Facebook Me vs. Authentic Me

It’s so hard to talk about facebook without sounding like a prudish old lady or an New York Times columnist doing a tend piece, but I’m going to try.

We’ve all been there. Bathed in the sickly white glow of our computer screens at one in the morning, scrolling through page after page of interesting pictures, stories, and updates of our six hundred “friends”. I was there the other night, and by the time I finally realized what time it was and what I was doing I felt like someone coming out of hypnosis.

As I loaded more and more information into my newsfeed I found myself scheming ways to make my life seem more interesting.

“I’ll post about that cute thing my student said to me!”

“Where did that picture from Paris go? That will make me seem like an interesting world-traveler if I have it for my profile pic”

“I’ll make sure to post about the concert I’m going to this weekend”

These are honest to goodness thoughts that have gone through my self-absorbed brain. In fact, I’d say I think about my facebook appearance at least a few times a day. When I’m in an especially gorgeous place I’ll be sure to snap a picture to share on fb. When I go to a favorite bakery there is the obligatory fb profile shot of my steaming latte and flaky pastry.

I’m not really sure what my point is with this post other than observing in myself (and I’m sure others) that we all have crafted images of ourselves, be them facebook profiles, resumes, or personas we enact with different people (the church girl, the mom, the teacher, the edgy one, etc…).

We want people to see us in the most flattering light possible. We want people to love us.

There is nothing wrong with this. We were created with the desire for love. What gets us (ME espescially) tripped up is when we seek the love, approval, applause from other people. We were created with these desires, but they were meant to be directed towards the only one who can fulfill them: God.

Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are the only ones who can satiate the nagging hunger for love. When we forget this and look to others for it, we become self-obsessed trying to reach the level of perfection needed to win favor. We become insecure when we don’t measure up. We fear man more than God.

In John 4 we enter into the scene of Jesus with the Sumaritan woman at the well. After he asks her for a drink of water he says:

“Everyone who drinks of this water will thirst again,

but whoever drinks of the water that I shall give him

will never thrist; the water that I shall give him

will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life”

She replies:

“Sir, give me this water that I may not thirst, nor come here to draw”

Lord God, give us hearts like this woman’s. Give me a heart soft, responsive, and thirsty for you. Let all of our desires be met in you alone. Show us how to care more about others than who we want others to think we are. Help us to give up the charade and to live authentically for you as you shape us into the men and women you intend for us to be.

Learning How to Die

Then he said to them all: “If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me. For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me will save it.”
Luke 9:23-24

This morning I woke up (against my greater desire to sleep). I opened the window and let the breeze play against my face for a few moments. I thought about all the things I wanted to do today. I thought about getting a cup of coffee, taking a walk, reading a little… What I didn’t think about was how I was going to die to myself today.

Then I heard this song come up on my morning playlist called “Learning How to Die.” I’d never really liked the song- honestly I don’t think I’d listened to it very closely. I thought it was about a terminally ill person coming to face with their death. Really, it’s about the conscious act of learning to die.

I spend so much of my energy learning how to live better. I think of all the ways to make life better for myself. I research recipes for my enjoyment, I go shopping by myself, I read trashy fiction novels to make me happy, I spend two hours watching a silly tv show on netflix. My life is spent on me learning how to have the most pleasure in this life.

What if that isn’t the point of living at all? What if the point of living is dying?

Jesus calls us to take up our cross daily. God turns life on it’s head all the time. He says the opposite of what we expect him to say. Here he asks us to give up all that we can say is ours. It seems crazy because it is, but it is a beautiful crazy.

So today, God, help me to die. Teach me what it means to let my life go and live through yours.

She said, “Friend,
All along I thought I was learning how to take
How to bend not how to break
How to live not how to cry
But really I’ve been learning how to die
I’ve been learning how to die”

The Ache

Have you ever felt the Ache? I’m not talking about a headache or a bad back. I’m talking about the Ache inside each of us that wants…more.

I felt it today…and am still feeling it a little even as I write this.

It starts when I see a couple holding hands while grocery shopping. Or when propel myself two months in the future to when I’ll be in France. Or when I see a mom letting her toddler kick fluffy dandelion tops all over the park.

Little triggers set my heart ablaze. I Ache for it all. Love, adventure, purpose.

Perhaps you ache for other things. It could be success, friends, notoriety, stability… The point is, we all want the next thing, the next step, the next love, the next kiss, the next friend, the next house, the next degree, next, next, next.

When my Ache became too much, too painful, too big, I realized it wasn’t about the couple or the kid or the trip. The Ache was about God. God is what I was aching for. God is what I needed (and still need).

