Losing ourselves to have more of God ... it's an art. To be recklessly abandoned is to receive more. So in love with the Lord. I pull myself away from his presence. I sit speechless. :)

Holy Fire
Come and burn
Things that were and things that are,
Make the future bright.
Set free by love
Blood as jealous as death
But scarifice and loss
The gifts we do not own
Nor deserve the place he took.
Coming to nations to cleanse
To lead, to inspire
To grow his kingdom
The message sent
With reluctance I told
But now the fire and passion
Bring me to my knees
Words that spill
from a heart appeased
Reward is peace.
- Drea

Eclipsed by Romance

How do religious ideas capture one? Through the way God's presence effects one's interior. Through religion we  sense or taste for the infinite. God is an experience. The  thing you would die for speaks to mood and emotion.  We follow God because our ability to understand his love, not out of  religious duty. Something about our encounter with God is different.  What did your experience feel like to meet him? Like the ocean ... there is something more that transcends . God is this feeling of something that envelops and fills us. 

- Ponderings from my Christian Tradition Class

Last Plane

Presenting ... Andrea Kelly Urso Original Work:

Miles away.   

Didn’t have to fly that far
Last plane, Last try 

I wonder where you are.

Drenched in all they could steal.

Time and place did not heal.

Thought I needed to fight.

Well won't hurt for the things i can't control anymore

Just tell me that i'm enough  

My heart is frail but my skin is tough

Come unbind me so more

All I need to keep forward,

Is all you've given me ,as I restore.

I couldn't forge the strength to put it back together

But your a mystery that binds me

Now I feel safe

Cause i'm  home for the first time

Didn't seem like it could be real. 
In the seen and Unseen.
The Locket i hold.

Of what depth i conceal

Hide the places that feel. 

So I don't blow in the breeze

But root in the ground.

What the the world never gave

True love's real sound.

Two Worlds Collide

So today i was reading another Christian girl's blog as i've been trying to get perspective in preparation for my speech coming up at the end of the month. I was concerned and offended.There's a problem when we think  we are perfectly pious or entirely strong. The problem with someone who thinks  they are pious  because they've achieved moral perfection is they can say things that lack perspective or understanding . Although a pious christian may be well disciplined and have knowledge on how to live christian and avoid sin,  black and white perspective stops people from moving forward.  It can lead people to feel overly convicted and less understood. In that sense, pride of one's own  righteousness can profoundly effect others. It can determine whether or not we draw people to Christ or turn them away. We need believers who can step into the struggle of others, be transparent, and empathize. I almost gave up on church because i felt like a black sheep who didn't belong on either side of life. I didn't belong at the bar, but I didn't  feel content staying in every Friday night reading my bible. In the light of a Christian setting i still had many struggles in my faith. I felt so isolated in my struggle and when i tried to reach for help no one seemed to have advice that helped me, no one really understood me. I kept running back to my old lifestyle because I felt like I didn't belong. I felt like there was no other way of life that fit me and my personality. I just felt like a stuck sinner.  I think it is important to be sensitive to where people are at spiritually. Because God doesn't give us everything all a once, he slowly Woos us toward him. Then the closer we get the more we are naturally able to digest those harder truths about what it means to live for God.  I think in my younger years God allowed me to go through some things so I would not become like this.  Falling in love with God should be our motivation for moral striving not our need to feel " good" or to feel "approved".  Your Christian faith should not be a platform for your self-esteem. Piety should not make us feel more valued or like we have more status, but rather  display self-respect and self-love, or a form of sacrificial love to God. But hey who said human nature didn't exist among Christians themselves? Phil 2:3-4 (TEB) Don't do anything from selfish ambition, or from a cheap desire to boast; but be humble towards each other, never thinking you are better than others. And the bible commands us to do everything we do out of LOVE , not because someone is watching us,to be labled  as a "solid christian",  or because we feel like we have to play a role. Faith needs genuineness. I recently found a new church that i have been  going to for a month.and i've never felt so loved and so accepted for who I really am. I am so grateful I don't have words. This church has touched my heart in a very special way. It is proof that God provides  for our needs, that I have another option and i don't need to be stuck in my old life. We lay it all on the table .. our concerns, our burdens, our fears.  Because of the authenticity and the vulnerability of the people in our church....  true healing and true growth is happening in all of our lives. It's such a beautiful thing to witness. I think my heart expands an inch everyday because of this church. AND we have so much fun together. It means the end of loneliness for alot of us..

I know the girl who wrote  the blog entry meant well, but it just seemed like she was stuck in her little christian bubble striving for moral perfection, but then again we all play a different role in the body of Christ..  I really want to touch past the bubble and reach out to the world, because it is suffering and it's broken. I can hear the voices of my non-Christians friends, and stories of where their innocence was lost, and when they figured out that the world is cruel. The kind of healing they need can be found in God.  I want to reach those people the most. Maybe I'm just an intermediary because i know what the darkness is like and the light.  Our hearts are all a little calloused .. sinner and saint alike, we are all in need of healing from the human condition. It's amazing how the closer we grow to God how rapidly he tears through the layers covering our hearts to mine the gold out of us.  There is good in everyone and with the help of God we can be more forgiving, compassionate and love hard without fear those around us.So that is how two worlds collide, because the love of God shatters the boundaries between the worlds of the sinners and saints. And if you really know who God is , your life should mimic the same.

Authentic Woman of God

I did not write this ... because i do not yet have the wisdom on it, but i'm a work in progress, a building being built. I think  what being an authentic woman of God is has  alot to do with living from the inside out. 

"Proverbs 14:1 says, “The wise woman builds her house”.  The image of the wise woman who built her house is an image of a woman who does not mourn the passing of her youth.  This woman embraces whatever the next season of her life brings.  This woman has a sureness in her steps though they may be slower.  This woman has grace painted on her face, not hardness.  This woman has strength in her eyes that no workout routine can give her. Though her voice may be shaky, it is sweet as honey to those who receive wisdom from her lips.  Age cannot rob her for she is more than smooth skin and fine bones.  This woman is timeless and she does not fade away as she gets older.  She puts on a full display of everything inside of her.
To become a woman is a sacred endeavor.  The sacred passage into womanhood is God-breathed!"

Honoring Hunger Cues

So currently i am reading " Intutive Eating" by Eveyln Tribole. It talks about alot of things i already know about intutive eating, but it really gave me some new insight on balanced eating. The findings that Ancel Key's study  was a valuable study that cannot be replicated in humans because of ethical concern. However, it provides a wealth of knowledge and insight on the effects of semi-starvation in the human body. From yo-yo dieters, to those with eatings disorder, low caloric intake and ignoring hunger cues can have profound effects on  the body. Psychologically, the body sends out hormones such as cortisol which effects mood and evokes obsessive thoughts about food. Physiologically hunger and satiety cues are disrupted and thrown off balance and metabolic processes altogether slow to conserve energy. I thought it was really interesting how they gave a testimony about Karen and how she feared being hungry(  from her experiences with fasting) because of the out of control eating that followed. Fear of hunger seems like a strange concept, but it seems to really make sense. Our body and mind have memory when we starve, i find the lasting mark of it fascinating. In addition I thought the section about hunger silence was interesting because coffee and tea really does make us fuller, but it get's in the way of being able to be receptive to our hunger cues.If we aren't eating when our body needs food, its goes into starvation mode and learns to start storing fat more readily. I have rethought drinking too much coffee or tea after reading this chapter. Wow.