If Not Us

The other day I was in the shower, where I do my best thinking, and the Audio Adrenaline song "Kings & Queens" came on my Spotify playlist. I was shaving my legs (also an integral piece of the thinking process) and the lyric "if not us, tell me who will be like Jesus?" played over my phone's speakers. The song poses the question in terms of who should hold the responsibility for loving the broken and "least of these"? 

I started to think about that the line. If not us...then who? I was thinking about it in the context of "It's not my job." I really really hate it when someone says "It's not my job". It's fair to say that there are plenty of things that yes, technically, are not your job but come on people...we can do better. Now...I can say that I'm guilty of saying "It's not my job"...I'm not perfect. I can admit it :-) However, I will say that it is something that I really try not say and I really want to challenge people with. Thinking back to the Kings & Queens lyrics...tell me, if not us, then who will be like Jesus? Guess what peeps! It's our job. It's ALL our job. If it's not our job, then whose is it? 

We can't just sit around and blame society and complain about the state of things if we don't want to take an active role in trying to change it. If you don't think you should act like Jesus then why should anyone else? It's not my job? If not us? It all leads to one central theme in my head...who is going to care? You are. Guess what else? Jesus cared A LOT. about everything. ALL THE TIME. He flat out LOVED the least of these and we should too. You know what else? We're ALL the least of these. Every single person in this world is broken and hurting in some way. We all need love. We all need to feel like someone cares. 

It's our job guys. It's our job to be just like Jesus was. If it's not our job, then whose job is it? 

Dream Wars

On my list of top ten subjects to read about and become a master of, is included the topic of dreaming. I want to know everything there is about dreams. I want to know how to dream better, longer, faster, clearer. I want to control them. I want to understand how my brain picks pieces of my day to store in my subconscious, sewing them together to form dreams where I went grocery shopping with an old family friend to bake Christmas cookies as I have an apron tied around my pregnant belly. What is the point of a dream like that? Is it reminding me to call an old family friend? Is it God's way of telling me one day I'll be a mom? I like dreams. They're this rare glimpse into what your brain is doing when you're not aware of what it's doing. 

My fascination with the brain started extremely young. I didn't realize it before but now I know exactly how that little fascination started. I was five years old when my dad was working to build a corporate office building and a crane struck him in the head. His hardhat saved his life, but his 300+ stitches proved that his brain had not remained unscathed. My dad suffered seizures, his personality changed, he was different than before and even a five year old can understand. As a little kid I became fascinated with how the brain worked. Our family had a 15 pound Random House Dictionary that I would drag off the bookshelf to look up a word I'd overheard or read somewhere. I wanted to understand everything. 

As I've grown older I've kept this underlying theme. I want to understand everything. I want to know why my brain chooses to remember what it does. I'm 25 years old. I cannot remember a lot of my childhood. I'm not really sure why, but my childhood is blurry and the only memories I do have involve my brother too. I don't know if I actually remember them or if I've built them there with the retellings from family members throughout the years. The only real memories I have from childhood...are the facts and information that I have memorized. That, to me, is fascinating. I can recall with almost no issue whatever, ANYTHING, that I have ever learned. Movie quotes, song lyrics, birthdays, anniversaries, dates, facts, trivia...can be recalled with almost no issue. The recall issues come with actual experiences. I don't really remember my birthday parties as a child. I remember seeing pictures and being told what we did. I do however have every lyric to every song on the Flipper soundtrack still in my head because I got that CD at my birthday party in 5th grade. That's how my brain works.

I fight with my brain. I would love for it to recall what I did last weekend as easily as it recalls the lyrics to Everybody by Backstreet Boys. I'm getting better at it. That's what my dreams are though. My dreams are experiences and I get so paranoid that they're telling me crazy important things and I wake up to only remember the subtle details. I want to remember the lyrics. I want to remember the quotes. I want to remember the dates and times. I'm working with my brain on this. My brain is not adjusting as easily as I'd like...because I'm 25 now and not 5 and my brain is older and slower and training it is different. I'm doing it though, because dang it, I'm going to remember my dreams. I want to know what my brain's doing in there. I have a lot to accomplish and I'm going to need my brain in tiptop shape. 

