Pick up a roadmap, you’re going to need it…

It is a time where reality swirls around itself trying to find out what it should be and do. Psychedelic colors in the pulsing patterns of love chase one another around and around in my head. Dizzy and tipsy I turn and try to run. As wonderful as this is, it scares me.

It scares me for it reveals what I am at the core of me - who I am on the inside. One cannot run from truth that has taken residence in their inner being. Running to the ends of the earth does not take it away when you carry it with you. The good, the bad, the righteous things, the familiar comfortable vices - they are all there and mocking me.

They mock me and remind me that I cannot change myself. I am helpless, weak and feeble in strength. These inner things bear down on me and crush me from the inside out. And I scream in pain - gut wrenching pain. These contradictions within press like a million needles on my most tender parts.

And then quiet.

Then light.

Then calm.

Silence in the deepest parts.

Battling contradictions have lost their strength.

“My child,” I hear the Voice say.

And I weep.

It was you
Who hung the stars in the skies
Still its you
That knows the tears that are cried
It was you
That formed the dust into man
And its you
Who forever holds my hand

And to you
Here I offer
All the contents of my heart
For if you formed the oceans
You can handle it all

Amanda: I hear babies are portable… the make carry cases for them and everything.
Me: I’m sorry you’ve got me thinking of like a laptop bag.
Amanda: Yeah, just put them in and zip them up, but make sure you take them out before you put them in the x-ray machine.

I was taking a call as Thursday rolled into Friday. The customer I was working with had a difficult issue with their computer and to be honest I was going a little beyond what I should have been doing. I needed her to reboot her computer but she was apprehensive to because of how long it took her system to reload. I finally talked her into it and we were waiting for Windows to come back up when she commented that we would be “celebrating our birthdays together” the rate it was going.

With a grin on my face I watched the clock go from 11:59 to midnight and replied back “Only if your birthday is right now.” We both laughed and talked about the irony of the situation as we finished waiting.

The good news is that 20 minutes later I had her back on the Internet.

Yes, its that time of the year again where I celebrate getting a year old and supposedly wiser. This birthday is so different that last year and I can see now where I’ve been growing in different areas.

Last year I was asked if I could sum my life story up in one sentence. The only thing I could answer is “God is forgiving.”

This year I say “God is my restorer.”

So much has been restored to me: my love for life, my will to live, comfort in my own skin, my laughter, my tears, friendships so long neglected, a passion for the Lord, my love for teaching, a desire to be free from the bondage that has so long held me, control over my finances. The list goes on and on.

Yes, this year God is my restorer.

I do already have a funny story to tell about work and my birthday, but it will have to wait until later as I have been up for almost 21 hours and I have to be to work again in 10 hours.

I like Emily’s choice in birthday food - everyone else chooses something like Olive Garden, she chooses cheap pizza. - Erin (It was because I wanted everyone to be able to afford to come - we are all on tight budgets right now so CiCi’s fit right into what we could all afford.)

Silas has got a date with four hot ladies. - Stacy

Sure, Mar has a hot date and skips cell group and our hot date is two feet tall. - me (of course our hot date was Silas Paul)

Disaster waiting to happen. - Stacy

You must have been Asian in a past life. - Erin

We have homework this week ladies, if I have to do it for my cell group I am going to make you guys do it too. - Tanya (It is good homework though - seeking out and meditating on Bible verses about rest.)

I’ll never forget I got saved at Ms. Cathy’s house 13 years ago today. - Erin

I think we just bunny trailed, really bunny trailed. - me

I’m trying to go about this the legal way and it’s so hard. It’s all because there are so many illegal immigrants. - Marlinda (please pray for her as she is trying to become a US citizen and she’s having to jump through lots of hoops.)

The ghost of Starbucks. - Stacy (the doors opening and closing on there own because of the wind was kinda creepy to tell the truth.)

Yes, I’m dreading my hair again - look this one has beads on it. - Lacy

Today I wake up with the sky overcast outside my window and I smile. Today I chose to rejoice despite how I’ve felt on the inside the last few weeks. So much has been thrown at me since the end of last month. Some of it has been good, some of it has been bad - but all of it has been invaluable.

Last night I spent time with Stacy and Erin - a lazy evening at Erin’s apartment where we burned CDs, ate dinner civilized style (meaning sitting at the table with Isa, John Mark McMillan, and Audra playing in the background instead of sitting on the couch watching TV), watched Lost, talked, planned my birthday dinner for this evening, and just spent time as friends. It was a time of total acceptance of each other. God certainly knew I needed that time with them. I walked away at 9:30 feeling completely satisfied and strangely at peace with the world around me.

Yes, tonight I’m having a birthday dinner at CiCi’s pizza before cell group at T’s. I’m excited about spending time with my friends. I don’t even care about gifts or anything like that - I just want to have some fun. Its going to be nice no matter who is there.

