Destination Christmas - Part 2

Christmas Day was spent chatting with family, eating scrumptious food, small-town church… and Anne of Green Gables. I must say, there is nothing like being closed up in the mountains (with sketchy cell phone service and no internet! Loved time away from all that!) with a good romantic story. Who doesn't like Anne of Green Gables???? The acting in these movies is not that great. But the story. Oh the story is humorous and… so dreamy. Gilbert passionately and playfully chasing after Anne. Anne refusing Gilbert. Gilbert gets engaged to another girl. Anne dates some rich schmuck. Gilbert gets deathly sick (serving others in a hospital, might I add – so romantic) and Anne finally realizes her mistake and how she is desperately in love with Gil… oh my… I know Christmas should be spent focusing on Jesus’ birth and all… but I think God makes exceptions when it comes to Anne of Green Gables. Oh what a story to make a girl daydream. And daydream I did...

P.S. It was the male in the cabin’s choice to watch Anne of Green Gables… and the sequel... just sayin. 

Destination Christmas - Part 1

This year Christmas for my family is different. Typically me, my sisters, brother-in-laws and niece and nephew travel (from wherever we are in the states) to Indiana to spend Christmas together. This, unfortunately, will not be the case for Christmas 2011. My oldest sister is with child… very much with child she would say. Needless to say, her and her family are not traveling, but are staying home, starting new traditions with their kids – and hopefully having a baby! My other sister is traveling with her husband across the country… they just HAVE to go to Thessaloniki. J No really, they do. They currently live in Greece and their visas require them to travel out of Greece over the holiday. Sadly, they will not be making it to Indiana either.

I, on the other hand, am NOT with child or traveling to Thessaloniki…

Although I love my parents, and my parents love me… we collectively decided that spending Christmas in Indiana without my sisters and their families would be extremely sad and weird. General Tao’s chicken is simply strange without Kramers or Vargheses… So in trying our best to make this Christmas just as fun, the ‘rents and I decided to make Christmas 2011 a “Destination Christmas.” We have traveled to Helen, GA. “Helen Georgia?” You may ask. “Where is that? Why did you not choose the beach?” Helen, Georgia is at the edge of the Appalachian Mountains, and yes, my vote was the beach. But, I’ve learned that the weight of my vote is equivalent to the amount of money I pay in the trip… J So, parents won. And that turned out to be wonderful. Because Helen has proven to be a wonderful place so far. We traveled all the way up to the top of some mountains and arrived at the cozy Bear’s Den Cabin.  The place is perfect – great space, cozy rooms, clean, and great décor - including this dear looking at me as I sleep… seriously, eyes right on me… creeeeeepy.

The Hard Things-Part 1

As many of you know, 2 years ago God allowed my life to be shaken in a way that all I could do was cling to Him. I was broken in the deepest way and grew to know God in a magnificent way through all the hurt. God has brought be through it and taken me to a new depth with Him, and I am so thankful for it. But about 6 months ago I realized I had let my life become mediocre. Life had become easy. I didn't have a "need" for God. And as I know going through an "easier" stage of life can be a blessing, God was beginning to tell me that this was not from Him. Over the spring and summer He kept expressing to me to go deeper with him. To stop doing what is always "easy" in life. 

As I started thinking about this more, I realized how often I take the easy road. Complain instead of being thankful for God's blessings. Worry/fear instead of trust in God's faithfulness. Spend time watching TV instead of playing my guitar or praying or reading God's Word. Play on the computer instead of exercise. Get fake nails instead of breaking my nail-biting habit. Self-pity instead of confidence in God. Eat fast-food instead of a balanced meal. The list goes on. And not that it is bad to do some of these things, but it was a lifestyle of "easy" that inhibited being able to grow closer to God. And I do believe that God has been calling me to live a life of doing harder things... 

So thinking through what I could do to fix some of these things, what kept coming to my brain is that I lacked self-control, or discipline. 

So I decided I wanted to build discipline in my life. Ok, where do I start? How do you accomplish that? My personality has never been a "go-getter." How does one break a habit? Ask a friend to help with accountability? Go through the steps with her? Yeah, that has been something I have done in the past. But discipline is something that is internal. That I want to create within me despite others. So that if other experiences come up, I have something built inside of me that is NOT dependent on what someone else thinks or says. So here I am again, what do I do??

Back in the spring as I was thinking of all this, my mom was in a discipleship program. Whenever she talked about it, I was intrigued and excited. It's a method that helps people dig deeper into Scripture, live deeper with Christ, and to Know Him, become like Him and Glorify Him more... and so I decided I wanted to do it. It starts out small, and grows into more and more. I loved the idea of building and growing.

And I thought, "Ok, I've got a plan on this discipline thing." But although spiritual discipline is great, I felt God wanted me to do more. I was a little afraid that doing something more by myself, I would have the potential to stop when it got hard. To stop when I didn't have time. And your spiritual life is something that you don't really "see" and "know about." You don't really measure. I knew God was asking me to do something physical. Something else HARD. 

I wanted to do something that I had to work hard for, sacrifice for, train for... Something hard that I couldn't finish without making myself work and meet goals. 

I thought, well, I could run a race. I like the idea of correlating running with spiritual growth. There are so many parallels about it in my mind, through Scripture, and I loved it. But I had done that before. Run a 5K wasn't that big of a deal. And if I didn't finish training for it all, I could still finish it; 3 miles is doable! And then, let alone I hate running. I am not a runner. Let me say that again... I. am. not. a. runner. Still, I needed something big.

So I signed up for a mini marathon. (On a whim, might I add.) 13.1 miles. Something I would have to train for, sacrifice for, work hard for. I couldn't go into it without giving it my all. It would be hard finishing it without training.

And I wanted to do it by myself. Yeah, I know that sounds independent and somewhat stupid. Encouragement from a friends is always good, right? But I know my personality and the personality of some of my dear friends, we could become competitive. And that is NOT what I wanted. Competition would not create forever discipline. It would create temporary discipline. I'm great at the temporary discipline. That's what I want to get away from. I don't want the goals and accomplishments be based on other people in my life. And I also wanted to prove to myself that I can do this, not based on other people. Doing that would be the easy way. And I know God was calling me to go the hard way. 


So I started training. Spiritually and physically. And it was tough. Even though I started out small. Reading small passages of Scripture and meditating everyday. And remember, not.a.runner. So I started out with short, short distances. And roughly 235 miles later... I did 13.1 miles at one time. 


God has taught me a lot of things through this experience. But, if you have made it this far in the post, you have read enough for now. So here is a video my friend Nancy, who ran a big race too, made about the event. I couldn't get the video to load, so click the link instead. Enjoy!

This is Monumental

Funny

This is a shopping prank by a few guys. I think it is hilarious. Click on the out takes at the end too. Seriously, it's pretty hilarious.