gone

so yesterday afternoon i went to the salon across from the starbucks where i used to work. the chick was really cool and we had a nice chat. i told her she could cut my hair as short as my shoulders, but i still wanted a bit of length. i guess the two don't really work together, so i now have about 8 inches less hair than i did yesterday morning.



after i left the salon i went straight to church (we meet saturday nights). i didn't tell anyone i was going to cut my hair, so it was a bit interesting. i felt good about the haircut right up until i was leaving the salon, when the "OMG! i have no hair!" kicked in and i spent the next several hours trying not to freak out. the funny thing is it really does suit me more to have a hairstyle that is lower maintenance. it's just that it's so permanent.

it's growing on me. the bright side is that with more than half my hair now gone i'll save a fortune on product.

gallery

here are some pix i've taken with my phone lately. let me start with...

the redbull car.



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vew at sunset from the top of the hill where i walk.



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window sign at portland coffee company.



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does this strike anyone else as funny?



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after dinner.



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tate talking to my pastor.



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portland while driving across the freeway bridge.



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out the grid of the parking garage window.



i think that's enough for now.

catch-up

so much going on, but so little to tell. funny how that works. i'm going to try to briefly catch up on things, but 'brief' is not my strong point. here goes...

*my sister ruth moved back from the east coast after about 3 years away, so now we're back to the 3-sista' crew. we're figuring out the how soon we can all go hit the club and dance the night away. was gonna be this weekend but she's going camping. hopefully next weekend. she's staying with my other sister until she finds a place, so i'm seeing lots more of everybody. yay!

* work has officially gone into 'busy season' so now we're welcome to as much overtime as we care to work. money, money, money. i start latin american training in two weeks. can't wait.

*tonight is a dhop meeting. they're always good, but we're gearing up for another 48, so this should be really awesome. i'm trying to get more of my church into the dhop, and that may happen tonight. we'll see.

*i'm going to start learning to play bass. i'm super-duper excited about it. my friend ben promised to teach me (even after i told him he may be sorry he said that) but i'm having trouble finding a bass. when i asked God to provide me with a guitar i had one within a month, so i'm hoping the same thing will happen here.

i think that's it. you're officially caught up on my life and times. i'm sure i'll have lots more to blog about after our prayer time tonight.

safe

"I will lie down in peace and sleep, for you alone, O LORD, will keep me safe." Psalm 4:8

i just realized tonight what safety God has brought to my life. it happened so gradually that i didn't even see it. as i think about it i can't believe it took me so long to notice the peace that i'm suddenly so keenly aware of. it's a feeling like friday night of a three-day weekend, curled up in a big chair with a good book, a roaring fire a yummy drink...only a thousand times more because i know this won't be gone monday morning. not to go all 'testimony time' on you, but i really am amazed right now at the goodness of God, and this weekend only emphasized it.

when i was growing up i never felt safe. i mean never. i can't remember a time when i didn't feel like i had to protect myself and fend for myself. not just because i was the youngest, but because my homelife was unsafe in my very early years. my mom is mentally ill and was unable to care for us in the way we needed to be cared for. we ended up in foster care for a bit until my dad got custody of us, and there were other things from then on that continued to enforce the lie of the enemy in my life that made me believe i had to take care of myself because nobody else cared and nobody else would. i made life-altering choices when incredibly young because i didn't understand that God would protect me better than i could protect myself.

children that grow up like i did become what some studies call 'hyper-vigilant', and the very brain chemistry dictated by the limbic system is altered in such a way that they feel that having needs is bad, because nothing happens (or worse, bad things happen) when they need something. i grew up trying to stay under the radar, just trying not to get in trouble, annoy anyone or ask anyone for help. i also grew up having to provide for many of my own needs (like clothing, rent or transportation) at a much earlier age that i maybe should have. God has had to convince my heart in many ways to get me to believe i am valued, and that He delights in taking care of me.

the safety thing is huge. the lie that i'm not safe has deep connections to my offended sense of justice, and unless i make the choice to trust God, allows me to keep the walls around my heart so nobody can hurt me by refusing to act in justice. i can call the shots and i can make sure justice is served. but i'm sure you see where this leads. there can only be one God, and it's not me.

it's truly a warfare in the mind. 2 Corinthians 10:3-5 says, "We are human, but we don't wage war with human plans and methods. We use God's mighty weapons, not mere worldly weapons, to knock down the devil's strongholds. With these weapons we break down every proud argument that keeps people from knowing God. With these weapons we conquer their rebellious ideas, and we teach them to obey Christ." as God has shown me how to interrogate the thoughts in my head i've begun to see the lies that i trusted in for years be destroyed the light of what God says. because of this He has shown me how to trust people, even if they hurt me, and not to be overcome by my sense of injustice. He has given me the ability to build real true relationships in a church full of people that were as broken (some even more broken) than myself. tonight as we got together to celebrate a birthday i realized how safe i am, and how much i risked to be this safe. i lost my life, gave up control, and i'm suddenly aware of how safe and alive i truly am.

nerd?

