Why I Don't Blog Anymore

It seems funny to me to explain my lack of internet output in the last few months. Not like anyone reads this, but I believe that for the people that do, I should explain myself.

I am not one to outwardly express my thoughts before I finish them. Often, I absorb information, analyze what I think/feel about it, and react. When most people ask me about a situation they get my final thought process instead of everything it took me to get there. This seems to leave most people speculative about my sanity... I'm starting to agree.

In the last two months since my graduation I've had a lot to contemplate, and a lot to recover from. And alas, though I feel I am still far from feeling 100%, I am feeling better. Though I would like to regale the 6-7 people that read this with everything that went down, I believe putting life's more intimate details online for public scrutiny is faux pas... at least for me. But I will say that in conclusion (there I go again, not explaining anything) I am a liar. Not to other people, just to myself. I have been lying to myself for a while and I can't say when it started, or what I was attempting to cope with to get it where it is, but a liar is what I am.

I haven't been honest with myself, about myself, in a long time and now it seems time I fess up. My most appalling lie has been in my actions; to be more specific my thought actions. That makes no sense. Like I mentioned before, I don't simply react when something happens. And this thinking thing is my coping mechanism to... something. I used to just act, and life occurred just the same as it does now, and I felt less guilty about it.

So I have been considering thinking less, and acting more, and trying to feel less guilty about EVERYTHING that I do. After all, Christ didn't come to Earth to make me feel bad about who he created me to be. In fact, since God created me in His image I should feel more consistently blessed than condemned, but perhaps this is another topic.

So I'm putting this out there so that I can hopefully get some input. As we age, should we be more speculative about ourselves? About our actions? I have said to myself for a while now that I stopped flirting when I was interested in someone because I felt it was manipulative, but is something like flirtation manipulative? Or is it just a part of being who we are? What is the purpose of analyzing all my thoughts and actions? Should I just go with my gut?

Why as I get older do I only find more questions to ask?

oh joy... another question.

contemplating

how is it that when I was younger I thought I was smart and now as I get older I know SOOO much less...

Where Do I Go From Here?

What do I put my hope in? Where do I invest my time? Where do I place my value? Recently I'm thinking I may have gotten these BIG questions wrong. I was doing it wrong. I put a lot of hope in a system, which God is taking from me. I've put a lot of time into that same system and the people there, and now God is moving me out of it. And I have received my value from the people in this system.


But some truth:
My hope is in Christ. And Christ alone. He is my strength and shield, my protector, my provider, and my best friend. The days that I'm not running after Him, I'm chasing nothing. And it took being a Christian for almost 9 years for me to get this as much as I do now, which may only be the tip of another iceberg.

How does one invest more time with Jesus other than in the word? yea. I'm still figuring that one out. But of all these questions, that's the only one I feel I have been doing better in for a while now.

My value is determined by Christ. By God. Not by what others say or think or how they react or act towards me... but out of all of these big questions, this one is the hardest to get over.

Missions Occur Where Ever the Lost People Are

I'm from Gilbert, Arizona. It's a small little farm town on the outskirts of Phoenix, one of the largest cities and one of the fastest growing in the US. Growing up in Gilbert, and especially being a teenager, provided me with the ability to have something to do in the city, while still having a very safe home. Not that Phoenix is all that dangerous anyway, but Gilbert is the kinda place where you can accidentally leave your doors open and nothing will get stolen.

Last week a murder occurred in Gilbert, Arizona. One of the safest places I can think of in the world. It's one of those: I go running at 3AM when I'm home and can't sleep, safe places. The biggest thing that happens to us is when tractors make traffic slow or kids toilet paper houses when it rains.

It's not that it freaks me out that my hometown isn't safe. If anything, Gilbert is more of a vacation residence for me, but I get the feeling that so many other people's lives were shaken up by the events. People in Gilbert base a lot of life purpose in possessions and things, in the idea of money making the world go round and living to be the "leave it to Beaver" family. Family's have cars and mopeds and 4-wheelers and boats, houses with more rooms than people and garages with more cars than licensed drivers. This is a place where "how it looks" is far more important than anything else.

I often think that the people who live to share their walks with Jesus with people in Gilbert are so much stronger than I. How do you advertise Christ to people who have EVERYTHING and whatever they don't have they could buy? Please send a quick prayer up for all the missionaries of Gilbert. They have their work cut out for them.

Is Home Really Where My Rump Rests?

This year has been an odd year, and due to the intense situations ebbing and flowing through my senior year I have been disinclined to truly enjoy where I am. So it was a great surprise to me when, for the first time in 7 months, I actually started enjoying my desert. My spring break was actually full of fun little surprises like that.

