November 3, 2009

Cards for Kiva

Hi

Many of you know that at the beginning of October I was able to go to Catalyst in Atlanta. While I was there I learned about a great ministry called Kiva.

To explain a little about what they do their website states, “Kiva’s mission is to connect people through lending for the sake of alleviating poverty. Kiva is the world’s first person-to-person micro-lending website, empowering individuals to lend to unique entrepreneurs around the globe.”

I loved the concept of this ministry! There is something very holy about the dignity that comes with being able to provide a livelihood for yourself and your family even in the midst of the world’s poorest places!

There were about 13,000 people at Catalyst this year and every single one of us got a $10 bill. A REAL $10 bill. I was never good at math so I’ll let you do it… ;) All I know is that was A LOT of cash.

So, what was the point? The point was to turn the $10 into $100 and make a micro-finance loan to an entrepreneur in need.

Well, that sounded great in the theory but I so do not have the mind of a business woman. How was I going to do that? I talked to my mom about it and she said I should make and sell cards.

Now I can make some cards and they pretty much sell themselves so THAT I could do!

Attached to this post are some pictures of several cards I have made recently just as an example of what you can expect if you join in this challenge with me. The cool thing about this is the cards can be as generic or customized as you want them.

NoelThank YouPersonalized

I’m selling the cards in sets of 3 for $10 or 4 for $12, which is a pretty good deal if you ask me! All money raised will go to Kiva with the $10 they gave me. Remember, Christmas is coming and believe me when I tell you that I have more Christmas themed paper than I know what to do with so help me put it to good use!

Shoot me an e-mail if you want to order some! I can’t wait to hear from you! kathrynmeans@yahoo.com

November 3, 2009

The Idol of Fantasy

Habakkuk 2:18 says, “Of what value is an idol, since a man has carved it? Or an image that teaches lies? For he who makes it trusts in his own creation; he makes idols that cannot speak.”

I am a born planner; a dreamer, visionary. A thought occurs to me and I instantly begin to plan and scheme with my mental calendar in front of me trying to figure out how to make it happen. It’s the way I am wired.

While the Lord wired me in this way for a purpose, I have lived much of my life without allowing the Lord to redeem what He intended this for.

My first huge celebrity crush was Leonardo DiCaprio. I waited with breathless anticipation, along with every other 16 year old girl in 1997, for six months until Titanic came out in the theaters.

Looking back on it now, I was ridiculous! God bless my parents!

Throughout those six months and the months following the movie I fabricated scenario after scenario of how we might meet, conversations we would have, that moment when he would realize that despite our age difference he couldn’t live without me. Inevitably in every scenario he would sweep in, save me from my boring life, provide for me financially so that I could spend my life being as creative as my heart desired and never have to worry about a thing.

Well, obviously that never happened.

The next big crush was Matthew McConaughey.

Say what you will about the naked bongo-playing incident, the man is incredibly good looking and back then I would have been content to just listen to him talk with that Texan drawl all day long.

Again the fantasies began. I imagined running into him in a random coffee shop…literally running into him spilling coffee everywhere and in the moment of morbid humiliation he would see my vulnerability, find it lovely and long to protect it from the world.

Again, that never happened.

I could fill an entire book with all of the fantasies I have concocted in order to fill my life of singleness with purpose and meaning. While they numbed the pain of loneliness there always came a point when they weren’t enough. When the reality of my life poked through the curtain of my dream world and called me a liar.

Unredeemed, an overactive imagination is a dangerous thing.

How could I, as Habakkuk says, trust in my own creation when I had created what could not speak?

The idol of fantasy I created ultimately kept me from the Lord; kept me from the things He had for me in the present. How could I possibly live in the present of my reality when I was living in the “then” when I would be rescued from the monotony of my life?

I looked to my version of Leonardo DiCaprio to save me from my boring life when the Lord could have done that instantly simply by my inviting Him to take full control. I was looking to my version of Leo to provide for me financially when, had I simply been wise with my money and given Him what was already His, the Lord would have delighted to do that very thing.

I looked to my version of Matthew McConaughey to find my vulnerability lovely when it is my vulnerability that is literally the fingerprint of God on my life as a woman. Of course God finds it lovely because my vulnerability is the very reflection of His. Is there even a doubt that He would protect it from the world if I simply trusted Him with it; asked him to?

All the times I curled up in my bed at night with a pillow, pretending it was a man…how many nights did I miss the Holy Spirit of the Lord curl up behind me and whisper in my ear, “Goodnight, Love.” My soul aches with the very thought of it.

All the times I had imaginary conversations with men who didn’t even know I existed while driving in my car, all the while the Holy Spirit of the Lord was sitting in the passengers seat waiting for me to acknowledge His existence…and I never did. It makes me want to slap the driver into reality, but I can’t.

