What’s on my feet? Grey flats. Nothing make you feel as great as a pair of shoes that are just so cute.
What’s on my plate? A parfait. “Everybody loves a parfait!” –Donkey
What’s on the agenda? Starfield concert. Yes, please.
What’s on my mind? Okay, grab some tea. And snuggle down for a moment. We have some things to chat about.
Even though my mind has been a swirling maze of thoughts and lessons that the Lord is graciously, quietly, and over and over and over again teaching me I’m going to pick two of those to share. I’m also going to take a risk. Some of more personal than I usually speak about. So be kind with my heart.
1. Sabbath; (I’ve got to ease into the personal ... so I’ll start with something more light hearted and general.) I’ve started reading a particular devotion book. It begins by speaking about the Sabbath. This day that God created. It seemed as though it was a funny place to start. Why the Sabbath? A topic that we (who’ve grown up in or around the church) have heard about and have heard the importance about time and time again. It is something I could have spit up the answer to if you asked my “What is it?” or “Why is it?” I’ve never dwelled on it personal connection to me. As we know, God is a personal God and I’m not sure he does things very often that aren’t personally suppose to impact us in some way. So, how does this day that rings the words of a foreign concept named “rest” impact me? The 22 yr old woman who has a hard enough time maintaining quietness for an evening at home more or less being restful for a entire day. It impacts me because it was made me for me. See that’s the crazy thing about God. God maintains a role as our heavenly father and that means that he looks out for our needs. And what’s even more crazy is that him, being God, in all glory, and heavenly greatness, being far above us and being far superior to us in every way spend the time to account for not only our spiritual needs by physical. He made a day for us. He made something for us. God made something for me.
Okay, you do realize he died on the cross for you right? That is much more pain staking than making a day of rest. Sabbath is actually a lot more peaceful and easy for the both parties.
Yeah, I got that. But here’s the thing. And work with me here. Let’s say I’m dating someone. He loves me. He asks me to marry him. We have a wedding. The most beautiful of weddings filled with every dream I’ve ever dreamt about lovely little things with white table clothes, candles everywhere, roses adoring everything and the perfect amounts starts in the night sky. It the best day ever right? It’s the start of something?
Okay, so after that day. After the honeymoon, after the glam and the glitter and after 10 maybe 15 and hopefully so many more years of marriage what matters? The flowers that are brought home at random, it is the surprise starbucks in the morning, it’s the I planned a fun day trip for you just because you had a hard week, it is the continually reassurance of “I love you’s”. It’s not just the saying of I love you to the moon and back, to infinity and beyond and forever and ever but than showing that. The display is in fact displayed on the wedding day... it is the “Hey world! We love each other!” but if it is not done after that it means nothing. It is the realization that he knows you well enough, spends enough time and cares enough to realize what you need, when you need it and why you need it. That you a worthy of time and consideration.
Don’t get me wrong I’m not undermining at all what was done on the cross. That expression of love was the greatest and more powerful; it is the most breath taking and encompasses more passion, forgiveness, and irreplaceable actions of love that I can wrap my head around. It’s the wedding. The huge. The public display. It’s the bang. The start of it all.
The Sabbath… is the what come after.
Your still not buying it yet are you. I wonder if God looked at us and thought. My love is so intense but it is also simple and in it’s simplicity it is beautiful. Here is a gift for them. It’s called the Sabbath.
You see this day was not created for him with rules and regulations. It was made for us. It even says it in Mark 2:27. Here’s your day. To rest. To look at me. To dwell on me. To gaze upon me love. To realize I am your creator. To be thankful for my plan of redemption. Here is my gift of a day to know me more. A day to rest in me. To be refilled with my goodness, and grace. I know you well enough to know that in this crazy world, filled with up and downs that you are going to forget that that day. The big day of a public display of love and you are going to forget the impact it had on your life and because of that you are going to get worn down, bogged day. Here’s a day to remember it. Here’s a day to remember me. Here you go daughter. I’m taking care of you on this one.
2. Transition; Wow that took a lot longer to get out than I thought it would. So I’ll try to make this point short and sweet. This stage of life kind of sucks. There that’s it. I’ve summed it. I guess when I stage I’m talking like 22-30ish. Maybe. I don’t know I haven’t gotten that far yet. Everything is in transition. You finish school and you feel as though you are going to change the world. You get a job. You don’t feel like your changing the world. It’s a end to a mean but you start to realize that your not sure what that end is anymore. You would like to be married but ya’ know you don’t have a huge amount of control over it. And that’s okay. You have great friends but they are in transition to and a lot of them have moved away. Or they’ve gotten married but that means you don’t see them as much. And both those things are great but they are just different. And provide you with more transitions. Transition of life, of love, of God of so many things. So you keep praying, and moving forward. I feel as though it could be acknowledged a little bit more. This is me saying .. Here it is. This stage of life. It’s confusing. But how do you get through it? I’ll let you know when I do. But for now this is what I know.
God is good.
Great.
Awesome.
And sovereign.
He is ever so in love with me and me with him.
He has a plan. He will guide and lead if I allow it. He is my best friend and my comforter. He provides.
Transition or no transition he is the same God he has always been and will always be. So I cling to that. Because as I get more confused His clarity never falters. Praise him for that.
The other thing is this; a quote I found.
“Some times while your following your dreams you find another, different, better dream to follow.” (Or something like that)
Isn’t that great? How true? It’s okay for my dreams to change. They have. I don’t want to be the nurse like Florence Nightingale anymore and I certainly don’t think my career as Pocahontas will work out like I hoped it would when I
was 8 yrs old.
But I think the most important part is to never stop dreaming, never stop believing that you can change the world. Just remember that just as important as the dreams are the people who are there when the dreams come true. Don’t lose sight of that either.
So off I go to sink into my day dream of changing the world, making a difference, falling in love, and having it all. Maybe someday I will realize that I can’t have it all.
But for now I choose the bliss of believing that this independent and stubborn woman, with the help of a amazing God (who I’m sure will take this words and teach me something crazy or completely opposite to what I am saying) can do something great (because He has called us all to greatness) and can do it while making a mess of it, trying to be healthy but eating to much ice cream, laughing till my belly aches, and failing madly in love (And just so you know it doesn’t make you less of a person to want that love part.. it merely makes you human).
Some may laugh. Call me young naïve. Maybe one day I’ll look back and think I was. I pray that never happens.
Enjoy today. And fall into a wonderful dream… than take that dream a make it happen or at least believe it can.
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