Giving your life away... that is what these sweet women to the left did for me when I was in high school and even into college and of course even now. Carrie was my Young Life leader (red hair) she would have me at her house every weekend for sleep overs would take me to coffee would take me on errands to her office everything, Meghan (second from the right)is my best friend, she also was my fake leader in high school for a semester and this woman loves me so incredibly well, just last week I was crying outside of the post office to her on the phone and she encouraged and loved me and pushed me into Christ. Lesa, I was able to love and disciple when she was a freshman and I was a senior in high school and Heather (far left) did that very same thing for me when I was a sophomore and she was a senior... giving your life away...
What the heck does that even look like now? I have been learning so much about what this means over the past few days, to give it all to share it all and to have no remorse or regret for it. SO many times when I have told people that I am being convicted over giving my life away they tell me "thats all you do Katie" oh gosh what a sweet lie. In my brain I am thinking about how I can shine, when I can get a break, when I can do this or that or how this will give me the best outcome instead of dying to everything that includes me and giving it to you, to them.
I think often about my afternoons recently and it has been incredibly hard for me to go to the school, admitting that here is really humbling because of course I want to hide that from everyone. I haven't been able to get enough courage to go there the past week and a half!! Don't get me wrong I have picked girls up from school but I've gone around the parents loop to get them I didn't inconvenience myself by parking in the student lot and getting out of the car to walk amongst students, no sir that was too much for me this week. I can't figure out why this is happening right now, they are in their final weeks of school and I just can't make it... I pray that this is the last time I say this to anyone but I pray for the feeling of urgency that is so often talked about.
I realized this last night that I see often times my high school students almost like an enemy that I have to make an allie instead of seeing them like myself, struggling, trying to live this life but for so many of them it is for a different mean and by my giving my own life away they can maybe see where real, full life comes.
My heart is overflowing with Christ and why would I not want to give that overflow away? I want to give it away to stop hoarding my heart, stop hoarding my life and die to myself. I pray that as I get ready for camp I can become more aware of dying to myself and giving my life away.
Reading Ezekiel I found such a sweet vision of our God the saving God we know:
"For thus says the Lord GOD: Behold, I, I myself will search for my sheep and will seek them out. As a shepherd seeks out his flock when he is among his sheep that have been scattered, so will I seek out my sheep, and I will rescue them from all places where they have been scattered on a day of clouds and thick darkness. And I will bring them out from the peoples and gather them from the countries, and will bring them into their own land. And I will feed them on the mountains of Israel, by the ravines, and in all the inhabited places of the country. I will feed them with good pasture, and on the mountain heights of Israel shall be their grazing land. There they shall lie down in good grazing land, and on rich pasture they shall feed on the mountains of Israel. I myself will be the shepherd of my sheep, and I myself will make them lie down, declares the Lord GOD. I will seek the lost, and I will bring back the strayed, and I will bind up the injured, and I will strengthen the weak, and the fat and the strong I will destroy. I will feed them in justice.
He will search for them, He will love them He will rescue them from ALL the places where they have been scattered... I breathe that in and cannot comprehend how His entire life is for us... how I pray the same for me.
For now the Lord is humbling me... deeply and fully... thankfully.
No comments:
Post a Comment