It hit me while I was taking the 60 home. I remembered a Dutch phrase I learned last January. Translated, it's something like "if the sun sets red, tomorrow will be a good day". Haha... well, that's not so hard for Phoenix. With a climate not allowing for many clouds or moisture, our sunrises and sunsets have more colors in a single day than most people ever see. So I guess that means a very high percentage of days should have good "tomorrow"s.

While I glided along the silent freeway going somewhere around 70mph with the windows down, the cool desert spring air hit with a slight wet scent which probably meant that somewhere a sprinkler had broken. The mountains shone red in front of me and I heavily considered continuing until I ran out of gas, which in my little car could have been well into the night. And suddenly it hit me. I'm not going to live here. I know, I don't really live in Gilbert anymore as is, but after August I really won't live there. I don't even know exactly when I'd be coming back. A few months? A year? more? I don't want to stay. I'm not wishing I could be in Gilbert or Tucson instead, it just seems so odd to think that my parents house will never be my home anymore. Even though I haven't spent more than 3 consecutive weeks at home in the past 4 years I've always referred to it as my home. It's the place where I send my phone and credit bills, it's the place where I run to when I get tired of real life. But after August I can't just go back to my childhood sanctuary.

I guess Christ will just have to get that much bigger for me.

God Knows So Much More Than I

In the past few months I have become increasingly grateful for my family, and this gratefulness was surpassed more than ever before this week.

My parents have not been very church-y people most of my life, in fact, though I don't doubt their faith, they still don't stand under the traditional church standards, and for this I have usually been ashamed. My family has not really held to traditional standards most of my life and this has led me to sometimes wish I had a different family, but after this week I really don't think I'd wish it ever again.

My friend and I had a crazy idea a week ago today. We decided to go skydiving. IT WAS AMAZING! And instead of freaking out, telling me I was crazy, or suggesting I shouldn't go, my parents told me to have fun and call when I was safely back on the ground. The day of the trip due to my anxiety from the night before and my adrenaline rush during the dive, I was exhausted by 2pm, so when my mom called to congratulate me at 4 I was still kinda out of it. But I think the kicker in the whole situation, the thing that made me truly look at my family in a way I probably haven't seen them before was my aunt posting her status on facebook as a congratulations to me. I couldn't believe it, my whole family actually supports me.

Many of my friends told their parents what I'd done and their parents asked them not to go. Haha... these people tell their kids to stay safely on the ground, my family encourages me to jump out of a plane, and have an absolute blast during the fall back to Earth.

My family's not perfect, far from it, but if there is one thing I hope to pass onto my children that my parents have taught me, it's that the best things in life are scary, hard to face, and probably dangerous, but if you don't do them, then what's the point of living? Looking back on the past 21 (almost 22!!) years, I'm only just starting to realize why God put my where He did.

Dedicated to my mother, father, all the crazy Mexicans I'm related to, and all the crazy white people too. Thank you for all the wonderful support and compliments this week, it has really meant a lot. Much love, Elizabeth-Marie (zibet)

If Casablanca's Problems Don't Amount to A Hill of Beans in This Crazy World, Then I'm Screwed

One of my favorite games to play when I was in Europe last year (I can't believe it has already been a year) was a kind of "what if" game. "What would I be doing if I were not Studying Abroad right now?" It was always a fun game to play. Because, trust me, no matter what I was doing in England is was a heck of a lot more exciting than whatever I could be doing in Tucson, Arizona. Even if it was just sleeping... I was sleeping in ENGLAND... hmmm.... Tucson.... England... *weighs scales* yea... I think England wins out on the "excitement" factor inherently.

One day, while Katie and I were walking though Rome, I stopped to think about what I'd really be doing in I weren't walking around in Rome, truly think about it. It was about 5 pm, the sun was looking like it might set in the next few hours, and we were about 100 yards away from the Colosseum. It was 7 am in Phoenix. If I hadn't gotten an internship, or traveled somewhere, or something like that, I'd have a job. I'd be working. I'd be getting up, and doing something very adulty in 125 degree phoenix summer heat. ew. And then it occurred to me, right now I know what I'm doing if I'm not here. I'm working. Probably for a hospital, or some cooperation, or possibly the government. But I know what I'm doing instead. And I certainly know that life has nothing nearly as exciting as walking up to the Colosseum going on in Phoenix in the summer. But after graduation... I don't know. If I move back to Europe (and that includes England) or if I stay home, or if I move to New York or San Fransisco or Washington D.C., or heck, even Seattle, I have no idea what might happen. Everywhere will be different. I don't know who I might meet or what I might do...

I want to move back to England. But as graduation looms closer I start to realize that this really is it. I'm done with my childhood. I graduated from college, at least as an undergraduate, and that is really the major thing, right? In years to come I might go back to school, but from May 16th onward, all my choices are any one's guess. Nothing will be set. I can never guess what I might be doing anywhere else. I mean sure, I guess I could try to guess what I might be doing if I lived in my hometown, but still... I'd be a far off shot.