So let it rain...

A year ago this week, my hometown experienced great tragedy. We lost two of our high school students to suicide in one weekend. For weeks now I'm been thinking about what to say when this week finally came. Honestly though, there are no words, and I'm doing the best that I can to find something to say. One thing that I have always been able to really connect with is music, and that's one thing that helped a lot of us express our feelings during this time last year when we were all at a loss for words. In choir, we sang a song by U2 called MLK, which brought a lot of tears for months. Everywhere we sang this song we made audiences cry, even causing the judges at State Contest to cry during our performance.

"Sleep tonight
And may your dreams
Be realized
If the thundercloud
Passes rain
So let it rain
Rain down on him"

As we performed this song, we all held hands and felt connected to one another like we never had before. Suddenly, we realized how much we all meant to each other, and how much we needed each other for support. We couldn't do it alone, and it was okay to feel weak and vulnerable sometimes. During the weeks following the deaths of our classmates, our school came together like it never had before, and likely never will again. I have never felt so close to the 450+ students in my grade, and the 2,000 students in my grade, most of whom I have never even met. We cried with strangers, we prayed with strangers, we openly prayed in a public school, and we leaned on each other for hope and support.

Today, my home church sang a song that was the favorite worship song of one of the young men that we lost, "Overcome" by Jeremy Camp. Since I couldn't be there, my mom texted me to tell me, and I listened to the song here at school.

"Power in hand speaking the Father's plan 

You're sending us out, light in this broken land
We will overcome by the blood of the Lamb 

and the word of our testimony, everyone overcome"

 

By the end of the song, I had tears streaming down my face. These last last few words really hit home for me. This world is so broken, and there is a lot of hurt, but we can overcome. With Jesus and our faith in him, we can overcome anything that comes our way. I've learned that from terrible things comes amazing grace, love and learning. We have all learned something from this tragedy. We have learned to come together as a community. We have learned how to communicate with one another even when words fail us. We have learned that we cannot do anything without faith or without others to help us through. Johnston, I am here for you, this week and always. You have taught me amazing things about love, community, and struggle. I am all the better for that. So be strong, Johnston. Together, we can overcome.

"What seems to us as bitter trials are often blessings in disguise."

-Oscar Wilde

Scrap the Resolutions: RADIATE!

Happy 2013! Of course, with a new year comes new resolutions: plans to "change your life" in the coming year. For most of us, however, resolutions typically end up failing. A great friend of mine (check her out at neadinspiration.com!) is currently campaigning for New Years "themes" rather than resolutions. The whole point of this is to set yourself up for success instead of failure. By choosing a theme for the year ahead of us, we aren't setting strict laws that we have to abide by. There is no law or rule that is be broken by skipping a day at the gym. Instead, we are setting the stage for how we want to live out the year and how we want to improve our life. As my friend Liz says, this theme will be "a home base for all your actions and improvements."

So of course, I have decided to scrap my New Years resolutions this year! What is my theme for 2013, you may ask? I have chosen "radiate!" By the end of this past semester, I was quite honestly a wreck. I was absolutely exhausted. I just wasn't letting myself be the carefree, happy-go-lucky person that I typically am. Now, it isn't that I completely overworked myself or that I had overcommitted during the semester. I simply got into the "flow" of life, where every single day is the same. This causes all of the days to run together, and life gets quite boring! I have incredible plans for my future, and college is a huge part of that. So how can I take advantage of this time that is given to me this next year and this coming semester? By choosing the theme "radiate," I am setting myself up to live a more exciting, more inspiring life in 2013. I know that I can be that happy-go-lucky, carefree person if I let myself be, which can really affect those around me! I want to be so enthusiastic and excited about my life that it radiates and encourages others as well!

I am so excited about 2013, and I know that great things are yet to come! I am ready to RADIATE!

Check out Liz's blog on New Year's themes here.

Need ideas for your own theme? No problem! Read through this list of themes!

Thanksgiving: Waiting

Doesn't it seem like an odd thing to be thankful for? Waiting.. impatiently waiting. Yesterday, I got stuck in traffic on the interstate. I had gone out to run just a quick errand, so naturally I was very frustrated with stand-still traffic. I passed a sign that said there was an accident, but I assumed that it was just a fender bender. I was very impatiently waiting to just make it to my exit which was about 5 yards away, and I would even say that I had a touch of road rage as I got more and more frustrated.

What exactly was I so impatient for? What was it that was so important that I just couldn't wait another 15 minutes in traffic? I had gone to pick up one simple, little thing for my horse. That's not exactly an emergency, and absolutely could have waited. But I was so caught up in my own desires that I didn't even think about the accident or care about who had been involved in it. While watching the news this evening, I learned that the accident had been a rollover crash that killed an eleven year old little girl. Suddenly, all of my own needs and wants seem so miniscule and trivial. I had been impatiently waiting to get to a store, while a little girl is never going to be able to go to the store again. She'll never get stuck in traffic again. She doesn't have any more opportunities like I still have. The world around me is weighed down with so much hurt, and that is beyond my own frustrations with traffic. How can I be so self-centered about just making it to a store in this situation?

How can this be applied to faith? This past summer, I attended a different church than my usual, and the particular sermon was entitled "Waiting." The church was having a whole sermon series on waiting on God. The pastor spoke about how everybody goes through "seasons of waiting" and that it can be easy to lose faith and become frustrated with our situation. One particular phrase that caught my attention right from the beginning was, "God is not doing this TO you. God is doing something IN you." We all go through times of trial that test the strength of our faith.. I know I've had my fair share of those seasons. During this time of waiting, we need to ask ourselves how we can wait more patiently or how we can "wait well." God is doing something within us, and if we let Him, we can come out of it with a stronger faith and a greater outlook on life. So the next time you go through a period of hardship, frustration and waiting, rely on God and remember that He is working on you, not doing something TO you!