Adage #25: Location isn't everything.

When I was a little girl, my parents put me in one of those snowsuits that makes you look like the kid in A Christmas Story and set me outside to discover, for the first time, the wonder of snow. I was so excited to venture into this whole new world of white fluffiness. I touched the snow with my little hand, looked up at my parents and started to cry. This has been my basic outlook of snow ever since, especially when I have to drive in it. Given this inclination to hate snow and cold weather, you would never guess that I would have chosen to live in it for the past 9 years instead of moving back to the land of warmth, happiness and sunshine from whence I came. 

After college graduation, most of my peers moved back to their hometowns, found themselves on exciting adventures to other countries, or moving to glamorous cities such as Portland or Seattle. I stayed in Spokane - a city heralded for being a great place to raise your kids and not so much praised for being a great place to be a single twenty-something. I spent many years after graduation asking God where I was supposed to be. Was is Seattle? California? Surely, it cannot be here? This was the most important question to be answered, I couldn't get on with my life if I didn't know where I was supposed to live. I received no other answer other than that I should continue to be a part of the church family I was involved in.

Then, after 8 years God gave me an answer. He said I was going to go with my friends, Kym and Jacob, to plant a church. In Airway Heights. This is a small community (about 5,000 people) that is 10 minutes away from downtown Spokane with an air force base just down the road (with another 6,000 people). Spokane has some beautiful qualities: an exorbitant amount of pine trees, some great rivers, hills and valleys. It's full of beautiful views that I have learned to love despite being cold for half the year. Airway Heights possess none of these things. It's flat, ugly, just far away enough that I don't see my friends all that often and for the past three weeks it has been so foggy, I've almost ran a few red lights. Not so reassuringly, 3 out of 7 days a week when I have left my apartment complex for work in the morning, I have found a car that slid into an icy ditch.

Photo credit: MDP Photography

I've been told this has been a big thing with my generation, that choosing where we live has become a much bigger deal than the generations before us. I think maybe we've got something wrong. Despite all of the things I don't love about Airway Heights, there is no other place I would rather be. Not only is this the place God has called me to for this time, I am learning that being a follower of Christ means a lot more of living out God's will in the everyday mundane things and a lot less about making huge, life-altering, I'm-going-to-change-the-world decisions. It's not about me and how cool or indie where I live is, it's about losing myself in who Christ is. I can no longer wait for some big revelation about where I am supposed to live and what God is someday going to use me to accomplish for Him. I can no longer sit around waiting to be told what my future holds for me in 5 years, 1 year or next week. I should be too busy helping my neighbors take the trash out, getting to know the same cashier I see every week at the Airway Heights Wal-Mart, sharing the story of what Christ has done in my life with others, helping my friend paint their house even though I'd rather take a nap, talking with my server at the delicious Thai restaurant down the street and serving other people (friends and strangers alike) with no expectation of a reward. These things will accomplish much more for the Kingdom of God than spending hours praying and thinking about where I should be instead.

That being said, when Jesus comes back, I'm asking for some beach front property in Southern California. 


What is God asking you to do today for Him, where ever you might be?

Adage #24: Lists are your friend.

As you might have guessed based on past posts, I love making lists. it's more than love, it's really a compulsion. So I have made a list of some of my favorite lists:

1. Things to never ever do in the video cafe again.

I mentioned this list in another post a while ago. During my first year of leading youth ministry at my current church, I took part in a 30 Hour Famine. The leaders collectively decided the best way to start the event involved herding all the students into our multi-purpose room (aka the video cafe), turning all the lights out, playing some loud music and bursting in with silly string. Sounds fun right? It was. Until we spent an hour sweeping and mopping the silly string off of the floor. This was the the event that started our list. For years we kept a mental list of materials we had used in the video cafe that made a giant mess or had backfired on us. We finally wrote it down and framed it and when we moved buildings, we immortalized it on the floor underneath the carpet in the auditorium. The best part of this list is referencing it when we hear of some other youth ministry using one of these items and making a mess, it's a little like an "I-told-you-so" moment.

Our list as immortalized on the auditorium floor.

