Live Where Your Feet are Planted

The Dash by Linda Ellis

I read of a man who stood to speak

at the funeral of a friend.

He referred to the dates on the tombstone

from the beginning…to the end.

He noted that first came the date of birth

and spoke the following date with tears,

but he said what mattered most of all

was the dash between those years.

For that dash represents all the time

that they spent alive on earth.

And now only those who loved them

know what that little line is worth.

For it matters not, how much we own,

the cars…the house…the cash.

What matters is how we live and love

and how we spend our dash.

So, think about this long and hard.

Are there things you’d like to change?

For you never know how much time is left

that can still be rearranged.

If we could just slow down enough

to consider what’s true and real

and always try to understand

​the way other people feel.

And be less quick to anger

and show appreciation more

and love the people in our lives

like we’ve never loved before. 

If we treat each other with respect

and more often wear a smile,

remembering that this special dash

might only last a little while.

​So, when your eulogy is being read,

with your life’s actions to rehash…

would you be proud of the things they say

about how you spent YOUR dash?

*************************************************************************

 After a wise friend of mine read this poem at my huddle earlier this week, I realized that I quite often live in the future. I can’t wait for this day to be over so I can sleep. I can’t wait for the weekend. I can’t wait till Christmas Break. I can’t wait till I’m a second semester senior. I can’t wait till I start college. And it’s no wonder why I’ve always worn a watch too. How many minutes left in this class? How many hours until school is over?  

“The dash” doesn’t have to be from birth to death; rather it can be the beginning and end of anything. A class. A day. A year.  I thought about "my dash" from freshman year up to this point of senior year and the only thing that came to mind at first was a whole lot of regret. I spent way too much time living in the future. And then it hit me. How on earth am I supposed to love on people and truly love Jesus if all I’m thinking about, is when the “next thing” will begin? How am I supposed to reach out and be Jesus to broken people if I’m constantly checking the time and counting it down? The harsh truth is it's nearly impossible to do so.

Since that Tuesday, I’ve been asking Jesus to help me live in the moment. I’ve taken off my watch.  Whenever I find my mind thinking about things to come, I remind myself to “live where my feet are planted” at that moment. I’m not saying I’ve mastered this (infact, many hours in each day have been unintentionally devoted to that old futuristic thinking), but even in the few hours I have remembered to “live where my feet are planted,” I’ve found that my perspective has changed. In those moments when I live in the present, classes go by faster because I’m not anxiously awaiting their end. Conversations have been deep and intentional...jokes have been a whole lot funnier, because I am fully present. And perhaps best of all, I’m more aware of ways to love on people, because I’m not “just trying to make it through the day.”

My prayer and hope for you all and for me, especially in this crazy busy season, is that we remember live where our feet are planted. Change your perspective and live in the present. It’s the only way to leave a legacy of love and Jesus for the world around us.  

The Nocuous Effects of Comparison

Something I’ve struggled with all my life (and something I still struggle with), is comparison. My body vs her body. My clothing style vs her clothing style. The food I’m eating vs the food he’s eating. The quality of my history presentation vs the quality of his. How artsy my Instagram feed is vs how artsy hers is. My walk with Christ vs her walk with Christ. You get the picture. Comparison finds a way to seep into every aspect of my life. 

When we compare however, someone always loses. It’s been said that “comparison is the thief of joy,” and whether you win or lose the comparison game, that phrase still rings true. If you lose (by deciding that he/she is better than you), you’re putting yourself down and opening up a door for lies to come. Whether it’s “I’m not smart enough” or “I’m not pretty enough”; Whatever “not ____ enough" it is, you’re giving into the voice of shame. But even if you win the battle however, you’re getting your worth from tearing someone else down, ultimately from pride. To keep getting that worth, you’re going to have to keep being better than that person. And that so quickly makes one exhausted. 

Comparison keeps us from being our raw selves. We miss out on being who God created us to be, we miss out on following the path God has for us, because we’re so busy looking to our left and our right. We pull a little bit of identity from this person and that person...and we miss out on the truth. God made YOU uniquely. You play a role in the Body of Christ that no one else can fill. And if you don’t show up to play that role, the body can’t function at it’s ultimate capacity. You will be missed. If we spend time looking, comparing, and “shopping” for our identity from others, we’ll miss what God has for us. 

This truth became tangible and real to me at my church huddle earlier this week. We all went around and described how we viewed God. What struck me hard, was how different and unique every person’s response was. The answer each person gave, couldn’t have been more perfect when it came to their personality. As soon as each person gave their answer, I immediately realized how beautifully it fit them. At that moment, it clicked for me. I didn’t want to see God the way she sees God, although it’s beautiful. I want to view God the way I view God, because that’s how He made me. And it’s equally beautiful. 

