Redefine me.

There are gifts within you.
There are talents and there are struggles.
There is beauty and there is ugliness.

I know, because they're in me too.

These contradictions that make up my whole being.

All of these pieces that somehow fit together to make me the person that I am.

I used to have this idea, in my head, that when I decided to truly give my life to Jesus, He would change me. I would be a totally different person. Someone I didn't know. Someone I wasn't. I would look more like all of the other Christians I saw. Maybe I would no longer be full of these contradictions. Maybe my passions would change. Everything would be different. I would be different. That's just how it goes.

But this idea that I had frustrated me. Haunted me. I was not a different person. I still struggled with the same things. I didn't fit into any cookie cutter image. And all of a sudden I felt like I didn't know who I was.

But I've begun to change my prayer...

God isn't sitting around trying to make everybody look the same. I believe, He's actually doing quite the opposite. God's not trying to make me anyone other than who I am. But I do believe, and I've begun to pray, that he will redefine me.


Redefine...
         To define something differently.

God is in the business of redefining.

He takes what's there and redefines it, using it for His glory.

I will always be Amber. I will always have these passions. I will always have these struggles. But I am asking God to redefine them. Show me how to use all of these things for His glory.

Redefine my passions.
Redefine my talents.
Redefine even my weaknesses.

Because so often my greatest weakness, by God's grace, can turn into my greatest strength.

...if only I let Him redefine it...

If it were up to me, apart from God, I would probably be investing myself, passions, and gifts into very different things, and I would be unhealthily feeding my struggles and weaknesses.

When I allow God to step in, that doesn't all go away, but what it looks like is very different.

I was painting the other day and thinking through this idea of redefining...
And I realized my paints tell the whole story...

I have a color.
Red.

I use it for a certain purpose. For certain details. For a certain feel.

But then another color comes along.
Blue.

They mix.


And all of a sudden a new color is formed.
Purple.

But I never got rid of the red. Really, the red is still there. It just looks different.


And now purple, I use for something totally different then the red alone. But the red is there. Still a base for the purple itself. It's just being used in a different way.

Red could never be purple by itself.




I imagine what it looks like for my passions, talents, and struggles to mix with God and His heart.
What colors would it create?
Where would it be used?


Redefine me.

I look down at my pallet.
Colors. All sorts.
You can see the process of the mixing.
The process of new colors being made.
Colors being redefined.

There's darks and lights and everything in between.
It's messy.
And yet the product is beautiful.

It's a process of transformation. A process of taking what's there, using it as a base, and making something new. A process of redefining.

Trust in the messy process of redefining. Let God use you, in your entirety, with all that you have for His purposes and His glory. Don't give into the lie that you have to be someone else. You simply have to be redefined. Let this be your prayer.

Redefine me.

A Reminder to Stop.

Christmas break was a time of relaxation and reflection. Spending time with family, catching up with good friends, sharing all that's happened my last four months, having challenging conversations, simply enjoying the presence of the ones I love, it was a much needed time of rest.

Rest.

It's funny to me that the busyness of the city has taught me so much about rest. Perhaps because it's important, and, at times, more needed to take a step back from the over stimulating environment of the city. Maybe my on going schedule forces me to seek out the small moments of rest. Maybe I've just come to cherish those quiet, alone moments that feed me, because they've become more and more rare. Whatever the case, rest has become a yearning in my heart. To constantly be resting in the arms of my God and finding the moments where that can be my focus.

It's hard for me to rest. To stop. Pause a busy schedule and be at peace. My mind always seems to be running restlessly. On top of that struggle already in place, it's hard to find the time for it. Life and busy schedules push us to keep going, as if rest was wrong. So too often, we miss it.

We can't forget the moments that we stop. The moments that we breathe and breathe in the presence of our ever present God.
"Let my soul be at rest again, for the Lord has been good to me."
- Psalm 116:7

I think we all need more moments where we stop. Stop the busyness of our schedule. Stop the busyness of our thoughts. Stop, remember the goodness of our God, and rest. I hope that this month you'll find beautiful moments of rest and that you'll make it a priority. I'll be working towards the same.