Emergency Praise Blog #2

I am a giant weirdo.

Have been my entire life. My nick name in elementary school was Oddball. 

AND I CHOSE IT MYSELF. 

I remember one particular day in the fifth grade when I decided that I was not going to be so weird. I was going to be like everyone else and I was going to stop doing weird things. 

I was never picked on or bullied in school but I somehow knew that I didn't quite fit. 

I made a lot of jokes that very few people laughed at. I did a lot of things that only I found to be fun. 

I think a lot of friends in high school might have described me as quirky but the truth is I am WEIRD. 

I love Jesus with everything I have and chose to pursue a career that can make it a difficult choice to follow my Savior. 

It's weird. 

Eventually I accepted the fact that I was weird and that I would never really fit in anywhere. My efforts to do so had been making me miserable. I read books at parties, and had no interest in drugs. My views on sexual purity are considered prudish. 

I am an odd mix of fan girl and athlete. 

So I finally embraced my oddities and learned to love exactly who I am. 

Although it did not change the fact that I still had the feeling that most people did not 'get me'.

Whatever that means. 

When I decided to move to LA I was braced for a battle. If I did not fit in at home I certainly was not going to fit into a place where EVERYONE is struggling to build a career on nothing and find real friends. 

And right now I can just imagine Jesus's tears of absolute joy as I boarded that plane. He must have been so excited for me. 

My Savior had been preparing this place for me. 

He had been preparing ME for this for 22 years. 

I had absolutely no clue, but He did.  He knew every one of the people that I was going to meet and how my heart would just open bigger and become brighter with each one. 

He could not let me conform myself in the slightest because He knew that if I just allowed myself to be the crazy weirdo I am, that I would eventually get here. 

Los Angeles. Mosaic.

He knew.

He KNOWS us, people! He knows us and He loves us!

I go to a church that celebrates the artist in each of us. That offers free improv and acting classes. 

GOOD, free improv and acting classes. 

The universe did not just align for me to stumble into something that would bring me this much joy.

The God who created the universe set a billion things into motion long before I was born so that I might    overcome fears and find myself in this place where my weirdness can flourish and bring light to this dark world. 

PRAISE HIS FREAKING NAME!!

Not only do I feel like I belong, but for the first time I feel valuable. I feel useful. 

It is a really nice feeling.

My Momma Bear: An update of sorts

Hello all of you lovely people!
I need to start off by asking that you don't stop reading this blog only halfway through. It paints me in a very human light and I need you to get to the part where God changes me so I don't look like a terrible brat.

Some of you may know that my mother has been diagnosed with uterine cancer. I really hate it. A lot.
I love her so much and I am really mad at this cancer thing for trying take her from the world.

That being said God has gotten so close and been nothing but comforting to me. Several months ago her sickness would have had me turning to God with rage in my heart. Now, however I turn to Him with sorrow and shame for the way I have contributed to the brokenness of this world.

Sickness was never supposed to be a part of our existence.

I am not proud to report that my first reaction was anger that I might have to go home. Go home and leave the life that took me so much courage to build.  My tears were more out of selfishness than grief. I found a place where I belong and I was going to have to give it up.

But I knew that if God wanted me to move back home that it would be the very best thing. He is not a God of misery or disappointment. He is the God of light and hope and happiness. Every single move He makes is for our freedom and our future joy. Even when we can not see, ESPECIALLY when we can not see, we have to trust that the ending will justify everything the present is using to torture us.

I know. It isn't always easy. 

Or ever easy for that matter.

So after a few conversations with friends and family members I realized I was going to have to suck it up and go home. My Momma Bear wanted to see me.

We planned for me to return in October (this was in August) for my parents' anniversary party. But a few days after this decision I found myself begging my heavenly father to send me back to Kentucky as soon as possible. They needed to know that I would lay down everything to be there for them.

Looking back on that night I realized that I was much like Abraham pleading for God to spare Sodom for the sake of ten righteous men. (Genesis 18: 20-33)

"Abraham was not bringing God into his story, God was bringing Abraham into HIS story."

-Erwin McManus

(I think Erwin phrased it a little differently but I can't remember the exact quote)

God WANTED to spare those people, just as He wanted me to go home and show my family ultimate love. So He could have easily said, "This is what's happening because it is the best way." But He wanted our hearts to break as His did. He wanted us to know the depths of compassion of which we were capable. 

So when I cried out for Him to please send me home, regardless of my lack of funds and time, and patience. When I asked Him to let me surprise and bless my family to the extent of my capabilities, His response was to weep for joy at the little bit of His heart that I had let consume my own.

My prayers were not me begging an unfeeling creator who may or may not grant them depending on his mood. They were God showing me what I was made of and He was more than happy to oblige.

When I got home from work I did some calculating that led me to the realization that I would have just enough money to purchase my round trip plane ticket and pay rent.

I am going to try to not go into too much detail about the trip because God did ALOT. He spoke. He moved. He showed my family that I am not the spoiled little girl who everyone thought was incapable of surviving on her own. (And let's be honest I'm not really surviving on my own. God has been spoiling me just a little).

I got to show my mother just how far I would go to care for her. 

I wondered that week if I would be moving back home. No one could blame me or say I had failed. No one could tell me that I hadn't tried. But in the end God was adamant that I needed to trust Him with the care of my family. He did not bring me to Los Angeles to teach me a couple of lessons and then take me back to Kentucky all humbled and ready to start His real calling for me. My calling has already begun. Although He most assuredly wants to humble me, because that is the best way our hearts can heal and provide healing for others.

A couple weeks ago I woke up to a call from my mother. (And I want to say that every time I get a phone call from a family member right now I assume the worst, so my nerves have been a little frazzled lately.) She tells me that after only two rounds of chemo the doctor is shocked and excited about how much her cancer has shrunk!

PRAISE JESUS!

We are not quite out of the woods yet but that was a victory. Still is a victory.
God is proving Himself very faithful in many ways. He is so not even close to being finished with my story.

So take heart cus His love is going to lead us through this very black night. You don't have to believe that because He is going to do it regardless but if you do it believe it your life will be so much richer and full of hope and joy. And hope does not disappoint us ;)

Getting back into the game,
EMG