Young Adult Life

Young Adult Life is the college age community I am a part of at my church which is a pretty legit group of people. We have a new page:

Conflicting Schedules (A Random Blurb)

"It's almost 5:30, I'm still in the office, and I'm going to be here a while."

That quote can conjure up a lot of different feelings and perceptions depending on who is saying it and who is hearing it. For instance, that statement is true of me right now. But I'm not bitter from it and I don't resent the truth behind it. Yet, neither do I swell up with joy the fact that it's happening to me or the effects it implies for the rest of my day.

I say all of that to give you a snapshot of how my schedule has been adapting. Actually, it's not just my schedule, it is also Emily's that I want to talk about.

Emily and I went out for a really nice hike on Friday and had a good time overall this weekend. But right now the rest of the weeks to come looks like me working in the morning, afternoon, and early evening with Emily working in the afternoon to late evening. If we stick to our schedules as mandated by our tasks then we would never see each other until Friday and Saturday (Which thank God we both have those 2 days off).

In other words, our schedules conflict. So much so that in many regards it almost feels like we are doing the long distance deal all over again. We even commented on it this weekend that very observation.

But when it comes right down to it we can go out of our way and meet each other for lunch or I can creepily meet her in the morning before my day starts or equally creep her out by waiting for her at her place until she gets home from her closing shift. Even though our current schedule mash up isn't permanent, it's easy for it to be a bigger deal than it really is if we're so narrowly focused on seeing that other individual. Which we are.

Our four month anniversary is tomorrow and I know we'll still make it special, regardless of Scheduling Rivalry.

A Month, A Motivation, and A Monster

WHOA! It has been way over a month since we updated the blog and today ushers in the new age of "Far Away / Close to God." But before even getting to that --- Emily and I have been together in the same city for over a month now!!!! Seriously, it has been the best month of my life ~ no exaggeration and no apologies! I know for sure now that my life will never be the same. Oh sure, we have even more to go towards building our relationship, but I already feel like I have gone light years ahead of where I was back in August. So let me bring you guys all up to speed on the dealio.

Christmas happened and we survived it together thru three different family get-togethers. My best Christmas so far. I got her a Time-Turner gold necklace (yes like Hermoine) to symbolize not just our fan status of the world around Hogwarts but mainly because we don't have to worry about the difference in time anymore. I also got here an ESV study bible ~ what a Christian College student thing to do. She got me a killer watch, no cheap walmart watches that fall off after a couple of months, in fact I'm admiring it right now. She also got me what I've always wanted for a car: a steering knob. Redneck? Maybe, but I do love it!

In case you didn't hear, the new year came. On New Year's Eve we had a three person countdown with our matchmaker Sarah Voris. Then I went back to the church for an all-nighter for teenagers and the 2 girls went back to reading. As for this new year itself, I am greatly looking forward to 2011 and even 2012 before the world ends. Whoa, 2012 sounds like forever in the future considering this last month has been so amazing with Emily in it.


Motivation. If you don't know me very well then you should understand that if I have motivation to get something done ~ it's gonna happen. Everyone is different on how they approach living out their life goals, but when it comes to me I never risk losing in life due to ignorance, or not willing to take risks, or even being dealt a bad hand. No, what I use for a raw fuel in conjunction with the Holy Spirit is pure motivation. My last semester (Spring 10) on campus at Manhattan Christian College I was an RA, took 20 credit hours, worked almost full-time at a church 2 hours away, and preached at various churches several times a month. I did those things with a passion for excellency and was constantly refueled with motivation whenever I would accomplish a task.

Now I don't say this to bring honor and glory to myself. Because if I was able to do all those things out of my own abilities and discipline then my last semester (Fall 10) would not have looked the way it does. My college is small so I understand how my personal grades could have gotten leaked as they have been so I know this isn't news for some of you. I failed 2 of my 3 online classes. I bit off more than I could chew. Not more than God could chew thru me, just more than I alone could do it. This may not make since for a lot of people but I put a lot of stock in the power of the Holy Spirit of God and the motivation He can give us. This last semester I lost sight of that and thought, "Hey hey, look at me! Look at all that my hands have made. I'm superman and I don't need your help." Except I'm not superman and I do have a breaking point. So when I have all these things going on in my life I shut down. Literally I would set aside all day Friday and Saturday for school work and near the end of the semester I would end up staring blankly at an open Pages documents or an empty notebook. Paul may have said that he can do everything thru Him who gives him strength, but I would say that I can only do anything thru him who gives me strength.

