The Beauty of Hope

Hope. Such a beautiful word. A word full of possibilities. Running over with anticipation. Tinted with promise.

Hope- A desire of some good, accompanied with at least a slight expectation of obtaining it, or a belief that is obtainable. Hope differs from wish and desire in this, that it implies some expectation of obtaining the good desired, or the possibility of possessing it. Hope therefore always gives pleasure or joy; whereas wish and desire may produce or be accompanied with pain and anxiety. ~Websters 1828 Dictionary

I just love hope! It really is full of joy and pleasure! At Ellerslie graduations the staff at Ellerslie picks out a "name" for each student to describe them. The name that was picked to define me was "The Hopeful". I almost cried with joy, they couldn't have picked a more perfect description. I really am a hopeful person and I am filled with the joy of having hope. There are two verses that were chosen to go with "The Hopeful";

Being confident of this very thing, that He who has begun a good work in you will complete it until the day of Jesus Christ. Philippians 1:6

That by two immutable things, in which it is impossible for God to lie, we might have strong consolation, who have fled for refuge to lay hold if the hope set before us. This hope we have as an anchor of the soul, both sure and stead fast. . . Hebrews 6:18-19b

These two verses have been a source of remarkable relief and joy in my life. The first one in particular has been such a blessing to me. Just to know that I can hope in Christ, that He has begun a good work in me and that He will not cease to perform that work until it is complete is such a wonderful thing to put your trust and hope in.

In the second verse, the one in Hebrews, we see that hope is a strength, it is an anchor, a refuge. But only a certain kind of hope can be that for us. Only one kind of hope can satisfy us. For a while I had forgotten the divine joy and wonerful hope. I had placed my hope in things of this world, thinking they would make me happy. I had misplaced my hope and trust. I had put them in people and circumstances. I was expecting so much out of that hope, and I got nothing but pain. It all came crashing down on top of me, I was broken and I was hurting. Then the Lord showed me the following verse.

Now hope does not disappoint, because the love of God has been poured out in our hearts by the Holy Spirit who was given to us. Romans 5:5

The kind of hope I had been having was very disappointing in the end. Why? Then I realized that the one and only thing I can place my hope in is Jesus Christ, anything else is simply a wish or desire and is accompanied or followed by pain and anxiety. There is no real hope except that which is placed in my Father. I know He will fulfill me, I have hope of Him changing me. When I put my hope in Jesus I know I can trust Him. He will never let me down. He may not give me everything I want, He may allow things I don't like, but He always puts such joy in my heart that I can't help but hope in Him! He is my only Hope!

Writing

Wow! I haven't written in such a long time! Well I just want to let you all know that I'm going to be posting fairly regularly again so look for a nice long post soon! :)

Sacred Surrender

Article I did for the Ellerslie Post.

I come to Christ in such a pitiful and utterly unattractive state of being. I come to Him having done everything to offend and hurt Him and nothing that has even remotely brought Him glory. My warmest thought of Him is cold. I just can't make myself passionate for Him. And yet that's all I've tried to do. I've tried to do things for Him, I've tried to love Him - I want it so bad! I want Him, I want life in Him. But I can't crucify this flesh that is ruling over me. And yet with flesh, I can't have Him. Light and darkness can't dwell together in the same place. I'm a slave to darkness and selfishness - I'm in bondage. I just can't do the things of Christ. I can't bring Him glory. Why? Why can't I break myself? I know the only way to come is in brokenness but I feel so hardened. This situation is impossible. I just can't do it! I can say I'm a Christian but I'm not the full possession of Christ. If every thought, word, and action is not directed by Him, If every thing I do is not done specifically for His glory, if my whole point of living is not to bring Him glory, if every part of me is not overcome by Him, then I'm simply not Christ's possession. The only way to truly live a Christian life is to live in perfection. Self has no part in perfection.


If I were to stop here it would seem that the situation is impossible, but even through all my inadequacies, my huge amount of failure, and my muddy heart - there is hope. His name is Jesus Christ, and He accomplished something absolutely phenominal when He died on the cross. Something which can and will make me perfect in the sight of God. The flesh in me makes me unable to follow Christ and live in His perfection. But my Jesus has taken all of my inadequacies onto Himself and they were crucified with Him. His body was broken and it accomplished the breaking of my flesh. No, I couldn't break myself, I couldn't crucify myself, but He could and did. He bought me at the highest price that can be placed on anything - the blood of God.

Included in the purchase of the cross, is everything that is me - my life, my mortal body, my thoughts, my personality, my feelings, my heart, my soul, my all. Anything to do with who I am is now owned by Christ. If I yield to Him, He will come into my being and I will be covered by His blood and from henceforth will be owned and operated by Christ Himself. All that I am will be swallowed up in everything He is.

