Jesus take the wheel

So I mentioned in my last post that there was more than one theme God has been thrusting in my life. 



So here is the other one:


I have to surrender it all to God. 


Countless times I have had conversations about worrying and stressing and letting anxiety take over, and how all of those things means that I'm not really trusting that God will be there to care of it for me.


But the truth is: He will. 


Always. 


And so I am wasting all of my time sitting in this anxiety when I could be out living my life the way He wants me to. 


So all of the things I worry about, all of the little fears that pop into my mind I must uproot. 


A good friend of mine told me this old wives' saying:

"You can't stop a bird from landing on your head, but you can keep it from building a nest"


And that is how I have come to look at all of those little worries that plague me throughout the day.


They are birds, and while I can't help them from entering my thoughts, I can prevent them from staying. 


And here's another thing I've learned, not as much recently, although recently it has come up a lot: 

Fear is never from God.


Think about it:




Whenever a Messenger from the Lord comes, what is the first thing they say?


Do not be afraid.

What do 2 Timothy 1:7, 1 John 4:18, Isaiah 41:10, Matthew 10:31,  Psalm 56:11, Psalm 5:11, Psalm 34:4, Philippians 4:6-7, 1 Peter 5:6-7, Psalm 55:22-23, Luke 12:22-26, Matthew 6:25-34,  Psalm 42:5, Proverbs 3:5-8, Hebrews 13:6, Joshua 1:3-9 and so many more say?

Do not be afraid. 

We can't foresee what will happen, and if we sit and try and guess there is a high percentage that we will be wrong.

All we can do is surrender your fears the second they enter your mind.

Surrender your fears and surrender everything else as well.

The same wise friend also recently voiced something I had always known, but had never thought of:

"Every time we think we have control of our life it is just a trick from the Devil. He wants you to think you have control, but he is really the one in control."

All of it reminds me of a series my dad once gave called "merge" and this is the example he used to make it click in me.

He said: "Imagine you are driving on a long stretch of road, and Jesus is in the passengers seat. Now you know He wants to drive but you are happy being in control, that is, until you get tired. Then you let Him drive for the next little bit of road, until you are no longer sad or exhausted, but then you want back in control. And He of course gives it to you, but before He does He says 'I wish you would let me drive the rest of the way, after all, it is I who knows where we are going, and after all, it is my car.' But instead we keep putting Him to the side, not allowing Him to take us the way He's planned, the route without any traffic or construction."

Now here's how the two connect:

 Imagine while you are driving, you are listening to a GPS. It is telling you where to go and how to get there. But the GPS wants you to hit rush hour, it wants you to get lost along the way. That is Satan: he might not be driving the car, but he is the one in control of the driver. And all Jesus says is: "I wish you would stop listening to that, and just let me drive. I don't need the GPS, I already know the way."

We need to surrender it all to Him.

We need to let Him take the wheel.

Because without His direction we are lost.

Just a Reminder

Wow.

God is really convicting me to write right now.

He is pulling pretty hard on my heart strings.

I guess that mean He has something He wants me to say.

Here it goes:

God tends to work in motifs, in themes, and there have been a few lately that I guess I should mention.

The first is the fact that He loves and delights in us. He does not find us to be burdens.

Conversation after conversation after sermon after song have all been illustrating this in my life.

It is as if He has been beating it into me with a stick.

The first and easiest way to describe this is in the song "How He Loves Us" by David Crowder. I've spoken a bit about the love of God before and how His jealous is something we should be glad of, well the lyrics go like this:

"He is jealous for me 
Love's like a hurricane, I am a tree 
Bending beneath the weight of His wind and mercy 
When all of a sudden, I am unaware of these afflictions eclipsed by glory 
and I realize just how beautiful You are and how great your affections are for me. 
Oh, how He loves us so 
Oh, how He loves us 
How He loves us so. 

Yeah, He loves us 
Woah, how He loves us 
Woah, how He loves us 
Woah, how He loves. 

So we are His portion and He is our prize, 
Drawn to redemption by the grace in His eyes 
If grace is an ocean we're all sinking 
So heaven meets earth like a unforeseen kiss and my heart turns violently inside of my chest 
I don't have time to maintain these regrets when I think about the way 

He loves us..."

He loves us enough to not only be jealous but to deal with all of my countless crap.

Think about it (I've been doing a lot of thinking about it)

God made us, not because He needed us or because He wanted to feel loved. He already had all of the love He needed, but He WANTED a relationship with us. He DESIRED to get to know us, regardless of the cost. Before He made the Heaven and the Earth He knew I would be a sinner, and the only way He could have that relationship with me would be to die for me.

He knew I would be less than perfect, He knew I would break His heart a million times over, but

it didn't matter.

He loves me to the point that He doesn't care about all of the bad things I've done or will do, but instead cherishes all of the things I do right.

And that is barely the beginning of how He keeps showing me that. 

"Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in the heavenly realms with every spiritual blessing in Christ. For he chose us in him before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in his sight. In love he predestined us for adoption as his sons through Jesus Christ, in accordance with his pleasure and will— to the praise of his glorious grace, which he has freely given us in the One he loves."
~Eph. 1:3-6

He gives us EVERY blessing He has. He calls us holy. He calls us His own. 

In fact, He also says:

"You are altogether beautiful, my love. There is no flaw in you." 
~Song of Solomon 4:7

He does not see our flaws, even though He sees all we do. And goodness knows I am flawed. 

Instead He sees us as He created us: blameless and pure. Because He made us blameless and pure once again through His blood.

But this one is my favorite.

