Marry Me

"Forever can never be long enough for me

Feel like I've had long enough with you

Forget the world now we won't let them see

But there's one thing left to do

Now that the weight has lifted

Love has surely shifted my way

Marry me

Today and every day

Marry me

If I ever get the nerve to say

Hello in this cafe

Say you will..." (Marry Me by Train)

Ever since I pulled away from my aunt's wedding reception, this song has been repeating in the back of my brain.  Oh to have a man to look at me and say "marry me, today and every day", to be so jealous for my attention that he never feels like he's had enough time with me, enough love to last a half century and beyond, oh to be pursued.  

It was not until this very song came blaring through my headphones today, thanks to Pandora, that I realized I am loved and I am being pursued.  Wait, so this whole time you were being loved and pursued by someone and you didn't know it?  That is exactly what I am saying.  I'm sure it sounds so cliche`, but Jesus has been reaching for my heart this entire time.  While I was busy searching for that man sitting in a cafe, Jesus was patiently yet eagerly following me around saying "ma'am, I found something of yours."  While my eyes were so fixated on the desires of the flesh, He was trying to tell me that He found my safety and security that I could only find if I turned around and fixated my eyes on Him.  

I am not writing this to say that you need to give up that significant other in your life, and 'fall in love' with Jesus.  I'm writing this as a significant reminder to myself to turn around every once in a while; open your eyes Chaleigh!  Sometimes the most important things in life are not in front of you.  They are not sitting at a table and waiting for you to run up and take as yours, rather they are pursuing you.  They have been patiently waiting for the moment you turn around and realized they were following you all along.

Confessions,

Chaleigh

What Is That...?

Today was not different than any other day.  I woke up 30 minutes before I had to go to my 9am class, walked up to the top of the hill just in time for the hour long financial accounting lecture, then trotted down to the bottom of campus for chapel.  I can honestly say this is one of my favorite parts about my Monday, Wednesday, and Friday's because amongst my busy day, I am able to take time aside and worship the Lord who gave me the opportunity to come to this school.  After worship got over, all of the students took their seats, where I was seated amongst my peers.  The girl who was sitting to my left is a new teammate of mine and she has the sweetest and most sincere personality.  Out of nowhere, she grabs my right hand and asks me "what is that?" as she touches the ring adorning my ring finger.  Trying to be quite so I do not disturb the others around me, I lean in and whisper that it is my purity ring, with a slight tone of 'duh' in my voice.  She then asks me "so you're a virgin?", and with the same tone I replied "yup!".  She then gushed and told me how awesome that was.  Slightly confused I returned my attention to the chapel speaker.

The rest of the chapel period the only thought running through my head was 'of course I'm a virgin!  I am a Christian for goodness' sake'.  Later today, as I was painting my nails in my silent room, the Lord revealed something to me.  Virginity is special.  God has had His Sovereign Authority and grace in my entire life where I have never had to be in a situation that would have compromised my purity.  Sadly, gone are the days where virginity amongst young men and women is normal.  Our entire culture feels this outside pressure that in order to be womanly or manly, cool and sophisticate, you must give up one of the only things in life that you will never be able to get back.  Your sexual purity.   I would be lying if I said that I didn't feel those pressures at times.

If you are reading this and you are one of the special people who still have your virginity, hold on to it so incredibly tight and run to God.  When culture says its statistically impossible to stay a virgin until your wedding day, say 'get behind me satan' and flee.  If you are someone who has lost or given up your virginity to someone who is not your spouse, its ok.  When the world looks at you through shame filled and judgmental eyes, tell them 'get behind me satan, God has forgiven me and has made me a new creation'.  From either of these perspectives, there is hope, cling to it and RUN to the arms of your Father.  2 Corinthians 5:17 "Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation.  The old has passed away.  Behold, the new has come!"

A Time for Weariness and a Time for Rest

Looking back on this past two weeks I can confidently tell you that it was an emotional roller coaster.  Not in the sense that one moment I was crying tears of sorrow, and the next tears of joy but instead the contentment all the way to the weariness.  One might ask how you could have two different feelings, both that lack strong emotion, and come away from it being drained.  Honestly, I can't tell you why this happened to me, but I can tell you that God is good all of the time.

