Adventure Addict?

Have you ever met those people who crave to live on the edge?

Like these people, for instance:

And then you think to yourself, "Why are they like that?" or maybe, "Why am I like that?"

After reading the Harry Potter series through again for the countless time, I have realized just how much I crave adventure. Maybe not necessarily like the above pictured, but just the pure motive to explore and to find and to create and to love. This is why I love such stories about Harry Potter and Dumbledore, Frodo Baggins and Gandalf the White, Elizabeth Bennet and Mr. Darcy, the Pevensies and Aslan, Romeo and Juliet, Beauty and the Beast, and countless others. I believe that all of these stories are a reflection of the great love affair we have with our Creator.

You see, he instilled this love for adventure in me. He made me to wonder, to explore, to discover, to yearn for something more...to yearn for him and heaven.

I believe that we, like Harry Potter and Peter the Magnificent, have destinies of our own. We have our own great adventures. And like Romeo asked Juliet to baptize him and give him a new name that they may share and then died so that he could be with her, so did our God baptize us and give us a new name, HIS, and died so that we could be with him.

It's beautiful. And it's all his story originally.

So take heart, my friend. If you feel bored or stagnant or meaningless, remember that you are a creation of the great Adventurist, and he has SO MUCH MORE in store for those who believe and take part in his great love affair.

Now let us take up swords, our wands, our rings, our lips, our hands, our hearts...and let us walk alongside our friends who remain ever loyal to us and embark upon this journey he set out for us from the beginning.

The Quest for Individuality

With another decade gone and the 20teens in full stride, I have noticed a gradual trend in our culture. Although America still thrives off of consumerism and industry, it seems a new wave of a thrifty, do-it-yourself, craft session of the century has ensued and is growing madly.

I'm not complaining. In fact, I think it's brilliant. The problem is, how do you find your own niche in this new wave.

My sister and I just discussed this last night. We talked about how we know probably a dozen jewelery-makers within our circle of friends. We decided that within this group of jewelery-makers, there is only one who is solely unique and therefore most successful in our eyes (this being Suzanne Cunningham of course). What makes her so different? Well just check out her stuff for yourself:

www.foryoubyq.etsy.com

But it doesn't stop at jewelery-making. All of a sudden, cupcakeries are popping up all over the place! Talented bakers are starting their own little businesses...that seem to thrive!  People are making purses, taking funky pictures and selling them, making scarves and clothes of every kind. It's like all of a sudden America has discovered its hidden talents and all of these talents have come to the fore in order to form an overwhelming plethora of craftiness.

However, it's not just making stuff that's popular. It's re-using the so-called junk in thrift stores to create our own masterpieces. Re-painting, mod podging, engraving, re-finishing, re-upholstering...you name it.

I know these things have been happening for a long time now, I guess it's just that I have been so bombarded over the past few months with all of these type of things all around me that I have realized that it is no longer just an interest or a hobby, it's a phenomenon.

So the question is, how do we stay unique? How do we find our own thing? When everyone is vying for a place in the crafty market, or even just a step in that direction, how do I, how do you keep your individuality?

My thought: do what you love. After talking about this last night with my sister, we both decided that what makes us unique is just doing what we love and not caring about what's most popular or what's the next new fad.

So whether you want to embroider cushions, dye curtains, flare up your jeans, make a coffee table, paint a chair, make a necklace, or build a wicked awesome cake, do it your way. Give it edge, make it bright, tone it down, funk it up...just make it your own.

Give me Jesus

For the past year I feel as though I have been stuck in a rut...a very deep, dark, ugly rut. I've felt defeated before I even began to fight my battles. I've worked hard to make good grades and to be the perfect young life leader. I've felt sorry for myself about being single, about having so few friends my age, about hating my job. I've been scared out of my mind about graduating in a year and starting my life in general.

And after all this time of wallowing in self-pity, I've found that Jesus is still here.

Despite my own short-comings and fears, God has shown me so much about his enduring, faithful, redeeming love. He has loved me through my friends at Discipleship Focus over the summer and since. He has loved me through my family, most of all my sister whom I have grown closer to all the while. He has loved me through Andy and Olivia Ogle, (two people I highly respect and love); he's loved me through my young life girls at the most unexpected moments. He's loved me through my best friend Sam, who has patiently stuck by me. And best of all, he has loved me through strangers, like the lady I met in Nashville 3 days ago. She hugged me and told me with tears and her eyes she was so thankful we were there restoring her home for her after the flood completely destroyed it a year ago.

I look back over the past year and realize how much I don't deserve these people in my life. I realize how God has used these people to put me in my place, to hold me accountable, to fall on my knees and give him thanks, to cry out my past hurts, to vent about my fears and things I am ashamed of, to laugh with, to sing and dance with, to hug, and to talk about Jesus in the realest and rawest ways possible.

I am a selfish, stubborn, shameful mess. Yet He loves me still...and more and more it seems as time goes by. Oh how I don't deserve the blessings he has lavished upon me, and how ungrateful I have been in receiving them!

With the opening of this new year, something has sparked within me. I don't know if it is because of the service project I went on the past 3 days or the new devotion topic of restoration or just the fact that I've wallowed so deeply into my own self-pity that I officially can wallow no deeper, but I am discovering something new...something hopeful in all of this. It is my great epiphany, if you will. By allowing myself to fear, to wallow, to hurt, to lick my wounds, to push people away from me, I am being perhaps the most selfish I can possibly be. I am choosing, in essence, myself over everyone else, ESPECIALLY Jesus. I'm sick of this.

I'm currently in the slow process of chewing on the book The Signature of Jesus by Brennan Manning. It's all about taking up your cross and avoiding cheap grace. It is so hard to read because I know that it is crucial that I take it to heart. In order to flourish in the gifts God has for me, I MUST deny myself and take up my cross and follow him. He is all that matters. Therefore, the answer is to cling to him and get off my rear and make an effort to let Jesus love others through me. In other words, I must give up everything to gain everything more. It's brilliance. And oh how it sucks.

But God is faithful. I had a hard but necessary conversation with a friend a few months ago who asked me to describe my ideal life. I told him I would make straight As. I would live on my own. I would have lots of girlfriends my age. I would be a very devoted and loyal young life leader. I would wake up every morning and give one hour of my time to a devotion. After jotting these things down while I said them, he then wrote one single word that has haunted me ever since: perfection.

I don't want to be perfect anymore. It's irrational. It's exhausting. It's depressing. Just give me Jesus.