youthful discretion.

I've been reading back through old blog posts. A few things are very obvious.

Firstly, that I have been on quite the journey over the previous year. It's incredible.

Secondly, that I have been very, very raw in these writings. Much more so than I've really realized.

Thirdly, that I'm not so old at this. Reading my thoughts from even seven or eight months ago reminds me how new I am. How young I am in faith. I don't mean here to discount any sort of natural intelligence or intuition, or sense of God's presence, but just to remind myself that I've come a long way, but that there is much, much further to go. And I need the help and wisdom of those above me, those ahead of me. This admission in itself is remarkable proof of God's work in my life--in recent past, I have been vehemently opposed to being called anything close to "young in faith." I've snottily rejected help.

Humility hurts me. I start to feel insecure when I think about humbling myself to the knowledge and grace of others. It brings out all that is in me that tells me to always be strong, and always be right, because that's the way to survive. I have to gently remind myself, and pray that He reminds me, that my identity is no longer found in my ability to survive, but in my ability to submit fully to Christ. I can humble myself, because no matter my earthly position, God loves me absolutely. He loves me beyond reason, and far, far beyond imagination.

I am young in faith. There are things I don't understand yet. Things that don't make sense, and things I haven't lived, and things at which I'll fail a million times before succeeding.

I've been thinking recently that I'm scared to pray for whatever is next. This life with God--friends, it's a wild ride. So far, it has been completely unpredictable. But great. My fear melts in the realization that though this is all WAY outside the realm of what I expected for my life, I love it. More than any of it, I love Him. And the rest of the years of my life are just a footnote to the one moment in which I decided to love Him fully. That's something else.

This blog is raw, and precious to me, and has brought more wisdom into my life than I deserve. From that first day to this, it's about a girl who came with a searching heart, and found the God who'd been in plain sight all along.

Best of all, she finds Him, and by His grace, keeps growing.

sinking in the presence of the Lord.

I'm struggling this week.

I sometimes get a crippling sense of my own failures in faith. I see that I'm not loving people as I'd like to love them, that I'm not serving Him as I'd like to serve Him, that I'm not believing as firmly as I'd like to believe, and the walls come tumbling down. Of course, some of my concerns are valid. But I think it'd be easier to overcome the failures if I truly understood God's overwhelming love for me.

There's this song, I don't know all the words, but it goes "Yes, Jesus loves me, Yes Jesus loves me, the bible tells me so." It's a children's song, and it's simple, but beautiful. I'd do well, we'd all do well, to hum it to ourselves more often.

A few months ago, I read this book by Charles Fox Parham, one of the fathers of modern day Pentecostalism. He said something really great. Speaking of the confusion and chaos of the second great awakening, and all of the false doctrine, and true but unfamiliar revival going on, he said that he brings all doctrine, all beliefs, all questions, and he continually lays it all at the feet of Christ, trusting that in His great righteousness, He will burn up what is unTruth from His presence, and from our hearts.

I love that so much because he acknowledges that there is ambiguity in our world. There are many things said about Christ. There are many pressures upon us in the modern mental-scape. And even learned men argue over the interpretations of scriptures. So how much more confused are we who are less learned, who don't have the tools or the knowledge to understand our scriptures? But Parham latches on to the answer in Christ. Implicit in his response to the uncertainty of a world in which many, many religious claims are being made, is the idea that we bear witness to a living God, and living scriptures. Through the Spirit, the Bible is not a collection of writings, but a living document--one that works in our hearts as surely as God Himself works over our lives.

I love the idea that we're not at this alone. That above questions of the meaning of the Greek in the New Testament, or how the philosophical milieu in which Paul wrote would have affected his words--above all of that--God is very much alive, and very much interested in burning off from His presence what is unTruth.

I can't pretend to understand how that works. And I'm scared that sometimes, I misunderstand His work in my life. I can be wrong about His word, and His will.

