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shakarchristos
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Name: Claire
Gender: Female
Interests: africa, missions, running barefoot, laughing, singing, CLIFF JUMPING all the way, hiking the mountains in VT, breakin' it down with the chicas, hanging out with my family, watching the sunset on the waterfront, ultimate frisbee, snow football, running in the rain.
Occupation: missionary, college student, c
Message: message me
Website: visit my website
AIM:  rocketeer640
Member Since:
6/5/2005
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| so i stumbled across my speech from graduation night. it brought back alot of memories. and yeah, leaving home YET AGAIN has naturally got me a bit nostalgic. you all get to be lucky enough to suffer through the nostalgia along with me ;) to give you some background, i addressed this speech to the youth group... to the lower classmen, but also to the senior class... my best friends... there's a lot of history there and a huge story i don't have room to write here. if you didn't know me in high school, then this speech might not make a whole lot of sense to you. if you did, then... well, you know. Joshua asked me to talk to the underclassmen tonight and give them some “words of wisdom” in relation to high school, and what I’ve learned through it. I can’t resist starting this thing off with a quote from the classic movie “Ferris Bueller’s Day Off” (if you haven’t yet seen it, I would make a concentrated effort to watch it) anyway, the quote goes like this: “I’ll admit, it’s childish and stupid, but then again, so is high school.” The reason I wanted to share that with you is because if we are being completely honest with ourselves, high school is exactly that: “childish and stupid”. As annoying as this will sound, we are all still very much children. Think about it: high school is the stage where all of humanity’s intense drama comes to play. The epic crossroads of who should I like next? The dramatic outbursts that send the best of friends into battle; the raging storms of emotion, passion and emerging intellect. You all know what I’m talking about. High school can be very childish and stupid, but it is also a crash course in the school of life. High school teaches us that life is an unpredictable adventure that takes what we are and shapes who we will become. Life is the beautiful chance to make mistakes. Life is the opportunity to fail, and the platform to succeed. Life is a brilliant adventure made up of all of those things that fill our heads with dreams. When you think about it, high school is stupid to everyone but those who are currently living it. (okay, even them sometimes) but when you’re in it… it’s your whole life. And there’s nothing wrong with that. High school is the one time in our lives when we can completely devote ourselves to finding out who we are in Christ. I think that’s one of the reasons I have no regrets about not dating during my four years of high school. I was able to explore the extent of my heart as it stands alone, as a result of that, one day when I am ready to give my heart away, I can say with confidence that I will know exactly what I am giving. Well, Joshua asked me to share with all of you what I look back on from my years in youth group with fondness or regret. One thing I will always look back on with fondness is the fact that I believe that our class, this class, really loved each other. Jeremy said to me once “We must unlearn the constellations to see the stars.” When I look back on the past few years with this class, I see a group of kids who you couldn’t convince to like each other, or to get along with one another (sometimes I think we hated each other). But above that, I see a group of kids who no one could ever persuade to abandon each other. I see a group of kids who all just sort of landed together, tossed onto the earth like stars in the sky, all sparkling together in instinctive unison--unknowingly completing each other. Over time we all became pretty close... okay more than that. We all silently became part of one another--as I believe all friends do--our hearts were united with the heart of God to form an unshakable love, just as those stars shine together to form familiar constellations. Yet underneath all this appearance of beauty, we’re full of pain, tears, and a whole lot of painful regrets. Sometimes it’s hard to understand why things happen the way that they do, but somehow in the end, they all make sense. It’s not until you have poured every fiber of your being into loving someone that you realize you are empty; except for those you have loved. I apologize for all the sappiness, but what I want for all of you to get out of this is always love, above everything else. Love Christ first, and then those around you. The moment you being to love others more than you love Christ, is the very moment your light will go out. It‘s a simple principle: “The closer an object is to a light source the more illuminated it will become.” There’s a song by The Fray; one of the lines is “It’s coming down to nothing more than apathy. I’d rather run the other way then stay and see the smoke and who’s still standing when it clears.” It’s scary to think about how few end up still standing when the smoke clears… fight as hard and as long as you have to to be one of those few. These four years are debatably the best and worst years of human life. Stay strong. Remember, when all those stars burn out in that night sky, nothing will be left of them except the absence of their light. “Look up into the heavens, who created the stars? He brings them out like an army, one after another, calling each by their name. Because of God’s great power and his incomparable strength, did you know that NOT ONE OF THEM IS MISSING.” (Isaiah 40:26) | | |
| "I heard about the day you went away.
