I'm not physically moving, but I am moving locations where you can find my blog. This is partly because this blog is on a google account with all my "old" stuff (maiden name, former email address, etc), but also because I've grown as a person and felt like the new location more accurately represents my hopes and dreams for everything coming.
You can find it here.
Give it a look-see! You'll find a good update about how the past year-isa of life has gone and the job I'm now working. I think you'll enjoy it.
I'm really excited for this change to happen! It's going to be such a journey with growth, challenges, and excitement. I'm planning to post much more regularly, so make sure to follow my activity!
Until next time,
Cassian
Friday, August 26, 2016
Friday, July 8, 2016
No Good Words to Title This Post
I was hoping that my next post on this blog would be about my new job and that it would spur a theme of posting regularly. But the world is too heavy for me to bear right now. I don't have words that are up to competing against everything else taking place. Right after training out in Orlando for my new position, the mass night club shooting happened. Days after I left. On the eve of my first wedding anniversary that my husband and I are planning to spend in a downtown area of one of the Texas cities, cops were shot and killed in Dallas. And before and between all of this, there have been bombings around the world, shootings throughout the U.S., and other things that I haven't even heard of. It's no longer isolated incidents far away in my mind. It's right next to me. It's happening in places I've been and affecting people I love. Affecting me.
I don't know what to say to an aching and broken world. So I haven't said anything. The only related Facebook post I've made is about a shooting at the Islamic Center in CS, where I live. Half of that motivation was from knowing so many people who live in CS, and the other half was me trying to figure out how to say something into the wild abyss that is social media. Recently I've felt God's encouragement that He wants to use me as a voice for His love, and yet I can feel overwhelmed so easily. I want to have soothing, healing words to give people. Only God has those words, but in the face of such horror I've been afraid to ask what they are. I've been too overwhelmed to hear what He's saying. He has given a few to me for different individuals, but without feeling something strongly from Him to say "out loud" (and being afraid to ask for it) I just don't know how to reconcile the giant hole that's tearing further and further open not only in my heart, but in the hearts of so many people around me. I haven't been silent out of anything other than that overwhelmed, helpless feeling.
I've felt like without good words to say, I'm not able to do anything. I'm not someone who believes I have an answer to anything, I'm not someone to get directly involved in politics, I'm not comfortable sharing videos of what happened when I can't even watch them because it hurts more than I knew I could hurt. So it feels like I'm staring down the wide abyss of my Facebook news feed waiting for words to spontaneously come to my lips, hoping to offer comfort to everyone involved and yet feeling like just another face in a sea of people.
All I have are thoughts and memories, and prayers.
When I was 7, we lived in Atlanta, Georgia, for a year. I was the only white girl in my group of friends in our apartment complex. You know what I remember thinking the most about my friends? That it was unfair my hair wouldn't braid like theirs would. God, give us all the eyes of children, who see no difference in their friends. God, that we would love with the unconditional and accepting love of a child loving their friends.
One of the families in my local church in CS just adopted two little girls from Uganda. When they put up the new family photos, I broke into tears over these little girls I hadn't met yet, held and loved by their new family. A small taste of the justice God intends; a small taste of His heart that no child is without a family. God, give us hearts that love every person You've made. Hearts that bring home the helpless and love the loveless.
When the shooting in Orlando happened, I was silent on the outside. Yet inside I was crumpled over. How can I help? What can I do? God, give us hearts that are ready to serve and aid. Fill people with Your love. Our world is looking for love and somehow knows that love is the answer and not hate! How beautiful! Yet let us proceed with Your PERFECT love. That's the love we're looking for. That's the love we need.
The only helpful thing I have to offer is the encouragement that you don't need to know how to solve the problem, you only need to ask God what the very next step for you to take is. I've been meditating on that this morning, facing such heartache and feeling so overwhelmed. I would gladly do whatever is needed, and in the face of great need comes overwhelming sense of helplessness to fill that need. And so, this morning, God reminded me that my part is to simply ask for the next step. Too see everything He's going to have us do is overwhelming! So ask for the next step. And take it. Many small next steps can become far greater than one huge next step.
I don't know what's happening. I only know a few things about my God that I have to cling to for hope.
He hates injustice.
He loves the poor, broken, outcast, wounded, homeless, crippled.
He created every living creature and called it GOOD.
He loved you - every individual reading this - so deeply that He gave the ultimate sacrifice to buy you back to Him for eternity.
So here's what I'm going to do. I'm going to cling to that truth, I'm going to ask Him for words to share with those around me, and I'm going to ask Him for the very next step. That might not include anything online where the world can see. I'm done with being afraid people will think I don't care because I'm not posting anything. I'm simply going to ask for the next step. And take it.