While I grieve over the lost time, over the moments with the Lord that never were, I can’t stay there. I must believe that what Joel said is true, “So, I will restore to you the years that the swarming locust has eaten, the crawling locust, the consuming locust, the chewing locust…”

When I demolish the idol of fantasy I open myself up to His restoration. He restores every place in my life that has been broken or made barren by my sin of idolatry and for that I am thankful.

I hear His, “Goodnight, Love” now.

My car is now a place of worship and intimate conversation with the Holy Spirit and at times I even pretend I can hold His hand.

However, none of this happens without intention. It is all too easy for me to slip and rebuild the idol of fantasy.

One bad day.

One disappointment.

One day too many without spending enough time with the Lord and I am right back where I started.

I have to get up every day and smash this idol to pieces. I have to get up everyday and choose not to trust in the creation of my hands but the Hands in which I was created.

October 28, 2009

Stewarding a Promise

Have you ever been made a promise that was too good to be true; one that seemed to be so fantastic it could never have really been meant for you?

A promise that made you ache at the impossibility of it yet caused you to hope in a way you had forgotten was possible.

Two Saturdays ago I was made such a promise by the Lord.

It was so nonsensical that I was sure it was my imagination playing tricks on me. I checked it with Him over and over again for what seemed like minutes. Finally, He said it one more time and followed it with, “Write it down.”

No. I couldn’t. To write it down would be to make a record of it and what if it was simply my overactive imagination? He couldn’t ask me to make a fool of myself again even if I were the only one who ever knew!

“Write it down, Love.”

I began to weep.

“Please, Lord. Don’t ask me to do this.”

Who knew writing down four words would threaten to rip me to shreds.

After about five minutes of me giving God all the reasons why I shouldn’t write it down through broken sobs, I inhaled deeply the Peace that transcends all understanding and heard Him again.

“Write it down, Love.”

I sat on each word, as I wrote them, letting the impossibility of them seep into my bones, praying God would increase my faith in order to believe them.

The next day at church Jeff was talking about how to discern God’s personal will for our lives and he said that sometimes we hear what we want to hear. I thought I was going to throw up.

I have a history of this in my walk with the Lord…did I really hear what I wanted to hear? But wait…I didn’t want to hear it. I fought God on it for a good thirty minutes!

Still, I thought I was going to throw up. You know that feeling where the blood rushes to your face and your ears feel like they are going to incinerate while still attached…

The enemy can truly use whatever he wants to distract us, to destroy us. But we have a God who comes riding in with Truth.

I’m not quite sure how he got here because I was otherwise occupied with trying to control the acid reflux in my gut, but the next thing I heard Jeff say was that the Word says that we have not because we ask not.

“Love, you asked me what I was doing. You sensed I was doing something and you asked, so I simply answered your question.”

I love Him so much!

In that moment, the promise was affirmed and confirmed and I could rest.

Admittedly, I started thinking ahead, dreaming ahead to the time when the promise would be fulfilled. I got my calendar out and while I wasn’t scheming or striving I wasn’t remaining present either.

And then yesterday I woke up from a dream that followed me around the entire day nipping at my heels daring me to ignore it. This dream wasn’t like ones that I have had before. I could remember an entire conversation. I experienced a physical contact in this dream that I felt in my sleep. Personalities were perfectly expressed. I went in and out of sleep for about an hour and every time I was asleep the conversation repeated itself.

As if it wasn’t bad enough to hear from someone you love, the words, “Wow. You are so bitter!” once, I dreamt it over and over again until I had memorized every word.

I believe that God can speak to us in dreams. He did it with people in the Bible and since He is no respecter of persons, I believe He does it still.

Frankly, I was a little concerned about what He was trying to tell me through this dream. Had I become bitter without even knowing it?

One of my favorite things about this season in my life is that I have a community of ladies I am surrounded by who are unafraid to tell me what I need to hear. Who pray for me on a daily basis concerning things I don’t even have to ask them to pray for. I visited one of these ladies yesterday and had her read my play-by-play of the dream I had written in my journal for some much needed perspective.

When she had finished reading she looked at me and said, “What the Lord led me to pray for you today makes so much sense now.”

You have got to be kidding me! What?!?

If you know me at all you know I am a big proponent of guarding my heart. Lately, I have been convicted that I have been guarding my heart a little too much. There is a difference between guarding your heart and being inappropriately conservative. I’m afraid for the last two years I have been more of the latter.

Pain does that to you sometimes. Hurt, disappointment, betrayal. It keeps us careful. God calls us to cast all of our cares on Him.

You see before I was told, in my dream, that I was bitter, I told that person that my attitude toward a certain situation (and of course that situation involved me waiting, waiting, and waiting some more) was just my way of guarding my heart.

