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.