To Live

03 Jan 2013 1 Comment

by nataliaria in Beauty, God, Purpose

I went to the DMV today. The state of Illinois graciously provided me with a three-month margin of error in which to renew my license after my 21st birthday, but I elected to accomplish this task now rather than later.

I rather like the DMV. My father occasionally teases me about seeing beauty in generally un-beautiful things, so I’ll not try to tell you that there’s beauty in the DMV, but it is interesting.

There’s a system that dictates the flow of the room; snake through the line to the front desk. Get a number, keep a number, hold a number, wait for your number. One big screen for all the numbers and this isn’t a restaurant calling order numbers at random; everything has a place, everything is in order, and 4 follows 3 follows 2 starts with 1. There are letters with numbers and desks to match and the cashier told me to follow the yellow line to the stop sign.

Step after step after step, I felt silly because I’ve never renewed a license before, and the woman on the other side of the counter has the system memorized front and back. And I don’t have enough cash, but I’m not the only one and there’s an ATM around the corner. Only go out the Exit Only, and I’ve vaulted the threshold between the ticking clockwork of the DMV and the cold, windy, real world.

But it’s a quick walk to the ATM and back and the cashier told me to come straight back to his line, but it feels wrong because there’s a system here and I’ve skipped three steps to find my place again in this line. But stamp, click, enter, and I’m turned around on my way towards the red stop sign on the wall. There’s a plan and a system and everything follows the same pattern in this room.

But how boring is system and how predictable is pattern; it’s not mechanical same that makes this place so interesting to me. It’s people.

Because the woman sitting in front of me brought her little girl, eight-year-old tag-along with an ice-skating pass on her coat zipper. She’s got marker stains on her fingers and green marker all over her nose, and the elderly woman behind me asked her about it. And there’s a woman on the phone on the other side of the aisle and it’s not eavesdropping if everyone close by can hear her, right?

And there are people coming in the Entrance Only every minute, stepping their way into this pacing system. Faces and stories and moving, breathing lives. They come in and they go out and there’s a huge world on the other side of the window glass.

And God’s breathing live and movement into my heart, my body, and I’ll not stay in this stop-motion room for long; flash goes off and card prints and I’ve got a new license in my hand, pushing out the Exit Only. On my way to real life.

Because living, breathing was created for a purpose, created for a life, and I’ll not miss this today opportunity, this now opportunity to live.

~Natalia

New Year’s Resolutions…

02 Jan 2013 Leave a Comment

by nataliaria in Faithful, God, Intentional, Purpose, Travel, Trust

I’ve never really made New Year’s Resolutions. That resolutions are eventually broken, discarded, forgotten has stuck with me more than the purpose and excitement of creating resolutions, and I’ve rather avoided them. When pressed, I said I hadn’t thought about it, that I needed to give it more consideration.

And that’s true.

But a little more questioning; do I have any ideas? And suddenly, I’ve created a list.

I’ll get my life together, which is mostly for humor because let’s be honest: a life put together doesn’t actually exist, and even if it did, I’d be the last one to figure that out. And I’ll make this semester better than last year’s spring semester. And I’ll read more books and maybe visit Pennsylvania again and Mexico most definitely, and I’ve been thinking about New York City for a while now.

And there’s lists and goals and I can see why people make resolutions. But it takes a breath and a thought to wander wide of God’s plan, and a blink more and I’m running myself full speed on my own way, my own power, my own resolutions.

But I’ve tried that before and I know falling hard. I know trying my hardest, giving my very best, running on empty to get this right because I know I can do this.

But I wasn’t made to do this by myself. I wasn’t made to create plans, to right my path, to master the realm I live in. I was made for the purpose of following Him. Loving Him. Glorifying Him. His intentionality far outweighs anything I could ever imagine, ever fathom, and He put me in this year, this place, this now for a reason.

