19

19 is a weird age.

Wanna know when the very first moment I felt like an adult was? It wasn't when I graduated from high school. It wasn't when I turned 18. It wasn't when I moved out of my parent's house. It wasn't when I travelled by myself for the first time. It wasn't when I applied for my own credit card. It wasn't when I bought my own groceries for the first time. It wasn't when I bought pots and pans and cutlery for my house. It wasn't when I slept the first night in a house that I had all to myself. I don't know why it was this particular moment, but it just happened that way. The very first moment I felt like an adult was this moment:

The first time I bought toilet paper.

When you live with your parents, toilet paper really isn't something you concern yourself with buying. You just always assume you have it. Parents buy toilet paper, and you don't. When someone my age goes into the grocery store to buy toilet paper, it just sort of screams, "I'm an adult. I live alone."

When I was about 10 years old, I used to religiously watch this show on CBC called The X. I would watch it every day with my brothers after school. There was a segment on the show where kids and teens could send in questions via their website and the host of the show would answer them. The host's name was Anthony. One day, this question came in: if you could stay a certain age your whole life, what age would that be? I remember Anthony's answer very clearly. He said that he'd pick 19 because it's perfectly nuzzled between childhood and adulthood. He said that a 19 year old had all the privileges of an adult, but was still young enough to just relax, enjoy life, and have a good time. Ever since that day, I've looked forward to being 19.

This is what 19 feels like to me.

My first reaction to being 19 was this: a very insignificant age. Turning 19 isn't really a big deal in Manitoba. It's kind of like a filler year. Turning 18 was a big deal: you can now drink and vote and buy lottery tickets, woot! Turning 20 is kind of a big deal too because now you're officially not a teenager. But 19? Nope, pretty insignificant.

Taylor Swift has this song on her newest album called '22'. And you guessed it, it's about being 22 years old. She uses this lyric to describe what being 22 is like: "we're happy, free, confused, and lonely at the same time". To me, that sounds a lot like being 19. I think her concept of what being 22 is like is a wee bit off, but I could easily be wrong. Guess I'll find out in about 2.5 years.

All of a sudden, almost simultaneously, everyone you know starts getting married, having babies (on purpose), dying, or complaining about how they'll be 'forever alone'. For this reason, you try to spend as little time as possible on Facebook, Twitter, or any other social networking app to avoid the copious amounts of engagements, pregnant belly pictures, and funeral announcements. And you get incredibly discouraged when you realize that you're just gonna have to get used to it because this'll be happening for the rest of your life, whether you like it or not. Oh how bittersweet modern technology is.

There is one thing I hate most about being 19 though. You are expected to reason and behave like an adult. Yet these same people that hold this expectation of you continue to treat you like you're a child. This doesn't seem right, no? But what do I know, right? I'm only 19.

 19 is a weird age.

Abandoned Hearts & Plumb Lines

So I'll stand with arms high

and heart abandoned

In awe of the One

who gave it all

And I'll stand

My soul, Lord, to You surrendered

All I am is Yours

 

 

Song lyrics always make me think. It doesn't matter what the song is; if there's something even remotely profound in it, I'll think about it. Sometimes for days.

 

The song above is called "The Stand". I first heard this song during a worship night at a local church when I was in the 9th grade. It was one of those nights when everyone seemed really into it. I had never heard this song before, and as soon as the bridge (the above lyrics) came, almost all the hands in the auditorium went out or up in a worshipful stance. I was confused. Were people raising their hands because the song said to? I had grown up in a fairly conservative Mennonite church in Steinbach, so I hadn't really seen this before.

 

Every time I hear this song now, I think about it. I used to think about why people would raise their hands during worship, but I don't anymore because I've been exposed to some less conservative and more charismatic Christians. But I think about what the words actually mean when I sing them.

 

And let me tell you... I believe we're singing something pretty powerful.

 

I think the words that have always stuck out the most to me are the words heart abandoned. What does it mean to abandon our hearts? Our hearts hold pretty much everything about us: our emotions, our fears, our loves, our hates, our pride, and I think our hearts even hold our opinions. And let's not forget that our hearts physically hold our whole life. If our hearts don't work, we don't work.

 

So what does it mean to abandon our hearts? I think it can be summed up in this verse: Indeed, I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ. (Philippians 3:8) I've talked about this verse so much before. I think the reason I keep coming back to it is because it's so very important and I fail at this the most.

 

I think that abandoning our hearts means is that we need to "count everything as loss". We need to give stuff up. People don't like hearing that. Heck, I don't like hearing that, but it's true. This doesn't mean that we should go and sell everything we own and live on the streets. It doesn't. It means we need to let go of our emotions, our fears, our loves, our hates, our pride, our opinions, and our very life. Letting go doesn't mean getting rid of, it means holding all these things very loosely. You never know when God is going to ask you to let go of one of those things completely. Maybe you're thinking: God wouldn't ever ask me to let go of my very life, would He? I get the Voice of the Martyrs updates every month in the mail, and after reading those, I beg to differ. It's amazing how many people around the world have completely let go of their own life and put it completely in God's hands, for the sake of spreading the gospel.

 

Ultimately, I think that abandoning our hearts means that we should never choose our own heart's desires above His heart's desires. I have to admit that I struggle with this all the time. I've especially been struggling with this lately because of everything that's been going on in my hometown. I confess that often one of my heart's desires is to shove Jesus down people's throats. The desire to share Jesus with other people comes from a good place, but my heart's motive behind it: not good. What I've been learning lately is to step back in these situations and ask myself: when I'm sharing Jesus with this person, is it coming out of judgment or is it coming out of love? Judging other people and their lifestyles should not even be an option on our list of ways to intereact with them. When you're in a situation where you need to choose to either judge them or love them, you should always choose love. Seems rather obvious, huh? Seems rather easy, huh? Not always.

 

I remember something that I learned the very first day I was at Capernwray. Amazing how things come back to you. I learned about plumb lines. A plumb line is a string with a weight fastened to its end. When the string is placed beside a wall and the weight is allowed to hang freely, it will show whether or not the wall is perfectly vertical. It's the standard by which the wall is judged. Now according to God, the standard by which we are judged is Christ. Jesus Christ is our plumb line.When we judge other people... is the plumb line by which we judge them ourselves? Or is it Christ? I think a lot of the time it's ourselves. We think "oh, at least we're not as bad as them", right? But when Christ is the plumb line we hold up to everyone, we realize that everyone falls short of the standard. (Even the people we view as "super spiritual" people.) So who are we to judge anyway?

 

Thank God that Jesus is our advocate in heaven, eh? He paid the penalty of all our sins and shortcomings, then He gave us His life. Christ is still the standard by which we are judged, but the difference is, when judgment day comes and God looks at us, the brilliance of Christ in us will shine brighter than our sins. It's called imputation. Christ in you, the hope of glory.

 

Those are my musings for the day. More like week actually.