Walk on With Me

Walk on With Me
"Make me walk in the path of Your commandments, for I delight in it." Psalm 119:35

"My Child, the path of duty is before you. It may look rugged, but it is the only way of divine blessing. Choose some other way, and you shall find only disappointment and frustration of soul. Weariness shall overtake you on the smoothest road, if it is not the pathway of My ordained will. Be not deceived by doubts and be not detained by fears. Move into the centre of My purpose for you. You shall find glorious victories are waiting for you, and recompenses far exceeding every sacrifice.
Be obedient: You will bring joy to My heart. Neither the applause nor the scorn of others should be of any consequence to you. My approval is reward enough, and without this, any other satisfaction is not worthy of your pursuit.
Walk on with me. I will be very near to give you support and encouragement, so you have nothing to warrant your fears. they will vanish as you obey."
               ~ Come Away My Beloved (Frances J. Roberts)

I guess there is nothing else to say, this is what God gave me. So,  duty is before me and it doesn't look easy, but He has called me to it and I know that if i try any other way I will only fall into disappointment and heart ache. His purpose for me holds 'glorious victories' and recompenses for all the sacrifices I feel like I have had to make. Me following his will brings my Father joy, and nothing else should matter, not people or situations or locations. He will be near me, even when I feel afraid and discouraged. Every step I take towards the Father I take away from my fears, doubts, and shortcomings. Even leaving this school, this community and this life altering place, I guess it just doesnt matter. No matter where I go, I go with the Lord and that will always be my comfort.

So...


♫ Heres a toast to those who hear me all too well... Heres to the nights we felt alive, heres to the tears you knew you'd cry, heres to goodbye , tomorrow's gonna come too soon.  ♫
           ~ Eve 6 

What I'll Miss and What I Want

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Ive been meaning to write for so long but I just have so much that I want to say and I feel like there is never enough time… Well here it is anyways, from the begining. My heart laid out bare again. 

This is what I’ll miss:

The Punjabi ladies who thread my eye brows for 4 dollars every other week. Jays pizza. Cinnamon buns fresh on Tuesday mornings in the café.Weekend trips to the city. Day trips to the states. Pork that tasts like chicken from the café. Waiting in line for food. Cherry blossoms in the spring. Campus tours on work days. Running in the rain. Independent foods where I do groceries. Vespers. Chapel. Midnight mcdonads runs with my roommates. Late night talks about boys. Late night talks about grace. Shirly Esau and her encouragment. Bakerview and the home Ive found at that church. The shower in my apartment.New testement theology every Tuesday and Thursday morning with Micheal Szuk. Being challenged daily by the scholars around me. The library at night. Ron Penners mustache. The lounge where you always find people making out on the top floor. The dorms. The echo in the circle. Volley ball. The overwhelmingly beautiful community. Donika. Lindy. Liz. Hannah. Erin Martins. Micheal Szuk. Not being in bed before midnight, ever. The green everywhere. The rec room at night. Watching the crazy questies from Donikas dorm window. Sumas coffee shop. Fishtrap lake. Ethos with Bob. The marks I make in my bible in class. Never paying attention with Bryan in A-Psych. The apartment. Our mantel. Our furniture. How there is always 8 people at our house, at least. The weekend get togethers with everyone. Always having someone to sit with in the café. The commuter lounge. Delving into scripture every single day in class. No class Fridays. Breaking café rules. Grey's with Nataizya on thursday nights. Pranking at midnight. Late night cow petting trips. Dancing in the apartment. The girl’s wardrobe. Lindy’s absurd crafts. Liz’s absurd comments. Working at the greenhouse. Hannahs amazing and God given gift of encouragement. Painting in Vespers. Friday night lights. After thoughts cheese cake and italian sodas. My wall of pictures. The way Liz pins her rent money to my wall. The people, oh how I will miss the people. The way God is transforming me and growing me here.

Since Christmas I have been trying to prepare myself for this. For leaving this place I love. but nothing can prepare me for this. I am so excited to start the next chapter of my life. I honestly cant wait. But I don’t know how to deal with leaving. It actually tears my heart apart and the thought of leaving sometimes actually leaves me incapacitated. Oh what a place CBC hold in my heart. I am SO blessed. I am so incredibly, abundantly blessed to have spent the time I did here. Oh what a wonderful God that he brought me here.

Lately I have been thinking about grace… if you have ever spent time mulling over this you will know its not small feat. I am overwhelmed. On a daily basis. A few weekends again our school hosted the mens pac west national volleyball championships. The girls on the volleyball team were paired off and assigned to ‘host’ teams that were coming in to compete. I was paired with a lovely girl on the team and we hosted a team of boys from the red deer college. In preparation for the hosting I was praying and thinking about the amazing opportunity myself and the school had to show all these people coming in from all over Canada a different type of person. People who cared and are kind expecting nothing in return. For myself I wanted these teams to be able to look at me and say “now there is something different, that girls has something special” I wanted to share God without having to ever say a word… I failed. I failed so bad, I had such an opportunity and though the weekend was good in the last moment I let God down in a big way. I never did anything overly ‘wrong’ or absurd, I just ended up in a situation where I could have shared and glorified and instead I denied. I felt like Peter. More than once, God asked through people, “do you love me? Will you serve me? Will you be different?” and I wasn’t. by far the worst part about all of this was that… I didn’t care. I had fun being of this word and I knew I would want to do it again and “how could (can) I accept grace and repent with that mind set?!”  I was talking to God about it… he , he told me his grace was enough. What is that? How do I even accept that? I couldn’t. I didn’t think I could just take it. “I am to human” I thought I know ill screw up again so how can I repent and accept this grace when I know I will have to again next time I fail miserably? I thought and thought. I refused this grace. The following day I ended up at a church I don’t normally go to. I sat for about 5 minutes before deciding I would leave, I was bored. On my way out I saw younger lady sitting at a prayer table. I asked her if we could talk. I didn’t (don’t) even know her name but she spoke truth into my life. She talked about grace and how sometimes accepting it is an act of obedience rather than an emotion. She said sometimes we have to accept the grace and from that our hearts will change rather than having our heart change and through that accept Gods grace. I guess it seems simpler now but a few weeks ago that radically changed my thinking. Sometimes the action has to precede the feeling. Bill always used to say you cant steer a stopped car. I guess it took a step of faith, step out first then from that change will spur. Well here I am. Almost a month later and I am trying. Oh I am trying so hard, but nothing I could ever do will be enough. Nothing I do will help me to deserve this grace and I don’t understand that and I cant process that. I just want to do well. I just want to be what God deserves. “but I am of flesh, sold under sin. For I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing that I hate.” (Romans 6:15) I feel like a slave. I cant free myself from this and I know Jesus did that. I cant lift myself out of my own pit, I know that Jesus does that but I feel like I keep wandering back to that pit and it scares me because I am here, I am at Columbia. I am at this beautifully, wonderfully, gorgeous place where I am constantly encouraged and uplifted and immersed in the wisdom of scholars whom have been blessed with great insight by God himself…. And I still.fall.short. This is what I want, I want more, I want more of God in me. I want to be overwhelmed and unsettled and dumbfounded by Christ. He is undeniable, I already know that, but I want to not be able to see anything but him. I want him to seep into every thought and action and feeling. I want to breath him and speak him and act him. I want him to use me and change me and transform me. I want to be just like Jesus. I want to serve and pour out and exhaust myself for him. I am so tierd of the shallow ways of the world and of being exhausted for the things I love and do. I want to pour out and overflow him and not myself. That is what I want.