The Little Things

I love….

1) Packing for trips

2) Singing Broadway in the stairwells

3) Pictures of people I love

4) Waking up to my roommate’s hairdryer

5) Random late-night chats in the kitchen with a certain former roommate over cinnamon toast and grapefruit

6) Sweaters with too-long sleeves

7) Rainymood.com

8) Folding hot laundry straight from the dryer

9) The clock on our wall that never keeps the correct time but always ticks away soothingly

10) Bamboo & lotus hand lotion that smells like plants and therefore reminds me of summer.

11) Words like “therefore” and “indubitably” and “whence”

12) Homemade things

13) Looking at other peoples’ handwriting

14) Beginning a new journal, and wondering what will be written on the hitherto empty pages

15) Words like “hitherto”

16) When people call me “Meg”, naturally, without meaning to or thinking about it

17) People in my life that remind me about God’s grace, goodness, and power

18) Aromas that mentally drag me back in time

19) Making lists. And crossing off list items, if they’re to-do lists.

20) The church I attend here in the city. A blog to follow concerning last week’s sermon, hopefully within the next few days.

Elevation

This week in one of my classes, a fellow student said something that struck me. It was along the lines of "The more we humble ourselves, the more glorious God appears to us." It got me thinking.

Two and a half years ago, my family went on a summer vacation "out West". My favorite part was the Grand Teton National Park.

Before that trip, the only mountains I'd ever seen were the Smokies down in Tennessee.

After that trip, I was reluctant even to call the Smokies "mountains". I prefer "large hills".

Since that trip, I have seen other mountains. But the Tetons remain the most awe-inspiring range I have ever seen.

Why? The answer is simple.

Elevation.

In the Smoky Mountains, the elevation is ever-varying between about 900 and 6000 feet over a range of 36 miles. The foothills roll long before the range begins. In Wyoming, though, it's a different story.

The elevation of the town Jackson Hole, sitting just below the Tetons' peaks, is about 6200 feet. The landscape is flat, marked only by fields and rivers, until suddenly

colossal

majestic

snow-covered

jagged-peaked

Mountains

rise almost unbelievably out of the plains.

The peaks reach nearly 14,000 feet, which may not be a big deal compared to the Colorado Rockies, but remember- that's a very sudden increase of about 8,000 feet. It isn't the height above sea level that makes the Tetons impressive. It's the height from base to peak, and the sharp drop between the two.

The Tetons wouldn't really be all that impressive if the elevation of Jackson Hole was much higher, or if the ground rose more gradually. They're not record-setting peaks. As it is, though, they're spectacular, awe-inspiring, breathtaking.

Our God is colossal. He is awesome, powerful, majestic, huge, glorious.

But how can we see that if, in our flawed minds, our own elevation isn't too significantly different?

The more humble we are- the lower our elevation- the more glorious our Lord appears in our eyes.

Seeing Anew

It is so easy to become used to things.

I had a really good cheeseburger the other day, and I realized just how bad the ones at Moody are.

I stepped into the shower upon arriving home for break and suffered a moment of extreme confusion at the water coming from the left instead of the right like it is at school.

After two weeks of Christmas break, I have regained my addiction to reading. I remember before I left, wondering how I would manage a whole semester with not much time for fiction. I wonder how I did manage it.

And tonight, in the brisk air, I noticed the stars. Constellations that I recognize with only a brief glance such as Orion and the Pleiades, sparkling with more depth than the inky sky in which they hang.

They were beautiful. Dazzling. Amazing. Despite the cold, all I wanted to do was stand there on the asphalt with my head tilted back, breathing deeply and indulging the awe that I felt over a sight I’d seen my entire life.

I live in Chicago now. Unlike the cornfields of northwest Indiana, the city rarely allows for even a single star to shine through the clouds and light pollution. I knew before I left that I would miss the stars, and so I do, but apparently I’d become used to not seeing them. Because when I looked at the stars after months of city skies, I saw something that I missed when I saw them every day.

