Until the Glimmers Are Gone

He flopped around in the blasting wind tunnel, like a spaghetti noodle in a pot of boiling water. The instructor struggled to stretch out the small boy’s contorting limbs to achieve a neutral posture, but soon his time was up and the boy stepped out of the tunnel. One by one I watched the others in my group take their turn leaning into the twelve-foot wide tunnel of the indoor skydiving center. After about sixty seconds of a suspended belly flop onto winds up to 170 mph, complete with cheeks flapping in the breeze like flags on a pole, each person stepped out with huge grins smeared across their faces.

I was a little nervous myself. I only knew a few people in my group, and who wants to flop around like a hiccupping walrus in front of a bunch of strangers? But as I took my turn and stretched out my legs and arms, all I could do was grin. There was literally nothing but gushing air to hold me up. Then the wind speed increased and I was skyrocketed into the tunnel and then let down, high, then low, high, and then low, like a leaf tossed around in a storm. I was falling without actually falling. The feeling was sensational in every sense of the word and after stepping out of the tunnel and high-fiving my friends, I found myself thinking, I kind of want to do real skydiving now.

It happens often in life that we get a taste for something, but instead of satisfying us, it only increases our thirst. We crave real peace and joy and we catch glimmers of it all the time, but only glimmers. It blazes into our lives at certain beautiful moments, but it quickly fades away, like the last flashes of fireworks on the Fourth of July. And we feel the hole. We feel it when we close the cover of our book and wish the story wasn’t over. We feel it anytime we say goodbye to a friend or loved one. We grasp and claw at the bits and pieces, but can never sink our teeth into the real thing.

The Lord doesn’t give us these desires to taunt or tease us. C.S. Lewis said in his book The Problem of Pain, “Our Father refreshes us on the journey with some pleasant inns, but will not encourage us to mistake them for home.” If God gave us these longings, it is because He will someday fulfill them. So, when you feel inside you the dichotomy of joy and sorrow, pleasure and aching, fullness and vacancy, and longing echoes through your hollow soul, pray to the Father that He will keep your heart strong until He comes to fill it with everlasting life and the glimmers are replaced with the real thing. 

Something I wrote recently

I can see your frustration is growing

Cause things haven't been going as planned

Doors you want open are closing

This is not your life; you don't understand

Why all the detours? This wasn't in the script

Could it be there's something better than this?

Sometimes you find your life on the side roads

There's beauty off the beaten path

It's amazing what you learn when you let go

You'll find true joy where it’s at

God'll take you to the unexpected

You'll find love, purpose and glory

So relax, and let Him write your story

Remember life is a journey

It's not a race to get to the end

Life's all about what you're learning

Not when you arrive, but how it's been spent

So embrace all the detours that aren't in the script

Enjoy each adventure and every plot twist

Sometimes you’ll find your life on the side roads

There's beauty off the beaten path

It's amazing what you learn when you let go

You'll find true joy where it's at

God'll take you to the unexpected

You'll find love, purpose and glory

So relax, and let Him write your story

His ways are higher than your ways

His thoughts are higher than yours too

His plans for you are good and true

So enjoy the ride, enjoy the view

Jesus, the Family Heirloom

When I was about five or so, my mom made me a cloth doll. She didn't have jointed legs, an hourglass figure, or seductive makeup like some of the Barbies I later owned. She was actually quite simple. She had tan cloth skin, black yarn hair twisted into two braids, tiny sewn eyes, and a small pink mouth. Her body wasn't very properly proportioned either. She had a round belly and her arms were about as large as her thighs (and they were quite large; think sausages). She was soft, huggable, and wholesome, and I had a ball sewing clothes for her out of hideous fabrics my mom let me have. When it came time to name her, I dubbed her with the eloquent title: Adra (any resemblance to religious humanitarian organizations is entirely coincidental).

