Pearls and Penmanship : 2016

CAMP CHRONICLES: ENTRY #1 - REFRESH

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MY ALL

Conviction pierced me this morning when my pastor made this remark:

Do we really mean it when we sing with gusto of the love that demands our 'soul, our life, our all"?

The times I have sang this hymn without contemplating this deep lyric outnumbers the stars. I remember the first time this thought pierced me - it wasn't when I sang it. In retrospect, I believe I have touched on this very article before, but the SheReadsTruth devotion app has a series of reading plans entitied Hymns, and one of those they chose was "When I Survey the Wondrous Cross."

It was in the reading of this hymn that I was convicted. Read it again - or for your first time - with me:

Were the whole realm of nature mine,

That were a present far too small.

Love so amazing, so divine,

Demands my soul, my life, my all.

Wow. I am so unworthy.

In this sermon, my pastor spoke of all the distractions we have in our everyday lives. How much time we spend - we make to spend - on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Netflix (yes that one cuts deep) - and we don't give a second thought to spending that "made time" in his presence. The church was silent. I know for a fact that every attentive person present that morning was instantly convicted.

The hymnwriter is saying that even if I had the entire realm of nature to give as payment for my sins alone, it would be far too small. But, Christ's amazing and divine love washes away our sins leaving us as white as snow. We deserve nothing except the fires of hell. Can we not repay even the slightest fragment of the debt by devoting our soul, our life, our all to him?

Naturally the question comes: what is our all?

And it is a tough one to answer. So I'm going to refer back to the wisdom of my pastor.

We have been studying the book of Nehemiah on Sunday mornings. Nestled in the middle of the book is the celebration and the prayer of the people upon the miraculous completion of the wall around Jerusalem in 52 days. What struck me was the behavior of the Israelites during this service of sorts that lasted over six hours.

1. They were hungry for the Word.

My dad used to teach fifth grade English. Naturally, every English teacher has a favorite read-aloud, and his is Caddie Woodlawn. I remember him coming home from school one day describing the eager students meeting him with the book in hand as he entered the classroom begging him to pick up on Caddie's next adventure.

When was the last time our hunger for the Word was this ravenous?

2. They were attentive to the Word.

I'm not going to lie; I know without the Lord sustaining me that I could not remain attentive to a six hour sermon. A ninety-minute sermon would be a stretch. But, Nehemiah states in chapter 8 that "the ears of ALL were attentive..." My pastor also stressed that this attentiveness was part of their worship and is part of ours today. Their hunger drove their attention. And if they grew weary, they called upon the Lord and He sustained them.

3.They were sensitive to the Word.

In their hunger-driven attentiveness, they absorbed what they were hearing and applied it to themselves. The Bible says they wept at their shortcomings before the Lord. They sensed their unworthiness for the miraculous act He had just performed through them in the building of the wall. But, short were their tears!

4. They were joyful in the Word.

This ceremony of sorts where we find the Israelites was in celebration of this work. The passage says they lifted their hands shouting "Amen! Amen!" Full of Joy.

All this to say, I believe our all has to do with these four things. Our increased hunger, attention, sensitivity, and joy for the Lord and his Word will grow our fullness of love to him. Understand again that this goal of giving Him our all is unattainable; the whole realm of nature as a gift would not even scratch the surface of what He deserves. But, rather than discourage, this should drive us to give him everything we have.

How he loves us. Oh, how he loves!

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Think-ful Thoughts

OBSERVE

In the last month I have been super busy with my new job, finishing up some stuff for school, and just life in general. But a lot has happened in our world in the last month. In our nation. A lot of it is disturbing. I know I am genuinely considering moving to Genovia -- in hopes that it has remained it's 2004 self since the last Princess Diaries movie came out.

Amidst all the craziness, I have been observing. Observing the way people think about themselves, about other people, and about the religious realm. When I say people, tonight I am considering the non-Christians among my acquaintance. My observations are as follows, and I write them in hopes of deriving application to myself and do not count myself guiltless in any of these areas:

1. Selfishness

This one has struck me in a unique way and has perhaps been the most obvious to me in my observation. When I write of selfishness, I am speaking more of the self-focused mindset that threads itself into everything they think, say, or do. Never does a thought directed toward the customer's perspective cross their mind.

