I realized four things just now.
First, I just realized haven't written a note in a really long time. It's not because I haven't had anything to write about, but more because I've been so busy! It's been a crazy few months in the life of Liz Humphrey, starting college and such. I love college and mostly everything about it: my floor, my roommate, my classes, my professors, my school, and my city! It's all wonderful. Admittedly, there's things that aren't so great about it. The food at Loyola is nothing compared to home food, and I'm so looking forward to not eating at a dining hall next year. I also miss my best friends. I'm becoming really close with my roommate and she's becoming one of my best friends, and of course I have my awesome friend/sister Cait that I met at Bio Boot Camp, but most of the other friends I've made are just exactly that-friends. Good friends, but not the best friends I had from high school. I think my high school friends and I have done a good job of staying in touch and involved in each other's lives. In fact, the distance has in some ways made me closer to some people, but still. It's sad when a person is just a voice on a telephone or words on a screen instead of a flesh and blood person I used to see every single day. But despite those things, college is great! I highly recommend it :)

Second, I realized wrote a note a year ago today. In that note, I had a prayer that 2011 would be a year of no regrets. And I'm happy to report that strangely, that wish actually kinda came true, though not in the way I expected it to come true. in 2010, I regretted a lot of my decisions, decisions that were made from January 2010 until the last days of December 2010. I still kinda regret those decisions and if given the chance, I would make different choices: maybe say things differently or not say things at all, be friends with different people, focus on the important things instead of the little things I focused on. In contrast, when I look at 2011, I can't really think of anything I would do differently. I mean, of course there's one or two things i wish I hadn't done, and do I wish some things hadn't happened the way they did? Heck yes!!! But, the choices I made didn't really make those things happen. They were the results of choices made by other people, and I had no control. As a whole, I lived 2011 exactly how I would live it if I could go back and do it over again. It was the end of high school and the beginning of college, and everything worked out pretty great in the end. The most important thing is that God brought my heart closer to Him again, and it'd been far away for so long, probably longer than I even knew. This year has taught me how to love Him again without certain people in my life helping me love Him. He blessed me beyond imagining, and even when He wasn't giving me what I wanted, He gave me what I needed. He's the reason why, for the first time in my life, I think I can look back on a year and have absolutely no regrets. Now let's do that again this year!!! :)

Third, I've realized how much a year has changed me. I'm looking at a journal entry I wrote a year ago today, and I'm laughing at how my perception of certain people has changed. I'm laughing at the things I thought I knew and the absolute idiot I made of myself by thinking to know so much. It's just so strange. This year was first for me because it's a year of no regrets, but it's also a first in that I really feel older. I look at my writing from last year and feel old. I am fully aware that by every standard out there, I'm still so so so so young, but still. I feel like I know more than I did at this time and that's made me different. I know how to love people better. I know to think in different ways. I know myself better. It's not that I know more facts about loving or thinking or myself, because I don't think I do. It's just that I've lived another year. It's more experience. Experiences change you, and I've experienced this year. Maybe it's actually wisdom. Not knowledge. As we said in Honors lecture last semester, the difference between knowledge and wisdom is experience. Maybe I've grown a tiny bit wiser and that's why I feel older.

Fourth, I realized there's few things I want to change this year. Number One: Loving Others. I've gotten better at it. I want to be even better at it. I feel like that's something that I want to be known for, is someone who loves her friends, family, and everyone she meets and shows that love every chance she gets. Someone who has compassion for everyone and never gives up on anyone. In 2012, I want to continue becoming that person.  Number Two: Trusting. I'm so bad at trusting people to be honest with me. I think I'm probably the most paranoid person in the world, because there's times when I feel that everyone secretly hates me and is annoyed by my presence. That needs to stop and I need to let that go, and realize that my friends' lives do not revolve around me, so they don't all spend their time plotting against me haha :) I also need to trust God more. I don't know what I want to do with my life anymore. Thought I did, but I don't. So, I need to trust Him to show me what He wants me to do, and not panic over a future I can't see. I also need to trust that someday, He'll give me what I want most, and at that time, it'll finally also be what I need. in 2012, I'm gonna continue learning to trust others. Number Three: Loving Myself. I've noticed that I've gotten really good at hating myself. Too good. If you ask me, I could give a very long and angst ridden list of the physical, emotional, and mental things I dislike about myself. Occasionally, I think that the list of things I dislike is incredibly ridiculous and of course there's plenty to like about me. Starting with the fact that God made me and I'm the only one of me anywhere in the universe. But, more often than not, I just accept the list as fact. I need to start loving who I am, because I will continue to be the most insecure, paranoid person if I can't love myself for who I am and who I'm made to be. I will continue to feel like everyone secretly hates me if I already hate myself. I need to see myself how the people who truly love me see me. That's going to take some work, especially since in my heart, I'm not sure I'll love myself until, well, I walk down an aisle in a fancy white dress to be with someone who loves me enough to spend the rest of his life with me. But, I can't wait that long to like myself the way I am, because it hurts me to hate myself. It hurts me so much to think I'm worthless and inferior. Thinking that affects everything I do negatively. So, in 2012, I want to learn to love myself. Which sounds really arrogant and prideful to write down, but I'm not sure it's arrogant and prideful at all.

