A little tribute

Warning: This is a relatively long post, you've been warned!
I'm going to switch gears a little, for a momentary sort of tribute.  One of my high school teachers, Heidi Rickard, is leaving teaching to follow some pretty spectacular dreams. I'm very excited for her to start her new adventure, but it is quite sad to know that future generations of PCHS won't know that "Kepler kept saying eliptical orbits", or that you can learn all about Rome by simply adding the most disgusting combination of food products to a blender, or that a classroom with lamps and a couch is SO much better than one without them, and the list goes on and on. So I thought I'd take a break from my daily rambling to talk about a pretty special lady who impacted me more than she may know.

I met Mrs. Rickard my freshman year of high school and I can still remember thinking, "this lady is going to turn my world upside down" and OH was I right (but trust me, it was good). I met her in a group I mentioned in another post, called Life 101. The lessons I learned in that club will stick with me for my entire life. I thought maybe, with her following her dreams, I'd remind her of some lessons that lead to me following mine. Not that there weren't others who helped along the way, but we'll save them for another post!

10 Lessons I learned in room 502:

1. The almighty cup:
Oh the almighty cup.  The cup is essentially your life in a cup. It's what you carry around with you every day, and you decide what you keep in that cup. So let's say you're at a party, lots of people in a room, and you've got this cup. It's full of nasty, rotten, depressing goop, and you run into someone who has a relatively lovely cup with some lemonade in it.  When you bump into them, their lemonade is filled with your goop, and now, their cup is pretty gross. Now let's say instead of "goop", you've got a pretty rotten mood, and that lemonade was a very great day. By unloading on this person sipping their day full of lemonade, you just turned their lemonade into some pretty rotten lemons.  I took this lesson to heart, and try so hard not to "spill" my cup on anyone. You don't know what's in someone else's cup, so don't unload your crud on them. Be careful not to take out your rotten day on someone who had nothing to do with it, or you'll find yourself in a fight that didn't need to happen in the first place, and in the process, ruin someone else's day as well.  So instead of carrying around "goop" carry around kindness. Being positive means your cup is positive, so when your day spills into someone's cup, it means it will be filled with lemonade instead of lemons. It's a lesson I constantly have to remember....BE POSITIVE, no FUOs (instead of "cheerios"), be the best version of yourself!

2.The damn Erasers:
If I could go back in time to any lesson in Life 101, it would NOT be this one. This was the worst (and best) lesson ever to hit my life. It's one I still use to this day, considering I have some of these lovely "erasers" on my mirror giving me tiny reminders of my attitude. It started with the big pink eraser which was all about evaluating situations and working through them. And then there came the little erasers that KICKED MY BUTT. They were the little erasers you would put on your pencil when you were 5, and they became my worst enemy and also the most effective tool in my life. A few that I remember vividly (but wish I didn't) were the flower, the frog, and the tooth.....oh man.  The frog was "hop to it" which I still keep on my mirror to remind me to get with it. But the dreaded flower and tooth....The flower was "pick through it" and the tooth was "talk about it". I vividly remember these being thrown at me walking into the room. I hated these little pieces of rubber, until I realized they were exactly what I needed. I didn't really use them until after I left Life 101, but they have impacted how I deal with literally every situation in my life. Picking through it, talking about it, and getting after it are my three steps to figuring out pretty much everything in my life. It's amazing what you learn as a 14 year old can still be with you nearly 10 years later at 23....

3. ARFF and the wheels of life:

ah the ARFF lesson. The 4 wheels of your life. Achievement, Respect, Fun, and Freedom.  I've done another post about this, but essentially they are how you should balance your life. You should never have too  much or too little of any of these things. But you also shouldn't use them as punishment either. If one isn't full, don't see it as something you didn't deserve, think of it as something that was missing and go find it! It's part of filling that cup positively. I used to keep an ARFF journal, and every day I would write down what was fulfilled in each area, so that I could feel amazing and FULL all the time, it was wonderful. Filling your ARFF is essential to being positive, and finding that hope I was searching for!


