Here we go

In a few days I will be looking out an airplane window at land I have never seen before.  I have known about this trip since before Christmas time and now that it is almost here my stomach turns with excitement. Or is it fear?  I am absolutely in love with traveling and intend on doing it as much as the Lord allows throughout my life, but since I have not been out of the country or flown on a plane in a good year, the nerves have crept their way back into my body.  It similar to the feeling of the first day of school where all you want to do is just go ahead and get it over with so you are used to it and after that everything is okay. I am in a state of almost sulking- thinking about how long it will be before I get to sleep in my bed again, see my perfect kitty cat, go eat dinner with my friends or see my boyfriend.  I always get so sentimental before a trip and act as if the whole world will end while I am gone and nothing will be the same once I am back,however, those have yet to happen.  As I ramble about my worries, I realize that the reason I am freaking out more than I usually do is because this will be the longest consecutive time I will be away from home. Granted it is only about 3 1/2 weeks, but as I travel around Great Britain/U.K. I can only imagine how long each of my days will feel. I cannot decide if the way I feel away from "home" on this trip will feel anything like the way I will feel in a couple months as I move to Nashville for college.  I forget that I will be making my new home there and after a long trip will not go to Memphis, but rather back to my dorm.  How crazy is that?  I guess I am just so comfortable and happy right where I am this very moment in life that I am afraid of anything messing it up.  I don't want to leave because everything is great and I think that is why I almost need to go.  We (Christians) are never to feel absolutely comfortable on earth because this place is not our forever home.  I never want to forget that and if I am too comfortable, there is no need for a Savior.  Too many times I find myself devouring society's breadcrumb trail to disaster and thank you Jesus for helping me realize I will never be satisfied on crumbs.  Why settle for so little when He promises so much?  Whenever I find myself doubting, I remember the fullness of Christ at my weakest points and the obvious evidence of Him everywhere.  I can honestly say that I "felt" God and no I am not saying that when I was in a deep dark hole I flipped to a magical scripture and felt all warm and fuzzy.  I really feel God and it happens in any situation.  His warmth on a simple day, His comfort on a cold day, His joy on a light day, His guidance on a lost day, His harshness on a sharp day, His love on a broken day and His strength on a weak day.  We are at the palms of His hands and how calloused they could be from our constant struggling to jump out.

I guess I should go back to my original topic:  Anyways, it is these kind of trips that I have been waiting for my whole life and these kinds of places I have always wanted to experience.  I am ready to go ahead and embark on this European adventure and get my "travel" legs back.  There is such a huge world out there and I hope to learn from the different people and places I encounter.  I love what Mark Twain says about it, "Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry and narrow-mindedness."  My eyes need to be further opened and my mind enhanced.  The Lord has placed an ambitious heart in me and I plan on pursuing these Guided Desires as much as He will let me.

Therefore do not be anxious, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ For the Gentiles seek after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them all. But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you. “Therefore do not be anxious about tomorrow, for tomorrow will be anxious for itself. Sufficient for the day is its own trouble. 

Matthew 6:31-34

Lighten Up

Laughter is not only contagious, but healthy.  As a matter of fact, according to a site I found from the infinite most wonderful google, laughing can be considered exercise? Who knew this seemingly simple action of humans could affect us the way it does.  We don't realize how much we need laughter in our lives and I honestly think God laughs as well.  I feel like every time I trip up the stairs or slip God lets out a little snicker- He's got to be funny don't you think?  Well, I think He is hilarious and we should laugh with Him.  Our lives are not meant to be full of pain and suffering with a side of misery, God does want us to enjoy ourselves every once in a while!  In my opinion, we can take life too seriously too often and sometimes we need to step back from a situation and ask ourselves, "In the grand scheme of things, is this all that important?"  More often it ends up being a silly frustrated moment over who left the milk carton out and in that case, it was not all that important in the grand scheme of things.  I am not saying that we should never be frustrated or angry, however, I think we should make a point to laugh at not only others but also ourselves daily.  One of the easiest natural mood lifters is laughter, so why not just give out a little giggle every now and then and see how you like it?  Of course, those obnoxious gigglers can get out of hand so I recommend a healthy dose but you might want to cut yourself off if you cease to see others around you laughing at the same thing. 

