The Third Option

Okay, so I know I wasn't going to post again until June, but with the end of the world prediction and all the mayhem surrounding it, I had some thoughts to share.  This was a note I posted on my Facebook:

One local church was concerned that Camping's followers could slip into a deep depression come Sunday. Pastor Jacob Denys of Milpitas-based Calvary Bible Church planned to wait outside the nonprofit's headquarters on Saturday afternoon, hoping to counsel believers who may be disillusioned if the Rapture does not occur. "The cold, hard reality is going to hit them that they did this, and it was false and they basically emptied out everything to follow a false teacher," he said. "We're not all about doom and gloom. Our message is a message of salvation and of hope."

I found this little story in the middle of a longer story on FOXnews.com about the "end of the world" craziness that's been happening this week.  The article interviewed Camping's followers, and the skeptics, and presented the harsh arguments that both sides were giving.  But this one paragraph struck me; instead of trying to find proof and arguing obnoxiously about how false the predition was, this pastor saw Camping's followers as lost sheep following the wrong person and felt sorry for them.  He had plans for Sunday...to comfort and counsel Camping's followers, not by arguing with facts but by presenting to them a message of salvation and hope.

This was the first time I heard this perspective.  Everyone on Facebook and Twitter and everywhere else is quoting Matt. 24:36 and talking about how wrong Camping and his followers are.  Never did it occur to me that there's a third option we can choose, not the side of Camping or the skeptics, but of those who see these people as lost and hurt for them and want to love them and pray for them instead of judge them.

Why didn't it occur to me?  How could I have been so blind to not see that loving these people could be the only thing that brings peace?  In chapel I sing over and over, "Show me how to love like You have loved me," but I didn't think to love these people like God loves me.  How did I fail so easily?  How could I condemn these people as crazy when I turn around and act like such a hypocrite?

I need God's grace every single day.  So does Harold Camping, and his followers.  So do all the skeptics.  Everyone needs His love so desperately. And that is the message I want to live out in my life, not arguing and condemning, but loving even those who would be called crazy.  "Show me how to love like You have loved me."  Yes, that is my prayer, and I pray it even more earnestly than before.

As the Semester Ends: An Odd Assortment of Thoughts and Events

First matter of business: my Twitter!  Yes, I finally gave in to peer pressure and activated a Twitter account for myself, for two reasons.  One: Jim recently got a Twitter and asked us all to follow him as he travels this month. Two: I figured that during the summer updating my Twitter would be easier and faster than updating my blog, so in between blog posts you can still stay caught-up with what's happening with HeartSong.  You can follow me, "pianoguru8813," or HeartSong, "CUHeartSong," with your own Twitter account, and my tweets will also be posted on my blog to the right. - - >

Last week was the end of a difficult but very fast semester, and now I am officially a college junior!  During exam week I spent a lot of time with my friends.  Tuesday night and Wednesday night I spent with my music major friends hanging out and de-stressing after juries and a busy day of finals, and Thursday night, as part of Rachel's last night in our room, we had the MOMM girls over to hang out.  It was so great to spend some time with my friends before we all left for the summer.  On Friday, Rachel and I moved out of our room and gave each other one last hug.  I prayed with her one more time, giving her over to God to do His will in her life, and I am so excited to see what He does!  I went home for the weekend before I came back to school on Sunday for my May term class, and when I got back I noticed that she forgot her curtains!  So, I kept them and put them up in my new room for May term as something to remember her by.

I had a wonderful weekend with my family.  Friday night I surprised my grandma by coming to her birthday party/Mother's Day outing, and I think I surprised my entire extended family as well!  We had a great time catching up with each other and eating some yummy Chinese food.  On Saturday, my dad and my sister and I took our mom out for Mother's Day to the Cheesecake Factory and shopping; my sister and I also surprised her with a toaster oven, something she's been wanting for years; we finally found one on sale that we could afford!  I was so happy to spend the day with my family and to be with my mom for Mother's Day, especially the next day at church during the Tribute to Moms video.  Church was amazing as usual; I love love LOVE my home church and will definitely miss being there this summer.  After church my mom, dad and I left for CU to finish moving me over to McKinney, my dorm for the next three weeks.  During May, I'm going to be taking New Testament Literature for three hours every day with Dr. Gombis, and amazing NT professor who is going to be leaving CU to teach NT at a seminary next fall; I had to take a class from him when I could!  I am so excited to take an entire Bible class in a month; it will be like an intense 3-week Bible study, and I won't have any other classes or extracurriculars to worry about! :)

Class starts tomorrow, so today I had some time; Jackie stopped by and we had dinner together again.  I am so blessed to know her and love that we can encourage each other whenever we see each other!  I had a chance to encourage her with something wonderful that God has been teaching me lately; she told me, "Don't keep that to yourself.  You need to share that!" So, even though I've blogged about this before, I'm going to again with a little more detail; this is about worshipping God above all else.

