Praise God.

You know my favorite thing about reading the Bible? It's alive.

Different verses strike me in different ways at different times, and almost all of them require multiple re-readings and much prayer in the same sitting.

As much time as I'd spent with the bible (mostly New Testament) before accepting Christ, I never knew that. I never felt it. So now, I treasure it. I love the way that I can spend minute after minute after minute on the same sentence, poring over it in my heart and mind, feeling it.

I love that when I close my eyes, His words pound insistently, or softly soothe, or outright shock me.

I love that when I surrendered, He captured, and I'll live with Him forever. In the fullness of that reality.

Truly, non-ironically, without sarcasm....praise God.

salvation's eve.

One year ago tomorrow, I decided that I could submit to Christ without having all of my questions answered. I figured that the unbearable tension in my heart was evidence enough.

Now, here.

it's simple really.

For my conspicuous lack of tears throughout the entirety of the testimony filming today, I can't stop crying now.

I'm overwhelmed.

After I told my story again and again and again, I started to lose sight, in my heart, of the simplicity of the thing. I came here, and I had been broken by trying to find God. I'd tried to convince myself He wasn't true, tried to drink myself away from Him, even tried to end the whole process. And then, God did the impossible. He brought me to a church I never should have joined. I never should have gone back for a second service. But I did. The people loved me. Because of their love, I stayed long enough to consider the gospel. And then something crazy happened. So I accepted Christ. He became real, so I accepted Him. Things have changed. Yes, I live my relationships differently, I think differently, I consider morality differently. That's not the important stuff. Now, I have a relationship with God. And THAT has made all of the difference. The most heart-breaking thing about leaving Christ wouldn't be the fear of return to some messy lifestyle, or the loss of a communal experience in the church--it'd be the absence of these most precious moments spent in conversation with my Father. It'd be the acute pain of a life suddenly separated from its source, from the very depths of the love out of which it was forged.

I'm overwhelmed because it's so easy to forget these simple things. Knowing that, I fear for my life. Because living without Christ is not living alive, and I am powerless to change myself.

On His power I pray. I ask Him for me what I ask for others--that He'd remain so incredibly close. Simply close.

nothings.

This Sunday will mark the one-year anniversary of my complete surrender to Christ.

So many years, so many books, so many conversations, so many Christians. So flipping much Christianity. And finally...Christ.

I've written before that it's not a book that saved me. No book ever could. No logic could ever be sharp enough to move me. It was love that won my heart, and Christ who redeemed it, and now, I'm learning.

I trust, but I wonder-- what do I do with the doubts, and the fears?

Meet them. Keep walking. I said that to myself a lot when I first got here. Just keep walking. Be honest, be open, be smart, keep walking.

The weight lifts when I remember God.

free faith falling.

I'm feeling so very far from where I started, and I'm not too proud to admit that I'm scared.

I found myself, tonight, wanting to ask an old friend a question. Something like, "Do you think I'm creepy religious?" Not because I'm uncertain of my faith in Christ, but because I'm feeling like I'm way, way out on a limb. I'm not who I once was. Everything has changed, and just for a minute, I want to feel "normal," whatever that actually is. Then again, I abandoned feeling normal to feel Christ. That's where this all started.

I stood in the prayer room this morning, the place where those who've just responded to the altar call are brought to pray, to be led through the steps of salvation, and asked that one, earth-shaking question...

As I stood there, alone, waiting, my palms started to sweat. I'd never been there before, but I knew that in a few seconds, I'd be seeing people in the midst of the most important decision they'd ever make. Whether or not they realize it. If they were sincere, that one moment, that one surrender, has unleashed God into their lives in ways unimaginable. In big, wonderful, terrifying ways.

And a year from now, they'll be doing their thesis on how better to engage people in steps towards faith, and filming video segments of their testimony for the Easter services, wondering what happened to those days when they had at least the illusion of control over their lives.

Maybe they'll be more courageous, more faithful than I am. Not so scared.

As I write about this, I feel better. I remember why I kept writing this blog after all. It wasn't for you.

I'm not scared of God. I'm not so worried, these days, that I'll run from the faith my heart has so desired. I'm settled. What then, is making me literally shake? Tying my stomach in knots, and catching my breath?

It's that the doors keep opening. And those doors are proof that God is real. More than a philosophical conclusion. So much more than a myth to make me feel safe. He's real. When I see the doors open, my prayers answered, unbelievable opportunities to share faith made believable...His faithfulness slams into me like a freight train in the open prairie. His power is a violent reality, and suddenly, my life becomes so much bigger than I thought. The finite is infinite. My own control is ripped from me. Whether or not I feel ready, I'm in vertical free fall, plummeting towards the full possibilities of a God I had been grossly underestimating.

