with the turning of the season, we will always see the sun

A friend asked me tonight what my resolutions are for the new year, and I struggled with this question because I've never really made them.  Resolutions always just seem to be something to break, and I've never been very good about making and following through with personal goals - life always seems to get in the way and before you know it the year has passed.

But this question got me thinking about this past year.  So much has changed in 2012.  This time last year I was still living in my mother's house and had never lived on my own (unless you count a year and a half in the dorms). Here I am today, a homeowner!  crazy. crazy. crazy.  It was an overwhelming and scary adventure, but it's been so good for me on a number of levels.  I've been shown favor in the roommate God provided, as I was cautioned endlessly about the dangers of living with a friend.  But it has been such a blessing and I will savor these next 6 months.

I have grown exponentially this past year.  Growth has not always been fun or easy, but I am so thankful for it. I'm sure in the midst of it, I would not have said I was thankful, but wanted it to be over and didn't want to deal with something uncomfortable or challenging.  I could have done without my mom's suicide attempt, but God showed me his power and his mercy in literally saving her life; and he showed me his love through the amazing community that surrounded me and interceded when I could not form a coherent prayer.  He continued to show his faithfulness as he pursued my mom through the journey home and she made the decision to be obedient to God's call for her to be baptized (on her birthday!).  If this was all God had done this year, it would have been MORE than enough. But there are countless ways that God is revealing himself to me and I'm grateful for the moments when I've actually paused to take notice.

God is continually showing me that he is able and wants to use anything for his glory and to prove his love to me. I attempted to enter the dating world and was disappointed and hurt.  The pain sucked, but I learned how to feel again; I learned the beauty of brokenness and how to seek the Lord for healing.  I received a lesson in forgiveness, even though I wasn't seeking it, and I'm continually reminded of the daily decision it is to choose love over bitterness or judgment.  I realized that being married is a desire of my heart even though I have prided myself on being independent and have avoided dating like the plague. God has been teaching and showing me what he truly designed marriage to be and it's a lot different than what the world wants to sell me.  I look forward to the beautiful struggle of marriage, and I hope it's something God has in the works in the coming year.  But if not, I will still have joy and I will still be grateful. I have been blessed with an amazing community of women.  I never thought I could have such a great group of friends; that I could feel loved, challenged, understood, encouraged and supported as much as I have by these women. And so I am thankful for the disappointment of a failed dating relationship because God used it to connect me with these women and deepen these relationships.

I've come to expect that many of the things God calls us to will not be easy, but that they will be worth the challenge and the uncertainty.  I've learned to sit in the mess and wait for God and trust that his plans are far better than anything I could I construe.  It's difficulty, because although we long for change; it's scary.  It's tempting to revert back to what's comfortable and it's easy to fall into old habits without even realizing it.  But I'm thankful for friends who speak truth and provide a perspective that I can't see in the midst of the unknown.  I have no idea what is in store for me in 2013, but I hope it is more growth; more love; more joy; more tests of faith; and more revelations of God's faithfulness.  I hope it's a year of growing in trust in the Lord and a deeper, more intimate relationship with my Father.

Today, I choose praise.

Yesterday I began to post:

I feel like I'm in one of those places where I am dissatisfied with things in life. And, honestly, it's all a matter of perspective. One main area of my life I feel that is lacking and my whole attitude is off. I'm realizing lately how little my hope is in God and how much I've placed it in my vision or in others. This has continually proven to be a disappointment. As humans, we are flawed and sinful and we screw up regularly (not always purposefully, but we do)! When I put my hope in these things, I should expect to experience disappointment.

Today, my attitude is completely different. Thankfulness is state of mind.  I'm convinced it has very little to do with what we do or do not have.  It's a choice to see the tiniest of blessings and to fix your eyes on those things.  This morning I got a chance to serve a group of women at Having The Courage To Change who understood the meaning of being thankful; who knew what it meant to praise the Lord.  I saw real joy and hope as I listened to several women share their history of addiction and homelessness.  And here they are thanking God for each breath; for curtains and clean bed sheets.  When have I ever thanked God for those things?  NEVER. This is evidence of the Spirit; this is true heart change; this is true joy and hope.  How much easier it should be for me to find things to be thankful for and how easily I take for granted all that I have.  Thank you God for humbling me and showing me what an ungrateful child I can be.  And thank you for loving me in spite of that.

