Overwhelmed

It’s hard to believe how much my life has changed since my last post.

Obviously the Fellows has ended, the most bittersweet of endings. But being the amazingly selfless women that they are, the Fellows girls helped me move to Nashville! They are unbelievable and I miss them everyday.

The reason they were moving me to Nashville was because I started a PA (Physician Assistant) program at Trevecca University because my boyfriend’s job was not allowing him to move, but I could go to school anywhere. This is a pretty big deal to me because I never in a million year thought I would completely pick up my life and change everything for a boy that I was not married/engaged to. But I just felt a peace about everything, and got unwavering support so I swallowed my pride and moved to Nashville.

And then… another little something that happened… Andrew proposed on Mother’s Day… and then got married August 23^rd  (3.5 months later)… which I know sounds crazy. And it was crazy, especially considering that I am a completely 100% full-time student with no time to exercise or keep up with friends, much less plan a wedding.

Which is what really brings me to the point of this blog post. Andrew and I have been blessed beyond measure over the last 8 months. It is difficult to even put into word the amount of gratitude I have for our parents, families,

and friends for the support, love, and generosity they have showered on us over the past 7 months. Before we were even engaged, my entire family supported me in my move to Nashville, which may not seem like a big deal but my ENTIRE family lives in North Carolina. We are extremely close, so when I had the chance to go to Wake Forest’s PA program, it just seemed like a no brainer that I would go there. It was truly one of the hardest decisions of my life to leave Winston Salem and follow my heart to Nashville, and I could not have done it without the support of my family.

And then there’s the wedding. I kid you not, I planned/was a part of maybe 15% of my wedding… and that’s generous. My mom, dad, and sister went above and beyond to make our wedding day the perfect day. They sat through endless meetings, scrambled to try to pull everything together in 3 months, and did it all without ever grumbling or complaining about a single thing. The day was perfect, and I would not change a thing.

These are only a little snippet of the blessing that I’ve had washed over me since starting PA school in May. I have reflected on all the ways people have sacrificed for me and loved me beyond reason, and I find myself paralyzed by the overwhelming love that I have been shown. I think to myself  “how could I ever pay all these people back?” “how will it be possible for me to ever do as much for them as they have done for me?”.

In those moments, I have consistently felt God pull on my heart and say: "YOU CAN'T!" “It was Me, I did that, I gave you those gifts, I have given you every gift and you can never do anything to deserve it or pay it back”.  Takes my breath away.

God used my wedding/my current life of only receiving and hardly ever giving to reveal a tiny glimpse of His love for me. I look at everything my parents have done and sacrificed for me, I mean they have literally given me my entire life, and because they are living breathing beings I can recognize their gifts and acknowledge how amazing they are. But God has blessed me with these amazing parents to point me to the endless, boundless, unwavering, gracious love that He offers me every single day of my life no matter how little I deserve it. I look at my parents’ sacrificial love and feel overwhelmed, but then God opens my eyes to how their love is simply a little tiny fragment of Him, and I fall to my knees.

Mom and Dad, Thank you. Thank you for everything I take for granted and for everything you do that I don't even acknowledge or notice. You are a beautiful picture of sacrificial love, and it is an honor and privilege to be your daughter. I love you.

Dear God thank You for concrete manifestations of your love when my sinful heart is trying to keep me far from You. Thank You for patiently pointing me, gently pulling me, and humbly reminding me that all I have and all I ever will have is from You. I deserve nothing, and yet You gave it all. Open my eyes to see what you see and live a life that is a response to how You have transformed me. I love you, Amen.

Road Trip

Given the title of this blog, I think its appropriate to tell you about a journey that the fellows took together… and the things I cherished about it : )

It all started with a few key Harry Potter enthusiasts in the group suggesting a trip to HP World and developed into a full-blown weekend road trip to Florida complete with driving through the night BOTH WAYS, an amazingly hospitable family that opened their beach home to us, and quality time with some of the most amazing people ever.

6:00 pm turned 7:00pm departure time had us with an ETA right around sunrise. Quite the daunting GPS map to begin our journey...

The car ride was filled with everything a good overnight road trip should be filled with: laugher, meaningful conversations, story-telling, 5-hour energies, and the occasional snarky comment in the wee hours of the morning when everyone’s patience is paper thin.

It was also filled with reading by head lamp… gotta love it : )

Our arrival on Anna Maria Island was met with a gorgeous sunrise that temporarily melted away our weariness, but after gallivanting on the beach for half an hour it was due time for a nap.

I won’t walk you through the rest of the weekend step by step, but I will tell you that my relationships significantly deepened with everyone on it. I cherish the escape from reality that I was able to spend with amazing friends and am thankful that the Lord has blessed me with a schedule that could accommodate a trip like this. Everything about the Fellows Program has been a journey to learn more about myself by being in close community with others and using them as mirrors to show me what Christ wants to grow and develop within my own heart. I am beyond thankful for the many journeys that I have taken with my friends in the Fellows and will continue to learn from them for the rest of my life.

             


                 love y'all.

P.S. yes we did make it to Harry Potter World!

