Monday, August 27, 2012

Scribbling on Paper

It has happened, the realization that I will have a new name.

As I was signing a small stack of papers today attempting to make my 'SNiezen' signature look more legible than the previous one it really dawned on me that I will have a  new name once I get married next month. Not only that, but the difficulties of handwriting two capital S's in a row is a very difficult task. Oh, for clarification my new last name will be Smith. Moving on, so obviously I grabbed a spare piece of paper and attempted to give my new signature a test run... like I was back in middle school again crushing on a boy... and I feel like I'm playing grownup all over again. Teaching my hand to quickly hand write a cool looking signature that looks effortless but  yet is still legible is an unfinished task. Do you know how hard it is to finish off any signature, let alone with a 'th'. Oh man. Give it a try. Just write out SSmith twenty times on a page. Not weird at all.

Anyways, all that rambling to tell you that while I was scribbling on scrap paper trying to figure out my new name I began to worry myself about losing my identity... my last name is changing... what if people can't find me in the phone book (which no one actually looks in anymore these days)... am I a new person?!?!? Admittingly, it was a small scale panic attack. Many times in the past I have pretended to be someone else for fear of what people might think or to please someone else. So naturally, the very idea of changing my name sparked concern in me that I was becoming someone else. But alas!! it is not true. The very fact that I am getting a new last name is a testament to who God has created me to be and the blessings He has put in my life that I get to become a part of.  I get a new name and I'm excited for it.

Ummm that's my thought for this week. To go deeper I will say this: you can drag change out and whine that it is changing you or you can accept the fact that change can be for a good purpose and look at it with excitement so you can receive the blessings that come from it.

Ok  bye!!

Monday, August 20, 2012

Storytime - Shoes

Story time Monday... let's do it.......

Storytime: So one day Sally Sneakers was sitting on her porch steps looking quite glum staring down at her sneakers when her friend (who doesn't get a name) came and sat beside her.

"Why so glum Sally?" She asked her friend (but not her best.).
"My sneakers were dirty yesterday..." Sally responded holding back tears. "They are my only pair."
"What are you talking about you crazy Sally," her not so sensitive friend questioned, "I'm looking at your shoes and they are super white, whiter than I've ever seen them."
"Yes, but yesterday they were dirty." Sally again tried to explain to her friend in her sad state.
"But... now they're super clean, that's awesome! You must have a really great quality cleaning product." Her friend said again, trying to cheer her up.
"But they were dirty." Sally stated yet again, being ever so persistent.
"Yah, but now they're not, they're clean! Woohoo!! Let's go for a walk and show them off."
"I can't, these sneakers looked ruined yesterday."
"BUT NOW THEY'RE NOT." Said the impatient friend at this ridiculous conversation.

"... but they were yesterday...dirt everywhere....totally ruined..." Sally quietly stated trying to get the last word in.

This conversation continued for approximately 4 more minutes; Sally dwelling on the fact that her sneakers were once ruined as opposed to her friends point of view that she should be happy that they were now clean. The conversation ended when the friend walked away, leaving Sally to sink in her misery at her once dirty sneakers, since that was all she wanted to do anyways.

Storytime Statement:
You can dwell on the past dirt that may have ruined you OR get over it and be grateful that God made you pure and whole again.

If the shoes are clean, don't go looking for dirt!

Monday, August 13, 2012

Hello stranger, might I help you?

I won't give you a book review/report today... I suppose.

Let's just jump in. So last Thursday I was involved in a God Belongs in My City walk through Chilliwack. It was pretty powerful... groups of people just walked through the town praying over it. I can't wait to see what will come of it. The groups met up in central park afterwards and while I was there I felt like there was someone to my right that I should go help. There wasn't. So that was weird. But then I think God nudged me to go in this thought direction.. and I suppose in the bigger picture, what our city has potential for.

My original feeling was that there might be someone to my right that needed help carrying something (picture a person carrying way too many grocery bags), and before I even looked I knew that if there was someone I would go over to the sidewalk and help them carry their groceries. Now since there was nobody there it occurred to me that even if there was someone and I offered my help... they might not even take it. So then I came up with these three categorized thoughts of responses one might get:

1) "The No Thank-You ... now go away" Answer
This is the answer that you get and you just can't understand it. You offer someone help that is carrying way too many things (like five tvs) and yet they refuse and in fact get annoyed and angry that you would even dare to offer your help. The more you try and help the angrier they get. It's confusing to you since you were never trying to offend them or imply that they couldn't do it on their own but that it would simply be easier on them if they let someone help them.


2) "The Ask me again and I'll say yes" Answer
This is the answer that seems most typical. You offer your help to someone and our society is so often on automatic mode to decline outside help, because it may be untrustworthy, that they just refuse help before even considering how helpful it may actually be. So the initial response to your offer of help is declined but if you look at the person you can tell that they are now calculating in their brain how they will move the whale they just purchased into their car. Ask again if they need help... they will let you help them now because they re-evaluated their situation and know they need you more than they fully realized before.

