Friday, November 18, 2005

New group, good bunch of people at school, go under the name "UCM"; University Christian Ministries... or thats my best guess anyway.

So I was asked to share something at one of their meetings, and let me tell you, I find this group one of the most intimidating... really strong Christians there, fun group, but really take their faith seriously, and I don't know them that well yet, so I planned to share something from this page actually, the first thing I blogged... its pretty straight forward, relevant to the college crew... you know.

Then all of a sudden God was like, "Tawmis, you can't help people by just saying something clever, it has to be My words, you don't know whats in the heart of these people; what they need to hear, I do." So I'm like (as some people could predict) "of course... I'm such an idiot... so what should I say God? Give me your message for these people.

Guess what He brought up? That issue that had offended a couple at my other talk. I'm like, well maybe. Then he brought something else up. "you know what else Tawmis? You should share that song that I gave you this year." Now I'm like, "no, your kidding, right?" So there are several reasons I'm fighting this now.

1. I have almost no time to work this idea into a single solid idea
2.If I don't find a tactful way of doing this, I will make enemies of a bunch of people I don't even know
3. I can't help thinking prideful thoughts about singing my song.

So now I'm thinking, is this God? Or my own show-off nature? Its actually a huge issue for me. I want to sing, share my songs, my gift, but I have a hard time separating my pride from it, and really giving all the credit to God in my heart. Honestly, when i think about it, I'm not even that good. But it sneaks up on me, little thoughts like, "yeah, everyone is going to think your so great if they know you write and perform your own music..." I HATE those thoughts, but they come, and honestly, the only time I can sing and play guitar with peace in my heart now is when I'm alone, becasue I know that there is no pride in that, no one to sing to, no audience.

Anyway, to end the story, I got past all that stuff, if only during the time I was doing my talk, God spoke in huge ways that morning, and it went really well, then part II of the delemna starts... the compliments. I made a point of avoiding people that were at the meeting that morning, because they would talk about it, and I didn't want to talk about it.

Nevertheless, people found me, and said "good job" and "thanks" and I really wanted to stop them and explain that its not me... its God, i don't have anything in me that touches and heals hearts, everything that morning was God. But it just was making to big a deal of it, and I just lowered my eyes and muttered a quick, "thanks" because I know people are just trying to encourage me. I got to explain my feeling on the topic to one person, so that was good.

In the end, I'm no closer to finding an answer of how to separate my pride from these things, and to truly knowing in the depths of my soul that my everybreath, every note, every good thing comes from my Father in heaven. Pretty frustrating.

Thursday, November 10, 2005

God has really been showing me alot about His character through the old Testament lately...

I've told some of you there was this girl out tree planting this year, who has a heart for God, but just can't seem to get past a certain thing in her life. I don't want to be too arogant, but I believe its just that she can't see how beautiful God sees her as, and how beautiful God has made her through His son's sacrifice. Really hard for me to see.

I've seen it several times, I believe. Actually, lots of times. The interesting thing was I was reading a Philip Yancy book at the time called, "The Bible Jesus Read," and it talks about how the major prophet books are in alot of ways God telling us how he feels. Interestingly enough, he uses a metaphor of a young girl, who he adopts and raises into a beautiful queen. This is a metaphor for the nation of Israel. The woman he loves, raises, and cares for eventually starts to prostitute herself to the world, breaking God's heart.

Of course, my experience is only a small representation of what happened to God as well. Then the other night I had to speak, and during the talk, I was able to share my heart on that issue, about girls not seeing how beautiful they are to God. Some people got offended by it, and I struggled with what I should do about it.

At the peak of my anxiety, I cracked open the Bible and guess where I started reading? In Ezekiel, where God is expressing just that metaphor I was talking about. It was pretty crazy. I'm not 100% yet, but I believe this is the first time ever God has ever prompted me to say something potentially offensive, and I did. I really hope some good things come out of it. And I am praying that I would be able to express myself more clearly to anyone that misunderstood, but yeah.

The point is, getting to know God is sometimes not pleasant, in a secular way at least. God has been hurt alot, and to understand that, we have to really be sorrowful sometimes, but we have a promise, "Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted." More on this later.

Wednesday, November 02, 2005

Hey! No one is commenting!! Oh well... its a good lead in...

Cory's post kinda made me think about this, again. As I have shared with some people last year was a time of extreme solo time. I had little or not close male or female friends, and I often wrestled with my feelings of lonelyness which I felt seriously took away from my time with God last year. It kept me from being thankful alot of the time, not to mention being extremely miserable and hard... a whole school year... alone.

The hardest thing about it, was that the Bible back up my complaints. Jesus had his close circle of friends, Paul did, even Job had his friends come around.

When I got to Nanaimo, I almost started to panic when I started seeing the same patterns happening again. I'm not exactly sure what happened then. I know I started to take notes when I studied the Bible. I know I wrote some more songs. But I don't know if either of these things explains the way I was suddenly okay one day. God just revealed himself to me in a new way. I can't explain it.

So whats the point? Well, the point is, sometimes, you have a bad attitude, struggle with self-pity, or something else. Now, I'm not just saying lay down and wait it out. I'm saying the opposite... Keep moving! That being said, sometimes to just keep moving is the hardest thing at all. But I think God let me go through this for a number of reasons, but one is to remind me that its just His strength that does it in the end. I tried everything to get out of my self-pity/lonliness/whatever. But in the end, it was just God's grace.

Another thing that happened after I got over this, the friends started showing up. After I was taught (I can't even take the credit for learning this) to rely on God again, it was okay for me to have friends again. I just gotta remember to lean on God.