I'm tangled

A couple of days ago (when all of Greensboro was shut down by a whopping 2 inches of snow) I was given the delight of coming home from work early and watching “Tangled” with my cousin Honey and some of her friends. I was pumped because I love this movie. And one scene in particular stuck out to me while I was watching it last week.

Watch the first 40 seconds of this link…

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IJ2FEbaTGr0

Love it. Rapunzel is living out the reality of my own heart. I nearly always have an internal debate going on within me: grace v law.

I sin; I mess up all the time. Sometimes I allow the loving waves of God’s grace to wash over me and bask in His unconditional love for me. In those moments I feel so free and liberated from the weight of my sin… in those moments are also when I tend to take liberties with His law. I do what I want because I am assured of His grace. Other times I am utterly aware of my failures and devastated by the realization of how broken I am. I grovel at the feet of Christ begging Him to take pity on my disgusting soul. I can flip-flop between these multiple times in the course of an hour… just like the scene from Tangled shows.

Paul talks about a similar feeling of internal conflict in Romans 7:14-25

^“4 We know that the law is spiritual; but I am unspiritual, sold as a slave to sin. ¹⁵ I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do.¹⁶ And if I do what I do not want to do, I agree that the law is good. ¹⁷ As it is, it is no longer I myself who do it, but it is sin living in me. ¹⁸ For I know that good itself does not dwell in me, that is, in my sinful nature.^[c] For I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out. ¹⁹ For I do not do the good I want to do, but the evil I do not want to do—this I keep on doing. ²⁰ Now if I do what I do not want to do, it is no longer I who do it, but it is sin living in me that does it.

²¹ So I find this law at work: Although I want to do good, evil is right there with me.²² For in my inner being I delight in God’s law; ²³ but I see another law at work in me, waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin at work within me. ²⁴ What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body that is subject to death? ²⁵ Thanks be to God, who delivers me through Jesus Christ our Lord!”

I have always loved this passage because I identify with this internal struggle within Paul. Why do I do the things that I don’t want to do? Why I am unable to do the things I know that I should do? Why can I not be simultaneously aware of the overwhelming GRACE of God and guided by the direction of His LAW?

This year the Lord is teaching me more and more about how to live in this tension. His grace frees us, but not to do whatever we want. He frees us to worship Him fully. God is just, and His laws are good. BUT they are HARD to obey. We have to fight against the sinful nature within us. The only way we can win the fight is by letting Him fight for us. As I become more aware of the Lord’s grace in my life, my desire to obey Him is strengthened.

I still have my “tangled” moments when I am fluctuating between joy and despair. When I am overwhelmed by His love then overwhelmed by my sin… and the cycle continues. But Jesus steps into that tension more and more. Teaching me to be aware of His grace and His law. Recognizing that I will never be perfect and always be in need of both in order to live for Him. Jesus steps into my internal war and reminds me that He has already won. He won 2,000 years ago when He chose to take on every sin I would ever commit, yet He still loves me.

Romans 7:25

“Thanks be to God, who delivers me through Jesus Christ our Lord!”

quality time

I have always enjoyed quiet times, and I wholeheartedly believe that they are critical to deepening my relationship with God. Unfortunately over the last few months there has always seemed to be something happening that hindered me finding a consistent time with the Lord. I was spending time with the other fellows in Bible study several mornings a week, attending church every Sunday, leading a campaigners group for Young Life, taking a seminary class, and always talking ABOUT God… but rarely talking TO Him. Of course I found tons of legitimate excuses as to why I wasn’t having time with the Lord, and they basically all boiled down to not having enough time. But the thing about time is that we all have the same amount of it; we choose how our own time is spent. I was simply not choosing to spend any of mine alone with the Lord.

Campaigners girls at Panera

         Checking people in at the
"Pay it Forward" dinner

Early morning discipleship in my work scrubs : ) 

 Over Christmas break the fellows were asked to read Running on Empty       (by Fil Anderson). Two things about this book grabbed my attention:

1. The subtitle to the book is “Contemplative Spirituality for Overachievers” 

2. The picture on the front looks like an athlete trying to catch their breath after a long run/workout. 

I identified with both of these things and was quickly captivated by Fil’s struggle with finding time for God in the midst of his ministry-filled life.

One of the quotes that resonated with me the most was from page 23 when he was reflecting on a few months of vacation during which he intended to spend a lot of the time with the Lord… but didn’t.

“The problem was not my lack of time; it was my lack of joyful, enthusiastic delight in God, my lack of deep affection directed toward Him at every hour of the day. It seems to be a fact of life that when we’re left with a choice, we choose to do the things that matter to us most.”

BOOM. CONVICTION. When I read that, I felt the Lord tug at my heart and let me know that I was in that same boat. I have not been choosing the Lord. I have not been taking my delight in Him. But I want to. I want Him to be the thing that truly matters to me most.

I have decided to take Fil’s advice and prioritize prayer and solitude for the next couple of months. I love spending quality time with people, it is one of the things that I value most in relationships, and I want to take delight in my quality time with the Lord. I want to spend time getting to know His heart better so that He can shape mine to be more like it.