Just In Case You Weren't Aware...

I am 17 years old.


I am not an adult.

I have no idea what I want to do for the next 68 years I'm projected to live.

You have no right to condemn me for that. Chances are, you didn't know either when you were my age.

So the next time you ask me what I'm going to major in, and I tell you that I honestly don't know yet, I would appreciate it if you didn't look at me like I was an unmotivated waste of breath.

I have dreams.

I have goals.

I have vision.

I have passion.

And one day, when I am living a full, wonderful life, you'll see that you had no right to treat me the way you are treating me now.

Just in case you weren't aware, I am more than a major. I have the right to experiment, to look around, to change my major as I transform, and to live my life without your judgment.

Leaving Home - A Fiction Piece.

Okay, starting to delve back into the world of fiction, and I wrote this for school tonight. It's short, so just tell me what you think of it.

Leaving Home 

Lily breathed a sigh of relief and leaned against the cold, metal wall of her corridor. It was safe. Of course, the term safe was relative. “Safe” meant the Gors weren’t breathing down her neck, and she was still alive. Looking around the next corner, she signaled back to home base. 

Stepping as lightly as she could, she maneuvered her way into the heart of Gor headquarters. She spotted the GorBoss with some of his closest advisors. He was a mere fifteen feet away and completely unaware of her presence. His teeth were clenched tightly as he knelt over the table with his reading glasses perched on the edge of his nose. Her heart beat faster and each of her steps felt like thunder. When she was close, she took a deep breath, and jumped. GorBoss turned around just in time to see Lily’s attack. Her grabbed her around the waist and slung her down on the table. By this time, the SpecOps had arrived and were busy fighting off the other head Gors. Each of the SpecOps knew to leave the GorBoss alone. He was Lily’s, and Lily’s alone.

The other girls were slowly being overtaken by the Gors. The Gors were all larger and stronger than the girls, but the girls were the best trained Ops Team in the galaxy. Their bodies were fine-tuned to survive the harshest conditions and take down the strongest enemies. This time, however, the Gors had gotten the upper hand. Lily writhed her way out of GorBoss’s grip and hid in the safest spot she could find: directly under him. He reached for her, and Lily almost escaped. He held her by the scruff of the neck and looked her up and down before tossing her over his shoulder.

            “Runt.” He muttered.

She squirmed in his arms. He squeezed her, hard, and her struggled to breathe. Finally, he let her go. She glared at him and said, “You wait until next time.”

            He laughed. “I’ll beat you then, too, little sister!”

She pretended not to hear him, and ran off to join the rest of her friends, smiling brightly. He turned around, and jumped back when he saw someone in the doorway. His mom was there, shaking her head but smiling nonetheless. She leaned against the doorpost and he rolled his eyes when he saw the look on her face. He went back to reading the papers laid out on his bed.

            “You know you’re going to miss her, David.” His mom said. David ignored her, and continued reading. Report Tuesday morning at 0600 hours… “She just loves you so much. You leaving is going to break her heart.” Tears began to tug at David’s eyes. He didn’t look up, just kept reading. Recruits need to bring their Army Handbooks… “David, you don’t have to go. You don’t have to leave us. You can stay.”

He looked up at her, finally, tears stinging the corners of his eyes. “I have to go, Mom. I have to go. I’m not gone forever. I’ll be back eventually. Please don’t make this harder than it has to be. I don’t want to leave her. I hate that. I hate it more than you could know.”

His mom bit her lip, seeing the pain in her son’s eyes. “Thank you for never growing up. Thank you for always playing into her fantasies. Thank you for being the parent I never could be.” David could see the regrets in her eyes, replaying all the times she had pushed Lily away, sipping at that ugly glass of wine. 

David said nothing, zipped up his bag, and went to sit in Lily’s room. He sat down at her table and began to sip from a plastic tea cup while Lily cheerfully introduced him to a nicely dressed stuff bear, named Mr. Bearbert, and a doll named Lady Lilly. His mom stood at the door; a single tear slid down her cheek.         

....well? what do you think? 

A Shift in Instincts

My old volleyball coach used to point out to us all the time that in order to play volleyball, we had to train ourselves to go against our instincts. (well.. the team did. I'm the manager. I just watched. Not the point.) Natural instincts would tell you that if there is a ball flying towards your face, you need to move out of the way. I was thinking about this today during practice while watching my team do this very interesting thing where the coach hits a ball at them, they pass it, do a funny backflip-roll thing, and then pass a second  ball.

It looks about like this:

Just like that, actually.

So we do this drop and roll thing every day at practice. Every single day. The idea is that eventually, the roll will become instinct.

In Sunday School, we were discussing how to be "in the world, but not of the world." Which led us to a discussion of the upside down kingdom, and about how the things we do as Christians go against our instincts. He talked about how we have to train ourselves out of it, like a sport. It may be instinct to react in anger to a hurtful remark, but Christ calls us to turn the other cheek. It may be instinct to want to be served, but Christ called us to serve.It may be instinct to hold a grudge, but Christ calls us to forgive. It may be instinct to worry, but Christ calls us to trust Him.

Ultimately, it is instinct for us to live for ourselves, but Christ calls us to live for him.

These things don't start out as instincts. If they did, we could just say "Okay, from now on I am going to love everybody no matter what", and that would be it. But it's not like that. It's not an instinct. we have to practice stepping in front of the ball before it becomes natural for us to do so. The more natural it becomes, the more instinctual it is, the easier it will be to play the game.

When we learn to play the game well, the whole team benefits.

He Loves Me!

Today, I learned something amazing.

I don't have to do anything for God to love me. 

This is shockingly simple, yet it's the most amazing thing I think a person can realize. I realized it today.  He loves me. He loves me even though I fail Him every day. He loves me even though I feel like I don't have a place in this world. He loves me even though some days I just want to yell and scream at Him. 

How I ever lived with forgetting that is beyond me. 

He just loves me. 

He loves me with passion. 

And I've been living life out of sorts. I've been living life like I'm supposed to be perfect all the time for him to love me, and that's just not how it is. God expecting me to be perfect is kind of like a father expecting his kindergartner to do Calculus. And guess what! His love is there for me anyway.

I forgot about the time in my life when my faith was as simple as this: God, I'll do my best, but I'm not too good at this, and You'll have to take care of the rest. 

And that was all that was necessary. 

He loves me! He loves me! HE loves ME!! He loves me! 

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