I don't like....

I don't like where I am at in life right now.

A friend of mine when talking about their very painful situation said "Christ is ever present in this pain. May I come out of this a stronger more faithful child of God."

At one point this is where I was too. I thought "This, this is what God is going to use." And he did but then I stopped allowing myself to be directed. Somewhere in this journey from pain to redemption I allowed the healthy self-protective mode to do the directing. I don't know when. Somewhere along the line my self-protection moved to self-preservation which has become an large increase in self centeredness.

Self self self self.

Somewhere on this path of one week, one day, one moment at a time it became one person and her survival.

Don't get me wrong, there is a time to be protective. You need to stick up for yourself, but it's funny how the moral of my recent chapter of life- trust God...no need to try to be in control- has quickly faded into the background.

I've stopped paying attention to how God can use my hurt. I stopped paying attention in everything. It has become about my survival, but this survival is lonely and the passivity of my nature right now does not encourage growth and I let it be this way. Time to change huh?

Pastor Jim talks about how prayer is one of the first spiritual disciplines to go. I think that he's right and I know that it shows in my life right now.

Walls, walls, and look more walls.

I was sitting in church this Sunday and it hit me- I'm so disgustingly self-centered. I mean I knew this, but every once and a while I come out of my self-absorbed shell and catch a glimpse of my wretchedness and Sunday was a beautiful day of just that.

All of us have walls.

All of us cope with our insecurities, our life circumstances, our pain, our hurts, and our battle scars that we feel come from others.

Little by little we allow brick by brick go to be added and the wall of protectiveness grows in height and depth keeping us safe from the hurt that is waiting around the corner. Little by little we allow that wall to become a daily part of our personality. Brick by brick our reactions to uncomfortable, bad, or even good situations are established and ingrained into our hearts.

Pretty much everyone I know has coping mechanisms that involve their walls. Some hide it better than others, some are defensive, some make jokes.....

I moved to Nashville in the spring of 2007 and self-absorption protected me. I found that it was easier to just to worry about myself rather than trying to cope with the uncertainty around me. It was easier to retreat within myself. I eventually got out of that phase and made amazing friends and probably experienced the best months of my life.

I was the new girl again recently. For a few months I worked at the Opryland Hotel.
My self absorption had taken hold again. I've been hurt and so I operate almost as a dog that has been beaten. Before people had a chance to get to show me who they were I cowered and ducked, but the way that I did this is (and I still do) is by talking about myself and not asking anyone any personal questions. If I don't know, I don't have to care, I won't get hurt.

I'm working with a lot of people that don't share my faith. How is this attitude portraying the love of Christ? It's not. How am I being a witness to the wonderful things that God has done in my life if I'm so concerned about people hurting me that I can't see past my current wounds and my potential wounds to the hurt that others feel? I'm obviously not paying attention to the wonderful things that God has done in my life. If I was, I would be secure in the fact that he's taken care of me thus far and will continue to do so. I guess as soon as we stop looking at how we've been blessed and start dwelling on how we've been hurt, we start building those walls. God forgive me for all the times that people need hope and I fail to deliver it because I'm lost in myself.

I hope this makes sense. I'm practically falling asleep as I write this.

Living in the Moment

I am literally in the final hours of my vacation. Within the past week I have spent significant time in 2 different cities and have spent approximately 40 hours of that time traveling. Most of these hours have been spent in the Atlanta airport which is where I sit now waiting for my flight.

Waiting has been a huge part of this trip and I'm not good at it. I have been described as a mover and a shaker. I don't know what that means or if I am one but I do know that I'm always on the the move. Supposedly I have been that way since day one when I decided to lift up my head not long after I was born.

I'm 5' 1.5" and my normal walking pace is faster than most, even those that with a good 6 inches on me. Fast food here in the South is not fast enough. In a group of people I usually end up making the decisions because I don't want to wait for people to make up their minds.

I don't like to wait.

I like to know what the plan is and what it will take to execute it.

But that isn't always how life works...if ever... and that causes me great anxiety.

I've been reading a lot about waiting. Waiting for God, waiting for life, waiting for change. I'm starting to think that although waiting on the Lord is a must, maybe constantly waiting for the next opportunity to happen is really not good for us. I don't mean that we need to be reckless, careless, or irresponsible, but maybe we're missing the point.

I think I've been missing the point. All I have is here and now and most of here and now I'm spending on wondering what is going to happen next and what I need to do to get there. Most days I'm so worried about what is going to happen 3 days from now that I miss the beauty that is going on around me.

We're taught to plan for our futures, our college goals (boy did I fail there!), our future spouse, our retirement, our future children. None of this is wrong in itself! But when we are no longer present because our life revolves around the future, then there is something wrong.

