Settlers Champs

The Settlers of Catan is by far my favorite board game.  I'm sure you all hear me talk about it all the time and if you are a Mary Wash student, I'm sure you play it with me all the time.

Steve, Matt, and me playing in OBX over the summer

From the moment I learned how to play--which was about a year ago--I was on this crazy winning streak.  It was kind of hilarious to me because sometimes we would sit down to play and everyone would try to target me but I would still end victoriously hahaha.  But seriously, it was rare if anyone ever beat me.  Some of this is due to strategy.  Am I on a variety of resources and numbers and ports?  Am I trading with the right people?  Am I playing the development cards at the right time.

But sometimes it's out of my control.  The dice never seem to roll the numbers that I need and all I keep thinking is "C'monnnn.  Just a brick.  Just let me get one little brick.  Please someone trade with me!"

Sometimes we play on teams.  Smiling at one another when things are going well and laughing out loud when things are looking rather bleak--trying to make it seem like you both don't care that you're about to lose.  Jess and I somehow established ourselves as the undefeated team during the fall retreat.  Unbeatable.  Unstoppable.  Laughing in hysterics every time a game ended and we were the winners.

Team Jelyssa! (J'Lyssa? J'Lyss? idk...)

But since then our winning streak has been unpredictable.  We win some and lose some-- afraid that maybe we are just... average?

Even if you're playing on teams, combining strategies, keeping each other awake with coffee, and laughing to refrain from screaming when the odds are against you, you can still lose.  You can still make bad decisions.  Trade with the wrong people.  Place settlements on less-than-ideal spots.  Or maybe even forget that you're playing for a bit of time and end up having one teammate (Ahem... Jess...) doing crunches in the middle of the room and the other teammate too tired to even remember the goal of the game... but alas that is another story for another day.

Sometimes you decide to risk it.  The pair of you decide to keep more than seven cards in your hand for another round.  And every time someone rolls the dice you hold your breath, afraid to see the dreaded seven.  You are playing with fire.

And then it always happens.  Right when you're almost free and it is your turn, you roll a seven and kiss half of your cards goodbye.  There goes the resources you needed to build that last city.  There goes winning the game.

At least for this turn.
At least for this game.

Because there's always the game after this one (because let's be real... I can't sit down and just play one game).  There's always the next day or the next week.  There are always second chances to build settlements where the harvest might be more plenty, to make better trades, to use your resources instead of risking it and playing with fire.

Lamentations 3:22-23--
²² Because of the LORD’s great love we are not consumed,
   for his compassions never fail.
²³ They are new every morning;
   great is your faithfulness.

Sometimes we don't make the best decisions, even when we're in community and on a team and working together and being discipled.  Sometimes we are knowingly playing with fire with the understanding that at any moment we could lose half of what's important to us.  But Jesus always wants us to come back to Him.  Jesus yearns for us to keep playing.

Sometimes we brag about how we are unable to be defeated, only to then have our egos bruised and our worlds shaken.  We realize that we actually can't do anything on our own. As soon as we think we can control our own destinies we end up waiting around with too many resources and praying that no one will roll a seven.

It all goes back to our identities being in Jesus.  It's good to play on teams and strengthen relationships.  It's good to do well.  But it's also important that we don't get wrapped up in thinking that we are the Settlers Champs.

Because when I lose and mess up and make the wrong decisions, I know that I am still a child of Jesus.  And He loves me and will give me another chance.  My identity is in Him.  And cannot be rocked.  Ever.

things are good, guys!

A lot of people have been reading my blog this month and it's made them concerned for me.  This surprised me a bit, because my intention was not to come off as sad in my entries, but as hopeful.  I'm really tired right now and about to go off to bed, but I wanted to make this little post to ease the tension that I'm receiving from those of you that are at home right now--for those of you who perhaps haven't truly grasped yet just how much Jesus has a hold of my life and will not let me go.

You see I'm human.  I'm broken and unworthy and a sinner.  I still struggle with (many, many) things and am in a bit of a funk that college is ending.  I feel overwhelmed at times and my heart hurts for various reasons.  But Jesus is so much greater than all of that.  He heals the brokenhearted and binds up their wounds (Psalm 147:3).  Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus (Romans8:1).  So even though I still struggle with sins, I am forgiven and He is working to purify my heart.  He is making everything new.

