Anxious.Worried.Remain.

I titled this blog "Anxious. Worried. Remain" because it describes my state of mind to a tee. Its a cycle I go through every day. While most people have "A-ha" moments, I always seem to have the "Oh no" moments.

1. Anxious.

I am the most anxious person I know. And most of it has to do with fear, more specifically fear of the unknown. Its like a nervous tick. My mind starts racing, I cant seem to get a handle of it and make it stop. I make a mental checklist of things I need to do and then try and figure out how to do it in the least amount of time. My unique circumstances make everyday life difficult. For example, at this moment in time I am 24 years old and feel like I have nothing to show for it. I am two weeks away from my 25th birthday and I feel like life is just passing me by. I'm not sure when it happened but sometime in my life I developed a timeline for myself. I realize it sounds silly, even stupid but seeing the people I graduated high school with be successful in their careers, get married and start their families is jarring. I always thought that by now I would have a successful career, be engaged and "living the american dream". Truth is, I am nowhere near there.

2.Worried

"What" and "If" by themselves are simple words, but put them together and can cause many sleepless nights. I've come to the conclusion that all of my worries stem from fears. Some are legitimate but most are irrational and ridiculous. Am I doing what God created me to do? This particular question plagues me every day, and is always followed with "what if I'm not?". What if I'm missing what God wants for me. What if I've chosen the wrong career/mate/....... the possibilities are endless. Personally I struggle with "what if I screw up (assuming I haven't already) God's ultimate plan for me?"

3. Remain.

In every conversation I have with God I talk. Its all I do. Talk, talk ,talk, talk. You'd think I would stop at some point because there would be nothing left for me to say. I always have something to say. I've had to learn to be quiet, stay quiet and listen. I don't do well with "Be still and know that I am God", but I am learning to try and hear what God is saying to me. The one word that keeps coming to me during my quiet time is 'remain'. I am so impatient, once I get to one stage in life I'm already anticipating the next stage. I never stop and enjoy the here and now.

"Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles. And let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us,fixing our eyes on Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of faith. For the joy set before him he endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God".

Hebrews 12:1-2

I have been meditating on this verse for a while now. The visual I have for this verse is me carrying these huge, heavy bags. These bags are filled with my fears, my anxieties, my worries and all of my shortcomings. I put down the bags and run as fast as I can to My Savior. He assures me that everything is done, paid for in full and I can now have uninterrupted joy. Easier said then done.

I struggle with the idea of fully surrendering to God. Its like I find comfort in holding on to my bags because I don't know any different. Plus its incredibly difficult to not worry about money and where you are headed in life when our society has set such high standards of living.

I wish I could end this blog by writing how I fully surrendered to God's will and know exactly, beyond a shadow of a doubt, what it is He has called me to do. But that would be a lie. I struggle everyday with surrendering my fears and anxieties to Him. I'm trying to be more conscious of when I worry about something and then immediately give that to Him. I'm still a work in progress. One thing I know I want is the freedom. The freedom of not worrying, being anxious or fearful but to be joyful instead. I'm learning to slowly, one by one put these bags down and run towards Christ. That was my "A-ha" moment.

Decaffeinate Your Love Life.

After having coffee with a close friend, I found myself fully awake at midnight. Shocker. Being awake late at night causes my mind to reel, and from it come my analyzations on life, relationships and coffee. Enjoy.

Starbucks has pretty much made a business of facilitating the meticulous meet-ups with our girlfriends where we overanalyze every date and relationship tiff we’ve ever had. And people always wonder why there’s a Starbucks on every corner. The reasoning is simple really. Starbucks planted a shop on every block to capitalize on the relationship woes of women everywhere. It’s kind of genius when you think about it. There’s always a Starbucks down the block so meeting with your girls in a central place is always easy; coffee (as opposed to mid-morning alcohol) is a socially acceptable drink to discuss emotional context over; it’s a cheap enough expense for you not to feel guilty about it (what’s a four dollar coffee when you get to spend 2 quality hours with your girls extracting the meaning of life?); and coffee is still considered sexy as opposed to a full meal where you might be tempted to throw off your latest diet plan.

So what’s the problem? In addition to the emotional adrenaline you’ve built up from examining your relationship dilemma, you’re adding caffeine to the mix, creating a hyperactive love life that never really gives you the chance to slow down. While you don’t have to give up caffeine rush from coffee (because really what girl could actually live without?) you can lay off the adrenaline from overthinking every little blip on the relationship radar. Not everything means something bigger than what it is.

As girls, we sometimes rely too much on creating relationships with each other exclusively through venting about our love lives. For some reason women bond over analyzing men; clearly Starbucks understands that, but do women?

So here we are, women of the world all hopped up on emotions and double macchiatos wondering when things got so complicated and messy, completely oblivious of the fact that we made them that way (with the help of the delicious but potentially deadly coffee slurpee fondly referred to as the Frappaccino). We rush through our love lives expecting to figure it all out in minutes and then go about the rest of our days at work.

In understanding how to slow down the part of your mind that runs rampant on relationship qualms, you have to realize that things are not always symbolic of something else. Sometimes an argument about what movie to see is just an argument over what movie to see and sometimes an “off day” is just an awkward day. Instead of getting high on symbolism it’s imperative to remember that not every moment in your relationship lends itself to something “bigger.”

