onto the next chapter

Family and friends,

After four days of traveling, I've finally made it back home to Indiana, thus putting an end to my "life in California." I want to just thank you all for your support this summer. Thank you for taking time to read my posts, leaving me facebook messages, calling to check in with me, or praying for me. It was surely a blessing to feel like I was still able to have those connections with home and all of you who I care greatly about.

For those friends I made out in California, I want to thank you for making my experience what it was. I can't tell you how grateful I am for your friendship. It's kind of a scary thing traveling 2,000 miles away from home and not knowing anyone, but you all were an answer to my prayers for connection. Thank you for how you just took me in, inviting me to lunches and out to do things. Thank you to everyone I met through the internship, fellow interns and staff members, and thank you to my small group, and anyone else I met outside of those groups... I learned much from each of you, was challenged by the example of your lives, and was blessed by your kind hearts.

Also, a special thank you to my best friend Jana, who flew out to California last week to be able to help me with the drive back home. I can't tell you how excited I was to pick her up from the airport last Wednesday! I stopped at a Starbucks beforehand, practically bouncing with excitement, and told the barista all about my eagerness to pick up my friend whom I hadn't seen in months and all that was ahead for us in the coming week. Sometimes when I'm excited I get carried away when anyone asks "How are you tonight?" Sorry, barista. So I grabbed my homemade "Welcome to Cali Jana" sign, and was on my way. We had quite the ecstatic reunion at the John Wayne Airport that night. We then spent the weekend doing some final California favorites - eating all of the bests (In-N-Out, sushi, ect. Side note:: I made Jana try sushi and it did not go over well), laying out at Laguna, going up in a hot air balloon, spending a day with Shamu at Sea World, driving along the Pacific Coast Highway, and getting stuck in traffic for an hour. We started our drive home on Monday, and got home this evening (Thursday). It was a long trip, but we had some fun with it and as we always do, enjoyed our time together.

I've added the photos from our weekend together to my facebook album. Check out all the fun we had from Laguna Beach to Sea World! But here's a sneak peak....



When I got home I was greeted by balloons and a welcome home sign at the end of the drive. It was the best! Then Michael ran out to give me a hug. (Don't ever let him try to tell you he didn't miss me haha.) It was great to get to see my parents, brother, and grandpa tonight. It's also great to be in my home again... there's just something about home that puts your soul at rest. As I'm sitting in my room, I look around and am just delighted that everything I see is mine.. everything from all my art projects hanging on the walls to the Justin Bieber poster tapped up on my closet just sings "Lindsay," and after living in a hotel and a stranger's house for three months, that's a comforting sound to have surround me. I love that there are people in the next room, and that I don't have to talk to myself anymore. I love that there is actually food in the fridge here, and I love it even more that the selection of food currently includes 4 kinds of desserts. I love that I can go to bed without having to lock the doors. I love that right now my hands smell like my dog and that I can hear crickets chirping outside my window. This is home.

My prayer is that I will be a good steward of this experience I've been given... that I'll allow it to shape me, that I can carry all that I've learned into whatever lies ahead for me, and pour back into others what's been poured into my life through my time in California.

I'm eagerly awaiting to see the rest of my family and friends, hopefully in the next couple weeks. I can't wait to catch up with all of you!

blessings.

on a lighter note..

For those Bachelorette followers out there, let's do a little survey::

1. Who's Ashley gonna pick next week, Ben or JP?
2. Who would you pick for yourself? haha





Leave me some comments! :)

inspire confidence

If you remember from earlier this summer, I told you about how for one of our intern meetings we had a pastor on staff speak to us about our “SHAPE” (Spiritual gifts, Heart, Abilities, Personality, and Experiences). The idea behind this is that by better understanding your SHAPE, you’ll be more equipped to embrace your unique purpose and ministry in your life. By talking through four different aspects: 1. What you love to do 2. Who you love impacting 3. What needs you love meeting 4. And in what setting you love meeting those needs, the SHAPE instructor could then narrow it down to two words that spoke the theme of our SHAPE. After our intern meeting, we were all invited to send him an email requesting our own individual SHAPE sessions. Naturally, I was all for taking anyone’s offer of helping me find some clarity and direction in my life, so I jumped on the opportunity.

Prior to going into my meeting, I had promised you devout blog followers that I would share with you my “two words” after I learned them. It’s actually been about three weeks since I had my SHAPE session, but the reason I’m just now sharing with you about it is because I needed some time to process it on my own so that I could evaluate it’s validity and think through it’s applications. And I’ll be honest, for awhile I really fought against my “two words” and struggled to see how they could possibly fit me. If you haven’t guessed already (based on the title of this post) my two words were “inspire confidence.” But let’s back up first, and I’ll get to that in a little bit.

