It's totally normal and really ok to doubt God

I've met a lot of people who respect Christian morals and think Jesus' teaching is great, but find the whole miracle worker resurrection thing to be a little far fetched. Which makes sense because walking on water and rising from the dead and claiming to be God are not exactly normal everyday activities. Everyone I know who claims to be a Christian has had periods of doubt in their life. And sometimes people feel bad about doubting God or doubting the Bible, but doubting and questioning is really healthy. And completely normal.

Take John, Jesus' cousin. It says in the Bible that when Mary (Jesus' mother) and Elizabeth (John's mother) where both pregnant, that John "leaped in her womb" when they were together because he was just seewwww excited to be near Jesus. When John got older he lived in the desert and was pretty much the biggest hippie ever. He "wore clothing made of camel's hair with a leather belt around his waist, and he ate locusts and wild honey." Honey, yum. Locusts, not yum. And he went around telling people that someone was coming, someone great. He said that the king that Israel had been waiting for was on his way, and that the people should prepare themselves for him. He told them all about Jesus. John baptized all sorts of people, including Jesus himself. He dedicated his entire life to Jesus' mission, even up until his own beheading. So like, he was pretty dedicated. He saw Jesus in the flesh. He baptized him. He was there for the miracles and the preaching. He knew him pretty well.

But get this. Somewhere along the way, John wasn't too sure of it all. He sent messengers to Jesus and he asked him "Are you the one who was to come, or should we expect someone else?" (Luke 7:19)

LOL can you imagine Jesus' reaction? His cousin who has spent his whole life telling everyone that Jesus is the son of God and that he will save the world just asked if he's really God, or if they should be expecting someone else to come.

But that's not even the best part.

Mary, mother of Jesus. The girl who had the angel come and say "hey gurl you're going to give birth to the son of God and he's going to save everyone". The woman who watched Jesus grow up, witnessed miracles, knew Jesus better than anybody. Jesus' own mommy. She doubted him.

When Jesus' teaching was gathering crowds and crowds of people and he was stirring up trouble with the religious leaders of the day, Mary and his brothers "went to take charge of him, for they said,"he is out of his mind.""

Mary thought he was crazy! She wanted to stop him before it got too far out of hand. This is Mary. Virgin mother of Jesus Christ.

So, if you doubt God, I don't blame you. Jesus' closest companions doubted his authenticity. God invites us to doubt him. If you never doubt and ask questions, how will you ever gain a deeper understanding? Jesus said "Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives, he who seeks finds, and to him who knocks, the door will be opened." (Matthew 7:7-8)

So have your doubts and question away, because its not like God is hiding all the answers. He's certainly mysterious, but he wants to be known.

My Argentina Saga (The Super Short Version)

A couple years ago I went to Quilmes, Argentina with my church youth group and ran some children's programs in a local community children's center-ish thing. It was such an incredible experience to play with the children and to get to know the community and the culture. It was an all-around great 10 days of personal and spiritual growth. That's the usual way trips like that turn out. Great bonding experiences and learning and fun.

Everyone got a chance to go visit families in their homes as part of the trip. Seeing children in the context of the community center is one thing, but seeing children living in poverty is really hard. The family I got to visit lived in a legitimate shack with garbage everywhere and dogs that clearly had diseases. A woman came out to greet us and she asked us some questions about our lives but I pretty much couldn't speak. What on earth do you say to someone who lives in garbage when you live in suburbia and have a fridge full of food and two cars in the driveway. We said our goodbyes and as we turned and walked away about half of the group burst into tears. For me, it was the guilt. I felt overwhelming guilt. What right do I have to use so many resources when her and her family get so little? How dare I spend 15 dollars on a movie ticket when 15 dollars could buy them food. Why do I get to live the way I do without thinking of the lives I could be helping? And how on earth did I not realize all of this before. I felt my heart shatter into about a million pieces. I cried for a couple hours, no joke. There was nothing feel-good or fun about it.

