A change of plans

I can remember a time when I had my life figured out – everything from what I wanted to be when I grew up to what I would major in to where I wanted to live. I was confident and felt blessed as I entered college and completed my first year, knowing my life plan while others around me seemed to gasp for air at just the thought of what would happen after college.

All that changed over the course of my second year as God began to speak to me in different ways. I knew he was telling me my life was not going to follow the path I had previously desired. I knew I needed to make a change. But I felt so comfortable, so set in my plans that I resisted. My first year of college, everything went the way I planned. I wasn’t about to change my life goal, everything I had worked for, just like that.

Fortunately, the more I resisted, the more miserable I became. I felt as if I were carrying a burden. My heart became heavy. I was scared, and I knew why. I thought God was asking too much of me. I grew nervous with the thought of him desiring me to do something I was not ready for. This was my life, after all, and I had a plan.

“I am the Lord’s servant. May it be to me as you have said.”

I wish I could say these words belong to me, my response to God’s gentle whispers. But these were the words of a young teenage girl after being told she would become pregnant through the Holy Spirit and give birth to a son. Not knowing what went through her head after hearing this, these words are all we have for understanding the character of the one who was highly favored by the Lord.

Hearing the words of the angel, Mary must have known the social ramifications this would bring for her and her family. I wonder if she was too overwhelmed at the time to think about it or if the fear of being stoned was in the forefront of her mind. Either way, her reaction is unbelievable. Her innocence is revealed in her question of how this would happen, which is followed by her response of faith and obedience.

“I am the Lord’s servant. May it be to me as you have said.”

This change in Mary’s life plan could have killed her. It could have lost her the man she was betrothed to. It could have caused her family to completely disown her. And her response? Complete trust that God had it all under control. Knowledge that she is not the author of her life, but she is the servant of the Lord.

I wish this had been my own response as God told me my life was about to change. Yet I resisted, and I didn’t even have to deal with the fear of death nor the fear of losing family over this change. Mary is one of the most inspirational women of history because of her obedience. We are not in control of our future. We do, however, have the choice of either obedience or resistance.

When I gave my future over to God and changed my major, which drastically changed everything about the direction of my life, I felt an unexplained peace. The burden vanished, my heart was no longer heavy. Now, with one semester left of college, I cannot imagine doing anything else. How could I not have trusted that God knew what he was doing? Why did I believe the lie that Satan fed me about not being ready to be used by God?

Mary was greatly troubled when the angel first revealed himself to her. But her fear did not stop her from trusting God and following the path he had for her. My prayer is that with each opportunity and each change God brings into my life, I will learn from my past and learn from Mary as I respond to the Lord.

“I am the Lord’s servant. May it be to me as you have said.”

  

   

Storming the beach

Imagine staring death in the face. Imagine knowing that you are about to die in a foreign country, and the majority of people whom you are dying for do not even know your name. Now imagine having the courage to continue on in the face of this almost certain death.

The men who fought gallantly during the D-Day Invasion did not have to imagine these things. They lived each one June 6, 1944. As 160,000 Allied troops approached the French coastline, there was no time for second guessing and no time for turning back in fear. There was only moving forward.

It takes more than courage to do something like that. It takes the belief that what you are fighting for is of greater worth than your life. These soldiers clearly believed that protecting this country, and the world, carried more importance than their own life. They were able to put aside everything of comfort and familiarity for the future of millions of people.

“We've got to remember the folks who did it and those who still do it – the one percent who go into harm’s way for the benefit of the (other) 99 percent,” Dave De Soucy, a retired officer who served in combat during the Vietnam War, said in an article on the United States Army’s website.

This day in United States history could arguably be one of the most important days in our past. This was the beginning of the end for Hitler. It was a huge step in ending World War II. But it was also the end of thousands of soldiers. Their last act on this earth was fighting for freedom for not only their family, but also for strangers.

How should this knowledge affect the way we as Americans live our lives? Should knowing that men who fought nearly 70 years ago to ensure that we can live in freedom influence us in any way?

If this knowledge affects anything, it should at least affect our pride in this country and in our soldiers. We should take pride in the fact that these men took enough pride in their country to give up their lives for its safety and for the safety of those living in it.  

