this story keeps me up at night.

more news has emerged from the sueppel case which i mentioned earlier. it's a terrible tragedy. this guy had a messed up theology and thought that if he killed his family on easter they would rise with Jesus. he had been planning on killing his entire family since he got caught embezzling money. one thought is that the money was used for the adoptions or health issues as a few of the children had some health concerns. he truly loved his family and thought that what he was doing was the best for them.

so, the funeral is saturday. and a group is coming to protest the funeral of the family of six. they are saying that this is a judgment on iowa because of the sins of the state and city. i'm not completely sure. but, things like this completely frustrate me. they make me so....so....angry.

news story.

i like this story.

if you have a chance you should read this.

if you're from iowa...you've probably heard this news story. but, you can check out the article here. words cannot describe the feelings that emerge as i think about this situation. often you see things on the news and it seems so far away...and fairly unbelievable. you hear that the one who committed the crime seemed 'normal and friendly' but you rarely believe it. this story is just heart breaking....with so many questions left unanswered. why did this guy need so much money? how could he kill his family one by one in such a methodical manner? it wasn't a gun shot which is one simple pull of the trigger....but, the probable cause of death was a swing of a bat...or something else....to five different individuals! and....kids! how...? why...? on the news they have videos of the husband playing with his kids on the floor in front of the Christmas tree. it just doesn't make sense to me. my mother used to work with the wife, Sheryl, at school. the death of this family will impact the entire community. how could it not? how can children understand that their classmates will not be returning to school? and...how can students wrap their minds around the fact their teacher is now gone? it's awful. how is this rightly dealt with? be in prayer for the family of the deceased. for those impacted in the community. for the neighborhood and the school where three of the children attended. that's all.


i am overwhelmed by oh so many things.

movement.

perhaps i shouldn't be allowed to travel so freely. it makes my mind and emotions race at incredible speeds. i enter the airport...and i inevitably have a heavy heart combined with a profuse excitement. i attribute this to a burden and weight for what i am leaving...but an excitement for what is to come. traveling alone also messes with my heart. i long for a connector between the different worlds i experience. my life in LA and my life in iowa....and my life with JV. it's not that i am a different person in these different situations. i am fully me in each place....but different components of my personality and being are exposed depending upon the circumstance and the people that surround me. (i may sound fairly confident that this is what is occuring...but, i'm really just attempting to articulate what i feel is going on within me). at certain points i simply ignore that longing for my worlds to be connected. it's easier for me to deal with the disappointment that they can't be. but, i am feeling more and more that this longing for congruency should be embraced. as i sat and waited for the nice lady to rile up all the passengers to cram onto the plane, i realized one strong tendency within me. A tendency which, as i mulled it over more and more, caused me to realize another way in which humas are made in the image of God. This is because it seems as if God desires this as well. It is the desire to share things, which i deem worthy, with others. It seems God desires to share with us things which excite him as well. he longs for us to see reality....

for instance with me, this past semester i got hooked w/ disneyland. it's not that i am despartely in love with mickey mouse or everything disney. i could probably write another incredibly long entry upon why i have enjoyed going to disney so much of the past few months. however, my main point right now is that i enjoyed disney so much....i desired others to experience and enjoy it as well. i talked multiple people into getting passes. now....they were leaning in the direction of getting passes anyways....but, i did probably do a bit of twisting to get them to actually purchase. now....i have so many people to enjoy this experience with! i have also caused multiple people to see enchanted now that may not have if they had their own choice. i just found it funny...and wanted others to have the oppurtunity to laugh. my heart has churned up the question as to what would happen if i were to be as excited about the workings of God in my life as i am about disneyland, or a certain movie?
wow. so question: why am i not as excited about God? i don't really have an answer to that question. however, i realize that my program has done a work in my heart as i don't have an overwhelming sense of guilt b/c i lack these feelings. i have an excitement to see what God is doing amidst this realization. i know that i should probably feel this certain way....but i do not. the answer is not found in squinting my eyes, or singing really loud, or dancing around, or praying harder in various positions. however, i do acknowledge in prayer the reality of where my heart is at (which he graciously revealed to me). then, i open to what the Spirit of God desires to show me concerning this particular issue. why am i not excited about him in my life as i once have been?

