I lead a pretty unremarkable life. I get up, I go to work, I come home, make dinner, hang out with my dog, do some house chores, go to bed only to wake up to do it all over again. On the weekends I sometimes meetup with friends, do more household chores, or catch up on Netflix and Hulu. 

I didn’t think much of it (other than the fact that it was pretty boring) until recently. 

That’s when I realized how mediocre my life is. 

Okay. Hear me out. I live a life that, while it may be boring, is not inherently bad. I don’t drink excessively, or do drugs, or try to date every human I meet, etcetera, etcetera. 

So you may look at my life and think that it’s a good one. And you would be partially correct. 

But then, I realized recently, as I was going through my mundane life, that I have a tendency to settle into living in a mediocre way. 

Instead of praying as my first response, I turn to friends for wisdom and comfort. Instead of sitting down to dive in to the Word, I watch TV or clean the kitchen. Instead of volunteering and serving, I hide behind my full time job. 

None of these things are inherently bad. I am just not spending time building my relationship with Christ. 

And that, my friends, is exactly what Satan wants. 

I realized that Satan desperately wants us to live mediocre, lukewarm lives. It’s his ultimate goal. 

He wants us to believe the lie that our lives our “good”, and that at least we’re not living like that person, or partaking in those activities. 

It’s brilliant, really. If we remain dull and uninspired, we don’t have the opportunity to hit rock bottom, or any lows and valleys where we might relaize that we need Jesus. We think we’re floating along just fine in our safe “not so bad” bubble of a world. 

But friends, we need Jesus just as much in our humdrum little existence. 

Recognize the lie. Rebuke a life of mediocrity. Strive to know Jesus more fully and deeply than before. 

Because that is the life we are called to. A life of abundance (John 10:10), a life of light and season (Matthew 5:13-15), a life of royalty (1 Peter 2:9). 

I know all the things you do, that you are neither hot nor cold. I wish that you were one or the other! But since you are like lukewarm water, neither hot nor cold, I will spit you out of my mouth! You say, ‘I am rich. I have everything I want. I don’t need a thing!’ And you don’t realize that you are wretched and miserable and poor and blind and naked. –Revelation‬ ‭3:15-17‬

There is something bright about seeing someone so passionate about a subject. I find myself drawn to these people, wanting to know more about who they are, what their story is, and what makes them tick. I don’t even have to be remotely interested in what they are passionate about to be drawn in and hooked on what they are saying.

I can remember one of these people in particular who was passionate about math. That’s right – math. Specifically, he was really interested in graph theory. I met this person once and was subconsciously drawn in by his passion for this subject, listening to him for at least 30 minutes of our short few hours together try and explain graph theory to me.

It is not as though I was at all interested in graph theory by any means. But I was interested in the fact that this person could be so intricately and uniquely woven to have a love so deep for something that for most might seem daunting, useless, or boring.

Tonight, I met such a person and left feeling energized by her zeal, yet saddened by my own seeming lack of passion or direction. I often feel like a jack of all trades and a master of none. For me, this applies not only to my skills, but also my focus of life.

The past year I have felt lost and unsure of what is next. I spend a lot of time wondering if this is just it. If I have ‘peaked’ in my life and ministry and that all that is left is to wait around to meet Jesus face-to-face.

Deep in my heart, I know that there is something more on the horizon, but it has been difficult for me to see it, and more than that – to believe it. Most of me – body, mind, and spirit – wants to succumb to the deception that life on this earth  doesn’t have much to offer.

And yet, a tiny flicker of a flame still lives deep inside of my heart, resting, waiting for a little kindling to make it grow again. It’s that flame that on the darkest of days holds me fast and reminds me there is someone greater than the universe who loves me and came for me to have a life and have it to the full.

My flesh and my heart may fail,
    but God is the strength of my heart
    and my portion forever.

— Psalm 73:26

I don’t really understand myself, for I want to do what is right, but I don’t do it. Instead, I do what I hate. But if I know that what I am doing is wrong, this shows that I agree that the law is good. So I am not the one doing wrong; it is sin living in me that does it. And I know that nothing good lives in me, that is, in my sinful nature. I want to do what is right, but I can’t. I want to do what is good, but I don’t. I don’t want to do what is wrong, but I do it anyway. — Romans 7:15-19

Each day we let people down, we hurt the people we love, we say hurtful things, we are absent in the lives of our loved ones (sometimes even when they are right in front of us), and in addition, we hurt ourselves and our bodies with the decisions that we make.

