Praise

I ponder in a moment of unbridled beauty found in the benevolent blessing of our Father God...

We rest and are thankful, deep to the core, because of the blessed reassurance that our lives, each moment to the next, have been handcrafted and uniquely shaped according to the will of God. Not a moment has been left out; each relationship formed, circumstance encountered, and situation presented are woven together in a tapestry of immeasurable worth.

Praise be to this Father, this Master Weaver, for by His plan we, the most futile of instruments, can make His glory known.

How can it be that this Almighty One has reached down and invested in such lowly creatures, that He has redeemed this broken creation from the pit, that beautiful restoration and power has been offered to us? For this unprecedented grace, we are joyful beyond words.

Praise be to this Father, this Redeemer, for without Him, we are nothing.

Today is a day for rejoicing, a day for loud praise, and tears of joy, for we have been granted life and life abundant. The power that conquered death on the cross rests in the very depths of our souls. By this power, we are blessed to bring glory to God.

Praise be to this Father, this Giver of Life, for by Him, we have purpose.

Spring Hill Family Camp 2012

This past memorial day weekend, the Billman family + our two "honorary Billmans" AJ and Nate headed up to one of my favorite places on the whole planet: Spring Hill. 

It's a trip we look forward to every year, not only because we get to spend some quality family time together, but also because we get to hang out with all of our favorite Michigan peeps! Although we had one day of rather yucky weather, the long awaited trip didn't disappoint. 

We enjoyed TONS of yummy food, good conversation, and some good 'ole camp activities. 

 Here we all are! 7 families wit 41 kids!! 

This day...

THIS is the day that the Lord has made; let us REJOICE and be glad in it! 

Psalm 119: 24

When I consider your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars, which you have set in place,

what is mankind that you are mindful of them, human beings that you care for them? 

Psalm 8:3-4 

The heavens declare the glory of God; 
    the skies proclaim the work of his hands.

Psalm 19:1 

 

 He has made everything beautiful in its time. He has also set eternity in the human heart; yet no one can fathom what God has done from beginning to end.

Ecclesiastes 3:11 

How many are your works, Lord!
    In wisdom you made them all

Psalm 104:24 

Who's your library lady?

There's this story. It's about a lady and a library, and it goes a lil like this...

Once upon a time, there was a young Christian woman. In her devotions and church sermons, she had continually felt convicted to share her faith more with non-believers, and so she prayed, "Lord, give me someone to share you with." 

Let it be known, when you ask God to bring you someone to share your faith with, He WILL deliver. 

For our young friend, God uniquely delivered at the library of all places. As she perused the aisles of her neighborhood library, she saw a woman come in the doors. This woman seemed a little out of sorts. Our friend watched as she bumbled down one of the aisles. And then there was that unmistakable knock. 

"She's the one." 

"No, God, no; not at the library; you can't give me a woman from the library!" 

"She's the one; she needs to know about my love. Tell her, tell her." 

The prodding was strong, but the fear of embarrassment overwhelming. "I can't, God, I just can't; not at the library." So she picked up the book, checked out at the counter, and walked out the door. To her knowledge, the library lady didn't hear about Jesus that day. 

That's the story, the story of the lady and the library. 

The story is actually not about me, but I do have many of my very own "library ladies." Last year, I had the privilege of learning about Mormonism, and specifically, how (as a Christian) to share the message of the gospel with Mormons. After that unit in my class, I prayed, "God, bring me a Mormon." That sounds a little silly, but that's what I asked, and that's exactly what I got. In fact, God even made it easy for me. Unbeknownst to me, the girl that I sat next to every single day in my public school Spanish class was a Mormon. After I prayed for God to bring me a Mormon to witness to, I discovered this convenient fact. So one day in class, I invited my Spanish compañera to go to coffee with me sometime with the hopes that we could maybe talk about our beliefs. So far so good, right? Yeah, well, I never followed through. Just like my friend at the library, I let the fear of rejection and embarrassment keep me from sharing my faith. 

God called me and I failed to step up. I failed to share the good news. I failed to proclaim the glory of redemption. 

