Sacrifice

I had to come directly home from bible study and post this, because I can honestly say I've never been more convicted than I have been in the last few weeks through this Beth Moore study on Daniel. One of the main points of the night was the difference between selfishness and sacrifice. Living in the post-modern Christian world, we live by the idea that we do things quickly, efficiently, and at a minimum cost to us (and I don't just mean financially). We pull together lunches for the homeless, and feel great about spending a couple hours of our day giving out food to people less fortunate than us. We see kids starving in Haiti and send $5 that we've got lying around, then proceed to tell our Facebook friends that we gave to Haiti and they should too. I'm not saying that those things are, by nature, bad things, but they don't require much from us. They don't take us out of our comfort zone or take too much of our spending money, so that we are not inconvenienced in our comfortable lives that we've been blessed with.

BUT GOD CALLS US TO DO MORE.

He calls us to give all that we have; to come out of our comfortable lives and do something radical for His glory. For some people, He calls them to be missionaries in foreign countries. For others, He wants them to impact their local community through outreach, child mentoring, etc. Maybe for people that are blessed financially, He calls them to prioritize their finances to give freely and without trepidation.

I find that I struggle most in my life with giving God control over every aspect of my life. Even as I write this, I'm struggling with what is going to happen in my future and where life is taking me. But ultimately, when I give over those feelings of worry and doubt and submit my life to God, things start falling into place. I like to think of those times as God knocking me on the head ever so gently and saying "Thanks for remembering me. I'm still here, and I always will be."

I don't know what kind of radical thing He is calling me for, but I pray diligently that He shows me that direction and that I do everything in my power to take on that responsibility with everything that I have. When I think about it like that, it makes all of these decisions that I'm needing to make seem a lot easier.

Moving?

So, I found out today that my condo that I've been renting for 14 months now has been sold. What does this mean for me exactly? Well, I have two choices: I can move out, as long as I give 30 days notice, or I can stay for the remainder of my lease, which would be about 10 months. It would seem like the obvious choice would be to stay until my lease is up, right? So, why am I suddenly feeling like the other option is better?

I've been saying for awhile now that Nashville is not my home, and that I would love to look at moving somewhere else. I had some ideas of a few places, but only a couple of them really seemed viable. I want to go back to school, and had begun looking at UT as an option, simply because it's a good school, I could transfer jobs there, etc. There are other places I could go, too, that would offer me those same choices. But then again, I love my townhouse and have had some really amazing memories here. My friends, my church, and my responsibilities are all here. But it's not like this would be the first time I've moved away from all of that before. I've done it twice now, and each time, things have been even better in that next chapter of my life.

I think I'm just struggling with how to look at this situation: either staying here in a place where things are familiar or take this opportunity to do things that I might not have had a chance to do before. I need take this time to really pray about what God has in His great plan for me. It's not going to be an immediate decision, I'm sure, but I feel like its been laid on my heart to really take the time to look at my options. So, I'm taking this chance to ask for prayers from you, my dear, rare readers on this choice. The old me would have stressed out about this, but the me I'm striving hard to be is letting the Lord be in control.

Taking Risks.

When it comes to matters of the heart, I find myself torn between being a realist or an optimist. Naturally, it would seem like you should go with what your heart wants, but what if you know that by doing so, you could be setting yourself up for more hurt? And here's a twist...what if being a realist means that you still believe your heart is right? Almost sounds like a lose-lose situation, right?

But I find myself wanting to take this risk, not because I feel like it's going to magically change my situation, but simply because I have to take it. My heart tells me and my brain tells me, too. Because at the end of the day, there's nothing to lose.

Advice

Have you ever been asked to give advice on something that ended up helping you just as much as the person seeking the advice?

