Weirdly Gone

This past Thursday night, I arrived home, expecting to plug my phone charger into my phone and chat with a friend.  Instead, I found a ransacked home with a broken window and a decent amount of cash, my laptop, some vintage jewelry and my roommate's professional camera & equipment gone.  Disappeared.

I called my roommate and she came home from school, hysterically saying we needed to call the police.  They came, we joked, they fingerprinted, we lamented over the fact that this was the 6th home burglary in a two block radius in the past week.

The only word that continued to accurately describe my emotions over the following 36 hours was "weird".  It's weird accepting the fact that two men that I've never seen or met have been in my room and have sorted through my things in my nightstand - a place that only two or three people in the entire world have seen.  It's weird thinking that my laptop, the thing that has the past three years of my music, papers, pictures - a compilation of my life - is gone.  Not to be retrieved but only replaced by an empty, yet welcoming, OS in a computer body that is indefinitely out of my reach.  It's weird finding out how I react to a terrible situation -- slowly, mostly without hysterics, numbly, randomly spurting out confused tears.

Let's be real.  All of the doors that I thought once very warm and inviting now seem to be closed against my persistent knocks.  Who I thought I was going to be and what I thought I was going to do is completely different than who I am right now in this moment.  And something like this, a robbery of the physical and of innocence, is the thing making me stop and realize the truth.

If you want to hide your money well, put it in a designated wastebasket and cover it with a thin layer of not disgusting trash.  Be sure to never empty this specific wastebasket and the robber will never waste his time looking there.

Don't live out of fear.  Live out of Love.  Preaching to the choir, live from Hope.  It's the safest place to be.






*I am praying for an empty, yet welcoming, Lion OS.

Things Every Customer Should Know

Working at a coffeehouse, I often find myself dealing with people - both in taking their lunch/coffee order and at the cash register. A few months of this and I realize that EVERYBODY should be forced to work customer service at some point in their life so they can, in turn, learn how to be good customers in the future. 

For those of you who need it, I have made a list of what NOT TO DO when you are a customer.
*(These are situational to a restaurant but should still be applicable in most situations.)

1.  Do not complain about the price of your order when the large menu with all of the prices are directly in front of you, especially when what you have ordered has been prepared and is sitting there, waiting for you to pay.

2.  Do not complain about the price of your order to the cashier - they are powerless to do anything about it.

3.  Do not hold up the line, especially when the line is out the door, because you can't make up your mind.  Yes, you live in America and there is an abundance of delicious choices all around you, but I promise that your life will not depend on whether you get the blueberry scone or the chocolate scone.

4.  Do not comment on how full the tip jar is to the cashier unless you plan on adding money to it directly following the comment.  There are very few other things that you can say to make the cashier feel less awkward.

5.  Do not ask for "regular" bread, 1% milk, or complain that there is no meat on a BLT.

6.  Do not make the employee have to say, "Ma'am" with increasing volume 5 times in a row to get your attention.  If with friends, keep the conversation light and be conscious and aware of the person trying to get you what you want.

7.  My personal favorite:  Do not treat the employee like a robot.  When asked how you are doing, actually think before you give an automated response and NEVER should you ignore the question and just start ordering. 

We are people, too.

I am not bitter, nor taking my anger out on my blog, as it may come across that way.  Just making a comical list with a serious edge to it.  Take it or leave it, this is my experience.

Together

I was playing an impromptu Devotional set in the Hope City Prayer Room the other day.  I was an hour and fifty minutes into a set that was only supposed to be an hour and thirty minutes and was desperately trying to finish strong.  One thing I have caught onto - when you don't know what to sing, sing about Jesus. Ha.

One thing led to another and I soon started singing out of Song of Solomon 2:8 - "Listen! My Lover! Look! Here He comes, leaping across the mountains, bounding over the hills."  I've often just focused on this..the part where it says how Jesus has defeated all of my mountains and hills and is running towards me to set me free and give me life. 

But because of the season that I am right now, I need a little bit more than that.  I don't want Him to come and just stay with me where I am at.  It's beautiful for awhile, but I know in my spirit that there has to be something more.

I think that Jesus came bounding over the mountains to show more than just His strength and capabilities, but to hold out His hand and wait for me to accept His invitation -  an invitation to  take His hand and let Him lead me back over my hills, to help me conquer my mountains of pride, selfishness, immaturity, fear, and weakness. I'm finding that this Christian walk is not Jesus flying in, swooping low, snatching me from the Enemy and soaring away with me into eternal bliss. This is a journey that we take together that involves much walking, a few leaps, and a lot of tortuously crawling over the rough terrain of my humanity.

