I've had an itch to blog lately, but haven't had the time to sit and do it. I was reading from Jeremiah and I wanted to share a little...
“But blessed is the one who trusts in the LORD, whose confidence is in him. They will be like a tree planted by the water that sends out its roots by the stream. It does not fear when heat comes; its leaves are always green. It has no worries in a year of drought and never fails to bear fruit.” - Jeremiah 17: 7-8
I've been digging Justin Rizzo's "Like a Tree" for awhile and as soon as I read Jeremiah, I felt like I was hearing the song. Jeremiah is quoting God and in the verses right before he's giving the people two options... trust in man or trust in God.
I read someone else say... "Everyone is going to have faith in something - Either we have faith in our own limited abilities - Or we place our trust in God - Knowing that with God our limited abilities are greatly enhanced... Warren Wiersbe said, 'The people who jest about faith don't realize how big a part it plays in everyday affairs. It takes faith to get married... It takes faith to send children off to school. It takes faith to get a prescription filled... Faith is not some kind of religious experience for the elite; it is the glue that helps hold people's lives together."
I so agree, but don't always live it. I am constantly trying to do it on my own... as absurd as it sounds sometimes I trust myself more than God... but Jeremiah said I'll just end up like the parched places of the desert. Instead... I can trust in Him... like a tree planted by the water. Not only will I be hydrated, but I will bear fruit! I really believe bearing fruit... God using me to produce good things in my life and those around me to glorify Him is so fulfilling. I always remember in college we made t-shirts that said, "don't be afraid to go out on a limb. That's where the fruit is." Sometimes we need to take risks to trust in Him... to be like a tree that bears fruit.
Hope deferred makes the heart sick, but a longing fulfilled is a tree of life. - Proverbs 13:12
February typically stresses me out, but I'm getting through it. February means basketball season is truly peaking in preparation for the conference tournament and at the same time all of the spring sports are kicking off their seasons. Last weekend I hosted five baseball games. This weekend I'm in the middle of hosting seven baseball games and four softball games... all in preparation for next weekend with 24 softball games, two baseball games, a lacrosse game and a couple of tennis matches.
All of this excitement brings this weird dilemma for sports information/athletic communications/media relations personnel of wanting desperately for your teams to do well because the stories are easier to write, the attention is greater, the people are happier... and yet what a relief it would be for your teams' seasons to end. I want to be able to enjoy my job and the student-athletes' performances, but sometimes it does become overwhelming.
My focus these days... is to really embrace this time. I could easily count down the days until my last home game (72 days pending no NCAA Tournament responsibilities)... but I don't want to wish it away. I am soo grateful for the people in my life that make living this life worthwhile. This week I got to see my cousin and her kids and was once again relieved to be around family. I also got to celebrate a friend's birthday... there's something about a birthday and trying to make someone feel the love and appreciation you have for them. I love it... February is packed with friends' birthdays and I hope I can make each and every person know how I care for them and want the very best for them.
Here's to loving the next 72 days and living them well.
P.S. JillandKate released their new song on the 17th... of course I love them... and I love this song!
I refuse to be ubercynical about Valentine's Day. I'm embracing the singleness and spending time being thankful for my friends and family. My good friend dickie reminded me this morning, when all else fails God has shown us the greatest love possible beyond any flowers or chocolates.
Unfortunately I didn't have time to really put any blogworthy thoughts together this weekend, but here are some thoughts from other people I thought were linkworthy.
3. Lolo Jones... tweeted this morning "Eminem & lil wayne Debut new Valentines day single.You luv birds should def add this to the play list for tonight" Check out their sweet single for some love in your life: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vFfsg-PhgmA
4. William Raspberry... Love's Dying Ritual... (you may have to scroll down a bit to get past ad) It's been six years since Raspberry posted his piece, but I read it nearly every Valentine's Day to remind myself what a mess the dating world is. It's crazy to think this is the way we operate... and that's not to say it isn't worse six years later.
