Heaven Places

The wind whips and whirls around the trees making the mountains dance as God's provision is audible in the Collegiate Mountains. The steam rises slowly from the spring heated pool in the morning sunrise and all is still. 

Jeff Johnson Band humming the morning tune riding down a  Texas highway as the city awakens around the 15 passenger van. What appear to be carnival rides take their place in the church parking lot and the gauntlet comes alive with pure joy and jumping feet. 

My heart longs for these places. 

The mountains bounce with laughter as God's children explore the wild beauty and stop to take notice of their Creator for most, the first time. Stars gleam into tear filled eyes as they upward turn their hearts along with their faces. Glory resounds. 

Children are allowed to be children away from broken families and expectations in the halls of an ordinary church. Every room reverberates with roaring joy as with one voice 180 children join together in black light with significance larger than themselves. They dance with squirming giggles as the cannot contain their excitement any longer. Glory resounds. 

My soul tearfully yearns for such places.  

It is so incredibly hard to be present in today when my heart breaks for Heavenly spots. We were not designed for the mundane. We were designed with the initial purpose to constantly commune with God in a place where there is no death, no hurt, no pain. We are designed to walk with The Lord and dance in glory. 

How difficult it is to sit in a lecture or lab and work against the grain. 

I know I am called to be a student in College Station for only a short period of time and I know that we are not called to the mountain top forever. We are called to dwell in the valley with the hurt and the lost as Jesus did. But why must it be so hard to let go of the glimpses of Heaven?

Sweet community based on honesty and trust and labor solely for Christ alone. The beauty of the mountains glistening with the rising sun and echoing the joy of children experiencing their King for the first time. Being a personal jungle gym for 8 tiny human koala bears as they whisper they love you mixed in with the innocent hair peanut butter smears. 

My soul longs for the extraordinary. My heart yearns for majestic adventure with my God.

It can be found here in the 'mundane' and 'ordinary.' I desire heavily for it to be revealed to me. I want to glorify You with every day not just those in direct experience with the Heaven places. 

Teach me to be steadfast in all scenery. 

We wait for you to come and show your glory here today.

Oh hallelujah come. 

Do you have a minute?

In one minute everything can change. A nervous kiss changes a relationship, a second glance can save a life, and a text message can break a heart. Never in my life have I been from one extreme emotion to another so quickly.

Tonight I got some great news, one of my high school girls decided to go to camp with us this summer. After getting home and celebrating...I received a text from yet another one of my girls. Though the same idea...a text from one of my high school girls about camp this summer, they were very different. The latter is backing out.

Our friends have no idea how much we love them.

Our high school kids have no idea the space they hold in our hearts.

But I guess if they had any idea how much we loved them, then there really wouldn't be a point in our ministry. Honestly, if high school students didn't break our heart, if they didn't misunderstand our love for them and the news about Jesus that we have for them then we wouldn't do what we do.

If they understood it, they wouldn't need us.

I am heart broken for my high school girls who won't tell me anything real about their life.

But I think that maybe that's the point. 

Menistry

    Christians at Texas A&M have a gazillion ministries to pick from to give your time. There are ministries focused on children, adults, addicts, college students, atheists, muslims, athletes, strippers, the poor, the rich, in town, out of town. And if by chance there isn't a group serving in the way you'd like, you can start one! Ministry. Jesus did it and we are expected to do it too. 

“Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?”

Jesus replied: “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.^{- Matthew 22:36-39}

Plain and simple: love God, love people. But what happens when we get this backwards? When we get so wrapped up in our specific ministry that we forget to love God FIRST, then love the people we are serving BECAUSE we love Him?

But let's take it a step further. What happens when we find our fulfillment, our purpose, our joy, and even our worth in our ministry. We replace our God with ministry and make it all about us. What I want, how I think it should work, what I get out of it, and even how I get recognized. I like to think of this as the Menistry Complex. At the heart of menistry is me, and that's never a good thing.

Our flesh so easily twists things meant for good into things that tear us apart. By replacing my worth in the Lord with my performance in ministry, I have turned a beautiful worship outlet into a self-idol. How easy it is for the enemy to trick us into a place of comparison and competition in a ministry's community. We need to wake up people.

MINISTRY ISN'T ABOUT ME.

It's so hard to grasp, and even harder to practice. It doesn't matter how it's done, where we eat, what games we play, who we serve, who speaks, who does sound. The heart of ministry is the Lord. 

I'm realizing the root of the problem is me and that's a sobering experience. 

So now what? What's the plan of action? 

"And he said to all, “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me." Luke 9:23

Don't you have friends your own age?

If I had a dollar for every time I was questioned about hanging out with people younger than me, I'd be pretty well off. 'Why are you going to a high school? What's the point if they don't even like you? Don't you have friends your own age?' 

I stumbled across this gem today skimming a good friend's blog. Now that I'm weeping, I decided to repost it. I hang out with the next generation of girls because the Lord designed my heart to care about them, and for that I am forever thankful.

My Commitment
by Bill Goans (a pastor and former YL Area Director)

As long as high school kids mill around at ball games

looking for love in all the wrong places,

As long as they desperately seek an identity

based on the opinions of friends and reputation.

As long as kids limp through the stands

broken by family strife,

enslaved by drugs, alcohol, and sex

I want to be found- not in the adult section

where it is respectable and controlled,

but right in the middle

where passions, vulgar and profane,

blurt out obscenity,

Where raucous and reckless facades

hide wounded hearts filled with torment and fear,

Where the price tags have been changed

and darkness confuses-

Right in the middle where God has positioned me

to shine forth His grace, His Hope,

His love and His truth.

As long as there is an enemy who can convince his victims

that tomorrow doesn’t matter,

that harm will not find them,

that chains are like jewelry and cool is free,

As long as his lies leave character, soul, and life in ruins-

when thrill goes ill and fun turns fatal,

As long as terminal is only a passage word

to an eternity of one’s own choosing.

As long as God has rendered him a defeated foe

using the weakest of us to shine a light

that pierces the darkest places,

that brings rescue to the lost,

As long as the darkness is blasted away

by the light of the world-

that Light that lives within all who

know, follow, and love Him.

As long as there is such darkness,

I’ll man my post right in the middle of all that chaos,

holding my position until he calls another play,

and I steal home.

As long as we stand in such an important place,

we must not forget what it means to be salt and light

in this tasteless and dark generation.

In Jesus,

Bill

Blogging: too many emotions and too much time

     Since Finals week has come and gone and nearly all my friends have returned home for the holidays, I thought I'd brush the dust off my blog and give it a go again. I go back and forth as to whether I think blogging is the stupidest thing in the world for self centered whiney girls, yet deep inside I really enjoy writing and rambling away on the internet. Maybe I just have a tough time accepting my own whiney, self centered tendencies. Either way, here I am.

What better way to begin my blog with a rockin' selfie?