10 - 12 Weeks

I have just recently finished a journey, a season in my life which I have decided to entitle "10 - 12 weeks". 12 weeks ago on April 13, 2016 I had had a really rough week. From an outside perspective (also known as Instagram) it certainly didn't look like a rough week. The previous weekend had been TNT @ TNU 2016 where I won first place senior youth preaching. It had been my third year in a row winning the first place title, but my first year competing in the senior youth category. It was a really big deal for me. It had also been a great weekend because I had been able to catch up with some of my dearest friends that are on the East Tennessee district. I had met them at Y.E.S. conference 2014, a conference for high schoolers who felt called into ministry. It really was a fantastic weekend full of fun times with people like Jacob, Emily, Jonathon, Gracie, Zander, and Darby. However, the days that would follow would be very frustrating. 

For months before TNT @ TNU 2016 I had started to feel like God was pulling me away from my home church, Nashville First Church of the Nazarene. When I had first felt that pull I told God he was crazy. I volunteered in the preschool department every Sunday morning, organizing games and telling stories to children that ranged from ages 2 to 6. I was a very active member in my youth group, attending as many trips as I could. I had grown up in that church and my life practically revolved around it seeing as my father was the facilities manager (meaning I was always there). I didn't want to leave NFCN... that is until April 13. I was furious with some of the teens in my grade. My friend Mark and I were bickering over the stupidest things that happened to concern my friends from the East Tennessee District. At the moment I was sick and tired of how my youth group would say inappropriate things at inappropriate times. I found myself thinking that I was more mature than them and I no longer wanted to be in a place where I found myself "surrounded by child-like people" and where I felt unloved and unwanted. I begged my parents to let me start coming to their Sunday school class, something they never allowed me to do in an on-going basis. In seeing how upset I was, they said yes. I had this big picture in my mind of how I would continue working in preschool during the Sunday morning service, go to Sunday school with my parents rather than with the teens, and I would slowly stop coming on Sunday nights and Wednesday nights. This was my solution; however there was a problem with it. A girl who feels called into ministry really needs to be more involved in church than just Sunday morning. I also wanted to continue going to the wonderful events that Nazarenes had come up with: camps, mission trips, and especially TNT @ TNU so that I could continue preaching on this level. I talked to my two youth pastors about it, Matt Taylor and Shane Tarter. I talked to people who I looked up to about what I was going through. This included my father and teachers and administrators at school. I was told to pray about it. Not just pray once or twice in one day to come up with a decision, but to really REALLY pray hard about it. I began praying and in one week God had spoken in miraculous ways already. He had told me to talk to Mark, forgive him, and to ask for forgiveness myself. I did just that and I started writing too. It's in the format of a little book and the title says "Should I Stay or Should I Go?" In this book I wrote down my prayers and I made a pro/con list of staying and leaving. I took more notes in church and I wrote down a list of people who reached out and told me they were praying for me. This was of course in response to a Facebook post asking for prayer on a big decision. Only four people who were involved with the situation told me that they were praying for me. The rest of those who responded were adults in the church who I had friendships with, family members, adults at my school, Donelson Christian Academy, all of my friends from East Tennessee, and students from another youth group that I had been attending on Friday nights. (I'll talk about that later). Also in this book I wrote down my options. My options included: stay at NFCN, but don't get involved in youth group, stay in the preschool department but discontinue attendance at NFCN, move to a different local Nazarene church, move to the East Tennessee district, stay in the Midsouth district, or I could start going to Eastgate. Eastgate is the other church I attended on Friday nights. A good friend, Corey Miranne, had first taken me there towards the end of my freshman year of high school. I fell in love with the people there and with the worship. The worship reminded me of the music that we hear at church camp. Ask any teen in the NFCN youth group and they'll tell you that when we're at camp, God shows up in amazing ways, especially through the music. The music at NFCN wasn't like camp music and that experience with God through music was what I had been searching for. Eastgate was starting to look like an amazing option. Also in this little book were words that I had gotten from God. Bible verses, advice from people, song lyrics, and little phrases that had popped into my head filled page after page in this book. Within the first week of writing in "Should I Stay or Should I Go?" God had let two Bible stories come to mind. The first was the story of Abraham and the second was the story of Jonah. Was I being called out of my comfort zone and everything I was familiar with to follow God in faith? Or was I like Jonah, running from a mission field that God had provided for me. I prayed that I was Abraham, but God told me I was Jonah. I decided to give my youth group another chance, and I'm glad that I did.

