Half.

Half a year: How long it's been since the last time I added to this compilation of thoughts from the past.
Half-life: The time needed for a substance to decrease half through decay (Thank you online Earth Science for this pertinent knowledge I've accumulated over the past three months)
Half a glass: Orange juice: what I drank for breakfast this morning.
Half-hearted: How I've struggled feeling about school this year... one step forward, two steps back, and learning to be joyful despite the impediments.
Half a century: How young my precious mom will be turning soon. She's one of the most beautiful people I've ever met. I wish you could meet her too.
Half-off: What we love finding on price tags at the store.
Half-thrilled, Half-scared witless: About the future, about the grand adventures the Lord throws us into when we feel wholly inadequate and underprepared, only to be reminded that it is nothing we do, but only through him that we live and breath and exist.
Half-full: How I prefer to see the glass.
Half a month: How long it's been since getting LSAT scores back and realizing that the crazy ambitions planted somewhere inside me since being young actually have a chance of becoming reality.
Half-time: An alteration of rhythmic feel by doubling the tempo or the part of the Super Bowl we never watched growing up.
Half an hour: How long it'll take me to write this little excerpt instead of studying, but certainly worth the time.

Those are my "Halves" this morning as I sit here thinking about the past 183 days wich have elapsed since my last time filling this online box with text flowing from the offshoots of my thoughts. Mostly, this morning has reminded me that the Lord is good, and that I am not apart from Him. Life in many ways has proven to be a trek more than a walk along the beach. It's proven to shatter some of my idyllic notions and to buttress their opposites. Reading in 1 Corinthians this morning, this blessed me: "He will keep you strong to the end, so that you will be blameless on the day of our Lord Jesus Christ. God who has called you into fellowship with his Son Jesus Christ our Lord, is faithful."

Remembering faithfulness in the everyday world is something that, if I were honest, doesn't happen enough in my life. I don't often enough open the crusty brown refrigerator door in our little apartment to get the leftover alfredo pasta and immediately think "I've been given food today; He is faithful." I don't often enough sit in front of my small library of textbooks and think "I've been given an opportunity to learn today; He is faithful." Thankfully, though, God's faithfulness is not dependent upon my recognition or appreciation of it, but rather inherent in His very nature.

How I see it evidenced over the past six months, and how I constantly need to be reminded.

Then Came Life.

I lay on the rose-covered quilt staring at the pale and dark green of the surrounding walls. Closing my eyes and taking a deep breath I could smell… pomegranates. Or, whatever that candle I got at a garage sale for $1 happened to be.

“Enter as Strangers, Leave as Friends.” That’s what my wall said, right above Guido the white dresser. I laughed a little thinking about the day I nailed that board into the wall, and my friends endless inquiries, “What’s that even suppose to mean?”

This was it. The last night. It’s hard to explain all the thoughts flooding through the head of a 17-year-old leaving home… maybe forever. Thoughts from all the years I’d been in that house, thoughts about how many hours I’d spent there with the people I’d grown to love. How many mornings I’d waken up early to do calculus problems, how many slumber parties I’d had in that basement with my friends… sometimes in tents, with microwave smores.

All the crazy games my friends and I would make up to keep ourselves awake all night, continuously downing bon-bons from a gallon bucket which once held Neapolitan ice cream. It had since been transformed into a candy treasure chest. We were usually sick by morning.

I wanted to laugh, and cry, and scream, and sing, and dance, and frankly, to curl up into the fetal position and hide under my bed forever. As an alternative, I reached for my leather bound and imprinted journal with the giant Celtic circle on the front.

“As I find myself writing here tonight by candlelight, I can only wonder what adventures You hold in store for my future. My emotions are in a hyperactive state, I feel a little bit like I’m tied to the end of a Skip It… Daddy… I don’t want to walk this path alone. Protect my heart in these next few years, help me to see like you see, to love like you love, to serve like you serve.

That I should even have the slightest access to your ear is mind boggling, and yet you call me your beloved child. I don’t like waiting for answers, but this is where I find myself again. You tell me to be content, You tell me not to worry, because You will bring everything to pass in your perfect timing. While my heard knows that’s true, my head still often doubts.

