So my head is spinning as always. Thoughts are racing through my mind, like they usually do. And well, I feel like I've processed so much in the past few weeks and learned so many things. And yet, I still have so much more to learn. So here's a recap of some of the things I've discovered:
1. God will not always tell us what to do. He wants us to learn to make decisions on our own and take responsibility for those decisions. We aren't just children anymore who can put the blame on someone else and say "Well, God told me to do it." We also have to learn to admit that we made the wrong decision and also humbly take credit on making the right decision, pointing to the wisdom God has given us.
2. Along with this, God will not force us to do things. I know for me, personally, it feels like if I'm not making some huge sacrifice for God, then I'm just not being a good Christian. I often want to keep proving to God how willing I am to do his work. I then can say, "See?!?! I'm doing this for you." But recently, I feel like God has been telling me to slow down and well, not do anything. He wants His love to infect my whole heart and realize that no matter what I do, His love will still be there. I'm often guilty of running around and saying,"No worries God. I got this! I'm just busy doing your work." And I feel like God just wants to grab me, sit me down, and say,"Will you stop for just one moment?! You're missing the point here!"
3. I've come to realize that God is transforming us and shaping us into people who will ENJOY doing his work. It doesn't have to be a "Mer.... God is making me do this. BOO!" It can be a enjoyable experience where we come before God and say, "God! I want to do this!" And He will smile back, knowing full well that He placed that desire in our hearts. If there is a desire in our heart, then take that desire and learn to glorify God with it, whether it is running a business, making artwork, doing math, or being active in ministry. Too often I have compared myself to others and thought, "I'm not doing things like they are, so I must be doing something wrong." Which is utterly wrong. If we all did things the same, we wouldn't be a body made up of different parts. I may do ministry a different way or even artwork a different way, but that does not mean it's less valuable than the next. God has a plan for my own abilities and skills and plans to his use them accordingly. I have to trust in this.
4. God has also been challenging me on the value of my own feelings and heart. Way too often have I downplayed my emotions or let things slide to not cause any commotion or make someone uncomfortable. I also have many doubts and fears when it comes to sharing those certain things with people because I fear I may sound silly or the other person won't care to listen. I also just don't like confrontation, so the logical thing is to just stay quiet and move on by myself.
It wasn't until the past few months that I realized how damaging that is. To tell my own heart and emotions to "shush" because they're inconvenient can be damaging. I realized if I continued to do that, I would end up denying the part of myself that is human. And if I continued to do that to myself, I would end up doing that to others, and that is just inexcusable. Now, I can see the benefits to letting my emotions come out and being able to confidently verbalize them and how that has effect others. In the past 6 months, my sister was crying about something and as tears flowed down her face, saying, "Bah! I hate crying!" I comforted and said, "Crying is good for you! Cry all you want. Let it out. Don't be ashamed. It's OK to cry. In fact, it's better if you do cry. It keeps ya human." Naturally, a few months later, I found myself crying and my sister comforted me and I apologized for crying. She said, "Why are you apologizing? You always tell me it's good to cry. So you cry too." I was surprised she remembered that, but glad she did.
I haven't gotten the hang of verbalizing my feelings yet, especially the negative emotions, but it's a process I hope to continue to get better at. If I let myself do it, then I hope I can continue to bring peace to others about doing it as well.
5. And last, but not least, I feel like God has been telling me to have confidence in my own beauty, physical, mental, and emotional. This hit me as I was talking to two dear guy friends about how I was attracted to a guy, but joked about how I would never talk to him. They both looked at me funny and said, "Why?" One spoke up and said,"Hannah! You're smart, nice, beautiful, and funny. You have a great chance! And if he doesn't like you, then forget him. He lost something great." The other guy said, "I see a 97% chance of success." That's when it hit me: I honestly had no confidence in myself that the guy would ever be attracted to me back. In fact, I believed that about many men. When my friend said that I had a 97% chance of success, I realized that I didn't even believe I had a 10% chance of success, let alone a 97%. That's when I began looking in the mirror and really trying to see my own beauty. I then pushed it to seeing my own intelligence and humor. I even had to remember my own love for God and His people. All of this is valuable. All of this makes up a beautiful person.
