The Truth

I do some really stupid things sometimes. My anger or my embarrassment takes over and I find myself embarrassed. :P Right now I'm really upset with something I did to a friend. I just got embarrassed about something I did and reacted in away that got them more involved. I feel really bad. I want to go back and chage it, but it was a mistake. ugh........ I want to tell them I'm sorry but I don't even know how to reveal the truth of what I did.

I'm really thinking through this stuff I'm going to speaking on. Its about "unity". In our church right now, I just don't know if that is possible. There is so much hurt going on and not enough truth. Will me sharing at a Ladies Retreat really be helpful? I don't know. I even wonder if it really safe. I mean some of the things I have to share are from my heart and some of it is ugly. I shared last night that I feel like I'm like that book,"Messy Spirtuality". That is me, my spirtuality is messy as it can get. I hurt people, I have ugly feelings, and I'm just plain weird. Its the truth, in all its ugliness. O-kay so I have been depressing lately. :P Sorry for that. Honestly, I'm doing better than what I give myself credit for. Anyway, blessings to all and have a good Sunday tomorrow.

FUNNY

Forgot to add they nominated and placed me as the speaker! HA Sorry for that. I'm sure you caught on though. :P

The Die Has Been Cast

Well, last night I went to the first meeting for the Ladies' Retreat. It was good. I'm praying for openness and a willingness to try things outside of comfortabilty.

To be honest I have felt a need to say "I think God is pressing me to do this." BUT I kept questioning it. I'm not a speaker. I'm not someone who leads very well. Maybe that is what God wants. I will be honest also, last night as I was sleeping God kept prodding, saying "I'm serious Julie. Are you serious? I'm not abotu playing, this is real." This scared me a bit and challanges me so much. How many times have I just played with God and just played life. There is this feeling of responsiblilty. So I ask if anyone is reading this ( I should inlist some help), please pray that I take this task on in humilty and desire to share God's heart with those women.

Point of Interest

I'm in an e-mail chat for the past month. Its been really cool. I don't know how it all came down but we found a point of interest and it has continued. I have to say it has been a streching experience. This person truly has some deep questions and doesn't want to mess around. I like that. They aren't playing and toying with God. They are stripping away all the junk. Although they may identify themselves as "Postmodern" its different. I don't know how to explain it, I see their heart for God, instead of their heart for verbalizing and being "Postmodern". Its refreshing.

One of the questions that we have been lobbing back and forth has been God's will. How do we know what God's will is? Do we let other people try and impress their will on us, all the while saying its God's will? Although for you this maybe simple, but you get someone like this person asking these questions and you soon realize, it isn't that simple. I think the best thing that has come from these e-mails is the tearing down of my masks and the tearing down of my "super spirituality". Understand I'm passionate about God, but I can easily get on my soap box and just stay there and not walk along people.

I'm glad this person found a point of interest with me. Its been awesome! :)

URBANA

I dont' know if anyone reads this. I sometimes I wish I had comments so then I could smile and think "someone is listening". Anyway, this I hope someone hears. I went to the Urbana website today. I found a treasure. Its, well, its my heart beat. Sound corny, sure, but it is. anyway, let me walk you through this. Go to Urbana website, then go to Dec 29 and then hit on the stream that says Theatre: Translation. Its amazing to me. I loved it. Anyway, check it out. The second guy is well, amazing, man to me, thats the gospel!

I Quit

Today I decided to quit. I decided that its time for me to lay some stuff down. I have decided to let my anger down. I don't know how I will accomplish this, but I have faith through God to help me. I have decided I'm no longer going to be defined. This brings anger in me. The only one I can trust to define me is God Himself.

I'm tired of fighting, I'm tired of pretending, I'm wanting to grow and right now I am not. I am spinning in a circle over and over. Its time to be real about where I am and doing something about it.

Now I'm fearful that this is just more emotion speaking, I pray it is not. I have let myself become trap by something that isn't real and I'm afraid that I will let it continue to happen. Afraid I will let my weariness take over and become lazy. I also fear loss. Loss of myself, people, and support.

Its time to let go again. I don't know for sure if I can completly do it but I think I should. I think its time.

*turns around and looks at the playground* I wonder if it was safe the whole time and I let myself think it wasn't. *smiles* I think I will come back again sometime my friend.

Anger

Well, if you could see me now. I'm sitting here sad and frustrated. I'm sitting here blushing over my frustration and out burst.

I just, well, I feel left out, I feel I'm falling behind. I keep trying to reach for that healing power..........................

One of the things that I picture in my mind is reaching out to touch Jesus' garment. I keep thinking in my mind if I could just reach that peice, just that little piece I would be o-kay. I think I'm slipping again. I'm fighting it but it is happening. I can tell by the way I have been reacting to things, such as my last post. I can see it the way I'm responding to people.

Goes to the swing, lets her mind clear, sways back and forth, higher and higher,hhhhhhhhhhhmmmmmmmm...............I can breathe again...................smiles, I can feel the air against my face. I think I shall stay awhile longer this time.

A BIG FAT RANT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I am NOT, NOR do I EVER want to be PoMo, NOR do I EVER want to be MoMo!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I hate these following words:
fundie
conservative
modern
postmodern
liberal

I wish these words would take a flying leap and die!!!!!!!!!! I wish the people who used them would choke on them anytime the freakn' used these words. I'm hate the meaning that comes behind them.