Waking up this morning I chose to start my day with thankfulness, as I texted many of the people that I love thanking them for their presence in my life.  It has changed my perspective going forward throughout the day and I want to continue to sing God's praises because He has been so good to me and I have SO MUCH to be thankful for.  Looking through this lens, I'm able to look past disappointment and begin to rest in God's goodness. And no matter how the rest of the day pans out, this love and the joy that I felt this morning was more than enough.

boss your heart around

King David was really good at telling his heart and soul what to do. In Psalm 103 he said: "Praise the Lord, my soul; all my inmost being, praise his holy name" (vs. 1). I decided to follow his example. In the midst of my turmoil and troubles, I told my soul to praise the Lord. 

Now this wasn't a superficial "say your bedtime prayers" talk to my soul. No, this was a deep-down, preach it to my inmost being, "GOD IS GOOD no matter what your feelings are telling you" sermon. I bossed my heart with Truth and pulled it away from the pit by telling myself to "forget not ALL his benefits" (Ps. 103:2). 

Then I walked my heart down memory lane, reminding it of the One who:
Forgives all [my] sins and heals all [my] diseases,
who redeems [my] life from the pit
and crowns [me] with love and compassion,
who satisfies [my] desires with good things
so that [my] youth is renewed like the eagle's. (Ps. 103:3-5 NIV)

I cannot even pinpoint a reason for the way I currently feel or even a good way to describe it; other than perhaps blah, which makes the feeling even more unfounded and annoying. There's a lot unfolding around me and big changes happening in people's lives, but none of it directly involves me.  Yet, somehow I feel like I'm carrying the weight of it and feeling discouraged and angry when things are not going "our" way.  My current response is to want to isolate and escape.  I have this intense desire to hide away in a remote cabin in the woods and curl up in front of a fire with a book and just forget the world.  I think part of this desire stems from this false notion that I have to fix it all and support everyone.  I don't know...but that's all I've got for now...

Psalm 43:5, "Why am I discouraged? Why is my heart so sad? I will put my hope in God! I will praise him again—my Savior and my God!" (NLT)

letters from my former self

The following is an e-mail from the past, composed 11 months and 29 days ago, on October 28, 2011. It is being delivered from the past through FutureMe.org

Dear FutureMe,

I'm hoping in a year from now you are over this current mess with "crushes." I pray you stop having feelings for the wrong people; that passion and compatibility are qualities of the relationship you have with the man you marry. I hope you have found love in a Godly man, and if not, that you would be content in knowing the Lord's love is more than enough. I imagine you have found a home by now or at least out of yo mamma's house! Lol. I hope life has taken you to exciting and new places in the past year and that you have experienced amazing growth. I pray that you are experiencing joy and the Lord has continued to transform your heart. Life is beautiful. You are beautiful and have infinite worth. I pray that you are embracing that and sharing it with the world.

So be it.

The timing of this letter being delivered to me could not be more perfect or more relevant.  I was JUST talking about this topic with my journey group on Thursday and again with my mentor on Friday. This desire for the approval of a man through being pursued or married is something I have struggled with, even un-admittedly, for years and have experienced situation after situation in which I have become infatuated with the idea of someone (i.e. the aforementioned "crushes").  And in those situations I have put aside the truth of what the Lord wants for me in my husband and on some level I have settled.  Not settled, in that I began a relationship with these boys, but I continuously allowed my emotions to be tangled up in something unhealthy/unholy. 

I refuse for this to continue to be my story. I will trust the Lord knows the desires of my heart and he will fulfill them. I will ask HIM what are important qualities in my future husband and consider most importantly his walk with the lord. I refuse to continue to ascribe my worth or fulfillment in life to a relationship status. I will believe that I am fearfully and wonderfully made and that is true of me regardless of any man's opinion or capability of loving me.