I liked Adra and I still do. She's been around now for...15 or 16 years, longer than most of our family pets. She's survived three or four moves all over the United States too. But I've slowly grown up, my hands stretching, grasping, letting go of childhood toys and games and reaching out for education and jobs. At 21, I can't spend my time making miniature aprons and dresses for dolls with fat arms. So I've left Adra boxed up in a closet or shed somewhere at my mom's house in Colorado. She's most likely folded up like origami next to my old story books or scrunched up with the wooden music box my uncle gave me, the one with the hummingbird engraved on it. I've left her to collect dust in a cardboard coffin. I don't keep her near me when I sleep or prop her up on my pillow during the day either. Those days are gone.

But don't get me wrong. There's no way I could ever get rid of her. She's stuffed with much more than fluffy wool. She's full of sentimental value and the rich memory of my mother making a special gift just for me.

I know of another Parent who gave a very personal gift to His kids. Many of us accepted this treasure when we were little. God entrusted us with a simple, raw faith in the gift of Jesus. But as we've slowly grown up, life started getting more complicated and it was harder to take Jesus everywhere. He might've survived a few moves, but slowly, little by little, He was crowded out of our lives as we reached out for more "grown-up" things. For many young people, Jesus has been left in the dust as they blasted their way into adulthood. He now sits in a closet, collecting dust somewhere.

But don't be confused. He's is well liked for sure. We usually pull Him out once in a while during church, for memory's sake. We couldn't bear to get rid of Him entirely because He's too full of sentimental value and rich childhood memories. But we can't stand to let Him live fully in our lives either.

For most of my peers who grew up in Christian homes, Jesus is liked well enough to be spared a Goodwill fate, but not well enough to be brought out of the packing box and made real and personal in our everyday lives. We can't sell Him at the yard sale just yet because He's a part of our history. Sabbath school lessons, potlucks, and pathfinders weakly string our past to our present, but Jesus isn't in control of the reins that guide us in the moment, in the here and now. When we do crack open a Bible, all we see are black and white sterile words on a page, tellings stories that aren't near as flashy or fascinating as Disney.

We've "become wealthy, and have need of nothing" (Revelation 3:17 NKJV).

But the problem is keeping Jesus packed in the shed is really like having no Jesus at all. Either He is the Life "which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked upon, and our hands have handled," or He is nothing at all (1 John 1:1 NKJV). We have to decide what He will be to us. Alive or dead. Everything or nothing. We're all in or all out. Either we're burning hot, consumed by His love or we'll be vomited out of His mouth (see Revelation 3:16). You can't have a sentimental relationship with Christ based on the whims of nostalgia any more than you can have a sporadic, sentimental, pull-out-of-the-box-when-I-feel-like-it spouse. It's that simple.

It's time we quit treating Jesus like a family heirloom.

"Behold, I stand at the door and knock..." (Revelation 3:20 NKJV).

Life is...

Life is not a formula where you plug in the factors and get exactly what you want.

Life isn't a game where you can pass go and collect two-hundred dollars.

Life isn't a fairy tale where everyone lives happily ever after.

Life isn't a movie you can replay over and over. It can only be lived once.

Life is not a bread and breakfast where you get Captain Crunch served on a silver platter.

Life isn't a car-camping trip with paved walk ways and wi-fi access.

Life is a rugged endeavor where you make incredible friends and meet annoying trolls that later transform into incredible friends.

Life is an experiment where you put baking soda and vinegar together and find that it doesn't go over very well.

Life is a wild beast and a sometimes you have to grab the whip and tame the lion.

Life is a roller coaster with lots of ups and downs and lots of screaming.

Life is a play you perform, but most of the time you don't understand your role or the lines until afterwards.

Life is a fight to treasure the diamonds you've been given.

Life is realizing that the Son of Man doesn't have a hole like a fox or a nest like a bird and neither do I have a place in this world.

A Fancy List of Blogs I Like

I’m thankful that people enjoyed reading my last post. But now I have a problem: I have nothing intelligent or profound left to say. Seriously, it was all funneled into that 1,700ish word post. I thought about writing a series of posts covering all the other emotional problems I have, but decided against it.

I thought about telling you all about the time my older sister gave her hamster a bath in the humidifier and then blow-dried it to a parched perfection (needless to mention, he passed away in the process). I guess that would make people laugh and that can be good, and maybe someday I’ll write out a whole swath of humorous family anecdotes, but not today.

