Perceptions

We routinely disqualify testimony that would plead for extenuation. That is, we are so persuaded of the rightness of our judgment as to invalidate evidence that does not confirm us in it. Nothing that deserves to be called truth could ever be arrived at such means.

-Marilynne Robinson , The Death of Adam

I just finished reading The Shack by William P. Young. It was one of those books I picked up to read at precisely the right time. I couldn't put it down, and when I finished I knew it had changed my perception.

"Paradigms power perception and perceptions power emotions. Most emotions are responses to perception – what you think is true about a given situation. If your perception is false, then your emotional response to it will be false too. So check your perceptions, and beyond that check the truthfulness of your paradigms – what you believe. Just because you believe something firmly doesn’t make it true. Be willing to reexamine what you believe. The more you live in the truth, the more your emotions will help you see clearly. But even then, you don’t want to trust them more than Me."

I've always had a complex with the way I think others perceive me. I've struggled over and over to stop feeling constantly judged by those around me. Moreover, I've always believed in making good impressions and that this is important. As a result, I often find myself anxious, uncomfortable, nervous, awkward ... you name it.

"I give you an ability to respond and your response is to be free to love and serve in every situation, and therefore each moment is different and unique and wonderful.

"It is true that relationships are a whole lot messier than rules, but rules will never give you answers to deep questions of the heart and they will never love you."

It wasn't until after reading this book that I was sitting alone thinking about what I'd just read that I just started laughing at the absurdity of how I act. It's like this: my entire life I've had the mentality that other people's opinions of me actually matter. That in and of itself is laughable. And because I perceive how they think about me positively or negatively, it changes the way that I act and relate with them. This has kept me from being a loving, enjoyable person to be with. My response to others is pretty simple really. I can either love them, embrace them or I can serve them. If I'm doing one of those two things, I won't ever have to worry about feeling uncomfortable or unsure of how they think of me. In light of the past few weeks and some horribly awkared encounters ... this just made me rethink my responses.

"So for you to live as if you were unloved is a limitation, not the other way around … living unloved is like clipping a bird’s wings and removing it’s ability to fly. Not something I want for you … pain has a way of clipping our wings and keeping us from being able to fly … and if left unresolved for very long, you can almost forget that you were ever created to fly in the first place."

One of my resolutions this year was to smile more. It's truly amazing how smiling changes relationships. I'm not talking romantic relationships. Just people relationships. One friendly smile from an old friend brightened my entire Thursday this week. It's boggling. I realized that if I just started believing that people might actually like me, love me or quite possibly have no opinion of me whatsoever, that I would respond to them in a way that produced positive love both from myself and them. It's not an easy thing to do. To change the way you think about others. To change what you believe and how you feel because you believe certain people think certain things. But I've been making a conscious effort to just love the people I encounter daily, in an honest and real way.

"So many believe that it is love that grows, but it is the knowing that grows and love simply expands to contain it. Love is just the skin of knowing."

One of the main themes of the books was that people ought to love the way God loves. It says God is "especially fond" of each of his children. And like God, we should love in that unconditional, non-judgmental and self-sacrificing way.

"If anything matters then everything matters. Because you are important, everything you do is important. Every time you forgive, the universe changes; every time you reach out and touch a heart or a life the world changes; with every kindness and service, seen or unseen, my purposes are accomplished and nothing will ever be the same again.

Dear God

The lady reading this is beautiful, classy and strong and I love her.
Help her live her life to the fullest. Please promote her and cause her to excel above her expectations. Help her shine in the darkest places where it is impossible to love. Protect her at all times, lift her up when she needs you the most and let her know when she walks with you she will always be safe.

Amen.

Care Package

Got home to a care package from the youth group at my church back home today. Just wanted to share the letter from my pastor, who never fails to put things perfectly.

"With the semester winding down, you're probably under a little bit of stress. You lack sleep. When you wake up in the morning, the first thing you think about is when in the day you'll be able to crawl back into bed. You're anxiety level is high. It's that tight feeling in your gut. And your mind is racing, trying to cram tons of (sometimes useless) information. Added to that are your complex relationships - people at college, friends back home, family, etc. - and you don't know how you can manage it all.

And in the middle of all this noise, busyness and stress, you begin to forget who you really are. You end up being "the student," "the boyfriend/girlfriend," "the student worker," "the test taker," "the frat guy," "the people pleaser." When Satan tempted Jesus, three times he questioned his identity with the word "if." "If you are the Son of God." Or for you, maybe it's "if you are a good student..." "if you get through this semester." "If you ever have any real friends." "If people really like you." "If you're really worthy of being here." "If anyone really cares about you."

