in the cocoon

Yes indeed it has been a long time. What happened to the "I'll update nearly everyday" promise? Haha. It's been a crazy week around here! I don't even know where to begin! The last post was from when I was struggling in a situation with another person, but God used that to break down some walls in my own life. God's been doing a work on me in different areas of my life just about every week. As we have previously seen, worship, music, and my music as a ministry was one of the areas worked on. This past week, with that last entry, God really wanted to work on a lot of my insecurities that I have and trust issues that I have with people. I tend to have a hard time trusting people and I like to joke around a lot with people to keep them at bay, so that I don't have to talk about anything serious. Another problem I have, which happened in this particular situation, is to retreat when someone else hurts me, drop them before they drop me. This was really a struggle for me, because I like my walls. My 'secure walls of insecurity' as I called them. I knew what to do in a given situation when I was hurt, I knew how to react to keep myself from getting hurt, those sorts of things. God said, "Hey we're going to work on this." And, again, I said, "No, I don't think so, this hurts, this is how I feel safe and comfortable, I don't think so." So I woke up Saturday morning, and couldn't breathe. I called off work, thinking I had a sinus infection. A visit to the nurse's station showed that it was really bad allergies to pollen. I've never had an allergy problem before in my life!!! So, knowing it was God, I slept all afternoon, and refused to open up. I went to The Rock that night, and Drage talked about none other than "Life Transformation." So Sunday morning through intense prayer with Jenn I finally allowed God to knock down my walls, and free me from the chains I had tried to put on myself. Galatians 5:1 definitely has a whole new meaning for me now!!! Since then I've been feeling a bit lighter, and a lot freer. And the situation I had been struggling with with my friend... I gave it to God, and He blessed, and my friend and I are doing just fine now.
Work's been going great too! On Monday Beth and I thought it would be a great idea to sculpt something out of leftover cream of wheat. We ended up making a cream-of-wheatman.... a snowman. Our manager thought it was hilarious, we left a note on it saying "Merry Wheatmas Rich" and left it in the pantry for him. Wednesday we had an amaaaaazing Project Day! We had Lifegroups in the morning then in the afternoon we went down and did the Low-Ropes course. The Low-Ropes course is a series of team-building activities mostly. It was very awesome, and very scary at the same time. It was definitely a test from God without the walls of insecurity that He had knocked down. One of the activities we had to do was to stand on these low cables with a partner and push on each others weight and see how far we could make it to the other side, while the ropes got further and further away from each other. The scariest one for me was we had to lie on the ground with 4 people on either side of us, and one person holding our heads, and they lifted us up to chest height, and then up above their heads and then back down to the ground. It was scary, but definitely rewarding, because it just shows how amazing God is, because He knocked down my walls! We also took a spiritual gifts test after that, ate dinner and went up Trail Ridge Road all the way to the top. Trail Ridge is the highest paved road in the country. It was absolutely beautiful! We watched the sun set there and came back down. There will be about 70 pictures from that excursion up under "My Photos" soon.
Yesterday consisted of some random hiking around, and playing/practicing of an Irish tin whistle I acquired (...or purchased...). I also went to Loveland, to Walmart, with Nick and Ashley, from Eau Claire. It was a little uncomfortable at first (I don't think they knew I was uncomfortable) because I wasn't with any BG people going somewhere outside the Y. I still had a pretty good time, and talked to Dad for a half hour while I got more allergy pills, and other assorted objects needed for my upkeep and comfort. Last night Drage talked to us about "Purity." If you haven't already guessed, this is the next thing God's working with me on. Sexually, I'm pure, but emotionally.... yeah, not so much. Emotionally, I'm a mess. And, I've heard a lot of people at BG talk about purity, saying, "Even if you've messed up to this point, you can still start over fresh." I've wanted to so bad, but I don't know how to heal from it. I'm meeting with Michelle Klunke, she's a staffer wife from ISU, and she talked to us girls last night about being an emotional mess earlier in her life. I just want to talk to someone, and heal, so that I can take that step to starting over again. Because in the past, every time I've tried, I've just fallen flat on my face again and again.
It's funny because God's been working on the things I'd least expected to work on this summer. But, I know that it is going to make me a lot stronger and build my faith and my focus on Christ. And so, as much as it hurts, I know that it is going to be amazing in the end. I'm ready for some more life transformation.