I truly believe that God has empowered certain people like Paul to be all things to all people. Christians misreference that scripture all the time to console someone in their shortcomings, "Well Bob it's not your fault you never tried to tell Jim about Jesus because you can't be all things to all people." With the backing of the Holy Spirit some people can accomplish whatever God sets them out to do. I thought I was one of those people. But I'm not, maybe in the future when I've been thru more and have become more disciplined.

Which brings me to my monster. I only want to bring it up because I know if I do then I will continue to blog about it and think more thru it. We've all got a testimony and my monster has been born and nourished thru mine. I have a savior complex. Not like I want to make it too hard for people to get to Jesus, or I am addicted to telling people about Jesus. But I, in an unhealthy way, want to be a savior like Jesus. I grew up in a dysfunctional home and sometimes I lose my patience for people who complain about their mediocre family being an abomination because they don't function like an episode of "Leave it to Beaver." My parents are crystal meth users and drug dealers. My poor brother is inheriting my father's relentless rage and is adopting Navajo mythology while abadoning Christ. My mother is a manic bipolar with no desire to repent. And my God-fearing awesome Grandma is just now trying to stop her enabling habits. I want to save them, but I can't. Jesus can, but he won't force it on them if they aren't willing. Throw on to that distorted heap that I struggle with depression and being an unsuccessful savior is really counterproductive. The situation is a monster and I don't know if it can be destroyed, should be tamed, or will it die because of old age?

I need prayers. Sincere, genuine, and constant prayers. My whole family needs prayers. We've tried almost every thing even to the point one time that I thought maybe it needs to be solved with a physical approach. Didn't work and nothing else has because it hasn't touched the root of the matter. Our hearts. Because if there is no beauty after this beast I have to ignore it and flee from it completely. Metaphor Transalted: I have to cut myself off from my wayward parents lest they taint and corrupt my future family with Emily.

The stakes just got high, and I'm not going to lose Emily, myself, or God because of them.

Unbranding

By the time Emily reads this in the morning our "excommunication" will be over. And trust me, I am going to be begging for a Skype date after the morning church services!

I think overall it was good that Emily and I refrained from communicating these last several weeks so that she could enjoy London more and I could do my school work better. Because it is still fresh and because I know I didn't do too hot in my school work this semester it felt like torture. But because this next week is going to just fly by it will be nice to enjoy the last week of our long distance relationship before it becomes a "close distance relationship."

Which brings me up to one of the topics of this particular blog post. The meaning behind this blog's name is that all though we are far away from each other we can still be in a relationship that is close to God. Not to mention the very purpose of the blog is to chart and discuss our discoveries from a long distance Christ centered relationship. So are we going to continue the blog? Are we going to keep the purpose the same? And (not as important) are we going to keep the title the same?

Yes. No. Yes.

We are going to keep the Blog current as well as leave the name unchanged.

However, the purpose/content has to be tweaked since the relationship the blog is based off of is being changed (for the better). So this is my proposal. First off, this is still fundamentally going to be a blog about Emily and my growing relationship with one another - that is foundational. But now, we will post our discoveries of a normal Christ-centered relationship with retrospect to disciplines we learned from previously being in a long distance relationship. And last but not least is the title's sake - whether Emily and I are living 5281 miles from each other or if it is only .5281 meters from each other ~ God needs to be even closer.

I hope that wasn't too simple/redundant, but I thought it should be explained.

A week from today Emily will be in my arms and I have never been this excited before in my life. To just limit the description to "excited" feels like an understatement. Our lives will never be the same. And I know just now my affection and love may be taken as naive from an outsider. I think at first I was really concerned about this just because I lead teens and young adults who naively think they're in love and then are dumped a month later. It would be a little hypocritical for me to fall suspect to this same predicament.

But it's not like that and in a lot of ways I don't know what it's like. Emily is the only woman I've ever truly loved and what is about to blossom between us is going to be indescribable to me right now at this moment. I wish I knew specifically what it was going to look like, but alas I am stuck appreciating the mystery. I am constantly try to gauge, measure, or at least find an identifying mark that I could go back to and say this is what our relationship is like. Even a logo, just something to brand it with.

