I Bought a Car!
02 Jun 2012 Leave a Comment
I hinted in my last post about a car that I might be getting. Well, I GOT IT! My new car is a 1999 Chevy Lumina in fantastic condition with only 72,000 miles on her. I got her from a family friend’s father-in-law, who is a used car dealer, for only $4750! I budgeted $5000 total for the car plus registration, etc, so this is perfect. Such a blessing.
My car, Idris, also nicknamed the “Golden Lady.”
Since I’ve been living on the mountain, my parents helped me a lot with the car search. My mom texted me on Monday or Tuesday that she had maybe found something, and then she looked at it on Wednesday and emailed me a bunch of pictures. I went down the hill right after dinner with OE students on Thursday to see it with with both my parents. My dad looked under the hood, had me test all the features, and test drove it with me. I fell in love and drove it back up the mountain that night. The car dealer was incredibly wonderful, a great Christian man, and gave me his personal number in case I ever have any questions at all about the car. The entire experience was so God-orchestrated.
Idris and the Doctor
I’ve named her Idris after a character in Doctor Who. Idris was the name of the woman whose body housed the TARDIS’ energy matrix (essentially its soul) for one episode in series six. So essentially, Idris is the closest thing the TARDIS has to a real name. (Well, Sexy might be a bit closer. But I didn’t want to have to explain all the time why my car is named Sexy.)
So there you have it–this is the car in which I shall be driving to Kansas City! My own TARDIS, my own travelling companion and fellow adventurer. Or so I like to imagine. 
God is Faithful.
29 May 2012 Leave a Comment
in Musings
This has been my mantra all throughout 2012 and through much of 2011 as well. After I graduated from APU in December 2010, I really had no idea what to do with myself. Little by little, things started coming together. I got a short-term marketing contract at a Wal-Mart, then a summer job at Thousand Pines which transitioned into a substitute position with the Outdoor Ed program. In December of 2011, a year after graduation, I decided to take the leap toward going to IHOP in July 2012. Shortly thereafter I was hired full time with OE, got to work with the Christian camps on the weekends, and am now making great money, working with amazing people, at the camp in the mountains I absolutely love! And now, when I have a few short weeks left to buy a car, Jesus may have brought the perfect one right to me!
My God has been so, so unbelievably faithful to me.
It’s amazing for me to look back on and recount the last year or so, because there have been so many points of uncertainty and occasional downright anxiety. God has brought me through all those points, blessed me and taken care of me. It’s like I wrote about when I was on CR–those pockets of peace God always sends me to pull me through the hard days. I cannot walk through the woods, with the fragrant branches of the incense cedar and the wide blue sky spread out above me like a curtain, and NOT marvel at his beauty and goodness, both in allowing this to be my life and in just who he is. He has blessed me so many times over, and it’s completely not fair. I’m starting to feel like the world is really off balance, or maybe I’m due for a crash, ha. For some reason, he still chooses to give me so much joy and beauty and abundance, and all I know how to do is affirm in gratitude, over and over, “God is faithful.”
All Payments Are IN!!
07 May 2012 Leave a Comment
BAM. That is how I feel right now. I just called the IHOP business office and paid the remaining $4500 for my internship in July. I did just wipe out nearly half my bank account, but that’s okay, because I have a few more paychecks coming before I’m done with the OE season at camp. And it definitely feels so good to be all paid up and confirmed.
July is coming up so fast… as RIDICULOUSLY EXCITED as I am, I will also be very sad to leave Thousand Pines. This place has been home for the past five months, and on and off for the past two years. I’m being less careful with my budget than I should, but I don’t want to miss a single chance to hang out with these wonderful people. Sunday night church followed by hanging out at a restaurant has become the highlight of my week.
It’s too early to say goodbye yet, though. I have five weeks (possibly four) left, and I intend to soak up every minute of them. A lot can still happen in five weeks.
Revelation Through Meditation
18 Apr 2012 Leave a Comment
I blogged a while ago about “Obsession and Meditation” on the Bible, and although the truth is I don’t do this as often as I would like, I do have a few great tools to help me when I do. I mentioned to my sister the other day that when I go to IHOP I’ll be doing lots of hour long meditations on assigned verses– but it’s okay because I already know how. She was intrigued, so I decided to blog about what I’ve learned about meditation through something that Jake Hamilton teaches called “revelation through meditation.” He got it from a guy named Kirk Bennett, and I first heard it from Jake at a Jesus Culture (probably 2006 or 2007) at Vineyard Community Church in Laguna Niguel. He taught it again at a DTS in Kona in September 2010, and I was able to grab the podcast of that teaching off of itunes.
