I find myself with the incessant need to describe my surroundings when I start a blog entry. Like right now I'm at work, my ipod is playing in the background, the fluorescent lights are giving me a headache and I can smell what I'm afraid is fish cooking in the cafeteria. SEE I don't know why i feel the need to say all this, but I have a sneaky feeling that its because i want all those who read my blog to get a genuine feeling of where I am. Or something profound like that :)
Anyways, Jan. 14-17 was another CVIF retreat. And it also happened to be my birthday weekend (yes I said weekend). So Wednesday night Jamathan (this is the nickname given to Jonathan and James) came up from Tampa and we hung out watched a movie or was it 24. I can’t remember I just know they were there. So we got up Thursday and finished getting ready. Jamathan left and we were right behind them when Lauren realized she didn’t have her wallet and couldn’t find it. So Rebecca, Lauren and I spent about and hour searching the house and Catholic Charities looking for it. Unfortunately we didn’t find it and Laurens thinks it may have been stolen. So the three of us took off and headed towards Green Cove Springs. It was a great car ride. We talked/counseled each other, danced like idiots, and listened to the musical stylings of NSYNC, Spice Girls, Britney Spears, and Hanson. Good times :)
So we arrived and everyone was just hanging out and getting dinner ready. We had a brief intro and then ate dinner. After dinner we had a husband and wife team who spoke about their prison ministry with inmates in solitary confinement and on death row. It was really interesting and definitely gave me things to think about when it comes to the death penalty. Friday we listened and discussed discernment for our lives. We then went and helped sort clothes and such at a thrift store that helps to fund a battered women's shelter. That night we had some alumni CVs come and teach about effective communication. We learned about "I, me" statements and how to discuss our feelings. It was totally a flashback to my psych classes but fun none the less. Saturday we got up and traveled to St. Augustine to spend time with the retired nuns that live there and tour the mother house (which by the way er kept calling the mother ship all day :) ) The nuns were so sweet. They were all in their 70s and 80s even a couple in their 90s and all but one were from Ireland. It was amazing to listen to them talk about their years of service and all that they had done. When were done with dinner we were released to go and do whatever we wanted around St. Augustine. Almost all the group decided to head to a bar to celebrate my birthday. We ended up at this place called Scarlett O'Hara's. It was really cool, there were all these paintings of the characters all over the place and fun drink names. We were there for a few hours and people started to trickle out. Around 11:30pm those of us who were left decided to go get something to eat. James had been talking about going to the Huddle House all weekend so we decided to try and find it.
Now lets pause for a second while I describe this place its essentially a Waffle House with a different name. Like the inside even looks like a Waffle House. But according to James the Huddle House is better. Plus apparently they are really friendly on facebook and twitter so they must be better. hehe The thing about this place is that no one knew for sure where it was. We had seen one on our way to St. Augustine but we couldn't remember where. So its 11pm in a town we don;t know driving around looking for a restaurant we think we saw. So lets continue shall we, so I get in a car with James an Kyle and Tina, Amanda, Zach, and Neal get in another car and we head out. After driving around for 30mins the other car gives up and just goes back to the retreat center. But James REALLY wanted to go so we continues looking. So after an hour in the car, going to the wrong Huddle House and random made up stories from Kyle to keep me awake we arrive at the Huddle House. So we arrive at about 12:30am eat and then head back to the retreat center. It was about 2am when we got back and we all collapsed into bed.
The next morning we got up did closing business and got in our cars to head home. On the way home Rebecca and Lauren picked up birthday cake mix. When we got home I checked the mail and I had 3 packages waiting for me. I was so excited to open them. I got some really great things from my grandpa and his wife, and my parents. So after opening presents and playing with my new toys, I went to a bible study at St. Margaret Mary with Lauren, Rebecca, and Michael. When we got back we had cake and Tina, Amanda, Chaleece, and Neal came over and had some too.
So the whole weekend was really fun. it was nice to get away from Orlando and work and just hang out with my friends. The next retreat is in April and it is a week long.
Love and miss you all
<3
Tuesday, January 26, 2010
Friday, January 8, 2010
Heavy and Light
Its 1:30am, I smell like smoke, my hair is greasy and I'm absolutely exhausted. But I don't care about any of it. i don't notice it. I'm riding that high you get when have a great night with people you love and the feeling you have after seeing a great concert that absolutely touched you.
After a long week of work I was SO looking forward to tonight. Tonight was the To Write Love On Her Arms, "Heavy and Light" kickoff concert. TWLOHA is having a 2 day conference here in Orlando this weekend and tomorrow is the actual big concert at the House of Blues. Tonight was I think a bit spur of the moment thingy. It was really cool. It was held at a place called The Social in downtown Orlando. The show was 18 and up so the crowd was older. There were maybe 100-150 people there. Everyone was just hanging out, getting something to drink and talking. What I loved about tonight was everyone was there for the same reason. Yeah at a normal concert people are there because they enjoy the same artists but tonight was different. people were there for the music but they were there because of the cause. Because they believe in what TWLOHA stands for and it mission.
