Fed up with the Church.

I am a follower of Christ; I have been a leader in Christian organizations for many years.  However, I will be the first to admit that I am fed up with the Western Church. I feel as though the western church is too busy making everyone feel accepted and wanted that they are straying from the message and the standard that we are supposed to spread. The church is too concerned with being politically correct and not causing offense towards any sin, person or sect of people...and it appalls me.

You could argue that we are called to love everyone, but I think people miss the rest of the verse. We are called to love others as Christ loved us. So let's examine different ways that Christ loved people. 

In Matthew 21, Jesus approached the temple only to see that people had created a market of the temple. When seeing this, Jesus threw tables and reprimanded the people for making the temple a hangout for thieves. Now I don't see Jesus saying this in a calm, normal preaching voice; I hear him with a raised voice, a voice that shows that he is frustrated. The kind of voice that you hear from your parents when they are correcting you. In these moments, you know your parents mean business, but you still now they love you.

In John 4, Jesus went to the well and met a Samaritan woman. This woman had been living what we would call a questionable lifestyle. Jesus didn't just wrap her in his arms and invite her home, he told her how her ways love life weren't up to the standard of God. He used a loving voice and didn't call her a tramp or anything like that that the rest of the world was calling her....He corrected her with love.

In John 9, Jesus heals a man that was born blind. He doesn't just wipe his hand over this mans eyes, he make him walk down to wash in the nearby pond. Jesus could have catered to his needs right then to give him what he wanted, however, Jesus told the man to move in order to heal himself. The blind man still had to work for it.

In Matthew 26, during the Last Supper, Jesus tells Peter that he is going to deny his belief in God three times. Jesus doesn't seem to scorn his friend for this, he simply accepts reality. He is simply pointing out what Peter is going to do and telling him that regardless, he is going to love him. Still on Peter, during the feet washing, Peter tries to refuse to have his feet washed and Jesus points out his need for his feet to be washed.

The church is overly concerned with making people feel loved and tip toeing around a world filled with sin-thus creating a world of sinners who are unaware of their sin or need for salvation. We think we are doing a service to our brothers and sisters, but in reality, we are hiding salvation and heaven from them. We are hiding the grace and love of a God that loves despite our mistakes. We are hiding a community of broken yet redeemed people from them. 

The church is so worried about not causing a ruckus or offending people, when in all reality, Jesus did that exact thing. He turned over tables in the temple, he lived in such a way that was against the norm, he took the death punishment, he hung out with the dirty and diseased. He caused a ruckus everywhere he went! He wasn't worried about making people feel comfortable, He mastered the art of tough love...of showing love through correction and pointing out flaws. He accepted and loved the sinner while denouncing the sinful lifestyle. 

The church needs to stop living in fear of the people of this world and accept the standards of living that Jesus lived by. Yes, we are called to love, but loving doesn't mean letting our brothers and sisters wander around without knowing their sin. We are called to live how Jesus loved us. 

 

Pretty People Phobia

This could be taken as a huge insult to the people who I consider my good friends, but please don't take it like that...just understand that my thought processes are beautifully flawed.

Ever since I can remember, I have been afraid of pretty people. (I know, bring on the comments) I guess I just don't mean pretty as in attractive people, but also preppy...you know those popular girls who seem to have it all together-the Prom Queen and Homecoming Queen and you know, the girls who win EVERYTHING. These girls have the fashionable clothes, they don't seem to know what a pimple is and have talents out the wazoo. On top of all of this, they have smarts. These are the pretty girls I am talking about. (yes, some of my friends do have all of these qualities, but that doesn't mean I don't fear them)

This sounds like something you would grow out of once you exited the halls of high school right? False. I am currently student teaching in 8th grade and this still comes into effect in my daily interactions with students. If the girls who meet the above criteria are talking quietly, my mind automatically jumps to them talking about me. (I don't take into consideration that they could be talking about anything, especially things that they want to keep quiet from me since I am the teacher.) I try to dress to their standards and am so worried about something being in my teeth after lunch or about my make-up wearing off by the end of the day. I still have a desperate desire to be liked and accepted by these pretty girls....even though they are 8 years younger than myself.

