The Story of My Life (So Far)

The meet-cute. Girl and boy meet eyes across the Bunson burner in a high school  chemistry lab, instantly sparking not just the correct chemical reaction but a flame within their hearts through the exchange of hidden smiles and nervous laughter. Or hurriedly, girl flies around the corner, steaming coffee in hand, once again late for work when she literally crashes into boy, experiencing heat, not just from the coffee spilled on her blouse but as the once busy moment screeches to a halt. He offers his scarf to clean up the mess and it is love at first sight. It seems so easy in the movies. I’ve concocted many similar scenes with myself as the leading lady and yet to be named lucky mystery man sweeping me off my feet in a variety of random, romantic backdrops and circumstances. While Hollywood wants me to believe these fantasies as the end all and be all when defining love and romance, I’ve discovered that God has something much more real and imaginative when it comes to the story of my life. He continually shows me, the best is yet to come.

           

I grew up in an amazing Christian home and was taught about Jesus and the power of prayer from a very young age. I accepted Jesus as my Lord and Savior at Pioneer Girls when I was 6 years old and if I’m being honest, nothing really changed. I still prayed before I went to sleep, or when I was afraid, or when things weren’t going my way, just as I was taught. I never experienced a major transformation moment.

            

When I was in junior high, I discovered the power of God’s word as living and active. I’d read the Bible before then and even earned lots of merit badges for memorizing Scripture, but junior high was the first time I felt that God was speaking directly to me. I had gotten into a disagreement with some friends at school and I remember coming home discouraged and upset, opening my Bible to some random page, and reading a passage that spoke exactly to what had happened that day. I was so excited, I wrote the verse on a note card and shared it with one of my friends the next day. From then on, I was hooked. I tried to read my Bible every day and then apply what I was reading to how I lived my everyday life. I grew in my faith and made it through my high school years, full of ups and downs, excited about who God was and how he was moving in and through me.

            

I was blessed with an amazing support system through my family, friends, youth group, and church family. However, when graduation came, I decided I wanted to explore the country and felt God calling me to attend a school away from home. The school I attended had a soccer team willing to let me play and was a Christian school so I was pumped about playing with other Christ followers. Because it was a Christian school, I had a picture in my mind of it being kind of like church camp but four years long and a little bit more homework. I knew that God had called me to this school for a purpose and I was excited to see what that purpose was: would I meet my husband? Would I be the leading scorer and earn a starting spot so I could give all the glory to Him? Would I wow everyone in my honors classes with my God-given wisdom and lead them to a better understanding of who God is? I had great dreams for all I would accomplish for the glory of God’s kingdom and my own personal success. I thought I knew the good God wanted for me, so I obediently left home for the great unknown.

            

God’s good for me turned out to be a lot different than what I expected. I experienced some difficult things while at school and in fact almost transferred back home after a particular incident with my teammates. I became a version of myself I didn’t recognize. I was quiet, reserved, and unsure of who I was. I longed for the comfortable setting of my high school hallways where I knew most everyone, I was a consistent starter and productive member of a soccer team, and things came more or less easily to me. I had to continually fight for playing time on the soccer field, daily felt inadequate intellectually during discussions in my honors classrooms, and socially became awkward and unsure of how to relate to the people around me. I knew in my heart of hearts that God had lead me to this school so I did my best to cover up my insecurities and put on a brave face for my friends and family back home and at school. I had this idea that God wanted me to be happy and positive in hard situations, so I pretended I was happy and tried to stay positive instead of revealing how out of place and miserable I felt a lot of the time. I thought I was being obedient in God calling me to this school and didn’t want the people around me to think God was wrong to make me feel miserable, or I heard him wrong, heaven-forbid, so I did my best to portray the version of myself I thought would please the most people and put myself and God in the best light.

            

When it was time to go to grad school and pursue my dream of being a physical therapist, I felt God calling me back to MN. Slowly, but surely, he began to rebuild the self-confidence I lacked in college with a little bit of humility woven through. I thrived in my new surroundings, easily making friends, succeeding in the classroom, and even finding success on the soccer field through our class’s intramural team. God continued to call me to obedience in other areas, leading me to an amazing 3-week internship in Niger Africa where I learned how physical therapy and international missions may have a place together in my life. He lead me to a church where I moved from a fringe observer to an active member and participant in ministry. He brought men and women into my life that strengthen and encourage me in my daily walk with Christ.  They accept me as I am, but love me enough not to leave me that way, challenging me toward total surrender and dependence on God as we do life together.

            

The pain I experienced and the shattered dream of college being the “best days of your life” stayed with me long after graduation even as I began to heal in other ways. I limped along thinking there was something wrong with me or I had misunderstood God or if only I had been stronger I could have really made a difference in the lives of the people I met there. I frequently agonized over the missed opportunities to stand up for what I believed during a class discussion or share insight into what God was teaching me with someone I had a hard time relating to. Until recently, I looked back thinking I had failed my college experience and wasted the ministry God called me to there. Even the amazing experiences and people I met who positively influenced my faith journey, were viewed through a dirty lens of the overall sense of failure surrounding that time in my life.

