Category: Just Thoughts

Your College Semester Explained by Bible Verses

On By CaitlynIn Just Thoughts4 Comments

If “All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable…” (2 Timothy 3:16), let’s see how it might be applied to the experience of a typical college semester. Happy finals, everyone!

When you decide to just “wing it” on your big presentation:

When they deliver you over, do not be anxious how you are to speak or what you are to say, for what you are to say will be given to you in that hour. (Matthew 10:19)

Then you realise you don’t know what you’re doing and you’re not making sense:

And I was with you in weakness and in fear and much trembling, and my speech and my message were not in plausible words of wisdom… (1 Corinthians 2:3-4)

When the professor actually expects you to read the recommended texts:

Confident of your obedience, I write to you, knowing that you will do even more than I say. (Philemon 1:21)

When that one student in your class turns in a paper twice as long as yours:

Then they asked Baruch, “Tell us, please, how did you write all these words?…” (Jeremiah 36:17a)

When the class know-it-all decides to bless us all with their wisdom yet again:

…I will show you, for I have yet something to say on God’s behalf… For truly my words are not false; one who is perfect in knowledge is with you. (Job 36:2, 4)

When that one person tries to answer questions without having done the reading:

Who is this that darkens counsel by words without knowledge? (Job 38:2)

And so the professor decides the whole class gets a pop quiz:

Dress for action like a man; I will question you, and you make it known to me. (Job 36:3)

When one person in the group project screws up the grade for everyone:

The man said, “The woman whom you gave to be with me, she gave me fruit of the tree, and I ate.” (Genesis 3:12)

When the professor’s lecture is taking FOR. EV. ER.:

And a young man named Eutychus, sitting at the window, sank into a deep sleep as Paul talked still longer. And being overcome by sleep, he fell down from the third story and was taken up dead. (Acts 20:9)

When studying may very well kill you:

…Of making many books there is no end, and much study is a weariness of the flesh. (Ecclesiastes 12:12)

…He who increases knowledge increases sorrow. (Ecclesiastes 1:18)

…Festus said with a loud voice, “Paul, you are out of your mind; your great learning is driving you out of your mind.” (Acts 26:24)

When you get your grade back:

For you write bitter things against me and make me inherit the iniquities of my youth. (Job 36:26)

When you’re just holding on till break:

And I am sure of this, that he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion… (Philippians 1:6)

I press on toward the goal for the prize… (Philippians 3:14)

For this light momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison. (2 Corinthians 4:17)

When you throw responsibility to the wind and hang out with friends till 3 a.m. right before finals:

And behold, joy and gladness, killing oxen and slaughtering sheep, eating flesh and drinking wine. “Let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we die.” (Isaiah 22:13)

When somehow you pull off a decent grade without studying:

The Jews therefore marveled, saying, “How is it that this man has learning, when he has never studied?” (John 7:15)

When the week before finals hits and suddenly ALL THE THINGS are due:

…For we were so utterly burdened beyond our strength that we despaired of life itself. Indeed, we felt that we had received the sentence of death… (2 Corinthians 1:8-9)

But then the professor cancels or delays a major assignment:

For you have delivered my soul from death, my eyes from tears, my feet from stumbling; (Psalm 116:8)

When you finish a class you didn’t actually care about:

Remember not the former things, nor consider the things of old. (Isaiah 43:18)

When you submit your last assignment and can taste the sweet, free air of break:

…The LORD has anointed me… to proclaim liberty to the captives, and the opening of the prison to those who are bound. (Isaiah 61:1)

…neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away. (Revelation 21:4)

I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith. (2 Timothy 4:17)

If you enjoyed this, check out my post 11 IHOP Words IHOPers Use in Normal Conversations.

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The Parable of the Girl and the King

On By CaitlynIn Just Thoughts2 Comments

Nearly four years ago, during my first few months at IHOPKC, God was taking me on a journey of looking at the story of my life through His eyes. I began to see how faithful and gentle He had been in bringing me to Himself, even though I grew up in the church. One Wednesday night in the prayer room, on August 12, 2012, I wrote a little parable of my story. I was reminded again of it tonight, and decided to share it with you.

Once there was a young girl who lived in the kingdom of a great King. From her infancy she grew up knowing of the King and hearing his power and goodness praised. When she was only three years old she decided to become a citizen of his kingdom, for this was a great privilege available to anyone, young or old, from any way of life, who would choose to live under the rulership of the King. For the King had paid a great price for anyone to receive citizenship freely, and from a young age the girl accepted this gift gladly.

