ENCOURAGE - EQUIP - EMPOWER
IT STARTS HERE.
She’s the first thing I give my time and attention to in the morning and the last one I see before bed.
She goes everywhere with me; basically, attached to my hip.
She’s my shadow; following me everywhere I go, including the bathroom.
She vies for my attention; interrupting me often.
She cries out and raises her voice again if I don’t respond right away.
I respond to her every request.
She keeps me entertained.
I’ve captured many of my favorite memories with her.
She’s my 4-year-old… phone.
As I think about Thanksgiving and being around friends and family, God brought something to mind.
I can be loud. I can be an ‘overtaker’ of conversation and attention. I don’t mean to be. It’s usually not on purpose, but it’s my tendency.
And when this happens, it’s easy for me to fall into the thoughts of “Well, this is just me.” “I am who I am. If you don’t like it, sorry (not sorry).” “I’m just being true to myself.”
But wait a minute. I am who I am? God is the only one who can use “ I am who I am.”
A people pleasing Jesus would have neither served God nor man. He would not have spoken the truth that would set us free because he would have worried about who would be offended. He would not have overturned the tables of the moneychangers in the temple because he would have been concerned about what people would think of his “temper.”
Over the last few months, I have learned (like many other teachers) that this “back to normal” school year is not actually “back to normal” at all. Somehow, with decreased health, safety precautions and the availability of a vaccine, this year seems even harder than last. A month or so ago I was in the middle of struggling with the school year, my mental health, and my general work life balance…
“So then, just as you received Christ Jesus as Lord, continue to live your lives in him, rooted and built up in him, strengthened in the faith as you were taught, and overflowing with thankfulness.”
Colossians 2:6-7
This week Susan Veenema and Melanie Wilson take a look at the verses above and help us answer how we are built up in God.
Why do I let myself fall into the belief that everyone else has it figured out? Everyone else is livin’ the dream and somehow I missed the boat, so I’m stuck at harbor until the next cruise comes around.
What if, all this time, the harbor is the place I’m meant to be?
— Journal entry from February 4, 2020
On the outside my childhood looked like a slice of Americana. I grew up in a middle class neighborhood outside of Washington D.C. with single family homes, plenty of open space, lots of friends and good schools. We had a home like everyone else. (Literally! There were only four kinds of houses in our community!) Unfortunately, my home was dysfunctional on the inside.
The summer after my senior year of college, I walked into a flower shop and walked out with a succulent. Like most of my plant purchases, it was an impulse buy. I’ve never had much of a green thumb, but succulents were trendy at the time and they’re supposed to be one of the easier plants to keep alive. I took it home, stuck it in a mason jar, and posted a photo of it on Instagram so my friends could see what a good plant mom I was.
I have a love-hate relationship with September. I hate the fact that summer is coming to a close (goodbye long days, endless sunshine, slower pace), but I love the fact that September tends to bring routine and often new beginnings. This is the time of year when many of us join or rejoin groups for Bible Study.
For as long as I can remember, I have always found comfort in nature. The crash of the ocean waves, a good thunderstorm, and the sun shining through the clouds are a few of my favorite things. There is an indescribable beauty found in these pieces of the earth that surrounds us. I never thought much of it; I figured it was simply something beautiful so naturally I would cherish it and find peace in it. It wasn’t until recently, when a woman from my bible study group mentioned it, that I even considered this being a form of God revealing Himself to me.
Upon reading Jesus’s question to the disciples in Matthew 16:15, “But who do you say I am?”, the response seems obvious. Peter declares in verse 16, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God” and Jesus is pleased. For us, over 2,000 years later this declaration feels anticlimactic since we hold the whole story in our hands. However, the importance of who Jesus is and how that impacts our daily life can be easy to miss. This is true for Peter just a few verses further in the text and can be for us today as well. Until we understand who He is, we cannot truly understand what his death and resurrection mean for us.
I do not doubt that God exists or that He loves me. The doubt I struggle with is the doubt that niggles its way into my mind in the quiet moments of life. It’s not even a doubt that God CAN do the impossible, it’s just that I doubt that He will. I go to God with my prayer requests and lay them at his feet but I sometimes doubt that his answer is best. When I pray, I hate to admit it, but I sometimes assume the outcome I least desire is what will happen -- kind of a “Murphy’s law” of prayer.
