Krista's Thoughts and Ramblings

Gratefulness

2011-12-21T15:51:00.000-08:00

Went from a peaceful morning this morning to a tremendously stressful afternoon. Decided that I needed to get away from work for a short while before I fell apart, and decided too that instead of doing some much-needed Christmas shopping, I needed to write and reflect. In the midst of mountains of stress, extreme exhaustion, and a little pinch of heartache, the Lord has called to mind over and over the many blessings that He's put in place. So I'm using this little mini break from the chaos to list out these things, mostly for my own benefit, but hopefully it'll be of some encouragement to someone else as well. Here's what I've got:

Some things to be tremendously thankful for:

A Savior who has come and is coming: in this season, it’s sweet to think of the desperate need our world was in for a Savior 2000 years ago, and God’s goodness in sending one! And sweet to joyfully await the day He will return! And to know that this Jesus we sing about is MY redeemer!

Friends who get it – not just friends who know the right thing to say or might share hobbies with me, but friends who GET me, who know my quirks and love me anyway. Friends who’ve stood the test of time, people with whom the “remember whens” just keep on coming

A loving and stable family – I realize more and more all the time how very rare this is! I’ve never had to question my family’s love for each other or for me, I’ve always been able to count on encouragement and support, and patience when I’m snotty or selfish. Dinner dates with my parents and little getaway trips to my sister’s are becoming some of my favorite activities of late!

Having people w/disabilities in my life. People say all the time that it “takes a special type of person” to work with this population. But I really think I’m the lucky one! I’m thankful for every ounce of trust I’ve earned from any client over the years, for all the mini triumphs I get to witness, for all the struggles worked through, for the sweet friendships formed.

Working with amazing people who share my passion. I can’t even begin to describe how incredible my “operations” team is at work. The other supervisors and our managers are some of the most dedicated and capable people I know. I never feel alone in my passion for the people we care for – sometimes I feel like I have to run to keep up!

Worshiping with people who mean it. There’s something pretty incredible about playing Christmas songs on keyboard with the church band and really worshipping through it. And it’s so sweet to know the lives of the redeemed sinners all around me and know that they mean the words that they sing.

And so much more! What an ocean of blessings I swim in!

Encouragement from Leviticus

2011-09-21T10:16:00.000-07:00

I was reading in Leviticus 25 the other day, and came across this passage about the Sabbath year. Every 7th year, the people were to stop their farming for an entire year. The Lord promised that they would be provided for in this season, and then he reassures them again in later verses:

"The land will yield its fruit, and you will eat your fill and dwell in it
securely. And if you say, "What shall we eat in the seventh year, if we
may not sow or gather in our crop?' I will command my blessing on you in the
sixth year, so that it will produce a crop sufficient for three years."

I was particularly struck by the word, "command." I am well aware that the Lord blesses. I am well aware that He sustains, that He provides for His people. I've seen it over and over again, in the pages of scripture and in my own life. But I don't often associate His blessing with His authority. God is powerful to bless His people. He is active in it. This association really changed the way I prayed that day and since. I'm praying to a powerful God who wills His blessings on His people. He didn't just allow the Israelites to have plentiful crops in the 6th year, He commanded it!

Let me be clear: I am of the firm belief that the Lord does not will that all our days will be pain-free, problem-free, and overflowing with abundant blessings in every form. He's pretty clear that won't be the case. However, I'm tired of praying tired prayers. I'm tired of praying that the Lord would sustain me in hard days, would give me peace in trials, would free me of the burden of anxiety that troubles my soul daily. I'm tired of praying these things in a weary way, only half-expecting that today these prayers will be answered.

This passage in Leviticus reminded me that I pray to a God of power. And while the promise in Leviticus 25:21 was specific to the Israelites and their farming cycle, I am certain that I serve the same God that they did. This God commanded the people of Israel to rest from farming in the 7th year, then gave them a promise that, I'm sure, helped them to obey his command: "I command you to rest, and I will command blessings to allow you to rest. Trust me." Something like that. Not hard to see parallels in my own life. I'm not expecting the Lord to bless my work this year that I may rest next year. That promise was not for me. But I can remember that the God who gave even His own Son will give me all good things. I can remember that He is eager to bless and has power to do so. He doesn't just allow blessings; He commands them.

My Spurgeon "Morning and Evening" devotion book reinforced these thoughts this morning. He quoted from Jeremiah 32:41: "I will rejoice over them to do them good." And so I'll close with Spurgeons eloquent words on the most incredible of truths: that the Sovereign Lord of the universe actually delights in His sinful but blood-bought people! It brings Him joy to bless them!

"How heart-cheering to the believer is the delight which God has in His saints! We cannot see any reason in ourselves why the Lord should take pleasure in us; we cannot take delight in ourselves, for we often have to groan, being burdened; conscious of our sinfulness, and deploring our unfaithfulness; and we fear that God's people cannot take much delight in us, for they must perceive so much of our imperfections and our follies, that they may rather lament our infirmities than admire our graces. But we love to dwell upon this transcendent truth, this glorious mystery: that as the bridegroom rejoiceth over the bride, so does the Lord rejoice over us."

seeing wonders in the deep

2011-07-19T11:12:00.001-07:00

I haven't written much lately. In the past few months, some of my past traditions, like quote-of-the-day and daily journaling about the events of my days, were deliberately abandoned. Several reasons behind that decision, and I'm not sure yet that I regret it, but I do miss it. And I went back through some old writings today and remembered that the best part about putting things in writing is often looking back at them and remembering. That maybe it's worth the sometimes-tedious process of putting pen to paper (or fingers to keyboard, of late), in order to really capture that moment in time for reflection later.

I've been battling emotions again lately, and feeling discouraged about a great many things. Recently had been asking for prayer that my goals would be greater than "not being sad" or "not being anxious," that I would be more eager to serve, to grow, to glorify the Lord. I specifically prayed about this during a series of weeks in which I was not sad OR anxious...but I'm fairly sure the enemy would rather my goals stay small. Sadness and anxiety have hit me hard the last couple weeks, and again I feel like all my energy goes into battling those things.

In the heat of the battle, what I need most is right thinking, truths to rest in. And today I read something timely and helpful.

Charles Spurgeon, in his daily devotional book, writes about how God's glory is most evident when we are most aware of our weakness, and how this tends to happen best in trials. Here are some of his words: maybe they'll be as helpful to someone reading this as they were to me:

"He whose life is one even and smooth path, will see but little of the glory of the Lord, for he has few occasions of self-emptying, and hence, but little fitness for being filled with the revelation of God. They who navigate little streams and shallow creeks, know but little of the God of tempests, but they who 'do business in great waters,' these see His 'wonders in the deep.'"

"Thank God, then, if you have been led by a rough road: it is this which has given you your experience of God's greatness and loving-kindness. Your troubles have enriched you with a wealth of knowledge to be gained by no other means: your trials have been the cleft of the rock in which Jehovah has set you, as He did His servant Moses, that you might behold His glory as it passed by."

"Praise God that you have not been left to the darkness and ignorance which continued prosperity might have involved, but that in the great fight of affliction, you have been capacitated for the outshinings of His glory in His wonderful dealings with you."

Can't really wrap up in my own words what Spurgeon said so eloquently...so I won't try :-) Praise God, indeed!

Death of an Enemy

2011-05-01T23:37:00.000-07:00

I remember many months ago, teaching a Sunday school lesson on the parting of the Red Sea. I teach a group of mostly-well-behaved young elementary kids at church. These kids are, for the most part, responsive and thoughtful and inquisitive and such fun to teach. During this particular lesson, they were getting pretty excited, and also getting really silly. When it got to the part of the story where the Egyptian army was wiped out, they were laughing and cheering and such. An understandable response, for sure. These Egyptians and their ruler had certainly been the enemy in the story, and after all those plagues and all that pleading, it sure was a relief to get to the part of the story where the Israelites' victory was sure. But I stopped the kids. I explained to them that these people DIED, and that that is always a very serious thing, and not something to laugh about. We were able to go on to talk about the fact that the Israelites were not better than the Egyptians but that the mercy of God was upon them. Similarly, that we deserve death just as much as those Egyptians did and that it is only the mercy of Jesus that saves us from an awful fate.

Tonight, I read all the news on Bin Laden's death. I watched Obama's address, I read articles and blogs, and I followed all the various facebook responses. What I was really searching for, a couple hours after the announcement, was a response from New Yorkers at Ground Zero.

My first experience at Ground Zero was visiting with a friend in 06, during my first visit to NY. This friend had lost a dear friend in the 9-11 attacks. During the process of grieving for that friend and watching that friend's family grieve with a hope in Jesus, my friend had become a believer. So being able to visit that sort of "sacred" space with a friend whose life had literally been saved through the death of a friend in that tragedy was a pretty incredible and sobering experience. I have visited Ground Zero several times since, always with that little story in mind, always saddened by the losses and intrigued by the many stories with 9-11-01 as their focal point.

I don't know what I expected to find in video footage of Ground Zero tonight. Maybe people praying, reflecting, embracing each other and feeling a certain sense of closure after an impossibly rough 10 years of grieving together. What I saw instead reminded me of my Sunday school kids. People were simply excited and cheering and laughing and cursing and chanting. It was sad. Understandable, but sad. I don't think I've ever in my lifetime seen a mass rejoicing in the death of another, and it's sort of an unnerving experience. And I wonder if somewhere in that crowd were people longing to think quietly of their lost loved ones 10 years ago, longing to reflect and pray and grieve, and instead finding themselves in the middle of a party.

Certainly, I'm relieved Osama is gone. I'm certain his heart was full of evil. But I'm also certain my heart, apart from the grace of God, would be capable of that same evil and deserving of his same fate. And I think that death, no matter whose it is, is a serious matter and not a laughing one.

2011-04-14T22:28:00.000-07:00

"Everybody is a genius. But if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing that it is stupid." Einstein

"It is curiously comforting to know that your calling is beyond your capability." Powlison

I saw both of these quotes today and could relate so very well to both. Man, is work difficult. It was especially hard to return to "the grind" on Monday after 4 days of true, God-enabled, God-saturated rest. 4 days, also, where I was the boss of nobody and had very little control over anything, not even my OWN schedule, much less the schedule of any employees. Returning from that to the fast-paced, intense, one-crisis-after-another environment of work was a challenge I was expecting and preparing for. What I was NOT prepared for was what awaited me on that first day back. Some decisions had been made and had been announced to the rest of my team while I was taking my blissful rest last Thursday. I was brought up to speed Monday and learned that there are going to be some pretty significant changes in the next couple months. These changes are being made for really good reasons, and there's not even a hint of anger in my heart about the whole thing. At the same time, the changes are ones I'm not sure I can handle, and so, for the 3rd year in a row, I find myself back on the job hunt, at least in my spare time as sort of a "just in case."

ANYWAY, back to the quotes. Praying and thinking through what direction to head or whether to stay where I'm at causes me to evaluate even more my ability to do my current job. And this first quote resonates so well with me. There are so many days where I feel like quite a failure in one way or another at work. This is my own issue. I'm not getting that sense from my peers or from my boss or from my boss's boss...though sometimes I do get it from my staff members. It's just something I have to battle and bring before the Lord. I also have to remind myself that there ARE many things I'm good at, and that it's ok to not be good at other things. So, like the fish in that first quote, I get caught up in my frustration because the tree just seems so unclimbable...and then I remember the beauty of swimming in the ocean. Some things DO come easily to me, it's just that this job isn't one of them.

And the other quote. Clearly, my "calling" is far beyond my capabilities. I KNOW that I've felt called to work with people with disabilities. And I've seen the Lord's goodness and providence ALL OVER the provision of this job and the many joys it holds. But it will never be easy. I don't think I will ever quite feel "capable." And what I need to strive for, is to find this "curious comfort" in this reality. The Lord has placed me here, and the Lord knows what I can and can't do and all of the consequences wrapped up in that. The Lord also cares for the sparrows and knows how many hairs are on my head. I can and should find comfort in the knowledge that His power is perfect in my weakness, and I should rejoice in this opportunity to be fully dependent on Him as I'm faced with things that I'm quite certain are not within my own powers to accomplish.

Wow, lots of words and so little clarity. I'm utterly exhausted and full of thoughts, and this blog bore the brunt of that combo tonight. :-) Can't even sum it up neatly...but I can say that I know not what the future holds but do know the One who holds it...and that should be reason enough to sleep sweetly and soundly tonight.

Why Should You Suppose?

2011-01-22T11:31:00.000-08:00

"But go, act, be strong for the battle. Why should you suppose that God will cast you down before the enemy? For God has power to help or to cast down." -2 Chronicles 25:8

I read this the other day and was incredibly encouraged by these words. Here's the story. The king of Judah was getting ready for a battle. He mustered thousands of men of Judah for this battle, and then he went and hired another 100,000 men from Israel, paying them silver to join the cause. A man of God came to him and essentially told him that he shouldn't have done that and that the Israelites should not go out to battle with him. Then the verse that caught my eye: "But go, act, be strong for the battle. Why should you suppose that God will cast you down before the enemy? For God has power to help or to cast down."

Amaziah's choice to hire all those extra men seemed to demonstrate something he was supposing - that God would otherwise cast him down. That perhaps only with the help of extra soldiers would he be victorious. And I think this verse grabbed my attention and tugged at my heart because, whether consciously or subconsciously, I've been supposing defeat in my own life. I head into a day, knowing that the battle against sin is a hard one, knowing also that God has given all that I need to win it, but still somehow coming to the conclusion that no matter how hard I try, my sin (most frequently my anxiety) will at some point just get the best of me, and I'll have to just try again tomorrow. Why would I suppose this? God has the power to help or cast down, and somehow I choose to believe that He will choose the latter, when over and over again in my life His help has been a very real presence. I want to suppose the BEST of my God - why would I choose the alternative?

just the sweater again...

2011-01-07T11:24:00.001-08:00

Every so often, there is this strange sound that happens while I'm driving, kind of like a thumping, that seems to be coming from underneath me or right outside my door. Numerous times, this sound has concerned me. And numerous times, I eventually come to the same conclusion: It's just the sweater again.

See, my favorite sweater has a real long tie on it that I often leave untied, leaving it to dangle pretty low. When I get in my car and shut the door...sometimes that tie doesn't make it all the way in. It's pretty incredible, really, what a great amount of sound a small piece of fabric can make when it's whipping about down the street at 50 mph. It sounds remarkably as if my tire is about to fall off or something. It's terrifying. And what is most incredible to me is that nearly every time this happens (and I'm telling you, it's ridiculous how often it does), I first wonder, "Oh, no! What's that sound? What's wrong with my car?" before I realize that I'm wearing the infamous sweater, and that infamous tie is having another adventure just outside my door.

Lately I've been realizing the same thing about my thoughts- my anxiety, namely. So often, something stressful will come up, and I jump to all sorts of conclusions about what could come of it - like "I'll never recover from this one," "I'll lose the respect of my boss over this," "this task or list of tasks is something that I will never actually be able to accomplish," etc. In recent days, I've been able to step back a second and say, "It's just the sweater again." These hurdles are NOT the enormous disasters that I'm making them into in my mind; they are just temporary issues that will soon pass away. Like a sweater strap caught in the door, my mind gets caught up in these crazy cycles. Not quite as easily solveable, perhaps, as opening a car door and freeing a strap, but still usually far less serious that what I've conjured up in my imagination.

If the devil had his way in my life, I would be so consumed with those imaginary disasters that I would never step back and just take care of the issue - my heart. This week finds me tugging at that strap, trying to take all my runaway thoughts captive and lay them before my loving Savior.

Christmas Constancy

2010-12-21T11:28:00.000-08:00

Just finished reading other people's Christmas blog posts as I ate lunch and decided to try to crank my own out before leaving for work...

I've been thinking and wrestling through so very much lately (always?), and have a huge list of bloggable subjects to choose from. But here's one that's been on the edge of my mind this week...

Christmas is hard this year. It's logistically hard because all of a sudden, on top of getting my own home ready, my own family shopped for, etc., I'm also trying to be sure my two group homes have the Christmas celebration that they should. And that takes more energy than I have. It's hard because I just feel worn down in general, like I need a vacation, which I can't have until February at least.

Most of all, I think it's hard because of what it isn't. That magic of childhood Christmas fades a bit more every year, and consumerism and secularism seem so heavy. I miss the first 23 years of my life, where Christmas actually meant a vacation of some sort, more than 1 day off from work, time to rest and enjoy. I haven't even gone to see any Christmas lights this year, with time and energy lacking. Last Christmas was shared with someone special who isn't in my life anymore, and that brings extra heaviness too. Our family traditions also continue to change as people grow up and the family extends wider and wider, and that's hard on top of it all. I just finished reading some really sweet blog posts written by other Christians who, too, feel a weight that they wish they didn't at what should be a joyous time of year. I know I'm not alone in this.

We heard a great sermon this past Sunday on how to shepherd our hearts with scripture at Christmas, how to think rightly about it. I was encouraged by it, but still it is easier said than done. But that combined with other musings already in my head got me thinking about what has NOT changed about Christmas.

Jesus was still born 2 thousandish years ago. God still entered our world in the form of a baby, born in a stable to die on a cross. Born to die for ME. Born to redeem a people for Himself. Born to die that we might have life. Those events HAPPENED, and no amount of "festive cheer" can add to or detract from the history that we celebrate. There will be probably be happier Christmases in my future, and there will probably be harder ones. But the one that really matters cannot be changed and will be celebrated for eternity. Hallelujah, Hope has come!

in brief...

2010-11-12T10:24:00.000-08:00

I came to a coffee shop today with another writing friend, with the intent of writing. It's National Novel Writing Month...but I wasn't quite ambitious enough for that. I at least figured I'd get some blogging in, but now I have less than 10 minutes before I need to leave to meet another friend for lunch. So instead, a little portion of a song I wrote the other day. I discovered Sunday that I so desperately need to continually have a creative outlet, especially now that creativity (at least in a classic sense) is not as much a part of my daily life anymore. I need to be a person who writes and creates and sings and plays her heart out. And I recovered a little bit of that person on Sunday. here's the chorus - I'm late for lunch! :

"Jesus you bind the broken-hearted
You make us into who we never thought we'd ever be
And this is not where I was headed when I started
But the road is clear to You where my veiled eyes can't see"

Little bits of thankfulness

2010-10-23T11:03:00.000-07:00

My job has proven to be even harder than I'd imagined it would be. I'm battling my anxiety more than ever, and thankfully God has given some sweet victory in that battle at times. But at other times, I'm pretty overcome by the amount of things to be accomplished, and the IMPORTANCE of these many things. So couple my perfectionism and desire to do all things well with the fact that these things MUST be done well or people in my care will suffer...and you have a Krista who has to beg the Lord daily for a calm, peaceful, trusting heart and the ability to do hard things.

Management was never in my plans, and yet here I am. But what GOT me here was a sincere desire to help people with disabilities, and I have to constantly call that to mind. When I'm pushing paperwork, disciplining staff, dealing with pharmacies, and attending meetings, it's easy to forget. But this week, when things were probably at their hardest (and an on-call weekend loomed in my future), God was so gracious in providing these short, amazing moments with the clients themselves. It was very much like He was saying, "I know THIS is hard, but you love THIS."

On Tuesday, I finished my grocery shopping for one of the houses and was exhausted. I came to the door of the house with my first load, and was greeted by one of the clients, with a HUGE smile, and the most excited little squeal ever. Granted, I think he was just as excited about the groceries as he was about my arrival, but he assured me that he was excited about both. All of the clients were super happy that day, and it was great to walk into a happy home and have a sense that I'm contributing to its happiness, even if it doesn't always feel that way. The smiles and the energy from all of the residents was contagious even to my weary, stressed-out soul.

I manage 2 different homes, and according to my schedule, my time is split evenly between the 2. One of these homes, though, has demanded much more of my attention in recent weeks, and I'd hardly been at the other home at all in about a week, with the exception of stopping by briefly. On Wednesday of this week, I was finally there in a mid-afternoon, following another stressful meeting that left me feeling like my plate was just too full. The clients came home from their day program, and one of the clients smiled a big smile when he arrived and saw me. He immediately signed, "I love you." He then made sure the staff with him knew that he loved me also, signing this several times and pointing to me. Then a big hug and another big smile. I really almost cried. He'd never told me this before, and he chose THIS day to tell me, when I so needed to hear that.