I’ve uploaded the last 18 minutes of that teaching as an mp3 HERE so you can download Jake’s teaching on this meditation process.
Basically, the idea is to sit down with one verse from the Bible written down on a piece of paper, put your Bible away, and interact with just that verse for a good length of time.
Here are the notes I took on Jake’s teaching, complete with a few wonderful quotes that help explain the process really well. (But really, download the mp3. It’s a gold mine, I promise.)
~~~~~
Revelation through Meditation- from Kirk Bennett (www.7thunders.org) as taught by Jake Hamilton at Kona DTS
Divide your paper into four sections. It might look something like THIS.
Section 1 – Write word for word one verse from the Bible. If you don’t know which one to use, a random verse in Psalms works fine.
Section 2 – The “brain dump.” Write your to-do list so you can capture it and not be distracted by it any longer. Suddenly remember you need to send an email, do laundry, and go shopping? Write it down and do it later.
Section 3 – “Other pursuits.” Don’t be distracted by the urge to go on rabbit trails or look up cross references. Write it down and do it later.
Step 1: READ IT. Put your Bible away; you just need a pen and this paper. Read the verse word for word and soak it in.
“There is not one Bible verse in the entire Bible that any human being on earth knows everything about… The Word of God is like a thousand sided gem, and every time the light refracts from it, you see something you never saw before.”
Step 2/Section 4: WRITE IT. This is a creative experiment, not word for word. Start by writing the verse over and over. (“A junior high punishment is becoming the glory of God.”) If something sticks out, go with it–doodle, etc.
“This is not supposed to be deep and profound; you’re just spending time with God in his Word… how many times should you write it? I don’t know, let’s start with a hundred. Let’s start there and see what happens.”
Step 3: SAY IT. This part is word for word.
“Why? Because now it’s moving from your head to your heart, because now you’re beginning to memorize Scripture. It’s being written on your heart. This stuff is being able to be written on your heart in such a way that when you’ve done this for a year, you’ll have a thousand passages that you’ve not only memorized, but you have fresh personal revelation of…You find revelation that even the ‘giants of our faith’ have never found. Because you’re a giant of the faith too.”
Step 4: SING IT. This time it’s NOT word for word. Make up your own song using the verse.
“I know what you’re thinking; you’re thinking, ‘well, I don’t sing.’ Even better. You know why that’s even better? Because it doesn’t cost me anything to sing a song because I know I can sing. When you sing, and you don’t know how to sing, it becomes a sacrifice only you can give to God… And it’s not a song you sing in your heart; STAND UP and begin to sing to the Lord. Sing to him a new song!”
Remember, when Jesus sent out the disciples, he didn’t divide tasks by skill (the singers sing, the teachers teach, etc), he said everyone do everything!
“A year from now, you’ll have hundreds of songs that only you and God know. You ever heard anybody talk about a secret history with God? You’re building one. You won’t even remember the song tomorrow, but guess Who will. You’re gonna get to heaven one day, and God’s gonna say to you, ‘I loved your song about John 3:16.’ And you’re gonna go, ‘…how’d that go again?’ And he’s gonna remember it. And you’re gonna have hundreds and thousands of little songs just like a child sings.”
Step 5: PRAY IT. This is moving into intercession. You’ve gotten a look into what God’s heart is concerning this passage, now pray it with authority.
“You’re learning how to write books, you’re learning how to preach, you’re learning how to write songs, and you’re learning how to be an intercessor. And all you tried to do was meditate on the Word of God. This is so much easier than we thought, you guys! This is not difficult stuff. God says, ‘I just wanna be with you; here’s a tool.’ And guess what? When you’re sitting in prison one day for your faith, you can still do it. You don’t need a pastor or a leader in front of you, because you know how to carry the presence of God, and you can do it with any passage you’ve memorized. Even if you go to prison with ten messages, ten little phrases in your head of Scriptures, you can take those and you’ll never for your entire life ever be able to get to the bottom of it.”
How long should you do all this for? 30 min – hour. “Because the goal is to come to the end of your flesh… The goal is to get to a place where your flesh can no longer sustain your quiet time… Stay in that tension and learn to embrace it in such a way your flesh begins to die and your spirit begins to live.”
