Give It All to God

I've probably written this on here a countless number of times, but I'll say it again, I am a worrier.  I stress myself out, and I get knots in my stomach over the smallest of things.  I've been a worry wart ever since I was a little kid, and I still remember times when my mom would tell me "Just give it all to God."

I worry over things that I can't control, and things that I can't change.  And I'll tell you, this time of year, I worry the most about the logistics for the mission trips that I've been attending with my youth group each year.  I worry about how the group dynamics will affect the trip, I worry about the drama that we'll carry there, start there, and bring back, I worry about who will be in my car and in my work group.  And it gets to a point where I'm just worrying in circles, but you know what?  I can't do anything about it.  Especially before the trip actually begins.

Last year was no different from any other year, and I had completely stressed myself out by the time we got to the trip.  As things played out on the very first day in Boston, I felt the knot in my stomach tighten and loosen multiple times.  And then, on Monday morning during devotions, I felt this overwhelming sense of peace come over me as I spoke to God.

"Lord, I have absolutely no idea what You're doing right now, and frankly, it scares me.  I don't like not knowing.  But what I do know is that You are all-knowing, and You have a plan for all of this.  So I'm just going to have to trust You.  I'm giving this worry to You.  Please, help me."

If I didn't just trust God, I would have let my worry and stress overwhelm me, and take over my trip.  My focus would have been on worrying, not on doing God's work.

I think that that happens a lot, that we let stress, or worry, or guilt, or sadness, or whatever emotion it is, take us over.  We can't do anything but wait and see how things turn out, but still, we frantically obsess. 

1 Peter 5:7 says "Give all your worries and cares to God, for He cares about you."

God is there to take it all from us.  We just need to be willing to give it to Him.  We need to throw up our hands, and say "God, I can't do this without You, and I don't want to.  I need you to take this from me, and I need you to guide me."  God knows what He's doing, and once we get rid of our worries and give them to Him, He's going to do amazing things in our lives.

Faith: We are Never Alone

For a while, things in my life have been going great, which makes me very happy, for obvious reasons, but it seems as though God hasn't been as close as He is during the tough times.  I've prayed, and I've read my Bible, but no matter what I did, I just couldn't find that calming reassurance that has pulled me out of the worst times in my life.  I began to get worried.  I couldn't let this separation happen, just because there aren't many challenges in my life at this moment.

I didn't want bad things to start happening, but I wanted to feel God again,  I didn't want this slow drift apart.  Then, today, Never Alone by Barlow Girl came on when I was listening to music.  At first thought, it seems like it's meant to help during the low points in our life, times when everything seems to be going wrong, when no matter what we do, we are constantly falling down.  Then I thought, no, I can connect to this, even though I've had very little to overcome recently.



It has always been fairly easy for me to have Faith in God, because there have been very few moments when I haven't felt Him, so this has been an extremely odd experience for me.  But, of course, God is still there, and that's what Faith is, isn't it?  Hebrews 11:1 says "Faith is confidence in what we hope for, and assurance in what we do not see."

I'm beginning to learn that having a strong Faith has very little to do with how we respond when we can feel God's presence, but how we respond when we cannot.  Deuteronomy 31:6 says "Be strong and courageous.  Do not be afraid or terrified because of them, for the Lord your God goes with you; He will never leave you nor forsake you."  God will never leave us alone.  Never.  Not when we're furious and screaming at Him, not when we've locked ourselves in our bedrooms crying, not when we're filled with nothing but joy.

Our Faith can be tested at any time, not just in our struggles, as I believed until just recently.  So even when it seems as though God has abandoned us, we must trust that He is still with us, still walking through life with us.  When we believe otherwise, we are believing lies.

Slowing Down From 60

"I'm in a hurry to get things done, oh I, rush and rush until life's no fun, all I really gotta do is live and die, but I'm in a hurry and don't know why."

Being sixteen has made me think a lot about when I was little, because when I was little I had a lot of thoughts and imaginings that began with "When I'm sixteen I'll..." And very few of those statements have been found true, thus far. So much of my life has been spent fantasizing about the future. I'll be married at age twenty five, the mother of two by age thirty, maybe three by thirty five. And don't even get me started on college, I just want to skip through those four unpredictable and unknown years.

So wait, hold on a second. Isn't sixteen years old a pretty big year? So why am I constantly thinking about the future, constantly wishing my life away? What's the point in doing anything, if you only think about what you'll be doing years from now? It's time to take a breather and think about what I can do now. Who I can help, what new things I can try, who I'll meet, what effect I'll have on people's lives, how I deal with responsibilities.

I have to slow down, maybe even stop, and learn to live in the moment. 'Cause it's like the song says, at the end of this all, we are all going to die. It's true. Each and every one of us is going to die, and my hope is that the majority of us will end up in Heaven and eternal life with our Creator. But what about this years that we're given on Earth? I know that I don't want to spend my entire life just waiting to die. I want to have an effect on people here and now, I want to do great things right at this moment. I don't want to wait until I'm older, wiser, and more experienced. I want to make an impact right now. I want to enjoy these years, not wish them away.

I don't know about you, but right now I'm traveling sixty miles per hour down the most beautiful dirt road you'll ever find, and I need to slow down to see everything that I'm missing.

Watching the Footprints

A friend and I were talking earlier tonight about tough times that each of us has been through in our lives. We didn't leave it at that, though, because that's not where the story ended. We each made it through everything thrown in our path, eventually, and we've each become better because of the trials.

Last year on Youth Sunday at Church I shared my story of what I refer to as "hell year", a shorter version of the story can be found in my post from April first, 2011 titled "Perfection". God brought me through everything, even when I spent hours screaming at Him, for what, I do not know. I fell apart last year, and it is only now that I look back on it in it's entirety, brokenness, healing, and all, that I realize how amazing God's grace is.

At the time, I thought it would never end. I thought that I would be stuck in that rut forever, but look at me now, I've made it through! Often times I hear the quote "If God brings you to it, He'll bring you through it" and though it's easy to believe in times of inner peace, it can appear questionable during times of turmoil. Perspective can be hard to gain. Now, if you know me, you probably know that I'm usually rather optimistic, often times irritatingly so, but there have still been times when all I wanted to do was throw my hands in the air and give up. Heck, there have been times when I actually have thrown my hands in the air and given up.

But that doesn't mean that God did. He was always right beside me, He still is always right there, even when I don't see it. And now, with around a years worth of hindsight I can see exactly where God was last year. I can see where He was working to get into my thick head, where I fought against Him, and where I gave in to Him. I can see that the single pair of footsteps in the sand belong not to me, but to God.