The key to un-Locke

The other day a friend and I went to eat right before we went to a class that was 2 buildings away.  When we were walking between the buildings, my Iphone slipped out of my pocket.  I didn't notice.  When we got to class the first thing I looked for was my phone because I wanted to put it on silent.  But as soon as we got there I realized it was missing.  I then quickly retraced all my steps back to the dining hall, but couldn't find it anywhere.  All throughout class I was upset.

After class we tried calling my phone.  No answer.  Tried again.  No answer.  Then I realized that earlier in October my younger brother had made me get a tracking device for my Iphone.  At the time I was annoyed (especially when I realized that him and my mom would stalk me going up or down I35), but when I remembered that I had a tracker on my IPhone, I wasn't annoyed anymore.

Long story short, my brother tracked my phone and we realized that it had been taken.  The guy was all over Waco, and eventually settled down at the SLC (workout building), so we thought he may have dropped it off there.  I started to head there after a Sing meeting when my mom texted me on another friend's phone.  She said that the phone was now on the move and gave me a number to call the cops.  My friend I was with suggested I try to call my phone one more time.  I did and to my surprise someone answered. He said that he had found my phone and was waiting for someone to call it so he could return it.  My friend came with me and we met the guy behind the religion and history building, and got my phone back!

But here's what I think really happened:  

The guy was going to steal it, and so he didn't answer when it rang the first several times (remember when he said that he was waiting for someone to call it? there were 7 missed calls during that time).  Then my mom and brother started tracking my phone.  My brother set off an alarm through the tracking app that made a really loud noise and put a urgent message on the screen.  I think that's the point when the guy realized he was being tracked and decided to give it back when it called again.  When my mom told me to call the police, she was wanting me to give them my permission to track the guy down.  They were going to get on the phone with my brother on the tracking app to figure out where this guy was.

This is where my brain starts to wonder what was going on in his head.  The age old question of, "Are people inherently good?" comes to mind.  Are they?  This is something I'd like to believe.... but are people really this way?  Or are people inherently bad?  Are they born good and then corrupted?  or born bad and then become good over time?

I really like the think that I think the first.  The John Locke answer.  I like to think that all people generally have a good moral basis and will do the right thing without there being a consequence.  But I think my opinion on this has changed somewhat.

I'm not saying that I think we're bad, but the issue of good vs. evil is a lot more complicated that just what meets the eye.  It's a complicated situation that has eaten away at people for centuries.  When I look at a baby, I think of innocence and tranquility, but when I hear of serial killers, I think that they must have been a little messed up in the head to have the lack of emotion and care to do such a thing.  This then brings up the nature vs. nurture argument that is probably more relevant than the good vs. evil thing in this sort of situation.

I'm starting to think that maybe most people are born "good", but then over time, as life, culture, love and heartbreak happen, people change.  Some people are brain washed into believing something negative they'd die for.  Some people may feel like they are predestined to an outcome, or a social stereotype, so they end up fitting into that roles without thinking.  All situations differ, but I think that most people deep down know the right thing to do... at least at the most simple concepts: stealing is wrong, murder is wrong... common sense if you will.

So I feel fine about letting the guy go, because maybe he learned a lesson of some sort.  Maybe he wasn't even intending on stealing it, I was wrong and he was indeed trying to give it back.  I'll never know.  It doesn't matter.  All I know is that he is God's child and no matter what his intentions were, I am to love him and forgive him.  After all, it is just a phone.

The Secret's in the Telling

Perfection?

‎"Congratulations! You're not perfect! It's ridiculous to want to be perfect anyway. But then, everybody's ridiculous sometimes, except perfect people. You know what perfect is? Perfect is not eating or drinking or talking or moving a muscle or making even the teensiest mistake. Perfect is never doing anything wrong-which means never doing anything at all. Perfect is boring! So you're not perfect! Wonderful! Have fun! Eat things that give you bad breath! Trip over your own shoelaces! Laugh! Let somebody else laugh at you! Perfect people never do any of those things. All they do is sit around and sip weak tea and think about how perfect they are. But they're really not one-hundred-percent perfect anyway. You should see them when they get the hiccups! Phooey! Who needs 'em? You can drink pickle juice and imitate gorillas and do silly dances and sing stupid songs and wear funny hats and be as imperfect as you please and still be a good person. Good people are hard to find nowadays. And they're a lot more fun than perfect people any day of the week." 

-Stephen Manes

"Somethings watching over me, like Sweet Serendipity!"

One time when I was a child, I read a book that had this analogy in it that I will never forget.  It said that life is like a wheel: sometimes it is up and things are great, but sometimes it goes down and things get tough.  The hope is that we know that it will always come up again.

