Oh, how He loves us, oh

Something hit me today. It's something I guess I had forgotten, but hadn't realized that I had forgotten it until I was reminded. It's something that seems so obvious, so cliche, so overused, so Sunday school. But I think I had forgotten it.

Jesus loves me.

... I know, right? Really, Kat? You had to be reminded of that? Sheesh. I get it.

But you don't know what you don't remember, because you don't remember it. I've been exasperated, running on high emotions and empty attempts, and really just faking it for a couple of weeks now. Life got incredibly busy and high stress, and I tried to do it on my own. Something inside of me ached. I was tired, I was mentally worn out, I felt spiritually disconnected. And I would pray, but I couldn't hear God. I would read the Bible, but it wasn't bringing me joy. I didn't know what really to do, but my schedule kept moving, so I kept moving along with it. Life is so hard when you can't find your joy.

To put it simply, it seemed like God was just kind of watching but not doing anything. It seemed like He was content to just let me go.

That is such a lie.

When I can't do it anymore, God can. When I fall down in a heap of tears and frustrations, I'm falling into God whether I realize it or not. And I can fall again and again and again. I can yell and cry again and again and again. I can give up again and again and again. I can and I have and I will. But that doesn't bother God, that doesn't discourage God.

Because God loves me.

What made this hit is the chapter I'm reading in book study. It's about Elijah and how grace doesn't give up, and Elijah's story is exactly how I've been feeling. Empty, used, discouraged, exhausted, done. And then, it talked about intimacy.

"He rescued me because He delighted in me." Psalm 18:19

 To steal the lines from the book that made it all hit, "delight" is synonymous with: laugh, smile, get a kick out of, hug oneself, rave, bask in, enjoy, wallow, have fun, exhilarate, relish, elate, thrill, ravish, intoxicate, entrance, enrapture, purr. I love words, that's not exactly a secret. To take each of those delicious words and think of them in the light that God views me like that... He is entranced by me. He is thrilled by me. He is exhilarated by me. He delights in me.

It's the gentle whisper from God, "I love you. I am delighted with you. You make My heart sing whenever I see you.

ME??!?! Seriously, God?  I am nothing, I am useless, I can't do anything right.

But I'm more than nothing, I am the love of God. I am more than useless (ha, Relient K song); He has plans for me and will use me despite my past failures. I can do things right because I do things with God.

No matter what you do, you are always His delightful child. His thoughts about you have never changed and never will.

 Jesus loves me. LOVES me. I can't wrap my mind around that. I've melted. To think that He loves me - ME - when I've been so wrapped up in my life, when I've fallen over and over again lately, when I've lost my footing on truths... but He loves me.

I just can't stop saying that.

He loves me.

Holy crap, He loves me.

Hmmm, freshman me knew what she was talking about

It is 1:48 AM. I have a baby shower and possibly a river walk tomorrow (and by tomorrow, I mean today). I am, in no way, a night owl. I should be dead to the world right now. But I'm not even asleep yet. It has been storming outside. This definitely qualified as a thunderstorm. I can't sleep, and it's not because I'm scared. It's because I absolutely adore thunderstorms. The gorgeous, rolling clouds today have busted into thunderheads full of noise and lightning and wind and rain and even some hail, and I love it. So, because of a wonderful day full of final classes and plans for moving into a house and oing stage make-up and being productive and thunderstorms, I am giddy and joyful and will not being going to sleep any time soon. I have no idea what I'm going to write, but I want to write, so voila, here we are.

You know how Mom always said that time goes faster the older you get? I said she was crazy. And, like most of the things that she said when I was little, I know understand what she meant, and I'm not even old yet. I finished my last class of my sophomore year at approximately 1:34 PM today, and it hit me - I'm almost halfway through with college. Wait, what? Didn't I just start? And while freshman year seems a lifetime away, it seems like this year just started.

It's crazy.
It's scary.
It's exhilerating.
It's... weird.

In some cases, I still feel like the seven-year-old climbing trees. Heck, I climbed a tree yesterday. In some cases, high school doesn't feel that far away. In most cases, I feel like I have learned and grown so much more in the past two years than I ever thought I would, and I'm not even done yet. I have no idea what kind of woman I'll be when I graduate.

Two years ago, I wrote a list on Facebook of things I had already learned in college. I think I'm going to spend the rest of my awake time adding on to that list.

