I want to know and understand what God is doing in every circumstance. But to surrender is to let go, to cease striving, to trust — not because I can see what God is doing and it makes sense, but just because I trust Him. Let me repeat that. Surrender is trusting God in a situation not because we can see with our eyes that He is working all things to our good. It is trusting Him simply because He is who He is.

I can follow and trust God when I can tell what He's doing. When I can see the good working out. When His character makes sense to me. But when I find myself in a situation where I'm blind, where I can't figure out the good, where everything is beyond me — then I'm in a position to surrender. At the same time, I'm in a position to deepen my relationship with God, as a child does who believes in his father, as a woman does who risks her whole heart to love a man.

in the cross, where God displayed just how deeply He loves mankind — just how far He's willing to go to prove that we can trust Him. Surrender isn't foolish. It's casting ourselves on the one who loves us more than we love ourselves.

also http://www.boundless.org/2005/articles/a0002082.cfm

safe with you

Learning inside
I will be safe with you tonight
You cause the smile
And the teardrops in my eyes
Locked inside your every movement
Will I stand or will I fall?
Trapped inside of your walls of glory
I am just as the dead leaves fall

Safe with you
Safe with you

Chaos in my head
The whole universe is at rest
When I'm in your arms
Is when I feel the best
Locked inside your creative being
Whirled about in your unfailing truth
Attacked with power by ferocious love
Salvation alone belongs to you

Safe with you
Safe with you

Lifting up my voice
To the God who really sees
The God who is consumed
With loving thoughts of me
The screaming winds
And the crashing of the oceans
Shifting sands and the changing of the seasons
As I stand in awe and wonder
Nothing in the world has prepared me for you!

Jesus, Jesus, I'm safe with you

wake me up

Dress down your pretty faith. Give me something real.
Leave out the thee and thou and speak to me now.
Speak to my pain and confusion.
Speak through my fears and my pride.
Speak to the part of me that knows I'm something deep down inside.

I know that I am not perfect, but compare me to most,
In a world of hurt and a world of anger I think I'm holding my own.
And I know that you said there is more to life.
And I know I am not satisfied.
But there are mornings I wake up and I'm just thankful to be alive.

I've known now, for quite a while, that I am not whole.
I've remembered the body and the mind,
But dissected my soul.
Now something inside is awakening,
Like a dream I once had and forgot.
And it's something I'm scared of
And something I don't want to stop.

And I woke up this morning and realized that Jesus is not a portait.
Where stained glass windows or hymns or the tradition that surrounds us.
And I thought it would be hard to believe in
But it's not hard at all.
To believe I've sinned and fallen short of the Glory of God.

And He's not asking me to change in my joy for martyrdom
He's asking to take my place.
To stand in the gap that I have formed
With His real, and His sweet, and His real amazing grace.
And it's not just a sign or a sacrament.
It's not just a metaphor for love.
The blood is real and it's not just a symbol of your faith.

So leave out the thee and thou and speak now.

Repentence finds a way...

Only His blood can heal our wounds...

Sin is real, it doesn't feel, It always, only always, steals.
Run to the cross the only joy that's real.

ENC quotes

Here are some quotes from my time at ENC. My friends and I had some pretty random conversations at meals...I miss that.

Andrew's response to finding out that Mr. Miyagi died... "He waxed off?"

Hilary to Fishkill: "Watch yourself"
Fishkill: "I can't--my eyes are in my head"

Jocelyn: "Get that face off your fa-"

Quote from Cassie's Xanga: "Jess totally "blindsided" Liv in the dugout, and down they went onto the floor. and that's how she says hello...don't get on her bad side."

Magon wrote this during freshman or sophomore year:
ok this one's goin out to all my ENC peeps...
to all my girls who dont need a keg and a hot guy to have a good time...
to all those late night parties that consisted of nothing more than a big bowl of chocolate and a good chat in a 90 degree 2x4 room...
to all those nights when getting off campus meant walking down to the playground and jumping off swings or skipping rocks in the ocean...
from the meaning of the first snow storm of the season being snowball fights and snowmen, to walks around campus at 2am to watch the snow fall just because we could...
from maxi pads on windows to "no pants o'clock" in skirts...
from church services in the parlor cuz there's a storm outside, to all-nighters on the beach...
to all of us, for having seen the road diverged and taking the one less traveled by, because without a doubt, it has made all the difference...

