You Are Not Alone

Rejoice with them that do rejoice, and weep with them that weep. -Romans 12:15

This week has been a humbling lesson in how badly I need others.  I am fiercely independent, to the point of stubbornness.  However, recently God has been pressing on me my need for fellowship.

I am not a "sharer." If something is bothering me, I tend to bottle it up and hide the bottle far, far away. Not only is this unhealthy, but it is also counterproductive. You see, feelings come to the surface in the end, one way or another. Either, you can express them at the time you are feeling them (which is what an emotionally mature person does) or you can hide them away and hope they vanish (which is what I do). If you do the latter, you are only temporarily extinguishing your emotions. They eventually resurface, and usually in an unhealthy way- such as anger.

However, recently God has put people in my life that not only allow me to share with them, but that encourage me to.  As I have grown with Christ, I am slowly becoming more and more aware of my complete and utter helplessness without Him. This is not something to be ashamed of; it is something to be rejoiced.  It is not until we admit and accept our helplessness that we are able to fully give ourselves to God.

Christ wants us to be dependent on Him. Christ also wants us to be dependent upon one another as followers in Christ.  He has created us as beings who yearn for companionship- even Jesus had disciples. 

So, instead of pretending like we can handle our wearisome burdens, it is right and pleasing in God's eyes if we throw up our hands and say "God, I need you to handle this! I need others to comfort me! I can't do this!" I think once we do this, God smiles and says, "Don't worry, my child, you are not alone."

A Hard Heart

Night and Day

My sister and I are complete opposites. If you know the both of us, you know that is no exaggeration.  Growing up, our differences kept us apart. As we have grown older, they have brought us closer together.  I have always admired my sister, and I probably don't tell her that enough.  One of the things that I admire the most about her is her soft, compassionate heart. Ironically, that is the thing that I have always given her the hardest time about over the years.  To say my sister is sensitive would be an understatement.  However, you never have to wonder where she stands or how she feels about something.

I have spent years hiding feelings, shutting people out and lashing out at those who hurt me.  Sure, my sister has shed more tears but she has also received more love.  You see, when you protect yourself from getting hurt by shutting people out, you also shield yourself from love and friendship and from Christ.  I have gone through life with the theory that if people really wanted to get to know me, they would be willing to chip away at my stone exterior.  This is true of some people. However, some have seen my hard heart and given up. I don't blame them.

Ten years ago, I would have died of shock if you had told me that I'd be saying what I'm about to say: I wish I was more like my sister. I wish I was gentle and kind. I wish I cried, not because I was weak, but because I was strong enough to feel a sense of deep compassion for others. I was I was quiet enough to listen to others more often. I wish I was patient enough to stop and think before I said or did things.  I wish I had a soft heart.

Chipping Away the Stone


If God’s love, so great and wonderful, will not soften thy heart, what will? - Richard Baxter

Last night, I expressed these feelings to my father and he laughed and said "Your heart is softer than you think, otherwise you wouldn't care."  I began to realize that maybe the stone walls I have spent my whole life building up are beginning to slowly but surely be chipped away. God is the only one capable of making a hard, stubborn heart like mine soft- no man can do it, several have tried and failed miserably.  I know this won't be an overnight transformation but I see pieces of my walls crumble a little at a time.

I know I will never be Mother Theresa and I don't aspire to be- although I admire her.  I am loud, blunt, opinionated and sarcastic, but that's a part of who I am.  However, I would like to spend some time with God and let him chip away at the stone I've entombed myself with so many years. I would like people to see that behind this tough exterior, there is a soft heart hiding somewhere.

A Wretch Like Me

Proud as a Peacock

Most people pride themselves on their strengths whether they be physical, mental or intellectual. We find things we excel at and we hone them: if we want to improve our physical strength, we go to the gym; if we went to improve our intellectual or mental strength, we might take a class or read a book.

Our culture seldom, if ever, takes pride in our weaknesses, in our shortcomings. We often spend just as much time and effort covering up our flaws as we do" peacocking" our prides. I am certainly guilty of this.

