Grace from the Cubicle

I come to you from a cubicle far far away. It is my first day in the office of Otter Creek as one of the new youth ministers and it has been so exciting and comforting! I felt a lot of things coming into this day in the office much of which was the unexpected. As a irrelevant side note, don't EVER challenge God with the statement of "expecting the unexpected" unless you are lacking excitement, spontoneity, and have a million and a half prophets in your life. I proposed that statement of arrogance to God exactly a year ago sitting on my dorm bed at Harding University and now I am speaking truth to its product from a cubicle in Otter Creek's church office.

Though in a new location with a new worldview, I am still under the provisions of my main disciple, Luke. Luke approached me about five days ago and presented this thought of Jesus to me. "Then he turned to his disciples and said privately, 'Blessed are the eyes that see what you see. For I tell you that many prophets and kings wanted to see what you see but did not see it, and to hear what you hear but did not hear it." So I thought to myself out loud exactly what context that was meant for, but it spoke something personal to me totally out of its original context and into my futuristic corner of the story. I missed it all until now. All the signs, the knowledge, the blessing, the plan. With that said, I am not only excited for what is ahead for myself, but how blessed are those that have spoken truth into my blind life over the years.

God is moving in ways that we, the church, have never seen before and looks to speak in a level that only you can hear and in a volume that only I would understand. In the same coffee session Luke and I had, he also bestowed some grace upon me through this statement of Jesus a little bit before that, "I praise you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because you have hidden these things from the wise and learned, and revealed them to little children." I fell in love with this lesson first because it carred such a lack of formality and expectation on who it is that can know of the kingdom of God. Then I fell in love with it for a whole new reason in that I have been those little children over the last six months. I have had to learn how to walk, talk, and receive God in ways that are new to me. With that said, God has been speaking things to me that I have had to learn from scratch and from a wisdom that I have yet to gain. To know that God speaks to the unlikely or the unexpected, bathed me in such grace and renewal towards my intellectual interaction with God.

I am so excited to see how God accelerates this time for the church into a place we have never had the courage to dream. As well to see, how it is that God will continue to interact with his people and community. Well, I am just a bamboo shoot growing a mile a minute; hope to catch you on the next mile!

The Inner Eye on Change

What an absence I have had! There is no way to truly sum up all the reasons I haven't posted in ages except a lot has changed since my last entry to this online journal. Some of it to be kept secret and some of it just too much to write or comprehend. The great news though is that I am finally moving to Nashville! No more wandering among the fold, but rather being found and carried to a place of belonging. God was doing some tremendous things while I wasn't looking and some even more real things when I was. It astounds me constantly that I serve a God who decides to work in my life when there is no desire and there is no commitment to be seen only felt.

With this exciting news and scary change, I have resorted to find knowledge and advice from the disciples of my heritage in Luke 9. It is in this chapter, that Jesus sends the twelve out with the most responsibility yet since there calling. I can truly imagine the nervousness, lack of confidence, and concern they feel for the opportunities they will have and the success rate of those possible opportunities. I mean they've seen it done a million times, but never on their own have they tested themselves.

This is of course how I feel in this new job. It is a tremendous opportunity and full of things that promote personal growth and influential change, but oh how those feelings of newness drown that out. Those of you that know me well know that change is terrifying for me. I love to pretend as though it is nothing, but my heart yields to my thoughts all too much in those times of drastic transformation. I wish Luke knew my need to hear the disciples thoughts on doing ministry, but as I continue to read that chapter I think maybe it was a good thing. You see later in that chapter the disciples did wondrous things while on their pilgrimage from Jesus, but returned only to argue about greatness and entitlement. So maybe it wouldn't have been helpful to hear their thoughts on beginnings because it certainly isn't to listen to their thoughts on success.

I am grateful for that portion of the story because it puts the rewards of ministry into focus. Our rewards will almost always be for someone else. For that, I am comfortable and satisfied, but I am aware of the things that can become blinding when in ministry. Jesus calls me confess of my love and commitment to transform into him daily. It is then that he will be my full reward. It is nail biting to read the part where the disciples walk into foreign towns without anything material or relational because that is just how I am perceiving my upcoming journey, but at the end of that part I always sigh because they return to Jesus their comfort and support. It is on this journey that I enter to a place where I am without those things too, but I also know that because of the Lord that I will gain and return to the things I "feel" that I lack. My feelings are fleeting and do not deserve the credit that is often given, but I look forward to when they are of positive mind and of great reward. Well, I am just a bamboo shoot growing a mile a minute; hope to catch you on the next mile!