About halfway through this semester, I found myself worshipping HeartSong. I LOVED being on HeartSong so much that after a weekend out I would find myself on Sunday evening depressed and sad that the weekend was over.  I took every opportunity given to me to be a part of any extra HS events, and I thought and prayed about my teams a ton.  None of these things were wrong, until I found myself telling a friend that I could not picture myself in college and not being on HeartSong anymore.  I realized that I was putting HeartSong above the God of HeartSong, just like I had put the place Camp Carl above the God of the place.  I became really worried that God would take HeartSong away from me somehow in order to get me back on track with worshipping Him above everything else.

In the course of a week or so in April, I was presented with two different ministry opportunities that would involve leaving HeartSong to be a part of. First, Sanctify Ministries, an org. of college girls that lead girls' retreats, was looking to recruit some new members, but travelling with them for the retreats would conflict with HeartSong.  Second, the women's ministry leader position for my class was open because no one was interested in it, but all the responsibilities for that would be too much if I was on HeartSong as well.  I started praying: "God, both of these are great opportunities that I would be wonderful at.  Do you want me to pursue one or both of them for next year, and leave HeartSong?"  I was so confused, especially with the deadline for the women's ministry leader position being only a week away, and asked my family and friends to pray for me.  I remember telling God that if no one else was interested in the women's ministry leader position that I would step in and do it.

About two days later, I got a reply e-mail from the person I contacted about the position with information about it.  There were about 30 names that also received that e-mail!  I took a step back, deciding to let another girl with a passion for women's ministry take the position instead.  It was as if God was giving HeartSong back to me after I gave it to Him.  In a book called "The Dream Giver" by Bruce Wilkinson that Jake, Jackie's wife, recommended to me, a man with a dream takes the steps to make his God-given dream come true.  One of those steps is giving the dream over to God in a practical way. For me, that was considering leaving HeartSong and taking the steps toward joining a different ministry.  In the book, the man leaves his dream journal behind for God, but as he travels he finds his journal along the road; God had given his dream back to him.  God did the same thing for me; after I showed Him that I was willing to give up HeartSong to worship and follow Him instead, He gave HeartSong back to me.  From that point up to now, I still love HeartSong as much as I did, but I know that at any moment God could take it away for something greater, and I'm not holding on to it as tightly as I did before because I know it belongs to Him.

Well, there's something to chew on for the next month!  I'm planning on postponing more blog posts until June when my summer tour starts.  Looking forward to worshipping my God and letting Him be glorified in my life and through my blog this summer.  To Him be all the glory and honor and praise!! Soli Deo Gloria!!

Beautiful Roomie

My roommate's name is Rachel.  We met our freshman year in a class called MOMM, an acronym for the honors program core.  She is a nursing major, a diabetic, and a former home-schooler.  I never thought I would be her roommate, but during our second semester when we got to know each other better, we started to entertain the thought of being roommates.  We talked about our likes and dislikes, what we have in common, our sleeping/study habits, and anything else roommates should know about each other. Sometime in April she said, "You know, if we room together I would not mind if the whole room was decorated in pink. Pink is my favorite color."  That's when I knew we were soul sisters.  This past year she has been incredibly supportive as I've journeyed through HeartSong and has been a huge encouragement to me, and I love her with all my heart.

The Monday night before Easter break, we had a rescheduled Green Team rehearsal that lasted until about midnight.  After a long and exhausting day I came back to the room to a distressed Rachel who told me that she would probably be transferring colleges.  Where she would be going she could get free tuition and would be closer to home and her job, and she would graduate college debt-free, which is something her parents wanted for her and something she wants, too, if she ends up as a missionary nurse overseas. She had come to that decision earlier that day and was worried the entire afternoon how I would react.  I was so tired and suddenly so sad, but it was my turn to encourage.  I gave her a huge hug and reminded her that God's plan is bigger than ours.  In the same way that I left all my friends at Camp Carl for HeartSong, I told her, God was calling her to leave Cedarville for the bigger plan that He has for her life, and if she ended up transferring I would be okay.  I could tell she was feeling a lot better when we went to bed.

