Be thou my vision

Be thou my vision
oh Lord of my heart
naught be all else to me
save that thou art
Thou my best thought
by day or by night
waking or sleeping
thy presence my light

I was listening to this song in my car while I was driving today and I began thinking about where I am at in life.  I can honestly tell you that without God’s direction in my life, I would be completely lost.  I also know that I fight him every step of the way.  I am terrified to put my trust in a God that I cannot see.  I hate that I MUST trust this God though, because without him, I cannot be.   I want so desperately to be able to jump when he says jump, go when he says go and trust him despite the uncertainty. 

Be thou my wisdom
and thou my true word
thy ever with thee
and thou with me Lord
thou my great father
and I thy true son
thou in me dwelling
and I with thee one

I have wandered off this narrow path we Christians like to talk about.  although I am not doing anything crazy, I am more wandering off the path with my heart. There is so much I don’t know or understand, and rather than walk through it in faith, i revert to myself and trust what I know best, not what he knows best.  I have to constantly remind myself that God is infinity smarter than me. But, arrogant that I am, that fact is constantly forgotten.  I mention my path abandoning because I still feel Jesus walking with me.  I kind of see it like this.  Jesus hates sin.  I am walking in a path riddled with sin.  Jesus loves me. I still love Jesus. Jesus walks with me even though i walk through muck. I hope that’s theologically sound. Because I just know that I love him, and I feel him all around me, even though I am trying to do life my own way instead of his way.

Riches I heed not
nor man’s empty praise
Thou mine inheritance
now and always
thou and thou only
first in my heart
high king of heaven
my treasure thou art

I want what this verse sings about.  I desire with so much to have it. I want to make Jesus first in my life, because I have experienced what life is like when I do. I know how to get there too. how peaceful and rewarding life is when its done his way.  Ive tried it my way MANY times. Many many times. and it is SO possible but also SO much more difficult.

High king of heaven
my victory won
May i reach heavens joys
oh bright heav’ns son
heart of my own heart
whatever befall
still be my vision
Oh ruler of all

I write not to give myself away. I write from the heart. I write to tell of my continuing process of salvation.  to write of the ease in my heart straying from him. To write of my broken humanity.  To write of his ever enduring love.  I write because I love him so passionately, so deeply, and yet, I still find it hard to trust him, to obey him, and to follow his commands. I write in vulnerability. I write with passion.  I write because I want him to be my vision.

Ive been wanting to be a bone marrow donor for forever, and i watched an episode of extreme makeover and decided i would. This is the first step :)

Dear Mom,

It's been 7 months, 18 days since I last heard your voice. I miss you alot. even though we didnt talk much those last 5 months, you being alive was like a quiet strength i used to keep my head high and my heart strong. I've learned not to lean on people anymore. they go away, ya know? You know I was talking to someone the other day and they say your store has gone to crap since you've been gone. Nothing has been stocked. I know you would be happy and frusterated by that news. More happy, i hope. I wanted so bad to just channel up there wherever you are and tell you. I hope your enjoying it. I wish i was with you. SOmetimes, Life is so hard and confusing when your doing it without the things that made you strong. I found your old journal about God. its pretty inspiriing. i wish I could feel your skin and see your face. look in your eyes and braid your hair or something. death and greif is such a... hopeless feeling. i feel hopeless. death. hurts so bad. and i cant control or fix this one. your gone and thats just how it is. will the break in my heart ever go away? Im almost finished with my CNA class. I take my state exam on the 19th. hopefully I can go work at the Denali Center as a CNA. You inspired that in me you know. anyways.. i desperately miss you.

13Brothers, we do not want you to be ignorant about those who fall asleep, or to grieve like the rest of men, who have no hope. 14We believe that Jesus died and rose again and so we believe that God will bring with Jesus those who have fallen asleep in him. 15According to the Lord's own word, we tell you that we who are still alive, who are left till the coming of the Lord, will certainly not precede those who have fallen asleep. 16For the Lord himself will come down from heaven, with a loud command, with the voice of the archangel and with the trumpet call of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first. 17After that, we who are still alive and are left will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And so we will be with the Lord forever. 18Therefore encourage each other with these words.


