January 22, 2020
Hi! Me again! I do not stop and pause as often as I should or would like to, but when I do, my thoughts typically process as I write the blog you are now reading. One, thank you for letting me share my heart here. Two, I am just grateful for the opportunity to share and for Jesus and His vibrant work in my heart and around the world. Starting the new year and decade, it seems like a double reason for everyone to begin again. To commit to new goals. New lives. New behaviors. New starts. All of which are great. However, I cannot help but think how often this desire for renewal, for refreshment fizzles out gradually, most of the time not even making it to the next month. I have been known to do this as well, so please do not hear me in any regard other than as a friend, as a regular person walking through life just as you are. This year, 2020, is a year of change for me. Frankly, it is full of a lot of external change, change I do not completely control but get to be a part of anyway. This includes moving to a new home for the first time in my life only to move out of it in a short few months to start a new crazy journey called college. And, yes, I have already cried over a baby book about loving your mom and dad as I process that I will be leaving their immediate care before I know it. Most of all, I am grateful for this year’s change because something never gets better if nothing changes. A phrase so simple, a phrase seemingly straightforward yet a phrase I have recently had the privilege of experiencing quite fully. For this new year, I did not chose a word or a specific goal, both of which are great. Instead, I have chosen a posture, a posture of open hands and therefore an open heart. A bit of context behind this: for most of my life, my faith has been something I have shielded, guarded, and held for myself. You might think I am crazy to say this if you have read countless blogs about my faith, yet I would say there is a big difference in being able to share about something personal through a screen and the ability to share it with living, breathing people around me. I wish I could sit down with each of you, not because it would now be easy to share, but because I want to out a desire to scream the name of Jesus to the world. In faith in Him, I have found purpose: to know Him and to make Him known, as Louie Giglio says, yet for years, I neglected to share about the most precious gift I have ever received completely undeservingly. Throughout this past season, I have felt a stirring in my heart that I can by no means accredit to my own doing and for which I am forever grateful. My posture of open hands is a direct outcome of this stirring because if I cannot openly stretch my hands out beyond myself and to a God greater than my understanding, how can I fully embrace being a vessel for His story. Our desire can be to know and love Him, but keeping that desire to ourselves leaves a chasm between our human flesh and the purpose God has placed on my life and yours. If you would like, try it right now: open your hands, stretching your fingers out wide to the greatest King of Kings. It may feel weird at first; it did for me because we live in a world where we are told to “stay in your lane” and “you do you.” We are never told to open our hands to a God above us who pours out love in abundance and a world around us who is desperate for that love. Perhaps, for the first time, you just surrender to this higher purpose. He promises to have riches and reward for those who actively open their hearts to His: “For the eyes of the Lord range throughout the earth to strengthen those whose hearts are fully committed to him” (2 Chronicles 16:9). A posture of open hands is nothing extraordinary or extravagant; it is the opposite. It is the humble repositioning of a heart, as my human heart often is wrapped in pride, to a place in which the Lord can embolden it with a burning desire for Him and all things good. Perhaps this year, it is time to refocus our minds away from lists, goals, hopes, and plans for a fresh start to instead a posture of openness. Maybe this year, we learn together that before gaining anything worth having, before something ever gets better, we must first surrender to the Source from whom all good things flow. I pray you get to experience the power of the humble posture for yourself. It is not a posture others can develop or hold for you; there is a reason it is a posture that includes something so foundational to you as a individual, your own two hands. I, by no means, get it right every day; the only one who ever did is the One in whom we have the privilege to experience the “sweet, wholesome fragrance… of Christ in our lives” (2 Corinthians 2:15). My prayer is to cling to this posture, for it to be the defining mark on my life. I pray and trust in Jesus that you will experience the fullness of it in your life as well.
With love,
C