Adjective Failure

I feel like I use the same core set of adjectives for everything. That bothers me.

I have a friend who constantly agitates this frustration with the apparent shrinking of my vocabulary. He is brilliant, thinks about his words, teaches English, and starts crazy things like fasts from crutch words. (For the record, I am grateful for such agitation.)

I don’t have an action plan for this right now. But I felt like verbalizing this continuing frustration.

I need to start reading again. I miss books. My vocabulary misses books.

Twitter Killed My Blog

So, I haven’t been in much of a writing mood lately. (Hence… nothing yet on John 14-16.)

Then again… it could be Twitter.

Twitter is easier to update. You are limited to 140 characters, so it’s not a big time commitment. AND… I update from my phone… so it’s always accessible. I just push a few buttons and there it is… on facebook, on my blog, and on a few friends’ phones. So easy.

Oh, convenience… how easily I have given in to you.

Anyway… if you are just dying to read something I wrote… there’s always that little twitter widget in the side-bar of this blog. Not that I can say much in 140 characters.

Hopefully I’ll be in the mood to write again soon.

TULIPS!!!

The amazing Dorean Beattie just posted what may be the best pictures I have ever seen of tulips.

In all honestly, when I see ANY picture of a tulip, I get absurdly happy. But I am usually somewhat disappointed (once the “Oh! A TULIP!” wears off) by the failure of the picture to really capture the tulip.

These pictures, though… there’s nothing disappointing about them. Which makes them a pretty exciting find. Even more exciting, I know the incredible woman who took those pictures. Crazy!

Anyway, you should go check them out. They’re absolutely fantastic. I would write about the specific pictures, but I already rambled on about them in slightly incoherent, overly-excited fashion on the page itself. So… you can read the outburst of “ooh, I like” that came out when I first encountered them, if you really want to know how I feel about them.

OK… here it is again. Go love them. They’re perfect.

John 14-16

John 14-16 is presently one of my favorite passages in the Bible. Jesus’ words. He speaks a great deal about three of my favorite topics: Holy Spirit, hope, and love.

Actually, now that I think of it, the Holy Spirit and hope are THE two topics that I am actually highlighting in my current Bible. And love is something I have been seriously focusing on for the last 5 months. No wonder I love this passage so much!

Throughout His dialogue, Jesus elaborates several times on the immanent sending of the Holy Spirit and how this person of the Trinity would serve and help us. (Ah! God’s humility!) I love it when one person of the Trinity talks about another person of the Trinity. They actually do it quite a bit. It’s beautiful! If anyone knows about God and has something to say about God… it’s God.

The hope topic isn’t necessarily evident in a quick scan of the passage. This is primarily because he uses the language of peace, joy, and believing.

And then we have love. Jesus keeps coming back to this theme. And He especially focuses on defining love as obedience.

This post was originally going to be about obedience. I was having one of those really good conversations with the Holy Spirit that felt like it needed to overflow into verbal expression. But then, as I sat down to write… I realized that I wanted to talk about a lot of things from this passage. And that I was so enamored with the other two subjects that I could not leave them alone in order to maintain some level of focus for this post.

So we have, instead, an introduction. I have decided, in my failed attempt to stay on the one topic, to start a tiny series of posts on John 14-16.

I’m not looking at the passage right now. In fact, I haven’t for a few days. So right now I am simply talking from what has stuck with me in the last few months as I have been looking at it and talking to the Lord about it.

From those recollections of the things that have most struck me, I would say that these three topics are essentially the three main themes of this passage. If I sat down and looked at it more analytically, I might change my stance a bit. But, my study of the Bible happens in the context of relationship and primarily exists as dialogue with God about God. (Let us all remember, prayer and love are literally my primary occupation. Sigh… I love life as an intercessory missionary. Apart from being at the core of my job description, though, these are truly what we are called to as Christians.)

So, as I talk about this passage, I will be emphasizing the things that have been the highlights of these “conversations” with God. So, whether hope, Holy Spirit, and love=obedience are the three main themes of this passage or not… I can almost guarantee that they will be the three main themes of this little series.

I’m not going to make any promises about how quickly these posts will be written. I am simply going to state my intent to write them and follow through with that at whatever pace my schedule allows.

I also cannot make any guarantees concerning the length of the series. I anticipate that there will probably be three posts, one for each topic. But… then again… I anticipated, upon sitting down to blog, that I was writing one post about obedience. And now… here I am, introducing a series. So who knows what this will look like when all is said and done.

In any case, I am excited about it. This is the stuff that is moving my heart. I love to talk about the things that move my heart. (Now that I have a heart that moves and all. Thank You, God, for reviving the heart that I spent so many years trying to numb and deaden!)

Yay fun!

Boldness

I am watching the DVDs of David Pawson’s recent visit. I LOVE that man. What he just said was really resonating in me, so I decided to push pause (on the DVD and my admin) and write a quick little post-let.

He talked about the Greek word “parrhesia”, translated boldness. Here’s what he said:

“God is looking, not just for people who speak in tongues to him, but who will speak in boldness to a world that needs to hear the truth. And the Holy Spirit gives both gifts. So are you as keen to have the gift of boldness of speech as you are to speak in tongues? Hallelujah if you are. Because it takes great courage to tell the truth to a sinful world.”

YES. Holy Spirit, give me the gift of boldness. Purify my speech and make me a wholehearted lover of the truth, without compromise. Give me courage to speak against the spirit of this age and to be a witness and messenger of the truth.

