What if I had given up?

I have this really weird love/hate thing going on with my mind.

I love my mind. It allows me the capability to be creative, to ponder on things that allow me to express myself and have a different perspective than most. It has gotten me where I am today – I have been able to achieve far more than I ever thought I could (by the grace of God)

But I also hate my mind. It has this amazing capability to latch on to an idea or a thought, and then do what I like to call “stuck on repeat”. It is this amazing feature that allows thoughts to continue to stick in my brain, harassing me through the hours of the day and then until the moment I lay down at night. Sometimes it even makes a guest appearance in my dreams.

The crazy thing about most of these thoughts is they are completely irrational, based on a prior experience or something in my unknown future that could possibly happen. I made a list of all the things I feared the other day – I didn’t know whether to laugh or to cry. While 90 percent of me wanted to run and hide in terror at all of the possibilities, part of me wanted to laugh.

What if I did this? What if I did that? What if I said that? What if this happened which led to that which led to this and then I ended up in absolute isolation, homeless on the street? You see where this is doing.

But, WHAT IF I tricked my mind. What if I changed the direction of my questions?

What if I succeeded today?

What if I focused on all the things I may do right today?

What if I told someone about Jesus today? 

What if I changed the outcome of this situation?

What if I made someone’s day today?

What if I chose to think about all the amazing possibilities that could happen?

What if I decided to live a life completely sold out for Jesus Christ? What then?

Fear will do a crazy thing to us. It imprisons us. It keeps us locked in our own minds, unable to do the very thing that God has called us to do in the first place.

“In their hearts humans plan their course, but the LORD establishes their steps.” Proverbs 16:9

What if I turned off my fears today? What if I turned off the voices of unreasonable threats. That’s the thing about fears, you know. You can’t ever reason with them. No matter what you try to tell them, they only get louder. What if I placed every possible outcome in the hands of Someone greater?

Today at work, our medical director said something interesting. In reference to a record, he made this statement:

“I always look to the old in order to verify what I am being told is real.”

WHOA. Talk about a Word from the Lord. So what do I do when fears accuse? I look to Jesus. I look at the evidence of what He HAS done in my life up to this point and I weigh the accusations that come upon my soul. And I know that God hasn’t brought me this far to keep me locked up in my own fears and imaginations.

“Call upon me in the day of trouble: I will deliver thee, and thou shalt glorify me” Psalm 50:15

Christ holds me together,

Anxiety is the best thing that ever happened to me

Anxiety is the best thing that has ever happened to me. Now before you say I’m crazy, let me explain myself. 

I am often deceived into thinking I have things under control. I have a life appearing close to perfect. I come from a home of two happily married-for-38-years parents. That is an anomaly. I have a degree that I had often thought was untouchable. I workout at the same time every morning and my meals come every 3-4 hours.

I have planning down to an art. My hope lies in a perfectly constructed planner. My hope rests in crossing things off of a list and feeling like I have it together.

This is a lie. But first, let me interject. It’s good to have plans. I am not saying you should live your life without any means of where you are going. But the problem comes when our hope lies in our own strength and ability to carry out those plans.

In their hearts humans plan their course, but the LORD establishes their steps. Proverbs 16:9

Here is where I get real. I have lived an easy life. It is easy to post scripture and to speak the Word of God and play the Christian when things go according to plan isn't it? It is easy to speak God's promises when God continues to bless you in every way imaginable. But what happens when you literally have zero control of something? (Not that I ever did anyways, but I was deceived into thinking so).

That is why the anxiety has been so troublesome. That is why having panic attacks on the reg can be so frustrating, especially when I have every reason in the entire world to be anything BUT joyful and calm. First of all, I think that anxiety is a lie, but that doesn't make it any less troublesome. For people like me, it is very tangible.

Anxiety is defined on WebMD (because we ALL know I've been on it) :) as an "unpleasant state of inner turmoil". To me, I read this as anxiety is a heart issue.  Anxiety exposes our faith. It beckons the question, "What is your heart treasuring?" and "Who do you trust?" and "Where are you going to turn when you feel like you are losing absolute and complete control?" 

