Choosing Jesus

So for anyone who knows me, I get stressed really easily. Over things that don’t often turn out to be anything at all. So, it’s only natural that at the beginning at a new semester, or as I finish packing my clothes to head back to Bloomington, I get a little anxious. Tonight, as I brought my big suitcase down the stairs and said good night and good bye to my little brother, that feeling of anxiety started in the pit of my stomach and the back of my head. This past semester and the past year have not been easy and there’s a lot of stuff that I’m still processing through, so the thought of jumping right back into the things that have thrown me around in the past, scares the crap out of me. I don’t want to make the same mistakes that I made first semester, I don’t want to miss out on the same opportunities that I did last semester and I don’t want to feel as exhausted, drained and incapable as I did last semester. However, as my final episode of online Grey’s Anatomy ended, I felt the Lord speaking to my heart.

He was saying, “Caitlin, you are my workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which I prepared in advance for you to do. (Ephesians 2:9) Go, do the work this semester that I have perfectly designed for you. For you are not perfect, but you are my workmanship, you are constantly being refined.”

Now, I have felt the Lord answering my prayers, I’ve felt Him literally carry me through some pretty rough times, but this was the first time, I wasn’t deep in prayer or journaling that God spoke to me. After Indy CC, I was feeling very broken and crippled; I asked God for comfort, for clarity and for guidance. And He gave it to me. It is for this reason, that in this next 15 hours of change and possible anxiety, I will choose Jesus. I will choose to believe that the same God that brought me way into freedom this past semester will bring me into this semester. I will choose to believe that His plan will prevail as much as I unconsciously try to screw it up. I will choose to believe that trust and hope are more powerful than anxiety and fear. I will wake up tomorrow, finish packing, and with God’s strength and my human mind, choose to follow Jesus – even when that means into trials and suffering – because He prepared good works in advance for ME… not because He needs me, but because He loves me.