But what a powerful idea. I take all of what I have, all of the doubts, and the questions, and the teachings, and the ideas, and I lay them at His feet. Continually. Daily. And I pray that He would burn up what is unTruth. That through the presence of the living God, I would be set free from my struggles with doubt, with uncertainty.

Though, regardless of my doubt, I know that Jesus loves me. His presence tells me so.

so detailed, so life-like

I had a dream last night that this was all a dream.

I was at home, remembering this dream I had had about accepting Christ, and joining a church, and speaking in tongues. But I remember, in the dream, thinking how strange it felt to feel like I used to. How distant. My dream within a dream felt more real than my reality within the dream. That is...I was experiencing simultaneously who I used to be, and who I am, and who I am won out.

There are all of these little things that I do now, that I so clearly remember thinking were strange, and ridiculous.

I pray for small things. For details. Sometimes, those prayers are answered. A lot lately, actually. I don't know what to make of it. I'll give you an example.

Last week, I had two exams on the same day, and had skipped the previous class for one of those exams (for a good reason, of course), so I had no idea what had been talked about, nor what would be on the exam. I don't know anyone in that class, and couldn't pick two-thirds of them out of a line-up, so there was no one to call. The day before the test, I prayed what I thought was a silly prayer--that God would put one of my classmates in my path at some point throughout the day, so I could ask him/her about the test. Then I forgot about the prayer. Later that night, at a coffee house at which I have literally never, ever seen a classmate or acquaintance from MSU, I'm packing up my stuff to leave, and this girl from a couple of tables away says "Hey, aren't you in my class?" I have no idea who she is. "Which one?" I ask. And she's from this class with the exam I haven't studied for, and the class I skipped.

Odd. God. The exam wasn't huge, and though it was nice to have been able to ask her what I missed, I didn't need the info, ultimately. But, what a strange answer to a little prayer. It'd be interesting on its own, but lately all sorts of little prayers have been answered. Silly prayers, whose consequences for my life have been small, but huge for my faith. Why would God care about these tiny things?

I know that I'm doing something here that I would have found appalling only a few months ago. I'm assuming that God cares about the details. I'm assuming that He had a hand in my running into that classmate, and any number of other prayers, and I'm thanking Him for it.

My mentors and I used to joke about people who think that God gave them a great parking spot. It was a derisive sort of joking. An insult to the faithful.

I don't know if God cares about parking spots. The point of the joke, anyway, was to take apart the idea that God has an intimate role in the workings of this world. To challenge the notion that He makes things happen, so to speak, outside of having made evolution happen.

But here I sit. I believe that God does have a hand in those small things. I don't know how. Admittedly, I don't know how His will intersects with ours. I cannot piece together an explanation for how He orchestrates our time and choice into these observable facts known as answers to prayer. But when I read about Him, I find that He's a good God. And when I pray with Him, His love presses onto me, so in the end the question of how He does it is only one of distance. Whether I say that He created all and knows all, and thus has known my every moment, or I say that His will created a moment in my life of something good--both are true. At any rate, my love is not for answered prayer, but for a living God.

A God I live with. One who knows every detail of my life.

realife rocks.

Peeps.

Let me tell you.

Group1Crew: rocking. Even more rocking-er: Realife.

I went with my roomie to the junior high and high schools ministry's "One Big Party," which I guess is a big outreach opportunity for the ministry. And I've never seen anything like it.

Firstly, I really missed being in the church at those ages. I learned of Christ at 14, and had mostly washed out by 15. God packed a lot into that time, but I still really never experienced teenage-hood through the lens of a church community, or well-developed focus on Christ. So I'm kind of fascinated by seeing kids live out Christ now. I wonder what it's like to be raised in the church. If you've always known the story, does it get old sometimes? Do you get to junior high, and think that Christ is boring? What's it like to have your parents have these expectations on you about what God would want for your life, and then go to school and have an absolute crap-heap of sexuality and profanity and drugs and alcohol thrown at you? Just..what's it like to have known of Christ for so long? To have Him be such an integral part of your life and your family? Does He feel like an old friend? Or just a part of the background--something real only through repeated exposure, not through passionate love? What do you think and feel about that as you begin to differentiate from your family?