Later that week I had the opportunity to visit her and her family again and bring them some groceries. I told her (through a translator) how much she had touched my heart and how I will be praying for her and her family. I could see her eyes tearing up and she thanked me. Before we left I prayed for her out loud and had it translated so she could understand. I prayed for peace and rest and for her to feel God in her life. I prayed for her needs to be met and for her to find joy and to feel safe. I probably rambled on more than necessary but she seemed to enjoy it. She gave me a big hug and sort of nestled into me. (She was much much shorter than I, so her head rested on my chest) I hugged her back and I could hear her sobbing into my shirt. She just cried and cried and I cried and cried and it was a lot of crying but it was also beautiful. Because love transcends all differences. And she said God bless you and I felt blessed. I felt blessed to have met her and to have shown some love to her, even if it was super small. 

Tears everywhere.

At the airport when we were leaving, the pastor that we had been working with came to me and pointed to me and said "heart especial". And I had no words. I felt 0% special and 100% percent unsettled. How do I live now that I know people, personally, who are in real, live, hard poverty. 

I didn't really. I cried all the time. I spent every lunch hour with my favourite teacher debating how life can possibly be so unfair. I went to worship services and cried. I went home and cried. I went to school and cried. And then I started looking up flights to Argentina because like obviously I had to go back. I graduated and went to work at camp and I thought about Argentina all the time. I had conversations about it and cried. And the more I thought about the more I really felt like I needed to go back. I had no idea why or how (plane tickets ain't cheap) but I felt this strong pull. My heart was so restless. 

Summer finished and I started university. In the first month I had to write a paper about something I cared about. I wrote it about Argentina and I bawled my eyes out while typing. That's hard. Typing and crying. Your eyes get super blurry. So I started saving money and I told my parents I wanted to go to Argentina.

"By yourself?" They thought I was mildly insane I'm sure but like yolo whatever. They were supportive despite their concerns. 

I made plans with my friends in Argentina and settled dates and when I had enough money I bought my ticket.

If you've read any of my other blogs you would know that it's around this time when I lost my grip on life and shut down to the world and spent months in the dark of my mind. Which made everyone a little more concerned about my 3 week journey by myself to the other side of the world. And by the time the trip rolled around I didn't even feel like going. I didn't feel like doing a single thing anymore. I didn't feel anything. I wanted to fall asleep and sleep forever. I was broken in countless different ways and I could barely put one foot in front of the other. But I had already bought the ticket and planned it all so I went ahead and I got on the plane and then... I was there. 

I was in Argentina. Me, myself, and I...and my antidepressants. But I got there and I saw my wonderful Argentinian friend and I heard the Spanish and I saw the buildings and it felt right. And that was a big deal cause nothing felt right in those days. When I went back to Quilmes and saw the children's center and the pastor and everything I felt like I was home. I was exactly where I needed to be. Exactly. Despite the absolutely crazy couple of months I had gone through, I felt an incredible sense of peace. And for the first time in a long time, I felt God really and truly with me. I knew I was there because he had placed it so heavily on my heart. 

During my 3 weeks there I got to experience a lot of things. I met a lot of people, I saw a lot of sights, I got to be a 15 hour plane ride away from my problems and it was so good. I felt brave for doing something like this on my own. I wasn't really alone though. My Argentinian family adopted me in a wonderful way. I learned a lot. About myself, about Argentinian culture, about ministry, and just about life in general. The depression weighed in now and again. I was constantly exhausted. At night my personal darkness grew and grew. But I would still try again the next day.

When I got to go back and visit the woman I had met the year previous, I was so excited and also nervous. I wondered how she was doing and what it would be like to see her again. We walked up to her gate, she came out, and it was wonderful. She smiled a big smile and I smiled a big smile and we greeted each other and she told me how she'd been doing well since I'd seen her last. She talked about how meeting my youth group had been so instrumental in her feeling good about life again. I told her I wanted to do something to help her and she shrugged her shoulders and said "I have no need for anything." 

