Monday night

I am, once again, writing from work. I promise I actually work while I’m working, but sometimes I don’t. So I’ve decided to move back to Tacoma in August. Most anyone who would be reading this knows that by now, but I just thought I’d include that anyway. I feel just as confident and peaceful about this decision as I did when the Lord told me to move here Himself. My life is kind of unsettled right now, and sometimes I feel like my head is full of little doors with a little chelsea screaming behind each one (that probably sounds awful, but it’s a funny image for me). Little chelseas sit there worrying and wondering about the details of my life, and every now and then I have to knock on the doors and tell them to please quiet down. In two weeks, I’m moving out of my cute little house into another house which, I’m sure, will be just as cute. My sweet roommate is moving away to Africa, and I am finishing up my contract in Olympia. God has given me an earnest love for my co-workers, and I am sincerely sad to be leaving them.. I feel like I’m abandoning my ministry (but I know I’m being obedient). In three weeks, I will move to DC to be with Angela and start a new job I have not completely pinned down yet. Then I will be an aunt… hooray! In August, I will drive Ang and Eli to TN and hang there for a couple of weeks until I fly back to WA to start work on August 18. I have not, however, decided where I will be working yet. There are a few other big changes going on in my life, but these are the ones I feel like putting on the internet. So each little chelsea is wanting to make sure her particular concern is taken care of and settled, but I think the Lord is peeping His sweet head into each room asking the mini-mes, “Do you trust me?” And though every now and then, a stray little scamp lets out an anxious scream, my over-arching chelsea spirit looks back and remembers that God has come through every time and responds with a resounding yes. So that’s where I am right now. Oh, I also wanted to tell you that God has been particularly sweet to me lately in concerning Himself with the trivial desires of my heart. There have been many ways He has done this, one being that He sent me out dancing twice in one weekend. I serve a fun God! My mom also came to visit me this weekend and got to see this beautiful place where I live, experience Newsong, and meet some friends. It was good for my heart to see her and for her to see me here. Ok, that’s all…buh-bye. :)~

Sunday night.. or Monday morning

I'm sitting at work right.. it's usually quiet for 4 hours after midnight, barring any crazy, poopy, dying, attention-seeking, or just very sick patients. I'm writing for the third time today because I'm on the verge of making a decision I've been trying to make for months. Friday night, I went to my first baseball game with a friend. It was so fun! The weather was crisp, but clear, and the whole experience was new and exciting... even if the Mariner's did lose...pitifully (sorry Shane) :)~.

I wrote previously about how God told me very directly to come to Tacoma. I have been waiting on Him to tell me where to go next ever since I moved here. I am going to DC to be with my sister for the month of July to welcome Elijah James, my beautiful nephew, into the world. I have been believing that God would clearly tell me where He wants me to go in August. I think God totally spoke to me about this through a friend on Friday. A friend told me about his experience in which the Lord had told him to go overseas very clearly, but when he was trying to decide whether to come back, he didn't hear anything from God. Eventually, God just told him he needed to make a decision and have faith that He would bless it. My friend, by way of explanation, imagined that God had a sort of "faith checklist." He says, "what will chelsea do when I tell her to go? She goes.. check. Now what will she do when I don't tell her anything? Will she trust me?" This totally spoke to me as I realized my great fear has been that I will make the "wrong" decision. Some people have said it took great faith for me to come here on God's command.. honestly, it was really easy and didn't even feel like faith because God told me to go so clearly, so it wasn't scary or uncertain at all. It makes so much sense to me that God would seek to grow my faith by asking me to make my own choice and trusting that He will be with me in whatever decision I make and will not let me stray from His will since I am earnestly seeking to obey Him. God gave me a brain and His Spirit which gives me wisdom, so I can make this decision. It pleases the Lord for me to inquire after His will, but after asking Him about it this weekend, I believe my step of obedience will come in weighing my options, making a decision, and trusting the Lord in His silence. I think I have decided what to do in August, and I feel peaceful about it... which I think is a way God confirms His will.. but I am still waiting to work out the particulars, so I won't tell you what I'm thinking just yet. I was absolutely set on God doing one thing, and He graciously let me know that He's doing another.. even in His silence, He speaks. :) Ok.. so I think that's enough for a while.. thanks for caring about what's going on with me and for reading this so I don't have to tell the same story over and over again. Love, me. :)

My week...

