simple revolution.

I've been trying all semester to make it to the prayer group that meets Thursday nights at Taylor, and this week I finally did. First of all, the group itself is incredible. It is actually a real community, which is, sadly, hard to find at our community-focused Christian school. We praised God together, we shared stories of how He had been working in our lives over the past week, we heard a teaching on healing prayer, and then we divided into groups (you could choose to join a circle of discussion, intercession, prophetic prayer, or healing). I hope to be able to go consistently next semester.

But it was actually afterward that God really spoke to me. I was walking up the stairs in my dorm behind a girl I didn't know at all, and she noticed me and said "-Hey- you were at Thursday night!" She introduced herself and asked what I thought of my first time there. Then she told me- and God's timing is incredible that we were on the staircase at just the same moment- that she had been feeling strongly that she was supposed to pray for me, but didn't get a chance during the meeting. So, she prayed for me then.

It was hard to believe we had only met minutes before, and she knew absolutely nothing about me. The things she prayed for were so specific, exactly the areas where I desperately need prayer right now. They were also things that I don't share with anyone, sometimes not even myself. Obviously the Spirit was giving her words to pray; she would never have prayed for all those things without the Spirit's intercession. What this means is incredible, because it implies that the Spirit knew the words to give her. God knows me. I mean, He really knows me. He knows the part of me that I don't show to other people. Of course I know that God knows me, that He created me, etc, etc, but for the most part I know that He knows me in the same way that I know that an electron behaves both as a particle and a wave- it's an abstract concept that can be diagramed and supported and defined, but is never quite explained satisfactorily. The only way that someone could really understand electron behavior—and I mean really understand on a deeply intimate level of understanding and experience—would be to actually see one. I just read over that, and it’s a terrible illustration, but now it’s too late to pick a new one so hang with me. When Angela prayed for me, it was her voice but God’s words; they must have been His words, because they couldn’t possibly have been hers. I actually heard Him tell me about myself. I saw a glimpse of the depth of His relationship with me, the relationship I’m created for and have thus far only begun to scratch the surface of. God actually knows me. Let me pause a minute while I attempt, for the hundredth time in the past few days, to understand that truth. He knows me more than I know myself. He wants to know me, He considers me worth knowing, me, foolish, lost, confused, wandering. God knows me, and that fact moves me to tears.

Lord and King, I don’t even deserve your recognition, much less your intimate attention. I’m overwhelmed with gratefulness and bewilderment. Any attempt at expressing my awestruck, unworthy gratefulness weak and foolish compared to what you deserve, so I won’t even attempt to put it to words except to say thank you. Thank you, thank you.

k. rose

God, thank you for pouring rain. Thank you for water dripping from my hair and rolling off my face. I can't fathom the creativity that imagined evaporation/condensation, the interaction of tactile and thermoreceptors that allow us to feel the rain. These aren't textbook phenomena, they're incredible tangible proof that you are truly great, truly awesome, truly wise, truly creative. Even the most learned, skilled, analytical scientist can't offer an experiment to test what beauty is or explain how it is derived from phase changes, weather patterns, the nervous system, etc. Lord, thank you for the way the rain washes everything clean, gives everything a fresh start. Thank you for sending rain today, for more and greater and deeper reasons than I can fathom, but also simply because you knew that it was what I needed. Thank you for compassion and your inexplicable love for your bride-- individuals, the Church as a whole-- thank you for mercy and for genuinely desiring our purity so that we can be in your presence. You are merciful, you are wonderful, you are beyond words.


k. rose

Yesterday there was a party for all the one-on-one pairs, so Rosie came to Taylor for that (side-note: Rosie is the second-grader I mentor through one-on-one). Rosie's family does not go to church, but there is a church across the street from them where she goes to a Bible-school on Saturdays.

We ended up leaving the party and going for a walk, which led us past the memorial prayer chapel. She asked what it was, what was inside it, etc. I described how there are a few small rooms where you can go and be by yourself and pray, and how a lot of people go there if they're sad about something or they're worried or happy or confused, and they need to talk to God; there's also a bigger room where people can go in groups and have Bible studies, or sing worship songs together. She asked if I had ever used it; I answered yes, and she asked, "Did it happen?"  I asked her, "Did what happen?" and she replied, "What you prayed. Did it happen?" I was able to tell her about recently when I was really scared for my dad, with my mom leaving, and I went to the prayer chapel to beg God to bring him safely through. I was able to tell her that it had been a week and God was not only holding him together, but growing him and healing him and giving him more peace than I would ever have thought to pray for. God always answers when we pray.

She thought about it for a bit, and the really beautiful thing was that she then told me a story of a time when she had prayed and God had answered her. There had been a really bad storm in her town, and her family had to go into the basement of the church across the street. She prayed that God would send the storm away and that there wouldn't be a tornado. I asked if there was one, and she smiled and said no, God answered her prayer.