Right. Take that in right there. She needs nothing, she says. Talk about being content with what you have. The godly heart of this woman makes me see so many things lacking in myself. She lives in abject poverty but sure, she needs nothing. 

She admits she will accept something for her children. Shoes would be good. So, shoes it is. 

We hug and I go to let go but she's still clinging. I hear her sniffle and some tears roll down her cheek and land on my shirt. So I hold her tight and I stroke her hair a little bit and rub her back. It's an unbelievable connection. The universal language of love. The most beautiful thing I have ever been blessed with experiencing. 

When I came back a week later with the shoes, she got her kids to come out and try them on and thank me. They are 5 million times more awkward than she is when dealing with me. To them I must just be the strange English speaking girl who keeps visiting their mom. I hugged her and I prayed with her before we left for good. Without a translator this time, she can't really understand what I'm saying. But she said amen after every sentence anyway. We had another heartfelt crying session before the pastor and I walked away.

The pastor (who speaks broken English) and I walked down the dirt road and the sun was making it's way down in the sky and I felt completely accomplished. Not because I did anything special. But the unsettled-ness that had resided in my heart for the past year was not there. I felt settled. I felt like God had wanted me to do something and I went and I did it. It wasn't a big thing. But what's more lovely than reminding someone that you love them? That despite living on a different continent and speaking a different language, I want so badly to be friends. I felt good. Such a rare feeling for me those days. It was a pretty nice evening and there were some kids still playing by their houses and there were dogs running everywhere and the world seemed ok. And as we were walking, the pastor said "you," and she looked at me seriously, "will have beautiful life." 

And that stuck deep deep deep in my wounded broken heart. A ray of beautiful hope amidst all my icky darkness. It's a moment that I will never forget. That whole moment of wonderfulness, of love, of accomplishment... it's why I came back. It was all for that. It's the kind of person I want to be and the kind of life I want to live. I want a beautiful life.

Above all, love each other deeply, because love covers over a multitude of sins.

1 Peter 4:8 

The Gift of Elderly People

A couple years ago I started working at a retirement home. On my first or second day I was looking through the resident files to get to know the people I would be working with. I was absolutely astounded with what I saw. Two thirds of the people had been part of the army during WW2, from foot soldiers to air force pilots to explosives engineers. There was even a elderly woman living there who had been a bomb technician. I didn't even think women could do that back then.

Not to mention people who had built business empires from nothing. Writers, painters, travellers, politicans.

I was amazed that all these incredible individuals were hiding out in a nursing home in Richmond Hill. Sometimes I think we forget that elderly people, although frail and confined now, lived really vibrant lives. And the people that accomplished great things in their younger years are still there. They're just slowed down by the effects of aging. Many of them keep to themselves and enjoy bingo and reading, but they are fonts of information on all kinds of topics if you ask them. Decades and decades of knowledge stored away, remaining mostly untapped.

I remember one man who spent the majority of his time dozing off in the common room. One day I began talking to him about his family and his hobbies and he mentioned how he enjoyed painting. I asked him if I could see some paintings and he was delighted that I was interested. We went into his room and as I walked through the door I saw paintings everywhere of landscapes from across Canada. Painting was not a hobby; it had been his profession for his whole life after the war. There were newspaper clippings scattered here and there from when he had been interviewed, or from when he had opened art exhibits or had special events. He called me over to the window where he showed me his current project. He sat in front of it and picked up his brush and began to paint. Despite the fact that his hands shook uncontrollably when he tried to feed himself or hold the newspaper, his lines and strokes could not have been more precise when he held his paintbrush and brought it to the canvas. It was such a beautiful sight.

There was another woman I spent quite a bit of time with because she was a sharp lady and she reveled in conversation. At age 96, she was mobile, self-sufficient, and full of wit and sarcasm. She enjoyed telling me about the love of her life (who she swore looked just like Humphrey Bogart), and about the travel she did by herself as a young woman. She woke up promptly everyday at 6:30 am and braided her long white hair down her back and whipped around the retirement home on her walker like a "spring chicken".

