What really matters...

I get really annoyed with commercials for 5-hour energy because of the tagline "Every day is a 5-hour energy day." Because every day should not be a 5-hour energy day. Yes, there are times that we need an extra boost of energy to complete what needs done - but if that's every day, you need to rethink the amount of commitments you have, and ask for help where you can. God did not create us to run non-stop. In fact he commanded us to rest. "We must learn to recognize our own limits and be willing to ask for help. It is better to do something small and do it well than to attempt everything and accomplish nothing. Slowing down to reflect can be painful, but it is always helpful." ~ Amy Jacober I wrote just the other day about my bad habit of staying up later than I should. And let me tell you, I am feeling it right now, after an early (for me) morning, and a quite busy day. I need sleep, especially since tomorrow is just as busy, if not busier. So I am going to

Sometimes we forget that the little things matter. Yesterday when I was working at Heartland, the second group I had for team building was the same group I had been with for rock climbing on Wednesday. After the team building session (which was somewhat frustrating since not all the kids wanted to pay attention) one of the girls came back just as her group was leaving and thanked me for helping her get up the wall the night before. That thank you was good to hear. It reminded me why I love my part time job. The little stuff matters, and sometimes we forget that. But sometimes we also forget the big things God can do with the little stuff. One organization that does a lot of good and has a great message is To Write Love on Her Arms (TWLOHA). I heard Jamie Tworkowski speak in Atlanta and he told the story of how he accidentally started TWLOHA. He tells the story in this video as well... So the point is - don't forget to do the small stuff, whether it's a thank you, or tryi

Do you have a bad habit that you never seem to break? Something you should learn is bad for you, but yet you do it anyway? For me one I do all the time is staying up too late at night. All week I have told myself that I would go bed earlier - especially the last 2 nights since I was so tired. And here it is after 1am, and I have somewhere to be at 9:30 in the morning, and I am just now writing this blog, and then I still have to get ready for bed. I don't know what it is about going to bed at a "normal" hour that is so hard for me, but this is a something I do over and over and over again, depriving myself of much needed sleep. In the grand scheme of things, it's not that big a problem because on days when I don't have a specific schedule I can sleep in to catch up. Which may be a part of the reason I am never super motivated to change my habits. I once read a quote that said something about good habits being as easy to form as bad ones, but I haven't

Is there anything quite as satisfying as being exhausted after a good day? Today was my first day back at Heartland after the winter, since I'm only out there when there are groups that need adventure education facilitators - and lots of them. I led 3 groups in group problem solving, and also learned a new system of belaying at the rock wall and did one session of belaying. I spent the day outside on a gorgeous sunny, if a bit windy, day. And the feeling I have now after a busy day at camp, is, quite simply, happy exhaustion. Sometimes we think the perfect life is a that of a cat - sleeping all the time. And it's true that sometimes that seems ideal, for a day at least. But the reality is that most of us wouldn't like a life of laziness. There is something satisfying about productivity. And when something is productive, and fun, well that's a job worth having. I am grateful to have two of them - pretty amazing, if I do say so myself! :-)

Sometimes we spend so much time trying to figure out who we are that we forget to simply be who we are. Yes, it is important to know what we think, what we believe, how we feel - all of that. But none of these things truly defines who we are. We define who we are when we simply are. I had this problem particularly when I had graduated from college and was trying to figure out my next steps. Sometimes we need to get out of our own heads, and simply live. Take a risk. Do something new. Serve someone else. Discover your passions by trying things. "The best way to find yourself is to lose yourself in the service of others." ~ Mahatma Ghandi "So when we're thinking consciously about ourselves, we're less ourselves than when we're not being self-centered." ~ Madeleine L'Engle

I was thinking today about persistence. I'm not really sure why my thoughts randomly went in this direction while I was driving through Westerville, but I found myself thinking about how we often give up too early. And not just on goals (like I wrote about yesterday). We also give up on people, when persistence may be what is actually needed. Let me tell you a story... I have mentioned multiple times my recent running habits. But I actually started running in high school. Here's how it happened: My older brother ran cross country, and decided that I should too. He was in college, and had come home for the summer. I was going into my junior year of high school. Because we had moved and he didn't know anyone in our new area to run with, he had gotten in touch with the cross country coach, and he told me that he was a good beginners coach, and I should run cross country. I told him I hated running, so it really didn't matter how good the coach was. But he kept bu

