Truly, Madly, Deeply

Before I begin, yes I stole the title of this blog post from a Savage Garden song. Don't judge me. ;-) It'll all come together soon enough!

I cannot believe it is the last day of the year. The year 2010 has been a huge year of growth for me and as I sit here on the eve of a new year I thought it would be appropriate to share some of the three biggest things I've learned this year:

1. I am entitled to NOTHING
Fact: I am extremely task oriented. I like to work hard and be the best I can be with the expectation that I am going to see a certain result on the other end. At this time last year, I thought that I had it all figured out...that by pursuing the Lord and His will for me and all the while working hard, I was going to see life go my way! Well, the Lord was quick to show me that it is by Him and His grace ALONE that I have anything! This may seem like an elementary concept, but it was a huge struggle for me. I, far more than I would care to admit, can relate so much to the Pharisees  in getting extremely caught up in works and end up placing myself on a pedestal because I am DOING things to justify my salvation.  As we all know, this is not the way grace works in the least bit. This is perhaps the biggest lesson that has come my way this year as everything else I've learned has come from this.

2. I am fully equipped to face anything that comes my way
Not saying I have it all figured out by any means but what I am saying is that the things I lack in any situation, the Lord has in full. He is my strength and my provider. Everything I have right now in my life is a gift from Him and He provides what is needed in any situation. What I am right now is exactly what I need. He provides what I need, when I need it...no more or no less. Shawn McDonald has a song called "Greed" and some of the lyrics go "what we've got is what we need, everything else is only greed". In every aspect of my life, I have my every need provided for. There are so many uncertainties coming my way in the dawn of this New Year but I know that when I NEED to know the answers, I will. Because of the goodness of our God, I will not lack in anything...ever.

3. I am LOVED. Truly, Madly, Deeply.
I have experienced love this year in a richer and deeper way. Because of being stripped away of my sense of entitlement and the realization along with that that it is by God's grace ALONE that I have what I need when I need it, I have seen a more clear picture of His great love for us. I so much take for granted the community that I have and the wonderful family I am a part of. Very recently I have experienced a contrast to the community I live in daily. I have seen and experienced being loved due to fulfilling a set of expectations (which, by the way is extremely draining and brings no fulfillment or freedom) and being LOVED in a way that the Lord loves us, unconditionally. This love sets us free. In this I am free to be who I am and continue to grow to be the woman God created me to be. There is incredible encouragement there to continue to pursue the greatest Love of all. It is in realizing this freedom and experiencing God's love more deeply that my desire for others to experience the love of God has flourished. All I have is given to me by a gracious, loving Father who loves me totally and completely. There is nothing more marvelous.

2011 begins in a matter of hours. I graduate in a little over 4 months. The question hanging over my head is: "what's next"? To say I knew anything, would be a complete lie. I am not entitled to a job just because I am graduating from an accredited university. Where I am going to find a job and live is unknown. I have my own ideas of where I would like to be and what I would like life to look like, but I am coming to know and trust a God who knows best. His plan for my life is so much better than anything I could cook up on my own. I am coming to trust the Lord more fully and love Him more deeply, none of this by my own strength but because of His grace in revealing Himself. My desire is to walk through this year with total surrender and complete submission to a God who knows all, is in all, and works through all.

His love gives me the courage to follow Him with
Reckless Abandon 

Always a Beginning, Never an Ending

I can't believe it's been almost a month since I've posted anything on here! And I can't believe summer is coming to a close. I love this time of the year. I love getting new planners and filling them up on the first day of school with my exam schedule as well as my schedule for social events and football games.  New beginnings are just around the corner.

I am sad that my time in Baton Rouge is coming to a close however the beginning ahead of me is an exciting one. I have just been reflecting over the past three months these past few days and coming to realize just how much God has changed my heart this summer in so many ways but one way is definitely in my approach to the future.

I am facing my senior year of college. This is very scary because I'm realizing several things:
1. I MUST be getting old because time seems to be slipping through my fingers more and more quickly as the days pass...I feel like I just started college. Because of speed that time has been going I want to live fully in each moment and grab hold of what's going on right here. right now. in the present.

2. The more I think I know the more I realize how little I actually know. I think I know what I want and that I know what I want to do and where I'm going but then I take a step back and release the tight grasp I have on my own plans and realize I have no idea. At the beginning of the summer I thought that living in Louisiana would give me clarity as to where I wanted to settle after I graduate. It's done the opposite. If anything, being here this summer has opened my eyes to a myriad of opportunities I have once I graduate. This I know though....

