Author: alyssapebbles

One C leads to another. Our society is geared around consumerism: I can have what I want right when I want it whenever I want it. Instant gratification: I want it NOW. Hungry? Grab some McDonald’s. Anxious? Watch a funny TV show on Netflix. Bored? Do just about anything you want, granted you have the money. We are slaves to our desires.

I grew up with this. It’s what I know so well. And it’s why I can see how damaging it is- the damage it’s done in my life and the damage it’s doing in all our lives.

I would rather check Facebook first thing in the morning than open God’s word. I would rather spend too much on some trendy health food than cook a meal at home. I would rather do just about anything but practice the spiritual disciplines I need to in order to abide in Him. Because it’s all just so much easier.

“Sometimes the right path is not the easiest one.” ~ Grandmother Willow, Pocahontas

I think the worship of comfort is one of my biggest downfalls, and I know I’m not alone. I grew up very comfortable, and in fact quite entitled to that comfort. Hard work was not something I was too familiar with and the repercussions show themselves over and over. Without work and effort, nothing good or fruitful can be produced. We keep trying to take shortcuts, but they are shortcuts to nowhere.

“What good is it, my brothers, if someone says he has faith but does not have works? Can that faith save him? 15 If a brother or sister is poorly clothed and lacking in daily food, 16 and one of you says to them, “Go in peace, be warmed and filled,” without giving them the things needed for the body, what good is that? 17 So also faith by itself, if it does not have works, is dead… You see that a person is justified by works and not by faith alone.” ~James 2:14-24 ESV

Sometimes we fall prey to the Grace-license script: God forgives me for everything I do so therefore I can do whatever I want and His grace will always cover me.

I mean, yes, it’s true… but God never wants us to stay where we are. When we choose comfort and worldly goods over His kingdom, we are choosing the far lesser of the two; in fact there is not even a comparison. We are choosing mud instead of diamonds and rubies. But we do it all the time and expect some long-term satisfaction that worldly comforts can never give us.

Sometimes God calls us to be uncomfortable. Sometimes He calls us to take a risk. As the pastor at my church adequately put it tonight: Sometimes His will doesn’t align with our desires. And we have a choice to obey or rebel.

I don’t want to rebel anymore, because nothing I do apart from Him produces fruit in my life. The shortcuts leave me feeling unfulfilled and empty. I’m ready to take the long and winding road.

How wonderful it is when amazing opportunities come our way and we are blessed with direction and purpose. Now given the opportunity to serve in a ministry internship in Santa Cruz, I feel the weight (or rather lightness) of this blessing full force, and I am so excited to see what lies ahead.

“So the LORD must wait for you to come to him so he can show you his love and compassion. For the LORD is a faithful God. Blessed are those who wait for his help.” ~Isaiah 30:18

After this season of waiting and testing of my patience, I have finally received an answer. Just when uncertainty had reached its maximum discomfort in my soul, I was revived with a new hope for the future. God is so good to those who wait on Him.

Patience is not one of my strong suits. Going through the month-long process of applying for this internship was difficult for me, as I had to wait and trust in the Lord’s provision, rather than get the quick and fast answers that I like. I had to come to the point of being okay with either outcome, knowing that whatever happened it would be for the best, but this point was not easy to come to. Every part of me wants to cling on to each new opportunity as the salvation of my life- as the thing that will get me to where I want to be. And that inevitably leads to immense disappointment. Every time.

Even when I have gotten those opportunities that I so desperately wanted, they never turn out how I expect. I think knowing that now will enable me to have a new perspective and an open mind going forward.

I am so grateful that God has given me this direction, and certainly feel His victory in this time, but I know that I will need to continually rely on Him for what’s to come. Now more than ever I must allow Him to change and sculpt me into who He needs me to be for my future service in His kingdom. These kinds of opportunities granted can lead to pride if we’re not careful, and so I go forward with a humble heart, expectant not of what only I will gain, but of what He will do this next year, and what He is already doing to prepare my heart.

