Fashion Evolution

I used to have a little.. shall we say, "problem" with fashion.

I HAD NO STYLE.



Some might say that I still have that problem.



Yes, that's a tutu I'm wearing.



My "space cowgirl" shirt.



Um...


But it's okay, since I'm evolving. I'm changing. I discovered the joys of flats and Alice Temperley and pageboy caps. My hair is a normal(ish) color.

And while I'm super excited to leave that red hair and pink cowboy hat in the past, I'm even more stoked that I've left behind the girl that lived inside those crazy outfits. Not all of her, just so many of the parts that needed to go. I've held on to the core of who I am, and been able to weed out many of the negative things about my personality that I needed to let go of.

Not in my strength. In His.

For example:

Major depression.
Deep insecurity.
Fear of being alone.
Resentment and jealousy of those who were in the places in their lives that I wanted to be.
Bitterness against people who've hurt me.

So, so wiped away. There is barely a trace remaining, really. It used to be my life, my everything.. the way I defined myself. Now it's a fading memory, a person that I can hardly believe used to be me.

Replaced by:

Hope that will not fade, no matter what seems to be going on around me.
Confidence in myself and who I'm becoming, but retaining a drive to better myself, not content to stay the same.
Peace in solitude.
Genuine happiness for those in "better" places than myself, and a revelation that I can truly be content where I am while still striving forward. A realization that we are all in certain places for certain reasons, and if we were all in the same place, it would get a little bit crowded.
Forgiveness.

That last one is huge... I've held on to hurt so many times, sometimes without even realizing it, that I've poisoned my soul with it, often..

It's amazing to be free. To love, unfettered, those who've hurt me. To accept forgiveness for the things I've done to others. To breathe in peacefully, not choked by tears of frustration and hurt.

It's ok to hurt sometimes. We are human and we have emotions for a reason. But it's not ok to drag it around forever.


I just re-read something that a friend wrote about me many years ago. He said I was "meekness with attitude".

I sure hope I didn't lose that. ;)

Regret, Schmegret.

The first line of this blog was originally "I have regrets."

But after having a sort of revelation the other day after hearing yet another song lyric, I decided that the phrase above isn't entirely true.

There are things in my life I would have done differently, for sure. Haven't we all been there? There's always some situation that happened, we just wish we could have a re-do on. Like when you're playing Super Mario on the NES and you enter the Game Genie code wrong... you hit "reset" and everything starts over, all mistakes washed away.

But what I realized is that regrets require maintenance.. they don't just have life on their own and continue to haunt you. You have to invest in them, give them thought and attention, for them to continue to exist.

I don't have time to maintain these regrets.

I don't have time to make myself sad about things I've done wrong, things I can't change. There is no point in being sad over something that's done, gone, finito.

I need my time for working out the present and the future. The past has taken enough of my time.

There are lessons to learn from the past, I agree. And for this reason alone, maybe it's good to analyze what went wrong. Not dwell, just objectively assess, decide what would have been a better choice, and move on.

And now it's time to set the bar higher.. and resolve that the present and future are not going to follow the same distorted pattern as the past.

No way.

Pride, Bananas, and Lip Injections

Have you ever asked God to break down your pride a little bit, make you more humble?

Oh boy, does He listen to that one closely...

All the little things I was placing my security in start to degrade. And all around me, the pride of others seems to inflate! Oh man, I'm feeling tiny.

But that's ok.. wasn't that the point? :)

A couple weeks ago I kept thinking, "What's going on here, why is it everyone's personal mission all of a sudden to try to 'put me in my place', especially when they are obviously not in a good place themselves, or when they barely know me?" And I remembered praying a little, fleeting, genuine prayer to God a month or so ago to "break away my pride".

"Oh yeeeahhhh.. he he he. about that one, God.... um, I actually meant, 'break down OTHER people's pride. yea, that's kinda what I meant."

Nope, not good enough. You asked, you got it.

I came to realize that when you ask for change, God can use anyone to accomplish His will in you - weak, strong, humble, proud, dictator, president, friend, enemy. Luckily I avoided the dictator one. But the validity of the change isn't negated because of the spirituality, or lack of it, in the ones God uses to help you change. Otherwise, how would He ever use me to help others? I'm not perfect either. It's a great system. Bump a few of those crazy imperfect humans around together for a while and they start to sharpen each other up.

Hmmm. No matter how few bananas I buy, or how determined that I will eat all of them before they go brown, one always turns bad on me. Every time. Banana bread!

