Advent: Hope

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By Kristen Mudrack

Advent is a season of waiting.  A season of expectant waiting.  Though many church traditions have different meanings of the candles surrounding the advent wreath, the one I’ve chosen to focus on this year is hope, joy, love, and peace. 

Hope is hard. 

Hope can take you to the highest mountain, and when it is dashed, can bring you down to the lowest valley.  Climbing back up the mountain with hope again can be even harder.  Along the way, you find people who have been blessed with the very thing you’ve been hoping for.  And sometimes, that makes it even harder to keep climbing.  To keep hoping. 

Maybe you’re doing everything right.  Maybe you’re doing everything you can to make this hope come true.  You’re trusting God to bring about His will.  You’ve got faith.  But it’s not enough. 

You can do everything right.  You can try your hardest.  You can have faith that can move mountains.  But sometimes, the thing you hope for is still unrealized.  Still not the way you expected it to be. 

Sometimes God answers our prayers and hopes and expectations with the word no.  Not everything we hope for will come true, even if it’s something good.  And that’s when hope is really, really hard. 

So what do you do when the thing you’ve been hoping for is elusive?  What do you do when you can’t seem to climb back up the mountain again to hope? 

Let someone else carry you.  Let them hope with you and for you. 

Pour out your heart to your heavenly father, and ask Him to change your hope.  To align your hope with His will.  His good, pleasing, and perfect will. 

Your hope may not turn out the way you expected.  It may not be what you wanted.  But if you are willing to let God use you, let Him change you, mold you, and shape you, He will place in your heart a hope for His will.  He will show you that the things He has in store for you are better than you ever could have imagined.  That hoping in Him is really the only way to live abundantly and live life to the fullest. 

In this advent season, may you hope expectantly, with joy, and with thanksgiving.

Part of My Story

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Child of God. Wife. Professor. Sister. Daughter. Friend. Follower of Christ. Singer. Writer. Sinner saved by grace.

All of these are things about me. Things that I love about the life I have been given. Things that describe me and what I do.

But there’s one more that never makes my top ten list:

CFer.

Cystic fibrosis patient (or CFer, as some call us). I’ve never wanted it to define me. I’ve never wanted it to be why I was given, or denied, a job. I’ve never wanted it to be a part of my resume, the thing people remember me by.

And yet, it is a huge part of who I am. A big part of my story, my scars. Something that God is using even if I don’t always put a name to it. It is a part of my story.

But it’s not all of my story.

I don’t run away from it, I don’t hide it. But it is not all of my story.

My story, like yours, is complex. It involves challenges, heartaches, tears, pain, difficulty and loss. It involves lots of grace, forgiveness, love, and joy. It involves grief and praise, love and loss, old and new all covered under the grace of our Lord Jesus. It involves people and places and things I can’t explain, it involves sin – and a whole lot of Jesus.

My story centers around the cross. The resurrection. The Holy Spirit. My story is still being written.

The words that define me, that I use to tell people about who I am – they reflect that story. They tell of a God who rescues, redeems, and restores. They tell of a God who uses even the most broken for His glory.

And yes, CFer is part of those words. It’s a part of my story.

What’s your story? What words define who you are? What story do they tell?

Making a House a Home

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By Kristen Mudrack

We bought a house not too long ago. A very adult thing to do, I know. Mortgage and loans and all – we own (well, the bank owns) a house.

The first thing we did was pull up some disgusting green carpet outside and then all of the carpet inside.

Why?

Because the green carpet was disgusting, and the inside carpet wasn’t great for my allergies and coughing, and it honestly wasn’t that great either.

But really it was because we wanted to make the house our own. We wanted to change it and fix it because it was ours now.

This got me thinking the other day. About how when Jesus comes into our lives, He wants to make some changes. Out with the old, and in with the new, as 2 Corinthians says.

Jesus doesn’t come into our lives and expect things to stay the same. He expects things to change – priorities to shift, time and money to be given elsewhere, sin to be dealt with. These changes don’t usually happen overnight, but gradually. And these changes often aren’t easy. It’s hard to kick old habits that aren’t glorifying to God. Hard to realign our priorities, time, money, and so much more.

How silly it would be for us to move into our new house and change nothing, not make it our own. How difficult it is to make something your home if it isn’t really yours.

And yet, how often we expect God to come into our lives and change nothing.

But we didn’t demolish our entire home – there was no need. We didn’t raze the place to the ground and start completely over – that would have been a waste of money and time and space.

