Not Ashamed

I am not ashamed of the Gospel.

If this statement is true, why I don't I talk about it more? Why am I so afraid to tell people that I believe that Jesus Christ died in my place to cover all of my inperfections? Why am I afraid to tell people what God's done in my life, in efforts to "not offend them". They have no problem "offending" me. When they believe in something, they let it known. It's extremely ironic that today is National Coming Out Day. These people are not ashamed to proclaim that they are proud of their sin. They delight in telling others what they believe is right. Why do I not have this same spirit? I think it's because I want to be liked. I want everyone to like me, so I just don't say anything that might offend them. That is crazy. I should be putting my life on the line for the One who died for me! I didn't deserve that love, and I still don't! What I do need to do, though, is show people that I am thankful and want to live my life for Him. The Gospel is for everyone, not just me and my friends. It's not just for people who are "open". It's not just for people who are easy to talk to. It is for EVERYONE! The Gospel is for the people who think they're too intelligent for it. The Gospel is for those who think they can handle life on their own. The Gospel is for those who believe in other gods. The Gospel is for those who are so against it, they'll kill people who preach it.

Now that I've been reminded of that, I need to act on it. I can't just sit around and wait for people to be "ready" and "open". They need to hear what God has done for them. It's amazing!! I can't be selfish and keep it to myself. 

Thinking about Christ's love for us never ceases to amaze me. He knows all our crap. We can't hide any of it from Him. YET, He loves us ANYWAY! This is insane, you know?! He knows my sinful heart. One of my favorite lines from a song is "You know the depths of my heart, and You love me the same." He loves us THE SAME! He doesn't  love us less or more because of where our heart is. He knows our sinful desires, knows what we do when no one else is around, knows our motives, knows our wicked wicked sin. But he continues to love us, and to pursue us. Does anyone else find that absolutely amazing?! It's so wonderful. 

One of the best parts about this, is that marriage is supposed to reflect this amazing love God has for His Church (aka us). Everything is out in the open: all of the faults, mistakes, and sin. Even through all of it, though, your spouse still loves you and continues to pursue you and the relationship between you. Gosh, that's amazing. This image of marriage is supposed to point others to Christ! Unfortunately, that's not how most marriages are these days. We aren't pointing to God's love for us. That's why God's unconditional love for us surprises us a lot of times. We aren't used to someone loving us despite all of our crazy and messed up lives. I love to see marriages that display that, though. It gives me hope that my marriage will be one that reflects Christ's love for me. Obviously, that's not really happening soon. But when it happens, it's gonna be awesome. 

The other blog for the other story

**disclaimer: I'm not trying to be all omgihaveaboyfriend. I blog about what's on my mind and my heart, and this is where I am right now. so chill out. you don't have to read it if you don't want to. so there.**

In my last blog I said I would save a story for another blog, and I suppose this is that blog. A couple months ago I wrote a blog about going to Chicago, and I compared it to liking someone and wanting to be with them, and then finding out that they like you and want to be with you just as much. Then I said I'd never experienced this completely.

So....

In previous relationships of mine, it's been the whole "omg I think he likes me, I should totes like him and we can be like together forever." (sorority girl voice, Daniel).  Either that, or I really liked him and tried to get friends/myself to convince him that I was worth dating. Guess what happened in all of those relationships? They.ended. *GASP!* What? All of my relationships thus far have ended? Caroline's a fail when it comes to dating? YES. This is all true. I know, it's so surprising, because if you know me you know how smooth I am (btw, it's like... negative smoothness. It's like the bumpiest dirt road you've ever driven on WHILE you have flat tires. yeah. it's that bad.) Well, that was a tangent I didn't expect to go on. ANYWAY!

This relationship is totes different. I've like Daniel for a long time. Like... you don't even know how long. And it's one of those situations where he was just too perfect, you know? Like, in the past, I was all "I can settle for this. He's pretty nice. I can learn to like him. I mean, he likes me. How bad could it be?" BUT there were always those guys (and I'm sure guys can relate to this too about girls) where I was just like, "he is way too good for me. I mean, look at him. He's cute, he's funny, he has tons of friends, he's really nice, and not embarrassing at all. Why would he like me? He deserves someone better. More on his level. I'm too much of a dork. We could only be friends."

