So long Prince Charming

This is my declaration.

I do not want Prince Charming.
I do not want to be rescued,
or found.
I do not want to be admired, fawned over, praised,
or respected for my extraordinary beauty.
I do not want to hear how I am already beautiful
even though I don't have the right curves, right clothing, right skin, or right BMI.


Because Prince Charming implies
that I must be the princess of the fairy tale.
Because being rescued implies
that I was in harm's path.
Because being found implies
that I was lost.
Because being admired for my beauty implies
that I am my looks.
Because saying that I'm beautiful despite my lack of rightness implies
that there is a standard of beauty.


I am not the fairy tale princess.
(I do more than sleep, sing, and look pretty)
I am not in harm's path.
(I am also capable of getting out of harm's way if by chance I ever am)
I am not lost.
(I am taking the scenic route)
I am not my looks.
(I am a fully embodied human)
I am not less than a standard.
(I am me)


So, don't tell me how hot I am.
Don't tell me how sexy my body is.
Don't tell me that I'm the princess.
Don't tell me that you're Prince Charming.
Don't tell me.

Because I'm not gonna be listening.



** Edited on 13 March 2014: picture and formatting added**

quarters, buckets, and playing the victim

Today I turned 24 years old.

Now, I know, some people may say that I am really young still while others would feel like I am quite old.

And I think I would agree with both.

There are parts of me that feels quite young; there are so many things that I have never experienced. Yet at the same time, I've been through experiences that I don't think any 20-something plans on going through.

So, here I am feeling both old and young at the same time. But that was not the goal and that means I've once again become distracted (it happens more often than I would like to admit).

I am 364 days from being half a century old. And there are so many things that I want to do yet I sit and complain about how I can't do anything because of my past illnesses. When someone asks why I haven't traveled outside of the US like I claim I want to, I use my illnesses as an excuse.

Why do I do that? 

Why do I make myself the victim to my life experiences?

Why do I put myself in the passive position of not having control in my life? 

I'm not sure of the answer to those questions. But maybe it's not about having the answers to every question. I'm choosing to not sit and ponder those questions. I'm choosing to act.

Which leads me to my announcement. Today, October 16, 2013, marks the first day of my new quest to be active in my own life and not let my illnesses continue to hold me down.

I'm calling it Quarters In A Bucket.

My short-term goal is to accomplish as many items on my bucket list as possible before I turn 25.
Long-term, my goal is to change my habit of inaction and excuses into a habit of action and freedom.

Here is to a year of change, action, and freedom.

It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm, then, and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery. - Galatians 5:1(NIV)

highways, love, and dreams

My little sister is engaged.


and instead of celebrating with her, I'm crying at my own singleness.

and I hate myself for it.

I feel like the only one of my friends who is not in a relationship. Yet my logical side tells me that my feelings are lying to me.

I want to be in a relationship. And yet as I write those words, I feel shame because I think that means I'm not enjoying my period of singleness like I've been reminded to do by pastors, married women, and once-married women alike.

I hope to be married in the next five to ten years. Yet I think I am afraid of commitment.

Somewhere in the craziness of driving on the road called Life - going to college and making great memories and dealing with horrible illnesses and falling in love with Jesus - I seem to have spaced on what turnoff I was wanting to take. I feel like I just discovered that the road that I wanted to go on at some point in the future is nowhere to be found now. I've taken so many other great roads that have led me on a journey to this incredible city of Seattle, so why am I so attached to this one path?


If life is a highway as Tom Cochrane so eloquently put it, then I think I missed the turnoff that leads to a romantic relationship.

If life is a highway, then I've traveled down roads of medical issues that aren't supposed to be driven at the age of twenty-one.

If life is a highway, then I've found a way to drive slowly on the road of college.

If life is a highway, then I think I went off-roading.


I have to believe that I haven't missed the road for a relationship. I have to believe that it is somewhere in my future travels.

I have to learn to be okay with the fact that I may be exploring and off of the main road for a while. For whatever reason, it's not time for me to take the road to relationship. If only my heart would remember that life is not stagnant.

I am on a journey and every day brings something new.

Someday, Jesus will let me know that it's time to turn onto that road to relationship. But that day is not today. I have to wait and trust that the One who carried me through my desert storm has my itinerary and will be with me every step of the way.

