A Word to College Students...

Recently, I was asked to write a short devotional that will be included in reading material for female college students. Those of us who submit a devotional will then speak on a panel this coming February about relevant issues women face related to their relationship with God. I feel privileged to have been asked to write as well as speak to female college students. This is the devotional I wrote back in October... thought I'd share with my readers of this blog...

Let me tell you some truth about me. I struggle to have the discipline and energy to engage God in Bible reading and prayer on a consistent basis. I find myself sometimes wondering what the point of my life is. Right now, I struggle to believe that God loves me, cares for me, and is for me. To be even more blatantly honest, my mother at the age of 55 was diagnosed with a rare kind of early-onset Dementia in December 2014. This diagnosis has sent my family and I into a darkness we didn’t even know existed. The reality is that my mom will most likely not see the age of 60 as her disease is progressing very quickly now. Not ever would I have guessed that I’d be where I am today… losing my mom slowly as I watch her lose more and more of herself.

Fast forward to October 7, 2015, which finds me listening to Louie Giglio talk about saying “yes” to Jesus in giving our lives to Him. With the ending of his message, the band came up to play a song that drove home what I feel the Holy Spirit was trying to say to me… these lyrics rang in my ears, “My heart is yours, take it all, my life is in your hands…” In that moment, I was reminded that God saw me… all of me… my grief, my circumstances with my mom, my struggles, everything...

Here in this valley I’m walking through, I’m finding how much God is in control and how little control I actually have. I’m finding that my “control” is mostly an illusion because my life is completely in His hands. Nothing happens to me without God’s knowledge and approval. Though that truth is sometimes hard to swallow, it is true nonetheless. It’s at times like these, in the darkest valleys, that it’s so difficult to say “yes” to Jesus in surrendering my life… saying “yes”, no matter what happens or doesn’t happen… saying “yes”, knowing that further into my journey I will face the loss of my mom. It was in those quiet, worshipful moments following Louie Giglio’s talk that I realized that is what I’m doing as I pull myself out of bed every morning to face another day in this valley… I’m saying “yes” to Jesus, and that’s never been more difficult. But, I know it’s worth it because He loves me with a perfect, holy love that will never cease. There’s a prayer that I came across recently that resonates with me in this, “Oh Love that will not let me go, I rest my weary soul in thee.” So, I will walk this path each day as best I can, and keep saying “yes” to the only One worthy of such a response. I can say from where I am right now, that we as believers are never alone, our God sees us and cares more than we can imagine, and we can say “yes” to Him every day as we choose to trust Him with our lives no matter how much we struggle because His grace meets us where we are. 

Presence and Trust

At the risk of sounding dramatic, these last several months have been the most painful and darkest of my entire life. I have felt varying levels of confusion, anger, depression, extreme apathy, discontentment, and numbness on this rollercoaster of grief that I feel I’m on… I so desperately want off this ride, but I know that getting off soon is just not possible. Not only has this felt like an emotional rollercoaster ride, but also, my relationship with God has looked more different than it ever has. To be honest, I have countless moments when I just wonder where He is or what He is up to in my life and in the lives of my family members, especially my parents.  It’s been very hard to hear His voice. Sometimes it seems like He’s not speaking as clearly to me as He has in the past. Maybe both of these statements are true. But, two clear phrases I keep hearing from Him are, “I’m still here” and, “Do you trust Me?”

I am well aware that none of us are promised happiness or ease in this life. And, the phrase, “Life isn’t fair” has definitely come to my mind a lot lately. But, I have found that the promise of Him always being there for us is true. I have so many dark moments when I wonder what the point of my life is and why He is making me go through watching my mom die slowly through the effects of Dementia. During these dark times, in my pain and grief, I have heard Him say to me several times, “I’m still here.” These words do not take away my pain, but there’s a certain peace that comes into my spirit every time I hear Him say that. It’s like knowing that even when I feel I am completely alone, and everyone and everything else is not there for me to rely on, He is there… and it’s just me and Him… and I know then, that I’m not alone in this darkness.

