The Great Job Search and Ecclesiastes

Because I'm a senior, I finally made my resume (couldn't figure out how to get the accent on those e's) the other day and had the official Texas A&M career center assess the situation. Turns out, being an English major has significantly helped me in using action verbs because I managed to make my professional career sound, well, professional.

This document has everything I have ever accomplished in my life that a potential employer could want or need to know. Which is kind of a weird concept, especially because I'm starting to send it out to people. Like a real grown up person. Because it's October, and I have seven months before A&M pushes me into the the world. Seven months, you guys. That's not very long.

So of course, I've started to kind of panic about "the future" (whatever that even means) and the fact that I need a job because that's what you do after college.

And it initially wasn't helping that my church is currently going through Ecclesiastes. Summary of chapters 1-2: everything is meaningless. Thanks for that, Solomon. How uplifting.

But today was a game-changer. About halfway through chapter 2, we hit the point that talks about work. And I know we've all heard the verse from 1 Corinthians about doing everything as if for the Lord, but way before Paul penned that, Solomon was telling us the same thing. Maybe in not so nice terms, but it was the same message.

We work for the Lord. Why? Because we are called to do everything to glorify Him because without his grace and his redemption and his love, we have absolutely nothing. We all know that the world is a broken, messed-up place, and when we are our most honest with ourselves, we realize that living with a "me" focused attitude is ultimately dissatisfying and disappointing.

We crave purpose. The need to work for something. But if we work for the world, those things stay in the world. We can't take them to the grave because that's useless. We can provide for our future generations, but the issue with material things is that they eventually lose value.

So why go on this scatterbrained soapbox? Because trying to find a job just so I don't have to move back into my pink bedroom with my parents isn't a good enough motivator to find a job. Nor is the need to look successful, to have something under my belt. I should be job searching because I have been given skills that I can use to spread the Gospel. Skills that the Lord gave me so that I might better share his name.

My motivations will fall and get twisted and I'll probably definitely have another panic about the future, but as long as I am aware that the Lord will set work in front of me to proclaim who he is, I'm going to make it.

And, as everyone seems to be telling me lately, it's all going to be okay. 

Bitter to blessed

The old, trite tale is back. I was turned down from something that I really wanted. And I was mad. And disappointed. And frustrated. But I think the strongest emotion that I felt was the embarrassing pain of my pride being crushed.

Because I haven't been turned down from something that I really wanted since freshman year. And while that year sang the bitter tune of feeling rejected, I have not had to experience it since that year. So I was overdue for a good gut check. The pride I have to constantly wage war against started creeping in the cracks of my heart, and I didn't notice until the Lord had to rip it out. Which hurt. 

There were a good few days were I was just really bitter against my situation. It wasn't just that I had been turned down from something that I was so confident that I would get--it was the fact that I had allowed myself to become way too overly confident, to forget the tough lessons I learned my freshman year. I had thought that those lessons would always stick with me for a good long time.

But I'm a person with a heart who tries to beat for Jesus but gets distracted with everything else in the world.

And it filled the cracks pride had held with bitterness.

Then I went to Bible study on Sunday. And we talked about Naomi.

Now this is one homegirl who had cause to be bitter because she lost all the important men in her life and was left with her two daughter-in-laws. She returned to her homeland angry, explaining that she had left full but the Lord took everything she had. She asked people to call her Mara, which means bitter (for those of you who haven't read Redeeming Love). It was devastation for her. It was a loss of everything she held dear.

She reacted like any human would react.

But in doing so, she shunned any potential blessing that the Lord could put on her because she would reject it. She was not available, not in the right state, to recognize that she was being blessed.

Things started to change though. Ruth was put in a position to be blessed by way of Boaz. So Naomi began to reap the benefits of being fed and cared for. She started to move away from the bitterness and into a state of mind where she could see the Lord for who he actually is.

Don't get me wrong, I am by no means comparing myself to Naomi. But I am saying that by assessing my bitterness and putting it into a larger perspective, I am able to see that it 1. doesn't and should determine my actions and 2. there is a love and hope far greater than my shortcomings that is more than sufficient to turn my bitterness to joy.

I blinked

It's August of 2014.

Another month in another year that will tack onto all the other months and years that have come before it, and a predecessor to many more months and years after.

But this month is right before my senior year of college. In my current state, it is the last year of school I will know. Current state being I HAVE NO IDEA WHAT'S NEXT. It could very well mean that I'll go to grad school and study something, I could go to seminary, I could do a fellowship program, maybe get a real person job...the list goes on and on and on. Because the post-grad life in the 21st century isn't just the metaphorical oyster that everyone seems to reference--it is the great, wide unknown.

In which Hillsong says that "feet may fail" in this great unknown. I have a tendency for changing that lyric to "feet will fail".