5. Friends... I am blessed. Even when I think I'm not... even when I think I've been abandoned... I have a great circle of real, true friends. So this isn't linkable... but I just wanted to remind myself... it's great to be surrounded by friends on this lovey dovey holiday! :)
I have a knack for perhaps speaking out of turn. I would like to think I speak out of love... Sometimes people come to me when they have problems and my immediate inclination is to want to fix it. I absolutely hate seeing people hurting. I would do whatever I could to take away hurt or pain from the people around me.
Today I tried to help someone and it backfired. It's not like this is the first time, but I hate when what I honestly feel is an honest attempt to do good.. turns bad. It seems most often, I've learned where I stand with people... but I've decided I'd like to know now rather than later. It helps to know who you can trust... and who will have your back when you're thrown in a corner.
My relationship with the people around me spreads across the whole spectrum of possibilities...
... there are the ones who come to me and want me to listen and want my advice... they suck the life out of me offering nothing in return
... there are the ones who come to me and want me to listen and want my advice... and then they turn around and ask me what's going on in my life or how my day is
... there are also the ones I run to and want them to listen and give me advice... and I pray I am giving something back to them and not just sucking the life out of them
I don't want to be a jerk... turn people away from the couch... but I also don't want to be taken advantage of anymore. I can't do it. I can't.
I'm sure someone will decide it's sacrilegious to pair Jesus and Jillian Michaels in the same sentence, let alone compare them, but I have a point.
I've been working out "with" Jillian Michaels six days a week for the past four and a half weeks. I'm sure it marks the longest period of time I have exercised consistently since my college soccer career ended November 7, 2003. I have the worst self-discipline ever (at least when it comes to working out... and french fries) so the fact I've been able to keep this up is miraculous. The time commitment is minimal. I think I've trimmed it down to 30 minutes including changing, warm-up, workout and cool-down... perfect for my schedule and quite possibly the only way I will be able to include a workout in my life as long as I'm maintaining this job. My neighbors could probably attest I look absolutely ridiculous doing it. I can't do it all well and I look like a sweaty pig to say the least. I'm always super annoyed at Jillian's empty compliments and desperately wishing she would make it stop as soon as I start. It isn't fun. I don't enjoy myself and every day I start the dvd, I wonder why in the world I hit play. However... when it's over... and I've picked myself up off the floor and rehydrated... I am grateful and relieved. I am proud of myself for sticking to my goal... I feel better about my strength and fitness... I feel less like a hypocrite teaching fitness and wellness... there are so many things that make the pain and torture worth it.
Jesus is not painful and torturous. I don't want to ever say Jillian is like Jesus because I know they are so far estranged, I can't begin to compare them. At the same time, I know following Jesus' plan for my life is not always easy. Waking up earlier or going to bed later in order to spend time with Him are not always a delight. Making decisions in my life that aren't always the most popular or the easiest but would align my life with His are not always a blast. However... I know God is blessing me through my relationship with Him. I know my faith is making a difference not only in my life, but the people around me and I'm going to hold onto the truth... there are so many things that make the tough decisions and the uneasiness worth it.
I have such mixed feelings speaking at FCA. I love FCA, therefore anything I can do to help I want to do. I also have the perfectionist in me wanting to do everything just right, reaching the most amount of people in the biggest way. Somehow I stumbled through another night with an awesome group of students there to encourage me as much as I was trying to encourage them...
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I watched a movie last month called, “To Save a Life.” It’s a low budget movie similar to Facing the Giants or Fireproof with a great message. I asked if we could stretch my time to speak tonight to about two hours so I could just show the movie, but I got shut down. Without giving away the movie, it opens by sharing a high school kid Roger’s struggles. You eventually get to see his blog he posted on myspace… yes I said myspace... anyone still have a myspace?? Ok sidetracked, back to my point. Roger wrote…
Some of you heard that kid and immediately classified him as a weird loner kid with no friends. Some of you heard him and wondered how he knew exactly what you were thinking. I spend a lot of time talking to students and trying to sort through what’s being said and what they’re really thinking. I have an enormous passion for college students, especially Methodist students.