            

One of the verses God has laid on my heart recently is Romans 12:1-2. It says: “Therefore, I urge you brother, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God-this is your spiritual act of worship. Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is-His good, pleasing and perfect will.” (NIV) Together, God and I have begun the process of renewing my mind and much of that process has involved my time spent at school. He has laid me on the hearts of others to reach out and share how much I influenced their life during that time or laid others on my heart to reconnect and demonstrate why the relationships I made during that time are important today. He has shown me that I didn’t make a mistake in the school that I chose but was being obedient as he called me to be, even when things were difficult. He also showed me that I don’t have to have my life together in order to glorify his kingdom. He took my brokenness, the version of myself I didn’t like and used it in ways I never expected. I may have missed opportunities, but I have been forgiven and he offers second, third and seventy-third chances to try again as I earnestly offer myself as a living sacrifice. I am a work in progress and he continues to craft a beautiful story out of what I perceived as ugliness or failure in my life.

            

In the past, I’ve hesitated to share my faith story or testimony because my story doesn’t have the all-important Jesus meet cute I've heard in other people's story. There is no defining transformation moment between the pre-Christ me and the after-Christ me. But as I reflect on real life love stories: my parents, my aunts and uncles, my friends and cousins, it’s less about how they met and more about the journey to here and now. They’ve experienced the ups and downs of life together: there have been triumphs and failures, heartache and joy, conflicts and resolutions. They started as two separate people with dreams and agendas and goals of their own that merge into one as they journey in love together. The world wants us to think the only stories worth telling are fairy tales with interesting beginnings and happy endings. But the story God wants us to share is one that is real and in progress. Our stories are woven together with care for good, even if that good is realized much later. He calls us to recognize the importance of the story he has written in our lives, the good, the bad, and the ugly, and share it with the world. In our weakness, he is strong, and in our brokenness we are made whole by the beauty of his love. And that is the story he has written for my life, so far.  I'm excited to see what comes next...

"But he [Jesus] said to me, "My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness." Therefore, I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ's power may rest on me."

~2 Corinthians 12:9  

What story has God written for you? Are you ready to share it? Take a step of faith and share the story of love God has written on your heart. You'll be so glad that you did! Have a wonderful day!

Finding Victory Off the Field

I’ve been a competitor my whole life. I began playing soccer at the tender age of 4, although some may argue that making dandelion chains and chasing butterflies hardly qualifies as playing soccer. Eventually, I caught on to the point of wearing matching t-shirts with a number on the back, funny shoes, and plastic hidden under our socks. All I had to do was kick the ball with my feet into a large rectangular box, backed by orange netting and my team would get a point. The team with the most points wins. I could do that. So I did, for the next 20-something years. It came naturally to me and I loved the thrill of competition. While soccer was my main competitive outlet, it wasn’t the only one. I competed in ice hockey, track and field, show choir, memorizing Bible verses, board games, water balloon tosses, test grades, fishing contests, and of course who saw the Big Bobber water tower first on the way up to the cabin. You name it, I won it, I mean competed for it. I thrived on competing in anything that won me a trophy, medal, merit badge, write-up in the newspaper, or the satisfaction of knowing I was better than someone at something.

            

Being a Christian, I always tried to be a humble competitor, one who worked hard and demonstrated integrity in the way I competed. But below the surface bubbled a prideful heart that warred with the humble competitor I was striving to be. I wanted to be the best and put in many hours to perfect my chosen crafts, so why shouldn’t I get the glory for my hard work? But at the same time I knew that my gifts came from God, my work ethic came from God, and He provided the resources so I could participate in my chosen contests. Does that mean glory belonged to him? This competition for who was responsible for my success, a fight between my prideful self and my humble self, has waged for many years, and truth be told, is often a daily struggle.

            

I was blessed to compete in the sport I loved for many years, enjoying the ups and downs of wins and losses, success and failures that are all a part of the beautiful game. So what does a retired, performance driven, college soccer player do for competition once she’s graduated? Well find other soccer players to compete with of course! The funny thing I’ve discovered about pride is that insecurity over damaging said pride follows closely behind. I never liked to share what level soccer I played in college, because what if I didn’t live up expectations? What if I’d lost my touch? What if I’d lost a few steps and no longer possessed what it took to compete on the soccer field? Did I ever really have what it took to compete on the soccer field? The fate of championship t-shirts may ride squarely on my shoulders! This is an over-dramatization but not far from some of the thoughts that flooded my over-achieving, self-reliant, competition-driven mind. I defined myself for so long by what I was able to accomplish, that when those opportunities for accomplishment ended, I lost part of my identity. In order to win back that identity, I had to find new ways to compete, new goals to accomplish. So I took to the field. I told everyone it was just for fun, a way to stay in shape, a way to stay connected to the friends and family I played with, and a way to stay connected to a game I enjoyed.