Repeat After Me: "I am weak."

He said to me,“My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me. ¹⁰ That is why, for Christ’s sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong. 2 Corinthians 12:9-10

This is one of my favorite verses for several reasons.

• First of all, this verse tells us implicitly to not only admit our weakness but to delight in them.  In The Ragamuffin Gospel, Brennan Manning argues that it is not until we admit and accept our weaknesses that we can fully love Christ.  Think about it, if you were in a relationship with someone and were hiding some deep dark secret from them, you would always feel as if your partner did not love you fully because they did not know everything about you. With Christ, we don't have to worry about that because He knows everything about us and loves us anyways.

• Secondly, this verse tells us not only that we should be proud of our weaknesses, but that we can find strength in them when we give them to Christ. God takes our downfalls and uses them to bring glory to His name.  If we try to hide these weaknesses, we only hurt ourselves and prevent God from using them for His greater purposes.

I Delight in my Weaknesses

Throughout most of college, I did not attend church at all, except on holidays.  I didn't do this because I did not want to know Christ; I did this because I thought Christ did not want to get to know me.  In high school, I began and in college I continued to live a life that was nothing to be proud of, committing the same sins over and over again and feeling a certain amount of pleasure in them.  I missed classes, made excuses, showed up to work late, lost friends and made my parents cry and beg me to change many times. 

Once I came to Christ, I wanted to hide my less than perfect past and conceal the burdens and imperfections I still continue to harbor. However, the closer I become to Christ, the more I seem to want to boast my weaknesses and share them with others; the closer I become to Christ, the less ashamed I am of who I was or who I am. 

You see, God doesn't just use picture-perfect saints to carry out His mission, he can use a sinful wretch like me too.

Lookin' for Love in All the Wrong Places

My First Love

Do you remember your first love? Of course you do. I'm sure as soon as you read that question, an image or memory formed in your mind. First loves become this sort of idolized persona in our heads to whom all following relationships will inevitably be compared and measured in some sort of way.

My first love had dirty blonde hair and hazel-green eyes that changed colors depending on what color shirt he was wearing. He was tall and lanky and sometimes a little shy and awkward. He was intimidatingly smart and knew something about everything or pretended to at least. He was sarcastic and bold and never afraid to put me in my place. We met when I was sixteen and he was eighteen. We didn't know anything about what love really meant, but we also knew nothing about what heartache truly meant either. So with a certain amount of naivety and a large amount of teenage hormones, we became one another's first loves.

As teenagers do, he decided to go away to college...several states away. When he left, I was devastated. My parents and friends tried everything they could to cheer me up, but I spent months moping around with swollen eyes and my first broken heart.  Eventually, as time went on, the pain lessened and my heart began to heal.

Although, we always seem to move on with our lives after our first loves, there seems to be a little part of us that still clings to that naive, intense, pure love that can only be experienced once and at a young age. 

I'm in Love with Love!

We often scoff at the hopeless romantics who wave their "Love Conquers All" flag as they march around looking for Prince Charming.  When we see teenage couples or hear them talk about love, we laugh to ourselves and think "oh... if they only knew." However, I am here to argue the case that these people who think love is all we need, are far more wise than us jaded cynics who know that with love comes heartache.

A Love that Lasts

 As the deer pants for streams of water, so my soul pants for you, O God. - Psalm 42:1

I think the first time I ever read this scripture I thought to myself  "whoa that is a pretty intense love this person's got going on for Christ."  I found it kind of strange actually and maybe a little creepy. However, years later, reading this scripture shows me a glimpse of something I want very badly: an intimate and deep love for Christ and an unquenchable desire to be close to Him.  I had those feelings for my first love,  why can't I feel the same way about Christ? That's exactly how Christ wants us to feel.  Our relationship with Christ should not be some lackluster, lukewarm platonic friendship; it should be as passionate and intense as a first love.