I've noticed this as a problem for me especially in the special someone category. When I am worrying about how I'm going to find that person and worrying about the years ahead being alone, I'm missing out on the joy that God gives me today. He has everything taken care of. I can pine and fret about the fact that I'm 27 and still no sign of Mr. Right which means I'm not going to be Mrs. Right anytime soon which means there won't be any Right children for awhile, but what the heck does that solve? What it does is it keeps me from enjoying the life I have now and that is the only life I have. I'm not promised anything but now and now is what it is supposed to be and what it is good.

I have finally finished Ruthless Trust by Brennan Manning. I have to say that it has been absolutely instrumental in me crawling out of the dark pit that I was in and it is probably the most eye opening and life changing book that I have ever read. It spoke to the heart of my anxieties and helped me find peace in my Father's arms.

I read the last few chapters in the Atlanta airport on my way to Florida. I write this now on my way home to Nashville. I never imagined when I started this blog that my "safety net" would be unsafe or be pulled out from under me. Thankfully I didn't wind up splattered on the sidewalk. God doesn't allow that. He does allow for us to free fall for awhile though.

I don't want anyone to think that I have this all down or think that I have this all together. I still wake up occasionally in a panic or am driven to tears. I still feel like I should be blessed in the ways that I feel that I should be blessed. I'm human.

Let me leave you with a few things that touched me from my friend Brennan (I've never met the man but someday, we will get coffee. I will see to it!)-

We formulate plans to fulfill what we perceive to be the purpose of our lives (inevitably limited), and when the locomotive of our longings gets derailed, we deem ourselves failures..... Our disappointments arise from presuming to know the outcome of a particular endeavor.... Entrusting ourselves to Mystery, we move forward fearlessly, knowing that the future of the planet probably does not depend on what we do next....
However, in our faithful listening to God's Word, we often neglect his first word to us--the gift of ourselves to ourselves: our existence, our temperament, our personal history, our uniqueness, our flaws and foibles, our identity. Our very existence is one of the never-to-be repeated ways God has chosen to express himself in space and time. Because we are made in God's image and likeness, you and I are yet another promise that he has made to the universe that he will continue to love it and care for it....

Trust yourself as one entrusted by God with everything you need to live life to the full.

Thanks for reading.

Love,
Erin

Enjoying the moment and dancing with Michelle in the streets of Savannah.

So I just discovered that I can blog through my phone. This could be really dangerous. I wonder if it will let me use more characters than twittering does. Probably not. Which would defeat it's purpose.

Sitting at the Thompsons

Tonight I spent the evening at the Thompson's house watching a 4 1/2 year old Jesse Thompson. We had a wonderful evening. It's been awhile since Jesse and I have had one of our "dates" and I have forgotten how much I enjoy them.

For those of you that haven't been reading my blog since the beginning of my Chicago to Nashville journey (I think there's 3 of you that read this and you all pretty much know the story), I lived with the Thompson's a year.

I moved down to Nashville with the idea that God was going to do something huge. I was awaiting what that was and while waiting (or honestly while among it because God is always doing something) I fell in love with the magic that I felt here in Nashville. And as I've talked about before everything was supposed to work out in the fashion that I thought it should.

There are a lot of memories here in this house and although I had a great time with Jesse, I'm sitting here with tears in my eyes. I realize now that I came to Nashville as a little girl and now I'm an adult (maybe I should say reaching adulthood). The Thompson's house was a place of safety for me a stepping block into the real world.

I apologize that these blogs haven't been as cheery as they were in the past. I long for the wide eyed optimism I once had. I know that I shouldn't wish it back because that was a period in my life and this is the current period of my life, but the magic, the dreams that were once there have been replaced with reality. This all sounds really depressing and although I have my moments (a moment spurred this blogging on) I'm actually doing well. Everything right now comes down to trust and trying to dream what God has for me. I want to dream again, but I've learned that my human dreams can crash and burn with more explosive power than a fuel delivery truck (that visual is for all you boys that love the action movies). I want my hope and expectation come from the knowledge that God has a purpose and a plan for me and that He is trustworthy and faithful and loves me more than any human ever could. I want to wait in anxious anticipation for the next thing that He's going to do.

Addendum to Missed the Boat

Just so everyone knows, the prior blog is about how we as the church miss the essentials sometimes. It's not a knock against anyone just an observation. If it comes off as a rant to anyone or an accusation, it was not intended to and I'm sorry.