The turning point is what I choose to do with this knowledge. I must believe that the Son of God did in fact purchase me - heart, body, mind and soul. In order to see change, Christ must become the center of my existence. Just like the sun is at the center of the solar system and brings all the other planets into orbit, placing the Son of God at the center of my life will bring everything I say, think, and do into alignment with the perfect life Christ has for me to live.

Now I see the purpose of my life in Christ - being wholly possessed by Christ alone to constantly bring Him glory. Now, all of my thoughts ought to follow the pattern of Philippians 4:8; Finally, brethren, whatever things are true, whatever things are noble, whatever things are just, whatever things are pure, whatever things are lovely, whatever things are of good report, if there is any virtue and if there is anything praiseworthy – meditate on these things. The things I allow my mind to dwell on should be always, only for His glory!

In the same way, every word that comes out of my mouth is to come only at the direction of my Lord -always pure, uplifting, and loving. Any rebuke should be conveyed in a loving manner and only at the direction of the Holy Spirit. My words should point others toward Christ and His goodness, never lifting me up or glorifying me in any way. Any good works that comes out of me are only a result of Christ dwelling in my heart. My words are all useless, but every word of His, that is directed by Him, is perfect.

In everything I do, my life should bring glory and honor to the name of Jesus Christ. There are so many things that happen in a day, many things that need to be done. And yet even these everyday things ought to be done for Him. The motive behind each of my actions is of the utmost importance. There is a way to do good things in the wrong way or for the wrong reason. Prayer, for example, is a beautiful thing and it is something that we, as Christians, are to do all the time. But when we are praying with selfishness, constantly asking God only for the things we want or praying in public just so others can hear how spiritual our prayers sound, we are not bringing glory to God. We should do things for Him and not for anyone else. Even if no one ever knows how much we have given up or how hard we have worked, we should be completely content knowing what we have done is for our King and He is pleased.

Jesus Christ is all - He is the answer to my weakness, filth and hardness. He is love and He will be love through me. When I focus my eyes completely on Him and don't worry about anything else in the world, I will be filled to overflowing with all of Him - His Joy, His passion, His kindness, His compassion, His heart. Christ and Christ alone is who brings me to a place of brokenness, cleanses my heart, and fills me with the perfection of Him. He is my All in all!

Pictures!

So I fully expected to keep my blog updated while I've been here, but that was before I got here and found out that free time, even though we have two hours of it, is not nearly enought to fit in all the extra things that I need to do! Besides that, you can only load up five pictures at a time on Blogger as apposed to about fifty on Facebook. So I just sat down to check my email and there were only two in my inbox and both of them were junk mail :P So I have a bit of time on my hands now. So I will attempt to give you a bit of an update. It's not going to be anything profound because the Lord has done so very much in my life that I couldn't possibly begin to scrach the surface of it. there would be miles of scrolling down you would have to do ;) But I guess that bit of information is good because now you know at least that the Lord has done a mightily work in me. All glory and praise be to His name alone!

So for this post I'll put pictures and in the next one I'll put the article I wrote for the Ellerslie Post. That will give you a bit of perspective of some of what's happened to my life.

These are very randomly placed and completely out of order. But I hope you enjoy them :)

Ellerslie Chapel

Kala's All Stars

David's All Stars

Shalea and I at an old Pizza Parlor with all kinds of writing on the brick walls

Estes Park

Shalea (BTW, she is the best room mate in the world! We are sisters now :)

Yes, "adults" are playing duck, duck, goose here ;)

Shalea and Rachel

Shalea and I

Loodles!

Me on top of a mountain in the Rockies!

Me again

Leslie Ludy playing the piano for us, the song was the one she wrote when she was 16! Jacie is playing her penny whistle :)

Loodles

The clocks at Loodles

Rock formation in Estes Park

The view outside my dorm window

The view outside my dorm window

Snowing on a campus bench

View outside my dorm window. Yep, I know, I'm very blessed!

The Ellerslie Post

Here at Ellerslie we put out our own newsletter. It's completely managed by students. I'm so excited because you all know how much I love to write :) So I'm a head writer for the Post :) Exciting!!! We will put out 4 issues over our time here at Ellerslie. The first one ill be out next week and I will post a link to it when it comes out. So here is a sneak peak into the Ellerslie post for this coming week. It's an article written by yours truly ;)

One of the lovely things about the landscape here at the Ellerslie campus is that we get to behold a beautiful lake every time we come out of our dorms, the Lake House or the Everett Center. When all of us new students arrived, the lake was frozen solid. I had never seen a frozen lake before (being from central California) so I thought it was really cool (no pun intended ;) However, after a while I began to anticipate seeing the lake in it's unfrozen state, rippling in the wind, reflecting all the things that are above and around it, and capturing bits of sunlight so that it would dance and sparkle like so many diamonds and flakes of gold, as apposed to the unmoving, dull, frozen mass that I now beheld. After being here for a few days, in which Windsor enjoyed nice warm weather, I expected the lake to suddenly be totally melted some afternoon after we came out of class. However this was not the case. It was still a frozen mass. A few more days went by and then, one afternoon, we began to see a ribbon of water around the shore! As exciting as that was, most of the lake was still ice. Over the next couple days it melted more and more and then, finally, one afternoon, we came out of class to behold the lake, in it's entirety, dancing and rippling as the breath of the wind wisped across it. It shimmered and sparkled as the sun began to set. It was a glorious sight to behold in and of itself, but those of us who attend Ellerslie Leadership Training were, for some reason, filled with an extra special excitement in watching all of this unfold. The Lord used this progression to speak in a loving and gentle, yet awesome way, to one of our fellow students, Rachael Beall.