Where there's a hill, that's the way.
Never ask for seasonings on fried rice.
Earplugs will survive a washer and dryer cycle.
You can't teach an old TV new tricks.
The straps on Wii remotes don't always safeguard against dented walls.
Cash serves little to no purpose.
Nothing is open on Sundays/any day that I have time off.
Sunburns are beautiful.
A heavy backpack will even out the bass drum aches.
iTunes is totally retarded.
Something will always be forgotten in the shower, so plan for return trips.
Anything in the Bookstore can be found at a half price someone on the square.
Lanyards are handy, but not around your neck, please.
I know nothing about technology.
Sweatpants pwn any other kind of clothing wear.
I'm ugly. =)
Circle buildings do, in fact, have sides.
Walking alone after hours is definitely scary.
My calves are getting ferocious.
Planners serve a definite and useful purpose.
Thesauri pwn televised wrestling matches.
Showers are akin to acupuncture.
I'll probably get lung cancer by entering and exiting the Hall.
I am a compulsive "misplacer".
It is impossible to shave my legs standing up without nicking myself.
The music department has it's own time zone, roughly a week later than reality.
I'm going to love it here.
If I bring my umbrella, it won't rain.
Signing up for the studio Tuesday night at 8:00 is futile.
Nobody will appreciate my poufs.
High-quality earplugs are just as easy to lose as the cheap ones.
I should get "Famuermeuermer" tatted on my arm like cool football players do.
Gullibility is a sign of an mental disability.
The words I mispronounce and the stupid things I say make me a legend.
A three year losing streak CAN be broken.
Working shower drains and odorless kitchen sinks are taken for granted.
My name will one day be Kat Quinto or Kat Ventimiglia.
The electric bill is higher because I live here.
I will leave my flash drive in the lab once a week.
Pterodactyl.
Sidewalks will be cleared of snow immediately after your first class.
There is nothing cooler than nearly grown men playing Pokemon.
My bedroom is where we congregate to chat about nothing at all.
Mulled cider apparently smells like rotten pumpkins.
Things rot in the vegetable drawer.
There are not enough opportunities to wear show level eye makeup.
I want to be on What Not To Wear just for a makeover.
Due to hair dying, I now have to buy a door.
Painting walls the color of masking tape was genius.
Name any creature Sugarplum and it will be evil and die.
My friends now know I'm crazy and nod their heads and smile.
Something is always beautiful walking across campus.
I actually understand music theory.
Scissors disappear.
Hannah Montana.
The love/hate relationship between snare drum and I has shifted more towards love.
Winks fluster me.
Two laptop exchanges later, and my files still get corrupted.
I was right - I do love it here.

Walking on water

Northwest is an absolutely gorgeous place during the spring. Everything sizzles with color. I think that Crayola probably discovered green and blue and purple here. It just so happens that the majority of my classes are in rooms where the windows face directly out towards the most scenic part of campus. There is the kissing bridge with all sorts of redbuds and dogwoods around it so that it's like someone just plopped down white and pink whipped cream from the sky. You can see the top of the belltower, which blends into the clouds of the most cerulean sky ever. And then, there's the pond. It is crystal.. When the sunsets, you can see everything in it. As if that view in itself wasn't distracting enough on a daily basis, there is also a fountain in that pond that got turned out last week. The instant that that fountain was turned on sealed the death wish on my focus and my grades. I was giddy. I texted and tweeted to the annoyance level with my excitement.

I was out by the pond last night with my best friends, having a good time, wading our feet out over the edge, lying on our backs, singing and just enjoying ourselves. I forget how it came up, although I sort of have an ADHD set of mental processes so it might have just come up out of nowhere, but I started thinking about Jesus and Peter walking on water. What that would've felt like, how much of a liberating rush that must've been, how incredible Jesus is, how much faith it took to step out of the boat. A faith with a power. And a faith that also came with doubt.

There is a power in living in the Spirit, and I'm not just saying that metaphorically. There is actual power. God is divine and beyond human standards, and the Spirit of God is living inside of me and every other person who has let Him in and lives in Him. This is in no way a secret! It's mingled throughout the Bible in plain sight. 

"He replied, "Because you have so little faith. I tell you the truth, if you have faith as small as a mustard seed, you can say to this mountain, 'Move from here to there' and it will move. Nothing will be impossible for you."" Matthew 17:20

"I tell you the truth, anyone who has faith in me will do what I have been doing. He will do even greater things than these, because I am going to the Father." John 14:12 

Jesus just said that, in our faith, we would be able to do not only all of the miraculous things that have been recorded about Him, but more. More! Jesus healed lepers, paraplegics, blind, deaf, mute... He cast out demons... He raised people from death... He walked on water, turned water into wine, caused trees to die, fed thousands of people... and He's saying that we can do that? And do even more? Does that not just floor you? And there's proof that that was true! His disciples were sent out to cast out demons, and did. The book of Acts has numerous stories of people acting out in faith to raise people from death and heal people from various diseases.