Erin

Missed the Boat

This is whole Modernism vs. Post Modernism is frustrating. To me it seems like anytime there's a name for the era, we've probably missed the boat. Anytime we try to correct what a previous generation overlooked or overdid, we over do it or overlook it in the opposite direction. To me (and excuse my ignorance because I am not very educated in this area) it seems like the farther and farther we get away from the basics of faith and the more humans try to figure it out (I'm not condemning searching or study at all) , the more we miss it completely. It almost seems like all the profound theologians of our time are just reeling us back into that boat that swam away from.

Again I could be wrong completely, but this is what I've observed recently in myself.

So here I am at an essential part of the Christian faith again- God's Holiness. It appears that I've been swimming next to the boat while holding on to the side with one hand (I don't know if it's been port or starboard. I looked up the correct term for the side of the boat so I'd look intelligent and it appears that there's not a generic term. Oh Well.). I knew that God was holy because I was told that God was holy, but I really had no concept of what that meant.

I feel that as a product of (dare I say it) the modernist movement I was taught theology in an outline format. Here's Roman Numeral One which leads to Point A, B, and C and all their subpoints. I don't think that I ever growing up heard a sermon on God's holiness or was encouraged to relish in the mystery and expanse of it. I mean I knew that God was perfect and we were not but the vocabulary stopped there.

And again, just like love, you miss the whole point without it and I'm again a pawn in the Karma game. Everything about God is boxed in nice and neat in my little "This is What God is" box, but life is so unpredictable and terrifying when you attempt to put God there.

Sometimes I wonder (and the emphasis is on wonder) if growing up in a Christian environment did me more harm than good in the truth department. Do children's stories about God, Sunday School, and little songs do us any damage? Again, I'm wondering, not stating. I definitely see the benefits, but I also wonder about the harm. When stories about our creator become stories told with a felt board and cartoon felt characters and cute songs, when youth group becomes a quick lesson in order to maintain a teenager's attention and in that time, syrupy lessons of why they should stay morally upright, and when sermons are bullet pointed and non thought provoking, are we doing more harm than good? I know that everything I listed has it's good merits, but I'm wondering (let me stress again WONDERING) why don't we encourage our children, teenagers, and young adults to have an awe of God, an awe of his power and his love, an awe of the weight of his glory? I know that the stories are intended to do that, but I feel like we stop short of the point and make them just stories. I know that there are churches and people that are encouraging awe, I just personally feel like I didn't attend one of those churches growing up. There were probably even people at those churches that I attended that were right on the mark, but I just didn't know about them.

I feel like I'm a product of an agenda Christian upbringing and I know that I have been an agenda pushing Christian. I wish that I would have taken the time earlier on to marvel at the Holiness of God, but I didn't. I don't think I knew to and to place the blame on my upbringing completely is foolishness because at some point in my life, it became my problem. I do believe that I now have the benefit of connecting the dots of what I was taught. I have to back pedal a bit but perhaps it's better than starting with nothing. I honestly can't say, I am where I am and there's no use dwelling on it.

Okay, I didn't intend for this blog to come out this way. So I'll leave you with a bit from Ruthless Trust that I read this morning and that prompted me to think and write.

The more we let go of our concepts and images which always limit God, the bigger God grows and the more we approach the mystery of his indefinablity.....

Yet I have never in my entire life heard a homily or a sermon on the glory of God shining on the face of Jesus (2 Cor. 3:18). Perhaps the reticence that contemporary preachers feel about preaching on this topic is due to the fact that we have never been brushed by the divine kabod (my note- Early this was described as the weight, greatness, eminence, power and authority of God.). Or perhaps we simply feel incapable of articulating the concept, we sense that to address it would plunge us and our congregations into absolute mystery. And mystery is an embarrassment to the modern mind. All that is elusive, enigmatic, hard to grasp will eventually yield to our intellectual investigation, then to our conclusive categorization- or so we would like to think. But to avoid mystery is to avoid the only God worthy of worship, honor and praise.

I'm Official

I'm beyond excited to be given the opportunity to be working with Whitney Carlson and Dove Wedding Photography. You're looking at their new associate photographer! You can check out my bio and my portfolio on Dove's site. http://www.doveweddingphotography.com

There are also a couple more images and a contest on www.doveweddingphotography.blogspot.com

By the way, Peter Carlson took my killer bio pictures and I love them.

Thank you to Zach and Marna Jane Bevill, Morgan and Greg Castillo, and Lisa Britt for being models for me the past couple weeks.

If you all know of any other couples that can still wear their wedding clothes, I need subjects.

You all are great. Thank you for encouraging and supporting me to do something that's a bit out of my comfort zone.

