The Thrill of Adventure

So it's finally summer! I think we will break into the 90s every day now here in North Texas and the sun has finally come out! I am so excited about all that summer brings and the adventures Jared and I have planned.

Speaking of which, some of those adventures include our newest endeavor...backpacking! Jared and I have always been interested in camping. We go all the time. But now, we are finally thinking about putting those fancy backpacks to good use and hitting the trails in the literal middle-of-nowhere.

Physically, this means I will have some different workouts going on. I still plan on running twice a week with my long run being five miles. Then I have a goal of riding my bike at least once a week. The rest of the workouts will focus more on strength in my back and arms so that I don't have to rely on my legs for all the work while hiking with my backpack on.

The biggest thing for me I think is going to be mental. As much as I say I love adventure, I get so anxious before traveling! I get nervous sweats at the airport waiting for planes. I get so anxious trying to plan for the "unknown."

So when thinking about backpacking, there is a ton of fear going on inside my head. When are we going to go? What trails are we going to take? How are we going to fit everything in our bags? What if we can't find a good campsite? What if we get lost? What if we see a bear????

I have been doing some research on fear this week for work. It's very interesting the studies that neuroscientists are conducting these days. One study is actually finding that we are wired as human beings to be optimistic by nature...assume the best about someone or something until proof of the worst. They also talk about how fear bypasses the logical part of the brain and goes straight to the emotional. But logic is how you quiet fear. No one fears a stampede of hippopotami followed by their car getting eaten by a T-rex when they drive on the highway because logic eliminates that possibility. When we see someone that's upset because of fear, we automatically try to help them calm down by using logic. And if we are having a really hard time, we can implement what scientists call "productive paranoia" where we plan for the worst case scenario while hoping for the best.

And that's kind of where I am right now. With my upcoming adventures, I am doing boatloads of research trying to arm myself with the knowledge needed in worst case scenarios (how to deal with a bear), as well as the skills to keep me from getting into worst case scenarios (buy a bear canister and use it appropriately). What's awesome is while I still get nervous about it, I am growing as a person because I am gaining new skills and learning new things about myself and what I am capable of doing.

I think God wants us to use fear, not be controlled by it. He wants us to develop courage, not limit ourselves because of anxiety. He wants us to continue to grow and learn and explore the world he created. So that's why I continue to travel, see new things and meet new people. Ultimately, I know that the best truth I can use against fear is the knowledge that God is in control and he has the ultimate power in any situation.

I recently re-watched an episode of Dr. Who where they search for the alien that might be the reason we as children fear the monster under the bed. But I love what Clara tells the child doctor at the end about fear:

"I know you’re afraid, but being afraid is alright. Because didn’t anybody ever tell you? Fear is a superpower. Fear can make you faster and cleverer and stronger. And one day you’re gonna come back to this barn and on that day you’re going to be very afraid indeed. But that’s okay, because if you’re very wise and very strong fear doesn’t have to make you cruel or cowardly. Fear can make you kind. It doesn’t matter if there’s nothing under the bed or in the dark so long as you know it’s okay to be afraid of it. So listen. If you listen to anything else, listen to this. You’re always gonna be afraid even if you learn to hide it. Fear is like a companion, a constant companion, always there. But that’s okay because fear can bring us together. Fear can bring you home. I’m gonna leave you something just so you’ll always remember. Fear makes companions of us all."

Clara explaining courage to a young boy during the "Listen" episode using a small army figure.

Time Travel

http://quotesfans.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/Doctor-Who-Quotes-David-Tennant-Timey-Wimey-1.jpg

Jared and I have found a new favorite nerdy TV show. It's not so new...but more new to us. It is none other than

Dr. Who

When it comes to cheesy British TV shows I have found that I'm a sucker. I absolutely know there are some jokes that just go way over my American head. But it's funny, witty and like any good sic-fy show, helps us to clarify our values as humans.

With Dr. Who on Netflix streaming in our house much more these days, it really does have me thinking about the past, present and future more. More specifically, what's on loop is the old adage that sometimes you have to look back at where you have been to determine where you should go next. With time continuums and alternate dimensions constantly being created by our choices no matter how small, I've been evaluating my own life in the scope of human history...which can get a bit overwhelming at times!

