The Reason for the Season

Point blank: Jesus. 

As we move into a more industrialized, technologically advanced world, life in general is becoming more and more materialized. People are becoming more dependent on phones for comfort, screens for confidence, and other people for personal excuses. Around the holidays, emotions run even deeper as people selfishly and anxiously shop for materials to give to other people they use for excuses the other 364 days of the year. It's truly heart breaking how selfie-centralized this nation has become. From a secular viewpoint, Christmas is a season of family and giving. Christmas is one day a year where everyone puts their differences aside and loves the way we are called to love every day. As Christians, loving and giving are our commands. As Christians, we should be spreading the good news of the gospel through loving and giving every day of the year, especially around the holidays when people are stressed over self-centered wants. The gospel message is full of comfort if we take the time to uncover it. Jesus died so that we could live. Jesus lived a perfect life of love and service and obedience so that we as Christians could follow in His footsteps and love and serve and obey our God. Christmas is the time when we celebrate the fact that Jesus didn't have to do anything He did for us. He didn't have to go through what He went through. BUT HE DID. And THAT is why we celebrate this season. THAT is why we can follow His example. We know that He is perfect, He is loving, and He is worthy. Praise God this season for giving us an opportunity to celebrate Him!

In all seriousness

Well, our parents lied to us. You CAN have too much fun. I've been doing it for too long. 

I made it into my sophomore year of college. I'm on my own for the first time, finally able to make my own choices without the burden of paying for them (for now). My earliest class is 10 am, only on Mondays and Wednesdays. I start class at 12:15, 3:05, and 11:15 the other 3 days of the week. I go to my classes, take notes/doodle/social media throughout class, I spend my time in between classes in meaningless small talk with my acquaintances, and I eat a cheeseburger for lunch every single day. I live my mornings routinely, and I fill my afternoons with the first social opportunity I am offered. I do homework 1-2 nights a week, if that. My spiritual life is slacking because I am far too focused on meaningless small talk and my boyfriend. I fight with every minute of the day to hold on to the friendships I barely have. My name is Jenna, and I have too much fun. 

Tonight I am burdened by my sins, which is a good thing. I don't feel heavy, I feel empty. I feel as though I have ignored my weaknesses and my shortcomings to a point where I'm not exactly sure what I struggle with. I've tuned out the bad in me, and in the world around me. This being said, I've tuned out the good in my God. 

It is time that I get serious. The meaningless small talk I engage in throughout every day is just that - meaningless. Sitting idly by while the life God has blessed me with passes around me is a quick ticket to rock bottom. Pushing away reality with random "things" to block out the evil that I'm afraid to face does not make a way to get out of facing it.

I believe my flaw is that I see life as a broad whole. I believe God has a plan for my life, being my future. I forget that each moment I am alive adds up to equal my life, leading me to unconsciously take advantage of each day. I casually "check in" with God throughout the day to let Him know I am thinking about Him, and I go about having fun doing what I want to be doing. I forget about strengthening the ONE relationship that matters. I forget to empathize through deep conversations with those around me. I forget to study. I forget to live the life that God has given me in the ways that He expects and deserves for me to live. It is far beyond the time I should get serious about my life and my faith. I know what I need to do, it crosses my mind daily. It is far beyond the time that I do the things I think about. My prayer tonight is that God would remove all that is not necessary for Him to strengthen my faith and my relationship with Him so that I can get serious about His purpose for me, and becoming the person that He created me to be. I know I will not be perfect, but I will strive to keep Christ central to me in my actions, thoughts, words, and decisions. I will seek total surrender to Him each morning before I get up to face my distractions. I need Your help, Lord. I want Your help. I love You, God. 

xo- a daughter of THE King

9.28

"She's in love, she's in love, can you see it? She's in love!" - a 12 year old girl sang this to me when she found out he and I were a couple on an impact outing in March. I brushed it off, "I can't be in love, I don't know how." 

On September 28, 2014, I spent the night at his house. I laid awake in his bed for hours after he had gone to sleep in the living room. I couldn't stop thinking about him, about us. It was that night that I admitted to myself that I am completely in love with him. 

Does that scare me? Ha, should it not? But I'm not afraid to feel it. Love is my favorite emotion. Plus, we both strongly believe that God brought us together for a reason, and right now that reason is to learn and grow together, side by side. God wouldn't lead us astray. If God is truly the center of our relationship, which we aim for every day, then we will make it through anything. 

Our love is different than anything I've known before. It's a godly love, a love from God, a God-centered love, in human form. Loving him only brings me to love God more, when I physically see and feel a simple human love as strongly as I feel it with him. God loves us like that, AND MORE. It's the most beautiful feeling I could have ever imagined. 

I can't wait for the day when I am able to say to him that I am so in love with him. 

I wish this was more in depth, more strategically written. But I'm so tired I can't see straight. So, until next time. 

Summer 2014

Has been a summer of every emotion. Bliss, love, numbness, anger, and depression, not in that order. 

