Starbucks Sunday

Tell me to doubt Him. Tell me He isn’t paying attention. I dare you. I dare you to try to convince me that He isn’t working with the young people. Tell me He doesn’t care.

I won’t believe you. I can’t, not after what I’ve been privileged enough to witness.

When a group of random young people (Paducah, Ky, Houston, Tx, Cross Plains, Tn, and Owensboro, Ky) were gathered in Starbucks, and felt the urge to sing, and the Lord met them, there wasn’t any doubt that God was paying attention. When the group of people behind them started singing along, God was paying attention. When they stopped singing, and a lady approached them and said, “We were just praying and pouring out our hearts, because we have been starving to see a bold young people for the Lord…”, the Lord was paying attention to them.

When they had church outside Starbucks, He was definitely paying attention. When another lady told them to never be ashamed to stand out, to stand up for God, He was smiling at them, I think.

So tell me that He doesn’t care anymore, because I was there, at Starbucks, and I will have to disagree.

I was there in the car with two other girls my age when the Spirit came in and we had church while driving down Parish Av. in Owensboro. I was there as my best friend managed to not run any red lights, rear end any innocent cars, or drive off the road, despite her current condition.

I was there. And so was He. Now tell me that He isn’t real.

I cannot accurately portray what that night meant to us, or what it’s done for us since then. When I even attempt to get across the awesomeness, I stumble over my words, and find myself at a loss of powerful enough adjectives.

I felt, that night, like the Lord was asking me, “Do I have your attention, Tristan? Do I have your attention, yet?”

My answer?

Yes, you do. You have my attention. Finally. You finally have my attention.

The Lord has revealed the good, the bad, and the pathetic to me since that Starbucks Sunday, and I’m hard at work. Prepare me. That’s all I can think.

My prayer has been, “Capture my heart, because I can’t give it to You…I’ve already given it away to all the wrong things. Capture it, Lord. Capture it, and don’t ever let it go.”

Thank God for Starbucks, a sensitive youth, and that group of Christians who were paying attention.

 

The Definition of Me.

To all the aged ladies who say to my fellow youth and I, “Oh, what I’d give to be your age again,”: I am sorry, I do not understand.

To all the ‘grown ups’ who say, “Enjoy these years while you have them, they’re the best ones of your life,”: I hope you are wrong.

Please, do not get me wrong. I love being young with what freedom I am blessed with, and I appreciate the blessing of my health. I am sure I will miss both of those someday. Also, I am not saying I do not have a good life. I am just praying this isn’t the best it gets.

Take out the good things in life, like health, freedom…life as a teenager/ young lady is very confusing and harder than I expected it to be. Decisions face me every day that I did not see coming the day before. These are decisions that could change my life. I am feeling the pressure, you know?

And I am not alone. Thank goodness. I talk to so many of my friends who feel the same confusion that I feel. I just have to stop and ask myself sometimes if this is really how it is supposed to be. It is ‘natural’, I know. But, is there a better way, perhaps?

I just feel like I might be stuck on the longest, bumpiest roller coaster ever, and I no longer love these ups and downs. I am just ready to get off, stretch my legs, and regain my balance.

Too much to ask for?

But, 1 Corinthians 14:33 (KJV) says that “God is not the author of confusion, but of peace…”.

My hope is that God is writing my life, because I make such a mess of everything I touch. So, if He’s writing my life- if He’s in control- my life should not be ruled by confusion.

Now I have to ask myself where the kink is in my line of thought, because something obviously is not going right. My life should not be what it is, because Christ does not desire it to be so.

Where to lay the blame? Christ, or me?

We all know the answer to this one.

If my life is ruled by confusion, overtaken by perplexity, then it’s not being led by the Author of Peace.

Quite simple.

So what is leading my life?

Emotions. Desires. Dreams. Responsibilities. Past experiences. Sadly, the list goes on.

I am handing my life over to anything or anyone that will take it, except the One that should, and wants to, and is waiting so patiently for me to see Him.

Lord, forgive me. I have been so wrong.

I wonder why I keep getting let down by people and things. It’s absolutely no wonder. People are human. Things are things. They weren’t meant to define me.

He is standing right there, and I am just ignoring Him. He wants to wrap His arms around me and embrace me in love, and I keep shoving Him away and wrapping my arms around empty, insignificant things and expecting them to love me back.

I am breaking His heart just like they keep breaking mine.

I am never going to have peace in my life until I can be completely at peace knowing that Christ loves me, and I love Him, and nothing can or will change that.

Once I am defined completely by that, what will I have to worry about?

Nothing is too big for my God. If He’s in control of my life, I’ll be able to hold up my head through all storms of life and say, “The LORD is my light and my salvation; whom shall I fear? the LORD is the strength of my life; of whom shall I be afraid?” (Psalm 27:1KJV)

Faith. Just, faith.