2. Top ten favorite people in the world.

When my fellow youth ministry worker, Buz, realized my unhealthy love for lists, it could only go downhill from there. Buz challenged me to come up with a list of my ten favorite people in the world. I couldn't just brush it off and joke around about it. No, instead I spent weeks perfected it. I think it ended up taking me a month to report back to him with my final list. Before I finished the list, there were weekly discussions about who had made the cut so far and how I had four people I wanted to fit into two spots. It was rough. You probably want to know who's on the list, right? I can't remember who's on it. And you would be correct in assuming while writing that last sentence I am now trying to make up a new list in my head.

3. My to-do lists.

Yes, that's right it's plural because I have to-do lists everywhere. They are on my desk at work, they are on my phone, they are sticky notes by my bed, they are at the bottom of my purse and they are on the whiteboard calendar in my room. It's a disease, really.

4. Random youth ministry lists.

Along the same time Buz challenged me to come up with a list of my top ten favorite people, we also started making all sorts of ridiculous youth ministry lists. It was like the baseball stats of youth ministry: favorite message series during the spring, favorite events on a rainy Saturday afternoon, top ten Doug Field's resources used in a year ending in an odd number, etc.

My favorite list was of the people who had been in youth ministry the longest - it was topped by five leaders who had been involved in the ministry for a minimum of 7 years. These five people chose to stay involved in one ministry long enough to see the students they started with graduate from high school and often even longer than that.

Within the past year, all five people on the list have stepped out of youth ministry. What I love about this list is that these 5 people might not be doing youth ministry on a weekly basis any longer, but I know that they are all still involved in lives of young people (some who have graduated from our youth ministry) and more importantly, they are dedicated to the gospel. They understand that stepping away from a ministry program does not mean stepping away from ministry itself, whether they find that in volunteering in a different ministry, being actively involved in their neighborhood or whatever else God has called them to do. It's okay to be so committed to something that it feels weird when you miss a week of youth group. It's also okay to step away to do something else God has opened the door to. 

What kind of lists do you make? When was the last time you stayed with a commitment for 7 years? Is there something you need to commit to? Or is there something you need to be willing to walk away from?

Adage #23: Bring appropriate attire to a cold climate.

Sorry it's been so long since I've posted. If you haven't read my last post, you might want to read that first here.

In my last post I talked about not forgetting where you came from. I love keeping some of my southern California roots while living in the Pacific Northwest, but it has created a lot of problems, too. The following are two of the biggest ones I've run into and have found pretty humbling:

Problem #1: Not owning enough warm clothes.

In the fall of 2003, I packed up all of my clothes, my alphabetized cd collection, a few other important belongings and moved into the dorms of Whitworth University (it was still Whitworth College then). I liked my California style, but I soon learned that the 3 long sleeved shirts and 4 sweatshirts I owned were not going to cut it in the below freezing weather. It took me years to figure out how to dress for cold weather. My first year, someone taught me the new mind-blowing concept of layering my clothes. In California, when it was cold, I would sometimes just wear a sweatshirt to school with no t-shirt underneath because I knew I wouldn't need to take the sweatshirt off. Apparently, that doesn't keep you warm - who knew! I also did not own any boots of any kind, let alone snow boots, until the fifth year I lived in Spokane. I thought boots were ugly and I felt weird wearing such big shoes. I was cold and wet for several years.

Problem #2: Not having practical shoes.

As ugly as I think Chaco sandals and all those other shoes for active people might be, it turns out they are super useful. There are a lot of fun outdoor activities to take part in when you live in the Pacific Northwest, especially in the summer. Many of those you would not want to wear tennis shoes because they would get soaking wet, but flip flops will not do the job. I have an example of a predicament I found myself in a few years ago. Some friends and I decided to go white water rafting in Montana on a beautiful summer day. I am a pretty cautious person, so the idea of white water rafting was a little scary as well as exhilarating. The particular company we decided to go through specifically told us that we could not wear flip flops or tennis shoes. So my friends with their ugly but extremely practical sandals looked totally normal on this trip and I found myself being forced to wear the below pictured, most ridiculous looking "water booties". And just when you thought it couldn't get worse than water shoes...

I'd like to say that I'm above feeling insecure about being the only one of my friends on this trip wearing these shoes, but that would be a lie. I was more than aware of my ugly water booties the whole day. I'm rethinking my stand against ugly, but practical sandals. However, I'm planning on sticking to a strict no-weird-five-fingers-shoe diet. I just can't do it.