Not too long ago, I was a student at Methodist trying to navigate this transition from high school kid to independent adult. I vividly remember my own experience… the good days, the bad days, the friends I made, the heartbreak I went through. I pray every day something I’ve gone through can help someone else experiencing the same thing.
Lately I’ve noticed many of us are living in a ton of empty relationships with people. I don’t necessarily mean dating relationships, (I already aired out all of that dirty laundry last year!) but just the relationship in terms of how we relate to people. How many people do you really have here at Methodist that you can talk to? Not talk to as in do homework together or play baseball together or share the latest gossip… I mean really talk to… to share what’s really going on in your life. Most of us have at least 200 facebook friends, but how many could you really call a “friend”? There are a ton of people we take pictures with at Izzy’s or the latest house party but how many do you really know? We sit in here an hour a week and hopefully have a good time, but sometimes we leave not even knowing the names of the people sitting around us.
Sometimes I try so hard to act like I don’t care what people think that I’m faking that I don’t care. I don’t know about all of you but I feel like there is such a natural inclination to put on masks and hide from reality or keep a protective barrier between us and reality. We surround ourselves with people, but they really don’t know who we are. Some of you are walking around this campus faking it. We pass on the way to class and I ask you how you’re doing and you say fine when really you just bombed a test or just had a fight with your boyfriend. Sometimes we spend our nights in alcohol because we feel safer, but alcohol can just become another mask that lets us be someone else or lets us forget who we are. We have athlete masks, party masks, Christian masks, class clown masks, slutty masks, etc. depending on who we want to be that day around which people. I think sometimes we subconsciously stop before we enter a building to check our mask. How many of us threw on the FCA mask before walking in tonight? Some of us walk around claiming to be Christians but we’re doing more acting than we are being. We spend a lot of time doing the right things… we go to church, we do community service, we put Jesus fish on the backs of our cars, we might even read our Bibles or tell our friends about God… all things that are fine and good. But God didn’t ask you to do things to make you look like Christ. He has asked us to get to know Him and through our relationship with God we can be a Christian without having to worry about looking like one. In theory, we wouldn’t need a churchy Jesus mask to be a Christian. If that’s who we are, it is a part of who we are without a mask.
College is an opportunity to figure out who we are, but too often we pick and choose masks and just interchange them to fit our audience without ever getting to know ourselves let alone, let someone else get to know us. In my experience we can be our own worst enemy. Henri Nouwen said, “The real trap, however, is self-rejection. As soon as someone accuses me or criticizes me, as soon as I am rejected, left alone, or abandoned, I find myself thinking, ‘Well, that proves once again that I am a nobody.’ ... [My dark side says,] I am no good... I deserve to be pushed aside, forgotten, rejected, and abandoned. Self-rejection is the greatest enemy of the spiritual life because it contradicts the sacred voice that calls us the ‘Beloved.’”
I believe God has called us to be completely satisfied in Him. I struggle with just giving you the churchy answer… go to church, read the bible and pray about it and you’ll feel good about yourself and have lots of healthy relationships. I believe all of those things are great things… but I also believe God knows our motivation and doing those things to cross them off of a to-do list or how to be a good person list are not his goals.
Of course the opposite of having empty relationships is having relationships that take over who you are. I stole a quote from Beach last week that said, “People always think that the most painful thing in life is losing the one you value, but the truth is the most painful thing is losing yourself in the process of valuing someone too much and forgetting that you are special too.”
