revolution.

  1. I like this, and it’s true.

    People don’t hate Christians because they mess up, they hate Christians because they mess up and pretend like they dont. -Mark Hall

  2. livejamie: Artist Emily Wick created this fabulous map of the United States out of linoleum block prints, with official state mottos carved into each of the 50 States.

    livejamie:

    Artist Emily Wick created this fabulous map of the United States out of linoleum block prints, with official state mottos carved into each of the 50 States.

  3. Lover, I’m Yours.

    I was just on Bill Johnson’s website reading some articles he had written, and noticed a quote at the top of the page that I had to read a few times before the full meaning hit me. It said:

    “I cannot afford to have a thought in my head about me that is not in His.”

    I’ve been thinking a lot lately about how Jesus feels about us, and what that means for the way we live our lives. I’m writing to myself as much as to you. I don’t pretend to have this figured out. This is just what has been put on my heart.

    We all know how we are supposed to feel towards Jesus, the ways we are supposed to behave towards Him and because of Him, and we all know that He died on the cross to redeem us. We all know that God so loved us that He sent Jesus, so that whoever believed in Him would not perish, but have life eternal. So we know that we should believe in Jesus.. good deal, right?

    Rob Bell has this statement in his book Velvet Elvis that essentially captures what I’m trying to say.. I don’t have the book in front of me, so it’s not an actual quote.. sorry. But basically what he says is that he realizes it’s good to believe in Jesus. But he’s realizing that Jesus believes in him. And it’s a good thing to have faith in Jesus. But he’s realizing that Jesus has faith in him.

    I’m glad that someone has put this out there, and recognized this, because sometimes it’s a pretty hard thing to wrap your head around. Sometimes we can get so caught up in the way that we’re “supposed” to be that we miss who we already are. Sometimes we read in the Bible what Jesus thinks of us, and the person we are in Him, and we feel ashamed and unworthy because we’re not in any way close to that person. And it’s true. On our own, we’re not. But He’s done something about that. And he’s made us into new creations, so that we can be exactly who we were created to be. But we have to realize this.

    Do you know who you are, because of Jesus?

    Do you know what He says about you?

    Do you know how His heart longs for your affections?

    Do you know that He’s captivated by you, and with just one glance from you?

    Do you know that He’s madly, deeply, passionately, ridiculously, crazy in love.. with you?

    Think about being in love. When you’re in love, that one person can make or break your day with just one word, positive or negative. Your attentions and pursuits and passions are all focused on this one person. It doesn’t matter what anyone else in the world has said or will say about you, because this one person is the only one that matters. You’re beautiful, simply because they’re looking. You sing well, simply because they’re hearing. You’re funny, simply because they’re laughing. You’re interesting, simply because they’re listening. Everything you ever wanted to be, you now are, because they have loved you past your insecurities. You have trusted them, and they have seen who you are and not backed away. They have seen you as Jesus sees you.

    Jesus is in love with you.

    You don’t have to try anymore. You don’t have to pretend to be something you’re not. You don’t have to work and do things and be busy all the time to prove you’re worth it. You don’t have to wonder why you feel inadequate and broken and a mess all the time because you’re not living up to who Jesus says you are. Rest in this -you don’t have to try anymore.

    I don’t know who you are. I don’t know who you’ve been trying to be, or how well you’re doing at it. But I do know that Jesus is in love with you. Right now. This way. You’ve been looking at yourself through broken glasses - glasses that He is not bound to and will never use.

    I think this is one of the most important things to realize, because what are the most important commandments? “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength. The second is this: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.” (Mark 12:30-32)

    How are you supposed to love your neighbor if you can’t love yourself?

    And how can you love yourself if you don’t even have the right view of yourself?

    I’m not offering an easy way to affirming identity, because I have no idea what that is. I think you have to work that out between you and the Lord. But I do know that He said to ask and you would receive. And I know that He loves you with an everlasting, unconditional, who-cares-if-you-make-mistakes, love. It doesn’t go away. It sees you with all your failures and successes, weaknesses and strengths, and it still sticks around.

    So let His eyes be your mirror. Do what you can to let go of what you think about yourself, and what has been said about you, and let His love replace the negativity with His thoughts, and His eyes. Do not let yourself have a thought in your head about you that would not be in His. Also, listen to the song “Beloved” by Tenth Avenue North, and imagine that these are the words Jesus wants to say to you. Receive it as a love song, and believe it.

    When we realize who we are, and how Jesus really feels about us, and begin to behave towards the people around us in the same way, as a reflection of the love of Jesus.. then we will change the world.

  4. and He just keeps going..

    I’ll update on Christmas later. This is more important -

    I got together tonight with Joan and Ric, the two people who are basically leading these prayer meetings with me. Joan is 23 and from Kenya, she’s an ordained pastor, and Ric is 18 and from Ecuador.. he’s the one who wrote on his blog about our meetings and it stirred up his friend in Ecuador. So we were talking and praying about vision and things like that, and Joan was talking about these meetings she envisioned taking place in Kenya, packing out the stadiums and stuff like she’s done before. (She was basically describing The Call Kenya without knowing what The Call is!!)

    All of a sudden she goes, “And for ministry, we need Crave to come and minister there.” She kept talking about how she wanted the Crave team, whoever can come, to come minister in Kenya. She said that she knows all the pastors in the area in Kenya and it would be no problem finding a big place for them all to stay, and that she has favor with the police in the area, so they would have all the protection they would need.

    It was ridiculous! She kept going on and on describing The Call Kenya, with her and Crave partnering together to lead it!! For about 20 minutes she talked nonstop, laying out every detail of this. Then Ric jumps in and goes, “Yeah and when they are done there, they can come to Ecuador!”

