The Giver

The Giver, by Lois Lowry, is one of the most thought-provoking books I have read in my short life.  It is a short novel, albeit one with a brilliant premise, but the ideas in this book are absolutely incredible.  I have read it at least three times, and every time I enjoy it more than the last.

The book is about a sheltered world, a place unconnected to any outside source of knowledge or ideas.  This on its own speaks volumes to the importance of human connection and interaction.  However, there is much more to the story, as one comes to find out.  The story centers around a young boy named Jonas who is chosen for a rather peculiar job, one that is given only to very "special" individuals, hand-picked by a committee of elders.  His job is to receive all of the memories passed down from the one who had his job before him, and to hold the memories for all of the citizens of the town.

One soon comes to find out that, many years before, a committee of elders decided that life would be better for the people if they were unable to feel pain, to have any troubles in life, and that a completely controlled life would be better than one filled with choices that could potentially lead to pain.  In order to completely control the lives of the people, all of the memories of good things as well as the bad had to be given to one person who held them for the so-called benefit of the people.

I love this book because in the end it shows that the ability to experience pain and to feel sad or even uncomfortable emotions gives us the ability to be happy, to feel comfort, excitement and even love.  In order to remove the pain of life, the joy of life must also be removed.  For this reason, The Giver is one of my favorite books.  I come back to it often when I go through hard times and wonder why life has to be so difficult sometimes, and why it can't all just be good and happy.  But then I remember that without the sad, we can't have the happy; without the tumult, we can't have the peace; without the hate, we can't have the love.

POST 2

Questions

Ever since I was little, I have questioned everything.  I refuse to take issues at face value, and almost always inquire further.  I want to know how things work, I want to understand why things happen the way they do, I want to see it for myself.  I have never been content with the simple I-don't-feel-like-explaining-it answer.  I want to be walked through it and shown what is going on and why.  I want to understand the world around me, to question it all and find the truth for myself.

If I think back, I realize this all began when I was a little girl, when my dad would come in my room after I was all ready for bed, and I would just ask him questions.  I would lay in bed, asking question after question about topics ranging from metamorphosis to the moon to where maple syrup comes from.  My curiosity was endless, as was his ability to answer my probing questions.

My dad, in answering my questions and encouraging me to ask them, showed me the importance of curiosity.  He showed me that there truly are no stupid questions, that there is an answer for whatever question I have.  Even if he doesn't have the answer, the answer is out there.  Someone else might have it, or I might have to find it for myself.

I know today that it's okay for me to ask questions, that God, my Daddy, will answer.  He knows even more than my dad, and loves it when I lay in bed before I fall asleep, asking Him questions about His creation.  He wants me to question it, to explore it, to find out all I can about what He has made for me to enjoy.

POST 1

Song of Myself

Living in boxes
It’s time to break out
It’s time that we learn
What this life’s all about

Everyone’s searching
For what, they don’t know
Simply open your eyes
And Himself He will show

He is who I am
It’s Him I live for
He’s right by my side
As I swim towards the shore

To me, there is nothing
That is more clear
My eyes focused on Him
And I’ll never veer

He’s the breath to my lungs
The beat to my heart
I’ll run with Him ‘til the finish
He’s been there from the start

When my sight is obscured
And life’s at a new low
His hand I will hold
And never let go

This is me
This is my story
Jesus is mine
From glory to glory

Tides

Life is like the ocean

It comes in and goes out

The waves crash on the beach

And tides push you about

Sometimes all you can see

Is the heartache, the pain
The swells seem too high
And joy you must feign

But look, look around
Don’t let your joy die
The waves bring you low
So you can go high

Things will change for the better
Just you wait and see
Tides turn around
And love will forever be

Yes, Lord.

At the beginning of my junior year of high school, my second year on Undignified, I was extremely excited about wherever we would end up going in April. After an absolutely incredible, life-changing experience in Nicaragua the year before, I knew that, wherever God sent the team, we would accomplish huge things for His Kingdom and be forever changed. When I found out that we would be going to Haiti, I was, admittedly, a little bit more uncomfortable, solely because I knew the language barrier would be much greater than in a Spanish-speaking country. However, I knew that God would not send us into a situation we were unable to bear, and I was excited to see what God would do through me and the rest of the team. And then the earthquake hit. If nothing else, knowing about the devastation of the nation of Haiti and the seeming hopelessness of the situation caused me to become even more passionate and excited about being able to go to Haiti.

