It’s Already Done.

Happy (almost) long weekend! Time to rest, unwind, and catch up on some good books.

Speaking of reading… I started my weekend a little early last night and took the night off from homework. I only had one chapter in a book to read, so why not, right?! I charged my Nook, sat in my favorite chair in Starbucks and got into the thick of Insurgent, the 2nd book in the Divergent series by Veronica Roth… all I can say is WHOA. It is so intense! There were moments I was near tears, and moments where my heart starting beating out of my chest! It’s such a thrill of a book. I’m about 100 pages away from finishing it (I decided to go to bed before midnight instead of staying up and reading-10 hours of blissful sleep later, I made the right choice!), so I plan to finish it tonight! Veronica,  at 24 years old, has written 2 (soon to be 3!) number 1 best sellers. Man, can I be like her when I grow up!?!?

There was one line in Insurgent last night that hit me like a ton of bricks. Now I know from what I’ve read Veronica is a believer, so I don’t know if what I read was deliberately supposed to have some sort of religious tie or if I’ve just been geared towards picking up those subtle nuances, but here goes.

(I’m not going to give exact details because that will spoil both Divergent and Insurgent 😉 )

“It’s already done,” she says. “That’s what I meant to say. That the forgiving was already done.”

Whoa. Such a powerful image, beautiful words. I love it when I see God in the margins of the books I come across. 🙂

It’s already done. 

It is finished. 

When he had received the drink, Jesus said, “It is finished.”With that, he bowed his head and gave up his spirit. ~John 19:30 

It’s already done. We’ve already been given the forgiveness we broken people so desperately need; we’ve been given enough grace to fill every drop of the ocean, enough love to fill the depths of our weary souls. We don’t have to earn it. We don’t have to go day by day and ask ourselves if we’re good with God, if our daily mistakes or major sins have been forgiven. It’s just there. 
Because it’s already done.

And he also said, “It is finished! I am the Alpha and the Omega–the Beginning and the End. To all who are thirsty I will give freely from the springs of the water of life. ~Revelation 21:6

That doesn’t say, “all who are perfect.” He gives Himself freely to those that are thirsty… those that are seeking something more.
Yet why do we… why do I still think I have to earn it? Why are there days I still think I have to earn His love and affection, His grace and peace? I’ve spent my whole life striving for perfection, for love from one person or another,  for attention; since my walk with God started I guess I’ve thought I had to earn things for His attention too.

Oh, how wrong I was. How wrong I still am sometimes.

Why do I live like I still have to fight for the things when it’s already finished? It’s already been decided that I’m free from trying so hard… that I am saved because He died for me. For my screw ups. Every one of my sins is nailed to that cross… It’s already done. I’ve already been forgiven for all that I’ve done.

Who is a God like you, who pardons sin and forgives the transgression of the remnant of his inheritance? You do not stay angry forever but delight to show mercy. You will again have compassion on us; you will tread our sins underfoot and hurl all our iniquities into the depths of the sea. ~Micah 7:18-19

Who is this God? He is a redeemer that saves me from myself. He is a God that vehemently loves me, even when I don’t love Him back.  I don’t deserve this beautiful kind of grace, this amazing life-changing forgiveness… not in the slightest. Scripture says my sins are as far the east is from the west… yet somedays I live with the weight of my past, my struggles, my sins as if they’re right in front of me. Because He is a God who saves, a God who gives me hope and a future, and I would never, ever be able to fully repay the sacrifice He gave for me. And He keeps on doing it. It’s not a one time deal, either.

 God’s already done it all. I don’t fully understand why He does this;  it’s taken years to come to the realization that because of Him and His love, I am worth the price to Him… just because He loves me.  There’s nothing I could do to deserve it.
He loves us so much that when we fail… when we mess up… when we don’t think He’ll accept us back again…

He’s standing there, with arms wide open, whispering to our hearts, “It’s already done. Come home.”

“Bearing all my sin and shame
In love You came
And gave amazing grace”

Indeed, indeed. In Love He comes and gives us that grace when we least deserve it. Thank you, Lord.

