Advent: A Season of Waiting

I absolutely love when God places reminders in my life in unsuspecting ways. Tonight I had the joy of hearing my peers speak briefly about how the representations of the advent candles have been shown in their lives. When we reached the candle of Joy, I was reminded that there is joy in the waiting and in the deep longing for end result. The comparison of a little child waiting desperately for his birthday and the presents he'll receive was used to show how excited the Jewish people must have been as they eagerly anticipated the coming of the Messiah. 

Then I was reminded that I should be waiting in the same manner for the coming again of the Messiah. How simple and obvious and yet overlooked a fact that was to me! He's coming soon, and as it was out by a wise peer of mine, "we're 2000 years closer to soon." Christ could be returning at anytime, so I should be joyful in that anticipation and prepared in my spirit for that glorious day. Praise be to The Lord for His hope, preparation, joy, love and ultimately His Son, Christ Jesus!

A Longing for Something More Than This

This time of year is my favorite.  Family oriented holidays, good food, nostalgia, happiness.  I just love the late fall and winter season.  It also makes me start to remember the past, appreciate the present, and look to the future more than any other time of year.  With a holiday like Thanksgiving, it's hard not to.

This year I'm just as aware of these feelings and spend a lot of time lost in thought regarding all of it.  However, I've noticed another feeling added into the mix this year that took me awhile to understand and put my finger on.  Then I realized that it's a longing for even more than all of this.  A longing to have more than just this season of the year to appreciate and by joyful, hopeful, grateful.  A longing to have a point to it all. While it's great to celebrate Thanksgiving and be home with my family and friends, I still feel like there is something even bigger out there to be focused on.

Over the past several weeks, I've felt this desire in some form or another.  It doesn't come in the form of simply a longing.  It hits me when I hear a very American-ized, consumerist attitude about something or see a news story that expresses how far humanity has fallen. It hit me this weekend as I read about an elderly woman being trampled and a young boy being elbowed in the face in the midst of the Black Friday shopping stampedes.  It hit me when I spent a day going through the debris and wreckage left behind in Washington, IL after a series of tornadoes swept the area.  It hit me my email inbox was filled with reminders about Cyber Monday coming up.  Is this really all there is left for us in society?

I can't imagine where America will be in just five years if we've already sold ourselves over to the need to have more, be better, earn more money, be recognized.  I don't pretend to be above all of this.  I'm just as guilty of buying into the American dream and always wanting the newest and best gadget around.  I know that I've been swept into this mindset, but I don't want to stay in it.  I don't want my mind and soul to be corrupted; I want more than this.

In so many ways, I feel that the people who live with next to nothing are living in greater splendor than I ever will.  These people who struggle everyday to feed their families are living with a joy and hope that cannot be taken away from them.  They worship the Lord with a fervor that can't be explained except by His Spirit at work within them.  I want that! I want to be so full of the Spirit that I don't need material possessions to be happy.  I want to live in want for a period of time so that I have no choice but to be entirely dependent on God.  I want to learn to live with little so that I can live more fully, love more completely, and engage with others more deeply.

The more I've thought of this, the more I've felt the Lord leading my heart to nations overseas.  I will soon be leaving the country for a month to spend time in the Philippines with a group of other students from Taylor University.  I can't wait to see how God uses this time to grow me and my heart.  If I've been feeling a calling to work overseas, this first opportunity for me to be there is huge.  I pray that God will reveal to me whether I'm interpreting His leading correctly.  Your prayers for this would be appreciated as well!

Ultimately, I've become dissatisfied with the culture in which I live.  I engage in this culture and am fully a part of it too, but I want to change that.  Right now, I don't know how, but I have the desire to change.  And with time, I hope that change will come.

On a different note, if you would like more information about my upcoming trip to the Philippines or are interested in supporting my team and I as we go, please let me know! I would love to have you involved in the trip be it through prayer, a financial contribution or a donation of items that we can leave with the children and families we meet while we're there.  We look forward to our trip, and I look forward to sharing all about it when I return!

Counting Your Blessings

Some days you have a lot on your plate and can't possibly imagine how you're going to make it through in one piece with your sanity attached.  That was me today.  It's not that I had a ton of classes or homework, but I just had a lot of meetings and obligations that I needed to be and and take care of.  Since I'm what you could call a people pleaser, I don't take these things lightly and perhaps take them a bit too seriously.  So be it.