During the summer I did a devo on this topic and I completely forgot about it until this past sunday.  I am deaf in my left ear as of the last couple of years, and this summer one of my campers kept poking fun at me for it.  It's one thing when it's one of your close friends who you know will be there for you if you need to break down about it as well, but it's different when it is a 12 year old who doesn't fully grasp the concept.  But when she said this it just got me to thinking a lot about the difficulties I had been through and how God had shown himself to me through them.  Around this time of the summer, God kept putting things into my life where I was learning about the meaning of difficulties and "why good things happen to Godly people".  I felt compelled to share about it, and decided to give a devo on it basically the next day.  I'm the kind of person where I won't get up and talk in front of a group unless I know exactly what I want to say, and this was no exception.

Around this time I was reading So Long Insecurity by Beth Moore on my own, and Out Live Your Life by Max Lucado for a Bible Study.  These two books brought concepts to the table that I had not thought of before.  I don't specifically remember which book said what, so I'm just going to generalize here:

Basically, in hard times God is teaching us.  He is showing us and testing our faith.  He is challenging us to become the people that he has set us out to be.  Also with this, God uses these challenges in our lives to give us the skills and opportunities to minister to certain people.  God teaches us languages of the hurting through our pain.

For instance, I was born physically disabled and then lost my hearing this past year, so I have a heart for the physically disabled.  Then this summer God put a girl who also has feet problems in one of my cabins.  I was able to talk to her and have empathy as she had just had foot surgery.  Also, I have struggled a lot with my weight and self-image, and God led me to be more open about this and to have many conversations with staff and campers about this.  It is also something that I have just been able to pull from in my everyday life.  It is really cool to realize that I went through that to be able to minister to others.

Lately I have forgotten this.  See, when I gave this devo I wasn't necessarily going through a difficulty at the time, but recently I have been having a hard time knowing what God is doing in my life.  This goes with many things, including my future, school, friendships, etc.  But this past Sunday as I was sitting in church, the pastor started talking about missions.  He was talking about how his purpose in life to make sure that people know that they are redeemed by God.  That no matter what, God is still with them and that God still wants to be glorified through whatever they are dealing with.

Then I realized that that was what I had given my devo on this summer and it struck me: no matter what I was going through, God is going to use it to his glorification.  No matter how long it takes to get out of bed in the morning, or how much time I need to spend with God that day, he is going to ultimately be glorified in whatever I am going through.

And that just service just changed my mindset.  I feel like I think way too much about myself and about petty things in my life.  During this service I just examined my life and these past two summers, and how during them I was better able to compartmentalize everything (now, I'm not a boy, so it's still spaghetti, but it was a little better).  Helped me to realize that no matter what is or was going on, God still wants to be glorified.  Time to get my feet up and continue the work in me that he has been doing the past several months.

Looking back on this past year, I am a completely different person than I was 7 months ago when I left Baylor and went to Cho-Yeh for the second year.  I will write a more detailed post on this later.

But basically, God works through our hardships for the better and I am so excited to see how he is going to bring glorification to himself through me and through these experiences.

"God seeks to redeem everything about us.  God's great reversal.  God takes the bad and changes it to his good," Dr. Albert Reyes (the pastor on sunday... I take sermon notes).

"The redeemed life is not without pain and suffering, but God wants us to take that redemption to others sometimes in our lives," Dr. Albert Reyes

"In him and through faith in him we may approach God with freedom and confidence.  I ask you, therefore, not to be discouraged because of my sufferings for you, which are your glory." -- Ephesians 3:12-13

"Three times I pleaded with the Lord to take it away from me.  But he said to me, 'My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.'  Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ's power may rest on me.  That is why, for Christ's sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties.  For when I am weak, then I am strong."-- 2 Corinthians 12: 8-10

"... but we rejoice in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope.  And hope does not disappoint us, because God has poured out his love into our hearts by the Holy Spirit, whom he has given us."-- Romans 5: 3-5

Caught in the Inbetween

I am really passionate about girls.  That may sound kind of weird, but it's really not.  I am passionate about girls experiencing a God found security.

Let me tell you something, girls are mean.  We (yes, I put myself in this) put each other down and have judgmental thoughts that pass through our minds.  I think that a lot of this mannerism comes from a deep rooted insecurity that lies within us as girls.  

This is something that really got to me over the summer when I work day in and day out with 11-15 year old girls.  Each session we had a Girl's Night.  Now although Girl's Night isn't the best night of the week activities wise, for me it is often my favorite.  Every night we do a devotional as a cabin where we get to talk about anything that our cabin wants to, or that we as counselors feel is something the girls need to hear.  On this particular night, something that we often talked about was "girl's stuff".  This could range from anywhere to boys (although this was usually a separate devo), to what we generally focused on, which was self image.  