These last two weeks I have spent on the softball field starting my journey as a Corban Warrior.  Our first trip to California was exciting, exhilarating, and elating.  Without a care in the world I was able to focus on the effort that I was putting out.  All the while this was happening my homework was starting to slightly back up.  After we returned there was three day break to wash our laundry, catch up on homework, and be a college student.  The second stretch of our trip was to Columbus, Georgia.  This was also an interesting adventure because every time I thought of boarding that plane to fly to the other side of the country I got an overwhelming sense of anxiety that would flood over me.  The thought of not being able to be in the classroom, not being on the familiar campus, and not being around the continual support of my hall mates frightened me.  I spent a lot of time in prayer asking God to provide the time, resources, and ability for me to get my homework done and still focus on my athletics.  Like I mentioned earlier, God is good all of the time, and I only had three assignments and one exam during my week long trip.  I guess the reason that I am telling you this is not to complain how awful my situation can be at times, because its not, it is to show you that even through the little things God is good.  Pure and simple it, God will provide even for our smallest of needs.  Confession, even when things seem extremely difficult and unobtainable, there is always an upside to our situation and we will only find it when we look up to Jesus.

Confessions,
Chaleigh

Adjusting to Insanity

I was asked by one of my readers to discuss the adjustments that need to be made in the transition from high school to college and how to make those adjustments.  This quote by R.D. Laing is how I would sum up the adjustment to college, "Insanity - a perfectly rational adjustment to an insane world."  Although it is not very encouraging, this is literally it!  Adjusting to college life is insanity but it is the only rational way to adjust to the world of college.

Now, there are many different aspects that need adjusting when you leave the comfort of your parent's home and move into a dorm room with some stranger.  I would have to say that leaving your parents, siblings, family, friends, and pets is the most dramatic change that you can make in your life. Confession, I don't know what to say to aid you along in the process of leaving your parents.  Everyone is different.  For me personally, I was itching to get out on my own and start my own life.  I think that this really helped with being home sick because I knew that I was actually pursuing the one thing that I had wanted for so long, freedom.

"How do I adjust to living with someone else?"  Haha!  This is a good question that you ask!  If I were to label the phases of adjustment, I would have to say that this is the most awkward out of all of them.  Depending on what type of school that you go to, the Student Life office usually does a decent job of matching you up with someone that has a similar interest as you.  I was honestly blessed to be placed with my roommate Maddy because we share the same petpeeves, we have the same viewpoints on religion and faith, as well as both of us being on the softball team.  I would have to say that the first key to adjusting to living with another person is the be courteous.  Remember when your parents told you to kill people with kindness, adapt this phrase into your relationship.  Christ said to do unto others what you would want done unto you.

DORM FOOD!  I will try my best to stay focused on the concept of adjusting rather than bashing how awful the food can be at times.... (oops?!)  Ok, so your brain will not have any problems adjusting to the fact that there are endless options of food to eat from salad bars to pizza to burger stations.  Your body on the other hand will not thank you for the amount of time, or lack there of, that it will take to digest the food.  If I would suggest one thing to adjusting to the food I would say make sure that the majority of your plate is full of veggies and proteins that you get from plants.  I have noticed that the meats and carbs are cooked with some sort of oil that leaves you feeling full for a very short period of time.  So, focus on hearty salads and veggies and remember, an occasional slice of pizza is ok.

Adjusting to friends was another interesting aspect of college life.  Take advantage of your freshman orientation week.  Ditch your parents for an hour, grab your roommate, and go explore!  Find all of the buildings where you will have classes, pinpoint the closest coffee shop to each classroom, and introduce yourself to other freshman along the way.  Something that I realized a few weeks into classes was that every freshman was on the same page.  Trying to find ways of coping and adjusting to this new chapter in life made everyone in the same awkward stage of trying to find friends.  Be comfortable with being uncomfortable, be awkward together, and most importantly, be yourself.

