magnificent mundane

As you have learned from my previous blog post, this semester has been nothing short of a struggle. I am still waiting for God to communicate through sky writing or maybe he could just send me a couple snapchats. (So, I'm still in a limbo of decisions that is less than comfortable, but I am trusting God and over and over again I see the blessing that this semester has been.)

This semester, God brought to light some passions, a creative side of me that was lost and seemed to be buried under science textbooks and scribblings of patient data. I am thankful for the time I had to tap into that side of me that I missed, and to also see God in every little bit of it.

So, here's a super random (but nonetheless lovely) list of things (in no particular order) that I have re-loved and re-appreciated and even loved for the first time:

1. Stars 
When I was a kid, my dad and I would lay on the pavement of the driveway during the summer and just look at stars. I have yet to lose my awe of them.
DO YOU EVER JUST GOOGLE PICTURES OF STARS?!
Sometimes, I do.
It's cool because God's like: "You are so small."
And you're all, "You are SO big and powerful and yet you still love me and care about me?!"
Blows me away.

"When I look at your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars, which you have set in place, what is man that you are mindful of him?" || Psalm 8

2. Music
When I was a child, I went to a family Christmas party where one of my mom's cousins was playing the piano. I nudged my mom and said, "I want to play piano like him when I'm older." So, I did. And I have been playing since the first grade. I have recently been blessed with the opportunity to sing worship at Cru meetings (something I may not have been able to do if my schedule was not as free) and I bought a guitar (just, because). I am rather terrible at the guitar, but love locking myself in the office and playing three chords over and over again. It's fun to see God in seemingly silly things like learning veggietales songs on the ukulele or hearing encouragements from my close friends after worship sessions at Cru. 

This is Oscar, my new guitar friend.

"My lips will shout for joy, when I sing praises to you; my soul also, which you have redeemed." || Psalm 71:23 

3. Writing

I have two middle names. When I was a child, my mom thought that it could be my pen name when I became a famous writer. When I was thirteen I tried to write a novel about being a thirteen year old doctor (a modern day Doogie Howser, if you will). I have since missed writing for fun, and have used my free time to write things like this blog, a few lines of half-written worship songs, and instagram captions (ha ha). I have loved to tap into this part of my childhood that I've missed. It's cool to see how God has been using it to bring people closer to him. I am so beyond blessed in the ways He has chosen to use this blog to affect people I have not talked to in forever. 

"Now there are also many other things that Jesus did. Were every one of them to be written, I suppose that the world itself could not contain the books that would be written." || John 21:25

4. Books 

As a youngster, I had a shelf packed full of books, many I had read multiple times. In high school and college, my love for books was buried under piles of assigned readings and science textbooks that made the thought of book reading leave a bad taste in my mouth. I met a friend last summer that sparked that love for books again and with my newfound free time, I have dived right back in. 

Also, my roommate and I have found a new love for old book resale shops and stores that smell like old books and just books that are old and worn and awesome and beautiful. (seeing beauty in broken things?? the Gospel is everywhere, friends)

5. Travel

I was able, because of extra free time this semester , to travel to my cousins wedding in California as well as make a trip to Florida with some close friends for Fall Break. I even had the opportunity to road trip to Chicago to see Noah and the Whale, a band that is a favorite of my roommate and I. This has further excited a passion of mine (that I didn't always know I had) to travel outside of the United States. My roommate and I are now planning a trip to Europe for next summer. I am also hoping to go to Haiti for some time to explore my newfound love for mission work here as well as overseas. I can't wait to explore and see God in new and cool ways all over the world and am so blessed to have the resources to do so. 

"The earth is the Lord's and the fullness thereof, the world and those who dwell therein, for he has founded it upon the seas and established it upon the rivers." || Psalm 24

6. Photography (ish)
Okay, so I don't have a fancy camera. Okay, so I am not even close to being a photographer. Okay, so the extent of my "photography" stems from my (sometimes unhealthy) love for Instagram and my iPhone photostream. And while I truly believe that "grammin" (as the kids say) is sometimes detrimental to my relationship with God, I feel like I have been given a new sense of awe of the world around me. I see photography in the snow and the bark on the tree and the grass on the ground and the clouds in the sky and the stars at night. I have grown to truly appreciate the world around me and see the music and the art and the photography of the world of my creator.

This love for photography has also re-sparked a somewhat silly, but sometimes useful, love for photoshop and graphic design and using it for God's glory and to see beauty and find joy in silly things. (I also had the opportunity to design some flyers and things for Cru events, which I absolutely loved doing.)

Here's a more serious example of my "work" messing around with photoshop.

"The heavens declare the glory of God, and the sky above proclaims his handiwork." 
|| Psalm 19 

8. People
Because of the way God has uniquely blessed me this semester, I have had the opportunity to invest in people in a way I have never been able to in the past. I have had opportunities to spend quiet times with God and ultimately pour out into the people around me and do life together and follow Christ together. Thank God that this semester when friends were hurting, I had the time to give them love and encouragement from our Savior. Thank God that when I was hurting this semester, people cared for me and encouraged me and loved on me and laughed with me and enjoyed life with me even if they were far away and just faces on a computer screen. I am blown away with how God has used people this semester to grow me in my walk with Christ and just to teach me so much! 