I wish I had something grand and clever and to say. I wish I had great gobs of intelligence and humorous sarcasm from which I could write scathing rebukes on controversial issues to our morally bankrupt, do-what-you-feel-like society. I wish I could stir people up and resurrect a “stand for the truth!” spirit and let it burn like a bon fire, like my latest and greatest blogging hero, Matt Walsh of the www.themattwalshblog.com. (Really, he is, like, my top favorite blog right now. I highly recommend you check out his stuff. Read, like, everything.)

On the other end of things, I’m not super amazing when it comes to sewing or DIY home décor projects so I can’t show you how to create the cutest handmade clutches in all creation (but if you do want to see them, a really adorable baby boy, read book reviews, or just hear about a wonderful Christian woman’s life and find out why she’s gluten free, check out one of my other favorite blogs: www.elmstreetlife.com).

Sometimes I get frustrated because I like words a lot and at random moments in the day I’ll think of an artistic way to string a few together. But then I usually don’t have a larger frame to place them in for display or I’m not really in a place/time where I can flesh out my thoughts and do them justice. And by the time I actually do have a space for thinking, often the fancy has passed and I’m stuck again.

I’m also not a mom who does cool stuff like mission trips and talks about her kids and yummy recipes like this awesome lady at www.peteandbuzz.com (I haven’t kept up with her blog for a while, but it is still a pretty good one).

I’m also not an uber spiritual, inspirational, super author like this incredible woman at www.aholyexperience.com or this one at www.lookforsonshine.wordpress.com (I highly recommend you read both blogs. The profound thoughts and down-to-earth attitudes are so uplifting.)

I’m not like any of these bigwig bloggers. I’m more like a…toupee blogger. And if you’re bored, you now have several new reasons (the above websites) to procrastinate and waste time. J You’re welcome.

So, I guess you can expect my next lightening bolt of inspiration to arrive in about five years and a half years. In between you’ll be entertained with senior photo shoots (or junior or sophomore shoots), occasional intelligent epiphanies, and short, sweet devotionals about things like nature and leaves.

OK, just kidding. Hopefully it won’t be that bad. But it’s nice sometimes to write for the sake of writing, which is kind of what this was. Thanks for reading my rambles.

A Link to More Insight

I noted at the beginning of my last post that I couldn't provide all the answers when it comes to the struggle of feelings. So I wanted to share another post written by one of my favorite teachers from ARISE because I think it gives more insight on the subject. You can find it here. Enjoy!

God is Not My Boyfriend

Note: I know this post doesn’t provide all the answers I’m looking for when it comes to the question of feelings. I still have big questions, but it’s just a thought that popped into my head the other day, so I thought I’d share it with you.

So I’ve had this problem, this throbbing in the back of my mind for what seems like ages. It’s kind of personal and I even tried to write in such a way that you wouldn’t know it was so personal, but I wasn’t making any headway, so I gave up on that idea. But anyway, back to my problem. It’s been around for a while, like that leftover Greek salad in your fridge. Yeah, the one you had for lunch three weeks ago. It hasn’t gone away and it’s beginning to stink. Let me break it down for you.

I’ve pretty much grown up marching under the Eric-and-Leslie-Ludy banner, chanting the mantra: save your heart for the man God has for you! Though I’ve definitely struggled myself, for the most part I’ve tried to be faithful to my future husband. I’ve tried not to dwell upon subjects that would only make me boy-crazy and lovesick because I believed that my teenage years weren’t meant to be spent wallowing in moonlit infatuation and matte-finished daydreams. I’ve tried not to flirt with guys because I believed it wasn’t healthy for me to find fulfillment in the attention of some hormone-crazed teenage boys. I believed that in order to be truly content and be best prepared for a happy marriage, I needed to have a healthy relationship with God first and grow with Him as I approached the brink of adulthood. I denied myself and controlled myself because I believed in this message of saving not just my virtue, but also my heart for my future husband. 

And you know what? I still do believe in this message and I’m thankful for the way I chose to live my teenage years. The angst doesn’t lie in why I did what I did, but rather in how I was told God would help me during the years of self-restraint and loneliness.