I don't know what to say to an aching and broken world. So I haven't said anything. The only related Facebook post I've made is about a shooting at the Islamic Center in CS, where I live. Half of that motivation was from knowing so many people who live in CS, and the other half was me trying to figure out how to say something into the wild abyss that is social media. Recently I've felt God's encouragement that He wants to use me as a voice for His love, and yet I can feel overwhelmed so easily. I want to have soothing, healing words to give people. Only God has those words, but in the face of such horror I've been afraid to ask what they are. I've been too overwhelmed to hear what He's saying. He has given a few to me for different individuals, but without feeling something strongly from Him to say "out loud" (and being afraid to ask for it) I just don't know how to reconcile the giant hole that's tearing further and further open not only in my heart, but in the hearts of so many people around me. I haven't been silent out of anything other than that overwhelmed, helpless feeling.
I've felt like without good words to say, I'm not able to do anything. I'm not someone who believes I have an answer to anything, I'm not someone to get directly involved in politics, I'm not comfortable sharing videos of what happened when I can't even watch them because it hurts more than I knew I could hurt. So it feels like I'm staring down the wide abyss of my Facebook news feed waiting for words to spontaneously come to my lips, hoping to offer comfort to everyone involved and yet feeling like just another face in a sea of people.
All I have are thoughts and memories, and prayers.
When I was 7, we lived in Atlanta, Georgia, for a year. I was the only white girl in my group of friends in our apartment complex. You know what I remember thinking the most about my friends? That it was unfair my hair wouldn't braid like theirs would. God, give us all the eyes of children, who see no difference in their friends. God, that we would love with the unconditional and accepting love of a child loving their friends.
One of the families in my local church in CS just adopted two little girls from Uganda. When they put up the new family photos, I broke into tears over these little girls I hadn't met yet, held and loved by their new family. A small taste of the justice God intends; a small taste of His heart that no child is without a family. God, give us hearts that love every person You've made. Hearts that bring home the helpless and love the loveless.
When the shooting in Orlando happened, I was silent on the outside. Yet inside I was crumpled over. How can I help? What can I do? God, give us hearts that are ready to serve and aid. Fill people with Your love. Our world is looking for love and somehow knows that love is the answer and not hate! How beautiful! Yet let us proceed with Your PERFECT love. That's the love we're looking for. That's the love we need.
The only helpful thing I have to offer is the encouragement that you don't need to know how to solve the problem, you only need to ask God what the very next step for you to take is. I've been meditating on that this morning, facing such heartache and feeling so overwhelmed. I would gladly do whatever is needed, and in the face of great need comes overwhelming sense of helplessness to fill that need. And so, this morning, God reminded me that my part is to simply ask for the next step. Too see everything He's going to have us do is overwhelming! So ask for the next step. And take it. Many small next steps can become far greater than one huge next step.
I don't know what's happening. I only know a few things about my God that I have to cling to for hope.
He hates injustice.
He loves the poor, broken, outcast, wounded, homeless, crippled.
He created every living creature and called it GOOD.
He loved you - every individual reading this - so deeply that He gave the ultimate sacrifice to buy you back to Him for eternity.
So here's what I'm going to do. I'm going to cling to that truth, I'm going to ask Him for words to share with those around me, and I'm going to ask Him for the very next step. That might not include anything online where the world can see. I'm done with being afraid people will think I don't care because I'm not posting anything. I'm simply going to ask for the next step. And take it.
Thursday, February 25, 2016
From a Season of Pain, to a Season of Rest, of Wait.
Hello, friend. Again, it's been months since my fingers have typed steadily away at a post here. It's amazing how getting married will suddenly make you twice as hurried and busied in life, even if other responsibilities decrease along the way.
For two years, I've been in a season of pain. Beautiful things have happened along the way, but there has still been so much pain. The past two months have been essentially pain-free, and something has felt strange and so unfamiliar about it. It finally hit me this past weekend that my place of pain has been such a long walk that I'm not sure what to do without it. My understanding of my life and my walk with God were so spurred on and shaped through pain that without that pain in my life, I'm not completely sure what to make of my life and my walk now that I'm in a place of calm and rejoicing. There's gotta be irony there, right? We spend our lives trying to avoid pain! Yet here I am, realizing that I'm not sure what to make of life without it.
For two years, I've been in a season of pain. Beautiful things have happened along the way, but there has still been so much pain. The past two months have been essentially pain-free, and something has felt strange and so unfamiliar about it. It finally hit me this past weekend that my place of pain has been such a long walk that I'm not sure what to do without it. My understanding of my life and my walk with God were so spurred on and shaped through pain that without that pain in my life, I'm not completely sure what to make of my life and my walk now that I'm in a place of calm and rejoicing. There's gotta be irony there, right? We spend our lives trying to avoid pain! Yet here I am, realizing that I'm not sure what to make of life without it.
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