The Ants Go Marching One by One, Hoorah! Hoorah!

They attacked my drity dishes. I wiped away their trail, but they came back.
When enough was enough, I washed the dishes. Finally, gone.

The next morning...

They attacked my trash. So I took out the trash. But over the course of the day, new trash filled the new bag. They came back.

So today...I'm forced to take out the trash the momment I accumilate it. Can't keep it too long in my house, they'll find it and tell all their buddies. It will become something they all feed off of.


Hmmmm. Yes, Father... I see.

The Imitation of Christ

It is better to avoid sin than to fear death.

-Thomas a Kempis

"I hate you, pen."

Context: Last night, about 12:30 AM, sitting atop my loft bed, writing to God.

Wedged in between delicate prayers, with clash-like interruptions, my written thoughts violently yet truthfully reveal the current condition of my heart...

My journal entry for April 27th is something similar to as follows:

(Prayers...blah..blah...prayers..) "This pen sucks." (Prayers..blah..blah blah...) "I want to throw it off my bed." (prayers...blah..blah..blah... delicate prayers...) "But if I throw it down, I won't be able to write anymore." (prayers...blah..blah..blah...delicate prayers...) Amen.

I couldn't go to bed-No, not after such blunt and shamefully unembarrassed interruptions in my conversation with The King. I took the time to write it down; why couldn't I be distracted and just think it? In this entry I left behind clear evidence which proves me guilty of having a divided attention; and indeed-today, as I reflect, I confess...es la verdad: my attention is hardly undivided, nor is it directed towards The King.

I find it interesting, and perhaps if it weren't my journal entry, even amusing that the immediate thought process was "...if I throw it down, I won't be able to write anymore." At the time, I had an unreasonable amount of anger towards the pen for running out of ink. Yet all the while accrediting it with being valuable: I thought of this pen as my only means of writing.

...As if I couldn't get off my bed and get another pen. As if I don't have a surplus of blue papermate medium ball-point pens sitting untouched in the right hand drawer of my desk.

Immediately I thought, "ughh...this devo time with God blows... and its the pen's fault." "If it weren't for this pen..." "I hate this pen." This pen, this pen, this pen...

I blamed the pen rather than my laziness. It is so easy for me to be mad at circumstances. So easy. ...And likewise it is so gratifying to be unaware that the solution is-being prevented by-me.

I really did blame a mediocre night of prayer on that pen.


In reflecting, I wonder on what else I'm blaming my boring walk:

"well, I can't be radical-I'm in a contract with Charley where I have to stay
in school & pursue a degree, I'm forced to be here until I graduate in Spring 2011;"

"I do have money, I'm not dead broke, I'm not a missionary serving in India;"

"These are my circumstances. Therefore I'm off the hook, I mean, its harder being radical in southern California;"

"God put me here knowing it would be like this...God's standard of my living must be different than his standard for your living/for Miles McPherson's/for Francis Chan's/for my friends'...;"

"If God really wants me to be a more radical follower and have a more radical life, then he will relocate me. Yah, that sounds good."

How ridiculous, to blame my lazy, divided, complacent heart on the blessings God gave me. This isn't even an issue of a having a boring, unweighted, insignificant life (which I understand some people indeed posess, as a direct consequence of not obeying God) but the issue here is that my heart fails to respond to God's glory. Being a steward of his money and a steward of an education...these are things The King wove into my life; my eyes rather than my understanding, testify how from the beginning he has been faithful; from the beginning he has set me up; before I knew to love Him, He was already loving me....

Me:the precedent of a failed marriage. No, me: the precedent of a failed attempt to marry. Somewhere, someone-maybe even many people-prayed that God would use the consequence of two peoples' sin for His Glory. And like a "knight in shinning armor" coming to the rescue on a Pegasus...God-The-Rescuer answered that prayer with "Gladly."
"I will gladly take this baby girl, and she will be my daughter...and she will be apart of something great!"

My heart fails to respond to God's glory...
I am already apart of something great, and this whole time I've been apart of something great.

Conclusion: its not the pens fault.

I could go without....

complaining.
doubt.
everyone else?
my pride.
no....wanting everyone else.
a worry, I could go without a worry.


I could go without.

It started with a bluejay and ended with a handshake

After weeks of desolate brokenness... and sneaking in and out of spiritual rehab a few times, God sent me a blue-jay (the most intracet phone call ever) and He called me out.


He called me out... on my heart and my prayers-how hardened I've been, "I'm not so sure how bad I want you" was the secret mentality that plagued communication with Him. Ouch.

He called me out... of jail: bondage. This time around in the jail of my flesh, it wasn't my one phone call to God, rather, it was Him calling me. Ring, Ring, Ring-his very own spirit in me dialing the numbers for help, waiting, and answering: "Oh Jen, I'm glad you picked up... Can you get me out of here-this place is awful, I want to go home."


