Pages - Menu

Sunday, December 13, 2015

the little girl in the desert

Greetings, friend. 
It's been a while. 
Nine months, in fact. That's completely by coincidence; I was not busy reproducing, thank goodness. 

You know, I've written dozens - literally dozens - of blog posts these past nine months. They sit like ghosts in the drafts section of blogger somberly. They litter the yellow pages of my notepad that curl together like old wall paper. They're scattered in various areas of my life: scrawled between conjugations of Spanish verbs in a binder, written on my phone or computer, saved on google drive. I've said them in my own head hundreds of times. But in the end, every single time, I couldn't write. 
I have dozens of these half-written posts. Some are better than others. Some are probably ridiculous. Some, depending on my mood, may reflect the writings from a recluse or the ramblings of a young woman who can successfully consume an entire 24 pack of Dr. Pepper in less than 12 hours. 

(Don't do that).

If you're seeing this post, that means I finally wrote enough of something to be posted. I hope you see this post. I think to do that, though, I can't really give an explanation of why I was away. Of why my blog was starved of posts for so long. 

You all know, sometimes life happens. Sometimes it's easy and beautiful and pretty simple; sometimes it knocks you onto your knees. Flat onto your back, your lungs screeching at you for air. 
In its varying forms, life is happening, always. And for me these past 9, I couldn't justify writing coming from me. I can't give you cohesive reasons, or the story behind it, or words, mostly because it feels like it's still happening, or because I don't have the words yet. Maybe I do, but sometimes to find them is one of the most unsure and miraculous discoveries I ever do. 

But I know, firmly, a few things. I want to give you firm things to hold onto. Cling to, like the way I always imagine baby lemurs clinging to trees. Or the way my little sisters seems to become one with my leg whenever someone new makes her shy for the rare times in her life. Or, if you are like me, these truths are something that exist like waves against a seashore. Sometimes gentle, sometimes hard, sometimes flooding, sometimes merciless or to beautiful to seem real - they are waves that change, but, without fail, always come back to you all the same.

Here's the first one. For some of you this might be totally unnescceary. If so, I am so full of joy for you. But for some of you, this truth may be something you don't personally believe to be true for you, or something you wish desperately to have prescience in your life. 

You deserve to have people in your life. 

I don't have a direct bible verse saying this, just so you know. But one thing I do see in the bible repeatedly, over and over, is that we - human beings - were not meant to be alone. I see it in Adam and Eve. I see it in Jesus having 12 disciples. In the prophets, in God's promises. I see it all the time. We are not meant to be alone. 

You deserve people in your life who love you the way you deserve to be loved. Love that is kind and patient and unfailing. People who will bear your burdens and allow you to bear theirs. 

I spent my summer mostly alone. My mother, slightly affectionately, slightly concernedly, referred to me as a hermit, feigning surprise whenever I emerged from our basement. 

While occasionally humorous, the reality wasn't funny, especially if you struggle with anxiousness. Not that my mother was mocking my anxiety, of course, but my isolation was a definite reality. And then college began. You'd think it be hard to be alone in college, but you can successfully isolate yourself anywhere, even in a room full of people. 

Anyway. This began to change this semester when I befriended my friend Leslie, who has become one of the humans I am closest to on this planet. I do have many amazing, wonderful friends at Mississippi College, don't get me wrong, but Leslie became the friend I talked to every day, without fail, who encouraged me, and the person who I finally was honest with about everything. She came alongside me and supported me, and our friendship has been a beautiful reminder of why friendships exist. We can't do this alone. We're not meant to. 

I needed someone patient enough to listen to me, because I don't talk about my struggles much. I needed someone to tell me to buckle up. I needed someone to draw me out of myself, away from me, to make me laugh or encourage me. We need people in our lives who make us better, who remind us of what can be, of who we are designed to be. That we are worth listening to. Worth befriending. Worth loving. I still don't really believe it or understand why she wants to hang out with me. But you need people you continually tell you that they love you, that you are wonderful and beautiful and fun and worthy, until you start to believe it for yourself. It took Leslie and two other friends, Ashley and Amy, to remind me of that. 

