You are loved... Merry Christmas!

As Christmas Day approaches, and we prepare to celebrate the birthday of Jesus Christ, we have every reason to rejoice in the fact that we are loved. We should never be unsure of this. Something happened, over 2,000 years ago, that showed mankind just how much God loved it. This Jesus, who has always existed, came to earth as a man, as a baby in fact, and lived among the sin and brokenness of the world. He not only endured it for our sake, He overcame it, remaining perfect and holy and dying the death that would restore His children to Himself forever. There has never been a more outrageous act in the history of the human race. There has never existed someone who loved another like God loves His children.

Although I personally believe that our lives are complete when we are worshiping, loving and following this God on a daily basis, this time of year is specifically set for us to meditate on and celebrate the birth of the Savior Jesus Christ. And though we have heard this story time and time again, how Mary conceived as a virgin and gave birth to Jesus in a manger, it is the most remarkable story we will ever hear. The beautiful humility of God is expressed in the most outrageous way. And I can only imagine what He was like as a baby. Did He seem and act like an ordinary baby? Or was He different, full of joy and light, His smile illuminating an entire room, and proving to be anointed from day one? Jesus was surely the most influential and powerful baby of His time. Magi traveled long distances to see and worship Him, and a King ordered all the boys under two years old in Bethlehem to be murdered in fear of Him. This person was and always will be the most important person who ever lived. And His sole reason for walking this earth, for being born to a virgin in a manger, was out of love and desire for His people.... for you.

There is an abnormal challenge this time of year to keep our focus stayed on this perfect baby who loved and loves the people of this world more than anything in the universe. There is an added pressure of buying the perfect gifts for others, of making our homes look festive and beautiful, and preparing meals that will be better than the year before. Somehow the Reason we celebrate gets lost. Jesus falls to the wayside when He should be the center of the party. The most joyous and fulfilling gatherings I've ever been part are when Jesus was the center anyways. Let's challenge ourselves to be mindful of the perfect baby who was born solely because He loves us and wants to be near to us. Let's challenge ourselves to let Jesus know how thankful we are for Him and how we believe that the best parties are when He's present and glorified. Let's remember that without Him, we would not be able to enjoy any of these holiday festivities anyways, for "Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of heavenly lights, who does not change like shifting shadows" (James 1:17).

 Merry Christmas! And enjoy the company of Jesus this Holiday Season!

For unto us a child is born, to us a son is given, and the government will be on his shoulders. And he will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Princes of Peace. - Isaiah 9:6

What is God's greatest concern?

I've come to a place in my faith where I am craving the rawness of God and who He is. I do not want fluff and I do not want other people's perceptions of who He is or what He wants. I want the truth. Who is God and what is His greatest concern?

Before delving into this, I think we should ponder another question: Does God in fact want to be known? If He didn't, there would be no point to discussing the prior. This could be a whole other blog post in itself, so for the sake of time and space, let's go ahead and say "yes", He does want us to know Him. I think the greatest support to that claim is Jesus, who undoubtedly walked this earth and claimed to be the Son of God. In John 14, Philip, one of His disciples, says to Jesus, "Lord, show us the Father and that will be enough for us." I believe that He was craving what I have recently craved, and desperately wanted to see and know God. Jesus replies, "Don't you know me, Philip, even after I have been among you such a long time? Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father." He goes on to explain that He is in the Father and the Father is in Him. In other words, whoever Jesus is, whatever Jesus's concern is, is the Father's as well. So, since He was sent by God into this world, I will dare to conclude that God does in fact want to be known by people.

Let's go back to the very beginning, now that we know God does want us to know Him. Who is God and what is His greatest concern? Is He an angry, distant God who created and then abandoned when humans started screwing up? Is He up in Heaven looking down upon creation, waiting to punish or bless depending on human action? Is He too big, majestic or invisible to even make a difference in people's lives here on Earth?

I'll tell you what I think, and how I believe God has been leading me in the past few months.

God's greatest concern is people. They are His heart. I would say that God is none of the above descriptions. The simple fact that He sent His One and Only Son to live among mankind and then saved them from their sins and then sent His Holy Spirit to live in them means that He is anything but absent or lackadaisical. He is completely committed to the people that He created. In 1 John 16, it says, "God is love." Take a moment to let that settle into your spirit. It does not say that God loves, it says that He is love. I am going to use the common sense that the Good Lord gave me and suppose that because God is love, He created out of a place of love. We often feel like we fall in and out of love with people, or that we love them more or better some days. I believe that is deeply rooted in our brokenness and inability to love perfectly on our own. But God is perfect. He is love.