"It was so rude of them to not leave a tip on such an expensive order."

"Perhaps they didn't leave a tip because of how painfully expensive the order was. Or maybe they had a rough work day. Maybe their cat died this morning. Maybe today they found out their spouse has cancer."

You just don't know.

Their selfish attitudes towards others has reminded me to put others first. To be understanding. To put myself in their shoes. To treat them as I would want myself to be treated. To serve them and expect nothing from them. And to love them.

Their selfishness has revealed to me another dimension of Christ's humility. True humility is not merely the absence of pride. It is a complete denial of self. It penetrates us to the core. And, it is hard. I struggle with it every day in so many different areas of my life.

May our pride be in Christ as our only source of salvation.

2. Language

My observation here is simple: it is called a "dirty mouth" for a reason. Outward beauty is shattered with foul language and degrading criticism of others. The Bible speaks so clearly on this topic - both in judgement and praise. I will let the inspired Word of the Lord speak on this issue.

"Let no corrupting talk come out of your mouths, but only such as is good for building up, as fits the occasion, that it may give grace to those who hear." Ephesians 4:29

"The good person out of the good treasure of his heart produces good, and the evil person out of his evil treasure produces evil, for out of the abundance of the heart his mouth speaks." Luke 6:45

"It is not what goes into the mouth that defiles a person, but what comes out of the mouth; this defiles a person." Matthew 15:11

James reminds us in chapter 3 and verse 8 that "no human being can tame the tongue." Here lies the root of problem - their hopelessness without Christ.

Let our words be gracious like a honeycomb, sweet to the soul and healthy to the body. (Proverbs 16:24) Through them our Christ's beauty can shine through us.

3. Hypocrisy

In the sense of speaking behind someone's back, hypocrisy can be friendship's greatest combatant. This observation is practically a subdivision of my previous point, but its significance in our world today demands our undivided attention. As certainly most of you have, I have watched one person speak to another about a shortcoming of a third party, and then watched the first speak to the third negatively about the second. What sort of twisted approach to relationships is this?

Unfortunately, an all too common one.

Tying my first two points together, I would also translate hypocrisy to one who treats you as a friend and then berates you to feed their own pride. These people are hard to love. Hard to not lash out at with snide remarks or even raw rage.

"But I tell you, 'Love your enemies, and pray for those who persecute you.'" Matthew 5:44

Lord, help me when I am provoked.

Now by and large, those I speak of are very nice people. But, my heart aches that they would open their hearts to receive truth. I feel that all too often we categorize unbelievers as unreachable especially if they have proved themselves on the heavier end of fallen human nature. Strive to channel Christ's light to them. Show them who he really is. His character as loving and faithful speaks volumes; let Him do the talking.

Pray for them. Live for Christ.

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Resourceful

IN THE LIGHT

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Pages Turn

WHO CAN?

Confession, I have not read a book truly for pleasure for months and months. I know, what kind of English fanatic doesn't lie down and read herself to sleep? I'll have to lay my excuse on my schoolwork and be done. Just now - literally less than a minute ago - I picked up a good ol' religious fiction paperback and read the first sentence. That's all that I read. Suddenly this flood rushed over me like embracing an old friend and I scooted under the covers in anticipation of another world.

All day today my brain was whirling with intimidating grown-up things that have suddenly dropped on my plate. By the end of April, I will have entered the world of employment, gotten my drivers license, and turned seventeen. Add SAT preparations, Prom planning, and the four outstanding papers that need to be written before the school year's end and that pretty much sums up my life right now. Reflecting on my last two days, I know I have spent too much time worrying and procrastinating and not enough time trusting and getting things done. Not enough time breathing words of thanks to my Father who has everything under control. My life in his hands.

And in my hands He put a book. Just an outlet to escape into characters and intriguing events. But He knew what I needed. And here I am telling you about it instead of diving into the story, but I just wanted to say this:

If our God is for us, who can stand against us? Can work or money or hard papers or even student-designed-science-experiments-turned-papers stand in the way?