"To those not having the law I became like one not having the law (though I am not free from God’s law but am under Christ’s law), so as to win those not having the law. To the weak I became weak, to win the weak. I have become all things to all people so that by all possible means I might save some. I do all this for the sake of the gospel, that I may share in its blessings."//I Corinthians 9:21-23 (TNIV)

Paul was willing to set aside whatever music he preferred, the style of clothes he wore, the local phrases he grew up using in order to reach people with the gospel. Those little things were not of importance in the eternal scheme of things. This has made me think a lot as I get ready to church plant in another community. I will need to have this same mindset - ready to give up more of these superficial things that I hold on to as part of my identity. In the end, God's message is much more important that my refusal to listen to country music.

Is there something superficial in your life you need to let go of for the sake of the gospel?

Adage #22: Don't forget where you came from.

Within the first year of college in eastern Washington I am sure I declared to my friends at least a hundred times that I would move back to California as soon as I could. They like to remind me of this often, particularly because they moved away and I have stayed put in the same town since graduating. I have just recently started answering the question, "Where are you from?" with a "Washington" instead of a "Washington, but I'm really from California."

I guess after 9 years, it's time to admit that I'm not really from California anymore. I am no longer tan in the middle of winter and the first thing I think about when I drive by a house is how difficult getting up the driveway would be in the ice and snow (apparently I talk about this as often as I think about it according to those who spend a lot of time around me). Even though California is no longer my home, there are some Pacific Northwest "traditions" I have refused to take part in with the hope of keeping a little of bit of my Californian blood alive and well.

#1

I refuse to wear socks with sandals. I have never had an issue keeping this up unless is involves maybe running out to the trash can quickly and all I have nearby are flip flops, but I don't really count that as going out into public.


#2

I don't own a single thing that is North Face. This is less of a stand against Northwest fashion, I simply cannot seem to justify spending $150 on a jacket that everyone else in town owns. Instead, I will continue to wear my layers: tank top, long sleeve shirt, sweater, possible sweatshirt (or two) topped of with a pea coat that isn't as warm as it should be with a scarf and at least two pairs of mittens. Never mind that all those layers most likely cost more than that dumb North Face jacket I should just buy.


#3

I have absolutely refused to purchase a pair of Chacos or Tevas. They are ugly and expensive. I pretty much blame all stereotypes I hold to these shoes specifically on the college I went to. People who wear these sandals grew up in Washington or Colorado, they are probably YoungLife leaders, they drive a Subaru, sometimes they have dreads or dress like a hippie and their favorite past times include outdoor activities I've never heard of. These are the same people who wear those tennis shoes that are trying to be sandals and now those shoes with toes that are just weird looking. But let me make a distinction here, I have no problem with the people who own any of these kinds of shoes. Some of my favorite people wear these shoes and I do not think any less of them.


#4

Subarus used to top my list of things I would never own. They are very popular cars up here and for good reason: they are one of the best cars when it comes to navigating in snow. So after I while, I decided if I was going to stay in this town with all of it's snow, I should get a car with 4 wheel drive. And there I was contemplating the purchase of a Subaru. When I first decided I would never own a Subaru, it was because I thought they were ugly, and then it just became a stubborn thought with absolutely no real reason behind it. As I was looking into a car to purchase, it became my first choice - gasp! But don't you worry, I ended up with what I perceive to be an amazing fusion of a California native living in eastern Washington. I bought a Honda Element. It has 4 wheel drive, it's made for camping AND it's a surfer car, tons of Californians who surf own an Element. I have managed to combine my southern California roots with my Pacific Northwest reality. 

In many ways, I try to keep my California roots intact in a much colder climate. I do not want to let go of where I came from. Although many of my reasons are wrong (because many of them are based on pride and vanity), I think there is a biblical reason to not forget where you came from.

Romans 12:2 (The Message) - Embracing what God does for you is the best thing you can do for him. Don't become so well-adjusted to your culture that you fit into it without even thinking. Instead, fix your attention on God. You'll be changed from the inside out. Readily recognize what he wants from you, and quickly respond to it. Unlike the culture around you, always dragging you down to its level of immaturity, God brings the best out of you, develops well-formed maturity in you. 

This verse doesn't really apply to my need to pretend that I still live in southern California when I clearly do not, but it does remind me that I'm really a native of God's kingdom. Those roots in my Creator are the ones I have to remember instead of getting caught up in the temporary culture I live in now.

