THIS DAY, TODAY

I guess I should start off by saying that I hate the word busy. And the past few years I have been weirdly adamant about trying to delete that word out of my vocabulary altogether.

I hate that we get into a habit of using that word to justify not having time for people. We use it as justification of not putting our all into something we committed to, we use it to cover up being sleepy and not being present, we use it as an excuse, and a miserable one at that. We sometimes say it to get people's pity. We say it when it's valid, we say it when it's not valid at all, we throw it around because we are college students and if we aren't 'busy' enough to use it as a frequent adjective in our life, then we somehow aren't committed enough.

But the current state of my life, to be quite frank, is the closest thing to 'busy' as it gets. I have time for people, but not always for myself. I have enough gusto and determination to put my all into the things I commit to, but I don't always feel like my all is good enough (for my own standards at least). I am sleepy, but I cover it up with caffeine and nap once a day minimum (real talk: today I had two naps).

I mention that my life is crazy once in a while, probably just because it's quite obvious to anyone that knows me that I have a lot on my plate this year. But at the end of the day, I lay in my bed and realize that while I may have this season of my life organized obsessively on my MacBook, the season after May 6th, 2014 is empty. Empty. As in, since the first time in... well, ever, I don't have a plan.

Yeah, so the queen of post-it notes, handwriting that looks like a typeface, multiple planners and a color-coded computer calendar, the girl that has every organizational app to exist, that girl finally doesn't have a plan mapped out to lean back on.

All I have is Jesus. And all I know is I need to be here.

I need to open my hands during worship with a new perception of what it means to have hands open to what He gives and takes away. I need His plan more than I need mine. I need to learn trust even though I don't know if I will ever achieve it fully. I need to wait on the Lord. I want the kind of heart and mindset that only comes with not having answers and trusting God to have them instead. I need to be present here more then I need to be pumped up for the next thing to come. I need this new prayer life I've found, prayers of the rawest honesty and vulnerability, I need more 2AM prayers with tears more frequent than words, I need reliance on Him. Because to be honest, the times I get this kind of reliance and dependence on Jesus are usually when life is overwhelmed by sickness or death or pain, but here's the thing... I want reliance on Him when life is good too.

I read in a book today that 'sometimes we look so hard for clarity that we completely miss out on the fact that a great deal of the wilderness and beauty of life is in the unknown.'

Today the future looks pretty unknown for the girl that's attempted to figure out a lot of answers in advanced. But the present is more tangible and full and life-giving and beautifully close to busy than I have ever known. And it's good. I am rejoicing in not having answers of what's to come because I know I have plenty of answers in where God has me right now.

And frankly, I am one happy chick to be exactly where I am at.

This season means living among the coolest residents that make me love life more and cherish laughter on the daily, this season means reading every free chance I get, drenching myself in worship music between classes, celebrating the last year of college with spontaneous adventures as much as humanly possible, this season means lots of weddings and lots of reminding myself of the joys of singleness, this season means lunch dates with people daily and weekend dinner dates with myself and Hulu, this season means catching up with the eleven juniors that have my heart and mentoring the coolest freshman I know. This season means red lipstick because I can, a nose hoop because I want to feel edgy sometimes, it means hair in a big bun most of the time because I'd rather sleep then do anything with it. This season means craft projects on weekends, singing at the top of my lungs to Ben Rector when no ones home, and hour long phone conversations with my friends in different places and very different seasons of life. This season means slurpees because I feel like it, naps because I love them, and chai tea lattes and homemade meals all the time. This season means late nights, early mornings, and afternoons smothered in design projects and running into people that a year from now, I won't ever 'run into' at all. This season means cherishing every 'last' I experience and reminiscing over all the good firsts.

This season is good, seeking to be present amidst it is beautiful, and I'm rebelling against my mindset of planning by having no plan of where to go from here at all. Call me crazy, or frankly just irresponsible, but I love it.

Even if for this day, or this week, or for this month, I don't care about what happens after May 7th. 

I choose today.

THIS MOMENT + THE MOMENT I HAVEN'T GOTTEN YET

I am good at dreaming big. I am good at coming up with extravagant ideas to execute later in life or when God gives me the go-ahead. I am good at planning for down the road. I am good at dreams of changing the world. Those dreams come often and easily. I am good at imagining up my family coming to know Christ. I feel confident in my visions and bigger pictures, bigger hopes. I tend to have BIG, big dreams that the world sometimes laughs at and doesn't 'get.'

I can do all of that.

What I can't seem to do most of the time is the little things in the moments I'm given right now. And the reality is, a person's life is a culmination of their days, not their days that have yet to come.

I don't always know how to make the most of one day, in Simi Valley, in America, when it seems there is so little that can be accomplished and transformed in suburbia. I am not good at dreaming dreams that transform the moments right now.