"Overall, you scored as follows: 80% scored higher (more nerdy), and 20% scored lower (less nerdy). What does this mean? Your nerdiness is:Not nerdy, but definitely not hip."

not hip, eh? didn't need a quiz to tell me that. according to this i'm not quite so nerdy as i thought, but the quiz leaves a few things out. for one thing it says nothing about what kind of nerd you are, it just assumes you're a computer nerd or you aren't a nerd at all. what constitutes 'nerd'?

not that i'm complaining about not being very nerdy - don't get me wrong. but i work with a whole call center full of travel nerds who would've scored much lower than i did on this quiz. does this amount to nerdism? if you have recently been on a date, haven't built a computer or don't have bad hygene you're not a nerd? what about some musicians i know? they'd fall under the catagory of social akwardness so often associated with nerds, but some of them don't even have internet access. what about poets? they can be really nerdy.

or am i mixing up dorky with nerdy? i don't know. i'm going to bed now.

men

last night was a dhop team meeting. we met in a coffee shop called urban
grind and it was really interesting to suddenly realize that renee, kathleen and i (the three amigas...or the three stooges, maybe) were completely out numbered by the men that were there. (see the photo above. one more guy, ben, didn't make it into the pic) it was so cool. i think that may be the first time i was at a prayer thing where the guys outnumbered the girls. whoever has been praying for the men to take up the burden of intercession needs to start praying for some of our spouses to materialize.

after our meeting was over i stood outside and talked to a few of the guys for another hour. ben asked me how a recent family gathering went and in the process of telling them about it i told them a bit about some relationship challenges i face with my dad, and how i'm really praying about initiating a very difficult conversation to challenge him to get help with some things. as i told them about it ben asked his name and immediately began to pray for him. it was so incredible to hear someone else praying for him by name. isaac and cliff, the other two there, joined in. it was a very important moment for me - to be surrounded by my brothers and hear them pray for my father as men for another man. it not only brought strength to my heart to continue to walk out the work of a Godly daughter that won't give up on the idea of restoration, but it was so affirming to me to be cared for as a sister.

on the theme of my last post (sharing what i love about my friends) i have to say something about my friend ben. he moved here from australia to pastor youth, and in the process has found himself pastoring and mentoring children from very disadvantaged situations. that in itself is pretty awesome, but my telling you that still gives you no true idea of the heart he has. you would be hard pressed to find someone more excited about life and about Jesus, and more devoted to the people around him.

something that really stands out to me about ben is his depth. he's pretty lighthearted and loads of fun, but he steps right up to the plate and takes charge in a very humble way. when i look at ben i see a charisma, passion and compassion that are the marks of a great leader. being around him makes me feel i know what it was like for the disciples to hang out with Jesus, because ben makes everyone around him feel they are very important to him. and the beauty of that is that they all are.

i'm really grateful ben's in my life. i haven't known him a hugely long time, but he's one of those friends that you feel like you can't remember what life was like before you knew them, like they've always been there.

rainbow

today i put in for the reservations for my big trip. i had to get kathleen to email me her middle name, but once that was done i turned it all in. september...it'll be here so soon! i can't wait. i'm so glad she's doing this trip with me.

today was beautiful. it was sunny and stormy and it amazed me. driving home from work i could see the sky was just ripe for a rainbow. when it did appear it was right over me.

there was a period of four or five months that every time i saw a rainbow i happened to be praying, right then, for my friend pete. it started to get weird. now whenever i see one it makes me think i should pray for him and some of the other grunts-for-Jesus with whom he works in the beautiful world of 24-7. it got me thinking of him and my friend shawn while i was on my walk tonight. there were some awesome views of the hills and woods just beyond happy valley, where i live. they both would've had their cameras out. i don't have a camera...unless you count my phone.

