A BRIEF Recap of 2014

The Christmas season is upon us! The first semester of my sophomore year is behind me and I am currently keeping busy with church choir, work, christmas parties, weddings, baby showers, and many other exciting events. It's a busy season of life, but I'm really enjoying it and can't imagine it any other way. Here's a quick glimpse at some things I did this semester...

Reformed University Fellowship (RUF) is a group that meets at school on Thursday nights for worship, fellowship, and bible study. I would definitely say it has kept me sane this semester. I looked forward to going every Thursday night, and got involved in a small group that met on Monday afternoons that I absolutely loved. It has been a HUGE blessing and I am so so thankful for everyone I've met so far in RUF.

The Christ Church College and Career Class (C4) has been keeping busy. I'm thankful for my church family and all the friends I've made over the years at Christ Church, and the college class is definitely no exception. From our Wednesday night bible studies to our murder mysteries at halloween; I'm thankful for all the memories we've made so far and look forward to all the memories we will get to create in the future.

I've gotten really involved in the church choir this year and I LOVE it! It's really been an outlet for me and one of the most relaxing parts of my week. For the most part, I can now sing in front of the congregation without wanting to run off the stage, pass out, or throw up so I would say that I've definitely grown in some ways. ;-) The men and women in the choir are so supportive and are always there when I need a laugh, prayer, or anything really. It's been a big blessing as well.

Work has been wonderful! I am so thankful to have a job that I absolutely adore. It's been a huge blessing to share the love of Christ with so many children in our community, and there isn't anything I love more. I have great coworkers and supervisors, I have great kids, and I would say that I have awesome opportunities to do all sorts of things! I love it! We're already making plans for summer camp and I couldn't be more excited! "It's a beautiful thing when a passion and a career come together..." I have no doubt that I'm supposed to be an education major. :)

I finished the semester with 4 Bs, a C and an A. Not my best, but I'm really proud of how I did this semester. It was a rough round with the classes I took: 2 science classes, a philosophy class, a class every Saturday morning, and then balancing those with my 'easy' classes wasn't exciting at all.  I have all but 2 of my General Eds done and I plan to test out of one of them and take the other one in the summer. That means I can FINALLY start taking classes directly pertaining to my major and I couldn't be happier!!!  I'm so so so SO excited! I'm at the point where I'm realizing I can finally feel like I'm working towards something instead of sitting in classrooms and lecture halls where I feel like I'm wasting my time learning about things I have no interest in.

That's it I suppose. :) 2014 was nice, and I feel like I was just saying that about 2013. I have high hopes and expectations for 2015, and I am anticipating many new adventures in the very near future. <3

Fickle Feelings

This is something I started before Christmas and I'm just now getting around to posting. :)

This time of year is really hard for me. End of the semester brings finals and papers and craziness, the holiday season brings hustle and bustle, and the weather is a serious buzzkill for my mood. I have Seasonal Affective Disorder which basically means when the weather turns dreary and depressing so does my mood. It has to do with my vitamin D levels being too low and the sun not being out enough to boost them up. I've really been struggling the last few weeks with anxiety attacks and depression, and it's kind of bummed me out.

This happens every year, and its happened this way for the last several years. Right around the holiday season it hits at it's worse. So what's a girl to do? While there are days I would love to stay in my footie pajamas in my bed watching Netflix, or throw on sweatpants and a hoodie and sleep the day away those aren't options for me. I have to get up each morning, fight through it and know that these feelings are only temporary...

Feelings are fickle but the Truth is forever. 

This is one of my favorite quotations this time of year. A) It has the word fickle in it, and you honestly can't sit there and say you read that word or say that word and have no response to it. It's a funny word. It sounds like pickle. That in itself makes me smile just a tad bit. Fickle means to be indecisive and moody. So when I hear the word "fickle" I associate it with the idea of a pickle with an attitude.

      

I digress...