The first question we talked through was “What do I love to do?” Easy enough question, right? Immediately my mind went to things that would be ‘highlight of the month’ material.. things like traveling or going to a concert (Did I mention how jealous I am that I’m not going to the NKOTBSB concert with Laura and Jana tomorrow?). But the pastor challenged me, explaining that something I “love” should be something I can do every day for the rest of my life and not tire of it. Alright, a little trickier. “Well, I love when I can have a good conversation with someone. I love being active.. whether it’s playing a sport, or trying out a dance class, or just going for a walk outside. I love reading. I love writing. I love trying to be creative.”

Next question, “Who do you love impacting?” Initial thought—I’m not too convinced I impact anyone.. and if I do, I don’t go out of my way to do it. My answer to this question used to be children. I used to really feel like I had a heart for kids, but I’m not so sure anymore. So I answered this the same way some of you might, “Well, I guess I like to think I make an impact on my friends.. on the people I’m closest to and spend the most time with.” In response to this, I was prompted to evaluate the kind of people I have for friends.. and what it is about them that I’m drawn to.

Third question, “What needs do you love meeting?” This was another tricky one. Do I actually meet anyone’s needs? I guess, if anything, I like to meet relational needs. I enjoy listening to people. I find it comes naturally for me to empathize. I get excited when I can have a good conversation with someone where we’re both vulnerable and real with each other and talk about our weaknesses and discuss the challenges and gray areas of life, and dream together about the future. I love those conversations. I love having someone’s trust enough for them to come to me for that.

Final question, “In what setting do you like to meet those needs?” This one was easy. There’s nothing better for me than one-on-one, or occasionally a small group. I don’t do large groups and I hate being the center of attention haha.

We also talked through some things regarding my personality and the driving forces in my life. If you know me well then you probably won’t be surprised that the two major themes that arose were 1. That I hate confrontation with everything that I am. 2. I have this really annoying desire to try to please everyone that drives everything I do.

Alright, so that leads us to “Inspire Confidence.” If you’re like me, you’re thinking “Yeah, where’d that come from?” The reason I struggled against those words so much is because confidence is something I’ve never felt like I’ve had even in myself, so how could I possibly help others with that? But as the pastor pointed out, he thought the opposite was true… He thought because confidence was what I desired more than anything, that it was something I placed a high value on and wanted to help others with as well. He said that he could have chosen the words “inspire growth” instead, but from all that I told him he felt like the underlying objective of growth for me was confidence.

For the past three weeks, I’ve kept those words in my mind and tried to open myself to them and see if there is any truth that perhaps my ministry is rooted in inspiring confidence in others. I thought back to the relational needs that I said I love meeting and wondered what it is I hope to offer someone through those conversations. I realized the most encouraging thing for me is when I can validate someone’s feelings or walk beside them through their doubts and questions, just meeting people where they are, and often where I am too, and working through those questions together and dreaming together. Some of the best compliments I’ve ever received have been in response to posts I’ve shared, whether on one of my blogs or personal facebook messages. These compliments have less to do with my less than brilliant thoughts or writing ability and more to do with the connection the reader is able to make with my words and how that in turn can validate what they’re going through and hopefully inspire and encourage them as well.

There’s a lot of problems in our world. There are starving children. There are people with curable diseases that simply can’t afford or don’t have access to the right treatments. There’s war. There’s injustice. There’s broken families. There’s broken hearts. But of all that’s gone wrong in our fallen world, one tragedy has recently been especially dear to my heart. This is something I’ve shared with very few people in my life, but that tragedy is the sex slavery that still persists around our world today. I’ve learned more about it in the last four years while being at Huntington from different chapel speakers we’ve had come in that sparked my interest in the cause. Sex slavery can look a couple different ways. Some women are truly slaves to others, they can’t get out of it. Others may be in it by choice, maybe for fear that they can’t make a living any other way, but even then they are slaves to the lies the Devil and the world has told them.

I’ve been reading a book recently called Redeeming Love. It is a fictional story but it is based on the Biblical story of Hosea and Gomer. For those who may not be familiar, Gomer was a prostitute and God told Hosea to marry her. Gomer kept being unfaithful and running away from Hosea, but he patiently kept pursuing her and faithfully extending his love to her. God used their relationship as a metaphor for his relationship with the people of Israel and his undying love for them, even when they weren’t faithful to Him. The book I’m reading has really made this story come alive for me, and has given me a fresh look on what God’s love for me is like even when I run from him and fail to see the value He sees in me.

