happy birthday, best friend!

Dear Jesus,

Happy Birthday! I woke up this morning to the smell of coffee and special Christmas breakfast casserole that my mom makes every year as we celebrate your birth. As I laid in bed thinking about your day my heart felt like it was a bit on overload when I think about how your entrance has changed the world and how thankful I am that my heart became yours many years ago.

I will fail today in celebrating you in the perfect way you deserve. I will fail again and again in loving you the way that you perfectly love a crazy girl like me. Thank you for that love. Thank you for the hope you give my heart on days that I'm sad and confused. Thank you for your grace that covers me all the times I fall flat on my face...it is by that grace that I am able to get back up.

On your birthday, I am surrounded by the gifts you have given me...a family so special that I often have to pinch myself in gratitude to realize that I get to be their daughter, granddaughter, sister, niece & cousin. A group of friends who have shown me your love in ways my heart never knew & the opportunity to serve you through a job that I love and a job that allows me to see you work and grow in the most amazing young people. On your birthday, I stand in awe of You and the gifts you have given to me.

Thank you best friend, for all the ways you are continuing to stretch me and mold me to know you more. More than any gift I could ever open under a tree, it's my heart to unwrap more of your ways for the life you have given me & to look less like my own desires and more like you. Thank you for using me when I feel inadequate and weak, for always being my strength.

On your birthday, I give you my heart and life--a gift I will strive to give to you each and every day. Thank you for being truth and grace and for being the Savior of the World. Happy Birthday!

For to us a child is born, to us a son is given, and the government will be on his shoulders. And he will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace. Isaiah 9:6

A little crazy...

Life has felt a little crazy lately. It's always pretty busy and I like busy but for some reason I have felt off and it has seemed like a little crazy snuck in somewhere. If my students are reading this they are probably thinking--"Well, Steph is a little crazy." And if I take a hard honest look at myself they are probably right but for some reason it has all felt a little crazier than whatever normal tends to feel like. My instinct when things start to feel a little uneasy or off is to try and fix each and everything myself...to reel it all in. And, usually somewhere in the beginning of that process I am reminded that there's no way I can reel in the craziness or find my center again on my own.

I am so thankful for God's grace with that reminder and that He never gives up on me even with my tendencies to initially try doing things my way at first. This time, He reeled me back in and reminded me as I was preparing for my high school girls small group, I was reading a passage from the book, God Girl by Hayley DiMarco and this really stood out to me:

"When you love the way God designed you to love, not only will you find more love for yourself, but your life will have less drama and destruction in it. People will be drawn to you, and even if they aren't you will be okay with that."

I think one of the reasons these words rang so clearly to me was because in the midst of things feeling crazy lately my people pleasing desires have been in full force. My bad habit of wanting everyone to be happy and for everyone to like me all the time has been apart of the craziness. What an awesome and freeing reminder it is to remember that God has designed me and created me in a special way to share His love with others and when I put all my trust in that it really won't matter to me if I can make everyone happy with every decision because my trust lies in Him.

One of my favorite parables that Jesus told is found in John 10:11-14, "I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep. The hired hand is not the shepherd and does not own the sheep. So when he sees the wolf coming, he abandons the sheep and runs away. Then, the wolf attacks the flock and scatters it. The man runs away because he is a hired hand and cares nothing for the sheep. I am the good shepherd; I know my sheep and my sheep know me..."

In the midst of a little craziness it is so comforting and refreshing to remember that Jesus is my guide...my shepherd. To remember that He knows me, that he never runs away or abandons me instead he laid down his life for me...his crazy little lamb that gets caught up in trying to keep the flock happy.

Sometimes it's the times where things are a little crazy that helps remind me of what is most important & to rest in the freedom that the Great Shepherd is always in the lead.

Be devoted to one another in love.

We have been digging into the book of Romans this fall with our Wednesday night Bible studies. It's been great for me to hear our students talking about the verses we've been challenging them with. I love that scripture is the root of these Wednesdays together. Tonight, with the 5th-6th grade students we are going to focus on Romans 12:9-10. In my study Bible the topic header for these verses reads: "Love in Action." As I have prepared this lesson over the past week, my mind continues to settle on the people in my life who have been living examples of how this scripture calls us to be love in action to one another. "Love must be sincere. Hate what is evil; cling to what is good. Be devoted to one another in love. Honor one another above yourselves." When I think of these faces, I praise God for the ways He is changing hearts to look more like His love, what a blessing it is to be on the receiving end of the obedience and faithfullness of these disciples & to experience the unity of brothers and sisters in Christ with our eyes on Him. Here are just a few of the faces in my life that are living examples of love in action.