But maybe it's not supposed to be like that. For instance, I was listening to a song recently on Air 1 radio that I previously thought was a song about the Holy Spirit. It is called, "God gave me you," by Dave Barnes. If you haven't heard it, listen to it now and come back to this afterwards = http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5hQK6GIrpYU

I think this song finds it ultimate meaning to Christian couples who are married. But even now, with where Emily and I are I find myself gravitating to this song. "God gave me you for the ups and downs, God gave me you for the days of doubt." I don't view Emily just as a gift from God, rather I view her as the greatest thing that has come into my life because of God (save Christ obviously). Yet, I know it is only going to get exponentially better than this. God is going to give us to each other more and more until there is no more separating our identities.

In the meantime, I am going to enjoy a brandless, titleless, pictureless relationship with Emily. Because I know if we were to ever stop and brand the relationship as one thing we will then live thru yet another experience together and the previous picture will be crudely outdated.

Reggie Joiner puts it better when he says, "Family is a story, not a picture."

So it's time to unfreeze ourselves from this long-distance picture frame and get fast-forwared into the real-time story that is about to begin.

My life

In just two short weeks, I will be on a plane back home. It seems difficult to believe.

I was feeling a bit strange about it today. Obviously, my life is going to change in so many ways once I leave. And while I'm completely excited to go back and start spending more time with Andy, my family and my friends, I'll be leaving a life here. I've become quite used to it, and even though I'm going to something so great, it's hard to imagine what it will be like when this isn't my life anymore. As my very wise sister-in-law Sarah said, "It's not a choice between good and bad, it's a choice between better and best."

God was ready for it, though, because a plan set in motion about a week ago came to fruition today, just when I needed it. Andy suggested that we make a photo record of the things we do each day, places we go, people we see. He posted his today, and I was able to see all the things that I'll be a part of (or at least potentially be a part of) when I get back. An impromptu lunch at Spring of Life, making a trip to QT, pranking Jason's car... those are all things that I can do in a couple weeks. I got to see Andy with my adorable nephew, and know that someday soon I could be in that picture too.

As sad as I am to leave London, going to home to things like this is going to be amazing. I'm still trying to secure a job (or at least an interview) for when I get back, but I have complete faith that I'll get the right opportunity right when I need it. God has always arranged things according to amazing timing, even if I can't see it right then, so I just have to trust that He's going to do the same here. What matters is that I will be home, and the rest will fall into place.

I just finished reading The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho, and I really liked it. It centred around following your heart and reading the signs that are given to you in life to realise your destiny. While it doesn't reference God in a specific way, I decided to insert His name for most of it. There was one passage in particular that I read at least three times:

It required no explanation, just as the universe needs none as it travels through endless time. What the boy felt at that moment was that he was in the presence of the only woman in his life, and that, with no need for words, she recognized the same thing. He was more certain of it than of anything in the world. He had been told by his parents and grandparents that he must fall in love and really know a person before becoming committed. But maybe people who felt that way had never learned the universal language. Because, when you know that language, it's easy to understand that someone in the world awaits you, whether it's in the middle of the desert or in some great city. And when two such people encounter each other, and their eyes meet, the past and the future become unimportant. There is only that moment, and the incredible certainty that everything under the sun has been written by one hand only. It is the hand that evokes love, and creates a twin soul for every person in the world. Without such love, one's dreams would have no meaning.

Thoughts like these are getting me through the next couple of weeks. I just hope I stay grounded enough to appreciate what's happening the present, as well.

Speechlessness

Great post Emily, mine is pretty long too!

I have been going through many similar thoughts as Emily has in terms of 'unworthy.' Of course, I feel unworthy of God's love - but at the same time, who am I to place the value on love that only belongs to the creator himself?

As for my relationship with Emily, I definitely feel like I am not worthy of her most of the time. In fact, she calls me out on it. I think for me I am battling the "Ugly Duckling," syndrome. As an adolescent and even into my first year of College I was pretty overweight. For those of you who know my history, you know it was because I was constantly on medical steroids treating my asthmatic symptoms that have a major side effect of weight gain. So yes I wasn't what you would call 'hot' as a teenager.

But these feelings of inadequacy that I battle extend pass just appearances. In the environment I grew up I had positive and negative influences - just like anyone else. Except in many aspects how I placed myself in my worldview was greatly scarred. I grew up around drug dealers, criminals, hard-hearted people and constantly in the presence of those that some would consider the scum of the earth. Do I hate or regret them? No, in fact I have feelings of compassion for them now. When I was a teenager, oh yeah, but not now.

