A mosaic on suffering, Wonder, hearing the voice of God, and ending striving

As I write, God is making a mosaic of all these separate messy, beautiful parts of my life. I had no plan to write this or to publish another blog anytime soon.

But God speaks, and my plans no longer take priority. 

I am going to weave the lyrics of “Cageless Birds” by Melissa Helser as my roadmap for this mosaic. When I heard this song this summer, so much in me resonated with it.

I even put it in another blog, but only tonight has the song in its entirety begun to make sense to me… 

 

“Standing on the shore of decision, looking into the face of adventure, desire to abandon all I know.”

Almost two years ago, I stood on the shore of decision.

Two pathways: a semester in Ireland, studying abroad, like I always thought I would, OR graduating a semester early, like I never thought I would, and abandoning my campus, my career, my comforts, and my people for a year.

In that difficult discerning process, I did not hear God’s voice telling me to go one way or the other. But I did talk to a lot of people, like Cole, Natalie, Ben, who emphasized doing the more selfless, more meaningful thing to me. From God, I simply got an image of birds as I mentioned in my first blog. 

Around a year later, sitting on the University of Portland “bluff” a flock of birds fly by as I officially commit to The World Race Route II: Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand, Myanmar, Nepal, India, South Africa, Swaziland, Lesotho, Zimbabwe, and Zambia.

And now I am simultaneously “full of excitement that bleeds with passion for life” and also lost in “Not knowing what lies ahead.” 

Weeks from now will be goodbyes to the campus and friends I love and weeks later goodbyes to the mountains and family I love even more…ahhh!

I look up and see in my dorm room a poster that reads at the bottom what was one of my favorite quotes in my childhood:

“I’m a pilgrim on the edge, on the edge of my perception. We are travelers at the edge, we are always at the edge of our perception” -Scott Mutter 

  

---

  “Adventure in reality is full of breathless moments, silent nights, and wounds that leave scars of memory on a heart.”

Back to Freshman year of college God broke my heart for the poor and taught me to listen for that still whisper of my Father’s voice.  

One of the first times I heard God speak over me was that year on a young adults’ retreat with my friend Emma. We went to the Oregon Coast with beautiful Portland hipsters, that, not going to lie, I was a little intimidated by, lol.

We asked God to tell us how He sees us, and the first thing that popped into my head was “Wonder.” 

Months later at a worship night, my friend Makamae asks God the same question on my behalf and hears the word “wonderful” for me.

That summer on a mission trip to Nicaragua I told my leader about how God sees my wonder, and he said I can see it in your artwork. 

I love that God formed me with child-like Wonder, like when my friend Emy and I would write to fairies, mine was Astoria Buttercup.

Mr. Magorium’s Wonder Emporium always stuck with me. I watched it again this year. And Natalie Portman, keeps the Wonder Emporium alive with her artistic hands bringing color into the world.

When I watched it again this year, God told me that’s how I see you.

That same summer, I was chronologically reading through my Bible. One night, I watched a scary movie with my brother, and we ended up having a long conversation about suffering. He brings up the book of Job, and I was like, I’ve never heard of that. 

Turns out the next morning I was in the book of Job! Summer goes on, and one day, I randomly hear this song “Where were you?” by Ghost Ship. I tear up hearing it, and it becomes my favorite song.

Later in the summer, I encounter a horrible moment of suffering, and I am crying so hard. All I knew to do was go read my Bible in my hammock.

Still in Job, I needed answers, so I skip to the end where God finally answers Job’s accusations of why he suffered so much. I start reading and realize the lyrics to “Where were you” are literally from God’s answer to Job in the Bible:

“I said God I do not understand this world, everything is dying and broken, why do I see nothing but suffering?

God I’m asking could this be Your plan? Sin has taken hold of this whole land. Will You not say anything else to me?

He said where were you the day that I measured, sunk the banks and stretched the line overall the earth and carved out its corner stone? Where were you the day that I spoke and told the sun to split the night open, caused the morning dark with its light to show…

Is this whole world bending beneath your will? I spoke of things I did not understand, things too wonderful for me. Though I had no right to ask, my God knelt and answered me.”

At the end of the summer, my family and I watch the solar eclipse in full totality. I look up in complete Wonder, as my uncle thanks God for making the moon exactly the right distance to cover the sun, even though the moons is SO much smaller. I realize that God knelt down and answered my suffering with Wonder and that God’s ways are higher than my ways and his thoughts higher than my thoughts (Isaiah 55:9). 

 

---

Back to that mission trip to Nicaragua, we listened for God’s heart for every person on our team. 

While praying for one teenage girl, someone got an image of Jesus crying next to her bedside during the hardest time of her life. As we spoke more words over her and spontaneously sung a worship song, I opened my eyes and saw her body language. She was amazed and crying as God imprinted his love on her.

