BEEN TALKIN' ABOUT THE WAY THINGS CHANGE

This morning, when the clock struck midnight, I held two of my dearest friends hands in the most cliché (yet totally necessary way) in a restaurant that we ran into right before it hit the New Year. We didn't want to be driving aimlessly on the freeway when one of the biggest years of our lives began, duh.

So here we were, making friends with our fun waitress, counting down the seconds until 2014.

If our lives were a movie, Rivers and Roads by the Head and the Heart would start playing silently in the background and our seventeen years of formal education would flash before our eyes. But our lives are clearly not some cheesy chick-flick with hunky male counterparts. So here we were ringing in the New Year in an average restaurant with far more than average friends, accepting that New Years is always a weird anticlimactic-sort-of new day.

We also accepted the strange reality that in a year from now, we could, quite literally, be anywhere in the world. Doing anything in the world, alongside anyone. We could spend New Years Eve with friends we know now, with each other, or with people we have yet to even introduce ourselves to. We could be in California, we could be in another country or another continent. We could have our dream job and be in love with our new post-grad adultish life, or we could be struggling, realizing that post-grad life is hard and strange and new all at once.

Our lives are so up in the air, it's weird.

As I sat with my girls ringing in the New Year, we talked about something I never really fully processed yet: we have always known the next step. And this year, that next "obvious" step, well, it vanishes. And it'll never really come back.

There are no obvious steps anymore. Traveling or Grad school or a job, no obvious step. A firm job, a non-profit job, a retail job, no obvious step. Move away, stay local, nothing set in stone, nothing clear.

These are our lives now. With the knowledge that we have to go make a living for ourselves, we can do whatever we choose. Other than the fact that money is stressful (ha), it's liberating to have that weird next step disappear once and for all.

I used to find comfort in being able to say what my plan for the next semester was, or the next school year. It was always revolved around school, a safe ground to fall upon, a step that had to be taken to finish my education. I knew what commitments I had in store for me, I knew who my roommates would be, where I might travel, what ways I felt on my heart to serve. There was little room for anything to really shock me when it came to where my life was headed personally and academically, I had it all mapped out.

In that moment, 12:10AM or whatever time it was, it really hit me: the map ends here.
Like this weird make-believe map we've relied on for so long... it no longer exists.

As much as we hope that wherever we end up after graduation turns into a home so that we no longer long for the bedroom we grew up in and the hometown we've always known, we can't really make any guarentees.

That seems to be the state of my life right now: no guarantees. I have nothing set in stone, other then the fact that I want to follow Jesus and end up right where He wants me to live and serve and love. I mean I have puny plans, plans that could translate into a lot of different jobs (all of which I cannot predict right now.) But for the most part, my future is as unsure as it ever could be, and as it ever has been.

While I may have no idea where I'll be... I know, I JUST KNOW, it's going to be good.

And it's going to be fun, daingett.

ADVICE TO A FRESHMAN THAT I SHOULD REALLY TAKE MYSELF

The title says it all.

My senior year of college I find myself sitting in my favorite spot on campus on a Tuesday evening, drinking a hot cup of Starbucks chai tea giving perspective, advice and any wisdom and discernment I can muster up, for a freshmen I was blessed with the opportunity to mentor. The fact that I get to do that weekly blows my mind and humbles me to an extent that I could never fully express in words.

Anywho, mid-way through many conversations as my head was spinning and my thoughts were churning, I realized the irony in it all. I am a mere four years older then this beautiful woman of God and yet it seems the same things that I advise her to seek and live out, I myself am having trouble doing the same in. My heart felt weirdly conflicted as the things I felt led to reassure her in and remind her of, were things I don't often remind myself of. Or I don't often believe.

While it was honestly just frustrating in the beginning, it was surprisingly liberating once I processed it all a bit. The beauty in sharing thoughts that you could use yourself is that you see the reality of what changes need to be made in your life. What things you need to work on or pray through in order to truly practice what you preach. Even to see truths that you rarely lived our before because you rarely realized you lacked. From giving advice and then flipping the script on myself I was able to see how I need to do something about it.

