WHY I REALIZED LOVING PEOPLE FROM AFAR DOESN'T WORK

1. It's an impossible task. Tell me how a person you haven't talked to since middle school is loving you well (or loving you at all) by not existing in your life. They aren't. Tell me how your mom or dad would be loving you well by not calling you, not caring how you are doing when they see you, and not making an effort in your life. They wouldn't be. Tell me how your neighbor is loving you well by not saying a word to you. They aren't. Love is personal, it is up close. It is hard conversations and raw emotions. It is vulnerability. Love does not leave. Love is not a constant silence- it is joy and the sharing of thoughts, the sharing of bread, it is silence at times but rambunctious laughter and a huge mess of words the next. Love is not what is being chosen when you choose to leave, to not try, to give up, love is not chosen when you think you are opting for 'loving someone from afar.' The two simply do not mesh together.

2. Jesus wouldn't do it. Jesus loved the tax collector by coming right up to him, He loved the leper by touching him, He loved the lost, the broken, the shunned, the people that society hated- He loved them by loving them up close. Even with the threat of being hated by them, of being hurt or turned down, among a whole slew of things that could have gone wrong- Jesus took the risk. He took the risk. He loved up close because it works. Loving people from afar doesn't. Which leads me to my last point:

3. It's a lie. Love is patient, it doesn't flee at the sight of being ridiculed or undermined. Love is selfless, it isn't about making life easier on us or more convenient. Love is relentless, as far as I am concerned if Jesus doesn't stop loving me I have zero reasons to stop trying to love someone else. To love someone well or to even love someone at all, you can't peace out. You stick through the muck, you try and you try and you try. You don't give up because love doesn't.

Tonight these truths were slammed in my face. I had used this excuse as the most "Christian" excuse for not loving someone that is really, really incredibly difficult to love. I wanted the easy route, so this answer was the best one. Love sounded good in theory, but in practice, it was too hard. Wasn't worth the names that this person etched into my heart and all over my broken body with their words, or the screaming, or the taunts or the lies or the ridicule. It wasn't worth the pain that trying to love this person resulted in.

But today it hit me. Love wins. As cliche as it sounds. It's worth it.

It's worth therapy, it's worth seeking my identity in Christ harder because it's harder to see when put up against the lies this person speaks. Love is worth it. I have counted the cost and when it comes down to it, I would rather put myself in the line of fire a thousand times and have someone know the love of Christ through my relentless love despite all costs- then for me to just leave in the name of 'loving them from afar.'

Loving someone from afar just doesn't work. It's a cop out. 

Love that person that it is hard to love, 

because it's worth it.

THE RED EQUALITY BOX

My Facebook homepage has recently filled up with red profile pictures with an equality sign. And it has equally filled up with people that follow Jesus sticking retaliatory profile pictures up, posting Scripture intended to stand against homosexuality, and a whole stream of comments coming after those things of them trying to defend their feelings toward this sin to people that see their arguments as bullshit.

I can't explain the frustration and hurt in my heart.

Maybe some people were raised in a sweet little Christian home where they began to follow Jesus because that's all they knew (that's great if that's the case). But, maybe some people didn't. Maybe some people, like me, found Jesus through their brokenness, their own self-hate and destruction, their own pain and depression, their own issues and sin. Coming from a girl that found Jesus through all that rubbish, I can tell you one thing I know to be very true:

When Jesus looks at you, when He looks at your neighbor, when He looks at your mother, when He looks at your best friend, when He looks at a prostitute, when He looks at those that have been divorced, when He looks at those that are addicted to sex, pornography, drugs, or spend their weekends getting drunk and trying to find fulfillment in the world, when He looks at those that compulsively lie, and when He looks at your homosexual friend, He is filled with love, not hate.

I don't believe that the first thing on God's agenda is anyone's sin. It is not making you feel like crap. It is not breaking you down and torturing you for sinning. And I doubt that the first thing on God's mind is your gay neighbor's choice to live together. I really doubt it.

I read the Bible,
I seek Jesus.
I seek His heart.
I re-read His life over and over.
And this is not the Jesus I know.

Jesus came to this Earth and stood for love. He did not for one second stand for hate. He stood next to those that were hated though, and He demanded a different sort of relationship by proving it through His life. One with love and not judgement. Those that were brought up to Him by others with the intention to have that person be called out, were lavished with forgiveness, love, and the opportunity for a new start.