B) No matter what I feel: happy, sad, angry, confused, excited, upset, delighted, terrified, etc. The truth is that there is a God who loves me through it and thinks I am His wonderful daughter. There are literally hundreds of words to describe the range of human emotions: furious, exhausted, ecstatic, remorseful, isolated, hopeful, confident, eager, disillusioned, insecure, anxious, optimistic, and of course countless more. Even when we're incredibly grumpy, have a bad attitude, are ungrateful, and are just the epitome of an emotional wreck: God still loves us.

On our worst days when it took an hour and a half to muster the strength to get out of bed only to head over to Kroger and snap at the lady checking us out and head back home to take a 'well deserved nap' God still loves us.
On our days when we're disgusted with the people around us for making the choices they're making, and being distastefully judgmental- God still loves us.
On the days when we're in a spastic disarray, nothing is going right, and we don't even think about God until we're crawled up in bed but then are too tired to give Him the time of day- He still loves us.
Because no matter what we do, what we feel, what we think we know or don't know, the truth is the same: Our heavenly Father's love is vastly deep for each of his children.

On the days when it feels like the world is a dark, bleak, unhappy place I want to hide from...
On the days when I wish I was invisible so people would stop asking me what was wrong...
On the days when I can't breathe because I'm terrified of going anywhere for no concrete reason...
On the days when I think that surely I'm crazy or surely no one understands what this is like...

On the days when I simply struggle through all of daily duties because I'm emotionally drained...
I can say to myself that there is a God, my heavenly father, who loves me anyway.
My Father wants to wrap me up in His arms and give me the gift of the peace He offers, and the reassurance of His grace and love on my good days and my bad days. 

Here's to the sunshine coming out tomorrow. ;) I believe in silver linings and finding the positive in every situation, and even when things seem gray (literally and figuratively) I know there is a hope in the promise that God gave to me.

We Are His Cathedrals by Mike Donehey of TenthAveNorth

The world screams,
“We are what we do!”
“We are what we have!”
“We are what people think!”
But Christ whispers, “You are mine, and I am yours.”

So night after night,
we keep singing it back.
“We are yours!”
“We are yours!”
“We are yours!”

And mysteriously,
what the Psalm says is true.
“The Lord inhabits the praises of His people.”

Somehow, some way, when we cry out together, the wondrous love of God, He dwells among us.

Perhaps even more wondrously though, He lives insides us.
As Acts 17 boldly proclaims,
“He no longer dwells in buildings…”

This God we sing of…
This God who was slain that death would die and we might live; He has built us into his body. We are His dwelling place.
WE ARE HIS CATHEDRALS.

Now, what does this mean?
For us.
For now.

Well, where does one begin?
It means at least a million things and maybe even a million more we’ll never understand this side of the muddled glass, but for now, let me give you three.

One.
We are God’s sanctuary.
His blood was spilt and walls were broken so that now, we are His holy of holies.
We are the place where His spirit dwells. 
We are His tabernacle.
This gives new meaning to following rules.
It gives new meaning to chasing your dreams.
We are never trying to win divine approval, Christ has already bought that for us.
No, we are in search of simply creating more space where He can fill.
And to be filled by Him, all we need is but merely stop chasing
the lesser streams and run to the waterfall.
"He anoints my head with oil, my cup overflows."

Two.
We are “sanctuary” for each other.
Like those great and mighty structures of old, we too can be a place of refuge for those in trouble.
People are no longer a threat.
They are fellow sojourners searching for that eternal spring.
Weary sinners can find a harbor for their souls when they come to those who know they have been redeemed.
We are safety for the stumbling and still waters for anxious hearts.
We have tasted.
We have seen.
And now, we can show them the way.

Three.
Since we are His cathedrals, everywhere we go, we bring the sacred with us,
The division between the secular and sacred has, like the veil, been forever torn in two.
We no longer need to seek out sacred spaces,
instead, we merely need to walk through the door.
Starbucks, school, or supermarket, there is not a place on earth that is not His, and there is not a place we can go, where He is not.
We have the sacred inside.
All the earth is holy ground.