 

 I closed my eyes. Nothing else mattered. God and I had something to talk about. I had a problem, a major problem in my little seven-year-old mind, and God was the only one who could help. I was down with this process. It had happened before, like the day that all six of my two-month-old kittens went missing. There was some major prayer going down in my house that day. I don’t remember what I said. Most likely it was simple, but heart-felt, being as I’ve gained my extravagance in speech in my more matured age. I don’t remember how long I prayed, but I had the same attention issues that I suffer with now, so I know it wasn’t a long prayer, either. I just– prayed.

 I opened my eyes, looked at the gas hand, and watched it— rise? My anxious heart leaped inside my chest.

 “Daddy! Daddy, look!” I pointed to the gas hand that was still rising, pressing nearer and nearer the full mark, rather than the ominous empty mark it had stubbornly been flirting with for a solid ten minutes.

 I can only imagine the glow on my dirt smeared, sweaty face. I can only picture how my eyes, mostly hidden by stringy brown bangs, must have lit up at the sight. My prayer had been answered, and I was exhilarated! This was my own personal parting of the Red Sea, only on a smaller, less earth-shattering scale. Nonetheless, I was pumped. I was calculating the minutes until I could bounce into our bright blue kitchen and tell mom all about how my prayer had been answered, and therefor I had (with God’s help, of course) saved dad the three-mile hike to the nearest phone, to call for help.

 It wasn’t until later that I received the heart-breaking news that I had been tricked. My dad had somehow “forgotten” about the reserve gas tank, and miraculously “remembered” its existence in that very moment that I closed my eyes to pray. My prayer had not been answered, because it was an unnecessary prayer to begin with, but it showed my child-like faith, that I regret to say, I have since lost.

 It’s amazing how in the seven years since that day, my faith has changed so drastically. Faith is the relationship between God and I, so one of us must be at fault for the change within that relationship. Can I blame God? Can I in any way say that I’ve lost that faith because He has failed to prove Himself to me? I cannot. I can only place blame on myself. My fiercely independent and obstinately resistant nature has produced the chasm between myself and “child-like” faith, making the connection impossible.

 My independent nature has caused me such grief. Thanks, daddy, for this genetic trait. *insert applaud for my dad here* For real, though, I come by it honest. It’s an Evans trait, and as much as that excuse makes me smile, it doesn’t lessen the undesirable effect that it has had on me. I don’t even understand why I feel the need to be so independent. Have I not learned multiple times (in multiple, not-so-pleasant ways) that sometimes it’s nice to be dependant on God. Have I not seen that sometimes things are just easier when you let go, and let God take over. Have I not realized that it’s basically always easier on me that way? More humbling— yes. Scarier— oh, yes, that too, but in the end, it never fails to have a happier ending when God was the one doing to writing, rather than myself.

 Ah, and then there’s my resistance. When we get past the independence, the resistence never fails to trip me up. There is a reason for this. When I give in, let God take control, and step back (a.k.a. become dependant on God, rather than self), He gets to do whatever He chooses with me. Whoa! *screeching tires, blaring horn, resinating sound of two large objects crashing forcefully into each other* He gets to— what?! Exactly, my friends. Exactly. When I let Him take over, He gets to do, just that– take over. This, for someone as “oh, I know what’s best for me” as I am, is not an easy thing to go through. My typical response in this particular time goes as follows: “Wait just a minute God, have you thought about it this (as in my) way?” or “Surely this can’t be what you really want”, as if I, Tristan Evans, almost seventeen years old, could know what God, creator of the universe, who is not only older than dirt, but created the dirt that He is older than (think about that!) really wants more than He could. That’s incredibly unintelligent of me, if I do say so myself. I would love to say that there is a magical cure for this predicament, but alas, there is not. Usually what brings me to my breaking point is time, and tears. . . lots, and lots, of tears. Finally, I manage to grasp the fact that my way will not work. Then I get to go through the apologies, which I do by saying things such as, “Oh, you know, God, maybe you were right all along. *nervous giggle* Funny how that always seems to happen, huh? I’m– uh, I’m really sorry. Better luck next time?”

 It’s so hard to have child-like faith when your nature is working against you. I think that’s why, when I was in fact just that, a child, it was so much easier. Who needs to worry about being independent when you’re carefree and void of responsibility? Who cares about resisting what God wants when you’re not yet old enough to know what you really want yourself?

 

I closed my eyes.

Nothing else mattered. God and I had something to talk about. I had a problem, a major problem in my little nine-year-old mind, and God was the only one who could help.

I was down with this process. It had happened before, like the day that all six of my two-month-old kittens went missing. There was some major prayer going down in my house that day.

I don’t remember what I said. Most likely it was simple, but heart-felt, being as I’ve gained my extravagance in speech in my more matured age. I don’t remember how long I prayed, but I had the same attention issues that I suffer with now, so I know it wasn’t a long prayer, either.

I just– prayed.

I opened my eyes, looked at the gas hand, and watched it— rise? My anxious heart leaped inside my chest.

“Daddy! Daddy, look!” I pointed to the gas hand that was still rising, pressing nearer and nearer the full mark, rather than the ominous empty mark it had stubbornly been flirting with for a solid ten minutes.

