Hello Campus

I know I'm home because I have strung the Christmas lights in my dorm room.

Finally, I'm back at school, ready to start another year.  It's strange--looking back, I mean.  Barely a year ago, I was beginning my Freshman year.  It feels like I was a different person back then.  I don't say that in a bad way, but rather, I grew into my own person.  I guess time away from your hometown, your comfort zones, and small-town reputation will do that to you.
And here I am again.  I know, I know...  yaddah yaddah yaddah.
I will let you in on a little secret, though.  (Well, I suppose it's not exactly a well kept secret if I'm about to post in on the easily-accessible-to-anyone internet)  Oh well.  Here it goes:  I'm struggling.

I just have some big decisions to make, and I'm not entirely what God's plan is.  The church I'm going to is amazing.  The people are loving, and I know how desperate I am to have that fellowship.  I also know that several of the people who went there last year have left, and it's difficult to fathom so great a change.  I'm confident that the Lord will guide me through it, but looking ahead when all I see are empty seats in a sanctuary is intimidating.
I talked to my roommate about it last night, and I am so encouraged by her wisdom!  She said, "Sara, this is between you and God.  You can't let the people who aren't there anymore be what pulls you away.  People get called in and out of the ministry all the time, and as Christians, we have to be OK with that."  I'm so blessed to live with her.

My roommate, Melissa, is so creative!

 4 Delight yourself in the LORD ; And He will give you the desires of your heart. 5 Commit your way to the LORD, Trust also in Him, and He will do it. 6 He will bring forth your righteousness as the light And your judgment as the noonday. 7 Rest in the LORD and wait patiently for Him; Do not fret because of him who prospers in his way, Because of the man who carries out wicked schemes.   

Psalm 37:4-7

As I read this passage, I cannot help but feel an immense wave of peace wash over me.  When I first skimmed it, I won't lie--I was a tad bit confused.  "Delight yourself in the Lord; and He will give you the desires of your heart."  What?  Start over.  How am I supposed to delight in the Lord?  And what if my desires aren't what He wants for me to have?  I mulled over this for a while and a book I've been reading began discussing this very concept.

Delight means to enjoy.  Delight means to long to be near the object of one's delight.  Delight means to be consumed with the life of another...I realized what the Lord wanted of me when He said, "Delight yourself in the Lord."  Jesus Wants my affection.  Jesus wants me to enjoy His presence.  Jesus desires my heart to be captivated with His glory and beauty. (Wilderness Skills for Women)

So shouldn't it only follow that when we delight in the Lord--when we are consumed with the life of Jesus-- that His desires become our own?

It really is a heart issue, and that's something I've really been convicted of lately.  I'm still amazed at how the Lord is using so many things in my life to show me this.  He is so good!

Regardless of where you are, or how your day is going, I hope and pray that you will find yourself delighting in the glory of God.  It's the best place to find rest.

A Little Summer Sentiment

I've only participated in Show and Tell once in my life.  In 4th grade, I brought a bullet to school to show all of the class what is shot out of a military airplane, whose name is really just a series of letters and numbers, if I remember correctly.  This time, I'm showing summer.  

The colors of the sky in the evening will never cease to amaze me.

This has got to be one of my favorite parts of Sunday!

I love watching trains go by.  It's kind of ridiculous...

I suppose I hit a creative streak this week.  I just hope the seven years of bad luck don't hit too hard.

Bittersweet, but I'm so ready to go back to school!

50 cent teacup I found at a garage sale last week.  Joy!

Lilly pads at the river--so beautiful!

This summer is one I won't soon forget.  I've met some amazing people, and grown close to some I've known for years.  Despite the sorrow of saying goodbye, I cannot help but know that all that I've been taught this summer was no accident.  I can feel God working through the people I've met and the experiences I've faced, and it makes me so excited to see what else is in store.  =]

How Could You Be So Heartless?

My grandfather is dying.  Depressing way to begin a post, I know, but that's all that keeps running through my mind.   At the Hospice center, where I volunteer, I asked one of the employees what the requirements to be put on Hospice included  "Well," she started, "a patient has to be diagnosed of a terminal illness--one that a doctor is willing to sign off as cutting the life expectancy to the next six months."  She then went on to explain that though that is the case most of the time, they have had patients live years, even on Hospice.  The doctor just resigns at the end of the six month period, claiming that from his or her best medical opinion, the patient's disease will be fatal within the next six months.  Well, if that doesn't just warm your heart, I don't know what will.  (a little sarcasm doesn't hurt every now and then, right?)

As soon as I left the center, I visited my grandfather in the nursing home.  He was watching cartoons when I walked in, but as soon as he saw me, he gestured to the one and only chair in the room.  He smiled, and told me that he liked cartoons, and I couldn't help but smile back.  My dad looks like him.  Same haircut, same word choice, same mannerisms, same way their eyebrows dip over their eyes when they're in deep concentration...

