A Thrill of Hope

Merry dang Christmas, fam!

This year, the meaning of Christmas hit me like a ton of bricks. I was assigned to preach a Sunday in our Advent series. Preparing it was super fun, but it also really opened my eyes.

As I’m sitting in the library with 10 different commentaries spread out across the table in front of me, I found myself completely numb to the reality of the birth of Jesus.

A baby was born in Bethlehem.

Wise men came.

Angels sang.

Frankincense and myrrh, blah blah blah.

In my sermon, my job was to communicate how we have a Hope of a Deliverer. Piece of cake, right?

No, man. No.

Until about a week before, I had nothing. I was desperately searching for something to say. I couldn’t figure out why I couldn’t connect with the topic.

Hope of a Deliverer.

Deliverance is a HUGE part of the theological framework where we place our entire faith. I couldn’t figure out why I was having such a difficult time connecting with this.

That’s when I realized that I have been exposed to this Truth for so long, that I came completely numb to it.

So I prayed. And He answered.

I broke it down in stages.

An angel came to Mary, an unmarried teenager. Did I mention she was a virgin? Because she was.

The angel said “hey girl, I know you’re not married and stuff, but you’re going to have a baby. But not just any baby. It’s going to save the lives of the world. So, anyway, I’ll let you get back to sleep now. Bye.”

So Mary faces her fiance to tell him “hey so I’m pregnant, and no it’s not yours. But it’s okay because God placed it in me. Love you byeeeee!!”

Fast forward to Bethlehem.

A baby is born. I really wonder what Mary was thinking as she held this tiny human.

This baby was God’s plan to redeem all of humanity. 

Israel was in bondage. They were nose-deep in sin, fear, and death. However, Isaiah prophesied that a someone would come to deliver them.

And there it is. The fulfilled prophesy. In the form of a little baby.

I sat down and tried to process all of this. I laid face-down on the floor crying while The Lord re-awakened all of this in my heart.

The Messiah could have come as a 33-year-old man, and been crucified the next day. But instead, He came as a baby, grew up as a toddler, went through all of the awful stages of puberty, and into adulthood.

He came in the form of the ones He came to save. And He did it while being completely sinless.

God sent a Messiah so we could step above the sins of Adam, and step into our inheritance as children of God.

When I was preparing this message, The Lord gave me a picture of the Israelite’s crossing the Red Sea.

As they walked through the parted sea, they were stripping off their fear. Taking off their bondage. Leaving their old life behind.

And they stepped into their new identities as children of God; the identity that was theirs to have all along.

It is my prayer that as you celebrate this Christmas season, you will remember your identity as a child of God, and remembering that none of it would be possible without the birth of this little baby. I pray that none of this would become so repetitive that it would become numbing, but that it would set the stage for an encounter with our Heavenly Father.

For to us a child is born,
    to us a son is given;
and the government shall be upon his shoulder,
    and his name shall be called
Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God,
    Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.

 Isaiah 9:6

When You Want to Move Mountains, but You Can’t Tend Your Sheep

Saying I’m thankful this semester is over could be one of the biggest understatements of 2015.

However, I can’t take for granted the amazing things that have happened though:

I started an internship at a church with an awesome set of staff who have pushed me outside my boundaries to gain practical ministry experience.

I became the Hall Chaplain of the freshman dorm at Ohio Christian University, where I have a hall full of girls who challenge me, inspire me, and bless me on a daily basis.

I started a new job where I get paid to plan events and hangout with people. (Total torture, I know.)

I’ve been given many opportunities to sharpen my preaching skills.

I have been surrounded with life-giving relationships with people who are actively pursuing the heart of God.

And probably a kabillion other things that I’m failing to mention.

Also, I’m about to enter into my second semester of my junior year, so naturally, ideas for possible seminaries are coming up.

In the midst of all these amazing things, this semester has thrown me some curveballs too.

I started treatment for depression that has been creeping up on me for the past year and a half. As I have written about before, depression has been my ball and chain for awhile. Which is pretty lame.

Depression affected my life in every single facet. My grades suffered, my social life was shaken up a bit since I was tired and irritable all the time. I turned into a pessimistic, extremely negative, emotionally-numb person, who went through the motions, rolling through the day-to-day, just simply existing.

With all that said, I’m so thankful for friends, treatment, and incredible doctors who care about my well-being.

Halfway through the semester, I started medication and counseling. Which made me feel like I was finally seeing the light at the end of the tunnel.

I began making plans for next year and post-college. Plans of leading small groups, planning new ministries to cater to the needs of campus, graduation, and moving south to attend seminary.

I was praying over these things one night, and God intervened with the words:

“Why are you trying to move mountains when you can’t even tend your sheep?”

Um, what.

I meditated on these words for a few days, and I tried to find the meaning behind it. I looked through Scripture, and found 1 Samuel 17; David and Goliath.

