Singleness

Well February is over and you know what that means.... Valentine's Day has come and gone yet again.  This day to celebrate love and relationships is finally past but I am still left with reflections that this day brought about.  In our culture it seems that whether or not you enjoy the day hinges on one think, having a relationship with a significant other (boyfriend/girlfriend, husband/wife).  Those who have that relationship are busy planning a fun day or romantic dinner, while those who do not tend to complain about the day or try to "be strong" and ignore the lovely-dovey posts floating across their Facebook and Twitter feeds.  This year seemed no different than any other year.  I normally land in the chategory of "being strong and trying to ignore all the lovey-dovey social media posts".  I have never had a boyfriend, never been on a date; and therefore, normally disliked Valentine's Day. If I had a $1 for every time some one told me "One day...", I probably would be funded and on campus by now.  It is almost like singleness is treated like an illness that needs to be cured; that our dislike of a day about love could be solved by just going on a date.

However, my reflections on this day have come to a different realization this year.  I'm not in a different place relationally (still single) but I have come to a different season and place in my faith (no I am not kissing dating good-bye).  I have come to a place where I am content with where God has me relationally.  I'm not desperate and going to do whatever I can to get a date.  I don't want to date for fun.  In fact I think of dating more as "courting", the only reason I would date someone is with the end goal of knowing if that person is indeed someone I could marry.  I would rather have it be a one time deal, instead of coming into my final relationship with the baggage that accumulated from dating for fun.  So I will gladly wait for the Lord to bring me to the one man I would spend the rest of my life with.  I only need one, so I will wait.  God gives me what I need, so if I don't have a boyfriend right now guess I don't need one just yet.  Instead of begrudging my singleness I will take advantage of this time to focus solely on my King and let Him be the only man in my life for now.  Why should I make myself miserable when God can use this time for so much good?  So I resonate with this two videos of some amazing Christian music artists who are in the same boat as me.

Thus ends my rant on people who think there is something wrong with me because I'm waiting and have never dated yet...

Urbana '12 "The Great Invitation"

Wow! What a blessing it was to get to take part in Urbana '12!  God really did some very amazing things in St. Louis as 16,000 students gathered to learn more about God's call to missions in their lives.  It was so interesting to be on staff this time around instead of a student; so God met me in a different way than He did 3 years ago.  However, before I get to how God met me this past week I can't help but praise Him for the AWESOME things He did in the lives of our students!

16,000 students spent their Christmas break worshiping God and seeking His will for their lives!

800 students accepted Christ into their lives while at the conference! (During the Call to Commitment those who accepted Christ held up a glow stick)

32,000 Caregiver medical kits were put together to send to caregivers in Swaziland to provide materials that let them serve more effectively and lovingly.

4,000 students committed to short-term, mid-term, or long-term missions!

Thousands of students were able to receive prayer ministry while at Urbana! (And there were only 100 prayer ministers! Talk about God feeding the thousands!)

God is so Good! He does WONDERFUL things! As I watched all this unfold, God really pulled at my heart strings to work on my prayer life and asking God for what I need.  I think that I had gotten so caught up in having faith that God would provide that I forgot to even ask Him to provide for me!  Talk about being a little backwards.  But God really put me back on track at Urbana and I'm seeking Him daily asking Him to fulfill the needs I have.  God is a truly powerful, loving, and holy God; and I am coming to Him knowing I have no power on my own to do this fund raising but it is only through the work of His Spirit that I am at the amount I have today.

Watching what God does in the life of students really melts my heart and gets me excited.  This is what I love to see.  And God used Urbana to really remind me of what I am committing my life to.  This is why I'm going on staff with InterVarsity, because God has broken my heart for college students and the college campus.  This is what I'm aiming to get to with fund raising; to see students transformed by the love, grace, and power of God.  To watch God use these transformed students to bring renewal to the brokenness of their college campuses.  And then to witch God send these students into the world to change it for His Kingdom purposes.  That is why God has called me on staff, to lead students in that director and invest in them so they can invest in others.  This is why it is so important for me to be on campus.  But I can't do that unless I get back on board the fund raising train at full force.  I need to really be relentless in fund raising because I can't get to what God is calling me to without it.  God used so many other InterVarsity staff at Urbana to help encourage me in fund development.  I am so thankful for all the staff that spoke such encouraging words into my life over those 6 days we were in St. Louis.   I have a new energy for fund raising and I'm aiming to be 70% funded by the end of January! 

