Puerto Rico Part 2: Stars

If you've already read part 1, looked at the title, or follow me on social media, you probably know that I recently returned with my family to the place where my mom was born, Puerto Rico. Mom has a friend, Orlando, who happens to own a nice speed boat (he's also won competitions around the island when it comes to the fastest boat so that's cool!). Every time we go down, a drive to the southern town of Salinas is always on the to-do list to see Orlando. My parents, Titi Alba, my younger cousin Barbara, and I all packed up and drove down to Salinas and loaded up the boat. Orlando took us out to a clump of mangrove trees that was shallow where boaters like to go and camp out on sunny days. There were about twenty boats on the day that we went. (Side note: we tied our boat up next to one of the boats belonging to a friend of Orlando's who told me that I was so white that I blinded him). We spent the day looking for shells, eating snacks, swimming around, and relaxing in the water. At about 5 we left for a restaurant that waited for us a little bit further down the coast. While we were at the restaurant, Barbara and I spotted this beautiful sunset falling into place. We went out and snapped some pictures and just stood watching it. As the sun sank lower, Orlando and my family walked toward us saying they were ready to jump back in the boat and head back. Personally, I was a little intimidated by the idea of Orlando driving back as dusk turned into night (especially after how many beers I'd seen him down that day... don't worry though, it was a safe number I think). The boat had two lights to indicate to other boat drivers that we were in fact a boat... a very fast-moving boat, but there was no big spotlight to see what was directly in front of us and I had no idea how he knew where he was going. But I stretched my arm out over the edge of the boat, a practice that I often replicate while driving down the road on those days that I want to feel weightless. As the boat bounced over waves, I felt like I was flying. Then I looked up and saw a sight that took my breath away - dozens of stars twinkling down at me. I kept my eyes glued on the sky until we got back to the dock. At one point, I turned around and was in awe at the collection that had been forming behind me. Behind me was every star I had seen. Above me were a few more to add to the collection. However, in front of me, there were almost no stars as they were covered up by dust in the air... but as we got closer to this empty void, I saw even more stars. It brought me to the realization that is similar, but slightly different from the conclusion I found in part 1. I could look at the past, everything that had come before that moment. It was beautiful and some stars shone brighter than others. The stars directly above me in the present were not as numerous or as brilliant looking as the display behind me, but I knew they would only add to my experience later. The stars in my future were unclear... it was dark and intimidating and I didn't like focusing on it. When it boils down to relating to life, you can always look back and see all the good and bad that has come before and see the beautiful picture that is your life. You can look at your unknown future, knowing it will be even more magnificent than your past, but it's scary to focus on and should not be focused on 24/7 unless you want to be driven mad by that void. Lots of us, especially speaking for myself, find ourselves in a place that we don't necessarily like. It's not as beautiful as the past. It's hard and life might just suck. I want to focus on the future or the past to escape the present. However, none of my efforts will change the reality. The stars above me are going to add to my collection of stories and I just have to deal with the hardships right now and wait patiently to see what kind of beauty and good that God will bring out of it. But no matter how bright a certain star shines, each is important and adds to the breath-taking beauty that I will see one day when I look back at my life… beauty that you could see when you look back at yours.

Puerto Rico Part 1: Swept Away

I recently took a trip to the island where my mother was born and raised: Puerto Rico. During our time on the island, mom decided that it would be fun to stay in a resort. We drove from Bayamon, an area on the north-east side of the island where my mom grew up (it's near San Juan), to the west side of the island to a town called Rincon (There should be accents on this and Bayamon, but I don't really know Spanish that well. Sorry :)). The group consisted of my parents, my little cousin Barbara, my "Titi" (aunt) Alba, and myself. We ate incredible food, went snorkeling off the coast, visited a local crafts fair, and watched a sunset by a lighthouse. It was all amazing, but my favorite part was just walking by the ocean at our resort. This was mom's least favorite part because her balance is not the best and she would almost fall every time the wave retreated and the sand moved from beneath her feet. But here is this ocean, relentlessly beating up against this beach. Every time I looked down, I saw sand particles that may never be all together at one time ever again. Each wave hit my legs and feet and was so powerful that it could have knocked ME over. The ocean reminds me of what life is like. Everyday things are changing... the past will never fully repeat itself. Trying to hold on to the past is useless because the waves of life, just like the waves of the ocean, will pull that sand right out of your hand or right out from under your feet. You can't worry about the future either because there are billions upon billions of other sand particles out there and it's pointless to try to guess which particles will hit your feet at the same time. The only thing we have any power over is the present - relaxing in the wave that hits you in that moment and saying goodbye as it pulls the old sand away, promising to come back soon with new sand. The wave is God's love and I'm sure that most of you reading this have heard this analogy used before. God's love is strong, powerful, and relentless. No matter how you hard you try to fight it, to tell that wave to stay in the ocean and away from you, it won't listen. God's love gets you soaked sometimes, if the wave is big enough. Sometimes it takes a little more than a splash to wake us up to what he's trying to say... and he will always deliver that wave to you. Finally, God is always orchestrating our little details, our little grains of sand. He gives and he takes away. What he takes away, you cannot hold onto... and why would you want to? Why would you want to hold onto the old when he has something gloriously new ready to give you? Let go of the worries of the past and future and let God walk with you down the beach, crashing his love over you in the present. 