3. I DO want to settle somewhere. I've come to learn about myself that I am an investor. I love investing in people and pouring into relationships and walking through life with others. I love that God has called us live in community with each other and to bear our burdens with one another and also in that sharing in joy. My heartbeat is very much that of wanting to see people grow in deeper intimacy with the Lord and that kind of relationship doesn't happen overnight. I want to settle down somewhere, get rooted in a community and grow. Where that community is, I have no idea. It could be Austin, Fort Worth, Baton Rouge or someplace that hasn't even crossed my radar yet!

4. Because I DO want to settle some place and in light of God just really teaching me this summer that wherever He is, I am home and so I will go where He leads because I know His goodness and faithfulness go with Him always. But this year is a HUGE year for God and I. I am excited to see what God does in this coming year. I can't wait for things to unravel and for His direction to be made more clear. I am having to learn to trust that right now, in this very moment, He is preparing a place for me after I graduate, that He is preparing a home for me. I am having to trust and be okay that I don't know where I will end up now but things WILL fall into place.


The close of a season brings about a new one. One that promises the opportunity to learn and grow. Nothing is guaranteed except that God is at work, He is up to something. Always is. And He will continue to be working and allowing things to unfold and as always, providing all that is needed in any given moment.

I am excited...so very excited about the challenges, joys, adventures, laughter, tears, late nights, early mornings, unexpected bumps, and growth that lie ahead.

I am looking forward to becoming more
Recklessly Abandoned

"Commit to the LORD whatever you do, 
       and your plans will succeed" Proverbs 16:3

Feels Like Home

Home.
Home is where the heart is.
Home, sweet Home.

We've heard all the sayings, probably coming from my mouth ;-) Emily recently told me that I was like a walking idiom and she's right! However, the sweetness of being and feeling at home somewhere is something that has been experienced by all.

Home is a place I can be myself. A place where I can be vulnerable. A place where the worst of me can and has been seen yet I still find acceptance there. I have been blessed with an amazing family and though they aggravate the trash out of me sometimes, I adore them and am so thankful for the fact that wherever we are, as long as I am with them, I am home.

This summer I have learned a new definition of home. There are many reasons why I believe God brought me down here to Baton Rouge this summer and I think the biggest was to change me. Friends, my heart has been hugely changed this summer and I am so excited to see the fruits that come from this season of harvesting and growth. This summer, living in a place that was so unfamiliar to me (except for the few weekend trips I had made down here in the past few years) has taught me to make my home in Him.

I have taken huge comfort in knowing that wherever I go, I am not alone. He goes with me. Though I know this is a simple truth, it is the simple truths that can utterly rock your world. Even when I, in my disobedience, go down a road He hasn't directed me down, He goes with me. I will never be alone. I have learned (and am still learning) what blessing comes from being completely vulnerable with Him: with sharing my frustrations, my joys, the highs and lows of my day...everything. I have seen Him move in the simplest and quietest ways, but ways that have glorified Him and magnified who He is in my life.

In the past seven months, I have never seen the hand of God move so directly in my life and in this walls are being broken down. I am learning to trust. In this place, I have never felt closer to the Lord. Never felt more okay with simply being me in His presence. I am beginning to see that in life wherever I go, wherever I am, I will always be at home at long as He is with me guiding me, counseling me, loving me. The best part is that there is no where I can go that He hasn't already been and that He won't go with me to.

In am facing my senior year of college, crazy. There are so many unknowns in facing this year but I have never been more okay with or more excited about it. My life could literally go anywhere. But wherever I go, I know I will be home because He will be with me. He will be guiding me and directing me.

Home. A place of vulerability, comfort, and peace. A place where love is recieved. A place where refuge is found. A place where trust is nurtured. A place where freedom is experienced....a freedom that leads to

Reckless Abandon


"One thing I ask of the LORD,

this is what I seek:
that I may dwell in the house of the LORD
all the days of my life,
to gaze upon the beauty of the LORD
and to seek him in his temple"
Psalm 27:4

Best. Life. Everrrrrrr.

In this life, death is inevitable.

I don't mean to start off this blog post by being a downer but it is the truth. But there is something so beautiful in death. In finding Christ, we die to our old selves, finding Life. In death from this world, we go onto live with Him for eternity. Romans 6:4-5 says:

"We were therefore buried with him through baptism into death in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too may live a new life.  If we have been united with him like this in his death, we will certainly also be united with him in his resurrection."

In nursing school, we're trained in how to be a supporter to families at the end of a loved one's life. We're told to tell the family it is okay to let go and tell the person dying that it is okay too.

However, letting go is hard.

When my time comes I would to think that I will be like "I'm done here, my work here is done, I am going to be face to face with the One who has created me." BUT with a family member, I know that letting go is going to be so much harder. I know I am going to make sure that everything possible is going to be done to my beloved family member or loved one before I can let go. Why? I know that leaving this life, it is letting go to grab hold of a better one. Death is and should be a celebration. A celebration of letting go to become part of something so much better.