Gather Your Thoughts

Tonight I was on the phone with my long distance boyfriend for the second time in nearly ten days. This is the "time apart" of our relationship, when he spends a few months 2000 miles away and we test the limits of communication. As his cell phone dips in and out of service, our schedules clash, time zones collide and general mayhem occurs, our relationship becomes a series of tiny conversations. 

His life and my life move at about 100 mph in opposite directions while the only thing holding us together is this tether on the heart line. I love this man with all my heart and that's why I fight for those tiny conversations. I was blessed this week with getting two extended phone calls giving me a chance to vent a bit. My poor boyfriend. He is seriously the best. He worked for hours yesterday and hours today just to get me to spill my guts. 

Here's the deal. I'm a generally happy person. I smile 97% of the day. I can laugh off most crappy situations. I have the ability to find the fun in almost any mundane task. I have personally witnessed my overly bubbly personality annoy other people. I'm THAT girl. I'm loud. I laugh a lot. I don't take things seriously. I say all that to say that when I lose those parts of me, when life gets heavy, when I start to slide...I don't talk about it. I shut up. I don't tell people when I need help. I don't tell people when I'm struggling. I take it all on my own and no one finds out unless they know me REALLY well and basically read my mind. 

My complaints are usually masked in sarcasm. I laugh at things that stress me out as I try to balance it all. When out of my mouth spills only sarcastic one liners and the only thing I ingest is coffee...those are the signs. That's when I'm losing control. I know this now and now you do too. I need someone to watch me. I need someone to be on top of my game when I'm doing my best to ignore it. The closest person I have to that is my boyfriend and that's only because he knows me better than I know myself some days. He can read into my tone and know exactly when I'm not okay and he'll flat out say "what's wrong?" even when I've technically done nothing to indicate there's a problem. 

Today I am facing the fact that I need to get myself in check. I have let things slide and now I'm reaping what I've sown. My attitude sucks. I'm depressed. I'm lonely. I would rather sit and complain about these things or make sarcastic comments to those around me than actually do something to fix it. I've been wallowing in my self appraised shortcomings in life and allowing myself to become my own worst enemy. I have been looking at my life as a badly dealt hand at cards and whether consciously or not, it has been causing my life to become exactly that. I haven't completely destroyed my life or anything, but I have definitely caused myself unnecessary heart damage in the past few weeks. 

I have to stop. I have to stop thinking I don't deserve to have a break. I have to stop thinking that I don't have time to do the things I need to keep my mind and heart healthy. I have to stop filling my head with so much negativity that all I do is produce negative energy and suck people into my stupid funk. It's time to get out of the funk and get back on track.

After what I can only assume was a very frustrating conversation for my boyfriend to have with me he told me to "gather my thoughts" and we'd talk more later. This was my opportunity to explain to him why for the past week I have been Negative Nancy and I sound completely unenthused. I'll admit that first I was irritated at him for telling me to do that. I have my thoughts gathered. I'm mad. I'm tired. I'm so tired that I'm mad about being tired and vice versa. I miss my boyfriend. I have very little social life. I'm depressed. I had all these thoughts gathered. Along with the thought that I wanted to keep holding onto that. That's what I said. I told him that I knew how to fix it and that I just didn't want to. It's so stupid how that happens. It's like some little demon inside me likes being mad and wants me to stay that way even when I don't want to at all. It's this battle within me and I fight it more often than I'd like to admit. I suppose the first step to overcoming something is identifying it. I have different thoughts gathered now. The original thoughts are still there, but now I have a plan for overcoming them, and I'm actually going to do it. 

I Gotta Go Home

Have you ever had that thought just hit you? "I gotta go home." The immediate feeling that whatever you're doing, wherever you're going, everything...has to stop for just a second so you can go home to get whatever you need. 

