Something to Share

My friends, I am so sorry that it has taken me so long to get this post up. Life is far too busy and I am afraid that it cuts down my time on the internet (altogether, not a bad thing at all - it just means that my blogging is regretfully hindered). Anyways, I am still here and will be trying to get back into a routine as school starts back up in a couple weeks. 

Today, I want to share a little poem-like writing with you. I have had it pinned to my wall for years and just finally took it down in order that I can see it as I write you this post (note* It will be going right back up on my fabulous wall as soon as I am done. *smile*).

It's Up to You

"One song can spark a moment,

One flower can wake a dream.

One tree can start a forest,

One bird can herald spring.

One smile begins a friendship,

One handclasp lifts a soul.

One star can guide a ship at sea,

One word can frame the goal.

One vote can change a nation,

One sunbeam lights a room. 

One candle wipes out darkness,

One laugh will conquer gloom.

One step must start each journey,

One word must start each prayer.

One hope will raise our spirits,

One touch will show you care.

One voice can speak with wisdom,

One heart can know what's true.

One life can make a difference,

You see, it's up to you."

~ Author Unknown

Don't you just love this? I certainly do, but then, you know me and my feelings on a life of impact.  I challenge you today (yes, another challenge from Hannah) to be that song, that tree, that star. Be the life that makes a difference. We all have a choice, what matters is what we choose.

Blessings,

Hannah

The Boy and The Starfish

No, I have not completely disappeared. Sorry that my posts are a bit late in coming lately...the county fair started last week and that has kept me very busy, as I have been there for something every day for the last five days. I will try to do better. 


Have I ever shared the story of the boy and the starfish with you? I can't remember...anyways, I love this story. It's about impact. You all know that I love impacting people. =) So, because we have lots of new readers (yay!!), I will share it with you anyways, even if I have shared it with you before.

A man was walking along a deserted beach at sunset. As he walked he could see a young boy in the distance, as he drew nearer he noticed that the boy kept bending down, picking something up and throwing it into the water.

Time and again he kept hurling things into the ocean.

As the man approached even closer, he was able to see that the boy was picking up starfish that had been washed up on the beach and, one at a time he was throwing them back into the water.

The man asked the boy what he was doing, the boy replied,"I am throwing these washed up starfish back into the ocean, or else they will die through lack of oxygen. "But", said the man, "You can't possibly save them all, there are thousands on this beach, and this must be happening on hundreds of beaches along the coast. You can't possibly make a difference."

The boy looked down, frowning for a moment; then bent down to pick up another starfish, smiling as he threw it back into the sea. He replied, 

"I made a huge difference to that one!" 

~Author Unknown~

 People who tell me that I can't do things make me mad. Honest. I don't want people to tell me that I can't do something, particularly when it involves impacting someone. A thought that someone sparked in my brain recently is this: if I were to spend the next twenty years of my life, living among an unreached people group, completely isolated from the rest of the world, and only saw one person come to know the Lord as their Savior, would it be worth it? Is one person worth investing twenty years of my life into? I've come to a conclusion: yes. Why? Because, it made a world of difference to that one person. It changed their life forever. That is certainly worth twenty years of my life. I challenge you to ask yourself this question. Do you consider it to be worth twenty years of your life? Think about it.

As Esther and I have previously said, we love followers and comments (especially the latter!), so write something below and make our day! 

Also, if any of you would like to possibly guest post on our blog at some point (particularly all of you fabulous international viewers - I would love to hear about your life in whatever country you live in!), send us an email. You can reach us through our 'Contact Us' page on the sidebar. When I say this, I am not saying that we will accept any post that you write. It will have to be previewed before submission. However, if this is something that you are even just a little bit interested in, send us a message and we can talk about it. =) 

Blessings,

Hannah

To Surrender a Precious Dream

"To surrender a precious dream is a fearful thing, but to pursue anything but the full measure of the glory of God’s love is a wasted life."

~ Joshua Steven Eddy

This statement has had a very profound impact upon my life, despite the fact the I only heard of it some three weeks ago. The life of this young man struck me in a way that many things do not. Joshua was an amazing photographer with a heart of sharing and showing the glory of God. He died on May 5, 2012. He was nineteen years old. I never met Joshua - he lived in Oregon. In fact, I had never heard of him until after his death. So why am I writing about some guy that I never met? Because, the last post that he wrote on his blog has impacted me in a way that is irreversible. 

In all honesty, I'm still a bit unsure about what I am writing. Everything that I am saying here is still being processed and mulled over in my mind. All this said, I am a bit uncertain about whether or not I should be posting this now, but I believe that I should, so please bear with me. 

