A Year of Amazing Grace

This past year at school has been really amazing and a true blessing to me.I made some great new friends in my dorm. I learned  a couple songs on the guitar (which I had been wanting to do). I ran five miles straight for the first time. I had lots of adventures with my friends. I made some fantastic memories. I learned a lot in classes. But most of all: I changed. I grew.

I got really lonesome being away from my family. I cried a lot. I struggled a lot. But even through the messes that I have made I've found that God has had a greater plan in action. And that He can work out my mistakes for His good.

There were some sin issues in my life this past year that all really started the year before when I quit making time to actually read the bible in devotion time. I need to be in the Word often in order to keep my heart straight and focused on Christ and all that he has done for me and is continuing to do in me. When I don't, things fall apart and no matter how I try to cope with them or piece them back together it doesn't work. Me trying to fix my issues, and deal with my stress and loneliness by myself was like trying to put a band-aid on a mortal flesh wound.

Anyways, as the year was coming to a close, I really felt convicted that I needed to confess some of the things that I was struggling with and had struggled with over the past year, to my RA. I was terrified. My RA was like my best friend, and I didn't want how she saw me to change. But I knew what I was supposed to do, and with God's help I confessed. And what really amazed me was the amazing grace that she displayed to me.  When I really deserved punishment for things I had messed up, I received grace and love. I was really impressed- and I think that she was an awesome display of Christ through her actions. While we deserve death and punishment for all that have done wrong, Christ took that punishment for us, and invites us to be part of his family. That, is truly amazing.

Throughout this summer I've been working quite a bit to save up money for the next couple years at college, and have been taking summer classes. Something that God has really impressed me with this summer is that we need to do everything to His glory. That is our purpose in life, and Christ is most glorified through us when we are most satisfied in Him. If you're reading this post and you want a good read about glorifying Christ in  your life check out the book Radical- by David Platt, or Don't Waste Your Life- by John Piper.

People > Task

I can be a very task-oriented person sometimes and its hard to remember that people deserve priority over tasks and things I want to accomplish. I know that this is something I need to work on, and believe that God will be working on in me.

Truth: Who am I?

I am deeply loved by God, completely forgiven, fully pleasing, powerfully equipped, totally accepted and complete in Christ.

Scared

In our growth groups this week we talked about confession and how we are supposed to confess our sins to God, but also to other Christians. Along with this, I'm currently am writing a paper for a class about how the bible applies to my life, and subsequently how I have sinned and how Christ has changed that in my life.

Honestly, confession scares me. I'm supposed to have a spiritual mentor read and give me feedback on my paper, and this scares me even more. I really want to be honest in my paper and with people, but the idea of confessing makes me feel super vulnerable. I don't want people to see me differently, over-react, or try to fix me.  My fear almost makes me want to edit out parts of my paper so I don't have to confess them. Yet, at the same time it gives me an opportunity to confess to someone. I'm not sure yet if I'll chicken out yet.

Honesty and Openness

Honesty is hard. The last couple days I've been realizing that I really do struggle with being honest, and often forget that I should be striving to be truthful. Most of this is that I have built up walls around myself, and have generic saying that I use rather than verbalizing what I am actually doing, or how I'm doing etc...  I am not exactly sure why I do this, and part of what I love about blogging, is that I feel like I can be myself and be completely honest.

I think part of the reason for my dishonesty is that I have issues with trusting people, or I don't feel like what I say is actually important. I faithfully strive to be honest in things that I think are important, yet somehow other things seem less important to be honest in, which is wrong. For example, while organizing random things in one of my friend's rooms they'll  ask "What are you doing?" to which I almost always respond "nothing..." It doesn't seem like a big deal to me, but they typically call me out for lying, because they hate it.

Another example: When people ask how I'm doing, unless we have a solid relationship and I really trust them, I often will just say "fine" or "okay" or "good" regardless of how I actually feel. I know a lot of people do this, but I feel terrible when I respond this way, and then the other responds extremely truthfully.

I guess what I'm really trying to say is that we need to be honest in every aspect of our lives, not just in the big or important situations. Being honest builds up others respect and trust in you. Today I consciously have tried to be honest, and as a reminder wrote "honesty" on my hand in pen; I'm hoping that over time I will get better at this, and be more open and trusting with others. 

Making Time... (my thoughts)

It has been quite a while since I have gone to God just to be with him and enjoy his presence. I remember coming back from my mission trip 2 years ago and feeling off kilter if I hadn't had devotionals in the morning. I miss that.
I need to get back into step, because I have been lazy, and deep down I want to know God better. I just haven't cared enough, or disciplined myself nearly as much as I should have been.  It's so easy to say that I don't have enough time, or just to get distracted by things of everyday life. In reality, however, I will never have enough time, I need to make time by setting it aside for him.

Only the Pieces

We had student seminars for chapel last week, and one of the ones I attended was focused on true confession, and not giving up in our walk with Christ. One of the things that stood out to me the most was a parable that they used. We often act like we know exactly what God is trying to do in our lives and try to explain things by ourselves, when in reality God has a much bigger picture in mind.

It is like us standing with our face right next to a white board so that it is almost touching, and us thinking that we know everything that the white board contains. In time, God often allows us to take a couple steps back from the white board, so that we can see the bigger picture a little better with every step.

When I heard this parable, it stuck me how I often do the same things, and act like I have life all figured out. I'll admit, I do this a lot, and there is probably plenty of examples of this on my blog. So, I just want to say, I'm sorry.  I don't have life all figured out. Occasionally, I get a glimpse of something bigger that God is doing in my life, but most of the time my face is glued to the whiteboard.