Who Am I?

Who Am I?

Who am I? they often tell me
I stepped from my cell's confinement
calmly, cheerfully, firmly,
like a squire from his country house.

Who am I? They often tell me
I used to speak to my warders
freely and friendly and clearly,
as though it were mine to command

Who am I? They also tell me
I bore the days of misfortune
equably, smilingly, proudly,
like one accustomed to win.

Am I then really that which other men tell of?
Or am I only what I myself know of myself?
Restless and longing and sick, like a bird in a cage,
struggling for breath, as though hands were
compressing my throat,
yearning for colours, for flowers, for the voices of birds,
thirsting for words of kindness, neighborliness,
tossing in expectation of great events,
powerlessly trembling for friends at an infinite distance,
weary and empty at praying, at thinking, at making,
faint and ready to say farewell to it all.

Who am I? This or the other?
Am I one person to-day and to-morrow another?
Am I both at once? A hypocrite before others,
and before myself a contemptible woebegone weakling?
Or is something within me still like a beaten army
fleeing in disorder from victory already achieved?

Who am I? They mock me, these lonely questions of
mine.
Who I am, Thou knowest, O God, I am thine!

-Dietrich Bonhoeffer-

Every time I read this poem it reminds me of the sin I have to deflect everyday in order to be a light for the Lord. Sometimes I wonder the same things about myself that Bonhoeffer wrote of in this poem. Secretly I yearn for praise and even tire of praying. I am distracted by sin while worshiping God. I often do things for my own glorification, and my motives are often impure. I am a sinner and I face a dire need for repentance on a day-to-day basis; not just confession, I actually have to turn from my sin everyday and allow the Lord to replace it. Praise Jesus that amidst our sin we have the grace to be HIS and to live with HIS love and mercy. Praise him that I no longer live in bondage of this sin but that I am free to live a life in obedience to Christ.

New Perspective

This is just a small reflection on the events that took place last week during the inauguration of our new president. Hopefully a perspective that you will enjoy.

I'm sure we all had different perspectives on the images we saw and words we heard, but as a follower of Jesus Christ I saw a bit of truth that gave me hope for my future and made me thankful for my freedom.

As I watched millions of people around the world come together for their hope in a brighter, more promising future, I could only think of what it would be like if this enthusiasm and praise were directed toward the awesome glory of our Creator. Then I remembered that one day that was going to happen. I was reminded of a particular passage in Romans ( Romans 8:18-25) that talked about our suffering as God's creation and how it does not compare to the glory that will one day be revealed to us. This passage also talks about how creation groans for the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ and how one day creation will be set free from bondage and decay. This passage ends in saying:

" For in this hope we were saved. Now hope that is seen is not hope. For who hopes for what he sees? But if we wait for what we do not see, we wait for it with patience." Romans 8: 24-25

Knowing this, I chose to look at this wonderful day in history as a reminder of what will one day become of God's creation, and to continue fulfilling my purpose here in patience-always looking forward to the coming of our Lord.

This day also reminded of how thankful I am for my freedom in Jesus Christ. I've lived in a life of bondage. I know what it feels like to be covered in sin rather than in Jesus' redeeming blood. Looking back, I see nothing but hope in the freedom that I now have from my sins. This freedom gives me so much more to look forward to than the freedom I have to live in this country. Every right, every material possesion, every assest I have in this world will one day fade away, but God's promise to me for an eternity spent with my him will never die. There are so many scriptures to qoute here, but the one that echoes in my head is Galatians 5:1

"For freedom Christ has set us free, stand firm therefore, and do not submit again to a yoke of slavery."

That entire chapter is great and I recommend reading it if it sounds new to you.

So basically what Im trying to say is: If you have hope and freedom in Jesus Christ, you can look at these words with a new perspective. A perspective that brings eternal promises for the future.

Tagged!

okay, so two people have tagged me in this fun little blog tag so its time I own up to my responsibility. Here are the rules:

Here are the rules:
1) Choose the 4th folder where you store your pictures on your computer.
2) Select the 4th picture in the folder.
3) Explain the picture.
4) Tag 4 people to do the same. No cheating (cropping, editing, etc.)



okay, I don't have a computer so I actually went to facebook and used my pictures there to do this tag. Not cheating, just improvising!


I find this picture humorous because I really have no idea what is going on, lol. This is Ben Carr, Preston Davis, and Rob Herron...I worked with all of them at camp last summer. Ben was the media guy, preston the dock daddy, Rob was a counselor and he led worship. This picture was taken at Mis Amigos in Hixson during boat driver training, and I'm pretty sure Ben was trying to make Preston feel awkward, Preston just smiles because theres a camera in his face, and Rob is just Rob..I have no idea..lol. This is just one of the many awesome memories I have from Camp last summer, I could probably do a blog a day about these photos and enjoy every minute of it!! Camp is and always will be a huge part of my life and I am so thankful for all of you who made the memories of that place so sweet in my heart :) Love you all!!