This seems to mark a frustrating tension. There is so much beauty in impacting and magnifying these moments right now. I forget that the day to day, average life can be just as powerful and God-glorifying then my going out and trying my attempt at changing the nations. And who says that sharing the love of Jesus to someone who has forgotten it or hasn't been reminded of it in a rich city like my hometown, isn't as God-honoring as showing the love of Jesus to a little child in Africa that is sick with HIV? Both point to Jesus. Both point to being used by God where we find ourselves in that moment.

What a privilege that we have grace from God, and that Jesus understands that some days scream KINGDOM COME and some days scream JOY IN THE MUNDANE, and both of those point to Him.

I am laying down the burden that every single day of my life has to be filled with miraculous transformation and visible answered prayers and crazy visions and me trying to be the most perfect version of myself.

Following Jesus day by day, dreaming those big dreams but realizing the power in this moment, right here- I am beginning to see and know that that is enough for Him.

PLAN A

To say that I have learned a lot in my twenty-one years of life, would be half truth and unfortunately half fiction. I haven't learned what it looks like to give up the things I cling closest to and rely fully on Jesus long-term. I haven't learned what it looks like to love a man without fear or to completely and totally trust my creator. I haven't learned how to cook raw seafood or make french toast. I haven't learned how to say 'no' without regret and burdens piling up on me. I haven't learned how to stop covering up my insecurities with cute clothing and I haven't even learned how to curl my own hair.

But I have learned one thing.

It is the simple truth I grasp onto when I feel like my words aren't doing justice, the Scripture verses I throw out there just aren't helping someone, my gifts aren't well enough received, my hugs don't comfort enough and my laugh doesn't result in their laughter too. When the constant stream of me trying to fix someone else's issues or me trying to bless another persons life is failing, or I am confused or unsure of what to do next. I resort to what always stands as PLAN A in my life:

Just show up.

The best truth that no one has ever told me, but has rather, somehow, beautifully and miraculously, been engraved into my life from the get-go. It just always made sense to me. It is my life motto of sorts.

Words will always fall short. Actions don't always fall as short. Neither does consistency. To be reliable and present in another person's life speaks louder in the end then a million encouragement notes and Starbucks gift cards... at least I believe so.

So today, friend, I encourage you to stop trying to be a certain person that you think some friend or relative or person you are influencing in life needs. You don't need to do a million things in order to change a life. The most prominent and influential people that have ever been a part of my life are the ones that consistently just show up. They may not have answers, they may not even ask the best questions, they may not make me laugh the hardest when I'm at my weakest, but they show up.

The main advice I can give to someone, that I can cling to and honestly know without a shadow of a doubt that I seek and stand firm in doing in my own life is to

BE YOURSELF.... and just show up.

THE PROBLEM WITH PEOPLE PLEASING

I used to say yes to everything.

Maybe, sometimes, somedays, I even still do.

A chronic people-pleaser by birth... aren't we all?

I think its the trap we fall into as humans. We are so consumed with making everybody else happy that we ourselves end up last on the list of people to please. We may have good intentions, maybe even the best of intentions, but at least I know that when my life is done and over with, I don't want to end up with the anthem of my life being "I lived to please every one else."

Eventually, trying to please everybody else felt more and more like pride then it did selflessness. I didn't want my reputation to be tarnished. I wanted people to know that anything they needed I could do, I could be there for them no matter what the cost and no matter what the scenario. I wanted to feel reliable in the highest sense. I thought that saying no to opportunities meant neglecting them. I thought that saying no to a project meant that I didn't want to do it or to help the person out. I thought that saying no to an event meant that I would be thought less of or just miss out altogether. I thought that every 'no' was offensive, I thought that every time I said 'no' was me giving the wrong answer. I fell into this trap, this rut that was hard to get out of. I just knew that I needed to get out of it until it turned into a grave and I no longer had a way to get out at all.

I am realizing even in the midst of an overload of homework and projects to do, people to pour into and a long list of people I should call and catch up with, places I should be, chores that should get done, and cleaning that should have happened a long time ago, I am human. I think and create and dream and can walk and can rejoice and can dance and can sing Taylor Swift songs at the top of my lungs. I am alive. I am living and breathing and have life abundantly in Christ. Isn't that alone something to celebrate?

I realized while trying to say yes and please everybody else I forgot to say yes to the desires of my heart. I realized that I am sometimes so focused on praying for Christ to give me the desires deep within my heart that I forget many other little desires lie on the very surface of my heart and I can easily allow myself to have them. Many of them are within reach. I just say no to them because I am consumed with saying yes to everybody else.

I am learning day after day to say yes though.