From the beginning us girls are told that we have to look a certain way (including but not limited to: weight, boob size, hair, makeup, clothes, etc), act a certain way and think a certain way.  Growing up in North Dallas where my zip code was often called "the new 90210", I know this first hand.  I have seen 12 year old girls walking around in Juicy Couture sweats, with Coach bags and bragging about the new IPhone they just got.  I have struggled with my weight in trying to fit into a world where I felt like I wasn't worth anything unless I looked a certain way.  I have fallen victim to the world telling me that I had to change who I was in order for "good" things to happen, like falling in love, or fitting into a crowd that I thought I wanted to be friends with.  

During these devos we allow the girls to open up and we ourselves do too.  So often we forget that we need to be willing and able to be vulnerable to give others the okay to vulnerable around us.  During my last Girl's Night my co started the night by asking the girls to go around in a circle and say what their biggest insecurities were.  With the exception of maybe 2 out of 17 of these 12-13 year olds, they all said that they were insecure about their weight.  I don't know about you, but that makes me sad.  

When I had the oldest girls (ages 14-15), we took them to the dining hall one night and had an ultra special devo with them where we made smores in this microwave (and I tried oreos and peanut-butter for the first time... heaven on earth!!!!).  During this time we allowed them to ask us any question they wanted to.  What we ended up talking about for the majority of this time was self-image and insecurities. So many of them were struggling with what they looked like, one going on a lot about it and telling us how she tried to hide her stomach because she was so insecure about it.  The big difference between this age and the younger girls mentioned before is that while those girls were just insecure about it, these older girls had more of a grasp on their self worth.  They had a knowing that they were worth something and that they were worth something because of God's individual love for them.

As I have talked about before in this blog, insecurity is something that I have struggled a lot with in my life.  Thoughts of "I'm not good enough", "I will never get a boyfriend",  and others along those lines have a habit of making themselves come up in my head.  But then I think about it...

God created you and me to be secure.  He created us to love ourselves, not to be cocky, but to be humble and realize that we were created by God.  We were and ARE created wonderfully and fearfully in the image of our gigantic God.  How amazing is that?  And because of that, who are we to say or think that we are not good enough?  Who am we to think that our security is bound to another person's perception of us, whether it be a boyfriend or girls at school?  Who are we to doubt that we were created for a purpose?  Who are we to think that God doesn't have someone destined for us in the long run, after all the pain?

That's right.... we shouldn't think that.  God is so big and so majestic.  This is a God who created the earth and all things in it.  A God who loves so completely that he made every person just the way He wanted them: short or tall, white or black, gay or straight (yes, I am taking that stance).

So when I go through challenges that present themselves, I stand in front of my mirror and say to myself, "I am beautiful.  I am so so so loved and have a great support system of friends and family.  God has a plan for my life even though I have no idea what that is right now.  I love me".
... and I believe it.

My goal in life is to try to get other girls to believe this too.

Just Breath

"People who keep diaries are the happiest," Tyra Banks

I am a writer.  I like to record my memories.  But not so much even that as writing in a journal or a diary is almost therapeutic for me.  At this camp I went to in high school, we had prayer partners.  My prayer partner at my second one of these weekends bought me a journal.  I made it my goal to write in it every once and a while, particularly my prayers.  Sooner or later this became habitual and something that I came to really enjoy doing.  I have kept some sort of journal since my sophomore or junior year of high school.  There are about 6 of them on my book shelves at home and in Waco.

At camp these past two summers I kept my journal with me constantly.  I was careful not to show it to people, because there was private stuff in there, but it was and is very important to me.  In the journal are private thoughts of things I have struggled with, prayers, little fun tad bits about the summer and different cabins I had, and just fun stuff like a "Lizzie's Bucket List" I made with some of my campers! My journal this summer is a documentation of how God worked in my life and brought someone special into it!

Usually I hate reading my old journals.  I dislike looking back on the stuff I went through and how "dramatic" I was (but really... ).  It just makes me aggravated with myself.  Usually I only look back through them if there is something in particular I want to look at.  (Someone told me once that they burn their old journals.... not me!)

Today I was packing for Thanksgiving break and decided that it would be fun to look for a certain event in my journal.... turns out I have that once in Plano, BUT it was really interesting.  I forget all the fun parts of looking back on this stuff.  Although I may not be proud of things I've done in the past, it is good to look back and see how much I have grown throughout the years, even just since I entered college.  I feel like I have grown a lot emotionally over the past year, and it is really cool to have documentation.

I picked one journal up and realized that it was from my freshman year at Baylor.  I started to read and realized that I was at a not-so-good part of my life at this point.  I was struggling a lot with self-esteem and self-worth.  I was really down on myself about some thing that had recently taken place with a friend... seems so stupid now.

BUT I found this list below.  I remember how long it took for me to write it, but it still stands true!