You can ask my mom this, or any of my middle school friends, and they'll tell you the same thing. I think soccer players with hair in the JBiebs phase are the coolest. It might have to do with the fact that in middle school, those were the popular boys. They all played soccer and had their hair like that. And they were obviously out of my league. So here's Daniel. He played soccer in high school, he's got the hair thing going on, he's super funny and awesome, and everyone wants to be his friend. So if you've read any of this blog, you can probably understand why I wouldn't think he'd like me. Because honestly, what would a boy like that want with a girl like me. I'm not super skinny, I'm not blonde and popular, and I'm a super dork. So, I'm still in amazement. I don't know when or if this will wear off. I don't feel like I deserve him. If you talk to my bffl Caroline, she'll tell you how all summer I was like "Why would he like me, Caroline? He's too good for me. It won't happen." But you know what... it did. So I'm really happy about it. 

Decisions

So I'm a generally indecisive person. I don't know what caused this or when it became so apparent to me, but I've really been working on it recently. I didn't realize until yesterday how much that affects my life. The good part, though, is that it's both positive and negative! So we shall discuss... NOW!

I don't make decisions. That's just the fact of the matter. When someone asks me what I want to eat or where I want to go, I rarely make that decision.  It stresses me out to the max. I'm really not sure why, because it's not that big of a decision. In those cases, it doesn't matter too much that I can't say this or that, because it's not life changing or anything. It does become a problem, though, when it keeps you from making extremely important decisions. If you weren't already aware, I have a boyfriend now. His name is Daniel. He is amazing. You should meet him someday. And when we came to the point where we had to determine if our relationship was going to go down the friendship path or the dating path, obviously my initial reaction was for it to go down the dating path. That's what I've been wanting for months now. So knowing that, it should have only taken two seconds, right? Wrong. There were so many things we had to discuss. I know that makes it seem more of a logic thing than a "I really like you" thing, but they were very important things, I promise. I don't take dating lightly, which you should know if you've read my blogs. Dating someone, especially in college, is a HUGE decision to make. So all of these things clouded my mind and made me feel like because we had to talk about it for so long, maybe we should just wait. There was a completely other side of my brain though, that was all "Caroline. You've been praying about this forever. Yall just talked for an hour about this. Just. Say. Yes." Obviously I did say yes, but for a few hours it still didn't feel real. I still had those thoughts that I made the wrong decision and it would have been better the other way. (BTW those thoughts went away. They're just part of my terrible decision making skills. Which is why I don't make decisions. It's not fun)

So onto the good part about this. Because I had so many... not concerns, but more like things that needed to be addressed, I feel like we're going into this relationship more prepared/ready than I've ever gone into a relationship feeling. To my knowledge, there's nothing we didn't cover. If I had just said yes right off the bat, we wouldn't have talked about all of that. We wouldn't know how the other felt about something, or how the other one expects the relationship to go. I think that's a problem in a lot of relationships: lack of communication. So I guess that's the good part of that.

But honestly, it shouldn't have been so hard to make a decision. I really need to work on that. Or maybe my relationship with God needs to be stronger so I can clearly determine what He wants for my life. I don't know. All I know, is that I made a decision, and I don't regret it one bit. I'm still a little in shock that this is real life, and that he actually likes me. But that's a story for another blog. Moral of the story: MAKE DECISIONS! (but don't get ahead of yourself. think about them for a bit)

I hope all of you are getting back into the swing of school and all that jazz. If you go to USC, let's hang out. If you don't (*cough cough* Hamps), you should text me. because I miss you. And that's that, ladies and gentlemen. I need a nap. and by nap I mean sleep. So goodnight world! I hope you learned something today. If not... well that's unfortunate. 

ALL the things

I really love my friends. A lot of times, we start to hang out, intending to only be with each other for a little while. Four hours later, we're finally all going our separate ways. I love it SO MUCH! I can talk to this people about anything. I can completely be myself when I'm with these people. I don't have to pretend to be anything other than myself, because when I'm myself, that's the me they love. How awesome and great is that?

Also, Jesus. I feel like that's all I need to say, but it isn't! He is awesome. absolutely positively perfect. He provides everything I need. He comforts me when I need encouragement, He is with me when I feel alone. When I don't think I can do it, He lifts me up and does it through me. He's amazing.