My throat caught at their beauty and mystery. My mind struggled to comprehend their size and majesty. And my soul rejoiced in the God that created those stars, the God that knows them by number and name and holds the entire universe in His hand.

It reminds me of the day that I got my first pair of glasses. I was seven. I’d apparently been having my vision problems for quite some time, because when I placed the lenses in front of my eyes for the first time, I saw the world in a whole new way. I had literally forgotten that it was possible to see airplanes in the sky, not just hear them, as well as the fact that the individual leaves on trees are distinguishable.

I’d become used to a world where things blurred. I didn’t remember the alternative.

That day was one filled with wonder, discovery, and excitement. And I can’t help but wonder what it takes to look at something with fresh eyes. Is an absence required first? Or is it a mindset that can be consciously formed?

For example, as a church-grown girl who prayed the prayer at four years old, what does it take for me to see old Sunday school Bible stories with the new clarity of a new pair of glasses and the awe of a sky full of stars after a sojourn in the city?

I don’t have an answer for that. Faith, prayer, trying? Wanting to? I don’t think it’s trying, because I’ve done that and I’m incompetent.

At my church in Chicago, the sermon series over the past few months was entitled “In Case You Missed It: A Grown-Up Look at Sunday School Stories”. The morning that I visited Edgewater Baptist for the first time, the story was from Genesis 3, the fall of man.

You have to understand something. I’m a Moody Bible Institute student, and that sermon happened to land on the week that I had studied the Fall in at least three different classes and may even have had a chapel speaker talk about it, coincidentally of course (*cough*). So when I saw the sermon title, I automatically began the process of mentally shutting down. I had this covered. I’d heard my Bible college profs explain it to me from three different angles. What more could I get from it?

Two things were wrong with that attitude. First, I was falling into the pride trap that so many Moody students succumb to. Superiority. Second, I was forgetting that the Bible is a living book. That morning I got more out of the sermon that I have in a very long time, and I’ve heard some very good, effective sermons. My notes filled the margins of the bulletin and I looked at Genesis 3 in a way I’d never seen it before. With clarity and awe.

That doesn’t tell me what it takes to see with new eyes. But it tells me that it’s possible, and as long as I know that, that whole “faith and prayer” thing sounds like a pretty good idea to me.

As One Being Taught

I am an extremely habitual person. There are countless things that I always do, often without thinking, simply because I always do them.

Some tendencies are innocuous, like sitting on the same side of the Bro-Sis table at each meal. Some are beneficial; for example, using the same shower in our community bathroom makes me feel more at home. Some are just plain silly, such as always putting certain foods (like potatoes) in certain spots on my plate (bottom left).

But some habits are harmful.

When I’m in class and my professor is halfway to the “Amen” before I’ve consciously realized we’re praying (though my head is bowed with eyes closed and hands folded anyway) something is wrong.

When I’m studying for a theology quiz and the notes in my own handwriting don’t look familiar in the slightest, there is a problem.

And I’m beginning to get concerned about the pattern that has been emerging in my mornings lately. The one involving an epic struggle to stay awake and alert until after my first class and chapel, at which point I collapse for an hour-long nap and wake up just in time to go to lunch.

So I’m resolving to change some of my habits.

First of all, prayer should not be a mindless routine. Actually, I believe that the root of these concerns is a deficiency in my prayer life. Praying consistently and wholeheartedly is something that I have always had a hard time with, but especially lately.

In light of this, I’ve decided to make prayer a focus. Just recognizing that I need to work on prayer is not enough, though. I need practical goals to help make sure that I am progressing.

So here it is: After chapel, instead of going for a nap, at least three times a week (Mondays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays is the plan) I will shut myself in the Houghton 1 prayer room or somewhere else private. I will set my phone alarm for thirty minutes and I will not leave until that alarm goes off. Maybe I won’t be able to focus the whole time, but I will stay there. And I’m telling people about it (my roommates, my friends, whoever’s reading this) to ensure that I actually do it.

