Be Thankful

The title of this post was inspired by this fantastic decoration on my dorm hall, courtesy of my RA. 

This blog post also has the serious potential to be the longest post known to man, but I will make sure that doesn't happen.

Anyways, this "BE THANKFUL" message is a pretty good reminder, not just on the fourth Thursday of November, but on everyday. 

We have a pretty sick tendency to pause for a brief moment, voice our thanks for this or that, but then gorge ourselves on food and go out and buy more of what we already have. 

I'm not saying that eating or shopping are necessarily bad things. I will have done both of them by the end of today. The point is that we have so much to be thankful for. All day. Every day. Not just on "Turkey Day."

I read a book recently called "One Thousand Gifts" by Ann Voskamp. 

This book rocked my world.

The author talks of making a list, a list where she writes down all of the things that she is thankful for everyday. In her words, a "list of writing all that is good and pure and lovely and beautiful." 

So I set out to do the same, starting this past January.

I currently have 20 pages filled with 1,176 different things that I've thanked the Lord for in the past 11 months.

The crazy thing is that this doesn't even scratch the surface of what the Lord has done and provided throughout this time period. 

Here's the deal. When we thank God for the things around us - for the huge, unbelievable miracles, for the small, minute, and seemingly boring details of every day life, and for everything in between - we see in an overwhelming way that HE IS GOOD.

How can one genuinely thank God for the things around them, the things given by His hand, and still stand in disbelief? Still stand in denial of His overflowing goodness?

The correct answer here is that they can't. 

And just wait, it gets better.

Through this process of giving thanks, we see that the Lord is good. And when we realize He is good, we see that we can trust Him. We see that He truly is faithful.

This realization allows us to live in utter and complete freedom. It allows us to literally dwell in it. To roll around in freedom and shout for joy that we don't have to worry or stress. To skip and laugh because we know that every detail of all of our days rests in His good, trustworthy, and faithful hands.

HALLELUJAH!!! 

I will save your time and eyes by not listing all 1,176+ things that I'm thankful for, but I will share one that I need to pause and be truly thankful for every day.

And that is the life, death, and resurrection of my Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, for through Him, a wretched sinner like me can stand before a Holy, Holy, Holy God and be seen as righteous. 

Here's one way I remind myself:

And that really is the truth of it. 

Jesus Christ lived the perfect life that I could never live so that He could satisfy a just God by dying the death that I so fully deserve. 

When we realize this in the deepest part of our being, when we dwell on it, when we accept this truth and surrender our lives to Him, we can't help but be thankful. 

If this truth doesn't show that we serve a good God, I don't know what does. 

"He Who did not spare His own Son, but gave Him up for us all - how will He not also, along with Him, graciously give us all things?" -Romans 8:32

Some of the things in our lives may not seem good. A month ago my brother got in a car wreck. By the worlds standards, that is certainly not a good thing. But the Lord brought me to the realization that  I can be genuinely thankful for things that, in my finite mind, seem bad, because the Lord is sovereign and He is good. He can use the bad and ugly for good, for His glory. Because of this I can actually give thanks to the Lord for seemingly horrible things.

Ann Voskamp says it like this, "Thanksgiving is the evidence of our acceptance of whatever He gives. Thanksgiving is the manifestation of our "Yes!" to His grace. Thanksgiving is inherent to a true salvation experience; thanksgiving is necessary to live the well, whole, fullest life."

So Happy Thanksgiving everyone, today and everyday. 

Halloween and Home

Halloween is my least favorite holiday. I don't like it at all, really. 

This is large in part due to my mother's opinions of Halloween. She isn't a huge fan and so we never really celebrated it. With that being said, however, I love getting dressed up, just in general, so that's a plus. In addition, this Halloween also offered me with several opportunities of great fellowship!

 Surprisingly, Halloween is quite popular amongst the college crowd. Especially the fraternity pledges who have to dress up and walk around campus in their assigned costumes. Hilarious. 

Anyways, I got invited to a get together (I try to avoid the word 'party' here. Negative connotations are definitely involved) on Halloween night hosted by some girls that go to Crosspoint. 

We ate, danced, and marveled at one another's costumes. 

Well, most of them. I, for example, wasn't planning on dressing up for Halloween and therefore left all of my costume/spirit week ammo at home. So I scrounged some randomness together and dressed up as Boo from Monsters Inc. Not incredibly obvious or creative. Oh well!

The next night I attended a hipster birthday party for one of my CP group leaders. There was a macaroni bar, we decorated cookies, played games, and dressed up like hipsters, of course!

Then Sunday night I went to the dykes with Marie and Karla. Afterwards we went to Karla's apartment and watched an evangelism video. 

I am beyond blessed to call such a beautiful place my home and such beautiful people my friends and my sisters in Christ. 

Grace in tangible form is a very real thing here.

Oh the joy of the Lord...

And this past weekend I got to go home!!!

Going home is such a treat. My family and I stayed in Friday night, relaxed, and watched Thor. 

Saturday morning I got up and had the privilege of going running with this fine dime. I love hearing about her life and miss her dearly.  

Then, Saturday afternoon the family and I went to Charlotte to see the new Thor movie.

It. Rocked. 

Marvel is doing great work these days, great work. And I am beside myself with the news that there is a new Captain America movie coming out! EEP! I was literally bouncing in my seat and giggling like a little girl. I just love him. He's the perfect hero. Mmm.

After the movie we went to dinner and explored downtown Charlotte.

 It's a pretty nifty place, I must say.

The time with my family, of course, was wonderful, but much too short. I'm looking forward to the upcoming break where I can stay for more than 48 hours. 

In other news, college is great. Like, really great.

 Our dorm room is invested with ladybugs and today our thermostat started making puffing noises, but other than that it's great. 

:)

The time is coming to register for classes, which means I have to figure out what I'm doing with my life. I'm currently a Biological Science major, and I'm doing fine (all A's!), but four years full of chemistry and biology labs is a bit foreboding. That and the advice I received from a MUSC representative has me leaning towards changing my major to psychology, which I'm pretty excited about.

 The time has also come to start looking into living arrangements for next year, which involves finding roommates and an apartment. Yucky adult stuff. Things are more or less coming together. Already plans have been made and changed, so it could be a somewhat bumpy road ahead. 

There is no better way to proceed through life, however, than trusting in the Lord's goodness and in His sovereignty. He IS trustworthy. He IS faithful. Stress and worry are unnecessary. Honestly, they're sinful. When I worry and stress out about life situations, like finding an apartment, I declare through my actions and thoughts that God is not all-powerful, that He can't do everything, and that I can.

And that is disgusting.

How can I think for a second that my God is not good, when He sent His one and only Son to die for my sins? 

How can I think for a second that my God is not good, when He shows me so clearly every day? 

He never fails to display His glory here in good ol' Clemson, SC.

Oh praise the One Who paid my debt and raised this life up from the dead.