.the five senses.

and may you have the power to understand, as all God's people should, how wide, how long, how high, and how deep His love is. may you experience the love of Christ, though it is too great to understand fully. then you will be made complete with all the fullness of life and power that comes from God.
ephesians 3:18-19 (nlt)

this past week i have experienced God's love with (almost) all five senses He has blessed me with. i am so excited to tell you about how i tasted delicious indian and italian food, how i listened to the beautiful new york philharmonic play in prospect park, how i've never felt so close to God than i did at the prayer meeting on tuesday night , how i saw an amazing shakespeare play performed in the delacorte theater in central park, and how i smelled the...well, maybe we won't talk about smells :)

.monday, july 12, 2010.

i was able to make a new friend in such a unique way, it was definitely from God! my good friend, joe vercellino's dad, dave, sent me a message telling me about a girl from their church that had just moved to new york city for an internship. i decided to see if she would want to meet for coffee sometime...and she did! so monday, we met up in soho and had a lovely time. it was so cool to be able to impart some new-comer wisdom on someone just moving to the city (like i'm a pro now...lol). since meeting up, carol has been coming to the brooklyn tabernacle and really loved the service. God is so great at setting people up in the body of Christ that need a good friend. :)

.the strand.
one of my favorite stores in new york city is the famous, strand book store. the strand is located in union square on 12th street and broadway. what makes it unique is that packed inside what looks like a small bookstore, is 18 miles of books! think...over half of what we have at our park library at central michigan! needless to say, this bookstore is pretty sweet. so the entire time i've been in new york, i've been looking for a small bible. i have been wanting to replace the small one i gave away a few months ago on a trip in detroit. so in my mind, i've had a picture of the perfect little bible. it would be pink and brown on the front...plain. small and light, and the nlt translation. just right. every book store i would go in, i would look in the bible section and would see plenty of small bibles, but something was always "off" when i held it. it wasn't right. and i knew when i found "my bible", i would just know. well, carol and i are at the strand...not a Christian book store by any means, and i stumble across two small shelves with bibles on them. and there it was. my bible. it was pink and brown, small and light. when i held it, it was almost calling out to me (hehe) telling me it was the one. it was so cool!! i was so excited that after months, i had found just what i was looking for...and it was on this dusty old shelf at the strand...just waiting for me too. :)

.tuesday, july 13, 2010.

.prayer meeting!!!

so despite how wonderful things have been since coming to new york, for some reason the past couple of days had been somewhat difficult and for whatever reason, i was ready to throw in the towel on tuesday. i was so unbelievably ready to come home, be back at his house, see my friends, and get the heck out of new york. until God met me at the prayer meeting. here's the story...

sunday, at the 9 am worship service, pastor cymbala interrupted the worship leader and informed the church that we needed to pray. he knows a pastor that started a church in pakistan and had been informed by him that a group of 10,000 angry muslim's were out yelling in the city, "kill all the Christians...death to the Christians!". when he called pastor (9 am our time, 4 am in his country), his family was hiding from this angry mob up on their rooftop, with the mob threatening to burn their house down and kill them. pastor informed us of this and the entire church body began crying out to God in prayer for the pastor and his family. it was such a powerful time of prayer. we all believed that God can use us praying in brooklyn to reach our brothers and sisters in pakistan. with that, we resumed worship and were told we would receive an update at the prayer meeting on tuesday.

so i am sitting right up front at the prayer meeting and pastor cymbala comes up to give us the update. just as we were praying on sunday, a strong wind moved in on the city and brought rain and scattered the entire mob in the city!! and not only did God save this pastor and his church that day, but because our God is a God who will do immeasurably more than we can ask or imagine (ephesians 3:20!), the government got the leaders of the muslim mob and the pastors of the church together and they agreed to sign a peace treaty to end all violence between any religious groups! PRAISE GOD!! as pastor is telling us this, everyone in the church exploded into praise. my eyes flooded with tears of thanksgiving and faith and in that moment, i have never felt so close to God in my entire life. His presence was so thick and heavy, it truly overwhelmed me in the most beautiful way possible. for what could have gone on forever (and thankfully will someday!) we praised God anyway we possibly could. it was really one of the most influential moments of my life.

and this is just the beginning of the prayer meeting!! so here i am praising God and weeping at this prayer meeting and pastor cymbala begins to give the message for the night. he directs us to 1 kings 15:9-22 and 2 chronicles 16:1-10 where it talks about king asa's rule. he tells us about the first 36 out of 41 years of king asa's rule was different. he was a good king that turned around a lot of the terrible things that had been happening before he began his rule. there was victory and wonderful things were happening. but then the king stopped trusting God and things started to go south. by the end of his reign, things were worse off than when he began! all going to say that we must finish well. it just hit me! i was going into cruise mode, just wanting to cruise through the next few weeks wishing i was back at home. when God says, "no! you need to keep trusting Me until the end. it's not over yet, so don't treat it like it is just because you miss your friends or things are getting tough. I still have things to teach you and haven't I helped you all along? why would I leave you now?" isn't it so true that we need to be renewed by God each day. i felt as though pastor cymbala was speaking right to my heart that night. i needed to finish my time in new york strong. that wanting to throw in the towel early was not an option for me. that God was not finished with me yet.