David was a kid. He was often overlooked by his family, and always given the jobs that nobody else wanted. David was a shepherd. He took care of his dad’s sheep and that’s basically it. David was a pretty regular kid.

So when a 9-foot tall giant comes in and David offers to kill him, it’s no surprise that everyone was like “uhhh, any other takers??”

Everyone is quick to remind David that he is not equipped to fight Goliath. He’s too small. Too young. Too lame.

But David’s persistent, and I love him for that.

He gets in and says, (34-37):

³⁴ But David persisted. “I have been taking care of my father’s sheep and goats,” he said. “When a lion or a bear comes to steal a lamb from the flock,³⁵ I go after it with a club and rescue the lamb from its mouth. If the animal turns on me, I catch it by the jaw and club it to death. ³⁶ I have done this to both lions and bears, and I’ll do it to this pagan Philistine, too, for he has defied the armies of the living God! ³⁷ The Lord who rescued me from the claws of the lion and the bear will rescue me from this Philistine!”

Suddenly it hit me: David was equipped to fight Goliath because he was faithful about taking care of his sheep.

I looked at the things I would classify as “Goliath moments.”

-Seminary

-Starting a ministry

-Graduating college

Then, I looked at things I would classify as my “sheep.”

-Making it to class… on time

-Taking care of the girls in my hall

-Cleaning my room

-Doing my laundry

-Attending meetings… on time

-Not using up my family’s shared data plan

-Keeping up my grades

-Remembering to return my mom’s 47 missed calls

-Turning in assignments… on time

-Not spending my entire paycheck at Chipotle and Vera Bradley boutiques

-Washing my hair? Just kidding. I always remember to do that… sometimes.

But really.. my “sheep” outnumber my “Goliath moments.”

That’s when I asked myself, am I trying to move mountains and fight Goliath when I’m not even taking care of my sheep?

God wants to know that we are being faithful with the little things before He gives us big projects.

We will have our occasional Goliath moments, but we will always go back to our sheep at the end of the day. 

He equips faithful servants, and He gives them victory.

⁴⁸ As Goliath moved closer to attack, David quickly ran out to meet him.⁴⁹ Reaching into his shepherd’s bag and taking out a stone, he hurled it with his sling and hit the Philistine in the forehead. The stone sank in, and Goliath stumbled and fell face down on the ground.

⁵⁰ So David triumphed over the Philistine with only a sling and a stone, for he had no sword.

-1 Samuel 17:48-50

Praise in the Midst of Chaos

Sophomore year, man. It’s been a year.

I can remember last summer, before entering into this school year, I was listening to my dad and I’s favorite hymn, It is Well with my Soul. I clearly remember saying to God, “Lord, it is my heart’s desire to be so anchored in who You are, that no matter what life throws at me, I can say ‘It is well with my soul.'”

He definitely heard that prayer.

This year has had it’s ups and downs, with the ups being really high up, and the downs being down at rock bottom. I was surrounded by broken hearts, and my natural burden-bearing-self carried every one. While in constant prayer for all those around me, I felt myself slowly slipping into the background of it all. In result of that, I completely lost myself, to the point that I forgot everything that made me who I am. I became a product of whatever environment I was in, and found myself in the midst of over a year-long season of depression.

Depression is a hard word for me to come to grips with. As some of you readers may know, a few years ago, I struggled with a self-harm addiction that consumed me to the point of needing treatment and rehabilitation in order to overcome. Depression was the underlying cause of my self-harm, which is why it has been difficult to admit to myself. Those two things have always been associated with one another in my mind. So, when I found out that depression had been creeping back up on me, I couldn’t accept it. I refused to.

However, when I paused long enough to sit down and process everything, it all started to make sense. My eating patterns were barely existent. If I wasn’t sleeping over 15 hours a day, I wasn’t even sleeping at all. I hated social encounters with my friends, which is completely opposite of how my extroverted personality normally functions. Being around people meant I had to put on my “everything is great,” mask; and that was exhausting. Insecurities ate me alive, making me a prisoner to my own mind. I went days without praying, and it had been weeks since I had sat down to read Scripture. But the thing that really confused me, was that I wasn’t even sad… instead, I was completely numb to every emotion.

I knew something had to be changed, but I knew that I was going to need something bigger than myself.

Now, before I continue, this isn’t one of those “Jesus took away my depression” stories. I wish it was, but for me, it’s still not that easy.

I looked back through one of my journals, and I found where I had written something from an encounter I had with The Lord at the end of 2014. The Lord had placed a bunch of crazy illustrations in my dreams, and there was one in particular where I was in a forest, and He told me that He would be faithful in getting me out into the open again.

With that said, this year, God has taken me on a journey of revealing His faithfulness to me. It’s been difficult, I’m not gonna lie. It’s incredibly uncomfortable putting your full heart into something and just trusting that it will all work out.