"The greatest sorrow and burden you can lay on the Father, the greatest unkindness you can do to him is not to believe that he loves you." 

~ Jonathan Edwards

God hates it when we question His love. I mean has He not provided time and time again?

Our God is so wonderful and powerful, yet He is hurt when we choose to not believe all He has done for us. And yet He will continue to do it. He will continue to pursue us until we have no option but to respond.

It makes no sense that He would love us.

All that matters is that He does.

More certainly then the air I breathe He loves us.

And If that isn't enough there is this:

And this:

And this:

And this:

God loves you. 

And He just wanted to remind you of that.

He's certainly been reminding me. 

I was wrong

So I have ever told you that God works in funny ways?

Because just yesterday I talked about how discouraged I have been feeling and I wrote a long list of things I can't do.

But last night, through a group of young girls, God reminded me of all of the things I can do.

I can still cook and bake, things I love to do, and am learning to do well.

I can read and write, which if you know anything about me, you'll know those are passions of mine.

And most importantly, I can still share all of the ways God is working in my life.

Last night was preview weekend, where high school students who are considering Trinity come tour and visit the school to see if they want to go here.

There were a few girls who did not want to be separated, and a few girls from my hall willing to host, so in an act of God we all ended up pared together.

It was such a blessing to be able to love on these four girls, who for being in their twelfth grade year are all so on fire for God. They have each done incredible things like raised thousands of dollars for those suffering, and have gone to work with the people enslaved in sex trafficking, and so many more things.

And yet God used me to bless them.

He just allowed me to love them and share all that I've learned of Him this past year.

And the conversation just left me and my good friend Ana so refreshed and refilled that we have been unable to focus all day.

And we stopped trying about noon, taking today as a Sabbath, to just dwell in this peace, in His Peace.

We've done nothing but rejoice God and praise all day long.

"So set a fire down in my soul,
That I can't contain
And I can't control
I want more of you, God
I want more of you, God"

And last night, while all of the other girls were getting ready for bed, I went outside into the cold night, and I ran.

Not for long, but I ran, I felt the brisk air rush past my face and my feet were steady and sure.

Because "I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me. "

Only Physical

To be honest, I've been very discouraged lately.

It's just sometimes I hate being me.

I hate having to lump through all of these hoops that most people don't even know exist.

I can't do most things the way most people can. I have to be more careful, I have to be smarter, and I always have to ask myself what will happen if I do something.

I can't go to concerts, because the noise and the lights will undoubtably give me a migraine.

I can't stay up late, because if I have less than seven hours of sleep I will have a migraine.

I can't just go out for a cup of coffee or tea, because I am not allowed to have caffeine, because they aggravate migraines.

I can no longer really dance. And dancing is something that I love to do. It's just now I have to be careful about how many dances I have, because if I get dizzy it won't stop for days.

And sometimes I just want to run.

To just pick up my feet and take off, not daring to look back.

But do you know what would happen if I would do that?

After a few seconds I would get dizzy, then my vision would blur, then it would fade completely, and not long after, my consciousness would go as well.

There are so my limitations on my life, that sometimes I just feel so trapped by it all.

Like I am in a physical cage I cannot escape.

Luckily I know one day this body will hold me back no longer.

Because I know I am capable of so much more than this body, these muscles and bones restricted by the ailments of imperfection.

I will run "father up and further in" and dance until stopping suits me. 

I pray for that day to come. 

John Mayer was Wrong

Well I suppose now that I've told you all about my past, I could maybe tell you more about my present.

More specifically why I haven't been able to write all that recently.

Caution I am not really sure where this will go, but chances are it will not get there eloquently.

This week has not been one of my best, medically speaking.

Okay, so maybe it has been more like a week and a half.

I guess it started on Wednesday the 24th when I had a pretty bad allergic reaction. Don't get me wrong I was not covered in hives or going into epileptic shock, but according to my friend (who is training to be a nurse) my throat was swollen and had pustules, which meant that all during my night class (which night classes are awful anyway) my throat was closing and it was harder for me to talk.

Now, I've been aware of my mild allergy to onions, but this was the first time they caused any more harm than a stomach ache. The change more than mildly concerned me because onions are in everything. Goodbye to Italian food for me. Depressing.

So that was the first.

Then this last Wednesday (yes on Halloween) I decided I could risk eating chicken parmesan at the cafeteria, provided I was skimpy on the sauce and just picked out any onions I could see. Wrong choice. This time however, I was prepared with a Benadryl in my backpack, so instead of dying from lack of oxygen, I was falling asleep in class.

Ideal.

Then on Thursday I had a mental breakdown about my ability to eat in the caf when so many things have onions, and if I couldn't eat there why would I pay for a meal plan, so then I started the process of trying to get out of that meal plan which which, I found out my school makes pretty much impossible.

Awesome.

On Friday things were looking better.

Partially because I knew I was going to be swing dancing that night.

And I love to dance.

Unfortunately the feeling is not mutual.

Once we actually started dancing, I only got a few songs in before I got dizzy.

And I know how to spot, so the dizziness was not in reaction to the spins.

And the migraine hit full force after that.

So Friday night, all of Saturday and most of Sunday I spent in my bed, almost unable to get out of it.

And yesterday when I did finally get out of bed, I work up with a cold.

A cough that was so bad I had to step out of my morning class to try and control myself.

Super Ideal.

And to top it all of I have had four nosebleeds in the last 24 hours.

One of which while writing this post.

My body is not a wonderland John Mayer.

My body is just weird.

I think it thinks I'm like eighty or something.