i feel like these two ideas (the one about desiring a connector between the different places i experience and the idea concerning my inability to be rightly excited to share God with others) is connected in some way.

in all these different places i interact with different people. each person brings their own distinct ideologies and theologies to life. some are in direct contrast with others, however, most simply remain unaware the other exists. but, i feel like i must defend the other side since it is unknown by the other person. an example could help clarify. the spiritual formation program that i am a part of definately has it's own language in the articulation of the process of sanctification. since being in school i have been inundated with new ideas and ways of thinking about things which conflict (or are at least difficult for me to make congruent) with the ways which i have been familiarized with in life. many of these news ideas are good and i can really begin to see the truth, while some are a bit more difficult for me to completely embrace. however, i return to the old place and these new ideas, which are good, are not always well received. i feel unable to explain them well to others. it makes me feel alone. the new ideas received at school are still new to me. the old ways are like an old pair of jeans that have already been broken in. they slip back on comfortably...and then the new pair of jeans (which may be much nicer) look completely foreign again, and thus undesirable. this enhances the feeling of loneliness because no place is comfortable anymore. no place is home. no place is secure. and i long for those things. that's why traveling is difficult. because it reminds me that place i desire, the place of safety and security, is non-existent. if i stay in one place for so long...i can begin to think i have congruency. but....who am i fooling? i realize that i could perhaps be longing for something which will never be met on this side of heaven. but, i feel like this is the entire point of traveling down this path of ideas and feelings. to realize that my hope is yet to come.


sigh. so...i long for my friends in california to see and know my family. i long for my JV friends to see and understand all the new things i've learned and been exposed to. I sometimes long for my family to understand the new ideas i have. although, admittedly i often just enjoy the safety of superficiality within my family.

in any event. i've been thinking alot. feeling alot. noticing alot. alert alot. wondering alot. having pains in my heart alot. observing alot. just....resting. i thought i'd share the mixture of things my heart has been feeling in the past few days.

jonah...meet abbie.

home.

home.
i've been thinking about home much in the past few weeks. this small word holds much weight. what does home mean? it's a safe place. a place of rest. a place of comfort. a place where you're taken care of. a place you long for. a place you don't want to leave. it's home.
i don't know where home is anymore. in some capacities it's been lost along the way, but in other ways my concept of home has been enhanced. i was listening to this song a bit over the past week or so. (the fantastic thing about making new friends is being introduced to music they have been exposed to). in any event... these words struck a chord in me (no pun intended) and i thought i'd share. i also found the song on youtube so you can actually hear it. i like the dudes voice. i think he might be asian too, right? anywho....that's all i got.

lyrics by future of forestry.
"gazing"

From this blessed morning
My love constant has been pouring
Pouring out like rivers to Your heart
Glory bells are ringing
I can't keep myself from singing
Singing out like rivers to Your heart

Oh, Lord, I have found my place in this home, this home inside of You
And here, my Lord, I can see Your face
In this home, this home inside of You

Like a child I'm gazing
Into wondrous grace
For You have been the love that fell like sun upon my face
Like a child I'm gazing
Into wondrous love
You're taking me to places that my heart is dreaming of

Broken I was crawling
And You saw my tears were falling
Falling down like rivers to Your heart
When my world was folding
God, You saw my prayers were flowing
Flowing out like rivers to Your heart

Hear the sacred songs that touch the earth and the sky
See them rise until they move like stars within Your eyes

stirrings.

stuff has been stirring up recently. this past weekend i went on a retreat with those in the first year of my program as well as the ISF faculty. there were about 40 of us in all and we split into a few different groups. within these groups we shared our 'life maps.' basically... important circumstances/events/people are marked with different colored sticky notes on a small posterboard from birth until the present. difficult things are written on green sticky notes, while things which were a time of grace are marked with blue and others events are yellow. at the end you have a board covered in sticky notes of all colors. times of trial stand out because they're completely green. (my entire time during thailand was green). it was an interesting experience. i must admit it wasn't anything incredibly new to me. (sharing ones life and letting oneself be known). i didn't have the same experience as others who went up on the retreat. my feelings were mixed concerning the entire thing.