Today, I choose to let Jesus drive. 
Today, I choose to sit back and relax and just enjoy the road trip. 
Today, I choose to see the beauty on the road that I am on. 
Today, I choose to not worry about the itinerary. 
Jesus doesn't need my help in navigating so,
today, I choose to let him take me on an adventure.

an illustration and God's best

I was given this by one of my wonderful sisters and I thought I would share it. It's such a good illustration of what God wants for us, genuine beauty.

The Pearl Necklace: Author Unknown 

A cheerful girl with bouncy golden curls was almost five. Waiting with her mother at the checkout stand, she saw them: a circle of glistening white pearls in a pink foil box. "Oh please, Mommy. Can I have them? Please, Mommy, please!"
Quickly the mother checked the back of the little foil box and then looked back into the pleading blue eyes of her little girl's upturned face. "A dollar ninety-five. That's almost $2.00. If you really want them, I'll think of some extra chores for you and in no time you can save enough money to buy them for yourself. Your birthday's only a week away and you might get another crisp dollar bill from grandma."
As soon as Jenny got home, she emptied her penny bank and counted out 17 pennies. After dinner, she did more than her share of chores and she went to the neighbor and asked if she could pick dandelions for ten cents. On her birthday, Grandma did give her another new dollar bill and at last she had enough money to buy the necklace.
Jenny loved her pearls. They made her feel dressed up and grown up. She wore them everywhere--Sunday school, kindergarten, even to bed. The only time she took them off was when she went swimming or had abubble bath. Mother said if they got wet, they might turn her neck green.
Jenny had a very loving daddy and every night when she was ready for bed, he would stop whatever he was doing and come upstairs to read her a story. One night when he finished the story, he asked Jenny, "Do you love me?"
"Oh yes, Daddy. You know that I love you."
"Then give me your pearls."
"Oh, Daddy, not my pearls. But you can have Princess-- the white horse from my collection. The one with the pink tail. Remember, Daddy? The one you gave me. She's my favorite."
"That's okay, Honey. Daddy loves you. Good night." And he brushed her cheek with a kiss.
About a week later, after the story time, Jenny's daddy asked again, "Do you love me?"
" Daddy, you know I love you."
"Then give me your pearls."
"Oh Daddy, not my pearls. But you can have my babydoll. The brand new one I got for my birthday. She is so beautiful and you can have the yellow blanket that matches her sleeper."
"That's okay. Sleep well. God bless you, little one. Daddy loves you." And as always, he brushed her cheek with a gentle kiss.
A few nights later when her daddy came in, Jenny was sitting on her bed with her legs crossed Indian-style. As he came close, he noticed her chin was trembling and one silent tear rolled down her cheek. "What is it, Jenny? What's the matter?"
Jenny didn't say anything but lifted her little hand up to her daddy. And, when she opened it, there was her little pearl necklace. With a little quiver, she finally said, "Here, Daddy. It's for you."
With tears gathering in his own eyes, Jenny's kind daddy reached out with one hand to take the dime-store necklace, and with the other hand he reached into his pocket and pulled out a blue velvet case with a strand of beautiful genuine pearls. He had had them all the time. He was just waiting for her to give up the dime-store stuff so he could give her genuine treasure.

What imitations are we holding onto that stops us from receiving God's genuine treasures?

May you be like the little girl and be able to let go of what we hold closest to your heart. May you experience the joy that comes with letting go and receiving God's treasures.

Abba, I pray that I would  not continue to hold on to the imitations in my life. Help me to remember that you have the absolute best for me and it's worth the sacrifice of surrendering my all to you.

itineraries and life-plans

This coming summer, my little sister, BJ, and I are going to Europe for nearly 4 weeks. This Christmas, my mom and dad got us a book called, Rick Steve's Europe Through the Back Door: The Travel Skills Handbook 2011. It's all about traveling in Europe by going off the beaten path to experience Europe as a local. As my mom puts it, she created monsters of us with it. We have been constantly reading it since we opened our gifts. Now, before reading this book, BJ and I were planning on just going to Europe and not having an itinerary of any kind, that way we could go where we wanted to and not feel restricted by our itinerary. But then I read this:

"If you have any goals at all for your trip, make an itinerary. I never start a trip without having every day planned out. Your reaction may be, "Hey, won't my spontaneity and freedom suffer?" Not necessarily. Although I always begin a trip with a well-thought-out plan, I maintain my flexibility and make plenty of changes....With the help of an itinerary, you can lay out your goals, maximize their potential, avoid regrettable changes...and impress your friends." (Steves 68)

This got me thinking about how an itinerary is like a goal-specific mini life-plan: they both help a person set goals for the future, have the ability to take care of the necessary details for each step, and get the best experience by taking the worries and stress out of life/trips.

