Abandon

     So it has been months since I’ve written my last post and life has really changed. Since my last post I have moved back to Hawai’i, I now have my own apartment, , 4 jobs (working for different individuals), and I’m a full time student. Completely different from my last season of life where I was free-bird traveling, and being led by the holy spirit everyday. The past three months have really been a time of reflection, adjustment, confusion, and certainty all entangled together. One word however, has remained in my mind, stuck out among others, and really challenged me. That word is abandon which means to give up the control of.

This is not a concept that come easily for me. I love being in control and God has always tried to break me of this by creating situations where I have to live by faith. Being a full time student now I’m forced to not work as much as I was used to working, which means a lot less money is coming through for spending and saving. Plus now that I live on my own, random things always seem to pop-up that I need to buy. For example one week, I had to buy a table, a blender, a printer, pay for my trucks registration, and I backed up into another truck which meant I had to pay for the damage. I was looking at my bank account and the numbers just weren’t adding up. So of course, I started to freak out. My boyfriend gave me very wise wisdom saying, “things always work out, sometimes you can get big sums of money out of nowhere.” I of course responded with, “Um, no you can’t, I foresee no big sums of money coming my way anytime soon.”

On the Tuesday of that week I went to say goodbye to a family I used to work for because they were leaving the island. They just so happened to be getting rid of their printer and gave it to me for free (and it was the exact printer/scanner/fax machine that I wanted!). I came home that night and there was a blender on my doorstep that another amazing woman I work for gave me because I mentioned I was going to buy a blender. The following day I called the guy whose truck I backed into and confessed. I just so happened to have went to high school with him (there are so many trucks on this island it was no coincidence I hit this particular one). He told me I didn’t have to worry about it and I was extremely, EXTREMELY grateful! Then the next day I went to buy a table and found an amazing one for only $40! Then the day came where I had to pay my registration, there was really no getting out of that one, but I did receive $200 in the mail from my mother, because she bought something for my sister and wanted to make sure she was fair to me (she’s an amazing mother/woman). So I ended up spending $140 on everything where I would have spent almost $500. After that week I felt so foolish for making the comment I stated above. This is something I constantly go through, and today I am making the conscience decision to make and effort to stop this cycle of disbelief, and then belief.  I have countless stories of how God has come through for me out of nowhere, and in the most creative ways. I mean he has really proved himself to me over and over! I keep thinking about how when I left for my around-the-world trip I left with just enough money to make it back into my mothers arms broke as a joke, and no idea how I would make it back to Hawai’i then on top of that, start college. Two weeks into my trip I received a check in the mail for $3,000 from supporters at my church, which paid for all of my plane tickets! I made the least amount of money in 2011 than I’ve ever made in my life, I wasn’t even eligible to file taxes, but I traveled the world, spent 3 months with my family, bought a used truck, and enrolled myself in college. I’m still not sure how it all came together, but I know it came from action-verb faith. Selling almost everything I owned to just go, using all of my savings, and scaring my family to death doing it all. I look back at that and don’t know how I can forget so quickly how God has always provided for me. He just wants to see the condition of our hearts, and if we are actually willing to step out in faith when our situation looks hopeless.

I have also learned to abandon strongholds, and past emotions. It’s crazy how we can go through life and not realize the things we hold onto and how much they affect us. I want to be pure, and for nothing to come in between the full life of freedom I have been promised. To do this, spiritual spring cleaning is a must (how appropriate for the actual season). The past three months I have been working on breaking spiritual ties between me, past relationships and lies about myself that I have bought into. It has been extremely tough and uncomfortable. But I will not associate myself with those things any longer, I have chosen to move forward, and declare my freedom from them.

I am a bride, from this day forward I will walk with confidence, declaring who I belong to, and who has chosen me, running like a crash of rhinos, only able to see 30 ft in front of me but abandoning my fears- giving up total control of my life.

I challenge you with some spiritual spring cleaning, what are you holding onto that is keeping you from having life to the fullest, in abundance until it overflows?

ALOOOHA!

Italy- a new found freedom

About 7 months ago I was laying on my bed in Hawai’i Kai and asking God to give me confirmation to travel the world. The only country Suzanne and I were thinking about traveling to at the time was Italy. So I opened my Bible and the first words I read were: When the time came, they set sail for Italy- Acts 27:1.

So, I’ve been in Italy for 24 days, and I feel like I’ve seen and experienced a LOT. We started off in Rome for four days where we saw all the major sites such as the Colosseum, Trevi Fountain, Pantheon and of course lots of pasta. We also had the opportunity to couch surf with a local Roman- Davide and quickly got adjusted to the italian schedule of waking up late, eating late, and going to bed late!

