Here's My Heart, Lord, Speak What is True

   Put your hand on your chest. You feel that constant thudding?  Social media often prompts you to do this so that you can feel your "purpose" beating inside of you, which is a little too abstract for me, but really, how cool is that? You're not even thinking about it and your heart is pumping about 2000 gallons of blood a day. 2000 gallons. When I start to think about what incredible things the organs are doing like that I begin to get really nervous because I know how intricate they are and how much heavy duty stuff they're doing. Luckily, however, I need not worry about such things because the maker of my heart is also the keeper of it. Unlike my car engine, when my heart stops working the manufacture of it collects the model and tweaks it until it runs forever. Cool, right?

   Today I went to a Tuesday night sermon/worship deal that I go to pretty regularly and we were worshipping to "Here's my heart" by Passion. The worship leader made some comment about how he heard no one knows what makes our heart start beating in the medical field and that's cool because we as Christians know what makes our hearts start beating. Well, he's partially correct. The medical field actually does know what makes our heart start beating, however they only know it in medical terms as "electricity". We know that this "electricity" very well may exist (yet I keep putting it in quotation marks for some reason...) but that it doesn't just happen on it's own. The maker of the stars and of life and of babies jump starts your heart and breathes life into your lungs and counts the hairs on your head before you're even depending on yourself to stay alive. I try to imagine what that must be like. The same God that created the Swiss Alps and Saturn and a sunflower wove my skin together, touched my heart (literally), blew up my lungs, and kissed the 643rd hair on my head. Let it sink in because that is CRAZY. You have literally been touched by God himself.

  I find it interesting that I know this but I don't think of it every day.  The only time I focus on my breathing is during my daily yoga (deep, cleansing breaths fellow yogis), but how precious is that breath? The only time I think about my heart beating is when I have one of those migraines where your heart is beating into your head, but how huge is each beat? I cry out to God again and again in school, asking for help and for success and for sanity, and again and again he grants just that to me, but every single semester I just do the same thing over again. When will I learn? When will I take what we might consider the most basic of bodily functions as precious as they are? When will I trust the one who made that heart or that breath in all areas of my life, always, without any doubts?

   I think I find it most interesting that we're the only creatures who live like this. One of the lines in my prayer journal from July 13th states:
     "As I sit in bed by my bedroom window, I hear thousands of crickets singing your praise in their own language. As soon as night falls they sing your praise until dawn and I think I could learn a lot from such a creature. You are higher, God."
The sun rises every day, warming the earth and reminding us of the great romance that is in Christ Jesus. The wind blows and unravels that same love story. The crickets chirp all night by my window, crying out to God. When will I learn that I should do the same? My heart is beating. My lungs are filling. God hasn't let me down yet, even when I thought he did. When will I wake up in the morning and sing praises until I fall back asleep?

So to God I say I'm sorry. I'm sorry I don't take as breath as preciously as I should. I'm sorry I doubt you again and again, even though I know that where I am is where you want me to be. You have gotten me through the very tip-top highs and the super down-hill lows. You have never once left my side. You have always provided for me, always been faithful, always been knitting me together as if I were still in your palm. And I can say right now in this moment, though I'm sure my human nature will cause me to doubt this in the future, You will always be by my side, always be providing, always be knitting. Even when it seems like you're not, I know that you are. Always.

"You are strong, you are sure,

You are life, you endure,

You are good, always true,

You are light breaking through,

You are more than enough,

You are here, you are love,

You are hope, you are grace,

You're all I have, You're everything,

Here's my heart Lord,

Here's my heart Lord,

Here's my heart Lord,

Speak what is true."

It's the Fries Talking

Today served as a fairly large milestone in my life to me on a personal/spiritual level. It was the last day of classes of my first semester of college. Big deal, I got 7 more heading my way before I can throw a real party. But really, big deal. I know this is fairly a common thing these days, but to me its extraordinary. As many of you know, the path I am on right now is not one that I chose but one that God chose. I wouldn't be at the school I'm at or pursuing what I'm majoring in if God hadn't intervened. Sometimes, while I'm sitting in my room studying for hours, I regret this decision. Not because I don't absolutely love what I'm studying, but because I see people with the major I intended to pursue hanging out with friends and attending lots of school events. They "cram all night" (they don't) for a test in one of their classes and the test barely compares in difficulty to a normal quiz I might take or a homework assignment I have. It's pretty crappy sometimes. But I remind myself that I'm not just here for me, I'm here for the Lord's work, which is a super weird thing to hear coming from someone not majoring in anything directly theological at a school that is about as secular as they come, but I am. I love studying what I am studying and pushing myself, and today I reached a milestone. A semester of saying yes to God's plan and to pushing through the adversity that I face literally every day (no one takes me seriously in my major because I'm a girl and I wear makeup) and totally trusting him when NOTHING has gone the way I thought it would. So, with that huge introduction, here's the actual meat of the blogpost. The REAL college. This is the list of lies about college I grew up hearing and the reality of these lies. So sit back, relax, and laugh at my life. It's totally cool, I'll be laughing with you.