While I will not pretend that it's fun to start to realize, and then start to lose, the sheer quantity of things in my life I was misguidedly trusting in (or finding my personal value and worth in), it is strangely refreshing to see them go, and also appropriate for this time in my life. I have a lot of things that I want to accomplish this year, and it would be incredibly hard to do it while trying to hold a pile of unneeded things in my greedy little hands.

Something worthwhile to note is that when you ask God to diminish your pride, He doesn't leave you empty. We only THINK that we need that pride, and as it starts to leave, He fills the space with new dreams, with promises, and with more knowledge and revelation of who He is. The tiny little world we boxed ourselves into and held on to with all our might became a vast universe of possibilities when we let the box get cut away.

So, if diminishing your pride has been on your mind lately, go ahead and ask Him for help! It's kind of a constant process. It can be hard, yes, but really, aren't some things just worth fighting for?

And it doesn't happen overnight or last forever...kinda like collagen injections. You have to get them touched up every 3 months or so. But aren't the results worth it? ;)



Bucket list:

Hawaii. August. Surfing.


I hate blogs without pictures. So here's one:

Doesn't it make you relax, just looking at it? sigh.

Holy Hands, Batman!

I heard a song today on the radio that made me think.

(I don't normally listen to "Christian" radio, sorry, but I just don't. I was shamelessly trying to catch a peep of one of the radio spots for The Uprising Conference. No luck so far.)

It said "I raise up holy hands."

Anyone who's ever heard a worship song in their life probably instantly has the whole thing running in their heads right now, but it was that one part the really stuck with me. Holy hands.

A devotional I was reading today encouraged me to take a look at my hands, my feet, my physical body, and think about the ways it can be used to serve.

My hands don't look or feel particularly holy. In fact, they look kinda pale and scarred up. They've participated, along with the rest of my bad self, in things that do not even remotely resemble holiness.

But then again, I think that sometimes we tend to think of holiness as some angelic, zen state, a way of being so perfect and so wonderful that we are literally radiating goodness and everyone around us wants to bask in our warmth.

Example: Chelsey and John reading the Bible in Hawaii when they could have been out surfing. See the holiness literally radiating off of them?



Yea. Holy Spirit fall.

According to the Bible, to be holy is not to be surrounded by a creepy yellow ring of fire (thanks, Photoshop!). It's to be set apart, free from impurity, pure, innocent.

Alright, who isn't already innocent and pure?? We're done here. Time for a new subject.

The downside if this is that we are all lacking in innocence. Some more than others. *meaningful look*. I think we all feel at times the weight of our own impurity in the face of God.

But we don't have to.

The upside is this: simply put, "God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God."

Namely, Jesus. Sinless man became the embodiment of sin for all of us who have done wrong. We are the "righteousness" of God just by accepting the sacrifice made for us.

Righteousness: "integrity, virtue, purity of life, rightness, correctness of thinking, feeling, and acting."

Done, and done! My hands are holy indeed, no matter what they've seen in the past.

Just like yours. Let's go out and do something good, maybe even something sacrificial, for our fellow man today in honor of the sacrifice that was made to give us those holy hands.

Warfare, Spiritual And Otherwise

Anyone else feel a heavier-than-ever spiritual struggle lately?

I've been having a heck of a time recently. I keep setting goals for myself in different areas, and I feel like everything in the book is coming against me to stop it. This weekend, something dawned on me.

I've been seeing unity running rampant in the midst of the group I hang out with. Friendships are being built and strengthened, walls are coming down and people are becoming more open and honest, and understanding and patience for each others' shortcomings is increasing. This group tends to be very spiritual-minded and very faith-driven, and we have a goal - the salvation of our city/county/world through an outpouring of outrageous love. As the unity grows, we become so strong, so much more focused, and even more driven than before.

I don't think "the enemy" (as much as I hate to even use that 'Christianese' term) likes it.

I'm not the kind of person that thinks the devil is behind every corner and responsible for every bad thing that happens. I think man was given free will, and when we exercise that free will, we reap results, good and bad.

We (as humans) use chemicals and pesticides indiscriminately, so we end up with people getting cancer left and right. We ignore speeding laws and end up with tickets, or broken legs. We don't control our anger or lust, so we have murders and rapes. We get greedy, threatened, or overly religious, and we wage war on those who have what we want, or what we oppose.

