A Year in Humility: The Intro

It's Christmas break and I have been blessed with the time to really reflect on what God's done in me and through be during 2017! Woohoo! God's cool.
In January, I committed to learning about humility for the whole year, Ll 12 months. My church  in Greeley, Journey Christian Church, challenged everyone to pick a word that you would bring before God and focus on for the entire year. I would like to say that I chose "humility" but in reality, God chose that word for me. And let me just tell you, you'd better mean it when you tell God you want to learn about humility. Because He won't play around with that stuff.

It might be useful to begin with a brief summary of my 2017 so we both have an idea of my life events:
I wrapped up my freshman (sophomore?) year at UNC! It was an insane semester but I grew a heck ton. I went on a mission trip with Navs to Phoenix, AZ. I was chosen to be on leadership for The Navigators. I crowdsurfed for the first (and last) time. My brother and I road tripped to Salt Lake City because we had it in our minds that In-n-Out was worth a 9 hour drive there and back. (it wasn't.) Overall, quality semester.
Over the summer I did an internship with Open Door Ministries in Denver, CO. I wrote a series of 4 blog posts about that summer. So read those if you want to know about what I did and what I learned!
This fall semester was without a doubt the most difficult time of my life so far. I was faced with a lot of loneliness and feelings of inadequacy (more on that later). But a lot of really amazing things happened this semester like my incredible boyfriend and all the new friendships I formed and the freshmen in the Bible study I get to lead! So I can still say that God is faithful and good in all he does.

Throughout the year, God has shown me that my struggle with the sin of pride is truly a heart problem. Throughout my whole life I have learned what a humble person looks like; I'm good at playing the part. In 2017 God has shown me the many different forms pride takes in my life. He has shown me the ugly insides to all my actions and all my motivations. He has opened my eyes to the reality of my humility facade that had even me fooled. As I was reflecting, I was able to look at the specific ways I've grown and separate them into 3 categories:

• Humility in leadership
• Humility in my relationships with people
• Humility in my relationship with God

I want to dedicate a separate blog post to each of these categories so that our collective reflection on the practical implications can be more fruitful and I won't feel like I need to leave anything out. 

We will begin with leadership where I believe my pride is most obviously seen, then move on to my relationships with other people where I'll discuss my loneliness and how that relates directly to pride, and end with my relationship with God which is the most important and most influential to all aspects of my life. 

I'm really excited to dive right into my year of humility and remind myself of everything God has done this year and I hope you enjoy coming along with me!

Much love,

Amanda

TOIB #4: The Wrap-Up- A Reflection on Love

Okay so I finished my internship about a week or so ago. I figured I should write a final post to let all you readers know that I didn't have a terrible summer, even though my last post might convey that. And it may surprise you, but I left with a heavy heart.

My heart was heavy for the youth I had grown fond of. For the Learning Center with amazing kids and an even more amazing staff. For the other interns who were going back to their own schools or jobs. For the homeless people that were always there as I walked to work. For the city of Denver and all the lost and broken souls on its streets.

And as I reflect on my summer and all the people I met, I understand why I feel so soft towards a place that I so strongly disliked only a month ago. While I was there, and while I was writing my previous post, I was so focused on my own experience that I didn't fully realize that I was beginning to love Open Door and everyone there. And when all the crap went away, on my last week I began to feel it deeply for everyone I spoke to. Even for those who I didn't get along with very well or for those I rarely spoke to. I loved them. 

I could write a lot about Christ's love and all the different ways we should be loving each other. But I want to zero in on the Learning Center and how the love of Christ was so plainly shown to me during my time there. One of my best intern friends, Grace, worked primarily with the preschoolers. It was so cool to see how much she cared for and loved on these little ones. I remember one time we were talking about some of the more difficult kids. She said that she can love them through all their bad behavior because she knows that who they are right now is only a reflection of what is going on at home and around them. They aren't old enough to understand everything that's happening to them. So they act out.

These kids would scream and cry and kick and bite. They were often blatantly and intentionally disobedient to the rules of the classroom. I saw all the teachers get angry and frustrated. But it was always clear that they wanted the best for the children. They always forgave and always treated the kids with respect and love. Most people would say this is just an example of good teaching. And while they're not wrong, I saw such a deep and genuine love that it had to be divine. 

