Okay, so i am at orange this week and God is rocking my world…and when i say rocking, i mean like i am hoping that Jesus is this boat with me because i might need him to calm the storm!  i am standing at  a computer in the bloggers lounge at orange with a lot of hip people around me wearing skinny jeans, with cool haircuts and carrying coffee wondering what the heck i am doing here!  =)  i wrote a blog about 3 weeks ago after i visited a church in anderson, sc called newspring and i talked about how God had really been pushing my heart and reminding me that the whole reason i am here on this earth is to make Him known.  i am still in that place and God is continuing to push me and challenge me, especially here.  more than ever i feel like i am running out of time to tell people about Jesus.  i mean we only get one life and a certain amount of numbered days on the planet and we spend them mostly on our own worries and stuff and that to me is a problem.  hang with me here.  its not that i think that we should not take care of us and our families, and i know that i am single and dont have that much on my plate, but each of us, no matter our situation was placed on this earth to glorify God…period.  

i come to these conferences and i go to different churches and it scares the life out of me.  it scares me that there are people in my life and even people outside of my experience that dont  know Jesus and are going to hell.  HELL!  that is a problem that keeps me awake at night.  i am awake thinking about ways we as the church and we as a community can be better at loving people where they are and better at telling His message.  

Francis Chan talked in the main session yesterday about passion.  he said that we as the church end to calm people down, that we dont like people in the church who are passionate and we do everything we can to “normalize” them.  i think (and this is my opinion, not my experience) that we calm down passion because we view passion as reckless.  i think when we see someone all fired up about something and loud and upset we think they are going to do something radical and rash and that is outside of our comfort zone.  but here is the thing:  Jesus was radical.  Jesus was passionate.  Jesus was WAY outside the comfort zone of all those in His time.  i think we normalize passion because we have a faith problem.  i have a faith problem.  i know that i dont like having to fully rely on God.  i dont like to feel like i am free falling or losing control.  i like to lose control with a plan of losing control.  like i make a plan to surrender myself to God…seriously, i am pretty sure that is an oxymoron.  surrendering, at least i think in God’s eyes, means letting go completely and letting God.  that means no plan a and definitely no plan b…just God.  i am not sure how i get to the point where i am just God, but i know for sure that i want to be just God.  I want to be in the place of total and utter surrender because here is the bottom line:  my life here is literally like one grain of sand on the entire beach.  what i do here is not about here but about eternity.  who i meet here and what i say and do here is about what He did so i could be with Him FOREVER.  this conference has reminded me that all i really want and all should want is to hear:  ”well done.”  its not about us people…its about Him and His people, ALL of His people.

so here is what i think.  i think that we sometimes forget what a big deal easter sunday is.  i think we sometimes just say that Jesus came, died, and rose again without the emotion and gut reaction it deserves and should get.  i think we sometimes get so caught up in our own lives and busyness and weekend planning that we forget that what we do and how we act has life or death consequences.  i just got back from newspring community church where i went to the easter service and it totally reminded me that without easter, i have no hope. 

i mean come on.  Jesus came down from heaven, HEAVEN…you know the place where God is, yeah he came down here…you know the place where we humans sort of suck most of the time, to live and teach.  He came here and was rejected.  GOD CAME HERE AND WAS REJECTED!!  it makes me wonder what side i would have been on if i had lived when Jesus lived here.  would i have recognized him?  would i have been a follower of His or would i have been in the crowd that sentenced him to death?  i would like to think that i would have loved Him and followed Him at all costs, but i look at how i live now, and i am not so sure.  i mean the man got up on a cross AFTER he was beaten 39 times and He could have gotten down.  He was fully human and fully divine.  He could have gotten Himself down off that cross, He could have stopped at the beatings, but He didn’t.  and not only did He not get down or stop the beatings, He remained silent only responding when asked if He was God’s Son.  seriously, that is love people.  that is love that i cannot even comprehend or begin to understand, but i know this:  i had, until tonite, forgotten how important it is that i live in such a way that people see Him when they watch me live my life.  i had forgotten that it is urgent that we reach people for Christ.  i had forgotten that people who do not accept Him and let Him come in their hearts go to hell.  i think forgot is the wrong word to use, i think we have just gotten used to it.  sort of like how we have gotten used to talking about Jesus’ death and resurrection.  we cannot and should not get used to either of those things.  i pray that from now on, if i start to just nonchalantly live my life, God would wreck my world as a reminder of what He did.  come on people, why are we not running out into the world screaming the gospel?  why are we just letting minutes, hours, and days go by without building relationships with people who dont know Him?  why are we letting Satan fill our lives with busyness and chaos?  why does it take going to a concert or rockin church service to shake my heart and remind me how important it is that i am doing all i can to make Him known?  everything i do and everything we do should be to make Him known….period.  this is life or death people.  it is urgent.

so i am learning all sorts of new life lessons right now.  some good, some not so good, all of them necessary.  i have been doing a lot of soul searching lately and praying, well yelling and crying at God…which i guess is still praying…and found that in the quiet God just is and right now that is enough.  right now i need God to just be.  i dont need Him to move a mountain or write in fire, i need Him to just be God and never changing. 

i know that God is moving because in my head i knnow that He is always moving, but my heart is having a hard time trusting anything right now.  i am scared for the people in my life who are either far away from God, need God to come and find them or who dont know God at all and i heard this song on the way to work the other day and for me its everything i know that God is trying to tell them…

Why are you striving these days
Why are you trying to earn grace
Why are you crying
Let me lift up your face
Just don't turn away

Why are you looking for love
Why are you still searching as if I'm not enough
To where will you go child
Tell me where will you run
To where will you run

And I'll be by your side
Wherever you fall
In the dead of night
Whenever you call
And please don't fight
These hands that are holding you
My hands are holding you

