In the Youtube-Facebook-Twitter etc. world we live in, it is easy to get 100 likes because you finished a paper, bought a Christmas tree, or heard a meaningful quote and passed it alone.  It seems we have grown accustomed to living our lives through social media and the praise it brings.  Sometimes it looks like this..

FB Status Update: Today I ran 5 miles.

FB Response: 25 likes; comments like “Go girl”- “You rock”- “The only way I am running is if something is chasing me”- “love this” etc..

This month, my wonderfully lovely group of Bible study girls is fasting from media.  The consensus so far is.. this is hard. And we spend a lot of time on social media. A LOT.  So brutal honesty time, my (embarrassingly) typical morning routine..

Get up. 
Check Facebook.
Work out.
Check Facebook.
Shower. 
Check Facebook.
Drive to work.
Check Facebook. 

Did you notice a trend? How much has really gone on in FB world between 9:30pm and 5 am?? I can assure you, not much.  But I guess I never noticed how truly tied to Facebook I was until we embarked on our media fast. All of a sudden, I have all this extra time in the morning, during the day, and in the evening! I am more productive and ahead on all my final school projects.  However, beyond my slight addiction to Facebook, something far deeper has stood out to me.

I crave the validation Facebook brings.  I miss feeling like people care because 25 people liked my status or commented on a picture.  At what point did I start to base my feeling of self-worth on a dumb social media website? When did I decide my life needed to be validated by social media? Ironically, it doesn’t bother me that my average blog post gets about 2 hits. But if my FB status only got 2 likes, oh the tragedy!! (ok..that was a joke..kinda)  

One of my favorite verses is Zephaniah 3:17 which says, “The Lord your God is in your midst, a mighty one who will save; he will rejoice over you with gladness; he will quiet you by his love; he will exult over you with loud singing.“

What more validation do we need aside from the fact the Lord is singing over us with gladness? He cares about our needs, knows the number of hairs on our head, and surely understands the triumph of finishing a grad school paper or the devastation of disappointing news.  How often do we run to Him in prayer first? How much deeper would our relationships be if we picked up the phone to share exciting news or asked a friend to pray with us instead of posting it to FB? This is not to completely discount the value of social media. I think it does have a place and probably isn’t going anywhere as a fixture of society.  However, the craving for validation it creates is not healthy and displaces where our identity lies.  I am beloved of the Savior of the universe. He rejoices over me. And that is far better than 10,000 Facebook likes!

So while my month of fasting is only 5 days in, I am not sure this is going to be a fast I quit. I may modify it at the end, but I am not sure I will re-install FB on my phone and I am going to make more of an effort to share my triumphs and heartaches with actual people,  not a computer screen.  Perhaps you will too. Maybe this holiday season is a good time to distance ourselves from social media and to embrace holiday gatherings, family, and friends.

Sometimes, when you get exactly what you want, you have to step back and remember that..you got exactly what you wanted.  

This lesson is sometimes painful to swallow.

Enter life lately.

My previous employment had gone downhill quickly and I was anxious for a way out. I wanted a new job. Apparently, in my mind, this would fix all the problems in my life and make everything ok.

Note to self: Don’t listen to your mind. Sometimes it tells awful lies.

Thus, when I did land a new job it was anything but a fix to all of life’s problems. In fact, the past two months have been two of the hardest I have had in a while.  It seems God is testing and trying my faith on every level imaginable and some days, I just want to throw up my hands and give up.

Somewhere in my grand scheme I did not anticipate the fact that starting a new job, finishing a master’s degree, and planning a wedding would be so overwhelming. Or stressful. Or expensive. However, bigger than those issues, I also did not take into consideration that God’s plan for my life may be drastically different then the one I had in mind.

Herein lies the ultimate struggle. I believe God is in control and I was praying hard for a new job. I also know I did not get a job offer on any of my own merits. It was completely God orchestrating the entire scenario. But it is not the scenario I had in mind. As I spend my days reading about utilities, I wonder what God is trying to teach me. I wonder why God would place my adventurous, broken-for-the-least-of-these heart in the midst of corporate America in a town far from adventurous. While I dream of traveling the world and solving the injustices out there, I actually spend my days researching net metering or solar power or why such and such electric company did this or that (I know, you are all so intrigued by my line of work).

Today though, God brought me back to Jeremiah 29:11- “For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord, plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.”  Have you ever read the next verse? It says, “Then you will call on me and come and pray to me, and I will listen to you.” Check out the first word- Then.  I am not a Bible scholar, but that word stood out to me today. God has a plan for my future, He has told me that. So what then am I supposed to do? I am supposed to call on Him and pray and know that He is listening.   Somewhere in the busyness of a new job, school, and a wedding, I forgot the most important thing. I forgot to stop, pray, and listen. I failed to realize what I viewed as a wrong turn was God’s glorious plan being lived out in my life. It was my chance to cast all my cares on Him and trust He knows my heart and He has a plan.

Right now, I do not understand His plan. I don’t have the answers to the questions nagging in my heart. But I don’t have to understand to pray, listen, and trust in His ways which is exactly what I plan to do.

Today is Thursday which is becoming my favorite day every other week thanks to my small group of 6am Bible study girls.  As I mentioned previously, we are reading through the book  Seven by Jen Hatmaker.  It is a journey into the excess of our culture and a mission to cut down, cut out, and focus in on those places where discomfort lies and where the Holy Spirit moves.

