Small Movements...

I am an adult.

I have a big girl job.

I have a desk and an office.

I am known as Miss McGillick most days.

What in the world happened?

I presented my goals as the department head to our board members at their meeting last night, and I was downright professional and charming. Who is this person?

I like my job and what I get to do (even though its exhausting and an introvert's nightmare), but I really miss the days of being a youth leader.

I think of helping out at student ministry back in NJ and I think of running around like an idiot playing some game, making it look like I was having the best time ever so that other kids would want to join in (and secretly enjoying every second because games like handball and ultimate frisbee are amazing), then getting to have deep, intentional, spiritual discussion with a group of ladies I LOVED getting to know, while leading this discussion with one of my best friends, then getting to run around like an idiot again for some kind of indoor game at the end of the night, eating any of the remaining scraps from snack, getting to catch up with all my youth leader friends in the gym while all the students got picked up, then sitting around a kitchen table with said youth leaders while eating freshly popped popcorn and laughing about something that happened earlier that evening or reminiscing about some other youth event.

My life was all about mentoring teens, and I miss that dearly.

Now, I direct a program that mentors teens, and I still get to have some of those cool discussions, but I'm on the facilitating end of things now, not so much the actually-doing end of things (or however else you would say that).

I miss doing the actual mentoring, but God still gives me small doses of it, like getting to lead one of the small groups today at STARS because one of my leaders was sick. Too bad for her, but heck yes for me!

God is still working through me, and hallelujah about that! I really never fully know what I'm doing, and there's something exciting about knowing that I can't really do it, and watching it all still get done because God is amazing and able to have anything He wants accomplished to get done.

He has shown me how much I've grown these past 1.5 years, and it is really awesome how comfortable I am with public speaking now, how confident I can be in front of my peers (or at least pretend to be), how I can lead large, obnoxious gregarious groups of 6th graders, and how I can balance a full-time volunteer position as well as a full-time job. What the what?? I really am an adult.

I am also trying to be more responsible for my personal health, and I've started seeing a physical therapist. I can't even get started on the symbolism of learning to take small steps to fix a large problem...maybe I'll process that some other time. Its very frustrating knowing what the problem is, and knowing that it will take weeks and months of very small movements to fix that one large problem. Can we see the metaphor for life here? Please pray for my patience as I try to take these small steps. The competitive side of me feels like a idiot when I can't seem to do my exercises correctly. Maybe I need to join some kind of recreational sport in the spring to have an outlet for my competitiveness...all the more reasons to get this physical therapy underway!


Positive story for the day?? Well, I had STARS and didn't lose my temper on any of the multiple teens that were being...well...teens, so go me.

Need to get this off my chest...

Apparently today was that day! (see previous post if you have no idea what I'm talking about) I took the time to re-upload some pictures to my more recent posts, so enjoy.

Also, updated my blog! You like? Don't really care if you don't, I do. And after all, blogs are all about narcissism.

Also, was inspired to blog a second time today! I have some stuff I need to get off my chest, so here goes…

Sadness.

Its hard to predict when its going to hit. Even harder to figure out what caused it.

Especially when its unprovoked. Is that the word I'm looking for? Not sure, but that's the best I can come up with.

I heard someone once say that sadness kicks in when we're tired. That's very true. If its been a long week, I can easily be pushed into a melancholy state.

But I wish we were all better at, well, being nice to one another.

Its hard to step out and be an adult, build a community. We all know its hard, so why aren't we all nicer to one another? We don't we encourage one another more often? Why don't we say 'thank you' to people that deserve to be appreciated, why don't we seem to recognize when someone needs to be told 'thank you'?

Why are we so afraid to be the first to "give" in any relationship? Its so much easier to be the one taking, but in order to take, someone needs to give. So instead of giving, we all wander around empty, needing affirmation, because no one wants to be the first to give.

Because when you give, you're not guaranteed a refill, so to speak. When we step up and help someone, we have no idea if they will reciprocate when the time comes, or if they'll just cross over to the other side of the street when they see us coming.

Jesus didn't wait until He was sure that His disciples were going to reciprocate when He reached out to them. He didn't wait to help others until they told Him how they were going to pay Him back. If He did, we wouldn't have the gospels. We wouldn't be saved from eternal separation. We love because He first loved us.

So why is it so freaking hard for us to be kind to one another? It won't bloody kill you to say 'thank you', to let someone in who is trying to merge on the road, to look up from your own space to see the needs of those around you, to anticipate that someone may need help, may need affirmation, may need another person to simply acknowledge their existence. 

I so easily emulate people in social situations. If everyone else is laughing, I'm probably laughing. If everyone else is angry about something, I easily join in without thinking how I really feel about the situation. I know I'm a fairly strong-willed person and not without a backbone (and can be quite loud about my opinions on occasion…oh alright, often…) but my need to please people often overrides that and creates a version of me that simply mirrors the attitudes of others. We can all do this to some extent, but my point here is that when someone else holds back and doesn't affirm me, I in turn hold back my kind words as well. 

If you don't want to reach out and help, I'm not helping either. If you're not going to smile and say hi, I'm not wasting my hellos on you either. If you don't think I'm worth the extra energy it would take to ask how my day is, then I'm not asking you either. I'm not at all saying this is the right way to go about things, but this is what I find myself doing.

Its a ridiculous version of survival of the fittest, where my fallen mind thinks, "Well, if I give first, then they're just going to walk all over me, so I can't be the one to cave first" and I don't want to appear to be weak or at a disadvantage. Its as if we're playing some kind of game to see who can be a jerk the longest. 