You said you had to go prepare a place.
Even though I've never seen your face,
I'm missing you.
I lie awake tonight and I watch the sky
I wish you didn't have to be so high
Because somehwere behind those stars
Is someone who belongs to me
I know in my deepest heart there's a place for you
Until I find the place you've made for me
I dream about your promise to return
I wake up hanging on your every word
For now my feet are firmly panted here on earth
So I'm missing you." | | |
| a maze of thoughts...to be perfectly honest with you, i have no idea how i feel about going home. from one aspect, i can't wait to see my family and hang out with my friends and drive my ghetto little grand am and sleep in my safe familiar bed and play my squeaky old piano... i can't wait to wake up to see the sun rising over lake champlain, can't wait to watch the sun fall behind the snowy mountains and slowly disappear, can't wait to drive downtown with the mountains behind me and the lake ahead, can't wait to run up and down the hills behind the green... i can't wait to sit around the living room and laugh my head off at all of my family's idiosyncrasies, can't wait to sing with my future brother in law and then box him to the ground until he finally just throws me up over his head and i'm forced to surrender, can't wait to stay up all night with my sister talking about all the things no one else seems to understand, can't wait to go to henry's diner with my brother and discuss the beautiful mysteries of life over double thick chocolate milkshakes and disgustingly greasy fries (which he so graciously paid for!), can't wait to sit on my daddy's lap and have him read me all the stories i used to konw so well--while crying tears of distant memories only daddy could erase, can't wait to dance with my mommy around the kitchen as i sing our song... can't wait to sit in front of the fireplace at the dubie's house after a long day of snow football and snow mobiling--laughter and memories with my best friends in the whole wide world, can't wait to build snow forts at seth's house and have countless snow ball fights we both swear we won... i can't wait to return to the place where this journey began so that perhaps i can, in some small way, discover where it's taking me. but at the same time, so much has changed. so much in my heart, so much in my perspective, so much in my soul. i'm not the same girl that boarded a plane that day, leaving her childhood on the runway. i guess in a lot of ways, i've grown up. i've said farewell to my childish dreams and my meaningless heartaches. i've been challenged in ways that demand womanhood, and jumped off of cliffs into beautiful abandonment. i'm no longer a little girl chasing fireflies and catching dreams... i'm a young woman now, one who is chasing God with her whole heart. i don't know yet how i'm going to make some people understand that. i can't make any of them understand as much as i may want to. but they'll see the change, and that change is irrevocable. i've been touched by God in a way that i never have before. nothing else can touch that. i will eliminate what needs to be eliminated. i will change what needs to be changed. i am not afraid to let go of the temporary to grasp the eternal. i am not afraid to take a stand. all to Jesus. In all of my life, there is one defining factor. I know that I have been called to do something great. Ever since I was young I knew that I could not be satisfied with the average life that was offered to me. Funny how that average life was sometimes all I ever wanted. The closer I come to my God, the more I realize that though at times I may believe that that is what I want, that which I truly desire in the depths of me, is that great and terrible called out life. I feel like weeping when I think about this life that God has handed to me. A life of one who will take the Gospel of her most beautiful and worthy Savior, Jesus Christ, to the ends of the earth. My name means “Giver of Light”. And that is precisely what I have been asked to do. To give light to those who have none. At times I seem to think that there is more in this life for me… but in that same moment I realize that there is nothing more than this. This truly is the greatest, highest, most excellent way. To love Jesus Christ enough to love others. I could search for all eternity long, but I would still find that there is none like You. No matter where I may search I will never find satisfaction elsewhere. If I were to go to college to become an elementary school teacher, or if I were to simply settle down and marry a pastor in America, I