I learned more about life and the world from the aging people that I worked with then I did from my actual classes that year in high school. As they got to know me, they enjoyed talking to me about my educational and vocational plans. While my grade 12 teachers were encouraging me to be practical and make plans for my future, my old people friends were telling me to take chances and be reckless because "you never get the time back, sweetheart" and "life never goes how you plan".

Elderly people are full of life experience. They're the most learned of souls on the planet. I don't know why they aren't considered the best teachers and the people we would want to spend the most amount of time with. As a society I think we seriously need to treasure our elderly beauties more.

My New Year's Resolution Is To Eat More Ice Cream

Like all people at the beginning of a new year, I've started to exercise more in the hope of making 2014 a fitness-filled year. We'll see how that goes for all of us.

I got to thinking about how I already know I will disappoint myself. You see, I'm sort of at a steady state already. So even with my increased exercise, my body really isn't going to change that much unless I go on a dramatic diet kick for a little while. So, I was pondering what a veggie and fiber filled January I might be having when I remembered how much I hate dieting and how ridiculous of a notion it is.

If you want dramatic results right away, eat less and exercise more. You'll lose weight and be hungry.
If you want to have a healthier lifestyle, eat right and exercise more. You'll see great results in 3-6 months.

But the message isn't to look and feel great in 6 months. You're not supposed to feel great because your body is being taken care of, you're supposed to feel great because you look great and other people notice your beautiful body. And it should happen in like a week or so.

If you take a second to Google image search "thinspiration" you'll see what young women are up against. People don't need to tell us to our faces that we're fat and we should eat only kale and dust and live on a treadmill. Media images do that everyday. They glare at us and say "you're not good enough". And it's not just girls. I've seen attractive guys pick themselves apart in mirrors as well. When you're fit and attractive, people are nicer to you. You get better customer service at stores. People are more likely to smile at you. People talk to me more when I'm wearing makeup and a cute outfit. It's just the truth.

Apparently in 2014 "Strong is the new skinny". I see that caption pasted on pictures of girls weight lifting. And that's cool, I'm glad they can bench press, but it's the same girl I saw last year, and the year before, and the year before that, all perfectly lean and kale/dust eating. So, strong may be sexy but skinny hasn't been replaced. And I'm not 115 pounds like I was when I was 14, but I am strong. I know I look like I enjoy my ice cream and sweat pants but I can get a heavy brick from the bottom of a pool and portage a canoe if you ask me to. I would love to see the twig girl in the fake bench press picture try to portage a canoe. *snap*

I want people to like me and treat me nicely but I don't want to starve myself. I really like ice cream and kale tastes really gross. Ya feel me?

And actually, I don't want to be a picture on tumblr because outsides are nice but they're also just things. And I hope when people look at me they don't just see me for what I look like. Because that's objectification and it ruins people's lives. It ruins people's outsides when they try to be a fantasy. And it ruins people's insides when they appreciate only a fantasy.

People are beautiful creations in a million different ways and therefore we should have a million different ways of viewing and appreciating each other.

Act I, Part 3: Using the Force

I would like to take a moment to point out that in my last post, I didn't speak of defeating and demolishing what controlled me, but rather I spoke of learning to control it. And here's why.

Emotions are not bad. No no. As much as my emotional side controlled my life in a bad way, it also opened my life in a cool way. You see, as a result of being emotionally sensitive, I saw things that other people didn't see. I've always had a knack for getting into other people's heads. I can smell people's problems from a mile away and I get right in there and help them fix it all up. I don't find other people's messes intimidating. I find them compelling. Like a challenge. I'm a pretty quiet, shy person, but I am an A+ listener. I have a soft heart for people, and that is definitely the quality that I like the most about myself. So my emotional drive was my greatest weakness but also my greatest personal strength. Whaaaat crazy right? I just spent two posts talking about how awful it is. JKS.