But that is what makes everything beautiful, isn't it?  Knowing that the King of Glory is willing to drag Himself through the mud - not only to help me fight for my freedom from my bondage - but to just be with me. A Love like this is so rare..and beautiful.  Complete freedom in Him is the joy set before me, being with Him in the journey is the joy with me right now.

I wrote a little song about it..

You saw me there in my brokeness
You saw me there in my weakness
You saw me there in my darkness
And You said, "This one is Mine"

You saw me there in my chaos
You saw me there in my confusion
You saw me there in my immaturities
And You said, "This one is Mine"

And I saw You come running towards me
With eyes of joy unspeakable
I saw You come running towards me
With a heart of love unquenchable

Now we're leaping over my mountains
And we're running over my hills
Now we're breaking down my walls
Conquering this life, together

We're in this together
What an adventure


And here is my first audio clip recording on the internet. Hehe..


Sigh. I never want to leave Him.

Reality or Tomfoolery?

The difference between sleeping in 51 degrees and 65 degrees is incredible.

But that is not what this post is about.

I was in the Prayer Room the other day and a few passages in Song of Solomon stuck out to me.

"All night long on my bed I looked for the one my heart loves: I looked for him but did not find him.  I will get up now and go about the city, through its streets and squares; I will search for the one my heart loves.  So I looked for him but did not find him.  The watchmen found me as they made their rounds in the city.  "Have you seen the one my heart loves?"  Scarcely had I passed them when I found the one my  heart loves."  S.S 3:1-4

Later, in chapter 5, it talks about the woman knowing that her beloved is at the door, getting up to let him in and then finding he had left.  Her "heart sank at his departure" and she "looked for him but did not find him."  She "called for him but he did not answer."  Then the watchmen found her and instead of letting her pass by in continued search, they beat her, bruised her and took away her cloak (was this really necessary..?).  She asks her friends for help and, instead of saying "hey, count me in!" they demanded to know why she wanted him so bad and what made him better than any other.

Instead of sitting back and beginning to doubt her own sanity, she wastes the next 7 verses on him, describing to her friends the very nature, personal traits and high qualities.  She ends with "this is my lover, this is my friend."   These words turn her friends and they beg to help find him with her.

My point of all of this?


In chapter 3, the woman had to get up, out of the comfort of her bed, to go search for her lover. The second time, she not only has to get out of bed again, but she gets beaten up by the people she thought she could trust and lean on for help and guidance.  The only way she can go on is by remembering and believing in the one that she had experienced and known.  *Ultimately, she chose to respond as if everything that he had told her before -- that she was his beloved, his prized jewel, his inheritance -- was reality.  Because if it was, she knew that he would come for her.

And he did.  Right after she utters "I am my lover's and my lover is mine," she finds herself in his presence and him asking for her not to look at him - for a love so raw and so powerful overtakes him every time he looks into her eyes. 


I write all of this because over and over again I find myself asking what comforts I must leave behind for the sake of finding a deeper Love (and trust me, there is always something, ha).  Over and over again I find myself in the middle of everything, wondering where this Man is that I am laying my life down for and wondering if I should be in a crazy house.  Over and over again I find that I have to cling to something that He once whispered into my ear or wrote in a Love Letter that is centuries old - asking myself if what He says is reality or tomfoolery.  It can't be both.

But the thing that keeps me going is that, over and over again, I find Him.  Each time, there is more to lose initially, but more to gain in the end.  And I want more.  More love.  Isn't that what everybody wants, anyways?


*Sentence was inspired by my dear friend, Evie.

Relationship At Its Finest

Ok.  I believe in the Trinity - that God exists in three persons: Father, Son and Spirit.  Each distinct person is fully and eternally God, yet there is only one God.  The mystery of the Trinity is that three divine persons dwell together forever in deep relationship as one God.

"Wow, you sound really intelligent and spiritual, Megan!" you may say after reading the above.  No, ha.  I am actually not too learned on this subject and it just blows my mind continually.  The above is from class notes by Mike Bickle (who also says he has much to learn, as well).

Anyways, Mike was teaching on this subject this morning at church.  One of the things he stressed was how "each one [in the Trinity] enjoys an eternal, voluntary, mutual relationship of love, humility and unity.  They have a deeply satisfying and fulfilling relationship in the fellowship of the Godhead."

I don't think that God created man because He was lonely.  He had Himself and was fully complete in love and relationship.  That is why man is so drawn to each other and that we must commune and dwell with each other -- because we were created by a God who abides in complete relationship.  (Bear with me..I myself am stuttering to type words that make sense to even me, ha).

