Things I create, because of the way that I think.

Feel free to use or take this image! But if you do post it places, I would love for some note that it is an image created by the writer of this blog! Thank you friends!

What do you want to do with your life?

I apologize in advance because I think this entry might be a little bit more of me understanding my own thought process than it is for a reader to enjoy. Regardless, here it is.

Growing up in a Christian environment has allowed me to be exposed to "Christian events" such as, Acquire the Fire, Revolve Tour, Women of Faith etc etc. These events are mostly geared towards the younger generation (middle school/high school age). They are usually weekend long events that fill youth up with that Jesus fervor they can get at summer camp, they leave pumped and ready for anything. Their hearts are tender and ready to love, their ears are open and vulnerable enough to hear even Gods whisper. I remember leaving those events telling myself that one day I want to be able to do that, I want to be apart of something that life changing. Today, I came across this blog: http://influencenetwork.blogspot.com/ its a really neat organization filled with great tools to equipping young women to be inspired, its literally a blog of influence ... just take a look yourself. Anyway, on this blog I found a link for their "Influence Conference" and there was a giveaway to win a plane ticket, conference ticket, hotel room just this whole package giveaway to attend this conference. I clicked on who would be speaking at this event, just to see if I could recognize any of the names... I didn't. Then I found myself looking at the speakers and entertainment for the other conferences I've attended as a youth and that's when it hit me. Where are all the people of minorities encouraging and inspiring people? Not just inspiring other minorities but just inspiring people in general? I mean sure we have Martin Luther Kings message ringing in our ears when we experience adversity and Rosa Parks to remind us we don't always have to be the one to give up our seats, we have Oprah to give us free cars, and we have Montel fixing all our crazy relationship problems...cool. But where are the people to tell us that we are beings who are capable of so much more than what people tell us? Where are the women who remind us that we don't need to be on Little Wayne's video to be beautiful or worth looking at.
Where are the motivational speakers who are not just of one race? 

So here's the thing... this blog is not about race, or color at all. This blog is... well I suppose its answering the question I know is creeping around the corner; "What do you want to do with your life?"
I've gotten this crazy idea that I want to inspire and motivate people for a living. As in, I truly want my profession to be inspiring people... Is that a thing? And I don't mean inspiring people to eat better or to lose weight...sure that could possibly be part of it depending on the persons situation but I want to be apart of something where people leave refreshed, encouraged and their inspiration cup overflowing.
Okay...Confession, I sometimes imagine myself speaking on one of those very same stages that I stared at for so many hours as a teenager. I imagine a microphone in my ear.... my bible on a stand somewhere next to me, probably a cup of some type of iced coffee, and then there I am, sitting on a stool just having a conversation with a room full of people who think that I have something to say worth hearing. 
"What do you want to do with your life?"
I want to motivate people to be the best that they can be. I want them to pull back each layer of who they are and stare in awe of them, celebrate them, love them and then put them to work for something really good. 
"What do you want to do with your life?"
I want to have countless conversations with young girls who think that their worth is measured in the amount of make up on their faces, or in the conversations they have with the opposite sex. I want to teach  remind them how to wear modesty on their tongues and their hearts and how that will all reflect what is seen on the outside. I want them to fill their minds with fearfully and wonderfully made anthems to counteract all the "you're not enoughs". 
"What do you want to do with your life?"
I want live as shamelessly, fervently and passionately for Christ as I possibly can. Not only through facebook statuses, scripture captions, or verse filled blogs but through the way I hug people, or hand someone their coffee. 
"What do you want to do with your life?"
I want to spend it making sure every person I encounter knows that they deserve to be loved.

As a little girl, I used to say that I was going to be a famous singer, dancer AND actor with an alter ego of course...
Then I said I wanted to be a teacher...
Then I got exposed to psychology and it made me want to understand people better so that I know how to love them better...
Now, I can't shake these images of myself standing on a stage having real conversations with real people searching for answers I can't give them but knowing that I know who can answer them. I want to simply be the tool that points people in the direction that maybe they've been trying to go their whole lives. I kind want to be the push they need to fall in the arms of their creator. 
I can't help but think about all of those conferences, and one day hope that my name could maybe be on a list of speakers. Oh my goodness it gives me butterflies just thinking about it.