You see, God uses what you’ve got. He works where you are. He doesn’t come into your life and decide you’re not worth it and so demolishes the whole thing and starts over. He doesn’t work that way.

God uses your talents, your gifts, your passions and your personality to do His work – to build up His kingdom here on Earth. And yes, He changes things. Things that are for your good, and for His purposes.

It certainly wasn’t easy to pull out all of the carpet and replace it with a new floor. It took time, money, and friends to help. It took long hours and late nights and hammered fingers and cuts and bruises. But the change was worth it – because it is our home.

Change is worth it, when Jesus is involved. It’s not easy. Not always fun, and definitely causes a few bumps and bruises. Letting God make you new takes time, patience, and people. Iron sharpening iron.

And the work isn’t ever done.

Now that the carpet is out and the floor is in, the baseboard is (mostly) replaced, the small cracks filled in, and the green carpet is history, we get to start working on other projects – like the overgrown, weed-infested backyard. And front yard. And side yard. Pretty much the whole yard.

As I work to cultivate the land and house that God has blessed us with, I pray that I will allow Him to work and cultivate and change me into the person that He is calling me to be.

Covenant Communion

God's love, marriage, ,

By Kristen Mudrack

Communion Meditation, Grandview Christian Church – March 31, 2019

Most little girls dream about their wedding day.  They prance around in little white dresses and wait for prince charming to come bounding in on his white horse to save them.  As my dad used to say, though, prince charming is a myth and you’d have nowhere to keep the horse.

My first serious boyfriend told me on his way out the door that I wasn’t ever going to find anyone who could love me – and then enumerated several reasons.  My college roommate was always being chased by guys, but I was just the cute girl’s roommate. When I moved on to graduate school, I was too focused on getting my degree to worry about boys – and none of them wanted me anyway.  By the time I met my now-husband, I had pretty much given up on getting married. I figured that God might have different plans, and I was okay with that. (Cliché, I know. But stick with me – my story has a purpose)

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But God, in His infinite wisdom, saw fit to give me what I desired as a little girl but never thought I would have.  In December of 2017, I entered into a covenant with God and my husband, in the presence of friends and family. On that day, I promised to love, cherish, honor, and serve my husband in all circumstances of life – till death do us part.  I didn’t have to cut animals in half and walk between them like Abraham, I didn’t have to set up an altar and sacrifice on it daily like the Israelites. The marriage license that I signed was an outward sign of our covenant, but the words we promised each other are what we remember, and what we seek to do well, with God’s help.  

This table before us is another covenant.  One that cost our Lord His life. But when we entered into this covenant by choice, we didn’t promise to love, honor, cherish, and serve Him till death do us part.  He promised to love us and cherish us – till death do us restore.

For death did not part us.  Christ’s death and resurrection restores us to the relationship that we were meant to have with our Creator and God.  This table – the bread and the cup – is the outward expression of the covenant God has made with us. We didn’t do anything to deserve it, and there’s nothing we can do to earn it.  It is a gift, freely given. Costly to our Savior, but given freely to us.

From the Fall, our relationship with God has been broken.  The covenants He made with Noah, Abraham, David, the Israelites – all were on the way to the fulfillment of restoring that relationship with His creation.  In the person of His Son, through his death and resurrection, God bridged the gap and invited us to be in personal relationship with Him.

Restoration won’t be fully complete until that day when Jesus comes again.  As a kid, I shouldn’t have been waiting for prince charming on the white horse.  I should have been waiting for the King of Kings, the Lord of Lords, the Alpha and the Omega, the cornerstone, the beginning and the end – to come when that trumpet sounds and fulfill the plan of restoration.  

You are the one God wants to restore.  If you were the only person on Earth, Jesus still would have died for you.  He invites you to this table today to come and eat. To remember and remind us of the covenant he made with you and with me to restore all the world to himself.  

For it was on the night that Jesus was betrayed that he took a loaf of bread, gave thanks and broke it, and gave it to his disciples, saying, “Take and eat.  This is my body, broken for you. Do this in remembrance of me.” In the same way, he took the cup after supper, saying, “This is the new covenant in my blood, which is poured out for the forgiveness of sins.  Take and drink.”

For as often as we eat this bread and drink this cup, we proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes again.  

Scars

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By Kristen Mudrack

I spent the last two weeks roaming around Colorado and Utah seeing God’s beautiful creation firsthand with a college trip. How amazing to drive through the San Juan mountains or how speechless to stand at the foot of a mountain of sand. How breathtaking the beauty of the view at Pikes Peak. How wonderful the sunsets and sunrises and the rain and – yes, even the snow.

