Do you hear what I hear?

People disappoint you.  

This is such a simple fact, yet why does it always seem so hard to digest every time it happens?  

I guess it gets me thinking about how God feels when we disappoint Him.  

Recently I have felt like I have been the one initiating things in so many of my friendships.  During one of my pity parties, I started thinking about how God feels when He is constantly initiating opportunities to spend time with Him, and we just miss His calls, or screen His calls, or forget to call back, or flat out reject Him!  Many times we hear sermons about finding time to get a "quiet time" with God each day, but what if all we had to do was open our ears to hear Him initiating moments with us and say yes.  That seems like what it means to live by faith, you know, listen and know the Holy Spirit more than relying on your own efforts to pencil in God on your schedule.  

I have a quote written somewhere in my apartment that says, "There is freedom found in discipline."  Well, this was from a talk I heard about how if you put some discipline in your life, then you won't have to worry as much about many things.  That is kind of a general explanation, I realize, so an example would be that if you had discipline in your diet, then you wouldn't have to worry as much about your health or waistline.  The other day I looked at the quote, and tilted my head.  I immediately started thinking, "No, that is wrong.  There is freedom found in Jesus.  The pharisees thought their freedom was found in discipline.  No, my freedom is found in Jesus."  I walked over to the quote and crossed our discipline and wrote in Jesus.

I just gave you many jumbled thoughts that somehow connected in my head.  Before I go, I think I must say that I am not trying to say that scheduling daily quiet time with God is a bad thing,  I am simply suggesting that we not be content with our scheduling of God into our lives, and instead listen for when He initiates time with us.  Furthermore, I am not suggesting that when freedom is found in Jesus, then you can say to heck with any self-discipline.  Rather, I am saying that we should place our hope in that.  Discipline will not save your soul, nor your sanity.  Galatians does list self control as one of the fruits of the Spirit, so if we hope in Jesus for our salvation and seek to align our hearts and sync our souls with the Spirit inside us, then we will exhibit more and more self control (along with the other fruits of the Spirit).

This post is very jumbled and poorly written.  Sorry.  I think I was mainly just preaching to myself.

So lucky

I am so in love, and so lucky.  I love that I never have to fabricate anything about my fiance.  He is who he is, and I love him for who he is now- not who he could become.  We both have things to learn in life, but I know that he is the one that I want to go through life with.  I love how he can make me laugh through anything.  He is my romantic guardian playmate.  I am so appreciative of his support through all these changes being made. 

I'm so excited to be his wife.

I believe we have a heck of a shot at helping give marriage a better rep.  It is all a matter of choices.  Choose not to make sarcastic jokes.  Choose to talk about the good things about your loved one.  Choose to remember sweet memories together.  Choose to turn off the TV and learn something new together.  Choose to seek God's help.  Choose to refuse to join in when others are bashing the opposite sex.  Choose romance.  Choose loyalty.  Choose joy.  Choose to strive for more and more out of your relationship (the relationship, not the other person).  Choose to be content with the other person.  Choose to not hurt.  Choose to stop ridiculous fights.  Choose to laugh.  Choose to love.  Choose to be brave and love more passionately every day.

That is the marriage tip of the day from this 20-years-old bride-to-be.  

Bye bye nursing school...

Yesterday I withdrew with passing grades from nursing school.  Only God knows why He gave me a passion to be there.  I am going to be a teacher now.   What I have learned this past week is that people care more about your plans than your current condition.  This past week has been so full of questions.  When is the wedding? What are you going to do now? Are you sure you want to be a teacher? Where are you going to live? When are you going home? How is that going to work?  What if it doesn't work out?  What did they say? What do you want to teach? You know that isn't easy either right?  Don't you think you are too smart for that?  What happened? Weren't you were so excited to be nurse? Where is the wedding going to be?  Why don't you do it a different time when it is better for everyone?  You don't want to do it then, do you?  What about they honeymoon? Have you picked out colors?  What about a house?  You don't want to register for gifts?  Did you pick out a ban?  