As C.S, Lewis once said, “we are not necessarily doubting that God will do the best for us; we are wondering how painful the best will turn out to be.” 

I really wish that this long story would end with a pretty ending where I can say that everything is back to normal, God healed my heart, and now I’m exploding with peace. But like I said before, it hasn’t been that easy.

It’s actually been really hard. It still is.

I’ve been viewing my current walk with God as a marriage that is going through a rough patch. Where one spouse is broken, but they have to push past their own brokenness, while being intentional about loving the other spouse in order to restore their marriage.

I’ve been digging back into Scripture, even when I don’t want to. I’ve been praying some, as I like to call them, soul-ripping prayers, where I ugly-cry, while dumping out all pf my heartache. I’ve been forcing myself to be around people, even when I just want to lay in bed and sleep.

Along with all of this, I’ve been praying specifically for God to reveal His faithfulness to me through this. His gentle voice has said to me time and time again, “I’ve done greater things than this, and you’re going to be okay.”

In the midst of all of this, I have found a lot of comfort in the book of Habakkuk. The first passage in this book is titled, “Habakkuk’s Complaint,” and he cries out to God, “How long O, Lord, must I cry out for help? But You don’t listen! Violence is everywhere, but You do not come to save! …The wicked outnumber the righteous…” (vs.2,4) The Lord replies, “Look around at the nations, look and be amazed! For I am doing something in your own day, something you wouldn’t believe even if someone told you about it.” (v.5)

This dialog goes back and forth throughout the book, where Habakkuk questions God’s ways, and God replies by telling him to be patient and to put his trust in Him.

Lastly, at the end, Habakkuk’s questions turn into praise as he says this beautiful prayer to The Lord, (3:17-19):

“Even though the fig trees have no blossoms,
    and there are no grapes on the vines;
even though the olive crop fails,
    and the fields lie empty and barren;
even though the flocks die in the fields,
    and the cattle barns are empty,
¹⁸ yet I will rejoice in the Lord!
    I will be joyful in the God of my salvation!
¹⁹ The Sovereign Lord is my strength!
    He makes me as surefooted as a deer,
    able to tread upon the heights.”

Brokenness is real. Depression is real. However, God’s faithfulness is even more prominent. And as I approach the tail-end of this season, it is my prayer that I can be like Habakkuk; praising God in the midst of chaos… because He is good and faithful.

When Pain Comes (conclusion)

Whew! What a journey.

When I prayed on how to use my own pain to help others, writing about it seemed like the best way. This 4-part series has forced me to dig deep down and really challenge everything I’ve believed about pain.

It was my goal to try and answer some tough questions in the best way I knew how. These questions are questions I’ve asked before, and ones I prayed I had the answers to years ago.

Friends, pain is inevitable. Jesus never said “IF you experience trials in this life, take heart.” No. He said “WHEN you experience trials in this life, take heart.” Why? Because we live in a world that is filled with sin and death. It started in Genesis 3, and it’s going to be that way until Jesus comes back for His people.

But while all of that is true, that does not mean we have to just sit back and accept pain. We have a Peace that dwells within our hearts. When pain comes, we can either allow it to overtake us, or let it make us stronger. We have the opportunity to plant our stake in the ground and say “My God is good. And He will get me through this.”

It is my prayer that we can always remember that God does not approve of our pain. It is not in His will for our lives. However, He does use it to make deepen our faith, as well as our dependence on Him.

He does not break the pieces of our hearts, but He will take the broken pieces and make a masterpiece out of them.

If you’ve experienced pain, and you’re desperately searching for healing, you are not alone. God is with you, and He will be with you throughout this difficult season.

I wish I could promise you that it gets easier, but it doesn’t. And because we live in a broken, sin-infested world, it will never get easier.

However, we have this promise: Romans 8:18.

(MSG): That’s why I don’t think there’s any comparison between the present hard times and the coming good times. The created world itself can hardly wait for what’s coming next. Everything in creation is being more or less held back. God reins it in until both creation and all the creatures are ready and can be released at the same moment into the glorious times ahead. Meanwhile, the joyful anticipation deepens.

Jesus is coming back for us, friends. And that promise in Romans is enough for me to continue to press on through the hard times.

He is not the creator of pain.

He is not a killer.

He is not a deceiver.

He is not a thief of joy or a heart-breaker.

No. He is a beautiful, gracious, giving God who loves us and HEALS our hearts from the pain of this world.

I will hold on to that, and I pray you will too.

Heavenly Father, You are so good. You are faithful, and I’m in awe of the way You turn brokenness into beauty. Jesus, come into the broken places of our hearts. Lord, You created our hearts in YOUR image, and they were not meant to be broken. In Jesus’ Name, I pray healing and restoration over broken hearts. Suffering has no place in the light of Your Presence. Thank you for all You have done, are doing, and will do with in us. Have your way in our lives. Turn our brokenness into beauty for Your glory. I pray all of this in Your Holy Name. Amen.