I'm going to have rough patches in my life, but I'm grateful for them.  Because the trials bring me closer to Jesus.  Because when I rely on Him to carry me through I become more like Him.  And that is my ultimate purpose in life:  to die to my own sinful nature and to be more like Him.  He must become greater; I must become less (John 3:30).

And so I am hopeful because my God can do it.  Jesus has radically transformed my life already and I know He will continue to do so.  He will continue to walk with me because He loves me.  My soul cries, "Abba, Father."  All I long for is that intimacy with Him because I love Jesus more than anything else in this world.  So I will persevere and I will be redeemed.  When I talk about things like perseverance and needing grace and redemption in my blogs, it's a good thing.

But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me (2 Corinthians 12:9).  I rejoice in the fact that my Jesus can and will and is in the process of changing me.

He is in the business of redeeming lives and transforming souls.

I'm off to bed.  My eyes are slowly shutting and my fingers can barely type anymore.  But watch this video.  It depicts so clearly that He is in control of all things and wants to heal all things and has such beautiful grace to offer us.

All He longs for is a relationship with you.
All you have to do is want this pure, perfect, and astonishing love that He gives so freely.
Let Him into your life.

Valentine's Day Fairies

Last night my IV small group went to Krispy Kreme and while there, the typical spontaneous side of me wanted to buy a box of a dozen donuts and deliver them to off-campus friends in honor of Valentine's Day.  The not-so-typical side of me wanted to purchase these twelve donuts; this coming from the girl who is too cheap to even offer to rent the Redbox.  In a matter of seconds, Sarah Hunt and I decided we were all in, bought the donuts, and ran to the car--dragging one of the freshmen girls, Allison, along.  There we were.  Living in some parallel universe where I was generous and Sarah was spontaneous.  It was silly and fun and something different to do instead of homework on a Monday night.

The first place we went was to Jess and Jen's house, where my (new) friend Kristie was hanging out.  We delivered the treats and headed for campus where we creeped on JoGo's study spot in Trinkle before driving across town to Dani and Jordan's house and then giving the rest to Allison's roommate and our apartmentmates.  You can just call us the Valentine's Day fairies.

Later that night, I received so many appreciative texts and we were tagged in multiple posts on facebook (sorry for blowin up y'allz newsfeeds).  After reading the texts out loud to Sarah I turned to her and said, "Wow.  Who knew this would feel so great??"  And I meant it.

For most of my life I've hated Valentine's Day--perhaps from the bitterness of always being single when the week came along on the calendar.  But love isn't just for romantic relationships.  It's for our friends.  For our brothers and sisters.  For Jesus.  (And from Him.)

And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love --1 Corinthians 13:13.

I had no idea that people would be so grateful for a little late-night delivery.  But the point was that we love them.  That we are so thrilled that these people are in our lives.  That we hope they'll always be in our lives.

Graduation is less than three months away.  Pretty soon we'll all be scattered across the country (and possibly the world).  But these relationships will always hold significant places in our hearts.  These relationships are ones that we hope will be (mutually) significant in our lives throughout time.  We have given these people pieces of us and taken pieces of them, sharing in the goodness and the mystery of love.  Forever.

It felt great to celebrate the holiday that I usually dread.  It felt great to show the people that I love in a very simple way that I care about them and think about them throughout my day.  And it felt great to know that they appreciated our little run-around (as creepy as we probably seemed at the time, especially while we ran around campus with Sarah's car empty and running).  They appreciated it because they love us equally.

I am letting my walls down.  I am letting people into my life and my thoughts and my heart.  I am letting other people love me.

I am progressing since my last entry about it.
And I am loving every second of it.

It is like a breath of fresh air in this otherwise chaotic world.  My relationships are becoming meaningful and wonderful.  Yes, I still have tiffs with my friends and I don't always react with grace.  But I am learning to be honest and confide in people.  I am learning to let people love me.  I am learning to feel.

We are made for community.  We are made to love each other.  Romantic relationships aside, Valentine's Day can be a day that you look at all of the amazing people in your life and allow yourself to love them because that love is just as important as any love from a significant other.  You can look at how much Jesus loves you and chose to spend today with Him.  You can choose to feel and choose to let walls down and choose to be there for others.  Deliver donuts or Valentine's Day cards or hugs or tears or a simple statement of "I love you."

We love because he first loved us. --1 John 4:19

We are mirrors; made to reflect the love that He gives us to others.  Made to share in joy and love and pain and trials.