While at Eastgate one Friday night, the worship band sang this song. The name of God, Adoni, was repeated over and over again and something about it stood out to me. I went and asked one of the adult leaders whose name is Aaron what Adoni meant. I thought it would have some incredible hidden meaning that would reassure me that I was making the right choice in staying in the Midsouth district (at the moment I was still struggling with the possibility of going to Eastgate full time). All Aaron told me was that Adoni was one of the holiest names of the Lord. However, I knew that there had to be more than that. Life continued and the next week I went back to school. Our show choir was helping set up for the Spring Musical, The Wizard of Oz. During fourth period I was walking with some of my friends to bring props down to the gym where setup was going strong. I walked past a classroom and inside was one of my favorite teachers at DCA, Karen Singer, my 9th and 10th grade Bible teacher. She called me inside where three senior sat. I had just walked into her Hebrew class. She told one of the boys, Dajuan, to recite a blessing in Hebrew that they had just learned. As he spoke I heard the name again, Adoni. However, I was not thinking of the previous Friday night and I continued with my day. That night I read over "Should I Stay or Should I Go?" and I saw "Adoni". The next day after school I walked into Mrs. Singer’s classroom and asked her about the prayer. I asked her what Adoni meant. She said that the Hebrew people knew that their God's name was Yahweh (YHWH); however, the name was so holy that they could not speak it out loud so they created a new name for God, Adoni. I asked her what the prayer meant and as she repeated it in English, the words were very similar to the lyrics of an Irish Blessing that the choir always sings at DCA Graduation. The blessing that we sing goes like this: May the road rise up to meet you. May the wind be always at your back. May the sun shine warm upon your face. May rain fall softly on your fields until we meet again. May God hold you in the palm of his hand. Amen. Even though we sing this to our seniors who are departing God told me that it was a blessing to stay. Not just stay in the Midsouth district but also to stay at NFCN. I struggled through some doubt for the next few weeks and then I went through a six week period of time where life was amazing. I didn't talk to God as much as I needed to but I was too busy to worry about it. God was pretty silent until church camp started. I've already posted about church camp on my blog but I will reiterate some highlights. I realized that the reason I couldn't fully surrender my life to God was because I felt hurt by and afraid of Him. I had a relationship with the rules, not with the ruler. At camp I realized that God was not angry with me and that he is a spirit that moves. God allows things to happen but he does not cause them to happen. There's a difference and that difference was what allowed me to completely surrender to him that Thursday night. God redefined himself for me. Oh, and this was just what I learned on Monday. Tuesday I realized that if I was acting the same way as kids at my school who proclaim to be atheists, then I am a child of the devil more than I am a child of God. That I "shouldn't purposefully sin" just because I knew that God would forgive me later. I decided on that day to stop pushing God to the limit because as Corey Miranne once said "You don't know your limits until you get there and by that time it's too late". The speaker at camp, Eric Samuel Timm, said "Are you living in community or searching for it? Because when the storm comes, you'll know". I realized that I had been searching for it, but that I had also found it and it had been right in front of my eyes, meaning that I had been living at the edge of the community, not in it. I learned that comparison kills community. On Wednesday I realized that we all fool ourselves into believing in the idea that we have plenty of time, but we don't. And we don't want to be woken up by the alarm clock of tragedy, like the events that happened in our country this week in Louisiana and Minnesota and Dallas. Time is invested, not spent. Invest time in the silence of God because to listen to God we must be silent. Have you ever noticed that if you rearrange the letters in the word 'listen' you get the word 'silent'? I also learned that my faith had to be my own faith. Finally I learned that you can't give God your left over change and expect change in yourself. We must actively pursue him. On Thursday I learned that there’s a difference in Knowledge and Action. I knew that I needed to surrender but until I did, there would be no change in me. The final lesson I learned at camp on Friday is a lesson that we all need to hear in light of the shootings that happened in the last week: in this time of tragedy God wants us to be a light in the darkness. However, we are not supposed to be spot lights that blind people and make them uncomfortable. But, we're not supposed to be refrigerator lights either: lights that shine when confronted with a dark world or with the calling of Jesus into their lives. The light we're called to be is a fire, because God is a constant fire. Light dispels fear in times of trouble. Light is love and perfect love casts out all fear. That was Camp. The next week I dove into Y.E.S. conference 2016.

