moments of grace

This week in the small group I lead I prayed for moments of grace in our lives this week. And in the hectic season of midterms I longed with all my heart that God would show up in this prayer request. I not only desired these moments of grace for my small group girls that I lead but I so desperately wanted them for myself. This week was long. I’ve woken up before 8 to study every day and sometimes it feels like my research is directionless (even though I know it won’t be). I needed it to make it through the week. 

And today, my last day of midterms, was just one of those days that I needed a hug from my mom more than most days. If you know me you know that physical touch is not even one of my top love languages but I just needed a genuine hug. I was unusually anxious and antsy to just get the day over with and board my flight home. Naturally, I called my sister, Martha, to talk with her and get my mind off of the anxiety. I told her I was excited to see her and hug her and I just really needed a hug. I had tried to keep my voice down while I talked on the phone with Martha but I guess I didn’t do too great of a job. No shocker here, I’m not known to be soft spoken. But what I didn’t realize is that my professor had overheard my conversation. And as I was studying she walked into the room I was in and said “I’m coming to give you a hug.” And I can go on and on about how great my professors are and how great this certain professor is but honestly just look at my twitter to learn more about my love of art history (ha). But this was the moment of grace that I had prayed for. And this simple act meant so much. 

A question I get a lot as someone who has struggled with anxiety for most of her life is “what can I do to help you when you're anxious?” I’ve always struggled with this question because I just simply cannot say a certain thing. If I could tell you what to do when I’m anxious then I probably would be able to fix it myself. But today I realized something important. That when I am anxious, I need someone to care. I need someone to care not about what they can do or what I can do but I just need someone to care about me as a person. 

And that’s the thing. My professor doesn't have to care about me as a person. That's not in her job description. And I’ve had professors and teachers that haven’t cared about anything other than my work as a student. I’ve had a professor tell me that I “need to work on my anxiety” when I opened up to them about why I’ve missed class. This isn’t a new thing – a substitute teacher told me in first grade that I worked too slow and accused me of trying to waste time by working slower than the other students in my class. That one sentence that she said to me 14 years ago has been in the back of my mind ever since. And I carry this into my academics, I carry the thought that my professors do not care about me as a person, but only me as a student. And that’s not fair. It’s not fair to myself to assume that my professors don’t care about me, but it is especially not fair to my professors who do care about me. And today, God knew exactly what I needed. And my moment of grace didn’t get rid of anything I had to do nor take anything off my plate but it did teach me an important lesson. 

While we're on the topic of moments of grace, I do believe that it is not entirely off topic to mention that I had an anxiety free plane ride home and sat next to someone who wasn't chatty (praise God)

black lives matter

I don't know what to say.

I don't know what to do. 

And nothing can make it better.

Nothing except Jesus. 

Where is the justice in all of this? 

Why does this keep happening? 

I'm hurting. I'm hurting with my black brothers and sisters. I'm hurting because I have never had to fear death because of my skin color. I'm hurting because of my privilege that I took for granted so many years. And this doesn't make sense. That there could be so much prejudice and racism that people are being killed just because of their skin color. 

All lives matter but that's not the point. Black lives matter. And until everyone understands and agrees that black lives matter I won't stop saying it. Black lives matter because they are in the image of God. God created race, He created diversity, and it ultimately glorifies Him. Racism is not in His will. This is the enemy's work. I can guarantee you that if Jesus was on this earth today He would stand behind #BlackLivesMatter. Because black lives matter to Jesus. Social justice matters to Jesus. And Jesus is weeping with us as we are grappling to understand why such tragedies exist and happen.

I will never be able to completely understand the experiences of my black brothers and sisters but I refuse to be silent. I refuse to pretend like everything is okay. Just because systemic racism does not directly effect me I cannot ignore it. Jesus calls us to weep with those who weep and mourn with those who mourn. There will be a time when Revelation 21 is our reality but until then we weep and mourn the loss of those who were killed too soon. 

And every tear will be wiped away

Death. 

The only thing we are guaranteed, yet the one thing that few are ready for. 

In our hearts we know this is not how it should be. We know that people should not die young, but that we are meant to grow up and live full lives. We know that life and death are not things to be taken lightly. But do we really?