Anyway, this afternoon and evening just loomed over me as I went throughout my day.  I just knew about all the places I had to be and all the things that were expected of me, and my little introverted side was whispering "Go curl up in bed and don't do anything."  Unfortunately, that side couldn't really win over tonight, and I was forced to go deal with people and interact like a normal human being. How terrible.

I had an intramural soccer game this afternoon that consisted of me running back and forth trying to cover my position and two other people's, wheezing because I'm horribly out of shape, and getting frustrated at different aspects of what was unfolding on the field.  But it sure felt good to play again! I left the field feeling tired and sore but free and ready to face the night ahead of me.

I had dinner with some pretty amazing people.  I'm so blessed by them in ways they probably will never understand.  Getting to know them this year and form a bond with them has truly changed me and helped me grow for the better.  I see God through their kind words and smiles everyday. So if any of you green leaders are reading this: thanks for being so great!

Then I spent some time preparing for my upcoming trip around the world to the Philippines.  Who would have guessed that little old me from the cornfields of Illinois would have the chance to go to Manila and shine the Light of Jesus to the children and people of Manila?  Seriously, this trip is so far out of my comfort zone that I know it must be God's will for me or else I'd be crazy for going.  My group of fellow education majors are such amazing people.  Their passion for teaching and sharing God's word is so evident and inspiring to me.  I can't wait to spend a month abroad with them and see what God can do through our group!

As if all the previous blessings in my night weren't enough, I got to go worship for an hour with my floor and our brother floor.  Fifty or so college students in a dorm basement just singing our hearts out to the Lord.  Such a simple thing but so incredibly powerful! The Lord is alive and was present in our worship tonight. What more could I ask for?

Throughout my evening I also just had great conversations with people that God must have put in my path.  I know without a doubt that He does that because He knows what we need and when to provide us with it.  These little conversations, though seemingly unimportant, made my night.  I love seeing God work in the normal and the everyday.  He takes the mundane and changes it into something holy and pleasing to Him.  So the next time you have a task or day or week that seems like it can't be done or you won't make it out alive, find the little things to be thankful for.  Counting my blessings is surely something that needs to be done more often, but I'll take it one day at a time.  And today, I think I've had far too many blessings to count.

Mysterious Workings of the Spirit

Have you ever gotten that feeling that you really need to tell someone something? Or you hear something and it reminds you of a time in the past and all of a sudden you know you need to make things right with another person? A lot of the time I shake that feeling off and think of it as coincidence, but lately I've been trying to do more than that.

 For several years, I've known that I have the spiritual gift of discernment, but I think I've done a terrible job of fostering that gift and allowing God to work through me through it.  If fact, I'd say that it's probably been almost four years since I even thought about it and really tried to grow in my faith to grow in discernment as well. When it came up recently, I realized that my Spirit-given gift is not something for me to throw away or abuse; it is something I should be asking God to grow in me so that I may do His will more fully in my life. 

I've been praying lately that God would convict my heart through His Word each day as I read scripture.  Some days I get a little nudge to pray for someone or confess something but nothing great.  Then today happened.  I was reading in Matthew 7, and Jesus spoke to His followers telling them not to judge others.  He uses the image of the plank in your own eye and a speck in your neighbor's to illustrate how we should not correct other people until we have examined our own life first.  I've read this passage dozens of times and never given it a second thought, but today was different.

As I read, God took me back to six months ago when I tried to examine the speck in someone's eye when I had a massive plank in my own.  I'm not talking about a little correction here either.  I full on called this person out on something that was never something I should have brought up.  It was something I had no authority on and was doing 10 times worse in my own life.  But I did it.  The way I hurt that person half a year ago is something I found out they still carry around with them to this day.  I didn't just hurt a few feelings that they moved on from, I affected them deeply with my thoughtless words. 

I knew I hurt them in the moment, trust me. I felt that pang of regret instantly after I said what I did.  I tried to apologize to them and make things right, but I couldn't take back what I said or cover it up and make it go away.  It sat there like an elephant in the room for weeks as I tried to apologize time and time again but never fully knowing the extent of the damage I'd done.  When my friendship with this person fell apart a few months later, the full weight of what I'd said hit me.  But I didn't know how to apologize then either.  So I didn't.