I can only imagine the glow on my dirt smeared, sweaty face. I can only picture how my eyes, mostly hidden by stringy brown bangs, must have lit up at the sight. My prayer had been answered, and I was exhilarated!

This was my own personal parting of the Red Sea, only on a smaller, less earth-shattering scale.

Nonetheless, I was pumped. I was calculating the minutes until I could bounce into our bright blue kitchen and tell mom all about how my prayer had been answered, and therefor I had (with God’s help, of course) saved dad the three-mile hike to the nearest phone, to call for help.

It wasn’t until later that I received the heart-breaking news that I had been tricked.

My dad had somehow “forgotten” about the reserve gas tank, and miraculously “remembered” its existence in that very moment that I closed my eyes to pray.

My prayer had not been answered, because it was an unnecessary prayer to begin with, but it showed my child-like faith, that I regret to say, I have since lost.

It’s amazing how in the eight years since that day, my faith has changed so drastically. Faith is the relationship between God and I, so one of us must be at fault for the change within that relationship.

Can I blame God? Can I in any way say that I’ve lost that faith because He has failed to prove Himself to me?

I cannot.

I can only place blame on myself. My fiercely independent and obstinately resistant nature has produced the chasm between myself and “child-like” faith, making the connection impossible.

My independent nature has caused me such grief.

Thanks, daddy, for this genetic trait. *insert applaud for my dad here*

For real, though, I come by it honest. It’s an Evans trait, and as much as that excuse makes me smile, it doesn’t lessen the undesirable effect that it has had on me. I don’t even understand why I feel the need to be so independent.

Have I not learned multiple times (in multiple, not-so-pleasant ways) that sometimes it’s nice to be dependant on God.

Have I not seen that sometimes things are just easier when you let go, and let God take over.

Have I not realized that it’s basically always easier on me that way?

More humbling— yes. Scarier— oh, yes, that too, but in the end, it never fails to have a happier ending when God was the one doing to writing, rather than myself.

 Ah, and then there’s my resistance. When we get past the independence, the resistence never fails to trip me up.

There is a reason for this.

When I give in, let God take control, and step back (a.k.a. become dependant on God, rather than self), He gets to do whatever He chooses with me.

Whoa!

*screeching tires, blaring horn, resinating sound of two large objects crashing forcefully into each other*

He gets to— what?!

Exactly, my friends. Exactly. When I let Him take over, He gets to do, just that– take over. This, for someone as “oh, I know what’s best for me” as I am, is not an easy thing to go through. My typical response in this particular time goes as follows:

“Wait just a minute God, have you thought about it this (as in my) way?”

or

“Surely this can’t be what you really want”, as if I, Tristan Evans, almost eighteen years old, could know what God, creator of the universe, who knew my name before I was conceived and all that stuff, really wants more than He could.

That’s incredibly unintelligent of me, if I do say so myself.

I would love to say that there is a magical cure for this predicament, but alas, there is not. Usually what brings me to my breaking point is time, and tears. . . lots, and lots, of tears.

Finally, I manage to grasp the fact that my way will not work. Then I get to go through the apologies, which I do by saying things such as, “Oh, you know, God, maybe you were right all along. *nervous giggle* Funny how that always seems to happen, huh? I’m– uh, I’m really sorry. Better luck next time?”

It’s so hard to have child-like faith when your nature is working against you. I think that’s why, when I was in fact just that, a child, it was so much easier.

Who needs to worry about being independent when you’re carefree and void of responsibility? Who cares about resisting what God wants when you’re not yet old enough to know what you really want yourself?

But I’ve changed.

I’m older. I’m no longer carefree and void of responsibility, and I haven’t been lacking an opinion of what I wanted for quite some time now. Life has gotten harder. Trials have gotten tougher, and longer, and as the need for child-like faith has increased, my child-like faith has plummeted. As I’ve found myself more and more in situations where I needed to just close my eyes and pray, I’ve also found myself taking over those situations in my own strength and trying to work it all out on my own, and subsequently finding myself failing, miserably . . .

I’m trying, though. I want to hand it over, but I’m scared to death. Call me a control freak, because it’s true. Call me a wimp, that’s also pretty well true, but the thought of not being in control scares me.

Pray for me, won’t ya?

His Blessings On Me

I’m home schooled. Yes, yes….I know. I’ve heard all the immediate responses.

“Oh, awesome! So, like…you really don’t have to do schoolwork, huh?”

“How exactly does that work? I mean, do you actually…learn…anything?”

My personal favorite: “So…your mom’s like…your teacher?”

Yeah, I’m home schooled. Or was, I’m kinda graduated now. Anyway, I’ve always been. Like, for real. Always. I was like, -3 when I started school. Or four. Maybe it was four. I’m home schooled, numbers aren’t my thing.

Being as I’ve always been home schooled, I was so used to the awkward responses people give you. One time, for instance, I was in Walmart on a week day. An older, nosey lady whom I had never in my life seen or met approached me and asked, “Why aren’t you in school.”

