Hannah Chung

A Meaningless Life

“Yet when I surveyed all that my hands had done and what I had toiled to achieve, everything was meaningless, a chasing after the wind; nothing was gained under the sun.”
Ecclesiastes 2:8

Do you ever read a verse in the Bible and go “WOAH, like…I actually relate to that!”?

So I read this verse the other day and it really struck me. A lot of times in my life I have wondered if what I’m doing is really worth anything. I have done some pretty trivial things in my life, blowing them all out of proportion in my head, just for them to not work out. I focus my time and energy on things and end up with nothing in the end.

I think that whether we seem to have achieved anything at the end of a particular journey is the motivation behind it. I’ll give you two examples from my own life. (Yes they will be cringy but hopefully you can relate better haha)

Example A: In middle school, probably the most awkward time of most people’s lives, I really wanted to be friends with this one person, so I went to great lengths to try and do whatever I could to connect with her. I went to embarrassing lengths, to be honest, and now I regret that. She ended up not really realizing that I wanted to be friends with her, after all that, and eventually we both just moved on. My motivation behind wanting to be friends with her was not really that I cared a lot about her, it was more that I really wanted to have that person as my friend because it would open up doors for me and because I wanted to be more like her. In the end, I was left with really nothing to show for my efforts.

Example B: For several years, I knew of a family going through a really rough time. I gave whatever I could to them, knowing that they probably couldn’t even give me much appreciation in return. I cared very deeply for them and I knew that what I was doing to show them love, even if it might have seemed “over-the-top”, was what God wanted me to do. In the end, I really have nothing to “show for it”, but I still know that I did what was right and I feel like I did gain some things: compassion and understanding, to name a few.

I think it’s important to frequently check in with yourself and see what your motivations are behind your actions and pursuits. Sometimes the motivation starts off as good, but turns more selfish as you go along. Other times it’s the opposite. But if you want to live a meaningful life, you should have self-awareness and listen to the sometimes unconscious realizations of your heart, telling you what you should and shouldn’t do. If you are beginning to feel like you are really just being nice to a person because you feel like you have to or you want something out of the relationship, then you should change your mindset. If you feel discouraged because you have been showing God’s love to someone who is not reciprocating, remember that you are still doing the right thing and eventually you will reap the benefits of these actions. If nothing else, you will have become a better person. But also make sure to surround yourself with people who care about you and fill you up, too. It’s easy to become drained when constantly pouring out but never getting poured into.

A lot of people worry that at the end of their life no one will really remember them or their accomplishments anymore. Honestly, if you weren’t the leader of a country or the face of a movement, that’s quite likely, at least eventually. But the thing that really matters is how you impacted others and how you felt at the end of your life. Did you do what God was telling you to? Did you make other people feel like they belonged? Did you notice that one person who needed a friend and loved on them?

Take the time today to think about what you want to have said yes to at the end of your life. Use today to be the day to make that yes an honest one. Every day that you are here is for a reason, and if you use each day of your life, then you will never regret a single moment.

True Joy = Releasing Control

Returning to Our Regularly Scheduled Program…

So…remember how I said I would be talking about joy as my first “series”? Remember how that was like…five months ago or something? Well, as you can see, I often go off topic and somehow wander back, ha-ha. Anyway, I have been thinking about joy again, so I wanted to pop into this series again, although I’m not sure if my next post will be related to joy, we’ll see.

Inherited Control-Freakness

I come from a long line of control freaks. I’m not being judgmental when I say this, they are self-proclaimed. I, myself, am also a bit of a control freak. I might not seem like it on the surface level, because I tend to go along with what other people want and I try to be flexible because I care deeply about pleasing others. However, I am actually quite stubborn, and I inwardly panic whenever things don’t go the way I plan.

I am more like this when I am placed in leadership positions or just when planning my own life, but my family often tries to control one another. A certain member of my family sets out what the other person must eat for lunch each day, and gets irritated if that person does not eat it. Money, food, how a room is decorated…those are just a few things that I often have to argue about with my family because I get frustrated with them trying to control me.