4:Colors, and being the brightest you can be:
The color test was one of the first things we did when I joined Life 101. The colors are orange, blue, gold, and green.  I won't go into the meanings of each, because that isn't what I took away from this lesson.  What I took away was that I needed to embrace every color, no matter how strong it was in my personality, I needed all four to be complete. My bubbly personality, but loving and giving personality, my loyalty, and my curiosity.  I needed all of it, and though I was pretty electric orange as Wendy used to call me, I needed to embrace and live them all, and I have.  Being electric orange all the time is exhausting, but so is being bright blue, and letting in a little gold and green sometimes is a good balance, and a lot less tiresome!

5. Never stop figuring out who you are:
Dreams change. Period. So figure out where your heart needs to be and get there! I wanted to be a music teacher so bad it hurt, but it took me a while to realize that there were a few different paths I could take and be happy, as long as I got to live out my dream of having a family of my own in the process. That dream is coming true. Will I be a teacher? Hopefully someday. Will it kill me if I'm not? Heck no! I would rather (someday) be a wife and a mother than EVER have that teaching degree.  I worked my butt off and struggled so much, and all the while God was saying "chill, I've got this"... and then I met Wade.  Oh if I'd only listened sooner! So I'm making my real dream come true, and realizing that some things are not worth giving up my dream.

6. Level 10 converstations hurt, but are totally worth it:
The couch in room 502 and the lodge at Bear Trap Ranch help quite a few level 10 conversations that will stay with me for the rest of my life. Level 10 hits you deep in your heart. You battle with things you have refused to confront for a very long time, and you are overcome with epic amounts of emotion. But these conversations leave your heart so full and loved, and though they totally suck at the moment you're having them, they will stick with you for a lifetime and will change your heart so amazingly. Level 10 is totally worth the immediate pain for the lifetime of healing that comes from it!

7. Sometimes you just need to get kicked out of your drawer:
This is a very long story, and if Rickard is reading this she knows exactly what I'm talking about. Essentially, I was kicked out of my drawer in room 502. I'm sure Rickard would describe it a little differently, but that's basically what happened. Oh but the lesson that came from it. I was hooked on this amazing room 502, I pretty much lived in it. I even had a drawer where I kept my things, and one day after school towards the end of my sophomore year, I was evicted. I was heartbroken. I didn't talk to Rickard for probably a good two weeks. One of my friends tried with all of his might to force me to talk to her, but I was just too angry, and felt so unloved. UNTIL, I realized I was being an idiot. Rickard evicted me because she loved me oh so very much.  She hated seeing me stifled by the bubble of 502, and this was how she got through to me. It all started repairing with a note. I came in after school with a note I had written, not a word said. And the next day after school I got a note that I still have and read every once and a while to feel inspired, and a book called You Are Special with this note inside.  It was a lesson I need every year at least once, where I pull out this book and this note and remember I am God's tool, and He needs to guide me. He has a plan and I need to listen and follow Him. I am special to Him and I was created for a purpose, and that purpose is exactly what I need to do!

8. Conversations with your eyes are way better than ones with words:
A frequent occurance in this room 502 was "eye conversations". These little conversations had not a single word in them, and were some of the most important ones I've had to this day. Rickard, and a few particular people, would have eye conversations with me. When they knew exactly what I was thinking, and I knew exactly what they were thinking, and more words were said in silence than could ever have fit in a conversation.  The power of eye conversations astonishes me to this day, and I wouldn't replace them for the world.

9:Be inspired, and let your life echo!
Our sophomore year we had a project for the renaissance lesson. And it was one that will forever be dear to my heart. Rickard asked us 3 questions. The biggest one being what will echo after you're gone? What will your legacy be? This question still resonates with me every time I make a life changing decision. How can I impact the world with this new path? It is something that constantly inspires me, and hopefully this little blog of finding hope will echo with a few people! I decided the biggest thing I want to echo is God's love. If I can make that echo forever in the lives I encounter, I will be a happy girl!