Nothing can.

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MY RELIGIOUS FICTION TOP PICKS:

Weddings by Bella Series - by Janice Thompson

The O'Malley Series - by Dee Henderson {Personally, I don't like the prequel}

Lake Manawa Summers Series - by Lorna Seilstad

The Saddler's Legacy Series - by Rosslyn Elliot

The Maya Davis Series - by Erin Mangum

A Walk in the Park Series - by Analisa Daughtey

These are a variety of historical, modern, hilarious, and suspenseful novels. I hope you check them out and love them as much as I do!

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Think-ful Thoughts

HELP

No novel inspires me more than the New York Times bestseller The Help by Kathryn Stockett. It inspires me to fight, to write, to change the world. Considering that the extreme horrors of racial segregation are behind us, a passion to fight and write for has yet to grab my attention. But something inside tells me it will one day present itself. Perhaps my passions will align with Stockett focusing on the rights to which every individual is entitled. Perhaps they will lean toward education or more political matters. Whichever it is, I dream of writing a novel as novel as the one sitting by my side at this very moment.

The Help is daring. Though over fifty years have come and gone since the decade this book was set, Stockett digs into America’s deepest and darkest closets housing the concrete walls of the racial prejudice of the southern ‘60s. Not without caution did she approach this subject. Stockett describes it as a “slippery issue (she had) been struggling with and couldn’t catch in (her) hands, like a wet fish.” Stockett praised the Pulitzer Prize–winning article “Grady’s Gift” by Howell Raines for summing it up in a few simple sentences:

“There is no trickier subject for a writer from the South than that of affection between a black person and a white one in the unequal world of segregation. For the dishonesty upon which a society is founded makes every emotion suspect, makes it impossible to know whether what flowed between two people was honest feeling or pity or pragmatism.”

Reflecting on her work, Stockett is pulled in two directions – the fear of having told too much and the fear of having told too little. As a child growing up in Jackson, Mississippi, she was taught that speaking of “such uncomfortable things…was tacky (and) impolite.” However, she felt there was much more to be told on both positive and negative ends of the spectrum. For some help, conditions were far worse. Unimaginable, even. But others experienced deeper love than Stockett had the “time or ink to portray.”

How I wish I could tie these two up with a bow and beg her for more! Why? Because, The Help is captivating with characters so rich you could eat them up like a slice of Minny Jackson’s chocolate pie. Well, not Miss a-Hilly’s own special pie. You steer clear of that one now, you hear! Stockett masterfully layers the chapters between the story’s three main characters –Aibileen, Minny, and Miss Skeeter. The reader has a unique opportunity to climb inside the heads of these two black maids and a white twenty-something’s whose fingers itch to write change into Jackson, Mississippi. Minny and Miss Skeeter play major roles in the story, but it’s Aibileen with whom we begin and end.

“‘All the babies I tend to I count as my own,’” she says to Mae Mobley – her seventeenth child. Aibileen Clark loves her Baby Girl when her own mama only picks her up once or twice a day. Then it is to reprimand her or get her chubby fingers off the windows. After watching some of her earlier babies grow up, Aibileen resolves to teach her special baby that she is kind, smart, and important despite whatever her mama says or does. As the novel progresses and civil rights becomes a more prominent theme, she also shares Secret Stories with Mae Mobley about someone named Martian Luther King who people hated because he was green.

Equality is a subject that is close to Aibileen’s heart. The Help opens not three years after the death of her twenty-four year old son – a death mocked by white men in their lack of empathy. While working at a lumber yard, Treelore got caught under the wheels of a truck crushing his lungs. White men dumped him on the sidewalk outside of the black hospital and honked the horn as they drove away. People have shown more compassion for a kitten with a broken toe. After that day, a bitter seed took root inside of Aibileen. But bitter as it was, a seed is a seed. And a seed can yield fruit.