So ask me how it’s going sometime, and slap me if I make excuses (figuratively, please).

As for the rest of it:

“The Sovereign LORD has given me an instructed tongue,

to know the word that sustains the weary.

He wakens me morning by morning,

wakens my ear to listen like one being taught.”

--Isaiah 50:4

I will rely on God to help me not just to wake up every day but to thrive, to really live that day.

And not just to listen.

Now there is an interesting concept. Not just “to listen”, but “to listen like one being taught”. When my notes are unrecognizable and every effort is focused on staying awake, I am certainly not listening like one being taught. I might be listening well enough to write down what I need, but no further.

To listen as one being taught I must be engaged, fascinated, receptive. And I should be. After all, what I am learning is of the utmost importance and interest to me. But I’m weak, and I’m flawed, so I have to rely on His aid.

I’m changing my habits… but I can’t do it alone.

Of Life Homogeneous and Laughter-Filled

I am so thankful for laughter.

Today I couldn’t remember what I did last year on Halloween, and it was bothering me, so I opened my old journal to figure it out. As I flipped through the pages on which the days of last fall were recorded, some entries caught my eye.

On October 27, 2009, I wrote, “I miss laughing. I feel like I barely remember how to laugh, laugh for real, from inside. I can’t stand this.” I remember telling a friend around that time, “Lately whenever I laugh, it’s because I think I should be laughing… but I don’t actually feel like it, and it’s just on the surface, not deep like laughter should be.”

This time last year, I was feeling “uprooted,

confused,

contradicting,

distracted,

off… desperate for affirmation,

friendship,

closure,

certainty.”

“Nothing, or not much, is really that bad right now, but this crazy detached sporadic feeling I’ve got is making me insane!!!”

Life didn’t feel like a continuation anymore, but rather a series of disassociated 24-hour periods having no succession or predictability. Things in my life were amazing one day and horrid the next, and it was all out of my control.

But now, a year later…

A day doesn’t go by without good, hearty laughter—or without thoughtful, intelligent conversations. Life is unpredictable, to be sure, but not in the disconcerting roller-coaster way of my senior year. There is a flow. In the words of Lucy Maude Montgomery,

Then, suddenly, everything seemed to fall into focus—[Moody], professors, classes, students, studies, social doings. Life became homogeneous again, instead of being made up of detached fragments.”

Now I’m feeling at home

content

stable

focused (mostly)

happy… in possession of affirmation

friendship

peace

faith.

Do I have closure? Not on everything I wanted to, no. But the lack of it doesn’t gnaw at me like it used to.

Do I have certainty? Absolutely not. Most things right now are uncertain (though I do revel in the structure of college life). But that’s okay. God will lead me as He will, and I trust it’ll be a good way. And anyhow, the uncertainty I was referring to in my journal was not the uncertainty of future. It was the uncertainty of relationships and knowing where I stood with people, as well as the uncertainty of making the right college choice. As for college, I am most incontestably in the right place, and for the most part I know where I stand with people.

It is far too easy sometimes to forget to thank God for where He’s brought us. That’s one reason that I journal. So that on days like today, I can remember how I was feeling not so long ago and see how God has worked in my life to change things. I can remember the days I was hopeless, and see how things worked out- for good. I can remember the prayers I prayed and sometimes see the answers.

And I can remember just how much a simple thing like genuinely laughing can mean to me.

Last Halloween (and I can’t believe that I forgot, but the mind does funny things on sleep-deprived Fridays) I spent the evening with good friends… and here’s the best part: “I laughed so much tonight, from deep inside. I needed that so badly.”

Thank You, Lord, for creating laughter… and for allowing it to be part of my daily life right now.