I’m sitting here in my room, listening to the prayer room and pondering life and feeling the music soak in deep under my skin. Right now the chorus is “I will delight myself in the abundance of Your peace, Lord” and it resonates within me. Like liquid electricity it sends shivers through my spirit to sing along with the chorus. But even more it energizes me as I sit here and ask the Lord to be real to me in my silence.

Big decisions lie just beyond the horizon and need to be decided in the next few weeks. So many voices are telling me so many things to do and not to do about these decisions and I need a few days to sit in silence and pray over them where I don’t have to worry over work or family or friendships. I want to sit with my sketch pad and journal, with my Bible and drawing pencils, with my commentaries and ink pens, and ask the Lord to come speak to me in my season of indecision. To have Him speak to me clearly and precisely is what I need.

Even though the temptation is to wallow is self pity and confusion I will chose to rejoice now. No - I DO chose to rejoice now.

I see the evidence of God working in my heart today. This may sound silly to many people, but I slept in almost total darkness last night. I have always had a deathly fear of the dark and to this day I tend to sleep with my TV or light on. Last night I came home, put the prayer room on my computer, turned the volume up and set my laptop on the floor. It just barely lit up my room and I slept in a peaceful slumber through most of the night. That doesn’t sound that major to most people, but that is a huge victory in my life.

If God wanted companionship so much that He created man, then it makes sense that we would be created with a longing for companionship. For companionship with both follow man and with the eternal God.

I was thinking about going to Moe’s for lunch today when Miss Ma’am (Stacy) texted me to see if I wanted to go get lunch at Moe’s. We went and grabbed lunch, talked about what is going on in our lives and our hearts, made some sketchy plans for a birthday party for me for tomorrow night, and caught up on life in general. It’s amazing what you can do in 45 minutes over Mexican food. Then I went and finished buying Patricia’s birthday present and mailed it to her. (She’s getting Jelly Belly jelly beans, pomegranate body wash, organic almond honey lip gloss and drawing pencils. I hope she likes it all.)

 As I wrote a message in her birthday card I was struck with this wave of longing. I can’t put it any other way but that I am longing for fellowship for my friends. I don’t ever just hang out any more. When asking me what I wanted to do for my birthday all I could tell Stacy was “I don’t care, I just want to spend time with my friends.” And as crazy as that sounds, its true. We may go down to the Boardwalk for ice cream or go out to dinner somewhere not too expensive because it is the week of the birthdays.

I miss my friends in Kansas City and I miss my friends here even more. We live in the same city, but I never see them. I’m a social person and this is hard on me. I spend so many of my waking hours that I’m not at work here, in my room, by myself. At work I’m around people, but they aren’t godly people. Their conversations center around sex and drugs and other things that I don’t need to be thinking about.

And I wonder why I’m kind of depressed feeling.

I miss my friends and I need them around me.

Even if it is just sitting in silence and each of us doing our own thing. Even if its helping a friend grade papers or work on their resume’, even if its just watching TV, spending time with them is a balm for the soul. Hours spent in prayer and play build amazing friendships - and I’ve been missing those hours with my friends here and in Kansas City something fierce.

Would you just relax your grip and let God be God? Jesus is the one person you’ll never have to rescue. If He wants the weather still, He makes it still. He wants the dead to come to life, He raises them. He wants to feel a multitude, He does it. That nine-year-old’s sense of panic in your gut will never ease unless you accept there is someone bigger and more comforting in control.

- Meg (from The Rescuer by Dee Henderson)

She gazes at this shattered spider web,
Lies weaving across the surface
Of all things she has considered true.
“Just those teenage things,” they said,
“Little dreams she’s written
In her diary.”

They even thought it was inspiring -
That looking happy,
While you’re dying.

And it is broken perfection -
Her dreams lost somewhere along the way -
She’s dying on the inside
While everything looks polished on the out.

And now she finds herself standing at her mirror
Watching all her hope drain away;
The spider webs of deceit spread across it
And the glass runs red.
For this is where she chooses
To attack the lies she lives by.

And she stops to think,
“This is broken perfection -
When I get to the end of my rope,
And I admit that I’m dying inside.
And this is where I thought all was perfect,
But I find I’m just trusting in lies.”

And she gazes upon
Her own broken perfection;
She envies the blood running down her hands,
For it is free and she wants to follow.

Her knuckles are cut,
And her face shattered by the spider web
Spread across her mirror.

In that moment of clarity she thinks,
“Broken Perfection,
hanging upon a cross -
Flesh ripped from bone,
And blood running down.

“Broken Perfection,
Rising from the grave -
Days in darkness,
Spent and then revealing light.

“Broken Perfection,
He cried for the cup to pass -
Yet He chose to let the blood run,
Freedom.”

Her own broken perfection
Revealed for what it is -
Pride wrap in the guise of self security -
Falls by the wayside
As she gazes at Broken Perfection.