Feet On the Ground

Everyone is posting what they’re thankful for today. A home, friends, family. Stuff like that. I’m thankful for all of that, sure, but it has all been taken from me in the past in one way or another. The thing that I’ve been given recently that will never be taken away from me is my newfound ability to stand up for myself.

For so long, I let people walk all over me. I let it happen in the name of turning the other cheek or being humble. I foolishly allowed myself to be taken advantage of because I thought that it was wrong of me to call it out. A few years ago I sort of did something about it by avoiding the people who made me feel like that, but I was still taking the coward’s way out because I refused to confront the problem. And then something stupidly horrible happened a few weeks ago, and I realized that by being a doormat, I have squelched the glory of God in my life.

I’m learning to react firmly, but in love.

I now know what I would say to him if he finally talked to me. I know what I would say to my father if he ever contacted me again. I know what I would say to a friend who used me or to a family member who demeaned me. I know what I would say to a church member who treated me like I was beneath them.

I’m finally entering into a wonderful balance of knowing that God will do something to protect me, but that I also have a right and a duty to stand up for myself if it’s something that I can stop.

More than anything, I’m thankful for Jesus.

He saved my soul when I was younger, but since I graduated college I have entered a time of hardship and stress and gone through some very difficult experiences. Through it all, I have exhibited more personal growth in this period than in my entire life. He has led me to find reservoirs of strength that I didn’t even know exist and shown me how to find emotional control. Because I have pledged my life to serve Him, He has given me more freedom than I could ever imagine. After spending so much time afraid and confused and inhibited, I’ve finally found life.

I actually feel like Jesus is thankful for me, too. Thankful that I am living as His hands and feet, and that I am connected to Him for eternity. I’m thankful for His sacrifice, but without me, His sacrifice would have meant nothing. Truly realizing this for the first time makes me realize that I am actually worth something.

Tags: learning

Excited to be doing yet another book review for Litfuse! It’s so much fun to get these books in the mail from them. This one is a prairie story written by Tricia Goyer and Ocieanna Fleiss. Tricia is super sweet! I’ve talked to her on Twitter and through e-mail and I love getting a peek into her eventful life. She’s done some amazing things and has great plans for the future too!

Anyway, about the book!

Basically, it’s a prairie story. Obviously. Julia Cavanaugh works for an orphanage and when it closes down, she travels with the girls on a train out west to give them over to loving families. When she gets to the last stop, she finds out that her caregiver had arranged for her to be given over as a bride to a not-so-desirable man. Her options are pretty bleak, and she spends most of the book trying to find a way back to New York while simultaneously carving out a life on the prairie.

The book was such an easy read, which is always appreciated. The characters were believable and I really felt Julia’s pain and uncertainty when she was uprooted and had to wait it out in a foreign place among strangers. If you’re looking for more than a Christian prairie story, though, you’ll be disappointed. The spiritual conversions were too convenient and sometimes felt like it was written mainly for the standards of CBA. I was kind of waiting for a twist that would be a bit unfortunate for someone and make it seem more real, but it didn’t really happen.

Not that it’s completely a bad thing, of course. We need books that are good, fun, easy reads where everything works out in the end. Those are great for encouragement. You just have to know what you’re getting into here. I felt like the authors totally had the capability to take the story beyond the expected, but they chose not to do so. Maybe it was the genre. Who knows. I’d love, though, to see them dig into something deeper.

All my life, I’ve heard about following Jesus. That we should follow in His footsteps until, of course, we can’t take it anymore and we see one set of footprints in the sand because He’s carrying us through our troubles. It’s a bunch of stuff that sounds good, but when you really put it into practice it’s completely exhausting. Following behind someone constantly means that you are limited to doing exactly what they do and going exactly where they are going. You remain chained and shackled, unable to exercise your will and follow your desires because you are kept in a certain place.

Zechariah 12 talks about the day where God will bring salvation, and how the feeblest among people will be like David, and that the glory of them will not surpass that of Judah. The weakest among us? Like David. The greatest? Like Jesus. There is a theme arising now in the Christian world to find out who Jesus is and how to be like Him. I always likened myself to being like David, even before I knew the significance of it. But with David, a man who was after God’s heart, always got in his own way. He accomplished great things but could have done more. Jesus, though…nothing got in His way. He wasn’t a man striving after God’s heart- He actually had God’s heart.

To simply follow Christ requires me to climb up on that cross and suffer. And that’s something I cannot and will never do. As long as I am trying to keep myself in a position of following, I will be requiring of myself something entirely different than He requires of me. It is finished means that He has completed the work, not that I have to help Him. When this is realized, I am free. Free to be like Jesus. Not just to follow Him. I am elevated to a status that is absolutely unlimited. It requires me to live in the tension of never being able to be as holy as He is while being granted an unlimited supply of holiness and righteousness through His grace.

It makes absolutely no sense whatsoever.

But it is completely necessary. If I do not set my sights on becoming like Jesus, I will constantly get in my own way. My flesh will continually rise up to render me powerless. I’ve reached the point where I can rebuke the devil with the best of them, but it doesn’t matter if I don’t realize the power that has been given to me and exercise my rights as a daughter of God.

