calling out in the darkness.

It's crazy that it has been over a year since I last posted.  But per usual, the Lord is doing something in my life that feels significant and I need to document it.  I also find that many times when the Lord is teaching me something, it's not just for me but to be shared with and encourage others. 

This past year has been a roller coaster ride.  It's been so good and yet so hard.  And in this year, I have found myself in this very interesting cycle.  I don't really want to go into the details of it but it has left me paradoxically devaluing myself and being reminded of how much God has grown me/being more confident than ever in the woman He's created me to be.  Thus, I've been left wondering why I can't break this vicious cycle.

Recently, I decided that I'd had enough and acted in a way that I thought could hopefully break this continual sequence of repeating events.  And with that, I found myself not quite ready for the repercussions it brought.

At first, I felt surprisingly okay.  I took it in stride and I busied myself with other things.  I kept a positive attitude, citing those God promises that I've so often heard and known but not fully understood or at times even truly believed.  It wasn't until yesterday that I realized I wasn't okay.

I've been really blessed within the past couple months to find myself in a wonderful church home and place where my worship leadership gifts are being used.  Yesterday, before the evening service, I found myself caught up in an image as we circled up to pray for the Lord's presence in the service.

Weirdly enough, I saw a bat. 

Now let's go back to elementary science and have a little lesson on bats.  Bats have terrible eye sight so they use echolocation when they're flying around, trying to find something tasty.  They create a sound that goes out before them and bounces off of things, essentially giving them an idea of what's in front of them.  You're probably thinking at this point, "Sara, this is a little ridiculous" but I promise it will make sense.  And to be honest, when I first had this vision I didn't get it either.  I saw the bat and I could see the sound waves coming from it's open mouth.  The sound moved out in front of the bat, but it didn't hit anything and kind of died off.  Yet all of sudden, there were new sound waves coming back to the bat, ones that it had not created.  Again, I wasn't quite sure what to really make of this but stored it in my head for later.

Worship was incredible yesterday.  The Spirit was moving and the Church was feeling it.  It was a little slice of heaven.  And thus, I was distracted by the Holy Spirit high during the sermon. Still, I managed to get the summary of it because it hit me HARD.  As the Message was being wrapped up, the pastor recapped by saying, "God is for us, God. Is. For. Us."  And all of sudden the emotional numbness, the facade of being okay, of having it all together fell completely apart.  In that one instant, I couldn't believe it at all and yet it was completely comforting and precisely what I needed to hear. 

How could I possibly believe that in the heartsickness I was feeling that God was truly for me?  After multiple letdowns, I still didn't understand the reasoning for these events.  Why?

So there I am, preparing to lead worship again, crying my eyes out.  That's when I hear this voice say, "Sara, it's okay to cry out to Me. Whether it's in anger or sadness or disappointment, I UNDERSTAND."  That's when I understood. 

I will be the first person to tell you that my prayer life is the hardest part about my walk with the Lord.  I often feel overwhelmed in how to even approach the throne and constantly feel at a loss for words.  And I know most of you who know me find that surprising!  So the last thing that I would be compelled to do is really cry out to the Lord is my misery.  Yet here is He was, telling me that's exactly how He wanted me.  And not only that, but He knew EXACTLY how I felt.  He could empathize with me.  He carried that burden.  How often is that what we truly long for?  We seek out people who can be on the same emotional level as us and so often forget that the Lord has felt all of it.  He knows all of it.

As I stood there, crying, I caught an image of the Lord bringing me into His arms and crying with me.  Yet, as He cried and held me, He reassured me that it's all for a purpose and for His glory even though I don't understand it.

Then the first image of the bat made sense.  God was calling me to just cry out to Him.  To let Him hear my sadness, my rejection, my pain and promising me that He would answer.  I'm not supposed to see what's in front of me, it's not supposed to make sense.  I'm supposed to let His voice guide me and He promises to bring me out of the darkness.

Pretty beautiful, huh?

This is one of my favorites and pretty much wraps up this post:
"So be strong and courageous! Do not be afraid and do not panic before them.  For the Lord your God will personally go ahead of you.  He will neither fail you nor abandon you". -Deuteronomy 31:6

change. part 1.

It's pretty obvious that I haven't been really keeping up with this blog, but I really wanted to make sure I got to share the incredible story of what God's been up to recently in my life.

I guess I need to start back in December of last year.  Once I graduated from JMU, I knew that I wouldn't be finding a teaching job right away and had accepted the fact that I would be doing some subbing and odd jobs until the right thing came along.

GRADUATED!