‎"Set your goals high, and don't stop until you get there." - Bo Jackson I have thought about writing about goals a couple times lately, and when I saw this quote today, I decided today was the day. I have never been very good at self-motivation. If I commit to doing something for or with someone else, I WILL do it barring some extreme circumstance But when it comes to doing things that I commit to myself, I tend to slack off... a lot! But I have been improving on that front. The biggest things I've learned is that I need to have grace with myself. Some days I will fail miserably. That's ok. Tomorrow is a new day, and I can try again. The goal is not over because one day I didn't do what I was supposed to. When I learned to let go of my failures, it helped my long term goals stick. Especially since along with that I learned that achieving high goals takes time. And sometimes it seems you are making no progress whatsoever. That's ok - just keep go

When I wrote the title of this post, I was thinking about the things that I make myself do even when I don't want to because they are good for me (like running and eating healthy) or because I made a commitment (like this blog tonight). But as soon as I typed the words "Do it anyway..." as the title, I was reminded of this poem. And since the poem is better than the post I was going to force myself to write, I thought I would share it instead. This poem was reportedly inscribed on the wall of Mother Teresa's children's home in Calcutta, and was attributed to her. However, an article in the New York Times has since reported (March 8, 2002) that the original version of this poem was written by Kent M. Keith. Anyway People are often unreasonable, illogical and self centered; Forgive them anyway. If you are kind, people may accuse you of selfish, ulterior motives; Be kind anyway. If you are successful, you will win some false friends and some true enemies; Succeed a

I love the excitement of new things. Sure, it's scary, but I just love the challenge and the newness of it. I have been in kind of a funk lately, and I feel like I am coming out of it. As I think about why I think it's kind of like spring in my life. There are new things happening and I am excited to see what comes from them. There are some people who do well with routine. I am not one of them. I like new and different. And this sense of anticipation of the new things in my life - personal and professional - is quite exciting. But there's also a challenge that comes from it. I have a tendency to want to jump 10 steps ahead. This new ministry we're creating at church - it starts in the fall. But I want to do all these things now. I am getting ready to move in May, so I tore my entire apartment apart last weekend and started going through things and purging stuff that I no longer want/need, and now I am trying to clean up the mess I made. Because one thing t

I had never really listened to Shane & Shane, but they were in Atlanta for the National Youth Workers Convention and they played the song in this video. I hadn't actually thought about it for awhile, but then it came on my Pandora this afternoon in my office and I remembered how much I loved it when I first heard it. Here's the video with lyrics: The part that sticks out to me every time is "Here I am, can you talk a little louder? So I can hear you. I wanna hear you. I don't wanna move without you." But as I think about it, I don't think that it's that God needs to be louder. It's that I need to be quieter. I fill my time up with stuff. I constantly have music or the TV on at home unless I am sleeping. And sometimes God talks to me through those things, and other times I have them on but just as background noise because I sometimes find the silence more distracting. But I think I need to be more comfortable with silence in my own life.

Sometimes you just run out of ideas. I have been sitting here trying to come up with something worth writing for a while now. I have even started posts about a couple different things, but nothing seemed worth sharing. I find that happens this time of Lent. I know the same thing happened last year - but the beauty was that no one was reading my blog, so no one but me knew and I could slack off. That's not the case this year. And just knowing that others know keeps me accountable. So since I have no new ideas, I decided to read back through some of my old posts and see if there was something interesting to share. And I found this post I wrote last year that reminds me what the point is - and it's not to have a blog for you to read. The point is to connect with God, and I need to remember that. Here's the post from last year - enjoy! The point... Last night I picked up a devotion book that I haven't read in awhile that is designed for youth workers. And the one t

I read a blog today about youth and sports - and how youth leaders can approach this scheduling struggle in a productive manner. The whole blog can be found here if anyone is interested http://youthworktalk.com/2012/03/15/when-sports-compete-with-youth-ministry-revisited/ But the point that I think was most convicting and relevant to me was number 4. The author writes... 4) It’s STILL Not About Me: Can I be honest? Much of my struggle in the past has centered around my insecurities and self esteem. Too many of us get bent out of shape because our security and confidence is so tied to whether we have good numbers or whether students pick sports over me and you. When students choose sports over us, we can feel deflated and hurt. Am I right? It’s a hard reality to admit, but I have found that I have to examine my heart regularly on this one. As a caution, anyone in ministry cannot be healthy if they are fueled by the acceptance and security of students. It’s a no win situation and can b

