Listening to the Call

Have you ever known something for far longer than you've wanted to admit?
Weird question to ask at a beginning of a post, but how about I phrase it like this:
        Have you ever known the direction you should be heading, but you just said "NO"?

I guess this has been something that has been floating in my mind since I was 19 years old when I first really started writing in this blog. Which I guess means I should start back to when I was 19.

When I was 19, I was active in Campus Crusade down in Central Ohio. I attended many retreats during my freshman year of college and all were impactful, but the Fall Retreat was what set my life on a path I never could have predicted. I guess the best thing to call this moment is an inciting incident or turning point in my life. When I was 19 yrs old, I sat on a bridge during quiet time of the retreat and decided at that moment that I was completely lost in what I was supposed to do with life and just prayed to God something that went like this:

I don't know what I'm doing with my life. I know it doesn't feel right and I don't know what to do. I'm tired of talking so I'm going to shut up now and listen so I know what to do. God, if you have something to say, I'm listening.

The thing I learned that day is that God does speak and will say things that will shake you. He said one thing to me during my quiet time and it was this:

MINISTRY

In my infinite wisdom, I said stopped listening and thought, "No, no. That's not for me. I'm not called into ministry. That's what my dad and brother do. I want to be active, but ministry is so not going to be a part of it. I don't have the patience and don't have what it takes to do ministry."

The Monday after the retreat, I read the book of Jonah and was majorly convicted and knew that I couldn't run away from this call...

                            I guess you can tell where this is going.

I transferred schools, started a young adult group (and then left the group a few years later), volunteered to help with a just for girls bible study, helped with the children's Christmas program a couple of years, sang on a young adult praise team for a few months, started as a young adult helper then moved as 1/3 of the youth interim team, and all during that time had been lifted up and beaten down by the church. I had many of days when I wanted to walk away, yet God pulled me back in. The thought never crossed my mind to leave the church ever, because I felt so connected to it even when I was burnt out, alone and broken.

So now let's fast forward to the current time to my Emmaus walk. The last post covers the impact it had on my life, yet I kept out a major part that I was still running from. Ministry.

See, my Emmaus walk wrecked my life. My life in general seemed to be okay and I was okay with the status quo, but my Emmaus walk wrecked any of my own personal plans and broke the complacency I had been living in for far too long. It wrecked me in the best possible way and I have been gaining more and more insight from my walk since April. It's been great and also the hardest thing to deal with.

You see, there have been many times during the times since I was 19 yrs old that people have asked me whether I would go into ministry. It was always easy to blow it off then, but after my walk it started to get harder and harder to write it off. I always had a good excuse why ministry was not the direction I should head in. I was prepped for response and was able to eloquently define my answer. I even started using the term "active laity" and most people left me alone after saying that.

Then I went to Lakeside for the East Ohio United Methodist Annual Conference. I went early on Sunday morning and had a great time hearing the sermon and spending time with friends. It seemed like it would be a typical week and I wanted to make sure that I had time to relax and to try to figure out why I felt so off recently. It became apparent on Monday night that I would have to face the thing when one of my friends who was there sent me this quote:

"We are accustomed to imagining the experience of conversion or sudden call to grace as an 'Oh joy' phenomenon. In my experience... at the moment we finally listen to the call we may say, ' O thank you, Lord'; or we may say, 'O Lord, I am not worthy'; or we may say, 'O shit, do I have to?" ~ Brennan Manning

I liked the quote but it hit me. The next day I was able to ignore this turning feeling inside of me and was having a good day. I was planning on attending one of the special evening services that I had never been to before and was meeting my friend who is now my Pastor. He and I sat next to each other during this service, which happened to be the Ordination Service. This service includes laying hands on to new pastors who are just beginning in their ministries and it was a very moving service. Then a part I was not expecting, they had a type of alter call for people feeling called in ministry...

My friend, a friend who has seen me lead groups and seen me grow since I was in high school, half-jokingly said, "You should go down."

I couldn't look at him. I looked forward and made eye contact with no one. I also spotted the two District Superintendents that I knew (one I knew since I was a baby and one I knew from my Emmaus walk because she was the one who I broke down to) and that brought fear inside of me. Thoughts were racing through my head like, "I kind of want to go down. But I don't think I can be a pastor, or can I? What am I thinking, if they see me this is not good. Lord, this can't be it. Not here, not now! My job is good, I just bought a house, my life is now in a good place and you want to do this to me?"