Made to do life together.

darkened desires

Perseverance can be difficult.  Especially when I can't see in front of me.  Especially when doors keep closing and I'm wondering when one is going to open (or if...?).  Especially when I wonder what I even want.  Do I even know the desires of my own heart anymore?  If my flesh and Spirit are always in conflict with each other, then how am I ever supposed to tell which way is up and which way is down?

Because after a long sleepless night I can wake up and remember how much You love me.

Because "those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires (Galatians 5:24)."
And crucifixion is a long, painful process.  It is a slow and steady death.
But death will come.

So in the process I need to make those daily choices to continue to die to myself, even when it hurts and I'm unsure and it's hard.

Because there's a promise that one day
I'll
get
there.

There's a promise that one day
I'll
look like
You.

There's a promise that You love me beyond what my fragile limbic system can imagine.

I just need to persevere through the dark even when I can't see and I don't necessarily feel like it.  I need to keep going on this journey even when the desires of my flesh are raging against the desires of Your Spirit.  I can't give up just because I feel defeated and weak.  Because, as my friend Aletheia blogged about today, the light always comes.

Darkened desires are scary and uncertain.  I can't depend on my feelings as I'm walking through this tunnel in the night because darkness can lead to heightened arousal and irrational fears.  Yet the promise of the illumination to come can cause me to press on, even when I want to give up and sit down or maybe even turn around and go back through the familiar route that I know.

Your love is more powerful than my shortcomings and more powerful than my doubt.
It is perfect.
And You gave me a promise that it will always come.

honest worship

Those words we sing during worship... man oh man are they heavy.  Here are a few of the crazy lyrics that we proclaimed at the coffeehouse tonight:

"Everything I am for Your Kingdom's cause."
"Everything I once held dear I count it all as lost."
"Rid me of myself."
"All I am, I surrender."
"I'm broken inside, I give You my life."
"I need You to soften my heart/To break me apart/I need You to pierce through the dark and cleanse every part of me."

I want to sing those words and mean it.  I want to scream, "YES LORD. BREAK ME APART. I SURRENDER.  I DON'T CARE ABOUT ANYTHING THIS WORLD HAS TO OFFER AND I COUNT IT ALL AS LOST.  EVERY PART OF ME IS FOR YOUR KINGDOM.  PIERCE. THOUGH. THE. DARK."

But if I'm being honest, sometimes I like staying in the dark.  I like living for myself instead of His Kingdom because it's easier if I just do me.  My time.  My career.  My GPA.  My relationships.  I still hold some loves dear to me; I'm still enticed by money, and appearance, and success, and a love life, and having people "think highly of me."

Do I really mean it when I say I give You my life?  When I ask You to rid me of myself?  When I tell You that I surrender it all? (C'mon, can't I keep some parts of me??!)

Do I really want You to break me apart?  That will hurt.  And I'm afraid to engage myself in the healing process because the ripping part will be painful.  If You don't pierce through the dark then I won't know any different... right?

Wrong.  Ignorance is not bliss.
Jesus, help me sing these words and mean it.  Help me chase after You wholeheartedly.  Help me dive head-first into this healing process with You as You pierce through the dark and cleanse every part of me.

Duke!!

Last night I was watching the Duke/UNC game and getting a bit agitated during the second half.  The game began with Duke in the lead and it looked like it was going to end with them losing by 10 points.  But then with less than two minutes left in the game, Duke brought their score up.  With about half a minute left, UNC accidentally scored for Duke, leaving them just one point behind.  UNC made one of their free throws and now Duke was down by two with about 14 seconds left in the game.  They took the ball down the court and as the buzzer went off, scored a three-pointer for the winning shot.  I JUMPED off of my couch and squealed (trying to muffle my excitement as much as possible because my roommates had both gone to bed).

Austin Rivers making the amazing winning shot!

It was quite possibly the most exciting end to a game that I have ever witnessed and I was so very glad that I stayed up well past my bed time to watch it.

Sometimes in life we feel like we're winning during the first half.  Things are going our way.  Things are going smoothly.  And God appears to be everywhere, working in our favor.  But then we begin to get scared.  We're down by 10 and the game is almost over.

I question if I'm going to win this thing.  I question if God really is behind it all.  Do You really hold my life in Your hands?

Yesterday I felt beaten down.  I felt like I was only down by a couple of points and all of a sudden Satan was beating me down into the ground with lies about circumstances that I wish so badly I could change.  I was crying over the thing that I thought I had "recovered" from, wishing there was a way for me to change my destiny for next year.