What I have boiled it down to is three things.

1. Dr. Who LOVES humans and sees the best in them.
Whenever he comes across some crisis that humans are about to overcome or they are on the verge of some scientific breakthrough, he is the human race's biggest fan. He doesn't let individual humans give in to defeatism. He praises humans for spanning time and space with their courage and bravery. When someone holds the human race back from their potential, he defeats them with a vengeance.

This is something that I feel like is missing in our culture today. I hear much in the political talk about how many talk show host don't have faith in the American public today to make good decisions. They begin to talk down to people who are low information voters and become just like the elitists you find on the progressive side of policies. Conservative or liberal, you cannot hold yourself higher in position than any other fellow human and be effective at bringing about change.

Imagine if we did believe in ourselves. Imagine if we kept believing that we really could make changes for the better and actively made them happen right now. Imagine if we didn't give in and acquiesce to a challenge just because it got hard. Disney didn't let that stop him from making Snow White or Disneyland. Reagan effected great change politically because he believed in the American public. Dr. Who doesn't dismiss the defects humans have but rather encourages humans to work past them.

2. Dr. Who just simply loves to explore new places.
I think this is lost on many of us as human beings. Even myself who loves to travel likes having a home and a schedule. It's hard for me to wrap my brain around how Dr. Who literally never has a normal day. He never has a schedule or relationships (other than the revolving door of girls that come in and out of his life). But his thirst for knowledge drives him to see and explore so many new places.

Sometimes as humans we tend to lose that sense of adventure and prefer our couches in front of the TV instead of experiencing the world around us. I hope that we never lose that desire to travel and learn from other people that we meet...even if the relationships only last for a short time.

3. Dr. Who is always regenerating.
Usually he regenerates after something catastrophic has happened. Literally, his cells reorganize and he becomes as completely new human being. He has to rediscover his own personality and his own likes and dislikes. While biologically we as humans may not regenerate I believe we spiritually and emotionally regenerate. Usually, if you think about it, after a very traumatic and trying time. It's that moment when you realize that you don't have that job you wanted and so you rethink everything you wanted to do in your career. It's that moment a relationship breaks down. It's that time when you have to overcome a physical ailment. People relate it to life breaking down your old walls and you having to rebuild them all over again.

But what's cool is those are the moments you get to discover a whole new self. You can discover that you really can overcome your fear of heights or can run further. You might discover you actually like escargot after years of avoiding it. Or that person you thought didn't like you can actually become a good friend. Your little stone shack just got knocked down but a beautiful castle is being built up in it's place.

And if you want to bring it full circle, the times when you feel like you have to regenerate are those times when it is most critical to see the best in your future. To believe the future can be greater than before.

Thankfully, I'm not at a point where I feel like I have a cataclysmic regeneration going on right now. But I am still growing and changing and learning about myself and where I'm going. I believe Dr. Who is so popular because he is the one who gives us hope. While the future may be daunting and scary and unknown it is also our untapped potential. If we hold on to that adventurous spirit and believe that we can always be improving individually, we will be able to really do all the amazing things that we see on the Dr. Who show!

“We’re all stories, in the end. Just make it a good one, eh?”

— The Doctor, Season 5, Episode 13

Giving Up Control

Control is a weird word. It also bring up some interesting emotional responses in people.

But, let's face it, we all like to have control over things. We like to control what we watch and when we watch it...so we invented the DVR. We like to control traffic and our commute to work so the app Waze was created. We like to control our news feed on Facebook, our news stories, our podcasts...we have phones that allow us to customize it exactly how we want it!

I'm sure it's just me. But maybe someone else might try to control other people around them sometimes...

We like to be able to predict what is going to happen around us and make sure that it comes out in our favor. It's human nature. We try to control others but don't like to be controlled by other people. But many times, when we try to gain control of our situation, we end up losing control of the situation. It's a mix-mashed bag of crazy.

We need to learn how to give up control.

I deal with having to learn to give up control on a daily basis. I'm pretty sure God had me marry a pilot just to break me of my planning habit. I like to plan YEARS in advance when it comes to events and trips. He's been on reserve for way longer than expected and I can never plan for 100% until the month before. It drives me NUTS.