Am I saying that planning is a bad thing? NO!!!! I am definitely not, because you should be prepared and it’s silly to go into situations and build more stress for yourself if you don’t prepare. However, I am saying that at some point, the only way to have full faith in God and in His plan for your life is going along with “God’s flow”.

Going with the Flow

So I have this friend, and we occasionally talk about the future. Every time, he repeatedly states how he just “goes with the flow” and acts like he has no control over his life. Later on, I talked to another guy and he basically said the same thing. I feel like the world is often split into two groups: The Planners and the Floaters. Neither are wrong, yet neither are right.

Going with the flow may appear to relieve more stress and show more faith in God. But God will only work with you if you’re willing to actually, you know, do your part? Frankly, I feel like going with the flow in ALL areas of your life might actually add more stress because you often step into situations and are faced with a bunch of decisions that have to be made on the spot. I am horrible at that, so I could never float through life that way. However, there are definitely decisive people out there, so if that works for you, I’m glad.

The combination of going with the flow and always being prepared is going with God’s flow. I know that sounds a little silly, but that’s the only name I can think of that accurately depicts what I’m speaking of.

Going with God’s flow means that you are trusting God and not freaking out when things don’t go the way you anticipated. However, it also means that you are willing to work hard and still prepare for the future, not just expecting things to somehow work out.

How Does this Relate to Joy?

Have you ever stressed over something, an event perhaps, that you were in charge of. You were so panicked that by the end of it, you wanted to just go away and never be in charge again? While others enjoyed themselves, you spent the night stressing over everything and worrying that things weren’t going to work out. In that situation, you are missing out on having a good time, or experiencing joy.

In another situation, you may have planned every last detail down to the tablecloth design and then everything still ends up going poorly. Believe me, this has happened to me on numerous occasions and I can feel your pain! But because you were so disappointed and discouraged, you never took the time to learn from the experience. And in a way, this also causes you to lose joy because you may end up making the same mistakes in the future.

I don’t believe that joy and fear can coexist, as I stated in a previous post, and trying to control everything is a way of demonstrating fear. It’s basically telling God to His face that you don’t trust Him and you think you know more than Him.

Ouch, that wasn’t what I was thinking when I freaked out over not being able to decide the location for my last meeting, was I?

It’s easy to not realize what our little habits are doing to destroy our lives and our relationship with God. But the more ingrained these thought patterns become, thinking “oh, if only things had gone the way I had planned” or getting angry with people, the more we lose track of who we are supposed to be: joyful humans who are sharing the love of God. It’s easy to let negative thoughts fill our heads. We think that criticizing ourselves for something we can’t control is okay, and it’s not. That is ultimately shaping our actions and our opinions of ourselves.

So today, try to let loose a little bit and see what happens. Trust God and believe that even if things don’t go exactly the way you want, maybe something better was actually waiting for you. It hopefully will also help your relationships too.

“Therefore I tell you, do not be anxious about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, nor about your body, what you will put on. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing?”
~Matthew 6:25

What Are We Doing?

“What we fear doing most is usually what we most need to do.”
Tim Ferriss

Do you ever take the time to just sit back and observe your habits?

Well, I was about two weeks ago. I realized that I was spending a crazy amount of time on my phone, and I challenged myself to use my phone no longer than two hours. Then I realized I could do even better: one hour.

So, I met my goal…but I was still wasting time. Instead of going on my phone, I was watching Netflix, looking up whatever things I had forgotten to check on, and all sorts of things that would take up time that I should’ve spent doing other things.

The good news is that I did spend more time relaxing (without a screen) and doing my Bible study, but I still was wasting a lot of time. There is always going to be another way to do the thing you are trying to avoid.

I wasn’t even realizing what I was doing for about a week and a half, but a couple days ago I sat back and asked myself “what am I doing?”.

And that made me think. In the United States, we have so many opportunities. We have so many ways we can help each other, get to know new people, and try new things. But what are we doing?