Dear friends, I pray this series has been an encouragement to you. Thanks for reading 🙂

Here’s to new journeys in 2015!

-Sierra 🙂

When Pain Comes (part four)

When we think of pain, lots of questions come to mind. A few of them, I touched on throughout this 4-part series. In this final part, I want to talk about one final question, one that’s probably my favorite to talk about:

Where is God in the midst of all this pain?

My friends, He’s right there with you!

With those simple words, I feel the weight of the world leave my shoulders.

Before I say anything else, I want to look at the story of Lazarus.

John 11:17  Now when Jesus came, he found that Lazarus had already been in the tomb for four days.

John 11:21-27:  ²¹ Martha said to Jesus, “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died. ²² But even now I know that whatever you ask from God, God will give you.” ²³ Jesus said to her, “Your brother will rise again.” ²⁴ Martha said to him, “I know that he will rise again in the resurrection on the last day.” ²⁵ Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life. Whoever believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live, ²⁶ and everyone who lives and believes in me shall never die. Do you believe this?” ²⁷ She said to him, “Yes, Lord; I believe that you are the Christ, the Son of God, who is coming into the world.”

John 11:32-35 ³² Now when Mary came to where Jesus was and saw him, she fell at his feet, saying to him, “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.” ³³ When Jesus saw her weeping, and the Jews who had come with her also weeping, he was deeply moved in his spirit and greatly troubled. ³⁴ And he said, “Where have you laid him?” They said to him, “Lord, come and see.” ³⁵ Jesus wept.

John 11:38-44: ³⁸ Then Jesus, deeply moved again, came to the tomb. It was a cave, and a stone lay against it. ³⁹ Jesus said, “Take away the stone.” Martha, the sister of the dead man, said to him, “Lord, by this time there will be an odor, for he has been dead four days.” ⁴⁰ Jesus said to her, “Did I not tell you that if you believed you would see the glory of God?” ⁴¹ So they took away the stone. And Jesus lifted up his eyes and said, “Father, I thank you that you have heard me.⁴² I knew that you always hear me, but I said this on account of the people standing around, that they may believe that you sent me.” ⁴³ When he had said these things, he cried out with a loud voice, “Lazarus, come out.” ⁴⁴ Lazarus, the man who had died, then came out, his hands and feet bound with linen strips, and his face wrapped with a cloth. Jesus said to them, “Unbind him, and let him go.”

You see, Jesus KNEW Lazarus was going to live again. He KNEW the miracle He was going to perform. He KNEW the healing He was going to provide to Lazarus, but He also KNEW the pain that Mary was feeling… and he wept with her.

God doesn’t want us to hurt. When our hearts hurt, His heart hurts too. His heart breaks for us because we are His children. No father wants to see his baby hurt. And the story of Lazarus illustrates that beautifully.

One thing that I also noticed was the faith of Mary and Martha, as well as their open communication with Jesus.

They opened up their broken hearts to Jesus. They allowed Him in.

When I sit down and think about all of the things The Lord showed me this season, I think of how much closer I grew to Him. All because I kept my heart in constant communication with His. In doing so, I was able to discern His voice from my own.

Communication with God is no different than communication with anybody else.

Have you ever answered the phone and you weren’t able to recognize the voice of the person you were talking to? That’s because you haven’t heard the voice enough to know who it is.

The same works with God. He’s always speaking to us, but if we don’t establish that close, intimate relationship with Him through communication, we won’t be able to recognize His voice.

In John 10, Jesus says “my sheep know my voice, I know them, and they know me; …and they will not follow another.”

When pain hits, we need to stay in close communication with Him.

I said it in my last post…

By opening up communication and allowing The Lord to come into the broken places of your heart, you allow freedom to take place, because you give Him authority over your pain.

In this last part of this series, I want to shed some light on a part of my heart.

Last year, I wrote about how thankful I am for Jesus, because His death saved me from my sins. In that post, I talked about my past addiction to self harm that consumed most of my junior high years, as well as part of my first year of high school. I wrote:

“God gave His only son for me. Before I was even born, He knew I was going to sin. He knew exactly what my sins would be, and what I would struggle with.

Starting in junior high, until my freshman year, I struggled with self-harm. I became so addicted to it that I needed therapy and rehabilitation in order to properly heal from it. Even when I was telling everyone I was fine and done with self-harm, I was still struggling.

But the beauty of my testimony is that Jesus died for my self-harm. He was beaten and humiliated for it. God knew that when I was in the 7th grade, I would become addicted to cutting, and He knew I would struggle with it until I was a freshman in high school. He wanted a relationship with me, and He wanted me to be holy and pure. So He sent Jesus for that.”

