Coffee with a Water Lily

How often has fear stopped us from being exactly who we are? Doing exactly what we feel or wish? Saying, exactly what we mean, in a moment? Why are the thoughts and judgements of others so seemingly important? In so many ways we are creatures of community. We need mutual understanding, we need love, we need conversations and chances to live life together. It encourages us, challenges us and moves us to be surrounded by friends, family; those we dearly love. So on one hand, it should be the thoughts of those who know us deeply that  truly matter! And yet more often then not, it's those we wish to be close to, those we ache to be known by, that come to effect our self views. Why? Why is there fear in wanting to be known? In these past two weeks my heart has felt a change. God's joy is in me, his hope, his truth, his love. I feel as though heaven opened at the words of a friend, and in that moment Jesus poured into me. I have been ravished by the love of Christ and want ...

Depression is this deep dark bitterness and fear that holds your heart captive, keeping you numb. Antidepressants, they help lift you up, but still, there is this strain, this sense of control. Sure, I can feel more then utter sorrow, but I also can't feel intense joy either. I'm stuck on this even keel level of emotional living. I can't cry without my throat feeling tight and sore, I can't laugh long without a strange stab of bitterness tainting my joy. Instead, I laugh in short bursts, cry silently, and sing as loud as I can, hoping the deep stirring of emotion will come if I can just fill the room with sound, hoping to fill the void left by my feelings. At Come to the Fire, I was off my antidepressants. Not by choice, really, I just ran out the day before the conference and didn't have time to fill it before my mother and I left. But the last night and the next morning, when the medication was fully out of my system, never have I felt God's presence so deep...

Self righteousness. This is my monster. Since my faith began to truly become a defining part of my image (note, not yet my life) I put others into boxes, creating a Christian hierarchy, of sorts. Those who lived perfectly and purely being set upon it's highest rung. As long as I did what I thought was right, what I had grown up hearing  Christians and the Church should do, then I would be accepted...worthy of God's love and grace. Oh but how the mighty have fallen!! While my family accused me time and again of being judgmental and cruel, I stuck to my list of rules, safe and covered as long as I didn't screw up. And you know what saved me? Getting skrewed and totally skrewing up. Not in the literal sense, but life threw curve balls at me that sent me hurtling to depths I can still see when I close my eyes, still feel when I wake up from a nightmare. Pain, loss, depression, a broken family, an alcoholic father, suddenly the rules and regulations I had crea...

Life, in so many ways, is defined by a series of moments. This past week I have had so many moments, still shots of memory, imprinted into my mind forever. But one in particular keeps bringing itself to the forefront of my thoughts. This past Sunday I feel that I truly began to understand and in a sense, discover, the Holy Spirit. In my walk, the Holy Spirit has always been this floating entity that I understood to be Christ's blessing upon us, his way of staying among us while he sat beside the Father, whispering fervent prayers on behalf of those he saved. Holy Ghost seems to be the more accurate description of the Holy Spirit as I had grown to understand it. A see-through thing that floats around, groaning and moving and filling up spaces with it's presence. No doubt, I have felt the movement of the Holy Spirit, I have sensed his presence, felt indescribable peace and joy in the most unexpected of moments, but there was nothing concrete about the way I anticipated the in...

In the spirit of loving and open discussion, and a continuation of my last blog, I just wanted to re-post a conversation I had with a friend on facebook.  He is a dear and trusted friend, and I hope our words together encourage or just pin point something you may be struggling with. :)       how's the crew treatin ya? your on the Manitou right? (sp??) Yeah I dont know its a really wierd situation what's going on? I just have come to realize how much i dislike the world, attitude and midset of tall ships/people who work on them. And after this summer at camp, nothing can ever quite be as good. (that i know of so far) but I think the thing I learned most at camp was that my whole life I have taken myself too seriously. far too seriously. after realizing that, everything has just become much simpler. I am dealing with the tall ship stuff because it is a job for the moment, and I know I will be moving on to bigger and better things soon haha glen, I think that's ...

As I grew up, I constantly struggled with the idea of "identity". Being an identical twin I was forced, from a very young age, to decide who I was. Would I choose to be just like my sister, blending in, keeping safe, sticking together? Or might I choose to be an opposite, standing out only in forced contrast to my twin? I chose the contrast, keeping my hair short when her's was long, dying my hair light when her's was dark, loving english while she chose science. Parts of me wonder how this fits in with the whole nature vs. nurture thing. Was I always meant to be the more creative mind and her the more analytical? Or was it the questions were asked, for years, that shaped us; which twin was the sporty one, which one was better at math, which is better looking (yes...that was a question, which I was never sure how to answer). From where I stand now, however, it is not our outward appearance that defines us as unique individuals, it is our inner lives. In college, I...

It was a long day at work...hours on my feet, using my hands to adjust clothes other people would end up wearing. There's a lot of little things to do, but what I love most is the chance to take the craziness of the sale room and tidy it up. To see it go from chaos to clean. Reflecting on that now, it's not surpising that this has mirrored itself in different aspects of my life. Faith is definitely one of them. To have a rambling mind, filled with fear and questions...these moments are my trials. I have peace, however, when those thoughts fall into a category, fit into a place of understanding that allows me to file it away and move on. Lately, however, I've come up against the unfile-able. Spiritual warfare. Growing up, I was afraid of the dark. My nightlight was the rope of sanity that I clung to when my head was filled with all the possibilities of what might possibly be in the unknown, creepy corners of my room. Even now, I wake up from a nightmare, scared of the bl...