Minny Jackson debuts like a tornado of Crisco with a heaping spoonful of sass. One Terrible Awful thing she did gets her out of a job just as the story dawns. With a houseful of kids and a drunk, abusive husband, her friendship with Aibileen is what gets her through these trying times. Her job search is choked by the victim of the Terrible Awful and none other than the queen of Jackson herself: Miss Hilly Holbrook. If Miss Hilly says Minny Jackson is a liar and a thief, then all of Mississippi believes that Minny Jackson is a liar and a thief –all except one corner of Madison County. Miss Celia Rae Foote went and married Miss Hilly’s ex-boyfriend and therefore has no friends, no connections, no nothing. Just an enormous white mansion that needs dusting, polishing, edible food in the pantry, and those floor-to-ceiling windows washed. She wants Minny for the job. But there’s a catch; there’s always a catch. And she’s just going to have to sleep with one eye open.

Though nobody should be more on their guard than Miss Eugenia Phelan. An Ole Miss graduate with a double major in English and journalism, Skeeter is hungry to break her way into the writer’s world, but she is splashing in puddles nobody has ever dared to poke their toe in.

Every person has a lens, a filter, through which they view the world. In Jackson, Mississippi, all anyone sees is black and white. But Miss Skeeter sees color. She sees people drowning in a pool of racial discrimination while others strut by sipping their Cola. Challenged by her superior to “write about what disturbs (her), particularly if it bothers no one else,” Skeeter sees this as an open door to write from the point of view of the help.

And write she does. Skeeter’s ambition, Aibileen’s passion, and Minny’s expression come together to produce Help by Anonymous. Boasting a white dove of peace on its cover, two hundred and sixty-seven pages pile together in a controversial bestseller telling stories ripe with laughter, tears, love, and pain. Life in Jackson will never be the same again. And neither will the perspective of Stockett’s readers.

Why? Because The Help is convicting. Many of its readers identify with either side of the spectrum – the victim or the oppressor. A full generation stands in between myself and that of which the story relates. My conscience is burdened by the injustice and suffering endured by the black population, but in my reflection, I feel no personal responsibility for what they suffered. I have spoken to several members of the white, in-between generation about this book and have found they share a similar response to it: guilt. Guilt for even being white. But even this mindset, this guilt, can be settled by what is The Help’s most prized quote: “We are just two people. Not that much separates us. Not nearly as much as I thought.”

Putting aside all of the depth and heavy truth integrated into the story, The Help is beautiful. Relationships are built like bridges bringing together different classes, ages, and races. How unlikely is the friendship between solid, sassy, no-nonsense Minny Jackson and flighty, flashy, naïve Miss Celia? Yet, out of every relationship developed, theirs is the most endearing. The story’s sole consistent friendship exists between Minny and Aibileen. They journey the story laughing and crying on one another’s shoulder swearing to stand by each other until the end whatever that end may be. With a substantial amount of time and patience, Miss Skeeter and Aibileen’s relationship conquers the highest peak of trust. The weight of their confidence leaves their lives in each other’s hands. This is an incredible feat to have been accomplished between people of differing color especially in the segregated South.

All others aside, 0ne relationship threads together and bookends The Help – that of Aibileen and Mae Mobley. Stockett preaches racial equality from the rooftops the entire novel, but it is this simple bond that speaks volumes above the others. Human nature at its origin responds to love and kindness not skin color. When Mae Mobley calls Aibileen her “real mama,” she is recognizing the one who holds her, feeds her, and tells her stories as the one who loves her most. The natural instinct characterized in this relationship is the heart of the fight against Jim Crow. We were created equal. Nothing can change that.

Fifty years later, with the bulk of racism behind us, what can we take away from this beautiful story? Aibileen tells us in chapter twenty-four: “All I’m saying is, kindness don’t have no boundaries.”

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Thursday's Quoteful Collection

FORSYTHIA'S HEIGHT

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Pages Turn

UPS AND DOWNS

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Bouquets of Sharpened Pencils

SOLACE

This picture was the inspiration for a writing assignment I composed last week. I was asked where I thought the path led and whether or not I'd follow it. As the second installment of my Bouquets of Sharpened Pencils collection, I give you SOLACE.

