'Tis the Season

Merry Christmas! I can't believe that in ten days we will be celebrating the birth of our Lord and Savior on this earth. It feels like yesterday we were ringing in the new year. I have had so much fun celebrating Christmas with the junior highers and high schoolers. We've gone bowling, had silly white elephant gift exchanges, gingerbread house competitions and deep discussions on the events leading up to Jesus' birth. One thing I've realized through this all is that we serve an unfathomable God. Each time I start to think I have God figured out he throws me a curve ball. He did that last week when we were talking about Mary's pregnancy. We are talking about the Lord of Lords and the King of Kings. He could have chosen any way he wanted to make his entrance onto this earth... and he chose to come by way of an unwed, poor teenager and a lowly, dirty manger. If that isn't humility then I don't know what is. Just meditating on those two facts put me in awe realizing another characteristic and decision of the God we serve. May He fill you with him peace, joy, love and gentleness this Christmas season as you celebrate and are surrounded by those you love most!

Happy Thanksgiving!!!!

Happy Thanksgiving friends! I hope you have an enormously blessed day and that you thoroughly enjoy your food coma... I know I will! If you're having trouble finding things to be thankful for, check out www.miniature-earth.com. And know that our God loves you and is faithful and will use all things for the good of those who love Him. Have a great holiday and a great long weekend!

John 11

One of the scriptures in church this week was from John 11, when Jesus' friend Lazarus dies. As I was up front reading the scripture to the congregation, the Lord began to make parts of it stick out that I had never really meditated on before. I usually like to get to the part where it says that Jesus wept, because I hold this fact very dear and near to my heart. In my haste to get there I never really meditated on the circumstance of it all. The scripture clearly states that Jesus dearly loved Martha, Mary and their brother Lazarus. So what does He do when he hears Lazarus is sick? Does he rush to his side to heal him? No. He waits. He does nothing for two whole days. I can just imagine what my response would have been if I were Mary and Martha. "You love me and my brother, and he is sick, and you're not going to come and heal him? Are you for real?" I, in my miniscule self-centered thinking would be so hurt. Which brings up another point I have a habit of forgetting. It isn't all about me. Jesus states that Lazarus' sickness, which must have brought on heartache, worry and sleepless nights for Martha and Mary, was for God's glory so that God's Son may be glorified through it. In the end waiting those two days allowed God to show His glory through His son, and that could only happen if Mary and Martha went through the heartache they did, which He knew they could endure.

God's ways are not our ways, that's for sure. And looking at the outcome of John 11 I'm very thankful they aren't.

JOY in suffering... say what?

So this week I've been dwelling on what true joy is. Growing up I always thought joy and happiness were one in the same. In singing "Joy to the World" at Christmas time (which is less than two months away -- woohoo!) I was always singing about the happiness that comes with Christmas, and nothing more. But turning to scripture and meditating on what it says makes me realize that joy is something far beyond happiness. Romans 5:3 tells us that we "rejoice in our sufferings." When I look back on hard times, times when I lost loved ones or was struggling in school or in a relationship, I was not happy. It's not a natural instinct to be filled with happiness when our world in crumbling around us. 1 Peter 4:13 states that Peter and others rejoiced in knowing that others were suffering for Christ. I can't imagine that wives sit by, overflowing with happiness, as their husbands are imprisoned for professing their faith in Christ, or that the disciples' friends watched with glee as they were crucified for believing in Jesus. But I do believe they were filled with joy. You see, I don't think joy and happiness are correlated any more than sadness and anger are correlated. Often the two emotions come hand in hand, but not always. I think that true joy is something only believers in the true, living God can have. It's the knowledge that He's bigger and more powerful than death, sin and the Devil. And it's the knowledge that He's infinitely good and stays true to His word to use all things for the good of those who love Him. It's the knowledge that, while a loved one may be overcome by cancer, Jesus has overcome the death sentence that comes with that cancer and has the final say with eternal life and healing. It's the knowledge that you must die in order to live, and so, after the world throws everything it can at you, you can stand, and stand firm on the foundation of Christ. It's the ability to let go and say, "Not my will, but Thy will be done," knowing that everything happens for a perfect purpose, even if it doesn't make sense to our peabrain minds. Joy is letting the all-knowing, all-powerful, Agape-loving God have His way in our lives so that He may have all the glory, all the honor and all the power.

