Sometimes we need a God with skin.

I love friendships. I love friends that you don't expect and that you know are straight from God.

I am not great at sharing my feelings, I actually hate feeling vulnerable unless I know that I am in a safe place. Recently I found myself sharing deep pressures of my heart in the car with a new friend.
I dropped her off and one word came to mind, shit. I had said too much, was I too vulnerable?

I got home to open up my email and in my inbox was a message. Subject: Rachel!
It was from my new friend. She sent me the most encouraging letter, sharing her similar struggles. It was so good to hear that I am not alone in my crazy thoughts. That's why God calls us into fellowship with people. This is why He wants us to pray together, for each other. We need other people to know our hearts.

Isn't it great when true honesty and humility enters into a friendship?

At the end of the email, I felt grace pour down from heaven and God tell me how much He loves me, how great He thinks I am, and how it is not because of anything I have done or not done.

He loves me. My new friend was a "God with skin" as my Mom calls them. She encouraged and loved me as God does, and for that I am ever-grateful.

Grace?

Today I skipped church. Yep. And I don't even have a lot of homework.

I had a slight breakdown this morning. I woke up and began to read for one of my classes and was bombarded by feelings of guilt. I had an overwhelming sense of failure for some reason. And I had to process it. I had to journal or make art or do something to figure out this impending disaster my soul was about to cave into.

I have a problem. A typical "Christian" problem... I want to do everything right. I don't want to let people down, especially God. I thought this was a common phenomenon until I asked two good friends and they said they didn't feel bad when they didn't please someone or when they did what they wanted to do. What? How freeing that must be!

I want to please my supervisor at my internship, and I want to do everything right.
I want to do anything and everything I can with my friends. I never want to let a friend down.
I want to please my parents, I never want to disappoint them.
I want to please God.

And if I don't.... am I afraid I am going to lose their love? If I miss a party or a potluck dinner?

What, do I all of the sudden believe in Karma!?! That by doing good, good will be done to me in return? When did I lose my hope in grace? I have forgotten that God's love is not conditional. He does not love me more when I go to church, or when I make all of the right decisions in a day. His love for me is constant no matter what I do. This is so hard to believe when our worlds idea of love is conditional. We believe that if someone hurts me, I am going to stay away from them and not get hurt again... God does not work like that. Thankfully.

So tonight, I skipped church. I needed to rebel. I needed to trust that I did not have to go to be in God's favor. I do not earn God's love. He loves me just because. And I was really full from the Persian food I had for lunch. Mmmm.

God grant me the mercy to walk in your grace daily... that the only approval I need is not of others, but of You.

Dreaming of Revelry...

Its been a sweet, lazy couple of weeks. The ones where you feel exhausted because you decided to wake up at 10 instead of 11, when you are too tired to go work out, and accomplishing one thing of importance all day is huge. I've been loving it too much. I have a new favorite word because of it.

Revelry.

Defined as merrymaking.

Awesome.

So Monday comes, and I actually have something to do, Bible study at church. So I decide since I'm leaving the house, I might as well go work out. I bundle up and walk outside to see my car covered and surrounded by snow and ice. *I have a small sedan. No 4 wheel drive, nothing.

So I am hopeful, just kick out the snow from beneath the tires, turn on that defroster and get movin'! Well, after about 1o minutes of not movin', my neighbor Steve pulled up. He's the neighbor who always talks your ear off when you're late... Steve shouts at me, "You have front wheel drive on that?!"
"Nope Steve, I'm hoping for some major horse power to pull me through."
"Well from my past experience, you're not getting out of there! You're in pretty deep."

Okay, so Steve has only lived here for over 50 years, he clearly doesn't know what he's talking about. I was about to make progress, my car was about to move an inch. Then Juliana, my roommate pulls up. "Rach, don't think you're going to make it."
"Really, does it look that bad?!"
"Yep, you're completely surrounded by snow."
"Okay, I'll be in soon."

I felt defeated and pleased at the fact of skipping a work out and bible study, both of which I was not in the mood for. So I sat there, closed my eyes, and said "Lord, if you really want me to go tonight, you better pull my car outta here."

I tried a couple more times, and what do you know, my car literally zoomed over the snow. Juliana was watching. I was so ecstatic I jumped out of the car and yelled to her, "Did you see that!?!"

Okay, fine, God, I'm going to Bible Study. Fine. But thanks for the push in my car!

So I went, and it was probably the best one I've been to so far. And it was convieniently relevant. She encouraged us to memorize a verse I had started memorizing on my own in December and gave up on (for whatever reason..).