Tonight, I had someone seek my advice on something that hits very close to home. While the situation itself was different on the surface, at its core was miscommunication. It was a girl desperately trying to express how she feels, but not willing to listen to how the other person feels. Not knowing the girl in the scenario, I could only speak on generalities of the female sex, which is always a hit or miss. But the part that struck me the most was how the other person readily admitted to me that he felt like nothing he ever did was good enough for her. Getting a small insight into the mind of a frustrated man who wants to be everything that she wants AND still be himself was extremely enlightening.

As females, we tend to only look at things by how it makes us feel, and so we can tend to make larger deals out of things that men never would think twice about. To that same degree, men may feel something, but for their own reasons, never admit to feeling that and make decisions based on facts and hold back emotion in order to follow through with that decision. Ladies, please believe me when I say that I'm not trying to give away all the secrets of how we operate...trust me, I don't even understand why I do the things I do sometimes. But we've got to start recognizing that we communicate differently than men, and men need to realize the same. I hate using the word compromise, because sometimes it gives out a negative connotation of "giving in" to the other person just for the sake of stopping the argument. But if we start recognizing that men do, in fact, what to be the best they can be for us, then maybe we can start trying to reach a point of understanding. I think that would change the dynamic of a lot of would-be great relationships that are on the verge of destruction.

Selfishness

Disclaimer: I hate proofreading myself, mainly because I will inevitably end up taking out something that I really wanted to say simply because I couldn't find the exact right words. So forgive me if it sounds cluttered and confused, even though at this exact moment those two words describe me perfectly.

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As we take our journey through life, we are all defined by events, experiences, people, and everything else that crosses our way. It is my firm belief that all of these things help mold and shape us into the person that we become. I personally have found that one of the things that seems to outwardly define me the most is my childhood and my family. For those who don't know, my father passed away when I was 18 months old, leaving my mother and I alone for a few years until my mom re-married and that man adopted me as his own child. My parents were, for reasons only God himself knows, never able to have another child, which left me as the only one. A lot of people have these immediate thoughts about only children: bratty, spoiled, it's their way or no way, etc. I've heard these things my whole life, and I have done my best (and so have my parents) to make sure that these things cannot be said about me. I certainly try not to be a brat, I had to work for almost everything in my life after I was old enough to know what work meant, and I don't always get my way.

But there's one thing that I will readily admit I am horrible at, and I'm sure that you can guess it by the title of this post. I have a very hard time remembering other people and how they feel when faced with trials. I focus too much on how something makes me feel and what I feel like the other person's reaction should be. It takes so much for me to remember that I am not the only person in the world who gets hurt by words or actions, and that my words and actions can hurt other people in completely different ways than I could ever imagine.

For a long time, I never admitted to this being the truth. I just kind of took the road I wanted, and never had any real consequences for the way I took. But recently, I've become/been made aware of how this can really affect the people that I care about the most. And to those people, I wish I could say I'm sorry for every single time you felt like I wasn't caring about your needs and feelings. I know that I can't go back and change things, although sometimes we all desperately wish we could.

But I want to make a real change to say "It's not all about me." Because as I'm realizing, thinking about how other people feel could save a lot of needless, spontaneous "I feel like (insert unnecessary emotion here)" conversations that turn out to be one-sided, shallow, and worthless, anyway.

Most importantly, I need to realize that my plans for my life are simply that: mine. I struggle so much with ignoring the fact that the Lord has much more intricate, amazing plans for me that I may not know now but will one day and thank Him so much for. While it is truly the most difficult thing in the world for me to let go of the control that I THINK I have, now is the time to give in, give up on trying, and say "God, I can't do this without You. You're in control and I'm just the passenger in this crazy ride You have me on." While there are things that I hope and pray are a part of my journey, I've got to realize that IT'S NOT ALL ABOUT ME. I pray for that strength and understanding today, and I hope that someone else that might read this finds comfort too in knowing that they don't have to be a control freak anymore. Relinquishing control-over something that you had no control over in the first place-is, at first, the hardest thing you'll make yourself do, but then feels surprisingly freeing.

At least that's how I feel. Now, tell me how it makes you feel.

Sight.