Yes, so I must examine those questions and I must choose where I am going to turn in order to alleviate myself of those feelings of anxiousness. Anxiety has stripped me of all of my strength. Being a person who has been able to control pretty much every aspect of my life, anxiety says, "You know what? You actually can't conquer this on your own. You can't run to exercise or alcohol or relationships or control or any temporary fix to take this away. In fact, you can only run to one thing and that is the Lord."

Dear friends, do not be surprised at the fiery ordeal that has come on you to test you, as though something strange were happening to you. But rejoice inasmuch as you participate in the sufferings of Christ, so that you may be overjoyed when his glory is revealed. 1 Peter 4:12-13

And that is where the real kicker comes. Because in reality, it's not about me. It's not about how many anxious thoughts come onto me during the day. It's not about how many panic attacks I fight through. No. It is about glory to God. It is about embracing anxiety and knowing that going through it is refining me to be more like Christ. That with HIS strength, anything can be conquered. 

So bring it on anxiety. I welcome you. Because in Christ, I remain unshaken.

 

Bringing a cliche to life

Philippians 4:13. If you know even the smallest bit about the Bible, you've probably heard this. "I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me" or maybe you've heard it, "In Christ, ALL things are possible". In fact, you've probably seen it plastered on every girl's Facebook status the night before a big exam or a race. Guilty. If I'm honest with you, for the longest time, I had a personal vendetta with this verse, but ONLY because I've seen it so much.... to me, it just became words.. Something I would write on a test to make myself feel better.  It was only recently that this verse really came alive to me.

Your mind is a battlefield when you sit and write all day, with no human interaction at all. WAY too much time to reflect. However, I have been blessed to also see the things that the Lord has made me capable of doing over the past year. A year ago, I remember staring at this

and wondering, "How in the hell am I ever going to make it?" See let me tell you something about myself. I can be the most doubtful, questioning, needy, fearful, insecure, worriesome person I know. I have always felt I NEEDED someone to accomplish something- that I was incapable of doing things on my own. I think that some of my favorite catch lines are "I can't", "I won't", "not this enough", "not that enough". I've always looked at things as impossible. More than a year ago, I just knew I wasn't going to make it through graduate school. I just knew it was going to be impossible. I could relate this to every other area of my life. Really. I'm sure you could too. Any goal, ambition, etc.

Impossible. Impossible is, I've learned, a state of mind. There is nothing impossible. "Through Christ ALL things are possible". Read that again. I recently heard my pastor say something that stuck with me. He said "All of the Bibles greatest stories do not come from improbable situations, but impossible ones".

I know your next thought. These things I described to you earlier about my life are not IMPOSSIBLE situations. I live an easy life. I wake up today with the option to choose what to eat for breakfast. I wake up not fighting a life-threatening disease and able to walk. I have the opportunity to do very cool (but time-consuming) research and I come home to a mom who has most likely prepared a Paleo friendly dinner to accommodate my lifestyle. Truthfully, I don't know what impossible is. However, I have seen it.

I have seen broken marriages with no hope restored. I have seen my dad being 1 out of a group of 13 soldiers infected by Hepatitis C, healed completely. I have seen impossible, and I have seen it conquered. But how? Read the verse again. "I can do all things..." But there's more! "...through Christ" and more "...who strengthens me"  My dad is one of the strongest people I know.. mentally, physically, spiritually, you name it. He treats everything in life as a challenge. I don't think I've ever met anyone else who says they welcome trials and tribulations, because it provides perseverance and hope. As Christians, we are called to rejoicing in these things, but if we are all honest nobody ENJOYS trials. But referring back, it wasn't my dad's OWN strength that got him through that. He will often tell me it is because he knows he is God's favorite, and I have to laugh at that. I'm not sure God's favorite gets kicked off the Church basketball team for not playing nicely. But, I know better. "Through Christ ALL things are possible". We say it so readily, but how often do we REALLY believe it? The Lord uses impossible situations to show His power and His omniscience. Because it is in these times that we can't rely on US. There is only ONE who flips the circumstances. 