So, I'm asking God for 2012 to be another year of no regrets, and a year where I work on the three things mentioned above. And hopefully, it'll be an even better year that 2011 was :)

Why I'm Insane Today

  So, I keep having dreams about the end of the world. Last night, it involved scary pumpkins and I think Indiana Jones was there too. Dreams are so weird. In the past week, I've dreamed about pottery classes on the fifth floor of Regis, helping Daniel Craig with his taxes, and sailing a ship down highway 90. Dreams make sleeping fun. I always feel a bit nutty when I wake up because of how random dreams my dreams are.
     I feel insane because I'm trapped in this strange pattern of thought, ideas, and emotions. For the third year in a row, I'm following this pattern. And this time, I really, really should know better. I should change the way I think and I feel, and stubbornly resist this downward spiral that's gotten me nothing but angst and various other problems for two years. If I try the same process on the same problem twice and it doesn't work, my common sense says to stop in my tracks and try something different... but part of me still wants that spiral. It's comfortable. It's familiar. And it's nice for awhile. Ugh.
     In some ways, I think I prefer dreams to reality. The farther away and less possible something is, the more I like it, want it and hope for it. Yet when the dream actually starts coming true, I freak out. I love the random dreams I have at night because they're impossible. But when they start becoming realistic and less random, I get scared and the dreams become nightmares. This applies to dreams I have for life too. The possibility of med school has sounded so nice for so long because it's been so far removed and because I've loved doctoring and healing since I can remember. Now, the idea of med school is soon entering the stage where I need to take steps to make it reality and I want to run screaming because it scares me now. Back to insanity, the pattern I've got myself into is a pattern of dreaming that's gotten me nowhere, but maybe I'm resisting it so much because I'm scared the third time will be the charm, that the pattern is getting me somewhere this time. it scares me to death, I don't know what to do, and I want to run screaming away.
      This note is purposely vague. I don't want Facebook to know my thoughts. I just need to get this out of my head so I can make sense of it. And I think I have made sense of it. I just need to identify what exactly I want. And then I need to pray, listen to the Holy Spirit telling me what's right, and then do what I need to do. I should stop thinking about what's happened in the past because as someone reminded me recently, the past only exists in my mind. I also should forget any fear because as always, God's got me covered. I feel better now. Yay for catharsis on the Internet!

Trippy Dreams

These were my dreams the past two nights. I don't understand.

Tornado:

Sitting in my kitchen with my friend Matt, looking out as a storm approaches. Suddenly, there's a tornado reaching down to touch the ground. It slowly approaches. Matt has now turned into my brother AJ, and we're just sitting there watching the tornado. I decide it's time to yell for my dad and he comes running, and then tells me that it'll be fine. The tornado touches down in my backyard and leaves a 1.5 feet wide, 10 feet deep hole in the ground from my trampoline to my pine trees in the front. It somehow skips over the patio. I go outside with my dad to investigate, and it turns out we can see the pipes from the sewer through the hole. I ask my dad how we're going to fix this. He says "don't worry," and crawls under my patio (?) and starts throwing dirt from underneath into the hole. As he's doing this, my Canadian grandparents arrive to take us to the J.C. Penney store they seem to own. They ask what happened and I explain that there was a tornado 15 minutes ago that made this hole in the ground and my dad is fixing it. The sky is blue and the sun is shining, so they don't believe me at first, but I convince them. Then, My entire family crowds in my grandparents blue van with J.C. Penney written on the side, and we go to the mall. Once we get to the store, the rest of my extended family is there, including my Aunt Laurie, Aunt Laurel, cousin Katie, Allison, and my grandma from New York, Oma. Apparently, they're using the store as a storage place for all the junk from Oma's house. I look inside the clothes racks and see boxes of junk hidden inside. I start browsing the shelves and see lots of cool looking clocks. I want to buy one for my dorm. I go to the second level of the store and as I'm walking around, shots ring out.  I see three men in suits chasing another man who is tied to a chair with his hands tied behind his back. The man in the chair committed a murder, and he is not running-he's hopping really fast using the legs of his chair. He's also holding a pistol in his tied hands, and shooting backwards at the men in suits as he hops away from them. There's a hole in the floor in front of him. He drops the pistol from his hands down the hole. I'm watching the scene happen so I see the pistol fall down the hole and land on a piano bench in such a way that the barrel is pointing up. The man in the chair falls backwards through the hole to escape and lands with his head hitting the barrel of the gun. Somehow, the pistol is so sharp that it goes straight through his head and kills him. My grandparents are shocked that there's a dead man in their store. One of the store employees knew the man, and starts crying because he doesn't know that the dead guy was a murderer. My grandparents go to explain to him what happened, but another employee stops them (I think she was one of my cousins?) and says 'Sometimes you have to do things the hard way," and goes to explain.