 Anyone who's really had a chance to sit down and chat with me over the past couple of years has known that more than anything, I wanted to move away from Harrisonburg after graduation.  But, no one tells you what it's going to be like to be a real person or that it's really expensive, especially when you're up to your eyeballs in student loans.  The pressure of even being capable of paying those loans is compacted when you spend the first three months of your newly graduated life unemployed.  It was an extremely frustrating time.  I went from being a busy-body with a consistently full schedule to spending my days in my pjs watching an entire season of 30 Rock in one day.

Needless to say that an invitation to spend some time in Texas with one of my favorite family couldn't have come at a more perfect time.  I spent a week in the Dallas/Fort Worth/Arlington area in early March and began thinking about a possible permanent move there.  While I was there, I received a couple offers for jobs back in Harrisonburg and I finally ended my unemployment streak.

Hanging out at TCU with the lovely McClelland ladies

 I ended up spending the next couple months working as a substitute teacher, waitress, and wine pour-er, all the while dreaming and semi-planning a move to Texas.  I even begin telling people that was my plan.  I was essentially putting myself into a position where I'd have to move, afterall you can't go back on your word.  My timeline to move was sometime at the beginning of August and I'd even applied for teaching jobs in Texas.

my voice, your voice

i don't know where i'm going.
do you hear me asking?
do you hear my voice?
it's a small, quiet voice but in my heart it's loud and fierce.
can you hear the cry of my heart? the cry to hear your voice?
i hold the loud voice in. it's hard because it wants to be heard.
i'm bursting at the seams.
i need to hear your voice.
help me understand.
i need you.
i am empty. fill me. hold me.
i am lost. find me. guide me.
help me understand.

bigstuf(f).

I am constantly amazed at how good our God is.
This week I had the honor and pleasure of attending a conference called BigStuf in Panama City Beach, Florida with our high schoolers from church.  I knew the week was going to be good but I didn't realize how much the Lord was going to rock my world.

It's funny because I don't even think I understood how much the Lord as was working in me this week.  On the surface, I was participating in incredible worship that was probably the closest glimpse to Heaven I've ever experienced, I was completely confirmed and encouraged in being an intern at First Pres for the summer, and I was being blow away by our youth who was thirsting for God in a way I never could of imagined.

It wasn't until I got home and began the transition process of coming from a spiritually high week that I realized the astounding amount of process God had been doing in building me up and transforming me.

i thank you God for most this amazing day.

i thank You God for most this amazing
day:for the leaping greenly spirits of trees
and a blue true dream of sky;and for everything
which is natural which is infinite which is yes

(i who have died am alive again today,
and this is the sun's birthday;this is the birth
day of life and love and wings:and of the gay
great happening illimitably earth)

how should tasting touching hearing seeing
breathing any--lifted from the no
of all nothing--human merely being
doubt unimaginable You?

(now the ears of my ears awake and
now the eyes of my eyes are opened)

-e.e. cummings

and as if it couldn't get better: 

arrangement of this text to music by eric whitacre

the arrangement we're singing in my women's choir

i don't believe i need to elaborate.

for today.

my heart feels so full
my lips search for the words to describe
my legs wanna run
but where?

where do i go from here?
my mind screams go!
and my heart wants to follow suit.

but i stay.
if only for a little while longer.

i try to breathe in patience.
breathe in peace.
breathe...my heart feels jumpy still.

Lord I can't stay.
there is so much more than this.
please show me the way.
show me.
show me.
show me...

i wait, resigned, impatiently patient.

[Image: http://granula.deviantart.com/art/somewhere-a-clock-is-ticking-152564936]

i can always tell my story through music... 

it's time to recognize.

So this has been a long time in coming, but I'm finally getting you all in the loop.  This is something that has been on my heart for a while and I've been trying to be patient and allow God to move in the process. 

About two months or so ago, I was having a conversation with a couple friends about the health of our church.  We all felt this need to DO MORE.  We felt that as the youth of the church, we were being complacent and not using our gifts to the fullest.  But then as we talked more, we realized that this wasn't just an issue within the church but the community as well.  That's how Recognize came into being.

Recognize is a 5 hour prayer meeting/worship service scheduled for January 29, 2011 with a vision to bring not only our church closer together and seeking Christ's plan for us but for bringing our community together to have a more united pursuit of Christ as the body of Christ.

The service will alternate between worship, talks on community, discipleship, missions and spiritual gifts and times of prayer.  Recognize was inspired by a prayer meeting that I attended while in Philadelphia this summer.

song of the day #20: i will not be silent.

