Fear

Gosh.

I haven’t posted in awhile. Mainly because I haven’t known what to say. Things are happening, as they always are on project, but I’m not 100% sure what’s happening in ME, thus I avoided writing about it.

And now that I’ve waited even longer, it’s even harder for me to know what to say.

But, something that I have been realizing is how the overarching theme for my summer is F E A R.

The first couple weeks I spent facing and battling my insecurities. Those were rooted in the fear that I wasn’t enough.

The next couple weeks were spent facing the hurt of my past, which was thrust in my face again due to present circumstances. Satan used my situation at work to rub my biggest fears of emotional pain in my face and bring me back to the beginning of it all.

These last weeks have been dealing with my biggest fears of emotional pain as well, but presented in yet different situations from different angles.

(I know that’s extremely general, but in respect for others I’m not going to publish details on the Internet. But feel free to ask me personally! (Also, I hate general posts, because there is so much power in vulnerability. But I’m trying to be honest and respectful, so bear with me please. haha))

Even so, this is surprising to me, for I never considered myself a fearful person. Yet all these things have been showing me the depths of my distrust and unbelief in the Lord and His sovereignty. Like, where is my faith – really?

One thing I am learning though, is just how NOT neutral prayer is. I am starting to realize how every single prayer has an effect, because God promises to answer ever prayer. If this is true, and if I really understood the power of prayer, then spending time in communion with my Lord is one of the most important things I can do with my time; ever.

This has become so dear to me, as I am not always strong enough to go out and evangelize on the boardwalk. How can I still be a part of ministry? I have loved my divine appointments not with other people, but with my dear Lord, as I take part in His mission to advance His kingdom from my bed. It is a special yet still powerful way I can be a part of His calling for me.

Also, I’d like to elaborate more on the biggest fear of my life right now: the fear of mediocrity and wastefulness.

I’m just going to share with you a little from my journal during my quiet time the other night:

“I’m so scared of settling. Of forsaking Christ and His call of sacrifice and surrender and wasting opportunities to live a reckless faith like life that is incredibly effective and powerful.

In this is the honesty of my struggle in seeing how a life in middle class American could be more effective in advancing God’s kingdom than giving up everything and moving to bring the gospel for the first time to unreached people groups. I know the whole truth that “God is sovereign and it’s only through His power that you could even be effective and you know wherever He calls you, you will be effective the exact amount that He wants you to be.” Great.

           

Now back to my reality and fears. I’m scared that if I stay in the states I will become comfortable or distracted with worldly affairs and wouldn’t really evangelize. And I fear this so much because this is the majority of what I’ve seen in the modern American church. So, why would it be different for me? I’m not any stronger in my faith that others. I’m so afraid of that.

I’m afraid to waste my life. But, underneath that, I think I’m afraid I will disappoint God, and be nothing more than a very dispensable piece of flesh. Does this go back to my deep-seated, secret belief that Christ’s like for me is really works and results based? Does it speak to more depth of my distrust in God’s sovereignty? Is part of my desire to move abroad actually a semi-escape plan? A hope that I can escape an inevitable reality and future of failure? I think yeah.

My thoughts real quick: America is so Bible saturated! There is such a movement here. I trust in how God is working through our leaders! Sure, it’s not all great, but there IS A MOVEMENT. What about Iraq? India? Thailand? The Philippines? Etc! they DON’T EVEN HAVE A MOVEMENT. THEY DON’T EVEN KNOW WHAT LOVE IS. HOW can I stay?! How could this EVER be a better place for me to stay and minister?! How much do I have to value self and comfort over people’s souls to keep me here? Yes. I believe people are called to stay – we can’t all get up and move, otherwise our movement would fall apart. But, what if I am being called abroad? I feel there aren’t enough of us seriously asking that question.

But- this also leads me to another level. What if this is ignorant surface-level passion? My worry is that the reality of our lives – of my life – is that these hopes and dreams actually don’t come true. They’re just ignorant, baby adult dreams That people don’t actually do crazy and awesome things for Jesus. Only a select few, extraordinary, celebrity Christians actually lead lives like David Platt, Francis Chan, or Beth Guckenberger. But me? Yeah, I’m ordinary. I need to be hit in the face with reality and understand and accept that I’ll be living an ordinary, sub-par, typical middle class American Christian life. Deal with it. That is what I’m scared of.

That’s one reason why I love being sick with a terminal illness, because that’s a call to suffer that much more and live a life that’s a little more challenging.

Getting just a small taste of what it’s like to suffer and sacrifice even just a little for God has left me with an insatiable longing to do so more.

So God, what will you have me do? I truly am saying, “Here I am, send me.” I am willing to sacrifice and I trust that when the time comes when you ask me to sacrifice something I can’t, you will enable me to obey with your mercy and grace.”