Yesterday, I was determined to get off early since I'd stayed til 10 pm the night before and have to be on-call all weekend. But my plans don't always work out - one of my guys neeeded to go to urgent care. I had one of our drivers drop him off w/a staff, but I needed to go pick him up and get to the pharmacy and get instructions to the staff for administering his antibiotic. So as to not leave the house with too many clients and not enough staff, I brought one of the guys with me for these errands. I was exhausted but strangely happy, and this guy was glad to get out of the house and sit shotgun. Some dance-type music was on the radio in the van when we got in, and we both started dancing along. I am NOT a dancer, and have said before that the only time I dance is with my clients. It was so freeing and fun and altogether fabulous, and again, the smile on that guy's face made my day.

Our small group is studying Colossians 3, and it's so full of mentions of thankfulness, thankful hearts. I praise God that I have an underlying thankfulness -for His gospel and His goodness, and even for this job - even on the hardest days, I'm thankful for it. And this week, God gave so many little gifts to help me with my thankfulness. He is GOOD.

Colossians 3:15-17 "And let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, to which indeed you were called in one body. And be thankful. Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly, teaching and admonishing one another in all wisdom, singing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, with thankfulness in your hearts to God. And whatever you do, in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him."

Confusing Color

2010-09-28T10:13:00.000-07:00

I went up to Flagstaff last weekend to visit with my friend Danielle, who recently moved up there for grad school. We had such a lovely time, and I'm excited to brave the cold sometime this winter and visit again...

I drove home Sunday evening right around sunset. Anyone who's ever done any driving between Phoenix and northern AZ is familiar with a place called Sunset Point - a well-equipped rest area with dramatic views. Many a vacation in my life has had its first stop at Sunset Point. A mocha with Danielle just before leaving Flagstaff necessitated a bathroom stop there on my way home this time around, so I counted down the miles as I approached it...

The rest area looks off to dramatic mountain views on one side of the highway, and the area on the other side of the road is mostly flat, which also adds some drama. But this time, as I got close, I noticed some mountains off in the distance on the flat side, that I'd never noticed before. And something about the light at the time of the day, hitting those mountains, was breathtaking. They were this odd shade of green (a color we Arizonans treasure) that I really can't describe, and couldn't capture on film once I tried. It was absolutely beautiful, and it got me philosophizing...please forgive me, this may be intensely cheesy...

So often in my life, especially in the past year or so, I've wished that things could just be black and white. I've wished that there was a correct answer to all of life's questions that could be deciphered by some sort of an equation. The messiness and unpredictability of life has been a source of much frustration.

And yet...how beautiful is color! And how beautiful a God who chose to include color as He planned the details of our world. Black and white would be a little easier to understand, but easy is not what God intended. Instead, He does things in a complex, artistic way, as only the Creator could do. The green on that mountain did not provide any concrete answers...but I certainly wouldn't have traded it for black and white.

It is Good

2010-08-26T10:18:00.001-07:00

"Sunny days, keeping the clouds away. I think we're coming to a clearing and a brighter day..." - Jars of Clay

It seems my personal season of darkness lies behind me - at least for now. There are still certain elements of my life that I would have planned differently, that I would change if that power rested in my hands. But overall, my circumstances look a lot more favorable. And more importantly, my heart seems to be healing. I sense in me once more a genuine love for the Lord - weaker, perhaps, that it has been in other seasons, but present and deepening again. The ways in which I have sort of "gone through the motions" in recent months are increasingly fruits of Spirit-granted desires again...and it is sweet!

I got to spend a good deal of time in the Word this morning, and I was reading Lamentations 3. This is one of those chapters that I love each time I come to it, but often do not call to mind between readings. I was so very refreshed by it today.

"The Lord is good to those who wait for him, to the soul who seeks him.
It is good that one should wait quietly for the salvation of the Lord
It is good for a man that he bear the yoke in his youth
Let him sit alone in silence when it is laid on him;
Let him put his mouth in the dust - there may yet be hope..."

There is so much about the last season of my life that I do not understand, but I can cling to this: that the Lord is good! And that somehow, it is GOOD that I had to wait quietly, that I had to bear my yoke, that I had to sit alone in silence and be humbled to a point of desperation. There is good in all of it.

"For the Lord will not cast off forever, but, though he cause grief, he will have compassion
according to the abundance of his steadfast love..."

May I never make God so small as to say that he only allowed or permitted me to grieve. No, He caused it. And he caused it in a way that by no means diminished His care for me or His perfect love. Today, my heart believes this.

Approval

2010-08-19T15:49:00.000-07:00

I'm nearing the end of the 2nd week of my new job. I could probably write 10 pages about all I've learned, thought about, prayed about, loved, been stressed out by, rejoiced in, etc during this time. But I'll try to limit myself to one theme...

I'm a group home supervisor, working with 9 other group home supervisors to supervise 15 or so group homes. I have a boss, we'll call her "S." She's great - very capable, very organized...but also very quick, to-the-point, no-nonsense. She's been helpful and kind, but over the last few days I started worrying because I feel like i just keep asking questions, and I was afraid it was getting frustrating for her. I prayed about it, prayed that I would do my job with excellence, be a blessing to her, to my peers, to the staff I'm over, and to the residents we serve, and then also that I would not base my self-worth on her opinion of me. This is something I DEFINITELY dealt with in New York, during my internship, that hasn't been an issue the last 3 years cause my last job was very independent and didn't involve a lot of feedback.

Today S was in a meeting all day long. I met with her peer, who's the boss of 5 of the other group home supervisors. We'll call her "C." I was glad for the chance to bombard somebody else with questions for a little while, and she was super helpful. She also brought up the fact that "S" told her that I'm picking things up really quickly. That was her only comment regarding S's opinon of me, but it made me breathe SO much easier. Much as I try not to care, I DO care a lot about S's opinion, and just that little comment was so reassuring.

And then I tried to put things in perspective. My boss, a sinner like myself, seems to have approved the job that I've done over the last 9 work days. My God, the Creator of the universe and the only true God, has also given his approval. S's approval is based on 9 days of me learning and completing certain tasks, and probably certain elements of how I've related and communicated w/people in our company. Her approval could mean a good future within a company - an excellent company but surely flawed like every company. And even if I was to stay an employee of this company for the rest of my working life, that still is less than half a century. And S's opinion could change tomorrow.

My God's approval is different. It is eternal. It means eternity with Him. It is unchanging. And it is based only on HIS finished work, by Christ's death on the cross that covered my sins. Some truths from Colossians that this brings to mind:

"giving thanks to the Father, who qualified you to share in the inheritance of the saints in light" 1:12

"And you, who once were alienated and hostile in mind, doing evil deeds, he has now reconciled in his body of flesh by his death, in order to present you holy and blameless and above reproach before him." 1:21-22

"And you, who were dead in your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, God made alive together with Him, having forgiven us all our trespasses by cancelling the record of debt that stood against us with its legal demands. This he set aside, nailing it to the cross." - 2:13-14

Why I Went to College?

2010-07-31T20:53:00.000-07:00

Going to college was never something I had to think about. From a young age, I knew that was the plan. It was never really something I prayed about, thought through, etc. Maybe about WHERE to go to college, but even that was an easy choice - full scholarship and then some at ASU, which had the degree I'd known I'd wanted since sophomore year of high school. So I went.

At several points along the way, I doubted myself a little. At at one point, i think it was junior year, I doubted myself a LOT. Classes were hard, piano lessons were stressing me out to the point of frequent tears, and I wondered if college was something that I wasn't supposed to finish. It got to the point where I actually went and met with my pastor to seek counsel on whether maybe I should drop out.

I don't remember everything that was said that day. I remember him saying that yes, perhaps it was the Lord's will that I quit school. But not to rush that decision. He told me to reflect on the ways that God had used the experience of college to grow and challenge me, classwork aside. And the part that I remember the most was that he pulled out a worship song, just a sheet with words and chords. He asked if maybe my schooling was helping me to be able to look at something like that and do something with it. And it was. At that time, I was still by no means confident in reading chords, but I was working on it.

Obviously, I stayed in college. Combo of the things he said and other factors, I'm sure. And I finished my classes, then headed off in 06 to my internship in NY. If I'd thought college was hard...the internship almost destroyed me, I almost quit, and I came to a definite decision that music therapy was not the field for me...

Then, I moved home, got my board certification, and got a full-time music therapy job. Apparently, I could do it after all. I loved my work, despite it still being intensely challenging, and it was evident that the Lord had known what He was doing, and that NOT quitting had been the right choice, both times I'd faced that decision.

3 years later, I've fought hard for music therapy. When budget cuts hit, I fought the cuts. When they didn't look reversible, I started my own little fledgling business, sort of, with my employer's blessing. When that didn't look sustainable, I started looking at music therapy jobs out of state.

And now, after all of that, I've stopped the fight, at least for now. I've gotten a new job, still in the realm of people with disabilities, but outside of the music therapy field. I'm thankful to take a break from fighting, because it's been exhausting. I'm excited for many elements of the new job, but deeply sad at the same time. So strange to think my weeks will not be filled with singing and playing and the laughter of children.

But something keeps coming back to me...that convo with pastor Scott so many years ago. That piece of music he flashed in front of me in that meeting, that now is something I can play effortlessly, really WORSHIP with without spending all my energies on finding the right notes. Post-internship, I finally joined the worship band at church, and I'm able to serve the local church in a way I never would have had the confidence to do before. And really, if that was the only reason I went to college, it would be worth it.

And then I think of all the other amazing things that came out of college - the Christian community I discovered there, the deep friendships that formed, all the growing up that happened there. I'll use the education I received in my new job, for sure, and hopefully one day I'll be able to reenter the music therapy world in some capacity, but if not, college was surely still worth it. God surely knew what he was doing.

Someone Else's Words

2010-07-15T23:14:00.000-07:00

Over the past week, my battle for right thinking - to think rightly about things and to think about the RIGHT things - has been pretty intense. And what tends to happen when I start to loose control of my thought life is that I just let the reins go completely - like they're slipping out of my hands, and I just don't grab them fast enough. And a lot of this thinking has to do with my own desires and trying to figure out what GOD's desires are, and how to make mine line up with His, and how to think rightly on how to know and understand His will, and how to believe with all my heart in all of His promises...but in my weakness all of this just turns into worry and self-pity and fear, and even anger with this great God.

So, the other day I kind of lost it. And I was reading in the Psalms and was brought to tears as I read the following:

"The Lord is righteous in all His ways
and kind in all His works
The Lord is near to all who call on Him
to all who call on Him in truth
He fulfills the desire of those who fear Him
He also hears their cry and saves them
The Lord preserves all who love Him"
-Psalm 145:17-20a

I decided that rather than sit down and write a song about all my messy thoughts, I'd write a song using only these words - only divinely inspired, TRUE words. What a sweet process this was! Especially because songs pretty inevitably get stuck in my head, in a much more persistent way than words or sentences do. And so as I tried to gear up strength to face the rest of my day, I had TRUTH echoing in my brain - that the Lord is righteous, and kind, and near! That He fulfills desires and hears cries and saves and preserves His children. Oh, that this truth would be the constant soundtrack to my days!

Beauty Will Rise, part 2

2010-06-29T11:19:00.000-07:00

After almost a month, I'll continue my Steven Curtis Chapman series...though I'm tempted to ditch it and write about other things. Maybe those other things will make their way into this series anyway...

2nd song on the album is the same as the album name, "Beauty Will Rise." This song is incredible. Out of all of the songs on the album, I think it is the most powerful musically, and the lyrics are great as well. One part of the song has sort of become my theme over the last month or so:

"But buried deep beneath
All our broken dreams
We have this hope:
Out of these ashes,
Beauty will rise,
and we will dance among the ruins
We will see Him with our own eyes..."

I've kinda come out of the depths of my emotions, in recent weeks. But I sat there for awhile, under what really seemed to be the weight of all my broken dreams. And I've clung to this hope, that God and God alone can make something beautiful out of what looks so very messy and hard and hopeless.

There's this part of the song where the lyrics say,

"I can almost feel the hand of God reaching for my face,
to wipe the tears away, and say,
'It's time, to make everything NEW."

And at the word "new," there's this incredible instrumental build that has never failed to move me. And oh, how I'm so very eager to see this new something that God will create, and to see Him with my own eyes.

Ok, that's all for now...short and sweet :-)

Beauty Will Rise, part 1?

2010-06-02T10:12:00.000-07:00

So I came to a coffee shop with a friend today with the express purpose of blogging. I intended to bring my journal from my road trip and transfer and expand upon some of what I wrote during that journey...but I forgot to bring it along. Which brings me to plan B...blogging about my latest favorite cd.

2 years ago, Christian singer/songwriter Steven Curtis Chapman lost his daughter in a tragic accident. He didn't know if he'd ever return to the stage/studio...but then he ended up creating this amazing, heart-wrenching album, Beauty Will Rise. His songs are full of pain and heartbreak, but never without hope. Seems like my blog could, of late, take that as a theme - pain and heartbreak and striving for hope. So, needless to say, I relate well to this album; despite the fact that my recent losses have not included anyone's death, there are many of the same wrestlings with the Lord, and grief over things lost, and a struggling to bring the hope that lies deep within me up to the surface, to make it tangible.

So I'm going to write at least about part of the album, song by song...we'll see if this turns into a series...

1) Heaven is the Face

SCC looks forward to the day when he sees his little girl again in Heaven. I'm not sure what I think about counting on seeing people we love when we get to Heaven - I think we'll be pretty consumed w/worshiping Christ anyway. And I think SCC probably thinks that too...he even acknowledges that Heaven is going to be "so much more" than seeing his daughter but that right now, those specific desires are what his "heart is aching for." But my actual favorite part of this song is toward the end, where he lists off all the things that will be absent in Heaven - cancer and hunger and loneliness, etc. And he ends this list with:

"And there's no more goodbye
and no more 'not enough'
And there's no more enemy."

And nowhere else in the whole album does SCC talk about the enemy's role in his grieving process, and I'd be interested in knowing what he means exactly. But there's something in the way that he throws that line in and what he does with it musically at that point that makes me think that Satan has had a pretty active role in his attacks on this man. And oh! How I long for the day when there IS no more enemy - his lies have been so present in my own mind and heart over the last several months. And the battle is wearisome. But I know there is a victor, and I am His. Satan's attacks hurt immensely, and they incapacitate me for periods of time. But ultimately he will lose. And I take comfort from these words from 2 Peter 5:8-11:

"Be sober-minded; be watchful. Your adversary the devil prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour. Resist him, firm in your faith, knowing that the same kinds of suffering are being experienced by your brotherhood throughout the world. And after you have suffered a little while, the God of all grace, who has called you to his eternal glory in Christ, will himself restore, confirm, strengthen, and establish you. To him be the dominion forever and ever. Amen."

Amen!

musical musings

2010-05-11T10:25:00.000-07:00

Not much time before my next session, but wanted to post a couple things. First, the lyrics to a sweet, sweet song that we did at church this week. This one resonates so deeply with me and I'm sure with many others. I love when, as believers, we can sing honestly about sorrow and pain, but always tinged with hope.

Dear refuge of my weary soul,
On Thee, when sorrows rise
On Thee, when waves of trouble roll,
My fainting hope relies
To Thee I tell each rising grief,
For Thou alone canst heal
Thy Word can bring a sweet relief,
For every pain I feel

But oh! When gloomy doubts prevail,
I fear to call Thee mine
The springs of comfort seem to fail,
And all my hopes decline
Yet gracious God, where shall I flee?
Thou art my only trust
And still my soul would cleave to Thee
Though prostrate in the dust

Hast Thou not bid me seek Thy face,
And shall I seek in vain?
And can the ear of sovereign grace,
Be deaf when I complain?
No still the ear of sovereign grace,
Attends the mourner's prayer
Oh may I ever find access,
To breathe my sorrows there

Thy mercy seat is open still,
Here let my soul retreat
With humble hope attend Thy will,
And wait beneath Thy feet,
Thy mercy seat is open still,
Here let my soul retreat
With humble hope attend Thy will,
And wait beneath Thy feet

And second, my amusing playlist for my "journey to joy" that starts tomorrow. I had a bunch of cds picked out, including multiple cds of the following:

Jars of Clay (obviously)
Caedmon's Call
Andrew Peterson
Enfield

pretty noticeable trend...and definitely my favorite genre. But given the nature and timing of my little journey, I noticed a serious lack of belt-it-out kind of music, you know, the kind that gets out a little bit of angst. :-) So I added Alanis and Rent...and now I'm satisfied.

journey for joy

2010-05-08T11:06:00.000-07:00

"He who forgets the humming of the bees among the heather, the cooing of the wood-pigeons in the forest, the song of birds in the woods, the rippling of rills among the rushes, and the sighing of the wind among the pines, needs not wonder if his heart forgets to sing and his soul grows heavy." - Charles Spurgeon

I read this delightful little quote a few weeks ago, and it turned my plans to go on a little getaway to Colorado from a far-off possibility into an almost-definite plan. My last week, by the grace of God, has been infinitely lighter, happier, and easier than the many weeks before...but it still seems a vacation is most definitely in order. My job is one that is fantastically rewarding but also unbelievably draining. It is not a job that is easy to function in while my heart is weary and I'm caught up in my own needs, as I'm supposed to be helping meet the needs of kids. And with 2 pretty devastating events having happened in my life at almost the exact same time in March, I never took even a day to breathe or recover. When I set my date for leaving on my trip (this Wednesday!), it still seemed like the best possible attempt to grasp at any inkling of joy. Thankfully, God didn't wait for my departure before granting me joy. I have experienced joy again in recent days, and it tastes oh-so-sweet after so many weeks without it. My hope is that this joy will only be magnified and focused and purified as I get away from the messiness that is my life in Tempe and spend some time away. I'm calling it my "healing journey," always with a sort of embarassed smile on my face. Jesus is the Healer, and He can of course accomplish His healing however He sees fit. But I expect to spend some sweet time with Him as I drive through the deserts and into the pines, singing and praying and just drinking in His beautiful creation that screams His praises. My soul longs to see and hear and feel His beauty...Colorado, here I come!

Melody

2010-04-13T21:21:00.000-07:00

First, a preface. I realize that my blog is essentially putting my heart out on the table in a way many people wouldn't do. And the fact that I have it feeding to facebook makes it seem all the more "broadcast." My intent isn't to draw attention to myself, demand pity, seek approval, or anything else. I just feel like things that are created are that much more meaningful when shared. In one of the several "ideal lives" I've pictured recently, I would like to quit my job and just become an author/songwriter/composer and somehow make a living off of it. But until then...blogging it is.

That being said, I wrote a pretty intensely emotional song the other night. What I WON'T do is go into gory details about what brought me to the point of writing this song. But in the middle of band practice for our church on Sunday afternoon, I literally looked down at my hands and started thinking about how crazy it is that they still work the way they've worked for years and are still able to make music. While my mind and my heart and even my voice feel so different for all that's gone on in recent months, my hands still seem strong. So between practice and church, I scribbled some thoughts down in my journal. And when I got home that night, it became a song. I suppose for facebook/blogging purposes, it remains more or less a poem...

Rest is near impossible, peace is all but gone
Hope lies somewhere deep but has not recently been shown
The truths that once rang clear and loud I'm straining now to hear
It seems the only easy things are sorrow, now, and fear

But still eight fingers and two thumbs go on, just as before
They strike each note, with strength and grace quite lacking in my core

Make melody, I beg, while my heart and voice still break
Make melody to Him whose mighty grasp noone can shake
Make melody, and someday soon may voice and heart join in
with power that bespeaks a mighty victory over sin

The strength that now seems only to exist in wrist and hand
I know this strength, supplied by Christ, will one day help me stand
Help me stand again and know once more with all my heart
That God's unfailing grace, which has called me from the start
will once again bring faith and joy and peace and hope and rest
And that all in me that's broken is such only for my best

And just as notes make chords and chords together make a song
So will God make something of this journey, hard and long
And each step that I have taken still has not escaped His plan
And my life will be sweet music as it's guided by His hand.

Make melody, O Lord, of these stumbling, doubting steps
Make melody, My God, as you pull me from these depths
Make melody, and someday soon I'll join a heavenly choir
as I praise the mighty Savior who's refined me through this fire

unexpected voices

2010-03-29T10:36:00.000-07:00

Life's been rough. Real rough. 2010 thus far has been a process of God whittling away from me many things that I took much joy in - perhaps too much joy. I'm seeing where I've elevated things I treasure, like a relationship and a job that I love, to a place that only God should occupy. I will never suffer the eternal fires of Hell, because I have trusted in Christ, but I've been in the refining fire over the last couple months, and it burns intensely.

