Dear Friends

Welcome to this new website everyone! I hope to use this to write more often even if not everything is as equally profound or well thought-out. This is just me trying to process through life and the journey that God’s placed me on…

The following entry has taken the past week to kind of piece some different thoughts together so I apologize if it’s not completely coherent, but here it is. (I’m also no longer in Boston just in case you were wondering!)

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Dear friends, do not be surprised at the painful trial you are suffering, as though something strange were happening to you. But rejoice that you participate in the sufferings of Christ, so that you may be overjoyed when his glory is revealed…if you suffer as a Christian, do not be ashamed, but praise God that you bear that name…
(1 Peter 4)

It’s 1:20 in the morning out here in Boston and even though I should be making full use of all four hours of sleep that I’m entitled to tonight, something’s telling me that writing would be a better idea…a decision I’ll certainly regret when my alarm goes off at 5:30 and all I’ll be able to think of is the first opportunity I’ll have to take a nap.

I can’t help but think of the fact that in a little over 48 hours, after being in eight different states and on seven different planes in almost exactly two months, as I head back to Madison for the second time this summer, much has changed since I left.

Most of us at some point in our lives have felt somewhat invincible…everything seemed perfect, life couldn’t get much better. Some people reading this maybe even feel like that right now. Others are somewhere on the opposite end of the spectrum and they’re just praying that the junk that’s continually being heaped on them eventually lets up.

As I got onto the plane to come to Boston I felt a lot like the invincible person. I was really excited about the possibilities that awaited me in Boston; school, ministry, and relationships had all finished up well in Madison and I was expecting BIG things from God for my summer. I had things pretty much all planned out.

But things turned out much differently than I had envisioned.

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One of the coolest parts about being out here and perhaps the aspect of the summer that I will continue to value the most long after I leave has been getting to spend time with my two little cousins, Miles who’s almost 2 and Aidan who’s just shy of 4, and seeing my cousin Mike and his wife Karen care for them and for each other.

Miles absolutely LOVES playing the guitar. If he sees you or hears you playing, watch out, he’ll be on your lap in a matter of seconds plucking (or sometimes slapping) away at the strings with not one, but both hands. When you let him play, he will be your BEST FRIEND. But when it’s time to put the guitar away, watch out…chaos!

It’s times like these where sometimes I think, “Thank God I don’t throw a fit every time I can’t get exactly what I want, when I want it. I’m glad that’s something you grow out of…”

But I think I’ve realized that I might be more like that than I care to admit…

When the joy in our lives is dependent upon the presence of material blessings (or things going “well” for us), we miss the point. If this is the case, what are we to make of the fact that Jesus continually speaks of the lowly, the poor, those who mourn, those who suffer, those who are facing trials, those with disabilities and illnesses?…the list goes on. He even tells us that “In this world you will have trouble.”

If I didn’t know any better, I might get the impression that the Son of God is actually telling us straight up that life is going to be hard.

A lot of crap has happened in many peoples’ lives this summer, there’s no getting around that. Pick up a newspaper and we’re flooded with headlines about the Virginia Tech tragedy, the plane crash in Brazil, the bridge collapsing in Minneapolis, and some things that have hit especially close to home with friends that have died in car crashes or disappeared from State Street only to be found weeks later in a marsh. This doesn’t even include other personal struggles that we may be burdened with on any given day like problems in relationships, trying to find a job after graduation, family issues, health ailments, financial instability, and so on.

In times like these, instead of questioning God and how He could possibly work through such situations, the Bible tells us to do something else. Let’s look at the rest of that passage from 1 Peter 4:

So then, those who suffer according to God’s will should commit themselves to their faithful Creator and continue to do good.

It seems more than appropriate here that the Greek word used for “commit” can also mean “to set before” or “to lay down.” I can think of several times this summer and in the past few years of my life where I’ve just needed to find an empty room and physically fall face down before the Lord because life has been too overwhelming or I simply didn’t know what else to do other than trust that the God that I’ve come to know tells me that He’s faithful and has thus far not proven to be a liar.

When I read this passage, here’s what I hear Peter telling us: Sometimes in life God will allow us to go through things that we can’t even begin to comprehend. We try to figure out to the best of our finite abilities how God could possibly work through this tragedy or screwed up situation in our lives, when really, all He asks us to do is trust Him and to lay ourselves before Him when everything else seems to be coming unglued because He is faithful and will see us through.

For better or for worse, for richer or for poorer, and in sickness and in health, the only One that will truly remain at our side through all that life throws at us is Jesus Christ who hung on a tree, knowing every despicable thing we would ever do in our lives, just to prove this very point to us. He will be my Rock and my Foundation because He has already proven his dedication to me that He would die for me some 2000 years ago. I may not be able to tell you why good people are taken away from us way too early or why God chooses to work in some of the ways that He apparently does, but I will still strive to glorify Him because He has nothing left to prove.