Why We are Moving

In less than two months, Ben and I will be moving to Colorado Springs. It is the biggest decision we have made since the covenant of marriage and we are very excited about where God is taking us.

For me, personally, this move has been in the making for more than five years. In fact, I was still a Fire in the Night intern when the Lord began to give me vision for what is now our next step.

When I went on staff as an intercessory missionary at IHOP-KC, I knew that I would eventually leave to help build a smaller house of prayer. I have held a deep conviction that the Lord wants to draw together communities of worshippers in every tribe and nation who will commune with Him in the place of night and day prayer. The prayer movement that God is orchestrating around the globe will be manifest and expressed in many different ways. The dream of my heart has been to participate in raising up houses of prayer all around the world.

The Lord has made clear my calling as an intercessor. I expect that I will walk this out in the context of some kind of house of prayer for the rest of my days. There are a lot of things that I could do with my skills and strengths, but I belong in the place of prayer as my primary occupation.

The Lord has also given me a unique invitation to partner with Him in the place of prayer through the night watches. I am “NightWatch for life.” This doesn’t mean that I will not have temporary seasons of living in the day like a normal human being, but the Lord has set me in the night and has even given me a love for this bizarre lifestyle.

So what will we be doing in Colorado Springs? Well, all of that. But you will have to wait until my next post for all of the details.

Improper Hope?

I typed this out very quickly on my phone last night and accidentally published. After un-publishing, I decided to clarify one sentence and just leave it the way it was. Welcome to my brain (minus all the stuff my fingers had no hope of keeping up with).

Hoping to have celiac disease.
Wait… Hoping to be sick?
Does it betray true hope?
Does it betray hope for complete healing?

I was once encouraged by someone well-acquainted with suffering to keep hope alive every day that it would be the day that I am healed.
Is this contradictory?

It seems like such a small sacrifice, though, giving up gluten.
I just want an answer. I know I am sick.

Perhaps I only want to know that I have been suffering from a gluten intolerance. I KNOW I have been suffering.

I don’t want it to continue, but hoping for a label is not hoping for permanence.

Tricky thing is the fact that I would be unlikely to test it out in the future.

How does God feel about allergies?

The Cat in Me

When I was a child, I believed I was half cat and half human. Then I grew up and realized I was fully cat and fully human (kind of like the God-man… only completely different).

OK… so I wasn’t delusional. I knew both of my parents were human. But I was an only child and our cats became like my siblings. I loved cats so much and spent so much time pretending to be one (complete with cat kisses to the face) that a part of me just decided it was something kind of like the truth.

But enough about the weird ideas of a feline-obsessed child.

Lately, I have been thinking a lot about a particular trait that I share with many of my furry friends: I love it when my forehead is touching something. It is one of the most soothing sensations in the world. Since it helps me fall asleep, pillows most frequently supply this comfort. But soft things in general or any form of light pressure will work.

I’ve seen many cats seek the same blissful arrangement. Seal, our gorgeous grey kitty, is especially committed to obtaining this delight. Fortunately, her feline flexibility makes the task a great deal easier than it always looks.

My favorite moments are when Seal forces me into the arrangement. She has this bad habit of settling in on my iPhone. More than once, when I have reached over her in an attempt to reclaim my phone (or some other object she had effectively stolen), she has wrapped her paws around my arm to pull it down against the top of her head. Every time, I think the cuteness factor of the moment might actually injure me and I have to grit my teeth to resist shrieking. I have survived each adorableness overdose, thus far, but I often leave the scenario a little sore. (I am generally incapable of taking my arm back in moments like that and will thus remain awkwardly positioned for unreasonable stretches of time.)

And it isn’t just Seal. When I was in junior high, our neighborhood was adopted by a white cat that everyone called “Baby”. (Actually, that’s not true. One family called him “Keeper”.) In my favorite picture of him, he is laying in the standard sphinx pose… only his neck was stretched down all the way so that the top of his head was flat against the surface upon which he rested.

The whole thing makes me wonder. Why do cats like that so much? Why do I like that so much? Is it normal? Do other people do this? Is everyone else just missing out?

Whatever the case may be, I am burying my forehead in an extra pillow tonight.

Fleeing to the North

I can’t take the heat anymore! I’m running away to Montana! I refuse to return until this place can offer me some better weather! Perhaps the end of September?

OK, so I am not actually running away to get away from the heat. But I am going to Montana and I will be gone for a fairly long time.

Missing the Sunless

The time has come at last. I am taking a hint from all of these health issues and will be adopting a more conventional schedule for a little while. No longer missing the sun, I am missing the sunless.

Because my condition and/or the side-effects of my medication were severely limiting my mental capacity, we decided that I would not be returning to the complex requirements of my System Integration position in the IHOP Business Office. This meant a significant cut  in  our joint income, and Ben had to leave his responsibilities in the transportation department to get a job that would fill the gap in our monthly budget.

We are now in the middle of Ben’s first week of working with the IHOP maintenance department. We are so grateful that he did not have to seek employment outside of IHOP and we are amazed by the way that God worked out the timing and took care of our needs, yet again. I have the freedom to focus on getting well without trying to find a way to help make ends meet. I’m also excited about the new opportunities Ben has to build relationship with some pretty cool guys.