And in the midst of it all, I've desperately sought God's voice of comfort. And I've sought counsel from so many dear friends, and have received such sweet encouragement from family and roommates and church leaders and friends. And God has, at times, seemed quite silent, and that has been the hardest part. But He is a gracious God. And while I have not yet received my long-desired, "Thus saith the Lord to Krista: Do such and such at such and such a time, and such and such will happen in the future...", He has spoken in beautiful and unexpected ways. Some examples:

Two weeks ago, I taught Sunday school. I was beautifully distracted from my own distress as I led the kids through the account of Jesus' distress on the cross, and what it means for those of us who put our trust in Him. The kids were wonderfully responsive, and it warmed my heart. And at the end, several of the kids wanted to pray. I expected very general prayers or prayers related to what we'd just discussed, but one child prayed something I did not expect: "God, thank you that you give us all the things we need, and thank you that you don't give us the things that we just want but don't need." That little 6-year-old boy could not have known to prod my heart to thankfulness in this season, but God did know, and He spoke.

Last Sunday, I went to Romanian church in the morning. During a time of prayer, I just kept praying, Thank You, Lord, that you KNOW! He knows my heart, He knows my pain, He knows my sin, He knows my future. And He is good! This was what was on my heart. Later in the service, a man preached in Romanian about Jesus just before He raised Lazarus from the dead. And one thing the man emphasized was that God KNEW. God knew of Lazarus' death, He knew of the pain his family felt...and He waited, and He acted. The man preaching began to cry as He repeated over and over "God KNOWS!" And he reassured my aching heart yet again with the truth that just because God does not answer our prayers as we wish when we wish, this does not mean He doesn't know. God impressed this on my heart in prayer and then through this man's words and His own Word. And, once more, it was sweet to hear words of comfort in the language that God has graciously allowed me to learn over the last few years - there's something so different and wonderful about not just hearing truth in English.

Yesterday, I heard truth from a very unexpected source - myself several years ago. I was looking at old blog entries on my myspace blog (which I intended to delete years ago), searching for a quote I'd put on there from a book. And I found my own words from another really hard season in my life, when I was living in New York and doubting my ability to finish my internship or complete my degree, and was mourning the loss of a friend. And I spoke of how hard it was and how terrifying it was but how I'd been redeemed by my God and could rest in that. I was reassured yesterday not only by the truth that I'd spoken then, but by the fact that I'd spoken it. I've been, in recent weeks, frustrated by my seeming fickleness and inability to praise God with a joyful heart in trials, and there I was, doing just that, 3 years ago - praising God and speaking truth to myself and the people reading. And by God's grace, I will be there again, and I will look back at this period in years to come and see God's faithfulness and the way that He allowed me to persevere, and how somehow, in a way that only an omniscient and omnipotent God can devise, it will have served to benefit me and to glorify Him.

Be Still, My Soul

2010-03-13T13:04:00.000-08:00

Without going into details, let's just say the last few weeks of my life have been intensely challenging. Work stuff, relationship stuff...and just plain old being a grown-up when it gets exhausting. I find myself overjoyed at the new birth of my little nephew and yet so saddened and anxious about other areas of my life.

I was digging through our sheet music at my house the other day, trying to find chords for a song our church does that Garrett wants to learn. 2 of my roommates and myself have quite a random assortment of songs srewn in various places in the house, and during my search I came across the song, "Be Still, My Soul." It's an old hymn whose tune is familiar but whose words were mostly new to me, or at least had been forgotten long ago. But oh, what a sweet balm to a weary soul. So because I can't say it better, and because maybe someone reading this is struggling with a soul that just isn't still as well...here are the words:

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.

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.

Be still, my soul: when 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 sorrow and thy fears.
Be still, my soul: thy Jesus can repay
From His own fullness all He takes away.

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 blessèd we shall meet at last.

Be still, my soul: begin the song of praise
On earth, believing, to Thy Lord on high;
Acknowledge Him in all thy words and ways,
So shall He view thee with a well pleased eye.
Be still, my soul: the Sun of life divine
Through passing clouds shall but more brightly shine.

Remembering Blessings

2010-01-16T21:52:00.000-08:00

So as a preface, I realize it's been a LONG time since I blogged. There have been probably about a hundred bloggable thoughts and moments in recent months, and most of them so happy, and so I hate the fact that now I finally blog and it's about something not-so-happy. Life is so sweet right now for the most part, and God is so good and so faithful.

The things that usually best motivate me to blog are analogies that I notice in life. and this one may seem like a stretch but I'm going for it...

So on Wednesday night, I was over at Garrett's and we were having dinner and I was talking about how very aware I was that day of how much I love my job. That I always love my job deep down but don't always like it day-to-day and hour-to-hour. But that that day I just really loved it, and was really thankful for it, and recognized it for the blessing that it is...

A little bit later in the night, it rained. Of course I got excited, and we went out on the balcony and enjoyed a little ten-minute storm.

After we went inside, I checked my email. I got an email with the news that my pay would likely be cut by 50% (this news became official Friday), resulting in the strong possibility that I will have to leave this job that I love, or that it will at least change drastically. After I emailed my boss, and Garrett and I prayed and talked a bit, I commented that I wanted to go back and read my blogs from the last time this happened (February/March last year), so that I remembered more vividly that the whole experience was a blessing, that I came out of it really thankful for lessons learned and for the way I saw God provide in so many ways.

When I left that night, I walked outside and it smelled amazing, and everything was wet, and I remembered that it had rained. I'd already forgotten. I'd been so thankful for the rain when it happened, and things got distracting, and I forgot. And it just pointed to how quick I am to forget, and how much I have to work to remember blessings and the God who gives them so freely. I really was thankful for the events of last February and March, and yet my first response to an email like the one I got that night is anxiety. Let me not forget that the God who cared for me 11 months ago is no less committed to caring for me perfectly today, and that his care for me might best be expressed in this season by taking me through another trial to conform me more into the image of Himself.

Andrew Peterson gems

2009-11-11T09:20:00.000-08:00

I got a belated birthday present on Saturday - an Andrew Peterson cd from my sister. I get really excited about new cds - I'm completely NOT a part of the iTunes culture. I need to get a whole cd, sit down with it when I first get it, read all the lyrics, etc. It's like I'm already old-fashioned and I'm still in my twenties. Anyway, this one is everything I'd hoped it would be. Simple melodies, nothing ground-breaking musically, but sweet, God-honoring lyrics that have been a welcome soundtrack in an emotionally challenging week. Some excerpts:

from "Just as I Am" - about God's love:

"All of my life I've held on to this fear
These thistles and vines ensare and entwine
What flowers appeared
It's the fear that I'll fall one too many times
It's the fear that His love is no better than mine"

and from "Silence of God," a song about how hard it is when God seems silent:

"There's a statue of Jesus on a monastery knoll
in the hills of Kentucky, all quiet and cold
And He's kneeling in the garden, as silent as a stone
All his friends are sleeping and He's weeping all alone

And the man of all sorrows, He never forgot
What sorrow is carried by the hearts that He bought
So when the questions dissolve into the silence of God
The aching may remain, but the breaking does not"

and from "After the Last Tear Falls," a song that lists off all the many types of tragedy and hardship that will one day come to an end

"And in the end, the end is oceans and oceans of love and love again
We'll see how the tears that have fallen were caught in the palms
of the Giver of love and the Lover of all
And we'll look back on these tears as old tales..."

Songs like these make me excited about the many miles of driving that my job requires. Looks like today will be another windows-down, belting-it-out kind of day.

Same old, same old...

2009-10-20T14:32:00.000-07:00

One thing I love about my job is that it allows me to have long breaks in the middle of the day. Last week, I met a friend at my favorite coffee shop here in Ahwatukee. We had a couple hours to talk, and we covered a lot. She, like me, has an interest in doing mission work in Europe, and we could talk for hours on end about different places we've been, what we've experienced, what we hope to experience in the future, what we're learning while we wait, and how God is working through different people and places to accomplish His purposes. So last week we talked about these things and more, and for awhile it didn't seem like I was in the middle of a work day. My mind and heart were in far away places. I stopped by her house briefly before heading to work, and then as I drove away thought about what an interesting challenge it is to refocus on work itself after a few hours of thinking and talking about other things. I still had more than 5 hours of the "same old, same old" to deal with before the work day would end.

So I arrived at the house of my first afternoon kid. And as I walked down the stairs into the basement, where we have his therapy, I was struck by the fact that there really IS no same old, same old in my job. I can walk away from thinking of amazing things like the way that God is at work in people and in nations across the globe, and then I get to walk down the stairs and greet a little boy with Down Syndrome. And he says, "Hi, Krista!" and my heart is warmed. And as he eagerly runs over and sits down next to me at the keyboard, I'm reminded that my job is an incredible gift - that it keeps me thinking of amazing things - how God is at work in this little boy, in 30 other kids that I work with, how I get to be a part of seeing kids learn to talk, to walk, to listen, to express themselves, to interact in a meaningful way with other people. And as much as I long in many ways to move on to a next chapter in my life, this chapter is so, so sweet. My work exhausts me, but it is work that means a great deal, and it is work that reminds me daily of the goodness of my God and His unique workings in little lives.

And on that note, today's coffee break is over - time to get back to work. :-)

discontent, discipline, and the goodness of God

2009-10-06T15:22:00.000-07:00

Last night, my discontent slapped me in the face with such great intensity that I was pretty near being literally paralyzed by it. There were a couple factors that went into that, which I won't discuss publicly, but by about 9:45 I ended up just laying on my bed and staring into space, trying to pray but just feeling so distant, so frustrated. I was frustrated with myself for having put my hope in things other than Christ without having even realized it, AGAIN. And, being a sinner, I was frustrated with God, too, for not doing things in my timing, and for not keeping my heart stayed on Him as I'd asked him to.

I am a person who thrives on schedules. So while it was one of those moods where part of me just wanted to curl up and try to sleep and ignore the world and my regular routine, the larger part of me knew that ignoring my typical routine would only make me feel worse. The last part of my nightly routine is reading part of what I read in my English Bible in the morning, in Romanian. Our small group is going through Hebrews right now, and in the morning I'd read Hebrews 11-12. So I dug out my two Bibles and started to work through the translation of the first few verses of Hebrews 12, then ended up reading the whole chapter in English before I moved on to Romanian. Such a sweet chapter, and I wept as I meditated on the God who disciplines BECAUSE He loves. I was feeling "weary and fainthearted," and was counseled from God's own Word to consider the One who" endured from sinners such hostility against himself." My sin does cling so closely, but I am encouraged to lay it aside, look to Christ, and run this race with endurance.

Having read the chapter through in English, I read it then out loud to myself in Romanian. When I got to v. 6 the tears fell fresh. Something about the Romanian word for love for some reason hit me harder than the English word on this night. In Romanian, the first part of v. 6 reads, "Caci Domnul pedepseste pe cine-l iubeste" (For the Lord disciplines the one he loves). Pe cine-l iubeste - the one he loves. My identity as a sinner was so clear to me in the moments leading up to that one, and when I got there, I was so so sweetly reminded of my identity as a one whom the Lord loves! I don't think I have any Romanians reading my blog, so I'm sure no one else is affected by "pe cine-l iubeste" the way that I was, but let me just assure you that it is immensely sweet. Plus in Romanian this verse is full of rhymes, which makes it prime material for song lyrics or a poem in the near future...

Whether or not God ever sends me back to Romania, I continue to be immensely grateful for the gift of worshipping Him in a language other than my own. I think it's hard for English words to affect my heart rightly sometimes - the word love, after all, is one I use for such trivial things on a normal basis. But God used His Word to me in my beat-up Romanian Bible to touch a calloused heart with the assurance of His proimises. This discipline is fruitful discipline flowing from a God who loves sinful me - and I am able to endure because of the One who endured the cross on my behalf.

First Day of Fall

2009-09-22T10:10:00.000-07:00

I realized this morning that it was the first day of Fall, and that I hadn't planned for it. No, I don't mean switching out summer clothes for autumn ones or celebrating any kind of seasonal change. But for the last 5 years, I've spent at least a few minutes on the first day of fall at the cemetery, and today that isn't going to happen. Working in Ahwatukee all day and going to small group in Tempe after work doesn't leave any real opportunity to drive to central Mesa. But what I will do is re-post something I posted last fall about my time there and why I usually take that time:

On the first day of fall each year, I go to the city cemetery in my hometown. Nothing to do with the changing weather – it doesn’t change until at least October. But on the first day of fall in 1920, my grandmother was born. And in fall of 2003, she died. And so this is one of several landmarks during the year when I visit her grave, which she shares with my grandpa.
I’m not a person who believes in the mystical power of gravesites, or even in the dead looking down on me, or me having a chance to communicate with them while I’m there. But there is something about a cemetery. This one especially. It’s not well-groomed really- not a manicured lawn dotted with perfectly sculpted monuments. It’s old, and it has weeds sometimes, and it’s right in the middle of a not-so-nice part of town. But I love it. Somehow, ironically, there is life there. People come there and they sit by the graves of their loved ones. Some bring chairs, some bring books, some plan for a whole day. And unless there’s a funeral happening at the time, there isn’t that innate sense that you need to be quiet. And some people put balloons at the graves, not just flowers. And Happy Halloween signs, and birthday cards…
But I digress. When I go to the cemetery, it’s not for a long day of sitting. On this particular fall day, it’s much too hot to stay long anyway. I park my car and wander, nodding my respects to funeral-goers nearby and starting my search for the grave. I always remember that it’s just east of the entrance, and just north of a tree…but there are many trees and I always end up wandering. And then I find it, and I pause. Ingebrigtsen, Marjorie and Leonard. I’m here for both of them, really, it’s just that the birthday is my grandma’s. I make sure the ants won’t be too bothersome, then I tidy up a bit. Other times, I’ve brought flowers, but today I didn’t. I fluff out the fake flowers that someone else has brought before and turn my attention to the gravestone itself. It’s dusty – the lawn has apparently been mowed recently and little grass clippings have settled all around. I brush off the big ones with my hand, but that doesn’t take care of all the little bits that have landed in the engraving. My grandparents loved the Superstition Mountains – even moved here to Arizona because of them. They once had a cabin there that still fills the memories of everyone in the 2 generations above me. And so that was chosen as the design of their stone. A simple sketch of the outline of that dramatic desert mountain range, now filled with the tiniest bits of dead grass. I blow gently on each line to clear it, and then trace the names the same way. Now satisfied, I simply sit and think and pray. Not for a long time – these are thoughts and prayers that aren’t as gut-wrenching now as they once were. Now when I go it is more to remind myself of those times before – of everything that happened in the fall of 2003, of the largely unscarred life I left behind, of the doubts I overcame, of the daily mercy of God sustaining and refreshing my soul, even while I was trying my hardest to walk away from Him. They are things that need to be remembered and cannot be forgotten, things that have shaped me into who I am. And I dare not ever forget that it was hard but that God was there. And that the story’s not over yet and that God still has much to teach me.
I breathe my thanks to the God who was there, to the God who IS there. I breathe also a prayer for the family members who are still here, who still need the mercy of God to capture their hearts. And I pray that I would not grow weary. And I walk back to my car, as I watch the funeral-goers, and the lawn-chair-sitters, and I remember.

"Are Miraculous Gifts for Today" quotes

2009-09-06T23:22:00.000-07:00

Three favorite quotes from the authors' concluding statements. I really did like what all 4 men had to say, but these quotes in particular stood out to me:
"When God pours out his Spirit in power, believers respond in a variety of
ways. We need to be tolerant of one another rather than judgmental, and we
certainly should not limit God in ways that he has not limited himself. We
all know that the Bible lays down boundaries that we must not cross in the name
of spiritual unity; there can be no compromise, either explicitly by confession
or implicitly through association, on doctrines necessary for salvation.
But in the one true church, there should be a fundamental unity of the Spirit
that transcends all differences." - Douglas Oss

"Unity in the church has many dimensions and coming together around the
Scriptures in search of truth for the sake of God's work cannot help but
increase a sense of oneness, even when final agreement is not reached." - Robert
Saucy

"We did not agree on all points, but our dialogue helped us to
see that we shared a common heart. This recognition conditioned not only
the content of our dialogue but especially the attitude in which it was
pursued. Getting to know the heart of those with whom we differ and seeing
God's presence at work in them as well as oneself is a boon toward fruitful
dialogue...With all believers, I long for the day when all of God's people are
united. The presence of sin, however, will no doubt delay that reality
until the time of glorification. In the meantime we should all recognize
that divergent views are frequently the result of emphasizing certain aspects of
God's total truth. This emphasis may proceed beyond scriptural bounds to
exaggerated error at times, but it is helpful to recognize that the emphasis was
often initiated in search of a reality that the church needed to hear. In
the case of miraculous spiritual gifts, continuationists continually remind us
of the supernatural power and experiential aspects of our Christian faith.
Cessationists, on the other hand, stress that true Christianity rests on, and is
always to be evaluated by, the once-for-all delivered revelation of the
completed canonical Scripture. The church does not yet perceive the
correct relationship of these elements, but surely both emphases are to be
included in it." - Robert Saucy

on miraculous gifts

2009-09-01T11:31:00.000-07:00

A few months back, our small group was reading though 1st Corinthians (in the process of reading through the Bible in a couple years)When we got to the familiar section in chapters 12-14 about spiritual gifts, I was ready to dive in and somehow get to the conclusion that I already held about the role (or lack thereof) of certain of these gifts in the church today. But I couldn't do it. I dove in, alright, and I couldn't get past certain verses and come away with an unchanged perspective. When we discussed it in group, we didn't spend a lot of time there, and I wasn't entirely satisfied with how we ended it.

On top of this, for more than a year, I've been attending a Romanian church twice a month or so that, at least on paper, holds beliefs on almost the opposite side of the spectrum as my own church on these issues. Without looking into it much, I had decided that I could enjoy the fellowship and worship at that church without agreeing with every element of their doctrine. I've been thoroughly blessed and encouraged by the style of worship at that church and had never experienced anything there that brought me any significant discomfort, but I was pretty sure I wasn't going to let it change my doctrinal stance. But my 1st Corinthians study experience made my already wondering mind realize that I needed to look into this more, and do more than just ask someone to tell me what to think. A friend at church (thx Russ!) recommended a book, endorsed by our church elders, that laid out some of the basic positions on this topic. 4 different Biblical scholars wrote essays explaining/defending their position, and then each responded to each other.

So, several months ago, I began the endeavor of reading this book. Not exactly an easy read -full of incredibly complex lines of thought and words I'd never known before, but what an encouragement! Some of my own reactions:

-At the end of the day, my beliefs are just more moderate than they'd been a few months back. No drastic change, but a significant growth in understanding and well-thought conclusions. And still a certain amount of openness - every one of these men made a very good case.

-I realized how quick I am to judge other Christian beliefs and practices - how quick I am to assume that they are not Biblical simply because they are not what my church believes or does and my church is Biblical. I hadn't left room in my mind for the possibility that other people who love the word of God and cling to it as an absolute standard for church practice and personal holiness have simply come to different conclusions about certain things, and that those conclusions are not based on ignorance or blatant error.

And most of all, I was so very blessed to see the unity demonstrated by these 4 men (plus the editor, Wayne Grudem). At the beginning of the book and at the end, all areas of agreement were laid out. There are many! None believe that any miraculous gift is more important than the miracle of regeneration, when God changes the heart of a sinner and gives new life. None believe that a person must speak in tongues in order to prove that they possess the Holy Spirit. None believe that God has ceased to work miraculously. The list goes on... And ultimately, each man desires to see God worshipped in a way that honors Him and obeys His word.

I have to go back to work, but if time permits, I hope soon to post some sweet quotes from the book that point to this God-honoring unity around the Gospel.

What we Know

2009-08-19T11:32:00.000-07:00

Finally able to sit and think and blog at a coffee shop - daily paperwork as done as it can be for now, to-do list virtually empty, and 30 more minutes before going back to work. Seems like it's been forever...