So my friends, to be God's cathedrals, means we are the kingdom come.
It means we are the safety and sacred place of God on the earth.
It means there is glory and honor in even the most menial task.
Like Martin Luther once mused,
"The milk maid has as holy of a calling as the clergy."
It means the greatest thing we'll ever accomplish with our lives is bringing Jesus with us to whatever vocation that may be.
Our lives no longer depend on goals achieved or dreams realized.
Our lives are hidden in Him,
HE IS OUR LIFE.

So, let's embrace the mystery.
Let's proclaim it in every step and space.
Whether mundane or mountaintop, let us not be ashamed of what we are, for we are His!
Bearing the image of the triune community, we are God's place of sacred safety on the earth.
#WeAreCathedrals

-Mike

My response to the article "Suicide Isn't Selfish" by Katie Hurley

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/katie-hurley/theres-nothing-selfish-about-suicide_b_5672519.html



Here's my soapbox for just a minute. I completely agree with this article.

"Until you've stared down that level of depression, until you've lost your soul to a sea of emptiness and darkness... you don't get to make those judgments. You might not understand it, and you are certainly entitled to your own feelings, but making those judgments and spreading that kind of negativity won't help the next person. In fact, it will only hurt others."

Unfortunately, this is only one of two or three posts on the topic of Williams death that hasn't been hurtful to read. With the tragic news of his death, suicide and depression have been topics popping up all over social media. I've seen articles full of malicious, hurtful comments talking about how stupid and weak Williams was.

"Suicide is for lazy people who don't want to put forth the effort to be happy and healthy."

 "Suicide is for selfish people who only care about themselves and their own emotions. They don't care about the people around them that they leave behind."

Both of these statements insinuate the ignorant assumption that depression isn't real. Or if it is real, then it isn't life altering enough to produce a fatal result. You can have your own opinion, in fact you're entitled to one. But I highly recommend you do the proper research before forming an opinion on a topic you may not know anything about. It's so ignorant of people to say that they think anxiety, depression, and other mental illnesses aren't real. Invisible illnesses also include diabetes, blood pressure problems, lyme disease, fibromyalgia, lupus, and migraines among other things. You can't physically see those on the outside of a person, so do you not believe that those are real either? You can't look at a person and tell if they have asthma until they have an asthma attack. Is asthma nonexistent? Of course it isn't! You can't look at someone and tell if their depressed, unless they are having an especially bad day and you can tell that they seem down.

Take it from someone who has had spells of major depression, and still struggles with it from time to time.. When you're depressed, you get extremely sick and tired of being asked all the time "Are you ok?" "What's wrong?" "Are you sure everything is alright?" On the inside your head you reply No. I feel numb. I'm exhausted. All I want to do is cry and sleep and sleep and cry. You want to tell the person that your life has no meaning and that you're living in a wait for the day that you can wake up dead. You want to tell the person how scared you are, that you're afraid that you've gone crazy. You want to tell the person that you're heartbroken and you don't know why. You want to tell them the truth.

But you don't. Not because you don't want to, but because it simply takes too much effort for your weary soul. So, you respond with Nothings, Nos, and I'm Fines. Then you learn quickly how to fake happy till people stop asking you. You smile at appropriate times, you laugh when you should, and you go about your life as normally as possible. It's when no one is watching that you come completely undone and cry yourself to sleep every night. It's when no one is watching that you resort to self-harm because that's something that you can at least feel. It's when no one is watching that you write down the ways you could end the suffering.

This topic is a somber, morbid, and sometimes terrifying topic. I agree that it's unpleasant and that no one wants to talk about someone killing themselves, but I also can't help wondering if the world would be different if we were more open to discussing it. Suicide is such a taboo'd topic in our culture. If we were more supportive and sensitive of people with depression, would there be as many suicides in our country? If we told a depressed person that we loved them and wanted to help them through their difficulty, instead of telling them to "get over it." would they be more likely to cling on a little longer?