It was a lovely day in early April. The sky shone the clearest blue, and birds were chirping in the apple orchard just at the hill’s peak. It was the kind of day where nothing would do but to breathe fresh air. I reached the bottom where the green meadows nestled together and created a sort of miniature valley. The sight of it drew my breath away by its mere loveliness. The overgrowth stood tall walling a path on either side with purple blossoms framing the edges. At its end stood a little wooden gate. What lies beyond it, I wondered.

I chose to stand there a moment reveling in my imagination. What first came to mind was what I decided it should be, so to bother with my second thoughts would be superfluous. I imagined water. A lake lapping at the grass not three yards beyond the gate, hidden from all of the hustle and bustle of the outside world. Here was paradise. The sun fought through the trees and bounced off the water maintaining every scrap of its original glory. A weathered dock jutted out into the stillness with only two paddles atop it to keep it company. Brought up onto the grass was an old rowboat with “SOLACE” painted in white letters across its stern. Purple flowers grew out of it matching those of the path. As lovely as it looked, this boat had not touched the water for well over a decade. This boat had a story; how grievous that it could never be told.

I awoke and stared down that rickety gate. My reverie had set the bar so high, that something inside me begged not to make the trip beyond the gate. But, my curiosity got the best of me. I closed my eyes and glided down the path waiting to reveal the secrets in one fell swoop. With the loss of my vision, the fragrance enchanted and distracted me until my toes bumped the gate. The time had arrived. I entered the gate then opened my eyes. Tears filled them. For in the lake, the dock, the boat’s stead was a grave.

To my dearest Helena, I set aside this piece of heaven.

For you to boast of and for me to find solace in your passing.

May the angels sing as sweetly as you.

1938-1962

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en • dress

SHOP SECRETS

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Thursday's Quoteful Collection

ALL THINGS LOVELY

Often as the winter days lengthen and the snow begins to melt, I find myself dreaming of picnics to prepare, flowers to pick, stars to gaze, and mountains to conquer. I am attracted to color to cover up the present, dreadful dreariness of the out of doors. These few weeks of the year are the most difficult for me and my overall happiness as the initial thrill of winter has passed and the long for spring air tugs at my soul. (With Saturday's predicted forecast aiming near 60 degrees, I am already planning what to wear and what activities to fill my day with.)

I have found that focusing on all things lovely (as opposed to all things dreary) is an excellent way to dissuade myself from wallowing in self pity. Today I would like to share from you some words that focus on such things.

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"Is any pleasure on earth as great as a circle of Christian friends by a fire?" // C.S. Lewis

“The world is a great book, of which they that never stir from home read only a page.” // John Wade

"I've loved the stars to fondly to be fearful of the night." // Galileo

"If instead of a gem or even of a flower, we would cast the gift of a lovely thought into the heart of a friend, that would be giving, as the angels, I suppose, must give." // George MacDonald

"Pearls are always appropriate." // Jackie Kennedy

"Some old-fashioned things like fresh air and sunshine are hard to beat." // Laura Ingalls Wilder

"You're my place of quiet retreat. I wait for your Word to renew me." // Psalm 119:114

"You know, I'm old in some ways, but in others I'm just a little girl. I like sunshine and pretty things and cheerfulness, and I dread responsibility." // F. Scott Fitzgerald

"If you have good thoughts, they will shine out of your face like sunbeams and you will always look lovely." // Rogald Dahl

"The nicest and sweetest days are not those on which anything very splendid or wonderful or exciting happens, but just those that bring simple little pleasures, following one another softly, like pearls slipping off a string." // Lucy Maud Montgomery

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Valentine's Day

BE MINE

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Thursday's Quoteful Collection

LITERACY

It has come to my attention that words beautifully threaded together by people of importance tend to enrapture audiences of all stages in life. Consequently, I have decided to establish a Quoteful Collections series to be posted as many Thursday's as I am able. Hopefully, they will satisfy your hunger for thoughts and comments and inspiration on different subjects. If you do not have such a hunger, then I suppose you should come back another time. But today, dear readers, let us revel in words spoken about words themselves.

