It’s the familiar that grips me today; it’s the familiar that makes me feel at home.

What is familiar to me is comforting. It’s comfortable and conforms my humanity to a state of 'being.' Whether it’s being with those whom I know, or being with that which knows me, familiarity holds me in peace. But if such is the case, what lies in the unfamiliar? What stirs in the uncomfortable and unconformed place staring at my headlights?

Come TOMORROW, I will approach a new Destiny of sorts, Manifest by the western coast of the United States of America. I will leave the familiar, to lean on but the natural laws of the unfamiliar—change leads to progress, progress leverages growth, etc. From experience, I know that such a move will elicit challenge. But I also know that spending time with that challenge will elicit familiarity again. Maybe different looking, and maybe different feeling, but still in the brand of familiar.

Shifting to a lense less carnal, I’ve been forced to question the unfamiliars of God. Do dictations of familiarity rest in the spiritual realm, too? If so, what aspects of God are unfamiliar to me today? What spaces of His Being have lacked my explore? For lest I humanize a being unchanged, I must trust a path uncharted. But what then, will hold me in lasting peace?

Maybe it is He? Maybe it is One who transcends the road and the transforms the comfort? Maybe it is He who is my Familiar—here, in the “familiar” and there, in the “unfamiliar.”

It’s the Familiar that grips me today; it’s the Familiar that makes me feel at home.

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(Simplified version: “I am moving to California tomorrow. Am I scared? Yes. Am I psyched? More so than ever. In spite of my whereabouts, God remains familiar.”)

I apologize for the lacking posts...it's been a WHIRLWIND of days. This weekend I was able to spend time with the graduating high-schoolers at Roswell United Methodist Church. What an amazing group! After speaking there, I hopped in the car and head to Panama City to share with North Point Community Church's graduates. SUCH a fun experience to live amongst some amazing freshman girls, while at the same time, enjoying some rays! :) Back to the ATL for a few hours and then headed to Rome, Georgia today to hang-out with Camp Winshape campers today. I AM TIRED, but pluggin' away and promising to get some thoughts up here soon. God is teaching me loads about stillness, beauty, tensions between grace/truth, relevance/Christ. I'm reading Galatians these days, too, which can't help but bring a load of challenging thought to our culutural views. For now, have a peaceful evening and I'll look forward to touching base soon!
Love, abbie

P.S. I had what might have been my most traumatic experience yesterday morning. In the middle of a LIVE radio interview in my hotel-room, HOUSE-KEEPING walked in. And when I say "walked-in," I mean a loud, door-bell laden, long-sounding entrance...funny now, but NOT THEN!!! I think you can hear it at www.wwjc.com.

In his heart a man determines his course, but the Lord determines his steps.
Proverbs 16:9

Our culture is consumed by destinations. We’re driven by outcomes and dominated by getting there, verses being here. But what I’m slowly realizing is that God’s driving passion breathes more deeply into the journey, than it does the destination. His unchanging purpose for our lives (Hebrews 6:17) is less concerned with where we ultimately go, as it is with the path we take in getting there. And specific to life’s decisions, God sees the process of our decision-making as far more important than the product of our eventual end.

Consider His Love: a journey that displays a process of falling, rather than a finality of being caught. Redemption: a lining of massively small points of beginning, into eternally sanctified products of end. And our lives are no different. Though birth and death try to outline life’s story, they actually just punctuate the sentence in between—the sentence that reads as true life. God calls Himself the Alpha and the Omega, the Beginning and the End (Revelation 1:8), so that whatever the decision, our perceived ends are actually just transitions into other willed beginnings.

God has endless desire for our decisions, and I long to see His handprints painting those destinations. But no handprint finds possibility without hundreds of smaller prints along the way. And the reality is, anything else offers an exhaustive search toward knowing an already known end. Because like it, or not, God’s will is going to prevail. Regardless of how much you work, pray, or prepare, His destination is going to out-destine yours.

So I think the challenge for us today is three-fold. It involves a submission—taking a backseat in navigating against an already found end. A trust—believing God in the growth aspects of this decision process, while knowing His hold on the eventual bloom. And finally, a surrender—detaching from the destination of this course and finding rest in the course of this eventual destination—one that is God’s anyway!

It's what I need. It's what I long for this morning.

Am I being outlandish? Completely. Counterintuitive to my daily pursuits? Utterly. But the truth of it is, I need to be weak. The Word of God is flooded with people, stories and examples of weakness. Endured weakness, failed weakness, transformed weakness and transforming weakness. And I’m going to make a bold statement here, but at the crux of Christianity lies a willing surrender to confess weakness.

I heard an incredible statement lately that won’t loose itself. “People will admire you for being strong, but they’ll love you for being weak.” That’s it! This is where my soul longs to rest. I have tried for so long to be strong. In fact, when I look at my life and my standard of living today, I strive for strength on a day-to-day basis. I covet admiration and affirmation from others. I long for people to see me as unshakable. Even from a spiritual standpoint, I long to be described with rock-solid faith. And although I say I dislike being the center of attention, something in me still craves being a source of attention. Bottom line, I fear failure. I fear being weak.

Man strives toward perfection, and correct me if I’m wrong, but I’ve yet to meet any such source. God knows, I still fighting tooth and nail to see its fruition though. Being weak is my ticket to strength. It’s that willingness and that willing surrender, that draw me toward love—my deepest need. The love I crave is satisfied in realizing my neediness for it. And a man named Jesus Christ stepped-out of heaven to personify that need.

Our greatest understanding of Love rises from our greatest understandings of weakness apart from it. And our greatest strength toward knowing Jesus must be prefaced by a great willingness to know our weakness. “For when I am weak, then I am strong” 2 Corinthians 12:10.

The priorities of college students...a far cry from Jesus, but maybe Apple is better than Amstell Light??...http://www.cnn.com/2006/US/06/07/college.in.ap/index.html

http://theresurgence.com/?q=blog/2:

A comparison of Jack Bauer and Jesus...my sentiments exactly.

I’ve grabbed hold of a truth lately, which I dare not receive, nor carry, lightly, as it potentials grave misunderstanding. Thus, I’m delicately handing this “explanation” over to the elegance of our Lord.

He has made everything beautiful in its time. Ecclesiastes 3:11

There seems a grave difference between "seeing the beauty of God," versus "seeing the God of beauty." That says nothing of inherent wrongness in seeing the richness of a flower, or ascribing splendor to sheer appearance. The tragedy, however, is commending such beauty as beauty itself—as nothing more than a realized appearance. It’s the danger of confining beauty to the task of its object. A flower may well be beautiful, and your naked eye rightly touched by its marvel. But such beauty can only span so far—such touching can only press so deep.

Ample measures in beauty’s depth, and adequate meanings in her height, require ardent discovery of her Maker. Beauty can only reach full beautification under the sensitive hands of her Designer. No element of beauty—no essence of being beautiful—finds existence apart from God. So to finalize a grasp of beauty, by terminating at perceived beauty alone, we've robbed ourselves of the greater beauty—Beauty herself. All beauty flows from God, so that in tasting a delicacy, or detailing an aroma, we must learn to ascribe the Creator, at the hand of the creation.

Father, may we never acknowledge beauty apart from You, or know Beauty as anything but You. With Gratitude, Your children.

I was challenged by these high school seniors standing up for what they believe:

LifeWay Article: Students, at Graduation, Pray to Protest Judge's Ruling