Words of Wisdom

Don't be afraid of taking risks or of being criticized.

It's more about who you are than what you know.

Today may be stressful, but in the long run, you probably won't even remember it.

Just hang in there. Everything will turn out right.

Don't waste your time and energy worrying about something that may not really happen.

Things can be hard but you just gotta stick it out and do it.

If you're know you're going to have a long day when you wake up in the morning, pace yourself and try to be nice to people.

It's not the end of the world if you get a bad grade on your exams (or tests). I mean, yeah, it hurts at the time, but life still goes on. Even if you don't get the highest grade or the grade that you wanted, it's still okay, again, it's not life-threatening. And if you get a really good grade, congratulations. But don't go around telling everyone about it because then no one wants to be around you.

Establish a bedtime routine. Drink a glass of milk, read a chapter in a book, brush your teeth, whatever.

Take good care of yourself. If others aren't taking care of themselves, that's their problem, not yours, no matter how close you may be to one person. Don't let their health interfere with yours, take care of you.

If you're having a rough time, you gotta talk to someone about it. You can't just keep it all inside. That's not good for you. Find someone you can trust and let it all out.

Middle School DNOW

We had middle school DNOW at church this past weekend and it was a blast for me and my group of sixth grade girls.

I have to admit, I was a little apprehensive about the weekend because usually I work with a group of seventh graders on Wednesday night and I didn't really know the group of sixth graders I was assigned to. As the weekend progessed, I grew to love each of the girls as they made me laugh at their antics, as they dove deep into the Word of God, as they competitively answered scavenger hunt questions.

What amazed me the most about our girls was their spiritual maturity, a maturity that I don't believe I reached until I was about 14 or 15. One of the girls said she felt that "Satan can use a weak Christian better than he can a lost person." Another declared that she was ashamed because her pride got in the way of her sharing the gospel with her lost friends because she was afraid of what they would say/think/do. Yet another girl expressed strong emotions when she saw a classmate accept Christ.

And those were just a few of the examples that stood out the most to me over the weekend. These girls are way cool, and if I could go back in time, I would want to be just like them.

Although I got little sleep over the weekend, I throroughly enjoyed spending time with this group of sixth grade girls and getting to know each of them better.

He Loves Me Because He Loves Me

A few of you know that over the past few weeks, I have not slept well. This has driven me crazy with my hectic schedule and desperate need to be rested. At first, I wasn't sure what was keeping up night after night.

But after some careful pondering and praying and talking to a few people about this issue, I came to think that it was the stress of not knowing where I was going to go to school in the fall. I sat while my friends received letter after letter of acceptance from their top choices. I sunk deeper as they began to send back letters of intent and fill out roommate and dorm questionnaires. I still hadn't even received anything from any of the schools I had applied to.

However, even after receiving two acceptance letters (from my top two choices) in one week, I still was having trouble sleeping.

I was tired of being tired, of falling asleep in class, of grades dropping, of crazy schedules, among a few other things.

I looked forward to my church's DNOW weekend because it is always a time of spiritual renewal and bonding with friends.

Our speaker for the weekend was really good and I enjoyed talking to him before and after worship throughout the weekend. One of the things that he really went after during his message on Saturday night was that God loves me (everyone) because He loves me. He loves me because He loves me. No other reason than that. I don't have to have a special talent with an instrument or be the number one player on every athletic team imaginable or know everything about computers and electronics. I just have to be me. And He loves me because of it. He loves me because He loves me. Our speaker said that one sentence over and over again. It is so true and simple. He loves because He loves. No other reason. That realization hit home inside.

Afterwards, as we were leaving to go to our host homes, one of my friends that wasn't in my group held out her arms to me. I hugged her back and then tears started streaming down my face. I buried my face in her shoulder and just cried. I was giving her a good bye hug before we went to our separate host homes and I was totally not expecting to cry.

I have not been able to cry in three months and I'm not a crier, but those three months were so hard and I had wanted to cry and felt like crying so many times, but my mind/body wouldn't let my tears work their emotional healing and theraputic powers on me.

I pulled away from our hug and told my friend what was going on. She listened then pulled me back into a hug and spoke some of the most encouraging and powerful words.

"We don't know why God puts us through crap, but He chose you because He knows that you can handle it. Someday down the road, He will use the crap in your life to glorify Him. It's not easy. It's hard. But God knows that you can handle it. You'll get through this. And even though there's more crap to come...Remember that He loves you because He loves you."

It was hard going home that night to different host homes, but it made the time with my friend that much more special.

Phone Contacts

Recently one of my friends was going through my contacts in my phone. "You sure have a lot more adults than kids in high school in your phone" she commented. For some unknown reason, adults trust me with their cell phone numbers and I've accumulated quite a few.