May we all live in that hope- that it is already done, and we don’t ever have to strive for something we can’t reach without Him. May we continually seek His face in the margins of our lives for those little reminders that inspire us to live more like Him. Happy weekend to you all 🙂

Landslide

One of the great things about having an old soul for a Mama is her fabulous taste in music. Thankfully I inherited most of her old soul-ness in that respect, including her love for the wonderfulness that is Fleetwood Mac: 

http://youtube.googleapis.com/v/VokU42PumEA&source=uds

Stevie Nicks, man. She’s just awesome.

Landslide has been stuck in my head the past 24 hours, with good reason. The lyrics seem to echo the same sentiments I’ve been thinking about over the past few days:

Can I sail through the changing ocean tides?
Can I handle the seasons of my life?

Life has been chaotic this first week. Between family stuff (a 4 day vet stay for my dog left me a little rattled, thankfully he’s home now), a new and slightly sudden (not really) change in my major (from History to English education),  balancing Campus ministry (which is awesome), 18 hours,  education class stuff (I get to write and teach lesson plans this semester… to actual teenagers!), and PKS stuff… I’m pretty much scheduling time to breathe during the day. It’s a lot of take in. 

Well, I’ve been afraid of changin’,
cause I’ve built my life around you
But time makes you bolder
children get older, and I’m getting older too

I’m normally not good with change, but it’s a work in progress for sure. 

It’s not been easy. Has it been worth it? Absolutely. As the line says, time makes you bolder- I’m finally starting to lean on that whole boldness thing. It’s made a huge difference already, letting myself make some changes and take some chances. The fruit of that is already beginning to bloom. 

I’m already seeing God at work in my life through Campus Ministry- one week in and it’s already a huge blessing!

I haven’t even started my new classes yet for English but I’m already so thrilled. The history classes I’d been in just were making me feel miserable. I was more drained than I should have been when I went to them.  I’ve never been like that before with history, but something the past year just hasn’t clicked. Over the summer my thoughts about switching became clearer… until I finally just took the bold move and changed it. Now I still love history, but English I know I will love to teach. I’m a bookworm almost to a fault (haha like that’s a bad thing at all!;)  and I obviously love to write. It finally clicked that this was what was supposed to be. I had to let go of my inhibitions of change and just do it. After changing that today and getting my schedule all settled, I’ve just felt so relaxed and happy. I’m looking forward to getting into a new groove with it all next week.

Between that and starting my observation/teacher mentorship next week (my group’s teacher is our education professor’s husband… oh the pressure!;), and officially kicking off PKS for the year, this season of life is already chaos. It’s a beautiful chaos, though, because it’s chaos that is actually molding me and making me new already. It’s not my usual crisis chaos that sends me into a worry wart tailspin (at least not yet!), but a chaos I’m letting myself get into.  I’m feeling very much into Isaiah 6:8 right now with my life: “Here am I. Send me!” Funny how when you ask for something like that, God delivers tenfold. 🙂

I’m excited for the changes in this season and for sailing through the tides God sends my way… He’s already sent me quite a bit and I haven’t drowned yet! 

I’m excited for what’s to come, even if it’s more chaos… because I know God’s already there, so it’s gonna be great and beautiful and all those good things.

And I promise, I won’t let the landslide bring me down. 🙂 

A standard of Grace

I’m baaaaaaack. 🙂 I never really blog over the summers, in case you didn’t realize. I just don’t do much worth blogging about really. Summer consists of: Sleeping (lots of it), snuggling with the pups, cooking/baking, more sleep, walks to the lake, reading, playing online… yeah. And with the crazy life/year ahead of me, there will be plenty to write about. (if I ever have the time to actually sit and do this again!)

It’s the craziest thing thinking that junior year starts tomorrow. Oh my stars. Junior year. I am halfway done with college, y’all. This is slightly scary.

I moved in a week early for my campus ministry intern retreat/training, so I had time to get unpacked and organized (haha like that happened!) before school actually started. It was nice (albeit a bit odd) having campus be so empty (minus the freshmen and RAs), but I was quite excited for the campus to fill up with friendly, familiar faces over the past couple days. It feels much more like home with everyone here!

