encouragement

John 14:27

"Peace I leave with you; My peace I give to you; not as the world gives do I give to you. Do not let your heart be troubled, nor let it be fearful."

Matthew 11:28-29

"Come to me, all who are weary and heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart and you will find rest for your souls."

home away from home

I just wanted to introduce you to my home away from home for the next few months...

tutta bella

tutta bella - all beautiful

I can say this much is true. The night was all beautiful...neapolitan pizza, a salad with excessive balls of mozarella, great company and conversation, and an amazing espresso with a hint of nutella! so beautiful.

I can't believe I leave for 3 months in less than a week. It was so good to spend time talking tonight with Sarah, not necessarily about trip stuff, but just life stuff. I so appreciate her listening ear especially when I'm talking out things I'm processing in life. I so treasure the community that I'm in and will miss my friends the next few months, but Christmas will be here before we know it...once September hits it's all downhill!

malia + peter

appreciation

C.S. Lewis on Appreciation said...
The Four Loves (Harcourt Trade: 1971), p. 13-14, 16-17.


Pleasures of Appreciation are very different. They make us feel that something has not merely gratified our senses in fact but claimed our appreciation by right. The connoisseur does not merely enjoy his claret as he might enjoy warming his feet when they were cold. He feels that here is a wine that deserves his full attention; that justifies all the tradition and skill that have gone to its making and all the years of training that have made his own palate fit to judge it. There is even a glimmering of unselfishness in his attitude. He wants the wine to be preserved and kept in good condition, not entirely for his own sake. Even if he were on his death-bed and was never going to drink wine again, he would be horrified as the thought of this vintage being spilled or spoiled or even drunk by clods (like myself) who can't tell a good claret from a bad. And so with the man who passes the sweet-peas. He does not simply enjoy, he feels that this fragrance somehow deserves to be enjoyed. He would blame himself if he went past inattentive and undelighted. It would be blockish, insensitive. It would be a shame that so fine a thing should have been wasted on him. He will remember the delicious moment years hence. He will be sorry when he hears that the garden past which his walk led him that day has now been swallowed up by cinemas, garages, and the new by-pass ... But in the Appreciative pleasures, even at their lowest, and more and more as they grow up into the full appreciation of all beauty, we get something that we can hardly help calling love and hardly help calling disinterested, towards the object itself. It is the feeling which would make a man unwilling to deface a great picture even if he were the last man left alive and himself about to die; which makes us glad of unspoiled forests that we shall never see; which makes us anxious that the garden or bean-field should continue to exit. We do not merely like the things; we pronounce them, in a momentarily God-like sense, "very good." ... This judgment that the object is very good, this attention (almost homage) offered to it as a kind of debt, this wish that it should be and should continue being what it is even if we were never to enjoy it, can go out not only to things but to persons. When it is offered to a woman we call it admiration; when to a man, hero-worship; when to God, worship simply.

Lately, my appreciations have become more centered among the relational aspects of my life. I still enjoy the beautiful sunset at golden gardens, listening to dave matthews band with the windows rolled down, and enjoying fresh baked zucchini bread. But I am becoming more appreciative of my friends and their words of encouragement, truth spoken in times of uncertainty or doubt, unconditional love, grace and forgiveness...the sum of which creates a community so rich and generous that I am overwhelmed with appreciation for the life they give me...I am because you are.

"How long, O Lord? Will you forget me forever?

How long will you hide your face from me?

How long must I wrestle with my thoughts

and every day have sorrow in my heart?

How long will my enemy triumph over me?

Look on me and answer, O Lord my God.

Give light to my eyes, or I will sleep in death;

my enemy will say, 'I have overcome him,'

and my foes will rejoice when I fall.

But I trust in your unfailing love;

my heart rejoices in your salvation.

I will sing to the Lord,

for he has been good to me."

Psalm 13

inspiration

"Only when we are no longer afraid do we begin to live."

Dorothy Thompson

"Nothing great has been and nothing great can be accomplished without passion."

G.W.F. Hegel

"The real damage is done by those millions who want to 'survive.' The honest men who just want to be left in peace. those who don't want their little lives disturbed by anything bigger than themselves. Those with no sides and no causes. Those who won't take measure of their own strength, for fear of antagonizing their own weakness. Those who don't like to make waves - or enemies. Those for whom freedom, honor, truth, and principles are only literature. Those who live small, mate small, die small. It's the reductionist approach to life: if you keep it small, you'll keep it under control. if you don't make any noise, the bogeyman won't find you. But it's all an illusion, because they die too, those people who roll up their spirits into tiny little balls so as to be safe. Safe?! From what? Life is always on the edge of death; narrow streets lead to the same place as wide avenues, and a little candle burns itself out jsut like a flaming torch does. I choose my own way to burn."