In all those books, sermons, retreats, and relationship seminars, they have a common thread. That is the thought that during those years where you don’t have a boyfriend and you feel that little, black monster of loneliness eating away at your happiness, God will somehow magically fill that chasm with His love and any drop of desire to have a significant other will evaporate. God is portrayed as some sort of divine, ultra-boyfriend who fulfills the schmaltzy, romantically infatuated cravings of sixteen-year-old girls. You can go on “dates” with Him every morning. He’ll send you “texts” all the time. Oh, and that cloud you saw in the sky that was shaped like a heart? That was God’s way of saying He’s in love with you, crazy about you. And don’t forget the bouquet of flowers He sends you every spring. He is portrayed as the ultimate emotional filler in our lives. It’s like your heart is a cone and God’s love is in the soft-serve machine and He’s just waiting to fill your heart’s every nook and cranny with creamy, sugary goodness. His love is so rich and perfect; you should never feel a shudder of loneliness again.

Now, this brings me to crux of my problem: I still feel lonely. Despite my faithful Bible reading and prayers, I have yet to experience the above-mentioned divine boyfriend. To be honest, my frustration has been mounting for quite some time because I feel the Lord has stood me up quite a few times. The way I’ve experienced Him hasn’t been the way He was portrayed to me when I read this or that book on relationships or heard that seminar by whoever. How come God hasn’t been holding up His end of the bargain? What gives? Have I not been faithful enough in my thoughts, my actions? Am I not reading enough, not praying enough? Why am I not experiencing the divine romance I was promised? There lies my confusion, frustration, annoyance, disillusionment, disconnect: my three-week-old Greek salad.

Do you smell it?  

I liked a guy my junior year in high school. Man, how special I felt when he’d come and sit by me at a meal or ask what was wrong when I looked sad. If he wasn’t near me in the room, my eyes were darting around every few seconds looking for him and I could find him faster than a sniper finds its target in the scope. Oh, I remember the silly nervousness I felt when the two of us would talk together or when we held hands during the Sabbath Song on Friday nights after vespers. Yeah, all that infatuated, euphoric fluff. It’s a pretty awesome ride. But I have to say I haven’t experienced those same emotions with God, or if I have, they’ve been sparsely doled out. So I have to be missing something. There’s static in the connection. There’s a kink in the hose. There’s a blockage somewhere and I’ve been feeling it for quite a while.

But then the other day I was walking on a gravel road to nowhere special or fantastically important and I had a thought. It was almost like a burning bush sort of moment where the Lord whispered to me for just a split second. It’s funny how God can show you truth at the most ordinary, mundane moments.

So here is my thought: despite everything these relational experts may write, blog, or say, the Bible never says God will be our boyfriend (although some parents would like their thirteen-year-old daughter to think so). However, it does say that He will be our husband.

I know some translations can get pretty creative, but I’ve never heard verses like Isaiah 54:5 rendered, “For your Maker is your boyfriend…” Nope, I’m pretty sure it says something like, “For your Maker is your husband…” (NKJV, emphasis added). I think it also says somewhere that husbands should love their wives as Christ loved the church (see Ephesians 5:25). An Old Testament prophet named Hosea was also commanded to marry a prostitute so he could be a living symbol of the kind of husband God is to us. The husband/wife metaphor is actually quite prevalent throughout the scriptures.

Now, I’ve never been married, obviously, but I would hazard a guess that any married couple will tell you there’s a huge difference in the relationship between a boyfriend and girlfriend and the relationship between a husband and wife. Take commitment, for example. When a couple is dating, each person still has the option to back out if they should so choose. And nowadays this happens about as often as I update my Facebook status. However, once you’ve tied the knot, a husband and wife have to be committed to each other through the matte-finished daydreams and the unflattering, overexposed mug shots. They have to persevere even when it’s tough.

Dating relationships are also full of romantic fluff. It’s easy to get along with someone when their faults are veneered and sugar coated with flowers and chocolate and sentimental slog. Don’t get me wrong, these things are all good and actually important, but they don’t constitute love. Husbands and wives, in contrast, have to chose to love each other even when there are no flowers or love notes, even when the ugly is brought out of the other person.

