The Summer of Significance.

A few days ago I decided to read through my high school journals. I often look back on that time as this huge season of growth, and in some ways it was. It was the season where I first began to understand God's deep love for me. It was the season where I first began to feel his love for those around me- And those are big things! But in all honesty, most of my journal entries had to do with me- my hurt, my anger, my relationships, my desires. And the Lord used those times in me- I in no way am devaluing that season of my life- but I was in awe of his faithfulness. It was my freshman year at Covenant College that I began making thanksgiving lists. I read 1000 Gifts in the midst of being torn apart- and I decided that I would say 'thank you' to God for at least 12 things every night. And so it began, a season of thanksgiving. 

At the beginning, it was hard to think of twelve things from that very day that I could give thanks for. But as I made thanksgiving a discipline, not just an overflowing response, I learned what it meant to remind myself of God's great gifts. 

After intentionally giving thanks every night for a couple months, I began to do it naturally. I began to give thanks as I walked to class, or as I left the Great Hall, or as I laid in bed after a hard day. Thanksgiving and Praise became overflow again. 

I am now in a season where thanksgiving doesn't seem to be flowing from my lips, which means its not very present in my heart. And so I am starting TwelveThings again- and hopefully there will be more than twelve and it will come more often than just at night.

But until it does- twelve things a night.

Because the truth is, no matter how I feel or where I am in life, God is good and worthy of praise.

And sometimes, you just have to remind yourself of that truth.

(1) Thank you God for your visible grace through the lilacs.

(2) Thank you God for laughter late into the night over crazy things like duck hands and voices.

(3) Thank you for breaking out in dance when in doubt.

(4) Thank you for Moe and PJ and the joy I find in their friendship.

(5) Thank you for time spent with old friends- for being able to rejoice and mourn with my people.

(6) Thank you for the way I was able to notice Jesus in Maggie and John's wedding celebration!

(7) Thank you for the joy and freedom to reception dance.

(8) Thank you for Pentecost Sunday and for the promise of your Spirit.

(9) Thank you for the reminder to gird up and fight in truth!

(10) Thank you for LoveWar on Tuesday nights.

(11) Thank you for Hanna Hill being able to come to Knoxville the day I invite her.

(12) Thank you for TK, his birthday, and smoking Shisha together.

(13) Thank you for #highschoolfriendsandhanna

(14) Thank you for Gospel conversations with Kyle, Zach, and Luke.

(15) Thank you for late night conversations at Waffle House.

(16) Thank you for The Freedom Manual

(17) Thank you for Taylor's SIP songs and the reminder to live in the questions.

(18) Thank you for being able to intercede for Kyle 'the Keeper'

(19) Thank you for Nicola- her faithful friendship and prayers.

(20) Thank you that Beth will get to love on Egyptians.

(21) Thank you for the invitation to remember my summer in Pemba.

(22) Thank you for House of Peace ladies and for a love that binds us.

(23) Thank you for letting me know that you are better than it all.

(24) Thank you for hope and joy-filled laughter.

"Remember Whose you are and Whom you serve. 

Provoke yourself by recollection, and your affection for God will increase tenfold; 

your imagination will not be starved any longer, but will be quick and enthusiastic, 

and your hope will be inexpressibly bright." 

- Oswald Chambers

After a night filled with joy filled laughter and ordained encounters of the strangest kind, four of us grabbed hands and prayed. And as we prayed, the Holy Spirit stirred some truth up in me that I have been forgetting a lot lately. 

An old friend prayed, "Let this summer be one of significance." 

And I was reminded that it will be. It will be significant- because all time with the Lord is. 

Dear Mrs. Maggie Hill.

Mrs. Maggie Hill, you are one beautiful bride and John is one lucky man. 

It was a blessing to be apart of yalls big day!
Know that I see Jesus in the way you delight in your husband, I saw Him in the celebration, and I saw him as yall took the feast together as man and wife.
I am praying that you know in a new and fresh way that a wedding banquet is always set before you in the presence of the Lord. I am praying for God's hand to be on you and John and that you would sense his nearness. He always draws near. I am praying for JOY and LIFE as you head to the lone star state.
much love my friend!
thanks for the honor of letting me stand next to you as you made such a special covenant.
you radiate.
-Em

so Grad happened.