Something Bigger- Whispers in the Stairwell

Smiling, I said goodbye to the girls I’d gone to Jewel with. The door to the West hall clicked closed and Houghton 2 fell silent- almost. A girl sat at the piano on the opposite side of the room, next to the door to the stairs. As I walked closer I saw what she was playing- “God of This City” by Chris Tomlin. When she heard my footsteps, she turned her head and I smiled at her before slipping into the North staircase. Laden with a grocery bag full of ingredients for pumpkin muffins, I walked slowly up to the third floor where I live. But something made me pause as I reached the landing.

In that tiled, echoing staircase, piano and voice were rising from Houghton 2. “Greater things are yet to come, and greater things are still to be done in this city…” And suddenly there rose in my mind a single thought, almost as clear as if someone had whispered it to me: Something bigger than myself. I am part of something bigger than myself.

I turned, looking back at the stairs I had just climbed. A streetlight shone through the frosted window.

Something bigger than myself.

That moment, the world seemed to stop as I was overwhelmed by God’s presence.

Be still, He said. Be still and know Who I am. I am God, and I will be exalted in all the earth, and you’re going to help me.

That’s what I was going to blog about tonight. How the last half of that verse is usually left out. The part that says, “I will be exalted among the nations, I will be exalted in all the earth.” The part that gives the rest meaning. But I guess I didn’t know enough about that verse yet. God showed me a new side this time. This time “be still” meant “Megan, stop getting so wrapped up in your own life, just stop for a second and see My reality. I AM GOD. You are part of My body. I have put you in this place. Just stop and think about that.”

Outside, the band warming up for Thursday Night Praise drowned out the piano from downstairs. The sound swelled, an accompaniment for what was happening in my soul.

Something bigger than myself.

In the last post I talked about preparing diligently for my future ministry, about having focus and direction. Well, it’s time to think about today. There are greater things yet to be done in Chicago. God has put me here. This is my mission field.

Something bigger.

As the music outside faded and the piano again became audible, I dropped my bag and sank to the floor in prayer- the most real prayer I’ve experienced in a long time. And it wasn’t about me. Not at all.

Bigger than myself.

It was only a minute before the spell was broken by someone rushing down the staircase to get somewhere. But that minute shifted the way I think in a way I don’t think I fully see yet, and encouraged me in a way I cannot put into words.

Don’t ever think that God doesn’t speak to people anymore. He whispers to college students in stairwells on Thursday evenings. And when He whispers, you pay attention.

Beyond Complacency

Disturb us, Lord, when
We are too pleased with ourselves,
When our dreams have come true
Because we dreamed too little,
When we arrived safely
Because we sailed too close to the shore.

Disturb us, Lord, when
with the abundance of things we possess
We have lost our thirst
For the waters of life;
Having fallen in love with life,
We have ceased to dream of eternity
And in our efforts to build a new earth,
We have allowed our vision
Of the new Heaven to dim.

Disturb us, Lord, to dare more boldly,
To venture on wilder seas
Where storms will show Your mastery;
Where losing sight of land,
We shall find the stars.

We ask you to push back
The horizons of our hopes;
And to push us into the future
In strength, courage, hope, and love.

This we ask in the name of our Captain,
Who is Jesus Christ.

Sir Francis Drake, 1557, before departing from Portsmouth, England, to circumnavigate the globe.

This poem made me think. About a lot of things. But mostly about being here at Moody.

Moody is what I’ve been working towards for the past two years. For much longer, really, when you consider that in public school they start pushing college-readiness when you’re quite young. I carefully chose classes and activities, pushed myself to get the GPA and the SAT scores, took Advanced Placement tests, joined National Honor Society, kept track of service projects, and read classic literature.

And now, here I am. I am in college, the college of my choice. What now? Do I just breathe a sigh of relief and become complacent, my goals achieved and nothing more to work for?

I need a new goal, a new thirst, a new drive. It doesn’t have to be something related to my own success. In fact, it probably shouldn’t be. Instead, while I’m here at Moody I need to remember that my future ministry (whatever it will be) is as worth preparing for while I’m here as university was while I was in high school.

I think I’ll print out this poem, and hang it somewhere I’ll see it often.