I have lost track of the number of people who have lost themselves in a relationship… myself included. We find our best friend or our adorable boyfriend and invest everything in it usually ditching everyone along the way including ourselves. Once upon a time I felt like I found the perfect best friend. We talked every day… we helped each through hard times… I was so relieved to have someone here I could talk to about some of the hard questions about being a Christian and really felt like I was a priority to them. I couldn’t even begin to list the number of times we dug each other out of sucky situations knowing we would have someone to stick by us no matter what. I really believed God had blessed our friendship… helping us at the perfect time. Unfortunately, the friendship didn’t last. But even more unfortunately, I was far too invested in the friendship as it absolutely broke me. I would do anything for my friends, but I have found I need to draw boundaries to remember where I stop and they begin. I cannot be defined by the people in my life. There’s a balance between being selfish and selfless.
I happen to love Romans 12 from the Message translation with Paul’s suggestions…
9-10 Love from the center of who you are; don't fake it. Run for dear life from evil; hold on for dear life to good. Be good friends who love deeply; practice playing second fiddle.
11-13 Don't burn out; keep yourselves fueled and aflame. Be alert servants of the Master, cheerfully expectant. Don't quit in hard times; pray all the harder. Help needy Christians; be inventive in hospitality.
14-16 Bless your enemies; no cursing under your breath. Laugh with your happy friends when they're happy; share tears when they're down. Get along with each other; don't be stuck-up. Make friends with nobodies; don't be the great somebody.
There is a ton of meat in there. Most of it we probably already know, but could use a reminder to put it into practice. There are some do’s and don’ts and I think by doing some things, the others become easier. Loving people who are easy to love is simple. Paul challenges us to get real, stop faking and make the choice to love, even when we don’t feel like it. A lot of the time, love really is a choice. We can’t always feel love for everyone, but we can choose to show love sincerely, in our actions and words.
Just some things that stick out to me… “practice playing second fiddle” or 12th fiddle. Sometimes we have to lower ourselves from number one and sometimes other people put us there. I’m all about the underdog believing God will bless our humility. “Don’t burn out; keep yourselves fueled and aflame...” A tad obvious in order to not burn out we need to stay aflame, but I’ll let that one go and remind us to gas up. I am constantly reminding myself to not “quit in hard times” and I have a house full of empty beds and futons I hope is considered “inventive hospitality.” I promise I have the part down about “laugh with your happy friends when they’re happy” and “share tears when they’re down.” I am queen crier and am practicing becoming a pretty crier so it’s not so awkward. One of my favorites is, “don’t be the great somebody.” I feel like it is instinctive to want to be the best… especially as an athlete here at Methodist. Everyone wants to be somebody and our small campus size makes it feasible to be the great somebody here on campus, but it all circles back to the beginning of the passage to practice playing second fiddle.
One of the biggest difference makers in my life has been when I let go. I want to share a short news story with you… really a miracle.
Can you imagine? I’ve never been skydiving before so I couldn’t even begin to explain the rush a person feels through the free fall after jumping out of a plane. I have no idea what it feels like to be flying towards the ground with no parachute. I can’t at all imagine what Shirley and Dave went through pulling not one, but two parachute cords and just ending up with a tangled mess above them. I have a feeling I’d wet my pants for sure! The coolest part of this story is Dave maneuvering the control toggles in a way that allowed him to switch positions with Shirley. They were spiraling out of control, Dave took her place to break her fall and spared Shirley any permanent damage.
Did you catch the connection? How often do we feel like we’re spiraling out of control? Maybe so much so like Roger I mentioned in the beginning. So what do we do? We can scream and flail about asking why me God? Or we can lift up our feet and let Him switch positions so that when we hit bottom, He will take the brunt of the fall. God never promised we wouldn’t hit bottom, but will never leave us during the fall… He wants to cushion our landing.
I have a couple of challenges for you…
1. Seek out real relationships in your life. Sit and talk to someone about something that matters and facebook doesn’t count.
2. Know when to let go. If you’re feeling like your life is spiraling out of control, know when to let go and let God take the control toggles from you.
"May we love like you love and may our hearts stay broken for what breaks your's..."