So let’s stop making everything into a competition for worth. If we keep moving forward in hope and trust, we’ll find that we won’t miss it. God will lead us down paths we never knew existed, and we’ll think it more glorious than anything we could have ever dreamed up by ourselves. 

Leaving Lives of Comfort

After four years at my high school, it’s beginning to feel like a prison. My fellow seniors are getting in trouble and earning Saturday detentions for the stupidest things, because the faculty couldn't be more  anxious to get rid of us. The one thing people talk about is college. Everyone’s catching senioritis and the teachers are raging mad about it. But perhaps the worst thing, is the recent constant feeling of alienation I’m feeling. As I walk down the halls, I’m surrounded by messages and statements I don’t believe in nor want to believe in. I feel like messages that Jesus would not agree with are being shoved down my throat. As a perhaps outspoken and overly opinionated person, this year has brought me a fresh understanding of what following Jesus sometimes looks like. It means isolation. It means feeling like you’re alone sometimes. It means feeling like you’re the only one standing. That’s happened this week. Multiple times. I wouldn’t be lying if I told you that this week, I walked out of a class in tears and spent some time crying on the bathroom floor, after the results of a classroom survey were posted in front of the class. The glares and dirty looks I got. The “jerk” whispered into my ears by the people behind me. The spiritual warfare I felt going on in that room. The heartbreak I felt as people publicly confessed things that tore me apart inside: it all wore down my soul too much and I couldn’t contain it. 

Living the life Jesus calls us to live is not easy. There’s no comfortable way to put it. The life Jesus calls us to live is the opposite way of the world. Our lives should be radically different. We should feel alienated sometimes. Isolated at times. Feeling like we’re the only ones. Because the way Jesus lived was radically contra-the-way-the-world-lived. If God didn't put us in uncomfortable situations from time to time, why would He promise to be our Comforter? How could we even feel the Comforter if we never needed Him?

Fortunately, we are not alone. He has also blessed me richly in this season with soul sisters to fight this fight and walk this walk with. I pray my friends, that He has blessed you with these kind of sisters and brothers too. <3 And not only do we have these sweet people, but we have Jesus. Although we may feel like we are the only ones, Jesus is always there. The God of Angel Armies is always by our side. In Him we have everything we need. 

Isaiah 41:13

“For I am the Lord your God who takes hold of your right hand and says to you, Do not fear; I will help you” 

To the Girl Who...

We live in a culture where standards for beauty are high. We so often walk around comparing ourselves to each other. “She’s skinnier than I am.” “She’s prettier than I am.” And somehow, that makes us feel inferior. It makes us feel like we’re not enough. Insecurity clings to us like a leech does to skin, and we feel paralyzed inside. 

My heart breaks when I see young girls at my school who are staring at themselves in the mirror when I enter the bathroom, and who are still there when I leave it. My heart broke the other day when I heard someone say, “they should put a full length mirror in every girls bathroom...no one understands the struggle.” My heart yearns to give these ladies a hug and whisper into the depths of their soul, “You’re Beautiful.” Yet I never have the courage to. 

My mom and cousin were going to pick me up after school today, so we could go shopping. They told me they were stuck in a long line of cars however, so I took advantage of the extra time I had and went to the restroom. Both of the two stalls were occupied so I leaned up against the wall and gazed into what was straight in front of me...happened to be the mirror. I wasn’t looking at myself; I was daydreaming...doing one of those “I’m looking forward but my mind is entirely somewhere else.” I awoke from my micro-sleep when a stall opened up, and I noticed a girl whom I had never seen before, at the other sink washing her hands.

When I exited the stall to wash my own hands, she was still there. When my eyes met hers, she said the following words: “You’re really pretty. Just in case you were wondering.” Before I had a chance to say anything, or even take look at who she was, she had left. My mind replayed those words over and over again, wondering if what had happened was a dream. This girl had just said the words I’d always wanted to say. And it meant everything. It made my day. 

The world needs more people like that young lady who waited for me to tell me I am beautiful. I think it’s something we all forget. In our heads, we know that we’re beautiful and that we’re the apple of God’s eye. Yet in our moments of insecurity, it’s so easy to forget. Sometimes we need people to speak that hope into our lives. We need people to be the voice of Jesus for us. 