Sometimes life surprises you. Sometimes you leave a place that you have wanted to leave for three out of the four years and the tears still begin to flow, the good memories still surface, and the time seems to begin to fly by quite quickly. All of a sudden I am in the swirl of transition again. And it is not a bad thing, more importantly it is not a new thing, but it does seem to be a very fleshly, creaturely, human thing.  It reminds me that it is Christ and Christ crucified and Christ alive and well that matters. It reminds me that it is his constant faithfulness and love that holds me tightly and never loosens its grip. It is another season of life that releases the faintest whisper from above, "Do you trust me? Do you really trust me?" 

"If there's empty spaces in your heart,

They'll make you think it's wrong,

Like having empty spaces,

Means you never can be strong,

But I've learnt that all these spaces,

Means there's room enough to grow,

And the people that once filled them,

Were always meant to be let go,

And all these empty spaces,

Create a strange sort of pull,

That attract so may people,

You wouldn't meet if they were full,

So if you're made of empty spaces,

Don't ever think it's wrong,

Because maybe they're just empty,

Until the right person comes along."

-Ernest Hemingway

"I guess I never realized that when you left you left people behind."
"Ya, I never want to do that again."
"You wont have to... snoopy."

Pause.

...Cause its summertime baby. 

forward motion

Maybe we idealize and idolize adventure. 

But maybe we don't. 

Maybe we truly are made for grand adventure and faithful plodding- 

all mixed together in one life well lived. 

A both/and sort of deal. 

This has been a season about learning to live life well (and by season I mean the past four years). 

Deuteronomy 10:12-22

 “And now, Israel, what does the Lord your God require of you,

 but to fear the Lord your God, 

to walk in all his ways, to love him, 

to serve the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul,

and to keep the commandments and statutes of the Lord, 

which I am commanding you today for your good?"

The mountain throughout scripture symbolizes a place where the divine encounters the earth. It is a meeting place. I guess there were parts of me that had the expectation that going to Covenant, and living on Lookout Mountain, would be one, grand encounter with God. I thought that it might be like Moses on the Mountain, seeing the God as he passed by, like the disciples as the journeyed up the mountain to see Jesus transfigure and reveal his glory and his sonship, like the cross sitting on top of the hill, or like the places where idol after idol was destroyed in order to bring Israel back into right relationship with God.

Holy Encounters.

"Behold, to the Lord your God belong heaven and the heaven of heavens, 

the earth with all that is in it. 

Yet the Lord set his heart in love on your fathers 

and chose their offspring after them, 

you above all peoples, as you are this day.

Circumcise therefore the foreskin of your heart, 

and be no longer stubborn." 

This expectation left me empty handed and confused. Instead of these deep intimate encounters with the Lord I was left with frustration and my own brokeness to face. 

"Love the sojourner, therefore, 

for you were sojourners in the land of Egypt." 

I was just listening to this sermon- and the guy teaching said that the only difference between a break-down and a break-through is that one sends a person into the depths never to return, and the other sends a person into the depths to come out of it made new. That picture is the past four years of my life. Perhaps it is the ultimate picture of the Christian life. That is the story of Christ, sent into the world as a fetus. He died. He was buried. He rose again. He was sent into the depths to come out of it as ChristusVictor.

"You shall fear the Lord your God. 

You shall serve him and hold fast to him,

 and by his name you shall swear."

 

"He is your praise. 

He is your God, 

who has done for you these great 

and terrifying things that your eyes have seen."

"Your fathers went down to Egypt seventy persons, 

and now the Lord your God has made you 

as numerous as the stars of heaven."

The thing is, the Mountain has been a place of Holy Encounters. 

They came through the laughter and tears of housemates, through the joy of bookclub, through professors who are willing to pray over me, through learning to enjoy the foggy mornings, and through the gift of having a place. 

Encounters with God 

and

encounters with His children-

That has been my Mountain experience in the most unexpected ways.

2013 in pictures.