There is no forever in THIS world

Valentines Day is a happy day. It is all about love and you know just happiness. Last year on Valentine’s Day, the meaning changed. It changed for everyone who knew Elizabeth Atwood.  I remember waking up that day and it was normal. I heard my mom crying and I immediately thought something was wrong with my brother. My dad came upstairs and Alyssa came out of her room and he told us he had to tell us something. He said, “Elizabeth Atwood was killed in a car accident.” I didn’t cry. I didn’t speak. I was frozen solid. There was this honest shock running through my body. Still to this day I can feel that exact same feeling.  He started telling me how we found out and where she was and all the details. The worst part of that morning was when my dad told Ashley, her first real friend at UHA and Cheercats was Liz. He told her and I can still hear my sister’s scream when I think about it. That day and the months following were the worst. I remember when I felt all out of tears all I had to do was get on facebook and read just about everyone’s statuses and go to her wall and read posts and the tears would flood my eyes. I look back now and realize that is the first time my heart has ever been truly broken. My papaw had died a few months before and Lane Ann Miller died in April but those deaths did not amount to the sorrow I felt for Atwood. Theirs was expected, hers was unexpected.

Psalm 90:12- “Teach us to number our days, that we may gain a heart of wisdom.”

Earlier this year we were in biology when I started thinking about Atwood. I was looking at the picture on the back of my binder and it had Atwood in it. That day was February 13 two years ago. We had a sleepover at the gym to celebrate a first place we had gotten at a competition. The next morning when we woke up was normal, everyone was fine. We had no clue that one year exactly, Atwood would be gone. Even last year on February 13 we had not the slightest idea that tomorrow would not be another happy Valentines Day, but it would be one of the worst days that we would face. I think about her and I am reminded that our days are numbered. We have no guarantee. We say that all the time but yet we still say, “Oh Ill wait till tomorrow to do that or to fix my relationship with God or to start reading tomorrow.” We may not have tomorrow. The reality is, this day could literally be our last and there is nothing we can do about it. We as Christians say that it will be okay when we die because we’re going to heaven and that’s true. But, that doesn’t give us an excuse to just be lazy and let someone else get up and do it for us. It is our job.

We say that we wanna make a difference in this school and in our lives and in the lives of others, but we keep waiting for someone else to get up and start it for us. If we keep living our lives thinking like that, then one day it will be too late.

So in the words of Elizabeth Atwood, “One day your life will flash before your eyes, make sure it’s worth watching.”

Limitless Love

Love, it is something we all search for. As babies, love is one of the key requirements to our health. A child requires at least 10 touches a day. As teenagers, we are obsessed with love. Trying to find the perfect significant other that you claim to love after a few days. As adults, we marry. We marry the man that we love. Our whole life revolves around this thing called love.

Earthly love is heart-breaking, awful and wonderful, comforting, risky and safe.

The song Unfailing Love by Chris Tomlin is very famous. It leads me to question, Is there really an unfailing love? After all the things that go on in our world, abandonment, break-ups, divorces, deaths, etc., can we really sing a song about a love that never fails and really mean it?

I like to refer to unfailing love as a limitless love.

Limitless Love is a love that no matter what comes in the way of that love, it will not break because it knows no limits. Abandoment, break-ups, divorces and deaths make that love stronger. It may put a strain on one of them, but the strain is not put on God.

God has a limitless love for us. When we ignore him, he loves us. When we say stuff we don't mean, he loves us. When we lie, he loves us. He loves us limitlessly. He loves us no matter what we do.

Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword? As it is written: "For your sake we face death all day long; we are considered as sheep to be slaughtered." No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord (Romans 8:35-39).

Greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends John 15:13).

Your love, O LORD, reaches to the heavens, your faithfulness to the skies (Psalm 36:5).

How priceless is your unfailing love! Both high and low among men find refuge in the shadow of your wings (Psalm 36:7).

Not my dream, but His

Today, I was sitting in church and I was listening to the sermon that my pastor was giving. I began to do some deep thinking.

What if my dream, is not what God is dreaming for me?

Just about everyone knows I love to write. I have always wanted to write novels and be a best-selling author and to win a Newberry Award. But today I was thinking, what if God has something different in store and since I decided what I wanted to do at a young age. that I can't hear what He is trying to tell me because of my stuborness. I feel as if I am very good at getting up in front of crowds and speaking. I always said I would write and speak to various crowds throughout America. Now, I'm not so sure.