10. Sit on a couch and fix it:
This one is a little complicated. This couch was unavoidable. At one point in my relationship with Rickard, we had a little fall out.  I won't go into all of what happened, but I avoided room 502 like it was the plague (and I learned just how crazy the plague was in that room, so I knew!). I wouldn't even enter the room for fear that this amazing couch would suck me back in (which eventually it did, with a little help from Village Inn and a fabulous friend not minding his own business).  The nice thing was, the few months I refused to be in the bubble of 502, I rediscovered who I was, found new friendships, and started becoming the person I am today. I needed a break from the bubble and the couch, and then once I had done some soul searching, I let that couch back in. But sitting on that couch and struggling through lessons of being a white life saver (*wink wink* Rickard), figuring out my life, and becoming a "grown up", became something I needed to do forever. This blog became my "couch". I sit and type, read my Bible and my study books, read articles, talk with friends, and I started finding the hope I was searching for. And everything I needed to do that came from learning how to sit and struggle on that couch in room 502.  It was one of the hardest lessons I learned, and one that I didn't fully learn until after a few years of college. But all of the struggling was worth it to find this amazing hope that has been found with writing this blog and being with God on a very deep level.

Though I learned a lot of lessons in room 502, these are some that will stick with me forever. I still cannot smile without seeing a white life saver, I will never throw away my binder from honors world history, rice is not just for eating
, and I will never look at a toaster the same way again.  Some of these may not make a whole lot of sense, as I only touched on them.  This wonderful lady has touched so many lives in her teaching journey, and I know that those hearts will keep her legacy going. Heidi Rickard was an amazing teacher, and an incredible mentor, and I cannot wait for her new adventure to start! Thank you for all you have done for so many kids at PCHS Rickard, we love you!

Finding the Hope After Loss

"From time to time, all of us face life-changing personal losses that leave us breathless. When we do, God stands ready to protect us." ~God's Survival Guide by Chriswell Freeman

I have found that staying positive after a loss is probably the biggest road block to daily happiness.  Finding the hope after a deep personal loss is OH so challenging.  It is life changing in a way we feel utterly unprepared for.  I can honestly say that I do not deal with loss very well, and last summer lead to my less than fabulous outlook on life with which I began this amazing journey.  My lack of hope or resistance to be positive started with a year full of losses that were beyond difficult to overcome.  It started with rather petty things, like the loss of a good GPA.  Then two of my best friends graduated and went on to bigger and better things, leaving me feeling very lonely.  Then Wade's amazing grandfather lost his battle with cancer.  This wonderful, kind, welcoming, encouraging 70 something year old man was taken back home to Jesus. Then another petty yet difficult loss- I lost my job and source of income.  Less emotional of a loss, but not helpful with staying positive in the slightest. One month later one of my dearest friends also lost his battle with cancer.  This was the hardest loss of all, and it did not help that I hadn't yet accepted Grandpa Leo's death.  To lose Cliff, my dear and wonderful friend, which admittedly I still have not come to accept 100%, turned my world upside down.   All of this loss left me empty, and feeling like the hope had just run out. 

However, my dear friend was a pastor, one of the most amazing people I have ever had the privilege of knowing.  Vividly to this day I remember a sermon he gave on lamenting right before I left for college.  It was a lesson I will never forget, and one that I needed to remember at the end of last summer (but my heart wasn't ready to hear it). He talked about how lamentations are complaints to God, how if there are things that frustrate you beyond belief, to take them to God. He said "Don't bury your fears or feelings- tell them and listen to God's answer".