As she grew, though, daily surrounded by reminders of the King’s rule, the girl’s heart began to grow distant. She was still young and glad of her citizenship, but she began to resent the constant symbols of the kingdom. She began to wish she could taste life in the exotic lands outside the kingdom. For all the world she still looked and acted like a citizen, but she knew that her heart did not rejoice in it. She continued on, though, because she knew it was right, and besides, it was the only way she knew.

Still, she always knew that the King was good, and as she watched others celebrating him and their citizenship in his kingdom, she wished for that same joy. She didn’t know how to get it, so she occasionally petitioned the King for such understanding and joy in her most secret moments, but continued to live as though she wished she could escape. The girl was very confused, frustrated, and lonely.

The King heard her petition, and because of his goodness, began to answer it, as though he had only been waiting to be asked. He assigned her to a local community that knew and loved him well, and with them as her guides, she began to know him better too. Bit by bit, the King slowly began to show her what being a citizen meant.

The girl discovered that the King heard every petition and always gave an answer. She discovered that the King wanted her not only to be a citizen who would obey his laws and enjoy his blessings, but to be his friend.

So, very slowly, the girl who had always known and respected the King grew to know and love him as a friend. She would occasionally drop by his palace and have talks with him—often with her friends, but also sometimes alone. They were awkward conversations at first, but they gradually grew more natural and trusting.

The King decided to show the girl what kind of friend he could be, so he invited her on trips to distant cities. The girl loved these trips, and they would spend entire weeks constantly in each other’s company. The girl learned how the King ruled his kingdom, and he let her help him bring justice and mercy to those who needed him. The girl was delighted to have a friend as good and powerful as this King.

But after every trip, the closeness they had built would eventually fade away. The girl was at first very excited to visit the King every day to talk, but then she came every other day, and then only once a week. She still loved and missed him, but she didn’t know how to maintain a friendship without the excitement of the trips. The King missed the girl as well, and he decided it was time to show her something new.

So over many days, the King began to tell the girl a story. It began as an epic story in three parts, but he was always adding new bits to it, and every other story he told always ended up being part of the same story. The story told of a mighty warrior in a coloured forest who was tenderly pursuing a maiden who didn’t want him. He fiercely wooed her and lavished love on her, even to the point of laying down his life to rescue her, until she finally yielded to him and he claimed her as his bride for all eternity.

The girl was moved to tears by the story, and even more so when the King knelt before her and confessed that the story was about him. He told her that he didn’t only want her as a citizen, or a friend, or even a daughter. He wanted her to be his bride.

The girl couldn’t believe it. This great King, so powerful and kind and beautiful, wanted her to be his bride? She who had pushed him away for so long and still barely knew how to love him?

But it was true, and the girl watched through tears as the kneeling King slipped a gold ring on her finger and tenderly kissed her hand. In that moment, the girl’s love began to blossom in earnest, and she realised that nothing she had ever wanted compared to this King, this man, who held such power in every flash of his eyes and every passion of his heart. He had chosen her and she had chosen him, and she vowed to live the rest of her life letting him love her and learning to love him as he deserved.

Their engagement was very long, because the King could not marry until his rule over the land was made complete. So through the long days of waiting the King continued wooing her heart and she fell more in love with the man she realised she barely knew. He took her on many more adventures, and each one revealed more of who he was and who he had chosen her to be. And with every revelation the girl loved him more.

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A Letter to Myself One Year Ago

On By CaitlynIn Just Thoughts3 Comments

Dear Caitlyn,

Don’t freak out. I promise I didn’t rip a hole in the space-time continuum to send this to you. Wibbly-wobbly, timey-wimey, okay?

So, it’s December 2014 for you. Your heart is still sore, but you’ve survived thus far. You’ve still only let go about 86%, but you’ve embraced joy and trust and are moving forward. There will be moments when it still hurts, but the worst is behind you, I promise– and there WILL come a time when you’re actually grateful for everything that happened and glad it worked out this way. Sounds impossible, but trust me on this. Jesus knows what He’s doing, and rocky roads can lead to happy endings.

In the meantime, cling to the things God has given you. Worship. Song of Solomon. Friendships. The Prayer Room DFW. Small group. Mary of Bethany.

Start dancing again.

