Through My Eyes: A Journal

By Liz Root

Contact Liz by emailing her at liz@vagrantcafe.com

Click here for weekly archives

2/1/2002
the days in which i go to work at the church, i have to open and close the building, thus having to use the alarm system. my heartbeat goes crazy every time i touch those buttons. mostly b/c the alarm likes to go off and it's scary as hell. i don't know why i felt like sharing this. i just hate alarm systems. they make me crazy.

i should have gone to bed about two hours earlier than i did last night. but i couldn't. the night breeze blowing in the windows was too nice to waste it on sleep. so awake i stayed. until 2 a.m. and now i am paying.

this afternoon jessie and i will head up to charlotte until late tomorrow night. i'm excited. i really enjoy going up to charlotte. although it's quite possibly the most yuppie city in this country, i like it. we'll be working with our interior designer for the coffee house, as well as going to MorningStar tonight and tomorrow night for church.

jessie is going to paint my portrait. she's an artist. she can do a little of everything, but she specializes in drawing and painting. so she's going to paint me. it's kind of fun figuring out how i'm going to look and what i should wear and how i should pose and stuff. we've got some cool ideas.

anyway...today's entry probably seems lacking in importance, but oh well. it's just that kind of day i guess.


- liz r. - 2/1/2002

1/31/2002
*written yesterday*

the journey to know Him *is* the journey of desire. the more i draw near to Him, the more i find hidden desires i didn't know i had. desire to LIVE. to see. to learn. to experience. to risk. to love. desiring Him is desiring life and life more abundantly. in speaking of it, i feel that "certain shyness" c.s. lewis spke of. the "incosolable secret." the desire to pass into the creation that surrounds me.

i sit at this table and there are no words. all i can do is stare out the window and into nature. watching the way the leaves are blown by the wind. the sound of a bird chirping in january. seeing trees that appear dead and knowing in a few short months they will be bursting with life. "It has come!" they will say of the Season of New Beginning.

"Grace finds beauty in everything." - U2. The words of my friend were grace. Only grace can make beauty of something where I place my insecurity. Only grace can secure the insecure. Grace finds nothing ugly in that which is out of my ability to change. and it is grace which helps me to change the things i can.


- liz r. - 1/31/2002

1/29/2002
what do we do with all this pain surrounding us? with all these people who hurt so badly and are getting no help? i was reading a book yesterday and it was talking about how the Church is called to be the "body of Christ." people ask, "where is God in this situation? where is God when it hurts?" but maybe the question should be, "where is the Church when i hurt?" "where is the Church when i can't afford to pay my bills? when kids are going hungry? when i just don't feel like waking up in the morning anymore? where is the Church then?" the church is the very *last* place most people would think to turn to in their time of need, including Christians. we turn to the world for help because we can count on the world. but i'm tired of turning to the world. i read about the first church and how they reached out to the poor and the widows and they all shared with one another not counting anything as "mine" or "yours."

i know i'm not to that place yet, but i'd like to be someone that a poor person can count on, while myself still being poor. someone a person in pain can turn to for comfort while myself still in pain and needing my own comfort. it seems we are all broken people who must in turn, attempt to fix other broken people.


- liz r. - 1/29/2002

1/28/2002
"a blessing in disguise" you could call it. something happened on sunday which would first appear to be discouraging and a very large speed bump. but as my friend and i looked at the situation, instead of discouraging us, it gave us freedom. so now, i'll probably be able to visit home sooner than august, go to cornerstone with no problem at all, etc. yeah, i'm gonna have to get a second job now, but that's no problem.

so i'm about 3/4 finished with that "The Jesus I Never Knew" book. I'm not sure if it's going to get to the point or not, but i guess i'm feeling let down a little. sure it does a great job of explaining things, but i still don't feel like i'm really getting to know the person of Jesus any more than i already do. but perhaps that's not the point of the book. the point of the book is probably to point me to the person of Jesus and Jesus himself will reveal who he is to me. i guess i just figured it out myself, huh? sometimes you just need to write things out to get clarity.

sometimes i can tell when someone who knows me thinks i'm holding back. maybe i am holding back. maybe there are areas of life that i can't just dive into, as much as everyone might expect me to. there are things i've seen, places i've been, words i've heard that make me never want to try this all again, and yet here i am, trying it all again. it's kind of like a scale. maybe on their scale, my effort doesn't carry much weight. but on *my* scale, it does. i suppose there is truth in not judging people because you don't know where they've been. people don't know where i've been. they think they know, but they don't. they think they know that because of where i was one year ago, that i'm at a place in life of maturity and clarity and healing and forgiveness. in some aspects i am. i am also in a place where only just now am i being able to open up my heart to certain things again. where i am afraid to get burned. where i am afraid of legalism and conformity. it takes time and patience. i feel rushed. i feel like a coward. do i wait for the desire and then act, or do i act, and wait for the desire to catch up? do i proclaim what i do not feel in hopes that it will stir up in my heart those truths? ready? there is no time to wait to be "ready." so i jump in. not dive. jump. i make a little bit of a mess. it's not graceful. it's not practiced. it won't fit nicely into the mold. the mold i've created in my own mind, but which most likely doesn't exist in theirs. but i'm in. i'm in.


- liz r. - 1/28/2002