Bring it On!

So I was sittin in church today and thinkin bout how sometimes God teaches me the same truth over and over again, but how each time he takes me deeper and teaches it to me on a different level. Now, this isn't exactly a new discovery : ) I've thought about this a lot lately. It's like I think I've experienced God in the greatest way until the next time around He takes me deeper than I knew existed and I think "Wow! God, what is this?!?! What are you doing? How did I get here? Don't let me leave! Please, Lord don't stop the music!" I think I have a lyrical soul. I don't even exactly know what that means, but God uses music in my life... A LOT! He quiets my mind and my soul with music and speaks to me with this gentle and strong whisper that sort of sweeps me away for a bit.

So, anyway, I've been working on continuing the conversation even when the song does stop. You know, like after church when you're all fired up about something and then the plans for lunch and the rest of the day just drowned out whatever you were thinkin about. I decided the past two weeks to intentionally continue the conversation with God by sharing it with someone right away and the past two weeks it's been one of my high school girls that's been sittin with me in the main service. It was so GREAT! God just danced in our conversation and it was like a little breath of life was brought back to the body of Christ as it was intended! We were talkin about how the same power that raised Christ from the dead is inside each of us, just waiting to be delved into and how we must be fools for not constantly asking God for big things! He is so powerful and He wants to use us and He could be moving mountains through us if we chose to ask for it. I forget how BIG God is sometimes. I forget that as much as He has been moving in my life this past year, I can ALWAYS ask for more!

I was taking communion and thinkin bout how the bread and the juice are symbols of what Christ did for us so that we could live FULLY for Him, not reserved and slow growing. I decided, "this is it! Today Lord, I will take this bread and drink this cup in remembrance of why you did what you did and how that power is ready to be used in and through me to bring You glory through a fuller, purer life!" 

The sermon that was going on in the midst of all this was the parable of the sower and seeds and the 4 conditions of the heart (soil). So, I asked God to bring on the pruning! To weed and prune and cleanse my life! To strip from my path anything that would hinder me from FULLY living for Him and anything that is diluting the Holy Spirit's work in my heart. It sounds kinda funny, but I left that building with butterflies in my stomach, because I knew that I had asked God to move and He would. I know that He wants nothing more than to take me so much deeper EVERYday! But... I also know that He most often uses pain to bring me deeper. Which brings me to the next thing.

In my high school life group today we went a little off topic and we were talking about God and his involvement with pain. Does He bring on the pain or does He just use it if it's already there? I, personally believe that He brings on the pain, because I do not believe that pain is evil. Pain is difficult to swallow most of the time, but it can also be so beautiful! There's something about emotional pain in particular that just brings me to such a raw and moldable place in my heart that I can't help but to think that God created it. I have the desire to be desperate and fully reliant upon God, but it just seems to usually be pain that actually gets me there. 

Okay, last thought : ) Before getting off topic, we were talking about Colossians 1:15-17 in my high school girls' life group and v. 17 really hit me. "He is before all things, and in him all things hold together." We were discussing what it meant for God to be before all things and it wasn't until after second service when I was talking to one of my girls that it really hit me. It doesn't just mean that He existed before all things, but it means that He goes before all things. It means that everyday He is not only 10 steps ahead of us, preparing the way in the hearts of everyone we encounter, but He is also with us as we walk through the path He prepared. So, I pray for God to do BIG things and to bring on the pruning. I believe that pain will come as I walk down a path that has been prepared, with a God that is fully ready to pull me deeper at my rawest, most broken moments into an increasingly more beautiful dance of falling madly in love with my Savior who will always love me more than I can fully experience, but needless to say, it is worth it! 

Two Times the Fun!

Almost 2 years ago one of my dear friends and wonderful mentor, Katie had a beautiful baby boy named Micah John (same as my brother) and she is now soon to have another! Along with this wonderful news she just moved into a new house. My friend Katy and I were able to visit her this week and help her settle in a little. While we were there we snapped a few photos of this handsome young man with my new camera and I just had to share these! 

He's such a little boy : ) He only knows a few words and his favorite by far is "car." He's hilarious! 

I feel it in my fingers. I feel it in my toes...

