Happy June!

So I've been pretty scatter-brained lately. I know I've been saying how my blog is going to have a "theme". Well, I've changed my mind-and this one I plan on sticking with. Me. Well, things that are going on with me. Specifically Bible verses that I'm reading, craft projects that I'm working on, stuff like that. I'm going to try and keep my focus on God and how he's impacint my life, but I love making things, and if I can show them off somewhere, I'm going to. So here it will be! Hope y'all don't mind this "new change".

I'll try to keep my posts a little shorter too, since I know from personal experience I'd rather not read super long posts. #SheReadsTruth launched their website today, here's a link! It's what's inspiring me to focus more on God and less on myself.

Tomorrow at small group we're talking about Spiritual Gifts... my top 3 are Giving, Craftsmanship, and Hospitality. Intriguing. I'll have to let y'all know what that means after our discussion tomorrow.

Series Recap: The Immeasurable Life

For the past three weeks we have been studying Ephesians 3:14-21 with Joel Thomas, North Point's campus pastor. We specifically focused on Eph 3:20-21. It reads, "Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, for ever and ever! Amen." (NIV)

He started with a question, "Have you ever wanted more?" It doesn't matter what you have wanted more of, but the truth is that you have wanted more of something at some point in your life. You begin to think that if you could just get "there", you wouldn't want anything more. Let's say that "there", is getting a promotion or raise at work. You work hard to show your boss that you deserve the promotion/raise. You work extra hours, take on tasks you normally wouldn't, etc. Eventually you get rewarded for all of your hard work and get that promotion/raise. You're happy and you've finally gotten "there". But after a while, you begin to realize that you still want more. We get stuck in this endless loop of wanting more. When does it end?

What do you measure? Time? Money? The things you measure are the things that are important to you. Do you believe that immeasurably more than you could ever imagine is possible for you? In your family, relationship, career, future, etc.

More is possible because God is able.

He has immeasurably more planned for us. We forget this, and I think that some of us don't believe it. Remember that one time when something amazing happened to you that you never thought would? A job opportunity, a relationship, anything. They are works of God. I know I take Him for granted sometimes, and in light of recent events with my family, I have to remember that all things work together for good.

I know that He has something more planned for you as well. Joel ended the first week with this prayer:

      God, help me to look beyond what I can measure and to believe that, because of you, immeasurably more is possible for me.

The next message in the series was about, "What happens next?"So we know that God has more planned for us. But how do we get there? There is nothing more frustrating than knowing there is more out there and not knowing how to get it. (I am totally in this situation right now, so this message really hit home for me.) 

We looked looked at Eph 3:14-20 this week, and looked more in depth at Eph 3:16: I pray that out of his glorious riches he may strengthen you with power through his Spirit in your inner being.

So what? So, my dear reader, immeasurably more is possible for you, but not until it happens in you. Confused? I was too at first. Immeasurably more starts within you. It is about a change in your inner self, it is not external change that makes this happen.

Have you ever been loved? By anyone. Your parents, a significant other, a friend. We all have, whether it is expressed or not. Love is life altering. Whether it is present or not, love is the driving force behind most decisions. If someone you love achieves something great, you want to be there for them in celebration. If you get your heart broken, you may not want to leave the house for a few days. 

When the most powerful force, love, is directed at you by the most powerful being, God, you will change. Slowly at first, but when you allow His love to empower you, it will happen more radically. I have experienced this first hand over the past year. I am grateful for His love every day.

Here are two suggestions for you on how you can begin to let His love empower you.

• Pray for the capacity to grasp God's love.
• Pursue intimacy with God, community with insiders, and influence with outsiders.

And onto the last week in the series, which was this last weekend. The most important thing to remember from this last weekend in the series is that it's not about you. 

One of the things that Joel said that explained this best to me was, "When more is about you, immeasurably more seems impossible." The moon doesn't give off any light of it's own. (I'm sure you already knew that.) It reflect's the sun's light. We should be like the moon, not giving off our own light but reflecting God's. 

I forget the man's name that Joel mentioned, but he gave a couple of quotes from a book about how the first Christians changed the world. Some of the examples were:

• The value of human life was raised.
• Sexual immorality was confronted.
• Women received freedom and dignity.
• Christian symbols and expressions permeated the culture.

In a time when the world was enslaving their own children and leaving healthy babies for dead because they were unwanted, Christians began to reflect the light of God. They changed how the known world viewed them.

When you live a life worthy of God's calling, your life outlives you. A friend of mine recently lost a close friend of his. He was a man of God, very involved with his church. I have tried to console my friend, but sometimes I have felt like nothing I have said has helped. After this weekend, I told my friend that he can miss his friend. I would too. I told him that he should keep talking about his friend, keep listening to his music. The legacy he left behind can only be told by those of us left on Earth, and my friend should keep his legacy alive.