What I have to Offer..

Sorry Freud, but God is the author of Psychology

I love when things from my professional world collide with that of my spiritual.  Granted the two are always meant to be intermingled, but I'm not allowed to openly discuss my faith or belief with my clients.  But it's encouraging that the scientific principles and theories we utilize with our clients are not just researched/evidenced based, but also founded in Truth. The daily devotional from Proverbs 31 Ministries was just an awesome reminder of that this morning.

"Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God's will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will." Romans 12:2 (NIV) 

Have you ever had the thought, "What's the use? I'm just a stuffer." Or, "What's the use? I'm a just a yeller." 

That may be partially true, but I believe there is more to it than just claiming because we act a certain way, that's the way it will always be. 

Brain research shows that every conscious thought we have is recorded on our internal hard drive known as the cerebral cortex. Each thought scratches the surface much like an Etch A Sketch. 

When we have the same thought again, the line of the original thought is deepened, causing what's called a memory trace. With each repetition the trace goes deeper and deeper, forming and embedding a pattern of thought. When an emotion is tied to this thought pattern, the memory trace grows exponentially stronger. 

We forget most of our random thoughts that are not tied to an emotion. However, we retain the ones we think often that have an emotion tied to them. For example, if we've had the thought over and over that we are "unglued," and that thought is tied to a strong emotion, we deepen the memory trace when we repeatedly access that thought. The same is true if we decide to stuff a thought—we'll perpetuate that stuffing. Or if we yell, we'll keep yelling.
We won't develop new responses until we develop new thoughts. That's why renewing our minds with new thoughts is crucial. New thoughts come from new perspectives. The Bible encourages this process, which only makes sense because God created the human mind and understands better than anyone how it functions. 

A foundational teaching of Scripture is that it is possible to be completely changed through transformed thought patterns. That's exactly the point of today's key verse, Romans 12:2.
Scripture also teaches that we can accept or refuse thoughts. Instead of being held hostage by old thought patterns, we can actually capture our thoughts and allow the power of Christ's truth to change them: 

"We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ." (2 Corinthians 10:5 NIV) 

I don't know about you, but understanding how my brain is designed makes these verses come alive in a whole new way. Taking thoughts captive and being transformed by thinking in new ways isn't some New Age form of mind control. It's biblical, and it's fitting with how God wired our brains. 

I can't control the things that happen to me each day, but I can control how I think about them. I can say to myself, "I have a choice to have destructive thoughts or constructive thoughts right now. I can wallow in what's wrong and make things worse, or I can ask God for a better perspective to help me see good even when I don't feel good." 

Indeed, when we gain new perspectives, we can see new ways of thinking. And if we change the way we think, we'll change the ways we act and react.

necessary endings.

This theme of [ letting go - pruning - ending ] has been everywhere around me lately and I'm being challenged to see this as a good thing. I have a horrible time letting go, particularly when it comes to people. I struggle with change. Yet, God is pushing me to see that change is good. He's even challenging me to let go of good things for the potential of something greater. This is not easy.

A key example in my life right now is the engagement of my best friend. I am overjoyed for her and her fiance, yet my happiness is tinged with sadness as I think about what this ultimately means: the loss of my roommate. Granted that is a ways down the road, but I feel the perceived loss now. It's something I've talked about with her, so it's not like I'm airing dirty laundry on the internet. I don't feel this as heavily as I did at first and God is moving me to a place of excitement in the season/journey to come. I'm excited for my friend and the ways I will be able to share in this journey with her, as well as the changes to come for me. I'm excited for the prospect of a new roommate, who could not possibly take the place of my current one, but who will bring new challenges, joy and growth.

