What If?

I have a few thoughts on my mind right now. But two stand out most of all. This first, and more important, being what if I could help people in my life realize their potential? Their potential to be the best friends they can be. Their potential to reach out and make someone's day, or even change someone's life for the better.
Their potential to make a difference.

What if I could help someone realize their potential to create?
To create better friendships, to create a better prayer life, to create a way to show the lost and lonely that there is hope and there is healing.
You see, creativity isn't just painting and music and dancing and sculpture and photography and writing. Creativity is much more than just the typical definitions of art, because anything you could do to impact someone, bring hope to their life, or make any sort of difference, big or small, takes creativity.
We were made in the image of a God who is ultimately creative. Therefore, I believe all of us, as human beings, can be creative in some way. That may come in the for of tradition (or not so traditional) art, but more often it comes in how we relate to the Creator and his creation (people and nature). It's how we speak to others, share our hopes, pursue our goals, and show our love. We are creative in our gift giving, in our encouraging or others, in our prayer life... Not just the art we hang on our walls or the songs we sing.
What if I could help someone realize that potential? What if I could help someone see something important to them and go after it? What if I could encourage someone to create the change they want to see in the world?

And secondly...
What if I could have a pet goat? That'd be pretty cool.
I like goats.

Behind the Scenes

Several weeks ago, my fiance and I entered into what we call "super save mode," meaning we don't buy anything we don't absolutely need. What pushed us into "super save mode" was simply life. With a wedding and honeymoon to pay for all our own, him still in school, and me about to start cosmetology school in a couple months, we knew we couldn't afford to throw our money on things we didn't need.

We were doing great with our new saving plans, and even found ways to do stuff with friends that wouldn't cost much, if anything. Then we were hit with some pretty rough news.

The VA was cutting John's funding early. That meant no monthly housing allowance that he had been using for rent, bills, and food for the last year and a half. It also meant that the last five weeks of his schooling would not be paid for. We were both very grateful that his school is allowing him to put off paying the remainder until he graduates, but with all the saving we already needed to do, that extra blow really hurt.

Knowing I would have to help with his rent and bills on top of my own. it was easy for my mind to jump straight to thoughts of desperation we all have when something big or scar is thrust into our laps unexpectedly. I'm sure you know the thoughts I'm talking about. They often come in the form of "why" questions.

Why is this happening to me?

Why me?

Why didn't God do something to stop this?

But as quickly as those questions crossed my mind, they blew away. Because I remembered ways God had provided in the past and I knew His nature hadn't changed since then. I knew He would provide again. So, following the advice of my mother (as moms always give the best advice), I began to pray. I didn't pray that He would provide, for I already was sure of this fact. Instead I began thanking Him for what I already knew He would do, but had not yet happened.

While I already had peace about the situation, something about putting my faith into action in this way seemed to solidify my surety that it would be taken care of even more so.

Then, as He often likes to do, God surprised me. The very evening the new hit, I came home to find a piece of mail sitting on the table, addressed to me, from my school. I opened it to find a response to a scholarship I had applied for--one I had been told was for $500. Upon reading the letter, I found that I had not been awarded 500, but $1000!

Already His provision was showing up.

While I may not know how the rest of this mess will be sorted out, my heart cannot help but rejoice in what I know He is doing behind the scenes.

In times like these, I often let the holy Spirit speak to me through music, as He is so good at doing. This time around, he keeps drawing my mind back to The Day That I Found God, off Switchfoot's new album, Where the Light Shines Through.

This noose ain't getting any looser.

I get so fearful about the future.

I feel the shame of my accuser,

But that ain't you.

The accuser, the father of lies, wants nothing more than to distract us from what the Lord is doing in our lives. Do not buy into the lies he throws your was in an attempt to blind you with shame over things you cannot help.

Where is Go out in the darkness?

'Cause the voices in my head ain't talking honest,

Saying maybe you made us then forgot us,

But that ain't you. That ain't you, no!

And all I know is that I still don't know a lot.

I don't know how it ends, I'm in the middle of this plot.

Yeah, I found grace for the man that I am not.

I found out the day I lost myself was the day that I found God. 

God didn't forget you. He is working right now, whether we can see it right now or not. We are still in the middle of this story, by the end it will all make sense and we will see all he's done for us along the way. One crisis doesn't mean it's over. For God likes to show up in the place where we've lost everything. Especially ourselves.

I hope that my experience may encourage you to have faith that whatever may be going on in your life or whatever is going on in the world that makes you wonder where God is or what He is doing, that He is working for you constantly, behind the scenes.

Out On a Limb

As someone who has struggled with anxiety, I know how terrifying it is to go out on a limb. To do something that could end horribly wrong.

Most people struggle on some level with this fear of the unknown, so I'm sure you can relate; but with anxiety, it is much worse. The fear is almost debilitating sometimes, and it makes the one struggling with it have trouble saying or doing things that would only make your average person somewhat nervous.

 

I have come to learn over the last couple years that anxiety roots itself in a lack of peace and manifests itself in the form of fear. Fear of doing something wrong, fear of sounding foolish or looking stupid, fear of disappointing those close to you, fear of being misunderstood. Most of all it manifests as a general fear of failure. Where most people are a little nervous that something may be awkward or not go quite as hoped, those of us with anxiety answer the question of "What could possibly go wrong?" with a loud and uncomfortable, "EVERYTHING!"