Not to mention, I get to deal with Jared on a daily basis. I'm sure I get frustrated over his decisions sometimes just as much as he gets frustrated over mine. :)

Then, God gave me in interns at work. I know that I need to let them work on their own projects so that they can learn and grow, even from mistakes. Micromanaging won't help. But it's my instinct to make sure every detail is in place!

Then, God gave me the women I work with. Emergencies happen without any warning. You can't plan for emergencies in your schedule and you have to just go with the flow when the needs arise.

Then, God gave me Obama. Everything seems to be going down the drain. I shake my head as I see other people in my generation not caring about politics or the ways in which our government affects our daily lives. Yet, I can't control how people think, vote, or pay attention.

The good news is, I have plenty of opportunity to practice giving up control. What's awesome is that this last weekend in FC Kids, we learned that God is so powerful that he controls everything in the universe. He controls the stars, the blood moon we just got to witness, the things in the ocean, the storms, EVERYTHING! And yet, the one thing he gave up control on was us. He gave up the control to make us worship him. He gave us a choice. His biggest act of love for us was to give us free will. To choose to accept him as Christ or not.

Our biggest act of love sometimes is to give up control of certain situations where we try to control everyone else. My biggest act of love to Jared is to not try to control his likes, habits, schedule, etc. I can really help my interns by not micromanaging. I can't make my sparrows choose wisely...I have to love them enough to know God's going to work all things in their life for his glory. I can't control what happens in my government or what people think. In fact, I think many of our problems would be solved if people just stopped trying to control one another.

What we don't realize though, is that while we are anxious about giving up control, this is the very thing that will help release us from anxiety. When we pray and give up control over something to God, it's a peaceful, calming feeling knowing that he is going to take it over. It only gets stronger the more and more we experience God coming through for us. If we know that God is all powerful and has control over everything, why don't we trust him with it?

So as you go about your weekend today, I hope that this little bit of musing can help you trust God with whatever is going on in your life. After all...we know that we are supposed to be just...

LETTING IT GO!

Bringing Hope to Those in Pain

In my line of work, I deal with people (mainly women) who have reached the end of their rope. They have experienced such pain and drama that they are filled with shame and grief over what has happened in their past. What we try to do is help them see what God wants to offer them...hope and love. But, that is a much more difficult task than you would think.

Take this clip from when I first got to hold my brother after he was born...


All my little 3-year-old brain knew was that I was holding a baby boy. Who knew it had a name! I had no context that this baby boy would grow up, have his own spunky personality, be my comrade-in-arms on our childhood adventures or become one of my best friends. My brain had no context of what a baby brother meant because it had never experienced having a baby brother before.

We see this phenomena with women who have never experienced hope before. They don't know what it looks like because in many cases, they have rarely experienced it. If they have, it was a long time ago in an era of their life long forgotten.

Most women have experienced pain for so long they lash out pain to those around them. You might have heard the expression, "People in pain hurt others." I know I have seen that in my own experience. Then the people that are trying to help them and bring them hope end up walking out on them because they do not want to be hurt any more.

Another metaphor: When I was training to become a life guard, we had to learn how to deal with people who were thrashing around in the water. Many times, it was human nature to grab on to anything or anyone else around them and push them under the water in an effort of self preservation. While we were trying to save them, they were trying to drown us. This is what happens when working with human trafficking victims as well.

So how do we bring hope to people that have no context of it and lash out at those trying to bring it to them?

With patience.

We have to be so patient with people in pain. We have to understand what they are processing through. Allow them to work through the anger and pain and guilt and shame and everything Satan is throwing at them from their past. We have to have Teflon emotions where we do not take their actions or words against us personally. We have to love them even when they don't seem to value themselves.  This includes showing "tough love" as well, by not empowering them to continue self destructive habits. By doing this it allows God to plant the seeds necessary in their lives to grow and one day, become hope. And not just any hope, but hope in the one person that can bring it genuinely 100% of the time.

You may not deal with trafficking victims every day. But you do have family members, friends, co-workers who are hurting in different ways. Be patient with them. Love on them. And show them that they can have hope in their situations too.

