Define:

I remember learning that Google could be used just like a dictionary if you typed "define:" in front of a word. Blew my mind. Google just typically blows my mind. It's insane all the stuff you can do with Google. For real, I wish I invented Google. If I was one of those crazy smart teenagers, I probably could have. Correction - I would have had to have been an extremely smart 7 year old. The real inventors started working on in it 1996. (Yes. I did just look up Google on Wikipedia to figure that out. Sidebar: Don't even get me started on Wikipedia.) Can I just say that as I read back over this I just realized the ridiculousness that is the phrase "I would have had to have been..." Sorry for that...

But, I did not invent Google. I am not a super smart and rich 20 year old. I am just an average college junior who wants her life and earthly relationships to be defined by her relationship with her Heavenly Father. Which is really where the title of the post came from. But then I added the colon, and it reminded me of Google. Hence the tangent.

It's been a great weekend. The long kind, that seemed to go on forever and it was very much welcomed. It was a weekend of life chats, Hugh Grant, jell-o, photo shoots, truth and dare, meetings, Princess Bride, lock-ins, coffee (with great creamers...), Mexican food, sleep-overs, ding-dong ditch, and Jack Bauer. The kind of weekend where friends are truly cherished and God is glorified in conversation and action. Where these two things are not mutually exclusive but go hand in hand.

At one point this weekend, a friend of mine asked me to define my relationship with another friend. This completely caught me by surprise and I rambled and bumbled through an answer and ultimately came to the conclusion that I don't even know how to describe what a "good friend" is let alone my friendship with a specific person. It caused me to doubt the strength of my relationship with this friend --> because somebody outside of the relationship didn't understand it and I couldn't adequately define it for her.

"Behold, you fast only to quarrel and to fight and to hit with a wicked fist. Fasting like yours this day will not make your voice to be heard on high. Is such the fast that I choose, a day for a person to humble himself? Is it to bow down his head like a reed, and to spread sackcloth and ashes under him? Will you call this a fast, and a day acceptable to the Lord? is not this the fast that I choose: to loose the bonds of wickedness, to undo the straps of the yoke, to let the oppressed go free, and to break every yoke? Is it not to share your bread with the hungry and bring the homeless poor into your house; when you see the naked, to cover him, and not to hide yourself from your own flesh?" - Isaiah 58:4-7

I first came across this verse at the end of freshman year when I was looking for verses to encourage me in my position as missions coordinator and then again the other weekend in one of the breakout sessions at (the retreat formerly known as) Axis. The day after the aforementioned conversation (really? I'm somebody who uses the word "aforementioned"? I'm not sure how I feel about myself right now...) this verse was again laid on my heart. I recalled this passage during the prayer meeting at church Saturday morning when the speaker was talking about her last trip to Haiti. Later that afternoon I went out on a photo shoot with one of my roommates for her final project in photography. She's trying to take pictures of her friends in relation to their faith so I brought my Bible and journal along for the shoot. In the midst of all the laughter and craziness that ensued, I was sitting up against a tree (with a very wet behind - it'd been raining for three days straight up until Saturday...) looking once again at this passage from Isaiah, thinking about how God turns our definitions upside down all the time. Just like He told the Israelites they were thinking about fasting in the wrong way God has given me a new way to look at not only my friendships but my definition of my myself.

In Sunday school this morning we talked a bit about how we often define ourselves by the things we do. I'm a biology and sociology major. I'm a student. I'm unemployed. But that's what I am - not WHO I am. For about 6 months I had a name-tag on the back of my Bible and I joked that it was because I found my identity in Christ. It was a lame reason to have a name-tag on my Bible but it's not a lame idea. Last spring, Sadie and I did a great post answering questions from Noelle's pre-engagement book and one of the questions we answered was who are you. Very childishly we both responded with preschool songs (I am a promise and I am a C(hristian)) but really - that's who I am. I'm a daughter of God. And that should be where I find my identity.

I don't need anything other than Christ to sustain me so why should I need anything else to define me? And if my relationship with Him defines me, then any other relationship I have should also be defined in such a manner. It's ok that relationship dynamics have changed. Because I've changed. She's changed. I'm going to bet that you've probably changed too. We have new perspectives on our lives and we've grown in our own relationships with God. And it's only right that any definitions of our friendship should change with that. Really - every aspect of our life should. I can't claim to have that down, but I am trying. And my prayer has been that God would continue to grow me in this. Not for the sake of my own righteousness but because of His great mercy (Daniel 9:18) for His glory.