My college years are yours. Thank you for providing for me and my family when I don’t see the options. I plead with you to continue to provide so I can dedicate these next years to sharing the gospel with people.

You give me joy that’s unspeakable…”

The letters found their way across the page for another hour or so before my head fell with the finality of sleep against the white embroidered pillow sham.

Then came life.

I sit here a few year later, and some things are very different, but other things, they never change. Faithfulness. Love. Grace. Mercy. Those things never change, because they're attributes of my unchanging God. I wish I had time to document all the stories, all the dreams, all the tears, and people who’ve come in and out of my life over the past two years. Alas, the coming of life makes that difficult.

But it’s okay. Maybe someday I’ll have the chance to fill my journal in on the adventure. Until then, it’s painted in the ebb and flow of existence, and on the heart of the God of the universe who loves me and I Him. I may not have time to write this story, but praise the Lord he lets me live it.

Then life continued. So long for now.

[Reasons] to Rise Before the ((Sun))

[1] Hearing silence in a place where 3,000+ people live on 10 acres.
[2] Running by nothing but the light of stars.
[3] Robin Roberts does it!
[4] Getting any shower in the whole flipping bathroom you want. (...And hot water too).
[5] Watching the sunrise paint the sky.
[6] Fresh coffee.
[7] Having time to curl your hair, and read Jeanette Wallis, and listen to Mumford & Sons.
[8] Birds singing.
[9] Someone has to milk the goats. Disregard that we don't have any.
[10] Remembering "Today is always fresh with no mistakes in it."
[11] Experiencing strawberry 20% of your daily fiber needs Pop-Tarts. Yes. I'm addicted.

“Our life is frittered away by detail…”

I’d like to think of simplicity as the antithesis of tyranny, tyranny of self-consumption, tyranny of materialism, tyranny of concern for pleasing people. Where there is simplicity, one need not worry about the deceit of words, for language would be used without manipulative intent. Where there is simplicity, bother over the accumulation of things dissipates and contentedness grows in its place. Where there is simplicity, there’s no need to spend effort trying to evoke good impressions of ourselves in the eyes of others, because we’d actually be conforming to goodness in our lives and not only in appearances.

Henry David Thoreau had something right. He recognized the meaninglessness of so many of the things his contemporaries viewed as important. They fought after them, adored them, and allowed their lives to revolve around these empirical constructions. I think we tend to do the same thing today, with our iPods, our skyscrapers, our schedules, our church services, and even our philosophy and views of God.

The other day, Mark and I went to a little creek bed where we tried to catch this gross looking fish. Walking back to campus barefoot and muddy, I noticed something as we entered chapel. The chapel here at Cedarville is huge, with a giant screen boasting big digitally produced words, the stage surrounded by complex lighting setups, and the band eliciting electronically modified sounds, all with the purpose of producing a state which encourages worship. It was expansive and grand, but then walking back to my dorm tonight, I looked up.

Stars.

The glory of God was just as clear in the muddy creek of that morning and the black sky filled with twinkling specks of illumination than I’ve ever seen it in our humanly constructed feats of architecture and technology. We complicate life. Our schedules are full, and lives consumed with work – sometimes I think we don’t trust God anymore.

Think about the Sabbath for a minute. God asks us to take one seventh of our time and use it to honor him. He wants us to play. He loves to watch us interact with his creation, with nature, with one another, to hang out with people, to talk, because it’s a reflection of His character. Yet most of the time, I allow work to take priority over play, over setting aside a day for my Lord. It shows my lack of trust.

When we work all the time, when we fill out schedules full and fail to see the beauty of simplicity, its representative of a lack of trust that God is good. He created and planned the rhythms of life where one-seventh of our time should be spent in reflection of him. It shows a lack of trust in understanding that his plans are better than ours when we fail to adhere to those rhythms.

Sometimes I allow my thoughts about the complexity of God, His work through the person of Jesus, His perfect unity with the Spirit, and forget to recognize the simplicity of the message of the gospel and the commands as to how we are suppose to live as his children.