You never know what's going on in someone's life. Ever. So don't ever say that they have nothing to be depressed about. You don't know. Robin Williams seemed blissfully happy and content to his fans in the audience. We all knew he was an actor on the big screen, but apparently his role never really ended. He went through his whole life acting "normal" by acting happy and content all the time in public eye. We've all tried to pretend to be something we're not at one point or another; it's exhausting. Towards the end of his life I'm sure Williams was just utterly drained from keeping up the performance for his entire life.

In conclusion, I want to reiterate what the post by Katie Hurley explained in her post "Suicide isn't Selfish."

It's selfish to leave children, spouses and other family members behind, so they say. They're not thinking about the survivors, or so they would have us believe. What they don't know is that those very loved ones are the reason many people hang on for just one more day. They do think about the survivors, probably up until the very last moment in many cases. But the soul-crushing depression that envelops them leaves them feeling like there is no alternative. Like the only way to get out is to opt out. And that is a devastating thought to endure.

Be the reason someone hangs on another day. Be encouraging, empathetic, and eleemosynary*! Don't judge people for having feelings that you haven't experienced. Whether it's depression, anxiety, agoraphobia, OCD, PTSD, Psychosis, or any other mental/emotional disorder. Love them, support them, but do not scrutinize them for having feelings that might be beyond their control. Yes, that will take some effort on your end. It's hard to show love to someone who seems unresponsive to everything you do. Your efforts may feel fruitless and you may feel like you're yielding no results. That's ok. Don't give up on them. Someone who is depressed already feels hopeless, so don't give up hope in them. If you decide that supporting them isn't worth your time and energy, then who might I ask is the  person that is being lazy and selfish? The one who's fighting everyday to stay alive for the ones they love, or the one who's too busy with their own problems to be burdened with the "silly antics" of a friend or family member in need? Know the signs of someone considering suicide, and educate yourself on what a mental illness is before you make a comment about it.

Links to information on mental illnesses and depression...

http://www.nami.org/Template.cfm?Section=By_Illness

http://www.webmd.com/depression/

https://www.nimh.nih.gov/health/topics/depression/index.shtml

http://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/depression/expert-answers/clinical-depression/faq-20057770

Links to information on suicide and knowing the signs of a suicidal individual....

http://psychcentral.com/blog/archives/2007/10/08/common-signs-of-someone-who-may-be-suicidal/

http://www.helpguide.org/mental/suicide_prevention.htm

https://www.afsp.org/preventing-suicide/risk-factors-and-warning-signs

A link to the National Suicide Prevention hotline. Available 24/7/365 for anyone.

http://www.suicidepreventionlifeline.org

*eleemosynary is a synonym for the word kind, and means charitable. Encouraging and Empathetic started with the letter 'E' and I wanted to continue with that pattern so it would be easy for someone to remember. I typed "kind" into an online thesaurus and eleemosynary is what came up on the list. I have never heard this word before, so I thought that I would put this little footnote here to save you time from typing it into Dictionary.com :) 

I'm Alive

So much for keeping up with my blog in college. ;) In my defense, I did try for a little while. I'm fairly certain I wrote a thing or two here and there. Honestly, I have thought about it quite often. I've read a quote, or had something exciting happen and think to myself "that would make a cute post..." but I just never got around to doing it. I was going to write a post about my summer trip with RUF, about a weekend St. Louis trip, and a weekend camping trip. But I suppose those will go down in history as good intentions. I was going to write a post about this video too, but you'll just have to watch it instead. Sorry ;)

