Perseverance in Hope

There is one thing that I hate. One thing that scares me. One thing that is super hard for me in following God. Well... more than one thing if I am honest. But there is one thing that comes back me a lot!

Perseverance.

I am caught up with all of these thoughts about it. I am close to God for now. But what about tomorrow?  

I have been reading the Bible for now, but what about later on?

Am I going to lose this? How can I keep it up?

Some of these are silly questions. Ones that keep going around in my brain like a happy hamster running on his wheel.

I know those scenarios are not likely to happen. Yet perseverance is still hard for me on a daily basis.

A friend reminded me a few days ago just how long the Jews waited for Jesus to come.

Four thousand years.

One of my favorite songs is a A Thousand Years by Christina Perri. 

A thousand years seems like forever to me. Yet the Jews waited for four times longer than that. Dip into the Old Testament and see the waiting. 

The wandering, the wondering. Even before entering the Promised Land the Jews wandered for 40 years in the desert. 

Like the Jews in the four thousand years before Christ’s birth we have to persevere.

Persevere in that hope that is the longing for Christmas. Embracing the flaws, suffering, loneliness, longing because all of this is to God.

Sometimes you get to Christmas and it seems like the waiting isn't even over yet. The waiting to be healed and transformed. The waiting to be transformed.

When this happens, realize that you are called to wait in hope, in hope for the coming of the kingdom.

A coming that is not even fulfilled by Christmas. We are still waiting in joyful hope for his second coming. 

Persevere in hope.

Be not Afraid! I am praying for you.

~Emily

Enter in

It's Advent! This strange liturgical season squeezed in right before Christmas where we are supposed to be doing a million things. Like buying presents, going holiday shopping, cooking, decorating all things and keeping up with our normal lives!

Buying presents for everyone who you have ever met? (I may exaggerate.)  It can all be exhausting. I know that it often feels like that for me. Honestly I feel much of the time like Advent is just one last thing to do.. Right on top of a high list of expectations and things we really need to do in our lives right now.

Ever since I have started college, Advent has seemed rushed and even panicked.

Here's how it goes for me. 

Advent Week 1

Thanksgiving happens, which is all well and good, time spent with family and friends being grateful. All is great and  then comes Monday. The day after break when essentially all hell breaks loose and you discover that you have approximately 1,00o things to do this week! Plus it's Advent so you know spend a great deal of time feeling guilty about not being Advent-y enough and shopping because it's Cyber Monday and we all need a jump start on the 1,000 presents to buy.

This week you have just started is also the last week of classes so you can be prepared to be swept away  by classes, projects, and things you forgot to do until the very last minute.

Advent Week 2.

Then finals week comes and you barely manage to pray on Sunday. You subsist more off of coffee than anything else. You eat, sleep ( a little), and dream class notes and exam taking.

Advent Week 3

You arrive home the next week exhausted and promptly sleep/watch Christmas movies for the next three days. Plus go to a few Christmas parties your parents dragged you too. Not to mention-it's the pink week of Advent which means joy and quite realistically the only joy you can imagine is your pillow. Besides the fact that you still have not even thought about Advent or done anything about it because exhaustion has set in. 

I hope I am the only one who experiences this beautiful season in this magical way (sarcasm intended. ) But I know that is not the truth. The hustle and bustle, the business that accompanies all of this can drag us down.  Our expectations and the Target website failing to respond can get to us.

Which is why I am going to enter in. To enter into the crazy, the stressed, the mess. I am not going to wish it all to go away. Often I think, if only this were different, if my life were different I could enter in more fully to Advent. 

Only that is not true. It's my life. I will still have the same life 10 years from now because I am still me.

So I am going to enter in, and I am going to ask the Lord to enter into it all with me. To enter in with me to the stress, the websites that refuse to respond, the exams that have to be taken, the shopping that needs to be done. I am going to get the important things done but I am not going to do them alone. I am going to enter into it all with the Lord. To have him help me everyday because no matter what season it is, He is and always will be my lifeline.

