Treat on a Tuesday

Another note/draft- sorry for all the words

7.1.2017
God, you always teach me all my lessons and give me all my clarity while I'm running. That's how it's always been and always will be, isn't it? Keeping me in shape in more ways than one.

So God got me today. I ran for the first time in a long time and after one of the most hellish [HELLISH] months I have ever had. But He gave me this nudge to go run; I thought it was just me wanting to be healthy after having a stomach bug, but I should have known better. So I start running, and I'm thinking, yeah I was made for this run because I have only been able to eat bread for the past 4 days- carbs galore letttsssss goooooo, and so I decided I was going to do 4 hills since I was feeling so up for the challenge. Now for those of you who don't live in Massachusetts, specifically western Mass, these are not some small-fry hills. There are HILLS out here. So I do 3, and I'm feeling pretty tired and almost whimp out on my 4th, when I got that nudge inside saying "just do it. You can do it. Just prove it to yourself." So I whipped around onto the next street really fast before I could change my mind. I start laughing to myself because this street was literally a monstrosity of a hill! So big I couldn't even find the top because, let me tell you, it was NO WHERE in sight. I had to laugh even harder because having faith in myself running this hill was about as mystifying as faith in God. But I found myself saying, God says believe in what you cannot see (it's okay, I laughed that that was even the phrase going through my head). So I kept climbing with Thomas Rhett's "Vacation" song blaring in my ears and he sings one line that says "I'm going to rehydrate while I dehydrate, you know what I'm sayin'? " and it just all the sudden snapped in me how, during this last month of crazy I have totally fallen away from God. I kept telling myself to relinquish control, but I didn't. I just kept doing things my way, not letting myself take breaks, being hard on myself, and quite frankly being average. That's all I am without God. Average. My grades in school reflect it, my relationships reflected it, how I have been feeling in general reflected it. Anyway, back to  my original point, I was reminded but the rehydrate and hydrate thing was the message I heard from Pastor Tyler before I left on all my traveling (go to Lifesongonline.org and check it out 6/11/2017). That particular message focused on how God is the living water and we are always salty (notes coming soon on this message). We dehydrate ourselves with everything around us, people, jobs, etc, and need to be rehydrating with Him to be above average, to make our mark, to be different in this crazy world. Mind you, I'm having all these thoughts while I'm running up over a mile high hill (yes, still running and not kidding about the climb) and let me just tell you now. I didn't make it to the top. I doubted, kind of, that there even was a top at one point. Really I gave up and didn't want to put the effort in to find the top anymore, but let me tell you how it went down. I know I sound crazy, but God was talking to me through this whole run and I got to this fork in the road and He said "go left." I look left and it's more uphill and in my head I said screw that. So I ran a little bit to the left, made a loop, then ultimately made my way down turning right. The whole time after I turned around I was thinking, you know, if you had just turned left, it probably would have just taken you back to the street you parked on, you just had to get through the hardest part. Then I thought, I WENT THROUGH 4 HARD PARTS BEFORE, WHY DO I NEED TO DO ANOTHER ONE?!? And then I was overwhelmed by two more whispers: "because I asked you to", and "because you know I will repay you in 10 fold". Dang it. 

More often then not, I like to think I am following God's directions. But today made it clear to me that I don't. A lot of the time, I let myself just do what I want. You know where turning right (my way) got me on my run today? 3 streets backwards from where I started. You know where left would have gotten me? 2 streets closer and a sweet view of the sunset. God always knows better. His journey is hard, you have to dig deep to find the energy and effort to get there, and odds are, you are not going to like the looks of it when you see the original challenge. But the result. Man. That's the good stuff. And to think you and I could miss it on something so much bigger than a running path but in a real life opportunity because you weren't listening or didn't feel like putting a little more effort in. Those are my word-thoughts today friends. I hope they resonated a little with you as they did with me.

Happy Tuesday, and don't give up! (Cheesy, I know, but just embrace it)

T. Hall

The Sweetest Sunday of All

So--- these are some drafts that have just been sitting in my blog folder.. some of the stuff was worth a read even a few months late so I decided to post them for my own benefit. Hopefully you all get a kick out of it too! Sorry again for them being unfinished... one of these days I'll get good at this. 

Hello friends! Just in case you were wondering, this is the sweetest Sunday of the year: Easter Sunday.