From the couples I know (who have healthy relationships), books and blogs I’ve read, and talks I’ve heard, it seems that true love is a choice you make every day. Some days you’re going to feel like it. Some days you won’t. It’s a terrifyingly beautiful work that takes perseverance, commitment, guts, pain, discipline, and most of all, unselfishness. But what you get in the end is gold, something deeper than a bouquet of daisies and sweeter than Swiss chocolate. A love that’s mature, with its roots sunk into the Father’s heart, where it can be safely anchored and stand against any storm of time, difficulty, or infatuation.

So maybe God chose to use the wife/husband metaphor rather than the boyfriend/girlfriend metaphor because it better represented how our relationship with Him would be. Marriage seems to take sweaty effort and maybe a relationship with God does too. We’re not going to always feel like loving Him or pursuing a relationship with Him, but maybe if we choose to anyway, if we persevere and keep fighting, the love we get in the end is gold. It’s a relationship that won’t be dependent on flighty feelings. It can stand the test of time, circumstance, and emotional highs and lows because we’ve chosen to lose ourselves in the Father’s heart by faith every single day.

Maybe God doesn’t give us all the warm-fuzzies in our relationship with Him because He knows we’d only become addicted to a heavenly high. Maybe He wants our love for Him to be more than a High School Musical fling. Yes, it’s going to take a lot more work, perseverance, commitment, and discipline to choose to spend time with God and surrender to Him every day. Yeah, it’s not very glamorous and not always comfortable to read my Bible or make an effort to talk to Him. And it’s not easy to ask forgiveness for when I’ve wronged Him or to be unselfish and listen to what He would have me to do. And I definitely can’t do any of this on my own.

But if we ask for it, I think what we’ll get in the end is gold.  

And if I’m practicing this kind of relationship with a perfect God now, I’ll be more prepared for when I’m married to an imperfect husband. I’ll be able keep myself faithful even when I don’t feel like it because that’s what I’ve been doing all along for the Lord. Our love won’t be solely dependent on emotional hype or fueled by infatuation. It will be richer and more mature because we’ve each sunk and lost ourselves in a love that’s deeper than anything else in this world. And it will last.

I can understand why people like the boyfriend model of God. It’s an excellent way to market the purity doctrine, and it sounds much more appealing than “take up your cross, My wife, and follow Me.”

Blog Title

In case you've not noticed, I changed my blog title to "Under Construction" because that's what's happening. I don't like my blog title anymore. I feel like it doesn't fit me anymore so I'm going try hunt for a new name. Feel free to give any suggestions or thoughts.

Miss Guthrie

Janelle asked me if I would take some pictures for her on Sunday. So we went out to the pond and this is the result. She's a beautiful girl and I love the way that red hair just pops! Hope you enjoy the photos.

Why I Don't Need to Get a Life

When I was in high school, I had this innocent, girlish picture of how my life was going to pan out. Here was the glorious blueprint: since I didn't really know what I wanted to do with my life, I would take a year off and then attend a Bible college. By the time I'd completed these tasks, I would know what I wanted to do with my life in terms of a career. Then college would be next on the agenda; I would work hard through school and earn a degree. Also, somewhere around this time, I would find a boyfriend. Eventually, I'd finish college, get a job, my boyfriend and I would get married, and we'd settle down to life. We'd find a house or an apartment somewhere. Get involved with the church. Work. Enjoy our friends. Have kids sometime. This would be my life. Voila.

Now I sit at my desk, three years removed from the day I walked down the aisle to Pomp and Circumstance to receive my diploma. However, reality and my naive blueprint haven't exactly been lining up. In some ways this has been a good thing. For example, instead of staying at home for a year, I worked as a tutor in Southeast Asia for ten months, which was a very rich experience. After I returned to the US, I had the privilege of attending ARISE in the fall of 2012, which was a blast. When ARISE ended, I took a job at my old high school to work as an assistant dean. This job was/has been a blessing to me in many ways. I've learned to appreciate authority and respect leaders in a new way now that I've had to be one myself. I've been able to save money, enjoy fellowship with the people on campus, and encourage and reach out to fifty high school girls. When last school year was coming to a close, I still didn't know what I wanted to do in college so I decided to stay on for another year of deaning.