I am going to enter into the mystery, that is the here and now, the today. I am going to enter into this season and savor all of it. I am going to enter in with the Lord.

If two minutes in the Bible is all the time I can spend while trying to get it all done then I will enter fully into those two minutes. 

Be not Afraid!

-Emily

Biblical resources

I just came across this awesome video!

How to get through the Bible in just one hour.

Bible in an hour.

If you have the time click on over or save it for later.

It is well worth a watch.

Be not Afraid.
~Emily

5 Awkward Things About the Bible

Some fun Bible facts for you!

...or really just Five Awkward Things About the Bible! Enjoy.

Do you have any favorite Biblical YouTube channels? I think I need to find some more. :)


You are so loved.
-Emily

All Things Work for Good

"For we know that all things work for good for those who love God who are called according to his purpose." Romans 8:28

This verse is one of the hardest to accept and to believe.

All things.


It does not say that some things work for good. That I could believe quite easily. But this means that the messy works for good.

That my brokenness works for good.

That my struggles work for good.

That my weakness works for good.


All things. That includes those parts of my life and of me that I like the very least. The things about myself that I do not love.

God uses it all for good.

The good, the bad, the ugly, the messy. He uses all of it for good and there is nothing you and I can do to change that if we let Him have it all..

He will use your struggle and your failure, your doubt and your fear, your insecurity and your insincerity.

He uses all of it.


This verse then, as hard as it is to believe, is what I turn to in tough moments..

Because no matter what the struggle, even when I do not know how, I do know that he WILL use it for good.

This is one of those verses to write out on a notecard. To put it somewhere you look often, to read it over and over again. So in tough moments, the words will come back to you.

"For we know that all things work for good for those who love God who are called according to his purpose." Romans 8:28


Be not Afraid.
~ Emily

Heroes

 

There is not a single person who aspires to mediocrity. 

Not one. 

Every person aspires to greatness. 

Think back to when you were younger. I'm talking about 5 or 6 years old. What did you want to be when you grew up? 

A firefighter. A teacher. A pro-football player. An astronaut. A movie star. The list goes on. For my little sister, the current career of choice is a policewoman. 

When we were little kids, regardless of how we wanted to do it, we all wanted to be the same thing. 

We all wanted to be great. We wanted to be the best. We wanted to be the ones who overcame adversity and became what we were meant to be, the ones who did something worthwhile.

We wanted to be heroes. 

There is a desire inside all of us to be more than we are. To be part of something bigger. To go against the tide and be extraordinary. 

And that only applies to our careers, right? To the things of the world. No way that could have anything to do with our faith...right? 

Wrong.


Dictionary.com defines a hero as "a man of distinguished courage or ability, admired for his brave deeds and noble qualities".

Most of the time this brings to mind knights in shining armor in a land far away, battling fire-breathing dragons. Nice, but not immediately applicable in our lives. Because of this we tend to write off the whole idea of heroism and say there's little room for it in the modern world.

But it's not true. The world needs heroes as much as it ever will. The Church needs heroes as much as it ever has.


Heroism is absolutely applicable to our faith; in fact, it's essential. What is more noble than Christ's cause? What is more courageous than to go against the societal norm for His sake? What takes more bravery than to lay down your life for another?

As Christians, this is exactly what God asks of us.


Jesus isn't really Mr. Popular right now. Look around. Everywhere we look, virtue is ridiculed, goodness is mocked, and truth is silenced. It's an "every man for himself" world.

Everywhere we look, we see the fruit of this terrible seed. We see hunger, we see hurt, we see hopelessness.

But what if it wasn't "every man for himself"? What if it was every man for Him?

What if a radical group of people decided not to be afraid anymore? What if they decided that what the world had to offer them was just not good enough and that everyone deserves something more than the lies it tries to force on us? What if they died to their pride to be truly alive in humility? What if they chose to let their own desires waste away and strove to meet the needs of others? What if they committed the equivalent of social suicide by committing themselves to a life in Christ? What if they laid their lives down in that way?