I want to stop playing this ridiculous game. Because I'm competitive and I will win, and who wants to win this kind of game??

It takes so much energy to give when someone doesn't return the effort, but isn't that what Christianity is about? I'm not talking about still giving money to someone that repeatedly doesn't pay you back. I am talking about heaping burning coals on someone's head…and for those of you not familiar with that biblical passage, killing someone with kindness. 

When we withhold all kinds of kindness and affection towards other human beings, we rob them of a simple pleasure. We are spreading sadness. Enough days/weeks/months of being ignored by someone takes its toll, and we begin to believe the lie that we aren't worth the effort that affection takes. We believe that we've done something wrong, we aren't likable, we aren't acceptable. 

We need to stop believing those lies about ourselves and recognize that there is the need to stop others from believing those lies as well.

We need to be kinder to one another, we need to pull our heads out of our butts and ask someone else how they are doing, and sincerely! Not just for the sake of asking! 

We all have value, we all have worth. Sadness comes in many forms and can be fed very easily, especially by lies. We need to stop the lies from entering our minds and stop spreading the lies with our apathy towards others. 

Jesus said the most important commandments were to love God with everything we've got, then to love others. So love God, believe what He says about you is true, then love others with that same kind of love.

As far as my positive story for the day, they say a picture is worth a thousand words, so here you go...

My Swanson moment...

I had a Ron Swanson moment.

I was trying to upload pictures to my last blog entry, and ended up uploading every single one of my pictures on my computer to google's version of "the cloud." I thought, No big deal, I guess if my computer dies, my pictures will at least be saved. 

But that wasn't quite the end.

My phone (which is apparently way smarter than I realized) started sending me random slide shows of my pictures. And not just any kind of slide show. Very specific slide shows, with titles, correct names of towns where the pictures were taken, and the correct sequence of the pictures that were taken.

The first one was kinda neat, the second one was a little intrusive. But the third one was down right creepy. So the only solution to me was to delete my google account and erase all my pictures I had uploaded. Enter Ron Swanson.

In my haste to preserve my privacy, apparently I deleted all my pictures from my blog. I don't really know what to do.  I could spend my time trying to find those pictures again and upload them again, or I could just forget about it.

Also ended up deleting all the picture from my phone. Like the ones I took when my friend that lives hundreds of miles away in Philly came to visit me. Confounded technology.

Maybe one day when I have absolutely nothing else to do, I'll take the time to try and re-upload the pictures to my blog. Today is not that day.

-21...

*photos accidentally erased from existence*

Currently it is -4 outside right now. Wind chill? -21. Of course I chose the 2 coldest winters to live in the midwest. 

Is it bad that it makes me feel better that the weather is just as bad, if not worse, in NJ? Sorry guys.

As cold and snowy as it is, this was the sunset as I was driving home last night. Had to pull over to get a good shot out the window of my car. Better be thankful for it, took 5 minutes for me to get the feeling back in my hands afterwards (note to self, clean car windows for optimal, 'indoor' photography).

Big girl update: I did my taxes this past weekend. 

For whatever reason, this seemed like one of the adult things that I would never really understand and never know how to do, and would have to depend on others my whole life get it done for me. But thanks to Turbo Tax's free option for Federal and State, I was able to get it done myself. 

Also, found a new family doctor. Its like I'm an adult or something…

During said doctor's appointment, I was asked what my occupation is (by my male, attractive, my-age doctor no less), and then a couple questions later, the obligatory "are you sexually active" question was asked, to which he answered before me with "Oh, well I guess with your job, that'd be kinda not good if you were…" I have some really interesting conversations these days.

With our crazy weather, I had a day to work on my current project: Plarn (plastic yarn) tote bags!!

Don't worry! In a little bit, you'll get a chance to get your hands on one of these, I promise! In the meantime, please feel free to save any and all plastic grocery bags you come across…and if you feel like mailing them all to me, I wouldn't mind in the least. 

One another note, there are a few other things I wanted to process. 

I feel like I oscillate between wanting to know exactly how my life is going to be played out, and then when God actually shares things with me, I freak out and can't handle the prospects of the future. Thank goodness God is sovereign and knows exactly when to tell me things, but I still struggle with my reactions. 

I've recently observed in my life how often I react negatively to…well, everything. I complain, I stress, I stress-eat, I stress-Zumba, I overanalyze, and I essentially doubt God. I doubt that this was the right thing that should have happened to me, that this was the right circumstance for me, that this was the right way I should be treated. 

I doubt because I believe I am entitled. 

Entitled to reward, entitled to ease, entitled to a break.

And yet I'm sitting in a warm (enough) apartment, I have clothes on my back and in my closet, food in my pantry and fridge, friends to see tonight, and a myriad of non-essentials that give me a life of general comfort. 

Yet I always think I deserve more. The problem is that what I actually deserve is not so good…judgement. Ultimately death.

That is always a good wake up call to my never-ending complaining, my never ending doubt of a loving God who took the ultimate judgment from me and for me. And yet, I still say "Please sir, may I have some more?" (Dickens quotes are always a good crowd pleaser, right?).

Its like that one guy that Jesus helped… "Lord, I believe, help my unbelief."

Lord, I trust you. Help me trust you.

My positive story for the day is that while on the phone, I was told by my favorite 3 year old in the world "I have a kiss for you" and while I couldn't quite hear the aforementioned pucker on the other end, I was assured it happened by the adult in the room with her. Oh how I miss all of you, my dear family and friends.