My sweet friend looked at me yesterday, as I was a ball of nerves over this dream and she said, “Kathryn, you have been guarding your heart from the wrong things. As you have been given this promise the Lord wants you to guard your heart against bitterness as you wait, no matter how long that may be.”

In that instant I knew she was right. My spirit screamed, “Yes!”

She continued, “God gave you this promise because He knows He can trust you with it. “

This reminded me something a friend told me the Summer of 2007. During that summer I felt like the Lord had put me up on His shoulders and given me a view of my future in Him. My incredibly insightful friend said, “Kathryn, this year is going to be a year of learning how to steward a word over your life. A year of learning what it looks like to steward a promise.”

I wish I could say that 2008 was that for me but with the loss of Exodus and the move home and everything else…2008 was very much like a barren desert where I lost myself in humiliation, sin patterns, and disappointment. So much of this last year, 2009, has been about reclaiming what was stolen and what I gave away in the previous year.

I didn’t learn how to steward a promise when I was suppose to and I have learned that we can’t move forward with the Lord until we have learned everything we need to learn in order to walk well in the next season.

To steward is to act as steward of; to manage. Doesn’t help much unless we know what the noun form of steward means.

A steward is a person who manages another’s property or financial affairs; one who administers anything as the agent of another or others.

I am to manage His promise to me. I am a woman He has entrusted with His property; His promise.

So what exactly is this thing I am to manage, this thing I have been entrusted with?

A declaration that something will or will not be done, given. An express assurance on which expectation is to be based.

How can I walk in expectation of what has been promised while continuing to guard my heart from it?

I can’t.

However, how can I not become bitter if the expectation of the promise is not balanced with living presently?

I can’t.

Again, the balance is Jesus’ face. His magnificent, glorious, life-giving, maturity-producing, balance-inspiring, promise-giving face.

I will walk in freedom this time. I will seek godly counsel this time. I will ask for help this time.

I will learn what it means to steward a promise!

October 27, 2009

What Are Your Eleven “ING’S”?

Got this from my girl, Jennifer and it got me thinking that I needed to sit on these for a while…So here we go…

1. Reading – Pride and Prejudice and Zombies…don’t judge me. I was too curious not to check it out. I’ve been getting into some classics lately and I’ve settled on some Oswald Chambers lately. He is blowing my mind. The Lord has also been leading me through the book of Hosea. He loves me SO much!

2. Enjoying – Community. Fall. Watching my nephew toddle around. My family. Learning to quilt. Being a part of something bigger than myself. The adventure of losing myself by finding more of Him.

3. Learning – Not to despise the day of small beginnings. To remain present in the here and now. Being a leader is costly and messy but worth every second of it. Freedom is intentional.

4. Watching – Not a lot these days…I have three TV watching nights; Sunday for Amazing Race, Thursday for Grey’s Anatomy, and Friday for Ugly Betty.

5. Anticipating – November 20th for New Moon!!!!! Again, don’t judge me! :) On a more serious note, but some how connected (you would have to have had a Twilight conversation with me for this to make sense) I am anticipating eternity with my Jesus more now than ever before. I am also anticipating the Spring…don’t ask me why, I just have this feeling…

6. Realizing – God really does love me as a Lover loves. This is changing my life every day.

7. Pondering -The influence I have over people in my life and the responsibility that accompanies it. The calendar of my life thus far and God’s hand in it all.

8. Studying -His Face so that I might know it by heart and reflect it to the world around me. Fall fashions…plaid is the new black, y’all!

9. Wondering -When the Lord will ever lead me to finish this book. A year and a half and 154 pages in…the end must be close, right? When my man will get here…so ready to go after our Kingdom Dreams together.

10. Remembering -To humble myself as He was humbled. Someone in my past who is complete mess. That the gift of freedom is no good unless I walk in it daily.

11. Praying – For MyChurch and the city of Columbus, GA. For the ladies in the What Happens in the Kitchen Stays in the Kitchen Growth Group…Jesus loves them SO much. Praying they experience that love this week in a fresh way. For focus, creativity, momentum, clarity, dreams, and more of Himself everyday. For him…

October 13, 2009

The Burden of a Dream

There are things that were created to be heavy.

An elephant was created to be heavy. Cement was created to be heavy. A tree’s root system was created to be heavy.

Then there are things that were created to be without heaviness.

A feather. A newborn baby. A bubble. A dream.

But what happens when the things created to be without much weight become heavy, adding not beauty to the world but a burden? What happens when a dream becomes ripe with burden, bending the back, crippling the knees, and straining the face of the one who carries it?

If you were to walk up on a feather that weighed over 10 pounds you would immediately know something was not right. Where on earth is the bird this feather came from and can I get as far away from it as fast as I possibly can?

If you saw a newborn baby over 20 pounds, the heaviness would clue you into the fact that something isn’t completely right with the child.

