LA DEE DA
Hmmm.... I'm kind of bored.
There have been a lot of visits to the ramblings in the last week. Over a hundred... bizarro. Of course, many of those can be attributed to the same people, but I'm surprised that anyone comes here at all. I just like writing stuff and I'd probably still write if no one came here.
My friend Celine is doing her media project on weblogs and how some of them take a political stance. I was thinking, well what the heck does my blog do? I've notice that it's different than most that I've come across. Most have some specific theme: they chronicle a journey, or take a view or stand against/for something. Mine does neither, which is fine. But it's more just a bunch of things that have been thrown together most of the time! So what is it? It surely isn't a journal, or at least not what I would consider a journal. In some ways maybe it has a performative element to it because I get to pick and choose what goes up. Unless I'm really excited then I type first and read later ;). Hm hm hm hm hm. Some of my posts are supposed to be thought-provoking, or inspiring, and some are just for the entertainment of you - and me. And of course there are those of you who live far away from me and use this as a means by which to stay current. Come to think of it, though, it's a bit of a skewed picture! I guess it's a little glimpse into what's important to me at a given moment (and sometimes what's important is a laugh). Odd stuff sometimes...
I think I'm eccentric. Or dramatic. Or just really passionate. Or easily amused / excitable. I wonder sometimes if people think I'm weird. But what constitutes "weird" these days, anyway? And I don't really care.
Maybe I should tell a story. Who knows what will come of this?!
Shhhhhhh..... this is the part where Sara shares a bit about what she's been learning lately.
This last year has been kinda nuts. I started UBC last September, finally ok with the reality that Trinity wasn't going to be happening. Looking back, I think that I was prepared to use TWU as a spiritual crutch if that makes sense, so that I could be spiritually "fulfilled" without doing a lot of work. I figured, heck, surround myself with Christians and I've got it made. It's true that Christian community is a beautiful thing, but I don't know that I had factored everything into the equation. Like paying attention to the changes that God wants to make in my life and stuff. And the growth that I needed to do through prayer and... well, some weirdo times.
So anyway, I was at UBC, ready to make a name for myself. With 40,000 students, the fact is that you're a number until you make a name for yourself. And even then you're a number in a lot of ways [note: my number is 8-digits]. I signed up for some clubs and I was the biggest keener when it came to signing up for all these email lists and taking flyers and it was great. UBC is really a neat place. I truly mean that.
Come October, life was in full swing. Friends who'd moved away were having a blast as well, and though I was spending a lot of time commuting, I still found the idea of traveling through Vancouver to be novel and exciting. I even had a bus pass. Whoa, was I lame. The Thursday before Thanksgiving, I spoke with a friend on the phone. She was about to go out to the bar at her school and I told her to be safe and have fun. Hmm. Fast forward to Saturday. Many frantic phone calls / emails had gone unanswered and everyone was talking to me but no one was saying anything. I finally spoke with her, and she told me that she had been raped in her dorm room that night. What the hell. It was unbelievable. I didn't, in fact, believe it for a long time - denial is a fantastic place to sit and steep for unhealthy amounts of time. I was able to look to God, to see that He had a plan and that He was in control. I sought comfort in prayer, and tried to convey that to her as well.
I've always been "the listener" in my social circles it seems. Oh I can talk, and believe me, I do. I find, however, that I'm often the person that my friends will come to when they need advice, or support. I think it's a beautiful thing, and I am so flattered that people would consider me and my advice, or just my ear. Long story short, I soon found myself giving up on UBC except for the academic aspect of it (and even that was questionable at times - thank goodness for understanding instructors), overwrought and overloaded with what had been going on. I found myself giving and giving and giving to this friend of mine, not because she was necessarily asking for it, but because I thought that I could somehow fix what was going on by running myself ragged and thinking and worrying constantly. By Christmas, I was a bit of a basketcase. My Bible study group had known me for about three weeks before I went from being fairly normal to an emotional wreck.
By February my friend was doing so much better and it was amazing to watch her recover, despite a few scary backsteps. Then in March, it happened again. Can you believe it? I remember exactly when and where I was when I found out. I was at Young Adults, on March 22 (I only remember because it was the day before my birthday). Have you ever been in a situation where you are so upset that you don't care that everyone is watching you lose it and bawl your eyes out? That was my first time. This time I was angry with God and I couldn't comprehend how something like this could happen twice... it's disgusting. Then another friend was murdered by her father. Etc. etc. etc. It seemed like I was fine but everyone around me was going through so much. And I wasn't really fine. I was drained and tired and a shell, trying to avoid talking to people at school so that I could just get on the bus and go home.
