The last day of 2015. A year of change.
A quick recap of my year:
- January: Began my last semester of undergrad starting with “The Block” of classes from 7 am to 4 pm with mounds of homework.
- January 28: Started my first day of clinical practice with 24 students in third grade.
- February: Recruitment conference where I met and spoke with many principals, beginning a long process of prayer and seeking God.
- April 30: Accepted job as a 5th grade teacher at Fairfax Baptist Academy
- May 8: Graduated from Bob Jones University.
- May 23: My youngest brother graduated from high school
- June-August: Worked at a summer Day Camp
- August 1: moved to Virginia
- August 24: First day as a 5th grade teacher
- August to December: Learning to be a teacher and to live on my own.
I have learned so much this year. When God made me, I think He gave me an extra dose of emotions and a heart that feels so deeply that can sometimes make it difficult to cope. Anxiety has been much a part of my life, though most people aren’t aware because I “fake it til I make it” (or at least try to).
However, I truly believe that God wrote 1 John 3-4 with this anxious, tightly-wound girl in mind. 1 John 3:20 is one of my all-time favorite verses in the whole Bible:
“For if our hearts condemn us, He is greater than our hearts and knows all things.”
As a person who feels deeper than she can often imagine at times-this verse has been my lifeline and prayer. Many times, my heart feels what I can’t understand. It is a battle of my heart to be at peace because my natural inclination is to be anxious over the next thing. Sometimes, I feel as though my heart is betraying me because the depths of my heart produces feelings that run so deep, that it can be exhausting to try to explain and understand. My one consolation when I can’t understand and no one else understands?
God is greater than my heart.
I find it interesting that the Bible even says this because of course, the God who created us is bigger than us which would include our hearts! I think that God knew that in 2015 a struggling, anxious child of His would need the reminder that God is indeed greater than my heart.
- Greater than my heart that beats too fast when I’m scared or nervous.
- Greater than my heart that drops to the floor when I see anyone or anything being mistreated.
- Greater than my heart that wants everyone to be okay, no one to be hurting, no one to be mean, and no one to be upset in any way.
- Greater than my heart that rips to shreds of guilt when Satan brings up my past.
- Greater than my heart that sinks to despair when my mind cannot forget my past.
- Greater than my heart that wishes intensely not to make the same mistakes and…
- Greater than my heart that pumps with every fiber of my being to please the One who made me.
God continues with something amazing: right after He tells me that He is greater than my heart and after He tells me that He knows ALL things including the status of my heart, He says in verse 22:
“Whatever I ask, I receive of Him, because I keep His commandments, and do those things that are pleasing in His sight.”
All of those feelings of my heart of pleasing Him and fighting the good fight forgetting what is behind, and pressing to do all that I can in the life He has graciously given me: I can ASK HIM!
I can ask the One who made me because who knows me better? God put this all in one chapter so that I am reminded when I start to feel those deep emotions, that God is greater than my heart and wants me to ask Him!
However, in 1 John 4, God tells us in verse 4 that, “Greater is He that is in you, than He that is in the world.” God is greater than my heart and yet, He chooses to live there! Those external feelings that put pressure on me from the outside world? God is greater than them too!
I John 4:7-8 reminds me to love others as God does, but how does God love? Verse 10 says that, “Here is LOVE…. not that we love God, but that He loved us and sent His son for our sins.”
God sent His only Son, and here I am as an insignificant person on the earth for a few short years and I crave for everyone to be at peace even at my expense, but NOTHING that I feel can ever measure to what God must have felt as He sent His son away for a little anxious, tight-wound, deep-feeling, 21st century, Christian girl. How could God cope with feeling of that magnitude?
Verse 18 of chapter 4 says, “There is NO fear in Love, but perfect love casts out fear.”
As God sent His son and as Jesus came, they thought of me, fearful and anxious, but they were not fearful or anxious, because they loved me perfectly and knew that Jesus coming to earth would make a way for the little girl that they loved more than anything to be with God and Jesus for all eternity.
I am afraid to love and at times, I am afraid to be loved, but as 1 John 4:19 says, “We love Him because He first loved us. God’s perfect love dispels fear.
Though, I will never be able to give or receive perfect love til Heaven, I am so thankful to God for loving me perfectly which includes making me perfectly, even my deep feeling heart and placing me perfectly at the end of the 20th century and the beginning of the 21st century as a light of love to all I meet. This year has been scary and filled with monumental change, but….. God is greater than my heart in 2015 and my heart in 2016.
thepassionategirl 