Breathtaking Beauty

This past week has been a particularly busy one. And I already told you about being weary and worn. So whenever I end up driving somewhere alone, it's like the floodgates just open and the tears come rushing out. (Don't be worried, Mom...I make sure that I'm still driving safely.) I think it must be that there's finally a little time to think about more than just the next thing on my list, and then all the emotions that have been pushed to the side just refuse to be contained anymore. 

Plus, in my extra weakened state, I've been making it a point to listen to Christian music more than usual to get some extra reminders of truth. And sometimes, it's like those songs perfectly describe how I'm feeling and exactly what I'm going through. (I'm not even sure how it happens, except that God is in control.) So the other evening as I was driving to a friend's house, that's just what happened. Every song personally resonated with my situation. And it was great. Because it allowed me to call out to God for His help and strength in my weakness (2 Corinthians 12:8-10).      

But then something happened that I wasn't expecting.

You know when the moon appears bigger, brighter, and closer than usual? That night, as I continued to drive, I spotted such a moon, just for a split second, before it darted back behind the clouds. But that second of breathtaking beauty was all I needed. It literally made me gasp out loud. In that moment, that big, beautiful moon was like a beacon of hope for my soul. Not that the moon could give me any hope, in and of itself, but it reminded me that it had a Creator - that I have a Creator, who loves me (Psalm 19).

And if that moon wasn't enough of a reminder, these were the words of the song that was playing on the radio right at that very moment:

"It would have been easy
But I'm glad You never walked away
Cause Your love runs deep for me
And I see this beautiful world
And it brings tears in my eyes
And I think it's beautiful to be free

All I can do is thank You
For this life I never deserved
Wanna thank You for the grace
I know I don't have to earn
You love me, You love me
Your mercy is proof
All I can do is say thank You
All I can do is say thank You"

 As you can imagine, the floodgates opened even more. But my tears were transformed from tears of exhaustion and sadness to tears of thankfulness and joy in the knowledge and experience of God's red love for me. He didn't have to create this amazingly beautiful world. He didn't have to create me. He didn't have to make a way for me to have a relationship with Him. He didn't have to send His Son to die on my behalf. And I certainly never earned it or deserved it. He didn't have to let me experience the breathtaking view of the moon that night. He didn't have to let me hear that song or line up the words so perfectly. But He did. And it was just the reminder that I needed. And all I could do was be thankful - thankful for this beautiful world that reflects and declares God's glory and the amazing grace of God toward me in Jesus (Ephesians 1:3-10).

Just in case all this wasn't enough of a reminder for me, guess what song was playing on the radio as I left my friend's house that night...yep...the exact same song. God's timing couldn't be more bafflingly perfect. 

Most certainly, Loving Him is Red. 

How has the Lord reminded you of His beauty and love at just the right moment?

Real Suffering, Real Repentance

This week I cried...a lot... That happens sometimes. But it didn't necessarily feel like there were more sad things happening than usual. So I found myself crying even when I felt like I was pretty much fine. As I tried to explain how I was feeling to friends and even to myself, the best that I could come up with was that I just felt very tired. 

In the midst of those tearful moments, I realized that there have been a couple of long term struggles that have really just been wearing on me - one being singleness. As I had been dealing with these same struggles this Spring, I had taken some time to pretty much exclusively listen to The Struggle album, by Tenth Avenue North, on repeat. I remembered appreciating that album because it's real - real life, real sadness, real suffering, real struggles. So I figured that it might be a good idea to take some time to listen again. One song, Worn, seemed particularly applicable. 

As I listened to the words, I felt as though they almost perfectly reflected how I was feeling. So I was reminded that I wasn't alone in my weariness - that other people go through these struggles too. And even more than that, I was reminded that "redemption wins," that "the struggle ends," and that God "can mend a heart that's frail and torn!" Things will not be this way forever! In the end, God will make everything right! 

And that comforted me. It really did. 

But as I continued to listen to the album, I realized something else. 