Last Friday night, a team from the International House of Prayer (IHOP) came to Newsong and led a two-day conference. Worship was incredible, and the Holy Spirit's presence was undeniable as the packed-out sanctuary entered the Lord's throne room and sang to Jesus. Okay, so this might sound cheesy, but you're my friend, so I'll be vulnerable. Sometimes when I worship and the Spirit quiets every distraction and fills my heart and focuses my eyes solely on Jesus, I feel like I'm worshipping with the saints. I see this picture of the Lord on His throne, and I am surrounded by the multitudes of believers in Heaven worshipping our King. And though I only feel like this when my focus is solely on Christ, it is in these times when I feel closest to dad. Anyway, one of the speakers spoke on the Song of Songs. I have never studied this book, and I have only read it a few times and not in years. She spoke of the bride as the church and the believer and the lover as Christ. The story tells of the bride's journey from immature love that is self-focused to a mature love that focuses on her lover. Christ calls His bride beautiful and says that He can hardly stand her gaze because it so overwhelms Him. Christ's heart is moved deeply and passionately by His beloved's voice, her gaze, and even her immature love. The Lord pierced my heart! The heart of Christ is passionately moved by my weak love! The Jesus that I nailed to the cross hushes all of Heaven and leans in when I pray just waiting to hear what His beloved will ask because He longs to grant my request. My Lord's heart melts when I turn my ever-roaming eyes towards Him. He calls me His sister and His bride. He knows all that I am.. all the darkness and falseness and infidelity that lurks within my heart... and He loves me to death! I wrote earlier that I thought the Lord brought me here to teach me about who I am and my worth.... I now know He brought me here to continue this great lesson about His overwhelming love for me.. and my identity and worth flows naturally from this truth that digs down deep into my heart and spreads out into every dark space. Before Africa, God said, "She must know how deeply and desperately I love her." My Jesus is revealing His love by layers.. I wonder if He only takes me by steps so as not to overwhelm my weak heart. I love my sweet God, but the breathless, crazy, too wonderful for words truth is that my God loves me! Read and study Song of Songs... and if you dare, simply ask Jesus, "Do you love me?" He will answer you! :) K... going to work... love you friends and family!

A Sunday in May

So it's Sunday afternoon, and I am enjoying some daylight before shutting myself up in a hospital just in time to miss the sunset. I do, however, usually find some excuse to tend to a patient on the west side of the unit just at sunrise. The rooms have large, clear windows looking out onto a veritable forest of evergreens in the parking lot. As the sun peeks over the tree-line, a chain of mountains becomes visible in the distance... the view is breath-taking! This glorious picture of the Lord's handiwork has encouraged me after several hard nights, and seldom fails to bring a smile to my poor patients. Thursday night before last, the Lord blessed me with a spontaneous and magnificent view of His sunrise. A fellow night nurse from Newsong called me up at 10pm and invited me to make the 3 hour drive to Mt. St. Helen with her to spend the night and watch the sunrise. What a wonderful surprise! It reminded me of some nights at FSU when we would randomly decide to go spend the night at St. Augustine beach... good memories. My friend and I drove up and up until the snow encroached so on the road that we could drive no farther. In the dark, we could only make out shadows of the trees partially buried in the glowing white snow. We talked and huddled under our blankets and watched as the stars shone just enough light so that we could make out the towering volcano in front of us. As the sun rose, the mountain came into full view. The horizon in all its brilliant colors reflected against the snow-white mountain with its hollowed-out center where the volcano blew its top off in the 80's. We watched the pink glow upon the white on the silent mountain, and we were awed and still. Driving down the mountain, we saw elk amidst trees of every hue of green and heard their clumsy song.  What a glorious experience.. the Lord knows my heart and how to make it happy. :)

Erika and I in Seattle
Brynna, Erika, and I after church in Tacoma
The University of Washington campus in Seattle
Posing in front of the Seattle gum wall with a honey stick in my mouth. :)

The Tacoma Waterfront
The bridge to the glass museum
The glass display on the bridge
Melisa, Brynna, and I the first day I arrived to Tacoma
Seattle!