Not to say the year was miserable. Because it wasn't. I have a good life.
OK, so why am I talking about all of this? Well, I came to learn so much. A week before the second incident, God had answered a prayer of mine in a very obvious way... and the thing is, it wasn't an important prayer by any means. It was silly, and almost an afterthought before I went to church that morning. In the midst of my anger, I found this paper in my pocket. Conveniently, I'd written down this answer to prayer "just in case" I needed to be remind that God does listen and that He is in control. He was still in control. I stopped being angry, at least with God ;).
What else did I learn? A concerned friend basically said to me, "you know Sara, as much as you love her, if she's going to fall, she'll fall whether you're investing every ounce of yourself into her or investing a healthy amount of yourself into her". It was incredible advice. I have come to see that I can't control everything. I can't control the lives of my friends. Heck, I'm not even in control of my own life and that's the way that it's supposed to be. I can't always make things better. But you know what? It's not about what "I" can do all the time. It's about what God can do, and what Jesus can do THROUGH me. "Let go and let God." It's a cliche for a reason.
So I stopped running myself down and stressing constantly, trying to fix things for this friend, 24/7. And she continued to slowly get better. And she still felt like I was there for her. Go figure.
Bringing to my attention the control issue was something that God weaved into my life in a number of ways last year, but that was probably the bigee. Realistically, how do you put an experience like that, that took place over a year, in a few short paragraphs? Not exactly possible, but that was one part of it, and one thing that I learned.
Something else that God's shown me this year has changed me a lot, and is continuing to change me... I wish that everyone would come to the same realization, albeit much earlier than I learned it. Hmmm... how do I go about describing this? It's basically something that's been on my mind since I was able to USE my mind in any sort of rational way. OK, maybe nutshell version is better for now.
About six or so months ago, I had this realization. Because of Jesus, I am beautiful. And that's not an opinion. It's a statement of fact. So if God says it, why should I care what other people say I am? I am the way that I'm supposed to be because God has created me beautiful for His purposes and according to His plan. I have the Holy Spirit. I can use the talents that God has blessed me with to bless other people. It's so weird. Growing up in a society where you have to be a certain kind of person (and maybe not being that kind of person) is really tough. It's an inwardly-focused society that looks at self-improvement, self-help, self-this, self-that. And one day, God decided to turn that on its head in my heart and show me that I have worth in Christ. I had been a Christian for a few years at this point. And He STILL had to tell me. Meh. The Christian life isn't a perfect one by any means ;). So God had, in one revelation, settled something for me that I had been struggling with for most of my life. I hope and pray that everyone might come to see their worth. I see my 13-year-old sister going through a lot of things that look very familiar to me, and I want to be able to show her. But I don't know if it's something that I can show her, unless God wants to use me for that.
I've been toying with this idea for a few weeks now, and it still seems a bit weird to me: I think I like myself. The real me. The me that I'm supposed to be. Isn't that cool??? It's not even so much based on confidence in myself, but confidence that God has made me exactly the way that He intended. I've been designed well and with a purpose.
What's been the result of this? Well, in my own experience, knowing that I don't have to worry about being accepted by God (that one can be checked off), I am finally able to turn some of the focus off myself. And it's about bloody time. I'm slow to learn that it's not all about me, but God is patient and He "sufferith long" (oh yes, I've been paying attention at church!), waiting for us to stop screwing up and letting us come back time and time again to ask for forgiveness.
Wow. What an amazing God.
So if I've been designed well, then I shouldn't try to hide. I should rejoice in who I am, especially who I am in Jesus. Again, deep in my psyche (or whatever it's called) was always this fear that because I'm not the way that society dictates that I should be, that I'm somehow wrong. I don't know that I'm necesarily shy (I don't know if I'm introverted or extroverted... can you be both? I seem to be happy being both) but I would say that a certain shyness has been created in me because I believed for a long time that there was something not right about me. It's insane, I know, but I also know that SO many people are scared to be themselves. For me, that amounted to me not taking many risks, and just observing. It was terrifying to step out of the comfort zone (and sometimes it still really really is!) but I force myself now. Because my illusions about who I thought I was are being shattered and rebuilt.
