How much more human could you get?

Sometimes I get the feeling that i'm weird.

Okay, I know i'm weird. I don't consider weird a bad thing. I feel as though people's weirdness gives them dimension; makes them more than just flat characters in the background. However it is not the quirky kind of weird, or the charismatic kind of weird that I am referring to. It is the weirdness that makes a person a little...off.

Let's put it this way, sometimes, I don't fit in.

I know that much of these feelings are in my head. They stem from bad boxes I have from situations i've been in where i genuinly did not fit in. I'm self conscious, its true.

However I can not say that I wasn't warned. It says in the Bible that we are in the world, but not of the world.

So sometimes I feel as if there is something wrong with me. While other girls my age are meeting fellas and falling in love and getting hitched and whatnot I am going to church and leading worship with teenagers and trying to figure out why I am not doing the same thing, and why I don't feel bad about it.

Not to say that other girls who have active love lives are not as "christiany" to use a technical term; far from it. I know many women of God who date and get married and seem...well...normal.

Sometimes I wonder if I'm one of those "called" to be single, and wonder if i'm okay with that.

The point of this seemingly personal blog is that I realized yesterday that I am more normal than I would have thought. Let's look at it this way...

If I were to meet a guy whom I fell completely head over heels for, and we went out and got engaged, then I would wind up rearranging my entire life around this event. I would make plans on where I would live and what jobs I would take and even how I scheduled my social calandar and other activities based on this person, because part of the whole point is integrating this person into my life. On top of this, not a single person would question it because this is normal. It is in fact normal to rearrange one's life to accomodate another person for the purposes of integrating them into your existence. This is very human.

I realized yesterday that this is exactly what I'm doing. The person I have fallen completely head over heels for is Jesus, and I have organized my schedule and redirected my life based on my relationship with him, so that I could better integrate him into my life. I am catering to, and making accomodations for this relationship. How much more human is that?

I've always agreed with the idiom "Christianity isn't a religion, it is a relationship" (I mean I of course agree that it is one that we follow "religiously" in the sense that there are rituals and traditions we follow for the purpose of spiritual community) but I feel like I better understand it now.

And while I still know that I am odd, to the extent that a Christian should be considered odd (and possibly more so) I think that i'm a little less self-concious about where my life is going. And if there be a fella with whom I could find a companion the only possible way to make it work would be if he were to have made the same arrangements and rearrangements for God as I have, because that is the only way that our lives will fit.

Meanwhile...

So, i'm sitting here in the VU library knowing full well that i have work to do and i can't help but feel the need to blog, so here i am, blogging. There is a lot going on with me right now. Even though i'm only taking 14 credits this semester, school is till the weightier part of my to-do list that just doesn't get done. As of right now i have a paper due tomorrow evening i haven't started, a presentation due monday evening i haven't begun and another paper i need to pick a topic for asap, in the same class that another paper is due in a week from this friday. i only just barely get my chinese work done every day and i don't study it like i should. how can i expect to remember a foreign language if i don't take the time to use it? none of us would have learned our own language if we hadn't conversed with our parents from the time we've been brought up! i'm going to china may 18th, for about four or five weeks or so. i'm supposed to have an internship there and take a class. however i haven't gotten all of the paperwork done for either of those things either. i need to officially register for the summer course and have my advisor sign a paper that says my internship fulfills my internship requirement for my major. not a day goes by where someone doesn't mention my trip to china, and i sort of wish people would stop bringing it up just because im so scared to go that i don't like thinking about it. but truth be told theres no way i could or would ask them to do so because the fact of the matter is that this is where my life is pointing right now, and you can't mention a compass without mentioning north. in the midst of all of this i embrace distraction like a junkie embraces cocaine. distractions like today being One Day Without Shoes. An annual day put on my TOMS shoes where people walk around all day, you guessed it, without shoes in order to raise awareness of the millions of children in the world who walk around without shoes not by choice but because they don't have any. this exposes them to diseases, injuries, and reduces school attendance since they have to walk there (if they have a school to attend) another distraction is my participation in the Vagina Monologues. I'm aware that this is contraversial especially within the church, but the purpose of these monologues is to raise awareness and help combat violence against women. last year proceeds went towards women in the Democratic Republic of the Congo where rape and sexual violence has been used as a war tactic for decades. Even though the V-logues supports a few things that the church does not, the message i get behind is that of respect of all kinds of women everywhere. the first step in loving is respecting. i'm still teaching kids at life bridge, although its my month off and i didn't do very much teaching during my month on. i'm still figuring out where my place is in that ministry to be honest in the sense that i don't feel like its my calling but i don't necessarily think i'm not supposed to be there either. it is a place where i wish more people got involved. i've been trying to remember to pray that whomever God calls to work with the children will step forward but prayer is one of the many disciplines in which i fall short. i pray often in my mind and in my heart all day all the time whenever something registers in my mind as in need of prayer, but most often in the short term. things like safe travels, and sick people, and friends that are on my heart. but when it comes to those long term things where so much is unknown i tend to forget to give them to God, which is a shame because i tend to just worry about them. another example of this is our need in the teen ministries. we don't have a male youth leader which is integral. the teenage boys go through so much that a female leader can't relate to, nor will boys respond as well to a female leader who guides them. in additon to this i'm still struggling with the organization of the youth band. alot of that is me, and my shortcomings. i think really, truthfully, and honestly, that this entire blog is a prayer. God, give me focus and motivation to finish the things i've left undone. give me strength to deal with the obstacles that come my way. give me peace of mind as i look forward to the changes that are coming into my life and to the parts of my life that i don't know what will happen. thankyou for all that you provide that makes these things worth it. i'm sorry that i often fall so short of your glory, and i praise that even so you continue to lift me up. help me be more like you, remind me to pray for what i neglect to pray for. and thankyou for reminding me that while there are issues now that what is before my eyes is nothing but a moment in time but you see into infinity and you know what is to come and you are in control. father, when has worrying added a day to my life? you're beautiful, and the life you've given me is beautiful, and while i fear the path before my feet i wouldn't want any other path to trod upon. in your sons name i pray, amen.

