Peace...Round Two.

For the past six years a part of my yearly faith journey has been to pick a word to funnel through my relationship with God for the upcoming 365 days. In past years my focus word was often a word that came to my heart right away. The timing was clear and I could almost sense what God wanted to teach me through my special word. Last December in 2014, as I began to pray about what was coming in 2015, I kept sensing the word peace. The first several times it came to my heart, I avoided it but in the end it was clear that this was my focus word...to really seek God's peace and rest for any and all circumstances. The verse I have tied to this word this year comes from Jesus speaking from the gospel of John, Chapter 16: "that in me you may have peace." I have prayed for my heart to truly find rest and trust in the peace that can only come from a life built within surrender to Christ.

2015 has been a year full of change. A year full of unexpected. A year full of unknown. With that has also come much opportunity to trust and surrender in knowing only God can provide and protect in the ways I long for most. There have been countless joys and blessings every step of the way. These 12 months have made me realize that this is not just a calendar year focus for me. This is a season where I must continue to seek the peace of Christ and allow it to be my focus and filter. My worn Mudlove band may need to be changed to withstand another year on my wrist but the word will remain the same...for now...for this season.

"You will keep in perfect peace

    those whose minds are steadfast,    because they trust in you." Isaiah 26:3

Waiting & Expecting

Being raised in the church, feeling called to full time ministry at a young age and working in a local church for the past ten Christmas seasons has meant that Advent has always been on my radar.

We usually start thinking about it in our curriculum and calendar planning late summer. I love the Christmas story in the Gospels. I often study it again in July because I am always drawn to God’s use of those unexpected players in the arrival of His Son. I love the shepherds and their casted out, dirty job that was used in such a bold way to share the news of Jesus in the world. I love the faithfulness of Mary and Joseph as young people seeking to be obedient. It is not lost on me that Jesus entered the world in a humble and beautiful way and that God seeks to use each of us in humble and beautiful ways.

If I’m honest with myself, Advent has never been a season of waiting or expecting for me beyond my own busy calendar and ministry schedule. I have always held on to the fact that I love the story. It’s the heart of the season. Emmanuel, God is with us. But to really grasp the knowledge that these weeks before Christmas are to be a time of clinging to my Father for His hope---between the Christmas parties, open houses, musical performances, it never crossed my mind, mainly because I did not leave space or room for its meaning to do so.

The weeks of Advent this year have been heart changing. In the past month, my entire focus and heart shift has been about waiting, expecting and trusting God to show up with His hope. Instead of loving the Christmas story of how Jesus came I find myself feeling like I can relate to those who lived out that first Christmas. The sense that in the midst of what feels scary and impossible all I can do is cling to my God and wait for His timing. To trust in my Father who WILL show up always.

This is not a post saying to cancel your Christmas parties or clear your calendar. What a joy each of those events can bring and add this season. This is a post simply saying that this year I truly get it. The waiting and expecting have broken my heart as I seek the Hope that is to come. In the countless of times that await me when I do not understand or when I fill up my days with busy again I am clinging to the Hope that my Father will remind me. He will remind me that in the waiting He is with me and I can continue to expect Him to show up in the best ways I cannot even begin to imagine.

Thank you for all your continued prayers for my sister in law, Amanda! We are so thankful for such an amazing team of prayer warriors!! To follow Amanda and Andrew's family blog you can read at: https://thehousewebuild.wordpress.com

Along the Road

Today is my sweet mother's birthday and as my thoughts have turned to her throughout this day, my heart has also continually been reminded of one of the stories I  have always loved hearing her share.

When my mom was in her twenties she was driving down the road out in the country and her car broke down. This is at a time before any cell phones or car phones. She found herself outside on this country road wondering if she should start walking for help and debating what to do. All of the sudden, she looked up the road and there was my grandfather driving down the road in his truck. They had not communicated that day about where she was going, he just happened to be headed in the right direction at the right time just when she needed a rescuer. I have always loved hearing that story because of the beauty of the timing. I am also a girl who really has a soft spot for her grandfather and this story always made him all the more the hero to me, knowing how he swept in and was there to help his own daughter just when she needed him.

I love to marvel in the beauty of how much this story reminds me of God's desire to meet us absolutely wherever we are at...the broken down moments and all the meetings along the way. God always knows where we are headed before we do and what we need before we need it. What joy comes when we allow ourselves to look up and see that He is right there to meet us wherever we are headed.

The longer I continue on this journey of full time student  ministry the greater this becomes the prayer of my heart for my students. For them to know this great love that God has for them and His desire to meet them each along the road. To rescue them. To give them hope. To fill them with peace. As I enter my 10th fall as a youth director, I am praying for the wisdom and heart to know how to direct these precious teenagers that cross my path towards their Father who is waiting with open arms.

Holy

 On this Maundy Thursday, I have found myself thinking a lot about the way this Holy Week rolls around each year. How these days are different. How they all build upon one another to lead up to Sunday. We celebrate them similarly each calendar year yet they are set apart for a reason. There is a sacredness in walking through these days leading up to the victory of all victories.