Our dinner conversation one night included some really big words, such as...
*Szewcyc ("Sez-wick")--someone's last name
*Oeprihschowr--I think this was someone's last name too. Only I don't remember how to pronounce it. Maybe it was something like "april shower".
*Wilzynski--quite possibly also someone's last name
*Supercalifragilisticexpialidocius.
"Zolokapundreskafabunosrigenxintkeepinminbachjewquvy" is a word Shea came up with as he went along. We've no idea what it means, but it does contain the phrase "Keep in min' " and the words Bach and Jew somehow.

Paul's attempt at pronouncing my last name: "Hagel-bocker"

~“that was so intense I feel like I’m going to throw up from awesomeness” Pearl
~“If you work 6 hours a day, you have 20 hrs free” Ben
~“You can be the h in ghetto” (since it's silent) Tim to Lori
~“Flowers are bad.” Tim
~“Those are not on command” Hilary
~“What if I get dressed up?” Ben
“What are you going to dress up as?” Bonnie
~“I’m going to write the most difficult impossible piece of music EVER and have Dr Millican try to play it and have him EXPLODE!” Erin
~“I’m trying not to be quoted here” Ben
~“So I can kill two stones with one bird” Jess Matt

Pearl: "....wake up dead...."

Sarah: "My cat's really sick and I don't know what's wrong."
Erica: "Awww what's wrong?"
Sarah: "I don't know"

"It takes me too much concentration to eat a candy corn."

Sarah: "I'm going to the library to take over the ICU."
Me: "Don't you mean IRC?"

Reading "The Princess and the Kiss" to Darlene and J.N....
JN: "Wouldn't that ruin the wedding, if her heart burst?"
JN: "I don't want it to tickle."
me: "And they lived happily ever. ... After."

We were talking about turtles..."Why do your hands smell like animal?"

Peanuts quotes!

http://people.cs.uchicago.edu/~dinoj/peanuts.html

(Lucy threatens Linus with a fist.)
Lucy: These five fingers... individually, they're nothing. But when I curl them together like this into a single unit, they form a weapon that is terrible to behold!
(Linus gives in. Quickly. And then talks to his fingers.)
Linus: Why can't you guys get organized like that?

Linus: I was going to use this box of chocolate mix here, but I changed my mind... I didn't want to use it after what I read on the side...
Lucy: What does it say on the side?
Linus: It's full of ingredients!

(CB gets nailed during a ball game and lies dazed on the pitcher's mound.)
Pattie: What happened?
Linus: Charlie Brown got hit with a line drive!
Pattie: Does anyone here know anything about first aid?
Lucy: It's probably not serious. Second or third aid will do.
...
Linus: Here, run over to the drinking fountain and soak this handkerchief with cold water.
Lucy: You're kidding! With a head like Charlie Brown's you'll need a bed sheet!
CB: I'm dying and all I hear is insults!

CB: I'll tell you why English teachers go to college for four years. So they can make stupid little kids write stupid essarys on what they did all stupid summer!

Linus: We had a good time at school today. Our teacher took us on a field trip. We went out and we saw this great big field. It was a real field, and we saw it! We stood right there are we saw that field! [Note: the look on Linus' face does not indicate sarcasm.]
CB: Do you think you'll be going on any more field trips?
Linus: I doubt it. When you've seen one field, you've seen them all.

[Lots of snow about.]
Snoopy: The only way to beat the cold weather is to hibernate. I will now settle down in my den and not come out until... suppertime.

[Lucy makes Linus some toast.]
Linus: You gonna make some toast? How about putting in a slice for me?
Lucy: Here you are.
Linus: Thank you very much. Hey! This is too light! It's hardly singed! Surely you don't expect me to eat raw toast!