Now, if you have read any of my previous posts, you may have gotten the feeling that I am not a big fan of life-plans. In fact, you could probably say that before this weekend, I was completely disgusted with life-plans or anything that resembled a life-plan. You could also say that I had been burned...by a life-plan.

When I was nine years old, I decided what I wanted to be, a nurse. From then on, I planned my life from that decision. Everything from what to be when my sisters and I played dress up to what classes to take in high school and where to go to college. On my fifteenth birthday, my family moved from Oregon to Colorado. Now for a insecure teenager just having started high school in the town she had lived in nearly all her life, that was the hardest move ever. I went to two high schools that year, ate lunch in a bathroom stall the first day, and adamantly decided that I was going to move back to Oregon as soon as I could, which meant for college. I was determined to dislike Colorado: it was too cold, too windy, too hot, and just plain too sunny! And to top it all off, it snowed...a lot!

Junior year: take Med Prep class through the nearby community college to prepare me for nursing school. When senior year came around, my parents decided to have me take an aptitude test from Johnson O'Conner Research Foundation (JOCRF) just to "make sure" that nursing was what I really wanted to do and what would be the best for me to pursue. So I'm sitting in the office of JOCRF, waiting for the proctor to explain my results. She comes in, sits down, opens up my result folder, looks at me then at my parents, and proceeds to tell me that with my aptitudes, nursing is not the best option for me. It was a life-changing moment. The moment that I heard her say that, it felt like a weight had been lifted off my shoulders. I was free! I didn't have to be a nurse! Then, I realized that my plan of going to a college in Oregon or Washington for nursing then living in Oregon/Washington for the rest of my life with my husband and kids and visiting Colorado as rarely as possible was not going to happen. In a few moments, with only a few words, one woman had completely knocked my life-plan out. KO. In the weeks that followed, I decided that life-plans were horrible because things just messed them up and then what was the point in having a plan if it didn't work out. I was burned by my life-plan.

What I realized with Rick Steves' book is that a life-plan is just a well-planned, well-thought-out rough guide to a journey. It's not something that is stagnant and doesn't roll with the punches. It is always changing, not letting the unexpected knock it down.

Abba, I ask that you lead my new life-plan. Help me to roll with the punches and see that even if something happens that completely throws off my plan, you are there guiding me. I ask that you be my ultimate life-plan, that every goal that I have on my plan comes from You. Give me the serenity to remain in You in every part of my life including my hopes and dreams.


"For I know the plans I have for you," declares the Lord, "plans to prosper you and not to harm you. Plans to give you hope and a future." ~ Jeremiah 29:11

dreams and my savior

In my Italian class, we have to write one paper every week with the theme of the paper focusing on the vocab and grammar that we learned the past week. So far, they haven't been that difficult. Easy topics like, describing my relationship with a friend, or telling how a friend and I met. Quelli temi sono facili! (Those topics are easy!) 

However, this week's theme is the future so of course the topic for the paper is my dreams. (Not the sleeping type dreams either, more like the hopes and desires type of dreams.) The problem with this topic, I don't know what my hopes and dreams are anymore. In high school, if you had asked me what I wanted to do or what my dreams were, I knew; I had a plan. Sure, I didn't have all the details worked out but I had a general outline of what I wanted my future to look like. And then my senior year happened. Everything that I had thought I wanted, I discovered, in a matter of a few weeks, I didn't want anymore. In a few seconds, I had gone from knowing exactly what I wanted to not having a clue about the future. At the time, I remember feeling like I had just fallen overboard right smack dab in the center of the Pacific Ocean. I imagine it looking something like this: 

{

You open your eyes, slightly confused for a few seconds at where you are and why you woke up. And then you remember. You're on a the sundeck of the cruise-ship M.Y.L.I.P.O, somewhere in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. "Aaaa, life is good," you think happily and start to drift off back to dreamland. Suddenly, there's a piercing scream and then the splash of something or somebody hitting the water! You quickly jump up, race to the side of the ship and look down trying to find the source of the disturbance. Oh, there! You found it, whatever it is.

