Justification.

For the longest time I've considered justification strictly a religious issue...a quick way to sum up the whole grace versus works debate. But for the first time in church this morning I was slapped in the face with the possibility that justification and the need to prove that I'm somebody, that we're all somebody, goes so much deeper than "just" a religious stance.

And of course, I didn't come up with this idea by myself. It happened right around the time Adam, my pastor, looked up and said "Justification is NOT just a religious issue!" So none of these ideas really go to me :P

In a courtroom, justification is achieved when you are legally declared innocent of the crimes that you're being accused of having committed. But in life? Justification is when you feel you've proven to yourself, and whoever you're in front of, that you're somebody. That you're worth something. That you have value and importance. And so often, these "courtrooms" or situations have nothing to do with religion or church, and EVERYTHING to do with what goes on from Sunday to Sunday.

These are the things we're emotionally invested in. The things we're anxious about. The things that we pour time, money, energy, focus, and effort into. The things we get defensive about. Its the things that when people make a joke or comment about, our first reaction is to stand up and say "How DARE you? I am somebody. I am worth something. And you will NOT treat me this way!"

It's the reason we pick and choose our photos and status so carefully on Facebook...because our deep and secret desire is for people to see them and enviously say, "Now THAT'S a life worth living. Man, she must be something."

Adam used a somewhat silly example this morning, but it shot straight to my heart. My church is located in the center of Columbia, South Carolina...my community eats, sleeps and BREATHES Gamecock culture. Come football season, Clemson fans beware! And that was his point. People stake so much of who they are, their energy, their LIVES, in the outcome of a game that they're not even personally playing. And they demonize Clemson and become so defensive about their Gamecocks, because Clemson embodies everything that attacks what they feels justifies them. College students can spout of players statistics, dates of birth, how long they've played where, and the current collegiate records, but when you begin to ask them about Scripture and the Bible the response becomes "Well, uh...I don't know. I'm not so good at memorizing stuff...it's just so hard for me to learn."

It's not hard for us to learn....we just love to learn about the things that we believe make us who we are. And so often, that's not Jesus. It's football. Or books. Or movies. Or political beliefs. Or election results, or whether we drink Starbucks or hipster coffee, and whether we listened to Mumford & Sons before they were "cool".

Some of these examples were so ridiculous, but they convicted me immediately. Because I have a justification issue too. I have something that I have poured myself into. Something that makes life exciting. Something that I'm scared about, worried about, cry about, rejoice over, and take to the Lord almost every morning. And no...it's not the Gospel.

I fail so often at remembering who I am...and who it is that makes me who I am. But the beauty of the Gospel (and the Gospel's justification) is that God has already declared me innocent and worthy! Not just in His courtroom, which is the ultimate courtroom...but in all these stupid little places I stop to worry about. Like my appearance, and who I'm going to marry, and "maybe if I was just a liiiiittle bit prettier, or loved you a liiiiittle bit better, things would work out differently?"

NO. Because we are united with God in Christ Jesus, we are free to approach Him in our failure. We are covered with the same verdict that God declared of Jesus in Matthew 3:17...

"...this is my Son, whom I love; with HIM I am well pleased." 

We have been grafted into the family of Christ...no matter what we do, what rules we follow, HOW pretty we look on Sunday morning, God will never be more pleased with us than He is right in this very instant. 

So, I'll end (and sorry this has been so long :P) with the same question Adam asked me as church ended. 

How long are we going to chase justification in other things before we realize it's never going to come? 

The verdict has already been given. You are covered. You are loved. You are WORTH IT. 

Testimonies.

I've struggled with my testimony for years. Not because I thought it was too big or too much to handle, but because I thought it was too small. I can count the amount of people I've shared my full testimony with on one hand (i.e. three...) and half of that is because I have a really hard trusting people with myself fully. But the other half is that honestly, even though I've struggled with all kinds of sin in all areas, I just haven't felt in the past that my "I was raised in a Christian home and accepted Jesus at 4 years old" testimony measured up to those who had been redeemed out of a LIFETIME of sin.

Mine just isn't as powerful a testimony. BUT.

I had breakfast two mornings ago with a dear and precious friend, one who knows me a little better than most. And we were swapping pieces of our stories, and it got me thinking.

