Careful with time

"My friend Dwight Bain sent me a story of a ham radio operator who overheard an older gentleman giving advice to a younger man.

'It’s a shame you have to be away from home and family so much,' he said. 'Let me tell you something that has helped me keep a good perspective on my own priorities. You see, one day I sat down and did a little arithmetic. The average person lives about 75 years. Now then, I multiplied 75 times 52 and came up with 3,900, which is the number of Saturdays that the average person has in his lifetime.

'It took me until I was 55 years old to think about this in any detail,” he continued, “and by that time I had lived through over 2,800 Saturdays. I got to thinking that if I lived to be 75, I only had about a thousand of them left to enjoy.'

He went on to explain that he bought 1,000 marbles and put them in a clear plastic container in his favorite work area at home. 'Every Saturday since then,' he said, 'I have taken one marble out and thrown it away. I found that by watching the marbles diminish, I focused more on the really important things in life. There’s nothing like watching your time here on this earth run out to help get your priorities straight.'

Then the older gentleman finished, 'Now let me tell you one last thought before I sign off and take my lovely wife out to breakfast. This morning, I took the very last marble out of the container. I figure if I make it until next Saturday, then I have been given a little extra time.'

We can’t choose whether we will get any more time, but we can choose what we do with it."

http://johnmaxwellonleadership.com/2011/05/16/dont-lose-your-marbles/

I heard this on the radio station today and it really made me think.  I figured I'd share it with you.

Love is...

"Going Back to the corner where I first saw you
Gonna camp in my sleeping bag I'm not gonna move
Got some words on cardboard, got your picture in my hand
Saying, 'If you see this girl can you tell her where I am?'

Some try to hand me money, they don't understand
I'm not broke I'm just a broken hearted man
I know it makes no sense but what else can I do
How can I move on when I'm still in love with you?

'cause if one day you wake up and find that you're missing me
And your heart starts to wonder where on this earth I could be
Thinkin maybe you'll come back here to the place that we'd meet
And you'll see me waiting for you on the corner of the street
So I'm not moving, I'm not moving."


-The Man Who Can't Be Moved by The Script




I love this song, and I've only heard it about three times.  It's not just the lyrics, the singer, the band...that's not why I love this song.  It's the lyrics.


It's about love, it's about a man who is still in love with a woman in his life, it seems.  Maybe his ex-girlfriend.  Maybe a broken friendship.  Maybe his ex-wife...I don't know.  All I know is that the lyrics, at least to me, are beautiful.


I guess it's just an attractive song because love is so rare, true love anyways.  I'd like to think that the guy singing this song is truly in love with the girl he is singing about, but I don't know.  The lyrics just make it seem as if he is aching for love and happiness with a special someone.  It makes me want to love as deep as the oceans and as wide as the sky.  It makes me want to wait forever for the right one.  And it makes me hope that the one I'm with now is that person.


We all ache for love.


I've been thinking about love a lot lately.  And this song, it seems, wraps all the definitions up into one.  True love waits and it has hope.  It always looks for the best.  It goes for romantic love, family love, friendship love, and even the way Jesus loved.  Because love is love.  


So, have hope.  Look forward to the day after the next, but also enjoy the moment you're in.  Wait for the right person.  Wait and be patient with your friends and family.


You just have to be there, in the right place, when they come back around.  You can't leave. 


You can't ever move, or else they won't be able to find you.

Faith, trust, and a little something more

Faith will get me through.  It will get me through my brightest days, my endless nights and my deepest, darkest thoughts.  It will get me through the days that I don't feel like getting up.  It will get me through the most exciting days of my life.  It will get me through.

After all, I don't see with my eyes, I see with my soul.  I need to not only have faith in my Almighty God, but faith in the ones I love the most. 

Believing that they will also make it through to the day after the next.

Trust will keep the hope present.  It will help me believe that there is good in the world and that there is strength to overcome in each of us.  It will make it so I can rely on the truth daily.

So that I can believe that my God has something great in store for me.

So that I can believe that the few I love most will not break my heart or do something that would harm myself or others.

And then there is a little something more:  

Go the extra mile and love.  To love those I care about,  to love those who are foreign to me, to love those who don't deserve it, to love those who have torn my heart in two...to love those closest to me.  I need to love others so that I can show them true faith.  So that I can help them to trust again.  

So that they won't fall to the bottom.

What's the Rush?