"Therefore, as the elect of God, holy and dearly loved, clothe yourselves with a heart of mercy, kindness, humility, gentleness, and patience, bearing with one another and forgiving one another, if someone happens to have a complaint against anyone else. Just as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also forgive others."

~ Colossians 3:12-13

Hope With No Shame

Recently, I've had to completely stop listening to some of the news podcasts I listen to. The message is the same.

"America is going to crap unless Americans wake up and do something about it."
"American's are stupid. So, therefore, we are all doomed."

And that's the basic "jist"
of hours of talk radio. So if you don't listen to talk radio, you aren't missing much.

The whole thing sounds very similar to a Psalm I just read:

Psalm 12:1-4

Deliver, Lord!
For the godly have disappeared; 
people of integrity have vanished. 
People lie to one another;
they flatter and deceive. 
May the Lord cut off all flattering lips,
and the tongue that boasts!
They say, “We speak persuasively; 
we know how to flatter and boast. 
Who is our master?”

In fact, we sound a ton like the Romans as Paul describes them in chapter 1:28-32

And just as they did not see fit to acknowledge God, God gave them over to a depraved mind, to do what should not be done. They are filled with every kind of unrighteousness, wickedness, covetousness, malice. They are rife with envy, murder, strife, deceit, hostility. They are gossips, slanderers, haters of God, insolent, arrogant, boastful, contrivers of all sorts of evil, disobedient to parents, senseless, covenant-breakers, heartless, ruthless. Although they fully know God’s righteous decree that those who practice such things deserve to die, they not only do them but also approve of those who practice them.

So then why should I have hope in the future? People that I talk to about human trafficking, abortion or any other major issue in our society don't seem to want to respond and take action against all that is going on.

Well, thankfully, Paul gives us an example of what we can do through Abraham in Romans chapter 4.

Abraham was asked to leave his home and go somewhere were he was a stranger. I identify with this because sometimes I feel like a stranger to my generation. Then God made him a promise that he was going to have a son, despite that biologically, it made no sense to him or his wife. Yet Paul says that Abraham "In hope, he believed against hope, that he should become the father of many nations, as he had been told, 'So shall your offspring be.'" We see that Abraham was "fully convinced that God was able to do what he had promised."

So the question for myself is, when I feel like a stranger in my own generation with a promise that God has given me, do I hope against all hope that when everything is stacked against me that God will provide all that is necessary for His promise to come true?

You see, I can come up with all the programs and ideas in the world and work really hard for them to work. Yet nothing is going to be able to happen if I do not have faith that God will work everything out in his timing. It's not going to be easy (just look at Abraham's life...not comfy!) but his faith was counted to him as righteousness. Not his works.

Paul continues, "More than that, we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not put us to shame, because God's love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us."

Many people might think we are foolish to look at all that is happening in our world and pin all our hopes to God. He doesn't seem to be here with all of the evil that is happening in our generation. But what people don't see is all the times we have put our faith in God in our personal lives and the times he has come through for us. Every time I try to make something happen, it fails and God brings the same result around another way. EVERY TIME.

So while we live in a season of our generation where we are lost, let's continue to have the faith that God desires us to have so that we can learn to trust in him more and more. Our hope isn't in vain. It's so that God's love for us can be manifested in a way that allows us to love him more!

Benchmarks

It has been HOT this summer.

I'm sure you are thinking, "Thanks Captain Obvious. This is Texas."

Well, it's a statement I feel I need to make sure is on the page so that we all have the same starting place!

Because it has been so hot, running has been such a beat down. I feel like all I do is  run slow and drown in my sweat. Especially when I have track days with the training group. The track gets so hot some of the tar literally melts and attaches itself to the bottom of my shoes. Instead of feeling fast, I feel like I'm dragging a bunch of 20 pound dumbbells behind me.

Each of us in our training has splits we are supposed to try to hit while doing our track run. I've been hitting mine even though the heat has been oppressive. So one day when I wasn't going to be able to join my training group and had to do my track session on the treadmill at home, I had to do some math to figure out what settings I was supposed to use on the treadmill to achieve the same speed I do on the track.

I had to redo my math three times because I thought I kept getting it wrong.