So anyway, we get to Realife, and I'm joking to my roommate that I'm 17 for the night, reliving the years I didn't have in the church. But this was nothing like anything I would have known at 17.

I'm too tired to give the full force of the 1,000 or so jumping youth, their cell phone screens brightly waving in the dark of the concert, the hissed prayers, and absolute incredible energy. It was intense, and amazing, and I spent five minutes just asking God, "Man, what did I do to deserve such coolness, God? How did I score all of this?" I was bowled over by the energy, and the love for God, and the flat-out fun of the night. It's like no high school youth group I ever went to.

I started to think that if people don't know how cool Realife is--they really ought to. We really all ought to know, and to be invested in it. See that's what got me. The logistics of production and security alone are staggering. But the theology of it. I turned to my roommate. "Nat, these kids are here for God--whether or not they realize it, or chose it, or want it--beneath all of this, it's about Christ." And that's intentional, and a gargantuan undertaking, and it knocked me over.

It'd be one thing if they were just running one heck of a youth-club. But this is about God. And the people who make all of it float are invested in helping these kids come to know, and continue to grow, in Christ. That's incredible to me. So many kids. Just a flabbergasting number of kids. Coming to know Christ. Or at the very least, being in a setting in which they have the opportunity to see Him at work.

I'd been inside Realife before, and had heard the numbers, and had an idea of what happened there, but did not at all understand the massive scope of the thing until tonight. I didn't feel just how cool it is--just how incredible that so many lives pass through there. Kids at what might be their most vulnerable. These are the people who will change the world. Who will take places at the top of science, politics, religion--at the top of it all. And this church has a hand in helping them walk with the only one who is Truth. Long before they change the world, they're learning to love God, which is more important than any of their achievements to come.

That's unbelievable. It's incredible. Exciting beyond reason.

Look, I know this is lame to say, but I feel...well, I feel blessed, I feel like it was a personal gift from God, just to have seen it in action.

Truly, praise God.

spread the word.

You know what my favorite part of the day is?

This is oddly honest, I feel a little nervous about admitting it-- it's late at night. I finish whatever is going to get finished that day. I turn off the lights, and I sit on the floor in my living room, and I pray. And I listen. And then I pray again, in english, and in tongues, and sometimes I walk while I pray. I hold up my arms to heaven, and I bow my head to my Creator, and I always end up asking for Him to do the one thing I can't promise, but so so want.

I ask God to help me love Him. I know it sounds silly. It feels silly. What does it mean for me to ask Him to help me love Him? It's like being a little kid, and your Mom gives you money to buy a gift for your Dad, and your Dad gives you money to buy for your Mom, but they're both your parents, and they have a joint account, so...

I ask God not just for wisdom with friends, and guidance in academia, and financial prudence, but for the one thing that really matters, and the one thing it feels like I should be able to do on my own.

But I can't. So I ask Him to change my heart. Every day. To remind me of Him throughout the day, to give me the peace and calm befitting a girl who knows who she is. A girl who knows exactly why she's here, and exactly who she answers to.

In production on Sundays, amidst the flurry of pre-service prep, we take a couple of minutes to gather, and pray. This morning, the prayer had a line something like this: "And give us strength, Father, as we work to spread the gospel."

I was completely broadsided. Is that what I'm doing? I'm working to spread the gospel? Like, right now? Right here? I have a hand in this whole phenomenon known as evangelizing? For real?

Seems simple, right? How had this not dawned on me before? I've long loved God for giving me this opportunity to help people worship, but it hadn't dawned on me that part of that worship is "spreading the gospel." The gospel seemed to be the domain of the preacher, and though I help the preacher get the word across, it just didn't occur to me. I didn't understand, or fully see it.

I have helped to spread the gospel, the good news, the word of God. Ho-ly crap.

I suddenly panicked. I'm not really qualified for that. That seems like something other people should be doing. Better people, maybe. Texans, and redheads, and holy, pure, peppy people. I mean, seriously--I'm praying that God would help me love Him from day to day, knowing that my affections are fickle.