I was, and still am very terrible at this.  I forget that one of the biggest listeners in my life is GOD!  He wants to hear my discouragement, my doubts, my loss.  He doesn't resent me for being angry these amazing people are gone.  And when I finally told Him how angry I was about these losses, I found out that He could help me through them.  God held my hand, held me tighter than I have ever been held before.

I deeply miss my dear friend.  I miss his advice.  Every conversation, every little note he would send me...I miss them, I long for them, I ache for them.  One of the biggest sources of encouragement and love I have ever had in my life. And still, almost a year after he left us, and a year since we last spoke, the notes he left me and the encouragement he provided are still there.  In times when I struggle I can still hear him lifting me up. The year anniversary of his death will be welcomed with fireworks and celebration as he died on the 4th of July. And that is just as it should be.  Celebrating this man is the only way to truly honor him. I miss him constantly, mostly I miss his wonderful grandpa-like hugs and his crazy huge smile, and of course him knowing what I should do with my life, that was always helpful.

As I finally spoke to God about these things that I miss, I could feel Cliff's amazing hug just engulf me with love. I know that he is advising the angels, as only this theological man could do. I know that the hearts he touched are spreading God's love, well, at least we're trying to.  I am getting closer and closer to accepting these losses, but amazingly enough, when I finally opened up to God about my frustrations, I was answered in a way I never expected.

Things started happening, I got a new and wonderful job which is likely a career path for me.  Life started to get easier, big decisions started becoming easier, the sadness slipped away quicker than it had, things were just better.  I know that it was because God was waiting for me to give these struggles, these lamentations, to Him. He wanted me to give them away, hold them out in front of Him and just say "God, I need You." So I did, and it was so much better than keeping them to myself!

^^^^^^^God wants you to ask for what you need. He wants to provide you with everything you need to sustain you, but you must trust He will bring you through the darkness, through the pain, ask Him to guide you through and He will.  God is always the shining light and the end of the tunnel.  Why not run into that light with open arms and give it all to God?

Create In Me a _______ Heart

Happy Thing of the Day:  patience and faith (things to be happy about calendar)

Create in me a clean heart, oh God.

If you've ever set foot in a Junior High Sunday School you have heard this classic song. It's a staple in many youth groups, and in some cases, even a Sunday service at what youth groupers at my church call "big church". It comes from a verse in the book of Psalms. Psalm 51: 10-12.

Song:

Create in me a clean heart, O God; and renew a right spirit within me.

Cast me not away from thy presence, take not thy holy spirit from me.

Restore unto me, the joy of thy salvation, and renew a right spirit within me.

Verse:

Create in me a pure heart, O God,

and renew a steadfast spirit within me.

Do not cast me from your presence

or take your Holy Spirit from me.

Restore to me the joy of your salvation

and grant me a willing spirit, to sustain me.

Pretty darn close, wouldn't you say?  Singing this song was always one of my favorites, and it was probably one of the first church songs I memorized. I always felt like God was moving in me when I would sing it.  I would lift my hands gently and my waist and just give everything I have to God, because I knew that it wasn't too much for Him to handle, but it was far too much for me. I have always felt like this is just one of those songs where God is looking right at me and saying "just let me have it", and I always feel so restored after it's over. Maybe I should sing it every morning, it'd make my days bright and shiny all the time...

 But what if having a "pure" or "clean" heart, isn't what your heart needs. What if your heart needs something else? Couldn't you change the words for what you think your heart is really missing? Absolutely! Make that first sentence a fill in the blank and put whatever you need there. Maybe you struggle with waiting and need a patient heart.  Maybe you are holding a grudge towards someone and need a forgiving heart. Maybe you are struggling with depression and hurting over things that have happened and need a healed heart. Whatever your heart needs is what God wants to give you! He wants you to be filled with the Holy Spirit, and He wants your heart to be FULL of His love. But if your heart is missing something like forgiveness, healing, patience, or like my journey started with, Hope, maybe you should ask for it and see if He can guide you to that. I know that He can, because He has with me.

