The Grand Canyon in a Day...

I have found that as much as I desire to blog everyday I must wait patiently for the right moment or my words will be empty, forced and meaningless. As many of you will not find surprising the "moment" for this blog came in the form of a question from Logan, my best friend. In the midst of ruining a sweet text message I sent him that said something to the affect of the fact that I missed having an adventure with him today. He started challenging me about what adventures I am having on my own. While perturbed that he did not send back some nice response about how he missed me too he, as he always does, got me to thinking. What kind of adventures am I having? Well here is the exact text message I sent him back, “I’m learning all sorts of new things…like cooking things and workout things and house things and grown up networking things. I’m taking lots of steps with my business. I’m mostly having the adventure of being alone and loving it. I have an adventure every time I look in the mirror because I haven’t looked in it in days and not felt beautiful…I NEVER thought I would feel like that. Every time I open Genesis at night it is an adventure of questions”. Pretty solid answer, huh?! That will teach him to ruin my sweet I miss you text message! Ok but really it was so affirming to put all of my “adventures” into words.

I wrote down this quote from the movie UP several weeks ago and just knew it would tie into my next blog and it just does perfectly! “It might sound boring but I think it’s the boring stuff I'll remember the most.” A lot of people might read my response to the question, “what kind of adventures have you been having” and think wow those don’t sound like adventures at all…they sound rather boring. I really could not argue with them. I have not done any world traveling, saving of lives or life changing decision making in the last month. I have not won a million dollars or even gotten a dog but what I have been doing is LIVING. I have been living everyday and so everyday has had tremendous adventure potential.

The relationships we have with other people are often boring in the world’s eyes, but our little adventures in the day to day are the things we will remember with those people. When I wrote down that quote from UP I was watching it in the middle of an all night, all day, slumber party, movie marathon adventure with my best friend Tiffany (yes I have mentioned two best friends in this blog but don’t worry they get along and may actually like each other better than they like me). It was absolutely nothing special to anyone on the outside…we stayed in the same clothes the whole time, ate lots of terrible food and watched movie after movie but to us it was an ADVENTURE. To us it was the stuff we will “remember the most”. Why have we let the world discount those kinds of adventures? Why doesn’t the boring stuff count? One of my favorite adventures to take with Logan…grocery shopping. Now while everything with Logan is a bit more exciting than your average adult (because he tends to act like a pre-schooler in public) it is still your mundane, average trip to Wal-Mart. We get a basket, I take out my OCD shopping list, we walk the aisles, argue over self-checkout (my preference) or cashier check-out (his lazy preference), bag our groceries, pay and head home. This is not the stuff that movies are made of...

WE DO NOT LIVE IN A MOVIE. I am sorry to burst your bubble, especially if you think you are living in a Disney princess movie (I could absolutely write a whole blog on that). We need to recognize and legitimize our daily adventures. If we go back to this idea of a page at a time than our "big" adventures are going to have to consist of several pages, unless you plan on hiking the Grand Canyon in a day which is actually not doable, you have to take two days, they have a half-way camp and everything. Our "big" adventures are really going to have to be page adventures, day to day, simple, boring, mundane adventures that accumulate to make awesome chapter adventures and then with any luck (or faith) an awesome adventure novel. I know this may not seem like rocket science to anyone and that is because it isn't, but in a country where we are told that you need to be the best of the best and have these crazy movie, fairytale stories I think it is a nice reminder. You are worthy of an adventure, your life story is worthy of being told, but the first person who has to recognize that is YOU. Once you decide to start living an adventure, just you (and the Lord), not dependent on anyone else to make your page worth reading than you will be amazed how the "boring stuff" takes on new meaning, new color, new life. "The adventure of being alone" was how I put it in my answer to Logan. I challenge you to put your adventures to "paper" whether in the form of a blog, a journal, a piece of art, music or something even cooler. Decide today that the pages you are living are worth recording. What adventure did you put on your page today?