I think it is good of us to also remember that God has choices just as we do; He is a God who acts. He spoke creation into being; He knitted us together in our mother's womb; He sent  His Son and Holy Spirit so that we could be with Him now and forever, if we so choose. That was and is His good pleasure. And I don't think the God of the universe would do anything unless it was His will to do so. This also makes me think that God considers us pretty amazing and important. I do not and will not believe that the God who is love created something that He does not love and is not highly committed to.

I want to now look at Jesus, since He said that He and the Father are one, and looking at His life and actions is a great indicator to what God is like. Let's look at Matthew 15:29-31:

Jesus left there and went along the Sea of Galilee. Then he went up on a mountainside and sat down. Great crowds came to him, bringing the lame, the blind, the crippled, the mute and many others, and laid them at his feet; and he healed them. The people were amazed when they saw the mute speaking, the crippled made well, the lame walking and the blind seeing. And they praised the God of Israel.

It's clear that God wants to heal His people. It would be neat to know just how many people Jesus healed while He walked this earth. As John says in the last verse of his gospel, "If every one of them were written down, I suppose that even the whole world would not have room for the books that would be written". By looking at the gospels, Jesus used most of His time on Earth to pray, teach and heal His people, both physically and spiritually. That is what God decided to do while He was on this earth, because that is who He is. He is love. And I believe that above all things, He loves and is concerned with the people He created.

To close, here is one of the most powerful prayers that Paul, a great follower of Christ, prays in the Bible for the Church in Ephesians. He says, "And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the saints, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge--that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God."

May we grasp His love as well. May we realize that He is love, and that we are His greatest concern. And may that love set us free!

Disappointment

Disappointment is an ugly word - it's an ugly thing as well, and I think just about every human has experienced it. It is defined as the feeling of sadness or displeasure caused by the nonfulfillment of one's hopes or expectations. Yeah, that's ugly.

To be honest, in the past year I have experienced such disappointment with certain things that just this morning I woke up feeling that I couldn't bare anymore. I actually recently asked God if He would completely erase the memory of a certain disappointment from my mind so I wouldn't feel any more pain from it. He didn't; and in recent days I've felt really discouraged.

I have decided it would be unwise and unnecessary to explain
publicly what exactly this disappointment is, but I do want to communicate that I have a deep desire for something that I could see and almost touch this past year. There was a time when I felt that God was actually fulfilling my heart's desire, but it turns out that it was just brushing my fingers and not something I would ever grasp in my hands. I've felt it drifting away from me for months, and I now feel I'm at a place where I must let go of it completely; and I feel disappointed. It is not my perfect situation for this moment, but I believe in a perfect God and I'm feeling His presence regarding this certain situation more than ever.

Through experiencing one of the most impactful disappointments I've had thus far in life, I've realized that this will not be the last of my disappointments. Even when I can grasp what the Lord is going to give me, I must not hold on too tight, because that too will one day disappoint. This imperfect world is disappointing when your expectations and hopes and dreams rest in its things and people and places.

So, where must I go with my disappointments, and how must I posture my heart so I do not continue in a pattern of disappointment? The truest answer I can give is Jesus. I have nothing else, and I have no other choice because there is no other real solution. In the past, I have watched Him take really broken parts of me and restore them fully; I have gone to Him with lots of burdens and come away feeling as light as a cloud. I do not think that God is going to answer my prayer and completely erase the memory of this certain disappointment, but I do believe He is going to use it to teach me to put all of my expectations and hope in Him. Every single time I come before Him, and enter into a time of prayer/hanging out with Him, I come away 100% better than I did coming in. It is an incredible alternative to sulking in what never will be or what never was.

Please join me in not letting people, places, and things disappoint you anymore. I figure if I am seeking whole-heartedly after God and am submitting myself to His will, I will not be disappointed. And if my expectations change, perhaps I will not be let down as frequently. My expectations must be more in line with what God's expectations are, what His mindset is. This is my biggest prayer right now, that my mind is more like Christ's in everything I do and in every relationship. That I not live according to Mallory and her wants or needs, but according to God and what He wants.