I do think that God created man because He had so much love to give.  As human beings, when we are in love, we want to shout it to the world and tell everybody who doesn't care.  Love makes you want to pour out love to other people.  So, He created us.

Mike Bickle said, "Love does not speak of need, it speaks of desire."

God didn't need us to love Him for Him to be complete, He didn't need us to entertain Him so He wouldn't feel lonely anymore.  He desired to give and share in this love that IS Him.  God IS love.

Yes!! (This is a whole different blog, but this revelation takes off allll of the pressure of feeling we have to come before Him perfectly or feeling like we have to entertain Him or die.  That is not what He is in it for!  He's in it for love!)

Soon after Mike uttered that phrase, a parallel of God's love and of man's relational love popped into my head.

Just as God didn't create me out of need, I cannot marry out of lack, need, or loneliness. Yes, it is possible to love someone because they can somewhat satisfy any of the above, but it is not the purest kind of love.  The purest and most selfless kind of love is one born out of desire to share the love that is already inside of me without expecting a personal need to be fulfilled. To have enough love that not only sustains my own heart but that also spurs me on to pour and share it deeply with another human deeply can only come with intimacy with the One that never runs out of love.  The One who IS love.

To love another rightly and out of a pure heart, I must find my first and biggest source of love from God.  He is the only one that can truly fulfill the needs that my heart cries out with.  After He takes care of the need, desire is all that is left and that is the best way to love Him, people around me...and my future husband ;)

Whew.

No Dignity These Days..

My car has been handling itself with very little dignity the past few months.  Several times when I insert the key into the ignition and turn, the motor turns as well, but doesn't catch.  Exasperated, I stop trying to start it and stare at the red security light flashing on my dashboard.  This continues to flash for a solid 10 minutes while I sit in the car.  Depending on which location I will be ten minutes late to, I find myself fighting back either frustration, tears, anger, or annoyance.  Sometimes I do feel relief for having a valid excuse to relax for a bit in the midst of a tight schedule.  Most of the time, I'm reworking in my head the day's schedule and finding out more and more how much I plan so close to the minute.  Probably not the best habit..

This morning, I was getting into my car and asking the Lord to start it for me...I didn't want to be late to work.  It started, I breathed a thank You and began to back-up as a thought came to me.  It may sound slightly silly, but I thought, "My car is so unfaithful to me.  I never know if it is going to start or not and I can't trust it."  As I thought about it for a bit more, I realized that this may be one way that God looks at my faithfulness to Him.  If I'm not steady and faithful all the time, how is He supposed to know when I'm "going to work" or not.  How is He supposed to know that I will respond to a movement or a whisper from Him when  I've only responded sometimes in the past?  I have to be ready to go all the time so when He does decide it's time to go, I'm waiting and prepared. 

Self-Sufficient

Up until about a year ago, I used to always get an uneasy feeling whenever I thought about spending time with the Lord.  I knew that I loved Him and I had often felt His love in quiet times with Him.  So why was I always hesitating?  Last August, I finally addressed it in my journal. 

It was simply because I approached Him with fear.  Not the good kind that the Bible says to have.  It was the kind that whispered into my ear, "You're going to put this time aside for God, He's not going to show up and it's going to prove that everything you believe is false."  It was the lie that said, "You're not good enough and however you choose to fill the time is going to be the wrong thing.  God is not going to find it fulfilling and reject you by leaving you empty."  I listened to this lie so long that it became instinctual and this unknown monster attacked me every time I thought about spending time with Jesus.

When I got the revelation that I had been thinking like this, I asked the Lord to forgive me for believing the lie and to help me fight it...it was a losing battle on my end.  Because I called, He answered (and came to my rescue... :p).  He began to show me things.  He helped realize that  1. His grace is sufficient and 2.  His love is way bigger than what I thought.

You see, God is completely self-sufficient.  He doesn't need our love to make Him feel complete or to make Him happy.  We don't need to perform activities in a certain way or have the perfect agenda when we hang out with Him.  He is too full of love and too knowledgeable of our hearts and minds to expect perfection.  

 
It's beautiful...to rest in the knowledge that I just come before Him, lay it down and know that He is going to come in all-consuming grace and love.  He replaced the lie that I am not good enough and the doubt that crippled me with the Truth of His love for me.

"A broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise." -Psalm 51:17  (He loooves it when I just come to Him!!)
"He will take great delight in you, He will quiet you with His love, He will rejoice over you with singing." -Zeph. 3:17