Since reading this profound statement, not a day has gone by that it has not run through my mind over and over. Every time that I read or think of this statement, I am continually struck by the profoundness of such a statement. Let me repeat it for you: "To surrender a precious dream is a fearful thing, but to pursue anything but the full measure of the glory of God's love is a wasted life." You all know my view on wasted lives...perhaps that is why this impacts me like it does. Perhaps it is because I have many dreams. Perhaps it is because I struggle with surrender. Perhaps it is because I desire nothing more than to live a life completely given to the glory of God. 

I want us to look at the definition of "surrender" for a moment: 

sur·ren·der [suh-ren-der] 

to yield (something) to the possession or power of another; deliver up possession of on demand or under duress.

to give up, abandon, or relinquish (comfort, hope, etc.).

to yield or resign (an office, privilege, etc.) in favor of another.

to give oneself up, as into the power of another; submit or yield.

*Taken from Dictionary.com

To surrender something is to give something up in favor of something better. To surrender a precious dream is to believe that God will choose to fulfill or not fulfill our dreams because He has a better plan in store for us. So often we believe that our dreams are all that there is. We believe that because they are our dreams, that they will come true. They simply have to, or so we say. The fulfillment that we see in our own dreams blinds us to the possibility that God's dreams for us hold more beauty and fulfillment than for which we could even begin to hope. Josh had discovered an important truth when he said: "To surrender a precious dream is a fearful thing, but he learned that night that he could not hold on to what was not his." Our dreams are merely that: dreams. We don't own them. We have never been promised that our dreams will come true. Yet we persistently hold onto them believing that we have the power to one day make them come true. 

Why is it that we are afraid of surrendering our dreams? Our dreams are a reflection of our hearts. They are a part of us. They are a reflection of all that we hope for and that in which we believe. If we were to give up our dreams, we would be vulnerable to the guidance of the Master Dreamer. We are at risk of losing our dreams on the hope that there is a better dream out there for us. We are afraid that if we surrender our dreams today, we will not be able to dream again. Dreams inspire us and make us dare to be more. However if we let them become our identity, we are giving ourselves false hope and replacing reality with the mere faith that our dreams will someday come true. To allow God's dreams for us to replace our own is daring, challenging, and takes every ounce of faith that we possess; yet to give anything less than the entirety of our beings - every hope and dream that makes us who we are -  is to live an incomplete life. 

I am a dreamer. I have more dreams than I can count, and many of them are immeasurable in size. I have dreams to become a wife and mother. I dream to work with rescued victims of human trafficking. I dream to live overseas. I dream... I dream.... I dream... Because I have so many dreams, it scares me to death at the thought of surrendering them. In my head, I know that God's dreams for me are better than anything that I could possibly imagine. However, I have a rather difficult time convincing my heart of this. Now, don't get me wrong: I have been called by God to work against human trafficking, as well as many other things that my dreams encompass. However, I often keep these to myself and enclose them in the area of "My Dreams." I have made these callings into my dreams, rather than God's dreams for me. In doing this, I am taking His calling, His power, and His timing out of the picture and making it all about me. That is where the problem is right now for me. 

Watch this video. Listen specifically to the lyrics. I have listened to this song over and over again recently. The words hit me, wash over me, and soak into my mind and heart. 

My hands hold safely to my dreams
Clutching tightly not one has fallen
So many years I've shaped each one
Reflecting my heart showing who I am
Now you're asking me to show
What I'm holding oh so tightly
Can't open my hands can't let go
Does it matter?
Should I show you?
Can't you let me go?

We hold our dreams as if we would fall to pieces without them. We have made our dreams into the very reflection of all that we are and all that we hope to be. If God asks you to open your hands and let go of your dreams, in favor of His dreams for you, will you open them? We wonder why God won't just let us go; why He won't just let us dream until our heart's content. It is because He desires to make us more like Him through surrender. He desires for His dreams for us to be fulfilled as part of a greater plan for our lives than for which we could ever hope.

Surrender, surrender you whisper gently

You say, I will be free,

I know but can't You see,

My dreams for me?

 My dreams for me?

We are called to give up our dreams, and yet we ask if God can see them. There is freedom in surrender. In the giving up of ourselves, we find true peace and freedom in the Lord. 

You say you have a plan for me

And that you want the best for my life

Told me the world had yet to see

What you can do with one

That's committed to Your calling

I know of course what I should do

That I can't hold these dreams forever

If I give them now to You

Will You take them away forever?

Or can I dream again?

We often know what we should do, yet we lack the courage to do it. We know deep down that we can't hold onto our dreams forever, yet we still hold onto them as if our life depended on it. However, we despair because we are not comfortable with the thought that some of the dreams might be gone forever if we give them to God. We fear the fact the some of our dreams for us might not be God's dreams for us. In our stubbornness, we do not see that our dreams, no matter how wonderful they seem, will never begin to compare to the splendor of God's dreams for us. We question whether or not we will ever be able to dream again. We have placed all of our hope in the futile, emptiness of our own unlikely dreams. 