We place so much value on testimonies that can go on stage and move people to tears. Stories of people who wandered in darkness for years and years before God reached down and saved them, and we applaud how great of a God that we have that He could save fallen people from being fallen people. But isn't that just it? Fallen people who were doing all they knew how to do...be fallen people. Depraved. Broken. Completely unaware of the healing, overwhelming, all encompassing redemptive power of a love soaked Gospel. And God saved them from that. As a testament to His power.

But how much MORE of a testament is it to God's love to say "I've known Jesus all my life. I know that He loves me. I know that He died for me. But I continue to choose my sin over and over again because I'm selfish, and would rather have what I want that surrender my will to the Father. And HE STILL LOVES ME."

Maybe I'm not making sense. And I'm not bashing on those powerful testimonies, because I have seen them move and it is AMAZING. I guess I'm just encouraging people not to feel inferior because God has given them a testimony that starts with "I've been going to church all my life, and I've never struggled with [blank]."

Because while one is a testimony of God's power to bring life from death, your testimony is a living, breathing story of a love SO FAITHFUL and SO PERFECT, He continues to redeem a broken heart that rejects Him time and time again for insignificant things that don't even BEGIN to matter in eternity.

And I think that is powerful indeed.

Immeasurably MORE.

I wasn't sure what to title this blog. I didn't write a post to sum up 2012, not because I was lazy but because I was overwhelmed in Atlanta, Georgia by the amount of old friends I was able to spend my New Year's with :D

I spent my New Years at the Passion 2013 conference, with 64,999 other people praising our Savior. I don't know HOW to sum up the experience, so I'm going to try and do it with a somewhat out there analogy-like thing. So here goes.

The very first session Louis Giglio spoke. Now, because there's 65,000 of us in the Georgia Dome he was obviously miked up and thrown up on the massive screens so that everyone could both see and hear him. So if you were watching the screens and just listening (which I was) it seemed as if Louis Giglio was this massive, overwhelming presence slowly spreading through the Dome. But I took a second to look down (honestly it was because I was crying) and saw the stage....and all Louis Giglio consisted of was this tiny, tiny, TINY little man in a corner of the stage, totally reliant on the microphone and screens to spread his message out to the rest of us. And it got me thinking.

THIS is what I learned at Passion 2013. We are just tiny, tiny, TINY little humans running around in the shadow of an omnipotent, powerful, HUGE God, completely and totally reliant upon Him and ONLY Him to spread our story of His glory to the rest of the world. Just like Louis would have been unable to speak without the screen and microphone, we are unable to bring about anything without Jesus. Our God is overwhelmingly powerful, and overwhelmingly BIG! He is IMMEASURABLY more than our wildest dreams.

Which leads to Bethany sitting in family group, shaking, unable to sit still, because I've never understood just how much I CAN'T understand just how much our God is. Spiritual high, shaky tears, and the absolute inability to talk :D

I am blessed beyond belief, and I got to experience all this sitting beside some of my BEST friends. God is bringing change, and we're going to be a part of it. Praise Him.

Chick Flick Moments.

Let me start this blog post with a disclaimer: I love chick flicks just as much as the next girl. I love girls night & curling up on the couch snuggled in with blankets and pillows to spend the next hour and a halfish watching someone else's relationships work out better than you and your friends currently are.I love the things that accompany chick flick nights (normally): good friends, single jokes, and the looks that cross faces for a split second when the credits start rolling that says 'man, I hope that's me one day.'

That beings said...chick flicks make me laugh. For a VARIETY of reasons.

The whole reason that they're such a hit is because someone, somewhere discovered the formula to make all women, everywhere return to the theater over & over again, and sometimes drag their brothers, boyfriends, and fathers along too. It's in every typical chick flick. Ever.

Boy meets girl. In this first meeting you have a variety of options, but typically it goes one of two ways: either they hit it off immediately and fall madly for each other, or they tick each other off to no end and swear they'll never see each other again, EVER. What happens? They realize they have mutual friends. They realize they live in the same apartment building. Somehow, SOMEWAY they discover that their lives are magically intertwined in a way that keeps them continuously running into each other over and over again, that they've also somehow missed up until this moment. For the next hour or so, we watch their relationship unfold, until the next MAJOR roadblock in the movie occurs.