One of the cheesiest, but most catchy Christmas songs has been stuck in my head. It's from a movie that will always be on my top 5, but I will never recommend... for good reasons : ) 

"I feel it in my fingers. I feel it in my toes.
Christmas is all around me. Come on and let it snow"

Oh heavens! I have a love/hate relationship with Christmas music. Nuff said : )

Highlights from this Christmas:
* Digital Canon Rebel XT
* Russian Red Lipstick
* Plum Purple Vase

* RAIN
* Big Breakfasts!
* Grandmama's life story & wisdom

* Grandma's expression when Micah put on the Mexican Fighting Mask... priceless!

* Talk of Josh & Amy getting a dog?!?!?! eek! : )
* Watching "A Christmas Story"
* Jam time on the gee-tar : )
* Mini-golf & ping-pong

* Playing cards
* Laughing!

* Laughing is always FAVORITE!!!

Katy's Graduation Dinner

One of my dear friends from school is graduating this Friday and movin' back home to Chicago for grad school, so we had a little goodbye shin-dig for her last night. We ate a delicious dinner at the Rainforest Cafe in Downtown Disney and had one of those fun volcano cakes for dessert. I had never heard about them before and they're hilarious! It's just brownies and ice cream piled up like a volcano with a silver sparkler sort of thing on top, but when the server brings it to the table they have to yell, "volcano!" on their way to the table. It made us all laugh! 

 

Afterward, we decided to take a stroll around downtown disney for awhile and we had the funniest lady take a picture for us! Her voice was loud and raspy and she was incredibly friendly, but sarcastic right off the bat. The moment I handed her my camera she sprinted away for about 10 feet pretending that she was steeling it as we all stood in shock with jaws dropped. I was honestly about to take off my heals and sprint after her, but she turned around and was roaring in laughter! She told us she worked at Downtown Disney and she was on her way to start her shift. Once I realized she wasn't stealing my camera I just laughed to myself, because I thought, what would I have even done once I caught up to her if I had chased her? I don't think I would have tackled her to the ground or anything, but that could have been a funny story : )

So, anyway, as she was taking the second picture she said, "Say... oh no, hahaha that's naughty. We can't say that here." We all started laughing, trying not to think too much about what she might be implying. It was such a bizarre and quick encounter : ) 

I think the funniest thing of the night happened on our way out. We stopped to listen to the live band for a bit and saw that our picture lady really did work at Downtown Disney! She was inside a gazebo dancing like crazy to the music with her hands in the air, swaying back and forth. We all looked and laughed harder than we had laughed the first time : ) We thought that maybe she had just made up the fact that she worked there, but sure enough she was telling the truth. We had to get a picture or two with her and she was so excited. She said "Oh sure! A picture with the picture-taker! Great!" She through her hands in the air in one picture and gave us bunny ears in another. She was a riot : )

SFSP-ers : )

Conclusion: Fun night!

P.S. fun trees : ) I definitely prefer white lights over colored lights, but the trees were still pretty fun, because they sort of give the feel like Candyland was brought to life. 

Oh yes, it's that time of year again!

Every Christmas the High School group I work with has a music video contest at the High School Christmas party in which every life group has the option of submitting their very own music video. Of course, in a high school group of over 200 students there is never one submitted for every group, but there's still enough for a great competition... and more importantly, some good laughs : ) Most of them haven't been posted anywhere online, but here are a few of them:

-Joyful Joyful- (the church staff)
Calvary Staff Christmas Video from tammy harris on Vimeo.
-I Love Rock & Roll- (Freshman Girls)

-Footloose- (My Sophmore Girls)

-The Jackson 5- (Junior Guys)

-Lip Gloss- (Junior Girls)
http://www.facebook.com/p.php?i=68602972&k=XWCZ5XP6SXYMYCBCPB53U
-Wake Me Up- (Senior Guys)
http://www.facebook.com/p.php?i=68602972&k=XWLZY5QYQ23MYCBCPB53U

... more to come!
My United States of Whatever was hilarious, but no one's posted it yet : )

As Deep Cries Out to Deep

I am a life group leader at my church for a group of Sophmore girls that I simply adore! They hold an increasingly larger piece of my heart and this weekend my respect and delight in them reached an entirely new level. This summer at Hume Lake several of them expressed to me a strong desire to take their personal lives and our life group, as a whole, to a deeper place than its ever been. Several of them took risks of honesty and vulnerability within the four walls of our cabin that blew me away and made me so proud! I felt richly blessed to be given the opportunity to watch God work in their lives and so honored to have Him use me in such a beautiful process. It was after coming home from Hume that week that I made a commitment to God to stick with my girls all the way through their high school experience. With graduation coming this May, I knew that my future had a lot of question marks and that it most likely includes some long term adventures outside of California, but I decided that whatever that may be, it will have to wait till' after they graduate.