Father, is that really the person you want to be helping spread the gospel? The girl who prays to You just to keep her faith? I mean, I know you've got this, and all, but...

I'm just saying.

Nevertheless, I'm there. Every Sunday. Helping. Apparently, helping to spread the gospel. My panic passed, and I thought about how church is not the exclusive domain of the gospel.

So I've got a new prayer. That God would help me spread His word not just in church, but out. This seems a silly prayer to me, as well. He gave the word, and now I'm asking Him to help me give it.

As deep as is my helplessness, so deep is His love.

prayer with people.

I love to pray, and I love to pray alone, but tonight, I wish I were praying with others.

I don't know why. I began to pray, and felt the urge to silence, and then...an overwhelming urge to pray with people, with friends, fellow believers.

I think about that--about the actual mechanics of the thing--and become terrified. I can't pray aloud with other people. But I want to. Why do you think that is?

Why do I feel this way? Why is my heart aching a little at the absence of rising prayers around me?

It's an odd sensation.

I've missed this blog this week. It has been a friend to me in confusing times, no less times like tonight--when I feel something I don't understand in a moment of grasping God, and wonder...is this the way that God speaks to me? I begin to pray, and He stills me, and then my heart aches for something. It's a pattern in prayer.

So what could this mean?

Sometimes, in all honesty, new things like this come up, and my first impulse is to quit. I'm scared. I feel I've taken too many steps already in the dark. My base instinct is to run. I get insecure, and overwhelmed, and in that moment almost anything seems like too much. Scripture is too much, and talking is too much, and prayer becomes just a moment spent in posture--resting my forehead to the ground, telling God to take it easy on me.

In a greater sense, I'm not worried. God has brought me this far. He has made known to me all that I know. When I couldn't see what was happening, and when I didn't understand how any of this could make sense, He was guiding it all through to faith.

So the deepest pain in my heart to pray with others is an impulse with a purpose, I trust.

I hope.

drugs are bad.

So much to say. So little time to say it in.

So, let me just say this:

God is moving.

I know. News flash, right? Oh, didn't you know? God's moving. He's alive.

I'll be more specific:

God is moving in my life.

Most of the time, I'm not really sure what's happening. I'm so caught up in what's going on with her, and whether I offended him, and how in the world am I going to teach them that, and ohhemmgee, when will I have time for this--the moments stolen in prayer and Word seem like respite from the world, and they are powerful, but I find myself wondering...am I changing?

Until I look. The change is there to see.

I'm asking questions I would never have imagined I'd ask. And not big, theological questions about the nature of knowing, but small, simple questions about how my soul relates to the world. Questions like, "Should I really be putting the trash that is the Real Housewives (my real Housewives, I love them) into my heart and mind?" Or, "Could it be time to retire my arsenal of jokes about heroin addiction?"

Things that have seemed funny lose their shininess in the absolute light of His love.

Fear grips my heart. Am I getting lame? Legalistic? Who doesn't love a good opiate joke?

Then, another fear. Has so much of who I've been--my personality, my humor, my "smartness"--come from being jaded and cynical, and kinda...mean-spirited?

The answer is yes. I'm less funny as I've given up my jokes about drugs, and sex, and booze, because I have less to say. In the absence of the jokes that made me the "funny one" at home, I've become something of the quiet one. Or the awkward one, maybe the random one. Or just the nerdy one. Whatever fits.

But anyway. I don't think I'm getting lame. I do think I'm thinking more about what my words mean. About what I think is funny, and useful. About the way that I talk about the world, and all of what's in it. And I don't think that my curbing some of my ridiculousness makes me lame, I think it might just make me a tiny bit wiser than I was.

My fear is of becoming a "pollyanna" Christian (see months and months ago in this blog), but the opposite of sin isn't pollyanna-ness, it's light. It's love.

new life.

Friends, I am in uncharted territory.