***Disclaimer: None of these terrible awful things may actually happen to you. My dumb roommate actually lost weight and eats lots of pizza and has beautiful skin and sleeps 12 hours a day (Hate you Bailee). ***

1) You're Going to be SO Fit: This was the thought running through my head when I first toured the college I currently attend. LIE. This might be an easy task for certain majors (let's be real here), but engineering is not one of those. If you want good grades, you find time to work out in an empty study room once or twice a week, something I do quite often these days. If you don't really care about your grades, go to the gym daily. I know many people who do this and their grades are mediocre at best, but hey, that's their choice. I went through my last two years of high school working out daily and my whole life playing sports so this fact is still pretty hard for me to deal with, but we're getting there.

2) Our Food Accommodates EVERYONE: FALSE. College food is the definition of suck. Our cafeteria comes complete with tasteless food and a staff that is so comfortable with our students that they feel free to take on our mom's job of yelling at us. You then find yourself eating at the restaurants around campus a lot, which gets old quickly. Yes, I'm saying it, Chick-Fil-A ain't cutting it anymore. I actually had a breakdown in my dorm about 20 minutes ago because I don't remember the last meal I had where fries weren't served. I was fortunate enough to grow up with a mom who cooked really healthy, amazing food every night. So this one's for you mom, get to cooking.

3) You will Get the Best Sleep of Your Life: Oh yeah I've bought into this one for a while. However, I underestimated just how fried my brain would get. I now find myself so wound up with stress that insomnia and I have become best friends. The other night I actually found myself solving calculus problems in my head while trying to sleep. Many nights have I woken up dozens of times because my dreams were filled with the homework I had just worked on or how I could have solved that problem on my Chemistry quiz. I went through high school getting 8+ hours of sleep no problem. I could fall asleep just about anywhere. Now I can't even escape from school in my own sleep people. There should be a scholarship for that.

4) Acne is a Thing of the Past: Perhaps the most cruel lie of all. I've had a mild problem with acne since middle school, however over the course of my senior year my acne had almost completely disappeared. Now my face could be mistaken for a pepperoni pizza. I think the culmination of lack of exercise, shoving greasy food into my face, and the restless nights all piled onto of the crazy amount of stress that I have is the main cause here (I'm working on all the above, bear with me). Oh, and incase you're interested, this reason what why I had today's mental breakdown. It's all good though, I swore off french fries.

5) And all the rest: You will be so much poorer than you ever thought you would be, you will miss your friends from high school more and more every day, anytime you see an animal will be a big deal because colleges have issues with animals, (if you go to a state school) your professors won't give 2 craps about you and the parking will suck, you will pay out the whazoo for your education, everyone around you will suddenly start turning into liberals, your chances of becoming a stripper skyrocket.

Yeah, I think that about covers it all. Now, there are very many wonderful, great things about college. However, no one ever wants to complain about good things. I'm hoping I will discover more and more good things as time moves on, but you never know how God works. I could hate my life for 7 more semesters, but I'm here for Him. Bottom line is, I don't care how crappy college is, if that's where God wants me then that's where God wants me. I will work as hard as I possibly can to make it, but only for Him. That's where I draw strength from because I can NOT do this on my own. I'm not smart enough, I don't have enough determination, I would go insane. God is the ONLY reason I'm doing as well as I'm doing (contrary to the impression you may have just gotten). I wouldn't be where I am if it weren't for him making it possible. He's piled on blessing after blessing for me to be here right now, complaining about these things. I'm not about to give up on Him. Truth is, I kinda love being an engineer. Can this college thing just happen in the comfort of my own home?

Thank you for reading my rant. I promise my life isn't the joke I just made it seem. I'm extremely happy and blessed :)

When the Stars Fall Down

Resurrection. Rapture. Apocalypse. Armageddon. End of life as we know it. The final show-down.

The coming of christ has many different names, categories, and definitions. There are different beliefs on what is going to happen, when it will happen, how it will happen, and the timing of all the things that are going to happen. People have different interpretations of Revelations and therefore hardly anyone believes the same thing when it comes to the rapture of the church. I mean, no one knows honestly, so I guess it would be more accurate to say that no one's guesses are exactly the same.

