Masterpiece?

I thank you for this portion, this life I live, this air I breathe. 

I thank you for the story You are writing in me, with me, through me. I, the spirited, wide-eyed, mess-smeared, child, crimping my small fingers around the paintbrush You have given me, glopping paint on canvas, fingers-covered, face in concentration.

I try so hard to stay between the lines. Eyebrows, neatly pinched together, tongue in the corner of my mouth, I wipe a snotty nose with a rolled-up, paint-covered sleeve and add a little of myself to the already-green canvas.

Some people in an art gallery would call this a glorified mess. They’d stare and point and try to decipher if it is pure madness or pure genius. “I could do that,” they’ll say. But they probably won’t.

And to be honest, You’re the one who really places worth in all my smudgy, mostly-ugly clumping. Blue here, a burst of yellow there. Green, pink, purple, even a corner of black and grey for the sad parts.

Is it a masterpiece, I wonder? Am I worth all the mess, all the wasted paint, all the correcting and redefining, guiding and touching up? Who knows?

All I know is that You smile when You see me try to be like You, when I try to create, emulate, become more like You, the Perfect Creator. I look up, paint-smudged, hair-awry, clothes-covered in muck, “Does it look ok, Daddy?”

You squint your eyes, peering over my shoulder, and smile. You, curl me in your arms, whisper in my ear, “It’s beautiful, princess.” You wrap your clean fingers around mine and add a stroke to the chaotic swirl of colors before You.

I’m thankful You are in the mess with me, no matter what the story looks like as it unfolds.

Ascribe to You

You are good. Always good.

Always working for my good. In perfect timing. In perfect love. You DO love me. You love me even when it doesn’t feel like it. Even when it hurts. Even when it’s hard love, a severe mercy. 

This is truth. You are truth. You are truth even when there are wars raging in me. Even when every fibre of my soul is inclined to doubt You, You never sway, never falter, never change. 

These ugly parts of me, You knew. Even before the foundation of the world. You created me, created these tears in my eyes for this very purpose, fashioned them from Your own, because you knew I would need to grieve. You knew I would need to cry with You over the devastation of sin, the repercussions of a thousand misguided steps, a thousand wrong-turned eyes, a thousand idol-worships.

And still You are sovereign. Still You are omnipotent. Still You knew that even these hurts, these tears cried for brokenness, would all somehow work for Your glory. That somehow even these mis-directions would be used as re-directions to that place we all need to be: the place of sacrifice, of surrender, of weakness, of dependence, of reliance on You and You alone. 

You alone. You are my everything. Everything here. Everything there. You aren’t limited to a location on the globe. You aren’t glorified by me in countries or in campuses, in cities or in states. You are glorified by You in me. And that’s what makes this whole thing possible. You in me. Not me in me, or me plus You, or me then You. 

Just you. That’s it. Right here. Right now. And You’ve promised that will never change. People, places, events, circumstances, hopes, dreams, pursuits, relationships- those will all change. But not You. 

You are my satisfaction and my praise. The only one worthy of my worship, the daily breathing of a soul surrendered to it’s maker. A scandalous grace. A severe mercy. An untamable passion for all that is good, true, and lovely. 

And that’s why I can trust You. Because no matter what, no matter where, no matter who, no matter when, You ARE good.

You are God.

Will You Trust Me?

For those of you who know me, you are aware that this past semester has been a difficult one for me. For those of you who don't, I'd like to give you a brief glimpse into some of the transformation God has been working in my heart since August 2013. 

After spending a summer on mission in Africa, I returned to a very difficult fall semester. Upon returning, the Lord asked me to surrender my heart completely to Him and Him alone. For me, this meant following through with a very difficult request. It meant breaking up with my boyfriend at the time. 