What do you see yourself doing? 

What is that little recurring vision you see yourself in that you keep shaking away because maybe its not all that "realistic"? 

What is that one thing that you know you are passionate about? Where you can see yourself doing it everyday and it never getting old?

That one thing that keeps you inspired and reminded that you were created for that specific purpose? 

I encourage you to really think about those things, I encourage you to believe that you can absolutely make a difference doing something that you love AND that you're good at. Gosh dang! Doesn't that sound glorious? He gave us gifts for a reason. Don't just burry them...plant them and watch what fruits you produce. I dare you.

"...I urge you to live a life worthy of the calling you have received. Be completely humble and gentle; be patient, bearing with one another in love.  Make every effort to keep the unity of the Spirit through the bond of peace. "
Ephesians 4:1-3

I am who I am.

Adoni, Yahweh, Jehovah Rapha, Elohim, Father, Groom, God, Provider, Alpha, Foundation, Deliverer
Who is God to you?

This past Saturday, I went to the Jewish Contemporary Museum in San Francisco. When I was invited to go by a friend of mine, I automatically imagined a stereotypical historical Jewish museum where I would be traveling back in time to the holocaust. I imagined myself walking around and looking at pictures and reading stories where I would leave puffy eyed and emotional. THIS museum was nothing like that at all, in fact it was showing where the Jewish culture has been since those horrific events, what they have accomplished outside of that and where they are now. It was absolutely beautiful.
What was most inspiring about the museum, was noticing that each piece of artwork was an answer to the same question that each artist was asking. My friend noted in a status that the question was, "God, who are you?", they all asked it, but they all received different answers yet from the same God. Crazy . I've come to understand that God has a personality that is complex and filled with so many different attributes, that we as individual human beings could not even begin to really get to know them all. BUT, we as a human race can come to know who God is collectively because to each of us he is something different. He can be a provider for one person, a father to the fatherless teenager, a groom to the lonely widow, the hand of wrath to someone who has been defying him for years, and the saving hand to the person stuck in their own ditch. To each of us, God can be someone different. 
At the museum, I was looking at a painting where the description said that it could be viewed as a shell, a cave, or a flower, I personally saw a shell but my friend saw a cave. This is how God is, he can be the  shell, the cave and the flower, the provider, the father, the groom, the hand of wrath, AND the saving hand. He CAN be all those things at the same thing because he IS all those things. 
He is everything we need, and everything we don't know we need. This is why when we accept Christ into our lives, that's it! We're set! We honestly do not need anything else... Just him. But life gets complicated, our human emotions overwhelm us, our desires and frustrations consume us so we fill our lives and our homes with all this stuff we think we need. But in reality, we really don't. Maybe this is why we (or maybe its just me) feel so content in the midst of nature, because its simple. In nature, there's nothing artificial or fake. It's a raw experience and we encounter God head on without anything to negatively affect that experience.

Another painting I had the chance of seeing at the museum was a simple portrait with straight lines and plain colors. I thought to myself, "Why is this in here? Its not that special." Then I read the description and the artist talked about why he created it that way he said, "To be simple, is to be spiritual." Oh what...YES! Think about it... if God is everything we say he is, then that means outside of him we need nothing else, just him. "To be simple,  is to be spiritual." because all we need is him.
This is a recurring idea in our lives as believers, we hear it all the time. "You don't need that new car, you don't need that money, or that guy or girl... all you need is Jesus." Sure it gets cheesy, and maybe the message is watered down to us now but being at that museum made it come alive for me again.

"To be simple.... is to be spiritual." Because all we need is Jesus.

After I left that museum, my inspiration cup was overflowing.
I was also just blown away at the idea that this museum had "religious" and "spiritual" ideals swimming all throughout the portraits, the sculptures, through every quote on the wall. God himself was present in that building and it was a fantastic experience. 
The thing that I love about art (and nature) is that you don't have to find God in them, he's just there so very present and so very ready for us to encounter him. Even in the poetry realm, especially with spoken word (which is a very secular environment) people who have a talented way of re-telling stories so that an audience can feel it over and over again, they have a way of explaining experiences in a way where you can feel as if it happened to you. They are connecting with the God who created them and they don't even know it. They are asking all the right questions, "God where are you?", "God do you love me?", "God can you hear me?", "God who are you?" they are asking all these questions but they're getting their answers in poems, in photographs, through their paintbrushes and in the clay that their hands mold. He's saying to each of them, "I'm right here", "Yes I love you", "I am always listening and always responding...can you hear me?", and lastly he says over and and over again, "I am, who I am." That means something different to you, and that means something different to me. How awesome.

