Plans, Tears, and the Creator of the Universe

I was having a hard day some time ago, neither my day or my future seemed like it was going to plan. I was heavy hearted and disheartened, but I couldn’t let the signs of it show.

One thing that you should know about me is that I plan. I plan and scheme and layout my life on an Excel spreadsheet (literally, I’m not joking). I have contingency plans for contingency plans. I stay up late, laying in bed, planning my future so that nothing takes me by surprise.

It’s not that I don’t like surprises, I just like to feel in control, I like to feel safe and know where I’m standing and know where I want to go.

And so when it seemed like my life was not going according to plan or any contingency plan, I felt powerless. I felt lost and helpless and insecure.

I wanted to cry (because that fixes everything (I’m actually joking this time)), I wanted to scream at the world to put itself back in the little box I put it in, I wanted to dream up some plan to fix all this. But my heart was in control and not my head. Oh, the horrible and wondering things that can happen when the heart is in control!

So I walked through the halls holding my shattered plans in my hands and holding my tears in my eyes.

Two of my favorite quotes popped in my head, “The first casualty of any battle is the plan of attack,” by Cory Doctorow and “If plan A doesn’t work, the alphabet has 25 more letters,” by Claire Cook. But I wasn’t in the mood for inspirational speeches especially if I was the one giving it.

So I finally get to my locker and look up at the Cross magnet I have on it, “For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.” [Italics added] That is God’s work right there. I change my magnet every couple of weeks and it was just by chance that I had Jeremiah 29: 11 up. I was lamenting over my broken plans and the verse used plans three times. God knows the plan; His plan is never broken; He is never caught by surprise; He is always in control. I am secure in His plan. I was upset over my plan when God said that He would give me one of His plans. And I’d take one of God’s plans compared to one of mine, anyday.

The conflict isn’t completely resolved but it is looking better. God said that His plan gives me hope, and it sure has. My heavy heart is now a happy heart. I don’t need my head to be in control when I know that God is in control. I don’t need a plan to make me feel safe; I have faith in the Lord Almighty. And faith is much better than any plan.

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“My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.”

2 Corinthians 12:9

Pixabay/bykst

God Didn’t Have To

God didn’t have to create beauty

but He did

God didn’t have to create color

He could have made the world only in shades of orange

but He created too many colors for us to count

God didn’t have to create smiles

He could have dulled us to emotion

but He created that feeling you get inside

when you know you are loved and that you love

God didn’t have to create rhythm

He could have made sounds dissociated from each other

but He created melodies that resound in your head

and march with your heartbeat

God didn’t have to create memory

He could have unhooked us from time

and only exist in the present

so much heartache and regret would be wiped away

and with it would be childhood friends and the smell of fresh cut grass

but He created moments that last forever in hearts

God didn’t have to create communication

He could have made us live in our own secluded existence

and prevent fighting and harsh words

and prevent jokes and “I love you”

but He created over six thousand languages

and countless ways to say “happy”

God didn’t have to create anything

but He did

I think God is an optimist

and we should admire the extravagance of a sunset

and not the ending of a day

God created beauty because He wanted to

Niagara Falls on a recent vacation

 

The Range of God’s Power

Thanks, God, for the little things

You hold up the heavens

and prevent endless dangers

that we don’t even know to thank you for

You are still in the miracle business

and heal cancer

You are still in the life changing business

and let little actions change lives

a random thought

a random meeting

a random cloud

all of these have changed my life

except they aren’t random

they are perfectly, lovingly placed

by You.

I wonder at Your creative power

in the sunset sky

I wonder at Your abounding love

washing dusty feet

I wonder at your wisdom

in Your Word

but I also wonder

at how you keep the stars aligned

and still listen to my small prayers

You answer my cries for peace

as well as my asking for wisdom on my english quiz

You answer my prayer for healing

as well as my prayer about not being late

The range of Your love

astounds me

Pixabay/user:Hans

The Fragility of a Day

Rain was in the forecast,

yet I drew in sidewalk chalk

because not all that is

must always be

Sixty Years Older

I think that if my Grandma and I were the same age that we would be friends, maybe even best friends. She is sixty years older than me but I can just imagine either me going back to the 1950’s or her growing up now. I think when I would first meet her it would be that type of experience where you say to yourself, “I want her to be my friend”. She is playful and Christian and funny and clever and quirky and smart and noble and a tom boy and resilient and confident and joyful and faithful and trustworthy and optimistic and kind and a hard worker and brave and respectful and marches to her own drummer and easy to talk to and fun and thoughtful and always has a song in her heart and independent and positive.

She has all the qualities of a perfect friend and all the qualities of who I want to be.

Maybe I’ve been looking for a best friend who is just like my Grandma — and hopefully I know I’ve found her. But it would be nice to have more people like my Grandma at my school, or rather more in the world.

