Catching Fire to the Blackest of Fridays

I used to love Black Friday.  Yeah, I know there are some "awesome" deals out there, but now the whole idea has me feeling sad and a little sick.

The day I got home from Boone the TV was on and a few commercials came on that stirred this empty feeling inside of me.  Maybe it's because I don't have cable in Boone, so it had been awhile since I had seen a commercial.  I wasn't numb to the 30 second messages being blasted through the TV screen, but I was kind of thinking about them a lot.  One Target commercial had changed the chorus in a Christmas song from "Fa la la la la, la la la la," to "Shop shop shop shop shop, shop shop shop shop."  Ew.  Immediately following this commercial, a Golden Corral commercial advertised their chocolate fountain as being, "One of the seven wonders of the world."  We have become a society that thrives off of materialism and indulgence.  More is always better...but is it actually?

To make ideas more real to me, I like to apply them to situations that hit home.  What's real to me right now:  Catching Fire.  *If you haven't read the Hunger Games series or seen the new movie, go do it.*  I was thinking about how we have been designed to be consumers since the day we were born.  Companies specialize in targeting just the right audience so that they can be more profitable and they are really, really good at it.  Generally, we're a little unaware of it or we just don't care.  Our capital system fuels a desire within us to get up at 2 am the day after Thanksgiving to go wait in line and fight with someone over a TV that is marked down a hundred bucks.  Awesome.  It's ironic really.  We spend a whole day being thankful for all we have only to wake up in the morning wanting more.  I was thinking about how Katniss takes small steps to rebel against the capital and create hope within the surrounding districts.  If we were to ignore all of the Black Friday hype and celebrate the things we already have, how cool would that be?  Think of all the people who wouldn't have to go into work to fuel the flame that we, as a people, have turned into a roaring fire.  Black Friday started at Walmart yesterday at some ridiculous hour like 5 pm.  Some people haven't eaten Thanksgiving dinner by this time.  Some people won't eat anything at all!  But all we can think about is getting that deal.  This is sad, guys.  My heart is breaking for what we have become.  We have fallen into the materialistic marketing ploys, and all for what?  That's what I'm really interested in...I'm just wondering what it's all for.

I'm sitting here thinking about my Amazon wish list.  I would really love a smart TV so that I can do mindless tasks on my computer AND watch Netflix.  I feel like this is something that I need.  This makes me so sad.  I don't want to be someone who always wants.  

Thankfully, I don't have any money to spend, but what if I did?  I hope I wouldn't have been among the masses lined up at all of the surrounding stores.  I don't want to be defined by my stuff.  If my house burnt down, I don't want my passions and my biggest joys to be within my things.  They're just things.  I don't need one more sweater marked down to ten dollars, I already have ten, which is nine more than I could ever need.  I don't need more stuff.  People who woke up with nothing today didn't wake up and think, "Hey, I'm going to go hit the Black Friday sales."  They couldn't.  They probably woke up sad, hungry, and maybe lonely.  Yet many of us woke up with everything we could ever need and decided we wanted even more.  

Today, I encourage you to count the blessings you already have.  Put your passions and love into something that won't burn with a house fire.  Less really is more.  When you die, your wardrobe, your car, your house, and your stuff isn't coming with you.  It's temporary.  Stuff ties you down.  Large amounts of money poured into any one item makes it more valuable than it ever should be.  How nice would it be to just walk out the door with everything you own in a backpack?  I couldn't do it, but it sure is awesome to think about.  Invest in love.  Invest in people.  Invest in those who have nothing.  We live in a country that uses fountains for beauty while other countries travel miles to a clean water source.  Be thankful for the small things.  We are blessed with running, clean water, warm houses, and plenty of food that could feed a small army.

More is less, don't forget it.  It's a daily challenge.  Everything in this world tells us that this isn't true and more is always better.  I disagree.  A friend on twitter today had some awesome hashtags:

#happybuynothingday

#downwithmaterialism

#downwithconsumerism

And lastly,

       Matthew 6:19-21

"Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moths and vermin destroy, and where thieves break in and steal.  But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where moths and vermin do not destroy and thieves do not break in and steal.  For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also."

Everyone Needs A Figther

Need a fighter?
Or be one.