            

But part of me knew it was more than that, it was a water-downed way to feed the beast that was my pride. The monster that it fed didn’t always rear its ugly head to the people around me but internally I was beating myself up for mistakes, getting frustrated when people weren’t working as hard as I was, and hating games where I couldn’t put the ball in the net, even if we won. Now don’t get me wrong, I still loved it, but I think that may be due in part to the blinders I wore for years about the truth of my prideful heart. It took a knock to the head for the cobwebs to clear and God to reveal the work he wanted to do in me.

            

After the concussion I sustained that fateful January night while competing in the game I loved, God gave me time to reflect on a lot of things. In his most loving, tender way he told me, “Oh sweet daughter, you are a fool, I have a better way.” And thus began the journey of the last couple months. It’s been a time of healing, physically, emotionally, and spiritually. A time for God to remind me who I am to Him, the only identity that truly matters. I am a daughter of the most high king, blessed, chosen, adopted, favored, forgiven, redeemed. All the trophies and accolades I accumulated here on earth were merely cheap imitations of the identity I longed to claim all because of what Christ did for me on the cross. It is done, victory is his and in turn, victory is mine.

            

What’s incredible is that God didn’t stop there with his lesson plan. Over the last couple months, I’ve played a different role at sporting events than what I am used to. It is the one of spectator. Most of my life has been spent competing in athletic contests, but now games that I once played in, I watch. And since I don’t have to pay close attention to what is happening, I chat.  When I am not so focused on winning or losing, I am able to connect with the people around me. When I was so wrapped up in my performance, it was difficult to see anyone but myself. Even when talking with people, I competed to have the best story to share, thinking about the next witty tidbit I was going to share instead of listening to the person in front of me. I’ll probably expand more in my next post about what God is teaching me regarding relationships, but the connections I made on the sidelines this winter had a profound impact on how I viewed my new non-competitor status.  Don’t get me wrong, if you ask anyone who played Battle of the Sexes with me last weekend, they’d tell you I still enjoy a good competition and get wrapped up on the heat of the moment. I’m still a work in progress. But I’m learning that people are always more important than winning or losing, proving that I’m right, or having the best story to share. My worth is wrapped up not in my athletic ability or witty repartee, but in the love God has for me, and how I allow that love to overflow into a world that desperately needs it. It is a love we don’t have to compete for, but is given when we surrender our lives to the one who laid down his life as a sacrifice for us. Our identity is not tied to competition and performance, but who we are in Christ. Through Him and His sacrifice, victory is always ours.

"Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit, but in humility consider others better than yourselves. Each of you should look not only to your own interests, but also to the interests of others. Your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus:

Who, being in very nature God,

     did not consider equality with God something to be grasped,

but made himself nothing,

     taking the very nature of a servant,

     being made in human likeness.

And being found in appearance as a man,

     he humbled himself

     and became obedient to death-

          even death on a cross!

Therefore God exalted him to the highest place

     and gave him the name that is above every name,

that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow,

      in heaven and on earth and under the earth,

and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord,

      to the glory of God the Father."

~Philippians 2:3-11 (NIV)

Never be afraid to claim the victory that is yours in Christ. Surrendering is not safe and goes against everything we are taught about how to live our lives. But there is freedom in surrender and victory that surpasses all we can think or imagine. Have a blessed day!

Trading my superwoman cape for a crown

“Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.” ~Matthew 11:28-30 (NIV)

I’ve had this verse underlined in my Bible for years and have even written it down to display in my room on mirrors or bulletin boards because I liked the sound of it. It painted the picture of a loving savior, opening his arms, and inviting me to enjoy a vacation with him.  No schedule, no work, just rest for a weary soul. But this verse was never a reality to me until this year and my experience over the last few weeks. I had no idea how God was going to use it to radically alter how I looked at life, relationships, his character, my character, silence, and being still. It has been one of the most frustrating, horrible, wonderful, and exhilarating experiences of my life.  The blessings God revealed during this time will likely span a few posts because a number of you have already sat through the disjointed monologue lasting 15-30 minutes and I won’t subject you to that again. But I am excited to share this story and the ones that follow. I pray that it will lead you to your own place of rest and open your eyes to a most loving and gracious creator who wants to spend time just the two of you.