Reminded me that I have a voice worth hearing. Stories worth telling. A laugh, while slightly annoying, worth letting. 

They reminded me, every day, who I was. Who I am. They drew me away from me, for moments, then hours, day by day, to now, at a later time and much later date, I can fully say to them what I need and want to, what is on my mind, what's weighing down my heart, what made me laugh that day. 

These three are just the beginning, I think. They were the perfect openers for this, for me being reminded that it's okay for me to be loved and have relationships with other humans. I have so many others, some are far away, states away, but always answer texts and phone calls. Some are mothers and brothers and step-fathers, grandmothers, sisters, aunts and uncles who gather me up into strong arms every few months and love me through the internet while I'm gone. Some are the friendships I have now, even at MC, that are here, just waiting for me to be vulnerable, to be me, to seek out and form new relationships with people.

I have been reminded of how much freedom I can have, that I can have joy. That I can be a friend, hopefully a good one. 

So I guess the other truth is that something along the lines of be vulnerable. Be real. Obviously, not with every single person you meet on the street. Unlike Gabbie, circa age 5, you cannot believe that every single human being is your best friend. But that doesn't mean you have to lie or exclude yourself, or hide. 

The end to this post (that is actually ending! Gasp! I still can't believe it; I won't until I actually click "post") will be a story told to me by someone who cares for me a lot. 
Here we go. 

Once upon a time, there was a little girl who lived in the desert. She did not have a home. During the day, it was hot and dry and bright; during the day she was safe. But at night, it was cold and wild animals would prowl around her. Every single night the little girl managed to make her way through the nights. She always managed somehow or another to survive. One day some people came to her desert and saw her. They told the little girl: "let us help you! Let us build you a house, so that you have somewhere safe to be, with a door that opens and closes. To protect you from the cold and the wild animals."
But the little girl shook her head, assuring them that she was fine. She refused to let them build her a house and survived the next night alone in the desert. 
After many days of asking, the little girl finally realized that she wanted more than just to survive every night. She couldn't even enjoy her days because she was so tired from fighting off the wild animals each night. So, she finally asked and allowed the people to build her a house. 
Soon, the people around the little girl had built her a small little home to protect her during her nights. The little girl could go in and shut the door behind her. She could open it and allow people in. She could be warm and safe and rest. Her whole life was no longer merely her trying to survive. 

The little girl in this story, when it was told to me, was me. 
The house was one of prayer. I had to let people into my life, to allow them to care for and love me. To build up a house of prayer and protection around me, a place where I could live, because the world is cold sometimes. And dark. And full of wild animals. 

Let people in. Let them build you a house, especially when you cannot build one for yourself. But you have to let them.

Let them. 

Life is supposed to be more than just surviving. Than purely existing. 

Thrive. Write. Seek truth. Tell it to yourself. Surround yourself with people who speak truth into you. Read, pray, and ask. Ask. Let yourself believe that you deserve them, and that you deserve that house, for your own sake. 

Because, frankly, without that house your life is really only concerned with yourself. Maybe you don't mean to be selfish, but when you're only focused on your own survival, you can't get the rest required to love others. So let them love and build your house for you, and then, who knows? Maybe one day you will have a hand in building all the homes in the desert around you. 

Much love,
gabbie

P.S. Before I go. Shoutout to all of you who still swung by my blog during this time. Even after 9 months, for whatever reason, some of you found reasons to check every day to see if I had anything to say. I do, and I will. But thank you. I'm sorry I was silent for so long.

Shoutout to all the people, whether at MC or Illinois or Portland, or in the dorm room next to me, or at my church, who continually help build my house for me. The small ways, the big ways, and for convincing me that I needed a place to sleep. 

