How Fickle My Heart

How fickle my heart and how woozy my eyes
I struggle to find any truth in your lies
And now my heart stumbles on things I don't know
My weakness I feel I must finally show
-Mumford & Sons, "Awake My Soul"

It's been awhile since I've posted.  That's what happens with a whirlwind finish to a semester before a time abroad and the following "detox," as one friend called it, in the first days at home.

God so totally rocked me this semester.  It was as if the things I struggled with sophomore year were finally brought full circle and the lies straight up rebuked.  Many of these things involved relationships with friends that went really well this year.  The father of lies tells me that no one likes me, I'm not worthy to be anyone's friend, I'm not spiritual enough to be friends with the cool people, and I can't do anything right.  At the same time the heart God gave me craves relationship.  I know these lies are not true when I come home to a surprise party because I'm leaving to study abroad.  I know that's not true when a friend shows up to help me frantically finish packing out my stuff.  These "well duh!" moments make me realize that these lies are never true because I am in Christ.  He didn't die on the cross to crush sin and death so that I could live in bondage to thinking I'm unworthy of anything...it is for freedom that Christ has set us free (Gal. 5:1).  In this knowledge, I am more able to serve, to love people better, and to be who God made me to be.  These lies are intended to destroy me but they are LIES.  They aren't true.  They don't control me.  That's not what I answer to.  Here's the essence of what I learned this semester, because its what I can take with me forward into this new season:

It all comes back to Him.  All of the awesome changes I just talked about came about because of God's timing of some wise words and circumstances that happened that made me realize chasing popularity, friends, affirmation, acceptance, and the like ultimately leads to loneliness.  There was a night when I finally had to say, "God I just want YOU!"  It's about turning my gaze, focus, and priority to Him and Him alone.  It's then and only then do things ever go how I want them to, when He becomes what I most want.  Our God is one who desires relationship, closeness, and who is always willing to give us more of Himself.  This sounds too easy... and sometimes it is.  I find myself relishing in friendship, not His presence.  I find myself going onto Facebook and sliding backwards into a gloomy pit of jealously and self-comparison.  In worship, I think about how "devout" I must be looking, rather than... worshiping.  When I want to grow closer to Him so I can be a "super cool and powerful spiritual person" and have super cool and powerful spiritual stories to share, because then maybe I will be popular!  Yikes.  How fickle my heart.  I mess this up all the time.  However, God doesn't send revelation to just leave us hanging.  In these stumbles, I hear so overwhelmingly "I still love you."  I don't even deserve these four-millionth chances at all.  Wow.  Thank you Jesus!

So now I'm home.  I won't be in my happy home sweet Hope bubble until August.  This is the real deal now.  I know that I'm rooted and established in Christ's love (see last post) and that His love of the best basement worship night is the SAME love that I take with me here, to China, and everywhere.  His love never fails, never gives up, never runs out on me.  It's been a challenge.  God used the season of first semester to teach me crazy things about Himself, using those around me to help and encourage me.  Now its up to me.  I don't have encouragement at every random encounter or exchange, I don't have the prayer chapel to retreat to, I don't have worship eight times a week.  I have my Bible, journal, and great music.  These things I take with anywhere.  I have friends who I get to tell the whole story to, because they haven't gotten to see it over time like Hope friends did.  Most of all, I have the presence of God Himself.  I have the Holy Spirit.  (There's an entire other post on that one too!)    I've been feeling pretty bummed and out of context for the past week... a new set of lies- that this can't last outside of Hope, or that it didn't mean anything to begin with, but I thankfully got to head to Portland and see an old friend and then see a Hope friend in Seattle (!!!) followed by the reuniting of the home crowd for our first baby shower (!!!).  God gave me what I needed in that- time to chill and catch up after a year and a half, a friend who's joy of the Lord is contagious, the celebration of new life.  Awake my soul.

One God.  No matter what.  No matter where.  Where you invest your love, you invest your life.  May we live and invest our lives to reflect the light of Christ.

Rooted

"I pray that out of his glorious riches he may strengthen you with power through his Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the Lord’s holy people, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge—that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God." -Ephesians 3:16-19.