I've been thinking a lot lately about perspective. My thoughts on this sort of sprung from a horrible day of work I had last week. On days when I'm not at my best, I lack a good deal of compassion when the kids are awful. On this particular day, it seemed they'd all conspired ahead of time to try my patience in every way. Just about everyone tantrumed. Several took off their clothes. Grumpiness abounded. And sometimes, when a child looks at me as if their world has been irreparably disrupted by my telling them, "sit in the CHAIR please," "the trampoline is for LATER," or "Let's play the DRUM!", I want to stare right back at them and say, "You don't have ANYTHING to complain about. Your life is easy. Your parents take care of your every need. Your biggest concern is getting what you want in every moment. You don't have bills to pay. You don't have a concept of Future with a capital F. A hard day for you is when you get a snack that isn't your favorite. You have a whole team of professionals whose job it is to help you in every way they can. Please don't scratch me in the face because I'm asking you to sit in a chair."

But then I start to think about how similar we really are. Yeah, I'm not likely to take off my clothes when I don't get what I want. I'm not going to throw myself on the floor and self-abuse because I'd rather be in a different room. But, similarly to these kids, I know what I want and am disappointed when I don't get it. My concerns go a little bit beyond what I want to eat, what I want to be doing in that exact moment, how much longer I'll be in a specific room doing what I'm told. Instead, I'm caught up in thinking about things like paying for a surgery I didn't think I'd have to pay for, how much I desire to be married, how I'm missing certain people and places and times, how I want to be better at my job that I am... My problems FEEL bigger than their problems SEEM to me...but my concept of the world is bigger, so it only makes sense. Surely when your comprehension of the world around you is still limited and developing, problems that seem small to other people seem insurmountable.

But really, it should go beyond that. I'm not just an adult without developmental disabilities, capable of understanding the world at an adult level. I'm a person changed by the gospel of Jesus Christ and filled with the Holy Spirit. With an understanding that my sins have been paid for by Christ's finished work on the cross, that He has risen again and reigns in Heaven, that His Spirit indwells me and allows me to live a life that increasingly looks like His, that I will live for eternity in His presence, in the absence of sin, sorrow, and fear...with that understanding, EVERY problem of this life should appear as insignificant as being given a xylophone instead of a drum. And my inner tantrums are really as unreasonable as these kids' outward ones.

Jars of Clay, part 3

2009-07-18T16:22:00.000-07:00

Ok I hope to finally finish this series today...there have been some seriously bloggable topics in the last few months but I knew I needed to finish this series before moving on...can't leave anything unfinished. With the more recent albums of Jars, I still have loved the music, but more so have enjoyed the way they continue to provide a soundtrack to my life.

In 2005, Jars of Clay released Redemption Songs, an album of old hymns redone in Jars of Clay style. Beautiful. Obviously, the lyrics can't be credited to Jars, but the combination of their excellent musicianship and this treasure trove of beautiful lyrics reflecting on the Savior made for a pretty incredible album. There wasn't anything in particular about 2005 that made this album matter to me; the songs were just a sweet return to basic truths about God and what He has accomplished. One of my favorite memories of this album is listening to it over and over last spring when my Romanian friend Vasi came to visit. We drove to Sedona, Flagstaff, and the Grand Canyon and back, singing sweet truths about our God all the way.

I wasn't a very good fan for a couple years - didn't really keep track of what the band was up to at all. In September 2006, I was driving to New York from Phoenix to start my internship. My dad was with me, and we heard a song on the radio that sounded to me like Jars of Clay but wasn't one I knew. Sure enough, the dj announced that it was a song from their new album, Good Monsters, which was released in stores that day. So my best memories of this album are the ones of trying to find it! Here we are, traveling across the US, and I decided that it was pretty important that I get my hands on this cd. My dad was really great about it - he made it his goal as much as mine, and we would choose cities to pull off in that seemed like they might have a decent music store close to the highway. I forget what city or even what state we finally found it in, but the search was half the fun. And then I was able to listen to this cd during the rest of that long journey and during the difficult months that lay ahead.

Christmas Songs, released in 2007, is not my favorite Jars cd or my favorite Christmas cd - I was a little disappointed at the number of secular songs on what I hoped would be a cd that would bring me to worship during the Christmas season. Still a good cd, though - and I was glad they finally did a Christmas one.

And finally, Long Fall Back to Earth. Just came out in April and I was ready for it. Not ready enough, though, to preorder the cd. I just figured that that morning I would go buy it at a store. I made some sad assumptions though. Apparently it's 2009, and apparently that means that you're primarily encouraged to buy music from iTunes or from amazon. I called around a few actual physical stores that morning with no luck. Finally, I found it at a Best Buy near where I was working that day. I overestimated how long I would be in the store, so once I came out with cd in hand, I sat in the parking lot listening. Then I got to the house of my next kiddo, and sat there listening to it for awhile, foolishly with the ignition off. And then....my battery died. The battery in my 2007, fully maintained, reliable Honda Civic died. Still don't know exactly how this happened, because the Honda guy and my dad both said that just listening to music without the car on for the limited time that I did shouldn't have caused a battery to just die. Honda checked everything out and ran a full test on the battery and the system and all and nothing really explained it. Because they took care of it for free, and because my dad was around to bail me out, and because I didn't even have to miss a session for it, I was able to laugh about the whole thing. Even if it didn't make sense, it seemed my Jars obsession had almost cost me a car battery.

Ok, that concludes my Jars of Clay series...even though I didn't even include lyrics in this part...anyway, from here on out, hopefully I'll blog more often than once every nine weeks...

Jars of Clay part 2

2009-05-12T10:23:00.000-07:00

So where I left off in the previous post, I was in 2003, in a period of grief and doubt and thankful that Jars of Clay provided a musical background for this season.

Their next album was Who We Are Instead. I think I've recently decided that this is my all-time favorite album of theirs. As I started to come out of the gloom of 2003 and see the way that God was redeeming my pain and my doubts, Jars of Clay provided the soundtrack for this as well. The opening stanza of the 1st song, "Sunny Days," is a prime example:

"Sunny days, keepin' the clouds away

I think we’re coming to a clearing and a brighter day
So far away and still I think they say,

The wait will make the heart grow stronger

or fonder, I can’t quite remember, anyway"

The entire song, "Faith Enough," is full of absolutely beautiful lyrics, including this part,

"Confused enough to know direction

Sun eclipsed enough to shine

Be still enough to finally tremble

See enough to know i'm blind,"

and this sweet line in the chorus:

"It's just enough to be strong in the broken places."

I could see already how God was using my brokenness from the previous months to strengthen me in a really beautiful way that only He could accomplish. The song, "I'm In the Way," was a sweet declaration that Christ wasn't letting me go. Had it been up to me in November of 2003, I would have abandoned my faith entirely. But it was clearly NOT up to me, I'd been redeemed, I'd been bought. Christ was in the way of my falling down. Another song on the album simply repeats the line, "Jesus' blood hasn't failed me yet," over and over. Sound boring? Listen to it, it's anything but.

My favorite song on the album, Jealous Kind, talks about when we choose sin over the selfless love of Christ, and how Christ has a jealous love for us when we start to run after things that cannot satisfy. The whole song is incredible; here's an example:

"Tryin' to jump away from rock that keeps on spreading

Solace in the shift of the sinking sand

I'd rather feel the pain all too familiar

Than be broken by a lover I don't understand."

Ok, enough about that album. I almost forgot about Furthermore. This album was mostly live and studio versions of previously released songs, but "The Valley Song," a new one, was incredible. Can't even pick my favorite part of it, but this one's a competitor:

"When death, like a gypsy, comes to steal what I love

I will still look to the heavens, I will still seek Your face

But I fear You aren't listening, because there are no words

Just a stillness and a hunger for a faith that assures"

I couldn't have said it better myself.

Ok so unfortunately, this is now part 2 of 3...

Jars of Clay - Part 1

2009-05-02T15:37:00.000-07:00

Jars of Clay released their latest album a couple weeks ago,which got me feeling all reminiscent about life (it doesn't take much) as I thought back on my history with Jars of Clay. They've been my favorite band since junior high, and they still hold that title even if I'm not 100% impressed with them all the time anymore. Just about all their albums hold special signifiance for me, and I'm always looking for excuses to share my favorite lyrics w/people. So this post may take awhile and come in more than 1 part, but I want to reflect on each of their albums and maybe some lyrics from each. If no one reads this, I don't mind - it's fun for me anyway...

Much Afraid - the first JOC cd I owned, and one of the first cds i owned, period. This is my favorite album to play on the piano these days, too. One of my favorite stanzas, from "Hymn:"

"Oh gaze of love so melt my pride, that I may in Your house but kneel
And in my brokenness to cry, spring worship unto Thee."

Jars of Clay - their self-titled album came out before I was on the scene. My sister had it and eventually gave it to me because I loved it so much. "Worlds Apart" probably contains some of the best lyrics ever written, like the following,

"I look beyond the empty cross Forgetting what my life has cost
And wipe away the crimson stains And dull the nails that still remain
More and more I need you now, I owe you more each passing hour
The battle between grace and pride I gave up not so long ago,"

but their "Love Song for a Savior" became sort of my theme song for a long time and still may hold the title of one of my favorite songs of all time (sorry for all the superlatives). The line, "Someday he'll call her and she will come running" often made me cry when I thought of my friend Katherine who suffered a traumatic brain injury as a teenager and would never again run in this life. This song was one of the theme songs of the Chrysalis retreat I went on in high school that made the gospel come alive in my heart and life. And, corny as this sounds in comparison, my high school boyfriend had the dj at a church dance play this song when he asked me to dance and to be his girlfriend. ha, the memories...

I really liked If I Left the Zoo but nothing stands out as life-changing with that one...

Enter The Eleventh Hour. When this album first came out, I enjoyed it but it wasn't my favorite. But when my grandparents died the following year and I questioned God in a way I never had before in the weeks and months that followed, this album was sweet medicine to my soul. I saw their concert during the week when my grandma had died, and my grandpa was on his death bed. They spoke about how being a believer is not always a happy, carefree existence - that life is hard and questions are real. This part of "Something Beautiful" still brings tears to my eyes as I reflect on how desperately I wanted to feel God's presence in a real way during that time:

What I get from my reflection isn't what I thought I'd see.
Give me reason to believe you'd never keep me incomplete.
Will you untie this loss of mine, it easily defines me.
Do you see it on my face. That all I can think about is
how long I've been waiting to feel you move me.

I think this is long enough for 1 blog. We'll leave it as part 1 of hopefully 2.

on the lighter side...

2009-04-07T12:08:00.000-07:00

In looking over my last few entries, I realized that I've been super-serious for awhile. Granted, there have been some super-serious events that have shaped what I've written about, and those super-serious events have not stopped. But my life is not all one dramatic life event after another (even if it sometimes feels that way!). So I think today I just want to mention a few random fun things. and i do mean random.

I was proposed to the other day by a 13-year-old boy who can't talk. In the middle of my music therapy session with him, right in the middle of a song, he got on one knee and slipped an imaginary ring on my right index finger. When I asked if he was proposing to me, he signed yes. He later reneacted the scene when I told his mom about it, to which his mom responded that she wasn't sure our relationship was going anywhere...I said no to him a second time, and he took it pretty well. I love my job.

I got to hang out at ASU a couple weeks ago on a Friday night, and it was pretty fantastic. My roommate Amanda and I watched some friends play volleyball, then went walking around campus with some friends of a friend, 2 international students from Libya. They tried to teach us Arabic and we had lots of random conversations about culture. I love hanging out with internationals - I need to do it more often! They didn't know their way around too well, and Amanda didn't go to ASU, so I had fun leading us on a random quest for coffee on campus, even though I was pretty sure there wasn't any available at 10pm on a Friday night.

I talked to my Romanian friend Razvan yesterday - heard his voice for the first time in almost 2 years! He's the one I affectionately refer to as my Romanian gangster friend, although he has corrected me by saying that gangsters are people who kill and he has never killed. Anyway, we had a really great chat yesterday - my headset on my computer finally cooperated so we could talk through yahoo messenger for free. It was so unreal to be able to just talk about life as if we didn't live across the world from each other, as if he didn't almost die last year (long story!), as if it was still 2007 and I'd just come home from Romania.

Ok, like I said, a random selection of happenings...and I'm not even going to round it out with a closing statement - gotta get back to work.

Isn't He good?

2009-03-25T10:20:00.000-07:00

This past weekend I took my long-awaited trip to Houston for my dear friend Michelle's wedding. As usual, God's timing proved impeccable. The tickets had been bought months earlier, but it was such a relief to be able to go with the job situation temporarily under control back at home. 3 days away from Arizona and from music therapy and from daily life were a welcome respite.

I want to describe every detail of the trip (don't worry, I won't!) but I'll start with 1 thing that was said at the rehearsal dinner on Friday, because it sort of set the theme for the whole weekend. One man (Rob's uncle?), after reflecting on God's sovereign hand in bringing Michelle and Rob together, simply said, "Isn't He good?" And for the rest of the weekend, I had that phrase, complete with the southern accent in which it was said, echoing in my mind. God is indeed good in the way he brought Michelle and Rob together. He is good in having redeemed each of them from their sins and freeing them to love Him first and most. He is good in demonstrating through Christ what it means to sacrifice, to become a servant, and so enabling them to better do that in their shared life together. He is good in having given them so many believing family members, a whole built-in community of lovers-of-God in which they can grow and thrive.

And He is good in having let Katie and me be a part of the weekend. I felt so spoiled the whole time. Michelle had graciously taken care of our lodging - a nice hotel near all of our destinations. We were invited to the rehearsal dinner, despite not being relatives and never having even met the groom or his family. On top of it all, Michelle gave us sweet and encouraging notes complete with Starbucks gift cards, as if she hadn't given us enough already! Her selfless love toward us over the weekend was a sweet reflection of Christ's selfless love toward her, her family, and ourselves.

And everything went incredibly smoothly. On-time flights, our first successful renting of a car, only minimal occurences of getting lost... We enjoyed all 3 of Michelle's favorite coffee shops, 1 each day, as well as some little low-key explorations of parks, monuments, neighborhoods, and the downtown area. We had an amazing time and hardly spent any money at all. I even got a free glass of wine just because the bartender was also from AZ and not-so-subtly covered our drinks. The weather was beyond belief, and Houston was I think at its very best. Everything was green and beautiful. Even the radio was on our side. Actually, the radio was overall pretty ridiculously awful, but there were 3 perfect moments that made it evident the trip was created with me in mind. When we first turned on our rental car, thrilled to be finally in Texas, the song on the radio was "God Bless Texas." We randomly heard John MacArthur preaching on limited atonement after dinner on Friday. And Saturday morning, there was a talk show on the radio about the importance of music in neurological disorders. Unreal.

I want to include pictures but will have to upload those later on so as not to be late to work. So in closing, God is good! He graciously chooses to give good gifts to his children, after already having given them the greatest gift imaginable - a relationship with Him! He is indeed worthy to be praised!

What really matters...

2009-03-13T20:25:00.000-07:00

I got another email from my employer last night, this one saying that our rates have returned to their former levels! A lawsuit against the State of Arizona was successful, and while the battle is far from over, the State was forced to immediately restore everything that was cut. They will fight it, of course, and we can't be confident that this is permanent, but it is still a reason to rejoice.

So it looks as though I'll be staying at my job and with the same kids and in my same house for at least another few weeks - praise God! And whether the last month was an isolated season or a taste of what is soon to come, I am genuinely thankful that it happened. Some of the many blessings that came out of it:

- a closer, more intimate walk with God. I've seen so many answered prayers, and have felt God's nearness in so many ways. Even in points of exhaustion, or maybe especially in them, I've been able to rejoice in His goodness

- a stronger belief in my ability to live without the little luxuries. My coffee shop attendance, in particular, has been significantly lower. Seems I'm actually able to stay awake without any caffeine at all!

- a more genuine belief in the value of what I do. How do you walk away from a job where little miracles happen all around you on a regular basis? I've treasured each of my sessions as my potential last with each of my kids, and it's been a pretty amazing journey.

-greather empathy. One roommate and 1 other good friend, among many others I'm aware of, have been jobless for some time. And while every situation is obviously unique, I have a certain understanding now that I couldn't have had before.

- practice in hospitality. I've never been a big fan of eating out, but I do love 1:1 conversations with friends, and in the past those were most often scheduled over a meal out or a coffee date at one of my favorite spots. My sudden financial predicament prompted me to invite people over instead. I actually cooked for people occasionally, had the blessing of other people coming over and cooking in our kitchen, and I finally learned how to make my own mochas for myself and my friends. And I enjoyed it!

-general growing up. I've been making all sorts of difficult decisions - turning down other jobs even while mine is in a sorry state, having to think about things like insurance above things like preference, having very formal conversations that I don't want to have. And God has given me peace in each of these things.

God has been so good. I had to fight to shepherd my heart in this whole situation, but I feel like I didn't even have to fight that hard. His goodness has been so consistently evident, and blessings have been in such abundance. We'll see how the future plays out, but one thing I know is that my God does not change. His faithfulness now will persist through whatever good or bad might come in upcoming weeks, months, and years. What a comfort! What a joy!

not where I thought I'd be...

2009-02-27T11:50:00.001-08:00

I got the email from my employer this morning, with the official new rate that I will be payed starting Monday. It is not a 54% cut but a 60% one. It's only a little worse than I expected, but still hard to see a cold, hard number that means that, unless something changes and fast, I need a new job.

This isn't where I thought I'd be. But it's not the first time that things have happened which I didn't expect, and God has faithfully proven in the past that he truly does work all things for my good. Had you asked me as a high schooler what my life would look like at age 25, I would probably have seen myself married with a kid by now. Had you asked me 5 years ago what my biggest passions would become, Romania would not even have been on the radar. Had you asked me 2 years ago what my career plan was, I would have told you that it was almost definitely not music therapy. A year and a half ago, I would have said that I was just going to work as a music therapist for a year at most and then move on.

It's really hard to look at the future right now. It's hard to think that music therapy may have been just a season, and a short one at that. And I still have 31 faces running through my mind - each of the kids that i work with each week. More than that, I have many more faces flashing before me - so many people have brought me to where I am this day, have kindled in me this passion for people with disabilities. I think of the kids at Tungland, where I've worked on and off for almost 7 years now. I think of the kids in the state orphanage in Romania. I think of the people at my internship site. Yesterday I went to a rally at the State Capitol, and I think of the faces of the strangers i saw there - all fighting to keep services that have made such a powerful difference in their lives and the lives of their loved ones. My hope is that if I do need to find a new job, it will still be in working with these people somehow, but I also know I can't be picky in this economy. It might be that this passion for these people will have to somehow be dormant for awhile, and that is a hard thought.

But I want to be able to look at the future with joy - to "laugh at the future" even, as the Proverbs 31 woman does. There are moments in my days when I DO have this outlook. But there are other moments when I weep. And my God is sovereign over my laughter and my tears. I think it is ok - right, even - to mourn the loss of this job, for it was given me by God and He has worked mightily in it to grow me and to serve others. But I love the Giver more than the gift, and I want that to be the truth that shines in my darkness - not only that I love the Giver, but that the Giver loves me (and loved me first!), and that this is reason for perfect peace.

Only by God's grace...still thankful

2009-02-20T10:48:00.000-08:00

This has been an intensely hard week. I got word on Saturday night via email that the state of Arizona is cutting the rate at which they pay music therapy providers by 54%. Essentially, this could remove the profession from the state of Arizona, and at the very least, it would make my life immensely more challenging financially and otherwise. The rate change is scheduled to go into effect March 1st.

My week, then, has consisted of trying to keep up a normal schedule while simultaneously doing all that i can to battle for my job. Every day, I provide therapy for a handful of kids whom I treasure more and more each day and dread the strong possibility of losing. After each session, I have an intense conversation with each parent telling them of what's happening and inviting them to join our battle to lessen the cut. Every night, in addition to my usual nightly work, I email out an assortment of attachments to concerned parents, colleagues, etc. I've been crying a lot, of course, and while I feel like I have a peace beyond understanding in my heart and mind most of the time, my body doesn't quite believe me and my immune system sort of went away.

But that's not the point. The point is that God is good! I have so many things to be immensely thankful for!

1) I am not without options - my parents live nearby and are gracious and generous. Moving out of my house and back with them (a very likely happening) will be sad but a real blessing at the same time.