The Disciple and I

Sorry for the weeks of great delay in writing for those few of you that actually read my blog. It has been a wild couple of weeks since my last post. This past week and weekend was spent preparing and then celebrating the marriage of Michael and Regina Hampton. Many of you know Regina personally and the rest of you just know her as the "best friend who lives in Nashville". The wedding itself was beautiful and A LOT of work, but well worth it to see her and Michael have a good time expressing themselves to one another. On a more personal note, I would like to brag on myself in the fact that I drove around the Nashville area all week without my GPS and did it with great flare. If you perceive this comment as self-centered, I advise you to go back a couple months worth of posts when I first tried to move to Nashville and I am 100% sure that you will be proud of me too.

Many of the things that came to mind over the course of the week and weekend obviously had a lot to do with the nature of commitment. I know that that seems like a cliche' thought, but I truly have wondered what it is that drives us to dive into things that have no insurance. Things like relationships, marriages, lifestyles, jobs. All those things require commitment, but no insurance to reassure the galavant ahead. Recently, I have started to read through the book of Luke. I have a hard relationship with Luke because as I read his take on Jesus I sense that he and I would not be great friends in real life. I mean look into it. He would want everything to be a secret and I just couldn't do that, whereas, John talks about the emotional heart-driven Jesus, Matthew speaks of our Savior as a Messiah who manages our religious chaos, and Mark talks about Jesus being someone who is calm, cool, an collected in the face of human trial. But Luke wants it all to be a secret and about Jesus' prodigal ability to heal the human body.

Anyway, I read through Luke 5 this morning and found this passage to be a bit unnerving. "After this, Jesus went out and saw a tax collector by the name of Levi sitting at his tax booth. 'Follow me', Jesus said to him, and Levi got up, left everything and followed him." I found it to irk me so because Luke made it look as though he JUST WENT! He makes me feel like a moron when I read that passage. But then I reflected on my emotions and the sudden life effecting insinuation that was made. When we read this, it seems as though Levi had no hinderances in following Jesus, but then I got to thinking about Levi with hope that Luke and I might could reconcile.

Picture Levi sitting at his table outside the very house that his old paralyzed friend from Kindergarten just walked out of. He gets curious and starts to stare at the door as if something brilliant was about to appear. Then he hears Jesus' words to the Pharisees and giggles to himself at the truth of the statements. As he continues to wait for that brilliant upstanding rich man to walk out the door, a man gets in the way of his view. A man from Nazareth is blocking the door way that will soon emit the man that he needs to know. He tries to look around him and then has the man from Nazareth come toward him, making it harder to see, and speaks in a voice that spoke moments before and asks him to follow.

He is amazed that a man that did and said such powerful things looks and walks like that. So he gets up to literally follow him, but involves himself in such a commitment that does not provide any insurance or reassurance to what it will require over the next three years. What if he was just thinking to himself, "Ok, I will follow you down the street, but I don't know about around the corner." When I have read this passage in the past, I often think that Levi's actions are proof that he knew that Jesus meant follow me with your life, but really did he know that?

God has plans for us all, otherwise, this world would be much more chaotic then it is already. Sometimes I commit to God in the moment not considering what that moment will require of me for a lifetime. Sometimes we make decisions in relationships and friendships that are in the moment, but don't realize that those decisions can take a lifetime to move past or avoid reoccurrence; a commitment we wouldn't otherwise sign up for. The difference between these two scenarios is that God's expectation of commitment is hard, but full of rewards and not rewards in heaven or on earth as we would think, but of love, grace, mercy, and peace. Those things will not come with the latter scenario unless the former is then applied. This is all very fresh and new to me, but I invite you to take a commitment and let it affect you from here on out. As for Luke and I's future, we shared a cup of coffee this morning and made a future date to do it again. Well, I am just a bamboo shoot growing a mile a minute; hope to catch you on the next mile!


*picture taken by Jocelyn Jesus

When it Rains it Pours...

Have you ever got caught in the rain? I am not talking like a sprinkle of water, but real rain like the kind you see in the movie The Day After Tomorrow. That is exactly what happened to me twice this weekend. On Saturday, I had the sheer pleasure of driving up to Auburn and going to the greatest game yet this season for free with my older brother, Nathan. As we were walking up to the stadium, it began to sprinkle and then it began to pour onto us. We only walked a few yards when we were soaked from the hip down to our toes. We got into the stadium with about 70,000 other excited fans and remained stuck there for about an hour as the officials waited for lightening to quit striking. Now I have fought my way through crowds of all massive sizes at various worship conferences, but this was way different. Boistrous, excited, passionate fans crammed into a small space with the kick-off for what they think is the game of their life only a few feet out of a portal they can't get to nor is allowed to exit is not a rosy experience. After about an hour, we all shoved our way to the entrance to the field and began to sit down with 87,000 other people and chant for the game to begin. It was thrilling!