Paul says over and over and over again in his letters that to live is Christ and to die is gain. Letting go of anything in our lives to grab hold of Him always leads to something better. In letting go, I am releasing the control I think I have to let Him completely take over. His ways are best. They are always better than mine. Why then, do I hold on so tightly? It is a lack of trust and love that drives me to a desire to control my life. My own selfishness and desire for control keeps me from living the full life that He wants me to live aka....best life ever.

My view on life/death is that we know how this story ends. We know, as Christians, that He wins. His love wins. Everytime. The victory we already have needs to be claimed right now. Today. We've got nothing to lose, we are more than conquerors in Him. Ergo I must let go. I want to live my life with the kind of legacy I want to leave behind. And what is that you might ask? I know so well that this life is not about me at all. I know this, but so often fail to live it out. When I take a step out of my selfishness and look at my life, I don't want others to remember me but Him because He is better and His words are unfailing and last forever.There is nothing better or that will provide the most satisfaction.

Best Life Ever, right?
I'm ready to give myself over to the fullness of life He has to offer.
I want Reckless Abandon.


"But whatever was to my profit I now consider loss for the sake of Christ. What is more, I consider everything a loss compared to the surpassing greatness of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things. I consider them rubbish, that I may gain Christ" Philippians 3:7-8

Beauty of Brokenness

As much as it stinks...somethings are taught best to us when we're lonely. It is in my own loneliness this present moment that He is revealing His holiness to me.

Working nights at the hospital really puts a damper on my social life. I work all night and sleep all day. It is hard to do anything between work and sleeping especially when I'm doing a twelve hour shift because I have to show up to the hospital just a few hours after I've woken up.

I am an extrovert. An extrovert, by definition is: people that are interested in what's happening outside themselves: their surroundings, people, noises. Extroverts don't tend to enjoy spending time alone, and they get their energy from other people. A significant extroverted personality trait is that energy flows outward. Extroverts often understand a problem better when they can talk out loud about it and hear what others have to say.....me to a T huh?

I thrive off of the interaction with other people. People really are my passion, that is why I chose the profession I did. I love joking with people, talking with people, caring for them, and ultimately just doing my best to love well. However, the downside to this is that I am a people pleaser. I seek approval from other people and my identity can very quickly become placed in the opinions of other people and my worth becomes wrapped around others actions towards me. Not good.

Yesterday, all this came crashing down on me. Physically, I felt like a train wreck. My body has been adjusting off and on to working nights one week to working days the next week. And yesterday I was feeling it. AND God, right now is breaking me of me. The source of this brokenness is not based around any situation or event in my life but really just of God growing me to be more and more the woman He created me to be.

I am a runner. So much of how I relate to things goes back to my mindset of running. There is no focus I have like when I am running and I push myself harder when I am running than I do at just about any other time. I am always pushing myself, striving for more. Just a few more feet, just one quarter of a mile....running harder and harder and faster to reach where I want to be. Striving on and on and on. If something is standing in my way I change my route. But things have changed.

For once, I am being forced to BE. I am too tired to run. Too weak. I'm lacking the stamina I once had to fight and turn and run down another road. All other routes are being shut down. I have no other choice than to be right here, right now, growing through this brokenness and in that growing up in Him.

There is a David Crowder song called "Only You"...and it came on my iPod as I was driving to work yesterday. Now yesterday whilst driving to work I hit a low point, I didn't think I could handle working the next twelve hours feeling the way I was feeling and this song came on. Some of the lyrics go: Take my fret, take my fear All I have, I’m leaving here Be all my hopes, be all my dreams You're my delights, be my everything And It’s just you and me here now
Only you and me here now
 ....by the end of the song, tears were streaming down my face as I realize that He demanding all of me because He loves me. And He loves me too much to keep me where I am. In all of this, He provides what we need when we need it and I take extreme comfort in the fact that He is taking care of me.

Brokenness is beautiful.
In this brokenness, I am being beckoned. Beckoned to leave myself behind. Beckoned to surrender.
A surrender that will lead to
Reckless Abandon

I'm Free as a Bird

First of all, I love the song Free Bird. I love the imagery of the freedom that birds offer. They don't stay in one place too long and when they soar it is the picture of a free spirit. A bird could not soar in the sky if they had a bunch of extra baggage or weight to them. They are free.

I am a mess. I realize this about myself. I'm emotional, I think too much into things, and I'm pretty high energy in general. Something I am learning and have come to realize is that God is strong enough to handle me. In recognizing this, it frees me to simply come as I am to the Lord. Nothing I say to Him is going to shock or surprise Him, there is nothing I tell Him that He can't handle. I don't have to sugar coat things I tell Him. I have gotten into the habit of that before instead of just laying it out there. But recently I have learned what freedom comes with being completely transparent before Him. It's okay to come to come to Him just as I am. I don't have to worry about how things are going to come across to Him, for no one can measure the depths of His understanding; in Him there is no condemnation but an infinite flow of love and compassion. He can handle it. He can handle me.