Trust

Today the weather is gloomy...again. As much as I love how much warmer the winters are here, I hate how gray they are. At least in Chicago the snow reflects the sunlight and things seem brighter, but not here. Everything is drab. The grass is dead, the trees are bare, and the sky is gray. At home there are at least evergreens that help to add a little bit of color, but there are also subzero temperatures.

My life as of late has felt a lot like the weather here. One day it's sunny and 70 and the next 5 days are gray skies and 30.

I've realized that I have believed that life would wind-up being like the fairy tales I so loved as a kid. That if I remained the good girl everything would work out the way that I wanted it to and I wouldn't ever get hurt. That if I put the good girl coin in the magic God machine my perfect life would come rolling on out. The past few months have showed me that, that is not the case. Good things become difficult things, good people hurt you, and good intentions don't always go where you think they will.

I feel betrayed. I feel betrayed and lied to and it hurts and has left me very confused. I feel like I've been part of a big joke.

I was sitting in the eye doctors office this morning (my last contact slid down the drain and heck if I'm going to wear my glasses that make me feel self-conscious) and while I was waiting I read this.

Though we often disregard our need for an unfaltering trust in the love of God, that need is the most urgent we have. It is the remedy for much of our sickness, melancholy, and self-hatred. The heart converted from mistrust to trust in the irreversible forgiveness of Jesus Christ is redeemed from the corrosive power of fear.....

...The Basic Premise of biblical trust is the conviction that God wants us to grow, to unfold, and to experience fullness of life. However, this kind of trust is acquired only gradually and most often through a series of crises and trials....

...the essence of trust in the Hebrew and Christian scriptures: to be convinced of the reliability of God....

Uncompromising trust in the love of God inspires us to thank God for the spiritual darkness that envelops us, for the loss of income, for the nagging arthritis that is so painful, and to pray from the heart, "Abba, into your hands I entrust my body, mind, and spirit and this entire day- morning, afternoon, evening, and night.....

The way of trust is a movement into obscurity, into the undefined, into ambiguity, not into some predetermined, clearly delineated plan for the future.

-From Ruthless Trust by Brennan Manning

There was so much more in that chapter. I wish that I could type it all out. You'll just have to read the book yourself.

So I'm learning again. I really like learning but this is one of those moments where God is pulling my fingers off of what I'm grasping. I've been white knuckling it and it's painful. I am not in control of my future and no matter how hard I try I'm going to get hurt, but I can hold to the fact that God loves me.

Why is it that the most basic elements of the Christian faith are the hardest to grasp? I know that I have to CONSTANTLY be reminded of God's love for me. Most of the time I allow myself to feel like a pawn in some Karma game.

I know that my love is self-centered and self-seeking. I feel that most of the time other people love me because of what I do for them. Because human love is so imperfect, it is hard to grasp that there is such thing as perfect love in God. It is so hard to think that God actually cherishes me.

This idea changes everything. Without this concept there is no point! Without God's love I would be a victim of life, but I'm not.

So today is gloomy, but I'm trying to remember this- In this life I deserve nothing, but God is enamored with me and will give me what he deems best and I need to trust that it is as he said, "Good". Life is hard. It is not what I thought it would be and I'm still asking God "Why?", but there comes a point where you either have to give over to the pain or trust that there's more to this. I choose the latter knowing that I'm going to struggle with it.

I'm sure in another few weeks I'll be writing about how I forgot about this again, but for now I'll try to hold to that truth and I'll leave you with a picture from a 70 and sunny day.

Be Still My Soul

In Women's Bible Study Kim had us listen to a recording of Lisbeth Scott's rendition of Be Still My Soul. I can remember singing this song as a child but haven't heard it in awhile and I can't think of any song that speaks to me more right now. Below are the original lyrics.

"Be Still, My Soul"
by Catharina von Schlegel, 1697-?
Translated by Jane Borthwick, 1813-1897

1. Be still, my soul; the Lord is on thy side;
Bear patiently the cross of grief or pain;
Leave to thy God to order and provide;
In every change He faithful will remain.
Be still, my soul; thy best, thy heavenly, Friend
Through thorny ways leads to a joyful end.

2. Be still, my soul; thy God doth undertake
To guide the future as He has the past.
Thy hope, thy confidence, let nothing shake;
All now mysterious shall be bright at last.
Be still, my soul; the waves and winds still know
His voice who ruled them while He dwelt below.

3. Be still, my soul, though dearest friends depart
And all is darkened in the vale of tears;
Then shalt thou better know His love, His heart,
Who comes to soothe thy sorrows and thy fears.
Be still, my soul; thy Jesus can repay
From His own fulness all He takes away.

