It Is Well

It is well with my soul.

Spending time at home with nothing but my thoughts and 4 walls leads me to reflect back on how far God has brought me. From the foot-in-mouth teenage girl I was to the {still foot-in-mouth} learning and growing Christian young girl woman, God has molded me like clay within His hands. I've had my fair share of heartbreak, shame, failures, successes, love, emotions, and fears. I've experienced it all. Looking back through my prayer journals, I see where and how God was working to raise me up out of the ashes which were my life. 

I was not living life the way I should've been. My mouth got me into more trouble than I am willing to admit {unfortunately, it still does}. I used words to hurt people who hurt me. I used words to drive people away. My mouth and my words merged into a large abyss of bitterness and mistakes.

I had it made in a life full of rainbows and sparkles, and one day, my rainbows and sparkles turned into lightening bolts and dust bunnies. {bad illustration, but work with me here}.

Through a series of events, I had my heart broken by the people who I thought would always be in my corner. The people who I thought would always be on my side and there to support me. Suddenly, they were no longer there.

My heart was shattered into a million pieces. I tried to glue it back together on my own, but that only led me to frustration and more pain. 

Now I know that I would have never been able to walk away from what I called "home" without all of that.

I wallowed in self-pity for many years over a petty loss of friendships that were never meant to last. I now believe that God brings friends into our lives for different reasons. Some are only meant for a short time, and some stick around for the long haul. 

God used those losses to prove that He was enough for me then, and He will be enough for me NOW. I have feared singleness since before I can remember, but even at the young age of 17, I knew that my relationship with God had to be my first priority and I accept Him as the lover of my soul.

To top all it off, I was devastated by the never-ending loss of loved ones. What should have been the greatest year of my life quickly turned into my worst nightmare. I had lost my grandfather and my hero all in an instant. 

I've dealt with loss in so many ways, I can't even put them into words. Loss became an accepted reality for me. I NOW see that loss as gain. God was just clearing my life to bring in new people to work in my heart and life. To teach me how to live a life that shines light into the darkness.

In the midst of the storm, God is the anchor that brings peace to my heart and soul.

Whatever my lot, thou has taught me to say:

IT IS WELL WITH MY SOUL

Learning to be the Light,
Jenna

Sunday {Scripture}

 

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This is the week. I finally get to board a plane headed to the one place my heart has longed to be all year long. I'm about to explode from excitement. 

Adding words would just be redundant. I will let the pictures speak for themselves.

 

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Let It Go

Let. It. Go.
Just when I think that I'm finding my footing, learning how to stand, something comes along and knocks me on my knees. Of course, this leads me to a more intimate convo with my Savior. Nonetheless, it hurts and leaves me confused. When you come to expect something from experience, I have no reason to believe that it will change. {BUT then it does} It is so hard to take the understanding I've been given and be okay with that. God knows best. Let it go, Jenna.

Abba, Father, I give you my hurting heart and ask that you heal it to the utmost with your tender love and kindness. Take it in your hands, and never let it go. My heart belongs to you and you alone, because you are my first true love. You have my whole heart.

Learning to be the Light,
Jenna

Sunday {Scripture}

After choosing this verse for the week, it is ridiculously funny how many times God has used it to remind me that His grace is sufficient for me. HIS power is made perfect in my weakness. Therefore, I will boast all the more in my weaknesses.

Learning to be the Light,
Jenna

Weight of the World

Weight. I hate that word. My driver's license has been a complete and total lie ever since I got my learner's permit at the age of 15. Unfortunately, it was long before that when I first experienced debilitating shame over my weight. I'm trying to think back to the first time I looked in the mirror and really saw that I had a problem. Sadly, it wasn't until probably 7th grade that the truth smacked me in the face despite the fact that it had been a problem since 2nd grade when my fam moved to Grenada. What happened? Well, I have my theories, but ultimately, I ate my feelings, ate when I was bored, and ate to fit in. How was I supposed to know that my body is like predisposed to being obese. Nonetheless, 7th grade is when it really caught up to me, because I started noticing little things here and there that were different between me and my friends. At the time, I had no idea the battle I was destined to fight for the next 10 years of my life and so on. I remember the first time I had to get a physical for basketball {all of my friends at the same time in the same place}. We all stood in line waiting to be weighed, and that was it. The moment I had been dreading for months. The fear of someone seeing the scale and knowing how much I weighed frightened me immensely. I cringe looking at pictures from those times in my life when my weight was crazy out of control, because surprisingly there was a year here and there when I did get my weight under control. Those were good times. The saddest thing is that I know/remember what those times felt like when I had lost the weight and let it get back this way. It wasn't until my senior year of high school when I got to my lowest weight ever {thanks to one of the most amazing women on earth, Mrs. Patti} that I finally looked in the mirror and saw a face I recognized as the girl I'd seen inside all along. Why did I let that slip through my fingers? College hit me like a ton of bricks along with the lack of basketball for exercise, new levels of stress, emotional eating habits, and outside circumstances. I think my weight has fluctuated more in the last 5 years than it ever has. The last five years have been a weight roller coaster, but the one thing that hasn't changed is my complete lack of self-confidence. In high school, I blamed my singleness on small school, small town, etc, and I had convinced myself that college would be completely different. College happened, and still nothing. That's when it happened. I started associating my worth with my weight and my weight with my singleness. Pathetic, I know. Throughout undergrad, I've practically met every Christian guy in the state and almost the South {slight exaggeration ... okay, huge exaggeration}, and still nothing. So let me just break down my train of thought for you. Overweight Jenna=singleness, overweight Jenna+singleness=worthless.

