Some of God's Greatest Gifts...

are Unanswered Prayers.

I was thinking about unanswered prayers at work today.  It must have started as I fell asleep last night.  I was drifting off, thanking God for a beautiful day when I remembered a funny little prayer I prayed once.  “God, this is what I would like to ask from You, BUT I know You can see the future already, so…if a prayer I am going to pray in the future contradicts this one, would You go with the future prayer?” Guess what.  God went with the future prayer. 

Today my mind wandered back…3 summers ago.  My dad had picked me up from XA and we were riding home, listening to the country radio.  Well, I was singing to the radio and he was listening to me singing to the radio.  Garth Brooks’ “Unanswered Prayers” came on and reminded me about a comment KP had made earlier that week.  Singing, I turned to look out the window and that’s when I saw it.

In the car right beside me was a young man I had once been interested in and had not seen in ages.  As the light turned green and he sped off, I marveled that the song was perfectly timed.  I was convinced that God had refused to allow my friendship with the boy in the car to develop.  And I am still certain that this is true.  At the time, I thought for sure that this was a little reminder that KP was what God had had in store when He said no to the boy in the car.  I didn’t really see it then. I saw it today. 

I was singing this song at work, and I began to realize that God had sent me a pre-dated message, and I had tried to read it in the present.  He knew it would be a while before I would look back and see two prayers that would end up “unanswered” and realize that they had overlapped for a brief second at that stoplight.  On the way home from work today, I turned on the radio and “Unanswered Prayers” was playing.  What was He telling me?

It’s simple really: don’t just trust Me to hear the prayers, trust Me to decide when and how to answer them. He will most certainly grace me with answered prayers, but I am sure that some of the most beautiful moments will come when He vetoes my prayers out of love.  And gives me another gift instead. 

I don’t know where I’d be today if I had not prayed that prayer, or received a resounding “no”, but I rather like this place in which I find myself, so I rejoice…

“Some of God’s greatest are all too often unanswered prayers” 

Here

I've often wondered: if I had it to do all over again, would I do anything differently?  and if so, what?

This question came up with a friend recently and...I think I finally have an answer.  So many times this year I've held my breath and said "thank you God from bringing me right to this very moment".  At the end of the day, as I look up at the stars and think of all of God's promises I think "I wouldn't have it any other way.  I don't want to be anywhere but here.  I don't wish things would have gone differently." If I were to do one thing differently in a re-do, I might not be right here tonight. And that is not a risk I am willing to take. 

there is a love song that reflects this perfectly.  although he address the one he loves..this expands.  This is so true of my relationship with God (hence the change to capitol You in the lyrics here).  it can apply to my place in seminary, my church, my relationships with my family, my roommates, my girls, my guys :) haha, in all seriousness...my relationships are all pricessless and I wouldn't do anything that would have kept me from finding them. In them I find the image of God.  So, I give you Rascal Flatts, "Here":

There's a place I've been looking for
That took me in and out of buildings
Behind windows, walls and doors
And I thought I found it
Couple times, even settled down
And I'd hang around just long enough
To find my way back out
I know now the place that I was trying to
Reach
Was You, right here in front of me

[CHORUS]
And I wouldn't change a thing
I'd walk right back through the rain
Back to every broken heart
On the day that it was breakin'
And I'd relive all the years
And be thankful for the tears
I've cried with every stumbled step
That led to You and got me here, right here

It's amazing what I let my heart go through
To get me where it got me
In this moment here with You
And it passed me by
God knows how many times
I was so caught up in holding
What I never thought I'd find
I know now, there's a million roads
I had to take
To get me in Your arms that way

[Repeat Chorus]

In a love I never thought I'd get to get to
-here
And if that's the road
God made me take to be with You

I WOULDN'T CHANGE A THING...

it would truly be worth walking back to EVERY broken heart on the day that it was breaking.

God-held wonder

So much has changed.  I've discovered some very major and beautiful things this year: I'm free, I'm me, and I am satisfied with what I see.

I am free to live exactly as I want to live because my heart is lined up with Jesus' heart.  The desires I desire are, for the most part, His desires.  When they are not...He changes them so beautifully. He breaks the grip of that which holds your heart and leads you gently away. 

I am me.  I know what that looks like now, and it is priceless, precious, beauitful.  Delightful. I don't have to try, I don't have to change, I don't have to hide because I was made in the imago Dei.  The image of the Holy One of Israel.  Just as He dreamed.  No more, no less.  An immeasureable dignity.

I am satisfied.  For two years I have been answering a question: "God, are You enough for me? With no guarantess of anything else I hope to do, see, have...are You Alone enough?" I could finally sing "YES!" a few months ago. I have many questions, and precious few answers.  But "you will hear a voice behind you, saying 'this is the way, walk in it'" is enough of an answer for every question I might pose.

When I began this weblog almost 5 years ago, I was a wide-eyed wonder.  Completely four and laregly unchallenged. 
"When each earthly brace falls under,
And life seems a restless sea,
Are you a God-held wonder,
Satisfied and calm and free?"
I was then challenged.  And I am no longer simply a wide-eyed wonder.  I am a God-held wonder.  Satisfied. Calm. Free.