The other night as I sat down to eat a dinner with my boyfriend and his family, this exact discussion arose. Some of his family believe one thing, some believe the opposite, and the rest really do not know (I fall into that category). To catch you up:

Belief #1: Rapture First- People who believe in this theory say that the current followers of Christ will be raptured first (aka, taken from this earth to spend eternity with Jesus) and then the Tribulations that is outlined in the book of Revelations will take place. Followed by the tribulation, the people who realized they had missed out the first time and would like to dedicate their lives to Christ would be given a chance to do so. The "second rapture" will occur (this is when many people believe 144,000 Jews will realize Jesus is the Messiah they had been looking for and will also be saved) and then the full-out war between God's people and Satan's people will occur. Obviously Satan is defeated and we spend eternity as God's bride.

Belief #2: Tribulation First- People who believe in this theory believe that everyone on earth, believers and non believers alike, will be suddenly thrust into the tribulation that Revelations outlines. After that, there will be one and only one rapture of the people of God and then the fight between heaven and hell will commence.

Obviously these theories go much deeper and each have valid scriptural evidence to back up the claims. If you've by chance never taken a look at Revelations, its extremely symbolic and hard to interpret. It certainly goes above and beyond human understanding, as I believe God meant for it to go. My point I want to make here today is, are you ready for either option?

It would be easy and comforting to believe that we christians get to be raptured first and skip all the pain and suffering that comes with option 2. I think its safe to say that we all would prefer this to happen. The question is, however, what if it doesn't? What if option 2 is actually most accurate. What if you and I and our babies have to live through the years of tribulation, something that is quite literally hell on earth,? Are you ready to still worship God and still believe that He is good?

Sadly, I think the answer to this question is "no" for a lot of us. If the antichrist himself held a gun to our heads and told us to accept his mark or die in the name of Jesus, many of us would choose the easy way out and take the mark. Even harder, if he held a gun to our children's heads, most parents would most definitely accept the mark. We most definitely would choose satan and sin over Jesus. We absolutely would do what was easiest, what was most just in our own eyes. It would be a no-brainer to continue to conform to this world, a world that Satan controls.

I'm coming with this message today to get you thinking. In this day and age, not very often do we stop to pause and think about this reality. We do not know when Jesus will come to claim his bride. We do not know if we will suffer or if we will be given grace. It could be 10 minutes or days or weeks or years. But are you ready? And are you ready to die for your God? Are you ready to say "Yes, Satan. I follow Jesus and I know that You will be defeated and I will voluntarily let you take my family's life from me right now because I know that we will be in a much, much better place for our faith in Him"? That's a tough statement to spit out. But it's something you have to think about now.

As a near 20-year-old who has her whole life and a college degree ahead of her, this is something really hard to think about. I've been pinning wedding ideas and baby ideas for years now, and I'm finally getting to a point in my life where that very well could be the reality for me in the next 5 years. I could be a new bride with a baby on the way. Thats exciting. Everyone wants to meet Mr. Right and get hitched and pop out some kids and decorate a home together and grow old surrounded by happiness and family. It's literally the American Dream. But honestly, this might not be a reality for me. Jesus could be calling his bride home sooner rather than later. Am I ready to say "take my life and all the dreams and plans I've looked forward to since I could remember. I choose Jesus, not that."..? I think, in all honestly, I am.....

Are You?

Calling All College Students: The List Has Arrived

Here is the list of things that I have thus far found extremely irritating when it pertains to college. The number is what it is because I just decided to list absolutely everything that has annoyed the dickens out of me in the past few months and then run with whatever number that turns out to be. Also, for your added benefit, I have found all of these things to be annoying and I have yet to attend a single college class or even move into a dorm, which adds on to the fun in my eyes. Without further ado, here is a list of the crap that universities put us through:

THE LIST

(dum dum daaaaaaaaah)

1. The fact that I am given a fee for anything and everything. I have a fee for being a student and for living on campus and for choosing the major that I chose and for parking and for breathing and enjoying sunlight and for any other thing that university can find to nickel and dime me (I lied about that last one). You would think the thousands upon thousands already going towards tuition and housing and meal plans would have it covered.... You would be wrong. 

2. Being an "Overflow Student". Essentially it comes down to this: the university accepts everyone who applies in order to get extra $$$. They don't believe half these idiots will make it past the first month, but they get their grubby little hands on all those thousands that student paid for the first semester anyway. This means that these snots want to live on campus and since the school accepts everyone, there becomes a problem with the amount of dorms available. Which puts actual students who came in with a shot at doing this in a hotel for weeks. Why this is even a thing, I don't know. But it needs to not be. 