Mindlessness-why I hit her in the first place.

I just got into a fight with my mom. I"m not sure if it was over something trivial or not but my feelings came out really hurt.

I started riding my bike on campus for the first time yesterday. It was a little weird because the seat still needs to be adjusted and such but for the most part i was doing well. Then i actually hit a person with my bike...

I felt horrible of course. It probably could have been avoided so I felt stupid and clumsy but most of all i felt horrible for probably hurting the girl. I ran right into her and then fell over on my bike. I jumped up and immediately began asking if she was okay.

She hadn't even fallen over herself and assured me she was fine. She was laughing and asked if I was okay but I kept asking if she was. I mean I had hit her with a bike, surely she should be more hurt than I was.

I was so embarassed. This happened in broad daylight while everyone was going to class so who knows how many people saw it happen. A professor who was walking by even asked if everyone was okay, which of course was nice of him but just reaffirmed the knowledge that EVERYONE had just seen my screw up and hurt someone else in the process. It wasn't a good feeling at all.

But as I said the girl was very nice, and introduced herself saying "I hope we meet again under better circumstaces"

My shoulder still hurts a little but besides that I walked away fine.

When I called mom today I mentioned it and her response to me before I even finished the story was "Sara I don't need to hear this, I don't need to hear about my daughter running over somebody with a bike." "You just got your bike up there and the first thing you do with it is run somebody over."

I tried to explain that I didn't run her "over." That she hadn't even been knocked over, she was still standing. I apologized for wanting to tell her what had happened to me in my life.

But she said it wasn't funny and I was telling the story like it was.

So very good mom, you made sure I understood the shame in what I had done and denyed me the defence mechanism of humor in the process, even though Linda, the girl I hit, was super nice and laughing about it herself.

But theres more of a point to this blog. Right after I got off of the phone with my mom which was pretty abruptly I began glumly staring into the computer screen and decided that I should go watch some tv, because then it would get my mind off of the rotten mood i'm now in.

But I realized that I would not just be deferring my thoughts, I would be removing them all together and that is why I was choosing television over something productive to take my mind of things.
I'm using television as a drug, to remove all thought so I don't have to feel.

Its okay to do things to take your mind of things when you're upset. Heck, its probably healthy. But I'm a person who struggles with mindlessness. The fact that I have no control over my own focus, the fact I am so absent mindedly forgetful, means that I should be avoiding thoughtlessness at all costs, and making myself think and be mindful.

Being mindful, I really really suck at that.

I don't know what decision I'll be making based on this realization. ;
But I don't wantn to harness habits that will only make my inability to finish things worse.

Maybe I can learn to love myself...

So today I had a free saturday afternoon/evening.

I know, shocking...

But anywho, the laundry has been piling up because i've been so busy lately. I've been working a lot, and after work instead of going home early to rest or get things done here that I need to, I pounce on every opportunity to hang out with my friends so I can feel like I'm not just working all the time. This has been keeping me out late almost every night, and by the time I've gotten home, the bed called my name more loudly than the laundry did.

