1. Life = risk
2. If you have not failed, you have not lived

Just two points from a sermon that hit me like a 2 by 4 to the back of my head.

I've always been a low risk person - I don't like getting out of my comfort zone, I have a hard time doing something I've never done before, etc. Risk to me is letting myself be vulnerable and setting myself up for failure. Which brings me to the second point - failure.

I despite messing things up, or failing to do something correctly or at all - it really bothers me because I should have done better and it's unacceptable in my books. I've worked hard in my life to stay "fail" free and when I do fail, I kick myself. Why? Hearing Pastor Mike utter "if you have not failed, you have not lived" hit me hard. I've been trying so hard to always be in control of my actions and I shouldn't be! No one is perfect, how did I expect myself to never mess up? Failing is human nature I just need to accept it.

Thinking about risk has me thinking me about my current life. Have I settled too much?
Currently I am living with 2 of my sisters, working full-time for the past 2 years, volunteering in church as young adults co-ordinator and praise team vocalist. I have a bunch of friends in town/church I hang out with often, friends back home I visit when I can, friends who come visit me from time to time. I have a great job and my coworkers are like family to me. There are ladies at church who have become like grandmothers to me. I go to the gym 3 times a week plus personal training, I watch my favourite tv shows when I can. Is that my life will be about? Will it always be so routine? Have I failed to take risks? Am I afraid to take risks in the future? Or will I be content with living my life just the way I am now? I know God is in control of my life but sometimes I wonder if I miss His leading because I'm scared that if I let go I'll end up doing something I'm not comfortable doing.

"..promise to do something extreme. Something that challenges your life, gets you out of your rut.." (quote from "What a Girl Wants" - Kristin Billerbeck)

I'm so young still, I should be living on the edge more before I become too settled or older. There's a guy at the bbq I was at on the weekend that is going through this right now. He has an opportunity to go across the country to work but is torn b/c he feels that maybe at the age of 26 he should be settling down and getting a real job. My few points to him was that "real" work is slightly over rated and he should do what he enjoys instead of doing what society is telling him (or parental/family pressure). I didn't tell him but I'm almost envious of his freedom.

I'm learning, learning to let go and trust God with my worries/concerns and sometimes heavy heart. Knowing that Christ livesin me gives me hope that I have a purpose in life regardless if I see it or not.

"S/he deserves to be happy"

How does a person deserve to be happy? Must you work extremely hard for something and this is your reward? If so does this not allow lazy people to be happy? Happiness is not something you achieve but something you allow yourself to feel.

This statment was also said in reference to someone who has a new SigOther. Hmm. So the only thing that can bring "achieved" happiness is having a SigOther...rrriiiight. And marriage is the greatest acheivement that people can attain? Uh huh. This means I should be unhappy all the time because there is nothing else in this world that could bring me more happiness than a b/f.

Get real.

Jesus Camp

This trailer left me speechless.

Jesus Camp

Any comments?

Tub-o

This is the first time I've read such an honest article about a person being overweight and how they feel about it.

"People who haven’t been overweight can’t understand the self-consciousness of people who are. I thought continually about how bad I looked. I hated mirrors. I hated shopping for clothes. And when I was around people, all I could think about was how they perceived my looks."

"It took months before I saw any change, but soon some of my friends were noticing. You have no idea what it feels like to have someone notice that you’ve lost weight and tell you. To a person who has been overweight their entire life it’s like having a burden lifted (literally and metaphorically)."

Since I am now getting serious about my health and getting fit - this article is very timely!

To read the whole article click here.

Twinkle, twinkle

"The sheer magnitude of the stars, the way the sky didn't look flat at
all but truly spherical, the absence of the moon. The longer we were still, the
more the night came alive. No man could have made such a thing come into
being—no busyness or handiwork or words or wishes. But with just a few simple
words, the God of all creation spoke this beauty into being. And yet He is still
mindful of me, an impossibly small speck on the face of a sphere that bides it
time spinning in circles. And even more, He is jealously in love with me,
sacrificing all just to reach me. And I am left asking myself how I could ever
be lax in my pursuit of or response to Him.