Today came around and God took me so fully back to that time.  I was immediately filled with shame and regret of my words and thoughtless actions, and I had that feeling I spoke of at the beginning.  The one where you know you need to apologize and try to make things right.  This person who I'm virtually estranged from was someone I once again had to face and ask for forgiveness.  In their usual, big hearted manner, my apology was accepted and forgiveness was offered, but I also found out that my words live on to haunt them still.  They haunt me everyday and I would do anything to take them back, but I can't.  I live with what I've done, but now I live with peace about it.  I have forgiveness from said person, and I have forgiveness from the Lord.  He calls us to make things right with our brother before we draw near to Him, and though I'm sure there are many other things I need to make right with people in my life, today I have peace with one. 

I have hope in the promise that "[a]s far as the east is from the west, so far has He removed our transgressions from us" (Psalm 103:12 HCSB).  My gift of discernment is one I want to continue growing in, and I know that today, the conviction of my sins was from the Lord.  I thank Him for giving me the strength to address my faults to the one I hurt and find peace in the midst of them.  To God be the glory and praise forever!

Loving You Enemies or Changing Your Heart?

In today's society, I don't know how many actual "enemies" we have on a day to day basis.  I know that I don't walk around in fear of being attacked by someone or a differing people group, but there are certainly people I don't like very much.  It's almost like a confession here: "Hi, I'm Paige and I don't love everyone."  But before you judge me for that, think about it.  Isn't there someone out there who you see on social media or pass in the hallway or see at work who you just would rather not have to interact with?  We all have those people in our lives whether or not we care to admit it.

I was reading in Matthew 5 recently and came across the passage where Jesus is telling his followers to pray for their enemies and those who persecute them.  In fact, He told them that only loving those who love them back will only make them as good as the pagans.  Jesus said that we need to love our enemies and pray for them in order to "be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect" (Matthew 5:48 NIV).  Those are hefty rules to follow.  I don't think I can live up to His calling to be perfect. 

As I was dwelling on this passage, I was convicted to pray for one person in my life who I have unfairly judged and made into a sort of enemy in my life.  As I did, I struggled with how to pray for this person because I realized most of what I really "knew" about this person was based on gossip and assumptions.  I can't really pray for God to change their life based on things that quite possibly aren't even true! So I struggled through my prayer and continued to question why God would ask us to love our enemies and pray for them. Then I realized, in praying for them, God was shaping my heart to be more like His.  I wasn't praying specifics for my "enemy" because I didn't know them.  Instead, God was convicting me to not judge, to not assume, and to not think of myself as better than this other person.

Maybe, the whole reason Jesus teaches us to love our enemies isn't really about them at all.  It's not so we can be the bigger person and do the right thing.  It isn't about changing them to be more like us, the "good Christians."  It's about changing us.  God uses selfless prayer for others to change the way we think about them.  He convicts us in our thoughts and deeds because who wants to pray to the King of the Universe and sound pretentious?  I'm not saying that with one prayer I've entirely changed my way of thinking and have achieved the perfection that Jesus calls us to strive for. I'll never fully get there, but I have been challenged to reassess how I view others.  Jesus loved the Samaritan woman at the well when He was supposed to hate her since He was a Jew.  He healed the lepers when He was supposed to avoid them for fear of being contaminated Himself.  He forgave a criminal while He was dying on the cross for his sins.  Jesus loved His "enemies" to the point that He died for them!  The least I can do is pray for them and do my best to love them with God's help.

Making and Breaking Plans

This past week has been really emotionally trying for me. In the past made great plans for the week of the Fourth of July that sadly could never come to be. In fact, these are only a few of the many plans that I know will never come true. 

Isn't it funny how we make plans so far into the future that we expect to come about exactly as we want them to? We assume that all our dreams will pan out just as we hope. We plan for tomorrow and next month and five years to come. We think that we have control over what happens and what we can do. Our plans just ensure it will be how we want. But it doesn't work that way. 

It even says so in the Bible. "A man’s heart plans his way, but the Lord determines his steps" (Proverbs 16:9 HCSB). God tells us that we can plan all we want but ultimately He has a plan for us that will come about. No matter how much we want something to happen, God will allow it to happen exactly as He desires. 

