#graduate
This past summer I became an official college graduate. It only took a few years after wearing the whole cap and gown get up to make it happen, but it. is. finished. (you're welcome mom).
The first three years of college were incredibly difficult for me. I experienced a paranoid anxiety for the first time. Cried every single day for months on end and thought that was normal. And I saw the warning of God about sin prove true: sin truly does lead to death, not only in the physical sense but it also brings a fatal cancer to our relationships, our mentalities, our hearts, and our lives.
Solomon said that envy or bitterness rots the bones. During these three years I didn't realize this was happening, but it was. Only after my years at university did I see the effects and knew I needed another way.
When I walked across the stage (thinking I was getting a degree) I remember thinking, "Now I can put all of this behind me." I drove home, had a celebration with friends and family, and then the next day I drove to a camp tucked away in the mountains of North Carolina.
I was a few weeks in when I saw an email titled "We Jumped the Gun..." I was mad when I read it and found out that I wasn't an official graduate, but I was more mad at that title choice. We jumped the gun? Really?
I am able to say now (with very little faith to be honest but enough faith in the character and ways of my God) that even this was grace. The Lord knew there was a deep well of unforgiveness in my heart. The Lord knew that I was angry at all that had happened during those first three years, all the ways I had hurt, and he knew I needed healing. He knew that I had not truly found him to be enough and it was manifesting in my irritation, unforgiveness, self-pity, and view of him.
He knew that I needed to decide if I believed he was good, not just said it.
He knew that I needed to decide if I was going to trust him with everything, not just some things.
He knew that I needed to decide if I would rejoice even if grieved by various trials.
Was the Gospel enough? Was he enough?
My second year of university I sat down with a campus minister and he explained the Gospel to me. After years of hearing this good news the Holy Spirit made it alive to me. A few weeks later I started following the Lord even in the midst of my doubts and questions.
You see, I thought I needed to have it all figured out before I came to him, but in his mercy he allows me to come as a mess. He stands before the Father and says, "She doesn't have perfect faith but I do. Count my faith as hers." This is the glorious Gospel, this is the one we serve, this is he who is our living hope, he who rose from the dead.
I come before the Father unable to stir my own steel-heart. I do not believe he is good at all times or that I can trust him in everything or that even in trials I can rejoice. But the Lord does not leave me there. He gives me what I need even if that is in the various trials that leave me at his feet weeping but finding he is enough, even if that means not giving me my idea of a good life and me finding that he actually is my very life.
When ours sorrows swell to the brim, when our sin is exposed and we find ourselves stuck in its grip, when we feel angry because this is not how it should be, even there the Lord says, "You are my child." He carries us and we find that he does not leave us in the pit. He is down in the pit with us, working redemption and his glory, all for our good.
The first three years of college were incredibly difficult for me. I experienced a paranoid anxiety for the first time. Cried every single day for months on end and thought that was normal. And I saw the warning of God about sin prove true: sin truly does lead to death, not only in the physical sense but it also brings a fatal cancer to our relationships, our mentalities, our hearts, and our lives.
Solomon said that envy or bitterness rots the bones. During these three years I didn't realize this was happening, but it was. Only after my years at university did I see the effects and knew I needed another way.
When I walked across the stage (thinking I was getting a degree) I remember thinking, "Now I can put all of this behind me." I drove home, had a celebration with friends and family, and then the next day I drove to a camp tucked away in the mountains of North Carolina.
I was a few weeks in when I saw an email titled "We Jumped the Gun..." I was mad when I read it and found out that I wasn't an official graduate, but I was more mad at that title choice. We jumped the gun? Really?
I am able to say now (with very little faith to be honest but enough faith in the character and ways of my God) that even this was grace. The Lord knew there was a deep well of unforgiveness in my heart. The Lord knew that I was angry at all that had happened during those first three years, all the ways I had hurt, and he knew I needed healing. He knew that I had not truly found him to be enough and it was manifesting in my irritation, unforgiveness, self-pity, and view of him.
He knew that I needed to decide if I believed he was good, not just said it.
He knew that I needed to decide if I was going to trust him with everything, not just some things.
He knew that I needed to decide if I would rejoice even if grieved by various trials.
Was the Gospel enough? Was he enough?
My second year of university I sat down with a campus minister and he explained the Gospel to me. After years of hearing this good news the Holy Spirit made it alive to me. A few weeks later I started following the Lord even in the midst of my doubts and questions.
You see, I thought I needed to have it all figured out before I came to him, but in his mercy he allows me to come as a mess. He stands before the Father and says, "She doesn't have perfect faith but I do. Count my faith as hers." This is the glorious Gospel, this is the one we serve, this is he who is our living hope, he who rose from the dead.
I come before the Father unable to stir my own steel-heart. I do not believe he is good at all times or that I can trust him in everything or that even in trials I can rejoice. But the Lord does not leave me there. He gives me what I need even if that is in the various trials that leave me at his feet weeping but finding he is enough, even if that means not giving me my idea of a good life and me finding that he actually is my very life.
When ours sorrows swell to the brim, when our sin is exposed and we find ourselves stuck in its grip, when we feel angry because this is not how it should be, even there the Lord says, "You are my child." He carries us and we find that he does not leave us in the pit. He is down in the pit with us, working redemption and his glory, all for our good.