"It" may not even be anything. You may just need to go home. You may just need to get away from work, away from life, away from everything that demands you and go home. It's kind of a weird thing to think about and I honestly never did until tonight. I was just on the phone with my boyfriend and he was telling me about a conversation he had with this lady. He had dropped some crazy knowledge on her and she felt so overwhelmed by what she had heard that she said "I gotta go home". Him and I both laughed on the phone when he told me that. The way she said it just caught us both in a funny way. She was saying it as if to say 

"I need to lie down right now. You just dropped some insane stuff on me and my brain is heavy and my head hurts and I need to process all of this right now, probably while laying down." 

I want to meet this lady. I want to meet her for a variety of reasons, but right now I want to meet her because she has just coined my new favorite phrase. She just summed up exactly how I felt today. I love my new job. It is absolutely wonderful. It tests me. It forces me to grow. I never encounter the same day twice and I'm blessed enough to get to serve people. In the midst of all the chaos and change, I love my job...but sometimes I just gotta go home. Tonight, it was 6:15 and I just had to go home. 

I have worked 10 hour days the past three days in a row. I have dealt with some angry people, some confused people, some happy people, some children, some babies, some elderly people. I have sent emails. I have made phone calls. I have attended meetings. I have updated the appointments on my calendar approximately 47 times this week. I am mentally exhausted. 

I feel like such a wuss sometimes. I just got done working two years in residential. I moved to an "office" job. I'm tired on a Thursday because my brain hurts. I just gotta go home. 

I used to work back to back doubles essentially babysitting 12 teenage boys on 4 hours of sleep while in grad school...when did I become such an old person??? It's okay though. I'm growing up. I'm learning that balance is key. I'm learning that it's okay to work long days. It's okay to be tired. It's okay to step back and say "All the work is done. I need a break. I gotta go home." I've declared tonight self care Thursday. I need a night where I don't have to talk to any people. I need a night where I can be alone, recharge and process everything I've encountered this week. I need a night where the only thing my brain has to think about, is what it wants to think about and not what other people would like it to think about. 

Four

Every year I wonder if this is going to be "the year". Maybe this year I won't cry at all. I won't change my Facebook profile picture to one of her and I. I won't make a status in remembrance of her.  One day I wonder if I'll just be sitting somewhere writing the date and it will dawn on me. I see it almost like a movie in my head, an older woman sitting at a table sees 9/21 on a calendar and thinks "Oh, it is September 21st, gosh...it's been 25 years since mom died." I wonder if that will happen. I wonder if it will take 21 more years to reach that point. Do I want to reach that point? This entire week I've been aware of today being the 21st. I hate this day. This is the only day that I have to work really hard to be aware of my thought processes because I'm likely to burst into tears at any point. 

Every year I'm at a different point in my life and I always find myself reflecting on who I've become in the past 4 years. I'm so aware of how I am like her, of what I learned from her in her life, I try to be just as conscious to what I've learned in her death. It's important to me. A lot has happened in the past 4 years. I can sit here and look at how everything unfolded in the time that passed after her death and now I understand it more and more. The last four years have been hard. As much as I have wanted my mom around in the last four years, things have really started to go well in my life and now I really want her around. I'm figuring life out. I have a job, three degrees, a wonderful boyfriend, a great apartment. I'm proud of who I have become. 

That is the hardest part. I want my mom to be here with me. I want her to experience the good part of my life. I want her to experience the part of my life where I understand who I am, who God made me to be, what I'm supposed to be doing (at least most days). There are so many conversations that I want to have with her every day. There are so many times that I still want to talk only to her, she's the only one that I could even begin to about some things. I miss getting to tell her the ridiculous things that happen, the hilarious things, the sweet things, I miss ALL the things. My mom was amazing and every day without her sucks a little. 