You never know what’s around the corner. Be alert, be expectant, and be joyful!

I have always longed to be beautiful, and never quite felt like I was, except in rare, indescribable moments. I was made with a longing for beauty, but I have sought it in the wrong places, in the wrong ways. I have always longed to surround myself with beauty- my friends, my home, my clothing, my music. Beauty is something we all seek, and we all have different standards and definitions of what we deem beautiful.

God created us to seek and respond to beauty, because He is ultimately the most Beautiful:

“The one sitting on the throne was as brilliant as gemstones–like jasper and carnelian. And the glow of an emerald circled his throne like a rainbow.” ~Revelation 4:3

We are made in His image, so therefore we are beautiful too.

We have a tendency in society to define beauty in a certain superficial, one-dimensioned way. It’s culturally determined and has nothing to do with actual, true beauty, the unique and incredible beauty that God bestows on each one of us. But as we humans always do, we try to fit beauty into a box: thin, white, blonde, curvy, blue eyes, muscular, tan…etc. I think this is so detrimental because it strips us of the ability to see what is actually beautiful, which is everything that God created. No manipulation necessary.

A baby’s laugh.

The quiet mornings with a cup of coffee and the hope of a new day.

A woman who looks worn and disheveled, without any hair, but has won the battle of cancer- and the cancer of the soul.

Truly beautiful people are not ashamed of their flaws and don’t try to hide them. Truly beautiful people are joyful and kind and gentle and their beauty has nothing to do with their looks- although beauty does spread from the inward out. You can have the blondest hair and the bluest eyes but if your soul is cold and empty you cannot be beautiful.

Beauty lasts, and beauty can be sustained. Eating disorders kill. Pills become harder to swallow.

Why do we keep chasing this lesser beauty, this beauty that’s not really beauty at all but actually ugly? I just keep praying to God to train my eyes to see differently, to see real beauty and honor that beauty. I think it will make looking in the mirror and finding another pimple a little easier.

We don’t get to choose our family, and sometimes they can mess us up real good. Or they can bring out the very best in us and make us who we are today. I think my family has done both, and I think yours has too.

Spending time with family is a great way to practice those fruits of the spirit: patience, gentleness, grace…etc. Sometimes our families drive us absolutely up the wall and we are tempted to overreact. It’s easy to fall into old patterns with family, but completely life-changing and transforming to develop new ones. To redeem those interaction habits that once seemed irredeemable and see your family from a new perspective with the lens of experience and understanding.

Going away to college is a good thing. I had no idea what kind of bad habits I had developed until my rug of safety, comfort, and security was yanked out from under my feet. I didn’t even know how to do my own laundry- no joke. My habits were entitlement, laziness, and a distinct notion that I was the center of the family and everyone catered to me. That can happen when you’re an only child for seven years. But I learned that not everyone is going to adore me the way my mom does, not everyone will be as easy to manipulate as my brother, or care about my success and achievements as much as my dad does. It was a hard lesson, for sure, but I am so much more independent and better for it.

Reentering old situations with a new lens is a beautiful metaphor for the transformation that takes place within us as Christ followers. We can’t expect our families to change, but when there has been a change within ourselves, our families will notice and it will make a difference. My mom always tells me how watching me go on my faith journey has inspired and ignited hers, and for that I give all the credit to Christ.

It’s never too late too mend old wounds, and it’s never too late to become new. Don’t let the past define your future, and don’t let it keep you away from those you love. God gave us our families for a reason, and no matter how messed up yours is, He had a purpose in the way you were raised. The battles we overcome make us stronger, especially those battles we have to face from our past.

“Bear with each other and forgive one another if any of you has a grievance against someone. Forgive as the Lord forgave you.” ~Colossians 3:13

Transitonary, in-between phases of life are hard, because they are uncertain. Uncertainty is uncomfortable. We don’t know where we are going, so all security and stability is thrown out the window.