Proverbs 30

I just stumbled across some scripture that convicted me to the core. In Proverbs 30:7-9, the writer says to the Lord, "Two things I ask of you, O Lord, do not refuse me before I die: Keep falsehood and lies far from me; give me neither poverty nor riches, but give me only my daily bread. Otherwise, I may have too much and disown you and say 'Who is the Lord?' Or I may become poor and steal, and so dishonor the name of my God." The writer essentially asks the Lord for nothing more than truth and enough wealth and material goods to get by for the day. That is such a foreign concept to me. Society embeds within us that we are to save, save, save for retirement, for the unknown and for the curves life might throw at us. We are told we should save for a rainy day and because one day we might be in a tight spot and need help. But the scripture is right on the money (sorry for the pun -- I couldn't help myself). I find comfort in that cushion in my savings account and I worship it and rely on it instead of God to an extent. I easily forget that He is my provider and protector above and beyond Wells Fargo or my employer. I'm not saying it's completely foolish to save for your future to some extent, but I think that we as Americans hoard our money and let it possess us way too much. What about those who are in a tight spot now and need us to be stewards of the money the Lord has blessed us with and entrusted to us? Maybe He wants to provide them with their daily bread through us and we're so worried about tomorrow (which is not guaranteed to any) and our possible needs then that we completely overlook the needs of others today. Is our future more valuable than their present? Surely not in God's opinion. I too easily forget that my money is not my money at all. It's His and I'm simply His vessel and middle man. If only I could live more like that. What a bold prayer to pray Proverbs 30:7-9 and what beauty to start living it out! I pray and hope that your day is saturated in the joy, goodness and hope of our God!

Craziness...

http://www.chrisjordan.com/current_set2.php

Beautiful Music

My mom came across an interesting story last night that I wanted to share. It's about a musician named Joshua Bell who is one of the top violinists in the world (see http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/04/04/AR2007040401721.html?referrer=digg to see article). On January 9, 2007 Joshua sold out a performance at Boston's Symphony Hall, where tickets were $100 each, and three days later he decided to perform an experiment. Joshua headed down to the DC subway at rush hour to play a 45 minute set, which included one of the most intricate pieces ever written, with his violin valued at 3.5 million dollars. During that 45 minutes it is estimated that nearly 1,100 people passed by Joshua. 27 of those 1,100 people dropped money into Joshua's bucket, which totalled $32.17. Most dropped in the money without so much as looking at Joshua, let alone stopping to hear him play. Several children, most notably a 3 year old boy, stopped to listen to Joshua, but all were hurried along by their parents.
Joshua's experiment was one of perceptions and taste. He wanted to find out if we perceive beauty and truly appreciate it, and if we recognize talent in an unexpected context. On the whole, the answer he got back across the board was "no."
The article got me thinking about man's relationship with God, which sadly has so many parallels to Joshua's story. Everyday you, I and the rest of the world encounter the most gifted artist the world has ever known. His works are all around us on display, and we pass them by. Some of us give a miniscule piece of the wealth we have at our fingertips for his cause and time, but usually it's without really saturating ourselves in his work or taking a moment away from us to focus on him. He's playing all around us, begging us to listen and find joy in his music, and we turn a blind eye and deaf ear. Isn't it funny that the 3 year old boy was the one who recognized talent and beauty and appreciated it. I've found that that's the way it usually is in life, out of the mouths of babes come such amazingly truthful and beautiful insights about God and his kingdom.

And Jesus said: "I tell you the truth, unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. Therefore, whoever humbles himself like this child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven." Matthew 18:3-4

May you and I both stop and marvel at the music being composed around us and for us today and always. Blessings!

Something More...