Yesterday, I sent out an email to the influences in my life (Christians and non alike) asking them to read and comment on a new blog, in which I am very open about my personal interest in God, and my identity as a Christian. I posted the link on my Facebook profile. Oddly--despite the extreme anxiety I wrote about in this blog the night I first made that new blog public, I'm incredibly calm about it. Something happened.

The counter I put on it tells me that it's being pretty widely read. So I know it's being found by friends, and family and classmates on Facebook. But I don't feel anxious. I'm not kicking myself for confessing my Christianity.

I am scared. I will admit to that. But not in that frozen, oh-em-gee-what-have-I-done-my-life-is-over, kind of way. I'm scared because I am smack dab in the middle of something I know nothing about.

Suddenly, I'm a Christian in public. I guess I've been a "Christian in public" for some time. My spirituality is no surprise to friends, or family. But, my candid words in the first entry of that blog are uncharacteristically vulnerable. I'm not used to being a vulnerable Christian in public. Not used to showing any part of my heart for God.

And then, there's this other part. My Dad commented on the post, with some ideas about living our faith out in the world. And um, well, I don't know when I got a father who says stuff like that? I don't know how to have a dad who is interested in living out his faith. This is all kind of new for both of us. So I'm transitioning from having crazy parents, to having Christian parents, and realizing that I need to learn to respect and trust them as they are now, not as they were when I was growing up. I need to learn to trust that God is doing something inside of them that is re-establishing (or, establishing) them as Christian parents, with valuable perspectives and a Godly presence in my life. In short, I need to let them be who they are becoming, and re-learn interactional patterns and attitudes that fit those new identities.

Here we go.

the way.

I'm chilled out. The turn-arounds on my faith freaks are getting much faster, which is a sure sign of God's love, I'm convinced.

I've been asking myself why it's important for me to be more open about faith issues, particularly with friends and family from home. Why did it matter to me so much to be able to post a blog about my Christianity from such an open forum like Facebook?

And I think it's important because when I don't share God's love, it's as though He becomes less real to me. Of course, my devotion or lack of devotion does nothing to God's "realness." He exists as God apart from me. Outside of my experience of Him.

But when I find myself so frightened to live my faith openly, I fear that I won't keep it around for very long. I'm not making absolutes for myself because I'm an "extreme" or frantic personality--I'm not even really making absolutes. What I want is simple.

I want to live as a whole, integrated person, unafraid to say aloud that I love God, that I seek Him in prayer, and that seeing my own inability to live a life of truly loving others, I accept that His Son died to bridge my wayward heart to its Creator. To set right what had gone so terribly wrong.

So, when my fear of judgment has me shaking and running, I know that something is off. That some core part of God's truth, and His strength, hasn't yet settled into my heart in the way I'd like it to.

And I begin to wonder--will it ever? If I'm too afraid to do something easy, will I ever be strong enough to do something hard? If I'm too afraid to post a simple blog about a simple faith for all to see, how will I take this with me when I move out from here? How will I continue to love God when not surrounded by all of these incredible people, in this church that I believe to be so touched?

Valid questions all. I'm not too intense. I'm not putting too much pressure on myself. I'm not being extreme. I am finding my way with God. Though there's much more to be found.

But for now...God loves me, and I adore Him. And with Him, I will find that way.

terrible ideas.

Ok, well. It's done. Possibly the bravest thing I've done in a while.

Totally silly--once I say what it is, you'll think it's completely not brave. But I assure you, and my babbling tone should also help convey, that it is very brave of me.

God had better be real.

Anyway, this is the point...

I've recognized for a while that I need to somehow be willing to step out with faith in a way that would allow me to feel like I'm integrating my faith with the rest of my life, with friends and family from home, and the University here. But I can't make this blog public--it's too personal. It's too explosively self-disclosive. Just the thought of having a lot of people read this makes me feel like I'm standing at the edge of the Grand Canyon without a handrail.

