Your Steps Are Ordered: A Story From A Girl With Social Anxiety

"The steps of a good man are ordered by the Lord: and he delighteth in his way." Psalms 37:23

If you know me to any extent, you know how introverted and shy I am. I can know someone for a year and still over think every word that I want to say to them even if it is just "hello." Struggling with social anxiety is something that I wouldn't wish on anyone. It's different for everyone, but for me it's prevalent when I am in places with a lot of people. Just to be completely open, my first thought is that no one where I am loves, cares, or much less deems me worthy of anything. I struggle with this every day. It takes a lot out of me to just say hello to friends I pass on the side walk or go to events on campus. It feels like I'm constantly pushing myself to do things my body physically refuses to do.

I constantly have to renew my mind. I have to always remind myself that I am created in God's image. There is nothing wrong with me and my life has worth. I push myself to be more social. I push myself to go to events because I am not called to let my anxiety control me. My anxiety is not me. God has shown me recently that my steps are not in vain. If you know any of my close friends, they'll tell you that my new saying is "the steps of a righteous man are ordered." I say it at least once a day. Anxiety acting up? The steps of a righteous man are ordered. Feel out of place? The steps of a righteous man are ordered. 

I type all of this to say that my steps are not the only steps that are ordered. Your steps are ordered. Your family's steps are ordered. Your children's steps are ordered. It may seem like worry and anxiety are taking over your life, but take a deep breath and grasp the peace that the Lord gives us freely because your steps are ordered and your life is not in vain. Your life has worth. Your calling has worth. Your worth is not found in the people in this world, so we have to stop comparing our personalities, our callings and our struggles with other people because we do not have any control over what other people are called to do or how God has ordered their life. We need to take joy and find peace in the knowledge that when we feel like our life is just going through the motions or when life is chaotic and it seems like it is going to over run us, our life is ordered by the God who told the oceans where to stop and told the sun when to rise and set. So when you feel like your life has no meaning and that you are out of place, look where you are planted and know that you are there for a reason. Your life has brought you to this moment, what are you going to do with it?

But, Don't You Know You Are Wanted?

Jesus has been messing me up for the past couple of days. I've been focusing so much on how, as people, we have this desire to feel wanted. Rather you're an introvert or extrovert, male or female, theology major or psychology major, in school or out of school, we all have this over whelming desire to feel wanted. Unfortunately, most of the time we feel unwanted even if we are surrounded by people that do want us. We have this perception of how it looks when someone wants us and when that vision isn't met, we automatically shut down and believe no one wants us at all or at least I do. For an introvert (because I am one) example, do any of you know of someone and you know you would make awesome friends but you don't talk to them and they don't talk to you so your automatic thought is that they don't what to be your friend at all? If you said no to that question, you're lying and you need to go repent. My point is we think no one wants us at all because our perception of being wanted isn't met, but God blows our perception of being wanted out of the water and we ignore it. 

This statement hit me like a train at 2:30am this past Saturday. I was at an event called All Night Prayer put on by a college ministry here in Cleveland. We were taking communion and scenes from The Passion of the Christ were playing on a screen that was in the front of the sanctuary. As I'm cringing at the site of the crucifixion, a thought came across my mind. Jesus did not die on the cross for me to focus on being wanted by other people. Are we not worth more than the thoughts of other people? At this point, I'm feeling overwhelmingly guilty and am sobbing and hyperventilating in my chair. I mean, I had already been crying through out the communion session, but I was hard core, when Mufasa died in the Lion King, sobbing. It got so bad that I went to the back of the sanctuary, dropped to my knees, sobbed, and prayed for a good 45 minutes. After I got done praying, I stood up and worshipped. As I stood there, I heard the Lord say, "It's okay to want to be wanted. It's okay to have a desires. It's not okay to want that more than you want Me." That's when it hit me (after I doubled over and sobbed again), God wants us more than anyone on this planet could ever or ever will want us. He wants us to have the desires of our hearts, but our desires are not more important than the God who gave us those desires.

Have you ever thought about how much God focuses in on us? Do you realize everything was made to praise God? The wind. The rain. Lightning. Insects. Birds. Lions. Everything. Everything was made to praise the Lord, and yet, He doesn't focus on them. I'm sure God enjoys and loves to hear the praises of everything He has created, but He focuses on us. We are more important than all of His creations. He hears our groans of pain. He hears our cheers of joy. He is constantly working and making everything out for our good and working on giving us the desires of our hearts in His timing. Don't let your desires be more important than the Creator who gave you those desires. 