Smiling is also contagious and healthy.  How often do you find yourself smiling back at a cashier once they have smiled at you?  For some reason, I love to smile at strangers (sounds creepy) because I know when a random person smiles at me I feel a little better.  It is almost as the world was crashing down on me and a complete strangers brings me back to reality to tell me "it's all going to be o.k." just with that subtle smile.  We are breathing and alive- we should be smiling all the time!  God has overcome the world (John 16:33) and if anything we should spread the joy of knowing everything really is going to be o.k.! I also typed in smiling into google to see what everyone else says about it and found a list of the top ten reasons to smile- including things such as "Smiling Boosts Your Immune System."  How crazy is that?  We are also more attracted to happy people and of course happy people smile so therefore we are attracted to people who smile. Who would you rather be around, someone who gets ticked off at every little thing or someone who is smiling and patient?  DUH! No one wants to be around someone that is irritable or someone that needs to take a deep breathe because those people also stress others around them out as well.

I am very empathetic (blessing and a curse) and easily feel what someone around me is feeling.  I hate it though, because if someone in my house is stressed I freak out and become stressed to, or if someone is really upset about something I become upset as well.  I try not to surround myself with very negative or irritable people because I, too, will become just that.  I know it sounds almost ridiculous and I should be able to control that, and I do a lot of the time! However, "bad company corrupts good character" and we need to be careful who we are letting change our mindset about things.  Don't sit around with debbie downers because you too will never think anything is fun anymore.  Don't surround yourself with apathetic people because you will never get anything done ever again.  Instead, find a balance or set limitations on how long you are around those people because you truly do become who your friends/family are if you are around them long enough.  That is such a good reason why the body of Christ should seek each other's fellowship and encouragement.  We also learn how to act and react from Christ and just like reading an instruction manual, we are to study the Bible- why look anywhere else when the one truth is laying right in our hands?  

Basically, a jumbled mess as usual but I feel like sighing in relief after relieving such thoughts. =)

Who Cares!

As crazy stuff has been happening over the past couple days I have noticed a few specific things that I wanted to write down and express.

The first being the importance of sharing our ups and downs with one another; this being especially important among the body of Christ.  We tend to want to keep a lot of things to ourselves and think others might not want to be bothered by our problems but that is more unhealthy than anything and far from the truth.  We have been hammered with words and items trying to keep us happy 24/7 that when a stick gets thrown in the middle of our path of pleasure and messes it up, we don't exactly know how to handle it.  It is almost like that speed bump put a damper on our otherwise perfect life and is more inconvenient than anything.  Maybe that is why we don't bother other people with our problems? Because we ourselves do not wish to be bothered.  This selfishness sickens me and I most definitely fall into the category more often than I wish of those people who just don't want to be bothered most of the time.  It is not completely because I don't want them to disrupt my "perfect" life but mainly because I just don't know how to handle the situation and be there for that person.  We never know what to say, do or even how to act when someone goes through even the smallest of obstacles and a lot of the time that is why we try to stay away from the problems.  The only thing is, no matter where we go- problems will inevitably arise, thanks to sin.  We cannot escape obstacles and that is why we need each other.  Who cares what others will think or say?  It should not be our chief concern when struggling with a problem.  The most beautiful people, in my opinion, are those who are the most transparent.  We all have our problems and no one is worse than his neighbor.  I am so tired of comparisons and gossip- we need to work together and encourage each other in situations rather than point fingers at who handled it the "wrong way." I am convinced no two people look at a situation the same way and because of that we cannot judge someone for reacting the way they do.   A great reason why we must tackle problems with other people is because alone we are much more inclined to fail.  We can only handle so much without the push of a friend keeping us going on the right path.  We become weak in stressful situations and let our minds control us- it is in those times that we need a 3rd party to step in and bring us back to reality.  God does not call us to be alone and on our own in this world.  We are to band together and pray for each other.  We under estimate prayer too often and forget that praying is for us, not God.  He does not need our prayers because He is completely independent, however, we are dependent upon Him and therefore need to pray and keep a close relationship with the Lord of the universe.  We have to keep praying for each other, and working together because temptation never goes away and without solid support of people who will drop anything to help, we will end up driving ourselves straight into destruction.  

