Go Panthers!!!

Alright so yesterday I rode down with the Amherst Christian Academy Girls’ basketball team to their State Championship Tournament.  This is a completely new experience for me.  Before this year my only contact with basketball was my 8^th Grade modified team where I was adept at stealing, but had no idea how to get that ball anywhere near a basket, and a few watched games in which I had no idea if I should yell “Touch Down!!” or not.  This year I spent some time crashing practice and learning some of the basics and then keeping track of the scorebook.  I still can’t always tell why the refs are calling fouls, but I do know a few things about what basketball should look like.  More importantly than that I’ve been able to see these girls grow, not only in their basketball skills, but grow together as a team.

Last night they play the top ranked team in the Tournament and while they didn’t win that game they also didn’t allow that team to bulldoze over them.  They pulled down rebounds away from girls who had significant height advantages, they hit shots I had never seen them hit in a game before, they passed to each other with intent and they stayed in the game.  It was sweet to watch things that I know they have been working hard to do come together.  It wasn’t a perfect game and they still have areas to grow in, but there were moments when they played beyond anything I expected.

Tonight they play against a team that is not the highest ranked in the tournament and there is hope that they may win.  It was clear today as they practiced cheers in the hotel parking lot that they are incredibly excited.   Though I have not been screaming my head off and sit now typing quietly in the lobby, sipping endless hotel coffee I’m excited too.  I’m hoping they play today like they played last night.  As a team.  I’m hoping today they play remembering that this game isn’t about one star it’s about working together.  It’s about remembering all the things their coach has asked of them in practice and applying it.

I have been so thankful to get to know these girls over the past couple years through volleyball and now basketball.  I have been thankful to see the relationships they have built with each other, thankful to see their growth in the skills they need to play this game, thankful for the awesome attitudes they have shown throughout the season, thankful that they are more and more seeking God’s glory in everything they do and thankful that win or lose they have learned to do it as a team.

Writer Wednesday! Singled Out for Him: Embracing the gift, the blessings and the challenges of singleness by Nancy Leigh DeMoss

Whoa two posts in one day!!  Is that even allowed?!?  I’m sure I must be breaking some sort of blogging protocol by not posting for weeks and then posting twice in one day.  However it can’t be helped I wrote the other post and then realized it was Wednesday and I knew I wanted to write on Writer Wednesday about a tiny book I’ve been reading.  It’s seriously a very little book the Introduction starts on page 5 and ends on page 73, its about 6 inches tall and 4 inches wide and the font is not small. Needless to say it’s not a difficult book to finish, but there’s a lot of really good stuff packed in.  It’s by Nancy Leigh DeMoss who is easily  one of my favorite authors.  In her books she covers so many topics that are so good for women to meditate on and grow in.  I have been thankful for the ways her writing has challenged me to draw nearer to the Lord, to confront sins in my life and to work diligently toward becoming a godly woman.

This particular book is one I bought a while back because it was super cheap and then decided I didn’t want to read it right then.  It’s called “Singled Out for Him: Embracing the gift, the blessings and the challenges of singleness” I didn’t read it right away because sometimes I just don’t even want to think about being single.  Sometimes studying even good resources about singleness can leave me so focused on my marital status so that I can become discontent with it just because I think about it too much.

However in picking up this tiny book I was thankful for the way she dealt with the topic and there was a lot in the book I wanted to make sure people know.  Not just single women, but also marrieds who have single women that they interact with.  I know it’s important for me to have people to come alongside as encouragers and have people willing to keep me accountable to living in a godly way. 

The book is structured into 10 commitments that singles can follow to honor God in this season of life.   I want to look at a few of them here that stood out to me.  The first was “I am committed to receiving singleness as a gift from God” In this chapter she talks about seeing singleness itself as a gift not the lack of a gift.  I love giving gifts, I love trying to decide what would be a blessing for the recipient .  I see gift giving as an opportunity to show the person I’m giving to that I love them, that I pay attention to the things they like or need.  If I delight so much in giving good gifts, how much more does God delight in giving good gifts.  If I am capable of observing what gift will make someone in my life smile or fulfill some need they have how much better is God who has searched me and known me at giving the perfect gifts.  Ms. DeMoss writes

“I am not single by accident. I am not single because the “right man” has never asked me to        marry him.  I am not single because I have made up my mind not to marry.  Rather I am single
because God has chosen for me the gift of singleness.  I believe that I am single according to the perfect will and purpose of God.  I have no way of knowing how long He will give me this gift or whether He will ever chose to give me the gift of marriage.  I do not know whether it is His will for me to be single in five years.  But I do know that it has been His will to this point in my life.”