These things aren't the devil's doing, and they are certainly not God's doing.. they are man's doing. And yes, God could step in every time something bad was about to happen, but that only infringes on that most beautiful of gifts, our free will.

Sorry, that was a total rabbit trail. Ok, so I don't think the devil is behind every bad thing in life. But I do believe he is real, and I do believe he is out to protect his interests, which means that when he sees a serious threat (i.e., a bunch of radical, like-minded young people out to change the world), he might be interested in trying to distract us, bring us down spiritually, mentally, and/or physically, or worse, try to divide us.

I see unity blossoming in my relationships with others, and yet I feel like I'm in some sort of repeating loop in my personal life. I feel like my personal growth is stifled.

A few examples:
I resolved to get my eating habits in check, and found myself getting so busy, not having time to make food for myself, etc. and eating worse than ever before. I found myself getting more stressed and eating comfort foods instead of healthy foods. This area is significant for me because my physical self-control tends to be directly linked to my spiritual self-control. Also, because God gave me this body for a reason, and I need to keep it healthy and take care of it. I haven't been doing that lately.

I resolved to get my personal devotional life in a more steady and regular pattern, and I found myself feeling extremely physically exhausted all the time and hitting that snooze button til the last minute, and staying so busy that I could easily justify putting devotions off til the next day.

I'm usually fairly confident in myself, and lately all I can think of is how terrible I look, how terrible I am for not having the level of self-control I want (see above) and how undeserving I am.

This is not normal for me. Confession: I didn't go to church this morning cause I felt so undeserving of even having the title of "Christian", and that it would be presumptuous for me to even set foot in the place, because I had so many spiritual failures this week. I screwed up, plain and simple.

This is unbelievable, and unacceptable. I've never, never felt like I was so undeserving of God's grace that I couldn't even set foot in a church.. no matter what I've done. In fact, I've done worse things than what I've done this week and never had a struggle like I had this morning. And yet, there it was today.

It's so completely out of character for me that this is why I honestly wonder if I can put the label "spiritual attack" on it. Also, I keep hearing about some serious and life-altering struggles others around me are dealing with, and this weekend it all just came together- maybe we are struggling because we are starting to pose a very serious threat to the darkness that wants to control our city.

I actually like this idea.. because it makes me excited to continue the way we are going.
Because I know that no matter who stands against us, God is on our side, and we need not fear failure when we are doing what He asks us to do.
Because challenges make us stronger.

I wish I knew more about the idea of "spiritual warfare".. I don't mean to throw that term around lightly, but in seeing the extremity of some of the things my peers and I are dealing with, it makes me feel like it's deeper than just a confluence of random events in our lives.

I guess what it comes down to is this.. in my heart, I believe that the enemy only has as much power as we give him. I think that he does have the power to put challenges in our way, try to influence our thinking, and distract us with temptations (not that we need his help for that), but if we are diligent about protecting our hearts and minds, we can and will overcome.

What it may come down to in my case is continuing my resolve to press forward, being more aware of any resistance I may face, spiritual or otherwise, and strengthening my own determination in completing the goals I set for myself. Not giving up.

There are more serious and pressing issues in the lives of those around me, and for them I pray for the direct impact of the hand of God in their situations.

Re-reading that last phrase gave me chills, because I am really starting to understand the power of the "direct impact of the hand of God" (chills!), and it is incredible. There is nothing and no one like our God, and He is interested in teaming up with us to impact the world in a relevant way. It's not about the numbers. It's not about who saved the most people, who is following the rules, how much money is in the offering, or which political party or denomination you belong to.

It's about love.

If we could only come to a full and true revelation of how much He loves us, we couldn't help but overflow that love into every interaction, every waking moment. We couldn't help but impact people's lives, because everyone hungers to be loved, and in an unselfish manner.

How could the world not respond to that kind of love? Hunger could be eradicated. The pandemic of AIDS in Africa could be dealt with, and brought to a stop. Clean water and simple antibiotics could be brought to the places in the world that need it, stopping hundreds of thousands of needless deaths. All if we could just learn to love outward.

I just want to scream with joy- "We can literally change the world!"

My problems are so, so small. My God is so, so big.

I don't talk about my struggles to complain. I talk about these things because I hope that some of the things I'm thinking about or handling in my own life can be of use to someone else. I hope that someone can glean something useful from my experiences, failures, and triumphs. I don't believe that difficult moments have to be wasted.. we can learn and grow from nearly everything we experience.