I don't live my life in constant despair because I don't have a mom. In fact, 98% of the day I am perfectly happy and focused on whatever task is at hand. I live life day to day and try to do my best every day. I can tell you that on a daily basis I will have something that reminds me of my mom or makes me miss her and just for that split second I am broken. I don't cry. I don't get sad. Usually I smile and remember her but I also hurt because I miss her. I know everyone misses her. I know this because they tell me. I know this because I look like her and I talk like her and I act like her and sometimes old friends look at me with the sad eyes of a friend missing an old friend. Sometimes people look at me like I'm her ghost, they probably don't even know they do it, but I see it and I understand it and in that moment we are both broken. 

I've been up since 4am today. That is typical of this day. I wake up and fall back asleep and I do this until I just get tired of rolling around. This morning that moment came as I was waking up whilst falling out of bed. I am 25 years old. I have not fallen out of bed since I was a child...until today. I'm not even kidding. I'm not sure why but for some reason this year, this day is the hardest it has been yet. I write this posts every year to gauge where I am, who I am, how I'm doing, etc. The crazy thing is that in the past 4 years...I am the happiest I have ever been right now. I think that is what makes this day the hardest. My mom was great at happy. My mom was the greatest party planner/hostess/life of the party ever. Seriously. This is not a game. I have multiple witnesses that can attest to her karaoke skills, her ability to make anyone smile, her hilarity and how great a tan she had. My mom knew how to have fun. My mom knew how to live. I finally understand myself. I finally am beginning to understand. Right now...I am the woman my mom wanted me to become. I took a weird path but I did it. I got my masters. I moved back home. I got a job. She would be so proud of me, and that's why this year is the hardest. I've grown so much that now the majority of my friends don't know who my mom was. There are only a handful of people that know who she was. That's why this year is the hardest. With every year that passes, more and more of her gets lost from the world. That's why this year is the hardest.

Participate

Today was essentially the perfect Sunday. I woke up earlier than I usually do, was able to enjoy a cup of coffee before church and get to the service about 15 minutes earlier. The only downside to this morning was when I walked out to my car to discover I had left my sunroof open overnight...in a thunderstorm. That was just spectacular...let me tell ya. I don't even care that my car is kind of (really) soggy and probably smells weird, the greatest tragedy was stereo. It is fried. DEAD. It ceases to produce any type of music...and no longer displays the time either. 

Thank God I was blessed with a sense of humor because I was able to laugh at this and look at the positives (my car still runs) and put the negatives in perspective (I'll just have to sing all the time if I don't have a radio). After church I had lunch with the family as usual and feasted on my frisco melt from Steak n Shake, literally hit the spot for me today. Capping off my afternoon with watching New Girl on Netflix, wearing leggings and a hoodie, I had pretty much felt like I accomplished the perfect Sunday already. I decided randomly throughout the afternoon that to get my chocolate fix and save money (also avoid going into the public), I could just make some fudge here at home. Well...I made said fudge, it was delicious, and throughout my roommate and my Grey's Anatomy marathon we have somehow managed to eat nearly the entire pan. I'm not even sorry, I'll just run the stairs a few times tomorrow. 

While watching Grey's Anatomy I slipped into something between a food coma and a diabetic coma and I woke up wide awake...at 12:30am. Did I mention that tomorrow is Monday? Did I also mention that I have a meeting at 8:45 and court at 9:30 for work? All of these things are true, yet here I am...wide awake at 2:42am. I don't know if it's the caffeine or the nap but either way I'm awake for awhile. The plus side to my bizarre sleep schedule is that it's way more conducive to talking to my boyfriend on the west coast. With our two hour time difference I'm often a few hours from waking up for work and he's a few hours from going to bed. I live the 9-5 office job and he's the rockstar ;-) 

It was so nice to talk to him today. I figured that I wouldn't really get the chance. Sunday's are always busy days for me between church, lunch with family, and whatever errand/chore I usually have to get done before the week starts. On top of it being a typically busy day for me (even though today I was uncharacteristically lazy), he was having a MUCH busier day by anyone's standards. From 3:30-5:30 Pacific Time, he and his band would playing for thousands of people at America's Cup Park in San Francisco. Let me tell ya...as busy as my day was, at least I didn't have to talk to thousands of people and perform on a stage. I don't know how he does it. I am so proud of my boyfriend everyday, you don't even know. I don't care if you think it's annoying or if you find our love disgusting, he's amazing and I have every reason in the world to be proud of him. 