You have so many good things ahead of you. You’re going to teach and chorus lead and worship lead. You’re going to develop partnerships and dream post-grad dreams. You’re going to touch your home state with what He’s placed in you. You’re going to fall in love with a little house of prayer in Texas and gain a precious family.

You’re going to have crushes and go on dates (kinda), but keep guarding your heart. Sorry, 2015 Caitlyn is still single. It’s okay, though. You’re going to learn a lot and have no regrets. It’s going to be a battle, because you’re going to want to take control and make that happen ASAP. DON’T. It’s okay to go out of your way to be friends, but you still have to keep your heart free from that control spirit. You want to be pursued. You really do. Hang in there.

This is your year to blossom in ministry. You’ll learn how to worship lead and pour out hours upon hours in an empty room. You’ll help (a little bit) lead a ministry trip. You’ll teach and serve and fall in love all over again with the house of prayer.

Learn to put boundaries around your schedule. The summer at home is going to be hard. Don’t get lazy. Make goals and follow through. Find a church. Find a prayer room and go regularly. Go on lots of coffee dates. Relationships matter.

Please try to keep the Netflix binging to a minimum. Spend time writing and playing piano– AND GOING TO BED ON TIME. I know this is mostly wishful thinking, but give it a try, for me, okay?

You’re going to be moving a lot this year. Learn to pack light. You don’t actually need as much stuff as you think you do. Take care of Idris. She’s going to have a lot of miles on her this year. (Check the oil regularly– don’t let the Thanksgiving scare happen again.)

2015 will have its ups and downs, but it will mostly be just so rich. Treasure every moment. You only get this season once, and how you respond to it will not only affect the next season, but it will either grow or dull your heart and it has the potential to bring you massive rewards in the next age.

So respond well. Be fully present and alive in the moment. Give yourself to your calling. Love Jesus well. You’ve got a good, good ride ahead of you.

Love, Caitlyn

Arlington, TX
December 2015

P.S. — I know you kind of hate him right now, but the 12th Doctor will grow on you. Give this new season a chance; it’s going to be great!

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Monday Radicals

On By CaitlynIn Just Thoughts3 Comments

If you’ve been following my blog for a while, you may remember that about two years ago I started blogging through The Vision poem by Pete Grieg.  (You can see all my previous Vision posts HERE.) I haven’t exactly been keeping it up consistently, but I haven’t forgotten it either. This poem truly did inspire me at age sixteen with a vision of what radical Christianity looks like, and these phrases are still part of the spiritual scrapbook that makes up my life.

So here we go.

Such heroes are as radical on Monday morning as Sunday night.
They don’t need fame from names.
Instead they grin quietly upwards and hear the crowds chanting again and again: “COME ON!”

I know it. You know it. We’re always “radical” on Sunday night… or Wednesday/Friday/Saturday night, as your case may be. Hands raised, impassioned altar call, something moves deep in your gut, and before you know it you’re on the ground making grandiose vows, or jumping up and down in the midst of a sweaty swarm, shouting some lyrics about “glory” and “changing history,” most likely. And definitely something about “fire.”

I’m not knocking it. I’ve had more of those experiences than most, probably. In that moment, you have this vision that the next day at work or school you’re going to become this radical, healing, preaching revivalist – basically the next Todd White – and your entire city is going to get saved in a week. People will look at you as you walk down the sidewalk, some in awe, some in derision, but that’s okay, because it’s all for the Kingdom.

None of this is bad. I want that life. I do want to walk down the street and see heaven touch earth under my hands. I’m going to keep jumping and shouting and making those vows because my sincerity really does count to God, even when I don’t follow through the next morning as well as I wanted to.

Because that’s what usually happens, honestly. Big dreams the night before and then nothing the next day. What happened? Chances are, I was in it for the glory high, not the heart of God.

“Instead they grin quietly upwards…” I believe the secret is that simple. It can’t be about us. It can’t be that I want to be a revivalist because I want to be awesome like that and I want good stories to tell… I want to be radical on Monday, but if it’s all about me wanting a thrill, it’s going to burn out fast. Sure, God might still use me sometimes, but that’s because of His mercy, not because I’m actually aligning my heart with His.

I mentioned Todd White and provided a youtube link (which most of you probably ignored, so here it is again). One of the things I love about that video and from Todd’s ministry in general is that it genuinely is not about him. I know a guy here at IHOPKC who’s done ministry with him, and what has continually struck me from everything I’ve seen and heard is that Todd really does walk in humility and love. He’s so simple and unassuming. Just a random guy with dreads and a t-shirt who gives big hugs and believes God loves people.