There was a time a few months ago, in my exasperation in feeling so much pain, that I asked God, “What do you want from me?!” I’m not sure if I even expected an answer from Him when I asked this question. But, I did receive an answer. I sensed Him saying to me, “I just want you to trust Me, Brittany.” Part of me, in anger, wanted to shout back, “Oh! Is that all?! My mom is dying, and there’s nothing anyone can do about it, and You want me to trust You?!” But, there was another part of me that felt peace as I realized how simple that sounded, and that there was nothing else He expected of me in my grief… a time when I feel so weary and incapable of doing so many things that I once did. Most of the time when I think of what God wants from me, I make it complicated by making it a long list of things that I need to work on… like be more patient, love those who are hard to love, pray more, read my Bible more, go the extra mile to serve someone else, and the list goes on and on.  To know, in that moment, that all He wants for me in this season is just to trust Him sounds so simple and relieving to hear.

I have found that it’s easy to feel like I’m trusting Him when I’m worshipping at church or at Liberty’s convo, or reading Scripture that resonates with me. Sometimes I have moments when I feel like I can say, “Yes, I trust God, because I really feel like there’s nothing left for me to do at this point.” Other times, I have moments when I don’t care about anything, and that includes not caring about whether or not I'm trusting Him. However, more often than not, I just have to say, “Right now, I’m struggling to trust You, but I want to. Please help me.”

I recently told a friend that my life right now feels a lot like a marathon… every day is a fight to keep going, keep trusting, and keep believing that God is good when I feel so much pain trying to face the reality that my mom is slowly dying. I don’t know what my future holds, and most of the time, it feels like I don’t have much of a future as all I can see is my mom dying. There aren’t words to describe how awful this reality is. But, despite all this, I feel that I know in my mind that He is still here with me, and He only wants me to trust Him. I’m finding that believing in my spirit that He is still here and trusting Him completely is the real struggle that I often experience. So, every day, I choose to engage in this struggle by dragging myself out of bed and taking one moment at a time as I do those things He’s called me to do. I’m far from having great faith like Paul or John and so many others, but I think still choosing to engage in my struggle counts for something with the Lord…

Unseen Arms

Driving through this night
my world feels like it's caving in,
but the windows rolled down
with the wind playing on me
and the music carrying me down the road,
there is a hint of comfort...
and I feel as if I'm being held
by arms I can't see.

Certainties Among Uncertainties

Lately I’ve been feeling like I should always be happy as I give my life over to the Lord, and I should be happy with what He does with my life.  I want to add here that I have been cautioned by a few friends about my usage of “should.” There may be too many “shoulds” in my thinking. One friend has told me that I should be careful, or I’ll “should all over myself.” It’s probably too late for that…

So, I’ve been wondering and wrestling with God over the question of, “What if I don’t like what God is doing in my life?” For days that seemed like weeks to me, I didn’t have an answer to this question… and I hated that.  The truth is, I don’t like a lot of what God is doing in my life. If I am brutally honest, I hate what He is doing in my life. The Bible says that God gives and takes away. It may be a bold thing to say, but He is taking away my mom right now. I’m watching her die very slowly of Dementia at the age of 56. I’m watching how it affects my dad who has been married to her for 30 years. I’m watching him gradually do more and more as she can do less and less. To even write all that right there blows my mind… it doesn’t even feel real sometimes.

I think of all the people that come to mind that God used greatly for His glory… people He hurt deeply by what He did in their lives. I think of Job, Jonah, Paul, and Jeremiah. I think of the writer of the song, “It is Well With My Soul,” who lost all his family members on one sinking ship. I don’t think he or Job or any of the others always liked what God was doing in their lives.

The truth is, these days, my walk with Jesus feels more like a crawl through a dark wilderness. More often than not, I have no idea what this part in my journey is supposed to look like. In reality, it looks like a lot of me crying sporadically throughout my weeks. It looks like not sleeping well some nights and having dreams that my mom has already died only to wake up and discover that she hasn’t died yet but is slowly dying. It looks like me not caring about things that I thought used to matter so much. It looks like floating in and out of fear, confusion, anger, grief, and uncertainty.

This dark wilderness I am in has left me with a lot of uncertainty. There are only a few things that stand out to me right now that are completely certain. God is for me. God loves me. He is good. He has a purpose for my existence even if I don’t always care about that purpose. (Because in my dark places, I do not even care to have a purpose sometimes.) He cares first and foremost about His glory… all else comes second.

Lately, I’ve been clinging to Isaiah 41:10, “So do not fear, for I am with you; do not be dismayed, for I am your God. I will strengthen you and help you; I will uphold you with my righteous right hand.” It takes most of my energy to try to hang on to these words.  I still have my questions, fear, and all the rest, but I know He just wants me to trust Him. That has never been harder to do than right now.