Being in that room I was once again reminded that I am not alone in my struggles and that other people feel the same way and other people want to help. which isn't that TWLOHA whole idea? (it is)
The music was wonderful a mix of upbeat fun lyrics, and slow haunting songs about love, loss, and finding the truth.
One of my favorite songs was about the artists year spent in DC. How he was broke and depressed. A line in the song is "Riches of stories and poor of pocket" Chaleece was sitting next to me and we looked at each other and both exclaimed "that SO describes our year"
Another reason that i enjoyed myself so much was the people I was with. Lauren, Chaleece, Rebecca, and Michael all came with me. These people are individuals that i have come to love and cherish dearly. They have been there to listen, encourage, pick me up, and generally keep me going day to day. I can honestly say that if it wasn't for them and their love I would not still be down here. I would have gone home months ago.
The whole night was just wonderful and definitely something I will remember.
Love and miss you all
Wednesday, January 6, 2010
Invisibility
This is an entry from a blog called "Stuff Christians Like."
If you change clothes in a handicapped bathroom stall at work, never start with your pants.
For some reason, people in other stalls freak out if you strip your pants completely off in a bathroom. I find it’s best to start with your shirt or sweater. Focus on your torso until the bathroom is empty and then change out of your jeans.
These are the valuable lessons that people like Max Lucado refuse to share, but not me. I’ll tell you everything, because right now, everything is weird.
I learned the bathroom lesson after a quick trip to Chicago. I had spoken to a bunch of people as the last speaker at the Cultivate Conference. Then I got up at 4AM the next morning and caught a flight to Atlanta. I rode the train right to work, grabbed a clean pair of khakis out of my car, which I had left behind, and changed back into work mode.
Less than 12 hours later, it was like the whole Chicago thing hadn’t happened. The 150 folks, the speech, the Q&A session, that was fiction now. Fact was me sitting in an IT meeting looking at an excel spreadsheet.
Has that ever happened to you? You had a quick brush with an extraordinary life. You got to do something you loved doing. It was a mission trip you went on. You worked with some kids and remembered how much you love teaching and how little you like being an accountant. Or you painted or played music or did a million other things that sent a little shockwave through your heart.
“This, this is it! This is what I was created to do. I am alive in this. This is me!”
And then you went back to a day job. You went back to the real world. And that other thing, the music, the ministry, the whatever, faded back into the recesses of your imagination.
Those moments are not fun. Those moments can be incredibly frustrating. I will not try to soften the edges of those moments with pithy words. But I will say, I think I know why I keep having those moments.
My disappointment of trying to live an extraordinary life in the middle of an ordinary day stems from one simple fact:
I don’t want the gift of invisibility.
What’s that? That’s the season of life God usually grants before things get loud. Call it training, call it refinement, call it whatever you want, but it’s usually a time when regardless of your best efforts, things do not seem to go your way.
We hate those periods. We hate them because we are constantly searching for “Goliath moments.” We want the big, bold dramatic moments when the spotlight shines bright and we do something great. (A recent survey showed that something like 80% of the millennial generation felt like they’d be famous when they grew up.) No one wants the shepherd part of David’s life. The idea of being alone, in a field, for years with a bunch of sheep doesn’t inspire anyone. You can’t put that on a poster. You can’t fire up a crowd with tales from the quiet years of David’s life. But the truth is, you don’t get Goliath David without Shepherd David. Before he fought a giant, he wrestled bears. Before he became a king, he learned to be alone. Before he was great, he was invisible.
Maybe you are too right now. Maybe that thing you’re trying to start is not taking off. You’ve got a New Year’s resolution that you’re sticking to because this is going to be the year where you step out on an adventure and do something big for the Lord. But it already feels a little small. And that feels frustrating and really isolating, but you’re not alone in that.
Look at the Bible. Moses? 40 years of invisibility before the burning bush. Joseph? Years in prison before he became Pharaoh’s right hand man. Jesus? 30 years of invisibility followed by 40 days in the desert before his ministry became public. Over and over again we see the gift of invisibility in the Bible.
I’m in the same place you are right now. Yes, the book comes out this spring and that is a dream of visibility come true, but speaking wise, I’ve been pretty invisible. I honestly thought that after I spoke at Cross Point last July, I’d have the opportunity to speak at more churches on Sunday mornings. I thought, and this is a little embarrassing, that after I posted video of me speaking I’d have more chances to do that. You know how many times I’ve spoken at churches on a Sunday morning since July? Zero. Know how many times I’ve done that in almost two years of doing this site? One.