But when that basketball game ended last night I remembered that when you are playing on God's team, you will always win.  Even with 14 seconds left in the game, Jesus will make that 3-pointer and send you jumping for joy down the court.

He makes ALL THINGS work together for my good.  That is a promise He gives me.  And this might not look in my favor now but it is.  It completely is.  Because it's going to provide me with an exciting ending to an unshakable destiny that He has for me.  A destiny that is good and perfect.  A destiny where I am in awe of how He made that winning shot in time and I can't help thinking, How DID You do it?!

A destiny where He is the victor and His team gets the glory.

love

In spite of the chaos of life,
Regardless of the fears about jobs and life after graduation,
Through the pain of drifting friends and watching loved ones die,
Somewhere in the middle of the turbulance of my sin and doubt that You hold my life in your hands,
I see how much you really love me.

I can go to sleep distraught and unsure, only to wake up in the middle of the night to feel You softly stroke my face and whisper that it's all going to be okay.  That I need to stop looking for joy and love and satisfaction because I can find that only in You.  Where my life goes from here amounts to nothing if I'm not on that journey next to You.  Where You are is where I want to be.  You forgive.  You know me better than I know myself.  You give abundantly.  You love me.


I have never known such a pure and unfailing love like this.

Love has always been a difficult task for me.  I think, growing up around family members dying, I learned that it hurts to lose someone that you love.  So I pulled away from everyone at an early age in an attempt to protect myself.  It's hard for me to be myself around my family.  It's hard for me to be intimate in a romantic relationship.  It's hard for me to verbally tell someone how much I love them.  I don't like making eye contact when I talk to people and I don't like giving hugs.  I believed the lie that if I didn't allow myself to feel, then it wouldn't hurt as bad if I lost them.

But I've been learning that numbness only adds to the pain.  We are meant to feel.  We are meant to love.  And we are meant to have intimate friendships and relationships.  Life is nothing without love.  Someone recently told me that "Hugs aren't just for you.  They are for the other person, too."

Yes.  The people in my life deserve hugs from me because they deserve to know how much I care for them.  I never realized the importance of love and community because I never experienced pure and unfailing love until Jesus gave it so willingly to me.  I honestly believed it was something people could get by without.  But now I know that life is nothing without it.  It's so good to love.  It's so good to be loved.

It's so good to feel.
I am learning how much You really love me.

1 John 4:7-12--
⁷ Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. ⁸ Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love. ⁹ This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him. ¹⁰ This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins. ¹¹ Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. ¹² No one has ever seen God; but if we love one another, God lives in us and his love is made complete in us.

I never understood these verses to their fulness until now.  I took them as me just having to love because I'm "called to."  Because Jesus loves me I have to "love" everyone, which I lamely defined as me being "nice" and "giving."  I knew I needed to "spread the Gospel by love" (but I honestly didn't even know what any of that meant).


No.  These verses are saying when you recognize how great and vast God's love is for you, that's when you will love your brothers and sisters.  Love is an amazing gift from God.  Love is pure.  And good.  Love is way more necessary that we ever imagined it to be.  When we recognize the depth and height of His love we cannot help but overflow that cup onto other people.  We cannot help but want to give others the very gift that our own souls feed off of.

And in the process we will be made whole.  We are made for community to have true relationships and to live out the mystery of love.  There will be no more pushing away because I'm scared to get hurt.  There will only be the healing power of love that captivates every part of my soul.

This is a secular song but the lyrics sort of reminds me of a conversation I've been having with Jesus these past few weeks:


Heart beats fast.  Colors and promises.  How to be brave?  How can I love when I'm afraid to fall?  But watching You stand alone.  All of my doubt suddenly goes away somehow.  One step closer.


"I have died every day waiting for you.  Darling don't be afraid.  I have loved you for a thousand years, I'll love you for a thousand more.  And all along I believed I would find you, time has brought your heart to me.  I have loved you for a thousand years, I'll love you for a thousand more."

I don't need to be afraid to fall when I see how Jesus "stood alone" and died on the cross for ME.  His blood covers me every day as He waits so patiently for me to understand.  His love has washed me clean.  Love is good.  There's nothing to be afraid of because it is so full of color and promise.

And so I am growing and changing and learning.  Trying to make eye contact at all times.  Trying to hug without pulling away quickly.  Trying to forgive even when it's hard.  Trying to replace (most of) the sarcasm and jokes with encouraging words and truths of how much I appreciate them in my life.  Trying to feel for the first time since I was just a small child.

Trying to love like You love me.