23...

23...

My, what a year. 11 days away from being half way through 23...and my, what I have learned. 

When I turned 23, I remember waking up with several texts and fun emojis on my screen, but before I read any of those sweet words, I remember opening up my notes and just taking a moment to give this year to the Lord. I wrote down all my worries, fears, anxieties, excitement, joy, unknowns, hearts' desires, wishes and worries. I remember praying about a teaching job. I remember praying about where I was going to live and how I was going to find a place. I remember praying about if, when and who I was going to date, and about my good friend who had just asked to take me on a date days before. I remember praying about my family and my summer and my little sister's first year of college. I remember praying about my brother and our family's strained relationship with him. I remember praying about the discipleship program I had just finished and all the processing I was still doing from the year of ministry. I remember praying for the unknowns that had so taken over my life at the time. I remember thinking that I didn't think I was ready to be 23...that it seemed older than 22...and the year ahead seemed daunting....

Well, 6 months later, the Lord has been gracious to me to answer those prayers, some in such clear provision and some in a hazy answer of waiting...some through a season of struggle and weariness and others through the epitome of joy and gratefulness. I have learned a lot in these last 6 months...

In those 6 months, I spent 2 months with my family being at home for the first time in over 5 years, I spent time applying, interviewing and finally accepted a teaching job five states away and moved 12 hours from home, I went on a date with one of my best friends and have been figuring out not only how to pursue each other, but also how to do it 600 miles apart...I have learned what it looks like to budget and pay bills and grocery shop and cook dinner. I have learned what it looks like to be so worn out from working that I fall asleep at 9 o'clock and I have learned what it looks like to naturally wake up at 7 o'clock on a Saturday. I have learned what it looks like to love a classroom full of students and how to discipline and show grace and display patience when you are so very weary. I have learned how to keep in contact with friends hundreds of miles away and the sweetness of quality time with kindred spirits. I have learned the importance of prayer and of being in God's Word and my love for hot tea that gets me through every morning. I have learned that I love creating a space and find so much joy in fixing something up. I have learned that I could antique shop all day on Saturdays and that nothing quite rejuvenates me like fresh air and sunshine. I have learned that I love breakfast, and that sometimes facetime dates can be almost as good as the real thing. I have learned that laundry and dishes often become last on the to do list and that is ok. I have learned that grading is a skill that I am not great at because I would rather every student get 100. I have learned that I love hugs and that I will easily keep a note and a picture forever. I have learned the joy that comes along with sponsoring a child and the sweetness of being able to help people and bless people with the gift of an income. I have learned that sometimes there's nothing like calling home after a long day, and there is something enchanting about the evening air. I have learned that I could sit outside all morning listening to the birds and lay outside all night looking at the stars. I have learned that saying yes can be good, but saying no can also be best. I have learned that I value quality time and that it is hard to be truly honest with myself. I have learned the benefit of hard conversations and the blessing that comes with honesty and trust. I have learned that goodbyes are hard and sometimes tears are good. I have learned that naps sometimes solve more than we know and that dependence on the Lord is something that can deepen every day. I have learned the importance of deep friendships and the incomparable foundation of faith that can last through mountains of change and seasons of hard transitions. I have learned the contentment of being where you know the Lord has placed you and the peace that comes in resting in his provision. I have learned that being 23 is full of life and lessons and laughter and tears and learning to pray and trust and love in a different way...

In this season of unsettledness, yet beginnings of new chapters, I am reminded of the many blessings and challenges that the Lord has given me and how grateful I am to have a faith that walks through both with such a steadiness. I am thankful for these past 6 months and grateful that the unknowns of this journey are so intricately known by a Savior who loves me deeply and has called me to be His. I am thanking him for the opportunities for faith that he continues to provide. Let's continue to do this thing, 23...I'm learning a lot.

He clings to what he knows...

"In the darkness, Jesus doesn't analyze what he doesn't know. He clings to what he knows." 

- Paul E. Miller, A Praying Life.

Wow, that sentence hit home and made me think...he doesn't analyze what he doesn't know, but he clings to what he knows. What would that look like in my life? I think about things A) way too often, B) a lot, and C) very slowly. I overthink, I under think, I analyze, I question, I process, I think and think and think until I have thought myself around in circles and then some... While I think processing is good and healthy and a life without thinking wouldn't get you very far either, I long to be able to say, I don't worry about what I don't know, but cling to what I do know.

On the cross, when Jesus was being crucified, he began to quote Psalm 22, "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" He meditates on this and maybe set out to say the entire Psalm... To know the Scripture so well, that when the darkest moment in his life came, he held tightly to what he knew, to what he knew gave him life and brought him light, and in the darkness, he didn't question, he didn't analyze, but he placed confident hope in his Father.