This month the focus is on the food we eat. In that, each of us has chosen an area in which to fast and limit ourselves as an exercise in self-control and in laser focus.  For me it is cutting out processed food and cutting down on the amount of food I waste. It’s an “eat clean and eat it all” fast. As I told my girls this morning, I am the queen of “if it comes individually wrapped, I eat it.”

However, what is quickly becoming overwhelmingly obvious is the heart behind both Jen’s book and our group.  Yes this month the focus is on the food we eat and limiting ourselves in that area, but the bigger idea is allowing room in our culture of excess for the Holy Spirit to sustain us. Which led to a question Jen asks in the first few pages of the book that has been constantly running through my mind.

Is Jesus Enough?

In it all, in the struggle, the hunger, the giving up of excess, are we trusting that Jesus is enough? Are we willing to step out and allow Him to fill the areas of desire with His love? We chose Isaiah 58 as our scripture focus for this month and there is a verse in there that stuck out to me today for the first time. It is Isaiah 58:11-“And the Lord will guide you continually and satisfy your desire in scorched places and make your bones strong; and you shall be like a watered garden, like a spring of water, whose waters do not fail.”

Did you catch that?  The Lord will satisfy your desires. He will be ENOUGH. In the scorched places, insert -in this world with its ever-increasing focus on “More, more, more!”- Jesus will be enough.  So to my council as we are calling ourselves, remember, Jesus is enough. He will be enough through this journey, through the hard times, the good times, the times when “we get funny looks,” and the times when we sit alone with Him.   For you, my reader, remember today, Jesus is enough in whatever you are going through.

God works in incredible ways. I am constantly amazed by how He orchestrates every perfect detail of life. And one of my personal goals for the fall is to write more for fun. I spend a lot of time writing research papers and discussion board threads, but writing for pleasure is a much better stress release. 🙂

For as long as I can remember, I have been a morning person. I love getting up early. I love the peace and quiet of the morning. I get my best thinking and work done before most people are awake. And for the longest time, I have been longing for a small group to meet with in the morning.  This week over lunch, I mentioned this to a friend and she said, I am meeting with a group of women at 6am one day a week, you can join us.  I could have cried. Her invitation was music to my ears.  Because, if I am honest, my spiritual life is the one area lacking lately. I am so busy with school, a new job, planning a wedding, working on fundraisers, volunteering, and exercising there just isn’t much time for anything else.  But mornings are good for me and accountability is exactly what I need.

We started a book called Seven: An Experimental Mutiny Against Excess by Jen Hatmaker. I can already tell you I am going to have a very love-hate relationship with this book, but it will provide the catalyst to my goal to write more.  As I begin the journey of eliminating excess from my life, I am not sure what it will look like. Our little group is just trying to get our bearings right now before we attempt anything too radical.   I can tell you after one week, I believe God brought these women into my life at the exact right time and that this book is not a coincidence. It was a God-ordained appointment with my soul.  So I will leave you with my prayer as I head into this study and an invitation to follow along over the next few months.

Jesus, may there be less of me and my junk and more of You and Your Kingdom.

This morning I got my butt out of bed at 4:30am and went to the gym. I swam 1000 meters with a group of people who have become a second family to me and who, for all intents and purposes, should not give a second thought to a 20-something barely scraping by to pay her bills.  As I was half-way down a lap this morning, I was struck by how far from my plan it is.

Three years ago you could not have paid me to stick my face in the water.  Around the same time, I moved to a tropical island in the middle of the Pacific ocean.  It was either sink or swim at that point.  I could have spent that year sitting on the sand watching the waves and nursing my fear of water. Instead, I took swimming lessons and signed up for a triathlon. I snorkeled the Great Barrier Reef. I overcame my fear.

Two years ago I moved back to Southern Indiana after vowing I would NEVER come back.  I had no idea why in the world God would ever call me back to a place I hated so much and had been the source of so much heartbreak.  I clung to the verse that says “God’s ways are higher than man’s ways” and knew God, in all His sovereignty, had to have a plan. Around November of that year I got up at 5am and went to a spin class at the gym I has just joined. There I met a group of people who invited me in and after I proved to them I could get my butt out of bed every morning, treat me like family. 

A little over a year ago, I met a boy on St. Patrick’s Day and didn’t think much of it. After all, I was here to get my degree and get the heck outta dodge.  No way I was settling down here.  And then I fell in love.  I fell in love with someone who challenges me and supports me and cares for me more than I could ever imagine. He has let me pursue my schooling and shared me with my church, Myanmar, and the myriad of other things I commit to participating in. And at the end of the day, he will call just to say he loves me and is so proud of me.

As I finished my swim this morning, I was overwhelmed with the grace and sovereign plan of God.  My life looks absolutely NOTHING like I thought it would three years ago. It is not the plan I had and it is not heading in the direction I thought it should.  Thankfully, God stepped in and showed me that my plan was just that-my plan. Not His.   And so lately, as life has been a bit overwhelming and stressful, I am constantly being reminded of the fact that God is in control and He holds my heart, my dreams and desires, and my needs in His hands. He knew all along I would find my home in Southern Indiana. He knew I would fall in love with a city that has so much potential, with a church that constantly pushes me, and with a man who reminds me everyday of how special I am and how truly blessed I am to live this life.