Maybe it’s unfortunate that my Grandma and I weren’t born in the same era or maybe it is perfect that way. I may not have her as my high school best friend but I have her as my role model who is only a phone call or a short car ride away. I would love to have her as my best friend but I love it even more to have her as my Grandma.

Prayer Request

I know this blog is normally a creative outlet and a place where Christianity, poetry, super-heroes, and thoughts are shared, but this post is different. I have 293 followers and I would like to use you to help for something very important.

Please pray. Please pray for my friend’s great niece who is only seven years old and was diagnosed with Leukemia on Friday. The doctors think that they caught the cancer early and the girl — Emma Lockhart — has been healthy up to this point so that should help with her treatment. She has already started chemotherapy and is doing well. When my friend asked if she could do anything to help, the girl’s mom said that she wanted to yell from the hilltops for prayer, so my friend said that she would tell everyone she knew to pray. Please pray.

Dear Lord, give this family and especially Emma Your strength. Give them Your peace that surpasses understanding. Be their light during their of darkness. Comfort them and let them feel your presence. Guide the doctors and the nurses and all the health care professionals in making decisions and treating Emma. 

We know that everything works accordingly for the good of those who love You and though this is not good, You can make it good. Lord, we only see tangled threads of life, but You see the big picture. Bless this family and work Your will in their lives. 

Keep this family’s focus on You for You are the master miracle worker. Heal Emma and help her in her treatment. Thank You for medical advances that can save this girl’s life, but thank You most importantly for being a caring God and working in our lives. Please work in this girl’s life, save her. In Your words we put our hope and trust. Amen.

I Am So Glad

I am so glad that I don’t have a friend who worries about having the in-style jeans,

but instead she has the seemingly out-of-style response of actually answering truthfully when asked “How are you?”

I am so glad that I don’t have a friend who is concerned about having blonde highlights in her hair,

but instead having the highlights of kindness, respect, love, and joy in her life.

I am so glad that I don’t have a friend who listens to the ‘dirty music’,

but instead jams out to Christian artists.

I am so glad that I don’t have a friend who constantly complains that “Life sucks”,

but instead she complains that too many people are ungrateful for how amazing life is here.

I am so glad that I don’t have a friend who is obsessed with money,

but instead she is obsessed with raising money for her charity 30 Famine for starving children.

I am so glad that I don’t have a friend who complains about school,

but instead makes me realize time and time again how I appreciate my education.

I am so glad that I don’t have a friend who is distracted by boys,

but instead knows what to focus on and unwilling to change her boundaries.

I am so glad that I don’t have a friend who goes ga-ga over Cure for Wellness

but instead geeks with me about The Lego Batman Movie.

I am so glad that I don’t have a friend who anxious about her make-up being top-notch

but instead cares about top-notch values.

I am so glad that I have you,

my best friend.

Pixabay/user:Mary_L

More Than a Quote

I have a blue notebook in my office that I received for Christmas in 2014, in which I write down in colorful pen whatever words touch me. I call it my Quote Book and I’m up to page 49 now. Not all the quotes are from famous people though, some are from my best friend, my teachers, myself, textbooks, or just random people who I hear talking in the halls.

Yes, this is what nerds do on perfect Sunday afternoons or on late Friday nights. I scour Goodreads looking for quotes and then I get lost in the ocean of humanity’s mind just like I get lost in the encyclopedia. Ralph Waldo Emerson once penned “Words are finite organs of the infinite mind” and I want to douse myself in other’s lively minds. I want to pour wisdom into my mind from wherever I can find it, so that I can have that wisdom while I live my life.

And so if I get lost on Goodreads then that just means that I am getting lost in wisdom that will prepare me for living. I am being found.

I am in a constant state of losing and finding myself. I am designing and developing myself by adding to my schema the thoughts of others who have already lost and found themselves hundreds of times over.

This is why I like learning because in learning about the world and how it works or doesn’t work, I am really learning about and forming myself so that I can change the world. Muriel Rukeyser once said, “The universe is made of stories, not of atoms” and so I learn about the universe by learning about stories and the people who tell them.

If you can’t tell already this blog post is gonna be loaded with quotes 🙂 If you are asking yourself why a teenage girl is writing a blog post about quotes when most girls her age are either taking duck-face selfies on snapchat, let John Green answer your question, “Nerd life is just so much better than regular life.” And let me remind you, you are reading this nerdy blog post so you might be included in that “nerd life”. Plus, you have hope for humanity.

Anyway, back to the Quote Book, on the inside front cover I have written a quote by John Green “Maybe our favorite quotations say more about us than about the stories and people we’re quoting.” So what does my Quote Book say about me?

Well, on surface level, I at first only wrote down quotes from Superhero movies and comicbooks then branched out to other types of quotes. I was on a Mark Twain kick for a while (thanks, Goodreads!) and now my quote-obsession is John Green.

