Christmas at home

I love the holidays. Or so I believe. And yet, every year, right around the end of November and the beginning of December, right when the holidays are coming in to full swing, I start to get sad. I think about what it means to be at home with my family for Christmas, and it makes me wish I was there. For me, the holidays aren't the same without my family. Things are crazy and stressful, sure, but its our own special brand of Moothart crazy. It's familiar, it's comforting. Sometimes its even funny.

We'll start the month off with decorating the house. Putting all the lights up, getting the tree pretty, and of course, what's Christmas without Mannheim Steamroller and Snoopy vs. The Red Baron playing on a constant repeat? :) As Christmas gets closer, the presents begin to appear under the tree. Slowly, one by one, and of course, with the added working of helping mom make them absolutely perfect. (Give me your finger! I can't get this ribbon on here all by myself!). We never go a Christmas Eve without having cheese fondue. It's the only time of year mom makes it. And that makes it special. We eat it for days afterward :). Christmas morning, we open our stockings, eat breakfast, then go in a circle to open our presents (after Dad has read the Christmas story from Luke of course). We put our things away, and play with our new gadgets. We have dinner together as a family.

As I think of Christmas, and home, I know I'm sad because I don't get to experience these things anymore. As time went on, I became less and less involved in my family's traditions, and more and more involved with my own schedule. That's not a bad thing, its part of growing up. But family is very important to me. I have to feel like I have a family, no matter where I am.

Knowing this about myself, however, tells me one thing: To learn to appreciate the family I create. Family doesn't have to be mom, dad, and my brothers and sisters. I love them all, and they will always be my family,  but this time, when I'm far away, learning to see family in my friends, learning to make new traditions with new people, that's what's important. If I am always looking back, and wishing that my life was the same now as it was when I was growing up, then I will cease to grow. I will cease to learn from new situations. I will cease to be happy, because I will forever be comparing my new situation with my old one. I will never be satisfied with what I have because I will always want what I had.

So this Christmas, I'm determined to try something new. I'm determined to make my own traditions, and create family from my friends. I will stop wishing for what I had, and learn to be thankful for what I have. Without that lesson, I don't think I'll ever be able to truly appreciate Christmas at home, because I will never be home.

Mile Marker

Today, I did the math. And what exciting math it was. In the seven months since I moved to Texas, I have paid off over 5,000 of my debt. When you add that to the debt I paid off before I moved here, the total comes to about 7,000. In one year, I have paid off $7,000 of my debt, enough to drop from the 90,000 range to the 80,000 range. Slow and steady wins the race right? With Gazelle intensity :P.


 

Interesting

I've come to the conclusion that interesting is over rated. Let me explain.

When I was little, I thought of my parents as normal people. My Dad went to work, my Mom stayed home and raised us. Life as a kid was pretty simple. I did my homework, cleaned my bedroom, and played with my friends. I didn't really think about it being boring, or interesting. It just was.

When I got a little older, and I was given a little more freedom, my friends and I liked to ride our bikes to the local Wal-Mart. That to us was exciting because it was something we could do without our parents supervision. Sometimes we even went to the local movie theater( usually after being dropped off by our parents because it was a little bit farther). One friend and I took every Friday and went on a hike in the nearby foothills. I can't even remember all the times we got into trouble of some sort.

 Life was life, and it still is. However, the older you get, the more responsibility you have. The more responsibility you have, the less adventure your life is involved with. I don't mean that life has to be boring, or can't be interesting. I mean that those who are adults have responsibilities that they need to fulfill. As a result, they can't just take the day and wander through the foothills all the time, or stay up all night talking about boys. (Yeah, we did that one too, quite a bit. While trying to quietly walk through my house to the garage so we could climb up into the rafters where it was more exciting :P)

The thing is, when I was a kid, I always thought my life would be really exciting all the time. That I would have endless adventures, and explore unknown places (I had a pretty vivid imagination, what can I say?). What I didn't know then, and what I'm learning to reconcile now, is that life can't always be exciting and interesting. It might be fun to go and have adventures all over the world, but no matter where you go, life will always catch up with you.

I'm not James Bond, nor do I wish to be. And even if I was, I would still have to come home at the end of the day. Life is meant to be lived, and experienced, but the definition of that experience will always be determined by me and what I choose to do with what I am given. That being said, I like my life, and I need to learn to appreciate what I have. God has blessed me tremendously, and to be dissatisfied simply because things are not as exciting as I would like them to be is selling not only myself, but God's gifts, short.

 

The election, politics, etc...

