An Uncertain Journey

I lift my eyes up to the hills. From where does help come to me?

Help comes to me from Yahweh, who has made heaven and earth.

He does not let your foot waver, your keeper does not sleep!

Behold, neither sleeps nor slumbers the keeper of Israel!

Yahweh is your keeper, Yahweh is your shade about your right hand!

By day the sun does not strike, nor the moon by night.

Yahweh protects you against all harm, he protects your life.

Yahweh protects your going out and coming in from now on and forever.

Psalm 121

As a senior in the last semester of college, I don’t know many of my peers who have a solid plan for more than the next two years of their life. If you were to ask most of us what we’re doing  in three months, we have no idea. Of course we have our dreams and ambitions, but looking past the next three months can be as scary as the original Nightmare On Elm Street. For some, that’s an ongoing fear. For others, it’s another exciting curve in the road. We rest in the fact that when we know absolutely nothing, GOD still knows everything and in that, he takes us to places we never dreamed possible.

I just started Beth Moore’s Stepping Up study with my girls at school. To say the least, it’s incredible. A lot of women had recommended Beth Moore studies to me, I’m so glad that this one is the one that God had for me and my girls. A couple of them told me it fits so perfectly with what’s going on in their lives, which is so great and it’s amazing how perfectly it fits with my life too. This study looks at the 15 Psalms of Acsent (120 to 134). These Psalms have been connected to songs that were sung by the Jewish people as they made their pilgrimage to the Temple. The songs are filled with both pain and praise. The uncertain journey that the Jewish people who sang the songs at the time they were penned, is much like the uncertain journey we are facing now.

“I don’t have a hard time piecing together why a traveler on an uncertain journey would want to remind himself that his God and his covenant LORD is the uncontested Maker of heaven and earth.”

That quote is in reference to Psalm 121. Beth points out a crucial point in this portion of the study. In the midst of our confusion and uncertainty, our God is still the same Maker of heaven and earth. This fact puts me at such an incredible peace knowing that of all of the people I love in my life who are really struggling right now, there isn’t one who isn’t under the protection of that mighty God. He has promised to protect us and he will never abandon that promise.

“He tends to us. He watches over us. He has never entrusted that job to anyone else.” – BM

Colors of the Wind

I had a friend in high school who went back to Jordan every summer to see his parents. As soon as it really got hot every year he would comment that at least in Jordan there was a breeze. Growing up in Upstate South Carolina, I had become very much accustomed to this difference. Hot summer days were just that: hot, sweltering even. Any cool breeze typically came from a fan or air conditioner.

This summer I’m working at a screenprinting company where I was told it was common that the pressroom would be an average of 8 degrees hotter than the actual outdoor temperature. I attempted to mentally prepare for this heat, but I was rather unsuccessful. My first week, our building reached the current record high for my time there of 97 degrees. On a 93 degree day last week, as I worked on a large order of shirts, something hit me. It was a strong, cool breeze from the open door near me. I didn’t realize just how much I appreciated that breeze until that moment. As it snuck its way into the building, the breeze brought with it relief and a strange calmness.

This breeze made me think about all of the refreshing “breezes” in our lives and just what they bring us. As my mind wandered I thought of a few examples in my life.

My best friend, Kaci, just got back a couple of weeks ago from a three-month mission trip to Swaziland in Africa. In the 11+ years we’ve been best friends, the two of us have been through a lot in our individual lives and we’ve seen each other through it every step of the way. She is in a sense one of those “breezes” in my life, one that at times was easy to take for granted. When she was gone, though, I could feel it. There were things that I only shared with her and only she could understand, not being able to communicate with her was difficult. When we went to pick her up from the airport and I saw her come up the escalator, a breeze came back into my life. My best friend was back and our friendship naturally took up right where we had left off, as if we had ever left off at all.

Driving on the road back to Clemson today, I was reminded of another breeze. This one is a little more literal in a sense. I was riding with my windows down, taking in the cool after-rain summer breeze. With my music blaring, I was reminded of another summer; a summer riding in the Black Pearl, listening to season-defining music and falling in love way more than I even knew. Nothing can replace that feeling, just the pure goodness of it all. I love that it is a feeling that can be repeated over and over. I hope it always is. Even just that music, especially from the original aBo CD, brings that feeling all over again.

