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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The Christmas Post

Sometimes life feels like a promisingly wrapped Christmas package, all done up with pretty paper and twine. But when the sparkles, ribbons, and bows are inevitably ripped away from the package, to our horror, it seems we usually find a large, gnarled lump of coal. The other day I caught myself feeling this way. I was at church. The pastor had just finished a meaningful Christmas homily and each hand in the congregation was linked with another as we sang "Silent Night." Decorations were tastefully placed in the sanctuary and it would appear that "all is calm, all is bright." From the outside, it was nearly a picture-perfect package. But inside I felt the coal grinding down deep in my stomach, frustrations with life weighing me down. My perceived bleak reality seemed to painfully shout and spit in my face. (My apologies for how gloomy this post seems; I promise, it does get better).

But, as frustrating and depressing as those moments at church seemed, it doesn't change the fact that a couple thousand years ago a squealing baby Boy, who was born a bloody mess like every other human child, was bundled in rags and cradled in a feed trough so He could live our [too often] depressing reality. If life gave anyone lemons, I think Jesus could have taken down Minute Maid in a heartbeat. He definitely had the most anyone's ever had. To name just a couple, townsfolk and neighbors thought He was an illegitimate son. Mary must have been sleeping around, they say. For this His whole family was no doubt frowned upon. His brothers didn't believe in Him or support Him, quite the opposite actually. His synagogue family [similar to church family] was no help either. To be honest, I could write a whole book on the relational dysfunction, pressure, and stress Jesus faced in His short life here on earth. Oh, wait. That's already been done.

The first gasps of air His tiny, infant lungs inhaled smelled of hay and manure, human wretchedness and hellish pain. He breathed in our reality from the moment contractions forced Him from Mary's womb. He was bundled up in our normal. And He did this simply to show us that what we think is normal, what we think is reality--pain, death, hurt, failure, struggle, pride, selfishness, fear--isn't reality at all. No matter how loudly the devil shouts that it's true--that life is all those things and that is all it will ever amount to--it's a lie, Jesus says. None of this is normal, only usual. (I know that's a paraphrase of a quote I read somewhere, but for all the presents in the world, I can't remember who said it.)

We're told that when Jesus funneled his Godness down into Mary's womb and became a human fetus, it was the world's darkest point. "The Light appeared when the world’s darkness was deepest" (Education, pg. 74.1). Desperation was off the charts. Life was bleak and the world was a colder than any industrial sized freezer. I could easily imagine some sorry soul--maybe the innkeeper who owned the stable or another lonely Bethlehemite--watching sweet, chubby-cheeked baby Jesus in the first few days after His birth, when Mary and Joseph carried Him around to the temple or to the market. I imagine this stranger watching and thinking, "Another sad life brought into the world. His parents are poor, pitiful peasants. He's going to grow into a young man, eagerly pull the strings and wrapping paper off life, only to discover it to be a bleak, coal-black experience." 

But perhaps this same stranger could somehow see Jesus when He was grown. Maybe he could hear of the many miracles He worked for whole villages of broken people. Maybe he could see His compassion and unconditional love that crossed cultures, races, skin color, social protocol, caste, gender, or any other seemingly insurmountable brick wall humanity created. Perhaps he could see that all these brick walls are really flimsy pieces of cardboard we erect out of pride, selfishness, and fear. And maybe, finally, he could see this volcano of love--Emmanuel: God with us--erupt at the not-so-beautiful, in-fact-very-ugly, lacking-wrapping-paper-ribbons-and-bows cross (I hope I punctuated that sentence properly). Maybe he could see all that and realize that lumps of coal can actually be turned into diamonds. A life black with hurt, disappointment, anger, and sin can be transformed into a sparkling, white diamond.

And maybe, just maybe, you too can see this Baby's story. Perhaps you can open your dusty Bible this Christmas and watch His love unfold. Your hardened heart can be warmed and you'll be willing to let Him transform your life into a diamond that will "shine like the stars forever" (Daniel 12:3 NLT).

Don't Judge

I really resonate with this song. In my job, I've found that it's critically important to tread softly when I work with others. I have no idea what this girl or that boy has been through that has shaped him or her. I can't see the struggles raging underneath his or her tough exterior. And I especially have to be careful with those who seem to have left God behind. Those are the people who usually need my understanding the most. They're really simply making a last ditch effort to fight the pain, feel emotion, and be in control. I pray that I wouldn't look down, judge, condemn, or feel self righteous ever again, but that God would give me eyes to see and hear those who are searching and crying out for the hope that's tucked away in you and me. 

"Does Anybody Hear Her?"

She is running
A hundred miles an hour in the wrong direction
She is trying
But the canyon's ever widening
In the depths of her cold heart
So she sets out on another misadventure just to find
She's another two years older
And she's three more steps behind

Does anybody hear her? Can anybody see?
Or does anybody even knows she's going down today
Under the shadow of our steeple
With all the lost and lonely people
Searching for the hope that's tucked away in you and me
Does anybody hear her? Can anybody see?

She is yearning
For shelter and affection
That she never found at home
She is searching
For a hero to ride in
To ride in and save the day
And in walks her prince charming
And he knows just what to say
Momentary lapse of reason
And she gives herself away

If judgement looms under every steeple
If lofty glances from lofty people
Can't see past her scarlet letter
And we never even met her

He is running
A hundred miles an hour in the wrong direction

All I Want is You

It’s been a long night

As I’ve been sitting here,

It’s hard to hang tight

When morning’s so near

I’m counting each star

For every thought of you

And I watch you breathe,

Waiting for a just a few

Moments of devotion,

The most raw joy and pain

Honest conversation

Prayed in more than just My name

Your heart deep in scripture, finding Love you never knew

Child, all I want this morning is you

You pick up My book,

Putting your time in,

Reciting the prayer,

“Please forgive my sin”

Missing salvation,

I’m invisible to you,

More than a checklist

More than “to-dos”

It’s moments of devotion

The most raw joy and pain

Honest conversation

Prayed in more than just My name

Your heart deep in scripture, finding Love you never knew

Child, all I want this morning is you

The sun travels across the sky

The silver moon glides through the night

You go to church, do everything right

All the while, I’m waiting by

I’m waiting

I’m waiting

I’m waiting

For those moments of devotion

The most raw joy and pain

Honest conversation

Prayed in more than just My name

Your heart deep in scripture, finding Love you never knew

Child, all I want this morning is you

It’s you, it’s you, it’s you

Not fancy prayers or warmed pews

All I want is you

This Moment: Thankful for the Ordinaries

Right now I'm squished into a comfy, olive green arm chair, just far enough into the right side so that my elbow is complaining of the constriction. The students on the couches are fairly decent at staying focused on their homework and the dorm is quiet, which is nice. Sweeping my eyes through the lobby, I can see the decorative journey my friends and I are on to make our dorm look homey for the holidays. The carpet around the coffee table is peppered with tiny white paper bits, evidence of our snowflake creations that are taped to the windows and hung along the upstairs balcony. Our Christmas tree, which is festooned with glowing lights, crimson berries, and frustratingly brittle pieces of popped corn, is growing a chunky moat of colored packages around the bucket it stands in. And of course, I couldn't forget, the colossal cardboard gingerbread house that takes up a bit too much space in the lobby. It's been a pretty ordinary Sunday in December. Typical. Same. Standard. And this is a pretty ordinary moment during study hall. But I guess in a world where life is typically chaotic, tumultuous, and uncontrolled ordinary is something to be thankful for.