So God has been doing some crazy things in my life recently.  Things are still getting settled so I'll share them with you at a later date but in the midst of all of that I've been researching a lot of worship music.  As I haven't been very good at keeping up with blogging, I thought now right in the middle of the last week of classes when I should be study, that I would write to you about a song that has really been resonating with me recently.

[Image: http://browse.deviantart.com/photography/?q=shouting&order=9&offset=96#/d1i0t1v]

small.

A couple weeks ago, maybe longer than that now, I was asked if I'd be interested in being AIM's representative at JMU, promoting Adventures in Missions and their trips. [For those of you who don't know, I worked with AIM all summer in Philadelphia.]  Life has been crazy and I've been a little bit of a procrastinator with it.  Basically, AIM has a program called Real Life which are mission trips geared specifically for college aged students.

The promotion campaign has three parts and today I started one of them which is the t-shirt portion.  I was given a t-shirt by AIM which looks like this,

[385 million people live on less than $1 a day]

and was told to wear it for five consecutive days in hopes that people will ask questions and I have the opportunity to talk to them about poverty and what we can do to help.

Part of our role as college reps for AIM is to also keep a blog on what we're doing and how the activities are going.  So I wrote a blog today and for some reason the AIM server was down.  And that got me thinking about how little I've been writing lately and that it would be good to share what's going on.  So here are my thoughts on the t-shirt challenge for today:

breaking chains.

This week, JMU's chapter of Intervarsity hosted an event called the "The Price of Life".  This event was to make our campus aware of human trafficking and sex trafficking or modern day slavery.  It was run and put together by the Justice Team of IV which is a ministry team seeking for the restoration of God's rule and are engaged in advocacy, study and prayer for the injustice in our world.

On Wednesday and Thursday of this week, the Justice Team was on the Commons of JMU, selling t-shirts and taking donations to go to World Vision, a Christian relief, development, and advocacy organization, to help the fight against slavery.  The t-shirts were designed by the Justice Team and looked like this:

 

The culmination of the week was last night during Large Group.  The Justice Team had Jesse Eaves from World Vision come to speak to us.

SAVED!

WE DID IT!

Fans of Blue Like Jazz the movie have officially saved it!  I've been closely watching the process/progress of the fundraising for the past 9 days and can only say that I'm completely amazed at how God has lead so many people to step up and help out.  Congratulations to everyone who made it happen.

But...
It's not over yet.  Here's an excerpt from Donald Miller's October 4th post blog explaining what I mean (and remember at this point we had not yet raised the $125,000)...

save blue like jazz!

Many of you have heard about, if not read the bestseller, Blue Like Jazz by Donald Miller.  Many of you have also probably heard of his book A Million Miles in a Thousand Years which talks about Don's experiences in writing a screen play for the movie, Blue Like Jazz.  [DISCLAIMER:  I have not yet read A Million Miles in a Thousand Years but it will be arriving in the mail shortly and I assure you it will be DEVOURED.] 

On September 16, Donald Miller wrote a blog informing his fans and the general public that due to some financial/investor issues, the movie would be put on hold indefinitely.  But honestly what kind of fans would we be if we didn't try and do something to help?  That's where Zach Prichard and Jonathan Frazier steps in.  These two guys worked with Donald Miller and Steve Taylor, the director of the film to figure out a solution.  We, the fans, are going to help save the movie.  They started a fundraising campaign through a website called KickStarter where us, the fans, have until October 25 to raise $125,000.  The thing is is that at this very moment, with the campaign just starting September 26, Blue Like Jazz fans have raised $39,819!!!  Incredible, huh?!

Basically, this blog is to ask for you participation in saving this film.  The book changed lives.  Think about what it would do as a film...

To check out KickStarter, watch the short film made by Zach and Jonathan and learn more about the cause, check here.

To read about Don Miller's reaction to the campaign and the "saving" of the movie, check here.

To read an interview with Zach, Jonathan, and my friend Jeff Goins from rethink monthly magazine, check here.

Please, please, PLEASE prayerfully consider giving to this cause!  Only $85,181 to go!

i am madly in love with jesus christ.

This week was my first week of my last year of undergrad.  Basically that just mean I'm a senior.
It's crazy.  CRAZY.

And even though it's just the first week, I'm already really struggling making enough Jesus time during the week.  And I hate that.  I was telling my old youth pastor this week that I wish I could just worship and pray and read all the time.  And then he told me this story of a kid who missed three of his college football games because he lost track of time while doing evangelism. 