And out of anyone that has the ability and authority to judge... it's Jesus. Not us.

Why do we feel as though it is our individual responsibility to use social media to call people out for their sins? Why do we feel like this is getting us anywhere? Has this gotten us anywhere?

Is this making people view Christians as people that place love before judgement?
Is this making people see you as a more loving human being?
Is this giving people an accurate view of Jesus?

Hm. Doubt it.

Is this what Jesus called us to do to the world? Go proclaim that we are sinning and go call out people for the individual sins they commit? Is this what He wants us to do? Start rants on Facebook and post on Twitter and post Instagram pictures to declare that we don't support a lifestyle or a community of people? How far would that get us? All it's doing is alienating us away from a group of people that are flesh and blood and bones, just as we are. If it's about sin, then maybe we need to all take a look in the mirror

Why do we feel that the only sin that we should be calling out on social media is homosexuality? Like, what? We pick and choose. We rate what's important, and then we put it on God as if He intends for us to see sin on a scale.

Am I the only one sitting here rolling my eyes, wanting to comment on everyone's rubbish and stand up for the God that calls us to LOVE, not judge. Am I the only one that has seen the repercussions of Christians senselessly pointing fingers at everyone else instead of taking a second to look at themselves for a change?

I am confused.

Where is judging before loving going to get us?

JESUS ISN'T LIKE ME

Hm. These past couple days have been a whirlwind. Thinking, processing, resting, and working really really hard to achieve balance in my life. To be where I want to be. To not settle. To not give up. To give more and to see myself everyday more and more as I believe Christ sees me.

It is an interesting process. Not easy, but not as hard as I thought it to be either.

You see, in the time before I came to know the Lord I was in the depths of brokenness, there was no light at the end of the tunnel I was walking into, just more and more darkness. I was stuck in a world where the only way I viewed myself was in the lens of being over-critical and unloving.

Then I met Jesus.

He was nothing like me. His Word thrived off of throwing away a judgmental attitude and embracing loving-kindness and grace. Sure, I had tried to practice those things towards others, even before I was a Believer, but I hadn't tried once to practice those things on myself.

One of the biggest lies I believe we are sometimes fed is that everything we do as Christians is fulfilled by acting a certain way towards others. Being loving to your neighbor, turning the other cheek, loving your enemies, practicing humility, honoring your parents, and giving towards others. While it is true that people should come before ourselves ultimately, if we neglect ourselves we have lost grip of who Jesus was and is.

Jesus practiced loving-kindness, grace, and compassion on himself just as much as He did to others.

I am trying to learn to do the same.

I am trying to rid my life of lies that I have been fed and have fed myself as well, and change my perspective completely. Jesus is teaching me that its okay to give myself grace, and actually, I should give myself an ample amount because I am human and perfection isn't tangible nor beneficial. Jesus is teaching me that in order to love others fully, I have to love myself and know myself. Jesus is teaching me that underneath a girl that is her own worst critic is a girl that is just trying to believe that she is enough. In learning to 'be enough' for myself, I am seeing that I am, whether I see it all the time or not, enough for others and enough for Jesus.

Today I am thankful for creative inspiration, pushing myself hard at the gym, cute (and really cheap) containers at Ikea, really yummy homemade salad dressing, perfect weather, laughing during ab workouts with my roommate, homework that excites me, catching up with friends across the world, new journals, feeling confident, and for today marking two months of choosing to no longer allow stress and anxiety in my life. I am blessed.

THE LIE I ONCE BELIEVED

The question is... what traits define us?

The ones that others say encapsulate our lives?
The ones that we say depict our lives?
Or the ones that God proclaims to be truth?

After a deep conversation with friends yesterday on this, I went home running the conversation through my head. I realized how often I am stuck in a bubble of things that other people view me to be. As much as affirmations and encouragement is phenomenal, sometimes I sit back and see a common theme. I see myself as A, B, or C and am left wondering if that is all there is to me. Then, as much as I consciously probably never realized it, most of the time I actually start to believe what other people say. I take the affirmations and view them as my strengths. Then I look at all the things I wish people said about me but don't, and sometimes actually believe I lack those qualities altogether.

Then of course, there are tests after tests done to try and make us figure out the things we are good at, our passions, our strengths, what defines us. I see a common theme emerging. We let everyone and everything else tell us who we are, and we are left not even figuring out who we are ourselves.

What a shame.

