Closer.

When my depression and darkness are close

Lord, I want you to be closer.

When they're leaning over my back,

I want You to be wrapped around my shoulders.

When they're weighing on my mind,

I want You to be weighing on my heart.

When they're overwhelming my heart,

Lord, overwhelm my soul.

When they're pressing in on all sides,

I want to be pressed against Your chest.

When they whisper lies,

Lord, whisper truth.

When they're grasp seems tight,

hold me tighter still.

Lord, pull me one step closer

until all I see is You.

Do You See Them?

Do you see them?

The man in the orange jumpsuit. Marked for the rest of his life. In a relentless prison system that loves to get people stuck.

Do you see them?

The one with the cardboard sign and blankets sitting on a curb. With an empty stomach and no place to rest their weary body. No place of belonging.

Do you see them?

The girl on the corner, in the short skirt, walking down a street, waiting for a stranger, with only one thing on his mind. Waiting to please and hopefully make some cash. Threatened. Controlled. Trapped.

Do you see them?

The black boy walking to the corner store, as aware of his color as he is of the cops watching him, and the sad, but obvious correlation between the two.

Do you see them?

The one on the corner, waiting to sell the drugs in his pocket, his mind occupied by the hungry little one back home. Only trying to provide a meal.

Do you see them?

The one addicted to drugs. Raped as a child, she found a way to leave it all. Tired eyes. Dependent on a substance that cares no mind to its faithful user, yet it catches her fall. It's there for her more than anyone ever was.

Do you see them? 

They are there. All around you. Don't be fooled by the stereotypes. They are human. They have faces and names and stories. Hardened eyes that cry to be seen, to be heard, to be loved.

What will it take for us to see them?

Redefine me.

There are gifts within you.
There are talents and there are struggles.
There is beauty and there is ugliness.

I know, because they're in me too.

These contradictions that make up my whole being.

All of these pieces that somehow fit together to make me the person that I am.

I used to have this idea, in my head, that when I decided to truly give my life to Jesus, He would change me. I would be a totally different person. Someone I didn't know. Someone I wasn't. I would look more like all of the other Christians I saw. Maybe I would no longer be full of these contradictions. Maybe my passions would change. Everything would be different. I would be different. That's just how it goes.

But this idea that I had frustrated me. Haunted me. I was not a different person. I still struggled with the same things. I didn't fit into any cookie cutter image. And all of a sudden I felt like I didn't know who I was.

But I've begun to change my prayer...

God isn't sitting around trying to make everybody look the same. I believe, He's actually doing quite the opposite. God's not trying to make me anyone other than who I am. But I do believe, and I've begun to pray, that he will redefine me.


Redefine...
         To define something differently.

God is in the business of redefining.

He takes what's there and redefines it, using it for His glory.

I will always be Amber. I will always have these passions. I will always have these struggles. But I am asking God to redefine them. Show me how to use all of these things for His glory.

Redefine my passions.
Redefine my talents.
Redefine even my weaknesses.

Because so often my greatest weakness, by God's grace, can turn into my greatest strength.

...if only I let Him redefine it...

If it were up to me, apart from God, I would probably be investing myself, passions, and gifts into very different things, and I would be unhealthily feeding my struggles and weaknesses.

When I allow God to step in, that doesn't all go away, but what it looks like is very different.

I was painting the other day and thinking through this idea of redefining...
And I realized my paints tell the whole story...

I have a color.
Red.

I use it for a certain purpose. For certain details. For a certain feel.

But then another color comes along.
Blue.

They mix.


And all of a sudden a new color is formed.
Purple.

But I never got rid of the red. Really, the red is still there. It just looks different.


And now purple, I use for something totally different then the red alone. But the red is there. Still a base for the purple itself. It's just being used in a different way.

Red could never be purple by itself.




I imagine what it looks like for my passions, talents, and struggles to mix with God and His heart.
What colors would it create?
Where would it be used?


Redefine me.

I look down at my pallet.
Colors. All sorts.
You can see the process of the mixing.
The process of new colors being made.
Colors being redefined.

There's darks and lights and everything in between.
It's messy.
And yet the product is beautiful.

It's a process of transformation. A process of taking what's there, using it as a base, and making something new. A process of redefining.

Trust in the messy process of redefining. Let God use you, in your entirety, with all that you have for His purposes and His glory. Don't give into the lie that you have to be someone else. You simply have to be redefined. Let this be your prayer.

Redefine me.

A Reminder to Stop.

Christmas break was a time of relaxation and reflection. Spending time with family, catching up with good friends, sharing all that's happened my last four months, having challenging conversations, simply enjoying the presence of the ones I love, it was a much needed time of rest.

Rest.

It's funny to me that the busyness of the city has taught me so much about rest. Perhaps because it's important, and, at times, more needed to take a step back from the over stimulating environment of the city. Maybe my on going schedule forces me to seek out the small moments of rest. Maybe I've just come to cherish those quiet, alone moments that feed me, because they've become more and more rare. Whatever the case, rest has become a yearning in my heart. To constantly be resting in the arms of my God and finding the moments where that can be my focus.

