Two and one-half months.

After that, I will be on my 2192.1 mile journey across the span of this country. Me, my loaded-down '92 Honda Accord coupe, an iPod, and the long, winding road through eight states to Redding, California.

It's just now starting to hit me- how far away that actually is. I mean, distance has never really been an issue for me before, pretty much everyone I know and care about has always been within a couple hours drive, at the very most. I've lived here in the same house and the same city for twenty years now.

I can't tell if some part of me is anxious about this. It seems like I ought to be, like I am- but I'm not sure.

This much I know- a great deal will be different out there than it is here, and a great deal will be the same. I will get to know myself a little more, I imagine, and get to know people differently than I am accustomed to here, where people know of my family or where some obscure friend connects us. How I live will change, likely acquire a good deal more structure and routine. But at the same time, the routine will be wholly mine to set. How things are done, when they are done, whether or not they are important to me- it will be different, no pressures beyond those that my housemates may impose, which I doubt will extend very far beyond "you use it, you wash it."

But more than all of that, this upcoming season of life will be a very stretching one for me. It will stretch me in terms of responsibility. It will stretch me in terms of confidence in myself. It will stretch me in my character.

And none of this is really even touching on the stretching that will come from BSSM. I cannot imagine all that will happen to me as a result of putting the next two years of my life into this, into seeking what God wants to do with me at Bethel and in Redding. Because it was a decision- as I was praying about attending the school, I felt really strongly like God was saying, "If you stay in Terre Haute, I'll be with you and bless you. If you go to Redding, I'll be with you and bless you."

Part of me has felt, for a while now, that there is growing up I have to do that will be easier to do elsewhere. I know there are things I need to sort out, old things that I still hold onto and that still hold onto me, and the need to drop them becomes more pressing. These things- I learned to hold onto them and they found their hold on me here, where I am now. And it's hard to learn how to drop them when the lifestyle that created them or made way for them continues much as it has for the past twenty years.

To give just one example, nearly everyone I know has known me since I was very young. When I'm around them, the constant urge is to feel like I'm still a kid and behave like it, complete with outlandishness and foolery that for the most part isn't that funny, but it's "Ethan." Or at least, it has been. And it's what he defaults to, because it's what people know him as, and he loves being known.

But he's not who he used to be, and he's tired of doing most of that.

I mean, I'm me so much more than I used to be. That is, it's far, far less of the nearly perpetual act that I used to propagate. And I know learning to be yourself is the pursuit of a lifetime. And that the closer I get to Jesus, the more I learn and like about myself, because His nature overcomes mine a little more every moment that I am present with Him.

But there's more, and it's for me in this coming season.

"So, you're leaving because you can't be you here?"

No. I'm going to Redding because I am eager for what God is going to do in my life at Bethel School of Supernatural Ministry, and the things I am going to learn and gain from that place. It will be an experience and blessing on the rest of my life. That's why I'm going to Redding, that's why I'm leaving.

It happens though, that the space it creates allows for the rest of that, too.

But it's funny. God is bringing a lot to the surface, right now, just a couple months before I leave, concerning my relationships with my family and friends and the people I care about. Like He's making it perfectly clear, "You can't just leave things like this."

In my head, I can see myself going away, getting all healed up, and coming back a new man who is everything I want to be.

In my heart, I know that relationships are healed and made healthy as you walk through them, day after day, letting go of what is rotten and paving a foundation of understanding and unconditional acceptance, covered with a grace for one another that only comes from Jesus.

I know that I am who I am becoming, one moment at a time. And I am grateful for that- that I am changing, that His grace continues to work in me when I, in my eyes, have made myself wretched. When I, in my thoughts, am cold and distant from Him.

That He, in that moment, does not withdraw from me His grace, does not withhold His love in punishment, and does not cease the work upon my life, making me to look more like Him when it seems like I'm busy screwing all of it up.

When I can't see past my filth and rags, He picks me up and says, "You look like me."

The angels, they don't understand that.

I don't understand that.

When someone hurts me, I don't know how to not try and punish them by withholding my love. It's so instinctive, like if I don't withdraw my love right away, they're going to hurt me more and I can't survive that. I can't survive being vulnerable is the message that is carved into our DNA from childhood.

If you're vulnerable, you're weak. If you're weak, you're gonna die.

And that's true in this world. It's absolutely true.

But our absolutes don't mean anything when Heaven's floor breaks and in our moment of greatest weakness, His strength is suddenly perfect. And I can be vulnerable, which in this existence really is weakness, but not be afraid of being crushed or overcome.

Because my weakness is His strength.

I don't understand that.

