Never Forget the New Song

"I waited patiently for the Lord; and He inclined to me, and heard my cry. He brought me up out of the pit of destruction, out of the miry clay; and He set my feet upon a rock making my footsteps firm. And He put a new song in my mouth, a song of praise to our God; many will see and fear, and I will trust in the Lord." -Psalm 40:1-3

To this day, I am still reminded that, by nature, I was an extremely happy child. However, when I was ten years old things started to get rough for my family. The worse things got, the more I held onto Jesus for dear life. The song “Hanging On” by Everyday Sunday soon became my anthem for getting by. 

We all have seeds of different emotions; we go through and feel each one from time to time. My seed of anger was so miniscule because of my strong inclination to be happy. My happy seed must have been enormous! And yet, as the years passed, and despite my determination to hold onto and follow Christ, my seed of anger was watered and I steadily became a very, very angry person. I did not experience the emotion of anger every moment of every day, but at my core I became a seether over many things. Most would have never known; I hid it well. Since I wasn’t naturally this way it took a few years to provoke this emotion out of me to such a large extent and it slowly made its way to the surface so that I could whip out fury at the snap of a finger in order to protect myself. A defense mechanism, I suppose.

Yes, I was angry. I was angry at my family, friends who rejected me, boys and occasionally God. I did not resort to everything under the sun to ease the pain. I really did try to give things to the Lord on a regular basis. However, I was still young and I did not behave perfectly by any means. I still made mistakes and I allowed my anger to get the best of me on countless occasions. Behavior of acting out that I am now ashamed of, although I don’t know that I would have done things differently with the way things were, being in the place I was at the time. And this anger, accompanied by some vividly foolish behavior, followed me well into college.

I look back now at who I was then, how I was. I can hardly believe that the girl I remember was really me. But then, I know that if I had looked forward in time to who I am now…I would not have been able to believe that either. I could not have imagined living in peace with my family. (I remember wondering how I was ever going to make it to my eighteenth birthday before moving out of my house.) I could not have fathomed living without the pain I felt everyday. And I could not have believed that I would ever know what it was like to live again without such anger. Living life according to my hurt.

The old blog from my freshmen year of college, which I included in my previous blog entry, was a milestone in my walk with God. I don’t think I had ever felt joy like that even when I was a child. I think that’s when the change really began in me, although the anger certainly did not go away overnight. It had been nurtured for too long and, therefore, had to be weeded and excavated out of me.

I have a label for each of my college years. Freshmen year was the most difficult year spiritually. Sophomore year was the most difficult year emotionally. Junior year was the most healing year for me. (Senior year was the biggest year for direction and self-discovery.) Over the course of junior year, it seems the majority of that underlying anger evaporated. By the year’s closing, I made final peace with my older brother who I hadn’t spoken with in almost a year. (This was not the first time we had gone so long without speaking. A few times we had gone longer.)

The Lord has done such an amazing work in me that I can literally mean it when I say that I am a different person. I am not who I was.

But here is the punch line…over the last year, the passion I found three and a half years ago, through my revelation, has waned. I have gotten to the point where I can talk about God, then come home at the end of the day and realize that I really have forgotten all about Him. I haven’t taken the time to consistently be in His Word, or even talk with Him, listen to Him and enjoy His presence. It’s been so off and on that it has lacked the depth I could have been experiencing with Him. I have gotten caught up with my days and become too lazy to devote my time to getting closer with Him one-on-one. I would feel guilty for neglecting Him and, therefore, neglect Him some more, doing the same thing over and over again without ever changing.

This last week, however, I have been getting this feeling…I’m just getting so tired of doing the same things. Living for myself. Reverting to bad attitudes. Repeating the same music over and over, the kind that only gets me down and takes my focus away from God. It’s true that whatever you put into your head goes down into your heart and comes out through your actions. I have gotten past the point of innocently listening to certain kinds of music. I got so addicted to drowning selfish and unhopeful music into my brain to the point where my uplifting music was not even appealing anymore. And that is saying a lot!

In addition, I have been thinking about my past self a lot lately and it really just hit me the other night. I remembered a story from the book Every Young Woman’s Battle. A woman had a dream that she was at her wedding reception. She went around the entire room seeing her friends and family, enjoying it all by herself. But then she realized, “Oh wait, where’s the groom?” She looked over and saw him standing in the corner in tears, looking down at the wedding ring on his finger. Forgotten. She had forgotten him. It was then that she realized that this is what she had done to God. He is our beloved whom we have forgotten.

The combination of growing weary from my empty behavior, remembering the change that God has made in my life, and thinking of this metaphorical dream…I was feeling troubled and I began looking for some verses to console me. But what I found instead were the verses above. Right then, the Lord really grabbed hold of my heart. I felt so ashamed. How could I have forgotten my God? How could I have neglected Him who has done so much for me? If I had not held onto Him as much as I did growing up, how much more angry would I have been or still be? How much more destructive would my behavior have been? Without Him the healing I know now would not have come. I would not be who I am today. The anger would not have decreased.

Today, it is so difficult for me to get angry anymore. It is not just waiting below the surface, waiting to snap up at any moment in self-defense. I feel how it has gone back down and shrunk, much closer to the way it used to be.