There is an album by a Christian artist called "Show Me The Way To Your Heart", and whether you've listened to it or not, the title is all you need. God's heart is not missing anything.  It is full and open and has the capacity to love all things. Maybe we need to read the title of this album, listen to it over and over and over again until our hearts are FULL of everything they are missing. Find Bible verses that tell  you what God thinks about whatever your heart is missing. Grab a great Study Bible and look up whatever you need- forgiveness (Luke 6:37), love (1 Corinthians 13:4), hope (Romans 5:1-5), kindness (Micah 6:8 or Hosea 11:4), whatever the case may be. Find it, learn it, and make that patch in your heart stick. You may have lots of places that need healing, you may have a lot missing from your heart. But nothing is too big for God to handle, no pain is too big for Him to fix. Ask and ye shall receive! Get that heart flowing with the love of God and make those stitches hold forever!

Put a Spring in that Step!

Happy Thing of the Day: above 60 degree weather...Laramie spring time is HERE!!!

Everyone seemed to have a spring in their step today as I looked around Laramie and WyoTech campus. It's beautiful outside, and save for a few moments of some much needed and appreciated moisture, we've been enjoying window down, sunglasses wearing, sandal loving, spring time weather.

 It's amazing the changing mood that happens with the changing of the seasons. It's almost always a happy one. With every season's change comes new wonderful things that we look forward to. In the summer we look forward to being out side, enjoying bar-b-ques, flip flops and shorts, playing at the pool, camping, and enjoying the massive thunderstorms that roll on in. In fall we look forward to the beautiful colors, the break from the intense heat, finally pulling out those adorable boots and sweaters you've wanted to wear for a year now, football, hunting, the school year starting (which may or may not be a good thing), Halloween, Thanksgiving, and preparing for the holiday festivities. Winter rolls around and we gladly welcome that first big snow, watching the snow cover our lawns that have died since summer, pulling out our favorite gloves, hats, and winter coats to play in the winter wonderland, welcoming the holiday season with cheer (and maybe a little stress), and who doesn't love when the red cups and peppermint gloriousness comes back to Starbucks? Finally spring arrives with gentle rain showers, flowers blooming, the return of the green grass, blossoms on the trees, babies being born (both human and farm-animal alike), preparing for wedding season, the return of baseball, only light jacket required weather, welcoming the idea of an "iced" anything from Starbucks, and finally rolling that window down again.

Yes, the changing of the seasons comes with some fantastic moments. But what about the moments in the changing seasons of our lives? Do we welcome those as happily? My guess for most of us is not as often as we should. Sure there are wonderful moments when celebration comes in heaps of gladness. Getting married, having a baby (until you bring them home), graduations, big anniversaries, and maybe the next tier in the educational world. Though these moments are generally welcomed with tears of joy, what about those seasons that come with tears that aren't so joyous?  Like losing a loved one, a divorce, failing out of school, losing a job or being unemployed for an extended period, getting the wind knocked out of you by so many changes at once is hard to handle a lot of the time.

The song "Every Season" by Nicole Nordeman is such a great tune to listen to the blessings that God puts in the changing seasons. But at the very end of the song she says this:

So it is with you
And how You make me new
With every season's change
And so it will be
As You are re-creating me
Summer, autumn, winter, spring

When God puts a new season in our lives, He is RE-CREATING us. He wants a change in our lives, whether that is a positive or a negative time to go through, the end in sight is always God's plan. The path He makes is so much better than the one we create for ourselves. My beloved pastor who passed away last year once gave a sermon on changing seasons. He talked about being in a season of lamenting over his battle with cancer, and wondering why God put this in his life? He had been a faithful and loyal servant and then was suddenly stricken with cancer that was ultimately a battle he would lose. But through that time, God was able to use this amazing man in ways he never could have been used had he not had cancer. He could relate to people with life-threatening illnesses, he could use it in his sermons and show how even in darkness there is light, and through EVERYTHING God is there to guide you and hold you.