"Quick, help!" you shout, and hurriedly look around, searching for somebody that could help you. There are a handful of other people on the deck with you but each of them is completely absorbed in their activities, that nobody hears your shout. You whip back around to the rail, and scan the water, searching again.

There. This time, you get a better look and your eyes widen in recognition. Its one of the girls that was on the ship with you! You squint against the glare of the sun on the water and notice that she doesn't have a life-jacket on. At that very instant, you realize from the way she is flailing about that she has no clue how to swim; she's trying to stay afloat but its like there's an anchor attached to that is dragging her down. 

"Help!" you yell again and again. Surely there must be somebody on this ship that will come out of their self-absorbed state and hear you. 

Quickly, you grab a pair of binoculars lying on a chair close by and direct your eyes out onto the water, this time to her face. Suddenly, she looks directly at you and you gasp, you can see the panic and hopelessness in her eyes. She knows that she is going to drown.

}

I think at points in our life, we can all feel like the girl in the water; utterly hopeless in the outcome of our situation. So why, why do I write about this? I honestly have no idea. 

Lately I have been struggling with surrendering everything, including my hopes and dreams and aspirations, to God. It's a daily challenge for me, giving them to Him and then like a toddler, grabbing them back and crying "mine!" at Him. When somebody asks me what my dreams and aspirations are, how do I respond? Do I tell them all of my dreams even though I say that I have given them to God? Or do I tell them that my desire is to do what my God asks me to do; that my hope, my feelings of expectation and desire for a certain thing to happen, is God; that the thing I want most in life is to follow, with total abandon, the One who saved me.

 

{

You're crying now, tears coursing down your cheeks and onto your shirt. 

"Why won't somebody come help?!" you scream silently in your head, angry at every other person on the ship. "If nobody will listen to me, I'll go make them listen to me," you say angrily and run to the nearest person and shake them forcefully, sure that they will realize the urgency of the situation.

Its only been a couple minutes but it feels like hours. After trying the people on this side of the deck, you stumble back to the railing, gasping for air as your eyes quickly sweep the water and stops on the girl's floundering form. She's tiring, you can see clearly how her arms and legs are moving slower and slower. "Come on," you whisper, "You can do it. Don't give up."

Wait! 

What was that? Your eyes pop open. You must be seeing things!

You rub your fists against your eyes and look again at the girl. There is someone else in the water with her! 

"Where did he come from?" you puzzle. 

You glance around the sundeck, hoping to find someone to come make sure you're not seeing things. Just as all the other times you looked for someone that isn't absorbed in themselves, nobody hears you. You turn back to the ocean and scan for the girl. 

The man has maneuvered the girl onto his back piggyback style, her hands clasped tightly around his neck, and is swimming with strong, quick strokes towards a small inflatable kayak about a little ways away. Your legs suddenly become like cooked spaghetti and you crumble to the deck, your hands still gripping the railing. Your tears have turned from tears of grief to tears of relief. You want to make sure that the girl and the man made it to the kayak but you when you try to turn your eyes on the water, you can't see through all of your tears.

Eventually, your crying gradually calms down enough so that when you wipe your eyes, you can see. You press your face against the rails, squinting against the glare on the water, and scan for the girl and the man. "They couldn't have gone that far, could they," you wonder. 

Just as you're about to give up on ever finding them, you see something in the distance that could be them. Once more, you bring the binoculars to your eyes, focusing on the speck you had found. Even with the binoculars, you couldn't make out much. The one thing you can tell is that it is the girl and the man. You smile widely for you just witnessed a rescue like none other. You turn from the railing and wander back to the lounge chair you had been sitting in before the rescue. Still thinking about all that happened, you sink down onto the chair and lean back to look up at the clear blue sky. You still aren't sure of everything that happened but there is one thing you are a hundred percent positive on. 

The man that rescued her from drowning, he is, without a doubt, her Savior.

}

 "Then they cried to the Lord in their trouble, and he saved them from their distress. He sent forth his word and healed them; he rescued them from the grave."   
               ~ Psalm 107:19-20