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Don't compare friendships. They don't deserve it and neither do you. A one year friendship won't look like a ten year friendship, and that's okay. There is beauty in both of them. Stop trying to force-feed deep relationships, they'll happen. There's something to be said for a friendship that's lasted 8 years, grown through grief and joys and trials and big life decisions. There is also something to be said for friendships that are instantaneously strong and make you feel like you've known the other person forever (when in reality, it's only been a year).

Know what you deserve. Period. Point blank. Not only with men, but in life, in careers, in friendships, in roommates. I can't count on my fingers the number of times in the past that I charged $20 for a design project that most any designer on planet Earth would have charged five times the price for. Also, I can't count the number of times I lacked the bravery to stand up for myself when I should have. Grace does not necessarily equate with getting walked all over.

Speak up. The tongue has the power of life and death, and sometimes it brings life to you to speak things in to existence or to bring up something thats hard on your heart, it's not always just for the other person. In that stems one of the hardest truths that I wrestle with and just blatently suck at living out: confrontation is necessary sometimes. And it doesn't have to look messy or mean and it doesn't always have to be hurtful. Speaking the truth in love is Biblical, and it's something I'm trying to live out lately for sure.

Say yes. But learn how to say no too. You are not racking up God's favor or earning God's love by doing a bunch of things. Just because you are busier or your calender is more full than everyone else's around you, doesn't mean you are somehow pleasing God more. And this is coming from a chick that knows how to lay on the commitments. Commitments amount to so little if you have no time to put into them. Choose what you say yes to wisely.

Learn what's soul care for you. And do it often. This year, soul care meant reading every night before I went to bed, cooking fancy dinners for myself, and watching movies. Next year, I'm striving to try new coffee shops, design for myself for fun (instead of always just designing for clients), and to take morning gym classes to start the day off right. Whether it's bubble baths or art projects or going to shows or museums or writing poetry or spending quality time with friends- do it. It's not selfish. And it's too often forgotten under the pile of 'things to do.' 

Give yourself space to not know. We are foolish if we think we are human robots that have to have all the answers. You don't have to have a life plan always. You don't have to be a human encyclopedia. You don't have to have a well-rehearsed answer when people ask you questions about who you are or what you want to do next in life. You aren't God, aka chill. Enjoy life a little.

I NEVER PLANNED ON THIS

The truth is: most of the time, I think that I honestly know what's best for me. I pray and pray and pray but often in the back of my head are these thoughts and ideas that most of the time I think come from God and not from me.

The problem is: some of the time, they do come from me. Some of the time, those thoughts are not what's best for me, even if I think with all my heart and mind that they are. Some of the time, I am sadly mistaken. Some of the time, it is not God that breaks my heart but it's me breaking my own heart, thinking that I know what's best for me.

Over a year ago I got an email saying that I was chosen as one of twelve... one of six girls... to lead a group of sophomores. I never planned on this. Never. I applied because I was pushed to by leaders that I trusted and looked up to, but most of the time I didn't really want the position at all. So this little voice in the back of my head began to whisper 'you're not gonna get this position. you aren't meant for this. you aren't going to be good at this. you aren't equipped. you aren't enough. you're meant to do something else." So I believed it. Even the moment before I read the email that would determine if it was a 'yes' or 'no,' I prayed with my roommate trying to convince her all of the reasons that this position was just not cut out for me.

Then I read the email. I got what I didn't ask for. I got a position I never planned on. I got the very thing I felt unequipped, unprepared and frankly, just not good enough for. I prayed and prayed, and felt confirmation soon there after that pushing myself to do something that I felt not good enough for might just be the best thing for me. I met the group of 11 that would be leading alongside me about a week later or so, and peace flooded my mind.

I thought I knew what was best for me and I surely didn't.