But I woke up the next morning sad.  In fact, for the next two days I was just really down and out of it.  I was asking so many people for prayer, that maybe her application wouldn't go through or God would provide the money so that she could stay and be my roommate again.  But I felt so selfish praying that way after what I told her that night; if God was calling her to follow His plan, why should I pray that He would change His mind and have her follow my plan instead?  My friends were faithful in praying for peace for the two of us; they prayed that God's will would be done in our lives.  On Wednesday night as we both packed for our Easter Break choir tour, I was feeling a little better and had committed not to think about it over the break.

Thursday morning 23 of us from the Concert Chorale and the Men's Glee Club left for New York City.  We spent the break in NY, seeing the sights, getting to know each other, and spending way to much money.  The highlight, and the reason we were there, of course, was when we rehearsed in the mornings with composer JOHN RUTTER and then on Easter Sunday performed Rutter's Gloria and a Gloria by Monteverdi in CARNEGIE HALL!!  We celebrated Sunday night with a dinner cruise around Ellis Island with the rest of the performers (but being the only college-age group there, we hung out on the "quiet deck" away from the crazy high schoolers and taught each other to swing dance all night).  Rachel and I spent almost every moment together, shopping and sightseeing and being with our choir friends, taking so many pictures with both of our cameras for a scrapbook we decided to make together so that we can each take a copy with us if she left.

This past week was rough in several ways.  With assignments due, Facebook back in my life and eating away my time, group presentations, and trying to help Rachel through all her busyness and this emotional journey, I am sitting here completely drained.  Rachel is away for a couple days visiting her new school and is about 99% sure she will be there next fall.  This week I kept thinking about my friend Laura, my best friend in junior high who moved away just as we were starting high school, and how when she left we gradually lost touch.  I was worried that would happen to Rachel and me.  I also kept thinking about my roommate for next year.  I could never find another "Roomie," and I don't want to; I don't want anyone to take Rachel's place because she is so beautiful and precious to me.

But when I stop and listen to God's voice, He reminds me to surrender.  He reminds me of when I left everything I loved in Camp Carl to follow His call to try out for HeartSong.  Just like Jesus' disciples.  In Matthew 4:21-22, two brothers named James and John are getting ready to go fishing with their father; this is what they did, how they found their identity; they were a part of the family business and were comfortable that way.  But Jesus calls them to follow Him, and they just stop what they're doing and follow.  They don't stop and think and pray about it; they don't even talk it over with their father first!  They just leave their father there to fish by himself.  James and John did the right thing; when God called them, they followed, leaving everything that seemed comfortable and right for something much greater than they could ever anticipate.  I feel a little like their father right now; how can they just leave him there without thinking about how hurt he would feel or all the work he would have to do by himself?  Their father had to let them go and follow that call to a much greater plan for their lives than they could have found comfortable or profitable.  In the same way, my boss and coworkers at Camp Carl had to let me go and follow God's plan to be on HeartSong, and already He has done so many things in me and through me that never would have happened if I did not follow Him.  And in the same way again, I have to let my roomie go, because God has a bigger plan for her than I could ever have, and he orchestrates His plan so that we could be "for the praise of His glory."  How could I ever stand in the way of that?

No one will ever take Rachel's place; there won't be another roommate that I could spend so much time with and invest in so much as I did Rachel.  There will be many road trips, many late-night Skype dates, and many future memories for the two of us (for instance, we already decided that when we graduate she would be a nurse in NY and I would play piano on Broadway and we would live together in an apartment on Park Avenue and be roomies again).  My new roommate will have to go by the name "room buddy" or something else endearing but not "Roomie," because that's Rachel.  I will miss her so much next year.  But God's plan is bigger than mine, and thank God that it is, because I would be so lost without Him.  He knows what He's doing, and I can surrender my roomie over to Him because I know that He cares for her and has better plans for her than I could ever have.  I am looking forward to seeing how God uses my beautiful roomie next year for His glory.