I never really wanted boldness before. I’ve always had some vague notion of the implications of that… and they terrified me. The Lord knows that. So the simple fact of my desiring to be a messenger and saying yes to His invitation to this kind of partnership is evidence of God moving. So it’s going to happen. It’s still somewhat horrifying. But He only really asks me to lean and to rest in His leadership, anyway. (Ummm… and to die. But… whatever.)

I enjoy myself

I have come to the place in my life where I can sincerely say that I enjoy myself.

That seemed worthy of a blog.

Way to love me, God!

The Father, Son, and Holy Spirit loved me SO well that my heart overflowed in love for God and then love for myself. Now… learning to love other people.

I really want to excel in this… in loving. It is the most excellent way. It, along with with faith and hope, is one of the three that remain.

I have a vision to love that terrifies me. Love can be really painful… death. But it also scares me because I have never loved like that… I have never loved in the way that I now want to love.

But God, who is love, lives in me. So I know it’s possible. And I figure that my overwhelming desire to love well is the first step to Him producing it in me. So… here it goes… eek!

What? Not the time for that? OK…

I recently received an email from my favorite college professor, Dr. Mieczyslaw Dabkowski. He has been nominated for the Regents’ Outstanding Teacher Award, an honor given across the entire UT system, and needed student letters of support as a part of his teaching portfolio.

He felt understandably awkward about asking for such letters from his current students. And so the privilege of testifying to the excellent qualities of a truly outstanding teacher fell to me. (I had written a couple of emails, thanking him, just after I graduated. I guess he remembered them.)

ANYWAY… one of Dr. Dabkowski’s most notable qualities is his profound humility. Given, humility means a lot more to me than it does most of the world. But, his humility really impacted me.

As it turns out, I am pretty passionate about that whole humility thing. (OK, I knew this already.) But there was no mistaking that fact when I went to write about it in my letter.

When I read those paragraphs aloud to my roommates, I could not stop laughing at myself… and how absurdly carried away I had gotten in those paragraphs. I somehow made  it through OK with Amanda, and simply added a couple of lines and moved it to the end of the letter (so as not to lose everyone at the beginning). But by the time I read it to Wendy, my brain kicked in and I KNEW that it was going to require severe revision.

I’m still really amused with myself. And the paragraphs are just too good to lose them forever. And then I remember… I have a blog for things like this. (No, that isn’t really why I have this blog.)

I can hardly believe that I typed anything like this with any intention of giving it to such a committee. In all honesty, a significant number of people who would read the letter are probably guilty of the very thing that I am railing at. Truth be told, I kind of do want to preach at them. I wouldn’t be railing at this thing if I didn’t find it utterly repulsive and was not so irked by it. But… a letter of support for a guy I really want them to love is NOT the place to do that.

And now… with no further ado… I give you the paragraphs that begged for revision:

Glue fumes. Oops.

My roommate’s closet just… gave out. It was quite the seen. I ran in to help.

The plastic end-cap was cracking, so we found the only glue-type thing we could and I started trying to goop stuff into the seems. STRONG smell.

And then we read the label. You’re only supposed to use it in a well-ventilated space. Yes… I was standing in the corner of Wendy’s not-so-well-ventilated room with the stuff inches from my face.

I’m sure I’m fine. I’m sure I have a few brain cells to spare. But my eyes are kind of burning. That concerns me a little bit.

Man, that stuff is strong.

Why does Kansas City hate me?

Imagine, if you will…

It’s 4 in the morning. In a couple of hours, when your alarm will be going off, you have a VERY full day ahead of you. Your present engagement, sleep, is desperately needed and very important to you.

You are sleeping peacefully when the obnoxious rotating weather siren starts blaring. It keeps going… and going… and going. You imagine the trees violently shaking at 45-degree angles because of strong winds. You hear nothing but the obnoxious siren. You imagine green skies and the potential of at least a bicycle or something flying through your window.

You lay there for a while hoping it will stop. The siren keeps going. You try burying your head. It doesn’t help.

Finally, you decide to look out the windows and check the weather.

The sky looks normal and the air looks peaceful. No airborne bicycles. Calm trees. You get online and check the weather advisories. Why did Kansas City decide to wake you so rudely?

They wanted you to know that there is some flooding.

You’re not an idiot. You know it has been raining constantly for the last few days. You are aware that your yard is exceptionally mushy. You’ve seen the roads… you know what happens when the rain keeps falling.

Really? They woke you to tell you that there was some flooding?

You try to go back to sleep. You fail miserably.

You begin your busy day. All the while wondering why Kansas City hates you.

Reynolds Wedding

For the record… CJ & Christina Reynolds’ wedding (the one wedding that I have ACTUALLY helped coordinate) went very well. We had our share of last-minute UH-OH(!!!) moments. But all of those uh-oh moments were fairly smoothly remedied. God’s just really good.

AND… the stormy weather that was supposed to be here today didn’t even hit until I got home from the reception. We had beautiful weather while there were pictures to be taken, things to be transported, and hair, makeup, and dresses to be maintained.

Christina was absolutely gorgeous and those two are good and married now.

Also worth noting: Cassie Campbell is amazing. Super flexible. Ridiculously talented. Wonderfully persevering. That girl is such a servant that it’s almost absurd. I love it! And she really helped out a lot at the wedding. (She played for a good 30 minutes longer than she had originally agreed to. AND she filled in at the last minute when Clay was too busy coughing out a lung to come and sing. I’m pretty sure she just learned that song in the last couple of days and she did a fantastic job with it. Not to mention making it sound amazing and completely un-awkward when she had to extend it to almost twice the length of what might have been ideal.)

I have a bunch of people that I could thank right now. But they wouldn’t be reading this. And there are too many of them. But… I’m very grateful for the many people who served Christina & CJ today.