Last shoutout, pinky promise: to those of you wandering in a desert, tired and working hard to survive, alone. The story above? You're the main character. You deserve a house. You were made, I firmly believe, to glorify the Lord and enjoy Him forever. You were made to honor and to experience joy
Let people build you a house. Ask God to bring the people, the friends, the builders to you. I did. He did. 
Get yourself a house, kid. You're too precious not to. 

Behold, I am doing a new thing; now it springs forth, do you not perceive it? I will make a way in the wilderness and rivers in the desert. 

Isaiah 43:19


Tuesday, April 7, 2015

What do you want to get from your degree?

I've been thinking recently.

I know, it's surprising.

I'm nearing the end of my first year of college. I will be nineteen years old this month. After this summer, where I hopefully complete seven hours of science credits, I will be completely done with my general education requirements. That means at the start of next year, which is approximately five months away, I will be taking my major classes. But the thing is I don't know what I want those to be.

Does anyone? you ask. Really, though. The common thought is that college students change their majors more than Katy Perry changes her hair tone, which, for those of you who don't know, is quite often.
"I changed my major four times in college!" I've heard that bunches. I've changed mine once already and here I am again: uncertain, looking up majors, making my mother a nervous wreck as we discuss my "future."

This isn't a post about changing majors. It is, kind of, but not really. It's okay to change your major a dozen times. You do you. Change it until you find something you like. This is college and you're learning who you are.

This is a post about me thinking about what I want my life to be and I've just happened to start thinking about it once I started thinking and researching potential degrees. (That rhymed).

My major, currently, is Christian Studies with an emphasis in Bible. My plan was to double major in English Writing, take lots of French classes, and hopefully minor in Teaching English as a Second Language. I've loved both of my Christian Studies classes I've been taking this semester; I love learning about Jesus. But one thing that I also hear a lot of is that neither of these degrees are very good for the actual world. One girl in my Christian Studies class told me that her brother said she should get a "real minor" since she was getting a fake degree in Christian Studies. And that's not wrong for him to want his sister to have an employable major, to have a chance at a job.

However, I also started realizing that I don't want my life to be defined by a degree. And sometimes it's not, you're right. My stepdad Joshua has a degree in mathematics and was a salesman, food industry worker, and is currently a firefighter, which has been his dream job for ever. My mother is one of the only humans I've met that got a degree in Chemistry and is a Chemist, but that's how it works: both ways. So degrees don't define your life, but it is a good idea to get one that's employable, so the world says. And that's not wrong, either. This post isn't to rant about that. It's what I've been coming to realize.

I don't want a career to define my life. Or a major. My degree.

As I've been looking at degrees it's like I'm looking at what my life is going to be. X major = this job, this money, this degree. Major B is really employable. What can you do with a C Major degree? As long as you can get a job.

I've been thinking a lot, especially after my recent missions trip and my whole life over the past year. And this is what I want my life to be: I want to be a child of God.

I want to glorify Him and bring others to Him. I want to honor him with my life.

I read this last week in my Bible class textbook: "God is concerned for those who are weak, either physically or socioeconomically. Furthermore, he expects his people, since they have him living in their midst, to be actively helping and defending such people" (Duval and Hays 409).

The bible's challenge for me is to have views, hopes, goals, and dreams rooted in biblical theology, not for me to make 100k a year, be employable, and successful.

Reading that made me think of what the dreams of what I want my life to be, and this is what I've come to see: I want justice. I want to help minorities. Illegal immigrants. The poor. The elderly. Children. Abused women. The unborn. The hungry. The cold. The lost. The broken. Drug Addicts. Inmates. Refugees. The sick. The sad. The children of my God, who just so happen to be all around me.

I want to work with refugees. I want to teach people in foreign countries English and speak to them in their native tongue and show them God's love through every action I do. I want to go to Africa and do whatever needs to be done. I want to love and serve aliens (foreigners, not UFOs in the sky). The unborn. People who don't look or act or talk like me or the girl sitting next to me in my Literature class. The abused. People.