The song I posted is hauntingly beautiful. It’s about a romantic relationship, but I think it captures a little bit of the thing God has put in us. “You know that it’s true, this heart was made for you” the chorus keeps repeating. It is true. Our hearts were MADE for Jesus.

C.S. Lewis said that we all have a God shaped hole in our hearts. No one would try to fill a car’s gasoline tank with marshmallows. In the same way, why do I try to fill the Ache in my heart with romance, daydreams, success?

I know it’s true, Jesus. My heart was made for You. You are the only one who will satisfy.

“The LORD will guide you always;
he will satisfy your needs in a sun-scorched land
and will strengthen your frame.
You will be like a well-watered garden,
like a spring whose waters never fail.”
Isaiah 58:11

Why Following Jesus Should Scare You.

Jesus is scary. Really. Think about it. To really follow Jesus should be legitimately frightening. When I read my Bible I see amazingly brash acts of faith. I see fishermen leaving their families, friends, livelihoods to follow someone they’d known for a few moments. I see women pouring out their greatest earthly possessions upon his feet. I see broken fathers, sisters, and friends grieving over sick and dying loved ones, going to Jesus and believing that he can do what no one else can. 

I try to make these passages convenient for myself. I reason the amazing scariness out of it. I try to convince myself that these examples of normal people giving everything up are in the Bible to be examples- God doesn’t really expect us to follow through with stuff this big just like God doesn’t really expect us to part the red sea or something. I tell myself this, but when I read I’m still frightened. 

At once they left and their nets and followed him. Mark 1:18

I’m scared because I have my nets in the water. I’m fishing hard. My nets are cast out, looking for love, success, children, notoriety, friends, accomplishments, happiness… Jesus calls each and every one of us to take our nets out of the water. Pull them out. Give up. 

It’s not that it’s bad to fish. We know Jesus himself enjoyed earthly pleasures, good friends, good food, good jokes, good wine. We need good things. God created good things for our enjoyment. The thing is, focusing your life upon yourself will make you sick and miserable. 

Modern Christianity does not emphasize how big of a commitment Jesus really is. To follow Him is not just to say a prayer. To follow Him is not just to donate a few hours a week to church. To follow Him is not even to read your Bible, pray, and be devoted in spirit. To follow Jesus, the Living God, is to give up every dream for yourself you’ve ever had, to do whatever He tells you, and to ACT. 

See, I like my where I am. I like being behind this computer screen, doing my own thing, having fun, being with people when it is convenient. Jesus is about action though. He is about meeting people. He is about talking and sharing hearts. He is about helping through real action. He is about doing something about the crappy things we see in the world. Jesus is about doing real things, because HE is real.

We have to stop limiting Jesus to the Bible, our prayers, and cute blog posts. We have to realize that He is alive. He is working in real ways today, right now, as you sit behind your screen reading this and I sit behind my screen typing this! Jesus does not live in the past. He is alive! Praise God!

What is our response to this? My encouragement is to enlist! Enlist in the battle, engage the enemy. Be real, work in real ways, do real things, meet real people, feel real feelings- don’t deny Jesus his reality.  

Following Jesus is scary. It involves enlisting for battle. It involves giving up long held dreams and aspirations. It involves giving up the reigns to your entire life, be willing to do anything He tells you. Following Jesus lives not only in the spiritual world but in the physical tangible world. Friends, I cannot tell you that everything will be perfect when you give it up, but I can tell you that you will be at perfect peace. Jesus keeps her in perfect peace who’s mind is stayed on Him (Isa. 26: 3). You will rest in the fact that you are carrying out your calling in life- the thing God created you to do. Church, let’s work! Let’s do! Let’s lay down our nets and take up Jesus’ cross.

“If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. For those who want to save their lives will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake, and for the sake of the gospel, will save it.” Mark 8:34-35

Love Today

I have been learning the hard truth that my heart is kind of an awful thing sometimes. It is so easily manipulated by the Enemy.
“The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it?” Jer. 17:9

My foolish heart always clings to the wrong things. To a dream, a desire, an adventure. These things are lovely and noble, but they’re not Jesus.

My heart is always five steps ahead of where God has me. It tempts me to follow it instead of trusting and following my Lord. It infects me with insecurities and drives me to act of my own accord. It coerces me to discontentedly live in my fantasies of tomorrow, instead of trusting God with tomorrow and loving and living today.