Imperfect: a life story

Just something to consider:

Moments of imperfection remind us who we are:

We are sinners - imperfect because of nature, our choices

We are a hot mess and have little self-control or patience or love or joy or hope or faith or any other qualities that God constantly possess that we often lack. 

We chose this - we make choices because that's the kind of God He is... he didn't want mindless robots, he wanted relationships with us... and relationships are messy. Every time we sin, we fall, we betray the trust of others around us and we smack Christ in the face because each failure of ours was a lashing, a hit of the hammer on the nail. 

BUT our God is the strongest, the most courageous, the most selfless, and the most compassionate God there is. He loves us so much - even through our pain, our faults, our flaws, our mistakes, our short tempers, our dirty mouths, and our habits - HE LOVES US THROUGH IT ALL. And he makes us new every morning - he makes us better- he makes us beautiful. 

Think of a door - but not just any door. Think of a door that has chipped paint, imperfections, rough edges. We are that door. We have scars and pasts that mark us up. When we focus on the rough spots, we lose sight of the fact that those marks don't define us. We are all flawed but our purpose is still clear - we are a door. Splinters or chipping paint don’t make a door any less of a door. Don't focus on those things that make us human because we forget so easily that our true purpose is to act as a door between the world and our God - we introduce others to him through our scars because people who don't have hope long for those who have struggled with the same things they have. People who are hopeless are looking for love - they want something that is familiar. They look for people who won't make fun of their scars because those imperfect but loving people know what it's like to have chips and splinters. 

We bend, but we never have to break because he is strong enough to take our burdens. We will still have struggles, we'll have moments when we lose our tempers or when we turn from him because we're angry at our life circumstances. But he will always be there and when we focus on him we will realize that through our mistakes we learn, we grow, we inspire others to do the same. Through our failings, we can be brought closer and we can draw others near too IF and ONLY IF we can respond properly to our flaws. We all know our failings but we must proactively look for preventative ways to overcome them and live with them as things that don’t hinder us but instead make us stronger. We must follow the will of God and read his word and he will tell us how to respond to these situations. We won't always respond perfectly, but we will continue to learn every day until we are taken up and glorified with the one who makes everything good. Accept your flaws. Learn to watch for the warning signs that you're going down a path of bad thoughts or dangerous actions. Ask God for the wisdom, understanding, patience, and strength to resist Satan. That is how you learn to live with the mess we call our lives - our failings, our mistakes - our HUMANITY. And then you can discover true joy as you accept you for the person God made you to be and grow closer to your good, good father. 

Growing Up

Junior year: the hardest academic year of your life prior to college (according to just about everyone I've talked to). That was the definition that looked me straight in the face last August. I distinctly remember a conversation with my mom and my dad that came up repeatedly and it went like this... Parents: Erica... you're doing too much this year. You have volleyball, Legacy (show choir), the fall play, and academics. You need to drop out of at least one because you're going to be too stressed out and busy to give all of them 110% effort.

Erica: I'm gonna do all of it without getting stressed out. WATCH ME. 

