When Life thows in Black Jelly Beans

One of my favorite stories growing up was about how my dad came to hate raisins. According to my mom, at some point in time way back when, my dad was eating some raisins. Since raisins are just a simple snack, he wasn't exactly looking at them, and popped one in his mouth, and it turned out not to be a raisin. It was in fact a fly. Yes, one of those wonderful flying critters who land on cows and poo and food and...well, you get the idea. So my dad didn't like raisins.

Now, whether or not that story is accurate in it's entirety, I'm not exactly sure. But I do know my dad hates raisins.

I'm the same way with black licorice Jelly Belly's. Before I was born, my grandparents opened and ran a candy store in Tulare. If you're old enough, you might remember it. It was called "The Candy Store" and was in the shopping center on Prosperity where Lucky's used to be, where Vons is now, right across from Pizza Hut. They shut it down in about 1987ish, so I missed out. But I do remember my Grandma's love for Jelly Belly's, thus creating my love for them as well. Hello, you can get the Willy Wonka effect of a whole three course meal by eating three of them. Seriously. They're kind of amazing. But then there are the black licorice ones. Those can destroy the love for them pretty fast. They dull your taste buds, numb your mouth, and above all, taste terrible.

So the other night, it struck me that life is like a bag of Jelly Belly's. Not to copy Forrest Gump, but you never know what your going to get. You can be sailing through life, totally comfortable with not a care in the world. When all of a sudden, you come across one of those terrible events that leave you hurt, exhausted, and not knowing which way is up. But on the other side of that comes the happiness again. The good stuff. The stuff you look forward to. It is possible to get past the black jelly beans or the flies, and get back to enjoying the real stuff, the good stuff.

I think that God throws in those unfortunate unpleasant events because we need to be reminded that he is in control. He allows these things to occur so we can be reminded that we have an awesome and powerful Creator, who loves and cares for us, and also has a sense of humor. Knowing my dad, I can only imagine his face. I know the way I react when I taste the nastiness. And I can just see God looking down and laughing because we forget all these things. Not that the tragedies of life are comical, the the simple things that we make big deals. We take these small things that happen to us, and make it big because we're human, and we are constantly reminded that we are human, and we don't like it.

I'm not quite sure what the method to my madness is, or if I even had a point, but I like finding random metaphors or symbols in simple every day life and applying it. So there you go.

A God moment worth sharing

As most of you know, I have for about the last five months, taken a break from God. I felt as though God didn't really have my best interests in mind anymore. I was filled with anger. I was filled with frustration. And I honestly had no desire to go anywhere near a church or be around God. About a month ago, I came down with the worst flu I've ever had. I honestly felt as though I was either on my deathbed, and a couple of days I hoped I was. I was sick out of my mind. But it got me thinking, and it got me scared. I knew God was the only way out of anything. Lying in bed for a few days on end, all I could think about was getting back on my feet and getting back to God.

A couple of days later, a friend of mine met with me for coffee, and to discuss a community project I had headed up last year. Being a church event, I felt as though I knew I had to get back to God in order to do this thing with the right heart.

But I had one problem. I still do. What church do I go to? Ever since my wonderful life interruption almost exactly a year ago, I haven't felt comfortable at any church without some sort of emotional response. Out of the five I have tried, I really only felt very comfortable at one, and yet there was still a part of it that was uncomfortable.

So in trying to figure out what to do on Sundays, I've also been working on my plan for my life. I stayed in Visalia two years ago because there were promises being made that I was foolish enough to believe. And as soon as those promises became broken dreams, I realized there was no plan. No hope. No future that I knew of. I couldn't figure out what to do. I tried a few different ideas out, but knew they were futile before I even began them.

Now, lets back up a few years. My senior year of high school, on top of growing up and becoming an adult, I went through some major spiritual transformations. I was part of a small group whose sole purpose was for us to learn how to become the man or woman that God intended for us to be. I began doing some real soul searching, and realized whatever I did, I wanted to do it in a service matter. In other words, I've always loved missions work, and desired to do what I could to do this for a lifetime. I began looking into colleges down south, and realized I really wanted to move to LA. At the beginning of the year though, I had wanted to go to Humboldt, something else I was positive I wanted to do. It was hard to decide on LA, but they did have more choices, more schools, and being a small town girl, the last thing I wanted to do was move to another small town. So LA was where I would be more comfortable, and it was a "safe" choice.

