What are you waiting for?

A few times a year YL gathers up all off the YL staff in Tennessee and they let us just be together, breathe together. We go over the year, the good and the hard, we just spend time together. This time we ate together, we worshipped together, we slid down a waterfall rock together into ice water, we even crashed go carts into each other, I mean crashed hard. Haha

All of those things were some of my favorites, but one of my favorite moments was walking around the pond at camp with my new friend Tiffany. Tiffany lives in Nashville, we've met a few times before, but this time we bonded and it was sweet.

One night after dinner we decided to walk around the water and burn some calories before the next gathering J We laughed and joked some and then began to shared fears in our lives the Lord wants to take from us. 

I started sharing with her my summer and how loudly the Lord spoke to me and how it didn’t just start this summer. That the Lord for years has sent me affirmation after affirmation on a part of my life I needed to move in and I never did. And she just interrupted my thought and said

“What are you waiting for?” I paused and said “What do you mean?” and she goes “What are you waiting for? Why aren’t you doing it? What would have to happen for you to do it?”

I paused for a moment and before I could even think of what I was saying I said “perfection. I want to be perfect. I will do it when I’ve mastered it and feel like it’s perfect.”

Wow. As soon as those words came out I was shocked. The thought of perfection is laughable, because it’s not even close to being attainable, everyone knows that, no one and nothing is perfect outside of Christ.

Yet here I was, waiting to move in an area of life until I had it perfect. Wow. There it was. I had no more excuses left, God showed my real heart, what seemed like my last excuse.

He’s given me gifts, given me people to support me, given me joy in this gift, given me opportunities and now has just shown me the only thing that stands in the way of me and this next phase of life is…my goal of perfection.

Something about her asking this question and me blurting it out just took a burden off of me. Almost made it ok to not be perfect when I play music at club this Monday. To not be perfect when I write my songs tonight, to not be perfect when I sing them to my friends and strangers. Of course you prepare, of course you spend time putting hard work into it, but allowing myself to be free to not be perfect. It felt like my excuse/fear was exposed and now I could move forward.

What are you waiting for in your life to be perfect? Or striving for in your life to be perfect?

Your career?

Your family?

Your weight? 

Looks?

There are things in our life we want to “master”, and we strive to master before we’re satisfied

I believe in working hard in your career, working out to stay healthy, communicating to keep your family growing. However we all need the Lords grace in all areas. Because if we’re always waiting for perfect, working towards it, we won’t find it on this side of heaven.

I don’t want to wait for perfection anymore. I want to move, and probably take some wrong moves but I want to move. I want to sing  in public, sing wrong notes in public, because it’s not about the notes, it’s about the singing part that matters.

I want to love hard because God says to, even if I don’t love perfectly and have to apologize for them seeing a raw side of me, I want to love anyways.

I’m not perfect, it’s not an excuse, I will keep being sharpened my whole life. However, I want to walk in Grace. I want to live in a place where I need God to show up. I need people to see more of him when I sing and live then just seeing Lindsay.

I need grace not perfection. I want to follow where I know my following Him will lead others to worship and not to me. I want to follow, right now, because I won’t ever be perfect on this side of heaven, so there is no need to wait.

What excuse do you have right now that is standing in the way of someplace you’re supposed to go?

What are you waiting for?

It's a narrow path, but it's well lit.

I got up early this morning and went for a sunrise jog at my favorite park. I needed to run, I needed to hear from God, I needed to be alone and just lt Him show up.

And He did.

I was running on the trail and ran by this little side path, a path I’ve never really looked at. I run these trails every week and I’ve never noticed it.

But today I noticed it, the sun was shining right through it, it was like it was being highlighted this morning.

Right then and there I got my answer.

The path is narrow, but it’s well lit.

We all know the verse about the path being narrow, but to actually walk it out is a totally different feeling. It feels great reading the Bible, feels great saying the verse and studying in a small group and saying “yes let’s take the narrow!”

But when it comes down to your actual life, the narrow can sometimes look like a difficult choice. It looks like persecution, it looks like people whom you love not understanding what you’re doing. It looks like some people not only telling you you’re making a mistake, but then them not coming with you as you walk down the path.

For someone who loves people and wants everyone to come with her, it actually feels a bit painful when someone persecutes you because they don’t get what you’re doing. It actually feels a whole lot of painful when someone doesn’t want to come with you.

However, this is what the Lord says to do, for Him, and for those people, those loved ones. To keep going, keep following Him, even if for the time being it looks like you’re going down a narrow path and some of the ones you love aren’t coming with you. Go anyways. Because its all for them anyways, God wants none to stay behind, none to be with out Him. But sometimes that means I go first, I go alone, I go with less support than I wanted.

But I’m supposed to go, the narrow path isn’t a glamorous path we make it out to be in our minds. It’s a humble path, but it’s well lit.

My Hydro Flask Broke

I broke my hydro flask at camp this summer... What is a hydro flask you ask?

It’s an amazing water bottle that keeps your drinks ice cold for hours upon hours, literally will keep ice in your bottle for like 12 hrs. It was given to me a few summers ago and I love it, it’s perfect for long runs in the heat and especially perfect for hot summer days at camp. When I broke it I didn't want to throw it away because it's been to many camps with me. It’s marked with dents, scratches and stickers, it’s been lost a few times and re-found. It's not just a water jug, it’s a story in a water bottle.

