Beautiful

I have had some awesome life lessons God has taught to me while I’ve been here in Greece. Last night I had someone ask me if I thought I was hott. It was weird and kind of awkward at first to people around because you are not really sure how to answer that when someone blatantly asks you that. I mean, you never want to say yes right away because then people think you are cocky about yourself. But then, if you say no, that’s just really sad you think of yourself as ugly or unattractive. But you know, I kind of don’t care what people think about me when it comes to my looks. When you ask someone how they really feel about themselves, like if they think they are hott or beautiful, you really are asking so much more.
I immediately said yes to this guy. Call me cocky or self-obsessed or whatever you want, but I think I am absolutely beautiful. I refuse to believe that God made me unattractive because He hasn’t. It has taken me years to ever even say this out loud about myself and then even longer to believe it in my heart. I truly believe that how you feel about yourself, on the inside and outside, completely affects your relationship with God. Think about it. You really feel you are unattractive and ugly yet you worship God. What kind of God does he look like when you feel about yourself in that way? I would definitely say he would not be as appealing or intimate to you. Maybe I am wrong, but I have felt very insecure about myself for much of my life so this is how I understand it to be. How sad to believe that God would not make you beautiful or “hott”. I truly believe the word when God says that we are “fearfully and wonderfully made”. If you don’t believe this, then you don’t believe in the true God. We can’t pick and choose what we want to about the Lord. You believe it or you don’t. This is what the word says, therefore it’s true.
To me it’s actually really sad when people are taken aback when they hear me answer yes right away. They are shocked because they don’t feel that way about themselves. Its not like I go prancing around saying “look at me! Im so hott and I can get anyone I want!”. Far from it. I mean, I still struggle with comparing myself to other girls and there will always be someone who is skinnier, more beautiful, more graceful, and more intellectual. But God has given me a name and what good does it do to myself to compare God’s creation from one person to the other?
Back in high school is when God really convicted me of not feeling that He has made me beautiful, inside and out, but especially on the outside. For and entire year I prayed to God that when I look at myself in the mirror I could say to myself “you are beautiful” and believe it. It took a long time, but I truly wanted to look at myself how God sees me. I wanted to see the beauty He sees and feel intimacy in that way. We look to other people at how they might see us and just get depressed and basically go into the mode of self-loathing. I once was there and I refuse to go back. So I prayed.
You are beautiful. I am beautiful. Stare at yourself in the mirror and say it everyday to your face until you believe it. And even then, don’t quit saying it because it’s so true. Once you can accept your true beauty, you won’t believe how your eyes are opened to see everyone else’s. You begin to see how every person is fearfully and wonderfully made. You begin to truly see value in every person you see and meet. You won’t believe how much more intimate your relationship with God becomes when you feel good about His creation.
May you come to see that you are beautiful. May you truly believe it in your heart. And may you feel so beautiful about yourself that you will see it in others.

pneuma (nooma)

I am about 35,000 feet above the ground right now. I am flying over the Atlantic Ocean on my way to Greece. It has only been about 5 hours into the 9 hour flight. I can honestly say that this is best place I have been in a while even though I haven’t spoken a word the entire time to my flight buddy next to me, young children and babies are annoying everyone, and this is the smallest space possible you could ever bear to sit in for such a long flight. My butt keeps going numb but I have a window seat and I can’t get up and walk around when I want. Yet, I like it though. Sometimes silence is best for us and so is stillness. Sometimes only being able to breathe is good for us.
I just watched a Rob Bell Nooma video. In my opinion, best thing you could ever do at 35,000 feet in the air. I watched his video called “Breathe”. Its 10 bucks…go buy it and watch it and try to be in an airplane to get the fullest effect. He talks all about what it means to breathe and how sacred it actually is. I mean, I have never really thought that breathing could be Holy. Its just something we do up to 20,000 times a day. It redundant and no thought is put into it. Yet, he makes you see that it actually is something Holy in his video. My favorite part of the video and what really struck such a chord in my heart was this…
“When you let God in, when you breathe, what happens is you become aware of all the things you need to leave behind, everything you need to let go of. If you were to be totally honest about what’s going on inside of you, is there anything you need right now to breathe out? What is it that you need to breathe in?”
I have so much to breathe out and even more to breathe in. I need to breathe in rest and peace, comfort and joy. I need to breathe out so much crap that hinders God from giving that to me. His word says that in Him we live and we move and we breathe. So, we do but don’t realize it. I have to sit still and just breathe for another 4 more hours. Rob is totally right. When you really just breathe and let God speak to you, touch you, or inspire you, you really begin to see your life and what you need to leave behind and let go of. I love that I can go away to another country and do this. I know I can’t escape these things, but getting away from my everyday life, my heart can change. I can see what’s really important to God in my life and what’s just pure trash and maybe when I come back home I can put this new breath of God into action.

Pictures

I am obsessed with pictures. I really am. I will never pass up an opportunity to take some pictures wherever I am. I have only had my computer for about 2 and a half years and I have over 3,000 pictures on it…just from college. Seriously, I love pictures.
The one thing I kind of miss about the times where digital cameras were non-existent was that you had to get your pictures developed if you wanted to see them. Now, people hardly ever develop pictures. They just upload them. I cannot tell you how many Kodak one-time use cameras I have spent money on. But that was the most exciting part for me, not knowing how your pictures turned out until you pick them up. I seriously would get so pumped up every time I got to pick up my pictures and look through them for the first time. What an exhilarating moment for me. Now that I have a digital camera, I know exactly what I’m getting the second I take it. I even have the option to take it over and over until I get the perfect snapshot, which is both good and bad. It’s hard to get really funny pictures like I used to because with digital, the screw-ups are always erased, whereas with disposable cameras, you don’t have that option.
What I love so much about pictures is that I get to visibly remember what happened in those moments. Pictures capture memories. They help you remember the good and bad times you’ve spent with your friends.

