month of may

there has been so much going on recently. i have a lot of things i want to blog about - finals, graduation, plans for the fall, growing up. there is much to be said, and too much to be said right now. but those posts will come with time, and with rest.

in other news, i am at camp. a wonderful place, a place that feels like a sort of home now. and yet, i am realizing (maybe the hard way) that things never turn out the way i see them happening in my head. even at camp. but though there are some areas where i'm hurting, i know the Lord is good.

encouraging sisterly affection

something to be thankful for: an amazing sister.

i love that emily and i have fun doing pretty much anything together. she is so warm, loving, and sweet. i love coming home because she is always excited to see me. she is simply awesome.

some of our favorite things to do together are laughing, cooking, baking, watching pride and prejudice, thrifting, watching glee, drinking coke floats, singing, dancing, getting frozen yogurt, playing board games, watching old movies (mostly musicals and anything with bing crosby) and sleeping with our beds or mattresses pushed together.

everything is bound to change

once upon a time, i graduated from high school and went to college. lora wong made me a mix cd, and written on the cd in sharpie were the lyrics from a sean mcconnell song: "you know things can never stay the same, you know everything is bound to change." truth. things were bound to change then, in summer 2007, just as things are bound to change now. this is the course of life.

when i experience major change, i feel there is a lot to grieve: the loss of the things that have been. new, good things will come, but it's hard to deal with closing a chapter of life. i am truly a creature of habit. change is hard for me. i can't think of any other time in my life when i've felt this frustrated with the things God is doing, or in my case, the things i feel He isn't doing. i know He's working even though i don't understand but i want answers to my questions. when is He going to make me excited about the future? when will the confusion disappear? what exactly are my passions? what is my specific calling in life? these are things i really desire...

maybe the issue comes down to what everyone else is doing. other people are getting jobs in areas they're really passionate about. other people are moving to cool cities. other people are getting married. other people have actual jobs where they will make money and support themselves. other people have internships that will eventually get them jobs. other people have perfect plans developed. other people are looking forward to the future. i know i shouldn't be playing the comparison game... but sometimes, compared to all this, i feel like i have nothing.

i know the Lord has specific, perfect, individual plans just for me. i have hope that He will bring to completion all the things He's been starting in me (though i don't know His timeline). i have faith that the Lord is still good, still strong and powerful, still sovereign, still loving and kind and gracious and merciful, still righteous and holy, still perfect, still all-knowing... even though, in some moments, i often don't feel that these things are true about Him. they are still true. and Jesus is still worthy of everything: all my strength and hope, all my love and devotion, all my trust.

elissa has captured my prayer for this morning:
"i do not need to know Your schedule or Your plans
Christ died so i can live is all i need to understand
i put my trust in You and on Your promises i'll stand"

help me to know this is true, Jesus. help me to trust You.

on deck or in the hole

tonight during my small group of dance leaders, my friend katherine read the devotional from "jesus calling" from march 26, the date that restoration happened this year. she read it to us because of the final line, "in My presence is the fullness of joy." this is cool because this part of psalm 16 was popping up all over the place. it was our "theme verse," if you will, for the tap piece meredith and i choreographed, and as leaders we really felt the Lord speaking His joy, a joy that is not defined by our circumstances but by the Lord's goodness and faithfulness, over the dancers and the audience.

but, surprisingly, this was not the part of the devotional that really stuck out to me. the majority of it was about waiting on the Lord. oh the ironies.

"I have promised many blessings to those who wait on Me: renewed strength, living above one's circumstances, resurgence of hope, awareness of My continual presence. waiting on Me enables you to glorify Me by living in deep dependence on Me, ready to do My will."

there was a similar topic in one of my favorite devotionals a few days prior. the text begins by mentioning the forty years that the israelites spent oppressed in egypt before God delivered them. sometimes, God waits. as the devotional says, "yet when God delays, He is not inactive. this is when He prepares His instruments and matures our strength. then at the appointed time we will rise up and be equal to our task. even Jesus of nazareth had thirty years of privacy, growing in wisdom before He began His work." (streams in the desert, march 22)

and further: "don't steal tomorrow from God's hands. give Him time to speak to you and reveal His will. He is never late - learn to wait."

shake the dust off your feet

the sound of music is one of my favorite movies. as a family, we would watch it during every eight-hour car trip to florida, probably because my parents knew it would keep us entertained for a solid three hours. we sang all of the songs (loudly) and knew almost all of the lines.

i was reminded today of one of my favorite parts of the movie, when the reverend mother speaks with maria in her office. it's likely that maria thought she was going to get a talking-to about her singing in the abbey, but in fact, the reverend mother tells her she will be leaving them for a while. suddenly, her entire life changes. she was going to be a nun... but everything she's assumed about her future is no longer intact, and what she thought was God's will seems to no longer be His plan. the abbey is the only place she feels she belongs, yet she is essentially given no choice but to follow another route. it seems God has, out of nowhere, thrown a curveball.

as she leaves the abbey, maria looks back and says one of the famous lines in the movie, "when the Lord closes a door... somewhere He opens a window."

i think that so many people latch onto this phrase because it is, essentially, a statement of faith and of hope. maria has absolutely no idea what awaits her at the house, but still she chooses to believe that God is going to do something good, that though He has said no to the abbey for the time being, He is doing a new thing somewhere else. it doesn't necessarily mean she'll never be back there. "but for now," He seems to be saying, "I'm doing something else. I'm sending you somewhere different. I know this isn't what you expected, I know this isn't what you thought you heard Me say, but I've got it under control." though she must've felt afraid, uncertain, and disappointed, she changes her perspective. she sees the new path not as second-string plan but instead as her primary route, as the thing that God is providing for in this time. she chooses to trust that God shut the door Himself, that He is the one who is opening the window, a window she never knew was there.

it's hard to step out in faith when we have no idea what is ahead. but God is the lamp to our feet and the light to our path. as my college pastor explained, this means that God is giving light to the places right in front of our feet so that we can walk in the dark. it doesn't mean he has illuminated the entire road, for years and years to come. it simply means He is providing us with what we need to walk on in the next few moments.

so onward i walk. not by sight, but by faith and by the Spirit. Jesus Himself said, "I am the Light of the world; he who follows Me will not walk in darkness but will have the Light of life." (john 8.12)

it's officially time for pressing on.

caught up in grace

take my life,
take all that i am.
with all that i am,
i will love You.

take my heart,
take all that i have.
Jesus, how i adore You.

-hillsong united, like an avalanche

judges 6:36-40

then Gideon said to God, "if You will save Israel by my hand, as You have said, behold i am laying a fleece of wool on the threshing floor. if there is dew on the fleece alone and it is dry on all the ground, then i shall know that You will save Israel by my hand as You have said."

and it was so. when he rose early the next morning and squeezed the fleece, he wrung enough dew from the fleece to fill a bowl with water.

then Gideon said to God, "let not Your anger burn against me; let me speak just once more. please let me test just once more with the fleece. please let it be dry on the fleece only, and on all the ground let there be dew."

and God did so that night. and it was dry on the fleece only, and on all the ground there was dew.

---

i love this story because though Gideon was recorded in hebrews for his faith, we see here that he was not a man of perfect faith. God called him, and Gideon questioned. i love that the Lord chooses us even in our weakness, when we lack courage and faith. so cool.