:-D

I know I exaggerate a lot. I get excited about things and people and ideas, and they suddenly become the best or the most wonderful or the end all and be all of the human experience. I will make no apologies tonight, though I am considering it in the future. For now, I'm just going to do it again.

I heard my former youth pastor give THE BEST sermon I've ever heard him give a few months ago. This comes from almost seven years of sitting under his ministry, and he's a good preacher. I remembered it today, and I want to share it with you. The main idea--God often describes people in the Bible in one sentence or a few short verses. David, Abraham, Jabez, everybody in Hebrews 11...

God rarely sees in us what we do. He knows us, from the beginning of time to the end of eternity, and doesn't judge with our standards. If God were to sum me up in one sentence, I'm not always sure that I would like it. But I do know what I want Him to say:

THAT woman makes me smile!

Maybe it's because I consider joy to be of great value. Because when I found it, my life changed. Because I know how much of an impact it makes on just about everyone. If the entirety of my life, from God's perspective, became a source of joy for him...if my words and the meditations of my heart are pleasing...if my character and integrity made him proud...if my life reflected such purity that my offerings were sweet...if something about my heart so touched his that the only response was a smile...

Jesus, let me live my life that way. Help me wholeheartedly pursue your satisfaction with me. I miss it so many times, but I believe that the measure of my character in your eyes is in how quickly I get back up and how good I am at walking around that same hole next time I come to it. Help me live so close to your heart that I know when I'm breaking it and when thoughts of me make you smile.

not hoping for the future, but hoping in spite of the past.

This is such a fantastic post to follow the previous. God balances me sometimes.

I know we are broken people, in a broken world, with all kinds of scars and baggage following all of us. But there are days when I would just rather forget mine and pretend that I don't know so much about everybody else's. I want to pretend that we're all just so "blessed with the joy of Jesus" and that nobody has to glue a smile over all the memories of where they came from.

It never ceases to amaze me how degraded and...well...human we are. I forget that the people I laugh with have cried, that those I wrap my arms around have been hit by someone else's, that confidence can be a way to escape the knowledge that they actually hate themselves for their mistakes. The truth is, I know so little about so many people. I know who they are and who they've been since I've met them (a little of it at least). I know what they tell me. People know of me what I tell them too. I don't know how God deals with all the pain we feel ourselves and cause Him as well. Everybody has a story. And we've all wanted to rip pages out.

I will never look down on you because of your history, because I am far from perfect and put together. I will never not want to know your story, because I've met a healer beyond my greatest comprehension and I'd love to introduce him to you. He has rescued me from myself, cried with me, loved me, freed me, and has ever since been restoring my life to me in ways you could never imagine.

Well, actually... maybe you could. We're just not that different.

hope

Sometimes we Christians use a lot of words that we just vaguely understand the meanings of. Powerful, life-changing words that get overused and watered down. I think I finally got to understand one of them this week.

HOPE.

There's something so different about the lives of people who have actually surrendered them. The more people I talk to who are heading into major transitions in their lives, the more I notice the difference. The overwhelming Jesus-following answer to the question of "what are you going to do now" is, "I don't have any idea, but I'm so excited!"

I have absolutely no idea where my life is going. I don't know where I'll be going when I graduate or where I want to work or when I want to have kids or what degrees I'll be getting or what friends I'll have living close to me. I just don't know. What I do know is this: I've never been this excited or had this much peace about anything in my life.

God wants to give his kids big dreams. He can come up with more than even the craziest things I can imagine. It will probably be way out of my comfort zone, and way past what I would have picked for myself. I can't guarantee I'll be happy all the time, or that I will always know why. But there is this underlying hope inside of all of it that makes me know that it is going to work out. Not knowing becomes exciting instead of frightening. I can dream big and not worry about reality getting in the way. I can take chances and not worry that I'll come crashing down with nobody to be there.

Hope, then, is not a comforting excuse for complacency. It is a safety net that gets better the higher you climb. The more you have to lose, the more God can do with you. My hope is built on the only eternal thing, and everything else could and will fail me before I'm through. So I'm confident in that one thing, knowing that even my biggest failures won't matter in 100 years. I'm planning to set myself up for some of the best failures or successes because if I'm going to have them, why not get something great out of them?

