I’ll tell you what I’m going to do this year instead.  I heard this on KLOVE this past week and loved the idea.  I’m thinking of one word to define my 2012.  A theme for the year.  Something to be in the back of my mind all year.  It’s not a resolution, similar, but I don’t want to call it that just on principle.  I like it because it’s simple.  I’m simple minded.  Just one word to think about.  

My word is joy.  I looked up the definition and according the Merriam Webster it is “the emotion evoked by well-being, success, or good fortune or by the prospect of possessing what one desires.”  I really don’t like this definition.  According to the Bible joy comes from having a right relationship with God and is something that as humans we cannot achieve by ourselves.  I don’t want to be in control, so I’m totally cool with God taking care of things.  It comes about when we know, serve, and glorify God.    

As great as it would be to be happy all the time that’s not what my life is about.  I do, however, want to be joyous all the time.  In every situation, no matter how terrible, I want to be filled with joy.  It’s hard.  I know because I wasn’t exactly the most joyous person in 2011.  It’s difficult to be joyous when I’m clearing tables off at the restaurant I waitress at and get covered in thai wing sauce, I don’t really love that.   And it’s hard to be joyous when my closest friends don’t live by me.  And it’s hard to be joyous when the future is unknown.  But despite all of this I am thankful for God’s unconditional love and His plan for my life and I will trust Him with that.  I am trusting t that He will provide my with His joy and that will flow from me during this new year.  Joy.  That’s my word.  

You should pick a word to live by this year.  

But this year is different for me. 

I’m not studying for finals, I’m not packing up to head home for a month between semesters, I’m not attending a different Christmas party every night, I’m not surrounded by the Christmas themed student activities.  

College kind of forced me to be more full of the classic Christmas feelings and created many distractions.  

Well, I’m not in college anymore and inevitably, like many other things, this Christmas season feels different.  

My focus has shifted to what Christmas should be all about.  This Christmas season is all about Christ.  I’ve been a Christian since I was four so it may seem odd that this is the first season where Christmas is all about Christ.  But for the first time in a long time I don’t have Christmas decorations up in my apartment, I haven’t gone to a Christmas party, and my shopping was on a much smaller scale this year, and I’ve only watched Elf once so far.  It’s been stripped down to the true meaning of Christmas.  

Christ loves me so much that he sent His only son to this awful and terrible earth to die on the cross.  For me.  Maybe it’s because I’m in a place in my life to do a lot of thinking or whatever but the fact that Christ loves me and knows me and desires for me to know Him is a crazy and beautiful thought.  I don’t need Santa and all this commercialized stuff to distract me from that incredible idea.  Seriously, it doesn’t make sense but it’s true and I have no words to describe it.  

In this stressful and to-do driven life just stop for one second and notice the Prince of Peace in your life.  Acknowledge the fact that Immanuel – God with us is really here with you.  It just blows my mind to really stop and think about it.  

One of the best Christmas messages that relates to everyday life was preached this past Sunday at my church.  If you have a little time to listen to it you totally should.  http://graceincranberry.org/ShopTilYouDropWeek1.asp 

Those are my ramblings.  

Merry Christmas.  

A couple weddings ago I was pinning on the boutineer for the groom and he said something that made me stop and think.  It was one of those simple truths that we know but it doesn’t seem that many people stop and acknowledge.  He said “I can’t believe that God uses this picture of marriage to show his incomprehensible love to people.  He uses broken people and broken relationships to show His love.”

I think the truth in this is so deep.  God knows the brokenness of this world yet He understands the love between a bride and a groom on their wedding day and uses it as a picture of His own love for us.  I thought it was so interesting that a groom would point this out just hours before he gets married.  One of the many reasons I love helping with wedding photography is because I get to see Christ’s love so clearly on these days.  On more than one occasion tears have come to my eyes as I can see God’s hand clearly in the relationship.  It’s so beautiful to see this small glimpse of Christ’s love for us.

I love to try to stop and think about God’s love because it just never makes sense to me, and that is so beautiful.