3. The Email System from hell.  I will never understand why I have to login 10 times before my account is recognized but I do. I also will never understand why the system can never seem to follow any command you give it. Isn't it ironic that an institution meant to make you more educated can't even handle its own tech problems?

4. Unneeded books. Not sure why the university lists books that they never intend to use on the "what to buy" list in their class. In fact, on the first day of class they will even admit to you that you need not buy this book, which is why I will be holding off. Also don't know why this is a thing, but it is and I'm still not president so not much I can do there. 

5. We're given jail cells in exchange for our souls. We basically are being asked to sign our life away and pay out the wazoo. You would think we would at least be met with top of the line bedrooms for this, but we're not. We are met by warm, inviting cinder block walls and furniture from the 1960s on move-in day. 

6. The "You got so lucky to get all of those scholarships!" summer talks. I'm "lucky?" Um no. Please tell that to the senior girl in high school who spent her free periods (the period all other seniors used for nap time) filling out scholarships and writing essays. I believe I have been to more interviews/banquets/offices to prove that I am worthy of this stuff than anyone on planet earth. I lived and breathed scholarships for a year. I basically lived in my guidance counselors office, some days even visiting my warm and cheery and not socially awkward (heehee) guidance counselor between every single class period, plus 20 minutes of my lunch. So no, I did not get lucky. God blessed me with the maturity to be able to be that disciplined, but I by no means had it "fall in my lap".   

7. My emails being passed around more than the Thanksgiving side dishes. For some reason when you email someone at the university who seems like they could answer your questions (or are even listed as the person who could indeed answer the question), they always have to send it to somebody else. Infact, sometimes i email my school trying to figure out exactly who to email about a certain question and that email gets passed around 4 times. 

For the time being, this is all the ranting I am capable of. Yes, this stuff gets under my skin. But I am super excited to be in college and start my little journey. However, I will protest this crap till I die.

There's a Time to Weep and a Time to Laugh...

Tonight I celebrate my graduation from my "baby christian" stage. Tonight was the graduation that my Sunday school class set up for the seniors. I can not begin to describe how incredibly blessed I have been through this group of people. I have truly witnessed the hand of God reach down to touch the kids in this group. I have seen almost every one of them break down in worship and weep because they couldn't possibly comprehend how great, how loving, how gracious our Jesus is. And through witnessing that, I have truly came to appreciate the beauty behind such actions. Being with this group of teens has blessed me in ways I will never again be blessed. Teenagers seem to more easily be able to swallow their pride and get on their knees (or sometimes even literally lay face-down to the ground) and cry out to God. They put hands on each other and they pray wholeheartedly. They put their hands out and they scream and sing  and cry because that is the kind of worship that our God deserves. They become Jesus and they rake yards and they make soup and they brush kids hair and they sweep floors and they carry tables and they do what needs to be done in the church and in the mission world. Adults have problems with these things. They don't want to go in front of a congregation and admit that they have flaws or that they haven't appreciated Jesus the way that he deserves. They pray in extravagant words because they think that's the way to go. They mumble worship music in hopes that no one will be able to hear the words that they sing because they are ashamed of their voice when they sing. They have work and a family and they cant go to Africa or the other side of the country or across the state or even up the road because that's somebody else's job and they have a life. It seems like the teen Jesus and the adult Jesus are 2 different people. However, I believe wholeheartedly that my group of teens, my sunday school class, my brothers and sisters will help to change this stereotype. I have watched them change lives and churches and communities. I have seen God use them. I can't wait to see how God will continue to guide them.

It has been my pleasure and privilege to be a member of such a wonderful group of people. It's a bittersweet moment, but I know that God will continue to bless the next phase of my life. It will be a different experience but a good one. This is a moment in time, however. Never again will I see such blessings as these. Praise the Good Lord.

Saying "Bye-Bye" to 2013

As 2013 comes to an end, I find myself reflecting back on what made this year memorable for me. This year was the end of my junior year and the start of my senior year. It was the end of a terrible year of AP Chemistry and the start of the headache of scholarships. It was the pledge to begin to walk myself through the bible and the blessing of actually finishing it.It was a summer of camps, both spiritual and non-spiritual, that would forever change my life.  2013 meant a lot to me. But, in all honesty, these past few days of reflection have meant the most.

