"My idea of God is not a divine idea. It has to be shattered time after time." C.S. Lewis, A Grief Observed

This blog- the heads up broadcasting on what God is doing in my life- is slow coming. I would like to apologize to all of you reading this that not only does it not give justice to the Lord's doings but also not upholding the personal commitment that I made with you. 

An image that I am keeping in my mind, daily, has become this image of a 700 yr old tree in a Washington forest. Gary Thomas wrote about this image that has struck my mind as an image to uphold and to strive for in my own life. This tree stands without significance in this forest except for the sign that marks its longevity. He describes it as having "simply gone the distance, and in so doing it commanded attention." He associates it beautifully with a marriage used as a platform for showing God's reconciliation and as a platform to evangelize. I pray to be steadfast in my relationship with God, continually finding my identity in Him and further, allowing him to transform my mind. 

I completely desire God to teach me in this way today. That I not hold myself, God, or anyone else in a light other than who God has defined them as... to not hold expectations in my mind with the ideals that I have, but for God to continually bring his nature to light in me. I am thankful today for my relationships around me and that God's hand has formed each of us specifically and God is teaching me that this is something to notice and to give careful attention to. HIS creation. His people, His community. This is something that has been shown as an example to me in the past year. I have always been in community- lifegroups, bible studies, book clubs- but always viewed my relationship with God as predominately solitary and one to be protected and secluded in my own identity where I would still share with my people, but not prioritizing a life with God as a life with others as a necessity. I met my boyfriend last spring during the "Life with God" class that Pete Shambrook led and am now seeing a new viewpoint in a year past. This year I have watched Jonathan by example, how he is seeking council not only by going to Jesus but by seriously intentional relationships. God has made Jonathan with such a communal personality and I love it! Because God's people are so compelling, it is such a reminder of that quality of God and how he does that with us every second. I see that image of tree of not only a commitment to my God, but to His people. I want to be a woman wise beyond years through the Spirit of the Lord serving God by serving others. 

I have always been one to say that I am a lover of small things.

Interestingly enough, God has shown me this month how I am not a true lover of these blessed moments. Rather, I choose the small things that I find inspirational or life-giving and all out avoid the others.
God has shown me that if there is an option to skip a confrontation entirely that I will fly under that radar in an instant...that I go out of my way of comfort to not hurt someone.
Why am I afraid of offending people?
I think that my notions come from a past of BIG difficulties and circumstances and that things like that are what are deemed worthy to spend time worrying about or confronting. Not those silly, trivial, every single day

problems. And then the little things of late started getting to me. Little annoyances or little disturbances to my daily routine of it all. Go ahead, shrug it off, there are bigger fish to fry. So I leave it there and walk away unscathed on the outside with calm waters. And then, later on on the week, I am sitting with a handful of little things that I have yet to address to others or to delve into myself. I am learning to operate in the grace that has been given to me and to know that "the Lord directs the steps of the godly. He delights in every detail of their lives."
God has brought a memory to the forefront of my mind the week before last that I was praying to God about: it was when I was a little girl, about second grade and I hadn't forgotten the memory, but I had forgot the feeling. I felt the fear of a second grade me. I was new in a developing neighborhood, all cookie-cutter style housing, and we had just moved into one of the first built houses on a street with a huge lot behind it cluttered with little orange flags and stakes in the ground marking where the identical houses would rise from the ground. I can remember jumping on my trampoline (the one I chipped my tooth on) and seeing the vast field nothingness and how at night we could hear the coyotes barking and the crickets chirping. I had a pretty conventional childhood at that point and had just finished a period of a ton of moving and school hopping for my brother. Now we were here and settled. I remember that I was so excited about having a home to stay in and friends to get to keep. The Realtor of this housing community had a daughter younger than me but who had a huge, frightening personality for a cautious girl who was shy by nature. She deceived me as being a friendly and always sharing with me. Overnight, she became manipulating and domineering in a second grade hazing fashion. I remember bits and pieces like standing over a frog with my barefoot above it with her yelling at me to squish it or we wouldn't be friends anymore and then, me, running home crying because I didn't want to. I remember hiding behind stair railings in a model home while she poured out cans of paint on the walls and floors and spraying the ceiling with water from the kitchen sink. She was obviously starved of attention. That was the last day that I called her my friend.          
I had remembered this strange relationship but I hadn't paid any attention to it since. Back to the present, I was in mid-conversation talking about a minor blunder on a normal day and was brought back to this. I felt the fear that I hadn't felt since I was that second grader and I started crying. Long story short, God has uncovered a pain from my past and taught me about myself... but in such a loving way. God has surrounded me with his word and with Biblical truths to snuff out any lie that would come of this situation. He has surrounded me with great relationships and the freedom of a relationship with Jesus in order for me to come out of this past pain to show God's grace in my relationships today. I know that God is forming me and molding me daily and I don't to miss out in knowing. I am dumbfounded at His past-present-future-ness and how He relates them all, nudging me and reminding me that he has been in every fiber and in every cell. I am His. His creation. His glorifier. " I delight to do Your will, O my God..." Psalm 40:8

This new year I am trying to look back on how I felt at the beginning of each new year that I faced and failing. I cannot remember how I felt January 1, 2011 or January 1, 2010. I cannot remember if I had an epiphany that day or even the next. What I can remember of each year is my commitment and desire to seek God more, to be more in his word, and to be more involved in a real, authentic relationship. I had no idea that my relationship with God would be where it is today because of the circumstances and people that God has put in my life. 

This year, though I have not reached each and every resolution, I do know how I am feeling. 