Nothing breaks my heart more than someone who can’t see their own value through the eyes of a God who loves them dearly. It makes me sick to think of women.. even young girls.. who have never known anything different. They’ve been brought up to believe their only value is in their body and how it can be misused. For the past couple years I’ve had the privilege of supporting a ministry that is taking young women in Ethiopia out of that lifestyle, and training them with skills such as sewing, so that they can provide for themselves and relearn their worth. I’m drawn to that kind of healing. I’m drawn to inspiring that confidence. How effective am I? Not as effective as I desire to be, but I guess when I think about it in these ways that really is where my heart is at.

Where’s your heart? What’s your SHAPE? How might God want to use your spiritual gifts, heart, abilities, personality and experiences for furthering His Kingdom?

get your joy!

Click here to catch Kay's weekly study on choosing joy. Tonight at 7 pm (10 pm back home!)

longest post ever...

Friends and family,

I’ve written many posts lately updating you on all of the adventures, new experiences, and even mundane activities of my day-to day life, but it’s been awhile since I’ve shared much on the condition of my heart and how I see the Lord moving in my life. I wanted to take some time tonight to reflect on these matters, and invite you into my thoughts.

At the start of this summer, I was living in this ‘everything is awesome’ kind of a life high. Though speckled with moments of fear, doubt, and insecurity, I was feeling on top of the world. My relationship with God was alive and vibrant and every day was a new adventure.

This week, for no particular reason, I finally came down off of that ‘high’. At work I felt bored, unchallenged, and unimportant. I felt disappointed and neglected in my relationships. I felt discouraged as I started thinking and planning for the nearing end of my summer and start of the rest of my life. I felt restless and discontented in my dreams for more... for better relationships, for my constant desire of new adventures, and yet accepting the need for stability in my next move.

I like to think of myself as being fairly introspective, so it didn’t take very long for me to realize something was off with my thoughts and my heart this week. I soon realized that my heart was so focused on what’s down the road for me, and on the discrepancies between what I wanted to be happening, and what was actually occurring, that I had lost sight of the blessing of this season of my life and the confidence of what I’m here for.

Since this realization, while the discouragement has persisted, I’ve also been encouraged in several ways. On Wednesday I was having a particularly hard day. Again, I’m not really sure why. I think my discouragement showed due to my boredom at work, but I think it was rooted much deeper than that. On my lunch break I decided to log onto facebook to go send a message to a high school friend who I hadn’t talked to all summer. When I clicked on the box to write my message, it brought up all of our past messages we have exchanged. Apparently we don’t talk much on facebook because one of the most recent messages I had from her came up on my screen and it was from January 2009. That was during a particularly hard time in my life when I was sorting out a lot of questions, and I’m sure this was a message she had sent to encourage me. It was St. Theresa’s prayer, and it says this::

“May today there be peace within. May you trust God that you are exactly where you are meant to be. May you not forget the infinite possibilities born of faith. May you use the gifts you have received, and pass on the love that has been given to you. May you be content knowing you are a child of God. Let this presence settle into your bones, and allow your soul the freedom to dance, sing, praise, and love. It is there for each and every one of us.”

I had to smile when I stumbled back across that prayer on Wednesday and thank God for using my friend’s encouragement from two and a half years ago to speak truth into my life again.

Last night I was encouraged again, this time through Pastor Rick. For the month of July, Crave is holding our Thursday evening services outside under the stars. I was delighted when I showed up to learn that Pastor Rick would be speaking to us. He shared with us his vision for the new generation of Saddleback. I won’t go into detail on all that was included in this vision, but I just want to say that he has got to be one of the most inspirational people to listen to and to be around. After he finished speaking and we transitioned into singing, he came down off the stage and walked around the 500+ college students that stood on the lawn and probably got around to hugging about half of us. I so admire that. I admire his love for the church, for each individual in the Body of Christ.

From the words he spoke to us that night, what I took away was his final request in his closing prayer… “Lord, fill them with your vision for their future.” Wow. Wouldn’t that be nice? In the midst of me trying to sort out all of my dreams for myself.. all of the experiences I long to have, all of the character traits I think I need to develop, all of the jobs I could do, and ideas of the person I should be… What a revelation to actually ask the Creator of my soul and of this world to fill me with his vision for me, to place me where He wants to use me.