Another example of this love came when I heard a teacher apologize for the way she treated a kid. He was in time-out for whatever reason and I was lucky enough to eaves-drop on the conversation between the teacher and the kid. While she obviously still expected him to follow the rules and be respectful, she respected him enough to admit that she hadn't acted kindly and asked for his forgiveness. The amount of humility and vulnerability it took to apologize to the kid blew me away. It's not something you see from a lot of childcare workers.

Now, God's love for us has been compared to the way we love children so many times that I'm not going to pretend that I have any original thoughts on the topic. This was simply the first time I had been able to experience it and witness it and it truly blew me away. Their unconditional, vulnerable, overflowing love for children who weren't always pleasant to be around inspired me to be that way to everyone I meet.

This is the love I realized I was feeling towards the youth group; how badly I wish I had more time with them so I could get to know them even better. This is the love I felt for the homeless in that community that I didn't interact much with, but was always around; my heart hurts for the brokenness in that marginalized community. This is the love I felt for the other staff and interns at Open Door who give so much of their time in such a challenging environment. 

It was deep and it was forgiving and it was God-given. 

I pray God gives me the strength to live my whole life loving people like they do at Open Door. With understanding for unfortunate circumstances. With grace for past mistakes. With boundaries and healthy rebuking. With vulnerability of my own mistakes. 

Much love,

Amanda <3

I would absolutely LOVE to talk more about my internship. I had so many experiences that are impossible to write down on this blog. So if you're interested or have any questions about the ministry or what I did there, please reach out to me! I'd love to talk to you about it. 

TOIB #3: Being OK with Boring

I've grown to hate the question, "How's your internship going?"

It's asked by friends and family who (I think) genuinely care about me and what's going on in my life. Which is why it's so difficult for me to answer. 

If I'm being honest, the last few weeks of this internship have been incredibly difficult for me. I was hating my job in the kitchen because I kept screwing up and I didn't even want to be in the kitchen I wanted to hang out with youth. And I couldn't hang out with the youth because either they were gone on a trip or I was more needed in the kitchen. And I was angry about it all. After I spoke to my boss about it and received encouragement and some advice, I felt better. Until the next day when I lost my wallet and then the day after that when I wasn't able to stay within budget when buying all the food I needed for the Learning Center and the day after that when I lost my water bottle. 

I found myself moping around wondering why it sucked so much when I was doing exactly what God told me to do. If it was God's plan for me why was it terrible?

It took me weeks to work through all of that. Which is why I haven't blogged about any of my experiences; I haven't felt like I've had any experiences that were worth writing about. 

By the grace of God I was able to overcome most of those struggles. But I still found myself struggling with one other thing. That pesky question of "How's your internship going?" 

I have friends that are doing incredible things with their summer. They're camp counselors. They're in another country doing missions. They're at an intense discipleship camp with all their friends. And I see pictures being posted and I hear stories of God's amazing work being done in them and through them and then I look at myself and the work that I'm doing; I don't have any amazing stories or any great spiritual revelations. When people ask me that question, they don't want to hear about how I lost my wallet and everything sucks. They expect to hear about how great of a time I'm having and how I've seen God work in amazing ways and my life will never be the same after this. 

And I know that when I go back to college I'm going to be surrounded by these people who have incredible stories to tell from their summer and I won't know what to contribute.

Recently, though, I've learned some things. 

The first is that no work for the Lord should be done for your personal glory. It was incredibly prideful and selfish to hate the job just because it won't give me any interesting stories to tell. I'm envying the experiences that God didn't want for me right now, failing to look for joy and purpose in the work that God has for me. I was led to the book of Ecclesiastes because I figured if you're pretty bummed out and feel like everything sucks, Ecclesiastes will understand you. 

Ecclesiastes 3:12-13 says, "I perceived that there is nothing better for them than to be joyful and to do good as long as they life; also that everyone should eat and drink and take pleasure in all his toil- this is God's gift to man."

God's gift to man is to enjoy not only leisure but also work. I was choosing to hate this work that is God's gift to me. And when I am doing what God wants me to be doing, I should be joyful and confident that I'm doing good work. Good because He has called me to do it.

The second thing I've learned is that from the time Esther was crowned queen to the end of the book 6 years pass! I don't know why, but I thought it was like... six months or something like that. Go read Esther all the way through, but think about all the time that spanned between the events. What was Esther doing during all this time? Well the Bible doesn't tell us. But you can be certain that she was continuously learning more about God and ready to do his will. She was just chilling, doing her queen thing and also following the Lord. 