It makes the whole process so much more exciting. A wild, intimidating, breathtaking adventure. Just like that, by changing my worldview from “Christ follower” to “someone who is like Jesus,” I have been released into a new way of living that is really what He meant when He came here in the first place.

Tags: change, excitement, learning

You ever read something and then just feel like it totally ran you over?

Practically everything that goes on in the world – wanting your own way, wanting everything for yourself, wanting to appear important – has nothing to do with the Father. It just isolates you from Him. The world and all its wanting, wanting, wanting is on the way out – but whoever does what God wants is set for eternity. – 1 John 2:16-17, The Message

I flipped my Bible open to where the ribbon bookmark was (I skip around a lot) and saw that I had underlined that. I read that line and shut it and stewed on it for a couple days. Apparently, I had read it before, wanted to blog about it, underlined it, and forgot. Then I read it this time and tried to avoid it, but it was ingrained in my spirit.

It comes up at such an interesting time. I just started a job where there’s really no desire to appear important. Just do the best you can and there are so many people there that it doesn’t really matter if you do exceptionally well or not. Mediocrity isn’t a sin. Contrast that with law school. Wow. That is a cutthroat environment where ranking and status is absolutely everything. And while I’m very likely not going to get into a top school, I want to go to a good one. Except that there are different standards of good, and even if you get into Harvard/Yale/Stanford (top 3) people are still going to be talking trash about you, even if it’s just because they’re jealous. Or if you get into one of the top 14 schools, you’re going to be upset that you didn’t make it into the top 3. Or if you’re in one of the top 30 schools that’s not in the T14, you’re going to be trying to beat everyone else in rankings so you can transfer to a better school.

And if you go to a 3rd or 4th tier school, apparently you just don’t really care.

It’s a mess.

I have such an ingrained desire to do well and be better than everyone else around me. I think most of that comes from wanting my dad to be proud of me, and then when I realized that was impossible, wanting other people to notice and respect me. Even though I know that it really doesn’t matter, I still want it anyway. Then, like last night when I looked at law school rankings and tuition prices, I get completely overwhelmed by it all because I realize that I’m just a poor little girl wanting to make it in a world that would be more than satisfied to see me fall on my face. And I realize that I’m truly no one, and that finding someone to side with me in this world is going to be really, really rare.

And then it becomes clearer that none of it matters.

If He wants me to be influential and important in the eyes of people so that I will do more for Him, that will happen. And if He wants me to come from behind and do great things totally out of nowhere, then it will happen that way. But if He wants me to really remain a nobody, doing things that are great to no one but Him, then THAT will happen.

Who am I to choose? Who am I to care? In the end, the very end that will never ever end, I’ll be in the same place anyway.

Tags: learning

Soooo here’s another book review I’m doing as part of the blog tour for LitFuse Publicity. It’s a book called Pearl Girls, and basically a bunch of authors and speakers sent in short stories with “pearls” of wisdom. Info about the project can be found here!.

I enjoyed reading what these women had to offer, especially the ones that I’d heard of. It feels like a peek into someone’s life and it’s so special to be allowed to know what they’ve experienced. Some of them were quite painful, but they have all come out of them with a special understanding of life and grace and it illuminates the point that we have to find the lessons in the hard things that we endure in life.

The thing that really bothered me about this was that each story was too short. There are many stories here, but the book itself is pretty thin, and I felt like each story should have had another page. I’m sure that it was planned out that way, because it seems like every single story that I read wasn’t concluded. Most of them had happened years earlier, and I wanted another page of how the woman was affected by what she went through. It just didn’t seem like there was enough to satisfy me. And maybe that’s just totally my personality. I know that it’s a good point that life isn’t wrapped up and concluded in nice little packages, and that our stories keep going. I just wanted some more, and I wonder why the project didn’t feel complete.

Today has been so weird. I’ve had a great day but also a big internal struggle as I seriously feel the devil trying to make me miserable over this situation. Even though I’m still partially in denial, it has been long enough that I have to accept that it is happening, that I can’t stop it, and that I don’t necessarily want to stop it but that I just need something good to happen to me.

I’m not sure if I’ll honestly ever believe that we weren’t meant to be together. Because I feel like we were. And some days, like today, it’s almost as if I feel like the spirit realm is absolutely furious on my behalf. I was listening to David Crowder Band’s song “The Nearness” today, and this is the part that always sticks out:

We can feel the breath of the angels
See the walls bend and shake
The skies in a tremble
Feel the ground break

We hear the songs of the heavens
See the world come awake
The bonds start to loose so
Feel the earth shake

I totally connect with this because this is what I’m experiencing right now. Also, pretty heavy stuff for a Baptist! You go, Crowder! (Heh.) Anyway. Sometimes I just feel that there is something stirring, and that all of the power of the heavens is barely being held at bay by God, who is running His finger over the trigger that would let it all break loose. The reason that I haven’t tried to defend myself against this onslaught of pain is because I know that I have the power of heaven and Earth on my side, and that the God of creation is just waiting for the right moment to do something huge.

