My Cheesy Pizza Life

When the list of things the Lord has taught me can be as long as that cheese trail coming off your pizza that is when you know you are in a good season.

You know that pizza is good when the cheese trail is a task.

Can I get an Amen?

Besides comparing my life to a cheesy pizza, a lot has happened to me in the last three months, and I really have been hungering to write about it but just haven’t had the right heart and place until now.

I lived in Greece for six weeks, hung out with some great people in Thessaloniki (shout out to all my wonderful Greek family), spent time in a refugee camp, advocated with the A21 campaign (shoutout to Christine Cain), became single, quit a job, moved out of my apartment that I’ve had for the last two years, left my beloved city of Gainesville and Greenhouse Church, and moved back home to where I am now currently sitting in my high school bedroom reflecting on my life over the past three months of summer. But ya’ll its so good.

Life has been one of those pizzas with a lot of toppings, (I think it’s called supreme) but still so much cheese underneath that the cheese doesn’t lose it’s flavor. The cheese is in my life as a pizza is Jesus. As much has been thrown on top, the foundation has stayed the same and the flavor of the gospel hasn’t escaped itself

However, my life is no longer the Supreme Pizza. It is currently just a cheese pizza and to be honest this is the most free and burden-less that I have felt in quite some time. So much breakthrough in three months, so much heart healing, vision seeing, truth finding, and much more. All praise to Jesus.

For the past few years my life pizza has been cheese with just about everything else on top of it:

• Meat-Student at the University of Florida
• Veggies-Employee at Gainesville Health and Fitness and Volunteer/Member of Greenhouse Church
• Sweet Pineapple- Someone’s Girlfriend

All wonderful and flavorful additions, at least in my opinion, to someone’s pizza, but now I am just cheese because I am not a student, currently not employed by any taxable organization, and single (but very happily I might add).

I’m learning to love this cheese though, because cheese is simple. Jesus is simple. The Gospel is simple. I’ve been hung up on a phrase lately from Elevation Worship’s new album. The song is “Fullness” and the singer writes,

“Let our hearts continue burning, for our KING is soon returning. Let us hold to this assurance, Spirit Come.”

The magnitude of this line has done nothing but bring me to overwhelming emotion and called me to question my own yearning for the King. Does my heart burn for the King to return? Do I hold fast to the assurance of Jesus Christ?

Am I content with just my cheese pizza?

For the longest time, the answer to all of these questions would have been “no.”

However, the Lord has used this time to teach me the yearning for His kingdom, the assurance of His hope, and the hunger for His Spirit. The cheese is good y’all, it’s good.

As a post grad, I’ve been trying to add pizza toppings ever since I got back from Greece. I thought I was gonna add a graduate school acceptance to start my Masters in International Community Development, Lord told me to withdraw my application. Applied to numerous jobs with Samaritan’s Purse, you know to start being a big girl and pay my bills. Was almost about to settle, when the the Lord asked me “Hannah, why are you only giving me an inch, when I want to give you a mile, why do you not trust me to provide a job with all your passions not some?” Okay Jesus, let me wait with my dwindling bank account.

But then the Lord provided a chance for me to honestly take a nice ole cheese bath, and so that is what I am doing. Starting August 21st my new place of residence will be Santa Fe, NM working as a part time admin for my grandma’s ministry Joyful Ministries. There I will partner with what God is doing within her ministry around the Santa Fe and New Mexico area. My heart is content because this was simply a topping that the Lord placed in my life at this moment. Peace and reassurance is something I have received.

It was not my original post grad plans, as I thought I was moving to Spain to teach English and gonna post an awesome pic on all social media and be like “oh my goodness, Spain, it’s crazy, ahh.” And honestly, it brings me joy knowing that so many are moving into this season. I delight in the jobs offers, marriages, proposals, babies, and everything in between that I see all the time because God works in and through all things. That’s just not my type of pizza right now, and I am super content with the cheese. Cheese is good and cheese is the most assured foundation. I can always count on my Jesus to be there and for the goodness of His gospel to never lose its taste. I can’t wait to see what the Lord continues to make out of my pizza life. May it be filled with an abundance of cheese and only the toppings the Lord requests. May there be an overflow of Jesus on all sides, and may that be the foundation on which I choose to live my life for all eternity.

We all know what Forrest Gump said about life being like a box of chocolates. However, to me life is much more like a pizza with my favorite Jesus as the pizza master. Lord, give me only the toppings that you need for me to have in order that people may taste and see that the Lord is good. I want them to taste the cheesy bread of life, Jesus Christ.

Love and Prayers,

Hannah