"Let us consider how to stir up one another to love and good works" || Hebrews 10:24

So, the next time you are doing something mundane like talking to friends or taking a picture of something on your phone or reading a well-written book or looking at the stars at night, remember that there is beauty in the mundane- that God has been there all along amongst the people and the stars and the words on the page.

"So, whether you eat or drink, or WHATEVER you do, do ALL to the glory of God." || 1 Corinthians 10:31

"..as we look not to the things that are seen but to the things that are unseen. For the things that are seen are transient, but the things that are unseen are eternal." || 2 Corinthians 4:18 

all circumstances

This holiday, as I float through a limbo of life decisions and confusion, God is teaching me what thanksgiving looks like. I think many times it consists of those Sunday school answers of "I am thankful for my family" or "I am thankful for a refrigerator to put all the food in." And sure, it is great to count your blessings. In fact, it is encouraged. But what happens if you don't have that refrigerator, or food to stuff inside of it, or even your family. Are you to be thankful then?

You may say it is then important to change our perspective, to see everything in a good light. However, true Christ-like thankfulness is not based on optimism. It's not about seeing the 'bright side of life." It's about seeing the "Christ side of life."

"..give thanks in ALL circumstances; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you." 
- 1 Thessalonians 5:18 

•I will be thankful in all circumstances because if we are in Christ- He is there throughout all those circumstances (AND THAT IS ENOUGH). 

"I will give thanks to the LORD with my WHOLE HEART; I will recount all of your wonderful deeds." 
- Psalm 9:1 

• I will give thanks with my WHOLE being and recount all of HIS wonderful deeds. (IT'S NOT ABOUT ME)


True thanksgiving is not something that we can do out of our own strength. Even the Pharisees were "thankful" that they were not like the tax collectors (Luke 18:9-14). Ultimately, it comes back to the truth that we cannot bear fruit without our vine. 

So, I am learning to be thankful, not for circumstances, but for the God who has been sovereign through it all. 



Here is the sermon that inspired these thoughts
(I would encourage you to check it out)
http://sovereigngracenh.com/wordpress/?p=3287

seventy times seven

I failed. I failed one time. They gave me a second chance and I failed. There’s no getting around it. I tell the story differently every time someone asks, but it always ends the same way: I failed. I cried. I still do sometimes. But I cried more that day than I had in months before then. “What am I doing?” “Why is this happening?” “Is this a sign that I’m not supposed to be a nurse?” Questions pelted my aching, tired head like a round of bullets. It sounds dramatic, but for the first time it seemed that the maize and blue floor I was so firmly planted on was crumbling beneath my feet. It didn’t feel real. I went to a meeting with a coffee the size of a small bucket in my hand just to sit there and be told I had to take all these classes a year from now. There was no getting around it. This is going on your permanent record. It felt like she was tattooing it into my skin. Failure, in big bold letters in a font I hated, plastered across my forehead. I could almost see it in the reflection of the Nursing School doors as I left the building that day.

“Now what?”

It began to rain as I left the building. Perfect, right? It was like the end of a romantic movie except there was no love interest or dramatic kiss or old car or a guy singing with an umbrella. There was just me in a damp yellow raincoat with an empty coffee cup and hot tears running down my face.

“Now what?”

Some voice somewhere was screaming it at me. I wanted to get in my obnoxiously bright yellow car and drive and drive and never come back. I actually, in all honesty, considered buying a plane ticket to Scotland, but a friend of mine informed me that the crime rates were really high there and for some reason that worked in controlling my irresponsible impulse.

I didn’t pray that day or the day after or the week after for the matter. I didn’t want to talk to God. Somehow, I felt it necessary to be mad at an infinitely big God who defeated death and sin for me just because my picture perfect college career wasn’t so perfect anymore. Sounds foolish right? But I did it. I ignored Him or any sign of him in hopes that He’d see me in the corner with my bottom lip sticking out and my arms crossed and take some type of unwarranted pity on me.  

A day later I sat on the couch as big life questions were still hitting my head in bullet form. My mouse hovered over the list of nursing classes I was supposed to take that semester. I clicked each one, unenrolling myself from the class. “You had better do it soon,” the hispanic lady with the metaphorical tattoo gun said to me, “or I will have to do it for you.” I could hear it ringing in my head as I signed up for two random other classes. “At least you will be able to finish your elective credits this semester,” she said trying to comfort me as the tattoo gun buzzed loudly inside my skull. Was she really trying to encourage me? I gulped down a few tears as I signed up for a couple random religion classes that totaled seven credits. Failure on my forehead reflected in my dirty laptop screen and I shut it wildly.

“Why.”

Why? I didn't know the answer then and honestly, I don't know the full answer now- maybe I never will. But the unanswerable is beautiful because I have found joy in the answerer. That "failure" that was tattooed into my scrunched up, tired forehead now tells an entirely different story. It tells a story of grace that unlike the nursing school, God has given me chances to run back to him time and time again. I wanted to be angry at God, and honestly I spent quite a bit of time doing that. But now- looking back on the mess of the beginning of the semester, with God's help, I see nothing but a beautiful reminder of gospel truths. 