But how could I have lost my passion when I have this miracle to remember every day? I guess that brings me back to my problem of being too visual. I often forget what I do not see. I cannot see Him physically, but I can see the changes He has made in my life and remember them. I know that God wants all of me. Not bits and pieces, but my whole heart.

Please Lord, take all of my heart and don’t give it back. Help me to give You all of me everyday. Every moment of my life. Please don’t ever let me forget Your love or take You for granted. Guide my life in the way that will bring You the most glory. You deserve no less from me. Forgive me for my neglect of You, for my selfishness and misuse of the time You have given me. Make me faithful and continually deepen my gratitude for all Your blessings. Draw me close to You.

I know this is rather long and maybe tedious to read, but I hope and pray that we will not be satisfied with taking our God for granted. Who really wants to settle for a peanut butter and jelly sandwich when we have been invited to a tremendous feast with our King?

Flashback to My Freshmen Revelation

The below text is a blog that I wrote in February of my freshmen year of college, when I was nineteen. I called it "My Revelation." I have grown up putting my faith in Christ; I made the decision to follow Him when I was six. In all my years as a child, I was so passionate about my love for Him, sharing Him with others. When I got older, I still loved Him, but that passion had dulled drastically. This flashback is Part One of a two part blog. Part Two, which I will post sometime within the next few days, will be a response to Part One, concerning where I am with this today (not really about the guy aspect included but my relationship with Christ) and how the things God is currently showing me ties into this lesson that I learned three and a half years ago. I have removed only a few details here and there since this blog page is more private than the one I originally posted this blog in. Here it is:

"…that through death He might render powerless him who had the power of death, that is, the devil, and might free those who through fear of death were subject to slavery all their lives. For assuredly He does not give help to angels, but He gives help to the descendant of Abraham. Therefore, He had to be made like His brethren in all things, so that He might become a merciful and faithful high priest in things pertaining to God, to make propitiation for the sins of the people. For since He Himself was tempted, in that which He has suffered, He is able to come to the aid of those who are tempted."-Hebrews 2:14b-18

On Friday I went to the beach by myself. I've been meaning to for a few weeks now. I needed to get far away and talk with God alone. Growing up as a Christian, I've been so ingrained with the concepts of God, that it is a lifestyle I don't think I could really change about myself even if I tried. But something has been missing from my walk with God that I have not been able to identify until that day on the beach. God spoke to me in my head. He said I needed to be personal with Him. The word that stuck out to me was "personal". I came to find yesterday that I am a Christian. I have a relationship with God, but like my mom has told me, it's been a business relationship. I know the concepts and believe the same things as God and I've "worked with Him" in pursuing the same goals. I have always been "for His mission statement" and wanted to be in love with Him beyond anything else in my life. But I haven't.

I wondered what was wrong with me because I haven't had the passion I've seen in others. The passion where I just can't contain my love for Jesus and can't help but share His Word and His love. Only when I was a child, but things in my growing up years have made that passion die down. I've had spiritual highs and I've ached and desired to have that emotional attachment to God. I did everything I knew that Christians were to do in such a situation so I could have that kind of relationship with God. But I never got it. I even got to the point this past summer where I started to question my salvation. If I didn't have the passion for God you're supposed to have, then how could I really be a true follower, right? 

For a while after my summer confusion, I put this all aside, lived in denial, went off to school and got into possibly the worst spot spiritually and emotionally I have ever been in. Relationships I once had to keep me up were gone. Right from the beginning of school, I tried to make a random relationship be the solution to my problem and it failed miserably. I saw an ugly side to men and human nature in general, driving me away from any desire for a guy/girl relationship. In the few months since, I have been coping and dealing with some new wounds that were ultimately inflicted by me. Finally, I made that trip to the beach and I asked God what I needed to do to have that kind of relationship with Him. He told me I needed to change my business relationship with Him into a personal relationship. I was surprised at how promptly and clearly God answered me when I asked Him. And I asked another question. "How in the world am I supposed to do that?" I now knew the "what" but not the "how."

This brings me to yesterday when I read the verses quoted above. I've heard and read such things before, but it never clicked with me until yesterday, after all the experience I had been chewing on. God used the devils own specialty against him…death. Through death He saved us and rode in on the horse as our hero. He's already won, just because of that! He freed me from the things I ultimately feared and had hanging over my head. He went through such great lengths…for me! No human guy could or would do that! The most a human could do to show their love is to "lay [their] life down for [their] friends." But Jesus did more than what any human being could do to save me out of His melting love for me, and He didn't even have to! He could have done the bare minimum to save us or not at all but He went all out! That's more of a hero and love than I could find in any guy. How could I not be crazy about someone like that? Who sacrificed that much and went through that much trouble for me? And because of everything He did, He can relate to me and my temptations and fully understand me. He is my prince, the One I've been looking for all along. I just never really got it that way before.