Because of hanging around those people I assumed I would adopt more or less their live stories. In that world that my parents dragged me in to, there was no "true love" between couples. There were no signs of affection that didn't have at least one string of manipulation attached. What I did see in abundance was a multitude of people settling for less. And since I didn't have that great of a self image to start off with, the less than me person I would end up with was practically a nightmare. That was then.

But now we're in the present and you think that would be gone, right? "Andy is more mature now and has surrounded himself in a much better environment. Not to mention he has gone from an ugly status to an okay-looking image, so that has to clear everything up .... right?"

Maybe somewhat and yes I have a healthy self image. But when it comes right down to it, Emily leaves me speechless. So much so that I can't even think of a great enough man that can deserve Emily, let alone having her be a settling option. And yet here I am in a relationship with her not knowing how to adequately display my love for her. I really struggled with this speechlessness this last weekend and so to the best of my ability I funneled my creativity into communicating a snippet of my love for her via a video.

First Tangent Video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UsTwnDEwEtw

Our lives are going to change in so many ways after December 11th. I think by then this speechlessness will turn into something else. For instance, we will no longer be in a "long-distance" relationship. Duh, no-brainer! So a lot of the E-mailing and chat will subside. The vlog will probably disappear all together because of how incredibly obsolete it will become. Last but not least is the blog that you are reading from right now. Emily and I are already discussing how we will be changing the direction of it. We don't know for sure, but I guarantee that the quality of communication will greatly increase along with clarity. When we are together we can simply show how much we love each other by doing things for each other like surprise scavenger hunts, shouting "I love you" in a public/crowded place, helping the other with a chore, and the list goes on and on.

In the meantime, I'm left speechless. I've seen her, held her, kissed her, and made videos about her - yet still it almost feels like a fairy tale.

Do I believe in love? Yes. Do I believe love is something worth waiting for? Yes. Do I believe under no circumstance should you ever settle for something less than true love. Yes.

I don't recall if I've ever shared this story on the blog, but here it goes:

Second Tangent Video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xlSEecTpiho

Do I think I deserve Emily or that Emily deserves me? Well, I think that's the wrong question to ask because that's not what love is about. True love is not entirely deserved or earned.

The Bible tells us this about love in:

Romans 5:8 "But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: while we were still sinners, Christ died for us."

Romans 8:38-39 "For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord."

1 John 4:16 "And so we know and rely on the love God has for us. God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in them."

Love is bigger than our ability to make sense of it. Love is not something you can earn like a merit badge. It's not a video game, it's real. No, it's more than real. In many ways it is divine. To the best of our knowledge, Love is only made available to humans and angels while the rest of creation is left out. God created the possibility for us to love each other.

For that, I am greatly appreciative and ... speechless.

Unworthy

Warning, folks: this is a long entry.

Andy loaned me the book Crazy Love before I came back from St Louis, and I finished it a few days ago. It was such an honest, open and matter-of-fact book that put things into really harsh perspective for me. Particularly poignant was the chapter entitled 'Profile of the Lukewarm'.

When I moved to Tucson for college, I made a conscious decision to take a bit of a break from church. At the time, my father was an Elder, my mom was working in the church office and earning her Master's degree from Fuller Seminary, and both my brothers and my future sister-in-law were going to Bible college... and then there was me: pretty sure I wouldn't be going into ministry and attending a public school. Needless to say, I felt a little out of place, and a bit like I didn't belong. None of them ever did anything to make me feel that way; my mind came up with all of it.

I did search for churches to go to (found a few crazy ones) when I got to Tucson, but my heart wasn't in it. I thought it would be much better to try life without church for a bit, then go back to that life knowing that it was a conscious decision, and not because it was a habit (which at the time is what it had become). I figured that I didn't need 'church' to keep up my spiritual life; I could still study the Bible and live the way I should. Little did I know that this is much harder than it seemed.

Sure enough, I wasn't spending time with other Christians, and it got easier and easier to skip a Bible study or two, or three. Then it became easier to let a few other things slip. Before I knew it, that short break didn't have a time limit. The problem was that it wasn't too much of a problem. I still knew that someday I would break out of this funk, so I continued on the way I was living. I got in a few tricky situations, made a few mistakes, and look back on them with regret. Even then, I knew things could be a lot worse, and that God was protecting me, despite my rebellion. But it still wasn't enough for me to change my life.