God doesn't always answer our prayers the way we want or expect, thank goodness. Sometimes, though, He does, and I think this is really important; I don't think that it's just a fluke, or that we just happened to pray for the right outcome by chance. I think a big part of the reason why God sometimes chooses to answer our prayers exactly the way we hoped is so that even a child can look at what happened and recognize, "That was God. That was God, and He heard me, and He answered me." I think that part of the reason why He didn't allow the tornado to touch Rosie's town was simply so that she could look back later and see His hand. In fact, I'm pretty sure that He was looking straight at her in the basement of the church when He turned the tornado away, sad for the fear she was feeling but also smiling with eager expectation of how clearly she would see Him later as a result.


k. rose

Today I was in church, and I really was paying attention but all of a sudden God distracted me with this completely off-topic conviction. He asked me what I was doing about all His children who are hurting, specifically the poor and the widows and the orphans. He asked me how I was allowing Him to love them through me.

I pretty quickly answered, well, someday I'm going to be a doctor and then I'll live in their communities and treat them when they're sick and play with them when they're well and we'll all be a family and it'll be very beautiful... and God said yes, that's very nice, but that's a long time from now and you have no idea what I might do in between. I mean what are you doing in this stage of your life, right now?

So I thought about it, and I answered, well, next semester when I'm less busy with classes and work I'll be involved at the Rescue Mission again, and spend time at the women and children's shelter building relationships, and we'll all be a family and it'll be very beautiful... and God said yes, yes, very nice, but what about right now?

So I thought some more, and I answered, well, over Thanksgiving break I might have time to go hang out at the open door and eat at the soup kitchen and share meals with the homeless and build relationships and we won't have a lot of time to be a family but it'll be something at least and it'll be very beautiful still... and God said no, you still don't understand, I mean right now. I mean today.

And I still don't know what to answer.


k. rose

This past Friday my mom left my dad. It was a very brave, very healthy, and very right choice, and I'm so proud of her for making it. However, that doesn't mean I'm not heartbroken for my family. It takes a lot to make me cry, but I cried on Friday. I cried when I talked to my dad on the phone, for how sad he is, how confused and caught off guard. I cried when I talked to my brother, for how much is being put on his shoulders, for how strong and mature he is being, for the pain he is going through, and for how proud I am of how he's handling it. My eyes filled up again on Sunday when I talked to my mom and heard her tears through the phone. This isn't the way families are supposed to work; I cried for the sadness of a world in which this type of thing is common-place. I'm relieved by my mom's move, but I'm aching from all the pain which is responsible for it and coming from it.

One of my favorite parts of my church is our time of prayer in small groups. Every week, we gather with two or three other people sitting near us, often people we don't know at all, and pray for each other. This past Sunday, two of my sisters in Christ prayed for my family and for how God would be moving and working through all of this.

When Pastor got up to preach, his sermon was titled "Believing the Lord Completely in my Prayer Life." One of the basic principles underlying his message was that "prayer is never completed until it is answered." What a timely message! God is so good in providing everything we need, including the very words that our hearts are starving for. God had brought this subject up on Saturday while I was talking to Alyssa about it on the phone, but I hadn't grabbed on to it the way I needed to. So, he used the sermon on Sunday to condense the idea, simplify it, and hold it out for me to cling to- and that I am doing. I am human and broken, and rarely is this true, but for once I think I can honestly say that I have complete confidence in God's promise to work through this situation. I pray that He will use it to His glory, and I know that that prayer will be anwered- is already answered. I hope that as a result of all this my dad will become healthy and joyful, my brother will grow into a man of God, my mom will find peace and contentment. I hope that this is how God chooses to manifest His glory, but I'm not worried about it because I know that whatever the means He chooses, they will be beautiful beyond compare.


k. rose

Hello blog world... as mentioned in my last post, ages and ages ago, life is a little crazy right now. I'll claim that as my excuse for not sharing any stories in weeks. However, I simply had to carve out time and share this particular detail.

About a month ago I lost my Bible somewhere on campus, I wasn't sure where. I looked all over, in my room, my backpack, the science building, the chapel, the prayer room, my car... everywhere I could think of. I finally gave up, figuring that I could pick up another Bible from home over Thanksgiving break, and in the meantime borrow other people's. Of course now in retrospect I realize how stupid that was; I should have had my mom mail it to me.

Anyway, last Wednesday I decided to peek again in the lost-and-found at chapel, and there was my Bible, tucked beneath several other Bibles, a journal and a couple of coats! (... I was so excited that I stood up much too quickly and the hit my head with quite a loud crack on the concrete staircase underwhich the lost-and-found is located).

I knew that I was being affected by not having my Bible, but I hadn't realized how much until I got it back. Scrounging around and finding the Word from other sources is better than nothing, but it isn't the same as having it sitting on my desk or in my backpack, ready to pull out whenever a thought pops in my head, or I need some encouragement, or someone else needs encouragement, or even just when I have an extra moment of free time.

