AN ODE TO MY SISTERS

Those girls.

Those girls that know you better than you know yourself. 

Those girls that you can be brutally honest with. 

Those girls that joke about bringing a rifle to your wedding 

just encase you change your mind about the guy your marrying. 

Those girls that have your back, no matter what, no questions asked. 

Those girls that usually take your side but always give you discernment and wisdom, 

whether or not its what you want to hear.

Those girls that you laugh the hardest with 

and want to hug closest when you need a good cry. 

Those girls that know what you are thinking even when you don't say a single word.

Those girls that know every fault in you and love you more because of them. 

Those girls that's future children will call you an auntie. 

Those girls that will make fools of themselves with you.

Those girls that you actually know undoubtedly will be with you until you the day you die.

Those girls that you bicker with and butt heads with, 

only because they are more like sisters than they are like friends.

Those girls that you have gone through the roughest of times with, 

those girls that you have hit rock bottom with, weeped on your knees alongside 

and prayed your hardest with and for.

Those girls that you have stood next to on their wedding days, 

that you have celebrated with at graduations and birthdays, 

those girls that you go on errands and spontaneous vacations with, 

those girls that you have rejoiced with and cried tears of joy with. 

Those girls that make fun of you and tell you when you have food in your teeth.

Those girls that call you when they are by themselves and they're scared of a creepy man nearby.

Those girls that cry when you cry and that bear any burden with you.

Those girls that call you to go get a food their craving and bring you soup when you're sick.

Those girls that will drop anything to be there for you when you need them.

Those girls that just get you, in ways that no one else does.

Those girls that love you well, love you so well that you wonder what you ever did to deserve them.

If there is anything I know about life, it's to keep those girls close. Keep them with you. Call them even when you are overwhelmed with your commitments, your schoolwork, your jobs. Call them even when marriage becomes your priority, call them when life is easy and be the first to call them when life is really hard. Text them Scripture when they need it, pray for them even when they don't ask for it, and tell them you love them often. Thank them often. Thank Jesus often.

One of the best parts about singleness is realizing how important friendship is. One of the best parts about home are these three faces. One of the best parts about life is I have the greatest best friends known to mankind.

I am so thankful.

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.

'PEACE' MEANING COMFORT

Sometimes I buy into the lie that every decision I make has to be enveloped in peace.

The lie that I have to be out of my comfort zone as a Believer, but not TOO far out of my comfort zone. If fear has any place in a decision, I bounce. Because that's what you are supposed to do right? You are always supposed to have peace in decision making, and you never are supposed to have fears? Peace means it's of the Lord, fear means it's not, and that seems to usually be our method of decision making as a Believer. At some point in my faith I was told that, and at some point I believed it and marked it as truth. This is the point I realize it's not.

Peace seems to be misconstrue and interpreted as comfort.
We pick the more comfortable option.  

So we base our decisions on comfort?

 

I'm beginning to question whether that whole thing even makes sense at all. How is that truth? How is that legitimate basis for decisions? What does that even look like? How does that even feel? Being conned into this mediocre life of thinking we are out of our comfort zones but yet never being too far out of it to have doubts, fears, nerves, or questions. Is that even being out of our comfort zones at all?

First of all, I have yet to read Jesus mention 'comfort zones' at all. I get the feeling that peace from comfort is a very different kind of peace then Jesus mentioned He will give to us. We can have total peace knowing we are following God's calling while having plenty of questions and nerves and fears about what we are actually doing. I've seen how God uses us in that weird tension to rely on Him and know Him deeper.

So today and from this point forward I will choose to trust God for comfort instead of relying on "safe" decisions for comfort. I will choose to lean on God instead of fix my mind on fears.