How To...Make People Feel Awkward

Oh, awkward.

My past few posts have been fairly serious in nature, so I decided it is time for a little bit of fun. Few things in life are as fun as awkward situations. Everyone likes awkward. Maybe it is cruel, but it is fun to do things to purposefully create uncomfortable moments. So, I decided to pull a few of my personal experiences into this post on How To...Make People Feel Awkward.

1. Stare at someone wide-eyed and your mouth slightly opened. You know the look. The one people get when they have had a bad facelift. This makes any conversation or situation instantly awkward.

2. Run around an apartment complex frantically with your arms in the air and screaming, " The Russians Are Coming! The Russians Are Coming!" Yep. Did that.

3. When someone of the opposite gender comes over to talk to you, smile at them. After a few sentences of conversation start acting fidgety. Then act really embarrassed. Say, "Oh gosh this is so awkward. I really thought you were coming over here to ask me out." What was a normal conversation before just got really awkward.

4. Put your clothes on backwards. Throw on an old school baseball cap. Then really loudly sing the early 90s hit ..."Kris Kross make you Jump! Jump!..." Naturally you need to jump enthusiastically to the tune. Oh, and you should do it on the porch at the Fiji House. Frat guys + Awkward = Awesome. Then walk away without any explanation.

5. This is a classic. One night my freshman year at college I was bored. It was the night several fraternities were having formals, so the whole town of Waco was littered with girls in fancy dresses. My friend Brittany and I decided we didn't want to miss out on all the fun. So we put on our formals and loaded on the makeup. Then we went to various restaurants & coffee shops around Waco. The routine was the same wherever we went.

       We would go to the hostess stand and check in that we needed a table for four. Then we would stand the most crowded area where people could see and hear us. We started off acting giddy and saying things like "Oh, my gosh! He is SO hot. I can't believe he asked me out." Pretty much being overly enthusiastic about these boys we were meeting & painting ourselves as a bit nerdy in the process. Then after minutes of checking our phones we would begin to say..." They are really late. I wonder why they aren't calling...Where are they...Has he called you?" Then we would loudly ask the hostess if anyone had the restaurant to leave a message that they are running late. People around us would start to get really interested in our predicament. We optimistically kept waiting for these crushes of ours.

       Now it was starting to get really uncomfortable for the people around us. We would pretend to call them on our phones. No answer. Eventually either Brittany or I would throw out the idea that perhaps we had been stood up. "Surely they wouldn't...would they?...How could they just leave us here?..." Now people were really into what was happening. Their faces were so concerned for us. These poor little freshman girls. All dressed up and then stood up by some cruel guys...Finally we pretended to admit defeat and shamefully leave the restaurant. You could tell that the restaurant patrons wanted to say something sweet and encouraging, but that would mean admitting that they had been eavesdropping. 

       We did it in several different locations and the result was creating the most awkward 15 minutes for people in restaurant waiting areas as possible. It was fantastic.

Well, I could go on and on. I hope you enjoyed a peak into the things I have done in search of the perfect awkward moment...And clearly it goes without saying. You all wish you had been friends with me in college.

A Nation On Fire - Letter to the London Rioters

To The London Rioters,

           

             Well, props to you. With your Blackberry hacking and organizational skills you have started quite a fire. Both literal and figurative. I suppose I don't have to tell you that the world is looking at you and wondering if you have gone mad. Why else would you do this? Loot you neighbors stores, and steal from your own community. Rise up in masses to tackle an unidentified cause. Sure, it started with the killing of Mark Duggan in Tottenham. But, that isn't what this is about.

            You are the youth. A generation rising. People like you have always pushed the boundaries and championed causes. The settling of the Americas, wars for freedom, created new societies that demanded more for humanity. Young men and women have always changed the world. You are no different. It is in the destiny of the young to create a new story for the world. Their story that they will pass on to their children & outline the victories achieved in their window of time. But you are different.

           You don't have hope and vision. You have passion, but your cause is self serving. This is what happens when you live without purpose. I know that your future must seem bleak. Economic crisis, no resources available to fund your student education, a crashing job market...and lets be frank. When we see the famine in Somalia, the trafficking of people globally, the kidnapping and abuse of innocent children, corrupt CEOs screwing it up for a bunch of every day people & families breaking down... it seems a bit too much. It's all to hell in a handbasket anyway, right? 