And this is something I just thought about - literally right now - and it kind of changes where I thought this post was going to go. People can do those things through their jobs, too, Gabbie. You can be an accountant and direct people toward Christ and love others, fulfilling our great commission. That's really cool and comforting.

I don't know what I want to say with this post. But Josh sent me this text and I just started to think:


I want my degree to equip me to be a better servant. I want it to help me glorify the Lord, because I'm selfish. I'm a sinner and I sin all the time. I put myself first and am not a good person at all. I want to leave college with a firm foundation of Jesus and a desire to get to know him more. I also want to be fluent in French, because I want to be able to talk to the little African refugees children I encountered in Atlanta with the hopes that I can love them more. Plus, learning another language is always a dope life tool. 

When I think of my life I'm tempted to break it down in what I want it to be. I want to be a writer. I want to be a nanny in a foreign country, like a governess, and take care of a few little kids. I want to be a missionary or work for a Non-Profit organization. Those are my dreams. 

But really I've already been given my dream: to glorify God. 

I pray that he helps me do that and leads me on a path where I can constantly be trying to do that. Because, again, I cannot emphasize how totally unable I am to do that without him. I am nothing without Christ. 

And I think we can do that in so many ways. We can do that by getting a degree in Chemistry and being a Chemist. We can do that by getting a degree in Music and becoming a CEO. We can do that by getting a degree in Pre-med but decide to be a manager at Pizza Hut instead because food service is totally awesome (it so is. It's my favorite job.) We can do that by not getting a degree. We can do that by being a parent. We do that by loving God and serving him with our life. 

This post changed so much. Originally it was going to be me crying out asking why the world cared so much about degrees and careers, but God really taught me just through writing it. 

I also have a lot to say about singleness and not finding identity in marriage or relationships, but let's save that for another time. Maybe when I have more life under my belt and actually become a bit wise. I don't know if that'll happen, but it totally could, God willing. 

One final thing before I go. This is for all of you who are trying to decide what major you're going to pursue. You might be scared or confused or really want to do English, like I did at one point, and someone's telling you that's dumb or something.

I told somebody once that I planned on getting an English degree and they asked me, not unkindly, "and what are you planning on doing with that?"

I wish I had the picture saved of my response, but, unfortunately, I don't. But here's basically what I said:

I could be a writer. Or a teacher. A waitress. Librarian. A wife. Maybe even a mom. An actress. A secretary. A great friend. Missionary. Volunteer worker. Firefighter. A business owner. Politician. A carpenter. A fisherman. 
I can be anything I want to be. 

You can be anything you want to be. Sometimes majoring in Biology helps, especially if you want to be a doctor, but in life crazy things can happen, and there's no guarantees. But I'll say it again: you can be anything you want to be. You don't have to settle for one career or one degree. You can change your mind, switch jobs, not work at all, there's so much we can do, because our God is creative. And he makes loveliness out of the badness and is big enough to do whatever crazy things he wants. 

But my prayer for you, and for me, is that we'll fulfill what he dreamed for us to be: his children, glorifying him in his presence, with the hope of enjoying an eternity at his side. 








Tuesday, March 24, 2015

Atlanta Mission Trip 2015

Hey, guys. HAPPY SPRING! I am rejoicing; I adore this time of the year. Spring is my second favorite season, after summer because being warm is one of my top 5 favorite things, and I love the smell of everything blooming, freshly cut grass, clear, sunny skies, and being able to frolic in a world coming alive again. It reminds me of Easter and bike rides and childhood, which is really cool.


Anyway, it’s officially Spring and two weeks ago I had Spring Break. It was one of the best weeks of my life and I wanted to tell you about it. Through my church, Morrison Heights, I was a part of a ten person mission team that worked with refugees from all over the world in a suburb of Atlanta, Georgia. It was my first stateside mission trip and my second mission experience ever, and it totally rocked my world.