           

In my lifetime, I don’t think I could count the number of soccer balls that have flown at great speeds toward my head. It’s the nature of this beautiful game, sometimes you are prepared for them, and sometimes you are not. Friday, January 4, 2013, I was not prepared for the ball that hit me in the face and knocked me off my feet to the turf below. I remember leaving the game, thinking I was a little tippy and probably shouldn’t play anymore (although I later learned I got back up and continued playing for awhile after the hit). The rest of the weekend brought a couple different birthday celebrations and only in retrospect were there hints that something may not be quite right. By the time Monday rolled around, I thought I had a touch of food poisoning from the day before and called in sick to work. What I learned as the day progressed, was that I was having a hard time focusing, the light’s were unbearable making my eyes want to stay closed and retreat into darkness, and I had a headache. At some point, when the words I was reading started jumping around the page, going in and out of focus, I realized that I probably had a concussion. No big deal I thought. I work with concussions every day and knew exactly what to do. I put myself on physical and cognitive rest, turned off all the lights in my apartment, and slept 10-12 hours each night with 1-2 naps during the day for the next week.

           

Well, if the concussion weren’t enough, later that week I caught one of those nasty bugs floating around that felt like I was swallowing a hornets’ nest, my face was going to explode off my head, the facet in my nose was locked in the on position, and a 500 pound grizzly bear had taken up residence on my chest.  This lasted about a week until the doctor gave me some antibiotics and I began to re-enter the land of the living. Two weeks after the initial hit to the head, I returned to work for a half day, finally over the bug and feeling part human again. It was a Friday so I had the weekend to recover. Monday, I woke up excited to get back to normal, ignoring the little headache that had become a new normal. I thought I was ready to go back to a full day of work. I thought wrong. I lasted the entire day, thinking my little headache would go away as the day progressed. It didn’t. Not even when I took my daily allotment of Aleve before noon. It kept getting worse, making me wish I could pull off wearing sunglasses inside. When the day was finally over, I called my mom, burst into tears, and drove directly to my parents house where my mom tucked me into bed like when I was a little girl. I took the rest of the week off and set up an appointment with a concussion specialist. Together we developed a plan for return to work at a gradual pace, starting with 5 hours per day and working my way back to full time as tolerated.  As of this week, I am almost there!! I was essentially away from work for 3 weeks total and dropped all other extracurricular activities as I tried to let my brain injury heal.

        

 January 3, 2013, in my prayer journal I asked God for rest. I asked that he would show me how to sit and be still in his presence. I had so many activities going on, good things that I enjoyed doing, that almost every night of the week was scheduled. Most unscheduled time went to watching TV so I could veg and try to relax in preparation for the next day that was sure to be crazy. I was trying to be superwoman. I kept comparing myself to the women around me, thinking that I should be able to keep up the same pace or even a busier one since I don’t have a husband or kids to take care of. There were so many things to juggle I didn’t know how to relax, worrying that everything would come crashing down around me if I stopped for even a moment. It was pride and insecurity and an unspoken belief that the world would stop turning if I weren’t there to save it. So God gave me a time out. He showed me how to rest. I went kicking and screaming and crying at first (concussions make you very emotional) but with patience and compassion he gently called me into his presence. Maybe he gave me the concussion or maybe he just allowed it to happen, making the most of an opportunity to get my attention. Either way, I’m grateful for the experience. Everything I could do, reading, writing, watching TV, working out, working, spending extended amounts of time in well-lit areas, was stripped away. I had to learn how be. He taught me how to be still, how to be in his presence, how to be me without doing. I was carrying all the burdens superwoman should be able to handle and getting choked by a cape that didn’t fit. God taught me how to surrender those burdens to Christ, lay them at his feet, and be fit for a yoke that was light and designed just for me. He loved me enough to carve out time so that he could remind me of who I am to him. I am his daughter, his crowned princess, his beloved. Psalm 103:4 says He redeemed my life from the pit and crowned me with steadfast love and mercy. 

           

I’m still learning, still healing, and slowly but surely beginning to venture back into the land of doing things again. But I am learning to do things with a renewed spirit, and a sense of peace that only comes from being in his presence first, drawing my worth from him instead of all those activities. I am not superwoman but I do know the creator of the universe who claims me as his own, giving me a crown of life. I’ll take that crown over a superwoman cape any day. Beside, the matching tights just aren’t really my style.

           

            

A Small Slice of Humble Pie

Have you ever asked God for something that you weren’t really sure you wanted, but knew it was something you needed? Did God give you an answer that completely blew away your expectations and made you wonder why you ever doubted? This has been my experience over the past month. It all began one snowy Sunday night when our women’s small group was cancelled due to weather and my roommate and I decided to stay in and watch the church service on-line. Our apartment was already clean and we had set aside time for small group, so we spent the hour and a half before church started reading the Bible and journaling, spending some quiet time with God. It was during this time that I decided to ask God for something I’ve wanted to ask for but have been avoiding because I was afraid. You see, I have an issue with pride and I know that God desires humility, but I also know that humility is not something that just happens, it’s a process, a work of transformation. It was this process that I was afraid of. Could I really handle the pain and turmoil of the process? So that’s where I started. I told God I was afraid to ask for humility but I know it’s something that I needed, could he show me how not to be afraid? And so the journey began.