Without skipping a beat, I said “Oh, they sent me home early, on account’a I have lice.” Then scratched my head, smiled, and walked away.

So obviously, that part didn’t bother me much.

I loved being home schooled. Honestly, I did. I was given the opportunity every year to join public school, and I considered it, every year, and every year I decided, again, to stay with home school.

When I started high school, however, the decision was a lot harder.

I had to think about a lot of things. High school is a big deal. Academically and socially. High school is the “highlight” of many peoples lives. I love people, I love friends, I love sports (not playing, but watching) and would have enjoyed band, choir, drama club, FFA, 4H….basically, I would have enjoyed public high school. I wanted, very desperately, to join. I wanted to get dressed up in the morning and have somewhere to go. I wanted to not do school work in my kitchen, in my PJs, with my mom coming in and out cleaning and cooking. I wanted what every other fifteen year old had.

So, I prayed.

I prayed really, really hard. “Lord, if you want me to go to public high school, to shine a light, to be a beacon, to be a Godly influence for your sake, to make a stand, to befriend those poor heathen kids and influence them for Your good…I will….

….But….if you want me to stay in home school, that’s what I’ll do.”

(do note that I was really pushing one particular side of that prayer)

God didn’t speak to me in a booming voice. He didn’t write on the wall. He didn’t split the sky.

I just felt like I was supposed to stay in home schooling.

Now, if you know me, and you know how I am…you know that if I really want something, I’m going to do everything I can to make it happen.

So the fact that I felt to stay with home schooling…was a pretty big deal.

So, I told my parents what I’d decided. I think they were relieved, though they didn’t say so.

Ever since then, I’ve been scared. Call it lack of faith, I’ll admit that it was. But I had this nagging fear, that until recently I never admitted…to anyone, that I was going to be stupid. That I was going to miss something really important, and never get where I wanted to go in life.

I made straight As all through high school, but…I was home schooled. In my mind, every time I got a paper back and had gotten an A, I’d think..”Yeah, but if I was in public school, it probably wouldn’t have gotten an A.”

It effected the way I did everything. It was a mentality that I let myself get in. It wasn’t a inferiority complex, but it effected me much like one would.

I thought I was stupid.

I honestly thought I was stupid. Those of you who know me, are probably laughing right now. I didn’t act like I thought I was stupid, but I really did.

Then, toward the end of last year, I went through some personal stuff. Just…a low point. A spiritual shaking. Not just one thing, but it seemed like a lot of things just went…really wrong. I didn’t feel safe anywhere. My faith was being shaken, and I was really needing something to remind me that I wasn’t alone in this world. I needed something to remind me that He cared about me. I’m not getting off the point, I’m building up.

( And none of this is meant to be dramatic. I’m not throwing a pity party. I’m just leading up to a bigger story.)

Then, a lot of good things happened at once. I was offered a really, really good job. A part-time job where I can get off for just about any church meeting I want. I work with really good people, in a good environment.

The catch: I had to get my GED.

Uh-oh.

Guess what I did? I prayed, again.

I prayed that He’d tell me what I should do. But He didn’t. He was silent, as it often seems that God is.

So then I prayed: “Lord, if you want me to take this job, I’m going to need your help. I can’t do this by myself. You know I can’t…”

Then, I felt to read the story of Peter…when he walked on the water. An ultimate story of faith.

I read it, and I went to pray again. This time, I prayed, “Lord, I’m stepping out of the boat. I’m taking a risk. I’m putting myself out there. I’m not telling you to let me walk on the water, I’m just begging you to not let me drown. If I can’t walk on water, help me back into the boat.”

So, I stepped out on faith. I called and set up testing at the Adult Education center. They told me to come in Monday, and do some pre-testing to see if I needed assistance in any subjects. Greeeattt…but I went.

On the way to the testing center that morning, my stomach was in knots.

But I went. I went, and I tested. And when they checked the tests that I finished, my instructor, a wonderful lady named Delia, came and told me that she was speechless.

I’m thinking, “that bad?”

My test scores were impressively good. Not me…I didn’t do it. He did it. But they were really good.

Thank God.

The next day, as I was driving back to the test center, to take the next round of placement tests and such, I started listening to some tapes that Nikki gave me forever ago. It was a speaker talking about how he had been home schooled, and when he got older, the Lord blessed the stands he chose to make in his life.

He said something that I couldn’t shake:

(paraphrasing)

“Home schoolers are always so scared when they graduate because they are terrified that when they get out in the world, they’re not going to ‘fit in’. Let me tell you something, this world cannot survive another generation of Christian young people who ‘fit in’.”

Whhheeewww…

Let’s just say, my step going into that testing center had an extra bounce to it that morning.

The Lord was with me all week that week. My scores were very, very good. My instructors were tickled with my tests. Some of them were even questioning me about home schooling, and asked if I would suggest it.