Why am I like this? Why do I care about what a group of 8th grade girls think of me? The need for acceptance and value runs so deep in my blood that I work myself up over middle school students. I was never considered one of the popular kids or probably even one of the absolute pretty kids and that identification is scarred into my thoughts. I have never been nominated for any form of royalty or award by my peers (short of "most likely to become a nun" by the Senior class) I have always just been.

Living on a floor of 26 beautiful women, especially in a leadership role, is a challenge. I strive for their approval. I sometimes even limit my plans in order to not step on the "pretty girls'" toes. I get nervous when I see certain girls walking towards me in the hallway even though I have known some of them for four years. Do I smile at them? Do I just look at the floor and keep walking? What if I say something stupid? I want to be "cool".

I give tours to prospective families and host students. I am totally comfortable in this role 99.9% of the time...until I get a "pretty family". I stumble over my words, I forget facts about the campus, I sit on my bed afraid to make a fool out of myself. I desire the acceptance of even complete strangers. 

You probably think that I had some kind of terrible experience with the "pretty people" of school, right? False. I was never up to the standards of popular, but nearly everyone knew me. I was never bullied by "pretty people". I never had any kind of tramatazing experience...I just simply desire acceptance. 

I will admit, I have probably lost out on friendships because of this fear. I have missed out on clubs and other opportunities. The "pretty people" never secluded me...but I secluded myself from different things because of my drive for acceptance. (isn't that like some kind of oxymoron?!) 

Worth and acceptance are two things that drive society. Why? Why do we care so much about what other people think of us? Why do we panic so much about being cool, that we end up acting even dumber?  

I don't have all of the answers. I really don't even think I have any of the answers, but I know this problem runs through my veins and that is the first step, right? 
 

Regeneration.

I love to write. I used to dream about one day becoming a published author, and quite frankly still do. Writing is my catharsis: It helps me put my thoughts in place and balance my emotions. All of that being said, why is writing often the last thing on my list of things to do? Why I have recently began to avoid writing at all cost? 

I am graduating college in less than two months. This is one of the most stressful times of my life in which I could greatly use some catharsis, yet I deliberately choose against it. Could it be that in this time, I don't want to figure myself out? Would I honestly rather wallow in the uncertainty and chaos that is currently my life...yes, yes I would. 

Why is this? Why would I rather be living in frantic chaos instead of taking steps to figure out my life? I am refusing to accept that this part of my life is over. I am refusing to accept that I need to pay more attention to certain areas of my health. I am refusing to accept. Writing causes me to process. Writing causes me to usually come to some form of understanding and other times, it leaves me in a state of confusion. I would rather remain trapped in this stage because it is comfortable than move to an area of better understanding. 

This is the way that I have been living, in short. I am refusing to remain in my pity puddle and to begin to crawl my way out. I love blogging...I love the community and the accountability that it creates. I am going to attempt to keep this up once a week. To chart the understanding and journey as a soon to be graduate with so many possibilities in front of her.

Challenge Accepted.

I Know a Murderer...

 I'd never thought I would ever say the sentence "I know a murderer" and be speaking the truth. Now, to be honest, there are some individuals that I would be less surprised to be saying this about...Turkey was not one of those people. 

In fifth grade, none of us went by our own names, some of our names made sense, others were random: None of the twenty-eight students would be able to give you the meanings behind half of them. Turkey was one of these. His name was David, the class clown. It didn't matter who you were or what kind of a day you were having, David could make you laugh. He wasn't the kind of clown that didn't care about school, David got excellent grades and knew when he needed to buckle down and do his work. Together, with about five other students, we stayed in from recess to read a book about the fifth grade being a dungeon: a popular line in the novel was "What's up Pussycat"....David would then proceed to sing the lyrics "What's up Pussycat, woah, woah, woah, oohhh" as he danced around making the rest of us laugh.