Looking back, I laugh. I shake my head and will proudly claim I didn't know what was best for me. The voices were wrong, my prayers were headed in the wrong direction because of it, but in the end, I leapt out in faith and just as much as God caught me, the 11 people I lead and the 11 people that were leaders alongside me caught me too.

Some of the time I don't know what's best for me.

Yesterday I opened an email saying that I was chosen as one of six... one of three girls... to lead a group of sophomores. I never planned on this. Never. (Sound familiar?) I applied because I felt the little voice in the back of my head saying that I need to be a freshmen RA. Most of the time I claimed if I didn't get that exact position, I didn't want it at all. The little voice told me that I wouldn't be good at any other position, that no other position would fill me, no other position would give me such an ability to change lives. I believed it. Even the moment right before I read the email that would determine if it was a 'yes' or a 'no,' I prayed for the only thing I was used to praying for. Freshmen. I felt that if I didn't get them, the position was just not cut out for me.

Then I read the email. I got what I didn't ask for. I got a position I never planned on. I got the very thing I felt unequipped, unprepared and frankly, just not good enough for. I prayed and prayed, and felt confirmation after an hour long conversation with my mentor, that pushing myself to do something that I felt not passionate enough about, might just be the best thing for me.

I thought I knew what was best for me and I am sure, ask me in six months from now, I'll laugh and shake my head.

The problem with holding tightly to something, is that once we have to let go of it, we are so used to clinging on so tightly with all of our might, that we don't know what hit us. Our hands tremble from releasing our own plans. Letting go hurts. Embracing a plan we didn't think would be put in front of us hurts equally. But if life is about us, if life is about never feeling hurt or pain, then we have a thing or two to learn about living.

Sometimes we are wrong. Sometimes we have to walk in the fact that we were wrong. And sometimes, plans that change end up being the only plan we could have imagined living.

As we plan and analyze and map out our lives, God probably laughs and shakes His head.

If Jesus was right there in front of me I'd give Him a couple extra high fives and a huge smile for giving me what I didn't want... and then taking seemingly no time to make it really clear that He is right and I am wrong. Wrong yet again.

Here's to laying down my plan at the feet of Jesus, Him lifting the burden off of me of trying to figure out what's best, and letting Him do all the ridiculously brillant behind-the-scenes work.

"There may be things going on inside of us that we do not understand. But when we finally arrive at the place where God wants to bring us, we will see how it has prepared us for what God wanted for us all along."

THE DECEIT OF DAYDREAMING

I know that I am loved today because no matter how great I daydream, it could never compare to here and now. I am realizing everyday more and more that life on Earth is truly ticking away, if I don't squeeze all the joy and thankfulness out of this very moment, out of these hours and this day, I have waisted something that will never be returned to me; today.

Lets be real, to not acknowledge where everyone else around me is at in life would be unrealistic. Pictures of one of my friends' two babies and her husband pop up on Facebook all the time, the fact that I am older then her astonishes me still. It seems that everytime I log onto any social networking site, someone else is in a relationship, engaged, married, pregnant, someone else has traveled somewhere crazy exotic, someone else has done something remarkable and unique in life. My Christmas break consists of wedding planning and dress shopping for my best friend, a bachelorette party for another two friends, and a wedding for my childhood best friend of like ten years. When I sit down with all my girlfriends from home nothing is more obvious then the fact that I am still single and still going to school, while most all girlfriends are in long term relationships, getting excited about marriage in the near future and kids (!) even being mentioned every now and then, woah. Nothing is more obvious then the fact that most of them have jobs upon jobs, while I am just trying to pass school. Most of them are supporting themselves financially, something I dream of but have no time for with my life and schedule right now. There has always been this continual yearning for the future all around me, people talking about plans for things weeks, months, and years from now, while I am just stuck here puzzled.