So that brings us up to this year. As a dean, it's been a good year. However, for me personally, I've floundered. It's been rough. There's been this painful aching and grinding inside me as I've watched reality and my life blueprint drift further apart. My ideas as far as longterm goals and careers still feel unclear and unstable, like castles of sand on the beach. Sure, there are things floating around in my head as to what I could do with my life, but am I ready to take out thousands of dollars in student loans in order to get a degree in one of those areas of interest? I don't know about that. Maybe I should. I'm just not sure. (And as far as boyfriends go, I feel about as ready to handle a relationship as I am to take on a sumo wrestler.) This year I've felt so purposeless and lost, as if I'm floating on a lifeboat in the endless Pacific Ocean, desperately hoping for a smudge of land to show up where I can finally and firmly plant my feet. 

But I just seem to keep floating. And my frustration grows. Strangers ask me what my plans are and I think, Here we go again. It's like a carousel: predictable and mentally nauseating. 

Well-meaning stranger: "So, what are your plans for next year?"

Me: "I don't know." (Why beat around the bush with flimsy fancies such as, "I'm waiting to see where God leads"?)

"Well, what are your interests?"

*Inward sigh of agony for these poor souls who think they can actually help me figure out my life's calling in the three and a half minutes I'll spend speaking with them.*

So I proceed to humor them by unpacking my mental toy chest of hobbies and interests to satisfy their curiosity and desire to be a hit-and-run career counselor. 

"Well, since you asked, I love underwater basket weaving and baton twirling. I also feel a real burden from the Lord to reach out to the penguins of Antarctica. I'm just stuck as to how God can use all the talents together. I don't want to bury them in the ground. Any advice?"

Just kidding. At least about the penguins. I'm actually a pro underwater basket-weaver.

I know these people mean well and they aren't trying to come off they way I've just portrayed them, but these repetitious interrogations sometimes feel more painful than productive. After so many rounds, I feel dizzy when I look into the future. You know how your stomach lurches when you've been on one too many rides at the fair? Yeah, kind of like that. 

I've tried to take time to pray and ask God what He wants me to do. I've been frustrated at Him and wondered and worried and stressed myself out. I've cried too and then felt guilty for worrying. I've also asked forgiveness for not trusting Him to make things clear, trying to sedate my fears and calm myself down by claiming good ol' Proverbs 3:5, 6. 

But I still have yet to see a straight path. I don't see my island in the Pacific. I don't see a road that will lead me to finally get the life I so naively thought would fall into place soon after I left high school behind.

There are people who hint or just plainly tell me that continuing to work at FA isn't really the best idea ever. One friend told me, "Allie, I just think you need to get a life." I laughed at her blunt statement and she, realizing what she'd said, immediately tried to smooth it over and dull its sharp edges. She continued to explain in a caring voice, "I just don't want to come back here in ten years and find you still here and still single." I know she means well and really does care about me and love me. But it's hard to move forward when my vision feels hazy and decisions are difficult, confusing, and scary. 

I've almost wished that God would have written a step-by-step manual for my life. I wish someone could just make it obvious what I'm supposed to do, what path I should take so I could finally have some peace and get my life back to my blueprint. Why couldn't my life be easy? College + Job + Spouse + Kids = A good life. What's not to love? Why does it seem like happiness is so far in the future? 

But through this mentally nauseating, depressing, pull-your-hair-out-frustrating, dizzying lifeboat-carousel ride in the Pacific, I think I'm beginning to see things just a little more clearly and here's what I'm beginning to see: 

I can't project my contentment into the future. I can't keep putting happiness on hold until I finally make my teenage dreams a reality. If I keep waiting for them to finally materialize, there will always be something more on the horizon. Once I figure out a career, there will be marriage. Once I've got marriage under my belt, there will be children. And once I have that...well, I'm sure something will come up, and that something will always be just beyond my grasping fingertips. 