At this point there were absolutely no clean clothes left of any sort so I had no choice. Even if I wanted to read or something this afternoon I couldn't because I had a task that could no longer wait.

Thats when a weird thing happened...I began to put clothes into my bureau. A large pile of "clean" clothes that I've had sitting in my room were finally folded and put into their place. (A few were hung up!)

And from there it spread. I started to go through my closet and take out clothes I no longer wear. And then closed up a bag of old toys from childhood that I've planned to take to Goodwill for....

a year.

And thats when it hit me. It was at this exact same time last year that I started doing the same thing. Many of the piles of things in my room exist as piles because I put them there last Augest with the intent of sorting through them to give them to Goodwill. Then school started and all hope of actually having a clean room dissapated.

There is officially a pattern to my life. I don't like it.

Here's the thing. Lately i've been thinking a lot about myself, my future, my love life, everything. And i've come to the conclusion that the mass amount of anxiety about anything comes down to that I don't really love myself.

THERE! I said it! Its not really a secret. I've never claimed to have a good self-esteem. I've claimed to be an optimist, but I'm also pretty open with the fact that I am optimistic for everyones life except my own. When it comes to predicting my own fortune, I expect myself to fail.

I know why its Augest. The end of summer is nearing, and I want to have accomplished something in the last three months. School will be starting soon and I'll want to have a fresh start. A clean bedroom to come home to every day would be amazing. What would be more amazing would be getting rid of all the junk i've accumulated in my life.

It occured to me as I was doing some sorting that as i've been praying to God to show me how to love myself, that maybe its Him giving me this sudden desire to clean.
After all if I want to love myself, I need to respect myself, and that could start at having a clean living space.

I don't know. All I know is that when I think about the place where I live now I feel the need to cry. It's overwhelming all the stuff there is, and practically none of it I want.

I want to be able to see in myself the same beauty that I see in others' as creations of God. I know in my head that He made me the way I am for a purpose. I know in my head that my flaws and imperfections are no worse than the next persons flaws or imperfections, and that the things I am good at are just as important as the things other people are good at, but I don't feel it in my heart. My heart still aches from the world's standards i've failed to meet. For too much of my childhood I was told I didn't deserve to be loved and considered a human being. I recognize that when other people come to me with their failings I am willing to give them all the grace that I can think of, but when it comes to myself the mental lashings never cease.

If I want to love myself as a human being, I need to start living like one. So i'm going to cleanse myself of my animalistic living situation, i'm going to stop drowning myself with all this junk from the past, and when this time next year rolls around and I get into the spring cleaning mood, my attentions will be paid to other aspects of my life and not this one over and over and over again.

I've been trying this for years, this year is going to be when He lends me the strength to actually do it.

according with, constituting, or not deviating from a norm, rule, or principle, conforming to a type, standard, or regular pattern

that is what websters says is normal.

after the mathematical definition of course...

I'll start with afternoon when in conversation i uncomfortably heard my mother describe the difference between sara on aderol, and sara off aderol.

sara when she's herself, and sara when she can actually get things done.

like normal people.

we knew I had a.d.d. from an early age. my parents knew before i did. they didn't want me to be labeled. if i could survive without the medications then thats what i would do.

until i stopped being able to, that is until my grades no longer matched my intelligence.

when i was little i thought that spacing off was normal. i thought everybody did it. i didn't realize that everyone else could keep track of time, and finish tasks directly after them being given them.
in the first grade i had no idea what was going on and wondered how everyone else seemed to figure things out before i did.

by the time i got to high school and it was painfully apparent that i needed to be on some form of medication if i expected to graduate high school i felt relieved. but when i actually heard the doctor say "yup she has all the symptoms. i'm prescribing 20 mg of aderol a day."

i felt broken. it had been made official that there was something ABnormal about my brain that made fluent cognitive function difficult to attain in the least. there is no train of thought i will have that will not derail. its one of the reasons i enjoy blogging so much. i get all my thoughts out at once before i forget where i'm going or what i'm doing.

but the truth is i've never felt normal. i've either been too smart, or too fat, or too tall, too broad, to weird, too technical, too literal, too artistic, too feminine, too androgenous, too much or little of anything that everyone else said i needed to be.

the fault lies with myself as much as others. they should not be comparing me to themselves, nor should i be comparing myself to them. its to Christ i need to compare myself to. how do i measure up?

i hate my aderol. it makes me feel weird physically, and i become a robot, unable to exude the emotion i feel in quite the right way.

but the other day i was studying my dear friends' scott and nikki's baby Brooklyn. she is so so so so so so joyfully human. and i've fallen in love with that. i find myself watching more and more babies just to see if they all act so very human.

