I was scrolling through my old blogs posts from back in the day on MySpace. (Remember MySpace?) I was looking for a poem that I thought I wrote. It turns out it wasn't a poem, but I ended up reading through my old entries. Several things surprised me. One, I didn't realize what a sappy-feelings-hippy-chick I was even back then. Actual old blog quote from June 23, 2008: "...life is still moving me like a piece on a checker board. I don't feel like I've spent enough time rolling in the grass. I just feel like wearing my tie-dye shirt everyday and throwing love around. The hippie in me wants to get lost in the joy of irresponsibility and living in the moment....I hope all of you are enjoying being alive today. There's something so beautiful about children, because they know how powerful the small things can be. Take sometime today to truly enjoy the hot summer breeze as you stretch out your arms, cute little kids in silly hats, listening to your music too loudly. So tap into those energies that, too often, go unnoticed."
The main surprise was the similarities of what old me was struggling with and the present-day me. The younger...less chubby version still stressed about how to put God's love into action, wondering what I'd be when I grew up. Same heartbreak, different girl...several actually. They could write a show called "How I Met Your Other Mother" from my dating history. (Now shake your head in disapproval.)
We all have this cyclical nature within us - mostly a good thing. There's a saying: wherever you go, there you are. You can try to run or deny what you've been designed to care about, you can beat yourself up for your personal struggles, but even those character defects are intimately attached to what makes you beautiful. Now, I'm not saying that to make myself feel better. I want you to really think about yourself for a minute. What is it that you see yourself constantly coming back to? What do you care most about? What is at your core?
And what struggles do you see coming back around time and time again? Those can be helpful to look at, because I bet you'll find that time and time again they worked out. For me, I call these my "cement floor" moments. For the first few months in the Peace Corps, I gave myself entirely too much anxiety over a cement floor. I didn't know whether I should put the cement floor into my dirt floored room at my house, because it could've made my room much hotter than necessary. Then again, I was worried that bugs and animals would dig their way into my room and attack me in the night. Hi-yah! And if I DID decide on putting in a floor, how in the heck would I pay for it?! Who would put it in?! How do you even mix cement anyway?! And you know what, I look back on my journal entries in my PC diary and think, "what a silly problem! It all worked out just fine. I can't believe I was so stressed about that." I got my cement floor...a green cement floor, because I didn't know what I was asking for in Spanish, but a cement floor at least! What are your cement floors?
I read a quote from Mother Teresa this week that said, "it is impossible to walk rapidly and be unhappy". My advice for those cement floor moments is to put all your force, all your heart into responding to the needs of those you have identified of others, to work through what you can and to pray, pray, pray. And don't forget to sit yourself down at a park and love on your God. Get back to your core!
Here are a few songs from that time when I was writing those earlier sappy blogs. Listen to them and send your loving energy out:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ovoXEGxvLCU
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rNA9wlcroas
...And for those of you who who may be interested in the old stuff:
http://www.myspace.com/terraceh/blog
Friday, April 26, 2013
Sunday, March 31, 2013
Living God
We have all heard the story of the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus so many times that I feel as though it would be cliche for me to begin by recounting the reality of the sacrifice, or the unbelievable joy in a man who was once dead, now alive. We have become numb to the details of his dearest friends leaving him behind as they hid in fear when he was arrested, or the gruesome torture the day leading up to the hours he spent in excruciating pain on the cross. And this man who must have felt so small, so helpless, so heartbroken because he had given all he had of himself - had loved humanity with every cubic inch of his being. All he could do was hang his head and say, "Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do".
Moving forward to present-day, many of us devote our lives to the cause of following in the footsteps of this Jesus. Most of us do not actually follow him to our own deaths - the idea being that this sacrifice was made one time for the salvation of us all. God in the form of Jesus made that sacrifice of bearing all of the mistakes and "fuck-ups" of humanity all at once. But even though we do not have to offer ourselves to a physical death, many of us are trying to figure out just how to live like Jesus lived. In my journey, I've been convinced that I am supposed to go into "Teach For America" as part of my next step. The doors for me to go into that organization have been opening up widely over the last 8 months. I'm scheduled to begin training to be a high school math teacher in a low-income school in Phoenix this May. However, I failed the entrance exam. I studied for 2 solid months for the exam and failed it. I'm supposed to take the exam again on Tuesday after another month of independent study and meeting up with a professor from Texas Tech University who helps me for free.
I've come to the realization that I cannot study hard enough. I cannot learn all that I am supposed to for this exam. I have near anxiety-attacks everyday thinking about it. I don't know if I've written that much about this in my blog, but it has been a tough year and a half for me. I've always struggled with depression, but it hit me hard in 2012. Then I went through a break-up and just fell apart. I came back to the U.S. and started exercising regularly, traveled around visiting old friends, got a full-time job as a substitute teacher and began studying really hard for my entrance exam. Failing the exam really did a number on the self-confidence that I had been trying to regain. I had never studied so hard in my life, and that is when I failed. I have been pushing myself to do all of the right things, and still failing to do them right enough, still feeling guilty at the end of the day that I could have done more. Have you been there? Have you ever had one of those devastating realizations that Paul talks about - wanting to do good, and then struggling through the pieces of yourself that you hate? Or have your given your best shot and it just didn't work out the way you planned?
I think failure has been a lesson that I needed to learn. In studying this past month, I just kept thinking about how studying and failing this exam is like trying to live by the laws of the Old Testament. (And I know there are mathematicians in the world who would ace this test, but for me this test is incredibly challenging.) I will not know as much as I should by the time I take this test again on Tuesday. The reality that I may fail this exam has been weighing heavily on me, because it means that I may not get to go to Phoenix.