Let's keep being found in Christ. Let's keep allowing His presence to renew us and give us new perspectives. And let's expect from God; He has already given us all things.

Now hope does not disappoint, because the love of God has been poured out in our hearts by the Holy Spirit who was given to us. Romans 5:5

The Strangers Among Us

It is interesting how as you journey through life, with your own ideas about what you are supposed to be doing and trying hard to live out the passions God has given you, different things come up that leave you in a position that you really weren't expecting. Some of these things are considered positive, others negative; this happened in my own life recently, and I find my circumstance to be very positive as I've been caused to give thought and attention to a group of people I had never before considered.

After changing my mind this summer about attending seminary, I was forced to be in a place where I really didn't know what direction my life was heading in or what I was going to do for work. After a couple of months of fretting and being stretched to trust God more than ever before, I accepted a job with the YMCA as a Site Coordinator for their Community HOPE program in a Hispanic community. I won't go into detail about how this job surfaced or the perfect timing that it was, but I saw God's faithfulness in a remarkable way. It was literally plopped into my lap and was well above anything I imagined for myself in this next chapter of life. I have now completed one week of work and my thoughts about the position and my role there are now drastically different than they were before I started.

Have you ever given thought to the immigrants and aliens who live among us? Whether they are your next door neighbor or just the men you see working at the construction site down the road, have you considered them? Their lives, their struggles, their own passions, their faith: have you ever thought about those things?

I can honestly say I really hadn't. I suppose that my short time in Guatemala and my longer stint in the Dominican Republic opened me up to this idea of aliens living in a foreign land. Besides being an alien myself in these places, I was often surrounded by people who longed to travel to or live in the U.S. or who had family members living there already. But I never considered how they are treated once they get there; I definitely didn't think about how I was called to treat them.

Because of my new position, where I will be serving families from different Hispanic countries, I have been thinking more of how to approach this as a follower of Christ and a daughter of the Most High God. To be honest, I've always felt a bit uncomfortable on the topic and often avoided digging deep because I think that a lot of the immigrants are illegal. Whether that is true or not, I assume that many are here illegally, and since I believe in following the law as much as I believe I should love and serve all people, I have been confused at my approach to this people group.

God met me in the midst of my thoughts and doubts as I attended a Christian community development conference this week for work. I attended a workshop on this exact topic. It was inspiring. There are really dedicated and passionate people around the country, and in my own city, who are fighting for the rights of the immigrants, helping to meet their needs and to raise awareness that the way they are treated here is not Biblically sound, and that we have been doing a less than sufficient job of loving the alien among us.

When Moses is speaking to the Israelites in Deuteronomy 10, he says, "For the LORD your God is God of gods and Lord of lords, the great God, mighty and awesome, who shows no partiality and accepts no bribes. He defends the cause of the fatherless and the widow, and loves the alien, giving him food and clothing. And you are to love those who are aliens, for you yourselves were aliens in Egypt." I absolutely love how just God is. He shows no favoritism; He is totally just and right all of the time. It makes total since that God would love the alien along with the fatherless and widow; they are of the most vulnerable people, weak and easily targeted when they are far from home and in an unfamiliar land. They have no power, and in my experience with God and in accordance with what His word says, God's power rests on the weak and faint-hearted (2 Corinthians 12:10).

So, though I know we were not part of this original audience and we live in a totally different place and time, I have to wonder what God would say to us today about how the immigrants, illegal and legal, are treated in our country today. God seems to uphold justice for them as He declares in Exodus 13:49 while giving law to the Israelites for Passover, "The same law applies to the native-born and to the alien living among you."  He values them. Later in chapter 23 of Exodus, He says, "Do not oppress an alien; you yourselves know how it feels to be aliens, because you were aliens in Egypt." He wants to protect them as well.

Maybe you have never personally oppressed an alien, but as a Christian, do you welcome them?  Do you defend them? Do you consider their circumstances, and no matter what mistakes they have made as a broken human, realize how hard it must be to be far from family and live in a place where they are undoubtedly seen as unequal? I was personally convicted by these questions. While looking up some antonyms of the word oppression, I found words such as help, kindness, blessing. I can't say that I have treated the aliens among me in such a way in my lifetime. God, forgive me.

