relational thoughts….. worldly vs. Kingdom

So, yesterday after work, I planned to come home and tackle a list of things I wanted to get done… I wrote an extensive list of what I wanted to focus on. However, after I got home, flu like symptoms I was experiencing earlier in the day cascaded into a full on flu like state. I was curled up on our couch trying to rest it out. Ericka got home and put on the Bachelorette…. she did sweetly ask me, because she knows how much I despise the show, but she enjoys it… it was the finale. It frustrated me continuously…. It is all about feelings, lust, and selfishness. Sean Lowe's season as the Bachelor was different because he has a relationship with God and that affected his journey. However, this one was very much founded from a worldly basis of thinking about relationships. It got me thinking and that if I wasn't a Christian, I don't know if I could handle the world's view of relationships. It's so 1 dimensional.

Whereas with God, relationships are 4 dimensional… It's a piece of a bigger picture… it's not based solely on feelings or emotions…

This. This is beautiful ness in relationships…. This video is a taste of the depth that God creates within the context of marriage…. Kingdom….
Love.

hope***

Singleness is not a disease. In our couples culture, it is easy to forget this. It's true. It can be a really really good thing. I can say that as a thirty-one year old who has been single the majority of my life. It's not a bad thing. I had a friend break it off with a long-term boyfriend and as she was telling about she shared that she knew she had to do it a long time but that she didn't want to go back to dating and being single as she said single with an "yuck" sound effect. Two months ago I may not have understand what she was feeling, but I feel the emotion. I get it, I understand why people settle. It's hard… to be vulnerable, to put your heart out there and risk. It's hard to keep believing and hoping when that hope is getting beaten around. It's worth it. But oh my, it's hard. 

Husband, I'm not giving up on you. I have hope. For us, for our story… for our story that is a nuclear explosion of Kingdom and love the way our God dreamed. ****

We cannot lose hope, single ones, we can't give up. I'm in the stage of life where some of my dearest friends are getting engaged, married, babies upon babies upon babies, buying houses… and I get to see and share their beautiful pictures and stories…. and you know what, I am genuinely happy for them-- deeply. I love going to weddings and sharing their love. I love seeing and holding their babies. I love hearing the love stories…. the stories about their kids and what goofiness they are up to or the newest adventure in raising kids. I rejoice and I don't get discouraged in those moments… if anything, it stirs up hope for that season…. because you know what, even if the human being sexy man of God love of my life finds me and pursues me when I'm in my 40's, 50's, 60's, 70's, 80's, 90's or 100's…. he'll still be worth the wait. There is a part of me that hopes that it is in my 30's…. but I'm not giving up. *smile*

And ladies and gentlemen, that hope is linked to far more than a relationship… it goes into dreams, passions, and the adventures of life…….

There is this conversation on Grey's Anatomy where Cristina and Meredith are talking about their lives and Cristina shares that Meredith's life looks different because "its filled with houses and husbands and kids." And then she continues with "… and mine looks the same, but I am not. I've changed." There is something so beautiful about that. Because I am not the same girl I was last year, I saw a picture of me in January and barely recognized that girl. I have changed… A LOT… despite my relationship status, college, job, and city consistencies…. and yet, I have grown… and I'm going to keep growing… and letting God use the process of life, His revelation, my heart and the feelings that sometimes surprise me that he shows me within my heart… I think in singleness, this is easy to forget, but even when we don't have anyone to witness our lives on a day in, day out basis…. there are sometimes with my schedule I don't see my roommates for days…. but He's there. Even on my run today, as I was turning around to cross the road, this all culminated as a train (like the one on the incredible movie "Unstoppable") came charging towards me on the tracks…. I was on a trail away from the tracks (FYI)… but it was so close and it was a sweet, "Amy girl, I'm with you" from my Jesus … or the way he knows how much I absolutely love sunsets and in the middle of a crazy Saturday, I walk up to my section and look out the door and the gorgeous majestic-ness of the sunset leaves me breathless. These as Shannon Nicole says, kisses from Jesus are amazing, incredible and remind me that I am loved.