Thankfully, the Bishop wrapped up this alter call before my friend could pester me anymore about this. Yet, I had this aching in my heart that I could not get rid of. I had never felt something weigh this heavy on my heart so I texted my friend the next morning as I walked around to see if there would be a time we could meet. He said yes and throughout the day we worked out a time.

We were upstairs in the coffeeshop as I sit in the corner trying to figure out what to exactly say, since I had never really told anyone other than my dad about the time when I was 19 and heard the word ministry. I was terrified, but I let it out and told my friend everything. I told him how I had heard God call me when I was 19 and had been running away from it. I told him that I had been scared, because I was in school and had no direction of what I wanted to do with this degree. I told him that I loved my job, but felt like I had completely lost my focus for work because I felt like I was longing for something else and it was frustrating me to no end, since I really enjoy what I do. I told him how the last couple of days I had conversations with people that had left such an impact on me that it led me to question what I could do to understand God more and to help the pastors I had spoken to. I told him all of this through tears, because I didn't know what to do. It tore me up, since I knew I was called, but didn't know. AND if that wasn't enough, I was terrified to tell my parents about what I had been feeling.

It was a great conversation and has led to a lot of prayer, quiet time and will lead to even more prayer and quiet time so I can 100% discern this direction. But with talking with my friend, it led me to the realization that I had to talk to my dad about this. We were able to get dinner together that evening and before that we were able to walk around a bit. It was at the end of the pier that I was able to tell my dad that I had felt called into working with the church and was totally terrified about it. We talked as we walked and as we had dinner. We discussed concern of direction and everything that was currently happening in my life. We talked about the specific type of ministry I would be best suited for and how to start looking. He mentioned he had a friend who worked at a seminary who would be a good connection to help me find a direction, in typical God fashion, my dad's friend was sitting right behind us and was getting ready to leave while he stopped at our table to talk. We told him we were just talking about him and how I was interested in attending seminary in a unique way and he told us of a great program that would fit with exactly what I was looking for. I met up with him later at the ministry fair to fill out a form requesting for more information on that program. I was filled with excitement and felt like I had direction back in my life.

The next day, which happened to be the last day of my vacation, I was filled with joy! This anxiousness had been lifted and I was ready to do what I needed to do to move forward. I can say this for a fact, I will not be starting seminary for at least a year and as of right now I believe I will be heading through the diploma route in leadership coaching. That does not mean something may change and will feel called in another direction for seminary (I've been running enough to know not to set anything in stone yet). But this I do know, I will finish up my current degree program and be at may current position as long as I need to be there. I know that seminary is in my future and I know that the next six months will be important as I become a member of a new church with my friend who helped me stop running.

I will admit, I am terrified yet excited. I am so happy my life was so wrecked into redemption that I was able to fully answer the call and not say "no," but to finally say "Yes, Lord. I'm terrified, but I'm in."

My 4th Day

It's been a number of months since I last posted on this blog and the sad thing about that is that I have often thought how much I should post in it. See, when I write I our much of myself in it even if it simply an opinion piece and there was much I did not want to write about since I was in a place of denial. But I have come to realization recently that I have turned over a new leaf in my life.

You see, I attended a spiritual retreat a couple weekends ago called an Emmaus Walk. The whole weekend is based on the passage in Luke 24:13-35 and is filled with many talks and times of reflections. There are a lot of amazing moments that take place during the Thursday evening till Sunday evening, but I am not going to go into all of the events that took place during the weekend. No, what I am going to go into the detail is how the wall that had been surrounding my heart for far too long was torn down and how my heart has been changed.

Where to begin? Well, the best place to start is how this wall was built up around me and made it difficult for me to open up to anyone. You see, when I transferred schools, I started a young adult group at church since I saw a need and refused to sit complacent. There were many times that were difficult and was so worth it to see the positive things that came out of the group, but I began to feel empty since I was giving everything of myself and was not refueling. Then there was a time that I wanted this group to head up something for the kids, but got burned by someone in the church and started to separate myself from the church. I started attending less and less of the young adult groups and was feeling very frustrated and alone. I then slowly started joining this young adult worship team at church an was slowly starting to feel okay, but there were too many in the group who thought it more as an entertaining aspect than worship. Then the new Youth Leader asked me if I was willing to help out with the youth and be one of three young adult leaders within the youth group. I told him I would check it out and started to get active with that. I started getting close with the two guys who were also the young adult leaders and it was going great. Then the youth leader left and the three of us were placed as interim youth leaders and faced many hardships. Also during the time of being a youth leader, my dad (who was my pastor as well) was facing difficulty with the congregation. I felt very lonely and started opening up with one of the other youth leaders who I worked with and he was pretty much my only confidant who I would be vulnerable with. My dad later moved to a different church and I felt very broken and untrusting of the church in general. I tried finding another church to attend, but no one welcomed me in and I started feeling like community in the church didn't exist. This brokenness carried over in a lot of other places in my life and I tried finding other things to fill in the gap that I was feeling and of course, nothing felt right. I was going through the motions and felt alone even when friends surrounded me. Life just didn't feel like it was right.