How to live in the moment, how to be present, when all around you is a world daydreaming about things to come, is hard (to put it lightly). We are taught to plan the future, prepare for the future... we are preparing for the unknown essentially, working toward a goal that we perhaps haven't even established yet. When are we ever taught (or when do we actually believe) that this very second, this very day, is where our heads and out heart should be at? I think that being more present in the now then in the future, is a prerequisite for joy and a zest for life. I think that joy is never more present in anyone then it is in people that genuinely live in the moment and take it one day at a time.

Enjoying the now is underestimated.

Today I was talking with a friend about daydreaming and how deceiving it is. We as girls get lost in the world of 'what ifs,' this land of making lists about what we want in a perfect man and waiting around for him. At some point in our lives, we get lost in a world of planning. We think about our future so much that I question whether sometimes we idolize it. I think that I am beginning to see that one of Satan's greatest tricks is keeping us in this 'daydream land,' where we lose grip of enjoying what God has for us in this very day because we are too concerned with things to come.

Just a thought.

THE CONCEPT OF WAITING

“Come, all you who are thirsty, come to the waters;
and you who have no money, come, buy and eat!
Come, buy wine and milk without money and without cost.
Why spend money on what is not bread, 
and your labor on what does not satisfy?
Listen, listen to me, and eat what is good,
and you will delight in the richest of fare.
Give ear and come to me; listen, that you may live.
I will make an everlasting covenant with you,
my faithful love promised to David.
See, I have made him a witness to the peoples,
a ruler and commander of the peoples.
Surely you will summon nations you know not,
and nations you do not know will come running to you,
because of the Lord your God, the Holy One of Israel,
for he has endowed you with splendor.”

Seek the Lord while he may be found; call on him while he is near.
Let the wicked forsake their ways and the unrighteous their thoughts.
Let them turn to the Lord, and he will have mercy on them,
and to our God, for he will freely pardon.

“For my thoughts are not your thoughts, 
neither are your ways my ways,” 
declares the Lord.
“As the heavens are higher than the earth,
so are my ways higher than your ways
and my thoughts than your thoughts.
As the rain and the snow come down from heaven,
and do not return to it without watering the earth
and making it bud and flourish,
so that it yields seed for the sower and bread for the eater,
so is my word that goes out from my mouth:
It will not return to me empty,
but will accomplish what I desire
and achieve the purpose for which I sent it.
You will go out in joy and be led forth in peace;
the mountains and hills will burst into song before you,
and all the trees of the field will clap their hands.
Instead of the thornbush will grow the juniper,
and instead of briers the myrtle will grow.
This will be for the Lord’s renown, 
for an everlasting sign, that will endure forever.”

Invitation to the Thirsty
Isaiah 55

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Waiting is a rough concept. It is rough because sometimes you may not even know what you are waiting for. Sometimes you hope you are waiting for one thing, and God gives you something totally different. Waiting is weird for me because it implies being static, unmoving, it implies a lack of growth and productivity. It implies waiting for a moment to come and make things happen, instead of creating that moment yourself. I like to know. And waiting throws knowing out the door.

I was reading out of Psalm tonight and trying to keep my ears open to what God wants to show me. I landed in His presence and was so comforted by knowing He hears me and He loves me. I needed that. So I closed my Bible and was about to go to sleep when this Scripture hit me like a ton of bricks. And Lord knows, I know better then to just throw that nudge aside and go to bed. So I looked up the Scripture He spoke to me and it came out of Isaiah, the verse was: "As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts." Lets just say this night turned into something I didn't know I needed (typical God, typical). I thought I needed to just feel heard and loved by Jesus, but I really needed to hear that being patient and waiting on God's plans and not my own, is worth it. I need to know that I am taken care of beyond my own understanding. I needed a reminder that I don't need to have it all figured out and whatever happens in the end, as long as I seek Him, will be what it will be. And it will be worth it. And it will be good.