Seeing singleness as a gift chosen in love by my heavenly Father is such a wonderful viewpoint and something I was to commit to.  Once we see something in life as a gift it opens up the option to thank Him for it and use it well.

 

Another chapter was entitled “I am committed to relating to families” The first two paragraphs really hit home on some things that I have struggled with in the past and sometimes still struggle with.

“Those singles whose lives are characterized by chronic loneliness probably have not discovered their place in the Body of Christ.  The fact is, we are not alone.  We are a part of an incredible family of faith.  And that family includes far more than just other singles!  You and I are called to function within the broader context of the family of God.
One of my concerns about church programs designed solely for singles is the danger of isolating singles from the broader Body.  I believe God intends for our lives and gifts to operate within the sphere of the whole Body- young and old, married and single.  Those who interrelate only with others whose needs and interests are similar to their own are far more vulnerable to the   crippling, deadly effects of selfishness.”

I’ve seen this in my own life where the people  was closest to in church were other singles, that became especially hard as they started to get married and I didn’t.  Not only did those relationships change, but I saw people in the church, married couples and families reaching out to them as new couples in ways that they had never reached out to me (or even my friends when they were single)  To me it felt like there was some barrier keeping me outside full membership in the Body because I’m still single.  (In reality I think it was just that people could clearly see the opportunity to encourage and come alongside a new couple and that is not a bad thing.) 

Realizing that I don’t have to wait for families to reach out to me in order to be involved in their lives has been a huge help to me.  It’s still a struggle sometimes to figure out how I fit in to church life, but I’m learning.  In the chapter Ms. DeMoss also writes:

“On a practical note ,  I have known single men and women  who would love to spend time with families and become resentful when families don’t think to reach out to them (Um been there done that) My personal experience is that most married couples are not aware of the value of including singles in the life of their family and therefore generally don’t take the initiative to do so.   So my challenge to singles is this: Don’t be afraid to reach out to families!  Look for ways to initiate relationships with children, young people, and couples as well as older people who are         alone and in need of families”

She went on to gives some exceedingly practical ideas on how to do that, which was so helpful.  I am not a super great relationship initiator, I won’t invite myself over to your house for dinner unless I’ve known you forever and even then I prefer to drop hints about how great your cooking is.  However her ideas included going to kid’s ball games or concerts, sending notes of encouragement, inviting kids to come run errands, looking out for opportunities to meet needs.  She also gave the reminder that being a part of a family is a blessing, but it’s also a lot of work.  There has to be a commitment to keep up with people, to reach out to people, to sacrifice for their good.  It’s my responsibility to come alongside families and interact with them and love on them.

 

The last section I wanted to look at in this post is also the last one in the book “I am committed to pursuing and intimate relationship with God above all else”

“If God has chosen me for a life of singleness, then I will delight in His goodness and His ability to meet all my needs, and I will seek to cultivate a relationship with Him that will cause others to thirst for Him”

God is enough to meet every need I have and He loves me perfectly.  My relationship with Him is more important than any other relationship I will ever have.  I need to trust Him fully to do what is best in my life and know that He is able to “satisfy the deepest needs and longings in my heart” She writes;

“That is why I am committed to letting Him choose for me what gifts I will have, and to embrace His choices with all my heart.  I will not spend my life pining away for something He has not chosen for me.  I choose to be content with His choice for me and refuse to give in to a spirit of discontentment.  I chose to be His glad servant and let Him take and use my life in whatever way will please Him most.

