Costly Grace

Is it possible to take up your cross, to truly take up your cross and follow Christ and live like an American? God is beginning to convince me that it is not possible to live a life of comfort and ignore the cries of His people all around us. He is doing so through scripture. Through teaching. Through breaking me and making me uncomfortable in my own surroundings, in my own life. Through making me aware. Through reflection. Through conversation. Through relationship with a few key believers who are being challenged in similar ways. He is doing so intentionally. You see, Christianity should look Radical. Faith Based. Trying. Full of indescribable joy. Sacrificial. Scary at times. Necessary of trust in our God. Father. Master. Maker. Guider. Keeper. Healer. Provider.

As I sat and talked to a dear friend about this very idea yesterday I was so excited because I was talking to someone who gets it. Someone who wasn't just smiling and nodding at me, someone who wasn't just looking past me, or listening with eyes that said "that's radical and all good for you...but..." I mean, this friend really gets it, and this friend is really going to live it, which is so encouraging. And then, as I talked about my prayers for my life, he offered a solid challenge. I let him know what I was praying about when I graduate. Does God want me to:

A: Give up this life of comfort and move overseas to teach and work with children of another country for His namesake.
or
B: Give up this life of comfort and move to downtown Raleigh working with Hunter Elementary or another low-income school to renew this city for His namesake.

As I discussed my heart and my prayers he simply mentioned one thing that shook me. While it is important to pray for the future, we need to pray for now. We need to carry our cross now. This week. Tomorrow. Twenty minutes from now. How does God want us to live sacrificially, thinking of ourselves as the least of these RIGHT NOW? How does he want us to give it all up right now? Why wait?

And so I ask, are you living in a manner that shows that you are a follower of Christ? Are you carrying your cross? This is not just a phrase that we can pass over because we have heard it a thousand times, this is a life changing, uncomfortable, faith based lifestyle. It hurts. It means giving it all. It means following the Lord where it doesn't really make sense. It means moving into a smaller house, driving a cheaper car, and giving up the nicer clothes because that money should go to someone in need. It means going to the nations, even though you will give it ALL up, all of your comforts, because people need to hear the name of Jesus. It means looking like a fool around that girl in your class because you are standing up for and speaking up for the one who shed his blood for you. We can't be silent. We can't be still. We have to look different, radical. So why do so many of us look just like the world? Why do I have such a hard time living in a way that puts zero trust in myself, and all trust in my Father?

Lord, teach me how to take up my cross today. May others do the same, but should none go with me, still I will follow you. Help me lose my life in you.

Lord, Teach Me.

Lord, this day, teach me to speak to you. I am a woman of unclean lips, but I want to come before you. Teach me to love you, for I am but a broken hearted girl who gives that heart away to this world, too easily forgetting what True Love is. Teach me to think on you, for I am a human, bruised and broken by the fall, mind corrupted, full of anxiety and worry. Teach me to see like you, for my eyes are tainted for myself with ambition that reflects only my desires and needs, filtering out the pain of both believers and nonbelievers around me. Lord, teach me to serve like you, without thoughts of what I may receive in return, but with thoughts of bringing ultimate glory to my Father in heaven. Lord, teach me to be like you.

Philippians 2:1-11

If you have any encouragement from being united with Christ, if any comfort from his love, if any fellowship with the Spirit, if any tenderness and compassion, then make my joy complete by being like minded, having the same love, being one in spirit and purpose. Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit, but in humility consider others better than yourselves. Each of you should look not only to your own interests, but also to the interests of others.
Your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus:

Who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped, but made himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness. And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself and became obedient to death- even death on a cross... to the glory of God the Father.

You are still God

You are stripping away the parts that I hide behind. Breaking the fortress that I lean on. This comfort that was once so easy has fallen around me. The people that were once so supportive are beginning to fail. The places that once felt at home are not as friendly. I am so unsettled here and I don't know why. God, you are tearing and ripping, and just when I think you are finished, just when I think I can dry my eyes, something else falls. It is no accident that you are making me uncomfortable, it is true I was far too complacent with the day to day I was walking in. Far too happy with the life I had created for myself. I needed you, but I didn't need you. I didn't even realize it. Forgive me for walking in comfort. Thank you for waking me up. Thank you for refining me.

I will bring praise.

All of my life
In every season
You are still God
I have a reason to sing
I have a reason to worship

I will bring praise.

The Thoughts of One Higher

I reach, but my fingers are just short. I try, but I am just not enough. It is scary to want something, yet fall just in front of it. To watch it disappear right in front of your eyes. It is painful. It is taunting. How can it be such a perfect fit, yet such a wrong choice?

Isaiah 55:8
"For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways. declares the Lord."

And in this I rest. And in this I hope. And to this I cling.

A Peace That Transcends All Understanding

It has been a long while since I have written. The world as I view it has changed one way, moved another, been shaken around, and here I am. So much can happen in so little time, and while I will not go into the details of what "so much" may be, I will go into the details of a few verses that have been written on a card that I have been carrying with me. These verses are a constant reminder of the truth that Christ has called me to.

Rejoice in the Lord always. I will say it again: Rejoice! Let your gentleness be evident to all. The Lord is near. Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus. Phillippians 4:4-7

Wow, what a command. Rejoice. Even in those moments we don't understand, those moments when the tears seem to fall. Rejoice. Bring them to God. Bring them to God with thanksgiving, even. His thoughts, his plans, his will is SO much greater than anything we can imagine, and in that we can rejoice and thank him. But we, but I get so wrapped up in my current situation. I can only feel the moment, the second of life that my heart beats within, and because of this fact that heartbeat tends to quicken, the peace of God is the last thing on my mind, and my soul becomes one of anxiousness and a lack of trust.