I wonder--if this has been the first year...

is this goodbye?

This blog has primarily been a place of working-through for me. It has been a random bonus that I've gained so many friends, and cool opportunities, through these words. But...maybe it's time to call it quits? To archive all of this, and move on?

When I started the blog, I didn't know Christ. I knew of Him. We had talked. But, I thought that "Christ" was just a metaphor--a clever example of how we ought to live. I didn't think it was necessary that anyone "accept" Him.

I abhorred His church. I felt that the Christian church was doing more harm than good, and though I craved the community, I was convinced I'd never be at home in a church. I couldn't stand to be around most Christians.

I was a deeply hurt person, more than I then understood. I talked about the love we ought to show, but, frankly, didn't have enough to give.

I had a million questions. I couldn't answer any of them. It broke my heart to feel so conflicted. My whole soul being pulled in by Christ. My mind telling me I could never make it work.

I thought I knew everything, because I'd been in and out of churches for so long, because I'd read so many books, and had better than your average grasp on the basics of Christian doctrine.

I was wrong.

I was wrong about who Christ is, and what He did. I was wrong about His church--if not in every opinion, certainly in the way I treated His followers. I didn't really understand His love. I did a disservice to His logic. I was arrogant.

I don't say all of that to debase myself. But to glorify Him.

Because as I've come back, He's never been less than gracious. Maybe that's my own imagination. Am I creating a god who loves me? No, not quite. I am believing in a God, who in response to my submission, has shown breathtaking compassion.

When I argued for a metaphorical Christ, I lived in two places. I claimed an ideal of selflessness that nothing in my character suggested I could attain, and nothing in my religious system promised to provide. When I denounced a righteous God, I denied a justice my nature suggested.

So, I'm on firmer footing now, philosophically. So, too, I'm in love. My mind is satisfied, yes. My heart so much more.

The experience is so intense that sometimes, I feel as though I've been taken into a cult. I imagine that it looks like that, to my friends from home. I start to worry. Have I? No. I've always flirted with the church, always been compelled by Christ. So I'm in love. So I'm claiming supernatural change. There is logic. Here, there is truth.

Here is what kills me: For months, I doubted that prayer could ever be meaningful, that Christ could ever be over my all, that I could truly take MY place within the church, that I could still be me with family and friends. Then, here we are.

Look, Mom, no hands! It's working!

So, has the purpose of the blog reached its end?

I'm not so scared anymore, that my mind will revolt from this. C.S. Lewis wrote that the question is not whether some man, somewhere can live without Christ, but whether I can. I can't. I've never been able to. It's done. I don't wonder anymore how this is all going to play out. It reminds me of something I wrote in a post, months ago--that I know how this story ends, "I'll fall to Christ, it's in my heart."

Am I closing something? What's being opened?

confessions of a supernaturalist.

When no one else is watching, I...

spin around and around and around on the kitchen floor in my most slippery socks, singing Prince.

back up as far as I can into the hallway and cannonball onto the mounds of pillows on my bed.

conduct fake video segment "confessionals" a la reality television, about whatever is going on that day.

You thought you were going to get something good, huh? Like...

I push a friend's call to voicemail, knowing she might need my help.

And I say mean things to this one friend, under the guise of our "sarcastic relationship," knowing I'm showing him something entirely antithetical to the love of Christ.

I'm not trying to be down on myself. We all make mistakes. We repent. We pray for help. I'm sincerely working on these things. I've just been thinking about change. About what it means to confess something. And how Christ works in us, to change us, when we acknowledge Him. Not because He doesn't love us, but because He loves us so much.

A year ago, maybe even nine months ago, I didn't understand what this meant. If you had said to me what I just wrote to you, I'd have thought you were slow. Frankly.

I didn't understand that the ongoing process of salvation is not driven by people, but by Christ. I don't change myself, in the same way that I didn't call myself, and I didn't save myself.

I know that sounds like some crazy Christianic nonsense right there. But what I mean is... Christianity is not a consumer-driven entity. I don't go to church, pray, read, and volunteer my way to a new, and improved me. I submit as much as I can, with His love. And He takes that, and something supernatural happens that frees up a little more of my heart. So I give that. And He takes it, and something supernatural happens, and there's a little more of me to give. And He takes it, and something supernatural happens...