If a bubble weighing 30 pounds floated by your car on the highway, well you get the picture…

Why then, do we allow our dreams to become burdens without much thought as to how they became so heavy?

I want so much in this life.

I long for so much , to be and to do.

Dreams; huge, gigantic, God-sized dreams that I believe He has given me.

Places to go. People to serve. A man to marry. Children to adopt. Books to write. Churches to plant. Generations to impact. Lessons to teach.

Dreams; huge, gigantic, God-sized dreams that I believe He has given me, yet I have taken what He has given me and made them heavy with my planning, scheming, and orchestrating.

Inevitably, just as soon as we feel the dawn of our dreams is about to break the Lord goes silent. In this I have found that God is less interested in the end result of our dream being fulfilled and more interested in how His child is going to steward the dream, steward the word spoken over them, in the midst of the silence.

Moses fed sheep in the desert for forty years after the first quicken in his spirit to deliver his people from slavery in Egypt. A dream was birthed in his heart to see his people set free and then for forty years he fed sheep in the desert. He was so separated from his dream that when the time came and God saw fit to remind him of the dream he didn’t even want to go.

The enemy is subtle at times in his attempt to steal, kill, and destroy.

Oswald Chambers wrote, “We may have the vision of God and a very clear understanding of what God wants, and we start to do the thing, then comes something equivalent to the forty years in the wilderness, as if God had ignored the whole thing, and when we are thoroughly discouraged God comes back and revives the call, and we get the quaver in and say-’Oh, who am I?’”

How well I know this.

To be given a dream and then to feel as though the Giver has forgotten, or worse, ignored the whole thing is an awful place to be. A lonely place. A place where I couldn’t look more foolish to the world if I tried. It is also a place where the Lord uses the foolish to confound the wise, of course I didn’t realize that when I was in the midst of my wallowing.

I learned this week that the want of more, the dreams I have, this is not ego. It is the fingerprint of God on my life as a leader.

He gives me permission to dream.

However, just as with everything else, there are boundaries that are beneficial for me to remain in. As He gives me the dreams it is beneficial to me to submit them back to Him because if I do not I begin to strive for them and the yoke that comes with striving is heavy; it becomes a burden. But His yoke is easy and His burden is light.

I’m not entirely sure it is completely wrong to strive…however, from now on I strive only for His face. His glorious, magnificent, life-giving face. Therein lies the balance.

To dream huge, gigantic, God-sized dreams that do not weigh me down with discouragement when I find myself feeding sheep for forty years, all the while staring at nothing but my Jesus’ face.

October 13, 2009

I Am Loved…

Loved…spontaneously, passionately, unfailingly, unalterably, unconditionally, scandalously, irrationally, sacrificially, relentlessly, undeservedly, perfectly, immeasurably, beautifully, purely, completely.

I am loved by a God who knows my name and calls this filthy adulteress, beautiful, holy, and pure…and forever I am changed by it.

September 30, 2009

Joy in the Mourning

Pslam 30:5 is a great verse. Songs have been written about this verse. Sermons have been preached on this verse. Books have been written about this verse. It really is a great verse.

“For his anger lasts only a moment, but his favor lasts a lifetime!
Weeping may last through the night, but joy comes with the morning.”

Even with all the great things that have been created centering around this verse, lately the Lord has given me a new way to look at the truth this verse embodies. All you have to do is add a “u”.

One of my last great memories of my Grandmother came like a present just a week before we lost her.

She was sitting in her living room with a TV tray in front of her that held one of her very last meals, her water, and her medicine. My moma and I were visiting with her and moma reminded grandma to take her medicine.

With an astonished look on her face that said this was the first time she was seeing it, she took one look at her medicine and one look at us and said, “Where did that come from?” My moma was trying to lighten up the situation and said, “Maybe the medicine bird left it for you.” Grandma’s face sobered and said with all seriousness, “I’m gonna shoot that bird!”

We died laughing. That moment was priceless. I would not trade that moment for anything. Even with a tumor the size of a grapefruit competing for space with her brain she still had that dry sense of humor that I so appreciated.

In recalling this singular event I am reminded of other events where joy has found me in the midst of a painful time.

Those days right after Brock broke up with me and my charge, Rocky would make me laugh uncontrollably with something he would say like, “Miss Kafrin, I’m the bestest Rocky I ever met!” When that shoots out from the back seat of a car from the mouth of a two and a half year-old you cannot help but remember that there is still innocence and beauty in the world. It was precious; it was priceless; it was me finding joy in the mourning.

The evening I spent at the beach with the Lord about a month and a half into not working at Exodus and in the midst of my soul’s wretched sobs came shooting forth from my feet the inexpressible need to dance before the Lord. There was not a soul in sight and there, on the beach with no one else on earth except for me and my Savior, I began singing at the top of my lungs and dancing like a woman abandoned in love. It was thrilling; it was priceless; it was me finding joy in the mourning.

