The man who carried around a clown nose

I have had the privilege of encountering many a mad person through my job. Mad as in slightly odd, yet refreshingly real in their own way. The woman I work for has a VERY open door policy and has housed homeless pregnant women, drug addicts trying once again at recovery, mission teams on their way down to Mexico, and more animals than can be counted. At this very moment she has three borders who accompany her and her daughter at their humble abode. There's a young marine freshly back from Iraq who has been married and divorced three times and he's younger than me, a girl who goes out every night in skin tight dresses trying to find someone to love her and comes home every morning depressed about her current state in life, and a lesbian who's soul has been thrashed by people who call themselves Christians but no longer choose to call themselves family to her because of her lifestyle. The last one especially disgusts me. The thought of having my sister, God's child whom He loves just as desperately as He loves me, possibly never know her true Father and his love because of people who proclaim His name. I have no words to describe the utter horror I feel at that prospect.

I love all of these people whom I've been getting to know over the past 5 months. God has really opened some great opportunities for great conversation and relationship. The man I met tonight I was actually warned about by the woman of the house, so I knew this character oughta be a good one! After all my boss never warns me about anything nor does she see the need to no matter how bizarre the person may be (and there are more I haven't even listed here that fall into very bizarre categories). This man has been "on the road" as he calls it, or essentially homeless for the past 26 years. He is a GENIUS. He is very crazy as a result of it. He asked me my birthday before he asked me my name, and said he could remember exactly where he was in life due to people's birthday's because he only needed to go back to whatever woman he was sleeping with at the time. He stated that those sort of relationships make a deep groove in our memories, therefore making it the easiest "mile marker" of sorts to go to. He then proceeded to wave his wild locks of curly white hair at me and explain why it's all memory's fault that any person seeks to find a purpose in life, because if we couldn't remember where we came from we wouldn't have any stipulation on where we were going and therefore wouldn't have anything to compare our lives to or any need to have a purpose. He THEN proceeded to get out his stuffed animal which was a white bear and continued to explain that this was his "bi-polar bear" and, as if this weren't enough to take in, pulled a red clown nose from his pocket and put it on. After which he grabbed his glass of wine, went to the middle of the room and said he needed to just stand there for a while and feel what it was like to be in the world again after having driven in his car for so long. At which point I very begrudgingly left because it was time to pick the girl I work for up from her tutoring session.

Although I wish I had more time to speak with this very very interestingly bizarre man, I drove away being completely overwhelmed with the incredible thing we call human experience. I miss so much by being so consumed in my life that I don't soak up all of the madness going on around me. There is God in absolutely everything and everyone. Everyone who is searching is searching for the same thing, because we were all made by the same Creator. Do we go about it in different ways? Yes. But are any of us really that different? Well, yes actually. But that's a beautiful thing. That is how God made us. A mosaic of cultures and languages and life experiences that make us assets to each other if we would just stop being so self consumed. Believe me, I'm writing this for myself. I was bulldozed tonight by how blessed I am that God has allowed so many crazy people and experiences to cross my path, or maybe I'm just crossing theirs.

I just stopped to listen to some conversations around me this morning in Starbucks. As this lady was leaving with her coffee she said, "thank you for your attention." It struck me so that I immediately wrote it down in my notebook. That's what we're all seeking after, but it's God's attention that will ultimately bring us to the place of feeling valued and loved. I want to seek after His attention and not others. The less I'm seeking others attention, the more attention I have to give, and the more I realize I have to learn from them.

I am a student of God. I am a student of people. That is my occupation. Someday I might fall into a life of my own family or career, but God help me, I want to always simply and powerfully be a student of God and what He wants to teach me. Does it matter what we have or where we live? I think it does, but only if we're there or have all of it because God allowed it, because it is His will. If we can look at our life and still see it defined by God and not by our income, or the size of our home, or whether we're married or single, then we know that all of it is by God's will. And if that's the case, then all the more reason to keep giving it up to Him to see what we can learn from everything He's surrounded us by! All I know is that I am just as bizarre as the man who carries a clown nose around in his pocket, the only difference in me is that God has captured my heart. I could very well end up "on the road" for the next 26 years of my life as well, and if that's God's plan for my life then so be it! This is HIS story being played out in my life. The more people I encounter the more I am convinced that I will never have more to give than I have to learn.