We make promises to ourselves that we will do better tomorrow, that we’ll keep a smile on our face, show love to our neighbor, and live lives that reflect Christ.

Then as the day goes on, as each minute passes, we do our best to hold it together as we sink deeper and deeper back to the sin we told ourselves we would not do. We are a people in need of daily renewal and forgiveness. Who are we kidding, we need it second by second.

While loving our neighbor and ourselves is important, no amount of love from others or from ourselves will be enough to fill the gaping wounds that sin leaves in our lives. We can be loved dearly in our community and by the people around us, and be confident in our abilities or in our appearance, but still, there is sin living in us, and it is going to continue to return and pollute our relationships and our minds and we will find that we are still broken. Because the thing that I hate – this I keep on doing.

The next chapter of Romans goes on to say this:

So now there is no condemnation for those who belong to Christ Jesus. And because you belong to him, the power of the life-giving Spirit has freed you from the power of sin that leads to death. The law of Moses was unable to save us because of the weakness of our sinful nature. So God did what the law could not do. He sent his own Son in a body like the bodies we sinners have. And in that body God declared an end to sin’s control over us by giving his Son as a sacrifice for our sins. He did this so that the just requirement of the law would be fully satisfied for us, who no longer follow our sinful nature but instead follow the Spirit. — Romans 8:1-4

I have the innate tendency to stay in chapter 7 and relive over and over the ways that I have fallen from grace, especially in the ways that I have hurt others both in action and in lack thereof.

This weekend I have sat in the muck of chapter 7… let’s be real -it’s been more like the past year. I cannot get past the guilt of how I have hurt people and made mistakes, and each time I sin, the wound seems to get deeper, more sensitive, and more susceptible to the infection of the world.

I read Romans 8 knowing that it is for me, and yet struggling to believe it in my heart. Forgiven by a God who should have judged me, but instead sent his Son as a sacrifice for my sins in order to reconcile me to Him. Amazing Love, how can it be?

Grace doesn’t make sense. It isn’t logical. A condemnation that was meant for us but that was freely taken from us and nailed to a cross. Our death defeated when Christ was raised from the dead a new life given when he ascended into heaven.

I believe this is true. I know it is for me. Will you search this truth with me as we continue to do the things we do not want to do?

Another week passes by and as I look back, I think, “It was a week, and it happened.” 

Not necessarily a bad thing when an uneventful week goes by. At least nothing tragic happened. 

But when more and more “It was a week” weeks go by, the harder it is to accept that this is what life really is. 

I sometimes wonder if I’ve lived the majority of the exciting parts of life, and if the mundane days I experience now are all that I have to look forward to. It often certainly seems that way – as though there is a hump to get over, but feeling like I’ll never get over it. 

Jesus promised us that we would have life and have it to the full (John 10:10). I believe that is true and that we have eternal life and eternal life starts now. But the thought that part of that eternity is spent here on heard is hard for me to wrap my mind around what it is to live life to the full here on earth. 

I don’t have answers, but I hope that for you and for me that life abundant in Jesus finds us and shows us how to live and love the earthly part of our eternity. 

For those of you that will read this, I need you to know that for the time being blogging is too painful for me. It’s been more and more difficult for me to break open my heart in paragraphs to the world recently, and each time I think about writing, or sit down to write my heart resists.

I am working on my mind and fighting the battles that arise daily. I am working on taking every thought captive and making it obedient to Christ.

I am trudging along day by day, unable to make sense of the person that lives inside of me.

Blogs were a method of healing for me, and while some of them were difficult to post, I never felt the resistance I do now as I write.

So this is a blog telling you where I am at, why I haven’t been writing, and why I might not write each week.

There was something in her heart pushing back. 

Some might have seen it as pushing away, but no… that wasn’t quite it. 

It wasn’t that she didn’t want to draw near to others, or that she was afraid of anything – on the contrary. 

She was desperately seeking out – facing the world head on, but when the time came she would resist. 

Resist doing the right thing, even if it’s what she wanted to do. 

Resist accepting the help she knew she needed. 

Resist the love poured out and freely given. 

Resist the change that could come. 

Resist being who she was called to be. 

She didn’t want to resist, but it kept happening. Her longing to break out of resistance was a deep ache she could feel throughout her body. 