I feel peace. Which is a blessing for me to write out because I have not been feeling peace in the holiday season. It's funny how rest and slowing down without work or school, etc, can be supremely out-ruled by my racing mind. It's a miracle that I feel peace while recollecting the events that have passed, even saying the word passed is hard to spit out. Right now, I am sitting down and realizing that I have no idea what God has prepared for me, and I do not want to know. Because God knows that if I did then I would try and do it my way. 

 

my song for the day for the god of the universe

I love how God catches me unaware, how he enters into my life by the communion that he gave me through the very spirit of him.
9:12 am, today thus far: woke my roommates up to walk to star bucks at 6am. thank you Jesus for your people, my people. i am too blessed; had my oatmeal and coffee with a little cinnamon and nutmeg... i love getting festive for the joy of advent. I was blessed to be able to get into your word, read about the acts of your disciples, and to know you more. thank you father god, how my joy comes from you, Lord, and how it overflows, i could not be more in awe of you. I woke up this morning, early, to study for my finals and you've taken my stress in your hands father
and I am so thankful. how can I give back my day to you? I will be intentional today, I will be constantly listening to your spirit, walking under your grace and love and giving it to everyone I come into contact with.
I will be intentional with every seed.
Every Word.
every moment in my life:
the painful will be purifying,
joyful will be in praise of you.
help me to grow into the strong oak that you created me to be, rooted and grounded, unshaken, with my limbs growing and climbing, growing and climbing to reach you, my God.

"I will not die an unlived life. 

I will not live in fear of falling or catching fire.

 I choose to inhabit my days, 

to allow my living 

to open me, 

to make me less afraid, 

more accessible, 

to loosen my heart until it becomes 

a wing, 

a torch,

 a promise. 

I choose to risk my significance; 

to live so that which comes to me as seed 

goes to the next as blossom 

and that which comes to me as blossom, 

goes on as fruit." 

-Dawna Markova

1 Cor 3:4-12

Love is patient and kind; 

love does not envy or boast; 

it is not arrogant or rude. 

It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice at wrongdoing

but rejoices with the truth. 

Love bears all things, believes all things 

 hopes all things, endures all things. 

Love never ends. As for prophesies, they will pass away; as for tongues, they will cease; as for knowledge; it will pass away. For we know in part and we prophesy in part, but when the perfect comes, the partial will pass away. When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a woman, I gave up childish ways. For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I have been fully known. 


"Even as I have been fully known." "Even as I have been fully known." As many times as I read this, speak this, believe, live, and know this, I cannot grasp the Father's love for me. I cannot imagine or begin to comprehend the value that he has for me. That when perfect comes, Jesus will take me from the partial, the pieces, the incomplete, and will submerge me into the wholeness of God. 
This morning I read in Acts when Peter heals the beggar.
We know the story, but when I read it this morning, God captivated me and it was like the very first time that I saw God's love. The very first time I believed and knew God's word to be true. The word was made alive and new to me and I felt like the beggar, "walking and leaping and praising God!"
At the gate called Beautiful. :) 
In the message, Peter confirms what is faith in Jesus Christ. "Yes, faith and nothing but faith put this man healed and whole right before your eyes." 


Thank you Jesus for seeking me at the gate called Beautiful, and thank you for saving my life. 

Meaning within the name

I just read Connor's blog a while ago and he explained the meaning behind his blog name and since my blog title isn't scriptural... and I would really like to explain what significance it carries for me. 


Good and tonic. 
There's this book, a really small book, by C.S. Lewis. It's called A Grief Observed and is pretty much his own record of thoughts after his wife passed away. His struggle with life without her and it all points to his relationship with God. Doesn't it always? He says some amazing things in that book that have resonated with my soul. And when I say resonated, I mean completely ingrained to the point of memorization because I have read it so many times. And I have read it so many times, because I am grieving. The story behind that is too long and personal for me to just express over a blog while eating a TJoes quiche, but it is a crucial and huge part of my testimony and my life today and I would love to share with you guys what God had shown me through this process soon enough. 
But the title of this blog is a direct quote from Lewis in this book. The first time I read A Grief Observed, I put an X next to every line that I related to. Every thought that he had thought that I had thought before.. and they were usually hard X's, pen marks deep in the pages and showing through the other side. I was angry with God. The next time I read the book, I put a dot when something connected with me. And the next time I underlined... and so on and so forth. 
But! Even though this sounds dismal and terribly depressing, God met me here. God met me in anger and confusion while reading this book. He changed my life in ways that I will never understand, but I fully see as the glory of God. 
As Lewis is writing this book, there are a few quotes that can explain better than I can: "And suddenly at the very moment when, so far, I mourned H. the least, I remembered her best. Indeed it was something (almost) better than memory; an instantaneous, unanswerable impression... It was as if the lifting of the sorrow removed a barrier" and again he expresses it this way, "it is just in those moments when I feel least sorrow- getting into my morning bath is usually one of them- that H. rushes upon my mind in her full reality, her otherness. Not, as in my worst moments, all foreshortened and patheticized and solemnized by my miseries, but as she is in her own right. This is good and tonic." 
As painful as grieving is, God has shown me what release looks like. Carrying grief around your shoulders is suffocating and I don’t recommend doing it. I don’t know if there is a proper way to grieve, and if there is.. I’m sure not doing it. But nevertheless, it is good and tonic to step out of yourself. It is good when God works on your behalf and it is tonic when you know it. 
Right now, God is strengthening me by showing me the fruit of it all. And he takes the step beyond that, cuts it open, and shows me the details within these blessings and hands it to me: I can taste, it, see it, smell it, feel it. I know God’s hand is on my life in grieving and that it is all for his glory. Everything. 
So, this is why my blog is called Good and Tonic. Thanks for reading :)