The state of my heart... (be sitting down for this one!)

So have you ever pulled a prank on someone and found out that it was terrible timing? Yeah, that was me today. I changed a lot of the settings on my friend Emily's computer and she found it and could not log in to her computer after a fairly stressfull day, so I felt really bad. I went and corrected all the problems, but it was still a good lesson in timing.

Another downer, my friend Anna from Oregon who I knew in the internship I did this summer is running hard away from the Lord. She has always had a hard time being a pastors kid and living with her family. She turned 18 in September, ran off and got engaged to a pedophile sex offender. She is living with him in every sense of the word and is suffering the consequences of it. She got very sick with Chicken Pox and then had a really nasty infection in her legs. She moved back in with her parents so that she could get back on the dads insurance plan and go see a doctor. She and her parents had a large blowout the other night and she ran off back to her fiancee who lives 5 hours away from her parents.

I don't know if her sickness is from the Lord, but I know that He is using it to get her attention. I was planning on going down to get her from her parents house this weekend and taking her back to Aberdeen for a while, but she moved another 5 hours away from Tacoma. The way Anna presented the blowup with her folks, she made it sound like her dad did some very despicable things and that she could not live with him. I don't know if she is lying to me to try and get me on her side or if her dad really did some abusive things, but I am sure that the truth lies somewhere in the middle. I really wish that her parents could express a love for her that she would feel comfortable with. Jesus would love her right where she is and would not condemn her or try and force her to turn. I feel that her parents are making it worse.

I got to talk to Anna's mother on the phone a couple of times and it was scary how much of Anna I heard in her. The stubborn pattern of speach, the my way or the highway tone and the belief that she is always right scared me to death. It reminded me of the battle between the immovable object and the irresistable force. Things will break insted of give when those two argue I am sure. If both of them are never wrong, then how can they compromise? Oh, well... Pray for Anna. Pray that her fiancee does not become violent towards her, that she will listen to the voice of the Lord telling her that He loves her more than anything.

Anna if you read this, I love you and want the best for you. I do not judge you, I do not condemn you, I only want to help you. If you do not feel safe or if you start to feel worse, call me and I will drive the 10 hours to get you.

On a lighter note (after spilling my heart out onto the web!!!) I want to say that I am encouraged and challenged by the Lord right now. I am encouraged by the fasting and prayer that PSCC has been doing, my friends that I care for more than almost anything and leading or being apart of worship for the last couple of weeks.

So, as you long time readers know, I have been fasting meat and sweet food for the last week and a half. I have also been praying more and spending more time in worship. This has really bourne fruit. I have led worship for the youth the last two weeks and I have had so much fun and freedom in worship, just incredible. The young men that I have been playing with have begun to catch a vision of what passionate worship and I can hear it in how they are playing. The drummer started to play beats totally different than we had planned during practice, but it worked and it was annointed!!! Also, worship at Ignite has started to break through and that is really encouraging.

I have been challenged to let the Lord carry my burdens. Great... Only problem is, I don't feel that I carry a lot of burdens. With my whole money situation, I have not felt burdened by it, I have been able to trust Him for the most part. But my prayer is that if I am carrying burdens that I should not be, then Lord I want to rid myself of them.

Cool. Sorry for the long post, I just had a lot to say tonight for some reason...