Sometimes the stillness is what is needed to capture our attention; and
that is truly the way I believe it is intended to be."



This weekend I've spent sometime just sitting on the balcony watching the sky. The moon was really bright, the sky with some hazy clouds and a few stars twinkling in the sky...there is absolutely nothing more amazing than God's creation. Whether it be a full moon, a setting sun or a rainbow, God's handiwork never ceases to astound and remind me how powerful He is and will forever be.

Reading the above paragraph was a nice reminder to keep taking the moments and remembering how much God loves us.

"I don't believe that God chose you and blessed you so that you could heap those blessings upon yourself. I believe God chose you because He wants to make a difference in this world. And you know what? What I think is scary about God is He didn't come up with any 'plan B.' That He left the church here, and the church is the only group of people and the church is the only institution in the world that can bring about a change." - Rich Mullins

---
"This is my desire. This is my desire, to be more like you. Want to be real, want to be emptied inside.... and I know my life is to do your will." Jeremy Camp song lyrics


Dreamboat

Fantastic article this morning on Relevantmagazine.com. I think is maybe some what of a "God"incidence as my little sis and I were just talking about this last night - dreaming.

I’m starting to think the secret of contentment is not learning how to
“escape” from life but to enjoy it for what it is—not sorting out the conditions
just so, finding someway to stop the boat’s rocking, but learning to keep your
balance no matter how smooth or rough the seas. The trouble with the old me was that I hoped a boyfriend and marriage would save me from boredom and the
travails of a normal life. And since I secretly feared it might let me down in
that, I made sure to like men more wrong than right for me. Having my dream of
the perfect escape was preferable to having that dream come true and still be
stuck here in a life most banal.


What is it you think you need in life? What do you hope it will save
you from? Perhaps we fear our dreams’ fulfillment more than this longing
interminable because we sense the problem is not in our circumstances, but
restlessness.

Dreaming in the sense of what we want out of life - setting goals that look well beyond our reach but tickle our hearts desire. My little sis had an amazing God-filled weekend which has brought her to a place of understanding and passion for stepping out and dreaming BIG. She doesn't want to settle for mediocure or lukewarm but strive for the highest and see where it takes her. At 17 years old this is very admireable!

I never had that kind of thinking at her age - maybe because our parents weren't very encouraging that way, or knowing our family lifestyle and how financially unstable our childhood was. BUT at the same time I never expected much of myself at all. I think being tested in gr.6 for my "learning curve" (I always said they tested to see how dumb I was) has always stuck in the back of my mind, even with doing well in college I never gave myself very high goals. I reached my goals almost 2 years ago. College grad. Job. Been there, got that and the student loans that come with it.

So here I am again, contemplating my life and what I really want it. Am I happy with working for the next 40 some years? Is this my passion? Am I settling for what's comfortable yet not what I could be doing? I can't have more student loans and I probably won't qualify for any more loans, I can't handle having the student life again, I'm not smart enough for university. Do I actually have an inkling for a different career? Or I am just bored and restless?

I'm only 21, I shouldn't be hitting the quarterlife crisis yet...

Love is another topic that I've wrote about numerous times and is near and dear to my heart. To me love is the world and keeps the world together - without love we are nothing. Again this guy has a huge understanding of Christ's love for us that so many people forget or just plain ignore.

God loves us with this enormous, unimaginable love. Unconditional, something we can scarcely comprehend as we live and breathe on earth. God loves us no matter what we do, always the same, unchanging.

Blogs are great....so much to learn from other people.

Note: This guy has the same line of thinking as do I in regards to the Da Vinci code

Spring Soul

My heart is heavy. my eyes welling up with tears and a sigh escapes my lips.
Oh Father, wrap your arms around me.
My heart is bursting with love yet I don't know where it should go.