Faulty thinking at its best. I have felt like my entire life has been defined by my weight. The craziest thing is that I don't remember a single stage of my life where I haven't heard the words, "have you lost weight?" Now, don't get me wrong, I love hearing those words, but at some point, I just think that people probably know that's what I like to hear. My struggle with my weight has been a lifelong struggle {at least as far back as I can remember}, BUT now for the good news.

Over the years, God has been working in my heart to change this thinking. I am fearfully and wonderfully made. I know that full well. He knit me together in my mother's womb. He created my inmost being. Yes, I struggle with my weight. Yes, from this struggle stems a million other issues, but God is using each and every struggle in my life to draw me ever closer to Him. I'm not healthy the way that I am right now. I know that. I am trying to get my weight back on track. Not to feel beautiful, wanted, or accepted, but to please and glorify my God. Whether you eat or drink, do it all for the glory of God.

Learning to be the Light,
Jenna

Sunday {Scripture}

via Pinterest

This is what I need to get through this week. I need God who is my strong tower. He is my shelter. He is my everlasting King.

Exactly ELEVEN days until this semester is over. God has brought me this far, and I know without a doubt that He will get me through the rest. I'm seeing the light at the end of the tunnel. The light is shining on me bringing warmth to my heart and soul. I see so clearly that God is making me into the woman He wants me to be and guiding me to His good and perfect will.

Learning to be the Light,
Jenna

Look Out Below

This may be a little shocking to some people, but despite my 4 years in a leadership program (2 of those as the intern), I never once had to do a trust fall. To be perfectly honest, even if they had told me to, I probably wouldn't have. Have you ever done a trust fall? It's not that I'm afraid of falling, because I do that ALL the time ... seriously, my middle name should have been clumsy. I'm not even afraid of most awkward team-building activities like this, because I have just about done them all. I'm typically only afraid of things that slither or move such as reptiles/bugs. This trust fall thing consists of a somewhat high platform with {randos} standing in a line facing each other with arms linked. Well, the only other thing I'm afraid of is trusting people. The thing that frightens me the most is that trusting those people on the ground who are supposed to catch me. I mean ... get real ... people I barely know are expected to catch me (overweight and all) before I hit the ground. NO THANK YOU. What makes this worse? I was one of those people waiting to catch someone one time. Supposedly you stand there with arms linked and such, but here came this over 6 foot tall guy, and wham ... epic fail. And I say again ... NO THANK YOU! I don't trust anyone that much. We can dissect my {people} trust issues at a later date, but for now ...

This leads me to the question of the hour: Do I trust God? and I mean "really" trust God? I know I've talked about this before, but I'm gonna tell you just how (un)trusting I am. I just want to be real ... you are not getting a {fake} version of me on here. If anything, you are probably getting more truth here than you will anywhere else. I never want to be perceived as if I'm perfect or holier than thou, because although I write about truths that God is teaching me, that doesn't mean that He's not gonna have to teach me those same lessons at least 5 more times before they sink in. Sorry ... back to the story. As stated in a previous post, I'm going out of the country in just 22 days, and this trip costs $2500. I'm sure if you didn't know that already, your jaw probably just dropped a few feet. Well, pick it back up and let's move on with the story ... I've lost count of the number of times I have had to raise money to travel overseas. Every time God tells me that I'm supposed to go somewhere, He provides in miraculous ways. So you may ask why on earth would I doubt that He would provide again? I don't know. If I knew, I would tell you, but for some reason, money just freaks me out. It's daunting to know that you are supposed to go overseas on a trip that you can't afford and just trust that the money is going to appear out of nowhere. Awhile back I wrote a post here about how I had like 4 problems standing in my way. Every obstacle was so clearly moved out of my way leaving one single obstacle in my way. Money. Money. Money. Here is the bad part that makes me sound so faith{less}. At the summer orientation for this trip, I asked my small group to pray about the money stuff, BUT I had a plan B just in case God forgot to do His thing. That's the awful part. I'm such an anal planner. I love to have everything planned down to how I am going to spend every minute of the day. Yep, I'm that serious about it. I had an entire PLAN B detail for detail worked out for what I was gonna do to ensure I went on this trip. I was basically going to empty my entire bank acct (which isn't much to brag about to begin with) and take out student loans for the rest of it. {extreme. I know} I had a plan to ensure my success. I'm such a joke.