(Let me pause to say that this is not a blog post about my breakup. It's about the heartache, yes, but more than that it's about the healing and the opportunity the Lord has given me to see His sovereignty in a thing that, at the time, felt very, very hard. It's about the grace I've learned in the grieving and about looking back into the beginning of a work that even I didn't see at the time. It's about praying prayers that have hard answers and it's about trusting that even when it doesn't feel like it, God is ALWAYS good.)

I say this because I want to share my heart with you. I want to invite you to look back into my journal at the beginning of this journey to see the questions the Holy Spirit was asking me.

Will you trust Me?

Will you surrender?

Are you willing to sacrifice?

As I think about those questions now, I see that the answer was being prepared to be put into practice. The lessons I learned in Africa were distinctly preparing me for the next step in my walk with the Lord. And really, that's what I've begun to recognize.

That day by day, He gives me the strength and the willingness to say, "Yes," again and again to whatever He asks of me. He gives me the joy and the gratitude to say, "Thank you," for each portion as He leads me through it, whether it is the mountaintops of joy or the valley of the shadow of death. 

I know I've been "reposting" a lot lately and reminiscing, but take a moment with me to look back into how God was shaping my heart in August and help me to look forward into whatever "next step" He is equipping me to take...

A journal entry from 7/9/13

"I'm sitting here in the airport in D.C. waiting to get on my flight back to Fort Worth. I have said goodbye to my entire team and am left alone in silence for a few brief hours to process through the last 50 days of my life. I have been on the verge of tears all day.

Tears of joy because I am glad to be home. Tears of sadness because saying goodbye is so difficult. Tears of confusion because of where I am and the shock of being Back in America. Tears of exhaustion. Tears of facing the unknown. Tears, tears, tears that won't stay away from the corners of my eyes and the front of my thoughts.

This next month is going to be a hard one. If I didn't know it before, I have begun to realize it now. Reintegration won't be easy; I have been altered for life.

Africa has changed me.

And I don't think I ever want to be the same as I was. 

Our team leaders asked us to start processing through our experiences to best know how to give an answer to the people who will inevitably ask, "So, how was it?" In journaling and praying through my answer, I've narrowed down what I've learned into one keyword: TRUST. 

The Lord has asked me and challenged me to trust Him in so many ways this summer and I think that is my biggest take-away. He asked me to trust Him financially. He asked me to trust Him with my relationship with my boyfriend and His future plans for each of us. He asked me to trust Him with ALL of my future. He asked me to trust Him to accomplish a work in Africa that I might never see. He asked me to trust that He wants my heart before He wants my service. He asked me to trust Him to provide security in an insecure location. Trust was at the very center of everything I experienced. 

The Lord brought my faith through fire this summer and refined it with the promise that with greater trust comes greater reward and I am so convinced that I am completely sold out for the gospel to the point of tears because I only want to trust Him more. 

I wrote this earlier in the trip and I believe it still rings true of my heart now:

"I think it is true to say that in my life, I have yet to suffer for the sake of Christ. I have self-pitied, but I have not sacrificed. It is with trepidation that today I ask (for the hope of eternal reward) to suffer for the sake of Christ. I surrender today my self-pity in exchange for true surrender and ask for suffering that Christ might be made great in my life and my joy only be found in Him. I realize the danger of this prayer, but have counted the reward far greater than the risk. From here forward, I resolve that I will no longer live for myself or in my own strength, but for Christ and in His strength. As so many before me have testified to the joy of suffering for Him, so I say with those before me that I will rejoice to be counted worthy to suffer dishonor for the sake of the Name! (Acts 5:41) 6/28/13"

This has become a daily heart cry of mine. I want all of Christ everyday and I want to be so fully sacrificed that there is absolutely nothing left of myself to give at the end of everyday. I have realized that this is a dangerous prayer. I have realized that this is also something I must pray daily. I have realized it is the only way to really live satisfied in Christ. Fully surrendered with no comprehension of sacrifice, only of love and joy and thanksgiving at the honor of 'filling what is lacking in Christ's suffering' as Paul says in Colossians. 