In this season of my life, where I don’t know what lies ahead of me (as many other people in this season of graduation), I actually don’t feel afraid for once. I have finally learned to put my trust in my Maker and not in my own plans, because I’ve learned from disappointment after disappointment that my own plans are not good enough- that they will always let me down when I idolize them as the thing that will save me. I’ve finally learned to loosen my grip and trust that God knows the desires of my heart, because He put them there, and plans to fulfill them in His way, in His time.

Don’t get me wrong, this is still hard for me. I am waiting to hear back about an internship that seems like the perfect fit, an opportunity I jumped on thinking “This must be God’s plan!” Why else would He dangle it in front of me like a carrot on a stick? Surely He would not withhold a good thing from me. But in this (short) season of waiting, I am being reminded that I cannot control the outcome, and whether or not I get this internship, He will still be the leader and Lord of my life. He has not abandoned me if I don’t get it, and He has not abandoned me if I do.

We keep looking for things other than Jesus to be our saving grace, to be the thing that will make us. We idolize our futures as though when we finally get married, get that perfect job, have perfect kids, or make enough money to have the things we want and live a comfortable life, we will be happy. But what if you got that thing you wanted so desperately, and it didn’t fulfill you in the way you expected it to? What if I get this internship, and it turns out not to be not what I had hoped it would?

Last year, I applied to work at a summer camp and quickly accepted the job offer, thinking it would be the most amazing and growing experience of my life- that the experience would change me and I would finally find the happiness I had been seeking. It did those things, to be sure, but not in the way I planned or expected. God has to break our expectations to help us see that His are so much better.

We will reach our destination, but not on our own terms. The sooner we learn that the better.

“A man’s heart plans his way,
But the Lord directs his steps.” ~Proverbs 16:9

One of the most beautiful things about walking with Christ is the surrendering of all of our earning, striving, and proving selves. Of course this is also one of the hardest things, because it is all we know how to do. We know how to earn; we don’t know how to receive. We know how to perform; we don’t know how to just be. We know how to do; we don’t know how to rest.

To rest in His presence and know that in Him we are enough. No more proving ourselves- we have been proven by Him alone. In Him we find our lives and we can put down all pretenses and futile attempts at being someone we’re not.

In Him we find who we are.

And once we know who we are, who we truly are and where our true identity lies, we are free. This is what my soul craves, the absolute freedom of being completely known and completely loved anyway. Free to allow myself to be seen with all my quirks and flaws and know that it is actually those quirks and flaws that enable me to be loved and to love others well. Perfect people are unrelatable; by seeing our cracks other people can begin to acknowledge theirs and know that they are not alone. When I know that I am complete and whole in Him, no matter what threat to my identity may arise, I have the power of Christ to tear it down and not be shaken.

When we start from a place of being loved, the world is wide open. Nothing can stop us or get in the way of Christ’s love for us, because nothing in the world has more power over us than He does.

Nothing makes me happier than knowing that I can just be my plain old self and no matter how far I fall, He will be there to catch me and He will never turn His face away. In our deepest shame, He comes close and whispers that all is not lost, that we can never slip out of His grace. The power!

With Jesus, I have nothing to prove. I have no more need to make myself appear important or better than I am, and no need to feel less than. This is the fundamental beginning of our relationship- no relationship can survive without honesty and vulnerability. None. It is the same with our Father- unless we cut the crap and come to Him in complete humility, He will not be able to transform us and our relationship with Him cannot thrive.

Our default is proving or hiding, performing or running away, but there is another way: truth. Owning the truth about ourselves and knowing that we are met by love, right where we are at. Everything else flows from that.

The insidious nature of lies is that they can so slowly and subtly creep into our mind that we don’t even recognize they are there until we are left confounded and utterly condemned- a prisoner to our own minds. Over and over again I find myself in this position, lost and confused with a distorted perception of who I am and what my purpose is. It’s not until I examine my emotions that I can recognize the thoughts that they came from.

I feel worthless–>thought: “You don’t belong here.”

