Fifty Lessons

Looking back on my year the past couple weeks, I've had to ask myself: "If I could go back to January, what things would I tell myself?" Through family and friends and church and life, what lessons has this year taught me?

Fifty Lessons 2014 Taught Me

1. Don't let fear hold you back. Push past it. Because some of the most amazing things are also some of the scariest: skydiving, ziplining, falling in love, getting married, giving birth, being first-time parents, moving to a new place, changing jobs, etc. 

2. Regret is not inevitable. Regret is a choice. 

3. Don't make assumptions. 

4. Don't be so hard on yourself. No one expects you to be perfect. 

5. When insecurity rises, fight it. Meet those negative thoughts head on and counteract them. Verbally remind yourself of how awesome you are and of all your best qualities- the things that make you wonderful, beautiful you. Because insecurity will always bite at some point. Kick it to the curb. 

6. Learn to laugh at yourself and let others love you through your quirks and your awkward moments. 

7. The people who love you, love and accept YOU. All of you. Your brokenness, your fears, your faults, your weaknesses, and your silliness along with your strength, your confidence, and your best qualities. And the people who don't? Who cares what they think anyways, right? Right. 

8. God follows His timetable in your life, not yours. And He's in no major hurry. Deal with it. 

9. If you find yourself overanalyzing a situation, go back to your first take on it. Chances are, you're first impression of it was probably right before your mind started overthinking. Overthinking is a menace. 

10. Let yourself feel. It's important. The joy, the love, the fear, the hurt, the nervousness, the excitement, the anticipation, the sadness... Feel it all. Don't numb yourself. God gave us the capability of emotions for a reason. 

11. Social media can make things messy. Don't judge someone's feelings for you or opinion of you based off of your interaction on social media (or lack of). Talk to them face-to-face. 

12. Sometimes words are just inadequate. Some of the best things you can hear aren't the things you hear in words. 

13. Eye contact is powerful. 

14. Don't be afraid to step outside of your personality preference. People who are different from you can contribute a lot to your life and teach you so much. 

15. Clothes aren't tailored for body types: they're made for cookie-cutter shapes. Your body is perfect for you. The problem is the clothes, not your body shape. You're made unique and beautiful. 

16. You ARE beautiful. Period. Regardless of what you choose to wear or whether you have your makeup on or you did your hair. And people see you in a much more beautiful light than you usually see yourself.

17. "You are beautiful" means more than "You look beautiful." Though both are nice to hear. 

18. Don't despise the hard seasons of life. They're the best times for growing spiritually and draw you closest to God. Enjoy them. Savor them. 

19. It's okay not to have all the answers. 

20. Know the difference between friends and acquaintances and who in your life is which one. 

21. There's a big difference between hope and expectation. 

22. Find that one thing that makes you happy when you're feeling down. For me, it's anything tropical: seashells, beach pictures, island-scent perfume, Hawaiian prints, palm trees, island-y foods, etc. 

23. As a kid, you're a kid and you love toys. As a teen, you want to be grown up and you hate toys. As a young adult, you're grown up and you unashamedly love toys again. And that's okay. 

24. Good intentions are never enough to accomplish goals. 

25. There's a time to give up and there's a time to hold on and wait. 

26. Following God's plans can get lonely. When God speaks to your heart, not everyone else may see what you see. Some things He speaks to you exclusively and you just have to have faith. 

27. The Lord speaks in many different ways. Learn to recognize His voice in whatever form it comes. 

28. Optimism tops negativity any day. 

29. Don't listen to sad music when you're down. Pity-parties console but they never brighten your outlook. 

30. Things change quickly. Make memories and hold them close as you move forward. Like old photographs, bring them out every now and then for a good laugh or just to make you smile. But never let them make you discontentment. The past is the past for a reason even if we don't understand what that reason is. You can't go back. 

31. Sometimes God works in your life and in your heart apart from your control. Don't try to fight Him and get into a power-struggle. You'll lose every time. 

32. It's okay to be real. There's more to you than what strangers see passing by. Don't be afraid to let the inner layers of yourself show with all of its marvelous intricacies and complexities. The sight of a blossom will capture attention but it's the systems and molecules and atoms that capture the mind. You can't fully appreciate something that you don't understand. 

33. Accidents, goof-ups, and mistakes aren't always accidents. Sometimes God uses them and you realize that they're the best thing that could've happened. 

34. Anyone who says that love will never make you cry has never really loved in any way. Love is like a mirror, showing you more about yourself- your strengths AND your worst side- and making you into a better person. And that hurts. But it's supposed to. It's the best love that grows you and that changes you to face everything about yourself that you try to ignore. That encourages you to become more like Christ. Be thankful for its transformation. Also we're all human and as you get closer to someone, you see their humanity more: we all make mistakes, we all unintentionally hurt each other's feelings at times. It's part of growing close to someone. 