Take my hand, lift me up and toss me into the wind.
Twirling towards the sun watching as the world spins around.
Sunlight filtering into my caccoon of brilliance.

My hands reach for the sky and a warmth surrounds me.
A smile covers my face and I giggle.

The 3:16 Factor

(I stole this from a blog I read - Typelings.)

I have been noticing lately how many powerful thoughts in New Testament scripture are placed at a 3:16 reference. Take a moment and read them in sequence...

Matthew
Luke
John
Acts
1 Corinthians
2 Corinthians
Galatians
Ephesians
Colossians
1 Timothy
2 Timothy
James
1 John
Revelation

Very interesting!

Today I'm irritable and tired (you'd think that 6.5hrs of sleep is sufficent). I ordered my latte in in intelligable words. I jump on the defensive side as soon as I'm accused of being late. Then as I'm washing my hands in the washroom - I feel an overwhelming sense of grief.

Grief for what? Come June it will be a year since Aunt Elisabeth died. October will mark the second year Aunt Rita left this world so why the grief?

Or is this a response to a big discussion my sis and I had last night? Am I griefing the fact that life is passing by faster than I'd like it to?

Is it work? Am I grieving the amount of work have to get done in the next couple of weeks, the frustration I'm having with how confusing this cycle is...

Grief is a mystery to me and finding the root of it is just as complex.

Doc. vs. Drama

Flight 93 the Movie. I do not have a problem with this movie being on the big screen but with saying this I haven't actually seen the movie. My reasoning is this: there has been other movies (documentary or drama, doesn't matter the premise is still the same) that protray tragic events and secondly, sometimes movies like this need to be made as to remind people.

But what do I know? This event in history is not something I experienced personally so I really don't have the right to say much. :P

Right now I've got a certain song stuck in my head for some unknown reason and here it is:

"The sun cannot compare to the glory of your love;
there is no shadow in your presense;
No mortal man would dare to stand before your throne,
before the Holy One of heaven;
It's only by your blood,
and only through your mercy,
Lord I come.

I bring an offering of worship to my King,
No one on earth deserves the praises that I sing;
Jesus may you receive the honor that you're due;
Oh Lord I bring an offering to you."

It took me a while to figure out exactly what song kept playing like a broken record in my head...but with my stealthful internet skills I hunted the lyrics down. This song is actually for the Christmas season - the song title is - Christmas Offering (Paul Baloche) . But I have to disagree. I think it also reflects well with Easter as well.

Worship songs, beautiful voices and instruments always bring me back to a place of peace and a deep sense of love. Like last night while I was reading Through Painted Deserts (Donald Miller) - at one point I stopped reading and just let the music soak in and I began to pray. It amazes me how powerful music can be to a persons being/soul...."Lord I come to you, let my heart be changed, renewed, flowing from the grace I've found in you."

A Moment

So quickly we lose remembrance for a life change. Hearing of a man so young having a heart transplant and how close he really could be to death - that made us pause and reflect upon how short life really is.

Yet within weeks we forget of our moment of reflection. No longer passionate for living a better life or taking more risks.

Today there is news that his heart is showing signs of rejection.

Pause.

Roots (Cont'd)

A friend of mine has recently entered the realm of online dating - this has sparked some many threads of discussion revolving on singleness and the impact on our lives.

This brings me to my point about building roots. According to my friend is that there is no point in developing friendships with people right now because if I so happen to get married and have to move away, all those friendships will be wasted.

WHOA! Wait a minute here. I am supposed to wait until I am married to bother having a life and making life-long friends? I'm a little thrown off here. It's taken me almost 2 years to even know people well enough around here to even call them friends and i'm supposed to wait!! Honestly if my life goal is marriage - I am sadly mistaken, I'm sorry.

This is where my faith comes into play on many aspects.

