In an effort to simplify my life, this blog will be lying dormant for the time being. Hopefully at some point, I'll be able to return to it. But for now, I have to intentionally take back my time! May you also find simplicity and the courage to make healthy changes.
Love,
Elizabeth
Monday, May 24, 2010
Wednesday, February 24, 2010
open heart surgery. (part 2)
Continued from part 1. I realize there is a lot of all caps-ing and italicizing here and the grammar isn't up to par. I am just trying to be as true to how I wrote it down by hand in my diary. Emotions and the Lord's voice flowing onto the page. Freeform.
REALIZATION!!!!!!!!! Thank you, Lord! GUILT, ELIZABETH, IS NOT YOUR CORE HEART STRUGGLE, IT IS ONLY A BRANCH COMING FROM THE TRUNK, ONLY A SYMPTOM OF THE DISEASE. YOU CARRY A LOT OF FALSE GUILT BASED ON A FALSE SYSTEM.
YOUR STANDARD: THE LAW OF APPROVAL.
YOUR JUDGE: THE PEOPLE AROUND YOU, ANYONE YOU COME IN CONTACT WITH.
IF THEY APPROVE YOU, YOU FEEL SINFUL PRIDE & ARROGANCE & SUPERIORITY, & FALSE SECURITY.
IF THEY DISAPPROVE OF YOU, YOU DROP WITH THE WEIGHT OF GUILT, YOU HAVE BEEN JUDGED UNWORTHY.
"You hide me in the shelter of your tabernacle..."
What you need, Elizabeth, is a HEART TRANSPLANT. Deep at the core. Your system needs to be replaced. Because the current system in you is sending toxic blood out to all your limbs, so that your mind is affected & it makes decisions (schedule, boundaries) based on a FAULTY SYSTEM. Your arms are affected, so that they bear loads they don't need to bear. Your feet are affected so that they walk in ways based on the decision to please people first in your process of decision-making. Pleasing people is the number one, the first filter, in your process of decision-making, and not pleasing me, the master whose yoke gives freedom--not slavery, as the yoke of human approval does.
And what, Elizabeth, is the motivation behind your system you've set up? Fear, not faith. That is really THE CORE ISSUE. Deeper, even, than the people pleasing.
Yes, my way will lead through pain in this life. Yes, you will be ridiculed and thought stupid.
BUT DO YOU TRUST ME ENOUGH TO WALK THROUGH THIS VALLEY WITH ME, KNOWING THAT THE DISTANT MOUNTAINTOPS WILL BE EVEN MORE BEAUTIFUL FOR THE JOURNEY?
IS YOUR TREASURE TRULY IN HEAVEN, OR IS IT, IN FEAR, HERE WHERE YOU CAN IMMEDIATELY SEE IT WITH YOUR EARTHLY EYES?
DO YOU BELIEVE FOR REAL THAT WHAT IS UNSEEN IS REALITY (NOT JUST "MORE REAL") AND THAT WHAT IS SEEN IS TEMPORARY & FADING?
Please, Lord, remind me of times I knew as a child before I learned this system.
To be continued...
REALIZATION!!!!!!!!! Thank you, Lord! GUILT, ELIZABETH, IS NOT YOUR CORE HEART STRUGGLE, IT IS ONLY A BRANCH COMING FROM THE TRUNK, ONLY A SYMPTOM OF THE DISEASE. YOU CARRY A LOT OF FALSE GUILT BASED ON A FALSE SYSTEM.
YOUR STANDARD: THE LAW OF APPROVAL.
YOUR JUDGE: THE PEOPLE AROUND YOU, ANYONE YOU COME IN CONTACT WITH.
IF THEY APPROVE YOU, YOU FEEL SINFUL PRIDE & ARROGANCE & SUPERIORITY, & FALSE SECURITY.
IF THEY DISAPPROVE OF YOU, YOU DROP WITH THE WEIGHT OF GUILT, YOU HAVE BEEN JUDGED UNWORTHY.
"You hide me in the shelter of your tabernacle..."
What you need, Elizabeth, is a HEART TRANSPLANT. Deep at the core. Your system needs to be replaced. Because the current system in you is sending toxic blood out to all your limbs, so that your mind is affected & it makes decisions (schedule, boundaries) based on a FAULTY SYSTEM. Your arms are affected, so that they bear loads they don't need to bear. Your feet are affected so that they walk in ways based on the decision to please people first in your process of decision-making. Pleasing people is the number one, the first filter, in your process of decision-making, and not pleasing me, the master whose yoke gives freedom--not slavery, as the yoke of human approval does.
