Summer is winding down. Actually. It’s over. It’s Monday afternoon, and I’ve been up since 6:00 this morning. I’ve been to two classes and been assigned readings. I guess the start of another school year was inevitable – it couldn’t stay summer forever. Don’t get me wrong, there’s a huge part of me that is excited, hopeful, ready, and eager to start my senior year of college. I feel rejuvenated and ready to take on another year and learn how to be the best educator I can be. But there’s also a part of me that just isn’t ready to let this summer go. Saying goodbye to summer and hello to school is bittersweet. There’s so much to look forward to, but so much I’m not ready to let go of just yet.
A few years ago, I stopped making New Year’s Resolutions. I never thought it made sense to quit biting my nails or to get in shape or eat healthy. My New Year’s Resolutions inevitably fail, and after a long conversation with a dear friend, I decided to stop making them. Instead, I decided to choose one word (or a few words) and frame my year around that word. I would pray over the word and generally try to frame my decisions, my thoughts, and my actions around this word. My posture toward the year very much came from this word … or words.
I’ve been using this framework for a few years now, and it’s given me fresh perspective and rejuvenated my thinking toward New Year’s every year. I have a definite posture toward the year, and something to be challenging me throughout the entire year. I’ve even started to utilize this system in other areas of my life. Whenever I have a fresh start, I get out my post-its and make some words that I’d like to see lived out in the experience.
Only, I didn’t do it for this summer. And I’m not sure why, because this summer has been life-changing for me. I mean it, life-changing. I’ve had once-in-a-lifetime experiences packed on top of one another, without much time in between. I’ve gone from place to place and lived out of a suitcase. It’s been exhausting in the best possible way, entirely too much fun, and more challenging than I would have ever imagined. I’ve had my heart and my mind and my soul challenged and expanded and transformed in ways I didn’t think were possible. God has healed, transformed, comforted, redeemed, and strengthened my spirit. With every experience I’ve had this summer, I have become something more than I previously was; always growing, always learning, and always being made new by His grace and mercy. I knew this summer was going to be big before it even happened. How could it not be? Five weeks in Italy? A month spent working at a Young Life camp? Leading my first camp trip? How could it not be indescribably amazing?
But I can’t, for the life of me, figure out why I didn’t come up with some words to be praying on throughout my summer. Silly, Erin. Missing out. But, it’s okay, because I’m realizing that I have a list of words that were my summer. And even if I wasn’t praying over them specifically, they were still on my heart and a part of my life. Even though I couldn’t verbalize them while they were happening, I think God presented them to me through experiences and revealed Himself to me through that.
Not a coincidence, but a few of these words are on my ‘2011 Words’ list that I made in January. They are words that I have been praying on and hoping for, and God answers prayer. I have lived out these words, in addition to new words. They have shaped and grown me this summer. I am so, so grateful for that.
BITTERSWEET. BECOMING. GRATITUDE. HEALING. STORY. SURRENDER. TRANSFORMATION.
BITTERSWEET. Bittersweet is an idea that I have become so attuned to after reading Shauna Niequist's book Bittersweet. The idea that there is both something sweet and something bitter in every experience just rings so true. My summer has been defined by bittersweet. Every experience has had elements of both good and bad. Both light and dark. Both productive and challenging. Both exciting and scary. Both hopeful and weary. It's been a constant mix of bittersweet, and I'm realizing that in some capacity, that's just how life works. It's bittersweet and beautiful. And I've lived it everyday of this summer and continue to live it in my time at home.
BECOMING. I think I heard this phrase from a friend, but I also know Brennan Manning uses it in one of his books. It's one of those statements that has stuck with me ever since I heard it. It's the idea of surrendering to the adventure of becoming. The idea that by surrendering our lives to Christ and choosing to follow Him, we're becoming something more than we have previously been. Which makes me think of one of my favorite verses, Mark 8:35. For whoever wants to save their life will lose it, but whoever loses their life for me and for the gospel will save it. When we lose our life for Christ, we gain completely new life. By His grace, we're made into something MORE. We become more of who are we in Him. I like the way Shauns Niequist talks about becoming in Bittersweet also:
I’m more certain than ever that prayer is at the heart of transformation. And also that God’s will has a lot more to do with inviting us to become more than we previously have been than about getting us to one very specific destination. God’s will, should we choose to engage in it, will generally feel like surgery, rooting out all the darkness and fear we’ve come to live with.
My life this summer, and this year really, and my whole life if I'm being honest, is about becoming. Every experience and every opportunity is a chance for me to follow God's will and become something more. In so many ways, this summer has been about becoming. About rooting out and dealing with darkness in my heart and surrendering it to Jesus and finding healing and being challenged and being dependent and becoming through that.
GRATITUDE. Extreme thankfulness. My heart has been in a state of gratitude for everything I have had the opportunity to experience this summer. I'm beyond grateful for the people I know and have come to know through this summer. I am thankful for my family. For the experiences that God has allowed me to have and for the ways that He has revealed Himself to me and grown me through them. I am grateful for His provision - which is so much more timely than anything I could want or need. I am grateful for how BIG and yet how PERSONAL He is and for how He works in our lives and through our lives to tell His love story. Every experience this summer has left my heart feeling so full of gratitude and so full of praise for the ways that God is good.
HEALING. He brought healing. Healing from bitter old resentments and from pent up anger over old friendships. God heals. Through prayer and conversations and spending time in scripture, God heals. My summer, in so many ways, has been marked by healing, by finally letting go of the past and being open to the ways that He wants to heal and work in my heart.
SURRENDER. One of my words for this year is surrender, and it's been particularly salient this summer. I've been invited to surrender who I am on my own, my own shortcomings, and brokenness.Through that, God has shown up and done an amazing work. He redeems, restores, and rejuvenates our souls if we surrender. If we lose our lives for His sake, we'll find new life.
STORY. Every experience I have had this summer has become a part of my story. The challenges, the relationships, the ups and downs, and the highs and lows, the changes and new beginnings, it's all become a part of who I am. This summer is a part of a story that continues to be written. Our stories are so powerful. And when we tell them - when we tell the stories of brokenness and weakness and defeat and despair - and when we tell the stories of redemption and healing and light and strength - we're actually telling God's story. His story is about light overcoming darkness and about life coming out of death. And it's happening in every one of our lives. And doesn't that deserve to be told? Over and over and over again until we're blue in the face?
TRANSFORMATION. This is definitely the most accurate word to describe my summer. Through every experience, every packed and unpacked suitcase, every plane ride and road-trip, every tear and every belly laugh, every big cookie and every plate of pasta, He has made me new. He has transformed my heart, my spirit, my soul, my being ... into something more than it previously was. And I by no means have my life figured out in any way ... but I am clinging to the truth that He has made me new and continues to make me new. He is with me now, in a classroom in downtown Chicago, just as much as he was on the shores of Italy and the craft cart at Castaway.
That’s my summer. I couldn’t let it go without writing about how truly, truly amazing it was and how indescribably grateful I am for how it has become a part of my story. I've learned things and grown in ways that I will continue to see lived out in my life in Chicago.
Summer is ending, that's for sure. I'm sitting in a classroom now, waiting for class to start. Thinking about life in the past three months and life in the months to come. And inevitably, brainstorming a list of words to be lived out this fall.
If you made it through all that, thank you. And just because I promised:
Summer is ending, that's for sure. I'm sitting in a classroom now, waiting for class to start. Thinking about life in the past three months and life in the months to come. And inevitably, brainstorming a list of words to be lived out this fall.
If you made it through all that, thank you. And just because I promised:
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