Light

"Oh, death, where is your sting?

Oh, Hell, where is your victory?"

I find it interesting that every single person enters the world through shrieks of pain & when we leave we find grace and true life; We find roads paved of gold, white pearly gates, where we meet our Savior, face to face. I cannot even imagine a place a perfect as Heaven. It's not a tangible idea to me because what we see here is so small in relation to the grand scheme of another realm.

Heaven has been on my mind a lot lately, not just because I devoted myself to a Jesus Journey (mentioned in a previous entry), but also because I lost a relative today. She was very sick with cancer- she had undergone chemo, radiation, lost her hair & her energy. "Aunt Tootsie died," as simple and as complicated as that. While this initially brought tears and sorrow, I was overwhelmed with the goodness of God's promise to save, to redeem, to grant life to our souls and found comfort in drawing near to that.

Suddenly, I realize that despite my pathetic attempts to mourn her loss, I cannot. I can't get beyond the joy of eternity, of a mournless, tearless, perfect place where cancer and disease do not hurt or poison perspective.

So while the darkness of death hovers over us tonight, the promise of hope, faithfulness, and eternity provides light.

Do not forget in the darkness what you have been promised in the light.

(Philippians 1:29)

Twenty-Something

I consider turning a different age more of a "new year" than January 1st.

I've been thinking of resolutions & this is what I've come up with so far:

I want this year to be a journey. 

A Jesus journey. 

I want to know, experience, & learn more about His character. 

I want to discover new dimensions of His love through extreme experiences in nature. 

I want to be fearless when it comes to initiating spiritual conversations.

I want to get plugged into new outlets that pour into me.

I want to constantly be either going to do His work or be supporting someone that is.

I don't want to be perfect, but I do want to be making strides toward becoming someone more patient, more sweet, less quick to frustration or anger. I want to avoid stagnancy in any aspect of my life. I want to quit expecting things to appreciate the simple things that make each day unique and so so wonderful.

I don't want to look at this season of my life as a period of waiting, but as an investment in my future. 

I am investing in people that I love and believe in. 

I am investing in my education, my potential career options, the dreams I've had my entire life.

But, ultimately, I'm investing in a treasure that is eternal & can never be taken from me.

Don't Take it From Me

I don't want to justify it.

I want to acknowledge that it's a lustful struggle and be willing to call it sin.

Girls, I'm talking to you, mostly. You young girls that have all of your innocence to hold onto, you high school or college women, whether you've given pieces of yourself away or not, I want you to hear something crucial & I sincerely want you to believe it.

You are so desired by a God that wants only the very best for you. He is jealous for you. He wants you all to Himself. He wants all of your focus and attention & I truly believe that whatever/whoever you let get in the way of that focus on Him, He will take away from you.

You will have plenty of heartbreak in this life, many trials, many things that will cut you down until you feel you have nothing left & that is when you need Him most. Turn to Jesus, who paid the price for every misstep you've taken along the way, for every future failure, who saved you from yourself & died for your debt on a cross to save you from eternal damnation. All you have to do is trust Him. That's it! We all come before a perfect God as dirty, broken beings that are in need of a Savior. Jesus Christ saves!

He offers us exactly what we need, no matter what the context of our sin: sexual or not.

I have spent many summers out at Camp Eagle as a camper, as a student leader, as a counselor. I remember one night in particularly when I was serving at Camp Eagle under the River's Edge crew, each week we would split guys from girls and while the guys would do "manly things" the girls would dance the night away, have a candle-lit dinner and then have heart-to-hearts, sharing the deepest pits of sin in our lives. Each week I would be extremely prayerful about what the Lord wanted me to share with the girls on that night. Each week we would get new campers, new sweet souls to pour into & that was my favorite night, we cried & laughed & walked away feeling lighter. I found myself sharing something different that I felt filthy because of each time we sat under those starry skies, with nothing but vulnerability and circles of trust and support. I started catching myself releasing outlets that left me feeling empty like growing up without a father, being physically betrayed by someone I trusted against my will-- things I had no control of & then the immoral decisions I had made all on my own. I allowed myself to break through the burden of keeping secrets & began to let others into these nasty holes in my life to start the mending process. Then each girl would share, we'd take turns-- it was broken, hard, & then it was sweet, it was worth it & there was no longer loneliness in that sin. As soon as we admitted to them aloud, there was freedom. God allowed us to share in those pains. We found comfort in that freedom & walked in His light instead of in the darkness of our sins. We were no longer weighed down or confined by them.

Then I will return to my lair

until they have borne their guilt 

and seek my face--

in their misery

they will earnestly seek me.

(Hosea 5:15)

He brings beauty from ashes.
He is gentle. He is trustworthy. He is committed.
He offers an everlasting love and a promise of eternity that will never ever be taken away from you.
Drop all of those burdens or lustful desires or past regrets.
Take up that cross--
Then never ever look back.

Therefore confess your sins to each other 

and pray for each other

so that you may be healed.

The prayer of a righteous man 

is powerful and effective.

(James 5:16)

I want to leave you with a visual. When I was about 17 I went with a lovely group of girls to a little conference called The 'Silver Ring Thing'. This is a teen abstinence rally & as testimonies were shared there was one thing I will never forget. One young woman stood in front of us and shared a glimpse into her web of lust, all the guys she had let her guard down for, the people she willingly allowed to strip her of innocence meant for the context of marriage. She was holding a wooden heart and each time she went further into territory she knew better than to enter into, a chainsaw took large shreds or chunks out of her heart. By the end of college, when she was thinking of what she truly wanted in life, she found Jesus. As she began taking inventory of her heart she realized there wasn't much of it left. She had given pieces of it away with every bad-intentioned guy she let into her bedroom--into her heart.