1) Online Dating - right now I am so not into this. What ever happened to meeting people in real life? Are people so afraid of rejection that they can only handle it virtually? I think meeting people online is somewhat of a cop-out. At this point in my life I have my whole life ahead of me to meet people, I'm still young

2) Purpose in Life - I believe that I have a bigger purpose in life then just getting married. God's got a plan for me and though I do not know what it is, my main goal is to live for Him and if marriage is part of it - great! Otherwise, I'm gonna do His will, what ever it is. And this by no means is a cop-out religious line, it's what I believe.

3) Building Roots - I cannot imagine my life right now without friends. Seriously. I went crazy the first couple months I moved in with my sister and had no friends nearby. Now I can happily say that I have made friends (young and old), made connections and actually have a social life once in a while. I'm heavily involved in my church now - and even more now with planning a young adult event. I need to have community with other people otherwise I'd never change or grow or be challenged.

4) Meeting People - Church is definitely a good place to build some community and also living with 4 random roommates for the summer :P

One other thing that has me irked - hearing that some people label singlehood as a gift. HUH? I saw a book at work the other day that was based soley upon this fact. How can being single be defined as a gift? Not being married is just part of life, everyone is at some point and some people stay that way. If being single is a gift, what is marriage? Is being single a huge marathon and marriage the grand prize? Why must everything be given a title or label?

It's very interesting to get people's perspectives on the above - it definitely causes a lot of talk and varied opinions.

This blog topic is far from over - my mind is brewing many thoughts and ideas...i will be back! (Comments are always welcome!)

Doubt

To think back when I first started living in Uptown - things have changed so much. I've found a church family, I have friends, and have also made a few new Grandma's! Lately I've just felt so good! about how my life is right now in the social/getting roots aspect.

I doubted. I doubted that God would love me enough to let these things happen to me. I thought that I have moved to Kitchener for the wrong reasons and it was wrong, I longed to be back in london in my comfort zone where I had friends.

The small group I just finished tonight has once again opened my eyes to how simple my relationship with Christ is to be. Christ lives in me and through me, how can I go go wrong? How could I have doubted Him so much?!? He had a plan for me - to bring me to brokeness so I could really understand what it meant to have faith. Thank you Jesus for what you have done and what you are teaching me each and every day.

A Title

How can I call myself a Christian? I can't even explain myself to a friend what it means to have faith and why I believe that God has control over my life. I'm such a hypocrite. How do I have a right to claim the Christian "title" if I can't even get into a discussion explaining my belief. Gah! How do I get myself into these discussions?

Face in the Crowd

Have you ever looked at picture and felt like you don't belong or never belonged? This afternoon I was persuing a website with a bunch of pictures from a group I used to hang out with/attend events. Looking now it just hit me again - I never fit into this group of people! I was never myself and I was constantly not being myself because of others around me.

I have such a judgemental attitude towards that group of people - which is horrible! But I guess my reasoning is that I've grown up, I've discovered God in a whole new way that made me realize that I wasn't living a victorious life with Christ and I know a lot of them haven't truly found Him (not that I'm judging their character just that I grew up in the same way, with the same knowlege of faith and I know now how much I was missing). It's so hard! I want to love every single one of these young adults and know that I was generally accepted when I did attend events (who am I kidding? I hardly ever had a good time, no one liked me very much). It's so odd looking back and trying to remember why I did the things I did and why I didn't stick up for myself more often.

I guess I'm also dealing with the fact the YA is no longer part of my life - I am no longer a CRC member. Kind of weird thinking about - closing a chapter in my life and seeing how much things have changed.

Church Politics

Read an excellent article on Relevant this morning on church politics...

"Next, and perhaps most important, we need to realize that we are all transformed in and through Christ. Leadership is not about “lording over people” but coming under Christ for His glory. We need to live beyond our humanity. Our churches need to embrace life-transformation over structural details. The truth is the church exists for Christ’s glory—not for man’s. "

This quote definitely reflects my church in that the minister is all about giving glory to God and none of the light shining on him just because he's a pastor. What an selfless act for a pastor unlike most who want to take credit for their "flock" and boast about increased membership numbers.