          So, why not watch reality TV on that flatscreen you stole while everything crashes around you. Maybe we never told you that you could be more and expect more. Perhaps we were too busy wondering which celebrity was shacking up with who, that we forgot to tell you that you were made for a purpose greater than yourself. That you really could change the world.

          Yet here we are. You have set a nation on fire. But, I don't just mean the fires you started on buses and police stations. There is a fire igniting that you can't see yet. Blazing towards you with an urgent and compassionate speed. See, when a nation is in peril, the people of God do not cower. They rise up. The Church is rising up around the world on your behalf. Crying out that God would mend a broken nation. Believing that you would not be a hopeless and purposeless generation, but the generation who sees greater things than those who have gone before you ever dreamed of. 

         As the people of God, we know that when we pray...God moves. Be warned that we are praying. Maybe the world is in awe of all hell breaking loose in your nation. Just wait till all Heaven breaks loose.

You won't know what hit you. Layers of pain and anger will melt away, love will fill cracks of bitterness and hate. You will love your neighbor more than yourself. You will be filled with joy and your streets will be made glad. You will bring a blessing wherever you go. 

         Your lives will be spent on advancing a cause that will never die. Your passionate voices will meld into a battle cry that is the continuation of thousands of voices for thousands of years "Prepare the way of the Lord..." And you will live in fullness. A generation that once was visionless transforming the unreached and neglected of the earth. You have destiny within you, but not destiny for destruction. Destiny for hope. You will know Love.

        You think you have started fires of defiance. In truth, you have started fires of revival & they cannot be put out.

Your Shoes Are Too Small

The result of shoes that are too small.

You have probably heard about food binding. Its an ancient Chinese practice which involved wrapping a young girls feet so tightly that they were prevented from growing. It wasn't uncommon for the bones in the feet to break in the process. Often times severe deformities resulted, infections set in and sometimes girls died in the process. The confines of the shoe and bandages created an handicap that women had to live with for the rest of their lives.

So, why am I telling you that your shoes are too small? You are most likely not Chinese & there is a 50/50 chance that you aren't a woman either. But, I bet your shoes are too small too. How do I know? Because we have big shoes to fill.

Just like little kids feet, we need room to grow. Or we get distorted and walk with a limp. Why are your shoes too small? Because your dreams are meant to grow bigger. God's calling for your life is meant to increase and the fruit you produce is meant to be abundant. As followers of Jesus, it is our destiny to grow.

If we live in the limitations, fears, and comfortable places of a previous stage then we begin to get ingrown. We believe a lie that we don't have anywhere important to go anyway. So, who cares what shoes we wear? Our dreams press against our capacity and we feel inverted and confused. We need new shoes for new seasons.

I need to be regularly putting on larger shoes. Making sure that I have room to wiggle my toes and grow into them as God increases in my life. After walking with Him for a while, there won't be room anymore. On with another pair. More room for dreaming & advancing. More capacity to run in roomy shoes.

We bind our own feet too often. We are afraid to get bigger.

"What if I walk this road alone? I'd rather just wait in this place and grow into these shoes when I get married."
 "If I walk out, no one will follow me. They won't trust what I bring to the table."
"I just got comfortable here. I don't want anything to change."
or the ever popular:
"I'm not gifted. I don't have anything to grow at all. I'm just meant to watch other people do the cool stuff. I observe, others participate."


Except a funny thing happens. The tissues and fibers of who we are keep expanding anyway. Even when we try and stay in the same old shoes. It begins to get uncomfortable. Following Jesus is irritating because we get blisters. Eventually we just sit down and stop going anywhere. It hurts too bad. The longer we sit the greater our disfunction grows.

And that is where a lot of us are. Sitting on a curb waiting for our feet to stop hurting. Dreams, calling, destiny, capacity...they are all pushing against the boundary begging to be let loose. Risking again on love. Risking again on pain. Risking again to breathe.

And then a fabulous thing happens. When we are rubbing our stubby toes wondering what happened to our lives, Jesus comes. Tells us to stop being so scared. Stop being so comfortable. Stop thinking we can't walk any further. He puts these enormous shoes before us. The shoes of Heaven that contain limitless power, hope, and destiny. We are terrified to put them on because we know we can't fill them. Not only that, but our little feet are tiny and tangled.

We forget that Jesus is a healer. He touches the deformities and they straighten. The skin and bones go back into place and the painful sores go away. He puts the too-good-to-be-true shoes on. The kind we dreamed of wearing when we were little children.