Then on Monday, I got rejected from the leadership program at work. Weeks after I helped lead thousands of people from around the world to build two kindergartens in Vietnam, I got told I wasn’t a leader. For the second year running. That’s not fun. It’s not fun wrestling with invisibility 40 hours a week in a cubicle where Stuff Christians Like doesn’t matter a lick. But I am convinced God gives us the gift of invisibility. I am convinced his timing is best. I am convinced he’s got me placed here because the people I work with need to know his love and that this important. I am convinced he has bears he wants us to face before we face Goliath.
That thing you’re trying to do, whether that’s start a ministry, follow your dreams or pour into your kids as much love and truth as possible, that thing is important. Don’t worry about your Goliath moment, it will come. And when it does, you’ll be glad you wrestled some bears first.
I felt like this entry spoke truth about my life right now. When I signed up to do AmeriCorp I thought that i would come to whatever site I was at and just blow everyone out of the water. I would help people and always feel like I was making a different. In my own way I was saving the world just a tiny bit. On top of that I was going to change who i was. I was going to leave the girl who was scarred by a past of depression and other crap and become this super confident, independent, super girl. (oh how i was wrong)
Fast forward 6 months and you will find me sitting behind a desk answering the phone bored out of my mind, counting down the seconds until I can get out of there for the day.
How could this be? I am the fresh out of college graduate who left her life, family, friends moved 1000 miles away to volunteer and live off $400 bucks a month. I don't deserve to be treated like some bottom of the food chain, idiot intern. I deserve to run around and save the world in my own way on my own time without someone bossing me around. (ha egotistical much)
(I have to tell you that as I'm writing this the voice in my head is yelling it, and saying stuff like "damn right" haha)
Yeah I'm telling the truth when I say all that. It definitely went through my head and still does sometimes. I def felt like I was wrestling with some bears. Not only was I learning to live in the real world, but I was homesick in the WORST way. A month after I got here I started the countdown to go home for Christmas.
But something happened while I was at home. I love being home and being with my family and seeing all my friends. But by the end of my visit I was ready to get back to FL. Let me tell you I was shocked.
Somewhere between the tantrums, the homesickness, and bad attitude I had learned to enjoy being where I was. I love the friends that I have made down here and I will miss them terribly. I even missed some of the people I work with.
Not only that but I have definitely seen how I have grown up in the past couple months. i accept my duties as they are given to me whether I like it or not. I manage to actually have money left in my account when the next pay day comes around. Growing up I used to think that being an adult meant you do everything for yourself. You figure everything out for yourself and only take help at the last desperate second. Being down here has definitely taught me that, that is a really stupid lie.
So yeah I'm starting to ramble and I'm not sure what any of that has to do with the entry I pasted above but I guess in short what I'm trying to say is, yeah I feel invisible, and probably will spend a lot of my time here feeling that way. But what I'm figuring out is sometimes you learn more, and maybe get a greater experience by being invisible. (or something like that)
Love and miss you all like crazy!
If you change clothes in a handicapped bathroom stall at work, never start with your pants.
For some reason, people in other stalls freak out if you strip your pants completely off in a bathroom. I find it’s best to start with your shirt or sweater. Focus on your torso until the bathroom is empty and then change out of your jeans.
These are the valuable lessons that people like Max Lucado refuse to share, but not me. I’ll tell you everything, because right now, everything is weird.
I learned the bathroom lesson after a quick trip to Chicago. I had spoken to a bunch of people as the last speaker at the Cultivate Conference. Then I got up at 4AM the next morning and caught a flight to Atlanta. I rode the train right to work, grabbed a clean pair of khakis out of my car, which I had left behind, and changed back into work mode.
Less than 12 hours later, it was like the whole Chicago thing hadn’t happened. The 150 folks, the speech, the Q&A session, that was fiction now. Fact was me sitting in an IT meeting looking at an excel spreadsheet.
Has that ever happened to you? You had a quick brush with an extraordinary life. You got to do something you loved doing. It was a mission trip you went on. You worked with some kids and remembered how much you love teaching and how little you like being an accountant. Or you painted or played music or did a million other things that sent a little shockwave through your heart.
“This, this is it! This is what I was created to do. I am alive in this. This is me!”
And then you went back to a day job. You went back to the real world. And that other thing, the music, the ministry, the whatever, faded back into the recesses of your imagination.
Those moments are not fun. Those moments can be incredibly frustrating. I will not try to soften the edges of those moments with pithy words. But I will say, I think I know why I keep having those moments.
My disappointment of trying to live an extraordinary life in the middle of an ordinary day stems from one simple fact:
I don’t want the gift of invisibility.