Requiem

--Jackie

love

For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son, that whosoever believes in him, shall not perish but have everlasting life - John 3:16

What do I even know about love? I know how to love others.. I know how to be love for others.. but i dont know how to accept love. Someone told me once that God brags about me. I ask: to who? and why? Someone once told me, God melts when he looks at you. I ask: how does that work, and why? I dont know how to accept love. I don't know if i'll ever be able to accept it. Love wasn't something prevailiant in my life. Love.. came after i met Christ. but even then. why? WHy would you love me? why would you send your son to die for this wretch? why? I believe he did it, but why?

God, is love. I just dont get love. I mean, i see it. I do, i really do. in my church and pastors that care for me even when im a jerk, and love me despite all I do. I know it, ive felt it, I just have a hard time processing it. Its been on my mind for the past couple days. Someone once told me that I need to love myself before I can properly love others. I think they might be true. I just pray God shows me how to accept it. maybe the first moment of acceptance is loving myself? im just not sure.

-jackie

My heart cries to fly

  I’ve been sitting in a pit (proverbially of course) of mud.  I knew i should have gotten up and cleaned myself off, but the effort of the whole thing seemed too hard to attempt.  In fact, the mud didn’t seem too bad. The mud almost seemed comfortable.  The more i sat in it, the less I wanted to walk into the sunshine, enjoy smelling flowers and other cool things people who don’t sit in proverbially mud pits do.  The reality of it is, I was tired.  so tired.  too tired.  I didn’t want to push myself anymore. I didn’t want to hear God cheering me on.  I turned everything off and sat.  what a life to live. 

Funny thing about sitting in mud pits however, is that Jesus didn’t make us to sit in mud pits.  He came that we may have life and have it to the full.  there was nothing full about my mud pit lifestyle except me.  I was full of myself.  Anyways, through a series of events and unhappiness at my pit life, a couple hands reached down and picked me up despite my better efforts and warding them off.

Guess what?  I like standing outside the mud.  Although i learned tons in the pit, im learning even more out of it.  there is only so much you can learn about your situation before there is nothing left to learn.  Strangely, the pit life sucked me of passion and excitement.  The desires that make me me, withered to nothing.. but now.. Oh now.. My heart is crying again. 
Not a bad crying.  now, my heart cries to fly.  God i want to fly away to lands with strange food and animals, people that dont look or think like me, and i want to learn from them and teach them about living outside the pit.  teach them about living to fly. 

John 10:10 ~ I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full, I have not come into the world to condemn the world, but to save it.

livin in the pit?  take a chance and try to stand.  the perspective up here is alot better, I promise.

--Jackie

The beauty of my home

Its summer time.  that means people come home to where they have been for various reasons like school, work, seasonal jobs, vacations (year long?).  Because i have been home, I have gotten to see many of these summer visitations.  I have gotten to visit with beautiful people. it being summer, i also get to look at all the beautiful things that have given way to life. trees, 9 months dead, now green with life.

This past couple weeks, well actually, all summer, have smothered Alaska with smoke from the many thousands of acres burning from forest fires. recently however, the smoke has been close to Fairbanks, where I currently reside. Visibility in the city sucks.

 

  

 

Anyways, I went with my youth group to Denali National Park on a yearly camping trip called CCC (short for communist chipmunk camp) [don’t ask why that’s what its called ha-ha] And there was NO smoke and the sun was even out.  It was the most glorious thing i have ever seen.

  

 

 

 

 

Savage River!

 

 

 

Tori and I

 

 

The beauty of Denali National Park!

 

 

Anyways, I REALLY appreciated the sun and no smoke and seeing how pretty everything was that it just made me appreciate it so much more. its kinda like that with the crappy things in life. That’s all you see when its happening. But when it lifts, whenever that is, you appreciate the beauty way more than if the crap hadn’t been there.

if everything was good in our lives, i don’t think we’d appreciate it nearly as much as we do after we experience crap.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

that wind that blows me home

I am sitting in the parking lot at a place called Alaska land. well technically, its called Pioneer Park but anyone who has lived in Fairbanks their entire lives know what its really called.  regardless, I am in my beautiful busted reconstructed Ford Explorer with the windows down at 11 at night and the wind is blowing through one window and out the other. 

Ever since I can remember, I have connected with the wind in my life.  Not in a super spiritual way but it has always seemed to calm me down in my anger, bring peace in my pain, and remind me in my loneliness.

Tonight, as i sit here with words upon words in my head i am brought peace.  The wind goes everywhere.  No matter where i go it will be there.  Kinda the same thing with god.  I have been going back and forth, up and down thinking about who god is to me.  my life. my purpose.  But its comforting to know that no matter where i am, just like the wind, god is there.

--Jackie