35. When you stop trying to be beautiful is when you become the most beautiful. 

36. Don't settle in life. Choose "between what you want now and what you want most."

37. Never allow "good enough" to be enough. But always be realistic in your standards: don't expect a toddler to draw a da Vinci painting but don't accept from da Vinci just a toddler's art.  

38. Make your own opinions of people. Don't just accept the opinions others have of them. 

39. Knowing someone better and knowing someone deeper are different levels of intimacy. One person may know more of an individual's favorite things but another person may know more of their thoughts and feelings. Broad knowledge is learned by small talk; deep knowledge is learned by heart-to-heart talks. 

40. The story God has written for your life might not sound the same as someone else's. Don't compare. Neither story is better. They're both just different. Nobody wants to read identical story plots. 

41. Always strip away the dollar signs before measuring the true success of a life. 

42. Fall in love with the outdoors. 

43. "In all things God works for the good of those who love Him." (Romans 8:28) He works things out for YOUR good. He doesn't lead you through situations just for others' good so you can minister to them through your testimony. He doesn't walk you through hardships just for others' sake. It's always for your own good as well. 

44. Children are blunt. Learn from the positive side of their honesty and don't leave things unsaid that should be spoken. 

45. Friends are invaluable. Love them to death and let them know it. And everyone should have one friend who can always make them laugh, one friend who will listen and cry with them, and one friend who will tell them the hard truth and keep them accountable. It can be three friends or one. 

46. Compliment people to their faces, not to their backs. 

47. There are always more people who love you than you realize. 

48. God has a reason for everything. His timing is perfect. And though you might not always see it in the moment, hindsight reveals a lot. 

49. Life is a journey, not a destination. Life is now to be lived in the present; life isn't when you reach some point, some ambition, in the future. 

50. Don't be a control-freak. Life throws us some curveballs we can't always prepare for and that's okay. Enjoy the ride. Because at the end of the day, life is a truly beautiful thing. 

Bonus: Chocolate + Coconut = the best thing ever 

Merry Christmas

It came upon a midnight clear

O'er two thousand years ago

When the guiding star once shone its light

We now hang the mistletoe

We hang the stockings by the chimney

We twine garland up the stair

Candlelight dances on the walls

Carols are sung without a care

The colorful bulbs illuminate

By the lights upon the tree

In the fireplace, we set logs ablaze

On the doors, we hang our wreaths

We gather round the family

Cozy blankets and cocoa

Laughter rings throughout our homes

Watching Christmas movies of old

Headlights of traffic light up the town

Hordes of shoppers buzz around

Christmas concerts and Christmas plays

We stay bustling night and day

But amidst the cheer of the season bright

The festivities, traditions, and glowing lights

The crowds need stop and slow their

pace

To reflect on what the world celebrates...

He came upon a midnight clear

O're two thousand years ago

A craggy stable, a mother in pain

To the world, birthing Hope unknown

Cold sweat on her brow, gritting her teeth

Gripping the hand of the man at her side

She bore in that moment, God's only Son

The chasm of sin to make right

The star hung bright in the heavens

As angels lit up the sky

Shepherds came to see the new King 

From keeping their flock nearby

In a moment of pain, the Babe entered the world

By a moment of pain, He would leave

The will of His Father, His task fulfilled

The Way of restoration and peace

Two thousand years later, by the lamplight's glow

On the tabletop, a scene not to forget

Among ceramic camels, palm trees, and sheep

Virgin Mary and Joseph were set

Love doesn't always look like

The way the world would have us to think

It isn't always a bride in white

Or a lustrous diamond ring

It isn't always hearts and flowers 

Or a romantic dinner for two

It isn't always Cupid's arrow

Or a kiss 'neath the full moon

It isn't always even a cross

As some believers like to say

The blood that was shed on Calvary

Our debt of sins to pay

Sometimes love comes quietly 

Sleeping swaddled in a manger of hay

The greatest love often comes

In the most unexpected ways  

Between Joseph and Mary in the Nativity

Slender fingers laid the infant King

The Light of the world, the Hope of Man

Love to the least of these

http://m.youtube.com/watch?feature=youtu.be&v=4n0GGmYbz38

A Heart of Humility

This is a pretty untraditional Christmas post and I usually don't share this intimate of details about my personal life, but it's out of our experiences that God uses us to minister to others and to encourage and inspire, right?

I've been struggling a little the past few months. Just admitting that is hard. This Christmas has been a little difficult for me. 

