It Really Works

The end of a job I loved came so unexpectedly on Monday.

I thought I would be with Girl Scouts for years to come...It was my career and was a part of who I was as a person. If I wasn't at work, I was talking about work, I was wearing work on my shirt, and I was drinking out of my coffee mug that screams "Girls Matter".

But things didn't go the way I expected them to go. My time with Girl Scouts came to an end...

And it will be O.K.

Don't get me wrong...I absolutely hate not working there anymore. I hate sitting at home prepping my resume for the dozens of jobs that I'm sending it to. I hate not knowing what to say to people when they ask "What do you do for a living?". I hate feeling like I don't have a direction or purpose right now.

And it will be O.K.

I had my 20 minutes of breakdown when my car pulled through the gates one last time. It was hard to catch my breath for a while. My perfectly done makeup ran down my cheeks as I listened to the things I had stored in my desk rattling in a box in my backseat. The leftover McDonald's napkin in my car was stained with blackened tears...but only for a little while.

I couldn't explain to you why I am handling it so well. I couldn't understand how I am not curled up in a ball of devastation. I wondered why I wasn't held up in my apartment refusing to talk to people or go out and be social...and then it hit me.

Have I not commanded you? Be strong and courageous. Do not be afraid; do not be discouraged, for the Lord your God will be with you wherever you go.”

Joshua 1:9

I have spent the last 2 years rebuilding my connection and relationship with God and my faith is being put to the test this week. For the first time in my life I have a true understanding of what it means to not worry and let God be in control...is it wrong to feel like I am totally rocking this handing it over to God thing? I finally feel as if I have that feeling that people describe when they talk about God having everything under control and it is in His hands. 

If this is what it feels like, why did I not submit to this before now? 

Trust me, I have my moments in the day where my mind stares off into space and I wonder what's next...but there is no explanation as to my attitude towards this other than God is in control. God's faithfulness to my faith in Him is in full swing! It has nothing to do with my actions or anything I have done other than me finally submitting to His will, plan, love, and grace. 

I just lost my job but all I seem to want to do is shout to people how amazing God can be if they only turn to Him!! The best way I can describe it is this... 

You read about a way to help you do a certain daily task that seems so ingenious that it couldn't possibly work but you try it anyway... After you finally give in to what all these people keep talking about is such a fantastic, life-changing thing you realize HEY IT WORKS!! It really works!!

That is how I feel this past week. No I am no comparing God's love and mercy and faith to a life-hack because it is SO much more than that. IT WORKS! It really works!! 

That uncertainty you face day to day, trouble to trouble, worry to worry... when you truly have faith in Christ it seems so much more manageable. It seems so trivial. 

I am so glad that my life and plan rests in God's hands and that His mercy is endless and His grace is more than I deserve. 

Living In The Borderland

This past week I spent the whole week at Appalachian Christian Camp being a counselor to 80 high school kids.

Our theme this year was Borderland.

At first I wasn't sure what to make of this theme or where we were going to go with this concept and I have to say I was pleasantly surprised.

The definition of borderland is an uncertain, intermediate district, space, or condition. In terms of what we were talking about camp this sums up the direction we took the concept.

Many times as someone who is outside of Christ and even Christians we find ourselves in an uncertain condition in which we are set apart from God. The word uncertainty is a frightening term and can sometimes be used to describe how we feel about our situation and our relationship with God.

We started out the week allowing and asking everyone (counselors included) to be completely transparent about their lives and their relationship with God. We often find ourselves in a borderland that presents ideas, situations, and choices that are not of Christ. The borderland consists of the ideas and beliefs that the world presents as being acceptable. It is a dangerous place where deceptions about our relationship with God are brought to the surface and we feel separated from Him.

Spiritual deception is dangerous--and damning. Any one of us can fool ourselves. We are sinful creatures, biased in our own favor, prone to assume that we are something when we are not. The Bible says that the god of this world (Satan) is blinding the minds of unbelievers to keep them from knowing Christ. Couldn't it be that one of the ways the devil is doing this is by deceiving people into believing they are Christians when they are not?

-Follow Me by David Platt

The borderland has taken a toll on us but that's where reconciliation comes in to play. Reconciliation is when God chooses to redeem something that was worthless and with reconciliation comes repentance. According to David Platt repentance is when people " turn from walking in one direction to running in the opposite direction. From that point forward, they think differently, believe differently, feel differently, love differently, and live differently." 

Throughout this week I saw the look of struggle and uncertainty on the faces of the high schoolers we were ministering to. The uncertainty of what it would look like to give up the things they are involved in on a daily basis, their circle of friends, their way of life was frightening and for some of them unfathomable. Many of these kids were facing struggles I never imaged kids in high school would be up against. They have been offered drugs, they are having sex, they are blaming themselves for their parent's divorce, they are giving up on school, and they are taking on problems that are out of their control. As each day would draw to a close I would find my heart breaking more and more.

My continuous prayer all week was that if they don't take away anything from that week, I prayed that they would leave knowing that God is pursing them fiercely. There is nothing we can do to change our standing but it is because God is pursuing us constantly and his grace is fierce. That moment when you are tired of running, lying, hiding, and hurting and you give in to grace it changes you. God's grace is so fierce you cannot help but be changed and when grace takes hold of someone you can see it in their eyes.

A friend of mine at camp explained how grace changes us so well. He said that God is continuing to change us and he never wastes a scar. What use to be the end of us is not that anymore...he turns a period into a comma. Just when we think we are so far out in the borderland there is no coming back, God's grace rescues us from sin. There is nothing you can do that will keep God from using you to spread the Gospel. Every choice that turned into a mistake can be used to show how amazing the grace of God can be for those still living in the borderland.

You can either choose to conform to the borderland and its beliefs or you can transform.

As the week drew to an end I could see it on the faces of some of the high schoolers... they were fighting a battle they cannot win without God. Some chose to return to the borderland and try to give up their struggles on their own. Others chose to give in to God and allow him to transform them and change them into a new person. Some are still facing that uncertainty of what leaving the borderland would look like.

I'm praying that this borderland some of these kids are walking through will not be where they choose to remain. My heart breaks for the choices they are making and the choices that are being made for them. I see that some of them are choosing to stay in the borderland knowing the consequences and I don't know how to reach them. I chose to live in that same borderland and the outcomes are not always as they seem and it is hard to see these kids choose that road.

Pray.

Pray for peace during uncertainty. Pray for reconciliation. Pray for their hearts.

So from now on we regard no one from a worldly point of view. Though we once regarded Christ in this way, we do so no longer. Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: The old has gone, the new is here! All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation: that God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting people’s sins against them. And he has committed to us the message of reconciliation. We are therefore Christ’s ambassadors, as though God were making his appeal through us. We implore you on Christ’s behalf: Be reconciled to God.  God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.

2 Corinthians 5:16-21