I love my life. I'm happier than I've ever been, and look forward with great hope, expectation, and certainty to my future. My prayer is that the unity that I see growing all around me will explode outward, away from just my small group of friends, and into the church, who are the hands and feet of Christ here on the earth.

We can't let this world down.. we hold in our hearts the hope they need.

Social Experiments Are Just A Polite Way To Mess With People's Heads.

So, a friend of mine told me that she heard that girls who wear pink get asked out more than girls who don't.

I decided this would make a great subject for a social experiment.. and a blog topic.

Here we go.

First, I Googled it, because Google is a vast fount of social information:



I got quotes from Mean Girls, something about overcoming gender inequality, and an article about how even football players can look good wearing pink to support breast cancer research. Um, Peyton Manning could wear an entirely pink uniform and he'd still look good.
But that's a different subject.
To the right, you will see my Hulu tab.. I'm watching SNL reruns. Is it just me, or does Scarlett Johanssen stare straight ahead past the camera in every skit she does? She's like some kind of robot.

Different phrasing, maybe?




This one just brings up a bunch of topics asking if girls like it when guys wear pink. Isn't that the OPPOSITE of what I asked? You're not helping me, Google.

I turn to some men for help:



Sneaky bit: I didn't tell them I was gonna post it on my blog. He he he.
I don't know a lot of guys who will put up with this silliness from me, so my subject pool is woefully small. But here are my responses:

Subject 1:
"equally prob"
Ok, pretty vague, but still an answer.

Subject 2:
"I actually am attracted to pink. But only in the right form of pink. Raver and emo pink makes me vomit. Retro pink..makes me drool."

Now THIS I can run with. So what is 'retro pink', exactly?

Goog. (Sometimes when I want to be extra quick I just say "Goog", instead of "I'll Google it". It saves me like a quarter of a second.)



Ok, yea.. I'm picking up what you're throwing down here...

Then, a follow up from the same person:
"But the real question is, how do you want your male character to perceive this girl. Is she a lust object? An object of scorn? Or his true love?

I guess I can't pretend that in my imaginary scenario - strangers looking (or not looking) at a girl simply because of what color she is wearing - that she would be much more than an object of lust.
I explain that it's more of a general idea than an individual situation, then comes:
"In general, guys tend to associate color with sexuality. Pink is an inviting color."

NOW we're getting somewhere in the minds of these wildebeests. (BTW, I call my nephew a wildebeest too. It's one of my weird terms of endearment.) But then here comes subject 3.

Subject 3:
"Less to equally. Pink can be kinda boring and may cause a sort of unintended bubblegum demeanor, though it can be user-dependent, too."

Very, very interesting. Retro pink: inviting, hot. Cheerleader pink: vapid, boring.

Also interesting is that out of the 4 I asked, no one really responded that pink would make them more attracted, just equally or less attracted. Subject 4 must be working or something. No answer.

This was getting really fascinating to me, so I threw em a follow up:
(Camera batteries died. Use your imagination.)
"Is there a specific color that you personally find most attractive on a girl?"

Subject 1:
"Prob red or black"

Subject 2:
"To be honest, White... it's a huge catch for me"

Subject 3:
"Not really. Some people look better in brighter colors, some in darker."

I like these answers! These are some quality men that look past the outside and think about what's going on in the heart, but are still honest in the things they like and want. Love it.

When I started writing this blog today, I indented to actually do a social experiment on the public tomorrow, and see if I could drum up a little attention from someone random just by wearing pink so I could write about it, but now it seems too mean. And pointless, really. I don't actually want the attention, I just want to see if I can get it. And that's going a little too far, I think.

So I leave it at this: There are plenty of good guys out there that will look past the outside and are interested in matters deeper than the color of the clothes a girl is wearing.

Some of these good guys also happen to be my friends, and for that I am really grateful.

Thanks, wildebeests, for helping me out in my little social experiment. I love to try to understand more about the way you think. :)

Dreams That Will Not Die

Sometimes I feel like people shoot me in the foot and then become genuinely surprised when I can't run a marathon. It makes me feel so helpless.. my dreams keep getting crushed under the heel of someone else's ambition; by the actions of another, who, if confronted, would likely only deny it or justify their actions within themselves by saying that it is my fault for allowing such actions to affect me so.

It is my fault, for my actions are my responsibility alone, regardless of what may or may not be influencing me at any particular moment. But does that make it right for others to treat me badly? I think not.

