| Back to Taylor...one last time.I'm writing again...mostly for Kim who never has phone service : )
I leave for Taylor tomorrow morning. It will be my last time making the trek from my summer location to the new home I've found at TU. Don't worry, I'm not going to get all nostalgic on you, but I am healthily aware of what this school has meant to me...the people who have impacted my life are now irreplacable and it becomes...interesting to think of a future without seeing them every day. I will have an easier time adjusting to life after college than most for two reasons...first, my best friend graduated in May and is now in Kenya until January, so I will get my first taste of transition from her absense at Taylor...second, I only really have one semester left of classes and then I will be heading to Indianapolis for the entire second semester to do my practicum. I will live in my own apartment (with three other social work majors), buy my own food, pay for utilities out of my own pocket, and learn how to dive into a relationship with the Lord that doesn't depend on fifty different seminars, chapel services, or small group opportunities a week. I'm not trying to downplay the vitality of those ministries in my life, I'm just acknowledging that soon they will not be available to me at my fingertips. It'll be...growing. All in all, I'm not dreaming my days away by looking into the future...don't worry, the most exciting thought that has been running through my head these last few weeks is the joy of meeting new freshman on Sunday that will be living on my wing. This semester will be great...I can't wait.
To prep you on the summer a little bit...it was the best one of my life. I was challenged in my faith in ways I have never known before. I was terrified at times, anxious, fearful, excited, frustrated, and tense...but I learned about grace. Despite growing up in the church...or maybe because of it...I've heard all of the thoughts against legalism, but I've never realized the actuality of the legalism present in so many of our churches...or even more in the body of Christ. I learned this summer that the point of grace is that I can't do anything on my own to earn any favor in the eyes of the Lord. I could sit on my hind end for the remainder of my life...do nothing...just sit...and He would love me just as much the day He called me home as the day I claimed repentance. Of course that's not ever the goal...nor the reality for those who fall in love with the Lord...once you know the truth there's no way you can just sit...at least in my experience and the experiences of those I've seen take the leap in my life. But I found over the summer that I get so wrapped up in the "do's" and "dont's" of morality and so-called 'faith' that I desire to live in...that I don't accept grace at all. Somehow I get wrapped up in thinking that I can earn the Lord's favor or avoid His 'disappointment' by doing what is right...being in the Word more...avoiding sin here or there. What an exhausting life to live...it's not life at all. The freedom of grace is the understanding that the pursuit of Christ is not based on myself (praise God) and the futility of my sin was taken care of at the cross. It was all wiped away then and there. The freedom of a life with Christ does not mean the freedom to sin...no, not at all, but rather the freedom from the turmoil of deciding what sin is more or less...what sin is right or wrong...or is it sin at all. No, no...that's the point. Grace has allowed us to live in pursuit of holiness...not in the fear of punishment. Besides, if we knew...at all...what perfect love looks like, I'm pretty sure our trivial and finite worries of the day would be wiped away from our thoughts...but how perfect that we have a Father who does love us perfectly...and even cares about those trivial, finite fears.
I love Bethany Dillon...my favorite singer/songwriter who does write almost all of her music. I love hearing her explain what inspired her songs and I've included that inspiration below for one of my very favorites, her song called, "Imagination."
"I felt so nomadic after close to a year of traveling. ‘Journey’ had become a much deeper, richer reality in my life. I had seen things in the world and in myself, both good and bad, that I never noticed before. I was struggling daily with pride and insecurity, homesickness and loneliness… the burden of picking up your cross and following Jesus. And as a result, it produced a new hunger for redemption in me.
One afternoon I was in my room and decided to take a stab at the unfinished music again. And in a matter of minutes, the story that I had been longing to tell was somehow scribbled down on the pages of my journal. It’s so amazing to know that that was only the beginning; throughout the entire writing process God provided over and over in the most mysterious and unpredictable ways.
And from that one, simple song came the rest. What I decided to call “Imagination” was finished, and it then seemed like God had begun to flesh out the vision for the rest of the project.
The road between the first record and the second lead me through wildernesses of fear and doubt, climbing up mountains of questions and uncertainty, and to the edge of the most overwhelming freedom.
“Remind me why you woke me up/And why you wake me every morn/The staff in my hand/Held in by your love/Just stay close, stay close…”
God’s unearthly grace and immeasurable love for us has lead to this point… it’s been the heartbeat of this whole record. My desire is that it would be a story of hope—one that paints a brutally and beautifully honest picture of what it really is to live by faith." |