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"When you read a book as a child, it becomes a part of your identity in a way that no other reading in your life does." // Kathleen Kelly in You've Got Mail

"Someday you will be old enough to start reading fairy tales again." // C. S. Lewis

"I doubt if I shall ever have time to read the book again -- there are too many new ones coming out all the time which I want to read. Yet an old book has something for me which no new book can ever have -- for at every reading the memories and atmosphere of other readings come back and I am reading old years as well as an old book." // Lucy Maud Montgomery

"I think books are like people in the sense that they will turn up in your life when you most need them." // Emma Thompson

"If you don't see the book you want on the shelf, write it." // Beverly Cleary

"So often, a visit to the bookstore has cheered me and reminded me there are good things in this world." // Vincent Van Gogh

"I will defend the importance of bedtime stories to my last gasp." // J. K. Rowling

"I have always imagined that paradise will be a kind of library." // Jorge Louis Borges

"What a miracle it is that out of these small, flat, rigid squares of paper unfolds world after world after world. Worlds that sing to you; comfort and quiet or excite you. Books help us understand who we are and how we are to behave. They show us what community and friendship mean. They show us how to live and die." // Anne Lamott

"The book to read is not the one that thinks for you, but the one which makes you think." // Harper Lee

"Either write something worth reading or do something worth writing." // Benjamin Franklin

"Some books you read. Some books you enjoy. But some books just swallow you up, heart and soul." // Joanne Harris

"You know you've read a good book when you turn the last page and feel a little as if you've lost a friend." // Paul Sweeny

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Worldview and Education

ROCKY HEART

My mother teaches kindergarten. When she says jump, they jump, and when she says count, they count. She teaches at the same Christian school which I attended through my middle and elementary years. Additionally, my dad teaches fifth grade and my brothers are currently students at this school. It is practically part of our family.

Some people think we're crazy. Why in the world would you spend that kind of money on education when they're teaching reading and math for free just down the street? My answer is worldview.

Sunday morning four young believers were baptized into the Church of Christ. One by one they stood in front of our congregation and spoke a few words of the testimony of Christ in their lives. One used the beautiful analogy comparing our old hearts, dead in sin, to that of stone, and our new hearts restored by Christ into living flesh. (Ezekiel 36:26)

Not two weeks ago, my mother was given the challenge to explain this analogy in language appropriate for five-year-old comprehension. Try that sometime. She chose this explanation: people have rocky hearts before Jesus saves them and gives them new, better ones. She told them that they could pray every day that Jesus would take their rocky hearts away. One of the sweethearts took that 100% literally. Her mother has confirmed that she prays this innocent prayer daily and calls out her parents when they neglect to include it in their own.

Following the service, this little five year old came up to my mother for her post-service squeeze, and my mother again pointed out the biblical truth referenced in the testimony and connected it to what they had talked about in kindergarten Bible time. Her little pigtails bobbed as she bounced and giggled at the reminder.

Jesus can take your rocky heart away.

Moments like this are why I believe in Christian education. Children absorb everything they are exposed to especially at early elementary ages. In kindergarten and first grade particularly, whatever their teacher says is true. They see them as some kind of all knowing authority on the world. Trying to explain to a first grader in the secular school system that the world wasn't made because of a big bang is like speaking to a brick wall. Yes it did, mommy. Mrs. Carter said so.

In solid Christian education, children at all ages absorb knowledge through the filter of a Christian worldview. Each day the Scriptures are opened and read. Yes, parents do that at home, but there is something unique about an outside figure expressing their understanding of the Bible. Outside of Bible time, Christ is woven into every subject the children study. From day one, they are memorizing scripture and catechism and hymns -- all gushing with Biblical truths. Teachers are roll model figures who love on and pray for the children every day. I won't even begin on the key factor of advanced and personalized academics.

There is something beautiful about places like this, so rooted in the Word. They are places where children can strengthen their roots in what Christians believe, hopefully influencing their desire to become one themselves.

Which leads me full circle. Each one of those four baptisms last Sunday were of graduates or rising graduates of Christian education. Ever since they were five years old in Kindergarten, they were being read the Scriptures, memorizing catechism, under the influence of godly teachers who loved them and prayed for their salvation. They were being taught that Christ could take their rocky hearts away. And He did.