2) I feel like a music therapist and am still happy about it! It's been great to interact more with other music therapists in this battle. And even greater is the fact that I have no regrets about the profession that I'm in - despite having sworn 2 years ago that I would not do it in the first place. If this is the end of this chapter, it has been more than worth it.

3) I have this job NOW. Next week could be the last week. But today is today and I get to be an important part of the lives of 31 kids and their families - and make music all day long!

4) I am valued by many families. The threat of losing my services has caused parents to tell me things that are really sweet to hear about the positive impact I've had, and I've had a huge response from them in joining this battle.

5)God has sustained me. I've been functioning with heightened emotions and responsibilities and diminished health, sleep and caffeine, and I have functioned well. I've only had 1 breakdown at an inappropriate time (during the hello song in a session) and have not felt nearly as exhausted as I would have expected.

6) I DO have peace. God prepared me for this event a few weeks ago, and while that doesn't mean it isn't hard, I am able to look at it rightly and look at God rightly in it. By God's grace, I am usually only sad - not angry, and usually not anxious. And by His grace, I believe in my mind AND my heart that His ways are perfect.

The Growing of a Thankful Heart

2009-01-30T21:30:00.000-08:00

A few weeks ago, following time spent with some genuinely thankful people from Romania, I commented to some friends that I want a thankful heart like that. I am generally pretty good at knowing I SHOULD be thankful, even at articulating that I am and half-heartedly believing that even when times are hard. But genuine thankfulness...that's not easy to come by.

God is so gracious!! Over the past few weeks, He has gently and graciously shown me areas in my life that I take for granted. Not in a way that leaves me feeling condemned or hopeless, but in a way that generates a true change in my heart that only His grace can accomplish. To minimize rambling, I'll try a list...

1) Monday, January 19th - I had a flat tire. Thankfully, it happened on a day when I work primarily in the clinic (rather than a typical day of driving house-to-house), and I was able to get to a Discount Tire without affecting my work schedule at all. And my forgetful heart remembered that having a car I can depend on is a luxury I haven't always had and that many people don't ever have.

2) Wednesday, January 14th - Sunday, January 25th - I was sick. Thankfully, it was nothing too incapacitating, but a sore throat, occasional headache, and mostly a nagging cough and loss of voice. Hard to sing all day without a voice, and frustrating to meet a bunch of people at my friend's wedding and sound like a smoker. But God used it to (once again) remind me that health is a gift from Him and is not to be taken for granted.

3) Tuesday, January 27th - I thought I might lose my job. This was a big one but kind of too complicated of a story to relay here. Someone in an office somewhere made a mistake, and I misinterpreted the events and wondered if the state was starting to look for excuses to cut services for my kids since the state's out of money. All of a sudden, I realized that while I've said that I'm trusting God with the future of my job (my parents keep asking me if I'm worried about losing it), when push came to shove I got scared. More importantly, though, I realized that I LOVE my job! The thought of losing even one of those kiddos over money made me tear up a little, and I realized just how thankful I am for a job that means so much and for each of those precious people in my life. 2 hours after the initial phone call that scared me, the whole issue was settled, having had nothing to do with money and everything to do with someone in an office messing up. So God taught me in 2 hours a lesson that He could have stretched out over weeks or months, or even through actually taking my job!

4) Thursday, January 29th - I pulled some sort of muscle in my back. Again, nothing debilitating but certainly uncomfortable, and it made sitting on the floor all day and lifting instruments and kids pretty hard. I realized that my agility, too, is something I take for granted - even in working with kids who don't have the physical freedom that I do.

5) Friday, January 30th - I saw Slumdog Millionaire. Sure, just a movie, but it seemed to me a perfect way to end these past few weeks. Movies like that always make me realize just how easy I have it here in my suburban american lifestyle. And, cynical as I am sometimes about the ethnocentrism of America and how many lessons we need to learn, I think I don't often stop and thank God for the blessings that we have here. I'm thankful that I haven't been part of a community pillaged and destroyed, haven't watched my loved ones murdered, haven't had to make horrific choices.

It's so evident that a thankful heart does not just HAPPEN. But God is a faithful and patient teacher, and I am learning.

How Great Thou Art

2009-01-11T19:42:00.000-08:00

I'm finally have the time and inspiration to write about my very bloggable trip to the Grand Canyon almost 2 weeks ago. I attempted it before and it just didn't flow...

I went just for the day, with a big group of people, all Romanian but 1. My friend Andrei, who lived in Romania until this year and who was a hired translator my first two times there and a kind translating friend in 07, now lives in Kentucky. He got married to an American girl named Samantha at the beginning of the month, and his parents, sisters, and friend were able to get visas less than 2 weeks ahead of time to come out for the wedding in Cali. Andrei and Sam were then accompanied on their honeymoon by this whole slew of loved ones, and I got to join the adventure for the Grand Canyon chapter. They were staying with Doru and Marta, Andrei's friends from home who are also my friends now from the Romanian church I attend every other week or so. So I met them at Doru and Marta's house early Saturday morning and we began our journey north.

my intro was so long that I feel the meat of this blog will be cheated...but here are some things that were amazing about the trip:

I was surrounded by Romanians! More so than I've felt since being in Romania, because unlike many of the Romanian Americans I worship with on Sundays, none of these had been in the states for more than a year or so, and for most it was their first time here. Romanian language was all around me, we ate Romanian food, talked about Romanian culture...I even watched Romanian tv and started reading a Romanian book once we returned to the house that night.

I found a kindred spirit in Andrei's wife. We'd never met before, but we had in common a love for Christ, and a love for Romania, and this gave us so much to talk about. She first experienced Romania via a short-term mission trip as I did, and has since fallen in love with the people, language, and culture. We both are working hard at learning the language but don't have it down yet, so we got to be confused together at times also.

I got to be on vacation. After a busy week of work and before an even busier one began, even 24 hours of vacation seemed heavenly. Our time at the Canyon was short and sweet, and when we got back into town, I was told plainly that I was to spend the night at the house instead of driving home to Tempe. So I got to enjoy a couple more meals with everyone and spend 1 night away from my normal life. I'll take what I can get!

I got to enjoy sweet fellowship and worship. Fellowship is such a sweet gift that God in his goodness gives to his children. I was able to connect with all these people I hardly know over our common love for Christ. And worship!... The culminating moment for me was when we got to the "watchtower," one of the viewpoints over the canyon. The whole group began to sing as we overlooked the Canyon (well, Samantha and I mostly listened since we didn't know the Romanian words). They sang "How Great Thou Art," and the only part I sang was the chorus, "Ce Mare Esti." He IS so great. The greatness of the Canyon was a stirring reminder of His eternality, His being so very unlike us, His majesty...the list goes on. And His greatness was that much more apparent as I was able to worship alongside those who had been saved in Romania by the same God that saved me here in Arizona. Truly, all the earth worships Him!

the best medicine

2009-01-03T09:28:00.000-08:00

Yesterday was just one of those days...I was in a mood, having trouble trusting God with my future, have trouble trusting God with the hectic day-to-day, and was basically just exhausted - physically, emotionally, spiritually. I spent my commute to my last session of the day crying my eyes out and just crying out to God.

I walked up to the door of the last house still wiping my eyes and composing myself. When I first set up my weekly schedule upon starting this job a year and a half ago, I purposely scheduled this kid as my last one on Friday. I've known him since long before I was a music therapist. Worked with him in a day program all through college, did respite care for him in the months leading up to moving to New York, and was thrilled to agree to drive a few miles out of my regular work area to welcome him onto my music therapy caseload when that time came. So scheduling him at the end of my work week was basically my reward for getting through a bunch of other sessions that at the time were still so new and difficult for me.

My relationship with this kid (we'll call him K) is so unique. When I met him as a 6-year-old, he was so difficult. He can't talk, and at the time had no formal system of communication except for a couple of signs. My first summer working with him consisted of a lot of him biting, kicking, screaming, hitting, etc. and a lot of me restraining him. But over the months and years, I learned him and he learned me. Seems what he needed most was someone to see that he COULD communicate and to help make that happen. He's 13 now, and we have lengthy conversations - me talking and signing and him signing back and making other gestures to help get his point across. We have inside jokes and lots of memories, and he has been so significant in developing ME as a therapist and just as a person who takes the time and energy to FIND someone.

Ok, back to yesterday. I showed up at K's house determined to hold myself together for the next hour. God had greater things in mind. Music therapy has always been super challenging for K - it's really hard for him to focus and sometimes both of us just wish we could go back to the old days of hanging out, dancing, jumping, watching movies. But yesterday it just worked. I wasn't quite as strict about sticking to a schedule, and his very specific goals were still addressed, but with a good deal of just playing surrounding them. He thinks I'm funny, and I think he's funnier, and we ended up cracking each other up. He actually fell backwards on the floor laughing so hard, and I almost joined him. We played our hearts out, sang our hearts out, and he ended up meeting his goals with more success than usual on top of it. I let him play my guitar on his lap (a privilege he literally begs me for on a regular basis) and he was remarkably gentle with it. This then earned him the privilege of dancing at the end. I cleared everything out of his way while I cleaned up, he chose his favorite beat on the piano keyboard, and he went nuts. His mom and I just enjoyed the show for awhile. I then agreed to jump with him (he loves jumping up and down more than any kid I know) if he would promise not to drive his family insane all night after getting so riled up. He pinky-swore, we jumped up and down a few times, then I eventually gathered my things and left.

Nothing in my circumstances changed between 5:15 and 6:15 yesterday evening, but my heart was 20 pounds lighter. Crazy how once in a while, the therapist receives therapy while trying to provide it. Crazy how in the midst of my sadness, God responded to my cry by providing joy in the simplest way. Something in that laughter, in that reckless music-making, in the fruit of 6 years of friendship, was used to refresh a hurting heart.

Metro!

2009-01-01T12:35:00.000-08:00

I could post a new years blog of sorts, with some kind of reflections or resolutions. But I'm not in the mood. Instead, I'm going to ramble about my latest obsession, the new Metro Light Rail in Phoenix!

I'd been waiting for this day for a few years, lame as that may sound. Now don't get me wrong - I have no expectation that the opening of a new mode of mass transit will suddenly transform suburban, sprawled Phoenix into the thriving urban environment that I so love in NYC. But even bringing a hint of that into my hometown is reason for excitement. Since my job involves driving from home to home in 5 different metro cities with a guitar, keyboard, and basket full of instruments, there won't be any practical advantage to ME with this new rail line, aside from getting downtown for arts events, baseball games, etc. But practicality is not always my primary concern.

On grand opening day, I went and explored the rail with Kendra, Pam, and Katie. We drove a few miles to the nearest stop to our house, parked there, and rode it into Phoenix. Kendra and Pam got off downtown and turned around, but Katie and I continued the adventure. We rode it to a great coffee shop just north of downtown, where we enjoyed coffee and conversation with my roommate Amanda. Then we turned around. We rode it beyond our original stop and into downtown Tempe, so that we could see the coolest part of the ride, the bridge over Tempe Town Lake. Then we turned around again and went back to our car. I've riden the rail again 3 of the last 4 days, again without much practical purpose.

I think my favorite thing about the Metro practically is the easy access to pedestrian-friendly downtown areas that have never been fun to drive and park in. But I love lots of other things about it, including:

-Mass transit for everyone! Phoenicians, particularly those in the middle and upper classes, are well-accustomed to driving private cars everywhere they go. Bus-riding, sadly, is predominantly an activity for those who have no alternative. I'll admit that even I have been too proud in the past to ride a city bus, and too scared to do so in some cases. This new light rail has generated excitement across class and race, and hopefully that will continue. It runs through at least 3 college campuses and to the core of downtown where there are lots of commuting businesspeople. All of a sudden, mass transit is the in thing.

-forced interaction with strangers. I've had so many conversations with random people in the last week. Hopefully, in the future, when the crowds have died down a bit and I'm not pressed up against these people in very awkward physical situations, these conversations can be deeper and can be used to glorify God in a lasting way. For now, I've mostly just enjoyed opportunities to be nice to people in little ways, to answer people's questions (as a valley native, Tempe resident, and Metro enthusiast), to hear people's (brief) stories, and to watch people interact with their kids/parents/grandparents/friends.

-like New York, but different. I actually heard someone say, amid a ridiculously thick crowd on a Bowl Game- bound train yesterday, "New York has nothing on this." It actually WAS busier than any train I remember being on in New York, including a rush hour train into Times Square on a Monday morning and trains heading to the Thanksgiving Day Parade. The system here is of course only a fraction of the system there, and is still a novelty here, and many other factors contribute. But it was fun to feel a little bit of that craziness. And there are 3 things, at least, that I like MORE so far about the Phoenix Metro than about the subways in NYC:

1) I intuitively know my way around. Whereas in New York, I eventually learned certain lines pretty well and could get my bearings pretty quickly, here it takes no thought. Phoenix is clearly THAT way, Mesa is clearly THAT way. Being aboveground and in a city where you can actually see the sky and some mountains is helpful too.

2) the natural world. Again, being aboveground helps. But Phoenix is really great in that we have mountains in the middle of our city. The light rail goes right past a "butte," to be accurate, commonly known as "A Mountain" because of the A for ASU that is proudly displayed partway up. And I mean RIGHT by it. I watched a little bird pecking up dust under a bush there, watched people embarking on the trail up the mountain, etc. Even on the aboveground portions of metro transit in New York, you won't see that. And mountains are clearly visible from almost the whole train ride. A clear view of the sky for the majority of the ride is nice too.

3) People don't yet ignore each other completely. I'll admit, I've found myself tempted to assume the New Yorker attitude of looking straight ahead, exuding (false, at times) confidence, and only smiling when I can't help myself. But, at least right now, that's not the Arizona way. Granted, most of the passengers so far have been tourists, not commuters, and they're on an adventure, not going to work. But I'd like to think that we'll add a little west coast warmth to the east coast mass transit idea.

Ok, when I said rambling, I meant it. I invite any local readers to embrace the light rail...and call me when you do it, because I love it. And if you aren't local and plan on visiting anytime soon, maybe you will find Phoenix just a little more inviting with its new addition.

Year in Review

2008-12-15T15:13:00.000-08:00

So I decided that I would combine my desire to experiment with putting pictures on here and my desire to review my year. So...I picked my favorite picture from each month of 2008. Some I picked for purely photographic value, some for nostalgic value, some for both, some for neither. Anyway...let's begin.

January: Sedona, AZ

On New Years Day I took a trip up north with Ashley, Katie, and Amanda to do our favorite hiking trail near Sedona, which we've done periodically since high school. It was a beautiful winter wonderland, and I was actually pretty excited to be back in the kind of cold I hadn't been in since New York. The creek that we've gone swimming in before was completely frozen over, and we had fun testing its strength. Here they are in the middle of the creek.

February: Tempe, AZ

When my friend Jeremy came back to Tempe with his wife Tracy for a visit, it made for a lovely little reunion of college friends. For the first time in a long time, all of the members of my original church small group from early college were under one roof. Cassidy, Matt, me, Kiki, Jacob, Jeremy, Nate, and George. God used this group of people to encourage, edify, and entertain me in the beginnings of my adult life. He still uses them in my life today, but not usually all at once.

March: Tucson, AZ

There are hundreds of pictures from March 15th, my sister's wedding day, but I picked my favorite of the ones from my own camera. My cousin's daughter Chloe was the flower girl, and because of an accident on the I-10, she was almost late for the wedding. This was of course a source of stress for everyone involved, and it was such a relief when she finally showed up. Her mom had done her hair in the back of their car on the way into town, and you'd never guess how frazzled everyone had been. She looked amazing, but she wouldn't smile when she first arrived. I made it a personal goal to get her to do so - and succeeded!

For the month of April, I encounter a problem with this blog idea - I didn't take any pictures. So instead here's a picture (taken in June) of my friend and roommate Pam, who was the top quote-getter in April. Her quotes that month were:

"I was going to take a shower, but then I remembered the child life gadget."
"I maybe should only eat purple goldfish once a day."

"I guess she assumed we were at home - you know, not out on the streets with a popsicle."

"Oh my gosh, I was kind of a player."

May: Grand Canyon, AZ

This was another month with many pictures, including a ton of the Grand Canyon at sunrise, which I think every person in the US should try to see before they die. But since one of those pictures is already the picture at the top of this blog, I picked this one instead. My Romanian friend Vasi was visiting for a long weekend. I met Vasi in Romania my first year there - he was one of our translators. It was really bizarre for me to have a part of that world here with me in my world. Anyway, this pic was taken on our short hike partway into the Canyon.

June: Palm Springs, CA

I went to Resolved Conference in June with about half of my church. This was my 3rd time attending, and as usual, it was full of really impactful sermons and sweet worship. Fellowship was a lot of fun, too. But since impactful sermons and sweet worship can't be captured on film, and the fellowship pictures are mostly just typical pictures of people hanging out, I decided to go with this one. The conference was in Palm Springs this year, which was unfortunate because it was nowhere near the ocean and was 115 degrees. But the mountains nearby were pretty incredible, and I love it when I can capture something beautiful in the foreground. This pic was taken from right outside the conference center.

July: Coronado Beach, CA

I took the annual trek to San Diego with my mom and sister to visit my great aunt. We went 4th of July weekend this year. On the 4th of July itself, my mom decided to stay at my aunt's house - it gave them a chance to catch up and to look at photo album after photo album. My sister and I journeyed out on our own to Coronado Island to pay the beach a quick visit. Little did we know there was a parade there that day, and parking was impossible. It made for a really fun adventure with my sister though - some quality sister time that we hadn't had since her wedding. And having to walk for a long time to get to the beach was really no problem at all - beautiful weather, beautiful scenery, and everything all decked out with patriotic spirit. This is my favorite picture from that little journey.

August: Harris, NY

My trip to New York was everything I hoped it would be. I got my fix of both New York City and Sullivan County, where I'd finished my internship last year. I spent time with lots of dear friends in both places and had such a welcome break from life here. This picture was taken at our intern reunion. These are the 3 girls I went through the internship with, who are now dear friends. And Conio was our director - so nice to know him now as a friend only and not someone I feel the need to impress and please.

September: Mogollon Rim, AZ
One hot weekend in September, I escaped the Phoenix heat with a group of friends and went up north. The group that scouted out the campsite did so in the dark, and then they woke up in the morning to this view, just a few steps away from where they'd pitched their tent. If you look carefully, you can see Cassidy standing out there on the edge. Anyway, by the time i got there, it was late afternoon. Camp was already set up, and I got to simply enjoy the view and the company. We got to watch the sun both set and rise from this amazing spot and enjoy sweet fellowship and time out of the desert.

October: Sedona, AZ

Katie and I decided that since Phoenix was still pretending it was summer, we would need to go find fall for ourselves. We drove up to Sedona for the day and had a lovely time enjoying cooler weather and changing leaves. We found a little trail that led us to part of the Oak Creek that we'd never seen before, and we had fun exploring and picture-taking.

November: Mesa, AZ

Not many people's Thanksgiving celebrations get to include romping in green grass and picking dandelions - sometimes I'm glad I live where I do. After dinner, I took my cousin's kids across the street to the park. They are all naturals at posing for the camera, and it was fun to see their pure joy at just being outside. They made wishes over and over again and blew enough dandelion seeds to prepare us for the next harvest - maybe Christmas Eve?

December: Phoenix, AZ

Every year, the Phoenix Zoo decorates with millions of Christmas lights. It's a really fun excuse for us Phoenecians to get dressed up in warm clothes and do something unique. A group of friends from church went, along with some of our friends, and their friends...it turned into a very random but fun assortment of people. I love this picture despite not really knowing some of the people in it.

Some old poetic creations...

2008-12-06T20:27:00.000-08:00

I hesitate to call these poems, mostly because I don't consider myself to be a poet. One of these once became a song but the chords have been lost along the way and didn't add much in the first place. I found both of these in a journal from 2005, although one had been written before and this was a rewrite. I'd been looking for these writings for awhile and had lost track of them, and I came across them today while attacking the disaster that is my closet.

The first was written in the aftermath of my grandparents' car accident in 2003, an event which led to a period of unrepentant sin in my life and a lot of questions. It's called Intersections:

Where Indian School met 22nd Street,
my Granny and Grandpa their fate would meet
In our family album we'd turn a new leaf,
for soon we would find ourselves dealing with grief

Where 38th St. met with Oak,
my fragile heart collapsed and broke
I hated You, I yelled and cried,
In Your promise to comfort me, You had lied.

