Monday, December 27, 2010

Who Is This, So Weak And Helpless?

Who is this, so weak and helpless,
Child of lowly Hebrew made,
Rudely in a stable sheltered,
Coldly in a manger laid?
'Tis the Lord of all creation,
Who this wondrous path has trod;
He is Lord from everlasting,
and to everlasting God.

Who is this, a Man of Sorrows,
Walking sadly life's hard way,
Homeless, wearying, sighing, weeping
Over sins and Satan's sway?
'Tis our God, our glorious Savior,
Who above the starry sky,
Is for us a place preparing,
Where no tear can dim the eye.

Who is this behold Him shedding,
Drops of blood upon the ground,
Who is this despised, rejected,
Mocked, insulted, beaten, bound?
'Tis our God Who gifts and graces,
On His church is pouring down,
Who shall smite in holy vengeance,
All His foes beneath His throne.

Who is this that hangs there dying,
While the rude world scoffs and scorns,
Numbered with the malefactors,
Torn with nails, and crowned with thorns?
'Tis our God Who lives forever,
'Mid the shining ones on high,
In the glorious golden city,
Reigning everlastingly.

(c) 1997 Christopher Miner Music.

I woke up with this song in my head. We are singing it on Sunday in church and it gives me chills. When I first heard it I wasn't really a fan but then I actually read the lyrics and now it is becoming one of my favorite RUF hymns. I am currently on a quest to know my God better is hymn is a beautiful and haunting reminder of the sacrifice and propitiation given for me.

Tuesday, December 14, 2010

What's New

I'm Done with College! Now what?

To clarify I still graduate in May but this coming semester all I have is my interior design internship with Moyanne, which is going to be an awesome experience. Over all I think it is going to be a lot of fun and I know I am going to learn a lot. But I am completely done with all of my classes. This is the weirdest feeling ever. Knowing that I never have to go back to a classroom or take a final exam is crazy! I mean it feels like my entire life has been homework. I literally can't remember not having school. What does one do with oneself post college? I mean, work, I know but still this is just strange. I just kind of wonder what it is going to be like when I don't have grades to benchmark my success in life, haha! Sad but true.

I was having a talk with my intern, Parker, a few nights ago. After many tears I realized that for most of my life I have had a very skewed view of my worth. The way I see it everyone sees me the way I see myself. I'm just the annoying dumb one that doesn't know what she is talking about ever. I am Reformed in my thinking enough to know that my salvation is not contingent on my abilities for which I am incredibly thankful. I would be in an even worse state if God's grace did not tell me otherwise. But nonetheless I realized that I am not doing so great, not as great as I thought anyway (which is nothing new). When it comes to people though I don't want them to know that the dumb annoying little girl is in there hiding and she comes out and reeks havoc. So I play off my insecurities by drawing on my popularity crutch. When I hear friends talk about the amazing grades they get I mask my inadequacies with pride and try to hide the fear in my eyes that they will find out that my intelligence has been a farce from the very beginning.

All of my life I have felt like the dumb kid in the room. Mostly due to struggling in school to figure out how I learn best and trying all the wrong ways first. As I have said in the past many a day growing up I would dread homework with Mom and usually walked away in tears because I was too dumb to understand the simplest things. I think I kind of got into the habit of those thoughts and now I can't seem to shake them. Now that I am done with school and grades perhaps I will be cured of that sort of skewed thinking but probably not. You see, I can't really understand why it is that I want to be smart. I mean in the past I would have said it was because I wanted school to come easier to me so I didn't have to work so hard to get good grades. But now with all of that over I can't figure out why I want to be smart. Maybe because I want peoples praise and adoration or maybe because I just want to have the confidence in myself. At this point I am not really sure so I am going to have to figure that out but either way I shouldn't care so much because I was given the brain I was given for a reason. I know it sounds cliche but its true. I don't know why I wasn't born with brain my brother got. But I can't worry about that. I can't care about that. I have to get over my childish complexes. I can't do it though. I can't just will my way to being complex free. There is no magic formula where I can do A, B, and C and D is the automatic result. As we all know that irks me to no end haha!

But God is good. He is merciful. He is loving and he knows what I need to learn. So I do not ask him to cure me over night. I do not pray that he will make me smarter. I simply ask that he will teach me. If there is one thing that I have learned in RUF it is that we are not supposed to run from trials and pain. We are supposed to accept them and be thankful through them for the lessons they bring and for the growth they inspire.

God is at work!