To conclude this series recap, ask yourself the following questions:

Are there areas of your life that you are living that aren't worthy of God's calling?

Are there passages in the Bible that you ignore because you don't think they apply to you?

To truly live a live worthy of God's calling and to be empowered by His love, these are things that you might want to consider editing. The Bible was written over 2000 years ago, and it is all still relevant in our lives today, if you can extract the lesson being taught and apply it to your life. You can either jump in, there is no "testing the waters", or miss out. You're either all in or not in at all. There is no "in between" with this.

Until next time, dear readers.

How did I get here? (part 2)

I promised you a continuation of my story. So here it is. Bear with me, since I haven't told this story, or thought about it, in a long time. I left off in June 2010, where I had just found out my ex, whom I was still completely in love with, had found someone else. I was struggling to see the light and didn't know if I could handle it. I was invited to the librarian's Lutheran church-but because of my insecurities and anger, I didn't ever go. I do regret not going, but looking at where I was in my life I don't believe I was ready to accept God into my life. I was off the facebook grid-a decision that I do not regret. It gave me a sense of freedom to do what I wished over the summer, I didn't have to keep people updated on my every move.

And now to continue my story from there.

I finished my internship and moved back to school. Back to the apartment that guy helped me move into, back to a place I thought I could be happy. I still wasn't, even though I tried to tell myself I was. During band camp his parents brought popsicles for the whole band one day and his parents hugged me and said they heard I was in Atlanta for the summer and asked me how it went. I wanted to yell and ask them how they could possibly be so nice to me when their son destroyed my heart. I didn't. Inside my stomach felt like lead and my heart shattered again-I loved his family. His parents, his sister, even his brother (who never seemed to like me much). The wounds I had thought were (finally) beginning to heal were ripped open again. I slipped back into a weird funk and let me tell you-this was NOT a good idea. This was, after all, the fall of my super senior year and I had my senior design class to tackle. I let myself wallow for a little and quickly realized I couldn't. I hung out with friends as much as possible, and began to hang out more with the tuba section. I went to a party one weekend at a friend's place, relishing in the fact that I had holed myself up in my apartment all day and didn't leave until 10pm to go to a party. This is where I gloss over some details, but I ended up, on the persuasion of a friend, dancing with a guy who kept looking at me. (I hadn't noticed, but my friend pointed it out.) So we talked and I soon found out he was a freshman-but I thought he was cute. Besides, what's a few years age difference? 

We started dating and spending a lot of time together. I still remember the first time I went over to his apartment. His older brother was there, sitting in their blue recliner, watching Boy Meets World and working on homework. He looked at me like there was something wrong with me, but I let it go and tried not to let it bother me. We continued to be happy and dated, and in October I invited him to my friend's wedding in Ohio. He agreed. When we started dating he had invited me to go to Campus House with him. I said I would think about it but really didn't give it a second thought. I think it was about the middle of September-about the time I invited him to the wedding-that I finally went to Campus House because he was playing in the band for their Thursday night service, TNT. I loved it. It was a little weird at first and he introduced me to a few people after the service. He introduced me to a girl who "made the best coffee", according to him. She was very nice and admitted that she had no idea where the coffee came from, all she did was put it in the coffee maker. Things were good, I was happy. I continued to go to Campus House with him. At the end of October he invited me over for breakfast and told me we had to talk. We usually talked over food, he said it gave him something to do with his hands. He broke up with me. I was so angry at him, and I had just found Campus House. I couldn't believe what was going on and convinced myself that there was something wrong with me. 

But for some reason, I continued to go to Campus House. I sat alone, but it was a little less weird. Plus I had seen some other friends from band a couple times, so I said hi. I eventually started to sit with them. After a few weeks the boy messaged me and we met up to talk again. He realized that he had been an idiot and wanted another chance. I said okay, on the condition that if this happened again, there would be no more chances. He said he understood. So we started seeing each other regularly again, and he finally took me out on a date-dinner and a movie. We went to see Harry Potter 7.1. I enjoyed myself and so did he. For Thanksgiving the marching band went to New York City to march in the Macy's Day Parade. He told me before we left that he wanted to spend time with his friends. And just his friends. I was frustrated, but agreed as long as we could see each other some of the time. The band had dinner at a delicious Italian place and at the end of the meal I got up to use the restroom-and made the mistake of assuming he knew I went to the bathroom. (I left my jacket on my chair.) My table was dismissed back to our bus and promptly left me there. I panicked. I didn't leave the restaurant right away but called his cell phone and it went straight to voicemail-I would later find out his phone was dead. I didn't have anyone else's number who was on my bus and, of course, we were one of the last buses to leave from the restaurant. So I made the decision to try and find my way back to the bus-I must remind you that I was panicked. Well, eventually someone called me and I met up with the bus again. The director on our bus was considerably less than thrilled and blamed me for it. I spoke with him briefly about what happened and he realized it wasn't entirely my fault. I returned to my seat and refused to speak to the boy. I was so mad at him and all he did was apologize. I couldn't believe what happened and the fact that he didn't even tell the bus captain I wasn't there. Oh yea, this just so happened to be our first night in the city... I was not looking forward to the rest of this trip.