Sigh...and the wedding planning hasn't even begun.  I'm already over it.  I just want(ed) something special with our friends and family.  Can't I reinvent the wedding without people throwing a fit?  Why does it have to be stressful and full of silly aesthetic details that will be meaningless.  I just don't want it to be all about us, because it is so much more.

On another note, I am really going to miss all of the really sweet people that I met at nursing school.  I am thankful for their encouraging words.

I am excited for the crazy adventure ahead.  I may not know all the answers to how it will pan out, but who cares?  God will do His thing even if I make my own plan.

P.S. I like Lindsey.  She's great.

Happy Thanksgiving!

"Will you be my Cinderella? Will you marry me?"

Friday I made one of the biggest decisions of my life, but it was probably easier to decide than what to eat for dinner for me! 

Thursday night Tim asked me if I wanted to do something fun Friday after clinical.  Of course I was up for fun, so he suggested going to Discovery Green park to see where they are going to turn a little pond into an outdoor skating rink.  The next morning it was freezing though.  He told me as he was dropping me off at the hospital that he would figure something else out for us to do, since it might still be freezing later.  I was so ready to go have fun with him that I had a really crummy attitude all day at clinical.  Later that day, when he picked me up he told me he found something else for us to do around 7.  When I asked what we were doing, he just said it would be more fun to keep it a surprise.  We then went home and made sandwiches and relaxed before I showered and got ready.  Next Tim drove me downtown and as we passed the Aquarium I noticed some horse carriages and something like "Oh cool, look, horse carriages!"...little did I know we were about to park and go on one.  As we approached the carriages, I got really excited; I thought that was my surprise!  Oh, but that was just the beginning.  We met our driver (who knew what was about to happen) and I started to climb into the carriage.  As I turned around to see which side Tim wanted to sit on, I noticed he was down on one knee.  Now, this started to play with my mind for a second, because I totally didn't expect that and didn't want to jump to conclusions either.  Before I had any time to think of it, however, he pulled out a little glass slipper and smiled as he said, "Will you be my Cinderella?" and quickly pulled out the box with the ring in it and said, "Will you marry me?"  At that point I jumped out of the carriage, snatched up the ring box and wrapped my arms around him saying "YES! YES! YES!"  We were both smiling and laughing and shaking.  Then he actually put the ring on my finger and we climbed into the carriage together.  Then we got to parade around downtown as a newly engaged couple.  I couldn't stop smiling, and looking at my gorgeous ring, and my amazing fiance and thinking about the perfectly romantic proposal.  After the ride we started calling our family and friends, who were all so excited, but we reached a point after a couple hours where we decided to leave the phones in the car and go celebrate with milkshakes at 59 Diner.  Classy, we know, but give us a break because we had been awake since 5 AM.

So, that was it.  One of the biggest decisions of my life, yet one of the easiest.  Now I am engaged to a wonderful, caring, God-loving, people serving, man who loves me with a selfless, genuine love that I have never experienced before.  We are so thankful for the way God scripted everything about our relationship, from our initial companionship, to the struggle of waiting and being far apart, to finally bringing us together, and then the blessing of getting to live near each other, and now preparing us for marriage and a life together.  We are also so thankful for all the people we get to share this time with, and who have helped us through so much so far.

Please keep praying for our relationship throughout our engagement, and our whole marriage ahead of us! 

Here is me with my Prince Charming after our carriage ride.  This was taken with Tim's cell phone, so sorry for the poor quality.  It still picks up the pretty sparkle of the engagement ring though! :)

 

Do you ever find joy in just knowing you survived the day?  That's kind of how today was...and well, that is how a lot of my days have been lately.  I don't mean that they have been awful days, but rather that I have been able to find actual joy in just knowing I did enough.  No, I didn't save the world today, but I did enough to call it a day.  I'm still alive, breathing, slowly progressing, and I still have love and friends and wonderful family in my life.  Some days that is really just good enough for me.  Seems like there is so much pressure on everyone to live such extraordinary lives, but honestly some of the best days have just been the simple ones.

So go ahead and be joyful in your so-called mediocre day.  Be delighted in yourself for doing the dishes, and walking the dog, and talking to your friend, and letting yourself relax.  After all, if all that "average day" stuff was stripped away from you, you would miss it more than you could ever realize.