On a deeper level, just from that information of who I quote (comicbooks, Mark Twain, John Green), a statement is made about me. I do not care about who said the words; I care about what the words say to me.

I like to play a game where I read a quote from my book and a friend has to guess who said it: a professional writer, a normal person, or a comicbook. Generally they are surprised by who said it, and so the speaker of the words holds little power over the words themselves. Just because comicbooks has fist fights and aliens, doesn’t mean that they also have heart and poetry. “No acknowledgement or any amount of money can return integrity once it is spent” is a quote from One Month to Live #5, which was a comicbook  produced by Marvel Comics in 2010.

But what is my favorite quote? My favorite quote is my mantra, my motto, my manifesto that was written two thousand years ago; it is my rallying cry when I do not want to move forward; it is what is written on my heart and what I want to be written on my every action. My favorite quote says everything I want it to say about me and what I want to say. “But anyone who is not aware that he is doing wrong will be punished only lightly. Much is required from those to whom much is given, for their responsibility is greater” Luke 12:48.  I have a great purpose to accomplish and I will fulfill my potential with every breath I take because that is why I breathe. My favorite quote tells me the meaning of my own life and what I should do with it.

Plus, my favorite Bible verse is oddly similar to my favorite comicbook quote, “With great power there must also come great responsibility” from Amazing Fantasy #15. But this is a case where authorship is everything because I want the words I live by to mean more than words. Although I love Stan Lee, I have so much more assurance in the truth of words spoken by Jesus Christ, Creator and Savior of the Universe.

Ossie Davis said, “Any form of art is a form of power; it has impact, it can affect change — it can not only move us, it makes us move”; I think that quotes are similar to art. Quotes necessitate action. They inspire us to move forward and encourage us to keep moving forward. Quotes tell us to live. And yet quotes are just words of other people to whom we entrust power of our belief upon. A quote — if I choose to give it power — could literally be as plain as “I walked my dog”.  A quote has power if we accept it as truth.

And so, John Green’s quote about quotes has power because I accept it as truth and will transform its words into actions. With this in mind, I think that my Quote Book is not as its name implies; rather it is a collection of words that I have granted power and have promised to take action upon. It is a compendium of thoughts I have deemed worthy to hold prestige in the ranks of my identity. The words that others declared and whispered and hoped are the ones that tell my story because they are the ones that I have chosen to tell it.

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“Keep my commands and you will live; guard my teachings as the apple of your eye. Bind them on your fingers; write them on the tablet of your heart.”

-Proverbs 7:2-3

Simple Fear

I sometimes wish

that our fears

stayed as simple

as the monster under the bed

stayed as simple

as the shadow in the corner.

Instead of life choices

and concerns over our nation

and how our future will look five, ten years from now.

But those fears from childhood

only represent the anxieties of adulthood

fear and worry about the unknown and uncontrollable.

But only sometimes do I wish that.

Only sometimes because

I know my God holds history and the future

in the palm of His hand

just like He holds me.

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“Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothes? Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? Can any one of you by worrying add a single hour to your life?”

-Matthew 6:25-27

The 4 Choices of the Heart

The world,

even the adrenaline in you body,

will tell you that you have two choices:

fight or flight.

And this might be true for physical crisis

but for matters of the heart?

Not so much.

We put that emotion

that heartache

that conflict

that wronged feeling

that abuse

that anxiety

that tangled thread of life

on a shelf

under a bed

in a closet

in a drawer

We ignore it

and hope that a magician comes along and makes it disappear.

Except there are no magicians for heartache

there is no remedy from memory

there is no elixir for the heart.

When told there is only fight or flight,

we rebel by doing nothing.

We choose the third option: let it fester.

We let that emotion fester and grow

into a thing without edges or boundaries,

something uncontrollable and unknowable

because we don’t even want to recognize its existence.

The world tells us that emotions are for the weak

and so we let the brain drive

and the heart barely survive.

The heart is like an overgrown, abandoned mansion

covered in poison ivy of festering emotion,

it once was great

but now it is just ignored.

Oh, poor, poor heart

will you ever beat again?

***

Then along came a gardener

He looked at this overgrown, abandoned mansion

and said that He could make it better

He came armed with three nails, an old wooden cross, and a dump truck of grace

He cleaned up this slow beating heart of mine

and is glad to do it night after night

because He’s a gardener that is what He does.

He prunes and cuts and nurtures and waters

and watches the flowers of my restored life grow.

The world might tell you that there are two options: fight or flight,

others might choose a third option of festering,

but the gardener has told me the best option:

forgiveness.

He showed me by His example

He showed me His scarred palms and back

He showed me grace.

And now I will go and tell the world about the gardner

about His best option

about His grace

I will shout from the mountain tops about my salvation

I  receive grace to show grace.

***

Oh, poor, poor heart

will you ever beat again?

Yes, yes you will

because my Redeemer’s heart still beats.