Looking back at this, I realize that it took me a few years after my last cut to really heal. I tried to cover the pain for years after I started therapy. During my early-to-mid-teenage years, self harm was my skeleton in the closet, but once that was exposed, not dealing with the after-effects of the pain was my new skeleton in the closet.

You see, the problem was… I didn’t open up that part of my heart to The Lord. So I had no freedom.

I went to church on Sundays and sang on stage with the worship team, but I had no relationship with Him.

Think of a romantic relationship. Now try to picture it without any pursuit, vulnerability, or communication between one another. That’s not a relationship.

It’s exactly how our relationship works with The Lord, and it’s exactly how Mary and Martha’s relationship worked with Jesus. They had faith, but they still exposed the part of their hearts to Jesus that were broken because of the death of their brother. And Jesus wept with them.

When we are hurting, He is too. When we’re angry because a loved one was ripped from us, He is just as angry as we are. When our hearts are broken because a relationship falls apart, He cries with us.

He goes through our pain with us.

Psalm 34:18 (MSG)

 If your heart is broken, you’ll find God right there;

 if you’re kicked in the gut, He’ll help you catch your breath.

When Pain Comes (part three)

3. How do we deal with our pain?

Pain is tough, you guys. It’s not easy. Everyone handles it differently. However, our hearts were made in the same image. So our heart’s healing process was intended to be the same for everyone.

I mentioned back in part one that avoiding your pain is not the answer. And I still stand by that.

This past semester brought a lot of pain, and I learned that pushing it away doesn’t make it better. I wanted to shut off my feelings. I wanted to throw away my emotions, even though they weighed heavily on my heart. That only brought on more pain, and it didn’t allow Peace to come in and take over.

I understand that everyone handles pain differently. I also believe that Satan takes our past addictions, along with all of our faulty coping mechanisms, and tries to push them back into our lives. He tries to take our mistakes and tell us that going back to them will make it better. We get so tangled up in addiction and we try to make sense of it all, when in reality, addiction just distracts you from the pain long enough to dig yourself into a deeper pit of despair.

Instead of trying to escape our pain, we need to remember that Jesus was sent to heal us from our pain.

In my last post, I talked about how Jesus was God’s plan for redemption.

In order to understand how to heal from our pain, we need to understand that Jesus, as Pastor Bill Johnson says, is perfect theology. And since Jesus is God in the flesh, to understand the will of God, we need to understand the nature of His Son, Jesus.

I’m not going to do something that is outside of my nature. I’m not going to go out and physically harm another person. I’m not going to go rob a bank. I’m not going to shoplift. Those things are not in my nature.

John 14:9: Jesus replied, “anyone who has seen me has seen the Father!”

Pain, suffering, depression… those things are not in God’s nature. They do not line up with His character.

It’s also important to understand that your pain does not change who Jesus is. 

If we know God is our healer. If we know He is our protector, our strength, our shield… then why would we cast blame on Him for our pain?

Mark 3:25 says that a house divided against itself cannot stand. 

If He is who He says He is, why would He be the creator of pain and suffering?

You see, God is our protector, strength, shield, and healer BECAUSE their is pain in the world. Why would we need those all of those things if the world was perfect?

Now, again, I’m not saying that God created pain. He did not create pain. But because He gives us free will, and sin entered the world, pain also entered the world.

However, God is there to direct you, and He’s also there to pick up the pieces.

When I think of God as a protector, I think back to all of the times I listened to His voice when it came to making certain decisions. When choosing a college, when choosing a major, when applying for jobs, when entering into new relationships. I had free will in the making of all of those decisions, but I listened to the voice of God, and He directed my path. And now, looking back on all of it, His direction saved me from a lot of heartache.

Okay Sierra, that’s great and all, but why does pain happen all the time?

Well friend, I don’t know.

So we need to cling to what we DO know.

God is good and He is faithful.  I’ll say it again and again.

Throughout this series, I have talked about how rough this past semester was. However, I never questioned the character of God. I never let my pain overshadow His goodness. My pain is not from Him. My suffering is not approved by Him.

One of my favorite books, God Loves Ugly, was written by Christa Black Gifford. Last March, Christa gave birth to a beautiful little girl named Luca Gold, who went to be with The Lord 40 short minutes after she was born. Christa’s heart was broken, but her faith grew stronger everyday. One of my all-time favorite quotes came from her seminar at Worship U. She said, “If you are not anchored in the goodness of God, you will lower your theology to match your pain. The goodness of God will NEVER be subjected to my pain. In fact, the only way to HEAL from pain is to subject my PAIN to the GOODNESS of God.”

If we aren’t aware of all of the good things God has done, will do, and is doing in our lives, we will start to lower our view of what He is capable of.

If we go through a season of loss, and we don’t remind ourselves that God is still good, we will start to believe that God takes away, and never gives.