"If" is an uncertain word. It casts doubt on who you are. But notice Jesus' response each time. Every time he counters Satan, he uses the Word of God, and he clings to his identity in God. You might be entirely stressed and ready to quit. But this is precisely the place where all the scaffolding gets torn down and you've got no crutch to lean on. You realize it's just you - weak, broken, vulnerable. And this is exactly where God wants you. You are forced to surrender totally and unconditionally to Jesus Christ. And then you realize what your true identity is. It is not based on what you can do, or the reputation you can create, or the party animal you are, or the student you aspire to be. At the heart of it, your identity is simply as a child of God.

Stop. Pause. Look away from the computer or TV screen. Stop texting for a minute. Be quit, and hear this: You have been died for, and you are loved by God. This is your first identity. One who is incorporated into Jesus (Rom. 6:3,4). You have been won back by God. This is who you are. Only from this identity can you really begin to take tests, hang with friends, and deal with family. When you're grounded in your first identity, everything else falls into place.

So my prayer for you today is relief from anxiety if it is God's will. But even more- that the struggle, the anxiety, and the trial would remind you of your true identity. And in this, Jesus transforms you."

Tucking It Away

I have this picture in my kitchen, with a black and white little doll couple and a saying that reads: "Write down your dream and tuck it away. Entrusting that all things will come at the right time." As I was making my grilled cheese sandwich, following my 2 mile run today, I realized this message has been pounded into my head these past few weeks. Over and over and over again. So I wanted to write. It's one of the many things I've stopped doing in the past year or so, and it's a release. And God knows I need to release. I can't breathe. I haven't been able to breathe for a while. I've blamed it on the mounting stress in my classes. I've blamed it on boys. I've blamed it on my mom being sick. I've blamed it on graduating in six months. I think those things haven't helped. But I think God has been trying to get me to pay attention. Actually I know he has.

I think my pastor put it perfectly for me last week at church. He said, "Who sets the agenda in your life?" And he went on to tell the story of Jonah and gave the example of being tugged and beat to the bottom of the ocean and being able to do nothing about it until the ocean finally threw him on the shore. Message of the sermon: If your life is like this, if the same things keep happening, if you feel broken and beaten to the bottom of the ocean floor, you're not letting God handle your agenda. Message to me: You just got vomited onto the beach. Take a few minutes to gather yourself, get up and walk in new direction. And this time, put yourself in the passenger seat and let God drive you in the right direction.

Yes, I can see the reckless patterns in my life. I'm trying to find him, whoever he is. Obviously, I'm not doing a good job. And honestly, I don't want to pick him anymore. I want God to pick him. I want who God wants for me.

So I'm going to write down my dream. And it will be tucked away here, and hopefully in the coming years I'll remember to read back to this and my dream will be reality. I can at least aspire to and pray for that.

I hope that one day I will be doing something every day that helps others who can't help themselves. Whether it's being a journalist who writes about the injustices in the world, a lawyer who defends justice or some higher calling that God has in store for me. Whatever it is, I hope that my career will be one that gives my life a purpose every single day, gives me joy and brings joy to as many other people as possible. I don't hope to save the world, but I want to better my small part of the world. I want to leave my small footprints wherever I end up.

I hope that one day I will be a wife to a man who loves me unconditionally. Who can't look at me without having to catch his breath. Who doesn't take me for granted. Who loves to love, me. I hope that he will think of me in every aspect, in every decision of his life. I hope that he will allow me to love him with the massive amount of love that I have to offer to the right man. I hope that he understands my quick temper, my big dreams and my inability to always show the affection I have for him outwardly every day. I hope that he will share my similar dreams of doing good in the world. I hope that he will be excited and passionate about being in my family. I pray, too that his family will embrace and love me. I hope that he will never make me second-guess myself. That he won't make me feel stupid or less than beautiful. I pray that he will be a Christian man. I hope that we will have met in the right way, that we didn't move too quickly or anxiously. And I hope that we will both just know, that there will be no games or uncertainty at any point in our meeting and marriage. Finally, I hope that he is healthy and that we will live a long and happy life with one another.

I hope that I will be a mother. That I will be able to have beautiful children who will grow up happy and healthy.

I hope that I will have reason to smile every day.

I pray that all of my wonderful friends will still be in my life in one way or another. I pray that they, too, will be living out their dreams. And I hope that we will still make time for one another as often as possible.

I hope that I will live in a warm, beautiful and inviting home.