Is it bad to ask God to suffer for the sake of His name? I have asked myself that so many times over this summer and I have realized two things. First is that I have no understanding of what suffering really looks or feels like. I have never suffered. Second, that because I consider Christ supremely valuable in my life, I would be insane NOT to ask for suffering because by suffering for His name, my faith is proven and my hope is placed in the treasure box of greater reward in eternity and God is glorified in my life. 

I think most people would call me crazy for seeing it this way, but if Christ is who He really says He is and He is as valuable as He really claims to be and I love Him as much as I claim I do, I would be rash to believe that any part of my safety and security in life is anything but a gift from Him and He will use me to exemplify His grace if only I will surrender my stubborn, fearful heart to His protection and provision. That includes the risk of suffering- torture, persecution, slander, martyrdom- all of these things were norms in the lives of the early apostles. Who am I to believe that I should be any different?

What right have I to live safely in my own home with the mystery of the Gospel revealed in my life, but not multiplying it into the lives of others? Christ's final words in Matthew 28 were a commission to His disciples to go into EVERY nation (panta ta ethne). When I look around and realize that 2,000 years after He spoke those words, they are still not completed, there is a passion, a zeal, an unquenchable desire to go where Christ has not been named. 

Who will go and whom will God send? I am here, Lord, send me! Let my life be poured out to the very dredges for Him and Him alone. 

When I look back on the last 50 days of my life and see how God has unfolded slowly this flower of truth in my heart- I know it is from Him. Trust is the only legitimate response I can have to everything I have learned. When I look back on the last 50 days of my life and all the joys, hardships, adjustments, and changes that I have experienced, I can't imagine a more fulfilling way to spend my life. 

I am sold- body, mind, and soul. 

I am not sold just for a vague idea of the world and a love for seeing God's Name made great in other's lives, but most importantly in my own relationship with Him. I have realized I cannot love people in my own strength, but only through the overflow of my love for Christ. 

It is with this perspective and this mentality that this summer, I have surrendered fully to God every aspect of my life. He may do with me what He so chooses to glorify Himself most. To Him alone be the glory forever and ever. Amen."

(Follow-up thoughts to be continued in a later post.)

A Glimpse of Transformation

I stumbled across a post from an old blog I began 4 years ago as a freshman just beginning at TCU. As I was rereading it, my soul was encouraged by the fact that so many of my prayers and hopes have been answered, that God is transforming me, and that He is still renewing me everyday. It was neat to look back into the willingness I expressed so many years ago and where the Lord has led me and grown me.

If I Perish, I Perish!

August 10, 2010

So what would my life look like if I unashamedly, without abandon, recklessly, and perhaps foolishly, put my life into the hands of this God of whom I say I serve? What does complete surrender look like, how does it taste; how does it feel; how is it even possible? Most importantly, where does it begin?

"Behold, now is the favorable time; behold now is the day of salvation." (2 Corinthians 6: 2b ESV)

These are the questions I find myself asking right now. Right now, as I enter college as an 18 year old individual experiencing freedom for the first time. Right now, as I explore the endless possibilities this world has to offer in academia, society, humanity, and spirituality. Right now, as I find myself overwhelmed by a growing sense of urgency, an urgency that tells me all these things are great, but there is something better. Something bigger.

God.

I can feel within the fibers of my soul an itching that I have never felt before, a desire to know God and to be known by Him, to serve God and to sacrifice for Him. I want to give Him my all; I want to fall into the depth of His mercy, power, grace, and love. But how?

"I appeal to you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship. Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect." (Romans 12: 1-2 ESV)

This is a question that I am learning can't be answered in a day. It takes a lifetime. A lifetime of prayer, of sanctification, of praise, of surrender, of repentance, of fellowship, of seeking God. A lifetime I have, but a lifetime, I also, have not.

A lifetime starts today, this hour, this minute, this second. But a lifetime does not last forever... Time makes no promises. How much time do I have to learn? I will never know. This I do know: I don't want to wait until tomorrow. I don't want to waste one single precious second of the valuable gift of life that God has given me to glorify Him.