I think that there is a certain responsibility to being who we are. We owe it to God and to ourselves to be real. Not to say that I want to run up to a stranger, introduce myself, and lay everything that's ever happened to me out for them. Not at all. But I don't like wearing a mask. If there's one thing that I pray for my own growth in the next while, it's that I will be able to embrace the real me, and not hide who that person is. True, she's a weirdo, and she still wants people to like her.... but the real me might not be so bad afterall hehe.
I don't feel like I need a crutch anymore.
I suppose we're all a work in progress. Undoing a lot of bad teaching takes time. But. Isn't it amazing that God is willing to invest SO MUCH into each one of us? I find it so incredible. The Creator and Ruler of the ENTIRE UNIVERSE loves each one of us so much that He sent Jesus.... He designed each one of us and gave us each our own gifts... He answers prayer... He LOVES US. If being loved by the Most High doesn't make you beautiful, then... no. Forget it. There is no IF. He loves us and we're all beautiful.
God just... rocks my world. Both in the "Dude, you rock" sense and the shaky and rocky cliff sense.
Darcy talked about dreams last night. One of my dreams is that people would realize their beauty and their worth and that we would stop looking down on ourselves. Then they can go out and spread some truth and love. I don't know if it's my THE dream (if that makes sense), but it is one of them. Because it's joyful, and it's almost a kind of freedom as well - one gives up control to God and accepts that they're beautiful and that's just the way that it is.
So, remember at the beginning when I said that sometimes I get excited and write first, read later? Yeah.... I'm going to go out on a limb here and be... real. I'm going to publish this with a click of the button and see what happens. Maybe I'll chicken out and take it down once I've realized what I've done. I am, afterall, forever a work in progress. But this is a bit of my life. Some stuff that is important to me. At least right now ;). At this particular moment. This very second. In 3 minutes things may have changed completely!!! What have I done? Ha. *Laughs nervously*
There have been a lot of visits to the ramblings in the last week. Over a hundred... bizarro. Of course, many of those can be attributed to the same people, but I'm surprised that anyone comes here at all. I just like writing stuff and I'd probably still write if no one came here.
My friend Celine is doing her media project on weblogs and how some of them take a political stance. I was thinking, well what the heck does my blog do? I've notice that it's different than most that I've come across. Most have some specific theme: they chronicle a journey, or take a view or stand against/for something. Mine does neither, which is fine. But it's more just a bunch of things that have been thrown together most of the time! So what is it? It surely isn't a journal, or at least not what I would consider a journal. In some ways maybe it has a performative element to it because I get to pick and choose what goes up. Unless I'm really excited then I type first and read later ;). Hm hm hm hm hm. Some of my posts are supposed to be thought-provoking, or inspiring, and some are just for the entertainment of you - and me. And of course there are those of you who live far away from me and use this as a means by which to stay current. Come to think of it, though, it's a bit of a skewed picture! I guess it's a little glimpse into what's important to me at a given moment (and sometimes what's important is a laugh). Odd stuff sometimes...
I think I'm eccentric. Or dramatic. Or just really passionate. Or easily amused / excitable. I wonder sometimes if people think I'm weird. But what constitutes "weird" these days, anyway? And I don't really care.
Maybe I should tell a story. Who knows what will come of this?!
Shhhhhhh..... this is the part where Sara shares a bit about what she's been learning lately.
This last year has been kinda nuts. I started UBC last September, finally ok with the reality that Trinity wasn't going to be happening. Looking back, I think that I was prepared to use TWU as a spiritual crutch if that makes sense, so that I could be spiritually "fulfilled" without doing a lot of work. I figured, heck, surround myself with Christians and I've got it made. It's true that Christian community is a beautiful thing, but I don't know that I had factored everything into the equation. Like paying attention to the changes that God wants to make in my life and stuff. And the growth that I needed to do through prayer and... well, some weirdo times.
So anyway, I was at UBC, ready to make a name for myself. With 40,000 students, the fact is that you're a number until you make a name for yourself. And even then you're a number in a lot of ways [note: my number is 8-digits]. I signed up for some clubs and I was the biggest keener when it came to signing up for all these email lists and taking flyers and it was great. UBC is really a neat place. I truly mean that.