The city we worked in is Clarkston and it’s basically a center for refugees, primarily from Asia and Africa. By refugee I mean a person, and usually their family, who have had to flee their country due to some form of oppression: religious, political, etc. These people were not safe in the land of their birth and had to leave their entire lives behind to seek refuge elsewhere. The United States sends these refugees to three cities in our country, and Clarkston is one of them.


It’s a town entirely for refugees. I think I heard the statistic that over 150 languages are spoken there in, like, a 5 or 15 mile radius. So it’s not like any a place I’ve ever been before. I talked to some refugees who have been here for 10 months and I was the first American they had ever had a conversation with. It’s crazy, but it’s also really beautiful, and I miss it so much already.


Why do I miss it? Well, the refugees were some of the kindest humans I have ever met.


I went to Walmart the first day after we got back from our mission trip. I was walking down the cereal aisle and smiled at a middle-aged woman and let her go past me and she didn’t return my smile, only frowned and continued forward. She may have been having a bad day or whatever, but it was so different than every single moment of the previous week I had been in Clarkston, a city full of people who aren’t even my “countrymen.” Everywhere I went, even to a Hindu temple, even to a laundromat where we talked to a young man from Ethiopia and a high school girl from Indonesia about their lives, to a community garden, to the streets, which were literally covered in trash because many of the refugees had to spend up to 18 years in refugee camps before being allowed to enter our country and the camps were dirty and not well kept and hard - everywhere I went in Clarkston, I was smiled at, listened to, communicated to, and, in a very unique way, loved.


The refugees my team and I worked with were some of the sweetest human beings I have had the pleasure to be in contact with, and it just showed me that my loyalties are not to a country or ethnicity or a person who speaks my same language. I am called to love all humans. Also, for the first time I started to realize that through Christ I have a family and that family includes my brothers and sisters in Christ in Africa and Asia and Clarkston and Mississippi. And because they are my family, they deserve my love, compassion, respect and I want to help them.


Now that we’re talking about things I learned on the trip, I wanted to share just a few things this mission trip showed me, and just give you a bigger picture (and some real images) of all we got to do in Clarkston.


One of my favorite things we did throughout the week were Backyard Bible Clubs on the playgrounds of the apartment complexes where the refugees all lived. My team and I would go to these playgrounds where children from all over the world played together, regardless that they were from Somalia or Senegal or Afghanistan and they had no idea how to speak to each other, but they were going to play four square and hopscotch together.


One time I was playing with a tiny little girl still wearing a diaper. She looked Indian and, of course, didn’t speak a lick of English, but she was my friend. She was running ahead of me and stumbled, scraping her knees and bursting into tears. I knelt down and took her on my lap and this other little boy from some Asian country, who had previously been chasing me for a solid 25 minutes with the goal of tackling me and tickling me until I couldn’t breath, knelt beside the two of us and comforted her, stroking her little leg and talking to her in his own native tongue until she stopped crying. I let her go, she ran off and he went over to jump rope with girls from South Africa.


It was so very beautiful.


But we did these Backyard Bible Clubs where we rounded up thirty to forty children by walking through the neighborhood and herding them toward one of the parks, played with them, held a huge tug-of-war match, performed a bible story/skit for them, did a craft, and fed them a snack. Of course, we also gave countless piggy back rides, hugs, and formed relationships.


On our trip God showed me that I have a passion for kids. I didn’t think I wanted any of my own, and when Drew mentioned that we would have to interact with them, I was like “oh, no.” But I did, and I want to for the rest of forever, and children are so amazing.


I got to speak French to little girls from North Africa, one of which knew no English. I took three years of it in high school, but have never conversated in it before the trip, but I was able to. It was crazy, and I’m totally going to master it now, but I got to talk to that little girl in her native tongue about the weather, cats, and how she was doing. It was so amazing.