And what, Elizabeth, is the motivation behind your system you've set up? Fear, not faith. That is really THE CORE ISSUE. Deeper, even, than the people pleasing.
Yes, my way will lead through pain in this life. Yes, you will be ridiculed and thought stupid.
BUT DO YOU TRUST ME ENOUGH TO WALK THROUGH THIS VALLEY WITH ME, KNOWING THAT THE DISTANT MOUNTAINTOPS WILL BE EVEN MORE BEAUTIFUL FOR THE JOURNEY?
IS YOUR TREASURE TRULY IN HEAVEN, OR IS IT, IN FEAR, HERE WHERE YOU CAN IMMEDIATELY SEE IT WITH YOUR EARTHLY EYES?
DO YOU BELIEVE FOR REAL THAT WHAT IS UNSEEN IS REALITY (NOT JUST "MORE REAL") AND THAT WHAT IS SEEN IS TEMPORARY & FADING?
Please, Lord, remind me of times I knew as a child before I learned this system.
To be continued...
Friday, February 19, 2010
open heart surgery. (part 1)
Date: Wednesday, 8/26/09
Location: The Coffee Pot, 49th St & 9th Ave, New York, NY
I have been feeling the need to write down what God has been teaching me since I moved here to New York almost 10 months ago. It has been a very new stage on the journey. I am being refined in big ways, which is not necessarily fun, but glorious.
For instance, I am immensely tired of hearing the word, "F***." It is a favorite of people here.
New York is a hard place to live, and it works like sandpaper on wood, smoothing away the jagged edges and surface--what God brings to the surface--or, if you rebel against this hard teacher, you become more and more bitter. NEW YORK WILL MAKE YOU BETTER OR BITTER. I've seen a lot of bitterness and a lot of rebellion.
My journey here is indistinguishably interwoven with my process here--one of deep satisfaction--of finally BECOMING an actor, finally finding myself entering into my calling (only God knows, but this feels like it could be a life-long pursuit). I am finally starting to SEE people clearly as I start to live each day AS AN ACTOR. Acting is like incarnational psychology. My sister-in-law, Jennifer, is becoming a psychologist, learning how other people tick through focused reading and study. And me? I am becoming an actress, learning how other people tick by learning to jump inside their skin and, in the most literal sense of the words, see through their eyes.
I become them.
I was trying to wrap my mind around this, and God recently gave me a revelation: the mystery of an actor's work is the same mystery of Christ's incarnation: The idea that Jesus is fully God AND, at the same time, fully man. I never thought I'd be able to understand that concept until I got to Heaven, but I think it's starting to make sense, though still in a veiled way.
In acting class (where, so far, I feel I've done my best acting yet), when, 2 weeks ago, I walked around with the point of view that, "I am a raped beauty," in order to play the character of Roberta in Danny and the Deep Blue Sea, did I cease to be Elizabeth? No. Absolutely not. But was it Elizabeth seeing herself as the raped beauty? No, it was Roberta. When my classmates interacted with me as different kinds of men, was it Elizabeth shoving them, yelling at them, seeking blessed solace and comfort in the embrace of one? No, it was Roberta. It was me living her life, taking on her pain and history, and her hopes and dreams (which she shares with all women, including me--dreams of being the beauty, of being rescued, of being caught up in a grand adventure*).
Is New York a place of hurts? Yes, many.
Is it sometimes so annoying--when people keep walking in front of you, or having loud personal conversations, or letting it all get to them & screaming profanities at another human being? Yes.
But there is something real & raw about this city. There is a lot less of a mask or veil over the dire situation of this present world. Much less deception, fewer lies trying to convince us that earth is our home, that life here can be the American dream...while, at the same time, it is a place for dreamers, a place for people who want more, who feel that more is possible...even if their searching takes them in all kinds of wrong directions.
I've seen clearly the words of that Switchfoot song:
It was a beautiful letdown
the day I knew
all the riches this world had to offer me
would never do.
In a world full of bitter pain
and bitter doubts
I was trying so hard to fit in, fit in,
until I found out that I don't belong here...
I will carry a cross and a song
where I don't belong.