Sunday

It's Sunday night, and I'm back in the same cozy little coffee shop I was in the last time I wrote... I am sitting in the same chair, and even the dreary sky is raining down the same weather, but I do not feel the same. Alright, so what do I feel like telling you about tonight? I've had a strange week... but I think I'll start with something that happened two weeks ago. So you know that the Lord brought me to Tacoma. I don't remember if I have told you why I think that is yet. In Capetown, He revealed and destroyed lies I had been believing about myself, and He started to speak to me about who I was in Him. I think He has brought me here to continue that conversation and lead me to live in the fullness of who I am. Does that make any sense? The Lord has given this community at Newsong a passionate ministry for helping people to discover and live in who God made them to be... how He originally designed them before sin or this dark world influenced them to be something different. One way they help people to walk into who they were originally created to be is by simply asking God to tell them how He created the person. Now this part may sound weird (or maybe all of it does, but bear with me)... when they pray and ask God questions, He answers them. Now I have heard God speak to me at different times throughout my life, and really on a daily basis while I was in Capetown, but I have never asked God to speak to me about someone else. If you've read my previous posts, you know that God gave Elizabeth Clack a message to give to me that eventually led me on a journey to Africa and Tacoma, so you wouldn't think I would be surprised by God speaking through other people, but I was. I am taking a class at church on the freedom and authority we have in Christ. During one class, prayer teams came in and prayed for each of us individually. A husband and wife I had never met sat down with me and asked God to speak about who He made me to be. They asked, "Lord, how many things do you want to tell us about Chelsea tonight?" They heard Him say five. then they asked, "what is the first thing." He spoke, and they told me what they heard. They listed five different ways the Lord has uniquely created me. It was kind of mind blowing. I had never met these people before, and they were speaking things about my heart that were true and deeply personal. The Lord confirmed that He was speaking through them in my spirit, and what He said was healing and so sweetly personal. Are you freaked out yet? :) If you have questions, I would love to dialogue with you about this and fill you in on the details, but for now let me just say that the Lord is good and is teaching me a lot here. 

This week had been rough because I have been physically and spiritually tired. Last Sunday or Monday night, I had a busy, stressful night at work. I sat down for a moment to hide in the Word and bring my weary heart before my Lord, but as soon as I opened my Bible, a coworker approached me and proceeded to aggressively mock the gospel.. actually laughing at the idea that someone would be stupid enough to believe such a thing. He didn't mean to personally offend me... he likes me and even apologized for offending me later on, but I don't know that I have ever experienced that before in all my spiritual conversations with non-believers... a very public, scornful, mocking of the gospel. It hurt my heart for him, and it hurt to hear my savior slandered. My heart was just heavy with it for a few days until my mom pointed out that was a form of persecution. However mild it may be in comparison with the horrors believers suffer worldwide, it is still an honor to suffer in any small way for the sake of the gospel, and I wonder how the Lord will use my friend's vehement denial of the gospel for His own glory. Anyway, if you think about it, you can pray with me for my lost friend. The Word says that the gospel is foolishness to those to whom the Lord has not revealed the truth. I find frustration, but mostly comfort in the fact that my words and arguments are powerless to convince anyone of spiritual truth. I find myself utterly dependent on my Father once again. :)

Oh, I also went to the chiropractor and found out that my left leg is longer than my right and my hips and shoulders are all messed up... so either he'll fix me or I'm going to start walking in circles soon... I'll keep you updated on that. ;) I miss you friends and family... I'll write more later.