I thought this week was going to be very different than it was. Saying goodbye to someone also meant saying goodbye to plans and dreams and wishes. But this week turned out every bit as good or better than I could have imagined. It was nothing like I planned, but it was perfect. It was what God wanted.

I think I'm learning to take everyday in stride. Every moment as it is. I want to live every second without regret and to the very fullest. Who knows if I'll wake up tomorrow, take another breath, see my friends again after we part ways, see my next birthday...the list goes on. I don't want to look back on a single moment with anything but fondness and joy at how I spent that time. 

I want to engage in meaningful relationships with others, be fully present in all situations, seize every opportunity that comes my way. I can dream and hope and wish, but I want to only make plans that are temporary. I want to make plans that are okay if they don't come about. It's hard to miss something if it was never set in stone upon my heart in the first place. 

Hardened Faces or Hardened Hearts

Today as I was stopped at a stoplight, I began to look at the people driving the cars passing by me.  Have you ever done this? It's funny-when we're driving we feel a false sense of privacy.  When we're alone in a car we'll sing along to songs we don't want others to know we listen to, we'll multitask way more than when there are passengers with us, we'll do things like brush our teeth, shave, put on makeup, etc. just because we don't think anyone else will know or see or care.  I'm the first to admit that I'll sing loud and proud when I'm alone in my car.  I belt those songs out like my car is a soundproof box, and my voice won't work outside of it.

Well today as I was driving, I watched seven or eight cars pass me by, but one car stands out to me in particular.  A man in his twenties was driving alone in the car-not unusual by any means.  However, his face is one I don't think I'll soon forget.  Unlike the majority of faces I see each day, this man was smiling.  Not a polite grin or a smirk or just a slight, closed mouth smile, but a full-blown, sparkle-in-the-eyes, shining smile. I have no idea what made this man so happy, but his joyfulness made me think.  Why should a smile be so out of place? What happened to society that something so normal and natural is now the exception not the norm?

I have to wonder how America has fallen so far from just half a century ago.  Sure, we care more about equality and acceptance and have rights provided to everyone regardless of, well, almost anything, but generally speaking, people seem much more closed off, angry, and hard-hearted.  What happened to the days where families would sit on the front porch late into the evening spending time with friends and neighbors, sharing stories and laughing together? When kindness, common courtesy and manners were more important than climbing the business- or social-ladders and making the best for ourselves.

I go to a school where walking to class means saying hello or smiling to everyone you pass regardless of whether you know them or not.  Taylor University is a considered a bubble sometimes.  It's a bubble away from the outside world, and in a way that's a bad thing, but I don't think of it like that.  In my Taylor bubble, I learn that a friendly smile can make someone's entire day, holding the door for a classmate with too many books is a gesture that should be normal, sitting down with someone who's eating alone can be the only act of kindness they see that day.

Our hardened faces may mask our true feelings, our struggles, and ourselves, but I think what a hardened face really shows is the hardened heart that lies behind it.  That young man smiling in the car today might not have the perfect life, or maybe he does, but his smile spoke to me saying that regardless of the good or bad in his life, he's choosing to be happy. Now that's a choice I want to make.

Happy Birthday (of Sorts)

Five years ago, I was blessed with the opportunity to attend a missions trip with a group of other students from my school. We loaded into vans and drove the many hour trip to Birmingham, Alabama. To be quite honest, I didn't enjoy my time that week. Hanging out with friends was fun, but I didn't like the people on my crew, the food was hardly edible, I got sick one day of the work week and had to sit around doing nothing. Needless to say, it wasn't the greatest time of my life. But God was using all these mediocre experiences to mold me into a new person for Him.

On the way back home after the long week was over, we stopped at a hotel in Louisville, Kentucky and gathered together to unpack everything that took place that week. In that time, God broke my heart for Him. Hearing other people's stories and witnessing their love for the Father, I knew deep down that I wasn't like them. Not yet. 

That night I met with a leader on our trip, my former volleyball coach, and she asked me what was going on. I was sobbing uncontrollably and honestly remember very little of our conversation. But the details are unimportant. The big picture is that on that night, June 28, 2008, five years ago today, I asked the Lord Jesus Christ to come into my heart as my personal Lord and Savior.

