Moving the tassel from right to left

Looking out at the beach from my room’s ten story back porch…now THAT’S a view.  Watching sting rays swim in the ocean from beneath a parasail…now THAT’S a view. Looking up at the stars filling the sky above the sand…now THAT’S a view. And worshipping the Lord surrounded by my entire grade for one last time…now THAT’S a view.

These events sum up my time on my final trip with my senior class to Gulf Shores, Alabama. Throughout the 5 days, I looked around at my classmates and friends and felt like life was almost in limbo. Like someone had hit the pause button on life and all that mattered was these last few moments spending time together.

As the last night approached, I stood waiting for our grade to be summoned for the annual “share time” on the beach. In my moment of “I don’t know what to feel right now” I confided in two of my closest guy friends as we talked about how surreal all this was. “Is this really who I am?” I asked them. “Am I the person I’m supposed to be right now? Imagine if I had gone through high school with different friends, different interests, and a different personality. Would I still be ME?” We couldn’t believe that this moment was finally here. And yet, I didn’t feel anything. It was too surreal. I hadn’t planned on saying anything during the share time. I figured the grade had heard enough from me over the past few years haha. But as people began to share about how much they loved each and every person on this trip, I couldn’t let myself go without saying at least SOMETHING! After all, Little Rock Christian has been my home for 13 years…I owed it at least a “thank you”. I finally mustered the courage to stand up. It’s weird how I love getting up in front of people as someone else, but when it’s just me, with nothing standing in the way, that frightens me terribly. From the moment I opened my mouth I couldn’t hold back the tears. It had finally hit me that this was it. I couldn’t hide behind the safety of knowing exactly who my friends were, knowing exactly what classes I would take the next year, and knowing practically every face that I passed in the hallway. I spoke about how scared I was and how I didn’t know what was going to come next. But, when you think about it, all of life, school, friends, family, who you become, it all comes down to just one thing….knowing Jesus. I talked about how I had been so focused on what was in front of me that I had forgotten to look up…I had forgotten to look to God, solely to God. So I encouraged them not to miss out on God. I said what a blessing it was to know each and everyone one of them and that I loved them SO much! I have no idea if it made sense or if anyone got anything out of what I said, but in that moment, the peace of God that passes understanding fell on me.

It ‘s safe to say that that trip was a great way to send us off as a grade. Even though the idea of growing up is still so weird to me, I can look back at my years at Little Rock Christian and my senior year as a blessing. One of the chaperones on the trip, Mr. Smith, shared with us over the past 5 days that God puts people and places in our lives so that when troubles come, we can look back and remember. Remember God’s provision and how He displayed His love for us.

As I try on my “dress robes”, as I like to call them, I can’t believe that I am graduating….TODAY! But I know that whatever comes next and whatever happens, that all that matters is knowing Jesus and for now…that’s enough for me J

Piled up Laundry

It's senior year! Opportunities lay ahead, decisions for my future are to be made, and time with friends is slowly coming to a close. I tell myself that this year, will be different. This year my relationship with the Lord will be at its best, my family and I will have a tight-knit bond, and my friends and I will have the time of our lives! Little did I know that this year would NOT be what I expected. As my spare-time slowly began to dwindle, so did my oxygen as it was becoming harder to breathe under the flood of "senior year" which rushed in and took me over.

Naturally, the creative-right brained-disorganized-poor time managing girl that I am, when stress or lack of time overtake me, the likelihood of cleaning my room is a negative. To better understand this lifestyle, I shall divulge into my morning routine: I wake up to the sound of both of my alarms, which have been blaring music at me for approximately 30 minutes now, and hit the off button, thinking it is the snooze button. Oops! I have less than 30 minutes to get ready and I live 10 minutes away from school. Over-estimating how much time I now have, I wash my face, brush my teeth, put my contacts in, put my makeup on, and quickly straighten the ends of my hair (in times like these, I am grateful for my board straight hair). Now the challenging part: deciding what to wear. I scrabble through my closet for something, killing myself for not planning ahead, and finally find an acceptable choice with---oh wait NO TIME TO SPARE! Yes morning after morning, this routine becomes a habit. Because of my obsession with doing everything involving my high school, church, and every activity known to man, I did not receive the priviledge of going home right after school because of cheer practices, play practices, youth worship practices, or some sort of service project. So, coming home just in time for dinner, then a shower, and then desperately trying to stay awake to do my loads and loads of homework resulted in me never ever finding time or the desire to clean my room.

Summer has arrived! The other night I sit in my bed and realize nothing has changed. I still wake up late, get ready in a flash, am gone all day, come home late, take a quick shower, try to stay awake to read my Bible, go to sleep, and repeat the cycle the next morning. Summer has been 8 days now. I sit there and stare at the piles of clothes on my chair, the clutter on my desk, and the Bible laying in my lap. I sit there and realize that my faith has become like my room. There's so much I wish I could change, so many ways I could redecorate, but clutter has just consumed it all. I feel like Time has robbed me of quality time with just me and my room: declutteing, organizing, planning, redoing. I look at other peoples' rooms and say, "How did they do that? How did they have time for that? How did they make it look so good?" My faith, at least this year, has become the same (not every day but for alot of this year). I so badly want to feel it, see it look the way it's supposed to (like how I felt at the Passion Conference in ATL-I'll have to talk about that another time-rocked my world), uncluttered, neat, and organized. Harboarded anxieties and tensions pile upon the desk of my heart until it just looks like one big blob, unrecognizable, and numb. Sometimes I even try to hide the mess by shoving it in the closet, that way when people come to visit, the room to them looks spotless. But the looming reality of the mess lingers over me like a hovering vulture. I try to act like it doesn't bother me. Like the mess is no big deal. But the reality of what my room COULD and HAS looked like brings me to a state of disappointment.

I titled this blog, "A Room with a View". I gave it that title because recently God has shown me something. That life has windows. Life has doors. And alot of times what lies behind those windows and doors is not what you might have expected. You might be disappointed. You might wish it looked a little different. BUT, it's not what you look at, but how you look at it. For our high school's last chapel, we had an open mic for seniors who wanted to share what God had been laying on their heart. In summary, I told the students that if I could give them one word to focus on in high school, it would be Perspective. I had been looking at my room, my year, my life from all the wrong perspective! Looking at my life from God's perspective, I can see that each day, however crazy or unfortunate it may seem to me, is only a light and momentary trouble. I can't afford to compromise my time with the Lord (my time "cleaning my room") with school work, hanging out with friends, time, or sleep. Because in the long run, all that matters is my relationship with the Lord and how I live that out.

Check out 2 Corinthians 4:16-18 (Message)