Right before I moved to England, I started to get back on track. I did a quiet time every morning, spent more time in prayer, and felt a lot better about things. That void I had been feeling ever since I made this decision was starting to fill. When I came to England, life started moving pretty fast. My course left me with little free time, and I wasn't really sure what church to go to anyway. I went to Hillsong a couple times because I had heard of it before and knew that the music would be good, but God still wasn't a priority, so I didn't really try very hard to go every week. Pretty soon, I was back in the same type of life that I had started living.

At this point, I convinced myself that I was okay because I knew the main things I'd never let slip (mainly saving myself for marriage) and thought I could be a bit more relaxed about the rest. I wasn't too bothered that I didn't go to church or spend time reading the Bible; as long as I was still living a pretty good life compared to everyone else, praying sometimes and not having sex, I was probably in good shape, right?

Wrong.

This way of living still landed me in a few situations that I never thought would happen, and I came closer than I ever thought I would to losing the one thing that meant most to me.

And now, after that long history, here's why it's relevant to the blog.

One thing I've always wanted since I can remember is to get married. Every time someone quoted Psalms 37:4 ('Delight yourself in the LORD and he will give you the desires of your heart') I thought about being married; that was my desire. Having never been in a serious relationship, I was starting to feel a bit lonely. I kept wondering when God was going to put that someone in my life. Every time I prayed about it, though, I immediately thought of the state of my spiritual life. How could I be asking God for something like this when I was like this? I had definitely been looking in the wrong places, and didn't have a group of Christian friends in which I could meet someone who fit the bill. I could hear God trying to get me out of the funk, but I felt like I didn't know where to start.

Every so often, my beautiful, wonderful sister-in-law Sarah would tell me about a new guy she met that would be perfect for me, and that I should move back home to meet him and get married. So when she started talking about Andy, I was definitely interested to see what he was like. Plus, Eric and Sarah's approval of whoever I marry is really important to me, so the fact that he came recommended was definitely a good sign. But when I heard that he was a pastor, I got really nervous.

I was pretty sure that pastor's wives had to be some kind of superhero. And I don't mean that as a joke: I thought it must be really difficult at times, and that being an amazing woman of God must be a prerequisite. At this point, I instantly felt that I was not good enough for him. Here I was, a very mediocre and lukewarm Christian who had made a lot of mistakes after her deliberate break from God. How could I possibly be what he had in mind for someone to date or marry?

When I told Andy about this, he quickly assured me that it wasn't true. I started feeling a bit better, but still that I had such a long way to go before I was at the level he would need me to be. During our Skype dates, he started encouraging us to pray together, sharing Scripture and a lot of other things that I had not done on my own in a long time. When we spoke about it later, Andy told me that he could sense that I needed a bit of spiritual leadership, and this was about the time when I started feeling less hopeless. Yes, I had made mistakes and my relationship with God was not where it should be, but I could change that.

Then Andy made a comment about how meeting me had changed the way he prayed, and at first I wasn't sure what he meant. Then one day, I was just walking down the street and started thinking about everything God had done for me. When I look back on it all, He had His hand in everything. Not just getting me where I am today (academically, professionally, geographically) but the fact that He never left me, even when I was intentionally misbehaving. And now, I have Andy. The one prayer I have had my whole life has been answered, and in such an amazing way.

The penny dropped: this is yet another blessing of which I am completely unworthy. As Francis Chan says, "This is the God we serve, the God who knew us before He made us. The God who promises to remain with us and rescue us. The God who loves us and longs for us to love Him back. So why, when we constantly offend Him and are so unlovable and unloving, does God persist in loving us?"

So when I read the 'profile of the lukewarm', I found myself reading a description of my life for the past few years. I felt totally convicted. At the end of the chapter, Francis writes, "We are all messed-up human beings, and no one is totally immune to the behaviors described in the previous examples. However, there is a difference between a life that is characterized by these sorts of mentalities and habits and a life that is in the process of being radically transformed."

I don't want my life to be characterised by those mentalities any longer. I'm going to stop waiting for myself to snap out of it and think that it will somehow happen itself and take the initiative.

Matthew 7:7-8 says "Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will be find; knock and the door will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives; he who seeks finds; and to him who knocks, the door will be opened."

Each of those instructions require action on my part. Time to get moving.