In my Bible reading today, I came across the story of Ester and was struck by one phrase which she says when confronted with the fact that she might die in her attempt to save her people from the angry edict of Haman. "I will go to the king, though it is against the law, and if I perish, I perish." (Esther 4:16b ESV) As simple as that: If I perish, I perish. I find myself wondering, could I say the same? Could I stand up for the children of God, against an enemy, against my family, against the government, against the world, and have the courage, the conviction, the faith to say: So what? Would I trust God that no matter the outcome, even in my death, He would be glorified, His will would be done? Would I die knowing that I had stood to the end for what I believed was right? Would I die for the justice of MY GOD?

I am humbled and dare not answer this simple rhetoric. The Bible is truly is the ultimate mirror of our souls. "But be doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves. For if anyone is a hearer of the word and not a doer, he is like a man who looks intently at his natural face in a mirror. For he looks at himself and goes away and at once forgets what he was like. But the one who looks intently into the perfect law, the law of liberty, and perseveres, being no hearer who forgets but a doer who acts, he will be blessed in his doing." (James 1: 22-25 ESV)

Today, I might not be able to answer the global question of who I am in this world puzzle, how I fit, and what I am meant to do. But today, I am choosing to embark on that journey, to begin to discover what this life has in store, for better or for worse, whatever God's will. I do not know how the end will come or how God will use me for His glory, but when I reach the gates of heaven, I hope that the King of Kings will hold his scepter out to me, sparing my life, and say, "It shall be given to you, even to the half of my kingdom."

May God be my inheritance and my hope, my sanctification and salvation, my praise and my perfecter, my history and my future, the answer to all my needs.

"And let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, to which indeed you were called in one body. And be thankful. Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly, teaching and admonishing one another in all wisdom, singing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, with thankfulness in your hearts to God. And whatever you do, in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him." (Colossians 3: 15-17 ESV)

My prayer is that, in all I do, God, You will delight in me. And if I perish, I perish! But through you I will live! Amen.

Eucharisteo in Ecuador

I wrote this as a journal entry during my time in Ecuador this past week and was encouraged by several of my teammates to share it. I have been reading One Thousand Gifts by Ann Voskamp lately, so the ideas within this entry are largely based on what I have been cultivating from her book. I hope you enjoy it.

January 6, 2014

"Who would have guessed that 3 years ago, sitting cross-legged in a cramped dorm room on the floor of a Colby double, that now, here, today I would be sitting in the back of a Nissan pickup truck in the pouring rain in Ecuador as we (this same group of women) drive down a mountain on our way home from cloud-forest zip-lining? Who would have guessed that this small group of incredible women would have impacted my life so much and that here today, I would be sitting in a living room in Ecuador with missionaries laughing, playing Balderdash, having spent the last week sharing the gospel with little children in Quito? Walking into a stuffy, crammed-up dorm room as a freshman, how could I ever imagine this?

This life I live is so beautiful. And it is so beautifully authored. I cannot find the words to express how grateful I am for this grace, this story, this growing into faith that is strong, communal, and real. A freshman Bible study that has grown into a group of 9 women pursuing mission and reveling in the love of their Maker. I could not have written a better story if I'd even tried.

Why do I so often try? I tinker with ideas of future, of expectations, so often and yet there isn't one iota of me that actually controls the magnificent for-His-glory-and-my-good story that God is unfolding. I am so glad, looking back, that God has so often told me "no", even when it was (and has been) some of the hardest expectations to break. Looking back on this past semester to one of the most painful "no's" yet, I see the work of what "eucharisteo" has been doing in my life. Don't you hear it? I am that child who was making mud-pies in the slums, wallowing in my own pity and deservedness, all the while forgetting and misunderstanding what is meant by a vacation at the beach.

