The closer you are to the cross...

Found through Bing Images (https://i.pinimg.com/originals/5f/c2/46/5fc2468a72d6139cc77dc7ac73eb84cb.jpg)

Happy Easter week! This is such an important week for Christians, and honestly, it is an absolute emotional rollercoaster. So many things happen to Jesus in seven days, from last Sunday (Palm Sunday) when he entered Jerusalem, to Maundy Thursday and the Last Supper, Good Friday when Jesus was crucified, and then Easter Sunday when we celebrate the tomb being empty and Jesus being risen. Commemorating the journey of Christ and remembering that we are the reason He went through this journey is very moving. I want to encourage everyone who is interested in learning about Lutheranism (or Christianity in general) to attend at least Easter Sunday service; this service at churches is different than any other service throughout the year, as it is the basis for our entire belief.

Because it is Easter week and we are going to be honoring it, I wanted to spin the symbolism of Jesus on the cross in an additional way we can carry Jesus with us each day. Do you ever feel alone in the world? Do you ever feel like, even if you have a family, significant other, friends, coworkers, etc., you just never really fit in? Do you ever feel like an island because of your beliefs, because of your standards, because of anything that you cling firmly to throughout the turbulence in this life? I would not be surprised if you have. I certainly have and continue to feel this way as I navigate new chapters of my life and with new people. I often wondered if it was my own doing, my own self-sabotage that I build walls with people outside of my tight circle of family and I isolate myself from being able to have what looks, from the outside, like a popular, fun, and genuine kind of friendship or relationship.

I want to interject a story here about my freshman year at college, at the University of Michigan. I knew no one, I roomed blind with someone I had never met and barely spoken to, and I was newly single at the time. I felt shaken up and I wanted to take the opportunity to start fresh and make the most of it. It worked for a little bit--I had quite a few friends on the same floor as my dorm, we would go eat meals together, walk to class, and hang out in between. However, this acceptance was short-lived. I entered a relationship with Clay, I stayed in touch with my family, and I chose to come home and visit on weekends. In what felt like the blink of an eye, I was on the outside looking in and I didn't understand. Why couldn't I have both? My family and boyfriend, and all of my college friends. I could spend the weeks with my friends and the weekends with my family and Clay. It tormented me--they became explicitly rude and exclusive, and I was nothing but kind to all of them. I thought I could fix it by spending more weeknights with them, but it was useless. Something was off and I had no idea what it was. I learned later that they spent a bit of time talking about me when they could have talked with me. What they said could not have been true, as they did not spend enough time to know much about me. It was difficult to say the least. I had other friends in college, but I lived on the same floor as this group, making it hard to see past it. After the school year was over, I was home for the summer and was talking with my mom about it, and I made the comment that "They did not like me because I did not spend any time with them anymore" and my mom's response hit me straight in the heart. She said, "They did not like you because you did not need them." I thought about it and she was flat out right. The fact that I did not need to spend all of my time and energy looking for their approval and kindness and acceptance shook them more than it shook me. It caused them to say ugly things and act in ugly ways. I never lowered my standards and when they no longer met them, instead of behaving like they did, I moved on. I found new friends, I made new hobbies, I focused on other things. I did not need them because I did not look for their earthly acceptance. I did not need them because I knew I was not saying anything about them behind their backs, attacking their reputations, and bullying them. I did not need them because I could pray each night to Jesus and know that I represented my Christian faith appropriately.

This brings me to the following Bible verse: "If you were of the world, it would love you as its own. Instead, the world hates you, because you are not of the world, but I have chosen you out of the world. If you belonged to the world, it would love you as its own. As it is, you do not belong to the world, but I have chosen you out of the world. (John 15:19)" This is exactly what my mom was telling me. She was making the point that I am not of this world, but instead chosen out of it. I did not need them and so they did not love me as their own. I am not the only one with stories like this one. But I wanted to share that it is not automatically your fault when someone does not accept you. Maybe I needed to be tested and I needed to be reminded of how important my faith is to me. I needed to know where to go and who to focus on. I am grateful for my family's support, and Clay's; They loved me through it from a distance. Up close, I had God. I grew so much as a person that year and found a whole new world outside of my hometown that I needed to tackle. I could not tackle it without holding onto my faith. Regardless of what happened, who did not accept or did accept me, I needed my faith. I did not need to fit in with them, I needed God. The truth is that you will never fit in fully. You are chosen out of this world, just as the Bible says. Accepting that is crucial for you to lean into God and become the person He wants you to be. Being accepted by this world is not where you belong. I understand how tempting it is; I could have tried everything to be in that friend group: gone to parties and drank underage, made jokes about someone else in the group so the target was not on me, lied about things to look better, abandoned my family and boyfriend and faith to make room in my life for these people. At the end of the day, it was not worth it. I would have given up on pieces of me that make up the foundation of who I am. I clung to those pieces instead. My faith, my family, and Clay. They mean too much to me that if I gave them up, I would not know who I was anymore and I would be a drifter in the world with no roots, just like so many people I met throughout my college career.

Like I said earlier, this is Easter week, the week we focus on Jesus and His journey to the cross and how He paid for our sins. I was on Facebook a few months ago and saw this image:

This quote from T. F. Tenney is a powerful one. This quote was my missing link between Easter and feeling like an island. It connects my mom's words to the words of the Bible. It connects how we feel to why we feel that way. It does all of this and more. It is a promise to you that when you humble yourself and accept Jesus in your life, you need to be willing to replace all of the earthly comfort of acceptance and you will be graced with the heavenly acceptance of Jesus and His love. While this might sound scary at first, the love and welcoming of Jesus far exceeds any kind of longing I have ever had to belong here in the world. His embrace is worth so much more than anything here. Jesus was not here on earth for the world to take him in, instead He was here to help people with their acceptance of heavenly, eternal joy. He has chosen us out from this world; He does not want us comfortable or content. Instead, God wants us to forever be walking towards the cross, bringing people with us not through our abandonment of what we stand for, but rather by being the best example of Christ we can be. And clinging to it throughout every chapter of life, regardless of how the devil uses the world to tempt us. We want to always be moving towards Him, always be growing in our faith, always editing ourselves to improve and to get closer to Him. It is the promise of the possibility of each new day to become a better version of ourselves and shed another layer of this world. My parents taught me growing up that sometimes you are the only Bible someone will ever read. It makes you measure how to behave and makes you desire to represent it the very best you can. It is inspiring to think about how God uses you as a vessel and sometimes we do not even recognize when someone takes notice of our faith. You could save a soul, or souls, by clinging to your faith. That is worth more than any earthly acceptance.

When we think of how we might feel like an island, like we really do not belong anywhere, it can remind us to focus on the cross. We can focus on how God is with us every single second of every single day. We can confide in Him, be friends with Him, lean on Him, and rest in the reality that He has it all figured out. I may not have been accepted by those people in college, but I spent the evenings calling my parents and then calling Clay and then talking to God. I know I was the winner. I carried Him with me everywhere, knowing He was with me when no one else was. He rode the bus with me, walked to class with me, ate meals with me, and so much more.

So this Easter week, I want to commemorate the journey Jesus went through in order to save me and every other believing child of His. I want to pay that journey honor by always striving to walk closer to the cross, regardless of who or what might not welcome it. I hope that you do the same; Honoring God is more than Sunday, and you and I have the chance to make a difference. Jesus saves us daily and we can daily work on shifting our focus from acceptance here on earth to when we get to Heaven and are able to run into the arms of our Savior. We are never alone, as He is with us always. Happy Easter, my friends. He is Risen!