The end of the year came quick. The class had a chocolate pudding fight outside, fourth graders against the fifth graders. "We are family" by SisterSledge played at our graduation. We signed yearbooks: Turkey signed mine. The next year, I went on to the middle school while Turkey's family moved and he finished off elementary at a different school. We never saw much of eachother after that since we were no longer in the same classroom all day. 

I would see Turkey in passing in the halls of high school occasionally. We both ended up at the birthday party of a mutual friend and talked about the days of elementary school. He was in show choir and involved in most of the theatre shows: he was still the clown. I'm sure David wasn't the perfect student, but he was still a pretty good kid.

David started dating Taylor, I'm not sure for how long, but he was head over heels for this girl-a smart, cute, talented and kind popular girl. I remember coming to school one day to hear it announced that Taylor was tragically killed in a car accident the night before: The school was devastated (her's would be marked as the sixth traffic fatality in 10 weeks within our corporation), but David's heart was ripped in two. I remember people commenting at how torn he was at the funeral, how he kissed Taylor one last time and held her hand before the casket was closed (Students had said that David was out bowling with Taylor and other friends the night the crash had happened, the reason Taylor was driving home that night).

Our newspapers and new stations are currently flooded with the story of a 20-year-old man charged with two counts of murder-for stabbing his 7-year-old half-sister "Jilly" and his mother. Word is that he stabbed his mother and sister with a two-pronged meat fork; his sister was also found to have blunt force trauma to the head. His mother had managed to call 911 before dying: Jilly was rushed to the hospital and died there from her injuries. When emergency services arrived at the scene, they found David in the room, clothes covered in blood and holding the murder weapon. David had sat and watched his mother die and little sister suffer. I still can't believe it. This man can't possibly be Turkey.

Our class clown, Taylor's first love, a business student at IU, is being tested to see about an insanity plea, is now facing charges for 2 counts of murder, and most likely a double life sentence without parole. He was once one of us, a small town kid, suffering from the death of a friend-he is now the reason 18 first graders are trying to understand why there is an empty desk in their classroom. 

I'm sitting here, trying to wrap my mind around how a person can change that much. I've always believed that every murderer, every criminal has a family that knows a different side of them; but, I've never thought I would be one of those people. I never thought that I would be sitting here thinking that a murderer is a normal person, a funny boy who just wants to put a smile on your face, a dancing show choir performer, a stage crew member who would do anything to steal an extra minute with his girlfriend. 

If you read the comments on any of the new pages,  they are filled with people wishing a horrible death on David, people talking about how he must have been another lowlife teenager who's mommy stopped giving him handouts, or turning 2 deaths into a political debate on guns. All I ask is that you pray for the community, for the family who is suffering 2 deaths as well as the pain of a cousin, a grandson, a son, a nephew, a friend, a brother, being at fault and locked up in prison before he graduated from college. 

I'm asking you to look deeper into people, to not only see the wrongful acts that they have committed, but see the person behind those acts-see the child that they once were, the tears that they have cried, the friends that they had/have. I beg you to look at everyone you see as a person equal to you. Show each one the forgiveness, grace, compassion that you want to be shown when you mess up. 

I can say I know a murderer, but long before I could say I knew a boy...Turkey.

2012: The Year of Trust.

I know that it is now a week into 2013; making me slightly late on writing the classic end-of-the-year 2012 blog. However, I will admit that I have spent a lot of time in the last week contemplating the life change that transpired over 2012 that I never took the time to notice before. Each year, I don't make New Year's Resolutions...because, well, the majority of people give up on those before Valentine's Day. Instead, I pick a focus word/phrase-one that I want to focus my prayers on, study through books and Bible reading and try to develop in my life. 

Last year's word was Trust. With only being five letters, one would think that this would be an easy character pillar to develop. False- at least for me being a control freak, trust is one of the hardest things one could ask me to do. The dictionary definition of trust is "the reliance on the integrity, strength, ability, surety, etc., of a person or thing; confidence." You could ask any of my close friends, they will all tell you that it is even hard for me to trust them at times. I simply don't like putting control in someone else's hands. If I trust someone else, they have the opportunity to hurt me even more. 

