grumpy morning prayer

my God, who gave me life today,

i want to do anything other than teach today. i know that there are other activities in the country that i would much rather be doing right now, and i am even putting off getting ready so that i don't have to scoot along to make conversation for 90 minutes and teach prepositions and what sports people like to play. please be a provider of grace and joy so i can make it through today, sharing with others a glimpse of the joy that is you in my heart. give me opportunities to share your grace with my students, and give me opportunites to love them amongst the grammar and my grumpiness.

My friend, Rachel wrote a blog post a couple weeks ago in which she was very vulnerable and open about different struggles she deals with and what's going on in her life. I was really thankful and refreshed even by how she didn't hide the crappy to appear as though she's got it all together.

Because let's be real. None of us have our lives together. Let me tell you some minor ways that Martha Stewart would consider me a failure:

I'm not rich enough to hire someone to make my bed for me, so my bed remains a mess every single day. In fact, the whole apartment remains a mess until one of us feels like cleaning. We have little dust bunnies in the corners that sometimes freak me out. We don't have a vacuum, so there's almost a layer of red hair in my bedroom carpet. actually, there's a layer of mess (clothes, books, tissues), and under that layer is a layer of red hair. 

I own almost nothing of my own in this apartment...all the big furniture was given to us, and I've only bought a few decorations and kitchen things that are mine. 

I owe thousands of dollars of debt due to two pieces of paper that say Bachelors of Science and Master of Arts. And oops...those pieces of paper are buried in that mess of my bedroom and probably covered with dust bunnies and red hair.

It gets bigger than this, and I'm saying all of this not to complain or to make you feel bad for me. I say this because I don't ever want to fall into the trap of putting on a front. I want people to know that without the grace of God in my life every day, and without realizing it every day, I would literally be a heap of tears just melting away on the floor. And some days that's a reality.

So what do I really struggle with as a single girl living in a foreign country, attempting to serve God? None of you want to read a list that long, so I'll only name a few things :)

I went through a tough spell a couple months ago where I felt unneeded and unloved. A couple specific mornings I could barely crawl out of bed, and when I did I spent the rest of the day crying and canceling anything I was supposed to do that day. God pulled me out of that tough spot, but I have no doubt I could have another smidge of depressing moments. 

I struggle with singleness. Of my seven greatest high school friends, they each, in birth order, started dating guys and are either married to them or in a serious relationship with them. And me? I was skipped over in that birth order thing.  I'm 26, and I've witnessed a lot of my good friends fall in love and marry great people. sometimes i feel like God will never answer this prayer. and when i'm not seeking his face daily (hourly), i can begin to idolize my future and ignore my present.

my lifelong struggle has been seeking God. he calls us to give our bodies as a living and holy sacrifice which is acceptable and pleasing to God. that's not an easy thing to do for a self-reliant human. this was a struggle in high school, it was a struggle in college, and it remains a struggle now. it's easy to live life without God, but that doesn't satisfy my soul. i've gone through times of shouting out to God, repeatedly asking him to satisfy me, and to help me to be pleasing to him.

these are my realities, my tragedies, my things that keep me from God and boldly proclaiming his name. and yet these are the things that allow me to see his grace. 

quick trips to vienna and prague

something to be in prayer for...i had to make a quick trip to vienna (and i mean quick...a total of ten hours on the train and six in vienna) where i had to interview for a new visa. i had a couple hours to walk around and enjoy the beautiful spring in a beautiful city.

czech embassy open hours: monday-friday from 8:30 - 10:30. seriously?

then i jumped on a train and headed to prague where i hung out with some wonderful friends, met some swedish people, and went paddle boating on the vltava river in full view of the castle. enjoy these pictures of europe :)

some seriously crazy girls.

here's a little insight into what we do at Bible study...
i seriously love these girls. a lot a lot.

Vienna/Budapest

Tessa's mom and sister flew into Vienna last Thursday, and we spent some time traveling through Europe to see Vienna and Budapest. here are some highlights...sorry about the random order!

scarf shopping at the famous naschmarkt market in vienna

beautiful church in Vienna

St. Stephen's Cathedral

oh my gosh! a phone booth!