Give it all you’ve got

Today has been one of those days where God silently teaches me a lot. There is a guy that sells newspapers at the intersection in front of Castle Hospital. Lately one of my ministries has been to bring him food. So every time I saw him I would either go buy food from 7/11, bring food from church, or just give him whatever I had. Today I didn’t have any food and I was nervous to pass by him because I felt like I was letting him down. Of course as I was passing by I got the red light and had to stop right next to him. I prayed real quick and just asked God to use this moment. So I rolled down my window to talk to him and was asking for his name and I couldn’t really understand him. He either said Siosi, or after later thinking about it it might have been Keoki, but then he told me it was that or George. So I’m going to call him Siosi because thats what I heard. So I went on to tell him how much joy he brings me everyday when I see him and how much he inspires me because he’s there selling newspapers, in the hot sun with a huge smile on his face. Not only that, but he has problems with walking and every time I see him do it, it looks so painful. So I’m just so inspired that he walks up and down the intersection selling newspapers. So after I told him all of that I asked him if he was there every sunday because thats usually the only time I pass by this place and he looked at me and said, “No, I’m here everyday of the week.” Then the light turned green and I told him I would see him again soon and to have a good day. As I was driving away though I was astonished. Not only does Siosi have problems walking, but there is no shade there, it’s super hot, newspapers aren’t highly desired and are really cheap, but he does it everyday. This guy is giving it all he’s got, all he has to make it. I watched a movie last night with my friend Suzanne and one of the characters said, “If you don’t give it everything you have, then what are you really doing?” Siosi has this figured out. Why did it take me this long to get it? If we expect to be blessed in this life, and to make it anywhere we have to give it all we’ve got and not take any shortcuts.

This is my prayer today. From now on I’m giving everything I do all I  possibly have in me. Whether it be my time, finances, love, help, friendship, job, everything. I’m going to give it my all or how can I ever expect God to give to me? And if we don’t give it our all, then what are we really doing?

I will be joyful

Life is so short and I’m so excited about life. The other day Isaac, Ian (the two little boys I nanny for) and me were in the car singing along to The Lion King song and I had an amazing revelation. Every single moment of life can be filled with joy if you let it. Even if you are taking out the trash or just on your way to work, you have the power to transform every moment into pure joy. I thought further into the idea and was wondering why so many people that are alive, become lifeless, why people have no energy to do the things they used to love, and why there are an extreme variety of depression medications available in our generation and WHY THE HECK all of this is considered normal? It is extremely possible to die while you are still living, there are so many people on this Earth who are putting their spirits in a cage. How sad is that? You know why I think that is? Because we start to put this fuzzy, film, covering over our eyes of everyday routine life. We start to just go through the motions of everything and just “get through our days”. We have the thoughts of “once I do this, achieve that and get there, I will finally be happy”. Well why can’t you just find joy in the everyday things. Then maybe go a step further and make the “everyday things” not so ordinary, even if all that means is thinking of your everyday in a new way. Our days are NOT something to just get through, everyday is a page, in our current chapter of our life story. Really think about that. Every single day is a PAGE, in the current CHAPTER of our LIFE STORY. Why rush to get through that? Maybe the reason we have so many lifeless people on this Earth is because they aren’t fully awakened to whats happening on their page, let alone their chapter. Sometimes even worse is when we are to concentrated on our next chapter in life, that we miss our current one. And if you miss a whole chapter you have no idea whats going on in the next. Enjoy life. Enjoy every moment. Don’t just try to get through your day. See your everyday world with new eyes. Discover new things and think in a new way. Take joy in the little things like taking out the trash, opening the door for someone in Starbucks, or singing the lion king in the car on the way to the museum. =] LOVE

Life Changing Lessons

Lately God has been teaching me lessons one of two ways. Either through experience or stories. I’ve only been back in Hawai’i for 12 days and God has just been rocking me with lessons, and just bringing me into realization about so many things I was oblivious to before. Three of the lessons God taught me these last 12 days really stuck out to me and I just wanted to share briefly.

I left for Hawai’i on January 28 after being there for six weeks. I was in no way excited to get back to paradise, I was dreading leaving my family. The best set of words to describe what I was going through was basically a temper tantrum. I knew what God wanted for me, and it was in no way a safe and predictable lifestyle and for a brief moment I broke down and didn’t want it. I loved the refreshing time at home with my family where all my needs were provided for, and I was just constantly in community with the people who have been there with me since I was born. It was such an amazing feeling. And for the first time I realized how important my family was, and how much I love and cherish my time with them. Even the people in my family that I have  never gotten along with, God just gave me these new eyes to truly see them and just love them. I didn’t want to leave that. Within those six weeks I was loved  so much and I had so much love for everyone else in return. But what I didn’t realize was that it was just a short season to be refreshed and for God to really instill in my heart the value of my family and how lucky I am to have one that is always there for me and supports me no matter how much my life doesn’t make sense.

