Wing Spans of Time

#TBT to when @shinskysinger & I spent the whole day location scouting for @colettemillerwingsproject Global Angel Wings Project throughout the city of Los Angeles.  I had an analogous thought occur to me- not that humans can innately fly, but if we could, perhaps it might be likened to learning how to ride a bike.  That in the course of being able to take off & land, there would be many falls & stumbles along the way before one could learn to master balancing themselves consistently upright.

& in many ways, transitions are similar- I've transitioned 7 times this year & each time, it's taken successes & failures to normalize to the my surroundings.  & in 2 weeks, the biggest transition thus far of my life will arrive-my student life will cease to exist.  I will be moving from school into bi-vocational work & many have asked- why both ministry & pharmacy? 

So for those curious- For what I've known all my life, even after encountering what it meant to a life in accordance to my faith & relationship with Jesus, was about doing what others wanted, needed, & approved of from me.

Not knowing how to evaluate if I even bought into the decisions myself, I would just walk into it with a tension of fear & conflict of interest.  & in my experience- although I don’t regret pursuing pharmacy, & it is still important to me, I wish I had gone about it differently, from a place of strength and not out of fear.

As the tension grew to become a greater splinter in my soul & mind, the Lord was continuing to restructure my heart & desires in His accurate timing.  At so many points, I really thought pharmacy school was going to swallow me whole, but God was faithful.  Though I never knew what I wanted & I'm still in a journey of figuring it out, for now- I realized that what was a natural affinity for me was ministry.  What I want is to be involved in caring for people holistically- both in their spiritual & physical well-being.

While I am still learning how it will look for me in reality, what is more important is learning how to trust in the reasons of why I believe in what I do, despite what others think.  Learning not just to react out of fear & going into commitments just because there is a need, but really coming from a place of strength, making decisions that entail the next best step, that are not defined by external opinions/circumstances.

In this final year, I've learned how to be honest & true with myself w/ wanting to do ministry & yet not giving up on pharmacy right out of the gate. I’m continuing to learn how to say yes to the right things for myself by learning how to say no.  & as I continue to journey, friends, I invite each & every one of you to come alongside me in this process & my hope is that my discovery may encourage you in yours.

The Best Is Yet To Come

chronological travel reflections of the past 6 months: location one- San Francisco

San Francisco Summer Project

Invisible Lines, Red Tape, and Farewells

    I'm overwhelmed with a rush of thoughts, feelings, and emotions that surface when I stand alone in my house trying to figure out how to move everything out.  Too overwhelmed to start packing and cleaning that I had to take a moment to process all these thoughts here.  Looking back at everything that happened in this past year- the countless changing, healing, transforming, and transitioning. I look back at in all the areas I have come to grow in, fears that I've conquered, challenges that I've faced, successes that I've experienced, tears that I've shed, laughs I've shared.  I see that I am not who I once was nor have I arrived at the finish line just yet.  What I do know for certain is that I am in much more healthy place than I ever was in the past 2 years, and words cannot express how damn grateful I am.  

    In my journey of soul-searching, it seems like a constant pattern of necessary endings and new arrivals.  It seems like the 2nd decade of your life is full of invisible lines and red tape.

    Invisible lines of not knowing how sudden your life can go into full throttle and experience change at the speed of life.  In the past 2 weeks, I have will been in 6 cities.  In the next 12 months, I will be moving every 6 weeks.  Not knowing what you're life really looks like even though you have a vision and plan but still trusting in The Lord to direct your steps.  Invisible lines of living out of a suitcase, traveling to new places, making new connections, parting ways with familiar ties.  Invisible lines of having more awareness and introspection about yourself as well as healthier boundaries with others as all your friends are either engaged, married, or having their second baby.  Invisible lines of solitude as well as community.

    Red tape where things have gone wrong in the past, and you've been burned and learned from the history of your experience.  Having polar extremes about realities, and telling myself that I do not want to go there or make the same mistakes next time.  Yet learning how to apply the red tape effectively in the right areas, learning how to have boundaries with my own emotions and perhaps even removing some of the caution in order to be able to journey into deeper than feet may wander.

  In this past season, one of the biggest things I've come to experience is what it looks like to grieve well and have necessary endings.  Yet still the little girl inside me still has a hard time pulling up the deep roots of separation anxiety from years of emotional scarring.  3 months ago, I wanted to peace out of Buffalo so bad and could not wait to end this chapter.  These past few weeks, I couldn't help but freak out a little and feel like a part of me wasn't quite ready to close off 5 years of my student life and move on just like that.  When I was running end of the semester errands on campus, I couldn't help but feel like a ghost going down memory lane- of which some good, some bad.  The reminiscing was strangely bittersweet and nostalgic, yet I wasn't afraid to expose myself to those feelings of sadness anymore like I was for awhile in the past.  Instead now, it brought a sense of peace and closure for me.

