--Donald Miller
Tuesday, October 13, 2009
Friday, October 2, 2009
Sunday, September 27, 2009
Sunday, September 13, 2009
Friday, September 4, 2009
Home
[hohm]
noun
| a house, apartment, or other shelter that is the usual residence of a person, family, or household. |
I live in a house.
We moved there almost two years ago.
It lies in a picture-perfect subdivision with children always playing outside and an overbearing homeowners association.
It's a spacious, four bedroom house with 2.5 bathrooms, a gorgeous kitchen and a lot of square footage.
I have my own room painted neon green and a blue ceiling with glow-in-the-dark stars placed in their constellations. A hammock lies next to the window and I sleep in it whenever I come back from school. The window leads to the outside and a small roof juts out from it so I can climb out and see the stars on beautiful nights.
Yet, I still cannot think of that place as home.
It is just a house.
No matter how hard I try, that house is not home. Let’s not get me wrong, I absolutely love my family but it’s just not where my heart belongs.
For the longest time, home was my church, mainly my youth group. I remember being squished in the back of a church van during an eight-hour trip and realizing that this was what I wanted to do for the rest of my life. I truly loved being in the presence of my Jesus family. Summer nights playing on the volleyball courts felt like home.
Then I came to college. College was where, somehow, strangers became family and I finally felt like I was accepted without having to follow society’s standards. Starlite retreats and mud football never felt so much like home.
This summer I went to camp. Where, having no one else to be around, we were always around each other. Where staring at shooting stars and fishing became a way of life. And during those peaceful nights, I felt like I was at home.
These past two weeks, I’ve gone from camp, to my house, to my church home, to college.
And I’ve never felt so confused as to where home is.
Where does my heart belong?
Maybe these are simply glimpses of a better place.
If I find in myself desires nothing in this world can satisfy,
I can only conclude that I was not made for here. --Brooke Fraser "C.S. Lewis Song"
Saturday, August 8, 2009
Every year God and I like to come together and make a type of New Year’s Resolution. These resolutions are things that God asks me to work on to help build me as a better person and stronger Christian. They have been things such as “Be more encouraging,” “Hang out with the people who seem unwanted” and other biblical truths that could help me grow not only during that year but for future years as well.
Last year, however, was a little different. My senior year of high school was proving to be challenging to me as many things were changing, life was throwing many difficulties my way, and I really started wondering if I truly wanted to live for God for the rest of my life. It was such a huge commitment because I didn’t want to give up my hopes and my future, to go on a “rabbit chase” for some plan of God’s. I was frustrated because I wasn’t sure of anything for my future. God wasn’t telling me anything about the plans He had for me. I had no idea what school I was going to, what I would do, and whenever I thought about my future all I could see was total nothingness. My future was blank and God wasn’t going to tell me anything about it. And so, my relationship with God started to become distant as I began to really wonder if giving up my entire life to God was the right thing for me.
So when the time came for us to talk about our new year’s resolution, I was excited because then I figured that all questions about my future would finally be revealed to me and I would know what God wanted me to do with my life. Wrong. I was sitting there all excited to know what my future held and all He told me was “Look at the stars.”
Umm…what?? Am I supposed to be an astronaut? What does that have anything to do with my future? Plus it’s February, I’m definitely not sitting outside all night long in February—it’s freezing! I refused, that was so dumb and I didn’t understand how that was supposed to help me at all. And I didn’t look at the stars. It was ridiculous and illogical, the only thing I would get out of it would be an intense cold.
For the next few months, I started really spiraling downwards. My relationship with God was just me talking to Him angrily, asking Him why I always felt depressed. Nothing was really happening, I floated by in school and was barely able to stay awake in my classes. I had started working and simply hated working even though it was a great job. I was angry and confused with God but most of all, I was scared—scared of being alone in the big world. I really wanted to be back in a great relationship with God but I didn’t know how as I was refusing to give in to His command. I kept asking Him to deliver me from everything I struggled with but it seemed as if I never got an answer. From another perspective, everything seemed great, but I felt as if I was withering away inside.
Eight months had gone by since I started arguing with God. I still had no idea what I was going to do with my life and wasn’t really sure where I was going. I then remembered what God had asked me long ago. It was a beautiful night in July without a cloud in the sky and I decided to go outside and look at the stars.
The moment I laid down on my roof, everything I had asked God, everything that I complained about that God was torturing me simply disappeared.* (I'm a huge fan of footnotes--check below)
It was as if I could finally see a part of God's great and mysterious mind. Looking at the stars, I realized how big they are and that there are an infinite number of them. But these stars are mere specks to our Creator.
And yet, even though we are even smaller than the stars, He still loves each of us uncontrollably
And there I was, one small insignificant being, daring to question the authority that God had on my life.
And I realized that if He can keep all of universe still spinning in space, maybe He just might know a thing or two about my life.
__________________________________________________________________
A few days ago I went out, one year later from the day that I experienced God's glory. I thought about how dismal my life had been struggling to fully accept a God that I will never see. I remembered how I realized that if there was a time to give up and go my own way, it would have been that night. I remember how close I was to calling it quits with a thing called Faith.
And I look back to the past year, all the joy that I experienced (Ocoee Outreach, Lee, Starlite, Deer Run to name all the big ones) and growing not only in my faith in God but also growing to learn how to believe in myself--that's when I know that God truly loves me.
*Psalm 8:3-4
I peer up through the smog,
Try to wrap my head round the size of it all:
Just how big are you, God? How big are your hands?
The moon, the stars, placed just the right place,
The planets pushed just the right pace.
Just how big are you, God? How big is your heart?
How come you notice me, care for this lowlife,
This lonely life, the other end of space?
Tuesday, August 4, 2009