Charlie Brown:

Hanging out with friends Shannon and Ryan, and we're doing a line dance using instructions that I found on the back of a Target shipping receipt. Shannon shows me that there's an owl hidden on the one dollar bill. Suddenly, I'm walking into a giant mall-like place, but every "store" is a theater with different shows playing and different auditions going on at the same time. I walk into one, thinking I'll be trying out for Into the Woods. I find out that it's a beauty pageant instead, but I decide to stay and watch. Then, it turns into try outs for some kind of Christmas play involving a witch and angels singing. One of the girls who played Sally from Schaumburg Onstage's Charlie Brown is there and we become friends. We proceed through auditions by singing verses of a song in Latin while a short man with a mustache is yelling at us and a tall blonde woman is directing us in lines. All the other girls there look the same. They have long brown curly hair and they are wearing homecoming dresses and vests. Then, it turns out that it was really auditions for Charlie Brown, and somehow I got the part of Lucy. I feel confused because I thought Lucy had to have red hair. It's opening night of the show, and I'm about to go onstage, yet I'm sitting in the first row of the auditorium. The auditorium is small, it feels more like a small church. There's windows and outside, planes are taking off on a giant runway. My mom is sitting in the sixth row and complaining because she doesn't like the seats. I realize that I don't have my monologue for the first act memorized and I have to be onstage in 2 minutes. I start trying to memorize it now, and see that it's really the monologue for my audition for Loyola's play in the fall. (I wake up, cuz my alarm's ringing, then fall back asleep). The theater is suddenly filled with smoke and gunfire. I'm in the rainforest now and in the story of that old Disney movie, the Swiss Family Robinson while pirates are attacking. I'm sitting on a raft in a lake with the whole family there and there's still gunfire and smoke. The dad of the Robinson family says that we need to create a diversion, so he crawls back through a really disgusting swamp to kill the pirate captain as me, Han Solo, a monkey, and the youngest boy in the family use inner tubes and bombs made of coconuts to distract the rest of the pirates. Then, I'm watching this scene unfold on a TV in Ryan's living room with Shannon and Ryan, and I'm explaining how the father of the family will soon get in a sword fight with the pirate captain using a machete, and that he'll get wounded, but it'll be ok because he kills the captain with a bunch of rolling logs.

Ramblings About Growing Up

This isn't poetry. it is literally just me rambling on and on about being a kid.

I realized movies weren’t real. I understood coincidence. I became self-conscious. I stopped thinking the wind could speak to me. I swore for the first time (accidentally). I learned about love, I mean, that kind of love. I held a boy’s hand square dancing in gym. I went to my first school dance.I started shopping at the mall. I began to wear makeup. I saw what friendship means. I fell in love. I broke my heart.I felt betrayed.
I discovered who to trust. And who not to. I grew up.

I opened a box and ten years worth of dolls spilled out onto the floor of my already messy room.
Looking at me with lifeless eyes. I had forgotten their story.
I watched Winnie the Pooh ,and remembered the stuffed animals I held tight to in the middle of nights I couldn’t sleep. Thinking of their softness, I couldn’t remember their names.

I used to wonder what it would be like to grow up, to be eighteen. My dad was a youth leader at my church for awhile, and I saw many teenagers grow up. Some are now in their twenties. Some are over thirty.
I used to want to be one of them. And here I am.

I told my mom today that I wish I didn’t have baby cheeks. She told me not to wish that. I think she might have been right.

I used to spy on my neighbors. I used to hop fences with my heart pounding and run across lawns in my bare feet. I used to ride my bike up and down driveways. I used to swing on my playground. I used to look under rocks for bugs. I used to feed squirrels even though my dad didn't want me to. I used to think that leaves rustling was a language. I used to pretend I was a witch. I used to believe in magic and conspiracy everywhere around me. When the moon was full it was time for ghosts. When the sun shone, it was playtime and the world was great. What ever happened to thinking about the world in terms of what days I could play and what days I couldn't?  When did that stop?  I don't even remember. Hanging out is cool, but it's not as magical as playing. Just once, Just once, I wish someone would ask me to come over and play. I know it'd still be hanging out, but still. I want to go over and play.

