My life has become so routine. I get up at the same time each day. I have the same work schedule. I eat the same breakfast. I am around most of the same people on a daily basis. The older I get, the more I find myself falling into this repetitive schedule without even thinking about it. Some days I feel discouraged and think, how could God ever use me with this ordinary (almost boring) life I lead? How can God work in the routine, the mundane, and the ordinary? Do you ever feel like your life has to be something extravagant for God to be at work?
When I was in college, I had the opportunity to go on many mission trips. It was one of my favorite things to do because I knew I was going to get a front row seat watching God work and move. I knew I was going to see Him throughout the trip and I was always excited to experience Him through new people and places. I traveled to South Korea for a mission trip after I graduated college and I remember being taken aback by all the beautiful people I had the opportunity to meet and the breathtaking views I was able to see. In those moments, God was so obvious to me. He was there and He was working. I could just feel it and see it each day. I felt important because I was confident that God was using me to positively affect the lives of others.
Unfortunately, my life isn't a constant mission trip. I do not have the opportunity to so obviously see God working on a day-to-day basis, but that doesn't mean that He still isn't working through my everyday circumstances. Why is it that as Christians, we feel like we have to be doing something extravagant like a mission trip to experience God or be to used by Him? I refuse to believe the lie that Satan tells us that we can't be used by God in our everyday lives, that we can't affect the lives of those around us unless we are doing something for Christ in an exaggerated way, that He can't work through the small, unnoticed gestures. We get to thinking why would He be interested in a full-time desk job worker like me? Or a stay-at-home mom? Or a someone who is retired? Or a student just trying to graduate? Because He isn't looking for people who are equipped or qualified. He is looking for people who are willing and available. God will provide the knowledge and ability, if we will just provide ourselves.
You don't have to be doing a ministry-oriented activity to see God and to be used by Him. Your life (every aspect of it) is a ministry in itself and a way for God to work through you and touch the lives of others. God will open up doors and create opportunities where there seem to be none. He has the power to turn your ordinary day-to-day circumstances into something extraordinary. It may not look like a foreign mission trip or a pastor preaching from the pulpit, but that doesn't mean He can't transform the routine into something amazing for His glory. God has the power to work beyond our circumstances. So yes, I do feel like my life is a little mundane sometimes, but I have to keep reminding myself that God is still at work in my life. He will always use me as long as I am willing to be used in any (unconventional) way, shape, or form.
Showing posts with label reality. Show all posts
Showing posts with label reality. Show all posts
Thursday, February 27, 2014
Wednesday, December 18, 2013
What's "Supposed" To Be
It's been a crazy few weeks. Between Christmas, packing, moving, unpacking, Christmas parties, decorating, cooking, buying/crafting gifts and working full time...I have barely been able to keep it all together. Somehow I have managed to get to the right thing at the right time and most everything is put away at our new house. I consider this an accomplishment! Although this is the holiday season and we have a new home, I feel like we are holding on by a thread trying to make it all work and keep it all together. It's not exactly the picture perfect season that I had imagined. And that bugs me.
I don't know why, but we get these flawless images in our minds of what these transitions or phases of life should look like...and that just isn't reality. I recently read a quote that stuck with me and I felt like I could really identify with these words: "What screws us up most in life is the picture in our head of how it's supposed to be."
I remember moving into our small basement apartment almost a year ago and thinking about how "imperfect" it was. It lacked basic things like a dishwasher, oven, and kitchen. It was functional but bare. I felt like this was somehow going to taint our first year of marriage because it wasn't the house I have envisioned as what a young married couple should live in. I had this perfect little picture in my head of what was supposed to be, and this didn't fit. That dinky little space quickly became more than just our residence or a pain in the butt. It became our home. We made it cozy and comfy. We made it ours. It had everything that we really needed, not wanted but needed. I thought so poorly of that place in the beginning, but through that not so glamorous situation, I began to see beauty unfold. When we packed it all up on Friday afternoon, I stood in each room and was reminded of how small our place actually was, how simple and unsophisticated each room was, and how the only things that actually filled this place were us and our things. All it really was were 2 empty rooms and a single bathroom. Yet, it was everything that wasn't supposed to be gone right.
I was surprised at how sad I was to leave it. We had spent our first year of marriage between those walls. We had so many great times and memories there. A lot of difficult, but very valuable lessons were taught through that place. I grew very fond of our little basement apartment despite how different it was from where I originally thought we were "supposed" to live. In that moment, I realized it wasn't about the place. It wasn't about the imperfections. It wasn't about the expectations of what I thought a newlywed home should look like. It was about us making this past year our own, in our own way, in our own place, and in our own time. It didn't have to look a certain way to be considered a successful year full of love, laughter, and growth.
Letting go of that vision of what we believe our lives are supposed to be is the best thing we can do for ourselves. Forget the timeline, forget what's considered "normal", forget the expectations, and learn to appreciate what's right in front of your eyes. Focusing on how we believe a situation should look like takes away from how great the reality might be. So my life doesn't always appear exactly like I think it should...who cares? That little basement apartment taught me the lesson of throwing that perfect picture of what's "supposed" to be out the window and opening my eyes up to how beautiful what isn't supposed to be really is.
The memories captured in that little place will last a lifetime:
I don't know why, but we get these flawless images in our minds of what these transitions or phases of life should look like...and that just isn't reality. I recently read a quote that stuck with me and I felt like I could really identify with these words: "What screws us up most in life is the picture in our head of how it's supposed to be."
I remember moving into our small basement apartment almost a year ago and thinking about how "imperfect" it was. It lacked basic things like a dishwasher, oven, and kitchen. It was functional but bare. I felt like this was somehow going to taint our first year of marriage because it wasn't the house I have envisioned as what a young married couple should live in. I had this perfect little picture in my head of what was supposed to be, and this didn't fit. That dinky little space quickly became more than just our residence or a pain in the butt. It became our home. We made it cozy and comfy. We made it ours. It had everything that we really needed, not wanted but needed. I thought so poorly of that place in the beginning, but through that not so glamorous situation, I began to see beauty unfold. When we packed it all up on Friday afternoon, I stood in each room and was reminded of how small our place actually was, how simple and unsophisticated each room was, and how the only things that actually filled this place were us and our things. All it really was were 2 empty rooms and a single bathroom. Yet, it was everything that wasn't supposed to be gone right.
I was surprised at how sad I was to leave it. We had spent our first year of marriage between those walls. We had so many great times and memories there. A lot of difficult, but very valuable lessons were taught through that place. I grew very fond of our little basement apartment despite how different it was from where I originally thought we were "supposed" to live. In that moment, I realized it wasn't about the place. It wasn't about the imperfections. It wasn't about the expectations of what I thought a newlywed home should look like. It was about us making this past year our own, in our own way, in our own place, and in our own time. It didn't have to look a certain way to be considered a successful year full of love, laughter, and growth.
Letting go of that vision of what we believe our lives are supposed to be is the best thing we can do for ourselves. Forget the timeline, forget what's considered "normal", forget the expectations, and learn to appreciate what's right in front of your eyes. Focusing on how we believe a situation should look like takes away from how great the reality might be. So my life doesn't always appear exactly like I think it should...who cares? That little basement apartment taught me the lesson of throwing that perfect picture of what's "supposed" to be out the window and opening my eyes up to how beautiful what isn't supposed to be really is.
The memories captured in that little place will last a lifetime:
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