Less words but just as good….

Hello friends…

I feel like I haven’t written much lately; but when I do it seems to be big and in depth… sometimes an overload. Is that just me or are you feeling it too? But I think my lack of writing has kept people from reading and commenting… so, I really hope there are still a few of you reading.

Anyway….

The house is quiet. I’m in a room by myself with the humming of the fan and Shawn McDonald’s voice being the only things entering these ears. Honestly friends, I love it. I feel like I could sigh a sigh of relief right now. 🙂

Its been a crazy week. Friends home from college. Looking for a job. Really late nights and phone calls (which deserves a blog of itself. I’m hoping to write about that before I leave for Michigan on Friday morning.) Pressures of school. A family of friends of mine moved. Two dear friends of mine experienced a death… and lets add desperately seeking Jesus onto the list.

I am more tired and worn then I thought. This morning while having time with Jesus I muttered the words “I wish things would slow down” after letting out a long sigh. One of those sighs you breathe when you realize that what you want isn’t exactly what you’re going to get. *grin*

Yesterday I shared with a friend of mine who was home from college how I’ve been doing. I bluntly told her the truth, that its been a hard season yet a good one. That things have been hard and I’ve been pulled and pushed and forced into so many directions… and yet its been good. I smiled with her after sharing those words.

Her and I shared about how we both sometimes feel that there always seems to be atleast one thing that is pulling at us – and that a purely good season has been hard to find lately. How true those words feel!

While mentioning the topic of college..
Yesterday I got to see some dear friends of mine who are home from college. Four friends of mine came home this week for Fall break and two of them I got to spend time with yesterday. It amazes me sometimes how you expect people to be different (I didn’t expect this – but I’ve heard it said) after you haven’t seen them for an amount of time, how you expect them to look and act different, and not relate with you at all. Gladly (and expectedly), those assumptions weren’t true at all. 🙂

Quickly jumping onto something else….

I woke up this morning alittle after 5:30 (yes that’s AM – I can picture a few of you wincing at the thought of that *grin*) and after getting ready for my day and having some time with Jesus I looked out the kitchen window. The very spot that I often found myself 2 years ago during the summer mornings. I’d sit there sipping on some cappuccino while the sun was rising. I thought of that this morning while I looked out the window to see a pale blue morning sky filled with the darkest, puffiest, clouds I had ever seen.

Nearly an hour after that I looked out the very same window to see the sun rising and the sky filled with a hint of orange and dark pink. The dark puffy clouds were now bright white and the beams of the morning sun were peaking through. I sat there smiling, wishing, again, that time would slow down. I wanted to take a picture… but then I’d miss minutes of what I was seeing. 🙂 And those few minutes were SO WORTH IT!

The picture of that is engraved in my mind and the feelings I had while seeing that is left in me. Completely amazing friends. 🙂

I have more I want to share… which I will try to do before I leave for Michigan on Friday.

Please check out a few of the last blogs if you haven’t…

Teresa

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A few thoughts…

It’s 7:30 in the morning and it’s still dark outside. I think that is something I’ve always liked about Summer – the sun rises at 6am…

How are you doing friends?… What have you been up to? What have you been reading, watching, listening to, feeling, learning? I’d really like to know.

I had 2 friends share something with me this week. Saturday afternoon I got a text message from a friend of mine telling me that a dear friend of hers had died. She said that she was out of town and that someone had to call her to let her know that her friend had died.

Yesterday my cellphone rang to let me know that I had another text message. Another friend of mine was letting me know that a friend of hers was killed in a car accident and left a daughter behind.

I have never experienced death personally – no one close to me has ever died. But when I got these words from these friends I can’t help but be grieved over it. Yesterday morning I spent the whole morning getting ready for the day and having time with Jesus while crying over (the first mentioned) the friend of mine.

Yesterday while sitting in my room after getting both messages I started wondering how in the world will I deal with death at a personal level? I started imagining the grief that could and would take hold of me. Then I started thinking of people that I love dearly and imagined them leaving the earth and taking their last breath.

It doesn’t seem real, friends. Death doesn’t seem real. To imagine someone leaving the earth and taking their last breath isn’t fathomable. It seems fake, made up. Something I can’t begin to grasp….

But,yesterday I kept trying to truly grasp all of this at once. (Yes, I just said it’s something I can’t grasp – so apparently I was doing something impossible). People dying. Friends suffering. Losing someone. Grief that could take hold of me. But, I don’t think it’s something that can be fully grasped at all.