All this is to say, I want to be a little kid again. Just for a day. I want to think about the world like a kid. Forget the world I live in now, with all the innuendo, all the profanity, all the sex, all the drugs, all the pressure, and be a child. I want to believe in magic and forget that my feet will get dirty if I play in the sandbox or run through the grass. I want to be a spy again, hiding in bushes and hopping fences. I don't want to worry about my hair. I don't want to put on makeup and wear nice clothes and wear contacts. Jean shorts too big for my skinny chicken legs and huge leather sandals for my awkward feet and huge glasses and a T-shirt that says "I'm a Rock Star" in pink and green and blue are perfect. I want to love simply and not worry about blurry lines or awkwardness. I want to be friends with anyone and everyone. I want to say what I think and not say a version of it. Be precocious and and innocent and wild and free. Totally free. That's what being a kid means to me now.

If I have kids, I want them to enjoy their childhood and stay innocent and free for as long as I did.

I've been thinking about this for awhile now. Leaving for college is making me crazy.

My Garden

        OK, so I was at this Biology Boot Camp thing at Loyola this week. It was incredible. Literally incredible. No other word to describe how awesome my time there was. I was introduced to my future Bio professor. I learned that there are so many opportunities for undergrad research, which I will be taking advantage of while I'm there. I sat in lectures, took mock exams and practicals, and got a feel for what college academia will be like. It wasn't all work. I also had lots of fun. I met my future roommate, who is super cool and sweet and amazing.I ate breakfast, lunch, and dinner in my future cafeteria, which has an ice cream machine that will probably be the death of me. I ran every morning on the beach and around campus. I took the Red Line downtown and toured behind the scenes in the Bird Department of the Field Musuem. (There were literally hundreds of stuffed, dead birds in closets there. Kinda weird, but cool). I saw someone get arrested and laughed (in a good way) at the Asian man in business casual and gym shoes jogging very slowly in the park. I watched a full moon rise over Lake Michigan and saw the lights come on in the city while playing Frisbee in the lake. I met so many cool people and made new friends and enjoyed this pre-college experience to its fullest. The best part, though, was that this turned into a spiritual and emotional retreat for me. A much needed one.
        The reason it turned into a spiritual and emotional retreat is that God gave me this really awesome friend named Cait I don't even remember how we met, actually. I think we just sat down at the same lunch table and the rest was history. By the end of the week, even our two of our professors commented on how close we were. It was the strangest thing. I don't think I've ever become so close with someone so fast. We were instant sisters, and of course, that makes sense because we were already sisters in Christ. It was amazing. Every night we had conversations about our faith and our lives. We prayed for each other and cared about each other's burdens immediately. We held each other accountable to act as women of God in times where it would have been easy not to. We had times of glorious worship together, where I would play on a piano whatever song came to my mind and she would worship God through dancing to my music, and then we would sit together in silence and pray afterwards. The Holy Spirit was so present with us all week. It was so beautiful. Living every day in awareness of God and acknowledging the great gifts and great peace He kept bestowing on me.
      That was so necessary for me, because I've been distracted. Very distracted. And very tense. I had a great Senior year. A year in which I made some of the best friends I've ever made, and had some of the best times I've ever had. But, spending time with God, listening to the Holy Spirit and spending time in His word and with other believers was largely absent from that year. I was angry at Him for things that happened in my heart Junior year, and this week, I've finally realized, or admitted, that I'm not completely over what happened. My heart still hurts, and much of what happened to me emotionally Senior year was the result of everything Junior year. And yet, I don't think I would change anything if I could, though, because it resulted in good things too, which led me back to God, the source of all good things. And I think my faith is stronger for it. I think God has given me wisdom because of it. And since I asked Him for it, I praise Him for giving it, even if came from pain. He has been ever present in my life, guiding me even when I didn't realize it, and that was made clear to me because...
        This week, God spoke to me clearly for the first time in so, so long. Cait told me that she asks God to show her what her garden of Eden would have been like. What it would be like to be in complete, free communication with God and in paradise. I thought that was a neat prayer, and so I prayed every night for God to show me my garden. And on the last night, playing the piano and worshiping, I heard Him answer. I know this sounds weird, but it's so true and I feel it more strongly than I've felt anything for awhile, so bear with me. He said, "Yes, Liz, someday I will show you your garden, but right now, I want you think like this. This place, Loyola, is your garden. Here I have chosen for you to grow. Your roots are in Me. They are not in your friends, your family, or your church. They are in me. You will grow, I will tend you, and I will not abandon you." It was so peaceful. wonderful and freeing, because I was worried about going to Loyola and leaving everything I know, even if it's only an hour away. Now, I know for certain that God wants me there, and that He will not abandon me while I've there. He has something great planned for me, and I'm so ready for it. This doesn't change the fact that it will be excruciatingly painful for me to leave my family, my friends, and my church, but my roots are in God, not in them, and so I'm at peace.
         In fact, I'm no longer anxious about college at all because He spoke to me. He told me that I'm following His plan and that He chose Loyola for me.  It was astounding, to hear God affirm the biggest decision I've made in my life so far. Sure, there were good reasons for me to go to Loyola anyway, the location, the money, etc. But, I still was doubting it, because it was unknown and I felt like I should have applied to more schools or prayed more about the decision and lots of other stuff. But, He let me know this week that in fact, I didn't make the decision. He made the decision for me, without me even knowing it at the time. Amazing. Isn't God wonderful?! I love Him like crazy. I cannot stop thanking Him for the fun I had at Loyola this week and for Cait and for telling me that I'm where I'm supposed to be. He's so good and He's given me so much through out my life that I want to give my entire life to Him always. So, now I'm going to enjoy the rest of my summer, and then go to college and grow, because Loyola is my garden :) Yay!