pete and shawn are some of my favorite humans. kathleen is another. i love the way each of them sees the world. kathleen has this crazy sense of humor that gets the joke in every part of life...even the stuff that isn't funny. but somehow she also sees the deepest and grittiest of life and isn't afraid of it. she's one of the most courageous and tender-hearted people i've ever met. we've been through alot together, including five years at the dhop, a road trip from here to northern mexico and two road trips in the uk. she challenges me, inspires me and makes me laugh. she's one of the greatest examples of a Godly servant i've ever known, and i'm honored and humbled to be her friend. she's a true friend and i see Jesus in her every time i'm with her.

shawn has always impressed me. he's really smart and a great musician, and has no idea how cool he is. it always makes me happy to see him, and i love it when he's thought about something and is ready to talk about it. i have great admiration for the way he sifts through all the parts of something. i don't generally see the big picture. i get tunnel vision about the stupidest detail. he seems to be able to logic through the whole thing while i'm back there saying, "why is this thread purple? would it look better if it were yellow?" i'd like to be more like him sometimes, because with all that brilliance there's a deeply compassionate heart...one of the most compassionate i know.

peter i don't see so much, as he lives about 5,000 miles away. there are two things that stand out most to me about him. one is the way he sees the world. if you spend any time with him you realize that he sees the art in everything. i love that whenever i get a chance to hang out with him i end up being effected by that. how many people do you know that can accidentally get you to see the beauty they see in life and nature by just being themselves. it's pretty cool. the other thing that i greatly admire is his see-it-do-it way of life. it comes back to me being lost in one detail and he's one that could organize an army, and sometimes does. he sees what matters and he does what must be done to bring it about, even at great personal sacrifice. what a world it would be if we could all do that.

i'm blessed to have such friends, and love the beautiful way God reminds me to pray for them.

moving

today they moved me to another desk. Here's my old desk...



they moved me to a part of the call center they call the 'latin quarter' because it's where all the latin american booking agents sit. since i'll be training into latin in a few weeks i guess they moved me now so i'll be settled by then. it's a completely different world over here. for one thing i'm by a window. granted i only have a veiw of the 9th floors of the surrounding buildings, but it sure beats staring at the wall. it's a little disorienting being in a different desk. it's set up with the return area on my right, opposite of my old desk. i like it better though, since i'm right-handed and have to be constantly jotting things down.

we have cubicles, but they only have half-walls, which feels much more open. it takes me about half as long as most others to move my desk. i'm pretty organized (obsessively so, one might argue) and i hate clutter, so i don't have much around. by contrast, the chick that sits facing me has kitchy crap all over her cube. its oppressive. there's the back of a plastic construction man popping over the top of my monitor from his perch on hers. there's a wax turtle-candle on the dividing wall between us and every inch within view is covered in trinkets, charts, stacked books and snack food packages. for once i find myself wishing the cube walls were just a bit higher. check it out...



even with all the kitch in my view i'm still quite pleased with the new digs. maybe my 'streamlined decor' will have a positive impact on her life.

jacob

we had another 48hour prayer gathering this week, thursday 8pm to saturday 8pm. as always, it was awesome. we had a midnight to 2am session friday night that was drumming. there were about 20 drums, three or four singers, a bass and a flute (of all things). it was a wild one.

yesterday (saturday) afternoon a few of us were praying and we ended up praying out of isaiah 53, and when i popped open the bible next to me a few phrases from that passage pestered me a bit. in verse one is says, "who has believed our report, and to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed?". in verse 8 there was a sentence that said, "who will declare His generation?". i don't know that i was seeing them in context, but they put me in mind of jacob. this may turn into a sermon, but i'll explain.

jacob was a consecrated individual. i think he gets a bad rap. i don't think he was deceptive, but his mom sure was. if you read his story he didn't steal esau's birthright, he purchased it because he truly saw the value that it represented, and his brother didn't. he was a bit sneaky getting the blessing from his father, but that wasn't his plan it was his mother's. if you read the passage you can see he wasn't really eager to go along with it.

the thing that jumped out at me as we were praying yesterday was that jacob, by the very way he lived his life, demonstrated desperation for God and for the things God had for him. the prosperity he received wasn't for himself, but it was for his family, his community (servants and household) and his descendants. as we prayed yesterday God spoke so clearly that we are a jacob generation, desperate for Him. we see the value in what has previously been devalued, and contend for it. this made so much sense when you know a bit about portland's spiritual history.

