Temples of His unending grace

One of my goals this year was to be more active with this blog. Well... it's the end April and I have yet to post. The old me would get all upset and worked up over this, but not anymore. I've experienced this little thing called God's grace and He has shown me the value in knowing and accepting His grace. I recently read a quote that really stuck with me:

"Your worst days are never so bad that you are beyond the reach of God's grace. And your best days are never so good that you are beyond the need of God's grace."

Man that is so powerful and humbling. If you think about it... we are << t e m p l e s >> of His unending grace . And the craziest part? We don't deserve any of it. I feel we can get so caught up worrying and comparing ourselves to other's lives. When we compare, we start believing that things aren't fair. This desire of "fairness" builds, but as my Pastor beautifully put it: "don't ask for 'fair,' ask for grace. 'Fair' would be paying for our daily sins, and let's be real that would not be pretty. Shift your perspective and start asking for His grace." So when you think about it the definition of grace "unmerited, undeserved, unearned favor," you begin to realize how much we don't deserve Him, yet He continues to give Himself to us: His love. His comfort. His guidance. His refuge. His everything. You begin to realize that nothing you do or do not do changes how He views us. What a flippin' relief. Every hour, every minute, every second of every day He extends Himself to us, inviting us in to be with Him. Period. Let's live as such; anticipating God will intervene any and every second.

After nearly a year passing since submitting my Medical School applications... I have 2 more schools to hear back from. 2. Out of about 30. Did I have hopes this process would have gone differently? You bet. Did I pray that I would have already gotten an interview and been accepted by now? 100%. Did I think that even if I hadn't gotten an interview I would have at least heard back from every school by now? Yup. Have I wanted to accept defeat and start planning what I am going to do next? Oh yes. However, something has been on my heart to just wait, continue to wait before making any moves. This has been one of the toughest, tiresome, draining things I have ever had to go through. I have been pressing into God and accepting His invite to meet Him where I am at as much as I can, praying that I grow with and through Him throughout this process. I am beyond thankful that I have been able to do so as much as I have. I owe it to the support and guidance from my Pastor and dear friends who have allowed me to vent and have poured Jesus in to me, fueling my desire to press in to Him. Recently, I have been playing the new Bethel CD on repeat and the song "Take Courage" struck me the first time I heard it. I am not sure if it is just me, but for some reason certain lyrics don't register or really hit me until specific moments, typically not the first time listening to the song. I began writing out this post and "Take Courage" came on... I stopped in my tracks and just sat mesmerized, listening to every single word. These lyrics could not have come at a more perfect time.

"Take courage, my heart
Stay steadfast my soul
He's in the waiting.
Hold on to your hope
As your triumph unfolds
He's never failing"

He is IN this waiting. And He NEVER fails. Friends, isn't there is something so comforting about that declaration?! He is with us and never fails us. We think having all the answers to every part of our lives will make life so great, but in reality we don't have to have any answer to obey Him. He invites us in and asks us to be with Him. We just have to take the invitation. Pray to Him, praise Him, talk to Him, sit with Him. Shifting our perspective to make Him and His vision our priority is the answer and friends, let me tell you, it changes everything; we start to see HIM in everything.

Waiting = obeying God. (my previous post is actually about this too.. clearly there's a theme here. That post can be found here!)

It takes courage to chose to trust Him and not doubt.
It takes courage to chose to hold on to the hope He gives and not run to earthly desires.
It takes courage to chose to stand in confidence in His truths and not hide in fear and the lies we tell ourselves.

Funny thing is... He gives us the courage we need when we choose Him. HE NEVER FAILS. Let's all choose Him with confidence knowing He fills us with courage and never fails. He has already won friends. And that truth right there is enough to get me through this season. He waited for me to surrender my heart to Him and I will wait for Him to reveal His glory. This waiting may be frustrating, but knowing He is working all things together for MY good. OHHHHH man, I'll wait for that. And I will thank and praise Him for the grace He extends when I disobey.

Thank you LORD for this beautiful reminder. Thank you for the grace you so freely extend to us, daily. Thank you for your invitation to be with You every moment and thank you that none of my actions affect that.
Thank you for Your sovereignty that kindly reminds me that You have gone before me, every single step of this journey. Lord thank you for revealing Yourself to me in those moments I so desperately need You. Thank you for your love and presence that kindly reminds me You are with me every step of this journey. I lift my all my anxieties, worries, doubts, confusion, and frustration up to You, knowing You are working it all together for MY good. I will wait in obedience, knowing that when my time comes, YOUR glory will be revealed. God I thank you for being so patient with me when I disobey You, and teaching me to be patient with myself. Thank you for showing up and showing off, even when I don't ask. Thank you for Your VICTORY.