Unfortunately, this change also required a change in our schedule. Ben’s work-day starts at 12:30 PM, so we have to shift our schedule up a few hours. We are still planning on doing some NightWatch hours during this time, and we have every expectation of eventually returning to the NightWatch. We just can’t swing midnight to 6am right now.

I have always known that there were advantages to being on a relatively normal schedule and I have every intention of enjoying those advantages while I have them. No matter how many benefits a day schedule offers me, though, I am definitely going to miss the NightWatch.

While I have been stuck at home sick, I have at least been able to join in intercession with my friends through that wonderful 24/7 webstream. It has already been strange to not be participating in those prayer meetings every night. At least I have archives when I really need to see all of those beautiful, pale faces. (Though, the NightWatch community is definitely looking much more tan right now. Summer never leaves the NightWatch truly sunless.)

So, to my NightWatch friends: goodbye for a little while. I hope to see you again really soon!

I Need Some Tips!

A little over a week ago, my dad delivered a 24′ truck full of stuff. A lot of it was my mom’s and the plan was to sell most of it in a huge garage sale.

Well, even if we borrowed our neighbors’ yards, I don’t think we could fit all this stuff out there. And we need money, so I’m looking for good ways to sell some of the stuff in ways that save people lots of money but make a decent handful of cash for us. (After an extended sick leave, I officially quit the job to which I was not well enough to return.)

My mom had many hobbies and collections. And she had excessive quantities of everything. I need to find ways to sell all of the following…

Scrapbooking Supplies:
- Creative Memories, DOTS, etc.
- Quality stamps in great shape
- Scrapbook Papers
- Scrapbooks
- Stickers
- Dye Cuts
- Things I don’t recognize or understand
- Too many things to list right now

Ty Products:
- About 200 Beanie Babies (most of them only worth $4 – $10)
- Several Ty Classic Plush Bears and Cats
- A handful of Beanie Buddies (among the softest stuffed animals ever)
- 4 Attic Treasures

Glassware:
- A lot of tiara glassware
- WAY too much milk glass
- … Other glassware…

Fabric & Sewing Supplies:
- boxes and boxes of fabric
- dozens of zippers
- batting
- miscellaneous other supplies

Cross Stitch Supplies:
- Tons of Aida fabric
- Loop things
- Patterns/Designs
- Kits

Anyone know a good (but not super overwhelming) way to sell any of these things? Any of my friends and readers interested in taking some of this off of my hands (and putting a little cash IN my hands)?

I read the wanted section on craigslist every day. That has helped me lighten the load a little. I have a person who runs antique auctions coming to look at the glassware. Hopefully that will decrease the abundance of glass a bit. I am going to post a few things on eBay, but most of it isn’t really worth the time.

Thoughts? Ideas?

Why are INTJ’s Weird? The world* wants to know.

Oh the things I would never have known if I had not decided to blog.

Did you know that a lot of people out there think INTJ’s are weird? Did you know that many of those people have searched the internet in hopes of understanding this inherent weirdness?

I didn’t. But my blog stats have made this very clear.

Or perhaps there is merely one distressed individual out there who has been unrelenting in his quest to understand the peculiarity of the INTJ.

Whether I do this for the desperate individual who is so persistently seeking to understand or the curious masses, I offer seven explanation for your consideration.

INTJ’s are weird because…

Time to Write Again

It’s time. I need to start writing again.

God keeps bringing it up.
God skillfully sneaks recurrent themes into any aspect of life.
Holy Spirit skillfully highlights the notes of a recurrent theme. My attention is caught and the message is virtually inescapable.
Suddenly, everyone and everything seems to be talking about writing.
I am continually reminded: I am a writer; I love writing; I need to write.

God keeps bringing it up to my husband.
Good man that he is, my husband talks to God about me. When there is something God wants to make really clear to me, my husband is likely to hear about it. Especially when I’m a little slow in my response.
Good man that he is, my husband exhorts me to listen to God and faithfully witnesses to what He is saying.
Suddenly, every opportunity seems to be seized to lovingly prod me toward writing.
I am continually reminded: I am a writer; I love writing; I need to write.

God keeps bringing it up in my heart.
God has sewn longings and affections deep within my soul. When my heart is alive, these longings are not easily ignored. I feel.
God is well-acquainted with the longings of my heart and loves to commune with me in the deep and intimate places.
Suddenly, every quiet moment of communion seems to lead me out into the longing to write.
I am continually reminded: I am a writer; I love writing; I need to write.

And so He concludes…
I am a writer. I love writing. I need to write.

My Wedding was Awesome

I hope to eventually elaborate upon the awesomeness of my wedding. But, let’s just say… it was perfect. (Even though lots of people told me that a perfect wedding was impossible.)

Christine Still Was

While the “was” in christinewas came from the first three letters of my last name, I have no intentions of changing that. I always expected, when I chose the url, that I would be changing my last name. But that WAS my last name. So Christine was… Was. Hence: christinewas.wordpress.com.