Ten times a day I cry...just to prove that I'm alive

What is your drug of choice? Mine you ask? Crying...I love to cry. As of late I am on the no plan plan and so I cry a lot, all the time, as a regular part of my day, until I cannot cry anymore. I am not looking for sympathy here...if anything I hope to provide a laugh or two...but this whole crying thing is just a symptom, a band-aid, a drug. I cry not because it is fixing anything, not because I think that I need an emotional release. I cry because it makes it feel better...it makes it FEEL better. But only for a while, usually about a day (I tend to cry each night). Cocaine makes people feel better, so does lots of alcohol, cutting oneself, eating disorders and sex without commitment and a lot of other things that are not good for you. My ever blunt best friend pointed out recently that crying is my cocaine and I could not for a moment argue with him. I am crying because I am not in control. Because I hate that I am not in control. Because I am worried, constantly worried, about not being in control. Succinctly put, I have control issues.

I cry when I fail to live on today's page. So my last ten pages or so (ok...ok...probably more like 20 or 30) are full of crying. What absolutely boring, useless, NOT STORY PROGRESSING PAGES. So do you begin to see the vicious cycle? When I fill my pages with a very temporary band-aid I have to keep addressing the wound day after day and then I end up crying because I am not progressing in my story because I am crying all the time. Yuck!

So the opposite of crying would be laughing and if we look at words related to laughing we might list joy, happiness, goodness. Ok stay with me (even if you aren't all about Jesus), I know it is a little bit after Christmas but we are going to take just a second to look at a part of the Christmas story. "But the angel said to them, 'Do not be afraid. I bring you good news of great joy that will be for all the people'. (Luke 2:10)" And the first word of verse 11 TODAY!!!!!! What if that is how we wrote our pages? No matter our religious convictions, what if we woke up every morning and said, "TODAY I bring you good news of great joy for all the people!" Because here is what is so incredible about writing that sentence on our page...if we would begin to focus on bringing good news and great joy to all people we would, without even knowing it, begin to fill our pages with good news and great joy for ourselves. And what are we doing exactly? Waiting around to bring the good news and great joy TOMORROW...it just does not have the same ring to it. Imagine that little chubby boy in the oversized bathrobe in the church Christmas pageant who can't say his R's saying, "TOMOWWOW I bwing you good news of gweat joy fow all people!" and then the cute little shepehers snickering and saying, "TOMOWWOW?!!! You should have said TODAY!" The shepherds celebrated their good news and great joy by sharing their celebration with OTHERS! If we will continue to focus not only on today's page but on OTHERS in our todays we will be forced to find the good news and great joy in our today that we can share. Just by the sheer length of this paragraph we won't have time to cry (or waste precious time with your drug of choice) if we are focusing on others in our today. And good news and great joy just don't pair well with crying...laughter works much better.

The title of this blog comes from a great song titled Great Big Mystery by an artist named Bethany Dillon. The song is from her self titled album and if you are looking for a great cd that will meet you where you are at and just minister to your heart I would absolutely recommend it. I think I will be listening to it a lot in the next few days so there may be more lyric inspired blogging to come.

Your crying, your drug is NOT proving you are alive, it is not filling your pages, your todays with meaning it is doing a poor job of numbing your hurt, of quieting a symptom of a deeper hurt (another blog to come) and it is creating a vicious cycle. BE CAREFUL...do not let "helping others" become your drug. Don't just fill your today with volunteering so that you do not have to address the hurt. You have to get to the root, you have to dig deep into the pain, sometimes you have to cry and we all need to be broken but while you are doing all of this you can live on today's page. YOU, in your broken, messed up, torn apart state can write the name of someone else into your story. Who did you put on your page today?

Holly

What are you scared of?