there have been some incredible moves of God in portland over the last 150 years. there was a time in the early 1900s when the downtown businesses closed for two hours every afternoon so people could attend prayer meetings. in the 1930s and the 1950s there were some amazing moves of God. john g. lake had an incredible healing ministry, and there were times when there were so many healings that the crutches and wheelchairs were literally piled up after meetings. but since the 1950s there has been no major move of God in portland. that's a whole generation that grew up unaware of the compassionate power of God. now here we are re-establishing 24-7 prayer in the city and contending for the inheritance that seems to have been put aside in favor of comfort and worldy success. here we are, transparent before God, asking Him to come and restore, to give us what was discarded. here we are wrestling for the blessing, even if we bear the mark of it for the rest of our lives, so that we can say as jacob did, "I have seen God face to face, yet my life has been spared." jacob knew what mattered, and he trusted in the mercy of God.

when isaiah 53:8 said, "who will declare His generation" it brought to mind that Jesus is the Firstborn of many sons and daughters. it struck me as a call to contend for the spirit of adoption to touch my city, that the lies that bind the minds of this generation would be broken and they would be freed to run to their Father. these are to whom the arm of the Lord is to be revealed.

this is the amplified translation of Psalm 24:3-6. i think it pretty much sums it up...

Who shall go up into the mountain of the Lord? Or who shall stand in His Holy Place? He who has clean hands and a pure heart, who has not lifted himself up to falsehood or to what is false, nor sworn deceitfully. He shall receive blessing from the Lord and righteousness from the God of his salvation. This is the generation [description] of those who seek Him [who inquire of and for Him and of necessity require Him], who seek Your face, [O God of] Jacob. Selah [pause, and think of that]!

nations

my friend kathleen and i have talked our friend pete into going to berlin with us for a few days on our trip this september. it honestly didn't take much arm-twisting, just a 'hey, you wanna go to berlin with us for a couple days' and he said he was up for it.

berlin is not a city i know much about. it pains me to admit it, but it's true. apart from the general WWII stuff, the berlin wall and being familliar with the railstations i'm pretty much at a loss. i'm always up for new experiences so this should be a hoot. germany was not really one of the places on my list of 'hafta see it', but the more i think about it the more pleased i am that we're going. who knows, it may turn out to be my favorite place. if you want to add a comment and share berlin knowledge with me i'd love it.

i still have not met a country i didn't like, though i have my favorites so far. the uk is my current fav, with edinburgh as my top fav city (next to my hometown here in the us, of course). mexico is my second fav, with puebla as my top city pick. france and canada are tied. i need to go back to both to really decide since i've only been in paris and british columbia.

when i went to the uk for the first time it was a bit like meeting a celeb. my stepmom's an anglofile and seems to have passed on to me her love of british history. to see the tower of london, westminster, yorkminster...i was in heaven. there's something so spiritual to me about touching something historic. it gives such a sense of the outside-ness-of-time God posesses. that's what i love about art museums...you see the expressions of people that lives sometimes hundreds of years before, and for a brief moment you see inside their soul. the uk is great because i can 'get close' to the people and moments i've read about for so many years.

mexico was different than the uk because the current culture (being much further removed from american culture than the brits) was the thing that grabbed me, and that got me interested in their history. that was pretty much the opposite of my interest in britain. i loved the friendly, open and expressive social interaction, and the way everyone is so chill. the language is beautiful and it was fun to try to communicate.

when i got home from my first trip to mexico i bought tons of books on latin american history. i started going to a spanish-language church and eventually ended up dating an argentine on their worship team, which got me interested in south american history. my adoration for archaeololgy continued to fuel my interest in aztec, inca and myan history and culture.

hmmm...so really i should've been a historian rather than a travel consultant.

better

i went home around 11:30 today. the headache was with me through the night and stayed with me this morning. if you take enough stuff you can keep the pain tolerable, but only if you don't have to look at the computer or concentrate. on the third day of this i knew i couldn't get through the day. i told one of my supervisors and ended up crying. good thing she's a chick. i stayed long enough to go to a eurostar training and finish up a booking i was working on at the end of the day yesterday, then i went home.

i've just gotten up from a good 3 hour nap and i'm feeling somewhat human again. honestly, after a couple days of that you start to feel like you're losing your mind...and i don't have that much to spare. the fact that i'm hungry and not queasy is reassuring, and i'm not all trembly, thank God. i don't know how people who have chronic migranes go through life. i'll be 100% in another day, some people get them monthly. i can't imagine.

so thanks for kind words, texts and emails yesterday and today. i needed them.

forever

today was hard.

