"whats the big deal? jesus drank wine."

hey guys! first, i want to say thank you to everyone who has reached out to me to tell me that my blog has encouraged them or just that they related to it or enjoyed it! i feel like i have so many more friends since i wrote my last blog! being real and honest connects us to other people so much more easily than pretending we've got it all together. anyways, thanks to everyone & i love you.

i want to talk about ALCOHOL and as i write this i want you to know that i am 20, i’m not of age, but everyone knows the college culture quite well and i’m not going to pretend like it doesn’t exist.

coming into college i knew NO ONE. i went to a small school where everyone was quite different from me. i had a few friends but none that really ever stuck, and that didn’t so much upset me, as showed me how much i really loved being alone. i spent a lot of nights just reading in my room with a cup of tea and was quite content with that. college was a pretty lonely time for me. SO when some of my friends would ask me to go out to house parties with them, i wasn’t so sure how to act. i wasn’t like these people, i didn’t really know what to talk about and i was pretty tired most of the time. I found out if you drink some stuff that tastes like nail polish remover- it makes everyone love you in about 5 minutes.

wow! i thought. and as more and more of my friends moved to my city, it became a habit. when you hang out in groups you put on some loud music and you drink more of that nail polish remover stuff. everyone does it. everyone laughs and dances and falls over and everyone kisses everyone else and everyone does even more than that sometimes.

i didn’t like the fact that i felt like i needed to drink to have fun or for people to like me. i didn’t like the feeling that no one really would want to hang out unless it was a party.

when i started following jesus FOR REAL, a little over a year ago, i felt this feeling of sadness when i drank. i thought to myself, “there’s GOT to be something more than this.” i got sick of everyone coming over and spilling drinks on my kitchen floor, leaving their half eaten pizza on my counter and throwing up in my toilet. Is this really the most fun you can have? everyone made it seem like it was. i stopped drinking and watched my friends. i realized how bad it really was. the drunken confessions, the tears, the stupidity, the sex. Watching from the outside made me more and more upset.

Why did I feel this way? College is supposed to be your “crazy” time right? Everyone does it, right? People like you more if you do it, right?

I was confused and felt alone. I turned to the Word to see what it said about drinking. After all, Jesus drank wine right?

Yes! He did. And that’s one thing I hate when people throw back in your face. yes, Jesus drank wine and he enjoyed it. But did he stumble home that night with a random woman he would use only to never see again? Did he end up on a random bathroom floor soaked in tears? No. He drank the wine with His dinner and he went home. thats how its supposed to be.

and nothing is wrong with that. When it becomes an issue is when you aren’t drinking in moderation. the bible says too much wine cheapens your life. w o w. that’s how i had been feeling. i think thats how a lot of us feel but we want to be cool so we don’t accept the fact that drinking too much cheapens our lives. guys, getting drunk cheapens your life. 100% every time.

and guess what? the bible doesn't say not to get drunk because God doesn’t want us to have fun. God actually wants to see us having fun. the bible says not to get drunk because it a. cheapens our lives and b. because getting drunk leads to heart ache and God loves us SO MUCH that He doesn’t want to see us in that heartache.

be real with yourself: is getting drunk every weekend fulfilling your life deeply for REAL? i don't think its a coincidence that people who fill their lives with drugs, drinks and cheap sex always end up depressed and looking for something more. it’s because there is something more, but in college it’s hard to believe that there are other people out there who are cool, fun, or funny that don’t spend every night getting drunk. those people are probably weird.

but I'm telling you, there are. seriously, my friends and i spend saturday nights sitting on my bedroom floor talking, playing card games, singing and dying of laughter until 4 am most nights. and we remember what happened the next morning! we wake up and go eat pancakes and play ping pong and dance at church. i’ve never felt more fulfilled in my life. there are people out there with the same heart as you- and i can’t express how thankful i am for my friends who make my life amazing.

but you’ll never find them if you keep surrounding yourself with a culture that is throwing sin at you. getting drunk is a sin not because God wants us to feel bad about ourselves or not have fun. getting drunk is a sin because it keeps us far from God. and all He wants is to be close to us.

I wanna end this with a story. there was a man in the bible who followed God. He was invited to a dinner where they were feasting on animals that were sacrificed to pagan gods. to him, it didn’t matter where those animals came from, he was just eating some good food, since he didn’t believe in these pagan gods, eating this food didn't affect his life at all.

but- to someone on the outside of christianity. someone who is questioning it, someone who has the wrong picture of it- they look at him eating that sacrificed animal and say: well, he calls himself a Christian but he's eating a pagan sacrifice. he’s a hypocrite, and he's not all in. this jesus thing must not be all its cracked up to be if this so called follower of God is eating that meat.

thats how i see drinking. even if i know that i am not going to go overboard, make mistakes or be far from God if i have a few glasses of wine, i never want people to look at me as a hypocrite. i never want people to say “she’s not who she says she is.” I never want people to think i’m not all in for Jesus. that’s why i tend to stay away from alcohol.

as for when i turn 21, i am not against wine with dinner. i am not against beer on a hot summer day. i am not against a margarita by the pool. but i never want to be someone who can’t have fun without it. i want to experience my life instead of foggy stumbling through it. i never want to be someone who’s life is far from God and therefore unfulfilled because i spend all my time blurring reality. i never want to be someone who’s relationships are built on mutual shots taken. i never want to be someone who you look to for influence and come out justifying alcoholism.

this is so real- this is hurting my heart. the enemy disguises spiritual poison as a glamorous life SO. well. but it will catch up with you, it will keep you far from the greatest Love you can experience. please if you live in pittsburgh and you think that there is no one out there, my house is always open. come bake pies with my friends & i and we can drink coffee and jam to TSwift. (or whoever you want to jam to)

I love you guys, i wanna spend time with you. lets get coffee and real talk. don’t live for this world- you are called so much higher.