The view from Pikes Peak at 14,000 feet, Colorado

Remember those sand dunes? And the mountains? They were formed by violent winds and plates shifting. Those things at we call beautiful were brought about by something devastating and powerful. If you will, think of those mountains and dunes and valleys and lakes as scars. They are the scars of what has happened in the past. And yet, they are beautiful.

Canyonlands National Park, Utah

We tend to look at scars differently. We see scars on our bodies and remember the awesome stories or the way that we injured ourselves. Scars on our hearts are a little bit less glamorous, though. When parents walk away, friends die, relationships end, someone hurts you – those stories aren’t usually the ones we tell. Those scars aren’t the ones we proudly show off. We tend to hide them. Bury them. Run away from them.

Just a few weeks ago, we celebrated Easter. You probably went to church and sang songs about Jesus’ resurrection and heard sermons that were really aimed towards all of the visitors that day. You probably responded to the pastor’s call of “He is risen!”, with “He is risen indeed.” But for all of that celebrating, how many of us remember the scars?

You’ve probably heard the story of Jesus appearing to doubting Thomas before. It’s nothing new. But look at what Jesus says. He says, “See my scars. Touch my wounds and believe.” The thing that Jesus presents to Thomas so that he will believe are his scars. The very same things that freed us from the bondage of sin, that we sing bout, that we call beautiful, are his scars. His scars were the proof. The thing that tore the veil and made a way for us to know him,the thing that makes him our savior,those were scars.

What if our scars should do the same thing? Help people believe?

What if, instead of hiding or pushing down our scars, we let God use them to ring people to him? To help them believe?

Arches National Park, Utah

I used to hide behind my scars. The ones that only I could see. And then one day, God dragged me kicking and screaming out of my comfort zone and showed me why I had those scars – for his glory.

When I finally let God use my scars for his glory, I saw a glimpse of what God sees: beautiful scars. Scars that point to him, that tell of who he is. I still have a hard time seeing my scars, let alone myself, that way. But God is using other people’s scars to show me his heart. He’s even using the scars on the earth that I’ve seen these two weeks to remind me of his glory, his majesty, and his beautiful scars.

Canyonlands National Park, Utah

So what story do your scars tell?

Thoughts on Proficiency in Christians

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When someone says the word “worship”, most people will immediately think of music. Music is an integral part of the Christian Church’s worship, and it shouldn’t be surprising that philosophies on how music should be conducted has changed and developed over the ages. There are many, many different ways that various churches, even within a single religion, go about worship. You can visit this website to read about various styles of Christian worship.

One thing that I find interesting is that in the early Medieval church, the monks completely ruled out anything that was pagan, this included instruments; they thought that instrumentation took attention away from the words. The music was monophonic, meaning that there was only melody, no harmonies, and they kept the notes very simple. But even this changed as ways of writing music down began to be developed, and harmonies and pedal tones were added.

One thing I love seeing is someone who is proficient in their craft. A person who is a great musician, or who is a wonderful woodworker, or a writer whose writings seem so real that you actually feel like you personally know the characters. This is where I disagree with the monks on their philosophy. Being a lead guitar player, this will be biased, but I feel that people should be allowed to use their talents for the glory of God, and this includes playing proficiently in worship (side note for fellow lead players: being musicality proficient doesn’t mean cramming as many notes into a solo as you possibly can; musicality is key).

I know people disagree with me on this and will say that worship is all about the words and what they are trying to communicate and that the music should only be for backing the vocals, and I do agree that in a church environment the words should shine. But I also feel that the music is important. What better way to worship God than to nurture your talents to the best they can be. When I play a guitar solo in church I’m not trying to get people to notice how good I am. I’m using that time to use my God-given talent to worship God through my guitar. When I’m worshipping alongside a worship band and they have an instrumental section I don’t think to myself, “what attention hogs! That had nothing to do with God”, rather, I am encouraged that they were willing to put in the time and effort to nurture their God given talents to facilitate worship.   

I use playing guitar as an example because that’s how I worship, but this certainly could be applied to other places. Whether you are the church’s groundskeeper, a librarian, or you work in a fiberglass factory, you have the opportunity to worship God by doing what you do to the best of your ability.

A Wife’s Reflection on the First Year of Marriage

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By Kristen Mudrack

As my husband and I were preparing for our wedding, we made the decision that we would focus more on the marriage than the wedding.  We wanted it to be nice, yes, but it was more important to us that we start off married life on the right foot.