When I was in the hospital I missed my friends and family, but you know what I missed most after that?  

Carpet.

Seriously.

Dig your toes in and enjoy getting to walk around on your carpet to your own bed.

And not tiled hospital floors.

Carpet.

Good ol' warm, fluffy, stained, taken-for-granted carpet.   :)

Advent Conspiracy

I wanted to share this video/idea with you:



This inspired me. I want to help my friends and family relax a little more this holiday, spend more time together, and less stress and money on random gifts. I don't know exactly how I am going to put that into practical action, but I just thought I would post the video to get some others thinking.


I'll write more on this later, but this verse kinda goes with this concept of a less stressful, more love/peace-filled Christmas:

Mark 2:27 (from the Voice)- The Sabbath was made for the needs of human beings, and not the other way around. So the Son of Man is Lord even over the Sabbath.

Fear God, not failure.

So, last night at small group we started our conversation about Ragamuffin Gospel- the book we just started reading together.  We were talking about grace- the grace of God- and how it is hard to fully grasp for so many reasons whether it is how we have presented with religion in the past, or how society is all about quick-fixes and can't stand the thought of not having a formula for salvation or any other number of things.  Krystle said it nicely when she said that we as humans like things orderly, we like answers, we like categories, labels, directions, step by step power points, but grace is messy.  This is not to say that there is no right or wrong, for there is.  But Jesus came and blew the minds of the religious who thought for sure their rules and discipline would be the most pleasing to God and earn them a place in Heaven.  I mean Jesus ate with tax collectors- the sinners! We got to talking about how whether intentionally or not, many of us have felt that the church as an institution as made us feel like we aren't good enough.

I could on about that a little more, but it led me into thinking about how I beat myself up a lot for my "failures".  Then I got to thinking about the nature of my failures and realized, not only was I not letting grace sink into me, my failures were not even about not being spiritually amazing enough, they were failures to meet my own crazy expectations.  This equates a grace problem and an idol problem.  

Thats when the phrase "fear God, not failure" came to mind.  This addresses both sides of my problem.  Mackenzie, don't fear failing your own (or someone else's) standards more than God's.  But also note while I said fear God, I didn't say "be perfect" or even "try to be perfect at all times".  I mean fear in the sense of reverence.  Know that He is very very powerful but loves you with an equally powerful love.  Respect that.  Be in awe of that, and it will sink into your soul and give you the strength to be content in whatever situation, and the desire to be fruitful. 

Gosh I'm thankful for grace.  I think I'll have more to say on this soon.

Held

I woke up to the song "Held" by Natalie Grant this morning.  Now, I'll admit that the style is not exactly my usual type of favorite music, but the lyrics just really hit home with me for some reason. I guess the meaning in a nut shell is that God didn't promise us that we would not experience anything bad here on earth once we trusted Him, but rather that He would hold us through it all and give us hope through anything.  It's good to remember that as the holidays approach, because bad things will still be happening amongst the good, and it may be hard to understand why.  We will just have to know that He is going to hold us through it all.  And if that doesn't seem enough, think of the difference between a baby that is constantly held and loved and the baby that is isolated and never held.  In a way, we are like babies; we are helpless in many ways and yet even when we are being held and taken care of, we continue to cry and fuss, not understanding the amount of love and security we really do have in the arms that are holding us.  

Those are the thoughts for today.  Enjoy!

Friends. Love. Gospel.

I just wanted to say that I am very thankful for my friends.  Relationships with people are essential.  We have so many new friends that just brighten my day.  We all are pretty different, but I sense their authenticity.  I threw Tim a surprise birthday party this past Saturday and we had so many old and new friends there.  It was so invigorating (pardon the cheesiness).  It was amazing to see how complete strangers came together and had a blast.  The whole table was laughing the entire dinner.  I was so thankful to get to watch everyone interact.  My friends are so special because they are so accepting and willing to be friends immediately with people.