If there's one thing that I pray for most frequently for myself, I would have to say that it's humility. Time and time again, I find myself asking the Lord to humble me. Because I'm a girl with a lot of pride and sometimes, it's a struggle to keep that pride in check. It's like a shrubbery that you have to keep pruning back. And oftentimes, I find myself asking for the Lord to humble me by whatever means He chooses. Whatever it takes. 

Sometimes God answers our prayers with a "no," sometimes He answers with a "wait." But sometimes He answers with a "yes" and gives us exactly what we ask for. Really, be very conscious and intentional about what you pray for. 

I got my prayer answered with a "yes." The past several months, God has ushered me into a season of humility that I've never felt before. And it's been hard. So hard. Humility is never an easy thing. But the Lord's used so much to begin humbling my heart. 

In no particular order, first, there's my driver's license. While most young adults are expected to have their driver's license by high school graduation, I'm still twenty-years-old and working toward getting my license. With holiday busyness, my Christmas deadline for getting my license had to be postponed and pushed forward into the new year. Admitting this and having to turn down invitations and social opportunities because of it is very humbling.

Secondly, I'm completely unemployed now and I'm under financial strain this holiday season. For a proud girl who has a very difficult time asking for help and accepting offered help from anyone, it's been very humbling having to ask my parents to buy for me little necessities because the price of small things add up. 

Thirdly, I've have had to work at forgiving some individuals. Going head-to-head with your pride and its justification of how you should be treated is hard to do. 

Fourth, life threw me an unexpected curveball in the second half of this year and I was thrown off balance. I was very abruptly reminded in the midst of my easy little life that there are things that happen that I can't prepare for. That I can't always anticipate. That there are things in my life that I can't be in control of. For a girl who loves planning and anticipating and having everything in smooth running order, this is a really really hard fact to accept. 

Fifth, I spent a few days out of town on vacation with my parents a couple weeks ago for the first time in almost two years. And I confess, there was a lot I was hoping to clear my mind and my heart from. But as I was in Florida and as I returned, I realized those things- the passions and love in my heart- was not something that I could remove myself with my strong will or all of the determination in me. Teeth gritted and knuckles white, I realized that you just can't remove from your heart what God has put there. That is an aspect of myself that I simply can't control- that I absolutely have to give God full authority over to do what He wants with it. And that lack of control both humbles me and terrifies me as much as it did when I first recognized it nearly two years ago. 

Sixth, I had to humble myself a couple months back and make a serious apology. I had to make myself vulnerable and show a broken piece of myself that very few even of my closest circle have seen. That gave my pride a big pruning to admit that I had treated someone wrongly and to have to remove the face of composure and strength that the world only sees and let my weaknesses show. 

Seventh, I've prayed for others and encouraged, inspired, and gave advice for their situations from my own experiences. I've watched God move in those situations, which has been awesome and has been a blessing to my heart that I rejoice and thank God for! But it's been humbling and difficult when to my physical eyes right now my own circumstances from whence I encourage those others seems at a standstill. 

And eighth, as another year draws to a close, I've had to look back over the past two years and admit to myself that I have no more direction and guidance for my future career now than I did this time last year. And it's plagued me with stress of the unknown ahead and with the feeling again of lostness. 

I've been very humbled lately in the past months. I've been very broken. I've shed some tears, I've felt some hurt, and I've asked God a lot of "why?" 

But I wouldn't trade it. I really wouldn't. Because amidst the stress and the mental exhaustion, the brokenness and the humility, God is taking me to a place that I've never been before. 

He's opened my eyes to realize how loved I truly am. I mean, really, I am one loved young woman. Give love and love comes back maybe? I don't know. 

But not having my driver's license yet has shown me just how many people genuinely care about me rather than judging me based off of my skills or my abilities or even off of my achievements. How many people who don't form their opinion of me from whether I drive on my own yet or not, whether I have a steady paying job yet or whether I have plans to pursue a college education. They understand where I am and they look at who I am, my character, my heart, my love for the Lord and for others, and they love me for me. They respect me for me. And it has amazed me profoundly how many people are willing to meet me halfway or even pick me up at my house or drive me home far out of their way to make a situation work just because they genuinely want to see me and spend time with me. Just because they care about me and are willing to offer me a ride. 

Not having a job and needing to ask for financial help has reminded me of what a blessing of wonderful parents that I have. It's shown me that no matter what comes in my life, even in the life of my own family in the future, that my parents will always be there with abounding love and open arms to help me however they can. 