I realized that sometimes I give my sadness to God and take comfort in His loving promises to make all the pain and struggles go away, but then miss the opportunity to really and truly consider how my heart is still worshiping other things besides Jesus and to really and truly repent. And then I remembered one of the other reasons why I love this album. It's a real and honest crying out to God, but in a way that doesn't ignore repentance.   

Because if the only comfort we get from God is that things are going to get better, then we miss the beauty of what God wants to do in and through us, sometimes particularly through suffering. He wants to transform us, make us new, give us new desires, help free us from our selfishness and our lust for all the things of this world that we were never meant to worship. God always has a redemptive plan in the midst of our suffering.

And often in the midst of my struggles, such as prolonged singleness, I can get so focused on getting the desire that my heart is set on (like marriage) that I ignore the opportunity to submit my desires to Him. And then I stop relentlessly asking myself about the ways I continue to love other things more than I love Him, when really I need to be all the more relentless in questioning my easily deceived heart. What that shows is that I am quite adept at making my relationship with Jesus completely about getting what I want, instead of realizing that I already have what I want - Jesus Himself - and He deserves my worship.

It's almost as though I still chase after all the vain things that I used to...but now I just pray for them more and find comfort in the fact that God loves me more than I previously realized. But The Lord wants so much more for me than that. Why should I keep chasing after shadows when He actually wants to free me from the pursuit of things that won't satisfy so I can be satisfied in Him?

Thankfully, my hope isn't in how well I repent. Then I would still be hopeless to ever get it right. But I do have a real and living hope in Jesus (1 Peter 1:3). He does all things well. He trusted His Father perfectly in the midst of the suffering He took on to revive us from the death we had chosen for ourselves. He is our salvation, our power and example for change:

"Since therefore Christ suffered in the flesh, arm yourselves with the same way of thinking, for whoever has suffered in the flesh has ceased from sin, so as to live for the rest of the time in the flesh no longer for human passions but for the will of God. For the time that is past suffices for doing what the Gentiles want to do, living in sensuality, passions, drunkenness, orgies, drinking parties, and lawless idolatry" (1 Peter 4:1-3).

Jesus suffered during His time on earth, and so do we. And since His Spirit lives in us as Christians, He goes through it all with us, accomplishing His perfect plan to rescue us from the futile way of life we lived before and toward which we're so prone drift.  

I know that I've already spent enough time chasing other things. 

And it might be hard to fight that tendency. 

And it might be tiring. But it's worth it. 

Because Loving Him is Red. 

What struggles and sufferings are you facing that have left you feeling worn?

What does it look like to both cry out to God and choose to look for opportunities for repentance?

Nightmare Induced Thankfulness

Last night, I had a crazy dream...pretty much a nightmare. 

You should know that my most frequently recurring nightmare is one in which I somehow end up marrying someone I don't actually want to marry. And I usually have no idea how it even happened. And I just want to get out of it. But I can't. This was one such dream.

I guess it was good in some ways. So I'll start there. In the dream, I was pregnant. It might not seem immediately apparent as to why this is a good thing. This hasn't been my lifelong aspiration or anything. In fact, the whole idea of having babies kind of freaks me out. You can ask my best friend from my childhood years: she wanted to have babies, while I was content with the cuteness of baby Christmas trees. Seriously.

Recently though, I've been spending some time with two of my close friends, who are both expectant mothers. I still can't believe it in some ways, since we all just seem too young - like we're still pretty much children, ourselves. But we're not children. We're adults. 

And it can tend to feel like these friends are moving through the life stages without me - that I've been left behind. Because if I'm still single, and they're already married and starting to have kids, that means I'm trailing them by two whole life stages! In the dream, though, I had caught up to them somehow, and that's what made it good. It seemed like my friends and I were on the same page again - that we could share this experience together.

 The thing was, we weren't actually on the same page at all. In the dream, I was married, but I had gotten married secretly. So I didn't get to have the beautiful wedding that I had always dreamed of, or like those I had been to for my friends. I didn't even have an engagement ring. I don't think my husband even had a job. And I wasn't married to a godly, Christian man like my friends were. I had chosen to marry a non-Christian. That's why the marriage was a secret. And that's why the dream was a nightmare.