Belvedere Palace. breathtaking.

Hungary's old metro line!

from our hostel in Budapest

Heroes Square, Busapest

the only ones on the metro!

after finally finding a place to eat

Budapest is beautiful!

there's a church carved into that cave. we walked in as they were having mass.

confessions of a recovering legalist

le·gal·ism

 [lee-guh-liz-uhm] 

noun

1.

strict adherence, or the principle of strict adherence, to law orprescription, especially to the letter rather than the spirit.

2.

Theology .

a.

the doctrine that salvation is gained through good works.

b.

the judging of conduct in terms of adherence to preciselaws.

according to dictionary.com.

i, like so many christians before and after me, have grown up believing that what will one day get me into heaven and closer to God is following the rules of the Bible and the rules of christian institutions.

but it became pretty obvious to me a couple years ago that i'd never be able to follow rules. i can't even make my bed in the mornings.

it's been about 5 years since i discovered how i was bent towards following rules, and it's been five years (and will be the rest of my life!) of recovery.

the strange thing is that what God offers is so much better than following rules. i can't believe how often the church teaches legalism when God offers something so much more kind and beautiful.

what God says is that:

we are sinners (Romans 5:8)
but Jesus has saved us. He was sacrificed for our sins so that we wouldn't be separated from God anymore. He has made us holy, blameless, and innocent before God, and he has taken our sins on himself. (Hebrews 7)
and therefore, i can do absolutely nothing but accept this grace from Jesus and praise him for saving me.

the road to recovery is always long, and i still find myself responding to sin in my legalistic way. but God is greater than my legalism!

comparison bug bites

last weekend i went on an english camp team retreat. i had had no expectations for it...i had not a single idea what we'd be doing.

so i entered the cold parsonage where we stayed without knowing that a great weekend filled with prayer (and organization and games:)) was ahead.

learning about our gifts and the body

there was a great prayer room (with a nice toasty heater!) set up, where we could paint, write on the wall, and listen to worship music. someone was in that room praying the whole weekend, even at 3 in the morning. it was beautiful.

and Taby, our youth pastor, spoke to us a couple times. he reminded us of the spiritual gifts that God blessed his believers with so that we can work as one functional body.

For as in one body we have many members, and the members do not all have the same function, so we, though many, are one body in Christ, and individually members one of another. Having gifts that differ according to the grace given to us, let us use them: if prophecy, in proportion to our faith; if service, in our serving; the one who teaches, in his teaching; the one who exhorts, in his exhortation; the one who contributes, in generosity; the one who leads, with zeal; the one who does acts of mercy, with cheerfulness. Romans 12

reminding us of our differences
in how we glorify God

one of the greater struggles that i think women have is that of comparison. the comparison bug can attack when we're browsing facebook or pinterest, go to another person's house which is more "clean" and "nice," or just thinking about the people around us. in college it was common for me to compare myself as a Christian to those who seemed more spiritual than me, and it really hurt my self-esteem and relationship with Christ.

and the comparison bug still bites me sometimes. but as Taby was reminding us of these spiritual gifts, i remembered that these gifts are what GOD HAS GIVEN US. when i compare my gifts and come up short next to someone else, i'm totally neglecting what God's given me. it's like i'm telling him that what He's granted me with isn't good enough or not what i want.

As each has received a gift, use it to serve one another, as good stewards of God's varied grace. 1 Peter 4:10

i need to SLAP that bug! it's ugly! it has no place on me, because I am God's - a result of God's grace. when i compare myself to others, i weaken the body of Christ, and it becomes more dysfunctional. God gave us these gifts to glorify him and his character. when i compare myself, it doesn't glorify God's grace towards me. an eye can't compare itself to the knee and try to be more like it, because that's not its place.

God has created us perfectly, and he sacrificed his Son so that we could be perfect. he blessed us with gifts to glorify him. let's not remove that perfection and glory through comparison.

Now there are varieties of gifts, but the same Spirit; and there are varieties of service, but the same Lord; and there are varieties of activities, but it is the same God who empowers them all in everyone. To each is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good...All these are empowered by one and the same Spirit, who apportions to each one individually as he wills. 1 Corinthians 12: 4-7, 11