 ⁹ Two are better than one, 

       because they have a good return for their work:

 ¹⁰ If one falls down, 

       his friend can help him up. 

       But pity the man who falls 

       and has no one to help him up!

Ecclesiastes 4:9-10

I was going to continue on into my next rampage of thoughts but considering I am up late and losing battery power quickly because I am too tired to plug my computer in I will just have to post the rest another time.  Plus, I keep mistyping and am about to scream for all the times I have to hit the backspace button....

All You Need is Love

We were studying C.S. Lewis' "Till We Have Faces" in my English class and a few weeks ago my teacher had something along the lines of, "When does love turn into hate, or can it?" written on the board and it struck me in a different manner than I expected.  At first I, of course, began to think of the times I had thought I loved someone and once hurt by that person began to "hate" them, but then I realized that I don't think I really ever loved them in the first place? Well, maybe I had the first fruits of what I thought love was but I had not grown to the point of where I could get hurt by that person and still love them just the same.  I believe that kind of love takes time and experience.  You may believe otherwise but, in my opinion, love that is true, like the love of our Lord does not have room for hate.  It is such a shame what relationships have become now a days because love is thrown around to the point that it has no more significance than "I think you're hot" or something shallow like that.  Girls say it to their friends and even use abbreviations for it more often than spelling the real word out and maybe that shouldn't matter? But I tend to think it does because once a word is changed into a new way of spelling to fit text lingo I feel like it has lost some of it's magic.  We learn how to love from Christ.  Our imperfect love will never be able to last past the first fight if we try and do it on our own! I hate confrontation and would push away the minute I sensed it in a relationship, however, I never knew that confrontation actually brings me closer to that person until someone finally figured out my secret and held on tight.  It is a wonderful thing when you find someone who shows you they love you by never letting go.  So many times before I was convinced fighting meant the end of a relationship with either a friend or boyfriend, but it has taken me times to realize that fighting is healthy if anything! Of course, if you fight constantly there is probably a problem there, but in the grand scheme of things I have finally learned how to fight! How weird is it that I am excited about this? My friend told me that there were two ways to fight, dirty and clean.  Clean is the healthy kind of fighting between two people who have self control and just need to let off some built up steam.  Dirty is the kind of fighting that is set out to hit below the belt and hurt the other persons feelings.  I think we all fight clean when we are younger and then realize what an effect we can have on other people feelings and begin to take advantage.  It is not until we are older that we take responsibility for others feelings and consciously yell the points we need to get across.  This kind of fighting runs parallel with love, I think, because real love does not seek out opportunities to hurt the beloved's feelings.  It has come to my attention that we should all be a little more controlled in our anger and ask ourselves what kind of fighter we become. 

" We love because He first loved us." 1 John 4:19 I am convinced that since Christ's love never gives up on us no matter how many times we reject Him, our love should persevere for other people.  This is the hardest thing for me to do though, because I find myself wanting to choose who I love and who I let go.  I used to think selfishly about this and see myself putting so much into someone without getting anything in return, and therefore, want to give up on loving that person because in my eyes "it just wasn't worth it."  Who am I to choose who "deserves" my love and who doesn't? Luke 6:32 states it perfectly, "If you love those who love you, what benefit is that to you? For even sinners love those who love them." How are we to learn how to love like Christ loves us by only loving those who are the easiest?  We must love each other because we are all made in the image of God. However, my fault in such a pursuit of loving other people was that I was not seeking love from the right source.  I was giving all my love and energy that I had received from the Lord away to other people without going back to the fountain and refreshing myself, in other words, I was not filling back up with Christ after each time I gave away.  This is the dangerous mistake so many of us make and without replenishing we will swiftly fall down a pit of despair because human love will never satisfy the soul like Christ's love can.  

The Lord has surrounded me with people who truly love me and that is why I am so pumped about such a topic.  He has shown me, through other people, that love is determined and will not give up after the first obstacle.  Throughout the younger years of our lives, people come and go as they please and while I am just now graduating high school, I have been blessed to have a few solid rocks.  I know they love me because they don't allow our friendship/relationship to wither away.  It is a beautiful thing to be pursued, especially by someone you love and thank goodness I have a Lord who continues to pull me back to Him.