A Little Over A Year Later

It's that feeling right after you've finished a really long workout--the kind that you ended by running up a hill, and as you stand there, hands on knees, you feel almost nothing else but the exhaustion setting in and a numbness to everything around you.  That's right where I'm standing.

It still kind of startles me to realize how detached from the world I am.  Not in a way that says, "I am better than this world," but in more of a way that C.S. Lewis described as this:

"If we find ourselves with a desire that nothing in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that we were made for another world."

All right, enough of the cryptic nonsense.  I'll tell you what's going on.

About two weeks ago, I returned from a trip to China.  There, I was blessed to have the opportunity to talk to students, both in secondary school as well as college.  They taught me so much about their culture and way of life, and I can't help but just feel as though I've lived in a teensy tiny bubble all of my nineteen years of this short life.  Radically impacted doesn't even begin to scratch the surface of how this experience left me.  I so wish that I could wholly express my thoughts on the three weeks that I was there, but I suppose that it would be best to leave some things open for conversation in person.

I can, however, share some of the things that I learned in my time there:

1.  Kindness is vastly underrated.  


2.  When you are in another country, and you don't know the language, the only people you can pick out of a crowd are the twenty people who got off of the plane with you, and you only know how to order fried rice because you can't remember how to say any other food in Chinese, you can look for comfort in two different places:  memories of home, or confidence in the present.
     The former is easier to fall into because there is a security in knowing you'll go back to a place where you already know everything you need to make it through, but if that is how you find comfort then you sacrifice making your time wherever you are count.  You will begin counting down the days as though you have died and the moment that plane takes off toward your home is the moment you will come to life again, and because of your self-prophesied foreign country death, the time you spend in wherever you have gone will not be lived to its full potential.
     The later--a confidence in the present--is difficult to choose for some.  It's difficult because it's comparable to jumping into the middle of the ocean head first.  No two days will be the same, and there is no guarantee that everything will go according to any kind of plan you make up, but your time will not be spent in vain.  Home will no longer be the place you came from but wherever you are; you'll carry it with you like a coin in your pocket.  You'll notice little things that will shape your view of the world and change your life forever.
Stepping off my soapbox now...

3.  A smile is universal.

4.  It really is all right if things do not run smoothly.
     Don't fret if the taxi driver is on the wrong side of the road and blasting his horn at every moving object.  If an escalator is not moving, it merely means that they wish to function as stairs, and there is no harm in honoring that wish.  Playing Frogger with the cars and buses to cross the road is actually kind of fun once you get the hang of it.

5.  God has a plan, even for those 24 hour delays.  
     And trust me when I tell you that He will use even the worst of situations for His ultimate glory.

The GMPMBSORWD

I dislike the word "no."  I will genuinely do almost anything to escape hearing that word.  As a kid, I remember refusing to ask my mother if I could have a friend over because I was so scared of hearing it, and even now, I would rather do everything myself than risk asking for someone to do me a favor and potentially hear a "no."

Yes, I am well aware of just how ridiculous I am, thank you very much.

I regret to say that sometimes my prayer life works in the same way.  The fear of receiving a sovereign rejection is overwhelming, so I will kind of leave out some things.  There was one recent request that I couldn't quite leave out, though.  It wouldn't be anything major to anyone else, but sometimes tunnel vision gets the best of me and this one measly little issue turned into the Great and Mighty Problem that Must Be Sorted Out Right Away and Without Delay.  I'll call it the GMPMBSORAWD for short (because I'm a sucker for acronyms).

Well, long story short, I went to God with my GMPMBSORAWD, and here is where I am standing today.  I know exactly how I want Him to answer me.  I can clearly see how bright and beautiful life would be if He would just listen to my logic!  And there would be sunshine and rainbows and half-price jelly beans everywhere (gotta love the after-Easter sales).