The happy feeling of being in the same life stage as my friends totally faded away. All I could think of was, "How do I get out of this? I can't get out of this! My life is ruined! This really isn't the person that I wanted to marry! And now I'm pregnant... My dreams for my life are totally crushed. How did I even get myself into this situation? And how did I manage to do all this in secret, without anyone stopping me? How is it possible that I could make such terrible, life-altering decisions?"

Suddenly, I woke up. I realized that I hadn't, in fact, ruined my life. I wasn't married. I wasn't pregnant. My nightmare was not my present reality. And in many ways, the dream left me strangely thankful for the major decisions I had already made in life, though they have led me to a life stage that is different than that of my close friends. Sure, I may not be in the same life stage as those friends now, but that's ok. I can still be friends with them! Plus, I get to see what they do and learn from their mistakes :) 

I'm also thankful that though I was headed in the direction of making this nightmare into a reality, God intervened in my life! All by His own power, He called me out of my foolishness, shame, weakness, lowliness, and made me His own (1 Corinthians 1:26-31). He got my attention and showed me that Jesus was much more valuable than all the other things I had been pursuing. He even showed me that on the cross, Jesus took on my worst nightmare so that I would never have to face it! He put me in a community of people who care about me enough to ask me hard questions, who challenge me when I'm stubbornly clinging to my sin instead of to Jesus, who confront me when I'm thinking about making terrible, life-altering decisions. And the Lord has definitely shown me that His plans are better than mine. 

So I really don't know what God has in store for me in the future. I do know, however, that it won't be like a nightmare. And things might not go the way I would have chosen. But He has already protected me from myself and my own ridiculous plans on so many occasions. Now, I'm even starting to wonder if He gives me those nightmares sometimes in order to make me more thankful that He doesn't always let me have what I want. Because honestly, often what I think I want is actually the opposite of all the good He wants to demonstrate to me. And I would rather choose His plan than the nightmare I would come up with.

So thankful that He can rescue us from our own personal nightmares and that

Loving Him is Red!

What does it look like for you to trust Jesus as friends move on to different life stages?

How has the Lord shaped better plans for you than you tried to make for yourself?

Better Than I Ever Dreamed

Does anyone else besides me tend to immediately assume that it's a bad thing when things don't go the way you hoped?   

Frequently, however, when things don't go the way I want, they often turn out better than I ever dreamed. Remember Trust Jesus, Not A Timeline? I suggested that I should keep praying even when things don't go according to my plan, because if God already gave up Jesus to pay for my sins, then just maybe He could be responding to my prayers by doing something to bless me in a way I didn't even know was possible (Romans 8:32, Matthew 7:9-11). Here's a recent example of the Lord's lavish grace:

Some of you may have already seen on Facebook that I came within mere feet of Mr. Justin Timberlake this weekend. It was totally unexpected. An absolute accident on my part. (Though not on God's.) But in order for you to understand how big of a deal this is, we need to travel back in time.

Ever since I was a young girl, I have always loved *NSYNC. I've seen them in concert 3 times. The most I've ever seen any other artist is twice. Even now, I will unashamedly continue to treasure the music of this amazing boy band. But Justin was always my favorite...so much so that I pretty much refused to believe that he and Britney Spears were dating - even after they announced it publicly. I just wasn't sure how he could date her, when clearly, he was supposed to marry me...after I got a bit older and started my own singing career, of course.  

Since then, I reluctantly gave up on the dream of becoming Mrs. Justin Timberlake. (And it's a good thing I did, otherwise, I'm not sure how I would have handled the news of his marriage to Jessica Biel.) But I never gave up being a fan. So when I heard he was coming to PA, but that tickets were already sold out, I thought it might be a fun adventure to bring a friend and just mosey over to the concert to see if we might be able to somehow get tickets or at least enjoy the music from a nearby location. 

In the midst of the scramble to implement this spur of the moment decision, I prayed that God would bless our concert excursion. It wasn't anything elaborate. Just a general prayer. 