He called me out... of rehab-the "fixing" of my spirit. Enough is Enough-stop dwelling and stop believing restoration with God is a process...as one wise woman pointed out-"it's done." He has already forgiven me! "Jen, let's not waste time being akward or too careful-I know you, we're okay again. I have things I want you to do, can you let it go?"
Only days later, the same reminder would come from a different mentor-like-figure in my life, his encouragement being "once you've gotton here (to the point of realizing you want to turn back) you've already gotton to where you need to be-you're there."

[How can I be sure He wants to bless me? Yes I know he loves me, I know he wants me...but how can I be sure he wants me to be happy? These were my selfish doubts that sat in my mind for the last month. Isn't happiness only through God, dare I say...limiting? What about boys? What about clubs? What about fun? His way might not be any fun...

As these ideas sat, and stirred, and invaded my will to obey...I dilly-dallied off the road that so many before me have worked hard to pave straight so that I, and people like me, would know that truely this is the road to be taken, this is the road worthwhile. I ignored the gold asphalt and decided I would look for some dirt, "just in case its better."]



Tuesday, about 4pm

Upon arriving at The Rock to put in some volunteer time and seeing if the Facilities team needs an extra set of hands, I was given a ticket to see Chris Tomlin. I wasn't even aware he was in town, none-the-less playing at The Rock that night...what a pleasent suprise.

It was fantastic. Liberating. God picked me up from jail and drove me home. Ironic how the songs I caught (juggling working the merch table and enjoying the show) came from his album "Arriving."

Down at the front someone kept saying, Galations 5:1! Galations 5:1! Some how I knew it was for me... this morning I looked it up:

"For freedom Christ has set us free. Stand firm, therefore, and do not submit again to a yoke of slavery."

Yes, I am free! Thats me! Like Matthew 5:45 "..and God sends down the rain on the righteous and the unrighteous.." The unrighteous, thats me! The rain is for me too, His GRACE is for me too!


The show, liberating.
Breaking down, cleaning up & talking with a new-found beloved "older brother:" healing.
I thought it ended there, but God planned otherwise. Not desiring, not guessing, not expecting...some how the 4 of us left got to meet Chris Tomlin and Israel!

That hand shake wasn't excitting because it was Chris Tomlin, it was excitting because God showed me "Look, I can plan the last 8 hours of your life better than your imagination...won't you trust me with the youthgroup? The coffee shop? Your husband? Your life..."

My handshake was with God: Yes, God. I trust you & I'm back, let's shake on it."

Let us not be frazzled by our past or the stir the deciever creates by it. For the sins we have committed yesterday, having repented and turned away, are nothing more than that-yesterday's sins.
If we are to assign old sin with worth, as in consider it worthy enough to talk about, then its value lies only in finding it as an opportunity to glorify God:to express it as an example of His divine love, mercy, and compassion.
We have been transformed-for we are transformed, indeed already redeemed and made new: made stronger, wiser, and more in the like of His beautiful image. So let us not be weary in who we are today, because who we are today is not who we were yesterday.

*Challenge: give God the credit, and be reminded of His desire and capability to forgive us of our sins and to transform "what was" into "what ought to be," so that "what ought to be" is "what is."

**Give God the credit, and be reminded that these things, in Jesus' name, have already been done-both for you and your brother.

Looking out into the sea from sunset cliffs during a sunrise with a dear friend...

Not only does God declare himself through the beauty of creation, He teaches us through it.

Often times I find myself wanting to know the plan or make a plan for almost everything I do. Even cleaning my house on a Saturday morning has a schedual: written-out tasks, directions, and a timeline by which these things ought to follow. For me, control is comfort; knowing that I'm governing the little things in my life brings me great satisfaction.
Sometimes when my day doesn't carry-out according to the schedual I create, I'm thrown off by dissapointment. Sometimes when my life doesn't carry-out as anticipated, I'm thrown off by fear.

When death happens, when addiction sneaks in, when depression consumes...when all the things that I never dreamed of happening in my life end up happening in my life, but not necessarily to me, I'm startled. When the reality of my un-control in a situation hits me...I feel helpless: not sorry, but confused and helpless.


In being so dissastisfied by "the uncontrolable" in my life, how is it that the ocean can mesmorize me?
Waves, although constant, are unpredictable. Watch a wave like you watch a child; notice how free spirited and unruly it is as it seems to decide its own power and direction.
How is this soothing? It is. But how can it be; for it is completely out of control, out of my control.

My conclusion: the things in which we are in no way capable of controling, or fully understanding for that matter, we have subconciously already submitted to. Before thinking about them, we have accepted its existence and its awe. We dare not attempt in being the governor of them because they are bigger than us and far beyond us: black holes, the expansion of the universe, the mystery of how everything was "bang-ed" as in the big bang theory and where everything that was "bang-ed" came from...
The ocean, although basic, has waves which fall in this category of awe.

God governs the world. He governs the ocean and every wave which arrives from it. In this way we can see God teach us that acceptance of our uncontrol, and submission by awe produces not comfort, but something much bettter: a stable joy. A stability that doesnt adjust according to the inflation of the dollar and a high that doesn't depend on our supply of money or drugs.

Seeing this, isn't it time we submit already? Submit by awe and accept our place in this world-in God...