Kids remind me that the gospel is clear even to the most simple minded, because they understand it. They understand that we’ve sinned, that God loves us, that He sent His Son Jesus to die for us, that He rose again, and that He offers us a chance to be a part of His family. I forget that the entirety of the law can be summarized on one short phrase, “…love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, and mind… and love your neighbor as yourself.”

It’s one of my biggest temptations not to spend time pursuing joy and peace. There is virtue in responsibility and hard work, but overwhelming life with things will only lead to a lack of fulfillment, because it goes against what the Lord tells us.

So go climb a tree. Enjoy creation. Be thankful for something stupidly small. Have a conversation with someone face to face, lest we forget how. Remember that God’s presence is clear not only in the emotional and ostentatious, but in the commonalities and the routines of life. I continue to learn that God is most glorified in us when we are most satisfied in Him. Take time to be satisfied.

Sci-Fi-esque Spirituality

I wonder sometimes why we’ve been encapsulated in physical existence.

Yes, I recognize the absurdity of that statement and its apparent connections to science fiction novels. Bear with me though, because I do wonder why our Creator chose to intertwine the spiritual with the physical, and why we must use the tangible aspects of human existence to interact with others.

Sometimes I wish our bodies were gone. Maybe that sounds strange. Nope, it does sound strange, but sometimes I try to imagine what life would be like if relationships were formed from the intermingling of souls rather than interactions of physical expression. I think that’s how it was meant to be. Relationship is at the core of who God is because his very identity represents a community of persons.

The interactions of the Father, Son, and Spirit show up everywhere in Scripture. They show up in John 17 as Jesus prays to the Father asking to revel in his glory through his upcoming death. And 1 Corinthians 2:10-11 tells us “The Spirit teaches all things, even the deep things of God. For who among men knows the thoughts of a man except the man’s spirit? In the same way no one knows the thoughts of God except the Spirit of God.”

Each member of the trinity seeks to be known for who they are, for within each is found majesty, and beauty, and love. Each knows that the more they look at one another, the more they delight in the other. Their relationship shows us the power of mutual enjoyment and trust.

Yet here we are as humans, made in the image of God to be a reflection of His nature in the world, but somehow I can’t escape the conclusion that our physical existence has made that impossible. Worse, it makes me wonder how often we miss the pure essence of personhood, and how often we assign a value to someone based on the formation of cells making up their physicality. It saddens me that human stake in the worth of a soul can change based on our perceptions of matter.

Maybe not in our words it doesn’t change, but in our actions it does. It’s hard to describe those situations, but we’ve all had them. Those times you walk in a room and sense your inadequacy because you don’t have the right body, or your clothes didn’t come from some designer nutshop for a small fortune.

I think that’s why I hate malls. Malls have become a spiritual dilemma for me because whenever I walk in a mall, I’m reminded of just how human we are, and the implications that come from that inescapable state which is humanness. We don’t live in a world that gives us the beauty of trust anymore; a world where purity of thought used to mean nakedness apart from shame. For some reason we have to clothe ourselves. For some reason we assign a value to this aspect of our humanness.

Even more than that, malls remind me that we often put more stock in compositions of fabric and thread than we do in the immensity of the abiding soul. It bothers me that we as children of God worry about this. It bothers me that I worry about it. Humans weren’t made to assign each other values based on the fickleness of external perception, but we do.

There is nothing else in human existence greater than truly being known and loved by another. That’s what we’re meant to do. This isn’t easy because it requires commitment that's willing to bear all things, but really, nothing else matters.

That’s why when the Spirit of God is present, there’s an immediate desire to fellowship. Its part of God’s nature which we see in Acts during Pentecost, or watching Jesus interact with his disciples in Luke 24. It’s why Scripture places such emphasis on hospitality toward others, why gossip is listed right alongside sexual immorality, and why food and fellowship are not suggested but commanded as part of the life of a believer. God longs for unity among his children, for their relationality with himself and with each other – it’s a perfect portrait of who he is.

Salvation is that promise of restoration in our relationality. It’s the hope of knowing the God of the universe sees us as more than the sum of our substantive parts and chooses to embrace us despite our layers of polluted humanness. It’s Christ smashing into our world and making it possible for us to enter a radically different existence.

I just pray we don’t miss it.