Cinnamon and Light

I am a major cereal person. Many a morning for breakfast I have cereal with vanilla almond milk and banana slices on top, (don't judge, kids). It's really wonderful and you should try it.
This morning I decided I wanted to have cinnamon on it as well, because I love cinnamon and had heard that it is really good for you.
So as I enjoyed my delicious breakfast choice, which you really have to try sometime because you don't know what you are missing, I realized that while I had heard a couple of reasons why cinnamon was such a supposed miracle food for your health, I didn't actually know what it was good for.
So like a good Homeschooled child, I looked it up.
And it turns out that cinnamon really is pretty cool.

It can help regulate blood sugar, "reduce the proliferation of leukemia and lymphoma cancer cells", it has an anti-clotting effect on blood, helps with arthritis pain, it's a natural food preservative, the the smell of cinnamon "boosts cognitive function and memory", it fights the E. coli bacteria in unpasteurized juices (though.. I don't typically put cinnamon in my juice, but okay), and it is of course, an excellent source of manganese, fiber, iron, and calcium. (thank you www.healthdiaries.com for the insight)

Please note: While I know it is exciting that cinnamon is good for all of those things, and more, I would not advise the consumption of too much cinnamon at once. No tablespoonfulls for a quick health boost, Ok? This has been a brief disclaimer. Any cinnamon-inhaling/choking incidents are as of this paragraph, not my fault.

Isn't the stuff amazing??!!?
It does all that stuff, and more! It's as if it was created for the soul purpose of keeping us well, and it refuses to do anything otherwise. Cinnamon is amazing, it's like super food on a mission.
But what if cinnamon was a rebel? What if it wanted to have the health benefits of, say, oregano. (Don't ask what oregano is good for. I didn't look that one up)?
What if all the foods and spices decided they wanted to be something else than what God had created them to be?
Simply put, they'd be useless. And we'd be dying.
Thankfully, God didn't allow them a free will.

However, He has entrusted each of us with incredible bodies capable of incredible things, and He expects nothing less from us.
So why are we such rebels? Why do we so often, so readily, refuse to do the things He calls us to do in favor of something else?

Obviously, because of the whole "free will" thing.

If God told me at any given moment "Chelsea, I want you to be a doctor", do you know what I would do?
I would think "Uhmm.. that probably wasn't God telling me to be a doctor, it was must have just been a random thought. He doesn't want me to be a doctor, I'd be bad at it"
Because here's the thing: I do not want to be a doctor. So naturally, I'm going to pull away from that as much as I can.

But God's the one who made us each so uniquely that He designed millions of individual fingerprints, and He knows what we are each capable of to give Him the most glory, if we just obey His voice, for once.

He made cinnamon to do what cinnamon does, and oregano to do whatever it does.

We each have a purpose that He will call us to, and when we get that calling, it can NOT be ignored or brushed off, or else the world will suffer. The world is suffering right now because there are so many people chasing the wrong things! There are too many oranges trying to be strawberries.

I believe that every individual, with God's guidance, can do absolutely world-changing things. If we're open for suggestion and hard work, for sweat and tears, and joy and pain, and love.
If we're willing to let cinnamon be cinnamon, and oregano be oregano.

Chels

Off Beat

I know it's been nearly a month since I posted.. shame on me!
It's not even because I haven't had anything to say. It's more that I had everything to say, but never said it.  (isn't that such an issue? How come we always end up holding the important things in and droning on about politics and weather?)
But anyway, now I'm back and I have to tell you, I've been a little off beat lately.
This really isn't easy for me to just go ahead and say, but it's true.
My cadence has gone wacky, and I don't like it at all.
I mean really, who likes an off beat, out of key, song? A song like that isn't one that would I would likely keep on repeat.

"So Chelsea, what exactly is wrong? Whadja do this time?"

Here's what I did: I got sidetracked.

*gasp*

I know.
You know what else? I let my passion die down. My efforts to please the Lord in every day life faded, and I started to lose grip on the selfless, giving, attitude I'd been praying for and working toward.
It's like I had a lapse in my life purpose.

As previously stated, this isn't my favorite post to write. I almost wrote a post on a personal Bible study which is extremely interesting, and would have been a fun post to write, and ya'll could think happy little thoughts like "Just look at that, Chelsea's doing great things for the Lord, she's got a great heart, that girl's on a roll"
But that would have been a stupid, prideful, vain, thing to do.
And  it would have tuned my life somewhere between dropped D and C, (which is an awful way to tune one's guitar and I would NOT recommend it)
And so I decided to write the hard post.
I decided to shout to the world that I'm struggling in certain areas.
It's humbling and it feels good, to be honest. Feels like I'm a little closer to being back to standard tuning.

Here's another thing I have to mention, though. It's not that I stopped praying, reading the Bible, going through the motions. It's just that that's what I was doing, going through the motions.
I let the meaning of what I was doing wander off, and it took my interest and passion with it.

So this is me,
Humbly asking the Lord to renew my heart and passion.

Being reminded that I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me, and nothing without Him.

Chels

A Lion in a Shoebox.

(Dearest Awesome People,
I want to thank you all for the kind and encouraging words I received from you after my last post. I was sooo touched! I'm sorry it took me so long to post again, but I've had a super busy week or so!)


Have you ever tried to cram a lion into a shoebox?
Yeah, neither have I. I mean, can you imagine? "here kitty, kitty.... get in... come on now, just get in the box..." *meow* *scratch* *bite* *death*
It would be quite a stupid thing to attempt. In fact, I don't care if you have a lion AND a shoebox on hand, I beg of you, DON'T TRY IT!!!
Because it's completely useless.
The lion is too big, too vicious, too strong, and I'll bet you my guitar that a lion doesn't wake up in the morning planning on climbing into a shoebox, therefore it will put up a fight to anyone who tries to get it in one.

So, why have I been trying to put God's power in a box?

He created the lion.

This week I realized that I've been trying to put a lion in a shoebox for quite a while now.
I mean sure, I can say "Oh yeah, God can do it, He's God" but are my heart and brain and mouth all saying the same thing, there?
It's like trying to play three notes that don't form a chord. They just make an empty, wretched sounding noise.
You have to have all your notes aligned and in tune with each other to make the sound you're going for.
So if my mouth is saying something, but my heart and brain aren't in on it, too, all I'm going to get is an empty, wretched sounding noise.

Have I been thinking and saying about what God can do in my life without fully believing it in my heart?
Have I not been really acknowledging his true power?

I was thinking about this, and I got to thinking about how I want to serve God how he wants me to serve Him. And it's not that I don't know that he's got the power to use me in huge ways.. it's just that I doubt that I have the ability to serve Him the ways He wants me to.
There is a part of a song by Anberlin, where the lyrics are "We're not questioning God, just those who he chose to carry out His cause" And no, I don't think they're saying what it sounds like they are saying, there. I think they are saying the obvious: to doubt who God has chosen to use, is basically doubting God. Because the power isn't in the people, it's in Him. So what right have we we doubt any of it?

God's in control and His power doesn't fit in a shoebox.

Chels

(By the way.. if you think of it, I could use some prayer this week. I have a huge week at work, and I'm heading into it pretty wiped out already. Thanks!)