Are you letting the culture you live in change who you are too much or are you letting God's culture be the standard you live by? Are you being dragged down by the temporary world around you or are you being transformed by the eternal Word of God?

Adage #21: Take your soul on vacation.

I took a day off of work a couple of weeks ago for a day long personal prayer retreat. This was the first time I have ever done that and if you haven't done one yet, I would highly recommend it! Here are some things I did and learned:

1.  I am easily distracted when I am at home, so I made a schedule of places to go. I went to a few coffee shops and a local park. I love sitting in coffee shops, so I picked a few of my favorites. Next time I would think more strategically about where I am going since one of the coffee shops was a little to loud and hard to concentrate in. 

2. I left my computer at home. I probably should have left my phone at home, too. Try to go unplugged, you'll be glad you did.

3. I had done a half day prayer retreat about a month before this. That one I planned out specifically what I was going to do with my time. With the full day retreat, I had a general idea in my head, but I didn't write a schedule out like I had done previously. I think it worked both ways. It was nice
to have written down exactly what I wanted to do during my half day retreat since my time was limited. I purposely left my time and activities more open when I did the full day retreat in order to be flexible with what The Holy Spirit wanted to do.

4. Bring your journal and get ready for a serious hand cramp. Since I was moving around to different places, I would start each place journaling and praying. I would also get ready to move on to the next place the same way. I wrote down prayers and my thoughts on the Bible passages I was reading throughout the day and then an overview of the whole day when it was over.

5. Do a prayer walk. I went to a large park in town, left my phone in the car and spent an hour walking around, praying and listening for God's voice. What a good way to get rid of all the distractions!

6. Do the things that connect you most with God. I went to coffee shops and a park because I feel easily connected to God in those places. Go anywhere that you feel that way about or do activiteis that connect you to God. One of my favorite places to do this is the ocean, but since I live 5 hours away from it, I settled for a local pond. It had seagulls, so it was like being at the ocean. After a little while of sitting in a bench, the seagulls choose to fly directly over me and I knew it was time to move or get pooped on.

I hope that you will take the time to do some sort of prayer retreat, whatever might work with your schedule right now. Here are some resources I used to help you get started:

How to Plan a Personal Prayer Retreat

Retreat Finder - This is a great site to search for a retreat center in your area, but know that it does include centers for many different faiths.

Happy retreating!

Adage #20: Get your eyes checked.

Now that I've thrown someone else under the bus concerning vision problems, I can admit to my own story. My office building has nice big windows that look at a hill outside. From those windows, my co-worker Laura and I can enjoy the wildlife. We've seen a lot of birds, squirrels, people walking their dogs, and some neighborhood cats. One of my favorites has been a mom and baby turkey which we saw grow up. And now there's a male turkey chasing around the ladies right outside our window (there's a part of me that hopes he doesn't catch one during office hours).

Laura's desk is the one by the big windows, so when she sees some exciting wildlife adventures going on outside, she'll summon me over to see what is going on. On one day in particular, she asked me to come over because she couldn't tell if what she was looking at was a little cute furry animal or something else. I couldn't figure it out either. After quite a few rounds of squinting, discussing if it was moving or not and then squinting again we were still at a loss. We both expressed our wish to have a pair of glasses at our disposal. It was at that moment that I remembered I did in fact have my glasses in my purse. I went back to my desk,  returned to the window with my glasses on, glanced at the subject of our study and said something deflated like, "Welp..." as I handed my glasses to Laura so she could take a look. In an extremely anticlimactic moment, we realized we had spent all that time looking at stump.

 (This is a tree stump and not a squirrel.)

Jesus spent a lot of his ministry time giving clarity to people. Most people had thought the Messiah promised to them was going to be an earthly king who would be a strong conqueror, but Jesus went so far as to flee the crowds when they wanted to force him into that role (John 6:15). Jesus the Messiah did more than the people could have imagined, he conquered sin for everyone.

The Pharisees never received the clarity Jesus was trying to provide to anyone who would hear what he was saying, they were too busy trying to trap him. The woman at the well (John 4), the woman who touched his garment and was healed (Mark 5) and Andrew and Peter who dropped everything to follow Jesus (John 1); these people experienced Jesus and were given clarity about who he was. This also meant that their lives were drastically changed, they could no longer live like they had before. The knowledge of who Jesus was gave them metaphorical glasses to see the world more clearly.