But then I simply reach in my pocket, feel that index card (that is now folded, crinkly, tear stained, coffee spilled, and almost falling apart) and I remember the living words of God. Rejoice, present your requests,and take hold of the peace that transcends all understanding. What a great God we serve.

My Strong and Perfect Plea

"Before the throne of God above
I have a strong and perfect plea.
A great high Priest whose Name is Love
Who ever lives and pleads for me.
My name is graven on His hands,
My name is written on His heart.
I know that while in Heaven He stands
No tongue can bid me thence depart."

Sometimes I go through spells, or phases if you will, with the way I praise God. Hold on, I know you may be ready to close this page and call me crazy, but I'm serious. My mind can't handle it when I really delve into what God has to offer, and even when I do focus on one thing I am often times brought to my knees and overwhelmed. Sometimes I have to take one facet at a time, trying to learn about that side and soak it in, letting it change me. I don't forget that God is much bigger than that one aspect, but I do let myself get lost in the sea of that one trait, and then remember that this is just one part. PRAISE GOD!

Right now I have been reading, thanks to Chip and Dave at Providence, in Hebrews where it talks about Christ being our Great High Priest. I have to say, God's word alone about this subject is enough to make me bounce in my seat like I have had two cups of Global Village coffee. I mean listen to this: (!!!)

For Christ has entered, not into holy places made with hands, which are copies of the true things, but into heaven itself, now to appear in the presence of God on our behalf. Nor was it to offer himself repeatedly, as the high priest enters the holy places every year with blood not his own for then he would have had to suffer repeatedly since the foundation of the world. But as it is, he has appeared once for all at the end of the ages to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself. And just as it is appointed for man to die once, and after that comes judgment, so Christ, having been offered once to bear the sins of many, will appear a second time, not to deal with sin but to save those who are eagerly waiting for him. Hebrews 9:24-28

Christ was not only a High Priest. Christ was The High Priest. Before Him a mediator would have to make sacrifices for my sins multiple times within my lifetime. But Christ, Christ stepped in and became the sacrifice, became the mediator, became the reason I can boldly approach the throne of God. To top it all off, this sacrifice is one that covers our sin. Fully. Once our sin has been covered we do not have to go back for another sacrifice, do not have to find a way to clean up to come to the throne. My Jesus, He is enough. He is plenty. How often do I skim over this fact? THIS IS HUGE!!! Christ came once,once for our sins and when He returns, it will be to bring us home!

Oh man...I'm doing the bounce in my seat thing.

Height marked on a Wall

Oh my it has been a long while since I blogged. School is getting crazy, life is picking up, and to take thoughts from my journal and put them on here...that takes time that I don't have. It is something I want to try to do more often though, so don't give up on me!


Yesterday morning I sat in my little sister's room at 6 am and worked on homework, drinking coffee as my Dad painted it LIME green. It is part of her Christmas present from my Mimi to have her room redone, and my Daddy has NO time in his life to paint it, so Thanksgiving morning, that was his time. I also have about 6 projects on my plate right now that have to be done before I return to school, one of which involved research and could be done while talking. You see, Daddy and I talk over coffee EVERY morning. We have since I could drink coffee, and before that he made me hot chocolate and called it coffee. It is our time, before the world wakes up, to catch up and digest life. Together.

Yesterday we took time to talk about the door in Josie's room. Yes. The door. He was going to change the door and give her a "suweet new one," but he couldn't bring himself to do it. He couldn't even bring himself to paint this nasty, busted, drawn over door. That door looks like an old door, but on the side it holds the growth chart of the Edwards family, including Momma and Daddy from when Taylor, Josie, and I decided they needed to be measured too. I can stand next to that door and see when I stood knee height to myself. It is crazy. I can see when I hit my growth spurts, and when my growing leveled off. I can look back at heights and dates and remember stories that go with those times. I remember that day as the day Taylor and I ran down the hallway pulling eachother on blankets like sleds and got in trouble for crashing into the table and knocking over a picture frame. It was when she was blonde Taylor, with bouncy curls, HUGE dimples that took up her whole face, carried around her Barney stuffed animal all the time, and had a laugh that would make me do ANYTHING again. Oh, and I remember that Josie, she came up to right here on me, cried 24/7, and was Momma's baby. BUT, it was that Josie who ran around in her diaper, only her diaper, and a Native American headdress and had the whole family laughing, although she was 100% serious.

As Daddy and I were talking about those heights, dates, precious girls, and memories, they woke up one at a time and came in. Josie, rubbing her eyes and hearing us laughing walks in and says loudly, "You would have to be high to paint a room at 7 in the morning! This paint is making you high isn't it?" Taylor continues when she comes in by saying one line before she sits down. "Wow. Looks like a big booger in here." :D Ridiculous.

Each of those lines, each of those heights holds a million laughs that those little girls and I have shared. A million good times that make up for any sad, bad, angry, "downer" times (as Josie like to say.) The exciting part is that those laughs and great memories are only getting started for the three of us. My height marker has stopped, and Taylor's is slowing down, but we have so many memories to fit into that last line. Oh goodness, Josie just woke up...they are getting started now.