Leaving a Legacy

Ah!! It's almost December! Siiiiigh... time passes too quickly and too slowly at exactly the wrong moments. Oh well, I shall just jump right into this.


As I have not blogged for quite some time and have not really allowed myself time to formulate my thoughts.. this shall be quite unorganized and choppy. :) 


Annnyways.. so, this past semester I've been listening to the lessons taught to the youth group back home via the internet. They went through this series called One Month to Live and it touched on how you should think and manage your time in view of how we never know how much time any of us actually have. So, basically, the whole thing touched on the question "What would you do if you had one month to live?" It's quite the thought provoking question to be sure. After all.. I'm in college. If I had one month to live, I'd drop out of school, and spend more time with my loved ones, tell more people about Jesus.... and the list goes on and on. BUT.. here's the thing..what's preventing me from doing all that now? I mean..granted.. I'm not gonna drop out of school.. but I can spend more time investing in my loved ones, and for sure I could tell more people about Jesus and all that other stuff. Mmmm.. I'll get back to that thought in a minute.


So, I finally was able to listen to the last message in the series the Thursday before my Thanksgiving break. It was appropriately called "Leaving a Legacy." And the verse that has been the theme in the series the whole time is Pslam 90:12
It says, "Teach us to number our days, 
   that we may gain a heart of wisdom."

Number our days.. so.. if you had a month.. that's about 30 days... annnnd...that's not very much when you think about eternity. When I first started listening to this series, it sparked an interesting discussion with one of my  friends here at school. His argument was that we shouldn't think of life only being one month long because we wouldn't consider going over seas and helping people in Africa. I'm not really sure how that conversation ended.. most likely positively and leaving us both thinking about something deep. Buuuut it was a long time ago. 

So.. fast forward. I was actually in the middle of listening to the Legacy lesson when a different friend happened upon me and I thus paused the lesson to have a short little conversation. The short conversation turned into a 40 minute conversation with much discussion about how I was about to take the final step in switching campus ministries. I was much encouraged to hear that I would be missed,  if nothing else, by this one individual to whom I had done an absolutely terrible job of being a friend.  I thought to myself "Hmm.. maybe I did something right.." 

So the series closed and what I got out of that final lesson was that obedience and faithfulness will leave a legacy and that obedience is like building a house on bedrock. 

So... That kinda confused me. I was trying to put it in context of my life. I'm stepping away ...and I'm pretty sure it's what God wants me to do..so that's obedience..mmmm ok check.  Doing that.. and faithfulness..well.. I really love God everyday...so yep.. check that off too. Hmmmmm something is missing. 

I don't feel like I'm leaving a good mark.. if any at all. I thought about this for the rest of the day. How am I leaving a legacy? It was later that night that I realized that I wasn't really. I ran into a friend who was wishing to return something to me and asked if I would be in church on Sunday like I usually am... Ummm no... I stopped going to that church almost three months ago... yeah. I don't know why that bothered me..but it struck an odd chord. I was quite upset at the thought that while my presence often goes unnoticed..so does my absence. It was quite the wall of discouragement. 

I decided to ignore the feeling as it was a big church and college students aren't always consistent with church attendance anyways. The next day I was talking with another friend and asked about the recent baptism that had taken place at the church that I no longer attend. To which I got the response "why are you asking me? Weren't you there?" Aye.. so twice in less than 24 hours, two of my formally closest friends had not yet noticed that I had not been to their church for a couple months. The question popped back into my mind "are you leaving a legacy?"... apparently not. I failed. From there it was just a downward spiral of thoughts of discouragement about how I've wasted this whole semester, all my friends are gonna forget about me when I step completely out of the one ministry, I'm not making any difference.. so on and so forth. It was quite miserable. 