Is Jesus giving you clarity in certain things? Are you ignoring him or are you letting him transform who you are?

Adage #16: It's a dog eat dog world.

I have friends with two Siberian Huskies, Ivan and Eena. A while ago, my friends brought their huskies to a family dinner where there were several other dogs. One of those dogs, much smaller than Ivan, is named Mrs. Mugglesworth. For some unknown reason, Ivan is terrified of her. I would have thought that her unintimdating name alone would insight lots of teasing from Ivan, but he is afraid to even make eye contact with her.

When Mrs. Mugglesworth walks into the room Ivan assumes the posture I do when there is an awkward public run in with someone I'm not sure I want to see, combined with a toddler who doesn't get how the game of peek-a-boo works yet: he looks the other direction, hopes that she won't notice him and figures if he can't see her, she can't see him.

As my friends were seated at the dining table during one of these family dinners - it's one of those higher tables with the tall stools, Mrs. Muggelsworth waltzed into the room and Ivan responded by doing what any small child who is afraid of someone would do. He tried to climb up into my friends lap to get away from the much smaller "scary" dog. Below is a picture of Ivan and his owner, the one who's lap he was trying to climb on: not an easy task for him.

I could hear this story from my friends 100 times and I still laugh so hard I cry, but it also started me thinking. Ivan doesn't even realize he could snap Mrs. Mugglesworth in half if the need arised. God has created each of us in specific ways, what happens when we aren't even aware of who He has created us to be? Genesis 1:17 says, "So God created human beings in his own image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them." We are created in the image of God, let that sink in for a minute.

Ivan is afraid because he doesn't know who he is or what he is capable of. But we do, we were created in God's image, the most powerful, wonderful, awe-inspiring being in existence. We find our definition not in what we do or what we like, but in the One who created us to be like Him.

Are you like Ivan? Are there parts of you that you are unaware of? Are there gifts and talents God has given you that you are not using or don't even know you have yet? I encourage you to ask God to use you in the most unexpected ways and see what happens!

Adage #15: If the shoe fits, wear it.

I love shoes, I'm convinced they can fix emotional problems (while simultaneously creating physical ones due to bad foot support). When I'm at the store and every pair of pants I try on don't fit, I can always count on shoes. I read in a Relevant magazine article a while ago that suggested one thing you should be able to do by the time you are 25 was to learn how to walk in heels. I took this information to heart and began my journey to better looking fashion and more uncomfortable shoes. If you are a female and are not already able to walk in a pair of heels without looking like a drunken monkey, here are a few reasons I think you should learn this life skill:

1. If you have a low pain tolerance, this is a great way to work on building that up. Wear your heels on your next trip to Disneyland or do laps around your neighborhood and soon you will be able to tolerate any sort of pain. You could probably win on Fear Factor after that kind of training.

2. Apparently, wearing heels makes you look more "professional", so if you are interviewing for a job, I would highly recommend you wear those heels instead of your running shoes.

3. Celebrities are people, too. And celebrities are always wearing heels - I'm pretty sure they wear them when they are asleep. When we wear heels it allows us to get into their world a little bit, feel what they feel and all that. We can either sympathize with how tough their life is (being followed by the paparazzi, hours of boring awards ceremonies, no privacy, etc.) or we can feel glamorous just like them by wearing our expensive Jimmy Choos (read: wearing the heels I bought at Target on clearance).

4. Maybe you need to come to terms that you are short and this is the best solution you have besides surrounding yourself with only short people. Not that this is a terrible idea, but I feel like there are a lot of great tall people in the world and it would be sad to miss out on those friendships just because you feel short when you stand next to them.

I hope I have convinced you. Or maybe really I'm just trying to psych myself into taking off these flats and putting on my super cute Jessica Simpson nude wedges.Happy shoe shopping!

Adage #14: Never overestimate sticky notes, either.

I have a love for office supplies. Perhaps, an unhealthy one. One Christmas while I was in high school, I received a $50 gift card to Office Max in my stocking. The only think I found more exciting than the gift card was the huge Office Max office supply catalog sitting next to it. I spent the next week pouring through the catalog carefully choosing what I would use my precious gift card for. Going to Office Max with my dad to use my gift card was just as exciting as getting the card in my stocking.