I think about my library lady often. I wonder if she ever heard the good news; I wonder if she ever will hear the story of her redemption. In the deepest parts of my heart, I long to know that someone else stepped up to be used by God, when I failed to do so. God could have used me to bring Him glory, but I was absent. 

Dear friends, do not be absent; do not fail to step up. Do not make anyone your library lady. 

We have the greatest of news to proclaim. Who cares if we share it at the library or in Spanish class, on the soccer field or in the McDonald's parking lot? 'cause this message is THE ONLY ONE worth sharing! 

Because I should be studying...

Because I'd rather do anything besides study, or really anything productive at all, I think I'll just blog my late afternoon away.

Woah. I have one day left of freshman year. One day until I'm a big bad Sophomore. Pure craziness. 

This year has been unbelievable in more ways than one. God has begun a process of growing me into what I hope will be a young woman serving the least of these with bold, unshakeable faith. You'd do well to notice the process of growing me part, because I have a loooong way to go. 

But I've begun the process nonetheless.  

With one foot in front of the other, I've marched forward this year albiet sometimes reluctantly. I think my idealistic visions of what this year would look like inhibited my progression because, well, my incurable idealism blindly ignored a few barriers that were standing in the way of the road. 

Barrier #1? Otherness. Dealing with, living near, and loving on others, people who are not like me. 

Ok, I'm just going to let the cat out of the bag. People are hard to love (even the ones you like). Living in relationship with other sinful humans is infuriating, painful, just plain hard. Somehow I seemed to have forgotten that fact when I came to school. I thought it was going to be easy to love others like Jesus loves me. I thought that God would surely conjure up in me this uncanny ability to love past the undesirable in other people. heh heh um, not quite. For much of this year, I've struggled to love. Not the people who are close to me, like my friends or family or boyfriend, more like the people who aren't like me. The people who believe "weird" things, who don't share my political opinion, who go to parties and drink, who drive me absolutely bonkers. These are the people I've struggled to love. But I believe whole-heartedly that God placed these people around me to help me vanquish this persistent barrier. He wanted me to see that He loves all of us, not matter the differences! I also think that I needed to see that sometimes I need to rely on the power of God to help me love. 

Barrier #2? Intentionality. 

Confession: Before I came to college, I pulled out my repertoire of colorful markers and paper and made schedule after schedule, calendar after calendar, in anticipation for what my days would look like as a Hope College student. Then I got here, and well, let's just say that those colorful schedules made it about a week. I let the whirr of "newness" demolish even the best of my intentions. I began to procrastinate the very things I promised would never again eliminate from my schedule: time set aside for devotions and focused prayer. With a few days of rationalization ("Oh, I'll do my devotions later today"), my daily time with God became sporadic at best. So how has God been tackling this barrier? Well, He's shown me that being intentional with my time is of vital importance, and that if I am not intentional about it each day, I'll fall wayward. 

Barrier #3? A Full Circle. This one isn't exactly a barrier, more just a lesson, but we'll just stick with the theme. 

The past 5 years or so haven't been the most stable for me. Not that I experienced anything incredibly traumatic, just not really stable. If you read this blog often or know me personally, you know that my family has moved a couple of times the last few years. You may also recall that I don't exactly do the best with change (understatement of the year). Well, I can say confidently that this year God has brought things very "full circle." For awhile, I was just very confused and mad that God would keep mixing up "my" plans, but something funny happened this year. I ended up at Hope, which is unequivocally the place that I am supposed to be for undergrad. I met so many people that I would not have had the chance to know if we hadn't moved. This realization, that God knows exactly what He is doing, has made me fall ever further and faster in love with Him. 

I could probably go on and on about the lessons from this year, but this post is already a million miles long, so I'll contain myself ;) Hope you enjoyed the last post from a Hope College Freshman version of Ellie. 

To finish...here are some of my favorite pictures from this year...ENJOY :D 

Extenders of Forgiveness

Um, can you say convicting? 