Lucy: Everywhere you go you seem to run into phonies! The people you think are sincere usually turn out not to be, and the people you think aren't sincere usually turn out to be sincere! The question is, how do you tell the phonies from the realies?
CB: Realies?

Linus: Life is peculiar. Wouldn't you like to have your life to live over if you knew what you know now?
Sally: What do I know now?

Sally: I worry about getting old... who wants to be nine?

Lucy: Have you ever seen an X-ray of a hiccup?

Snoopy: I hate it when it snows on my french toast!

Sally: That was so exciting I never want to do it again.

Marcie: I think the teacher is mad at you for not doing your homework. She says she may have to resort to castigation.
Pattie: They can't do something to you if you don't know what it means.

CB: Sometimes I lie awake at night and I ask "What is the meaning of life?" Then a voice comes to me that says "I before E except after C!"

[CB is behind a tree.]
CB: Real love is standing behind a tree so you can see her when she leaves her house. Of course it can sometimes be embarassing. Like when you discover you've been standing on the wrong side of the tree.

Lucy: Rerun, I head you're getting pretty good with your numbers. Let's have a little test. Tell me what you see. [She holds out three fingers.]
Rerun: Fingers!
Lucy: Okay Rerun, let's work on our counting again. Now, how many fingers do you see? [She holds out four fingers.]
Rerun: All but the thumb.

also some on http://www.allgreatquotes.com/peanuts_quotes2.shtml

CB: In the book of life, the answers aren't in the back.

CB: Nothing takes the taste out of peanut butter quite like unrequited love.

Snoopy: Why can't we get all the people together in the world that we really like and then just stay together? I guess that wouldn't work. Someone would leave. Someone always leaves and then we have to say good-bye. I hate good-byes. I know what I need. I need more hellos.

IOU, by Bertha Munro

I owe you respect for your personality. You too are that climax of God's creation, made in His likeness. I owe you a right to your own opinion. You may differ with me without fear that I shall raise a barrier between us if we do not see eye to eye. We can disagree and still be friends.

I owe you belief in your integrity. Since I do, I shall put the best possible construction on your actions. I shall trust your words and deeds, even those I am unable to understand.

I owe you honest treatment; I shall not steal people's good opinion of you. I shall voice the sort of comment on you and your actions that I should wish made on me.

I owe you a "taking-off place." Though I value your friendship, I shall not enslave your spirit nor bind you so closely to me that you will lose the wealth of other friendships, or even fail to develop your own best potentialities.

I owe you thoughtful consideration. I will not steal your time when you are evidently busy, just because I happen to have some free time to "kill."

I owe you honest wages if I chance to be employer, honest work if I chance to be employed, honest measure and just weight in any case.

I owe you special help in time of special need: my hand, my ear, my voice. I owe you patience with what seems to me your stupidity or slowness. I owe you the identification of Golden-Rule imagination. I owe you "love unfeigned".

I owe it to you not to push you down in order to lift myself. Rather, I owe you advancement to the limit of my ability. I owe it to you to see you forge ahead of me without any reaction of envy or jealousy--even to give you a push.

I owe you a good example, a Christian testimony. I owe you the gospel of Christ to the limit that I possess it. I owe it to you to prove its power to the full, that God may challenge and encourage you by the sight of what He has done for someone else.

All this I owe you, and much more. I owe it to you not to fall behind with my payments. I shall always owe the abounding love which will meet those unforeseen and unexpected demands of the emergency and will save me from "thou shalt" and "I must."