Love from Guatemala.

Agradecido.

If I've been studying my Spanish correctly...which is questionable, the word for thankful or grateful in spanish is agradecido. Now, we'll see if anyone really reads this blog if I am corrected or given confirmation. :)

Tomorrow morning, I am heading to Guatemala with a small team from CUMC. It seems pretty surreal. In the past 6 months God has blessed me with the opportunity to serve overseas, not once but twice. He has opened doors and given me peace at times that seemed shaky. Kenya & Guatemala in the span of 4 months. What God is stirring in my heart through these opportunities I am still waiting and praying over--but with every ounce of my heart I am thankful.

I am thankful for friends who fill my e-mail inbox with affirmation and encouragement in my calling to serve others in this way. I am thankful for my parent's & grandmother who want to have dinner with me tonight before we leave tomorrow. I am thankful for an incredibly supportive group of students & parents whom I am blessed to serve here at CUMC who have said to me over and over again..."We are so excited for you--we are praying for your time in Guatemala." I am thankful for an assistant youth director who understands my heart for missions and who will help keep things running smoothly the week I am away. I am thankful for a staff and church leadership that are standing behind their youth ministry and children's ministry directors so that we can sharpen our faith and learn more about God's Kingdom in this next week so that we may return back to CUMC renewed in the ways we are blessed to be His hands and feet to the youth and children of this body of Christ. I'm thankful for the friends who have prayed silently and out loud with me over this opportunity. I am thankful.

When my alarm went off this morning, I spent a couple of moments enjoying the comfort of my own bed. I started to think about how often I tend to lean towards comfort in my life...and my heart started to stir. I don't want to be okay being comfortable...I want God to stretch me and break my spirit and life to look less like the things that make me comfortable and more like a heart that looks more like Him. I am praying that the next week in Guatemala will be a time where I can allow God to mold me anew. It may mean hard work, it may mean being out of my comfort zone, it may mean keeping my mouth shut and listening. I pray it will all be used for His glory.

Declare His glory among the nations, His marvelous works among all peoples.
1 Chronicles 16: 24

Shiny & Bright

I can't seem to stop thinking about this sweet little face. This is the face of one of the children I met during my time in Kenya. Before I left for Africa I thought that once I had gone & spent time there upon my return home I'd change a lot of things in my life. I'm not sure if I thought I'd give away everything I own or adopt three more Compassion International children or what it would look like to live differently post Africa. Is this missions opportunity suppose to serve as a wake up call? Honestly, from the outside looking in my life probably doesn't look too different from the way it was before I went to Kenya. I'm still processing what my experience and journey was like there. I'm still sorting through the many ways God tugged on my heart those 15 days.

The truth is that my days are different now because of a change on the inside...my heart is not the same. There aren't many mornings that my thoughts don't turn quickly to the faces of the children. I was blessed to have met hundreds of those faces. I saw them sing, dance, play and worship. I was able to learn some of their names...but mostly it was just the faces. They all held one thing in common--amazing smiles.

Smiles so shiny and bright sometimes it would take my breathe away when they were all surrounding me to get a spot on my lap or to touch my hair or to look at my camera. Beautiful smiles so shiny and bright. Some mornings as I pray for them a saddness washes over me because I feel so far away from those shiny and bright little faces. In Psalm 82 there is a short piece of verse 6 that says: "Children of the Most High, all of you." When I read that this morning my mind turned back to those shiny and bright smiles. The comfort and joy in being unified together as God's children. When I think about the kids back in Kenya I'm reminded also of one of my favorite passages from Mere Christianity by C.S. Lewis,

"Give up yourself, and you will find your real self. Lose your life and you will save it. Submit to death, death of your ambitions and favourite wishes everyday and eath of your whole body in the end: submit with every fibre of your being, and you will find eternal life. Keep back nothing. Nothing that you have not given will be really yours. Nothing in you that has not died will ever be raised from the dead. Look for yourself, and your find in the long run only hatred, loneliness, despair, rage, ruin and decay. But look for Christ and you will find Him, and with Him everything else thrown in."

I am thanking God extra today for those little faces that remind me to continue to look to Christ first and formeost. They remind me that sometimes the greatest gift you can offer to others is a smile that shines the light of Jesus.

Every September.

Every year around this time I start missing my days as a college student at Hillsdale College. Anyone who knows me well or semi-well knows my love for the small school tucked away up in Michigan. My four years as a student were some of the sweetest years of my life. Without a doubt it is always so clear how God's hand orchestrated and blessed every struggle & joy that was part of the journey at Hillsdale during my undergrad college years.

