How to give a speech?

Words can be so powerful, can't they? I mean, when we hear a difficult professor say, "Wow. Great job on this paper," it means a lot. When we hear an employer say, "Thanks for your hard work. Here's a raise," we get pretty happy. When we hear a loved one say, "I love you," it changes us. When we hear Christ say, "You are forgiven," we weep in awe.

So I have a speech to give this coming Friday. And I recognize the power of words, either to bring life or to bring death. Of course, I hope to bring life. Please pray for me that I would effectively minister as God would have me. And that people will come to know Christ in a new way.

But more than words, I am believing for the anointing and moving of the Holy Spirit. God's word does not turn back to him empty or void but accomplishes what he set it out to accomplish. The harvest is ripe. I love it that I never feel more alive than when I minister in some way. We are made to minister to others, to speak and to give of our lives.

I am also believing the Lord for provision in these next weeks. I need money to pay for rent and whatnot. And I also need a good paying job; I'm believing for a job that will pay a minimum of $13 per hour, $15 ideally to start off.

God is good and He is our provider. Do we believe Him for that?

Love in a new way

I am quitting this thing, but not what you think. I am not going away.

I will give you this, my love, and I will not bargain or bartar any longer. I will love you, as sure as He has loved me. I will discover what I can discover and though you remain a mystery, save God's own knowledge, what I disclose of you I will keep in the warmest chamber of my heart, the very chamber where God has stowed Himself in me. And I will do this to my death, and to death it may bring me.

I will love you like God, because of God, mighted by the power of God. I will stop expecting your love, demanding your love, trading for your love, gaming for your love. I will simply love. I am giving myself to you, and tomorrow I will do it again. I suppose the clock itself will wear thin its time before I am ended at this altar of dying and dying again.

God risked Himself on me. I will risk myself on you. And together, we will learn to love, and perhaps then, and only then, understand this gravity that drew Him, unto us.

Donald Miller, author of Blue Like Jazz, writes this to show what love in community looks like. Love between friends. Between children and parents. Between husband and wife. Love that Christians are to have for ALL people, even if those people are liberals, or gays, or Democrats. Maybe especially for those people.

A love story to change you

I'm sure you've heard in passing the names of Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Browning, have you not? Maybe you know that they both wrote poetry and other works.

But you may not have known the phenomenal, passionate, true love story between these two people.

Robert and Elizabeth courted together before marrying, falling in love with who the other person was, particularly through their writings and poetry. They both loved that the other could write.

Now, for the time in which they lived during the Victorian era in England, by the time a woman reached her mid to late 20s, she was too old to be marriageable. Elizabeth was at least 28 when Robert was interested in her, and she was plain. She could not believe that a younger man could desire her, not to mention LOVE her, because she was too old AND her family did not have wealth to add to her appeal. The poems she writes, and love letters to Robert, are to weep over--her intensity and passion. His love moved her soul. It is phenomenal to read. She wrote dozens of sonnets to him in what are called "Sonnets from the Portugese" (because Robert affectionately called her his "little Portugese").

I love her sonnets. Here is one for you to enjoy. You can read more if you want.

The face of all the world is changed, I think,
Since first I heard the footsteps of thy soul
Move still, oh, still, beside me, as they stole
Betwixt me and the dreadful outer brink
Of obvious death, where I, who thought to sink,
Was caught up into love, and taught the whole
Of life in a new rhythm. The cup of dole
God gave for baptism, I am fain to drink,
And praise its sweetness, Sweet, with thee anear.
The names of country, heaven, are changed away
For where thou art or shalt be, there or here;
And this ... this lute and song ... loved yesterday,
(The singing angels know) are only dear,
Because thy name moves right in what they say.

A sonnet to read

Th'expense of spirit in a waste of shame
Is lust in action; and, till action, lust
Is perjured, murd'rous, bloody, full of blame,
Savage, extreme, rude, cruel, not to trust,
Enjoyed no sooner but despised straight,
Past reason hunted, and no sooner had
On purpose laid to make the taker mad;
Mad in pursuit, and in possession so;
Had, having, and in quest to have, extreme;
A bliss in proof, and proved, a very woe;
Before, a joy proposed; behind, a dream.
All this the world well knows; yet none knows well
To shun the heaven that leads men to this hell.

William Shakespeare, "Sonnet 129"

I know, this sonnet is extremely vivid. But so is sin. Shakespeare is a genius. I am thankful to have a Savior and Lord who leads us in victory over death and sin. "For we are no longer slaves to sin but slaves again to righteousness."

A lovely Evening

Actually, the best part was hanging with the friends. But the food was delicious (Ethiopian food is crazy. You eat it with a spongy bread--yummy, finger-licking food). And so was the music (check out M-pact at their website. Seriously, this group was rad. Just listen to one of their songs and I bet you, you'll love them). Also, the Museum of Flight in Seattle is phenomenal--all of the history of American flight, as well as the scenery (airplanes everywhere). I wish I took pictures of the inside.

Here's the group of the Evening:

And we missed a few of our PowWow. We missed you two!

Look at the rippling muscles. Julie's muscles are blocking mine. Boo. Some gorgeous women! :)

A humbling, yet not, encounter

Really, it wasn't much of an encounter. But the wife of the man who pastors the largest church in the world, in Seoul, South Korea, looked at my room today and smiled at me. I smiled at her and said hi.

Wow.