He is a rock star in every sense of the term. The man was clearly born to be on a stage, his presence just gravitates people to him, yet he is the most humble. I fell in love with this quiet, soulful, deep thinking man who was so respectful and kind. He had this dorky giggle when his cousin would make him laugh really hard and he annoyingly sagged his pants. He was this amazing blend of everything I wanted in a best friend, partner, and boyfriend. He makes me laugh harder than anyone can. He pushes me to love God more, to show love more and to be the very best woman I can be. Talking to him on the phone tonight was such a blessing. As if long distance relationships aren't hard enough, I got my phone shut off this week, we're texting via an app on wifi and he gets terrible cell reception in San Francisco. I smile every time I hear his voice. We can talk for 5 minutes or 5 hours and I still feel the exact same way when we hang up. I am blessed. I used to say that "I'm the luckiest girl in the world." I stopped saying it because it wasn't true. I'm not lucky. I was blessed. I am blessed. We are blessed. I believe with all my heart that God placed the two of us together for a very specific purpose. Every day we learn more and more of what that purpose could be and how we can work harder for God. I can tell you one thing. The core of our purpose is love, in every sense of the term. Today was Sunday. It was the Sabbath, a day of rest. Today I did exactly what I needed to on this Sunday. I basked in the love of God and it was so perfect.

Leaving church this morning I heard the words of the sermon echoing, "Participate in new life". The sermon called for us to go live in community with those who need to see Jesus. Help those around us take those steps. Those who are alive, help him live. I pondered these thoughts in the afternoon, I sketched some ideas after my nap, and now again I sit here thinking about the words. Tomorrow...I will be exhausted. I will have to go do my job on little sleep and lots of caffeine because I made choices today. I slept at odd hours, I ate too much fudge, I drank too much soda...I was a bum. It doesn't really matter though. I needed it and it gave me the opportunity to see something. Sometimes having a Netflix marathon with your roommate or staying up super late to talk to your long distance boyfriend are all the things you really need to understand God's love. The great thing about God, is just like Pastor Todd says, he wants to fill you. He wants to use you. It's sooooo easy. Whenever I get really overwhelmed by God's love (like today in church or when I realize how blessed I am with my Craigslist roommate and rockstar boyfriend) I just get really excited at how I know God is going to use me. He's filling me so I can pour out. Tomorrow is Monday. It is supposed to suck. That's what Monday's DO. I know that my Monday is going to rock the pants off of the entire day...because God filled me today and that means tomorrow he is going to do some amazing work. 

I'm going to bed now. It's 3:00am...my alarm will be going off in 4 hours. When I was a camp counselor I worked in the hot sun for 12 hour days and ran on 3 hours of sleep, I can do this. Tomorrow is Monday...I operate on God strength. I'm going to participate in new life.

TGBTG

Shiny Things

Yesterday was September 1st, which may not be of any real significance to anyone, and it wasn't to me either...until yesterday. It was Sunday and as usual I was planning on going to church at PoC at 10am. The only difference yesterday was that first I had to drop off my boyfriend at the bus station and send him back to the west coast. I was running late already and then after leaving Uptown Normal at 10 am I just made peace with the fact that I was going to be late to church. I slid into the row next to my brother just as Pastor Todd introduced the next two worship songs. My prayer at that moment was for God to allow me to see His face during the service. 