Within the last 4 days those are somethings that are getting LOUD in me. Things that have been circling over and over again in my mind… and thoughts and words that just won’t leave me alone.

Please do pray for these friends of mine. I long to be with them and comforting them – one is 2 hours away and the other across the country. Please pray that they would trust that God is the Comforter. His comfort is far better than what mine could be! And please pray for the families of the ones that died as well….

Even Jesus wept when Lazarus died… if Jesus reacts in the same way we do – then I’m sure it will never be something easily grasped by man.

If you haven’t already, please read my last blog.

Teresa

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A Waste…

I woke up around 6 this morning to find fog outside. And hours later I was looking out the window to still see patches of fog and air that looked misty, with the sun’s rising beams beneath the roofs of houses across the street. And for some reason, I’ve loved that this morning. Its made me smile.

I know my last blog was not so short and not so sweet; but those words shared about places I have been in. Anyone who read and commented, read, or is yet to do either of those… I thank you for reading and sharing your thoughts about the places I’ve been in and my honesty.

In the midst of these things this morning I decided that I’m really going to get back to blogging. Believe it or not, I’ve missed writing here frequently and reading what other people think of the things that I’ve shared. The past few weeks I’ve been wanting to write but it just hasn’t been flowing, friends…. but alas, I’m writing today and with one thing in mind…

I don’t know if you have ever heard someone say something or do something that doesn’t seem to leave your mind or heart, even days after the words were said… but, this occasion seemed to bump into me Sunday night.

I shared with you in my last blog that I was with a few people who were sharing what has been on our hearts and about delighting in God – and how our words were just filled with honesty when sharing with one another. When we circled and prayed together we decided to go out to eat afterwards.

We were all sitting eating the food that we had just ordered when a young man in suite and tie suddenly comes up to my seat and leans next to me asking “Are you saved?” I looked at him and said “yes” expecting that he’d notice the confidence in my answer and walk away. But he didn’t. He said back to me “are you sure?” After the few shocking seconds of realizing that he had asked me again I answered “yes, I’m positive.” And he walked away placing a tiny piece of paper on the table in front of me reading words that I can’t remember, but things about abortion and supporting and loving the unborn.

After walking away from our table this young man (whom I soon found that he knew some of the people I was with that night, and that this young mans’ name was Jason) approached an older man sitting at the table diagonal from us, with the newspaper held above his face and his eyes scanning every word. Jason walked up to him and asked “Do you know Jesus? Are you saved.” The older man wasn’t distracted at all by Jason or his words – moments after Jason asked this question his eyes were still scanning every word. (by this time if Jason had looked over at my table he would’ve known that I was hooked and listening to every word that would be spoken by the two of them.) Jason leaned in closer to the man and asked “Do you go to Church regularly?” And the older man folded down his paper (by this time he was filled irritation) and said “I don’t think that’s any of your bussiness” and he stormed out of the resturaunt with his coffee and paper in hand, leaving Jason standing there.

After walking away from the table and doing ‘this and that’ Jason made his way back to our table. He stood there for a moment at the end of the table, where I was sitting; and he suddenly said “Did you hear that guy?” I/we shook our heads yes… and Jason said “He can just go to Hell! He’s a jerk!” At the end of that sentence I quickly looked towards Jason, who was right beside me, and said in brokenness “Man, what? What in the world did you just say?” And at that moment he shrugged his shoulders saying “well?” and walked away.

I have never been filled with such anger and brokenness at the same time. My face was hot, my throat was dry, and my heart was breaking. Those words were repeating over and over again – and this had only been nearly a minute after Jason had walked away. I looked around the table at the 10 dear friends of mine sitting with me that had just heard what this man had said. I said to them: “How in the world can he say that? What if we all treated the lost that way!?” And one said back to me “Teresa I think he was joking.” I’m sorry… but that is the least funniest joke that I have ever heard….

During the rest of our time there I was fighting back tears and repeatedly saying/asking “how in the world could he say that?”

I went home that night and ran into my room, locked the door, paced around my room praying with tears streaming down my face. I think I came to the point where my prayer wasn’t a whisper or an average volumed voice… I was broken and angry before God. I paced around the room constantly saying to and asking God countless words and questions about what had just filled an hour of my life.