I have spent years seeking fulfillment and self-worth in earthly relationships when all along, someone has never stopped loving me.  I have never felt completely satisfied with my relationships, and when things ended I blamed it on numerous things: bad timing, the wrong person, etc., etc. However, it took me until recently to realize that I will never be fulfilled by one person; I will never be happy with the love I find on earth until I become satisfied with the love I find in Christ.

Christ knows all that we are, all what we've been and all that we will become and He loves us anyways.  He loves us when we hurt Him, when we abandon Him, when we deny Him, when we curse Him and when we disappoint Him.  While a first love may linger with us long after it has ended, Christ's love is the only love that lasts forever.

Call me crazy but I'd like to love Christ like He's my first love. I'd like to love him with that same reckless abandon I had at sixteen.

And they lived happily ever after...

Yeah, life doesn't always end that way: Prince Charmings are few and far between; the damsel in distress packed her bags and moved to a condo to save on rent; if you kiss a frog, you just get slimy lips; but don't worry, there are plenty of villains out there!

As an English teacher, I obviously have a fondness for reading.  When I was about seven or eight, my father bought me a copy of Grimm's Fairy Tales.  We were in an airport, seeing my sister off and I insisted that he got me the overpriced airport memorabilia. He didn't mind. What parent doesn't want to indulge a child who loves to read?

As a child, my dad read to me regularly at night.  He would tuck me in. I would scoot over in the bed and make room for the giant of a man.  He'd turn on my carousel horse lamp and open the crisp pages of the newest adventure. I would sit in rapture as he read stories aloud to me. Then he'd kiss me good night, turn off the lamp, linger in the doorway and wait until I would doze off to dream of dragons and princesses. Those childhood bedtime stories are one of the main reasons I decided to become an English teacher.

Now, the pattern in all of these fairy tales was that they almost always ended happily ever after. As a child, you believe everything you hear. So, I enthusiastically embraced the idea of happy endings. As an adult, I have lost that blind and unbending childhood faith. Many times, I wish I still had it. Perhaps, that is what God meant when he said "unless you turn and become like children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven."

As adults, we face hardships and heartbreaks and we stop believing in happy endings. But why should we? There is a happy ending for all of us, and it is an eternity in Heaven with the Lord our Father.

So, tonight as you go to sleep, imagine that your Father is tucking you into bed and telling you that life always ends happily ever after. Because for those who believe, there is always a happy ending.

If Patience is a Virtue, I am not very Virtuous...

"Patience is a virtue." Ah, those sage words of wisdom that reveal the meaning of life. To say I am being facetious here would be an understatement.  I probably hate that phrase more than anything in the world.  It is a saying that parents tell whiny children when they want their dessert before their broccoli and not after. It is a saying that boyfriends tell their persistent girlfriends who have booked the church before they've even gotten a ring. It is a saying that I, as a teacher, tell my students daily when they badger me for graded tests a day after they have taken them.  It is a saying that I often mumble begrudgingly to myself when things aren't happening as quickly as I would like them to.

God gave me a lot of things, but patience is not one of them. And if the possession of patience classifies you as a virtuous person, consider me a heathen. I was that little kid who stood beside you and repeatedly poked your shoulder while you were having a conversation with someone else until your arm was so sore that you stopped mid-sentence to scream "WHAT IS IT, MAGGIE?!"

My impatience has really been an issue in my relationship with Christ. You see, God doesn't really respond well to temper tantrums (trust me, I've tried).  I can pout, stamp my feet and even give Him the silent treatment, and He ain't budging.  God gives answers in His own timing and not according to my personal agenda.  Sometimes God doesn't give answers at all.

The closer I grow to Christ, the more He seems to press the point of patience on my heart.  I heard once to never pray for patience, because the second you do, God will give you something to test your patience.  Well, God, bring it! Here I am, praying for patience. I am praying for patience with You, with friends and family and especially for patience with myself. I am praying for the patience to accept that just because things don't happen when I want them to, does not mean they aren't happening right on time.

I pray that I will stop looking at my watch and start looking up. It's all on Your time Lord, not mine.