I can tell you that there was a time in my life that I wanted to be dead more than I wanted to be alive. And by the grace of God I no longer feel that way. But that's not the point. This isn't about me. I am alive, heart beating, lungs breathing, eyes shimmering with wonder. My problems seem trivial in the face of death. This isn't about me. 

This is about the 21 year old boy who is no longer with us, about the many people of color who no longer feel safe leaving their homes because of death threats, about the teenagers who go to bed praying that they won't wake up in the morning. This is about the people who are no longer living.

Now we have these conversations. These conversations about about race and mental illness and life and death. When we should have been having them far before this moment. And so we mourn. We mourn because we live in a fallen world and bad things happen. We mourn because even though Jesus conquered death once and for all, it still hurts. And we question how there can be good in things so terrible, where is God's graceful hand in all of this?

"For the Lamb in the midst of the throne will be their shepherd,

and he will guide them to springs of living water,

and God will wipe away every tear from their eyes."

(Revelation 7:17, emphasis added)

A day will come where sadness will be no more and every bad thing will be made good. There will come a day when this all makes sense. But until then it won't make sense, and it shouldn't. Because quite frankly this world is just messed up. I pray that I may never become apathetic towards death. Just because you don't know the person affected doesn't mean you shouldn't care. It seems almost every few weeks there is something else in the news saying that someone (or several people) have died. I pray that this never ceases to move me to compassion and action. Denial is getting us nowhere. We need to be talking about race. We need to be talking about mental health. Not just after someone dies. Right now. 

And so we pray. We pray for healing, for reconciliation, for love, for community. We pray for the day when this will all make sense. We pray until He comes. 

hope in the suffering

when I decided to go on antidepressants, I thought it would be a quick fix.

I thought that my anxiety and obsessive compulsive disorder would be gone just like that.

I thought that this small blue pill could cure me of something I've dealt with for over 12 years. 

but, I was wrong. 

nothing humans make can fix us. 

only God can. 

I confidently believe that there will be a day where pain and suffering is no more. someday I will not have to deal with mental illness at all, but today is not that day. so in the meantime I have learned and am learning to lean on God in my times of anxiety and weakness. with anxiety there will always be good days and bad days, and I'm learning to look to God at all times, at my highest and my lowest. to thank Him for my joy and to surrender to Him when I am faced with situations and emotions that I cannot handle on my own. 

I know that God has the ability to cure me of anxiety and that is how I know that He has a purpose in this suffering. suffering is a symptom of being human. everyone has experienced suffering at sometime in their life, even Jesus experienced it during His time on earth. suffering unites us. I used to pray to God that He would cure me of my anxiety, I just wanted to be "normal" (whatever that means..). I've now shifted to praising God for everything, even the bad. I am thankful that I can relate to other people who have anxiety and maybe even lead them to Christ someday. I'm not saying that there aren't days where I want to be free from my anxiety, I have plenty of those. today in particular, I have felt the hold of anxiety on my life. debilitating panic attacks are not fun, in case you didn't know. 

sometimes I am overwhelmed by the pain on this earth and I can often feel physical pain well up in my chest. it is so easy to look around at all of the bad things happening in this earth and think that hope is a lost cause. but it's not. good has already won, God has already won. and in the end evil will be defeated once and for all. 

"and the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus." (philippians 4:7 ESV)

let the peace that surpasses all understanding comfort you today, and everyday. it really is the best. 

undeserved love

sometimes it just hits me. how undeserving I am. 

I have a God who loves me unconditionally. no matter what I do I cannot mess up bad enough for him to turn His back on me. I am flawed, flawed beyond belief. I mess up several times each day. yet He still loves me more than I could even imagine. 

and what do I do in response to this love? 

go to church once a week?

sing songs?

complain about bad things that happen to me?

try not to swear?

man, oh man am I undeserving of this love. wow. for the majority of my life I have reacted to His love in the ways listed above, and honestly some days I still do. it took me 17 years to fully understand that the only thing I have to do to receive God's love is accept it. I don't have to earn it just accept it. and He loves me regardless of what I have done, am doing, or will do. what a promise. is there anything better?

let me just repeat that for you:

God loves you.

unconditionally.

