“Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things you didn’t do than by the ones you did do…Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover. (Love People. Eat IceCream).”
-Mark Twain and Lily Johnson Collaboration
I believe in a lot of things; I believe that Christ is the salvation of the world, there is hope that binds people together, and I even believed in Santa Clause until I was twelve. (Yes, twelve.) Unfortunately, that belief was crushed by an eye-opening conversation with my grandma, who accidentally shared the grave news with me regarding Santa’s true identity. I believe that God has given us purpose, because God is a purposeful creator. He gives us our thoughts, passions, and loves; we serve a God who is directly involved in our lives, not a God who is a distant figure that we pray to in times of need or during worship on a Sunday morning. God is an intimate being. He feels both for us and with us. His heartbreaks for the poor, the widowed, even the orphaned. Likewise, he commands Christians to “love the least of these” so that through our service his kingdom will be shown throughout the ends of the earth.
The World Race Has always been a dream of mine, but it has always been just that…”a dream”. However, “the plan” was college, grad school, residency, maybe a couple of years living with friends,a real job (eww), marriage, kids, then things like taxes(even more ewww) and everything else that accompanies “life”. But God was taking all “my plans” and fixing to throw them straight out the window. He was stirring me to love in new ways; he was growing my faith rapidly. God was teaching me how to love people, plain and simple, for exactly who they are and where they are at in their lives. God was also teaching me how to value myself so that I could make others realize their worth. I’m proud to say that I am hopelessly stuck obsessively loving people. I just want to be present with people. Christ’s name, Immanuel, means “God with us”;I want to pursue people the way that Christ does. I want to be the listening ear, the advice giver, even the fellow adventurer with the people in my world. I want to represent Christ to those in desperate need of his love and affection; I want to be a vessel for him.
I was recently reading back through my journal of the summer of 2014. ” This summer has taught me how to serve in more bold and selfless ways. This summer has taught me how to be a quiet leader with a gentle and humble spirit; it has taught me how to strive to honor my own divinity, to embrace my emotions, and that actions speak louder than words. I talk about love a whole lot but I want my life to be full of it, not just my mouth. I want a life filled with whimsy and good community, not much else appeals to me!” When I read that, I see the World Race giving me the exact opportunity to pursue those dreams.
I grew up in a Christian home. I attended a privileged Christian high school. I know a lot of Jesus facts, even a variety of Sunday school tunes. However, until my sophomore year of high school I did not know Christ. I didn’t have a personal relationship with God, the God who created me. God transformed from a distant figure to my provider, my peace, my comforter, and my love. My world flipped upside down when my parents divorced; my bubble was shattered and was now spiraling out of control. I no longer could keep my dysfunctional home life separate from the “homecoming court representative, honors student, goodie goodie” I was at school. I feared being defined as the child of a failed marriage. I questioned if my existence was purposeful, if I was an extraneous product of an unsuccessful turn of events. If so, what worth did I hold? I couldn’t control these overwhelming thoughts as they ransacked my brain. Yet, I discovered the one thing I could fully control: my body. I could control the way it looked; I could control how hard I pushed my body in the gym; I could control my calorie intake. If anything could give me with in today’s culture it had to be my body, right? So I embarked on a journey that lasted over seven months; I began to exercise regularly, then more frequently, then for extended amounts of time every day, and then all of the sudden that was not enough. I began to restrict my diet, allowing myself minimal amounts of food to function. Eating anything at all consumed me with guilt. I was weak if I ate, I wasn’t strong enough to even resist my own brain. I began to make myself throw up after eating even a few crackers. I was crying out for acceptance, yet I was looking to the world, not the God of the world. Throughout this time God was pursuing me with a fiery passion; I began a job as a nanny, where I discovered my absolute love for children. One day I was at work and I realized that with this continued pattern of behavior there is potential that I will never have children of my own due to the abuse I was putting my body through. Slowly I began to relinquish my eating disorder to an incredibly merciful God, who has transformed me into someone who no longer feels the need to put on a front, but who can be herself 100% of the time, due to the freedom I experience in Christ. I have fallen more and more in love with this gracious God each and everyday, and am oh-so thankful for the way he uses all our dirty sinful parts, and makes them beautiful. I’ve seen God use my story and so many others to glorify his unconditional redemption.
My art series this year is solely devoted to eggs; they are simple charcoal drawings of eggs, yet they stand for so much. Eggs are our individual potential, it sits unharnessed inside a shell, bogged down by the sins of our lives, but all God wants to do is just crack us open, fry all that sin up, scrape it off, and use us to nourish the world. The human race is a source of an incredible amount of bound up potential. We all have it and its about time we start using it. Be bold, do something crazy; love people who are hurting; serve the poor; be a light for Christ in your friend group. Christ wants to use you just as he wants to use me, whether you are serving him around the world or serving him at your school or at work. You have potential to bring so much glory to God. I think we all have some unfinished business to complete when it comes to pursuing a Christ-like life, but isn’t that kind of beautiful? There is always something more to strive for; something more to experience; someone to love more.
Next year I’ll be traveling to three regions of the world to simply love others, to serve them, and honestly just be present with them. Of course there will be cool experiences and awesome pictures, but I don’t have to go half way around the world to love people. You and I can start right now; step outside your comfort zone today, and just do something for someone, not because its the right thing to do, or even the honorable thing to do, but because it’s your way of serving God.