The most embarrassing moments you wish you could forget. And just things you never want to forget. I have at least 12 full photo albums stashed in the corner of my room behind my door. I have too many I don’t know what to do with them. But almost every single time I come home from school I look through them. I absolutely love remembering the high school football games and the really crazy things my closest friends and I did. I get to remember and see the blessedness of God is my past that I didn’t see then.
God is good. Go back through your photo albums and see for yourself. I worship a God that died for me to be happy. One that died for me to have a fulfilled life. A joyful life. But lately though I feel like I have lost my joy. No, not my happiness, but my joy. I have had a rough semester. No one will ever be able to truly understand just how hard it has been for me. I can’t even really express it. Words do not do the heart justice. I long for the days in some of my pictures when I didn’t have a care in the world I can remember just how joyful I was in the Lord. And not just with the Lord, but with everything in my life. Sometimes, pictures make me wish I were in another realm of my life.
I am about to leave for almost a month trip to Greece. Yeah, really awesome I know and I am so stoked you have no idea. I have wanted to go to Greece for a very long time now. My heart is in such a broken place and I am surrounded by so many things that cause me to stay in this state. I cannot wait to leave the country. Its like I feel like I am going to be able to escape from it all. I wish that would be the truth. We can’t escape our problems, especially our emotions. If you ever truly have, please let me know how you did it. But I know that you haven’t because God uses the emotions and events to completely revolutionize us. He won’t ever let me or you really escape from anything. I mean, I may be able to forget about a lot of things and leave stuff behind, but it is all here waiting for me when I get back. All anxiously waiting my return.
God is working. If there is one thing I have learned from eating my words of “Jesus bring the rain” is that God is so faithful to me when I can be so mean and stubborn back to Him. I wish I could see it right now though. I wish, through all the hurt, pain, and loneliness that I could see or be comforted by the outcome. I know beyond the shadow of a doubt everything is going to be ok. No, great. But it is one thing to know it, and yet another to actually believe it in your heart.
So all these pictures that take me back to a time of “remember when…” I really need to let go of. I need to let go of desiring to be at some other place in time and embrace my now. Easier said than done when you are in a rough situation, especially one that lasts for a ridiculous amount of time. The memories of the seconds I live right now are what God died for me to live out and enjoy. I have to take it all back to the cross. We all do. Our now’s that we are living are what Christ died for. Put that into your heart. Better yet, try and put that into a picture.

O God of Mine

Does the faithfulness of God mean anything to you? I mean can you look back on your life and see just how good is He is to you? Can you really see to the depths of what God’s faithfulness means? If nothing pops into your head at once, I really pray that God will privilege you to really experience His faithfulness. It is not just some attribute that we know God has because the Bible tells us so. To me, faithfulness has become the most outstanding and graceful part of His divine being. But do not look at it as if another human being can have it. God’s faithfulness is FAR BEYOND anything we could ever posses to have. FAR BAYOND.
The past 4 months God has been teaching me what it really means to lose control of my life. He has taught me this in an extraordinary yet challenging and hard road. I cannot emphasize just how hard it really has been. I have wrestled, fought, and been so stubborn with God on so many issues. God has brought about countless situations for me to learn the depths of His faithfulness and how to give up control of everything I have. Now that I look back, I have no idea how it can even be possible for God to be faithful and patient with me while learning these lessons. He knew from each stubborn prayer or cry how all of it was for the good of me when I could not and would not see it in that way.
A scripture passage I was given that I didn’t understand during this process was Psalm 127. Not a typical Psalm one reads during church or just even on your own, but God specifically gave this one to me.
“Unless the LORD builds that house, those who build it labor in vain. Unless the LORD watches over the city, the watchman stays awake in vain. It is in vain that you rise up early and go late to rest, eating the bread of anxious toil; for he gives to his beloved sleep.”
I couldn’t see it at the time, but God was proving his faithfulness to me, even in my most stubborn moment towards him. If the Lord builds the house, we do not labor over it in vain. If we let the Lord watch over the city, we do not stay up in vain while doing our job. Do you understand that we can do nothing in vain if we give up control and let God take care of our situations! Our work and toil is NOT gone to waste or done in vain. Yes, we may have to build the ‘house’ or ‘watch’ over the city, but God has created our lives to work out in that way and all of our work and toil is done IN his glory and not for ourselves. He rewards his beloved with sleep. You have no idea how much physical sleep is a gift from God in my life. In yours it may be rest from a situation or anything else. In some form, his gives rest for the work we do because he is faithful to you and me. Stop trying to control your situations. You may not know right away what to do or where to go and He may not tell you in the time you want, but I can guarantee you this: God will be faithful in your life, in and out of every situation, if you just learn to let go.
Learning to give up control has been a roller coaster to say the least. Yet, I cannot even begin to explain the riches of not being in control and letting God’s plan unfold for me in every area of my life. I have finally learned just how I can do this in a day to day walk with God. It starts small with one decision and emotion here and there and then it becomes so much easier with the bigger realities that I daily face. Of course Satan endlessly reminds me of my sin or weakness, but it’s a battle God is teaching me how to win. “Oh, taste and see that the LORD is good! Blessed is the man who takes refuge in him!” Psalm 34:8. ‘Taste’ in the Hebrew language actually means to ‘experience’. So may you experience and see how good and faithful and sweet God is. O God of mine.