I had a few hours by myself while waiting to meet up with someone later. After an hour sitting in the freezing cold I found myself sitting in a random hallway of a random building somewhere on campus. During this time I thought to myself, "well.. I am defeated. That's all there is to it." But.. somehow, I remembered a quote from a Beth Moore study I did a long time ago and it was "When we are defeated, we have defeated ourselves for the enemy has no right to defeat us." I think that's like getting hit on the head with a spiritual 2 by 4. I used the time to myself to talk to God and see what on earth was at the bottom of such a ridiculous downcast spirit. 

I put a lot of stock in the people that surround me. I want everyone to like me and I want everyone to be my friend. That's obviously a ridiculous idea that by Gods grace would never come true. After some encouraging conversations with other people I realized my fear of being forgotten or unimportant was really lame and I should not waste any more energy being discouraged. 

Then.. God had a special present just for me! I went home for thanksgiving and was greeted by my precious family. And on Sunday I got to go to church with my family. I was suddenly surrounded by lots and lots of people who I've known and loved and were as excited to see me as I was to see them. Adults, peers, friends, old Bible study leaders, friend's parents... it was glorious. God has blessed me with the most wonderful spiritual family I could ever hope for and I do not need the acknowledgement of people I have only known for about a year to gauge how much of a difference I'm making for Jesus. To be honest.. I don't think we truly will ever know how many people we affect when we come in contact with them. There are some people that I knew for only a short time that have encouraged my walk with Christ and there have been others that I've known a long time. 

So.. to wrap up all these thoughts.. I was thinking.. what is it that makes a difference? What's the magical formula that you gotta do and suddenly you've changed someone's life?

I think what I've realized is that while I would like to affect people with charm and flattery.. the only one that is genuinely going have an impact is Jesus. I mean, when I think about it.. my face is most lit up when I'm close to Jesus. I love people more when I'm filled with Jesus. And if there is anything i would want people to remember about me at all ever.. it would be that I love Jesus. A lot. And I truly hope that people knew that before I wrote a blog about it.. cuz that would be super sad if that wasn't obvious in my life. 

A Time for Thanksgiving

Psalm 126

A song of ascents.  When the LORD restored the fortunes of Zion,
   we were like those who dreamed.
 Our mouths were filled with laughter,
   our tongues with songs of joy.
Then it was said among the nations,
   “The LORD has done great things for them.”
 The LORD has done great things for us,
   and we are filled with joy.
  Restore our fortunes,LORD,
   like streams in the Negev.
 Those who sow with tears
   will reap with songs of joy.
 Those who go out weeping,
   carrying seed to sow,
will return with songs of joy,
   carrying sheaves with them.


Well.... this semester is almost over! So crazy.. it went by so incredibly crazy fast.  Anyways... Thanksgiving is upon us once more!! Happy day!
 I recently came to the realization that a lot of major things have happened to me around Thanksgiving time, or right beforehand. Mostly, Thanksgiving reminds me of home-comings. As I have been counting down the days to go home and see my family and spend time with my siblings, I got to thinking about how thankful I am for Thanksgiving!


Thanksgiving. I actually looked up that word to see what other people define it as and this is what I got: "The expression of gratitude, especially to God." Yes. That's what I would call it. Besides it being a feast with turkeys and can-shaped cranberry jelly... it's an expression of gratitude to God.  


I think the first time that I actually realized how thankful I was for what I had was Thanksgiving of 2006. I was 15 years old, a sophomore in high school and had just experienced my first trip out of the U.S.
 China is a beautiful country, the people are kind, and there's much to see. But, my experience in China made me realize a lot of things I had that other people don't have. Also, being without things I had made me more thankful for them. I missed things like drinking out of a faucet, sunshine, and quietness. I remember when I got home I took a notebook and pen and made a list of everything I was thankful for and it came out to be a list of over 200 different things. Although I still take some of those things i wrote down for granted, I am really thankful that God has blessed me with them. 


