Sufficiency in Christ

I called the seminary that I applied to yesterday afternoon and once again, heard the voicemail message. Frustrated and anxious, I drove down Union Avenue toward work. My phone rang. I fumbled looking for it in my passenger seat. I answered, "hello?" The man on the other end was the dean at the seminary. He said, "We will unfortunately have to decline your application at this time..." and went on to explain why and give me advice on what to put in my application for the Spring.
...
...

My heart began to sink as my greatest fear throughout this application process was realized. I'm not good enough. I'm insufficient for ministry because of the sins of my past and the seminary staff's judgement of my current faith. Maybe I'm not called to ministry. Once again, I don't know what I'm going to do, or even what I'd like to do, vocationally. Why is this happening to me?

And not even five minutes into this whirlwind of emotion and distress, I cry out to God in gratitude.
Because I know that this attitude of self-pity is not glorifying to God and the fastest way to change it is to give praise. "Thank you Lord for your direction- for closing this door and steering me in the direction of Your will."

He loved me at my darkest. 

He sent His son to cover my sins. 

I'm made sufficient through the blood of Christ. 

I trust God's will for my life.

His plan > mine.

Also, through this I have received an out-pour of love and support from my church community, family, and friends. God has blessed me greatly by each one of you. <3

Documentation

The other day I had a conversation with my roommate about our generation's obsession with documenting every moment of life. That's the premise of social media. Here's a single page that lists where I was born, who my family is, where I went to school, my profession, my spouse- when we met, our first date, the proposal, the wedding, honeymoon, our four kids births, their marriages, our grand kids, our vacations, our move to the retirement home- all the way up until we pass on from this life to the eternal. Why?
I told her that I thought this was a silly notion- to think that someone will care that I went to a college preview weekend in February of 2009. Who's going to look at that at all, much less care about it?

My great-grandfather passed away last evening. It was his 88th birthday and he died in a hospital room packed full of people that loved him dearly. He had been in the hospital for the past two weeks. We all kind of came to terms with what was to happen, but you're never really ready. My grandmother was talking about how hard it was to think of him as he was when he was healthy since we had all spent so much time with him at the hospital- looking really sick and acting out of character. So I dug up some old family photos- of him during WWII, with my great grandmother and my grandfather as a boy. I saw pictures of the mess hall at his station in Germany, a family picnic in Biloxi in aprox. 1950, of my great-grandmother in really cute old swimsuits, his kids at various ages, his first car, pictures of his house in Biloxi, and of the condo he bought in Memphis just 8 years ago, pictures of his friends in the service, of his friends at the retirement community, his wife Wilda. And not once did I think, why'd he take all these pictures? Who cares? I felt honored and privileged to see the world as he saw it, one snapshot at a time, To see the ones he loved as he saw them.
So now I get it. I recognize how awesome is it that we have an opportunity to share our lives with one another in the present. What a gift!

Taking a Step and Falling

Much has happened since my last post. I started the job I last mentioned, and since then, have quit. Restaurants are a hard environment to work in, y'all. I applied for a full-time position within a bakery in a health food market and was re-directed to another part-time position by the supervisor. It sounded promising- more hours, more money per hour, more opportunity for advancement. I felt stuck at my current job- like I had topped out and it was time to progress. So after my fourth interview at the health food market, and what I thought was an implied expectation for being hired (as I was over-qualified, He talked about a start date, and talked money with me,) I put in notice at my job. My boss was really sweet and offered to match the rate at which they would pay me, but I declined. During this process, I had been looking into a discipleship program, and a couple of seminaries- so I was reading a book called King's Cross by Tim Keller. What really stuck out to me was a chapter called The Call. The chapter was about how your pursuit of knowing, loving, resembling, and serving Christ must be the supreme passion of your life.


If you say, "I'll obey you, Jesus, if my career thrives, if my health is good, if my family is together," then the thing on the other side of that if is your real master, your real goal. But Jesus will not be a means to an end; He will not be used. If he calls you to follow Him, He must be the goal. (p.19, King's Cross)


I considered this notion and rationalized that praying for this particular job or a particular school, instead of God's will for me, would be placing the job/school higher. So, I prayed that His will be done and that I would be given a clear answer as to whether or not this job would lead me in the direction God was calling. God answered. I was given a particular day that I would hear from the bakery supervisor. I never heard from him. Over a week past that date, I asked my friend who works at the market and she said that they decided to hold off on filling the position at all, as it may not even be necessary. Now, the position I has expected to get, wouldn't allow me the flexibility to go to the discipleship school and would make it difficult to go to seminary. I'm not going to lie- I was still disappointed. I knew that my boss would let me continue to work, but it was a big shot to my ego. I was over-qualified, I thought. Why was God holding me back in the same place I have been in for over 2 years?