As the deluge of information and reports and pictures came in about the situation in Haiti, my love for these people continued to grow. It seemed ridiculous, in a way. How is it that one can love a person or group of people without even meeting them? And without God, I don’t believe that it is even possible for that to be. However, because of God’s love for me, I was able to honestly love the people of Haiti. I could absolutely not wait to be able to go and help them rebuild, and show them the love and hope that only Jesus Christ can give a person, and that He has given me every single day of my life. As the days and weeks passed, God continued to grow a passion in my heart like none I had ever experienced before. It seemed that each time I opened my Bible to read, God would show me another verse, another chapter that was so pertinent to the situation in Haiti.

And then I got sick.

About two weeks before the scheduled departure for Port-au-Prince, I got a sore throat. It seemed like no big deal, until it would not subside. I continually became increasingly sick, and the doctors had no idea what I had. In the end, I was out of school and miserable for eight days. I finally began feeling better about four days before the team was leaving for Haiti. Because of my compromised immune system, it was decided that I would be unable to go. The whole time I was sick, I kept praying that I would wake up the next morning rejuvenated and healed, ready to go. I couldn’t even seem to wrap my mind around the thought that I might not be able to go to Haiti, that I might have to be separated from my family that is the Undignified team. It seemed impossible that God would give me such a love and passion for these people, provide all the necessary funds to go, and then stop me from going.

And yet that was His plan. He knew from the beginning of time that I was not supposed to be in Haiti at that time. I knew that, and I know that. However, even with that knowledge, the realization that I could not go was still one of the most difficult things I have ever been faced with. Having to say goodbye to the team was beyond painful. I love being able to serve God, and to love on His children, and the feeling that I was being stopped from doing that hurt more than I thought I could bear.

While it seemed like I was missing out on an experience with God in Haiti by having to stay home, this was definitely not the case. While I didn’t have an incredible, passionate, “mountaintop” experience with Jesus while I was home, my faith was strengthened incredibly. I learned to trust God more than I ever even thought possible. Before this experience, I knew that God had a purpose and a plan for my life, of course. I knew that He had a reason for doing whatever He did in my life. But I knew it in my head. I knew all the Bible verses and it seemed like I completely understood that God had a reason for keeping me from going to Haiti. However, like I said, it was head knowledge. I never really knew it in my heart, because, in all honesty, I had never before truly had to lean on it.

I don’t think this knowledge fully made its way from my head down to my heart until the team came back from Haiti. They hadn’t had a “mountaintop” experience with God either, it seemed. They learned to be true servants, to not need recognition for their work, to do whatever God asked of them without complaint or questioning. They learned to say, “Yes, Lord,” in every situation, no matter how uncomfortable, painful, or difficult to understand. When I began hearing these stories, I realized that they rang true to my heart and what it had learned from this experience.

I have truly come to the realization that whatever God wants from me I must give to Him. It comes down to the perfect trust we are called to put in Him. Although none of us are perfect, He is. We may never understand why He is calling us to do a certain thing, go to a certain place, or even not do a certain thing, or not got to a certain place. While what we want to do might be a completely good, godly thing, if it is not according to God’s will, we have to trust that it is not right. Being a servant comes down to doing whatever is needed at the time, regardless of compensation or cost to oneself. We are supposed to be God’s servants, so we must do whatever God asks of us, no matter what.

God called me to be prepared to go to Haiti, and, in the end, not go. Without planning on going to Haiti, I don’t believe that I would have had the same love for its people that I had, and still have. God showed me how to truly love people, and not just my friends, my family, the people I know. I can honestly say that I love the people of Haiti. I have never met any of them, and yet I love them, which is how I know beyond the shadow of a doubt that it is God who has given me this love.

True love and perfect trust are the two things I learned, and am still learning, through this experience. If I love God, I will trust Him. It’s as simple as that.

Addicted

I wrote this a few months ago while I was doing a week-long "electronic fast."  In other words, a week of no movies, television, Facebook, texting, etc.

Wow, this is already incredibly difficult, and it's only the end of my first day.  I've basically come to terms with being without Facebook, movies and TV, but texting's been hard.  I'm so addicted.  The idea of that, that I might actually be addicted to something is a hard one to accept.  I think to myself, 'Addicted?  Doesn't that imply that I'm an - oh, to even bring myself to say the word - addict?'  I guess so.  'But wait,' I ask myself, 'isn't that word generally reserved for hardcore druggies and alcoholics?  You know, bad people?  Not me, right?  How could that even be possible?'  But it is.  I've let myself do something so often and habitually that it has actually become an addiction.

