Choosing joy.

My oh my...it's been a long time.

Hope everyone is doing wonderful.
Happy Palm Sunday by the way :)

So, where do I start?
So much has happened since I last posted.
I visited home, Mount Vernon, threw a Bridal Shower for my best friend, my brother visited me in Cali, Keel and Shanelle visited me in Cali, tons of new adventures, tons of new learning experiences.
I wish I could write about them all but well...if I did that..we would be here for a while. LONGGG while, because, well...if you don't know me well, I talk a ton. ha!

I'll start with what God has really spoken into my life about this past week. Such cool things have happened that just get me so pumped about life. I left for home two weeks ago, really just missing everyone and really feeling like I never left. It was wonderful, I wasn't quite sure how I was going to feel about coming back to Cali. Yes, I totally love being here, but everyone has their moments of homesickness and a lot of other emotions running through. So, I was having one. I flew back to Cali which may I add, I flew FIRST CLASS. Raspberry cheesecake, pillows and all. Catch..I had no idea I was paying for it. Yeah, that is a story for another time but I flew back and was so curious about how the rest of my last semester of college was going to be like. I journaled a ton on my 5 hour flight from Philly to San Diego. Curiousity was filling my mind. So, Seth and I arrived around 9 pm in San Diego and were so tired. That week was FILLED with tons of fun moments. We went to Sea World for 40 cents, such a good deal that we like to keep under the radar ;) and we went to the zoo, tried a new mexican restaurant like every night, went to Old Town, Gas lamp district, the harbor, the Cliffs, beach...etc. Last but not least, I finally crossed another item off the bucketlist...Surfing.
That's right, I surfed. So much fun, I was such a big baby at first, trying to stay in the channel so I didn't have to risk getting rocked by a wave. Finally my friend Spencer and our surf "coach" haha, pushed me into the wave and was like GO. So, I paddled as hard as my arms could move, because at that point my arms were like twizzlers that could just be flopped around, and jumped up so quick and yes..I rode a wave for like 10 seconds. ha. It was great. I got up three times. Doesn't sound like much of an accomplishment to you? Well let me tell you, surfing is not the easiest sport, at all. I need to give some credit to all my fellow surfers out there. It is tough, and I was only out in 2-3 ft waves. Try the 6+ ft waves. No thank you. Keel, Seth and I had such a blast out there. We rented our wetsuits and man, those suckers helped me out because I get cold SO easily and I wasn't cold much at all until the last 30 minutes we were out there when I would sit in the channel for a second and take a break. P.S incase no one knows what a channel is (and no worries, I didn't either until they told me). It is the part of the ocean that is calmer. Waves tend to shift and there is always a part that is more calm and waves aren't coming in on that part of the sea during that period of time. Channels always shift. Learned that one, when a wave came in and knocked me off my board haha! Best part was every one stood up on their board at some point which is an accomplishment to us, non-surfers. I definitely can not wait to go again. I had such a blast, but definitely was exhausted after.
Here are a few pictures to showcase our surf photog sesh.

That is just a few. But It was such a blast. I am so glad Seth and Keely were able to be a part of crossing that item off the bucket list. I also crossed off a few more. Trying out the Coyote Mexican restaurant, running to OB and eating a Acai Bowl, Antinquing in OB, walking the pier, go to the San Diego Zoo, pull an all nighter, eat breakfast by the beach. It was awesome. I had such a blast. That was all in one week I crossed those off. It is so awesome to see more and more get crossed off. Last night I went to a drive-in movie theater right on the border of Mexico basically and got a funnel cake. How awesome. Ohio, take some advice from the west coast...serve funnel cakes at the drive-in. I also climbed on top of the roof of the Gym and watched the ocean and just had an awesome talk with a good friend. I snuck into this tent that over looks the entire city and harbor and talked until 4 am with a friend and just talked about life. I also tried Baskin and Robbins ice cream for the first time. I know, crazy, but we didn't have one by our house and I always saw the commercials offering the cool Shrek ice cream and never was able to try it as a kid. It was torture! So to finally be able to get it, made my day. haha! I am such a child sometimes but hey, I think that is a good thing at certain moments in life.

