Heal my vision...
This has been my prayer, my plea for a while now.

Beauty is interesting. We see it in sunsets, the ocean, the mountains. A kiss on the forehead, a warm hug, a wedding day. But do you know Gods ultimate display of beauty?
Women.
We aren’t just beautiful, we are beauty.
Let it sink in. Man and woman both made in the image of God in Genesis 2. We display the enticing, alluring, lover side of God. We are sustainers, mothers (whether we have children or not), nurturers, life givers. Men have a beauty to them yes, but they display the leadership and warrior side of God alongside many other things. Women ultimately are the beauty of God.

Satan has a special hatred for women. We raise up disciples, we draw people in to the family of God, we literally give birth to life. He hates beauty. So he attacks the world and ravages sex to make it an industry, turns women into objects, makes us all kinds of confused about what it even means to be beautiful.
There’s all kind of human sins in these things absolutely, but the enemy knows exactly where to plant his seeds.
I’ve had so much confusion and strife within myself lately. I lost a lot of weight recently, and it was great on one side and I felt like I was really caring for my body and being healthier. But on the other side of things I knew it was all from fad dieting and obsession and shame. I attached food and exercise to weight loss, which took a lot of the joy away from the food and the exercise. But then there’s a part of me that will always enjoy exercise because I grew up as an athlete, and sometimes I genuinely enjoy food? It’s crazy how many feelings and emotions we can hold at once.
I had to enter into this deep journey to understand WHY I see myself the way I do. I know God sees me as beautiful, I’ve never really struggled with His view of me. It’s always been my view of myself. And yes, I know culture pushes perfect models, perfect makeup, perfect everything. But it was deeper than that, and none of that is real anyways.

And what I found? My vision is so broken.
From SIN, from disbelief in His goodness towards me, from body disorders, from shame.
I compare, I idolize, I believe lies, I obsess, I think I have to hide because I’m better than this.
I attach my identity to what I believe beauty is, and when I’ve got beauty all wrong I’ve got myself all wrong.
But here’s all of me, here’s my brokenness that I have to bring to my Father and lay at His feet. Here’s the sin I have to confess to be able to go on the journey to repentance and be free. I have to let go of all this exhausting, white-knuckling resolve to “accept” myself and instead understand who I am.
And here’s His TRUTH: You are beauty. I adore you. You are already loved. You can know who you are. There is no flaw in you. You can believe what I’ve spoken.
And it’s all prayer now, because only Jesus can heal these broken and tired eyes.

Hello friends! I wanted to write about something so important today, especially with the current state of our world and our hearts, and more specifically our minds.
Let's start with this excerpt from Paul David Tripp's book My Heart Cries Out:

"One thing, one thing, one thing!
It's hard to imagine one thing
When I seemed to be attracted to so many things
It is a continuing struggle
It is a daily battle
It is my constant war
The world of the physical attracts me, excites me, magnetizes me, and addicts me
I confuse consumption with satisfaction
I confuse satisfied senses with true joy
I confuse a stomach that is full with a heart at rest
Sometimes I would rather have my appetites satisfied than a grace-filled heart
Sometimes I would rather hold the physical than have the eyes of my heart filled with the beauty of the spiritual
I am tired of only seeing what my physical eyes can see
I want eyes that can see what cannot be seen
I am tired of craving people, possessions, locations, circumstances, positions, experiences, appearances
Somewhere in my heart, I know that only you satisfy
Deep in my heart, I want you to be enough
I must quit moving, running, driving, pursuing, consuming
I need to stop
I need to be quiet
I need to sit in the seat of grace and wait, and wait, until these blind eyes see
Until this cold heart craves the one beauty that satisfies--the one thing that is You"


Read it again. Slowly…
And ask yourself: What distracts us from this One thing? This beauty that alone can satisfy us, give us rest, slow us down?