Because over the last 3 years, I've done a lot of that. Failing, I mean.

The moments of rejection that knocked me on my face. The moments of loneliness where I felt unknown. The moments of being lost, having no earthly idea of what I was doing. When life backed me deep into a corner, a Harry Potter-sized broom closet. The scrapes, the bruises, the broken times that all come when you live. 

And there were a lot of times where the process of brushing myself off to keep running (or crawling or climbing or whatever) was too daunting. A feat much too grand for me to comprehend, much less accomplish. That the idea of mending the broken pieces and continuing with the stints and stitches still in place seemed like it would hurt a heck of a lot more than it was worth. Giving up, falling out, moving away all appeared to be a more sensible, less painful option.

Yet here I am. 18 days from the beginning of the end (to be deeply dramatic about it).

I'm finding myself cherishing those painful moments. Having no regrets because while those were all so tough to get through, I'm on the other side. Not only surviving, but thriving.

This isn't because I'm a champion woman who has her life worked out to the T (reference back to the all caps in paragraph 3). This is because I have been gently carried, loudly talked to, and been pulled kicking and screaming through my college career (and all the other years before). The Lord has been a presence who has known exactly what I needed and when I needed it. There is no avoiding that. I'm being worked on every single day by a powerful God who refuses to let his children suffer in vain and wants better for them than a dark corner to wallow in.

He is the only reason I was called out of my cave and into his light, capable of following a path that is meant to glorify Him. It's all because of his love that I can do any of this.

I have no doubt that senior year is going to be another wild, unbelievable, tough climb.

Not sure when it got here, not looking forward to how fast it's going to go, but it's going to happen. And I think I'm as ready as I'll ever be. 

Hebrews 10

Tonight I had the immeasurable pleasure to sit down with some wonderful women and study the Bible together. We read Hebrews 10, which is a book of the Bible I almost never dive into even though it's great.

The verses I was assigned to read more intensely were 8-14.

Here it is:

When he said above, “You have neither desired nor taken pleasure in sacrifices and offerings and burnt offerings and sin offerings” (these are offered according to the law), ⁹ then he added, “Behold, I have come to do your will.” He does away with the first in order to establish the second. ¹⁰ And by that will we have been sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all.
¹¹ And every priest stands daily at his service, offering repeatedly the same sacrifices, which can never take away sins. ¹² But when Christ^[b] had offered for all time a single sacrifice for sins, he sat down at the right hand of God, ¹³ waiting from that time until his enemies should be made a footstool for his feet. ¹⁴ For by a single offering he has perfected for all time those who are being sanctified.


And here was my response (that was 100% the Lord because my brain was a little fried when I wrote it).

This is the distinction between the Old Testament and the new. The Jewish sacrifices were the manner of reconciliation before Jesus, they are voided once Jesus paid the price for everything. God not desiring or taking pleasure in the old sacrifices was because He knew that a more permanent and all-encompassing price was needed. The ransom of mankind was too big to ride on the back of a goat (though a donkey would suffice).

The purpose of Jesus was to be the end-all, be-all atonement, to null the needs of the past, to be the final statement, the last word on the matter of sin and death. This wasn't anything a priest and a clean lamb could do. This was for every human to ever life. Our salvation no longer sits in a temple with men who habitually commit the same ritual day by day. It is bought by one man who had the power to be 100% perfect and yet take on the sins of literally billions of people once and for all. There is no ignoring or discrediting this solid truth.

There was one man. There only needed to be one payment from him. And now we must sit and be in awe of a God who loved us too much to be content with bringing home his children with something worth less than his children. So he had to send someone who was worth exponentially more.

Unspeakable Joy

On Thursday night, the Texas Hill Country was hit with very Texas-esque weather: beautiful during the day, torrential storm at night. Tornadoes touched the ground 20 miles east of camp, and there were intense thunderstorms coming through camp.

And when you're in charge of 8 girls between the ages of 10 and 12, you are fully aware that the time during the storm will be spent giving many hugs and hushing tears.

We migrated from our nightly activities to the big gym towards the edge of camp grounds for cover, and told our campers that it's not a big deal--we just want to stay out of the storm. They all begged to go to the dorm, but my co-counselor and I made up lame excuses about why we couldn't go back.

There were two terrifying moments that night: when the directors told us tornadoes had touched the ground near us, and when our male director whistled to signal us to get everyone in the bathrooms because the weather was bad enough.

Everything in me wanted to burst into tears and to hunker down somewhere safe. My co and I both had wild looks in our eyes before we had to swallow the fear, count our ducklings, and move them into the bathroom. Immediately, 3 of them started bawling. Two more were on the verge of tears.

I'm not a mom, not anywhere close to being a mom, but the Lord 100% equipped me to be strong for them during those 30 minutes in the bathroom. With flickering lights and claps of thunder, the other girl counselors and I pulled out every camp song we knew, trying to keep the girls under control and keeping the panic away.

