What comes next...

A few weeks ago I posted that I was afraid of what the future holds. I had been experiencing some doubt about my life and its direction and I found myself stuck between terrified and hopeless. I realized tonight that I have wasted a lot of time feeling that way and worrying about the future.

The life I lead right now is so much a story of miracles, and hope, and truth. For the last six years I have dealt with some pretty intense medical problems and despite all the doctors, hospitals, and medication, I have risen above it and found my way to my senior year in college. I am applying to graduate school and working some pretty awesome jobs that challenge my body, my mind, and my soul.

I used to think I never want to do "this" for the rest of my life. I always thought that working retail or food service or whatever it was that I was doing was not good enough for me. And granted I have dreams and I have goals and I want to do great things, but the things I do now are great too.

When I am tutoring someone at school and they get it and start to believe they can in fact succeed, I feel that greatness. When I am pushing through the last hour of my shift at my second job, even though every muscle in my body hurts, I feel worthy. When I am helping a student in the library and giving them the smallest glimmer of hope that their assignment is possible, I feel competent.

I realize that there is this quiet nobility in taking whatever it is that is in front of you and doing it well. There is a kind of honor in believing nothing is beneath you and no one is less than you. 

So no matter how rude a customer might be at work, I am going to smile and welcome them. I am going to treat them like they don't deserve and hope that my kindness will outshine whatever makes them so bitter. Whenever a student is rude to me in the library I am going to keep believing in the goodness of people and not become bitter myself.

I am going to believe in the good things in my life and trust that they will lead to some great future. I don't deny that there is pain in the world and I know that bad things happen all the time, but I believe that the good things are worth my time and energy. There is always a silver lining and even when it seems impossible to see, I am going to keep searching and keep moving forward because that's all I can do.

I think one of the reasons we feel overwhelmed, sad, and even hopeless, is because we spend so much time trying to fix things and we miss the magic in our lives. Sort of like the child that still believes in Santa, we have to look to the miracles to give us hope and all the pain and junk will seem less important.

At least that's how I feel right now. My life isn't perfect. I am struggling, just like we all do. But I am working hard, moving forward, and proud of who I am.

So even as I lay here with tired eyes and tired muscles, I am going to get up tomorrow and do it all again because there is a quiet nobility and honor in working hard and achieving greatness. Even if that greatness looks different to me than it might to you.

Look for the magic in the world today, tomorrow, and everyday.

Good night world. I love you all.

SD

'tis the season to be... materialistic?

I was thinking about Christmas today and all that there is to do and see during the holidays. For some reason when I was little I enjoyed the madness starting around Thanksgiving, but now days it's more a hassle than enjoyable. Maybe it comes from working retail and food service on too many black Fridays. Maybe it comes from the lack of money and time to shop for things. Maybe it's because I hate Christmas music.

It's hard sometimes to not feel like a scrooge this time of year. It's because every time "Grandma Got Run Over by a Reindeer" comes on the radio I cringe. It's because I am disgusted by the amount of money, time, and energy spent on gift giving. Don't get me wrong, I love  present as much as the next poor college student, but I guess when I see the madness, the traffic, the general lack of concern for the meaning behind the holiday itself, I loose interest at the very least.

When people fight over parking spaces at the mall just to buy the next doodad or thingamajig or nearly cause an accident because everyone is in such a big rush, it irks me. Not just during the holidays, but everyday. I guess I notice it more now because I just expect people to be kinder, more considerate, and a little more forgiving this time of year. It doesn't really happen that way.

So here I sit feeling like the anti-Christmas scrooge while I just spent the whole night baking cookies and wondering why I care at all. I think I like the idea of Christmas spirit, but in a more meaningful way. I like to bake because I can share what I make with the people I love. I like to give gifts, material or not, because it shows the people I care for that I am thinking of them and I love them and they so important in my life.

Whether you buy into the spiritual side of Christmas or not, there is so much more than crazy malls and eating food that lead to a resolution to shed the resultant pounds come New Year's. I am realizing that and I hope you do too. I have found that without this notion of the deeper side of Christmas, you miss out on some really great moments.

The place I used to call home...and man do I miss it!

Let me start off by saying three things: 1) I loved my time at Taylor University 2) I miss it everyday 3) (and this is most important) I do not regret one single thing that has happened since I left. I know that my time there and my time away from there was all part of God's plan for my life. In the time since I left Taylor, I have found myself, the man I supposed to spend the rest of my life with, peace and happiness--things I ran to Upland looking for, and a family that I never dreamed of having when I ran away from home nearly four years ago.