Fighting With Myself...

I was graciously given the day off from work today by my cool boss, and so far, it’s been pretty good… except for one thing… I feel as if I have been fighting with myself all day long. The day started out innocent enough with me sleeping in until 8:30. It’s kinda sad that 8:30 is now sleeping in for me… hello adulthood!

After climbing out of bed, I jumped right into being productive by packing up my room to move in with one of my dear friends. I even took a break for lunch and listened to a Matt Chandler sermon on James that a friend recommended to me. In fact, I blame Matt Chandler… I felt extremely convicted listening to this sermon. Thank you, Mr. Chandler. This conviction was good, but did not feel good. I slowly realized as the day went on that all day, and in recent days, I have been so focused on myself in so many ways… ways that I am embarrassed to admit to myself, much less here. 

I have been so consumed lately with trying to figure out what I’m doing wrong, what (if anything) I’m doing right, what I need to be doing, what I want to be doing, and the list goes on and on. And today, I just came to a place where I was looking at myself in all my glory (insert sarcasm here), and all I saw was sin, selfishness, brokenness, confusion, and blackness in my heart. It hit me then that I have somehow gotten way off track by looking only at myself instead of looking at God. When I look at God, He makes me aware of things in me that need to change, but He does it gently and graciously. When I look at God, it’s a lot easier to be thankful, receive His grace, and be humble by recognizing that He is God and in control, and I’m not at all in control though I feel like I am a lot of the time.

When I realized all this, I prayed for God to forgive me and have mercy on me. I prayed for Him to prompt others to pray for me today. I then remembered a sweet friend who randomly texted me this morning saying that she was praying for me… God had already provided someone to pray for me before I knew I needed it. How thankful I am for friends who aren’t just casual friends to text or hang out with now and then, but friends who actually care enough to pray for me and support me no matter how messy I feel inside.

I know I’m not done fighting this fight against my own sin and selfishness, but I know that God is there, helping me struggle on in this journey toward eternity. And, I’m so glad that I don’t have to struggle on alone…

My fear, even as I write this, is that my readers will think well of my walk with Jesus… and I do not want that. My walk with Him lately has been more like a pathetic crawl, and there’s not a lot that I feel like I’ve done right lately. But, I know His grace is more than enough for my crawling instead of walking. And though I still struggle very much to grasp this truth, I know He loves me as if I walk with Him perfectly and never sin at all. I wish this truth humbled me more and made me more thankful than I tend to be. That said, I hope this post can be considered as a real, honest confession written to help others learn from my mistakes as well as point to how awesome the Lord truly is…

If you're feeling brave, here is the link to that sermon from Matt Chandler... 

http://www.thevillagechurch.net/resources/sermons/detail/worldliness--godliness/

Surrendering...

I love how snow has a way of shutting most all activity down… the beauty of living in the south. I’ve had lots of much needed quiet moments to myself with just Jesus and I. One of the more recent ones come to mind now…

My dad and I have been trying to figure out if mom is getting worse or not, and I find myself worrying about this… as if my worrying can somehow slow down this disease or control it somehow. But in one of my still moments yesterday, I heard the Lord say to me, “Can you entrust her to Me?” I stopped my racing thoughts to ponder that question for a moment… because when He speaks, things have a way of coming to a halt… the wind, the waves, and especially the human striving. And, I finally answered, “Yes, Lord. What other choice do I really have?” I know that He holds my mom’s life in His hand, and I know that surrendering my worries and even my vain attempt to try to control this situation through my worrying is going to be a continual surrender… a process that He wants me to go through so that I learn, really learn, what it means to trust Him. I’m learning that it’s really one thing to say that I trust Him, but another to actually exercise this trust by living out this life of faith. My prayer is that I surrender to Him all those things that do not really belong to me anyway… every day for as long as I live here.

Keeper

I'm the Keeper of the stories.
But, I'm known by the name,
Counselor.
One by one
they come
to entrust to me
their stories
that have become parts of their souls.
It is not easy
to be the Keeper,
but we Keepers know
that the Master will one day come calling
and will want to know about the care
or lack thereof
with which we kept
their stories.