The ever persistent question in the midst of pain and disappointment is “Why.”

Why?

Not enough time, distance, determination, and gumption drives that question away at times. I have found that you have to look the “why” in the face and somehow find the joy in the midst.

The point is you don’t find joy in the mourning on accident. You have to decide to find it. You resolve to find it.

Because it is there.

He is always there.

September 30, 2009

Confession

Is it okay if I admit that this week I’ve been lonely?

Sometimes I feel that as a strong, single woman, admitting that I am lonely is a sign of weakness, but right now I don’t care if I look weak, so I am just going to say it.

This week, surrounded by people, I’ve been lonely.

Not the kind of lonely that leaves you curled up in the center of the bed with the covers pulled up over your head. No, I’ve been that kind of lonely before and that is not what this is.

This is more like the dull ache of a hangnail that has made its way too far down your finger. It doesn’t impair function but it is still there.

This is the kind of lonely that tells me I was made for a Creator I haven’t spent enough time with this week and since I am not having my needs met from Him I miss the husband I haven’t yet found.

That lonely that says I was created to know fully and be fully known.

September 16, 2009

The Ache of Leading

A little over two years ago I asked the Lord to teach me so that others might be taught. It was one of those requests you don’t forget making. I remember exactly where I was, who was speaking, what I was doing. I remember everything about that moment.

It was like the Lord was leaning over His throne with His ear inclined to me just waiting for His daughter to ask Him what He already knew she would.  I say this because just as soon as the request was made, the lessons began.

How little did I know about His intentions. How little did I know that every one of the lessons He would teach me would be ones that ripped me open, flushed out my humanity, and pieced me back together with His Spirit.

Had I known, I’m not quite sure I would have asked Him to teach me another thing…but I did ask and He has made good on that request.

My spirit knows I am grateful for the lessons but my flesh is tired.

Just as soon as I think I am finished healing and learning in a certain area I find out I’m not. Sometimes the lesson creeps up on me and I am gradually taught, like with the Twilight books. Then there are other times when the lesson blindsides me with a pain I didn’t anticipate.

A pain that has me longing for the eternity that has been set in my heart where I’ll see my King with an unveiled face. Where I will fully know as I am fully known. Where I will be perfected simply by being in His presence. Where the good things about me will be gloriously redeemed and the not so good things will no longer be.

A pain that reminds me that I was never meant for this world but for Eden.

A pain that crashed into me yesterday…

But I can’t stay here.

No matter how easy it would be to wallow in the pain that assaults me in these lessons, a pit is no place for a beautiful daughter of God.

No, her place is on the Rock, surveying the hills for what God has next for her. Her place is on the battlefield fighting from the victory that has already been won for her.

There have been many times in the last two years when I have resented the calling of leadership God has placed over my life. Being a leader is not all it is cracked up to be. It is hard, requiring of you more than is required of others and often times it is lonely. Many times I have uttered the words, “Lord, it isn’t fair. I never asked for this. If you had created me to be a follower I would have been just fine. Why, Lord?”

I am learning that while it may not be fair it still IS…

This IS my lot in life. He didn’t create me to be a follower.

He created me to lead. He created me to teach.

So I must be led…I must be taught.

The good news is that my Teacher, my Rabbi is trustworthy in all things and in all ways. He means for the pain to be unto something great in my life and it is all for His glory. The lessons are difficult to learn but they are glorious in my growth…

I just wish they didn’t leave my eyes swollen and my heart torn within me.

Soon  by: Hillsong United

Soon and very soon
My King is coming
Robed in righteousness
And crowned with love
When I see Him I shall be made like Him
Soon and very soon

Soon and very soon
I’ll be going to the place He has prepared for me
Then my sin erased, my shame forgotten
Soon and very soon

I will be with the One I love
With unveiled face I’ll see Him
There my soul will be satisfied
Soon and very soon

Soon and very soon
See the procession
The angels and the elders round the throne
At His feet I’ll lay
My crowns, my wishes
Soon and very soon

I will be with the One I love
With unveiled face I’ll see Him
There my soul will be satisfied
Soon and very soon

Though I have not seen Him
My heart knows Him well
Jesus Christ the Love, the Lord of heaven

I will be with the One I love
With unveiled face I’ll see Him
There my soul will be satisfied
Soon and very soon
Soon and very soon
Soon and very soon

August 26, 2009

New Moon…The One That Makes Your Heart Bleed

New Moon Book Cover

There were times in this Twilight journey when I would feel as though my heart would bleed. When I found myself curled up on my bed, crying as I read, similar to how Bella finds herself curled up on the forest floor, a thought occurred to me.

Maybe this is what the vampires wanted.

Maybe it was exactly like Edward said in Twilight. They would draw me in with their beauty and their scent until I couldn’t get enough, until I was close enough, practically begging them to finish me. And then maybe I’m just being a tad dramatic.