 

I don't know about others, since people with anxiety usually have anxiety about talking about their anxiety (ironic, I know), but my mind would always jump to one of the worst possible outcomes. Usually the second to the worst, then I'd think of something worse than that and I'd no longer want to confront whoever I needed to confront or have whatever conversation I knew I needed to have. So I made a habit of thinking of as many possible outcomes as I could, having them get progressively better. I'd end up with a list of six or more outcomes, lots of time wasted, and still the desire to hide under a rock and wish the situation would go away on its own, but usually somewhere in thinking of all those potential outcomes, I'd find one good one. Some glimmer of hope that got me to move and made me know I had to take the risk with the less than favorable outcomes.

But sometimes these "glimmers of hope" didn't always glimmer. They didn't shine, they didn't promise a chance at the perfect outcome, they sometimes weren't even the least negative option on the table. In fact, sometimes, what made me move away from my fear to take a leap of faith was the scariest option on the table. Now before you misunderstand me completely, allow me to explain.

 

You see, there was once this girl named Esther. Esther was nothing more than a simple Jewish peasant girl, but boy was she pretty. Now I don't mean generally pretty, but she was gorgeous enough that when the king needed a new wife and decided to round up all the single ladies in the area, she was the one he chose  out of the masses. Fast forward a bit. Esther was now queen, and as queen, she heard a terrifying bit of news. One of the king's highest in command had plans to kill the Jews, her people. She knew she must appeal to the king if she were to stop this disastrous thing from taking place, but she also knew the king's temper. He did not like to be disturbed. He wanted no one to come to him unless he called on them, even her, his wife. It was common knowledge that the reason he needed a new wife in the first place was because he had the last one executed for doing something that angered him. So, naturally, Esther was afraid to seek an audience with the king. She was afraid of what might happen to her, but after weighing the options, it was the darkest and scariest option that moved her to action.

If she didn't talk to the king, everyone she'd ever known and loved would die.

So she put her trust in God and went to speak to the king, not because she found some hope to cling to in her analyzing of the situation, but because she realized there would be no hope at all if she didn't move. She realized that what would be lost if she did nothing was far worse than what would be lost if she tried and failed.

 

Several months ago, I, like Esther, had a decision to make. Unlike Esther, my decision wasn't a life or death situation, but with how anxious about it I was, it might as well have been. My decision would, however, effect not only my life and future for at least a short time, but another's life and future as well. Like Esther, I found myself having to make a choice I didn't feel quite ready to make, though I don't know if I'd ever have been truly ready for it. Fear almost kept me at a standstill, but also like Esther I discovered something in my weighing of the situation. I realized that if I did nothing, I very well could lose any chance of keeping the other person in my life. And it wasn't until faced with the possibility of losing someone I cared deeply for did I realize how minor any of the other outcomes I had been stressing over really were.

 

In case you don't know the story, Esther went out on a limb, sought audience with the king, and prevailed! Not only were her people spared, but the man plotting to kill them was executed. I also went out on a limb, and so far, I'm not disappointed in my decision. In fact, I have learned so much more about myself, my God, and others in the last few months than I would have if I let this slip through my fingers.

 

So, you see, I understand how terrifying it can be to go out onto a limb. I know how debilitating all the "what ifs" popping up around you can be. But if I've learned one thing in this life, it's that the most beautiful flowers and the most delicious fruits often grow at the end of the most seemingly dangerous branches.

How will you ever experience the beauty and taste the joy if you don't take the risk and climb out into the unknown?

Losing Control

"If any would come after me, they must deny themselves, take up their cross daily and follow me."
Mark 8:34

In my last post I talked about fear. Specifically I talked about letting go of that fear to find peace. I think this verse fits that concept perfectly.
I, like many, have spent a lot of time focusing on the second part of this verse, the "pick up your cross" part. But that's not the part that stood out to me the other day. For the first time, my eyes were drawn to "deny yourself," and I began thinking about what exactly that looks like. At first, I thought of what I described in In the Face Of Fear, about how we must turn our fear over to Jesus. But how exactly does that go hand in hand with denying ourselves?

Fear comes from a lot of things. We fear change, we fear death, we fear loss, but largely I think a lot of fear comes from feeling like we no longer have control. Fear comes when something big is happening, something that could mean we have to change the way we live, act, or view the world. Fear comes when something happens that we really have no power to change. So, by surrendering that fear, we are denying ourselves in a sense.
But denying ourselves goes deeper than that. It's not just admitting to God we're afraid so He can eradicate that fear. It's denying ourselves the right we think we have to hang onto any negative and destructive habits and mindsets that we continue to cling to. Things like worry, doubt, anger, and judgment. But really all four of those boil down to fear--fear for ourselves, our loved ones, our comfort. But mostly we fear our loss of control. A dear friend of mine recently put it this way, "Fear makes us choose the easy route, the predictable route. But fear is never a solid foundation. Fear only breeds more fear. We think we're in control until the inevitable storms tear the notion from our hands and we discover we have absolutely no control. Hence, more fear."
When we deny ourselves, we say no to our desire to control our situation and give it back over to the only One who has control in the first place.