Not every cup of coffee needs to keep the company of a relationship woe and not every relationship woe needs a cup of coffee. Use coffee as a spark for your workday but don’t look to coffee dates with your girlfriends to overanalyze your love life. It’s time you slow down and spend more time living your love life, rather than talking about it.

Stop Wagging Your Finger At Me.

I’ve been thinking about this post. Thinking about it and thinking about it. And no matter how I try to shape it, I keep on going off on wild tangents. So consider this your warning. Wild tangents ahead

I didn’t want to write this post. In fact, just yesterday I said that I was not going to write this post.

But here I am… writing it. Because I’m just that irritated. I’m so annoyed, in fact, that I’m pretty damn close to doing a mass purge of my facebook account. Because I don’t think I can stand to read another word of this nonsense.

Excuse, blame, fault…it’s seems I can’t go an hour on facebook (or twitter) without reading something with one of those words, related to dating and being single.

So much negatively. And, in many cases, hostility, towards dating and single people. I realize that a lot of the darkness is self-loathing in disguise. Whatever, I kinda don’t care what’s causing people to spew forth this crap.

Yeah, I called it crap.

I was having coffee with an old friend a few days ago and it had been years since we had seen each other, five years in fact. She married right after high school and pregnant soon after. She became a wife and mother all before she was 21 years old. Don't misunderstand, I am so happy for her! She found everything she had wanted in life. Anyway, after small talk we made out way to the topic of relationships, and specifically why I wasn't in one.

She frowned and said.."I pity the girls who put career and success before wanting a family. It's just sad". Was she talking about me? She had no idea what my life has been like outside high school, whats its been like the past seven years. I wanted to scream at her. No, actually I wanted to drop kick her in the face.

Instead I smiled politely and told her that right now marriage and family just isn't right for me, and how happy I was with that. I'm enjoying my 20's! I do want to get married and have a family, someday. Just not today, or tomorrow.

I have no excuse for being single. I don’t need one. Because it’s NOT A BAD THING. I’m not blaming it (my single-ness) on anyone, nor do I think you should blame it on me.

Yes, there are many singles who are conflicted about being single. They’re struggling with their identity, in the same way that many married people struggle with their identity (this isn’t what I thought married life would be like..) and divorced people… The world has changed a lot since were were kids. Few peoples’ lives turned out the way they thought they would. Smart people acknowledge that and move on. Others point fingers and look for scapegoats.

Click on a news site, people. Read a real book. Feed your mind something with substance. There are lots of single people in the world. Demographic trends show that there will be even more of us in the future. Deal with it.

FULL.

My Friday morning started off this way....woke up an hour before I needed to, then I walked into my kitchen and in the 8 steps that it takes to go from my bedroom to the kitchen, something awful hit me. My house was a mess. Not a small mess either. But the kind of mess that makes you sigh, scratch your head and wonder how you’ll get it all done when your list of things “to do” for the day did not include cleaning the house. Then I realized that the sniffles had made themselves present to my roommate and I. We were tired and worn out. Yet, the next thing that popped into my mind brought a huge, ear to ear smile to my face. It was the start of my great weekend in Tahoe with some amazing people. Today, this very morning, despite the mess and the sniffles, my heart was FULL. It is a wonderful, almost indescribable feeling to have your heart feel full. But just so we’re on the same page about how my heart felt that morning, here is what Webster’s has to say about the word…

“Full” by definition is being completely filled; containing all that can be held, filled to utmost capacity. I would even go so far to add that full by definition means full to “overflowing”…

Overflow by definition is to flow over, flood, inundate.

For me, these two words, (overflow and full) have been hiding in my heart for a few months now. And as we came together this weekend worshipping the Lord, these two words did not disappoint. I literally felt the fullness and overflow of worship in its purest form. It filled the room to capacity. The sweet fullness that only comes when we, corporately, truly recognize the Spirit and then together praise and exalt HIM. From the first word spoken our hearts were united. Hearts that had a great anticipation and that were quietly listening for the Spirit. It was worshipping in Spirit and in Truth…

William Temple says, “To worship is to quicken the conscience by the holiness of God, to feed the mind with the truth of God, to purge the imagination with the beauty of God, to open the heart to the love of God, and to devote the will to the purpose of God.”

Augustine says, “a Christian should be an alleluia from head to foot.”

Walt Whitman said, “After the seas are all crossed (as they seem already crossed), after the great captains and engineers have accomplished their work, after the noble inventors – after the scientists, the chemist, the geologist, ethnologist, FINALLY shall come the Poet. Worthy that name. The true son of God shall come, singing His songs.”

This weekend was truly a blessing to me. I was reminded how important fellowship is. And not just surface, almost artificial fellowship that ends with "hello". I was challenged to create meaningful relationships with my brothers and sisters in Christ. Obviously deep relationships are not created in a three day period. But it is definitely a start. Thank you to those who chose to share their stories with me. There is something special about not just being a part of such an amazing community – but to really know the people there with whom you shared such an amazing weekend with and therefore that made us not just “parts” but a whole. To know the stories of triumph, pain, loneliness, regrets, job loss, hurts and trials. To know these lives – full of brokenness and desire for more. To know we are corporately choosing to lift up our heads, our voices, and our hearts together to God. In doing so, we were all cohesively lifted. I’m sure my heart will float back down and my life will dip a little below full eventually but that is why God gives us opportunities like this weekend. I am thankful to ALL who made retreat what it was. What a beautiful, corporate effort. It can best be described with one word; FULL.