But He is not giving me that answer.  Let me assure you; in my very human nature, this is quite possibly one of the hardest lessons I'm having to learn.  To deny the will of the flesh in pursuit of the will of the Lord...  This is more than saying no to a second slice of your friend's birthday cake, or being strong enough to get out of bed instead of pressing the snooze a seventh time (don't judge).  This is one of those GMPMBSORAWDs that has taken me to the darkest pits of this world I've ever seen, and I'm utterly terrified to go back.

I thought that maybe I was being ridiculous at first--that maybe I was just picking up on cues that weren't there--but the more time that goes by, the more I see God putting His foot down.  I'm hearing it spoken through others, and in Bible studies, and I'm being bombarded with eye-opening realizations about the situation each day, and if I'm just really being honest with myself, after all of the prayer and fasting I've done over it, I can say that something about my idea on how to go about solving my GMPMBSORAWD just feels wrong.  Sorry for the cryptic wording, but I'm not sure of another way to put it.

This is not to say that I'm not still (all right I'll admit it--selfishly) hoping that maybe He will change His mind, nor am I saying that I've hit such a resolve about the issue that to deny myself is going to be easy.  I'm just saying He's worth it.

Gracious, I'm wordy today.  I found this in Ezekiel today, and it kind of brought me to a standstill:

"And the word of the Lord came to me saying,
'Son of man, behold, I am about to take from you the desire of your eyes with a blow; but you shall not mourn and you shall not weep, and your tears shall not come."
Ezekiel 24:15-16 

God told Ezekiel not to mourn for the death of his wife.  Don't worry--there was a reason behind it.  He wanted Ezekiel to be an example to the exiles, to show them not to mourn over the fall of Jerusalem.  It just struck me as one of those things that I question if I could do.  Could I deny my desire to mourn the death of someone I love if God told me not to?   How far am I willing to take my self-denial in the pursuit of God's will and glory?

And such are the questions of a rambling student on a Tuesday morning.

The Tough Ones

What I have to say isn't very cheery this week, but it's pretty honest.  It's perfectly all right if you disagree with any of these.  In fact, I'd urge you to find something that you think differently about.  This is just what I've been hit with this week.

1.  The wrinkles you iron into something yourself are the hardest to get out.

All I wanted was to get the silly creases out of the shirt I was going to wear, but I continued to iron in wrinkles that took at least three times as long to get out as it did to put in.  I've noticed that about friendships as well.  It is so incredibly easy to create a riff.  To say something wrong; to do something wrong; to take something wrong; to hurt someone unintentionally.  And it takes what feels like forever and a  day to straighten it all back out again.  The more I iron, the more I realize that there are some things that will iron themselves out with persistence, but others...well, other things just never do quite go back to normal.  Which is why...

2.  Know when to hold 'em, know when to fold'em, know when to walk away, and know when to run.
Kenny Rogers is a pretty smart man if I do say so myself. I've been going through another one of those lovely little country music phases (lounging around the house all day will do that to you), and one day, this song came blaring out of the radio speakers.
Let me say this:  I've never been a gambler, but there is a lot of truth behind that song.  When conflict arises, it's important to know which battles to fight, which ones to just stand your ground on, and which ones to back down from.  I fail miserably at discerning between them sometimes, but I know the difference is vital, especially if you're planning on holding onto friends.  Some things, you've got to fight for (like the cheesy "get the girl back" antics in movies), but at the same time, folks don't like being suffocated--know when to walk away.

Finally, my years of being a Jurassic Park fan are paying off.
This lesson was actually a theme in the third movie.

3.  Even the best intentions can lead to the worst decisions.
This may be too personal.  Maybe it's too cruel to post on the internet, or maybe it's something that no one really cares about, but it has been sucking the life out of me like a leech, so skip this lesson if you'd rather not hear.  In attempts to keep from hurting others, I am quickly being assured that I have done just that.  Cryptic ways to escape dates, and using sugar-coated words to deliver the truth have injured more people than I can name.  Although my intentions were to keep the punch from ever being delivered, it seems that my method of escaping such an action was more like a drop kick to the face.  So...