More and more people are feeling anxious, lonely, inadequate. What are we doing that’s causing these problems?

In a country where we are generally known as being progressive and workaholics, the main prayer request I receive from my friends or the frequent complain that I hear is this: I really need to stop procrastinating! I’m not getting anything done.

Or, more personally, you may be letting yourself slip into a cycle or a mindset that you don’t want to be in.

A problem that I have is generally not admitting the truth to myself. I would (and still) say yes to things that I don’t want to do, and force myself to think that they will be fun just to please other people. I pretend like a relationship is fine when I know that it’s mostly one-sided. I forget who I am when someone else defines me.

You may have similar problems or something completely different. The important thing is to notice when you begin to slip into thinking negatively, listening to unwise council, spending hours not doing what you should be getting done, hanging onto a bad relationship. It’s hard to have difficult conversations with others, but having that difficult conversation with yourself? That’s the worst of it. You have to admit that you were wrong, or someone else you trusted was wrong. You have to change.

I think that our society needs to change. And I’m not going to just be that person criticizing the way things are and putting myself separate from that. I know that I have fallen into the same traps of overlooking people, letting what the world says influence my choices. I know that it takes a community, not just one person, to make the differences we wish to see in the world. But I also know that if every person did one intentional thing to become more productive, more loving, more informed…that would change everything.

Maybe if we all take just one step closer to becoming more of who we were created to be, we wouldn’t feel defensive when asked the simple question “what are we doing?” because you can answer in confidence. You can say, “I’m doing what it takes to love others…to change the world.”

So, what are you doing?

“Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.”
Romans 12:2

Still Human

“Never regret being a good person, to the wrong people. Your behavior says everything about you, and their behavior says enough about them.”
Marc and Angel

I think that the greatest disservice you can do to a person is put them on a pedestal and expect them to be perfect.

The best way to destroy something beautiful is by comparing it to something else.

First of all, I just want to say that I don’t know everything, but all I’m trying to do is share what I’ve learned so far in my life and hopefully give you new perspective.

One of the biggest mistakes in my life has been making another person so great in my head that if they ever do anything wrong, I am extremely disappointed.

I’m going to be completely honest with you because that’s the only way to gain trust and credibility. It’s the only way you’re going to believe even a word that I say.

One of the worst things that ever happened to me was partially attributed to the fact that I made someone out to be a person she was not.

We were super close. Growing up, this was probably my most important relationship outside of my relationships with my family. It could be argued that she did things that caused our friendship to fall apart, but the reason they affected me so much was because I saw her out as someone who couldn’t do any wrong. We rarely fought, we were the image of what best friends were supposed to be. In my head, the comparisons were always rolling.

And that leads me to my second point. The greatest disservice you can do to yourself is blame yourself for your mistakes or your lacking in an area of your life.

I think I started resenting her the second I let go of the idea of us being close. She was perfect at everything and I was not. She was beautiful and I was normal. She got the best grades and I was just average. I was not special when I compared myself to her.

But that didn’t mean I was right.

The thing that pulled the comparison over the edge was when she got into the “perfect relationship”. I could fudge over the other things I lacked. I could show her my riding ribbons whenever she mentioned her assortment of accomplishments. I could think about the one time my teacher complimented my work as she complained about an A- in Chemistry on one test (I fought hard to get a B in that class). I would do whatever I could to look halfway decent for the few days we would spend together to feel somewhat comparable. But I couldn’t just create a halfway decent relationship out of thin air.

To make matters worse, I had some other things going on at school that made me feel even more inadequate in comparison to all of her working out relationships. I felt lonely and isolated. I went through my darkest period of time.

And then I found a new group of people to put on a pedestal.

It started out innocently enough. In fact, that was honestly the problem.

I was naive and assumed that because one friend was kind, the rest would be too. But in reality, I was left emptier and lonelier than ever before. And I attribute much of those feelings to the fact that I expected them to be perfect. After all, that was the image they seemed to want to project. I was as nice as I could be to them (albeit a bit shyly), and after they dumped me, I regretted ever trusting them.

