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 #13: Find the beauty in the breakdown.

I’ve had a bit of a rough year, ever have one of those? There were a lot of changes - some good and some bad. Someday I will look back at this year and instead of considering it a waste of time, I will see that I was able to embrace the lessons I was learning and praise God despite things not going according to plan.




There’s a song by Frou Frou called “Let Go.” Here's how the chorus goes:
“So, let go, let go
Jump in
Oh well, what you waiting for?
It's all right
'Cause there's beauty in the breakdown
So, let go, let go
Just get in
Oh, it's so amazing here
It's all right
'cause there's beauty in the breakdown.”

This year I learned to find beauty in the breakdown. This is not to say that there were not a lot of good moments in my life this year because there were many of them! But I also found myself experiencing types of sorrow I had never dealt with before. And in the midst of crying in my car while listening to a sad song on the radio, I learned to find the beauty in it all. Beauty in the process of mending a broken heart. Beauty in watching God unfold a plan he’s had for all eternity. Beauty in the journey of being a human being. Beauty in learning to love others first. Beauty in the community God provided me with. Beauty in finding God in everything and all around me.

Where have you found God’s beauty recently?

Soundtrack:
Frou Frou - Details

Adage #12: Learn to make coffee so well you can do it in your sleep.

My wonderful co-worker and friend, Laura, gets annoyed with me when she tries to have a conversation in the morning with me, but I am too tired to know what's going on. After waking up for 3 years before 6am (to work at a coffee place, nonetheless), one would think I could handle being fully aware of my surroundings by 8:30am, but this is not the case.

Yesterday I came into the office and after unsuccessfully trying to hold a normal conversation with Laura, she considerately suggested that I should make some coffee before I attempted to talk with her again. I then spent 15 minutes in the kitchen trying to figure out how much coffee to make. Here is the internal conversation I had with myself:

"Where is the measuring spoon?"

This took me approximately 3 minutes to locate. Mind you, you can hardly fit two people in this kitchen, so there were not a whole lot of places for the measuring spoon to be.

"Now how many tablespoons of coffee do I put per cup of water?"

"If I put 6 tablespoons, then I need 3 cups of water..."

"But wait, 3 cups of water will make 3 cups of coffee and that won't even fill up my mug!"

At this point, my mind thinks 3 cups = 3 ounces.

"So if I put 10 tablespoons of coffee in the filter, I will need 5 cups of water which will equal 5 ounces of coffee and that's less than a cup of coffee which is 8 ounces."

I had this part of the conversation for a couple of minutes, using different tablespoon amounts to try and end up with a full cup of coffee.

"How in the world do people successfully make this stuff everyday! You have to use so much coffee to get one little mug of it. 12 tablespoons is a lot to get just 6 ounces of coffee. How can this be right!?"

"Ugh, I don't know!"

At this point, I preceed to stop counting any sort of measurement and just dump coffee and water into the coffee pot.

After 15 mintues in the kitchen, I emerge:

Laura: "So, you were in there for a while."

Me: "I know, wasn't I!? I had a really rough time making coffee this morning."

Laura: "Did you figure it out?"

Me: "I'm not really sure, we'll find out when it's done."

Adage #11: Stop for the surprises in your life.

My dad, sister and I had just spent the whole day traveling from Los Angeles to London. I think we arrived at our hotel around 7PM. We unloaded our stuff, grabbed some dinner and started wandering around. We stumbled upon a nice looking town square with some fountains and decided to sit and do some people watching.

We sat down on the edge of a fountain and looked up to see a tall statue of a man with four lions at the base. It was then that my dad realized that we were in Trafalgar Square, a place he looked for every time he was in London, but hadn’t been able to find.

It’s funny how often we end up stumbling upon things on accident. Places we could never find when we were looking for them. While driving around Spokane, I often stumble upon interesting places that I can never find again when I’m purposely looking for them. I can never seem to find the particular article of clothing I am shopping for, but when I go without a purpose, I find tons of stuff. When I am looking for God to do something specific in my life, He does something I wasn’t planning on.

So when you find unexpected things, take a minute and pause there. Enjoy it because who knows when you will find again!