One of my other favorite memories of the trip was what I have labeled Food Day. We went to a church in Clarkston who, once a week, gets 10,000 pounds of food from grocery stories that’s about to expire but totally still good and useable, sorts it, and allows families to come get a box of food for their family. We spent the morning sorting all the food - I was covered with so much fruit juice and tired and it was chaos - but it was worth it when I got to see all the families come through the church that night and they were so EXCITED that they got food and thankful and maybe that was the only “grocery shopping” (it was free, by the way) they got to do every week.


The day was awesome - we also climbed a mountain that day, which was super dope - but the awesomest thing was when we were debriefing at the end of the day. We were back at our home church where we slept and ate breakfast, in a huge gymnasium, sitting in metal folding chairs around a lone, shaky wooden table. Let me just say: I fell in love with those 10 people on my team. They are great humans and I couldn’t have asked for better people to serve and grow with and love on. They all taught me and showed me who I want to be and I have stories about every single one of them about how they touched my life. However, that night, on Food Day, one of them said something I will never forget and it blew my mind.


He opened his mouth to say something and immediately it was like the room sobered up. He was one of the happiest people I’d ever met and I had never heard much of his personal life, but I had assumed, you know, he was one of those baptist kids who grew up in a Christian home and went to a Christian school and was a great guy and happy, which isn’t at all bad or wrong for me to assume, but it just made what he said be so huge.


He told us that the day had been very important to him because years ago when he had been hungry and without a home, he had gone to a church like that and gotten saved.


God is so so very good. He does crazy things and forms us into who He knows we were supposed to be; He takes the hard, sad, angry things and doesn’t let them be that. He uses them all for a reason, for a purpose. He does that with people, too, and God did that with all of my team members on the trip.


I am so thankful for those people. I am thankful for their friendship and vulnerability. I am thankful for their passions, even though I really hate sports. I am thankful for their games of Trivia Crack and their off-key, or totally awesome or somewhere in between, voices worshipping our God in Somalian. I am thankful for hiking up a mountain with them, and being able to cry in front of them. I am thankful for the leadership of my pastor and his sweet wife (basically the cutest couple ever), both of whom I admire and look up to so much. I am thankful of new friends and mentors and a new brother in Christ.


I am thankful for refugees, and their love. I am thankful for community gardens, where they can go and be good at something, because once upon a time they were engineers or politicians and now they live in a place where they can’t speak the language and are scared. I am thankful for Reach the Nations, the church we worked with, who is indeed reaching people from all nations, which we are all called to do as believers in Christ. I am thankful for prayer walks and home visits, even though it was hard.


I am thankful that I learned that even though this is not where I want to be as a person, like I don’t want to be struggling with that which I am now, that God made me this way at this time for a reason and I can still work to glorify Him as this person I am. I am thankful for Kristie for help showing me that.


I am thankful for a God that loves so intently, and for a place where, for a whole week, I saw God everywhere I looked. It’s so much better than anything else I could ever see, even the signs of Spring or a semester drawing to a close.


Thank you, Lord. You are so good.


I cannot wait to go back. But, the other thing I learned is, that I don’t have to go back to be learning and pouring into people and loving my family in Christ and seeking the poor, aliens, the lost, the sad, the hopeless, the abused, the lonely, the broken, my father, and brothers and sisters in Christ.


And I love that a lot.

Happy Spring. Have a great Tuesday.








Saturday, February 14, 2015

PICTURE REMAKE

Hello, fellow humans. I have come bearing one of the greatest gems from the rock quarry that is human history. For those of you don't know I have this human whom I am a kindred spirit with called Katie. We do many things together, but one of our favorite things to do together is what we have called "Picture Remakes."

It started a few years ago, circa our freshman year of high school. Katie had one of those picture frames with multiple slots for pictures, but she had never put any of her own pictures into the actual frame. The pictures were still those truly awful filler photos of random humans and objects. So we decided that we wanted to remake those photos for the frame and we did. 