what i mean by that is that she is completely uninhibited in the emotion she portrays or feels. when she feels happy you can tell, when she feels sad you can tell. there is not a beat between thought and reaction for her. and why should there be? it won't be until she gets older that someone will say "you shouldn't laugh at that" or "you ought to be glad" it won't be until she's older that she'll realize that the world holds a different definition of how she should feel, and from that moment on she will measure her reactions as we all do. i dread that day for her.

but for now she's the most genuine thing on the planet.

today more than any other day i realized that the kids i work with at hilltop each struggle with their own definitions of normalcy. there are more than a few that struggle with differences in themselves that inhibit their relationships with others. some suffer from emotional differences, others physical. one particular girl Saba is Muslim. and if she hasn't experienced it yet there will come a day when she feels a separation between her and everyone else due to that religion, or possibly being the only indian girl in a class filled with white girls. someday she'll feel it if she hasn't already.

will saba feel broken because she isn't normal?
at least what she will perceive as normal because of her environment.

we're all broken, but why do we feel inferior to other humans when we realize it?

why can't i see others broken ness? is it because they hide it well?

or because they're human and its just that obvious.

how do i look like them, do i just live without inhibition, or increase it?

why do i want to look like them?

i wnat these kids to be able to play together and laugh together and just be normal kids together. but they won't let each other be normal because of the things that make them different.

i know that i am to comopare myself to Christ, but its so hard sometimes with all of these physical people in front of my eyes to compare myself to.

i guess there is no conclusion to this blog. im still contemplating on what normal is and why i can't figure out how to "be" it.

i've been outcasted for my presumed faults of every kind

how they thought i looked
how they perceived me sexually
intellectually
emotionally
religiously

its just frustrating and it hurts to think of my own abnormality, and then to see other people struggle with similar problems. i don't want them to feel abnormal. i don't want them to feel how i felt in high school.

but maybe thats human too.

yes i'm a hypocrite...and?

So theres a hole in my fortress that is optimism

aka my faith.

I've been a bit prideful about my own optimism, if for no other reason than the fact that it is a philosophy that so many people don't recognize, and yet i've found to be fully effective.

To sum it up:

If God is truly good (which He is) and He has kept all His promises (which He has) and He now promises that He is in control and that all will be well in the end (which He does) and does in fact truly love us (which He also does) then there is NO reason not to be an optimist.

I expect the best to occur, because the man at the wheel says that it will.

It started when i was eleven years old. Before i was eleven i'm not going to lie, it was a pretty dark time in my life. I always feel a little silly saying that because such a young age group shouldn't experience some of the feelings I had but its true. If i hadn't accepted Christ when i was 9, i'm not so sure i'd be alive today, or at the very least so well adjusted. The statistics tell us that a kid like me when i was in elementary school tends to develop violent tendencies, drug abuse problems, promiscuity, due to lack of self esteem.

but those years are in the past.

anyway when i was eleven my mother was diagnosed with stage four breast cancer (there is no stage five) we weren't given a time limit because when she asked the doctor wouldn't give her one, said that would be bad for her which i now agree with. its not good for someone fighting for their life to be racing against a clock.

i don't know if it was denial but i told my mom "we'll get through this" and i didn't realize it at the time but she took great stock in my words. later when i heard my mom telling others that i had been a great inspiration to her to keep fighting because of how positive i'd been, i realized that i had to be this way. i had to be an optimist and just choose to know that everything was going to be all right. there were times when i felt it a heavy responsibility, and an unfair one, that i should be the only voice of encouragment in some circles, but this faith is strength, and it requires practice of strength to stay strong.

however for some reason when it comes to myself (probably theres some connection to self esteem issues rooted in the childhood i had) i can't be an optimist.

i walk around telling people that optimism is the best policy, that God will pull through for them, that they need to have faith in His capable hands, and believe that He made them beautiful, and made them for a positive purpose.

and yet when it comes to myself i see failure, i see ugliness, i see all the things that i fight against.

hipocrite-an actor, someone who says one thing but does another. i say that God is in control and that we have no reason to expect otherwise, yet i don't apply this to myself?

its a problem i thought that i'd worked through in the last year or so. i'd been resisting God in a pathway, but i wound up relenting of course, and my life has been going so much better since.

and then this little thing happened.

this little, tiny thing that for the last couple of days has been keeping me on the verge of tears, which it shouldn't be.

i might have an ear infection.