Romans 5

2 Through him we have also obtained access by faith into this grace in which we stand, and we rejoice in hope of the glory of God.

• God has given me grace that I don't deserve and for that, I rejoice.

3 Not only that, but we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, 4 and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, 5 and hope does not put us to shame, because God's love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us.

• God works through our sufferings to give us hope, fill us with love, and ultimately bring glory onto Himself.

6 For while we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly. 7 For one will scarcely die for a righteous person—though perhaps for a good person one would dare even to die— 8 but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. 9 Since, therefore,we have now been justified by his blood, much more shall we be saved by him from the wrath of God. 10 For if while we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more, now that we are reconciled, shall we be saved by his life. 11 More than that, we also rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received reconciliation.

• That label of "failure" has turned to "loved" because of what Christ did for me. 

I even am starting to see God in the gray of the sky.

always

"I just got this new job and a new kitten and three pairs of shoes and a haircut! Praise God!"

Okay, so this might be a bit of an exaggeration, but way too often I see a Facebook status or a tweet about how something is going so great in a person's life and thus- they must praise God. Now, it is not even close to being unbiblical to praise God for blessings, but basing your praise for God solely on these things can quickly become a slippery slope. Our relationship with God slowly turns into a relationship of self-entitlement in which we only love God when we see material blessing placed in our laps. This then results in seasons of life in which we resent God for not being a vending machine of blessings and spitting out precisely the ones we want. Rather: our love, our hope, our VERY BEING, in fact, should be based on Christ and Christ alone.

Those seasons of resentment should turn into seasons of praise because no longer are we waiting for the thing that we want to show up because we now realize that the thing our souls truly desire has been there all along.

"Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, rejoice." Philippians 4:4 

We can rejoice ALWAYS because we are not rejoicing in fleeting, perishable things of this world, but rather in the permanent, infinite creator behind it all. A creator, who even though we deserve death, has given us life. 



"God cannot give us a happiness and peace apart from Himself, because it is not there. There is no such thing." - C.S. Lewis 

the blue of the sky

Do you think God had fun when he picked out the colors for the sky or the shade for the foliage or the sparkle for the stars? 

I thank God today for showing me himself in the mundane. Sometimes, I don’t see it. I’m buried in a game of candy crush or picking just the right Instagram filter to highlight the intricacy of my latest meal. But today there were no filters. I picked my head up from my overused piece of technology and looked up. Suddenly, I saw God in the blue of the sky. I saw Him in the way the fall leaves danced when a cool breeze rushed by. I saw Him in the way the sun peaked out from behind an old church. They were all things I had seen before, but instead of seeing ordinary I saw nothing but extraordinary.

God knew, even before I was an idea in my mother’s mind that I would walk past this tree blushed with color on my way to class. God knew, even before the Earth was in existence that I would witness people interacting and laughing as they walk through a path riddled with colorful leaves and traces of snow. God knew, that the most incredible tree (my absolute favorite on campus) would sprout up right in front of my apartment building so I could be in awe of the complexity of it’s character and ultimately of it's creator. 

 “The heavens declare the glory of God;

the skies proclaim the work of his hands.
Day after day they pour forth speech;
night after night they reveal knowledge.
They have no speech, they use no words;
no sound is heard from them.
Yet their voice goes out into all the earth,
their words to the ends of the world.” 

~ Psalm 19:1-4

Their voice goes out into all the earth, their words to the ends of the world.. 

Are you listening? 

unfair

I think I sometimes think if I had flowers or a teddy bear or a boyfriend to tell me I am beautiful, then I would be happy. I don’t say that outright, of course not, because that would imply that I am trying to find satisfaction in things apart from Christ. So, I might not say it with words. I say it with the way I act.

I say it when I scowl at the Facebook picture of the couple getting engaged. I say it when I give dirty looks to the girl who brings home flowers from the boy who loves her. I say it when I spend all too often wallowing in self-pity because “what if I never get married?” or “how is this fair?”

It’s not fair, in fact. But not in the whiney “that’s not fair” that I squeak out when I scroll through another Facebook proposal album. It’s unfair because no one deserves those things. To be frank, we all deserve hell. The bible says, “for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God” (Romans 3:23) and that “the wages of sin is death” (Romans 6:23). But yet, here we are. Eyes that see and ears that hear and arms that move and hearts that love and feel and pump blood through our whole bodies. How dare I, selfishly, think I deserve anything more than the greatness of grace that God has already lavished upon me. God may give me a husband or he may not, but God has already blessed me far beyond what I deserve. He gave me the gift of his son! We say it all the time like some type of Sunday school robot, but it does not make it any less true or any less potent! God gave me a gift far beyond flowers or a teddy bear, and for that I am blessed beyond all belief.


Here's a post that inspired the above. I'd encourage you to check it out:

http://www.desiringgod.org/resource-library/ask-pastor-john/what-has-been-your-biggest-spiritual-struggle-and-how-did-you-get-victory