Of all the office supplies, I particularly love sticky notes. I have a reputation in the office for having a ridiculous amount of them. I wrote a previous blog post about starting to organize my day using a sticky note prioritizing system. This amazing new way of taking charge of my life lasted me approximately two weeks. I come up with organizing plans like Zack Morris comes up with schemes on Saved By the Bell (such as getting cheap class rings that turn your finger green). I fall into the trap most busy Americans find themselves in - I use all of this technology at my fingertips to make my life more efficient and fast paced instead of taking the time to slow down. What if I took the time I spend concocting ways to live more "efficiently" to take a breath, slow down and think about what I needed to accomplish that day instead?

Even though checking to-dos off of our lists feels like we've accomplished something, sometimes it can be harmful. I burned myself out in ministry once because I became so wrapped up in getting all the stuff done, that I blew right past the time I should have spent with God. One of my professors at Whitworth once read us a quote by Martin Luther - the gist of the quote was that when Luther had a busy day in front of him, he would spend the first 3 hours of it praying. I have spent years trying to find this quote so people don't think I just made this up, but I can't seem to find it (apparently, googling "Martin Luther quote about praying for 3 hours" and variations of that is not helpful). But even if I had made it up, the main idea is worth taking some time to think about. How often do you just dive into a day instead of taking the time to center yourself in Christ?

We can all find a thousand different techniques to prioritize our time and get through our to-do lists, but without Christ is there any meaning behind our checklists? My favorite times in ministry were the times that I took a break and prayed. I would go into the room our youth group met in or a quiet, dark room in the back of the church and I asked God what He wanted me to do, what was important to Him that day, that week, that year.  When I did that, I felt focused and centered. Sometimes God would give me clear direction to take and sometimes it was just a reminder that He needs to be my priority.

How can you slow down this week and make Christ your focus? What might God be asking you to give up so that you can pursue him?

Adage #7: Never underestimate the power of sticky notes to help you organize.

In an effort to be more organized at work, I devised what I think to be a brilliant plan. I started to prioritize what needs to get done by using numbered sticky notes. I end up with a lot of paper on my desk throughout the day, so this allows me to keep focused on the most important things. I love lists, so I made a little pros and cons list of my new system:

Pro: Save time so I don’t have to pull all the papers out and figure out what I should do next, I have already decided that.
Con: Sometimes I find something I need to do after I’ve applied my sticky note system and then I have to move all sorts of stuff around. I devised a decimal point system to help out.

Pro: Allows me time in the morning to figure out my plan for that day which translates into less time where I feel like I’m running around with my head cut off.
Con: The sticky notes have begun to lose their stickiness. I had not really anticipated losing track of my priorities because the sticky note fell off in the middle of the day. Today I discovered I had three sticky notes with the number “3” on them because I thought I had lost them due to the unstickiness.

Pro: I get to excitedly explain my brilliant plan with friend and co-worker Laura and how this will revolutionize the way I get work done.
Con: Laura tries to be a supportive friend by pretending to like my brilliant sticky note priority system, She then changes the subject to what kind of dog should she get so she doesn’t have to fake interest for too long before falling asleep from boredom.

Adage #6: Don't let your insecurity replace your identity.

Boys don’t understand girls. Girls don’t understand other girls. Girls don’t even understand themselves. “I don’t even know why I did that. I have no idea why I’m feeling this way.” Those are words I often hear myself and my friends say. It’s risky to put a bunch of girls in a room together for more than 5 minutes. That’s exactly what I did last week at West Shore - a one-day event for girls 11-24 (huge props to Emily Lewellyn’s willingness to follow God’s vision for this and all the females who put tons of work in!).

Here’s what I noticed: girls are insecure. This may not be a shock to you, especially if you spend any time at all with teenagers, but the way insecurities penetrate who we are should shock you. C.S. Lewis said that pride is the beginning of all sin. I think insecurity holds a close second. Insecurities fuel criticism of others, they led us to do things we regret later because we thought they would make us feel better, they plant seeds of self-doubt in our minds. As I talked with girls during West Shore, I began to pick up on this theme of insecurity. It came in many different forms: bragging, shyness, criticism, sarcastic remarks and a thousand other ways.