"In Him and through faith in Him we may approach God with freedom and confidence" Ephesians 3:12

I've also realized that I am free to come to Him in pieces. And He wants every last piece of me...although I hang on desperately to some pieces, I'm beginning to see the joy that comes along with surrender. In this surrender I'm seeing who I truly am in Him and this revelation simply makes my heart soar and sets my feet to dancing. He wants ALL of me even the ugliest pieces of my life after all, He can beautify any mess I've created in my life.All I have to do is show up.

This Holy freedom is not something I can work towards, however. It is something that He does in and through us. If we could free ourselves from bondage we would've had no need for a Savior. How incredibly humbling it is that the Creator of the Universe would chose to come and set us free from all that entangles us and separates us from Him. Galations 5:1 says that "it is for freedom that Christ has set us free". The yoke of sin has been removed, the chains are gone, we are no longer in bondage. We have been given a freedom to live for Him and free to BE with Him.

But I so willingly place myself back in the bondage I've been freed from. I find myself caught up in the same mind traps and stumbling as I put these chains back on. Why do I do this? Because it's comfortable. Because I'm scared to take risks. Because I fail in trusting the freedom I've been given. This sin we find ourselves bound to is what we were born into, not what we were created for. We were created to belong to Him. We were created to be free. The more I learn about Him, the more I realize the humanness of me and the divinity that He is, the more I learn how much I need to be freed from and realizing that that freedom is mine. What a beautiful gift.

In Him I'm finding who I truly am.
In Him I find freedom
In Him I find Reckless Abandon

"Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom" 2 Corinthians 3:17

In the Desert, But Not Deserted

Summers for me have always served as a time in the desert. It was three summers ago that I really began taking my walk with the Lord seriously and that summer God totally rocked my face off. But since then, summers have been marked by a period of dryness.

Last summer I worked for a full summer at Sky Ranch and though I enjoyed the community I had there, I still felt very alone. I felt like the battles I was fighting inside of myself were meant to be fought alone. Alone in the sense of being outside the comfort of home in Austin and outside the comfort of the fellowship and tight community that I have at TCU. Holly and I were both working at camps and she is one that God has certainly put in my life to be yoked with. To hold each other accountable and to encourage each other and speak hard truths into each others lives. With both of us working at camp, contact was very very limited. I could not run to the comfort of her words and encouragement readily, it was God and me.

In the same way, this summer I am living in Baton Rouge. WHAT?! It still gets me. I've been here six weeks and I am still blown away by His provisions. The week before I left I was a mess. It was the freak out moment. "what am I doing? I am crazy. What is my purpose for being there?" Being here, though I have been blessed with awesome community, is so outside my comfort zone. I'm in an unfamiliar city and am here at large because of this calling I feel has been placed on my life. To be honest, I still don't know what my purpose is for being here. All I know is that God is at work and that is all I need to know. But I have found myself in another desert.

Deserts are a barren land, very little grows out there and it is hot and dry. There is little direction in the desert as your footsteps you've left behind are quickly blown away and lost in the sand. It seems to go on forever. It is easy to lose sense of direction because there are no marked out paths to walk upon. There is nothing to hide behind in the desert. Nothing. Leaving me very vulnerable to any and everything. I have to depend on Him because needs in the desert are never readily met. In that dependency the need to LISTEN to Him is ever more important because I would be aimlessly wandering through the desert if not listening to His voice directing me where to go.

I would like to add, though, that though deserts are fruitless, His word never comes back empty. Isaiah 55:11 says that "so is My word that goes out from My mouth, it will not return to Me empty". This time of dryness in the desert, I believe, is a time when the soil is being loosened and turned up, as in preparing for a harvest. Because of the vulnerability that exists in the desert, I am having to face the sin in my own life. Uncomfortable? Yes, but I hate to say it, necessary. Because of my growing need to be dependent on Him, I'm more aware of the sin that separates me from Him. There is no hiding, I have to learn to be vulnerable. I am so resistant to face the sin in my life because I am so stubborn, remember?

In working through the sin in my life, seeds that will lead to a deeper understanding of His love and all that He is will be planted in this newly turned soil which will give way to stronger roots in Him so that more growth can occur.

As I said before, without depending on Him in this desert, I become a wanderer in the desert with no clear paths. His way IS clear but can only be seen while being totally dependent on Him and trusting fully in His character. I can't keep things to myself. In my need to be dependent I need to swallow my pride and take off the mask I hide behind and communicate to the Lord my desires, needs, struggles, and sins. Not one ounce of myself is going to get me through this desert. Only Him. I need to surrender with

Reckless Abandon.