Let’s strive to be bearers of hope and encouragement like that young lady was. The world sure needs more of them <3

"Come To Me"

I’m in a season where I’ve been requiring a lot of rest. Up until this year, I could count on my fingers the number of school days I’ve missed. Now, mental health days and sick days seem to be a regular thing. Physical weakness and migraines because of mental illness are a habitual thing. I’ve already missed 10 days of school this year, and that’s not counting the times I’ve missed class to go sleep in the nurse’s office. We’ve become good friends. 

Something I’m learning this season however, is where my worth truly comes from. When I’m attacked with weakness and headaches, the only thing I can do is rest. The only thing I can do is sit God’s presence and let Him sing His songs over me. I used to tell people I hated naps because I could never fall asleep. Truth is, I hate naps not because I can’t fall asleep, but because of what they are: rest. Abstaining from work. I hate feeling helpless and being forced to rest. Guilt washes over me. The attacks start to come. “You SHOULD be doing this.” “What about that paper that’s due next week? When are you gonna do it?” “Stop being such a lazy bum and get up and do something with your life.” When I’m sick or tired, I tell myself I HAVE to work. I feel guilty if I don’t. I find myself fighting too hard and forget to just be. I fall into the lie that my worth, love, and acceptance comes from performance and perfection.  I begin to beg God for answers to my persistent questions. I forget that when God says “come to me,” He doesn’t promise us answers. He promises us rest. I forget that I am fully known and fully loved for just being me. 

I’ve recently come to see my sick days as gifts from God. It’s Him reminding me that I’m not resting enough and that I’m fighting too hard. It’s an invitation to stop and catch my breath; to remind myself of my identity; to fall asleep in an ocean of His peace; to journal about His truths; to let who He says I am fall afresh on my skin; to remind myself that I am fully known and fully loved, just by being. 

You friends, are fully known and fully loved just by being you. Nothing you do can change that. I pray that this truth is something both you and I rest in!

Clean

My youth leader recently mentioned something I haven’t been able to stop thinking about. God cannot lie and lives outside the realm of time. Therefore, His promises are facts. They cannot be broken. Try to wrap your head around that. God’s promises are facts. So that makes this one, from Hebrews 10:22, true as well. We’re presentable, inside and out. 

I don’t think we realize how much something affects us until it’s gone. For me, that was shame. Shame manifested itself in every possible way in my life. It was the reason behind 99% of the things I did and said, and 99% of the things I didn’t do or say. It kept me from becoming.  And it was something I kept holding on to. It was the part of the gospel I didn’t understand; or yet decided to reject. By wallowing in pits of shame, I was saying to God, “the cross wasn’t enough for me. It wasn’t enough for You to die for me.” When we wallow in the shame of our past regrets, our past sins, or perhaps when we are reminded of our past mistakes every day, it becomes so easy to wallow in it. It becomes habit to let lies take over our brains. 

I praise God that I have recently decided to accept this piece of the Gospel...knowing that things I have done are gone for good. And yet it is these wise words of my youth leader and a new release by Natalie Grant, where a new realization has overtaken my mind. 

God didn’t just take our sin away. He didn’t just die for our sins. He didn’t just take away our dirty rags. He purified them. He made us CLEAN. We are presentable, inside and out. Because of His death on the cross, we are made blameless. We are seen just as the Father sees His Son. We are pure. We are CLEAN. Not only does He rip off shame from the core of our being; He replaces it with purity and cleanliness. There is nothing to dirty that He cannot make clean. And this my friends, is why, the cross was and is absolutely enough. 

I see shattered

You see whole

I see broken

But You see beautiful

And You're helping me to believe

You're restoring me piece by piece

What was dead now lives again

My heart's beating, beating inside my chest

Oh I'm coming alive with joy and destiny

Cause You're restoring me piece by piece

There's nothing too dirty that You can't make worthy

You wash me in mercy

I am clean.

There's nothing too dirty that You can't make worthy

You wash me in mercy

I am clean.

Washed in the blood of Your sacrifice

Your blood flowed red and made me white

My dirty rags are purified

I am clean

The Susurration of His Voice

the LORD was not in the wind. And after the wind an earthquake, but the LORD was not in the earthquake. And after the earthquake a fire, but the LORD was not in the fire. And after the fire the sound of a low whisper

1 Kings 19:11-12

 In my past experiences, I’ve seen God show up in huge, obvious ways (like fire) and soft gentle ones too (like a whisper). Most of the time though, the fiery obvious ways stand out so much in my brain, that I forget what the quiet and tender ones sound like. His powerful voice oftentimes makes me forget that God can, and indeed does, speak in whispers. I think we pray for God to move in big fire-like in our lives, and are sometimes disappointed when they don’t come.

This past week has been difficult, so a dear friend of mine prayed that I would see God’s work in my life this week. God’s answer to her prayer reminds me that God can speak to us in whispers too, and oftentimes, they are all the more powerful. 

