what the Doxology means to my wandering heart

Praise God from whom all blessings flow

Praise Him all creatures here below

Praise Him above ye heavenly host

Praise Father, Son, and Holy Ghost

Amen.

We sing it every two days in chapel. We sing it on Sundays. We listen to recorded versions from talented people such as the artist My Epic. But what does it mean? What implications does this have for our walk with Jesus? Obviously this answer can come in many different forms and have an array of implications, but this is what the doxology means to my heart:

Praise God from whom all blessings flow.

And also when they don’t flow. All of life is not lived out receiving God’s blessings. Life is hard. There is pain. There are shortcomings. There are trials of many kinds. And while these things all work out to be a blessing in the end, they aren’t always a blessing in the moment. So to me, when I sing these words, they are a reminder. He is faithful in the good, and the bad, the glorious and the wretched, the beautiful and the ugly. It’s not cut and dry. It’s not simple. But the Lord is faithful and I will cling to that with all of my being.

Praise Him all creatures here below. 

This one used to be super confusing to me. This is a call for all the human race to bow their knees to the Holy one-but I’m not seeing the fruit of it. I think this is a potential meaning for these words. The Christian walk can be lonely and it is often looked down on by the individualistic culture that we live in today. But there will come a day when every knee shall bow and every tongue shall confess that He is Lord and Savior of us all. All creatures here below will one day praise Him. And so while we are walking the lonely yet fruitful walk of Christianity, let us not be discouraged. This is a very temporary trial and burden that we are asked to bear when compared to the eternity we are promised with the entirety of God’s kingdom.

Praise Him above ye heavenly host.

Wait, what? I can barely praise Him above my own earthly possessions. Above my relationships and material wants and longings. I fill my heart with vain and fleeting things to get momentary and immediate pleasure and relief from the weight of this world. I struggle to value Him above all else. This is a hard one for me. I sing it or I read the words and the immediate word that pops into my mind is sanctification. The process of valuing and praising and worshipping God above all else within my heart feels as though it should be immediate-if I am no longer enslaved to the passions of this world, I shouldn’t want them anymore, right? Wrong. Yes, it is true that I should turn my back on these desires and I long to do that better daily, but this is such a process and I have to tell myself multiple times each and every day that my Jesus alone is worthy of my praise and my desire. So if you’re not praising Him wholeheartedly every second of every day, take heart. You aren’t alone. This is a lifelong journey-each day I praise Him more and each day I realize how much more I need to continue praising Him more.

Praise Father, Son, and Holy Ghost.

This one is a bit more simple. For me, this one is simply a reminder that the God that we are worshipping is three-fold. I often get caught up in talking only about my Jesus or only about God the Father, and often leave the Holy Spirit completely out of the picture. But friends, the Holy Spirit is on the move. Any work done in our hearts or through friends is the fruit of the Holy Spirit. It is active and living inside of us and powerful. In the same way, it reminds me of the Fathership that we have as children of God. My earthly father is a wonderful man but he falls and can’t always provide when I need him to. But my Father God can. Even when He feels distant, He is providing. Even when it hurts and it’s in an act of discipline, He is providing and He is present and so good. Finally, the Sonship part makes our Savior all the more relatable. He has felt abandonment and the lowest orphan state of all-His father gave Him the fate of dying on a cross for us. He knows what it feels like to have a thorn in His flesh. All three of these characters are delicately and intricately interwoven with one another and they make up the God that we worship. And that, friends, is worthy of praise from every fiber of our being.

Amen. 

The Hebrew translation of the word Amen literally means so be it. We say this following our prayers, after reading scripture, among others, And I think this is one of the most beautiful pleas we can offer up to our Lord. We give Him our requests, we tell Him what is in our hearts, what we are struggling to believe, and that we are struggling to pursue Him above all else and plead with Him to answer our cry and bring us through difficult periods of sanctification that may be painful and unbearable aside from His sovereign mercy. And with what dwindling strength we have left, we give ourselves to Him saying let it be so. do with me what you will, for I am no longer my own. I am yours. This is complete dependance on God’s will and the release of our own. Oh to know this and trust it more each day.