Speaking of Jesus, I've learned to rely on Him even more now! This is something I still struggle with, but I used to struggle even more with relying on Him to provide what I need. Sure, the spiritual needs and emotional needs are easier to give up to Him. I found it the hardest to give up my physical possessions and needs to Him and trust that He will provide what I need in His time. I came to this realization last week sometime when I discovered that my financial aid wasn't going to be in on time according to the school and they had to hold my classes so they wouldn't be dropped. At that point I kept second guessing God's plan. I know for a fact that I'm supposed to be at USC. There are too many things God's given me the opportunity to be a part of for me not to be here. Because I know it's God's will for me to be here, wouldn't it make sense that God would provide my needs for me to STAY here. That seems like such a simple thought, and maybe it is, but I didn't think about it like that until recently. I always thought/worried that God's plan would make me unhappy, and He would take me away from the place I love and whisk me off to tech school or something. Obviously, I am so wrong! That's how a lot of us think, though. We think for some reason that if we give something up to God, He'll throw it to the ground and be like NO!!!! yeah. false. Sure, sometimes when we give things completely over to God, He won't do what we want. Like, if I really wasn't supposed to be at USC, He would make sure I was where I needed to be. But because I know for a fact that I'm supposed to be here, God's going to provide the means for me to stay here. That's really encouraging. I need to have that mindset for everything, I think. Especially when I go to the mission field. I know that's what God has planned for me, so He'll provide my physical needs while I'm there.

To quote a pretty super legit book called the Bible, "Therefore do not be anxious, saying, 'What shall we eat', or 'What shall we drink' or 'What shall we wear', for the Gentiles seek after all these things, and your Heavenly Father knows that you need them after all" -Matthew 6:31-32

Ignorance

So ignorance is a word that is commonly used in our society. A lot of people use it, and I don't think it truly expresses what they mean. Dictionary.com (yes, I use dictionary.com, it's legit) defines "ignorance" as "lack of knowledge, learning, information, etc." Most of the time I hear this when someone makes a stupid comment about some something and they are immediately called ignorant. This word has a lot of negative connotation behind it and usually a lot of anger. This summer I have realized what ignorance actually is, and why my patience level with these people has become greater.

So this summer I've been living in Chicago, which is a crazy diverse area. There are all kinds of cultures and ethnicities. The neighborhood I live in is populated by both Polish people, and Spanish-speaking people. There are times when I would call these people "hispanic" or "latin american", but the truth is, this offends them just as much as calling them Mexican does. When I said this, I had no idea what effect it might have on people. Luckily my supervisor corrected me, and I have tried to be cautious when I say things of that nature. I said hispanic out of ignorance, because I did not know that it was not appropriate. It is not that I am uneducated, racist, hateful, or anything else that gets roped in with the word ignorant.

Through the summer, though, I've had to tell others what I have learned. One person I worked with would call any Spanish-speaking/looking person "Mexican". They were not trying make a racist comment or to stereotype. They simply did not understand that it's not appropriate.

Another great example, is when one of the guys from a mission team came up to help us. We spoke to some girls from Ireland while doing prayer stations. Originally he asked if they were "British", which can be offensive if said to the wrong person. Later on in the conversation he called them Scottish, which is just as offensive. It is not that he was trying to be rude or offensive. He simply did not know.

Ignorance gets the best of all of us. I've grown tired of people using it as an insult. We are all ignorant about a lot of things. Don't think you are better than someone else just because no one has personally called you out on your ignorance.

Well that's my thoughts for the day. I'm going to get off my soap box now, because I don't think soap boxes exist anymore. I'm not sure I feel comfortable standing mid-air. Goodnight, all!

The crazy CTA

Though this is a Chicago story, this is not really related to ministry, so it belongs in this random blog of things. This week we have a mission team in from Indiana and they're doing awesome things and such, and on Wednesday I was supposed to meet them at the church at 9. I planned on getting to the bus stop at 8:30 just in case something happened and whatnot. Well, it turns out that the bus I got on wasn't going all the way to the end of the line like they usually do. it stopped for its last stop about 3 or 4 stops after mine. I was obviously shocked because she didn't tell me as I got on that the bus was stopping early or anything. If I had known I definitely would have waited for the next bus to come.

I currently don't have use of my phone because my charger decided it wasn't going to work anymore. So I have no idea what time it is or any idea of how long it'll take the next bus to get there once I get off, so I decide to just walk. Now, I've walked this way before, it's practically a straight shot, and I feel totally safe walking where I did at that time in the morning. As I walk, throughout the entire walk, two buses passed me. So really if I had been just a tiny little bit more patient, I would have been at the church earlier and without that much walking. I did get some exercise though. So I mean... that was good :)


The lesson of the day is this: 1. Don't let your phone die without a working charger 2. Make sure the bus you're getting on will take you to your stop 3. ALWAYS wear good walking shoes. luckily I did :)