Learning

I have learned much. My stress level has significantly decreased lately, too. It's as if I really learn something new everyday, although I may not realize that I have, in fact, learned something right away.

This past weekend was the 2010 Carolinas Fall Getaway for North and South Carolina Campus Crusade for Christ ministries. Adjective of choice: phenomenal. Hank Marshman spoke, and he challenged us to be authentic. Authenticity is so much more than what my old youth pastor taught when he said "Be Real." Authenticity is true, genuine; sincere; not shallow; founded on truth, God. It is not guilt-ridden nor burdened by disappointment. It produces zealous conviction rather than mere opinion or passive conviction. I learned that God walks with us in our disappointment and failures, just as Jesus walked with his two disheartened followers down the road to Emmaus. They had no idea He was the man accompanying them, but as soon as they figured it out, they were reminded of their hope and immediately returned to where Jesus desired them to be. I am those followers too often; but I thank God that He is so faithful to remind me and not desert me when I walk away.

I also spent a lot of time thinking about my Granny. That weekend marked a month, after all. But I ended up applying the Gospel in a way that has helped me significantly. My Granny thought she was a failure. She believed I was disappointed in her. But she had the Son of God living in her. Jesus was completely innocent of any wrongdoing, but He died a horrid death on a cross, taking the punishment that God says we deserve. All we have to do to live eternally with Him in heaven is accept that gift of life that Jesus paid for and give Him the rule of our lives. (Who wouldn't want the Creator to take care of his life when He is so perfect and all-knowing and we are so imperfect and small?) There is nothing we can do to be good enough for God and earn salvation, and there is nothing we can do to lose that salvation He gives us. So, regardless of any of her failures or thoughts, she is alive with Christ. And I am as well. Forever. (Permanently!)