It's hard for me to rest. To stop. Pause a busy schedule and be at peace. My mind always seems to be running restlessly. On top of that struggle already in place, it's hard to find the time for it. Life and busy schedules push us to keep going, as if rest was wrong. So too often, we miss it.

We can't forget the moments that we stop. The moments that we breathe and breathe in the presence of our ever present God.
"Let my soul be at rest again, for the Lord has been good to me."
- Psalm 116:7

I think we all need more moments where we stop. Stop the busyness of our schedule. Stop the busyness of our thoughts. Stop, remember the goodness of our God, and rest. I hope that this month you'll find beautiful moments of rest and that you'll make it a priority. I'll be working towards the same.

Thankful that He Moved into My Neighborhood

"The Word became flesh and blood, and moved into the neighborhood."
                                                            - John 1:14 (MSG)

And today I'm thankful that he stepped down.

I'm thankful that He chose to be born homeless and celebrate with those lowly shepherds.

Today I want to thank Him for choosing to come.

For coming in the humblest of ways.

For being born on the margins.

For coming helpless into this world as a babe.

For being immersed in the struggle.

I thank Him for taking the hardest path in staying.
With all of the tensions, beauties, struggles, and relationships.

For being in it for the long haul.

For not giving up.

I thank Him for His example.

I thank Him for causing an unexpected scandal.

For going against the grain.

I thank Him for being Immanuel.

For walking side by side.

I thank Him for being here.

The Most Powerful above all, not only coming to the least of these, but becoming the least of these.

This is hope.
and I am thankful.

SEPTA Community

There's a beautiful thing that happens when you ride public transit. You become a part of a unique community. I've gotten to watch it for a while now and it's a beautiful thing.

I watch young, tough guys help ladies bring grocery carts on and off the bus.

I've been the one with the grocery cart.

I watch a lady hold a child that she doesn't even know, so that the child's mother can carry all of her stuff and not stumble with the child in her hands.

I watch a kid get everyone around her smiling and mothers laughing with the ones around her.

I've had kids make my whole day on the bus, and talked with mothers as we laughed together.

I hear strangers help each other out with directions or questions.

I've had my questions answered.

I watch people sharing a hearty laugh with people they don't even know.

I watch guys with loud voices help others shout, "back door" when they need to get off so they don't miss their stop.

I've been the one they've helped.

I hear strangers wish each other a Merry Christmas as they leave.

You rub shoulders with strangers, people you may never interact with apart from that bus ride, but there's something that's okay about it.

SEPTA inspires me.

There's something binding about riding public transit.
A community is created.
And I think I might have something to learn...

Committed.

When I was in Houston, Texas for a week long Mission Year training, Leroy Barber, while speaking on diversity, explained the difference between "value" and "commitment."

The idea has resonated deeply with me recently.

To value something is to believe that it's important, to see it's usefulness, and to hold it in high opinion.

To commit to something is to make a decision that you won't continue without it, to be dedicated to it's cause, and to be actively working towards it.

There's a big difference in what the two look like.

I've been thinking a lot about what this looks like in my own life...

For all of my life I have valued God and living a Godly lifestyle. I grew up knowing it was important. In my mind it was always one of the most important things in life. But I was never consistent.

I swerved in and out of living in right communion with God. I would pursue it for a time, but would quickly revert back to my old nature when things got hard. My lifestyle and what I was pursuing didn't always line up with what I valued.

I would hold God highly, and when I felt like it, would walk in step with Him, but I wouldn't give Him all, because if I fully committed, I knew I couldn't jump right back into my sinful nature whenever I wanted to.

My heart was divided...

I struggle with commitment. I always have.

But something changed in me within this last year that I've continued to let stir inside of me.

I made a choice.
A choice to commit.

"But what happens when we live God’s way? He brings gifts into our lives, much the same way that fruit appears in an orchard—things like affection for others, exuberance about life, serenity. We develop a willingness to stick with things, a sense of compassion in the heart, and a conviction that a basic holiness permeates things and people. We find ourselves involved in loyal commitments, not needing to force our way in life, able to marshal and direct our energies wisely."
                                                       - Galatians 5:22-23 (The Message)

In the last couple weeks, I've found where the hard work of commitment comes in.
And I realized how little I truly committed to God throughout a lot of my life.

I've always valued God, but commitment is work...
A lot of hard work.

These passed couple weeks I've sat in the tension of learning what the messy parts of commitment look like.

The place where simply valuing isn't enough anymore.

I'm still trying to get a hang of this commitment thing.
I'm learning how to stick with it through the tension and the mess.

I'm not good at commitment. I may never be. But thankfully, I serve a God that holds more grace than I can ever truly comprehend and could ever come close to deserving.

I think, I can confidently say now...
That to God, I am committed.

I will live my life, to the best I can, to work towards His Kingdom and beauty in the world.
I will be wholly dedicated.
I will not settle for living without inviting Him to be present in every moment.
I will not give up. No matter the work. No matter the mess.

I am here. And I am committed.

...

Do you simply value God or are you committed?