I didn't think much of it at the time but a few weeks later, a different friend and I were comparing the sheer number of contacts we had stored in our phones. Once we established who had more, we moved on to who had more high schoolers, more college students, more adults, and so on. Again, the comment was made that I have more adults's numbers stored in my phone.

That got me thinking. Useless thinking probably, but thinking none the less. It was brought to my attention that I don't have as good of a relationship with my parents as most of my friends do and that made me a little sad and disappointed. But over the past year and half or so, I've come to realize that the caring adults that I call (or Facebook chat!) when I'm upset or disappointed or just need to talk provide a kind of substitute relationship.

While it saddens me to know that my relationship with my family is almost completely superficial, I am grateful for the caring adults who take time out of their busy lives to lend an ear to a troubled high school student.

In A Pit With A Lion On A Snowy Day: Afterthoughts

I recently finished a book (In A Pit With A Lion On A Snowy Day by Mark Batterson) that I've mentioned a couple of times in previous blogs and some of the things that I read were amazing! I decided to post a few of my favorite lines...

"Is there any greater high than doing what no one thinks you can do? Maybe that's why God sometimes invites us to defy impossible odds. Maybe it is one way He can show us His omnipotence. Maybe God allows the odds to be stacked against us so He can reveal more of His glory."

"Too often our prayers revolve around asking God to reduce the odds in our lives. We want everything in our favor. But maybe God wants to stack the odds against us so we can experience a miracle of divine proportions. Maybe faith is trusting God no matterhow impossible the odds are. Maybe our impossible situation are opportunities to experience a new dimension of God's glory."

"God is in the business of recycling our pain and using it for someone else's gain."

Ted Loder's Guerillas of Grace:
How shall I pray?/Are tears prayers, Lord?/Are screams prayers,/or groans/or sighs/or curses?/Can tembling hands be lifted to you,/or clenched fists/or the cold sweat that trickles down my back /or the cramps that knot in my stomach?/Will you acept my prayers, Lord,/
my real prayers,/ rooted in the muck and mud of rock of my life,/and not just the pretty, cut-flower, gracefully arranged/bouquet of words?/Will you accept me me, Lord,/as I really am,/ messed up mixture of glory and grime?

"Sometimes it feels like God in't listening, but He considers ever sigh. Not only that, He is interceding for us day and night. Scripture says that God makes prayers out of our wordless sighs and aching groans." I found this part to be especially encouraging because even we can't seem to form all our thoughts into words and only make sighs and groans, God understands and hears them as prayers.

Midterm Week

It seems as if there is not enough time in a day to get everything that needs to be done, done. I get up before the crack of dawn for school, spend most of the day at school working hard to get good grades, go to track practice, go to work, babysit, make it to church on Wednesday night, go to this party or that social event... the list goes on!

And somewhere in that mess I call my life, I have to make time to spend time with God and find sufficient time to study.

These past few weeks have been hectic and chaotic to say the least. We started midterms last week and they carried over to this week, so I have been trying to get as much studying in as possible. Unfortunenately, I have not been able to get in as much as I wanted and that stresses me out just a tad (or maybe a lot). I can't count the number of times I have wanted to just scream because so much is going on!

Why?

Why do bad things happen to good people?

I have been asking myself and God this question for a couple of weeks now...since a friend of mine was held at gunpoint, since one of my classmate's dad passed away right before Christmas, since Furman denied me for early decision, to mention a few things that caused me to question.

I was searching the internet, flipping my Bible's dictionary-concordance...I desperately wanted to know why God allowed all this bad stuff to happen. I knew it was because He had a plan but it was that plan that had me tied up in knots.

Jerimiah 29:11 says, "For I know the plans I have for you," declares the LORD, "plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future."

According to this verse, it says God has plans to 'prosper' me and not to 'harm' me. So why did He let these kinds of things happen?

I finally, little by little, got the answer.

A few days ago, my friend, Mimi, gave me a book to read (In A Pit With A Lion On A Snowy Day) and I'm about halfway through. It talks about thriving and trusting in God even in the worst situation. One chapter touched on the very question that I was bothered by for so long. The author made kind of a side comment about God letting certain--bad--things happen to us so that once we get through whatever hard time it was, God can reveal more of His glory in the end.

Then in Sunday School, M.M. taught and the lesson was titled "Why Do Bad Things Happen To Good People?" Could he have gotten any closer to the very question I had pondered for weeks? M.M. brought up a good point--if there were no bad times whatsoever, we wouldn't appreciate the good times nearly as much (Ecclesiastes 3:1-8).

So maybe that's why God let all those things happen right before Christmas, the 'happiest time of year.'

