I am done with this semester, and I just drove home to #sweetsweetchesapeake. I have never done this before: I listened to the same song on repeat for the whole ride home (two hours)! Kinda weird, I know...but ScottyBug and I were jammin! This song is that good though. I danced in my living room to it last night, can't contain myself when I hear it! I'm ridiculous =D But seriously, I love this song because it is so Real. I can't help thinking about Jesus when I hear it, I am literally filled with joy. It makes me think of the first half of 2 Corinthians 5, Our Heavenly Dwelling--
Now we know that if the earthly tent we live in is destroyed, we have a building from God, an eternal house in heaven, not built by human hands. Meanwhile we groan, longing to be clothed with our heavenly dwelling, because when we are clothed, we will not be found naked. For while we are in this tent, we groan and are burdened, because we do not wish to be unclothed but to be clothed with our heavenly dwelling, so that what is mortal may be swallowed up by life. Now it is God who has made us for this very purpose and has given us the Spirit as a deposit, guaranteeing what is to come.I love the end...what is to come. What we chosen ones have to look forward to is Paradise, forever with our Lord Jesus. I can't think of this without smiling, without longing for it in my soul. The beauty of dreaming about paradise is that we may also know that it starts now, with our relationship with Christ. What grace that we are not only promised this joy, but can know even a taste of it now, every second of every day we can be awake in the Holy Spirit, to have life to the full, both now and forevermore!
I went to lunches at Conley today, and when I left right after to go home to Chesapeake I missed it. I missed the people, the sweet sweet girls I have gotten to know, and especially the ones I hardly know. I am sad to leave them for three weeks. It has blessed me so much this semester to share glimpses of Paradise with these girls--whether just sitting at lunch with them once or twice a week, or crying with them, or laughing hysterically together, and faithfully through our Bible study every week. I want nothing more than to encourage them to chase Paradise--not because it's going to be unimaginably wonderful (which it will be), with no more drama, no more tears, no more divorce, no more pressure to be someone you're not, no more lies, no more heartbreak, none of that...but because Jesus will be everything, the only thing.
This song reminds me of my girls. They make me smile and bring me so much joy. But I hate the things they go through. I hated it in high school, and I hate it in a different way now watching these girls I love so much wander to find out who they are, what they are about, and the heart ache that comes along with that. It's good and necessary, but so painful. Instead of dreaming about their boyfriends/ex-boyfriends who suck, or the new pair of Uggs that they have to have, or what they're going to do that weekend, I want to encourage them to dream of Paradise and to know the joy that is only found there, in Christ! Oh Lord, please set Paradise, our Lover and Savior, your Son Jesus, in our hearts and minds and deep in our souls!
Psalm 27: 4 One thing I ask of the Lord, this is what I seek: that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life, to gaze upon the beauty of Yahweh and to seek Him in His temple.