Jesus takes our hand and gently walks with us. Helping us as we go. Little feet tripping along in big shoes. Before we know it, our feet begin to grow again. The shoes aren't so big anymore. Then we begin to run. We remember how fabulous it feels to run. How could we have forgotten the sensation of taking new ground?

Maybe your new shoes look like a relationship. Maybe they look like a new business venture. A move to a distant land. The revival of a dream that has nearly expired. Could be letting go of a fear that has held you back and controlled you. Leaving behind an old identity for a new one...

All of us have new shoes waiting to be worn into fresh ground. Remember, we are meant to be a Church that says " On earth as it is in Heaven!". To do that we need Kingdom shoes. Will you risk putting them on?

We Still Believe

I wrote a post several days ago regarding hope titled Why Hope Hurts. I came across this song yesterday and it really ministered to me. Its the perfect soundtrack to that post. Check it out:

Here is my prayer for you all today. "May the God of hope fill you all with joy and peace in believing, so that by the power of the Holy Spirit you may abound in hope. "

Global Warming. I Solved It.

Okay, so we all know about global warming. We hear about it everywhere and it really freaks us out. I mean, is it the end of the earth? Honestly, some of you think so. Others of you believe its a hoax. But, here are a few facts:

• Temps have climbed 1.4 degrees since 1880. May not sound like much, but the polar bears beg to differ.
• In 1910 Montana's Glacier National Park had 150 glaciers. Now it has 27.
• At this rate of warming the arctic will have an ice-free season by 2040.

Now, maybe you are getting really stressed about the pending peril. Or perhaps you are getting mad at this massive political scheme that you think global warming is. Everyone calm down. I know what we can do. 

My solution to curb global warming involves lots of cars, lots of people and lots of beer. Or maybe I should say it involves stopping lots of cars, lots of people and lots of beer. That can only be one thing. NASCAR.

I hear all the time about how I need to avoid the drive through window at the bank. Or that walking is better than driving (which it actually is). But no one ever talks about all these cars driving around in circles for hours, burning gas , and tires.

Here are some NASCAR facts:

• 6 million people will attend NASCAR races this year. Thats a lot of cars driving from out of town.
• The Daytona race is 500 miles long. 
• Cars go up to 220mph
• The average race is: 250 miles. Cars get 2 miles to the gallon. That is 125 gallons per car and there can be 40 cars at a time. This is 5,000 gallons of gas used per race.
• On average there are 10 races per week. That is 50,000 gallons of gas that NASCAR uses each week. (this doesn't include practice laps)

All those tires, all that gas, all those emissions just to watch people drive really fast in circles. I think that we can come up with something better to do than watch other people drive around and around. I mean, thats a lot of waste.

So, next time someone criticizes you for driving a Tahoe tell them about NASCAR. When they pull the plug on auto racing, we will all buy a Prius. Even if you think global warming is a myth, you must admit this is a good point. And if you are sweating thinking of the earth completely shutting down, go recycle something. You will feel better.

Things You Should Know About Me -- If we are going to be friends

Hello! When I look at the stats for my blog, I realize that I don't actually know most of you. I'm not sure who lives in Belize, or the Netherlands, Germany, Finland, Poland...and the other places my readers come from. So, I figure that we should know each other better. Here are some things you might want to know about me. Enjoy!

1. One thing you should know is that I may not look the same when you see me next.  Long, short, bangs, no-bangs, blonde, red, brown ... and everywhere in between. I get bored with my hair very easily. OR maybe I am a spy. You pick.

Short blonde

Medium length brown

And the current red

                                                                                                                

2. I really love Subway sandwiches. They are truly a delight to me.

3. In my mind there is something fundamentally wrong with buying groceries from non-grocery stores. Walmart & Target will never convince me to buy food from them. Purchasing oranges at the same place I can buy tires is just unnatural.

4. I am a type A/ Bohemian hybrid. Very driven and constantly thinking, but with a whimsical spontaneity to it. You will find me trying to figure out a plan for how to run an AIDS clinic while swaying to Frank Sinatra with my hair up in an Italian scarf. It can really throw people off...

5. I am NOT laid back. People think I am because I am low-maintenance and pretty even keeled. I don't like 'chillin'. I like going. I always want to go somewhere new and do something new. No thank you to summer break.

6. It took me 2 years to learn how to cook a baked potato. Simple, you may think, but it wasn't!!! Literally 2 years. I will save you all the time and toil that I spent. Put the potato in a 350 degree oven for 2 hours. Now you can use your two years to do something else.

