Moving With God

Baby steps of faith, hope and love

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Details: Written by: Alyssa; Category: Thoughts; Published: 20 March 2012

I was struck by Job 1:21, "Naked I came from my mother's womb, and naked shall I return. The Lord gave, and the Lord has taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord."

I know that I have read this verse before, and I must have sung the song 100 times at least. But as it often goes with Scripture, I was challenged by it in a new way. See, I have long had this anxious streak that feared God would totally wreck my life and see me through it all so I would have this incredible testimony. It's the irrational fears that are hardest to weed out sometimes, and God has been so gracious and merciful to ease shards of distrust out of my soul while I continue to function as a Christian and be seen as mostly sane. And then this passage reminded me: while I get hung up worrying whether God will take away any of the good things he has given, ultimately I will leave this earth naked, leaving even my body behind.

Read more: Hope

Details: Written by: Alyssa; Category: Three Things Thursday; Published: 15 March 2012

This week I would like to share 3 awkward moments I have experienced on the TTC:

Wondering if the person across from you is INSANE or just speaking a foreign language with a covert bluetooth. Especially when they are staring you in the face and speaking so intensely!
Hoping you fit in the empty seat between two big people and failing to actually hit the seat. THEN needing to squeeze loose and find another seat. Sigh. Fortunately, this just happened for the first time last week; usually I'm a pretty good judge of hip-width.
People who fight/break up over the phone on the bus. I remember one time an entire bus fell silent as a guy broke down into tears and yelled at his girlfriend for cheating on him even more than she had already admitted. Less embarrassing but still ridiculous was a woman who was fighting with her boyfriend and kept hanging up on him only to immediately call back and continue the fight.

Details: Written by: Alyssa; Category: poetry; Published: 13 March 2012

Daylight savings is curb stomping my brain
I ride through my days on a headache that morphs from my skull to my eyes to my scalp down my neck.
My stomach churns like I haven't slept, wants to eat my emotions like razor blades and popcorn.
9pm comes like a train screeching into the station, and the carpet calls me, rough and sturdy, to rest my face on it. It's closer than my bed, after all.
5am bluffs me awake, then smirks a red gleam through the dark: too early to get up, less than an hour left to sleep, dawn will come after that. Sucker.
But the early air smells like Spring, and the soft ground presses gently on my feet to promise grass will grow soon.
The night sky stretches over my mornings again, but the wind doesn't scrape like it used to.
Finally daylight slips over the horizon, reflected by office windows 20 floors up, bought at a price of bleary eyes and that hovering, dull ache. No refunds, just hope that Spring stays.
And I can always sleep on the train.

Details: Written by: Alyssa; Category: Thoughts; Published: 11 March 2012

I was praying about prayer earlier this week. I want to pray, and I love to pray, but days keep going by with just a few God-ward thoughts and maybe a "hey God, help me not to suck today please. I'd like to be kind, and um, to have a good day. Thanks."

Prayer is a helluva lot more than that, and I have been frustrated by how my soul pretends it is satisfied. Not that on-the-go prayers don't have a place, but I am in a season of early afternoons off work with very little responsibility, and I am not satisfied for all of those hours to be spent walking the dog and washing dishes. So I had a chat with God about it at small group on Monday, about why I don't just do what I want to want! And I realized that I don't know how to just be with God, so I avoid it for fear of feeling like a failure, or I over complicate it. It is SO EASY for me to fall into the trap of choosing a strategy: picking a posture, setting a time, keeping silence to listen, and all of those things are good and helpful, but they are not what bring me to God. When I spend time with my friends, generally we plan a time and place to get together, and we may have an idea of what we want to do, but once we connect, we go with the flow! If I change seats because the sun is in my eyes, nobody thinks we need to start over; if I get distracted I apologize, but I don't think we should just give up talking.

Read more: Wax On, Wax Off

Details: Written by: Alyssa; Category: Scripture; Published: 08 March 2012

I have been so blessed by the girls' small group that meets here on Mondays. This week we had a brief Bible study and then spent some time thinking/praying about some questions to apply the story to our lives. It was great! And it is the back story to some more thinking and praying I want to post about, so here it goes:

We read Joshua 17:14-18
In which the people of Joseph want more land because they are numerous. Joshua says they can have more land, but they have to work for it, to clear forests and to fight armies.
It made me think that if you think you deserve/are ready for more, you might have to dig in and work harder for it.

We reflected on these four questions:

What areas of your life can you see room for more growth?
What are the obstacles in those areas?
Do you have any fears/hesitations toward those obstacles?
What is a concrete step you can take to "expand your inheritance"?

Details: Written by: Alyssa; Category: Thoughts; Published: 05 March 2012

God says: Pranking blind people ain't funny, yo.

Reading the Bible for Lent has been so good for me. For the most part it hasn't even been a huge burden, it just eliminates any questions of what to read on the subway. It has also been so interesting reading so much Bible all at once, because things stand out to me more - repetition or allusions that I might miss if they were spread out over a month or five jump out because I am reading Deuteronomy only a few days after reading Leviticus. Allow me to share an example:

Leviticus 19:14 - You shall not curse the deaf or put a stumbling block before the blind.
Deuteronomy 27:18 - Cursed be anyone who misleads a blind man on the road.

I think it is so awesome that in all of these chapters of laws, dietary restrictions, how to treat outsiders, miracles to remember, and lists of people not to get busy with, that God emphasizes dignity for the vulnerable. It also makes me so curious about why God needed to say it twice - how bored were these ancient Semitic people wandering around in the desert? Bored enough to pick on their blind brothers? Jaded enough to curse a sister who would never know it? If you're going to lash out, God says, take it up with me. Or if that doesn't appeal to you, suck it up. But definitely don't send some blind guy wandering off into the desert.

Details: Written by: Alyssa; Category: Uncategorized; Published: 04 March 2012

I am still without the itch to blog, just enjoying life as it happens and trying to focus more on the good than the not-great. I'm enjoying a lazy Sunday afternoon, listening to music, cooking for tonight/later this week, and I decided to see what is new online. I came across such a cool story that I decided to post it here, but be warned it's a pretty long read. The story is about two families from Ontario who adopted daughters from China who turned out to be identical twins! I found it so fascinating to read about twins in general, and to read about how these two families are working together to support their daughters as sisters :)

If you have the time, I think this is a great story, and I'm so happy it made it into the newspaper!

Details: Written by: Alyssa; Category: Life; Published: 26 February 2012

I was wondering how this past week flew by without managing a post, because often that means I've been swamped with life or I've been overwhelmed in my mind or spirit and have nothing left to write about anything. I am happy to recognize that this past week has been very full, but not overwhelming.

Monday Matt and I spent the day skiing (me) and snowboarding (him) at Snow Valley, then had dinner with my Dad's side of the family. It was a beautiful day - I even got a bit of a sunburn on my face - and a really fun way to spend a day off together.

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