The Pain in Fear

So, like I said before I'm currently reading The Shack by WM. Paul Young. And alot of the things that Mac experiences in the book are similar to what I'm going through. On pages 115 and 116 it says, "Mack felt more clean and alive and well than he had since...well, he couldn't remember when. Eventually, they both calmed again and the night's quiet asserted itself once more. It seemed that even the frogs had called it quits. Mack lay there realizing that he was now feeling guilty about enjoying himself, about laughing, and even in the darkness he could feel The Great Sadness roll in and over him" Anyways, it goes on to Mack telling Jesus that he fells lost, and Jesus comforting him.
I totally get where Mack is coming from, I have so much pain within me that I feel guilty whever I feel even just the slightest little glimpse of joy. I allow the pain to seep back in and around me because I feel as if I don't deserve to be happy.
Later on in the book, on page 126-127, God says, "we want to share with you the love and joy and freedom and light that we already know within ourselves. We created you, the human, to be in face-to-face relationship with us, to join our circle of love. As difficult as it will be for you to understand, everything that has taken place is occuring exactly according to this purpose, without violating choice or will" and Mack asks God, "How can you say that with all the pain in this world, all the wars and disasters that destroy thousands?...(sorry don't want to give too much of the book away)...You may not cause those things, but you certainly don't stop them."
And I love how God responds he says, "there are millions of reasons to allow pain and hurt and suffering rather than to eradicate them, but most of those reasons can be understood only within each person's story. I am not evil. You are the ones who embrace fear and pain and power and rights so readily in your relationships. But your choices are also not stronger than my purposes, and I will use every choice you make for the ultimate good and the most loving outcome...broken humans center their lives around things that seem good to them but will neither fill them nor free them. They are addicted to power, or the illusion of security that power offrs. When a disaster happens, those same people will turn against the false powers they trusted. In their disappointment, either they become softened towards me or become bolder in their independence.If you could only see how all of this ends and what we will achieve without the violation of one human wil-then you would understand. One day you will."
How true that is, it's so easy for us to embrace fear and pain so readily, but no matter what choices we choose in life God will meet us wherever we are in life and he will embrace us in his loving arms and will chase after us and heal the brokeness that we so easily hold on to.

The Pouring Rain

Today my flip-flops broke so I was walking around barefoot. And I can’t express how amazing it feels to feel the earth under your feet. It seems like such a little thing yet it is so incredible powerful. It makes me feel closer to nature and therefore closer to God. On the way home from school today it was pouring down rain so my friends mom (our neighbor) gave me a ride home since our bus stop is a quarter mile away from my house. It felt so good sitting in the bed of a truck with the gentle breeze running through your hair and the gentle raindrops running down your face like crystals ready to break into a thousand little pieces before becoming part of a greater body of water. Maybe this place is starting to feel a little bit more like a home after all.

A Greater Calling

Since mid-July I’ve been feeling a real tug on my heart to go back to Mexico(read previous post to learn about why I was there and what happened there). I’ve been reading The Shack by WM. Paul Young and the way that Mack describes his fear of the shack is similar to how I feel about Mexico, due to the major event that happened while I was their (a 7.2 earthquake). On page 76 Young wrote,
“He had pushed away any thoughts of the place since Missy’s disappearance, sequestering his emotions securely in the padlocked basement of his own heart. On the long stretch up the Gorge, Mack felt a creeping panic begin to penetrate his consciousness. He had tried to avoid thinking about what he was doing and just keep putting one foot in front of the other, but like grass pushing through concrete, the repressed feelings and fears somehow began to poke through. His eyes darkened and his hands tightened on the steering wheel as he fought the temptation at every off-ramp to turn around and go home. He knew he was driving straight into the center of his pain, the vortex of The Great Sadness that had so diminished his sense of being alive. Flashes of visual memory and stabbing instants of blistering fury now came in waves, attended by the taste of bile and blood in his mouth.”
I won’t go any further than that because the pain is too real (and I don’t want to spoil the book for those of who may not have read it). I’m only to page 106 in the book right now, but so far everything about Mack and his feelings and emotions towards the shack are exactly how I feel about Mexico. There is so much pain and fear bottled up inside of me because of what God allowed to happen there. But maybe if I go back it could heal that hurt, by going back to “the vortex of the great sadness”. Since Mexico, I just don’t feel the same kind of joy I felt before because I have too much hurt inside of me to allow myself to feel more than a few small, short glimpses of joys because I fall right back into those fears.
But I also look at the stories of Moses in the Bible and I think about how God saved his life thousands of times and it was all because God had a greater purpose, a greater plan for his life. And since God saved my life, he must have something greater for me, but I need to face my fears in order to restore my soul and fulfill the plans he has laid out for me.