7. When I was little I created a plan to convince my parents that we could, in fact, have monkeys as pets. I figured out how much they needed to eat, what it would cost, sketched a diagram of the monkey house I would build in the back yard, planned out their vaccinations...They didn't go for it though. My parents are not quite as visionary as I am.

8. When I type, I hear my voice saying the words out loud. Just like you could hear Meg Ryan's voice in You've Got Mail when she typed her emails. I'd like to think that I don't smirk and smile thoughtfully into the distance like she did while typing, but it is very possible that I do.

9. I am very old fashioned. Surprise! I use a pen and paper. Not my iPhone or iPad to take notes. I have a paper daily planner. I think handwriting is an important art. I will also physically dial the phone numbers of people instead of just clicking on them in my contacts. It bothers me that people don't actually know each other's phone numbers anymore.

10. I think I would really enjoy gardening if it didn't involve dirt and bending over so much. But, I do love gardens. Particularly wild English gardens. Could sit in them for days. But, if left up to me I would never do any work in them.

See, wasn't that nice. NOW we are friends. Honestly though, I wish I could sit and chat with each one of you. Hear your stories and learn about where you are from. AND if you are one of those people from Finland, Kenya , Chile or wherever, please let me know who you are. I'd love to hear about you! Have a great weekend everyone!

Why Hope Hurts

Around, around, and around again. 

Hope: To cherish a desire with anticipation. 

We have each felt it. All of humanity since the creation of dreams. Hope. It elevates and stabs simultaneously. The desire for something to come. The expectation of an unfulfilled promise or destiny. Or perhaps simply a wish. Despite the size or seeming significance, our lives somehow hang in the balance of this anticipation of a hope. Mothers in Somalia right now are hoping for food. Friends of mine are hoping for spouses. Parents are hoping that their children will be okay despite the diagnosis of autism. Slaves are hoping for freedom in India. America is hoping for economic stability...  I am hoping to finish our adoption of two little Ugandan kids. Ford & Etta. I tear up just writing their names. Today was another day gone by that it didn't happen. We each hope for something. We are each waiting for something. 

I wish I could put on my 'godly' hat and say that it is another opportunity to practice patience. But it doesn't feel like a sermon illustration. Some heart wrenching story of the faithfulness of God. It's my life. It just feels like waiting. Again. The days turn into months... turn into years. It hurts to hope. 

We fight off doubt. "Did God forget his promise?" , "I must have done something wrong." , "If it hasn't happened by now, it probably won't". At what point do we throw in the towel? Hope hurts because we have to believe.

We begin to wonder if we sound ridiculous. "I know that we have prayed for 5 years, but I believe my sister is going to get healed." , "God promised a wife for me. I know that there is someone coming." , "He said that he would transform this city/nation/people. I know God is going to come through." Hope hurts because we have to risk.

We have to revisit disappointment over and over. Fight off discouragement and bitterness at unfulfilled desires. Our best efforts start to fall short. Rallying enough inner fight we face another day. Praying that this is the year of breakthrough. Hope hurts because it is exhausting.

Usually when hope reaches the point of pain, we have been in the fray for years. Our resources and lives have been spent. Placing everything we are on the promise that God will be faithful. We make decisions on the premise that our hope will be fulfilled & our hearts will not be left wanting. Hope is all we have left, because we let go of everything else.  Hope hurts because it is all on the line.

Our ability to control outcomes is removed. Circumstances and environments are not interpreted with worldly wisdom. Often we don't know what else to do but stand where we are. Praying that God moves something somewhere. Facing a mountain range with a cardigan and sandals. Unprepared in the natural to tackle the spiritual. Abilities and carnal strength are no match for the promise. Our fleshly nature dies. Hope hurts because it kills us. 

So, why hope? Why endure? I will tell you why I hope:

I hope because despite the immediate situation, I know something more of Jesus. I understand the comfort of a generous Savior. I hope because when there is nothing left in me there is always more of God. I hope because I have to. I was made to carry dreams of God. We all were. I hope because I want to ascend into the heights with Christ that the earth may be oppressed no more. One promise at a time. We cry in the process, but ALWAYS are victorious. In my need He is glorified and I am satisfied. I hope because the One who makes the promise, is the One who keeps the promise.

"...No one whose hope is in You will ever be put to shame..."

         Psalm 25:3