Burning Ones

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about what my purpose is living here in Norristown. So much of me wants to lock myself inside our apartment: to avoid the outside world because its easier than making awkward confrontations with people I don’t really know. It would fix any kind of fear that I have of being a small woman alone all day. I could make sure nothing comes in and I never go out. I could make the apartment look really pretty. But I feel like that would be wrong.

I was reading Jeremiah where God is speaking against Israel because after delivering them to the promised land, they turn around, forsake God, and then run after everything but God. God, I don’t do want to do that. I’ve always considered Norristown our “promised land” (even though many others would disagree). We’ve waited to be here so long and God was awesomely faithful. The last thing I want to do is start worshiping the “good house-wife” god and lusting after the god of image. Ugh.

I have ideas that I’d like to do and Lord-willingly they’ll happen. I would like to lead a morning worship (like 7-9 AM) in the morning at our church (which is a block from our house). I’d like to have an “open house” policy while I’m there and as long as the door is open any youth in the area who’d like to hang out and maybe do lunch is welcome. I’d like to hang out on our front porch all day and talk with our neighbors and build relationships (we need porch furniture though). I don’t know; just random stuff. We’ll see :-)

Tim was telling me about a sermon by John
Piper where he briefly comments on C.S. Lewis’s The Four
Loves, explaining two of them as being different kinds of friendships.
There’s eros friendship, where the two people involved are focused on
each other (as if they were facing each other) and then there’s Philia
friendship where, instead of facing each other, they are facing a
mutual vision or purpose and running after this goal together. I feel
like this is a much more biblical model of how friendship is supposed
to be, and we need this to stand… or I need it.

I’ve come to realize that I am lacking a Philia friendship outside of
Tim. It’s not that I don’t love the friends that I have, but I’m not
running towards anything with them. The closest thing I think I’ve had
to this was when Alex & Jaclyn were here in PA and Peniel (our
ministry) was active. As I look back on it now I’m not really sure if
we ever really hammered out the details of what our common vision was,
but it is something different to say “we’re in this together” while
leading various worship events and prayer nights instead of just
attending some function.

But now it seems like that has ended (even if it is because of sheer
practicality), and I’d really like that type of friendship. Sometimes
I think I’m more “holy” for doing without, but after thinking about it
I really don’t think we are supposed to be “without” this. I read a
story about a man who went to Hell and one of the interesting things
he said was that you weren’t able to communicate to anyone. So there must
be power in unity… a source of strength that I want. Just like its
always easier to bear something when another person is bearing the
same load.

Love to hear your thoughts about this. Piper boiled down his
point to this: “The greater the shared vision, the deeper the
friendship.” Do you agree? Leave your thoughts in the comments!

I had no idea moving would be this insane! Almost all of stuff is moved in and so far the only thing that is really left undone is the living room (pictures will be coming soon!)

We sadly do not have the internet so right now I’m doing laundry at my parent’s and trying to do a few updates while I’m here.

In the past week we’ve slept at three different houses and have had a dog to watch. We took him home on Monday and although its more lonely without him and I did enjoy having him around, I can get more unpacking done.

I cannot tell you how wonderful God has been through all of this. Everything seems to be working out perfectly. Yesterday we were given an over-sized leather Lazyboy recliner (looked brand new) that fits perfectly into our living room and there’s a rumor that we might be given a really, really nice sound system with a DVD and VCR player. All of our furniture seems to be fitting “just right” with inches to spare and any fear that I had about living in Norristown in completely gone. I could not love living in our apartment any more.

So hopefully by the end of the week we’ll be all situated. Yesterday was our anniversary (two years!) and it was nice to spend in the new apartment. We’ve been taking pictures along the way but sadly our camera battery charger is still in the muck somewhere :-).

So I swore these things were dead. They looked dead. I know that people say that vines in particular look dead in the winter but I thought I had killed them. I bought them in April ‘07, and then didn’t plant them until October ‘07, leaving them in their pots for their roots to do spirals at the bottom (apparently a huge no-no). The only place to plant them was outside of our room where the soil is extremely rocky (Japanese rock garden, go figure). But they look amazing! I took this picture (on the right) and I’m very proud of it because I think it looks professional :-).

Fortunately since I thought they were dying in October when their leaves started wilting (they looked awful) I pruned the heck out of them in order to revive them. It totally paid off there are double the amount of leaves this year than last year. Its still going to be a couple of more years before they can even think about growing fruit but exciting nevertheless. The whole thing is constantly reminding me of the vine-parables that Jesus talks a lot about in John. It feels like a loose-loose situation: either your pruned because God’s growing you, or you’re thrown out and burned. It seems like its so much more beautiful to be pruned though… in time.

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.

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.

I had a dream a few nights ago where a woman was lecturing me about the wonderful and simplistic tool of writing. That something that costs virtually nothing could be so illuminating.

So I’m taking this as a cue from God to write. I cannot tell you how many times I have had a passion for writing (usually inspired by some good book) and although I might fill the first couple of pages, the passion trickles out of reach and I’m left with an almost-empty journal, entries weeks apart, ridden with guilt. So maybe because this is God-inspired and not me-inspired (although I certainly have a lot to do with it) I’ll write as much as I honestly want to.

So from now on I want to give abridged updates with a few excerpts from my journal. I know this may sound narcissistic, but when I write something I like, I really, really like it. And of course that may very well lead to pride, but that’s just something I’ll have to deal with. I’ve been learning a new word each day thanks to Shrook and dictionary.com, haha. My favorite word this past week has been “postprandial” meaning, after a meal.. like a postprandial nap.

I was wrong. The feeling didn’t leave me. Shows you how much I worry about it :-). I think it’ll always be here. Tim feels really discouraged right now. He says it’s not me its that he feels like he’s pulled in a thousand directions (work, school, ministry, his family, my family, our family, etc.) and he feels called to every one of them but can’t seem to manage all of them. Please pray for him if you get the chance.

I just finished the fourth book in Dune. Dune has become my favorite series. It has well surpassed Lord of the Rings and every other book (except for the Bible). I found God in Dune.

**

It’s raining right now.
Water meeting leaf.
The sound of a thousand leaves clapping.
Clapping for who, you ask?
Why, they’re clapping for God.
For all creation gives You praise.

**

I feel like my thoughts are like bubbles, never ceasing to float about my head. Some float upwards, but most just wander. I would like my bubbles to float upwards. Then the good Lord can pop them as He pleases.