“It is important that (people) recognize that the freedoms they enjoy today are a result of the sacrifice of millions of people from all over the world that ensured their liberty,” Joseph W. Westphal, under secretary of the Army, said in another article on the United States Army’s website. “No greater act of bravery was ever carried out than that of millions of citizen soldiers, and civilians, who faced and defeated tyranny and rebuilt this country and the world.”

This day should be an inspiration to those of us who may never stare death in the face. It should inspire us to be strong and stand up to whatever our personal Normandy beaches are. And, just as Dwight D. Eisenhower said, we should “accept nothing less than full victory” when we storm these beaches.

Killer clowns and paranoia

‘Tis the season to find your inner child through the completely acceptable tradition of dressing up as anything your heart desires, no matter your age. It is also the season of willingly paying money to walk through a dark house filled with goblins and clowns bearing chainsaws who jump out at you from corners, giving you what feels like the beginning of a heart attack.

I cannot watch horror movies, and I am petrified of clowns. But for some reason, I love walking through haunted houses. There is something oddly exciting about knowing that at any second someone or something could jump out in front of my face, causing me to scream in fear and cling to whomever is nearest me at the moment.

Knowing it is completely fake, and each person causing me to break out in a cold sweat is simply your average Joe with some clown makeup on, dispels any fears of actually being cut up into tiny pieces by the clowns with the chainsaws. Besides, according to a study done by the University of Westminster, you can burn more than 100 calories just from watching a horror film. Imagine how many you burn walking through a haunted house.

Each year, Liberty University puts on Scaremare, a haunted walk through creepy woods and an old house. Clowns, masked figures, insane people and goblins terrorize those walking through. Thankfully, they are not allowed to touch you, but they sure love getting up in your face or whispering in your ear.

Always traveling in groups of about six or seven, this year a young gentleman joined my group after losing his group, or so he told us. Walking through the haunted house, he stayed in the front, pointing out to us any hidden figures ready to pounce. He seemed to know exactly where to go through the maze of hallways, and my friend and I began to speculate if he really lost his group or if he worked for Scaremare. We questioned him, wondering if this was all a plot to gain our trust before turning on us and terrifying us in some way or another.

Denying our accusations with a smug little smile and a shake of his head, he continued to lead us on, and we continued to follow him, not knowing what else to do but accept the inevitable Mr. Hyde when the time came. After all, we knew the whole thing to be fake.

Well, as it turned out, walking through haunted woods and a creepy old house heightens paranoia because the poor kid really did just lose his group. I wonder what was going through his head as we told him that, since we were convinced he was a worker, we would not come save him if a clown dragged him off into the woods in an attempt to frighten the innocent college students.

I think it’s interesting how often we do this in our everyday lives. In today’s culture, we expect the worst. We find it a normalcy to hear about people enduring persecution, someone getting shot in Baltimore or a patient dying of cancer. Not to say we just shrug our shoulders and say “such is life,” but it has become something that we expect in this day and age.

On the flip side of that, when something like a faith healing or the pope washing the feet of prisoners occur, we look for another explanation. The faith healing was probably a hoax, and the pope probably had ulterior motives for his actions. Because we are so used to forgery and evil, it is difficult to take off our rose dipped in poison colored glasses.

I wonder how often God just smiles and shakes his head at us when we don’t believe that he is doing something wonderful in our lives because we are too caught up in figuring out how the good is actually out to get us. I know I am guilty of doing this. God will bless me with so many good things, and yet I cannot enjoy it because I will wonder when the world will rip the rug out from under my feet, causing me to fall on my face once again.

God desires to bless us and provide us with situations in life where we are reminded of his grace and goodness. There is evil in this world, and unfortunately we do not need to look too hard to find it. But God is leading the way through it, pointing out when to be strong against the attacks of the devil. We just have to trust he is going to work out everything for our good. We have to stop looking for excuses to not trust. We have to follow even when we don’t know where he is leading, even when we don’t know what he is planning.

The beauty of this is we do not have to worry that he is going to turn on us and then laugh as we recoil in fear. We can have absolute faith and trust that he is on our side, and he will lead us out of the darkness and away from the clowns hiding in corners. All we have to do is follow.

After his family approached him at the end of Scaremare, and our pride took a slight blow with the realization that we were wrong the entire time, my friend and I laughed at our paranoia. We knew how ridiculous we must have sounded in the midst of all our accusations and distrust. If we had just believed him from the start, it would have saved us a lot of added extra fear. But then again, I guess we wouldn’t have burned as many calories.