Be Brave

I really like this, because sometimes the things that make
me the most afraid tun out to be the best things.

     I like to think that there aren't many things that I'm afraid of. I used to think I was afraid of flying, until I did fly and discovered that I actually really like it. I still  get nervous in hospitals because many of the memories I have about them are unpleasant, but I've gotten to the point where even surgery is more of an annoyance than anything. True, there are many fears that I have gotten over, but there is one that still stubbornly remains no matter what, and that is the fear of disappointment.
     I have been thinking about this ever since a few days ago when I was considering looking into something that I knew could easily end in disappointment, and someone told me to be brave. It's ironic how someone like me who now has an irrational lack of hesitation at the thought of travelling to all kinds of places and refuses to go higher than 6 on that ridiculous hospital pain scale, needs to be reassured about trying to do something that should actually be fun.
     It has taken me a long time to learn that I am not actually doing a good thing by questioning myself every time I start to get excited about something. Sure, I may be preventing myself from being disappointed, but I may also be preventing myself from doing lots of good things. That attitude sounds a lot like living in fear, which is not how I am called to live.
I really don't like disappointment, I'm pretty sure no one does. But I am starting to realize that I also don't like living in fear, because honestly it's exhausting trying to keep my guard up all the time. I think it's time to start getting rid of that spirit of fear, because it's really not doing much for me.

The Big Questions

Sometimes in higher education, if a two year college is worthy of being called that, questions are asked that have no clear yes or no answer, and are meant to be debated and discussed rather than answered. Since I do not like conflict or confrontation, these questions tend to make me flustered and I often avoid joining the discussions that surround them. However since they are now being asked in class and I don’t want my participation grades to suffer, I have lately been attempting to begin joining these discussions. A few days ago in one of my classes, we were asked if we believed that racial profiling will ever go away. (We had been assigned an article that argued that it is real ,and a problem, so we were being asked the question with that perspective already established.) My first reaction was to be personally offended by this topic that never seems to go away and dissociate from the conversation, but that must not have been God’s plan for that moment, because a Bible verse immediately came to mind, and in that verse I found the answer to this question and several others I have been faced with lately. “In this world you will have trouble, but take heart, I have overcome the world. John 16:33”. And suddenly, instead of staying quiet, I could volunteer my answer. No, other imperfect and unfair human tendencies like the one we were discussing will not go away as my generation gets older. The world has always been, and always will be an imperfect place.

 That, I realized, is how I can answer the big questions, and handle situations like sitting through a three hour class discussion of “white privilege” without walking  away bitter and offended (I did at the time, but now I realize that was the wrong way to react). It is how I answered that question about social profiling, stating that it will exist as long as this world does, and how I plan to handle all of those “big question” moments from now on. With the knowledge that the world is not perfect and I do not have the ability to change that, I am free to let God handle the big issues. I don’t have to know all the answers, in fact I’m not supposed to. It is the nature of college courses to discuss complex and controversial issues, and it is my nature to want to avoid controversy. I need to keep that verse in the back of my head and remember that while discussing complicated things is necessary for the purpose of getting the grade I need, having all of the answers and getting everyone else to agree with me is not. As a student, it will sometimes be my job to discuss the big questions, but in the end I think it might be a good thing that there are some questions that only God has the answers for.

Choose Your Own Adventure

The two most read blog posts I've ever written were about the death of my close friend in high school and the day I found out I couldn't go back to Honduras because I had to have surgery. Both of those events were sad ones, so it's interesting that they are the most popular. I am not sure what makes people so interested in sad subjects, but they sure seem to be the cool kids of this blog.

Right now I'm pretty happy with the majority of my life. There is no major drama happening, which makes me very happy. However, when nothing dramatic is happening for me to blog about, I tend to get very little feedback. This can get frustrating to me at times, and that frustration is something I want to work on getting rid of now that I have entered year two of this blogging experience.

     I hope that people are reading this for the right reason; because they enjoy my writing and gain something positive from it, but I have to realize that's not something I can control. I don't know what will happen this year, but my goal for the second of this blog is to stay true to myself, and if that means losing readers and getting no feedback, that's something I'll have to learn to deal with. What's really important to me is improving my writing while giving my honest perspective on whatever is happening in my life, good or bad.

That concludes the serious declaration of intentions portion of this post, now here comes the interactive part! Take a look at these headers and tell me which one you like the most. I know they're not great quality because I took pictures of my computer screen, but I promise the real things look much more clear. I hope to use one of them to improve the aesthetic of the blog, because things are going to get fancy in year two!

Blog's First Birthday!

