Merry Christmas

So tonight is Christmas Eve. Tonight of all nights, when I should be snuggled into bed, saying my prayers and shutting off the light to sleep...I'm not tired at all, and quite frankly..I know why. God, You are a mystery to me...and it's ironic how tonight of all nights, that is running through my head. I think I'm starting to understand what it means to pursue You. You spent so many years in my past, always with one hand on my shoulder, pulling me back from pitfall after pitfall, picking me up off the ground, dusting me off, and sending me onward. And here I am now, and I feel like finally, I am at Your feet. In awe. Not only at the wonder that is Your glory and mercy and beauty...but what is Your mystery. I crave knowing You more intimately now. How awesome is it for me to be able to admit that freely. You KNOW that two years ago, I would have stabbed myself with a fork before admitting that I craved to know You more...as a top priority to anything else in my life. And now, I really don't want anything more. That is truly eye opening to me...

In my past, I put all my relationships before my relationship with You. Boyfriends, friends, peers, teachers, everyone...and You still pursued me. With every sunset, every sunrise, every door and opportunity that opened in my life, every time I was given the chance to see my grandmother one last time, You were pursuing me. You were trying to romance me. And I basically shut the door in Your face every time, because I craved the attention of humans more than of my Creator. I am ashamed to admit that, but it was true, and You know that.

I am in a relationship now, with a guy that I really don't deserve. He is absolutely amazing, and when I look at him, talk to him, see his actions towards others, it literally screams GOD. I have been praying for that for a long time...years. Thank you. Really...thank you. Ethan is a huge blessing in my life, and You have opened up my heart to him in ways that I didn't think were ever going to be possible again due to my past. I am terrified of falling in love again...but through every single step of that, You've been by my side, reassuring me it's ok in ways that I can't even describe yet. I haven't felt like this before.

I still can't wrap my head around everything. There are a few things that I will not write in this blog, because they are simply too intimate and personal for me to say. I am floored constantly by Jesus Christ and I am learning new things about my relationship with my God every single morning I wake up. Never in my life have I been able to say that I have been able to put a relationship with a guy BEHIND my relationship with Christ. As embarrassing as that might be, I am a selfish person when it comes to love..it is so much more easy for me to love others than to accept love from them. And all this time, the real thing I was struggling with, was accepting love from my Creator..the love I REALLY don't deserve, but am showered with anyways. That is humbling.

As far as my relationship with Ethan goes...although this is the first time that I can assuredly say that my relationship with a guy comes second to my relationship with God, that fact makes my relationship with Ethan that much more real, awesome, and important to me. The triangle analogy is true I've discovered...in healthy, solid, Christ-centered relationship -the closer the couple gets to God, the closer they get to each other. I really can't explain how I feel. I'm a jumbled up hot mess right now...but I can tell You one thing...I am blessed beyond belief this Christmas, in so many ways. And I am very excited for what lies ahead of me.

Merry Christmas.

Unconditional

We just drove up from downstate to Petoskey, after spending a nice, long weekend with my grandparents. I really cannot describe how awesome is was to see my grandfather and be able to spend so much time with my grandmother, who is suffering from Alzheimer's in a nursing facility. It's always difficult to see my grandmother after being away at school for months and coming home again. As her disease progresses, we're literally watching her fade away, mentally and emotionally. I understand though, as difficult as it is for me to watch her eyes darken each time I see her, I can only begin to understand how my grandfather and mother feel watching their wife and mother disappear. As devastating as Alzheimer's is, and as upsetting as it is knowing that my grandmother will pass away soon, it is very comforting to know that soon she will be with the Lord. It is so inspiring to see the love my grandfather has for my grandma. IT's a love that truly demonstrates the hands and feet of Jesus Christ. Unconditional love, absolute, never changing, never fading. TRUE love. They just celebrated their 63rd wedding anniversary and I truly think their love has only grown stronger.

Selfishly, I only pray that the man I marry someday will love me that much, and I him. Is it selfish to think that? It's so amazing to see unconditional love, between my grandparents, between my parents, and just all around me. It reminds me that if we as humans have the capacity to love others with every ounce of our being, how truly HUGE the Father loves us. MIND BOGGLING. So as sad as it is knowing that my grandmother will pass away soon, it's both comforting and beautiful to know that she will be with the Lord soon.

Throughout this 7-year process of watching the disease progress, I've grown tremendously closer to God and my family. It's really shown me how to love others and be the hands and feet of Jesus. Unconditional love, although not perfect (for humans), is so evident in my family and I am so grateful for that. It is rewarding to think about the unconditional love Christ had for us when He sent His only Son to die for our sins on the cross. We didn't deserve that, and we may not deserve the love others give to us, but living like Christ is a challenge...so this Christmas, let's do that...

What's love got to do with it?