So through much prayer and study of trust, I can see that I have made so much progress in this area. Yes, I'm definitely not perfect but I am a work in progress when it comes to trust. 

1.) Close to the beginning of the year, after not so much time studying trust, I was given the opportunity to trust a boy. Being 21, This is something most of my peers have done before-yet I had never allowed myself to trust in a relationship with a boy. Though neither of the men that I dated in 2012 have proven to be "The One" and even though they both would tell you that trust issues definitely came to play during both of these relationships. This is true: however, I have made so much progress. I opened up immensely to both of these Godly men. I allowed God to open up my heart to trust them with an aspect of my life and I will admit that it was a beautiful thing. I will always be grateful for the change that God did in me through these patient and compassionate men.  

2.) In the beginning of second semester, I was again provided the amazing opportunity to be a Campus Ministry Coordinator. I had loved serving in this job for the past two years and was so excited to serve for a third year on Hardy First (a floor that I had to trust God to get). This year was immediately going to prove to hold some challenges. I would be serving as a CMC on a underclassmen-dominant floor while going through my Senior year AND Student Teaching.  Though I'm still only done with one semester of serving, God has quickly shown me that I am beyond blessed to live in community with this year's group of girls at this time in my life. I have already learned so much because of each of these girls and have opened up to trust even more. 

3.) At the end of my Junior year, God gave me the opportunity to live in Huntington over the summer with my best friend. This would mean that I would have to pay rent and not save as much money as I needed to. However, I trusted God to carry me through the summer. Because of a very generous Business Office at Huntington University, I made it through financially. The end of the summer would hold one of the biggest challenges of trust I have had to endure: my best friend moving back to Colorado. I had to trust that though their would now be 24 hours separating us, our friendship wouldn't falter. There have been some tough times, but I would say that we are stronger than ever before. 

4.) Naomi moving back to Colorado after having her right there for everything this summer was tough. The space forced me to rely totally on God as I began the hardest year of my life. I've always struggled with trusting God with my life. I want control of my life. I want to set my own plans. The last semester has held so much growth in my relationship with God. I have learned so much about His enduring love and grace and what it means to live in His example. I am truly beginning to trust God's will in my life and not my own as I enter the last bit of my Senior year. 

Now there have been other opportunities to learn about trust, but I don't want to write another one of those super long end-of-the-year posts. Instead, I wanted to be vulnerable and beg the reader to look into their own life as to where they could learn to trust. Trust in relationships. Trust in yourself. Trust in your family and friends. Beyond all else, Trust in God. 

"Trust is the Lord, your God, with all of your heart. Lean not on your own understanding and He will make your paths straight." Proverbs 3:5-6    

Response of an "Almost-Educator"

My sophomore year, I had a friend. This friend was a very confused individual who consistently thought about forcing the world around him to feel his own pain and confusion. This didn't scare me away from being his friend, it actually drew me closer to him. [there's something inside of me that likes to fix people] I remember coming to school one day and not seeing this boy's face: I would come to learn that a hit-list was found in his locker. [a list of all the people he would injure if the opportunity arose, possibly a school shooting]. He and I never really talked after that day, though...last time I looked him up, he was on the color guard of some school down south. As I looked his name up today, he was nowhere to be found...causing me to wonder if he ever got the help that he desperately needed...or if this red-headed, passionate about music, artistic individual would become a student pushed to the shadows, being tossed back and forth without ever recieving help.

My junior year, [potentially my senior year, but I think junior] I arrived at school as usual, wandering the halls with my friends [waiting until we absolutely had to be in class]. This morning was different than the rest, there was a heavy feeling as you walked the halls absent of teachers [for they were all being debriefed in the library]. My best friend already knew as she walked into the building in tears. We would soon be informed over the announcements that one of our fellow students had died the night before...a suicide that nobody saw coming. [unfortunetly the first of many to come] Over the next few days, thousands of thoughts raced through my mind: class was practically on hold, students filled the auditorium where counselors were, the entire school was dismissed for the funeral-we were trapped in a state of disbelief and confusion. People would come to blame the teachers, the parents, friends. [placing blame takes the heat off of yourself]. I remember seeing the horror on our teachers' faces as they dealt with the news themselves, and tried to be a stronghold for their students. I couldn't even imagine-when you sign up to be a teacher, you don't think about ever having to debrief your students on such news once...let alone the dozen more deaths we would be told of. 