The results would be unbelievable.

Hunger would be met, hurt would be healed, and hope would be restored.  

If we took the time to be the hands, feet, and voice of Christ in a world that so badly needs Him, we would start to see Heaven on Earth. Not because of us, but because of Him in us.


There's a quote that I love. Mark Hart, a popular speaker and prolific author, once said something along the lines of, "'Thy kingdom come' means my kingdom go." It couldn't be more true.


If we want the world to change, we have to change the world. Just a heads up, the world is not going to like it, and that means it's not going to like us. We will be hated, and shunned, and ridiculed. And that's okay. Heroism thrives in the face of adversity. And if we need anymore convincing:

Blessed are they who are persecuted for the sake of righteousness, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Matthew 5:10

I'm convinced.


It's up to us. It's going to be difficult. It's going to be hard, and it's going to be uncomfortable. But as Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI said, "You were not made for comfort; you were made for greatness."

You were made to be a hero.

Peace be with you.
Caitlin

No One Wants to Be Paralyzed

There are certain Bible passages that I tend to go to a lot.

One of these is the story of the man who is paralyzed and his friends let him down through the roof into a crowded place where Jesus heals him.

I have put myself in this Bible passage multiple times. For this one I like to really use Ignatian Contemplation.

I can see the crowds. I can hear Jesus preaching. I am on top of the roof and it is really hot outside.

Put yourself in that situation. Right now. Practice using Ignatian Contemplation with this passage before you read any further. Mark 2.

Smell the smells, drink it in, soak in the moment.


After reading this passage through many times over a period of several months, someone asked me...

"Who were you?" 

"Were you the paralytic?"

Then I realized that in all that reading of this passage, I had always put myself in as one of the people on the roof. I was always the one lowering my freind down so they could recieve healing.

I was never the one recieving healing. Never, not once.


Then, I realized that I didn't want to be the person on the mat.

As a person, I want to help others. I want others to receive healing. I want others to become better. I want my friends to reach their fullest potential. As a serious empath, I feel when my friends are suffering and I want them to be healed.

I have struggles like everyone. I have areas where I desperately need healing. I know about these areas and yet I had never put myself in the story as a the person on the mat.


I need healing and I know that, but I do not want to be the person who is broken. None of us do. We shrink away from our own brokenness. I would rather tell you about all the struggles I have had. Not the struggles that I have now.

I am relatively comfortable telling you I used to have a eating disorder. Telling you I suffer from anxiety and depression now is another story however.


We do not want to be in need of healing so we pretend we are not. Even to ourselves.

I would love to tell you about the healing I have received, how I am all better.

But that is not the truth.


The truth is that as humans we are scared of vulnerability. We are scared of being hurt. We are scared of showing someone else our gaping wounds. We are scared of showing our brokenness.

I do not want to admit my own brokenness, my own need of healing. That is why I never put myself as the man on the mat. I'd rather just pretend that I'm just fine and go on lying to myself, my friends, and even God.

Only the truth is that He knows.


No matter how much I pretend that I do not need healing, that I am totally fine, He knows. God knows how much I need his healing.

He knows and all He wants to do is heal me. He wants me to be the man on the mat.


I know all of this and yet I am not healed. I do not know how or when he wants to heal me. I do know that he has given me my struggles for a reason, so that I can help others.

I do know that God knows my struggle and more than anything else He wants to be with me in my struggle. He just wants me to acknowledge that I am hurting so I can acknowledge just how much He desperately wants to be with me in my struggle.

I do not know the mind of the Healer or the ways that He works. But I do know that He is with me, by my side every step of the way.


I was talking to a friend about all my struggles one day and he told me, "It might not feel like this, but God is closer to you now than ever before."


So... when you feel like the man on the mat, remember that.

God is closer to you now than ever before.


Be not Afraid.
~Emily