4.  When it comes to hurting someone, apologize whether you think you were wrong or not.
Folks will disagree with me on this, and that's all right.  It just continues to ring true in my life.  There will be times when you're put between a rock and a hard place, where no matter what decision you make, someone is going to be disappointed.  The truth is going to hurt, and no matter how many kind words you toss in there, when you get right down to the nitty gritty, you're still practically hitting them in the face.  So when the smoke clears, don't go back on your decision.  Hold the ground you knew you had to own, but don't be heartless--at least apologize.  It gives value to the other person, and although it may not make everything peachy, it is at least a way to care.  Because the real trouble comes when you stop caring about the way you make someone feel.

And in the spirit of being totally and completely unrelated to the rest of a conversation...

5.  Learn to laugh at yourself.
I'm stealing this from probably every piece of advice I've heard, but I firmly believe that a certain level of sanity that is found in laughing at yourself.  Like this week, for example.
I had those lovely wisdom teeth of mine removed, and in the midst of writing my last will and testament as soon as the anesthesia began to wear off, I got to see a reflection of myself.  Despite the...well...not-so-lovely recovery moments, I had to laugh at the fact that I looked like an obese chipmunk.  I would show you a picture, but I'm not laughing quite that hard.  =]  Here's the best I can do:

Life exponentially increases in goodness when you can find something to laugh at in the midst of something that could make you cry.  So when someone decides it's a good idea to poke fun at you, instead of acting like a drama queen and pulling out the water works, all because someone laughed at your awkwardness, weird shaped nose, or unjustifiable clumsiness, just laugh along with them.  No one wants to be around someone who requires others to walk on eggshells.

Well that's that.  Have a blessed day.  =]

³ And not only this, but we also exult in our tribulations, knowing that tribulation brings about perseverance; ⁴ and perseverance, proven character; and proven character, hope; ⁵ and hope does not disappoint, because the love of God has been poured out within our hearts through the Holy Spirit who was given to us.   

Romans 5:3-5 

Break

It's been a while since I posted five lessons that the previous week brought me, and this past one has definitely brought about some pointers.  Not bad, necessarily--just not what I had expected.

1.  It doesn't matter how mad you get at someone--they still face battles you can only dream of.  
And for that reason, forgiveness has to be a priority.  I'm stomping on my own toes here, so don't for even a minute think that I'm immune from this.  When someone despises you without a legitimate reason and tells everyone who will listen lies about you, among the easiest things to do is let anger take over every thought of that person.  The thing is, regardless of what he or she did to you, that person has a life as intricate and complex as your own.  It's necessary to forego revenge in spite of an injury. I'm not saying it's easy, or that I've mastered the art of forgiving, but the more I learn in this life, the more I realize that it does a lot more good to put more value on a person rather than their injustice.

2.  When everything around you is crumbling, look for grace.
A professor told me this last year, and it rings true in nearly every situation I find myself in.  My grandfather went to the ER on the night I came in for Spring Break.  He's had several problems before, but this one is...well...just not good is probably the best way I can put that without being too open.  He has his good moments, as well as his not-so-good moments, but he seems to be improving for the most part.
Here's the grace:  I was home for this.  It's not a selfish sort of "I was home to see my grandfather" sort of grace, but rather, a blessing that I was here to encourage and support my family throughout all of this. I don't think I can easily describe the anxiety that one can feel when he or she is more than a 10 minute drive from a loved one in case something goes wrong.  It's pure agony to long to hug someone who cries on the phone with you while you sit in a dorm room 2.5 hours away.  Being able to be here to give hugs when they're needed, and not limit myself to a 7 minute phone call on the way to class has been a merciful gift from God.






3.  Correcting without encouraging is just a glorified way to discourage.  


While I will definitely agree that correction is a valuable part of friendship, so is encouragement.  If you can remember the last Bible verse you tossed at someone to tell him or her that they were living incorrectly, but can't remember the last kind word you graced your friend with, then maybe it's time to change your angle.  I'll leave it at that.