It amazes me how God relates things in our lives to the natural world his has created. It’s so awesome that he created our minds in a way that we can draw those connections and I’m glad that he uses those times to remind me what he has done in my life and the incredible things he has blessed me with. I’m grateful for the breezes that bring good memories, the breezes that bring great friendship, and the breezes that bring just plain relief. All the colors of the wind…

it’s only wednesday?

When I said in my last post that I loved the last weeks of the semester, I had yet to experience this one. Four and a half hours of outside of normal class lab time, 4 failed sets of plates, one lost (and later found) set of car keys, and a pretty solid freak out (hyperventilation included) later, I’m not singing quite the same tune. And that was just Monday.

Tuesday picked up in major ways, and brought some trouble of its own, but I won’t focus on that part. Tuesday morning I drove my roommate’s car to school and showed up in the lab 20 minutes before my normal 8 a.m. lab time, hoping that I could use the extra minutes to convince my instructor that my bad plates could work. Only, he wasn’t there at 20 till 8… or at 8:15 for that matter. We found a janitor to unlock the press room for us and when I stepped in, there they were with all of their glorious flair, my keys. Relief.

As we fought our way through the normal woes of being a graphics major during the last week of the semester. I finally made it to press after remaking my plates at 11:30. (My lab was over at 10:45 just for a little context on that one.) Our complete projects were scheduled to be presented on Thursday morning at 8 a.m., needless to say, I had a lot to get acccomplished in that small amount of time. Then my instructor decided to move our presentations to next Wednesday, giving us a whole extra lab period. Relief.

He also sent out an email announcing that he would be waiving our 10, 15-minute clean-ups for the semester because he hadn’t done a good job of keeping up with them. I had not completed one single clean-up yet. Relief.

Running into so many “there’s no way I could possibly…” situations, I was getting pretty frustrated to put things lightly. At the end of all those situations was the same thing: relief. That makes me think of what God’s been teaching me a lot about lately: grace. Life is full of “there’s no way I could possibly…” situations, yet there is ALWAYS grace. Grace is our relief.

Some verses God was graceful enough to give me that morning:

“Ascribe to the LORD, O mighty ones,

ascribe to the LORD glory and strength.

Ascribe to the LORD the glory due his name;

worship the LORD in the splendor of his holiness…

The LORD gives strength to his people;

the LORD blesses his people with peace.”

Psalm 29:1,2,11

there they are in their rightful place. good stuff.

here comes the sun…

I really do love the last few weeks of the spring semester. It’s a glorious free-for-all of delirious, out-of-their-head students and equally exhausted professors, which makes for some pretty entertaining exchanges. Don’t believe me?

PUBLIC SPEAKING:

While a group gave their speech on male/female non-verbal communication…

Student: What exactly would be a male gesture?

Other Student: This. *Beats fists on chest*

COMMERCIAL PRINTING:

Professor: Has anyone in here ever stuck their hand in a bucket of anti-setoff powder?

*Hand shoots up*

Professor: Okay, yeah. What did it feel like?

Student: Like touching a cloud.

SOCIOLOGY:

Professor: No, the final isn’t cumulative. Does anyone remember what conspicuous consumption means?

*One hand shoots up*

Professor: Really, only one person? Okay. What does it mean?

Student: Oh… I thought it was what I’m doing now.

Professor: Um. What are you doing now?

*Holds up a half eaten muffin, previously hidden by the table*

See I told you. haha Hold on guys. We’re almost to summer.

at last.

I finally have an internship. Funny how God’s timing works. When I acknowledged him as totally in control and felt a peace about him working out the situation, there come the internships. Hooray! This one is in Greenville, paid (whoot!), and screen printing (which is probably my favorite). : ) I’m really excited about actually getting to be at home with my family and friends this summer and about having a job that pays, not only cash, but relevant experience. Praise Jesus! He’s the best.

I feel like this guy adequately expresses my excitement…

Keep on hoping. It’s worth it. God has the right thing in mind… just you wait.

what are you waiting for?