On a completely random note, on my run, I remember an amazing, incredible, beautiful lady whom I love and adore telling me when I lived in Kentucky that it might take a man in my life, my future husband to tell me that I am beautiful for me to believe it. I honestly think that if I don't believe I am beautiful now, I don't think I would believe it if my husband told me. Obviously, this is pure theory, but just a thought. 

This weekend, a man opened fire in a theater in Louisiana. It really has me thinking about the brokenness of our world…. and yet, this I know, when I hear about that or the man who opened fire on two military bases with more in mind than what occurred…. or ISIS…. or at my international social work summer class where, on Thursday, I learned about female genitilia mutiliation circumcision…. The light is the only thing that can cast off the darkness.. The only thing. There is no Plan B…. I want to be so full of God….. his truth, love, grace, kindness….. that I am merely an echo…. as I follow his voice, that I can be a megaphone of His truth. Oh that I will have the courage and bravery to speak what needs to be spoken. To a world who sees and knows a lot of brokenness but has not encouraged the one their soul craves… the one who can fill the broken empty places and inject hope. Hope.

this is my fight song……...

i do not know if there is a word or even a grouping of words invented that could possibly capture how much this song means to me.

there is something that happens within me when i listen to it. i think this, for me, may be one of those songs that becomes an anthem within me to such a degree that i can listen to it over and over and over. one of the themes it touches is this craving that she feels something deeper, stronger, powerful, great in her and even if no one else sees it, she does and she's giving her 100% regardless.

"…a lot of fight left in me…"

i feel that. i have been underestimated so much by leaders. i get the "sweet card" but there is so much more to me and the woman God is refining me into and to be put in the sweet box is frustrating. church, professionally, in my various work places, this has been the story and i want to be me. i like me. i'm a broken human with brokenness being constantly revealed…and yet, i like me…. i like the "sweet" but i'm like sea salt carmel…. there may be the sweetness, but there is a salty side to me…. true. story. that salty can look like loyalty--- faithful steadfast stubbornness--- even warrior like… i see my spiritual side like Eowyn from LOTR and this song excites me.

simplicity. spiritual warfare. six pack abs.

these are my three 2015 goals…. and all three have been a process where I have seen change---significantly since this year began….. but that's my warrior princess side awakening…strengthening… for spiritual warfare. i was scrapbooking a few weeks ago (my nerdy processing fun creative side) and I was reading an old journal where my best friend, Cazi LaRee, was sharing about a conversation with her dad had and how he felt the enemy challenging him in a rough season of life--- " if you let up, i will let up." this i know…. this amy is not letting up. it does not matter what the picture looks like. i want great. and not great in the sense of millions of dollars, famous, or big house. i want to be great in my God's eyes. that is the ultimate. for real. simply. my challenge these days is to create space--capacity-- room for God to do that. the past three weeks have been rough… and in the middle of that rough, with much thankfulness to my Jess Jessica friend, I have been reading "So Long Insecurity" by Beth Moore. it hurts so good and this last weekend at camp, i was asking Jesus why i felt so low and broken…. like the carpet was swept out from under my feet. He so simply and sweetly spoke that in order to build up in my life, He has to break down … to remove…. to refine…... it hurts so good.

An offer of forgiveness…….

Interesting. A little over a month ago, I was hurt by a friend who I thought I could trust. There was no offer of forgiveness, but I made a choice to forgive and to live out "Love is kind." I did not feel it, but I made the decision that love in its very raw definition will be the mark of my life. Wrestling with the hurt I felt, I chose that my life would be defined by love and not anger and/or bitterness. So, I forgave. In the month that followed, I ended up making the choice to forgive continually whenever that hurt resurfaced. Today, this person asked for my forgiveness. In that month of choosing forgiveness, I thought the process would have been made substantially easier if I had received an offer of asking for forgiveness. And yet, because I have chosen forgiveness, it did not make a difference. Interesting. My heart was already living in such a place of forgiveness and choosing to love in such a way that even when the person who hurt me was sitting across from me asking for forgiveness, it did not change anything. It was great to see this person realize how they had hurt me... and yet…. I think its interesting how we think that if the person who had wronged us would ask for forgiveness than we could move on. It may be a process but I have learned that forgiveness and the freedom to move on … that power.. is in our hands-- to make that choice. Interesting.