There was a similar reoccurrence on Sunday at the Braves game in Atlanta. A few weeks ago I found a great deal on tickets and wanted to go since I had never been to see the Braves game in all the years my youth group, family, and friends had gone. I only wanted to go with one person and that was my older brother. So early the next morning we climbed into the car and drove to Turner Field. It was so grand and full of anticipation. You could tell which of the fans do this every Sunday and who of the fans were just like me; babies to the sport. I teared up several times with excitement throughout the first four innings. We had amazing seats according to Nathan. We were four rows up right in center field. I didn't care because I was watching America's greatest past time live! Just as the game was getting good the rain began to sprinkle. We pulled on our ponchos and went about watching the game until it began to pour, again. Nathan and I looked at each other, shrugged, and went to grab a hot dog. After about an hour the rain cleared and we were back into the game with clear skies and sunshine.

I say all this to say that I had a blast. This was probably one of the best weekends I have ever had. Yes it rained, but there is something to be said for sticking it out and not complaining. When you don't complain, it is a lot easier to take things like a deathly down pour to steal the excitement of just being present at something like that. It was also great because it was the mental break I had needed so desperately all week. Last weekend was wonderful, but left me with lots of tears and naps (which I hate taking advantage of). I tried many things this past week to change that, such as, going to Barnes and Noble's cookbook section, reading, watching movies, walking, cleaning, family dinners, play practice, even just giving in to the naps, but nothing seemed to work. This weekend was perfect. All I was concerned about was being the loudest among 80,000 for the team that I love and soaking and marinating in a new environment at a sport I know nothing about. It was grand and it was perfect. I learned this weekend through all the rain that things are never as bad as they seems unless you point it out as such, otherwise, ignoring it and moving on makes the fun not only rain, but pour. Well, I am just a bamboo shoot growing a mile minute; hope to catch you on the next mile!

What Are We Entitled To?

So I don't have a fancy picture to go with this post nor do I have a great excuse that gets me out of the firing line for not posting recently. You must know, however, how many times a day I think about posting and what I should post. Often times it is a great discussion issue, but does not fit what so ever into what this blog is about except the fact that I experienced those situations while sitting around and growing. Many of you have asked how this past weekend went on my little escapade. Well, I will give you the vague version.

I interviewed for a very big opportunity in Nashville that includes working with teenagers, lots of them! It was a whirlwind weekend I must say. I arrived around lunch on Saturday and went straight into lunch/interview with the people who were chosen to help with the hiring process. After about two hours, I then went back to the original place of meeting and helped with a brewing activity on the horizon. I was beginning to get hungry and a bit more relaxed about the whole weekend when we arrived at our next destination. There we had an amazing tasting dinner with about 50 wonderful people that I would be working with and leaning on for support if this job opportunity came along. I crashed after two hours from my own personal annoyance at how boring my life was up to this point. These people rightfully wanted to enquire about similar things about me, but after answering two or three times I realized how boring I am. Bless those peoples hearts for wanting to know anyway. Then I crashed hard until the next morning.

Overall, the weekend went really well with a splash of exhaustion, but I think that is a sign of a weekend well spent. Other than that I have contemplated many things, but one of which that sticks out in my mind. Entitlement. I think that the age of entitlement has come to its peak. I am not going to name names of those who have pointed out the rise of this phenomenon, but I am going to call out the rest of us on it. All too often we think that we have "rights" to things that are not really supported by the most important thing we live by; God's word. We often feel that we have the right to privacy, the right to success, the right to make lots of money, the right to spend that money on crap, and the right to boast about it in everyday conversation. Don't get me wrong I am speaking to myself as well, but really people? We need to rethink the rights we really have and take those into consideration when living every day out.

The biggest danger of all in this line of thinking is that we feel we are entitled to grace and love of Jesus. Oh no, of course we would never say that out loud, but you don't have to because by example we are bullhorns. Jesus dealt with the issue of entitlement often. Not within himself, but among those he was leaving his work to which is even scarier. Remember the disciples arguing where they were going to sit in the kingdom of heaven? I can't imagine what Jesus was thinking or feeling during that eavesdropping. Oh wait! I can because I have those type of one way discussions all day every day! Suddenly, I have become this person who feels entitled to the best job in my interest, the least debt of them all, the right to rest when I want to, and the luxuries of being in my position. In the same breath, I expect to have grace and forgiveness without having to ask, I expect to get a new day for seventy years without fail, and I expect to be deserving of the message of jesus Christ.