4.  You're never too young (or too old) to reminisce about the past....  
My lovely sister and I spent the morning playing old TV show theme songs and letting the other one guess what song it was from.  Everything from Barney to Gulla Gulla Island to The Rugrats, to Recess.  It's the simple things, I suppose.  "Ohh, I bet you'll never guess this one!"  "NO WAY!  I can't believe I forgot that show!!"  Sometimes that's where you've got to find something to smile about.
With that said, however...

5.  But be sure to tread past waters carefully.
The past can be filled with lots of hurt and things that do you no good to think about.  Don't live there. Let it be a detour you take, but don't let it be a rest stop.  You can't change it, so you've got to learn from it.  I know you've heard that before, but it never hurts to be reminded.


Take care.  =]

Early Morning Reflections

Good morning!

Jeremiah 29:11 is a lovely verse.  Truly.  Even in the context it's used in, it still says amazing things about God.

For I know the plans that I have for you,’ declares the LORD, ‘plans for welfare and not for calamity to give you a future and a hope.

Before you begin to think that I'm going to bash this verse, let me ease your worries.  I'm not.  I just noticed something that I had not been taught before.  


This week needed to end.  Fact of life, I suppose.  It's not that I do not appreciate the blessings of this week, but merely that I am so drained that I am pretty sure that if my classes did not end at noon yesterday, I would not have lasted until the weekend.  All right, so that's the background story.  Now, picture this:  I'm in that mindset when reading Jeremiah yesterday morning--the one where I think the day hasn't even started and it already needs to end.  Well, The Lord is telling Jeremiah to tell the exiles that He sent to Babylon to make lives where they are.  Build houses, and eat the food they grow (29:5); get married and have sons and daughters (29:6); move ahead with their lives despite being in exile (29:7).  But here was the kicker.  This is the verse that snapped me out of that early-morning blahh and into a full out "What did he just say?"

Jeremiah 29:10
For thus says the LORD, "When seventy years have been completed for Babylon, I will visit you and fulfill My good word to you, to bring you back to this place."

Seventy. Years.  Seventy?  You mean just seven, right?  The "-ty" was a typo, yes?  And maybe someone accidentally mistranslated "days" to "years" because a single week is long enough to start wearing at my faith, much less SEVENTY YEARS.  That's 3640 weeks, plus a couple of days for leap years.  No ma'am.  Good day to you, sir.  


It is a daunting--and terrifying--realization to see that.  But it's also very humbling, and the more that I think on this passage the more I realize just how sovereign God is.  My faith is so small sometimes.  Some days, I can feel it expanding beneath my feet, taking me to far distant places to do God's work for me, and some days, I can hardly balance one foot on it, much less walk with it.  I get to a point where I begin to wonder and question Him.  Why did that have to happen?  What good did that do?  So how do You expect me to move on from here?  Weren't You supposed to keep that kind of thing from happening?   What are You doing, now?  Where are Your works?  I ask far too many questions sometimes...
The thing is, He's sovereign.  His will is bigger than my own, and believe me when I say that that is such a blessing.

There will be things that we do not understand, and there are going to be times when God's plan and ours do not line up (I'm sure there were a few exiles that were questioning, "What was that for?").  There are things that we simply cannot change.  There are going to be days that are not OK, and sometimes a day is going to stretch into a week.  Sometimes it's one month, and other times it's nine.  This is something I've had to struggle with for the past few weeks, and please note, this next part is most definitely a Thus Saith Sara moment (and if you haven't picked up on those yet, I'm telling you to take it with a grain of salt):

The point of our lives is to give glory to the Most High Lord, who is able to do far more abundantly than anything we can imagine.  He's got it all sorted and figured out.  We will be put into situations that test and try us, and sometimes those situations will stretch out over time spans that make us want to prematurely surrender our last breaths.  It will not be easy, and we won't always feel like we're running on a week-after-church-camp-God-high, and we are going to fail sometimes.  We're human, after all.  When we go through those times, though, God's command to Jerusalem was to keep on going.Continue living in the circumstances that weren't exactly what the exiles had planned for themselves.