In my choir class on Monday, my teacher handed us a single page of sheet music. Four parts. Three verses. A cappella. Simple four part harmony. My first thought was that it looked like a hymn. As we began to sight-sing the melody (something I’ve never been good at), I quickly realized that I was reading the piece with ease, as if my brain already knew what was to come next. I realized I had heard the melody before. The sheet music’s melody was the melody of “Be Still My Soul,” an old hymn I remember learning as a young girl. Be Still My Soul. As those words sunk in and I realized what was happening, I felt tears welling up in my eyes. Just those four words were exactly  what my soul needed to hear at that moment. Just those four words, that tender whisper, was enough to calm the storm raging in my heart at that moment. And as I later took the time to read the lyrics to the hymn in its entirety, it stilled my soul and warmed my heart even more. 

I believe that God sometimes withholds His powerful, mighty, obvious voice to us, so that we can become aware of His whispers. Yes, our God is a mighty, consuming fire. But He is also a gentle and comforting, tender whisper. So often, a whisper is even more powerful and speaks to us even more than the fire we expect God’s presence and God’s voice to feel like. I was expecting an earthquake, a fire, a wind. Yet in that moment, His whisper was more than enough. 

I pray that God shows up in your lives this week as well. I pray that seeing the work of God is something that we expect and actively wait for. I pray that we learn to watch and  listen not only for the fire and wind, but for the gentle whispers. If we begin to watch for His gentle and tender voice, we may begin to be amazed at how much He speaks to us. 

Ps, I hope this song warms your heart just as it has warmed mine.

Xoxo

100 Days Happy

About 100 days ago, I found myself in the dark. The thick cloud of depression consumed my life like a fog, and in July, it had peaked. 

During a particularly hard week, God put the idea of 100 Happy Days on my mind. The goal behind the challenge was to post a picture of something that made you happy, for 100 days. I’d witnessed a couple of friend’s journeys through Instagram months before, and had always been wanting to do it. Yet I’d put it on the back-burner. Surprisingly, it was at Starbucks, filled with the hustle and bustle of people on their morning coffee runs, where I heard the tender whisper, “now is the time.” 

In my thickly clouded, shame faced mind, I had nothing to be happy about. The  first couple days were spent looking for just one thing to be happy about.  On the second day, I was so desperate for a picture, that I ended posting a picture of a dead  butterfly that was on the ground in front of me. Butterflies have always symbolized hope for me. The dead butterfly was a slap in the face, of the hope in my heart that was dead. 

I realize now that the butterfly was Jesus gently nudging me to change. It was Him tenderly telling me, “It doesn’t have to be this way, if you were only to open your eyes.” But I rejected it.  It would take a fire, a consuming fire, to change my heart and cause me to let go of control. By the grace of God, that fire came. In a single week at church camp, God’s healing flood poured over my life like a waterfall. And I decided to open my eyes. 

I decided to open my eyes.

From that moment on, I began to see beauty all around me. Suddenly things did not seem so dark. I took a step and made my journey public, no longer feeling ashamed of what had happened or how I was feeling, and knowing full well that Jesus had took that shame forever. 

During the days that followed, joy penetrated my heart like a dagger. I began to see beauty all around me--the beauty that had indeed always been there....I had just been closing my eyes to it. Suddenly things that had seemed so trivial became the very things that made my heart overflow with joy. 

I saw a movie a couple weeks ago about a revival that turned two rival high school football teams to Jesus. The night before their final championship, the two towns  met for a prayer night. The lights of the stadium had been turned off yet every member of the audience had been provided with a candle. One candle was lit and the flame was passed to the other candles. Slowly but surely, the light of 500 candles were burning bright. Enough light was generated to see people and the field. Surrounding neighbors and businesses called the fire department, convinced that the stadium was on fire. 

Had it been daytime, or had the lights been on, the flames would not have been seen, because we cannot recognize the light in the midst of day. In fact, the more dark it is, the more the light shines and stands out. So while this 100 Happy Days journey may be over, it continues in my heart because I cannot stop seeing the beauty of this world. The beauty shared in a coffee date with a friend; the beauty in the autumn colors of fall; the beauty of sweet laughter. And I am only able to see this beauty before me, because of the dark. 

I think this works in our faith too. The more broken and cracked we are, the more the light of Christ can shine through our lives. But we have this treasure in jars of clay, to show the surpassing power belongs to God and not to us (2 Corinthians 4:7). So let’s be the broken people that we are, because in our brokenness, in our darkness, God’s light shines brighter than we know.