Come October, life was in full swing. Friends who'd moved away were having a blast as well, and though I was spending a lot of time commuting, I still found the idea of traveling through Vancouver to be novel and exciting. I even had a bus pass. Whoa, was I lame. The Thursday before Thanksgiving, I spoke with a friend on the phone. She was about to go out to the bar at her school and I told her to be safe and have fun. Hmm. Fast forward to Saturday. Many frantic phone calls / emails had gone unanswered and everyone was talking to me but no one was saying anything. I finally spoke with her, and she told me that she had been raped in her dorm room that night. What the hell. It was unbelievable. I didn't, in fact, believe it for a long time - denial is a fantastic place to sit and steep for unhealthy amounts of time. I was able to look to God, to see that He had a plan and that He was in control. I sought comfort in prayer, and tried to convey that to her as well.
I've always been "the listener" in my social circles it seems. Oh I can talk, and believe me, I do. I find, however, that I'm often the person that my friends will come to when they need advice, or support. I think it's a beautiful thing, and I am so flattered that people would consider me and my advice, or just my ear. Long story short, I soon found myself giving up on UBC except for the academic aspect of it (and even that was questionable at times - thank goodness for understanding instructors), overwrought and overloaded with what had been going on. I found myself giving and giving and giving to this friend of mine, not because she was necessarily asking for it, but because I thought that I could somehow fix what was going on by running myself ragged and thinking and worrying constantly. By Christmas, I was a bit of a basketcase. My Bible study group had known me for about three weeks before I went from being fairly normal to an emotional wreck.
By February my friend was doing so much better and it was amazing to watch her recover, despite a few scary backsteps. Then in March, it happened again. Can you believe it? I remember exactly when and where I was when I found out. I was at Young Adults, on March 22 (I only remember because it was the day before my birthday). Have you ever been in a situation where you are so upset that you don't care that everyone is watching you lose it and bawl your eyes out? That was my first time. This time I was angry with God and I couldn't comprehend how something like this could happen twice... it's disgusting. Then another friend was murdered by her father. Etc. etc. etc. It seemed like I was fine but everyone around me was going through so much. And I wasn't really fine. I was drained and tired and a shell, trying to avoid talking to people at school so that I could just get on the bus and go home.
Not to say the year was miserable. Because it wasn't. I have a good life.
OK, so why am I talking about all of this? Well, I came to learn so much. A week before the second incident, God had answered a prayer of mine in a very obvious way... and the thing is, it wasn't an important prayer by any means. It was silly, and almost an afterthought before I went to church that morning. In the midst of my anger, I found this paper in my pocket. Conveniently, I'd written down this answer to prayer "just in case" I needed to be remind that God does listen and that He is in control. He was still in control. I stopped being angry, at least with God ;).
What else did I learn? A concerned friend basically said to me, "you know Sara, as much as you love her, if she's going to fall, she'll fall whether you're investing every ounce of yourself into her or investing a healthy amount of yourself into her". It was incredible advice. I have come to see that I can't control everything. I can't control the lives of my friends. Heck, I'm not even in control of my own life and that's the way that it's supposed to be. I can't always make things better. But you know what? It's not about what "I" can do all the time. It's about what God can do, and what Jesus can do THROUGH me. "Let go and let God." It's a cliche for a reason.
So I stopped running myself down and stressing constantly, trying to fix things for this friend, 24/7. And she continued to slowly get better. And she still felt like I was there for her. Go figure.
Bringing to my attention the control issue was something that God weaved into my life in a number of ways last year, but that was probably the bigee. Realistically, how do you put an experience like that, that took place over a year, in a few short paragraphs? Not exactly possible, but that was one part of it, and one thing that I learned.
Something else that God's shown me this year has changed me a lot, and is continuing to change me... I wish that everyone would come to the same realization, albeit much earlier than I learned it. Hmmm... how do I go about describing this? It's basically something that's been on my mind since I was able to USE my mind in any sort of rational way. OK, maybe nutshell version is better for now.
About six or so months ago, I had this realization. Because of Jesus, I am beautiful. And that's not an opinion. It's a statement of fact. So if God says it, why should I care what other people say I am? I am the way that I'm supposed to be because God has created me beautiful for His purposes and according to His plan. I have the Holy Spirit. I can use the talents that God has blessed me with to bless other people. It's so weird. Growing up in a society where you have to be a certain kind of person (and maybe not being that kind of person) is really tough. It's an inwardly-focused society that looks at self-improvement, self-help, self-this, self-that. And one day, God decided to turn that on its head in my heart and show me that I have worth in Christ. I had been a Christian for a few years at this point. And He STILL had to tell me. Meh. The Christian life isn't a perfect one by any means ;). So God had, in one revelation, settled something for me that I had been struggling with for most of my life. I hope and pray that everyone might come to see their worth. I see my 13-year-old sister going through a lot of things that look very familiar to me, and I want to be able to show her. But I don't know if it's something that I can show her, unless God wants to use me for that.