And then we did it a year later with her old family photos

And we did it again tonight. 

We went to Walmart and took pictures of the filler photos in the cheap frames and remade them ourselves. 

We bring them to you now humbly, fully aware of how truly majestic and spot on our reenactments are. 

Enjoy the picture remakes of 2015. 










Thursday, February 5, 2015

Interpreting My Life

Hey, guys! I just got done with a four hour long group interview to be an RA. It went really well, very well, actually. I went into it slightly dreading it, but that was mostly because four hours is a long time to be under the microscope of a future employer. I was also nervous about doing a group interview, but I shouldn't have. I think I doubt myself, especially in social settings. I shouldn't. God had made me unique, uniquely me. I have a personality and faults and too often I let myself get uncomfortable going into situations. I think I want to become more brave. And that may seem relative to some of you, but [if I had money to gamble] I bet the idea of being being more brave resonates in you like a pen dropping in a dead silent room.

I guess I just always thought I was brave, in a way, but lately I've been realizing that I'm not. I let my fear get the better of me in a lot of ways, as stated above. But, even more so, I've been realizing that I don't have anything to be afraid of. I mean, yes, there are potentially horrible things that could happen to me like being attacked or something, but really, I think I just have to decide to be brave and not let myself be afraid.

One way that I've been seeing this fact is my ability to be open, transparent, really. I'm leading a bible study this semester, which is still a little frightening, but I'm not afraid anymore. Since coming to college I've made a good handful of very amazing friends, but I haven't ever really been vulnerable. I haven't been real about my past or my life. And maybe that just comes with time, but I think you have to initiate that level of deepness. You have to be vulnerable. You aren't perfect; no one is. I think you have to be real about your struggles and faults and I haven't done that at all. I really don't talk much about my feelings, or if I'm sad, or what I'm struggling with, or really about my past.
But I need to. I can't do life by myself. I want people to be able to do life with and to be able to tell that my day was really hard and cry in front of, or with, or be super happy together and rejoice over answers to prayer and stuff. And I think I have those potential people here; I think they are everywhere: you just have to be brave enough to dive in and destroy that wall of perfection everyone tries to build. Or, at least I know I build it. I think everyone builds a different kind of wall to hide behind.

So I'm trying to be braver. I'm talking more, in general. Emotions are still really hard for me; I run from them. But I want to grow. I want to be real. And I really want that for my bible study I'm leading. I don't want it to be my bible study, either. I want it to be a place where we can be open and real and love. And I need to be brave for that.


Another thing I've already learned this semester, and am still learning, is about hope. I know, I know, big topics here. For a few years, around the tender age of 15, I really struggled with hope. I was pretty hopeless and sad. But then I became a Christian and since then I've had a hope. It was like a switch flipped, and for that I am so thankful. I wouldn't be here without that hope that I can only find in Christ. However, for the first time since then, at the very beginning of this semester, suddenly I was hopeless again. And it happened all of the sudden, and took me over without warning. I've been struggling with an issue for about a year now, but I believed that I could conquer it. I believed in my future - that, one day, I would be free from it and God would use it and the suffering that came with it for a purpose. But, all of the sudden, I was hopeless. And it was debilitating and I was so angry and disappointed with myself.

But then I went to church and got slammed with the foolishness of myself. Yeah, that happens a lot, actually. But, basically, the speaker said this [I wrote it down because it was, you know, monumental to my life at that very moment] "hope looks at circumstances through the lens of God. Not to see God through it, but the way he sees all things."