Shortly after we got to the concert venue, we realized that there was no way we were going to get in, so we started to survey the situation for other options. We settled upon a location outside the arena and tried to maneuver as best as we could to be able to see the stage. We even attempted to stand on a guard rail to get some extra height, but it was too difficult to keep our balance. Luckily I spotted a nearby tree, assessed the height of its branches, both relative to the stage and to me, and immediately began to climb it. Thankfully, that tree allowed me to have a great view of Jay Z and JT as they performed some of my favorite tunes. 

So after enjoying an awesome concert for free, my friend Bria and I started to head toward the car. But others who were heading in that direction were promptly and sternly stopped by security guards and were instructed to go the other way. But it didn't make sense. There was no reason we couldn't go that way. And I didn't like it one bit that we were going to have to pointlessly walk around the entire parking lot  when we could easily get to the car by walking in a straight line. I took about a second to contemplate what it might look like for me to sweetly negotiate with the security guard...but when he started yelling at the others, I decided it was best to just follow his instructions. The whole situation still made no sense, but I definitely was not up for getting yelled at...or worse...

Then, as we literally walked in the opposite direction of my car, we were stopped by yet another security guard. He told us we couldn't keep walking with the group ahead of us, but that we had to wait. Again...it made no sense. It was like every security guard we could possibly run into had conspired to delay us in the process of getting out of that parking lot at a decent hour. There was absolutely no visible reason as to why they would prevent us from walking directly to our car or then prevent us from continuing to walk the path that they themselves had instructed us to take.

But in the next 30 seconds, everything became crystal clear.

First, some screams. Then out rolled a black car with Jay Z hanging out the front passenger's window, grinning and waving comically. Shock ensued, producing frantic internal dialogue. "Was that just Jay Z? Where was Justin? I didn't see him. That must mean he's next. You better hurry and get your camera out before you miss it!" More screams. White van. "That is most undoubtedly Justin Timberlake. Take a picture! That's Justin Timberlake! He's right in front of you! This is a once in a lifetime thing. You will never be this close to Justin ever again. Wow! I can't believe that just happened..."

And as we were finally allowed to walk on the designated path away from my car, it all made sense. It didn't matter to me that we had been delayed a few minutes. We just saw Justin Timberlake! And it didn't matter to me that we had to do a bit more walking to get to the car. We just saw Justin Timberlake! Up close! And that's why the security guards were so adamant in their instructions to us. They needed to keep the way clear so Justin's van could safely take him to his tour bus. And all these delays and inconveniences were annoying in the moment, but after I saw the bigger picture, I embraced them gladly! In fact, I was in utter disbelief that such an amazing thing could happen to me!

If given the option, I would joyfully be slightly inconvenienced for the sake of being within an arm's length of one of my favorite musicians. The thing was, I didn't get the option. God chose for me, and He chose well. He always chooses well. But sometimes I can't see it, because I just don't get to see the whole picture. I can't see that He has a plan to answer my prayers beyond my wildest imagination. I didn't even think to pray that I would get to see Justin up close, yet God knows me so well. He knew just how to delight my heart and to remind me that He can answer prayers beyond the scope of what even seems possible.

Honestly, if I had tried to come up with a plan to somehow get to see Justin on my own, I'm sure I never would have been able to so perfectly weave those events together the way that God did - even if I had a million years to try. But thankfully, He's the One that's in control. And He loves me. And He knows me - better than I even know myself. 

And that's why Loving Him is Red!

How has the Lord surprised you in small or big ways in response to your prayers?

Best song from The 20/20 Experience! Especially 3:42-4:08...pure genius!

I also like to imagine the Lord singing to me - "You reflect me; I love that about you." <3

I Don't Speak "Car"

One thing in life that often makes me absolutely want to cry is when I have to deal with "car things."

When I think about a car, all I really care about is that it's cute, runs well, and can blast my favorite tunes. The only way I even know that I actually need to take the time to deal with "car things" is because I have little stickers on my windshield to alert me that something should be done. Other than that, I'm pretty much hopeless.