God does gives us these things covered with grace, but I think there comes a point where God expects more than what we expect for and of ourselves. Entitlement is scary because it can make you set yourself apart from the community and cover the truth of what God has called us to in this life. Rationalization is entitlement's best friend and don't often separate without accountability. Just think about it. Well, I am just a bamboo shoot growing a mile a minute; hope to catch you on the next mile!

Do You Really Want This?

This picture was taken at an art opening last spring at Harding. My friends and I really like to try and take our free time to enjoy other people's expressions and take on life through visuals. We have been able to see amazing artists and one of a kind perspectives on the way life looks. Here lately life looks different everyday. I have been given an amazing opportunity to interview for a job that would include working with the intellectual driving forces of today's church leaders. It is in the field of youth ministry which I have a great bit of passion for, but have never done it quite like this. I don't have a lot of experience in youth ministry during the school year nor do I have experience working with this many students at once. I have just decided to take the whole process one step at a time and enjoy each passing moment. Yet, here lately I have had everyone and their brother ask me if this is a job I want.

My first reaction is always defensive. Of course I want this job! Who wouldn't? Then I explain that I am ok with any outcome and remain open to God's plans. The secret is that deep down I question that statement. You see when you really think you want something and then have several people question that desire it makes it difficult to not dwell on the things you wouldn't like about it. Long hours, singleness and celibacy for life (just a joke), giving up on previous plans and dreams, moving to a city with no boundaries, and a need for a bigger planner. Those things just seem to come up a lot when I really consider whether want has anything to do with it.

There are a lot of things that I want right now and in my future that just aren't plausible. I want to travel for the next decade and live in thousands of cities, I want to race in the Tour de France, I want a movie to be made about my quirky life, but those things are not happening right now. If I am truly open to God's will as I say that I am, then I must be just that. If God wants me in this job or at home, then I need to accept and move forward. God will hear me out in my wants, but he will tune me out when it comes to carrying me to my needs. So do I want this? I don't know. I hear that feeling and desires are fleeting and that I shouldn't trust them anyway so I'm not going to. The only want that I have today is a significant plan from God that comes with all parts and instructions included that will result in an awesome glorifying showcase. Wholeness here I come...Well, I am just a bamboo shoot growing a mile a minute; hope to catch you on the next mile!

The World in a Whisk

So I sat here and sat here for an hour after seeing Julie and Julia trying to talk myself out of being a part of that group in the blogger-sphere that makes her prescene sporatically known just because she saw this amazing, life inspiring, new addition to my collection movie. Yet, here I am posting under the influence of the crossroads of media and real life.

I felt very inspired and connected with the characters in this film. I felt that my readers, whoever you may be, would understand too as soon as you go use the rest of your weekend allowance to see it. It is about two real women doing what they can to get by, but searching for a dream through just trying to find something to stay busy with. Well, at least that is Julia's perspective. Julie on the other hand has the busy part, but not the dream. Fits perfectly with the foul mood I was in yesterday.

I have been taking cake decorating classes the last three weeks and embark on my final one Monday. I am bit sad, but have found myself buried in baking books day after day praying for a client with a sweet creativity need that only I can fulfill. Alas, nothing yet. Nothing to prove my new lessons or new take on life, but it will come soon I am almost sure of it. I love cooking. I always have. Mostly, I love food because food always comes with people!

At Harding, I loved cooking for friends (mainly Hannah and Betsy) and watching their faces as they bit into something unintroduced into the world. I love putting seasons into food, but even more I love having the simplicity of life on a plate and in a cup. There is nothing more comforting than a cup of coffee and a brownie that is not afraid to love you back. Food is great! It brings lessons in life and emotions out on the table. I recall one night of anger that birthed fresh fried rice and vegetables that could feed an army and took three hours to cook. Paige, my old roomate, new the signs of me being upset or angry...Jenn's in the kitchen at an odd hour and saying nothing but "try this". Even now, as I go through my ups and downs of finding work and purpose I am expressing myself by cooking for my parents weekly.

Anyway, I wanted to please my best friend, Heather, by posting a few pictures of my first cake in its stages and my second round with cupcakes that were happily devoured by my sugar loving family. If you want anything decorated that is edible, come by All Wrapped Up and I promise I will do you one sweet! Well, I am just a bamboo shoot growing a mile a minute; hope to catch you on the next mile!