     And so at the end of the day, I know that it is time for another necessary ending in this part of my life.  It is time for bidding farewells in another emotional move, as well as a physical move out of my place in Beacon Park.  With that said, I feel very sad about saying goodbye to my safe haven this year, which provided the essential space for my growth and development to occur.  It is here that I learned gratefulness, how to sit in both my good and bad, cry myself to sleep, laugh uncontrollably, lean into solitude, and as well as share and let people into my life.  And so to honor that, I think it fitting to have closure and conclude this processing post with a house tour. 

Humble Endings and Beginnings

As I sit here in the Starbucks I spent my high school years in next to my home in Capitol Albany, New York to write my thank you cards and have my quiet time, I think about my expectations for a new year.  New Year- new start, new beginnings.  The thought of a clean slate, a blank canvas, waiting for colors to be splashed on, and create another beautiful painting of life is exhilarating, yet frightful.  I do have many hopes and expectations for 2014, yet at the same time, conflicting feelings of anxiety and fear are always loose-ends that flux upon my heartstrings.

I suppose beginning to reflect on 2013 is an appropriate place to start.  I find it ironic that as I have finished my efforts and participation in 2013's Dressember movement to combat human trafficking/sex slavery through trusting in the Lord to brave through wearing a dress every day, pledging a financial gift of $500, and an personal aside of selling/donating a portion of my own clothes, that it is a beginning to another new year, 2014.

So to share some reasons, blessings, and challenges of Dressember, which all amounted to a very humbling and grateful journey-

1) Financial Faith- I have raised financial support for missions trips to both state-side Florida/San Francisco and overseas East Asia.  It has been a while since I depended on God to provide monetarily, and because especially now that I have a job in pharmacy, which can so easily catch me in worldly security/stability, I wanted to put myself in a position that would force me to lean on the Lord and stretch my trust in relying on Him financially again.

And this time, it was for a cause and purpose greater than my own needs of cost-of-living, which challenged me on a different level.  The feeling of raising support for a Kingdom cause greater than myself, which I am passionate about- restoring women, was really humbling in that I was reminded who I was working for- the Lord.  He didn't need me to complete His work, yet calls me to "Seek justice, rescue the oppressed, defend the orphan, and plead for the widow." -Isaiah 1:17.  I felt privileged.

Another humbling moment was because the support was not for myself, there created room for slack, laziness in my human heart.  I felt very conflicted because there wasn't as much of an urgency to strive to achieve the full amount, since the fleshly side of me thought that I was still going to survive if the full amount wasn't reached.  At the same time, the Holy Spirit's push and conviction on my conscience was even stronger to show me my selfishness.  It is exactly because this is NOT for me, that I should be more appreciative, loving, and passionate to defend the defenseless.  That other women would not have a greater chance of life if I didn't care as much.  There were many moments of realization and repentance in prayer when I saw this in myself.  I am so grateful to say that He has grown me in this area to show me His faithfulness, where I was able to reach past myself, and still work to raise the full amount of $500 I pledged, thanks to you all supporters :).  I am grateful for all of those who supported me in this partnership to be able to give oppressed victims a chance to freedom and life.        

2) Fashionable Falsehoods- Just in dresses alone, there was 52 and counting in my walk-in, and my initial hold-back in participating were frivolous reasons of- the inconvenience of effort/time dressing up every day, what other people would think, and the cold snowing weather.  From many angles, I could rationalize myself into believing that-  this isn’t necessary, I’m not the social justice type, I didn’t have to involve myself in this cause, and it’s for someone else. 

No matter how much my mind pushed, my heart shoved back telling me that my self-interest in preserving my own comforts weren’t very in line to the efforts of striving to be the proverbs 31 women.  This unearthed a lot of heart examination, and I saw that what was still at the root of my heart struggles was a scarred girl.  Dressember was challenging my sense of self-image, vanity, and materialism.  The heart of the Dressember movement was embracing femininity, reclaiming beauty, and celebrating freedom for womanhood.

So what I found ironically humorous about my sin was that this was exactly my soap-box in biblical womanhood- embracing self, sharing that love, dressing up, yet for myself, I still faced the insecurities of living it out.  Especially after a hard year of grief, the spiritual depression I was recovering from had me struggling hard to live out the truths I claimed to believe.  I was struggling to live out my faith for fear of what man would think/judge.  Dressember served as a marker that indicated image was an on-going struggle, and I had somehow idolized the proverbs 31 women into a Christian Barbie, where I backwardly bought into the lie that if I obtained the image of seeming to have it all together, I would be happy.