Because my brothers are watching Star Trek, I'm writing this note. It's about God.

My brothers are watching Star Trek in the living room, and because they are watching Star Trek in the living room, I cannot play my piano. Ugh. So I'm writing instead.  Last Friday night was pretty excellent. Instead of dancing on table tops and taking too many shots per Katy Perry (I love that song, it's so catchy), I ate some amazing ribs with some fantastic people and then had some similarly fantastic conversations about deep things related to religion and politics. These conversations involved questions about faith, and they kinda left me questioning some things, some basic things that I know but often take for granted. Since I'm using this summer to get back to my faith and my foundation,  I've been thinking...as usual...and these are my thoughts. I'm not trying to preach. This is a note. These are my thoughts.
       I didn't really think about this before, but I've realized now that there is not usually an immediate physical, concrete consequence for doing bad things, for sinning. But then what is sinning? Just doing wrong things? Wrong is so subjective. I believe that sinning is doing anything that disobeys the 10 Commandments, God's law. I'm pretty sure that basically every possibly wrong doing falls under these 10 absolute laws.
Commandment 1
"You must not have any other god but me.
Commandment 2
"You must not make for yourself an idol of any kind or an image of anything in the heavens or on the earth or in the sea. 5 You must not bow down to them or worship them, for I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God who will not tolerate your affection for any other gods. "
Commandment 3
"You must not misuse the name of the Lord your God."
Commandment 4
 "Remember to observe the Sabbath day by keeping it holy."
Commandment 5
1 "Honor your father and mother. "
Commandment 6
 "You must not murder.
Commandment 7
"You must not commit adultery.
Commandment 8
"You must not steal.
Commandment 9
"You must not lie.
Commandment 10
"You must not covet."
       Just take a second and think about all the things that are implied under each one of these commandments. Take the first and second ones, for instance. No other god but God. No idols. OK, so that means I must not worship anything, lust after anything, search for anything, live for anything more than God. God must be my end all and be all. He is it. And how many times have I broken that one? Ridiculous. Honoring your father and mother-I think of all the times I've done things my parents taught me not to do, disobeyed them...so ridiculous. All the times, I've lied, been jealous of someone, murdered someone, committed adultery...again, ridiculous. Side Note: I haven't physically murdered anyone or committed adultery, but Jesus says in Matthew that if someone even thinks about doing any of those things, that person is already as guilty as someone who did them because his or her heart and soul has already given in to the idea of murder or adultery or anything like that. I believe this is true because in the end, I believe it's my soul that's going to last forever, not my body. Just because I haven't physically murdered a specific person doesn't mean I haven't murdered that person in my heart, and I'm as guilty as the person who has. So, to be brutally honest, I'm guilty of breaking all ten of these commandments. The Bible says that everyone is guilty too. No one is truly a good and perfect person (except for Jesus but he comes later).
      Now, back to no immediate consequences. Yes, that's usually true. God does not smite me down when I lie to my parents about where I was two nights ago (I was at home two nights ago, in case anyone wondered...) As I've looked at the Bible this past week, I see that sin is not about the immediate consequences. It's about the eternal consequences. Romans 6:23a "For the wages of sin is death." A spiritual death. If I sin, I will go to hell. And that's it. The Bible says in the Old and New Testament that God is so holy that He cannot even permit anything sinful in His presence. He is perfect in every way and pure. Sin literally cannot exist in His presence. So if I have sinned, I cannot be with Him. When I die, my soul will go to hell, because heaven is where God's holiness is and I cannot live there. And that goes for every sin. If I look at the text of the 10 Commandments, I don't see any asterisks pointing to footnotes at the bottom, saying "This rule is only slightly important, so yo can break it once and awhile" or "Murder is worse than disobeying your parents." Nope. That's not there. Every sin is equal in God's eyes. And  that's a really, REALLY hard concept for me. Especially when I look at the world and the terrible things people do. I want to think that some people have done such things that they deserve hell automatically while people I know who have never done things so terrible should just be allowed in heaven because they didn't do those things. That's not what God says thought, but this is where Jesus comes in! YAY!
