The Five-Year Plan vs. Absolute Spontaneity
Today’s Love: that first cup of coffee in the morning
Today’s Wish: Courage and Holy Boldness
Some things I’ve learned in the last two weeks:
-The road to Hell is paved with good intentions.
-I really missed my church family over the last few years that I’ve not been to church.
-Your real friends have your back through every situation.
-I have no problem standing up for what (or in this case, who) I believe in.
-I have a real problem with caffeine.
-I saw Kassie’s new tattoo, and I seriously want another.
-American Idol Encore for PS2 = AWESOME.
-Daniel Ingle is quite possible one of my Top 5 favorite people.
-Rainy days and Mondays always get me down.
-I am really really going to miss Bret Jones when he leaves.
-Inevitably, even one of your best friends will let you down.
-It’s nice to catch up with people, but if you spend too much time with them, you begin to realize what it was that caused you to stop being friends with them in the first place.
-There’s someone closely related to me that I love, but have a hard time liking 75% of the time, and that makes me really sad.
-That by sticking up for my relationship, I’ve truly realized how much I love my boyfriend. (And Sam Caton. lol)
-Ripples become waves.
-Natalie May is one of the most talented people I’ve ever met.
-Surprise parties are awesome when you’re a part of the surprise.
-David Cook’s cover of “Billy Jean” is the most awesometastic cover I have ever heard.
-Slightly less than 7 months until we have new President-Elect.
-Finding an apartment is a lot harder than it seems.
-Theo is going to be my new advisor.
-I’m a lot closer to graduation than I realized.
-The slightest things can cause the biggest drama.
-Practice does indeed make you better at anything…
-There is nothing in the material world better than that first cup of coffee in the morning.
I want to apologize right now to all of you out there if I’ve seemed rather…aimless, for lack of a better word, over the last month or so. I really have been, truth be told, since I was told about Bret’s resignation. I kind-of felt hopeless and I was upset and I had absolutely no idea where I was going from that point. I had entertained all sorts of ideas about my future, both at ECU and not. I tried to come up with plans that would be the most conducive to the goals I have, and in doing so, I realized something really interesting about myself:
I will never a “Five Year Plan” type of person.
One of my best and oldest friends posted a blog today that really got to me. And, despite everything she wrote in her blog about life and the life we have vs. the life we plan for ourselves, what got to me the most was the title of her blog: “Where my faith and real life meet…”
I read the title before I even clicked to open the blog, and I had to write it down–it struck such a chord within me, as someone who’s recently started going back to church and getting my faith back on the track where it once was…five years ago. “Where my faith and real life meet.” I’m not saying that in the last five years, I’ve lost my faith, because I haven’t. If anything, my faith in God has grown just as much as I have, but I’ve strayed and I’ve wandered, and like the Prodigal Son, I long to return to where I felt most at home, which is back in a pew every Sunday with people I’ve grown to appreciate even more who, even after empty promises and good intentions gone bad, still smiled and opened their arms when I walked into the sanctuary two weeks ago for the first time in God knows how long. And, I think about what it took to get me back in, and all it really was wasn’t even a push or a pull or a goading or a coercing, but simply the knowledge that I had someone who’d been in my life, despite the short amount of time we’ve known eachother and even shorter amount of time that we’ve been friends, who’s been going to my home church all year. The moment I realized that opportunity, I jumped on it. And not only did it effect me, but it effected somone from my old youth group who’d also been trying to get back with God who started coming back simply because I was there. And, in the time I’ve talked to this person, I see how much he’s changed –for better and for worse– and I think, “man, it’s amazing what five years can do to someone.”
In realizing the fact about myself that I’m not a Five Year Planner, and in getting back in my faith, I’ve grown to think even more that, as both humans and Christians, we’re not supposed to be Five Year Planners. I think Jesus wants us to live with a sort-of “Holy Boldness.” Jesus didn’t map out Five Year Plans, nor was he premeditated in his approach to life. Jesus was the most spontaneous person who ever lived, I think. His love is daring, imaginative, bold, and above all, in the moment. It catches you off guard and sometimes comes off looking unfair and unpredictable. But life is unfair and unpredictable. The only absolute certainty of your life and mine is one we don’t like to talk about: death. Everything else is a gift and a grab bag. Are we supposed to be afraid of death? Why should we be? In becoming afraid, we forget to live, and Jesus doesn’t want that. John Bunyan wrote in Pilgrim’s Progress,
“Living by Faith, begets in the Heart a Son-like Boldness and Confidence to God-ward, in all our Gospel-Duties; under all our Weaknesses, and under all our Temptations. It is a blessed thing to be priviledged with an Holy Boldness and Confidence God-ward, that he is on our side, that he taketh part with us, and that he will plead our Cause with them that rise up against us.”
A typical Christian is more at home in the plan than in the moment, more at ease following someone else’s formula than making it up as we go. But Holy Boldness involves the habit of saying “Yes!” to the moment. Jesus received each moment as a gift, less going after what he wanted than wanting what came to him. Jesus wasn’t a Five Year Planner and neither am I.
And you know, I’m rather okay with that. I like the fact that I’ve done more in my life in the last five years than I did in the 18 that preceded it. And believe me….none of that was planned. You couldn’t have convinced me five years ago that I would be where I am today. But here’s something I’ve not told anyone: I’d do it all again the same way, because day by day, heartache by heartache, each step I’ve taken has made me the person I am today, and let me put to rest any misconception anyone might have: I Love Me. I love me the way I am, no exceptions. I love my pastey white skin and my hair that’s never quite what I want it to be. I love my jiggly butt and my crooked teeth and the scars from my accident-prone childhood. I love my eyes and my smile and the confidence that took 22 years for me to build…and I love my friends for loving me, loud mouth, jiggly butt, tattoos, and everything else.
And that, my friends, is where my faith and real life meet.
Today’s Poem: [i thank You God for most this amazing]
i thank You God for most this amazing
day:for the leaping greenly spirits of trees
and a blue true dream of sky;and for everything
which is natural which is infinite which is yes
(i who have died am alive again today,
and this is the sun’s birthday;this is the birth
day of life and love and wings:and of the gay
great happening illimitably earth)
how should tasting touching hearing seeing
breathing any-lifted from the no
of all nothing-human merely being
doubt unimaginably You?
(now the ears of my ears awake and
now the eyes of my eyes are opened)
(c) e.e. cummings
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