For whatever period of time I am single, by God’s grace, I want to be totally His in body, soul and spirit.  I want to know Him, to love Him, and to glorify Him in our world.  I want to live each day in His presence living for His pleasure.  .  . ”

Marriage is a good thing, it’s a blessing and it’s something that I still do long for, but it is not the supreme thing.  A right relationship with the Lord is the supreme thing, and His glory is my chief end.  I am thankful to be able to have this little book as a reminder of the blessing singleness can and should be.

Change it up

Well it has been a while since I’ve even sat down to write anything for this Blog.  The last few weeks have been pretty busy.  I was in a musical, Bye, Bye Birdie and show time can be pretty crazy.  Everything turned out super well and it was a lot of fun, but right now I’m thankful that it’s over because I have a pretty big task over the next few weeks.  Moving back home is going to be great, really it’s the right thing however the process of getting things moved is a bit overwhelming to me.  There have been times when I have sat in my living room surveying the ground without any idea of how even half of the stuff in here will fit in my mom’s house.   

 

A while back Hershey’s had these commercials where they would show something changed and how bad the change was the tagline was “Change is bad.  .   . Hershey’s unchanged since 18??” I could totally relate to those commercials.  Deep down I know change is often good.  I know the Lord brings changes into our lives to help us grow in ways that wouldn’t be possible if things were always the same.  I’ve even experienced great changes in my own life seeing firsthand the joys that can come from something new.  However change still isn’t something I do without at least a few moments of “NOOOOOOOO” 

 

I am certain that the changes in my life right now are good ones, but there’s a part of me that’s still nervous.  A part of me that can see all the things that might go wrong, that doesn’t want to give up the certainty of what life is now to walk into uncertainty.  Thankfully that part of me is fighting a losing battle. Yes there are still moments of struggle, but those moments are becoming shorter.  When those thoughts come into my head that say “This will never work” “You can’t handle what’s coming?” it is becoming more normal to take them captive and make them obedient to Christ.  To replace them with prayers asking the Lord for wisdom, for strength, for a willingness to walk by faith and not by sight.

 

I’m looking forward to more opportunities to learn to see the blessings of change without the fear of it.  Over the next few months I’m not only moving back home, I’ll also be heading off to Central Ohio to work for about a month and a half at a Christian summer camp (More on that in future posts I’m sure).  There are adventures ahead, and they will be good.  I know they’ll be good, because I know God is good.  I know He truly knows what is best and will do what is best in my life. 

In the Valley

I don’t have a specific writer for today’s Writer Wednesday post.  The reason for that is the book I’m drawing from is a collection of writings drawn from a group of writers.  It is a book of Puritan Prayers called the Valley of Vision.  Arthur Bennett in the preface states “The prayers in this book are drawn from the largely forgotten deposit of Puritan spiritual exercises, meditations and aspirations.  They testify to the richness and colour of evangelical thought and language that animated vital piety in an important stream of English religious life.”  In reading the prayers of saints who have walked before I have been challenged by their devotion to the Lord, their passion for His glory, their hatred of their own sin, and their fear of the God of the universe.  

The preface goes on to say “The book is not intended to be read as a prayer manual.  The soul learns to pray by praying; for prayer is communion with a transcendent and immanent God who on the ground of His nature and attributes calls forth all the powers of the redeemed soul in acts of total adoration and dedication.  The prayers should therefore be used as aspirational units, the several parts of which could become springboards for the individual’s own prayer subjects.”  During those times when it can be hard to know what to pray for this book includes starting points, vivid reminders of many of the things we should be speaking to the Lord about.  Prayers that speak of His greatness, prayers that wonder at His mercy in redemption, prayers that beg forgiveness from sin, prayers of humble confession, prayers that recognize our helplessness,  prayers of thankfulness for the Lord’s abundant blessings, prayers asking for holiness, faith, grace, joy, contentment, sleep, comfort, happiness, sincerity, and prayers expressing the longing for eternity. 

