Beauty in Failure

I have never been so deflated in post-secondary as I am today. I entered this year with a different attitude than what is characteristic of me. I was convinced I was just tired from never really taking a break from school and work, but I am reminded of people who do this all of the time and continue to succeed. I have felt weak, incompetent, not smart, lazy and unmotivated but still expected to excell in what I was doing. Well that is not the case. I now have a letter grade to what I knew in my mind,  I am coasting along. A with this now solidified reality, I have realized something beautiful in it.
My dream has been to become a medical doctor. Since my first biology class in high school I knew this was what I wanted and attending YWAM just solified this idea for me. I prayed that my motives would be right in wanting to be a physician, that I would have a skill to offer God's people along with the hope of Him. I was going to finish medical school, get pretty decent marks so that I would have at least some scholarship to cover the astronomical cost and after graduation my loans would be paid off quickly and I would head off into the world to serve the less fortunate with my new skill. The thing is, this is for me! I want to travel, I want to be credited for helping people and be able to tell people that I am DR. Karly Nikkel (or whatever it may be when I get to that point). I want it more than I remember wanting anything else, but I wanted it to come easy. I tell people "anything worth having requires work" but I don't want that. I want it only to require as much work as I am able to provide to get 90%, 95%, 100%, not more. So, you can imagine why I might really be sent out of anything I have ever been comfortable with when I feel that I have truly failed.
Not to say that I have accepted this sort of performance or plan on continuing my habits but I was revealed something through this slightly. My worth does not come from my success. Whether in the name of Jesus or in the name of Karly, I am no more valued by Him because I have the letters MD behind my name. I am no less usefull to Him because I am not what I have always aspired to be. In the midst of this failure is when I am realizing that I need to hold what has been given to me with an open hand to Him and trust that He is in control of my life and my future if I let Him be! My efforts are draining and waning but His never end. He relentlessly pursues us, His children and He doesn't care whether or not we have letters behind our name only that we are willing to give it all up for Him. Wow my faith is small - that I think that I am the one who makes these sort of things happen anyway. Yes our mind is powerful and can get us to many places but it also ends. The most brilliant people get Alzheimers, where their mind is TAKEN away from them - no matter what sort of academic pursuit, motivation or "setting your mind to it" could have stopped the hands of death from absorbing their mind.
What sort of reality have I created that I am more broken from a barely passing mark than from seeing a man living on the streets, because of the snare of addiction? At what point did I think that I was serving the Lord by being "perfect" instead of being loving? I prayed over and over again that He would allow me to just trust Him with my future without making me squirm with discomfort, but how can we trust in something that is already there? What would make me turn to Him when things are going right just as they are, with Him in the box I like to keep Him in. I'm not saying that God has intervened and caused a poor result, but I believe that He is using it to rattle my mind.
And how arrogant am I to think that with my personal shortcomings, that God can not still use me where I always thought I was called to. He is awesome and might in His power, the only sovereign one and that is an incredible reality to me! I guess it's important to be reminded of these things instead of getting bitter.
I feel ridiculous writing this, but I felt called to do it so I hope that there is someone out there who can be positively affected by this. To know that YOU are valuable and loved even if you don't perform how you feel you should. I imagine, if you are antything like me, you have incredible control over all areas of your life to ensure that you have done all the right things. Well it cannot last without Jesus. He is the one who sustains us and He wants to!! That's the incredible part of our relationship wtih Him is that if you surrender, He wants to help you have a radical life that is full of Him! So much more than what we could ever imagine or hope for ourselves.

A Different Sort of Revelation

May 12, 2011 - Thank you so much to everyone who read my blog while I was journeying through my DTS. I appreciated the support that people cared about what I was doing and it made me feel so much more effective in ministry that I could process and share what God was doing in my life as it was happening. I find that I am a writing processer, meaning that for me to work things out in my head I need to write them down. Friends of mine do that verbally and I envy that characteristic, but God has allowed some pretty cool stuff to flow from my finger tips so I won't complain with what He has given me either.

Blogs from now on will be about what life at home is like for me. Obviously they won't be consitent or have any real meaning as to the time that they come, but I write when I feel prompted and when I'm ready to let God pour my soul onto a page - so here is what I've been working through for the last little while.

Most of you know the my friend Katilin Boyda, and of you who don't, she is an amazing girl that has been a friend to me since junior high and loves the Lord with everything. Just last week, on May 5, she lost her battle with cancer and went to meet the Lord, at age 17. There is absolutely no question as to if her relationship with the Lord was one that would allow her to spend eternity with Him, and I guess just out of selfishness it makes me sad that she didn't get to experience the little things that this world has to offer. But she experienced so much in the short life that she lived! Her maturity and advancement in most social realms allowed her relationship with Jesus and with most people to be much more advanced than the average high school student.


September 2, 2012 - That is where I left off my blogging about Kaitlin and life last year. My journal was able to blow up for a while after that but once again I found myself slipping into a life that didn't have time for God or appreciation of the people that He has chosen as His children. It has been almost two years since I started my journey with YWAM and although I feel that I was a child of God before my time spent there, I have never had a more tangible feeling of the Holy Spirit as I did when I was able to be completely focused on my relationship with Him. What a gift! A school that is dedicated completely to growing disciples of the Lord - when so many people in the world are dying to serve Him we are attending institutions dedicated to making us stronger in our relationship with Him and our battle with the enemies of this world. And yet I find myself to falter and detach myself from the one "person" who relentlessly pursues my soul. I don't feel that I am no longer a follower of Christ, but I am amazed to see how I have much I have regressed in my faith and dependence on Jesus Christ. I was reminded of this blog today and have felt called again to use my fingertips to articulate my spiritual journey. I imagine that most people who consistently read this will never read it again, but if nothing else I have been given a gift to be able to make sense of what the Lord is doing in and around me - as much as we are able to put words to the working of God. I also feel blessed to be reminded of Kaitlin's journey with the Lord as I often am. So here I start again - with a new school year ahead. One that I find hard to juggle with anything other than studying, but I have now made a commitment, potentially an extremely influential one. Thank you Lord for choosing me.