But man do I miss Taylor. I made some of the best friends and family while I was there. So much has happened since leaving. Friends have gotten married and engaged, graduated, and found love and success in so many ways.

Tonight I saw a video that reminded me of the good days and all the happy moments there. CBS sports did a special on TU and our little world in the middle of Indiana. I know I am not part of the TU community anymore but a part of me still feels like it's a part of me. Like when you grow up somewhere and then move away in high school. That old home is always still a home, but now I have a new home and new love, and a new life.

I will love Taylor forever, but I am a new person, happy, healthy, and alive and I am so greatful that is the case. I will always love this place and the memories I have, but tonight, I am finally letting go of the loss I had with leaving Taylor and embracing everything I do have. I am thanking God for all those amazing memories, but I thank Him for all of the ones that are still yet to be made.

Check out this video on CBSsports for more about my little school in the middle of the cornfields.

And the world turns...

We all go through things. Sometimes our things are harder than other people's things. Sometimes my stuff is a bigger deal to me than you think it should be. We all have perspective and our perspective is unique to our experience, understanding, and emotions. But it doesn't make us exempt from the fact that everyone has these experiences, joyous and painful, that make us feel happy, sad, angry, giddy, loved, alone, and everything in between.


My favorite writer, Jamie Tworkowski (I talk about him a lot) said something pretty smart once (well more than once, but you get the point...):

 "We all wake to the human condition.  We wake to mystery and beauty but also to tragedy and loss..."

Every day people are losing loved ones and every day babies join the world creating love, beauty, and mystery in our worlds and in our families. But life is more than a sitcom and we have to accept that it is not just all happy cuddly moments.


I found myself wishing for younger days recently (that's weird to say at barely 21, but as a senior in college about to be married, I find myself with more responsibility and more decisions than I have ever had before), and with that longing I was wishing for a day to sit around and watch one of my favorite sitcoms  Boy Meets World. 


I always loved BMW because it was real problems (sort of), but they were solved in 28 minutes most of the time. The people dealt with real pain and real loss, but they always found ways to deal with it by the end of the episode. As a kid in a not so perfect home (like that exists) I wished that could be real and I would dream of a world where problems were solved like that.


Where my life is more complicated now and I have more responsibility to myself and others, I find myself wishing for it more. The stakes are higher now and the pain is worse when I mess up and I have come to realize that dream world I wanted as a kid is not just a childish fantasy, but something I still wish for as an adult. Where does that leave me?


I think I have come to realize something else, Jamie Tworkowski said to be true,

 "We live in a difficult world, a broken world.  My friend Byron is very smart - he says that life is hard for most people most of the time.  We believe that everyone can relate to pain, that all of us live with questions, and all of us get stuck in moments. You need to know that you're not alone in the places you feel stuck."

I have felt many of these emotions expressed in the above quote and I feel alone, stuck, and confused and wonder why that world I have longed for can't be real. Sometimes I have wondered if that simple world is real and if I am not good enough to have it. 


I have come to realize that the joy comes with the pain. The enjoyment of the good stuff comes from appreciating what you learn from the bad stuff. I have been down some really painful paths and I have messed up my share of things, but I have learned that nothing can be solved in 28 minutes and the problems of this worldh take time, patience, and hard work.


Whether I solve a problem quickly or slowly the world keeps on turning and I will keep on growing and life will keep on moving forward. If I royally mess up life goes on and I will pick up the pieces and move on or I won't. All I know is that if I don't pick up those pieces I will miss out on some really amazing things like love, beauty, peace. And that's just the beginning...

Love, Loss, and Healing

Have you ever watched something really sad?

I have been really into Army Wives lately, and I think it has more to offer than just entertainment. Sometimes I have to remind myself that it is a scripted, ideal life situation. Even so, it offers me lessons of how to deal with the harder things in life, like losing someone very close to you.

The episodes that I have been watching lately have to do with the death in one of the main families, The Holdens. The daughter, Amanda, is killed in a tragic bombing. Often the episodes end with this dramatic change in tone and all of sudden one of the surviving family members is reminded of this great loss and I find myself crying right along with them.

This was my experience just a few minutes ago as I watched the mother and sister characters walk into the rebuilt place where the bombing occurred. The sister broke down and began coming to terms with the loss of her sister after fighting with the guilt of being happy throughout the entire episode.