I've been thinking a lot about my brothers and sisters who don't have Bibles. I've been thinking about a house-visit we made while in Rwanda. I was sitting next to a girl I had never met before while someone (maybe Adam?) was reading a passage of scripture, and I shared my Bible with her. She didn't even speak English; I doubt she could understand a word on the page, but she could put her hands out and touch it and feel it at the very least. Afterward, we were walking to another house and she just grabbed my hand, and we were sisters. I'm quite sure that in heaven someday we'll make eye contact and recognize each other in an instant, and run and greet each other with a giant hug and a million stories of how good our God is.

I've been thinking about the way people there drank in the Word when it was read out loud to them; I've been thinking about the way it instantly bonded us as a family. I've been grieving for people who can't read or hear the Word on a daily basis, and especially for people who don't even have it in their own language. I'm not really sure where this goes or what I'm supposed to do with it or what you should do with it. Maybe we should all change our majors and become Bible translators (maybe not). The point is, God's word is great, it is powerful, it changes lives. The proof I offer is that it is changing mine.


k. rose

This week has been a rough one. I've been feeling exhausted, overwhelmed, stressed, and inadequate. For the first time in my life, I honestly feel as if I cannot keep up with all my commitments. I'm discovering that I cannot do everything. My pride is being shredded, chewed up, and spit back in my face.

I'm working as a tutor, a Chemistry study-group leader, and a T.A. I love all three jobs, and I legitimately look forward to work. However, with all the time I invest in work, I'm having trouble finding time to study. I'm barely keeping up in my classes, and I find that even when I do have time to study the time is unhelpful and poorly spent because I am so tired that nothing sinks in. I'm involved in several ministries, one of which I'm directing, and I'm passionate about the service we're doing through them. However, I'm spending so much time on "ministries" that I hardly have time or energy to invest in relationships- including with God. My prayer life has been reduced to brief, disjointed, illogical snippets of conversation with God at intervals in the midst of a million other things going on. At the end of each day when I crawl into bed I'm so physically and emotionally exhausted that I feel as if I'll never be able to wake up.

This morning at chapel, as we were praising God together, He very clearly spoke to me and told me to wake up, open my eyes, look at Him and see who He is as I'm praising Him. I'm feeling overwhelmed? Everything going on in my life is nothing when held up to the Universe. I'm having a difficult time juggling a few activities- God consistently, justly, powerfully and eptly is handling all of creation (including everything I am dealing with, and everything you are dealing with, and everything anyone is dealing with... and those are just the things we can see). If that alone does not cause my heart to race with overwhelming awe of this great God, I must be a vegetable or a rock- and even that analogy falls through, because I imagine that even a rotten tomato must somehow find voice to praise such a God.

So I'm still feeling slightly overwhelmed. But God has it under control... He always has had it under control, and He always will... and since He's not bound by time I am finding complete peace in the knowledge that there is nothing I can do to interfere with His power and His plan. And even if I completely fail at everything I'm doing and fall apart at the seams, it doesn't really matter because (how incredible) I'll still be allowed to stand in His physical presence someday and praise Him face to face- and that's all that counts.


k. rose

I just got back from bowling practice for Special Olympics, where I was cheering on my friends. In between turns, one of them, Robert, leaned over and put his hand on my shoulder and asked me, "Can I call you my sister in Christ?" When I said absolutely yes please, he gave me a big hug and told me he loved me, and that was that. It was a powerful reminder from God of the unity and love that are declared just by His very name.

I have to ask myself, how often do I remember to approach other Christians on a deep personal level as my brothers and sisters, and to love them simply for that fact?


k. rose

I'll be doing some traveling later this year, and as I was thinking and planning and day-dreaming this morning, I had the idea that I should write a blog while I'm gone, to share stories with friends about how I am seeing God moving and working. I thought it was a grand idea, but of course God pointed out to me that, once again, I was simply showing my foolishness. As if the God of the universe only works over-seas... please.

So, I'm starting now. I'm not sure about this whole "blogging" thing, or how it works. Bear with me. Hopefully this will be a way to share stories of God's goodness with friends I'm not able to connect with very often... I'll admit, this idea is not mine, I stole it from my friend Alyssa (thanks).

Our God is so incredible. He is huge, He is great, He is good. He is moving and working every day in ways we can't fathom, but which we are given the privelege of witnessing if we only open our eyes and pay attention. I know that if I were ever to truly, unwaveringly, and unceasingly search for God's presence every day, the works I witnessed would create a revolution in my soul and life. That's just me, just one insignificant person. Can you imagine if all the members of the entire body of Christ were to keep our eyes trained on God every moment of every day? The world would be turned upside down! Of course, a revolution of that scale won't happen until the day Christ returns. We are weak and fail, and will never be able to keep our eyes constantly fixed on Him until the day when He physically stands before us. Still, that's the goal to strive for. Nothing we can do will cause a revolution, but maybe by small efforts to see God in everything we will find Him working simple revolutions in our midst every day.


k. rose