I met with a lady about college classes (yes, college classes) and she was talking financial aid, grants, loans, scholarships, etc. She was mid-sentence, stopped, looked up at me, and said “Your momma’s a good lady.” I asked her what she meant by that, and she said “You would not be who you are today if you hadn’t been home schooled. Your momma and daddy did a good job. I want you to tell them I said so.”

That night, I was sitting in my room reading, and I kept thinking about everything that was happening.

It hit me.

God was blessing my obedience.

God…was….He was blessing me for obeying His gentle nudge to stay in home school.

When I made that decision, I made the right one.

Whew….

And…I….I wasn’t stupid.

Talk about a life changing realization.

And not only that, but the social part. The social part of high school that I thought I’d be missing when I decided not to join public school, yeah, this was when it hit me that I didn’t really miss anything. God blessed me with some of the best friends in the world. I have “high school” friends. Granted, we didn’t sit next to each other in Science lab or join cheer leading together, but my best friends and I have memories and inside jokes. We’ve had sleepovers and late night hear-to-hearts. When something major happens (daily) I have a whole list of girls I can call. I didn’t miss any of that.

I took my GED, and I passed it with flying colors. I’ve since taken my ACT, and scored better than I could have hoped (though I did cry after the math section). I’m working. I’m actually really enjoying working, by the way. I’ve been accepted for a $1,000 scholarship, and I’m in the process of signing up for college classes for this fall semester.

Can I get an “Oh, my, gosh.”?

I’m not even 18 yet.

God has blessed me more than I deserve, and His blessings are continually flowing. I don’t deserve it….

At The Top Of My Lungs

My niece plays soft ball. Every summer for the past, gosh, I don’t know, five summers maybe, I’ve gone to game after game after never ending game. We’re talking little league. The whole thing: screaming parents, out of control children, concession stand food, gallons of power aid, the ding of bats hitting soft balls and usually at least one girl would randomly burst into tears. Gosh, what’s not to love?

Anyway, softball really isn’t my point. But hang in there, I’m getting to my point.

Believe it or not, I actually liked it. I’m not a huge sports girl, but I liked watching my niece knock them out of the park. (No, not literally, it’s a figure of speech, keep up people.)

When you’re in the last inning, the other team is up to bat, two outs, their star player stalks haughtily up to the plate, just knowing she’s going to win the game and be named MVP of the week or whatever, and you hear the gut-wrenching sound of the bat making massive impact with the ball, your eyes dart back and forth between the girl- who is now booking it towards first, and the ball, that has yet to make contact with ground or glove. Just when your eyes locate the ball, spiraling down to earth with incredible speed, your teams star player (my niece, but of course) catches the ball in her worn glove before it touches the ground, getting the other girl out.

So you’re not going to just sit there and go, “Oh, wow, that was pretty neat. Keep up the good work, girls,” are you?!

I think not.

At least, I’m not. I’m a screamer. And a clapper. And on occasion a jumper, but it takes a good play to make me jump.

Case in point, you make your excitement known to not only the entire crowd of equally excited fans surrounding you, but also the other teams very bummed out fans across the field. It’s only natural.

I even wear the tee shirt, know the cheers, and have, on occasion, helped with the score board. I’m not obsessed, and it doesn’t bother me to miss games, but I like to show “team spirit”. But hey, that’s okay, right?

But please, allow me to paint a much more exciting scene for you, shall I?

You’re sitting in church, a brother gets up and does an amazing job of giving his testimony of how he was delivered and freed from addictions and lifestyles that had him so bound he was miserable and alone.

You feel your Holy Ghost stirring in that certain place somewhere between your stomach and your throat where it physically seems to reside.

He’s got tears streaming down his face, he’s shouting through the tears, “I’M FREE! I’M FREE! HE SET ME FREE!” and you feel the impact and the truth in every word that he speaks. He’s made a connection, and you’re pumped. God is good! Hey, God is GREAT!

So how do you show that you whole-heartily agree with the brother who is speaking? How do you show that you know God is great? How do you show your appreciation and your excitement?

A very quiet, “Amen,” and a head nod.

Pathetic.

Oh, don’t be offended, I don’t know if you do this too, this was basically me telling you what I’ve done. Actually, that’s a lie, there was no ”basically” about it. I HAVE done both of those things.

So I’m pathetic.

Glad I cleared that up.

Why do I do this?

Ugh! I want to be as more on fire for God than I am for the Butler Co. little league softball team.

For one thing, God is awesome.

The little league team . . . *cough* not so much. (No offense, I’m just saying.)

But I’ve dedicated my life to God . . . numerous times in fact. How many times have I said “God, I give my life to You. I’m Yours. I choose You. In a world of lust and lies and evil, I choose God.”

And how many times have I told Him, “I want to be a light for You. I want to draw men unto You! I want to be the salt of the earth!”

Yet, how many times have I allowed that fire to be covered. How many times have I been “Jesus happy”, and I choose to not show it. I choose to just nod and say my simple ‘amen’.

Why do I do this?