Recently I got to first hand experience what denying yourself is really like when God convicted me of holding onto something I knew wasn't mine.
You see, my boyfriend has been going through some health issues recently, and I have this bad habit of taking the pain of others onto myself. I mean, don't get me wrong, being able to empathize or even just sympathize with others is great, but I've always been good at taking everything a step farther than needed. I end up worrying and stressing over a problem in another's life as if it were my own problem. I would work myself into these knots where I could no longer feel God's presence, even though I knew He was there.
Now these aren't life threatening health issues or anything like that, just something that will require him to change the way he does certain things and even maybe give up some stuff neither of us expected he would have to quit this soon. Regardless of whether it's life threatening or not, I know how much pain he's in physically, as well as emotionally and spiritually, I can imagine. Having to face changes like this is never easy, and while I should be trying to offer some peace to him during this, I found myself as threatened by the storm as he was.

It was on a Sunday morning shortly after this all began that God brought to mind a prayer I had said several months before when facing something else that was out of my control.
"Lord," I had said. "I don't really know what to do with this situation, and there's not really anything I can do, so I'm sorry for trying to take over. You're in control, I know you are. So, here, you can have him back. Thanks for letting me have him in my life, but he's not mine anyways. So you do your thing, and if you would still have me be a part of this plan of yours, I would very much like to see how it unfolds."
Sitting there remembering that prayer, I gave this heavy sigh and said, "I know I've said this already, but I'm holding on again, and I shouldn't be because he's not mine anyway. Thanks for letting me borrow him for a while, but ultimately he is yours, and you know what you're doing. So here, you can have him back."

It wasn't until I denied my flesh the right it thought it had to worry and stress over what to do with this storm was I able to understand what to do with my situation. It's truly amazing how the Spirit works, bringing not only the fruit of the Spirit with which you longed for, peace in my case, but also those that will go hand in hand it help you face what is up ahead. For with the peace came a joy that made the clouds less scary and a courage to face the next road blocks.Also came patience to wait out this storm no matter how long it would take and strength to allow the one who's facing the storm to lean on me whenever he has trouble seeing Jesus, who I lean on, at the stern of the boat.
But along with equipping you, the Spirit also brings this inexplicable level of understanding. For when my peace came, so also came this understanding that though I may not know how long this will take or how painful it may be, we would come out of it and there would be something awesome at the end. I knew it like I knew I still breathed, like I knew the earth was still turning and my heart still beating. How I knew, I don't know, but I can't shake this knowing that goes beyond my understanding. Something good is coming, even if we can't see it yet.

But the same way we cannot ignore the first part of Mark 8:34, we shouldn't ignore the other half to focus on it. "Take up your cross daily and follow me."
Daily we must practice this denying our desire for control to follow the only One who knew true peace. Do not get discouraged when you find you've picked back up fears and insecurities that you've already surrendered in the past. Instead, keep in mind a prayer my sister shared with me several years back when she was facing her own storms and fighting her own demons, "I'm sorry, Lord, that I have picked back up what I already laid at your cross."
It is never too late to turn to the Lord and release the white-knuckled hold you have on your need to control that which is out of your grasp.

In the Face Of Fear

"Why are you so afraid? Do you still have no faith?"

Maybe it's just me, but these sound like fighting words. I've never really liked when people tell me I have no reason to feel the way I do about something, whether that be scared, excited, hurt, or something else entirely. I also would feel a little embarrassed and maybe a little put off if someone asked why I have so little faith. Both questions together just seem a little too uncomfortable and offensive for my liking.
Then how come, coming from Jesus, they bring such comfort?

In my last post, When Storms Come Raging, I talked more about the passage in which these questions can be found (Mark 4). This passage tells of how Jesus calmed the disciples' fears with only a few words in the face of an overwhelming storm. While this is a great story about Jesus calming a literal storm, it is sometimes hard to transfer the meaning behind stories to our day to day lives.
How exactly do we find peace amidst the storms of our lives?

In the last year, I have heard a lot of speakers, authors, and pastors talk on the topic of forgiveness and letting go of fear (two things that definitely should happen if you are to have true peace in your life). Since this is all about storms, and storms often bring an extra large helping of fear to the table, the thought seemed very fitting.
I can't remember who was speaking, all I remember is they said that the only way to conquer fear is to not allow it to rule over you. Meaning, do not dwell on fear. A Graham Cooke quote I heard recently perfectly explains how this works. He says, "Take your eyes off the negative and you will disempower it." Anything you focus on, anything you dwell on, you give power to. You allow it to rule a part of your life and consciousness.
The speaker continued by saying that you can't ignore the fear either, because that creates pain where it does not need to be. For the fear will not just go away, it will linger beneath the surface and make you feel like there is something wrong with you for having that fear. And that shame will keep you from actually facing and eradicating it once and for all.
So then what do we do?
As he instructed, and I have implemented on more than one occasion, we must look our fear straight in the face. We must recognize that it is there, but not dwell on it or allow ourselves to slip into a pit of self-pity. Then we must turn to God in prayer and say, "I am afraid."