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About Me

MY FAVORITE THINGS

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Dreams and Devotion

PRAY. PURSUE. PERSEVERE.

"Delight yourself also in the Lord, and He shall give you the desires of your heart." --Psalm 37:4 NKJV

I am a dreamer. I have big plans for my future. I see myself on stage dancing to "Tale as Old as Time." I see myself dressed for the prom on the arm of a charming young gentleman. I see my first record releasing -- an opportunity to share the gospel through my musical passion. After a paid four years of college, I see myself teaching a class of second graders leaning forward with perked ears and drinking in every word of the adventurous life of Caddie Woodlawn. I see myself handing a bride her bouquet and telling her how lovely she looks as she blinks back tearful eyes and the page turns in her book of life. I see a glitzy ring grace my left hand. I see myself reaching over my pregnant belly to set Winnie the Pooh on top of the bookcase.

These and many more are dreams I have for my life. Some are plausible. Some are very likely. Some have a much slimmer chance of occurring. But on every one of these dreams for the future, I can take action now.

Pray. Pursue. Persevere.

PRAY

"In everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God." --Philippians 4:6 ESV

Prayer is a miraculous thing. We, of billions of humans on earth, plea from our lips and groan from our hearts and the God of the universe hears every word, every thought. And, he gives us an answer: yes, no, or wait. Though our human nature may disagree with his sovereignty, be reminded that "as for God, his way is perfect; the Lord's word is flawless." (Psalm 18:30 NIV)

Recently I was again denied something that I have striven for year after year. Recognition. That isn't to say that I am not recognized for anything, I definitely have. But I have seem time and again that the Lord is keeping me humble by not allowing me every spotlight I desire. He is building my character by teaching patience, contentment, and joy in my present situation. Down left; not center stage. And, behind the scenes, I know that he is preparing me for something big. Something I can pray about. Something I can pursue.

PURSUE

"Trust in the LORD with all of your heart and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways acknowledge him and he will make your paths straight." -- Proverbs 3:5-6 NIV

Maria, the lovely heroine of The Sound of Music, experiences numerous twists and turns of the Lord's will for her life. If she had had everything the way she planned, she would have spent all of her days a misfit in the abbey alone in the world. But as she watched everything go wrong, she clung to the precious words of her Reverend Mother: "When the Lord closes a door, somewhere he opens a window."

What Maria does in the film is pursue the new open window. Her potential through it soars to heights far more grand than any she could have ever fathomed. Now, obviously there are many doctrinal faults in this masterpiece, but the lesson stands there just the same. Pursue your dreams, your goals and ambitions. The Lord may say yes. The Lord may say no. But when we lean on the Lord and put all of our trust in Him and his plan for our lives, he guides us on the straight path. He throws open the bigger and brighter window. Jump out of it and trust Him to catch you.

PERSEVERE

"Blessed is the man who perseveres under trial, because when he has stood the test, he will receive the crown of life that God has promised to those who love him." -- James 1:12

Waiting is hard. Patience is trying.

But the Psalmist says, "Rest in the Lord and wait patiently for him." (Psalm 37:7)

And Moses says, "He (God) will never leave you nor forsake you." (Deuteronomy 31:6)

And Paul says, "We know that for those who love God all things work together for good." (Romans 8:28)

Scripture is such a blessing. Such an encouragement. Even when God doesn't give us what we think we deserve, first we must remember that we don't deserve anything. All we deserve is to eternally suffer in the burning fires of hell. However, we must also remember that God has a greater plan, a greater purpose for our lives. Not only impacting others, but glorifying him and enjoying him forever. The Westminster Shorter Catechism says this is our chief end. Think about that.

Above all things we are to glorify God and enjoy him, not just today or tomorrow not just right now, but FOREVER.

Life is not about us.

Yes, your dreams matter. Pray about them. Truly. Pursue opportunities that may lead to their outcome. Persevere through the waiting period whether it results with a positive or negative outcome.

If God says yes, praise him.

If God says no, praise him.

Again, Psalm 18:30,

"As for God, his way is perfect; the Lord's word is flawless."

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