The dictionary defines addiction as "the state of being enslaved to a habit or practice or to something that is psychologically or physically habit-forming...to such an extent that its cessation causes severe trauma."  Wow.  Enslaved?  As in, slave?  I'm a...slave to texting?  Well if that's not sobering, I don't know what is.  My texting really does match up with every other part of that definition too.  Psychologically or physically habit-forming?  Check.  Its cessation, or cutting off, causes severe trauma?  Double check.

I feel like a drug addict going through withdrawal today to be completely honest with you.  I can't stop thinking about the people I want to text, and keep looking at my phone thinking of how I could possibly text them without breaking my fast early.  And obviously, that's impossible.  But it doesn't keep me from thinking about it.  Constantly.  Honestly, until I just sat down to write out some of my thoughts right now, I couldn't get my mind off it.

When I think about this, and examine the situation at hand more closely, I realize that on the days when I'm not fasting and therefore texting my butt off, I waste an incredible amount of time.  What is so important that I just need to talk to people about it right then?  It takes away from my time with God, which if I am again being completely honest, has been rather lacking in these past few weeks.  Because, really, who can concentrate on spending time with Jesus when their phone is buzzing every few minutes?  Certainly not me, I'll tell you that much.  And just as a side note, my phone just vibrated and my face, if I could have seen it, must have just lit up at the prospect of a received text message, even with the knowledge that I would be unable to answer it.

But back to the main idea.  Fasting my texting habit today really showed me how much more time I have when I'm not so distracted.  No constant checking of Facebook, no wasting an hour watching House, and, of course, no texting.  I got my homework done in record time, and subsequently had what seemed like "nothing to do."  No one to text, no Facebook to check, no TV to watch.  What could I possibly do?  It's too early yet to go to bed, and it's too cold and dark outside to go for a walk.  But, uhh, duh.  Why am I fasting?  Well, really, why do I do anything in my life?  Obvious, cliché, Christian answer coming, so prepare yourself.  Jesus Christ.  So why don't I give that pure, undiluted, undistracted time to Him?  So here I go.  Wish me luck.  It could be a long night.

I do.

They say the greatest of these is love
But what about peace and joy?
For these both come about
When one special girl joins with one special boy

Marriage, they say, is what brings us together
When love like a river rushes into their lives
She sheds her old name
And into this new life, headfirst he dives

They promise to be there forever and ever
When they're old and gray
In both sickness and health
Together forever they'll stay.

Let's Dance.

"Life isn't about waiting for the storm to pass; it's about learning to dance in the rain."

I'm typically not the kind of person who gives corny one-liners like this a second glance. Most of the time, the complete corniness of the quote distracts me from seeing any deeper meaning in it. However, by no work of my own, they all seem to get filed away somewhere in the file cabinet that is my brain, and seem to climb on out when an applicable situation beckons.

This is exactly what happened the last time it rained. I was looking out the window during class as the rain fell, and I became detached from all that was going on around me, falling into the bottomless chasm that is my thoughts. I began to think about how most people see rainy days as a seeming punishment from God. They, and many times I, see rain as something that solely ruins plans and frizzes hair. When asked how the weather is on a rainy day, most people would respond, 'bad' or 'gross.' This is understandable, as most people would rather not go outside and become soaking wet in their clothes.

But why? Why do we only go outside and enjoy the sunshine, and not the rain? I am quite sure that there are people out there that would have an absolute blast dancing in the rain, if only they were able to shed the societal manacles of today and not care what others think. Then there are those who seem to have lost that childlike joy, although I am a firm believer that everyone has a little kid inside; some have just been hidden deeper inside than others. In order to have fun in a rainstorm, these people would have to go through the difficulty of finding their inner child, and bringing him out again.

While most people would be unwilling to make the best of a rainy day and truly enjoy it, things would be so much better if they would. That's really what it comes down to: making the best of it. It's all about one's attitude. If we all looked at storms, whether they be literal rainy days or metaphorical storms in life, as a chance to dance in the rain, we'd be so much better off. If we wait for every storm to simply pass us by, we miss out on so much.  There are so many lessons to be learned and fun times to be had in the midst of these storms that will be missed if one doesn't have the right attitude. Life is full of learning experiences, one of those being the chance to learn to dance in the literal and metaphorical rain.