My big fat Greek family

The impact that one person can make on a family can be incredible. I saw this in action this past weekend as I celebrated my great aunt’s 90th birthday. I was not celebrating alone, however. The side of the family that my great aunt belongs to is Greek, so as you can imagine, I was celebrating with more than 50 family members!

It was fascinating to look out across the room and watch a sea of people that I lovingly call my big fat Greek family celebrate together. Some people I was meeting for the first time, while others I had only met once or twice before this party. The part that fascinated me the most was the fact that I have a large number of family members that I know absolutely nothing about. And to think that they all came from just one young girl’s decision to sail across the ocean from Greece to America.

It kind of scares me to think how our decisions impact those around us, even those who aren’t in our lives at the present moment. If my great grandmother had not gotten on that boat, then I never would have been able to enjoy the pleasures of baklava, Greek dancing or loud Greek relatives.

As I watched everyone throughout the party visiting, laughing, dancing and eating, I thought of how much courage my great grandmother must have had to venture out at the age of 14 to a place that was completely foreign to her. I was wondering if I would have that same courage. Would I be able to leave my family and start an adventure in a place that I really know nothing about?

And then I thought maybe I don’t have to know if I would have the courage. Maybe I just have to learn from her and from my great aunts and uncles who carried on her legacy. We spend too much time wondering if we have what it takes. If we were in such and such a position, would we have the courage and stamina to do what that person did?

But I think we have it all wrong. The most rewarding thing that we can do is to learn from the courage and the decisions that were made before us in order to strengthen our own decisions.

Whenever I think of people like my great grandmother, I feel inadequate, because I picture myself not being strong enough if I were ever in their position. But that is not the impact that they wanted to leave us. I think that my great grandmother would rather have me learn to be courageous in my own ways instead of wondering if I would have the courage to do what she did.

This past weekend, I saw just how many people have learned from this courage. Just the fact that we were celebrating a 90th birthday proves how my great grandmother’s dedication and perseverance has trickled down throughout the rest of her family. That and her love for koulourakia!

Whispers and knocks

There are things in life that I take for granted. Take keys, for instance. Have you ever thought about how much they add to the convenience of life?

If you want to really appreciate your keys, just do what Karen and I did the other morning: Lock yourself out of your dorm at 8:15 on a Sunday morning when nobody is awake to open the door for you. Oh, and you should also leave your phone inside your dorm so that you have no way of contacting the inside world.

Sunday morning, Karen and I helped our third roommate bring the last of her things out to her car. As we watched her drive away, we realized that we had just landed ourselves in a difficult predicament.

First we tried knocking on the front door, but to no avail. We then decided to knock on our friends’ window because we knew that someone in the room was awake, but there was no answer. The back door was a futile idea, as was looking in every single window for any sign of life. So we returned to our friends’ window.

I happen to know that their window is broken, so I thought we could just climb in the window. The worst that could happen would be that we would wake up our friend who was still sleeping. I slowly started to lift the screen, but before I could do anything else the blinds shot up and we saw our two friends, one at the window and the other cowering in the corner. Apparently, our sleeping friend had woken up to our whispers and knocks and thought we were murderers coming in through the window to kill her in her sleep.

Hearing it from her perspective, I can understand why she would be afraid of our whispers and knocks. She couldn’t really hear what we were saying through the window. She was afraid of what she might find if she opened the blinds. As humorous as this story is, I couldn’t help but think of how we do the same thing to God.

Now, I am in no way comparing Karen and myself to God! Maybe this is a bit of a stretch, but doesn’t God knock on the windows of our hearts only for us to be too scared to answer? We jump to the conclusion that something we are not prepared for is about to happen. That something is going to enter our lives that will hurt us or damage our lives in some way. We leave our blinds closed because we don’t want to see what is out there. If we just open the blinds, we’ll see that there is nothing to be afraid of.  God’s whispers are not meant to scare us, they are meant to cause us to respond to him. To open the blinds and let him inside our hearts.

Sunday morning I was taught two lessons. Both are critical life lessons and should be taken very seriously: Do not be afraid to open the blinds of my heart when God is whispering and knocking, and never forget to bring my key with me if I’m outside the dorm before 9:00 a.m.   

               

The beauty of the gospel

Have you ever been reading scripture and something just jumps out at you unexpectedly? It doesn’t matter if you have read it a hundred times – God always seems to surprise you with new things to learn from familiar verses.

Recently, I was reading through the book of James and had this experience. I have read these verses so many times, but God chose to show me something different this time as my eyes took in the verses about temptation and about gifts that God gives to each of us.

The verses that I read were James 1:13-17 which state, “When tempted, no one should say, ‘God is tempting me.’ For God cannot be tempted by evil, nor does He tempt anyone; but each person is tempted when they are dragged away by their own evil desire and enticed. Then, after desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin; and sin, when it is full-grown, gives birth to death. Don’t be deceived, my dear brothers and sisters. Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights, who does not change like shifting shadows.”

The first few things that God showed me tied in with the verses about not blaming God for temptation and realizing that God does not tempt anyone. Thinking through the past few months, I realized that that is exactly what I have been doing. I have been blaming God for the temptations that I have been struggling with and even giving into at times.

When I started to think about it, I was shocked at the fact that I could ever possibly blame the God of the universe for tempting me into sin. Why do we do that? I think the biggest reason is because we don’t want to bear the responsibility of overcoming that temptation. If we have someone else to blame for it, then we don’t feel as guilty about caving and giving into the pressure.

Another thing I noticed was the verse about God giving us perfect gifts. I am an extremely relational person. I love being with my friends and I love getting to know new people. The past two semesters, I have been struggling in this area. But God decided to bless me with friends that I did not expect to gain.

However, with the wonderful love for friendships comes the temptation to idolize them. And that is what I began to do. As I started to notice this temptation creeping up on me, I started asking God why he would put me in this kind of a situation. Why would he put people into my life that would just be a distraction for me?

Then I read these verses, and it was kind of like a slap in the face. What I realized was this: God knows that I am a relational person, and he blessed me this semester with some new friends that I was not expecting. I accepted this gift, but I also let my desires get the better of me. I let myself be dragged away and enticed. God was not doing the dragging. He doesn’t “change like shifting shadows” by giving me a wonderful blessing and then leaving me to try and handle the temptations that he has just bestowed upon me in the form of a gift. He doesn’t work like that and therefore does not deserve the accusations that I throw at him.

It’s humbling to realize the extent of your sin. It wasn’t easy to confess this to God and ask for his forgiveness for blaming him for something that I have been bringing upon myself the whole time. But it was freeing.

It was freeing to know that I had his instant forgiveness. It was freeing to know that he is there to help me through these temptations and provide a way for me to stand up under them. It was also wonderful realizing that he loves me enough to bless me with gifts that I don’t expect.

So despite the fact that reading these verses brought my ego down a little, it allowed me to experience another gift from God: his word coming alive in a new and different way. And that’s the beauty of the gospel. It’s always alive and ready to teach whoever is willing to learn.