I long for my life and for those darkest moments to look like that. I don't analyze what I don't know, but I cling to what I do. "Both the child and the cynic walk through the valley of the shadow of death. The cynic focuses on the darkness; the child focuses on the Shepherd." - Paul E. Miller

If you take the Good Shepherd out of Psalm 23, you are left alone in a world of evil. Miller states, "We are left obsessing over our wants in the valley of the shadow of death, paralyzed by fear in the presence of our enemies." But with the Good Shepherd, we are no longer sheep without a shepherd, we are sheep being led by THE Shepherd. And that alone is enough to cling to... To stop analyzing, and to start abiding...that's my for prayer today.

Patience While You Drive

Patience while you drive...

I started thinking about this the other day while I was driving with my little sister. We were just "do-daddlin" (a phrase I coined for just running errands or just bebopping around town) and I caught myself more than once comment on/about another person's driving. Either they didn't turn fast enough, or forgot to turn on their blinker, or were driving too slow in front of me, or too fast behind me...the list goes on...but as I was driving with my little sister in the seat next to me, I realized how much my speech definitely didn't match how I normally talk to my friends and family. 

Not that I was saying anything crazy, but just little comments started getting to me...little signs of frustration that I was showing to someone I didn't even know. Little things I said that if they heard me say they would not see Christ in my actions or my words. As my faith deepens and my actions and words take on more weight (as they should as a Christian) I started thinking how this would look different than the world we live in. In Hebrews 10, it talks about that we have been set apart as holy and in 1 Timothy 4, it says, "Don't let anyone look down on you because you are young, but set an example for the believers in speech, in conduct, in love, in faith and in purity." Set an example in speech....

In James 3:9-12, it gives warning on this exact thing... "With the tongue we praise our Lord and Father, and with it we curse human beings, who have been made in God’s likeness. Out of the same mouth come praise and cursing. My brothers and sisters, this should not be. Can both fresh water and salt water flow from the same spring? My brothers and sisters, can a fig tree bear olives, or a grapevine bear figs? Neither can a salt spring produce fresh water." This hits home on so many levels, but one in particular, when we were in Israel, we learned a ton about springs...how they symbolize Living Water, how they provide life, and refresh and nourish...and when I landed on my identity statement as a "refreshing spring of truth..." I realized that the Lord has called me to be that not just when I'm "doing ministry" but also, when I'm in the car with my little sister driving to Kroger.

As I think back to all the times that my same tongue praised Jesus in the morning, then expressed so much frustration toward a person I didn't know...man, it's convicting to me. I don't know if it would hit home for you, but this has been on my heart the past few weeks, and I couldn't help but share. I am so much more aware now of how I respond in my car and on the road. Not that I'm in recovery as road-range addict, far from it, but I am learning and the Lord is teaching me how our little actions matter too. And our speech should always be pleasing and edifying because we were given a responsibility and a calling as people set apart. In 1 Peter 2:9, it states, "But you are a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people belonging to God, that you may declare the praises of Him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light." Yes. May I declare those praises at every moment, and may I live my life as people belonging to God. 

So here's to praying instead of letting my frustration get the best of me...it's just another picture how I am being refined and molded and I thought I'd share this morning. Hope this encourages you and the Lord uses it how He will in your life, and I'm thankful for the little lessons in life where I get to refocus my heart and thoughts and especially my words...

Sticky Bananas

Sticky bananas....you're just going through your day, grocery shopping and picking up small things you need, and you reach down to put a bunch of bananas in your cart, and it happens...your hand becomes sticky at the first touch of a banana. Your inner self is consoling with a sometimes small but sometimes very large, "Nooooo!" and you feel like the rest of your grocery trip, and day, will just go downhill from there. You can't seem to get the sticky off your hands and it almost feels like it's rubbing off and everything you and your banana touches.

How often do I look at these small incidents as 'day-breakers,' when in all actuality they are not as big as they seem. Things are still ok, you are going to make it, and God is still good. I still have to remind myself daily, that when I touch a sticky banana, or when things don't go as planned, instead of the stickiness rubbing off on all other areas of the day, I have to re-orient myself back to truth, back to Scripture, back to relying on something more than myself and knowing that life is sweeter and too full of blessing to harp on the little 'sticky' happenings. It's a life-lesson I think I will always be learning, but I hope that each time it happens I rely more on Jesus than I did the day before.

"We also pray that you will be strengthened with all his glorious power so you will have all the endurance and patience you need. May you be filled with joy, always thanking the Father. He has enabled you to share in the inheritance that belongs to his people, who live in the light. For he has rescued us from the kingdom of darkness and transferred us into the Kingdom of his dear Son, who purchased our freedom and forgave our sins." - Colossians 1:11-14

Now that will put our sticky bananas into perspective compared to our life of truth and joy, for He has rescued us and forgiven our sins and by His grace, we now live in the light!! What a sweet and gentle reminder in a grocery store full of sticky bananas and a life filled with little 'day-breakers.'