Life doesn't stop just because it ceases to be what we originally wanted.  

Keep running the race.  Keep fighting the good fight, because I promise you, just as God is able to deliver, He will.


And on a completely unrelated note, this made me smile, and I wanted to share it with you.  =]



Because I have a soft spot for awkward moments and can't help but want nothing more than to use this sometime.
























Have a blessed day!

Show and Tell

This is a feel-good post.  Don't expect something to stomp on your toes today.

I often get bogged down in a muddled mess of this thing I call a life.  I sit back and remember people and things that have emphatically danced out of my days, and without being aware of it, I begin to mourn.  So for days--weeks, even--I lose myself in a spiral of heartache; wishing things were as they were before, pushing for my current hardships to cease.  I'm not merely talking about trivial things, I swear.  It's more than just,  "I have this paper to do..." or "no one signed up to do the group project with me..."  The things I grieve for are the things that are out of my hands--things that I can no longer hold on to and affectionately call my own.

But the other morning, God provided me with an amazing revelation.  I've only recently begun to be down-right brutally honest with God (I suppose I had it reasoned that if I didn't tell Him what was really going on, then it wasn't real).  This, however, is an idea for another blog, so hold that thought...
So in the midst of one of my brutally honest moments, God took away my words and showed me the good that has flown from my heartaches.  I've met amazing people, and been given exceptional opportunities.  I've grown closer to friends than I ever thought possible, and through my times of self-pity, He showed me the ways in which I could give what I had left to Him.  I'm not telling you that I've got my life figured out.  In fact, if there's anything that the past two paragraphs should be screaming at any reader right now it's that I've got a very long way to go, but to serve the God who gives grace despite so many of my shortcomings is well worth it.

Yep.  With that said, I just wanted to share some things that made me smile this past week.  Call them quaint quirks that God sent my way, if you wish.

1.  Soup in a mug that smiles at me.

2.  The love of friends on Valentines' Day.

3.  A hike with a friend.

        And would you believe me if I told you that I only almost died twice?  

 4.  Snail Mail Galore

5.  Finishing another Stickdude comic.
        Yeah...I'm well aware of just how weird I am for this one.

I suppose that's enough about me for one post.  Have an amazing, God-glorifying day!

Rivers and Roads

Oh dear heavens.  Can you hear that suspenseful theatrical drone playing in the background?  It's like a blend of the Jaws theme song and something by Katy Perry--one of those sounds you just know means that something bad is about to happen.
It's February.
Officially.

All right, so I'm really not all that torn up over the change of months, but after some intense people watching/listening, I've come to the conclusion that the vast majority of single girls I know are not too thrilled about the oh-so-lovely holiday that February likes to bring about, and I'm not talking about Groundhog day, either.

While Valentine's Day is not a holiday that I particularly enjoy ringing in, I still don't hate it.  My opinion will probably always be that while it might be a not-so-happy-making holiday for the single folks, it does give the greatest excuse ever for lots of chocolate, plenty of the corny lovey dovey movies, and a wardrobe with ridiculous amounts of pink. Please note the one-size-fits-all shirt that my sister conned me into:

Don't judge--she has a matching one.

I have to admit that God has definitely revealed a weak spot in my life over the past month or so.  I have all of these amazing people in my life who keep pouring into me.  They love and encourage me, even without realizing it, and for the longest time, I was just sitting back and spilling over with that blessing.  I know that doesn't sound like a weak spot, but here's what the problem was:  when your own cup starts spilling over, you stop actually receiving what is being poured into you.  We are not put on this earth to only be receivers of love, but givers also.

Therefore encourage one another and build one another up, just as you are doing.    

