it has been one of those weeks.
one of those break-down-and-cry-at-the-most-inappropriate-times kind of weeks.
but the good part about these kinds of weeks is that there is a God who is crazy about me and knows what i need when i need it. the good part about these kinds of weeks is the learning. at least for me. in hard times, i soak up positive things like a sponge because i need them. i need to know that there's mercy. hope. room to grow and to change.
and that is where you come in--all you lovely ladies in blogland. :)
when i first started this blog, it was solely for the purpose of keeping in touch with my family after i moved 400 miles away. they still long to be a part of my life and i long to share my life with them. so there you go. blogging = problem solved.
what i never counted on was meeting people. making friends across the state, across the country and across the ocean. i never counted on learning and being inspired by so many different types of people from different walks of life with different stories.
it's a beautiful thing. i love how it brings so many things into perspective--that my world is not as small as i feel it is sometimes. that there are people who think about and long for the same things i do. that everyone that comes into your life touches you in some way and that you do the same to them.
and this week, my heart was touched in more than one way because i stepped into blogland. and because of you i have learned. because of you i am blessed.
this week:
i learned that i am an artist.
i am an artist because i see beauty in everything. i am an artist because i choose the moments in life that i want to take inspiration from and i pull them in and soak in them and in turn, they overflow into other areas of my life. and out of that, i make art of my own. whether that is dabbling in writing or knitting or clinking the keys on my keyboard.
i grieved my plans.
i embraced the fact that life does not always (if ever!) go the way you plan. that is a hard one for me. at the age of almost-23, i thought i would be sompelace different. i planned to be living back east. to have finished school. to be a missionary in some untouched place across the world. i planned to be married (or at least seriously dating) a church-going/missionary/truck-driving/southern-accent-having man.
but here i am in southern california. working at a tax firm with a couple years of school to go. driving a nice car on paved roads from the chilled office where i work to my rented room in suburbia. and this weekend i will hold tight to the hand of the man that i love: a quarter-Greek, quarter-Irish, half-Mexican Marine with church wounds who doesn't have a southern accent, but rather, a los angeles mexican accent that slips out once in awhile {which also happens to be extremely cute, i might add}.
none of these things were in my plans. when i open the book of how i imagined my life would go, none of that stuff is written in there. but i'm not called to be anywhere else; i'm called to be here. i don't know why. and it hurts a little bit. but yesterday, when i poured my heart out to my best friend over the phone, these words came out of my mouth:
i'll bet that Moses never planned standing before the king of the greatest nation on earth, demanding something in the name of God.
ain't that the truth. i would almost guarantee that nothing that happened in Moses' lifetime was written in his "Book of Plans." BUT. it was in God's book before the beginning of time.
my life is also in that book. so, i have to learn to trust the process.
i learned that i cannot change the world, but i can change my world.
another hard one for me. ever since i was a little girl, i have wanted to change the world. literally. {ambitious of me, is it not? ;)}
i imagined that i would be in africa one year and india the next. i would paddle down the amazon and build relationships with tribal people. the bottom of my toes would grace every canyon, mountain, desert, jungle of this earth along with the love of Jesus. that would be my life and i would be fulfilled in it.
once again, those plans haven't worked out. and i'm not saying they never will. i dream of those things daily. hourly.
but the reality is, even if those plans did work out...will i change the world? probably not. and once again, the reality of that hurts. my heart for Jesus beats beyond even my understanding {imagine the Grinch when his heart grows 3 sizes?--that's how it feels sometimes ;)} and i know God sees that.
but instead of trusting, i get frustrated and i worry. "i'm not in the right place, God. i'm not with the right people. i'm not impacting the people i'm supposed to be impacting, God. what is wrong? what am i doing wrong?"
and of course, He comes up alongside me and gently corrects me and assures me that the people i am impacting are already in my life. they always have been and they always will be. none of my life in this moment--or any moment, for that matter--is a mistake. but my human mind--even more, my human desires--can only reach so far. i want to be "needed" somewhere else.
thank God for my mom. she always brings me back to earth. something she said to me the other night was "God does not need you."
wow, thanks for that, Mom!
ha, just kidding. i know she's right and i needed to hear it. i have this idea in my head that i am somehow useful or even more, necessary, to God. it's not even that i walk around thinking that i'm necessary, but more in the mindset that i WANT to be necessary. i want to be one of the called in this time. i see myself as that kid in class, the one who has their hand up the entire day, just waiting, longing to be called on. pick me, God, oh pleeeeaaase, pick me. i want to be Yours and Yours alone.
and what He reminded me of this week was that He did pick me--just maybe not for the project i raised my hand for. but still, HE PICKED ME! and so the task He has assigned me is just as important.