By my senior year, my school had suffered nearly a dozen deaths of all sorts-and there were plenty more students who were somehow saved at the last minute. By the last few-counseling was no longer a school-wide event, we didn't get dismissed for the funerals, and there were far less tears. We had grown used to this horror. As children, we barely understand the hell that underwent at Columbine, but we would grow to learn more about it, about Virgina Tech, about the Amish Shootings and more. We became disensitized to the hell that often over took schools-that killed high school students, even endangered middle school students. 

My senior year we would also learn of a complete accident that would take four special needs students lives. A bus wreck that would make national news-pain struck our school once again. There had been other young students die within the past few years, but nothing like four innocent souls taken at once. We couldn't come to understand a God that would allow this to happen, nobody fell at fault necessarily...we were all just left in a state of shock. 

Now today, my senior year of college, and I turn on my computer to see the unexplainable news of more than twenty killed in elementary school shooting. Four years ago, my mind couldn't wrap itself around the idea of four innocent kids being killed on accident...four years later, I stand still incapable of wrapping my mind around this tragedy. 

Going into education, especially that of middle school and high school, I dread having to deal with the death of a student, but realize that because of the sinful world of pain and trauma we live in, it is a good possibility. But elementary teachers, I would never think of them having to deal with these things. I don't even know how I would react in that situation, so I applaud the faculty who protected their students quickly and effienctly today. It is your selflessness and compassion for your students that I aspire to as a future educator. I pray for the families of those students-injured, dead or grieving; for the faculty who will remain scared of the shrieks and tears; but also the family of the accused and the confusion and blame that will be placed on them.

I pray that we, as students, as educators, as members of this country will not grow desensitized to news like we received today. I pray that our hearts will hurt for each piece of horror we hear-no matter how old. I pray that, as I enter the school building that I will never loose my sense of urgency with students. When I heard of my friend's hit-list, I dreamed of a school shooting-of not running away from this red-head, but instead running towards him-trying to find out why. When I heard of the many suicides within our corporation, I had always dreamed of meeting those students and being able to change. It is because of these tragedies that I find myself a semester away from becoming an educator. I pray that current educators aren't scared out of their positions but moved to take more action; that future educators don't quit out of fear but grow determined to really know their students; I pray that the students of every school have someone to listen, that each student has the courage to report any possibility of terror that they hear, no matter how small.

I pray that as a country, we don't crawl inside our homes, but we find the urgency and courage to reach out to those around us. To love without limits or boundaries. To not only hug our own children, but the child who is alone in the corner, without anyone to process with.

Blessed?

It's the day after Thanksgiving and I'm sitting here under piles of homework with a minor concussion contemplating what it looks like to be blessed. Seriously, what would it look like to wake up every morning, regardless of your circumstances and the state of the world we live in? How would this mindset transform our every day living? 

We just celebrated the day of Thanksgiving, a day dedicated to giving thanks for the things we have and to be humbled by those that we are surrounded by. Think about the things that were present on the very first thanksgiving: the native americans and pilgrims came together to rejoice in making it through the harvest with the help of the other. There was no going through catalogs in order to make game plans for how to ambush the stores with the needed sale items for Christmas. There was simple thanks for the blessings that had been bestowed. 

I saw something once on Pinterest saying that "Only in America will we spend one entire day thanking God for the things that we have, only to attack the stores the next day fighting each other for the things we don't have." First world problems at its finest. 

What does it look like to set all of these thoughts aside and to truly realize that you are blessed? I have five lesson plans to write today,  but I am blessed with the opportunity of education. I have a concussion, but I am blessed with pain medicine and rest. Being blessed transcends our circumstances and focuses on the One who stands above. 

Think about it. Be transformed by truth. 
Here's a song to help you out...
Rachael Lampa "Blessed"

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