it really started yesterday. a friend from church left me a voicemail saying she left her husband (who is an alcoholic and drug addict) and had to leave town. she wanted me to know she was safe and to please let everyone know she was okay and she'd be in touch. when one of us talked to her husband later we found out she hadn't taken any of her stuff, not even her bible. that's a bit troubling and not quite right somehow. i don't know what to think. we told her when she was ready to leave we would do all we could to get her a place to stay. he never physically hurt her so she couldn't go to a woman's shelter. i tried to call her at the seattle number on my cellphone, but i think it was a payphone and nobody answered.

so that was heavy on my mind today. i also had some gum last night that had nurtrasweet in it, which gives me migranes. i've been cracked out on advil and excedrin migrane all day, but i've still got a killer headache and the classic slight swelling on one side of my face. it's pretty sexy.

in addition to that i was told the positions i applied for at work were filled...not by me, either, as you may have guessed. this made for a pretty hard day. the 'bright' side is that the only difference between myself and the ones that got the positions i wanted was that they're trained to book latin american vacation packages, whereas i just book europe. my managers said they're going to get me trained into the latin department the first two weeks of june so i the next time something opens i will be ahead of the game. that shows they have an encouraging amount of faith in me, but i still cried on my drive home.

my small group from church had a prayer walk last night. i went with 2 people up a street by the freeway. it was pouring rain- the kind of rain that has water in rivulets down your face. as we stopped under an awning i though about one of my co-workers talking about how they got rained out trying to camp at the beach over the weekend. i had told her that lewis and clark had the same problem. then it struck me how permanent God is. two hundred years later and the seasons are the same. people are the same. He brings the blessing of rain on the just and the unjust...even when we don't get that the rain is a blessing. He never changes and never tires of giving mercy and showing love. today i sensed His nearness as i prayed and cried on my drive home. i'm in His hands and so is my friend, wherever she is.

babies

i should be doing laundry right now. instead i'm here. i was online trying to see how to go about locating foster parents. i don't remember the time i spent in foster care, but i've always been a bit curious about the couple that cared for my sister and i.

i have 3 older sisters that were in foster care as well. the older two were in one home and we younger two were together in another. from what i understand it was only six or eight months, but it was when i was about a year old. eventually my dad got custody of us and we lived with him from then on. it makes me really sad when one of my older sisters talks about the home they were in. it sounded pretty bad. i'm pretty fortunate to have been so young, and therefore unable to remember it.

the people that cared for me and my sister did something for which i've always been grateful. they got our portraits done. there aren't any baby pictures of me but these. they must've really liked us if they went to all that trouble. i'd kindof like to meet them but i don't really know how to go about finding them. the google search i did made me realize how difficult a 29-year-old search would be for someone who's name i don't know that lives in another state, if even the same state they lived in when they cared for us. maybe this will be one of those things i always just wonder about.

enough about that. i have laundry to do.

weekend

for as busy as it turned out, this weekend was pretty fun. a mob of us went out after church saturday night to celebrate jov's birthday. we went to a resaurant owned by the partner of one of my old starbucks managers. it's been open for over a year and i've just finally gone. bad me. it's a barbeque place called 'russel street barbeque'. it was soooooo good. they serve you mounds of food, and we, in typical american fashon, ate it all. here's angela and kevin packin' it down.




after all that grubbin last night i had to go to a family barbeque today. we were going to have a big shin-dig but only about half of us made it. the other half was my sister's husband, four kids and in-laws. they didn't make it because jaina(she's eight) woke up with the barfies. by the time i left my aunts and made it over to my sister's house titus (he's four) and my sister were both sick. that left me to amuse loryn (she's two) and maxim (he's six). that's when i got out the camera phone. jaina was layin' low on the couch so i got a few of her as well. here's a few cute ones. the first is max and loryn, the middle pic is jaina and the last is loryn.



and that was my weekend.

family

today is mother's day. i'm sure it's a big closet-drinking holiday. i will be spending the afternoon with my grandma, my mom, my dad, my aunt, uncle and their two kids, my sister and brother-in-law, his parents, my two nieces and two nephews. it should be insane. we don't usually do this for mother's day but it also happens to be my little cousin's birthday.

i'm not sure the etiquette here. i should bring a present for my cousin, and one for my mom. i have one for my grandma and one for my sister. i hope it's not tacky to just give a card to my aunt and my sister's in-laws, but i think it's weird to give a mother's day present to my aunt, and why in the world would i give one to my brother-in-law's parents?

wish me luck.