Comforter, Shepard, King of Kings, Creator, Refuge, El Olam, Jehovah Nissi, El Shaddai, I am who I am.
Exodus 3:14

Wait and Be Still (Gross)

Our generation loves everything fast. 
Fast service, fast cars, fast phones, fast friendships, fast conversations, fast fast fast. 
We want to get a taste of everything in very little time. This can be dangerous, as some of us have experienced, and we run into some sticky situations. But in addition to wanting everything fast, our generation is also passionate. Once we find something that we are excited about, that we thrive in, and feel deeply about, then you better believe something beautiful will come of that passion.
I was reminded of all of this while reading my "Women in the Bible" devotional series this morning about Sarai, the wife of Abram. (http://shereadstruth.com/) Yesterdays devotional talked about Sarai and her "just say yes" attitude, when God asked Abram to take his family, all he owned and up and move to Canaan. It's kind of cool because my parents are pretty much Sarai and Abram. When my dad was called to be a pastor, we had to leave our two story, 6 bedroom/5 bath, freshly painted (by my mother) home and move to a three bedroom, one bath little apartment. My sisters and I changed schools, we completely uprooted ourselves so that our family could walk obediently in Gods plan for us. Its assumed that it was just my Dad being called, but it wasn't. It was my Dad, my mom, my sisters and myself. 
Sarai and my mother both had a "just say yes" attitude, they were willing to leave everything to follow the plan God had laid before them. This is where us as passionate generation comes in, we hear God speak and we respond without any hesitation, we are all in, no questions asked. 
In return for  Abram and Sarais faithfulness, God promised to bless them with their first child (for my parents it wasn't their first but their last and only boy aw!). I believe that the work we do as servants of Christ is not in vain, he sees the fruits we produce and I honestly believe he loves to be able to reward us for it. But dont get me wrong, I also believe that God doesn't owe us anything, the fact that he rewards us at all is above and beyond a blessing because let's be real, ultimately we don't deserve it. 
Anyway, the tricky part of the promise for us impatient humans, is that he doesn't tell us when these promises come. We just have to know and trust in him that they will come when he intends for them to come. So what does that mean for us? We have to ... wait. oh my!
The curse of being a generation who wants everything fast, is that we are constantly searching for what's next. Where do we go from here? What can I get my hands on now? All of this quickly turns into restlessness when we can't find the answers to any of these questions. In our restlessness, we get these crazy ideas that we actually know what we're doing, that the plans that we have are way more than important than Gods plan. We know he made a promise, but we thought it was going to come right after he promised it and it didn't...so of course that must mean he probably forgot but its fine, we can take care of it ourselves. ha!
God promised Sarai that she would give birth to a child of her own and basically she said, "Aint no body got time for this" and took matters in her own hands, letting her husband sleep with their maid because she wanted a child so badly.  (Genesis 1-6) If you read the selected scripture you will see just how uhm... "well" that whole I-got-this situation turned out for her. 
But man oh man I can't help but think about how many times do we find ourselves in Sarais position? 
We say "Yes God! We will leave everything, step out of our comfort zones because Jeremiah 29:11 and you know what's best for me!" etc etc etc. But then shortly after we're all pumped and ready to obey, we get restless and impatient. We sit there wondering why the order that we just placed a few seconds ago isn't ready yet and then we just leave and make our own food and it ends up being gross, then you end up throwing it away and you're still hungry. 
Okay that was a bit extreme but do you see what I'm saying? 
I know... well at least I hope I'm not the only one who does this.
Right now, I can relate to Sarai because I believe I am in a stage where a lot of my friends are in relationships, or engaged and just months away from marriages. And then there's me, in the waiting period of whatever God has in store for me in that area and instead of taking matters into my own hands and just signing up for christianmingle.com, I will wait because I KNOW that I will end up screwing something up and it just wont be a very pretty ending. 
After taking notes from my devotional this morning, I wrote in my journal that "Our patience needs to be just as passionate and genuine as our  initial "yes." When we say "yes" to God, we are saying yes to what happens right now, yes to what may happen later, yes to the waiting, yes to the unpredictability, yes yes yes. 
And I know, its one of those things that is so easy to say we're going to do it, but once it comes to actually doing it... well lets just say the struggle is real! But imagine what we could be capable of if we truly tried to instill a attitude of stillness constantly in our lives? 
We can't be halfhearted in this, if we are all in that means we are all the way in, no toe dipping, full body submerge.