You think being PoMo is so cool? You think that PoMo makes you better than anyone? Get a freakn' clue and listen up. When you put any kindof restraint on God and say "this, this Lord is the only way You can move" you have just become your own worst freakn' modern enemy!!!!!!!!! Do you honestly think that people are out there wanting to bow down to you because you have made the big plunge into PoMO!!! Come on!!! You are just as bad as those horrible moderns who follow after Colson,Dobson,_________________(fill in your own damn blank). You freakn' fall at the feet of Jay Baker,McLaren,___________________(fill in your own damn blank). Don't you see it!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Open your eyes!!!!!!!!!!!!!! You have missed it! You are failing!!!!! There is a world out there wanting to be reached. There is a world out there wanting to know that their lives are worth something and that there is hope. Open your eyes and see that God is saying "You are not of this world, your are living in it"!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Don't you see God is screaming "let go of what is in your right hand, it is a lie". If you think you have found your life in PoMoism you have not, it will bit you in the ass!!!! PoMo is of this world, PoMo is the nature of the world!!!!! We are to reach to this world. We are to love the people and care for them. Yes, we should understand their thinking but not ALL people of this world are Postmodern. People wake up!!!!!! WAKE UP!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Don't be blinded any more!!!!!
You are right truth is not found in our churches today. Alot of hurt and alot of shit is!!! Alot of people with their shiny happy faces on and acting as though they are christians. Its sick! BUT if you think PoMo is the answer for what is making our church communities you are wrong!!! YOU ARE DEAD WRONG
I sat in a church today and felt more of myself become more and more ailianted. I found myself stuffing my ears so I wouldn't have to hear the crap coming out of these "wise christian" men's mouths. I have so much pride in me that it isn't funny. I have so much hurt in me I don't know what to do any more. I'm sinning and hurting every day and the only way I'm surviving is in the promise of the Lord Jesus Christ. He is the only Real Truth in my life.
So take your PoMo crap and stuff it!!!! Wake up!!!!!!!!!

LISTEN UP

O-kay so I'm wondering, have we gotten ourselves too interested in this
PoMo Good, Modern Bad
or even
Modern Good, PoMo Bad
I mean honestly, I keep hearing around me the evils of ______________(your fill in the blank) so much lately, it makes me sick. I don't want to hear it any more, unless you have a solution or you have something to bring to the table I just don't want to hear it.

WHAT WHO ME?!?!?!?!???

Well, I just had a crazy thing happen to me last night. I have thinking and praying how I could serve the church I am in right now. Well, I have made a friend,Gillian, here that I know God has blessed me with. I had a burden to ask her about if she was going to have a another women's retreat. Well I told her what was on my mind about it.
Gillian and I meet once a week to talk about life, God, family,ect. Last night I met with her. She has been praying about the Ladies Retreat and things I told her about. To my surprise she had asked if I lead it this year with her help, then as we started talking she felt lead to ask me if I would be the SPEAKER!!!!!!!!!!! O-kay y'all now I'm scared. I don't know that I see myself as a speaker. YIKES!!! I do know that what we are wanting to talk about and do is what I have a passion for. So yeah, I think I will get my thoughts more together and I will post the topic, ect at some point. Anyway, until next time.......................

TO EMERGE OR NOT TO EMERGE

O-kay so I have been stewing. I have been angry. I love a website I go to. It has been awesome but lately, well, I'm just not happy. Someone said something that has been hard for me to chew on. They said something like this "you are putting too much burden on yourself and on others." I know that I put a burden on myself. but do I with others. I hope not. I try not to. This really bothers me. It isn't settling well with me. I never want anyone to feel that they have a certian thing they have to live up to. I just want them to be apart of my life and me apart of their's and grow. Maybe I have though. I don't know.

O-kay, to Emerge or not to Emerge,this statement has been going through my mind. To be PoMo, to not be PoMo. Can you even decide. I just know that I'm struggling along in some ways to survive in a church that (to me) does not function as a church. I want so badly to have community. I want so badly to feel connected to something with a greater purpose, I know, I know I am already, but man, there is nothing like being apart of a community that gets "it". That understands God's wonderful love and purpose of His people. There is no greater thing than to walk along with others, to grow, to stretch, to just get on with it. That is my deepest desire. It is a lonely place for me sometimes. Its hard. So maybe that is where the burden of others come in. I put the burden on others and maybe the ooze (the message board I got to) to feed that "monster" in me. I don't know. I don't know that it hopeless. I have found freinds that desire to look at church through a different lens, I'm just sad that I may have hurt them along the way as of late.
So I wonder, is it even worth for me to keep pondering the question of "what should the church be" if there are deeper things that I should be worried about. I wonder if all this is teaching me a lesson and if I'm willing to learn it, that even in the journey there are going to be times that my talk is going to be tested. Maybe this the time.
Then again I could just be taking this too seriously. I might should just sit back and shut up and go back to the playground. I haven't been there in awhile. It would be nice. hhhhhhhhhhhmmmmmmmmmmmmm.......................I can almost see the swing and the feel of the wind............................yeah I just might go.