4. Be still, my soul; the hour is hastening on
When we shall be forever with the Lord,
When disappointment, grief, and fear are gone,
Sorrow forgot, love's purest joys restored.
Be still, my soul; when change and tears are past,
All safe and blessed we shall meet at last.

Rebound Update

It will be 3 weeks on Saturday since Rebound became the man of the house. The picture that I posted in the last blog isn't actually him. When I got to the breeder's (which was 2 hours away) the breeder told me that I was going to mad at them because they sent me a picture of his sister. My heart sank because by the way that she worded things, I was expecting a hideously ugly puppy, but then she pulled him out of his carrier and he stole my heart (as you'll soon learn, like most boys, Rebound enjoys messing with my heart.)

If you remember the picture from the last blog, you'll remember how huge the puppy's ears are. Well, Rebound's ears aren't as large and in fact the tip of his left ear was bitten off by one of his sisters (perhaps she was jealous?). Here's a picture of the baby with Jesse. I need to take new photos because already he has way more hair, his right ear is sticking straight up, and he's already bigger :(



From www.cairnterrier.org-

The Cairn Terrier in America is a sensible, confident little dog, independent but friendly with everyone he meets.

My confident dog is afraid of the following:

• boxes (he was terrified of a empty rice box the other day)
  
• geese
• sparrows
  
• the neighbor
  
• airplane noises (which is bad because I live by an airport)
  
• the wind
• bicycles
  
• moving cars
• riding in the car
• children's wagons
• other dogs
• garbage blowing toward him
• me crying (he tries to get off my lap or turns his head....typical boy)
  
• being house broken

Picture Frames

Tonight I'm spending the night overhauling my room. Yes, I know it's Friday night...how lame, but you see tomorrow I might be bringing home a 3 month old Cairn Terrier puppy that will want to do nothing but chew and I have a lot of things that invite chewing currently in my room.

Meet Rebound. Yes, the name is my doing. I have vowed for a long time that I would never get a dog. It's not that I don't like dogs (I actually love them), it's just that they take up so much of your life and I didn't want my life determined by an animal.

But you see, Rebound is going to be my rebound relationship. I think that I decided that I wanted to get a dog after one of my counseling sessions (I'm going to freely admit that I have been going to counseling for 6 months and I feel that everyone at some point in their lives should go to counseling. Don't judge me. Don't feel sorry for me. Sometimes you just need help to wade through the fog of life.). My counselor has a little dog that crawls up into your lap when you're pouring your heart out. I don't know if there is anything more comforting than that puppy sitting in my lap during those times.

I have those times at home too and I thought "Why not". I never do anything irresponsible. I'm always thinking about how my actions will influence the future. For once I'm going to just act upon an impulse. It's nothing immoral or wrong. It is going to make me stretch my budget a bit, but other than that, why not let myself live a little.

I need something to mother. People don't always want me to mother them, but I can't help it. It is probably the biggest part of my personality and now that I don't have someone to express my affection to, it has to go somewhere and I thought that a puppy would be the most appreciative of my love.

So tonight I'm cleaning my room. Tomorrow I'm hopefully bringing home the baby of the house. Tonight I'm thinking about how my inexpensive Wal*Mart picture frame has housed pictures of two different boys and is now empty and how that wasn't supposed to happen. Tomorrow many pictures will be taken of a small dog.

And throughout all of this I try to remember that -Tonight I am loved. Tomorrow I am loved. Always, I am loved.

The Start of 2009

I honestly don't know what to write here. I know that I want to be able to express myself but I am so numb inside that I don't know what to say.

My wonderful boyfriend of almost a year and I called it quits yesterday.

I wish that I had a better vocabulary to properly explain how I'm feeling, but I don't. I guess the best that I can do is to say that I feel vacant.

I feel angry at God for introducing someone into my life and then not allowing it to continue.

I hate the fact that I have given a piece of my heart to someone just to lose it.

I hate that happy memories, although there will be a smile on my face when I think of them, will also now bring sadness.

I don't understand. Maybe someday I will. Maybe I never will, but what's done is done and playing the martyr and continuing to dwell will only break my heart more.

Even though I'm angry, God is still in control. Another chapter in my life has closed but in the next chapter the story continues with me hopefully becoming a better, more loving person with more wisdom and strength than in the previous chapter.

I can only hold to this right now. My hope must be in this. My life has changed and will continue to change. Uncertainty is inevitable, but God is steadfast. I don't feel it all the time, but faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see (Heb 11:1).

God help me to become a better woman through all of this. I can't handle the thought of not coming out of this loving God more and loving others more.

Time to make a change. Hello 2009. You are definitely not what I was expecting.