worship.

A familiar statement rings true in my mind and heart tonight: God is good, and His mercy endures forever.

Things haven't turned out as I hoped, dreamed, or prayed.  I didn't get all the instant miracles, I didn't win the lottery, and not every single person I begged God to keep in my life is still here.

And that is grace to my heart.  I am falling in love with the process of dying.  It is difficult in the moments of temptation, but it is so beautiful in the moments of worship. The feeling of hardness just falling away from my heart as I glorify His name is becoming my favorite.

Seasons

(I alluded to a lot of this in the one titled "... but I will praise You.)

I think I’m nearing the end of a season (I hope so), a season that has been intensely difficult. It has been made somewhat harder by the fact that I’ve been trying to hold off writing about it until it was over. I’ve started writing this more times than I can count. I think maybe though, just maybe… God wants me to write about it in the midst. I’m good at being open about most everything, but I think I am supposed to share something I have been keeping very private.

It was about 9 months ago, I think. I was sitting in my car waiting for the light to turn green and thinking about how much had changed. Countless events in my life had changed me from the maybe-too-soft-spoken and caring girl into a loud and sarcastic version of my former self. As I was making friends with more new people than old, the change went unnoticed and it didn’t seem problematic to anybody but me. But I knew that the changes were a mix of growing self confidence, and somehow a simultaneously hardening heart. “God, break me. Do whatever you have to do to make me who I am meant to be.” I prayed it, and I meant it.

Fast-forward a couple months to me lying in my bed. I was wrestling with God. My heart had been broken long ago in some very particular ways, and I was really trying to get over the fact that God had not brought into my life what I wanted. Particular people to replace the people that had walked away. Surrender had almost always come easy for me, but that night it took me a few long minutes to tell God I surrendered the situation. Even then, I only said it in faith. Unfortunately, my actions took me a different route and I started chasing not God, but my own desires.

I got my first prayer- one I had uttered with the idea of a couple hard weeks, followed by a revival in my own life. Ha. The past few months have been a few of the hardest in my life because of the choice I mentioned. I felt like I was doomed to never go any farther than anyone in my family, and I became bitter for the things I don’t have, the relationships I don’t have. I started to question who really loves me. I wondered if my life would ever change.  To top it off, I got really sick and didn’t know what was going on. Doctors were putting me on pills that didn’t really do much and I was worried I was going to live the rest of my life on expensive prescriptions I couldn’t really afford.

Today, I felt a longing for God again. It’s been coming back slowly, and I’ve been seeing more and more as the days go on. I think that God had something else in mind when I asked Him to soften my heart, but I chose the hard way and I am willing to admit it. I also think that God works in mysterious ways and is has taught me so much in this season. And He has been answering that prayer. I have to stop chasing after my ideas of security, because those chases always yield nothing. I don’t have to do, I just have to be. And what I “be” is His daughter. Loved. Cared for. If I break, I can trust that He has me.

I’ve been so hesitant to share this because often times, it is hard to say these things in a Christian environment. I don’t know- it’s almost like I feel like I slip down the Christian leadership ladder when I go through the desert. I really don’t care about that anymore, though. I am caring less and less, and I love it. I refuse to continue chasing after people and things that don’t chase back.

I’m not back to where I was, and that’s ok. I will be and it isn’t a competition against my former self, or other Christians. It’s a journey that I now see clearer because this desert is almost behind me.

Drops in the bucket

   My bucket list, though not written in one place, is extensive.  Backpack Europe after college, start an international non-profit, get married, and many more unique and not-so-unique adventures... It's kind of a trending thing.  We like lists, we like looking forward.
   I want to take a minute to look back.  For a 21 year old, I've gotten (and had) to do some pretty amazing things, I must admit. And I never want to ignore how I've been blessed.

