully in her devotional, Jesus Calling, “Instead of seeking perfection in this fallen world, pour your energy in to seeking Me: the Perfect One.” (January 26^th).

All I know is that I am a people-pleasing mess. All I know is that I need more Jesus.

Playing in the Dirt and Learning to Love

Feeling a little weary this morning, a little frayed, a little worn. It sounds so simple, so easy: life is about loving and being loved. But the reality is so much more messy than that little phrase leads us to believe. 

Loving leaves us vulnerable. One cannot truly love from behind fortress walls. The walls need to come down and one needs to realize that their little world behind those walls was not reality. Reality is much brighter and more colorful, but more dangerous. Danger brings with it adventure, but also the possibility of pain. That is why the walls were erected in the first place: to keep danger out. But what is life without adventure? What is life without love?  

"The best people possess a feeling for beauty, the courage to take risks, the discipline to tell the truth, the capacity for sacrifice. Ironically, their virtues make them vulnerable; they are often wounded, sometimes destroyed." Ernest Hemingway 

I  found this quote this morning. It was posted by a dear sister who is just a few steps ahead of me in this journey of life. I deeply value her wisdom and her vulnerability. The quote spoke just to what I was feeling and assured me that I am not alone on this journey. 

Another quote of encouragement came from Jesus Calling, a devotional written by Sarah Young. It is written as if Jesus is talking directly to you. November 10th begins with, 

"Focus your entire being on My living Presence. I am most assuredly with you, enveloping you in My Love and Peace.While you relax in My Presence, I am molding your mind and cleansing your heart. I am recreating you into the one I designed you to be." 

This is my desire, to let down my walls and learn how to love and be fully loved, first by the one who created me and created love. Then I can move on to loving others and being loved by others. 


Will I ever really know what love is? Probably not until I reach the other side of eternity, but I guess I cannot wait behind my walls until that day. What kind of life would that be? I guess I need to embrace the messiness, and remember how much fun it was to play in the dirt as a kid. Maybe that is why the Lord told us to come like little children, because children still know how to be messy and they are not put off by the messiness of love. 


I guess it is time I unlearn some things, let down my hair, and play in the dirt with Jesus. 

These two precious girls have both taught me so much about love. Brittany (Chorti Auntie) and Rajina: Asha Sisters