All that to say, as I wrap up my master's degree (God willing I don't blow my defense) and enter the next chapter of my life, I can be confident of all the possibilities that this new perspective opens my eyes to. I will tell you that it was not my own wisdom that has gotten me through school - heck, I STILL can't figure out that equation above. But, I do know, that the Lord takes things you deem impossible and proves otherwise. Life is too short for impossibilities, cant's, and wont's. I'm not sure what impossibility you may be facing today, but I do know that with Christ, it is possible to defeat. :)

"O my soul, march on in strength." Judges 5:21b

Breaking up is hard to do

Hmmm... breakups. Those aren't fun.

I’ve had my share of self-inflicted heartache, but I think one of the most challenging breakups I’ve experienced is the one with myself. That sounds silly, yeah? But the truth is, I’m STILL breaking up with myself.. everyday, every hour, every minute.

I look at my life NOW and look at my life a couple years back. I don’t know that girl anymore. That person is dead to me. When I accepted Christ as my Savior, I broke up with that person. Christ entered in, and the rest is history.

"Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: The old has gone, the new is here!" 2 Corinthians 5:17

Ever so often though, I feel like I receive the phone call from that past relationship. And rather than ignoring the call, I choose to pick up and listen. I listen to the lies that tell me I am unworthy, and that I will never be good enough.

Sometimes my “ex” taunts me. How could you possibly impact other people with your past? lies. I don't know, I do research with isotopes. I'm just some nerd who occasionally throws some baking into the mix. What in the heck does that have to do with the Kingdom of God, yeah? More lies! And I can choose to sit and listen and entertain these lies OR I can hand them over the Jesus. I choose the second option!

I say all this to say that I don’t think that breaking up to yourself is necessarily a bad thing! Painful? Hard? Absolutely! But, in fact, I think breaking up to yourself is quite the contrary of bad. I think it is an AMAZINGLY, wonderful, extraordinary, awesome thing. Call it what you will – breaking up to self, dying to self. Sometimes I read my old journal entries just to see where God had me over the past few months. It makes me laugh.. in a good way! Breaking up to self is an everyday process. We must die to our former “me’s” daily. I read these:

5/3/2012: “Lead me where you want. Use me as You will. Let me nail my anxieties, fears, doubts, body image issues, jealousy, and pride to the Cross. Renew me God.

5/15/2012: “Lord, this verse is perfect for me today. I must deny myself.. Let me lay down this sin, idol, and struggle that I am having with myself..”

6/7/2012: “Jesus, break all my chains – Show me my sin and what needs stripped away.”

9/14/2012: "I know I am being called to surrender... something I've never been good at. I love control... Lord, take control and direct my life"

Pretty much every day’s entries have some sort of cry out along those lines. But the point I'm getting at here is WHAT IF something we see as truly heartbreaking and tough is actually super awesome and what we are called to do? And it is!

I truly must break up with me everyday! And it’s hard. Breakups are painful and uncomfortable and just complicated, and there's just a whole lot of things attached! Heck, I've been "dating" me for 23 years! But OH the beauty that comes with dying to that self. I read a lot of things on this whole “dying to self” thing because it is a concept that really intrigues me. I think it is because it is so supernatural. When I think about my past and the Spenser I used to know, there is no DOUBT in my mind that it is only by the Power of Christ that I am the person I am today. I so often hear of people that want proof for Jesus and the Bible, and while those are all great concepts to explore, I don't need that physical proof to see. I know by the change that Christ did in me how real it is.

One of my favorite quotes from another blog I’ve read on dying to self is written beaytifully and it says this:

“It’s been with some amount of surprise, then, that I’ve begun to see that the process of dying to self is a process of stripping away layers of sin encrusted with selfishness, and that glowing underneath all those layers is the true, complete version of who I was designed to be — the real me.”

How TRUE is that though? And how scary is that? I think that’s why I so often struggle with this breakup process. I see the person I am now, and I think ... "WAIT, this isn’t the person that I’ve tried to be for 23 years." (Notice my key word there… TRIED). With my new self, I don’t have to TRY. I just AM. I don’t have to be somebody. I am Spenser, new creation in Christ! And the exciting thing? The new ME is constantly, every moment just continuing to be refined to be more like Christ! Every moment I am awake, I am being transformed to be more like Jesus.

“For those whom he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son..” Romans 8:29

But, I have to remind myself that I have to keep breaking up with myself. I have to crucify all my old wants, desires, lusts, sins, and plans and hand them over to Jesus. He is the perfecter and He will continue to do a work! 

