To be a little girl’s hero- there is no comparison. This is my little princess; for her I am thankful.
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It’s so good to be back in Pennsylvania. When we crossed back into PA yesterday, both Austen and I were making comments about how good it felt to be back in our home state, and how it just feels different and feels good. The sun set while we were in PA and it was beautiful and when we got to my home, my mom fed us pizza and cake and Austen and Brandon and Katie and I were very happy to have such great food, and these friends made it one of the most enjoyable drives home I can remember. For this I am thankful!
Thinking of the marvelous times had with this lovely woman…for this I am thankful.
The overwhelmed with work feeling persisted throughout tonight…until I called my brother and best friend. He always just gets me and I trust him more than anyone else in the world. I love him and talking with him made my day much, much better. For him I am thankful. =)
Tuesday I was exhausted after the Monday recital, and overwhelmed by all the work I needed to catch up on and complete before break. Then Bethany gave me these flowers. They are beautiful! I especially like the purple lilies…this bunch of flowers and the timing of the flowers encouraged me and made me smile throughout the rest of the day, and it was a nice reminder of how well the recital went and how glad I am to have Bethany’s friendship. For this I am thankful.
So Lent starts this week. I’d not known what Lent was until I came to college, and I still haven’t done anything for Lent in those years. But this year I was also introduced to the idea of adding something, and one of my former RAs is adding a practice of thankfulness, and I’m kinda stealing it from her in that I want to take a picture of something everyday for which I am thankful.
I am thankful for these friends who are so supportive and so loving. On this particular evening, they came out to the recital I accompanied to support me and hug me afterwards. They ended up helping me over to Big Al’s to get dinner and stayed and had fun with me for some time after that. I love them so much. For them I am thankful.
God took my breath away today and I wanted to tell about it.
At college here my “home church” is Sojourners Mennonite Fellowship, “Menno” for short. We’ve been meeting in a store front, and the church has been meeting there since it started almost 10 years ago. However recently, the leadership of the church were made aware of a storefront at the end of our block that was for sale. The guy that owns it lives on the west coast and was a former student of our pastor. The storefront for sale includes the whole building section, both floors and garages included. The building listed for $120,000 three years ago when it was put on the market…but this county is an impoverished one with the sole exception from poverty being the college, so there’s no way that anyone around here would buy this storefront anytime in the then-foreseeable future.
However, the church leadership decided to go out on a limb and see what God would do with their step of courage: they bid $50,000 on the building, leaving themselves another $25,000 for negotiating room. The owner accepted their [$50,000 on a $120,000 building] bid on the spot. Then God decided to knock our socks off- an anonymous donor gave the church the $50,000 dollars to pay for the building in one payment!
And!! The building has two floors and upstairs there are many many rooms, enough for Sunday School rooms and a nursery and the toy library (same concept as a book library just with toys, it is for the families in the community that have trouble affording food, let alone toys for their children)! Downstairs there is (or will be) a worship space once we knock out some of the temporary walls, and there is a small room for a church office (this church has never had one before!) and also there are plans underway for an adjoining dental clinic to serve those in the community who can’t afford rising health costs, served by a dentist in our own small congregation!
There is still an enormous amount of work to do on the majorly unfinished building- many of my (and many others’) Saturday afternoons this semester will go for sledgehammering down walls, ripping up old carpet, and repainting rooms and stairs- but its not nearly as daunting as it logically should feel because the hand of God is so obviously in this, blessing it every step of the way. And it’s all happened so quickly…it’s one of those situations where there’s a whirlwind of activity over which you have no control and at the end, you’re sitting trying to catch your breath, saying, “What on earth just happened, Lord?!?”…and He gives you this crazy peace about something that seems too big for you and too much for you to handle by yourself.
I think though that He likes giving us the gift of impossible situations…its one of His ways of showing us how incredibly He loves us and how He can do anything in our lives if we give Him our will and our desire to do things ourselves; when we are weakest and have nothing to give is when He shows how He’ll always come through- showing His strength through you, turning your impossible situation into a breathlessly joyful miracle, whether great or small.
So that’s my good news and I’m quite excited! Feel free too to share this as both a praise and encouragement, and as an ongoing prayer request as one part of the Church for another.