Again, the convictions for me started early in the book.

Bella is dreaming and she hears a voice. “I didn’t have to look to know who it was; this was a voice I would know anywhere – know and respond to, whether I was awake or asleep…or even dead, I’d bet.”

There was a woosh of my breath as I read, “…this was a voice I would know anywhere – know and respond to…” To know the voice of the Father is one thing but to know it and then respond to it is quite another. I want my life marked with this kind of obedience.

If you’ve read the book then you know what happens in the first chapter so let’s fast forward through the disastrous birthday party with the six ravenous vampires, the stitches, and the last real kiss Edward ever plans to give Bella. Fast forward to Bella making plans to leave Forks with Edward as soon as he finds the courage to ask her to leave with him…or at least that is what she thinks is bugging him.

She runs every scenario in her head and makes the emotional plans she needs to in order to see each of them through. Every scenario save one, because who could have seen that coming.

Finishing this book was unadulterated torture for one reason alone…Edward leaves her. And as if that weren’t enough he makes it as though he never existed, as if that were even possible.

As I grieved my way through the book for the first time I remember thinking, “There is no way Bella is going to let him get away with this. She won’t let him leave. She can’t let him leave!” But she does and I realized that I am so like Bella in that I walk away from the Lord often for the very same reason she let Edward walk away from her.

While the Lord doesn’t lie to us as Edward lies to Bella, when he told her he no longer wanted her, our enemy does.There are also seasons of silence when we do not hear from the Lord that speak to us as well.

Whether it is the enemy whispering his lies to us or the seasons of silence that scream to us we believe them, regardless of the thousands of times God has spoken truth in our lives contrary to those lies. We are not so far removed from our mother Eve when we realize it is still that whispered lie that makes us doubt the heart of God towards us.

One whispered lie makes Bella doubt Edward’s heart toward her.

Just look at what that lie did to her. When Bella had her first delusion of Edward’s voice she was trying to make sense of it so she threw out some options for her psyche to wrap itself around. The option she settled on was distressing because there have been times in my life where my enemy’s lies have lead to this sick sort of rationalization where the Lord is concerned.

She said to herself, “This was wish fulfillment – a momentary relief from pain by embracing the incorrect idea that he cared whether I lived or died. Projecting what he would have said if A) he were here, and B) he would be in any way bothered by something happening to me.”

Such a distortion of the truth. Sadly, I let the same thing happen all the time.

But there is good news…God’s truth is never returned void and in the world of Edward and Bella the same is true.

When they are reunited and reconciliation is initiated Edward gives us a glimpse into what was going on in him when he was trying to leave her.

“’…but still, for you to believe…so quickly.’ He winced. ‘That was…excruciating.’” He thought she “would be so sure of the truth that [he] would have to lie through [his] teeth for hours even to plant the seed of doubt in [her] head…how could you let one word break your faith in me?”

The last question is one that I have had several conversations with the Lord about. How can I let one word from my enemy break my faith in Him? It is preposterous and yet it happens all the time when I get lazy and am not intentional about guarding my thoughts.

This excruciatingly convicting conversation continued when Edward asked Bella “Why can you believe the lie, but not the truth?” She responds with, “It never made sense for you to love me…I always knew that…I don’t trust myself to be…enough. To deserve you. There’s nothing about me that could hold you.” The way I see myself at times in light of God’s holiness is so much like Bella. Every day I have to say no to the lie and receive the truth and the truth is that whether I deserve Him or not Christ chose me anyway.

So much about Bella changed when Edward left or maybe it would be more aptly put to say that so much of Bella disappeared when Edward left.

The emptiness of the pages in October, November, December, and January scream with pain. During my first read through I had a hard time breathing for a solid minute. Meyer has such a way of allowing her readers to experience the character’s pain in a visceral way. Bella, who is full of words, thoughts, and dreams had nothing to tell us…How well I could relate to that pain. Even still, the love I grieved over in such a similar way was shallow and superficial at best so to put my feet solidly in Bella’s Converse shoes was almost impossible to imagine.

There was a break in her fog when Charlie’s fist came down, literally. Well that, and the threat to send her to Renee in Jacksonville. To get Charlie’s helpless and suspicious eyes off of her she planned an ill advised trip to Port Angeles with Jessica. Who knew this is what it would take to wake her up?

In a night of bizarre behavior, Bella started things out by running out in the middle of the movie she and Jess went to see. Coming face to face with the reality that she was no longer the heroine but the monster she thought to herself, “It was depressing to realize that I wasn’t the heroine anymore, that my story was over.” As far as she was concerned the adventure was over and she had been replaceable, so what was left for her?

It seemed that the answer to that question came in the form of a delusion just later that evening. She found herself in a possibly dangerous situation and she heard that voice she would know even in death, as clear as if he were standing right beside her. As the delusions continued throughout the story I realized that this is similar to the voice of the Holy Spirit.

