Canopy of Hope

I wrote you a letter
Didnt want you to hear the hurt in my voice
Or see it in my eyes.
Lost the possibility that we could fix what never was

In my weakness and need you tore me down.
Now these wounds have pushed us far apart.
Farther than the miles that I went just to heal from you.
Love is like a. Ghost that never stays too long.
Broken by the dreams that I used to keep me alive for so long.
But all I have is this canopy of hope that keeps blocking out the rain.
Saving me from the darkness of the doubt and pain. I can feel you all around your lighting up the room. Casting out the lies I finally see the truth.

Change Me

For so long I wanted to become whole, but not realizing the pride that would come in my strength. To be honest, the contrite heart of a broken sinner is more acceptable to God then the proud heart of the self-sufficient. First,the posterior of our hearts is of higher value to God, I've always known this but I never knew that relying on my own strength would cause my heart to become so hardened. That It would steal the very identity of who God created me to be. I realize how unworthy I am to do God's work because I realize how unloving I am. The first sign of pain or embarrassment and I retreat inside myself, I withhold my love. God is saying it's time to learn how to love again. God is asking me to create love where it is absent, to bridge the gaps and boundaries I have put between myself, God , and others. God created man with a capacity for relationship and called it good. I will die if I don't change, I need God to change me.

River of God

God's grace I'd like a river... I cannot stop it and for the most part not cause it.  Throughout the bible it talks about how those who are kind and forgiving the lord is a friend to and has grace on them... So that might  be the only causing part. When it comes to grace ... The sinner who returns home seems to understand the concept of grace better than the pious christian who only refrains from sin out of fear from the loss of Gods love and acceptance. How does this happen? And to be perfectly honest for most of my life I have rejected the idea of grace.  Before god restored me from my brokenness it was easier for me to just believe that I was  unworthy of god and and worthless. I wait witdesperately in hopes that I could adopt grace into my heart without resistance, that for all past and present sins, mistakes grace would overcome. Like a missing puzzle piece in my heart i cannot really love without grace. If i am only holiness then i love with a harshness but my life has been marked by this. No one has ever taught me about grace, it is a stranger to me.I pray that one day the thought of letting a holy holy god love me in my imperfection wont make me nauseous. I grieve grace because it is too beautiful, it is overly just. But it is the only way to beat satan and all the evil we commit in our moments of weakness. I acknowledge in my mind that grace means permission to be human. But i loathe those who are apathetic to the God ive fallen in love with. I lack the ability to understand just how much god can see the state of our hearts, and the sorrow we have when we hurt the one we love the most. A sure fire way to know how close you are to god is when you hate sin as much as go does. Please god help me to receive you and all the good things you are trying to add to me. It's really hard to love yourself when you haven't had a good example of what that looks like, but I trust  that God is more sovereign over all the matters of man.

Under Cloudy Skies

Tonight  I tried to find my way out of the fog.... sometimes  in life we just hit a  fog ... where we can't understand where we're going or why the things that have come to pass have happened... a fog is when we can't find the peace that life works itself out.  As  christian, to me it is .. I can't find peace with the fact that God can work things out in  spite this broken world.  I  trust  God, but I'm not so sure about people anymore. God's ability to work through people depends on a person's responsiveness, but then other times it just seems so  random. It's not my job to  know God's plan, but to let his will change me by continuing to walk with him even in the fog.  How many of my dreams have I needed to throw away? All of them. To be honest I don't even know if they have been  good dreams ... have they been all about me and less about God? I wish I could sit with God and hear his voice more loudly, but I can't right now. Fog occurs for a reason. When clouds can no longer hold water it causes a supersaturation. As ugly as it is even in meteorology it is considered a  "phenomenon". All that is in the universe has a function and  can be considered beautiful, it just depends on your perspective.

Tonight the sky was foggy, but despite the fog i could still  see the stars dimming in and out. I felt like God was saying, your faith in me is dimming in this fog. Even when i can't see in the fog will my hope still be bright? God, is  as consistent as the presence of the stars.. so will i be consistent?

I don't have to carry these things on my back ...because i know that my father has got it.  Despite what I feel or think " His dying breathe has brought me life."