I think there are so many real life implications here and the biggest one is that these things that we spend our time with, whether it's television, music, reading, whatever, give us an outlet to express emotions. I can relate to this situation of losing someone near to me in a swift, unexpected, moment. No goodbye, no warning. In my case a phone call changed everything. And now every time I do something that reminds me of him, my heart aches at the very least and at times I find myself bawling at the oddest of times.

The great struggle that we see in my silly analogy, but also in real life, is that we struggle with guilt when we're happy. Every time I smile, laugh, act goofy, and so on, I feel guilty. He died in pain, in the wee hours of the morning, with no one to hear his last words. Yes, he lived his life, but is it fair of me to go on living when he's gone? This is my tension.

I think if he were here there would be no question, and further more he'd be angry if I weren't living or if I were stuck in this constant suspended state between happiness and guilt vs. being stagnant. Ideally, we grow, change, feel love, pain, happiness, and all sorts of things, and in the process the ones we may have lost are not forgotten. Their memory is honored in how we live our lives well.

I honor him everyday by living my life proud of who I am and where I come from. I live in honor of him by doing right by myself, my future, and whatever future family I might have. I hear all the time how proud of me he was and I never really knew this because he was a man of few words, but I live my life in honor of him by doing things that would make him proud. And if I feel happiness along the way I think it makes him feel more proud to know that I am living and carrying on his spirit through my life.

My greatest regret is not saying goodbye. There was this moment where I almost demanded to be taken to the airport to get a plane a few days before he died, but I didn't because it was finals and I felt like God was going to let him hold on. I was so angry at God when he died just a few hours before I got home. I realize  now that in a sense I don't have to say goodbye.

He died at home, in the house where his children grew, in the house where I have memories, and in the house I continue to visit today. His ashes were spread in the yard behind this home and it is as if he is part of the home and part of our lives in every way. I have chosen to honor that home with his memory by believing that he is there and that though his body died on that horrible day nearly three years ago, his life lives on through me, his family, and his home.

I hope you can find ways to deal with your loss in similar ways. I know that my journey to this kind of closure has been a long road and it hasn't been easy. Find your outlet to begin that journey and then don't be afraid to express those emotions. If I hadn't started writing while those tears were rolling down my face just now, these words would have never crossed my mind much less made it to this page. Sometimes that raw emotion we are so afraid of brings healing. Sometimes that lack of control, that uncertainty, brings hope, peace, and sometimes even joy.

For all the ones we've lost and all the ones we still have. To love and to healing.

It's been almost a year

and a lot has certainly changed. In the last year I got engaged to the love of my life, transferred (again), changed my major, and decided to start loving life for exactly what it is...an adventure.

One of my favorite writers, Jamie Tworkowski, said the following things in the mission/vision statement for the organization he founded. They have become the foundation for how I live my life.

You were created to love and be loved. You were meant to live life in relationship with other people, to know and be known. You need to know that your story is important and that you're part of a bigger story. You need to know that your life matters.

We live in a difficult world, a broken world. My friend Byron is very smart - he says that life is hard for most people most of the time. We believe that everyone can relate to pain, that all of us live with questions, and all of us get stuck in moments. You need to know that you're not alone in the places you feel stuck.

We all wake to the human condition. We wake to mystery and beauty but also to tragedy and loss. Millions of people live with problems of pain. Millions of homes are filled with questions – moments and seasons and cycles that come as thieves and aim to stay. We know that pain is very real. It is our privilege to suggest that hope is real, and that help is real.

You need to know that rescue is possible, that freedom is possible, that God is still in the business of redemption. We're seeing it happen. We're seeing lives change as people get the help they need. People sitting across from a counselor for the first time. People stepping into treatment. In desperate moments, people calling a suicide hotline. We know that the first step to recovery is the hardest to take. We want to say here that it's worth it, that your life is worth fighting for, that it's possible to change.

Beyond treatment, we believe that community is essential, that people need other people, that we were never meant to do life alone.

The vision is better endings. The vision is the restoration of broken families and broken relationships. The vision is people finding life, finding freedom, finding love. The vision is graduation, a Super Bowl, a wedding, a child, a sunrise. The vision is people becoming incredible parents, people breaking cycles, making change.

You might be thinking that I have to be pretty messed up to have this as the foundation of my life, but think about it. What are things that are being valued here? Love, healing, community, humility, redemption, forgiveness, the list goes on and on...

