Hi everyone,
This is Zoe. I hope your break has been refreshing, and that you've been able to get more centered with yourself and with God over the past few weeks. Sometimes it's hard when you're around family; you default back to attitudes and (re)actions you don't usually exhibit when you're able to be on your own at school, and separate yourself from your frustrating family. For me, it's when I go back home that the real battle with myself begins.
Yesterday I went to church with my family, my boyfriend, and his mom and sister. I was very moved by the message and wanted to share it with you guys. Here is a link to a video of the sermon, with the scripture and notes attached:
Basically, I feel like I've been having a lot of trouble lately (and by lately, I mean the past 4 or 5 months) with negativity. Always erring on the side of negativity and destructive thoughts instead of positivity and constructive thoughts. The negativity is infiltrating my life and cutting me off from opportunities, and from closeness in my relationships. I think a lot of this has to do with the fact that I'm graduating at the end of the semester, and as the long-awaited day approaches, more and more pressure builds from my family (especially my mom) to "figure it out." I want to pursue artistic and entrepreneurial endeavors, but my mom would rather I play it safe, go to grad school, get a "normal" paying job, and be "normal." I know she has my best interests at heart, but it's very hard for me to let go of the artistic dreams I've held so dear. In the midst of our country's economic depression, or recession, or the fiscal cliff, or WHATEVER they call it now, it's a scary time for us all to be graduating and going out into the world. To make matters more pressing, my dad has Alzheimer's (he was diagnosed when I was 15) and the entire financial burden of me, my dad, and my sister (her first year in college) is on my mom, while she's physically taking care of my dad as well. I understand her concern, and her fear. It's felt hopeless to me for a while, and I know that the arguments I have with my mom have greatly contributed to my permeating negative outlook on life. Basically, what the message on Sunday said, was:
"God is doing His greatest work in your life, even when it seems like He is not there."
This comforted me. I've recognized my negativity and felt like, "How do I get out? I'm a slave." But maybe this is my greatest period of growing. Maybe while I feel like I'm dying on the inside because I'm being told I can't do what I want to do, or be what I want to be, the biggest transformation is happening. Perhaps from this moment on I can learn what it truly means to die to yourself to let God's glory shine through you. It hurts and it's hard, and I still don't know what it fully means. But I'm ready to let go of these negative cycles, of snapping at loved ones, and tearing down everyone's ideas. I'm ready to open up and change, because I know that's not how I used to be, and that's not who I really am. I want to use the talents God has given me, so that he'll see I have multiplied them and been a good and faithful servant.
"Your real, new self (which is Christ’s and also yours, and yours just because it is His) will not come as long as you are looking for it.
It will come when you are looking for Him.
Does that sound strange?
The same principle holds, you know, for more everyday matters. Even in social life, you will never make a good impression on other people until you stop thinking about what sort of impression you are making. Even in literature and art, no man who bothers about originality will ever be original whereas if you simply try to tell the truth (without caring twopence how often it has been told before) you will, nine times out of ten, become original without ever having noticed it.
The principle runs through all life from top to bottom, Give up yourself, and you will find your real self. Lose your life and you will save it. Submit to death, death of your ambitions and favourite wishes every day and death of your whole body in the end submit with every fibre of your being, and you will find eternal life. Keep back nothing. Nothing that you have not given away will be really yours. Nothing in you that has not died will ever be raised from the dead. Look for yourself, and you will find in the long run only hatred, loneliness, despair, rage, ruin, and decay. But look for Christ and you will find Him, and with Him everything else thrown in.”
- C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity
Zoe
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