            

The sermon series for the month of December was about drawing inspiration from quotes of the Christmas story. The key verses were familiar, as I’ve read and reread them every Christmas. But this year, I saw the story in a whole new light. The sermon on that snowy night was based on Luke 1:30 “Do not be afraid…” When the titled flashed across the screen, I literally laughed out loud, flipped open my journal, and read part of my latest entry to my roommate cause she looked confused at my laughter. I knew then, it was time to surrender and allow God to transform my prideful heart into one of humility, no matter how it came to be.

            

As much as I love snow, the next day I discovered what a headache it can be during my commute to and from work. My drive time doubled, the streets of St Paul were covered with ice making the trek up the hill to my parking ramp impossible. I was one of those people stuck at an intersection, my wheels spinning, crying because I could see the ramp and see my work but I could only reverse and slide further down the hill, away from where I wanted to go. I eventually made it to work half an hour late despite leaving early. This was the trend the entire week, long drives to and from work with slippery roads and crazy drivers who forgot what its like to drive in the snow. That week I was met with patient after patient who just weren’t getting better despite all my best efforts. Intellectually, I know that it’s normal for kid’s progress to ebb and flow and that I can’t always fix everything, but that week, the ebb seemed to outweigh the flow and I could only see my inadequacy as a therapist. It was also this week that I went to go visit a friend whose child was in the NICU. I was excited to meet their newest bundle of joy and see my friends, but felt helpless to know what to say or do. The doctors gave them a bleak prognosis for what his life would look like if/when he left the hospital and I was at a loss as to how be there for them during this difficult time.

           

I started to regret my decision to surrender and allow God to transform my prideful heart. I was exhausted and could only focus on how small and out of control I was, I lost sight of the bigger picture. The next sermon was entitled, “I am the Lord’s servant…” It was about Mary’s response to God’s decision to make her the mother of his Son. Mary is revered by many people of faith throughout the world, but I’d never personally given her much thought except as a character in the Christmas story. This sermon helped me to see her as a true model of humility. She couldn’t see the whole picture, but she trusted God and His promises anyway. The entire week I was focusing on my shortcomings and inadequacy as a human, the things that were out of my control. This only lead to insecurity and doubt in the person God created me to be. I forgot that the most important thing about humility is that it isn’t about me at all, it’s about God.

            

Humility is surrendering control to God because of who He is, trusting that He can see the big picture, and that He will hold true to His promises. Humility isn’t about examining your shortcomings, it’s about turning your eyes to the creator of the universe and discovering the freedom of surrender. I learned that by keeping my eyes on Christ, circumstances don’t necessarily change, but I see those circumstances I once found overwhelming as opportunities to see God at work. I will always have patients that don’t get better or have friends going through difficult times. There will always be circumstances that are out of my control, problems I want to fix but can’t. Humility grants me the opportunity to allow God to work in and through me during difficult times and to experience the blessing of seeing Him as He is.

          

So now that I’ve mastered humility and become the most humble person you’ll ever meet (ok so maybe I’m still a work in progress), I’m excited to see what blessings God has in store for the New Year. I hope you had a blessed holiday and were able to spend time reflecting on what God taught you in 2012, the good, the bad, and everything in between.

"Humble yourselves, therefore, under God's mighty hand, that he may lift you up in due time. Cast all your anxiety on him because he cares for you." ~1 Peter 5:6 

No Problem Mon

I was blessed with the opportunity to return to Jamaica the week before Thanksgiving. The purpose of the trip was similar to the one I took in May, but this time the team was bigger and we were hoping to perform at least a couple of the surgeries we were unable to perform last time (well the surgeons performed them, not me).  The trip was also different in while it was planned further in advance, up until the day before the trip, I wasn’t sure if I was really supposed to go. With the trip in May, I knew beyond a shadow of a doubt, that God orchestrated it so I could go. But this trip was different. Originally, I said no because I was already taking vacation in October and didn’t know if I had enough PTO to take off again in November. Around September, I received a call saying that they still didn’t have any physical therapists to go and is there any way I could make it work? I said I’d look into it. I knew it was something I should pray about, but somehow I never got around to it. I looked at my available PTO, did a little math, and discovered that I’d have enough to go on the trip, so I said yes. I told everyone in my small group at church that I’d be going back again, I told all my friends about this great trip I’d be taking, and told all my patients and their families the week before I left that I was going down to Jamaica to do medical outreach. I told everyone how excited I was, but even up until the morning of our departure, something didn’t feel right.  I tried not to let me anxiety and stress show, so I did my best to suppress it and put on a smile.