Maybe the doxology means something completely different for you, and maybe I’m completely missing the mark. But this is the doxology for me and these are the reasons why I cherish the repetition of it in our worship on campus and within the walls of our churched.

Praise Him. That is all I can say when I am weak and on my knees. Praise Him.

Butterfly

Dear one, I know you are hurting. It will get better, but before it gets better, it will hurt like hell. And no matter who has gone through it before you, no matter how many beautiful people pour their stories into you and try to help, no one well tell you just how badly it’s going to hurt. Because your pain is yours, and it isn’t something that can be felt or understood by anyone else. It is complex and beautiful and tragic and yours. But there is hope. There is light at the end of the tunnel. For you are not the sum total of your pain, of your tragedies, of your defeats. They are part of you, parts to be validated, known, and empathized with, but they do not define you. The Lord validates each and every one of these feelings and He hurts that you hurt. He does. But in a broken world, our imperfect hearts don’t always recognize or feel his perfect love.

Sometimes, the Lord brings us to our breaking points just before we cause ourselves to self-destruct. He wants you to stay. To remain. There are so many reasons to stay alive and to fight and to live out a messy journey to prove to yourself and to others that life is worth living. Your pain has shaped you, but it has not made you who are. Love from people and love from yourself and learning how to cope in healthy ways have made you the person that you are. These things wouldn’t have been possible without your pain or suffering, but it is also not only because of your suffering. If we can suffer together as broken people, knowing that there is love and grace and beautiful mercy for all of us, perhaps we can learn to cherish and love this crazy confusing thing that we call life. And maybe we can share this newfound joy with others. Your pain is not worthless or without purpose. You are not the sum total of your struggles or mistakes. You are beautiful and wholesome and worthy and one day soon, little caterpillar, you will spread your wings and soar into a beautiful butterfly.

Sufficient Grace in an Insufficient World

Recently, I’ve been pondering the topic of grace. At the beginning of the semester as well as the beginning of the new year, expectations are heightened. We expect a lot from ourselves, and we start the process of heaping responsibilities and opportunities on our plates. We make appointments and schedules and regiments, hoping that we’ll manage to stick to them strictly. We tell ourselves we’ll be better at encouraging others, that we’ll be more reliable, that we’ll get things done on time. I stopped making New Year’s resolutions years ago when I felt as though I was only setting myself up for disappointment, but I am still very much a goal setter and someone who wants to follow through with the tight organization of my schedule. I follow my plans almost to a fault. If I back out of something or don’t meet a deadline, like many other people I have a strong tendency to beat myself up and only organize myself more tightly. It’s almost as if I keep myself on a leash, tightening the hold when I tug at the reigns even the slightest bit. Reflecting back on that, I’ve realized what a skewed perception I’ve had. Leaving no room for mistakes leaves no room for growth. And as Christians, we’re called to growth. To be open to being taught, by others and by learning from our own mistakes.

Because God has given us grace and freedom to be messy, to grow, to learn, it’s no longer about our ability to please and to perfect and to be the model college student. It’s about living the best we can for Christ and being shaped and molded when we make mistakes. And because we’re free to make mistakes, we need to give ourselves grace. Making mistakes hurts, because it reminds us that we’re not invincible. Our lives our touched by sin and our hearts are not pure. But in a way, this is almost encouraging to me. Because I am humbled and reminded that I am not the Lord of my own life. He is. My ‘plans’ may include being productive and efficient and present 24/7, but the truth is, because of my humanity and the darkness that lies within the world and within my own heart, this just isn’t possible. If I was the Lord of my own life, things would be in complete shambles. My friendship would not be genuine, it would be for my own gain. My words would not speak kindness or truth but would be used only to boost myself, all the while destroying my reputation. Ruin and decay would be around my feet which would be ensnared by the traps set by my own heart’s intentions. The stench of my greed and my selfish ambition would be uncontainable. And hallelujah, this is not the case. I have nothing if I don’t have Christ. I have nothing if I don’t have grace. My reputation is no longer mine to bear; in fact, it is no longer my own. I proudly and humbly bear Christ’s reputation, because in exchange for mine, He gave me His. Doesn’t that feel a little crazy? Sometimes I wonder if Jesus was entirely sane. For all of the evil thoughts within my heart, my hidden sins, my guilt and shame, He traded a kingdom. An eternity. A life in paradise with the Creator of the universe. That, friends, is love.