At first this seemed like a bit of a sacrifice, because I had been thinking about going to grad school in either the NW or somewhere on the East Coast, but I am slowing seeing that this is much more of a blessing than a sacrifice! My conversations with them, both in one-on-ones and in group settings are blowing me away! This past weekend in particular made me so grateful for their presence in my life. They decided a few months back that they wanted something outside of our "at church" small group time to get together and dig deeper into what God has for them. We decided to start a once a month life group dinner at one of their homes and go through a book together. No one had any book in particular that they wanted to go through, so I got to choose the book... which wasn't hard : ) I chose one of my favorites, by an author that I get soooo pumped about! His name is A.W. Tozer and the book is "The Pursuit of God." I knew that it would be a bit challenging and possibly overwhelming at first, because he uses a lot of big words and the New King James version of the Bible, but his insight is INCREDIBLE! Sometimes you have to read over a single line about 10 times, before you can grasp what he is saying, but it is soooo rich and soooo worth it! 

Anyway, we had our first dinner this past Sunday and it went really well! We only got through the first 2 pages of the book, but it was exciting to see everyone discussing and contemplating and looking things up that they weren't sure about. One thing in particular that I took a mental polaroid of was our conversation about Psalm 42:1-2. 

"As the hart panteth after the water brooks, so panteth my soul after thee, O God. My soul thirsteth for God, for the living God: when shall I come and appear before God."  

Tozer describes this verse in saying that, "This is deep calling unto deep, and the longing heart will understand it." Previous to reading this portion, Tozer had been talking about how we only pursue God because he first put that desire for pursuit in our heart, but in order to strengthen that desire we must respond to the Holy Spirit in further pursuit, so that the desire becomes entirely captivating. In the midst of this pursuit we also must be aware that we do not get that captivating desire for a deeper relationship by simply one encounter, but rather by a learned habit of spiritual response that continually keeps us drenched in his presence. It is at this point that we experience deep calling unto deep.

When we got to this line in the book everyone looked a little confused and one of my girls said, "what the heck is deep calling unto deep?" to which another one of my girls replied "I'm not sure, but I think... maybe... its when the very deepest part of us is crying out for the deepest part of God." Yes! I was so happy, I wanted to cry! I love these girs : )  It's that feeling you get when you've experienced something so great with God that you don't want to ever have anything less! It's the very deepest part of mankind that only God can reach, reaching God in a way that is deeper than we can and will ever reach with a person. It's DEEP calling unto DEEP! It even brings more sense to the natural desire for progression in human nature. Whether we have a relationship with God or not, we were still created in His image with the means necessary to have a deep relationship with Him. So when we experience great things in the world we have a natural reaction to want more and better! It's not initially a matter of being selfish or greedy, but rather taking that part of us that was designed to dig progressively deeper into our relationship with God and trying to fill it with material pish-posh. It makes sense that we can never get enough, because we were divinely given that desire for more and we will never find something great enough in this world to satisfy that endless abyss of a need for an intimate relationship with our Creator. It also explains why relationships and intimacy seem to be more valuable to people than possessions, but are still not enough to satisfy! This deep calling unto deep experience is what the heart was made for, which is why Tozer talks about only the longing heart being able to understand it. 

One of my favorite quotes from chapter one is when Tozer talks about the great blessing of the long wait in seeking after God sometimes. He says, "Come near to the holy men and women of the past and you will soon feel the heat of their desire after God. They mourned for Him, they prayed and wrestled and sought for Him day and night, in season and out, and when they had found Him the finding was all the sweeter for the long seeking." I want that desire! I want the sweetness that comes with the long seeking! My heart longs for this kind of longing! Show me thy glory Lord. Grant me the grace I need today to seek after You and bring You glory! 

breakfast with Tozer

A few highlights from my morning with Tozer : )

"He is nearer than our own soul, closer than our most secret thoughts."

"They differed from the average person in that when they felt the inward longing they did something about it. They acquired the lifelong habit of spiritual response."

"Prying into them may make theologians, but it will never make saints."

"I have been blind to Thy presence. Open my eyes that I may behold Thee in and around me."

~A.W. Tozer (The Pursuit of God)