But seriously, why don't I allow myself to be more like that?  Because when it comes down to it, maybe my grades won't be as great and maybe my friends won't necessarily understand [which is mostly likely not true because a lot of them have amazing relationships with the Lord themselves] and maybe my parents will be a little disappointed but if Jesus is just calling me to spend time with him, why the heck wouldn't I?  Why would I not want to give the Creator and Savior of the Universe ALL of my time?

I have to say though that even though the distractions of a new school year have been keeping me from spending as much time as I want with the Lord, he still never ceases to amaze me and I'm falling more and more madly in love with him every day.  I was just listening to the Christian radio today and got completely overwhelmed with the Lord's love. 

Also today I was singing during choir rehearsal and we started a new piece called Lux Aeterna.  The arrangement of the text that we are doing is by Brian Schmidt and it is wondrous.  For those of you who don't know, the Lux text is part of the Requiem Mass, close to the end and means "eternal light".  The text is in Latin when sung and translates to,

"May light eternal shine upon them, O Lord.

With thy saints forever, for thou art merciful.

Grant them eternal rest,

And let perpetual light shine upon them.  Amen"

I almost cried multiple times singing this piece.  It is so beautiful and I'm just amazed at how it just reflects the perfect beauty of the Lord.  

I know that this is somewhat of a stream of consciousness sort of entry but really what it boils down to is how I realize more and more everyday my dependency on the Lord and how I want to know him more and more everyday.  Our God is so glorious.  I can't find the words.

[Image: http://browse.deviantart.com/photography/?q=eternal%20light&order=9&offset=24#/d2oebp8]

because there really aren't words.

So I've obviously done a terrible job of keeping up with my blog.
I've been back home for over a week now and honestly it's hard to believe.
Mostly, because I haven't done much.  And yet, I feel like I've been so busy.  A lot of sleeping, catching up with people, enjoying the quiet of my apartment, sorting through my life and just getting excited about school starting up again.

It's funny being back.  It's so weird.  It's weird not living out of a suitcase and being busy 24/7.  It's weird to live in a currently quiet apartment where I can walk around in my pjs for the majority of the day.  It's weird driving my wagon and seeing my best friend.  It's weird being in a comfortable familiar place.

But I think today it hit me.  I miss the craziness of my summer.  I miss Philadelphia and I miss our groups and I miss seeing Jesus burn bright in their faces.  I miss Team Philly and watching them grow in the amazing gifts God has given them.  I miss Maddy's crazy organizational skills, I miss Melissa's profound, wise words, I miss Doug's energy and his jokes, I miss Marcus and Cathy and Ramiyah and our feeling of family.  I miss Wyoming Ave Baptist Church.  I miss the Dominican Republic and all my bug bites and my sweet kids running around like crazies.  I miss worshiping with my whole being, feeling the tangible presence of the Lord filling the room.  I miss the incredible connection to the Kingdom. 

It's so hard being home.  It's so wonderful and amazing and oh so bittersweet.  My heart is so full and yet aches so much all at the same time.  I feel like I'm searching for those faces of the people I met this summer, looking for someone who shared everything I went through, who understands.  I get so overwhelmed when people say, "So tell me about Philly!" or "Give me a snapshot of your summer."  It's impossible.  There are times were I just want to yell at them.  This summer can not be summed up in a little paragraph or "snapshot".  It's this amazing series of events that build on one another, starting from the very beginning when I landed in Atlanta, Georgia until my pop picked me up from Alexandria, Virginia. 

I have been convicted, I have grown, I have seen the Lord, I have watched Him work, I have seen Him wreck and change and transform lives, and I have watched Him do in it mine.  I have been blessed, I have been humbled and I have been tremendously loved.

I wish I could really explain.  I wish there was some way to fully share the amazing workings of the Lord this summer.  I want you see it, feel it, experience it.  But all I can say is the Lord is amazing and I'm so thankful for His amazing provision and all He has done this summer.  It was more than I could have ever asked for.

PS- If you haven't been keeping up with me this summer, this blog- http://aiminphilly.wordpress.com/- will clue you into what I was up to for 3ish months.

republica dominicana. [post #1]

So.  Two weeks in Dominican Republic.  My mind is still spinning from everything God taught me there.  I've decided that instead of giving you a huge general summary, I'm going to break up my two weeks into different entries to give you a better understanding of the things our First Pres group did while there.

Today I'm going to familiarize you with our base and my site in El Callejon.

26 of us set out from Reagan Airport on July 12 and arrived on the Students International base in Jarabacoa later that night.  This is what base looked like.