I can't wait to live my life anymore. I don't need to get a life. I already have one and I'm going to live it. This is my life. Serving God right here, right now is just as much a part of His calling for me as any other time of my life. Following His purpose for me is a life, and the best one I could have I might add. And as long as I'm following His leading as well as I can, I don't need another one.  

Besides, it seems to me that when well-meaning people tell you that you need to get a life, it just means that you should stop whatever you're doing, leave wherever you're living, and do whatever they think you should do. Go to university. Get a degree. Get a boyfriend. Get a job. That's their version of life. 

Sounds very similar to my longed-for blueprint. But as I said, I think through all this God has been bringing truth into focus. Maybe He is trying to get through to me that my plans aren't necessarily always the best. Maybe He has better ideas. Maybe I'd be depriving myself of enriching opportunities if I simply followed the conventional step-by-step life most of my SDA peers strive for today. Maybe there are life lessons I wouldn't learn if I were granted my formulaic dream for happiness. Maybe there's something special to be gained through an unconventional life.

I think I'm learning that this is all part of the journey. I still don't know where I'm going next year. (I was supposed to inform my employer of my decision by February 15. Ha.) I'm still trying to formulate ideas and good plans for the future without getting dizzy. But I'm realizing that maybe this is just all part of the process. Maybe, instead of thinking I had one grand life calling and that I had better be sure it was my passion cause I'll be stuck with it till I croak and I'm put six feet under, maybe I should take things step by step. 

Huh. There's an idea. 

I recently read in Genesis 12 that the good Lord uprooted Abraham when he was seventy-five years old to go to a land that He left TBA. He moved Moses around quite a bit too and didn't finally fulfill his blueprint until he was eighty years old. Joseph went from favored son to slave to right-hand man to prisoner to second-in-command. Talk about switching majors. I don't think these guys were waiting to finally "get a life." If their minds were set on getting a life, I don't think they would have trusted God as they did, for their would be a huge chasm between God's plans and their expectations. No, at the core, they were committed to following the Lord step-by-step as He lead. It was all part of the journey. Maybe I should quit foaming at the mouth and freaking out so much because I don't know what I'm doing next year.

I'm not very good at that though as you can see. I'm still very much in the process of internalizing the truths I've just written on. But I'm learning through this odyssey. Jesus states in John 14:6 that He is life. So I guess as long as I'm seeking Him first--whether that means staying here, going to college, going to school online, or something else--as long as I'm following Him, I'm having the best life possible and there's no reason to put happiness on hold. I don't need to get a life. I have one. And, as frustrating, scary, and annoying as the unknown future is right now, it's kind of cool too. Who knows what amazing places God will take me or what incredible things I'll be able to do?  Not me, that's for sure. 

Note: Please don't misunderstand any of what I've just said. I'm not against college. In fact, I actually applied to a couple of them on Christmas break. I just don't think people should box in what it means to have a life to just university and relationships. There's more. Having a life means you are following God's purpose for you. Period. I also don't mean to offend anyone who told me I should go to school or even my dear friend who told me to get a life. So please don't be hurt. I've just been trying to understand and share what God is teaching me. And I'm also not against people giving me advice either, even though I do sometimes get tired of the same round of questions.  

What Barney Will Teach You About Sharing Your Faith

You know those little kids songs you learn when you’re, well, a kid? Funny how I can remember so many of them now when I’m 21. One of those songs I remember was from Barney (yes, I did love that big, purple dinosaur). The words went something like this: You are special—special, everyone is special, everyone in his or her own way. Admittedly, this can sound really cliché, cheesy, or sometimes even insulting in our culture. But I’ve come to believe it’s true (not because I watched Barney though).

People are beautiful. Each one is unique: a photograph that will never be duplicated, a dance choreographed like no other.

So then, if each one of us is unique, what happens when one unique person has a relationship with another unique person? They form a connection that is just as irreplaceable as the people themselves. Because both people are unique, the combination is even more one-of-a-kind, and each person brings characteristics out of the other that would never be seen or manifested if the relationship had not taken place.

