City Slicker

This summer has been a bit of an adjustment. My family has moved from Amsterdam in the Netherlands to Cedar in Nanaimo. Now, in my family we are no strangers to moving. We’ve moved around several times but it was usually within an urban setting and Cedar is anything but urban.

When I was very little we lived in the West-side of Amsterdam, which was very grungy and certainly urban. I remember walking to school in the mornings with my mom and sisters and we would sing, “We all live on the dumpy side of town, dumpy side of town, dumpy side of town” to the tune of yellow submarine. You’ve got to love my mom for putting a positive spin on pretty much everything. After that we moved to Amstelveen which is basically a suburb of Amsterdam and it was still very easy to use public transportation to get to anywhere you wanted, or you could just ride you bike. So again, it was definitely very urban.

But now, we’re in Cedar, Cedar by the sea to be more specific.  And it is anything but urban. We have deer walking through our backyard all the time, we have little to no cell phone reception and we are not connected to the main sewage line. It has taken some getting used to, to say the least. But the ocean is a mere 5-minute walk away and there are literally thousands of blackberries ripe for picking, I am enjoying it and think it’s a great place to come and relax for the summer, but to live here all year round is not for me. I would miss the hustle and bustle of the city.

Being able to jump on a subway and head down town to hang out, see museums, concerts, and go to pubs and stuff like that is just something I’ve grown so accustomed to. To be honest, I am more of a homebody than somebody who goes out and takes full advantage of all that cities have to offer, but it’s still nice to have the option. I guess I feel freer in the city. I have more freedom to go places and do different things without having to ask someone for a ride or be dependant on others.

As much as I like the small town kindness and the peace and quiet of Cedar by the sea, I must say that hearing a siren howling in the distance last night as I was trying to sleep brought me comfort. It sounded familiar, like home. 

Pure Genius

Okay, so usually I like baking things from scratch. But this is the next best thing.

This is a mix that uses real ingredients, so it's basically like baking from scratch but they've measured everything out for you already. So great!

Good Morning, this is your wake-up call.

You may think of me as someone who is very strong and confident and comfortable with who I am. However, the truth is that up until the past few months I have been trying to please everyone. I have been trying to fit myself into the person people expect me to be. Trading parts of myself and changing who I am so that others will be happy. And because everybody likes different things, over time I developed a lot of versions of myself. And after a long time of trying to keep this up and always being a little less than myself, I’ve decided enough is enough.

I can still remember when it started. I can pinpoint the moment. It was at lunchtime in high school and my friends and I were sitting around going through each other’s mp3 players and looking at the music that was on them. Mine was full of things like Gordon Lightfoot, Norah Jones, and Paul Simon, and compared to what my friends had on their mp3 players this was subpar. So that day, when I got home from school, I got rid of my music and put a bunch of the music my friends liked on my iPod. I wanted to fit in.

From that point on I thought a lot about other people’s opinion of me. Whether or not they would like my clothes, my hair, my music, taste in movies, etc. etc. Now, I know that it’s not uncommon to want to fit in, in high school. But for me it didn’t end there. I mean, it didn’t carry on to the same extent but ever since then I have still been trying to be what others want me to be. I’ve been so scared that people wouldn’t like me for me that I’ve been whoever they wanted me to be. And I’m not trying to blame anyone for me acting this way, it was my choice. I wasn’t strong enough to just be me.

But a few months ago I had my wake up call. After trying to be someone I’m not for so long I realized how tense I was. My body physically felt tight and constricted, I had been so careful of everything I did and every move I made so that no one would dislike me, I had given myself absolutely no freedom.  And I was reminded of something I had learned in Bible school a couple years ago: “to be fully known is to be fully loved”. I realized that there is no possible way to make everyone happy or to be the person that everyone expects me to be. All I can do is be the person God made me, and people can either take it or leave it. My hope is that I am now finally confident enough to just be me and not worry about what others think. Because ultimately God’s opinion is the only one that really matters and He loves me no matter what. 

Quit your bellyachin'

The glass is half-full. I like to think that is my outlook on life. But more often than not I tend to come off as more of a realist than an optimist. I say realist because I refuse to think of myself as a pessimist. I tell it like it is, which is a good trait to have at times, but it also means that I'm a bit of a bubble-burster at times. Something that I consider being far worse than telling it like it is, is complaining about stuff. And yet I do it all the time.