I think I was just so blind that I needed to see the dirtiness of man next to the holy, ga-ga, love of God has for me. I needed to be scared away from guys so I could wake up, smell the coffee and see just how great God is. He loves me more than any human could and He is now what I want more than anything. No guy is the solution to my life's problems. That's not fair to him anyway; that's a lot of pressure for a guy. I've found the filling for my hole that I knew was the filler all along but never desired it the way I needed to. I was putting boys on a pedestal for ultimate happiness in life for so long. I knew God should be my number one, but deep down, guys were above Him in my head. I'm a very visual person; I can physically see guys and that was easier for me to put my faith in.

But this whole experience was a mind-blowing, spiritual-clicking revelation for me. I will find my ultimate satisfaction in God. If He wants me to be with a guy someday, I'll leave it to Him to bring him along. He knows what's right for me and what I need. And it will be so that we can both be stronger in God and bring glory to Him better as a couple and because He wants to bless me with someone wonderful.

Jesus will be my best friend no matter where I go in life. He will be my romance, my Divine Romance. If I were to dance with Him, He would be the most kind and polite partner if I stepped on His toes. He's my mighty knight in shining armor. He's the gentle giver of white roses to me to remind me of my purity in Him and His love for one who was once dirty with sin. Through Him I can be white and pure in every way. I could still be filthy and worthless, but because of Him I'm not. He loved me enough to clean me up and keep me with Him forever. And that is something to fall in love with.

Control

I have a problem: I get so paranoid about things falling apart. I know it’s because things were falling apart for so long in my life that I’m just used to it. But shouldn’t I be over it by now? Shouldn’t I just surrender to the fact that things are out of my control?

One of my biggest struggles is to daily give my life to the Lord and rest in the fact that He is in control. It must be a daily thing. The thing about giving your life to Him daily and the whole idea of a living sacrifice is that, when you’re alive, you can crawl off the alter at any time and choose to cease giving up your life. I think a person can die for just about anything, but it’s living for something that is the hardest. It takes denying yourself, giving up what you want, giving up control. Not pitching a fit, but resting and trusting.

I have always been extremely academic. Not perfect, of course, but very involved. Since I have been home, I have come across all my old trophies, certificates, ribbons, student-of-the-month badges, and all the pictures revolving around such events. There are tons of things. I was really more into achievements that I thought. In actuality, I didn’t really think of it much. It all just came very naturally to me, like it was the obvious choice that I would aim to excel in this area.

Now, I’m starting to think that one of the reasons why I have been this way is because my studies were something I could control. Something I knew how to thrive with when everything else was so out of control for all those years. My family was in a constant state of falling apart and I was never sure how I was able to deal with it. Seriously. There were so many negative things I could have reverted to in efforts to deal with things. But now that it’s over, I think I’m starting to realize….that school was a drug for me. And now that source of control is gone.

I have no control anymore and I’m seeing the areas that are overwhelming to me now because of just how much I know I cannot control them. I cannot control the jobs I may or may not get. I cannot control the fact that my best friends are moving overseas for a year or more. I cannot control the fact that I don’t have my own place right now. I cannot control the cemented memories of the past. I cannot control the uncertainties of future relationships. And I cannot control change.

Change is so hard for me. Uncertainty is even worse.

I’m finding now that I’m just really appreciating the fact that God never changes. He is my constant and He promises that He holds my future. “‘For I know the plans I have for you,’ says the Lord. ‘Plans for good and not for evil. Plans to give you a future and a hope.” (Jeremiah 29:11) Lord, please take away my fear of uncertainty and help me to rest in the fact that You are vastly more able and trustworthy to control things than I am.

Body and Soul

The gifted writer C.S. Lewis once said, “You don’t have a soul. You are a soul. You have a body.”

I think about how my soul is invisible. My soul is the core of my being and it is eternal. Only my body is visible, but it is temporal. I have a veil over my eyes so that I can only see temporal things. I cannot see anything eternal. “For momentary, light affliction is producing for us an eternal weight of glory far beyond all comparison, while we look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen; for the things which are seen are temporal, but the things which are not seen are eternal.” - 2 Corinthians 4:17-18

I wonder about the beings that are part of the eternal realm and how they go about around us while our eyes are veiled, incapable of seeing their level of existence. I’m sure that if I were able to catch a glimpse of that realm I would be overwhelmed and speechless. I would freak out.

But I long for the day when I will see eternal things because then I will see my God. I will have new eyes so that I can see His face. He will take all the guilt and shame of this life. I hope my song will please Him more without the influence of sin coloring the sound that He has placed in me. No more distractions from His face. No more searching for empty things. No more separation from the ones who have left my side for His because we will all be together at His side.

We grow so accustomed to our skin that we almost do not believe that this life will really come to an end. Sometimes I feel like the life after the one here is a fairy tale, a story I have been told but will never truly see. I cannot imagine what it’s like, but I want to be there with my Jesus. I once imagined Him with glowing skin and unfathomable black eyes filled with raging red fire. Yet somehow they were still filled with love.

I know we must all wait for that day. We must complete the purpose He has created us for here in this place. We must endure “the heart-ache and the thousand natural shocks that flesh is heir to.” We must be. We must see Him in the beauty of His creation. We must continue on in our temporal realm and wait, ready but patiently, for the day when we will see eternal things.