So when I was able to go on this walk, I knew it would change me, but I never expected it to change me as much as it did.

The first night I talked with people and laughed and it was fun. Friday is when the wall that surrounded my heart started to crack with a number of the talks that we had. It became harder and harder for me to wear the mask of looking like I had it together. Then Saturday came around and there was one talk that was like God unleashed a sledgehammer to the wall surrounding my heart to find a way into it. I won't lie; it hurt. I had not felt that vulnerable in such a long time and after that talk, I could not look up. I forgot what it felt like to be vulnerable and was filled with so much fear with anyone knowing just how much pain I had been fostering for so long. Fortunately, one of the leaders who saw me from across the room spotted me looking down and knew something was up. She came over to me and asked if she could pray for me. If there was any wall left surrounding my heart at that point, she had the final blow to take it down. 

With a wall down, I had to face all the hurt and all the pain and all the denial I had been covering up for so long. There was no more hiding it and I broke down. I broke down once with a friend who I made on the trip and that evening with on of the spiritual advisors. It was when talking with the spiritual advisor that I finally realized how empty I had been and had been dragging myself along life. The one thing that got me (which to be honest is not the first time I have been asked this question) is that she had asked me how I was still able to go to church? It's a legit question after the amount of hurt I had faced from the church, but I gave her an answer without even thinking it over. "I go to see God." 

With the amount of hurt I had faced, with all the times I tried to fill the hole in my heart (whether with an unhealthy relationship with someone or having a few too many drinks to numb the pain), I still went to church every Sunday so I could have the chance to encounter God. I so badly wanted to break down and have someone ask me, "How is it with you Soul?" And you know what? I did. That entire weekend broke down every wall I had built up and helped me let go of one of the most painful times of my life and was finally able to forgive them all and to let it go.


So, I bet you may be wondering why this is entitled "My 4th Day"? Well, it is a phrase that goes with Emmaus of what happens beyond the walk, beyond the weekend experience. It is the choice of whether we are going to allow this experience to stay during the weekend or change us for the rest of our lives. For me, I'm choosing to let it change me. There are many things that I have been able to see change in my life just from returning from the walk. There are also many things that I know will be coming in my future; I just am not sure what they fully are. All I know is that it will be okay, because I have Jesus walking beside me during whatever I am facing.

The Small Glimmer

“At times the world can seem an unfriendly and sinister place, but believe us when we say that there is much more good in it than bad. All you have to do is look hard enough. And what might seem to be a series of unfortunate events may, in fact, be the first steps of a journey.” ~ A Series of Unfortunate Events

Have you noticed that tons of people say they hate watching the evening news because it shows everything wrong with the world? They say that it is too depressing and they choose not to watch it, because they experience horrible things in their own life and do not need the constant negative news.

I can understand this response. So much of the news that everyone is seeing is negative and shows the horrible things that are happening in the world. The news prevents us from being blissfully ignorant to the wretched happenings on our planet. It can be utterly depressing to see that humanity really hasn’t changed much over the centuries with having bigotry still prevalent, mass shootings, terrorist attacks, innocent deaths and so on. History has not changed and can be depressing.

“At times the world can seem an unfriendly and sinister place, but believe us when we say that there is much more good in it than bad. All you have to do is look hard enough. And what might seem to be a series of unfortunate events may, in fact, be the first steps of a journey.” ~ A Series of Unfortunate Events

People switch off the news before they show a glimpse of humanity at the end. They will show how people are still fighting for the hope of mankind. This small praise of good in humanity overshadows all the negatives.

I know people complain about all the horrible news that are spread, but aren’t we now aware of the injustice in the world? Aren’t we now given the opportunity to fight for change?