I'm sitting here at the front desk of the office, Courtney being out sick and making me the front lines for all the crazies that seem to come our way on Music Row. My eyes are blurry, but not from tears, at least not tears brought on by others. Something is wrong with me left eye, and I have no idea what it is. I would love to have gotten it taken care of earlier, but 13 hour work days that end long after doctor's hours aren't very conducive to taking care of yourself.

In times like this, I'm convinced that God gives me metaphors for my life. For the last few weeks, I've been praying to Him to help me figure out what's next, but somewhere along the way, I've lost sight of what I needed to be doing all along. I had committed to making my relationship with Him better, giving up other things that had long taken priority over worshipping Him. It was the hardest thing I've ever done in my life, acknowledging that out of my top priorities, He was not there. I was being so selfish, and I committed to changing that. I had to change that, not only for the betterment of myself, but for others too. In a desperate attempt at making a situation turn out the way I wanted it to, I went at cold turkey. I was left with nothing but myself, Crazy Love, and the Holy Bible. Francis Chan kept asking me what I was doing in my life that required faith, wanting me to literally be obsessed with God, and all I kept thinking was "Look at what I'm doing for you, God. I'm giving up my love for someone for you. Aren't you proud of me and what I've done for you?" And because of the way I thought, I eventually gave into myself, justifying once again all the reasons I never had time for God: two jobs, friends, money, etc. I did like I always have done, and that is rebelled. Rebelled against thinking that I needed Him to make my hurt go away. I could do it myself, with the right amount of things that could occupy my mind until it was time to go to sleep at night, and then by that point I was too tired to pray or study.

That's when I woke up Sunday morning with my left eye a very dark red color. I ignored it, figuring it was just irritation from my contact or something silly. The next morning, I could barely open my eye. While everyone else was giving me theories on what it could be (pink eye, bad contacts, all of it), I just kept thinking that with the right amount of eyedrops, I could relieve what was wrong. And I almost was right. Tuesday morning I woke up and it looked better. I still put the drops in, but mainly just to keep the healing going. I told everyone that it wasn't pink eye, that I was fine, and that by tomorrow it would be gone. But when I went to bed last night, it was starting to close up. I woke up this morning to barely being able to see out of my left eye because it was so blurry. I had eyesight equivalent to being in a rainstorm and your windshield wipers just aren't fast enough. The first question to come out of my boss' mouth was "Have you gone to the doctor?" Well, no, of course, I haven't! When would I have time to do that? I'm too busy to be bothered with not being able to see!

So, in an hour, I'm going to the doctor. Because when it comes down to it, you can try to at-home remedy your way back to health, but most of the time, it's just not enough. Sometimes you need a doctor to look into your blurry eyes and help you fix your problem.

God, help me today to realize that You are the one who can fix me. I'm sorry for trying everything else before coming to You. It may not be as instant as eyedrops, but help me heal, one bit of Your wisdom at a time. I've given up trying on my own, because I know I can't heal myself. Thank You for giving me this feeling of knowing that You'll heal whatever is ailing me, and thank You for allowing me to see how awesome You truly are. Amen.

To Do Lists

Today's one of those days where I literally can't stop thinking about all of the different things I want/need to do in my life. I make a weekly To Do List at work of all the things I need to accomplish and get done that week, and I feel the need to do that today. Warning: it will be random, naturally reflecting my incoherent thought process today.

-Finish this book on digital media that I started last summer. 10 pages left. What is taking me so long?

-Do something to help Haiti, besides give money. I know they need relief right now, but I just feel like I'm being called to do something more to help them.

-Start working out like I've said I was going to do for the past 6 months. Confession time: do I think I'm getting fat? Yes.

-Read my Bible. Gosh, do I need to do this more. I'm such a lazy Christian. There, I said it.

-Wake up early enough in the morning to actually get things done. I wake up late enough to where I barely have time to pull myself together for work in the morning. I've got to stop. being. lazy.

-Finish my resume and stop giving myself reasons not to send it.