The Landscape of God's Sovereignty

God exists to make us happy. It seems that I believed this falsehood for far too long in my walk with Him. And, I boldly guess that I have not been the only one. It’s what I call, “The Santa Claus Principle”… that God exists to make us humans happy by giving us everything we want as long as we accept Jesus as our Savior. Not too far into my twenties did I realize, much to my embarrassment, that I believed that God was supposed to give me everything I wanted simply because I love Him. I can see now that I loved His blessings more than I actually loved Him. And yet somehow, there’s still that idea floating around out there that the human heart is ultimately good… uh huh, sure. 

The truth is, God exists simply because He is God. He is the great I AM. He does not exist for our happiness, yet delights to bless us with things that make us happy from time to time. He never promises ease or comfort for us in this world but promises to always be with us and carry us through suffering until we reach His perfect Heaven. That’s the truth. 

One of my brilliant coworkers, who is a counselor like me, recently gave a presentation to our team touching on these same ideas. She likened our existence as humans as something that plays out on “the landscape of God’s sovereignty.” On this landscape, there are deserts, valleys, beaches, mountains, green fields, forests, and hills. Whether or not we acknowledge God or His sovereignty, we are all living on this landscape. And, we all must travel on it as long as we are alive on Earth. 

I would have to say that I am traveling through what seems to be a dark, gloomy forest on His landscape. In this forest, I don’t always feel like a Christian, loved by God, or feel like His promises are true. My pain in my grief weighs me down, steals most all my energy for life, and delights to pull me to my knees as I cry. I have days where I feel God close, and I have days where I wonder where He is and if He’s forgotten me. If I’ve learned anything in my journey through this forest, I’ve learned that God is… He just is… no matter how I feel or don’t feel. My feelings don’t change His truth, His love, and His character. I know this forest is on His landscape for a reason, and I know He wants me to travel through it. As my coworker said, pain is to make us spiritually and morally great. She took it a step further in saying that our goal should never be to eradicate pain but to re-orient ourselves to Jesus as we navigate this landscape of God’s sovereignty. 

I do not claim to know why God allows babies to die, planes to crash, cancer to claim millions of lives, and Dementia to slowly kill my mom. But, I do know that all pain is never wasted and comes with the promise of a purpose. Our God is loving enough for this… for there to be purpose in all pain. So we can know this as we travel on His landscape of sovereignty to His perfect Heaven one day where all pain will be set right. 

Life... is.

A certain thought has occurred to me a lot in recent months… “Life just is.” Before going through this grieving process with losing my mom slowly, I found myself always striving to make my life what I wanted it to be… reading this book or that book, hanging out with that person, taking this trip, pursuing this career path, finishing college degrees… and on and on. Now, at 27 years old, with a Master’s in professional counseling working as a counselor to Liberty college students, I feel as if I have hit some kind of a wall. I wouldn’t say that I am pursuing anything like I used to. My ultimate goal right now is survival… getting through each day is a victory. One of my biggest fears has always been losing my mom before I was ready to let her go, and that reality is here staring me in the face. I struggle right now to put into words what kind of emotional state that reality has placed me in because I feel that there are no words to adequately describe it. The only words that come to mind are extreme sadness in my spirit… that place deep down inside a person that dictates their very being in this world. This sadness weighs me down and steals most all my energy, leaving little energy left for actual living life. Necessary tasks like grocery shopping, cleaning, and working now seem incredibly hard. So it seems that life, for me, just “is.”

All my life, I have known that as a Christian, I am to find my fulfillment in Jesus. I have always wanted this for myself, but if I were being completely honest, I do not think that I have experienced this for myself very much in my 27 years on this earth. Now, I find myself contemplating it more than I ever have. I’m coming to a place where I’m beginning to realize that life is beautiful one minute and has the potential to be a living nightmare the next. It all can change so fast. It’s made me realize that my life simply just is whatever God wants it to be. I think I’m learning to be ok with God bringing the life He wants for me day by day, which seems even now, to be a passive and vision-less way of living… so opposite of how I have been living life with the idea that my life is whatever I make it. Where is room for God in that thinking? There is no room for Him there. Maybe life isn’t one thing or that… maybe it just is… it is whatever He wants it to be. Maybe that’s how it really should be. My Americanized brain is just now starting to think more about that. I think that maybe even this is the key to finding my fulfillment in Him over anything else in my life. Living the life He brings me each day and seeking to find Him in it wherever I can. I know He’s there… just waiting for me to pay attention…

I am Not Alone - Kari Jobe

 

My Security Blanket

                                                                                                                      

My phone rang. It was my dad calling. It was that phone call that no one wants to get. Bad news. It was the phone call that informed me that my mom has been diagnosed with a rare form of early onset Dementia. In that moment, my world froze, but my mind spun faster and faster, threatening to throw me off my feet at any second. What do we do now? What am I going to do? How is this happening? All these questions spilled over into my consciousness as certain facts stared me in the face: She’s 55 years old. These issues do not run in our family.