3) "The thankyouthankyouthankyouthankyou" Answer
This is the answer that makes you feel like a million bucks because the person is so grateful for your help. They are in the perfect desperate situation and they may not have been exactly waiting for you to offer your help but it comes at just the right moment that they jump at the opportunity. The recipient of your offer of help knows without a doubt that they can longer push their broken down car up the steep Promontory road, your presence alone rejuvenates them that they are not alone and the fact that you are willing to help fills them with gratitude and relief.

Now, with all these answers/responses broken down you may notice that this can be applied to different forms of help you may offer someone, particularly to me the thought stood out that some people are not ready to receive help or healing in their broken lives because they are simply not in that place just yet. That place where they have exhausted all other options and are just needing someone to offer them a step out of their despair but have no idea how to ask for it. Friends, I encourage you today to keep offering your help out in no matter what form it may look like (carrying groceries, offering encouragement, praying for another, paying for the persons meal behind you in the drive through, letting someone in a rush go ahead of you in a lineup, etc.) You never know what effect you can have on another person's life by simply offering them some help... the response is up to them, all you have to do is offer.

Tuesday, August 7, 2012

Plans Change

Hi friends!!

I more appropriately wanted to title this "Plans Change aka WHY THE HECK IS EVERYTHING NOT WORKING!!" but decided it could be too long... and people may think I have issues and was yelling at them.

So hello friends!! It is Monday (still officially for 7 more minutes so I have to type fast), and more specifically, the Monday after a long weekend. I hope you had such a great and relaxing weekend. I myself had a great long weekend. I really did, there was sun, pool, ice cream, great food (steaks and corn on the cob!! boom, best meal ever), so much hangout time with the fiance man, I got to do some improv at church... just such a great weekend overall.

In between doing super awesome sunshine filled long weekend stuff I also had to do some 'adult' things this weekend and run errands, you know how it is.. And one thing that really was on my mind today (and especially once I logged on to facebook and saw that I had been forced over to Timeline...) was that plans change and there are lessons to be learned for me to just roll with it and know there is a purpose. For instance, I did some wedding stuff this weekend and what was supposed to be a simple to do list of "pick up ties for groom and groomsmen" turned into a crazy somewhat complicated adventure. I am not discouraged nor do I particularly care if the shade of said tie is off by one degree... of colour(??)... but the adventure arose because in my mind it seemed so simple to walk into a store show them the shirt they had to match and find that same colour in a tie... only the problem is that since purple is still such a new invention, ever since we moved away from prime colours, many stores do not carry what we need. None of them actually. This happened with a few things this weekend... I really don't remember any of them beyond the ties at the moment but I constantly had the thought rolling around in my head of "why does this have to be so difficult?!" I get a plan stuck in my head and am not a fan when it doesn’t work out.

These plans changing thoughts actually brought me back to about a year ago and I will share this story with you. See I had this plan in September of 2010, after I stopped living a life full of lies, that I would give myself a month to grieve and get over the mess that I had made of my life and my heart, it was called 'Sad September' actually. After this one month of crying (because I literally just couldn't stop crying over the years I had wasted and my ripped to shreds self-esteem and self-worth), I planned for 'Optimistic October' to look towards my future and plan a new path which would nicely lead me all the way into 'Normal November'. It's always good to have a plan :) ............. until it gets completely shattered because October, November, December, January, February, March, April, June and July all pass and I couldn't stop crying. Now don't pity me over this because I sure don't, I learned sooo much in that time and am now so grateful for it that I wouldn't have changed that healing process at all. God loves us more than quick healing because he teaches us so much in those times of desperation. Ok, BUT what I do want to draw attention to is the fact that as month after month went by I became more and more frustrated because I felt behind on my 'plan'. I felt so lost that I could never catch up and wanted to quickly just heal myself so I could get back to my plan, my ridiculous plan that I thought was ever so important.

Now... hear me on this. If you plan out your entire life to perfection refusing to alter it, you leave no wiggle room for fantastic things and for God to work through you. On the same note, if you stress yourself out that you have no plan at the moment, you will never realize you are part of a plan. And lastly, if you pity yourself over supposed ‘failed’ plans, you will miss the joy of unexpected blessings.

Wherever you are in life, I encourage you to make tentative plans. If you don’t plan to have a goal in life you are simply surviving day to day and life will drain you. If you are at a period in your life where you feel like you have no idea what big plans to make or what to do next, hold tight… keep your mind open, keep searching and God will reveal a step for you to take in the right direction. If something just didn’t work out the way you thought it should, rejoice in that, whether good or bad, because God’s got this. Many times, as I expressed earlier, I get frustrated when plans change as I get tunnel minded and can’t think outside the single plan I had. Only later once a situation resolves itself in a way I never could have predicted do I realize that God had a better plan for me. If only my forgetful brain could remember this 24/7. Plans change for reasons beyond that which I can comprehend. The sooner I remember this, the sooner I learn to readjust my attitude and put my trust in God that any and all situations will be resolved.

So friends, I guess in great conclusion, plans change, but so can attitudes towards that change… I choose to rejoice for it is a new, unforseen adventure!