With this realization, I was finally able to step out of self-preservation and not only participate in dressing up, but also create a personal aside to give/sell a portion of my closet.  There was a certain level of attachment to some articles of clothing, but clothes were just clothes, and I had to keep myself in check not to idolize self- image.  Sure, there were also moment of discomfort bracing the freezing cold in Buffalo, or not being able to wear more comfy clothes for consecutive 12 hours standing shifts, but what was my comfort suffering for those who had no comfort?

Dressember was a redeeming chance for God to remind me not to idealize and idolize being a Christian Barbie, and instead truly learn to imitate Christ in godliness.  At the end of the day, and for the New Year to come, the image I desire the Lord to restore is that I may be not just girlie, but more godly, and that I may grow closer to Jesus through putting my faith into action, thus become more like Christ.

and these are a few of my favorite things: Dressember

I should be working on my research protocol paper and studying for therapeutics, which at this point, is the only thing keeping me from winter break, but I couldn't focus on multi-tasking because my mind kept on going back to this most recent online post, which I had stumbled across from my Urbana friend, Pinky's facebook page.  So I wanted to blog and share about a cause that I just recently decided to (about a few hours ago after bouts of walking around in circle in my living room, and laying on the couch to pray because my mind was roaming with serious anxiety) support for the month of December, called Dressember.  

In these past few weeks, I had been reflecting upon some of the conversations I've had with my pastor, Chris, and from Sunday's we had been about giving generously and sharing with the more needy.  I had been contemplating ways that I could put my faith into more action and not just simply agree on Sundays.  What led me to participate in this movement was when I had originally just seen this cause in passing on Pinky's participating page, and thought oh how cool, but the idea kept on coming back, and I just felt the challenge and conviction being put on my heart.  I was actually scarred to commit and the idea frightened me into anxiety.  This was strange, conflicting feeling for me though because anybody who is slightly acquainted with me can tell that these are a few of my favorite things after Christ: lights, glitter, sparkle, flowers, and dresses.  Then why was I so afraid to take part in a cause which was such a good fit for me?  Slowly, I realized how my human heart was plagued with all sorts of sinful matters which entangled so easily.  

The conflicts I had internally included trying to get out of it by rationalizing, thinking oh I have a lot to deal with already with finals and work, or giving excuses like oh I love wearing dresses, but I don’t have that much time on my hands to dress-up every day.  And then there was the what will people think of me, but by then, I knew that if I was resisting this much, God was definitely trying to challenge me to stand up for His cause, instead of passively giving up a chance to stretch my faith.  After a heart analysis, first diagnosis was- laziness to begin with, to be passive about such a cause which I knew that the Lord would want me to defend.  On a deeper, darker level, the selfishness of protecting my own interests, and the fear of man/fear of failure, conflicted with the conviction to take a step of faith and allow myself to see how the Lord would once again provide.  What’s funny was that I’ve always had a heart to work with and care for other women, and the conflict of my mind and heart slowly began to ease and be redeemed as I saw that this was God giving me an opportunity to do so, in a capacity which I loved.  Afterall, a few of my favorite things include dressing up, & since I have many dresses/skirts lined up in my closet, it made sense to conclude why not wear them for a cause- to celebrate femininity, free modern slavery, & put my faith into action.  

Dressember is a movement which embraces femininity, reclaims beauty, and restores women throughout the world who have been robbed of dignity and value.  By wearing a dress-a-day for the entire month of December, this personal-style challenge stands up for supporting and raising funds for International Justice Mission- IJM, a global organization which works to combat human/sex trafficking.

IJM's mission is to respond to the call to justice in Isaiah 1:17 to- "Seek justice, rescue the oppressed, defend the orphan, and plead for the widow."  Dressember enables the work of IJM through financial funds/support, in restoring the victims of oppression to the things that God intended them to have: their lives, their liberty, their dignity, the fruits of their labor.  

And so you may still be wondering why I am sharing this, but I just wanted to extend an invitation and encouragement to those whom may be interested in supporting or participating in this cause which celebrates beauty/femininity, reclaims values to women, and places fun in a worthwhile challenge.  I’ve pledged to raise $500 for IJM through Dressember, that would only be 50 people giving $10, so if any of you are interested in getting involved by dresssing up with me or financially supporting this cause, this is the link to my page-http://www.ijmfreedommaker.org/account/8190.

Every dollar will be given directly to IJM, and in addition to this, for every outfit, I have decided that I will be selling an article of clothing from my closet because I have been blessed with so much to have an abundance to bless others.  Any of these actions will help raise awareness and funds for IJM, as their mission celebrates the truth that there is beauty and power in femininity. 

See uploaded video below for more Dressember information-