Then and Now: Across the Years

Then...

Now...

Winter Break Bucket List

1. Go to the Festival of Lights and ride the Ferris wheel
2. Practice portion control and healthy eating
3. Have a quiet time everyday
4. Go to Davis's basketball games
5. Play basketball at Nottaway
6. Cook something for Christmas dinner
7. Go to the Eastern Market
8. See Skyfall
9. See Rise of the Guardians
10. Watch Batman Begins
11. Get new clothes
12. Go to Passion 2013
13. Go ice skating
14. Lose weight
15. See the lights at Meadowlark
16. Take a good picture of the four kids
17. Take lots of pictures
18. Apply to internships
19. Get my eyebrows waxed
20. Get a cute Christmas outfit
21. Get my hair cut
22. Enjoy everything that I eat
23. Love recklessly
24. Go to the chiropractor
25. Whiten my teeth
26. Call and write a letter to Grandma

Also from the past

Good Things:

1. Pink Starbursts
2. Shooting Stars
3. Twilight
4. Breezes that make long grasses ripple
5. Cornfields
6. Smores
7. Adrenaline rushes
8. Challenges
9. Balloons
10. Helium
11. Golden retriever or golden lab puppies
12. those moments when we’re singing in church and the instruments stop for a chorus and the congregation is singing acapella and it gives you just a taste of how great heaven is going to be
13. Sunsets
14. Lakes
15. Inside jokes
16. Vulnerability
17. Quoting movies
18. Driving with the music blaring and the windows down
19. The beach
20. Good novels
21. Red skittles
22. Looking through the church bulletin and seeing that there is good music in the service
23. Swimming at night
24. Honesty
25. City landscapes at night when they are lit up and you realize how much planning and effort it took to make the whole city
26. Bubble gum
27. Realizing your favorite TV either comes on tonight or that it came on last night and it’s waiting on tivo
28. Reading what people think about you
29. Turning in an assignment or exam that you feel really good about
30. Walking into the house and smelling that something delicious was made
31. The smell of freshly mowed grass
32. Hershey’s chocolate
33. The sound of frogs at night
34. Fireflies
35. Eating freshly picked berries
36. Coming home from a successful shopping trip
37. Finishing something that you have been dreading doing
38. The sound of a ball on a baseball bat
39. Ice cream cones
40. Handwritten letters
41. Getting a good grade back on a test or paper
42. Watching movies for the first time and not knowing what is going to happen
43. Modern Family
44. Acoustic music
45. The smell of a bookstore
46. Feeling good about your body and weight
47. Finishing a good book
48. Endorphins
49. Old pictures
50. Music

Wiser in the Past

Sometimes I think I was wiser in the past. I came across this list that I had written two years ago and am struck at how much I need to remind myself of these truths and encouragements daily:

Done

I’m done with viewing relationships in a selfish light.

I’m done with approaching relationships in a consumeristic manner - weighing the pros and cons as to what it will cost be in return for what I can gain.

I’m done with not loving because love is not always reciprocated.

I’m done with thinking about what I deserve and how I should be treated.

I’m done dwelling on the past. It is a part of who I am. It will shape who I am today. The past is in the past. It is over and unchangeable. I will no longer allow it to have that power over me of controlling my actions in the present.

I’m done holding onto the idol of what my relationship with a boy was. That was a relationship - there will never be a relationship like that again, but there doesn’t need to be one like that again. Each relationship takes a different form.

I will:

Love recklessly because Jesus’ love is sufficient.

Invest in people because Jesus has saved me.

View relationships in light of how I can serve and how I can be selfless.

Rest in the fact that I don’t really need others. Jesus is enough.

Thanksgiving List as a 20 year old

1. Who God is - a good God, full of love and compassion and mercy and sovereignty and grace
2. My family
3. My apartment
4. The basketball team
5. Reformed University Fellowship
6. The city of Charlottesville
7. The interaction between the siblings now that Davis is 13 and Ryan is 22 - we are all moving towards being friends as well as siblings
8. Adults and older people who have poured into my life (Coach Priester, teachers, AC and Derrick, other MPC volunteers, Saranell, Molly, Libbie, etc.)
9. Friends, new and old, UVA and nova
10. Good health for those I love
11. My bed
12. The luxury of having a car at school
13. The opportunity to be invested and welcomed into the Lewis family this summer
14. Good things to be enjoyed - movies, tv shows, good food, novels, etc. 
15. The opportunity to attend the University of Virginia
16. The freedom to choose what I study
17. Greg Thompson, Shawn Slate, James Forsyth
18. God's evident power and creativity in nature
19. Technology allowing me to keep up with people
20. The ability to exercise

Have you ever read something and felt like the author was speaking to you? That they had somehow crawled into your brain and read your thoughts and come up with a response? Is that what the Holy Spirit is doing? Guiding me to these places where I feel my heart thirst is satisfied?

Here is what I read in my devotions this morning from Sarah Young's Jesus Lives:

"I understand you perfectly and love you eternally. It is your soul I love, rather than your appearance or performance. Sometimes you are so dissatisfied with both of these that they become your focus. To break free from this self-preoccupation, relax in My loving Presence and let the Light of My Love soak into your entire being. Rest deeply while I massage your thoughts and feelings, helping you change your focus from yourself to Me. Remember that I created you to know Me: to enjoy Me and center your life in Me. Cease striving and know that I am God.

The world abounds with idols - things you turn to when you want to feel better about yourself: eating, entertainment, exercise, mastery of something or someone. However, none of these things can slake the thirst of your soul, which yearns for Me alone. Idolatrous substitutes may suppress your appetite for Me, mainly by distracting you, but they provide no satisfaction. When you get that gnawing sensation around the edges of your soul, return to Me. Your soul will be satisfied as with the richest of foods."

Cease striving and know that I am God; I will be exalted among the nations, I will be exalted in the earth." - Psalm 46:10

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. My soul will be satisfied as with the richest of foods; with singing lips my mouth will praise you. - Psalm 63: 3-5

Encouragement from St. Augustine

Alas for me! Through your own merciful dealings with me, O Lord my God,  tell me what you are to me. Say to my soul, I am your salvation.  Say it so that I can hear it. My heart is listening, Lord;  open the ears of my heart and say to my soul, I am your salvation.  Let me run towards this voice and seize hold of you.  Do not hide your face from me: let me die so that I may see it,  for not to see it would be death to me indeed.

This, friends, is perspective.