...bouncing thoughts...

so there's this big trampoline in the backyard of the house i'm living in. it's the best thing that could have ever happened to my sanity. i lay on that trampoline at least one time a day. put on my ipod. and think. about anything. and everything. 

i think i'm in love with the simplicity it brings me. when i lay on the trampoline, i see nothing but sky. if i'm there in the afternoon, i lay and watch the clouds pass by. if i'm there at night, which is my favorite, i can see millions of stars...i could lay there for hours and hours looking up at the night sky. one night, i had one of the girls out there with me and i was praying with her while looking up at the sky. i stopped mid-sentence because i saw a shooting star that was so close to us that i could see the orange and red flames of fire as the star flew by and then slowly disintegrated. before i could finish asking her if she saw what i saw, she was already talking about how amazing it was! i had never seen anything like that before. it seriously was pretty amazing. i thanked God for it. i think it was Him just letting us know that He was there. after all, it is God that makes the wind blow and the rain fall and the stars shoot. He put on a pretty good show for us that night. 

i think about a lot of things on that trampoline. it's my favorite de-stresser. i think and i pray and i listen to music and i journal and i read and i think some more. i could write a book of thoughts i've had while laying on that trampoline. but, for now, i'll start with a blog...

i'm getting old. 

and the scary part is: i can tell. i've really noticed, particularly since being in australia, how much i love spending time by myself. i can remember one winter break from college when i was back in glen ellyn for nearly a month, and i didn't spend one evening at home. not one. and looking back now - that's the only thing i can remember about that winter break. i have no idea what i was out doing, but the one thing i do remember is that i wasn't home. the thought of that disgusts and exhausts me now! 

i truly think that quiet evenings at home are a beautiful blessing. and i'll choose to be by myself or with a small group of people rather than going out with a huge group. 

i'm getting old. 

i'll be the first to admit that i haven't aged particularly gracefully. i've kicked and screamed and laughed and yelled and cried and pouted and charged my way through my nearly 25 years of life. BUT, when i really think about it, i'm not so down on the aging process because i'm learning so much about myself and trying my hardest to improve on things. so that maybe...MAYBE...with age, i'll get better at this whole 'life' thing. 

i've learned SO MUCH about myself since coming back to australia and staffing this discipleship training school. so much. and some of it is not so great. but i feel like since coming here and being in this position on staff, God has just been putting me in front of this huge mirror that is allowing me to really see myself. 

the good. the bad. the very, very ugly. 

it's not particularly fun, but it's been an unbelievable lesson. because just as if i was ACTUALLY looking in a mirror, i'm seeing the bad and ugly things and really making it a point to try and change them. and i'm capitalizing on the good parts - making sure they stay good.

the one thing that God has consistently and clearly been speaking to me for the past five weeks i've been here is this one simple, yet powerful line: 

"it's not all about you, mallory."

ouch. really? cause i've been living the past 25 years like it is, actually, all about me. and that's the way i like it. 

no. it's really not all about me. nothing. nothing is all about me. and, sadly, that's how i've been living my life. like it's all about me. sometimes i've been aware of that false belief and sometimes i haven't. but now i realize that it's always been there. 

bad days? everybody has them. it's not all about you. 

an overdrawn bank account? you're not alone. it's not all about you.

broken heart? feel lucky that you've had enough love to actually have your heart broken. it's not all about you. 

living under terrorist threats? you and millions of other people in the world. it's not all about you. 

this discipleship training school? DEFINITELY not all about you. 

the Bible? you can read and re-read it as many times as possible. it'll never be all about you. not even close. 

not an easy lesson to learn, but i'm grateful for it because it's changing the way i see absolutely everything. and it's been a good reminder for me here. because when i was here on my DTS, it sort of WAS all about me. the lectures and the ministry times and the one-on-one times...they were for me. but now i'm back on this school and none of this is about me. and, honestly, it hasn't been easy. i feel like i always have to be "on." i feel like i always have to have it all together. because these students come to me for advice, for prayer, for words of wisdom and for encouragement. and if we're doing a ministry time and i feel emotional for my own reasons, i have to put it all away and be there for the students. i will always do that. but i'm learning that just because i'm not the student on this school doesn't mean i can't be broken. it doesn't mean i have to have it all together. because the truth is: i don't. not even close. and i will continue to do all i can to give all i can to these students. i will not be making this even a little bit about me. but i will not hide my brokenness. 