On the day that we finally began to see a ribbon of water around our frozen lake, Rachael felt the leading of the Spirit and when Eric opened up the microphone for those whom the Lord was pressing to share, she obeyed the nudge of the Spirit. As she held the mic to her mouth she announced to all of us that she didn't like mics and also that she didn't speak well in front of people. Well as she went on we discovered that she actually speaks pretty well in front of people. Here is the parallel that Rachael saw between our frozen lake and what God was doing in her heart.

Our hearts, like the lake, are frozen, cold and dead within us. But then the warm breath of the Spirit of Truth blows on our hearts and suddenly, we notice that there is a melting process going on in our hearts. It's a little surprising because we expected to just suddenly be free from this frozen, dead state, but the Lord is working in a slower yet surer way. In the beginning stages there is still so much more ice than dancing water. If we focus on the ratio of ice vs. water it can become disheartening so focus instead on what the Lord is doing. As the Spirit continues to fill us, the portion of ice becomes smaller! Here, Rachael drew a parallel to C.S. Lewis' book The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. To borrow Lewis' quote “Aslan is on the move!” Spring is on it's way. It doesn't just suddenly come, but slowly and surely it takes over. It may not be here yet, but it's coming!

Another thing Rachael shared with me is that, just as the lake reflects, so we are to reflect Christ. When the lake is frozen, it cannot reflect. When it is melted, then it reflects but even still, the only time you see a picture perfect reflection in the lake, is when it's perfectly still. So we are to be calm, still, and yielded to Christ in order that we may reflect Him perfectly to those around us. Rachael pointed out that in and of itself, the lake is just a bunch of water, water is clear, transparent, not exactly what we would call beautiful. It would be like saying a window pane is beautiful, or the air is beautiful. She said “The lake is only beautiful in it's ability to reflect.” And so we are only beautiful when we are reflecting Christ.

We were all moved by what she shared and began to look forward, with greater eagerness and confidence, to seeing our hearts melt as they were filled with the Spirit. It's interesting to note that a few days later, we had two days of Spirit led, public confession. On the second day we all walked out of class feeling freer and lighter and that evening we saw our lake, completely thawed, dancing and shimmering! It was a beautiful picture of what we had all just gone through! The journey isn't over, it has just begun, but we have begun and we are on our way!

It's interesting to note that this semester of Ellerslie is called the Winter/Spring semester. It's the same with our hearts, when we get here, our heart is in the dead of Winter, but we get to watch it turn to Spring!

Song of Solomon 2:10-13

My beloved spoke, and said to me: “Rise up, my love, my fair one, and come away. For lo, the Winter is passed, the rain is over and gone. The flowers appear on the earth; the time of singing has come, and the voice of the turtledove is heard in our land. The fig tree puts forth her green figs, and the vines with the tender grapes give a good smell. Rise up, my love, my fair one, and come away!”

And so we say, Jesus is on the move, Spring is coming!

Preparing to Leave

Well it's finally time! Come Saturday morning, I will be on a plane headed for Ellerslie Leadership Training in Colorado! I can hardly wait! The down side is that I've been sick since Monday and am only just beginning to recover. And I still have all my packing to do and a wedding to go to tomorrow night. Then our plane leaves the next morning! Needless to say, I'm feeling a bit stressed :P I mean, trying to pack for two months in less than a day! Whew! Talk about crunch time! On the flip side, I'm really excited about going! My mom will be flying with me and will stay for a couple days. Then she'll fly out on Monday, and Monday is when all the other students will be flying in. Monday evening there will be a formal banquet where all us students will have a chance to meet each other. And so will my adventure begin! I will be posting as much as I can while I'm there, sharing pictures and stories etc. I can't wait!!! Oh yeah. . . packing :P *sigh.

I'm a Wildflower

Finding out the meanings of names is fun and in the past I have enjoyed finding out the meanings of different names. My name, Leslie, means Meadowland or From the Meadow. Today I was listening to the radio and I heard a song called Wildflower. I really enjoyed the words in chorus and they describe me well.

Hey, I'm a wildflower, growin' in the sunshine
Soakin' up the way of life I was raised in.
Runnin' barefoot, bloomin' in a Summer shower
Ponytail dancin', I can't help it, I'm a wildflower!

~The JaneDear Girls