So, to say all this..I am realizing that God had a reason for me to come out here. I am stretching my mind, I am learning more about myself, I am growing up some more. I went to chapel on Friday, which desperately needed to happen, I had missed way too many so far and let me tell you what, God couldn't have made it more obvious to me that I needed to hear that, Friday morning. A young woman named Megan spoke and she was full of energy and passion. She was so into what she was about to say and I thought it was cool when she said, "Hey, I am going to pray for you guys, not because I have to or because it is what I am supposed to do in chapel but because I want God to speak through me this morning when I am speaking to you. I want it to be about his words, not the words that I think you all need to hear. I do not know better than him. Can I please pray for you?" It was just so cool, the way she started that off. It really caught my attention. How much do we think we know what the best advice is or statements we think people need to hear? All the time. As humans, we like to give ourselves the credit because it is so easy to do. She goes on by saying how when she was younger and throughout college she had her "joy/hope cup". She would drench people with love , compliments and encouragement. She would just go around loving on everyone but hoping she would get that same love back. She saw it as, she was filling up people's joy cup and then holding her's out for everyone to fill up back. She said she relied on people's words and what they thought of her. She cared so much about what other people said, that, that was where her joy came from most times. She said that when people wouldn't give it to her or would say negative comments about her, it would crush her world. She would be like what is wrong? What did I do? and then give over it and move on to other people who could fill her joy cup. She would just always make it a mission to fill other people's cups up so that in return they would say nice things about her, and essentially would fill her cup back up. The problem is when we rely on everyone elses opinions of ourselves, we are making our self worth based on what other's think of us. It ends up being nothing about our true worth.
She goes on to say that she had to realize one day that if she can just raised her cup up to Jesus instead of reaching it out to others, her cup would overflow with God's love which in return she would be able to drench others with HIS love, not her own. And that because her cup was filled with God's love, she wouldn't need everyone else's all the time. She wouldn't need to rely on their words. She said that it was hard to do because she was such a people person and loved being around people all the time, she felt like it was her duty to do all those things and try to "fix" people's problem and issues because that was what a good friend did. No. Not true.
She then proceeds to say, stop getting your confidence from people who will never be permanent and never be able to satisfy all your needs. No one can do that. Not your family, not your boyfriend/girlfriend, not your friends, teachers, pastors...NO one.
This completely and utterly hit home for me.
I don't know how many of you reading this blog know everything I have been through the past few years but that is exactly what I did. I relied on words.
I believed my self-worth and confidence was based on what other people said about or thought of me. If people said good things, than of course my confidence is going to go up and you feel like, okay..I am on the right track doing the right things.
Did I know I was doing this at the time? No way. Slowly God is revealing to me what I did and man did he hit home a little more that Friday morning. That was me. I did the same thing that woman did. I didn't even fully know it, but that is what I did. That is why I was crushed by the words of others at one point. That is why it felt like my "world" quote on quote was coming down around me. But it wasn't. God was always there. He is so faithful and so good.
I LOVED hearing that story that morning and the thing is...it got better.
She then proceeded to tell us a story about her grandmother and how she asked her 94 year old grandmother to be a bridesmaid in her wedding. Her grandmother agreed and about 2 weeks later, she got a phone call from her dad saying her grandmother had a stroke and was in the hospital, basically on her death bed. Her dad told her to still go to work and go on with her normal day and she did but definitely didn't want to. She wanted to be with her grandmother, naturally. She went work, which was at a college. She was a professor at another Christian college in California. She walked in to her class and saw how all her students were just walking in, like it was any normal day. That everything was fine but to her, it wasn't. She was angry, didn't want to be there. She then decided to take all of her frustration of the main situtation on her students. haha! She throws her papers on the ground and says, this is not what we are learning about today. You guys all walk in like everything is normal, that everything in life is okay. Well for me it isn't. My grandmother is basically on her death bed and I am realizing that I have never personally had a talk with her about the gospel and about Jesus. Yes, she is a Christian but how much does she really know about Jesus? Do you guys know? Who can tell me what the gospel is? No one answered, and then she ended up calling on a boy. He didn't know. Another girl didn't know what to say. Then a boy stood up and said, my life is crap but the gospel is about Jesus who thinks our crap is worth something and can save us from it.
He didn't have these perfect words to say or couldn't quote the Bible word for word. He just spoke of what he knew and what was truth.
He did't pretend he had everything together. He said, hey, my life can be filled with crappy situtations and I don't make the best decisions all the time but yet, God still thinks I am worth saving.
So, Megan told everyone that she wanted to teach them about the Gospel and had them open up Romans,chapter one.
Things I learned from this chapter:

1. Comparisons are the theif of joy. ( Well said C.S. Lewis)
2. Have more conversations with God, he holds the truth.
3. Why did God have to die?
1. He died because the wages of sin is death and death need to be paid and God says we are the dead things, and he is the only way we can be brought to life. Not just literal death but spiritual death as well.
4. If your life is defined by relationships to people, than no wonder you are able to fall a part

If  you  step into life with God, you do not break.

How cool is that to think about?

I don't know about you, but that was so cool for me to hear because as humans and especially being a girl and on top of that, such a people person...it is so easy for me to compare and put so much into friendships and relationships with other people.

I read in Mark 11 today:

"...include everything as you embrace this God-life, and you'll get God's everything."

 

I don't know about you, but I have seen what embracing the God-life is, and joy is very prevalent in that life style and today..I am choosing joy.

P.s. Sorry for the novel-like sermon. I just thought it was the coolest thing to hear this week. Hope you have a wonderful week, and Easter. :)

 

xo-

Lynds