In that moment, I was taken back to the moment that originally set my faith in Jesus on fire: 

It was during a time when I too didn’t know my worth, searching for belonging and for fulfillment. Just like this girl, it was my first retreat/missions’ trip with my youth group in high school. It was after my youth pastor had brought a broken outcast kid on stage who shared how he had been having suicidal thoughts, yet he just accepted Jesus with pure relief on his countenance. The room of hundreds of youth were crying and covered in the Holy Spirit. I too felt that unexplainable, surpassing love and acceptance stronger than I ever had that night. 

I balled into my journal thinking about that night in the humidity of the firefly-lit-nights at the Villa Esperanza, which rescues teenage girls from the cycle of getting married, pregnant, and abandoned by those same men.

Now for when my team asked God about me:

an image of me playing in water with the verse rivers of living water will flow through your heart, that I have a good heart and am a friend to look up to, that I’m joyful, an image of me falling into water and Jesus’ hand pulling me out, a still ocean, that I’m a faithful servant, that sometimes I don’t feel seen but God sees me, during the ending prayer, the guy I talk about in the tongues story, says thank you that she is beautifully and wonderfully made, and…OH MY GOSH!….

I am tearing up right now…In my training camp blog, I wrote about the most Spirit-filled words someone has ever prayed over me (which frankly I am still processing). I gasped in the middle of this prayer when she talked about living water pouring out of me, because that specific scripture had been spoken over me years before in Nicaragua.

I literally just remembered that, also in Nicaragua, someone got an image of a tree resembling my steady faith.

And the girl at training camp also said in her prayer that I am rooted in God and that I have I lot to learn; in that moment I imagined a steady tree! And as you will see, and I will see through all the hard times on the Race and beyond, I do have a lot to learn…

 

---

 

 “What pushes me is rooted somewhere between misunderstanding and knowing,

Knowing that what I want to understand is not within my reach, So I ponder my escape”

You know, I started writing this blog, because I’ve been feeling this internal tension and lack of discernment in hearing God’s voice lately.

I was listening to podcasts from the World Race today, and I decided to listen to one for a second time that’s about hearing and obeying the voice of God and how Spirit speaks to our spirit. Afterwards, I just got quiet and tried to listen:

“My precious daughter, why are you afraid?”

The truth is, I am afraid. 

Just this week, in my World Race group chat, we were discussing the controversy over gifts of the Spirit and if God can speak to us individually and not just through His Word.

We discussed how followers of Christ have, the living water, the same power that rose Jesus from the dead, the Holy Spirit inside of us. Spirit leads, guides, and speaks. “My sheep listen to My voice” (John 10:27). I talked about how listening to God, pressing into the Spirit, getting words for people is so fruitful.

The past year, and especially since training camp, I have pressed into the Spirit more than ever. I wrote this today in my phone journal:

“It’s an undoing if I’ve ever seen one…It doesn’t make sense. I have more life and peace than I have ever had, and I am doing what I want to do less than I ever have before.” 

The podcast talked about how Billy Graham said he would have spent more time with Jesus instead of doing the crusades. The woman speaking in the podcast said it is a successful day doing nothing, if you connect with Jesus.

Another podcast said obey God’s voice and authority with child-like faith.

My pastor in Portland has been telling us for years to live an unhurried life, to die to ourselves, and that freedom isn’t getting to do whatever you want; it is actually being able to choose to do what you do not want to do at times. 

And as I talked about with Valerie, we could spend our whole lives on the thought of God. Recently I heard someone say that’s great to raise your hands and tell God I give you my life, but will you give him this moment?

So what am I afraid of?

God answered that question for me tonight by having me listen again, with no distraction, to Cageless Birds by Melissa Helser. This is what I am afraid of:

“Can I go the distance? Can I give all my mind to get what the messenger is saying? Can I surrender my knowing? Will I survive the humility of ignorance to obtain a treasure that earthly gold cannot buy? Will I ask the question of honesty, even if the answer leads me to the land of repentance?”

There are moments when it seems I don’t have time or energy or the desire to connect with God. There are moments when I doubt and am so selfish. There are moments when the enemy is attacking me with lies that lead to envy and insecurity.

Then, there are moments when God speaks and pours into my mind, body, and soul like an empty vessel directly connected to the source otherwise known as Elohim, Yahweh, Wonderful Counselor, Prince of Peace, the Creator of the Universe.

I am spending the first weeks of my life actually trusting God with each day. I am asking God what He wants me to do today and who He wants me to reach out to; sometimes instead of asking people to hang out, I am interceding in prayer. 

I have seen incredible things come of it.

This whole blog came out of me choosing to make no plans tonight. I feel more equipped than ever to do my part of love and the Great Commission and let God do the rest, feel closer to God than ever, and less lonely than ever when I am alone. 

The tension and nervousness and difficulty of hearing God’s voice, I just realized, happens when I am asking God about something my will wants, and I fear He’ll will differently.