There are so many things we should be going to the Lord for, so much that scripture calls us to pray without ceasing.  Yet often it’s hard to pray, hard to think deeply enough to approach the Lord with boldness.  I have been thankful to have these prayers as a springboard and a way to focus my own heart of the wonders of the Lord and on the joy and privilege it is to be heard in His presence.  Here is one of my favorite prayers from the Valley of Vision

The Deeps

Give me a deeper repentance,
A horror of sin,
A dread of its approach;
Help me chastely to flee it,
And jealously to resolve that my heart
Shall be thine alone.
Give me a deeper trust,
That I may lose myself to find myself in Thee,
The ground of my rest,
The spring of my being.
Give me a deeper knowledge of thyself
As Saviour, Master, Lord and King.
Give me deeper power in private prayer,
More sweetness in thy Word,
More steadfast grip on its truth.
Give me deeper holiness in speech, thought, action,
And let me not seek moral virtue apart from thee.
Plough deep in me, great Lord,
Heavenly Husbandman,
That my being may be a tilled field,
The roots of grace spreading far and wide,
Until Thou alone art seen in me,
Thy beauty golden like summer harvest,
Thy fruitfulness as autumn plenty.
I have no Master but thee,
No law but thy will,
No delight but thyself,
No wealth but that thou givest,
No good but that thou blessest,
No peace but that thou bestowest.
I am nothing but that thou makest me,
I have nothing but that I receive from thee,
I can be nothing but that grace adorns me.
Quarry me deep, dear Lord,
And then fill me to overflowing
With living water.

Tunesday

Today I have decided to try out another theme day!!  Tuesday sounds a bit like Tunesday doesn’t it? This idea is not new but shamelessly stolen from other bloggers who take one day a week to feature a song.  If you know me at all you know I love music.  I’ve been known to literally break into song without even meaning to.  I sing along with the music in the grocery store, I sing in the car, I sing in the shower, I sing when people say words that are in songs I know.   .  . Sometimes I don’t even realize I’m doing it until a strange in the baking aisle starts staring.

Since music stays so firmly in my mind it has been an extremely important part of my spiritual life as well.  I read a quote once that talked about how while many things like books and sermons pass through a mind fleetingly hymns stay in a mind and the tunes replay again and again causing that mind to dwell on the words, to meditate on them fully.  Adding music to lyrics cements those lyrics in the mind.  While there are many useless songs that can get stuck in my head on occasion there are also those wonderful songs that cause my thoughts to turn to the Lord.  There are those hymns and spiritual songs that tune my heart to sing His praise.

This morning I pulled a book off my shelf to look for a song to share here.  The book is Gadsby’s Hymns and according to the back cover it “is an esteemed collection of 1156 hymns of rich theological content, many of which are not found in any other current hymnal”  Many of these hymns are filled to overflowing with doctrine and adoration of the living God.  Many of the hymns in these pages no longer have tunes and it can be a delight to me to sit down with the guitar and just sing the words, most of my tunes are just a joyful noise unto the Lord with an emphasis on the word noise.  However I am not the only one who knows about this hymnal.  I discovered the book after hearing settings from it by Red Mountain Music, they actually have a CD drawn entirely from Gadsby’s Hymnal, giving tunes back to a few of these incredible hymns. 

For today I wanted to share one of my favorite hymns from Gadsby’s Hymnal and really one of my favorite hymns period.  It is Hymn # 1052 and I learned it under the title “Friend of Sinners”

Redeemer whither should I flee

Or how escape the wrath to come
The weary sinner flies to Thee
For shelter from impending doom;
Smile on me gracious Lord
And show Thyself the Friend of sinners now

 

Beneath the shadow of Thy cross
My heavy laden soul finds rest
I would esteem the world but dross
So I might be of Christ possessed
I’d seek my every joy in Thee
Be Thou both life and light to me

 

Close to Thy highly shameful tree
Jesus my humbled soul would cleave
Despised and crucified with Thee
With the resolved to die and live
This prayer and this ambition mine
Living and dying to be Thine

 

There fastened to the rugged wood
By holy love’s resistless chain
And life deriving from Thy blood
Never to wander wide again
There may I bow my suppliant knee
And own no other Lord but Thee

I can fly. . . ouch. . .maybe not

Is it possible to fall behind on a self-imposed writing project?   Well if it is then I have fallen a bit behind on this blog.  However, I am behind for good reason.  Real life has been extremely busy over the last week.  For the past few years I’ve been involved in St Stephen’s Parish Players, a community theater group on Grand Island.  My mom saw an ad in the town’s paper for auditions about 5 years ago and sent me to go try out.  My audition was absolutely terrible that year; however I was cast in the chorus of Annie Get Your Gun and have been involved with the group ever since both on and off stage.

