a new creation?

Anyone who belongs to Christ is a new person. The past is forgotten, and everything is new. -2 Corinthians 5:17 (CEV)


So I went to Wyoming at the beginning of the summer and our team had a mixed CD to give out while we were on the trip. Naturally, I got a copy, put it on my computer, and forgot about it. But a certain song came on shuffle yesterday afternoon while I was dancing around my kitchen and trying out a couple of new recipes for granola and multi-grain cranberry-banana bread.



Admittedly, this song is not representative of my typical musical preferences, but I had to listen to it over and over again. "Who wrote this?" I thought, "I mean, seriously, somebody else has felt like this before?" I made my roommate listen to it. She understood why the simple lyrics resonated so well in my heart because she's been right by my side for the majority of this journey. But we were apart for three journals (May 15th-August 14th) this summer, and after only a few days together, we were able to see wonderful changes in each other - changes that are a direct result of Grace.

Because our time apart was sandwiched between months of living and doing life together, she was able to see the changes in me quite clearly. But just for the virtual record, here are some of the changes that I am aware of:

1. Mercy. He's been teaching me to Love people in a different way than I have had the capacity for in the past. I'm learning to see past things that make it hard to love people for who they are. The value of empathy seems to be dissolving my tendencies toward judgment.

2. Charismatic... Stuff. Wesley. It's a little crazy, but I like it a lot. I've never been a part of this kind of passionate worship before. The funny thing is, the actual services are only a sort of punctuation for what's going on in Athens. Healing. Restoration. Revival.

3. Peace. I don't compulsively make lists anymore (Well, sometimes I do, but I most of them get thrown away pretty quickly). I don't try to plan out my class schedules two and three semesters in advance. I don't micromanage every minute of every day anymore. I kind of like not being in control. Heck, I don't even know where I'm going to be a year from now. And I'm kind of totally okay with that... weird, right?

4. Restoration. Sometimes progression happens in the form of retrogression. When I was sixteen, I came to the conclusion that the Lord was truly enough for me. That His Love was more than capable of fulfilling the desires in my heart for a husband (If he exists, I shall henceforth refer to him as "Beardy") at some point in the future. Well, we all know what happened next. But in a lot of ways, I find that the wholeness that the sixteen-year-old version of myself possessed is returning. My passion for international missions has been renewed. Old friendships have been restored to their former glory.

5. A soft heart. He is taking away the stony places. I feel things now.

To name a few.

change everything

Use me, Lord, wash me clean I want to be more like You. Change my mind, change everything, For this is my cry to You: that my thoughts be pure and my actions holy that i would speak the truth and love You only

We sang this song at Wesley the other night; the words are so powerful. Bob talked about the passage in Jeremiah 18 about the clay and the potter.

This is the word that came to Jeremiah from the LORD: "Go down to the potter's house, and there I will give you my message." So I went down to the potter's house, and I saw him working at the wheel. But the pot he was shaping from the clay was marred in his hands; so the potter formed it into another pot, shaping it as seemed best to him. (v.1-4)

As an aside, I would like to emphasize how greatly I would appreciate the LORD telling me to head on down to a certain spot with a promise to speak to me clearly and (apparently) audibly there. I hope Jeremiah realizes how fortunate he was.

Then the word of the LORD came to me: "O house of Israel, can I not do with you as this potter does?" declares the LORD. "Like clay in the hand of the potter, so are you in my hand, O house of Israel. If at any time I announce that a nation or kingdom is to be uprooted, torn down and destroyed, and if that nation I warned repents of its evil, then I will relent and not inflict on it the disaster I had planned. And if at another time I announce that a nation or kingdom is to be built up and planted, and if it does evil in my sight and does not obey me, then I will reconsider the good I had intended to do for it. (v. 5-10)

While Bob was speaking about this passage, I started praying:

27 August
Ruin the ambitions or plans I've made apart from You. Reshape me. Oh... You're already doing it. You started almost a year ago, and You continue to shape me into this more amazing creature, someone I myself am just getting to know - the real and beautiful and honest and free and fully alive Kirby... Demolish the thoughts or ideas that crop up in my mind when they are not from You. Fill me with your Peace. Help me to know and love you, so that I can trust You and relax as you form me. I want to know you. more. please connect with me. I want to be close to You - nearer than I was when I woke up this morning - more intimate with you. I want to taste and see your Goodness. I really really really want to know You - for You to be much more real than anything else in my life.