       See, I love Christmas. I love the presents. I love the lights. I love the food. I LOVE the music ( I'm so glad I'll still be in Chicago this year so I can listen to 93.9) For most people, Christmas is a few weeks, and then it's over. I get to enjoy the benefits of Christmas all year, and not just because I usually get awesome gifts haha. I enjoy it all year because Christmas is when God sent Jesus to earth for me. Yes, I said for me, but for you too. And every one in the world who's ever lived. His love for you, me, and everyone is boundless, and it has been since the beginning of time. Sin and Satan got in the way of His love in the Garden of Eden, because God can't be with sin, but then God hatched this awesome, but sad plan. He would send His only Son to die for humankind so they cold be with Him always, no sin in the way.I  won't get into the "fully God, fully man" thing, but the point is: Jesus was God's Son. God sent Jesus to earth, Jesus lived a perfect life, He suffered the penalty for everyone's sins by dying a brutal, awful death on the cross though He didn't commit any sin himself, then he conquered death by rising again after he'd been dead three days (and that's where we get Easter. I love the candy, but that's not what it's about haha) What's the benefit for me and you? Well, since He died and rose again, the penalty of death that comes with my sin can be removed if I put our trust in Him. Meaning I say "Jesus, I'm guilty of sinning, of breaking God's law. I confess that sin to you, and I accept you as my Savior, trusting you to remove that sin and make me right with God."
             And that's it. No more death penalty. No more hell. As long as I've put my faith in Jesus, I am going to heaven. Romans 6:23b "But the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord."  Also, as an added bonus, the Holy Spirit enters my heart. The Bible says the Holy Spirit is part of God, the Trinity of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit, and it's kinda like the Guide God gives us, a divine conscience, prompting me to do what's right and allowing me to understand things about my faith that I couldn't on my own. So, I get this amazing gift of eternal life and a Guide through life, and there aren't too many strings attached. In fact, I can only think of one. And it's not even really a string. More like something I really want to do.
       The problem is, with accepting Jesus as my Savior and receiving the Holy Spirit, I've admitted that I sin, that I do wrong and I now have an deeper understanding of what God says is right and what is wrong. By reading the Bible and seeing what God expects of those who know Him, I understand. There are absolute goods and bad. There's no gray areas. Bad is bad. Good is good. And God loves the things that are good and detest the bad things. And now that I know what things and actions God loves, I want to do it. I really do. And so I follow a standard of values set by God.
          No one told me when I accepted Christ that I would have to do and not do certain things and behave a certain way. I was 5 and I was sitting on my bed with my mom and I asked her if I could ask Jesus into my heart to take away my sin. I don't remember much about it. She probably asked me if I was sure,but I know for certain that she didn't say " Now, honey, before you do this, you should know the rules," and then spout a list of moral standards I was supposed to uphold and things I was expected to avoid if I put my faith in Jesus. No, she simply told me what to pray and then I simply prayed that prayer and went to sleep. But that prayer changed my life.
               Since I now know what God says is good, I want to do that good. I want serve Him, glorify Him, and tell the world how awesome He is. I want my life to reflect the kind of the love that would send an only son to die a brutal death, an all encompassing, pure, unconditional, wonderful love. He give me so many gifts: eternal life, the ability to talk with Him by praying whenever and wherever, comfort in times of trouble, constant companionship, a community of other Christians who love and support me as soon as they meet me because they know of God's love, and of course of life and so many more things I can't even name! How can I not desire worship Him and follow Him and want to live for Him? I'm not just crazy. I truly believe this with all my heart, that God loves me, that Jesus has taken away my sin, and so now I want to live for God. Not only that, but when I accept Jesus as my Savior, that does put me literally in His debt, and I become, as Paul says, a slave for Christ. I now owe Him my life, and because of that, He demands my life in return. I know that sounds harsh, but think of what I get in return! I get a relationship with a Heavenly Father who loves me more than anyone ever could and I get eternal life in Heaven, as well as lots of other gifts including the Holy Spirit and immediate love from a community of believers etc :)
