The Semester in Review and Destressing 101

 

Hi again, my friends! M. here!

It's great to be back! Do you know why?? IT'S CHRISTMAS TIME!!!!! (happy dance) School's finally over and I'm beyond excited for the last 15 days of this year. (Yeah, only 15 days till 2016, guys. Buckle up!!)

I just had the craziest semester in my life. In the best way, I think. I started my true first year of college and it was a blast! There was definitely a lot of work, having 8 classes to shuffle every week along with Life group and Chapel and studying and homework and choir practice and work and... well it was just a crazy semester.

It was a crazy semester for another big reason besides school, though. In the past few months, I've really been growing closer to God. I've heard from Him in more tangible ways since September than I think I have my whole high school life! His call to follow Him with all of myself has never been clearer, and the presence of His grace in my daily walk with Him has never been sweeter.

That's one of the things I love so much about God. My relationship with Him doesn't grow in a linear way (nerd word alert!!) but it grows in an exponential way (slow down, there!) because we can always grow closer to God on this earth and we can always dig deeper into the riches of His love. I know He's always got more for me.

Take my stress levels for example. I think we all know that I'm like a joyful little bundle of stress!!! I carry it with me every day; I treat it like a beloved puppy, judging by how much attention I pay to it. Because there's so many things to stress about, right? I mean, there's stressing about the grade I'm gonna get on that homework I turned in yesterday or the random thing I said to that person last week or every time I've embarrassed myself in front of people EVER IN MY LIFE. This blog is full of regrets like that! And then there's today to stress about: does my face look weird? Does she think my shirt's ugly? Am I talking too much? Am I talking enough? Does anyone like me?? How am I going to get everything done today? And then there's stress about the future!!!! That's the best, because the options are limitless!!! What am I going to eat for lunch tomorrow? How much homework will I have next week? What presents am I going to get for my family for Christmas? What classes will I take next semester? What about summer break? What about after I graduate? Am I ever going to get married? WHAT IS GOING TO HAPPEN WITH MY LIFE???

You probably get the picture...

Stress is the easy way out. It's our human response to the unknown and uncontrollable. To be honest, it's really unproductive too. Ever heard that saying that worry is like a rocking chair; it won't get you anywhere but it'll give you something to do? That's definitely true when it comes to the things I stress about the most - they're usually the least important.

A friend is singing a song for her voice recital tomorrow called "Cecie's Lullaby." I'm playing piano and singing harmonies with her, and it's one of the few things that have been keeping me sane lately. The lyrics are from the perspective of God to one of His children:

"Call my name and I will listen

All you need is here inside arms

Just breathe and you'll be safe and sound

With me

No one knows you better than me

No one's been a better friend 

So rock-a-bye, baby, come and rest

You've been tired lately, lay your head down

Don't you think, baby, I know best

I've been a Father for a long time" 

Because I'm a foster sister, there's plenty of crying kids around. I know nap time and bed time especially can be stressful for babies, so the other day I held my two year old foster sister and sang her those words. And she screamed the whole time, but after another song she calmed down and fell asleep in my arms. There aren't many things in the world that can top that. But it got me to thinking about the whole rocking chair analogy.

Maybe you rocking in the rocking chair won't get you anywhere, but perhaps letting Him hold you and sing you to sleep is how he designed it. The stress isn't ours to worry about. It's His to handle.

How will you intentionally pursue God's rest this Christmas?

-M.

"That's Life"

Hey all! M. here again! Happy November to all of you!! How is your Thanksgiving week going? Tell me in the comments below!!

Today I want to talk about a saying that really really annoys me. (I know, it's brilliant to be complaining the week where we are supposed to be thankful!) I use this saying all the time, but I hate using it and I hate the idea behind it.

"That's life," we say.
When we lose a job or our microwave breaks, we sigh and say, "that's life."
When we're super busy or we don't get along with other people, we shrug it off and say, "that's life."
When we find flaws in our work or we have to start a project over, we grumble and say, "that's life."
When we have an impossible dream and lose our motivation, we quit and say, "that's life."
When wars and crises arise and we think our world's just gone down the drain, we say "that's life."
When it feels like God is distant and we're stuck on our own, we just say, "that's life."
And we move on.

Why do we have to say that? Why are we obligated to a mysterious fate called life? Yes, there are about two things we have guaranteed in this life, first, death; second, taxes! Yes, we can generally look at lives from the past to learn from their mistakes, predict possible outcomes, and maybe make better plans for the future.

But we aren't tied to that. We never have to be controlled by the outcome of a unknown lottery machine of future events. Isn't God the one who created life? Doesn't He have control over our future and over us? Jesus told us that He came to earth so that we might have life, and have it "to the full!" So why do we settle?

Because we're comfortable. We American Christians are so comfortable in our little Jesus boxes that we don't bother to dream the impossible. We don't care enough to look and see if this is really all there is to life. We rarely ask the Holy Spirit to be present in our lives every day. We don't expect God to move in miraculous ways for us. We don't hope for things like what happened in the apostles' stories in Acts to happen today. Because we're comfortable.

How comfortable are you? How okay are you with your life? When was the last time the Holy Spirit pointed out an attitude to change, a relationship to mend, an opportunity to give Him glory? Did you follow that call? Have you even heard His voice?

Living life to the full is like skydiving - you have to jump out of a plane that has a seat for you, a nice buckle to keep you in that seat, protection from the sun and the wind and the rain and the pull of gravity. You have no need to jump out. You have no need to use the dangerous route to get back to the ground. You can just ride the nice plane down to safety.

But you're not going to have much of a story when you get back to the ground if you never jumped out of that window. You're not going to have the thrill of falling, flying, hurtling down towards the planet unrestrained until at the last second you release the parachute.

It's the same way in our walk with Jesus. We could stay in our comfy churches with the seats we've picked out with protection from the elements of our broken world and the gravity of life's messes. We don't have to go do things to earn our salvation. We aren't obligated to take the dangerous route because "His grace abounds in our weakness." We can just ride the nice Christian life to heaven.

But you can't live life the way God designed you to when you're still inside the airplane! It's time to let go of following the status quo of "that's life." Because there really is more than the nice busy Christian life full of church services with plastic perfect people and life groups full of plastic perfect discussion and the rest of your life as the quiet, unoffensive office worker with a "Jesus loves you" sticker in your cubicle. There really is more to life than the loads of dishes and laundry and kids' noses and faces to clean and meals to prepare and arguments to interrupt. Oh, yes, that mundane still exists. Oh, yes, the trials and the failures and the car breakdowns and feeling distant from God won't go away. That's because we're human and our world is broken.

(But we're not just human beings. Our soul is eternal and will live forever in Christ's presence if we've accepted His salvation. I'm learning, too, that that soul isn't the only things that will live on. We will have eternal bodies in continuity with the old, but those bodies won't decay or become useless. What an exciting prospect! I can't wait for heaven. And seeing Jesus.)

When we are in eternity, I think I'd rather tell the story of how I went skydiving.

What about you?

There's no going back once you jump. But when it come to living God's life for you, you won't regret jumping.
You'll get the opportunity to truly be God's hands and feet for this broken world.
You might get to see God's presence tangibly changing lives and changing whole cultures.
Your heart attitude towards God might be personally transformed from the inside out.
You might be hated for your radical ideas. Jesus practically guarantees it.
You won't be comfortable. But you probably won't miss that comfortable life once you leave it.
You might live that impossible dream in spite of every voice that says it can't happen.
You'll have the chance to redefine what you call truly living.

You will be changed. And that's life. God's way.