Maybe I shouldn’t have trusted them. I definitely shouldn’t have had such high opinions of them. But I should never regret being kind to them.

Going back to the friend I was originally speaking of, for a while I regretted being friends with her at all. But the more I think about it now, with over a year under my belt from the incident, the more I feel grateful that I had that experience.

You heard me. Grateful. I’m grateful because it taught me exactly what that quote said. The moments I will regret the most are the ones where I’m unkind to people, no matter if they were nice to me or not. I know that I have looked weird or naive for being kind to people who have hurt me, but I will always know in my heart that the reason I was being nice after everything was not because I expected them to somehow change. Rather, I was simply realizing that the only way to have a life worth living is having love for others.

The most important part to remember is that you can’t blame yourself for how other people act towards you. You don’t have to blame yourself for your past when it’s time to move on. If someone breaks your trust, it isn’t your fault. If you loved someone that turns on you, it’s not your fault. It’s a reflection of who they truly are inside. The only one who can reflect who you are inside is YOU.

“Let all that you do be done in love.”
1 Corinthians 16:14

Never For Nothing

There once was a story that I heard, a fable of sorts, and it went similarly to this: There was a person who thought that he was having guests over that he wanted to impress, so he cleaned his entire house, something he had not done for quite some time. He spent hours upon hours cleaning, and his house had never looked quite so good. But then the guests cancelled, and only his wise neighbor came by to visit. The man said, “What a waste it was to do all this work for nothing.” The neighbor replied, “What do you mean? Now you finally have a clean house!”

This story came to mind tonight as I thought about all the things I’ve done in my life that I thought had no value. Some of these things may sound familiar to you. Reaching out to a person just to receive nothing back, going out of my comfort zone, starting things that may not always turn out the way I expect.

If you’re waiting for things to go the way you want them to, and that is the only way for them to have value, then I guess you’ll have always been right. There was no point.

But if you see the clean house, the long term effects, the person you became through the process of disappointment, discouragement, and confusion, then everything will have a purpose.

There are so many stories of people who were going through a rough time and one person reached out to them, showed them God’s love, and changed their life forever. I want to be part of a story like that, and you might too. But that person who reached out may not have felt appreciated or the rewards of their work with every person they reached out to. We may only being hearing about the one out of every twenty that was changed. But isn’t that one worth all the rest?

Jesus is so often compared to a shepherd, one that will leave the ninety nine to find just one sheep that’s lost. We should be willing to do that too.

That is one motivator for trying even when things don’t seem to be reaping success. But another is that we may have no idea what the effects are of what we are doing until much later.

I recently heard the true story of a man in Australia who spent every day greeting travelers and spreading God’s love and hospitality. People absolutely loved him. One day, after years of doing this, he was getting older and in the hospital. A teacher had heard about what this man had done and about hundreds of people around the world who had become Christian because of him. He sparked questions and a longing to know what he was talking about in these people. So the teacher flew all the way to Australia to meet this remarkable person. And you know what? After the teacher told the man all about how many lives he had changed, the man began to cry. Despite doing this every single day of his life for so long, he had no idea if even one person had been saved. But he still kept trying. And it was worth it.

Many of us will never know on this side of Heaven whether anything we did for others had the effect we desired. It’s hard to wait, I know. I have often felt discouraged as I poured out my heart for people, doing whatever I thought I could, knowing that it would never be enough to get them what they needed. It’s even worse when the people you care so much about do not seem to always notice your efforts. But I have to have faith that I did the right thing, and if you are or have been in a similar situation, then I hope you do too.

Whether you are wondering if your actions for others was worthwhile or not, you can never have complete peace until you take a look at things from a new perspective. You have to see the clean house rather than the guests that didn’t show up. You have to keep going even if you don’t know if it will ever pay off. You should have the desire to do what God is calling you to do, even if it doesn’t make sense right now. Because it will.