“You know, there’s a place we all inhabit, but we don’t much think about it, we’re scarcely conscious of it, and it lasts for less than a minute a day…It’s in the morning, for most of us.  It’s that time, those few seconds when we’re coming out of sleep but we’re not really awake yet.  For those few seconds we’re something more primitive than what we are about to become.  We have just slept the sleep of our most distant ancestors, and something of them and their world still clings to us.  For those few moments we are unformed, uncivilized.  We are not the people we know as ourselves, but creatures more in tune with a tree than a keyboard.  We are untitled, unnamed, natural, suspended between was and will be, the tadpole before the frog, the worm before the butterfly.  We are, for a few brief moments, anything and everything we could be.  And then… we open our eyes and the day is before us, and we become ourselves.”

I’m not sure why that struck a chord with me.  It did.  I think I’m more of a dreamer than I let myself think I am.  These couple sentences allow my mind to wonder and float to this glorious place described  and place that almost sounds…heavenly.  Now there’s something to dream about.

I want to get back to the basics. Simplify.  I think that’s why I liked the passage so much, it’s simple….untitled, untamed, suspended between the was and the will be….

So God has a plan for these butterflies… who knows where this is headed?…. God has to have a plan for me, for us.  It has hit hard this week.  I’m graduating in roughly 100 days (as February 7).  I don’t know what I’m going to do in the fall.  I have ideas, and I have a couple plans that may or may not happen.  I’m having difficulty in choosing which path is right.  How do I know the path that God wants me to choose?  The monarchs know.  I never thought I would say it but I wish I was more like a monarch butterfly.  I want to pick the path that God wants me to.

Matthew 6:34 after the part about how God cares for the birds and makes the flowers look awesome says this (Message Version)  ”Give your entire attention to what God is doing right now, and don’t get worked up about what may or may not happen tomorrow. God will help you deal with whatever hard things come up when the time comes.”

So real.  Love it.

My favorite translation of it is “I’m wondering…”  I love third grade for many reasons.  One of which is because of the questions they ask.  We teach them to always ask “why” instead of just settling with the answer and being okay with that.  We want them to wonder and say how did it get like that,  why is it like that?  But the thing is, with many things, these nine year olds are always asking “why.”  They are curious.  They yearn for knowing more and more.  They don’t settle.  They go home and do research and come back with the answer.  I’m amazed with some of the questions that they think of and the connections they make between material and life.  I love hearing them debate with each other about who is right, backing up there argument with all these details that many high schoolers in America can’t even come up with.  It fills every ounce of my being with joy.  Anyways… I see myself becoming more and more curious as my life goes on.  I’ve usually accepted what I’m told and don’t think twice about it.  I don’t know if it’s age or being in Korea or what but I want to know more.  I want to figure things out.  I wonder about more things now then ever before.  Kulsai.

I wish that I could apply these simple, elementary school phrases into my life.  It’s the simple things that get you in life.  The simple things can be the most beautiful, the most rewarding, the most appreciated.  But the simple things can also trip you up and catch you off guard. 

I’m leaving in twelve days to go home.  This is the most exhilariting yet heartbreaking phrase.  People told me that I would be feeling this way but I didn’t believe them.  But I’m trying my best to process correctly.  Trying to take in everything I can in the last two weeks.  Trying to spend as much time with this happy, dysfunctional family that I have been welcomed into.  Trying to BE in Korea.  I’m also trying to prepare myself for my life.  As I typed life I was like wow that was broad, but yes, I would say that I am trying to prepare for life, which is turning out exactly how one would expect.  Maybe I’m trying to hard?  I don’t know.  I have to be okay with what I’m doing.  I’m trying my best… whatever that means. 

I’m also trying to stay strong when my cheerleaders girl say “Miss Riley, do you have to leave?”  or “Miss Riley, can you please stay?” or “Miss Riley,  why do you have to go back to America?”  or “Miss Riley,  you have to come back for KIACC so you can watch us perform.”  or when I get handed a friendly letter (my kids are learning friendly letters in writer’s workshop and two of my student’s wrote their letter to me, others asked for my address so they could send letters in the future)  and it says “I do not want you to leave us after Christmas break.  I will be very sad.  I will miss what you taught us.”  Which that last sentence is just hilarious to me for some reason. 

