For Blue Skies

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I realize that most of my deep revelations come while I’m driving in my car. I don’t know why, but my thoughts run rampant at stop lights.

I was driving in my car on my way home from school, there was a lot of traffic, which is kind of annoying, but nevertheless, you see people walking along the streets and sitting in a car beside you and ahead of you and it just hits you like this…

Complete strangers, each with a soul and stories that you will never know about. Each with lives that keep on continuing as they make that turn onto the interstate, driving off to who knows where.

People we don’t know, tend to be thought of as the props in our own personal plays.

We walk among strangers and don’t even glimpse their faces.

And that is sad.

Every week I sit in classes and listen to my teachers talk a mile a minute about our bodies and what they are made of and how they work. Never does it come up that we are more then just skin and bones; made up of multiple systems (each far too complex to not be made by a creator by the way). Don’t even get me started with my Psych class.

Never does anyone say anything about our souls and how they desperately need saving.

Maybe I have come to realize that our hearts beat for many things in this life and how insignificant everything is when our hearts beat for only those things…

Money. Title. Lovers. Worldly belongings. Fame. Approval from our so-called peers. Academic success.

In the end it matters only for who these worn and heavy hearts beat for.

For who do these souls belong too?

When I start thinking about all these souls and hearts…it causes me to search my own and ask myself what my heart is beating for?

Because lately, I have felt lost, worn, tired…and just empty.  I feel as if I’m in this ring boxing at air.  I’m not sure what I’m fighting against, I just have to keep swinging my arms.

The fact is, I know what my heart is beating for.  It’s beating for selfish things.  It’s only beating for myself.

It shouldn’t be.

I think about my academic success and career choices and finds myself thinking “which one will give me glory.”

And the fact is, that the more I think about my own personal gain and how I can obtain these things that I want in life…the harder it becomes to achieve them.

I’ve been trying so hard this semester between work and school…and to be honest, bitterness started to set in.

And maybe it all came to a head when the snow started falling and I skidded into the ditch on my way to town one dark Saturday evening and I sat there in the car feasting on all my bitterness; stressing out, and wanting to burst into a flood of angry tears.

Then some guys in a tractor pulled up, hitched my car up with a chain and pulled me out of the ditch then drove away.

I didn’t even have a chance to say thank you.

All these souls…all these hearts beating…

For who do they belong to you?

Jesus.

We can only be saved by a constant, always loving Savior.

Constant. That word has such warmth and safety.

Because no matter what, He will always be there.

Oh, how little it all matters when you strip away all life’s fineries and worldly accomplishments and day to day hardships and you find Jesus in the crowd of regrets, sadness, mistakes and expectations never met.

He’s a light, you know.  Shining on all the messes that we make in this life and loving us despite everything.

It’s just crazy.

How much Jesus can love despite all flaws, beyond what you deserve.  Loving you endlessly.

And He loves not just one person, but every single soul and heart beating in this world, as if they were the only one person He died for.

Choices

We all have choices to make; everyday.  Some choices may be easy, insignificant, and small.  Those are the best kind.  They don’t change your course in life, one way or another; the choice doesn’t really matter.  Your still you, and your still safe from the word change.

The big choices, the important, hard, life changing ones.  Now those are difficult.  Like what college major you should choose, or deciding to love someone, or deciding if you should move out and be an adult.

These big decisions are painful, and you can’t make them with the most certainty, because there is too much unknown.

I came across this quote a while ago.  I thought it was slightly strange at first, but it gave me a new idea.  Loving is a choice we make, even accepting love is a choice.  We seem to think love is just an overwhelming feeling inside of us.  But what happens when that overwhelming feeling ceases?

“He loved her, of course.  But better then that, he chose her.  Day after day.  Choice: that was the thing.” – Sherman Alex

Some choices need to be made everyday.  Some choices aren’t just once. It seems like this world keeps making choices less permanent.  Like when we love someone, and we marry that person, and then one day you wake up and you think “I just don’t have that feeling anymore, the love is gone between us, we’ve changed.”

Choice…that was the thing.

Everyday we have to keep deciding if we want to keep loving someone when that overwhelming feeling is gone.

Everyday we can make the choice to stay asleep with our dreams or go out and chase them.

Everyday we have so many choices.

I sometimes feel like I’m drowning in an overwhelming ocean of options and I don’t know which to choose.  I’m frantically trying to take hold of this ship I’m in and steer myself in the right direction, when I end up on a deserted island most of the time.

But when I give up all my cares to Jesus, I find that it’s really not so hard to figure out what choices I should make in this life.

So, I choose Him above everything else.  To be honest, if I only choose Jesus, then every other choice I make will be with confidence.  Because I choose Him, everyday.  I choose to keep loving Him, even when the road seems long and my shoulders ache with every weight full of choices and too many options.

I choose Him because He loved me when I was unloveable.  I choose Him because when I was unreachable, He reached for me.

I choose You today Jesus, because no other choice makes sense, if my choice isn’t You first.