This passage was shared at Friday Night Worship last night, and God totally spoke to me through it.  My time left at Hope before I go study abroad is drawing to a close, and it has been freaking me out this week.  I live with three seniors and I have lots of other senior friends or friends who are going abroad next year.  Who knows if I will see them again on this earth?  I have had the best semester of my Hope career and its ending so soon.  It's been easy to think that God must not want me to be very happy for very long, or that there is no way things will be good like this again for a long time.  It's very easy to think that I don't deserve it.  These are lies.  Going to China is God's plan for my life, just as being here is His plan for my life this semester.  Out of the center of His will is not where I want to be.  I'm not supposed to be here next semester.  However, my heart is breaking.  I don't want to leave the friendships that I have just formed.  I just got here.

And yet, God spoke to me through Ephesians.  I am rooted and established in love.  Right now, I feel rooted in where I live and in the love of many of the friendships that I have.  I have truly seen Christ's love through these relationships.  It's easy to feel that this temporary situation is where my roots are, and to be upset that I'm going to leave.  And then I realize- my DEEPEST roots are in Christ, and Him alone.  And I have Him WHEREVER I go.  I see how deep and wide and long and high His love is.  All good things come from Him.  Even my earthly roots come from Him.  He loves me so much that I can never hope to comprehend- and I am promised His fullness.  No matter what, I am rooted in Him.

Melody Sounds Like a Memory

You know how a song can remind you so much of a season?  Whenever I hear "10,000 Reasons" by Matt Redman or "All Thy Fullness" a Hope original, I think of the end of last school year.  I was exhausted in the depths of my soul.  The sophomore slump is a real deal.  These were the favorite chapel songs of the time, and I remember standing so many times thinking, "God, You really are all I have right now."  In the hurt, confusion, and exhaustion of that time, these songs were my certainty, clarity, and worship.  I listened to them late at night in Kenya, when the world just wasn't making sense to me.  Why do children get abandoned?  What am I supposed to be doing with my life?  I love how these songs remind me of that, many months and new seasons later, that I still have so many reasons to be grateful to God, that I need to sing of that, that He really is, always, my one and only Fullness.

Humility

If I could choose one word to describe encounters with God it would be humbling.  Being used by God is one of the most amazing and humbling things I can think of.  I've had experiences where I've known that I was speaking what God wanted me to say or what God wanted me to do.  Sometimes these experiences can seem like a really big deal, such as delivering the morning message to a group of campers, sometimes they are simply following the nudge to talk to someone and having a conversation that needed to be had.  I walk away from these situations usually with a "wow, that was pretty cool, I guess I can do something right!" feeling, but more importantly being totally in awe of God.  When I know the words did not come from me, I know that I am a small part of something so much bigger than me, when the words expand into something bigger than I can have imagined.  When the choice to serve or follow God leads to things no one would believe.  I am humbled that God would choose to use me for His great and vast purpose here on this earth.  I am astounded by His greatness.  I am humbled, to be a broken human who is allowed to mess up over and over again, and still invited into His presence.

Sometimes this humility is less glamorous too, and I am reminded of it in the smallest ways.  Its the look on my roommates face when I know I've crossed the line, but she gently corrects me in love.  Its the fact that my stuff is strewn all over the living room, and I say that I'll clean it up even though I probably won't, and I'm still loved and accepted.  Its the way that these girls have sought to know me, and see Christ in me.  I'm humbled.  They know me and they still love me, even though I'm not the perfect roommate.  Being humbled by God isn't the same as having my ego taken down a peg or being embarrassed by something.  There is such peace in knowing that I'm never going to have it all together, but that He does.  This is the word from God I've gotten recently... I still love you.  I screw up daily.  I put my eyes on worldly things, I think unkindly of others, I don't spend my time as I should.  He still loves me.

I am humbled in His presence.