So here's the encouraging/motivational last sentence; let's put on our big girl/boy suits, let's dive in, and be still.

Taking Back Eden Part 2

Today I started a thirteen day devotional on the Women in the Bible by http://shereadstruth.com/ (I highly recommend this, its so awesome, conversational based, and its just really good.)
Of course the series starts off with Eve, the first woman created. The devotional begins with asking, "What words come to mind when you hear the name Eve? Apple? Sin? Adam? First? Flawed? Fall?" I found myself responding to this by chiming in my own suggestions like "Yeah, she messed up..." "Thanks to her I have woman pains" and so on and so forth. And then the devotional suggests you read the first passage which was Genesis 1:26-31 you know the creation story with Adam and then later came Eve, the creation of man kind in the image of God. And then, the fall comes shortly after that. Eve gets tricked and the cunning serpent has screwed it up for the rest of humanity. 
What stood out to me the most was verse 25 of Chapter 2 which says, "Adam and his wife were both naked and they felt no shame." and then right after they ate the fruit the first thing they realized was that they were naked. 
Let's sit with that for a minute.
I would dare to say that the first sin experienced was the sin of insecurity.
Just moments before the fall Adam and Eve were stark naked and felt no shame, they were comfortable with themselves, they loved who they were and who they were with. And shortly thereafter once sin rooted itself in the world, shame and insecurity with and in themselves was the first thing they felt. 
When I read this, my heart broke. I am a victim of the sin of insecurity, I would dare to say that at some point we all have, however for others it just seems to make itself a home in our hearts and minds for a little longer.
I wrote in my journal that we can't even imagine a life without sin because that's all we've known since it began in the very beginning. But Genesis 25 gives us just little glimpse of what a life without sin looked like, its not simply that they were naked and just didn't care. Sin makes us care, it makes us on edge, uncomfortable and unsure. Adam and Eve were in the most vulnerable, bare state of being and they didn't care because they weren't captive to insecurities, the idea of them not being fearfully and wonderfully made did not exist...Sin tells us that we're not but isn't  it crazy to think about the fact that for a second they knew without a doubt that they were enough, they knew they were worthy of being loved.
Shame, is not something God given, especially not shame towards who we are. A really close friend of mine comes across wonderful blogs and has a lovely habit of sending the good ones my way. Today he sent me Jamie's blog: http://www.theveryworstmissionary.com/, Jamie talks about shame in her blog titled "Taking Back Eden" where she says, "Shame is a byproduct of a dying world. It's a shackle that binds us to our brokenness. It is Shame who first points a finger and cries out, “Look at you! You're NAKED!”, and tells you to run and hide. Shame warns you to cover up, hide your junk, don't get caught. Shame clothed us in fig leaves and nestled us in the bushes; shame led the way right out of Eden, and still it barricades the door."
WOW.
I could not have said it any better myself. Insecurities are nothing but a byproduct of sin, they tell us we are not enough, even though the creator of the heavens gave us life with his very breath. How dare anyone tells us that we are not enough. Sin tells us to go run and hide, you are dirty and shameless... but our God tells us to come to him, that we are imperfect yet flawless, we are loved and worth loving. I couldn't agree more with Jamie and her "Taking Back Eden" title.  It will take a while, but one day at a time he is reversing the chaos that occurred after that forbidden fruit was bitten.
For me, he is reversing the lies that I need to be ashamed, that I need to run and hide because I am not something that should be out and bare in the open. He is reassuring me that the life he breathed into me was not an accident and despite what anyone says it is still good. So one day at a time, he is (as Jamie said), “I'm here. And I'm taking back Eden.” 
Selah.