Believe me, I thought it sounded silly too, the first time I heard it. But it's just like what the disciples did in that boat. They turned to Jesus and said, "Lord, I am afraid."
I have had several chances to do this since hearing that speaker, and each time it was one of the most freeing things I could have done. There was something about recognizing my fear, not bottling it inside, and actually turning it over simply with no complicated prayers or formulas, just saying, "I am afraid," that lifted this huge weight off my shoulders. And that's because I could almost hear Him saying to me, "Why are you so afraid? Do you still have no faith?"
The words don't come in a condescending or condemning way, but gently, as a father comforts a child who is scared of the dark. It is in those words that you know you really have nothing to fear. And the warmth and peace that comes from that has always been overwhelming enough to keep me in tears long after the fear filled ones have ceased.

Trust me, I know it sounds too simple to work that way. In all honesty, I was a little uncertain about it the first time I tried it. But I was scared and I was desperate and I was tired of feeling that way. But I can also tell you where that uncertainty came from.
I, like many, have trouble seeing God in the midst of the storm. When urgent or life altering matters press heavily on your mind, it's easy to forget He's there.

I think the biggest thing overlooked in the story of Jesus calming the storm is that He was there the whole time. He had never once left them alone to face the storm by themselves, but was sitting in the very same boat they were worried was about to capsize. It wasn't until they turned to Him with their fear and called on His name did He calm the storm.
He hasn't left you, but so long as you continue to cling to your fear and your need to be in control, He can't do much to calm the storms raging inside of you.

Pits and Valleys

So, it's been a little while since I've written anything. Usually when I have these bouts of not blogging, it is because I am so wrapped up in my novel, or simply because I haven't quite put together a thought on what God's been teaching me that's straight enough to blog about. Or at least not straight enough to blog about in my preferred style, complete with examples, analogies, and stories.
But these last few weeks that has not been the case.

The thing is, I haven't been putting a lot of effort into my novel recently or even my relationship with God. That's not to say I didn't have the desire to do either, because I did. I longed for my creative highs and my peaceful mornings spent in the word. But over the last few weeks, those "peaceful mornings" have been filled with depression, distraction, and stress. While the depression would leave me once I got myself out of bed and moving, the stress and distractions would always linger through much of the day, bringing my focus levels to an all time low. With the desire to move forward, but no attention span, my motivation quickly dwindled. Every morning I would ask God, "Please, show me something. Bring me closer to you this day. I want to know you more." And while each day I found some small rarity in a passage I would never have looked in to find out anything more about my wonderful Creator, that step forward was always accompanied by several tiny steps back. The pattern left me feeling stuck. Like I was making progress, but not enough to get any forward momentum. Like a conveyor belt was moving beneath me, but my feet were strapped with lead and I could do nothing more than shuffle along just fast enough to stay exactly where I was, all while longingly staring at what I most desperately wanted at the end of the belt.

I reached a point where I was getting angry. Somewhat with myself, somewhat with God, but mostly just with this feeling of being stuck that I couldn't seem to shake. This distracted mindset that kept me from doing what I know I must do. I found myself thinking things like, "What's the point? I'm not getting anything out of this," or, "I can help people. I have before, I want to again, but how can I do that when I can't even connect to the One who gave me my heart for others?" or even, "If writing is my calling and I can't get myself to write, what am I?"
But I continued to do what I've been doing since this spring. I continued praying (Or trying to. Apparently it's very hard to pray when your mind can't stay focused on one thing for more than twenty seconds. Who knew.) and continued reading my bible every day. Even when I got to boring chapters Exodus 25, which for those who don't know, is the first of several chapters just about how to build the tabernacle and the sacred objects within it. Even on those chapters, I tried to find something to underline, something to write about, something that showed me more of human nature or God's character. But despite my efforts to find something even in these chapters, I still felt stuck. I was still plodding against the conveyor belt endlessly with no end in sight.

Then, Wednesday evening, after a morning of maximum frustration and extremely low motivation levels that led to me laying on the floor for hours with no will to move, God began showing me things that He's apparently been trying to teach me these last few weeks, but I never noticed.
It started when I went out to dinner with a new friend. I had recently asked him where his faith was in a very silly manner, and he told me it hasn't been that great in a while, but that he thinks it's getting better now. During dinner, he decided to shed a little more light on the picture, and after telling me what caused his faith to plummet in the first place, he said something that surprised me. He told me that before he started to talk to me, his relationship with God and his desire to go to church was a giant shrug. He said that if anyone ever tried to talk to him about Jesus, he would just wave it off and be over all indifferent towards it. Having already noticed some of these patterns and knowing what I had just learned about his past, I was not surprised by this confession. What surprised me was when he said, "Talking to you, things are starting to sink in more. I actually want to try to have a relationship with God again. When you invited me to come to church, instead of my normal habit of making up an excuse for why I couldn't go, I wanted to figure out a way to make it work. I wanted to try again."
I was stunned. For literally most of the time I've known him, I have felt like I was shuffling endlessly on that belt, with no way to take the weights from my feet that were slowing me down and keeping me from sprinting to the end. But despite that, God had still used me to make an impact on his life.
I was stunned, I was happy, I almost didn't believe it, but the inflection in his voice showed that he meant every word he said. I didn't know what to do with the information at first.