So then I thought...okay, why not start another blog that is also about faith issues, and also openly identifies me as Christian, and let that be a lower-grade, less crazy, open record of my Christian existence? As a way of easing myself into all of the things I'm afraid of--mostly being judged for being Christian by friends who think all of this is intellectually immature.

So that's the plan. And now the plan has been carried out.

http://ashleylouisebunnell.blogspot.com/

There's a link from my facebook profile.

I feel very nervous. Like this is a terrible idea. I'm mentally rehearsing every possible FB friend I have. How many of them know that I care about faith issues? How many of them think I'm just academically interested in religion? Am I right? Am I right about God? Because if I'm not, I'm going to look majorly foolish. This is dumb, this is dumb, Ashley Louise. You should just keep your real faith to yourself. Talk about academic theories of atonement, about John Shelby Spong books, and how interesting the Old Testament is, but keep your personal faith--the parts about loving God, and Christ dying for you--you should keep that to yourself. You should also stop writing stream-of-consciousness rants when your fear and ridiculousness and self-absorption are on full display. End this entry here.

a german, and two americans write some books.

I'm struggling with my Christian identity.

I think the tongues threw me a curve ball. I keep drawing these lines that I'll "never" cross, stating these things I'll "never" do, and then it happens--lines get crossed, stuff gets done. I have fun at a massive womens' event, I accept that Christ died for my failings, I bawl my way through a Good Friday service, I get baptized in a charismatic megachurch, I stay in that megachurch even when the pastor openly states he thinks the earth is only 6000 years old, I allow myself to speak these words I don't understand. Faith happens.

And later I start to wonder--why did I do that?

Was I caught up in the moment? Did I feel pressured to fit in? Or was my heart full of God? Some of each, maybe?

Looking back at each of those moments--and others--I know it was God. I haven't faked any of it. Faking is something I worry I've done later, a worry to displace the Truth, to give myself an out. But no, fortunately (sometimes it feels unfortunately) none of it has been faked. So, at least in the moment, it has all been an authentic expression of my emotions.

But emotions are so easily played upon. Can I trust that those moments were based upon something more than wild hope and desperation?

Suppose that it was all hope and desperation-- is it any less valid? Is either of those things inconsistent with the basic condition of humanity, and thus, the core absence that is filled by God? Or, do both hope and desperation act not as "outs" to explain away a mystical experience, but rather as sign posts to the Truth of things?

I was reading back through some of my favorite passages of poetry and prose yesterday morning, with my journals and emails, and I started to feel oddly displaced. As though I'd left myself behind, and gotten swept up in this crazy Christian thing. Like I'd lost my intellect.

These were the words that shaped me, but the truth is that each of these authors was searching. Hesse wrote that he realized he was "a nomad, and not a farmer...an adorer of the changing, and the fantastic," that salvation is "neither to the left nor to the right, but straight into your own heart, and there alone is Truth and there alone is God." But Hesse never found happiness in his own heart. He found struggle, and lived there. Whitman asked, "What good amid these, O me, O life," which might be paraphrased, "Why all the suffering? What's the purpose?" And he answered his own question that the purpose is "that you are here. That life exists, and identity, that the powerful play goes on and you may contribute a verse." But...that's not true. There's no comfort to be found in mere existence. Our human existence alone, apart from God, is mostly a struggle. And ultimately, a physical loss, a failure. Frost wrote, famously, that "two roads diverged in a wood, and I--I took the one less traveled by, and that has made all the difference." He lived a life in fear of God, but divorced from true faith, and though people often think that poem is resolute and content--it's not. To hear Frost read his own words, you'd hear a pause at that hyphen--a melancholy admission that the difference has been made, but who knows to what end?

I read Hesse for the first time when I was 12. The others followed soon after. These kinds of writers and their ideas have been my bible, old testament and new, for years. I think I've somehow deeply internalized the idea that to be content and certain is apostasy. That to find the answer to hope and desperation is an impossibility.

Yet, I've found the answer.

Now, I just need to remember that it's possible. That my sense of longing for God--a sense shared by the very people who penned the philosophies I'm struggling against--is in itself a proof for God.