God gave me a vision once that reminds me of this mad world we live in. I was at the bottom of the ocean floor with water swirling around me in a huge whirlpool. Like the scene at the end of The Little Mermaid where you could see straight down into it, but Ariel was stuck. I was Ariel, at the bottom of this whirlpool that could cave in on me at any moment or that I could get sucked into at the slightest mis-step. But then Jesus was there with me, and He grabbed my hands and we stood up and started spinning round and around and around. You know like you did when you were a kid? As long as you keep your eyes on the persons eyes across from you, they stay in focus. There was craziness all around me, but Jesus was in the center of it! My eyes were locked with His. And not only was I not afraid anymore of the madness around me, I was actually having fun. We were laughing.

Complaining and Postivity (a.k.a. Goodness of God) DO GO TOGETHER!

Sunday at church my pastor spoke on the famous verse where it says to "turn the other cheek". He had an amazing view of it though. He spoke about how when people try and shame you (which was the reference to a back-handed slap on the cheek on biblical days), to not walk away defeated, but instead to offer grace. In doing so it provokes the question "why?", and then we can be glorifying Jesus in a powerful way. Little did I know how much this would play into my next few days.

I was sort of backhanded in a very slight way by someone today, slight but pretty painful. They basically accused me of/made fun of me for supposedly "listing a long line of complaints and then ending it with 'But I'm trying to stay positive'". They didn't say it to my face or anything, just mentioned it as sort of a ridicule to my character. At first I immediately felt angry and irritated. Who are they to judge and make snide comments like that? And then I started to feel guilty about my testimony being tainted. But THEN as I was thinking about it I started realizing the real problem with this whole comment.

Synopsis of my day: (just so you know this is going somewhere...)
My car broke down and I was up since 5am this morning getting it situated so that it would hopefully be a quick fix, turned out NOT to be a quick fix (it's still in the shop)and found out it's going to be a lot more expensive than I thought (at least $300-$400), then I finally made it to a Starbucks only to find out AFTER the guy had given me my coffee and pastry that I had forgot my wallet at home, then after getting dropped off with my mom at an area we could walk around and shop and have dinner I realized I didn't have my phone and therefore had no way of getting a hold of someone for a ride back because I didn't have my stupid car and on and on and on...just one of those days. We all have them.

I'm sure at some point complaining gets annoying, but since when does it NOT go together with trying to stay positive? In my mind those two things MUST go together. One without the other is just too overwhelming. Simply complaining without an ounce of positivity will get annoying and depressing quickly, but on the other hand, ONLY being positive is just as annoying sometimes to me; and, quite honestly, unrealistic. We must be real about the fact that we have bad days, life is not always flowers and butterflies, and if we can't just let it out once in a while then we hold it in, feel a lot of pressure to put on a happy face and become completely overwhelmed. Not only then do we have bad days, but we have the added stress of trying to make it look like we don't have bad days.

I'm not perfect. Life isn't either. But that is not to be linked to God. God IS perfect. He is never bad just because bad things happen. That is one distinction I always try and remind myself of....therefore some days I WILL list complaints, simply to get them off of my chest, but I will ALWAYS try and bring it back to positivity and TRUTH. For a large part of my life I tried to put on a happy face and I had major guilt issues associated with any sort of bad day, and that is not how Christ wants us to live. The Bible is FULL of His people lamenting their sorrows onto Him. He only asks that we let it out, and then still believe that He is GOOD. And I BELIEVE HE IS GOOD. I will speak on that just as much (if not hopefully more most days) as I will speak my heart and let you know if I need prayer for things that are falling apart around me! If we can't be real with others and most of all JESUS, then He can't be real with us.

So yes...I had an exhausting, frustrating day, I've had worse and I've had better...but God is still good and therefore I can look forward to tomorrow being brand new! SO I would love to honestly, from the depths of my heart, thank those of you who are in my life and let me vent once in a while without judging me. And thank you for helping me focus on the truth and goodness of God that is still the same at the end of every day. Hopefully I can be the same source of comfort for ALL of you as well. :)