Thoughts

If I had a steller explanation for the looooong delay in posting, I would give it.

Unfortunately, I can only boast of extreme busyness, as well as an unfortunate writer's block. I've had a lot of ideas floating around in my head, but life lately has made it hard to sort them all out. However, there is one thing I do want to write about quickly, as I try to sort out some of the other things crowding rationality out of my brain.

About a month ago, through the introduction of an anonymous comment on a previous post, (thank you friend, whoever you are,) I came into contact with another blogger who's writing has been a great encouragement to me. Her name is Holly, and her blog is listed along the side: To Know Him More

Through Holly's blog however, I found something that has pretty much jump started all the different things rummaging around in my brain the last few weeks.

The last year of my life has been a very interesting one, to say the least, as my New Year post expostulated. One of the biggest decisions I made last year was to stop attending the church I grew up in, for a lot of different reasons, which I won't go into here. Though lately I have been feeling myself treading close to toeing the depression I was in last year, I still desperately desire to have a relationship with my Heavenly Father above everything, and the process of learning how to have that relationship with Him has been the biggest focus of my soul lately.

Through Holly's blog, I found a book online called So You Don't Want to Go to Church Anymore. When I saw the name of the story, it jumped out at me for obvious reasons. I started and finished the book within two days, and I was astonished over how true it rang with me. After reading the book, I backtracked the link to find the site for the story, and through that I found Lifestream, the website of Wayne Jacobsen, co-author of the book. (It is usually referred to as "The Jake Book.") 12 years ago Wayne Jacobsen left the institutional congregation where he was an assistant-pastor, and ever since has been focusing on having a real relationship with God - with our Father - apart from attempting to maintain the functionality of any system. The Jake Book is based on the beginning of the journey for himself, as well as many others. While Lifestream has been a great encouragement and resource for me, my family and some of our friends, the most amazing thing I have come into contact with since finding the site is a book called "The Shack" by William Paul Young.

If you haven't heard of this book, I would highly recommend that you at least check it out, and hopefully read it for yourself. (The book website is here.) It's a fictional book, but I can tell that a lot of the author is contained within its pages. It puts forth in a way I never imagined the possibilities available to the son or daughter of God, in relation to the intimate relationship they can have with God. I don't want to give away any of the plot points, so I won't say anything else about it, but it is a book that has completely redirected the way I think about God's love for me. It's kinda scary, ok no, it's terrifying, but it's wonderful at the same time.

That's all I think I should try to get out right now, hopefully later this weekend my thoughts will have organized themselves a little bit better.