I don't have to live a life of uncertainty, in service to intellect. God allows it all, and it's all in ultimate service to Him.

introverted extrovert.

I was kicking it with the Texan and the Brazilian again today. One thing bothered me:

I cannot have a straight-face, normal conversation about my faith.

It is the craziest thing. I can handle all manner of uncomfortable or unsavory conversation, except for that pertaining to my own personal faith. Seriously. Try it the next time you see me face-to-face. Just throw something out there, like, "Hey, Ash, how is God working in your life?" And before I say something very bland (probably, "...He's working..."), you'll catch a micro-cringe. I can almost guarantee it.

That's sad.

I sat at the table this morning, feeling all kinds of uncomfortable and hating myself for feeling so uncomfortable, and trying to put on a straight face and just deal, and asking myself if I really was embarrassed by my faith, and what does that mean, and I've admitted in this blog to all kinds of crazy spiritual seeking, so why do in-person interactions freak me out, and I am exhausted just writing about it.

The whole thing makes me want to walk away from God, but that's illogical, and see below--it won't work. So.

Why am I so awkward in talking about my faith? Is this all not actually in my heart? Is that what it means? That I'm not really a Christian? No. That's silliness. I'm awkward because it's new, and so incredibly vulnerable. I think it's hard for long-time Christians to understand that corner of it because they're so used to God being a part of their daily lives, and conversations, and relationships, that just admitting to their faith and to the way in which God works in their lives isn't seen as vulnerable. Whereas to me, to say that God loves me, or that I love God--it feels like I'm ripping my heart out and setting it on the table for everyone to take a good look at. Keeping this blog public is the most vulnerable thing I've ever done. The thought of saying half of this stuff to someone face-to-face makes my palms sweaty.

So, maybe I'm not being irrational. But still. How do I deal with this? How do I get over the sense that my life with God is too personal to share, beyond the ability to admit to being a Christian? How do I get past the point where I just nod "yes" if someone asks me if things with God are going well? Past the sarcastic deflections, and un-clever diversions?

I don't want to live as a compartmentalized Christian. I either believe in Christ, or I don't, and I don't want that to change based on whether you're reading this, or hearing it.

unsearchable.

Apparently, I was once asked to help with a purity retreat at a church I attended.

I know, right? What were those people thinking? Ridiculous...

Also, I have a long and well-documented history of slamming the megachurch model. And I have always held disdain for the conservative prohibition on cursing.

Most importantly--I have been a ferocious seeker of God. Unfortunately, too often ferocious towards other Christians. But a seeker all the same.

I found my stash of old emails, and journals. The confusion is so obvious. I had such a sense of wanting to feel at one with God. At one. Atone. Chist. But I so often rejected the sacrifice of Christ, in favor of believing in God as a fuzzy deity--one who was personally involved in my life only in benevolent moments, those in which He saw fit to bless me with a beautiful sunrise, or a wonderful evening with friends. And that fuzzy God never seemed to sustain my faith.

There are hundreds of pages of writing, not one of them that don't have some mention of God. Questions about who He is. Ecstatic rhapsodizing of whatever good I felt He'd given me. Struggles of understanding Christians and Christianity, and the difference between them. Hundreds of pages about God.

If you asked me about the last few years, I'd tell you about what was going on in my life. I'd fill you in on all of the family issues, the highs and lows of my friendships, and personal struggles I've undergone, and the victories. But so much of that is absent in my personal reflections, and correspondence with mentors and friends. What's there instead are these questions of God. I didn't realize just how pervasive faith has been. How, in the end, the value I've placed on talking about faith has been much greater than virtually anything else.

I've worried about the future. I've prayed so hard to not let this be an isolated phase in faith. But I don't think I have much to worry about.

Invisibly to me, God has been powerfully at work. I've been far from righteous. Anything but obedient. Down right disdainful of the holy. But in infinite mercy, He's guided my steps anyway. If my past is any indication of my future, God is with me.