Sophie Scholl

resolve

Today has been out of the ordinary. Usually, my days are busy and fruitful, in the sense that I check tasks off my "to do" list and swiftly move from one activity to the next, but today was different. It all started with the fact that one of my best friends got married last night. An event that is still somewhat surreal. The day was long, a good long. Not one of those long days that you can't wait to be over, but a day that was filled with so much energy and excitement, love and celebration that you kind of don't want it to end. At the end of the night I was completely exhausted and my left eye was killing me...what started as a slight irritation turned into a complete nuisance as the day wore on, despite having changed my contacts. This morning I woke up and on my way to church had to cover my eye it was so sensitive to the sunlight. So as soon as church was done I hurried home back to my dark room where I could shut my eyes and hope the discomfort would go away. I laid there and drifted in and out of a light sleep (and I put my earplugs in, knowing Malia and Peter would be upstairs moving presents out of the house). It was good to just rest...to stop and take a time-out of sorts...to not really think about much at all except trying to sleep. When I finally got out of bed around noon, I was looking for something to make my day meaningful and productive. So I took a shower, put in my contacts (risky, I know) and headed out to greenlake to study for a bit. I kept my eyes open and on the pages of my microbiology text for probably about 20 minutes before I began to drift again into that same mode of relaxation from earlier in the morning where you drift in and out of conscious thought...but this time the sun was shining down providing warmth with the perfect breeze keeping me refreshed. I listened to David Gray sing my favorite songs and I found myself lost in a haze with no thought. No thought...no reflection, brainstorming, criticizing, dreaming, or planning. It's as though my mind was on pause and the day was just strolling by. I thought coffee might wake me up a bit, so of course I headed to zoka with study materials in hand only to find no place to sit and was forced to take my iced mocha back to the car and to my house where I found myself thinking...I should really read a good book right now, but somehow ended up browsing the web. I came across a post by John Piper. I didn't realize he was still alive...for some reason I had him categorized with C.S. Lewis and Oswald Chambers, but apparently he is still alive and preaching and has a website, which I discovered from my dad's favorite links section on his own blog called the race. The post was titled Lets make some Autumn Resolutions. I'm not a big fan of resolutions...only because I usually set myself up for failure (although I don't feel it has to be this way. It's just a matter of making practical resolutions). He starts with a quote from Socrates, "The unexamined life is not worth living." hmmm....I'm not sure why (maybe because of the uneventful day), but this struck me. The opposite is self-examination, but this cannot be practiced on its own and produce results. Examination must lead to a resolution. Our pastor at church always says. "revelation must be followed by response." It is the same idea. As we self-examine and God reveals to us insights about our life we must follow this revelation with a response, a resolution to change, improve, or continue to practice. So we plan...we make dreams, we desire change for the good, we think on how we can improve our lives. But at least for me, fear walks alongside these plans or resolutions. Fear the I will fail, that I will fall back into the same old routines and practices, that I will make the same mistakes again, that I am not capable of change. I know myself and my own strength too well. I am not invincible or capable of producing dramatic change on my own. I lose my will power, discipline and strength all too easily. So then, how do I follow through on my resolves, my plans that I feel that God has placed on my heart, revealed to me? That's just it..."I" can't. “The heart of man plans [resolves!] his way, but the Lord establishes [fulfills!] his steps” (Proverbs 16:9). We cannot depend on ourselves, but we can trust in the Lord's power in the fulfillment of our resolutions. Piper says it this way, "We resolve things not to make God be for us, but because he is already for us—that’s what his call makes plain. He opens our eyes to see and trust Christ." When I take the time to examine, to stop and listen, God reveals his plans and resolutions for my life, but that is only the first step. There is a continual need for faith and trust in Christ's power to fulfill his plans in us.
Okay...enough thought for one day...back to drifting through the haze.

Mrs. Drennan-to-be

kayaking

Mike, Rach and I spent some time on Leah's house boat on Lake Union on the hottest day in Seattle! We played cards and then kayaked over to Gasworks and back...I absolutely love summer...please don't end!

Purpose

"If we are in fellowship and oneness with God and recognize that He is taking us into His purposes, then we will no longer strive to find out what His purposes are. As we grow in the Christian life, it becomes simpler to us, because we are less inclined to say, "I wonder why God allowed this or that?" And we begin to see that the compelling purpose of God lies behind everything in life, and that God is divinely shaping us into oneness with that purpose. A Christian is someone who trusts in the knowledge and the wisdom of God, not in his own abilities. If we have a purpose of our own, it destroys the simplicity and the calm, relaxed pace which should be characteristic of the children of God." (excerpt from 8/5 My Utmost for his Highest, Oswald Chambers)

The past few days I've been reading about God's plan/purpose in my favorite devotional and the words have been so appropriate for where I am at. Funny too, my pastor at Bethany Community Church wrote a post on the 1/4 life crisis after receiving an article from a concerened dad. It talks about a lack of commitment in relationships and the workplace, a restlessness, a need for adventure and change that manifests itself in the mid-20's. I completely agree with the article that a crisis exists, which I've talked about before in my own posts...very recent "life thoughts" posts. I crave change and adventure. I don't feel the need to be comfortable and secure in a career, relationship, etc. I'm not entirely sure if this is healthy or not. I'm not trying to "be" in this phase...I just am. I would love to find someone to share my life with, find a job I love, and be settled for a time, but for now, it's just not happening.

So what does this have to do with God's purposes? Well, here is a bit from a journal entry I wrote on Monday after reading about the "compelling purpose of God"

"As always for me, the bigness of God and his plans takes pressure off the smallness of me and my own plans. He ultimately is carrying out his work, which is far greater than anything I could plan on my own. How great is our God that we can trust and believe in his purposes because he has shown his faithfulness over and over again in the lives of his people."

As I enter into another phase of uncertainty in life I know that God is using it for his purposes. I am too nearsighted to see exactly what his plan is for my life, my family, my community, but I can have confidence in his soveriegnty. I have confidence that in my life experiences God is shaping me into a person that carries out his purposes almost unconsciously as I continue to live in obediance, taking on the character of Christ.