Come However You Are

Can January really be almost over? The older I get, the faster times seems to march on.  If you dwell on it too much, it’s sort of disturbing. Time stops for no one, for nothing.
I made my goals, to strive for more in 2014, to be better - to do better. Whether I see these things come to fruition or not, time marches on. As I read about Saul today and looked down at my goals, I couldn’t help but be comforted by the statement that rang true in my head -

God meets me where I am 

Saul, who later became Paul, was far from striving to do better. He wanted to do harm to anything or anyone who represented a faith in Jesus Christ. He threw Christians in jail and had many executed. Yet God intervened, He made the wicked holy. How refreshing and humbling is that? I look around me and even into my own heart and I think we forget what great power is held in the mighty hand of God. Even on my bad days, on days when I feel that I cannot be used, God meets me there. 

God wants to use you, he wants to meet you just as you are. 

I recently stumbled upon a song [by City Harbor] that is new to me and the words were so perfect..

To anyone walking down a hard road
Worn out with blisters on your feet
To anyone with a heart that's shattered
Doing your best to hold it together
With no prayer to pray and no song left to sing

Whatever pain you're dealing with
Let me offer this

Come however you are
Come with all your heart breaks
Come with all the mistakes you've made
Lay them down at the cross
Give them to the God who loves you
Hurt, scarred, falling apart

Come however you are

In the Bible, time and time again God uses the hurting, the least loved, the rejected - God will meet you at the foot of the cross. Grace brings us there, we have only to be still and listen - He will meet us, just as we are. 

The End of The Tunnel

Wow, that was a longer than expected three month break from blogging for the sake of passing this semester. But alas, the end has come. Semester 3 of 5 is complete and I’m exactly one year away from G R A D U A T I O N. But today wasn’t about me, today was about my mom. For the past two years she has been working away on bridging her diploma {RN} to a BSN, and she did it! YAY! Congratulations to the best nurse I know. Mom, you deserve this honor and so much more. Now, is it my turn yet?

 Let me just go ahead and apologize for the massive amount of crappy iPhone pics…And the total scatter-brained thoughts. Life these days.

My poor parents were in Chicago Thursday night for a work Christmas party and their flight into Memphis Friday night was canceled. They had to fly into Nashville, rent a car and drive the three hours in a thunderstorm to make it back at 2:30AM, left for the one hour drive to Jackson for graduation at 8:30 - sleep deprived parents equals dad having a staring contest with a fish while we wait 45 minutes to eat. Strange times, I tell you.

Maybe after three months we are in need of a little updating? Baby M is 9 months, on her way to 10! Ya’ll her personality is beginning to bubble to the surface and it is just adorable. Sister is home from school and we are ready to officially begin celebrating Christmas. 

Oh, my best friend got ENGAGED!!!!!! I am so very honored to be her maid of honor and I cannot wait for May. She is going to be the most stunning bride! Eeeekk! 

Between studying and trying not to lose my mind, I was able to help with the PackednLove program that our church participated in this year. My parents have been in the process of advocating on behalf of orphans in our community and bringing awareness to our church - wow, what a blessing it was to be able to shop and see people {in MY church} moved for foster children in Shelby County. 

On a total side note, if you have netflix and you have not watched the documentary "STUCK", do it now. Oh my stars, my heart was bursting.

The south has been through some crazy weather, or at least weather warnings. If you happen to read this and you live somewhere other than the mid-south, you just can’t understand how people all of a sudden forget anything they knew about driving (not that Memphis drivers were that talented to begin with) the minute there is a news forecast about ice/sleet/snow/rain/wind/yougetthepicture. And I will never understand the need to go and empty the local grocery stores of every egg, gallon of milk and slice of bread. We aren’t even to the coldest part of winter people. 

Uncomfortable Love

These pictures make me think of comfort. The south, my family, the fall weather and Jesus' sweet love make me so comfortable. I am blessed to have comfort, to want for little and to experience few moments of pain or sorrow. Comfort draws me in and invites me to stay a while.

Everyone needs a day of comfort every now and then. A day that is stress-free, when you can forget the world around you and drift off in to that place of sincere comfort.

But not everyday should be comfortable. God did not put me on this earth to live a life completely comfortable and totally satisfied. In the world we find ourselves submerged in day after day, there is sorrow beyond belief, persecution, racism, hate, neglect, abuse, hunger, pain and suffering. Sin is dark and it is deep. But God's love is deeper. God's love flows into the darkest of pits and the smallest streams that have deviated far from the river. Never forget that. 

“God's definition of what matters is pretty straightforward. He measures our lives by how we love.” ― Francis Chan, Crazy Love

Dear friends, take today and ask God to make you uncomfortable. Ask that He would let you see people through His eyes. People who are hurting, people who need you to go the extra mile to love them. It's not always easy and it's not always convenient. Very few things about this Christian walk are comfortable. God is calling you to step out of you comfortable place and love. 

"This is how we know that we live in Him and he in us: He has given us of his Spirit. And we have seen and testify that the Father has sent his Son to be the Savior of the world. If anyone acknowledges that Jesus is the Son of God, God lives in them and they in God. And so we know and rely on the love God has for us. God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in them. This is how love is made complete among us so that we will have confidence on the day of judgment: In this world we are like Jesus. There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear, because fear has to do with punishment. The one who fears is not made perfect in love. We love because he first loved us." 1 John 4: 13-19