There is much more I could say on this topic; I received wonderful information and insight at the workshop from the people who are at the front lines fighting for this cause. But all I really want to do is put my own thoughts and convictions out there, and hope that we will begin to act differently toward these people who have been outcast due to the color of their skin and nationality, not matter if they were born here or not. Let us come before God and ask how He would want us to live among the U.S. immigrant. Does He want us to continually ignore, oppress, and judge them? Or does He want us to begin showing hospitality, which actually comes from the root word philoxenia - the love of strangers.

I've known God for five years now and I can safely say that He wants us to begin serving them, loving them, and showing them who He is. Building relationship with them is a wonderful opportunity to share the gospel as God's ultimate plan is unraveled. All the nations you have made will come and worship before you, Lord; they will bring glory to your name- Psalm 86:9. As one man proclaimed at the conference, "I believe that God is wanting to bring us a great blessing through this immigrant people, and we are completely shunning it." Join me, brothers and sisters, as we open our hearts and lives to the aliens living among us, who are highly favored by God just as we are.

Love and fear

"And so we know and rely on the love God has for us. God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in him. In this way, love is made complete among us so that we will have confidence on the day of judgment, because in the world we are like him. There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear, because fear has to do with punishment. The one who fears is not made perfect in love." 1 John 4:16-18

Oh, how I love John. The first Bible study I ever did was of his gospel, where I officially accepted Jesus as my Lord and Savior. His words are so deep, just like the love he had for God. I think knowing that God really loves you is the most life-changing truth on earth. And John focuses on this love through his writing. I've read this passage time and time again, and tonight as I listened to a sermon about guilt and regret, I came back to it.

What an icky feeling. Regret. I've felt and experienced it lately after going through a difficult transition back to life in the U.S. When I was hurting and confused, I blamed myself. I blamed myself for making the decision to come back and for bringing those challenges and feelings upon myself. This isn't the first time I felt as though I had made my bed so I should lie in it. The real problem, as God showed me, was not if I had made the right decision, but how I was feeling about it.

I want to pull out verse 18 from above: "But perfect love drives out fear, because fear has to do with punishment." To be totally honest, I never understood this really, especially the punishment part. Whenever I think about the fears I have, and how Love has driven them out or how I want Him to, I don't think about punishment. It's just not something I've ever felt scared of. I believe that Jesus paid the ultimate price for my sins so I will not be punished (Hallelujah!). So, in my case, how does fear have to do with punishment?

If I continue to live in regret and guilt, regretting decisions I've made or feeling guilty about the way I handled a situation, I am basically saying I deserve punishment. When I am regretful of something, I am believing that things are the way they are because of what I did and therefore I must suffer through it. I think God is telling me through His word that this mindset is not right and is not of Christ. Not only did He set me free from eternal damnation, but He also set me free from feelings like these.

This was a wake-up call to me tonight because I have never thought about the damage I am doing to myself. I never thought I was punishing myself, but that's exactly what I'm doing! And as God's precious daughter, I have no right to be passing judgment, especially on myself. Let me stop now and continue to move forward, trusting in God more than my own ability to make really great decisions so I'll never regret anything or feel guilty for not doing something. Let me live in the light and love of God instead of the in the regret and guilt of the evil one.

I encourage you, reader, to join me and let go of all regrets and guilt. Let them go to God because He can handle them. Then walk forward in bold confidence because when Christ died for you, He died to set you free! Totally. Completely. Forever and ever. Amen.

Who am I and what am I doing?

The title of this blogpost poses two good and important questions - questions that I have wrestled with over the past month or so. It's interesting how that happens. I hadn't really asked myself either of those questions in years; I guess because I thought I knew. However, when you are at a place of uncertainty or lack of direction in life, you, or rather I, tend to doubt that I really do know - who am I and what am I doing?

As most of my readers know, I moved back from the Dominican Republic in June 2014 after living there for almost three years serving at-risk children in a local school. It was a big and quite bold decision to leave, and I don't think I really understood the largeness of it at the time. I came back because I truly felt led to do so. I felt that if I were to spend my life serving others and working in ministry, having some formal education and training in ministry would be helpful. Thus, I left my life there with the hope of beginning classes at a seminary this coming fall. It seemed like a wonderful plan - so wonderful that I decided to nix it all together a few weeks ago. And so, here I am, weighted with the questions, who am I and what am I doing?