I love worship music. As a child, long before I could really understand the sermon, the worship music was always my favorite part of church. Worship music is the channel through which God allows me to focus on Him. I am a very hyperactive person who is easily distracted. Worship music allows me to work out my holy energy and settle down before the sermon. As the sermon began I got to taking notes, which is my second method of focusing on the sermon. Pastor Todd and I speak the same organizational love language and his sermons are always perfectly built for taking notes. This makes my nerdy self extremely happy and it's one of those silly little things that I thank God for. God really does delight in the tiniest desires of our heart. 

Pastor Todd's sermon this week was on John 9:1-41, the miracle of Jesus healing the blind man with mud. The question he challenged us with was "What if I'm wrong?". In other words, how do we know we're making the right decision? We're doing what we're supposed to. The answer? We don't...unless we are embedding Jesus in every decision we make. We have to turn to Jesus before anything else because nothing else should even come close to demanding our allegiance. We need to focus on Jesus so that he is the filter through which every decision is made. 

Let me tell you a little something about God. He has a plan. Its a gigantic plan that is so amazing and perfectly built for you that if you tried to understand you'd fail to even grasp how great His love for you really is. I started to really understand that right before I made the choice to get baptized. As I felt God opening my eyes to understanding His love, I felt Him leading me to be baptized and proclaim my love for him. Before the sermon Pastor Todd had the ushers pass out plastic diamonds to all of us. These were our "shiny things", they served as the tool to help us understand what shiny thing might be distracting us from God. 

I can tell you right now that there are many things that will distract you from God. My shiny thing came in the form of my medical leave. I was so distracted by my own "misfortune" that I began to question God's plan, God's will and just what the heck was he doing. A churchgoer asked me during my leave what I was doing with my time and challenged me to talk to God and see why He gave me this time. I took his advice and started spending A LOT of time with God. I talked to Him all day long. I had nothing else to do. I read the Bible, I prayed all the time, I listened to worship music like it was going out of style. You know what happened? God showed me His plan...and I didn't like it. I understood that I wasn't graduating in May. This pained me. I had been dying to graduate in May and move back home. I wanted so badly to live in my hometown, to get more involved with my church, to be near my family. I was mad. God's plan was for me to stick it out another three months, graduate in August...then try to find a job. I was beyond ticked at Him, so I gave Him the silent treatment for a few days before realizing that was a worse plan than just going along with His plan and trusting Him. 

You want to know how much God loves me? I made it through medical leave...in His time. When His time had reached He got me home. He fulfilled the desires of my heart. He got me a job in three days. He found me a place to live in three more days. He got me home, safe, sound, loved and happy...in His time, through His method and His love. Let me tell you. I was panicking. I was starting a new job with no place to live...I found one a week before I started my job...I moved in 2 days before I started my job. God provides. 

Yesterday at church Todd ended the sermon on a thud with the question of "what if I'm wrong?". He apologized if that irritated some people because they didn't have closure. The question of "what if I'm wrong?" can be really scary if you don't know for sure. For me, it wasn't scary. I don't say that to brag or make myself look good, but to give God the greatest glory. God has provided for me. I don't question if He's there, if He loves me, if I'm worthy. I didn't get it in my timing. I was irritated. I had to literally wait on the Lord, but it didn't matter. In the end I had everything that I needed and more. I'm not wrong. I don't have to worry about the answer to that question. I'm not here in my hometown because I WANTED to me. I'm here because God WANTED me to be and He cares about what He wants. When you love what God loves...your life isn't scary. I'm not perfect. I don't have everything together. What I do have...is a God that is so big I can't even imagine every aspect of Him. 

Today I got to sing worship songs and hang out with my PoC family as we walked in the Labor Day Parade throwing candy and worship Jesus in the streets. It was such a surreal moment for me. Here I am...in my hometown...worshiping the biggest God who loves me so much, surrounded by people who share in that. 

It was so cool just to bask in what God has blessed me with. I don't need to be distracted by worries or people or situations because I have the shiniest God who is greater than anything I can imagine. 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dkiVO9Q1SVg&feature=share

TGBTG :-)