The verse in this chapter "It will not return to me empty, but will accomplish what I desire and achieve the purpose for which I sent it," likewise blew my mind. When we are followers of Christ, what He wants to happen, happens. Boom. How obvious is that but how often do we question that? God is GOD. The universe is under His command and is under His disposal. The beauty in this is we can rest assure that we are not waiting in vain, and there is beauty and purpose in waiting on God, His timing, His plans, His purpose. It WILL be made known and it will achieve the purpose He intends, He tells us that.

PLANS, HOPES + HEARTBREAK

To put everything you hold highly at the feet of Jesus is no small task.
It is a really really hard task. It is a task that makes me roll my eyes at myself and my own imperfections. Nothing can make me more astonished at how much farther I want to go in my faith, then realizing the things I haven't entirely let go of. The things I still want control of, I still prioritize, I still cling on to.

"You can't have the blessings God has for you 
until you let go of the things you have clutching in your hands."

Tonight I sat in a chapel that took everything I didn't know I was feeling and needing to hear and slammed it right in my face. I knew I needed to go to that chapel tonight and even canceled plans because of it. Then I ended up realizing every reason why I was there. Blew my mind.

So, the story of Abraham and his son Isaac is no small feat. Abraham was willing to give up the thing that he held the most dear to him, his son, because he knew that God knew best. He was willing to give up what he valued most, because he counted it all as loss compared to knowing God. Talk about an Old Testament story with huge relevance today. God will grant us more then we could ever imagine, plan, or deserve if we are willing to lay the things we value most at His feet, for Him to take or to leave as He desires.

So tonight, I laid it all down.
All of it.
I opened my hands and my heart broke.
My heart literally hurt.
But I knew it was worth it.

I abandoned my flesh, my humanely instincts and gratification, I gave up what is desirable and understood by this world to gain what is smiled at by God. Because as much as people around me may think I am crazy, I know what has been proven to be true to me. Jesus. And craziness is a small price to pay for serving a great God.

I laid future plans at the feet of Jesus.
I laid a desire for a husband and a family at the feet of Jesus.
I laid the little things I hold dear, the big hopes I have, and even the little hopes I keep.
I laid anything that grips my thoughts and I haven't been entirely able to let go of.

Because if I know anything about anything, it's that it is worth it. He's worth it.

COMFORT, POWER + OTHER LIES

We like to wish that we had a choice. We like to wish that the universe is at our dispense, in the palm of our hands instead of our creators. We like to plan and schedule and build up this calendar and eventually, this life that revolves around a to-do list and plans that typically change. We like to know what is going to happen next. We like to be in control and shiver when we lack it. In short, we like to play God. Even if we aren't admitting it, we are surely doing it.

We do everything in our power to not admit this though. Especially as Christians. We proclaim "God is in control" and "everything happens for a reason" but I look around and rarely think people truly believe that... at least no one's living it.

I am realizing day by day in a school consisting of people proclaiming to be Christians that we live in a box of comfort and are often engulfed in walls we ourselves create. We don't let people in, we want what we want, and usually that is an easy, comfortable life. We don't like to trust, we don't like to put things in other people's hands.

The thing about Jesus though that boggles my mind and still stuns me, is He never did that. He put His trust in those that He knew would break it. He loved those that did not love Him back. And as much as that is said a million times, I think the second that sets into our little human minds, it would astonish us and draw us to our knees. He LOVED sacrificially and endlessly those that did not love him either of those ways. He gave what He knew He would not receive. He put himself out there, when He knew He would gain nothing in return. He did it because if He didn't, what view would we have of how God loves us? The worst, skewed perspective.

The thing is though: He did not do this without reason or purpose. He did this so we could do the same.

We are called to put our choices aside to some extent, to put the things we clench in the hands of God who created them in the first place, to rip up our lives plans and let God mold and shape them, and to let go of the constant fear of letting someone be in control other then ourselves.

The longer we are trying to be in control, the more we will be controlled by this world and not the goodness and truth of the Gospel.


And we know that all things work together for the good of those who love Him and are called according to His purpose. Romans 8:28