Actually, the second part of that verse is what I am in the process of learning, and I have hope that New York City might be just the scalpel God wanted to use to cut the tumor of people pleasing out of my heart. It's been there too long, & I can see my blindness, the way that my heart still clings to the idea that pleasing people as a rule is a good, beautiful thing, while my mind sees the need for the surgery God is performing. That tumor's been there since--well, God only knows--but, at least since 7th or 8th grade, when I took on and incorporated the false belief deep in the fabric of my being, that, "If I win people's approval, I have proven my worth, and if I put my mind to it, use my cleverness and fight hard with my strength, I can do this, I can achieve this beautiful, glowing approval."
-EB
*Ideas taken from the books Captivating (John & Stasi Eldredge) and Wild at Heart (John Eldredge).
Location: The Coffee Pot, 49th St & 9th Ave, New York, NY
I have been feeling the need to write down what God has been teaching me since I moved here to New York almost 10 months ago. It has been a very new stage on the journey. I am being refined in big ways, which is not necessarily fun, but glorious.
For instance, I am immensely tired of hearing the word, "F***." It is a favorite of people here.
New York is a hard place to live, and it works like sandpaper on wood, smoothing away the jagged edges and surface--what God brings to the surface--or, if you rebel against this hard teacher, you become more and more bitter. NEW YORK WILL MAKE YOU BETTER OR BITTER. I've seen a lot of bitterness and a lot of rebellion.
My journey here is indistinguishably interwoven with my process here--one of deep satisfaction--of finally BECOMING an actor, finally finding myself entering into my calling (only God knows, but this feels like it could be a life-long pursuit). I am finally starting to SEE people clearly as I start to live each day AS AN ACTOR. Acting is like incarnational psychology. My sister-in-law, Jennifer, is becoming a psychologist, learning how other people tick through focused reading and study. And me? I am becoming an actress, learning how other people tick by learning to jump inside their skin and, in the most literal sense of the words, see through their eyes.
I become them.
I was trying to wrap my mind around this, and God recently gave me a revelation: the mystery of an actor's work is the same mystery of Christ's incarnation: The idea that Jesus is fully God AND, at the same time, fully man. I never thought I'd be able to understand that concept until I got to Heaven, but I think it's starting to make sense, though still in a veiled way.
In acting class (where, so far, I feel I've done my best acting yet), when, 2 weeks ago, I walked around with the point of view that, "I am a raped beauty," in order to play the character of Roberta in Danny and the Deep Blue Sea, did I cease to be Elizabeth? No. Absolutely not. But was it Elizabeth seeing herself as the raped beauty? No, it was Roberta. When my classmates interacted with me as different kinds of men, was it Elizabeth shoving them, yelling at them, seeking blessed solace and comfort in the embrace of one? No, it was Roberta. It was me living her life, taking on her pain and history, and her hopes and dreams (which she shares with all women, including me--dreams of being the beauty, of being rescued, of being caught up in a grand adventure*).
Is New York a place of hurts? Yes, many.
Is it sometimes so annoying--when people keep walking in front of you, or having loud personal conversations, or letting it all get to them & screaming profanities at another human being? Yes.
But there is something real & raw about this city. There is a lot less of a mask or veil over the dire situation of this present world. Much less deception, fewer lies trying to convince us that earth is our home, that life here can be the American dream...while, at the same time, it is a place for dreamers, a place for people who want more, who feel that more is possible...even if their searching takes them in all kinds of wrong directions.
I've seen clearly the words of that Switchfoot song:
It was a beautiful letdown
the day I knew
all the riches this world had to offer me
would never do.
In a world full of bitter pain
and bitter doubts
I was trying so hard to fit in, fit in,
until I found out that I don't belong here...
I will carry a cross and a song
where I don't belong.
Actually, the second part of that verse is what I am in the process of learning, and I have hope that New York City might be just the scalpel God wanted to use to cut the tumor of people pleasing out of my heart. It's been there too long, & I can see my blindness, the way that my heart still clings to the idea that pleasing people as a rule is a good, beautiful thing, while my mind sees the need for the surgery God is performing. That tumor's been there since--well, God only knows--but, at least since 7th or 8th grade, when I took on and incorporated the false belief deep in the fabric of my being, that, "If I win people's approval, I have proven my worth, and if I put my mind to it, use my cleverness and fight hard with my strength, I can do this, I can achieve this beautiful, glowing approval."
-EB
*Ideas taken from the books Captivating (John & Stasi Eldredge) and Wild at Heart (John Eldredge).
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