Finding Unity in Brokenness

The ideas of unity and brokenness have both been on my mind lately. Mostly because small group kickoff was about brokenness and Resonate was about being one. (If you aren't a Lee student and have no idea what I am talking about, message me. I'll fill you in.) These two things are so contradictory to one another. Unity means being one and being one means being whole. This is the complete opposite of brokenness because when you are broken, you're, well, broken. You're not whole. You're not put together. The longer I dwell on these ideas though, the more I realize they aren't as opposite as one would think.

Let's just take our culture for an example right now. When we look at other people, or see other people's posts on social media, we perceive them as being whole. We compare our lives to other people's lives because we automatically think that we are the only broken person in the world. This idea is completely untrue. Every single person that walks the face of this planet is broken. We are all broken in different ways, but we don't take time to recognize other people's brokenness, much less be transparent enough to show our own brokenness. What if we did though? What if instead of having that cliche "hey. how are you? I'm good." conversation, we actually built relationships? Shared our struggles? Shared our pain? Lifted others up when they are broken down? What would the body of Christ look like and outside of that, what would society look like as a whole?

This is when I thought of finding unity even in our brokenness. I started thinking of a stain glass window. A stain glass window is perceived as one of the most beautiful parts of a building. Whenever a building has one, it's what its known for. "Which building is *insert name of building*?" "Oh. It's the building with the stain glass window." The funny thing is though, a stain glass window is just a bunch of different pieces of broken glass put together. It is different colors, different jagged edges, different degrees of brokenness being seen as beautiful. It is being seen as whole and as one. That's how we should be. We should be binding together with other broken people to lift each other up, to help lift other broken people up, so we can be one through the love of Jesus that has made our collective brokenness whole. So, do you want to be whole, or do you want to be a piece of broken glass?

Cheers Summer 2015

Last night, I had to say goodbye to people I got close to this summer. As I sobbed for the whole 45 minute drive home, I started to reminisce on this past summer and how different it was compared to the summer of 2014.
During the summer of 2014, I didn't want to get close to anyone. Since I am a pastor's kid, putting up walls and pushing people away is something I taught myself to do to protect myself. Why get close to people if you're just going to move, right? So, I wasn't the friendliest human being.
This summer was completely different and I am so glad. I feel like I have become a stronger person in my faith and in general because of my experiences and because of the people I have gotten close to.  So this blog isn't really a lot of words. I mean I could go into detail about the people who changed me. I could rave about the wonderful girls I counseled at camp, but I figured showing you might be the best way. Below are a lot of pictures of people that mean a lot to me. These pictures most of you have probably seen on social media before, but hey, I'm a sentimental person.

So cheers to you, Summer 2015. You'll have a special place in my heart. 

*insert end credits and silent sobs*

To The Person Who Feels Forever Alone

Just to be open and real with everyone, this has been me for the past two weeks. I felt like God honestly didn't care whether or not I found "the one" and if I were to be completely honest, I felt like God just wanted to trick me into being interested in someone just for it to be ripped away. Here I was a 20 year old crying in the middle of a kids camp service (actually 2 kids camp services. Minor details.) because I felt unloved and forgotten. I don't know how it is for guys, but for girls, I know that when we are single for a long period of time, we think something is wrong with us. Something about us is turning all the men away and pushing them toward all the other girls around us. We all have a plan of when we want to find the right person. For instance, mine was to meet my future husband before I was 20 so we could date for at least 2 years in college, get engaged my senior year at Lee, and get married the summer after I graduate. Unfortunately, this isn't a post that ends with me finding my future husband at the camp I was at for 3 weeks and strolling through the camp ground hand in hand. Here I am about to turn 21 in a few months and I'm single. I'm starting to realize that my plan is not God's plan and thank goodness it's not. If it was, I would currently be married to Nick Jonas and living the dream. I know I am not the only person that feels like this so I just wanted to share what God has reminded me these past couple of weeks.

1. You are not forgotten
God has not written you out of his plan. He hasn't forgotten you. His thoughts about you are all about how much he loves you and cares about you. His thoughts are completely different from the thoughts you have about yourself. When God says wait, it doesn't mean no. Jeremiah 29:11 says, "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 a hope and a future." We have to stop constantly thinking these horrible thoughts about ourselves because we feel like God doesn't have a plan for us. He does, and sometimes his plan is just to wait. Take in the moment you are in and not dwell on the future so much.

2. Stop Worrying
I constantly worry. It's a huge problem. This past week was no different. Actually, it was a little worse. I was continually worrying about finding the right person because I felt like everyone else was finding the right person. Matthew 6:33-34 says, "But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own." A friend of mine kind of put it all in perspective for me. He asked me if I had the desire to get married. I said that I did, then he responded that it would happen in time because God wouldn't give me the desire to get married and have a family if he didn't want that for me. We have to wait for the Lord's timing.