I feel abandoned–>thought: “They hang out without you because you aren’t good enough for them.”

I feel ashamed–>thought: “Your past mistakes define you and you’ll never be able to outrun them.”

Of course I feel miserable, empty, and afraid. Of course those thoughts will never bring me the life I crave. And somehow, in some twisted up way, they are a protective mechanism. They protect me from truly living into who I was made to be, from the risk and failure and adventure involved with all that I am and all that He is. They keep me hidden and safe in a shell of despair.

But they are not from God, not ever.

He will never tell me I’m stupid. He will never tell me I’m hopeless. He will never tell me I’m forgotten.

Because He is love. He is perfect love and perfect love casts out fear–casts out all the lies, the condemnation I choose to live under for supposed safety. In Him there is no condemnation, but only compassion. And it is up to me whether I am willing to receive that or not, to let Him root out all the lies and replace them with truth. To live into that truth, into who I really am. Into freedom.

Condemnation keeps us low, but with God we rise high. He takes us to heights we could never imagine, places we never thought we could go. He turns us into someone we never thought we could be- because we can’t without Him. But it starts with declaring truth over yourself. It starts with you believing that in Him you are enough- you are good enough, strong enough, talented enough, brave enough for whatever He has for you.

The lies have no power over us and God gives us the authority to cast them out.

“Then Jesus came to them and said, ‘All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me.'” ~Matthew 28:18

The fact that this theme is so prevalent in my life tells me that it’s important: it’s important to know who we are in Christ and live into that, into our identity, and not into what the enemy wants us to believe about ourselves. It is the foundation from which we can go out into the world in confidence and assurance that we are loved, known, and chosen, and no one can ever take that away from us.

I praise God for once again reminding me who I am and what He has called me, specifically and uniquely, to do to advance His kingdom. Listen for His voice, that still, small, quiet voice of love that’s always there.

Tune in.

“So, what do you think? With God on our side like this, how can we lose? If God didn’t hesitate to put everything on the line for us, embracing our condition and exposing himself to the worst by sending his own Son, is there anything else he wouldn’t gladly and freely do for us? And who would dare tangle with God by messing with one of God’s chosen? Who would dare even to point a finger? The One who died for us—who was raised to life for us!—is in the presence of God at this very moment sticking up for us. Do you think anyone is going to be able to drive a wedge between us and Christ’s love for us? There is no way! Not trouble, not hard times, not hatred, not hunger, not homelessness, not bullying threats, not backstabbing, not even the worst sins listed in Scripture:

They kill us in cold blood because they hate you.
We’re sitting ducks; they pick us off one by one.

None of this fazes us because Jesus loves us. I’m absolutely convinced that nothing—nothing living or dead, angelic or demonic, today or tomorrow, high or low, thinkable or unthinkable—absolutely nothing can get between us and God’s love because of the way that Jesus our Master has embraced us.” ~Romans 8:38-39

The message that plays over and over in my head every single day boils down to this: “You are unworthy and unqualified. You will never amount to anything, so there is no point in trying.”

That sounds really cynical, because it is. But this is a truth that I live by so often.

The hard thing about being a Christian is realizing your own brokenness, and just how very broken you are. It becomes blazingly clear the more you turn your heart to Him. And this can be blazingly discouraging.

How can God use someone as useless as me in His big, glorious, perfect plan? I am far from perfect, and far from the person I want to be. I’m hopeless right?

But somehow, in His infinite glory, He really can use me. He can use me with all of my scars, bumps and bruises. With all of my shame and fear. He doesn’t see me the way I see myself. He knows that where I see emptiness and chaos and pointlessness, there is more to the story. And I need to trust that- I must.

God uses broken people. He uses the unlikely, the outcasts, the marginalized, and He uses the wealthy, the successful, the “perfect” people. Because guess what? We are all broken. Literally all of us. There is not one person who has not been tainted by sin and fear and hurt and loneliness and longing and emptiness. Not one.

