Manifesto

Every time I hear this song on the radio it gets my heart pumping, my spirits lifting, and reminds me of why I breathe. I heard this on the way to my Calc 3 final and again later that day and it was just the theme of the day. Nothing else matters when what we know is true is True.

Torn in Two

How does one heart hold so much joy and hope alongside so much frustration and stress? I want to sing for joy and cry myself to sleep, dance and mope, kick up my heels and banish myself from all society. So much in my life builds me up and makes me feel like I can do anything. Then there are things that pull me back into the mire and make me weep for my sinfulness and selfish desires. I want to live in the joy and knowledge that "though sorrow may come in the night, the joy comes with the morning!" But my heart is heavy with the knowledge of my own sinfulness. It is true we need a Savior. I am thankful for the gift.

"You are stronger, You are stronger, sin is broken, You have saved me. It is written, Christ is risen. Jesus, You are Lord of all."

What a terrific promise this is. I can repent of my pride and selfishness and live in the joy that comes with humility of spirit and a compassionate heart. He is stronger and greater than any of my struggles. Hallelujah for Truth.

The Real Reality

Before we share life we have to live it.

Why is it when people ask me what's new I can never think of anything? A great many of us spend a great deal of energy on another type of virtual reality (see other post on the virtual reality of communication): the movies we watch and the shows we pour hours into. (I even waste time talking about movies I've never seen and yet hate with a blinding passion.) Suddenly we aren't experiencing life and sharing our experiences with each other, we are sharing the life of a fictional character we spent two hours getting to know, and reliving funny moments and exciting experiences they have had. Adventures we only had to sit on the couch to experience.

I wonder if this isn't one of the enemy's most dastardly ploys. What better way to get us to "experience" life without actually living it and at the same time introducing us to things we so easily attach ourselves to, forgetting what lies ahead: that most real reality? Most of the movies we watch are merely shadows - more so than this life is a shadow of that same real reality - they are ideas that seem so real, life will always seem to pale to them until it is actually embraced and lived. All of our "If only..."s become forgotten as we feel real emotion stirred up by actual living.

I do not judge; I confess. Here is my confessional. What emotions I have felt watching movies about things I want to be passionate about. How excited I have gotten about things I could be doing - maybe, someday. I use the movies and the subsequent emotion as an excuse: "obviously I care, but I'm not like that person!" But even in the midst of all of this I feel there is still hope. We do not have to fall victim to this life lived in front of a T.V. screen. All the excuses in the world cannot deny the whisper that comes that we are designed for something so much greater than this "shadowland."

You can't experience the real life through a movie any more than you can get to know someone through bits of information fed through a "What's on your mind?" prompt on a website. Even as I write this I wonder to myself: "Where do I begin?" And the answer is "With the Truth." The more time I spend in the Word and seeking the Lord in prayer, the clearer I will be able to understand and live this life He has given me "abundantly." Praise the Lord He offers us His help and continual grace and mercy!

TRUTH

"What is truth?"

Pilate wanted to know (Jn 18:38). So do many of us.

This is what I see:

• Jesus said to His Father, "Your word is truth" (Jn 17:17).
• Jesus said "I tell you the truth" 78 times in the Gospels. Thirty of those are in Matthew alone.
  

Pilate looked Truth in the face. Still he did not recognize it.

I'm a bit Nosey

I would like you all to meet Nosey.

Isn't she beautiful? This is an artist's depiction of me at the age of 20. Notice the whisper thin eyebrows and bedazzled teeth. Now you may have noticed this is a caricature of yours truly, not a true depiction; I share this with you for a reason. At the age of 20, I thought my nose really was that big - okay not truly, but I did not find that he had exaggerated it as a feature erroneously, as my best friend thought. I had a BIG nose, and I knew it.

Over the years my nose has shrunk, not because of some spell or some rubbing solution, but because I stopped saying it was overly large and over time I stop noticing it to be overly large. Now I find my nose to be in perfect proportion to the rest of my face.

I find this to be an interesting lesson in perspectives - we can see flaws in ourselves that are far from such. I also find it a good reminder not to speak aloud false beliefs about ourselves, as eventually they become truths in our minds and hearts, and some of them aren't so innocent as one thinking one's nose to be a bit large.

Raising Awareness

I have found something to be true: one must learn to laugh at oneself. This post is published in honor of that truth.

On Wednesday evening I learned that there was a shoe store hoping to raise awareness for the shoeless children in Africa by encouraging Americans to go barefoot on Thursday. I'm all about African children! BUT it was quite cold and rainy yesterday, so I wore flip-flops to make my statement. Off I went to the CU campus in Denver, my toes quite numb by the time I got to my first class. Admittedly I was feeling a little foolish. (I find that any time I do something to raise awareness all I do is spend the day being reminded myself of the cause I'm attempting to raise awareness for.)

The first person to ask me about my footwear choice was an acquaintance I have made in my C++ Programming class who just so happens to have been born and raised in Tanzania. In fact the first words out of his mouth were, "This is not right, Carey!" and I thought he was talking about our program that's due on Tuesday. I was wrong. So I had to explain to him why I was being so very un-wise.

"Carey, let me tell you something," he said. "Growing up I only wore shoes to church. And on Sunday I knew my grandmother would make me wear them and I would go and right after it's over I took them off! I don't like shoes. Now I have lived in America I wear shoes (without socks) but when I go home they laugh at me. I cannot walk barefoot on the ground."

This is where the light bulb came on: here was a man who lived the life of the children I am "supporting" and his reaction: "they don't want shoes!" (He also mentioned that East Africans are much more laid-back than West Africans. Something he felt he had to share when he heard I had been to Nigeria. Apparently I simply must see Tanzania! Something I could do with CU if I were into Paleo-Anthropology, which...I'm not...but I would like to see Tanzania just the same.)

Now I know the reasons we as Americans encourage shoe-wearing in the lives of children around the world, it helps with disease prevention, etc. But I found in my 10 hours of numb-toed living yesterday that the only awareness I rose was my own. I became fully aware (during my humbling chat with this friend, and in the hours that followed it), of how culturally unaware I truly am. It pricks my desire to know more about cultures around the world. How much more good could we do if we took the time to actually understand and appreciate the culture of those we desire to help? I am thankful for the missionaries around the world that do just that and for the people God so graciously puts in my life (in the most unexpected places), to teach me such simple, yet profound, truths.

Who He Says He Is

"Helen's life has been a graveyard of loss, a scrap yard of betrayal. But ask her any day what she knows, and she'll tell you, 'God is good. He loves me.' Her conviction about that hasn't come by toting up her days of wounds and wars, weighing them against her days of laughter and bounty, and seeing which tips the scale. Her belief has a different taproot: God is simply who He says He is, regardless of what her troubles might have tempted her to think or surmise. Helen stands in a venerable tradition. She is part of that great cloud of witnesses who, living by faith, refuse to reduce God to their own experience, to limit His love by the evidence of their own circumstances." ~Mark Buchanan from The Holy Wild (pp 78-9)

"I have loved you with an everlasting love;
Therefore I have drawn you with lovingkindness."
Jeremiah 31:3b,c