So we read books and blogs.  We talked to pastors and friends.  We watched others around us who were married (both happily and not).  We talked about everything under the sun – things that we were comfortable with and things that we were not.

Everyone said that the first year was hard.  Everyone said that it was going to be tough.  Everyone said that we’d fight more than we did when we were engaged, that we’d need to find ways to do our own thing and not smother the other person.  Everyone made the first year of marriage out to be the worst thing ever.

But I didn’t feel that way.  Sure, we had our moments of eye-rolling and frustration with each other’s habits.  We had to figure out how to budget differently.  We had to figure out how live together.

But honestly, I like living together.  I like having someone to come home to.  I like having someone to cook with and watch TV with.  I like having someone to serve God with.  I like having someone to love.

The first year of marriage wasn’t a chore.  It wasn’t hard work.  It came easily to us because we took the time to work through some things when we were engaged.  We talk about things now, when they come up.  We don’t just let things fester.  We take every chance we get to be together – and we miss each other when we’re gone, even if it’s only for an hour.

Yes, much has changed.  But it’s changed in a good way.  Being married has made me realize more of what it means to serve someone else, to put someone else before yourself.  Being married has made me realize again how flawed and broken I am, and has made me infinitely grateful that someone would be willing to walk into my mess.

Being married has made me appreciate the little things – when he makes my tea in the morning or warms up the car before work.  It’s made me appreciate the big things too – the way he can handle a disaster (like our apartment flooding) with patience and grace, the way he can make me smile, the ways in which we can serve God together.

Cody makes me a better person.  He makes me a better friend.  He challenges me, encourages me, loves me, frustrates me, and makes me laugh.  We have fun together, we work together, we serve together.  I know it’s cliche, but he’s my better half, my best friend.  I thank God every day that He has given me the person I needed to walk through life with.  He complements me and I complement him, which is one of the things that makes us works so well together.

I’m sure there will be challenges ahead.  That’s life.  But I’m looking forward to what God has for us in the coming years, and I’m looking forward to continuing to serve God together.

A Husband’s Reflections on the First Year of Marriage

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By Cody Mudrack

This past year has been the best year of my life. I’m not kidding either; I got married almost exactly 11 months ago.  It is said that everything changes when you get married, and I’m no exception. The things that I did before seem so foreign to me now. I know it’s only been 11 months, but I’ve changed so much over those months that I can barely recognize the person before.

I moved to Tennessee right after we got married, so I’ve currently been here 11 months, but I’m originally from northern Indiana. I think that’s the one thing that has allowed me to grow so much as a person. I’ve eliminated everything that I used to know in favor of the great beyond; in favor of what lies next. By getting away, I’ve allowed myself to examine who I am – think about what I believe and why I believe it. I didn’t just change one part of my life like what would be true if I had stayed in northern Indiana, I changed literally everything: I went from having a job to having no job; having great friends to having no one except my wife, my best friend; having a great church to attending new, different one; having family nearby to only seeing them every several months or so.

I think it’s important to get away for a while. To leave what you know in search of meaning and purpose. When you change your surroundings, you are forced to think differently and consider things that you never did before. You get different inputs, which is instrumental in discovering if your current ones are valid and useful. Some people go away on a weekend “get-a-way”, and while these can be useful, I don’t think that they are sufficient for deep reflection.

One thing that has been difficult for me is not having a job. It’s just the male desire that I must provide for my family. But let us explore that for a moment. Is this feeling valid? Should I have a job? We aren’t doing bad financially; my wife makes enough to support us both, and she’s also very supportive of making sure I have a job that I want, not just any job. This I appreciate, but it’s against my intuition. I was taught that a job is for providing for your family and nothing more. It isn’t for making friends, it isn’t a place to have fun or to enjoy, it’s about making money to provide for your family. It’s ok to make friends and have fun at work but never forget the primary reason you’re there. This advice is how I survived five years in a fiberglass factory. Now I believe this is sound advice, but I also feel it is incomplete. Yes, a job is for making money, but it doesn’t have to be unenjoyable. I do believe that you should learn to be content with whatever you currently have – again, fiberglass factory; 5 years – but there’s also nothing wrong with seeking a position that doesn’t crush your soul – finding a new job when you can’t take any more of your current one. This is what my wife was getting at when she said she wants me to have a job I enjoy. She just wants me to be happy and now I have the opportunity to study what I want to do. So, should I have a job? Not right now. My goal right now is to get through school, so later I can get a job in something I enjoy.