Still, she knew there was something more on the other side. And that resistance was  only a moment in a promised life of freedom. 

For a long while now, I have struggled to be able to think outside of myself. I got to a point where I had failed to take care of my mental and emotional needs because of my love for and urge to take care of and give to others in this way. 

Even typing it out loud sounds like I am trying to make a martry out of myself. 

But in reality many of us do this. We give our all to others people and things outside of ourselves and we neglect the importantance of self-care. Jobs, relationships, maintaining a home, keeping up physical appearances, taking care of our material possessions, and so on. 

When we are constantly driving through life without filling up the gas tank, what’s going to happen, eventually? We’re gonna break down. 

In 2016, I broke down. And fixing my “car” has taken a lot longer than it would have if I had just stopped for gas. 

It’s also been a difficult journey in figuring out exactly what is broken down. So that I can start working on it and get back on the road. 

Only recently have I been able to pull out of what has felt like a selfish time in my life an led truly be able to give to others in a way that finally makes me feel like myself again. And even that I take lightly and hesitantly because these spurts of life can come and go. 

I pray that if you don’t already know, you figure out what your “stopping for gas” is and that you truly take the time to fill up the tank. 

Regardless, if you seek him, your Heavenly Father will be with you each step of the way and will be your AAA when you breakdown on the side of the road in the pouring rain at 11PM. 

P.S. I really committed to the gas tank analogy, and apologize to those of you who possibly found it cheesy, I agree, but I do not, however, regret it. Good day. 

This should probably be where I write about 2016 or the possibilities that 2017 brings. And maybe that’s what this will turn into.

But, we change a number at the end of the date we write on our checks, our projects at work, our homework, our calendars and suddenly everything is somehow different.

Admittedly, for the past 3 years I have made 1 New Year’s resolution and made the commitment to stick with it, even when I mess up, or something prevents me from being able to do it.

It’s always something simple and practical, because I need gutter bumper in my lane to make sure that I actually hit the pins. Resolutions for me cannot be things like “Be more grateful” or “Find joy in the little things”. It’s just not concrete enough for me to know how to achieve it or to feel like I truly accomplished anything.

Last year, I resolved to blog once a week for the year. Considering my previous disdain for blogs and blogging, I am shocked by how well I kept up with it. I missed a few and then promised to make them up, and let that fall right through the cracks.

I don’t like not following through on the things I say that I will do, but alas, here we are in 2017 and I didn’t live up to what I said I would do. Even so, I am proud of what I accomplished through my blog and at the same time humbled by how God has worked through it to speak to other people and to awaken in me a writer that  I did not know existed.

2017 is just another year, but it is a new one. A lot of things will remain the same in my life, but I hope to stay open to what God might be brewing in my life, if anything.

I also plan to keep up with my blog. Thank you to those of you who have gone on this journey with me as I open my heart in a vulnerable, but healing way. I still planning on writing some of those harder blogs I talked about before when I promised to do the makeup blogs.

So here’s to 2017, a year like the 28 before, from an open heart.

Life comes with a lot of expectations either put on you by someone else, by your culture, the society you live in, or by yourself. 

I’ve probably written more than one blog about my feeling on expectations. I don’t like them. I wish they didn’t exist. 

But the reality is, they do. 

And wherever they come from, we can easily get crushed by the crippling guilt that might come from not living up to them. 

I suffer mostly from made up expectations that come from my own brain, but have convinced myself they are from other people. 

Wherever yours are coming from, I want to encourage you to, simply, do what you can. 

It sounds like an overly-simplified answer to a psychological complex question. 

But I have to tell myself on a daily basis that I can only do what I have the mental, physical, emotional strength to do in that moment. 

If that means that I can only do 1 load of laundry instead of the looming 6 loads I’ve let build up – then I do the one. And sometimes (most times, lately) it might mean not doing any laundry at all. 

We can only rely on our own strength for so long before we will inevitably fail ourselves and the others around us.

The Christmas season we have created as humans is wrought with expectations that can leave us feeling unworthy of the love, gifts, and warmth of the season. 

But then we remember what it’s all about. 

Jesus required nothing of you when he came to this earth and was born to an unwed mother in a stable. A light of hope in a world yearning for something more. 

So, this Christmas season in the midst of the stress and building expectations, do what you can, and take a moment to be thankful for a Savior come to a world to make up for all your unmet expectations