I miss a homework assignment? Grace. I beat myself up for a bad grade, or said missed homework assignment? Grace. I am not kind? Grace. I do not think pure thoughts? Grace. This is a big one for me- do kind, spiritual things for personal gain, rather than for the kingdom of God? GRACE. The list could go on forever. Friends. There is a grace that is sweeter than the guilt and shame that you’ve been bearing. You’re not always going to be the perfect friend. You’re not going to make every deadline. You’re not going to read your Bible every day(or maybe you will, I’m speaking to myself on these ones as much or more as I am to any readers on this, and I know that I fail to enter the Word more often than I’d care to admit.)

Being messy and real isn’t easy. It’s not always fun, and it’s not always the most pleasant thing to allow people the authority to speak into your life when you make mistakes. But it is so worth it to do this, because grace becomes so much sweeter when people affirm the truth of the darkness you’ve been hiding away in your heart. This doesn’t mean we throw to the wind our striving to be like Christ because we know we’ll find forgiveness. It means that when we fall short, there is clarity that we are not beyond repair or restoration. It is a lifelong process and as much as I hate the push and pull of change, the journey is becoming so much more important to my heart.

My prayer for myself this semester is honesty and grace. Honesty that I will not be perfect, that I will struggle and have hard days and not do everything perfectly, and grace for the fallbacks that are bound to happen. Because I am free to be messy. Because my life belongs to Christ, striving my best is an honor, and receiving grace when I don’t reach it is so much comfort. Sanctification is not a piece of cake, but it does have the ability to taste ever so sweet. I pray that it would be so in my life, and I hope that it is in yours too.

“But He said to me, ‘My GRACE is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.'”-2 Corinthians 12:9

Grace, my friends. You are loved.

Abbs

Why Aren’t You Going to France?

“When do you leave for France?”

    There is a little moment of pain each time the question is asked. I was supposed to spend three weeks in Deauville, France this summer. It was all I talked about for months. I spent hours studying French in hopes that I would be able to communicate with my host family. I bought clothes, spent hours looking for places to visit, all in preparation for my trip. However, at the end of my senior year, my parents and I made the decision for me to not go on the trip. I would be lying if I said I’m not heartbroken. I had been looking forward to this trip since I was accepted as an exchange student last December. However, just because I am not going this summer does not mean that I am giving up on someday traveling there. France is still a dream for me. I hope to study there for a semester while I am in college, and I am by no means dropping my study of its beautiful language. However, the timing of the trip this summer did not work out with my personal journey.

   I was under a tremendous amount of stress my senior year. I transferred into Trinity Christian Academy for my final year after being homeschooled for my entire life. I overcommitted myself from the word go, running cross country, taking piano lessons, joining the A Capella group, and continuing to work 20+ hours a week. Though these are all things I enjoy, they added tremendous stress to a plate that would have been full with schoolwork alone. My first semester flew quickly by with college and scholarship applications, and all of the other things I was involved with. I was frequently stressed out, but I barely allowed myself to acknowledge it. I told myself that to be busy was to be successful. I placed my value in working hard and excelling. “Maybe if I do more things, people will notice me. Maybe if I am good at things, people will love me.”

    I struggled with friendships in school. Transferring into a private school for senior year meant making friendships with groups in which most of the students had been together since elementary school. Though people were cordial, I longed to experience the deep friendships I heard my classmates talking about so often. People referred to my class as a family. Though I saw this flourishing in the relationships between my peers, in my own life, I felt something lacking. I expressed this frustration a few times to teachers and to a few of the friends that I had made, and they all assured me that I was loved by my class and that I had easily become part of the family, but sometimes, words are not always the consolation or proof that one needs. Because of their words, however, I wondered whether I placed too much value in the way I was feeling and that perhaps, I was making more out of it than it really was. However, this did not replace the deep longing in my heart to have friendships that would truly make me feel loved.

