where else can i go?

John 6:68-69
Simon Peter answered him, "Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life. We believe and know that you are the Holy One of God."

So, with that truth in mind, where else can I go? There is nothing other than God that will heal my heart or bring me peace.

Cling to Jesus

Nighttimes are the loneliest. When the world slows down and my mind has time to think about what I've lost, that's when my heart hurts the most. It is when I want to fall asleep and not wake up until life is okay again, but I don't know when that will be. It is when I miss my friends the most and being able to go to Jessica's on a moment's notice if I need to. It is when I remember texting Nick and having him keep me company, if only through a cellphone.

I lost my best friend, my comforter, my lover, my future, hopes, and dreams. All in one instance. And I don't know what God is doing, but I do know that it hurts.

However, today at church a man came up to me who has known me since I was a child. He told me that he had prayed for me just as the service ended, asking God to bless me. God answered him as though He were actually in the room and told Richard, "You have no idea how greatly I am going to bless her." My heart has trouble believing that this pain is a blessing and that this time of searching and questioning is going to bear fruit. But all I have left is God and I must realize that He is sufficient from moment to moment. I do not know where this dark path leads, but I do know that it will take me to light someday. Therefore, all I can do now is press into Jesus and cling to Him.

Dr. Michael Pahl, former professor of New Testament at Prairie and now a pastor at Lendrum MB in Edmonton, wrote in his address to the junior/senior students at Prairie this year the following excerpt:

"...when suffering hits you hard, walk with Jesus.

Life doesn't just throw curveballs, soemtimes it pitches right at your head. And you can't always duck out of the way, then get up and dust yourself off to face another pitch. Sometimes you writhe around in pain on the playing field of life, and sometimes you have to be carried off in a stretcher.

At those times, there is no vocational skill that will make sense of any of this for you; but neigther is there any theology that will share the pain searing your soul; there is no philosophy that will come alongside you and wrap you in its arms; there is no biblical exegesis that will weep with you and sit with you in silence. But Jesus will, and your Jesus friends will, and you will do this for your friends, being Jesus to them even as they are Jesus to you. This is God's answer to your suffering: he weeps with you, wraps you in his arms, he absorbs your pain into himself, he enters into your suffering as he has already entered into the suffering of the world in Jesus.

So when suffering hits you hard, walk with Jesus."

I will probably post more from his address later on, but if you want to read the entirety of it for yourself (it's amazing, by the by), here is the link:

http://michaelpahl.wordpress.com/2010/04/18/cling-to-jesus/#comment-102

Well, I have some cover letters to finish so that I can fax some resumes tomorrow. If anyone is actually reading this, then please pray that I will be able to find a job quickly. I am rather nervous but God is faithful and He provides.

-Elisa.

Standing Stones

Tonight I feel like I'm drowning under the pain and lost in this ocean of questions without answers and dreams that don't have an ending. I don't understand what God is doing right now and I am constantly trying to figure out what I need to do to "fix" this. But every time that I think about what I could do, God gently but firmly reminds me that He wants me to be still and know that He is God. That He wants me to trust Him and simply know that I am resting in His arms and walking in His will, even though everything seems so very dark these days.

I wrote this poem just over a year ago and I found it again a couple of days ago when I was cleaning out my room. It seems applicable now more than it did when I wrote it.

The darkness is warm,
even though it is full of negative connotations
Here I must simply walk;
I cannot run for I will fall
But when I walk, there is comfort
because when I walk, I trust

And, looking back, it is lighter
so I can see my standing stones*
They testify to His provision,
saving me from the wilderness
and the desolation of myself

Now I walk on, holding to nothing
but knowing my Lifeline
Even when I grope for a stronghold
and cry out as I stumble,
there is a peacefulness that calms me
and I can walk on,
knowing I am walking in the light,
even though it is dark

*The Jewish people erected standing stones as monuments to things God had done for them (i.e., battles won, plagues removed, etc.) to remind themselves of His provision when it seemed as though He wasn't favoring them.

A New Beginning

I have decided that it's time to resurrect my blog, even though I have only used it sporadically over the past few years. I want to share with friends what is in my heart and on my mind because I have found that I understand more about myself when I am sharing with others. I also think best when I am writing, so this is the best of both worlds. I am hoping to post often, even if it's simply a Bible verse or song lyrics that have encouraged me throughout my day. I also hope to share what God is teaching me and what He is showing me this summer.

So, for this "first" post (I am not erasing the few other posts from previous years) I want to share a song that my beautiful best friend Jessica showed me the other day. I first heard this song when my friends' mom died this past December. I didn't hear it again until Tuesday, when Jessica and I were talking about it and how she wanted me to hear it because it applied to our lives right now.

It's called "Safe" and is by Phil Wickham. This song has been on repeat for the past three days, and it is the promise that God is constantly reminding me about whenever I am feeling alone and broken (so most of the time). Enjoy.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qw8LeAM5KOI

Well, that's about all for now.

-Elisa.

Brokenness

I wrote this a couple of years ago about myself. It's my testimony in a relative nutshell.

Her brokenness...there was nothing beautiful about it, no ray of sunshine could make it through the darkness to hit the shattered glass and cause a glimmer of hope. There was just...nothing there. At least, that's what she wished were there. Sometimes she could feel nothing and that brought a modicum of...a sort of peace...into her life. But it never lasted. There was always something to pull her back down into darkness again. A glance misinterpreted, a whisper misconstrued...that was all it took to push her under.

