Waking Up From My Slumber

"Days, they force you back under those covers. Lazy mornings they multiple. Glory's waiting outside your window. Wake on up from your slumber, baby open up your eyes." - NEEDTOBREATHE 

     God is so good. One way to tell --> NEEDTOBREATHE. I'm sure a ton of you agree. This song lifts my heart because I need it! The WORLD needs it! The song is about realizing that we are in a slumber! We are in a slumber of passiveness, of bitterness and hurt, of numbness. We are in a slumber of content, of confusion, of distraction. It's about waking up. Waking up and realizing God's love. Realizing the lack of anguish in our Christian and worldly communities. Realizing where we actually stand in our faith.
     If you asked me to describe how the past week has been I'd immediately know the word to use: restless. My heart has been restless, my body, and mostly my mind. My heart is so overwhelmed with longing for the Lord, longing for comfort, longing for SOMETHING. I have felt worthless, unproductive, unhelpful, pointless, and lazy with my relationship with God and it was killing me. All week I've been mentally beating myself up and praying to God for a job for a motive for Him to work through me. My mind is going crazy just trying to figure out what the heck is going on inside my heart! And of course to deal with this confusion I instinctively distracted myself with friends, family, school, music, sports, anything - essentially digging myself into a deeper hole. I was wrestling with God. But it was as if He was just not moving. I was pushing from all sides and He just wasn't going to budge. But He was pushing me too. I was just too worked up to notice.
     I can tell you that tonight has been the best night of my week because my heart is now at rest. Everything just came together. I can breath. I'm at peace. How the heck did that happen? Get ready.... :D!
     Tonight I sat down for my first worship and prayer sesh in a few days. I spend time with the Lord everyday either reading the Bible, reading Francis Chan's Crazy Love, or writing in my prayer journal. But for the past two days I haven't been able to really worship and pray alone. This morning I was still so restless that I pulled a sheet out of my Tues/Thurs journal and wrote a page long prayer while waiting for my professor to show up!
    I finished 2 Corinthians a few days ago but for some reason I read the last few Chapters again tonight without realizing at first that I had already read them. As I read through them the impact they had made on me a few days ago rose up again in my heart and mind but it was now met with greater and more meaningful realizations. 2 Corinthians 13:11 "Finally, brothers and sister, rejoice! Strive for full restoration, encourage one another, be of one mind, live in peace. And the God of love and peace will be with you." I read this and it immediately hit me. How powerful these words were. I wanted to know the whole meaning of them. I read them three or four times then moved in to figure out what they meant: God has a plan. All He wants is for us to give our hearts to Him. We have nothing to worry about. So strive for life in Him; be there for one another in a positive, energetic, and lively way; join together and share the love and faith of the Lord with fellow brothers and sisters in Christ; have peace, serenity, fulfillment in the Lord. For He is with you in all of this and He will guide you in all that you do. This is harder than it looks. But those are four things that Paul is encouraging us to do. Four things we have to concentrate on. Every one of them is good. Every one of them is promising. And every one of them is not ever done alone, but with God.
     Earlier in the chapter I came across this: 2 Corinthians 13:5 "Examine yourselves to see whether you are in the faith; test yourselves. Do you not realize that Christ Jesus is in you.." Now a little hesitant at first, I let this one sink in. Am I in the faith? Am I trusting in God, living my life as if it is not mine, but God's? If I tested myself, would I fail?
     Katrina, my roommate, also came in tonight (see things coming together? cray.) And relayed to me what she had learned at Doo Rag (a Christian Ministry on Campus) with extreme excitement, passion, and fervor. She talked to me about how we are always drifting from the Lord. It doesn't matter who you are or where you are. You're drifting. We are sinners. You compare yourself to that "really pretty" girl, you're drifting. You even think about yelling at your mom, you're drifting. You lie to someone, anyone, you're drifting.  You think about how annoying it is for someone to (fill in the blank), you're drifting. You flinch away from a homeless man, you're drifting. The speaker took it another notch. You think about that knife, you're drifting. You think about that gun to you're head, you're drifting. It's all drifting. We are always drifting no matter how much. So what are we doing about it? Slash...through this, what do you realize about God?
     Now for the last part of the verse, do you realize that Jesus is in you? IN you. Earlier this week (this is where things are coming together again!) I read the second chapter of Francis Chan's Crazy Love and on Friday of last week I went to IV Large Group and what do you know! - I learned a LOT about God!
     Francis talked about how God made us with a purpose. He chose for us to be here. CHOSE for us to be here. Not until I read this did I realize that for so long I had been thinking that He made me THEN He  made a purpose for me. No. He thought about the purpose, then He made me with it in mind. He willingly made me. Just to love me, use me in His giant awesome plan, and have me love Him. How honorable is that!!!! The God of the universe actually thought deeply about who He wanted me to be and how He was going to use me. CJ taught me how the Lord God, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit were one together, before the world, before the universes, before anything. They were COMPLETELY full in joy, love, beauty, trust, faith. They were completely full and perfect. But then God made the world to share it with us. I always wonder why He did this. But then I think about the true reason for why we chose and want to have children. And that just, without much more explanation, explains it. To realize this! To realize these truths... but to really truly believe and live them...
     Francis's last powerful point of chapter 2 in Crazy Love is the idea that we could die.. anytime. Most of us know this, I hope. But do we really realize it? Do we really live like it? Do we REALLY live like it? This has been a huge conviction for me. Ever since I read this on Monday I realized, no, I don't live like this truly. Granted, I am a spontaneous person, I live for today as much as I possibly can, and I try to cherish was God gives me every morning, every moment. But if I am being honest. I don't LIVE like this is a truth to me. If I died today what would I have to say for that? Did I glorify God in all I did. Did I love everyone as much as I could that I came in contact with? Did I see the joy in the world that God has made and cease it with all I could?
    Paradoxically I woke up from a slumber of restlessness and entered into the peace of God. I know that God has a plan for me. That He knows me inside and out. He knew all of me before I was born. He knew all of me 200 years ago! He purposefully chose to make me for a specific reason. All I need to do is run after HIM. Find peace in HIM. Focus on HIM and the purpose will be fulfilled. He will instill in me the passions, the motives, the tasks that He wants me to complete. I've realized that He is in me. He always has been. Now I will follow Him. With everything.  And know that He is with me. Now I will live like I know God. Wake on up from your slumber and Live with me! :)
   
