Identity

Why do we struggle as humans with our identity so much?

I feel like this past year or two has been a giant struggle with my identity. I want so badly to be who my friends, my parents, my coworkers, my boss, and my professors want me to be. I want to be an adult, but also I want to finish out my last semester of college, simply being in college. I want to please everyone, in every way, in every part of my life, and when it doesn't work? I come home and lay in bed and think of all of the ways in which I haven't been "enough."

There was an incident yesterday that brought my insecurities boiling to the surface once again. I felt like I had let a lot of people down, myself included.  I felt like a little kid again answering to my parents after I had broken something on a shelf they told me not to touch. I came home and I tearfully fell into the hands of God. I told him I wasn't enough. And like God always does he dried my tears and said "My dearest child, you are once again missing the forest for the trees."

I'm not enough because I am human. I will always make mistakes. I will always fall short of people's expectations (including my own), and no matter how many times it happens, I will look to God and ask God "Why can't I be enough?" and he will tell me all over again that I am.

I was enough for the Holy Spirit to come live in my heart. I was enough for Jesus to willingly hang on a cross to make me righteous and blameless in The Lord's eyes. I was enough for my sins to be washed away. I was enough for Jesus to love me. I was enough for God to create me, and to desire a relationship with me so strongly that He sent his only son to earth to die.

How heart wrenching it is to be crying in God's hands only for Him to say "My daughter, you are plenty." It's a beautiful picture, but it also means I once again forgot my identity in the midst of trying to please everyone, when really the only person I should be aiming to please is The Lord. My identity lies in Christ. I am a daughter of God, and that is plenty.

I often mistake being loved with making people happy, and I often so desperately want to make others happy so I can feel loved. And then I forget I am already loved by The Lord, and that He put people in my life that already love me -- even in my brokenness, just as He does.  I may not always make them happy, I may make mistakes, but they continue to love me. Pleasing people and being loved are not the same, and confusing the two can break your heart oh so quickly.

In the midst of feeling broken, and not "enough" The Lord reminded me of the place I fit best- as His daughter, surrounded by His love, and in His arms, and that is more than enough for me.

Meeting With a Missionary

As this trip to Africa has gone from a faint call from God to a reality things in my life have changed, mostly my picture of the future. Prior to feeling this call from God I pictured my life in America, working a 9-5, dressed business professional every day.  This is no longer the life I picture for myself.

If I think five years down the road I see myself working in Eastern Africa.  A year ago...this picture would have sent me spiraling into a whirlwind of overwhelming emotions, and now it's a life I pray for.

Through answered prayers and a giant blessing from God, a woman who has been a regular customer of mine for the past 18 months mentioned her thirteen year stay in Africa as a missionary.  I immediately realized God was sending me a sign and the sign was big. and red. I asked her if we could meet. She said yes. We did lunch on Monday.

I walked away from my lunch with Carol with much more insight on what I feel is God's call, and on how to go about the next step.  First I must say Carol is an amazing woman of God who has clearly pursued Him throughout her life, and she also offers amazing advice.

Things I learned after meeting with a missionary...

1) God will make his call clear.  For Carol it involved a job change for her husband that was "never going to happen." and the selling of a very large house with a very large mortgage in the middle of an economic downturn.  God worked out everything to put her and her husband in a place while they blindly packed bags, and raised funds.

2) "Leave America here when you leave, God didn't call you to bring America with you." I'm not sure what that looks like other than truly remembering that I'm leaving something good, for something amazing.  I'm leaving a life of comfort for a life where God will have to be the center.  I need to not think so much about what I'll miss, but rather about why I am going.

3) Go for the fifteen weeks in Ethiopia, and have zero expectations.  Carol continually reinforced the fact that I can't go with thoughts of what I think God wants. I need to go, and let God tell me what he wants. If I am meant to serve in Africa for 15 weeks or 15 years he will make it clear.  I need to wait for His voice.

4)Practical stuff. She gave me information on what to bring, who to listen to, and all the steps I need to take. Not the most fun thing to talk about, but she calmed my nerves about checking bags and navigating airports.

I'm excited to have Carol as a contact. I'm excited that she wants to meet with me a few more times before I go, and she wants to help me get organized.  This was definitely a gift from God, and Carol's advice is pretty precious at the moment to a 23 year old girl with little experience in this sort of thing. She kept God in the center of our conversation, and really helped me understand what the next steps were. I am so blessed that this meeting happened.

God is working in my life, and I couldn't be more excited. I guess we will see what comes next! 

To My Friends and Family on Christmas Day

I'm sitting in the house I grew up in, and the memories of past years fill my head. The year I had the stomach flu, the year I got a pink Barbie convertible, the year I found out Santa actually preferred to go by "Mom," the year I got a guitar, and last night at 1am as I sat in the living room with my mom.  We opened gifts, just the two of us.  I am awestruck by the beauty of these memories, and so many others that occurred in this house.