Your humble servant,
-Ethan



how deep the Father's love for us
how vast, beyond all measure
that He should give His only Son
to make a wretch His treasure

why should I gain from His reward?
I cannot give an answer
but this I know with all my heart
His wounds have paid my ransom

[it would be a lie
to run away.]

There are these disconnects in my life. One of them keeps being brought to my attention, and I'm at the place now where I can't ignore it anymore. Nearly everyone in my life I have really good relationships with, but as seems to be the case around the world, it's in your own family where the most hardship can come.

I don't, or didn't, know why there was this disconnect. Why being open and vulnerable and loving was awkward for me, or even if it really wasn't and I was just percieving it as such. God's done such a number on me these past months, really teaching me about loving people and showing me sooo many areas where I've been dumb and careless in how I do that.

One of the biggest things I've learned about love is that love costs something.

We really have three ways of demonstrating love.

1) Our time. 2) Our resources. 3) Our energy.

What I have learned that if one of these is not be tapped, chances are high that I'm not really loving that person. And this isn't about measuring love, but it is about the fact that love must cost you something. It can be utter joy to pay it, but love requires something of you.

It's this that makes me think about those people in question, and makes me confront myself on how I actually love them.

And I was trying to figure out why it would be hard for me to connect with these people, and my Father is kind enough that He gave me a hint, I think. And that is because there are hurts that have never been redemptively touched. I'm not totally certain what all of them are, but I know that issues are formed when something core in me is violated, intentionally or not. And if there is never any release or reconciliation for that, my soul as a self-defense mechanism will harden toward them, so that hurt cannot be propitiated further.

But neither then, can I receive much of anything from them, good or bad. Or give it.

I have full confidence in the Father completing the work in me that He has begun, and I know that He will show me where I need to let things go, things that I'm not even aware I'm holding onto.

God's been teaching me a lot about the heart, and about how we unconsciously interpret our relationships with people and super-impose those impressions onto God. It's a pretty huge thing, one that I'm almost ready to talk about.

My Father is in the business of making people whole, and that makes me in the business of making people whole. And, happily, in becoming whole myself.

I'm going to go hang out with my sick friend. It's love is all about what it costs you, however joyful the paying may be.

I remain your humble servant,
-Ethan

Heeeyyyy. It's my xanga.

I would like to say something profound and witty, in commemoration of my return to the xangaverse and in light of the new year, but time is short as I there is a party going on at my friend's house that I am currently missing out on. So, I must be brief.

I have a job at the Gap. It's preetty fun. My managers are good people, my co-workers are good people, and they seem to appreciate me. So, that's a blessing.

It would be hard for me to talk about everything that God has been doing in me and through me lately, as it would be both lengthy and difficult to coherently type out. The next time you see me, ask. I would not only be excited to tell you, I can practically guarantee right now that you would become encouraged and get something out of it you weren't expecting. Like, just by hearing. Not because of me, but because of something in me.

On the 10th of January I'm headed down to Nashville for a conference hosted by Grace Center, a really fantastic church. It's a little conference on Sozo, which is the Greek word for salvation, and has to do with total salvation- restoration for mind, spirit, body and emotions. And this particular gathering is targeted on how to Sozo children. I really feel led to this, and am waaayy pumped to see what God has to say through it all.

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I've experienced a number of storms, I realize, in the past month. But excepting for one that shook me for a couple days before my peace was truly solid, I have literally walked in and out of these things in a way I did not think possible.

Because something in me has caught a glimpse of Heaven's perspective on my life. And here's a really amazing thing- God is not worried about this. Moreover, he's really, really, outrageously happy and excited about me. And that was before I started doing anything we'd consider "spiritual" that would get us in on good terms with God.

Because we're so sacrifice oriented, and we feel like we just have to DO this stuff to get ourselves right with God.

Well yeah, sort of. But no, not really. First you have see yourself how God sees you, not how you think He sees you. And out of that, you start to see Him as He is. And that causes there to be a relationship.

And that's the only thing that matters. Prophecy and words of knowledge and miraculous healing and angelic stuff doesn't mean anything until there's that. And from that, comes everything. From making relationship, not sacrifice  and DOING, your focus.

If your eye is single, than your whole body will be full of light.

Stop looking at what you've done that was bad. He knows about that and so do you. Stop looking at the things you should be doing. He knows you should be doing them and so do you.

Look at Him. Dare for one minute to stop being a busy Christian and become an enthralled child, resting in Daddy's embrace.

Everything else comes from that. From abiding, from rest, comes all fruit. You bear no fruit apart from that rest.

Mmm. Jesus had authority over the storm that he could sleep through. That's something to think about.

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Oh, and if you scroll down, I uploaded the revised  and edited Guardian's Fate, which is sooo much better than before, complete with a whole new section at the end of it. But you want to read it all. really.

Happy Christmas,
-Ethan