To say yes to treating myself to frozen yogurt just because I like it. To say yes to painting at 2AM because I am feeling creative. To say yes to going home for the weekend and lighting the mass amounts of candles in my room just because I know if I don't they'll get dusty. To say yes to making a fancy dinner just for myself because I love to cook but don't want to wait for a man to have a reason to cook big, delicious meals. To say yes to staying up late laughing and singing old 90s songs with my roommates, because I want to enjoy a full life even if that means acting like a child sometimes. To say yes to cute underwear not because I have anyone that will see them, but because I don't want to wait until I am married to wear Victoria Secret. To say yes to a spontaneous outing even when I planned on doing homework for the night, because its the spontaneous things I'll remember, not the nights alone with homework and Ben and Jerrys. To say yes to the little things. To squeeze all that I can out of my life.

In saying no to other people, I have also learned to say yes to myself. 'No' is becoming easier to say and saying 'yes' to life and joy and trust is becoming easier as well. I feel as though my life no longer points to stress and an anxious heart, instead, it points to freedom.

If I am given the gift of life, I don't for one second want it to go to waste. I am given this life and I wake up everyday knowing it is a blessing. I want to live this blessing with all that is in me, I don't want to live merely trying to please people.

Life is good. It is abundant.
And it is fuller then full  (especially with adding the word 'no' to my vocabulary).

LEARNING HOW TO LIVE

Last night I lived.

Living and existing. Two entirely different things that I often just see as being one. Last night they were two things though, because existing would have been an understatement. I was much more then just that.

In celebration of my birthday, my roommates and I went to my favorite Japanese restaurant in Hollywood, ate the best food imaginable, laughed at how awkward we felt in a place full of rich people and woman in less clothes then perhaps necessary, and celebrated. While they may have been under the impression that we were celebrating merely the beginning of the 21st year of my life, I think this celebration was a lot more then just that.

We celebrated friendship. We celebrated God's plans, which far outweigh our own (all the time). We celebrated laughter. We celebrated the blessing of living with girls that you can speak what's on your mind to, share your heart with, and laugh about absolutely nothing with. We celebrated not only growing older, but growing happier, more full of joy and wisdom, and more full of life.

In a time and century where its all about getting somewhere else, looking toward the future, and being antsy about what's to come, we celebrated the now.

And it was beautiful.

We drove home talking about girly topics, laughing about anything and everything, and enjoying the fact that God gives us the very things we need all the time.

In this season, in this semester, and at this point in my life: God handed me the very thing I needed.
These two girls.

Here's to the people in life that change everything.

THE DECEIT OF DAYDREAMING

I know that I am loved today because no matter how great I daydream, it could never compare to here and now. I am realizing everyday more and more that life on Earth is truly ticking away, if I don't squeeze all the joy and thankfulness out of this very moment, out of these hours and this day, I have waisted something that will never be returned to me; today.

Lets be real, to not acknowledge where everyone else around me is at in life would be unrealistic. Pictures of one of my friends' two babies and her husband pop up on Facebook all the time, the fact that I am older then her astonishes me still. It seems that everytime I log onto any social networking site, someone else is in a relationship, engaged, married, pregnant, someone else has traveled somewhere crazy exotic, someone else has done something remarkable and unique in life. My Christmas break consists of wedding planning and dress shopping for my best friend, a bachelorette party for another two friends, and a wedding for my childhood best friend of like ten years. When I sit down with all my girlfriends from home nothing is more obvious then the fact that I am still single and still going to school, while most all girlfriends are in long term relationships, getting excited about marriage in the near future and kids (!) even being mentioned every now and then, woah. Nothing is more obvious then the fact that most of them have jobs upon jobs, while I am just trying to pass school. Most of them are supporting themselves financially, something I dream of but have no time for with my life and schedule right now. There has always been this continual yearning for the future all around me, people talking about plans for things weeks, months, and years from now, while I am just stuck here puzzled.

How to live in the moment, how to be present, when all around you is a world daydreaming about things to come, is hard (to put it lightly). We are taught to plan the future, prepare for the future... we are preparing for the unknown essentially, working toward a goal that we perhaps haven't even established yet. When are we ever taught (or when do we actually believe) that this very second, this very day, is where our heads and out heart should be at? I think that being more present in the now then in the future, is a prerequisite for joy and a zest for life. I think that joy is never more present in anyone then it is in people that genuinely live in the moment and take it one day at a time.

Enjoying the now is underestimated.

Today I was talking with a friend about daydreaming and how deceiving it is. We as girls get lost in the world of 'what ifs,' this land of making lists about what we want in a perfect man and waiting around for him. At some point in our lives, we get lost in a world of planning. We think about our future so much that I question whether sometimes we idolize it. I think that I am beginning to see that one of Satan's greatest tricks is keeping us in this 'daydream land,' where we lose grip of enjoying what God has for us in this very day because we are too concerned with things to come.

Just a thought.