My life has not changed from this "encounter." Nor do I feel awestruck because I met such an incredible woman. Rather, I am encouraged in my faith because I met a fellow worker in Christ who loves the Lord. We are sisters despite cultural differences, language barriers, and social norms. She spoke today on having a dream, that "Without a vision, the people perish." And it is so true. For a brief second, as we prayed at the end, I felt the Spirit whisper, "Did you hear that, Ashley?" Yes, I did. A dream. Hold onto my dream. Have a dream. And I do. And I will.

Some friendly visitors

Two friends visited me today. Guess who.

A spider and a mouse.

I killed the spider. And I shooed the mouse outside. But I felt special that they visited me.

The mouse was really cute; it was gray and about 1/3 the size of a computer mouse. His little nose twitched and I accidentally frightened him when I moved. I am afraid of spiders, but not of mice. Actually, spiders give me the jeebees.

Did you know that you can hear bats when they communicate? I heard bats when I went on a mission trip to the Czech Republic in 2002. It's really high-pitched and you almost think that you're going crazy with little sounds in your ears. But then you see little black shadows darting everywhere and you realize, "Hey, that's a bat."

Also, lightning bugs are the coolest bugs in the world to me. I caught one in my hand once when I was outside. He sat on my hand, glowing green until his light faded. Then he flew away.

I hope other friends come to visit today.

So glad it's Easter

I'm so glad it's Easter, or better named: "Resurrection Sunday." Because there are two things I can always count on.

1. I am a hypocrite.
2. Jesus's blood is victorious.

War in Iraq

The soldiers in our armed forces are all volunteers--men and women who volunteered to give up a cozy life of freedom and security in order to help protect people, our country first. Do you support or agree with Bush's policy on the War on Terror? Do you vehemently disagree? Nobody wants to see the new total on FOX News about how many American soldiers died today, or the total number of innocent bystanders murdered by terrorist bombs.

But our soldiers need the support of their people. They are our brothers and sisters, dads and moms, husbands and wives out there serving our country. We don't usually get to read of the positive results of the war, but I have heard stories from friends come back from Iraq who have seen the hope it has given the Iraqi people. Did you hear that? Hope. Change. It is happening.

We also must remember not to become dead to feeling, apathetic. In the words of Henry James to a woman who lost her newly married husband in World War I, "'I am incapable of telling you not to repine and rebel,' he wrote, 'because I have so, to my cost, the imagination of all things, and because I am incapable of telling you not to feel. Feel, feel, I say--feel for all you're worth, and even if it half kills you, for that is the only way to live, especialy to live at this terrible pressure, and the only way to honour and celebrate these admirable beings who are our pride and our inspiration.'"

He would continue to urge them to feel because "feeling would stir up empathy that would remind them that life was worth living."

To you who would hate Bush for his decisions to force our soldiers into war, support our troops for their sake.

Lifter of our heads

The rejected, the outcast, the ashamed, the unconfident, the humiliated, the defeated, the weary--they all walk with their heads down. They all walk with a humiliated awareness, or self-conscious awareness, that they are not victorious, cool, the winner, strong, etc. They are not humbled, they are lacking. We have all been there, have we not? There is a difference in humbleness and humiliation, a HUGE difference. In humbleness we can approach God's throne with our head lifted high, believing Him for His covering and salvation. In humiliation we either do not approach or we drag our feet, heart, and body there, maybe.

A person with head lifted high may be defeated, but may not too. A person with head lifted high may be an outcast, but has been redeemed. A person with head lifted high may be insecure, but has the confidence of the Lord. A head lifted high, when done through the Spirit, signifies both strength and humbleness. Though we are to serve all, we are not under all, if that makes sense. For example, Christ served completely, even giving his life. But I do not picture him as defeated. I picture him as one whose strength was in God and whose head lifted to God. He was confident only by the Spirit in him, knowing the God he served and knowing himself.

"I am the LORD your God, who brought you out of Egypt so that you would no longer be slaves to the Egyptians; I broke the bars of your yoke and enabled you to walk with heads held high" (Lev. 26.16).

May the body of Christ, individually and corporately, walk in humbleness with head held high.

Hope--a hospital?

A dear friend of mine desires to start a hospital one day, a hospital of hope for the people who come to it--hope for physical recovery and hope for spiritual saving. That is amazing. That is worth giving our lives and money to. Hope is often the difference between life and death. I will cling to that hope, and share that hope with others, for the rest of my life.

Another friend just lost a loved one to suicide.

Do you know how ragingly mad that makes me? How incomprehensibly furious? And do you know what I am mad at? It's Satan and his scheming. When people are lost and, say, they do drugs or are addicted to sex...they still have time to come to Christ and be saved. A person who commits suicide loses this time. And I HATE it because Satan rejoices at the deaths of people, and I think particularly at death caused by suicide.

Jesus Christ is life and HOPE! I can't even express what I feel inside at the truth of this. It makes my stomach weak and my heart strong, so strong I literally feel like it will burst out of my chest sometimes. And the rage I feel, I believe, is the righteous rage of the Spirit, who fights for life for people.

In the words of my friend, "Jesus, I need you." Jesus, we need you.

After God's own heart

The lasting characteristic of a spiritual man is the ability to understand correctly the meaning of the Lord Jesus Christ in his life, and the ability to explain the purposes of God to others. The overruling passion of his life is Jesus Christ. Whenever you see this quality in a person, you get the feeling that he is truly a man after God's own heart.

April 2nd, Oswald Chambers's My Utmost For His Highest