I believe the part about how everyone struggles and everyone has problems. And ya, sometimes it's the small-scale sitcom like problems you see on that after school special we all wish our lives were a little more like. But sometimes they are deep, painful problems that affect us in ways we will not fully understand all at once. I know I have experienced both. I think what I have learned this year is to know the difference between the two.

Have you ever heard the serenity prayer?

God give me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change; the courage to change the things I can; and the wisdom to know the difference.

I think we can sit around and argue about how this little diddy is only useful in certain environments, but this simple wisdom of knowing the difference between the things I can and cannot control makes life just a little less overwhelming, a little less daunting, a little less scary. I think that when I surrender the need to control things that I never had control of in the first place, I stop pushing people away and I am able to allow that love, healing, forgiveness, redemption, etc. to take place.

For the longest time I felt stuck in this broken place because I thought I had no control over my life, but then I realized that if I took smaller steps and broke down my expectations of myself to a reasonable level, I have a lot more control than I ever thought. And the things I can't control are a lot easier to let go. This doesn't mean I lower my expectations because I can't achieve my dreams either. It means I just take more steps or smaller steps to get where I want to be. It means I take more chances, learn more, and experience more along the way. I have learned that living this way lets me love more, laugh more, and at times it will hurt more, but in the long run it's well worth it.

If you would like to know more about that organization I was talking about, check out www.twloha.com. This organization changed and saved my life. A broken, scared, lonely sophomore girl about six years ago found this video on MySpace about a girl named Renee and these people (one of them being Jamie Tworkowski) who were helping her. A few minutes later, she was weeping because she realized there was someone out there who cared about what she was going through and there were people out there who are going through the same thing. Six years later that girl is engaged, a senior in college, planning on changing the world with her story (because some guy named Jamie told her that her story mattered) and this little MySpace born organization has helped thousands of people just like her.

Micah 6:8 says:

"He has told you, O man, what is good; and what does the LORD require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God?"

It's been a long time and I have some splainin to do!

So. I never thought I'd be here the last time I sat down to write. 20. Engaged. Happy. It's kind of crazy. It's the life I wanted, not perfect or simple but a life that makes me feel alive. Some days are hard, but I have a man that I love so much who helps me through those days. Some days are great. Those days feel like a fairy tale. Still, like all of you, I struggle with pain, regret, questions, and tragedy. I struggle with faith and believing that everything is real and going to last.

But still I believe that I deserve great things and I believe I deserve to be happy. I want this happiness for me and for my family. I want to change the world and I think it starts with changing my world. All the pain, all the crap, all the struggling really sucks and I'm tired of it. I am choosing a better life for myself.

A lot of you are probably wondering who I am and what happened to the girl you knew. Well she was changed. By trial, by faith, by love. My life was spinning and then all of a sudden it crashed into all the pain and anger but also all the great things in my life and I came out for the better.

Part of this new and improved me is due to the fact that I am completely head over heals in love with Joseph Baas. He has helped me see the best version of myself and he has led me to believe that I am better than I have believed myself to be in the past. He has helped me to believe in a God who loves, heals, and forgives. He has helped me to see through my darkest moments and never gave up on me even when I gave up on myself.

Joe and I are far from perfect. We have our problems like everyone else. We are growing and changing, evolving into people we are proud to be, and together becoming a couple that defines our love in Christ's forgiveness and this new life we have been given. Romans 8:37 says, "For we are more than conquerors through him who loved us." The rest of that passage goes on to say that nothing separates us from Christ. That means nothing. No sin, no pain, no anger, no broken past. Nothing separates us from the blood and redemption of Jesus.

That's how I can believe in the love Joe and I have. I see the love that Christ gives me despite my sin, my brokenness, my past. I see how I have been redeemed for a purpose and part of that purpose is to love and and be loved.

I never understood this before because I didn't love myself and I definitely didn't love others--not the way I supposed to anyways. My love was out of motive and now it is a love that is unbounded by the things that used to weigh me down. Now my love strives to be Christ-like. I love because I have seen what it is like to be loved, truly loved, and I now know what it feels like to love without motive. I will never achieve such perfection, but man will I try. I will always love and be slow to judge, anger, and abandon. Only will I let the Lord of my life guide such big decisions.

So...all that being said...are you ready to hear about my whirlwind semester? I hope so. It's one heck of a ride.

This is my story. I don't always know how to tell it and a lot of people don't like what it has to say, but I am happy and for the first time in my life I feel like things will be okay. I'll be back tomorrow to tell you about this man I love so much. The question is will you be back to read it?