Well, a few days after I told my co-worker, Brandi, that I didn't get the job, my boss came to me and offered me a full-time position- baking. Not managing shop, not helping customers, baking- my favorite part of my job. As if that wasn't enough, I also get to pick what times I come in and work... which opens  my schedule up a lot and gives me the perfect flexibility for going to school. So, now we know that God is calling me 1. Into working in some sort of ministry and 2. to go to school of some sort. Not sure where yet- but I for sure feel called to getting educated, whether it be the discipleship program, where I would get a more solid biblical foundation, or to finish my undergraduate degree.

I took a step, blind- and fell, but God carried me through it into taking the next.
So here goes...

God's grace and peace to you all in the coming week. -- Lucy

Inching toward His plan

This week I have felt incredibly blessed.

As of lately I have felt incredibly burdened with figuring out what "the next step" should be since I quit going to school. My lease is up in June and I need to figure out 1. Where I am going to live; 2. What is going to be my "goal" to work toward; and 3. What steps I need to take to make it happen. I came up with a couple of feasible options, none of which really felt right at the time. 

So, I went up to Hope last Tuesday morning to help set up for YAC and spent the day in Cordova to save some gas money. While I was at Hope I talked to one of the leaders of YAC, Molly, about my frustration and outlined my options. After lunch I went to Starbucks and ran into the Marriage and Family pastor, Freddie. He asked what I was up to and I told him I was just trying to figure out what to do with my life- halfway joking- and he sat down and talked to me about it. That's not in this mans job description. I didn't even know that he knew who I was. This one gesture has made my "mega-church" church home feel so very quaint and approachable. My good friend from YAC came and met me at Starbucks shortly after. He knew about my frustration with the situation and just said "The fact that you're thinking about it (some kind of mission work) shows that you must desire it in your heart." In my heart? What is that? Some lovey-dovey phrase I'm not interested in... So I thought. 

So, I went back up to Hope and prepared for the service. Worship was incredible... as usual. One of the things I love about our service right now is the genuine out-pour of worship from both the band and congregation. Jim came up and spoke about listening for God- how to listen and how God speaks to us. In the sermon a couple of points really stood out to me:

Life is not about a to-do list. It's about a relationship with Jesus Christ- taking up your cross and following Him.

The bible is full of ordinary people being used by God to do extraordinary things.

We have been designed for God to speak to and through us.

Your gifts and talents often indicate the direction God has for you.

In order to hear God, we need to trust God- this doesn't mean just trusting God in what He's going to do through you but what He's going to do within you as well.

So, after the message, Jim gave us time to sit and listen to God. Through my prayer I recognized that what I truly desire is to serve God in a tangible way- to meet someone's physical needs. 

No, I haven't discovered exactly what this means and I haven't uncovered God's plan for me...

but I feel like through this discovery of my desire to serve, I'm inching toward it and that is SUPER exciting and relieving. Apparently, anyone that has known me for any amount of time has seen this in me, but I had been blinded to it. So my friends have been very unimpressed with this discovery, but nevertheless!

On another note, I have been struggling financially lately. Working at a frozen yogurt shop in the winter is rough. Luckily, some tight budgeting and a perfectly timed holiday and birthday enabled me to skim by. So, I've been praying for God to open doors for a new job and not only has that happened but business at work has started to pick up (pre-maturely) and I have been able to work more. So praise Him for answered prayers! My new job is at a restaurant my boss is opening on Madison. It will be awesome to have a change of pace and atmosphere is addition to what I'm comfortable with.

Grace and peace to you guys in the upcoming week! :)
lucy

One Day I'll Learn

You know the saying, "When God closes one door, He opens another?"

Yeah, well I was a little skeptical, but BOY was I naive.

A few months ago, I applied for a full-time baking job at one of the most well-known bakeries in town. I had frequented this establishment for years, knew the staff and owner, loved the product, and long story short-
I was led to believe that I had a shot and then got dumped in an e-mail.
Ouch.

So, for a few months now I've been feeling pretty sorry for myself until this past week. A good friend of mine gave me a book to read on fasting and stumbled upon this-

This passage of the book might as well have punched me straight in the windpipe. It reminded me of a sermon that my old youth pastor gave at a D-Now back in 2008. The theme for the weekend was "Work Hard" as if you are working for the Lord in all that you do. I'm not going to lie to you guys. I had been hardcore slacking at work. I didn't like it. I didn't want to be there. I was a terrible example to the staff under me... and I'm still not the best. But one of my coworkers asked me why I was different this past Valentine's week. I had worked 16 hours of an 18 hour day and still had a smile on because I knew that this "axe that I carry" is going to carry me to where God has planned for me to be... and that's what I told her and lately I've seen that her attitude has changed at work too.