How often do we hold on to our bitterness, choosing not to forgive? How often do we refuse to be the first one to "say we're sorry" because the other person hurt us worse? 

We say to ourselves, "I'll apologize after they apologize to me first." or "If I forgive them right away, then they won't know they did anything wrong." 

There are two HUGE problems with this way of thinking: #1 a very skewed perception of our own depravity and #2 a very underestimated view of God's grace. 

I think the general line of thinking, especially in the Western world, is that humans are essentially good. We want to believe the best about ourselves, and we generally do just that. When we do something "a little wrong," there is always a justifiable reason, a circumstantial anomaly for why we had to do what we did. Here's the problem: Humans are not essentially good. I'd argue (with quite a bit of Biblical backup) the very opposite. We largely underestimate the depth of our rebellion against God and the sinfulness that it implies. We are wicked, wicked creatures. You may think that sounds far too harsh, but the penalty for your existence apart from Christ is hell. Eternal separation from God, that the prize for your "basically good" existence. 

Ok, so now that I've gone all doomsday on you, let me brighten up the picture a little bit. Yes, we are more wicked than we could ever imagine, but God's grace is greater than we could ever dream (credit to J.D. Greear for that little saying). In spite of our rebellion, we have been covered. The inexcusable has been forgiven in us. Slate, wiped clean. No "paying us back," no "waiting to forgive until we ask first." Jesus died on the cross for your sins and mine before we ever realized the depth of our sin against God. 

Shouldn't that change our perspective of forgiving others? If God has forgiven the inexcusable in me, should I not extend that to others, whether or not I feel like they deserve it? In these 18 years I've lived, I've figured out that most of the time people probably don't deserve forgiveness for what they've done. 

Did I deserve forgiveness when I inflicted painful wounds upon Christ through my idolatry and rebellion? Definitely not. Did God give it to me anyway? You better believe it! Just because someone may not deserve our forgiveness, does not mean that we're allowed to withhold it. God did not withhold His forgiveness from us. 

SO...Let's be extenders of forgiveness. Unconditional, restoring, freeing forgiveness. 

The Desires of my Heart

Like every other idealistic college student, this girl's got some dreams; and let me tell you, people, they are BIG. Not because I'm ambitious or extraordinarily gifted (ambitious...maybe; gifted...no quite), but because I serve a big, big God who is determined to use a feeble creature like me to make His glory known.

So just what are these big 'ole dreams?

Well, since you asked...I want to be a momma, a missionary nurse, an advocate for orphans and the oppressed, and a bold voice for Jesus. I want a family knit together through adoption, a medical ministry in Africa, and unspeakable evidence of God's work in my life. If you want a mental picture of that, think Ellie, a husband, and 8 or so kids in an African village with bright smiles filled with the joy of Jesus. Something along those lines :)

Maybe none of those things will happen, or maybe, just maybe, all of them will.

I haven't a clue what is going to happen, but his I will tell you: I am ready and oh-so-willing to follow whatever God's plan is for my life. I'm officially done planning the rest of my life based on the so-called American Dream. I don't want a big, fancy house and a cushy retirement fund. I don't want to live in complete comfort and safety where I can so easily lose sight of my need for God. I want the opportunity to bring the love of Christ to the least of these, to rely on God daily for my needs, and to be used to bring God's redemption to the broken lives of His children.

So this is a post to all the blog world; I'm here and saying, "Here I am, God, send me!"

OH, and an important side note!

I sincerely doubt God would have ever cultivated these desires in my heart without the influence of some tremendous men and women so...

THANK YOU to all the men and women in my life who have modeled Christ-centered, gospel centered lives so clearly. To mention a few specifically...
Mom and Dad: For leading me to Christ, for bringing me up in the way of the Lord, and for covering me in prayer from the moment I took my first breath
Michigan small group folks (Aspergers, Adams, Rachors): For being bold advocates for the orphan, for modeling Christ-centered families, and for being unbelievably God-centered role models for a hopefully some day mom

You all may never know the full impact your wisdom, love, and examples have had on my life. I can assuredly say to you, God has used you greatly!