Do you ever feel pressured to have it all put together? Or maybe you feel lost, like you just don’t understand where you’re at in life right now? I can’t pretend to know exactly what you’re going through, but I know that we have all probably felt overwhelmed, confused, and stressed by life at one time or another. I have for sure felt that way many times before!! In those times, I catch myself only journaling or spending time with God when I feel like I’m getting my life back together. As if I have to have my thoughts organized before I even open my journal or Bible. This is completely backwards. Actually, journaling and writing things down help me to process so much better than just trying to think through things all in my head. And going to the Bible? Infinitely more helpful than trying to do things on my own. So why do I keep trying to do life on my own? (okay, that’s a rhetorical question, but the answer is that I’m imperfect and sinful and I mess up) In my personal life, I have found that the moment that I let go of that pressure to have it all together, that is when I am most open to seeing God move. Not only is there a freedom from the pressure/stress to have it all together, followed by a release of emotions, but also a sort of acknowledgement of where I am at. I accept that I do not have to have it organized or put together, and that allows me to be real about life. {Real with myself, real in my journal, and then real with God.} Sometimes the first step for me is just putting thoughts on paper. That can be hard, because I do not want to remember my darkest moments. But, once I recognize and write down what I am feeling, that can lead to the next step of praying through it. I have to recognize my demons before I can fight them. I have to let the emotions out, in order to let God in and let Him work. There is a sort of beauty in that exchange. Unleashing a flood of feelings onto paper. Unfiltered. Unrestrained. Then our Father, with His arms open so wide, takes me just as I am, all of those thoughts and feelings. Even when I feel lost, confused, and cannot even begin to understand what I am feeling: He knows, He understands, and He loves me right where I am at. This process is still something I am learning. But every time that I’ve chosen to be honest and real with myself and with God, I have seen Him move so clearly. [“What seem our worst prayers may really be, in God's eyes, our best. Those, I mean, which are least supported by devotional feeling. For these may come from a deeper level than feeling. God sometimes seems to speak to us most intimately when he catches us, as it were, off our guard.” C.S. Lewis] So, I want to stop holding it all in, stop trying to figure life out, stop trying to have everything together. Let us commit, before God and with each other, to BE REAL. Real with ourselves, real with what we’re feeling, and real in our brokenness, so then we can experience real life and have real encounters with a very real God. To truly live life to the fullest, we need to let ourselves fully feel everything. To let Him move, we have to open our heart and open our lives. To really follow Jesus through it all, we need to let Him into the messy moments too: the highs and the lows, the good and the bad, the dark and the light. [“But He said to me, ‘My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.’ Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me.” 2 Corinthians 12:9] I don’t want to live from one “Jesus moment” to the next, fun adventure to fun adventure, good laugh to good laugh, loving hug to loving hug. I want to embrace the in betweens. Because why block out the parts of life we don’t love? Though they’re not “fun” or “happy,” that does not mean that God stops moving. He is working. And always working for good. We are His children. That doesn’t stop. He is a loving Father. That never stops. So in the bad moments, we should not stop living. We should not stop praying. We should not stop being who we are. Identity in Him is not dependent on circumstances, His love is not dependent on circumstances, and His goodness is not dependent on circumstances. Keep walking in the Spirit, as a child of God, though circumstances may change. Keep pursuing your passions, keep praying, keep loving others, keep going: through the changing seasons, and the ups and downs of daily life. And, do not be afraid to write things down. Maybe that’s not your thing as much as it is mine, but I think it’s nice to have a record to look back on. No, I don’t love looking back on my darkest moments. But I do love seeing how God was faithful to me through them, and how He used those hard times to make me even stronger than I was before. So every once in awhile, I challenge you to write something down. Then maybe, just maybe, one day you’ll need a reminder of who God is and how he works, and you’ll have a physical record of that from your own life. It’s truly amazing to look back on how far I’ve come, and know that there is hope along the future horizon, even if it seems so far off that it’s practically invisible. Light is always shining, hope is worth it, and there is good to be found right here. I hope that this encourages you in your walk with Jesus, no matter where you’re at. Whatever you’re going through: write it down, pray about it, share it with a friend. And feel free to contact me with any questions, comments, or prayer requests!!
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AuthorHi! My name is Rachel Schoeff, and I'm a college student in Cleveland, Ohio. With this blog, I aspire to share a little bit of what God is doing in my life, and use that to inspire others. We're all messy people, and we're never going to be perfect, but I hope that, together, we can all learn to embrace being "perfectly in progress." Archives
August 2019
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