So when I was on my way back to Hawai’i I was so miserable , but my first full day back in Hawai’i was AMAZING. Suzanne, Aaron and I set up shop at the Tea Room in Honolulu and had one of those life-changing conversations. That night we went to Surfers Church in North Shore and God confirmed everything we had been talking about previously. The night was amazing, I got to see everyone from the bali surf house, all my Surfing the Nations friends and met so many new friends. We had a bonfire on the beach and again I just felt so much love and excitement. The next morning however, I woke up miserable again. I went to Subway to buy a sandwich and I realized that I didn’t have my wallet. I searched everywhere for it but it was gone. I was crying about missing my mom, crying about missing my wallet and crying because I was acting so silly. Then I had an aha moment and God spoke to my heart. Not only was he GOD, the almighty, and I was crying about losing a stupid wallet, but He has repeatedly proved to me over and over that he can take care of me without me even having to try. Numerous times he has provided money for me when I was in need, why would this be any different, God is God and my wallet is just a wallet, and I needed a new one anyway. So I calmed down and was basically ok with it. I called some people asking them to look for it but then I sort of just gave it up to him. About six hours later my new friend Jayden called me and told me she found my wallet in her car. Again God proved himself, and again he spoke to me and told me that He was in control and always had me in His hands, nothing would ever come in between that, especially something as little as a wallet. Even though this was such a common circumstance and really nothing to panic about, people lose their wallets everyday, it happened so that God could teach me this lesson that he is constantly in control and that he is taking care of my every need and nothing will ever get in the way of that, which is now already preparing me for my next season in life. So even though it was so simple it really impacted me.

The next lesson I learned was from a story my mom told me. She was talking to me about the protesting in Egypt.  There was an older lady who did not evacuate her house where the protesting was happening because she didn’t want to leave her stuff. The protesting became worse, and she was stuck up in her apartment, alone, with all of her stuff. How disgusting is that. That might seem harsh but that is the first thing I thought of when she told me that. That is disgusting. This lady is going to lose her life, because she chose to stay with her stuff. My initial thought was she will never see her family and friends again because she chose her stuff over them, but she will never truly live again. She will never travel anywhere else in her life, and she will never get to just walk down the street and smile. She will never get to do any of those things that she said, “Oh one day I would love to do that” and scariest of all, she may have never fulfilled the purpose she was put on this Earth for, because she chose to stay with her stuff. I started thinking about all of this and I realized, I never want to be like this. “Stuff” is a dangerous thing. You can get so attached and so comfortable with your house full of stuff, that when God speaks something over your life, you may just decide to not do it and instead stay with your stuff. What a scary thought, we probably do it absentmindedly everyday. If someone calls and says, “hey wanna meet up, get a coffee and just talk?” and you think, “I really do need to share some things on my heart, or talk to this person or I know this person needs to talk” but then you evaluate your situation and realize you are in the middle of your favorite show and decide against the coffee date. Is this choosing our stuff over our relationships? Or if God tells you to move to a different state, or country and not take anything with you, would you do it? I am making a commitment to never have this attachment with my stuff. I will never, ever chose to stay.

The last lesson I want to share is about blessings. I recently went to a three day conference called “Simply Jesus”. However, I didn’t buy my ticket before I went because I was starting my new nanny job and I wasn’t sure what my hours would be. It turned out that I could make it to all of the conference but the tickets were sold out. So I went in faith anyway. When I got there I found out I could buy tickets to watch a projection feed of the conference at a separate location, but Suzanne had the ticket to be there live, and I wanted to experience the conference with her. So I went to the live location. It turned out for the first two nights they had enough space for me to sit in the conference but EVERYONE kept telling me not to try it on the third and last night because thats when Francis Chan was speaking and it would be packed. So what did I do? I went back on the last day to try again. To get into the conference you had to have a red button, I had a blue one and they were not letting the blue buttons in. Suzanne saw a lady that she had spoken to before to get me into the conference so with a little encouragement from Suz I went up to her and I said, “Umm hi, I’m back, and I have a blue button, but I was wondering-” and thats all I could get out before she went and got me a red button to walk through the door. I cried. It sounds so silly but it was such a blessing and I had been praying so hard to be able to get in and I didn’t even have to explain myself. They weren’t handing out red buttons to anyone else, but for some reason she gave me one. It could have only been God answering my prayer. But if Suzanne would have never asked two nights in a row to get me in and if I would have never asked on the last night I would have never been blessed with that button. What I realized was, you cannot sit around and wait for blessings to just come to you. You have to be proactive, and sometimes just simply ask. =]

Lessons learned. Alooooooha