Yesterday, I watched the movie Up for the first time.  It is about two kids who grow up and get married.  They spend their life together, creating sweet and beautiful memories.  The wife, Ellie, always told her husband, Carl, that she wanted to go to a place in South America called Paradise Falls before she died.  However, they didn't make it before her death.  So, Carl set out on a journey to go there...and take their house with them so that they could finally be in Paradise Falls together.  It was an adorable (but sad) kid's movie...but it changed my perspective on a lot of things.

The movie made me want to grow up.  I want to get married.  I want to have children.  I want to be done with school.  I want to travel around the world with my soul mate, to places that I have only visited before in my dreams.  I want to make life-long friends.  I want to have a beautiful life.  And I want it now.

I feel as if I am just a kid trapped in the Quad Cities.  And I am yearning to get out.  I want to get out and experience new things.  I don't want to be bossed around.  I want to be my own person.

But, hold on, wait for a moment.

I am in the Quad Cities, it is my home.  I do want to get out, but everyone I love is here.  I do want to experience new things, yet I can do that anywhere.  I do not want to be bossed around, but when I think about it, there will always be someone who has the authority to tell me what to do.  I do want to be my own person, but...I'm only in the process of it.

Yes, I do want to grow up.  But, what's the rush?  There's plenty of time.

But I need to find out who I am first.  And the only way I can do that is to live my life at it's best right now.

I may not be able to get married or have kids.  But I certainly can work on my relationship with my boyfriend now...and trust God that we will make it to that stage someday.  Maybe I can't be done with school right now, but I only have one more year of high school and then college.  I can work on becoming smarter, learning about everything I'm interested in.  I can't travel the world at the moment, but I can plan for when that day comes.  And save up money, for that matter.  And friendships don't just come with a blink of an eye, I need to work on developing them and making them work.  And maybe I don't feel as if my life is beautiful, but...it is.

At the end of Up, Carl found a scrapbook full of pictures of him and his wife.  She left a note for him saying that he needed to go out and make his own adventure now, not live in the past.  This relates to me, except flipped around a bit.  I need to live now, not in the future.

It is about being happy with the life you have, not with the life you want.

That's when life becomes beautiful.

Never Content...With Anything?

Spending the last two days being around kids at least fifteen hours per day, I've come to learn that they are never really happy with anything.  You give them the chance to drink soda at either lunch time or at dinner time, and they want to drink it during both.  You give them one quarter each to play the game at the restaurant, and they complain because they want more quarters.  You let them pick which movie they'd like to rent, and they all argue about which one to choose.  You can even say no to going out for ice cream because you have some in the freezer...and they'll throw a fit because the ice cream in the freezer at home isn't as near as good as the ice cream around the block.

It's sad.  When I think about it, it really is because there are kids in some places of the world who get excited about eating a rice casserole at school.  They get excited because it will be their only meal for an entire day.  Kids here wouldn't even like the casserole.  They wouldn't eat it...they'd rather beg their parents to go to McDonald's.

So you can't really say that it is "just kids being kids."  I am not sure who to blame it on, because it wouldn't be right to put the blame on just parents, friends or society.  Maybe it's just because growing up in a place like America, we quickly catch on to taking everything for granted.  We have easy access to almost anything and everything we want and need.  And if we don't get it, we get upset.  And, it's not just kids, either.  It is everyone.

I work at Panera, a local bakery-cafe close to where I live.  A few days ago, I was working and a co-worker of mine told me a story that I couldn't believe.  Just a few minutes before I clocked in, a customer came in and asked my co-worker if we had anymore chocolate chip bagels left, because she wanted to order some.  It was already four in the afternoon, so we were out of a lot of items, including chocolate chip bagels.  She explained to the lady and apologized.  The lady said, "I thought this was supposed to be a bakery....b****!" and threw her cup of soda across the counter at my co-worker and stormed out the door.  When I heard this, anger began to rise up in me.  How could someone do that?  Was the fact that we didn't have chocolate chip bagels really that big of a deal?

I guess I just don't understand how some people can be so rude when not getting what they want.  Myself included.  If I find myself running out of face wash, I run to the store to buy more so I won't get zits all over my face.  If I don't have the right kind of shampoo, I get upset because my hair doesn't get as soft as I'd like it to be.  I'll even find myself getting upset in church service sometimes because they play worship songs that I dislike.  How selfish.