And my question (to myself) is, if I’m not willing to be excited right now, when will I be? If I am not comfortable in my own home church, where basically everyone there has known me most . . . if not all of my life, where would I be comfortable being on fire for Christ? If I can’t stand up and express myself in front of people who agree with me, how do I expect myself to stand before the masses of disbelievers and confidently confess my beliefs?

How can I claim to be sold out for Christ, if I’m holding so much of myself back?

How can I tell him I love him, if I can’t tell the world that I love him?

And how can I tell the world that I love him, if I can’t tell my brothers and sisters how much I love him?

Basically, the point I’m attempting to make is, how can I claim to be a Christian when I express myself more at a little league game than I do in church.

Ouch. Typing that out hurt a little.

Why am I wearing little league tee shirts and not WWJD shirts?

Why do I know all the cheers for my team, but I am still unable to quote many very important verses that I should have long since commented to memory?

Is this a display of my priorities?

Lord, I hope not.

I can’t claim to be His when I allow worldly entertainment to excite me more outwardly than I do Him and His spirit.

I desire to be the one who’s not ashamed to stand before the crowds and yell at the top of their lungs “I LOVE JESUS!”, rather than the timid person in the back of the room whispering to herself “So do I.”

My music teacher (the incredible Nichole Peters) has told me time and time again, if you make a connection with the music, you can’t help but show it, and your audience can’t help but feel it.

So I wonder, if I make a significantly greater connection with Christ, will I be able to keep from showing it, and will the world be able to keep from being moved by it?

Is my problem, perhaps, not a lack of confidence, but a lack of inspiration?

Is my issue not really timidity, but rather a lack of gusto for Christ.

I think I would prefer backwardness.

Actually, I’m quite sure I would.

I will be working on this in the future. I have a feeling it’s going to be an ongoing, long term job, but that’s okay, because if I’ve learned nothing else of Jesus over my almost 17 years of life, I do know He’s patient. (Thank goodness, right?)

Who Defines Beauty?

It makes me sick the pressure that young girls go through. I count myself in the category, because I’ve yet to discover the place where the  ’pressure’ ends. I’m praying that it does. I just read something that got me fired up. I was doing some random research, and I came across an article that was about Barbie. Now, as a little girl I had a favorite Barbie. I remember her perfectly, from her long, soft blond hair, her big blue eyes, her ‘perfect’ body, all the way to what I named her– Nicole. I played with her just about any time I wasn’t outside running around barefooted, so not every day but pretty often. I remember thinking that she was so beautiful and how one day, when I was older, I wanted to look just like her.

I outgrew the Barbie stage, but I think the mentality sticks, at least a little. 

Which is why this shocked me so much. If Barbie were a real person:

Fact: If Barbie were a real woman-She would have to grow to be seven feet tall. She would have a bust that was between 38-40 inches, her waist 18-24 inches, her hips around 33-35 inches. Barbie’s weight would be 110 pounds. If she were a real woman-Barbie would have to walk on all fours due to her proportions.

This site also mentioned that Barbie would wear a shoe size three in childrens, and that she would have had to have back surgery from being so ‘top heavy’.

The world’s warped view of beauty seeps into my life in ways I never even realize. It’s not just Barbie dolls and Ken dolls (you should have read the article on that, guys!) but it’s also magazine covers and make up ads. It’s everything from television commercials to billboards. Other people’s view of beauty is pounded into my mind every day. Who do people think they are?

How are the young girls dealing with the pressure? Well, here is something I found on eating disorders:

Statistics on anorexia show that between 1 – 5% of all female adolescents and young women are anorexic.  The average age of onset is 17.  It is rare, but not unheard of, for children under the age of 10 to have the condition.  Older woman can have it as well, although it is usually diagnosed in the teens or twenties.  Anorexic statistics show that it is very rarely diagnosed after the age of 40.

Anorexia is much more prevalent in western culture than in non-western countries.  Some believe this has to do with the media in western society, which portrays thin women as beautiful and desirable.  Anorexic statistics do not tell us for certain, however.  It should be noted that anorexia statistics do show that anorexia and other eating disorders seem to be on the rise in non-western countries, possibly due to more exposure to western media and culture.

This is what they’re doing to our young ladies. This is what the ‘barbie doll mentality’ is causing to happen to our youth. Don’t pretend you can’t be effected by it. Maybe you’re a guy, maybe older and don’t feel the pull, but your sister might, or your niece, or your girlfriend. What about your daughter, or grand daughter? They feel it. They may not be anorexic, but they feel the pull. Believe me, they feel it more than they let show. They probably feel it more than they even know.

My thing has always been my eyes. I hate my eyes. Okay, so I don’t ‘hate’ them, but I used to. I have brown eyes. Oh, are you waiting for more? Like, ‘they’re caramel brown with green flecks of gorgeous color”? Well, they aren’t like that. They’re just. . . brown. I’ve learned to deal with it, but my lifelong desire was blue eyes. AH! When I was a little girl, that’s what I wanted more than anything. I loved blue eyes– still do, actually. I remember, distinctly, watching a news report or a television show or something when I was little. It was a beautiful blond woman talking. She was saying how she was just sooo thankful for her blond hair and blue eyes, because, as she said, “no guy wants a boring brunette with dull, ugly brown eyes”. Well, that’s how I saw myself then–the ugly brunette girl with plain brown eyes.