.wednesday, july 14, 2010.

katie's birthday! i woke up with a renewed sense of being in new york. i sipped my morning coffee from my special coffee mug that reminds me that God is new every morning. that He is refreshing and unchanging.

one thing that i really enjoy about new york is that despite the fact that it is bursting with the latest trends and new ipads and whatever else, it is still such an old world and nostalgic city. on my way to the subway, i stopped by the pastry shop to buy katie a piece of birthday cake. you can get old fashioned gelato and people still go to the bakery and pastry shops to buy their bread. people mosey about town with their carts of groceries and fresh bread and old ladies sit on their stoops and porch steps watching the sun go down and chattering about the days comings and goings. everyone uses little window air conditioners to cool down their apartments from the sweltering heat (which if you haven't heard, there has only been 5 days in july below 90 degrees!...it has been a hooooooooot summer!). all to say, it is really cool to be a part of this nostalgic yet booming city of new york :)

katie and i celebrated her birthday and truly had a lovely time enjoying each others company. it is really a blessing from the Lord that we are both in new york at the same time. He is so good.

.thursday, july 15, 2010.

a day to catch up on laundry and life. :) sometimes it is just so nice to catch my breath, read, journal, and simply praise God for what He is doing here. these are the days that i can still hardly believe i am living in new york. really living. doing laundry, getting groceries at the market, saying hello to maria, the sweet italian lady next door...life things! i am sure most of the big things won't sink in until we are in the car on the way home and it's all going to hit me...i actually did it. God did it. we did it together. :)

.friday, july 16, 2010.

.new york philharmonic.
probably since middle school i have known about the new york philharmonic. they are among the top orchestras in the world. when i was in high school and preparing to be studying music in college, i had the opportunity to meet the principle flute player of the new york philharmonic. i attended a workshop she was teaching and learned that at the young age of 16, jeanne backstresser attended the julliard school. she had been playing as the principle flute for 25 years. needless to say, many of these musicians are the very best or one of the best players on their instrument in the world. it is a new york tradition that the philharmonic plays free concerts in the parks in all five boroughs for one week in the summer.

this was something i had been looking forward way before i made the move to new york and the day was finally here! my friend anna and i met in prospect park in brooklyn hours before the concert would begin to set our blankets down in the very front section. we had a lovely afternoon of socializing and welcoming our friends as they all trickled in one by one to our prime spot. they came with food, bubbly, games, and smiles. as we all ate and enjoyed each otters company, the concert came in no time. the philharmonic blessed us with tchaikovsky's polonaise from eugene onegin, bernstin's symphonic dances from west side story (!!!), and prokofiev's selections from romeo and juliet. the sounds that erupted from that stage was some of the most beautiful music my ears has ever heard. it was almost like a dream. the perfect evening ended with a firework display over the stage. it was the perfect orchestra with the perfect friends and a perfect night.

.saturday, july 17, 2010.

.shakespeare in the park.

just like the traditional new york philharmonic concerts in the park, shakespeare plays at the delacorte theater in central park are one of new york's summer iconic events. some of the most passionate and diverse group of playgoers sit in line in the morning to obtain (free!) tickets to the evenings performance. i was so blessed to be invited to come along by my new friend carol (from monday!). similar to the night before, this was one of the coolest things i have done in new york. looking out over the heart of the greatest city on earth, with belvadere's castle right behind the stage, we participated in one of the best theater performances i have witnessed. and praise God for the gentle breeze He brought in to cool us off from the heat! with the live music, lights, costumes, song, and passion, it was truly an amazing experience to be a part of the public theater's production of the winter's tale and made for a beautiful saturday night!

.sunday, july 18, 2010.

if i have ever experienced contrasting churches in the same day, this was the day. we had an amazing service at the brooklyn tab where the choir sang just as beautiful as ever, God moved through each person involved, and pastor cymbala brought the Word just as boldly as ever. we are working through the book of philippians and this week was on philippians 2:15-16. the message was clear, simple, and convicting. don't complain. do everything without complaining, murmuring, or grousing...because Jesus never murmured. boy, did i have to look back to the day before where i murmured the whole time i was on the subway going slow, and repent!! katie and i decided this means we can no longer slander the mta (subway) via text messaging or at all period :)

after hearing and being to moved to tears by an amazing gospel artist, alvin slaughter, at the later service at the tab, i traveled from downtown brooklyn to the upper east side of manhattan to attend redeemer prespaterian church. there was such a contrast from my earlier experience. though different in style, both are good and are reaching people for Christ. redeemer was much more conservative, and people kept to themselves. there was a few people on stage playing light jazz music for the offering and played a few hymns to enter in to worship. the room was packed, but for me, it was hard to feel like a family like we do at the tab. i had heard of redeemer from attending the leadership summit last year where their senior pastor, tim keller, captivated my attention with his intellectual interpretation of the story of the prodigal son (luke 15:11-32). it is really unique to experience such different styles of how people are connecting to God...in the same day...in the same city.

my day ended with some deeeeelicious indian food in astoria, my neighborhood! the one thing i have really loved about being in new york is all the different ethnic places to eat...surprise, surprise! :) getting any kind of food, any variety, ethnicity, will be something i will truly miss when i move back to michigan.

this week was filled with some of the most wonderful and memorable sights, tastes, sounds, and feelings of my entire time in new york city. and although they are not directly associated with God firsthand, i have found God in each of these things. He is the creator of all and His love can be found in things, if only we recognize it! i praise Him for all He has done and is doing and is still going to do!