  I often felt like an intrusion when I would approach a circle of friends having a conversation. This was partially my own perception, and I may have done better if I was an outgoing person who loved to be the center of attention. Being an introvert, however, I struggled to make my presence known.

   All of this grew in the duration of the school year. By the end, I began to feel slightly more included and part of the class, but in the shallowest form. Senior trip brought my feelings back to the surface as I watched the flourishing friendships at their strongest, in a relaxed environment where everyone was being themselves. However I still felt as though I was just someone on the sidelines, without the freedom that my peers were experiencing. I felt like an outsider, watching the love shared between my classmates, longing to feel it for myself. The friendships in Trinity Christian Academy’s class of 2016 truly are the strongest friendships I’ve ever seen, and I feel like I can very accurately report on it, as I witnessed it for an entire school year. However, I felt more like an observer than a participant. Yes, I do have friends in my class, and I do not in any way think that they could have tried to love me any better. But the truth of the matter is, there is only so close you can get in one school year. I placed unhealthy expectations for friendships on myself and on the other people in my class, and for that, I am sorry. However, I am recognizing that my own feelings and my own loneliness are feelings to be validated.

   Just this small look into my senior year may be reason enough to convince you that I need a summer off before starting the next chapter in my life this fall: college.

  Above all of this, however, I need time to heal. I am not ready to share details of my current struggles, but I will openly say that over the past several years, I have been hurting, and this summer, I am dealing with that hurt. I am going to counseling, I am spending time with the Lord, and I am allowing myself to just be. I’ve gone to counseling before, but I wasn’t ready. I wasn’t prepared to truly delve deep into my story, to really uncover the lies I’ve been believing about myself and about human relationships. Thankfully, the Lord has broken me of that, and I can feel His healing flourishing within me. It is not easy, but it has been so worth it, and I know that I can only benefit from it in the long run. I am allowing myself to be human, to be broken, and not pretend that my struggles are in the past. I am learning that to love others truly, to live with others boldly, I must learn to love myself and learn to live with myself. I am learning that though it is in my nature to want to take care of everyone else and be in control, I need to learn that it is not wrong to prioritize my own health sometimes, and that I don’t always have to have it all together. I am doing all of this not on my own, but with the aid of family and friends. This is all such a learning and growing process for me, and I think it is so important for me to do before I embrace the big wide world on my own, without other people to lean on. This is why I am not going to France this summer.

   To all of the people who have told me that they are proud of me for the steps that I am taking this summer, thank you. You have no idea what an encouragement you are to me. I am so blessed to have people supporting me in this journey. I am so grateful for people like Alexis M., who listened to me and asked the right questions to help ensure that I would make it home okay. For my friend Katie D. who can help me to be spontaneous, get out, and just have fun. For honest conversations over coffee with people like Annie E. For the unwavering support of Ellie G. and that she will be by my side as I begin my new journey at Covenant College this fall. And the undying love, support, and selflessness that my parents have been showing me, and teaching me to have for others. Though I am sure I would have loved the adventure of France this summer, I also firmly believe that the adventure I am currently facing, no matter how difficult it seems at the moment, will end up being a better and more important adventure.

      “I’ll tell you one thing, we ain’t gonna change much:  The sun still rises even in the pain.”-The Head and the Heart; Another Story.