I don’t give him a chance to speak, because in my heart I don’t want him to.

Jesus said you enter the Kingdom of Heaven by doing the Will of the Father (Matthew 7:21). And once I know the will of the Father, don’t I have an obligation to do it then?

YES AND right after the podcast God had me listen to The Father’s Song by Upper Room that had spoken life into me at my hardest moment of training camp.

It reminds me right now, no matter what I do, God is pleased with me. I could do nothing forever, and God would still love me. THE PRESSURE IS OFF. He will forgive you and welcome you like the Prodigal and Peter no matter how many times you fall short. 

When I first was saved, I wrote over my journal I AM FREE. This is the original grace of my life: Christ took all the ways I fall short on his own shoulders, took the punishment of my sin that there would be no separation between me and God anymore, crucified himself to suffer with me, rose from the dead on the third day to overcome all my battles for me, welcomed me into his family, and then gave me the Holy Spirit so that I could partner with him on showing others that He did that for them too.

Jesus is King!! like Kanye West’s album🙂

 

---

 

 “All of these thoughts flood my mind. As I stand on the shore of choosing and in the distance of my wandering, I see with clear eyes a flock of wild, beautiful birds.

Swooping clearly in my direction, as if they see me and are coming for me. And how strange it is that their eyes are full of clarity. And the melody of their flapping wings sings out, ‘We are coming for you’.”

When I started writing tonight, my mind was exploding with connections. Ironically, instead of staying in listening to God, I got on my computer and started typing (I think He’s cool with it this time though;)).

I thought, oh, this will just be a short blog.

Turns out the mosaic God is making takes a long time to explain.

Tonight, God brought me to thinking about those fairies I used to write to, especially since last night I watched the awesome movie the “Unicorn Store” with a similar idea. 

I thought of how much I believed in fairies and Wondered at the beauty of them, like Brie Larson does at the Unicorn. Samuel L. Jackson says the Unicorn holds unconditional love. Brie knows that having a Unicorn is all she needs. 

The thing is though, with all the hope and belief I put in them, I was terrified of seeing a fairy.

Could it be that way with God sometimes? He is legitimately Unconditional Love and Worthy of all my Wonder, yet I do fear God…

I fear the Creator who knows all of me. I fear that He is real. I fear that the Good News is true sometimes. I fear it is too good to be true and too magical, like fairies once were. Really, I fear the unknown.

The flock of birds is coming for me, with clear eyes, and I am afraid but…

“A song is waking up. Wake up, songbird. We want to hear your melodies. Songbird, wake up. Start singing. You’re not in your cage anymore, bound by your shame anymore, the walls that held you in prison, the gate is flung wide open”

How is it that I searched for hours for a comforter for college and ended up choosing the one with a girl Wondering at an artistic sky with birds flying freely. That in deciding to do the World Race birds were the symbol. 

That the two prophetic paintings I have done were of a bird alert:

and at rest:

That I got this image at training camp:

Surrendering my schedule is so hard for me. Even harder is surrendering my striving.

Minus losing grandparents, almost all of my breakdowns in college have been from being burnt out on striving. They end in me saying to God “I can’t do this” and “I am weak.”

I try and plan and initiate and pour into things and people endlessly to make me feel full and purposeful and enough.

There is a certain point where God is like STOP!

This is not the religion; even more so, this is not the God you follow.

The God you follow says: “’My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness’” (2 Corinithians 12:9).

The God you follow says: “’Your faith has saved you; go in peace’” to a sinful outcast of a woman who wipes her tears and pours out all her savings onto Jesus’ feet (Luke 7:36-50).

The God you follow says: “’Has not my hand made all these things, and so they came into being?…These are the ones I look on with favor: those who are humble and contrite in spirit, and who tremble at my word’” (Isaiah 66:2).

The God you follow says: “For freedom Christ has set us free; stand firm therefore, and do not submit again to a yoke of slavery” (Galatians 5:1-5). 

God said to me this summer repeatedly Who am I? The answer became MY LIFE. 

And I just found this picture of what I wrote even before 8^th grade, and honestly I don’t even remember having a relationship with God at that point.

But this is the sort of childlike faith Jesus called us to:

 

Jesus the Alpha and the Omega(Rev 22), has been making the mosaic of my life since I was a child.

It is God’s will to do that lovingly and uniquely for every human on this earth, including you (2 Peter 3:9).

He has whispered over and over again Do you love me? Yes Lord. Feed my sheep (John 21). With the help of His guiding voice, that’s what I plan to do.

 

He is my Life.

I am his wonderful daughter. 

I’m not in a cage anymore. 

“Start singing cageless bird” 

 

Subscribe for updates please! and would love for you to donate as well

Grace and Peace 

 

 

P.S. If you want to know how much Jesus loves you, go ahead and ask God!