And that is what is happening. There are so many organizations that have now come to the forefront to fight against these injustices. People are now feeling convicted to making a change in the world. People are choosing to bring good into the world and creating hope.

I refuse to believe that there is no hope for people. There is so much good happening, but it is done in this underground movement type of way, which I think is perfect. Why, because the people that are fighting aren’t demanding for praise or acknowledgement, but are simply fighting because it is the right thing to do.

These series of unfortunate news and depressing stories are the wake up call, the call to action to make the world a better place. These events are the beginning of a journey to make the world a better place and it is up to us whether we choose to listen to it or just stay ignorant.

You decide what's right you decide what's good

People make mistakes, Holding to their own, Thinking they're alone. Honor their mistakes; Everybody makes; Fight for their mistakes; One another's terrible mistakes. Witches can be right, Giants can be good. You decide what's right you decide what's good. ~ No One Is Alone, Into the Woods

Into the Woods is one of my favorite musicals of all time. It’s one of those musicals that I quote and actually have the original cast recording in my car so I can listen to it as I’m driving to work. I love all the songs to this musical, but as I have gotten older and rediscovering some of the deeper meaning to the lyrics, I have really fallen in love with the song “No One Is Alone.”

The entire song is brilliant with the idea that you have to make your own decisions and that there is a certain point you need to proceed on your own, but that you will never completely be alone. My favorite part of the song though is:

People make mistakes, Holding to their own, Thinking they're alone. Honor their mistakes; Everybody makes; Fight for their mistakes; One another's terrible mistakes. Witches can be right, Giants can be good. You decide what's right you decide what's good.

The part of this that I want to focus on is “Witches can be right, Giants can be good. You decide what’s right you decide what’s good.”

Too often we make rash decisions and categorize people as a good guy or a bad guy based on irrational things. It’s easier for us to say that all “witches” are bad, but we don’t know their intentions nor do we know them.

That’s why I love the musical, because you get to see everyone’s intentions and motives and everything is gray.


The beauty of this song is saying that we are all different and things will be complicated, but we are not alone. There are others on our side, but need to be aware that we cannot just judge and say that one side is better than the other, since it is more complicated than that. It’s such a great for children and adults alike, since we always need reminded of this lesson.

Change the world by starting with yourself

“Yesterday I was clever, so I wanted to change the world. Today I am wise, so I am changing myself.” ~ Rumi

Change, in my humble opinion, is one of the most controversial words a person can say. Change is a word that so many people will fight against, because it insights new patterns and shifts perceptions. Even with the constant push back on it, change will always happen.

There will be some natural progression of change and then some man-made movements of change. I personally enjoy following up with the man-made movements of change, because I like learning about the human-condition and why people do the things they do and feel passionate about certain topics.

Anyway, people are determined to change the world because they see injustice in the world. This is a perfectly understandable reason on demanding change in the world, because we should fight against injustice.

But with this idea of changing the world, are we choosing the change ourselves?

The wise thing to do is to change ourselves before we even take the endeavor of changing our surroundings. Before going too much farther I want to distinguish the fact that we as humans will never reach the perfect level of self-awareness. What I am meaning is constantly evaluating our motives and our thoughts.

What I used to do every couple of months is to take time to self-evaluate myself. I would take a personal inventory of myself and determine whether I was where I wanted to be. This evaluation helps me grow in deep ways. When you start writing out things or listing things about your life, it is amazing how deep you can get. You start realizing where your priorities are and personally, it inspires me to change parts of myself. Once making these personal changes, this new mentality starts to overflow in other aspects of my life. It’s absolutely wonderful and refreshing. The process can be painful if done correctly, because you have to call yourself out on the crap that you are doing. It is being accountable to yourself and the inner change and lead to an enlightened mindset.

So if you want to help change the world, start with yourself and it be easier to help bring change to the world.

Normalizing Panic

I want to apologize for the lack of writing I have done the last number of months. There are still series I want to write and different topics I want to cover, but it has been hard to balance work, grad school, and my social life on top of writing this blog. I am going to try to post certain posts, like Quote Mondays more and will occasionally do a Business Wednesday and/or Random Friday. But let's move on to the actual post.

