so let my whole life be a blazing offering.....

Sometimes I get stuck in my own head. ok...not sometimes, a lot and i'm never quite sure how to get out of it.

This last weekend, I did church announcements. I tried to convince myself and everyone else that's its not a big deal.

Well, it was. Every single insecurity i had come flying at me, guns blazing. Aint nobody got time for that. All it did was confirm that i'm not super cool with myself or my body.

i am not one of the pretty people, which sometimes is hard to deal with considering my people are beautiful. all of them. I do not know one ugly person. I've always been the chubby, funny, sidekick. I've just accepted it so as not to have to deal with it.

Well, it hasn't really gone away, besides the whole...not loving how i look thing? There's the whole...who am i disappointing right now but saying the wrong thing, or saying it too fast or slow...oh shit...i said "um" about 32 times.

Then the other half of me is like....it's just 3 minutes of my life. You can't eff it up unless you start saying things like "jesus isn't real" and then i get angry that there is this pressure and that pretty weekend people have this much say over who i think i am.

it's just ridiculous.

so then i of course i spiral into feeling like no one loves me, when, to be honest, you can tell me you love me a million times and i probably wont believe it.

so then i over analyze and over think everything and read things totally wrong because Ive made myself crazy.

this is not all about me.

things need to be way less about me. i'm trying to not project, or be selfish, or think about how everything affects me....and i'm trying more to just be.

And i've been thinking about life and how it seems upside down again and so many people are telling me to just leave and go do something else.

My answer is no,, and here's why: It's not what Jesus would do.

We talk a lot about community and brokenness and doing life together...and all those other stupid christian words we use to make us sound radical and important but we yell "uncle" the second things get hard or lines get blurry.

BUT WHAT IF WE DIDN'T DO THAT?

what if we said yes huggin' people when they need huggin', what if we carried people when they needed to be carried and said all the hard things that needed to be said and shared rooms when we had to and we didn't even talk about all the "great things" we're doing.

what if we jumped in heart first with the people we loved? Yeah, boundaries are good but what people are worth getting messy with, which people are you willing to limp along side? What people would you really walk through fire for?

you got some? Then do it. Yeah, my life could look different, but I'm allowing things to change me. I'm allowing people to change me for the better. I'm allowing Jesus to show up and teach us all something.

I'm allowing my people deep into the recesses of my heart and mind, and my people....are letting me into theirs and it's scary and  unpleasant and gut wrenching.

but worth it?

you bet.

"when you love someone, you begin to understand what justice looks like for them"...taken out of context completely, but i think it applies here:

I want to fight for the people i love. I want restoration for my people. I want them to see who they are in the best light. i want to right their wrongs with them, i want to shoulder their pain. I want to dig a trench with them.

because that what loves looks like and i wan to experience that kind of raw, beautiful, honest, love.

So, I'm trying to climb out of my own head. I want to get out of my own way, i want to get out of Jesus way, and let him change me. Change us. and i want love to grow exponentially because of it.

Tonight i got to talk about Uganda a little and i got to be so proud of my people that i got a little weepy because....really....my love language is tears....and i got to say some stuff that was hard but also on my heart and that needed to be said. Was it easy? Not all of it, no.

But if we are really going to be who we are called to be, we have to start being brave enough to do the scary and hard things....

those are basically all the thoughts i have on this right now because i'm real sleepy.

Just be love people. Let Jesus do the saving. All we can do is stand in that gap and be as much as Jesus as we are capable of and i think we're all capable of a lot more.