"Girl America" by Mat Kearney

(taken from my Myspace blog)

my girl america is just a youth is this world
her smile is more precious than the sparkle of pearls
and though her age reads shes just a young girl
the age behind her eyes show the pain that shes swirled
through the hand thats been dealt though its quiet as kept
the weight was all felt last night when she slept
and as she crept into the dreams of the things of her past
seems to have grown so fast, way beyond her own class
though they're right there with her, her brothers and her sisters
a natural born leader even when her peers diss her
my girl, shes at a crossroads, people praying for her
some are preying on her- magazine ads, sex, drama
smoking marijuana, longing for a father to call her daughter
shes part of a generation longing for reconciliation
and this future that they're facing and this poison that they're tasting
my girl, i know this love that you're chasing

my girl america's crying when she's lying on her bed at night
i can see that shes screaming when she's dreaming for her freedom
my girl america's dying while shes trying just to stop this fight
don't stop believing, my girl america

boys with hungry eyes have been beating her door
telling her that's what she's for, trying to rob at her core
then leave calling her a whore, but still she knows theres more
i know she knows theres more because there is a voice she can't ignore
cause it was founded in the foundations, from the day of her creation
in God we trust engraved on the treasures of her nation
and the void that the boys cant fill
with the tipping of the bottle or the popping of the pill
but still most of her friends don't care as they glare
ready to drown down the tunnel as they frown down the tunnel
they stumble and the tumble breaking down into rubble
my girl america, stop can't you see
its not the circumstances that determine who you're gonna be
but how you deal with these problems and pains that come your way
its for you that i pray with hope for a brighter day
and so i say, your deliverance is coming

faith like a child from your first birth
you left it in the dirt on your worst hurt
and i see each tear and every scar
the hands that have held you where you are
and i can see we've strayed so far
a king born under that morning star
as a crown of thorns was placed to erase
each tear thats touched your face
and his palms and sides were pierced with spears
he hung in love just to draw you near
my girl, out of this whole world
cant you see this is where we started

To my friend:
You don't have to hurt this much anymore. The last part of this song is the most important. Jesus "hung in love just to draw you near." I love that part. This whole Easter thing, that's what it's all about. Jesus wants you to come to Him, and get him to heal all your hurts. He will wrap His arms around you even when no one else will. He will gladly heal your hurts, when you bring them to Him.
Nothing else this world can offer will satisfy. Oh sure, they will for a while, but there's more to life.
Keep your innocence as long as you can. It is soooo important. Don't believe what the world tells you. That doesn't matter.
I don't know why you hurt, or why you turn to other things. But believe me, Jesus is the answer, as cliche as that sounds.
I want so much to protect you from hurt, and from all these things that come your way, but I can't. But what I can say is that when crazy things do come your way, turn to God and hide yourself in His love. Trust in Him.
~me.

"My Consecration" (Fitkin)

I am Willing...

To take what Thou givest;

To lack what Thou withholdest;

To relinquish what Thou takest;

To go where Thou commandest;

To be what Thou requirest;

I am, O Lord, wholly and

Forever Thine

love and light.

He is jealous for me
Love's like a hurricane, I am a tree
Bending beneath the weight of His wind and mercy
When all of a sudden, I am unaware of these afflictions eclipsed by glory
and I realize just how beautiful You are and how great your affections are for me.
Oh, how He loves us so
Oh, how He loves us
How He loves us so.

Yeah, He loves us
Woah, how He loves us
Woah, how He loves us
Woah, how He loves.

So we are His portion and He is our prize,
Drawn to redemption by the grace in His eyes
If grace is an ocean we're all sinking
So heaven meets earth like a sloppy wet kiss and my heart turns violently inside of my chest
I don't have time to maintain these regrets when I think about the way

That he loves us,
Woah, how He loves us
Woah, how He loves us
Woah, how He loves


How great is the love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God. (1 John)

God loves us so much. And what's more, that means we should be proclaiming this love from the rooftops, to anyone and everyone, to know how amazing this love is. Even when we mess up. Even when we have doubts. Even to the loveless. Even when the world lets us down, God's love will never fail us.

THAT is truly amazing, truly good news to be shared.

"One sees clearly only with the heart. Anything essential is invisible to the eyes."
(the fox in The Little Prince, by Antoine de Saint-Exupery)

where can I go?