All of these are facebook statuses that I liked when I read them. And since I don't have the brain power for a post of my own, I decided to share these instead... “Life's most persistent and urgent question is, 'What are you doing for others?'” Martin Luther King Seen on the back of a runner's T-shirt: "It's a hill. Get over it." The older I get the more I realize how much more toxic it is to me to dislike someone. “Who we are in the present includes who we were in the past.” ― Fred Rogers “Stories always go on. They don't end on the last page, any more than they begin on the first page.” ― Cornelia Funke Be kinder than necessary, for everyone you meet is fighting some kind of battle. People need loving the most when they deserve it the least. I'm sure there are more but that's enough for now. It's my bedtime! :-)

I read this today as someone's facebook status: "I don't like starting a run. I like finishing a run. But I don't get one without the other" It really epitomizes how I feel about so many things - running being one of them. But certainly not the only one. For example, I don't like cleaning, but I like a clean home. And I am sure there are more that I just can't think of right now. The reality is that good stuff usually takes work. It takes effort. And who really likes work and effort. But it is worth it, and part of what makes it worth it is the satisfaction of putting in the effort and working for it. While we say we want things the easy way, we don't really appreciate what we don't work for. I feel more satisfied when I finish a run I didn't want to go on in the first place (which is most of them). Though, I must admit, I'm actually not sure I would appreciate a clean home less if someone else did it...

I don't really handle being sick well. Instead, I prefer to pretend that I am fine. I can keep going. I can still do what needs to be done. I may be sick but I am going to suffer through it and just hope I don't make anyone sick that I interact with. The past two days have been like that. I am not very sick. Today, actually, I was mostly just tired with an off and on headache and sore throat. And I didn't have that much to do, so it wasn't a really big deal. But still... Why do I think that I can't stop when my body needs to? Why do I just pretend that I'm ok when I should admit that I need to rest and recover? Why is it so hard to admit that sometimes I can't do what I committed to do? Why do I stink at asking for help when I need it? Just a few thoughts I'm thinking as I wonder how I'll feel tomorrow - since it's Sunday... hopefully I'll feel better so it won't be an issue. Which probably means I should get some sleep now. Go

**Note: There are spoilers in this post. But then the movie came out in 1995, so if you haven't seen it yet... well I don't feel bad... The movie Dangerous Minds came out when I was in high school. If you haven't seen it, here's the trailer: Essentially, it's the story of a woman who goes to an inner city school and does whatever it takes to reach the kids in her classroom. But like all of us, there are times that she gets jaded about it. Toward the end of the movie Luann (the teacher) is planning to leave due to the negative things that have happened - one student left the school because she was pregnant and the school didn't want her to stay despite her intelligence, two boys were pulled out of school by their mother who didn't think what they were learning was important, and another boy was shot due to a fight and because the principal didn't listen to what was going on because the boy didn't knock when he came to his office. It's easy to s

“Love is louder than the pressure to be perfect.” – Demi Lovato So I read this quote and it connected with me. I am a perfectionist. Oh not about everything - you just have to look at my apartment to see that. But I am a perfectionist when it comes to the things that matter to me. I am also a procrastinator. A procrastinating perfectionist may sound like an oxy moron to many people, but for me, it is how I live. Sometimes my procrastination is actually because of my perfectionist nature. I need the perfect inspiration to begin or I have too many ideas and I can't decide which one is the right one. And I have to go with the right idea - at least in my own mind. Fortunately, most of the time I am able to remember that I am not in fact perfect, and I am not capable of being perfect. But sometimes a critical remark - or even a remark that is not critical but doesn't fit in with my perfect plan, throws me off and upsets me in ways that aren't worth it. Demi Lovato said

I haven't written specifically about my lenten Bible study much recently though I have found connections with thoughts I have had in this blog and what I have been reading. But tonight I wanted to share a bit of what he said, because it really helped me understand the story better... The Bible story is one that always seemed weird to me. Matthew 15:21-28 Leaving that place, Jesus withdrew to the region of Tyre and Sidon. A Canaanite woman from that vicinity came to him, crying out, “Lord, Son of David, have mercy on me! My daughter is suffering terribly from demon-possession.” Jesus did not answer a word. So his disciples came to him and urged him, “Send her away, for she keeps crying out after us.” He answered, “I was sent only to the lost sheep of Israel.” The woman came and knelt before him. “Lord, help me!” she said. He replied, “It is not right to take the children’s bread and toss it to their dogs.” “Yes, Lord,” she said, “but even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall

I enjoy watching the show Chopped on the Food Network. For anyone who hasn't seen it, the premise is that there are 4 chefs in a competition. There are 3 rounds (appetizer, entree, and dessert) and each round has a basket with several mystery ingredients that must be included in each round. After each course, the judges taste the food and then "chop" one chef. The main reason I like watching this show is that the ingredients in the basket are usually so random and yet the chefs manage to make something with it. And as I sit here watching it right now, and thinking about what I wanted to write tonight, I realized how much it is like youth ministry - at least the way I do it. I take all these random pieces that don't seem to be connected and I tie them together in a way that makes sense. One of the youth once requested a specific game at youth group and then told me to just figure out what Bible study would go with it. In that case, I had to inform her that was n

It seems about this time every year when I try to blog, I hit a wall. I end up sitting here trying to come up with something to write about. Which makes me wonder, what really is the point of committing to blogging everyday during Lent? Is this really a worthwhile practice? I think it is because it does force me to think through the events of my day and evaluate what might be worth writing about, and then to do the same by taking stock of what is going on in my head and my heart. I think it's a valuable practice to simply reflect on every day. What went well? What did I do well? Where did I mess up? How can I make tomorrow better? Sometimes that turns into deep thoughts. Sometimes a day was just a day. But the only way we can grow from our experiences is to process them. So I know that once I make it through Lent, my musings will not be daily posts on this blog. But I hope the practice of reflecting on my day will continue. I already see myself starting to process things

Not gonna lie, I almost forgot to post before I turned off my computer for the night - which I should have done a long time ago. But since I am still awake and I remember, you will get some random rambling to read if you so choose... Because it is so late, and I haven't gotten much sleep the past couple of nights, I am not really in the mood to write about anything too deep. So I am just going to write down several reasons that I appreciated my job today, because today was a good day... K.N.O.T. Fellowship A new sport - soccer kickball! Real conversations Amazing volunteers Inside jokes Yummy dinners Laughter Super cool teenagers Oh it's never perfect, like when I was fighting with the technology that didn't want to cooperate. But I do love my job. And that is just one of many ways in which I am blessed.

Tonight, I was catching up on the TV show Once Upon A Time on Hulu. I just find the whole show so fascinating - the way the stories weave together and the creative spins the writers took on such classic fairy tales. I admire people who think that way. It's not how my brain works. I am someone who lives in the now. And that can be a really good thing - but it means I am not very good at dreaming for the future. That's not to say there aren't things I want for my future because there definitely are. But at the same time, I can't really imagine what things will be like when they are different from they are now, and so I have a hard time dreaming of possibilities. When I was younger I used to plan out how conversations would go. That was a concrete way I could imagine things. A logical way to think through what might happen. Not that they ever went according to my thought process, but my brain is stuck in reality. And I think that is why I enjoy stories so much - b

Do you ever do something you don't want to do and then feel better after doing it? That is the love/hate relationship I have with running. Motivating myself to run does not come easily to me, but once I get running, I am glad to be moving. And once I get going, I can usually push myself to keep going and to go harder than I thought I could. Plus, once I am done running, I feel accomplished, especially if I achieve something new, or if it was harder than usual and I pushed through. And I miss it when I don't do it. My body stiffens and I feel a need to move. So the question is, with all the positives that I get from running, why is it still so hard to motivate myself to do it?

Why do we have such a fear of those words? Why do we feel we have to know everything, control everything? Honestly, there is great freedom in those three little words sometimes - "I don't know." There is freedom in realizing we don't need to have the answers. If you grew up in Sunday school, like I did, you know there were "right" answers. The teacher asks a question, and everyone says, "Jesus." The struggle is that many of us never moved past that in our faith, but the questions got bigger and more complicated. One of my favorite contemporary Christians songs is "What do I know of Holy" by Addison Road. If you haven't heard it, you should look it up on YouTube. All the lyrics are below, but one that gets me everytime is this, "I guess I thought that I had figured You out I knew all the stories and I learned to talk about How You were mighty to save Those were only empty words on a page Then I caught a glimpse of who You

Last night, I watched the Kony2012 video that has been exploding all over Facebook. Here is the link if you haven't seen it yet: Like others, I was moved by the content. But I can't help but wonder if this really the answer. I think that the education piece is important - the reminder of the reality that is lived in other parts of the world. The content of the video was not shocking to me because it was not new information, but I know that not everyone who watches the video can say the same, so I think there is value in the video as far as educating people about a very real issue. And I know that when awareness turns to action, it can change the world. But posting a video today, and doing nothing tomorrow changes little. The video is well done, and it sheds light on an important issue. But what happens next? That's the question that really matters. My other challenge with this issue is that it is easy for this to seem far away. Yes, in parts of Africa, there are childr