            

The night before and the day of our departure was an adventure in itself. I received a phone call Saturday night explaining that our 6:15am flight was cancelled and the next available flight wouldn’t get us to Miami in time to make our connection to Kingston. The trip organizer was on the phone with the airline for an hour trying to figure out how to get us somewhere on the island in time for the surgeries that were scheduled Monday morning. Around 11pm, we were told to meet at the airport at 6:00am to take a flight to Atlanta to make a connection for Montego Bay. Nine out of the ten team members got the message, but no one could get a hold of team member #10. We arrived in Montego Bay by early afternoon but got held up in customs because the paperwork to bring in the necessary drugs and medical equipment was ready for us in Kingston, not Montego Bay. Once we were given clearance for the supplies, we took a 3-hour van ride through fern gully, a winding road that took us through the heart of the island. It was probably very beautiful during the day, but was a little scary at night. At one point I woke up from a cat nap thinking I was still on the airplane. It felt like we were just coming in to land, but when I opened my eyes, we were actually just stopping at a red light. We arrived in Kingston around 9pm, just in time for ice cream before heading to the hotel. My roommate and I were able to settle into bed around 11pm and minutes after turning off the lights, heard someone trying to get into our room. Through the peephole, I saw team member #10 had arrived safely after an equally adventurous travel day of her own.

           

On the trip down to Jamaica, our team was scattered throughout the plane, so I had the opportunity to spend a little quiet time with God. I was honest and brought to Him my uneasy feeling surrounding the trip. As I reflected on some things we discussed in my women’s Bible study and my thoughts and actions in the week preceding the trip, God revealed how prideful I’d been. I’d been telling everyone about the trip so they would think I was a great person doing great things. I left God out of it, the giver of great things. I left Him out of the decision making process, out of the preparation process, out of the motivation for the trip, and my faith in His provision for the trip faltered. I endured undue stress and anxiety because I tried to do things on my own, hoping that I would be glorified through the work I was doing. During my quiet time that morning, I was able to repent of my pride and experience the peace and freedom only God can provide. I was also able to pray for each of the team members and the kids we were about to meet, inviting God to bless the work we were about to do. And I allowed God to work through me, remembering each day, that this trip, this work is not about me. I am merely a conduit of God’s love to those who are orphaned, hurting, sick or lost. He has given me unique gifts to bring His message of love and hope to those who need it most, but if I focus on how great those gifts are, I lose sight of the Giver and the incredible blessings that He gives through those gifts. 

            

I’ve often marveled at my ability to struggle with pride and insecurity all at the same time because to me they seem like opposite problems. But what I’m learning is that both stem from a me-centered perspective. God calls us to live with a different perspective. Have you ever seen the acronym JOY? Jesus first, Others second, Yourself last. You start by praising and glorifying Christ for what He accomplished on the cross. Then, He equips you to see others how He sees them and challenges you to love them like He does.  Then you experience blessings beyond what you could ever imagine. Our knee-jerk reaction is to take care of ourselves first, be independent, and self-sufficient. But we weren’t created to work that way. We were created to be dependent on one another. The blessings come from the relationships and the give-and-take we share with those around us. Had I continued to focus on the good work I was doing, I would have missed the good work my team was doing and the blessing of seeing each individual use the talent God has given them to improve the quality of a child’s life. I would have missed the smile and laughter each child offered as a gift to focus instead on the problems they had that I thought could fix. I would have continued to worry that I was going to do something wrong and second guess every decision I made, missing out on the peace and freedom God offered to enjoy the work that I was doing.

            

The trip turned out to be an amazing experience despite our adventurous start. The kids were worked with were adorable, the families we worked with displayed so much gratitude toward us, and I came back enriched by the new friends I had made. At the end of the trip, we had the opportunity to soak up some of the beauty of the island by making our way up the mountain to where coffee is grown. The reward for our hike up to the lookout point was the type of breathtaking that can’t fully be captured through pictures. It’s amazing what a little change in perspective will do for appreciating the places God takes you in life.

            

The Eye of the Beholder

One of my favorite movies growing up was Annie. My friends and I loved to play orphans dressed in rags and forced to do labor intensive chores. Whoever could come up with the most pathetic, down trodden story won (at least that’s what my competitive 8 y/o mind thought.) The game would always end with our adoption and a transformation from rags to riches. My mom saved some of her junior high and high school dance dresses, old high heels, and our dance and Halloween costumes. I loved to rifle through the dress-up bin to put together a new outfit, complete with jewelry and make-up, so I could make the transformation to beautiful complete.

            

Feeling beautiful is not something that happens often for me. I’ve never felt that my outward appearance has been one of my strengths. I’ve gotten compliments on my appearance, but I accepted those compliments as circumstantial rather than a reflection of who I was. My skin has never been perfect and breakouts are not something I’ve grown out of like I thought. My nose has been broken 3 times and more prominent than I would sometimes like. Then there are body issues that stem from years of comparing myself to other, more toned athletes that I competed with and against throughout my soccer career. No matter how fit I was, there were always flaws I was sure everyone else focused on just as much as I did. These insecurities were never something I wanted to talk about because I didn’t want people to think I was fishing for compliments or shallow for focusing on my outward appearance. Most days, I kept silent and tried to focus on the other things I had going for me. The problem was that those unspoken insecurities transformed into lies I started to contemplate. Then I was then afraid to talk about the lies because what if they were actually true? The lies were particularly potent when I was most vulnerable during my college years. They included things like: nobody wants to be friends with you because of the way you look; you’ll never get playing time if you aren’t shaped like that person; and how do you expect to get a boyfriend with skin like that? I pretended to myself and to God that I wasn’t affected by these lies, I was secure enough in other areas of my life that what I looked like didn’t matter to me.