My summer was quite busy. I worked full time five days a week at my church after-school-care/summer program. It was awesome. I loved every single millisecond of it! The whole experience just reinforced what I already knew I wanted to do with my life. Sometimes I think my passion to be an elementary school teacher is border line absurd. The other day I spent three hours on Teachers Pay Teachers looking for all sorts of ideas and things I could use in my classroom at work, or things I could do one day in a future classroom. I spend hours on Pinterest too. It's a little obsessive. I have my own room for the after school care program at work that I share with an AWESOME co-teacher, and I'm actually embarrassed to tell you how much time I've spent finding ideas, crafting, decorating, and organizing my little corner of the building. I adore it :) I love filing papers, printing out crafts, cleaning up toys, wiping down tables, vacuuming the carpets, washing the whiteboard, laminating letters, hanging up bulletin boards, sending home notes (when I remember that there are notes to be sent), and every aspect about what I get to do every day. And this is just a glimpse!!! God willing, one day I get to do this full-time! It's a beautiful blessing when God allows your passions and career to come together so flawlessly and effortlessly. <3 But, like I was saying: summer was busy. Work, church activities with my college class, spending time with friends that were in town for the summer, family, weekend vacations here and there. It was a LOT! Looking back and thinking about it now, it was easily one of the best summers I've had in a long time. :)

Unfortunately, 'all good things must come to an end.' :[ School has already started for so many munchkins in Memphis, and I start back in just a week or two. I'm excited about this being my last semester of general education classes, but I'd be lying to you if I said I was thrilled about five days a week of 8am classes, AND a Saturday morning class. Yes, that exists. It's going to be a LONG semester. I will be accepting starbucks gift cards, individual packs of coffee, entire containers of coffee grinds, caffeine patches, and anything else that could get me up and going in the mornings. It'll be okay, and I'm committed to staying with it! My first semester I had a 3.7 GPA, and the second semester I had a 2.6! Lesson Learned: You're paying thousands of dollars for the class anyway, so just go. Showing up is half the grade. This girl's name will be on the Dean's List for sure! I'm confident that I can do it!

I suppose that's all I have to say for now. No telling when the next time will be that I can hop back, so I guess a "see ya later alligator" would be an acceptable goodbye. (:

Relax.

This morning I spent about twenty minutes or so talking to someone about how crazy stressed out I've been with a couple different things life was tossing my way. The person told me three or four different times in the conversation "the Lord will provide for you. He will work it out." And I just kind of nodded my head while inwardly scowling. How many times have I heard that? But, for the rest of the day God just reminded me that I was taken care of...
I found cash in a pocket that I needed in order to go out to lunch with my sunday school class. I found $9.00. Lunch was $8.87.
I was stressing about paying for a trip coming up with a group from school. I found out today I got a scholarship that covered the remaining balance.
I've been so. So. SO. stressed out about my grades. And even more stressed out about feeling behind. I sat down this afternoon and knocked out all of the remaining assignments for one of my classes that had the most work, so I'm ahead in that class. Then I had an email saying that the professor in another class was giving an extension on a different  assignment.

In the big scheme of life, its little things. Things that I may not remember. Nothing worth telling my children or grandchildren about 30-40-50 years down the road. But God told me through somebody else today "to relax." And when I didn't get that message the first time it's like he said "ok fine. Be that way. Let me show what all I can do if you just would calm down and pay attention."

"Be still and know that I am God"

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Passion in your soul bubbling to the surface.

Bravery to stand up for what you believe in. 

The taste of victory leaving a thick taste in your mouth. 

Watching him leave for something better. 

Despair for what you cannot control. 

Hate pulsating under your skin. 

Frustration burning you to the core.

Pain oozing from your knees as you fall down the hill head over heels, but towards the ragged ground beneath you. 

Your chest pounding against the prison of your rib cage. 

Menacing sounds that accompany salty tears falling fast in the middle of the night. 

Cruel words dripping from your freshly painted lips. 

Loving with an intensity that you don't understand. 

Aggression hitting you with a force you can't comprehend.

Withdrawing deeper into the depths of resentfulness.

Racing thoughts in the darkness.

Humiliation coloring your cheeks.

Trying and failing to catch your breath.

Overwhelming feelings of inferiority and inadequacy taking over.

Pressure to do more, be more, feel more.

Judgmental stares full of critical words piercing your skin.

The Color Red.