Subtly Wonderful

Last week was wonderful for a few reasons.

I had the (forced) opportunity to do nothing but pray for two and a half hours. I had the (not at all optional) opportunity to not say a word or move for 150 minutes.

It was incredible actually. At first I was simply praying for topic suggested (one I didn’t have many opinions, feelings, or even thoughts about). But after I got over the hope that I would start doing something “entertaining” soon, I was like screw it Jesus- I’m done staying surface level with you. I’m diving in deep and having my interrupted sweet time with Jesus. It was so beautiful.

I realized for the first time the truth of these “rules” of prayer, which I have heard by an author previously (*by no means actual rules haha):

1.     Pray till you pray

2.     Pray till you’re conscious of being heard

3.     Pray until you receive an answer

At first I was just praying. It was simple communication with God. I was honest about it, and it was genuine, but it wasn’t anywhere near the depths of my heart. By around 1.5 hours, I had given up all caution and hesitance, and seriously opened my heart to the act of praying. I can’t explain it in words well, but it was one of the first times where I’ve undoubtedly understood being in the presence of God through prayer, and feeling uninterrupted communion with Him. I found a depth of prayer I don’t think I’ve gotten to before. It’s opened my eyes to a whole other layer of prayer, and opened the door to a whole new potential life of prayer.

Also, I realized what people actually mean when they say “you can’t not care about something you pray for”.

Before, I would pray for things that I felt like I should, and in the way I new was “upright”, but my heart would remain largely indifferent. But after spending 2.5 hours in prayer for ONE thing that I really did have 0 thoughts on prior, I left feeling that thing so incredibly and unexplainably dear to my heart. Which was just a super cool thing to see; God so tangibly using prayer to open my eyes and heart to this thing and change my heart to reflect and understand more of His. I seriously think that I need to spend extended, deep, intentional time in prayer multiple times a week- and see how God changes first my heart, and then my life.

Secondly,

We had a 5-hour date night last Thursday. I was feeling sort of out of it, and wasn’t able to focus on a single thought or passage. After spending an hour frustrated, I started watching a sermon by Francis Chan on prayer that is dear to my heart. The way he speaks about his relationship with his Abba, his daddy, is so incredibly moving because it’s so genuine, sincere, sweet, and deep. I didn’t even finish it but was like oh Lord, that is what I want to experience with You. I feel like I’ve focused so much on the intellectual part of God lately, and was missing the relational side.

So I decided to go on a prayer/worship walk. I put my ear buds in, and started playing all my favorite worship songs that reach my heart in just the right way (you know how it is haha). It was a rainy/cloudy day and the beach was empty, so I decided to walk in the waves. I stopped under the pier and started just singing and dancing and worshipping! It was such a beautiful moment, and I stopped caring about who walked by or pointed me out to their friends haha.

I was just enjoying God’s glory and His majesty and THEN:

 ALL OF THE SUDDEN

there was a DOLPHIN just out a ways from the pier!!

In that moment I almost started crying ahah because God KNEW there was a dolphin there- and He knew I was going to see it, and He knows how much I adore dolphins (because He made me that way) and how much joy it would bring me!! He demonstrated His pure and unconditional and unfathomable love for me in that moment by bringing this dolphin into my sight just as I was searching for it.

The view from under the pier.

I feel like recently I haven’t been learning a lot of GROUND-BREAKING, LIFE-SHATTERING, MIND-BLOWING, EARTH-QUAKING things that will shape my life till kingdom come, but I have been experiencing such sweet mini revelations, that I pray will grow and continue to re-shape my relationship with Christ. 

**Also have been dwelling on the following definition and description of living the Spirit-filled life: letting Jesus relive His life again through you.

- What would that look like? How would that change my everyday life? How can I pray to the Spirit to move through me and pour God’s supernatural and divine love and power through my life?

I Am Worthy.

For discipleship this week, I was talking about how I had been feeling so discouraged about myself. My discipler sweetly listened, then told me to pull out a sheet of paper because we were going to do an ABC chart. And so we did...