What a shame that I would rather spend my time and my days with music blaring, people around me talking, tv shows on, the radio going, and on and on and on. What a shame that I can't actually sit with my own thoughts for longer then ten minutes or just sit and figure out where I'm at and what I need.

In an attempt to be community based, to be extraverted, to be outgoing, we have left ourselves neglected in a sense. Other people define us more then we choose what we want our own life and our own heart to look like.

When I began to follow Jesus I was not loving. 

Or so I thought. I am still lost in translation when it comes to figuring out if I really lacked the ability to love people well or if the couple people that told me I was unloving made such a dent in my perception of myself that I actually believed it to be truth. But nonetheless, I believed for years, truly and wholeheartedly, that I just was not a loving person. God has created all these people around me that were loving and I just began to believe I was not created that way. I was opinionated, I said what I believed, I was stubborn occasionally and I had yet to learn what it felt like to walk in other shoes. So in light of all of that, in the eyes of those that I let hold weight in my life, it led them to view me as unloving.

It sucked.

For years as I struggled to find Jesus and find myself too, I felt I lacked the one 'quality' that Jesus clearly and repeatedly emphasized for His followers to have. That was one of the hardest loops to jump through in my walk with God. I felt that the things people put on me and led me to believe about myself were things that somehow God put on me too. God never told me that I was unloving though and the minute I stopped letting people's affirmations and judgements make or break my perception of myself, was the minute everything changed.

I am not unloving. The Holy Spirit enables my heart to forgive and love in ways that doesn't make sense to even me sometimes. Love is also not an innate characteristic or quality, it's a choice. A mindset that you have to put on every single day that pushes you and guides you to view others as better then yourself. If I continued on believing I was unloving, I think one day I truly would have been wholeheartedly unloving.

People's opinions cannot make or break who we believe ourselves to be.
If they do, our lives will be a tangled mess of other's peoples judgements.

Affirmations are great, just don't neglect the things you don't get affirmed in and view them as entirely not present in your life. Personality tests are great, but your personality and strengths are more then a internet test can present to you. Friends opinions are great, but God's opinion is better and holds infinitely more weight.

THE LINE JESUS DIDN'T SAY

I have to admit, I didn't like Russell Brand until I saw this video.

 Last year I found out about Westboro Baptist Church, I basically googled the living daylights out of this church, watched a ton of youtube videos, until my eyes had cried enough about it and I was physically sick because of how deceived these people are. It broke my heart.

 They think that they have grasped God's love, they think that they are living out his love, but I will stand by the fact that I think God's love is evident to everyone, it should flow through the pores of our body, it should be blatantly obvious that somethings different about you. Everything about what they stand for screams hate. Jesus' life never screamed of hatred, no matter how radical He was it screamed love all the way through.

They touched on the phrase "love the sinner, hate the sin." I can't even express how much I hate that saying. It is people like these that give that phrase weight. They are so busy hating the sin, that they eventually end up hating the person behind it as well. I can't see how declaring that people are going to hell (which is never a human's job anyways) is loving someone well. It just isn't.

 Jesus never said that line either.

"Love the sinner, hate the sin" is not in the Bible, so I would hate to live as though it is. Our job is not to condemn or convict people of their sins, our job is to love people. Like Russell Brand said, we can't focus on the little tiny text and lines that us humans can misread or skew in the Bible, we have to focus on the bigger picture.

Which is love. ‎

"There are people, professing Christian people, who are determined to bring you under their religious thumb. They are bent on making you a slave of their conscience. They have built a tidy religious box, without biblical justification, and strive to stuff you inside and make you conform to its dimensions. They are legalists, and their tools are guilt, fear, intimidation, and self-righteousness. They proclaim God’s unconditional love for you, but insist on certain conditions before including you among the accepted, among the approved elite, among God’s favored few… They threaten to rob you of joy and to squeeze the intimacy out of your relationship with Jesus. They may even lead you to doubt your salvation. They heap condemnation and contempt on your head so that your life is controlled and energized by fear rather than freedom and joy and delight in God." - Sam Storms 

 PS if you need a picture of love, a picture of humility and truth and the church, please read this. And even if you don't need a picture of any of that, read this anyways. And then read every other article on faith he wrote, brillant.

