We'll face unafraid, the plans that we've made...

.....walking in a winter wonderland.

Now, I'm not really sure what facing the future with courage has to do with walking in the snow, but I must say, that of all the lyrics in all the not-really-about-Christmas Christmas songs out there, this line is my favorite.  The rest of the song annoys me, especially since the store apparently thinks everyone would just love to hear two versions of the same song back to back. (Seriously people I know that Christmas music isn't the biggest genre out there, but there are so many better, or at least more, options! I heard this song at least three times today. I think I'd prefer Suzie Snowflake.)

I like this line because it speaks of courage.  Some may say optimism, some may call it wistful thinking, but I like to think that it has a deeper meaning behind it, whether the lyricist meant it to or not.  See, I think that to say "we'll face unafraid" implies that the young couple knows that their plans are just outrageous enough that if they think about it too much they might actually be afraid to face them.  And so they decide to face them anyways, without fear.  The world may see that as foolish. I see that as courage.  Because isn't that a little bit what courage is?  Foolishness? Isn't it just a little foolish for that young man to risk his life in our military?  Isn't it a little foolish to run into that burning building to find the child that is still inside?  Isn't it foolish to rush to the aid of a stranger in need when danger could be just around the corner?  And yet we don't call these people foolish.  We call them heroes. Courage is looking foolishness in the eye and saying, "There is something that is worth more than my fear."

The opportunity to demonstrate courage that big and bold doesn't come to us every day.  I have many friends in the military.  Few are overseas at the moment.  Most likely they won't need to make the choice to risk their lives for another anytime soon.  Same with the rest of us.  A few have chosen professions that put them in danger often; firefighters, police officers.  The rest of us may one day have the opportunity to save a life.  We may witness a car crash or a heart attack and be able to rise to the occasion but that situation will come upon us suddenly, with no warning.  You can decide to be heroes now but when the time comes, you may forget how to unlock the car door and be rendered useless.

I wonder, though, what would happen if we faced every day looking for opportunities to be courageous.  What if we decided to ask someone who is clearly struggling if we could help even though it may be a huge time commitment?  What if we started saving money for our dreams now so we can see them realized later?  What if we saw an opportunity and took advantage of it, not in spite of being scared but because of it?  

Its funny how courage isn't really thought about until it is lacking or shown extraordinarily.  And when we do see it we realize how much we’ve missed it. Now, I don’t mean that we should go out looking for danger to prove that we are brave.  Courage can be shown every day.  For example I had a friend tell me recently that she'd been asked out by a guy she wasn't interested in.  Even though she was not attracted to him, she was very impressed that he had the guts to say something.  Now, I'm not sure if this was showing extraordinary courage of the kind to be likened to death defying feats of bravery, but it definitely stood in stark contrast to experiences that every single girl in the room had dealt with where someone had taken the easy way out rather than ask one simple question. 

It makes me think of the question that a junior high teacher once asked my class. "What would you do if you knew you could not fail?"  I’ve always thought about that question in the context of the big things, save-the-world kind of things.  But I wonder if we lived every day with that question in our hearts and just went for things what would happen.  I think the courage to face the big stuff would follow.  Should we experiment?  After all, failure isn’t so bad, as long as we keep trying something new.  Did you know that Edison wasn’t the first person to come up with the concept of the light bulb?  He was just the first person to have the determination and courage to try thousands and thousands of filaments until one worked long enough to be practical.  Everyone else took the easy way out and have been forgotten about entirely.

So here's my question to you: "What would you do if you knew you could not fail?"

Advice

Lately I've been trying to be intentional about seeing God's hand in the every day, which is quite hard when you are also trying to think on things that are true.  God isn't always obvious with his actions and sometimes they seem like coincidence, so its easy to say that its an overactive mind making connections that aren't there when this certain thing happens to be occurring right at this certain, ironic moment.

So on Sunday when the thought popped into my mind to ask Friend A for advice, I was aware that this might not be just a random thought but a thought from God.  I normally would not ask Friend A for advice.  In fact I don't really talk to Friend A for reasons that are entirely my fault (and for which I hope he knows how truly sorry I am).  So it was likely that this thought was not my own.  I thought "yeah, but..." and God answered my "yeah, but..." with an opportunity to speak to him.  And another and another.  I kept turning them down until finally as I was walking away the last time God stopped me and said, "Seriously?  You ask to see my hand and then ignore it when  I make it super-obvious."  So I turned around and marched right back in and asked A for the advice I needed.

Funny thing was, I knew exactly what he would say.  Not the exact words but the general idea.  I don't want to give too many details so forgive me for over-simplifying but essentially he said, "Suck it up and get over it." These were the words that I needed to hear and I knew it but for some reason I tried to argue with him once he said it.  In the middle of my sentence I stopped and said, "I should just stop talking and walk away and let you talk me out of doing something stupid.  I came to you so you'd talk me out of stupid actions and I'm not letting you do it."  He agreed with my sentiments about Friend B's actions and that should have been enough.

Isn't that the way it goes though?  We all want and seek advice but how often do we listen to it?  I catch myself doing this all the time.  I can't tell you how many times I've said or thought to myself, "If this were one of the girls in my dorm I'd tell her to..." but then not take that advice myself.  I believe my brother-in-law put it best when he said, "I am capable of making good decisions, the problem is that I just don't."  We all laughed at him because he was just so dang honest but I think that he probably speaks for the majority of humanity when he says that.  So often great advice is given but not taken and I will readily admit that I myself am guilty of letting good advice pass me by.