With all that said, I want you to think of Jesus as a filter for your heart. We can take our pain, and filter it through Jesus. Take your pain, give it to Jesus, and I promise you, He will take in all of the pain, all of the suffering, and push our purity, giving you the gift of a new heart.

Friends, I’m telling you. I prayed. With anger towards the situation, I cried out to Jesus, begging him to take the pain from my heart. Is it completely gone? No, not all the way. But He has taken parts of that pain and filtered it, giving me joy, and a new perspective on who He is. That’s how it’s supposed to work.

Recently, I’ve developed the habit of reminding myself every single day that God is good, and God is faithful. Those simple truths helped me realize that He takes my pain, and He uses it for His good and glory. He takes the broken pieces, and makes it into a masterpiece.

If you’re going through a season of pain, I want to encourage you to filter it through the goodness and faithfulness of Jesus. Find the truth that you need to be reminded of, and remind yourself of that everyday. By doing this, you are giving The Lord authority over your pain, allowing Him to come in and bring total healing.

 

When Pain Comes (part two)

Ah.. the big question.

2. Why does pain happen?

And the answer… the only answer I can give…

Genesis 3.

The Fall.

The day when sin entered into God’s perfect world.

First, I wanna talk about the world pre-sin. What was it like?

Well, think of the most luxurious vacation spot you know of. Think of the beauty of it. Now take that, and multiply it times a million.

That’s what the world was like before Genesis 3.

The world was in perfect harmony between God, land, and others. God’s words “and it was good,” echoed throughout chapters 1 and 2 of Genesis. There was no sin. No shame. No guilt. No sorrow. No doubt. The world was exactly how God intended for it to be.

Adam and Eve had the perfect marriage. Their fellowship between one another was unhindered by sin. Their relationship was bound together by the love of God. Their focus was on Him, because they knew He was their Creator.

Then Genesis 3 comes in.

Satan manipulates Eve into doubting the character of God, and both her and Adam eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, (which God told them not to,) and just like that. They feel shame at their nakedness. Which is a big deal since shortly before this, in Genesis 2:25 says “they were naked, and felt no shame.”

At the realization of their nakedness, they begin to sew fig leaves together to cover their loins.

Now think about it… they immediately knew to cover their loins.

I don’t think this is a coincidence. Think about the loins. The loins are where intimacy and oneness happen in a marriage. The loins produce life. Because of sin, because of shame, they struggled and scrambled to cover that part of their naked bodies.

Then God notices that they covered their bodies. And I think this is where we get some misconceptions about who God is.

Most people think of God being this big, mighty, angry person that comes in and kicks them out of the garden. I see Him in more of a caring, fatherly role.

I see Him saying, “my child, these are the consequences for your choices.” He had to make them leave the garden. The tree was still there. The serpent was still there. Sin was there. He had to make childbirth painful, and curse the ground because of the choices Adam and Eve made. These were the consequences for breaking the intimate relationship between child and Father.

Now, I’m not a mother. I pray that one day, I will be. But for now, I’m a babysitter. I think back to when I was babysitting and I told one of the boys while I was ironing a pair of pants, “sweetheart, don’t touch the iron. It’s very hot, and you’ll burn yourself.” If he was to go ahead and touch the iron anyway, even when I specifically told him not to, I’m not responsible for that. He made the choice to touch the hot iron even though I warned him what would happen if he did.

That’s what happened here. God specifically said “you may freely eat the fruit from any tree in the garden- except the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. If you eat it’s fruit, surely you will die.” (2:16-17)

After this, we see all throughout the Old Testament… sin and death.

Storms, floods, murder, prostitution, idolatry, war, punishment, fire, adultery, horror, disease, calamity, brokenness… The list goes on, and on, and on, and on.

So why does pain happen? Because of sin.

Is pain in the will of God? No. Absolutely not.

Pain is a product of the fall.

But then… The Old Testament ends, and the New Testament begins with the book of Matthew; where all who are hurting and broken have a chance at redemption through God’s one and only son, Jesus Christ.

Hope entered in.

God’s plan to ravish the hearts of His children was born into the world in way to reverse the power of sin that entered in back in Genesis.

Isaiah 9:6: For to us a child is born, to us a son is given, and the government will be on his shoulders. And he will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.

When Pain Comes (part one)

When it comes to talking about pain, I think we need to have a proper understanding of what the word means.

Pain (noun): mental or emotional suffering.
adjectives for pain: agony, desolation, torment, grief, heartache, sorrow, distress,

Or to go a little deeper…

Trauma (noun): emotional shock following a stressful event, normally caused by a painful experience.

“normally caused by a painful experience”

In an online class about pain, taught by Christa Black Gifford, she defined trauma as “anything that causes your capacity for pain to be greater than your capacity for joy.”

Pain and trauma happen in life. And if we don’t prepare ourselves for tough times, it will wreck us. It will consume us. It will ruin us.

First, we need to understand our heart.