My point is this: it won’t have worth until you believe that it does. What you do with the right heart is never for nothing.

“If a man has a hundred sheep and one of them wanders away, what will he do? Won’t he leave the ninety-nine others on the hills and go out to search for the one that is lost?”
Matthew 18:12

Don’t Ignore What’s Right in Front of You

“Everyone chases after happiness, not noticing that happiness is right at their heels.”
Bertolt Brecht

I think it’s really easy for us to simply miss the complete obvious. I know that I’ve done that before, and I’d consider myself a pretty observant person. I think that the easiest things for us to ignore, though, are the messages that we don’t want to hear.

Let me give you two examples, a funny one and a more serious one.

Say Gerald McHarold (not a real person obviously), the grossest guy at the office, has been giving you boxes of chocolate, saying hi whenever he saw you, and complimenting that ugly sweater you wear to please your grandmother. Well, you definitely don’t want to imagine yourself with Mr. McHarold here, so you pretend and even tell others that he has no interest in you. Yet clearly, as your best friend loves to point out, he clearly has been bitten by the love bug. But you might have tricked yourself so much into believing that he doesn’t like you that you stop noticing the evidence.

Or, you see a friend who you have always relied on suddenly changing. She is quiet, and distant, and she’s even stopped enjoying her favorite things. But you can’t stand the thought of her not being happy or not being there for you, so you ignore the signs that something is wrong. You might ask her if she’s okay, and she lies and says she is, but really, she isn’t. However, you don’t want to disturb this perfect image you have of her, that something could actually be going wrong, so you ignore the signs that you need to take uncomfortable action.

For me, neither of these particular instances prompted me to write this post. It was just a rather direct realization of mine that struck me hard, but has been sticking with me a lot lately.

What we have planned out in our heads may not be what ends up happening. And with a few particular things, God has been showing me that perhaps I have gotten as close as I can, and I will venture no further.

This reminds me of Moses, actually. He thought that he would go to the Promise Land. Come on, he KNEW it! He wouldn’t have traveled 40 years if he didn’t think he would reach there eventually. This could be like that dream job you were hoping for, that dream person you had your eye on, that dream connection with a family member or friend that you have been waiting for. We all have our “Promise Land”.

Yet he didn’t even reach the border.

And sometimes we don’t get what we deeply desire either. The job is given to someone else, our dream person doesn’t notice us, that connection never happens because the other person isn’t ready or can’t resolve their differences.

For Moses, the reason why he didn’t was because of a punishment for disobeying God. But for us, it can be a variety of reasons. Perhaps we didn’t actually do anything wrong, it just wasn’t part of the plan for our lives. But it hurts the same way.

There are so many stories of how people were being saved for something or someone greater. But they mean nothing at the time of the pain.

Moses, however, was given something to keep his hopes up. He was able to take a look at the Promise Land.

Now, for a while, I thought that God was being cruel by doing this, because I felt like it would like seeing your favorite dessert but not getting to eat it. (Only a million times worse, of course!) But over time, I realized that maybe this wasn’t a bad deal after all.

When God gives us a glimpse of what could be, of the greatness He has in store, we are more motivated to try harder. We can have hope that even if this isn’t the person, the job, the relationship…there is still something amazing out there for us.

But if we ignore the signs that we have to move on from our dreams and look to God’s dreams, then we might miss out on the glimpse of hope. We might even miss out on what God is trying to teach us from the heartache or from the potentially “not-what-we-exactly-wanted” outcomes.

It’s really difficult being real with our feelings. Sometimes it’s hard to admit how much disappointment we feel when our plans don’t work out. But if we are vulnerable and honest with God, then He can help us move on faster. He can help us see what we want for the future, and how we can become who we want to be.

All we have to do is stop, take a deep breath, and notice.

“Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.”
Hebrews 11:1

Rusty Faith

A Rusting Flute

About three years ago, I gave up my aspirations of becoming a good flute player. I had started playing the flute in third grade, and continued through freshmen year, and the more I played it, the more I despised it. It wasn’t the actual playing of the flute that annoyed me, but the fact that I felt like everyone was better at playing it in Band than me, and I hated practicing. Anyway, today I pulled it out to practice it, and I probably haven’t cleaned it in at least six months to maybe even a year. I was still stunned though, when I saw the rust and the grime covering it’s used-to-be shiny silver. I was saddened as I thought about how I used to care for this flute and now it was left by the wayside as my passion and time for the flute slowly dwindled away.

However, as I picked it up, after spending a bit of time polishing it, I remembered almost every note as though no time had passed since I last played it. Of course, I definitely did not sound as good as I once had when I had given flute playing the energy and devotion it takes, but I still remembered something.

Thanks for the story…but how does this relate to me??

Well, believe it or not, when I was cleaning my rusting flute, the first thing I thought of was how our faith can become “rusty” when we do not take the time, energy, and devotion it takes to strengthen it.

I have personally had this happen to me before. I’ll complain about how God feels so far away or how I haven’t heard from Him lately, when really, He’s waiting all along. It was me who didn’t take the time to read my Bible, it was me who was “too tired” to pray when I had spent a few hours before bed doing other stuff. So really, is it God’s fault when He feels far away?

I think that sometimes we feel discouraged in our faith, and that causes us to spend less effort “maintaining” it.

For example, I have fallen into the trap of watching those super passionate Christians spreading God’s love around their community, and seeming like they know all the answers, and have a better relationship with God than I do.

The truth: no one can have a “better” relationship with God; God offers us all an equal relationship with Him. Unlike pretty much everyone on the planet, God doesn’t pick favorites. He wants you to get closer to Him; He doesn’t try to make it more difficult than it has to be.

That being said, growing your faith takes time and effort. Both of those can be in short supply in this day and age. However, anything that will bring you closer to the One who loves you and knows you the most, and who helps you become a better person is worth it.

Once you get in the habit of not doing something, it’s even harder going back to it than trying to break a habit in the first place. Just think about it. When you stop exercising, stop reaching out to your friend that you don’t see often, stop your daily journaling…it takes a while and a whole lot of effort going back to it.

But it’s worth it.

You start feeling better about yourself, feeling closer to others, feeling God’s presence again. And those “little things” make all of the difference.

So today, I want you to take intentional time to start or continue a habit of polishing your faith. Start journaling each day, and never stop. Start making intentional prayer time, and never stop. Start doing a Bible study, and continuing to read your Bible after it’s over.

Just do something. And that will make your faith stop rusting and start feeling fresh and new again.

“So do not fear, for I am with you; do not be dismayed, for I am your God. I will strengthen you and help you; I will uphold you with my righteous right hand.”
Isaiah 41:10

Embracing a New Message

I want to say something that definitely came to mind for me yesterday and it’s this: God may not always be telling you the same message for every season of your life.

When you are making a decision, you often think about what has happened in the past, right? You remember that time when God was nudging you to step forward and take action. So, you apply that to this situation, no problem. Sometimes that means that you did the right thing by acting, other times it might not have worked out because God wasn’t telling you to make a move yet. Every situation is different, so you need to listen to see if God is still telling you the same message.

This concept can also come into play when picking what sort of attribute we want to focus on improving, such as trusting God, or being more generous with what we’ve been given.

Here’s an example of what I mean:

Say there is a woman who has been blessed bountifully, and she is a wonderful, God-fearing person. However, she struggles with wanting to share what she has because she fears that she will not have enough for herself. But God uses other people and circumstances to change her mind and over time she is one of the most generous people anyone has known. But once she has improved this much in this area, she should listen for the next thing God is telling her to do. If she does not change once she has grown fully in this area, then she has become too comfortable with her calling.

Our callings need to be a little bit risky, forcing us to take that leap of faith. It doesn’t have to be life-threatening, but it shouldn’t be something that comes naturally to us. Of course, if you naturally love giving, and God is calling you to give money to a family in need, you shouldn’t ignore that call simply because giving is something you love doing. God wants us to be able to enjoy our lives and when we are following His commands. What I’m trying to say is that we shouldn’t expect what God is calling us to do to be easy all the time. We should be looking out for something unexpected that God might be pushing us to do.