I tried to do handstands for you
I tried to do headstands for you
Every time I fell on you
yeah every time I fell
I tried to do handstands for you
But every time I fell for you
I'm permanently black and blue, permanently blue for you

I don't wanna let you go
But you need to learn to fly
I just wanna let you know
You only have one life to try to find out
What it means to be alive
I hope you find your home

Oh, I guess they'll say I've grown
I know more than I wanted to know
I've said more than I wanted to say

I'm heading home
Yeah, but I'm not so sure
That home is a place
You can still get to by train

Oh, I suppose they'll say I should've known
Or maybe I'm just feeling old
Like a lawyer
With no one to blame

I'm headed home
Yeah, but I'm not so sure
That home is a place
That will ever be the same

[When I was trying to listen to "Bruises", I had technical difficulties with the file, and this song was the one that played next on shuffle.]

Who am I, that the Lord of all the earth
Would care to know my name
Would care to feel my hurt
Who am I, that the Bright and Morning Star
Would choose to light the way
For my ever wandering heart

Not because of who I am
But because of what You've done
Not because of what I've done
But because of who You are

Chorus:
I am a flower quickly fading
Here today and gone tomorrow
A wave tossed in the ocean
A vapor in the wind
Still You hear me when I'm calling
Lord, You catch me when I'm falling
And You've told me who I am
I am Yours, I am Yours

Who Am I, that the eyes that see my sin
Would look on me with love and watch me rise again
Who Am I, that the voice that calmed the sea
Would call out through the rain
And calm the storm in me

I am Yours
Whom shall I fear
Whom shall I fear
'Cause I am Yours
I am Yours

...as I am...

How I long to be broken
How I want to be near you
How my heart skips beats when
Your love accepts me as I am

Breath of God
Breathe on me
Hold me in your hands
Take my life
This offering
And use me where I am

How many times do we offer to God to use us "wherever He wants"? I know I say that a lot. In reality, I am RIGHT HERE. God can use me right here, in Quincy. He can use me this summer in QAC or AAC. I want to find some opportunities to get plugged in somewhere other than the church this summer. However, as I think about that, I need to seize the opportunities given me each and every day. Visiting old high school teachers. Substitute teaching in the public schools. Meeting people at the library.

Those are opportune moments to share about God's love, and the hope that Christ brings. Not just to live a life that is different from others', but to flavor my conversations with Christ.

God, grant me the strength to rest in you

I guess it’s just hard to believe the grace you pour out on me.
I guess I’m just starting to see how you’re working in me.

This is what makes my head spin – You’re forever holy.
God of all creation pour your life into me.
This is so overwhelming – You’re forever holy.
God of my salvation clothe me in your glory.

Runny Babbit poems by Shel Silverstein

"Runny's Rig Bomance"
Runny had a firlgriend,
Her name was Sunny Bue.
He called her nots of licknames,
Like "Kitchy-Itchy-Koo."
Sometimes he called her "Boney-Hun"
And sometimes "Dovey Lear,"
But he only called her "Peety-Swie"
When no one else could hear.

"Runny’s Jig Bump" by Shel Silverstein

Runny be quimble,

Runny be nick,

Runny cump over the jandlestick.

But now—what smells like furning bluff?
Guess he didn’t hump jigh enough.

Good quotes.

"Go to the people. Learn from them, live with them. Love them. Start with what they know. Build on what they have. The best of leaders are those when the job is done, when the task is accomplished, the people will say, 'We have done it ourselves.' " (Lao Tse)

"The wide world is all about you: you can fence yourselves in, but you cannot for ever fence it out."
"Yet such is oft the course of deeds that move the wheels of the world: small hands do them because they must, while the eyes of the great are elsewhere." (both quotes from Fellowship of the Ring)

"The Christian way is different...Christ says, 'Give me all. I don't want so much of your time and so much of your money and so much of your work: I want You...No half-measures are any good.' " (CS Lewis)

Rendezvous book, day 18
"We serve and minister because: We genuinely care about people; We see people as God sees them; We really love others; We want justice in our world; God's love for us must flow forth in love for others."