I used to run my speed workout according to my McMillin calculator splits it gave me back in February. That translated to my treadmill by running my interval pace at a 6.0 MPH on the treadmill. Now, my math was telling me I can now do my treadmill pace at a 6.5 MPH.

So while I did my math three times using three different methods to get there, I finally concluded that it would be the correct speed. And sure enough, I was able to do it. The last interval was painful, but that's the same as every track workout!

A similar thing happened in my personal life. I've always felt I wasn't good at remembering Bible verses to help other people when they needed them. I've really dedicated myself this year to reading out of my physical Bible and not my electronic one so that I can highlight and comment to myself in the margins. I was hoping that by doing this, I would remember where in the Bible certain stories and verses that meant a ton to me were located. Sure enough, a situation at work called for me to share some encouraging verses to a woman who needed them. Without hesitation, I was able to recall several verses that ended up helping her calm down. I did a little, "hmmm" to myself afterwards. It was the first time I had been able to do that instantaneously.

What's the point to all this? Oftentimes in our Christian walk, we feel like we aren't making any progress. We keep dealing with the same emotions, the same habits, the same struggles and don't feel like we are getting anywhere. However, it's important for us to have "benchmarks" in our lives to see how we have progressed. We need to have an "old self" to compare to in order to see how God is working in our lives.

So as you go throughout your week or month, take stock of things that you do. Whether you are running faster, lifting stronger, being more intentional with relationships or your walk with God, see what you are doing better or what needs improvement. While we have faith that God will change us, it's nice to be able to see measurable progress. It allows us to be able to go back and say, "Wow God!" and ultimately, give him the glory he deserves!

Fireworks

I honestly sit here inspired tonight. It's been the culmination of a million pondering moments and a million questions all converging at once.

I had the honor tonight to attend a concert in the Botanical Gardens with one of my dearest friends Ashley and her family. Honestly, when I found out I was going to get to hang out with them tonight I was so excited. I love their family and how funny, genuine and hospitable they are. It takes a special kind of people to invite me over to a dinner and cater to my gluten free needs and they did so with flying colors. Literally. Mr. Mark's shirt looked exactly like the American flag when you held up our patriotic napkins to his shirt!

But I guess I should start explaining things a little bit, first starting a few months ago when I attended a training for work. We talked about trauma and how it affects the brain. We like to talk in symbolism to get our points across, naturally. We discussed how trauma affects the brain and how the brain achieved healing. The metaphor that the speaker used was that trauma was not a linear model where we travel in a straight line and get to point B from point A. Rather, it's a spiral model where we start at the bottom. Some times we move forward and other times we move back. But regardless where we are in the spiral, we are always moving up.

This is an important thing to keep in mind when we consider all that has been happening recently.

Personally, I've been under a ton of stress. Between my work with the women I mentor and my personal life, there is a ton going on. I can't elaborate. But let's say the new essential oils I received are definitely helping along side some very long prayer times for my anxiety.

Meanwhile, I couldn't even look at Facebook for a while. I feel like a recent post I saw from Glen Beck summed it up exactly:

Personally, I believe my first citizenship is to God. I am a daughter of the King. He says homosexuality was not a part of his design. So therefore, I believe that if you are living a homosexual lifestyle, you are not living in the will of God. However, God gave us the freedom to make our own choices. That's what makes His love so spectacular; He doesn't force us to love him. So in accordance to my second citizenship to the United States of America, you have the ability to do whatever you chose to do, as long as it doesn't cause me to deviate from my freedom to follow my beliefs in God.

What I do have a problem with is how this, among other decisions, was passed down through our court system. We have a constitution which is the most unique piece of governmental procedure in the world. No one came up with something like this before America. I feel like if we are to really protect freedom to live the way we want to (whether you choose to follow God or not) that monumental document needs to be followed so that everyone has the freedom to live the life they chose.

So meanwhile, I see the hate and the divisiveness that is coming across in social media and I feel like I've been stabbed in the heart. I wonder how such a court decision could have happened. Then on top of that, how can we have become a society where if you have a differing opinion than I do, it makes you an enemy that I can never talk to again?