It wasn't until later that night, after movie night with friends was over and I was laying alone in my bed did it really settle. God used me, to touch the heart of someone who had long since shrugged Him off. I didn't do anything. How could I have, after all? I was struggling in my pursuit of my dreams and my faith. But that doesn't make a difference in God's kingdom. For God isn't just there in my mountain top experiences, where I feel Him close and see Him everywhere, but he is also in my dark valleys, where I can't see Him beside me or even feel His hand guiding me. But just because I don't feel Him or don't see Him, doesn't mean He isn't there or isn't working.

I would like to take this one step further and remind you that God works in mysterious ways. He doesn't only use those who are trying to follow Him (even those in a spiritual funk, as I have been) to further His kingdom, but even those who either don't realize He's there or don't see Him working.
A good friend of mine has recently been learning what it looks like to love unconditionally. To love someone just for being a person, not because of how they perform, treat you, or meet up to expectations. She's been learning what it means to let go of hurt and act instead out of love, rather than holding onto that hurt and letting it effect the way she treats others.

The other day, she and I had a bit of a dispute about the friend mentioned in my previous story. In a nut shell, she thought I was being too nonjudgmental, while I thought she was being too judgmental. A very unneededly long story short, she texts me after movie night and shares several realizations about how God is with her not only as support in her hard times, but also in her good times. After sharing this epiphany, she says, "I did realize though, that he's a person God loves, and that I haven't been very loving."

We, as people, tend to do whatever we want, but that doesn't mean God can't use us or our circumstances wherever we are and whatever they happen to be to bring about something beautiful.
Hardship doesn't need to be just that. It can be more. God can use it in ways we wouldn't imagine. After all, He used my friend with the decade old, half abandoned faith to teach my bestie what it means to love. If God can use me in my spiritual blah, or him and all the things that went into his turning away from the faith to impact the lives of others, can't He also use the poor circumstances in your life for something bigger, something you never will see coming?

The Spirit's Whispers

Happiness is good, and there's days where I crave it,

But those days are usually dark and lonely 

Where I forget that the root word of happiness is happen 

And that happiness is connected to circumstance and what we can get out of life.
On those days I forget that joy is what I really need.
That joy is a seed planted in my heart by a loving Father,
That no matter how unhappy my circumstances may seem,
That seed of joy will grow into a tree with hope as its roots and peace as its branches.

And somewhere in that growth my heart will learn to love again
And see people despite the sin that plagues them. 

For it plagues me too.
Because aren't we all the same?
Stuck in this disease called humanity that grips our minds
And in time we stop seeing the truth.
Though it affects most things we do, it's not who we are,
For we are more than our actions and scars-- 

We are souls seeking refuge in a stormy sea, 

But despite what we're told and despite what we think, that refuge is never the boat
That teeters and rears and tries to stay afloat atop the waves.
While our bodies want the boat's "safety," our spirits long to be saved.
Through the cries of our flesh, the Spirit whispers underneath,

"Take hold of his reach. Cant you see? 

The creator of your soul has asked you to be not of the storm but above it,
Walking the waves as if it were pavement."

Blessings Amidst Trial

I once heard an analogy that went along the lines of this:

There once was a girl walking through the jungle. Suddenly a tiger jumped out and began chasing her. She ran until her path abruptly ended at a cliff. With nowhere else to go, she jumped and grabbed onto a vine on the way down. Temporarily out of harms way, she breathed a sigh of relief and looked down to see how far the cliff went. On a ledge below her stood a second tiger, snapping up at her feet while the one above stared down at her.
"At least the vine will hold," she thought before noticing two mice, one black and the other white, gnawing at the vine.
The tiger above represents the past. The one below, the future. The mice are day and night, the uncontrolled passage of time that brings us ever closer to our end. But this isn't the whole picture. For before the girl on the vine is a bush of strawberries growing out of the side of the mountain. She plucks one and eats it and how sweet it is.

"What's the point of this story?" you may be asking yourself.
The point is simple. Sometimes we are too caught up by the fear of our past and future, or the anxieties of the day to day life that we fail to notice the blessings placed right before us.
This is more common than you'd realize. In fact, there's a story in Genesis 21 that shows a similar sort of point.

The beginning of the chapter shows Isaac being born. As the chapter goes on, we see some tension between Abraham's family and his wife's maidservant, Hagar, and her son. Feeling like her son's inheritance might be in jeopardy, Sarah tells Abraham that she wants Hagar and Ishmael to be sent away. God promises Abraham that He will take care of Hagar and Ishmael, so Abraham does as Sarah wishes and sent them off into the desert with some water and food for their journey.
When the water runs out, Hagar and Ishmael begin to sob, knowing they would soon die in the harsh desert air if they couldn't find any water.
Verses 17-19 say this:

God heard the boy crying and the angel of God called out to Hagar from heaven and said to her, "What is the matter, Hagar? Do not be afraid, God has heard the boy crying as he lies there. Lift the boy up and take him by the hand for I will make him a great nation."
Then God opened her eyes and she saw a well of water. So she went and filled the skin with water and gave the boy a drink.