Here's the thing. Everything in this world has a good aspect and a bad aspect and that's just the world. Nothing we can do about that. But we can choose which aspect we will try to work with.

In Star Wars, those who learn and understand the Force can use it for good or for evil. The thing is, those who use it for evil are indeed mastered by the Force instead of being masters of the Force. The Force becomes a compelling power within them. The Dark Side owns them. Don't be a silly Sith. They are mastered, not masters. Oh but dem Jedi doe. They learn the Force and they master the Force. They are not controlled, but rather they control.

Jesus, dat great guy, he said "my grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in your weakness."
2 Corinthians 12:9

My emotions are cray-cray and out of control but because of that, Jesus can come in and be like "I GAT DIS" and he really helps me figure it out.

I am making so many movie references but like, whatever. For all ya Harry Potter fans. When Harry is a child he makes things happen that he doesn't mean to. He's got magic going on inside him but he has no idea how to control it and he's kind of all over the place. He has to spend years and years learning how to channel and use it properly so he doesn't go around letting snakes loose everywhere and blowing up all his aunts.

Jesus is like the ultimate Obi-Wan or the ultimate Dumbledore. But so much better. He helped me out, whatta guy. He helped me so that I don't have to be controlled and knocked down, but rather I can use the power that dwells in my emotions in a positive way. To build myself up, and to build others up.

I learned the Force. I mastered the Force. I'm basically a Jedi.

Act I, Part 2: Mastering My Master

Last post I talked about my bed-dwelling habits that stemmed from my overactive emotional side. Oh, emotions. I have always been an emotional thinker. I am so sensitive to everything people say or do. I take almost everything personally.

When I was a child, I described myself as a bit of a "spaz". My emotions would react to situations I encountered before my logic and reason even had a chance to process what was happening. I remember once in grade 6, a boy in my class was making fun of me or something and my automatic reaction was to try to flip his desk on him. Good times, good times. It didn't work cause he was bigger than me, but it's the thought that counts.

That was me, sensitive to everything, emotions always running high. It's always been my greatest weakness and my largest stumbling block.

I don't really know about your life, but I figure we all have things that control us to a certain degree. All through my life I have been controlled by my emotions and it has almost always gotten me into trouble. Hence the bed-dwelling social strategy. Once you've identified your master, that which overcomes your life, I believe you have a choice. You can allow yourself to be overcome, or you can master that which overcomes you.

My emotions ran rampant and controlled my life for oh so long. And it wasn't seriously detrimental enough for me to bother to take action against it. Oh, but then it was seriously detrimental. For a while I let it happen. It was like I was watching my life happen from a perspective not my own and I just let the scene play out in front of me.

But then, after a while, I got to a point where I was like ummmm you know what, no. I am sick of not being in control of my own life. So, I gave it a try. And I gave it a hard try, not a shallow try. This was my freakin life. NUH-UH I'm done with this crap. It was great and all wallowing in my sadness but I was kinda over it. And believe me when I say that taking control of that which controls you is not easy and I know it. It took literally every bit of strength and energy I had to make the conscience effort to fight against my controller.

The reason I was able to take control was because of the heartbreak of a harsh reality hitting me square in the face. It broke my comfort. It made me uncomfortable accepting the lies and over-exaggerations my crazy emotions tried to feed me. It made me critical of what I was thinking and feeling. I didn't trust much. I had been let down.

I honestly can't even tell you exactly how it happened. But somewhere between heartbreak and recovery, a different side of me emerged. I started thinking more and feeling less. I'm not a heartless monster but my emotions do not rule my life. My emotions had gotten so crazy and out of control they had led me to a do-or-die moment. I had a choice give up or to fight back. And I fought.

I really wish I could talk to 16 year old Laura. I wish I could tell her that she is so much more than she thinks she is. I wish I could let her know that one day she will really, truly love herself and that none of what is eating away at her will matter anymore. I wish I could tell her that one day she'll win. That she'll conquer.