God is good and He does give good gifts. Thank goodness He doesn't just give me what I want, but what I need. More of Him. More of His grace. Patience, sanctification, new desires, a new heart, a new spirit, a new life.

He is the Maker of all things new.

Why do I live so enamored with my own expectations? I disguise them as hopes and dreams, but really they are demands, selfish proclamations that to live really fully, I must have x, y, and z. Or when things don't go my way, when "misfortune" falls, I feel as if I have been cheated of something good. (It's really just in the word itself: "mis"/wrongly "fortune"/what I see as deserved well-being.)

I think of the time we've spent at the camp here in Ecuador and the two blonde-headed boys whose small hearts were so full of ingratitude and complaints already. At such a young age (and really are none of us that different) they have learned to whine and complain and gripe their way into their own desires. When mom doesn't give them the sweets or attention or toys they demand, they scream, cry, talk back, and disrespect the hand that feeds them, raises them, gives them life.

How easy it is for me to look at them and see the sin in their blackened little hearts, all the while forgetting that this spirit of ingratitude is rampant in my own heart as well. The disgust I felt listening to their complaints and crummy attitudes is really how I ought to feel toward myself when I recognize this "anti-eucharisteo" spirit raging in me.

When you are zip-lining through cloud-forests at 10,000 ft. of elevation, it's easy to be grateful. When you are loving 18 elementary Ecuadorian kids who shower you with hugs even when you are a stranger, it's easy to be grateful. When you stand on the edge of a mountainside in Quito and look down onto the grid of the city below, how can your heart be filled with anything but gratitude and praise?

But if God is good, what are you to do with the hard things? If God is always good, always working for our good, how do you reconcile the heartbreaks, the divorces, the deaths, the diseases, the pain that this world dishes out so freely? Is there gratitude to be found even in that?

I'm finding that the answer to that (even if sometimes blindly) is yes. God is good; God is sovereign even in the hurt, even in the heartache. We might not always see the "why" of the goodness in the hear and now, but when did God ever promise to answer our "why's"? He answered, is answering, our "who", and that is the only answer we will ever need.

Christ.

In one word the fullness of all God's mercies, graces, goodness, and promises is found. The name of Jesus Christ.

Sometimes we get a glimpse of the "why" through the "who", like when you are sitting in the rain in the back of a pickup truck in Ecuador and thinking back to the first time you met this crazy group of called women who have become your closest sisters. Sometimes you can see the change, the plan, the promise unfold, but not always, and never fully.

"Now we see through a mirror dimly, then face to face. Now we know in part, then we shall know fully, even as we have been fully known."

Don't you see the beauty of it? I am fully known. I don't have to understand because I am already fully understood! I don't have to know, because I am fully known. All I have to do is trust. Trust that I am being led there, trust that this dim mirror isn't a full revelation of the work being done in me. Someday I will see. Someday I will understand, but not today.

And I am ok with that.

I am ok with surrendering these flimsy expectations for the fullness of trust. It's a hearty trust, a strong unknowing, and that is because the trusting is in a Full-Knower. An all-powerful, GOOD Creator. A Director who connected freshman Bible study to Quito, Ecuador and is connecting moment-to-moment all these fleeting, seemingly random circumstances that I so often let rule me.

A bad day, a harsh word, a breakup, a depression are not equal to my God-concept unless I let them rule me. My filter should not be myself, my circumstances, my emotions, my own understanding. My filter must be Truth. Only then will I not be "tossed like the waves" by every tumultuous doctrine or event. When you are the filter for your own truth, the real Truth is distorted, but when the Truth is the filter for yourself, you can't help but find yourself changed by it (Him).

And as you are changed, you see it. I see it. Am seeing it. Am learning to look with new eyes. There's beauty all around. There's "eucharisteo" in everything. I'm grateful.

Thank you, God, for the "yes's" and the "no's", for the unconnected dots as well as the ones You choose to reveal. Help me walk by faith, to trust you daily with new graces, new beauties, new opportunities for seeing you. Amen."