give everything

"Jesus sat near the temple money box and watched the people put in their money. many rich people gave large sums of money. then a poor widow came and put in two small copper coins, which were only worth a few cents.

calling his followers to him, Jesus said, "i tell you the truth, this poor widow gave more than all those rick people. they gave only what they did not need. this woman is very poor, but she gave all she had; she gave all she had to live on."

mark 12:41-44 (ncv)

i swear God has sent this message into my life a million times this past week, so i guess it's time that i actually reflect on it.

a lot has happened in the last couple weeks that i think have turned me from being unhappy to just being completely bitter. for a while it felt like God had forgotten about me, that my prayers were being sent into some black hole and never to be heard and i was upset. funny thing is, i did pray for his will to be done but i think deep down i prayed for his will to be done as long as i was ok with it :) so like any mature parent to a child who has a lot to learn, God let me cry and scream on the floor while going through my anger and then i stopped, came up for some air and began to reevaluate.

while i am still not in a place where i completely understand why things are happening the way they do and i am still going to be mad and unhappy at times i feel like i am coming out of this a little wiser.

on friday night i went to go see donald miller (author of blue like jazz) speak and what he said had me in tears because it's like he put a flashlight on all those dark corners of my heart that i wanted to not think about. but one of the things that resonated with me since then was that he said we need to 'give everything' and not financially but our hearts, whatever we are doing we need to do it with all of us. he also gave the example of when they went to machu pucchu in peru that they came to a point where if they went one way they would make it to machu picchu in 6 hours but the other way would take about 4 days and they would have to climb up a large mountain. the 6 hour route really was only for cargo, the villagers wanted visitors to go the 4 day route so when they did arrive at their destination they would be tired but also grateful and more appreciative of it. i think we are sent on the 4 day hikes sometimes so that when we make it to the end we can be that much more grateful.

but it doesn't end there :) there are times where i volunteer at kidstuff at church. i run the sound effects and music and its always a fun time. it's amazing though, because i am always surprised at how much i learn from the message geared towards kids. this month's theme is joy and being joyful even when you don't feel like being joyful. today one of the characters felt like God didn't like him because things weren't going his way but his friends reminded me of times where he went through trials but if they hadn't happened then their lives would be considerably different.

at church we've been in a series called plan b: what to do when your dreams are shattered and we've gone through great examples in the bible where things do not make sense while they are happening but at the end of the story that crazy puzzle piece was needed for the big picture. today we learned about joseph and how he was faithful though he was sold into slavery by his brothers and jailed for doing the right thing, etc. we were challenged today with the following question:

what would you do if you were completely confident that God was with you?

joseph was completely confident even in times where he did everything right but ended up in some sort of dilemma.

not sure if those all tie in together for you, but they go hand in hand in my head :) lots of writing and lots for me to digest, so i will leave you with that. good night.