The betrayal. Someone makes a mistake. They break up. There's heartbreak, tears (from the characters AND the audience) moody music, and probably rain. Then, somehow within the last 10 minutes of the movie the man (or woman) realizes they can't live without the other person. All conflict is reconciled, happy music plays, they kiss, walk off into the sunset, and we live the theater feeling preeeeeeetty good a bout life in general :D

Which is why it makes me laugh. Because relationships don't work that way. But I think the REAL reason it makes me laugh is because we, as girls (and some guys...no shame!) walk out of the theater, and start looking for our "cute meet." And ALL of a sudden everyone from the person taking your order at McDonalds to the boy you trip over in the coffee shop could be your ONE. I'm not dogging that. He could be! God works in mysterious ways, and believe me I've seen it. And I'm DEFINITELY guilty of this too. But it just makes me laugh how when me and my friends walk out of the coffee shop, and she bumps into some cute college boy walking in the door, after they exchange apologies the "AHA" look appears....and she turns and through narrowed eyes asks the question ".....did I just miss him?"

NO. You probably didn't. But goodness, it's funny anyways :D

1 down, 6 to go....

Even though it hasn't sunk in yet, allow me to announce very loudly and very excitedly that I AM DONE WITH MY FRESHMAN YEAR OF COLLEGE. Yup. 3 years from now I'll be walking down the aisle, dreading having to finally grow up a little bit and face the real world. Or graduate school. Either really. But that being said...

How do you sum up a semester of lessons, laughter, tears, pain, roommates, hallmates, South Carolina and GOD in a blog post? It's hard for me to write about, because no matter how many words I use or how grandiose my language becomes, it STILL won't be enough to adequately communicate the overwhelming emotion and living of life that God has walked me through this semester.

I have been reminded time and time again that this earth is not our home, and that no one we meet on earth can fulfill the void that God reserved in our hearts specifically for Himself. I've learned it's hard to grasp concepts like mercy, faith, love (the overwhelming, unconditional, allow me die for you kind), and forgiveness because we human beings are so unbelievably BAD at it. I've learned that any semblance of these qualities in our lives is only because we have a Savior who IS all of these things, and when I am loved and cared for by my closest friends it is when I see Jesus the most.

I've learned that love means patience, selflessness, trust, and putting one foot in front of the other one day at a time. I've learned that love is also not butterflies in the stomach, heart skips a beat, hands get clammy and I can't breath....even though those things are awesome. I've learned the Christian walk is hard, and surrendering to Christ can be painful, even though I know beyond a shadow of a doubt that surrendering all these things is worth it in the face of an all-fulfilling Savior. I've learned I have a long way to go before I'm ready for marriage, parenting and a family, and if God ever chooses to bring those things into His plan for my life it will be in His time and not mine. Even though a lot of the time I prefer my timing to His...until I sit back and realize how much trouble I would get into if God let me run my life even for a week :P

On a less serious note .... I've taken out small parts of the bucket list :D I've been to Savannah multiple times. I've survived the CIU cafeteria, found a life-long best friend in my beautiful roommate, and discovered that I'm actually kind of bad at decorating. I've discovered watching a movie when I should be doing homework does NOT mean that I will somehow magically have an overabundance of time on my hands in which to do the homework later. I have discovered 35 is a magical age, and have already started plans to move into a cat lady home with Stephanie and Melissa ;) I've bought my ticket for Passion 2013 (AHHH!), visited Impact 360, adopted a little sister, missed my puppies, had NO time for reading, completely failed at waffle making, washed my shirt in the sink (then dried it with a hair dryer), chased down a candy nommer, ATTEMPTED to learn how to play Halo (it didn't work), found the best smelling young man in the world, and learned that right about 2 AM my brain shuts down and nothing I say makes sense anymore :D

Oh. And run the Color Run :D And made a gingerbread house. Kind of. And watched the Shining. And scary movie upon scary movie which instantly led to extreme regret for THOSE decisions. And saw my first shooting star! And been read aloud too. And redid my room. And taken NUMEROUS road trips :)

I am thankful for everything God has put in my path this semester...even the lessons that were hard and the doors He chose to shut, and the times He told me "wait" and "I've got this." NOW I'm home for Christmas break with lots of free time and no schoolwork to do. Look out world :D