Anyways, I’m learning and growing and all that jazz.  I know that God has allowed me to experience life here for a purpose.  I believe I have hints of that purpose but I have a feeling that even though I will fly out of Korea on December 18 at 6:52 pm I’ll be figuring stuff out long past then.  For now, all I can do is try my best.

I just love kids.  If I didn’t know it before I came to South Korea, I know it now.  At the ICEC conference I attended over the weekend (thoughts on that to come) I heard the president of Compassion International, Wess Stafford, talk about the importance of children in our world.  He spoke of people who disregard them, they can’t vote, they can’t influence the world in any way, they aren’t independent.  Well, obviously, that’s just silly.  He went on to say the love that they give is more important than what many of us value as important.  The feeling you get when you see them running to you and they give you a death grip hug as they wrap their legs around you.  Watching them put on the amount of glue they put on art projects is ridiculous but you gotta laugh at it.  Listening to them sing and laugh and talk about nothing yet everything at the same time.  The list goes on and on.  I love it.  I love being around them.  I’m just overwhelmed right now with joy being around my 17 students.  Yeah.  Okay, speaking of the crazy ones, it’s time to pick them up from recess.

I read this one part and I just loved it.  She is in Italy and just broke it off with this guy David (James Franco) and is a mess.  She is trying to talk with one of her Italian friends about the situation but is struggling with what words to say.  He tells her, “Parla com magni.”  It means ‘speak the way you eat.’   She translated it as ‘say it like you eat it.’    You know I loved this phrase just in the pure fact that it is related to food and eating!  It has this truth behind it though.  This simplicity when things just need to be simple.  Don’t make things more complicated than they actually are,  just like the Romans with their food,  they just lay it out on the table.  Just say what you mean, say it like you eat it.  It’s beautiful really. 

I read and reread this paragraph several times.  I’m learning a lot over here.  A lot of the things I’m learning I can’t really put into words, I don’t really know what I’m learning in some ways.  I’ve been telling people that I’m having a learning overload.  I can’t keep things straight.  It’s overwhelming and chaotic, yet at the same time my life has never looked more at ease and at peace.  I have this weird and awesome tension in my life that I wouldn’t change for anything.  I’m finding that it is to much to process and think about my experience so far.  It’s a lot.  So in this time of chaos I’m trying to truly grasp the understanding of simplicity.   My mind is running a lot.  I have questions that have no answer.  I have too much to think about.  I’m taking it one step at a time though.  No need for this overload.   I’m going to say it like I eat it.

Several times since I’ve been here people have told me that Korea is one of the safest places.  Kids just walk around the city like it’s their backyard.  People leave their bikes unlocked and belongings unattended.  The thing that people say about it is” laws can be broken but rules cannot be.”  Meaning what exactly?  That’s a little confusing.  So it’s like this,  laws are things like traffic.  People do whatever the heck they want to when they drive.  They park wherever their car fits, they even park other cars in they just leave their car in neutral so the people can move it when they need their car.  Drivers just do seriously whatever, but they aren’t hurting anyone, just breaking some laws.  Things like that can be broken.  Rules, however, cannot be.  In Korea you are respectful and that’s that.  It’s no messing around.  You don’t go around stealing things and doing dumb things like that.   They know to get up and give their seat on the subway to their elder.  Mostly people just mind their own business.   So in this city of 1.6 I have not been scared once walking through the streets.  Obviously I have that mindset of an American where people can’t be trusted so I’m still smart about what I do but it’s way more chill here. 

This is one of the big culturally differnt things than America.  It’s interesting to think about this difference in mindsets.  I’m sometimes not even okay with walking from Skye to Arms at night at Geneva.  I’m totally okay walking the 5 minutes to school from my apartment at night.  It’s just different.  (duh)  I love experiencing these differences.  It’s suuuhweeet.