Spending a day or two relaxing in bed is a wonderful thing. When the bed life is everyday life, when it becomes your lifestyle, you have a problem. It should be your choice to relax in bed, not something done out of compulsion and fear of the outside world. Bed won't save you. But you can save you. (with some help)

Act I: I didn't choose the bed life, the bed life chose me.

So. In my very first post I said I was going to tell you a story. A story about me. A sort of ugly story. I think sharing our stories is super important. And now that I've given a bit of an introduction to the major themes in my life, I'm ready to go.

I don't pretend to be a theological scholar and my intention is not to make a social commentary. I don't think my opinions count for anything to anyone except for myself. lol I can barely live my own life so I'm certainly not going to attempt to take yours on too. I just want to tell ya'll a story. 

I'm a relational person. If anyone knows me, they know that I like to spend a lot of time in bed pretending the world doesn't exist, but I lay in bed pretending the world doesn't exist because I am a relational person. It all makes sense, I swear. I am an emotionally passionate person, but not an emotionally strong one. Having personal relationships with people is what adds value and joy to my life. But when those relationships also dish out hurt, I retreat like a turtle into my shell. Or like a clown fish into an anemone. The anemone is a better analogy. I'd rather be a clown fish than a turtle. Depending on the type of turtle I suppose. Anyways... After a while, the seclusion gets comfortable, and staying in the anemone becomes more desirable than going out into the ocean because you're safe from harm. Your life isn't getting better, but it's not getting worse either, and that's worth something. And that, my friends, was (and sometimes still is) my mindset. So I stayed in my anemone, keeping the bad out, but often keeping the good out too. 

While the initial appearance of protection seems appealing, it began to eat away at me. Because I am a relational person and I need connection with people.

I have been using this coping strategy for as long as I can remember. Avoid the hurt, just avoid it. My bed won't hurt me, my bed provides me with comfort and warmth. Why would I leave it to have to deal with people? Makes puuuuurfect sense. I would love to be a cat. They just lay around and sleep and eat and do their own thing and don't really care about the humans. Unfortunately, I am not a cat, and whether or not I choose to admit it, I care about the humans. 

I was never (not even now) actually comfortable with who I was as a child or a teenager. I tried my best to be friends with people but I would flip flop between trying to be a part of the group and hiding in my bed. Petrified of any kind of rejection, I just didn't put myself out there. To some degree that has been a part of my personality my whole life, but it is also partly a learned reaction. Because I'm oh so emotionally sensitive, everything that happened to me that could be perceived as rejection, would appear clearly as rejection in my eyes. Therefore, I saw rejection everywhere and pulled the blankets up over my head for protection from it all. Half of it wasn't even real. It was me not being able to navigate relationships and handle my environment. 

When I was in grade 11, my biology teacher noticed I wasn't looking too well and talked to the guidance department. Before long I was having weekly appointments with a school psychologist. I had real problems going on then. Family health concerns and whatnot. But when it came down to it, I was handling that stuff pretty well. What was eating away at me more than anything was a dysfunctional friendship that I had poured my heart into. I felt abandoned and alone and I believed, for real, that I wasn't that good of a person. Truly though, as a result of my shell/anemone/bed coping mechanism and my fear of rejection, I didn't allow my personality to show half the time. I was shy and weird. And I felt like an unnecessary addition to my closest friends. I just accepted it as part of my identity and tried to move on. (FYI: this is not how I wanted to feel. I was not feeling sorry for myself. If I was feeling sorry for myself I would have gone around saying "Oh look at me I'm so sad, nobody likes me, blah blah blah" to get validation from all my friends. This wasn't a surface issue. I legitimately believed, deep down inside myself, that I wasn't as worthwhile as some other people.) Until this school psychologist challenged it. I saw her every Tuesday at 11:30am all through grade 11. I came out of that with a much healthier perspective on relationships and how to negotiate my way through relationship-based problems. Twas grand. One step in a better direction. Still not the right direction, but i was getting there. 

There we'll leave 16 year old Laura for now. Slightly emotionally unstable but still mostly a good egg.