At Y.E.S conference God tested me. Usually when he speaks to me he is close and he is clear. At YES it was like he took a few steps back and whispered things to me. I hated it. I took notes that week, but nothing spoke to me. However, I knew that when God called me back to those notes in the future, I would find wisdom in them. That turned out to be true. Today, July 9, 2016 I spent an hour talking and listening to God and reviewing everything I had learned and experienced this summer. Reading those notes today, wisdom popped off the page and flew straight at me. This is what God revealed to me today: Jeff Stark, one of the speakers at YES said this: "When the one who spoke the world into being speaks and invites you into your reason of being, nothing will ever be the same". It's my quote of the summer because I've had so many moments that were defining moments, and nothing will ever be the same. The next lesson is in response to the shootings (God really did speak to me a lot about these shootings before they even happened!) I learned that when all you see around you is bad it's hard to think that good can come out of it. People say "how can a good God let these bad things happen?" Well when someone asks you that question (I have been asked it many times already), there is finally a correct response: "When are we going to stop blaming God for the things we caused? The world is bad because we have failed to join God in fixing it." At YES I prayed to God that he would show me the brokenness of the reality around me and that he would break my heart for what broke his own. I obviously got what I prayed for. I realized that everyone has to go through and see and feel the evil in this world to be better equipped so that the next time that evil comes around, we know how to deal with it. I also realized that my ministry may never look like the ministry of those who went before me because I am called to be creative. Not to mention that if we keep doing ministry the way it's always been done before, we will also get the same results as before. The world is ever-changing and the church of tomorrow needs to curve our ministry to deal with the problems that we face in this day and age to get life changing results. The message doesn’t change; just the mode of delivery. Another thing I learned was that I need to dedicate myself to one area of ministry, a ministry that was later revealed to me as youth ministry. That's right, after 8 years of "feeling called into everything" God finally narrowed it down to youth. Yet another thing I learned was that this world is ever-changing but God is never-changing. He will always be here so I never have to fear. Sometimes all I'm going to have is my story and my calling. I will have to hold tight to it, but it will always be there. For every bad day there will always be more good days. I learned that I'm called into youth ministry, but I'm going to call it by a different name: EVANGALISM. I learned that our job as pastors and evangelists is to get people close to Jesus. However, we can't do the saving. We can just get them close enough so that Jesus can save in a way that only he can. I will faithfully follow him and be ready for evil because it's just what I do. 

If you thought summer was already good, wait until I tell you what I learned in Costa Rica and in the days following.

Many of you probably heard that I got a parasite while I was in Costa Rica. Everyone has come up to me and said "I hope you get better" or "How's Gringo?" (that's what I nicknamed my parasite). People have also said that it was really unfortunate for me to have gotten this while I was ministering. Well, I thank God all the time for Gringo. Through Gringo I learned that when you're in ministry, it's not all going to go according to plan. Sometimes you're going to be sick of helping people or preaching or doing the same routine every day. Some days you might be physically sick, but you always have to take time to take care of yourself and your family. If you fail yourself or your family, your ministry has failed also. While having a parasite wasn't fun, it didn't get in the way of my trip. The idea of my sickness being a parasite wasn't even brought up until we were in the airport heading back home. While we were there I believed that the sickness was a bug I had gotten from the dairy products I had consumed, at least that's what the doctor said. Because I thought it was a simple bug and because I didn't want to complain in front of my friends, I didn't think about the sickness so therefore it had little to no effect on my trip. The main things I learned in Costa Rica were these: what real love, joy, and faithfulness looks like. Real love: I saw a never ending love in the people. They loved each other and God with this passion that I want to pursue. God also revealed to me what a relationship with a boy should look like at this great age of 16. I don't need a boyfriend. I need friends that can be boys but can also be girls. I need these friends to help me in my walk with Christ and to help me get through Junior and Senior year. That is all I need, along with Jesus and my parents. There is no room for the complication of a boyfriend and therefore I will not have one (at the moment). Real joy: the people there have so little but at the same time they have so much. I saw this mainly in a little boy named Andy. One night the boys were playing soccer. I was wearing a skirt but I tried to play too. My friends Joy Diehl and Matthew Parker were off to the side throwing a football around with this little boy. They would occasionally call me over to translate with my ever so amazing (but also lacking) broken Spanish. Andy is 9. He has two sisters and he lives close to the church. He likes to play soccer and football and he has a love for life. We picked him up and swung him around the room. We tossed him footballs and ran as he chased after us. I love Andy and I'm so thankful for the way that God showed me that there is joy in everything. Finally, real faithfulness: one of the adults on our trip was Jack Galloway. He’s one of the most humble, giving, and compassionate people I know. One night he walked outside. We were all inside playing soccer. Under a little pavilion there were Costa Ricans that were singing and praying. They had dedicated that evening to praying and worshipping God, something that we Americans need to be doing on a regular basis. Jack sat down with them and throughout the night he was moved by the Holy Spirit, moving through them and their worship. He later learned that those people were members of the church's work and witness team. They needed a bus to continue their ministry and they were praying that God would be faithful. Within 24 hours Jack and his daughter Faith (one of my friends on the trip) were meeting with them, telling the team that they were going to give them enough money for a new bus. God was faithful. I also saw other acts of God's faithfulness in the testimonies of Johnny, Kim and Patrick, and James. Johnny is the pastor of the church and one night he told us how the church came to be. Kim and Patrick are the missionaries there. They told us about their call and how God was faithful to them and how he guides them soon back to the United States. Finally, James is their oldest son and one of my closest friends. He told me how God spoke to him a year ago at Nazarene Youth Conference. My youth group was there too along with more than 7000 Nazarenes. All of us were touched by God in amazing ways that week in Louisville. James was called into ministry there. My call into ministry was confirmed there. James feels called to help the homeless, a mission that he actively pursues in Costa Rica and will continue to pursue when he returns to Chicago in August. In these stories of faithfulness I learned that God will be faithful to me: in my life, in my call, in my future... he will always be there.