Hi guys,

Sorry it's been so long since my last post. I've been away at camp after camp after camp after camp. Literally 4 camps, and then I got home to be bed-ridden with the flu for a week. I guess that's what I get for burning the candle at both ends with some of the coolest kids I know. Each camp was so different and uniquely amazing. I feel like God is showing me so much. What is He showing me? That there's gotta be something more than what we, as the American church, are experiencing. Jesus was radical. And his message was equally as radical. And the fruit of that radical message is a radically lived life. Jesus said that those who wish to keep their lives will lose them and those who give their lives for his sake and to his cause will save them. Looking at my life I've realized that there are little (or maybe large) pieces of my life where I say, "You know what Lord, I think I'll keep that one." And my life reflects that desire to hold onto those things. Our purpose on this earth is to glorify God. Period. End of sentence. Am I glorifying God, laying down my life and serving Him with every breath that I take? Definitely not. The truth is that I'm comfortable where I'm at, and that's not a good thing. We need to be breaking out of our comfortable bubbles for the gospel, whether that mean to go to Africa and serve AIDS orphans, to go to downtown LA and feed the homeless or to go to your best friend's house to share the love and message of Jesus with them. The Lord, His word and the souls of men and women are the only things that matter. They are all that will enter into eternity with us, and to put anything (Our pride, comfort, TV, movies, etc.) before those three things is to not live a fully surrendered life. To give much, live passionately, love selflessly and serve unceasingly is to be Jesus' hands and feet on this earth. And the only way we can be and do those things is to make our relationship with our Maker THE top priority above all else. I want to have a hunger for the Word that can't be fully filled and I want to be so connected to my Lord that every prayer from my tongue is His exact same prayer. I'm sorry for the word vomit that is all over your computer screen, but I'm just done being lukewarm. I want to live life for all that it's worth and meant to be, and I hope you'll join in on the journey. The Lord, His Word and the souls of men and women. That's what I'm living for.

A fresh perspective

Hi friends! I hope your life is so full and rich and blessed! Summer is right around the corner -- woohoo! I am so excited to be a professional camp counselor, going to four different camps for four weeks in a row. I love camps and all that they have to offer in terms of growth, friendships and new life experiences. It should be a fun month!

I feel like God has been so kind in showing me so much in the past month. It's been pretty simple stuff, but it's sunk in in a whole new way lately. Mainly, God has been showing and teaching me that perspective is the difference between sorrow and joy in so much of life -- hence the picture to the left -- do you see an old lady or a young girl? (I see the girl). The way that we look at the cards that we're dealt and the things that happen in our lives determines how we respond to them and the outlook that we have in life. A person can always feel like they aren't wealthy enough, happy enough, loved enough, pretty enough, etc. and those feelings only lead to feelings of inadequacy and sadness, and they only lead us away from God and the fullness and richness He wants to bring to our lives. EVERYTHING in life is a blessing. EVERYTHING. We are entitled to nothing in this life beyone the wages of our sin, which is death. Yet God pours out so many blessings to us everyday just because He's crazy about us. And the even cooler thing is that God even uses the junk and the sorrow we experience in lives for our good and turns those things into blessings. When I look back on the hardest, darkest times in my life I am so thankful because I see God's hand so much more visibly than in the happy, carefree times of my life. The hard times were times when I was stripped of the things I turn to daily instead of God, and it was during these times that I had no choice but to grip onto Him, to dive into Him and to grow into a better picture of Him. Romans 5 tells us we can "rejoice in our sufferings." Think about what it means to rejoice. It means to throw your arms up in the air and praise God! It means to be overfilled with joy! Pretty crazy that we serve a God who can take the worst of the worst that we experience and turn it into blessings we can rejoice over.

But we can only rejoice over these things if we look at them as blessings. We must see past the hurt and see the refinement; past the death and see the new life; past the loss and see what is gained. We can only do that if we have a Godly perspective, one that is focused on the Word and flows naturally from it.

Living a life drenched in God means living a life focused on what He does give us rather than what He doesn't. Don't have a girlfriend/boyfriend? I bet you have amazing friends who love you like crazy and who God loves you like crazy through. Don't have the wardrobe you want? I bet you are fully clothed everyday. Wish your house was bigger? I'm betting you have a roof over your head. Wish you had the top of the line Macbook? If you are reading this right now it means that you have access to a computer -- a benefit 80% of the people in this world don't have.