God is doing some crazy things in my life right now.  I think it's pretty fascinating to look back at my spiritual journey over the past few months.  It reminds me of some ideas Jen Hatmaker touches on in 7 (seriously read this book).  I completely removed myself from everything that was comfortable to me, and through doing that, it allowed more room for Jesus to move.  I needed change and I needed to create more space within myself so that I could grow.

More of Him, less of me.

With that being said, God has really had it on my heart to pray.  I mean serious, intentional prayer.  I tend to give God the tiny 5% that I have left at the end of the day when I talk to Him.  Also, I tend to pray for myself and the needs that are most important to me.  I pray for the safety and health of Kyle, my family, and my friends.  I pray that I will make it through grad school without failing out.  Generally, I'm a pretty selfish person...and I recognize that (sometimes).

You guys, God is so big and more majestic than we can even comprehend.  For me to quickly speak with Him before I fall asleep just doesn't even give Him the glory He deserves.  I have started praying out loud in my apartment during times of the day when my tank isn't running on empty.  I've become more intentional in the content of my prayers, as well.  Rather than praying for my desires and what I want, I need to pray about what God thinks is best.  My idea of how I want things to go can be SO different of His idea and His plan.  I'm learning to accept that and to allow Him to move how He sees fit.

Also, you know how everyone is always like, "I'll pray for you?"  For those of you who don't know me very well, I am a recovering flake.  Seriously.  I have suffered from serious flake-itis and I am making some serious improvements in changing this about myself.  When I say I'm going to pray for you, I need to actually do it.  I don't want the powerful act of prayer to be an empty promise that I hand out to others.  This week, I intentionally prayed for specific situations every single day.  This is something I am really, really, really, working at.

Lastly, since I moved to Boone, God has completely shown me how to be a fighter for someone else.  Both emotionally and spiritually.  I can recall one of my deepest, darkest memories from when I had just recently made the decision to seek after Christ again.  I wasn't 100% there yet.  God hadn't completely broken me down yet.  I look at the miraculous ways God was fighting for me in that specific situation and I am so incredibly grateful.  He had his hand on so many terrible situations that protected me and I didn't even want Him to.  Wow.  How crazy, right?

So, with that being said, God had my back through it all, but I never had a human, flesh and bones fighter.  Nobody really knew the extent of my spiritual battle.  I desired to live in both the light and the dark, which I now know is impossible.  Sometimes I still feel myself wanting to revert back into those old behaviors.  I didn't have a specific person fighting for me.  I was completely alone in my struggle, for the most part.  I also didn't know what it meant to truly fight for someone...until now.

I'm going to get a little cliche and say that everyone needs that peanut butter to their jelly, or that icing to their cupcake, that horizon to their sky, or maybe even...the Mario to their Luigi.

Hehe, no but seriously.  I have understood deep, true friendship, but what God is teaching me now is different.  I have learned how to truly spiritually invest into another human being and to fight for them.  I'm not talking about physical fighting, but hey I'd throw a punch for my peeps.  I'm talking broken, on my knees, praying and pleading with God for a friend.  I have never prayed like this for another human being.  Ever.  This realization slapped me in the face yesterday.

We are broken people called to serve and to love others.  I mean seriously love in the way that Jesus loved us.  Yes, I recognize that amount of unconditional love is physically impossible for human capacity, but we can try.

My prayer is that you guys have someone fighting for you.  I recognize that we all struggle with different things.  Maybe some of you are suffering from physical pain, or grief, or hopelessness.  God has your back, but I hope you have a loved one that does too.

Be a fighter, guys.  Spiritual warfare is waging all around us.  This terrifies me, but also gives me peace.  We are constantly being fought for.  We are that loved.

Ecclesiastes 4:9-12

"Two are better than one, because they have a good return for their labor: If they fall down, they can help each other up.  But pity those who fall and have no one to help them up!  Also, if two lie down together, they will keep warm.  But how can one keep warm alone?  Though one may be overpowered, two can defend themselves.  A cord of three strands is not quickly broken."

Help pick someone up.  Everyone needs a fighter.

Check Yo Self.

Alright, I know my writing has slowed down, but grad school is kicking my butt.  I took an exam yesterday and I have a brief break until I have a literature review due on Wednesday...*sigh*.

Why did I come to grad school again?