I Left My Heart In Barbados

I couldn't sleep and I had been laying in bed for quite a while when my mind drifted to Barbados. Before I knew it, tears were silently streaming down my face.

I longed for the scorching heat, the cool breeze, the whir of the fans at night, the crickets chirping, the frogs croaking, the sound that others make as they drift off to sleep...I even longed to have to spray my bed down with bug spray every night, to find bugs in my suitcase and clothes, to feel damp (from sweat) when I woke up every morning. I longed to eat the rice and beans, the macaroni pie, the mystery patty, even the flying fish.

I longed to be at Bayley's Primary, to be with the kids, to be with Tyreece, to be playing sticks in the mud, to be talking to the amazing ten and eleven year old girls, to be playing games outside in the swealtering sun with kids of all ages, to be eating cheese wheels (one of the best junk foods I've ever had), to be arguing with Katie about whether it was going to rain or not, to be riding back to the college with Miss Michelle (our bus driver), to be trekking up to the Heineken store to get Powerade and water and really good Bajan oreos...

I longed to be at the college, to be in the building we used for worship, to be congregating with other believers from all over the United States, to be sitting in the grass watching intense games of four square play out, to be playing signs with youth from everywhere, to be socializing with people I had never met before and probably will never meet again, to be walking to the cliff where we prayed as teams, to be taking in the beautiful view from what seemed like the top of the world, to be at Crane Beach, to be building sandcastles, to just sit in the fine white sand with red sparkles and watch the waves roll in one after the other...

My heart yearned to be back in Barbados, serving the Lord and enjoying the camaraderie that I had found while I was there, even after being back in the States for six and half months...

"Time Is Free..."

“Time is free, but it's priceless.
You can't own it, but you can use it.
You can't keep it, but you can spend it.
Once you've lost it, you can never get it back.”
~ Harvey MacKay

To me, time is more valuable than money. I'd rather be give someone's time than money. I'd rather receive the gift of time more than any other gift that I can think of (that could be partly because one of my love languages is spending quality time with loved ones...). I'd rather spend my time investing in other people's lives because in the long run, I believe that relationships are what matter, not how much money you have in the bank, or what brand of clothing you wear, or what fancy gadgets you own, or whatever else money can buy.

Time is short and seasons pass. We can look back and see how we invested our time. Can we really say that we did the best we could with the time that we had? I know I can't. As we draw out of the holiday season, ask yourself if you actually spent your time wisely. Were you wrapped up in getting decorations up, searching desperately for the "right" gift to give that special someone, frantically wrapping presents, and dashing from one place to the next in this whirlwind of a season? Or were you spending quality time with friends and family?

Even people whose love language isn't quality time can testify that spending time with friends and family is an important matter that often gets pushed aside.

Can we really say we spend our time in the right way, or do we waste it on frivolous things? I'm not sure what the "right" way for me to spend my time is, but I know that of the time I have spent, it has not all been spent the "right" way.

Ask yourself that question...

TV Series and Relationships

I was talking to someone the other day about TV series on DVD. He had watched the first season all the way through while it played on television, somehow missed the second and third seasons, and caught the tail end of the fourth.

And while the first few seasons were a while ago, their content was still relevant to the current season. He felt compelled to go back and watch the seasons that he missed to truly appreciate the season he was watching at the time.

It occured to me that this is the way that we treat our relationships with people. Personally, I watch a few select shows--NCIS, CSI, Boy Meets World (when it was on), Survivor--and you can't just jump in the middle of the season and expect to know what is going on, how different relationships between characters have evolved, etc. Well, I mean, you can, but you will be confused and need to view previous episodes, if not seasons, to catch up.

Similarly, we approach relationships in the same manner. We jump into a person's life and try to pick up where they are right now, not giving any thought to their past. We can't just go out and buy that person's life on DVD and "catch up."

And hey, we might get lengthy narratives and a pretty good idea of what happened in that person's life, but that is similar to reading a summary of an episode in a season. You get the main idea, but the character's (or person's in this case) facial expressions, actions, tone of voice are lost. The majority of what we understand is based on non verbal communication--what we see, what we hear. Take away that component, and you miss out on that woman's heartfelt glance toward her coworker or that man's look of contempt, all the richness that existed at the moment that the action took place.

While these two events are different--one is a TV show and the other is reality-- I stilll see similarities between them. It's so interesting that we are drawn to this idea of getting the full-length, uncensored background of a story when it in no way shows how we really live. We can't punch the rewind button in a person's life and get the full experience. Yeah, there's pictures and stories and sometimes home movies, but even all these together only give us a glimpse into that person's life. The only way for us to experience events with people is to be there when they happen.

We would never even dream about becoming addicted to a TV show without watching the previous seasons, but we find it perfectly okay to live our lives and form relationships with people in this way...