Need a little more perspective? Click here: http://www.miniature-earth.com/me_english.htm

Hope your life is drenched in His unfailing, unceasing Love! It's all that's worth living for :)

What?!?!

I can't believe I haven't blogged since March! Sooo sorry about that. I hope you had an awesome April and are having a marvelous May :) I know I am. I'm super busy (if you couldn't tell by the months between blog posts) between birthdays, work, church, Confirmation and weddings (yay!), but busy is good. I hope all of you mothers had a fabulous Mother's Day and that your kiddos spoiled you like crazy! My brother came up with the best Mother's Day gift, and I'm kind of proud of how it turned out :) My mom's favorite child these days is her one year old black Lab, Jagger, and so I had my best friend and AMAZING professional photographer Katelin (katelinwallace.blogspot.com) come over and shoot the little rascal. My brother also shot a few more humorous pictures, and we framed a couple and put the rest in a photo book. My mom loved it! Homemade gifts really are the best :) Hopefully I'll be able to put up some pictures soon. He really is too cute.

Job...

...as in the book of Job, not a j-o-b. It was one of those uncoincidental coincidences that the topic of the St. John's high school study and my own small group study this week were both the book of Job. I know it sounds so weird, but I am comforted by the book of Job. Yes, God gives Satan free reign to do with Job and his family as Satan so chooses, short of killing him. Yes, Job loses everything dear to him on this earth and is plagued with horrible things. But he never loses faith. Job comforts me because he wrestles with God. He questions him, gets angry with him, but he never loses faith. I don't know if you've ever read Job 19 before, but I highly suggest doing it. The hardships I have been through pale in comparison to what Job experienced. And if, after it all, he can still say that he knows his Redeemer lives (before Jesus walked the earth, mind you), then why can't I? A friend of mine was beautifully honest in discussing Job with me and said he didn't understand the book and Job's circumstance makes him question God's love, goodness and justice. How could God just so readily hand Job over to Satan like that when Job was blameless and faithful? How could God watch Job go through what he did and not step in? These are serious, legitimate questions to wrestle with when reading through Job. Then the questions popped into my head: How could God the father so readily hand Jesus over? How could God the father watch Jesus go through what he did on the cross and not step in? I think we as humans are naturally born with these enormous blinders on. We can only see what's in our reality. God's scope and view is infinitely bigger than our own, and God is therefore infinitely wiser. He knew what he put Jesus through was so worth the outcome, and he knew that Job's temporal sorrows were meaningless in the scope of eternity. And, after all is said and done, God gives Job double what he had before. The fact of the matter is that we all deserve the worst of what Job experienced, and nothing more. We are sinners who deserve death, but God freely gives us so much more. I think entitlement is one of Satan's greatest tools. I'm entitled to nothing, but God has given me everything through his son. Eternity is all that matters. Like Job says, "after my skin has been destroyed, yet in my flesh I will see God; I myself will see him with my own eys." What an awesome day that will be!

Retreat!

What an amazing weekend! I headed up to Forest Home Ojai Valley with 88 Eighth graders and 12 other leaders on Friday for Confirmation retreat. The weekend was incredible to say the least. Why was it incredible? Because God showed up. The Holy Spirit was palpable throughout the retreat and I was amazed as I watched lives be transformed and restored by his power and love. I feel like there were points in the weekend where I got that rare glimpse of what Christian fellowship was intended to look like. We were one body, relying on each other, loving on each other and being real with each other. It was so beautiful.

Jesus is it. He's everything we need. We are blessed not because of people or things, but because One person gave us His everything. At one point in the weekend we all nailed our sins to the cross and as each person came up I just saw Jesus looking so lovingly at them saying "I'll take that one. And that one too. Whatever it takes to be with you." We deserve nothing good in this world. Nothing. But Jesus, the one perfect person who ever deserved good took on all of our filth and went through the worst of this world to give us everything.