It didn't take spells and chants. It wasn't done by sinless people or people who were extremely out of the ordinary. It never has taken any of that. It takes faith. Faith the size of a mustard seed. Personally, I have never seen a mustard seed, but apparently, it's small. So, let's see... faith the size of end of a pin, faith the size of the end of a strand of hair, faith the size a grain of pollen. Just a small amount of faith can do extraordinary things. We can, here and now and today, do all sorts of incredible things because God lives in us! "Nothing will be impossible for you"... and it's true!

So... what stops us?

Fear. Uncertainty. Doubt. Sure, we are told that we have the power to restore sight and more, but just pause and think of how intimidating and disconcerting that would be to have a crowd of people watching you while you pray and ask God to restore that sight. What if it doesn't happen? What then? Does that mean that God is less real? Does that mean that I don't have actual faith? Is God disappointed in me? I can only imagine how terrifying that would be. What if I had stood up and taken a step out onto the pond last night, and fell in? What if people who were challenging God were there? The onslaught of uncertainty and doubt would cripple me... Being told that we have that power is one thing. Acting out in that faith is another.

It's not like if we haven't healed someone then we must not have faith or something. It's not that at all. The faith is there because God has caused it. Faith is a gift from God, freely given and always there. Fear doesn't negate faith. The faith is there, the salvation is there, the grace is there regardless of any doubts that we may wrestle with. But, even as the Bible says, our faith rests in believing in something that we have never seen, it rests in hope. Our heart and soul know that it is true, and at times so does our mind, but there are other times when reason causes us to question what we know is true. A friend of mine brought up a verse a few weeks ago at church...

 "...But if you can do anything, take pity on us and help us." " 'If you can'?" said Jesus. "Everything is possible for him who believes." Immediately the boy's father exclaimed, "I do believe; help me overcome my unbelief!"" Mark 9:22b-24

Faith can be strong even when doubt is there. In fact, I would go so far as to say that faith is strong because doubt is there, because if there weren't any questions, the faith itself might not be running very deep. Doubts sturdy a faith. How wack is that? The very emotion that shakes our faith serves to sturdy it, because the faith is true and is real. It's like when you're working out. All you're doing is tearing up muscles, but in the end, it makes them stronger. It's the same with doubt. It shakes a faith, but in the end, it makes it stronger. So, really... you could consider doubt to be a gift from God too. Without it, we're sort of like brainwashed robots, just saying we believe something and not delving into it, not hitting hard patches, not being forced to act on it. With it, we're vibrant because our faith is personal.

Every single Christian has doubts. Every. Single. One. And there are going to be times when that doubt seems crippling. But since when is doubt bigger than the power of God? Never. It isn't. And the power of God runs through me, is part of me. Stepping over the doubt and out in a faith in the most powerful and perfect God, I can heal the sick, I can feed the multitude, I can help the lame jump. I can even walk across the pond. And maybe someday, if it's in God's plan and the Spirit is pushing me that direction... I will.

"the constant struggle to believe / leaves me pretending to be free /  I break out of it when I see / the same power that flows through You / washes also over me"

That's strength

This week has been ridiculous. I went into the week knowing that, with formal on the other end of it, it would be a long week. But I had no idea that formal would completely blow up in my face, that I would check my checking to find that I had less than $100 to my name, that I would find out all sorts of hurtful things that were said in my music circles due to the formal stuff, that I would get a call today and find out that I actually overdrafted again and actually am broke, that my computer would slowly start corrupting all of my homework and organizational documents, that the meeting tonight would last too long for me to get to book study and be with friends that I miss so much, that I'm going to be juggling a concert and a wedding on the same evening. I am done. I am spent. I was out of my own strength two hours into Monday, and I've been on my knees since then. What else can I do? I can't do anything in my own power, regardless of how hard I try. My best effort is nothing, absolutely nothing - without God. I have been knocked over and forced to rely on God every single hour to get through and not lose my mind. I have been pushed to a point that I think is my maximum, and then had more piled on top to where the only way that I can even think about making it through is by leaning completely on the strength of God.  I have had to take a step back over and over again to get perspective. And it's in one of those breather times when perspective comes back into focus that I'm sitting here right now. Waiting for four dozen delicious cookies to cool, and having my mind cooled by God with a dose of perspective.

I'm not usually a person who enjoys the Old Testament. A lot of times, my heart has a hard time grasping the loving God I usually see with the same God telling His people to completely wipe out civilizations, or muddling through prophecies that just seem to make no sense (Elijah, anyone?), or all of those rules and sacrifices. I understand the purpose and necessity of the Old Testament. It's just that when I sit down and decide to sink my teeth into some Bible, I'll flip to a Gospel that brings hope or some New Testament letter that breeds boldness and encouragement or a Psalm, which is technically in the Old Testament, but meh. But that's exactly where I've been finding my perspective! Whereas the epistles are letters that speak like a conversation and the Psalms are poetry that show just how much emotion a person can have when it comes to God, the Old Testament is full of stories, full of characters, full of little fifty verse plot lines and name drops, and - get this - full of people. Real people. Actual people who actually lived out these stories and actually existed. These aren't fairy tales or made-up dramas. This is real. And I guess that hasn't always clicked for me. I grew up knowing the stories and coloring the coloring pages and learning the songs. They became just stories for me, just the same as any Disney movie or Robinson Crusoe. The potency got lost somewhere along the way.