This brings up another point I’m learning: being dependent on other people. Our society today is so caught up in doing things yourself and being independent. But is self-sufficiency really the goal? According to Stephen Covey, no it isn’t. In his book “The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People” Covey explains that independence is only part way to our overall journey toward being an effective person. The ultimate goal is interdependence. This is different from the first stage, dependence and it is different from the second stage, independence. Dependence says “You should do this for me. You’re the reason for my problems,” independence says “I can do this on my own. I can solve my own problems.” The last stage is different. Interdependence says “Together, we can accomplish more than we could separately. We can overcome this problem more effectively if we work together.” Marriage is all about interdependence and in this stage of my life, I am forced to put my pride aside and depend on my wife for financial support. Being a man, this isn’t easy. I don’t care if she makes more money than me, I just feel that I need to be contributing somehow. However, I need to remember that being interdependent is the goal. I may not be helping financially right now, but my wife is willing to taking up the financial responsibility so that I can improve myself in order to be more effective later on.

This year has been a major step in my journey and it hasn’t been easy, but I’m excited to discover what God has in store for me.

Sometimes My Students Drive Me Crazy

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By Kristen Mudrack

Sometimes my students drive me batty.  Absolutely batty.

And then they go and do things like show me that they actually learned something.  That they actually were paying attention.  That they actually do care.

I’ve always loved seeing them get it – understand a concept that they’d been struggling with, get a question right after trying five times, finally make a connection between things we had talked about.

I’m the professor that constantly has students in her office – usually more than one – which either makes me the worst teacher in the world, or my students feel comfortable enough with me to come ask me questions and work through problems in my office.  I’m going to choose to believe the latter.

Sometimes they drive me nuts with all of their questions and constant requests for more practice problems (you have a textbook!).  But most of all, I’m grateful that they are trying to learn and not just memorize answers.  I’m grateful that they do come and ask me questions instead of just pretend like they understand.

It drives me absolutely crazy when they turn in assignments late, when they procrastinate on things that they’ve been assigned since the beginning of the semester, or when they don’t show up for a meeting when they scheduled one with me.  I want to deck them when they try to pull one over on me or plagiarize.  But instead, I try to help them learn from their mistakes.  I give them grace and mercy, tough love, and a shoulder to cry on when they need it.

Then I see them get it – really get it – and I am so proud of them.  My Chemistry and Society (nonmajors) class just gave their final presentations on how they see chemistry in their life that they didn’t before.  And they blew me away with what they learned this year.

My goal in that class is to rock their worlds and show them that what they see in the media isn’t always the actual science.  To teach them to think critically about the world around them and to appreciate God’s creation all around them, in every minute detail.  To help them not hate chemistry and connect it to their everyday lives.

And they did.  They saw things differently than they did before.  They learned.  They analyzed.  And they don’t hate chemistry (which is a huge win in my book!).

Seeking Joy

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The first Bible study I wrote that I let other people read was for my women’s small group several years ago.  I was hesitant to let other people read what I had written for fear it was wrong or not good enough or downright boring.  I emailed out the week’s devotional Bible study and didn’t really get much of a response from my ladies – it was summer, after all.

But one day, one of the ladies, a friend of mine, was talking to me about it at a baby shower.  “It’s been so good,” she said, “to stay in the Word, and to learn more about the Fruit of the Spirit.  Where did you get these devotionals from?”

“Well,” I replied, “I wrote them.  I’ve studied some commentaries and some of the things others have written, but mostly I’ve studied the Bible, the actual text.”

“Seriously?” she exclaimed.  “You should publish that.”

It took one of my other friends to push me to write the study in the first place, and now it was another friend who was encouraging me to publish it.  It took a few years for me to finally break down and do what they suggested, but I did.  Since then, I’ve written a couple more studies, one of which I published just this summer.

I tell you all of this to say that I don’t write studies just to write them, I don’t write them to make money, and I don’t write whatever I feel like.  Each study I’ve written has come out of a need I see around me.  If God hasn’t stirred a need in my heart, I wait until He does.

This summer, I have been encouraged by conversations with many women about the need for joy.  The need to find joy in all circumstances and places.  And this is something that has been on my heart as well.  As I begin this journey into writing this new study on Joy, would you pray with me that God will reveal to me what we need to hear?  Not what is easy, but what we need.  Would you pray with me that He would bring revelation and understanding as I study the Scriptures and bring the words to you?

Thank you for your prayers, and may God grant us His truth as we seek joy.