February 5th, 2014 I met him. 3 months later I loved him. And 3 months even later I know that he is in my life for a while. 

This summer he went to work in Cali for 3 months, meaning I don't get to see him unless its on Skype and I don't really get to talk to him unless its 3am. But I know that in 1 month he will be back, and we will be the same as we were 2 months ago before he left. 

This summer I was planning to be in West Virginia with a team from my school doing missions work with some local churches, but God had other plans for me. I had to take 2 online classes at the beginning of the summer because I lost my scholarship. I got a job as a nanny for a 12 year old girl. I wasn't going anywhere outside of a 10 mile radius this summer. God's plan for me was to stay at home in the place I'm desperate to leave so that I can learn to face my demons and trust in Him. He wants me to be here where I am familiar in order to be comfortable and able to learn His word and grow. He needs me to be here for the people closest to me, to be a light for Him while I learn what that means. 

I've learned so much through experience this summer. I started off completely depressed as I always am when I'm in Lexington, surrounded by my ugly past. I didn't think I was ever going to be good enough for Him or him or them. But unlike other times in my life, I continued to seek His face and His presence. I continued to look up at His wonderful glory. The mercy of the ultimate Physician. The love of my all powerful, sovereign Father, who promises to be faithful no matter how faithless I feel. He continues to break me so that I will continue to see this love and mercy and faithfulness. He continues to break me so that he will see me at my worst before he gets to see my best. He is teaching me about praise and wisdom and righteousness and love. I wanted the summer to end for the first month and a half, but then I realized that was no way to thank my Father. To wish that I could be where I wanted to be doing what I wanted to do while He is graciously giving me all that I need right here is plain ignorant. But He is forgiving. He knows that I hurt, and He fills my heart with joy and peace. He is reminding me that His love is first and total, anyone else can not compare. Also, He has shown me that because He loves me, because He is willing to love every part of someone so dirty and wrong, that he CAN actually love me, and I can love him too. 

I love my God and appreciate His power so much more for this summer, and I know that on August 14th, 2014 I will fully understand the purpose of it all, more so than He wants me to know now. 

I'm still here

Because I'm not allowed to give up,

says my eternity. 

And the Owner of that eternity is one good reason to fight.

He loves me anyway.

I spent the entirety of my teenage years chasing after my own will. For 9 years I thought my beautiful family could withstand anything, that the brokenness of divorce had been fixed by the love I had found in my new family. For 4 years I tried to piece my heart back together by creating a sense of reality out of the dream of my first kiss loving me unconditionally. For 16 years I believed that I wrote my story, I made my own choices, and I knew what was right for me. For 16 years, I was dead. I was dead in my sins. I was spiritually, mentally, and emotionally dead, and I felt it physically and socially. I lost every "friend" I ever thought I had due to my lack of interest in anyone but myself. If I didn't have him, I didn't have anybody, and for 3 years too many, I didn't care. But after 3 years of genuinely not caring about anything or anyone, I was tired. I was worn out. I was alone, and I started to realize it. I thought I was hopeless. I thought I was unloved. I thought I was never going to see the sun again, simply because I had turned away from everything I had ever known to hold on to. 

I was in my room alone one night, crying out to God. "God, why the hell am I here? There is no purpose for me here. No one cares about me. No one cares that I'm hurting. YOU don't care that I'm hurting, or else I would be okay. What did I do to deserve this?" And God said to me, "Jenna, seek me first and you will understand." And I said, "...fine. I have NOTHING to lose." So I started going back to church. There was never a specific instance at church that I can say I rededicated my life after a great message, it was more of a process of realizations. I realized I had no purpose because my purpose was outside of myself. I realized I had no one left because I had turned them away for an immature dream of what I thought my life was supposed to look like. I realized I was depressed because I craved pity and I was completely comfortable with giving it to myself. I had become comfortable with depression. Around the time of this realization, God told me about the immense joy that came from living with Him. I had started my freshman year at North Greenville University, the first decision I made not on my own intuition but on God's guidance. One day in English class, my professor challenged us to think of the last time we had been truly happy. It scared me how much of a challenge this was for me. I really had no idea that "happy" was more than just a word, and that worried me deeply. As I went throughout the next few days, this idea really pressed on my heart. I was unsure how to go about figuring a solution out until Thursday night at BSU that week. I had never had a worship experience where I felt the Lord's presence until that night, and it was truly life changing. I began to understand what it meant to be transformed when a person met Christ. We sang the words that I have chosen to live each day by: "Your will, Your way, God. Let it be done in me."

I prayed these words to God as I sang them, and a genuine smile appeared on my heart and on my face. I realized that God was the ONLY way out. I began to trust God's will for my life because I knew that nothing could disappoint me further than I had been disappointed before, so I wholly surrendered everything to Him, and my life was permanently changed for the better. He is my Savior. He saved my life. He saved my heart. He saved my eternity. Without Him I would be dead, but because of Him, I am fully alive. 

HE IS RISEN, Happy Easter everyone.

-xo