Last week I ended up doing behind the scenes work for the younger kids show, Peter Pan.  I tend to get sucked into projects without really intending to.  I stopped over at one of the kid’s rehearsals to drop off some piratey things (Who doesn’t have swords, bandanas, and eye patches in their closets?!?!)  and stayed to move set pieces, and then stayed to paint, and then stayed to .  .   . Well you get the idea.  It was time I hadn’t planned on investing, but it was incredible to be able to come alongside and help a group of kids who have worked so hard to put on a tremendous show. 

Everything this week went very well, but it wasn’t a perfect week.  It wasn’t perfect in part because I’m not always good at knowing what my own limits are.  Quite often I don’t want to admit that the limits exist.  However they do.  As much as I sometimes want to set aside things like sleep and meals and all of those basic needs in order to do big things I was reminded this week that when some of those “little things” are ignored everything else suffers.  My generally cheerful and mostly easy going personality becomes sharper and much more easily frustrated.  Plus without those basics my body just isn’t willing to do the things I ask of it, headaches come in full force and knees refuse to bend in quite the same way as they normally do.

This week was a reminder that sometimes, even when it’s hard because I can see work that needs to be done, I need to stop working and rest.  It was a reminder that during times when I am working hard I need to plan for the basics to bring along meals and that sort of thing.  It was also a wakeup call in some ways.  I desperately want to expand my current limits physically and mentally.

I have already been doing that to a certain extent in diet with the whole High Fat, High Protein, Low Carb thing.  That way of eating seems to be a good fit for me so far.  Beyond that though if I expect  to be able to do work that is past my current limits I’m going to have to be intentional about pushing my physical limits with .   .    . wait for it.    .    . Exercise.   I have never, ever been a good exerciser!!  I am strong, I am sporty but I have never liked exercising for the point of exercising.  I have a sweatshirt that has a picture of a person being chased by a T Rex with the caption “Exercise: Some motivation required”  I guess I need to find that motivation.  .  . Anyone have a T Rex I can borrow?  No?

Hopefully the vision I have for my future is enough motivation to start working at pushing my physical limits.  There’s things I want to be able to do, as soon as this summer, that mean I need to be able to walk for longer periods of time, I need to be able to run a bit,  I need to be able to lift and move with greater ease.  Thankfully I’m not overwhelmed by those thoughts; there have been times in my life when I would have been utterly and completely overwhelmed by all of these changes that I need to make.  However they aren’t things I need to do overnight, they aren’t things I need to do perfectly, and they aren’t impossible goals.  Besides that I have the promise that God’s grace is sufficient and His strength is made perfect in weakness.   I also have a greater willingness in my own heart to obey the command “Whether you eat or drink whatever you do, do it heartily as unto the Lord”  

So even though I slacked off on my blogging assignments this week, I learned a lot.  I learned more about my weaknesses and also about my strengths.  I also got to spend time getting to know as awesome group of kids better.  One of my favorite parts of this week was sneaking out into the audience at the end of each show, and cheering with all my might for the talented and smiling cast of Peter Pan.

Writer Wednesday. . . Um yeah it's Thursday, but I wrote this yesterday honest!!

The name of my Blog comes from one of my favorite books “Stepping Heavenward: One Woman’s Journey to Godliness” by Elizabeth Prentiss.  The book is the diary of a young woman, Katherine, and begins “How dreadfully old I am getting! Sixteen!”  Reading that for the first time as an 18 year old I couldn’t help, but smile. She continues “I determined, in the first place, to begin this journal.  To be sure, I have begun half a dozen, and got tired of them after a while.  Not tired of writing them, but disgusted with what I had to say of myself.  But this time I mean to go on, in spite of everything.  It will do me good to read it over and see what a creature I am.”