This isn't meant to just go off ranting to you about how frustrated I am with others...and myself.  No.  I am just writing because I want to let it out.  I am so tired of people throwing fits when they don't have control.  It just needs to stop. 

When I find myself acting this way, I now think about Africa.  I think about kids there and how they get by with barely anything...and are still happy.  They appreciate what little they have and they have God in their hearts.  They truly inspire me and I have never even been there.  The stories I've heard almost bring me to tears sometimes because they make me so upset.  A recent blog I read was about how girls in Kenya are ecstatic when they receive new sanitary pads because they can go to school while being on their period.  They no longer have to stay at home all day, trying to make pads out of trash.  It brought tears to my eyes because I take so much of that for granted.  I don't really know quite what to think when I hear stories like that one. 

But I have learned this: I need to fully appreciate what I do have.  Because when I stop and think about it, I have so much more than I actually need.  And it's not hard.  It's such a great feeling when I thank God.

I don't know why God didn't put me in Africa.  I don't know why I didn't end up being one of those girls in Kenya trying to make sanitary pads out of garbage because I couldn't afford any.  I don't know why God didn't have me living in New Orleans a few years back when Hurricane Katrina hit.  I don't know why God didn't give me parents who would eventually divorce and in result, have a broken family.  I don't know why.  But I do know that God has blessed me very much.  And I am more thankful than I ever have been before.

So, when you get annoyed with kids because they are never happy, take a look at yourself.  If you're like me, you'll see that there really are many similarities...and it's your job to make the realization.  And then change because of it.

A Twist In My Story

Have you ever met someone who completely turned your life around?  If you haven't, you will...someday.

A year ago, I was sitting here.  Right here, on my aunt's laptop in Grand Haven, Michigan with one of my good friends, Martha.  We were probably on this laptop checking out the profiles of the guys that we were interested in at the time. Either that, or editing pictures to load onto Facebook.  I'll admit, so much has changed since then.

You say, it was a year ago, we all have changed...and life goes on.  And it does, life certainly does go forward even if you don't want it to.  However, it is strange to think about what has changed since the last time I was on this computer.  Of course, Martha and I are still good friends.  Even though we don't hang out a lot anymore, we still are always there for each other.  And I certainly am not interested in the boy I was last summer anymore because I now have a wonderful young man who surpasses the other guy by a landslide...and anyone else, for that manner.  So much else has changed, too, but probably some of the biggest things that will ever change in high school has happened to me in the last year.  And when I think about it, it is scary and exhilarating at the exact same time.

I'm not going to go on about what exactly has changed or what my reactions were.  While that is important, there is something else that is even more important: letting change happen (and let God work His magic).  I have been learning that if you have low expectations for change, you will be disappointed. If you ignore it, you will be fearful.  So it just makes sense to have high expectations.

I know, I know.  Everyone says that the key to happiness is to have no expectations at all.  And I agree with that, for the most part. But, why not be excited about new things that are about to happen in life and to have high expectations that God will do something amazing in your life? Now, you can't go on having high expectations within others.  Or within yourself.  People (including you) will always let you down, even the ones you love most.  And you will let others down as well.  It is humanity; yet, God isn't human.  God is wonderful and forever...so why not put your expectations in Him? If you just trust Him, He will do wild, crazy, wonderful things.  More than you could ever dream.  

So I guess that life-changing person I met was God.  I know, I still thought I knew Him last summer...and I did, I just didn't know him as well. God has put a twist in my story.  He has given me a wonderful best friend and a great young man to love so I can be excited about having a future with him.  He has put me here, in Michigan, for one whole week with no one but my family to teach me some great things, I'm sure.  He has given me new friends, while teaching me that others will walk out...and that is okay.  While giving me these things, He has brought about change. For the better.

I'll admit that I never really have high expectations within God.  But I'm starting to...and I know that this week He is going to teach me about dealing with family and little kids...and loving them.  I'm ready. I know it's not really big, great things that I'm learning about.  It's not like I'm in New York City getting the chance to be homeless for one month.  I'm not in Africa with little girls who are infected with AIDS. But God knows that I can just be here, in Grand Haven, for Him to do wonderful things within me as well.

God teaches everyday.  He changes people.  He's going to change me this summer and I'm excited.  I don't have to be in another country across the world. I can just be here with my family, my boyfriend, my friends, and strangers for Him to teach me and change me.  He is going going to put an even bigger twist in my story this time...and I'm ready. Are you?