“Anxiety is love's greatest killer. It makes others feel as you might when a drowning man holds on to you. You want to save him, but you know he will strangle you with his panic.” ~ Anaïs Nin

 Since June, my life seems like it has been in a constant blur. There have been so many changes in my life, all which are good, but have had no real time to process these immediate changes. This has thus led me down a destructive road of bottling up my emotions and thus causing panic attacks. If you recall, I wrote a blog post a couple of years ago about my very first panic attack. Since then, I have experienced them more frequently and it is no fun. I'm actually pretty good at picking up on the signs of the beginning stages of this attack. Typically I do not go into full-blown attacks, but every once in a while, I'm unable to prevent it. 

“Anxiety is love's greatest killer. It makes others feel as you might when a drowning man holds on to you. You want to save him, but you know he will strangle you with his panic.” ~ Anaïs Nin

I'm not sure if you (whoever is reading this) have experienced a panic attack, but you literally feeling like you are dying. The description that Anaïs Nin gives is a perfect description of what it feels like. It feels like you are being dragged down and have no hope of being able to pull yourself out of it.

Now this is typically the part of the post where I give some type of positive message of how I’m combating this or some self-awareness moment, but not this time. I just think we need to speak more about the fact that people have these types of anxiety.

For example, I have had full on conversations with friends about how normal having these types of attacks are. We have different personality traits and how we react to situations, yet we all have these panic attacks and believe they are a part of life. This is kind of messed up since we are in are early-mid 20s and believe panic attacks are just part of life.

I believe we think this is normal since we have now put extreme pressure on kids at such an early age. Test scores, being the successful athlete, talking about how you need to be in a certain amount of extracurricular so you can get scholarships and be able to get into a good school to then be able to get into a good Master program and so on. This is the crap and pressure that is being fed at such an early age and it is ridiculous.

Pressure is not bad, but the high level is just insane since it takes passion out of people. It kills the love that people can have for learning or the arts or sports or life in general.

Anxiety is the greatest killer of love and passion since it completely drains a person and will sooner or later make them numb.


So maybe there is a lesson in this. If you realize that you are experiencing this amount of panic and anxiety, then you need to step back so you don’t lose you passion and love of life.

Characters Demanding Life

Writers write because they cannot allow the characters that inhabit them to suffocate them. These characters want to get out to breathe fresh air and partake of the wine of friendship; were they to remain locked in, they would forcibly break down the walls, it is they who force the writer to tell their stories. - Elie Wiesel

It's been months since I have written for leisure and I can't stand that fact. There has been a part of me that promised myself to always be able to write. Writing has always been a part of me and helps me be able to focus on other parts of my life since it causes me to self-evaluate in ways that I cannot fully explain. It's a very cathartic process for me and I just love it.

So why choose a quote about characters after months of not writing?

Well, it is simple to be very honest. I have characters who are finally formed who are ready to have their story written. I have a story that I have been working on for years. When I say years I really mean years. I don't think I can really tell you how this is not an exaggeration, but is a statement of truth.

I have a story that I have been working on since I was 15 years old. I originally started this story as a way for me to calm down (remember, writing or telling stories is a way for me to calm my mind to be able to focus). I used to think about this story at night and it would put me to sleep. I used it as a type of bed time story for myself because I would focus on too many things before I would fall asleep and by telling myself this story would ease my mind.

I actually started writing this story when I was 16 and from that point I have dabbled in it. The central heart of the story has not changed, but the characters have changed. I have really been able to get to know these characters from the inside out. I know how each character would react, whether they would eat a certain type of food to understanding their heart. There has actually been a section of my story that I have not written, because I couldn't do it. Not that I was incapable of writing it, but for the simple fact I did not want to say goodbye to the character.

As a writer, sometimes you believe you know exactly where the story is going and to a certain point, you do. I have known how this story ends when I was 15. I have never told anyone how it ends, but since I have been working on it for close to a decade, there have been times of doubt about the ending. This is due to the fact that the characters have developed to a point that I originally did not plan. It's honestly brilliant when you are writing something and a character does something you did not plan. It's like when you are writing you are not 100% in control because you are letting the characters think for themselves.

So how does this exactly relate to this quote? I have not written in months and I have characters who want their stories to be told. There are times I literally feel like I am going to burst because they are demanding their stories. This quote reminds me of a past post I did about Maya Angelou's quote stating "There is no greater agony than bearing an untold story inside you." 

There is a story that I have and has been in my mind for almost a decade and I know what each of the characters well enough that it is time to finish the story. It's a little bittersweet to have this story to be almost finished, but these characters refuse to be silent and deserve to have their stories told.