     When I was in middle school, I very clearly remember a teacher telling me "Writing isn't for everyone, maybe it's just not your thing." A lot of teachers said a lot of things to me in my thirteen years of school, but this one stands out to me because I think part of me knew immediately that it was untrue. Writing comes easy to me, unlike many other things. I can remember being taught how to start with an introduction, add

three body paragraphs, and then stick a conclusion on the end, but that is as much as anyone has ever taught me to write, and it is a structure I abandoned as soon as I could get away with it. I have always liked to write, but it took me a long time to be intentional about my writing.
     Today marks one year since I started this blog, and while I know that it's not right to brag, and that there are far more important things in life than maintaining a blog for a year, I can't help feeling a little bit of pride today.  I am proud because even though sometimes it's been awkward and I haven't always done everything right in the process of learning how to share my perspective, I have kept going, for an entire year. When my fantasy of providing exciting live updates from "mission trip 2.0" turned into me having to explain a very sudden and upsetting change in plans, I did not abandon the idea of blogging, but managed to keep going. It was awkward and messy (I used the word "very" at least 3 times in one paragraph when I was explaining what happened, and I talked about that incident for far to long), but I kept blogging. I learned the hard way not to brag about a new job, because sometimes new jobs end in awkward and confusing ways after only four days. I learned that when your dog dies, you should allow yourself some time for closure, and let your mind clear up enough to realize that creating a 55 second video of pictures of that dog is more uncomfortable and awkward than it is cute.
     True, there were a lot of embarrassing moments along the way that I hope we can all forget, but I also learned what it feels like when people connect with my writing. At some point, I noticed that instead of just saying that I was a good writer to be nice, people began to tell me about how they could relate to specific things I had written. I love when people share that with me, because it gives my writing a purpose, and allows this to be something more significant than just a way for me to practice writing. I try to keep this blog centered around my faith, but I will admit that has not always been easy. When you start something at a time when your faith is very strong, it can be tough to keep going when you lose some of that strength, but you, the readers of my writing, have encouraged me whether you know it or not, and for that I thank you.
     I still don't have the audience I would like to have, and I still haven't figured out how to make it bigger without asking people to click "share" which just sounds obnoxious and never works, but I have plenty of time to figure that out because I have discovered that I like having a blog and I don't plan to stop anytime soon. I have learned that knowing how to write doesn't equal knowing how to blog, and I'm going to work on that. I'm still figuring out the balance between self promotion and humility, between honesty and discretion, between many, many things. I don't really know what I'm doing, I just know that I'm having fun doing it. Thank you for being part of the journey. And in honor of one year of "The Mountains I Can't Climb" , because I just couldn't stop myself, here's one final thing...

Constructive, Not Destructive

      I'm only a few weeks into my fourth semester, but I can already sense that some of my classes this semester go beyond just memorizing facts from a book. Now, I am starting to be graded on participation in class discussions, which means I have to learn how to share my thoughts with people I don't know. This poses a particular challenge for me because although inwardly I am a person who thinks about things a lot and has lots of ideas, I am not good at outwardly discussing anything that might be met with confrontation.
Two of my classes in particular are very small, which makes it hard to go unnoticed, meaning that I can't get away with being quiet.  Thinking about how challenging it is to express my opinions effectively, especially since I don't handle confrontation well, I was reminded of something that was said to me in high school that I have never forgotten. It's something I've considered blogging about many times, but I haven't felt that it was the right time to share it until now.
Now I'd like to put a disclaimer here that I am not trying to start a debate by sharing this. It is simply a story about something that happened to me, how it made me feel, and what I learned from it.
      The first thing I want to say about this incident is that everyone involved was around sixteen or seventeen years old, and this was yearbook class. Not a government or history class where we were having a debate on current controversial issues, but a class where we were supposed to be designing a yearbook. The girls beside me were discussing an assignment we had to do for our English class, a persuasive paper. Even though I was not involved in the conversation at all, I could hear enough to know that the girl doing most of the talking was explaining that her paper was about pro-choice rights. I was pretty sure even at that age that I did not agree with most of what she was saying, but I had no intentions of interjecting into that conversation and expressing my opinions. I was just doing my assignment and halfway listening to her, keeping my comments to myself. Everything was fine, until the girl turned to me and said something that I haven't been able to forget to this day. I'm paraphrasing, but I still vividly remember the sting of the words she said "Women should be able to chose not to have a child if there's something wrong with it. Not all parents want to deal with the hassle of having a disabled child. Not everyone wants to deal with that like Jennie's parents have to. No offense Jennie!" No offense? Is that a universal disclaimer, a statement that we have come up with to justify anything we feel like saying?
     I should mention that I did go home and discuss the incident with my mom, who assured me that even though she didn't know about my disability before I was born, it didn't matter because she wanted me no matter what. I still consider that one of the most important and validating things anyone has ever said to me. The pain that this girl's comment caused me has faded, but the incident has always remained in the back of my mind as a hurtful moment that eventually turned into a life lesson.
    I have told you this story not to debate the issue that this girl was talking about, or to gain your sympathy, but to make a point about what it taught me.  I think it's very important to know what your worldview is, and  to be able explain why you think and feel the way you do about certain issues. It's an essential part of growing up. I also think it can be very dangerous when the way we express our opinions is destructive instead of constructive. It's easy to become so passionate in proving that our own ideas are right that we will do anything to prove that everyone else is wrong, but what does that accomplish? If people agree with you only because you have put them in a position where they have no other option, have you really accomplished your goal? As I continue to go through life trying to balance my dislike of controversy and my desire to be heard, I will keep that incident from years ago filed away in the back of my mind. I will remember what it felt like to have my worth questioned by someone who was just trying to validate her own beliefs, and I will strive to remember that on my quest to have my thoughts understood, it is more effective to be constructive than destructive.