"You will keep in perfect peace him whose mind is steadfast, because he trusts in you."
Isaiah 26:3

My crazy mind keeps me from really delighting in God, because it is always consumed with numerous false realities. Thinking about who I am going to marry, imagining scenarios of what I saw on TV that night, making up fights and resolving them... weird fake stuff. Often I can't fall asleep because of it, or my mood is radically shifted, all because of one thought. God promises us, He will keep us in perfect peace.

You will keep in perfect peace him whose mind is steadfast.... one version says, "whose mind is stayed on You."

Just a nice reminder that I need to continue to guard my thoughts, let them be full of gratitude, surrender them and forget about the worries that tame us daily. So thanks God. Thanks for making me go to Bible Study. Cheers.

44

Currently watching the Inauguration, and just got my first glimpse of Obama. I can't help but wonder what he is thinking, feeling. He is getting ready to take our country into his hands, and our country is a mess!

As he walks down the steps, he has a curious smile on his face, one not to show too much elation and just enough poise. The entire mall is going nuts, record amounts of people cover the strip leading up to the white house.

Rick Warren prayed and the whole world heard him pray to our God and Father in Heaven. Yaweh, Jesus, Immanuel--God with us. One thing that Warren said stuck with me, " When we think that our prosperity is ours alone, forgive us."

I pray that as Obama walks up to the plate, with God's grace upon him, he will humbly seek the good of our country, of our world, and of God's creation. That Obama will not let the enemy of pride overcome him, but that God will protect him and be incredibly close and audible.


Let all those who love justice and love mercy say AMEN.

Art is therapy.

I love it.

Faith is being sure of what we hope for, and certain of what we do not see...


On Monday, I asked my students what was happening "tomorrow."
" TUESDAY Miss Rachel! Duh!"
I probed them to find the answer that Tuesday was for voting, and when I asked what the voting was for, Terrance, 7 years old, replied...
" Barack Obama or the white guy!"

Hope. That my students who are 6 and 7 know who the President-elect is?
Hope. That my students have someone to look up to that is of the same color?
Hope. That our country will be unified once and for all?
Hope. That our God, who sits on His throne is completely in control though we cannot see Him.

I am sure that hope is worth pursuing and holding fast to, I am hopeful for our future--whatever that may look like.

They all fall down...

Today I am writing a research paper at home, feeling anxious and knowing it is 75 degrees outside, I convinced myself that a nice walk would be just what I needed to conjure up some mental freshness before really attacking my paper. hmmm...

Instead, all I want to do now is go on a run, and take more pictures of falling leaves.

I felt like a kid in the middle of their first pile of leaves. I sat on the ground and felt alive with the whistling wind shaking the trees of their summer's growth. I walked, pointed my camera, and tried to catch leaves on their way down, finding myself not the best at action shots...



... this was the only decent one I got, but it seems to sum up the atmosphere well. It's a partly sunny day, wind blows on and off, allowing leaves to precariously cover the streets with gold...

It feels like a dream sometimes, to be sitting in my apartment in Chicago, looking out the window to hundred year old trees and brownstones. I feel the fall coming, I feel leaves changing color right before they fall. I pray that I don't do the same, that as my color changes, and I enter into my next season of life, that I too will not fall. But if I do, at least I will be lining the streets with gold...

Slice of humble pie.

Head on a Silver Platter

"... An architect who is not out there to change the world, is not an architect. But merely one who makes buildings..." Eric Owen Moss declared as his thesis of the Southern California Institute of Architecture graduation speech this past weekend.


As my brother graduated I felt such joy, seeing people around him who loved him, supported him, and became his allies throughout his four years of schooling. It's always fun seeing someone you love in such a great spot in life...

As I sat there, attempting to decipher the message Moss was trying to unfetter, I naturally could not help but relate that benevolent idea to us everyday folk.

A ________ who is not out there to change the world, is not a _________.

(please fill in with occupation, belief, goal, identity.)

A barista who is not out there to change the world, is not a barista. But merely one who serves coffee.

A teacher, a mother, a father, an artist, a singer...

A Christian who is not out there to change the world, is not a Christian. But merely one who follows a moral code.

Are we out to save the world!? How are we doing it? What else can we do?
I fail miserably at this seemingly abstract pursuit.

If I am led by the spirit of God in my everyday life, I should constantly be thinking of God's coming kingdom, and how I affect that. How am I making this a better world, how am I bringing the love of God to each day I live in this spectrum of life?

I tell you, I forget, daily, minutely, this core belief that is apart of my faith, so when Moss resonated the importance of changing the world I was humbled and filled with grace, as I was overcome with grief that I do very little daily to make a difference. But as grace took its course, my heart was softened to see the beauty of not being on my own. I am simply a vessel for God's use, *though a willing vessel, and He is on my side. He is helping me make a difference once smile at a time, one car-ride home, one dishwasher unloading, one test...

Thanks be to God, who knows my faults and still wants me on his team of architects who are not merely builders, but world changers.