Jesus didn't let it end here.
This isn't a tragedy.
The decisions we've made do affect us but they do not define us.
He had a better plan but she needed Him in order to find it.

She eventually found a man who clung to Jesus instead of giving into sexual temptation. He saved himself for the woman he was going to marry. He honored his future wife by surrendering to Jesus. He had a whole heart to offer. It wasn't without blemish, of course, but as their hearts entered into a Christ-centered relationship together, eventually into matrimony, they were renewed through God's love & forgiveness.

When she felt she had nothing left to offer,
Jesus said, "Come to me, Child"

So,

Take inventory. 

Acknowledge sins in the depths of your being.

Then bring it before your Father.

Then forgive yourself, too.

It's never too late to be made new through Christ.

But
Don't take it from me.
Dust off that Bible and take it from the word, the Truth.

Take it from Him
& then walk in freedom.

What's Next?

"You'll win or you'll lose, either way, the sun will come up tomorrow and it will be a brand new day."

The older I get the more I see that all the dreams I had for a future ended with college. I am so proud to be an Aggie and I am one, I'll get my ring, I'll finally graduate and then I'll be done, expected to move forward, what then? I don't want that American dream. I don't care about the money or the diamond or the car or any of that. I want the love, the commitment, the promise of forever, the family... that will come with time when we've established ourselves a little bit but that's not what this is about. What do I want for myself, as an individual? What do I want said of me when I leave this place? What do I want that has nothing to do with anything but feeling accomplished and everything to do with where I'll end up?

I want to be the best person I can be.
I want to win and have people be happy for me.
I want to lose & get over it.
I want to surprise myself.
I want to define myself instead of having others define me.
I want to not be afraid of the unknown.
I want to grow up to be generous and big-hearted, the way people have been with me.

I wanted the possibility of options in my life.
College was that possibility for me, what will be done with it now that it's concluding?

It feels a little bit like playing that last football game or dancing in that last competition, or senior prom, packing up and moving towns: bittersweet and scary. It's all a little too familiar but this time it's for real. Here's the life you always dreamed of, yours for the making.

What's next?

Tomorrow is a brand new day...

It's Gonna be Worth it

You can hate certain moments along this journey but God still makes them good.
He makes every moment worth it.

I heard an interesting quote in a movie we watched about Beat poets, (homosexual, Bohemian men, strung out on drugs, who spend their lives searching for meaning in their souls & rebel against the views of society), "it doesn't matter how far, the road is life." It's an interesting feat to make sense of the words these guys put to paper, an interesting feat to apply them to the subconscious thoughts of "normal" people, or ourselves.

Lately, my life has taken some unexpected turns that have sent me searching for the roots of where they initiated. For one, I really hate school, really. It's all I can do to go to class each day. I love A&M. I love tradition. I love the idea of excellence in education & I do believe I attend one of the top public institutions in the nation but I don't want to go to class. I don't want to study. I don't want to take notes or listen to someone try and explain logical symbols to my expressive, literal mind. I force myself to go every single day & I feel the bitterness creeping in.

It's an odd place to be, really. I appreciate the fact that you have to earn things, respectably: aggie rings, grades, a degree. I'm glad things aren't just handed out to anyone & I do want it, in fact, some days, that degree is the only thing that keeps me going. The idea of an "I'm proud of you" written on a card, the smiles of family at graduation-- but that's not for me. That dream is for others, it's for my family now, my future family, to have something fancy to show for myself...I guess. Mostly, it's proof that I had the endurance to take something challenging and embrace it, persevere, and come out ahead. I don't want to wish these precious college years away but that's exactly what I'm doing.

...the road is life.

I don't know where my road is taking me, where the Lord is allowing it to lead. I know that it is currently challenging but, I also cling to the fact that I can have hope that there is an end, a joyful moment I will be able to point back at and sigh in relief knowing it was worth it. 

Empty

I've figured it out- this dull weariness I've spent the past few days in.
I'm allowing fears of a future, worries of the day, frustrations of life blur the line of my focus away from Jesus.

Jesus, my advocator, who has gone before me. Jesus, my God that humbly became a man, lived a perfect life and died on a cross. He rose again and He reigns forever. His goodness & light is in me but I hide it away. But I want to share it, I want to love others well. I don't want it to be all mine, alone.

I wear a cross, as a symbol of His death, His sacrifice for me while I was still a sinner, He paid my ransom. The cross should also be a symbol of another death-- the one that overtakes us when we let all but our heart for Him fall away from us. I want to die and become new again, again daily.

I can't say how many times I've prayed to be empty & that's exactly what I'm becoming but that can't be all. I need also to be filled with you, Father. 

Make me empty, painlessly so. Then fill me up again. Then let it pour out and be shared forevermore.
Let that be my greatest joy in life without fear or reservation or worry at all.

Jesus or Bust

The more I try to analyze various areas in my life, the more I am pointed toward the exact same conclusions.

No, it's not mutual. No, it won't work out being a one way street. No, potential is not enough, now is it.
Yes, there are more important things to be stealing my attention.
Life has no guarantees & I don't want to be so focused on one small portion of it that I miss the rest.

I feel very joyful and very discontent all at once & it is becoming a really draining struggle.
I feel like everything I have been working so diligently toward is not as rewarding as I initially expected & that's really scary to admit. I've been running & not making any progress, it seems.

I want so badly to hold things loosely but I haven't. I have been clinging to guys that won't commit, allowing people to believe they are in control of my contentment, yearning for temporary things in general. I don't want any of it anymore.

I hope tomorrow I can wake up with bigger dreams that go far beyond the confines of this small college town, bigger than any degree, bigger than a fairytale that gives no glimpse past matrimony. I want something eternal, someone Holy & Everlasting. Give me Jesus and strip me of absolutely everything else.