Approximately 5 Trillion Snowflakes

   Yesterday morning I came to the realization that the phrase "2 hour delay" has a unique ability to continuously excite me despite my increasing age. Although my excitement over snow days of any kind is probably more subdued than it was in my childhood, it is one thing that has remained the same throughout my life. Snow days in general have always felt special to me. I just love the fact that despite all of the things we humans have accomplished and the power we feel that we have, sometimes we just have to stop everything because there's snow falling from the sky, and there's not much we can do about it. It's like a silent but significant reminder about who's really in control.
      Although I may hesitate at my age to admit it,  I have never stopped being amazed by the fact that no two snowflakes are alike. Since the beginning of time, in every snowstorm in every time period in every place in the world, every single snowflake has been unique. At the risk of having to do unnecessary math, I'm just going to call that "a lot of snowflakes" Probably more than 5 trillion, I think. Numbers make me nervous, so

Shamelessly over-edited picture of the small amount of snow that inspired this post.

let's move on. Knowing that God has created snowflakes so intricately and uniquely, even though they melt away after a short period of time, makes me realize that everything he does is intentional. Like a snowflake, I am designed in a specific way for a specific reason, even if I don't understand what that reason is yet.
     As I grow older, I sometimes forget, or don't allow myself, to take time to be exited by simple things like snow days. But when I really stop and think about it, I realize that these things that seem so simple are really the things that make life exiting. After all, you're never to old for a 2 hour delay!

College is Hard and the Microwave is Broken

     Monday
While  I was attempting to come up with an inspiring topic to write about tonight, my roommate returned from being gone for the weekend and we had quite a nice catching up conversation complete with her kindly letting me borrow a textbook until the one that I ordered arrives. It was quite a nice moment, the kind might happen in a movie about college life.
     Five minutes later, we were standing in the kitchen trying to figure out why the microwave, which worked perfectly fine before Christmas break, will no longer turn on. When our grand plan of unplugging it and plugging it back in didn't work (shocking really) , we decided that it's to late to do anything about it right now, and that we will revisit the problem tomorrow.
     This sudden change of events, while maybe not the most exciting thing to read about, reminded me about how unexpectedly challenging college life, and really life in general, can be. One minute everything is a fun adventure, and the next minute nothing is working right and you have to get serious and figure things out.
     Sometimes I find myself wondering if college is supposed to be this hard, or if maybe I'm just working with a slow brain. I know plenty of people who are college graduates and seem to have made it through without permanent damage, so is it just me that's confused most of the time?  I mean, I've been to church my whole life, so shouldn't I already understand the Social History of Christianity? Apparently not.

Tuesday
Instead of scrapping the unfinished blog I wrote last night, I decided to just add on to it in an attempt to be inspiring. It is Tuesday now, and the microwave is still broken, but it turns out it's really not that big of an inconvenience yet and will hopefully be fixed soon. Also, that class I was complaining about wasn't to bad today, I might know more than I realized. I think I will always struggle with feeling like I'm not quite smart

enough, that is something I need to work on. But today I did what I needed to do without giving up, and along the way I even learned the definition of primogeniture, which is such a fun word to say. The only thing that's really different today than yesterday is my attitude, but the difference is profound. Life can be hard sometimes, but maybe instead of waiting for the day when it will be easier, maybe it's time to start enjoying life in spite of the difficult moments. I don't believe that we can't stop all of our negative emotions simply by thinking positively, but it does help. Hard days will happen, but so will easy ones.  It's really all about attitude.