Don't get me wrong. I recognize that His mercy is not a free-pass. He did for me what I needed then, and now, I need something different. I've grown, and my responsibilities are new. The things that I now know impel a new response.

But how incredible is His love?

How unsearchable His ways.

the bound identity.

Praying in tongues has been awesome in its own right, but has additional awesomeness in the form of this: Nothing else seems quite so crazy as it once did.

I've reached the pinnacle of what I had regarded as bizarre. I've done the one thing I never thought I would. I've arrived.

I was thinking about this today, while trying to figure out how I'd field my worst fear: any of my friends or family finding and reading these last few entries on tongues. Now, see, it used to be that I was worried about them finding entries that show me very vulnerably seeking God, or taking refuge in a literal conception of Christ having atoned for my sins. I would think, "Oh my gosh...what am I gonna do if they read this line about my loving God?" or "They're going to think I've lost it when they see the sheer emotionalism of my faith."

Now, though, I've got that stuff. Please. I got it.

Any of that pales in comparison to my experiences with tongues. The me who writes about tongues makes the me who writes about Christ look like a Unitarian Universalist. That is, I now look crazy in the worst way. So my fears have been realized. But I'm still alive--I am living through the fear. Which gives me an odd confidence in admitting my faith, if not my prayer habits, to my friends and family, if it came up.

In a weird way, my abandoning myself to tongues, and then writing about it, has in a very short period of time done two things. Firstly, it has begun to redefine and solidify my self-identity in a way that is giving me more courage than I've had to live as a Christian. Secondly, it has re-framed most of the issues for which I once felt so much concern, giving me a sense of freedom in dealing with those issues publicly.

And yet...I'm still wondering--if asked, how will I deal with this issue? Will I be comfortable making any mention of it to friends with whom I've shared the most fabulous, and the darkest, moments of my life? Will they think I'm crazy? Will I defend the practice to my wise-cracking father? What will my mentors say?

There is freedom here, from things I had felt were binding me. And yet...I'm then just bound by something new. A new fear. Another something "crazy."

Identity is fickle, but Truth is eternal. Which will I seek?

strange frontiers.

I am wondering what is happening in my life.

I'm reading these last couple of entries, in which I talk openly of having reached the last frontier of strange, and I'm thinking, "Are you sure?"

Am I sure that I want to be open to things like tongues, and healing and the tremendous power of God in general? And then, am I sure that I want to be honest about those experiences as they come? (Kinda too late, right?)

The first time I prayed in tongues, it came on the heels of an impassioned plea for God to stay close, to keep my heart open to His truths. I worry sometimes that I will turn from this when I leave. I know that my heart is fickle. I know that I am not as logical and rational as I like to believe. And I know that some morning, I might wake up unable to remind myself of who He is. So I prayed, and I pray, that He takes incredible mercy on my wayward heart. That He helps me believe when I cannot.

In the silence of that desperation, I heard the whispers of what would become Our language. Frankly, and rather candidly, I think it's beautiful--it sounds beautiful. Lilting, and flowing, and a little bit...exotic? It is its own. It doesn't sound at all like the documentaries.

I'm tearing up as I write this, not because I'm frustrated, but because I'm doing something that I don't understand, but it's beautiful, and confusing, and calming, all at the same time. I'm saying yes to a kind of experiencing God that is...wholly other. And I don't get it. Is this a neurological anomaly? Is there something going haywire in my brain? My experience is real, and I know that it's God, but is it?

How can I do something so extreme, so much on the fringes of the religious world, but also so so gorgeous? Something that brings me so close to God I can feel His presence in ways I've only dreamed of and prayed for?

I won't give it up.

When I came to James River, I was confused. I didn't love it all, but there was something special, and a sense that I was supposed to be there. Even when I wanted to leave, I felt that God was holding me in, and that I wouldn't go until I felt released. So it has often been like walking in the dark. I feel the same with tongues. I don't completely understand them. I'm afraid of foolishness. But there's something special, and I feel God is leading me towards these experiences.

I won't give them up, as long as that's true.

I'm a little scared.