   
   

Home, In Every Way Possible

     "HHHHIIIIIIIIII!!!!! AAHHHHH!!!!!! I MISSED YOU SO MUCHH!!!!! AAHHHHHHHHH" - Just a little taste of what my entire weekend was like :) Yes! I went home! Don't kill me if I didn't get a chance to see you. My weekend was CRAZY!
     [We are now entering another recap. Just a heads up] The week after the end of my fast was ridiculous in so many ways. My feast, as I described in my last post, was AWESOME. But it lasted longer than I expected. Meaning I continued to "feast" for the next three days. And I didn't follow my own advice: to feast for the glory God. I feasted for myself. Which of course turned out badly. I had a stomach ache, for it seemed like forever, and I didn't talk to God for three days. Now, if I had done that only a month or two ago it would have been something of the norm. But now, after I've given everything to Him, it was as if I literally starved myself for three days. As I was eating like crazy I was...starving like crazy. Hmm. I explained it to my mom like this: Imagine being deeply in love with someone. To the point where you feel connected at a level that you have never felt before. You've spent almost every day with them. Just being with them. Now imagine being cut off from them for three days straight. I'm a romantic, so this scenario makes complete sense to me. But it also makes sense because it's essentially what happened. I didn't make time for God, I was distracted, I was preoccupied, busy, whatever you want to call it. But it was my fault, I let it happen, and it bit me in the butt. Here's another scenario/analogy. Imagine your first home, growing up there from the time you were born until you were around 10 or 12. It's were everything special happened. From Christmas morning and Thanksgiving dinner to homework, fights, laundry, and sleepovers. It's the home you wake up in and the home you go back to every night. Now imagine getting caught on a plane because of fog or a bad storm. You can't get home for the next few days. So you have to make camp in a hotel with only your carry-on bag. You miss your bed, the smell of your kitchen, the big dent in your couch where you always sit. You miss the family you see every morning and every night. You miss your home. Okay... so this is another analogy turned to reality. Kinda.
     [Back from recap!] Like I mentioned my weekend was CRAZY! I was everywhere seeing everyone. The first night I got home I saw my mom and brother of course, my little siblings at my dad's house, my friend Grace Toohey, and some of her friends that were over. The second day I did a walk for homeless and surprised some people at church, catching up with maybe...7 or 10 of them. I got to hang out with Keith and his friends from school, then see my coach and his family, spend time with my grandma, and go shopping with my mom. THEN go to a huge birthday party for my girls Sally, Grace, and their mom and see literally almost everyone from church followed by some alone time with the boyfriend. The next morning I spent time early with my best friend Ciara and then went to church to see everyone, plus more, again. I spent the rest of the day with them and my family and, before I knew it, was on my way home. I had a blast seeing everyone, literally what I had wanted for the past two weeks. But as soon as I was dropped off back at my new home, aka school, I broke down. I was tired. No, exhausted. I was sick now, and I was overwhelmed with all that I had to do for Monday and the rest of the week.
     And then I realized what I had done. Oh the sheep that strays. After my fast I feasted for myself. I didn't replenish myself and marvel in the Lords gifts. I marveled in the great JMU food that I could eat whenever I wanted now. I didn't even spend time with God! I didn't go home and rest. I didn't go home and sleep. I didn't go home and smell my kitchen, sit on my couch, or sleep in my bed for very long at all. I've spoken about this before. God gave me this body for a reason. Gave me this heart and this life for a reason. But I can't serve Him well and appreciate what He's given me if I don't care for myself. If I don't replenish myself physically, emotionally, and spiritually...what good am I? And of course God hits me with a verse as soon as I open my Bible again. To encourage me, remind me, and guide me.
     "The god of this age has blinded the minds of unbelievers, so that they cannot see the light of the gospel that displays the glory of Christ, who is the image of God. For what we preach is not ourselves, but Jesus Christ as Lord, and ourselves as your servants for Jesus' sake."
   "Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day. For out light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all. So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen, since what is unseen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal."
     "And he dies for all, that those who live should no longer live for themselves but for him who died for them and was raised again."