3. Guard Your Heart
I had another friend tell this to me this week. If you know me, it took everything within me not to turn into an emotional wreck right then and there. (I did turn into an emotional wreck. Just not in public.) I feel like we are all wanting to find the right person so bad that we just cling to the first person that shows interest in us or assume someone is the person we are supposed to marry because we are already dating them. That's what I did and something I have to constantly check myself on. Your heart isn't something that should be played with. It's something precious and valuable. It should be given to someone who cares about it more than you do. Don't constantly keep giving your heart away. A person will come along that will take care of it and we all have to wait for that moment.

3 Reasons Why You're Not As Special As You Think

*insert sarcastic Dean face for emotional build up*

Are we as special as we think we are? God loves us right? Of course God loves us. Why do you think you're alive, but on the other hand, aren't other people alive too? (If you responded no to this, sorry to break it to you, we aren't in The Walking Dead.) God loves you, but he doesn't love you anymore than he loves the homeless man down the street. God doesn't pick favorites. This has been on my mind lately. I've been thinking about if we are as special as we think we are (including myself). I've thought of a few things that might help us out.

1. It's not about you.

Where did this mindset of everyone has to see what I do come from? When did posting a biblical Facebook status become more important than being benevolent? We aren't Christians so that we can be recognized. Your talents are from God. Your dreams are from God. Your words are from God, so being seen just for the sake of being seen shouldn't be a priority. John 7:18 states, "Whoever speaks on their own does so to gain personal glory, but he who seeks the glory of the one who sent him is a man of truth; there is nothing false about him." We should start striving to do what God tells us to do not for the sake of being seen or applause, but just because God told us to do it.

2. It's not about you

(I hope you're starting to see a theme.) Everyone has an opinion. Literally, everyone. This means your opinion isn't going to match with everyone else's opinion on the planet. Since when did deciding if a church should offer food or should not offer food on Wednesdays become such a big deal? Or having music before the sermon or after the sermon? Honestly, I don't think Jesus cares, unless he straight up told you. If the pastor or youth pastor want to have food on Wednesdays, do it. If not, then don't. (This is all hypothetical.) You are under a person that God has placed in authority. You may disagree with them, but God ordained for them to be there. If they aren't doing their job correctly, God will take care of it. It's not your job. Romans 12:19 says, "Do not take revenge, my dear friends, but leave room for God's wrath, for it is written: 'It is mine to avenge; I will repay,' says the Lord." The whole reason we are on the earth is to tell people about Christ. Our opinions over which translation of the Bible to read shouldn't matter. This leads me to my last point.

3. It. Is. Not. About. You. 

or me. or your pastor. or the televangelist. or your role model. It's all about Jesus. God sent his only son to die for everyone to have eternal if they believe in him. So shouldn't we be showing the love of God instead of trying to be famous in the eyes of man or arguing over things that aren't important?

#BeltItLikeBeckham

This is my second blog post about Clark and I am not ashamed. Once again, I'm trying not to make this post sound like I'm fangirling (which I totally am but that's besides the point). As a Lee University student and being apart of the COG since I was born, I am incredibly proud of how Clark has represented himself.

Honestly, I am so glad that a man of God is in the top 2 of American Idol. His positivity and humbleness is so refreshing to see on television. He is setting an example for the world to see. I mean have you seen his social media posts?! One of his tweets from tonight said, "I thank God for where I am and for all of you and I must say, it's a big responsibility, but I would be honored to be your next American Idol."

Who does that? If I was on American Idol most of my tweets would consist of nervous break downs and/or really really terrible jokes. His composure is something that most people don't have and his love of the Lord is incredible. I had a friend recently say how tired they were about hearing about Clark and maybe there other people that feel the same way, but no one can deny the impact that Clark has made. His character reminds me of the verse Luke 14:11, "For all those who exalt themselves will be humbled, and those who humble themselves will be exalted."

All of this swooning over Clark to say that he is setting an incredible example for us. Challenging us to be humble and to show love in a world that needs it. Isn't it what we are supposed to do? Aren't we supposed to get out of our comfort zones for the sole purpose of showing the love of Christ to those who need it? According to 1 Corinthians 16:14, we must do everything in love. Who knows the amount of people Clark has touched just by being the man God has called him to be.

So as the finale of American Idol nears,(It's tomorrow night, y'all. Vote for Clark like crazy.) I'd like to wish Clark good luck (again). Whether he wins or not, he is a champion just because of the example he is setting for everyone.