What I’m About

I believe in God. I believe in Father, Spirit, Son sharing unbroken relationship for all time. I believe that in their generosity they created us for it to be shared and intended all along to send Jesus to become human so as to adopt us into the whole and right and perfect love relationship that they share with one another.

I believe that when Adam fell and brought humanity with him, God mourned but responded with resound determination to carry out what He desired for us all along. I believe that God loved us through it all. I believe His heart towards us, His longing for us to be included in relationship with Him, never changed, and that He’s been working ever since to get us back.

I believe that Jesus Christ came to give us the clearest and most perfect picture of God. I believe that he lived out our human existence in the midst of our brokenness, our veiled and erred view of God, and He never once broke trust or relationship with God–living out life the way God had always intended it for us from the beginning. I believe that when he died, all died, when he was raised, all were raised, and when He went back,  He took us all back to His Father, my Father and your Father. I believe Jesus, the second Adam, atoned for all humanity.

I believe that the Spirit of Truth came to continue to teach us about it all.

I believe that God will always long for relationship with us, and that He is the source of all relationship and love.

I believe He loves it when we laugh. I believe He’s thrilled when we enjoy one another’s company. I believe He’s in the middle of it when we give each other shoulders to cry on.  I believe He created each of us to reflect Him in some way and it comes out the most clearly and beautifully when we live fully out of security and assurance and are completely ourselves.

I believe there is absolute truth and I believe we are able to understand it, bit by bit, through the guidance of the Holy Spirit. And I absolutely believe that knowing truth is the most freeing, liberating experience ever. I believe that it leads us to understand more and more clearly Who God is and I believe that the love and grace of God can never be overemphasized is the one and only thing that can redeem and repair the brokenness and sadness that cripples us. It certainly has been and continues to be my experience.

I believe that I wasn’t alive until I learned truth about God’s love and grace.

I love to be a lady. I love to sit in sweats and a t-shirt and read a book. I love to learn. to be educated. to mature. to grow. I love to share and love and live. I love coffee. I love talking.

I love my parents and I love how in love with each other they are. I love my siblings. I love my little brother, who has shared more love and life and truth and friendship with me in the last year than some experience in their lifetime. I love my friends and the challenging and sharpening and laughter and joy that we share with each other.

I love languages. I love cultures. I love differences. I love variety. I love respect and appreciation. I love music and expression. I love open-mindedness. I love honesty.

Sometimes I get scared. Sometimes I think I’ll never get there, even though I don’ t know what or where “there” is. Sometimes I’m selfish and rude. Sometimes I’m an overly opinionated know-it-all. Sometimes I feel like I’m too much and sometimes I feel like I’m not enough. Sometimes I’m moody and emotional. Sometimes I’m cold and realistic. Sometimes I over analyze and am afraid of making the wrong choice because I underestimate God’s sovereignty. Sometimes I look at it all and I cry because I have no idea how on earth He will redeem it all, how He will make it all right in the end. Sometimes I’m so overwhelmed by my own compassion and I fret over how he’s gong to make it all right in the end. Sometimes I feel hopeless when I look at poverty, corruption, abuse, broken hearts, and bloodshed on any scale.

Yet I still dare to hope
when I remember this:

The faithful love of the Lord never ends!
His mercies never cease.
Great is his faithfulness;
his mercies begin afresh each morning.
I say to myself, “The Lord is my inheritance;
therefore, I will hope in him!”

{Lamentations 3:21-24}

I believe with all my heart He’s called each of us to be a part of the redemption story. I believe He’s called each of us to share life and love in whatever arena He’s placed us in. I believe He will redeem it all. I believe He will make it all good in the end, and I believe we are, day by day, to be a part of it.

And I believe the source of such a change is us seeing and knowing and believing what is true: that Jesus has taken you and me back to His Father and my Father and your Father. {John 20:17} I believe the source of such redemption and healing and rightness in relationship and love in the world is believing that you and I are included in a great love. The only love. Relationship with Father, Son, and Spirit.

“Come, let us return to the Lord.

He has torn us to pieces;

now he will heal us.

He has injured us;

now he will bandage our wounds.

In just a short time he will restore us,

so that we may live in his presence.

Oh, that we might know the Lord!

Let us press on to know him.

He will respond to us as surely as the arrival of dawn

or the coming of rains in early spring.” {Hosea 6:3}

 

I believe in restoration and redemption at the hands of the one life and love of God.