The whole theme of Urbana this year was God's great invitation to us.  God has invited us all to say "yes" to following Him one step at a time into the path He is taking up on.  After many small obedient "yes"s God led me to taking larger risk in saying "yes" to full-time mission work with InterVarsity.  So this is my invitation to you to join with me.  How is God asking you to say "yes" in seeing the lives of students transformed by the power of the Gospel?  If you would like to partner in this ministry with me please click on the link: https://donate.intervarsity.org/support/Anne_Miller

This is my mission: "InterVarsity! I love college student and sharing Jesus with them!"

Advent

As we have entered the Advent season I have started to reflect on its meaning quite a bit.  Just thinking about what advent means: to be expectantly waiting.  When we consider the Christmas season it is a time when we celebrate the expectant waiting of the birth of our Lord & Savior Jesus Christ.  So we retell the story of the events that happened as his arrival drew near.  We hear of Elizabeth  and Zachariah, and the promise of the birth of a son who will make ready a people for the Lord.  Then Mary being visited by an angel with the good news that she will give birth to the Savior as a virgin.  And then there is the journey or Mary and Joseph heading to Bethlehem.  I can only imagine their thoughts as they came closer every day to the city and the birth of their son who would be the Savior of the world.  And then it was time and the one they had been waiting for, not only for those nine months of pregnancy but since the first Old Testament reference to their being a Savior, entered this world.  So we celebrate that waiting and  God's faithfulness and grace as he humbly entered this world as a baby in a manger to save us from our sin one day in His perfect timing by dieing on the cross.  Wow.... God is good....

Even as we celebrate though this fulfillment of promise and the end of that waiting, I find myself in my own advent season.  I'm still waiting to get on campus and start working with students.  I see God working and it is very clear that this is what I called to do but I'm not there yet.  I see the donations coming in, surely but slowly.  I see clearly that my heart is with the IV students even though I do enjoy the work I'm doing right now with the After School Program at Circle Urban Ministries.  I'm reminded of the one night I spent being a part of the leadership selection committee back in November for AU's next leadership team and small group leaders.  It felt so natural for me to be there.  I came out of their so energized and excited.  I had started to forget just how much I loved what I will be doing.  That was definitely a God thing, as He reminded me that He has not forgotten my heart for those students and I will get there.... in His time.  So I feel like I am on that journey like Jospeh and Mary.  I know I'm going to get there but I don't know when.  I'm getting close and now I'm starting to get antsy.  I'm up to about 46% of my budget raised and I need to be at 70% to start working on campus.  I'm so close but it seems like like I'm moving so slow.  It seems like I'm stuck in this waiting season, this advent, but I know God is faithful and His plans are far greater and better than my own.  So I must wait, and be patient, as God works in His time to prepare me on this journey to be ready when I reach my destination. 

Though I need to wait on God's timing to get me there, I still need to do my part to get prepared.  That part is fund raising.  I need to keep asking people to join my support team, nurture the donor relationships I do have, and continue to work on building new networks to partner with in this ministry.  It seems simple enough but is hard to stay committed to.  It has been hard to work on as I've had this other job, since I do need money to survive.  I need to make sure I'm not neglecting this important task I have to do as I wait to get on campus.  So I think I've been slacking and now I need to get back into the swing of what it will take to get me on campus.  I need to go boldly into fund raising and not back down.  So I will celebrate this Christmas with a new respect for the meaning of Advent and also in thanking God for using my own season of advent to remind me what it means.

The thought of being able to serve each one of these amazing students is enough to get me back on track with fund raising.

(If you would like to help me get on campus and partner with me in ministering to the college students, please follow this link to join my financial partners: https://donate.intervarsity.org/support/Anne_Miller)

Holiday vs. Christmas

Please note as you read that I am in no way trying to bash or devalue the traditions we hold near and dear to our families and childhood memories or the ideas of giving, love, joy, and generosity that the Christmas season encourages in all of us.  Rather I am more commenting on what appears to be lacking and forgotten at times in our seasonal celebrations through the eyes of a Christ follower.  