Radical worship on Sunday that isn’t expressed in radical love on Monday isn’t radical at all. Anyone can get hyped up by an event. It has to be a day to day faithfulness, or else it’s nothing. Those old ladies in the back who have been praying faithfully and giving of themselves for decades, that’s what radical looks like.

I’m not in the least bit saying don’t pray for people on the streets. Do it!! But do it in love and humility with your eyes on Jesus, not yourself. Don’t do it just to get a great testimony to share. It’s okay if no one but God ever knows what happened. Seeking “fame from names” IS going to burn you. You were not created to live for your own glory. That was the problem in the Garden. Keep your eyes on Him.

That is the fuel that is going to keep you burning. At the end of the day, you’re not going to be judged by how loud you were, but how faithful to His heart you were. Keep your eyes locked on Jesus’ eyes of fire. Glue your feet to the ground and refuse to move. Get lost in those flames. Let His eyes burn away every other selfish ambition.

I promise, the more you’re in tune with His heartbeat because you’ve taken the time to stare into His eyes, the more “radical” your Mondays will be.

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Dance Is What The Soul Looks Like

On By CaitlynIn Just Thoughts1 Comment

I went to my cousin’s college dance show today. It was stunning. I haven’t been on stage as a dancer since… March 2009. Ouch. I wanna dance again. I dance constantly alone at home and in the back of the room during worship, of course, but I miss the choreography and the challenge of really pushing myself to express an emotion through every inch of my body.

My favourite thing about dance shows is finding the themes and stories being portrayed through the music and movement (and supported by the lighting, costuming, and all such theatrical elements). My favourite numbers are always the most subtle and abstract, the modern dances that seem to tell a story you can barely catch the edges of. Dance has the ability to celebrate and/or illuminate human nature, the human experience, and the deep shared history that binds us together. Grace and strength, harmony and dissonance. Dance is the story of us.

One of the numbers that opened the show was entitled “Perdido” (which means “lost” in Spanish) and featured a man and a woman on a dark stage. They started slowly, facing each other, and they seemed to awaken and discover each other before breaking away. Their movements seemed to constantly separate and then come back together. There was correlation, symmetry, and also an intensity of discord. I sensed joy and vitality and celebration and unity, and also separation and yearning and despair and confusion and shame. It was as if they needed each other and were bound together, but they were incapable of maintaining the harmony. They ended with the woman leaning backwards over the man’s back as he hunched over with his fists over his face, as though hiding from a deep inner darkness. I don’t know what exactly the choreographer’s original vision was, but to me it was a picture of the Fall. The brokenness of the relationship between Man and Woman, and also between God and his Creation. There was an echo of beauty fractured by fear and shame. It was a profound reflection of the world we live in.

Another of the modern dances that spoke to me was called “Atonement” and featured an ensemble of dancers, male and female, each wearing a straight ankle length black wrap skirt with a bright colour as the lining. Upstage centre was a video screen. The intensity and violence of the music and the dancers’ movements were accented by the images and words flashing across the screen. WAR. POVERTY. TERRORISM. The dance continued, displaying the depravity of humanity and the broken state of our world. The long skirts reminded me almost of ancient Japanese samurai styles, and seemed to represent the ancient violence of this struggle, and the fact that the diverse ensemble of dancers wore the same costume reminded me of the solidarity of humanity. We are all the same; we are all caught inside this beast.

Then the music changed, and a solo dancer performed gracefully while images of Ghandi, Mother Teresa, and Martin Luther King Jr. came across the screen. The soloist was rejoined by the ensemble, and words like PEACE, HUMANITY, and COMPASSION appeared behind the dancers. The music regained intensity, and the struggle continued, displaying the war between light and darkness that humanity is caught in the middle of.

I wondered what the dancers felt as they performed. Did they feel, as I did, that this was a prayer going up to God for salvation from this mess?

Yes, dance can be a prayer. Dance speaks in ways that words can’t. Dance is music made flesh. It’s shape, movement, speed, precision, grace, and strength telling a story in four dimensions. I have danced joy, freedom, and love… and also desperation, anger, and loneliness. In those moments, I feel like what my body is doing on the outside mirrors what my spirit is doing on the inside.