It's also about this time of year that I start thinking back to how God led me to the beginning of my journey in youth ministry. I was a wide eyed freshman & somehow I found myself volunteering for the HFMC youth group with students who were just a year or two younger than myself. I am so thankful that God used my years as a volunteer to confirm to me that this was the path He was leading me on--because being a volunteer youth leader is hard. It's time consuming--always demanding more than just an hour a week & at the same time was one of the most rewarding and fulfilling experiences of my life. Now more than ever as I am fully immersed in my 5th year as a full time youth director, I still remember what it was like in those early days as a volunteer. The nights that I would walk back from the church to my dorm room and pray for the students I had just played knock out basketball with...what a precious beginning in youth ministry the Lord blessed me with.

I was cleaning my apartment last night & as I was vacuuming my eyes drifted towards my back hallway. I've lined it with picture frames filled with pictures of mission trips & Youth Sundays from the different ministries I've served in since I began at HFMC as a college freshman. From Michigan to Mississippi to Indianapolis, I stared at their faces in those pictures & felt my heart fall in love with God even more. I am so undeserving--and He has richly blessed me by being able to witness His presence and work in the lives of all of these teenagers I've had the privilege to know & love.

I know as a freshman in college I had pretty big plans for myself. I'm sure by the time I was 27--I thought I'd be a mom & married & teaching the 3 year old Sunday School class. As I looked at the wall of pictures from so many amazing experiences..so many students I've had the honor to know... I thanked God for His plan for me...for His timing. I wouldn't change a single part of this journey.

Best Thing Ever.

Last night we kicked off our Wednesday night Bible study we hold for students during the school year. I was blown away with the 55 teens we had in attendance. What an encouragement.

Wednesday evenings are a special time for me because I led our Tween Bible Study. It’s been really fun to build a ministry for 5th and 6th students here at CUMC over the past year and I have had great anticipation about this coming year & a new batch of 5th graders.

I spent sometime last night talking about our student ministry with the tweens at the beginning of Bible study. All of a sudden one of the students yelled out: “Being apart of youth group is the best thing ever.” We all started laughing but it brought a smile to my face and heart to hear the excitement in her sweet voice about taking the step into our youth ministry family.

I like to pray when I run. This morning’s run was a little on the cold side but I had a dialogue going with the Lord in my head about our tweens & the students we saw at Bible study last night. I kept hearing her phrase running through my mind…”the best thing ever.” A lot of times I’ll selfishly admit, I do hope that. I do hope to lead a student ministry that is considered the best youth group ever. I’d love for that to be a quality that our church family is known around the city of Indianapolis for being the “best thing ever” for the teenagers that are apart of it. The more I thought about her phrase…the more I prayed for our teens on my run this morning… I was reminded about why we are here for these students, what we are really all about and that is about pointing them into relationship with the BEST THING EVER…Jesus.

Because, honestly…I’ll probably never be able to create programming that will reach every teen in this city—but I do know a Savior who desires to reach them…who desires to love every tween, middle school student & high schooler from Noblesville to downtown Indianapolis and beyond. There is no way the games, music, pizza, t-shirts, etc. that I could come up with on my own could ever be enough to spark the interest of every teen that comes my way—but I do know a God who knows the heart and desire of every teen that walks through our doors. The best thing I could ever do with my life is point them in the direction of Him…their creator, author, sustainer & best friend.

There’s a song that our worship team at the Saturday evening service, Renovate, played a few weeks ago that I feel really echoes my heart for our students in finding their “best thing ever” in Jesus…

Everything by Tim Hughes:
God in my living, There in my breathing
God in my waking, God in my sleeping
God in my resting, There in my working
God in my thinking, God in my speaking

Be my everything, Be my everything, Be my everything.

God in my hoping, There in my dreaming
God in my watching, God in my waiting
God in my laughing, there in my weeping
God in my hurting, God in my healing

Christ in me, Christ in me, Christ in me the hope of glory
Be my everything

Strength for today.

There’s a piece of scripture that I’ve been carrying around in my tote bag written on a post-it note for the last week. Proverbs 31:25: “She is clothed with strength and dignity; she can laugh at the days to come.”

I looked up what another translation says and it worded the first part of the verse this way: Strength and dignity are her clothing.

In a devotional I’m using right now there’s a lot of emphasis on the characteristics of being a virtuous woman of God by using the instruction in Proverbs 31. Verse 25 keeps coming back to me. I’ve come across the post-it in my bag at random times…when I was in line at Target, walking into work the other morning I put my keys back into my bag after locking my car and I brushed against it, the post it actually fell on the floor of my office once this week too.

