faith

3 Things I Learned in my 23rd Year of Life

Posted on by aelizabethfed

I made a similar post when I turned 23. I’ve turned 24 now and so naturally, I’m an entire year wiser. Wow, what wisdom.

Being honest, I do think I actually grew as a person this year. I was dealt some hard lessons, and while it’s usually better to learn lessons the hard way, maybe a person or two can glance over this and learn my hard lessons second hand. So take notes or something – this could be profound.

1) I felt a new kind of pain that I had never felt this year. My grandmother passed away on August 24th, and it was unimaginably horrible. I’d never had someone close to me die, and it happened suddenly and quickly. In the hospital for a few weeks, right to hospice, and a week later she was gone.

There was not a major event in my life that this woman was not a part of. She taught me so many things – most notably, how to put others before yourself consistently, and how to make perfect scrambled eggs. Losing her was hard, and it still is hard. If I think about it for too long, it’s still painful. Just the other night I realized for the first time that she won’t see me get married. She wanted to be there for things like that so badly, and it kills me that she physically won’t be.

I learned something from this. I learned how important it is to treasure things while they’re happening in front of you; how important it is to live here and now. I learned to lean on your family, and to let your family lean on you. I learned that seeing my brother cry is still, without a doubt, the worst thing on earth, and I learned how smart and strong that brother of mine is.

I learned that God is just and merciful in ways I never knew, and I appreciated the 23 years He gave me with her even more after she was gone.

2) I stepped outside of my comfort zone this year – in a big way. In September, what seemed like seconds after the whirlwind of my grandmother passing, I got on a plane to take a week-long trip to Vietnam with my best friends.

I pushed myself in ways I hadn’t before, physically, mentally and emotionally. It was hot, I was sick, and we were doing some seriously athletic activities that I’m just not designed for, but I did them, and I felt prouder of myself than I ever had.

I learned that if I just try, I can literally do anything I put my mind to. I learned that trying new things is essential to happiness and a real human experience here on earth. I learned that leaning on God in terrifying times gives you the ability to later look back and wonder why you were ever even worried at all.

3) I struggled this year, with a lot of things. Just normal human struggles. Budgeting my money, being content where I am, being impatient with the path my life was going. I gained a new best friend this year, and lost touch with a couple others. There were consistencies, there were highs, and there were lows.

Basically, just like any other year, it had its ups and downs. I’m not always happy, I’m not always bold, and I’m not always courageous. Sometimes I take the easy road, the low road, when I should do what’s best for others. There are a lot of aspects of myself that I need to work on, but that’s not what I want to take away from 23.

I want to go into 24 proud of myself, happy with who I am, and looking forward to the changes that this year has taught me I’m more than capable of making. I want to improve myself, because the better I am, the more help I’ll be to others.

That’s what’s really important to me. 24 needs to be the year where I put myself aside, and pick others up. Whatever it takes. Wherever God leads me this year, I’m going to willingly and unquestioningly follow. I will lean on His understanding and not my own.

That’s all I need to make 24 great.

Spirit, Lead me.

Posted on by aelizabethfed

Father, I spend so much of my time reading your Word and learning about You in church, trying to grow closer to you, but how often do I tell You how absolutely wonderful You are?

Telling You I love You simply isn’t enough. Calling you Brilliant Maker, Beautiful Creator, Faithful Father – that isn’t ENOUGH. How do I relay my complete and total devotion to You? How do I prove my love in words, because words are what I know best?

Words aren’t enough, but they’re what I have. I want to turn my life over to You. I want to follow you to the ends of the earth and I want to invite You in here, where I am. I desire such a nearness with You, like I cannot dream to achieve with anyone else. I’m desperately searching for a powerful, healing, pardoning love like only You can provide me.

That’s enough about me. Father, I am merely a human, and not blessed with the capacity to aptly describe You as You are. The smartest woman on earth could not really capture it in words. You are a feeling that starts in my heart, a pounding, warm feeling that spreads to my fingertips and toes and whispers, “I am Yours, You are mine,” and I feel a complete secureness in our relationship that I will never feel with anyone else.