Here are just some of the things that are already in my bucket.
1.  Been to the Equator on opposite sides of the world
2.  I've had a baby named after me (this is an awful thing to say, but she was the ugliest baby I've ever seen)
3.  Spoken in front of over 10,000 people (and yet, I still get nervous every time I have to speak in front of anyone, if I haven't done it in a while)
4.  Loved unconditionally. Shut up, I know it's cheesy.
5.  Been completely broken, and healed. And broken, and healed.  It's truly made me stronger... cue Kelly Clarkson
6.  Seen miracles
7.  Preached
8.  Gotten within 30 feet of a couple of lionesses in the wilds of Africa with no barrier
9.  Caught a fish with my bare hands in a lake
10.  Learned to laugh at myself.. and thank God, too, because that is a skill that comes in handy every moment if your name is Lacy (mini-me will need it too, until she grows some more hair)
11.  Had a line in a hit tv show
12.  11 was a lie.
13.  Gotten a tattoo!

That's all I got right now, but it's a start.  Lord knows there are many more to come.

... but I will praise You.

      I've literally tried to write this blog countless times the past few months, all with different ideas about the subject. But tonight, David helped me. Tonight David is my favorite lover of God in the Bible. 
   
       He was emotional. He asked God to destroy his enemies. He asked God where he was when he couldn't find him.  He was raw. He was real.  But he always brought it back to "I will praise You."
 
      Most of you may say perfection is unattainable, but I have developed the perfect system the past couple years in what has been one of my favorite experiences of my life- being a chaplain.  So here it is, the key to being a good Christian (I should probably hold onto it and get a book deal, but that's ok- I will give the secret of heaven at no charge) -- show your present weaknesses to those in leadership over you, your past weaknesses and current strengths to those you are leading.  Really, it's great.
     Only it isn't. I don't know why, but something about it didn't work.  Nobody was getting the full picture of who I was, who I am.  I developed this sense of inferiority around my leaders because I never let them see my strengths, the things I was proud of.  Similarly, I developed a sense of pride around everyone else- not that I was better, but I saw the best of myself when with them.  I continually saw myself through the eyes of those with whom I was spending time, and not through the eyes of God.  I was filtering everything so consciously.
      The past year has been perhaps one of the most difficult of my life.  One thing I have greatly desired for the past few years was practically (unknowingly) rubbed in front of my face (if one can unknowingly rub something in front of someone's face?) for a whole semester... which made me think of all the other things so dearly tied to that in my heart. Things I haven't had that most people do.  And my heart began to break.  I got stressed out.  I felt like I couldn't be real about it, because I had this idea that Christians have this certain alloted time of brokenness. You get, say two weeks to be broken, but dude- you gotta be good to go after that.  If it hurts anymore, you aren't surrendered. You clearly have not made God the center.  Throw in a ton of random health issues that seriously came from the middle of freaking nowhere (don't worry- I'm mostly good now, and apparently a ton of it was due to... gluten. Yeah, definitely did NOT see that one coming).
     God does miracles.  And while I'm sure at somepoint tomorrow I will be upset and disagree with this- I think one of His miracles is allowing us to be fully human.  To feel things deeply, to feel raw things.  To be touched to the core.  And to say, "but I will praise You."
    (Now, I must temporarily cut myself off and take responsibility for much of this season.  While I stand by what I am saying, there is a difference between not denying real problems and pain, and dwelling in them. I think I've jumped that line quite a few times this year.)
    I don't know, I guess what I'm saying is I think sometimes we get skewed ideas of what it is to be a follower of Christ.  Sometimes we act like it means pretending problems aren't problems because we serve the King. As if we act that something isn't there, He will make it go away.  I really don't think that's what faith is.  I think faith, joy, etc. is in saying, "God this is what's going on and this is how I feel about it and this is what I want You to do and my idea of how You would do it, but whatever You do... I know You are God. I will praise You." I think, and maybe I'm wrong... but I think ignoring very real pains in the name of faith or joy or whatever else... is the very opposite of faith.  It's taking it into your hands when God's peace is "beyond understanding." 
    
   So I will seek God. I will seek what He has for me. I will be real. I won't seek to rush the process.  And I will praise my Lord.