I read the post it & my mind goes back to those two words: strength and dignity. And then I read again the way this virtuous woman owns these characteristics…she is clothed with them…they cover her. They hold onto her so tightly that no matter what happens in the coming days, in the future, she faces it with joy and laughter.

Wow. I feel far from that virtuous woman most of the time. I seem to crumble so easily with struggles like lacking patience & lack of control…those characteristics seems so far from strength and dignity.

I drove home to my parent’s house this evening. It’s been over a week since I’ve had a day off so I was thankful for the opportunity to drive up to Fort Wayne for Labor Day to have some rest. I plugged in my phone to listen to Pandora during my drive and while I was fumbling for the right cord in my tote bag I came across the post it for Proverbs 31:25 again. I re-read the scripture out loud and let out a sigh…here again I was feeling anything but strong, honestly I was feeling tired.

I started to drive and suddenly the Pandora channel started to play one of my favorite hymns, Great Is Thy Faithfulness, as I started to sing a long I realized what I was singing… “Strength for today and bright hope for tomorrow”

I realized how wrong I had been about my little post-it note I have been hauling around all week. Only through God’s amazing faithfulness, is where I gain strength. Not strength that I could maintain perfectly in this human body on this Earth…but strength for this day…this moment. Of course, I fail. Of course, I am weak. Through my surrender trust in Him…through God working and alive in me…through His grace I can strive to clothe myself more and more with His strength and dignity.

Great Is Thy Faithfulness.

Friday Blessings

I'm going to try my best every Friday to post some blessings from each week. I don't always do a very good job of slowing down and thanking God for the great things He is doing all around me on a daily/weekly basis.

1. My co-workers & staff at CUMC. I really love working as part of a big church staff. I love that I have co-workers who are my friends and pop into my office & I can pop into their office. It's a blessing to be in ministry with the people that God has placed into my life & I know I take many of the little things they do to help me for granted.

2. A little boy full of courage and love named Luke. He was one of the kids at VBS this year who loved the 500 miles song and I loved watching him dance and sing it & hear him ask me when we would sing it again. Tomorrow we will celebrate his 8 years of life on Earth and celebrate His eternal victory in Jesus.

3. My bff got an iPhone today & now we can try out the Face Time feature. We may be out of control with that...it's the little things.

4. My mom sent me a hand written letter this week. I love my mom's handwritting and I love how she can totally lift my spirits after a long day through a couple of sentences in a card.

5. My friend, Penny had saved the final episode of Oprah on her DVR for me since May and I finally got to watch it with her on Sunday night. I don't necessarily agree with everything Oprah says/does but what girl doesn't love an episode of Oprah every once in awhile. It meant a lot to me that Penny saved that episode for months on her DVR for me and watched it again with me...she rocks.

6. This promise: "May the God who gives endurance and encouragement give you the same attitude of mind toward each other that Christ Jesus had, so that with one mind and one voice you may glorify the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ." Romans 15:5-- I'm so thankful for a Father in Heaven whom gives me endurance & that can move in my life so that I may strive to look more like His Son. So, thankful for the grace God extends to me in striving to live that promise out...when I fail over and over.

Change.

Change has always been a struggle for me in one way or another. I was the kid who cried at the end of 5th grade because I was sad to leave my elementary school. Sure, I was excited about middle school and beyond but the change was still hard. I try to stay up with technology the best I can--I am an iPhone girl after all. But still, it changes all the time and as soon as I got used to Facebook, Twitter arrived.

Honestly, most of the time I avoid conversations about Twitter because I'm not ready to set up an account...it's more change...it's more to keep up with. In the long run do I know it's probably not that hard to set up/follow/use...yes. Do I know that it could keep me more connected...yes. Do I also realize that opening a Twitter account isn't one of the most earth shattering changes that could happen in my life...yes. But yet there's still something about making the transition that continues to keep me hesitant. So instead of the leap into the world of Twitter, I'm taking a smaller step into the blogging world. A step I've taken before for different ministry purposes but have never been disciplined enough to stick with. It's a little more familiar to me. A little less of a change.

I love starting out my devotion time every day in Psalms or Proverbs. Psalm 38:9 struck me today: "All my longings lie open before you, Lord..." The truth of that hit me hard. More than anyone God knows me best. He created me. He knows my heart, my desires, my struggles & shortcomings. He knows my struggle with change. He knows and holds the plan for my life. I'm so thankful. I'm thankful for a Father and Creator who knows how weird I could be about something as silly as being hesitant to open a Twitter account and yet He loves me with an amazing, unconditional love that I can't fully grasp or put into words.

So, here I go with a small step. I hope this blog can be a place to journal and share with others more about the wonder and greatness of our Creator who walks beside us in the small steps and changes of each and every day.