          Now, if you'd made it this far in the note, thank you.  I swear I'm not asking for trouble. These are my beliefs. Anyway, I want to live for God because He commands me to and because I want to. And according to the Bible, if you profess to be a Christian, you will want to as well. The life you will seek after is a life of service, a life of love, a life where other people come before yourself, where judgmental nature is avoided, where forgiveness is given again and again and again, where glorifying God is first. This is the life I want, and I will be the first person to say that it's not the life I lead all the time, if at all. On rare, RARE occasions, it's close, but never the ideal. And that's because, though I've accepted Jesus, I'm not perfect and never will be. In fact, I've made my life a million times harder by accepting Jesus. Oh yes. Christians' lives are not always happy and everything is not magically good because I know Jesus. In fact, sometimes it's worse for a couple reasons.
         First, because I know the difference between right and wrong in God's eyes, I know what is really sin. So I struggle and struggle not to sin. I even ask God to help me not to sin, but I do sometimes. In fact, a lot. So when I sin, I'm filled with sadness, because I've just disobeyed the God of the Universe who loves me more than anything and I've let Him down and not accurately reflected how great He is. This happens a lot. The wonderful thing is that Jesus still provides forgiveness and cleanliness from that sin, so that sadness doesn't last. But then when I sin again, it comes back, and then Jesus is still there, but then I sin again...etc. The Apostle Paul says in the Bible (in more eloquent terms) that he always finds himself doing what he doesn't want to do and not doing what he does want to do. That's the life of a Christian. It's not easy, and often, I get bogged down in shame and guilt because of this, but as long as I remember that Jesus forgives us, there is no need for that. Though, that doesn't mean that my sin is any less of a sin because Jesus forgives me. Again, no asterisk under the 10 Commandments says "When you accept Jesus, you can now sin and not worry about it." If I've truly accepted Jesus, I will want to live for him and I will worry about sinning.
        Second, lessons are harder and life is more complicated and more simple at the same time. When you're living for God, that sounds pretty simple, but as demonstrated by the 10 commandments, there's a whole lot that runs under that statement. There's a lot of love involved there. Love for God and love for everyone. And as everyone is aware, love implies A LOT. Self sacrifice, trust, faith, loyalty, etc etc etc. I've spent four years wallowing in lessons about love, and though I haven't had any real physical trauma (besides inflamed eyes from crying), the emotional and spiritual aspect of it all has been intense and awful. I've hated it. Yet I've learned so much and seen how I can glorify God more with my life! But, I've hated it.
         Third, there is no road map. God gave Christians the Holy Spirit as a Guide and the Bible as well and the community of believers to help too. But it's hard to know what is the Holy Spirit and what's my imagination, and it's also hard to read the Bible and truly apply it and since every person is unique and of course, flawed, advice from other voices may not be applicable to me or even correct. Side Note: About applying the Bible, I don't think I can just read it and apply it literally in every situation and with every book of the Bible. If you want to discuss that with me at a different time, feel free haha :)
        Now, I'm trying not to scare people away, but I can see how this would scare people away. I almost wish sometimes my mom had told me what a big commitment it was before I decided to become a Christian. And it is. Because I truly believe in God with all my heart. I believe that I'm saved through my faith in Jesus Christ. And now, because I believe that, I believe that I should do what God says to do. It's not easy. But, for me, it's worth it, not only because of what God gives me but because I have a purpose in life. How many people go through life without a purpose? A reason for living that's greater than the moment, greater than just today. I have a purpose, and that's to glorify God and serve Him and show other people how good He is. And how they can come to know His love. So, thanks for reading this haha. I hope no one feels shamed by me or anything. Not my intent at all. I like to talk about my faith, and I don't do it enough.