I realized that God is more. So much more than me. But He still chooses to work on me and spend time with me and listen to my complaints, my frustrations, my joys, my sorrows, my wonders, my dreams. We are here to live for Him, to work for Him. That is not just what will fill that hole in our hearts but its what our hearts are made of and for. What the poo was I doing!?

     Then he took me back, and spoke to me through Paul, my bff, again.
     Paul says that God said "I will live with them and walk among them and I will be their God, and they will be my people."
     Paul also tells the people of Corinth, straight forward, with a heart for the Lord, "I have said before that you have such a place in our hearts that we would live or die with you. I have spoken to you with great frankness: I take great pride in you. I am greatly encouraged; in all our troubles my joy knows no bounds."
     God's awesome; He just...knows.

A Pleasing Aroma

     I'm going to let you know before-time that the next however many lines you are going to read will most likely be a hodge podge of all the craziness that happens to be a regular thing in my life now a days. First let's begin with how....I FINISHED MY FAST!!!! Two or three days before my fast I realized...well...it was two or three days before my fast ended! I had some awesome quiet times with the Lord and during them He instilled in me this pure and joyful excitement for the ending of my fast or in better words, the beginning of the next few months after my fast. He instilled in me the urge to really celebrate! One of the readings towards the end of my fast was about remembering that all that  I had been through was for the Glory of God. This was an awesome reminder because it just made all that I had been through good and bad so much more than it already was. The reading also reminded me that... although I was fasting in the Lord. I can also, every day, feast in the Lord. This was SUPER exciting! I had to think about it a little bit though. Think about what this really meant.
     Recently at Large Group for InterVarsity the speaker has been talking about evangelism. One thing he said that really hit me at the Large Group on Friday was to live out God through all you do. To do it FOR the glory of GOD. I was like...we'll yeah Jesus rules! I thank Him for pretty much everything. And I appreciate it too. But living for the glory of God in all you do means so much more! The speaker gave the example of ...if you played a sport. Say football. Popular enough right? :P Oh America. Anyway, to play football in order to glorify God doesn't simply mean praying before the game, making Jesus shirts, not cussing when you lose, or getting to know each other and appreciate each other. All those things are awesome, but to really glorify God through playing football, it means so much more. It means to enjoy the sport and play it for what it is and for what it was made to be. To appreciate the essence of football. To treat it as the gift from God that it is. To appreciate your body and what it can do for you. To play with heart and mind. To grasp your agility, strength, and speed and appreciate it, use it, and love it. To play football for the something beautiful that it is.
    Thats pretty intense right? But it's awesome! Imagine if we did that with everything in life! Football or sports doesn't have to be the extent of it. Painting, drawing, fashion, paying music, listening to music, singing to music, laughing, sleeping, eating, looking outside, walking through the park, brushing your teeth, (heck!) writing an essay for school! Fasting is glorifying God. But so is feasting!
    I've been thinking about this concept for the past three days now and I still havent even fully grasped the extent of it, let alone been able to actually do it to the extent of it. But I knew that this morning, at 12:00 AM I was going to celebrate. And feast for the glory of God!
