Every Christmas Eve, my family has a tradition of getting together with my mom’s side of the family and feasting on every kind of polish food imaginable. Pierogis, sauerkraut and sausage, and all other kinds of treats are always abundantly present. Before my great grandma passed away a few years ago, we would all pile into her tiny, tiny house as we caught up and exchanged stories of the past years with relatives we didn’t get to see often enough. After we finished eating, Santa would come and give presents to all the kids there, and then the adults participated in a white elephant gift exchange.
If you’re not familiar with it, a white elephant gift exchange is a game where everyone participating brings a gift and receives a number to determine when their turn will come to either unwrap a new gift or steal one that someone previously opened.
Those sweet memories are what I think of when I hear the word “exchange.”
Webster’s dictionary defines an Exchange to mean, “the act of giving or taking one thing in return for another.”
Right now, I am experiencing a very big exchange; and not really one that is as warm as the memory previously described, but one that is so much more real and deep and not always easy.
I am currently writing this post seated at my local coffee shop in my hometown on January 21st, 2018. If I had continued on the path that I originally started on, I wouldn’t be here sipping a cappuccino and tapping these keyboard keys like there was no tomorrow.
A few months ago, I was enrolled as a freshman at Indiana Wesleyan University in Marion, Indiana, studying Graphic Design. During my time there, I made friends that I know I’ll have for a lifetime (and currently, friends who I miss VERY dearly), excelled in my classes, and, for the first few weeks, felt like I had everything figured out.
After the euphoria of new introductions and icebreaker questions had lifted, that’s when the insecurities set in; that’s when every doubt and fear and the question of “what am I doing here?” began creeping into my mind and started making themselves at home in my thoughts. I felt like I was not only drowning in papers and projects and due dates like every other student on campus, but I was beginning to feel like a stranger in my own skin. I couldn’t recognize the person I had become because I couldn’t tell the differences between the truth I knew about God, and the lies that ate away at my mind day and night. These thoughts had left me feeling purposeless, hopeless, and completely useless; not to mention the gloom and sadness I could not pull myself away from feeling nonstop. I was not familiar with this feeling of deep despair; and quite honestly, I had no clue where to go from there. I was at the end of my rope.
Thankfully, the story doesn’t stop there. (Aren’t those things the perfect platform for a major breakthrough to take place?)
It was a late night in October when I was given my breath back. With tears continuously streaming down my cheeks, I was desperate for God to show me what to do, and where to move if it was necessary. I knew I couldn’t stay in this state of despair with any hopes of accomplishing what the Lord has had planned for me before the world was even created.
I’ve come to learn that from our deepest moments of desperation is when God shows up to show us his deepest compassion and to reaffirm the promises he has been keeping from the very beginning.
In that moment, I was directly lead to Isaiah chapter 42, and the words written on that page took ahold of my spirit in a way I had never experienced before.
“I, the LORD, have called you to demonstrate my righteousness.
I will take you by the hand and guide you, and I will give you to my people, Israel, as a symbol of my covenant with them.
And you will be a light to the nations.
You will open the eyes of the blind.
You will free the captives from prison,
Releasing those that sit in dark dungeons.” (Isaiah 42:6-7)
I was taken by the hand. I was guided. I suddenly felt like a captive that was released from the dark dungeon that is talked about in this passage of scripture.
From then on, my journey has taken twists and turns that I couldn’t even begin to foresee. Some doors were flung wide open; Some doors were suddenly slammed shut. Here I am, sitting in Newark Ohio, preparing to embark on an adventure I couldn’t even think would become my reality, even in my wildest dreams.
That’s where this exchange comes in.
My life, my desires, my feelings, my agenda; all exchanged just for the chance to get to experience all that He has planned for me with my time on earth.
Exchanging the comfort and security that I am so familiar with for the opportunity to share the unfailing and constant hope of the gospel that I have experienced firsthand.
Exchanging what control over my life I think I have for the chance to fully experience the peace of Christ, and share what that is with others.
I have chosen to exchange all that I have, for all that I do not yet know.