I really haven't been sure how to get around it in a few situations, short of taking a completely new path, away from said situations. I just don't want to give up, to concede to failure.. but the more I've been thinking about it, the more I think that a change may be the answer in some areas. Forge a new path, away from the dream-killers and naysayers, from the ones who are not interested in investing in the dreams, and futures, of others. In other situations, battle it out.

Sometimes it's important to stand up and cause a ruckus. Sometimes it's wiser to find another path.

It blows my mind to see those within the church, particularly, sniping at each other, crushing each others' dreams. We are called to stand together and yet we keep tearing each other down, sometimes intentionally, but more likely through indifference, selfishness, or neglect.

We don't seem to realize the power we have when we unite. Sometimes it's so obvious to me, and yet I still lose sight so quickly, usually at the moment I let myself slip in my dedication to service to others. Namely, when I start to get too self-involved. These situations definitely reveal to me the things I need to work on in my character, as I often start to recognize issues in others because they are the same ones that need attention in my own life.

More and more I am experiencing the revelation that my dreams are not just gonna happen around me. Seems simple, but it's also easy to believe that I'm just gonna walk into them, that since good things have come my way in the past without any effort on my part, they will naturally continue to do so. Yes, God is a good God, and regularly drops blessing in our laps simply because He delights in being our Father, and acting like it. But there are things we have to do ourselves. Rather than waiting for "a door to open", we have to go out and start turning the doorknobs and see which ones are locked. Sometimes we have to go out and look for the keys, too.

Too much metaphor? Gotcha.

There are so many people out there who are only interested in their own good.. and will step over or on top of others to accomplish their goals. I would never, never, want to be a person who uses others in a negative way to accomplish their goals.. "using in a negative way" meaning simply that a person is damaged in some way by my actions in my quest. What I do want to use in people is their input, experiences, and advise in obtaining that on which I have set my heart.

So not only am I continuing to write out my goals and re-evaluate my progress from time to time, I am looking at each one very seriously and critically, for any evidence of abuse to others that I may have caused on my way. I know I can't change what's been done in the past, but I can try to make amends with people and make an instant and dramatic change in my methods, from this point on.

In all honesty, sometimes when I am hurt, I just long so much for an apology.. just a simple "I recognize that I've hurt you, and I'm sorry.. I won't do it again." I think this is a very human and natural longing, for reconciliation, and possibly some sort of validation. But apology doesn't always come, and in my heart I know I have to stop looking for it.

I realize that I really am alright with that.. though I do wish for it for time to time, I know it may not be forthcoming and I can have peace in knowing that I have done, and am still doing, all I can to make my footsteps right.

I truly believe that these kinds of situations are just a blaring warning sign for me not to get too close to situations where people refuse to even entertain the idea that they could be wrong, who cannot or will not truly lay their firm mindset aside and place themselves in another person's shoes.. such constant injustice batters ones resolve and is a damaging, heart-rending place to find oneself in. I'm done with putting myself in harm's way in this life for the sake of my ego, just so I can have some sort of friendship, relationship or, more likely, just someone's attention. I've done it before, and it's simply not worth it. The minimal reward in such a connection is not worth the damage.

Some days, I feel like I can identify with David when he wrote "Vindicate me, O Lord, for I have walked in my integrity. Examine me, O Lord, and prove me, try my mind and my heart." Obviously, I am not perfect and have not walked in integrity every step of my life. Far from it. But in many areas, I have made vast, sweeping improvement, and people around me don't seem to care at all, some even treating me more abusively than ever before. Which is incredibly frustrating.

But I don't want to focus on that particular injustice. What I really want is for God to constantly re-examine my heart and point out to me the things I need to change. I am thankful that He uses the people in my life to guide me, as well as speaking into my heart directly about such issues. I want to walk blamelessly, so that not only can people identify in me as an example of what God can do in a (formerly) messed-up person, but also as proof that it truly can be done. I'm not who I used to be! I am new and different every day.

So, sadness over this situation aside, I look forward to the future with extreme hope, as the fire for change and revolution burns brighter and brighter within me. I have such dreams raging in my heart, and I am anxious to continue putting them into action, bit by bit, one step, one jump, one flying leap at a time. I know there will always be those who say I can't do it, that my dreams are too extreme, that I am too disorganized, that I am too weak or small or insecure.

But that's simply not true.

Find me in a week, in a month, in a year, and we will rejoice over each others' triumphs. :)