Or maybe it’s something not unexpected, but rather something we’ve hidden deep down inside that we have not wanted to work on.

For me, I know that I have focused more on things that I want to work on rather than the things I need to work on. But what made me realize that God was giving me this message was when I thought about what I was asking for from Him on a regular basis: courage. This was something that I have and will always need, but looking over my past journal entries and prayer requests, I realized that perhaps what I need courage for is changing. More importantly, maybe I should be thinking about what areas of my life need more attention.

The word that I keep hearing lately is praise. This surprised me since I have not thought much about how often I praise God or if I do it enough. I don’t usually hold this word to such a high level of importance. But as these verses kept popping up, I realized that praise can truly change everything. Your perspective, your personality even, how you connect with God and others.

You might have spent the last two years working on seeking wise council, trusting God, or doing more with your church. Everything God tells us or God has put in the Bible for us to apply to our daily lives is important and worth listening to. But perhaps step out of the comfort zone or what you are used to hearing from God and start paying attention to the new words or messages He has been telling you.

“Because your love is better than life,
my lips will glorify you.
I will praise you as long as I live,
and in your name I will lift up my hands.”
Psalm 63:3-4

Sharing God’s Love

So, a few days ago, God did something amazing. He inspired me to create this video that I shared, and it had been on my heart to create something like that for so long, and out of the blue, I suddenly found the time and inspiration. I felt fulfilled that I was able to share it, and although I was hesitant about being so vulnerable with people I am not always like that with, I feel like God was trying to use me to say something.

I still wasn’t sure if I did the right thing until I went to bed last night. And then something interesting happened.

I debated about whether or not to share this moment with you, but I think that I should, because I feel like God was trying to send me another message to share.

I was listening to some calming music, and suddenly, I was in this grassy field. It was a beautiful day, the grass was swaying in the breeze, and there was no one around. Now, I have a very vivid imagination, so it was easy for me to feel like I was there, but this time it felt even more real than usual.

Suddenly, I turned around, and there He was. Jesus was standing right there, with open arms. He gave me a hug, and suddenly I felt the most love that I have ever felt before.

One friend of mine once said randomly, “You know, I bet Jesus gives some pretty awesome hugs.” Well, now I definitely think He does.

As I lay there in my bed, I began to cry uncontrollably. I couldn’t remember the last time I had ever felt so much love. It was the most perfect gift I ever could have received. (And just so you know, I don’t cry very much, so it was kind of a big deal)

And Jesus was telling me, “I’m here. I’m waiting for you. I love you.”

And I think I’m supposed to share that message with all of you, too. You are LOVED. Someone is out there, always waiting, always there for you. You have something to look forward to. You can be with the One that loves you the most.

I honestly have no words to describe the type of love I felt. It was like a hug from every single person you love, all at once, but more. Your heart feels full, alive. You feel like maybe tomorrow is worth waking up to. And you know that you are not alone anymore.

I read a quote later today that said, “What comes out of your mouth is what’s in your heart.”

Let there be love flowing from your words. Let your heart receive the kind of love that God has for you, and that people who truly care about you have for you. Remember that NO MATTER WHAT you are a beloved child of God, and there will ALWAYS be arms stretched out, waiting for you, wanting you, ready to embrace you.

So my challenge for you is this: Spread some kind of love to as many people as possible. Maybe post something inspirational, text a friend that’s going through a hard time, text a friend that’s always been there for you, give some special people in your life a hug. You never know how long you’ll have them, but you do know that you can always spread more love.

“Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love.”
1 John 4:7-8

Fear Interrupts Joy

“Worry about tomorrow steals the joy of today.”
Barbara Cameron

New Year, New Post

First of all, welcome back! I hope you all had a fabulous new year’s and a fresh start to 2020.