Into the desert

I've grown more in the past 3.5 weeks than i have in the past two months. Ive hit a desert patch. Over the past couple of weeks i was reminded what the desert means. I really draw from the desert, as a metaphor for our lives. It reminds me of a time in my life where things were empty, hard and I felt alone. I was angry at God, if he loved me how could he let this happen? Mother Teresa once said " One of the worse of all sufferings is to feel unwanted, unloved, and lonely." Mother Teresa was a woman who found the blessing in suffering. She believed, that unlike being forsaken by God, that God was right there with us because Jesus came to feel our pain, God feels our pain.

Don't try to ask why .. all i know is that if we allow it to, the desert does something to us. The desert is a place where we get tested. It's hott, things are dying all around from the heat, you thirst and you hunger, but you don't find. There is no love, no friendship, there is no joy, there is burden.You cry out but your voice echos, you are alone. You will dye in the desert.  But then you look up and pray, and all of a sudden it begins to rain. IN this desert where the heat seems unforgiving, when it seems like nothing could happen, but you collapse in exhaustion, because you can't find another way, you cry out to God and IT STARTS TO RAIN. We see that God is the one who steps in when no one else can save us. You see in the midst of even suffering we can find life. Just like the cactus, that survives the heat, when you cut a cactus open it is alive inside, it is moist and sustained amidst its environment. That is like holding on to the truth of God, letting him sustain us in desert seasons of our lives. I remember these precious words

" I will lead her into the desert, but I will speak to her heart."
Trust that God provides all you need to get you through. In fact that is exactly what the desert has taught me, to learn HOW to need God. Believe me when I say, it takes something that completely breaks us and rocks our world to learn this.  Ive learned that this spirit of independence is what we need to get rid of because it always leads us in the wrong direction.

At church this week I prayed for God to hang onto me, that he would help me not let go of him. Then I got this image of Jesus climbing up a mountain, and I was hanging on tightly to his backpack while he was continuing to carry me.  I could hear God saying, " I understand it's hard, but just hang on to me." And then I remember that I cant make this journey without him.

If you can't make peace with pain and love in this life, then you'll always be too scared to love fully. You'll only give part of your heart to God. And you'll be stingy with your love for others. This isn't heaven remember, this is earth. But together and through God, we can still make something beautiful out all that life throws us.

THIS IS SO TRUE and that fact that someone wrote this blesses me.

"Compassion means to suffer with. We can learn to be with others in their suffering and with ourselves in our own. The opposite of compassion is apathy. To be apathetic to the suffering not only of ourselves but also that of others is the worst kind of hell any one can suffer from, it’s inhuman, it creates our loneliness and it creates our isolation."

In some ways we go to the desert to get sanctified. When we get sanctified we have to take a good hard look at out short comings and weak spots. I'm not ok with failing, failing sucks, In fact I confess I have a tendency to be a perfectionist but if we cant come to terms with failure, we will never be able to look in the eye the reasons why we fail. We will never change. And if you don't learn how to change you will die, not literally but in the sense of your being. When we become too comfortable in life, we might as well call ourselves, the walking dead. Alot people don't want to take the challenge that life calls us to fail to realize that a lack of challenge is not healthy, neither is masking your pain, and its not being alive. I recently thought my goal was to be more sanctified, when really what my prayer all along should have been was .. Lord make me more compassionate. I want God to make me more compassionate, even when I don't feel the love, or when I try to help people and they attack me, or judge me. I've decided I just need to pray for more compassion and more of the love of God to step in as life asks more of me. Together ... trials and love produce gold.  The deeper you go into the desert, the closer you are to becoming gold. Gold is strong, it takes high heat to for, but once it forms .. it takes high heat to melt it again. In a similar way our trials hard press us, they are like that same heat, but it makes us stronger. God is making something out of you. Although the lesson is carved out of pain, he is making us as bold as lions. So take courage, God is after giving you peace, he wants to make you strong so that your not just clinging for your survival but thriving in all seasons of life. We can't run from the desert, we can't avoid it. The only way to survive and the only way out is through God. A heart will starve in the desert without him.
He allows us to be weak, because he is powerful.  In the desert we find the most deep-seated side of God's love.

