From the wondering question, "isn't that a cult?" to an understanding of where it is that I am truly from....

Freaked out couldn't have described it... I had never since I had known Him not felt Him and there in that moment I stood frozen.... Where was He? And I ran... I ran back to my dorm room and flung myself on the floor and started repenting ... my body hadn't really even touched the floor nor the carpet received my tears and He was there....

That is a true story.... He had introduced Himself to me via a visitation ... mind you I was in a pysch ward... I had gone to a window and without ever having had someone tell me the sinner's prayer the words of repentance and commitment poured out of my mouth.... He was there... I knew God.. God was knowable and touchable and from that moment forward my life would never be the same....

He led me to a Christian college... so lacking understanding of Christian culture.. but having had a salvation experience I stumbled my way through the whole introductions.... so unlike the introductions to Him.. Himself....

I called for an application... "I'm Jewish can I even come to your school?" Was the first question but oh my so many more were to follow because when I received the application it was a major assumption that I knew how to speak the language.... Here is where some funny or not so funny stories come....

The application asking so many questions that I just didn't even comprehend.. like the essay for instance was.. "Describe your relationship with God..." hhhhmmmm not understanding that along with so many other seemingly insurmountable obstacles I threw the application away.... lo and behold however the Father really wanted me to attend.... Woke me up... literally woke me up and told me to get the application out of the garbage can... I kept trying to push the whole thing away but He was incessant.. well, of all things I was going to meet my husband there ;) so grateful the Father pushed me....

So I did I got up and removed the application from the trash... next morning before I woke up my mom came into my room and cleaned out my trash can...

Upon waking up and seeing that .. the application that was on my desk became the task at hand....

First... tackling the essay.. OK .. I thought.. Relationship with God?!? Uhm.. don't have one but let me tell them what happened.... uhm... Life fell apart.... all this craziness happened... ended up in a pysch hospital... prayed a prayer ... God introduced Himself... so I don't have a relationship with God.. but I need to know more about this experience I had... can I come? Upon arriving and meeting people .. one girl got truly upset with me ... She had lied on her application when it came to her relationship with God... she had one... she knew the terms but she had lied... I wonder what would have happened if she had opened up her heart and had spoken her doubts and her fears that she really wasn't sure about all this God stuff but this Christian college was the only one that her parents would pay for... I wonder what they would have done....

Next point of conflict... pastoral recommendation.... didn't have one... hadn't gone to church yet.. but in the movie Steel Magnolias they went to a Presbyterian church and one day driving across town I saw one off to my right and the pastor who responded with the statement of how he was never really ever at the building at that time welcomed me into the church to talk.... problem.. after the "talk" he thought I had been saved all my life.... He thought I thoroughly knew what it was I was talking about...

you see I could talk about Him like I knew Him because we knew each other daily when I would take His hand and walk with Him and He would tell me about Himself..... but there were oh so many things about the "Christian walk" that I was lacking..... anyway the man was gracious enough to be willing to write a recommendation and so I was over that hurdle....

There would be oh so many more however the one that makes me laugh the most sometimes is the survey I had to fill out when I got to college... the first question... Have you ever had a born again experience... uhm wasn't this a Christian college? However I at that time didn't even get that far? Because I thought heck no ... isn't that a cult?!? Seriously and that is what I wrote......

Oh it would take a while.. a long while in some instances to unravel and untangle my life and my past and these new things that were happening to me.... it would take years to unravel why so many people thought that all I was experiencing would end once I stopped being a baby Christian... seriously.. if I got that once I got it on numerous occasions... not anyone thinking or saying .. that they couldn't wait until I matured and moved even further into the heart beat of God.. no ... there was all this ... You are only experiencing these things because you are a baby Christian and when you understand like we do then you will calm down... seriously?!!? Students.... friends..... professors.. .alike ... all of them.. when you mature you won't act this.... HELL no... I will act even more uncivilized then this....

I have a beautiful wonderful friend ... who does these awesome events during fairs and festivals etc.... and she was telling me these most amazing stories today of encounters she has had and how people were just so very hungry to talk to her and sit with her.... and her heart and the way she walks with these people are stunning...

I know this pastor who simply undoes me every time he opens his mouth to teach and preach.. how he knows the love of God.. the need for grace and mercy and compassion... how he understands the necessity to be that living example....

I know this other pastor who I want to pinch and make sure I'm not dreaming .... and if I am.. well, then... I don't want to wake up..... He gets that it isn't about people's expectations but about what God wants and where the Lord is leading and how the Lord is guiding... and emerging .... How the Father loves His children and is calling sons and daughters to Himself...

I know these people that I am so blessed to have in my life that hunger ... hunger for more of the Lord... more of Him and less of all of us.. who hunger and thirst for the reality of the kingdom to break in upon us even more and that we would lives together that would resemble that which His heart aches and groans for us to have with each other....

I know God... I know God.. and now.. now I know Christian culture... and I know this.... there is so much I have come to embrace.... culturally ... but not as you might culturally think...

I am so not of this world.. so not of this place... and that the place that I am from is MAGNIFICENT... AMAZING... the place where I am from there is no sickness. . there is no sorrow or sighing... the place that I am from receives the hungry and the thirsty .. receives the meek... receives the peacemakers... receives the poor in spirit... The place where I am from knows living waters that when one drinks of them they are never thirsty again...

The place where I am from knows .. intrinsically knows the authority and majesty of its God.... and that is where I am from... that is whose citizenship I bare.... and that is the place where I have learned the authority of my Father.... I must live in this world.. but I am so thoroughly intrinsically fully blessed beyond measure that I no longer am of it.... that I am of a place that is so much more .. so much more beautiful.. so much more everything... so much more ...

I long to not squander away my days upon being in the world ... I long for the day when upon the day I remember throughout the whole day that I am truly of another place... and from that place I already sit... I sit as a child.. as a daughter... and I walk upon the face of the earth knowing whose I am... and where I am from.....