Love to all, and God bless. =)
While a huge part of me loves learning to live on my own and becoming an independent adult…there will always be a part of me that remembers with great fondness the days when I could run and get a hug from Mom anytime; when my nightly routine included dancing with Dad on his feet to Beauty and the Beast; when my biggest decisions were how many mud pies to make that day with Dave and Riss in the front yard.
Here’s to growing up and the heartaches and joys that go with it.
I was sauntering across campus this morning, delighting in the warmth of the sun on my back and in the way that the wind gently tousled my hair. The birds sang perkily while I watched my friends stroll around the quad, reveling in the morning as much as I. As I paused on the sidewalk to try to impress upon my memory the loveliness of the morning, a thought came to me as softly as the breeze playing with the edges of my clothes. It occurred to me that I love living.
This isn’t to say at all that I would want to not be living or something like that. Rather, the essence of living gives me joy. Many people go through their weeks and months and years in such a way that their days consist of being harried and trying to simply make it through the day and the day’s work in order to go back to bed for a few hours before getting up to repeat the process. (I had one of those days yesterday.) It’s so easy to get wrapped up in surviving each day’s problems that one lets that absorb the whole of their thoughts and energy. This isn’t living, though, not really. This is only existing.
Some could argue with me here that living is simply to be breathing, for one’s heart to be pumping blood so that one is conscious and functioning. To me though this sounds very similar to Merriam-Webster’s definition of ‘exist’: “to continue to be.” In strong vibrant contrast however, Merriam Webster defines ‘live’ seemingly redundantly as “to be alive.” Alive! What a glorious and intriguing word. It’s a word that we think about maybe once a year (Easter) then ponder it very little the remainder of the year.
To be alive, to live fully, is to be able to find something every day that humbles you and challenges you. To live is to not feel like your day is complete until you search out and find something beautiful. To live is to savor and cherish those moments that bring you to life inside, knowing that we only have so many of these moments. To live is to remember once in a while that it’s quite ok to act like a kid sometimes because it’s no fun to be completely grown up. To live is to feel the joy that comes from reaching out to someone when you’re having a really rough time and giving of yourself even when you feel there’s nothing left to give.
To live is to have a constant peaceful discontent with the level of our relationship with God- to always be seeking out a deeper relationship with and knowledge of Christ. To live is to purposefully expand your comfort zone- knowing that everything you can’t do through your own strength- He can. To live is to walk outside on a cloudless night and look up, seeing the multitude of stars and having the realization hit you that you are so infinitely tiny and powerless….to live- is to then sit down and ponder in awe the greatness of the love that the Father has for us even small and insignificant as we are.
Right now, I sit in the music building trying not to think about the very intimidating day in store for me tomorrow. For me, over the next two weeks of craziness and finals and juries, to live will be to wake up each morning and try to genuinely thank God for each day no matter what it holds. To live will be to look at my finals and juries and give my all over and over, knowing that where my strength runs out, then am I really strong in Him. To live will be to remember that as much as there are parts of some days that I detest, there are so many more moments that I love and look forward to.
Fully living will have some of those moments like this morning, where I will just pause and look around…I’ll watch and smile at my friends, laughing at some of their antics, knowing that the life I’m making with them here now is something that makes me feel alive. I’ll quickly pray silently and thank the Lord for the gifts He has given me in their friendship and their love and in the memories we’ve made together……then I’ll smile, turn around, and go back to work, not merely existing but in His grace being more and becoming more.
I love living.
If I saw You on the street
And You said come and follow me
But I had to give up everything
All I once held dear and all of my dreamsWould I love You enough to let go
Or would my love run dry
When You asked for my lifeWhen did love become unmoving?
When did love become unconsuming?
Forgetting what the world has told me
Father of love, You can have me
You can have meIf You’re all You claim to be
Then I’m not losing anything
So I will crawl upon my knees
Just to know the joy of sufferingI will love You enough to let go
Lord, I give you my life
I give you my lifeWhen did love become unmoving?
When did love become unconsuming?
Forgetting what the world has told me
Father of love, You can have me
You can have meI want to be where You are
I’m running into Your arms
And I will never look back
So Jesus, here is my heartWhen did love become unmoving?
When did love become unconsuming?
Forgetting what the world has told me
Father of love, You can have me
You can have meWhen did love become unmoving?
When did love become unconsuming?
Forgetting what the world has told me
Father of love, You can have meMy Father, my Love-
You can have me.
-Sidewalk Prophets © 2009