Just like in the tiger analogy, Hagar didn't notice a blessing right in front of her (the well), because she was too busy grieving over their apparent demise.

I think the key to noticing these blessings is praise.
Too often, our first response to poor circumstances is fear and despair. But in our fear, we forget who God is, what He has done for us in the past, and what He can do for us in the future.
But when we find ourselves afraid, the best thing we can do is bring our fear to God. Don't resist it, just say to your Father, "I am afraid," then remind yourself of who He is.

Someone who has seemed to have mastered the art of praising God through the trials is King David.

Countless times in his Psalms expresses his deep fear and anguish only to turn right around and start praising God despite his present circumstances.
But David isn't the only one who I've seen be able to do this on more than one occasion. Just recently, a good friend of mine released a book of poetry entitled Flowers In The Darkness where she does just what David did in his Psalms.
It's refreshing to read Davidic Psalm styled poetry about life, God, struggles, and beauty from a current and relevant voice. From someone living in my day and age, facing similar trials as I have.
We all could learn from David just as Denica McCall has.

Their Path vs. My Path - Destructive Comparisons

Three months ago, I began a long trek through the gospels. At one chapter a day, I have finally finished. My method was simple. Read through the chapter, underline things that stick out, go back through the chapter with a journal and write down the underlined bits and thoughts/comments/cross referencing.
What better way to wrap up my journey through the gospels than with my favorite chapter in all of the gospel narrative? If you have never read John 21, you really should. It is packed full of awesome stuff. From the way people react to difficult situations, to trust. From what it looks like to actively follow Jesus, to insecurity. The sheer number of things this chapter alludes to is enough for me to spend several blog posts dissecting, but I shall only focus on one.

When most people think of John 21, they think of the all too familiar passage where Jesus asks Peter three times if he loves Him in verses 15-17.
There are many speculations about this passage. What Jesus meant by "Do you love me more than these?" in the first verse could mean a variety of things. Did Peter love the Lord more than he loved his fellow disciples? Did he love Jesus more than his fellow disciples loved Jesus? (For Peter often claimed to have devotion that outweighed the others.) Or maybe, did Peter love Jesus more than he loved these things (his job and his fishing gear)?
Whatever it is Jesus exactly meant by the question, we don't know. Maybe Jesus wasn't specific on purpose. Maybe he phrased it the way he did so Peter could bring to mind whatever he might be putting before God in his mind. Whatever the case, I do believe the threefold question was designed to stand in contrast to the time just a week or so before when Peter denied Jesus three times.

While this is a good passage, people often don't know that the third time Jesus says, "Feed my sheep," isn't the end of the conversation. In fact, it's not even the end of His thought. Within the same breath of saying, "Feed my sheep," Jesus says, "I tell you the truth, when you were younger you dressed yourself and went where you wanted; but when you are old you will stretch out your hands, and someone else will dress you and lead you where you do not want to go."
As explained by John, who was both listening to this conversation between Peter and Jesus and lived to see Peter's famous upside-down crucifixion, Jesus said this to "indicate the kind of death by which Peter would glorify God."(v. 19)

As you read on, Peter looks back over his shoulder while he and Jesus are walking and talking, and sees John following them. Why John followed them, he doesn't say, but Peter does seem concerned as to what God's plan is for John as well. He asks, "Lord, what about him?" (v.21)
There's some history between John and Peter you should know. Basically it goes like this. Jesus had about 70-80 disciples. The Twelve were his closest. The others would follow most of the time, but the Twelve rarely left his side and were with him during most of the most important things. There were three of the Twelve who were even closer than the others. Simon (who Jesus called Peter, which means "the rock"), John, and his brother, Andrew. Not much is said about Andrew, and, honestly, I think that's because he got it better than John or Peter ever did. If you notice, Peter and John were always trying to prove which one of them was the best. They both wanted to be Jesus' favorite. It kind of makes you wonder if the reason John refers to himself as "the one whom Jesus loved," as he did countless times through out his writings, was because he felt left out after Simon was given a new name by Jesus.

So naturally, with all this competition going on, Peter wanted to know what the Lord had in store for John. Just like Peter, we often look at what God is doing in other people's lives and wonder if God is handing us the short end of the stick. I mean His will in their lives looks so much better than what He's doing for me.

Sometimes, I think, we get so distracted looking at God's path for someone else that we stumble off our own and get lost in the woods around us. According to Jesus' reply to Peter's concern, He seems to hold similar sentiment as I do.

He says, "If I want him to remain alive until I return, what is that to you?"

Jesus wasn't saying John would live forever or anything like that, but asking Peter if he would still trust and love his Lord even if His will was for John to live forever while Peter died.

What I think this all comes down to is whether or not you trust God's will in your life. Yes, His will for someone else's life may look more exciting, fun, or glamorous, but each path has it's mountains, struggles, and pitfalls. We just don't always see that in another person's life because we're looking at it from the outside.
If the answer is "Yes, I do trust God's will in my life," then you shouldn't worry about whether His will for someone else is better than his will for you. 

We just must stop comparing our lives to other's and start trusting God's plan with wonder and faith.

Your path may seem narrow and rocky, but God has some glorious things to show you along the way.