I love the creativity of God that he gave us this art with which to communicate. To dance is to be fully alive and aware and expressive. To dance is to put feelings into motion. Dance is the colour of life.

“A time to weep, and a time to laugh; a time to mourn, and a time to dance.”
(Ecclesiastes 3:4)

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Choose to Lose

On By CaitlynIn Just Thoughts

Back to The Vision.

This is an army that would lay down its life for the cause.
A million times a day, its soldiers choose to lose that they might one day win the great “well done” of faithful sons and daughters.

What does it look like to lay down my life for the cause of Christ–the Kingdom of God?

It starts with a mindset that I am not my own. (1 Corinthians 6:19) I have been bought with a price, so my entire being belongs to God. Laying down my life only costs me the illusion that it was my life to give in the first place. He owns me, in the most beautiful way possible, and I want to cooperate with his ownership in every way I can.

For me, in my day to day safe little American life, literally sacrificing my lifeblood isn’t much of a possibility. But I want my life to be a sacrifice, not just my death. My life is my every moment, every choice. It’s sacrificing my time, my convenience, my comfort, to allow God’s love to flow through me.

It’s embracing humility.

Humility is so foreign to human nature. We naturally make our lives about “looking out for number one.” Embracing humility is perhaps the most counter-cultural thing we could do, but it’s perhaps the number one way to be like God.

“Do nothing from rivalry or conceit, but in humility count others more significant than yourselves. Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others. Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but made himself nothing, taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. Therefore God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.”
(Philippians 2:3-11, emphasis added)

Jesus chose to lose in the most dramatic way possible. He who is El Elyon, God Most High, came so low to wash our feet.

God has honoured him for it, and he will also honour us for following Jesus’ example. I have a hard time imagining anything more beautiful.

“Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth.”
(Matthew 5:5)

“Humble yourselves, therefore, under the mighty hand of God so that at the proper time he may exalt you.”
(1 Peter 5:6)

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Book Hangover

On By CaitlynIn Just Thoughts1 Comment

I’m currently in one of those weird moods commonly known to bibliophiles as a “book hangover,” although I contest that it can happen with TV programmes equally strongly. This happened a few days ago when I finally watched the recent Christmas special of Downton Abbey. No spoilers, but suffice it to say that there was a long beautiful sequence of scenes of joy and peace and promise and newness, and then in ten heinous seconds it all was ripped away leaving a gaping bloody hole in the centre of perfection… and then I had to walk away and do “real life,” whatever the heck that is. And all I could think about was how sadistic these writers are and how are these people going to bear it when they discover what the viewers know but the family is blissfully unaware of until the next episode… Curse you, BBC!!!

Anyway, I was talking about books. Somehow books are even weirder because it all happens completely in your mind. Interrupt me while I’m reading, and my eyes will jerk up, staring blankly, trying to reorient myself but 99% mentally still in the book. Whatever words stumble from my mouth in those next few seconds are almost guaranteed not to make sense.  The only reason I’m able to write coherently now is that I put the book down a full thirty minutes ago.

I’m currently reading a mind-bending sci-fi/fantasy novel called Pathfinder by Orson Scott Card. The plot is excellent, but it’s the intelligence of the characters that makes Card’s books stand out. I feel like I’m learning so much about human nature just from the way the characters understand humanity. Anyway, I read a full 300 pages in one sitting. Took me about three hours. Yes, I know that’s insanely fast. I’m probably not human.

When I finally “come to” enough to realise that I should probably take a break, I close the book, wash my dishes which had been sitting abandoned next to me for at least two hours, and stumble upstairs and into the bathroom, something else I haven’t done in far too long. Staring into the mirror, an array of bizarre yet familiar thoughts accost me. It’s a bit of a side effect of the bleary return to the “real world.” Like waking up from the Matrix.

Well, here I am. Caitlyn. Is that my name? Who is Caitlyn? Oh look at that, I have a body. Still got legs. I am inside my body. Isn’t that weird. I am stuck inside my body experiencing only what’s immediately around me. Is this how time normally passes–very slowly, in the right order? Have I always been in my body? How maddening–I’ve always been inside my body, always thinking even while asleep, never leaving myself alone. I feel completely claustrophobic inside my own skull. Because clearly I’m not my body. I’ve barely been aware of my body for the past three hours. So what is this consciousness trapped in here? What is Thought, what is Consciousness, what is Self, or Soul, or Sentience? Are all people like this–so much bigger on the inside?