I always thought hope was something I felt, something that came from inside me. But that's not the case. To hope I have to look at every situation in my life as God sees it. Every situation in my life was hand crafted by Him, after all. And He has a plan that I can't begin to understand. Every circumstance, in His eyes, is there for a purpose and connected and going to be used for something. By myself I'm hopeless. I have no hope. But when I heard hope described like that there way so way I could be hopeless, not if hope is looking at every situation from God's perspective. He's perfect. He knows what's He's doing. And He loves me so intently and passionately and intimately that hopelessness can't be a reality. It isn't His character or nature. It can't exist in Him. Basically, there's no way I can be hopeless. So that's awesome.

There are quite a few more things I've learned just in these three weeks or so and that I'm still learning, but I'm just going to share one more and that is my yoga class. I know, I know, my yoga class - seriously? But yes.

First off, my yoga class has taught me to always sit up straight - and I mean ramrod straight. I've trained myself to do it now and for that I'm thankful. I don't want back problems and it's something I have to do now, even though I'm young, to help my future self not be stooped over. I also have to start working on my hamstrings because, at the rate I'm going, I'm not gonna be able to bend over.

Most importantly, though, yoga has taught me a lot about my body. It's taught me how to breathe in a way that automatically connects your mind and your body, which seems a bit out there, but it's totally true. It's taught me that the idea of yoga - connecting the mind to the body - isn't something just practiced in yoga, but in all areas of life. I can try to connect my mind with whatever I'm doing at the time to focus, to connect on a deeper level, to breathe, to calm myself, to listen to what my body needs. [How much do I sound like a hippy right now on a scale of 1 to 10?]

It's taught me that my body should not be mine. I should use it to serve others, always. Our closing mantra, when we put our hands to our hearts, has some gibberish stuff, but always ends with "let us use our bodies not for ourselves but for others." It's taught me a lot about how amazing my body is and how important it is. It's the only one I'll get. It does so much for me. It's working to keep me alive all the time and it deserves to be taken care of for that. It's so precious.

It's something I really needed to learn.

I just wanted to share with you guys some of my life right now. What I'm learning. I'm also learning school stuff, too, but that's not nearly as important ;)

Have a good night, guys. Be brave. Grow. Go do some yoga.


Sunday, January 25, 2015

Saturday, January 17, 2015

I wrote a children's book. And tried to illustrate it, too.

A more appropriate name for this post might be "I had my cake and tried to eat it, too . . . and the cake exploded."

Well, happy New Year. As always, I am late. Better late than never, eh?

An even better name for this post: "Colloquialisms & You!
Ignore me, I'm tired.

Anyway, yes, happy 2015. I've been having a lovely year so far and done some things I've never done before. One of these, the theme of this post, was write my first ever children's book. I've never thought I was equipped to write a story suitable for children; this is mostly due to the fact that I tend to write flourishing macabre and, well, death and destruction. But one day in church (sorry, God) I started to doodle.

And the doodle became a story. And I love the story. It's short and sweet and potent and I immediately went home and wrote it all down again. I thought, "Hey, let's Createspace this bad guy," which is the publishing company Riley Girl went through. I had a story suitable for small humans; I just needed illustrations to go along with it.

I liked my original doodles; they were simple but still striking, I guess. They reminded me of books like "The Very Hungry Caterpillar" or "Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See," in a way, that they seemed like something the writer just created himself. Well, almost.


Maybe I was a little too comparative there, but no matter. I decided to recreate my doodles in a blank sketchbook. I could then scan them onto the computer, get the PDF ready, and viola - produce "Little Dark Star" my first children's book.

Easy enough, right? Easy as pie, yeah?

Let me just show you.





After several attempts, I just went with "good enough."

Mostly this was for the sake of Bamber, who was getting quite concerned with my growing frustration and the pile of crumpled up paper on the couch next to me.

So I moved on to the next drawing I had to do.



After Batman was when  I ruled out my future as a children's writer/illustrator. You're welcome, world. 

I guess I'll just be the one to write stories like "Little Dark Star" and leave the drawing up to those capable. Because I am so not. Not by a long shot.

Have a lovely day. Go pet an animal or read a child a book. Smile. Hug your mom.

Enjoy 2015.