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I realize and I apologize that this is an especially long post (even for me!), but I want to share one more piece of encouragement I stumbled upon tonight. For my birthday this past year, my wonderful roommate Erica gave me one of her favorite books. It’s one I have now read through several times, written by a young lady who quickly won her place in my heart as one of my favorite authors. I turned to one of my favorite chapters again tonight, in hopes of finding encouragement. The chapter is written on what it’s like to be 25. I realize that’s still two and a half years off for me, but I find much of it is already relevant. So here’s a little something, a word to the wise by Shauna Niequist, written especially for my 20-something friends…

“Stop every once in a while and go out to coffee or climb in bed with your journal. Ask yourself some good questions like, Am I proud of the life I’m living? What have I tried this month? What have I learned about God this year? What parts of my childhood faith am I leaving behind, and what parts am I choosing to keep with me for this leg of the journey? Do the people I’m spending time with give me life, or make me feel small? Is there any brokenness in my life that’s keeping me from moving forward?

These years will pass much more quickly than you think they will. You will go to lots of weddings, and my advice, of course, is to dance your pants off at every single one. I hope you go to very few funerals. You’ll watch TV and run on the treadmill and go on dates, some of them great and some of them terrible. Time will pass, and all of a sudden, things will begin to feel a little more serious. You won’t be old, of course. But you will want to have some things figured out, and the most important things only get figured out if you dive into them now.

For a while in my early twenties I felt like I woke up a different person every day, and was constantly confused about which one, if any, was the real me. I feel more and more like myself with each passing year, for better and for worse, and you’ll find that, too. Every year, you will trade a little of your perfect skin and your ability to look great without exercising for wisdom and peace and groundedness, and every year the trade will be worth it. I promise.

Now is your time. Become, believe, try. Walk closely with people you love, and with other people who believe that God is very good and life is a grand adventure. Don’t spend time with people who make you feel like less than you are. Don’t get stuck in the past, and don’t try to fast-forward yourself into a future you haven’t yet earned. Give today all the love and intensity and courage you can, and keep traveling honestly along life’s path.”



Thanks for those of you who stuck with me and actually read all of this!! You’re my favorite. Extra blessings to you haha

Hope you’re all doing well! Love you.

just a reminder...

Don't forget to tune into Kay Warren's Choose Joy study tonight at 7 pm (10 pm back home) !

"Joy is the settled assurance that God is in control of all the details of my life; the quiet confidence that ultimately everthing is going to be all right; and the determined choice to praise God in all things."

Watch online here

Family Visit: Day 2-5

Hello everyone!

Well, I had good intentions of keeping daily updates while my family was out visiting, but that didn't work out haha. We stayed pretty busy during their short visit! I'll give you a semi-quick recap though.

Friday:: We went up to Burbank to tour the Warner Brothers Studio. I thought this would be fun, but I ended up enjoying it even more than I expected. We got to see the outdoor city sets where they film different movies and shows. We also got to see a car and costume museum that have been used in their productions. I learned a lot and it was really exciting for me to interact with the place that has produced some of my favorite tv shows.


After our studio tour, we went to Universal City Walk to have a late lunch and some great seafood! We then went on out to Venice Beach to experience all kinds of crazy. Haha, there's definitely some interesting people there. I enjoyed the experience, but I'm not sure my parents would say the same.

Saturday:: We originally wanted to do Disneyland, but I was told to avoid going on weekends so we decided to do Knotts Berry Farm instead, in hopes that the lines wouldn't be as bad. Michael and I still spent a good portion of the day waiting in lines, but we made it fun and had a good time doing the rides. We were also able to catch a couple shows while we were there. One was an ice skating/dancing show, the other was on Native American culture.. both right up my alley haha.


Sunday:: On Sunday morning we went to the early Saddleback service, so my parents and Michael were able to hear a Pastor Rick sermon which was very good as usual. After church we drove down to San Diego to visit cousin Jennifer. She took us to a beach where Michael and I tried surfing for the first time. I can't say I was very good, but I sure had fun trying! I came away with a few bruises on my arms and legs, but it was worth it. Jennifer then took us out to see the Sunset Cliffs and it was right around sunset so that was very beautiful. We then went to Rubio's and had some fish tacos. YUM! Finally we were able to go visit my grandma's cousin, Lawson and his wife, Bonnie. We stayed and visited with them for a couple hours. It was neat hearing some of their life story.




Monday:: The family had to be at the airport at 2:30 this afternoon, so we spent the morning getting things packed and getting my car in for an oil change. We wanted one last good meal together so we stopped at the Irvine Spectrum shopping center on the way to the airport and had a nice lunch at Dave and Busters. I'm guessing they're about ready to get on their second flight back to Indianapolis right now, then they'll have to drive back home late tonight. Again, please pray for safe travels back home for them.

It was so great having them out for a week... getting that refreshing taste of home, and also getting to share my world out here with them. I can't believe I'm down to only 5 weeks left here. I know the time is going to pass all too quickly...

There's been a lot of photos added to my album, so check them out!