Where Vista Del Cerro met Dorsey Lane
My heart became numb with pain
I knew what was needed to make things right
but was too weak to run and too tired to fight.

Where Mill Avenue met with Baseline
a dear friend and I met to catch up and dine.
I warily told her of my fall
"Too tired to run?" she said, "Then crawl."

So where Forest Ave. met Gammage Parkway,
I know I will always remember the day,
I crawled back to You, cuddled up as your child
and remembered how I came to be reconciled

For where wood met wood upon a hill,
my heart will remember still
You died to pay a sinner's fine
and Your heart intersected mine

This intersection beats them all,
You saved me when I deserved to fall
The price you paid upon that cross
Speaks louder than any tale of loss.

I did repent at that time, but still struggled with a lot of questions for a really long time. Not so much, "Why did my grandparents have to die?" but "Why am I not feeling the presence of God right now?" "Why don't I have answers for my unbelieving family members?" "Why do I have to feel alone in this?"

The 2nd one was written later, after that period too had also come to an end, or nearly had. After months of heaviness, there was a beautiful week in Rocky Point, Mexico, where I'd gone for a Spring Break mission trip. Walking and praying on the beach with a good friend was sweet medicine to a thirsty soul. then there was this really cool moment where we were swimming with dolphins...and nobody had their camera on them. I remember talking to my friend later and we decided that that moment was meant to be so special that we couldn't capture it. I also had the opportunity to simply float in the ocean. Anyway, I reflect on that trip and the months leading up to it in the following, called Tears

I will not let you know that I am holding you right now
You have to understand that I must help you grow somehow
I promise you that one day you will count as joy this trial
but until then I have to let you miss Me for awhile

My face will not be clear to you, your answers will not come
I'm watching you right now, and you're wondering why I'm dumb
I see your tears, my daughter, and I will not dry them yet,
But I'll count them, and I'll do wonders with your tears that I collect

You're driving now, it's raining, and the tears have filled your eyes
You don't know where you're going, you're half-hoping that you'll die
There is work still left to do for you, though, lives still left to touch
and if I made this struggle easy, then it wouldn't mean as much

It's months later now, I see you've found Me faithful yet again
And you see now, precious child, what I blinded you to then
Can you hurt with those who hurt now? Can you grieve with those who grieve?
Can you even understand why some just simply can't believe?

You are now a little humbler, cling to me a bit more tightly
I've done this that, now that it's through, you shine a bit more brightly
So lets take a trip, just Me and you - My love's what matters most
Let's take a trip, we'll spend some time together on the coast

Those tears that I collected, I have cast into the sea
Come ride the waves, supported by Me fully, rest in Me
Here's a moment you can't capture on your film or with a pen
A moment in My presence, which is where you've always been.

Ok thank for reading, if anyone got this far. Sorry for the extreme length of this blog...and this is me restraining myself. :-)

Well said,....Jesus

2008-11-23T19:06:00.000-08:00

I am always really excited when I hear or read a quote or song lyric that is well-written and thought-provoking. My favorite artists are Jars of Clay and Caedmons Call, because of their music but also because of their way with words. I love when people can somehow speak of something, whether ordinary or extraordinary, in a unique way, and I especially like when I can relate well to what they've said. When I'm reading books, I always have my eye open for that quote that says beautifully what I can only say commonly.

I don't often approach scripture with that same eye. The Bible is the Word of God, and I certainly seek to submit myself to it, come humbly before it to learn of my God, and apply its truths to my life. But I think what I lack many times is that freshness with which I approach new songs, new books. I've read every word in the Bible before, and while I truly believe that I can learn something new each time I open its pages, the sinful part of me can almost become casual in my reading of it because it isn't new to me.

My small group at church has just started going through the gospels, and this danger is greatest here. So many of the stories of Jesus have become very familiar even to those who don't have a relationship with Him or regularly read His word. And for those of us in a Bible-teaching church, this familiarity is even greater.

Today, though, God graciously opened my eyes to His own words, the words of Jesus, some very familiar words of Jesus, and I saw them as if for the first time. I read them and thought, "what a great quote! That speaks to my condition! That says in a beautiful way what I could only say commonly! The words were these:

"Everyone then who hears these words of mine and does them will be like a wise man who built his house on the rock. And the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house, but it did not fall, because it had been founded on the rock." - Matthew 7:24-25

A"nd the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house..." How exhausting!! How real! What a true statement about my condition, and what a calming reassurance - "It had been founded on the rock."

Reading on in Matthew, I see that I was not the only one moved by these words. The crowds were astonished, too, because they saw that he had authority. Obviously, these words take an a far greater weight than Jars of Clay, Caedmons Call, or my favorite authors' words do. The Creator of the universe, the Almighty God spoke them! And he spoke them well!

The uncertainties of my life have been burdensome this week, and it's easy to question a great many things. I can feel that rain, those floods, those winds...but I can also feel that rock. By His grace, this house will not fall.

Look out, Arizona!

2008-11-23T11:13:00.000-08:00

As usual, lots of stuff on my mind, but this is another one of those days where I don't feel quite ready to write any of it out. So I'll opt instead for what made me laugh today...

Our weather has been really warm lately, up in the eighties most of the week and coming close to record heat for this time of year. It's gotten a little bit ridiculous - many of us girls were wearing tank tops at some friends' house last night and the fan was running, and Thanksgiving is right around the corner. I don't mind terribly, and LOVE the ability to be out and about outside when much of the country is icy and snowy. I walked to a coffee shop this morning in a short-sleeved shirt, jeans, and flip-flops and ordered my customary iced mocha while cooling off from my walk. Such is the life of a Phoenician. I do remember fondly my time living in New York, where checking the weather was important - figuring out if it was supposed to snow and how much, preparing for possible snow days and altered schedules and leaving extra time to drive on icy streets. Checking the weather here is not usually quite as crucial but I do it anyway.

So today I got on weather.com and was surprised to see a "special weather comment" under the "local weather alert" heading for the greater Phoenix area. I read the following:

A SIGNIFICANT CHANGE IN THE OVERALL WEATHER PATTERN WILL TAKE PLACE BY THE MIDDLE OF THIS NEW WEEK. A SERIES OF LOW PRESSURE SYSTEMS WILL... GIVE US AN INCREASING CHANCE OF RAINFALL.

ALTHOUGH THE EXACT TIMING OF THE MAIN PRECIPITATION EVENT IS STILL UNCLEAR AT PRESENT... IT APPEARS LIKE WEDNESDAY INTO THANKSGIVING DAY APPEAR TO HAVE THE BEST CHANCES FOR SIGNIFICANT RAIN... WITH ANOTHER THREAT OF RAINFALL BY THE WEEKEND. IN ADDITION... IT WILL TURN QUITE A BIT COOLER... WITH MAXIMUM TEMPERATURES BY THANKSGIVING DAY EXPECTED TO BE ONLY IN THE UPPER 60S TO LOWER 70S IN THE WARMEST DESERTS.

I literally laughed out loud. I love how they call it a "main precipitation event" and how the great climax of the warning is that by Thanksgiving, temperatures may only be in the 60s and 70s. BRRR! Will we ever be able to handle being only 40 degrees warmer than the rest of the country?? It's like someone at the weather service felt bad for us over here because we never get any weather warnings, and they gave us one and made it sound as ominous as such pleasant weather can sound.

Ok, well maybe my next post will be a little more profound...

Te iubesc, O Domnul meu...

2008-11-16T20:09:00.000-08:00

This is one of those nights where I am thinking about a great many things, but I'll try to focus in on one theme and get to a coherent point...

Yesterday, I went with some friends to a homeless shelter in downtown Phoenix. We gave burritos to people and talked to them about God. Some conversations were better than others, but one was particularly intriguing. When asked what he knew about the gospel, this guy responded that most churches are not teaching people the basics. I had certain assumptions about where he was going with this and thought this might be a point of agreement (I think many churches do NOT teach people the basics). I was thrown for a loop when he said, "For instance, the letter J..." He went on to talk about the fact that Jesus' name in the original language is not Jesus at all, that the letter J didn't come into existence until 500 years ago, and that if we are praying to Jesus, our prayers will not be answered because that is not His name. No matter what we said, it was clear that he was stuck on this point. I was blown away. To me, it is so obvious that a God who intends to call some from every tribe, tongue, and nation, would not be bothered by a language "barrier," clearly not a barrier to Him. I even expressed to this man my own joy at being called a Romanian version of my name while in Romania - that this in no way changed who I was but seemed to immerse me more deeply into the culture I was in. This man's mind was unchanged, however, and he begged us NOT to pray for him when we finally walked away.

Tonight, I went to Apele Vii - the Romanian church I attend a couple times a month. I was very encouraged by every part of the service and thrilled that despite an exhausting day I was able to follow the Romanian sermon more successfully than usual. The part that most affected my heart, though, was while we were singing. It was a song in Romanian that I didn't know but mostly understood. The last line, which we sang repeatedly, was "Te iubesc, O Domnul meu," which means, "I love you, O my Lord." I was struck by the miracle that it is that I can sing those words, for several reasons. First of all, I was born a sinner and was incapable of loving God. He rescued me from my pursuit of sin and ultimately of hell, and he gave me a heart that is now able to love Him. Secondly, he is MY Lord. What right have I do have any sort of claim on the creator of the universe, a perfectly holy and righteous God? Only the right given me by the death of Christ on the cross, as he bore the wrath of God on my behalf so that I could be called His child. And on top of all of that, I am able to address Him as Domnul and know that the Lord hears my voice, understands that name, and responds to that worship. And I can know that those same things were true earlier in the day, when I praised Him in English. He doesn't only identify with blood descendants of Abraham, He doesn't only identify Himself as a God of the Hebrews and respond only to a Hebrew name. Instead, an American, English-speaking girl is able to worship Him alongside Romanian believers, and to have confidence that the blood that was spilt was not spilt for only one people group and was not affected by the creation of the letter J. Praise God!

Archive: October 17th, 2008

2008-11-13T13:09:00.000-08:00

If I wrote a book...

I think I would love to write a book one day. My roommate Pam has the same thought, and lately we've been "authoring" together. I don't really know what my book would be about if I wrote one but the other day I just started writing about a day at the cemetery. This then turned into the beginnings of the story of my grandparents' death and how it affected me, but the first page is my favorite. And if I write a book, and if it happens to be a story of my life, this might be in it. But for now it will just become a blog:
On the first day of fall each year, I go to the city cemetery in my hometown. Nothing to do with the changing weather – it doesn't change until at least October. But on the first day of fall in 1920, my grandmother was born. And in fall of 2003, she died. And so this is one of several landmarks during the year when I visit her grave, which she shares with my grandpa.
I'm not a person who believes in the mystical power of gravesites, or even in the dead looking down on me, or me having a chance to communicate with them while I'm there. But there is something about a cemetery. This one especially. It's not well-groomed really- not a manicured lawn dotted with perfectly sculpted monuments. It's old, and it has weeds sometimes, and it's right in the middle of a not-so-nice part of town. But I love it. Somehow, ironically, there is life there. People come there and they sit by the graves of their loved ones. Some bring chairs, some bring books, some plan for a whole day. And unless there's a funeral happening at the time, there isn't that innate sense that you need to be quiet. And some people put balloons at the graves, not just flowers. And Happy Halloween signs, and birthday cards…
But I digress. When I go to the cemetery, it's not for a long day of sitting. On this particular fall day, it's much too hot to stay long anyway. I park my car and wander, nodding my respects to funeral-goers nearby and starting my search for the grave. I always remember that it's just east of the entrance, and just north of a tree…but there are many trees and I always end up wandering. And then I find it, and I pause. Ingebrigtsen, Marjorie and Leonard. I'm here for both of them, really, it's just that the birthday is my grandma's. I make sure the ants won't be too bothersome, then I tidy up a bit. Other times, I've brought flowers, but today I didn't. I fluff out the fake flowers that someone else has brought before and turn my attention to the gravestone itself. It's dusty – the lawn has apparently been mowed recently and little grass clippings have settled all around. I brush off the big ones with my hand, but that doesn't take care of all the little bits that have landed in the engraving. My grandparents loved the Superstition Mountains – even moved here to Arizona because of them. They once had a cabin there that still fills the memories of everyone in the 2 generations above me. And so that was chosen as the design of their stone. A simple sketch of the outline of that dramatic desert mountain range, now filled with the tiniest bits of dead grass. I blow gently on each line to clear it, and then trace the names the same way. Now satisfied, I simply sit and think and pray. Not for a long time – these are thoughts and prayers that aren't as gut-wrenching now as they once were. Now when I go it is more to remind myself of those times before – of everything that happened in the fall of 2003, of the largely unscarred life I left behind, of the doubts I overcame, of the daily mercy of God sustaining and refreshing my soul, even while I was trying my hardest to walk away from Him. They are things that need to be remembered and cannot be forgotten, things that have shaped me into who I am. And I dare not ever forget that it was hard but that God was there. And that the story's not over yet and that God still has much to teach me.
I breathe my thanks to the God who was there, to the God who IS there. I breathe also a prayer for the family members who are still here, who still need the mercy of God to capture their hearts. And I pray that I would not grow weary. And I walk back to my car, as I watch the funeral-goers, and the lawn-chair-sitters, and I remember.

Archive: September 17th, 2008

2008-11-13T13:06:00.000-08:00

Kids are amazing

After many weeks of not blogging, I finally have a night with both inspiration and time on my hands. I actually have a lot I want to write about, but first i'm just going to combine a few kid stories...
So I've started, in my plethora of free time, to volunteer with a tutoring club in South Phoenix. It's a really cool program and I wish I was able to committ more time and energy to it, but for now I'm just going a couple of times a month for less than an hour. Anyway, it takes place in a Habitat for Humanity neighborhood, so all of the kids live close. On Monday, my roommate Amanda and I went to walk a little girl home - I think she's 9. We asked a guy to go with us for safety, and he came along but said the neighborhood wasn't anything to worry about. To which the little girl very nonchalantly answered, "There are drive-bys sometimes." She went on to tell us that the last time there was a drive-by, she got sick and had to stay home from school. Turns out she was so scared from the experience that she threw up. The part that really broke my heart though was what followed. She said, "usually when there's drive-bys, I sleep through them." No little girl should be able to start a sentence with that preface - "usually when there's drive-bys." And she didn't say anything in a way that invited pity or attention - she was very matter-of-fact about the whole thing and seems to be a happy, well-adjusted little girl despite the terror that regularly plagues her neighborhood.
Another awesome kid: one of my music therapy kids. This kid is 12 years old and has autism. You'd never know it to see him, talk to him, etc. - I only believe the diagnosis based on reports from his parents. Anyway, he is one of the coolest kids i know. He's got all sorts of interests and seems to really care about people. Case in point: He just told me today that he's come up with a fundraising idea for his local YMCA, where he spends hours on end volunteering each week. His idea is a basketball shoot-a-thon, and he wants to invite other kids with autism to participate. It is so rare for any 12-year-old kid to take this kind of initiative in helping other people, and his placement on the autism spectrum only points to the fact that the autism spectrum is full of kids who are wrongly stereotyped all the time.
My third kid story deals with several different kids but more so with my thought processes. It may not seem like a kid story at first, but wait for it...Ok, so I've gotten caught up in the personal lives of politicians these last few weeks, along with many other millions of Americans I'm sure. And I'll admit to having googled Trig Palin, Sarah's youngest son, who has Down Syndrome. And in this process, I saw a link to an article that claimed that 90 to 95% of pregnancies in the U.S. with a Down Syndrome diagnosis are aborted. My heart breaks over so many lives lost. It also breaks because of the huge number of families that have missed out on a blessing. I'm not even going to begin to suggest that parenting a child with Down Syndrome would be easy - it would be full of challenges to be sure. But I've experienced such profound joy in my interactions with kids with DS. Challenges, yes, but so much joy. And that sickening statistic has made me so much more thankful for the 6 kids with DS that I get to make music with every week, whose parents either were ignorant of their diagnosis or were willing to let their baby live despite it.
Today 2 of those kids in particular made me smile. My 3-year-old ran up to me (she couldn't walk at all when I first met her!) and hugged me with a huge smile on her face before we'd even gotten started. Partway through the session, she made a game out of this, walking away, then quickly walk-running back for a hug, repeatedly. She's talking up a storm these days, which is so exciting, and you should see her with a microphone! We sang our hearts out together for 10 minutes straight.
My 9-year-old has been a big challenge for several months. If she doesn't want to make music, she will make that perfectly clear, and she has stumped me more than once. But today, we had this terrific momentum that just didn't stop for the whole hour. We danced, we sang, we played, we laughed...and after I'd sung goodbye to her, she promptly turned my keyboard back on, grabbed the microphone, and sang another verse.
These kids are amazing too - and by the grace of God, they're alive! I find myself amazed afresh today at the beauty and grace of these little lives.

Archive: August 15th, 2008

2008-11-13T13:04:00.000-08:00

some New York moments

I was going to blog about my new york trip, but now it's been so long and there is too much to say. But I keep having flashbacks to certain moments there, and those are what I'd like to share the most. 2 for now:
I spent Sunday with a family from the church I attended out in Ulster County. This family has 7 kids and lives in a cute little house in the country. They also live across the street from family friends who have a farm and a huge plot of land, so they spend much of their day on the farm, roaming about shoeless and doing all sorts of things that country kids do. I got to join them for this roaming for a day and very much felt like I'd been transported to another era. We fed the cows, climbed in hay, ate veggies straight off the field (yes, even me!), etc. But that's beside the point:
When I first saw the kids on Sunday morning, I told them that I was excited to see NY so green, because it hadn't been so green when I left (early March) and because it isn't so green where I live. Several hours later, I was sitting on the swing set with the oldest daughter, Lauren, who's 7. We were looking towards their gorgeous view from their yard – mountains in the distance and nothing but green. Lauren turned to me and said, "is it so pretty here?" to which of course I responded yes. I told her that we have mountains where I live too, and that they're pretty also but very different because they're brown instead of green. I also said that I don't see them as often because I live in the city and it's hard to see them well. She said, "That's very sad." Not in at all a rude way, just in a very honest way, a sad way really. I agreed that it was sad, and she invited me to go sit on a hay bale with her, because she said this was the best place to see the mountains. How could I turn down an invitation like that? We sat on the hay bale together, looking at the mountains, and she told me that she'd found that spot all by herself but that she'd told her whole family now so everyone knew. I loved this moment. In a family of 9, she had found a perfect spot to get away, but she didn't keep even that to herself.
The other moment I keep thinking of actually happened earlier in the weekend. My official reason for being back in NY in the first place was for an intern reunion that went from Friday to Saturday. The music therapy team, past and present, plus some friends and relatives, put on a concert for the residents of the place where our internship took place. I didn't get to see many of the individuals I saw for therapy last year, but I did have a couple precious reunions. The only adult that I had sessions with 1:1 was getting off her bus from her group home for the concert, saw me, and burst into the most infectious smile. We hugged, she kissed my cheek, we talked briefly, and I had to rush off to lunch. During the concert, though, I made eye contact with her time after time while I sang. The last song we did was "Ain't No Mountain High Enough." Prepare for me to be super cheesy, but I almost cried singing this song to the people there. My internship was such a hard time for me for many reasons, but when all was said and done, I left having developed really meaningful relationships on top of accomplishing my degree. To be back there in that beautiful place, singing to these amazing people who I was blessed to get to know, was pretty incredible. Singing that nothing could keep me from them seemed pretty true. Over a year later and thousands of miles traveled, I was back again. What a huge blessing to revisit that part of my past, with such a deep appreciation for all that I experienced there and for how far I've come since then.

Archive: July 25th, 2008

2008-11-13T13:01:00.000-08:00

New York...