                1 Thessalonians 5:11

I'm not saying that I'm excelling at this, but I can promise that I'm working on it.  I cannot tell you how many times I've felt like I was at my lowest, and the love of a friend kept supporting me.  I believe that to be counted as such a friend to someone else would be among the greatest accomplishments of my short life.  I mean, I look back at Paul writing to the church at Philippi, and I cannot help but think that he did not really have to write to them. The main point of correction in the book is where he was telling two women to be kind to each other.  Other than that, he just kept encouraging them, and pouring into them, and as a reader of the letter, you can almost feel the passion with which he wrote!

For God is my witness, how I long for you all with the affection of Christ Jesus.
Philippians 1:8

I know this all sounds kind of sticky-sweet.  It sounds like I'm telling you what you've heard all of your life.  "It's better to give than to receive;" "Be nice to each other."  But if my words are meaning anything right now, then I hope and pray that you'll hear what is between the lines.  It's not quite so simple.  There will be people who try to hurt you.  There are going to be trials that make you ache with every fiber of your being, and you will question whether you have anything to give.  There are going to be times that you feel like you are pouring into others without being poured back into, and with that, I encourage you to be strong.  Let yourself be filled with the Holy Spirit and give what you can.

All right.  Enough rambling for one morning.

OH!  But one last thing!  A friend of mine was talking to me the other day.  Somehow, we got on the subject of dating and breaking up, and settling and regretting, and he told me one of the wisest things I've heard in a while.  "Girls keep settling for the first good guy that they find, but they can't wait for the only great guy."  Take it with a grain of sand, or paint it on a canvas and hang it on your wall.  Either way, it made me smile.

I know everyone at the service got one, but I'm still going to call it a Valentine.  

Have a fantastic February!

Flashing Neon Signs

Keeping a blog up to date is not exactly my forte.  Neither is texting people back in a timely fashion, but I suppose that's a topic for another time...

Anyways, these past few weeks have been so far beyond amazing that I find it almost hard to fathom their existence.  In fact, this whole year feels like it's been a blur--some portion of my life that has sped past my eyes so fast and with such intensity that the only reason I am confident that it even happened is the wind of change that it brought along with it.  

First thing's first.  I have to tell you about church.  In another post, I think I wrote about questioning whether or not my time at Second had some to a close.  So many people who I had grown so close to were gone.  They had either been called elsewhere, or had graduated and joined the rest of the post-grad society.  Don't judge me, all right?  I kind of threw a pity party.  Sorry you weren't invited--I was  the only one that showed up anyway.  

The idea that Second was wrong for some and right for others totally blew my mind, and in my insecurities (I'm human; I have a right to those), I began to seriously doubt my place there.  My prayers were drenched in questions about where God wanted me, and what His will was, though to be honest, my own thoughts were definitely tainting what I was hearing.  Sometimes, I wish I could just put a muzzle on my thoughts and let His run through my mind and heart and never have to listen to my misguided self again.  I suppose that the fight to hear Him makes His message that much greater, though...

I swear, every time I asked if I should leave, He shouted at me:  No!  Men and women gave testimonies in the Sunday morning services about their own struggles in wondering if they were at the right church (which, in a town of over 200 churches, it's an understandable concern).  Even friends who didn't know my situation would speak with such insightful wisdom!  One friend was talking about students who were angry about a ministry they were a part of on campus.  She said, "You know, [the ministry] does have it's flaws.  But it's going to!  It's made up of flawed humans in a flawed world.  You don't serve the flawed ministry, but the flawless God!"  I am so very very humbled by the power of the Lord.  He never ceases to amaze me in so many intricate ways. 

Moral of the story:  If you're questioning God, don't make a decision until you hear an answer.  Stay patient.  Remain firm in your faith, and wait.

And your ears shall hear a word behind you, saying, “This is the way, walk in it,” when you turn to the right or when you turn to the left.Isaiah 30: 21

 To go through a list of everything that the past year has brought would require a novel, so I guess it would be better to go ahead and end this post to start another.  To end this one, though, here's a glimpse of the wonderful nonsense I currently call life:

They say not to miss the forest for the trees.

The New Years fireworks I saw with my lovely sister.

The book I waited until three days before my class to read.  [Procrastination Not Recommended]