I've been toying with this idea for a few weeks now, and it still seems a bit weird to me: I think I like myself. The real me. The me that I'm supposed to be. Isn't that cool??? It's not even so much based on confidence in myself, but confidence that God has made me exactly the way that He intended. I've been designed well and with a purpose.
What's been the result of this? Well, in my own experience, knowing that I don't have to worry about being accepted by God (that one can be checked off), I am finally able to turn some of the focus off myself. And it's about bloody time. I'm slow to learn that it's not all about me, but God is patient and He "sufferith long" (oh yes, I've been paying attention at church!), waiting for us to stop screwing up and letting us come back time and time again to ask for forgiveness.
Wow. What an amazing God.
So if I've been designed well, then I shouldn't try to hide. I should rejoice in who I am, especially who I am in Jesus. Again, deep in my psyche (or whatever it's called) was always this fear that because I'm not the way that society dictates that I should be, that I'm somehow wrong. I don't know that I'm necesarily shy (I don't know if I'm introverted or extroverted... can you be both? I seem to be happy being both) but I would say that a certain shyness has been created in me because I believed for a long time that there was something not right about me. It's insane, I know, but I also know that SO many people are scared to be themselves. For me, that amounted to me not taking many risks, and just observing. It was terrifying to step out of the comfort zone (and sometimes it still really really is!) but I force myself now. Because my illusions about who I thought I was are being shattered and rebuilt.
I think that there is a certain responsibility to being who we are. We owe it to God and to ourselves to be real. Not to say that I want to run up to a stranger, introduce myself, and lay everything that's ever happened to me out for them. Not at all. But I don't like wearing a mask. If there's one thing that I pray for my own growth in the next while, it's that I will be able to embrace the real me, and not hide who that person is. True, she's a weirdo, and she still wants people to like her.... but the real me might not be so bad afterall hehe.
I don't feel like I need a crutch anymore.
I suppose we're all a work in progress. Undoing a lot of bad teaching takes time. But. Isn't it amazing that God is willing to invest SO MUCH into each one of us? I find it so incredible. The Creator and Ruler of the ENTIRE UNIVERSE loves each one of us so much that He sent Jesus.... He designed each one of us and gave us each our own gifts... He answers prayer... He LOVES US. If being loved by the Most High doesn't make you beautiful, then... no. Forget it. There is no IF. He loves us and we're all beautiful.
God just... rocks my world. Both in the "Dude, you rock" sense and the shaky and rocky cliff sense.
Darcy talked about dreams last night. One of my dreams is that people would realize their beauty and their worth and that we would stop looking down on ourselves. Then they can go out and spread some truth and love. I don't know if it's my THE dream (if that makes sense), but it is one of them. Because it's joyful, and it's almost a kind of freedom as well - one gives up control to God and accepts that they're beautiful and that's just the way that it is.
So, remember at the beginning when I said that sometimes I get excited and write first, read later? Yeah.... I'm going to go out on a limb here and be... real. I'm going to publish this with a click of the button and see what happens. Maybe I'll chicken out and take it down once I've realized what I've done. I am, afterall, forever a work in progress. But this is a bit of my life. Some stuff that is important to me. At least right now ;). At this particular moment. This very second. In 3 minutes things may have changed completely!!! What have I done? Ha. *Laughs nervously*
posted by Sara at
11:03 p.m.
2 Comments:
"I don't feel like I need a crutch anymore."
woooohoooo :)
By
Anonymous, at 12:05 a.m.
Ah sara! You inspire me so much. Remember, I don't love you for what you do or don't do, I just love you. No questions asked. I know that if I ever fall, and need somebody to help pick me up again, that you'll be there in a heartbeat, and if you ever need me to be there, for anything, I'll be there as humanly possible. When I see this world in black and white, you are always there to show me different shades of grey; the world from another angle. No matter where I go, I'll always be keeping a little bit of you in me!
By
Anonymous, at 8:12 p.m.
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