My God is Limitless - How Big Is Your God? (Part 3)

In the second part of this three part post, I talked about how the wounds and scars from our past can prevent us from really seeing God. This time, I want to share a bit of my own story with emotional scars.
As I said in the last post, everyone has their scars, the lies they believe that prevent them from seeing the Truth. Because I am human, I have them too. One in particular plagued me for a long time. I believed that I wasn't important, that I didn't have anything to offer the world. This lie was more harmful than it seemed, like a poison that slowly eats away at self-esteem and plants not only seeds of self-doubt, but seeds of God doubt. It caused me to reach the point that I described in Doubting Your Doubts, where I couldn't even believe God intellectually any more, I just said and did things to keep up the show for people who I thought would reject me if they knew I didn't really believe what I said.
Thankfully, God is patient and persistent. He pursued me when I didn't even know he was. Then he grabbed my attention and spoke straight to my heart (for more of that story, check out my first post ever here). It was then I was able to start seeing the intellect in it all. But this lie, along with many others I believed then, and some I still believe today, created those deep scars I spoke of. Scars I didn't even know existed. Scars that I'm still discovering today.

I briefly mentioned in the last post that if you want to truly heal, you must identify the scars and the lies attached to them and bring them to God. But how do you do that?
The first thing to do is find the scars. How I've gone about doing that is just by paying attention to who I am and how I am. How do I react to things? What's something I don't like about myself, or something I'd like to fix? When you find a scar, ask yourself, "Why do I think this way?"
For example, I'm insecure. Sure everyone is insecure in someway, but I am specifically insecure about my creations. I have a very hard time expressing myself and my understanding of things, so I like to do it in the most creative way possible. I turn my frustrations into art. I draw, paint, write, sing, spin stories, etc. Some of these things I'm better at than others. But all of them are a deep expression of my thoughts and emotions that I am too scatter brained to articulate to another human being in the form of verbal communication.
It's my artist brain, and I love it, but for a long time I did not love it.
In fact, I hated it! I hated not being able to express myself. I hated the blank stares or confused misunderstandings I got from others when I tried. I hated feeling constantly judged and worthless.
So, I created nonstop. I created worlds, characters, stories, ideas, pictures. I even created masks to hide behind. And I was so, so insecure about my creations because they felt like part of me. Because, they really kind of were. They were the only way I knew how to express myself, but even then, I was scared to show my creations to others because I was scared they would say something less than positive about it and not realize that this wasn't just some little thing I made for fun, but this thing was me.

Those insecurities are the manifestations of a scar of a wound I received when I was young. A wound fed by the lie that I wasn't good enough, I wasn't lovable, I wasn't wanted.
But realizing that lie took time. First I had to identify the scar. I had to look at my insecurities and say, "I don't like you. You are not me, you are my chains. You don't define me, you just keep me tangled in fear." Then I had to search. I had to pay attention every time I felt insecure and ask myself, "What am I afraid of?" Through several months of asking that question, I discovered the lie I had come to believe.
The process isn't a fast one. It took me months to identify my scar, and more after that to identify my fear and the lie that fear was rooted in. But that was almost two years ago. It wasn't until this spring did I start to dispel the lie by finding out I was not alone. By meeting many other creatives who thought the same way I did and had the same doubts that God was using to do glorious and magnificent things! And not just things in other's lives, but some had even had impacts on my life before I ever met them.
But I almost didn't meet these people. My fear almost told me not to go to the Re:Write conference. "What if you don't get anything out of it? What if it's a waste of time and money? What if something bad happens on your long drive down there?" And many more what ifs that scared me. But I knew one thing.
I have a dream. A dream that I'm more scared to lose the opportunity to reach than I am scared or other's opinions of me or falling into crippling debt or even dying in a freak car accident. So, while all of the "what ifs" my fear whispered to me were very valid "ifs," I had one, single quiet "if" whispering to me, "But what if you can reach your dream?"
And that single, small, truthful whisper got me shaking with such anticipation that I no longer cared about the big, scary "ifs" my fear screamed to me.

I realize now that I am the way I am for a reason, although sometimes I forget that. It's still something I only understand in my mind, but don't quite know in my heart. Because of this, I try to do things on my own. Don't get me wrong, it's good to work towards your dream, but when you forget that your ultimate purpose is to bring glory to God's kingdom, you can shoot for the stars all you want and have a real hard time getting off the ground.
God has been challenging me with the question I shared in part 1: "Is there a limit to my power?"
I already know that God is bigger than my biggest fear. But I have a hard time learning that He is also bigger than my biggest dream.
So recently I have been circling this dream in prayer on many different levels. I'm circling that I'll be able to get the book I've already written out there where it can impact people in the unique way that only story can. I'm circling that He would guide me on my next novel, which is centered around escaping the lies of the devil to see God's Truth. And I've recently added a new prayer to the list of things I'm circling.
The book I'm working on now is set in the desert, yet I have never been to the desert. I, however, have a standing offer to get a chance to see the desert this summer with my Grandparents in New Mexico. All I must do is raise the money for plane tickets down there. The day I decided this was something I needed to do, I began circling New Mexico in prayer.With 10% of all I make going towards travel I knew I would only be able to make it there with God's provision.
In the three days since, I have made almost twice at much money as I usually do on these days.
Such an immediate answer to prayer is something I'm not used to. I was excited, stunned, grateful. But most of all, I was overwhelmed. After just a few hours, He had already provided, and it instantly brought to mind a song by Big Daddy Weave

So, how big is my God?
He is bigger than my biggest doubts, darkest fears, and most unattainable dreams.
Is there a limit to His power?
Never! He is limitless, and in Him we, too, can be limitless.



