Uncategorized|Jane Caroline

There’s something funny about seeing people flock outside to see the meager flakes fall at midnight or go sledding on an inch of slush on trash can lids and Tupperware.

Not everything is bigger in Texas (our inch can’t compete by any means) but I think our excitement outdid the entire nation.

Ah snow day.

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Power for the Powerless

Posted by Caroline on Feb 2, 2011 in Amazing Grace, Uncategorized | 0 comments

The power is out all across Waco, which gloriously means that the office is closed and therefore my morning is slow as molasses. Wonderful. Needed.

my favorite part of snow days [in Missouri where we got legitimate snow days] was the feeling that 24 hours just got added to life. You planned on going to school, but instead, school was going to wait for you as you slept in and played in the snow and read and had fun with friends and neighbors came over.

this morning I feel like the world has stopped just to let me refocus and get ready when the power comes on again. I’m at Panera doing homework and reading, but since nothing is pressing, it’s as if I have yet another chance to learn how to see God in the daily activities. Why do I limit Him so much?

A Mark Driscoll sermon on Mary and Martha has challenged me greatly.

{aside– the power at Panera just went out and everyone hollered}

::: here’s a perfect example of our Martha world! We run run run run and have endless to do lists all striving to meet an earthly treasure that will eventually fade. I’m wired to work– certainly God’s design is for us to work effeciently and with purpose with our Martha to-do lists, but we were intended first to sit at the feet of Jesus as Mary did. So simple, yet so foundational and impacting.

maybe power-outages are our God-given gifts to be Mary. maybe we need to make a few power-outages for ourselves. maybe God desires for his people to say when earthly power shuts down, find My power, My strength, My design. maybe this is a glimpse that our power is nothing compared to working with the LORD in His Power.

our power leaves us weary

tired

burnt out

overworked

but the LORD’s strength says do not become weary, you are working on behalf of My Kingdom, you are a conqueror, my dear child.

the power never goes out on the Word of God. May I meditate on it all day.

Set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth. For you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God. When Christ who is your life appears, then

you also will appear with him in glory.

Colossians 3:2-4

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Ways to Generate Humility #4

Posted by Caroline on Jan 25, 2011 in The Backpack, Uncategorized | 0 comments

Take Beginning Bicycling.

Wear a helmet, put on intense biking gear, and ride 5 MPH around campus in a huge clump of your classmates. For complete humility, pass the message “CAR!” telephone-style down the line and use obnoxious hand signals.

Welcome to Bicycling 101 :]

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Wilderness

Posted by Caroline on Jan 9, 2011 in Amazing Grace, Uncategorized | 1 comment

One semester left.

I’m finishing undergrad and starting seminary all at the same time.

It’s as if worlds have collided.

I’ve officially laid my sorority letters to the side and picked more theology books than my brain can comprehend. Yet, I’m still very much a college student– my love for Common Grounds or the Bear Trail has changed not.

Thus, I’m stuck in this little transition year where one thing has not quite finished while the other has started. It’s a collision of stages of life. At the Truett Seminary orientation, one of the intro devotionals talked about seminary being a time of wilderness– defining wilderness as a time when one stage of life has finished before another has begun. It’s like a big pause button.

The professor looked to the Israelites and their time between being released from Egypt but not yet brought into the promised land. During the wilderness time the Israelites were completely dependent upon the LORD. They waited upon His gourmet manna– dry and boring and yet it was the perfect provision. They had no direction or modern day GPS or really any goal but to wander behind a cloud and a fire. Finally, years later, they entered the much awaited for land- the land dreamed about, worked for, longed for– the promised land.

Then this question caught me:

What was the best time for the Israelites?

Surely the Israelites would say that entering into the promised land was the highlight of the wanderings. God finally revealed His glory by blessing His people in a way that EVERYONE could see.

But… what would God say was the best time? Not that we speculate on the heavenly thoughts of the LORD, but surely He would have enjoyed the time with the Israelites in the desert. Not that he got joy from watching His people suffer– and grumble a lot– but because they were dependent upon Him for every need. He was able to provide and his provision be patiently waited for. God was near His people, and His people were continually looking to Him.

My wilderness isn’t the traditional “life pause” in between stages of life, but perhaps the merging of the two stages is an inverted wilderness in itself and a wilderness nonetheless.

Instead of looking at the wilderness as a season to endure until I come to the promised land, I want to see the wilderness as an opportunity to know my Father– see how He provides, how He loves, how He gives strength, and maybe see a glimpse more of who He is.

Here’s to the wilderness. It’s a good good thing.

p.s. Isn’t the wilderness beautiful? Pictures taken in Estes Park.