However, this is still hope. God has a plan for us. He desires for us to have life to the fullest. He wants us to experience the fullness of His riches, and He knows that we cannot do this when we are tied down, stubbornly holding onto our dreams. That is why He asks for surrender.

"Commit your work to the Lord,

and your plans will be established."

~ Proverbs 16:3 (ESV)

"Delight yourself in the Lord,

and He will give you the desires of your heart.

Commit your way to the Lord;

trust in Him, and He will act."

~ Psalm 37:4-5 (ESV)

I believe that the last verses that I shared (Psalm 37:4-5) are often taken out of context. So often we quote verse four, and say "God will give you all that you desire!" However, we are missing a key principle when we take out the first part of the verse, "Delight yourself in the Lord." As one who delights in the Lord, your heart will desire the right things, i.e. the things of the Lord. Your desires then are not the worldly desires of carnal man, but reflect the heart of God in saying that He has a better plan for us. In saying this, we are essentially saying, "Because I delight in the Lord and align myself by His covenant, His plan for me will be fulfilled." This is a far cry from the normal usage of this verse!

So you can see, I struggle with surrender. I have a difficult time giving up that which I hold dear to me. That is why I hesitated to share this. I have a hard time trying to convince people of something that I am struggling with myself. However, I feel the tug on my heart that this touches more than just me, and that this is something that we all struggle with in some place of our lives. That is why I decided to share this. To close, I want to share with you a few of the photographs that Josh took during his life. Be blessed by the beauty of God's glory. 

Lovely aren't they? A close friend of Josh's, Ariel Strom, wrote a song entitled To Surrender a Precious Dream. She recorded it and it is posted on her website. It is a beautiful song, and I encourage you all to go and listen to it. 

One last thing for you all, and then I will close: here is a picture for you that contains both Josh's statement that impacted me AND one of his gorgeous photographs. I encourage you to save it to your computer and view it often.As I said earlier, to allow God's dreams for us to replace our own is daring, challenging, and takes every ounce of faith that we possess; yet to give anything less than the entirety of our beings - every hope and dream that makes us who we are -  is to live an incomplete life. Remember the beauty of a surrendered dream. 

Blessings,

Hannah

The Impact of Time

Oh dear! It's Tuesday already. I'm elated, as I finished my finals today, but I am also amazed at how fast time flies. There is so much left to do this week! I have to finish up my 180 days of school, clean the house, go to work, and pack for my trip (I'm leaving for Texas on Friday!!) - all among a million other little things. Have you ever noticed that there is so much to do, yet so little time to do it? When I was little, my parents always used to tell me how fast the day went by. I never believed them until I was about thirteen and a half...then it hit me. BAM!!! Time flies. I quite often tell my best friend that my life never stops moving and that it is traveling way too fast. It seems like only a short while ago that my youngest sister was born...she's nine now. In my life experience, I have found that many people hold onto things that are pointless and temporary. If we only have a short time on earth, do we really need to be wasting time doing things that don't matter? While I like to take a break and relax, I do not find that it is beneficial, or even enjoyable, to waste my teenage and soon-to-be college years. If I spend eight years on my life on me, then I just lost eight years of my life that I will never get back. Most people live to be around eighty years old...so in that case, I just lost 10% of my life. Yikes! As some of you may have already figured out, I am a big avocate for living life to the fullest. As I've said in earlier posts, I don't want to reach the end of my life, look back, and realize that I missed out big time. I want to love passionately, to live deliberately, and to dream daringly. I want to go beyond the expectations of my generation. Let's face it: adults don't expect much from us. Frankly, we deserve that. If all that we are going to do with our teenage and college years is party, get high on drugs, drink, and have sex, then we definitely deserve the lack of expectations with which we are labeled. However, I believe in changing this. I believe in changing the world.

Wow. I know - big statement, one that is used way too much. It seems like everyone nowadays is talking about changing the world. However, I have seen very few people actually do it. I don't want people to look at me and see a hypocrite. If I say that I want to change the world, then I need to actually do it. Jesus only spent thirty-three years on earth in human form, but look at what He did. He changed the world. Because He did it, I know that He can use you and me to make a difference. It isn't some crazy hard thing that you have to wait to do until you are older. A school lunch is like what? $2.50? That isn't much at all, but buying someone else's lunch will change their life forever. Yes, forever. Every action that you make has an impact - positive or negative - upon someone else. I can't change the whole world, but I can certainly change someone's world. I'm not going to live forever, so I want to use the short time that I have on earth to leave it a better place tomorrow that I found it yesterday.

Note: In case you couldn't tell, I'm big on the whole challenge-you-and-me-to-be-a-better-person thing. =)

So, I want to let Christ use me to make a difference. I want Him to work through you too. Because, maybe, just maybe, if you and I separate ourselves from the world and from the low expectations of us, we could make an eternal difference in the Kingdom of God.

Blessings,
Hannah