Let's get back to now. In the last year, I've changed my major three times. I've been completely in limbo. I've had no clue what I want to do, no clue what I could do, and no clue what I should do. A lot of this, I'm sure, has had to do with my separation from God. But about two weeks ago or so, I once again started doing some serious soul searching, and the thought occurred to me. When I was in high school, I was so sure of myself, and so positive that what I wanted to do was what God wanted me to do. So, I made the decision to change my major back to business administration, and to go to Humboldt. If anything, regardless of it being small, I can be a light to those around me and maybe be some good to someone up there.

Now, Tuesday night. Elevate. I'm not even sure where it came from, but I felt very very close to God, and very aware that my plans as of now are the right ones. I went home and immediately began to reread one of my favorite books: The Barbarian Way. The next day, I was reading it in class and my friend asked me what it was. I instantly started telling her about Mosaic church, the experience I had there, and how much I wanted to go back at least once to see it again. Since I have an hour between that class and my next, I went into the library to do some homework. I started thinking about what had just happened. Here in Visalia, I haven't been able to really find a church I fit in with since I left the one I've been attending for seven years. Nothing feels right, but I can't go back. When I was planning on moving to LA, I knew where I was going to go. But Humboldt....now that's a place where finding a church worth going to might be a little difficult. So I said a little prayer that God would let me find one, and I randomly googled "churces in Arcata". One of the first ones that popped up immediately caught my eye: Catalyst church. I used to know some one once upon a time who was passionate about the idea of being a catalyst for God. This sparked my attention. This church, a small church in the middle of Arcata California, was just what I was looking for. If I hadn't been in a library, I would have screamed. I was so excited! And it was such a God moment!

I think the point I'm trying to make is that faith is by far the center of everything. We must have faith to have success, and we must have faith that God truly does have our best interests at heart.

New days, new perspective.

It's amazing that some things that are so simple can bring so much new perspective to your life.

Desperate Abandonment

This last week has been a huge wake up call for me. I've had the flu for the last four days, and for some reason, when I'm so sick I can hardly move is usually when I realize the most, along with a conversation with my Dad that seemed to help.

My entire life, I've tried to please everyone. To be "good enough" for those around me. To be a good enough daughter, sister, girlfriend, best friend, grand daughter, cousin, niece, employee, etc. It seems like all I ever do is strive to be what other people want me to be. But even that isn't good enough, because no one is ever happy with what they have. Once, I tried to be happy for me for once, and ended up getting a letter from a family member telling me that I didn't care about them anymore and that I was a terrible person. So much for being happy for once.

As a woman, we want to be fought for, to be captivating, to be lovely. For some of us, there never will be someone to stand by our side to fight for us. For some of us, abandonment is all we'll ever know. I know that sounds like a pity train, but I know too many women that have gone down this same path. Granted, there is one person who will never leave us. However, we do a pretty good job of leaving Him every chance we get.

In my life, I've known three things to be true: death, abandonment, and failure. It's true. Before the age of fourteen, almost all of the important female figures in my life had died and I was left "alone" without them. I've also known abandonment by those who claim to love beyond measure, yet, I wasn't worth the fight. I wasn't good enough. I was worthless. Thankfully, some healing has taken place with one of those people, but I will forever feel that I'm not worth the fight. I've also known failure. It has seemed for my entire life that all I have ever set out to do has failed. All except one, but I left that dream for another, which ultimately failed in the end. I would have been able to go off to college and been done at the end of this year, if I hadn't dreamed so big. But, I guess I thought I could handle failure at the time. I realize now it was the stupidest mistake I ever could have made.

I've also been taught my entire life that everything that has ever happened to me has been my fault. No, it wasn't my parents or a pastor or anyone actually verbally saying this to me, but it's been pretty obvious my entire life that since crap always seems to find me, it's quite clearly my fault, regardless of it being out of my control or not. And then last week, someone very clearly told me that my decisions are what have screwed up my life, and I understood. I do have control over it. I don't pray enough. I don't have enough trust in God. I'm not good enough.