The gospel choir from MCC Houston came to sing at our church (Lubbock MCC) today. During the entire service, it seemed like every song and the sermon from the guest pastor had been written for me. I sat in the pew and cried as soon as the choir began singing their first song...and then through the next four songs, and again when Pastor Vicky talked about how God has already set the plans of our lives in motion and that they will not be changed. I wanted to believe her. I ached for that to be true. Pastor Vicky kept repeating the promise and saying, "You do not serve a God who is dead, but a Living God!". A Living God - a God who did not make plans without to foresight to consider whether or not I would fail along the way, a God who would not give up as easily as I have on myself, a God who knew and had set my future into motion long ago. This is the God that we have - one that has not haphazardly created beings, but a God who knitted and stitched us together, and will use even our biggest mistakes to create goodness in the end. A God who can even work with humanity's greatest of sins - genocide, atomic bombs, torture, greed - and use them as a mirror to transform our hearts and help us to desire more love, and to work even harder to care for every living being.
This is ultimately the story of the resurrection and the crucifixion: that which is the most wretched, the most gruesome and cruel - our innocent God hanging from a bloody cross when God came to Earth to show us how to love one another. The grandest of all injustices was God on that cross, but it becomes the most beautiful symbol of God's love for us and the promise of life that we are given. We humans may continue to test one another, and hold each other to near impossible standards, but God does not. Paraphrasing Brennan Manning, Jesus accepts you just as you are right now - loves you just as you are. Do you really believe that you are fine and good just as you are today? You do not have to change. You do not have to be better. The price has been paid for any mistake you have made and will make. And you will make more mistakes!
You are loved. You are freed. You can celebrate now. You serve a Living God.
Moving forward to present-day, many of us devote our lives to the cause of following in the footsteps of this Jesus. Most of us do not actually follow him to our own deaths - the idea being that this sacrifice was made one time for the salvation of us all. God in the form of Jesus made that sacrifice of bearing all of the mistakes and "fuck-ups" of humanity all at once. But even though we do not have to offer ourselves to a physical death, many of us are trying to figure out just how to live like Jesus lived. In my journey, I've been convinced that I am supposed to go into "Teach For America" as part of my next step. The doors for me to go into that organization have been opening up widely over the last 8 months. I'm scheduled to begin training to be a high school math teacher in a low-income school in Phoenix this May. However, I failed the entrance exam. I studied for 2 solid months for the exam and failed it. I'm supposed to take the exam again on Tuesday after another month of independent study and meeting up with a professor from Texas Tech University who helps me for free.
I've come to the realization that I cannot study hard enough. I cannot learn all that I am supposed to for this exam. I have near anxiety-attacks everyday thinking about it. I don't know if I've written that much about this in my blog, but it has been a tough year and a half for me. I've always struggled with depression, but it hit me hard in 2012. Then I went through a break-up and just fell apart. I came back to the U.S. and started exercising regularly, traveled around visiting old friends, got a full-time job as a substitute teacher and began studying really hard for my entrance exam. Failing the exam really did a number on the self-confidence that I had been trying to regain. I had never studied so hard in my life, and that is when I failed. I have been pushing myself to do all of the right things, and still failing to do them right enough, still feeling guilty at the end of the day that I could have done more. Have you been there? Have you ever had one of those devastating realizations that Paul talks about - wanting to do good, and then struggling through the pieces of yourself that you hate? Or have your given your best shot and it just didn't work out the way you planned?
I think failure has been a lesson that I needed to learn. In studying this past month, I just kept thinking about how studying and failing this exam is like trying to live by the laws of the Old Testament. (And I know there are mathematicians in the world who would ace this test, but for me this test is incredibly challenging.) I will not know as much as I should by the time I take this test again on Tuesday. The reality that I may fail this exam has been weighing heavily on me, because it means that I may not get to go to Phoenix.
The gospel choir from MCC Houston came to sing at our church (Lubbock MCC) today. During the entire service, it seemed like every song and the sermon from the guest pastor had been written for me. I sat in the pew and cried as soon as the choir began singing their first song...and then through the next four songs, and again when Pastor Vicky talked about how God has already set the plans of our lives in motion and that they will not be changed. I wanted to believe her. I ached for that to be true. Pastor Vicky kept repeating the promise and saying, "You do not serve a God who is dead, but a Living God!". A Living God - a God who did not make plans without to foresight to consider whether or not I would fail along the way, a God who would not give up as easily as I have on myself, a God who knew and had set my future into motion long ago. This is the God that we have - one that has not haphazardly created beings, but a God who knitted and stitched us together, and will use even our biggest mistakes to create goodness in the end. A God who can even work with humanity's greatest of sins - genocide, atomic bombs, torture, greed - and use them as a mirror to transform our hearts and help us to desire more love, and to work even harder to care for every living being.
This is ultimately the story of the resurrection and the crucifixion: that which is the most wretched, the most gruesome and cruel - our innocent God hanging from a bloody cross when God came to Earth to show us how to love one another. The grandest of all injustices was God on that cross, but it becomes the most beautiful symbol of God's love for us and the promise of life that we are given. We humans may continue to test one another, and hold each other to near impossible standards, but God does not. Paraphrasing Brennan Manning, Jesus accepts you just as you are right now - loves you just as you are. Do you really believe that you are fine and good just as you are today? You do not have to change. You do not have to be better. The price has been paid for any mistake you have made and will make. And you will make more mistakes!
You are loved. You are freed. You can celebrate now. You serve a Living God.
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