My mind gravitates towards many things…work, body image, status, responsibilities, relationships…just like I'm sure yours is swirling with endless tasks and thoughts…but what I realize as my biggest distraction?
My mind itself.
Let me explain. Our minds are constantly buzzing, connecting, disconnecting, firing, deciding, stressing, worrying, analyzing. How many neurons do we have? Science says about 100 BILLION. Each fires on average 200x per second. And each neuron connects to about 1,000 other neurons…does that make your brain hurt?
My thoughts distract me yes, but my biggest distraction is my mind in its entirety. My mind itself. It has so much POWER

You know what else our minds are?
Our biggest BATTLEFIELD.
We are legitimately in a war every single day for our thought life. We gravitate towards physical wants and desires, we get preoccupied with the "grind" and lose sight of why we are even here and then wonder why we never feel satisfied. We listen to lies all day that we take in from outside sources, but we especially listen to lies we tell ourselves internally. What's my first thought when I look in the mirror? What's your first thought when you walk into a room full of people? When you fail a test? When your marriage is falling apart? What do you tell yourself when you're going through suffering? What do you tell yourself when you fall into that sameee sin again?
I'm sure the first things that surface are not uplifting. They're probably full of shame, doubt, picking apart, judgement, and maybe even self-loathing. I've been there so many times, and still do to this day. Why do we tear ourselves down?

Let me explain something else…
Do you understand how complex we are as human beings? How much everything is so intertwined? Think of the 4 aspects: physical, emotional, mental, spiritual. If your emotional state is not okay, do you think your mental space will be good and uplifting? If you aren't getting sleep or eating foods that give you energy, do you think your emotions will be in a healthy space? Have you been through trauma or abuse? Of course your spiritual life will be affected because those things take a huge toll on your emotions and mind.
The emotional intertwines with the mental intertwines with the spiritual intertwines with the physical manifestations. It is all what makes us, us. For better or for worse.

How do we work through this then? How do we fight this battle when we know it's a whole lot deeper than just your thoughts or those day to day tasks that go around my head? It's a whole lot easier said than done to just pick up our Bibles and read. We NEED truth, so don't hear me say that you shouldn't fill your mind with scripture. You absolutely should. But that's a step in a process. We have to tend to all aspects of ourselves and not let it overwhelm us.
Look at it this way…those lies we talked about earlier? Write them down. I'm not going to tell you to burn the piece of paper. Instead; replace them with truth in your mental space. Write down those truths too, right next to the lies. Believe them in your heart and soul in your emotional space. REMEMBER: Emotions do not authenticate truth, but they DO authenticate our understanding of the truth. Ask the Lord to show you what this means for your spirituality and how you become more like Jesus. And then live these truths out physically in how you walk and carry yourselves.

Understand that God created us in His image…so God is a multi-faceted being just as we are. Within the Bible's pages the Trinity manifests a RICH emotionality. You know who else has rich emotionality? We do. The Spirit is given to the believer to profoundly influence their emotional life. Emotions are the ever present current with us, and goes along with our mentality and spirituality.

So…this is a lot to comprehend. Just try and grasp that you are in a battlefield every single day, and you have the power to play your part in that war. Our minds can be our biggest helper or worst distraction from that One thing.

Have grace for yourself when it feels really hard, some things are wayyyy more deep rooted than just being able to write a truth next to it. It's journey you'll have to take, and there's time and space for those things.

Put practices into place:
Spiritual breathing- breathe in fruits of the Spirit (love, joy, peace…) and breathe out fruits of the flesh (hate, stress, worry…)
Silence and solitude- sit with Jesus. Don't play music, don't be in a crowded area…sit in silence and quiet your mind. This can be a HARD practice to develop. Give yourself time.
Slow down- you determine the pace of your life by the pace of your mind
SPEAK truth- Body image? Speak love. Sexual sin? Speak purity. Expectations? Speak grace. Stress? Speak peace.

Sin and satan have no power when you speak. Fight those spaces in your mind to come back to the One thing.

Me and the hubby have been married for one WHOLE year today. 365 days of cuddles, waking up next to each other, adventures, learning, and lots of love. It's been amazing. And hard. And rewarding. But what's the catch? What do people not tell you about marriage? Everyone is different, but here's what we have to say…

Love is an act of the will. I'm sure everyone has heard this one way or the other, but gosh there are some days I want to strangle Andrew. And there's days when he wants to throat punch me. Living together is hard because we are very different, very hard-headed people, BUT…I wouldn't have it any other way. It has taught us patience, taught us how to love through insecurities. Showed us things within ourselves we didn't know were there. When we don't feel like it, we still have to CHOOSE to love each other in order to honor the covenant we made before God.

You can hurt your spouse the most. Whoever you've let in the most has the most power. We watched a movie on Netflix the other night called The Marriage Story…I'm not sure I would recommend it; it was honestly painful to watch because it showed the harsh truths about divorce. But something it showed us is that because our souls are so intertwined in marriage, we could basically destroy each other in one big fall-out if we wanted to. I could hurt Andrew the most because I know every one of his secrets, every one of his insecurities…There is always forgiveness and grace, but be wise with your words; especially when both are hurting and want to lash out. Don’t talk to be heard; learn how to listen more. You can always always justify yourself, but don’t always make that your goal.