And sure, I have resolutions. Or maybe goals is a better way to describe them. But they’re not my purpose. My purpose is to follow Him, and He’s the undercurrent, the rock, the strength behind my every step. In His power, I’ll glorify Him. But it doesn’t just stop there. His purpose is where I’m supposed to be, but it’s also the best place to be. I don’t get it, and I don’t get Him, at least not completely.

But I do trust Him. I trust His will to be right, and His heart to be perfect. I trust His grace to hold fast, and His words to be true. I trust Him to teach me and I trust Him to lead me.

And it’s not really a resolution, because it’s only His power in me that makes anything right, but this is exactly how I want to start my new year, in the hand of the God who’s brought me this far, and won’t leave me stranded.

~Natalia

The Purpose of Education

19 Nov 2012 Leave a Comment

by nataliaria in College, Grace, Moody Bible Institute, Purpose, Teach

Written for my Foundations of Education class.

Why are we here? Why am I doing this?
Sit at a desk, stand besides a chalkboard,
it doesn’t matter what side you’re on
we all need purpose, we all need reason,
and what we have now just isn’t going to cut it anymore.

We’ve heard to get a job, and it’s just what we do,
but twelve years, add on four more,
five days a week, homework on the weekends,
all this that we do needs more reason than that.

Because wake up! Look around!
If the purpose of school is job,
and 50% of the schooled don’t even get jobs,
we’ve got a 50% reason to educate,
and that’s just not gonna cut it.
I’m going to need more reason than that.

So what’s the purpose, really?

Why are we doing all this? 

We do this- we educate, we are educated,
for the purpose of God’s glory.
Sit in that classroom, complete this worksheet.
Do that project, read this book,
learn these concepts for His glory.

Do these things, do learning, do education
so that His name rolls easily off the tongues of man.
So that His joy, His honor, becomes so real,
becomes so heavy upon us
that we can taste it.
Do it for His glory.

A purpose now, a reason to do what we’re called to do.
A deep-settling, rock-solid why to our what.
It feels good, feels secure, to have a reason, to have a purpose.
But yet, we need more.
His glory is enough.
That His majesty pour over our endeavors
until we’re drenched in awe of Him is enough.

But we need to know, I need to know, what it looks like.
What does educating to God’s glory look like?

It looks like grace. Looks like grace, and feels like grace, too.
There are strong academics in grace, but education that satisfies itself with performance
is no grace at all.
Grace is I do well, and you don’t, so I help you.
I come alongside, student to student, teacher to student, student to teacher,
grace smells powerfully of humility,
and tastes rich of friendship and help.

Now I’m the teacher and you’re the student.
I assigned homework and you turned it in late
and there are consequences, you know.
Grace doesn’t take away consequences,
someone pays every time grace rears its head,
but grace says I know your story,
I know your situation, and I choose to say “No” to legalism,
Grace says I know what the rules would have me give,
how the rules would have me respond,
but I choose different.

Grace says you can’t fix this, you can’t earn this.
You can’t work your way up to this, or buy this from me,
but you can have it.
Grace gives.
Grace gives until hearts extended run dark with sticky crimson;
grace gives until it bleeds.
Grace gives when it bleeds.

Grace isn’t teacher to student, boss to employee, instructor to pupil;
grace is the horrific price Jesus paid on the cross,
one death for the sins of all
and we’re all drowning in a gift we’re wretchedly short of deserving.
This is education that glorifies God.

~Natalia

This, His Will

16 Nov 2012 Leave a Comment

by nataliaria in Casa Hogar, God, Grow, Kiddos, Longing, Mexico, Purpose, Sovereign, Teach

The following is the second part of my application to Moody’s Elementary Education program. The first part is entitled Why I’ll Teach.

The story of Casa Hogar, and the profound impact this orphanage has had on virtually every aspect of my life can hardly be overstated. I believe that God will continue to weave the Casa Hogar part of my tapestry, my story, for many years to come. Living with my family in central Mexico during my senior year of high school, we met and promptly fell in love with the children and directors of the Casa Hogar. Anywhere between 30 and 50 children who, for reasons as varied as the child, cannot live with their families. Abuse, neglect, abandon: these young hearts will forever bear the scars of the evil in this world. An evil they did not instigate and yet have no defenses against.