And despite the chaos, I found myself laughing and dancing. Keeping the girls calm and myself joyful during this time was of the utmost importance. It was supernatural. It was all Jesus. By the time we were released from the bathroom--no tornadoes hit camp--everyone was a little bit more tired and really sweaty. We watched a movie while the rest of the storm faded away.

Thursday was absolutely nuts. The Lord definitely provided the protection and joyful spirit that we needed to make it through the storm.

But it's also cool to say that I took cover at camp during a tornado.

Camp

Howdy readers.

Firstly, I'm sorry that my blog game has been off for, like, a year at this point. Life is busy, yes, but not so busy that I can't post. MY BAD Y'ALL.

I've been at a camp for the last two weeks. Meaning I have been trained to send kids down a cable wearing a harness and rope, send them up a rock wall, teach them how to shoot a .22 gun, bow and arrow, and make a camp fire. Among about a hundred other random skills that you need to be a mother to children for a week.

Yes, this week has heard a lot of "Yes, you need to take a shower tonight" and "You're going to Bible study so you need to bring your Bible!" because I'm with eight 10-11 year old girls who move slowly and get distracted easily. But the wisdom that comes out of their mouths is like nothing I have ever heard.

Needless to say, every day (every hour) is an adventure.

I absolutely love it.

Even when it's hard, and my girls are crazy, and I don't want to wake up, there is nothing better than hearing how the Lord has worked in their lives.

It's towards the end of the week. I have a precious few hours left with them, and I'm actually really sad that my little nuglets are going home on Saturday. The Lord has done big things in my little ones.

Summer 2014 has officially begun.

My April Post

Well okay. Rundown of what's happened since January.
Impact counselor applications came out, were submitted, read, interviews happened, selections went down, and suddenly my foursome of Tyler, Elijah, Emma, and I became an eighteen-some. Omega Benji 2014 is the best, basically. I am continually thankful for how wonderful they all are, how amazing my girls are, our studly man counselors, the support of Emma and Elijah, Tyler as my partner and co-captain of Struggle Bus, and the just general idea that "Oh my gosh I get to serve with these humans and glorify Jesus what even is this."

It's still a pretty weird idea that the Lord put Tyler and I in charge of a camp, and we frequently joke about how some mistake must have happened because there's no way someone would actually trust us to be in a leadership role. But every Thursday when we run a camp meeting, reality hits us and we have to face up to the fact that we aren't in control of anything (hallelujah) but it's okay because we don't really need to be.

So there's that weird mess of me continually attempting to trust the Lord with Impact. The last few months have shown me what happens when I don't trust him. And it is like an F5 tornado came in and tore up my life (in a good but still painful way).

Without going into a lot of detail, I've stumbled my way through this semester. I played the whole "Christian girl" game of saying all the right things and doing all the right actions, but inside I still, STILL, struggled with the fact that my pride was a pill I couldn't swallow; I was still horribly convinced that I could do my chaotic semester of school, social, Impact, sorority, and a whole slew of other things all on my own and it would be great and wonderful.

But it wasn't. Every time I turned around, I was dropping one of the pieces I was juggling. School was the first to fall. Then went the roommates. Then my other friends. Then my spare time. I've never been good at time management, and I knew I was only one slip-up away from falling flat on my face with Impact (something I was terrified to drop). The Lord gave me a good shake though, and I found myself in a boxed in space with no way out EXCEPT for Him.

My juggling act had failed. Too many things had slipped through the cracks. Relationships and school suffered. I had to cut out parts of my life that I had been clinging desperately to. Things that the Lord had given me to see if I trusted him enough to give back. And it took me an embarrassing amount of time to return them, to finally open up my hands and say, "Okay, here, take it. Because I can't do this anymore."   

Now, my priorities are school, Impact, and my roommates, with Christ at the center. Every day is a fight to keep those things where they are on my priority list while still moving forward in life. Every day I have to remind myself what a disaster the first half of my semester was so I can cling to the only part of my little life that wasn't, isn't, and never will be a mess: my faith that the Lord loves me and forgives me.

Because I need a lot of love and a lot of forgiveness.

But it's because of the love that I get forgiveness, and it's through the forgiveness that I am loved.

That truth has been evidenced by every single person I have been around this semester. My roommates love me in my disaster. My camp loves me even though I know that I could be better at leading. My family has been a constant force of prayer and love. I can't imagine what this semester would have looked like if I hadn't had a force of people pushing me forward every moment of every day.

My semester was a mess. A lot of tears over a lot of things have been shed. But the amount of laughter, wonderful times with people I love, productivity, and inexplicable joy that has come from the last few months have left a patchwork of healing over the scars.