And then I conclude that I’ve had a little too much Book for one day and decide an appropriate remedy is finding some Real People to Hang Out with. Extreme introversion must be occasionally forcibly counterbalanced with purposeful social interaction. Except like tonight when the house is empty and my options become basically either watch Merlin on Netflix or go to bed early. If I’m smart, I’ll choose the latter and start fresh tomorrow, when I’m hopefully a bit more in touch with this thing called Reality and feeling a little more at home inside my own skull.

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Every Secret Motive

On By CaitlynIn Just Thoughts1 Comment

The Vision

Light flickers from every secret motive, every private conversation.
It loves people away from their suicide leaps, their Satan games.

Here I am, back to The Vision at last. I’ve been wanting to keep going on it for a while now, but I got seriously stuck on this line. Honestly, it scares me more than any other line in this poem. Light flickers from EVERY secret motive? Seriously? It sounds completely unattainable. I had no idea how to write about it. I knew I needed to take time to really ask God about it, so last night in the prayer room, that’s what I did.

I remember being about eleven or twelve years old, loving Jesus but not really knowing him or letting him transform me yet, sitting on the floor in my room, singing this song by DC Talk:

I keep trying to find a life
On my own, apart from You
I am the king of excuses
I’ve got one for every selfish thing I do
What’s going on inside of me?
I despise my own behavior
This only serves to confirm my suspicions
That I’m still a man in need of a Savior
–In the Light, DC Talk

Selfishness and impure motives are so deeply ingrained in the human heart, it’s a wonder we ever manage anything good at all. Humans are notoriously crappy at having truly pure hearts, especially when we try to purify them on their own.

“Who can say, ‘I have made my heart pure; I am clean from my sin’?”
(Proverbs 20:9)

Not to burst any bubbles here, but it’s impossible. And it seems that not even becoming a Christian fully rewrites our motivations. I know I still find myself stuck in the same old little prideful thoughts and selfish motivations. It sucks. And somehow I’m supposed to be “perfect as [my] Heavenly Father is perfect”? (Mt. 5:48)

I wanna be in the Light
As You are in the Light
I wanna shine like the stars in the heavens
Oh, Lord, be my Light and be my salvation
Cause all I want is to be in the Light
All I want is to be in the Light

There is only one source of Light in this entire universe. We need to stop trying to conjure up some kind of purity on our own, and instead turn ourselves over to the One who is longing to do this kind of work in us.

“Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me.”
(Psalm 51:10)

We need to be renewed. And renewed. And renewed. Over, and over, and over. This is our only hope of ever having that holy Light burning in our every secret motive. It is not something we can ever,  ever attain on our own power. We need to be constantly refreshed in his grace.

We may never get to the point of being able to say, “I never have an impure motivation.”  But that has to be the vision. That is where the reach in our spirits is trying to get to. Because it is possible to get closer, and looking like him, walking in deeper unity with him, is what our souls crave. We cry out again and again, “Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me! Give me your light and make me look like you!”

Because the more that Light is flickering in us, the more powerful that love will be.

We were once rescued by a pure, burning Love that snatched us out of darkness, and we become a conduit for that same Love to now rescue others through us. We will watch in wonder as the impossible, supernatural Light that we never could have attained on our own reaches out and snags people away from the edge of the precipice.

Remember that “holiness that hurts the eyes“?

This is what it looks like.

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God is Faithful.

On By CaitlynIn Just Thoughts2 Comments

This has been my mantra all throughout 2012 and through much of 2011 as well. After I graduated from APU in December 2010, I really had no idea what to do with myself. Little by little, things started coming together. I got a short-term marketing contract at a Wal-Mart, then a summer job at the Christian camp I grew up at which transitioned into a substitute position with their Outdoor Education program. In December of 2011, a year after graduation, I decided to take the leap toward going to IHOP in July 2012. Shortly thereafter I was hired full time with OE, got to work with the Christian camps on the weekends, and am now making great money, working with amazing people, at the camp in the mountains I absolutely love! And now, when I have a few short weeks left to buy a car, Jesus may have brought the perfect one right to me!

My God has been so, so unbelievably faithful to me.