Hang with me here for a second. Maybe the correlation cannot be fully made because Edward is not omniscient and omnipotent but we can still learn a lesson from Bella.

She was intentional about hearing Edward’s voice.

Once she realized the delusions occurred when she was in danger she began planning and arranging dangerous situations on purpose in order to hear his voice, saying, “I was addicted to the sound of my delusions.” A little nuts, maybe, but I had to ask myself the question, “How am I intentional about hearing from the Holy Spirit?”

While putting myself in dangerous situations would not be wise, maybe I should go a little nuts myself and start being intentional in this area, saying as Bella said, “I would do anything for that voice.”

She trudged up to her room the night after having her first delusion, knowing that since she was no longer numb, the pain was sure to find her there. It was no longer her safe place with Edward but now the place where her nightmares found her. But even when the pain caught up with her she found that she was strong enough to bear it.

Very quickly she found a new safe place in the garage of boy named Jacob.

If you are like me, the first time I went through New Moon, Jacob was nothing but a big nuisance. I was too busy grieving over the loss of Edward to even care that Bella was using him. However, I did what Stephenie asked me to do as she did to all of her readers on her website, and I read it again. What I found the second time was still a 16 year old boy who got on my nerves a little but I romanticized Bella less and saw that she was really using Jacob as a pain reliever even at one point calling him her “fix”.What kicked me in the gut the most was realizing that in the moment of my darkest pain, superficial as I know it was now, had I had a Jacob in my life, I would have been as selfish. Not an easy thing to admit to yourself…

Clearly Bella and Jacob have a connection. Even when I saw him strictly as a nuisance I couldn’t argue that. Bella describes their connection as “odd” in chapter nine and while the reader doesn’t truly discover how odd until two books later, it made me uneasy that she would feel the pull to Jacob as deeply as he felt it to her.

When Jacob admits that Bella is more to him than a friend she contemplates ending things with him to spare him, but she concluded that she couldn’t, saying, “I needed him too much, and I was selfish.” “He thought time and patience would change me, and, though I knew he was dead wrong, I also knew that I would let him try.”

I read that and yelled, “No!” at the page. It wasn’t right, Edward was coming back! He had to! She could wait it out a little longer!

In a recent interview, actress, Kristen Stewart, who plays Bella in the Twilight Saga movies, said that in New Moon Bella ignores the better option (Jacob) and holds out for the best (Edward). Even with this, Jacob gives Bella the adventure in her life back. She realizes she can live without Edward but she also realizes she doesn’t want to.

It was at this point that admittedly, I skipped ahead…how could I not? I had made it almost 200 pages without Edward and I found myself in the middle of a mild panic attack.

I HAD to know when Edward was coming back! I have very little patience for these sorts of things but as I read ahead I was reading about people I had yet to meet, like Jane and Aro, Demetri and Felix. I don’t know if it was by instinct but I didn’t like any of them. Finally I found the page where Edward reappears and it was still one hundred pages ahead…ugh! Did I mention my lack of patience?

So I head back to where I really am in the story and find that now there is something wrong with Jacob and with the distance between them Bella heads out to find the meadow on her own (she and Jacob had been trying to find it together, of course Jacob didn’t know the real reason Bella wanted to find it).

As providence would have it she did find it on her own and what she found broke her heart even more than being there without Edward.

“There was nothing special about this place without him…the meadow was empty of atmosphere, empty of everything, just like everywhere else.” This, the same meadow she described as spectacular during her first visit in Twilight.

Only the meadow wasn’t empty. Laurent was there. While fear should have been her first instinct Bella is excited when she realizes that Laurent remembers her. She is so desperate to have anything that is a part of Edward’s world that she ignores the fear.

Reminds me of something the Bible talks about when it says “to the hungry, even the bitter tastes sweet.”

Laurent is intent on killing her but the wolves save the day.

Shortly after this Bella finds out that Jacob was one of those wolves.

“What kind of place [is] this?”

Bella believed the worse about Jacob at first, but then what else was she supposed to think when there had been wolf sightings and then missing people with trails of blood in their wake? However, when she went to confront him and found him asleep she realized that none of it mattered.

She said it was illogical.

But I wonder if it really had something to do with her reaction to the danger Edward posed as well.

With Edward she was found and Jacob found her in the middle of her pain.

He walked right into the closet that was her pain, sat down, held her and waited it out, even knowing he would be her second choice if she even chose him at all. She knew deep down in her soul that Jacob was incapable of doing what she assumed.

Life without Edward continued on and Bella was starting to put the pieces of her life back together. But she still craved her delusions. In her last attempt to hear his voice she did the most reckless thing she had considered.