The last couple of months, I've been headed down a pretty bad road. I've been at the bottom of my rope, with no where else to go except groveling around the bottom of a cave with no way out. But being sick has opened up my eyes that my trust needs to be back in God. I've been trying to rely on myself, and not on God, who won't ever leave me. It's been a long journey for twenty years, and prayerfully, there will be some happiness soon. Twenty years of nothing but pain is too long of a life already. It seems to be longer also when the things that brought the only joy into your life are what ended up causing the most pain in the end. It's funny to think that we can take happiness for granted and pretend to forget the pain. It's called getting comfortable. When we get comfortable, God decides we aren't focusing on HIm, so we get a curveball sent our way. But ultimately, it's up to us what we do with it: we can decide to trust Him more, or we can try to take matters into our own hands. I would encourage everyone to trust Him more, and believe that He will ultimately come through on His promises when those on earth can't.

Extraordinarily Ordinary

A few years ago, I began to see what I thought I needed to do. I had plans to go to a good school, move to some elaborate place, and become who I wanted to be. I was perfectly happy going to a normal school and taking all the required classes with nothing else, having a degree that was nothing more than simply common, and living a life that was my own that wasn't too hard for someone like me to obtain.

But then something happened. I met someone who believed in the impossible. Who believed that ordinary people can be extraordinary. I began believing I could do things that I had once believed to be impossible to obtain. I believed in the impossible. I believed I could do what some would call dreaming. I believed I could do extraordinary things and be an extraordinary person. I began developing new dreams and goals, and I allowed my imagination to take over my life. I allowed myself to believe I could do things that my entire life I had known were impossible for me. And by finding new dreams, I gave up all the dreams I had once had in order to obtain the most impossible of them all.

But they call the impossible "impossible" for a reason; because it is unobtainable. If something is deemed impossible, it means that by no standards of the human mind can one get to it. There's a reason why they say you can be what you want to be, and then put limits on it. Impossible things are not obtainable, no matter how much we try to believe it. Ordinary people are meant to do ordinary things. That's why we're ordinary. And people who actually obtain the "impossible," or whatever the hell you really want to label it as, are just pretending. They don't know what they want, that's why they go for things that are impossible, because they might by some form of magic find what they were actually supposed to do.

Truly extraordinary people who are actually put on earth to do something more than just ordinary life are placed here to do the life saving, the extraordinary lifestyle, and to help us ordinary people along the way. We aren't all put here to do extraordinary things. In fact, none of us are. If anyone were put here to do an extraordinary thing, it wouldn't exactly be extraordinary anymore, now would it? We were put here to serve our time, serve God to the best of our abilities and then when the time comes, and to fulfill any purposes we were actually put here to do.

For the last three years I've allowed my imagination and my dreams to rule my life. I gave up every single thing that was actually obtainable to me for one futile thing. I knew the whole time this dream would never come true, yet I was still more than willing to give up every single facet of my life. I can't change my decisions, but I can sure as hell try to get back to my life I started a few years ago. I'm perfectly more than happy to return to my simple, ordinary life. I haven't felt anything extraordinary in over nine horrible months, and I can't help but fully understand that ordinary is meant for me. Extraordinary was yet another dream that was unobtainable. The rest of my life as another ordinary member of the world is obtainable. And I can definitely accept that.

Ordinary is just another part of life. Deal with it.

Broken

Just a fair warning, I'm venting, so if you don't want to hear me vent, you definitley don't want to read this. :-)

I've come to the conclusion, that in everyone's life, at some point in time, no matter how much each of us tries to deny it, we become broken. All our hopes shattered, all our dreams lost, and we don't know how to start over. For some of us, this can be due to a relationship change. For others, it can be a tragedy, a catastrophe...something major and actually worth caring about. But regardless of what it is, we become broken. As a broken person, you begin to become numb to everything around you. You find yourself not caring what happens next, not worrying about consequences....you learn not to cry, and you teach yourself to wear a mask that you think no one can see through. Some turn to everything they said they'd never do. Some lose all sense of morality and spirituality. Some of us simply try to forget all that ever existed that broke us down. But we are simply broken people, with our hearts and spirits ripped into a billion little pieces that no one seems to have the glue to put back together. You walk through life, numb, hurting, angsty, on the verge of becoming an existentialist....everything feels like monotony, and nothing feels extraordinary. Sometimes you don't even feel alive. You simply exist.