Tuesday night, our President was re-elected. Do I think he was the best choice for our country? No. He is in fact, against almost everything I believe in. But that's not the point. The point is, he was re-elected. Our nation chose him to continue to be our leader, and with that comes a certain degree of respect. I'm not saying that being disappointed that Romney didn't win is being disrespectful. What I am saying is that being hateful and vindictive towards Obama is. What it comes down to, really, is how you decide to act. It's understandable if you want to disagree with things a person in charge is doing. But again, disagreeing, and being disrespectful are two different things. America has had bad presidents before, and Romney certainly wasn't going to be our nation's savior. In fact, if you look at the political history of the two, it is remarkably similar. What it comes down to is this: Our nation won't be destroyed by one man, just like it can't be saved by one man. Our government has three branches, for the purpose of checks and balances. The President does not have all the power. In fact, the power is pretty evenly distributed between the three, although the President does have certain authority that does not belong to Congress or the Judicial system. So what does this mean? It means that if you don't like the way our country is going, then change it. Especially as Christians, we are called to care for the poor, the widows and the orphans. When was the last time a mega church (and there are tons of them in the country) put something together that was more than a handout? Ever stop to think that maybe people wouldn't be crying to the government to give them free health care, free food and free money if that was provided willingly by the church? Think about it. The biggest argument that Christians I know have against big government is that those are services that should be provided for by the private sector, that people should have the freedom to willingly give their money to help the less fortunate, instead of being forced to through ridiculously high taxes. But it comes out the same. Either you give to the poor through charity, or you give to the poor through taxes. The reason Obama was re-elected is because those who don't have the means to support themselves will have a better chance of doing so under him. Those who do have the means to support themselves are becoming much fewer and more far between, so the group of people adversely affected by his policy changes is becoming smaller and smaller. I don't think taxing the living daylights out of us is the answer to that problem, but maybe there wouldn't be such a problem if we actually got up and did something about it. Stop complaining about what he is doing. Stop whining about how he was not the President you wanted. Get up off your butt and do something about it. It's only gonna change if we work from the inside out.

Fear

"The only thing we have to fear, is fear itself." (FDR) You never really know how true that is, until you experience it for yourself. More specifically, until you realize you are afraid, and the only reason for that fear is simply because you don't know what it will be like. I have now been in Texas for a little over six months. I've made a few friends, gotten involved in church, landed a good job. All of that is good, but since I moved here, I have done absolutely nothing about trying to connect to any of the Deaf community out here (and yes, it does exist, I've looked). The only reason I can think of, is fear. It's scary to me, to put myself in yet another new situation. And not just a situation where I'm meeting new people (that would be scary enough) but a situation where I have to use another language that is not completely natural to me. It's fun, once I can get myself to go, but taking that first step is always the hardest.

There's a deaf church in the area. It starts before my church does, and I've felt for weeks now like I should visit, that I should try to go to both churches. The problem is, I'm scared. It took most of my spunk to move here; I don't have whole lot left with which to continuously place myself in unfamiliar situations. But I want to go, and I know that once I do, it won't be so bad. It's just the idea of it. But I'm tired of being afraid. I'm tired of avoiding situations simply because they sound scary. And I'm tired of pretending like everything is ok, I'm tired of pretending that I'm not afraid. I'm terrified. But I'm going to do it anyway. Wanna know why? Because that is the area of my life that is the hardest to keep up with, but it's also the most important. It's something that I am determined to pursue, in spite of the fear that wants to hold me back. Lord give me strength.

Giving up, or letting go?

I've struggled a lot with "giving up" or "quitting" in my life. In high school, I "quit" the situation after my freshman year and moved to a public school because making friends where I was at was just too hard. In college, I "quit" the state school because I was lonely, wanted to be closer to my family, and wanted more of an educational challenge. After that though, I determined I wasn't going to "quit" anymore. I worked really hard, and I managed to graduate from the honors program at Biola. But I was tired of California. I wanted to try something new.

And now here I am again, struggling so hard against the two halves of me, the one side that says "this is good! stay!" and the other side that says "I just wanna go home." I have family and friends in CA, but no job. I have friends here, and a great job, but no family. And part of me wonders what would happen. Would I feel like a failure for not sticking it out? Or would I feel frustrated for not letting go of this grand adventure of mine?

I have no idea. And part of me says going home would be giving up. But that's how I felt about school too, and in hindsight, I kinda wish I had just made things easier on myself. So which is it? Without an answer one way or the other, I feel like I should stay put, but with the holidays coming up, its getting harder and harder. I don't want to be a quitter, but I don't want to be in a position where I'm refusing to let go either.

How long?

Every so often, I start to go in circles. I look at God's provision, and I think "That's great! Now when is He going to start moving me beyond just paying my bills? When my is my life going to move beyond ordinary and start to feel abundant?" I think of the stories I've heard of God miraculously providing for someone so that they can move forward in their lives, so they can get a little bit closer to their promise, instead of remaining in the "getting there" stage. I start to look, and think, and plan of ways to make my situation easier. I think "God doesn't want me to be in debt, so I should work as much as possible, so I can make a lot of money and get it all paid off."  Or I think "This job that I have been provided with, that I love, is only meeting my needs now. If anything changes, and my bills go up, it won't meet my needs anymore. I should look for something that pays better."

But then I stop. There is truth in these thoughts. It's true that God wants me to be a good steward with my money. It's true that if my situation changes much, I'll need something more. That's what makes them so easy to consider. But there is also the greater truth that is being overlooked when my mind begins to follow this path. That is the truth of God's provision. GOD is the one who gave me this job. God is the one who gave me a second job that's flexible. The exact flexibility of it means I don't have to kill myself in order to do well. He's given me over time lately too. He is working all things together for my good, but I get frustrated when that good is not exactly what I want it to be.

It is precisely at that point in time that I begin to ask "When? When do I get to move beyond this stage? When do I get to start really doing what I love? When do I get to experience the calling you have placed on my life?" And through it all, is a sense that I need to stop rushing ahead. I need to slow down, and wait on the Lord, because His timing is always perfect. Until then, I should keep doing what I'm doing. Working hard and learning how to handle money never hurt anyone, and maybe because I tend to need to learn things the hard way, God is letting me do just that. I don't know. What I do know, is that He's not done with me yet, and it is my job to wait on Him.