I Want a Cookie

My roommate and I decided to make some health-related improvements and changes throughout the month of March… it’s only the 3^rd, and so far it is not my favorite thing. We’ve eliminated all refined sugars and sweets, are drinking 3 liters of water a day, and we’re not eating past 9:00 at night. Let me just tell you. It’s not so fun. I made 6 dozen homemade chocolate chip cookies on February 28^th before I knew I would be roped into this, and now they’re just taunting me. I want a cookie. Also, I’ve been throwing back the water like a crazy person, and I realize that this might be too much information, but I’ve literally had to go to the bathroom every hour for the whole day. Who has time for that? Who? All I’m saying is that health isn’t so appealing right now. But life’s tough and then ya die… so looks like cookies, good use of my time, and midnight snacks are a thing of the past. Bring on April. 

The Fringe

I have a backwards kind of pride. Parts of my personality are introverted, but not because I find social situations exhausting or unenjoyable… but because I often care too much about what people think of me, and therefore self-protect by clamming up giving them nothing to think of me. My pride often makes me reserved. For this reason, I have felt on the “outside” of social situations many times in my life. In the depths of my soul, I want so badly to be that person that is friends with all of the “popular” kids, that has a front-and-center role socially because many parts of me are inherently extroverted. I spend way too much time agonizing over the fact that I am a fringe person, and I seem to be destined to be a fringe person for my whole life. But today, my heart had a revelation that I don’t know how I missed before. I realized that over the years, Jesus has given me periods of loneliness and an introverted personality so that I can see other lonely people. If I had all the friends I wanted, I would lose the opportunity to recognize the people who want and need my friendship. When you're a follower of Christ, you understand that everyone is His Beloved... it doesn't matter who you're friends with, because His mercy is the great equalizer. The important thing is not if you're in the "in-group" or not... it's that you're loving one of His people, which is part of your sanctification. You're becoming more and more like Him every time you love one of the "least of these." Jesus wasn't friends with the popular people. He was friends with the outcasts… the fringe people. What if I viewed my being on the fringe as an immense opportunity to bless His children, rather than a misplacement of my desired social standing? How differently would I live my life and spend my time? How much more content would I be?

Give Thanks and Carry On

The other day I saw someone with one of those “Keep Calm and Carry On” stickers on their laptop. Suddenly the thought struck me, “well what if I can’t keep calm? What if circumstances come crashing down on me, anxiety takes over, and things become bigger than my ability to reconcile that it will all be okay? How am I supposed to keep calm?” As a person that struggles with anxiety and a worry-prone personality, I know firsthand that fear doesn’t submit to logic because fear isn’t logical. So how in the world are we supposed to quiet our fears to a state of calm when our souls ache from the wounds left by a flawed world? What if instead of trying in vain to keep calm and carry on, we gave thanks a carried on? What if we admitted that our fears aren’t ordered by our reasoning abilities because we know fears aren’t reasonable? Fear doesn’t submit to logic. Fear submits to God. What if we lived every day trusting that He has our ultimate good in mind, that “His secret purpose framed from the very beginning is to bring us to our full glory” (1 Corinthians 2:7)? Would we be freed to give thanks in the eye of the storm, to simply abandon unfruitful attempts to maintain a cool exterior and channel the turmoil of our souls into song of thanksgiving? Because if we are being brought to our full glory, there are no circumstances in which you cannot sing His praise. And the beautiful thing is that that verse doesn’t read “you are working towards your full glory.” It reads that he will “BRING us to our full glory.” He doesn’t want our efforts to keep calm. He wants our praise even when we are anxious, worried, and overcome, our faith that He will bring us. We are simply meant to grab His hand, and give thanks. The rest is His job. And that is where we find rest for our souls. 

Abiding

"Faith never knows where it is being led, but it loves and knows the One who is leading." Oswald Chambers

I struggle with being led. I dig my feet in, I thrash about, I blaspheme the Truth that regardless of my ability to see it, the plan is the plan… and the plan is good for me. The funny thing is that every single one of His bridges have held. I’ve never been left. I’ve never been forsaken. In fact, He is the only One that I can say that about. The realization that you’re discontent with certain parts of your life can weigh on your soul like a big, clammy dark thing that taunts you with its tinny fallacies that you’ve been abandoned to the woods of dissatisfaction. But that is a lie. Sometimes Jesus lets other people fail us, plans fail us, our own will fail us… because He wants us to see the stark contrast between the hallow way that the world pursues us, and the ripe richness of satisfaction that is His pursuit of our hearts and our lives. Sometimes He lets things around us fade into a deafening silence of white noise that we can hear His love song to us… His relentless call that He desires our hearts, and that He is willing to fight for us. Sometimes He removes the presence of others so that we can find His hand. And once we do, all He requires of us is that we hold onto it, and abide in His love. 

Ben Rector

Can I just take a moment to express my ardent, undeniable, never-wavering love for Ben Rector? Side note, if you don’t know who Ben Rector is, then do yourself a favor and look up the song “Ordinary Love.” I’ve listened to it 497 times according to my iTunes, and I regret nothing. It’s my favorite song ever. EVER PEOPLE. But for real, it will be used in a slideshow at my wedding. And my first dance will be to “Forever Like That.” I don’t care what my non-existent husband has to say about that… I mean I don’t even know the guy. Anyways. Today I bought concert tickets to see him in May, and my heart is so happy, I could cry a little. Any day with Ben is a good day. And that’s all of them. 

Stories

I want to be an author. I want to write something that will resonate with this world and humanity in a way that my time-stamped oral utterances cannot. I want to breathe something into a bona fide, tangible existence… words outside of myself, freed from the limited expression of my personal countenance that someone else will consider worth reading. I’ve been writing stories in my head for as long as I can remember. Pearls of thought that I’ve stored up in the caverns of my creativity, just waiting to be strung together into something meaningful… the only problem is that I can’t seem to find the time to start stringing in earnest. I have bits and pieces of isolated stories in places. But I just don’t know where to begin. 

Rule Followers

I never skip class just for the fun of skipping class. A teacher might not even take attendance, but I’ll still be there… because I’m a rule follower (even if there aren’t actual rules to follow). I have four classes on Tuesdays, and all except one was cancelled. I’m having a really hard time with the fact that I’ll have to leave my house in 21 degrees and 6 inches of snow, dig out my car, walk across campus, and go to one single class. He doesn’t even take attendance, and I already know all the material he’s covering right now… it’s Spanish Phonetics, which is basically everything we learned in Phonetics, but with different terminology. But, knowing me, I’ll probably go. Because I can’t make myself skip. Sometimes I wish I was a delinquent. I think I’d have a lot more fun.