For Sam

It’s been almost five years since Sam has been gone. In some ways, it feels like it was forever ago, and in other ways, it feels like it was only yesterday. I will never forget the gut-wrenching pain that I felt when we got the phone call, or the shock and void of emotion that I felt in the days afterwards. But most of all, I will never forget the memories. In many ways, Sam was like an older brother to me, but more importantly, he was a friend. He was someone I knew I could always lean on, and he was someone who would stand up for me when I didn’t know how to stand up for myself. If it wasn’t for Sam, I would have dropped out of cross country right away. Because of him, however, I stuck with it. I hated the sport, but his friendship made it worthwhile. Being the only girl on the team was hard, particularly when all of the boys made fun of me, but Sam never stood for that. He was in many ways a protector, and seeing the pure joy he got out of simply running made me want to pursue the sport all the more. Though I wasn’t there yet, I believed that there had to be a way that I would someday love the sport as much as he did. Running was not the only aspect of life that Sam excelled at, however. He became an eagle scout at the age of sixteen, and was part of many mission trips, and academic competitions. Most of all, he was strong in his faith, and would share it at any given opportunity. He was a remarkable young man, and one would consider themselves luck to have known him, or or to be told that they resembled him. Just two years after I met him, on May 23rd, 2011, Sam passed away. His death was unexpected, and tore the lives of many apart, but at the same time, his memories made us stronger in the end. He was only seventeen. In the months immediately after, however, I felt numb. I didn’t run for weeks. When cross country season started again in August, I had no motivation to run. I felt as though a piece of my heart was gone forever. But then, I thought about what Sam would have wanted me to do. He wouldn’t have wanted me to give up. In fact, he would have wanted me to do the opposite. He would have wanted me to run, and he would have wanted me to run with all my heart, and to grow stronger along every step of the way. I began to feel as though there was a  purpose in my running. I fell in love with the sport, and felt true enjoyment from running for the first time in my life. Today, Sam remains an inspiration to me, both in my running, and in all other aspects of my life. I think of him as a brother who is no longer with me, and I consider myself blessed to have had the time with him that I did. If it weren’t for Sam, I would not have been accepted to Covenant College’s cross country team, because I would have quit running years ago. I would not recognize my true worth, and I wouldn’t have the same faith that I do today. Sam was more than my best friend. He was my brother. And if I had the chance to do it all again, I would relive every single memory in a heartbeat.

Writing hard and clear about what hurts

Ernest Hemingway just really got it. The truth is, if we can’t talk about it, we still need to get it out. Whether it’s on paper, in a note on your iPhone, or written in a document on your computer, write it down. When we let things build up inside of us without getting them out, we will come to a point where we will eventually explode. 
So if you can’t say it out loud, if you can’t discuss it with anyone, write it down. And write clearly about what hurts and how it is affecting you. 
Abigail

When the healing is in the aching

Some days are breathtakingly hard. Some days, it feels as though the hurt of things past will never end, but the truth is, we must allow ourselves to feel. We must allow ourselves to ache. 

   Because without the aching, without the hurting, we don’t realize the reality of how deeply we’ve been hurt. Without realizing how deeply we’ve been hurt, the healing can never begin. 

I can tell you from firsthand experience that the pain can be suffocating sometimes, but this doesn’t mean that the tear in our hearts isn’t healing. Where the pain starts is where the healing begins.

So when you hurt, and the days are hard, allow yourself to ache. Allow yourself to mourn, because as humans, we need to mourn our losses before we can turn the page and start the next chapter. Chapters with stories marked by pain are necessary to see the good in the happier chapters of life.

Never forget that where there is pain, joy will come in the morning.

abigail

Change

I’ve never been a fan of change. To be totally honest here, it terrifies me. And so I do the same things, the same way, for as long as I possibly can before I have to tweak it at all. Being a perfectionist doesn’t really help this out. This year, however, God has really been challenging me with the subject of change, and He has done this by completely turning my life upside down. It has led to some very deep thinking and processing in my life that really just begged to be done, and I probably never would have acknowledged the need for it if I hadn’t changed.

See, sometimes, when we get so rooted in our ways, Satan targets those comfort zones. And because we’re so used to these things, we don’t realize that our ways and our tendencies and our habits are becoming so utterly destructive and displeasing to God. Change forces us away from these habits and sheds light on the problem. We begin to see the error of our ways, and by the grace of God, we can be freed from them. And begin to change.

So my conclusion has come to this: change is not always a bad thing. It might hurt, it might be extremely uncomfortable, but in both the best and the worst of times, it is necessary. It is one of God’s countless ways of forming us into a people of His own heart. It forces us to see not only our owns goals but also the goals of the kingdom.

So I encourage you, when change takes you by the shoulders and shakes you upside down, let yourself hang. As odd as it may seem, enjoy the ride. Use it as an opportunity to try new things. Feel the joy of becoming the person God wants you to be. And just know along the way that you are loved. You are so loved. Before and after the change, there is so much love from God and from those around you, and through this change, you may even learn to love yourself.

abigail