I can honestly admit I'm one of the broken people in the world. I think when the Beatles wrote Elanor Rigby, they could have easily inserted the words "Look at all the broken people" instead of the "lonely" people, and accurately described my life. Some of us have learned and tried to learn over and over again not to let anything truly make us happy, because all the things that have ever made us happy or feel in the least bit whole have ended up screwing us over (and that's definitely not the most appropriate word for what really happens to us). We pretend like we're brick walls, and ironically, most of those around us believe it and don't see that we hardly even have a heart anymore.

But what's really funny, is that of all the broken people I know, we all share one small, very insignificant trait: We all have a small ray of hope for just one more thing. Whether it's just one more moment in which we can actually feel happy, or one more moment where we actually feel like we mean something. One more moment to feel like we're worth the fight. One more moment to feel like we are good enough. One more moemnt to feel alive. That moment may never come for any of us, but we all still have some small glimmer of hope that it will.

Lights Down, Lights Up, Action.

Acting is a passion. It's a lifestyle. It's a dream. It's a vision. It's life.

In my intro to theatre class, James, my teacher, keeps talking to us about how we all have roles. We have personal roles, we have social roles, and then we have acting roles. The only difference between life and the stage is that we are observed. It's funny, because it's not until you really analyze a statement like that that you begin to realize some people just act through life.

I realized tonight that I feel like I've been acting most of the last two years. During my senior year of high school, all I wanted was to succeed academically, graduate, and leave. I didn't care what people thought, I didn't care about impressing, I didn't even care about fitting in anymore. I was just done. I felt like I was more mature than the average high school senior, and I just wanted desperately to get away from the drama and the game that high school really is.

As soon as I graduated though, and due to some extenuating circumstances, I began to bend over backwards just to make people happy. "You should do this", "You should act like this", "You shouldn't say that anymore", "Women aren't meant to wear something like that." Those were common phrases I heard from people, and they were out of love, or at least acted love, I have no doubt. But instead of staying me, I tried to become what they wanted me to be.

One of my co-workers came in with a pair of Converse shoes. I remember always wanting to get a pair of Converse! Someone once told me they were unattractive though, and that was the end of that idea. I think that's what made me want to be me again. I haven't been me in a long time. I miss the me I was in high school. The fun loving, don't give a crap what people think me. That was even something one of my best friends had to tell me at Elevate the other night. She actually had to tell me to shut up, (and was super serious) and told me exactly what I needed to hear. (Thank you, by the way!)

So acting.... I think it's definitely true that we all put on façades of some sort. We all act in one realm of life or another. Some of us have jobs that we are required to act perfectly polite to our customers, in which, if we're having a horrible day, we can't let it show. Some of us simply act because we don't know how to be vulnerable. We'd rather heed Scarlet O'hara's words from Gone With The Wind "Whether I have to lie, cheat, steal, or kill...I will never go hungry." I knew somebody once that was absolutely amazing at what they did, and everyone thought that they were just the most wonderful person ever. They thought it was just sheer talent and brilliance that made this person sparkle. They were truly dazzling...until you really got to know them. Once you got to know them, you realized that what made them sparkle were simply lines given by other brilliant people that they used for their own doing...and took credit for it. They were simply acting, and never truly meant anything they ever said. One of my favorite things this person ever did, I found out later was given to them from another person...yet they would never admit to it.

I was looking through my Bible at small group on Monday night, and found a quote I had written down from sermon I heard once: "Wake up and live the day like its an encore." I have to look at it this way sometimes. God created this amazing universe for us to live in, and really, has a role as Christ-followers for all of us to jump into....so why shouldn't we look at it this way anymore? It's actually a pretty cool way to look at it. Whoever came up with that idea was right on track.

I don't want to fake-act anymore. I want to be truly genuine. I want to be truly authentic. I want to live life to the fullest, which can only be done through sincerity, honesty, vulnerability, faith, hope, and grace. I want to love Jesus with all my heart, and give Him my heart again.