While no longer living in Mexico, my family maintained contact with the Casa Hogar, and with Manuel and Tere, the middle-aged couple entrusted with the care of these children. We visit when we can, a couple of weeks once a year devoted to sharing life with these precious individuals in Mexico. My first trip completely solo, July 2012 slipped by with the blink of an eye as I lived in Manuel and Tere’s home, spending almost every waking hour at the orphanage.

Even then, scant weeks ago, I clung to my children’s ministry title. I knew I loved working with children. I knew I would work with them. The pull of teaching, of education, tightened around me, but I fought; my heart swells and breaks alongside every broken hearted child whose hurt leaks into my own story, but surely I can’t teach, right?

My plane hasn’t been in Mexico for two hours when Tere pulls up the subject of English classes. You know English, she says with a smile as children’s voices ring out across the orphanage’s gravel courtyard. Will you teach English classes for these three weeks that you are here? I glance out the window, watching precious young ones zip past on their hand-me-down bikes, and then turn back to her.

Yes, I will teach them English classes.

Roughly mimicking techniques I’ve seen before, wracking my brain to remember how my own mother taught these children when she tutored them, I stumble my way through our English classes. The littlest students nail down their colors and basic greetings, while the older children, jr. high students by their own right, work through verb tenses and lists of verbs that we work together to create. We all make it through the three weeks, and I’m happy with the results of our time together, but something is gnawing inside me.

A lurking wondering, a gentle longing. I know what it is, but I’m scared to approach the question head on. Yet the thought will not go away, and finally, back in the United States, I am forced to deal with my unease head on: I’m a children’s ministry major, but my brief stint in the classroom in Mexico have stirred something in me.

I want to know how to teach. I want to learn how best to deal with a rowdy classroom. I want to understand how a young mind learns, what is the best way to explain a topic, how to structure a lesson plan.

Once I start thinking about it, I find I can’t stop. The tapestry grows and develops, and God gently and firmly continues to reveal to me my own heart. My own desire to teach. Clinging to His assurance that what I’m doing is right, that His faithfulness continues to the end of time, I take first one step towards elementary education, then another, my heart filling with His joy and His peace with every confirmation of this, His will.

~Natalia

600th Post

22 Oct 2012 Leave a Comment

by nataliaria in God, Grace, Grow, Purpose, Remember, Writing

I recently took some time to flip through my old prayer journal. Reading page after page of my own scrawly handwriting, I watched my own heart grown and develop as days, weeks, months slipped by. The dates on the top righthand corner of the pages ticked closer to today as I read my outbursts, my longings, my joys, my sorrows, my celebrations.

I have a new journal now; a new book with lined pages just beginning to be filled. Eventually, I hope, the book that sits on my shelf here at school will be as full of my heart and life as the one leaning on my shelf at home. Eventually, I’ll pull this book off the shelf late at night and page through stories from my own narrative.

Reading the old journal, soaking up the snippets of emotions, dreams, hurts that I poured into the words on those pages, made me a little sad, really. I thought of the new journal, here at school, and I wondered why I’ve written less in the new. Of course, the old has more because it’s full, and the new less because it’s just barely begun, but there’s another difference, too.

I write in the new one less.

This is because, sadly, I haven’t been journaling, haven’t been talking with the Lord in written form, as much this semester as in past years. But there’s more to the story, too.

I haven’t been journaling as much because I’ve been here.

I am right now typing out my 600th Leadmewhere post. This is the 600th time I’ve sat, computer on my lap, computer on the desk, on the table, and typed out what I think, what I believe, what I do. This is the 600th time I’ve come here and shared myself, shared my heart, with you, with whoever stumbles across this page.

And, just like in the journals, I can look back over the past 599 posts and see God moving, working, growing me. As posts click past, and months stretch long, I scroll through post after post and can see the handiwork of God in my heart and in the life around me.