Ever since that phone call, I have been the most out of control that I have ever been. I am naturally a pretty controlled person, only displaying certain thoughts and emotions that I know certain people can handle and holding them back when I know others cannot handle my inner world. Along with this, I have always had a strong desire for control. I plan things days, weeks, and sometimes months in advance. I line up my goals and plans according to my own little “perfect” timing. I know where I’m going and when I want to arrive there. Basically, I take the reins of my life from God as often as I can. Let’s be honest, I am the god of my life when I am trying to be in control and have this semblance of control. When I say that I am now the most out of control that I’ve ever been, I mean that I do not make plans very far ahead. I sometimes make no plans at all and let whatever happens happen in my day. I cry randomly in a conversation, listening to a song, driving home, getting dressed, doing laundry… and when I cry, I slow down, and I just cry. Sometimes this looks like me sitting down or laying down wherever I am and just crying it out and then picking myself back up and going about my business as I wipe the tears away and do a quick mirror check of my eye makeup. My last cry-fest found me laying in my closet as I attempted to put on my shoes to go to the grocery store. Grief doesn’t care about my trip to the grocery store, and it certainly doesn’t care about my striving for control. In fact, grief delights to take away my “control” by laughing in my face that I am really in control of very little. It hastens to remind me that I cannot control myself right now, and I cannot control what is happening to my mom, the one person who loves me more than anyone on this planet. I cannot save her, I cannot switch places with her no matter how much I wish I could, and I cannot change what’s happening.

Recently, it occurred to me that God is out to strip away from me my strong desire for control. Most of my readers know that I have had four jobs and moved three times within a year’s time, and most know that I hate change. Things happened beyond my control that pretty much forced me to have so many jobs and places to call “home.” As one friend put it, it’s quite obvious that God is taking away my “security blanket,” my semblance of control.

Grief (ultimately God using grief) has been a stern and faithful teacher in removing my security blanket. One of my new favorite Switchfoot songs called, “Liberty,” has a lyric that says: “…give up the semblance of control…” I cannot get that one lyric out of my mind as He whispers to me, “Britt, your control is truly an illusion.” I have so much further yet to go in my journey of being stripped of my desire for control, but I have learned much already. Grief has taught me that we are all mortal, and that this human body will break down more and more every day until the day that Jesus welcomes us into Heaven. And, no one has control over when that day will be. Grief has taught me that not only do we not have control over death, but that we actually have control of very little in life. Also, I find myself at times wanting to live life at my normal speed and plow ahead with making all sorts of plans until I hear a whisper that says, “Stop. When you do this, you are trying to be Me. Let me bring you the life that I want for you day by day.”

I have amazing people in my life who regularly ask me how I’m doing. I recently responded like this to a friend when answering this question: “I’m my new normal… ok with moments of feeling crappy. I’m just telling myself that it’s ok for me to operate in one speed lately: slow.” I don’t do slow at pretty much anything in my life. Like. At. All. Slow is not in my vocabulary unless we’re talking about the imminent development of wrinkles on my face. Grief is teaching me how to slow way down and give up my semblance of control to the only One who is really worthy to have ultimate control of my life. There are times when I feel like I am kicking and screaming during these hard lessons that God is teaching me through my grief, but I know that they are lessons planned for me by One who loves me more than I could ever imagine. I know my circumstances break His heart. Despite this, He does not allow my pain to be wasted and uses my pain to strip away things I’ve been holding onto for most of my life. I do not have time or space to go into other things that He is stripping me of during this grieving process of losing my mom slowly, but there is no doubt that He is taking away my security blanket because He knows that a 27 year old with a security blanket is just flat out ridiculous and cannot continue for the woman of faith that He wants me to be. Although He takes away, I know that He will add something much greater. I pray that I truly learn these difficult lessons that He wants to teach me. I ask that as my friends and readers of this post, that you would also pray this for me.

"Liberty" - Switchfoot