This summer has been a prime example, the days are few and far between that I don't mention how much it has been raining. But to be honest, I actually kind of like rain. And sure it would be nice to have a few sunny days here and there, but living in British Columbia a little rain is to be expected. And what right do I have to complain about a little rain, it isn't really causing me any harm. Think of the poor people in Africa who are dealing with the worst drought in years. People are dying of thirst and all I can think about it whether or not I'm getting a tan? That's just plain awful.

I think the root of most complaints comes from a sense of entitlement. That we deserve a nice summer. We deserve to be paid more, or work less, or have things always go our way. And it's just not true. We are not really entitled to anything. Certainly, we have our human rights, but if we have food and water and a place to sleep then we really have no right to complain about a thing.

In Numbers 11:1 it tells about how the people were complaining to God about being out in the desert and eventually God got really fed up with them. It's no surprise to me that God does not like complaining, after all He has done for us, day in and day out, we still find things to complain about. So as for me, I'm going to try to keep on the sunny-side of life and count my blessings every day. The glass is half-full.

Christian Music

To be perfectly honest with you, I listen to "secular" music far more frequently than I do "Christian" music. It's not that I don't like Christian music, I certainly do, but I can only listen to so much of it before I get a little tired of it.

Although there is a game that I play sometimes and it's pretty fun. It was inspired by an episode of South Park in which Cartman decides to start a Christian Rock Band, but rather than making original worship songs he just changes the words to some secular songs and the result is pretty funny. So sometimes when I'm listening to the radio I like to pretend that the songs I'm listening to are worship songs. Obviously, more often than not, this doesn't really work out. BUT on rare occasions they really do work out and I really enjoy it when that happens.

Here are some examples of parts of songs that really work great for worship songs:

"You're a waterfall, washing over me
I'm a thirsty man let me drink you in
Well I am on my way, 
You're a mountain top
When I reach for you, your love lifts me up
All that I want is to be 
Where you are"

-Rascal Flatts, Where You Are

"You're the meaning in my life

You're the inspiration
You bring feeling to my life
You're the inspiration
Wanna have you near me
I wanna have you hear me sayin'
No one needs you more that I need you"

-Chicago, You're The Inspiration

Those are just two examples, but the more often you do it the easier and more fun it gets. And I like to think God doesn't mind having "secular" songs used as a form of worship, as long as they're somewhat fitting. :)

Light in the Darkness

At church last Sunday the sermon was about how life is hard sometimes. And it is. Life goes easy on me most of the time, but I am under no illusions, life isn't meant to be easy and we will all face tough times. What is important is that even in times of trials and troubles we keep our faith and trust in God.

A prayer that I find very inspiring and humbling is a prayer of Archibald Tait. Between March 11th and April 8th, 1856, Tait and his wife lost five of their six daughters to scarlet fever, this is the prayer of thanksgiving he prayed in this time of incredible grief:

"O God, you have dealt very mysteriously with us. We have been passing through deep waters … You have reclaimed the lent jewels. Yet, O Lord, shall I not thank you now? I will thank you not only for the children you have left to us, but for those you have reclaimed. I thank you for the blessing of the last 10 years, and for all the sweet memories of these lives. ... I thank you for the full assurance that each has gone to the arms of the Good Shepherd, whom each loved according to the capacity of her years. I thank you for the bright hopes of a happy reunion, when we shall meet to part no more."

My hope is that in times of trial I am able to keep my trust in the Lord and be thankful to Him for His many blessings. Troubles may come to pass, but not to stay and God knows what is best and has a path laid out for me. 

~dreams~

I love dreams. Not like the dreams for the future type dream, although I like those too, but the sleeping kind of dreams. The ones you have absolutely no control over.

While I was growing up my family would always have breakfast together and what would usually drive the conversation were the dreams we had in the night. My dad's were always the cause of much laughter because they usually involved trying desperately to find a toilet. This tradition of talking about dreams is one that I continue even now, most mornings I will discuss my dreams with my roommate and she will tell me all about hers.

Often in my dreams I get to see people whom I haven't seen for a long time. Or I get to live out experiences that would never be possible in real life. Sometimes I'm not even me, I'm someone else. My dreams occasionally even set my mood for the day, if I've had a particularly nice dream it seems like I'm just more cheerful during the day. Something that is certain about my dreams is that they are always quite strange and very entertaining.

I also really enjoy looking up the meaning of my dreams, although most of the time they probably don't mean anything, but I still like looking it up. It's so interesting to me that people actually take the time to decipher what significance different things have in dreams. In the Bible, God often spoke to people in dreams and I'm certain He still does that today. And even when dreams have no particular significance, they certainly are entertaining and are probably the main reason I enjoy sleeping as much as I do.