Thank You Thursday (#1)

 

 by woodleywonderworks

   OK, so I'm a day late, but I got the idea on a Thursday.
     Last night, Amy and Joe Jamrock invited Sarah and I to attend a fundraising/celebration dinner for Frontline Foundations - a fantastic Christian substance abuse treatment center based here in Chesterton, IN.  The keynote speaker was Tim Sanders - former Yahoo executive and author of Love Is the Killer App.   
     One of Tim's key points was the amazing positive power of gratitude.  Study after study shows that being grateful tremendously boosts our own attitudes, energy, and even health.  However, recent studies are also proving that expressing our thanks to others also acts as a huge boost to those around us.  That just makes sense.  We all like to get thanked, and we feel a little better when someone tells us that our hard work or little kindnesses are actually making a difference in the world.  Tim encouraged all of us to write one thank you letter a week to someone who has helped us.
     I love that idea so much that I'm creating a new thing (at least for me) - Thank you Thursdays.  Every Thursday, I plan to write and to post a short but specific blog or facebook post thanking someone for a specific way they have helped me or improved the world around me within the past seven days.

    So consider this my first Thank you Thursday note for Joe and Amy for inviting me to an awesome night with the Frontline crew.  It was great to hear their stories, to be encouraged by Tim, and to spend some time with you.  Thanks guys.

     Feel free to make this viral and start a storm of thank you letters on Thursdays.  Really, if thanksgiving is so good for us and everyone around us, why should we limit it to one Thursday a year?

Vision Sunday 2012

Today, we are celebrating our vision as a church.  We are celebrating what God has been doing among us over the past year, and we are looking forward to how God will do more and more next year.  To help us understand this on more personal terms, three separate people will come up at different times and share how God has been working in their lives.  Each person will tell how God has made one part of our vision real for them this year.

Vision Story #1 - Renewed by God’s Love:  Sarah Bean

I’ve been a Christian all my life.  My parents were pastors.  The church has always been my home.  I have grown up knowing that God loves me.  That is not a new thing for me.  But this year, I have begun to experience God’s love in a new way. 

For those of you who know me well, you know that I’ve had a rough time this past year.  I’ve been under a lot of stress at school.  I’ve been homesick for my family.  I have struggled with doubts.  You know those kind of unanswerable questions of faith – Why do bad things happen to good people?  If God is taking care of me, why do I feel uncared for?  If God can do anything, why doesn’t he step in to help me?  Is God even listening to my prayers?  What does God want from me?  I think that every person who believes - at some point or another - will have seasons of struggle, where you feel silence, where you feel alone, where you feel lost.

Again for those of you who know me well, you know that I’m a bit of a perfectionist.  I pride myself on being good.  And I’m good at being good.  I’m responsible.  I do what I am supposed to.  I do the right thing.  I want to make my parents proud.  I want to please people.  I want to please God.  I want him to be proud of me.

Part of my crisis this past year has been the reality that even though I’m doing all the right things, I still feel lost.  Even my best effort falls short of perfect.  Sometimes the best you can do just isn’t good enough.  We are all a bit broken – and we can’t fix ourselves up.

In the midst of this struggle, I have experienced a beautiful truth that I have always known.  God loves me.  God doesn’t just love the things I can do – God loves ME.  Broken, messed up, doubting, lost little me.  And there is nothing I can do to make God love me more. He already loves me to the max.  He loved me to the cross.  He loved me before I was even capable of loving him back.

With all of my failures and all of my fears and all of my weaknesses – He sees me with my faults, he knows me for the mess that I am – and he still loves me!  He calls my name, and says, “Daughter, you belong to me, and I am proud of you.”  He doesn’t ask me to be perfect.  He doesn’t ask me to fix myself.  All he asks of me is to fall into his hands as broken as I am.  

I think we all know God loves us.  But this year I have come to experience that truth.  Not just on an intellectual level, but deep in my core.  And I am thankful beyond what any words can say.  I am thankful even for the painful journey that brought me to this place.  I don’t know where you are right now, what doubts you may be wrestling with, what pain you may be experiencing – But hang on…because God loves you!  He loves you to the max!  There is nothing we can do to make God love us more!  Even in desert places of dark and silence, he is there – waiting for us to experience in a fresh way the renewal of his love.