Quick Life/Heart Update

Just last Friday Brian and I moved out of the house and into an apartment just down the street... the apartment complex is great, decked out with a pool, hot tub, sauna, gym... all that fun stuff. We're situated on the 15th floor with probably the most amazing view ever... we get to wake up and go to sleep to downtown burnaby on our left, downtown van in the middle and the beautiful mountains on the right... it's really incredible.

God's shown me that He's given us this apartment for to pray over the city... I'm excited to do that as a team in the near future.

As we did some unpacking this past week I've struggled with feeling homesick. I think its simply that the last time we had all this stuff out was in Estevan... I unpacked boxes I remember packing with Tiffany... unpack gifts that people sent with us, wedding presents, the church family blessed us with, it's just been emotional for me.

Also now that school has started up all over the city getting use to the buses and skytrain has to happen for me all over again... before sure it was a little packed, but sometimes i still got to sit down, didn't normally have to wait in line... and rarely ever couldn't fit on a bus or train... now every single day there's never a place to sit... but always people squished up against me to hold me up... haha, the lines are enormous, and i usually can't fit on the first bus/train that comes, and to top it off, i got off work at 4:30 and got home from work after 6:30 (when normally it takes me 1/2 hour to get there...) all that to say, I was missing 1st of all, having a car, and 2nd of all traffic jams of 4-6 cars.... heck i was even missing waiting at a train for 20 minutes. It just all sort of happened at once and my heart struggled with all that's so foreign and uncomfortable for me... but I'm so happy God knows me and he knows what I need and what I can handle... and He's stretching my heart.

Other than that work is going good... I really like the place I'm at - a cafe in the Vancouver General Hospital - it's always busy, my co-workers are fun and the days go by super fast... and I got to serve Eric McCormack the other day! For those of you who don't know who it is, he's Will from Will and Grace... for those of you who don't know what that is... it's ok... he's kinda famous, and it was really exciting... hehe...moving along....

I hope this doesn't get too long, but I also wanted to share kind of a continuation of my last blog, and a continuation of what God is doing in my heart...

This evening I read 1 John 1:5-7, it says: "This is the message we have heard from him and declare to you; God is light; in him there is no darkness at all. If we claim to have fellowship with him yet walk in the darkness, we lie and do not live by the truth. But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus, his Son, purifies us from all sin."

...if we walk in the light we can have fellowship with others... what does this mean? That our sin and impurity doesn't just affect me??? or even just my relationship between myself and others... it inhibits my relationship..."fellowship" (ie: The condition of sharing similar interests, ideals, or experiences, as by reason of profession, religion, or nationality) with others... others that i'm committed to on this 'church plant', others i'm committed to in my family, in my workplace, in my life... believers and non-believers.. it simply puts a wall up between myself and any relationship.

I see how that's so real in my life. My darkness... the darkness that I allow in my life, my sin, my fear, my selfishness, it prevents me, it holds me back. It blinds me from communicating with Jesus honestly and wholly. I tend to hide or avoid real time with him, because I know He wants to call me out of the darkness that I've gotten so comfortable with... my eyes have adjusted to the dim, dark light, but I know and He knows it's still bad for them... it's blinding me.

It keeps me from pure and real relationship with people because I let my "god" which is my fear and pain (ugh) determine when I speak... or if I speak, when I give... or if I give. Everything becomes filtered through this grime... my heart and being becomes more and more clogged and closed...

It even keeps me from knowing myself... I let the darkness in my life define me, instead of the One who Created me...I let my darkness speak louder than my Jesus.

Where there is light, darkness cannot be. Lord let your light shine brighter... ugh! I say that as if there's something wrong with the light... Oh forgive me Lord, help me Lord to open the doors so that your light can shine more freely, no longer just under cracks of the doors but bust the doors down in my heart and mind so that the truth and the light can shine without apology into those dark places that I've let become "part of who I am"... let your light shine over those dark lies and may I be all that YOU'VE created me to be.

I pray that for all of us... here in Burnaby... out in Estevan and everywhere else. That we'd recognize where we've become accustomed to the darkness, but that our eyes would be opened up to where it's beginning to blind us in our relationships.

In the same area of scripture it also says:

"Whoever claims to live in him must walk as Jesus did."

"The man who says, 'I know him,' but does not do what he commands is a liar and the truth (light) is not in him."

and finally ending with my hope:
"The darkness is passing, and the true light is already shinning."
Thank you Jesus :)

This is way longer than planned... sorry! Thanks for reading.