Similar to Esther, I had been reading Acts. A whole lot of amazing stuff happens in Acts. A lot of time passes as well; the Bible doesn't tell us exactly how much time the apostles spent in each city. But I know they didn't just show up, preach a sermon, and move on to the next city. What were they all doing in between their miracles and amazing messages? Well, following God and learning more about him. Always ready to do what He prompted them to do. Just because I don't have an amazing story to tell, it does not mean that I'm not doing good work. 

So I think I'm really in one of these in between moments. If my life were a Bible story, this summer might look like, "And she stayed in Denver for two months before moving on to Greeley." But it is no less important. Following God faithfully is not always going to be amazing noteworthy things happening. But that doesn't mean it isn't good or worthwhile. I need to just keep doing my thing and following Jesus, waiting for Him to tell me what His next big move is.

Much love,

Amanda

TOIB #2: Expectations

On this post, I want to focus a bit more on the specifics of what I'm going to be actually doing this summer and see where that takes me! This summer I and another intern are splitting our time between the youth group and the kitchen of the learning center!

Our responsibilities in the youth group are primarily to just be with the youth and form some relationships, as well as provide the practical support for the leaders, such as helping with meals and whatnot. So far I've been to 1.5 youth group nights and I love it. It reminds me a lot of my old youth group. I suppose youth groups are generally the same in most places; and teenagers are teenagers wherever you go. I've loved getting to know some of the high school girls and hearing about their passions and their struggles. Since youth ministry is something I've been interested in since 8th (ish) grade, I'm excited to get a taste for it and see if it is a thing I really want to consider doing regularly in my future!
I get to go camping with the youth as well as go to a summer camp with the middle school kids! The camp is run by Cru, which is a fairly popular campus ministry at UNC. I'm excited that it's with an organization that I know and can learn more about. I'm also excited to get more involved with middle schoolers since I tend to shy away from middle schoolers. It will really push me out of my comfort zone and give me exposure to something I wouldn't be doing otherwise.

The kitchen work will also push me out of my comfort zone and give me a lot of experiences I would never have otherwise. This summer I'll be not only cooking the meals for the elementary school kids, preschoolers, and youth group kids, but I'll also be planning the menus and shopping for the week. I've never grocery shopped for myself, let alone 40-some kids! I know it will take some getting used to. I'm afraid about how the week or so it takes for me to get used to the kitchen will affect the staff of the learning center and youth group. So I have to trust myself to catch on quickly and trust that I will receive grace if I do screw up the schedule.

This last week we've been in our actual internship rather than in training. And even though it has still been a lot of more specific training and getting used to things, it has given me a good idea of what this summer will look like. I came here with expectations of myself, the ministry, and my job. So far most of the expectations have changed. It's been a challenge to let go of my original expectations. I had been thinking and talking about this internship since March. So that's two or so months where I was trying to imagine what was going to happen to me this summer.
Living with all the other interns has been different than I expected.
My actual job responsibilities are totally different than I expected. Kitchen work was not on my radar when I applied for this internship.
The church itself is totally different than I imagined.
None of these things are bad the way they are. I love the other interns, and my job, and the church. But they aren't what I thought they'd be.
I hear people say that I shouldn't go into many things with expectations. The dining hall, my classes, any sort of relationship, etc. Apparently, you're just disappointed if you have any expectations. It's impossible to not make expectations. I've tried. So the conclusion I've reached is to have expectations but don't get married to them. Maybe take them on a few dates. Add them on Snapchat. But nothing serious. My problems don't come when I have expectations. It's when I'm disappointed that I didn't get what I wanted.
I find that my expectations put God in a box. How often do I expect God to do great and mighty and amazing things? Almost never. My expectations going into this internship were all about myself. The experiences I was going to have. How God was going to change me. Will God teach me amazing things this summer? Yeah. He already has. But I am not here for the sole purpose of being changed. I'm here to see God work. And when my expectations shift from my own experiences to God's majestic work, it doesn't matter what I'm doing.

The second day I was here, one of the youth directors was having a meeting with the parents of the youth. He said something that keeps coming to mind as I write this.
When we know what our why is, our what doesn't matter anymore. 
And because these last few weeks haven't been exactly what I wanted to be, I've had to shift my focus from the what and back to the why. I'm here because God wants me to be here. I'm here to learn about God's heart for the poor and homeless. I'm here to learn what it means to serve selflessly. And because I know that, I don't have to worry about all the specifics of what I'm doing and what's happening to me. I know the why will be accomplished and so I'm okay when the what changes under my feet.
Before now, I expected the what and not the why.
But now I'm expecting the why and I couldn't be more ready to see what's going to happen.