AMEN.

Transition of Identities: What's Next?

It's been over a year since I have written a post. I am not sure why, but I did have some hesitations about the blog. I just found this typed out on a sticky note on my computer from August 16th of this year... bear with me it is a long one, but I promise it is good:

"8.16.15 Transition of Identities: What's Next? 

I have been known as an "athlete" ever since I was a little girl. I have been involved with a sport for as long as I can remember. Growing up I competitively played soccer, softball, swim, gymnastics, to name a few. I quickly became known as the competitive player; I would do anything to lead my team and would cry if I lost. I fully admit I was a sore loser.. well maybe still am. Even outside of practice I was always on the go; I would organize hide and seek, tag, and baseball games in our coul-de-sac or with my friends. Whatever it was I was always full of energy and loved to be moving. Fast forward to high school; I decided to try out for the volleyball team for the fall and would play softball in the spring. I made the volleyball team and loved learning about the game. Thanks to my athleticism, I quickly picked up the game and I truly enjoyed the challenge. I was playing travel softball along with high school volleyball at the time. Now it was time for high school softball and tryouts for club volleyball. In which I played both again. After playing through both sports high school and travel ball for a year I realized it was not do-able if I wanted to keep up my academics. This meant it was time to decide which sport I would stick with; the sport I have been playing since I could walk, or the sport that sparked a new found love, energy, and challenge. I decided to take the challenge and I pursued volleyball. I began to improve and I soon earned a scholarship to play D1 volleyball in CT. Here is where the story gets good. I was unbelievably excited to get away for four years and play the sport that I have grown to love. My first year was amazing and it exceeded any expectation that I had envisioned. I started, and played well, and we won our conference and went on to play Stanford in the NCAA tourney. After a year like that I only imagined the other teams we would play the next four years in the tourney. Unfortunately, those expectations, dreams, and visions came to a shattering and very unexpected quick end. The second year was a little rough, with a lot of mental games from my Coach.  

Confidence has always been something I struggled with, it is genetic. I have been able to scape by through my hard work, athleticism, and ability to listen, but I always felt one step behind. This put a damper on my mental state and my coach was not understanding one bit. This is where I began to notice he was not the man he portrayed him self to be.  Moving me positions, saying contradictory things, benching me for no reason, etc. I moved it aside as I had so much respect for my team I didn't care what it took, as long as we were winning... well that would have been great if we were winning, but we weren't. The season ended and we did not make the NCAA tourney. I stayed hopeful, I have two more years to turn this around. Learning I was to be a captain for my junior year I was so excited. I worked hard all summer, got in great shape and was ready to come back and kick butt. Meanwhile that summer I dealt with a significant family issue and to make things more complicated I was taking Physics summer course to stay on top for my pre-med major too. 

Anywho, I came back from summer and the pre season started full swing. From day one the mental games from my coach started. It was so noticeable I even had the new freshman coming up to me asking "why is coach treating you like that?" "what are you even doing wrong?" "you are doing what he asks and still yells at you." Words coming from my teammates. And this was just the beginning. It was a constant battle whether or not I should have stood up for myself, but I've always been the non-confrontational type. Which, I truly think is why I was chosen for his mental games, I was an easy target and he knew that. Well, to make a long story short, the games continued the whole year and I saw the court very rarely. Again, I would have no problem if we were winning, but we were losing miserably and embarrassingly. Teams we were crushing in prior years were now crushing us. And to top it off, he was even more cruel to me because we were losing. Daily threats to be kicked off the team, daily mockings, and getting screamed at. We lost the season and didn't even make our conference championships. I had an injury the whole season and was so afraid to even mention anything because it would make what was going on even worse. I had NO idea how much this really affected me until just recently. I went to administration for help and notified them all that had happened. My dad advised to go to a counselor too, in which I did. I feel like I was going through the motions every appointment and even though I told her most of what happened I couldn't get across how much it affected me. However, she spoke with my dad once and stated "I didn't even need her to tell me how much it has affected her, I could see it from the moment she walked in and started telling me the story." Any who, after that season, I was looking to transfer. I was willing to do anything to get away from CT, and specifically my coach. However, any school I wanted to transfer to would only accept 60 credits max, I had 108 and only needed 12 more to graduate. It seemed extremely unreasonable to transfer and have to take two more years of classes. So the idea of graduating early came up and I pursued it. However, that would mean I had one more season of volleyball left with this coach, in which I had no interest in. On top of that after the last season, I found out I would need another knee surgery. So I decided to get the surgery after I took the MCAT and I went back to finish off my senior year. I quickly transitioned from being captain to being the scum on my coaches shoe. And it was perfectly okay with me because I was not emotionally invested in the program anymore. I know how terrible it sounds, trust me, but I wasn't going to let him affect me anymore and I wasn't going to let him win. Season came and went and sure enough senior night came. My last collegiate volleyball game, ever. It didn't register or settle with my until now. The identity I have made for myself these past 8 years of competitive volleyball and 18 years of competitive sports is now just an old chapter in my book. I am no longer a division 1 volleyball player, let alone a part of any competitive sport. Aside from mentally healing from family issues and an asshole coach, I haven't been able to truly spend time creating a new identity for myself or better yet finding my identity through a relationship with God. 