It's that supernatural part that I didn't understand. See, the math doesn't add up without it. And that's why I always thought this whole deal was a little screwy. Because if you think that salvation is a one-time deal, that you accept Him once, then just feel guilty about every mess-up until you die--the equation is off. There's nothing beautiful about that relationship. Nothing possible. No hope for real change.

And yet..."something supernatural happens" is not a part of any equation I use. I'm a reasonable person. I teach math. I like sense. I've never been in the middle of calculating a z-score, turned around said, "and here, a miracle happens," picked back up and found the probability.

So, there's mystery. There's something I can't account for. There's faith.

But as I live it, I see it become every bit as real, as proven, as tangible as any matter in front of me. Maybe that's the real miracle of faith. It's like one of those invisible coloring books I had when I was a kid. You paint the page with a clear marker, and bam!--a picture of a panda bear. You live the supernatural, and it begins to appear in the natural.

No wonder they thought He was a magician.

not just yet.

I'm thinking of a dozen different comments that people have made to me in the last week that are pushing at me, nagging me to think that I'm not good enough, not worth anything, not what I should be.

And I'm worried. How in the world am I going to find a job when I graduate? How in the world am I going to get this thesis finished so that I can graduate? What if I'm not smart enough, or not organized enough to help the church with this thesis project that is now gaining some speed?

And what if all of this is wrong? How foolish am I? I've become significantly linked to this church, and more importantly, to this God, and what if I'm wrong?

Yesterday, and today, my heart has been sinking under the pressure. The doubt is overwhelming.

I'm praying. I'm reading. I'm trying to trust.

Yet, I think that in all of that, I'm still expecting to do the work myself. The pressure is so great because I'm thinking I can hold it all off. I can't.

So, having prayed, and read, and prepared, not because my doing those things can help me to change the situation but because they remind me that He can, now I'm going to sleep.

This is only the beginning. Not time to be in over my head just yet.

bay-reck.

I've got a problem. Like, a serious problem. Not like my new addiction to frozen cokes, or the time I thought I had Capgras' syndrome, or my as-of-yet failure to teach my mother to correctly pronounce the name "Barack Obama." ("Bay-reck? Ashley Louise, is it Baaaayyy-reccckkk???") A real problem.

Here it is:

Something happened, and now I'm in weird, constant worship mode. I know, I know. It's worse than you thought.

It's like this. I love music. A few weeks ago, I discovered Phil Wickham's album, "Singalong." At first, I was entirely taken with the song "Messiah," because, frankly, it's the most bestest song ever written. That song led to a pretty intense set of worship experiences, before I discovered "True Love," which has that rocking chorus at the end (the "Jesus is alive" part--you know you know it). Another set of amazing worship experiences. But last week, I found track 12. Jesus Lord of Heaven.

Pure, pure worship. Like tap water through a brita filter, through one of those super-powerful pumps they send to Haiti that can turn mud into Evian. Worship.

Why is this a problem?

Because I listen to music constantly. It's like my life has a sound track. So, most of the time, I need for the music to not intrude. Need for it to stay in the background of my homework, or my research, or my cleaning, whatever. But this song won't do it. It won't stay put. So I'm putting together lecture notes, trying to figure out how to explain a t-test to a bunch of undergrads (half of whom would prefer not to know anything about a t-test), and suddenly...

"You're love is deeper than any ocean, higher than the heavens, reaches beyond the stars in the sky-y-y..."

The music takes me. It turns me towards God, and I find myself praying, praising, saying to Him, "Yes, Your love is deeper. It is higher. It does reach. And Jesus, it doesn't know any bounds." It's so powerful that I'm in my office, fighting the urge to lift my hands to Him, then thinking, "Holy shhhh, Ash, what's this about? Worship is for Sundays and Wednesdays. Or at least for private, planned-out times, like 6:30am, or 9:30pm. Could you please tone down your crazy right now?"

Clearly, I don't actually believe that worship is confined to days of the week, or times of the day. But I think I've been living that way. I know that God knows it. And He's stepping in to take care of it.

So, I'm currently living a life of pretty heavy worship. Which is to say, entirely awesome joy.

Is this normal? To be so moved by worship? Is that an honest and acceptable thing? How do I know that I'm not just being swept away in the music? Then again, if it ends at God, who cares? Does God teach us things this way? Can I continue to be my own particular brand of funky, funny awesome, while also being an impromptu office-worshipper? Am I crazy?

come on, now.

Four times in the last year and a half, I've felt the voice of God. Not heard it. But felt it. Felt Him speaking to me, distinctly, strongly, placing in me insatiable desires for prayer, for worship, and sacrifice, and love.