And having to apologize to my friend... That has reminded me over and over again in my hardest moments just how unconditionally the Lord loves me. It has reminded me that His love is unshakable. That with all of my fears, my weaknesses, my mistakes, my faults, and my broken pieces, He still loves me and accepts me just as I am. Even in so many times when I have mistreated Him, blamed Him, hardened my heart and drawn cold toward Him, even when I think He couldn't possibly still love me, He leaves me speechless time and time again as He proves that there is nothing I can possibly do that will make Him any less willing to forgive me and that will make Him love me any less through it all. And even through His conviction on my heart leading me to my apology, God was gracious: my friend I apologized to was gentler, more caring, and more understanding than I could've ever expected. 

God's taught me that His plans and His timing isn't the same for everyone. That He has a timeline in ordering my steps and the events of my life that is unique and perfectly tailored just for me and the plans He has for my future. I can't see what's ahead but He can. And I'm learning that God does a lot more work behind the scenes than we see physical evidence of in the moment because He works from the inside out. 

God has brought me to a place of such desperation and confusion and brokenness of pride that I have had no choice but to let go. In so many ways, He's brought me back to two years ago, to the very beginning when He first called me forward onto this incredible spiritual journey of learning to trust Him with everything in me. To give Him control of every part of my life. To be obedient and follow His leading no matter what it cost me. And I've been brought back to that place of total abandoned surrender to Him. To that place of faith and trust and hope that I had never known. To that place of having awakened in my heart a love more pure and more unconditional than I had ever felt before. 

He's teaching me that it's okay to feel. In having my pride hurt and broken yet again, He's teaching me that it's okay to feel it. That I don't have to try to mask my emotions, put on a brave face, and convince myself that I still have everything under control and that I'm all put together. The act of feeling is part of forgiving myself.  

Because having a lot of pride, I'm very hard on myself. It's very easy for me to hone in on my faults and my weaknesses and to really knock myself around emotionally on some days. I don't like feeling weakness and less-than-perfect. So many times, I just don't let myself slow down, stop, and feel.

But a few weeks ago, I really broke. I was alone in my bedroom, it was late at night, and the weight of the past few months just came crashing down. I really lost my composure. Tears just started coming in constant sobs for about an hour. I hadn't cried that long in almost a year. 

There I was. Sitting on my bed, tears streaming down my face, I was crying out partly to myself, partly a prayer of my heart. "I'm not okay," I confessed aloud, "but I will be. I always manage to pull myself together again temporarily. But I'm tired of band-aids. I'm tired of being put back together just until I break again." 

And in that moment of brokenness, I heard that still, small voice I had heard so much last year through my hardest moments. In almost a year, I hadn't heard the Lord's voice in that way: not in a stirring in my spirit but in a nearly audible voice. And that time, He simply said very gently, very short but meaningfully, "You're broken so I can fix you."

I realized that maybe it was time I stopped condemning myself. Maybe I should let myself feel my brokenness and accept it. Maybe I should try to stop fixing the deep parts of myself that I don't even know exist but that are broken and messy and hurting sometimes. Maybe it was time that I allowed God to begin healing me and remaking me again through the humility of my broken pride. 

And lastly (for now in the season), God has shown me this season that the Nativity story is, of course, a story of love and joy and peace, of faith and of hope. But it's also a story of tremendous humility. Imagine being the King of kings, seated on the throne at the right hand of God the Father, and then coming to Earth in the form of a helpless dependent infant little baby boy. To be God, powerful and almighty, and yet to live and grow up as any other child in this world. To be incarnate and be betrayed, abused, ridiculed, mocked, and nailed to a cross. To know that you have the power to come down from that cross and that place of suffering but to choose to stay there, humbled with nails driven through your hands and feet and blood from your brow stinging your eyes. 

When I think of Christ's example of humility, I think of Him demonstrating servanthood by washing the feet of His disciples. But in this season, the Lord's been opening my eyes and revealing to me that that is not the greatest act of humility in His life here on earth as a man. His entire life here- His purpose for coming here- is a story of humility so great that I can't even comprehend it. Of so much humility. And it begins with the Christmas story on that clear night in Bethlehem over two thousand years ago when a miracle occurred as the Son of God was born and history was changed forever. 

Of everything that He's been teaching me through this season of humbling me, it's in His own example of humility that I've come to realize that some of the most profound and life-changing events birth from a humbled heart. And through the humility and the brokenness, that truth allows me to see with eyes focused on the Lord, hope dawned to light the new year. A hope that is illuminating my Christmas like never before. 

With humbled hearts filled with great joy, exceeding thankfulness, unwavering hope and faith, and a full understanding of the magnitude of His love for us... I pray each and every one of us be inspired this Christmas by the greatest Miracle of all. 

"Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. Therefore God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father." 

-Philippians 2:5-11

Amen! Merry Christmas to all of my loved ones- friends and family- near and far. May God bless you and your families this holiday season and in the new year to come. <3