That was Costa Rica. In the week that followed this amazing trip Alton Sterling and Philando Castile were shot by police officers. Then at a peaceful protest in Dallas, a sniper targeted police that were there protecting the people that were protesting against them. 14 people were shot and at the moment 5 police officers have died. They gave their lives to protect people who were angry at “their kind”, the men who wear blue. That represents Christ to me because he also died for people who hated him. Yesterday I woke up and I watched the news. I got angry at this monstrosity that has happened. So I sat down and wrote a spoken word poem:
One second. A life changing decision in one second. A single bullet. Because of the power that a single bullet carries... Alton Sterling will never see his son graduate. Philando Castile will never marry Diamond Reynolds. Brent Thompson will never hold his young grandson in his arms again. In a matter of days so many lives have been lost and while they all came from different places and different backgrounds they all had a few things in common. First of all their blood was red. Their red blood was shed on the streets that we walk and drive down every day. Don't we realize that their blood was RED? There is no black blood or blue blood or white blood. Only red. Another similarity is not seen in these victims, but in the people that loved them. Their families and friends will soon gather in Texas, Minnesota, and Louisiana cemeteries to bury loved ones who died too young. The final thing they have in common is in the way they died. And I'm not talking about a gun. I'm talking about the hate filled people behind the triggers. Racism still exists today but there is something that drove these people that is even stronger still than the racism that flows deep in our countries veins. It is the feelings of fear and hopelessness and uncertainty. But no matter how strong these feelings get we as Americans must realize that violence is not the answer! Violence brings more violence and more fear and ultimately makes the situation worse. 

Some people say "take away guns" while others say "It's the person behind the gun that's the problem". If you are someone with one of these opinions, you're wrong. BOTH OPINIONS ARE WRONG! The enemy is not the color of our skin or the guns in our hands or the police or ISIS or bullying or suicide or murder or robbers or divorce or cancer. It's not Zika or Ebola. It’s not homosexuality or poverty or human trafficking or alcoholism or drug abuse or car crashes. Any evil that you see in this world... any evil that has affected you and broken your heart is NOT the enemy. The enemy is the one who gives us these emotions and feelings of fear and hatred and hopelessness and uncertainty and heart break. WE ARE FIGHTING THE DEVIL EVERYDAY! Every day is an uphill battle that we try to fight. Don't you understand that our words and our actions and our guns and our Facebook rants are never going to win this battle? We can't win because we're not strong enough. But there is someone who is strong enough to defeat this devil that plagues our world. In fact, he already did beat him... 2,000 years ago where love REALLY won. There is no reason for us to do this... to fight each other. So lay down your guns and your mouths filled with ammunition and realize that the greatest weapon we have is our trust in the Lord... the God who has overcome this world. What our country needs is warriors of prayer. We need people crying out to our God because if we do and if we trust in him, he will save us.

Maybe you don't believe me. Maybe you're not convinced by my words. If you're not convinced then check out HIS words... the words inspired by this God that is strong enough to save our nation. He never lies and he always has our best interest at heart...ALWAYS. He knows the plans he has for us and if you trust him... if you trust in this God you will never be disappointed. 

Check out these verses:

Ephesians 6:10-18/// 2 Chronicles 16:9/// James 3: 1-12/// Zephaniah 3:14-20/// Matthew 7: 1-14/// 3 John 1:11/// John 1:5/// 1 John 4:18-19

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The final thing I learned this summer so far is that there is a difference between HOPE and FAITH. I have been living in hope but I need to live in faith. You see, hope is wishing that something would happen while faith is knowing that our God is strong enough to make it happen. An analogy for this is well shown in the movie God's Not Dead. Reverend Dave and Reverend Jude had planned a trip to Disney World but the car continued to fail to start. Finally at the end of the movie, Reverend Jude has convinced Dave to try to start the car again. Dave drops his bags and heads for the driver’s seat, but Jude says "Wait. You have to put the bags in the trunk". Dave says "What's the point? The car's not going to start". Jude responds with "Put the bags in the trunk. It's an act of faith" (these lines are not exact, just pulled out of my memory). Spoiler alert: Dave put the bags in the trunk and the car started. You see Dave hoped the car would start while Jude had a strong faith that it would. This season of my life was a good one, something I'm very thankful for. God has revealed to me what the next season will be all about: learning how to have faith instead of just hoping in him and finding a healthy balance for both.

Thank you for taking the time to read about what God has done in my life for the past 12 weeks. 

Erica Janelle