So this Fourth of July, I am very reflective and prayerful as I consider what we are actually celebrating this year. While I'm very disappointed in what has happened in our country recently, I still can't help think about the spiral model of healing. Sometimes we will go forward. Sometimes we will go backward. Yet we will always be going up.

As I watched the fireworks tonight above my hometown, I couldn't help but judge which fireworks I thought were the prettiest. I'm pretty consistent. Ever since I was little I've loved the ones that sparkle and have lots of twinkling lights that linger even after the initial explosion. As I watched (and maybe had to wipe the ash from my face) I thought, "What is it about those fireworks that makes the sparkle ones so exceptional?" In my reflective mood, I thought about how there are thousands of tiny pieces of the fireworks that catch the energy from the initial explosion and then ignite to create the light and the sparkle. Consequentially, that causes those fireworks to last so much longer than the other ones.

I can't help but draw a parallel from those fireworks to our society. Right now we have a ton of fireworks that draw our attention. From Obamacare to church shootings to confederate flags to homosexuality...there are so many things looking to draw our attention and create a divide amongst our country right now. But the fireworks that last and actually make a difference in our lives are the ones that see the goodness and the kindness in our society. While they may not make the front page or the top of the news, they are the stories that actually pierce our hearts and cause us to aspire to be better versions of ourselves.

So amongst all those that have expressed despair for the future of our country, I actually have hope in our America. I believe that God is bringing up a generation of people my age that have caught the initial spark of the gospel and are propelled to make a change where God has planted them. That obedience, grace and love causes them to spark and make a difference in the lives of those around them, who therefore also catch the spark. God is creating a huge firework, the kind that lingers long after the others, and spreads the good news of love and redemption.

We may be in a backwards trend of the spiral right now. Trust me, I know it's NOT pretty. But I have hope. I refuse to give in to the idea that we are beyond repair. America was built on hope and it will only fail when hope in something better is lost by the people that live here. It's a hard road to travel. These days the road seems pretty tough. But if we do not give up, we will be that shining light on a hill the Bible talks about.

We will be a huge firework signaling freedom to everyone in the world looking for it.

So my question is, what spark is God calling you to be?

When God Says No

Growing up I always wanted to be an astronaut. My copy of "Flying to the Moon" by Michael Collins has a lot of wear and tear over the years from reading it constantly, only interrupted by homework and dance lessons. I did my research papers on astronauts. My drawings were of space. I remember looking through the telescope with my dad at planets and waking up at 3 AM to watch meteor showers from my backyard. We went to NASA in both Houston and Florida. My living statue assignment was on the Challenger teacher Christa McAuliffe...proof that someone "ordinary" could become an astronaut had the space shuttle actually worked. I watched Star Wars, wondering if I would someday find other planets to live on. I dreamed of becoming the first person on Mars.

But even after all of this, I distinctly remember struggling in math my junior year of high school and praying to God, "Is being an astronaut what you want me to do?" While I never heard a voice, I remember my heart going numb, knowing that wasn't going to be where He was leading me. I was distraught. I didn't know what else I would do.

And then life took it's turns. I didn't get the grades. I struggled with physics. I had my own mental issues to deal with much less think of solving how to get to Mars. My interest in space turned into music, art, biochemistry...more, Earthly things. I still however, catch myself staring up, looking for stars and wondering if someone or something else is looking at our star and dreaming of other planets as well.

When I still catch myself looking up at the stars I keep wondering what was the reasoning God designed my life this way. Honestly, I don't think I will every get the answer to it until I get to heaven. But let's speculate, based on what we know, shall we?

Reasons why I wanted to be an astronaut:
1. I wanted to do what was considered impossible.
2. I wanted to explore new worlds.
3. I wanted to fly a plane.
4. I wanted to be famous and inspire other people.

Do we notice a pattern with all my reasons? They all start with "I." Also, think about this...NASA has been shut down due to budget cuts. There are no missions to space in the exact time frames I would have been looking for a job as an astronaut. Currently they are being used to produce facts about climate change...and we all know how I feel about that...

The Bible says in Psalm 37:4 "Delight yourself in the Lord, and he will give you the desires of your heart." Many people told me this as a kid when I told them the big plans I had for my life. But what they didn't tell me was that it was coupled with Psalm 37:3 "Trust in the Lord and do good; dwell in the land and befriend faithfulness." 