The covenant gets sweeter. The love is different in marriage, I'm not even sure how to fully explain it…it's just so much more deep and rich and fulfilling. You understand that the covenant you made to each other is literally for life. You're in it for the long haul. They say everyone goes through that honeymoon phase and then some even fall out of love…but if God is the foundation of that covenant, I don't believe the honeymoon phase ever "goes away". It just changes and becomes something even better. Most have heard that marriage is a reflection of Christ and the church, but it all makes sense when you are actually in it. The intimacy in the bonds you share with each other (emotionally, sexually, mentally, spiritually) reflect the intimacy that Christ shares with His bride, His church.

Picture-perfect is overrated. Life gets messy and everyone knows it; so stop trying to make people think marriage is perfect and life only has meaning once you've found "the one". People complicate everything, and I think the bottom line is that everyone just needs to accept we are human. You, the reader, are human. Church-goers are human. Preachers are human. We have a standard to live up to of course, but perfectionism should never be the goal. The goal is to be holy as God is holy, repent when there is sin in our lives, and always grow in maturity while living in the grace that nothing we do could ever get us "ahead" of others in God's standards.

Insecurities are beautiful. The things I am most insecure about are truthfully some of the things Andrew loves the most. And vice versa. There's no competition in marriage, you both are honest and raw and real. Don't stress so much about what your spouse "really thinks" of you. Truth is, they just really love you, insecurities and all.

Master, Mate, Mission. This should be the order of your priorities. God as your master in life should always be first no matter what. Your spouse gets that next spot. Not friends, not family, not serving, not church…your spouse. And then comes your mission. Before I met Andrew, I had this dream to live overseas in the Middle East and continue to do college ministry with an organization called Cru. This is an amazing calling. But then Andrew happened, and my life changed. This does NOT mean that my dream can't exist anymore; I believe it will always be there and will come to completion one day…but Paul makes it clear in 1 Corinthians 7 that those who are married have an obligation to serve their spouse while joyfully getting to experience the intimacy that Christ feels with His church. And those who are single have much more opportunity to do things like go overseas and live on mission! Please don't think that marriage means no more mission, it just means priorities are a little different. Doing ministry with Andrew is my favorite thing to do in this whole world; it's rewarding in different ways. Just always remember the order.

Marriage is revealing. We have sin in just about every area of our lives, but you see them MUCH more clearly when someone else can point them out too. The main sin in our lives before marriage, or maybe I could better phrase it by saying "the sin we focused on the most" was our lust. We saved sex for marriage, but because of that decision to wait, it seemed to be all our minds could focus on. Once that lust struggle was "gone" because we had freedom within the bounds of marriage, we thought we could never be weighed down by that much sin and guilt again. Holy cow were we wrong. First off, just because we were virgins does not mean we didn't have sexual baggage to bring into marriage. Andrew struggled with the temptation and lust that comes with addiction to pornography, and all the things that are out to catch men's eyes and destroy their hearts. I brought a 4-year addiction to pornography and the associated need for variety into our relationship…Yea, women deal with this so much more than you think guys…The Lord had already brought so much redemption to our stories in those areas even before we started dating, but MARRIAGE ISN'T A QUICK FIX. We somehow thought that being able to have sex whenever we wanted would fix our problems with lust, but like I said…MARRIAGE ISN'T A QUICK FIX. There are consequences to sin! The Lord is the only one who can bring redemption there. I know porn is sooo normalized in our culture and some couples even watch it together, but it literally destroys your souls and destroys your relationships; not to mention your expectations for sex. Let God in on your struggle, let other people in on your struggle, because we promise you there is no way you can overcome it on your own. Do we both still struggle with lust? Yep. Have I watched porn while married? Unfortunately yes…Marriage is not a quick fix to your problems with sin, but it does have the power to bring so much HEALING, if you allow God to use it in that way…These things might not be our utmost, biggest struggles in life anymore; but they are definitely still there. So is our pride, our selfishness, our anxiety, our judgmental attitudes, and our entitlement; just to name a few…This is what we mean by marriage is revealing! Please don't be scared if you're not married haha, this just brings us to our next point…

Marriage is the single most sanctifying thing you will ever experience on earth. The definition of sanctification is "God's transformation of a believer's whole being, that is the mind, will, behaviors, and affections through the work of the Holy Spirit". God is continually in the process of making us more like Himself. Ask any married couple who loves Jesus, and they will agree. That’s how God intended it. We are both forever changed ever since we made vows to each other on our wedding day; and the crazy thing is that we don't even remember our vows word-for-word. But we experience the challenge of keeping those vows every day.

