Dang This City Has Grown!

Wow! I can't believe I'm here at all. I arrived in BR yesterday and still think I'm in total shock. I don't think I've really comprehended the fact that I've moved here, don't have hardly any of my belongings with me, and am starting life all over again.

It was crazy driving in and seeing things I remember (haha...especially things from when i was really little). For instance, I drove past the Millerville exit sign, remembered someone lived there only to find out I was the one living there when I was freakin 4 years old! SO crazy that I remember that street at all! I even drove past the spot I think I had a not so fun incident with hornets and remembered being there. Funny how although you might not think about it all the time, you store information and pull it out when you need to.

I don't think I'm going to have too hard a time figuring this city out considering I was driving around last night and pretty much remember everything I drove through.

I'm excited about meeting new people and making new friends. I'm actually excited about a summer job I have with BREC horse center! I will be getting paid to work with horses and kids...how sweet is that?! I'm probably going to find just another job that will support me...this is going to be crazy.

I will get to see old friends!! I'm definitely excited about that.

I just still am in disbelief that I'm making a new life in my hometown. It's definitely strange to come back after not being here in over 7 years.

Just Follow Me...

Okay, so there really isn't a single thought process I'm going through currently that will tie this all together...maybe I will by the end of it, but that's not my goal. I'm just putting thoughts out there.

I guess I kind of want to start with several really good quotes I came across while reading Searching for God Knows What by Donald Miller:

"Humans, as a species, are constantly, and in every way, comparing themselves to one another, which, given the brief nature of their existence, seems an oddity and, for that matter, a waste. Nevertheless, this is the driving influence behind every human's social development, their emotional health and sense of joy, and, sadly, their greatest tragedies. It is as though something that helped them function and live well has gone missing, and they are pining for that missing thing in all sorts of odd methods, none of which are working. The greater tragedy is that very few people understand they have the disease. To be sure, it is killing them, and yet sustaining their social and economic systems. They are an entirely beautiful people with a terrible problem." (here he is writing his thoughts out as though he were an alien :) I love the way this guy writes)

"In this way [he states prior to this 'it feels like you are going to die unless you get some kind of respect and appreciation'], the alien was right; we are comparing ourselves to one another and if somebody says they are better than you, it makes you very frustrated inside and you get sad or angry or bitter about it."

"What if, in the same way the sun feeds plants, God's glory gives us life? What if our value exists because God takes pleasure in us?...What if when we are with God, we feel that we have glory, we feel His love for us and know, in a way infinitely more satisfying than a parent's love or a lover's love, that we matter?"

"What we really need is somebody who loves us so much we don't worry about [anything]...we need this so we can lose all self-awareness and find ourselves for the first time, not by realizing some dream, but by being told who we are by the only Being who has the authority to know, by that I mean the Creator."

So those are just a few of some amazing quotes written in the pages of Miller's book. He has such an uncanny way of pulling you away from religion and bringing you back to the fundamentals of a relationship and the reality of what the beliefs encompassed by Christianity really meant and should still mean today. This really was something I was already working my way into deeper understanding of what I believed but wanted proof for and answers for. It has also brought me into deeper questioning.

One of the thoughts I have had a lot lately is the way we allow ourselves to be driven by acceptance. For each person it revolves around a certain group or "type" of people. Everyone wants to know they are important to someone, to know they are liked, loved even. Who a person seeks that acceptance from varies by culture, personality, social status, and a variety of other factors but they will nevertheless go through different lengths to attain that feeling of being loved. Funny enough, for most of us it really is a fake "acceptance". We buy our way into organizations or act a certain way to fit in; sometimes it requires the right clothing or dating the correct people. It's a shallow form of filling this unexplainable, love-hungry void each person has. What would happen if we would learn that everyone is striving for this and could learn to love...really love?

I guess that really is a hope I have but realize it is unattainable because for that to happen, everyone would have to allow their eyes to be opened and believe in Christ and God, as what we know from creation and the bible.

And honestly, the only way to fill that desire for pure love is to have a relationship with God Himself. He is the only one who can love perfectly. He was the one who created that need in us so that hopefully, we would realize He is the one who can fill that need and we would enter a relationship with Him, for He is a relational God.

Mmmm...off track but another thought I have had is I have been faced with the realization, a lot lately, that you are not promised anything in this life. Not the next minute. Not tomorrow. Not a life without sorrow. Not happiness 24:7. Not wealth or a home or...ANYTHING! Life doesn't sit around waiting on you and let you tell it when you're ready to go. It doesn't promise that when you go places you're going to come back alive...(ironic I've been thinking this because God completely spared my brother and one of his friends their lives the other night....THANK YOU SO MUCH!!!!!!!).

How different would my life be if I actually started living by the principle that each minute is my last? How different would my thoughts be? How would I choose to spend my time? How would I choose to speak at each moment I open my mouth?

.......

I guess I'm doing a lot of heavy thinking.

Death Has Made Its Appointment With You...There is No Escape

Although I have not personally been faced with the loss of a person close to me, I have recently had to watch my little sister go through the loss of someone in her class at school. There is something about death that eludes me. It just isn't able to be grasped. It is depressing. It is somber. It is humbling. It is painful. And yet I still don't understand it.

It takes all the breath you have and leaves you suspended, gasping for more, hoping you will come out above what you thought might be taking your last. It isn't something anyone can wrap their minds around. One minute you have the person with you and the next you will never be able to tell them you love them. You will never be able to create another memory. You will never have another heart to heart conversation with them. No more plans with them. No more memories. No more photos. Nothing. You have what you were given and can no longer add to the ever growing list.

I think most of the time, we live like death will never come to visit us. We don't think about what kind of a legacy we want to leave, and some people don't leave a legacy because they lived as though there is no end. We don't think about how we want to be remembered when Death has finally come to take us by the hand and walk us through its door. Well, we don't live in that place. At least I know I don't.

I have spent much time thinking about how I want people to remember me, what I want them to do when I'm gone. But I don't spend every second of my day thinking about that and letting it drive me forward. Why I don't, I can't answer because I think it would probably be the wisest way to live. We are only human and thus are limited and will make mistakes. I just hope the longer I live, the more I will live this journey in a way that I am thinking about what I want to leave behind me when my time is up. I won't be here, and there will be material objects, but I want more than that to be left behind.

I want people to have been impacted by me. I want to have helped those younger than me achieve all they have the potential to be and then reach beyond that as they strive for excellence. I want those who have come in contact with me to remember me as someone who was vibrant, full of life, and brought joy into other's lives. I want them to remember me as someone who lived not for myself but for others. I know it's a lot to ask of oneself, but that really is what I want to be remembered as. I guess because I won't be here to find out if that's how I'm remembered, all I can do is live my best every day striving to be all that I was made to be: a light to others; a beacon of hope in a world full of sorrow; salt amongst the bland complacency we live amongst.