I think that this post's topic has been building up inside me for a number of years.  I remember way back in High School I wrote a paper on it my junior year called "Santa-mas". So this post is long over due I believe.  With it being that time of year again, the the stores are filling their aisles with wish list items, the commercials have taken on a holiday flair & are telling us this is the best sale of the season so buy your gifts earlier, and TV channels are already promising their holiday countdown starting in mid November.  With all those things filling the media every way you turn, my feelings have just come flooding right back.  I can't quite put my finger on what my feelings are but I think it is something along the lines of annoyance, mixed with anger, mixed with frustration, mixed with exasperation. But I do know what about all this bothers me.

I see everything Santa, Snowmen, Snowflakes, Nutcrackers, presents, Reindeer, trees, & lights.  But in the midst of all that I see nothing but the occasional slightest reference to the name sake of CHRIST-mas, through the use of a Nativity scene. When I was younger I won't lie, I loved all of the stuff I listed above and never thought twice about it.  Seriously though, I still enjoy it all.  I watch the traditional Christmas movies, make Christmas cookies, decorate the tree, I mean I even have Star Wars Christmas ornaments.  Some of my favorite memories are of watching White Christmas and National Lampoons Christmas vacation with my family as we decorated the tree we went out to find.  However, over the past years I have started to think something is not entirely right and very wrong with this, or at least missing.  And I finally realized what was causing my distress over the things I used to not think twice about.  

My zeal for Christ has finally won out over the zeal for traditions and the commercialized "Holiday".  The Nativity is not supposed to be merely a piece of Christmas set under the tree but the entire reason and celebration of the season.  It is not just a day either, but the whole season of Advent; the waiting to celebrate the birth of the Savior, our Emmanuel, on Christmas.  We aren't supposed to fit Christ into our Christmas but have Christ the center of our celebration.  I have been told very often that what we spend our money and time on represents what we value.  So I begin to question, how much time during the Advent/Christmas season do I actually spend celebrating the birth of the Savior and how much time do I spend in the stores and on tradition or on presents?  Am I buying into the gift of God or the gift from Khols?  Who do I think of more, Joseph & Mary acting in faith and obedience or Santa Claus bringing me a present?  If my Christmas was represented by a pie-chart, which piece would be the largest?  It is a very convincing place to come to, but I think a good spot to be in.

So I have come to the conclusion that I don't mind them now calling things Holiday decorations and celebrations because I don't think it is reverent to associate crazy sales, mass buying & over spending, wish lists, and superficial uses of the phrase "Merry Christmas" with the birth of the Savior of the world.  I'd rather have the term Christmas used sparingly in the proper context and heart condition than in a commercialized form to encompass everything used to celebrate the time of the year that Christmas falls in.  Thoughts of Merry Christmas should first bring to mind images of a babe in the manger, not of Santa on the roof. So I myself am convicted this year to be more reflective in the way I celebrate this Christmas season, to look at the celebrations and traditions in a new light.  I need to remember that what I, as a Christian, am celebrating.  I need to celebrate more like the shepherds did those many years ago... 

^{Luke 2:8-20
8} And in the same region there were shepherds out in the field, keeping watch over their flock by night. ⁹ And an angel of the Lord appeared to them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were filled with great fear. ¹⁰ And the angel said to them, “Fear not, for behold, I bring you good news of great joy that will be for all the people. ¹¹ For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is Christ the Lord. ¹² And this will be a sign for you: you will find a baby wrapped in swaddling cloths and lying in a manger.” ¹³ And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God and saying,

¹⁴ “Glory to God in the highest,
    and on earth peace among those with whom he is pleased!”

¹⁵ When the angels went away from them into heaven, the shepherds said to one another, “Let us go over to Bethlehem and see this thing that has happened, which the Lord has made known to us.” ¹⁶ And they went with haste and found Mary and Joseph, and the baby lying in a manger. ¹⁷ And when they saw it, they made known the saying that had been told them concerning this child. ¹⁸ And all who heard it wondered at what the shepherds told them. ¹⁹ But Mary treasured up all these things, pondering them in her heart. ²⁰ And the shepherds returned, glorifying and praising God for all they had heard and seen, as it had been told them.