I've never been the same since that experience. Since then, I've gone in the same trip to Birmingham year after year and now I understand what the other students knew that night in the hotel. Now I could relate to them in a spiritual bond that only comes from the Father. He's done amazing things in my life once I surrendered to Him. In fact, just over a year ago, I publicly professed my faith and was baptized in front of my family and my peers.

This road of following the Lord and keeping His commands is not easy. In fact, it's the hardest thing I've ever had to go through. But I wouldn't trade it for anything. So today, I'm celebrating that God, the Creator and Sustainer, would love me so much that He would die for me and allow me to live in relationship with Him forevermore! 

In the Hand of HIM Who Reigns

There's a song popular on Christian stations titled "Whom Shall I Fear" that has made a big impression on me in the past month. The lyrics say:

"I know who goes before me

I know who stands behind

The God of angel armies

Is always by my side. 

The One who reigns forever

He is a Friend of mine

The God of angel armies

Is always by my side."

Today as I was driving, this song began to play, and I heard the lyrics more clearly than ever before. How amazing is it that the God of the universe, the almighty Creator of all things, the only Perfect being could also be my Friend? How is it that the Lord who rules over the spiritual realm, commanding the angels, could consider me worthy of His time and protection? 

But He does! 

God the Father stands guard over me at all times because He wants to and He loves me. Despite my sin, my failures, my doubts, my shame, my guilt, my existence really, He chooses to stand beside me and keep watch over my every move. He knows that the next word out of my mouth will be dishonoring to Him, the next choice I make will be against His will, but He never leaves my side. In spite of everything that I do that is against the perfection of God's nature, He loves me. How amazing!

This promise of unfailing love is what is keeping me going these past few weeks. Some certain circumstances that have arisen recently have had the potential to test my faith. It seems that as soon as I get back on track and offer myself fully to the Lord, something comes up with the potential to shatter it all and make me take several steps backward to where I just came from. This time these circumstances are out of my control entirely, but I refuse to allow them to distract me from my walk with my Father.

Earlier this week, I was thinking about these unfortunate circumstances and looking out the window in a rather contemplative manner. I began talking to God asking Him to give me the strength to stand firm in the face of trials. I told Him that I knew I was incapable of dealing with it all on my own, and I needed a hand from Him to get through it. As I admitted that, the clouds I was staring at took the form of a hand reaching down from heaven directly towards me. The shape didn't last long as the wind carried them along and blew a fierce thunderstorm into the area in its place, but I know what I saw. 

That hand, a single cloud, a moment of incredible weather, was a promise to me. In that brief moment, I know that God was reassuring me that He goes before me and stands behind. He may be ruler of the universe and commander of the army of angels, but He also is my Friend, holding my hand and guiding me through each moment and trial. In the words of Chris Tomlin in the bridge of his song:

"Nothing formed against me shall stand.

You hold the whole world in Your hands.

I'm holding on to Your promises

You are faithful, You are faithful!"

One Step at a Time (Literally)

When every step you take causes pain, what do you do? You can't refuse to go through life because it hurts too much to walk out the door.  What do you do when over the years the pain intensifies until each step is so crippling it becomes a victory to make it to class each day?  That's the pain I lived with for the past four years.  It developed slowly until it was no longer bearable for me to live in such a manner. So I decided to do something about it.

Seven weeks ago I underwent surgery to reconstruct my foot and remove the bunion that was the source of the pain.  If the pain was bad before, the first day of recovery was awful.  I remember when I first realized the local anesthesia had worn off and the full force of the procedure hit me.  Some of my best friends came over to visit me, but all I could focus on was the pain. I even had to ask my mom to kick them out because all I wanted to do was cry.  

Since that night, I've had a few occasions of similar desperation.  As my body physically healed, the toll I took emotionally became increasingly overwhelming. Now, I'm a fairly independent person. I don't like having to rely on other people to do things for me that I should be able to do myself. I dislike asking for help because I view it as a sign of weakness. Spending five weeks on crutches means five weeks of not being able to carry anything on my own.  Five weeks of being forced to admit I can't do it all. Five weeks of asking for others' help.  