I probably should have made this post about things I'm thankful for seeing as its Thanksgiving today but this post has been working in my mind since Sunday and I took the first opportunity to write that I could.  Now the turkey needs to be put in the oven but I'll leave you with a brief summary of some things I'm thankful for today and everyday.

Family, friends, roommates, The Ransom and our beautiful new building, sunshine, turkey, days off, a job, a roof over my head, food to eat, clean water to drink, delicious teas including chai, Constant Comment, and a new favorite: Sleepytime.  I'm thankful for friends who say the hard things when I need to hear it and who lift me up when I'm down.  I'm thankful for a life group this past semester that was just simply rockin' and that there is a guitar sitting in my room right now and I actually know what to do with it.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Whatever is true...

Sometimes I get stuck.  Sometimes there's just one thing that won't leave me alone.  A thought or a quote, often its a Bible verse.  I'll be trucking along, reading when all in a sudden I can't go on.  I go back and reread a passage over and over again until it sinks into my brain.  Often I'll pick up my Bible the next day expecting to read the next chapter but I find myself fixated on the very same passage as the day before.  It won't let me go. This week that passage is Philippians 4:8:

Finally, brothers, whatever is true,

whatever is noble,

whatever is right,

whatever is pure,

whatever is lovely,

whatever is admirable-if anything is excellent or praiseworthy-think about such things.

Actually, I'm not even stuck on the whole verse.  As I reread I include the whole verse as well as 4-9 as well and everything in these few verses is absolute gold, but what I'm really, truly stuck on is three words.  Whatever is true.

I am told that men and women think differently.  Because of this I expect that most women who read this will sigh inwardly with understanding.  Perhaps the men will be slightly confused but I think not too much.  See, I've had multiple conversations with women about how what we are feeling so often becomes so strong and overwhelming that in our minds it becomes reality and it takes a whole lot of convincing to tell us otherwise.  So much of the running commentary in our brains is packed full of untruths:

"I'm fat"

"I'm ugly"
"No one loves me" 

"I'm no good at anything"

"I'm worthless"

"I'm hopeless"

We get these ideas into our heads and every idea we have is shaped around them.  We obsess over what we eat to be the "perfect body shape." (As if such a thing even exists.  Seriously, ask anyone, even the most beautiful person you know and I can bet they can pinpoint at least one thing they'd like to change if they could.)  We spend obscene amounts of dollars on makeup and clothing to try to look pretty.  We change who we are to try to fit in.  We try to do everything to prove that we can, or we do nothing so no one sees us fail.  We try to be important, to be needed.  We try to change who we are.

We also try to change the past.  We constantly obsess about what we would have done if we could have done things differently:

"If only I hadn't said anything, then she wouldn't be mad at me."

"If only I had made a different choice, then my life wouldn't be falling apart."

"If only I'd fought for him more, then he'd still love me."

We try to change the past by imagining how much better it could have been.  We ask what if, which is such a dangerous, dangerous question.  We also take small things and blow them way out of proportion, both good and bad:

"He smiled at me, that means he likes me and he'll ask me out and we'll get married and I'll name our kids after his great grandparents, I should probably figure out what those are."

"My friend just walked past me and only smiled. And it didn't look like a real smile.  I bet she's mad.  Probably at me.  But really, I'm the one who should be mad at her, because of that one time that she did that one thing.  How dare she be mad at me?"

And now you all are thinking, "That's totally me!" or "She is a crazy person!"

So when I read these three words, "whatever is true," of course I got stuck.  This false thinking permeates so much of our lives.  So, I tried an experiment.  I tried to not think things that were not true.  It turned out way harder than I expected.  But I learned something.  Its way better.  So many of the things that make me upset make me upset because of the untrue proportions I take them to.  

For example, at work right now, we are getting ready for the holiday season.  Soon, it will be getting South Dakota cold and people will be wanting coats and hats and gloves and they're going to want it all to be magical and weigh nothing but keep you as warm as a Jamaican beach in July when its snowing and the wind is howling and the river froze solid 35 degrees earlier.  And they're going to want a very specific hoodie that they knew we carried 5 years ago and they can't believe we don't carry that specific shade of puke green anymore and we ruined Christmas because we didn't have exactly what they wanted.  

Can I tell you something?  Those days and those customers will come.  And the week before Christmas is probably the least full of holiday cheer in retail possible.  But, its not even Thanksgiving yet.  Can I tell you what kind of people go shopping for Christmas gifts before Thanksgiving and coats before the first snow?  The really nice kind. The kind who are not in a hurry and who aren't going to blame you for the fact that their coat doesn't fit and its cold now but we just don't have their size.  So what good is it to me to become anxious about these hypothetical customers now?  Dwelling on the fact that they will come only makes it more irritating when they do.

I knew a young woman once who was convinced that a certain young man and her were destined to be together because they happened to be the only two customers in a coffee shop once and he said hi and they talked and it had to be God putting them together.  Was it any surprise that she was hurt in the end?  What if she had thought about what was true? He was a very friendly guy and a great friend.  She could have gained a wonderful friendship instead of being bitterly disappointed.  I do this to myself all the time.  Instead of dwelling on what I have, I think about what I could have and completely miss out on the joy of what  it was that I had in the first place.

What do you think?  What are some untrue things that we/you dwell on?  What kinds of truths should we be dwelling on?