Maybe for me this year it isn't about what made 2013 memorable. Right now, it's about the protection that 2013 has/had to offer me. When the ball drops and the people kiss, 2014 starts. The year of graduation. The year of college. The year of money talking and making ends meet and meeting new people and being uncomfortable for some amount of time. Don't get me wrong- these are all things I'm excited for and I'm ready for... But that doesn't mean I'm not fearful, even just a little. This new year will be the end of what most people called the best days of their lives. My life is skating right by me and I can't even slow down. I've been wanting to skip through high school, and, don't get me wrong, I'm READY to take this next step. But for the next 5 months, I want to take it in. I don't want it to fly by. I want to enjoy the last 5 months with some people I will never see or talk to again ever. I want to enjoy living under my parents and being a kid. Because in 5 months, that's over. It will never ever go back to the way that it is now. And that's more than tough in some ways. 

All in all, I'm ready. I'm ready to grow up and to start life. I'm ready to meet those new people, to not me familiar with my surroundings, and to make more memories than I could imagine. I'm ready for the independence. I trust that God will get me there, no matter what I will be leaving behind in 5 months. 2014 is MY year. It's the year of promises and happiness and new beginnings. And I'm ready for that. But for the next 5 months, I will still be living in 2013. And I'm okay with that. 

My advice to anyone making those new years resolutions: stop. You don't need a new year to be a new you. If you are like me and you need the current year to stretch on just a little bit more, that can happen too. The next year is full of opportunities to improve you and improve the world. Be selfless, be wild, do something that you will remember for the rest of your life. But please, please don't stay the same. Embrace what God gives you, even if it's not what you're used to. This new year could mean 1000 different things, but only if you make it into what you want it to be. You don't need a resolution because such a thing does not exist. Make a change, stick to it, become who you've always wanted to be. And live. 

That Crazy Voice Inside Our Heads

Do you ever have that feeling, that little tug at your heart, that you need to go and do something or say something, but you really don’t know what that feeling is all about? Some might say that your conscience is urging you to follow through with the act, others might argue otherwise. But I believe that the burning urge you experience is directly coming from God.

          A section in Mark 5 speaks mostly of Jesus raising a little girl from the dead. But the bible also seemingly shoves another story in the middle of the one mentioned above that really can seem out of place. The story is of a woman who has been bleeding for twelve years and has gone to every doctor she knows, but none can solve the problem. In fact, the problem actually worsened. The woman was obviously terrified of what could happen next and was at a loss as to what the next step she could take would be. She began to hear stories of Jesus raising people from the dead, healing the sick, and even driving out demons. Suddenly she began to think “if I can just touch him, I will be healed”. So what did she do? She reached out and she touched him and was healed.

          As I was reading this story the other day, I began to question what would make her think that she just had to touch him to be healed. Reaching out and touching not only a complete stranger but a celebrity goes beyond the saying
“going out on a limb”. After some deep thought, I reached a conclusion. The woman probably had that little voice in the back of her mind, the very same voice that you and I have from time to time, telling her that for some strange reason, all she had to do was touch Jesus to gain healing. That voice was and is God’s voice.

          God knew that obeying this command would take faith. Put yourself in this woman’s shoes: Imagine if you knew Tom Cruise was due to be in town here in a while and you began to feel the urge that touching him would heal you of your _____ (insert disease here)… would you do it? Probably not! That’s awkward, humiliating, dangerous, uncomfortable. The woman probably thought that she was absolutely crazy for having these thoughts, but she had this undeniable burn (and I’m sure she knew that it was a burn God had given her) that she had to touch Jesus. So that’s what she did. And Jesus turned around and told her that because of her faith she was healed. That part always used confused me. What faith? The faith it took to listen to that little voice and to know that it was God and to follow through with what He was telling her to do. That’s a great deal of faith.

          I come with this message to encourage you to listen to that voice inside of your soul, urging you to do the craziest of things. I have heard countless stories of the most awkward encounters that were inspired by God, all in order to be a blessing in someone’s day. You never know how God could use you, and if it’s anything like it was in biblical times, it gets far more ridiculous than simply touching the edge of someone’s cloak. But I promise that the initial craziness, whatever it may be, will be well worth the blessing in the end. All you need is the faith that tells you God will be glorified through the action.

“Spirit lead me where my trust is without borders. Let me walk upon the waters, wherever you would call me. Take me deeper than my feet could ever wander and my faith would be made stronger in the presence of my Savior.” –Oceans by Hillsong. I hope that you pray for the faith that will allow you to wander the craziest of paths as long as God’s voice is your guide, just as he was for the woman in the story.