This morning I was listening to a sermon on necessary endings given by Dr. Henry Cloud in which he talks about how endings are a part of God's plan for our lives. He gives the example of a rose bush and how it produces too many buds and cannot sustain them all. The gardener has to determine which are the best buds that are going to make it to full fruition of what a rose ought to be and has to prune the rest, so those few will be able to receive the resources they need. He focuses a lot on the passage from Ecclesiastes, acknowledging that in certain seasons of our life something or someone may have had a purpose in our lives, but at later points God is calling us to let that thing/person go. Out of fear, we may cling to that thing/person/situation or we try to "recycle old inventory" (i.e. we try to revert to old ways or relationships expecting it to be different). We can either choose to go to the new land or we can go back to what we know and what is comfortable, even if it's not healthy.

• "We create a future that's just like our present because we just keep doing the same thing over and over."  
• Endings take courage.  
• There must be a death before a resurrection. 

And then the daily devotional from Proverbs 31 Ministries hit on the same topic. I love this excerpt:

I had a choice: I could concentrate on my perceived loss or I could center my attention on God's perspective and His purpose for my life. You see, God's plans for us do not include looking back, longing for the past, or wishing for days gone by. Instead we can ask our faithful Father to point us toward a new purpose. He'll give us His perspective on our future.

Proverbs 3:5-6 (NIV) "Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways submit to him, and he will make your paths straight." - This is my prayer for this season.

LOVE will show the way.

You say you see no hope, you say you see no reason
We should dream that the world would ever change
You're saying love is foolish to believe
'Cause there'll always be some crazy with an Army or a Knife
To wake you from your day dream, put the fear back in your life...

Look, if someone wrote a play just to glorify
What's stronger than hate, would they not arrange the stage
To look as if the hero came too late he's almost in defeat
It's looking like the Evil side will win, so on the Edge
Of every seat, from the moment that the whole thing begins
It is...

Love who makes the mortar
And it's love who stacked these stones
And it's love who made the stage here
Although it looks like we're alone
In this scene set in shadows
Like the night is here to stay
There is evil cast around us
But it's love that wrote the play...
For in this darkness love can show the way

So now the stage is set. Feel you own heart beating
In your chest. This life's not over yet.
so we get up on our feet and do our best. We play against the
Fear. We play against the reasons not to try
We're playing for the tears burning in the happy angel's eyes
For it's...

a hopeful kind of sad

Tonight I just felt the need to re-receive the encouragement and love of friends. These are from various cards I have received over the past several months.

 July 2012: "Remember that the Lord knows exactly what you need and desire. He is everything you need; and He will provide. Continue to ask Him what He finds important in a man. This is a messy yet beautiful process. Tonight I am praying for the man you will someday marry. And you can trust that I will faithfully continue to do so. Pursue our papa with all you have and watch as your heart continues to soften and heal. I pray and bless you to receive the extravagant love He has for you."

June 2012: "I am so glad that our friendship has been growing and forming over the past couple years. You are an incredibly strong and loyal and dependable woman who I consider a great friend. You have so much wisdom bottled up inside of you, I feel like I learn new things almost every conversation we have. I love you dearly."

March 2012: "I am so proud of you! You have grown so much over the last couple years. You are continually wiser, softer, more gracious, loving and healthy. I hate that you're having to deal w/such heavy burdens right now. It's now fair & it's not right & you don't deserve it. I know this pain is the work of the enemy & result of the Fall. The only blessing I see in the situation is you. You are strong. You know the Lord & you are choosing to live a different story. You won't continue the patterns of your family & even on the hardest of days when you feel most broken - even still - you will be a light."

January 2012: "Girlfriend, we have fought for our friendship! And I am so glad. The more I get to know you, the more I love you. You are certainly a woman of great strength and virtue.  You have amazing wisdom & I feel like God is able to speak purely through you. I love this season of growth that you are in and that you are taking your friends right alongside you. You are a beautiful and courageous woman & I am blessed to call you friend!"

To speak something into nothing

Currently reading:

I'm getting engulfed in the idea of story, which is defined in the book as:

"A story is a character who wants something and overcomes conflict to get it."