I hope that I will remember now, and all times in which I have been completely humiliated to the point where I can't bring myself to look at myself, and I will know that even in those times I was ultimately one of the luckiest human beings in the world.

I hope that I will have learned how to forgive myself. That I will be disciplined and devoted.

I hope that I will thank God every day for bringing me to that point. And that I will have enjoyed every day between now and when all of this comes true.

Moving Prayer

Dear Lord, I thank You for this day,

I thank You for my being able to see and to hear this morning.

I'm blessed because You are a forgiving God and an understanding God.

You have done so much for me and You keep on blessing me.

Forgive me this day for everything I have done, said or thought that was not pleasing to you.

I ask now for Your forgiveness.

Please keep me safe from all danger and harm.

Help me to start this day with a new attitude and plenty of gratitude.

Let me make the best of each and every day to clear my mind so that I can hear from You.

Please broaden my mind that I can accept all things.

Let me not whine and whimper over things I have no control over.

And give me the best response when I'm pushed beyond my limits.

I know that when I can't pray, You listen to my heart.

Continue to use me to do Your will.

Continue to bless me that I may be a blessing to others.

Keep me strong that I may help the weak...

Keep me uplifted that I may have words of encouragement for others.

I pray for those that are lost and can't find their way.

I pray for those that are misjudged and misunderstood.

I pray for those who don't know You intimately.

I pray for those that don't believe.

But I thank You that I believe that God changes people and God changes things.

I pray for all my sisters and brothers.

For each and every family member in their households.

I pray for peace, love and joy in their homes; that they are out of debt and all their needs are met.

I pray that every eye that reads this knows there is no problem, circumstance,

or situation greater than God.

Every battle is in Your hands for You to fight.

I pray that these words be received into the hearts of every eye that sees it in Jesus' name. Amen!

Imperial Presidency

Found this article by Gene Healy in the UTNE Reader. This is the very end of the article. Just something to think about.

"To understand is not to excuse: No president should have the powers President Bush has sought and seized during the past seven years. But after 9/11 and Katrina, what rationally self-interested chief executive would hesitate to centralize power in anticipation of crisis? That pressure would be hard to resist, even for a president devoted to the Constitution and respectful of the limited role the office was supposed to play.

Barack Obama has done more than any presidential candidate in memory to boost expectations for the office. Obama's stated positions on civil liberties may be preferable to McCain's, but if and when a car bomb goes off somewhere in America, would a President Obama be able to resist resorting to undeclared wars and the Bush theory of unrestrained executive power? As a Democrat without military experience, publicly perceived as weak on national security, he'd have much to prove.

As Jack Goldsmith put it in his 2007 book, "For generations the Terror Presidency will be characterized by an unremitting fear of devastating attack, an obsession with preventing the attack, and a proclivity to act aggressively and preemptively to do so...If anything, the next Democratic president - having digested few threat matrices, and acutely aware that he or she alone will be wholly responsible when thousands of Americans are killed in the next attack - will be even more anxious than the current president to thwart that threat.

Law professors Jack Balkin of Yale and Sanford Levinson of the University of TExas at Austin are both Democrats and civil libertarians, so they take no pleasure in their prediction that "the next Democratic president will likely retain significant aspects of what the Bush administration has done." Indeed, they write in a 2006 Fordham Law Review article, future Democratic presidents "may find that they enjoy the discretion and lack of accountability crated by Bush's unilateral gambits."

Throughout the 20th century, more and more Americans looked to the central government to deal with highly visible public problems, from labor disputes to crime waves to natural disasters. And as responsibility flowed to the center, power accrued with it. If that trend continues, responses to matters of great public concern will be increasingly federal, increasingly executive, and increasingly military.

In the years to come, many Americans will find that the results of executive action are not to their liking. And if history is any guide, they'll respond by vilifying the officeholder and looking for another knight on horseback to set things right again."

Happiness Project - Gretchen Rubin

Found this October's Real Simple and really liked it =) She encourages you to start your own "Happiness Project."

1. Don't start with profundities. Get to sleep at a decent hour and don't let yourself get too hungry.

2. Do let the sun go down on anger. Venting isn't always good.

3. Fake it till you feel it. Act happy even if you're not.

4. Realize that anything worth doing is worth doing badly.

5. Don't treat the blues with a "treat." The multiple glasses of wine or a cigarette won't really make it better.

6. Buy some happiness. Spend money to stay in closer contact with family and friends.

7. Don't insist on the best. Sometimes good enough is good enough.

8. Exercise to boost energy. It's the most dependable mood booster.

9. Stop nagging.

10. Take action. 40% of your happines level is within your control.