JUST START

I have been talking to a lot of people about how to follow through with what you start. It is so easy to sit and dream without any action. To write and talk about topics I want to change. But how do I start, how do I change?

The answer is simply to start. Not to think. Not to plan. But to start. I love writing but so many others struggle with even small writing assignments, I tell them to start them... but when they complain and say "Heather, I just dont know where to start." My answer is always the same "The way to start writing is to start writing. Put your pen to the paper or your fingers to the keyboard and just write."

My friend, well my little sister, Sharell Zier, she always talks sense into me. She told me in essense the very thing I tell every other person. START.

I am not out to go against authority and change everything I know. I am not interested in morphing the good into what I want it to be. I just want to change what needs changed. Bring life to the dead. No amount of preparation can help me. I just have to start.

Practicing Learning

"Keep putting into practice all you learned from me and heard from me and saw me doing, and the God of peace will be with you." -Phillippians 4:9

It is like this verse screams out to me specifically. I have heard and seen so much in the past year. I have stood and looked at Mt. Ararat, have have seen the places that Paul preached and witnessed conditions so different from mine. I have heard his voice, the silence, the strength. What is the purpose of learning if you dont put it into practice? The things I have learned... I need to utalize this time right now to put them into practice, because that is exactly what I learned them!

I want to simplify that verse and just live it out. I want the God of peace with me always.

re·viv·al –noun

1.restoration to life, consciousness, vigor, strength, etc.
2.restoration to use, acceptance, or currency: the revival of old customs.
3.an awakening, in a church or community

I was thinking about revival. When so many hear the word they automatically get the picture of some TV Evangelist bopping people on their head. Although that is a false impression, my mind played up that picture for many years. I prayed and prayed for revival. I wanted that special "move of God." But recently I have begun to question what it was I wanted...

I want to see God move like he did through is Son, while Jesus was on earth. I want to see miracles take place like in the book of Acts. And I really want to see union of community like demonstrated through the first church. What I want is for people to wake up, not to have an "experience" but to change completly. I want tired christians to have something to be excited about and churches to catch the great commission in Matthew 28:19-20.

So putting the two together, I do want revival. The deffinition of revival fits exactly what my list of "wants" describe. Its just that now, the revival I want is a much more accurate protrayal in my mind. And I want it all the more. I want restoration of life; in me, the my friends, in my church. I want awakening. But most of all, I want revival of old customs. I want the book of Acts to be apparant in my every day life. What was it that they did to prepare for that? I want it. I want those old customs revived.

Priviledged Home

Not a day goes by since being home that I am not thankful for what I missed. I've been home a good two and a half months since my big adventure and... it still seems so fresh. I have been home for half the amount of time I was gone. I should be use to being here, yet every day my mind is taken back. I see my Aremenian coffee, or talk to my friend Lavinia who lives in Romania. I have friends like Abbey Stombaugh who would not be in my life if I had never been gone, its still crazy to me in some ways. I mean, I was on the other side of the world and in some ways that seems like the biggest deal in the world! But to everyone else, it is just a story, a thing that happened in the past. I feel I am still living it in some ways. I calculate time according to "when I got home." How long will that last?

Every day that I see one of my friends, or talk on my cell phone, or eat out of my fridge, or sit alone in my room and write.... every day I soak it in because I remember what it was to be without. I remember not hearing the glorious sound of my best friends voices, not being able to just "hang out." And so, although most of what I have done since coming home is not anything on a major scale... I still notice it all. I dont take it for granted, I cant.

I would love to travel again, to go without so I could appreciate more of what I do have. But I dont have to have it taken away to realize my priviledge of having it.

Dripping Confidence, Gentle Wisper

I sit in a place full of wondering, question awe. My confidence is dripping with fear and my high shoulders sag from invisable weight. A season, a transitional period in which I am to decide the direction of my life. It is this place, somewhere between spring and summer, between forward and backward, this somewhere just between. I wait with urgent patience as I hold a pestimistic attitude towards optimism. I guess I just want answers given to me, I want to just hear his voice and move forward. But this time that just is not the case. I seek and seek and find myself still seeeking.

I dont always want all the answers, but one would be nice. I dont want to re-learn lessons I have already learned, I want to learn from them and move on... not go through them in repetition. The Israelites learned the same lessons over and over and over, well they never really learned. I want to go through something, learn it, and move on. I know not to worry about money. I know. I know not to stress about decisions, yet I do. I know better than to get caught up with my life, but sometimes it happens.

I want to kick my legs and pump this swing higher and higher, even if i risk fliping 'round the bar. That is what I want, but I find myself dangled legged and rocking gently in the wind. It's like I am trying so hard to find an earthquake that I will almost create one.

"...And as Elijah stood there, the LORD passed by and a mighty windstorm hit the mountain. It was such a terrible blast that the rocks were torn loose, but the LORD was not in the wind. After the wind there was an earthquake, but the LORD was not in the earthquake. And after the earthquake there was a fire, but the LORD was not in the fire. And after the fire there was the sound of a gentle wisper..." (1 Kings 19:11-12)

How easy it is to get caught up in questioning situations. How much my mind desires an informational download, or my face a good slap. I desire so much that it is complexity to see the simple. He is a gentle wisper, and everything else I put above that will drown him out.