What are you scared of? I asked this question to Logan (my best friend) yesterday, and actually the day before too, but yesterday was when he was able to put his thoughts into words. "I am scared that I will miss something in my life, like my wife, a job, some great opprotunity." Read his response again because there is a common theme in his fears...the future. Why do we fear something we are not in control of and more importantly something that we are not guaranteed? I am not picking on Logan here at all, anyone that has ever even stumbled upon me in a grocery store knows I am professional about worrying about the future. I think Logan makes for a better example because he is usually so good at living fully in the today so to hear that he is scared of the future confirms to me that everyone will struggle with this unreasonable fear at some point. What am I scared of? Well I did not even know (concisoulsy) what I was sacred of until last night, but if you have ever been in a high trust realationship with someone (a blog will be coming about that) they can help you put words to things you did not even know were inside of you. Last night Logan did that with a comment that really hurt my feelings. He said, "Not everyone wants to kiss you". Which thankfully opened a floodgate of fears (and tears) that then I was able to begin addressing, and I still have a lot of addressing to do. I'm scared that no one is ever going to want to kiss me, at least not forever. I am scared that no boy is ever going to like and enjoy me long term. We may have fun for a while but then I will "mess it up". I am afraid, from some deep down unreasonable place that my husband will grow tired of me, that the sex will become unenjoyable and that he will leave me. There are a lot of you reading this thinking that is ridiculous and it is but I think if you will stop and answer the question yourself you most likely have some fear of the future that is just as ridiculous. Something that you have no control over and that you are not guaranteed. What are you scared of?


So what do we do with this fear? If I am really aiming not for my novel but a page a day how do I approach these things that I am scared of? Let's go back to Logan because he is a boy and they tend to be much simpler and personally I need more simple in my life. So he tells me what he is scared of and then I pose the obvious follow-up question, "What are you going to do about it?". "Stop worrying." It is just that simple, right? Just stop worrying. Does that answer almost chap you off? For those of you who know him can you just hear him saying it in his matter of fact voice, "Stop worrying". But instead of getting angry (or kicking him in the shin) I asked another question, "Because right now you are happy in the TODAY? You feel like you are doing the right thing in the TODAY?" and then came another boy length answer but it was all I needed to understand..."Yes". You see Logan is writing his story page by page. His fear about missing something in his future is farther along in his novel, his wife, his job, etc. are most likely pages and pages away from TODAY's page. If we are going to write a great story we must give our full attention and investment to TODAY's page, for if we are constantly splitting ourselves between page 89 and page 650 both pages are just going to be mediocre. Focus on page 89 today. Are you happy on page 89? Do you feel like you are doing the right thing on page 89? What did you put on your page 89 today?

Holly

Is my life exciting enough for a blog?

Well I am now officially an unemployed college graduate, so now when I have nothing to write about is when I finally decide to start a blog. One of my best friends from home (Hi Julie) has been asking me for years to take the time to write a little bit about all that was happening in my life but I guess I was just "too busy". I have this really big dream that this blog will become something bigger than me...that somehow by just putting my thoughts to paper (or computer screen) God can use me to touch people. For now this will be a place for me to stay connected to those I love and to engage with hopefully a few people I have never met. A part of me wishes I could give you a preview of what is to come...will I be blogging from a foreign country, as I get ready for my wedding (you know I had to at least wish), from a corporate office in downtown Dallas or as a full-time seminary student? So much of me though is excited that you will have to visit this blog often to see what my TODAY has held. I have started to realize how much I think the Lord puts the pen of our life story in our hands. I don't know much about writing, my mom still proofreads my papers, but I am quite sure that one doesn't sit down and write a novel in a day. I think that is my problem. I have been trying to write the novel of my life in a day. So I am working on a page a day. Doesn't that sound more doable? Less scary? I think so. It is hard for a planner like me. I would at least like an outline for my novel but God just doesn't want to hand it over. So here it is my first blog about how I have nothing to blog about. My challenge to myself is to "put something on the page" of my life everyday. Even if it is small, unexciting and seems meaningless I have this confidence (faith maybe) that my small pages will add up to a classic novel. What did you put on your page today?

Happy Monday!
Holly