Simple, I know. Shallow, oh, I am well aware of that. But it haunted me for years. I’ve just recently got to the place where, it’s okay. I know I don’t have gorgeous eyes, and I’ve learned to deal with it. If some shallow guy passes me by because I’m not a blond haired, blue eyed barbie doll . . . well, I’m probably better off without him.

But not everyone has what I had that made me snap out of my mentality. Not everyone knows that God made them just the way they are, and that He thinks they’re beautiful. Not everyone knows that Jesus chose to die, for them, because He loved them, just as they are. Not everyone knows that, but they need to, because when I realized that, my weight or height or eye color seemed so tiny. When I stepped back and thought about the fact that the Son of God left Heaven to be tortured for something He did not do, and that He did that for me, because He loved me- just as I am, it make ‘just as I am’ seem a like an amazing compliment.

Someone sent me a piece of flair on Facebook the other day that said: “You were born an original, don’t die a copy.” I think that’s fitting. God made me for a purpose, just as I am. To ask Him to change me physically is like asking an author to re-write the ending of his best selling book. It’s utterly insulting to God when I do that. It makes me think of Amy Carmichael. If you’ve never heard that story, go look it up. I won’t attempt to convey it on here, but I can say that it’s changed my life since I read it in school a few years ago. The principal of that story is so touching, but also she was praying for blue eyes, much like myself, so it convicted me on a very personal level.  Who am I to ask God to change my eyes when maybe, just maybe, He has a bigger plan than that? It’s like on the movie A Walk To Remember, when Jamie, the main character, says: “I think God had a bigger plan for me than I had for myself.” I think He does, and who do I think I am to limit Him? If God has a plan, why would I want to step in and take it into my own hands? Have I not learned by now that my attempts fail the majority of the time, whereas God, in His infinite wisdom, has yet to come across a problem He was unable to correct or an issue He couldn’t solve?

There are several versions of this verse that I love:

“And we, out of all creation, became his prized possession.” -James 1:18 (NLT)

“There is nothing deceitful in God, nothing two-faced, nothing fickle. He brought us to life using the true Word, showing us off as the crown of all his creatures.” -James 1:18 (The Message)

“And it was of His own [free] will that He gave us birth [as sons] by [His] Word of Truth, so that we should be a kind of firstfruits of His creatures [a sample of what He created to be consecrated to Himself].” -James 1:18 (Amplified Bible)

He loves me just as I am. And more than that, He made me– just as I am, and I am His “prized possession”, and the “crown of all His creatures”. How great is is to just be me!

This is reality.

Recently the Lord has been dealing with me on this certain topic – and when I say ‘dealing with me’ , I mean there’s this nagging feeling in the pit of my stomach and this topic keeps reoccurring in everything I read, watch, listen to, think about, hear about, etc. So truly, the Lord has been annoying me with this, but it’s all cool, because I love Him.

Surface Christianity.

See, there it is again. In all seriousness though, it’s haunting me. Every time I go to do something recently, it’s like there is a little voice saying “Tristan, don’t be a surface christian”. Every time I hear that, or feel it would be the more accurate way to explain it, I have to stop and check myself. I don’t want to be a christian on parade. I don’t want it to all be show, and none of it reach my heart and affect my soul. I don’t want to look like a christian on the outside, but the inside be corrupted and corroded with so much of the world that the Lord is displeased. If I gain the whole world’s good opinion of me, but the Lord is ashamed, what have I to show for my work at the end of the day . . . or at the end of my life? 

 I know, my God, that you test the heart and are pleased with integrity.. ~1 Chronicles 29:17 (NIV)

Everyone who knows me knows that I despise fake people, therefor the thought of being one of ‘those people’ scares me to death. It is my earnest desire to be a true Christ follower, one whose ways and lifestyle has Jesus Christ emanating from it like a God-glow. I want to be His child, His follower, His disciple. I want Him to be the love of my life, my father, my hero, my everything. I so greatly desire for my life to be pleasing in His sight. I so long for my heart to be right, so that it shows in my whole demeanor and outlook, yet somehow I feel that all too often I want to clean up the outside, make sure I look the part, and expect that to change the inside– like it’s going to soak through my skin and change who I am on the core. When I take on this mentality, I feel like I am an ogre in kings clothes; I’m still ugly and nasty, but I’m sporting a respectable garb.

I want the way I worship the Lord to be a direct result of my convictions. I want my methods to be the influenced by the way I feel closest to the Lord, not the way I choose to show everyone else that I’m close to Him. If I feel close to the Lord when I hide in my closet in the dark and pray, rather than in front of a multitude of people in a showy manner, so be it. If I feel like I’m supposed to donate all of my money to the church . . . in an anonymous check, rather than a public donation, that’s what I want to do. I feel that it’s time for me to check myself, and my intentions, and say “Are you doing this for God, or for yourself?”  

