Friday, June 20, 2014

Back and Breathing.

Well, it's definitely been a while. And by a while I mean February 5th, which seems like years and a different lifetime ago but was in fact just a handful of months. In the time since I blogged sophomore year has ended, the world has shifted, and as always the Lord has remained the same. 

I'm not going to attempt to sum up sophomore year, or try and put the lessons I've learned into quaint little phrases and sentences. The truth is, I'm still not entirely sure it's sunk into my head and trying to share it with you would be almost impossible. I've experienced emotions I'm not sure there are words for in English....although I'm sure there's some super cultured word in another language for it somewhere.And I'm not entirely sure the experiences that my best friends & I have gone through this year are the kind that should be shared anywhere other than between friends, on a couch, holding hot cups of coffee and watching the sunset -- because they're the kind of life experiences that come to reshape you and your outlook on the world, and there's no way to share them without sharing more than a little bit of yourself. 

So why am I blogging? Mostly because I missed it, and for the first time in almost 2 months the words are starting to form in my head in a way that makes sense.....so capitalizing on that seems like a good idea. And because in the midst of great trials, I have been taught the most important thing is to remember what you knew was true when walking in faith seemed simple and finding the Lord in our midst was easy. So here it goes. 

The Lord is still sovereign. 
The Lord is still faithful.
The Lord is still good. 
The Lord is still glorified. 
And He is still worthy of [my] praise.

I know to you those just read like words on a page, and maybe you don't feel the energy that went into typing them. But for me, even writing them down has taken months of consideration. I used to be the girl that threw these phrases out like they were candy. Phrases like "Man, God is so good" and songs like "It Is Well With My Soul" and "Blessed Be Your Name" rolled off my tongue without a moments hesitation because what I applied them to was small. Encountering death, loss, and a colossal shift in my spiritual understanding for the first time in my life has made me sit down and reconsider what I'm willing to put on the line when I say the Lord can have it all. I've always known in the back of my mind that the Lord didn't promise us an easy life or earthly happiness. I've always read passages like James 1 and known that joy in trials was going to be impossible in my own strength. But for 20 years "trials" has meant not getting the job / boy / grade that I wanted......and now trials means that after nineteen (almost 20) years of life one of my best and dearest friends is basking in the glory of Jesus' face. 

And I'm here. 

To say that the Lord is sovereign means on some level I have to accept that I will never, until I reach heaven, understand why it happened the way that it did. It means that searching for the Lord's goodness and glory just became much harder because I don't like it, and it hurts. It means that joy has just reached a new level of supernatural grace, because I've never been so aware of how impossible it is for me to produce it on my own. 

It means that I have claimed the Lord's faithfulness, sovereignty, goodness, and mercy my entire life, and it is time to prove whether I believe in the unshakable truth of His character and perfect holiness.....or whether I just said those phrases because for a little while, it seemed like His plans lined up with mine. 

The Lord is sovereign. And just, and faithful, and good, and merciful, and I can't grasp it, don't understand it, and perhaps never will. He has answered my prayers for healing, wholeness, and renewal in ways that were more painful but more perfect than I could ever have anticipated. And of course I still have questions....I'm human, and I miss my friend, and our home, and the life that our CIU family enjoyed two months ago. Sometimes I'm angry, sometimes I'm quiet in the face of the Lord's grace, sometimes I fall into the unbelievable delusion that I know better than the Lord and wish I could change something. But in the midst of it all, the Lord's grace has been there to catch me even when I try and shove it off with both hands. 

I am still processing how much I don't know. And the Lord is still good.