Wow, Titanic. Theme of my life the last few months. It is a story of a fight with God, yes, like me and then God and then fight. It one of the hardest days of my life thats for sure.
It all happened over our christmas vacation this year. I had prayed a lot over our vacation, asking that God would make it a time of renewal as well as a time to break me down and destroy the boundaries I had formed over the year. I did not even realize just how much junk had built up, how much there was holding me back from walking with God. Out of this journey, though, came so many songs and lyrics and poems, and that was one of the problems. I found (as you may have read in my post 'Letters On a Page'), that I was almost using the time I had with God, that I was taking his love for granted and that I was seeking for my own to some degree. So there I was, on the back porch writing out in the freezing (quite literally) cold. I had been writing some lyrics and then all of the sudden, it stopped. I could not think, I could not write, I was helpless. I started talking to God and asking him what was going on. No answer. No explanation. Over the next half hour, I talked myself up into a rage, a burning anger that God had left me. We took some family pictures (I tired my best to smile the whole time) and then I eventually felt called out to go on a walk, like God was pulling a rope at my neck and beckoning me. Sitting beneath a rotting oak tree, I started unloading it all; I felt like I was punching God over and over and over. "Why are you not here? Is that really love God? You say you would never leave me, but you are a liar". As I write these words, I realize just what I was accusing Him of, what I was saying of Him. Yet as I flailed my arms and threw my punches, I just heard these subtle words in the back of my mind: "Unload it all. Lay it all down on the ground", and so I did. When I was all worn out, when I had nothing left to say, I sat there for several minutes, not really expecting God to say anything, yet waiting all the same. I started talking again, kind of calming myself down, trying to find some reason in what was going on here. Then it hit me, like a semi-truck on the highway, totally blindsiding me. It was not God that was closing His hear, it was me. Wow. I sat and wept for what felt like hours. Was I really closing myself off from God? My hot tears melted the packed snow beneath me; I now saw what God had been trying to show me all week. God is not the words that come from me, He is what the words come from. Now I know, now I have seen. He has grown me in this brokenness, he has used this pain to bring about healing and new life. And for that it was worth every moment and every tear.
Well, that is most of my story (kinda long I know; I need to put my blog on a diet). After I took off a few days from writing, I came up with this song to put words to my week. Thanks for reading all of you out there.
You love not like the love of man
In no way may I leave your hand
On the days I'm overcast
The love you give is enough to last
You love me when my heart is cold
You love me as my soul grows bold
A love that fills a secret part
Where I go, I have your heart
A certain light within my eye
That is your peace although I cry
Your warm hand on my chest
You cradle me into your rest
A warmth that only you can fill
Through times I grow weak with chill
In a mountainous place
A cloud hides your face
Yet still your rays give heat
The frost of night is beat
As I start back to school and get back into the system, I not surprised, but shaken all the same to find that the world only cares about one thing. How does his life end? What is the solution to this math problem? How does the world end? They are so caught up in what will be that they miss what is. What is his life? What are the steps in this math problem? What is God doing in the world now? These are the questions that I have been awakened to, questions that do not exactly satisfy the human desire for answers, but rather give me a deeper view of life around me.
The words that I say are not enough. They are just letters on a page without the inspiration, the life that drives those words. When God writes in me, something amazing happens; a connection is formed between me and God, between heart and pen. I can say what is truly on my heart, what I am feeling with him. Every time I try to recreate that bond, that unity, It always just turns into a bunch of scrap paper if anything. I cannot write without Him, I cannot sing without Him, I have nothing good besides what he has put in me.
I have noticed something in the past few years of my life, something that I always sensed, but never knew what it was. God has pulled me apart from most of my generation for some reason that only he knows. He took me out of public education, he has pulled me away from the stereotypical 'boy friend-girl friend' game, he has given me his love to shine, and he has instilled in me a willing heart to follow this journey. I do not know where it will lead, or what all that I go through is for, but I know that I do not want to take the other route. He forged a strong connection with me and I can only trust that He knows the bigger plan in all of this, that he choose me for a reason. He has pulled me out of confusion and ignorance into a world that is way over my head. My only prayer is that he will find in me good soil and that wherever this path leads I will be able to follow.
Well, I'm off to Colorado for 2 weeks. I know that I need time away from all the stress, from life taking it's tole on my mind and my body. I know, also, that the enemy would love to take this time to dishearten me and make me all the worse, but I trust my father with that and with what will happen this trip. For those of you who are reading this, I just ask that you would pray over this time away, that I would find God up there on the mountains and that he would swallow me up in his arms. Also if you would pray that I would get lost, yes lost. I have found that God likes to operate off the beaten path and away from the chaos, so I need to loose myself.
There is so much that I have planned on this trip to do, so many things that I would like to finish and others that I would like to begin, yet sometimes I feel like I am creating more pressure on myself to replace the pressure that I am leaving behind. I don't know, I think that I will just get there and see how it goes; I don't want to box myself in and not let God work in me. I see it as leaving pages in my journal for God to write on, words that I would not say or words that could not come from me. It's time for me to get to bed now, so once again, I ask you to pray on my behalf; pray the words that could not come from me. I thank God for these brothers and sisters that he has given to walk with me on this road; God bless you all.
Christopher Coan
Why me? Why did you choose me God? Why did you pull me out and call me to something greater?
These are all questions that have raced through my mind recently, questions that have really made me dig deep and find answers. I was getting no where. I have found that it is very hard to understand God in our own time and on our own sets of rules and boundaries. It is like searching for stars in the full light of day; It is impossible to accomplish. But in this search, God has showed me so many things about who I am and what I am and about, most importantly, love, what it means and what it is. Yet there were still so many unanswered questions and gaps left in my understanding that I could not tell you why I am the way I am.
We went to see Avatar today. Unbelievable. Yes, this has a point, one that totally woke me up and changed my life. I didn't really know what to expect from this movie thanks to the mysterious nature of the previews that were shown months prior. I sat and watched the movie, expecting to see some totally heart racing action and some romance or whatever, but what I found in this movie was so much more than that. There is one scene, when Jake just gets lost in the jungle and the nocturnal hunters of the night begin to close in one him. Just at the moment when all hope seems lost for any survival, Neytiri, a native Na'vi comes to his rescue. She tells Jake to leave and to return back to his home, yet he follows her deeper into the jungle.
"Why did you save me?" Jake asks her.
After a pause, she says, "Because you have a strong heart."
Right there in the movie theater I start crying, because I knew that it was not merely Neytiri talking to Jake, it was God talking to me. 'I have saved you because you have a strong heart' I heard over and over and over in my head. He pulled me out of the old world, out of the darkness to bring me into a new world, a place where it will be dangerous and where I will be hated, but I have a strong heart, and he has rescued me from this world. And this is only the beginning.
There is a brief time between when you accept Christ into your life and when you truly trust God with your heart. It is a scary time, a time where you feel like a child lost at night in the woods. You jump at the sound of wolves closing in around you, as they try to scare you back home. You hear that everything will be alright, yet the noises grow louder and louder, until it becomes a defining howl that sets your spine shivering. Everything in you wants to run back to the safety in the world, but it is the emptiness, that feeling of a hole within you that drives you onward. At a time where most flee, you press on to the point of no return. Just at the moment where all the light is gone and all hope has failed of ever being saved, you feel the warmth of a hand in yours that touches every fiber of your being. Although you are still in the dark of night, and the sounds and screams around you grow louder still, you as the child of your heavenly father squeeze all the more and dream of the daylight just beyond the other side of these woods.