I went without meals because I felt like a burden to those around me. I didn't participate in group events because I simply slowed others down. Being away from home during this time was possibly one of the hardest parts. I knew my education was important, and I needed to be at school in order to graduate on time. However, a huge part of me wanted to go back home and leave only once I was self-sufficient again.  I wrestled with God a lot as I looked at where my life was and wondered why it had to be so hard.  If He answered, I wasn't listening well enough.

Two weeks ago I was finally cleared to put weight on my foot.  Because I had been non-weight bearing for so long, I'd lost a lot of muscle in my foot, ankle, and leg.  It's virtually impossible to describe the feeling of walking for the first time in over a month, but I mostly remember it felt freeing.  I was still in a walking boot and had very limited mobility, but I was walking.  The labored movements were hard and frustrating, but I just had to take one more step, then another, and another.  Soon, walking in the boot was no problem.  

Today marked another huge step in my recovery. I was able to take the boot off, put a shoe on, and take my first steps with my new foot unassisted by anything. I expected so much more out of those first steps than actually happened. It wasn't so much disappointing as it was a setback.  My leg still has little to no muscle tone which makes every step a struggle.  I find it amazing how much we all take our bodies for granted.  I have to focus on every single step I take as I train my body to do what it used to do so easily.

I've learned so much throughout this experience about myself and the body God gave me. I've let a lot of who I am be defined by what I can do, and when I could no longer do those things, I was lost.  I've lost track of my passions and some of the joy that I got from just doing things for fun and the glory of God. He's given me dreams and hopes and abilities that I lost somewhere along the way.  Not being able to use my body the way I wanted to helped me realize that there's a lot more that I can do that isn't defined by my walking abilities.  I just need to keep my head up, my heart focused, and take on life one step at a time.

What is Life?

Lately, I've found myself asking the question "what is life?" in various situations.  Mostly it comes out when something absurd happens, but I've started to think about it a little bit more.  I look at my life and watch myself go through the motions of daily living, going to classes, and spending time wastefully. All my hobbies and passions and interests seem to have been left behind when I came to college, and I don't know what I'm living for anymore.

Being at a Christian university doesn't make that confusion any easier.  I see everyone around me in one of two or three groups: people who live their lives with purpose knowing their calling and following God all out, those who don't want to be here for Christ but for some other reason, and those stuck right in the middle pretending they have it all together but really just looking for answers to questions they don't even know they're asking.  I place myself in that last group.  

I've felt a void in my life that I haven't been able to fill.  I spend time with friends who I've come to love dearly, but I'm still lonely.  I eat (probably too often), but the hunger is insatiable.  I go to church and chapel, but I leave with more questions than I started with.  I go to classes and do my homework, but the knowledge is never enough. This emptiness is something I can't explain because I don't fully understand it.

Yesterday I was asked a question that caught me completely off guard and actually made me think.  Much of what is being shared in this post is a result of that meditation. I have had to examine my life and my desires and my dreams more closely than I've been willing to just to answer one yes-or-no question.  I've started to realize that the priorities in my life are anything but on track, and if I continue on the path I'm going, I'll become so lost even a GPS can't help me find my way out.

Just to clarify, I'm not depressed, nor will I be doing anything extreme in the near future; I'm just quite confused and thoughtful and spewing out whatever is coming to mind in hopes that something will dawn on me.  I know that the void in my life is God because He knows best that I haven't given Him the time He deserves.  I know that I need to turn to Him and devote my attention to who He is and what His character means and represents.  I just don't know how to.

My pastor this morning shared a great message about loving God as the key priority in life because we were made in His image. God is Love and that means I must love: God, others, and myself.  I've spent too long loving myself and thinking only of my interests. If I spent half as much time loving God as I've been spending on myself, I think my life would look radically different. That's my goal, I think. Just spending that much more time with God each day until eventually my life reflects Him because I've let go of myself completely. 

I don't have any wise way to end this post, and if someone actually reads it, I'm sorry it's kind of depressing. I titled the blog "Life As I Know It" for the good and the bad and the in between that takes place.  This is my life; it may not be glamorous, but I wouldn't change it for the world.  Each trial and struggle I go through strengthens me for something in my future. If I can learn to cling to the hope of the Lord's promise, I can do anything.