A RESOLUTION + SOME SACRIFICES

The fact of the matter is, the world is not ending tomorrow. At least, I don't believe so and I urge my mom to stop watching crazy doomsday shows and entertaining the idea in the slightest. However, all the hype about it got me thinking... what if my life really did end sometime soon? What if today or tomorrow or the next day was my final day on Earth? What would I be known for, what would I have accomplished, what would my life stand for when it all comes down to it?

It made me question whether or not I am making the most of my life. I know that is a huge loaded question, but really. Seriously. Am I living the life I want to be remembered by? If I were to write down the qualities and characteristics that I wanted people to know about me by the time my life ended on this earth, would they actually be said of me today, right in this moment?

Lets be real. It makes me nervous when I try and search my own heart for what screams like a loudspeaker out of my life. What speaks loud, what sins envelop my life, what passions define me, what drives me, what gives me worth and meaning, what fills up my time? Is my life really about the things that I want them to be about? Woah. Talk about a life that needs some times to be changed, nothing is put into perspective until those questions literally circle my mind.

I used to always hear the statement that the things that define you are the things that you spend your time doing, the things you spend your time thinking about, and the things you spend your money on. In that case, my life is not what I want it to be about on all three accounts. Truth be told, I am not living the life I want to be living and the only thing I can point to blame is my flesh and Satan. I listen to my flesh when it tells me that I need a new dress or need more clothes when I already have more then my closet full and more then enough to clothe me to begin with. I listen to my flesh when it tells me to go on social networking websites instead of spend intentional time with God or with other human beings. I listen to the flesh when I think about what food I am craving and want to go buy for dinner, when I run lines through my mind of things I want to say to people instead of just trust God and leave conversations to come in His hands, I listen to my flesh when I think more about myself then I do about other people and about ultimately, glorifying God above everything. I realize, when I think about all I want to change in my life, how much I truly do not have it all together as much as I think I do sometimes.

The typical Christian cop-out is that we have all sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. It's true. We all sin, and perfection (thankfully) is not required for us to follow Jesus. But the thing is, I want grace and mercy to cover over my life because of God's goodness not because it's a cover up for living according to my flesh. I don't want his grace to be a cop-out. I want his grace and forgiveness to be an added bonus.

I know that it is a little early to make a New Years Resolution, but I am making one. However, I am praying it doesn't stop there. I am making a Life Resolution. (Cliche I know.) I am cleaning out all the junk in my life. Although my room is currently messy (let's be real, I still have to unpack), my heart feels freedom finally. Freedom because I am vowing to no longer just have these ideas of how my life can depict Christ more, but I am living those ideas. I am doing, not just thinking and praying. I think a big mistake that I often make is that we must always pray and seek God in everything. I agree to that entirely, but sometimes we place the acting upon those prayers and desires last. Instead of just doing something... and then seeking God amidst that and through it all. The biggest mistake we can make is to push aside convictions with the justification that 'I'll just pray about it.' Some things have answers, and they are written right in the book God gifted to us. Some things have clearer answers then we would like to think.

So, I am giving up the excess in my life. With the things that I feel in some way, shape or form define me. I think that if I am striving to represent Christ, I can't represent the world. There is no middle ground I can or should fall upon. It is either all about Him or it isn't about Him at all.

I want people to view me as a person that made her life about other people. A girl that cared more about blessing people with anything they needed then she did about blessing herself with temporary, fleeting things. I want people to view me as loving and selfless not as blinded or selfish. I want people to see Christ's joy inside of me and know that it cannot be found in this world. I want people to view me as clothed with grace and humility more then I want them to view me as clothed with cute outfits. I want people to know me through intentional conversations, coffee dates, and long Skype calls, not through social networking, or even through this blog. I want people to be impacted by Christ's working through me. I want people to come to me when they are at their most broken, I want to be the first person people call. I want to be a life changer that in turn changes the world as people know it. I want to actually believe what the Word says is true... Here me out: I know that the Word is true... but I want to live it in such a way that points to the fact that I believe it with all of my being. I want to live with sacrifices that point to Jesus, I want to live a life that isn't easy but it's good and full because of Jesus. I want to live pouring out blessings on others that in turn, points to Jesus, I want to live in a way that doesn't make sense to this world. Yes, I really just want my life to point to Jesus. And if it is not 100% undoubatably doing that to the people around me, and if I can't be content where I am at in my walk with God. Then things have got to change.

Here's to change, here's to convictions, here's to a new life of freedom. Starting now.
Whatever it takes, Lord. Whatever it takes.

