Consecration

I started to read "The Christian's Secret of a Happy Life," by Hannah Whitall Smith yesterday. I've owned that book for at least 5 years and a ton of authors reference it in their books, but I had never taken the time to try to understand it until now (it was written in 1870, which is probably why I never gave it much of a chance). In one of the chapters, she talks about consecration and gives a wonderful example about it. Her explanation was that if a doctor was trying to cure a patient's illness, the patient would have to trust the doctor completely. It couldn't be that the patient isn't telling the doctor all of their symptoms or that they decide to take some, but not all, of the medications the doctor prescribes. The patient needs to tell the doctor everything that is going on in their body and follow all of the doctor's instructions in order to get better. Her main point was, "God must have the whole case put into His hands, and His directions must be implicitly followed." Not a little bit of it, not some of it, but ALL of it.

She goes on to explain how scared Christians are of giving everything over to God because they are afraid He'll make them miserable. She gave the example of a mother with her child and asked what it would look like if her child chose to obey everything that she asked of him because he trusted her completely. She asked the mom, "Would you say to yourself, 'Ah, now I shall have a chance to make Charley miserable. I will take away all his pleasures and compel him to do that which is impossible." The mom said she wouldn't say that at all because she loves her son and only wants the best for him. God wants the best for His children, even more than that mom wants the best for her son, and He would not do anything to harm us.

All of this made me think about the fact that something in my life always falls apart when I sing the words to "Take My Life" and truly mean them. Especially the phrase, "Take my life and let it be consecrated, Lord, to thee." Even when I'm singing it, I realize that something bad is going to happen soon, but I know those are the times when I truly mean those words. That song came on my iPod last week as I was driving to Elizabeth City. I sang along with it wholeheartedly and T.J. broke up with me later that night. I've felt pretty upset about it, but I'm also very confident that God prepared me for what was going to happen by having me sing along with that song. He's showing me that all of this is because He loves me and wants to protect me.

As I've thought about it more, the areas in my life that need to be consecrated to the Lord are my love life, my jobs, finances, where I should live, and how I should be serving others. All of it needs to belong to Him and it does not belong in my hands anymore.

Time to count my blessings

I borrowed Season 3 of Gilmore Girls from Emily on Saturday because I'm a little tired of watching Ally McBeal and HIMYM. I have seen all of this particular season before, but I didn't remember any of the story lines. Anyway, Lorelai's or "Mimi's" monologue hit very close to home and even caused me to tear up. Right now, I absolutely feel the same way that she does, but I have to realize that all of this is for the best.

I also need to follow Luke's advice and think of the things in my life that I do have. I have an amazing, supportive family who love me unconditionally and pray for me. I have close friendships with Kim, Jenny, and Jess that have continued since volunteering in Kentucky together. I know that God led me to Essential Church because of building relationships with the people in our "Crazy Love" small group and getting to work with the preschoolers. I have a couple of jobs that I love because of getting to work with kids and still being able to do teaching. When Caitlin, one of the kids that I babysit for, runs out of the house to hug me and say, "Jenna, I missed you!" because I haven't seen her in 4 days, it's an awesome feeling. The bottom line is that I am loved and I will continue to love others.

Joy needs to be the theme.

I've been pretty upset over the past couple of days because I got rejected by a guy who I thought was going to be different than the other ones that I've been interested in. This has left a huge knot of anger in my stomach because of bottling up my emotions. I knew that I needed to cry about it today or it was going to end up being damaging to my health.

I was having trouble thinking of anything that could make me cry until I remembered the book that Emily had given to me for Christmas one year. She gave me "Chicken Soup for Jenna's Soul" and filled it with stories that various loved ones had written about things they had learned during their lives. My favorite story in there is the one that my dad had written called, "My First Daughter." I've read that one often and it's pretty much guaranteed to make me cry. I read through the majority of it and I still wasn't crying until I read the last paragraph when he wrote, "Every night, I pray for Jenna and her sister, that their relationships with God would be so good and close that nothing could steal their joy and hope." Joy and hope are the two things that I've been thinking about the most since this happened on Tuesday night. I don't have a lot of hope right now because I did think that things were going to be different with this guy and it's hard to think that I will have to look for someone else again.

The other part of the joy theme is that I was reading through old journal entries on Tuesday afternoon and I came across one where I had written down a quote from Ben Patterson. He said, "Joy is what you experience when you're grateful for the grace that God has given to you." I remember hearing him say that during a sermon at St. Andrew's and completely agreeing with him because he was saying that none of our circumstances in life matter if we're thinking about what Jesus did by dying on the cross. Then I realized that some sort of bad circumstance was going to happen soon and that God was giving me that quote to lean on when the time came.

The next day, Hunter called to tell me that he was moving back to Dallas. I just remember feeling so heartbroken because we had been on that missions trip to Blaine, KY the week before and it had seemed like there was something between the two of us while we were there. Plus, the kids in the youth group kept saying that we should be together. My point is that God prepared me on that Sunday night for some bad news and I'm certain that he prepared me again for this past Tuesday night.