My 40 days of the gospel are still rocking my world. I read Luke 4 this morning and was humbled by the way Jesus was able to combat every temptation with the Word of God. I was also appalled almost to the point of laughter by what a blatant liar Satan is. Early in the chapter he tries to tell Jesus that he has the authority to give everything to Jesus if Jesus will only worship him, and then a few verses later his minions, the evil spirits, are proclaiming that Jesus is the Holy One of God and fall down to the ground.

More pictures of retreat to come soon. Not too many though. Nicolle Miller only took about 700 :) Blessings!

A Lenten Challenge

Hi all,

I am passing on a challenge to you that I received from a good friend of mine. The challenge is simple, and from the two days I've been meeting this challenge, I can already tell you it's going to be life changing. The challenge is to simply read through the books of Mark and Luke by the end of the Lent season. There are 40 chapters altogether, which works out perfectly to read one chapter a day. The goal through this challenge is simple: to get to know Jesus more and to fall deeper in love with him. The cool thing about only reading a chapter a day isn't that you can do it in under five minutes. That's not it at all. The cool thing is that I get to really marinate on each verse, on each word and soak in Jesus' teachings, ministry and life. I'm only through Mark 2 and am already in awe and so refreshed. It isn't to late to start the challenge!

Two things really hit home for me in Mark 2 that I want to share with you. The first is the sweetness of the words "Follow me." In verse 14 Jesus sees Levi (also known as Matthew), a tax collector, at his place of work (which was despised by the rest of society) and simply says those two words. But there is so much deeper meaning behind what Jesus says. Follow me. Enter my kingdom, my truth. Lose your life to gain mine. Experience my agape love. Pick up your cross as I venture to pick up mine. Join in on the adventure. Experience the freedom. Taste what it means to truly live. Let me be Lord of your life.

The other portion of the chapter that really impacted me was when Jesus said "it is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. I have not come to call the righteous, but the sinners." Why do we all always try to act like we have it all together? Jesus came to love the broken, the destitute, those who freely admit that we really need a Saviour. The truth is that without Jesus and His grace to set us free we are all equal sinners, digging our way to Death. Without Him we are nothing. We are all the sick, and I too often try to pretend like that's not me. In fact, not admitting to my sickness makes me delusional, and all the more sick. Funny how that works.

Anyway, I have been beyond blessed by the past two days and strongly encourage you to join me in my journey to the heart of Jesus. I'll check back in with updates on what God is teaching me through his sweet Word. Blessings! ~H

Broomball!!!

Yesterday I got together with some of my favorite people in the world to celebrate President's Day with a nice game of Broomball, which was so fun! And so painful! I took a couple of spills on the ice and woke up this morning to find a few beautiful black and blue knots on my shins. It was so much fun, and so worth the pain! My team may not have come out on top, but we sure did have a great time.

I hope that you had a wonderful Valentine's Day and that the love of Jesus was so present in your day! Praise God that we always have His PERFECT love to celebrate and to get us through.

Happy New Year!

Yes, yes, I know. I'm two weeks late. Apologies. But, well, it's been a crazy time around St. John's (which I'm starting to think is a theme around this church... and probably most churches come to think of it). God is doing awesome things around here, and His hand in everything is so evident. I feel like everyday He's showing me another prayer He's answered. Moral of the story: be careful what you wish (or pray) for. Not that I'm regretting any prayer, but I'm realizing more and more that they are more powerful than we know and God is more faithful than we could fathom. 2nd moral of the story: watch your words. God is always listening. Last Wednesday someone asked me how I was doing, and I flippantly (and jokingly) responded that I was doing great, because I knew things couldn't get worse so there was nowhere to go but up. God had a little reminder for me the next morning that things can always get worse. My car, sadly, got its face torn off by another car on my way to work Thursday morning. I was fine, as was the driver of the other car (it was seriously the smoothest crash I've ever been in), but my poor little car is in the shop and not doing so well. I think it was just God's reminder that things can always get worse, so I should count all circumstances of life as a blessing.

Anyway, keep praying and remember: God is always listening :) Blessings!