While my intentions may have been good in all my reasons to be an astronaut, God wasn't at the center of what I desired. I loved God, and I wanted Him to make me an astronaut. I was viewing God as a cosmic blessing on my plans and my dreams instead of trusting in the Lord and doing good, even when disappointment and chaos reigned in my life. If I had not been faithful with what God was calling me to do, I wouldn't have met my deepest desire...to inspire and help other people to be better versions of themselves. Had I gone down the space path, at least up to this point in my lifetime, my dreams would have been crushed. Meanwhile, God has formed me and shaped me into ministry where I get to work with - and hopefully help people - become better versions of themselves every day with God being the power behind my work. In a way, I am getting to do my original #1 reason I wanted to be an astronaut...I'm doing what most people consider impossible.

While I know it's a limited view right now, it's enough to step back and say, "Wow God, you really had my back on that one." I'm sure it will become more and more evident as time goes on why I'm on this road, but it's enough to look to the sky and say even "if we are faithless, [God] remains faithful - for he cannot deny himself." (2 Timothy 2:13b)

So for now my exploration of space will be limited to the new Star Wars in December and watching the new TV series of "Astronaut Wives." I'll pull the start chart out every once in a while while we are camping and dream other planets from the back of our truck. But on the bright side, God still hasn't closed the door on me learning how to fly a plane. Winner, winner, chicken dinner!

Love Wins: Part 2

Almost a year and a half ago, I wrote this blog post called Love Wins. I was going through a very tough summer in my personal life where I moved, changed jobs, and attended more funerals that I wanted. It was a season in my life where pretty much everything that I was looking forward to either marred or didn't happen due to unforeseen circumstances.

Even though I ended that blog post with faith knowing that God would come through for us, the following year has been rough as well. Due to all the ups and downs of the year, I have been struggling with the depression the whole way. The ups were fantastic with wonderful family vacations and little victories. However, the downs seemed to plague us. Jared and I never seemed to get time together. When we did, I had something at work come up that he had to come help me with if he wanted to see me. I had a period in the fall where I was having nightmares pretty much every night and caused me to have low sleep and a higher sensitivity to stress. Christmas was brutal for me at church. So when January came around me and God has a serious amount of time to discuss and talk about what had been going on and how I was going to process through it all.

It seemed really scary to me when God called me to do Redeemed full time. It was one of those things where I was going to have to step out on faith again, and hope that everything would be alright. However, after the beating my hopes had taken last year, I was really second-guessing every decision I was making. But, I knew the end of the story. I know that love wins. And so, in obedience, I stepped out in faith again and God has seriously opened the floodgates of favor and provision.

Ever since stepping out in obedience, God has just shown me over and over that he has my back. While little things may come up that I begin to fret over, I just remind myself that God has this under control and he comes through every time. When all my donor checks got lost in the mail, God provided. When my dog has gotten a serious infection, God provided a cure and the funds to pay for it. When Jared is home, I actually get to see him. When I prayed for volunteers to come fill the positions I needed, he brought them out in droves. For the first time in a while, I feel like I now have the tangible evidence that I can point to that didn't happen years ago whenever things get hairy or scary. While I still have my PTSD moments and we still have to deal with the things life throws at us, we have a summer ahead of us full of exciting things for Redeemed, time with family and friends, travel, weddings and just an overall celebration of life. Things are finally looking up.

So to you who may be going through where I was a year and a half ago, I would encourage you standing this far down the road of the race that it does get better. Don't ever lose faith in God. Because...

"We have seasons where things seem dark and dry. We don’t feel God close to us. We feel isolated from those around us as we think, “Who could possibly understand what we are going through?” We are tempted to give up, because we wonder who cares about our seemingly wasted efforts to bring life and love into such a broken world. 

But we must remember that just because we can’t feel God close doesn’t mean he’s not there. Just because things are dark doesn’t mean they will be dark forever. You are not alone! God is with you and has placed people around you to go through this season with you. Our efforts are not wasted. They are seeds to bring glory to God in the perfect moment. Hold onto that as you go through whatever you have going on right now. You are loved by the one who created love.

And I read the end of the book. Love wins!"