I'm going to New York next week, and God's timing couldn't be more perfect, for several reasons:
My patience with the kids has been wearing thin the last week or so - I find myself getting frustrated with all the little things - some they can control and some they can't. Burnout is such a strong possibility in jobs like this one, but I think a week away will be a real help.
My future is still so up in the air, at least from my perspective, and that is what I find myself thinking on much too often. A break in my routine will give me different things to think about...and along with that the blessed ability to NOT think about that for awhile.
All the people I get to spend time with are people that I think will be refreshing to my soul in one way or another...i may say more about that later.
And then there's New York itself- something about the calmness of my tiny little town, and something about that infectious excitement of the city itself...I think both will be like a breath of fresh air for me.
My week will start with flying into the city on a red-eye flight and arriving early Thursday morning. A whole day in the city with nothing planned, probably hanging out with my friend Amber. Then I'll take the train (and I LOVE this train!) into Middletown. My friend Lindsay, who was an intern with me, will pick me up there on her way to Monticello from Indiana, and we'll stay with our other ex-roommate Amanda at her apartment in Monticello. I have no doubt there will be a lot of laughter and craziness - and probably some pretty memorable quotes. :-)
The official intern reunion is from Friday to Saturday at the Center for Discovery. I'll get to return to the place where so much soul-searching happened for me, where I felt knocked down in so many ways but from where I eventually emerged as a professional with so many amazing experiences under my belt. I'll see some of the music therapists there and hopefully a lot of the residents that I worked with. And we'll be putting on a concert on Saturday, which should be a fun adventure.
Sunday I'll say a sad farewell to my music therapy friends and meet up with a family from the church I attended there. They're picking me up to take me to church with them, then I'll spend the day and night with their fabulously fun and huge family - 7 kids!! These kids had so much fun introducing me to fun things to do in the snow while I was there, and I'm eager to see what the country life has in store for me in the summer. The whole family was a huge encouragement to me while I lived there and I'm so glad we're going to reconnect.
Monday I go to the city again. I'll go whenever my friends can get me to the train station, hopefully meet up with Amber, and spend another day just enjoying everything that NYC has to offer. In the evening, I'm meeting my friends Mo Bing and Cathy, who went to Romania with me. They've both been back there more than once since we came back last spring, which I can't help but be jealous of, but which will also be fun to hear about. And I'm excited to get their input on my whole situation - they love Romania almost as much as I do and are also older and wiser than I am so may be able to help me look at things in a new way. I get to spend the night at Mo Bing's apartment in Chinatown, which I'm really excited about, too.
Tuesday is another up-in-the-air day. Bumming around the city some more...one of my favorite things in life. I'll spend the night at Amber's fantastic house in Brooklyn.
Wednesday Amber is actually flying home to Phoenix before I am, and I'll have the day to myself I think. I'm torn between exploring parts of the city I don't know very well and going to my old favorite spots. I do know that Central Park is a must and could see myself spending the entire day there, with coffee and a book and a journal and my watchful eyes taking in all the sights and processing life. I'm kinda up for anything.
At some point that afternoon I have to find my way to Newark to fly home. Praise God I have many things to look forward to once I get home also - I know it will be hard to leave but at least not impossible.
This was a really long blog and maybe only interesting to me...so if anyone read this far...I'm flattered. :-)

Archive: July 23rd, 2008

2008-11-13T12:59:00.000-08:00

just a sliver of what I’m thinking about...

Two cancellations and counting today, so I have some time to try to spew out some of the many thoughts in my head. Sometimes I get a feeling that there will never be the ability to sort out everything that I'm thinking and feeling, and that no matter how hard I try to express things to people there will always be something very crucial that gets left out because there's just too much going on.
I woke up today with a heavy weight. I think the emotions of the last week and a half finally caught up with me a little bit - I had a very fun-filled weekend with my friend Tracey in town and didn't really take any time to digest all of the emotions that would typically bombard me. I was able to praise God when I woke up though, hard as it was. I can thank Him that I have burdens in my heart that can only be removed by Him. That is mercy! The best place for me to be is at my Savior's feet, and that is not a place I am very likely to be if nothing is ever hard.
I may not go to Romania. This is a sentence I'm getting used to saying. Whereas several months ago, it seemed that everything was pointing in that direction, the complete opposite seems to be true now. And I don't know if these things are things to persevere through or if they are signs from God that now is not the time. And I don't know how to know that. And I'm getting used to not knowing and at trying my hardest to simply trust, much as that seems to be an oxymoron since trusting is so far from simple.
A common theme in both my life and the lives of my friends recently seems to be dealing with desires that appear to be from God but are not quickly fulfilled. One person desires to have a baby. One desires to be in a relationship that seems completely impractical and even impossible. One desires to be pursued by a man who is not taking the steps he needs to take. One desires to go to another country. And it is so easy to become angry with God in these situations - "Why would You give me such a strong desire and leave me there? If this isn't going to happen, could You take away this desire?" And again, I need to be reminded, as my friends do, that God is primarily interested in our hearts. He DOES care whether or not our desires are fulfilled, because we are His children, and He died for us, and He is intimately connected to our hearts. But ultimately, He cares about what matters most - our relationship to Him, our complete dependence on Him, our willingness to surrender. And because He is good, and because He is faithful, and because He is all-knowing, and because He is God, He is more than worthy of being trusted.
One of the kids I work with again gave me precious insight on Monday. We wrote a song about life, or started one anyway. She came up with a line that said, "Life is full of ups and downs and turns-arounds." I wanted to cry. When pressed to explain her lyric, she gave an example of having had to learn a new way to solve a math problem in 5th grade. It was good to be reminded that she is only 11 and that she doesn't have the same kinds of things on her plate that I do. Because when I think of ups and downs and turns-arounds, I think of relationships, and of Romania, and of a constantly changing view of my own future and the roller coaster that I sometimes feel I'm on. And in away, I wish that all I thought about was math problems, but I know that God will not give me more than I can handle. So as my view of my own future constantly changes, I know that His view of my future does not. And that is what I rest in, and that is what I hope in.

Archive: July 13th, 2008

2008-11-13T12:57:00.000-08:00

trust

Today is hard. I got the long-awaited letter from my dad on why I should not go to Romania. I've had a tearful morning full of questions and regrets and fears and prayers. Too many of the first 3 things and not enough of the 4th. Anyway, I'm working hard to shepherd my heart to trust God in all of this.
The other day, I was having a hard day, too. This was before the letter but still in the midst of other concerns about Romania, of an eagerness to be there and a feeling that that is so far off, etc. Anyway, we had just finished reading Micah in my small group. And there is a passage there in which the Lord says to the people of Israel:
"O my people, what have I done to you? How have I wearied you? Answer me! For I brought you up from the land of Egypt and redeemed you from the house of slavery, and I sent before you Moses, Aaron, and Miriam. O my people, remember..." (Micah 6:4-5a)
So I got to thinking about how what I need the most is to trust God during this time. I need to teach my heart daily that God has the very best plan, whether it's to go to Romania or to stay, or to stay and then go, or to go and then stay. He is primarily interested in my heart. This heart so longs to trust Him wholly and knows that it should. But it is hard. And it almost seems at times...well, wearisome. So in response to what I'd read in Micah, I wrote this, and now I want to share it:
How has He wearied me? In saving me from my pursuit of Hell? In empowering me with sanctifying grace? In forgiving me with finality at the Cross? In forgiving me repeatedly in my never-ceasing offenses against His perfect holiness? In giving me a heart for Romania in the first place, when I hadn't expected it? In filling my heart with joy undeserved in every interaction with Romania and all things Romanian? In giving me a life full of unmerited blessings here in Tempe, Arizona? In giving me a church body that I love and cherish? In putting me under solid teaching among like-minded believers weekly? In providing a home with other women who love Him and who love me? In giving me relationship upon relationship in which to give and receive, to care for and to be cared for, to learn, to teach, to connect? In giving me gifts and talents that are so naturally used to serve the body and to reach the hard-to-reach? In giving me His holy Word to see, to hear, to touch? In giving me passion for this life and the next? I have no reason to be wearied by Him and every reason to trust. And so in this time of not knowing, what I DO know is what is good, for He has told me! All that He requires is that I do justice, love kindness, and walk humbly with my God. (Micah 6:8)

Archive: July 9th, 2008

2008-11-13T12:55:00.000-08:00

longing

I had a dream the other night. I don't remember much about it, except that I was in Romania and it was wonderful. But not wonderful in a utopian kind of way – wonderful in a very realistic kind of way. I'm pretty sure I was in Brad, the town I lived in the last time I was there, and we were heading to Criscior, where I've stayed the other times. This dream was a little different than other dreams of Romania that I've had recently, because there were people from my life here that were there with me. I don't know who exactly, but I think someone from my family or maybe some friends, maybe both. And in the dream, I was trying to figure things out, and I was speaking to people in Romanian and to other people in English and things were getting accomplished. It was sort of hectic, I think, but in a really great way. I remember feeling like I was NEEDED there – needed by the other Americans to get around rural Romania for sure, but also needed in a greater sense by the kids there. There were orphans in the dream, I know, but not the kids I already know. But immediately there was a connection there. Strange how a lot of details are missing from dreams but a lot of things are very present.
Having this dream this week couldn't make more sense. I think right now, I am longing for people here to see that world. Oh, if they could only see that world, if they could only see who I am in that world, if they could only see those kids the way I see them and see God working there as I see Him, surely no one would have any doubt anymore that I need to be there and be there soon. The last couple weeks have been really hard on that front – the elders at my church have expressed concerns about not knowing much about what I'd be doing when I get there, and they're having me slow down on moving forward, which is really hard to do because I certainly haven't been moving quickly the last couple months. Then I spent the whole weekend with my family, and nobody in my family is behind me in this, at least not behind me 100%. My great-aunt has told me she'll support me financially, and that she hopes that I go, but it just seems half-hearted and almost like she feels obligated to say these things. And everyone related to me just seems sad and cautious and skeptical when the conversation comes up. And this is WITHOUT my dad around – my dad won't even have a conversation with me about this topic but is in the process of writing me a letter – a process that began 3 months ago. And it's hard for me to communicate to people why I need to be there or what exactly I hope to accomplish. I wish that somehow they could just see into my heart. The whole cautious, drawn-out, American approach of applying for the trip, of making sure all the loose ends are tied up before we even know what the loose ends are, is lately seeming tedious and…well, hard. Part of me feels like if I sold everything I have today and got on a plane tomorrow, I would be on the right track. But there is another part of me who respects so much the leaders of my church, who loves my family so dearly, who is still so connected to this life, to this local church, to these friends, to this job even, that I know it wouldn't be right to just cut ties tomorrow. And so the waiting continues. A very active waiting – I'm by no means twiddling my thumbs and watching the world go by. I do love my life here – nearly everything about it – and I'm about as busy as busy can be. But my longing to be THERE is not going away.

Archive: June 24th, 2008

2008-11-13T12:52:00.000-08:00

luxury

I have many things I could blog about right now, but I'm going to go for the least profound one because it is most immediately on my mind...
This morning, I was struck by the luxuriousness of my middle-class American life. This happens occasionally, but today it seemed to come out of nowhere...
On Saturday, the sun visor in my car stopped working - it wouldn't stay up. I was a big girl about it and immediately contacted the dealer, who confirmed that it would be covered under warranty. I took it in today.
Talk about luxury. I couldn't help but think about the slight ridiculousness that the repair itself was. Yes, it was annoying to have that visor constantly in front of my face. It was distracting and could be potentially hazardous if I needed a clearer view of what was in front of me. but still...how spoiled I am to even act under the assumption that a working sun visor is a necessity. Anyway, I got to the dealer, someone immediately came up to my car and I told them I was there for Shane. Shane came up probably no more than 2 minutes later and apologized for the "delay" - 2 minutes!! He showed me the way to the comfortable waiting area (which I already knew how to get to), where I got some work done on my laptop, then he came and got me 30 minutes later. I went and signed for my car, which was already pulled up with the keys in the ignition, conveniently turned around for me already so all I had to do was drive off with my brand new visor, which had been replaced at no cost to me.
I went from there to Safeway - just needed some bread, some stamps, and a birthday card for my sister. I was waiting in line in the express lane, with one person in front of me. Someone who appeared to be a manager came up and opened a lane to help me right away - as if I couldn't have waited 2 more minutes in the line I was in. I had my eye on some tea that was on sale at the register, so I picked that up - a 12-pack of small Lipton bottles. Both the cashier/manager guy and the lady bagging my groceries seemed genuinely concerned when I said I didn't need help out to the car and didn't need a cart to carry the tea. The guy said, "I guess you want your exercise today!" and I had a hard time not laughing. If carrying a couple pounds worth of tea to my car a few yards away is exercise, then...well...we're certainly in America.
My luxurious morning continued as I went (I'm ashamed to say, by car) to the coffee shop in the same center. I got my iced mocha while having a nice conversation with the owner, then sat and got some more things done.
It's funny, this thinking about the luxury of my life. Because I don't feel like anything I did today was particularly indulgent. Nothing extraordinary in the eyes of most people. but in comparison to the majority of the people living in this world, I truly live in the lap of luxury...for now. so i'm not feeling proud of it, but not guilty either...just aware, I guess. I'm thankful for this somewhat privileged life but also aware of the dangers of comfort to a soul longing to be daily satisfied in Christ alone.
There's a really great song by Andrew Peterson where he compares his life to that of someone in a tiny village in 3rd world country. He says,
"I'm just a little jealous of the nothing that you have,you're unfettered by the wealth of a world that we pretend is going to last.They say God blessed us with plenty,I say you're blessed with poverty,'cause you never stop to wonder whether earthis just a little better than than the Land of the Free."I don't ever want my life of comfort to remove from me the longing for Heaven. So I can sit here and be thankful for the easy events of my morning, but I do need to recognize the fleeting nature of all of these earthly comforts...by the grace of God.

Archive: June 18th, 2008

2008-11-13T12:50:00.000-08:00

Resolved

I just got back from a conference called Resolved - an amazing gathering of some of the strongest pastors/authors/speakers in the US and thousands of Bible-believing young people eager to hear them expose God's word. It was my 3rd year attending and it was so good to be back.
This year's topic was Heaven and Hell. Yeah. Intense. I went with certain expectations and came away with my world changed. And as has been the case each year before, it seems impossible to process the truth that I heard and sum it all up. There were 12 different sessions, and each one opened my eyes to see something about God, about me, about Heaven, about Hell, or about this world in a way I never had before.
I'd hoped to have time to sit and dissect my journal and find one thing from each sermon that I could pull out and put in this blog. but now I have 15 minutes before I need to go back to work, so that's not going to happen. Instead, I'm just going to ramble a bit about some of the things that affected me.
I believe in the sovereignty of God. I never gave much thought to it until college, and since then have seen it more and more, have seen it in scripture, have seen it play out in my life and in the lives of my friends. I think a lot about God's sovereignty in electing some to salvation, in His sovereignty in the every day happenings of my life, in His sovereignty in each story I read in the Bible. This conference, though, helped me to see what I can only describe as the longevity of the sovereignty of God. One of the speakers pointed out that nothing on earth exists for its own purposes but is in one way or another contributing to the glory of God. How true! God has sovereignly ordained every element of our universe as a part of his perfect plan. Another speaker (or maybe the same one?) pointed out the symmetry of the Bible: The perfect earth without blemish in the 1st 2 chapters of Genesis, the world in its fallen state as a result of sin, then the perfect new earth (Heaven) that He has ordained for those who would depend on the blood of Jesus to cover their sins. Beautiful! From beginning to end, the end is in sight - a glorious end where those to whom the Father has granted saving faith will worship their Savior for eternity, free from sin and suffering forever.
But of course, the conference was not only about Heaven. Hell is terrifying and it is real. both of those points were driven home in very real ways. John Piper spoke on Sunday night, though, about the insufficiency of Hell - that fear of Hell alone is not a saving fear. One cannot just run from Hell but must run toward Jesus. O, that God would give me the words to convey to the people around me how desirable this Jesus is - how perfectly holy, how perfectly just, how perfectly loving. O, that Hell's reality would be apparent and the reality of Jesus as Christ would be even more so!

Archive: June 9th, 2008

2008-11-13T12:47:00.000-08:00

May 26th

Wow, you can tell I'm happy to be done with reports when I blog 3 times in 2 days.
The 26th started with a laid-back morning with my parents. Somehow the Mormon temple came up and Vasi said he'd like to see it, so we added that on as his last tourist destination in town and journeyed into downtown Mesa. I always forget that other places don't have LDS people to the extent that we do - it was just such a normal part of my growing up that I don't even really think about it. Anyway, he had only ever seen LDS temples in pictures so he wanted his picture taken in front of it and such. So we did that before heading to my friends' house for brunch.
It was nice to be surrounded by my own crowd again at the brunch, actually. The weekend had been full of so much 1:1 time, and we hadn't had time to talk to anyone at church the day before, so it was nice to really spend quality time with people. While Vasi shared his views on a variety of issues with my friend Cassidy, I got to share my Romanian experiences and hopes for the future with some friends who hadn't heard much about it before. Vasi eventually joined in that conversation, and he answered some questions from people about cultural differences in the church here and what he's observed. It was really great.
Then it was back to Romanians, and for the first time, I wasn't very excited. I was mostly just tired, and the gathering was a huge picnic at a park, and Vasi wanted nothing more than to play soccer with other Romanians. I only knew one other person who was going and she wouldn't be there right away. So I sat and watched Vasi play soccer for awhile, trying not to think about how the weekend was almost over and I should really be facing my work plans. It was great, though - there was an older man watching the soccer game, too, and he turned and asked me in Romanian where I was from. I decided to continue the conversation in Romanian while I could, and when I finally told him I wasn't Romanian, he was actually surprised! I was so pleased that I'd pulled it off. We switched to English at that point - turns out he's a pastor at a Romanian church in town. Anyway, later, I wanted to ask him a question and decided to do it in Romanian just for fun, and i succeeded at that also!
The whole picnic was quite an experience. Growing up in Phoenix, you get used to walking through a public place and hearing people all around you speaking another language, but chances are pretty good that other language is Spanish. I can't even explain how bizarre it was to walk through a park in Arizona and just hear Romanian all around me - well, romengleza actually - the Romanian equivalent of Spanglish. And I got to be a part of it to a point. When I went up to get a water from the food area, for example, they seemed to be out. I was digging around in an ice chest and someone asked, "apa?" - "water" in Romanian. I responded "da" to say yes and was thrilled even by such a minor Romanian interaction.
But sitting around a park all day when vasi was busy with soccer and my other Romanian friend was nowhere to be found was not the best use of my time. I decided to go find a Starbucks and get some work done so that I could feel at least somewhat prepared for the week to come. Came back to the park after a bit and finally found my other friend - we sat and watched volleyball then for awhile before Vasi and I finally left.
That night, we met up with his friends from his hometown at long last. We went "out to dinner" at McDonalds - not much else was open, and in Romania, McDonalds is actually a destination, but it was still pretty funny to me. This was an intense hour or two. They all spoke in Romanian and offered to switch to English, but I told them not to bother. It was really beneficial to me to need to translate for myself and I was mostly able to. Turns out, though, that I can't eat and translate at the same time. I would literally take a bite of my parfait only when there was a pause in conversation. Eventually, the conversation got pretty serious - about doctrinal differences - and I asked that we switch to English, which we did.
I don't even want to get into all that this conversation encompassed, but it was a hard one. I ended up feeling sort of attacked for my doctrinal convictions, and I couldn't even tell where Vasi stood on things anymore, because he was really busy clarifying my ideas to them and their ideas to me since he's pretty perfectly bilingual and none of the rest of us were (well, unless you included knowing Romanian and Hungarian, which Marta did, but that's beside the point). Anyway, so I felt a little bit isolated. And then in my exhaustion I let my emotions get the best of me, and by the time we left I was feeling pretty lousy. All of a sudden, I was scared for the first time about being out of my comfort zone in the mission field in Romania - away from likeminded believers. It raised a lot of questions that, thankfully, I've been largely put at ease about in the weeks since. It was a good experience to have though - I should never just assume that adjusting to life away from what I'm familiar with will be easy.
I don't think I'll blog about the 27th because nothing much happened except for coffee with Vasi, taking him to the airport, and work, work, and more work...so this concludes my series on Memorial Day Weekend. :-) It was a weekend full of profound questions, profound answers, profound beauty, and lots of Romanians. All in all a wonderful weekend but one I am just now recuperating from.