Stagnancy vs. Consistency………. **TRIGGER**

Today I ran. I ran. My pace was slow. My distance was short. I ran.

This I learned from today's run.

Somedays, you just have to show up. I was journaling this morning and Holy Spirit and I grappled with the difference between being stagnant and consistency. It is a fine line swinging from each side. The stay at home Mom who is physically there, but not engaged with her children and does not invest in her children…or even the Mom who is so there, its become an idol and her lifeline can create a stagnancy. Consistently, the Mom who chooses to love her children intentionally and love them individually…who laughs, corrects, teaches, creates, and shows up wholeheartedly everyday. Or the athlete who shows up every day but has lost the passion and thus gives a half hearted effort versus the athlete who consistently trains day in and day out with passion… even though they are there every day, the dividing factor swinging the pendulum towards stagnancy or consistency is wholehearted engagement, intentionality, passion, and choosing to show up with what 100% you have that day and to go beyond.

From this run, I learned something else. I ate breakfast before this run. I thought I waited long enough for digestion. I didn't. My lungs were great, my stomach, on the other hand, was miserable and nauseous. As I thought about it, in the running aspect, it triggered me to remember that once again, I love waking up and going on a run and then coming back and eating breakfast. I forgot about this until I suffered the consequences of eating before my run. To me, remember that horrid stomach feeling will for future reference remind that I in fact like to run and then eat. What if our sin acted like a trigger for our response? Yes, asking for forgiveness from God and recommitting to run after Him and His righteousness, but instead of allowing the enemy to suffocate us in guilt and shame, what if we took as a trigger to remember why we choose to go against our flesh, why we are choosing to walk a different path, why we have made the commitment to say no to that thing. Just a Holy Spirit and Amy thought… *smile*

A video filled with sweet truth……..

No Plan B. *smile*

I just celebrated my birthday. I just love birthdays. My friend Brian Thomas and I celebrated our June birthdays together by going to a Nashville Sounds game. It rained. It forecasted rain resulting in quite a few people to not even come to the game. There was a fun group that did come. Standing outside debating whether to brave the game and the possible forthcoming rain or to change the plan, one of my dear friends, Jess Jessica asks me what my back up is. I laugh and look at her and ask, "Do I look like a girl who would have a back-up plan?" She laughs. We go to the game and it rains on and off--- Shannon, Brian, and I endured until the torrential downpour in the top of the sixth inning causing a rain delay and the end of the game. It was quite fun though… and it was my first time at The First Tennessee ballpark!

So, I remember this conversation with Jess today on my road trip back home to Nashville from visiting my family in Ohio. This memory triggers the truth that I am not a girl with a back-up plan. It's not my personality and how God and I operate. I would say there are detours that I did not expect, but no plan B's or C's…. I felt so deeply and strongly God encouraged me to move to Kansas City. I left the swimming pool, went up to my apartment, and took everything I owned and placed it in the middle of my room and began to sort everything into piles- "Going to Kansas City", storing at Dad and Mom's,  and throwing away items. Even when I encountered resistance moving and how I was going to get all of my stuff there, where I would live, where I would work… in my Amy mind, there was no Plan B… it was a solidarity and confidence knowing it would work out. This is where my free spirit can be a strength connected with my relationship with God. He speaks, I move, and have the confidence that all of the details will just get figured out. It was just interesting to realize. For instance, I know I'm going to get married, God spoke it to me. I know that He will never leave me or forsake me, God spoke it. I know that He loves me deeply and furiously, God spoke it. I like it…. it's just fun! *smile*