There's a story in Judges that I don't think I've ever read before, or at least I've done nothing more than skim over it like is, sadly, kind of typical. I was reading it the other day, and for some reason, it jumped. It was about this man named Jephthah, and I won't go into the entire thing (it's Judges 11, by the way), but basically, he was a war general for God's side. He made a vow to God before a major war that if God gave him a clear victory, he would give to God as a sacrificial burnt offering whatever came out of the door of his house to greet him when he returned. I'm not sure if he was just assuming that it would be a goat or a dog or what, but anyways, he wins the battle and comes home, and his one and only child comes running out of the door. Not only was it his only child, but it was a girl. It was his daughter. His princess. So of course, Jephthah is all sorts of anguished about this because he knows what he has to do, and his daughter says simply, "You've given your word. Do to me just as you promised. God did his part and saved you from your Ammonite enemies. Just let me have two months to go off with my friends and mourn, because I'll never have married and be forever a virgin." He let her go, she came back, and he did to her what he had vowed.

I wish I knew the name of that young woman. Her strength and fortitude floors me. She ran out of that house joyfully, and was met with a death sentence that she had had absolutely nothing to do with. I mean, think about it - she was an actual person! She had dreams, she had ambitions, she had longings. She had laughed and cried and hoped and wished and prayed. She had girls that she shared secrets with, there was probably a boy or two that caused her heart to skip. She lived. She was real. And she was strong. What would that have felt like, to be told by your father who had just come home from war that he had no choice but to kill you because of a vow he made to God? I would've raised a fit! I would've been a complete mess, I would've argued, I would've thrown a temper tantrum. But she didn't. She stood there and told her father that he had to do what he had to do. She knew that she was part of a promise to God. Oh, and then she was given two months to finish up life. She could've ran off. She didn't have to come back to face her death and the death of all of her dreams. But she did. I am amazed by that. There's stories like that all over the Bible, but they aren't just stories. They happened! I want the strength and peace that could only come from God that that woman had. I mean, I get overwhelmed and defeated by formal stress and financial issues. This woman faced death.

That's strength.

Easter wasn't that long ago. I've heard the story of Jesus' death probably close to an unexaggerated six million times. It's always powerful, but it's the times when it hits me that this all actually happened that I just sit there, stunned. Jesus actually lived. He was completely and one hundred percent human. What must that night have been like for Him? To be completely and totally betrayed by all of the friends that He loved so much? But I can't blame the disciples at all - I would've been just as terrified as them. To have men come at Him in the dark with torches and swords and hate in their eyes? To stand there and take it while accusation after accusation was flung at Him, while the very people that He was doing all of this for were completely tearing Him apart? Yet I'm feeling hurt over lunchroom gossip about how I've handled formal. Bah, there's perspective. I mean, I can't imagine any of this. I can swallow it when I think of it as a story, but when I let me heart bite into the fact that this is reality, that this is history, that these scenes were played out over across the ocean a couple thousand years ago... I can't fathom how anyone could've done what He did. Especially with the knowledge all along of what was going to happen! Especially when He could've called it off at any time! It's so similar to that story of the woman. He was given the death sentence in a circumstance He didn't create. He didn't make it so that He had to die. That was us. That was our sin, not Him. But He, like the woman in her story, had to pay. And, also like the woman, He could've backed out! At any moment, all of the horrible pain in every single sense would have ended if He just would've said so. But He didn't. It had to be done. There was a vow that had been made.

That's strength.

And not only is that strength, but that's the strength that I have fighting for me. That's the strength that I not only choose to but have to rely on. That's God-strength. I'll never be that strong or that courageous or that peaceful on my own. There's no way. I can't do it, despite how hard I try, and trust me, I've tried. Life is absolutely bigger than me. But God is bigger than life. God, in His strength, got rid of life the way that the world does it and gave me a different standard. And if that strength, that God given strength, could course through the veins of that woman and of Jesus as they faced their own different yet similar deaths, then surely that strength can get me through the rest of this week, and not only that, but the rest of my life.

"...but those who hope in the Lord will renew their strength. They will soar on wings like eagles; they will run and not grow weary, they will walk and not be faint." Isaiah 40:31