we were split into smaller groups and after sharing my life map with the other 4 members of my group they had an opportunity to share w/ me things which they saw or heard within my time of sharing. this could be anything....and they said these things after spending a few moments with the Lord asking what they should say. anywho...what came out of that time of sharing was interesting. i have had a lot of experiences in groups of people (on various overseas teams, etc) and different relationships with people. within these relationships i have felt God's love in real ways. although...most of these people have slipped out of my life, moved on, or hurt me deeply. because i identified these people's relationship w/ me similiar to how i viewed and understood God's relationship to me...it has caused me to have an incomplete view of God. i take my understanding of other people and attribute their love/interactions with me as similar to those of God's towards me. instead of understanding God's love through other people...i should begin to understand God's love from God himself. it's a process of maturity.... and one which i feel like God is beckoning me towards.

in ways my life feels scattered. i feel like i have all these different fragments and no constant (rough reference to LOST here). i don't have anything that pulls all these ares of my life together. the iowa part. the josiah venture part. the thailand part. the ukraine part. the parkview part. the ames part. the iowa city part. the overseas part. the california part. sometimes...i feel lonely and isolated....even though i am surrounded by some of the best community i have ever experienced. i guess i do have that need (as everyone does) to be known. and...i am going through a mourning process as i realize more fully that i will never be fully and completely known by any one person. while, i could have verbalized this to you a week ago...i am beginning to feel it more and more as God takes me through different experiences. completing my life map over the weekend made me realize this more and more. this IS some of the best community i have experienced in life.... but, soon it will just be another sticky note on my lifemap. i will move away from this place...from these people. they will move on in life too. and... that makes me feel a deep sadness and loneliness.

i am connected more with people then with God. i feel God's love through other people...and it needs to come from him first. One of the books i have read for class states: "one will tend to present oneself to God on the basis of what one imagines is the 'right way' to relate to God, and one will tend to experience God in the way one expects to experience him." Basically the book proposes that we all have different structures in which we understand and comprehend our interactions with others. Our interactions with God will fit this same schema. messages will only be communicated insofar as the recipient is ready to receive it (pg 83). our perceptions of what is going on around us are distorted by our past experiences (the developed schema in which we interpret our interactions with others). are you guys still with me? ok...so...basically if we come across something which doesn't fit into our developed schema...then we will interpret it in such a way so that it WILL fit in. and...basically because humans are fallen...my interactions w/ fallen humans will never be sufficient for the reality of who God is. therefore...i must move from using relationships w/ others as a means to understand God's love and move more towards knowing God's love. I am definitely not saying that God isn't made known through relationships with others...i definitely think he is. However, at some point in life we grow past this childish understanding and comprehending.

my longing for a constant in life is good. sometimes God provides those blessings in life. sometimes they are taken away. but, it's all in sweet process of knowing God in a fuller and more complete way. That's the basic jist of this entry. i am excited as i feel God luring me on towards a deeper relationship with him...and one which i didn't even fathom was needed or possible a few weeks ago. i'm no longer simply trudging along. i feel like...i am understanding more and more how this Christian life is an opening of ourselves to another. not to an idea...but, a being. a person. sigh. but, i suppose that rant is for another entry. props to those who read to the end. this may or may not have made sense. there is a lot going on within these different thoughts and so many tangents to be explored. a key one is the idea of a 'constant' in my life....one whom knows these different components about me. is this needed in life? not really....but, i suppose it causes me to feel isolated. but...this is probably a good thing...as i don't grasp my identity from others. sigh.... ENOUGH. Now PICTURES!

the good looking peeps in our car. debi. me. wes. and carly.

melody and me and panera bread. an incredibly sweet girl whom i have had the blessing of getting to know this year. we get to be in a small group together and benefit from hearing pete's amazing analogies.

this is me and kate. she's a beautiful woman with a soft heart. she's a blast to hang out with...and i laugh w/ her alot. i also have a warm knee...b/c she likes to grab it and hold it in class. i let her...she's that cool.

**the book is titled: The practice of Spiritual Direction by William Barry and William Connolly.