THE ART OF BEING WHERE YOU ARE AT

Today I went to class all day, made my own (really tasty) lunch and stopped at Target in between classes, came home and took a two hour long (really great) nap because I was on the verge of extreme unhappy mode, got dinner with a friend and vented about frustrations (really needed for both of us- being real and vulnerable rules), did homework for a few hours and just finished taking a little quick run (11pm runs rule as well).

The thing is... the to-do list of things I have this week is long, to say the least. And the stresses of life seem to be toppling in on me. There are a lot of things I could have done other then what I ended up doing. In my mind, as busy as I was today, I still have a lot to do and I could have used my time better. As normal of a phrase as that seems, I realized tonight how often that is my conclusion of the day.

I could have done more.
I could have used my time wiser.
I could have been more efficient.
I could have served and poured into more people.
I could have this, I could have that.

The problem in all of this became clear to me tonight: in the list of people that are hard on me, I am number one. I am my own worst critic. I am often closer to being my own worst enemy then I am a fan of who I am in Christ. I am often a perfectionist. I am often hard on myself to the point of being highly unrealistic. I am never content with where I am, always striving to be more and to do more. I often don't allow myself to really feel emotions, I bottle them up, or I vent and then disclose them permanently in fear of people seeing my weaknesses as I see them. I am in some weird parallel of being an emotional person and yet fearing emotions as well. But at the end of the day, the reality is I can never just be where I am at. And the sad part is, in that, I gyp myself of enjoying life exactly how it is, where I am at. I gyp myself of rest and peace and satisfaction and joy. I am too busy trying to beat myself, to be better, that it seems I am chasing after a shadow that will never disappear.

Life is not a game of being better in the world's standards. I will fail. We will fail.
We will never succeed.

The conclusion of the unsuccessful nature of my day also oddly enough, led me to the conclusion that I actually allowed myself to be where I was at today. On one hand, my extremely self-critical nature was telling myself I did not do enough. On the other hand and inside my convictions tonight, I realized I did do enough today. Today was the kind of days the people like me need more often.

Today I needed to have a real talk about life with someone, so I did that to the glory of God. I needed to rest, so I slept to the glory of God (shoot, that's fun!) I needed to get homework done, so I did what I could without heaping bounds of stress on my shoulders. Then I allowed myself to stop and not be hard on myself. I enjoyed the quick trip to Target and making a delicious lunch for myself while going on Pinterest. I also enjoyed the run to end my day and the worship music that spoke to my soul during it. Today I did what I needed to do to be full of the emotions I have very much so missed. The good emotions. Today, God beautifully met me where I was at, and I met myself where I was at also. Often, I forget that second part.

Even though today I was not in the greatest mood of my lifetime, nor was I the happiest nor was I at the joy-level I am usually accustomed to. The beauty of what today was, was that I allowed myself to be right where I was at.

I too often don't allow myself that out of life.

CHOOSING, LEAVING + LACKING

I am choosing forgiveness and grace even when I feel like I have no more of that left to give.

I am choosing to let Christ carry the burden I have tried to carry for so long.

I am choosing to believe the Word when it says that it is a bigger blessing to be single, then it is to be in a relationship. What a blessing that I get to seek and pursue Christ and Christ alone. He is the one whom my heart desires to make happy.

I am choosing to be okay with things not making sense, with lacking answers, clarity, and understanding.

I am choosing to spend ample time with Jesus and to actually spend time doing things that make me happy; foreign concept huh? We so often view the Christian walk as doing things for other people all day long. While it is great in theory, Jesus often spent time in solitude with His father, He spent time doing what He knew He needed to fill Himself up again when the world drained Him.

I am choosing to push myself to do bigger things that I once never thought I could do.

I am choosing to believe in myself and believe that I am worth something.

I am choosing to believe that I was put on this Earth to bring into existence a plan and purpose that no one except myself could do. (Woah). I am believing that my life was not a coincidence or mistake and that I am enough. Even if I am not enough for people at times, I am enough for my Heavenly Father.

I am choosing to move forward (even when I don't want to) and press on (even when I don't feel like I can).

I am choosing to believe in God's big, perfect plan, and pursue joy and peace even when it does not seem obtainable.

I am choosing, in short, to trust God.

I am also choosing to be exactly where I am at. 

I am choosing to be weak when I need to be weak and to praise God for weakness (if I had it all together, I wouldn't have to wake up every morning and trust God to get me through the day).

Also, I am choosing to praise God the days I feel truly strong and full of the fruits of the Spirit (it is those days I really see God's power at work, I am only strong through Him. I can do nothing in it of my own strength). 

I am choosing to not pretend or fake it. I am choosing to be who I am because at the end of the day, God's opinion is what matters. As clique as that is. It is true.

This is where I'm at.

This is not a declaration that I have it all together or am currently succeeding at these things. 

This is a declaration that I am simply trying.