It’s amazing for me to look back on and recount the last year or so, because there have been so many points of uncertainty and occasional downright anxiety. God has brought me through all those points, blessed me and taken care of me. It’s like I wrote about when I was on CR–those pockets of peace God always sends me to pull me through the hard days. I cannot walk through the woods, with the fragrant branches of the incense cedar and the wide blue sky spread out above me like a curtain, and NOT marvel at his beauty and goodness, both in allowing this to be my life and in just who he is. He has blessed me so many times over, and it’s completely not fair. I’m starting to feel like the world is really off balance, or maybe I’m due for a crash, ha. For some reason, he still chooses to give me so much joy and beauty and abundance, and all I know how to do is affirm in gratitude, over and over, “God is faithful.”

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You Say No

On By CaitlynIn Just Thoughts

gwen
You already know I am deeply in love with Doctor Who. Well, Doctor Who is in its off season right now and won’t be back until November. *tear* To tide myself over, I’ve been watching Torchwood, an earth-bound spinoff about combating alien threats on Earth. Series 4 is called Miracle Day, in which the human race simply stops dying. No matter how ravaged a body is, death refuses to come. With a swelling population and hospitals exploding past capacity, the governments of Earth adopt a new health care system in the form of overflow camps, where those who should have died and are now a burden to society are held. The Torchwood team is working frantically to discover the cause behind Miracle Day and to shut down the camps. While undercover in a camp, agent Gwen Cooper uncovers the horrible truth of its existence, and is trying desperately to save her father from the fate that awaits him.

Gwen: Sorry, listen. You have to change this. They move the Category 1’s at six a.m. They take them to the module.
Doctor: Sorry. Not my department.
Gwen: Really? Is that so? Well, do you even know what your department is, Dr. Patel? Do you know what happens in the module?
Doctor: Like I said, I’m rather busy.
Gwen: They burn people. They burn living people. The Category 1’s, they’re still alive, but they’re being burnt. This place is built on institutional murder.
Doctor: I’m not the one who makes the rules.
Gwen: You knew about this?!
Doctor: Category 1’s are dead. That’s the law. Under the emergency rulings, for the sake of public health, dead bodies can be incinerated en masse.
Gwen: Well, I’m glad you’ve got the law on your side. But are you actually there in the module? Are you actually there throwing the switch? Well, are you? No. No, you’re here, nice and safe, hidden behind your paperwork. You haven’t got the nerve to actually watch them burn. Because then you’d have to face the truth–that this isn’t a hospital, it’s a concentration camp.
Doctor: Excuse me.
Gwen: They built a concentration camp here, in Britain, today, and you, you, you! You are one of the staff!
Doctor: The entire health care system is about to collapse. What am I supposed to do?
Gwen: You say no. You say no. That’s what you do. For the love of God you say no.
Soon after, Gwen records a message to the world and takes dramatic action against the incineration modules.

“This is the truth, for the whole world to see. We let our governments build concentration camps. They built ovens for people in our names. Now I don’t care if the whole of society bends over and takes this like a dog. I’m saying no.”

Torchwood frequently makes me think and grabs my heart, but this episode was different somehow. I wasn’t just weeping for fictional characters this time. The system, the rationalisations, the categories of life were so eerily reminiscent of issues in our world today. One issue, mostly. Ask yourself this: Where in our world have we legally redefined what life is? Where have we murdered those unable to defend themselves? Our society has so much blood on our hands, and as one character observes in Miracle Day, you can scrub your hands raw, but you can’t get rid of the blood.

Gwen compared the “overflow” camps to Hitler’s concentration camps. So many people looked the other way during the 1930s and 1940s while Hitler gassed, starved, shot, and buried alive millions of Jews. Some closed their ears to the stories, others hid behind public policies, others kept their disagreement secret in order to save their own lives. And so Hitler was untouchable year after year. What would have happened if the world had stood up and said NO, just a bit earlier? How many lives could have been saved?

Of course, hindsight is 20/20. We can be so self-righteous from the safety of our history classes. But there is another Holocaust happening right underneath our noses. It isn’t making the daily headlines, but the numbers keep ticking by.

Since Roe vs. Wade in 1973, an estimated 53,310,843 unborn babies have died in the American Holocaust of abortion — and that’s just up through 2010.

Watch this documentary. It paints a powerful picture comparing the Nazi Holocaust to the abortion crisis in America today.

Someone needs to stand up and say no, before history looks back on us as the generation that did nothing.

“You say no. You say no. That’s what you do. For the love of God you say no… Now I don’t care if the whole of society bends over and takes this like a dog.

I’m saying no.”

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