Run farther, think crazier, listen more, fall harder, be passionate, follow through, worry less, trust more, forget the comfort zone, just have this insane hope that your future is only limited by the one who created it and HE usually stays just a tad bit outside your box.

anyway

"People are often unreasonable, illogical and self-centered...
Forgive them anyway.
If you are kind, people may accuse you of selfish, ulterior motives...
Be kind anyway.
If you are successful, you will win some false friends and some true enemies...
Succeed anyway.
If you are honest and frank, people may cheat you...
Be honest and frank anyway.
What you spend years building, someone could destroy overnight...
Build anyway.
If you find serenity and happiness, they may be jealous...
Be happy anyway.
The good you do today, people will often forget tomorrow...
Do good anyway.
Give the world the best you have, and it may never be enough...
Give the world the best you've got anyway.

You see, in the final analysis, it is between you and God; IT WAS NEVER BETWEEN YOU AND THEM ANYWAY."

for those who raised me...

There have been many times in my life when I've thought, "I never want to be like my parents." I've gotten frustrated, hurt, or angry at some points (whether I had a right to or not). Now I'm not so sure I feel that way any more. I'm almost positive that I don't.

No, I don't want to BE my parents. I have different expectations for myself and for my life than they do/did for theirs. My environments and experiences have given me the opportunity to dream differently (maybe not really bigger in every sense, but very very differently). I don't want to make the same choices in certain situations or follow their paths exactly. But I wouldn't mind at all being like them.

I want to work hard for what I have. To be dedicated and stable. To have common sense, not just intelligence. I want to raise a daughter (or son) who wants to call me to tell me about her life, even when she's in college. Who appreciates me. Who doesn't have it all together, but who does at least have most of her major priorities straight. I want to raise kids I can trust. To treat them with all the love and support that MY parents have treated me with.

I am who I am because I have overwhelmingly loving parents. They've overcome a lot to be the great parents they are. They make mistakes, but they apologize and we move on. They let me make mistakes and love me when I make them. They let me know all the time how proud they are of me and THAT makes me want to make them proud. They don't always understand me, but they do trust me and show me that they do. I've been infused with so much more love than I deserve. I want to be a person like that.

If you two are reading this, THANK YOU. Thank you for everything. I know you're not perfect, but you have done a great job in my eyes...

and I LOVE YOU more than life.

work

I think I'm getting too restless.

I want to get out of here, go do something I've never done, go create something, experience life in the beauty of relaxation, work on something that is a heck of a lot more valuable to SOMEBODY than studying thermophysics.

I'm getting lazy, and I want to stop working. That's my problem! I love Clemson, I love learning (as nerdy as that is), and I love my life. I just don't want to do school work any more.

Sometimes I wonder why I have to find time to work so hard on so many things, and then expect to be excited about working on my relationships. With my roommates, with my friends, with people I have yet to meet, with my family, and even (hopefully most importantly) with Jesus. Some come easily, some don't. It's really hard for me to get excited about having to put so much effort into them when I put so much effort into everything else too. Why do I look at it like that?

God forgive me for putting you in my "work" category and forgetting that it is such a joy to be able to pursue the heart of the one who loves me in ways I cannot even imagine. I love you, but never do I even come close to loving you enough. Show me how to overcome that, and remind me that seeking your heart above everything else and showing the love I find there to others is the most important "work" I'll ever do.

the only time I disagree with enthusiasm...

I want to be a person who cares about who you are.

You aren't a handshake or a fake smile to me. You aren't just another person who knows my name and thinks it's really awesome that I took the time to pretend to remember you. I don't CARE if 1000 people know my face, I care if 10 people know I love them. God forgive me if I ever, even once, fake a relationship with you in the name of "spreading the joy of Jesus," because I'm absolutely certain that you won't ever want Jesus to love you like that. If I give the impression that the church is about how many bodies can we get to hear our message, I'm sorry.

The church I want to be is one that cares about how many hearts are moved by a LIVING gospel that starts the minute I make eye contact with you and continues through a presentation of the truth of scripture. God has put a number on every hair on your head, and knows which one is which. The least I can do, if I'm claiming to love you in His name, is reflect a genuine concern for the person you are and are becoming. I'm not going to lie and say that I can create that with everyone I meet. I'm not going to pretend that it's possible for me to personally show that kind of personal love to hundreds of people either. But maybe I am saying that I would rather interact with FEWER people BETTER. It isn't that I care any less about the others...but I do care about those few enough to slice my time a little thicker and invest a little more so they KNOW how much they are loved.