Other days she was more afraid of feeling nothing than she was of feeling the horrendous pain that aloneness brought. There was only one way, only one way...only one way. And it was such a shameful way...she shouldn't even be thinking of it...because it was just so...wrong. Everything about it was distasteful. But maybe it would make someone realize how wrong her life was, how hard she was trying to keep going, struggling to find light. Maybe they would finally pay attention and just HELP her. Just...help her.

Every time she hurt herself she fell farther into the pit, farther from beauty, farther from love, farther from everything. There was nothing to hold her back anymore, except the shame...and that also helped to push, more than it pulled her away from hurting herself. And yet no one paid any attention, unless it was to mock her. Mercilessly. Call attention to her problem and then. Pick her apart. Into little little pieces. Tiny. And then step on her and push her back where she belonged. Except she didn't belong there. She never did, but she didn't no any place else she was welcome. So she clung to the darkness, hiding from the light and anyone who might have saved her, if they had cared enough...or if she hadn't been so ashamed to tell them.

Then one day...she found them. More like herself. People she could innately trust and be comfortable with because they were like her. They knew her pain. What she was going through. And it felt nice to be understood...no matter how dangerous it was. She liked it. For once there was no shame. There was no aloneness. She was...whole? Or a close replica of it...completely distorted by smoke and mirrors, of course. They helped her with her pain. Helped take it away. But...it couldn't last...because it was even more wrong than before. So much much more wrong. And the light was slowly coming in, to expose the darkness for what it was...and it scared her. She tried to run and fight it off, but there is no fighting the Light when it wants you. And it wanted her...badly. She could her it whispering, calling, pleading for her to return. To let the shattered glass shine more beautifully than ever before. Should she? She knew she should. Could she? She could. She knew that much. But...would she? No...it was too scary.

You must, it told her. It was scary...the darkness was grey now and getting lighter. There was nowhere to hide anymore. But the shame was still there...and she couldn't get away from it but she couldn't hide it, either. The grey failed her like the darkness never had. But slowly, slowly, she realized how wrong, how twisted her thinking had become. The light...it hurt...but it was good to hurt again...in a healthy way. To face the darkness and tell it off. To tell it to leave her be. It felt healthy...clean...safe...to embrace the light. But sometimes she still saw the darkness lurking in the corners, reaching, marring the cleanliness with its tendrils. But it was a matter of turning her back on the darkness and running farther into the light.

But what about the others? What about the ones that had tried to help? She didn't know...she never really found out...she found that whenever she returned to the edge of the darkness to call for them, she felt the dark taking her again and she had to leave them there. And did her shattered glass shine brighter? She hopes it does...she thinks it does. It's something about the eyes.

searching

Lately I have found myself shutting out everyone from my life, including my best friends. There is something telling me that if I let anyone in, they will take that trust and break it by leaving me. I have been left a lot in my life, especially by myself. There's a song by BarlowGirl called "Surrender" that has a line in it that says "my dreams are me". It's very true about me. For a very long time, I have lived my life as a life built on dreams. But they aren't sufficient, because so often they make me dissatisfied with what God has provided me with here and now. And now, I have these dreams that I don't know where they will take me. In the now, I am working at an assisted living retirement home and it's hard to get up and go to work every day but I have to because it is how I am going to get to my dreams. But if I get my dreams and lose God on the way, what's the point of reaching my dreams? I don't know what to pray for anymore, either. I feel selfish when I pray for wisdom, peace, or strength to face today because I feel as though I should already possess those things, as someone who has been to Bible school for a year and is "educated" in the Bible. My faith is so weak and my actions are so small. How can I reach a lost world when I can't even help myself? How can I be a voice crying in the wilderness, when the only wilderness that I see is the one that is inside my own heart?

I am lonely.

weariness and incapabilities

Sometimes I wish that I could go back to the safe cocoon of elementary school, especially grade 2 and 3. There was nothing to be afraid of except the dark and the biggest event in my life occurred when the Scholastic Book Club sent out its latest issue and I could finally order the new Ramona book that I had wanted for ages. Life was good, life was simple. Life revolved around pretend games, hide-and-seek, and reading books in the tree in my front yard, high up in the branches where nothing could hurt me. My best friends were the Bernstein Bears, Emily of New Moon, and the members of the Babysitters Club. Life was full of golden light, even during the winter, because then we could go skating on the sloughs and holding 'carnivals' for our pretend figure-skating lessons. Nothing could hurt me.
But now I find myself being stretched and pulled everyday and having to make decisions everyday that will somehow affect me down the road, even though I don't know what the consequences may be before I make my choice. I find myself searching for who I am among what others think I am and the truths of God's word vs. the images/nuances of society. I find myself looking to be more eloquent than I am, more knowledgeable than I could ever hope to be. Because of these things, I have trouble enjoying the moment that I am in because I am never good enough to please myself. And, because I am not good enough to please myself, then how could I ever please the God who created me?
Sometimes I want the world to simply slow down so I can gather my thoughts and lay them out in a logical order and find some sort of pattern or just see God's hand at work. I just need time. But I don't have it. Or, maybe I do have it, but I waste it on meaningless pursuits. But some of these pursuits bring me happiness, and that's something that I am not very willing to give up these days. I am scared of walking towards that cliff again, not knowing whether there will be Someone to catch me when I walk off of it. I don't know if I have the strength to go through that darkness again, but I see it lurking on the sidelines everyday, just waiting for me to stumble one more time.
And then I feel selfish for feeling as I do. For hurting as I do. For wanting Someone to notice and somehow reach out a hand to stop me from falling or to just pour love into my life that can change how I think. I want to open my heart wide for God's grace to flow in, but then it must again flow out and be reflected in my life but I don't have the strength to do that. This is all that I am and I am weak. I am imperfect. And that is all that I have to offer a broken world that needs so much more than I have to give.