Now I have to tag other people, sooooo......


1. Kristin Mardis...BEST FRIEND!!
2. Jessica Paulsen
3. Brandie Lindsey
4. Joanna Kyle

Have Fun! sorry if you've already been tagged!

Just Go With It

As I type, I haven't an inkling of a clue what I am going to name this blog. I also do not have organized thoughts as I usually do when I sit down to share something. All that I have is the wonderful peace of knowing hope in my savior.

Have you ever desired something so badly that you weren't sure you could make it through the week without knowing if God is going to give it to you? If you say no, then I will give you this chance to secretly admit that you're wrong.............................................okay, now that we're all on the same page I will continue. After realizing how selfish it is to demand this of God, have you ever decided that following him without this desire fulfilled is possible and maybe even rewarding? If we claim to follow him then we should and MUST have this outlook on all of life's demands. The cost of discipleship is high and carrying our cross everyday is a command in scripture. Take a minute to meditate on Luke 14:25-33. It's a long passage, so if you want to follow along you may actually have to get your Bible out. Here are some tidbits:

vs. 27 " Whoever does not bear his own cross and come after me cannot be my disciple"
vs.33 " Therefore, any one of you who does not renounce all that he has cannot be my disciple"

Basically, from this passage we can gather that from the time we received salvation we were made aware of our calling as believers ( matthew 28:19-20). So why is it so hard for us to look past the happiness of the world in order to find joy in Christ? I'm not pretending to be a perfect example of this biblical definition of discipleship, but in recent circumstance I am learning to see through to the core of this concept.

This doesn't mean that life here is supposed to always be suffering, lonliness, sadness, etc... Look at Davids words in psalm 27:

" Teach me your way, O Lord, and lead me on a level path because of my enemies. Give me not up to the will of my adversaries; for false witnesses have risen against me, and they breathe out violence. I believe that I shall look upon the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living! Wait for the Lord; be strong, and let your heart take courage; wait for the Lord!"

Patience, the key to discerning the Lords will! Also the understanding that this "goodness" may not always be what we expect it to be.

With that being said, as believers we all desire to see good in the land of the living and to have peace about living in the Lords will, but a fickle heart will never truly see the beauty and joy of trusting the Lord! Elisabeth Elliot once said:

" A steadfast heart is not prone to fickleness"

and that has been in my head everyday to remind me of the cost required. Now, I think i will name this blog " Just Go With It". Because that worked for me tonight.

Clogged With Wishes

Saturday night...surprise, surprise :).

So, like most of the time, I think Elisabeth Elliot says what I'm thinking a lot better than I can put it into words. Here it is:

"I was wishing that my wishes were what God wished, and if my wishes were not what God wished, I wished that I could wish that my wishes would go away, but the wishes were still there." Elisabeth Elliot, passion and purity

It's amazing to me that pursuing God's will can be peacful and quiet one day then loud and complicated the next. After hearing these words from Elisabeth Elliot I realized why in the last few days I have felt weak and distant from God. As soon as I say Yes to his calling I simultaneously receive wishes and desires in my heart that cause me to reconsider the direction I'm heading. That doesn't mean that I desire God's will any less, just that circumstance has allowed me to see it differently in my life. The problem? you may ask. The problem is that I begin to wonder how God can work his will in me if I am clogged by these wishes and desires of my own. Now as I write this, it is obvious that the conclusion is that I should rest in God's peace regardless of my circumstance. This is true, but the wishes ARE still there; day and night; hour by hour. I must take all of my wishes and desires captive to be hidden under the authority of Christ, and wait patiently for the Lord to lead me through life in his will. I must rest in a place where true joys are to be found.

Almighty God, You alone can bring into order

the unruly wills and affections of sinners:

Grant you people grace to love what you command

and desire what you promise;

That, among the swift and varied changes of the world,

Our hearts may surely there be fixed where true joys are to be found;

through Jesus Christ our Lord,

who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit,

One God, now and forever. Amen

(The book of common prayers)

Sacred Claim

First off, I apologize to all who at one time read my blog. I am going to throw out the excuse of being without a computer. My roommate has a computer and so does my work, but I am rarely on it long enough to blog about the things on my heart that I really want to share. However, tonight my roommate is gone and I am once again left pondering alone in my apartment on a Saturday night. Please don't feel sorry for me though, lately I intentionally spend time alone for no other purpose than to hear my creator speak to me. I am beginning to enjoy a newfound appreciation for introversion.