I would absolutely love to see what the angels are doing around me right now. It feels like they’re sparring with one another and training with their swords to prepare for a big battle. When it happens, the earth will shake and the skies will tremble and I am so not envious of the person who wronged me. God does not like it when you mess with His children, and this is going to be far more serious than a redneck papa coming outside with a loaded shotgun (this picture is not dead for West Virginians).

Seriously. Something is coming. I don’t know what’s happening or going to happen, but when it does I have proof that I predicted it.

Tags: anticipation, change, excitement

So I logged into my work e-mail this morning as usual, as they tell us to keep it open at all times while we’re there. I had a couple e-mails, and thinking that they were just the routine stuff that the new hires get, I clicked through them pretty quickly to skim over. I mean, it was 8 AM, and nothing gets more than a cursory reading before lunch.

Until I read an e-mail that said this:

Please know that God is using you for good.

Sometimes, God will put a light in a dark place,
not to enlighten the lost,
but to serve as a beacon,
to lead someone who has strayed from the fold and forgotten his way.

I have no idea who the sender is. I tried looking up his company profile, but I haven’t seen him. He’s not in my class, at least, I’m pretty sure he’s not. I’m COMPLETELY stumped. Oddly enough, though, I’m comforted.

Even if what we get isn’t what we really wanted, God will do small things to let you know that you are where you need to be for the time being. For instance, there are two guys in my class that I’ve really hit it off with and they’ve been my buddies from day one. Our collective sense of humor goes well together and even though we have completely different backgrounds and personalities, we really get along well and that is what actually makes me look forward to going to work. I know that I’m going to be cracking up within 10 minutes. But the funniest part? There are several shifts to choose from, and we all chose even before we started our training classes. One of the guys has the same shift that I do, and the other is only working one different day than both of us.

We didn’t know each other before we started. But I believe that God caused us to request similar shifts….which means we’re going to be working on the same team after training.

The job itself? Snore. Totally not what I want to be doing. It’s teaching me a lot, though. If I’m there, I might as well work hard at it and learn as much as I can. Including how to bring joy to other people, because the people there that bring me joy totally make it worth getting up at 6:30 in the morning.

Okay, so that’s a stretch. It definitely makes things a lot easier though.

Who are you bringing joy today? In your job? In your household? Your barista at Starbucks? I mean, he makes you happy by giving you a caffeinated drink. Can’t you return the favor?

Tags: appreciation

I went to orientation for a new job Friday morning and I officially start training on Monday. I’m thankful to have an opportunity to make money, don’t get me wrong. It sucks to have no income. But it’s one of those “in-between” jobs, where you are just doing it because you have to while being sort of terrified that you’ll still be there ten years down the road. They hired a bunch of people seasonally and it’s definitely a motley crew. I am thankful that I get to wear what I want to work and be comfortable, but the lack of a dress code doesn’t really promote professionalism, especially when the people in charge are walking around in sweatpants and Ugg boots. I felt myself sliding into the old habits of putting forth a half-hearted effort, not trying to excel but rather to just get by with what I can do. Trying to avoid standing out.

Then I went to get my hair cut, and she had fun with it and gave me what I called movie star hair. It was fabulous and I felt like a million bucks when I left. Then I bought some awesome new shoes that I’d had my eye on, really gorgeous ones from Macys that were overpriced but so hot that I didn’t even care. Hairstyles and shoes don’t define me, but I realized when God started speaking into my spirit that the extra boost of confidence and vitality that I felt after getting them is how He made me to be.

There are some people who are totally content with little and only do what they need to do to get by and lead simple lives. Honestly? I think I’d tend to be one of those people, if God would just leave me alone. The price of trying to drag yourself out of that kind of life is very costly because it can lead you astray and get your focus off of what- well, Who, matters. I don’t want that to happen. I don’t want to seem discontent or ungrateful. But God seared that feeling into my spirit because He wanted me to know my calling. To know that I’m constantly supposed to have my eyes upward and to continue to progress. It’s something that he has instilled in me, and He is showing me more and more that I don’t have to make it all happen. That He will do it, but I have to be willing to put my own effort into it when the time comes to step up and carry it all out.

I’m alive for a reason. If I don’t step out when He calls, I might as well be slipping a noose around my neck. He wants me to accomplish great things. To be an example. If I only obey Him with my body by keeping myself alive that way, but don’t commit my entire being to what He wants, that’s not true obedience.

I still have days where deep sadness tries to overwhelm me. I wonder what the point is. I wish the journey could just be over. It has been two weeks since I found out the worst news of my entire life and I’m surprised about how well I’m doing, honestly. Before the whole thing even sank in, I was absolutely terrified about what would happen to me when the impact finally hit me. Surprisingly, I can get up and smile and rejoice and praise. But that doesn’t mean it’s all gone, and although I totally and completely believe in deliverance, I’m not sure it will ever truly be erased. Simply because I’ve had to learn to cope with it. I think it has made me a stronger person overall.

In the middle of all of this mess, God is showing me the kind of life that He has designed for me. And there’s some part of my soul that is so determined to not miss out on it that I’m convinced I will give it the best effort I have. Period.

Tags: anticipation, appreciation, change, learning, pain