So when I go for an oil change, and the guy starts rambling off a list of the 27 things my car needs to have taken care of every so many miles, he has taken me to a place where I no longer feel comfortable. It's honestly like he's speaking a different language. And somehow, he expects me to understand. But I just don't. And to make matters worse, the list of 27 things he's suggesting is going to cost hundreds of dollars. But really all I wanted was to get my oil changed, because the sticker on my windshield told me it was time. And I'm just not interested in having my car catch on fire, or explode, or whatever disastrous thing will happen if I don't get my oil changed.

Here I am, then, with absolutely zero knowledge about cars, trying to make a wise decision about how to keep my vehicle running safely. And the guy is starting to get a little impatient with me, because he wants me to make a decision immediately. But then I feel pressured to decide more quickly, and I just don't do well when I feel rushed, so then I feel even more overwhelmed, which then actually slows my ability to make a decision promptly. So I start calling people to help me decide, because I'm definitely not very confident about my assessment of the situation. But inevitably, those people never answer when I need them. Typical. And then I ask the guy what he thinks, but he gives me the most unhelpful answer ever - that it's up to me. So then it's as I feared: it's just up to me. 

But I don't want it to be up to me. And I don't want to learn more about cars. And I most certainly don't want to spend hundreds of dollars on things my car may or may not really need. But I also don't want to blatantly ignore taking care of something important that, if neglected, could jeopardize the safety of my major mode of transportation. But I definitely  don't want to read my owner's manual. What I really want is for someone to love me enough to anticipate the things that my car will need and to take care of it for me, so I don't have to deal with the overwhelming pressure of trying to decipher this foreign language and to make decisions based on things that I don't understand. Unfortunately, that's not always an option. My step-dad likes to ask me about my car, and he's usually pretty attentive to the tires, but he's a few hours away, so there's no guarantee that he will be available to help when I need it. A boyfriend or husband would be more preferable, but hey, I'm still waiting for the right one. And of course there's no guarantee that he would be fluent in speaking "car" either or even that he would be able to answer my call when I need help. So at least for now, it is up to me. I get to be an adult and take care of "car things" on my own.

Just because I have to make decisions on my own, it still doesn't mean that I'm alone though.

Because even if I don't speak "car," and it's overwhelming for me to think about making major "car decisions," God is still with me the whole time. And I often forget that. The real issue isn't really about cars. It's about my heart. I get so caught up in thinking about who's not with me that I forget to stop and think about who is: the One true God who loves me more than words can adequately express. The most powerful being in the whole universe is standing with me, offering me His help. 

As usual, in the midst of my forgetfulness, I tend to run to other people instead of to the Lord. But I need to repent, remember Jesus, and run to Him - who would rather die than ever have me face anything all alone. And He's been there the whole time, just waiting for me to call upon Him, ready to come to my aid. The very psalm that Jesus quoted while He was on the cross confirms it (Mark 15:34, Psalm 22:1). As the Father forsook Jesus unto death to pay for our sins, He ensured that He would always answer the calls for help of those who trust in Him: "But you, O Lord, do not be far off! O you my help, come quickly to my aid!" (Psalm 22:19). But I've been too busy calling other people, or even wishing I had someone else to call. And He's been loving me in the perfect way at the perfect time through it all. But I've been too preoccupied wishing someone else would show me love in the way I want to be loved. And the truth is that His ways are just better than mine (Isaiah 55:8-9).

So the next time I need to take care of some "car things," I want to remember that it's an opportunity not to just feel frustrated and overwhelmed, but to embrace the chance to draw closer to my Heavenly Husband. He's not overwhelmed or confused. He invented cars, so he knows how to speak "car" better than anyone. And He knows exactly what's going on with my car at every second and is attentive to it's needs and to my safety. He wants to protect me, care for me and guide me. And He wants me to know that He's with me - that I'm not alone (Isaiah 41:10).

So even though dealing with "car things" can be scary and overwhelming, 

Loving Him is Red.

I just couldn't resist this pic. It was too funny. Look at those flames...

Can anyone relate to me here? How have you found ways to keep your cool and cling to Jesus when dealing with "car things" or other adult responsibilities?