            

I did my best to ignore the lies, pushing them beneath the surface instead of actually dealing with them. This technique worked for a little while after I graduated college and once I had success in other areas of my life. I was able to focus on those lies less, but they’ve always been teeming below the surface.  Recently, God has been encouraging me to examine those lies and face them head on, seeing them for what they truly are, and eliminating them in exchange for the truth.

            

Lie detection device number one was a song that came on the radio. I have anywhere from a 30-60 minute commute each day depending on traffic so I have a lot of time to think about random things, pray or sing along to the radio. On one day in particular, a lie had crept its way up to the forefront of my random thoughts. As I was getting ready to ignore it like I usually do the song playing on the radio piqued my attention.

           

            “There could never be a more beautiful you.

            Don’t buy the lies, disguises and hoops they make you jump through.

            You were made to fill a purpose, that only you can do,

            So there can never be a more beautiful you.”

           

It was a great song written by Johnny Diaz, and if you’ve never heard it I recommend looking it up: More Beautiful You. The song was the first echo God laid on my heart to initiate a thought transformation. The second lie detector came through the same radio station on a day similar to the one described above. A woman was talking about how our physical “imperfections” are what make us relatable to each other. We all see them as the things we would most want to change, but God sees them as a beautiful way to make us approachable to the people around us who don’t know about his love. If we were the picture of perfection, we would likely be too intimidating and miss out on relationships and opportunities to show others love. He changed my perspective of my physical imperfections and showed me that I was intentionally created with them for His glory.

            

The last lie God encouraged me to let go of didn’t happen the way I thought it would. As a single woman of 27 I’ve always considered myself a pretty good catch for any Christian man (I really hope that doesn’t sound conceited.) I do my best to seek after Christ in everything I do, I have wide variety of interests, I enjoy watching and playing sports, I’m a good listener, and I try to put other’s needs above my own. With all of these things going for me, I had a hard time understanding why I’ve been single for so long. The lie that I tried to ignore most but was probably most afraid of was that it was because I was physically unattractive. I expected God to squash this lie by bringing the man of my dreams into the picture so he could tell me everyday how beautiful I am and we would live happily ever after. God chose a different way. I’ve been reading a book by Margaret Feinberg called The Sacred Echo. She writes about how God doesn’t just tell us something once and we are done, we either learn the lesson or we don’t, but instead He echoes important lessons over and over until it begins to sink in. One echo God has continually laid on my heart whenever we discuss the romance part of my life is wait. Should I pursue this person even if he doesn’t appear interested? God echoes wait. Should I give on-line dating a try? God echoes wait. Should I go to this speed-dating event to try and put myself out there? God echoes wait. The echo takes a variety of forms from Bible verses to fictional stories to conversations with close friends. Sometimes I am patient and graciously accept the answer and sometimes I get frustrated and cry or yell at God for such a silly answer. There is a chapter in this book entitled How Long? It talks about waiting and how we (the human race) are all waiting for something: graduation, marriage, a job, a house, retirement, etc. But we aren’t the only ones. God and all of creation are also waiting for the world to be reconciled to Him. The book puts it so much more eloquently than I just did and the message I gleaned helped to change my perspective on waiting in my dating life. I learned that He is trying to teach me how to wait expectantly because it will make what I am waiting for that much better while at the same time increasing my trust and faith in Him.

            

Once the lies were exposed, examined, and transformed to truth, God allowed me to see myself as He sees me. I am made to fill a purpose that only I can fulfill, my imperfections show his strength and love to those around me, and I am waiting not because I am unattractive, but because He wants to draw me into closer relationship with Himself. I feel so blessed to know that God cared enough about me to clear up the lies I thought I had under control so the truth could set me free. I am no longer an orphan in ugly rags, but a daughter of the King, clothed in beauty and grace.

            

Nanny for Hire: A Love Story

I spent the majority of my Labor Day weekend, not at my cabin or enjoying the outdoors as originally planned, but splitting time between my bed and the couch watching movies, reading books, and eating ice cream. My nurse/designated ice cream scooper/lovely sister was able to join me for part of the weekend watching said movies, scooping said ice cream and bringing me whatever I needed while maintaining a safe distance. I was very happy for her company. In between the sleeping, lounging, and eating ice cream, and while my sister had other plans, I had some time to reflect on different events of my life and felt compelled to share with you all part of the story about life the year after I graduated college.