Moon Glow

Last night we went to the Puyallup fair for youth group. There are always some interesting booths there, like the jerky booth, the Emu jerky isn’t all that great, but I must say the alligator jerky was amazing! Anyhow, there was a booth there that I haven’t seen in the past. It’s called moon glow. They take pictures of the moon every night and make them into necklaces that absorb the light of the sun during the day so at night the moon appears to be glowing just like it is in the sky. So you tell the people running the booth when you were born and they look up the picture, get out the necklace and show it to you. And as it turns out I was born on a night of a full moon and a partial eclipse, how cool is that?!!? Their website is moonglow.us and I highly suggest you check it out!

Welcome to Hickville

Wow, I don’t know how many other schools would have so many people go all out for Western Day during spirit week. How many schools even have western day? I arrive to school to be greeted by a bunch of people in long sleeve flannel t-shirts, boot cut jeans, cowboy hats made of straw, and old horse riding shoes covered in muck. I know that a lot of people out here have grown up on farms or cattle ranches, but I often time forget how many hicks we’ve got around here. Seriously, how many schools do you go to where students lasso “cattle” during lunchtime? I’m pretty sure that doesn’t happen in too many places.

Back to the Jungle

As my American Studies teacher so bluntly pointed out the first day of school, high school is a jungle. And this year in the jungle I’m trying to be more like the monkey. You know the type of person I’m talking about, the person who can make you laugh and who is always inviting you with a cheerful smile. The person who you feel like you can talk to about anything without any awkwardness. The person who isn’t afraid to stand up and make a fool of themself in front of the whole school.

A Reckless Fall

For those of you that don't already know, this summer I worked in the kitchen at Sound View Presbyterian Camp(woot!woot!) And This is my third week being home and it just doesn't feel right to be back here again. For me this has always just been a house, but it's never really felt like a home to me. I'm really missing my home, back at camp, alot lately and I found this original song called "Prison Break" on youtube by Julietoriginals and I think it really describes how I've been feeling lately.



LYRICS:
What I need is a face to face talk about
How i'll escape the bars to independence
What I need is the courage to tell myself
That it's ok to be ok
I need to scream out loud, fight my own will
Won't see the rest of the world if i'm here, still

May I please, please escape my love
Where I can see the sky and shining sun
Our grounds are cold and for God's sake
I need a prison break
I'm falling, falling, falling apart
I'm not breaking rules but I might break a heart
Go and tell me this is a mistake
I need a prison break

What I need is a dose of silence to fix up this new way
The words are echoing in my ear like i'm being forced to stay
Live a little, breath a little, rip out a page
from the same old story i'm living every day
Do me a favor and bail me out, just bail me out

May I please, please escape my love
Where I can see the sky and shining sun
Our grounds are cold and for God's sake
I need a prison break
I'm falling, falling, falling apart
I'm not breaking rules but I might break a heart
Go and tell me this is a mistake
I need a prison break

I don't want to be held hostage from a sweet rejoice
I just want to be alone if leaving is a choice

May I please, please escape my love
Where I can see the sky and shining sun
Our grounds are cold and for God's sake
I need a prison break
I'm falling, falling, falling apart
I'm not breaking rules but I might break a heart
Go and tell me this is a mistake
I need a prison break

Get me out of here
Bail me out of here
I just want to be alone

I just want to go back and talk to the people I love the most and to break free from all the boundaries that limit me here. I want to screthe top of my because it's killing me to be so far away from everything and everyone I love so dearly.I want to escape the love that I’m feeling here and trade it for the greater love that always seems to be present at Sound View. I want to be where the warm sun bathes my skin as the powerful ocean waves come crashing over me. I want to get away from here because I feel like I sinking deeper and deeper back into the old me, I’m falling back into the traps of the materialistic world that is so full of people who have influenced me in negative ways. Their pulling me away from God and away from the person I want to be and that breaks my heart.
It must be some kind of mistake because I don’t feel like this is where I’m meant to be. I just want to get away from everyone else so that I can rediscover the real me that has become so evidently clear this summer. But there is another part of me that feels as if I’m being forced to stay here. I’m sick and tired of the same old routine day after day, There must be something better out there for me to do in God’s kingdom outside the walls of school. I don’t want to stay here; I just want to get as far away from this false reality as I can because I know that the eternal reality is so much greater than what I’m feeling now.