"Who is this coming up from the desert(wilderness), leaning on her beloved." Solomon 8:5

"Those of you who are sick, when things are hard, take refuge in Christ’s heart. There my own heart will find with you strength and love." - Mother Teresa

Crusades of a Nomad

Originally I had named my blog Crusades of a Nomad, because I found it very fitting for what inspires my writing, travel. After high school I moved and I moved ( Boston, Stamford, Honolulu) and I never looked back. But for the first time now I feel like I have found a home in San Diego.  I was searching and now I found a place where my heart has settled. It has been a little over a year since I've moved to Cali and my life has been flooded with amazing people and beautiful experiences. California really is a place that I believe dreams can come true. 
      But i'm on the road again now and it reminds me of my days of frequent travel. Travel teaches you so much about yourself, and about people. Every now and again i just feel like I need to get away, to clear my head when life is chaos, or to experience something new. In every new place I go, I always learn something new. So here I am .. Tucson, AZ. What have I learned so far? That i'm hella lucky to live in Cali. There not much going on here compared to SD, but it's only been a week so i'm giving it a chance. But it's desert town in the summer and ppl flee the heat, maybe i'm just here in the wrong season. I consider the fact that my gifting is mining the gold out of people,but now I realize its also mining the gold out of places. And sometimes just as any gift, as bittersweet as life goes, can get us into trouble if we don't learn how to use it wisely. Searching for the GOLD here both in Tucson and in people. I've met a few really great people so far, but in a general sense, zonies aren't that friendly and not many people are willing to entertain my out-going personality and sense of humor. Sometimes im scratching to get a smile out of ppl when I talk to them, what's with that? Maybe people are just pissed cause it's so dang hott out here. Oh yeah, and speaking of, there are definitely some hick-like areas/ people out here. No offense Arizona! One of the best parts about this trip so far is this alone time with myself and God.  I feel peaceful because I can slow down and appreciate things around me, I felt so rushed the last month in Cali. That's all for now! 

:) Drea Kelly

Heavy

I really need counsel right now. Ive been on the go the past few days, but I can't avoid this nauseous feeling in my heart, in my gut. I wanted to pretend this week like i'm okay. But the truth is I'm not ok, I really wish I could feel OK right now. Its been exhausting trying to keep my spirits up. I tried to help someone who was lost, but in the end I think it ended up  hurting them more, and now I feel even more lost then I've ever been. I call into question all that I am and my competency to help the world. I have a heart for world issues and the struggles of women, but is it a log that I would break my back trying to carry? My life collided with this girl who let me see that the world is really suffering in a big way, it became real to me. I tried to share with her about God, but she asked me where is God? "Where is God in this situation Andrea"?".   I was silent, because I don't have an exact answer. I felt as though don't deserve the life I have, I realize the card I've been dealt in life isn't perfect, but there are some bad cards out there. Some  people in this world were born into dark situations. I believe that God always gives us a way out of bad situations if we become open to our possibilities. In the least, my heart is thankful for organizations in the world which are dedicated to helping others I need. But I am not equipped to carry another person's life on my shoulders, while risking my own.


I can't see or feel God in this, what does he say about all this? I want to know, I want to hear his voice, but I can't.

Is it wrong to give too much? Am I weak for being this way? Or does this make us human? I can become hard like everyone else. But I fear what that looks like.
These questions leave me feeling heavy, cause I want answers. 

 I've been learning about distinction.  My street smarts in this life.
This week I learned a really important lesson, that my heart can be a danger to me. This sorta goes against all i've ever believed, that living life through the heart is a good thing. But I've seen that fail me, and now after the events of this week, i've seen it fail me  again, but this time in a threatening way. I'm not sure how the events of this week happened, was it meant to happen to wake me up, or was it just me making a dumb decision? I've learned that when we don't guard our hearts, this world can steal our joy, and harm us. When our heart leads, our minds can miss some important red flags, I'm beginning to think that my mind is the gatekeeper of my heart, also making it the gatekeeper of my health. Be careful who you let into your heart, what beliefs you adopt.  I use to think that love was black and white, but now i'm not sure, in the context of this messy life, there is a time and place for it.