Parents: Alright but don't come crying to me when you get all stressed out because I'm going to say 'I told you so'

I did have a lot on my plate, I'll admit - more than I've ever had before. In the past I've dealt with Legacy and volleyball but never the fall play along with AP U.S. History and two Dual Enrollment classes (English and Chemistry). Did I get stressed out a lot? Occasionally (aka yes, definitely), but I never let my parents see that they had been right. I stood my ground and pushed through. I organized my time well and did the work that I had to do to be able to give each activity 110% - I grew up in this aspect. Being involved in the play was a bigger blessing than I could have ever foreseen. I got to know Charles Pearce Smith V, the person who I just celebrated six months with. During the sixteen years of life that I had lived before Junior year I had taken note of the boys that surrounded me - characteristics that I liked and didn't. So many times before I had settled for less than my list of now high expectations. A boy that I would consider dating must be respectful - of personal boundaries, authority figures, of me, and of themselves. He should always strive to be honest, trustworthy, genuine, compassionate, charitable, selfless, patient, joyful, faithful, humble, gentle, generous, intelligent, and most importantly, Christian. Not just the "oh yeah, I go to church" Christian but the kind of person that pursues God actively. This past weekend was Spiritual Renewal at my church and the speaker told us his "guide to dating" that he has shared with his own teenage daughter. He said that "if you want to be in a dating relationship, you run as hard and as fast as you can after God. After you've got a good pace going, you look around you or in front of you and if you see any boys nearby, you can talk to them... but never look behind you." I absolutely loved this because Charlie happened to be with me at the time and he's a runner. Not to mention the fact that Charlie is the only teenage male that I have ever met that is actually running faster than me (he would deny that, but it's so true). So yes, one of the reasons this year has been the best year of my life is because of the amazing friendship that I have with Charles. Another reason is that it hasn't been as hard as everyone says it is. This may be because it's actually not that difficult and everyone else was just dramatic or it might be because by the grace of God and help from Charlie, every day I've looked at my circumstances with a positive perspective. I've seen life the last six months as a stellar gift that keeps getting better as it goes by. Another reason why this year has been spectacular is the fact that health miracles have occurred. For those of you who don't know, my mom had to have her Gallbladder removed and during the procedure the surgeon found gangrene. He removed it before it had a chance to burst (that would have been messy) and mom made a full recovery. About a month later, she started having significant hearing loss. The doctors thought that there might have been a tumor restricting her hearing - all tumors of course having the possibility of being cancerous. Further investigation proved that she had no cancer and no tumor at all - just hearing loss at a really young age. Yet another possible reason why this year has been the best yet is that I've learned who my real friends are. I broke off a toxic relationship that I had been apart of since I was four. It was really hard - the decision and also the aftermath. I probably could have handled it better in the moment but since then so much negativity and feelings of low self esteem have left me. I've found five really good friends that are girls at my school with several more at church as well as, of course, Charlie and his friends at his church. My final explanation to the abnormality of an amazing junior year is the fact that my God is so good. At the start of last August I had just come out of a not so great season of life - a real time of growth and listening to the whispers that God sent my way. This has been a season of learning the difference between hope and faith. While this lesson is certainly not over yet, it has been a peaceful blessing so far. I was given the opportunity to job shadow Trevecca's chapel coordinator, Shawna Gaines. It was a humbling week that I got the privilege to experience thanks to my school's program that all juniors complete called Career Exploration. I found out that I don't know everything about the Bible (crazy concept - I know) and that Trevecca is actually a school (yes, another crazy concept). Up until this point I've been the know-it-all at school - even earning nicknames like "Trevecca Wizard" and "Teen Jesus". Plus I've always seen Trevecca as a summer camp, picturing the atmosphere at TNT@TNU and Y.E.S. Conference. Meeting professors and students, sitting in a college class, and being surrounded by it's atmosphere for a week confirmed to me that I want to go to TNU for college. I also got to meet Lauren Daigle when she came for chapel, a dream come true for me. I even got to sit in on a meeting for those interviewing for their district license in ministry. I won't be able to interview until next year at the earliest but I got to read the constitution of the Church of the Nazarene and find out a few more of the steps that lie in my future. My junior year has definitely been the best year yet. God has been so present in my life, my family, and my relationships. He's helped me grow up into the best version of myself. Now I face the scary possibilities tied to Dad's double knee replacement surgery that happens in seven hours and another scary health situation that I'll keep as a silent request for now. But this is all apart of life - growing up - the testing of my faith. I wouldn't change these circumstances that I find myself in for the world.