What’s that? That’s the season of life God usually grants before things get loud. Call it training, call it refinement, call it whatever you want, but it’s usually a time when regardless of your best efforts, things do not seem to go your way.
We hate those periods. We hate them because we are constantly searching for “Goliath moments.” We want the big, bold dramatic moments when the spotlight shines bright and we do something great. (A recent survey showed that something like 80% of the millennial generation felt like they’d be famous when they grew up.) No one wants the shepherd part of David’s life. The idea of being alone, in a field, for years with a bunch of sheep doesn’t inspire anyone. You can’t put that on a poster. You can’t fire up a crowd with tales from the quiet years of David’s life. But the truth is, you don’t get Goliath David without Shepherd David. Before he fought a giant, he wrestled bears. Before he became a king, he learned to be alone. Before he was great, he was invisible.
Maybe you are too right now. Maybe that thing you’re trying to start is not taking off. You’ve got a New Year’s resolution that you’re sticking to because this is going to be the year where you step out on an adventure and do something big for the Lord. But it already feels a little small. And that feels frustrating and really isolating, but you’re not alone in that.
Look at the Bible. Moses? 40 years of invisibility before the burning bush. Joseph? Years in prison before he became Pharaoh’s right hand man. Jesus? 30 years of invisibility followed by 40 days in the desert before his ministry became public. Over and over again we see the gift of invisibility in the Bible.
I’m in the same place you are right now. Yes, the book comes out this spring and that is a dream of visibility come true, but speaking wise, I’ve been pretty invisible. I honestly thought that after I spoke at Cross Point last July, I’d have the opportunity to speak at more churches on Sunday mornings. I thought, and this is a little embarrassing, that after I posted video of me speaking I’d have more chances to do that. You know how many times I’ve spoken at churches on a Sunday morning since July? Zero. Know how many times I’ve done that in almost two years of doing this site? One.
Then on Monday, I got rejected from the leadership program at work. Weeks after I helped lead thousands of people from around the world to build two kindergartens in Vietnam, I got told I wasn’t a leader. For the second year running. That’s not fun. It’s not fun wrestling with invisibility 40 hours a week in a cubicle where Stuff Christians Like doesn’t matter a lick. But I am convinced God gives us the gift of invisibility. I am convinced his timing is best. I am convinced he’s got me placed here because the people I work with need to know his love and that this important. I am convinced he has bears he wants us to face before we face Goliath.
That thing you’re trying to do, whether that’s start a ministry, follow your dreams or pour into your kids as much love and truth as possible, that thing is important. Don’t worry about your Goliath moment, it will come. And when it does, you’ll be glad you wrestled some bears first.
I felt like this entry spoke truth about my life right now. When I signed up to do AmeriCorp I thought that i would come to whatever site I was at and just blow everyone out of the water. I would help people and always feel like I was making a different. In my own way I was saving the world just a tiny bit. On top of that I was going to change who i was. I was going to leave the girl who was scarred by a past of depression and other crap and become this super confident, independent, super girl. (oh how i was wrong)
Fast forward 6 months and you will find me sitting behind a desk answering the phone bored out of my mind, counting down the seconds until I can get out of there for the day.
How could this be? I am the fresh out of college graduate who left her life, family, friends moved 1000 miles away to volunteer and live off $400 bucks a month. I don't deserve to be treated like some bottom of the food chain, idiot intern. I deserve to run around and save the world in my own way on my own time without someone bossing me around. (ha egotistical much)
(I have to tell you that as I'm writing this the voice in my head is yelling it, and saying stuff like "damn right" haha)
Yeah I'm telling the truth when I say all that. It definitely went through my head and still does sometimes. I def felt like I was wrestling with some bears. Not only was I learning to live in the real world, but I was homesick in the WORST way. A month after I got here I started the countdown to go home for Christmas.
But something happened while I was at home. I love being home and being with my family and seeing all my friends. But by the end of my visit I was ready to get back to FL. Let me tell you I was shocked.
Somewhere between the tantrums, the homesickness, and bad attitude I had learned to enjoy being where I was. I love the friends that I have made down here and I will miss them terribly. I even missed some of the people I work with.
Not only that but I have definitely seen how I have grown up in the past couple months. i accept my duties as they are given to me whether I like it or not. I manage to actually have money left in my account when the next pay day comes around. Growing up I used to think that being an adult meant you do everything for yourself. You figure everything out for yourself and only take help at the last desperate second. Being down here has definitely taught me that, that is a really stupid lie.
So yeah I'm starting to ramble and I'm not sure what any of that has to do with the entry I pasted above but I guess in short what I'm trying to say is, yeah I feel invisible, and probably will spend a lot of my time here feeling that way. But what I'm figuring out is sometimes you learn more, and maybe get a greater experience by being invisible. (or something like that)
Love and miss you all like crazy!
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