What gain has the worker from his toil? I have seen the business that God has given to the children of man to be busy with. He has made everything beautiful in its time. Also, he has put eternity into man’s heart, yet so that he cannot find out what God has done from the beginning to the end. -Ecclesiastes 3:9-11

I remember finding this verse in my junior year of high school when a lot of my friends were  graduating and moving on to college. I was frustrated with the fact that I was stuck back in high school and eager to move on to the next great adventure. With this verse I found peace in God’s timing. At that point I had no idea just how vital that peace would be in my life in the next few years and how many times I would have to learn that lesson over and over again.

Four years later, I find myself in that very same place. Seeing friends and family moving to the next step in life and preparing to make big moves and major life decisions, while I am still guaranteed another year at this fine institution that I love, most days anyway. My heart is beginning to get restless, longing for adventure outside of the brick walls of Godfrey Hall. But I must pay my dues. My time here at Clemson isn’t finished yet. God is making this experience wonderful and beautiful in its time, in the time HE has laid out for it.

In my most impatient circumstances, such as my search for an internship that should start in 3 weeks, I have to keep in mind that my walk with God is a process. He is making it beautiful on the time line he has laid out. Each circumstance,wonderful or heartbreaking is perfectly orchestrated by the one that has all my days written in his book. He is completely sovereign and I’m so glad it’s not up to me.

formal suit and tie

“Today, i the grocery store parking lot, I watched a man run as fast as he could with a packed shopping cart and then just on the back for a ride. He smiled and chuckled aloud as he rode the cart all the way to his car. He was in his mid-40′s and wearing a formal suit and tie.”

I found this post while reading through makesmethink.com (an alternative to the popular FML site) and this one was my particular favorite.

I feel like this is a real picture of freedom. What does that freedom look like? As we’ve tipped over the midpoint of the semester and now have the end in sight, all the tasks we have to complete begin to pile up in our minds. The temptation? Serious stress! My goal for this time period is to focus on something other than this stress. I want to focus on the perfect grace and sovereignty of God. I can’t let myself stress to the max knowing that I have a God who takes care of everything in his timing.

Unfortunately for my controlling little self, this applies to my internship search as well. But as I told my Bible study girls last night, I think God is calling me into a time of serious trust in Him, a time of not knowing what the plan is exactly, but more deeply knowing Him. I’m beginning to sense the freedom that comes with that trust as He pulls me into a deeper loving relationship. Ah! He’s so good!

My heart is not proud, O LORD,
my eyes are not haughty;
I do not concern myself with great matters
or things too wonderful for me.

But I have stilled and quieted my soul;
like a weaned child with its mother,
like a weaned child is my soul within me.

O Israel, put your hope in the LORD
both now and forevermore.

Psalm 131

your love is strong.

So why do I worry?
Why do I freak out?
God knows what I need
You know what I need

Jon Foreman, out on his own and still doing great things for the world. To be honest, when I first heard this song I thought our worship leader at Cru made it up and I really wasn’t all that impressed. I think it took God bringing me to a different place in my life to really be able to appreciate it.

You see, I’m kind of a runner. I certainly don’t mean in the physical sense. When I say I’m running to Ingles, I mean I’m hopping in my CRV and driving there. I leave the workouts to Jillian, which she takes care of quite well. I’m a runner in the spiritual and the emotional sense. God’s love is the thing I’ve realized I’ve been running from lately. But I think I’ve come to the point where his strong love isn’t going to let me do that any longer.

A lot of this realization began in Argentina when I was really feeling the hurt of the home that was so far away. I noticed just how dependent I was on the people and things around me at home and how hard life was without them. But with that missing piece in my life I was able to see God. The God that desperately loves me and has been pursuing me my whole life in exactly the way I had wanted to be pursued. My vision had gotten so clouded with all the things of life that He saw it fit to strip me of all my comforts and send me to a foreign land 5,000 miles away where I would see in a much more real way than ever before.

Now that I’m back, He is certainly still unpacking the hurt and brokenness that I have run with for so long, and showing me just how much he loves me. As I go into this week, I face one of the most stressful days of every semester for a graphics major… Intern Employer Day. dun dun dunnnn. I’ve been telling myself not to freak out, not to worry. This one will be better than the last. And as rough as the last one was, I ended up with an internship in time and actually even enjoyed it. God knows where I need to be. He’s going to put me there. If it’s far away, and even if it’s close to home. Why? Because His love is strong everywhere.