He is eternal. He is infinite. He will provide.
Do you trust Him?
I'm learning to.

Blessings, Faith, and Childlike Wonder

Recently, I've been noticing a lot of the little blessings God has been putting in my life. When I say recently, I don't mean that they've only been recently, rather He's been giving me them forever, and I just failed to notice until recently.
Jesus once said that we must become like little children to see the kingdom of God. But what does that mean?
To be a like a child is to embrace the wonder of the world around you, seeing more with your heart than with your intellect. For isn't it true that Jesus' words speak to our hearts while our minds are still mulling over the confusing logic?

More often than not, our minds tell us that something can't work before we ever try it out ourselves. It renounces the dreams and longings of our hearts and tell us to "be realistic" and "think like an adult."
But what if I don't want to be realistic? What if being realistic and ignoring my heart's calling leaves me feeling empty? What if thinking like an adult is holding me back?
Just like our minds, more often than not, tell us to ignore our hearts and be realistic, more often than not, following your heart can lead you to see all the little blessings all around you.

I call them "little blessings," but in reality, they're not so little after all. They come from small things, but they blessings brought can be enormous!

As you probably know, my dream is to be an author. But this longing of my heart is so much deeper than that. I, like most readers, have experienced the profound connection between reader and writer, storyteller and listener. You have moments where you feel like they know you, like they're speaking right to you, or where you feel like you know them. It's amazing how you can have such a connection with someone you've never met through the gift of words.
All of these things are "small things." Words are a small thing. Books are a small thing. Even connection is a small thing. All of it adding to the small act of reading. It's small because it's singular. It's not something you do as a group, but by yourself in quiet solitude, yet the impact can be immense.
So, what is my dream? The longing of my heart?
My dream is to create something that makes those little connections with others.
Will I ever know if I have reached this? Probably not. But what I do know is the stories that impacted me the most were God inspired. God spoke to a simple man's creative heart and told him to write, and he wrote. (For more about how such simple obedience has effected me, go here).

Recently I have been to the Re:Write conference (another little blessing with a glorious outcome), where we were encouraged to see through the eyes of our heart. The eyes of wonder. The eyes of a child. We were told that writer's block is a lie. That's all it is. Simply a fear based lie that we aren't good enough, that we'll never be writers, and that no one will ever want to hear what we have to say.
We were told the best way to overcome the lie of writer's block is to turn away from what we think we know to embrace what really is. We had to shut down our intellect and connect to God, heart to hear, soul to soul, realizing that our fear and other's opinions do not define us, but He.
And He thinks our art is beautiful.
Why? Because it came from our hearts, which he created.

This understanding, a small thing, though missed by many, has been another amazing blessing. It, however, is not something I understand with my mind, for it goes against the logic this world has instilled there. This understand is one deep within my being.
Along with this understanding of who I am and who God is, came the acceptance of a simple fact: I might not get published.
Tell me that a month ago, and I'd have fought you. I'd have told you that I will, I have to. I need to reach people. I need to reach my dream, or my dream is worthless!
Today I will agree with you. I might not get published. I might not have my books on shelves where countless people can read and have a connection that only happens between storyteller and listener. But that's okay. Because I know it's not my job to get this out there. I know it's not my job to make connections, or even write beautifully. My job is simply to write. Why else would God have planted this longing within my heart?

Over the past week I have been reading a book called A.D. 30, about a woman from Arabia who has a life changing encounter with Jesus. I read a conversation last night that helped pull the swirling thoughts that became this post together. I felt like I should share it.
The conversation takes place between a man named Judah, a Jew from a nomadic tribe in the desert who comes to Israel to find the king his elders told him about, and a Pharisee, who is later revealed to be Nicodemus (the man Jesus taught about being born again in John 3). Here is a snippet of their interaction:

   The Pharisee spoke barely above a whisper now, as though afraid his words might carry beyond the walls. "With Yeshua, God seems so be intimate, as though breath itself. The rabbi calls him even Abba. And we his children, to be born not of Abraham but of Spirit. Such things are not spoken elsewhere. And yet he asks us to follow."
   "But to follow where?" Judah demanded.
   "This too is a mystery." The Pharisee sighed. "You must understand...to have faith is to let go of knowledge as the means to salvation. To do so, one must embrace trust and mystery rather than man knowledge one's god... It is not where that matters so much as simply following. Faith, you see? Trust, like a child. It confounds the mind."

So I, like a child, follow Him down a path that's destination is unknown to me. But He tells me it will be beautiful, and I believe Him.
For isn't that what faith is? To follow with simple trust like a child?
I have chosen not only to follow like a child, but to view God's creation (and my creation) with childlike wonder!