So, hopefully this gives you some good insight on how to adjust to college life and I will be praying for all of my senior friends who will be starting a new life here in a few months!  Take a deep breath, everything will be ok, and embrace your awkwardness!

Confessions,
Chaleigh

P.S. If you have any questions or topic proposals for my blog I would love to hear them!  Just leave a comment and I will get back to you! :)

1 Corinthians 13

1 Corinthians 13:1-10 (Message)

"If I speak with human eloquence and angelic ecstasy but don't love, I'm nothing but the creaking of a rusty gate.  If I speak God's Word with power, revealing all His mysteries and making everything plain as day, and if I have faith that says to a mountain, "JUMP," and it jumps, but I don't love, I AM NOTHING.  If I give everything I own to the poor and even go to the stake to be burned as a martyr, but I don't love, I've gotten nowhere.  So, no matter what I say, what I believe, and what I do, I'm bankrupt without love.  Love never gives up.  Love cares more for others than for self.  Love doesn't want what it doesn't have.  Love doesn't strut, doesn't have a swelled head, doesn't force itself on others, isn't always "me first," doesn't fly off the handle, doesn't keep score of the sings of others, doesn't reveal when others grovel, takes pleasure in the flowering of truth, puts up with anything, trust God always, always looks for the best, never looks back, but keeps going to the end.  Love never dies.  Inspired speech will be over some day; praying in tongues will end; understanding will reach its limit.  We know only a portion of the truth, and what we say about God is always incomplete.  But when the Complete arrives, out incomplete will be canceled."  

The goal that I have for you, and for me, is to learn how to love like men and women of God.  Over the past few weeks I've really been searching for love in all the wrong places, continually coming up empty.  Every time that I thought my heart was getting close to love, I fell deeper than I was before and instead of getting up and walking away from that trap, I continued to happily jump right back into the middle of it, but why?  The root of the problem was that I was not being love.  One cannot be loved unless they be love.  I had been working on trying to be those things on my own accord for so long that I had lost sight on the One who gave me the ability to love.  Jesus Christ has given every single one of us the ability to love, and be loved, as long as He is our first love.  This is where 1 Corinthians 13 comes into play. My heart passionately loves this verse, especially in the Message version, because it lists out step by step what the characteristics of love are.  Love doesn't give up, it doesn't covet, it doesn't force itself on others.  If you think about it these three characteristics are some of the ways that the Lord loves us.  So why is it so hard for us to love Christ's people that way, not just in a relationship but in friendships as well?  Sin swept into our lives and corrupted the way that we think of love.  Love looks out for the best interest of others, and not of selfish desires.  Confession, what has been difficult lately is seeing my friend fall in love.  Even though she hasn't admitted it yet, I know that she loves this amazing man of God and it is difficult to not envy what she has.  Love does not envy and covet what others have and this is the cold hard truth that the Lord has begun to reveal in my life.  

So, I'm going to say this in faith that the Lord is going to bless and be blessed by this; I challenge you to analyze your life full of relationships.  Take time to study ever little detail.  Conclude with this, are you loving the way the Bible teaches us how to love?  If your answer is no I challenge you further, memorize, in your favorite version, 1 Corinthians 13.  We are called to hide God's Words in our heart that we might not sin against Him.  By hiding this treasured verse in our hearts we aren not just learning how to love our brothers and sisters in Christ, but we are also learning how to love our God and how our God loves us.  

Confessions, 

Chaleigh   

Friends are like Daisies

Confession, I might be sitting in a coffee shop with a Starbucks sitting next to my Mac computer while sitting at a high-bar table.  Stereotypical white girl status right now.  Another confession, I obviously haven't blogged in a while and hadn't made any plans to until my mother asked me "how my blog was coming along?"  I admittedly gave myself a huge break of time over Christmas mostly to reflect on the past semester and how, and what, God was speaking to me during that time.  There are a multitude of little bits of information that He brought to my mind while I spend huge, lonely blocks of time thinking.  So, with that being said, I am having a difficult time picking one topic to discuss right now as I sit watching the people buzz though the campus coffee shop.