trans-mongolian madness

according to die bahn it takes 205 hours and 35 minutes to travel from barcelona to peking (bejing...but you have to put in peking to get it to give you the schedule), and it requires changes of trains in montpellier, bussels, berlin and moscow. the first 88 hours gets you as far as moscow the last around 117 hours are spent in a compartment that looks like this



which really isn't so bad until you realize that all these people



are your roommates.

i can't imagine spending 9 or so days in transit, with 7 in one compartment. i'm sure you could catch up on reading, but that's 9 days you'll never get back.

most of my friends can't believe i looked up something so nerdy.

voice

my friend ben recorded our entire 48hop. there are a few sessions i'm anxious to hear, but our last session of the 'nightwatch' was 4am-6am. by the time we ended we couldn't see straight, so when ben brought up a few things we'd prayed in that session it was one of those exciting 'oh yeah! i forgot about that!! how cool!!!' moments. it was really cool that he burned me a copy of that session. listening to it in my car that past few days has been incredible. what a deluge of imagery and concepts, all so familiar yet so unique and new. how does God do that?

but on a much less spiritual note... i have to say it's pretty odd to hear your own voice recorded. when i mentioned it to my friend jov he asked if it inflated my ego. the truth is it did nothing for me. all i can think is how much i sound like my sister, ruth.

i've been singing since i was about 7. my parents are both very musical, and my dad taught the 3 of us youngest sibs to sing a capella 3-part. jenny was melody, ruth was alto and i was tenor. we sang for stuff at church, then later in home-school talent shows (yes, we were one of 'those' families). as i got older i sang in the choir at church for about 4 years. i even had a job as a singing hostess in a swiss-german restaurant called 'the matterhorn' where i sang mostly songs from the movie sound of music. funny that, since the story actually takes place in austria. whatever sells the fondue, i guess.



singing has always been a major creative outlet, with my voice as my instrument. the strange thing is that in all the years i've been singing i've never really heard myself recorded. i had trouble explaining to jov that it did nothing for me, negative or positive, to hear myself. it reinforced my neutral take that i sing better than some and not so well as others. to some it may have been an inspiring moment...to me it was just weird.

lego quiz

y'all gotta check this out. this guy illustrated the bible with legos. it's sooooo funny! especially this one! below are just a few of the illustrations. see if you recognize the story they come from. i'll put the answers in the comments.

the same

it amazes me to see how God is the same. His word never changes, His promise never changes, His love never changes. as i've reflected on our 48 hours of prayer i see the same themes i've seen all through the 15 or so years i've been praying for this city. the amazing thing is the new way He expresses the familiar concepts. when i was at portland bible college we used to joke that God was like pbc cafeteria food...always the same, yet you never know what to expect.



we had a dhop meeting friday night to talk about what God said at our 48 and to pray for the one we're having in 2 weeks. there were some incredible themes that emerged from the last one, but more than that i really sense a shift. i don't think we're in for 'revival'. i'm totally convinced that God is coming to portland it will mean renewal. not in the 'toronto blessing' way, but in a transformation way. He won't just come to hang out, He's coming to abide.

this city has a spiritual fog over and around it, more so than many other places i've been. it blinds the mind to the clarity needed to hear and see God. as we were praying on friday i began to pray about this. in the same way i'm further blinded by turning on my brights while driving in fog, the light of God in us never seems to illuminate this city. i was praying that the Lord would come with His brightness and glory and burn away the fog over this city. that's when i saw Him.

i saw Jesus standing on the west hills that overlook the downtown/historic center of portland. He was huge...maybe 80 or 90 feet tall, and i mostly just saw His feet. as soon as i saw Him He said, 'when I come I will bring justice. as I burn away the fog it will mean exposure, and my coming will bring a spirit of repentance to this city. not just for the unsaved, but for everyone.'

i suddenly had such a clear picture of His fierce and jealous love. He comes sometimes in anger and judgment, but not toward us. His vengeance is against those things that keep us from knowing Him and living in His love. repentance is defined in two facets; one is that it is agreeing with God. that means if God calls it sin, evil, wrong, destructive, that you agree with what He said. in that agreement is the second facet, which is to turn away from those things. the spirit of repentance comes when judgment comes because God really will destroy the things that keep us from knowing Him, but before He does He offers His hand, and to take that hand we must let go of those other things we hold on to. Those are the things He will destroy, and if we don't let go of them we too will be destroyed.

sobering, fearful, amazing, exciting and beautiful all at the same time.