"Reasons I love me:
1) I try to include other people and generally don't feel good when I don't.
2) I'm a planner.  I like to figure out how things are going to work together to make something (a party, gather) work.
3) If I really want something I will work towards trying to get it.
4) I'm talented.  Even though I often don't feel like it, I am a good singer, handbell player, pianist, writer, artist, dancer, etc.
5) I don't get embarrassed easily, and when I do, I often shrug it off.
6) I'm not going to settle for less that I deserve when it comes to relationships.
7) I give people multiple chances.
8) I try not to judge people based upon what they've done or are (gay, race, etc).  God called us to love and that is the greatest commandment!
9) I'm dedicated to what I do (most of the time anyway) and don't like quitting.
10) I have a pretty good memory... that can also be a curse.


I am beautifully and wonderfully made by the creator of the whole wide universe!  I am his and only his and forever his! :-)"

Sometimes I like looking back at these entries and realize how wise I was in those moments.  I may have gone through a lot that led to entries like this... but I'm glad they're there because they definitely help me still today, a year and a half later!

This is Not a Pipe

‎"The handicap of deafness is not in the ear; it is in the mind," Marlee Matlin

A year and about 4 months ago I lost my hearing in my left ear.  At first it was really hard for me.  With the loss of my hearing in that ear, I gained tinnitus, which is ringing of the ear.  Even though I would never actually hear out of that ear again, there will forever be a ringing or at least a static sound in that ear, although it has gotten a lot better with time.  

Over the past year or so I have had to make many adjustments.  The first time after I sat down at a piano after this happened, I could only play for a few minutes before I gave up and started crying.  It was too weird to not be able to hear it the same way anymore.  Same thing with choir.  I had been in some sort of choir since kindergarden, and now that love of mine was taken away because I couldn't hear people around me in order to blend.  Here I was adjusting to a new lifestyle that I didn't see coming at all.

It's crazy to think how much we take things for granted.  Up until this point I had never even thought to thank God for my hearing.  I took it so much for granted, appreciating it, but never really thinking about how I did so.  I had days last year when I would curl up in a ball after my music classes and cry.  Days when I had to relearn how to sing.  Days when I had to relearn how to love myself.

Like I talked about in an earlier post, this summer I became a lot more sure of myself through the eyes of God.  This took owning the things that I don't necessarily love about myself.  This included my ear.  It was hard for me to accept this.  I was born physically disabled as well with clubbed feet, but I had an easier time accepting that when I read passages from the Bible that talk about being "fearfully and wonderfully made" (Psalms 139).  But this wasn't the way I was made.  This was the way I became.  Does this come from God?

I really struggled with this question.  It has been hard for me to grasp hold of the fact that I'm deaf.  At first we looked into all the options of hearing aids, and finally found one that would work.  It's called the Baha bone enhancing hearing aid.  Basically they would put a titanium screw in my head and then I could put this device on my head that would transfer sound waves through my scull so I could hear sound from the left side in my right ear.  However, the insurance has denied it multiple times.

For some reason I have felt like God really wants me to take American Sign Language and learn how to glorify him through that.  So this semester I started that class.  Wow.  My grades in that class may not be as high as they should be (I'm taking two languages...), but I am loving it.  I love how the class is silent and how I am learning more and more about not only the language, but also the culture everyday.  There is a deaf community out there, which is something not many hearing people realize.  It is really interesting to learn about it.

I think that this class and how supportive all my family and friends have been has helped me to realize that I am still as capable as a hearing person.  I still have meaningful relationships, was able to be a camp counselor for 2 summers, am still a student at THE best university (Sic 'em) and still can make music.  I may have to sit at a certain spot at a table, may have to move around so I can hear better, and in conversation may seem rude because I am turned to the left so I can hear better.... but I am adjusted.

I've been watching the show Switched at Birth today, and one of the girls in it is deaf.  She uses ASL, and it is really awesome to watch her and her family interacting.  I love seeing the culture that they use.  In one of the episodes, her new found parents (birth parents) are trying to see what would be best for her in education.  She is currently in a deaf school that uses ASL as it's primary language, but they take her to visit a private hearing school.  When they do this, they talk about how we hearing people (yes, I put myself in that category) tend to think that there is something wrong with not being able to hear.  Something wrong with them, and that we have to fix them so they are better or whatever.

This hit me.  Here I have been spending time worrying and hoping that I could get a hearing aid, and to be perfectly honest I don't want one anymore I think.  It would be awesome if I could get one, but I don't know if it would be worth it.  I would have to adjust to hearing out of both ears again, and that would be weird.  and I am used to being half deaf now.  I am used to talking on the phone with only one ear, or sitting on a certain side of people.  Sure there are times when I wish I could still hear out of both, but who am I to question what God is doing?

God did this for a reason, and I am excited to keep discovering why.

Also, feel free to ask me questions about this.  I'm not offended or anything.  If I want to stop talking about it, I'll let you know.

The "E" isn't correct....