I doubt I'll be sleeping very soundly tonight. Tonight..like almost every night, I get my mind blown by the same thought. What is love? Is love how I see my parents treat each other? Is love what I see in my Grandfather's eyes when he sees my Grandmother in the nursing home? Is love what I feel for someone that I would hate losing? Is love even generic? I wish I knew sometimes...I wish I could map out my future, every day, every step, and just know what was going to happen, because so much of how I live my life revolves around how much I love people. So itt would make this LIFE thing a whole lot easier if I knew, right?...

A weird thing happens when you open the Bible looking for the definition of love. You know why? It's because you don't get one clear definition, you get countless (hundreds) of verses defining every aspect of love and even better, you get parables to illustrate some of them. Just a few I can think of from the top of my head:

Proverbs 17:17
A friend loves at all times, and a brother is born for adversity.

Song of Solomon 8:6
Place me like a seal over your heart, like a seal on your arm; for love is as strong as death, its jealousy unyielding as the grave. It burns like blazing fire, like a mighty flame

John 15:13
Greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends.

1 Corinthians 13:4–8
Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. Love never fails ...

Ephesians 5:25
Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her.

So what does all of this mean? I think the answer really isn't supposed to be generic. I think the origin OF love comes from the Father. Let's be honest...if we were to walk in the shoes of Christ, wouldn't it be the pinnacle of love? Jesus Christ is the total embodiment OF love. Living like Christ, sacrificing, humbling ourselves in His shadow and grace...and remembering that all He asked in return for his death on the cross was our repentance and faith...I doubt LOVE needs more definition than the ultimate sacrifice. God's only Son...

Boom. Write that down Webster.

I'm heading home after a long, but good semester. Remember the girl who wrote in her prayer journal in August? Yeah...she's still a work in progress..it's funny how the last night of the semester, I find my old blog and my journal. Seems to me, that now I have two more outlets of expression at my disposal, and I'm ok with that.

I realized in the last 24 hours how much work I have to do on myself. I am so far from the woman that I believe God wants me to be. I'm closer than I was a year ago, or even 6 months ago, but still...I have quite a long way to go. And I'm ok with that, because I have help from God to realize my true potential for Him. Not me. It's never about me...o we'll see how this goes. Already this semester, I've come a long way, but I can't wait to see what happens...

Reminders are nice sometimes...

I'm a work in progress..

The beginning of an end...

As the last day of my semester comes to a close, I can't help but start to get excited about the Christmas festivities that wait for me when I drive home tomorrow. Seeing family and friends, having over 3 weeks away from classes, drama, and stress, and just being lazy- you can't get much better than that. I couldn't be more excited to drive with my family up to the condo in Michigan and get snowed in, with 5 feet of snow blocking our driveway and a frozen Lake Michigan sunset every night. Then the thought hits me..."sunset every night"...interesting that this thought should pop into my head. Ironic that the one place in the country that my parents and grandparents should decide to buy a condo for the whole family to enjoy...would be one of the best places to see a sunset...as much in the winter time as in the summer time, and even more ironic that I should randomly think about sunsets. But the more I thought about it, the more sense it made to me..that I should be thinking about sunsets the last night of the semester of my junior year at IU.

God invented sunsets. More specifically..God invented everything, but in this case, sunsets are the topic at hand. Each day rolls to a close, and God made sunsets to put a seal on whatever that day held in our lives. Whether we experienced happiness, grief, stress, or peace, the day ends with this seal, we take a period of rest, and start the cycle again anew. fresh. untainted. pure.

Yet...I have to pause and think. Yes, each day ends with a sunset, but just like that...each morning begins with a sunrise. A SUNRISE. The very first sunrise that I can remember happened to be in the wintertime. I was about 6 years old and was allowed to wake up with my father and older brothers and go "ice climbing", which involved my brothers and father going out on the frozen tundra of Lake Michigan and climbing up and down and around the makeshift ice formations that the wind and cold had formed on the lake's surface. It was a big moment in my 6 year old existence, but what I remembered the most wasn't the excitement of climbing those 15ft ice mounds. It was what I woke up to, outside my window. I had never seen anything in my life. I had been awake for the sunsets all before..seeing the reds and oranges and yellows..but I had never seen this..

In a wholly different direction in the sky were so many colors I had never seen before in the sky...purple, blue mixed with orange, red, navy. It was just as glorious as a sunset, if not more so because in this cold, frozen existence, I saw God for the very first time that I could ever remember.

So why tonight..of all nights should I remember this? I'm not sure. I cannot begin to fathom what God has in store for me this next semester, but I know that His will reigns supreme. The first thing that I plan to do when we arrive in Michigan is to wake up that very next day at the break of dawn, and experience that again. I came face to face with God. And it was beautiful. Talk about initiative to live a life glorifying Him.

Check it out sometime.