Prideful Humility

"There is hardly a man alive who dares to be who he is without doctering up the impression."

I am listening to a short sermon I have heard many times before because the words have been running through my head for days. It's about pride and I have been just slapped silly as the words repeat over and over.

"The more humility a person has, the greater true self worth that person has."

If I want to have worth, I have to be humble. Worth does not come through who I make myself appear to be. No, worth comes from me being me even if it is not as good as the appeared self.

"We are constantly trying to come across better than we are..."

Its true. What person does not try to make themself look better than they really are. I know how to put the smile on and say the right words. How to make it seem to others that my life is perfectly without flaw. It just depends on who we are with, at least for me. In some small way I try to better myself towards them, to relate better to them. Because some trigger in the back of my mind says that is what they are looking for. What they are looking for is for me to be me... all the time.

"Humility is to be willing to be known for who you are; Pride is trying to be known for who you are not."

I dont want to ever feel like I need to docter myself up. I want to be that minority that dares to be who I am. But I want who I am to be worth being.

Love

Last night I was talking with my best friend Heather Potter about love. Such a deep subject. What is it? When I first hear the word the pages of my bible opening to 1 Corinthians 13 automatically jump into my mind. "Love is patient, love is kind. Love is never jealous or boast for or proud or rude..." But this verst just demonstrates how to love. And what love is not. I think there are so many levels of love.

I grew up with the understanding that we are to love all people as Christ loved all. We are to love beyond judments and differences. I do. I find it very easy to love at a moments notice. At first I thought love is what you do for someone... I would do anything for anyone at a moments notice though, like seriously. That is who I am, that is the mindset that has been poured into me from my parents and my church. I am to love. This kind of love seems so simple, so natural.

There is deeper love. There are those that I love in a different area of my heart, those that I would without question I would take a bullet for. This kind of love draws me closer to the love that the father wants. This love can not be extended to every person, we dont have enough strength to give it to all. God blesses us with some to love deeper.

Then there is the love between a man and woman, a husband a wife. This kind of love is the closest love that a person can experience outside of that with the father. This love prepares us for a deeper relationship with the father. It is reserved and secret and strong.

But above all loves, is the love I have for my father, the one who created the world in which I live. With him is a love so deep that not even the most outrageous rebelious act could seperate us from it. He is love and in return gives it and receives it.

When I say "I love you" I mean it... but I think that depending on the relationship those words can be stronger. To a total stranger, a homeless person... I love them, they may be surprised, but I love them. And when I am alone in my room and I tell my maker I love him... It is the same love... but deeper, more intimate. Loving that homeless person is loving him.

My lil boys

I spent a week with my nephews Solomon and Benjamin. It's been a year since I saw them last... that is a long time for little boys who are now 2 and 3. I try to keep in touch with them, but phone calls only go so far... this past week it was like reconnecting all over again. I seemed to be there most bestest playmate - willing to do or play anything.

It was different for me to be with boys, I am use to my 4 familes of all girls that I babysit, so it was a nice change of scenery. The time I had with them was short, but full of fun.

The first morning I was there Solomon said to me finished the last of his meal...

"Do you know what my favorite part of lunch is? The SALAD, because of the cucombers and dressing."

Harmony laughed and said that was going in my blog... so there it is. Haha.

I learned how sensitive little boys can be. I tried to learn as I am on this journey to discover the innerdwellings of childrens philosophical minds. Benjamin is scared of auto-flushing toilets (because they dont recgonize his weight and flush while he is sitting on them.) Solomon is scared of cars because he has an understanding of death. I like that they have their fears, and knowing that someday they will get over them. But when I bend down the their perspective, I understand completely... I would be scared too. They helped me learn, I think they always will.

MY sister

I always find it intriging how long my sister and I can go without seeing each other and still be great friends. I sure do miss her while we are away, but being together is just like always, except now I am more of the person that I remember her to be. I am the antsty teenager hanging in coffee shops and spending all my money on traveling. I see her now, and know that only a few years down the road I will be where she is. I suppose I will be a mama and I will smile at younger girls who become me, who complete the circle of life we follow.

I respect my sister with all that she is. She, at this time of her life is a fast paced, smiling, cooking, reading, blogging mama... and she is happy. She seems content where she is, something I am desperatly trying to learn. And although I look up to her as a mama... she is still just my sister. She is the same one that played doll house with me and dressed me up and held me the few times I decided to cry. She looks the same to me, despite the bulging belling. While I was visiting her, a few times people said we looked alike, that made me smile because... being little I was so different in my appearance... now I can prove I am not adopted!

I find that the older I get, the more I relate to my sister. I think we are bound to equal out at some point, I have spent years trying to catch up. As a little girl I just wanted to be her, and in some ways I think I have become her... she has just moved on again. Ahh, so I keep on running. I love our age difference, I didn't always, but I do now. She has insight that I cant see. She grew up in my family, in my house, with my parents. She has experienced the things I am going through and when I remember that... she is a big help.

I love my sister, and sometimes I forget to really tell her that. So Harmony, this blog is for you (because you requested I write!) I love you. I really do.