I think I will spend today discussing friendship and how important all my connections have become while living at 'the bottom of the hill' for the past four months.  Proverbs 17:9-17 says "He who covers over an offense promotes love, but whoever repeats the matter separates close friends.  A rebuke impresses a man of discernment more than a hundred lashes a fool.  An evil man is bent only on rebellion a merciless official will be sent against him.  Better to meet a bear robbed of her cubs than a fool in his folly.  If a man pays back evil for good, evil will never leave his house.  Starting a quarrel is like breaching a dam; so drop the matter before a dispute breaks out.  Acquitting the guilty and condemning the innocent- the Lord detests them both.  Of what use is money in the hands of a fool, since he has no desire to get wisdom?  A friend loves at all times, and a brother is born for adversity."  I know this is a pretty long verse, but I think it speaks truth to what a friend really is.  "He who covers over an offense promotes love" this is so significant in most of the relationships that we will encounter.  It also is an example of how God loves us!  He covered all of our offenses with His blood so that we might live again.  It is the least we can do to wake up in the morning, choose Jesus, and then cover the offenses that our friends might have against us.

The Lord has brought three very close friends into my life through living in the dorms, and one very special teammate.  When I refer to my friends while in discussion with my mom I will always tell her that each one of them serves a different purpose in my life.  One is willing to tell me the things that I don't want to hear, but need to.  Another is my listening ear, she is kind and slow to speak.  The third friend I can have two hour long conversations with.  We start out laughing, cry somewhere in the middle, then laugh at the fact that we were crying in the first place.  My awesome and lovable teammate, who I see as a whole, pure, and amazing woman of God, has taught me that it is ok to be vulnerable and confide in someone not matter the age.  She has also taught me how to take selfies, and is extremely good at making me feel awkward and uncomfortable! :)   In verse 17 it says "a friend loves at all times, and a brother is born for adversity."  There have been a few situations where I needed someone to love me, and there were times where I needed a sister to help me through my adverse situations.  Every single time I could count on these girls to be there for me, to pray for me, and to help me through my circumstances.

Without these four core friendships and the multiple other friends that I have made it all develops a huge blossoming daisy.  Every petal is connected back to the center of the flower and without one petal the flower is not complete.  The Lord brings so much joy through friendship and I think it is just the peak of the iceberg in God revealing His Majesty to us.

Confessions,
Chaleigh

Pure

This post has taken me quite a few days to write 1) because it is long, but 2) because I want to have a heart of surrender to Christ while writing it.  I want Christ to be glorified in ever word that I type on this page, and have all the glory return to Him.  This is a huge topic that Christ has laid on my heart the past few years and I know that He is going to use it to impact someone who is reading it.  So, here it goes...

Purity.  The topic that everyone loves to hate.  Something that baffles me is that in the public schools we would much rather talk about who is doing what with the other guy, but we are too weak to stand up and talk about staying pure.  From a very young age I was taught about purity, and how God designed us to stay pure until marriage.  At first I found this topic 'awkward', 'weird', and 'uncomfortable' to talk about but over the years, as I have matured in my faith and developed strong relationships with my girl friends, I found purity and marriage the most talked about thing during our casual conversations.

A couple months ago I was thinking and praying how God wants me to use my story of purity to spread the Gospel.  He laid this on my heart; it is common to hear about physical purity and mental purity, the don't-do list, and the don't-think-about list, but I feel that there is four different aspects of purity.  Physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual purity are key areas that need to be addressed.  I will briefly touch on each aspect because I could go on for ages about each one.

