Burning Ones

I don’t understand why I said it, or whether I felt it or not, but the words, “It was nice seeing you” slipped out of my mouth upon saying good bye to someone. I realized what I was saying about half-way through and I was so shocked that I almost stopped mid-sentence altogether and had to force “you” out, stuttering all the way- it turned out to be a very awkward parting.

But what shocked me so much was that fact that I had no control over it. I mean, was it nice seeing them? I mean, sure, but not really. They’re more neutral to me and although I would never say to myself, “ugh, I’ll have to see this person,” I’m certainly not “yay! It’ll be nice seeing them!” So why did I say it?

I realize I say it a lot (and probably loads of over things I don’t mean) under the guise of being polite. Hm. Even when I don’t feel them. And, even though someone could argue it’s always good to be polite, I really don’t want to be that kind of person. I’m not saying I should tell them my right mind about them. The goal would be to love them and then respond out of that love, but I certainly don’t want to end up lying. Oh, well. Will have to work and pray about this.

Any thoughts?

I had a dream a few nights ago: Tim and I are at this worship event and this prophetic woman points at me and heads over. She holds up an imaginary cell phone in her hand and prophesies that God would use my time for communication (I understood that to having actual, real relationships that I can pour myself into).
I had Facebook-messaged one of my elementary school best friends that I haven’t talked to since middle school and we hung out today and I was really hesitate, nervous, and almost didn’t want to do it but I had a really fun time and we’ll Lord-willingly be hanging out more tonight. And while I was hanging out with her I ran into a sixth grade best friend from Philmont who gave me her email address and that might result in getting together for coffee or something and ahh! It’s just so cool! Who knew you could be actually prophesied over in dreams? Haha. These are people I can love! God’s amazing.

So I spoke without thinking. We will definitely be going to relative’s houses (if they’ll have us, hehe) on Christmas. I got caught up in the whole “REBEL” thing and “let’s be different! and shock the bejibbers out of people! Yeah!” So I wanted to correct myself. Silly me, I don’t know how I turned “no gifts on Christmas” into “no family on Christmas…” was not the intention :-) Regardless, I’m still really excited about it.

I can’t really describe how much I want this thing. Waaaay too much. :)

My parents are going to have a cow when they find out what Tim and I plan to do for upcoming Christmases.

I was so hyped up for Christmas this year. Last year my family procrastinated (we live with parents) and didn’t buy a tree until the 23rd, so I wanted to make sure no one was running around like headless-chickens a week before Christmas, decorating because that’s just “what you do.” So on Saturday I organized a family-tree-buying outing and we bought a very lovely tree and now its decorated.

And then I realized how utterly boring and “typical” the whole thing was and now I’m kind of sour about it. Sure, it was fun to do with the family, but it wasn’t any more bonding than a good, hearty dinner conversation.

And then there’s that expected Christmas pressure to buy gifts. And so the thought processes come: “But if I don’t get this person a gift they’ll get offended at me.” And the Bible says not to offend, right? Or should I not buy them a gift because it’s out of a crappy motivation?

So this whole thing culminated to a point where Tim and I were trying to make a Christmas list and I muttered (to my demise), “I wish we just didn’t do this whole thing.” And Tim, being awesome, said, “Well, let’s not.”
“What? Wait, you mean like not give gifts?”
“Not give gifts, not receive them. We can write letters to your family and tell them we’re not doing Christmas this year.”
I just about spazzed (and I was actually getting upset). “You can’t do that! It’s wrong to refuse blessings from people! That’s UNBIBLICAL! And what if I want to bless people with gifts during Christmas? Huh?! No gifts during Christmas!? Then it wouldn’t be Christmas!!”
I gasped. I actually said that.
“Jess, do you realize what you just said?” I smiled.

So after a discussion we decided that next Christmas (if we’re on our own.. I don’t think I could handle the drastic social-change while still living with my parents) we are going to start the process of not doing Christmas.

And I really don’t mean to take this lightly. I know this will really upset almost everyone in my family.. from my grandmother who might cry that we’re abandoning the family to my sister who sees good moral traditions in the traditional Christmas. And I know it’ll be really hard for me not to go over my our relative’s houses on Christmas day. If my family still wants to buy us gifts and bless us, that’s totally fine and wonderful and they can give them to us around the holiday. Don’t get me wrong, I love buying gifts for people, but I can do that any time of the year.

We want to make birthdays really special. On birthdays we will celebrate the person coming into the world. On Christmas we will celebrate Christ coming into the world. It makes so much sense! Speaking of Christ…

Christmas will not be about making Christmas lists and buying for people we feel pressured to buy for and it will not be about trees, and certainly not about Santa. Christmas will be totally centered on Christ. I have no idea the details of all this and we probably won’t discuss it for some time, and this might prove to be very difficult to do (given how much my family love Christmas… I’m really not looking forward to that part), but I’m really excited about it. There’s an enormous amount of possibilities to do and I’m sure God wants to be a part of every one of them :-).

Tim and I saw “Amazing Grace” the other night and I’m still completely wrecked by it. And so I’ve kinda been mopping around the house, aimlessly wandering, for the past couple of days simply because I’m depressed and I don’t know what else to do.

For those of you who aren’t familiar with the movie it’s the story of Wilberforce: a man who almost single-handedly ended slavery in Europe. I remember thinking to myself while watching the movie, “wow, what an exciting time to be alive.” There was such a clear injustice going on. God created all men equal and here you have men possessing other men because of skin.

I began to think about what I would be doing if I lived in that time period. Who cares that I would be a woman! I would have rallied up every woman I knew (and maybe earned some respect amongst the men) and held meetings and meetings where we would try and figure out what to do about this lie that has been embedded into our society. I would start saving and saving. And then I would purchase a slave and set them free. And then I would start saving again, living poor. And even if I only could save one slave in my entire life I would feel fulfilled.

I would allow the issue to consume my life.

And what am I doing about abortion!? What? The issue of abortion isn’t clear enough for me as slavery is? Is it not a greater and far bigger injustice? I have fifty million dead brothers and sisters and what do I do? I wear a little red bracelet around my right wrist and every time I look at it and I mutter a nice prayer, “Jesus I plead your blood over my sins and the sin of my nation. Please end abortion and send revival to America,” and continue with what I was doing.

Do my brother and sisters not deserve more? Oh, where is my compassion? I can’t even weep over such a monstrosity! And ugh, I feel powerless to do anything. I could preach someone’s ear off about their lack of awareness about the subject and I’m not doing anything about it. And I have such a giant list of excuses: I can’t offer to adopt someone’s baby, I’m living with my parents. I can’t go to the abortion clinics and befriend someone, that’s cheap. I can’t start trying to make people aware, that’s offensive. Oh, and how the church has cowered in the face of the world because of that word!

This hit me like maybe half way through the movie and at some point in the movie Wilberforce is in immense pain because of this illness that he has and his wife is pregnant. And after tearing apart his bedroom because of the pain, his wife comes up to him and he grabs her protruding stomach and says, (this is totally paraphrased) “my son! I can hear him now! Tell me about my son!” As he collapses with pain his wife begins to tell him about his unborn child, “he will have a voice. He will have a strong voice!” I can’t express to you with words what that scene did to me, or how brutal, wonderful and weighty of a scene it was.. I just recommend you seeing it.

But the director probably had no idea! There is just a powerful injustice going on and we stuff cotton in our ears because it’s too big. It’s just too big. Every woman is encouraged to take birth control, the church especially, and no one is willing to do the research that it can certainly be an abortifacient! And I refuse to tell anyone because I don’t want to be offensive. God save me.