This life I live, the life I record on Leadmewhere, is not my own. Post after post, I’m not recounting to you the tales of Natalia and her (un)eventful life. I’m telling you, I’m giving account of, God’s intricate, intimate love and involvement in the lives of man.

So often, I forget that. So often, priorities are wrong and purpose is twisted and I’m not writing for any of the right reasons. I forget and I mess up and I still do what I’m supposed to do, I still write, but I’m not writing for Him.

But this is post number 600, and I remember now. I remember why I’m here, what I’m doing, why I’m doing it. Because the same One whose story is told here, whose glory is shone here, is the same One who put writing in my heart, the same One who called me to write a blog, and same One who keeps me writing every day.

This is not a story about me, a post about me, a word about me. This is my 600th post and I’m taking the moment, taking this opportunity, to remind me, remind you, remind us, that I written because of Him and I’m writing about Him. Under every post, guiding every category, is His love, His faithfulness, His grace. Grace shown to me, grace shown to you.

600 posts on Leadmewhere, and the story of God, the story of grace, is woven throughout, looping in and under my falls, my frustrations, my joys, my content.

Because really, this is all about Him.

~Natalia

Circle

24 Aug 2012 Leave a Comment

by nataliaria in God, Grace, Purpose, Sovereign, Trust, Wait

There are some conversations I have with myself that go around and around in a circle. I know exactly where they are going, but I still have them. I begin in the same place and end in the same place; I’m not learning anything new, and my inner self-talk is not incredibly stimulating, but there’s consistency, comfort, in the repetition.

I’m not teaching myself anything, but telling myself over and again lessons I’ve learned, lessons I’ve been taught, pushes them further into my mind, etches them deeper into my heart.

I know these truths, and cling to these truths, and I’m finding peace, finding strength, finding reason and purpose, in recycling them through my mind.

Today’s re-used self conversation was an old favorite. A familiar, creeping, uncertain string of thoughts that I swing round and round, forever attached to my wondering.

I just wish I could know exactly what I was supposed to do! The words echoed in the back of my consciousness, reverberating off the softening walls of my heart. Gathering strength, I suddenly find myself wishing passionately that God would break out the neon sign I’ve so wished for, and give me a little hint here.

I lingered on the thought for a moment or two, nearly savoring the futile desire, then I found my mind, almost automatically, pulling up the response. The memorized lines, the God-given truth that counteracts my purposeless wishing.

No, I found myself thinking, I don’t want some magical guidance, some crystal-clear snippet of a view into the future. I don’t want a neon sign swinging from a cloud in front of my face. Because then there’s no trusting God. And with that, life becomes incredibly boring.

Knowing what’s coming, knowing what I’ll do, what I’ll say, how she’ll respond, what he’ll do, makes me not a follower, not a truster, but a god. A decider. A know it all. And I don’t want to be that.

I want to trust God. I want to cling to the truth I have from Him, the words that He speaks, the words that He has spoken. I want to repeat what I believe about Him over and over, quieting my own heart with the still, cool water of a God whose grace knocks me over.

I come to it again and again, confused and hurting, circling around the desperate hope that God will just tell me what to do and how it’s all going to work out. I want to know the answer now, and I want to be sure that I’m doing the right thing.

But I don’t want to, never want to, exchange the comfort, the stability, of knowing what’s what, for the chance to see the God’s glory, God’s grace and mercy, portrayed in my life. I’d rather sit on the sand, huge waves crashing over me, bathing me in warm, rich grace and love and sovereignty, than stand in a desert, completely safe and completely alone.

I’d rather cling to the feet of a Lord I adore than fight my way in front of Him, working frivolously to try to get a grip on His will and what He’ll have me do.

I love Him and I trust Him and I can wait; following Him one step at a time.

Because even when I fall, He’s there to catch me; scoop me up and put me right back where I should be, in His hand.