Anywho, I broke it this summer at Buckner, but kept using it because it was the only water bottle I had. I carried it everyday, broken, and little pieces slowly but surely began falling out. My friend Jillian researched online and found out you can get a new part to replace the broken one FOR FREE!

Yay I was so excited to get home and get this bad boy fixed.

I got home and life just went fast and I forgot about my hydro flask.  I have tons of cups and bottles at home,  but when you're at camp and it's your only one it's easy to remember it's broken. At home however, when you have tons of cups, its easy to forget to fix the broken one.

Yesterday I saw it in my sink and thought “Oh yeah, it’s broke and completely free to fix it, how did I forget to fix it?"

God shows us goodness in everything, even a flask. And right there at my sink I just heard God talk to me.

Don’t forget things that I’ve shown you are broke, let them get fixed for free. Don’t get comfortable carrying something that’s broken, don’t get used to broken. Let things become new.

I don't want to just settle and use all the other cups, I want this one fixed, right now. In a year when I have to go to camp and it's 100 degrees out in Texas ;), I’ll want cold water. I need to fix my flask now or else next summer I’ll still have a broken flask and still have warm water.

Don't forget the broken things that God has shown you. He always shows you a way to fix it through Him.

Why would we settle for broken when it's free to get a new one?

Love Them.

Have you ever not liked someone?

Be Honest.

You see them and think “hey If I never have to know them I’d be ok!” or “they’re kind of a tool, I’ll avoid eye contact and move on with life? “

If you know me at all you would know that I really do love people, like probably too hard and too fast for their comfort. If you’ve known me since I was a kid you would know that it was literally God who changed me because I wasn’t always so..um friendly. Although I won’t get the love thing perfect until heaven, I just always want to get closer and closer to loving like Jesus loves.

Anywho, I’ll keep this short and sweet, God is working on this with me. I used to notice if I didn’t like someone and just walk away from them, no big deal. We don’t have to be friends with everrrrryyyyonneee.  But then the Lord started turning my heart to it, it wasn’t that I have to be friends with everyone, It’s that he tells me not to hate people. So if He brings someone into my life or your life, and you find yourself not liking them, something is moving there.

The more I feel that, and talk with God on it, everytime He has me walk towards that person and talk to them. Learn their story, sharpen my heart, take out what’s ugly and put in what God there.

My favorite part is that some of the most amazing, most impactful people in my life today were people I can vividly remember thinking “ehh I don’t want to know them!”

And everytime God goes “I love them”, everytime.

I don’t know why I’m writing this tonight, maybe I’ve written about this before but today is a new day.

I guess the point is, meet people, and if there is someone you don’t like there is a blessing right on the other side of knowing them. Find out who they are, maybe they need to know you, maybe you need to know them, or maybe God just wants to continue to show you how much He loves them. And just to love them, talk to them because God says it's what He wants. Who knows, maybe I'm the one that people don't want to be friends with and God is telling you to talk to me, a friendship in the making :) 

I’m thankful for God, I’m thankful He opens my eyes to show me it’s Him that loves people first, not me. I’m thankful that He gives me opportunity to see how much He’s making me like Him. I'm thankful that when I see someone now I'm not sure of I get excited and think "ohhh I can't wait to see how this turns out." I’m thankful that the time it takes for me to go from “eh I don’t want to talk to them” to “Hi I’m Lindsay” is getting shorter and shorter.

Let's Dance God

So I just had my first guitar lesson. Yeah...so I’ve played for years now, but never took the time to learn from someone better than me. What a gift these lessons already are, the world of music is so large and beautiful, I can’t wait to soak it all up.

We talked for about 10 min and then he said “you have to sing the song you’ve been given. There is no one out there that has listened to all the exact music you’ve listened to, the exact mixture of influences. Only you have the exact song in you, it needs to be sung. You can’t sing or play like me, you can only do what you were made to do.”

WOW.

Ok.

His one statement summed up my summer in Texas. With out giving you the 12 hr version of the summer (call if you want to hear it, it's awesome), God just really showed me how much he loves the authentic and real Lindsay. He made me exactly how I am, dancing, singing, laughing, He made me. He didn’t make me you and He showed me this summer He is waiting on me and excited for me to be uniquely me. He was jealous for me this summer in making sure I knew it, he was waiting and what was on the other side was amazing. He took fear off of me and showed me so much joy in going where he’s made for me, there is joy waiting there for me.

He also showed me so much freedom there is in just being me, exactly where I am today, and letting people see me and love me just as I am.

I can’t sing your song, you can’t sing mine, someone needs to hear about Jesus through my song. All the turns, the twist, the melodies that are unique to me, that song needs to be sung.

Thanks God for making us so unique, God please help us continue to want to sing our song. It’s freedom to be who He’s called us to be in Him, and it frees others to be themselves in Him as well. We have to go where He's leading, even if it's weird and totally out of the box. It actually is going to be out of the box, He doesn't fit in the world, not even close. So his plan won't either, but we can trust Him because He's the one waiting to take our hand, spin us around and dance with us. 

I'm so excited for this new season with God, I don’t know what or who it holds in it, but I'm coming home new. I hope there are a lot of songs, videos, random adventures, destinations unknowns. I hope there is dancing in parking lots, dancing in the kitchen, dancing with cute guys ;). I hope it is filled with gut laughter and some tears too. I don’t know what or who is ahead of me, but I know God has already done it and it’s going to be amazing.

Here's a pic from Texas because I love pictures. The place where He sparked my heart yet again.

Thanks God