Long story short. LHBC donation+entire bank acct+student loans+ ? = me being short $800. That was it ... that was all I had. From the beginning, I told God that if He wanted me to go, He had to provide the money. Like I also mentioned in the previous blog post linked above, my mom doubted that I could come up with the money on my own. I told my parents that I didn't want a dime from them. I knew that if this was God's will that He would provide in His timing. Well, I knew this {I really did}, but I could not help but doubt Him deep down. My mom and I had just talked on Saturday about how much money I needed now to send in to the company. My last hope was the precious family I've found at Artesia Baptist Church. Their prayer support was an absolute given. And they offered to take up a love offering for me on Sunday. I've never been so thankful in my life. I didn't know what to expect. I don't see myself as entitled to deserve such generous people who are willing to sacrifice in order to help me go, but I was praying with all my heart that this would happen. {Oops, long story not so short} Seriously ... skip to the end. God provided. These wonderful people who have taken me into their arms like one of their own provided the exact amount I needed plus more.Just enough that I don't have to take out any more loan money. {HALLELUJAH! PRAISE THE LORD!} When I made the decision to go back, I closed my eyes, and fell backward into the arms that will never let me fall. What a great God we serve.

Now if I can only trust Him in every other area. That's a story for another day.

Learning to be the light,
Jenna

Learning To Be The Light

Travel Light. Live Light. Spread the Light. Be the Light.

Well, as you can obviously see, I've revamped my blog a little to more accurately describe where God is leading me with this blog. It has been such a crazy learning process to get to this point. I didn't know why God had me start this crazy thing, because a blog just like this cost me quite a few friendships in high school. {maturity level has definitely increased over the years} This blog is all about pointing others to Christ. It isn't about me or what I say. It's about what he is teaching me through my success and failures. The funny thing is that I go back and read my posts to remind me what God is trying to say to me. I'm sometimes always a little hard-headed. Mostly I'm learning to be the light that shines brightly for others to see more clearly to Him. He is the light that shines through me. I fail miserably on a daily basis to shine like I should, but that's why it's called learning.

Where did I come up with this Learning to be the Light? Well, this song has been stuck in my head for a few months now, and you can check out a video of it here. Such a great reminder that we are the light of the world. Reminds me of this verse: "You are the light of the world. A city on a hill cannot be hidden. Neither do people light a lamp and put it under a bowl. Instead they put it on its stand, and it gives light to everyone in the house. In the same way, let your light shine before men, that they may see your good deeds and praise your Father in heaven." Matthew 5:14-16

So I build a city on a hill
And I light a candle on the sill
Knowing you'll be always knocking at the door
Oh God I just want to love on everyone
All I have is yours to give, so let the people come
It's so much brighter living in your world
Savior what you did for me
You gave me something I want everyone to see
When we stumble and it all goes wrong
Only you can make it right
So I say
Oh oh oh oh oh
I'm learning to be the light
that makes the shadows hide
the light that breaks the curse of pride
the light that takes the weary in it's arms

This whole light theme has been surrounding me lately. My favorite childhood song was This Little Light of Mine, and not only did I share this song with countless campers at Garaywa but also with a number of East Asian friends who were seeing the light for the very first time. This little light of mine, I'm gonna let it shine. Let it shine, Let it shine, Let it shine. I want the light within my soul to shine so brightly that those around me can't help but see the light of Christ. During this season in my life, God is shining through my struggles as a single. I know there are many out there who share the same struggle, and there are others out there who are struggling differently but struggling all the same. No matter the struggle, we have a God that we can run to like a lighthouse. He shines brightly to guide us home. The waves may look like they will over come us. The sky may let loose torrential downpours. The boat may seem like it is going to toss you out. BUT focus on the LIGHT of Christ assuring you that He will calm every storm and all your fears.

Well this is it. This is me. I'm learning. Every. Single. Day. I'm learning to be the light.

Under Construction

Please forgive me as I attempt to make a few changes ... Excessive blog browsing has left me wanting more for my quaint little blog, so this may take some time.

Stay tuned ...

Where's My Storybook Ending?