~Natalia

Not Easy

07 Jul 2012 2 Comments

by nataliaria in Casa Hogar, Family, God, Kiddos, Purpose, Sovereign, Trust

We’re leaning against the building, enjoying the shade. I’m sitting on the ground, he’s sitting on a tiny step stool next to me. There’s five other children sprawled around me, but he’s fighting valiantly for my attention.

His little dark hand closes around mine while I’m turned away, answering the question of another, and I’m suddenly aware of someone twirling my ring around my finger. He asks me questions about the United States, all the while fidgeting with my ring, my necklace, my ponytail.

The arrival of a woman whom I don’t recognize causes me to look up, but only for a second, then someone else calls my name and No, stay down here. Did you put the bike away? Where’s Danielito? Why don’t you sit with me for a bit?

But then an older girl appears and asks the young one if he’s leaving, and he nods yes, bright eyes solemn. And then he’s shuffled off to sit in the office with the woman, his grandmother, and his older brother is summoned, and they all three sit in the office.

I’m here and there with kids, sitting in the cement patio, watching a handful of little ones build a house out of an old mattress and a tarp, then back to my spot in the shade, watching little souls bump back and forth across the gravel on their bikes.

And still the brothers sit. The little one is content, fidgeting absently around and around on the spinning office chair. He gazes up at me mildly, before continuing with his spinning.

My eyes slide from the little one to his older brother, and I’m held there for a second. His eyes are red and rimmed with tears, and he sits hunched in his seat, arms crossed across his small chest. He doesn’t want to go.

I smile at the young boy, and he holds my gaze, tears momentarily frozen in his dark eyes.

I go upstairs for lunch, working with the older girls, my friends and sisters, to serve bowls of carrot soup, accidentally dripping creamy orange liquid on the white tile counter. Then serving out heaping plates of chicken, rice, and salad, an assembly line production to get the food on the table.

The boys come upstairs for lunch, and to say goodbye, and I watch them hug brothers and sisters and the sweet women who have cared for them for the past year. Goodbye; some yell, some whisper. They hug and shake hands, and they know. They know that it’ll be a very long time until they see these brothers. A very long time indeed.

And we stand in the open hallway and watch them go, pressing our foreheads against the cold metal bars. They climb into the car with their grandmother and drive away. Goodbye boys.

And there’s nothing to be done, nothing that makes it easier to say goodbye to two little souls you’ve come to love. Two young boys who just hours before were running around, calling you to come play soccer, or sitting with the other boys, laughing happily in a shared camaraderie.

No, it’s not easy to watch them drive away, but don’t hide either. Because there’s hope there, hope and trust hidden under layers of sadness and why. Because God brought them when He brought them and they didn’t leave before He wanted them to. There’s nothing there that’s outside His control, and no small detail that didn’t occur to Him until it was too late.

He knows and He does and He’s good.

~Natalia

Simple

28 Jun 2012 Leave a Comment

by nataliaria in Beauty, College, Friends, God, Grow, Intentional, Longing, Love, Purpose, Realizations, Simple

Around this time last summer, I began shifting the ways that I interacted with people. As I went through my days, I tried my very best to interact with intentionality. When I remembered, and then with increasing frequency as I got in the habit, I listened with painstaking attention when I conversed with people. I worked to pull myself out of the spacey, sliding-through-life mode that I often operated under, and instead become truly mentally and emotionally involved in those around me.

I wasn’t perfect, but I was engaged and involved, and I grew through listening to those around me.

But then I went to school, and as first one semester then another skipped past, I pulled back. Slowly, as month after month went by, my focus on listening and truly being involved in my relationships and interactions waned. I still loved, still cared, still ached, but not with quite the edge that I had before.

I was less focused. More scattered. In the spinning table that was my life this past school year, being fully present in my interactions and friendships slipped to the back, while turning in homework assignments on time and scrambling to keep my life together came to the foreground.

Being present, being involved, communicating fully, was hard and draining, and I believe I burned myself out. To be honest, I don’t miss the strain of working to remain open, fighting to keep my own heart open, for the sake of interacting with others.