If I go through my life dedicating my every hour and every thought to God, and nobody notices or gives me credit, that’s okay, right? Why is it when I even think about that, it hurts. The thought that I could strive my hardest without anyone noticing goes against my nature, not necessarily because I’m a showy person– because I would like to believe that I’m not– but because I’m not against the occasional pat on the back or congratulations. Everyone knows that after a long days work, someone saying “That was well done,” feels awesome. I just have to remind myself that the highest praise I could ever receive is “Well done, my good and faithful servant,”. Maybe that will remind me that I don’t want my walk with God to be based on such fickle and shallow thoughts, because a servant who serves for ulterior motives is not a good nor a faithful servant.

I would not appreciate it much if my parents or siblings only spent time with me to make other people like them. I’ve had friends who have done that– befriended me only to raise their social stature– and needless to say, we aren’t friends anymore. It would hurt, wouldn’t it? If my daddy came up to me today and said “I only gave you all that time and love and devotion these 16 years to make myself look like a good father. Had nobody been looking, I would have kicked you out a long time ago,” I would be so devistated. I love my dad, so naturally I want him to love me too, for the right reasons. 

God loves me.

He doesn’t want me to spend time with Him for any other reason than, I love Him, and He is positively vital to my life. I can’t live without God. He doesn’t want me to love Him for fickle reasons any more than I want my dad or mom to love me for monetary gain or social stance. 

So if I’m a surface christian, I’m hurting God. 

Ouch. 

That hurts me to think about. It makes me want to scream at the top of my lungs “I LOVE YOU, GOD! Oh, God, I love you so much! I’m so sorry!” And don’t misunderstand me, I have done just that before . . . many times. Yet, I find myself hurting Him, again. I look up to see I’m going down this path, once more. I’m so thankful that He’s still merciful and patient enough to show me that I’m messing up.

I’m so glad He loves me even when I’m an idiot, because if He didn’t He wouldn’t love me very often, at all.

I wrote this just a few days ago, while thinking along these very thoughts:

Jesus, I want to be real

I want to say what I say and feel what I feel

In you, for you, because of you

Not because of what other people think or what other people do

Because other people may or may not be right

And when worse comes to worse, and it’s time for the fight

They aren’t the ones who are there when I call

When push comes to shove, I can’t count on them all

So pleasing the crowd just doesn’t make sense

Especially when pleasing the crowd means riding the fence

Between what you want and what they want to see

And when pleasing them all, means losing me

I want you to be reality in my life

Where if everything else failed, fell apart, burst in flames before my eyes

Two things, constantly, would be unscathed

And those two things, Lord, let them be you, and my unyeilding, undying, unwavering faith.

I want you, Jesus, if nothing else stands

I want to be beside you, walking hand in hand.

 

I believe in God even when He is silent.

I must first warn you all, my posts will be sporadic at best. These are just the ramblings of my overactive mind, and so when my overactive mind calms for a while, my posts will begin to be less common. Everyone needs a breather every once in a while, right?

I guess what I should say next is, God is so awesome. That is the universal truth that I have found is never failing and never wavering. As I get older (I know, I’m only 16 right now, but give me some credit where credit is due, I haven’t always been 16.), I begin to realize that it’s not always easy to remember how great our God truly is. Sometimes I forget, not because it’s any less true than it ever has been or ever will be, but because the season I’m going through in my life seems to sing a different song. Not a song of “How Great is Our God” or “Great Is His Faithfulness”, but rather a melancholy melody. But what I’m begining to see is, the resounding song of my life should always be “How Great Is Our God!”. My life should always proclaim his might and his power, and his loving faithfulness should never escape my mind. 

I wish it were always that easy.

Sometimes, God seems to be silent. Sometimes it’s something He’s doing to test my faith. But sometimes, I’ve found, it’s something that I’ve caused. I’m afraid most of the time, I cause the silence, not God. 

This fact does not keep me from complaining though.  Quite the contrary, when it is a self-inflicted silence, I seem to complain more. I never want to take the guilt on myself, so I find someone else to place it on. I know, it’s completely wrong.

But the times when God is silent because He chooses to be are hard too. The trying of faith is never an easy affair. I want to come to the place where when God is silent, it never wavers my unfailing trust in him. I want to be the person who can proclaim “God has never failed me!”, and have no selfish hesitation. God has truly never failed me. It reminds me of Psalms 37:25 where it says “Once I was young, and now I am old. Yet I have never seen the godly abandoned or their children begging for bread.” (NIV) What a great promise!  

It also reminds me of this quote:

“I believe in the sun even when it is not shinning. I believe in love even when I do not feel it. I believe in God even when He is silent.“

I was privileged enough to see Barlow Girl perform “I Believe In Love” live on my 16th birthday, and they told the story behind the song, and the quote. It’s amazing, so I decided to post a video of them giving the same story and singing the song.