It's crazy, because God is doing some amazing things right now. I think it's because I'm not unknowingly acting. I finally feel 100% content in what I'm majoring in, I'm involved in a church/movement that I feel like I actually am called to, and I love my job, even if some will look down on it. For two or three years, I've wanted nothing more than to get as far away from Visalia as possible. Now, I feel so content to stay here. I'm honestly not even in a hurry to leave COS (HUGE shocker there) and although I'm not moving away, I'm moving out, with a room mate who I know will kick my butt back into gear if I ever get of my path. I'm so thankful to God that I can be me again. I can do what I want to do, and not have to feel like I only have to make other people happy anymore. I love it! And it's all because I don't have to just act anymore. Now, I can concentrate on the stage that God has laid before me, and I'm prepared to say whatever daring lines He gives me.

While Twenty

What I want to accomplish while I'm twenty. It's just starting, so hopefully I get time to actually do all these.



1. Finish writing my children's Sunday school curriculum, Compass.

2. Travel somewhere outside the U.S.

3. Travel somewhere east of Colorado, since that's as far as I've gotten (only because I was born there)

4. Get involved in a drama ministry of some sort in Visalia.

5. Design/manufacture costumes for at least one play/musical.

I am not too young, and I am good enough to accomplish these. So, here we go...

Thoughts of time

So it occurred to me this last week that in a little over a week, I turn 20...wow, seriously, my whole life I've always felt older than my age. Too much has happened in the last seven years to fully grasp the meaning of my age. I guess when I was twelve, I felt twelve. At fifteen, I think I felt fifteen. At eighteen, I felt twenty or twenty one...now, I really can't put a finger on it. I guess it all just sort of slipped away.

I find myself constantly trying to hurry life up. I don't know if it's because I feel like when something good happens to me, it doesn't last, so I should hurry it up so maybe it will feel like it will last longer. Or I think a lot of it can be attributed to the fact that my mom died at a lot younger age than she should have, and I'm worried the same will happen to me. I don't know.

Six months ago, I was planning on being married by June 20th of this year. Since those plans obviously changed, I've gone from planning my wedding to planning the rest of my life...or at least, up to the next life interruption. I've realized a lot about what I really want to do, and I think realized a lot of potential of what I can do, but it all feels like I should be there by now. For some reason, I relate so much better with people about 23 and up. I've never related to my age group...ever. I can remember being freaking five years old, and going to an adult Bible study with my parents, and having full on conversations with adults. I played fine by myself as a child, but I could never play well with other kids. Maybe that was the homeschooling and the lack of a Sunday school at our small reformed church.

I don't know what it is. I'm always in a hurry. And as soon as I take a breath, return to my age, and realize I don't need to rush, I start hyperventilating and panicking, like seriously freaking out. Why is that? Seriously? My gosh, I'm not even freaking two decades old right now!

The last couple of weeks at Elevate, which has basically become my church home, have been about just going out there and doing it. Go do your passion. You've been given a new year, so don't wait to be escorted and asked to do something, just go out there and do it! (Or as I would say to some, just grow a pair for crying out loud!!!) God gave you some pretty cool passions and talents and inbred desires for a reason...don't waste them. Don't pretend to be something your not, do something unique for a change. Don't be like Scarlet freaking O'Hara with the attitude of "Whether I have to lie, cheat or steal...I'll never go hungry again" and do something that you can do on your own without deceiving every person around you just so you can have your five minutes of fame.

Go out there, do what God actually wants you to do, and stop wasting time trying to be something your not.

Am I ranting now? I feel like I'm ranting.

I'll just end by saying this. Last week, I heard a message that definitely pushed me in the direction I need to go. When my last life interruption happened, I was informed that I was "too young" (yes, that is truly the reason I was given for that particular issue), something that I've always been afraid of being told. For the last four months, I've been downing myself into thinking that no dumb 19-year-old can do the outrageous things I actually want to pursue. No one will ask me to do that. No one would ever hire me to do that.

But maybe I don't have to wait. The time is now. Not five years down the road, not in waiting, but now. And to be perfectly honest, some pretty cool things have happened since I learned to accept that, just because I'm 19 going on thirty, that doesn't mean I can't do the impossible.

Jeremiah 29:11
1 Timothy 4:12
Isaiah 41:10