I don’t miss that, but I do miss the focus, the purposefulness of so many of my interactions last year. I don’t like the floating, skimming-across-the-surface sense that I’ve been feeling lately. I don’t like feeling like I’m sliding across a slippery grass field in my relationships. I want to dig my hands into the grass and hold on to those relationships.

I’m rooted in Christ. I can stand on the side of the pool, sit in the living room, drive down the road, and let my mind reel over what God has done for me and how He has poured out too many good things on my life. My hands are too small to hold everything that He’s given me, and I want to open my hands and dump some of those gifts on those I interact with.

His grace. Mercy. Love. Joy. Peace. Contentment.

But I can’t do that if I’m not truly there, not truly with, not truly interacting.

So, what’s to be done? How does one infuse purpose and intentionality into one’s own life?

I have a sneaking suspicion, a vague feeling, that the answer lies somewhere in the simple. I’m beginning to realize that I might have too much in my life that takes away from the real, living breathing, hurting, laughing, beautiful relationships that are right in front of me. There are too many superfluous things, distractions, websites, tasks that I pour myself into, leaving only a thin layer of energy, love, care for the souls I encounter day after day.

For the first time in my life, I’m becoming increasingly convinced that my life, my mind, my heart need to be more simple.

And with that simple, maybe I’ll find the purpose, the intentionality, that I know I’m missing.

~Natalia

Put it All Here

07 Jun 2012 Leave a Comment

by nataliaria in God, Purpose, Wedding

Life is moving too fast, and I can’t get my footing long enough to catch up with what’s going on.

Grandparents. Mancelona. WOW Camp. A wedding next weekend.

I want to relish each event, soak in the beauty, the excitement that each occurrence brings.

But no amount of wishing will slow down time.

It occurs to me that I might, just might, still be able to enjoy today, tomorrow, next week, even through the rush.

Somehow, someway, I might be able to take in what each day, each moment, each event brings.

And somewhere under there, God reminds me that He put all this right here, right now, on purpose.

I just don’t know why.

~Natalia

Intentional Season

16 May 2012 2 Comments

by nataliaria in Family, God, Intentional, Purpose, Summer, Trust

Every time I’ve thought about blogging since I left school on Saturday afternoon has left me confused and scattered. It would seem that the removal of the structure of school from my life has altered far more than the time of my alarm clock. Without the perpetual to-do list of homework, assignments, and projects, I’ve been feeling rather aimless for the past couple of days.

Nevermind that I’ve been helping care for the two little princesses that I call my sisters, working around the house, unpacking a years’ worth of possessions, and cooking, among a vast list of other things; I’m having a hard time adjusting to the lack of papers, homework, and reading in my life.

I know that this is a unique season, and, just like every other season in one’s life, there will never be another just like it. And I appreciate the unique time, the blessing of three school-free months, but right now I’m having a little trouble seeing the blessing because I’m so caught up with what I’m supposed to do with the blessing.

I’m petrified that I will somehow waste the precious gift of these three months. Scared that August 20th will arrive, I’ll look back over the sum of my summer, and sigh in resignation; Well, I mean, I guess I did okay. I guess I was intentional enough, more or less. I suppose I glorified God with what I did. I guess.

Heaven forbid.

I’m bound and determined to be intentional, to use my time wisely, to make good decisions and to fellowship purposefully with others.

I want so badly to do all that, I’m just not sure what it looks like.

I was asked recently if I trusted God.

Not if I trusted His judgement, or trusted Him to be Good, or trusted Him to stick by His promises; just if I trusted Him.

I said yes.

And I guess in a way, this is a bit of a test. I’m giving Him back the time that He gave to me, but I’m clearly struggling a bit to trust that He can use the time to His own glory. I’m begging Him to help me be intentional, but stressing myself out worrying that the Great God of intentionality will somehow forget that I need Him.

The first thing I need to be intentional about is trusting God with my words, deeds, actions, and time. Because He’s given me this summer, and He can use it to His glory.

~Natalia

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