To finish, all we have to say is this…slow down. Enjoy marriage. It is such a gift. To all our new married friends out there: You will never get the first few weeks and months of marriage back. Cherish it. It's not about the next big thing. Be present and just be in love.

Megan and Andrew

Hello! It's been a few months since I've written here…My husband and I went through a LOT of change recently with a new apartment, new city, and new church among other things. This pandemic has been challenging for us and it has just been pretty crazy! I've also been kinda crippled by fear honestly when I think about writing; lots of lies and inadequacies all in my head. BUT God is convicting me and here we are;)

There have been a lot of things on my heart that I know God wants me to write about, but I will start with this one: We need to let Jesus set the terms by which He will love us. Like really, truly believe what Scripture says about His love and his heart. Not His character per say, but literally His HEART.
What do you think about when you think of Jesus' heart? Do you automatically think of the fruits of the Spirit if you grew up in church? Or if you didn't, maybe you think it's fickle and formed like ours? A figure of speech? Ever changing? Does his heart withdraw from us when we sin?
Whatever the case, here is what scripture says and here is what I have been learning from an amazing book titled Gentle and Lowly by Dane Ortlund (lots of my points in here are straight from his book)…

Matthew 11:29 "Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls."

I truly believe a vast majority of people don't come to Christ because of fear of rejection. Even those who have come to Him for salvation and pronounce themselves as believers will still go through a period; if not a whole lifetime, of doubt and questioning about just how deep His acceptance and love runs. Fallen, anxious sinners are limitless in their capacity to conjure up reasons for Jesus to cast them out. We are naturally resistant to God's love. We believe we must perform in order to receive, because isn't that how pretty much every human relationship works?

Read this excerpt from John Bunyan's book Come and Welcome to Jesus Christ:

But I am a great sinner, say you.
"I will in no wise cast out," says Christ
But I am an old sinner, say you
"I will in no wise cast out," says Christ
But I am a hard-hearted sinner, say you
"I will in no wise cast out," says Christ
But I am a backsliding sinner, say you
"I will in no wise cast out," says Christ
But I have served satan all my days, say you
"I will in no wise cast out," says Christ
But I have sinned against light, say you
"I will in no wise cast out," says Christ
But I have sinned against mercy, say you
"I will in no wise cast out," says Christ
But I have no good thing to bring with me, say you
"I will in no wise cast out," says Christ

The expression "no wise" that he uses is old English language that basically says this: "I will most certainly never, ever cast out…"

John 6:37 "…whoever comes to me I will never cast out."
He knows it all.
Every perverse thought. Every bad habit. Every present choice to continue to sin. Every heavy burden. Every chain.

We believe that our sin is directed towards God and hurts Him the most, and so our natural tendency is to pull away. Think of continually hurting a close friend…of course we would avoid them because of the guilt and shame. But with God, this just means that He is the most suited to forgive our sins. And that's what I mean by letting Jesus set the terms for His love. We hold back because of all these human limitations and tendencies that we think God must abide by too, but God is God. God is love. We cannot present a reason for Christ to finally close off His heart to his own sheep. Every human friend has a limit; but with Christ, our sins and weaknesses are the very things that qualify us to approach Him.
When we sin, the very heart of Christ is drawn out to us…
But isn't our perfectly holy Christ supposed to withdraw from sin?

Read this from Dane Ortlund's book (pg 69):

"Here we enter into one of the most profoundest mysteries of who God in Christ is. Not only are holiness and sinfulness mutually exclusive, but Christ, being perfectly holy, knows and feels the horror and weight of sin more deeply than any of us sinful ones could--just as the purer a man's heart, the more horrified he is at the thought of his neighbors being robbed or abused. Conversely, the more corrupt one's heart, the less one is affected by the evils all around.
Carry the analogy a little further. Just as purer a heart, the more horrified at evil, so also the purer a heart, the more it is naturally drawn out to help and relieve and protect and comfort, whereas a corrupt heart sits still, indifferent. So with Christ. His holiness finds evil revolting, more revolting than any of us ever could feel. But it is that very holiness that also draws his heart out to help and relieve and protect and comfort. Again we must bear in mind the all-crucial distinction between those not in Christ and those in Christ. For those who do not belong to him, sins evoke holy wrath. How could a morally serious God respond otherwise? But to those who do belong to him, sins evoke holy longing, holy love, holy tenderness. In the key text on divine holiness (Isaiah 6:1-8), that holiness flows naturally and immediately into forgiveness and mercy."