As I said above, I have a pretty busy plate this year, even moreso than usual. 18 hours (but ALL major classes so yay for small victories!), my internship with Campus Ministry (which I am sooo excited about!), service coordinator for my service club… yeah, I’m already exhausted. And it hasn’t even started yet! But I’m excited for what the year has to come.

I’m excited to be back in my home away from home, and get to know the girls, both freshmen and upperclassmen alike.  I see many a bananagrams night in my future!

I can’t wait to journey through life with my fellow Campus Ministry interns, whom after a week of training already feel like life long friends.

I’m crazily blessed to be an officer in PKS, a group of girls that captured my heart my freshmen year. I can’t wait to see where their servant hearts lead us this year.

Overall, I’m happy to be back in the place I love the most, with the people I love the most, and most importantly, a place the spirit of God evidently dwells in the hearts of the people and the halls in the dorms and classrooms.

I’m ready for what God’s going to show me, what He is going to be doing in my life. I’m learning to be willing for him to love me and trust him with all the life struggles I’ve been dealing with.

There’s been one thing my heart’s been on lately: grace.

I don’t always fully understand grace. I know it’s something I don’t deserve, yet like most things, it’s something God gives me because He loves me so much He wants me to have it.

He wants me to say to myself, “You are OK. Just breathe.” That is what grace is like to me. It’s a deep sigh of relief, a laugh on a bad day, an unexpected hug- it’s just a moment in time that God says, “I’ve got you in my arms.”

I love Anne Lamott’s thoughts on grace:

I don’t fully understand the mystery of grace-only that it meets us where we are, but doesn’t leave us where it found us.

Grace is a big mystery to me, too. And it scoops me up right where I am, and carries me to God, where I need to be. It’s a lifesaver, that when I’m drowning (which I have been the past few days-another post for later), it comes to my rescue and brings me safely back into my Savior’s arms. I like that visual, of grace being my safety net, my sigh of relief, my happy moment on a cloudy day.

I also love that grace is constantly changing me. Because of the grace I am given on a daily basis, it shapes who I am- and who God is making me into.

It reminds me of one of my favorite scriptures,1 Corinthians 15:10:

But God’s grace has made me what I am, and His grace to me was not wasted. 

There’s been a picture that’s been circulating both Pinterest and tumblr (if it’s popping up on both of those things, it must be awesome):

“I will hold myself to a standard of grace, not perfection”

 A standard of grace. I will hold myself to that standard- the standard that says: “I am enough, I am doing my best, and THAT IS OK.” 

I do NOT have to hold myself to a standard of perfection because… well, there’s no such thing. There’s only one perfect person, and that is not me. So why do I force perfectionism into my life in so many different ways?

 I’ve always had a bit of a dysfunctional life, and school has always been my control. It’s the place where I always have fit in, the place I call home. It’s also the place that I stress out the most about because I’m always up in arms about getting a dang A on everything. I spent way  too much time studying and struggling on work, and not enough time pouring into other things such as friendships and  new experiences, along with my faith. 

I’m starting to realize that I’m not going to be a perfect student. Or a perfect anything. I’m just killing myself trying, and am hurting myself when I don’t do perfect- when I do badly on a test, when I procrastinate on a paper, when I just don’t get those straight A’s or that perfect GPA I so badly think I need. 

College has slowly started to teach me that there’s no perfect standard of anything-there’s only so much I can do, that’s when grace takes over and covers the rest. 

So this year, I think I’m going to do just that- hold myself to a standard of grace. A standard that gives me room to breathe in my skin, to understand that I’m going to do the best that I can with what God gives me. 

I’m not going to live with unrealistic expectations, and hold myself to the fact that I’m a failure if I don’t do this, I’m not good enough if I don’t get a certain grade. I’ve let my grades have too much control over who I am, and it’s time to stop and say “I am enough”. I am not my GPA. I am not my grades. I am a daughter of the King, whose grace is enough to cover me and carry me to shore. 

http://youtube.googleapis.com/v/GpsjgdLRf7E&source=uds

                               “The day and its troubles shall come, but I know Your strength is enough” 

To all my friends that start school tomorrow (or this week): May you seek your standards from God, not from the woes of perfectionism. May grace be enough to carry you home.