Full Circle.

(the pic has nothing to do with the blog content, but isn't she beautiful?)
So I am not living up to my Lenten expectations. First of all, i may have jumped the gun on vegetarianism. After Lent I am going to be a "practicing vegetarian" until I figure it out. I truly feel God has prompted this in me, and if i just write it off as having too many variables and questions to it and eat meat anyway, then I'll stop thinking about it. As long as I am not eating it, it will force me to explore that more and more and make a decision that I feel is what God is showing me and asking me to do in my life. For now, this is what I need to do. So until an unforeseen time...I shall not partake in meat. Fish? That is another research day.
My goal for last week was to pick something else I feel is important, which was going to be fair trade coffee. However I never actually sat down to do it. I still haven't. I know enough to want to choose it whenever possible, but I am not passionate about it to only drink fair trade. That is dumb...so I want to explore it more however I have not. So there. Hopefully I will, because this was something I wanted to do weekly! The weeks are moving along quickly!
Last night as i debated looking up fair trade stuff, instead I pulled out a journal from last year, (which I do on occasion) and flipped to March of 08. It was my last entry to my "Africa journal" which is a journal i kept in kenya, and i continued to write in it when I had thoughts that pertained. It was encouraging to look back on it, affirming, and also awesome to see the way God works in me and through me and never stops, He just keeps pushing and pressing and leading, and loving. So I think I'll be ultra vulnerable and share this last entry, which I entitled "Full Circle" (which is also a fave Storyhill song of mine...)

3-3-08.
Who are you? That is the main theme/question of City Matters class tonight. (Which, by the way, is completely messing up my life for the record...) it is an intriguing question because I feel like i've really been hit with this question this past fall in sort of an indirect way. For so long my identity and worth has been wrapped up in what I am doing-from being at Bethel, a captain of the hockey team, volunteering, mentoring, being a good daughter, friend, etc.-Then it was focused on going to Africa and being "used" by God there, being a savior of some sort-my worth tied up in being a missionary. When i felt like I failed at that, i came back to the US tring to build up my identity and worth again with something else. Looking back the last 1 1/2 years of my life has been the most difficult. I felt the most dissatisfied and lonely and incomplete. Joyless. That load has slowly been lifted over the past 4 months or so for a very significant reason. I stopped. I quit DOING for God. I quit trying to measure up-in my relationships with friends and family, in the things I was doing. And you know, I thought I would find fulfillment in my new job. But guess what?!? I didn't! Isn't it wonderful? I don't even like it that much. That is my final confirmation that it does not matter what i do-I need to wrap myself up in the simple fact that I am a daughter of the King! Created in the image of the one and only Lord! Loved by my Creator! Fearfully and wonderfully made! That's it-it is so simple and profound and absolutely hard to believe. How can my whole worth and my entire identity depend on that? It is so hard to grasp. But, honestly, for the first time in about 2 yearsI am finally being restored to the Joy of the Lord and being satisfied in Him. And it is not because I'm dong anything spectacular, or because I figured out my "calling" or what I should do with my life. It's purely because I am letting myself come before my Maker and let Him speak to my heart in those quiet ways I have been too noisy to hear. I am coming on my knees to Jesus, the Savior, letting down my hair and pouring the perfume of my life out over His feet. It has been so uncomfortable at times and full of tension, but very freeing when I really let God speak. I feel like I'm being born again. I often have the experience of being so in love with Jesus and so excited to be in the most incredible story of God that I could almost throw up. I am not kidding. This is one of the most important lessons I could be learning, I pray it won't stop. The more I am learning in City Matters about poverty, city issues, racial issues, and the Justice of God-the more my life is getting screwed up. I love learning about it, and I am hungry for more knowledge-however now I KNOW and I can't pretend I don't, so now I have to take action. That is what is messing me up. I can't be honest before Jesus if I am not obedient to Him in what He is pressing on my heart. Now i have to move to North Minneapolis and try to live in intentional community there. Jesus help me. I do pray you work that out, and who me how to move and where to be.......

(the rest is a prayer)....it ends in saying God is so faithful.

Isn't He so faithful??? I love taking the time to reflect on where I have been and how He has lead my into the now.