Smile! You're Alive!

I was just walking back to my dorm and I heard a man in the parking lot yell out, "Hello, young lady! Smile! You're alive!" and even though he wasn't saying it directly to me, I took it to heart and he certainly made me smile. It is people like him at the most seemingly random moments who can change someone's mood, even if it just lasts for a moment. 

If there is one thing that makes me angry with myself, it is the fact that I will go an entire day doing meaningless, empty things. Ever since I can remember, this has triggered me. I catch myself every time I am not doing anything meaningful, and I sit there and say "Wow, I really ought to get up and do what God made me to do", and far too often I don't move. I have numerous excuses that I come up with, and I could share them with you, but that would only be embarrassing because frankly, none of them are good enough reasons. There is no good reason for me to be wasting my life. In fact, it's not even my life. The life I have, the breath I breathe, the words I am able to speak, everything I have, and all the people I know are all because of God and His goodness and mercy. I do not deserve a sliver of what I have. I do not deserve to breathe. But God, in his great mercy, sent his son down to earth to die for me, so that I may live, and it says so in 2 Corinthians 5:15, "And he died for all, that those who live should no longer live for themselves but for him who died for them and was raised again". Who am I living for? Myself? My friends? Or my God? 
Do you ever wonder how those who see how you live would answer this question about you? 

One of my favorite things about Asbury and being in a brand new place with a brand new start is that I get to make my own place in a community again. I didn't arrive branded with any labels. There were no expectations, which meant that I got to set the bar for myself, and there was nothing tying me down. Being here has given me the chance to decide who I want people to see me as and I have worked to make sure that people see me as I truly am. And I only hope I have been able to spark some sort of inspiration in others to be genuine, too. I can honestly say that I have never been more me in my life, and it feels incredible. God has shown me what he can do with someone who lives the way he created them to be. Why do we hide who we are? Why do we let standards be set for us by others? Why don't we let God set the standards and open the doors for us to be who he made us to be? 

I have chosen to be vulnerable, open, honest, and willing. I have chosen to place my identity in God alone and to trust that he will not abandon me or let me down in my vulnerability. And he has given me so many blessings within all of that. In my willingness to live openly and vulnerably, God has given me opportunities to bless others, opportunities to change myself to be a better person, opportunities to speak up, opportunities to get more than I expected, and he has given me love. He has shown me so much love, both in what I have been able to give and what others have given me. 

I am blown away by God's goodness. Through this he has inspired me to do so much more than I ever thought I would be able to do. But in all of his goodness, I find myself forgetting how wonderful he is and how fulfilling it is to live for him so freely and openly. I sink into those days of doing nothing with my life, and I waste the time he has blessed me with. I don't feel the same love on those days, and I don't feel the same passion and inspiration on those days. When I choose to be lazy and apathetic, I don't see Gods goodness in the same way, and I don't feel his presence in the every day things. It doesn't mean he is not there, it's just that I am just not doing my part. God doesn't need me to fulfill his plans, but he will use me if I am willing to be used by him. And I want to be used by him, because nothing feels greater than knowing I am living for God, and nothing fills me with more satisfaction.

So, I want to leave ya'll (I am slowly giving in to the Kentucky vocabulary) with a couple of quotes that inspire me to live out the way I desire to, and I hope they will strike something in you as well.

"No matter where you are in life right now, no matter who you are, no matter how old you are – it is never too late to be who you are meant to be.” – Esther & Jerry Hicks

And one of my favorites:

“Don’t ask yourself what the world needs, ask yourself what makes you come alive. And then go and do that. Because what the world needs is people who are alive.” – Howard Thurman

So come alive and don't get so caught up in the busy chaos of life that you forget to smile because guess what...you're alive! You don't know how many hours you have left to inspire people or remind someone of what God has done. Let's not take the gift of life for granted :)