Much love,
Amanda.

The Obligatory Internship Blog #1: God is a Tagger

As some of you probably know, I'm just beginning my summer internship with Open Door Ministries!

Since I find that I tend to process things better through writing, I knew that I was going to have to start blogging about my experiences. If you're curious about what I'm doing with my time or just what God is doing in Denver right now, feel free to read along as I try to figure my thoughts out.
To start I want to give a little intro about Open Door and what it does. Open Door Fellowship began as a church meant to minister to the urban population of Denver, such as the homeless that unmistakably populate the streets. It's designed as a welcoming environment to show the urban population their value in God's eyes. Open Door Ministries was the natural outflow of a church whose main goal is to reach these people with the love of Christ and form long-term relationships.

You can learn more about Open Door Ministries HERE. They're doing some really cool stuff downtown!
What drew me to this place was the proximity to my own home. Living in north-east Aurora, I've driven down Colfax countless times and spent a large portion of my time hanging out in Denver. Denver is a place close to my heart. Having spent so much time here, I have come into contact with quite a few homeless people, always desiring to show them love but not knowing exactly how to do that without giving them handouts. I know the spots to avoid and I know that the city can be a dangerous place. But I am tired of being afraid of Denver and the people in the city. I am going into this internship eager to get used to Denver and ecstatic to get to know the stories of some of the people I would normally avoid eye contact with and rush by. 

During my time at ODM I will be working primarily with the youth program and the early learning center. Though I haven't done too much with either ministry yet, I am sure I will be writing about these two ministries very soon.

Until I get started with my normal responsibilities here, however, I have been in training with the other interns. There are 9 of us working in various ministries. We come from all across the country and from all different walks of life; so it's been really neat getting to know each of these people and how they ended up doing this internship. These training days have focused on the history of Open Door Fellowship/Ministries and the expectations they have for us this summer. These last few days have been jam packed with a lot of different awesome things that have made me think about the character of God and my place in his ministry. But, I'm only going to focus on one of these things so I'd love to tell you more about all the others if you ask me!
On the first day, we went on a prayer walk all around Open Door. We stopped by a lot of different spots around the area, our guide sharing some specific stories at each stop. There were far too many for me to share on this post; in fact, I can't even remember the specifics of all of them. But one specific part immediately caught my attention and hasn't left me alone since. It was near the beginning of the prayer walk; we were standing in an alley behind the post office by some dumpsters. This area was littered with... well... litter. The walls of the dumpster and the post office were covered in graffiti. We stopped to talk about gang activity in homeless youth. The man leading our walk asked why these people tag wherever they go. 

I had never considered before exactly why they do it. I just knew that tagging was vandalism and it was annoying when names and symbols were scrawled on the fences and garage doors of my neighborhood.
"They tag to be noticed," he said.
These individuals are longing for someone to know they exist, to know they are there. And so they write their names wherever they go so it's impossible to ignore their presence in the world. The very act of graffiti removal is acknowledgment of their presence.
This alone was enough to make me think. But our guide took it one step further.
"God is a tagger."
What? These taggers are gang members. How can this man compare God to these taggers?
As I chewed on it the rest of the day I began to realize what he could have meant.
God demands to be noticed. He writes his name wherever he has been and his presence is unmistakable. You can try to power wash him off the walls of your heart or paint over his signs on the doors of your soul but he is still there and his name will always come back to you.
Don't get it confused- God does not need your pity. He is not desperately hoping to be noticed like some of these taggers are. But his presence is unmistakable and permanent. And he will be noticed.

Another important aspect of this concept of God as a tagger brings me to Matthew 25:31-45. This passage is the one usually brought up when someone is talking about providing for the poor. Just a quick summary of this passage:You got your sheep and you got your goats. God is separating them during the final judgement. After he lets all the sheep into Heaven, God's turns to the goats and says, "Hey I was in need and you didn't help me." And the goats are like, "What we never saw you in need." And God says, "Truly, I say to you, as you did not do it to one of the least of these, you did not do it to me." These goats represent the people were not following him, or those who said they were but didn't act like it.
God wants us to look at those who are lost and broken with as much compassion and love as we would if it was God himself in that situation. Isn't that crazy?

I encourage you to think about these concepts as I continue to process them. As always, I would love to know your thoughts as conversation is a key part in any learning process.
I'm hoping to be able to publish a blog at least once a week! So be on the lookout for that!
I love you all!

-Amanda