He knows everything about you.

and He still loves you. 

yes, even though He knows your darkest secrets. 

He still loves you.

and you don't have to do anything to earn this love.

all you have to do is accept it. 

so how am I planning on receiving His love better this year? well, I'm trying to work on getting better at centering my life around it. number one though, is to tell everyone about His love. really all everyone wants is to be loved, right? well I just want everyone to know and experience God's love! another thing that I am trying to do is read the whole bible this year, it's a lot of reading, but I think it's for a worthy cause. speaking of bibles, I want to give at least one bible a month to someone who needs it. family christian bookstore has new testament bibles for only two dollars. TWO dollars. that's crazy stuff people. so this year I'm going to buy tons of bibles and give them to people. probably the strangest of things that I am trying to do this year is to not buy a single item of clothing for myself this entire year. I have really felt God calling me to give up shopping for clothes since I already have a closet full of clothes when so many people around the world are surviving with only one or two outfits total. I can't tell you the number of people who have laughed at me when I told them my idea to not buy any clothes for all of 2015, but it's okay because my h8rs r my motiv8rs. 

okay I think I'm going crazy because I've spent the last 36 hours in bed due to a cold and am now doing cringey abbreviations in this blog post but 2 corinthians 4:16-17 is getting me through it. there is no suffering in heaven!!

2014

there are five days left of 2014. 

that's scary.

but also in some ways a relief. 

2014, it has been a wild ride. 

but 2015, I am ready for you.

december 31, 2013 I was invited to a new years eve party. I drove to my friend's house and sat outside in my car for 15 minutes crying because I was too scared to go in. at the time I didn't know them well, and I didn't know who else was going to be at the party. I thought I was a pity invite and that it wouldn't really matter if I didn't show up. so I went back home without ever even going in. I texted them saying that I wasn't feeling well -- my go too excuse when I'm panicking. my first few moments of 2014 were spent locked in my room watching netflix in an effort to distract me from the pain that I was feeling in my life. 

I remember thinking that 2014 could only go up from here. and for the most part it did, with a few bumps in the road of course. seconds semester senior year was a blur, to be honest. it was a lot of lasts and surprisingly a lot of work. I wrote a thesis paper on the history and importance of book covers and to this day I am still not quite sure how I managed to write 20 pages on a topic as obscure as that. but I survived and on may 2nd I finished high school classes. I went to prom and realized that it is very overrated, in fact it kind of sucked. I graduated high school after getting three hours of sleep the night before, I didn't think I could survive the hour long ceremony on such little sleep, but I did. I did a lot of things that I didn't think I could do this year. 

days after graduating my dad and I went to the pacific northwest, it was a fabulous vacation aside from the persistent panic attacks that I got daily. we visited seattle and portland and I fell in love with both of them. also the trees. the pacific northwest has some fantastic trees. after returning home I had my graduation party where there were entirely too many pictures of me (thanks mom) but I loved having so many people that I love in my house at the same time. that next morning I was off to windy gap (a young life camp) bright and early. I'm going to be completely honest and tell you that windy gap was one of the worst weeks of my life. for outside reasons though, it was not young life's fault. I gained so much appreciation for the organization and their mission, young life is truly an incredible thing. I learned a lot about suffering at my week at windy gap, and a lot of things about myself. I didn't think I could survive the week, but I did. notice a common theme?

in july I went to north carolina for a week and then arizona, utah, and colorado for ten days with my family. we went to five national parks (five!!!!!) and it was absolutely wonderful. I think God spent a little more time out west, it is so beautiful! I did so much this summer that it was kind of a blur. 

and then I went to college. 

and I called my mom saying that I wanted to go home.

I didn't think I could do college.

I didn't think it was for me. 

but guess what?

I stayed. 

and little by little I fell in love with college. 

I can tell you it's nothing that I did. I owe my success in my first semester of college all to God. I could not have survived college without Him. Elon has become my new home (home #7, ha) and I am so thankful for the community that I have found there. for the first time in my life, I have put Jesus in the center of my life, not just as the center of my sundays. and let me tell you, crazy things happen when you learn to trust and follow Jesus. crazy awesome things. I learned to invest in relationships, not things. I learned to base my self worth on God alone. and I learned that God has really fantastic plans for my life. I'm so thankful for this first semester of college even though it was hard, and I could not be even more pumped for next semester!! I think it's safe to say that 2014 is ending a lot better than it started.