    Jesus is opening up nations for us!

    Also, the community that Ric is from in Ecuador, which from what I gather is basically like Crave, knows about what’s going on allll the way in Maine and is praying for them and us.. it’s amazing, so many things are opening up. Jesus is so cool!

  5. side note.

    I really hate that I have good memories of two years ago.

  6. A little while ago (I actually can’t remember when it was), my MacBook fell off a top shelf. The beautiful glossy screen is completely cracked, the frame is all bent, and it just looks awful. I haven’t had use of my laptop for at least a good two months, I think. It’s going to take about $700 to replace the screen. I don’t have insurance, and even if I did, the only thing that Apple insurance doesn’t cover is cracked screens. Cute. It was actually a good thing, because it forced me to get off the computer a little bit, and not spend as much time on it as I had been.. which is a good thing. Today we went to the Manchester Apple Store, spent 15 pounds, and bought some kind of adapter so I can use my laptop through a different monitor, since the computer still works, it’s just the screen that’s tanked. So two of the guys helped me hook it up, and I’m up in Pablo’s office using my laptop on his screen. It’s actually pretty cool.

    Not having had my laptop for a few months, however, has forced me to do without most of my pictures.. and my writing. A good amount of the writing I have done over the past two years is stored on my laptop. Just today, in the last few hours, I’ve been able to get back into my pictures and my writing, and it’s just driving me crazy! I’ve been watching videos of my family from last Christmas, looking at pictures from when I was in Bangor, and reading everything I’ve written, from random thoughts to poetry to full out essays.

    And all this made me think..

    I feel (probably irrationally) silly that a lot of my friends are getting engaged and married and having children, and some of them are younger than me. I’m 20 and I have no intention of getting married anytime soon. Believe me, I’d like to, but my life is not my own- and I like that too. It’s still hard, though, when it seems like everyone has someone.. and you don’t. I do enjoy being single, I don’t think I’ve had a longer period in my life of being single, and I like it. What is this, then? What is this place inside me that feels incomplete, even though I have life and love and Jesus and plenty of other things to be working on and occupying my time? I know there’s places I have to reach in my heart and mind before I even start dating again.. so why is this a problem for me?

  7. christmas.

    It doesn’t feel like Christmas at all. Maybe it’s because we had absolutely no Thanksgiving, because there’s only 3 Americans here and the closest the Brits got to acknowledging it was, “Oh, today’s your Thanksgiving, huh?” Or maybe it’s because the only snow we have had is a 5 minute dump on December 1st.. and nothing since then. Or maybe it’s because I’m surrounded by people I have known for 4 months, some less than that, and no parents, no brothers, no sisters, no Buck, no Tigger. These past two weeks have been so busy, we have been working so much and so hard to get this mansion clean for Christmas break. The past week was literally all work and Christmas parties and practice for the drama we performed on Thursday night.. there was no time for anything else. I am so exhausted, I don’t think I’ve ever been this tired in my life. And it’s not an exhaustion you can sleep away.. you can sleep all you want and you’re still tired. It’s not just physical, it’s mental and emotional too.. I’m just so sick and tired of everything, and cranky. What a great way to kick off break! But I’m happy to have two weeks to do nothing, hopefully I’ll just catch up on sleep, if nothing else.

    Thursday night was the staff Christmas party, and the young people’s team performed a drama that we had been working on for a few weeks. I was really proud of everyone, we all worked so hard, and everyone contributed ideas and random choreography, and lots of time! We only really finished it on Wednesday night around 11 and performed it Thursday night.. it was a dance/drama to the song “My Soul Longs For You” by Misty Edwards. It actually turned out really good.. I’ll post the video as soon as I get it from Marcus. At the end, people were saying to them how much it really spoke to them and that they had never seen a better young people’s performance in their history at ellel grange. Peter Horrobin, the international director and founder of Ellel Ministries, as he was closing the night, said nothing impacted him like the drama that we did, and he talked for about 10 minutes about how we have the christmas side of Christmas, but we need to remember the Easter side too. And that was awesome to hear, because one of our biggest concerns for our drama was that it was too Easter-ish.. but Peter Horrobin loved it, and so did everyone else. I have never been more proud of anything in my life that I can remember. Everyone did perfect and remembered timings and steps and it was great!!

    I’m going to bed now to try to catch up on sleep.. tomorrow I’m going with Marcus, Myri, Pablo, and Jackson to Manchester for some shopping and a visit to the Apple store. I can’t wait. Cheers!

  8. all of us girls.. I love this picture!

    all of us girls.. I love this picture!

  9. all of us at the christmas lunch today.

    all of us at the christmas lunch today.

  10. burn.

    One of the YPT guys, Ric, who is from Ecuador, wrote on his blog about the prayer meetings we have been having and just our desperation and the need for Jesus in our lives, and one of his friends in Ecuador read what he had written. She wrote Ric an email for me saying that after she read his blog, she was so stirred by what we’re doing. She was in her drama class in university and heard the Holy Spirit talk to her and he told her to tell the whole class about Jesus, but she was so scared because she hates public speaking and all that. She had wanted to talk to three specific people about Jesus but was too scared, for the same reason. But after she read the blog she heard the Holy Spirit  tell her again, one day in class, to talk about Jesus. And she felt that if we could start a prayer meeting and press in, then she wasn’t alone in the burning passion that she felt. So it encouraged her to talk about Jesus to the whole class, and she did. And it turns out that many people were interested, but the three that she had wanted to talk to, weren’t. So the Holy Spirit led her to the right people, and she wrote Ric the email to tell us what had happened. So PRAISE GOD, I’m excited for what He’s doing. And it just makes me want to pursue Him even more.
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