I am free… and so are you!

Did you know that the moment that we make the choice to put our life in Jesus’ hands, we are free forever? We are free from our sins – we no longer live as prisoners to the things of this world.

If the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed. (John 8:36)

I think so often we forget such a simple concept and try to complicate things. If you are in Christ, you are a new creation and You are free. Bottom line. The moment you decide to trust Jesus, He sets you free – free from past decisions, present mistakes, and even future ones too. I am free from the things of this world. I no longer live prisoner to all the things that I did before Christ chose to save me.

I struggled a lot with whether or not to write about this because who really wants to confess all the “junk” about themselves, but I think that so many people just need to hear it! I am hoping that I can remind you of the Truth that the Lord has so reminded me of, especially the past few days.

The Word tells us we are free, and if we BELIEVE that, I just want to know... WHY do we still live like prisoners so often? It’s like we just build a tent and camp out there, tied up to _______. Fill in the blank! For me that blank contained words like this: money, sex, power, success, image, alcohol, vanity, and the list just goes on. For you, it may look a little differently. Whatever fills that blank, it is sin. Sin that we do NOT have to gratify.

So here it is. I lived a life that chased and chased THINGS and yet could never find fulfillment. I was a slave to things like 600-dollar shoes, dreams of range rovers, long nights out, image...really anything that I could to suit me for that particular moment. No longer do I live in shame of these things, but I talk about them openly and victoriously! Why? Because I am FREE from them. They no longer hold me in captivity.

While extravagant clothes and crazy nights out seem to be very specific examples, it wasn’t really them that were the issue. It was just the things that the sin of my heart manifested itself through. My whole life was my image, my longing for fulfillment because I wasn’t depending on the Father to be satisfied with myself. As the Lord started to strip these particular things away, my strive for the perfect image just manifested it in something else in my life. That is the funny thing, isn’t it? Satan will lie to you in WHATEVER way or time of your life seems fit, even if the lies are completely contradictory to one another. In college, the lies sounded a whole lot like this:

“You are worth SO much. You deserve all this stuff – fancy cars, fancy clothes, fancy life….”

As those things began to fall away, the lies went from THAT to THIS:

“You aren’t worth enough! You need to do better. ”

And so that’s what I tried to do - be worthy. Same heart issue, different sin. And so began my struggle with body image, something that had never once been an issue in my life. You can imagine my confusion, but again, a matter of the heart. I think that it is so important to talk about because I see the struggle and strive to be thin and to be beautiful everywhere I go, especially in young women. Before I knew what was even happening to me, I realized that I was serving an idol in my life that came in the form of an eating disorder. A slave to counting calories, the scale, and a distorted view in the mirror of what beauty looked like. I felt defeated. I would cry out to the Lord: “Will I live my whole life constantly chasing a number on the scale?” (spoiler alert: The answer is NO!) Months and months I was a slave to numbers, restriction, excessive exercise, among other things in an attempt to find glory in WHAT I THOUGHT to be external beauty. But, then it hit me. Maybe I should rephrase that…… 

In my anguish I cried to the LORD, and He answered by setting me free. (Psalm 118:5)

That is when I heard the Lord LOUD and clear: “Spenser, you ARE free. You do not live in captivity to this any longer. I died for this. Stop building your tent here and living in it”. And that was it - I was free... and I was all along. And I am free today, always and forever. The Lord is so patient with me, and He has completely rewired me and taken my distorted view and replaced it with truth, from God's word of what beauty TRULY is. And while it is so absolutely wonderful to be healthy and to exercise (cough, Crossfit) , I know that true beauty is dependent on the woman that I am in Christ!

And so there you have it. I am free!

And SO ARE YOU if you trust in Jesus! And if you don't, well .. He is looking to free you too!  Don’t build your tent there in the struggle and camp out! Hand it over to the Lord, and remind yourself that anything you feel like you can’t escape from is exactly what Jesus died for! HE is capable! And HE has freed you.  And for that , we can forever be thankful! Happy day!

I will praise you, O Lord my God, with all my heart; I will glorify your name forever. For great is your love toward me; you have delivered me from the depths of the grave. (Psalm 86:12-13)