I love to read. I love to read more than almost anything else. Getting lost in a book is one of the greatest feelings on earth, and if I weren't so busy with school right now, I would probably be reading far more than I currently am. I have been so serious about this book obsession at a few points in my life that God had to intervene and remind me about that good, better, and best thing. What's my favorite part about reading books you ask? (let me clarify first that at the moment, I am solely referring to my obsession with christian fiction romance books)Anyway, I just LOVE the fact that the author starts every book with two main characters who will ultimately fall in love. Now don't get me wrong, there will be trials and tribulations along the way, but they ALWAYS end up together. Considering my nonexistent love life has never been existent, I have always relied on these books to be predictable and unchanging. Although sometimes you may think that the couple will never find their way back to each other, the last chapter always finds some miraculous resolution, and cue my happy dance. I just love it. Given this unhealthy obsession is probably one of the main reasons why I struggle with my singleness now, God weaned me off of these books this past summer. I wrote about my decision to read more self-help (as I like to call them although "God-help" would probably be more appropriate) books when I was on vacation which led me to the book Every Thought Captive, one of the best books ever. Well, every now and then I allow myself to read one of my christian fiction romance books especially the Karen Kingsbury ones which only come out like once or twice a year ... mostly because I have been reading this ongoing story line/series since I was in 9th grade. Well, up until Karen's last book, all of her books have gone exactly as expected. The typical: boy meets girl. boy and girl fall in love. boy and girl get married. boy and girl live happily ever after. Sure there were a few deviations from my simplified plot line, but for the most part, she has always provided me with such stability in her books.
Well, when I read the last book, I was outraged. And by outraged, I mean that I almost put down the book and didn't finish it. Which by the way is absolutely unheard of for me. I decided to stick it out and read it anyway. I finished it although I was no happier about the situation than when I almost chunked it out the window. The last book of this entire series just came out yesterday, and sometime between reading the last one and the release of this newest one, I decided to put my feelings aside and read it anyway. I'm only 4 chapters in, and I've already cried angry tears like twice. This puzzles me greatly. Why do I care? These people are NOT real! It baffles me that I can get so angry and worked up over something that is fictional. I decided to ask God about it, and I got a very clear answer. This is just one more lesson that He is teaching me in order to draw me closer to Himself.
As hard as this is to admit, I enjoy books because I don't have to worry about controlling the situation in order for it to turn out the way I deem to be perfect. I'm a control-freak. If you know me well, you just said "no duh" and probably out loud. You can probably already see how God and I clash on a regular basis over my need to control everything. I seem to get it all mixed up in my head. If I am in control, things can't possibly go wrong. TRUTH: Everything goes wrong when I am in control. Okay, so over the years I've had to give over this whole control issue over to God and trust Him in every aspect of my life. Ironically, the books I was reading were giving me my "control fix." Yep, I definitely just made that term up, but we're just gonna go with it. These books were just so easy to control without even controlling it. Ahhh ... the sense of satisfaction I feel over something turning out exactly the way I see it and want it. I know, I know ... still an unhealthy habit.
Back to the current book I'm reading, I could tell the author was setting me up for an ending I was not gonna be happy about. When you've read as many books as I have, you can just tell when an author starts dropping little hints and changes here and there to warm you up to the idea of something different than what you had originally expected. Let me clarify ... I never read these books for their surprise endings. There are never surprise endings in these books. I'm telling you I've read them all, and never have I been so caught off guard by a plot change. Talk about devastating. (note to self: STILL NOT REAL PEOPLE)
In one of those "AHA" moments, I realized just why I was so angry over this surprise. I had lost control of the one thing I thought I could still control. I wanted to put the book down. I wanted to throw it in a fire and watch it burn. This is dramatic, but I'm not exaggerating whatsoever. God told me to keep reading. I wanted the book to go the way "I" wanted it to go, and that is all there is to it.
God has been teaching me something very valuable through all of this. I can't control these books anymore than I can control my own life. My life is in His hands. I've read about halfway through the book at this point, and I'm seeing the bigger picture. The book's big picture has no relation to my life at all, but nonetheless, I hear God telling me loud and clear that in ALL things, He works for the good of those who love Him, who have been called according to His purpose. I'm still struggling with this singleness stuff, and I just can't figure out why God doesn't just take the pain away. I don't care one way or the other (married or single), but I do pray that God would just make the ache in my heart go away. I know I'm only seeing the little picture, and I know in these heart-wrenching moments of loneliness and self-pity God is drawing me ever closer into His warm embrace. There you go, my big picture is falling into the arms of Jesus. I may not ever get my storybook ending I've always dreamed of, but no matter what ending I get, I think God and I will have the best love story of all.

If you actually read all of this, God bless you ... this post must have been meant for you and you alone. I don't think I would even read this post all the way to the end (due to all of my craziness), but God placed it on my heart for a reason.