My good friend, Emmily Ocker, taught the session on identity. She told a story about an insecurity she had just recently encountered and I wrote down something she said, “My insecurity shows my lack of identity.” God has created you and when you become insecure in God’s creation (you), you miss out on your whole identity. That blows my mind. Identity is who we are, Emmily described it as, “the sense of who you are as a person.” God created you to be compassionate, but your insecurity leads you to tear others down. God created you to have a talent to share with others, but your insecurity leads you to hide it. God created you to make a difference, but your insecurity paralyzes you in fear. God created you with all the care and love in the world and your insecurity blinds you from that very care and love.

I’ve been quick to tell you that I saw insecurity in others, but I saw it in myself as well. During the beauty session with the senior high students, one of the ladies leading the group talked about how we need to learn to take compliments instead of feeling insecure about them (this is only one among many wise points they gave us). After maturing a little and praying a lot, I’ve become pretty secure in who God has created me to be. But Satan is sneaky and here’s what happened 10 minutes before the session leader said that particular thing: we were instructed to give a physical compliment to the person sitting to the right of us, that sounds great, right?

I was on the end and no one was on my left to give me a compliment (nope, we haven’t made it to the insecure part, yet). The student sitting on my right, whom I had never met before, asked if she could give me one since there was no one next to me. I was expecting something about my hair because that’s what people usually comment on, but what she said was: “I like your eyebrows” (bam - there it is!).

You’re going to need a little history for this: When I was in 7th grade, I pulled all my of eyelashes out. There were a lot of things going on in my life at that time and just how eating disorders are often about control, so was pulling out my eyelashes. I’ve shared that story with quite a few people, but what I haven’t told most is that I also pulled a lot of my eyebrows out in 7th grade. The eyelashes grew back and it’s not that big of a deal anymore. My eyebrows all grew back, too, but for some reason I am still incredibly insecure about them. I don’t even like when people say the word “eyebrow” in fear that someone will look at mine and find something horribly wrong with them.

I allowed that very genuine comment from the girl sitting next to me to create insecurity. I heard what the session leader was saying, but I let Satan yell over her, I was too occupied with my insecurity. Guess what one insecurity leads to? More insecurities. It doesn’t take much for an insecurity about a small thing to blow up into a giant insecurity about who you are, why you were created, what you were created for. The only way to overcome that insecurity is to surrender it to God, even if it might seem a little silly sometimes. I might have to wake up everyday and say, “God, you created me and that means you created my eyebrows, too, they are a part of Your plan.”

I want to leave you with the same question Emmily asked us in her session: What is holding you back from your identity in God? I want to add to that, what insecurities are holding you back from your identity?

Adage #5: Democracy wins...sometimes.

When I was 10, I made the decision that our family needed to vote for a president. I'm guessing this idea came from a combination of learning about the government at school along with being the first born (which gives me a natural desire to control others and be bossy, of course).

Someone needed to run family meetings and I was perfect for the job; although, the Adams family president would really just be a pawn of the monarchy (mom and dad). In my 10-year-old power-hunger mind, this is how I would really get to control my younger sister and make her do everything I wanted her to do. Being the "family president" would be the unbeatable trump card and she would be forced to give in.

They were excellent parents, so they sniffed out my ulterior motives for this vote. My dad felt bad for my sister (who wouldn't?, I was a dictator) and voted for her, hoping my mom had voted for me, resulting in a tie and everyone could just walk away, no feelings hurt.

Not the way it worked out. My sister won because my mom had thought the very same thing. In defeat, I saw all my power melting away. Now I would have to be the one to give in to my younger sibling's every whim. So I stormed off and never spoke of a family vote again.

Moral of the story: If any of your children ever suggest voting for a family president, suggest everyone go for ice cream instead.

Adage #4: You can catch more bees with honey, but you need newspaper to get a wasp.

I am terrified of bees. I have never been stung by one and I will avoid this event from occurring in my life at all costs. I am that crazy person who flails all over the place while trying to get away from this winged creature with a stinger (which is a privilege I don’t think they should have). I flinch at any buzzing sound that could possibly be a bee, I get up from any table I’m sitting at outside and run inside, I squeal and sometimes I duck my head and just hope it will go away.