First let me talk about egg hunts. You gotta love 'em, right? It's colorful, it's fun, it's usually full of money and chocolate! All the things people love. Everywhere you look there are these little nuggets and prizes, you just have to put a little effort in, and it's all yours. Some are really easy to see, and others take a bit longer to find and reveal themselves. As I was thinking about this, I was thinking about what my personal "egg hunt" looks like. If I just put a little bit of effort in, God usually has a prize waiting for me to find. Some prizes are really easy to see and take hold of, but there are some that are a lot harder to see. If I just follow his clues, I find His surprises. Over the past year- first it was school (that was a hard one to find), now it's staying in school (grades, duh), but also opportunities with outreach, friends, leadership, and so much more. Sometimes it's something really small and obvious that God wants you to see- those are the eggs on the ground; other times the eggs are hidden so well, disguised even, that you miss them. That's the real bummer. BUT there was one gift that God made that was so big no one could miss it- He gave His one and only son to us and sacrificed Him to die for our sins so that we could live eternally with Him in heaven. And that is why the story of Easter is the greatest story ever told.

This Easter season I am just overwhelmed with emotion. For the past year, I have felt like I have just been falling into God's plans, and I am so grateful, but so out of control. I don't know about you, but I really like control, and especially over these last few weeks, I really would have liked to have some. But I didn't. The thing is though that God has blessed me with so many open doors, I am freaking the heck out actually. And then I laugh again because I know that is exactly where He wants me- dependent on Him.  All of these opportunities I have been blessed with are amazing, and I can't wait to see what happens with them all. However, I know it's about so much more than that. It's about Him. This man, He saved my life, and now He is letting me live my life for Him (even though 5 out of the 7 days a week I view it more as drowning).

The Easter Story is the greatest story ever told, but this year it is just hitting home like I have never felt before. I am being pushed to be vulnerable about why I love Jesus, why I want to celebrate his resurrection, why I am thankful for his resurrection. Guys, it's so simple. This man died for me, and He died for you. He planned this life for you. He loves you. He loves you so much He openly confessed it KNOWING that we would all turn away and reject Him at many points in our lives. That my friends is vulnerability, something that God is teaching me a lesson on right now.

Let's go with what is on my mind. Guys, emotions are the worst. I just have to say that as a girl, I hate having feelings, the idea of investing, and all that good stuff. Friendships, no problem. But the second I think I could have feelings for a guy, I freak the heck out. I don't like to be vulnerable, I don't like to feel stupid, and the risk is at stake for both of those things when it comes to telling someone how you feel. It's hard and usually embarrassing and full of fear. Even as I typed this, I laughed a little because who doesn't like to be flattered? Even if you tell someone that and the feelings aren't reciprocated, you probably still made that person's day. That is not the point I am trying to make though. When I think about this vulnerability in a relationship, I next think about Jesus and His willingness to be vulnerable. Think about if Jesus hadn't been vulnerable and transparent with us... what in the world would have gained from His teachings and example? What would we have seen? He loves us more than I could ever love anyone, and yet it was so easy for Him to say and show, and without it, what would Christianity stand on?  He came to earth to tell us and assure us of an eternity that we can't even imagine exists and that we were loved like no other by our Father in Heaven. That takes boldness and guts.  Talk about the vulnerability needed to tell His best bros that, His family... I don't know... again, just the blurbs on my mind this beautiful Easter Sunday.

Sweet Sunday... on a Tuesday

(...on a Tuesday)

I keep getting this itch to blog. Let me say I am dumbfounded/laugh at this because I don't even think there is anyone out there really reading this, especially with my inconsistency. Then I get to thinking, what the heck, why not just write and see what pours out just in case? So here I am, five months later (once again), ready to just type some stuff here that is hopefully fun to read and is encouraging either in the cooking department or the spiritual department. 

To help explain myself, I always get this want to blog when I am cooking or baking. When I'm in the kitchen, that is my down time, and I can think about more than my to-do lists and school work. Usually I bake on Sunday's because that's my day to just chill out and be normal. That's also the day I can assure you I start with God and He resets me for my week. Plus He's usually got me thinking about some stuff that others might want to think about too. 

SO- here we go. 

This week the baking came earlier than Sunday because one of my closest friends came to visit and her birthday was Thursday (plus I am on spring break, so why not?)!!  Of course I had to make some sweet treats to welcome her to Mass. I remade a recipe that I've probably posted about before: Nutella Crinkle Cookies, which I don't have a picture of, sorry. However the real fun was a new recipe- the BEST cinnamon rolls  I have made (granted this was my first time making them from scratch). Of course, it was the Pioneer Woman who put out this recipe originally, and I got a copy cat version off of Pinterest. Click the links for either recipe. These blogs do a much better job directing than I do if you want to make them. Of course we enjoyed her sugar-filled-birthday breakfast with our favorite Greyhouse Coffee which was also an ingredient in the cinnamon roll frosting.  It was the perfect match. I wish I had taken better pictures of the food, but hopefully you can assume just by the look on my friend's face that we were excited about our early-morning sugar overload. 