To be honest, it has been a difficult few weeks. I've felt lost, confused, regretful, and sad - knowing I've chosen to leave a place I loved only to find myself confused in a place I once called home, that quite honestly feels foreign for the most part. Until the past few days, I had lost confidence entirely in my decision. There has been nothing to look forward to, no job, no school, no purpose. My insecurity has skyrocketed.

Thankfully, after much searching and distress, I've come to some life-changing realizations. First of all, it seems that I'm not the only one struggling with these questions. It seems to me that a lot of people in their 20's are searching, to know their gifts, passions, what they really like to do. It has comforted me to hear recently, "Oh yeah, I change my mind all the time about what I'm doing," and "I've had like three jobs in the past five years." I think it's a big time of self-discovery, and living in a culture that encourages that, we find ourselves switching things up quite regularly.

Besides the comfort I have gotten from others with similar feelings, I have felt the most comfort from the realization that I am God's daughter. And because I'm His daughter and He loves me, what I do has sort of been minimized. In a week I have gone from a wallowing sadness that I have no idea what I want or who I am, to hearing gentle whispers saying that I belong to Him and that's all that really matters. It's interesting that I've known this truth for about five years now, but I think I've only really grasped it for the past week. Wouldn't it be like God to use one of my weakest moments to teach one of His greatest truths?

I still stumble through telling strangers who I am and what I'm doing because I really am not sure what my next job will be or how my future will look. Then again, who does? Things are always changing and the longer I live on this earth, I'm finding fewer and fewer things to hold onto. Now, I feel like I have a truth I want to hold onto. I am a daughter of the Living God. Not even time can take that away from me. So, as I walk forward, with my head held high, I declare that I am God's daughter. I have no idea what I'm doing, but I don't care as much anymore... because I know I'm His.

And, "I will be a Father to you, and you will be my sons and daughters," says the Lord Almighty. (2 Corinthians 6:18)

Where is home?

This is a difficult question to answer once you physically leave home. Home, I think, is generally thought of as the place where you grew up, where your roots are. Again, what happens when you create roots somewhere else? Is the question really that simple? After leaving my own home and serving as a missionary for nearly three years in the Dominican Republic, with only short stents in other places, I've been prompted to think about this more. Besides the fact that I myself started feeling that the D.R. was another home, and lived among people who felt like family, I have now met and known people that have spent a grand majority of their lives in countries that are not their "own". Many that I have met have spent decades in a country they did not grow up in, and some are being raised in that country, away from the place where everyone looks like them and where their extended family lives. I remember when I first started getting to know a fellow missionary who had spent a decade in the D.R. She expressed the confusion it often brought to her and her family, especially in times of traveling back and forth. I met her very shortly after she had returned from living in the States for a year for her family's missionary furlough. I loved what she said. It went something like this, "After a while you get sort of confused about where you belong and where your real home is, but I feel like I have a stronger sense that Heaven is my real home, and is where I really belong." As I have now moved back to my original home in Raleigh and certainly feel at home, close to a place and people that are very familiar, I still feel different, marked by another place and people who became my home for a short time.

Because of my fellow missionary's impacting words, I have been thinking about God's promises of a place that will be new to us, but that is eternal and has been prepared for us. In the book of Revelation, John writes, "And I saw a new heaven and a new earth: for the first heaven and the first earth were passed away; and there was no more sea" (Revelation 21:1). Time and time again, God speaks about the temporariness of life of this earth, and about the place that awaits us. Jesus says, "In My Father's house are many dwelling places; if it were not so, I would have told you; for I go to prepare a place for you" (John 14:2). And Paul writes to the Corinthians an incredibly powerful statement. He says, "For we know that if the earthly tent we live in is destroyed, we have a building from God, an eternal house in heaven, not built by human hands. Meanwhile we groan, longing to be clothed instead with our heavenly dwelling, because when we are clothed, we will not be found naked" (2 Corinthians 5:1-3). 

It is unmistakable that there is a heaven that awaits us, and that Christ will make all things new when He returns. There is no other real, lasting comfort and hope in this life. His love is bigger than any and every circumstance, and His truth is the only truth that stands forever. As things change in my own life, and I am facing a brand new chapter, I am beyond comforted by my God, who never changes and who will continue to be faithful. And no matter where we go, He is with us; and no matter what new homes we make, it can not compare with the eternal home that awaits us. Thanks, God, because "if I rise on the wings of the dawn, if I settle on the far side of the sea, even there your hand will guide me, your right hand will hold me fast" (Psalm 139:9-10).