Second, you’re probably wondering why I decided to include a dog as the “symbol” of this post. My topic is on fear. Trust me, I am not afraid of dogs.

I’m going to return to my earlier series on joy, which I had started but typical Nine style, I got distracted and life got ahead of me, and so I only ended up doing one post. But I’m going to try to be less distracted and NOTICE more about my habits and my surroundings this year (notice is our word of the year at my church for 2020 and I may do a post about that later)…but that’s distracting from the point again!

A Quick Tail 😉

Anyway, I’ll start out with a little story about my dog, Hobi. I wanted to include an image of him, but the computer wouldn’t let me 😦 (he does look a lot like the dog in the picture though!)

He has a heart condition, which causes him to cough quite frequently, often when he is overexerting himself. But lately, I’ve started noticing a pattern. He will be in the middle of having the time of his life, running around with his incredibly slobbery reindeer toy that has its limbs chewed off, and all of a sudden, in the midst of his joyous time, he stops and coughs. He leaves his fun, his toy, and goes away to be by himself to finish coughing.

Now, besides the fact that this makes me quite sad, I was starting to make parallels between this action and how we often allow fear to interrupt our joy. Let me explain further before you leave, thinking that I have just compared you to my scruffy dog.

What’s this got to do with me?

Sometimes, when we get an opportunity, we will run out there head-on and feel free, excited, and full of joy. But then…something stops us. Doubt, other people’s opinions, a sudden realization, an obstacle of some sort. Fear overcomes us and we lose that joy, that passion we had for something important to us. And we can’t let this continue to happen.

As I’m sure you are all aware, there are extremely high levels of depression, hopelessness, and anxiety in the world today. Many blame it on our society of comparison, social media, entertainment, more people = less chances for everyone, etc. While those may be valid reasons, I think a main one is fear. There is so much fear now that we have access to so many resources, the news just a tap away. While it’s good to stay informed, it’s also important to remember that we can’t let fear hold us back from what we are passionate about. When we lose that sense of motivation, we lose a part of ourselves.

Now, you might be tired of me talking about fear, because I do so frequently. But that’s because it’s a large part of my life, and I bet it is or has been of yours too. Now, the average person, especially someone at my church, might see me as a calm, undisturbed, reserved person. (Believe me, I’m not on the inside! I’ve just heard observations…) Well, the truth is, I have a lot of fear about things going wrong, what people think of me, and how the future will play out. I work very hard to mute my fearful side, and often the most that comes out is me sounding a little cautious about certain ideas, or I confirm things repeatedly to make sure that everything is all figured out.

While being prepared is good, allowing fear to hold us back is bad. Now, one might say that worry does not harm us, especially if we don’t release those to the world. I’d beg to differ. Fear deprives us of joy, because instead of enjoying the here and now, we are so focused on what’s might go wrong, that we forget to realize everything that’s gone right.

I’m not saying that we can’t appreciate what’s happened in the past, and we should allow there to be some space for negative emotions to be exposed so that we can process them and move forward. But I’m saying that you can stop worrying about what’s going to happen next. We can continue to pursue that opportunity (if God wills it of course) and maneuver through the rough times in order to come out of the experience a better person. Those things that we fear might actually be what we are thanking God for later in our lives.

My Challenge to You

Tomorrow, the next day, the next week, the next month…(you get the idea), I want you to take the time to write down what you are afraid of. That’s right, I want you to recognize them. I want you to look at them and see if those are practical things for you to be concerned about. And then, I want you to write one thing that has gone well for you for each of the things that you’re afraid of. It might not flow as easily at first, but eventually you will be able to see how God is working through all those things, and that there are still things to have joy about.

In the long term, the next time you hear something that should be a source of joy, I want you to celebrate. It can be anything, something big or something small. Celebrate those victories and forget about the fear for a little while. Trust me, you will feel better about yourself and the situation afterwards.

My call of action to you: live with hope for the future, not fear!

“When anxiety was great within me, your consolation brought joy to my soul.”
~Psalm 94:19