When I write, I don't usually use God in my stories. The characters may go to church, but the morals of my stories, are not virtues. They are just stories.

I'm wondering if maybe God wants me to travel the world and speak, not be a preacher, but just a speaker of what God has laid on my heart.

It is the hardest thing for me to think about because writing is my dream. Writing is my passion. Writing is where I find my getaway and where I am in my world and where I control everything. Everything in those sentences are about me.

In my head, I still try to convince myself that I can do both, but if I don't let God take the reins for a while, I will never know what he is dreaming for me. What treasures he has in store for me.

It's not about MY dream for ME, it's about HIS dream for ME.

God is writing the story. I am just a character. He controls my every move. He controlls my ending. He is the author. God is writing my story. I am just a character. I am HIS character.

The Beginning

"In the beginning...." Genesis 1:1. "In the beginning....." John 1:1
Two very familiar verses.
I was thinking the other day, why do they both start with the exact same three letters. Why are those the very first three letters God speaks to us. Yes, its the beginning of the Bible, but maybe there is another reason.

I always wonder, did God know that we would mess up and that sin would separate us? Did he have two plans out, for if we didn't mess up, and the other for if we did? I'm beginning to believe he did know we would mess up. I think that maybe he knew we would mess up but still gave us a chance despite what he knew, despite the heartbreak he knew he would experience.

When God wrote the Bible, I think he put those exact three letters for a sepcific reason, besides the obvious reason, it was the beginning of the book.

Beginning: 1. an act or circumstance of entering upon an action or state
                    2. just formed
            
An act means: 1. anything done, being done, or to be done; deed; performance.
                                Synonyms: feat, exploit, achievement, work

So, my point to the defintions is that the creation is proven is the dictionary. Beginning says "just FORMED". The never says anything about being evolved from. We were FORMED by God. It also says "an act" Act is something done, not something that just appears. In order for something to be done, you have to someone to do it. The synonyms are work. Work requires someone to work.

With all of the different theories of our beginning, it's hard to know for sure what really is truth. I wonder if God, knowing what theories would come, purposefully wrote, "In the beginning"

He says in those three words, "I am the creator, because before anything was created, anything at all. Before any type of living or dead matter became into existence, I was here. I created the living and dead matter. I am the creator."

I think God knew that we would question how the world created so he made sure that the first three words he said stated that before anything came to existence, he was there and that he created it.

2011

2011.
I keep saying that to myself.
2011.
It's mind-boggling.
2011.
It sounds weird.
2011.
It sounds... new.

I really don't like the transition from 2010 to 2011. It's fun to be with your friends and to have a good time, but on New Year's Eve, I always think, "This is my last chance to do..." I get my last hug, last picture, last time outside, last anything and then I remember it. Really, the only difference between that stroke of midnight, and any other stroke of midnight, is the change in the year number.

There's two points with a change in year.

1. On New Year's Eve, we try to do everything we can because it is our last chance to do that something in the current year. What would happen if we had that point of view with everyday? After all, it is your last chance to do something on that day. The current day will never come again, just like 2010, will never come again. Today, this very day, will never come again.

If we said to ourselves, "This is my last chance to (insert certain thing here) today", imagine how different our world would be. No procrastinaters. No regrets. New Year's Eve is a reminder to us that the moment you are in right now is all you are promised.

2. Forgiveness. Like I said, I don't like the whole "last chance to do this in 2010", it makes me sad. I was thinking that maybe New Year's Eve is another reminder for us that there is a second chance. Maybe, you didn't act like you wanted too that year. Maybe, you made a bad reputation for yourself by making one fatal mistake. Maybe, you experinced some sort of tragedy that year and you were left broken. New Years is a second chance. You may have been someone you didn't want to be in 2010, but it's not 2010 anymore, it's 2011. This is your second chance.

I've heard people ask, "What does 2011 bring for you?" I say, it brings everyone a second chance. A second chance to get your life together again. A second chance to make yourself happy. A second chance to be who you wanted to be and not what you had become.

2011 IS a good thing.
2011 is a second chance.
2011 is a NEW year.
2011 brings a NEW you.