With that being said, life has been full of revelation, joy, and contentment for me in Bowling Green. I have come to know the full meaning of God "bringing all things together for the good of those who love him." (Romans 8:28). I believe there a is still a lot of good to be seen in my lifetime, but in this stage of my life I am seeing an abundance of goodness and fruit. I am blessed to be lead and taught by a church body whose purpose is to raise up disciples and send them out to bowling green, to the nations and to the ends of the earth. I've always known that God had a great plan for my life--that he would show me a life that brought me pure joy and that rejoiced in the purest of truth. Now, I am confident of this. I am confident of the claim he has taken on my life. This claim is SACRED, it is one that we all have and are called to see with our eyes wide open.

My eyes were truly opened to this while I sat in church a couple of weeks ago pondering where the Lord has brought me and why. It was then that I had one of the simplest yet most profound revelations that I have yet to experience in my life. The life I am living is the ONE life that I have here on this earth--what am I doing with it?? Yes I know, DUH right! I have thought of this before, but not in this way. This time there was a reverence and a Godly fear in the depths of my soul as I pondered. It was then that I began to actually desire God's glory in heaven more than anything here on earth--more than marriage, money, friends, and material things. This is not to say that I do not desire some of these things, but that anything I experience here on earth should only point me to a better inheritance I have in heaven. This also means that I will remain confident in God's purpose for my life and strive to go where I am called. This could mean that he will one day send me to another country, another state, another county, or it could possibly mean that I will continue my life in Bowling Green as I am now--discipling in the church and helping the lost and needy. Whatever that means, I am willing and I am able to go for the one who has paid my debt and has paid it in full.

Elisabeth Elliot talks in her book "Let Me Be a Woman" about a kind of pride that we should all possess; The "right" kind of pride. She actually qoutes from Isak Dinesen's book "Out of Africa" in saying:

" Pride is a faith in the idea that God had when he made us. A proud man is conscious of the idea, and aspires to realize it. He does not strive towards happiness, of comfort, which may be irrelevant to God's idea of him. His success is the idea of God, successfully carried through, and he is in love with his destiny."

I LOVE this! It speaks so much truth into my life, and I hope it does for you as well. Let us be proud of our purpose. Let us desire success in living for his glory, and most of all let his glory be carried out to all the nations through our recognition of his SACRED CLAIM on our lives!

Set-Apart in a Molded World

I want to dedicate this blog to single women who love God and have made a decision to devote their lives to their one true savior, Jesus Christ. Ladies, this life is not a walk in the park, and if you think college is tough...wait for the real world. I am not suggesting that I am miserable and I am not pleading for sympathy. I praise the Lord for where I am in my life and that I am able to share this with you. The path I am on continually leads me to a closer, more intimate relationship with Christ, and for that I am thankful! However, my flesh tells me a different story. The closer I get to my savior the more I hear the enemy remind me that most of my friends are married or that I could have had the "perfect" life had I not made the decision I made to follow the Lord. Girls, we do have the perfect life--all we need is a savior who loves us unconditionally who we can serve and live for, all the while being overfilled with a Joy and a Peace that is beyond understanding.

I am beginning to realize the truth behind living as a Godly woman, and right now that doesn't involve a husband or kids. It haunts me to know that so many women live for Christ in order to find the right husband or that they spend so much time molding themselves to be the "girl that guys want" ( as cosmopolitan would probably put it) and claim to be living for the right purpose on the inside. Ladies, as long as we are searching for our knight in shining armor, we are not living a life set-apart for Christ. Please trust me when I say that I know this, once again, from experience. I can't tell you how many disappointments I've experienced by chasing after a dream that didn't involve being a disciple of Christ. I never truly experienced peace until the Lord taught me to live a life of contentment ( which I still struggle with every day!!) in his unconditional, infallible love.

This summer I had to reach this conclusion the hard way, but this verse stuck with me( I actually had it hanging up in my box :) ). Paul is speaking to the Corinthian church about being married and begins to talk about those who are married and those who aren't married. He speaks of those who are married as being devoted to one another ( not in a negative connotation) but to those who are not married he says this: " The unmarried or betrothed woman is anxious about the things of the Lord, how to be holy in body and spirit, but the married woman is anxious about worldly things, how to please her husband. I say this for your own benefit NOT TO LAY ANY RESTRAINT UPON YOU, but to promote good order and to secure your UNDIVIDED DEVOTION TO THE LORD." 1 Corinthians 7:34-35. I by NO means am knocking marriage in this post. Those of you who know me well know that I want nothing more than to be a wife and a mother one day. I have a great desire to experience that love here on earth, but RIGHT NOW I am called to an undivided devotion to the Lord. I pray earnestly that the Lord may put someone in my life who I can love and serve, but I know that to experience God's best I must give him my best. And if his best for me is that I remain single and serve him in the church and in my career then so be it...I trust him. Praise be the God who can offer us contentment in being set-apart in a world where we may only know a mold!

If you are struggling with this I highly suggest the wisdom of Leslie Ludy in the book set-apart femininity!!