We all have stories. And God uses each story to his glory. Whatever your deepest fear, deepest shame, deepest secret- He goes deeper. He turns all our messy and broken and crazy lives into something beautiful; a miracle from a mess. Only He does that. Not you.

Bring it all before Him: everything you’ve been hiding. He can handle it. He really can. He’ll take the broken you and make you new. But it’s a process, and it’s not easy. It requires faith and courage and trust and hope. It requires all of us, our whole selves before Him. We must step into the light and be seen for who we really are, even if we don’t like it.

It is the only way to transformation. To healing, strength, and joy.

I know I want that, I want Him, more than anything in this world, and I will be the first to admit that I am broken. We don’t need a world full of “perfect” people- we need a world full of whole people: people who are whole in Christ and know who they are and what they are called to do- work that always results in beauty and recognition of our Maker.

Let down your walls and be seen, be known, be loved.

We love them. We hate them. We need them.

So desperately.

We cannot do faith alone, because God is love, and therefore to truly experience Him in all His fullness we have to experience love. And you can only experience love from other people. And it is broken, and messy, and altogether disappointing much of the time. So much so we start to wonder- does perfect love really exist?

Am I truly, wholly, perfectly, unconditionally loved? Because I have never experienced that kind of love here on earth, the kind of love that will die for you even when you are at your worst.

So what’s the point then? If every relationship we have is broken and human and will never be perfect, what’s the point of being in relationship at all? If people will always disappoint, hurt, and abandon me, and I will always disappoint, hurt, and abandon others, wouldn’t it just be better if we all stayed away from each other and just experienced the intimate love of our Father in isolation? Sometimes that sounds so much more tempting to me than to say, try. Try to love better, be a better sister, be a better roommate, be a better friend. Try to have more patience and more kindness and be more like Jesus in every situation I find myself in. Not trying is way easier. And it’s just about the best way to turn your heart into a cold, dark stone.

Our hearts become hardened and bitter when we turn away from relationships, when we aren’t receiving or giving love.

It starts with receiving. Until we truly receive the (yes!) unconditional love of the Father and allow His Holy Spirit to move in us, we will not be able to love and experience love the way He always intended for us to. Because guess what? We can’t do it on our own. No matter how hard we try, we simply will not be able to muster up the love for other people (or for ourselves) that we want to have. I know this is true in my life as the root of bitterness grows because I refuse to accept Christ’s love for me. And it’s hindering my relationships- it’s hurting those I love and it’s hurting me.

After receiving comes repentance. Once I have received the love of Christ and truly allowed it to define me, to allow my identity to be solidly grounded in Him, I can face myself. I can face my flaws and my failures, the ways I am hurting others and myself. And I will be empowered to turn away from those ways, not out of condemnation or shame but out of conviction- the conviction that I don’t want that brokenness in my life anymore and I choose a new way to live, a new way to relate to others.

I run away from relationships. I really do. I’m so scared of the intimacy, vulnerability, and joy that a fulfilling relationship can hold, because it seems too good to be true, and it seems out of control. But I also know that that is the thing my heart so desperately craves the most- that is the thing we were made for- true, deep, intimate relationship with Christ. Honestly, when you look inside your heart, what do you long for? It all boils down to being known, and being loved.

And we are. More than we can ever understand.

So don’t turn away from relationships in your life when things get hard. We need people as much as we need to breathe- to lift us up and support us and encourage us to continue running the race to the finish. Yes, they are human and flawed, but so are we, and we are kidding ourselves if we think we don’t need each other. Nothing will kill us faster or cause more suffering than a lack of love…and nothing but love will bring us more life.

“God didn’t set us up for an angry rejection but for salvation by our Master, Jesus Christ. He died for us, a death that triggered life. Whether we’re awake with the living or asleep with the dead, we’re alive with him! So speak encouraging words to one another. Build up hope so you’ll all be together in this, no one left out, no one left behind. I know you’re already doing this; just keep on doing it.” ~1 Thessalonians 5 The Message