2014 shattered my comfort zone, here's to 2015 shattering it even more. 

also, I've declared 2015, the year of adventure, travel, and minimalism.

when more is not enough

this photo was taken at vance creek bridge outside of seattle in washington state. if you know me, you know that I love the pacific northwest. if it is in God's plan for me I will definitely be moving out there as soon as I can. you've probably seen pictures of this bridge on instagram. in fact this bridge is what started my obsession with the pacific northwest. I saw it all over instagram, and I knew that I had to go and see it in person. just look at it. it is a perfect showcase of man's handiwork and God's handiwork side by side. and here we are able to see the difference between things made by God and things made by man: things made by God last even when man makes an effort to destroy them while things made by man fall apart when left alone. but even though the wood on this bridge was rotting and I knew that walking out across the bridge was dangerous, I wanted to. and I would have, if it weren't for my father standing beside the bridge sternly warning me not to go even a foot farther than I already had. but why was it that I wanted to walk out on this dangerous bridge? was just seeing it not enough? if not, then what is enough?

lately I've been thinking a lot about the innate desire that humans feel that pushes us towards wanting more. as humans, it is only natural to desire happiness and fulfillment. but we often try and find that in material things. I've had conversations with people who have told me that their one goal was to be rich. it's a goal for many people, my guess is that you know at least one person who has this as their one life goal. it's so common in fact that most people wouldn't think much of someone saying it. but it breaks my heart. when I hear that all someone wants from life is to be filthy rich I just want to scream. I want to tell them that there is so much more to life than money. that money will never satisfy them. that they will always be desiring more. but I don't. I sit there quietly with a smile on my face, nodding while I listen to their dreams but feeling heartbroken inside. it's not that I don't want them to be happy. it's the exact opposite. I want for them to be happy and I know that if they look for that happiness in money they will never find it. money is good. things are good. but when you center your life around them you will feel more longing than happiness and that will wear away at you.

this doesn't just apply to money. this applies to all of the different places that people try to find fulfillment and satisfaction in. whether it's money, sex, alcohol, drugs, grades, people, or whatever else you can think of you will never achieve true satisfaction from these things. but if it has been proven that we can't achieve true happiness from these things, then what's the point? is there a way to live a life full of happiness and fulfillment?

 you see, there is a way to experience true happiness and fulfillment. there is something we can set our eyes upon and devote our lives to and our efforts will not go to waste. there is hope. the only true satisfaction comes from God. C.S. Lewis writes:

"God made us: invented us like a man invents an engine. a car is made to run on gasoline, and it would not run properly on anything else. now God designed the human machine to run on Himself. He Himself is the fuel our spirits were designed to burn, or the food our spirits were designed to feed on. there is no other. that is why it is no good asking God to make us happy in our own way without bothering about religion. God cannot give us happiness and peace apart from himself, because it is not there. there is no such thing."

if this quote is not convincing enough to you go read ecclesiastes. it's pretty harsh, but man is it good. nothing gets me more pumped about Jesus than ecclesiastes. good stuff!!!! so now that I'm done fangirling over one of the most depressing books of the bible....

let me repeat one of the most important things that I have learned in my life:

the things of this earth will not provide lasting happiness. God will.

it's hard to grasp. it's easy to want to walk out on the dangerous bridge in search of greater adventure or happiness or whatever you're looking for, even though you know deep down that once you do that you'll only be wanting the next best thing. but it's so easy to get caught up in the now and forget that what awaits you in the future is so much better. God does not just offer us life, he offers us abundant life. now I don't know about you, but plain old life seems a lot less appealing when you are offered abundant life. 

and it will always be a struggle to devote my life to God. it's not easy, I can assure you of that. why "pick up your cross" and follow him when you can easily attain momentary happiness from the latest iPhone? why deny yourself when you can walk in to anthropologie and buy that dress you've been wanting? because while the happiness provided by earthly things might be fleeting, I promise you the happiness that comes from God is not. and that's what keeps me going. kind of like coffee but also a thousand times better (now that's when you know it's good).