    For my last day of fasting I barely ate anything. I had an apple for breakfast and a cold can of mushed peas and corn that I ate out of a hole that I cut in the top of the can with my pocket knife. I did concessions during the Home Coming Game for Colleges Against Cancer and lost my voice yet again hawking up and down the stands. This was actually super fun...until it started raining and all the sudden became really fraggin cold. I arrived home in a frenzy: irritated, cold, tired, and starving. We rushed to D hall and all they really had was rice with a spicy tomato sauce. Emily, my suite-mate who I'd been fasting with, and I were almost too tired to even reminisce over the past 21 days. We ate, left, and went home. She went to bed early and I hung out kickin it for a few hours with some friends. Then...dun dun dun.. 11:45! HOLY MACKREL! 15 minutes! My friend Caroline and I rushed home. At 11:55 I ran form the kitchen into my room and sat down with God. I spent the last 5 minutes with Him. And it was the best part of my night. Erin, Anna, Lauren, Caroline, Erin's sister, and eventually the entire upper level of my dorm ended up coming to feast with us. We made brownies, ate old pizza, launched old dried cake we found across the room, snacked on m&ms, nutella, poptarts and pretty much anything else we could find. By 2 AM we were all sprawled out in the hallway sitting in each other's laps while a few people played guitars and banjos, singing. I loved it.
     God, meanwhile, was seriously doing work. Here's a few things I forgot to mention. After I spent my last 5 minutes with God I rushed into the kitchen in excitement. Quickly He set my heart to work. One thing that I pray for everyday, and probably most people pray for, is for God to work through me, to use me to the best of His abilities so that I can serve Him and the people He's made and loves. Like I always say, God goes hard. I've been told this by a few people, but apparently my "spiritual gift" is service and empathy. My friendships and relationships mean the world to me. I literally almost cannot explain the love I have for people. God has put me in people's lives to listen to them and to speak through me to them. God put me to work last night. And I became tired. By 3 AM I felt lost. I felt stretched thin. "God I'm not strong enough for this. I feel emptied, I feel drained. I was just filled. You think too highly of me. You're expectations for me are far too great. I can't do it." I started to resent my heart. Resent how easily I can empathize with people. I'm sure most of you can relate, but it hurts to see the people you love hurt and confused. It hurts. And I started to run from it.
     One thing that I've been praying for lately is for God to just get down here. So that I can physically hug Him. So that I can physically sit in His lap. So he can physically be my Dad. And last night all I wanted was that: to just give up and go sit in my Dad's lap. With a little bit of me freaking out/venting matched with jokes and reassurance from Keith and a few more prayers to Mr. Almighty, I went to bed at 5 AM with a lighter and more positive heart.
     This morning I woke up thinking about God, singing to God, and praying to God. He had different plans for me when I wanted to go to church. So I ended up once again with my Bible and Journal at my desk with my Jesus Music playlist on. This morning He gave me these words from Paul in 2 Corinthians:
"But thanks be to God, who always leads us as captives in Christ's triumphal procession and uses us to spread the aroma fo knowledge of him everywhere. For we are to God the pleasing aroma of Christ among those who are being saved and those who are perishing."
"You should know that you are a letter from Christ, the result of our ministry, written not with ink but with the Spirit of the living God, not on tablets of stone but on tablets of human hearts."
"Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. And we all who with unveiled faces contemplate the Lord's glory, are being transformed into his image with every-increasing glory, which comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit."
     MAN! Paul rules. Oh the comfort of the Lord. Oh how He amazes me. Today is going to be a good day. And so is tomorrow ;)