Look at these hands and my side
They swallowed the grave on that night
When I drank the world's sin
So I could carry you in
And give you life
I want to give you life

(Chorus 2x)

Cause I, I love you
I want you to know
That I, I love you
I'll never let you go

(Chorus 2x)

a friend gave me this verse today and it has been an immense comfort to me all day and so i thought i would share…

If anyone has caused grief, he has not so much grieved me as he has grieved all of you, to some extent—not to put it too severely. The punishment inflicted on him by the majority is sufficient for him. Now instead, you ought to forgive and comfort him, so that he will not be overwhelmed by excessive sorrow. I urge you, therefore, to reaffirm your love for him. The reason I wrote you was to see if you would stand the test and be obedient in everything. If you forgive anyone, I also forgive him. And what I have forgiven—if there was anything to forgive—I have forgiven in the sight of Christ for your sake, in order that Satan might not outwit us. For we are not unaware of his schemes.

2 Corinthians 2:5-11

yup…love…

so, i am really excited about my new job, but i am not excited about waking up at 5:30 am.  This morning was the practice run of the 5:30 wake up call and let me share that NO ONE should have to be up that early.  now, before you all comment on my whining with the “welcome to the real world” and all that, let me just say that i realize that i am not the only one who has to get up this early.  I am simply commenting on the fact that the diffference between waking up at 5:30 and 7:00 is HUGE!!  First, lets talk about how at 7 am there is at least the glow of morning in the sky, and normally by the time the shower has finished the day has arrived….not the case at 5:30.  I woke up in the dark, got a shower in the dark, dried my hair and put on my makeup in the dark, duncan (the dog, who by the way refused to actually get up with me this morning) was let out in the dark, and it is now 7:20 and i can say that officially the sun has risen and i feel like i have been up for days.  this is going to be a long day!!!!  =)

the good news is that i have a job!!!  i am working at haw river elementary as a teacher’s assistant in the preschool and working towards my teaching certificate!!!  i am very very happy about that!

i have been working to try to resolve some of the issues that keep me from letting myself be happy and while i think i have made some progress there is one issue that just wont go away.  i do not trust relationships in my life.  its not about not trusting people its more that i dont trust that they really are or want to be my friend.  i am very careful with people and i try not to get too close or let people in too far because i figure they might at any moment walk away or realize that i am really messed up and decide that the relationship really is too much.  i was in a bible study in the fall that talked all about the people you should have in your life and one of them is a drainer.  i am totally scared that i am a drainer and i desperately dont want to be that kid in anyone’s circle.  so, i just dont let myself get really comfortable in any relationship.  i am finding though that God wants more for me than that.  He created us to be in relationship, even with the risk of getting hurt.  its hard and scary and i am not sure how, but i really want to trust.

thats what i feel like my life is like these days:  autumn in slow motion.  I feel like a whole lot of change is happening in my life and a whole lot more is coming.  i dont like change.  i like my safe little world and all the people in it.  i am not particularly looking for new members in my little world (unless you are single, in your 20’s or early 30’s, a boy taller than me and interested in children at some point) and i am not looking for my world to change.  i feel a little like the leaf that is turning colors ever so slowly and clinging onto the tree to avoid the inevitable fall to the ground.  i know that change is what teaches us to trust God and grow as people.  i also get that God is about the journey and adventure, but i am natalie and i prefer destinations and planned stops. 

i dont know what is on the other side of this change, but i have to believe that it is good.  i know that my God has a plan and that He already knows the ending, but a little spoiler wouldnt be turned away!  i worry that the people in my life now will somehow not be there on the other side of all these changes.  what will i look like on the other side, what will my world be like…

First, let me say that this has been probably the best halloween that i have ever had!  i spent the evening at the Riddle home hanging out with three children from the daraja african children’s choir.  we had the best time talking and playing with these girls.  there are pictures to come…

i have not posted to the blog in awhile…sorry!  lets just say that God has had me in a very uncomfortable place here lately.  i have felt a little lost following my graduation from mba school and to compound that i have parents who do not understand the whole God thing and therefore they do not understand the whole calling to ministry.  it has been hard for me to hear God because my parents’ (mom mostly) voices has been so loud that it seems to drown out God and any truth i might be hearing.  i have felt like i am a crazy person because i am trying to explain to them what a calling is and how i hear from God and why i am sure that ministry is my calling even though the doors do not seem to be opening.  i have been getting lots of counsel from my fabulous friends, but the thing is i forgot (or did not want to) to ask God.  I think i was afraid of His answer, so i have spent the last two days getting very still and very quiet. 

i am not sure that i have my answer yet, but i do have way more questions.  questions like am i really willing to go anywhere that God calls me?  Am i willing to move away from here, from all the of the people that i love most in the world?  am i willing to face my fear of the unknown and making new relationships to answer a call?  honestly, i dont know.  i am scared out of my mind at the moment that God is calling me away from here and I dont know what to do about it.  i know that if God is calling me away from here that He will take care of me, but right now it just feels like my heart is being ripped from my chest.  i dont know that He is calling me away, but i am wondering if i am reallly willing to go anywhere…

prayers would be appreciated…

well a car actually, but leavin town nonetheless and I CANNOT WAIT!!!  ever have weeks or days or months (i hope not months) where you just need a break from yourself and your life?  well thats where i am at.  i need a break from life and luckily, that is just what i am getting.  I heading to Hotlanta for Catalyst Conference tonite and i am so excited i can hardly stand the wait!!  this is my second year and i am ready to be challenged in ways that will help me be more like Christ to people who really need to see Him.  I am also ready for some amazing worship, fellowship with awesome people, and lots of free stuff!!!  =)