Archive: June 8th, 2008 (2)

2008-11-13T12:43:00.000-08:00

May 25th

This was Grand Canyon day! It had been years since I'd been to the Canyon, and while I certainly wasn't as eager as Vasi was, I was still pretty excited about it. It was so strange to get up at 3 am and just start driving. Even weirder that I wasn't even driving - that my Romanian friend was driving my car to the Grand Canyon. Who'd have thought? It was a fun ride - we were remarkably awake for the time of day and Vasi certainly took us fast enough...I'm so thankful that his reflexes were good enough to stop in time to not hit elk that were crossing the road. Despite his ridiculous speeds at times I felt safe and was excited for the event ahead.
And what an event it was! We were among the first people to get to the lookout point. We got there at 4:45, a half hour before the sun would rise. Twenty minutes later, the parking lot and the point itself were packed with tourists, but our timing had been perfect and we had front-row seats. Even in the half-light of pre-dawn, the Canyon was impressive, and what an experience it was to watch as the light generally came over the whole expanse. Even before the sun broke through the horizon, the colors started to change, the Canyon became more clear, and the immensity of it all became more overwhelming. There were two thoughts that literally did not stop running through my head the whole time we were there:
1) Romans 1:20, or rather the general idea of it since I don't have it memorized. It reads, "For his [God's] invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So they [the unrighteous] are without excuse." Basically, God is just in condemning unrighteousness even in those who have not heard the spoken Gospel, because He has made himself known in the natural world. The Grand Canyon seemed to loudly proclaim this concept to me. To me, looking at that massive expanse and not seeing the power of God there was incomprehensible. And it was a joy to view it alongside a fellow believer who could see God there as well - by God's grace have our eyes been opened.
2) A line from a song we sing at church: "Who imagined the sun and gave source to its light, yet conceals it to bring us the coolness of night?" As I watched the sun show its face on the horizon, I could praise God for His wisdom and creativity in His design of this phenomenon.
I don't know what time it was when we finally tore ourselves away from that lookout point, but we had many other things to see and do. We were pretty hungry by this point, and Vasi was freezing (while I, the native Arizonan, was actually quite comfortable. :-) ), so the next thing on the schedule was a hot breakfast. Then we took the free shuttle to several different stops just to see what our options were, then eventually embarked on a short hike. Canyon hiking is so tricky because it's so easy on the way down that you just want to keep going, but you know there's a long way back. Anyway, we hiked down to "Ooh Aah Point," where we oohed and ahhed and Vasi risked his life by climbing all over things and I just stood by and took pictures. I told him later that had I gone with my immediate family, my mom would have passed out from the places we were standing for pictures, my dad would have not made it out of the Canyon with us (it was hard enough for me!), and my sister would have been livid with us for only bringing one small bottle of water. Vasi says that Americans are too cautious, so I guess embarking on a pretty intense hike with just a little water was very Romanian of us. Or just foolish. :-) Anyway, we made it out alive and it was a fantastic hike that I definitely recommend.
The rest of the day was rushed to say the least. We stopped at one more lookout point after getting to the top, then got back to the car and headed South. We only stopped very briefly in Flagstaff to pick up lunch, then got stuck in traffic from an accident on the highway. This put us behind enough that by the time we got to my parents' house we had about 25 minutes before we needed to turn around and nead to church. We sped through showers and made ourselves presentable, and made it to my church right on time. I'm so glad he got to experience my church, especially because we'd had many conversations about not-so-great happenings in churches, and I wanted him to see an American church that, by the grace of God, is doing many things right. Sadly, we couldn't stick around for him to meet people, because we needed to hurry off to the last night of the Romanian convention.
So the excitement of the day continued. Anyone who has been to downtown Phoenix knows that it is not exactly a happening place in the evenings. The streets that night were for the most part completely deserted apart from participants in the Convention, meaning that the only people on the streets of my hometown were Romanians, which was unbelievable! There were about 2200 people there I learned later - and to my knowledge I was the only one NOT of Romanian descent. I was so exhausted that night though and actually asked Vasi to translate a bit because my mind just wasn't working all that well. Anyway, there were some really good parts of the night but also some things I wasn't sure about. An interpretive dance, for example, that seemed to portray Christ as a helpless bystander to the sin struggles of a believer. I was also surprised by the round of applause in honor of the parents who chose to leave Romania to move to the US for a better life for their children. Makes sense I guess, but it still saddened me a bit because of my affections for that country and those people. There were also some very charismatic happenings at the end that made me a bit uncomfortable. And by the end I literally though I would faint. I hadn't eaten since Flagstaff and had been up since 3 am. Plus I was surrounded by people speaking a language that seemed ever more foreign the more tired I became. Vasi and I tried in vain to make dinner plans with old friends of his who I know from the Romanian church I've been going to. We finally gave up when we couldn't find them in the crowd and they weren't answering their phones. We got some fast food, stopped at my house to eat and upload pictures, then went to my parents' house and crashed. My mind was reeling with all that had happened that day, but the second my head hit the pillow...i was out.

Archive: June 8th, 2008 (1)

2008-11-13T12:42:00.000-08:00

May 24th

May 24th was the least eventful of the weekend really but still really busy and great. We got to sleep in on Saturday morning and then head out to a late breakfast with some of my friends from church. It was fun to just leave from breakfast and go straight to Sedona! I am so not used to being on vacation. The drive was nice and pretty uneventful. When we were almost to Sedona, I let Vasi take over the driving - the first time anyone else has driven my car for more than like 5 miles. We had some really good conversations, but unfortunately I wasn't humble enough to try to speak Romanian because English was just so much easier and less embarassing.
Vasi was impressed with Sedona, as I knew he would be. There really is such an unusual beauty there. It stopped raining while we were there but there were still some pretty threatening-looking clouds so we were afraid to go hiking up on the cliffs. We ended up just walking around downtown. We got ice cream and sat on a bench and talked about how strange it was for him to be sitting in Sedona, AZ like it wasn't a big deal. He'd dreamed of going to the Grand Canyon since he was a little boy and now it was finally becoming a reality. We also talked about the differences between Romanians and Americans. I really like thinking critically about being an American, and this is definitely something that Vasi brings out in me. Anyway, then we drove up to the Sedona airport, where there's an awesome view of the area. We sat in the car and waited for a downpour to stop, then got out and took some pictures before heading to Flagstaff. The drive from Sedona to Flagstaff was breathtaking, and Vasi said it reminded him of home. Once he said that, it reminded me of Romania, too, a connection I hadn't made before but which makes perfect sense - I have always loved that drive and it only fits that it resembles the Romanian countryside. He was also amazed that Arizona has forests, as many people are.
We met my friend Bekah in Flagstaff, and she was fantastic. She was so generous with her apartment and her food and her time and her money. She even treated us both to a really nice dinner at a cute restaurant in downtown Flag. Then Vasi treated Bekah and I to coffee at a great coffee shop. I certainly got the sweet end of the deal all around! After coffee, we just went back to her place and settled down for the night. We watched a movie to try to wind down and went to bed around 11, ready for our 4 hours of sleep before heading to the Canyon!

Archive: June 4th, 2008 (2)

2008-11-13T12:37:00.000-08:00

May 23rd

On to the next day of that crazy weekend...
Vasi and I stayed at my parents' house while he was here. We got up early Friday so he could meet my parents, who were sleeping when we got in the night before. Talk about worlds colliding. I think this was especially strange for my parents – I'm hoping that God will use it in the long run to make Romania a little less mysterious to them and a little more real. Vasi and my dad got along ridiculously well and enjoyed talking politics. ..
We were going to head up north on Friday but the weather was still crazy and there were snow advisories at the Grand Canyon Saturday morning – not exactly prime conditions for viewing a sunrise. So I spent the day giving Vasi a tour of all my favorite Phoenix places – the zoo, Botanical Gardens, Mill Ave, and ASU. It was a really fun day, and he was a fun person to show things to because he got excited about stuff that I get excited about. And we made fun of evolution signs all day
Friday night we headed out to Session 1 of the West Coast Youth Conference – put on by the Romanian Pentecostal church and primarily consisting of young Romanian-American Protestants. Wow. I was disappointed that a lot of the service was in English, but it was still a thrill to worship God with so many Romanians. And again, the last time I sang praises to God with Vasi (besides in the car that day I suppose) was in the garage of the little orphanage in Criscior, so this was a little different. Anyway, there were two sermons, and they were both good. One was almost entirely in Romanian, and the other was mostly in Romanian but with some English sections. The 2nd one was really powerful. The guy talked about Jesus's prayer in John 17 and how He wasn't praying for everyone – v. 9 states "I am praying for them. I am not praying for the world but for those whom you have given me, for they are yours." He talked about not assuming that we are among "those" if we aren't living a life that reflects this. I was thrilled to understand most of what he was saying (the English parts helped) and thrilled that the message was a strong one.
The most meaningful part, though, was at the end. We only sang one song in Romanian the whole night, and it was an adaptation of Chris Tomlin's version of Amazing Grace. That was cool, but the highlight was singing an old hymn in English – How Great Thou Art. Every time I sing songs like this one, I remember how I used to sing them in church as a kid. I'm not sure when I came to saving faith in Christ, but I'm fairly certain that I sang these songs before that happened. And I can picture myself as a preteen and teenager, singing with the rest of the congregation, excited mostly about trying to figure out the alto part in the hymnal. I was so oblivious at the time, oblivious to the work God was going to do in my heart to bring me to Himself, oblivious to the finished work at the Cross that had already been done on my behalf. So every time I hear these hymns, I think of the journey God has brought me on since then – salvation being of course the turning point, but also the daily walk with Him, the struggles and joys, the questions and the answers and His steadfast faithfulness.
And my praise of Him that night was only magnified by singing these songs alongside Romanian believers. Only 3 years ago, God had yet to open my eyes to His work in the nations. My vision of him in early 2005 was so limited, so Americanized. And now every time I worship with Romanians, it reminds me of the immensity of a God who works in hearts worldwide and who has promised that He has ransomed some from every tribe, tongue, and nation. Most of the people at this conference were likely born here in the States, but I bet the majority of them had parents or certainly grandparents that lived under Communist oppression in Ceaucescu-ruled Romania, who called on the name of Christ when this was an illegal thing to do.
And so along with praising God for my own journey of faith and for His work among the nations, I also could praise Him for combining the two. There was a moment that night of "What am I doing here?" Several years ago, I never would have dreamed that my ideal evening would be just that – singing praise to God among Romanian young people. What a great God He is! What a sweet, sweet blessing! He is truly able to "…do far more abundantly than all that we ask or think, according to the power at work within us…" – Ephesians 3:20

Archive: June 4th, 2008 (1)

2008-11-13T12:34:00.000-08:00

looking back...to May 22nd

I got my first good night of sleep in awhile last night and am currently as caught up as I can be with my Vista-cursed computer at a coffee shop between sessions. So finally I'm going to start the process of blogging the events of Memorial Day weekend. I think this blog will just be of the 22nd.
There was nothing normal about May 22nd, 2008. First of all, the weather was ridiculous. It was actually cold when I left my house, which is absolutely unheard of in Phoenix in May. More on that later.
I started with a new child in the morning. His family is Spanish-speaking, and typically my company asks these families to come to the clinic for services so that our bilingual secretaries can do any translating necessary. But because an in-home session with him fit perfectly into my schedule and he lives really close to me, I agreed to see him at his house and get by with my limited Spanish and his family's limited English. I basically loved every second of it. When I got there, the child was confused and kind of scared I think. He kept running from the room, his mom kept just saying "sorry, sorry," and I kept playing my guitar quietly in the background. He eventually came out to the living room (after having lost a tooth!) and sat down near me. As soon as this child had a drum in front of him, everything changed. He played tentatively at first, then lit up when he heard his playing reflected in mine. This kid is an improvisational music therapist's dream come true! I could see him unfolding in front of me, I could feel this connection instantly forming, and it was truly incredible. And my limited conversation afterwards with the mom was wonderful. She spoke in Spanish, I spoke in English, and we both more or less understood each other. I repeatedly stopped myself from responding to her in Romanian (a common tendency when I try to speak Spanish), but I was overjoyed that she pronounced my name the same way Romanian people do (Kreesta with a rolled r). And her son's big eyes and dark complexion took me instantly back to orphans in Romania. As I left she just kept telling me that I was beautiful, that my voice was beautiful, or that what had just happened was beautiful, I'm not sure which.
Ok, I can't give so much detail on the rest of my day or I'll never finish. But the rest of my sessions were not exactly normal either - most of them were really great, one was sad because it was my last with that kid, and by the end of the day I was just really distracted. The weather continued to get less and less Phoenix-like and by late afternoon there was a downpour and it had to be in the 50s or 60s. A perfect background to my abnormal day.
After work, I went to dinner with friends. I mentioned in my last blog that one of those friends was one I once talked about marriage with...and I don't want to get into details there except to say that I was really nervous to see him because I always think it will be awkward, but then it never really is and I always feel like I was blessed to have had that time. But again, far from normal. And after dinner, we all walked through the pouring rain to the mall, only to come out afterwards to a downpour. My friend Amber offered to run to her car, so she literally did just that - took off her shoes, gave us her bags, and sprinted across the huge parking lot to her car. We joked that security would stop her, thinking she was insane.
Anyway, shortly after I got home from that adventure, it was time to pick up Vasi. It mostly seemed surreal that he was even coming. Our friendship is far different from any I've ever had. I met him 3 years ago in Romania, spent two weeks with him and a huge team of other people, and then only talked online to him once in awhile after that. But he moved to the US in 2006, and while he was living in Florida and I in New York, he called me up one night out of the blue. For a few months, we talked every night. This actually made him the only non-NY person besides my mom that I had that kind of regular contact with while I lived there. Anyway, all that being said, I hadn't actually SEEN the guy since 2005. So picking him up and having him suddenly in my world here was so strange. Especially considering the last setting I saw him in was an orphanage in a quaint Romanian village.
So as I said, there was NOTHING normal about that day...and it wasn't going to get any more normal the next few days...but that will have to wait for another blog

Archive: May 28th, 2008

2008-11-13T12:32:00.000-08:00

the pre-blog blog

I have an amazing amount of things on my mind and an amazing scarcity of time in which to blog about them. So right now I'm mostly just going to list off some of what's going through my mind, with the hopes that one day soon I will be able to actually process this stuff.
Thursday morning - great new client whom I adored right from the start. Reminded me why I do the work that I do, also made me think of Romania
Thursday afternoon - my last session (probably) with one of my favorite clients
Thursday evening - dinner with friends, including a friend I once considered marrying and now haven't seen in several months
Thursday night- picked up my Romanian friend Vasi at the airport, caught up on life with him
Friday day - played tour guide all day - showed Vasi the Botanical Gardens, Phoenix Zoo, Mill Ave. and ASU.
Friday night - first night of Romanian convention. The best preaching I've heard (and understood!) in Romanian so far. Plus a really powerful moment where we were singing an old hymn and I thought back on the journey God has taken me on thus far since I first sang that song as a non-believing kid in a Methodist church
Saturday - after breakfast with friends, Vasi and I headed up north. Gorgeous weather, good conversations, a nice time in Sedona and fun with my friend Bekah in Flagstaff
4 hours of sleep that night, then up at 3 to go to the Grand Canyon for sunrise - absolutely incredible
Hiking and exploring for the morning at the Canyon, then back to Phoenix
Sunday night - home from the Canyon just in time to go to my church with Vasi - so fun to have my 2 worlds collide and to show him off to church people and my church off to him. Then we went straight to the Romanian Conference downtown. I enjoyed it again but had a few theological objections to some of what happened and experienced a Pentecostal gathering like I never have before. I was really overwhelmed by the fact that I was surrounded by so many Romanians - 2200 or so!!
Monday - Brunch with church friends. Really good discussions about Romania and missions in general with a family from church, then Vasi joined the discussion and gave some of his opinions as an "outsider" in the American church. Fascinating stuff
then off to a Romanian picnic in Glendale as the last even of the conference. So bizarre to walk through a park and hear Romanian from most passersby instead of English or Spanish. Several people assumed I was Romanian and spoke to me under this assumption, which rocked my world.
Dinner that night with Vasi and two of his friends who live here and attend the Romanian church that I attend. Intense theological conversations that I was able to follow in Romanian and participate in in English - gave me a lot of stuff to think about and left me thoroughly exhausted.
Jumped right into work yesterday, even with Vasi still here. Took him to the airport on a break and now am trying to return to life as usual.
Off to work again now - and seriously considering taking some paid time off just to sit and process this crazy life.

Here come the archives...

2008-11-13T12:29:00.000-08:00

Since only Amber responded, and since her suggestion was kind of what I was leaning toward anyway, I'm going to post my last 6 months of blogs from Myspace before deleting my Myspace account...so here they come!

Archive: May 17th, 2008

2008-11-13T12:28:00.000-08:00

Romanian symphony, Narnia, Romans 6

Yeah this is sort of a hodgepodge of what's running through my head after a very busy day or so...
So last night I went to Rumanian Rhapsody - a benefit concert put on by Phoenix Symphony musicians to raise money for one of their own, a Romanian violinist battling breast cancer. This pretty much spelled out a perfect evening for me - combining downtown Phoenix with music with the Romanian community, and combining all that with 2 friends who were excited to go with me. SO many Romanians were there, and the guy who co-owns my favorite coffee shop was one of the performers. I was glowing all night - the music was phenomenal - a collection of the woman's favorite pieces, including some Romanian works. And it was such a cool event - while still maintaining a strong sense of the symphony culture, the performers also sort of let their hair down so to speak - it was far more casual than your typical night at the symphony. It was fun to kind of get a glimpse into that world and so great to see the way that so many talented people pulled together to help this woman and her family.
Then today I saw Prince Caspian - also amazing. I love the element in this story of the 4 kids and their relationships to Aslan...Aslan is far less physically present in this story than in the last and they all deal with that in different ways. Lucy holds onto hope - more than hope really, a sincere confidence - that Aslan remains faithful. The others have a harder time. Susan and Peter both wonder why Lucy was able to see him and they weren't. Susan seems to remain hopeful but skeptical throughout the story. But Peter decides to take matters into his own hands and says they have "waited for Aslan long enough." I could see myself in each of them. But in the end, of course, Aslan is faithful, and all 4 kids bow before him and rejoice in his great love.
The other thing on my mind is Romans 6. Our church has been challenged to memorize the chapter as we go through a sermon series on it. A girl on the music team, Kami, actually wrote songs that recite these verses word-for-word. So the last few days, on my many commutes, I have listened only to these songs in an attempt to memorize the passage. It has been such a sweet blessing. It is so easy for me to completely space out while driving - I always have music on, unless I have a sermon to catch up on, and I'm often singing along, but even while singing along I'm often not really engaged in the words. This week, I've caught myself SO many times not paying attention, and I need to recapture my thoughts once again and focus on these precious words. And then, once I leave the car, I typically have these songs - straight scripture - running through my head for the rest of the day. I even woke up in the middle of the night with one of them in my head the other night. So much better than the garbage of a lot of secular music, the encouragement but often triteness of Christian music, and especially my own cheesy songs i compose and sing all day. I'm so grateful that in this case, God can use the gift of music to help me retain His life-giving words.
That's all for now but I'm sure there are many more bloggable events on the horizon...

things I'm used to, things I'm not...

2008-11-12T09:54:00.000-08:00

I'm often struck by the things that are true about my life that aren't true about many middle-class American lives, and vice versa. My life is not particularly out-of-the-ordinary but is certainly not ordinary, if that makes any sense at all. For example...

I'm used to living in weather that allows me to wear flip-flops all year long, and lets me rejoice when November comes because I can finally have my car windows down in the afternoon...

I'm used to walking into people's homes more than 20 times each week with a guitar and a keyboard and a bunch of random instruments and making music with one of their children

I'm used to communicating with people who can't talk.

I'm used to living with a bunch of girls and generally loving it

I'm not used to commuting to and from work 1 time each day

I'm not used to dressing up for work, working in an office, or doing things that I don't care about for a living

I'm used to being a part of a community of people who genuinely love God and each other

I'm used to having super-long lunch breaks but very long days

I'm used to listening to sermons and singing songs twice a month in a language that is not my own

I'm used to doing many things that the world might call foolish, for the sake of Christ

The last one is kind of cheating, cause it encompasses so much...but the list could go on and on. I'm so thankful for my ordinary and yet extraordinary life that God has graciously provided - oops, was thankfulness supposed to wait for a Thanksgiving post?

Same thoughts, new place...

2008-11-07T11:36:00.000-08:00

I decided at long last to move my blog to blogger from myspace. My blog was the only reason I ever used myspace anymore, and blogger has worked great for my quote page (http://kristasquotes.blogspot.com). So now the dilemma...should I transfer my archives from the old blog (http://blog.myspace.com/singalittle) to this one? Or should I just save all my old ramblings to my computer and start fresh? Thoughts, comments? For the time being, I'll just leave them both up...