 The building in the picture above in the main building where we ate all of our meals and the upstairs is offices and meeting areas for the SI staff.

These were the "dorms" we stayed in.  Each building had two rooms that housed about 10 people each.  They also included bathrooms and showers.

There was also the "Chapel" where our groups met for morning worship, devotions and Bible study.  It's also where our guys spent a lot of time playing Polish/ping pong.

song(s) of the day #19: barlowgirl's love and war.

Okay, so here's part deux of BarlowGirl's Love and War album.

The second song that I've been listening to like crazy is "Sing Me a Love Song".

Yesterday was actually a really rough day for me.  Some things were happening at home and all I wanted was to be there.  For the most part, I was inconsolable.  During debrief and worship last night, I had a pounding headache and Marcus encouraged me to go lay down at the house.  I finally went, and the first thing I did was put this song on.  Check out the lyrics:

Sing Me a Love Song- BarlowGirl 
The tension is thick in the air
Making it hard to see
I fear what is to come
And what will become of me
I say a prayer help me not run away
Will you please hold me

And sing me a love song again
Say the words that heal my heart
sing me a love song and then
Let your words remind me who I am

You've never failed me before
Why do I feel betrayed
If I close my heart to you now
The darkness would have its way
I crave your voice help me not fall away
Will you please hold me

'Cause you are all I need
And all that I want is you with me
You are all I need
And all that I want is you with me

[Image: http://browse.deviantart.com/photography/?q=brokenhearted&order=9&offset=96#/d14cy63] 

song(s) of the day #18: barlowgirl's love and war.

It's nice to be back on my blog again!
I was looking at my blog archives and realized how I've been slacking a lot this year.  I'd really like to refocus and come back full force this summer, so I'll definitely be needing your encouragement.

But I wanted to take some time and write about a song(s) of the day that I've been listening intently to recently.  A while ago, one of my best friends gave me BarlowGirl's album, Love and War.  I was really excited about a couple of the songs on the album that were current radio hits but I didn't venture too much into the rest of the CD.  For some reason this past week, I have been listening to this CD incessantly.  [And I just decided that I'm going to make this particular blog a two or three part-er so bear with me.]  The first song on the album that really caught my attention was their song "Open Heavens". 

[http://browse.deviantart.com/photography/?q=hands%20raised&order=9&offset=72#/d2c64n3]

week one = finding my place.

So I have to apologize for not really being able to update this blog much but I'm hoping that you've been able to keep up with me via the Team Philly blogs!  I've been working hard this past week, making videos, taking pictures and lovin' on the Philly community.

This week as been really interesting for me.  I didn't realize until the week before the group got here what my role as a leader would really look like.  My job this summer takes me to ALL ministry sites and any place that the group is.  This means generally I can't hang in one place too long or really lead ministry sites.  And I'm not gonna lie at first I really felt insignificant in our team.  I spent some time talking with a couple people about it and honestly for the first day of the week, I felt a little dejected and depressed.  I felt disconnected from our new groups and from Team Philly.  I was watching as my team members stepped up and became leaders, and it was easy to see God giving them authority and growing them.  I felt a little out of place at times.

http://browse.deviantart.com/photography/?q=searching&order=9&offset=96#/d1md2cl

team philly has landed! and other things.

So we have technically been in Philadelphia for about three days now but I'm just now getting to update everyone on what's going on!  Who knew that being in charge of three different blogs would be so hard!  For those who aren't yet connected with the exclusively Philadelphia team blogs, here are two links, the first being the AIM blog, and the second our own personal one:

philadelphia.myadventures.org/

aiminphilly.wordpress.com

So I'm thankful to be in Philly but I'm not gonna lie, the transition has been a little hard for me.  I've been doing a good bit of traveling since last weekend with going back to Harrisonburg for Laura's wedding, flying back to GA, then driving from Gainesvilles to D.C. then D.C. to Philly.  Also in there was lots of packing, unpacking, whirlwind errands, and my 21st birthday.  Therefore, I got really homesick.  The longest I've ever been away from my family is about two weeks and being that I live in my hometown and go to school there, I'm not quite used to not being a stones throw/5-minute drive from my family.

[Image: http://browse.deviantart.com/?q=philadelphia&order=9&offset=192#/dlc1ye]

meet team philly!

So I wanted to introduce everyone to my amazing team and thankfully we had to do a video assignment that did just that.  Check out all my hard work from the day and meet my awesome crew!

Meet Team Philly

[From top to bottom: Melissa Polheber, Maddy Manden, & Doug Amundson]