...so?

ive been swimming a lot because of my work and thats been leading to some ear issues. i feel as though its been some moisture issues, and possibly excess ear wax build up. i don't know whats the deal, but i know that i can't really hear out of my left ear right now, and i've not been able to for almost forty-eight hours.

yesterday i got into two fights with my mom over it, in which neither of us said very helpful things to one another.

and i've been terrrified. i've been scared that i'll get permanent ear damage and that i'll develop a hearing disability in which i won't be able to perform basically every ministry i've been called to.

playing in the youth band with the girls.
learning chinese so that i can take steps toward ending the sweatshop labor issue.
being a listener to the teenagers.

all of those require my ability to hear.

i'd think of going to the doctor, but we can't afford that right now. we can barely afford to keep moving.

and then i realized this morning, why am i fretting so much? why am i thinking about all the worst possible scenarios? i can go to the doctor, God will help us afford it, i can get this taken care of. these things happen every day. if God wants me to perform these ministries, then i will perform these ministries. and if he wants me to do it with partial hearing then i will STILL do it with only partial hearing.

i'm silly for fretting so.

although my hearing is still greatly diminished in my left ear. i know that everything is going to be alright.

why?

because God says so.

optmism, it always works.

I'm in a strange mood tonight, one of which I don't know how to describe. Earlier at band practice I was really wired. If I were a science experiement I would have been a volcano, because energy was just pouring from me like so much baking soda vinegar.

I've been working with the youth at my church and with each of them there seems to be something that God is working towards. I can feel it. There's this one boy (one of like three males in the whole youth group) who exudes an exceptionally good heart. He comes because he wants to learn, he worships because he wants to worship, he's nice to everybody, and a true gentleman. If we could get a guy like him as a leader then we'd start cranking out Godly men like nobodys business. But he is shy and quiet. (which doesn't mean you can't be a leader, but can serve as an obstacle) I pulled him up on stage tonight for practice, as we were down by three singers. He's sang with us during practice before, but refuses to do so for worship on Sunday nights. However tonight I could really hear him sing, and he wasn't bad at all! So I told him "You're singing with us Sunday" to which he replied "what?"

I explained how his male voice added something we an all girl band were lacking, and that he had a good voice. He looked at me as if (and this could have just been my imagination) he wanted to say yes, that the idea intrigued him, but all the old inhibitions were holding him back. He is afraid to get up in front of people, but the fact that he wasn't looking at me like i was absolutely insane (and quite frankly he should have been because i was acting really weird tonight) was a good sign. He said he would sleep on it.

Then as I was dropping off this other girl home, we saw her sister outside of their apartment. Neither of them have been coming, and i've made it my goal to get them back regularly. The first sister came tonight for the first time in a couple of months. The second, and the one i've really been working on, hasn't been in longer. I was so excited to see her that i stopped my car right away and jumped out to embrace her, and introduced myself to her boyfriend. I asked her why she hadn't been coming, and if she might consider coming this sunday.

"This sunday?" she was hesitant. But she said she might. I told her I would be at her place to pick her up at five and she had better be there.

i see the potential of what God is doing in these kids, and its scary, but in a good way. like sitting at the top of a roller coaster, or waiting to get a piercing, or starting a new life.

It might seem like my mood has been of the bossy kind just telling one boy that he was singing with us sunday, and just telling one girl i would be picking her up for church. But i promise you, bossy was not the vibe i was sending. i prefer to think of how i was as being proactive.

i wish everything else in my life could be attacked with such energy as i've had tonight. i saw opportunities and i jumped on them with confidence. i wish such a wild fire be in all that i do.

so now i'm home and the energy has not completely gone. i'm happy right now, i mean really happy. yet i've listened to matthias replaces judas by showbread a few times, and thats a depressing song.

i can't put my finger on it, im just weird tonight, but i like it.

there are few things i've done in my life where i've just swept in and known what i was doing from the get go. i could name a couple of auditions, some improv shows, maybe once in asking for directions, but its a short list. tonight i can add my interactions with the youth. it makes me nervous to think about my future and what it holds and how i'll approach it. im scared, crazy scared to think that i might be in places like taiwan or cambodia, actually reaching out to people ten times more impovershed than the drunkest american homeless man. speaking chinese, fighting slavery, my everyday christian life, all need to be approached with such confidence and energy as i've had tonight. because when i have this confidence i succeed.

i've said often and its true, that optimism has never failed me. when i predict something will happen for the better, it does. but one place i have never been able to be confident in is myself. i could think everyone around me is going to make all A's this semester and i would predict my own failure in the same breathe. i don't know why i have so little faith in myself, when i know what kind of God lives within me.

is a lack of faith in myself a lack of faith in Him?

not sure.

i started work this week (sort of) so lets hope i get all of my hours.