It is a beautiful day outside. I feel all melancholy, but I think its because there's a large wall blocking out 90% of the sunshine that makes me so desperate to drive away from this city and into the mountains. I have been missing Kamloops dreadfully for the last few days, and to top it off my brother is moving there next week. BLAH! No bitterness, right? LOL. There's just something about Spring (or at least a really good Chinook) that invokes all sorts of emotions. Joy over new life and the little buds starting to sprout everywhere. Peace from the sound of rain and the smell of clean-ness. Nostalgia over all of the things that moving on means leaving behind. Change is hard on me. Don't get me wrong...I love adventures, but I need something to hold on to. To say God is my constant is probably true, and yet at the same time incredibly cliche. Sometimes I just want something I can hold in my hands and know that it is mine. To actually hold it and know it is something I can depend on, and that nothing can take it away. Childish, but true. Ahhh. The endless ramblings of a restless heart. I don't want to be in this city anymore. I made a mix CD of all my favorite road trip songs and was listening to it on Saturday...Which also happened to be the first beautiful warm day after 2 weeks of -25 below weather. It was a birdcage day...If you know me, you'll know what I mean. It's the same urge that made me skip so much in High School. Feeling like I was stuck in a much-to-confining cage. By about 6 songs in I was in trouble. I was about ready to go boost some car so I that could just drive...Anywhere. I want to fly from here. I believe God will bless me no matter what I put my hand to, and its been spoken over me that He has left both doors open for me - to stay or to go - and there is calling and blessing in both. I desperately want to leave, leaders and friends in the church are telling me I should stay. I feel pulled in both directions. The people and ministries God has blessed me with here are certainly something I do have to take into consideration before I leap off into the deep end. But since I've started talking about moving back to B.C., I've had a lot of people talk to me about how I shouldn't or whatever. I am so frustrated because I have this gut feeling that partially the expressed concern over me leaving is out of somewhat, shall we say... Selfish motives. Everyone's like "I would kill for a youth group like this...The bands are coming together...This is the birthing of everything you wanted to see happen...You're crazy for wanting to leave!" But at the same time I think part of me wanting to leave is out of "I'm burning out" motives. I don't want to be running away from anything, but at the same time I don't want to stay here. I have desperately wanted to move to B.C. since I was nineteen, and the timing just seems right...I think. AHHHHH!
I'm sure a lot of this has to do with the valley I'm walking through. A week ago at Tehillah Monday (a young adult service at First Assembly) I was reading my bible during worship and the 23rd Psalm just trashed me. I've read that Psalm a million times, and it had almost become like a nursery rhyme or something to me. But did it ever hit me. I just began to weep as I was praying it...So powerful!
Reading Jeff's blog reminded me of something God showed me from "The Last Samurai" too. That warriors are not concerned with anything aside of their service to their master. They do not seek long, rich, full lives filled to the brim with riches and entertainment. They serve and train and fight and serve and train, and to die serving is the most joyful thing for them. To die with dishonor is abominable and I remember getting such clear understanding of what the cross meant...To follow in the footsteps of Jesus is to deny everything but Him. And at that final moment, I could barely breathe because I looked at myself and I looked at those warriors dying and I felt as if God said" that's what my army needs to look like." How does one come to a place of such devotion and discipline? I think the closest I've come is the time spent at Jesus School, but now that I'm back "in the world" for lack of a better term, I have no idea how to get there from here. Oh Lord, that you would capture my heart that completely. That you would raise up a generation that loves nothing but you and hates nothing but sin. That serving you would be of single focus. Wow.