The other morning I woke up and was going through my usual morning routine. As I was walking into my bathroom, I noticed a shadow on my shower curtain. It slowly dawned on me that this was a wasp. This was a big problem, how was I going to shower before work? I thought maybe I could grab my shampoo and body wash and take my shower in the downstairs bathroom. But then I would still have to move the shower curtain to obtain these items and surely the wasp would not like to be disturbed and he would come after me. I thought maybe I could try and get rid of him, but I would probably miss and then he would get mad at me and sting me in the eyeball multiple times, blinding me forever.

In every scenario I could come up with, I ended up getting stung. I thought that would be a terrible way to start the day, so I just didn’t shower.

I came home later on in hopes that the insect had found his way out. Nope, he sure hadn’t. “This is it,” I thought, “I’m never going to be able to shower again.” After a few minutes of deliberation, I knew I had to get rid of him because it wouldn’t take long for people to notice a smell when I walked past them. So I got someone else to get rid of the wasp for me (thanks Serena).

I’ve never been much of a risk taker. It’s okay to be cautious, it’s kept me alive so far, so that’s a positive. But what am I limiting myself from doing by being so afraid to take a risk? I was prepared to let that wasp take over my bathroom and start a colony if he wanted to because I was too afraid of him. What else in my life have I given up on because it seemed impossible to accomplish?

Philippians 4:13 “For I can do everything through Christ, who gives me strength.”

Adage #3: Take an art class.

When I was home at Christmas, my family played a game that was kind of a cross of Pictionary and Apples-to-Apples. You pick a card and everyone draws what the card says like "vacation" or "rabbit". After everyone has drawn their picture you pick another card that says something like "prettiest" or "most likely to be mistaken for real art" and everyone votes on who's drawing best fits that phrase (without knowing which drawing belongs to who). Here are some of the highlights, let me warn you, we're not a super artistic family.

Breakfast in bed.

This is the scariest looking baby I have ever seen.

We were supposed to draw "school". I'm not sure how well you can see this, but 3 of these look pretty normally, but take a closer look at the 3rd picture - my sister drew this (the only one in school right now).

"Chickens crossing the road":
1. The picture on top is mine, the one on the bottom is my mom's, can you guess who I learned to draw from?
2. Somehow I also learned from my mom that when drawing chickens, they have 4 legs instead of 2.

Which do you think it is?

The Adams family interprets "horse".

I am offended.

If this won for Art Teacher's Pet, you can only imagine how beautiful the rest of our drawings were.

Adage #2: Keep memorials.

My mom is a wise woman. A while ago, she and I were talking on the phone about the big changes in my life. She told me that I needed to remember, to keep a memorial of what God did. I stepped out in faith to follow Him and He made things happen. I asked Him to speak to me and He gave me clear instructions.

It seemed scary at the time, but I had a job to fall back on and a place to live for free. My mom said to keep that memory, because there might come a day where God tells me to do something in faith and I won’t have practical things to fall back on. But I can look back and see that He took care of me once and He will continue to take care of me.

Joshua 4:6-7 - We will use these stones to build a memorial. In the future your children will ask you, ‘What do these stones mean?’ Then you can tell them, ‘They remind us that the Jordan River stopped flowing when the Ark of the Lord’s Covenant went across.’ These stones will stand as a memorial among the people of Israel forever.”

I was pretty sure if I set up a pile of rocks on Division, they would get knocked down, so I wrote it down in my journal and I tell people it often so I remember that He is much bigger than I.

What kind of memorials do you have?

Adage #1: Planning is overrated.

I'm a planner, I’ve always had a plan. It’s genetic, I have family trip itineraries to prove it. Spontaneous people have always scared me and awed me all at the same time. I’ve secretly wanted to be spontaneous for while because I think these people are on to something.

When it comes to making plans about my life, it’s stressful. Recently, I’ve been praying a lot about what God has in store for me. When I’ve tried to make a plan, He stops me and says, “That’s your plan, Alissa, not mine, just slow down there.” God’s just giving me little steps to follow, day by day, week by week. He hasn’t revealed some giant story-arc that’s going to keep viewers interested for the duration of my TV show; I’m no LOST with a plan of how this whole thing’s going to turn out in the end. God hasn’t even clued me in to what’s going to happen in this season’s finale. He’s given me a 30 second preview of what’s coming next week. And I’m okay with that, maybe it’s because those 30 seconds that come after the TV show I just spent an hour watching are my favorite part - a promise of what’s to come without revealing too much.