I am full of love, full of dreams, and full of the hope of Christ. There is so much to be thankful for. So instead of longing for tomorrow, next month, next year, I will love today. I will love where God has me: in a loving home in a beautiful city. I will love the people God has placed in my life: people who accept and support me despite my craziness. I will love and enjoy the blessed assurance that God is in love with me.

I choose not to be bitter, discontented, or worried today. I choose to love today.

…

Once again, thank you so much for your comments and for reading! I am shocked that my ramblings and heart cries mean something to anyone other than me. May God bless you with his love today.

A Waiting Game

But as for me, I will look to the Lord; I will wait for the God of my salvation; my God will hear me. Rejoice not over me, O my enemy; when I fall, I shall rise; when I sit in darkness, the Lord will be a light to me. Micah 7:7-8

I hate waiting. There is something so irksome about it to me. It’s like being in a traffic jam. I feel completely out of control. Crazy ideas start going through my head… “How long will I be here? Oh, God, why are you doing this to me?What if I this freeway gives out like in that Discovery channel special about earthquakes? Don’t I have graham crackers in here? I could have sworn I did. Oh I’ll check my emergency pack! Just one…and it’s kind of broken…Okay, in ten minutes I’ll just start walking. I think there’s an exit around that bend…”

My crazy comes out when I have to wait for things like this. Well, today I feel like I’m in the Lord’s waiting room…

I see people around me and I want what they have. I see places around me and I want so badly to be there. I want so much and I want it all now. But that is just where my enemy wants me. In a place of discontent. In a place of unfulfilled dreams and aspirations. This is where I have to say, “But as for me, I will look to the Lord; I will WAIT for the God of my salvation.”

It is so hard when I feel like I could just grasp all that I want if I (emphasis on I) tried harder. If I work more hours, if I pursue that glimmer of love, if I tried to be a better person. The point is that it is not all about me…

It is about loving the Lord my God with all my heart, mind, soul, and strength. It is about doing justice, loving kindness, and walking humbly with my God.

I think the Lord has some beautiful things on my horizon, but they come with the instruction to wait patiently for him to do the work and not me. God give me the discipline to follow your will for my life, without hesitation or concern for my heart or well-being, but in a place of complete trust in you.

Psalm of a Future Schoolteacher

I believe everyone experiences a moment where the world stops and they ask themselves an important question, “What in the world am I doing, here?” Suddenly the room you are in- it doesn’t make sense. The conversation you were listening to- why are you having this conversation? A breaking point, if you will.

Well, my breaking point came yesterday. Sitting in class listening to a lecture about my future- all the tests, regulations, classes, and portfolios I had to take and make before I could be a teacher. Sitting in the third row, being assaulted by so so many words, dates, times, requirements, and stupid acronyms, all flying at me like bullets, I broke. Blinking hard to keep back tears and a public breakdown, I wondered, “Why, God? I can’t do all of this…It’s too much. I can’t handle all these hands pulling on me every which way. It is too much for me. I want a time out.” All of a sudden, I questioned God’s plan for my life. Was I really meant to be a teacher? Was I really meant to be at SPU? All I knew so confidently was floating away from me- up in the air as they say.
Could it be that I am simply super stressed, in the throng of finals, unsure about my living situation, and working two jobs? Yes, that is most likely the source of my craziness. But I think there are times when everyone deals with a moment like this. It reminds me of David’s psalms. I always turn to the psalms when I feel strong about anything-strong love, strong anger, strong sorrow, strong joy. I find so much comfort in the psalms David writes when he is completely in distress, despair, discouragement.

He cries out to the Lord, “Why have you left me to deal with this on my own? I can feel the Enemy’s breath hot on my neck. Where are you, God?” Don’t you ever feel like that? Isn’t it amazing that these feelings of uncertainty and despair are in the word of God? And what’s more, they were written by a man “after God’s own heart.” It is so completely encouraging! You can cry to God! You can yell at God! You can ask God what you are REALLY thinking, not just the stuff you think you should be thinking.

So I yelled at God. I cried with God. And like each of David’s psalms, I ended by Praising my wonderful, lovely, forgiving, understanding, beautiful, perfect God. It was my psalm to God, and, flawed and selfish and brutally honest as it was, I know it was beautiful to God.

God calmed down my fluttering heart, steadied my gaze upon Him, and reminded me that I promised to go on this amazing journey called “Life” with Him.

I once read that those who are passionate by nature fly to the highest heights, but also plunge to the deepest depths. If I am anything it is passionate. God, I pray that you would be my autopilot. When I want to dip low, steady my course right above the clouds where I can glimpse your beautiful sun.

