Have Cheap Luggage, Will Travel

Anybody who has been reading these blogs knows that my life very recently has made a drastic change for the better. I have had an encounter with the reality of a relationship with The Lord and it has revolutionized everything about me. Have you ever had something like that happen to you? Don’t you just want to tell everybody? Your friends and family, the guys behind the counter at Starbucks – But do you always tell people?

I think it is rare to find a person that does not have one of these stories, but most people think things like, “My story is just like everyone else's” or “It takes too long to tell” or “People don’t want to know that stuff about me”. They never tell their story unless you through them in front of audience to give their testimony.

At Women of Faith, I have seen thousands upon thousands of women become Christians because the speakers from stage tell their stories of how God wooed them out of their junk with such brutal honestly you can’t help not being moved. For me the biggest place that I see Jesus in my world is in other people’s stories. The power of story is so amazing.

Here is my point. I think that this the biggest mistake that we make when interacting with one another. Never really honestly connecting. Talking about superficial nothingness until we are blue in the face because it makes us tired to think about getting into a deep conversation.

So tell your story every chance you get. You will never know whose life you will change.

Ask people about their stories. You never know who is just busting to tell you something that happened to them and you never know how it could change you.

And thanks to Jeremy who fearlessly had a deep conversation with me this weekend and reminded me of all this. Your story changed me.

When does a kid turn into an adult? Maybe it isn’t an age or a certain place in life. Maybe it is when you brain starts to change its thinking. Like, when did changing yourself or learning something new get so hard?

I find myself coming across habits that I have and wonder why anybody really wants to hang out with me. For example, I think I drive my roommates crazy with my incessant cleaning. It is not like they are dirty or anything, but I apparently can not stand the sight dishes in the sink. Or shoes in the living room. Or clutter on the counter. Does that sound familiar? Aghhhh! I am my father. When did that happen?

Anyway, I really like my roommates so I have spent the last month trying white knuckle my way through not cleaning the house every single day. It is not working. When I wake up in the morning, my first thought is dirty dishes. How sad is that?

Here is another one. I had discovered that I am a shameless flirt. Yes, yes. I like boys and boy attention and basically everything about the opposite sex. (Perhaps there is a reason that God placed my in an all female organization? :) ) I have really made a concerted effort lately to just be around boys instead of badgering them with my constant requests for attention. And… it’s not working. Every time I travel for Women of Faith, all of the crew is guys my age and I am sure that they have a good laugh about me over the lunch table because I flirt with them all.

I wish the Matrix movie was real life. Then I could just type into a computer, relationship skills. Press enter and wham! I could jump up with one fist in the air proclaiming, “I am confident in myself and do not need to flirt with guys!”

Why can’t life be that easy? Why does changing your self get harder every day? How can we stop ourselves from becoming our parents?

This is real adulthood ladies and gentlemen. The realization that life is hard and that you need something bigger than you to fix you.

My favorite books are those that make you think above and outside yourself. For most people this is not a comfortable place to be but it is by far my favorite place to be. I just finished a book that did just that for me and I want to tell you about it.

The book is called Searching for God Knows What by Donald Miller. In the book, Miller talks about how he believes that Christians might be spending their whole lives focused on things (Sprinkle vs. Dunk – Priests vs. Pastors) that aren’t even that important in the grand scheme of life if you don’t tackle the basics first. The basics being, do you know who Jesus is and do you have a relationship with him? Maybe this example will help explain the reality of the situation.

My friend Anne is the most balanced person I know when it comes to opinions about other people. Too often when I am around her and talking about how one of our co-workers is making me crazy (basically throwing them under the bus). Anne is so quick to bring out their perspective and remind me that there are things under the surface that maybe I couldn’t see. She would never have an unkind word to say about another person - ever. So if somebody told me that they met Anne had she went on and on about how much she hated this person she met at church or something, I would tell you that we must not be talking about the same person. You see, I have a close relationship with Anne and know her so well I can predict her behavior. I know who she is. Do you know Jesus like that? I sure don’t.

I am a learner. I love to read and attend lectures and learn everything I can. The hard reality that I am realizing is that I can not learn how to have a relationship with my creator but I do have to try. If you were married and only hung out with your spouse every other day, would it work? Nope. Same rules apply here.

What is really profound about this stuff is that the God that created the whole universe cares about you as a person and deeply desires a relationship with you. He is just waiting for us to pay attention and that relationship will change everything about the rest of your life. Don’t believe me? Just wait until it happens to you.

So, go take a walk and chat with God. Tell him the deepest secrets of your life or just tell him about aggravating co-workers. Either way a life changing relationship awaits you…

When I was in high school, my grandparents on my dad’s side died and I didn’t want to go to their funerals. My parents didn’t make me – huge mistake. That was almost 10 years ago but I still get overwhelmingly sad about their loss sometimes.

My major in college was communication studies and I learned a lot about the stages of grief.

1. Denial
2. Anger
3. Bargaining
4. Depression
5. Acceptance

People usually float back and forth between the stages until they get to acceptance and then they are able to move on with their lives. By not attending my grandparent’s funerals, I trapped myself in the denial stage for several years. It is not a fun place to be because you will always have this cloud hanging around that colors your world until you are able to deal with it and move on.

The reason that I bring this up is that I recently broke up with my boyfriend of 6 years a few months ago and we saw each other for the first time since he left last night. It was a horrible but wonderful experience.

Basically, I love him so much but do not want to marry him and he feels the same way. So because of that continued mutual love and respect, after breaking up we still talked all the time and continued being friends. After seeing him last night, I realized that I was trapping myself in the denial stage again! I was just hoping I could keep him in a jar on my life shelf to pull out when I needed someone to complain to or cry to or share my day with. Can’t happen. My relationship has died and I feel the same way that I felt when I lost my grandparents.

So, I now know why God says to guard you heart. It isn’t protection against somebody that would hurt me, but from somebody that would love me. If you think breaking up with a boyfriend that cheats on you but you love him anyway is hard – try breaking up with one that you love and he loves you back.