20 Dollar Bills and other things I've seen today

I see things every day, and, since my imagination is crazy, I often romanticize or think about them a lot. So these are things I've seen today and thoughts I have about them. Like the possibilities in the $20 bill sitting on my desk. Received as a late graduation present in the mail, it's a new 20, crisp and colorful. I could put it in the bank and save it, or leave it on my desk and use it on a whim the next I want to go to lunch or to the latest action movie. I love action movies. I want to see Super 8. I've heard it's good. Knowing me, though, I'll probably wait until it comes out on DVD.
            I see things on my bike ride each morning. The same houses. Same streets. I saw the mailman today. He delivers the mail pretty early in the morning. I thought the mail was an afternoon thing, but no, he starts delivering mail in our neighborhood at 9:30 or before. I think he recognizes me now, considering I've seen him nearly every morning since school got out a month ago. One of these days I'll wave to him.
             I saw six different people walking their dogs. People look like their dogs after awhile. It's too true. I saw a guy running with his child in a stroller. That kind of exercise seems fun, for the kid at least. You're moving pretty fast, sitting in the stroller, while your dad runs. A theme park ride, almost.
          I saw an old woman in a bright pink nightgown watering her plants. The nightgown reminded me of the one I wore as Doris McAfee in Bye Bye Birdie. That was a fun show. I don't think I enjoyed the role and the people I was acting with as much as I should have during that show.
           I saw three different men from the Village of Schaumburg sanding down the rough edges of the sidewalks with screeching tools and an air compressor. I was scared a bit of cement was going to fly off and hit me in the face, so every time I passed one of those guys I closed my eyes and ducked my head.
           I saw an old man watching as another man cut down a tree in his front yard. He looked sad, so I made up a story about him and that tree. It was a rotting tree that he refused to cut down because his late wife loved the tree, but his 3 adult kids were scared that the tree was going to fall on his house, so they all pitched in money hire a contractor to cut the tree down without telling him. He wonders which kid thought of the idea, and admires him or her for being stubborn enough to do that. Stubborn like him. He's sad though, and he's thinking of asking the contractor for a piece of the tree. He might put it by the fireplace, on the mantlepiece. He thinks his wife would've liked that idea. She was sentimental, romantic, and loved flowers and trees and growing things. She had a beautiful garden before she got sick. And she loved that tree, so he never wanted that tree cut down. But, it was probably time, so he sits there watching and thinking of his wife.
         I saw the movie Beastly. Alex Pettyfer is gorgeous even with weird tattoo/ piercings.  I want one haha :)
        I saw my scrapbook from theatre at SHS. I look at it once a day pretty much. I like looking at those pictures of me. It's weird, but looking at me onstage, I almost kinda think, that maybe, perhaps I am all that my parents keep telling me I am. They tell me that uselessly though. I have a hard time believing that I'm anything. I don't think I'm anything. Really. I am pretty much a nobody to myself.
       I saw thank you notes. Lots of them. I actually liked writing them though. I like telling people that I love them and appreciate them. I want to make other people feel good about themselves. I try to do that. I'm pretty bad at doing that with my family, because I take them for granted. Maybe it'll be good for me to go away. I won't take them for granted anymore.
        I saw random quotes. I like StumbleUpon, and I use it whenever I'm bored or just want to procrastinate. it took me to a website of random quotes. One of them was about proving yourself to others. I don't remember what it said, but the proving yourself idea stuck with me. I don't think I should have to prove anything to anybody. I can prove myself to myself, but really, no one should have to prove anything. Not if there's trust or respect involved. If I say no, I mean no. Yes, I mean yes. And people might think I'm a bunch of bull, but I shouldn't have to prove myself. As long as I can be honest with myself and know when I'm really a bunch of bull haha :) I'm talking about proving myself as a person, not in the professional world. I'm scared about college and the future because I know I'll be expected to prove my skill everywhere I go. More will be expected of me. I'll have more to prove. But that's a different kind of proof.
        I saw letters, letters I've written I won't send. I saw my anger. I don't hate many things in life, but I do really hate anger. I have this thing where I want everyone to love me, and I want to love them too, so when I'm angry or I feel any kind of tension, there is no limit to how far I will go to fix it. Really. Most times, the tension or reason for me being angry is all in my head anyway, so usually I just go to sleep and I wake up and I'm not angry or tense anymore! It's like magic haha! Another thing I do is I write letters, letters no one but me will EVER see, but therapy all the same, because I'm getting words on paper and saying things without saying them. It's kinda a perfect arrangement, unless I think about it too much, and realize that I'm just writing to no one, but I try not to think too hard about that...
      I saw the cover of my Yo-Yo Ma CD that I got for graduation. It's a collaborative album, Yo-Yo and Ennio Morricone. If you don't know who that is, I suggest brushing up on your film music history. It's so fantastic. So dramatic and beautiful.
       I saw gum wrappers. I'm really bad at throwing away gum wrappers. And sticking my leftover gum in them, and still not throwing them away. It's my one really gross habit. I think I'm just too lazy to get up and throw it away, so when I clean my desk, there's usually 50 gum wrappers being thrown away at one time.
        Finally, I saw my piano. I love my piano. I love it so much. I spend as much time with it as I do my family, my friends. Hours of me just creating music and playing music I love on the piano. It's my soul instrument. I think that when I play my piano, I'm showing people myself. That's why I get really nervous playing songs I've written in front of people or having them listen to them, because what I'm really showing  is a bit of my real thought and feeling in music form. It's the purest form of me you'll ever see, me playing the piano or listening to me play one of my songs. So, if you've head one of my songs or seen me play the piano, you've pretty much seen me without any emotion hidden, any pretense. That's scary for me. People seeing who I really am. Only a few of my friends know who I really am. I can think of maybe 4 outside of my close family. When I stop to think about that,  I feel really, REALLY vulnerable around them. But, that's the price for closeness, I guess. Trusting people enough to let them see you and then trust them not to hurt what they see or hate what they see.