Today I got several unexpected phone calls- about 3 different full-time baking jobs... and another opportunity at a restaurant opening in the next few weeks. So, I have some interviews to go to and a WHOLE lot of praying to do. When God closed that one door, He opened four others. It's so awesome how God works for us, and through us.

Lucy

Weekend in the ATL

This is going to be a quick one, so here goes:

Things I learned in Atlanta this week-
1. My parents are infinitely cooler than I give them credit for.
2. The CNN Center is in ATL. No, I don't watch the news, but this means I was possibly in the same city as the ultimate silver fox, Anderson Cooper, whom I love so much that he may one day be the namesake of my future son. Just kidding... but really :)
3. I absolutely love IKEA as much as I always knew that I would.
4. One can spend copious amounts of money on random items in IKEA that only individually range from $.99 to $3.99.
5. H&M is not all that it is hyped up to be.
6. Where Passion City Church gets its name, which leads me to...

Things I learned at Passion City Church this Sunday-
1. PCC is passionate about worship, ministry, it's causes (End It Movement), reaching Young Adults in ATL, and ultimately and most importantly- about reflecting Christ.
2. Chris Tomlin and David Crowder are amazingly talented. I've been reading Tomlin's books and listening to these guys since middle school so I guess I forgot how effective they are in leading worship. It really made me miss our old praise team. Leading worship during Primetime at BHBC (WAY back in the day,) was one of my first service outlets and I just thank God for what He did in me through the community there.
3. I should really just jot down all of my sermon notes because Louie Giglio is LEGIT, but in summary of his sermon:
Uninhibited worship is a reflection of one's wide-open awareness of what all God has done for us. Uninhibited worship glorifies God.
Glory is God's infinite and intrinsic weight and worth. It is lofty, mysterious, and emanates from God.
God and His glory are the thread connecting each of us to all of eternity. His glory connects all that was, is, and that is to come.
Grace connects us with the glory of God, without which would be unattainable.
When we fulfill our passions and gifts, we sync with the glory of God.
In order to worship God effectively and without inhibitions, we must reduce ourselves to a mere speck beneath the thread of God's infinite glory. 

Heavy stuff, right? It was a great experience and really made me excited for what we are trying to do in YAC right now. Hope everyone else had a great weekend as well!

Happy Monday!
Lucy

22 years young

Today I rang in my 22nd year of life. I had some time alone to reflect this morning and a time to be alone with God- thanking Him for all that He has done within me over the past year. I spent time with good friends and had the chance to serve again at Tuesday night YAC. It was really an ideal day.
At 22, I don't feel young. I don't feel old. I just feel ready... ready to do something bold but I'm not sure what. I'll be looking for opportunity.
Thank you to everyone who called or texted, facebooked, or met with me today. You guys sure know how to make a girl feel loved.
Lucy

#Blessed

First off, let me just take a moment to say how amazed I was with the turnout to the launch of our Tuesday Night service this week. We, as the core team, have been planning and praying for months for this service and even through this I had some doubts about what we were working toward. I feared that our efforts would be fruitless, but I really think this was the devil trying to discourage me. God came through and delivered more people than I could have ever imagined- 160 for our first service. I nearly broke down and cried during worship just from seeing His plan accomplished and a people thirsty for the message. It was incredible and reignited the excitement I had for the service initially. The worship and teaching was so empowering and I could really feel God's presence and hand over us. I can not wait for next week! If you're in your 20s or 30s you need to make it out to Hope at 7:00 on Tuesday. (Hollering at you, Sarai :)) Follow us on Facebook (Hope Young Adult Community) and Twitter (@HopeYAC #tuesdaynights) for more info and upcoming events.

This leads me to my second reason for this post...

God has really been revealing to me the importance of recognizing the devil. It is pretty natural for me to think of the battle over sin with God to be attributed to solely myself, and after discussing it with a few people far wiser then myself, I am certain that this must be part of how the devil gains footing within us. A few of these people enlightened me to plan for doubt and temptations- ways the devil stakes claim- for when we feel like this the devil is trying to reclaim us from where we stand close to God. I am currently reading The Screwtape Letters by C.S. Lewis. It is written from the perspective of the screwtape (devil) to his nephew and through his advice to claim the souls of his clients (us), one learns more about his/her own human nature as well as the nature of the devil. It is pretty difficult for me to interpret honestly, but I have been breaking it down and learning a lot. 

I have been so blessed as of late to be surrounded by friends who have been building me up and encouraging me. I feel like I have learned more and grown spiritually in the past few months than I had in the past year. Also, just in- Hope has also hired on a full-time pastor just for our community (who will start in a few weeks) which is another answer to our prayers. God is SO GOOD. :)

You guys have a good weekend!

Lucy