Father, you are so wonderful and merciful. Seeing your sinful creation, You wrapped yourself in skin and came to suffer in a way that I will never know, to die shamelessly upon a cross, and to rise again from death in all your beauty and glory. Father, all the power is Yours. All the knowledge is Yours. Everything that is – it is Yours. Nothing belongs to me, but You. You are mine, Father, and I give myself entirely to You as Your faithful servant and Your beloved child.

You will never turn from me. You will never break a promise. You will never let me down. No matter what the circumstances or the situation, You will never cease to love me with a love that is far beyond the capabilities of any earthly being.

Father, You have given your very LIFE for me and I will give mine back to You – take it, Father. Remove my fear and my worries, my concerns that hold me back. Put me in spots where I must overcome what terrifies me most, so that I might bring glory to Your kingdom and shout Your name and proclaim the good news to those who have not even heard Your name.

“Jesus Christ,” I will shout to them, “has come to earth for you. The creator of the universe has suffered as you suffered, and knows all of your troubles. The controller of the universe cares for you and loves you with an unimaginable, unfathomable love, and you are redeemed in Him!” and You will be given the glory for it, my Father.

Spirit, lead me where my trust is without borders.

Let me walk upon the waters,

wherever You would call me.

Take me deeper than my feet could ever wander,

and my faith would be made stronger

in the presence of my Savior.

Thank You, Father, for the millions of things we do not think to thank You for. Thank you for my sight and for my feelings, thank You for warmth on cold nights and love when I am feeling lonely. Thank you for these feet, that You may use them and send me out. Thank You for the display of Your power and might. You are so wonderful, Father, and I am so lacking without You.

Above all, thank You for loving me enough to die for me, enough to follow me through all the trials and successes of my life, and enough to never let me down or step away.

I love you, Father. You are my everything.

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The Search for the Perfect Church

Posted on by aelizabethfed

I’ve been on this search for… ever. Yes, since I’ve had the desire to attend church weekly, I’ve been searching for the perfect one. The best people, the best music, the amazingly uplifting and biblical message every Sunday, the most moving experience… and I’ve been wrong to do so.

I’ve been looking at church bass akwards. I’ve been looking at it from a ‘what can the church do for me?’ perspective instead of a ‘what can I do for the church?’ perspective and worst of all, I’ve looked at the church as a building instead of a group of followers.

This is stopping now. I moved home five months ago and have bounced from church to church, not ever feeling like I’ve found the right one. This is my fault, and not the fault of any church. Sure, some of them just haven’t been good fits, but I think my standards have been earthly and not Godly, and the right church has been there all along.

I grew up Catholic but quickly cast that aside in college when I decided to head the relationship road, shunning the ‘religious’ side, because nowadays, it isn’t cool or biblically ‘right’ to be religious.

That’s wrong, too. I am a religious person. I am a spiritual person. I have a personal relationship with Christ. YOU CAN DO THEM ALL. 

I’ve made no decisions as of yet, but something occurred to me this weekend. Instead of going to a church that I’ve been interested in (a non-denominational, worship-based church) with a good friend, I decided since my brother was home visiting for the weekend that I would go to church with him and my father.

And I decided that I would really listen, and so I did. Lord in heaven, am I glad I did. It’s like God opened up my eyes – like He removed the scales.

I listen to the subdued hymns instead of the loud worship music, and I saw that they have the exact same message – just delivered more traditionally. I listened to the homily and found that it carried the same weight as every lengthy message I’ve ever listened to from any pastor, just delivered in a more matter-of-fact, simple fashion from our priest. The message this week was this: even in the hardest times, there is Christ with you, and when you look to Him, you can get through anything.

That’s no different than a message you’ll hear in any other church. It was pulled biblically from Paul’s letters, just like it would be in any other church.

I was surrounded by a body  of believers and by my family and I felt at home. I felt at home in a way that I haven’t felt in any of these other non-denominational churches.

Maybe a traditional setting is what I’ve been looking for. Maybe I want to rededicate myself to Catholicism. I don’t yet know and I’m going to take the time to figure it out.

I don’t know. All I want to tell you is this: There is no perfect church, no perfect body, nothing. There is only a perfect God.