 

While I was making the dough for these bad boys, I was watching this video:  

Fully living for Jesus Christ by Nick Vujicic 

and it made making these birthday rolls ten times sweeter. I know- cheesy transition, but if you read this blog, you'll just have to accept that I think in puns. Nick Vujicic's perspective and ability to be a tool of Jesus Christ is something truly incredible, and oddly enough, his words are so relatable and raw which is what I appreciate the most. You'll know what I mean about being relatable once you start watching. If you have the patience, watch Nick Vujicic's  videos using the link above, or at least one of them. I promise you won't regret it one bit, and he will inspire you whether you believe in God or not. 

For those of you that couldn't care less about the videos, here's what was on my heart this past week: 

"God often times presents answers to prayers in packages you don't want." -John Bevere's book Under Cover. 

We are reading this book in my small group, and that quote was the subtitle under the chapter.  I'll just start by saying this:

First of all, no one really wants to hear that because we want what we want, duh.  

Second of all, everyone needs to hear that because sometimes it's just true. Sometimes the right answer looks different to God than it does to us, and His way wins every time. We just have to recognize it. 

So often, for those of you who follow Christ, we pray for things: marriage, money, jobs, better health, relational help, clarity, understanding, guidance. Things we "NEED". And then we have expectations for how God will deliver these needs/wants/answers to us and we look for those in particular "packages", for lack of a better term, not the "unexpected delivery". So as my friend was leading this discussion revolved around this quote, he gave a list of ways that God could deliver answers to our prayers like these. He said (in much different words) that instead of the answer we are expecting, the plan "A" way, it may actually looks like a plan N, Q, or 4 way because those definitely don't look anything like the plan A, or the B, C, and D that you probably came up with if it wasn't the plan A answer/delivery  (hopefully you kind of followed that thought process of mine).  The answers could be completely random, unseen, or unexpected in our eyes, but they are still answers nonetheless, we just often miss them and feel ignored or like we just need to be patient. To explain this idea a little more, my friend then proceeded to give a whole list of prayers in the said categories I listed above and tied it to the unexpected package delivery to help us connect the dots.  Of course he got to the lovey/marriage ones, because let's face it, most of us are still in that stage of life and he explained:

"you could be praying that you experience the kind of love that God has for us here on earth, as in you want the love you get in a marriage, and He gives you someone unlovable because that's God's real love right? The father who loves those that are ungrateful, unthankful, and distant BUT YET HE LOVES AND PURSUES THEM THROUGH IT ALL. He didn't necessarily give you someone for marriage, but someone to show love like Christ loves them therefore really experiencing what it's like to love like He does."

I'll be the first to admit that this is my weak point. I am a typical twenty-something hopeless romantic, so of course I have prayed that prayer countless times.  As he was explaining all of this, internally my jaw had hit the floor and all the lightbulbs turned on in my head and my heart kind of sunk. My answer to prayer was a man, and God's answer was challenging me with people to love to the greatest capacity, selflessly and unconditionally. I'm not saying that God has given me the most unlovable people necessarily, but He has challenged me with different friendships and how I should love people more than I have ever been challenged before since I moved to Massachusetts. Often I complain about how ungrateful, unthankful, and distant people are and how much it drives me crazy!!!!! Whoops. That wasn't the response God wanted me to have. Now I see that, even though I was a little less thrilled with the packaging, I see these situations more as opportunities than burdens and annoyances unlike before and that makes me excited. I always grasped that God could say no to something I wanted, but I never thought of this "disguised delivery" approach- that He was actually answering me just doing it in a way that wasn't even on my radar. So whatever it is you're praying and waiting to have answered, look in all the other places because there might be an answer you aren't seeing.

As cliche as it is, I'll end with this. I feel so lucky to have God who loves me when I am ungrateful, unthankful, and distant. He answers my prayers in ways I don't want in order to make me better in the end. He pursues me when I am my ugliest self, as He does with you as well. 

To me, that is pretty sweet. 

Thanks for reading and I hope it was an okay way to spend some time, 

T. Hall