experience |ikˈspi(ə)rēəns| : v : encounter or undergo

I love to write (in case you thought that this blog was some infinite twisted school assignment - its voluntary). I currently hold a Bachelors of Arts in English, which means that writing is something that I have studied more than the average person. One of the classic mantras of writing is to write what you know. If you want to write a book about living homeless in inner city Atlanta, get in there and live it, whether its spending time volunteering in a shelter or even living as a homeless person. If you want to write about the Civil War, you had better hit the library for articles, journals, books, and paraphernalia written about and by the people who lived in that time.



Experience. You have to experience what you want to write, if you want it to be any good.

I also love to paint and sketch. My painting has improved vastly over the past few years, not because I have taken more art classes (not since I was 14), but because I taken the time to see more. I picked up on how to paint the moon by sitting in my driveway and staring at it.

 Experience, I can not paint what I have not painted or experienced.

Recently I have been doing a lot of learning and experiencing in life. I have little concrete evidence, but it is something that I know inside myself. I know that I am better equipped to handle change, I know I am better equipped to live independently, I know that I am better equipped to handle my own heart and it's sneaky, roller coaster ways.

Experience. You can not conquer what you have not faced.

When I was younger my father walked with me through a youth edition of Henry Blackaby's "Experiencing God". I remember nothing beyond the concept of the title. You can not know truly God, without experiencing God. Here's the thing about that though, God is everywhere, but you can go through life choosing not to experience Him. I have lived both ways, and one is infinitely better.

When I spend time noting the way a person moves, how their voice sounds, or how the world reflects in their features, I see God. When I sit on the cool driveway at 11:30pm and watch the moon rise through the trees, I see God. When I feel tormented by emotion that I can not possibly understand, I scream for God.

This past year, its changes, its opportunities, its people, I think of how thankful I am to have experienced God in it. I look back on the year and yearn for more.

I want to write more, because He uses the words to help me appreciate. I want to paint more because He uses the strokes to help me see. I want to invest more because He uses the people and challenges to enrich my ability to understand and to love. And more so I want to pray more, sing more, read more, learn more - to not just experience life more, but to intentionally experience more God.

There was some darker moments in the last half of this year, and God let me have my 3 or 4 months to flail, to wonder, to cry, to churn, to stop and get my feet under me, or rather to plant my feet on Him. God took my wobbling, balled up existence and stabilized me, but now He's pushing me to stand.

I have been studying Job, and I was so blessed by it, but recently the back and forth of the tormented Job and his friends had worn on me and I hadn't picked it up for a few weeks, or even the Bible really because I didn't know what to study otherwise. I was ready to move on to something else, and not finish Job for the second or third time in my life, but I couldn't figure out what to move on to, so God told me to finish Job, even if I wasn't "feeling it" as much as when I started it, so I picked it up.

Job 30 and 31 were the end of Job's rant, I pushed through them, reading, but not absorbing. I went to do the same with chapter 32, but had to stop. In chapter 32 a new character is introduced, Elihu. Elihu essentially interrupts and says, "I know I'm young, but wisdom comes from God, not from old age, so I'm going to speak anyway and here it is: God is still bigger than all you."

There is way more to Elihu's chapters, but that first part just struck me. How cool is it that God would push me to finally read these chapters I never had before. That I would be weary of the long conversation in the previous chapters, the way I was growing weary with the introspective nature of the ending chapter of my year. God has spent the last few weeks, slowly pushing me out.

I am still fragile, I am still overwhelmed, and I am still enormously weak, but God is inside me. His Spirit runs through me, and roots my feet into the ground. No matter how battered I feel, my foundation is strong, because of God, because I have, am, and long to continuing experiencing God, no matter what.