We continued to talk about little things, like how my sister texts (literally) from the time she wakes up until she goes to sleep, and what a text even is, and how he used to paint, and the different churches we've gone to.  Then, he talked about a chaplain who came to talk to him.  A chaplain from the Hospice center.  I beat around the question for a little bit, but I knew I was going to ask, eventually.  "What did he say?" He gave me his card, to call if something goes wrong.  "Is he going to come back?"  Yeah, he said he would come back once a week.  "For how long?"  I don't know.  
I finally asked.  Oh, how it hurt to voice the question, but I asked.  "Pa?  Are you on Hospice?"  Yeah.  I'm usually all right with awkward silences.  In fact, I often accidentally bring them on myself, but this one time in my life, the silence that followed his answer pressed down on my shoulders like bags of bricks.
So, I did what any not-quite-normal girl who is not sure where to turn the conversation from there would do.  I asked another question.
"Pa, if you could give me one piece of advice, about anything at all, what would it be?"
He pondered for a little bit, letting his eyebrows crease over his eyes and wrinkling his forehead.  Finally, he looked at me, and placed his hand on his chest.  "Always follow your heart."  When he first said that, I won't lie--I was a bit disappointed.  I mean, Disney used that line in practically every one of his movies!  Then, however, my grandfather added, "If it feels right, and you don't have a single question or doubt, then go for it.  But, if you question it, or doubt it, don't."  


I thought about that the whole drive home.  I began mulling over the decisions I've made with a doubt attached to one end of it, and how different my life would be had I chosen not to act.  I thought about how deceiving the heart can be, and how sometimes we have to make half-hearted decisions...
But then I thought about all of the times that I didn't have a doubt.  The times when something truly did feel right.  The times when I wasn't confusing my mind with my heart.  And then it kind of hit me:  we've got to keep our heads and our hearts separate.  I mean, when it all comes right down to it, where our treasures are, our hearts will be also (Matthew 6:21).  But we have to constantly guard our hearts (Proverbs 4:23), lest we follow and treasure things that stand no ground compared to the Lord.


I'm a pretty logical thinker (at least, I like to think I am), and so I definitely see the value in looking at a problem objectively, but when you apply your heart to a matter, and seriously dive into an issue with all that you've got, then the outcome has to be better than had you looked only from the logical perspective.
I think I hit a tangent...  Regardless, I hope that maybe there was some sort of teensy little bit of wisdom somewhere in this post.  Maybe Disney had it right.

I'll Gladly Be Clay

It feels almost wrong to be sitting in my room.  I have the soundtrack of a movie playing, with Christmas lights lining my window (I have a mild obsession with those...), an air conditioner, sheets free of the dust of the day, and I am not surrounded by nine girls, anxious to know what the next day at camp has in store for them.  

I just spent a phenomenal few days at church camp as a counselor, and I have to admit that the last day felt almost more bitter than sweet.  Saying goodbye to some of those kids is just so sad sometimes.  One little girl even came up to me crying, telling me that she didn't want to wait another year before she saw me again.  Now, I'm not normally one to cry over those kinds of things, but that little girl got to me.  I mean, there's just something about knowing that the girls had trusted me the way they did that makes me almost worried about not living up to their expectations.  I mean, I was the one that they came to when they scraped their knees, lost a shoe, got their feelings hurt, or just had a story that they wanted desperately to tell.  I am still in awe--not only of the growth that I saw in the lives of the girls, but of the things I was taught while there.

We are the clay.  That's how Jeremiah 18:6 puts it anyway:

"O house of Israel, can I not do with you as this potter has done? declares the LORD. Behold, like the clay in the potter’s hand, so are you in my hand, O house of Israel."

Clay, bluntly put, is mud.  I won't lie--when I first read this passage, I didn't exactly get all joyful.  It kind of hurts to be called mud.  I mean, who wants to be called wet dirt?
Then I talked to another counselor from the camp.  He said, "It's amazing to me, because he tells us that we are in His hand.  Like, no matter what, we're there, and He has total control over the situation."
With a new view, the verse reads so much more than a derogatory statement towards humankind.   God is telling Israel (a nation who turned from Him several times) that He will still care for them, as long as they will remain clay.

The clay has to remain moist for the potter to mold it.  It has to remain saturated.  In the same way, in order for the Lord to mold us, we have to remain saturated in Him.  With worship, fellowship, prayer, and vigilant studying of the Word.  It's got to be more than just a one time dose, though--we have to remain in His light.
The clay analogy goes even a little further.  The potter sometimes has to tear the clay and then place the two pieces back together in order to shape it how He wants it shaped.  It might hurt, but He doesn't leave the clay as divided lumps of mush.  He continues to take care of us.  God doesn't promise that it will be easy, but He promises that He will be there.  He draws the same picture when Jesus discusses the vine and the branches:

"I am the true vine, and My Father is the vinedresser. ² Every branch in Me that does not bear fruit, He takes away; and every branch that bears fruit, He prunes it so that it may bear more fruit.³ You are already clean because of the word which I have spoken to you."

John 15:1-3

When allow Him to be the Potter, we allow Him to be in control.  Being the clay doesn't sound quite so bad anymore.