The next Thanksgiving, I was 16 years old, a junior at the public high school, and experiencing the realness of God in crazy new ways. It was at that time that my friends from youth group and I were visiting and helping at the homeless shelter in Omaha, Nebraska every Friday night that we could. God was showing up and moving in our hearts and I was thankful for the new life that I had found in Christ. Not that I hadn't believed in God before I saw God working in Omaha, but my heart and my life was far from where Christ wanted me to be, and so I had a homecoming that was like no other. My heart had finally returned to God and I was home. :)


*fast forward* 
October of my senior year in high school. I was 17 years old and my fragile world was about to fall off of a cliff. I would say that October 19th was when everything shattered. After having spent the night on the floor of a sparsely furnished apartment next to my bronchitis infected sister with not so much as even a blanket to keep us warm, I and my 5 younger siblings found ourselves thrown into the most chaotic situation of our lives. 
My younger siblings and I were given 15 minutes to pack clothes and school books to last us for an unknown amount of time. From there, we were divided into two separate vehicles and before we knew it, we were bound for a little dairy farm in South Dakota that we would call "home" for the next bunch of weeks. We had no communication with our friends, parents, or other siblings. As the oldest, I was told not to cry and not to let on to the youngest children that anything was wrong so as not to frighten them. I remember the first night on the floor of this small office that I was now to call my room, my 7 year old sister asleep next to me, feeling so cut off from everyone and so confused as to what had all the sudden happened. All I wanted was to go home. I wanted my bed back. I wanted my house back. I wanted my friends back . I wanted my parents back. I don't think I have ever experienced a greater pain nor have I wept more than the night that my world, as I knew it, was taken and turned completely up-side-down. As much as I wanted to be angry, I think I found myself more in a state of complete broken-ness. I had nothing. Not only that, to add to my misery, I had caught whatever sickness my sister had. 
I remember how hard it was to hold in all the tears that wanted to spill out of my eyes everyday. I remember how I didn't know what to say when one of the little boys asked "Fernie, where's mommy and daddy?" or "Fernie, how long are we going to be here?" 
I remember how sad I was that no one knew and that I could not tell them. 


I don't know if any of you have ever lost everything you had and were swept out the door, carried to another land, and told it was your home for an unknown period of time.. but let me tell you... it's really super awful. Words do not even describe how awful. I would not wish it on even my greatest enemy.  So, while I was trying to stay distracted in my new found home, I was reading in Psalms for my Bible study, and I happened to be studying Psalm 126.  The first verse " When the LORD restored the fortunes of Zion, we were like those who dreamed." That was the first thing that stuck out to me. The Israelites and been taken captive by the Babylonians and they were far from their home and some of them lost family members and what not. So right from the get-go.. I identified with them. Going home was like a dream I had. It was all I wanted. But it was a dream in the distance and not very realistic, especially for the first few weeks of being there. 

So the chapter goes on to talk about how happy they were to be home. But then at the end it says:

Those who sow with tears
   will reap with songs of joy.
 Those who go out weeping,
   carrying seed to sow,
will return with songs of joy,
   carrying sheaves with them.

That.. is a promise from God. Not a dream. Not a wish. A promise. And let me tell you.. I was sowing plenty of tears. And it was SO true. And, it's not like living in South Dakota was  miserable for the entire time we were there; We learned to enjoy it and think of it as an extremely long spontaneous vacation where we had to do school.
Anyways..  It was a week before Thanksgiving when my siblings and I were finally given the ok to come home. 

We drove into the glorious driveway close to 5 pm on a wednesday night. My parents greeted us at the door with open arms, there was fire in the wood stove, Mom's fresh soup on the stove and we were home for permanent! It was the most joyful homecoming I have ever experienced in my life :) PTL. 

That Thanksgiving was one of the best I've had. :) :) 

Then of course, last Thanksgiving was a different kind of home-coming.

College is kind of a strange concept. Moving away from home and only coming back for the holidays and all. Thanksgiving last year was special because it was my first time home since September 13th and I had missed my family a lot. 

So, after that little trip down Memory Lane, I am even more thankful for what I have and can look forward to this Thanksgiving with joy, knowing that God has done great things for me! 


Psalm 69:30
I will praise God’s name in song and glorify him with thanksgiving.