1. What is my heart?

Your heart was made by God. Duh. BUT it’s important to know that your heart was made BY GOD to be FILLED with unconditional love. And I’m sorry to break it to you, but nobody in this life will be able to fill your heart with unconditional love. No one.

Unconditional love is something that is talked about between parents and their children, and promised between husband and wife on their wedding day. But in the grand scheme of things, God is the only One who is capable of filling our hearts with love, peace, patience, grace… everything.

And the beautiful thing about God’s love… is that He always loves us, but He gives us the choice to love Him back.

Love is not love if it’s forced. Think about it for a minute. What would your relationships be like if they were forced to love you? Pretty meaningless, and pretty empty.

If love is forced, it’s not love, it’s tolerance. Make sure you understand that.

Next, it’s important to understand that the condition of your HEART determines the condition of your LIFE.

There’s a reason why Proverbs 4 says “Guard your heart above all else, for it determines the course of your life.”

When pain hits, you feel it in your heart. That’s why they call it heartache; because you can physically feel pain in your heart.

Next, if you don’t deal with pain when it first hits, that pain will seep out onto everything you do.

Matthew 12:34: “Out of the overflow of the heart, the mouth speaks.”

This verse is the very reason why the grieving process is so important. If you don’t grieve a loss, you will push that pain deep down into your heart. Things will be okay for awhile, but one day, and trust me when I say this, one day, it will resurface. And that pain will complicate everything good in your life. Whether that’s a passion of yours, a job, a relationship, or just a positive emotional state.

Think of a volcano. Why do volcanoes erupt? Because of pressure.

There becomes a build up of pressure that forces it to bubble up to the surface, and eventually explode.

Now, I’m not saying you need to be completely okay ever. No. Heck no. It’s okay to feel pain. You will always feel pain. But it’s not okay to never deal with pain.

Avoidance is NOT the answer. I repeat: avoidance is NOT the answer.

By not dealing with pain, you allow the “side effects” of that pain affect your relationships in life.

I had a friend who was physically abused by her father. To this day, that pain affects the way she handles herself in romantic relationships. She doesn’t trust any man that comes into her life. That’s a prime example of why avoiding pain is not the answer.

Again… avoiding it is not the answer.

But I want to bring you some good news. There’s a silver lining to all of this. Even though pain comes in and breaks our hearts, we serve a God who HEALS the brokenhearted and BINDS up our wounds. (Psalm 147:3)

Friends, pain happens. It will always happen. And it will never stop in this life. But at the end of this first part, I want to leave you with this promise:

John 16:32-33 (MSG): The Father is with me. I have told you all this so that trusting me, you will be unshakable and assured, deeply at peace. In this godless world, you will continue to experience difficulties. But take heart! I have conquered the world.”

When Pain Comes (prelude)

Pain. The thing nobody likes to talk about, but everyone wants the answers to.

Why does pain happen?

Why does God allow it to happen?

Where is God in all of this?

If we’re all being honest, these are questions that all of us have thought of at one time or another. These questions aren’t able to be answered in one simple sentence. Some of these questions can only be answered by experience. You have to experience pain in order to understand it.

As I wrote in my last post, this semester was crazy. I experienced pain. Before everything, I thought I knew what real pain was. However, life came in and reminded me that I had no idea what real pain felt like.

“Experience is the best teacher.” Ugh.

Friends, the Lord has put this difficult subject on my heart, and I’m on a mission to bring help to the hurting, as well as spread good news to all who have been attacked by life’s pain.

As I prayed on how I wanted to talk about all of this, I knew writing about it was the best way. I have broken this up into a 4-part series, and I hope this serves as encouragement to anyone who has experienced pain.

-Sierra 🙂

In Every Season

Man, oh man. It’s been awhile.

Tonight I was looking back at all the stuff I’ve written in the past year since I’ve been in college, and I’m in awe of how much The Lord has shown me since my first post.

I named this blog “Inseparable” because there is nothing that can separate us from the love of God. More than a year ago, I wrote my first post about that very thing, but thinking back on it, at that moment in time, I don’t think I knew what that really meant.

You see, my 18 year old, first-semester-freshman-in-college self, had never gone through a “season of drought.” And friends, let me tell you, I don’t think you really understand God’s relentless Presence until you go through a season like that.

After much prayer, I think I’m finally at a place where I can talk about everything, because I think I’m beginning to see the forest through the trees. (Figuratively, but also literally. More on that later.)
This semester, man. What a semester.

First off, let me begin by saying The Lord has blessed me in ways I can’t even express to you in words. I’m not writing this so I can just vent about how messy life has been. I have met some amazing people. Actually, the word “amazing” is just scratching the surface of how wonderful they are. These people have taught me how to be vulnerable, and they taught me that it’s okay to not be okay.