Again, I have been guilty of comparing myself to other girls. How I didn't feel like I was the typical "pretty" or even outwardly funny all the time. I can't always recite Bible verses back to my fellow brothers and sisters, and sometimes I'm still awkward at prayer. I'll say the wrong answers and don't know as much math or science as other women. I can't cook that well and suck at cleaning and organizing. But at the same time, I had to begin to value the pieces of me that made up Hannah. To see that I was still physically beautiful and was funny. That I did interesting things and enjoyed all sorts of activities. That I was down to earth, silly, awkward, clumsy, make ridiculous noises at weird times, cynical, and nerdy, and that there was value in ALL that. That God cherished that and that was who He made me to be.
Please don't think I'm going to now start walking around and thinking, "Oh!! I'm so great!" But it suddenly felt like God was gently putting his hand on my head and placing a mirror in front of me and saying, "Will you please take a good look at who you are? Please? Take a good look at the person I'm making you to be? See the woman of God you're becoming?" And a peaceful confidence was suddenly born inside of my heart. Again, I think the confidence is still growing and hopefully infecting many areas of my life.
6. All of this is just learning to trust God when it comes to myself. Trusting that God is working inside of me and is using me in his own ways. Trusting that God may let me mess up and I may go off in a totally wrong direction, but that he will be there, catching me and guiding me back. As a very lost sheep, trusting in the fact that Jesus will come after me and carry me back to the rest of the flock. I began to realize that I didn't trust God when it came to myself and that I just didn't trust myself. The other day, I thought, "God, what's inside of me may be too much to handle. I'm sort of scared of myself." But then I realized, "I'm not trusting God with myself." It's fairly easy (most of the time) for me to trust him with life circumstances, money, food, etc. God has pulled through countless times in that. But to trust that He is also making me into a woman after his own heart is hard. I fear the mistakes I'll make and the weight of my sin. I fear that I may totally screw up and just go on a totally wrong path. But again, God has presented himself to me and said, "You really don't see your own heart, do you? You don't see the love it has for me and my people? The joy it gets from connecting with me and being with me? Hannah, I told you that once you were on this path, there was no turning back. Believe in that." So again, the confidence was beginning to spill out into this area. Trusting that I was valuable enough that God would not lead me astray. To trust that I will make mistakes, but that what Jesus did on the cross is so much bigger than that. And to trust that God would help me overcome my fears and show me my own abilities and intelligence that He has cultivated.
God let's us make mistakes sometimes, but I also believe that each mistake comes with a lesson that often sticks with us a lot better than a success. My best example of this was when I was in Chicago. As a group, we had to do an activity, and in the end, we just utterly failed. Our staff leaders were initially confused and disappointed. We were the first group to fail in years. But they came to us the next day and said, "We were disappointed by what had happened and ultimately confused and worried. But then we realized by you all failing this activity, that it would also probably motivate you all that much more to never let the mistake happen again. It would stick with you that much more as you go on with the rest of your lives." And it's true. I still remember vividly the activity and all the things I wish I could change. If the time comes for me to do something, I feel like I will be that much more prepared.
Finally: I'm learning to really see and trust in my own value as a person; to trust that I am valuable enough that 2000 years earlier, someone saw that and endured whippings, beatings, the weight of a cross and said, "I will die for you so I can be with you." Even earlier, someone knit me from my mothers womb and designed every signal aspect of me, to the very hairs on my head and said, "She is beautiful. I want to be with her." And even the times when I'm like a prostitute, he is still there, saying, "I will take away your things so that you will look at me and see my love for you." And again, when I'm a lost sheep, he will come and say, "I'm taking you back home."
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