think I’d always think about what I could be doing. How I could be out there at the front lines of battle, fighting for a cause I am willing to give my life to. I would always think about those remote islands, that vast desert sand, those dark mosques, that destitution, that pain, that evil. I would always remember the call I had once claimed. I would always remember that I could have done great things for God. I don’t want to be that person who looks back and remembers. I want to be one who lives in the fresh newness of life of those who are alive from the dead. Whatever the cost, whatever it takes. I will do anything and everything to accomplish the will of my Savior. God, I am at your disposal. Do with me what you will. sorry this was really long and lacked eloquence. i just needed to think. | | |
| hope, beauty, castles and cloudsso i know it's really late, and i really should be using my time wisely by either doing dudek homework or sleeping so i can stay awake in dudek's class tomorrow, but i can't resist writing in here right now. i have so much on my mind. i wish i could verbalize it all to you in the hopes that someone somewhere will understand the complex labryinth of thought and contemplation going on in my spirit. there are undefined dreams and aspirations that lay deep within me... my spirit is growing stronger everyday as i set my eyes upon the man Jesus Christ and bask in the presence of God my Father, recieving power and strength from the Holy Spirit. beauty and hope are arising in me; two things which have been strangers to my heart. God longs to breathe into me His incomprehensible goodness, but now i'm finally standing open armed to recieve it. praise Jesus. alright, there is so much more that i want to write and so much more that i wish i could articulate. but it is very late and i want to stay awake in class tomorrow so that i can learn as much as possible. our valiant soldiers return tomorrow and i want to be alert and full of life to pour into them as i'm sure they are weak... but i know that God is building gorgeous castles in their souls. "here stands my castle on a cloud. it's easy going, not a trouble around. but have i found my resting place? is it here when i am down on my face?" sleep well. i'm off to dreamland. see you when i wake | | |
| unprecedented tearsThis is so weird. Here I sit, studying the ideology and logistics of my life’s passion, and my soul is at rest. But as my mind becomes sharpened by the things that I am learning, and challenged by the things that I am hearing, a marvelous evolution is taking place in me. I am changing. I am not remaining static in my being. God is cultivating in me a heart that is foreign to my own, but yet so familiar. He is shaping me to his likeness. I do not question that He has placed me here. I do not presume to belong elsewhere. But it’s not what I expected. I expected to rest and find agreement with "my people", but instead I find a challenge I did not for see. As I was sitting here doing my homework I was suddenly burdened for America. This is my mission field in this moment. This bleeding country. "Land of the Free and Home of the Brave." We are so sick and so lost. Out of the top 100 least reached people groups, America claims 21. That may seem a small number on some of the scales which we measure these things, but to me, it’s heart breaking. I have lived here for 17 years and I have done NOTHING about that statistic. Here I am at a college full of "God’s chosen ones" to carry the Gospel to the ends of the earth, and we’re seeped in a country of need. My God, My God. I can’t even begin to express how much that shakes me. It scares me at the same time. I’m so afraid of not "living the dream" of not becoming what I’ve been called to; of not chasing God in some isolated jungle, barefoot and smiling. I have been called to take the Gospel to all mankind. But right now, I feel such a burden on my heart to pray for America. I can’t begin to explain it to you. I heard someone mutter in class the other day "American’s don’t need [the Gospel]" That is a sick presumption of the church. America needs the love of Christ. America has been shown a warped version of that love from an apathetic, empty church. If faith is not lived out consistently than people will only be seeing hypocrisy and petty religion, something which is no different from the little gods they passively encounter everyday. God forgive me if I do not pursue the nation of America with the same passion and zeal that I love and pray for "the ends of the earth". | | |
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