On the other hand, I learned that sometimes, life happens. And it will only wreck you if you let it wreck you. I learned that sometimes, God pumps the breaks on things that you are pursuing with your whole heart. Sometimes, He says “You know what, that’s good, but not right now,” and He shuts the door on it, and you feel like you’re completely in the dark. Another thing I learned is that sometimes, bad things happen… and there is nothing you can do to stop it.

Sometimes, these things happen. And sometimes, they all happen at the same time. Friends, it breaks my heart to say it, but because we live in a broken world, these things aren’t going to go away in this life.

During this season, all of the above happened. It all happened within a matter of a few weeks, and it left me feeling utterly hopeless, and completely brokenhearted. I felt like I was going through the motions. Like all of life was a blur, and I was just sitting back and watching it happen. In a room full of people, I felt alone. The only way to explain it was to say that I was in a desert season. A season of drought.

My heart also hurt for those around me. This semester, I had so many friends who suffered heartache. Breakups, deaths, sickness, you name it. And I often went to The Lord, not with the question “why?” but with the question “why now? Why is this pain happening all at once?”

This semester, I found myself alone in my room a lot. And if you know me, that’s huge. My extra-extroverted self can barely handle a lonely walk to the cafeteria, let alone hours upon hours by myself.

Night after night, I spent in deep conversation with The Lord. I call it a conversation because He responded. Believe me, He responded. He responded powerfully.

Side note: one of my spiritual gifts is prophesy. And I’ll be honest, at that moment, I wished I could “turn off” my spiritual gift. I couldn’t sleep because God was speaking to me so loudly and clearly that I couldn’t shut my brain off long enough to sleep. God’s voice was a booming sound that echoed in my mind at all hours of the day and night, revealing new things to me and stripping away everything I thought I knew about who He was, what He was doing, and who I was in Him.

I found myself in the midst of heavy, significant encounters with The Lord. I felt Him. I saw Him. I talked with Him. I mean, I talked to Him. I filled up a 200-page prayer journal in a matter of days. I fell to my knees. I cried. I begged for God to show up in my drafty little dorm room and cover me with His Presence. That’s when I realized once again, in a way like never before, that He is always with me. We are inseparable.
God doesn’t like pain. Remember that. Pain is not from Him. Pain is a product of sin, and this world is full of sin. But I also want you to remember that the only way to heal from your pain is to bring your pain, and lay it at the feet of Jesus Christ.

I heard that so many times. “Give it all to God,” “Trust in Him,” or my all-time favorite… “Let Go and Let God.”

I did. Millions of times. But that doesn’t mean that it was just going to disappear.

No, I needed to constantly choose to recognize that He is good, He is faithful, and He is always bringing me close to Him.

I want to share with you an encounter I had with The Lord a few weeks ago.

I was sitting on my floor, playing guitar when I started to sing a song that He had put on my heart. I started to sing the words “You lead me. God, You take me by the hand and You lead me. You lead me through the darkness, and You never leave me.” I sat in silence for a while, and suddenly He showed me this visual:

I was standing in a field, and everything was clear around me, but it was dry. It was bland and gloomy. I looked above me, and off into the distance, I saw the tip of this mountain. It was so majestic, so alluring, and I was instantly drawn in. I could see what looked like a sunrise on the other side of the mountain, and I was lost in wonder as to the the view on top of that mountain would hold.

I was captivated, and I wanted to be there now.

However, there was a thick forest of trees before me. I couldn’t tell how deep the forest was, but all I could see was darkness. No glimmer of light anywhere except above the trees, I saw light that shined behind the mountain again.

I closed my eyes, opened them, and looked around. Nothing had changed. But then I looked down at my feet, and saw what looked like stepping stones. I looked deep into the forest, and all I could see was a very well-lit pathway led by those same stepping stones. Boldly, I took my first step onto the stepping stone, and felt The Lord say to me, “Stay in step with Me. Stay in sync with Me.”

Now, I’m not saying that you have to go through a season of drought before you can have anything good. No way. But I know what He has shown me. And I know I’m not the only one who has ever felt this way.

If you’re in a season where you feel like you’re in the dry field, take a step towards the forest.

If you’re at the base of the forest, take the first step onto the stepping stone.

If you’re in the forest, whether it’s the beginning, somewhere in the middle, or the tail-end, stay in step with The Lord. Like the old saying, “If He brought you to it, He’ll bring you through it!”

If you’re at the mountain, Praise the Lord! Take a minute to take it all in. Take in the beauty, and remember Who brought you there.

I honestly don’t know where I am in the forest. But I do know that The Lord has given me a sense of direction. He’s not finished with me yet, and that’s okay. I am so thankful for this season and for every single person who has been by my side through it.

I pray you all have a very merry Christmas, and a new year that is filled with new journeys, and new encounters with Him. 🙂

-Sierra
P.s. Here’s a song that has brought me much healing. Enjoy 🙂 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ub9ntcIvD0s