It ended up being okay-I spent most of my time with my mellophone friends. (A fantastic idea, we had a lot of fun.) We got back from NYC and promptly went to our senior game against IU. It was a crazy weekend, and my family surprised me with an amazing sign they unfurled during post game-I couldn't play for several songs because I was crying and laughing so hard. (Yes, I still have it.) I managed to get a picture of it from the field. The boy and I had a talk a few days after this and he broke up with me again. I couldn't believe it. I was furious-why hadn't he done this before the trip? I had so many questions. I had class, and was more than ready to not be in the same room as him for a while. I had thought that this could be "the real thing". In December the low brass always has "Tuba Christmas" (tubas and baritones/euphoniums), and PMO always puts on a Christmas show. I invited one of my best friends to go with me, and he said he would. He hadn't ever been and I needed some Christmas cheer. By this point I had gotten my ex's (for sake of clarity, we'll call him J.) older brother's phone number (we'll call him P). After the show I texted him and said it was a great show and that I liked his red scarf. He laughed and told me it was actually a women's scarf from Target, but he was glad I enjoyed the show. I continued to talk to their parents, because they are awesome people. I'm so glad I did. I got into the Christmas mood and made chocolate covered pretzels, Oreos, and made candy-cane reindeer. I gave them to the mellophones and some close friends-and made them a container full of them. (And one reindeer for each of them.) They wanted to stop by before they went to see the Christmas show, because they had a few gifts for me. I was overwhelmed. They gave me tickets to see Monty Python's Spamalot when it came to Purdue in March, on the condition that I took someone who would enjoy it as much as I would. I agreed. 

At this point their dad and I had exchanged a number of emails and facebook messages and I eventually told him something that would change my life for the better. I didn't have my own Bible. He immediately apologized and just assumed I had one. Little did I know what was in store for me. A few days after was Tuba Christmas, an event I had never been to. I met up with a friend and ran into them at the show so we sat together. I had talked to his dad and asked if I could talk to J after the show alone, and he said that was fine because they were planning on going to a movie or something with the girls anyway. So we talked for a while. We established that it really was over and I told him that I thought I had fallen for him. He left and I sat there in Elliott Hall alone and broken. I knew I couldn't stay there all night but I didn't want to go home. I stayed for a while, unmoving, half-hoping he would come back and realize he was wrong. He didn't. I went home and buried myself into studying the two final exams I had. P and I texted back and forth throughout the week, discussing our finals and I wished him luck on a few of them. One day he sent me a message that made me stop in my tracks. He asked me if I was free one afternoon because his parents asked him to help me pick out a Bible. I was shocked and had no idea what to say. (I had been continuing to go to Campus House on my own.) I finally agreed, and we decided that after his finals were over we would meet up and go. This was going to be the first time we spent any time together alone. I was nervous. I went to lunch with a friend and I told her about what was going to happen. She was absolutely thrilled at the idea and was so happy for me that I was beginning to find God. Have I mentioned that I was nervous? 

We drove to Border's and he asked me what I was looking for and I admitted that I had no idea. I felt so out of place, even in a book store. I felt like everyone who walked by knew that I didn't know and that I had a flashing neon sign above my head. I don't think this really needs to be said, but I felt thoroughly awkward the whole time. Now that we talk about it, he had intentions of taking me to Starbucks and talking for a while, about faith and the Bible. He gave me suggestions of where to start reading, and after he checked out, I headed back towards the car. I think the whole thing was a little awkward for the both of us-especially based on the whole... I dated his younger brother thing. He dropped me off at my place and I sank down into my couch and flipped through my new Bible. I fell in love with it. Yea, kind of weird, I know. But I had been curious about this book for so long, and now here it was. My very own copy. I started reading and had to paused every few minutes to let it sink in that this was my Bible.

Okay-I hate to leave you at this point, but it is most definitely dinner time. I promise that I will update with part 3, which will bring you to where I am now, very soon. It may even be after dinner. 

Until next time, dear readers. (Which I promise will be very soon!)