Self-Confidence (Issues)

Posted on by aelizabethfed

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Now you may not be able to tell it from the fact that in the above photo, I willingly saddled up on a large frog at the zoo and made that stupid face and gave that dumb thumbs up and then used this as my Facebook profile picture for months, but I suffer from a crippling lack of self-confidence.

I mean crippling, and I mean inwardly. You would probably never know it upon meeting with me. I’m not the girl who sits around complaining about how she looks. I’m the girl that, when all the other girls are nit-picking themselves, jokingly says something like, “Well I’m flawless and gorgeous all the time, no matter what, so I don’t really have anything to add” to ease the tension – but that’s only because I don’t want to discuss my flaws and my negative ideas of myself.

The list is too long, too overwhelming, and I don’t want to bog other people down or bore them with these issues. I never talk about it. I would be willing to bet most people think I find myself attractive. And they wouldn’t be all that wrong. I do think I’m a lovely young woman.

In fact, what prompted this blog was a long look I took at myself in the mirror just a little while ago – and I tried to list all the things I like about myself; sort of gave myself a peptalk.

“Anna, you are a lovely young woman. Your hair is soft and shiny and you’ve done so good, letting it grow to be so long when you usually cut it! You have big eyes that are a nice shade of blue or gray or whatever they are. People compliment your eyes and hair more than anything else! Hey, look at that neck, nice and sturdy, holding your noggin’ up! Go, head! Oh, and those hands — you haven’t bitten or cut your nails in weeks and they look nice! Your skin is pretty, and your freckles add character.”

But if that inner monologue was the opposite, completely negative, I could go on for ten pages and I could make myself cry – no, sob. And it all has to do with my weight.

I have never been a very thin girl. When I was younger I was thiner, but I’ve always been a little bigger. On top of that, I have a very sizeable chest. I might be, currently, at my lifetime biggest. (See above photo, which was taken not long ago).

I do try to be healthy. I try to eat right and get some exercise every day, and that’s a change I’ve made in the past few years, and it’s something I’m slowly integrating into my life. But what I haven’t been adding to my daily routine is self-confidence and self-love. I think far too much about my weight and my appearance and I put too much weight (pun intended) on my outer-worth instead of my inner.

So that’s something I really need to change, and there are a few ways I’m going to do this.

1. Be healthy – to FEEL healthy. I have a condition call pseudotumor cerebri (google it), and basically there is extra fluid in my brain that makes my optic nerves swell. The first way to treat it is loose weight, which I’ve been trying. I want to get healthy for this reason more than anything else. And that really comes down to small choices throughout the day. Talking a walk after work instead of sitting down because I’m tired, keeping better snacks in my office, no cream cheese on my bagel in the morning… Small things that will build up to change my entire health-outlook, and I will FEEL better, no matter how I LOOK.

2. STOP TELLING MYSELF I AM SINGLE BECAUSE I AM UNATTRACTIVE. First of all, I’m not unattractive. I’m a nice-looking young lady. Someday someone is going to notice that but further more, they’re going to look at my super-hot brain and fall in love with that. And that brain is going to last a lot longer than this body.

3. Find my identity and worth in Christ, and not in my appearance. I won’t say anything cheesy like “I am made in His image”, because that’s an excuse people use to never exercise and eat whatever they want. God gave us these bodies to go and do His work, and we need to treat them like the gift they are. What I will say is that when I worry so much about what I look like, I’m mostly worrying about what other people think of me. That simply doesn’t matter, and that is the way of this world. God does not look at my outward appearance, but my heart. If I spent as much time worrying about my heart as I do about my flabby stomach or thighs, I would be doing SO MUCH MORE awesome work for God while I’m here on earth. That’s a change worth making.

It’s not as simple as I’m making it seem and I know that. I think my last step, number four, is to tell someone my concerns. I need to tell my best friend that most days, I believe I’m single because of how I look, if for nothing else but to have her tell me that isn’t the truth at all (not because I am a foxy mama, but because the right guy will not care) – sometimes, it’s easier to believe other people than it is to believe yourself.

I know self-confidence is a long journey. Any woman with an awesome opinion about herself will tell you that it takes forever and it isn’t a constant thing, but I do believe that firmly placing myself in Christ’s identity and looking at myself through His eyes and through His plan for me is the best and surest place to start.

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