Saturday, March 31, 2012

Feeling small.

So, I went to the beach two weeks ago. And it was great. A private beach over spring break with four of my best friends was exactly the break I needed from the chaotic life that is college. The night we got there, we went straight to the beach. It was dark outside, the sun had set an hour earlier. The weather was perfect, warm with a breeze.

I walked a few yard away from the group, listening and looking. The ocean felt just so...huge. Unbelievably huge. Unending. Unceasing. Unpredictable (as much as we try to change that). I thought about how I compared to that. All five feet and five inches of me. And I was struck by how little I was. How insignificant I am compared to the ocean, a force that determines so much. The ocean doesn't care if I'm alive or not. To the ocean, I am completely unimportant because I affect nothing. I can't inflict awestruck feelings in people just like I can't inflict tsunamis. It works on it's own timing and doesn't let anything stop it, much less an average-in-physicality twenty-year-old from Suburbia, Texas. The waves would continue to crash in the surf whether I stood on the edge of what seemed like eternity or not.

But you want to know something weird?

I was comforted by that.

I was glad that I didn't compare to the sheer power of the endless ocean. I was happy to feel so small and so unimportant. And it's not because I have a low self esteem or because I wanted to dig for compliments. This is the first time I've voiced what I was thinking that night. It's because I knew that no matter how tiny I felt or how vast the ocean is, I am close with a God who is bigger and better.

2 Corinthians 12:9 says "But He said to me, 'My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.' Therefore I will boast all the more gladly in my weaknesses, so that Christ's power may rest on me." Standing before the ocean, I realized that I was entirely to weak and unimportant to do anything of worth. But I am a child of the Lord, chosen to be his own. I don't have to be strong or important because the Lord is always stronger and he will always be the most important. When I feel weak, He is stronger and it shines through when I'm at my lowest point.

That's what I'm meant to do. Show how the Lord is greater in all aspects of my life. And if that takes me being small and insignificant to the world, then fine. But I am loved and I am cherished and I have been chosen to live through Christ.

"I hear the Savior say/"Thy strength indeed is small"/child of weakness watch and pray/find in me thine all in all" --Jesus Paid it All

Saturday, March 3, 2012

Remembering the parachute

Well. I went 0-4 with camp applications. Pine Cove, Sky Ranch, T Bar M, and Laity Lodge all gave me a resounding no. With each rejection, I felt a little less confident and a little more insignificant. Over the span of October to February, I was reminded 4 times that I wasn't supposed to work at a camp this summer.

Initially, I took it as an "you're not good enough" message.

However, I know that isn't true. God just doesn't want me at a camp this summer. Why? I don't know quite yet. Still waiting on that one. But I'm confident in my worth both here (as in, earth) and in the eyes of the Lord. Do the rejections still hurt? Uh, yeah. They still have a hold of me. Maybe on the arm or foot and it might not be too strong, but it's there and it's not going to go away soon.

Earlier this week, I felt like I'd just been pushed out of a plane and into a complete free fall, headed straight to the ground with no hope of survival. Flailing and screaming until I was hoarse, I was entirely unable to save myself from certain death.

Then the lightbulb lit up and I realized that there was something on my back. A parachute. It'd been there the whole time and I had no idea. I was rejecting the thought that there'd been one because I was so wrapped up in what was going on. I was accepting my fate without questioning it and looking for a way out. I had given up. 


Prematurely, mind you. But when I pulled that release and seconds later felt the pull of a parachute, I breathed a sigh of relief. I was safe. I was alive. The landing might cause be rough, sure. My heart was still racing. But I wasn't about to go splat. The security of a parachute quite literally had my back.

So what was my "parachute" this week? Jeremiah 29. Go get your Bible or Google it or whatever. Just read it. Find a way to read it. And don't accept yourself as a failure, because that only leads to a devastating free fall that ends in destruction. Know what you've got and know Who is on your side.

"For I know the plans I have for you," declares the LORD. "Plans to prosper you and not to harm you. Plans to give you hope and a future. Then you will call on me and come and pray to me, and I will listen to you. You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all of your heart. I will be found by you," declares the LORD. "And I will bring you back from captivity." Jeremiah 29:11-14a