           

The story actually starts a few months before graduation. I was stressed and taking way too many credits than what was healthy for a person who should simply be enjoying the last semester of college life. On top of that, I had no idea what I was going to do once the semester was over. I knew that somewhere down the line, I was going to go to physical therapy school, but had decided earlier that year, it was not going to be right away. There was also the dilemma of where to do the what I was going to do after graduation. Do I stay in Nashville or go back home to the Twin Cities or try some new part of the country or travel the world? I had a feeling that if I left Nashville at that time, I wouldn’t likely return for grad school and part of me wasn’t ready to give up on the city yet. College hadn’t been exactly what I anticipated, but I knew that the city itself had more to offer.

            

Naturally, I prayed for direction and guidance for God to direct my next steps. Turns out He was going to answer my prayers right around Spring Break. I went on a road trip through Florida with one of my friends who told me about an opportunity to work as a nanny for a family in the Nashville area. I’ve always loved kids and have worked with a wide variety of ages and personalities so I felt this job was right up my alley. During the next couple weeks, I interviewed with the family, met their 4 boys, and we began discussing start dates and availability. At the final interview, the family said they would call to finalize the details later in the week. By the time, the weekend rolled around and I still hadn’t heard from them, I started to get concerned. I tried calling but it always went to voicemail. Finally, I received a return call but it wasn’t exactly the call I expected. Turns out, there was a miscommunication between the husband and wife and one of them had already offered the job to someone else. I was so confused because I clearly felt that this was what God wanted me to be a nanny during my time off from school. Naturally, I went into panic mode. It was now weeks after spring break and I had no idea what I was going to do after graduation. I liked the idea of being a nanny so I decided to put my resume on a random nanny website and said I was willing to go anywhere in the country. I spent a whole day perfecting my profile and searching through potential families, wondering if anyone would contact me. My room was a flurry of suitcases left half unpacked from a weekend trip, papers scattered everywhere as I tried to think of more things to add to the profile, and textbooks accumulating dust as I neglected whatever homework was due that Monday. I’m sure my roommates thought I was having a nervous break down.

            

At this point in the story, looking back at what I know now, I picture God shaking His head, smiling, and thinking, “Just wait little girl, at least give me a day to show you what great things I have planned for you.”  You see the next day, I received a phone call from a friend of the family I’d interviewed with. She was also looking for a nanny for her 2 daughters and lived in the Nashville area. And had I found a position yet? We set up an interview at Starbucks and a second interview at their home where I got to meet her husband and the girls. Instantly, I knew this was where God wanted me to spend my year off of school.

           

What a year it was. I spent my days making cooking videos, reality TV shows, dressing up in costumes, and doing silly dances around their beautiful home. The girls were wonderful, smart, fun, and funny, always keeping me on my toes. We enjoyed mornings at the pool in the summer and games of tennis in the afternoon once school started. Of all the fun activities we did during the day, I think my favorite time was getting ready for nap or bedtime. We would snuggle under the covers to read a story, say bedtime prayers, and sing lullaby songs. I had the privilege of traveling with them a couple different times, seeing all the places that were special to their family for one reason or another. There was a difference in age between the girls, but it never appeared to be a problem. The oldest was just as willing to be silly and play make-believe games with her younger sister as the youngest was to watch movies or play board games with her older sister. During my time with them, I always felt more like part of the family than the hired help. They shared so much love and joy as a family that it overflowed to everyone they met. God knew exactly what I needed during my time away from school.

           

I learned a lot about God’s unconditional love for us during the time I spent with these girls. About how He chose us and has adopted us as His own. During that year He placed a seed in my heart that I know will grow one day grow regarding adoption.  It wasn’t that these girls were adopted or that I felt like I was their mother, because they already had a wonderful mom. Instead I learned how to love a child that God placed in my care that wasn’t my own. I learned that I would do anything to show them that love and protection on the days they were driving me nuts just as much as the days they were perfect angels.  I learned that God was preparing me to one day love that way again.

            

Even though I don’t see the girls as often as I’d like, I still love them and pray for them often. God knew I needed that family the year after graduation to build up some of the insecurities I’d accumulated throughout my college career. They were my away from home family. They in no way replaced the family I know and love here in Minnesota, but God showed me that love isn’t something that is finite and has to be divided when we start to love more people. Instead, love multiplies with each person God places in our lives. We shouldn’t be afraid that if we start to let more people experience our love it will detract from the love we are able to give to those already experiencing it. God is love and He will overflow to who ever He places in our lives, as long as we step out in faith and allow ourselves to love, whoever it may be: an orphan down the street or halfway around the world, a difficult friend or fun loving co-worker, a sister who will give up her weekend to spend time with you or one who forgets your birthday, someone special you're too afraid let in on the secret or one who should know but may just need a reminder. Whoever it is, there's no time like the present to let your love multiply!

           

I’ll leave you with one of God’s descriptions of love so you know what it looks like:

“Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always perseveres. Love never fails.” ~1 Corinthians 13:4-8a (NIV)

Have a blessed day (or month with how frequently I've been posting, sorry friends!)