I look out the window
The birds are composing
Not a note is out of tune
Or out of place

“Do not weep! See, the Lion of the tribe of Judah, the Root of David, has triumphed.” Rev. 5:5

unfailing love

I was trying to clear off the mess of my computer and I found this little treasure…

Unfailing: not giving way, not falling short of expectation, completely dependable, inexhaustible, endless

Psalm after psalm gives word and testifies to God’s unfailing love. The writers put their hope in it; they let their lives rest on it. The reason? Because God’s love is UNFAILING! His love will never give way. His love never falls short of our expectations… we can’t even fathom how deep it is. His love is completely dependable. His love is inexhaustible. His love is endless. Wow. And he offers that ridiculous love to us? We could never come close to deserving that even in the least amount, not one drop is because we deserve it. The gift of his love is a result of his love.

Psalm 143:8
Let the morning bring me word of your unfailing love, for I have put my trust in you. Show me the way I should go, for to you I lift up my soul.

REFUGE: shelter or protection from danger; trouble; anything to which one has recourse for aid, relief, or escape; security, asylum, retreat, sanctuary, haven, stronghold

Life gets crazy sometimes. Sometimes “sometimes” seems like all the time. But as a child of God, I have somewhere to go. It seems like my natural reaction to tough situations is run away. The running part isn’t what’s bad, I just need to change my direction. God wants his children to run TO HIM! He’s okay with our brokenness, our doubts, and our fears as long as we’re running to him and laying those things at his feet and under his care. Our “very present help” is our source of aid, relief, and escape. Not always escape from our situation, but escape from the fears and doubts that bring us down. We have the security of our salvation in him. He is our asylum from the lost logic of the world. He is our retreat where we find rest. He is our sanctuary where we find peace. He is our haven where we find our relief. He is our stronghold that we can depend on. We do not find our safety in temporal things, our stronghold is ETERNAL!!!

Joel 3:16
Psalm 2:12
2 Samuel 22:3
Psalm 46:1

thank the cow.

God really does know what he’s doing. Who knew?!

He has a ridiculously incredible way of working in all of his wisdom and planning things perfectly in a way we can’t even begin to comprehend. In the past I has struggled with the tendency to, oh, freak out! about everything. Being the visual learner that I am, God knew that he would have to show me a different way. So where did he take me? A magical place called Argentina.

One of the things that stuck out to me the most about the people of Argentina was their people first mentality. They weren’t constrained to a strict time schedule and making sure they come into their own. They were concerned with people, with openness, with quality time. They certainly work hard, but they care for people FIRST.

What do we do as Americans? Well, as I’m learning about in my sociology class… America’s prime values include the following: progress, efficiency, achievement, material comfort, personal success, activity, work, and science. Sounds like the description of what a Christian should be right? Not so much. These values were the source of a lot of my freak out moments. Now God has shown me a better way to live and, with the exception of my graphics labs, I’ve adapted to it surprisingly well.

He also gave me a semester at The Graphic Cow with no school to worry about to break my old habits of stress and anxiety. I love how God works on such a personal level. I don’t know that this would have been possible any other way. It’s becoming more and more clear to me that life is a process, we are constantly being molded and refined by our brilliant Creator, and why wouldn’t we want to be?

All of this hit me when I was driving back to school yesterday morning, thinking about how I was going to be late to class. I had stayed a few extra minutes at home to talk to my dad before I left. Seeing my dad before I came to school is something I’ve actually very rarely done in my lifetime. It was a treat. It was worth being a few minutes late. Does that sound Argentine or what?

A few words from Tozer on the incredible ways God works that he doesn’t always let us see…

When God created the heavens and the earth, darkness was upon the face of the deep. When the Eternal Son became flesh, He was carried for a time in the darkness of the sweet virgin’s womb. When He died for the life of the world, it was in the darkness, seen by no one at the last. When He arose from the dead, it was ,’very early in the morning.” No one saw Him rise. It is as if God were saying, ”What I am is all that need matter to you, for there lie your hope and your peace. I will do what I will do, and it will all come to light at last, but how I do it is My secret. Trust Me, and be not afraid.”

love it.