I'm not going to tell you what He told me tonight, because I'd sound crazy, and you wouldn't believe me anyway, and who really cares. But I'll tell you how beautiful it was.

Tonight, friends, I went to my first real, big Christian rock concert. Several years too late, but every bit as crazy as any student of religion could hope for. There was whooping, and hollering, waving, shouting, and some dude down front who kept yelling "Come on, now!" in a deep, country drawl. It delivered.

Chris Tomlin was great. Louie Giglio was the bomb diggity.

But, forget them. Forget the lyrics, and the lights, and the fact that, at the start, it all seemed a little like a documentary about Jesus youth culture.

There were these moments of breath-taking, awe-some, heart-stopping beauty. Tomlin would stop singing, and the music would swell, and I'd look out over the crowd, bathed in golden light, and see the most beautiful thing I've ever seen in my life. Thousands of hands, I mean thousands, of faces lifted to Heaven, and the sound. Friends, the sound. Worship. It was worship.

Even now, I'm thinking about it, I'm picturing it, and I lean my head against the back of the arm chair, literally weak with awe. I know that sounds melodramatic. Sue me, I don't care. It was stunning.

And He spoke. I felt it deep in my heart. A promise, a challenge, most of all--a proclamation, a gift. Confirmation.

There's a lot more to say. Music is potent. Songs and memories of them brought me to tears, because they reminded me that God has been faithful to me. I'd love to tell you every detail of every song that touched me tonight, because in the telling, you'd hear a story of redemption. A story with an ending I could not have imagined. With so many more unimaginable endings to come.

Indescribable.

church got your tongue.

Everybody's a critic. Unless you're in church. Then nobody's a critic. Because being a critic in the church is like being a democrat at a Bunnell family Christmas. No one wants to hear what you have to say. (I'm not bitter or anything.)

I don't think I'm being critical in pointing out that it is a well-worn stereotype of the christian church that it doesn't like criticism. If you think I am being critical, what I had meant was...the church is great!

Actually, I think the church is great. I also think that stereotypes are often earned. At least in part.

So, when it comes time to talk about criticism in the church, the issues are hefty and numerous, and you should proceed at your own risk.

This post, though, isn't critical of the church (the church is great!). It's actually about how far is too far. Where's that line between criticism and discussion? Is there ever an appropriate time to publicly criticize yours, or any other church?

When I came to Springfield, I started this blog expressly to critique all of the churches I planned on visiting. I didn't know that I'd plant myself in one, make friends with all the people I was set to judge, and "buy in." I had no idea that I'd eventually silence my criticism in service to unity, and start asking questions like "how far is too far?".

And yet...that's what's happened. And I think I know why.

Charles Fox Parham (one of the early leaders of Pentecostalism) wrote that you shouldn't go around knocking down other peoples' houses. If you think those houses are faulty, the best route is to come alongside them, build a better house, and invite those people over to yours. In essence, this is what the most effective James River Christians did for me. The smart ones didn't argue with me about theology and culture. They just came alongside me. They showed me their lives. They loved me. And eventually, I wanted to move in.

Because they loved me, I began to understand Christ's love. And when that happened...my old house fell down. Love built me a new one. Suddenly, my criticism seemed petty. Why was I going around, trying to knock down other peoples' houses? Why did I think it so important that people know exactly what I thought about the way that people dressed on stage, and the style of music, and the way so-and-so preached, and how wrong he was about social justice?

I destructed unity, in service to some ideals of justice, or rightness, or Truth. Even if I was right about every thing I ever said, I was wrong about the most important thing. I wasn't loving. I tore down houses.

When I talk like this, I start to think, "But Ash, isn't there a real need for discussion? Shouldn't we sometimes voice real dissension? That's important." I agree with myself. I just have a more nuanced view than I once did. Now, I always want to ask myself, "What's the purpose of saying this out loud? Will it help? Or will it do far more damage? Is what I'm about to say just noise pollution? Just the pride of wanting to be heard?"

Most of all, I think back to my surrender to Christ. I remember that logic couldn't save me. That for all of the books I read, and all of the discussions I had, and all of the criticisms--none of it could save me. Logic never saved anyone. Love saved me. I surrendered to Christ, not an argument for the existence of Christ.

So, when I start to think there's something I'd love to weigh in on, I wonder, at that moment, which will be more effective: words, or acts. Is it a situation in which a well-placed word will advance His kingdom? (There are those situations.) Or one in which I should keep my mouth closed, let the house stand, and quietly begin the work of building another one next door?