God is on your side against your sin. He hates sin. But He loves you.
The sins of those who belong to God open the floodgates of His heart of compassion for us. It is not our loveliness that wins His love. It is our unloveliness. This is totally against how the world works and how our human relationships work.

But just sit in this for a bit. Take a breath.
Let God set the terms by which He will love us.

Have any of you wrestled with the phrase "freedom in Christ"? Struggled with its meaning? Wondered how to apply it? It's thrown around in Christianity a lot, and I think people make it out to be this easy box to check off and be done with. But I wanted to dig deeper…So let me share what I've come to understand only through God's crazy grace:

2 Corinthians 12:9 "But He said to me, 'My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.' Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ's power may rest on me."

First and foremost, it's the freedom we have as a result of Jesus and His sacrifice on the cross. We are no longer bound by sin and shame; instead we are set free to enjoy the Lord's presence for eternity. That in itself is incredible! But what else does that freedom entail?
Freedom in Christ is the ability to own up to my mistakes, it's the freedom to admit I'm not okay. It's the commitment to accept truth and renounce the lies that I believe about myself or others. To forgive and move on. It's the freedom to discover myself and let my First Love lead me through this life, to not live in bondage anymore.

It's the freedom to EMBRACE WEAKNESS. This is huge…I don't just mean talking about where I fall short and confessing that I'm not perfect. We do that half-heartedly all the time…I mean deeply understanding that God's power is made evident in my weakness. And if my goal is to glorify God, why would I not be embracing those weaknesses? Rejoicing all the more in them? It's weird I know, but let me use an aspect of my own life as an example…Those who know me well know that I like to be viewed as strong. As having it all together; the independent woman. I feel like I have to be the rock for everyone whether I have the capacity to or not…but instead of weighing myself down with all of this, I have this FREEDOM to embrace my weaknesses of inadequacy and insufficiency in that I can't always be those things. And most of the time I'm really not. But embracing these inabilities makes me even more free, because then I don't carry the overwhelming weight of trying to have it all together and be those things in the first place. Because let's face it; none of us really do…I don't have to worry about how people see me, because all I need to care about is how my inadequacy and insufficiency shows HIS capability and power! There is so much freedom in just letting go and admitting that I am weak without Him.

Now sure, of course this is easier said than done. We hear motivational messages all the time telling us to just "let go" and everything will be better. But Jesus isn't asking you to just throw it out there and forget about it, He's asking you to come place it in His hands and then let Him use it. So devote yourself to prayer…let me share what I do because I'm a visual person: I picture myself holding all these weaknesses of mine in my hands. Here's my jealousy, my pride, my lust, my debilitating independence to name just a few. I have it all tightly balled up in my hands because it's scary to let it all go; they're almost a part of me because they’ve been there so long. But then I envision Jesus standing right in front of me with His open hands, and I slowly release my grip and let Him take them, one by one until my hands are open and empty. And FREE. And then He gives me HIS strength and power in return. It's a beautiful and supernatural exchange. Now I may have to do this multiple times a day, once a day, or maybe I end being able to just be in a habit of letting them go as soon as they present themselves in my life…

Whatever the case, Jesus wants us so deeply to live in His freedom. We have already been set free by the cross when we make the decision to give our lives over to Him; so it's not a question of whether or not we are free in the first place…it's a question of whether or not we LIVE FULLY in that freedom. Of not being so tied down by our own expectations or addicted to the approval of others. So I invite you to explore what His freedom in your life means. He requires us to examine our own souls…It is slow work, but we can only be used by God after we allow Him to show us the deep, hidden areas of our own character. It is crazy how ignorant we are about our own selves! But Jesus will reveal to us everything we have held within before His grace began to work. We have to get rid of the idea that we understand ourselves; this is always the last bit of pride to go. The only one who can fully understand us is the One who made us, so let Him keep showing you things about yourself and let Him show you how to live FREE.