The House

Imagine this,

A house, a kind of shabby, nothing special house. A house filled with people and filled with love. It's not in the best neighborhood, it's not everything every little girl imagines her future home to be. It's ugly, yet beautiful and filled with life. She shares her house with a passionate and compassionate husband; who knows what it is to love like Jesus. She shares her house with friends, neighbors, and strangers. With career people and addicts alike. Its always too loud, their is never enough privacy, their is never a moments rest, yet their is a peace and an exhilarating feeling of love and purpose. People are everywhere, its never clean or presentable. It's falling apart and whenever people walk by they stare looking seriously displeased. People don't get it, people don't get her,  they tell her to get she's crazy, they tell her to get on with her life. She is frustrated, she is tired. Sometimes she just wants to run far from the house, far from the madness but the feeling never lasts. She gets to end her night with conversations and sharing. She kneels to the ground and cries because she got to see Jesus in the eyes of her friends again today, and she is in awe of her maker once again. She praises Him for giving her this beautiful way of life. She praises Him for the house, and thanks Him for visiting in once again tonight.

Imprisoned

I'm imprisoned in a cold dark cell, locked away all by myself, crying alone in pain. I'm broken and lonely. I'm scared and I'm stuck here in my misery. I hate this. I hate this so much I could scream. I just want to cry. Jesus holds the key to my freedom, He came in and removed the shackles. He came in and He opened the door. He let the light shine in and He set me free. I embraced my freedom for what seems only a moment. I quickly became confused, lies filled my mind, they penetrated my heart. They told me I was no good, that I was unlovable, they said I was a burden. The lies told me to stop loving, to stop striving for something more. They say I am guilty, deserving pain and misery. That I deserve to be locked away and so I crawl back to my prison. I close and lock the door, I shut the windows and let the darkness settle in, I clasp the cold hard shackles tight around my wrists. I am imprisoned by my own free will. I long for freedom, to sing and dance, to reach my arms toward the heavens, to be soaked with warmth and light. I long to care, to shelter those who hurt. I long to help to listen, to hold those who cry in pain but the lies they cloud my heart and mind. They keep me from living and loving, but those lies aren't strong enough, they cannot keep me here much longer because Christ's love it presses on my heart, it overwhelms and brings me to my knees. I cry out in amazement. I cry out in utter joy. I don't know why Christ loves me so but He does and He is never far from my side, so I throw myself at my makers feet and He helps me up again. I will not let the lies consume . I will stand firm in the truth. I will turn my eyes to God above and I will not hide myself from Him. Oh God I pray that your love will compel me to lift your name on high. I pray that your strength will push the darkness from my mind. Change me completely. Help me to look for joy, to be selfless and to aid my friends in need. Keep me from thinking about myself, keep me from my pride, and from my self inflicted wounds. I will not punish myself or those around me any longer. I will live in you and love through you. I will let go of pain and enter into your joy.

Who are we?

Life is a strange concept, isn't it? Who are we? What defines us? What makes us want to draw breath into our lungs? What do we find pleasure in? Who are we and who do we want to become? A friend of mine has recently challenged me to question who I am at the core of my being. We all know what we like, what we dislike, who we care about, what we value and what we believe; but who we are? now that is a hard thing to put your finger on. I've got to say my life doesn't really reflect who I want to be or what I value or even what I enjoy doing. I'm consumed with the stresses of this world and I find myself continually going through the motions, trying to get through the next class, trying to meet the next deadline. I wake in the morning go about my routine and prepare for the day, I sit in lectures that I would often rather not be sitting in and I just power through, I push and I push just to be bombarded with the next thing I have to do. I rush around the house, around town, and around campus, nose to the pavement just pushing forward, and for what? What is my purpose? What do I have a passion for? Where do I find contentment and sheer joy? I busy myself with all that must be done because quite frankly it has to be done; yet even when I do have "free time" I just busy myself with useless, pointless things because these things keep me from crying out in my frustration, they keep me from pain, and guilt, they keep me safe, deluded and miserable. Well the first step to change is admitting you have a problem; and I have a big one, I'm living my life as if I were dead inside. So, lets start with a reflection on what it is that I believe, I believe that I was knit together in my mother's womb by a omnipresent, omniscient God. A God who created the heavens and the earth and who set up the laws of nature which govern our planet. I believe that God instructed man to take care of His creation; which by the way I feel we have completely failed to do. I believe that God sent His only son to this earth; where he lived, taught, healed, died a brutal painful death and raised to life after three days. I believe that Jesus was completely man and completely God, and that the act of sacrificing his holy and perfect life allows us to enjoy eternal life not only free from the punishment we deserve but spent in the presence of God. I believe that since God loves and forgives us, that we are to love and forgive those around us and that we are to live selfless lives focused on a relationship with God and other human beings. So there you have it my beliefs in a nutshell, and since these are my beliefs I should live by them and others should see my beliefs reflected in everything that I do, right? Right, but the problem is that I'm imperfect, selfish, and lazy. I will never be perfect, but I'm trying to venture down a path where my life will reflect my beliefs and where my beliefs will present themselves in tangible passions, and that life will be hard and imperfect but life will be real, authentic, and beautiful. So I choose to pick my nose up off the pavement and to open my eyes to the world around me, to cry for those who suffer, to bleed out in the streets, to be undignified, to stumble, to fall, and to get back up again and dance in the warmth of the sunshine.