Okay so anyways, I have to share something.  Last weekend my dad visited me and we went hiking.  Though I do not doubt the rumors that Winter in Boone is miserable (my apartment is a cozy 45 degrees right now), Fall in Boone is stupid pretty.  I mean seriously breathtaking.  I am humbled every single day by God's beauty when I walk down Stadium Drive (my mini mountain) and I see the mountains looming over Appalachian's campus.  I mean I am so serious.  Living in the valley was absolutely gorgeous, but living on the actual mountain has a whole new perspective.  Visit me, people.

Check it out.  This is what I see when I walk down to class every morning:

This overlook, Howard's Knob, which sits right above the grocery store I shop at.  People run to the top of it (because they're insane).  I could be there in 3 minutes if I wanted to go right now (driving of course).  It overlooks App and I just think it's amazing.  Check it out:

Lastly, this image is from the parkway this past weekend.  My dad and I took the parkway on the way home from hiking and we couldn't help but stop to take a picture.

I mean that is just miles, and miles, and miles of beauty.  I can't help but think of how creative God is when I look at these images.  My dad and I got into an interesting conversation about the nature of children while we were hiking.  Most kids operate through instant gratification.  They can't comprehend how they literally can do nothing themselves, though they don't see it that way.  Appreciation for all the beauty that surrounds us doesn't come until later in life, that usually includes appreciation for our parents, as well.  I hated hiking when I was a kid.  I didn't care about beautiful views.  So what.  I thought hiking was hard and it made me sweat and there were bugs.  I needed immediate instant gratification.  I didn't want to hike 3 miles to some view.  Now, I love these views.  I feel so tiny and I love it.  All of the man-made features of the world melt away and I can truly see the raw, first-hand product of God's beauty.  What a gift.  It's humbling.  This idea of children being so incredibly reliant on their parents for every single need should be an illustration of our encounters with God.  When we grow out of that stage with our parents, we have to put that reliance on someone new.  Pray about it.  It's hard not to think we can fix everything all on our own.  That is probably one of my greatest struggles.

So, listen to this.

STORY TIME.

This morning I randomly woke up around 5:45 am.  I always sleep straight through the night, so it was kind of weird.  I was wide awake, which was also weird because I went to bed at like 2 am last night.  This incredibly strange rustling/clicking noise was coming from the oven and it was totally freaking me out (I have an electric oven, not gas, calm down friends.  I am not dying of carbon monoxide poisoning....yes I googled why ovens make random clicking noises).  So I got up to check it out and it would stop every time I would get up.  I was pretty freaked out...mostly because I thought there was a squirrel or some other type of small animal rustling around in my oven.  I am now assuming my apartment is so freakishly cold that my oven was just having muscle spasms...let's go with that.

Amidst my panic attack I checked my Facebook on my phone.  Clearly this has calming potential.  I had a message from a reader whom I had never met before.  I hope she is okay with me sharing this, but she shared me some incredibly kind thoughts about the impact of my blog.  It brought tears to my eyes.  She encouraged me to keep writing and to keep on seeking Him with an honest heart, so I have to be honest.

My first thought was not to share this on my blog, but that I couldn't wait to tell my mom, my boyfriend, my friends...blah blah blah.  Pride just started to consume me in this really awful way and I didn't even realize it.  All of a sudden, my oven started getting louder and this really odd feeling came over me that I needed to pray.  I talked to God about my pride and how sorry I was that I took those kind words all onto myself.  I can be so self-centered.  Immediately after I prayed the clicking stopped and I fell back asleep until...now.  When I woke up was when I realized that I wanted this to be a blog entry, not a story to my friends about how influential my words are.  

Just last week I was so humbled by God's beauty on the parkway...how quickly I forgot!  I need to be humbled every single day because I will let pride consume me 100%.  Sometimes I give myself all the credit and I can just feel myself doing it.  During the early hours of this morning God gave me an incredibly needed reminder.

We are broken and we can't do this all on our own...well I'm definitely broken.  Maybe you don't think you are...yet, and that's so okay.  It took me a while to understand how broken I was and obviously, by the nature of my posts, well you can see how I still forget every single day.

We all fall short by our own strength.   

Ephesians 2:8-10

"For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith - and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God - not by works, so that no one can boast.  For we are God's handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do."