The Lion and the Lamb

   A frequent request has made it into my prayers the last year or two: "God, let me come to understand more facets of who You are and understand them more fully." With this prayer has come much reward, I think.  I have come to better understand my role as the Bride of Christ, I have come to know God as not only a Father, but a Friend... there have probably been many more ways this prayer has been answered that I don't even understand yet.
   In all of this, though, I sometimes forget what is perhaps His most obvious role: GOD. King. Lord. Far beyond me, far above me, far greater... I think here at ORU we (I) tend to get very consumed with God as friend and so on.  For me, it has almost been this phase of "I got this whole Christian thing down." Live my life, say, "Hey Jesus" throughout the day, read my Bible, and listen to worship music.  Easy.  Ask Him what He wants me to do, take that into consideration, learn the fine art of Christian jokes and the fine line of what is blasphemy and what is just funny.
  But last night God kind of disturbed all that. A lot.  As I was praying, I decided to listen... and a word kept coming to me that at first I thought must not be God. I felt as though He was saying I had "defiled" His presence in my life.  Thinking that God is incapable of being defiled, I tried to ignore this thought. It just kept coming.  Soon I realized I had done just that.  I have put God in a neat little box and not seen Him as Holy. Lion of Judah.  Majestic. Magnificent. Beyond understanding.  Glorious.  Lord of Lords. King of Kings.
  Don't treat His commands as trite, don't see Him as a mere companion to life without seeing Him as the Lord.  Don't think that you have this life down so well that You only need Him as one of your friends that you can pull out whenever you like.  He spoke this world into existence, so how much do you think His name means? And the Bible says that we bear that name. Don't use it in vein.  Remember the weight and power of His presence.

Hmmm... -insert chin stroke here-

      For those of you who regularly read my blog... If there is anybody out there who regularly reads my blog, perhaps you have noticed a trend that I like to write only after I feel I have mastered a new lesson, or at least that I have figured the lesson out and must then work it into my daily life. I don't like to write about what I don't know, when I don't have answers. I like using my voice when it is to bring knowledge or wisdom I feel I may have, not to submit new thoughts into the deep waters of what we don't know.
     What I'm realizing though is how much freedom there is in the unknown.  What I mean is not intentional ignorance, but understanding that even what I think I have figured out, what I think I am an expert on... I simply am not.  I know God is good.  God loves me. The Bible is his Word.  That is it.  Life is not black and white... or maybe it is, but my vision is inadequate at discovering the fullness of what is black and the fullness of what is white. I get it mixed up.  A lot.
      I like it that way.  I don't have to know everything.  I just have to know my God and trust that He sees through all that I cannot decipher.  He is my rock, my foundation, my answer, my comfort.
     The God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob is my road.

Spray-Tanning and Jesus.

As most of you know, and comment on frequently, I work at Totally Tan. Though I would have never guessed myself the type to work at a tanning salon, I appreciate my job immensely.  One part about it, however, frustrates me so much!

Spray-tanners.

Not all of them. I do not hate all the spay tanners of the world, I promise. But this is my problem with many of them: they come in and ask a BILLION questions before they give me a chance to tell them anything.  I try to tell them that I will show them a video, and then show them how to do once I take them to the machine, but they interrupt with their fears, "Is it hard?! What if I forget? You better show me well and explain everything!!!" Lady, I haven't even taken your money yet! We'll get there in time.

I was going through just such a situation the other day when I thought how much like faith this is.  Often times, God just wants to get us through this next step but we jump 5 miles down the road. We argue, "God I don't know how to do this! If we do this, then that will happen and that will happen, and before you know it, we'll be there!" We predict what we do not know based on one step.  We are so busy with our arguments that we don't get a chance to listen.  We frustrate the process because we do not submit to it.

We have a system. We prepare spray-tanners well and the machine even talks to them and tells them what to do. In case they forget what the machine is talking about, there are pictures on the side.  They will be well prepared.  They don't realize how easy it is though until they get in.  Some take it in faith; some don't listen and just keep attacking me with questions while I try to calm them down.

Trust God. He knows the whole picture, but He has to walk you through it one step at a time.

"God is in every tomorrow,
Therefore I live for today,
Certain of finding a sunrise,
Guidance and strength for the way;
Power for each moment of weakness;
Hope for each moment of pain,
Comfort for every sorrow,
Sunshine and joy after the rain. "