These thoughts are still running through my mind and tearing at my heart.

Seriously friends, what if we ALL treated the lost that way? I do not understand how this young man walked up this older man with one thing in my mind: telling him about Jesus; and walked away thinking: he can go to Hell. Friends, we have a short time to walk to people with the intention that Jason first had… I have no idea how I will react if I find that we’d ALL walk away with the thoughts that Jason had while leaving this man.

What a waste of our lives. What a wasted life.

It has made me sick friends. If we are the Church, then lets act like it. The moment we take the words “he can just go to Hell” lightly, that is the moment that the lost just become another “group” of people in our minds, that is when anger fills our hearts and minds rather then love towards them. That is when telling them about Jesus is maybe, just maybe on our Top 10 list.

Seriously friends, have we really forgotten what the Church has always been about? Christ crucified, Him saving the lost and calling us to Him and to die to ourselves, and to show others Who He is. If Jason showed me a clear picture of how the Church is being represented or portrayed today – then Church, we need to wake up and truly be the Church – the followers of the one and only God.

It’s funny the more I think about it – I don’t ever remember reading the Bible and seeing that Jesus was complacent about people and them going to Hell. He never hinted at “you can just go to Hell.” His voice was never aloof, He never wanted someone to go to Hell because they didn’t respond the way He wished they had; He never wished for that. Friends, why would we condemn (with our words) someone to the Place we had just tried turning them (with God’s work in our lives – we could never do that alone – we aren’t God) away from?

Those are all the words I can seem to find right now. This is heavy on my heart and circling over and over again in my mind…

Good night friends…
SEEK Jesus and BE His!

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"Oh, my soul….."

I’m listening to David Crowder’s new album and just finished listening to the song of his “Rain Down” and it’s raining outside; actually it has been all day. How appropriate….

I’m wondering if anyone is still reading this. Its been awhile since I’ve written… I think everytime I’ve written lately thats been the case. It’s not that I don’t have things to write… I have plenty of things. But for me, for some reason, it seems that when I have the MOST to say or to write, the LEAST is said or written.

But anyway… I’m guessing that they’ll be many blogs to follow this one because I can’t seem to fit everything into one blog… so please do be sure to read them if there are, and to read the past blog if you haven’t.

I’ve been waking up various mornings for the past 4 or 5 weeks to find myself in the bathroom, head over the toilet, throwing up. Last Tuesday was one of those mornings… and I woke up this morning to figure out today would start the same.

When I was younger my mom used to tell me: “Stress manifests itself in many ways; physically being one of them.” That’s never been the case for me and I never thought it would be; but I’m beginning to think that now it may be. Stress and nothing else (except the obvious) has ever led me to throwing up or being phsyically sick. Stress has always led me to being quieter, weepier, and with less sleep. But, now I’m beginning to think that maybe my mom was right – and that anything is possible.

Friends… these are the things that have kept me from writing. Not stress,but life itself. Things have been thrown in my direction that I haven’t been ready for. Sometimes more than what I think is bearable.

Let me just tell it like it is.

I’ve felt kind of stuck in this place. These past weeks have been extremely hard… a bit rough and tasteless, a bit weepy and with anger, and a bit vunerable. And mixed with many things. I’ve been wanting to post about it – especially before it got to the point where I didn’t know where to begin; but honestly I haven’t known how to explain. It seems to be too much placed in front of me that words from a keyboard can’t seem to explain it.

I haven’t even began to go into depth, but maybe that’s too much information. Maybe those are words that have made people want to take a step back or want to exit out of this writing. I don’t know…. but sometimes I think people can be afraid of honesty…

Last night I sat in a room filled with nearly 10 or 11 people. We shared about various things that have been on our hearts; things we’ve been struggling with, and about truly delighting in God. At times when people were sharing I noticed tears streaming down my face; and other times when others were sharing I’d lean to the person next to me and say “I deal with that too.”

But, all of these scattering words are to say – that life has been hard and has left this page absent of words… but I thought I’d quickly share why. I’m hoping blogs will be coming soon… about the many things that I’ve been wanting to write about. Right now I’m treasuring that honesty.

When clouds veil the sun
and disater comes
oh, my soul
oh, my soul

When waters rise
and hope takes flight
oh, my soul
oh, my soul
oh, my soul

Ever faithful
ever true
You I know
You never let go…
(You Never Let Go, David Crowder)

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