"your beginnings will seem humble, so prosperous will your future be." {job 8:7}
the quote at the beginning of this blog is from a movie that i love, "remember me." if you haven't seen it, i am absolutely about to ruin the ending, so look away if you don't want the spoiler!
i'm big on thinker movies. life movies. movies that make you feel every array of human emotion and don't necessarily end well, but make you think about things that you wouldn't normally choose to think about. and this was one of those movies.
in the movie, you meet tyler. he has a good heart and he always tries to do the right thing. he doesn't always succeed, but still, he tries. you see him struggle and work at relationships with his dad, best friend, girlfriend, little sister.
as i watched the movie, i was intrigued, but i didn't really get the point. he is living his life and you watch him go through all these big and small moments and how he loves each of the people in his life.
but when the end came, i understood what the quote at the beginning was talking about.
through him, his dad has finally started to repair his relationship with his daughter, tyler's little sister. he drops her off at school and starts to head back to his work office, where you see tyler inside waiting. and you see tyler's little sister in her classroom, getting ready to start the day.
and then her teacher writes the date on the blackboard: september 11, 2001.
and you know.
the camera focuses on tyler, who is staring out of his dad's office window, and pans out of the office...out of the building...out into the city...
you don't see anything. nothing happens, except that the camera just keeps panning out of one of the two Twin Towers until the screen goes black.
of course, i sobbed and sobbed, my heart overwhelmed because i understood. the faces of all the people he would leave behind flashed through my mind. tyler would leave not even a pinprick of a hole to the rest of the world, but a heart-sized hole, a life-sized hole, in the very few lives of the people he had touched and loved on and changed. life won't be quite right anymore; something will always be missing without him.
that quote from the movie pops into my mind often and i am sure is a reason for that.
like i said above, i cannot change the world, but i can change the world God has put me in. and that is more than enough.
"let no one ever come to you without leaving better than they came."
--mother teresa
lastly, i learned a little bit more about my story. recently, i have felt the same way as tyler's quote: whatever i do in life will be insignificant. but somehow, in the midst of this week between the blogs i read and the reminders from the Holy Spirit, i was reminded that my story has never before been written. in alllll the history of the world, there has been no other charla with my genes, traits, personality, relationships, loves. and once my soul is gone from this earth, none of those things will ever be repeated. ever. so i must learn to embrace every part of this life--each day and hour and moment. for as soon as they are here, they will be gone again and time will tick on, marking the countdown for the end of the story.
the difference is, when the countdown is over, will i be ready for it? or will i still be waiting for something that never came because i was too busy looking at the "big picture" and missing out on all the small moments that are what make the big picture? that is, the big picture that i believe i am painting, but in reality, am being painted in.
what i need to do is let go and to simply be painted. i need to stop spinning circles about the canvas and instead wait patiently for the gentle stroke of His brush.
so i will wait. i will find peace in being painted and re-painted again and again and again until the painting is complete, when God will wipe His hands on His big God painters smock and say, "it is Good." and while i will not see the big picture, i will feel the love, hope and peace in each gentle stroke as He makes me and remakes me again.
i must learn to let go.
because if i do...
i will more than an artist, but rather, a work of art.
i will not grieve over lost plans because i will be part of the plan.
i may not be able to change the world, but i will be a change in the world by allowing Him to change me.
---
"I don’t want to wait anymore.
I choose to believe that there is nothing more sacred or profound than this day.
I choose to believe that there may be a thousand big moments embedded in this day,
waiting to be discovered
like tiny shards of gold."
--shaun niequist
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as i stated at the beginning of this post, there were quite a few people in blogland who inspired so much of what i learned this week. below are three of my favorite posts. if you get a chance, please read them. i hope you will be as blessed by them as i have.
{the quotes beka photographed from "cold tangerines" are what got me. uh-mazing.}
"...for I know the plans I have for you," declares the LORD, "plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future." {jer 29:11}
i find it interesting how the context of a verse can change, depending on the situation we are in. and for where i am right now, the key phrase of that verse is "the plans i have for you." it is not "the plans you have for yourself." ha, just reading that made me laugh out loud. oh, if only we could have all the things we wanted when we wanted them. how screwed up would our lives really be if God gave us everything we wanted when we wanted it! i look on my past and see the things He saved me from by NOT giving me what i wanted, but rather what i needed. and sometimes getting what i needed broke my heart. but i see now that those times protected me and gave me more of a future than i would've had if God had allowed me to follow the path i thought was best for me.
so, at the end of the day, if i am following the footsteps of the Mighty Creator, i can be sure that EVERYTHING is going according to plan.
"Gandhi said that whatever you do in life will be insignificant. But it's very important that you do it.
I tend to agree with the first part."
--tyler from remember me
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