"Now therefore I say to the people of Judah and those living in Jerusalem, 'This is what the LORD says: Look! I am preparing a disaster for you and devising a plan against you. So turn from your evil ways, each one of you, and reform your ways and your actions.' But they will reply, 'It's no use. We will continue with our own plans; each of us will follow the stubbornness of his evil heart.'" (v. 11-12)

I think that evil is, simply put, an absence of Goodness (a.k.a. God). So even though a year ago, when this entire process began, I wasn't exactly overtaken by malice and orgies and drunkenness and debauchery, I certainly had plenty of selfish ambitions, and therefore, evil ways. Like Israel, I made my own plans. Like Israel, I ignored His warnings of destruction. Like Israel, I continued to follow the stubbornness of my evil heart.

I held on so tightly to what the had LORD planted and built up that its Goodness was suffocated. He destroyed it. He reconsidered the good He had intended for it. He smashed the emerging pottery into a lump of clay. He ruined me.

But this, as it turns out, is wonderful news. You see, its not the end of the story. I am being reshaped. recovered. rebuilt. renewed. redeemed. reclaimed. restored...

ruined for anything less than Him.

the rain

It rained in Athens today. Most people, had they been caught without an umbrella like I was, would have quickly decided to invest in one, especially considering the fact that this weather is supposed to last all week. I did not, however, reach this conclusion. On the contrary, I found the experience of walking home from Aderhold in the pelting rain quite thrilling. I took off my raincoat and wrapped my bag in it to keep all those hundreds-of-dollars-worth of textbooks dry and suitable for resale in December.

After a few minutes, I found myself running down the stairs between the music and art schools, splashing in the deep puddles of water that collected in the pavement's uneven places. I couldn't see myself, but I know I was just beaming. Fortunately, I didn't really see any other pedestrians, so I don't think I frightened anyone. I think they were all sensible enough to seek shelter and wait out the downpour. Just as I was walking into my building, I passed a girl that was heading out. Sopping wet, I couldn't help but smile an enormous mascara-running-down-my-cheeks smile at her. She smiled back.

I shivered with laughter as I caught myself habitually wiping the slippery soles of my chacos on the doormat in the threshold of my air-conditioned apartment building. I walked to the elevator, leaving a trail of rainwater in my path, and a puddle where I stood as I slowly ascended to the sixth floor. I let myself into our apartment, peeled off my soaking dress, pulled on some yoga pants and a t-shirt, wrapped my hair in a towel, put some water on the boil for a steaming pot of overly-steeped black russian tea, and sat down to write this.

She puts her hands against the life she had
Living with ignorance, blissful and sad.
But nobody knows what lies behind
the days before the day we die.
-The Avett Brothers, Die Die Die

This time last year, I was one of those sensible people that would have found a quiet vestibule in the closest building and sat down to read a textbook until the rain subsided. I was desperately attempting to transform myself into someone that I was never meant to be. I missed out on a lot of opportunities to walk in the rain because I was afraid of getting a little wet. But this year is already so different. I wanted to come back to school. Classes don't stress me out. Sometime in the last year I stopped micromanaging my schedule and my life. Yesterday I bought my first football tickets. As I reflect on these things, I find gratefulness welling up inside my chest. God is gracious.