I like my little church and am happy to be an "offical" member! :)

Life as we know it

"As Blaise Pascal said, “We never keep to the present. We … anticipate the
future as if we found it too slow in coming and were trying to hurry it up, or
we recall the past as if to stay its too rapid flight. We are so unwise that we
wander about in times that do not belong to us and do not think of the only one
that does; so vain that we dream of times that are not and blindly flee the only
one that is … [We] think of how we are going to arrange things over which we
have no control for a time we can never be sure of reaching … Thus we never
actually live, but hope to live, and since we are always planning how to be
happy, it is inevitable that we should never be so.”

Found this great quote in an excellent article on Relevant.

More thoughts to come...

Quotable Quotes

Thought provoking Quotes from Lee Warren.....

"I wonder if we have bled too much in front the next generation. Shouting matches with our spouses, too much information about financial or personal struggles, and too much yearning for the good ol' days. I’m not advocating a return to the days when parents were so emotionally distant from their children that their kids never really knew them. But maybe we've gone too far the other way. We bleed so much in front of the next generation that we force them to deal with things they shouldn't need to. "

~ ~

In a culture that screams for our attention at every turn—from internet pop-up and banner ads, to television and radio commercials, to cell phones with built in instant messaging—we seem to be afraid of silence or at the very least, we want to avoid it. But I think we are missing an opportunity to grow closer to people by simply remaining silent sometimes.


"Approved membership lapse of Michelle DeWit as she is joining Hope Fellowship Church in Waterloo."
(Church bulletin, Jan. 15, 2006 pg. 4)

I am happy to see that I am no longer part of my parent's church. Then again I've never really been a member of the church. Confused yet? Let me explain...

Technically to become a member of that church (and denomination) you must complete a profession of faith before the church. This enabled you to partake in communion and get the title of "member". The strange thing is - I never did any of the above and infant baptism does not make you a member either. So, in essense, this lapsing of membership is pointless since I was never a member in the first place. Yet my current so called "membership" status had to be approved by the church council to become lapsed (or in early bulletins, "deleted"). I find it so interesting that the way my parent's church handles membership changes. Who cares what denomination people switch to! You should rejoice that the person/people are still going to church! I should the announcement to my current pastor - he'd definitely get a good laugh out of this!

Thinking back to my childhood in that church - I honestly cannot come up with any good moments. I was an outcast, picked on, made fun of and never recognized for my contributions. In the Girls Club I got the most badges and on the awards night the head leader conveniently forgot them at home. Nice eh? Or the time the same leader basically called me fat. Or being told that nobody liked me because they thought I was a loser. Even so with my parents, the only time my mom was ever included in anything was VBS - because she directed it! That was the only time my family was accepted. Even now I wonder why my parents still attend that church. They do have some good friends and people to talk to but I think they could find more genuine and caring people.

The best part of my parents church was the library - it's were I got hooked on books and how I made one friend from all the others my age. We used to fight over books! Trade them and buy each other books as presents. Books are great.

I cannot find many positive parts about my upbring in that church BUT without everything I went through and all the things I learned not to do - it has put me where I am now. Without such events I wouldn't know that there is so much more the my relationship with Christ then just on Sundays, that there is more to life than constantly being busy and doing work we think is making us pleasing in God's eyes. I am grateful that I had a church to grow up and that I had support from family and friends and I still do love the odd hymn now and again.

Don't get me wrong, I don't hate my parents church nor the Christian Reformed Denomination, I just realized there was nothing there for me and I wasn't growing or being challenged. Some people enjoy such a rigid structure and find God in the quietness. It's just not for me - I need more than that.

Here's to a new beginning of becoming a member of Hope Fellowship!

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