This is an extension of love.  This is an extension of grace.  This is extension of the gospel of Jesus Christ.  You don't have to always extrapolate the message of Jesus to large acts of humanitarian aid in foreign lands.  Open your senses and heart.  Beauty, grace, love, freedom can all be seen in many little snapshots of your day. Celebrate those.

Philippians 1: 3-5 "Whenever you cross my mind, I thank my God for you and for the gift of knowing you.  My spirit is lightened with joy whenever I pray for you (and I do constantly) because you have partnered with me to spread the gospel since the first day I preached to you."

(The Voice translation)

This is from Paul's letter from a prison cell to the Philippians.  The second sentence reminds me of when I think about a friend of mine and smile or even giggle to myself in joy.  Many times I am remembering a laugh shared with them, a hard time survived with them, or a particular aspect of them that I love.  I am thankful for them, and I am experiencing much of what Paul did.  I need to do a better job of praying for my friends though...beyond prayer requests or just friends going through hard times.  Paul goes on to explain what he prays for them in Phil 1:9.  Maybe I'll try that.  

That's all for now.

Getting Settled in Houston

Okay, so I am already bad at this blogging thing.  I don't really have anything too exciting to say, but I figured I should post again.  Last week I was really busy going to orientation for nursing school.  I met some fun people there and got excited about starting school, so that was good.  I am a little nervous as it seems nursing school is half school, half job.  I think it is all going to come at me a little faster than I may have prepared for, mostly in terms of actually practicing on live patients.  

Last weekend was very enjoyable.  Tim and I are finally starting to feel more settled in Houston, and able to do less shopping and errand running and do more things for fun.  For example, I got a different seat for my bicycle, and it made a world of a difference on my boom-boom!  Tim and I rode around the neighborhood Saturday evening, rode to church and back on Sunday (very pretty day), and even went on a dirt trail on Sunday afternoon!  His ankle is still adjusting, but it is getting stronger with the physical therapy. Overall, we had a blast.  

This week I had hoped to be a little more productive, but I suppose the little things have added up.  It is funny how you can get to the end of a day and feel like you did nothing, when in reality you did a ton of small things that needed to be done.  The insignificant add up to significant, I suppose.  And now it is approaching a four day weekend with Tim.  He has tomorrow off, as well as Monday, so I guess some last summer fun starts tonight!  

Isn't it funny how when school starts back in the fall, it already feels like Thanksgiving and Christmas are right around the corner?  Maybe I am the only one who feels like that, or maybe 

I'm getting older and realizing that it just comes quicker and quicker each year.

I'll try and take some pics of my apartment soon, but here is a pic of Tim's living room (at the cleanest I've seen it. Ha!): 

I guess that is all for now.  Study time!

White Tiger Lily Meaning

White Tiger Lily. These three words have been with me for awhile.  To me, they seem to sum up the essence of how God created woman, or maybe just me, or maybe a few others, or maybe the core of all women of the world.  I'm not sure.  Or maybe it just represents an image of what it is like trying to be a godly woman in a messed-up world.  Or maybe it represents the internal battle going inside us that is constantly trying to keep our ferocity and fragility in some sort of love-able balance.  Or how to harness each and channel them into love.  I love the contrast in the term "tiger lily".  How is a large wild animal the descriptor of a delicate flower?  And yet both have a beauty and rarity and grace and incredible strength about them.  Strength.  The flower may seem the fragile part, but think about the immense strength it has to survive the elements of nature that it does.  Grace.  The tiger may seem the tougher part, but think about the rhythm and grace of a tiger's gait and gallop.  And not just any tiger. A WHITE tiger.  With blue eyes.  Blue mysterious eyes that mesmerize you.  beautiful...

The list of analogies is endless, but it reminds me so much of being a woman.  Or at least learning how to be one.  Learning to be more and more the way God created me and would have me fit into this world for His needs.  A journey I think takes a lifetime. So I guess this blog is an invitation of some sort to join me.

I will probably write entirely too much. Technology has opened up many new ways of communicating and expressing and questioning and learning and sharing and I've decided be a part of this whole new conversation. So please comment, because I don't want this to be a one-way conversation.  Plus, I'll probably write way too much.