I'm glad it's yoga day.

more distinctive colors

The weight of lies will bring you down
And follow you to every town
Cause nothing happens here that doesn’t happen there
So when you run make sure you run
To something and not away from
Cause lies don’t need an aeroplane to chase you anywhere
-The Avett Brothers, Weight of Lies

Yesterday when I was driving to Athens I heard this song for the first time and these words caught my ear. Suddenly two lines had summed up the way I had been feeling about Seattle for the past couple of days that I couldn't quite put into words. In February, I wrote a post called
Ready To Stand. In it I talked about all of the new things I was trying at that point in my life; everything from yoga and climbing to painted fingernails and piano.

Seattle was on the list. It was important and healthy for me to try all of these things, and some of them I've stuck with and have grown passionate about. Others of them have fallen away along my journey, Seattle being the most recent. If I'm honest with myself, I know I am not a city girl, and a view of Mt. Rainier, although gorgeous, couldn't cut it for me. As I grow into the person that the Lord created me to be, I'm learning that I cannot, am not supposed to, and don't want to fit a mold. (Me, unique? How incredibly lovely!)

"Mackenzie, the pattern of color and light is unique to each person; no two are alike and no pattern is ever the same twice. Here, we are able to see each other truly, and part of seeing means that individual personality and emotion is visible in color and light."
"This is incredible!" Mack exclaimed. "Then why are the children's colors mostly white?"
"As you near them you will see that they have many individual colors that have merged into white, which contains all. As they mature and grow to become who they really are, the colors they exhibit will become more distinctive, and unique hues and shades will emerge."

-from The Shack, by William P. Young

So I think I've resolved not to waste time worrying about what's going to happen next year. This morning I woke up to an orange sunrise and the smell of fresh basil in my new apartment. I am so grateful for my precious friends sleeping the rooms next to mine. My old habit of incess ant planning almost cost me the opportunity to live with them again this year, but the Lord is gracious and righteous; our God is full of compassion. (Psalm 116:5)

Many are the plans in a man's heart, but it is the Lord's purpose that prevails. -Proverbs 19:21

a surprising direction

Faith never knows where it is being led, but it knows and loves the One who is leading. -Oswald Chambers

I went to Seattle yesterday. Yes, for one day, or more accurately, ten hours. The night before Big Jim and I left, I was feeling nervous, and so I asked a friend to pray for me. He reminded me of one of my favorite passages in Matthew 6 by asking a simple question: Does God not feed the birds? Almost immediately I began to feel the anxiety lifted off my chest and I was able to sleep in peace, reminded of the Lord's sovereignty over this situation.

The next morning on the plane, after wasting some time playing bejeweled, I began to pray, asking the Lord for clarity during the day. I wanted to love Seattle, but I was also afraid that I would. You see, I can be incredibly stubborn, and although I know that His plans cannot be thwarted, it's still a nicer experience to listen from the beginning than to rebel and undergo correction. I wanted to hear from the Lord while I was in Seattle, one way or another. Was I supposed to go there?

"Come near to me and listen to this: from the first announcement I have not spoken in secret; at the time it happens, I am there." -Isaiah 48:16

When we arrived on campus, I didn't feel that magical spark that I expected. I didn't dislike what I had seen so far by any means, but I also didn't love it in the way that I wanted to. The Speech and Hearing Sciences building was beautiful - covered in ivy and full of character. The weather was atypical for even an August Seattle day - sunny with a high of 75. I enjoyed the meeting with some of the faculty members, and I have no doubt about the quality of this program. But UW's campus reminded me so much of UGA, and although I've grown to love my school, I've always said that North Georgia would have been a more natural fit for me if only it were a little further away from home.

This is what the LORD says - your Redeemer, the Holy One of Israel: "I am the LORD your God, who teaches you what is best for you, who directs you in the way you should go." -Isaiah 48:17

As our day on the west coast drew to a close, I found myself with an unexpected feeling. I wanted very badly to visit Appalachian State, the school that my friend Brooke (she is going to laugh when she hears this) and I have joked about going to for the last six months or so. Mom and I are planning a trip to Boone at the end of September.

It seems He is directing me.
It's just that the direction is a little surprising.
I will keep you posted.