Tag: value

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Enough: my battle with the hustle, the stress, and the busy, and how I found rest

Enough.jpg

It’s Saturday morning.

 

Rainy and chilly, I tiptoe across the living room carpet, coffee in hand, hair thrown haphazardly into a messy bun. I breathe.

 

After a week of running fast and hard, it’s finally quiet. No more hustle. Just me. It’s a refreshing change of pace, but I find my mind spinning with thoughts to make up for the lack of stimulation in tasks, math problems, and meals to cook.

 

I think about how much I absolutely adore New York City. I love the noise, the lights, the crowds, the pace. I’m enamored with the culture, the resilience, the opportunities.

 

But maybe, sometimes, I identify with it a little too much? I fill my life with faster, louder, more, more, more. I say YES and tack more onto my to-do list, put more friends and meetings on my calendar, apply to serve in my church more and more and more and more – and then I collapse. Hard.

 

Because I tell myself I can’t rest, I shouldn’t take the time to be refreshed. And it’s not as though I don’t rest – just that often, those times are laden with feelings of guilt.

 

Because don’t I need to do more? Be more? Write more? Work more? Study more? Sing more? Don’t I need to prove that I can be independent, capable, and strong? That I can meet people’s expectations?

 

Don’t I need to prove that I’m enough? Continue reading “Enough: my battle with the hustle, the stress, and the busy, and how I found rest”

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How the Done List Saved My Sanity & Refreshed My Faith

how-the-done-list-saved-my-sanity-refreshed-my-faith

If you couldn’t tell from any of my previous posts, I’m one of those classic Type-A, list-writing, goal-driven, oftentimes perfectionistic girls.

 

I’ve written about how much this affects my life – about how it’s caused me to struggle with accepting grace, accepting my worth, and living fully, freely, wholly.

 

But this year, this 2017, I’ve implemented some things into my life that have helped me make grace tangible, my faith just as a part of my life as every other thing on my lists.

 

And the first thing is my Done List.

 

Many people in the world have to-do lists; whether chicken-scratched on a loose scrap of paper, dictated into Evernote, or perfectly printed in a notebook, we’re all familiar with the concept. It’s our own human way of organizing our lives, of creating little goals with checkboxes and a dose of self-motivation thrown in.

 

But I don’t use to-do lists. I use something called a Done List.

Continue reading “How the Done List Saved My Sanity & Refreshed My Faith”

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You Are So Much More Than Just a Title

you-are-so-much-more-than-just-a-title

i.

 

This year so far has been one of conversations, of thinking, of beginning to define myself.

 

Something that often crosses my mind is this thought: Who am I?

 

And I can go through the surface things. I can say I’m a college student, a sister and daughter, a musician, a writer. But are those things enough?

 

I’ve been playing with this idea, of being rather than doing. Focusing on who I am, not just what I do as the definition of me.

 

On my own, I can do a lot of things. I can write articles and play music and be kind and use my mind. I can. But if I am to place my entire value, the sum total of my worth into these things – where will I be when these things fall away?

Continue reading “You Are So Much More Than Just a Title”

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The Hidden Problem With The “Love Your Body” Message

The Hidden Problem With The “Love Your Body” Message.png

 

I remember when all the culture said was “You aren’t good enough.”

 

I remember when the only valued people were the drop-dead gorgeous ones. The actors; the models.

 

We were all told as a society that beauty meant skinny, value meant tall, worth something meant attractive.

 

And then a few years ago, the tables flipped.

Continue reading “The Hidden Problem With The “Love Your Body” Message”

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Approaching Gender Biblically – Conclusion

Approaching Gender Biblically - Conclusion

This is part 3 of 3 in my miniseries on the Christian view on gender roles, feminism, and things like that. Thanks for sticking with me!

See part 1 here.

See part 2 here.

On Tuesday, I promised to talk about what gender roles look like as a single, because my post was what gender roles should look like in marriage. And obviously I’m not married, as a lot of us here are not. As much as that’s sort of helpful for the future, I’d like to attempt at tackling the question: “What should I do now?”

That, my friend, is a tough question.

But I’ve been doing some research, talking to my parents and friends, and reading, reading, reading. And I think that I’ve come up with somewhat of a coherent post. Please forgive me if I step on any toes, that’s truly not my intention. As the tagline on my site says, “One Christian Teen Girl’s Contemplations,” that’s what these are.

In the first post of these three, I talked about feminism. More specifically, I should say, I’m talking about equality feminism. Feminism that says women and men should strive to have the exact same roles in every aspect of life.

However, as review, what I said in my post is this.

Men and women are absolutely equal. We have equal standing before God. We are all, every one of us, worth the same. We’re all sinners in need of a Savior, and we’re all created by God’s handiwork.

So when we Christians (as women especially) fight for sameness in the name of equality, we discredit God’s design.

There’s a verse in Galatians that many Christians use to support the whole feminism-sameness thing. They say, “It doesn’t matter what your gender is! Define yourself however you’d like!”

Galatians 3:28

“There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is no male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.”

Okay, that would be a fair argument if that’s what the verse were saying. However, if you read the chapter, you’ll notice that this isn’t talking about discrediting gender. It’s talking about us all being equal before God. We are all children of God because of what He’s done for us.

With that out of the way, I’d like to approach what the whole point of this post is supposed to be.

Living biblically as a single. (Or, as anyone, really.)

What does it look like?

Anyone remember Mary and Martha? In Luke 10:38-42, Jesus came into a village. Two sisters, Mary and Martha were in that village. While Martha’s busy, working really hard, Mary is getting to know Jesus and listening to Him. Jesus says to Martha, “Martha, Martha, you are anxious and troubled about many things, but one thing is necessary. Mary has chosen the good portion, which will not be taken away from her.” (v. 42)

See, we needn’t try to prove our worth. We don’t need to try to find our satisfaction in work, or equality (however we try to define that), or whatever. Jesus Christ is the only thing that will satisfy us. A personal relationship with Him – not work, not feminism, not even marriage – is what will fill that hole in our hearts.

When we look to be equal all around (meaning the same in every aspect), we aren’t truly satisfied in who God is and who He has made us to be. We don’t view Him as the ultimate authority in our lives. We want to dictate who we are, what our roles are, and what our gender is.

As Christians, we can’t do that.

C.S. Lewis said, “God cannot give us a happiness and peace apart from Himself, because it is not there. There is no such thing.”

We must remember the basis for our identity. Who we are is found in Him alone. Our relationship with Him is what will satisfy us.

God has created us with equal value (Genesis 1:27). At the same time, in Genesis 2, we see that God creates woman from man. Naturally, that makes us different. There is a defining line between the genders.

We shouldn’t try to fight that line. God is the one that knows best.

So what do we need to do?

Accept our standing before God – that is where our identity is found.

 

Don’t try to prove ourselves. Among men and women, neither is ‘better’ than the other. We were made in the image of God. Our roles are truly enough.

 

Take a stand against the feminist movement that tells God that we know better.

 

And above all else, get to know God and find our ultimate satisfaction in Him. We honestly won’t find it anywhere else.

This post is in no way comprehensive. I hope you’ll look into this topic for yourself (as I will) to understand it even more. Thank you all for reading!

*aj

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