Kimisloved.net // Living Loved

Hey Hey…Happy Monday!  LOL..that rhymed!

My weekend was a mix of good and bad.  Didn’t really feel well a lot of the time, but did get to see Phantom for the third time with my parents…now they understand my madness!  LOL…I don’t recommend The Wedding Date…no chemistry and bad editing (which ruins a movie). Got to see Kara and Beau’s new house…nice nice nice! Got my bridesmaid dress altered and now I’ll look pretty for Anita!  That’s generally it…

The Friday meeting with Tom at the warehouse went well. He is a business man through and through…and he has a heart for God. What a great mix! We really talked business – zoning, licensing, funding, budget, the vision (my vision in my proposal compared to what God sees for the warehouse…if even the warehouse – and are now set to focus on these aspects of the “student center”.  I can’t really call it a student center now…so, I will begin calling it by the name I felt I have been led to, “The Back Door”. Who knows if that will be the end result, but it’d be kinda cool if it was.

This is just another level of this journey. It is pretty amazing to sit in a room with three other people who understand the need and that God has placed us all there for a purpose, but who also have our own ideas and mental image of the end results. God please meld our own thoughts and ideas into YOUR thoughts and ideas.

I haven’t written about Thursday night @ the Warehouse yet…it was great to see Bill, Ben, Bethany, Lacey, Jordan, Cheryl and I together. We listened to Bill’s heart as he poured over stories of our journey so far. Then we prayed, whomever wanted to pray.  We walked around the building…it wasa gorgeous night. Then we ended in the Upper Room where Bill spoke to us, prayed and then I prayed…actually I have no memory of what I said, but I know God was there.  I pray the others felt Him.

We will be there on a regular basis now…Thursday nights at 7:30 (a little earlier). Anyone can come…ANYONE!

One other thing….I saw Christ last night…and was brought to tears.

The other night I began the journey through Pete Greig’s new book, The Vision and the Vow….wow wow wow! He is the author of Red Moon Rising, my other “Wow” book. Last night I read the second chapter, “The Vision is Jesus.” There is a devotional-type activity that he asks you to do, and as he states, “And now we must come to perhaps the most painful part of this book.” We are asked to stop being Christians for a moment…to put aside any “titles” we have..and allow sin to float to the surface. Then, with all exposed, we ask, “Do I really hunger for Jesus Christ?” Go more deeply into that for a while. Then we are told to imagine we are looking straight into the face of Jesus – “His eyes kindly, quietly burning into yours. You can feel them like lasers probing your heart. And as He looks at you, hear Him speaking your name”.  He repeats it softly, “But as He says your name, you glimpse a slight furrowing of the brow and a hint of pain dulling the kindness in His eyes. Seeing this, you become slightly self-conscious, aware that you are naked of ambition and pretense, nobody but yourself alone with Him.” He speaks your name with the hint of pain and then question…the honest, intimate question from Christ himself,

“Do you love me?”

Again, “Do you really love me?”

You become self-conscious again and wonder if  or why He’s doubting you…you softly reply…then the vulnerability sweeps over Jesus as He asks…

“Do you even like me?”

Oh man…oh man. Does that not sting? What is your response…your honest, most vulnerable response?  Last night stung…it made me cry out to Him and say, ” I honestly like You.” That’s all I could say at that moment. It also brought me back to something I have said for years. When I was a teenager and dating Lee, people would ask me if I loved him. I would honestly say, “I love him as I know love now.” That’s how I loved Lee as a teenager.

That is how I love Jesus Christ right now. Every day He is revealing Himself to me…sometimes I catch it. Sometimes it takes days or months to figure it out. But, as I experienced Christ last night in my room, I realized that is what this whole crazy thing is all about.  I have been given visions of a floor plan for a student center and young people bowing and kneeling in the prayer room, but none of that means anything if I do not have my eyes fixed on Christ.

Jesus is the Vision.