Being and Becoming

“but it’s when You hold me that I start unfolding and all that I can sing is Hallelujah”

                                                                                                            ~Bethany Dillon

I’ve been learning a lot about the concept of “being and becoming”.  We threw this term around in seminary my first quarter, but I never understood its purpose.  I did not catch the significance of the “being” aspect.  I think this is because, until last quarter, I didn’t know what it was to simply be. 

But slowly, over my first two quarters at Ashland, I started to be myself.  I realized how much I missed being myself when I had tried to become what I thought I needed to be.  Sara Alexander was right: I had lost my joy.  I found myself wanting to be me, and to be the girl that Jesus dreamed up before the foundations of the world.  And so I started to dance more when no one was watching – and when everyone was watching.  To laugh like I didn’t care that I have a strange laugh…because I didn’t anymore.  To wear pink all the time. To talk about princesses all the time and be four just ‘cause I couldn’t help it.  I began to breathe.  Rather than striving to be beautiful or fearfully hiding my heart, I began to live.  As the one and only Sarah Dronen.  I don’t know if people noticed – some did – but they did respond differently.  It was like…they started to breathe. 

So here I am, being myself.  And yet still becoming everything that I can be.  I think this is the place God desires to have us: where we are content to be ourselves and yet eager to become. 

Since spring break 2006 the Lord has been teaching me about His authority and the Kingdom.  If “all authority in heaven and on earth has been given to [Jesus]”…then who am I to take some of that authority back?  If He traded His life for mine, why would He do anything other than BEAUTIFUL with it?  The tricky part is redefining what beautiful looks like.  I propose that in God’s estimation, “beautiful” is anything that serves the purposes of His Kingdom.  This has many implications but I’ll save that for another day.  The Kingdom of God is important in becoming because we must become in such a way that we see the Kingdom more clearly, love its purposes and its King more fully, and serve it wholeheartedly. 

I am writing a book and my favorite line is when young Alannah speaks of her father, “its like he sees who you could be, and that’s what he remembers.” I think this is how God sees us being and becoming.  He accepts how we are being our true selves today and seeing what we can become in the future, He remembers it.

Sin and Joy. WHAT!?

Who knew sin could result in such JOY?

God has been trying to teach me about my sin all year, but I finally started to get it this week.  One of my classmates commented today, “when God wants to tell you something, Sarah, He says it over and over!”  Oh yes, and He has been chasing me with my sin this week.  I read a chapter on sin and another on confession for one class this week.  My friend Jeff has started to call me “perfect” the last few weeks and it has become a joke among my classmates.  I hand out gold stars when some of my friends do good things – since I am the standard for “perfect”.  This is funny because the Lord has been trying to deal with pride in me and it is a constant reminder that I am NOT perfect and need to remember that.  On Tuesday I informed a friend that “my sins are heart sins, which make them quite deadly”.  They are so much harder to see that way. Then during my Wednesday afternoon nap, the Lord revealed a specific fault I though I’d dealt with last quarter.  So I began to pray about humility and asked God to reveal my sin to me as He humbles me.  When you ask God for humility, scary things will start to happen. In theology class on Wednesday night we were supposed to talk about theories of the atonement.  Guess what.  Yep, my professor said, “let’s go back two weeks and talk a bit more on sin”.  GREAT.  So, we talked about the seven deadly sins. 

The joy came in this: God took me back 5 years to tie things together.  He spoke the verses Isaiah 55:8-9 over my life when I was 17 and asking questions I didn’t have answers for.  His response to my “why not?” questions was this:

            “for My thoughts are not your thoughts, nor are your ways My ways,” says the Lord. “For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are My ways higher than

            your ways, and My thoughts than your thoughts.” 

I have long clung to that verse, and now I returned.  The entire chapter corresponded in a new ways to what He has been doing in my life in the last year.  In this verse God is telling the people to change their ways, to surrender and have them cleansed to match His.  Lately He has been stressing His will in my life.  Three years ago I was in a spot where I wanted my will to be God’s will more than I wanted God’s will.  And now, He’s giving me new chances to want His ways, and to choose them with every seemingly tiny moment.  This was all going down in counseling technique class and Dr. R quoted two verses that also fit perfectly with what I am learning.  “Above all else, guard your heart, for it is the wellspring of life” (Proverbs 4:23).  And “Your words were found and I ate them, and Your word was to me the joy and rejoicing of my heart; For I am called by Your name, O Lord God of hosts” (Jer 15:16).  Well, Jeremiah 15 holds the verse God used to speak to me when I was praying about choosing to be a counselor: “if you return, then I shall bring you back; you shall stand before Me; if you take the precious from the vile, you shall be as my mouth.” (v.19).

And God told me this about my life and career: “this is how you are going to live and this is how you are going to guard your heart – by eating My words.”  As I eat His words and let scripture transform my heart, eradicate my sin and guard me then I will be able to speak on God’s behalf into people’s lives.  But right now, I’ve got some scripture reading, memorization, prayer and probably confession to do.  I’m excited and overwhelmed.  And spring is going to be one crazy quarter.  Amen.