Even more than the memories, I am awestruck by the author of them, by the writer of my life, by the God that knows my past, present, and future even better than I.

I sit here and realize how many things have fallen in just the right way. Even when  I was not a believer God was working to bring me to Him.  I did nothing to earn His grace. I did nothing to earn His favor. I did nothing to ever deserve His love.  Here I sit, in awestruck wonder, at Him.

Christmas is different this year.  I spent 19 years never truly understanding the full meaning of Christmas.  When I finally became a Christian it was amidst much loss. Christmas never truly focused on Christ in the past 4 years, but on the empty places in my heart.  This Christmas I feel different. I am brought to tears by the thought of a baby in a manger.  My heart feels light, and I feel overjoyed at the best Christmas gift any of us have ever and could ever receive.

I am blessed to call each of you family by blood or by Christ.  I am blessed to have people who love me on my best days and my worst. I am blessed to have family that supports me in everything.  More than anything I am blessed to have a Savior who has called me by name.

Merry Christmas

"For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is Christ the Lord." Luke 2:11

A Letter

Dear Sara,

Today would be your 31st birthday.  I woke up this morning, and thought about what I would have said to you in a text message.  It went like this:

Happy Birthday Sis, sorry you're getting old :P

I don't know what you would have said back. Probably thanks and shut up.  I do know this: I miss you more everyday, not less.  It's harder to remember your laugh, but what we laughed about will forever be with me.  I try not to think about the days we didn't have or the times when things weren't perfect. I try really hard to do things that make you proud, or at least make you smile.

I'm going to Africa in September, and I can't help but think how happy you would be for me.  I'm blessed to have such an amazing support system here, and I know in a way you are a part of that.  It's hard for me not to wish you were here when I talk about my trip, I just know how excited you would be for me.

I carry you with me everyday in some way or another. I will always miss you, but I promise to keep moving forward. When I get sad or stressed or frustrated I think of how you called me "baby girl" and always told me things would work out.  And you know? They always have worked out.

I know you hated that your birthday was so close to Christmas but I'm probably not going to be writing you another letter...this one seems crazy enough. Happy Birthday and Merry Christmas.

I love you. I definitely wish I would have told you that more, but I know you knew.

Love,
Lauren

This is What You Left Me.

This is what you left me:

A letter to yourself.
Letters to some other people.
Some scribbles and notes,
that have no value to me other than
they were yours.  You left me
with some memories, but no pictures.
You left me with a lot of what ifs
and whys, and for a while I thought
some where answers would appear.
They never did.
You left me with a box of stuff.
Sometimes I feel like I am just
holding on to trash you never had
a chance to throw out.
This is what you left,
me.

Finding the Middle

I'm an extremist.  I don't believe in grey areas...(I don't even like the word gray because no one can agree how to spell it. I looked it up...both grey and gray are acceptable but "gray" is the American preferred version...I currently think America is wrong on this though so I stick with my original spelling.)

I'm either utterly obsessed or completely uninterested. I'm either having the best day ever or the worst. I'm either checking everything off of my to-do list or not even writing one.

This is a problem in every aspect of my life as you can clearly see.

I struggle when it comes to finding middle ground in myself, in my faith, in my day to day life, and in everything else it seems.

It's the years of struggling to be a perfectionist that has finally caught up with me.  If I can't be the best then I might as well not be anything, so I might as well not even try... (I wouldn't want people to think that I'm trying and just not succeeding.)

Where did my hatred for the middle come from, and how do I fix this?

Application #2

Okay so here is sort of a general Africa update...

I've been feeling like a door got closed on me and I've been sitting in a very vacant hallway for a while now.  No news, no e-mails, no updates, no decisions, no flights.  I wanted to scream, but instead I pouted (or maybe I did both.)

I felt like I had discerned God's call incorectly. Maybe He was telling me no. Maybe this wasn't His plan for my life. Or maybe He wanted me to see how badly I had actually wanted to follow His lead.

Before the whole graduation thing I wasn't sure. I was scared. I wasn't blindly following Him, rather asking Him a whole lot of questions.  I think I'm more prepared now to blindly follow His lead because now I know how much I want this. I don't need to know where the money will come from...just that it will show up. I don't need to know how I'm going to survive without my family and friends in another country...just that He will be there, every step of the way. I don't need to worry about dying on a plane...just that He will be there to help me get through it.

I just finished my application for Ethiopia, and ideally tomorrow it will be in the mail.  I'm guessing  I will hear back rather quickly...by December 15th.

Please pray for this. Pray that I keep my head together, and that I give all of this to God. This is His plan, not mine and I need to STOP being a control freak because as I was reminded by the sermon this morning, I am not and never will be in control of how life happens.

I've learned a lot about myself the past 6-8 weeks, and I've learned a lot about my relationship with God.  He is making me better than  I could ever become on my own.

So here goes application #2...please pray for this.