Today while Dora and I were running, which we hadn't done much lately, we were toward the end of the run and both of us were having to push it a little to keep going. And we started talking about things that keep us going. Dora started singing some song, and then I said, we could always go with the old standby - Dory's "just keep swimming" in Finding Nemo. And then I reflected that I used to use that all the time with campers when we were walking places and they were tired - either that or the Veggie Tales version of the story of Joshua... "Keep walking, but you won't knock down our wall Keep walking, but it isn't gonna fall It's plain to see your brains are very small So keep walking but you won't know down our wall." And after being very out of breath singing this, I commented that we were going to knock down our wall though, as we kept running. Granted we didn't really "hit the wall," as runners sometimes do, in our 40 mi

Tomorrow is super Tuesday - primary election day in Ohio. In political elections, I think we can all agree something is lacking - respect. There is so much mud-slinging among candidates in the election process. Unfortunately for all of us, research shows that it works, so there is not much likelihood of it changing anytime soon. But there is one area that we can control - it's not just the politicians who need to learn respect. We all need to learn to be respectful of people we disagree with. Here are my thoughts about what we can all do, what I try to do in my own life, though not perfectly by any stretch... 1. Be willing to listen. This doesn't mean that you have to change your opinion, though being open to being wrong is a good thing in my opinion. After all, few of us have held the same opinions for our whole lives. But more than that, we need to listen to people who disagree with us because we can gain understanding about the other side of the issue and learn whe

Today, since I left the church, I have pretty much been a lazy bum. I have watched tv, considered a nap, though I didn't end up falling asleep, and basically just been lazy. I thought about going for a run but even though I wasn't tired enough to sleep this afternoon, I felt weary just going up and down the stairs, and decided it was important to rest. In running, they actually tell you that rest is important. All the training plans I have ever seen include a rest day. And God's plan did too - and even God rested on the 7th day. So today, I took a rest day. And lucky me, tomorrow is my day off - and while I have a lot of things that I need to accomplish, they can all happen on my own schedule. And the other thing that I find when I take time to rest is that I get more done afterwards. So if you are running yourself ragged with a crazy jam-packed schedule, don't forget to take time to rest. It's important.

I just did the 30 hour famine, like I was talking about in my last point. It was both amazing and utterly exhausting. I actually think that more than any other event we do it exhausts me because I don't sleep or eat - at other events at least I get food to keep my body going. Anyway, so I was driving home and realizing how totally exhausted I was. I pulled into my parking spot at the apartment, and suddenly started really hearing the song on the radio - it was "Only Grace" by Matthew West - right at the part where it says, "And get back up, get back up; Get back up again; Ooh get back up again" I just had to laugh because here I am sitting in my car trying to get myself to do exactly that - get back up again. Only in my case, I was LITERALLY trying to get back up again in order to get out of the car. But the reality is that we all have things that wear us out - and whether we literally need to get back up and keep moving, or if that is only a figurative th

Matthew 9:36-38 When Jesus saw the crowds, he had compassion on them, because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd. Then he said to his disciples, "The harvest is plentiful but the workers are few. Ask the Lord of the harvest, therefore, to send out workers into his harvest field." Today I am beginning the 30 hour famine. I get to eat lunch, and then I will not have anything but juice and gum until tomorrow at dinner. Considering the craving to simply nibble I have had the past week, that will likely be quite challenging, though the fact that I will be kept busy will certainly help. The point of the 30 hour famine is to give the kids the experience of what it is like to be hungry as they raise money to help the hungry. And the point I always emphasize to them, is that they always know there is an end point - we will have a delicious meal of baked pasta at 6pm on Saturday. The people we are trying to help, those who are actually without food, t

I have never really considered myself a runner. Even though I ran cross country in high school - that was really more because my friends talked me into it than anything else. After I graduated from high school, it was 10 years before I ran again more than VERY sporadically. In the summer of 2010, I decided to do a Couch to 5k in 9 weeks. And I did it, which was quite an accomplishment, since it meant running 3 times a week for those 9 weeks. But when I finished it, it was time for work mission, and when I came back, I no longer had a goal and a structure to my running so they went back to being sporadic. Last year I went to Honduras, and I got motivated about some things that I hadn't been very motivated about for awhile - losing weight and running being among them. And I started to actually succeed - on both fronts. The running was still somewhat sporadic, but it was more consistent than it had been since high school, other than the couch to 5k. And my diet was better than