This system is not law. You can do it differently and that’s okay! Just have fun and engage with God. Use it as a foundation and a tool, not law.
And we need GRACE to really do this. God, give us grace.
~~~~~
PS – For anyone who is interested in listening to the full message from Jake, it’s called “Worship, Revival, and the Church” and was preached at the Awaken DTS in Kona, Hawaii on Sepember 18, 2010. Unfortunately, it does not seem to be available on itunes anymore, BUT I have uploaded it in mp3 format for you to download. The series was taught over four days, so there are four mp3s, each about two hours long. The meditation teaching is at the end of Day 2.
Day 1
Day 2
Day 3
Day 4
Tales From OTI 2006
13 Apr 2012 Leave a Comment
Two posts in one day? Whaaat?!
I promised you about four hours ago that I would be completely unable to do anything besides obsess over IHOP today. I was right. I have spent most of my afternoon/evening reading the blog of a girl who was a One Thing intern in 2006. The posts are old, so I’m sure some things have changed, but I feel like I just lived her journey with her a little bit. She wrote several times a week, with tons of details about her schedule, her life, her friends, and what God was showing her. I almost cried at her graduation post.
Creepy, I know. It’s like she became my own personal novel.
Anyway, I really liked her description of the eager young interns coming in soon after her internship was over, so I thought I’d share it:
Today is the next group’s turn. The July ’06 Onething Interns have started arriving and moving in. Many come voluntarily, holding their heart up to G-d with all their dreams, fears, and prayers. Others come reluctantly, holding onto sins but still secretly hoping they will change. All of them, every single one, will be transformed this next half-year. 41 girls, 18 guys. Six months. 18 hours of teaching, 30 hours in the prayer room, and all three services. Enforced community, to embrace or to try to reject. Meals together in the cafeteria, hugs in the hallway and the bathroom, moving as an organism to class and the prayer room. They signed up for G-d, but they’ve been tricked — they get G-d and they have to deal with each other. Once they accept that, accept the schedule, and say to G-d, “Here I am, as I am. Enjoy me!” — they will be in for the journey of a lifetime.
That will be me in approximately 89 days!!
Accepted!!
13 Apr 2012 Leave a Comment
Yesterday I emailed Niki, who has been my contact regarding my OTI admissions process, asking when I could expect to hear back about my acceptance. Today I woke up to find this in my inbox:
So sweet deal, I’m officially in!! Apparently this still isn’t the “official” acceptance email from the admissions office yet, but Niki was kind enough to expedite the process for me. 
Things I know now that I didn’t before:
The internship starts on Thursday, July 12, 2012, not July 5 as I previously thought. Check in is between 10:00 am and 1:00 pm on that day.
Graduation is December 17 and that is the day I will be moving out.
I will be living at the Herrnhut Apartment complex just around the corner from the IHOP prayer room.
The dorms do have kitchens!
Guests may not stay in intern housing, but there are plenty of local hotels IHOP has connections with.
The NKJV Bible is the preferred version, but not required.
“We endeavor to create a sanctified living area for the interns; therefore movies and secular music are not permitted in the dorms.”
(^^Yeah… this one… I’m either gonna need a major heart change or a long talk to sort this out with the IHOP powers that be. I have large feelings about the whole idea of labeling media as “Christian” or “secular”… I wasn’t a theater arts major at a liberalish Christian college for nothing. BUT even there, there are way more important issues at stake, such as humility, unity, and submission to authority… so one way or another it’ll be fine.)
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In any case, I am extremely excited and it’s pretty much worthless to ask me to think about anything else today.
God is faithful. <3
I Will Waste My Life
12 Apr 2012 Leave a Comment
in YouTube
Here’s another song I love dearly… I Will Waste My Life by Misty Edwards. (Misty is one of the worship leaders at IHOP.) And it’s not just the song, it’s this video in particular. The first time I watched it, I already knew and loved the song, but when I saw this performance I literally stopped breathing. All I could think was, I recognise this. I don’t know that wimpy guy playing Jesus, but that girl… so enamored, so in love, so ready to just take his hand and dance to the ends of the earth without looking back… I know her because she’s me.
And the moment at 2:40… yeah. I definitely recognise that moment too.
Waste is one of my favourite words in the English language. I have magazine cutouts spelling WASTE taped up on the wall over my bed. It always reminds me of Mary of Bethany, and how she wasted her perfume on Jesus’ feet.
Ah. Yes. Anyway, watch it.