"You can suffer the pain of change or suffer remaining the way you are." 
Joyce Meyer

LESSONS FROM A WAITER

Yesterday my roommate and I went to see The Voice, our favorite show and the only show I have been following on Hulu this past semester. So basically, from the get go it was a great day. We spent all day on our feet, cheering, screaming, losing our voices, and naturally, at the end of it all, all we wanted to do was eat. We went to a nearby restaurant, it was pretty empty, considering it was 9:30 and no one eats dinner that late.

It shouldn't have surprised us, because God had literally given us favor and showered us with surprise blessings all day, but He did it yet again in giving us a wonderful waiter. Like, I'm talking the kind that makes you want to eat slower because he was so down to Earth and caring. He was a middle aged man with huge dreads going all the way down to his knees... rad and one-of-a-kind to say the least. He was the kindest, friendliest stranger I had interacted with in a very long time.

The First Lesson:

At one point in the meal my roommate questioned 'I wonder how long it took him to grow out his hair?' My natural reaction was 'that cannot be all his hair... there is no way, it must be extensions or something.' So she proceeded to ask him about it... he said he has been growing his hair for twenty years. TWENTY YEARS. I have only been alive for twenty years, there is no way I could grow my hair that long without cutting it. It blew my mind. He then told us how he thinks for the new year he is going to chop it all off. I laughed and said that I would never chop off all my hair, and how much hair he had put mine to shame.

He said how his hair had been through a lot (metaphorically speaking)... a lot of junk in his life had been caught up in that hair and at this point, he wanted to just get rid of it all and start fresh. I sat there in awe and my head was running though how brilliant of a metaphor that is for so many things in life. How often does our junk and worry and questions and sins just keep piling up on themselves before we ever think to just let go of it all? How often would we rather bask in the comfort of not getting rid of the things we are so accustomed to, instead of step out of our comfort zone and change things? How often do these things that we don't want in our life, the things that pull us down instead of free us, how often do those things pile up on us without us ever realizing it... with the result of being weighed down with 'twenty years worth of dreads'?

I don't know about you, but in twenty years I don't want to be wishing I let go of things that I just always held on to out of comfort and familiarity. Change and letting go is good when change and letting go means freedom and lifted burdens.

The Second Lesson:

Before we ate our meal, we said a quick prayer. Usually I do it in my head or if we do choose to pray in public, it typically means a quick prayer as to not make others uncomfortable or draw attention. However, when we prayed quickly for our meal, our waiter came up, lightly touched our shoulders and listened to our prayer with respect, as to pray along with us. After, my roommate and I were blown away. Here's the thing, out of the million times I have prayed in public, no waiter has ever done that. I mean, the chances of our waiter being a Christian are possible, but to be honest, if he wasn't a Christian it was all the more powerful. I think the beauty in him meeting us where we were at, respecting our beliefs, and caring enough to in a sense, view things through our lenses, was so incredibly powerful.

I questioned how often myself, and the entire church perhaps, allows ourselves to be in other people's shoes. We allow ourselves to be in other Christians shoes all the time, but how about people of other faiths or that don't have a faith in God at all? We don't allow ourselves to meet those people where they are at. We fight for words, for persuasion, to convince, to make our beliefs known, instead of just put our hands on their shoulders and love them where they are at.

Woah.

The Third Lesson:

We asked for our check and our waiter proceeded to ask if we wanted dessert... and that it would be on him. I mean, whens the last time I had a waiter pay for my best friend and I to have dessert? Um, how about never. So we ate the most bomb brownie and ice cream dessert and felt so blessed by someone else's generosity. My heart after that night felt so blown away and so blessed by that gesture of kindness, I don't think that reaching out and loving others means anything crazy extravagant, this brownie dessert sure did well and it made me question, like, what if I chose to intentionally bless strangers day-to-day in the little things, not always in the crazy big things? A random encouragement on a post-it note or a Starbucks being payed for. How much would the world be blessed and changed if we just began this chain of loving people when we have no idea where they are at in life. Eventually, we will hit loving on people that needed that love every little bit. We will eventually hit the people that didn't just smile, they wept because they realized they are loved and valued in this world.

I think that the quote 'he/she didn't have to do this' is so powerful, and should be what people say about Christians all the time. We don't have to do this or that, or go above and beyond to love people, but as Christians we should.

I saw beauty and power in loving strangers, we are called to love our neighbors and those that are near to us in life, but what about everyone else?