I mean it's not an entirely new concept, but it feels fresh and different as I read Donald Miller's book.  I know that I'm living a story whether or not it's something I have thought much about. I've been through Story Formed Life a few times, so it's not unfamiliar. Yet, I guess, I have never really thought much about my own story; the one that I'm living and the ability I have to pursue a different story. Well, maybe that's not entirely true. I have, for at least the past couple years, known that I wanted a different story than that of my family. And in many ways I would say that I am living a story separate than what most of my family knows. Yet, it's not enough. My story isn't finished, and I certainly desire to continue learning how to be a part of a grandeur story. 

Ironically, I have been extended that invitation; we all have. "I am a tree in a story about a forest." I'm still learning what this means; still learning to love the forest and not be so concerned about my own individual tree. I may never completely understand it, but my hope is that in pursuing understanding I will lead a better story.

There are so many things that stood out to me as I read this book and I cannot possibly do them justice to try and explain. But I feel inspired and I feel hopeful. I have felt convicted; laughed and cried as I have read this book and I'm sure it is one I will read again.

C.S. Lewis is a wise man.

We all want progress, but if you're on the wrong road, progress means doing an about-turn and walking back to the right road; in that case, the man who turns back soonest is the most progressive.

We are what we believe we are.

Experience: that most brutal of teachers. But you learn, my God do you learn.

To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything, and your heart will certainly be wrung and possibly broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact, you must give your heart to no one, not even to an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements; lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket- safe, dark, motionless, airless--it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable.

keep me abiding, so that i might bear fruit

Roughly three months ago i sent myself a letter via futureme.org regarding fear and doubt I was experiencing as I was beginning to open myself up to a new possibility. At the time my uncertainty was far different than what has come to pass, but it's interesting how my encouragement and prayer is still relevant to how things actually turned out.

I simply said:
"I don't like the uncertainty. I don't know how to comfortably walk in that and be vulnerable. But maybe that's the challenge..
Don't shut yourself off. Be honest. Allow yourself to feel. Be mad. Be frustrated. Be disappointed. Be hopeful. Feel whatever it is that you need to feel. And not just in this situation. God, guard and protect my heart."

I did/am doing all of this and NONE of it was/is easy. I've experienced joy and pain, and I've questioned the purpose of these past 3 months. At times I'm still uncertain, and I want to fast forward through all of the difficult and uncomfortable feelings/situations and bask in the Lord's redemption. But in this moment of tension I'm trying to trust that God is using this for the glory of his Kingdom. I'm trusting that there are better things in store and that God will remain faithful. I know that he has answered my prayer in guarding and protecting my heart, even though I've experienced pain; I trust that he has protected me from the devastation that it could have been.

It's tempting to want to avoid and run away from everything that I've been feeling; to numb it all. But in trusting that the Lord will soften my heart and bring me healing, I've been trying my best to allow myself to feel whatever it is I need to feel. And in those moments, trying to surrender it to God. It's not an easy process and it has felt like a roller coaster of emotions. I cannot wait for this ride to end; to get off; and to know that whatever twists and turns lie ahead, God has equipped me to handle them because I have seen his faithfulness and I have trusted in him.

a few glimpses of joy. lest i forget.

you are making me new

Looking back at my blog and posts I wrote over a year ago, it's such a drastic difference from the place I am today. I was experiencing some of the same anxiety, doubts and fears I feel now, but for entirely different reasons. The Lord was faithful then and He'll be faithful now.  Pruning and purging is painful and it hurts, but this past year God has taught me a lot about rejoicing in my sufferings.  On most days, I still don't like it, but I trust that it's good. I cannot wait for the Lord's redemption.

 Romans 5:1-5 "Peace and Joy" 1 Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, 2 through whom we have gained access by faith into this grace in which we now stand. And we rejoice in the hope of the glory of God. 3 Not only so, but we also rejoice in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; 4 perseverance, character; and character, hope. 5 And hope does not disappoint us, because God has poured out his love into our hearts by the Holy Spirit, whom he has given us.