Activating Event	Belief System Uncovering the Lies…	Consequences (Result) “Leaves me feeling…”
-Large or active social gatherings	-We’re only effective if people (outwardly) recognize or appreciate you/what you’re doing	-Discouraged -Unworthy -Unwanted/Not Valued -Less Effective
	-Your worth is directly related to/demonstrated by the attention you get. I.e. if you get a lot of attention, you’re worth a lot. You’re a valuable human being.
	*by attention I mean: people look/smile at you when you walk in. People react to what you contribute in your conversation. People NOTICE you’re there, and encourage that.
	-“______ people are worthy of being loved.” à Very funny, fun, smart, clever, exciting, wise, sweet/kind people
	LIES ABOUT GOD: - He didn’t make everyone equally valuable. There’s a hierarchy of humans. [*See below.] We’re all equal in the fact that we’re humans and He loves us, but there are just different levels of appreciation/likeable-ness.
	-He has favorite people to be around. He loves us all equally, but He just likes some people’s company more because they’re more fun/interesting.
	-He has a performance-based appreciation of you. (But of course He still loves us all equally. However that works…)
	MY PERSONALLY BELIEVED LIES: -I’m not interesting enough to be paid more attention to than other people.
	-God didn’t make me funny/fun enough, it’s on me to be funnier/fun-er. So it’s still so much on us to be cool, interesting people. God gave us personalities and gifts, but they’re not enough. Often times you have to try harder to be more fun/funny, then you’ll be appreciated.
	-I’m not trusting God in the area of being appreciated and liked, both by Him and by others.
	-Life is found in what I do and how people approve or appreciate that

*Hierarchy of People:

		The Fun/Funny People
	The people who join in with the funny ones, and can be part of the story.
The Peasants who are here just to fill the rest of the space, who are the appreciators of the fun-ones.

*but of course, everyone is equal as humans and people, they just have different roles. And some roles are liked, and some roles are the likers.

I think these lies have always been here, but surfaced when I became sick. I grew up believing that what people did made them cool, like the stories they could tell and the jokes they could make. Being interesting, and therefore appreciated, was a tangible thing that you earned by doing interesting things that warranted appreciation.

I think a lot of this stemmed from my family. I don’t blame them at ALL, and I love them dearly! But, both my siblings (one older, one younger) are extremely fun and funny people. I grew up as the quiet child, definitely not known for being fun or funny. Because of how great they are, people have always loved them and really wanted to be around them. So, my heart translated that to if you’re really fun, people will like you and want to be around you. Now, me being less fun and outgoing, this was a huge struggle for me. I would only feel good/satisfied/appreciated leaving a social situation when I could tangibly tell people really liked having me there (by laughing at my jokes or messing around with me). But, when I didn’t contribute in these “meaningful” ways, and walked away having no one really notice, I felt awful.

Now, being sick, I actually physically can’t be outgoing or jumping around all the time. Therefore, watching others “earn” their appreciation from other people while I can’t do anything about it, made me feel seriously worthless. Sometimes I don’t even have the energy to participate in conversation (by saying a sentence here or there or something), which makes me feel even more expendable as a person.

The lie is that attention=your worth and appreciation, and it’s on my own shoulders to be interesting enough for other people, and ultimately God.

So, what’s the truth?

Colossians 3:3, “For you died, and your life is now hidden with Christ in God. When Christ, who is your life, appears, then you also will appear with him in glory.”

à Christ is my life, my identity is in Him. That doesn’t make me less me, but actually makes me a more beautiful me, secure because I know that I am loved. How much does it change you when you live a day like you know you’re loved?? It changes SO much! No pressure, no having to prove yourself, and it frees you up to therefore express love more beautifully to others.

Mark 1:11, “You are my Son, whom I love; with you I am well pleased.”

            àBecause I am born again with God, I am hidden in Christ, and His righteousness is my own. I am made a co-heir with Christ, so I have the SAME standing as Him- a daughter of the King! Therefore, this verse is expressing what God sings over me (Zephaniah 3:17). He would just TEAR those Heavens apart and scream THIS IS ANNA, WORLD! I LOVE HER SOOOO MUCH, AND I COULD NOT BE MORE PLEASED WITH HER.” Not because of anything I’ve ever done, but simply because I am His daughter.

            

...!!!!!....????

Proverbs 31:30, “Charm is deceptive, and beauty is fleeting. But a woman who fears the Lord is to be praised.”

à What is praiseworthy? Not what the world says, in being charming or funny. But rather in my fear and love of Christ; who I am in Christ, and who He is in me.

How can I trust this? Jesus is probably the most appreciated human who ever lived. He seriously mattered. And it says in Isaiah 53:2, “He had no beauty or majesty to attract us to him, nothing in his appearance that we should desire him.” Maybe even He wasn’t the most funny or exciting person around. But He is everything.

This is Truth. Satan has been feeding and growing these lies in me for years. Now bringing them into the light, I can allow the Truth to start to combat and change those lies. I can specifically fight at the root of these things. I don’t have to live always feeling just short of enough.

I am not the disappointment of my family because I’m not the most fun. I am not worthless because I’m not the most charming or funny. I am worth everything, only because the One who loves me is worth everything. Bless His Name.

A beautiful sunrise the other morning, (view from my window).

"He will take delight in you with gladness.
With His love, He will calm your fears. He will
rejoice over you with joyful songs."
~Zephaniah 3:17~