A lot has changed in the past few years and I couldn't even tell you what identity I am seeking, i.e. doctor, nurse, physician's assistant, physical therapist. And that is truly killing me.  I have a personality where I need to feel like I have a purpose and lately I haven't payed much attention to much of any of that. I have lost touch with God, once agin, and have completely turned into someone my old self would have despised. I cannot be too hard on myself right now because I am battling health issues. This is where it gets hard- what is me and what is the health issues affecting who I am. I KNOW the lack of energy, the lack of motivation, and the horrible attitude is not who I am and this is what kills me. I have promised myself time and time again to devote more time to writing, praying, and actually making a step in the right direction but I have been mentally, physically, and emotionally exhausted and it felt like I keep making excuses. Writing this out, I know once I develop a relationship with God again, this will allow me to become who I am designed to be. My identity will be one that God has deliberately and beautifully planned just for me.

Graduating pre-med plus all the experiences I have been through recently have put a LOT of stress and pressure on me and my body is paying for it.  

My weaknesses are when I get in to a certain mood, I tend to focus on comparing other people's lives and situations to mine- which is highly unreasonable. Everyone's life is unique and I try and go back to that quote, "comparison is the thief of all joy." The more you think about that, the more it's truth hits you.  My life is mine and it is beautiful just as God has made it. 

I also tend to wonder why things aren't happening in my life at this moment in time- i.e. boyfriend, medical school, own apartment, etc. And again it's not fair to myself. This is where a beautiful and powerful bible verse comes in: 

Trusting God's plan takes courage, bravery, and most importantly hard work. Everything happens under His time and that is something I really need to focus on, daily. It should be a daily reminder.

God, when I get in these moods please bring me to Your attention. Allow me to be cognizant of Your power, love, and plan and the small phrases that will help me do that.  Again, I know He has a beautiful plan for me and I cannot wait to walk hand in hand with him to find out.

I recently found this note I wrote to myself during my last semester of college. I didn't realize how powerful it would be to me now. 98% of the time I am extremely hard on myself, in all aspects of life. However, there are these rare glimpses where I write down powerful words to myself and don't find till months later. After assuring myself I am worthy and work hard, a piece of the note read "I will not give up on my dream. I am no ordinary person. I am destined to do extraordinary things. I need to continue to believe that." Honestly, I wouldn't normally share things like that but I am really beginning to understand that loving yourself and believing in yourself is one of the most important tools to success. I have struggled with a lack of confidence all my life and I am just beginning to understand that through loving God, He will show you your worth and through trusting God you can believe it. I believe God was working through me whenever I would write the rare notes to myself. And I truly think occasionally writing notes to yourself is a great way to keep your mind on the God's truth, which is you ARE worthy and you CAN conquer your dream."

So... what's next? It is really weird that I just found this note today because it wasn't until very recently that I could have answered this question as I am now: 

I will delve further into my recently revived relationship with Christ in my next blog post but to close out this post...  the only identity I need is in Christ. What's next is I am a Christ Follower. That is my identity and I am working toward rebuilding a powerful relationship with God by walking with Christ. My identity is in Christ, period. These quotes are a little reminder of that:

Much love xo

 

Staying Strong

Here we go again, 

Why do I struggle so much with confidence?

It's obviously who I am. Never been one to brag or be the center of attention. My actions, grades, everything continuously show that I have something to be confident about. But I think I'm one who seeks reassurance in everything. How do I deal with that? How do I overcome it? 

This whole coach thing is strengthening me. God has a plan. I just have to be patient. Results don't come over night, not in a month, maybe not even in a year but I know they're coming. My faith is too strong. Just continuously have to remind myself to be patient. My joy is coming and it's coming on His timing. I want my timing to be in sync with his. That's what heaven is I think. By having desires and goals this allows me to recognize His power. Because ultimately His plan is far greater than what I could want and He shows it. 

Staying strong.