When Bella jumped from the cliff into the churning waters of what was turning into a hurricane she had no way of knowing that what was lying beneath the surface was more treacherous than what was above.

“I never dreamed that the true menace was lurking far below me, under the heaving surf…I couldn’t even tell which way the surface was…the angry water was black in every direction, there was no brightness to direct me upward.”

This reminds me so much of sin.

We never expect it to be what it is in our lives. We jump in with no way of knowing where exactly it will take us and what it will cost us. It is enough to kill us…but like Jacob, our God saves.

“My head swirled with the memory of the black, churning water-of being so lost that I couldn’t find up or down. So lost…but somehow Jacob… ‘How did you find me?’ I rasped.”

“I was searching for you.”

I love this. Sin, pain, and depression has this same overwhelming affect on us but God is searching for us, even in the midst of the things He has no part of.

After Jacob saves her, Bella is planning emotionally again. She is tired of using Jacob and she asks herself, “Could I betray my absent heart to save my pathetic life?” She was actually contemplating compromising her heart with Jacob. It was gut wrenching, even the second time around, and I wanted to scream at the page, “What are you thinking?!?”

But in the time it takes to turn the page, in the time it takes to glance at a car, the compromise vanished.

One of the Cullen’s was back, but which one. I could barely stand to wait until Alice finally flipped on the light.

Charlie and Alice talked about what happened after the Cullen’s left, upon her return and he described Bella’s grief more along the lines of someone having died than someone having left her. As Bella was eavesdropping on this conversation she thought to herself, “It was like someone had died – like I had died.” The part of her she got to be when Edward was around. There was no one to call that out in her any longer. Not even Jacob could do for her what Edward could. But even still, the compromise was back on when Bella found out that Edward wasn’t coming back.

However, in the time it took for Jacob to hang up a phone, it was over again and thankfully for this reader this particular compromise would never crop up again in Bella’s imagination.

Fast forward past the terrifying truth that Edward was planning to get himself killed because he thought Bella was dead, past the painful goodbyes between Bella and Jacob and now we have Alice and Bella on a plane to Italy. Alice is on the phone with Jasper explaining why she is headed into a situation which will surely get her killed, only wait…Bella may be able to save the day, if they get there on time.

“I think Bella is the only chance – if there is a chance.” This is Bella’s irreplaceable role. No one in the Cullen family can do what Bella can in this situation because Edward can’t hear her. If he heard any of the others he would only assume that they were coming to stop him and he would just rush to finish the job all the more faster. But Bella could save him, if they made it in time, with her very presence.

And then the real panic attack ensued…with five minutes left on the clock I felt every second tick away with every seemingly insignificant detail that Meyer included.

It was maddening!

All I wanted to know is if Bella would make it in time. All I wanted was for that moment when Edward would finally see Bella and the world would again be righted on its axis.

And then she saw him. After 300 pages spent apart, I got to see him too!

“I’d never seen anything more beautiful – even as I ran, gasping and screaming, I could appreciate that. And the last seven months meant nothing. And his words in the forest meant nothing. And it did not matter if he did not want me. I would never want anything but him, no matter how long I lived.” In that moment when she collided into his chest pushing him out of the way of the fatal sunlight she thought, “I was perfect – not healed, but as if there had been no wound in the first place.”

Fast forward through the terrifying visit with the Volturi, through the screams of the humans who were the Volturi’s meal, through the silent flights back home to Forks, through Edward and Bella’s reconciliation where she has the epiphany that Edward truly does love her and let’s stop at the vote. The all important vote where Bella’s fate is decided.

Frankly I didn’t know what I wanted to happen here.

Did I want Bella to stay human or did I want her to be turned? In either scenario I could picture real problems.

If she stayed human then what would she and Edward look like as a couple in 50 years. Then when she died Edward would just make his way back to Italy. That was not an option for me.

If she was turned to a vampire what did that mean for Charlie and Renee and even Jacob for that matter? I couldn’t imagine Bella wanting to hunt humans. It was too much and not an option.

But then what else is there? To say I was conflicted was an understatement. Very rarely do I read a book and not know how I want it to end…just a little more of Meyer’s creative genius poking through.

This part of the Twilight story ends with an argument between Edward and Bella and Jacob. Lines are drawn.

The werewolf, the vampire, and the girl they both love.

Bella made her choice and while she didn’t regret it she still had to live with the fact that her friendship with Jacob was over as she had always known it. Even then she counted it as loss.

“Edward was here,with his arms around me. I could face anything as long as that was true. I squared my shoulders and walked forward to meet my fate, with my destiny solidly at my side.”

Her life was back, her love was back, and even when she had no idea what would happen next, her confidence was back.

My goal from here on out is to be this confident of the Lord during the times in my life when I have no idea what will happen next. When all I need to know is that He is here with me and I can face anything with the quiet confidence of a woman who knows He is all I need.