Face Away from the Book

So I just finished a month long Facebook fast.  I knew I needed to seriously redefine my view of God and relationships, try and get over my comparison issues, and just focus on myself and the people I'm physically around for awhile.  So in week two of the semester (a month ago now, wow!) I asked my roommate to change my password.  I must say, it was glorious.  I didn't miss it too much to be honest.  God has given me a wonderful season of growing and being poured into.  I realized that I needed to desire Him for Himself and not for what He can give me or how I feel.  This meant laying down the idols of friendships, relationships, popularity and the like, thus I decided to cut out a major source of those battles-Facebook.  It was hard to swallow, but through it all I had some wonderful people speaking honest truth and kindness to me, and God delighted me in Himself, his unfailing love and faithful presence.
I'm living with a great group of girls this year, who all genuinely love and follow the Lord, and love me as a sister in Christ.  We laugh all the time, and this little apartment really does feel like home.  I'm in a receiving season I think- coming off of over a year of continually pouring out (camp, RA, Kenya...) I'm being loved on by my friends, community, and God.  This is all preparation for next semester... (could I go for too long without an adventure? never!) when I'll be headed to China for a semester of study abroad.  So I'm trying to squeeze as much joy out of this semester as I most possibly can.
Being off of Facebook and enjoying all these things purely for themselves has been wonderful.  I highly recommend it.  I've gotten to see how God sees ME, not anyone else, because I'm not supposed to be them... that's not who He made me.  We only post the good times in our lives on Facebook, so it makes it easy to think that everyone else's life is better than yours.  Which isn't true at all of course!  I get to focus on what I AM doing not on what I'm not doing.  Fulfilling His purpose for me here at Hope doesn't necessarily mean being popular or well known or well liked.  And His purpose is what I want to be seeking.  And this is a daily battle.  Sometimes I fail, and I just want people to like me, and it gets easy to believe the lie deep in my soul that no one likes me at all.  I am a broken human being.  But God's love never fails, never gives up, never runs out on me and never changes.  He STILL loves me even when I mess it up.  I have become more assured of this over this time.  Its so easy to get bogged down in regret, rather than saying "well, I messed up, God please forgive me, let's get going again."

I Miss

I miss her sweet head in the crook of my shoulder.

I miss her eyes, heavier and heavier and finally closed.

I miss the milky baby smell, the little braids that scratch my chin.

I miss the perfect finders and toes, the arms that reach out for mine.

I miss tiny bundles of blankets containing life redeemed.

I miss holding my sweet kids and singing God's grace over them, praying for healing of their tiny shattered hearts.

Rebuild (Redemption)

I think there's always uncertainty at the beginning of a new school year.  What will this year hold?  Will I survive my classes with decent grades to boot?  What new unexpected things will happen this semester?  Who will I end up spending my time with?  How will I be different by the end?  My answers are different this year as I'll only be on campus for fall semester.  The arc of my time at Hope for this year lasts for four months instead of nine.  Life will go on without me, and I will not have Hope with me.  Anyways, the first weeks are always crazy.  Last night, I was at a worship night in someone's living room, with about 20 other people.  It was spontaneous and beautiful and awesome to just have some God time.  An analogy that came to mind is of a brick wall.  There are circumstances in our lives that knock out or blast apart pieces of the "walls" of our lives- disappointments, hurts, hard times, failures, sin.  But redemption happened on the cross.  In His dying, Jesus covered our sins and offers this broken world redemption in Him.  In Him, our broken walls can be rebuilt.  When I experience His healing and reconciliation in my own life I often imagine that the holes in the wall are being rebuilt.  The wall is stronger and more beautiful than before.  "You're Beautiful" by Phil Wickham was one of the songs that we sang last night, famous for its melodious "ooohs."  (Just listen to the song).  Everyone really went for it on these parts... I think we had at least five different keys going on, but I think that almost made it better... it was just glorious praise!  In the time I got to spend with Him last night, God let me know that He is rebuilding and redeeming me, just as He is for you too.  This can only be found in Him.

When we arrive at eternity's shore
Where death is just a memory and tears are no more
We'll enter in as the wedding bells ring
Your bride will come together and we'll sing
You're beautiful 


Savior 
Redeemer
Restorer 
Rebuilder 
Lord, You are beautiful

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QGlTzH9xkXQ