These truths shed an interesting light on my relationship with God. When I enter into a close connection with Jesus, He changes me in a way that no one else can. He makes me into someone I would never otherwise be, never could otherwise be. And, as I begin to get to know Him, I learn about facets of His character know one else would have discovered if I had not known Him. I see and paint a picture of God no one has ever seen before.

This is why it’s vital share our faith with others and that we not forsake the assembling of ourselves together, as the Bible tells us. When you open your heart and share what the Father has been teaching you, when I open my mind and tell my experience, a new color is added to the larger picture of God Christianity is painting for the world.

Columbus, Marco Polo, Lewis and Clark—none of them discovered the entire world by themselves. Each traveled valleys and mountains, sailed oceans and crossed rivers to make their own discoveries in each part of the earth. And the rest of civilization benefits from their exploits. God’s character is comparable to a universe in its vastness and no one person could explore it exhaustively. As we each experience God and feel about and grope after Him, we’ll discover nooks, crannies, and landmarks in His character that we can share with each other. We’ll get to know Him better in a community, each of us with a brush in hand as we paint a more stunning picture of the Father. And with every color contributed by each member of the body, the painting will continually evolve and swell into greater strength, beauty, depth, and truth.

But what if I never take the time to get to know Christ or make sharing Him a priority? Could I be leaving parts of Him buried forever, like beautiful gems hidden deep in the earth? Might God not smile quite that way or laugh just so in heaven simply because I’m not there to bring out that side of Him? What if my distance from God leaves His portrait incomplete?

So I leave you with this: you are unique. You are special. You have something to share with the world that no one else does. Please open your heart and show me the parts of God that I don’t know and that no one may ever know if you don’t paint that picture of Him for the world to see.

Thank you

I wonder what it would be like to be a sailor back in the day when those huge, wooden ships that must have taken Pooh Bear's entire hundred acre wood to build had command of the sea. The kind Jim Hawkins from Muppet Treasure Island sailed on (I don't recommend watching that, by the way). When I imagine myself as a sailor on a large vessel, with billowing sails that look like bedsheets, bound for some foreign land, I think it'd be a pretty tough life. If you want some space for yourself, there's not much place to go. Only so much deck to roam, so much rigging to climb (that's what those rope things are called, right?). If you get into a spat with another sailor, you can't ignore it or hide away. You'd have to deal with it. Oh, and the food. I know what it's like to have food on a bus traveling for a week. But on a ship? With no refrigeration? No grocery stores to get fresh produce if yours goes bad? You're stuck with the sludge you got for months? Yuck.

I also think it would be really easy to feel lost. You're on the same hulk of wood for months at a time and all you can see is nothing but sea. Miles and miles of meaningless, cliche ocean. But the amazing thing is how sailors guided themselves by the stars. They navigated blank horizons by pinpoints of light in a dark sky. I don't know how that works. I know that if someone were to plop me in a boat on the ocean and say, "Find your way back home using the stars to guide you," I don't think I could do it (partially because home is in Colorado). I know the North star is supposed to be like somewhere around the Big Dipper. But is it on the end of the bowl or the end of the handle? Good grief. I would stink at sailing.

Life is kind of like sailing and people, I've found, are kind of like stars in a way. Not in the way that they both release gasses. Not in that they're both prettier when kept at a distance. But in the way that they both can serve as guides. I've found that Providence has often used people to guide me, especially when I feel lost, which is a feeling that seems to cling to me lately.

It really is comforting to have someone there who cares to ask how I'm doing or gives me his or her advice, pointing me in the right direction. I really appreciated when someone told me a week or so ago that if I ever needed advice, I could give them a call, text, email, whatever. And in a world where shallow relationships are as plentiful as pimples on a teenager's face (as my brother-in-law puts it), that meant a lot.

So I just want to say thank you to my friends. Thanks for being genuine and letting me know you care. It really means a lot.

Oh, yeah, if you have someone in your life who's been a "star" for you (yeahhh, I know that's pretty cheesy), just tell him or her thank you for me

Photo credit: my google searches

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