Now I just need to cry a little bit more and actually feel something. After that, I'm completely ready to return to having joy and hope.

Something to ponder...

We've been going through "Crazy Love" by Francis Chan at church and this is a question that he wrote about in the book:

"The critical question for our generation—and for every generation— is this: If you could have heaven, with no sickness, and with all the friends you ever had on earth, and all the food you ever liked, and all the leisure activities you ever enjoyed, and all the natural beauties you ever saw, all the physical pleasures you ever tasted, and no human conflict or any natural disasters, could you be satisfied with heaven, if Christ were not there? " — John Piper (God Is the Gospel: Meditations on God's Love as the Gift of Himself)

This was a difficult question for me to answer at first because it wasn't something I had ever really thought about. When I picture heaven, I just think about the fact that everything will be perfect and I'll be there with Jesus. I had never thought about whether heaven could be perfect without Jesus, though. Then I thought that I might be okay with it because it sounds like there wouldn't be any problems there and that wouldn't be so bad.

As I thought about it more, I realized that I have had a few perfect days here on earth. For example, the perfect summer day of going to the beach with friends, playing in the waves, eating frozen yogurt, and having a barbecue. Or the perfect winter day of having a pillow fight, snowball fight, watching Faerie Tale Theatre, making hot chocolate, and playing Scrabble. Those were fun and simple days where all of the things that John Piper talked about in his quote were happening. One of the reasons that they were just right was because of being aware of God's presence during them. They would have been empty and meaningless if I hadn't been thinking
about the beauty that He has created on earth. Basically, it's next to impossible to see dolphins swimming in the ocean or deer gathered in a snowy field and not believe in God. So, I've gotten a tiny taste of what heaven will be like and I don't want to go there if it means that I don't get to be with Jesus.

In the words of one of my favorite worship songs ever, "Better is one day in your courts than thousands elsewhere."

Day 24- Matthew 18:12-14

I'm writing about this one because I thought that it was happening to me today. I was afraid that one of the preschoolers at church (the pastor's kid, Jackson, specifically) had disappeared because he said he was going to put something away in the other room and didn't come back after a couple of minutes. I went to look for him, but couldn't go far or the other 3 kids I was watching would be left unattended. Luckily, there was a lady who showed up at the door of the classroom and she said that she could go to look for him. She came back and said that she had found him in church with his mom. He had been hanging out in the classroom before church started, but he wasn't checked in yet. Plus, he usually sits with his mom in the service during worship. It turns out that the kids at church are allowed to roam freely if their parents haven't checked them in, but the preschool teacher in me still felt responsible for him. Chalk it up to a year of making sure that there is 1 adult per 8 kids and making sure that they're never out of sight.

Another cute kid story... I didn't think I'd ever get to write one of these again.

I got to work at the CDC on Thursday because of being back in Kentucky and it was so great to see those kids again! I had missed them SOOO much! One of the ones that I had missed the most was Mya because she's hilarious and spunky. She ended up staying until 3pm on Thursday because her dad wasn't able to pick her up until then. We played Memory while she was waiting for him and here's what happened when she flipped over one pair of cards:

Mya and Jenna: Ohhh, it's a bird and a bee (both of us disappointed that it wasn't a matching pair for her).

Mya: Well, THAT'S awkward.

(I just started laughing and then I realized that it was kind of awkward since it was a bird and a bee, but I didn't say anything.)

Mya: I don't even know what awkward MEANS!

I think she had learned that word because her sister's in high school and probably uses it a lot, but it was really cute. Those little kids still have my heart.

Day 19- Mark 10:35-45

Church was about these verses today, so Pastor Steve showed a short video about Christians in India who are standing up for Jesus, even though they'll be persecuted for not following Hinduism. His point was that Christians in America shouldn't complain about their problems because they're so insignificant when compared to so many other problems that are going on in the world. This seems to be an underlying theme in my life during the past week and here's another example of why...

During the reflection time at WorkFest on Friday, another student stood up to talk about his experience that week. He had been in the military and I'm pretty sure that he had been in combat in Afghanistan. He said that he had come into the week thinking that the circumstances he had been through were going to be worse than any of the other people he was going to encounter that week. Then he ended up on a crew with two girls who had survived cancer. He thought that they were much stronger than him because of what they had gone through. He was also impressed with their joy and their desire to serve others.

I think the most amazing part of it all was how God-ordained that crew was... our week had 6 or 7 colleges with probably 8-15 people from each of them. The crews are assigned fairly randomly (I think skill and gender are taken into account, but that's about it), so most of the people on each crew haven't met before the beginning of the week. To think that there was one crew with two girls who had survived cancer and one guy who had fought in a war had to be more than a coincidence because I'm sure that God was allowing them to learn from each other during the week. It also goes to show that one person's area of brokenness can eventually become their way of ministering to others.

Question: When was a time that you realized how small your problems were when you compared them to another person's?