Can I just confess that this year my heart and life need this set apart Holy Week. I am desperate for the reminder of the victory and to wrap myself around the truth of  the ultimate gift of selflessness and love given by Jesus. I am overwhelmed by the conversation and the tension and the stuff that just gets in the way of  rejoicing in this victory daily.

I need these days that are set apart. That are holy. That allow me to remember that before He suffered on the cross He knelt down and washed the feet of the ones who had served with him and done life with him. He washed their feet and He knew what was coming.

I know there have been years when I have let this week become all too full and I have lost track of the need for it. The holiness of it. This year in my own desperateness for it I am praying to know how to truly set it apart in my heart so that the message of the victory lingers through the long weeks and months to come.

That the victory that comes through the Resurrection is so present in my life, in my calling, in my love for others that I do not even have to speak of it--it lives through my actions and my words and my life. Oh, I am sure that I will fail along the way but how thankful I am for the grace and the chance in this moment I can choose to find holiness in the One who claims the victory for all.

My joys.

I'm sitting in front of my computer working on a seminary paper and a text message pops up from one of my volunteer youth leaders. We talk a moment about the students they are pouring into and how proud we are of the way these students have grown. I am suddenly flooded with emotion as I remember the first moment I saw their sweet faces nearly five years ago. They were just middle school students and now in just a few months they will graduate high school. My joys.

The first group of 5th graders I ever led in "tween bible study" are now half way through their freshman year and have found their confidence and stride in the halls of their high school and when I look at the group on a particular programming day I can't tell who is a freshman and who is a senior because they are all meshed together in one big card game or crammed in our window seat booth eating breakfast. My sweet joys.

The fifth graders who just six months ago were hesistant and shy in coming over to the student ministry building now run into programming on Friday nights yelling "I love it here!" They pull in their friends by the hand to meet us and show them around like they own the place. My amazing joys.

The throwback Thursdays of Instagram and the Facebook flash backs pop up pictures of these years that have passed in a blink. There are faces of students who weren't here when we first began as youth directors but are now so rooted in this ministry just because they were brought by a friend one single time and it stuck...it was their home. I do not even remember what ministry was like without them in it and I do not even want to remember it without them. My precious joys.

Every student. Each a joy. The introverts and the extroverts. The athletes, the musicians, the artists. The ones that love video games, legos building, reading and every interest in between. The ones I see every week, the ones who pop in every other month and the ones I have yet to meet. All a gift. Each and every one a joy.

Some nights, like tonight the tears stream down and my heart overflows because I cannot even put into words what their young lives mean to me. I cannot even begin to describe the honor and the gift it is to know them and know their sweet families. For all we have shared together, the memories, the mountain tops and the valleys too. What a gift. What a joy.

And then there are those days when the joy is hard to find because it's buried under paperwork or drama or politics. But God is faithful when we trust Him with the joy He has given us. He sends us reminders. He knows when we need those nudges in the forms of text messages and smiles. This full time ministry life is so different. Forever changing. Forever moving. But oh, the joy. My joy. Thanks be to God.

Wrecked

I hate to admit it but I'm all too familar with car accidents. I count my blessings over and over that the accidents I've experienced haven't involved any injuries more extreme than bruises and stitches. I am, however, familar with the scene of twisted metal and broken glass. The images are cemeted in my brain with those shards of glass on the road and the powder from the air bag. In these experiences I've had with car wrecks--in those moment all I can focus on is the mess.

In my accidents physical injuries haven't played a major role. So, in those seconds after the accident my freak-out nature tends to fixate on what this means. How much it will cost...can the car be repaired...what happens with insurance...how do I get a rental car...are the questions seem impossible. The twisted metal and broken glass in front of me seem permament.

In the moment of the wreck all I can ever focus on is the brokenness itself. I've been wondering recently, why am I like that. It's kind of brutal for my heart to type this all out and admit it. But maybe you're reading this and you've faced a wreck of your own. Maybe you've stood on the side of the road in the midst of the brokenness and wondered how in the world did I get here. Maybe your wreck has nothing to do with a car accident.

My own heart tends to reflect that of the scenes I've faced in car accidents when I am hurting and unsure of what lies ahead. My heart drifts towards focusing on what is broken...what is out of my control to fix. All to easily, I allow myself to just plop down in the midst of the wreckage in the hurt and the unknown of where to go from here and stay there.

Ya'll, I do not have a bunch of wrecked cars that don't work sitting outside of my home. Through God's grace and provision and moving one foot in front of another, the wreckage is towed away. Cars are repaired or replaced. And in a more powerful way, Jesus is able to heal hearts from the wreckage and the hurt--even when all I can see around me are the shards of what I loved so dearly. Jesus is greater than whatever wreck I find myself within.

 I remember one Sunday when I was a little girl, my sweet Sunday School teacher scooping me up into her lap and smoothing out the lace on my dress while wiping tears from my face...I think I was crying because there weren't enough markers at the table for us all to have a pink one...in any case, she said, "Jesus cares when you hurt." That moment has stayed with me. I cling to it in the storms and the car accidents within the hurting and the wreckage.

It was just the reminder I needed today and if you're reading this I hope it brings you some sort of hope in the midst of whatever fender bender or collosion you may be facing.