New Creations, New Songs

He put a new song in my mouth, a hymn of praise to our God.
Psalm 40:3

God, help me find my new song as a new creation in you.

I’m tired of singing my despair song.

I’m tired of trying to sound like other people.

I’m ready for my own song. The song you destined for me to sing since the day you breathed my soul into existence. I am ready to sing the song that lifts you higher. I long to sing the song that points others to you. Give me my “new song.”

O Jesus, you are so beautiful.
Your plan is all beauty and harmony.
The way you weave our lives together, in and out, intricate and immaculate, makes my mind reel.
There is nothing hard, or cold, or stuffy about you.
You are all tenderness, sweetness, and love.
Tonight, I am a deep ocean of thought and feeling, aching for you, my Lord.

Let Jesus give you a new song to sing, friend. He wants to change your mourning to joy. Let Him do a good work in you, and you will have the privilege of glimpsing the beauty of Jesus. Be encouraged! God is good, and he has a new life for you.

Diamonds

I’ve been thinking a lot about happiness, joy, fulfillment. The word tells us that we have everything needed for fullness of life right now because we have Jesus. I believe this with all my heart, yet I’ve been dealing with feelings of discontent and longing.

I think a lot of girls go through feelings like this, especially when waiting for love. I found myself saying that I trusted in God and was content in Him alone, yet in actuality I was waiting for my life to really begin when I found a boyfriend or husband.

How do I stop this nonsense!?! How do I recognize my fullness of life, my worth, my glorious life in Jesus? I say I believe it, but I don’t live like I believe it. I still get dressed every day hoping a boy will think I am beautiful. I still spritz perfume on my wrists and neck, longing for a someone to tell me I smell lovely. This sounds ridiculous, when I write it out, but it’s the sad sad truth. I care so much about what others think of me, that I am robbing myself of the joy Christ has showered upon me.

In the midst of this contemplation and wrestling with myself, I looked to my right ring finger. I saw my simple “true love waits” band I’ve been wearing for years. It has served me well, reminding me that I am saving my “purity” for my future husband. But then I looked at it again. To me, it now meant that I was on the shelf. I was in a waiting state, not only as far as my sexual purity, but for my heart and life as well.

God gives me joy for now love for now wholeness for now. I can be as happy as I will ever be right in this moment, even though I don’t have a career, husband, or children yet.

Not discounting the good things my old ring had given me and taught me, I took it off. Its season for me had passed. I then looked in my jewelry box and found a ring my grandma passed on to me. A dollop of diamonds swirl up to a peak, where a sweet sapphire is gently mounted. I put it on and beamed. It may seem a little silly, but it was so empowering!

It made a statement to me. It said, “Olivia you don’t have to WAIT, Wait, wait. You don’t have to wait for love in your life. You have everything that pertains to life and godliness. You are MY beloved. And you deserve diamonds now.”

So for this season of my life, as God shows me how to be HIS, and how to be his beloved, I will wear a beautiful ring on my finger, reminding me that I am the Lord’s and he is mine. We are betrothed and beloved together. Let this bring glory to my Lord!

So I will wear beautiful dresses because I love them and that brings glory to God. I will wear perfume because I love the way it smells and that joy brings glory to God. I will do everything unto my Lord and glory in his love!

You will make known to me the path of life; In Your presence is fullness of joy; In Your right hand there are pleasures forever. Psalm 16:11

Thank you for reading; I hope I didn’t ramble too much

Used Book

Step, step, stop.
Scan.

Step, step, stop.
Scan.

Pick up.

First, consider the cover. No, don’t necessarily judge a book by the cover, but consider whether you like the way it makes you feel when you carry it. Does it make you proud to be its owner? Does it pitifully whimper, “Oh please take me with you! I’m so alone here” ? I have many books of both sorts. I tend to spend more time with those needy ones- they’re just so helpless. You must consider the physical attributes of your purchase, for you will be spending many precious hours, nights, days, weeks, and years with it.
Next, breathe deeply. A pleasant smelling book is critical. Can you smell the history? Was its home once a grand library or the simple shelf of a grandmother? Does it smell woody and worn, or are the pages fresh and clean? Both can be good things.
Flip through the pages to see if dreams are hiding in there. Dreams are pretty fluttery glittery things, so you may have to look hard. I find dreams are best preserved in books with yellowish pages…
Lastly, hold it close to your heart to make sure it fits. It doesn’t matter if it fits on your bookshelf- there is always room somewhere- but it has to call out to your heart to be worth anything at all.
Now, go and find a new friend!