Physical purity isn't too difficult to figure out.  In 1 Corinthians 6:18 it says "Flee from sexual immorality.  Every other sin a person commits is outside the body, but the sexually immoral person sins against his own body."  God is pretty clear on His expectations for us, as His children, to abstain from sexual immorality.  I have had the opportunity to talk with a number of couples that had stayed pure all the way up to their wedding day.  Never once have I heard that they wished they had done it differently and followed the standard that the world has set for relationships.  Satan is weird.  He tries to make sex seem like the 'normal' thing to do when you are dating someone, or even 'getting to know someone', but he makes sex seem so shameful at the same time.  This only leads to a life of misery and guilt.  God has not called us to that, instead He calls us to a life of purity.  I'm not saying that if you have had sex outside of marriage that you should be damned to hell, what I'm saying that is if you have a choice, make a decision that is going to please Him. You won't regret it.  If you are that person that is feeling guilt due to sexual immorality, I highly encourage you to talk to someone about it.  Find a trusted adult or leader in your church and talk to them.  Hiding your shame and guilt will not make it go away, it will actually cause the opposite to happen.  Keeping all of that built up inside of you can literally destroy you from the inside-out and keep you in bondage for many years.  TALK!

Moving on to mental purity.  In Matthew 5:27-30 it says "You have heard that it was said, 'You shall not commit adultery.'  But I say to you that everyone who looks at a woman with lustful intent has already committed adultery with her in his heart.  If your right eye causes you to sin, tear it out and throw it away.  For it is better that you lose one of your member that that your whole body be thrown into hell.  And if your right hand causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away.  For it is better that you lose one of your members than that your whole body go into hell."  I know this verse is addressing men specifically, but I think women have just as hard of a time with this.  I will admit, I have looked at guys before and thought of things that I should not be thinking about, due to our human nature of sin, it will happen.  This is no justification though.  If one of our eyes causes us to sin, we would be better off to not have it than keep it and continue to sin.  Basically, if there is something in our lives that is causing us to commit sin with the way we think, then we need to get rid of it immediately.  What I take from this verse is that sometimes its a mind problem.  We have been drilled by the secular culture of images and thoughts that are not appropriate according to what the Bible teaches us and it is our job to purge those things from our lives.  

Mental purity and emotional purity kind of go hand-in-hand.  For women especially we have a tendency to connect our thoughts with our emotions. *GUILTY!*  When we start thinking about what that guy said to us, and oh!, the way he looked at me when he said it, we start stitching our heart to theirs.  In Proverbs 4:21-23 it says "Do not let them out of your sight, keep them within your heart; for they are life to those who find them and health to one's whole body.  Above all else, guard your heart, for everything you do flows from it."  Guard your heart... There are many times when I wish I would have guarded my heart a little bit more.  This looks different for everyone, whether you don't watch that PG-13 movie because of the sexual element in it, or don't get too connected to that boy who is being nice to you, these types of things can start tying our hearts to something that is empty on the other end.  Usually what ends up happening after we break a heart tie with something, we are left with these little stitch holes that aren't pretty.  The only way that we can mend the heart ties is through the power and the blood of Jesus Christ.

Lastly, spiritual purity.  This is honestly a beautiful Psalm, and I encourage you to read the whole thing, but here is a little snippet of it.  Psalms 51:7-10 "Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean; wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow.  Let me hear joy and gladness; let the bones that you have broken rejoice.  Hide your face from my sins, and blot out all my iniquities.  Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me.  Cast me not away from your presence, and take not your Holy Spirit from me.  Restore to me the joy of your salvation, and uphold me with a willing spirit."  As Christians we are called by Christ to live a life according to His will and purpose and in order to fulfill those things we must be right with Him.  We have to keep our relationship with Jesus pure and constant.  Like I said earlier, we are human and it is our sinful nature to not do those things, but with the power of the Holy Spirit that resides inside of us when we accept Christ, anything is possible.  Sometimes life can just get hazed with random things and we can lose sight and focus of where we are going in our lives.  This is when we can call out to God and ask Him to create in us a clean heart, and restore purity into our lives.

Confession, I'm not perfect in any of these areas, and I'm not placing that expectation on anyone.  What I am expecting is that when we do realize the mistakes we are making/have made we turn 180* from it an RUN toward the arms of our Savior.  There is powerful, powerful, healing when we get picked up and hugged by our Heavenly Father and there is a purity that can begin to be restored.  I pray that this post has touched your heart in some way and that the Holy Spirit can begin to move in your heart and in your life.  I can't wait for the day when we can all stand in our white gown in front of our groom and say that through the blood of Jesus I am pure.

Confessions,
Chaleigh