God knows that when a hard time comes, it is easy to stray.  It is easy to blame God, it is easy to be angry with Him. One of my all-time favorite songs is "Better than a Hallelujah" by Amy Grant.  It talks about how sometimes God appreciates the lamenting, the praying in times of trouble, the cry of sorrow, better than the praise in a time of happiness. He doesn't only want us to share our good times with Him, but also our bad, our heartache, our despair. He wants to hear it all, He wants us to lean on Him in tough times, count on Him to get us through things, rather than only acknowledge Him when things are great. So why not raise that cry of sorrow, let God release you from pain and tears of sadness, let Him hold you and raise you back up with His love. It is so much better than trying to figure it out on your own.

Only I Know My Dreams

Happy Thing of the Day: "waking up before your alarm clock and realizing you have lots of sleep time left" (from thingstobehappyabout.com)

I love watching heated scenes in movies where one of the characters says in a very forceful tone "You don't know me!".  It happens in a LOT of movies. People don't like to be told who they are by someone else. Someone who makes an assumption about you that is just plain wrong, or perfectly right, you're just not willing to admit it.

It irritates us when someone thinks they know us better than we know ourselves. When you are talking to someone and the phrase "I know you" comes out, it hits us deep down inside and we want to just scream, NO YOU DON'T.

This has hit me a lot in the last month or so.  Talking to people about my new job, that I simply adore, and they assume that I will go follow "my dream" eventually, that this job is just for right now.  When I was in high school I wanted to be a teacher more than anything in the world. It was my passion, helping others, teaching students, interacting with little kids, it was a dream. I was rather good at it too. Volunteering at summer band camp and helping teach middle schoolers (my favorite) to play was just an amazing experience. It incorporated many of my talents, my passion for teaching and helping, doing for others, being with kids.  I started my college career as a music major, my passion and love for music soared.  My singing abilities grew tremendously. Then I found another course- elementary school. 4th and 5th graders were simply fantastic, and after some issues in the music world, I switched to a new major, but still in teaching. After some more issues, school became a secondary priority for all the wrong reasons, but it happened nonetheless. After switching to a general degree, I decided it was time to take some time off of school. And a new journey began.

For almost two months I had some time to reflect on my "dreams". I do want to be a teacher, mostly because I know I would be amazing at it.  But my sophomore and junior years of college I worked in admissions at the university, and I simply LOVED it.  I remember telling my parents that "this is the only other job I could ever do other than teaching". This new job found me in the midst of figuring out my dreams. Whatever job I have, as long as I enjoy it, is just a bonus along the path to my dreams. Everyone says "I know you" and that I've always wanted to be a teacher, it's my dream. True, it was a dream of mine, and still is, I would love to be a teacher, but it will not break my heart if it never happens. My true dream is to have a family. I want to be a wife and a mother and NO ONE can stop me. That dream is the one I want to come true, and it is. I have an amazing man who loves me and we are on the path to accomplishing that dream.  I am so close to having my dream I can taste it, smell it, see it in my future picture frames hanging on the walls of my future house that my love wants to build us. It's there, and I can have it, I will have it.

This dream has always been there, and has been the one I wanted the most. "For I know the plans I have for you," declares the LORD, "plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future." -Jeremiah 29:11.  He knew the plan long before I did. He knew Wade was the person for me, He knew that there was another path besides the one I made for myself. And his plan is so much better than mine!

We also have to be willing to admit there is someone who KNOWS us better than we do know ourselves, that is Jesus. Psalm 139 talks about how He knows everything.  He knew us before we were born, He knows when we rise and when we sit, He knows EVERYTHING we do, and he knows what we will do before it happens. He is all knowing, we were created in His image. He has a plan for us, a dream that He knows will fulfill our souls and it is what He has planned. SO DO IT!!!