Adage #10: The best part of traveling to Europe is the Kinder Eggs.

Seriously, that's not a joke. These might just be my favorite part of going to Europe and I have managed to find them every time I've gone over there. They are hollow, egg-shaped chocolates (milk chocolate on the outside and white chocolate on the inside) that have a little toy on the inside.

The anticipation of what toy you are going to get beats any Happy Meal toy ever. Maybe it's because things are just better when they are not allowed in the US (I think it's because little kids can choke on the toy found inside). Maybe it's because you have to hunt around for a while before you can find them (they're everywhere in the winter, but a lot harder to track down the rest of the year). On this trip, I couldn't find them until half way through at a random little shop in the countryside of Bavaria.

So if you find yourself in Europe, make sure you buy a Kinder Sorpresa, Kinder Surprise, or Kinder Überraschung.

Adage #9: Make sure to leave your glass slipper on the stairs before you leave the party.

I have loved the story of Cinderella since I was a little girl. It is the only movie I can tolerate watching over and over and over. I will watch any version of it I can get my hands on, no matter how cheesy it might be. So when my sister, my dad and I talked about what we would go see while on our trip to Europe this May, I only had one request: to see the “Cinderella Castle” (Neuschwanstein) outside of Munich. This castle inspired Walt Disney and it did not disappoint, the place looked like it was straight from a fairy-tale.

The castle was built by “Mad King Ludwig.” He built some gorgeous castles - these castles he dreamt up were not your run of the mill. They are everything you think of when you think fairy tales and princes and Disney movies. But Ludwig never finished Neuschwanstein Castle and never got the chance to begin construction on his next castle project because he was arrested for being an unfit king.

Ludwig was too caught up on building his magical castles to care about running Bavaria, . His whole story is very interesting and his death is shrouded in mystery (check out the links above for more info). As my sister and I were taking in all this information while on a tour of two of his castles, it occurred to me that Ludwig got so caught up in the magic of other people’s stories that he never lived his own. He built a castle based on Versailles because he wanted his own version and Neuschwanstein was based on the music of Wagner. He had the power to do incredible things as the king of Bavaria, but instead he chose to build castles and ignore what was happening in his kingdom.

I love stories: telling stories, hearing other people’s stories, and watching stories unfold on TV shows, in movies and in books. The life of King Ludwig reminds us that we can’t get caught so much in the fantasy of other people's stories that we forget how to live our own out. You are in the middle of an incredible story. You might be in the part where the characters are being introduced, maybe you’re building up to the big battle or maybe you’ve just won a huge victory. But you’re story coincides with The Story, the one God started in the Garden of Eden and ends with eternity (which is more of a beginning than an ending).

What are you doing right now to live out your own story?



Suggested reading:
A Million Miles in a Thousand Years by Donald Miller
To Be Told by Dan Allender

Adage #8: It's true, patience is a virtue.

The other day after work, I was driving to my friend Kym’s house. I got on the freeway onramp and was greeted by a traffic jam. Spokane traffic jams aren’t close to what I’ve been stuck in while in LA, and yet I found myself annoyed and impatient. So I decide to get off the freeway and go another route.

This backfired on me pretty quickly. The off ramp I chose was in a part of town I am not very familiar with so I was just sort of guessing where to go next. I found myself somewhere I recognized but misjudged my lane choice. And there I was, getting on the same onramp I had started on 15 minutes before and sitting in the same traffic. I was too busy trying to figure it out my way, that I just ended up wasting gas and taking even longer.

I often try to take shortcuts and go my own way. I’m pretty stubborn and I refuse to ask for directions - whether they are from the guy working at a gas station or from God. But in the end, I usually end up getting to my destination with a lot more heartache because I decided to do it my own way instead of God’s.

 Trust in the Lord with all your heart;
      do not depend on your own understanding.
 Seek his will in all you do,
      and he will show you which path to take.
Proverbs 3:5-6

It will probably take me a lifetime to figure this out. The bad news is that I will probably repeat something like that freeway incident next week. The good news is that I’ve progressed a little bit in patience: if this had happened a couple of years ago, I would have gotten off the freeway a second time and repeated that whole process at least one more time.