Fast Cars and Freedom

Fast Cars and Freedom is a great song by Rascal Flatts; you should look it up and give it a listen. It’s also the theme of my weekend.

We’ll start with fast cars. Rebecca’s boyfriend (he has officially graduated from boyfriend-type to boyfriend) and his roommate drive fast cars. They both have Nissan 350Zs. They also both race their fast cars. We spent Saturday afternoon at their house, and the evening ended with Nathan, Rebecca’s boyfriend, taking me for a ride. I am not at liberty to say how fast we actually drove, but suffice it to say it was FUN! I have to admit I was nervous, but not because I didn’t trust his driving. I kept thinking what if a dog or a child or a person runs out in front of us? What if a car pulls out in front of us? It was just slightly nerve-wracking (which made it all the more exciting in my twisted mind). I have to believe that someone who hadn’t actually learned how to race would have killed us both. I’d love to ride with him on a race track where I wouldn’t have to worry about dogs and kids and people and other cars. I don’t think I could ever drive that way, but I can understand why they do it. Oh, and I was praying the whole time.

Now for the freedom portion of the weekend. I spent Friday night and Saturday morning at a Ladies’ Retreat at the Springville Camp and Conference Center. Our keynote speaker was Caroline Jones, who is a consultant with the Women’s Missionary Union (WMU). She spent 10 years as a missionary in Chile, and she had a lot to share about her experience there and her life as a Christian. The theme of the retreat was Fill My Cup, Lord – and I believe I left there with my spiritual cup filled. It’s not overflowing yet, but I’m working on that. You see, when I allow the Lord to fill my cup with his love to the point of overflowing, I will be able to spread His love to the people around me. That’s important to me because I am excited about the way the Lord is working in my life and blessing me and my family. It’s news that should be shared so that other people will know Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior and be freed from the worries of this world.

I learned some things about myself this weekend. I am a prideful person, I like to worry, I think mean thoughts about people before I really know them, the list could go on and on. Because these things were filling my cup instead of God’s love, the people around me see just me and not my Lord shining through me. It’s only through the grace of God that I can be the person he wants me to be (and the person that I want to be).

I went to two workshops, one about moving outside of my comfort zone and one about managing stress. I needed them both. This post is WAY outside of my comfort zone – which is why I decided to share my weekend with you. Stress and my humanly faults act as a barrier between myself and God. When my heart is full of sin, I cannot pray with a faithful and loving spirit and I do not act with a faithful and loving spirit. This means that I need to confess and repent over and over and over again all day long every day, because I’m telling you that I really struggle! I love to worry, and worrying is the same as telling God that I don’t trust him to take care of me. You know what? He does take care of me. He’s showed me time and again that He will resolve the sticky situations I get myself into, that He will meet my financial and physical needs even when it seems impossible to me, and He answers my prayers when I ask Him with a right spirit. Yet, I still worry because I’m prideful and I like to try to handle everything without help.

The stress management workshop was great. We learned the Theory of the Orange. It goes like this: everyone has an orange (the orange is a representation of your self) and stress affects that orange by putting pressure on it. Stress can apply so much pressure that it has a physical effect on us, often making us sick. Sometimes it gets so heavy that we are disfigured by it – our orange is crushed to pulp and juice and is no longer an orange at all. Then we discussed internal stressors and external stressors. Internal stressors are things that I do to myself (like degrade myself about a mistake I made or worry about my weight or cause conflict, etc). Essentially, when you apply stress to yourself, you are squishing your own orange. External stressors are things that you cannot control (death, accidents, an unexpected bill, sick kids, etc). There will always be external stressors. The lesson we learned is that we should quit squishing our own orange with the things we can change, and we should step back and let the Lord protect our orange from our external stressors. (You see how my problem with worry fits here?) All we have to do is trust Him, give Him our problems, let Him do the worrying for us, and He will. What a load off! If you want to read more about what the Lord will do for you if you let Him, check out Proverbs 3. It’s powerful and freeing.

So why is freedom a theme from the weekend? Because I offered up my selfish burdens and refocused on my relationship with the Lord. I left that retreat hungry for more of Him. I’ve spent more time in prayer in the past two days than I had in the two weeks prior. I’ve been freed from my stress and worry because I got a good reminder that God will handle it for me, and I started reapplying that to my life. The stress headache I’ve had for weeks is gone, and I slept better Saturday night than I have in a long time. I slept so hard that I drooled on my pillow!! That’s not normal (for me anyway).

If I’ve offended you, let me know because I’d love to pray for you. If you want to know more about my relationship with God or how you can have one, too, let me know because I’d love to share with you – and I’ll be praying that God gives me the words because that is also WAY out of my comfort zone.