I have dozens of journals myself, a few pages written and then nothing.  I could relate to this girl when I was 18 and I can relate to her now.  Writing honestly about who you are is often a terrifying thing.  In this book there’s a glimpse of a girl’s struggles with herself, her struggles with the Lord, her struggles with sin, her struggles with her own longings, her struggles with temptation.  And through all the struggles she faces, she grows.  She grows in wisdom, she grows in character, she grows in her relationship with her God. 

Reading this book over the years I have often found myself, with tears in my eyes, setting it down and thinking I could have written that of myself.  Things like:

“Amelia has been here.  She has had another talk with Dr. Cabot and is perfectly happy.  She says it is easy to be a Christian! It may be easy for her; everything is.  She never has any of my dreadful feelings and does not understand them when I try to  explain them to her. Well!  If I am fated to be miserable, I must try to bear it.”

“’You would not speak to me so kindly’ I got out at last, ‘If you knew what a dreadful creature I am.  I am angry with myself and angry with everybody and angry with God.  I can’t be good two minutes at a time.  I do everything I do not want to do and do nothing I try and pray to do.  Everybody plagues me and tempts me.  And God does not answer any of my prayers, and I am just desperate.’”

“I came away; and all the way home I fought this battle with myself, saying, ‘He loves me!’ I knelt down to pray, and all my wasted, childish, wicked life came and stared me in the face.  I looked at it and said with tears of joy, ‘But he loves me!’ Never in my life did I feel so rested, so quieted , so sorrowful, and yet so satisfied.”

“It has seemed to me for several days that it must be that I really do love God, though ever so little.  But it shot through my mind today like a knife that it is a miserable, selfish love at best, not worth my giving, not worth God’s accepting.  All my old misery has come back with seven other miseries more miserable than itself.  I wish I had never been born!  I wish I were thoughtless and careless like so many other girls of my age, who seem to get along very well and enjoy themselves far more than I do.”

“The truth is the journey heavenward is all uphill.”

“It is high time to stop and think.  I have been like one running a race and am stopping to take breath.  I do not like the way things have been going as of late.  I feel restless and ill at ease.  I see that if I would be happy in God, I must give Him all.  And there is a wicked reluctance to do that.  I want Him- but I want to have my own way, too.  I want to walk humbly and softly before Him and I want to go where I shall be admired and applauded.  To whom shall I yield? To God? Or to myself?”

“Yes, I have prayed, and he has heard me. I see that I have no right to live for myself and that I must live for Him.  I have given myself to Him as I never did before and have entered, as it were, a new world.  I was very happy when I first began to believe in His love for me and that He had redeemed me.  But this new happiness is deeper; it involves something higher than getting to heaven at last, which has, hitherto, been my great aim.”

“The more I pray and the more I read the Bible, the more I feel my ignorance. And the more earnestly I desire holiness, the more utterly unholy I see myself to be. But I have pledged myself to the Lord, and I must pay my vows, cost what it may.”

“Oh I do wish.  .  . that God had given us plain rules about which we could make no mistake”

“The last day of the happiest summer I ever spent.  If I had only been willing to believe the testimony of others I might have been just as happy long ago.  But I wanted to have all there was in God and all there was in the world at once; and there was a constant, painful struggle between the two.  I hope that struggle is now over.  I deliberately choose and prefer God.  I have found a sweet peace in trying to please Him such as I never conceived of.  I would not change it for all the best things this world can give.  But I have a great deal left to learn.  I am like a child who cannot run to get what he wants but approaches it step by step, slowly, timidly- and yet approaches it.  I am amazed at the patience of my blessed Master and Teacher, but how I love His school!”

I could probably go on copying quotes from this book for hours, but then what would be left for you if you decide to read it yourself?  The encouragement for me in reading this book has often been learning that I am not alone in many of the thoughts that fill my head.  I’m not the first person who has dealt with doubt, pride, selfishness, fear, anger, loneliness.  .   .  All of those struggles have not only been faced by others on this journey heavenward, but there has been victory over all of these.  I am thankful for the honesty in these pages, even though it is a work of fiction, there is a reality in the thoughts recorded that I believe must have come from the author’s heart.