It wasn't that I stopped loving you

I just started loving myself more

-past due

Artfully (x_____________)

when a friend says they read a poem that resembled you

that's the best kind of compliment

to be recognized in art

means your soul carries perceivable beauty clearer than an appearance

as clear as words on a page

Love Language

you carry my bags plus your own

I carry a purse

this is your way of saying "I love you"

Grasping Someday

you'll find your name
in the margins of my lecture notes
over and over
linked to the end of mine
because it's the only taste
of Someday
that I can feel with my hands

How Prayer Life Reveals Priorities

     Before bed every night I spend some time reading a devotion/my Bible and I pray until I fall asleep. I maintained this habit when I moved home for the summer in May. After a few weeks home, I still felt empty. I still didn't feel close to God. I didn't feel on fire for Jesus like I usually do when I'm disciplined about spending daily time with God.
      Most of you know that I am normally in a long distance relationship for 9 months out of the year. The other 3 months I live at home during summer vacation. After a few weeks at home, when I realized I still felt empty, I also felt like my relationships with my boyfriend, my friends, and my family weren't rekindled in the seamless way that I had anticipated in the previous months. It was honestly very depressing.
      One night before bed I began searching my Bible for answers. In my search, I found a prayer that began with the exclamation: "Abide in me!". I then began focusing on Biblical prayers and many had phrases that closely resembled this one. This lead me to examine my own prayer life. As I read through my prayer journal, I realized how rearranged my priorities were. The thing I prayed for the most was for my relationship with Sammy, then followed my relationships with my friends and family. Only sporadically did I pray for my own heart or for my walk with Christ.
      Following this realization, I began praying throughout the day and into the night for God to allow his Holy Spirit to abide in me. That simple prayer over and over was all it took. Not only did I see a drastic change in my relationship with Christ, but it overflowed into my relationships with other people. I became gentler in my relationships because patience yielded room for deeper understanding.
      The biggest difference I noticed in my relationships was that I didn't have the urge to fight every possible battle. Here's an example: My mom just asked me 10 questions in a row without giving me the chance to answer any of them. I could lose my temper because she knows this annoys me; however, she's not trying to annoy me. She's just curious. Blowing up on her would do more harm to our relationship than good. I'll just answer her questions.
     It was like I finally trained my emotions to walk on a leash instead of letting them drag me all over the place and into situations I didn't want to be. Even though I was 'justified' in creating a battle, I didn't feel the need to fight it. I felt the Holy Spirit in me, pouring Jesus' grace into my heart.
      I am not saying that I've got it all figured out now. I am definitely still a HUGE work in progress. But I do know this: when my priorities are in order, I maintain a growing relationship with Jesus. And as I grow in Christ, my relationships with others blossom.


 

Journal Entry: January 25, 2016

As most of you know, I'm currently in a (semi) long-distance relationship. We've never been dating and living in the same place at the same time. Because of our circumstances, I often catch myself eagerly anticipating graduating college and moving back home, where he is, because it seems like life will be so much easier that way. It wasn't until yesterday that I finally had the realization I'm about to share with you.
     Last night I was looking through my Bible for verses that had to do with purpose. I soon found that these verses also said a lot about God's timing. It finally hit me. Maybe me and Sammy are meant to be physically apart most of the time right now. Maybe God needs to teach me something in Huntsville, and Sammy something in Birmingham. I read further.
     There are multiple times in the Bible where God makes His people wait. There are also multiple times where He surprises them at inopportune times. In Acts, His people ask "Lord, will you at this time restore the kingdom of Israel?" To which He replies, "It is not for you to know times or seasons that the Father has fixed by His own authority. But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth."
     In Galatians, Paul writes "when the fullness of time had come, God sent forth His son, born of woman, born under the law, to redeem those who were under the law, so that we might receive adoption as sons."
    In both of these examples God followed through for His people just as He promised. He knew He would, but it all depended on their faith that He would. In Lamentations it says "the Lord is good to those who wait for Him, to the soul who seeks Him. It is good that one should wait quietly for the salvation of the Lord."
      Waiting for God and trusting His timing is one of the most faithful things we can do as Christians. It's a humbling, yet comforting experience when we say "Lord, I trust you and your plan for my life."
     If you feel you're in a waiting season in your life, take a step back and a deep breath. God has a plan for you. Trust that He knows what He's doing. He's given us every reason to believe that He does. We can only see our little fraction of the world, but God can see the past, present, and future of every fraction in His creation. Trust His perspective.

"He has made everything beautiful in its time." Ecclesiastes 3:11

Journal Entry

For my Ethics class, we are required to visit office hours twice during the semester. I went to my second meeting today and two other students were in there. The room consisted of an outspoken atheist, a devout Christian, a "somewhere between the two," and an unknown. As it often does in philosophy classes, religion came up in our conversation. It started with the atheist recalling her experiences with Christians throughout her life. To keep her confidence I will not share specifics, but they were horrific. Long story short, her family was "kicked out of the church" for committing a sin. She attended a private school where some history subjects and sciences weren't taught because they didn't believe in it. There are so many things I, and many other Christians, could say to this church and this school, but I'll refrain.
The "somewhere in between" explained how he has never known a good atheist. He's never had anything but "poor experiences." Then again, he hates denominations. He hates the technicalities of religions. He believes it divides us. So he's concluded to be somewhere in between. This breaks my heart also.
I don't want yall to think that I sat there and kept my beliefs quiet the whole time, because I didn't. I quietly listened to them because it sounded like no one's ever listened to them before. I believe it's an extremely prevalent handicap in our current society. When a person gains enough courage to share their beliefs, the listening party simply responds with their own beliefs, then the cycle continues. Nobody is listening anymore.
This is when I spoke up. Not about my beliefs, but about theirs. I addressed the atheist's points first. She refuses religion because the people who mistreated her and her family fit the label "religious." The "somewhere in between" guy has chosen to stay in the middle because he has endured mistreatment from both parties. What I hate about society lies within this conversation. We allow these labels to divide us. Those excluded from the category, therefore lacking complete understanding, stereotype others due to the negative experiences they've had with a small fraction of the people who do associate with this label.
We have to remember that our experiences are limited and do not reflect an accurate sample of a particular group of people. Yes, our experiences shape us into the people we are. However, we cannot allow our experiences to limit our knowledge and understanding. Furthermore, we cannot allow our experiences to limit our drive for further knowledge and understanding.
Though parts of this meeting broke my heart, it is one of my fondest memories. An atheist, an unknown, a Christian, and a somewhere in between sat together in one room and had a conversation about their beliefs without getting angry. We simply talked and simply listened. It was a wonderful reminder that we're all still humans, no matter how different our beliefs may be.