we've been really focusing a lot on the importance of surrendering to God. surrendering our desires, our possessions, our fears, our hopes....all of it. surrender. it's a tough little sucker, isn't it? it's been so easy for me in the past six months to say "yeah, i surrender this and this and this, blah blah blah." it's been easy for me to write pages and pages of the things i surrender to God. but when it actually comes time to DO it...to PROVE it...i find that my hands start gripping things tighter and my face starts to get that pouty look that used to always work on mom and dad and i may even whine for a little bit. it's a daily struggle. maybe it'll start to get easier after a while...maybe it won't. but when i do TRULY surrender everything to God, i find myself overwhelmed with the peace that it brings. it's like when you step outside after a huge, crazy storm and the air is so calm and peaceful and silent. i create that big, huge storm with my imperfect, human stubbornness to hand everything i love and everything i feel and everything i want over to God. but once i actually do it...everything seems so much calmer and much more peaceful. and peace is a pretty beautiful thing. i put myself through the storm much too often. God doesn't exactly force me to go through all of those gut-wrenching, tear-inducing, painful storms. i do it to myself. i'm holding on. because letting go and surrendering everything to God can be scary. it takes trust. and faith. a lot of it. 

it's not a secret that my sister and her family are going through a trying time right now. i hope they don't get mad that i'm referencing their situation, but it's been heavy on my heart and i figure that the more people that know about it, the more people there are praying for them. my sister and my brother("-in-law") and those two precious boys make up four of the absolute most important people in my world. it's frustrating to me that i just can't put into words how much i love them. and even though they've continued to wear a smile this past year, i know they are worried. remember how it's "not all about me?" a little over a month ago, i was sitting in my sister's living room sobbing my eyes out because my bank account was slightly overdrawn. sobbing my eyes out. TO HER. and she sat there and she listened and sympathized and cooked me dinner. my sister always lets it be all about me. 

i know that they don't always know where money for groceries is going to come from. i know they don't have any idea what's in store for them, and that is terrifying. i also know that God is in control of that situation. i know that God knows where their grocery money will come from and He will provide it. i know that God does know what the future holds for them, and He will reveal it in His perfect timing. i know that we are all learning a great lesson of faith through this situation. and although i'm far away from home, i will continue to feel the pain of this situation along with cori. i will continue to intercede for them and i will continue to lay my fears for them in the hands of God. i have to surrender their situation to God every single day. every day. because that's the best that any of us can do. trust God. and in the meantime, get down on my knees and pray and cry and suffer along with them. 

rob bell writes...

"Suffering is a place where cliches don't work and words often fail...It isn't very pretty and it isn't very fun, but when we join each other in the pain and confusion, God is there. Sometimes it means we sit in silence for a while, not knowing what to say. And it is in our suffering together that we find out we are not alone. We find out who really loves us. We find out that with these people around us, we can make it through anything. And that gives us something to celebrate. 

Ultimately, our gift to the world around us is hope. Not blind hope that pretends everything is fine and refuses to acknowledge how things are. But the kind of hope that comes from staring pain and suffering right in the eyes and refusing to believe that this is all there is. It is what we all need - hope that comes not from going around suffering but from going through it."

so let's suffer together. and, more importantly, let's celebrate together. it sucks being broke. i mean, it really, really sucks. bottom line. i would imagine it sucks even more when you have a family to support. so let's all get together on this one. in the spirit of living a life that's not all about me, i ask you to join me in lifting up those families in prayer that don't know how they're going to afford their groceries next week. just pray. and, every once in a while, can we make it a point to just celebrate? so we aren't taking our yearly vacations to hawaii. or buying a lakehouse. or a boat for said lakehouse. it's fun to dream, so let's keep doing that. but let's really celebrate. celebrate life. and beauty. and people. and breaths you take and hands you have to hold and smiles you see. celebrate friends you have to love and families you have to suffer with and the God you have to take control of it all. because suffering is real. storms happen. but they're not as scary when you know you have people to go through them with you, and you have God to bring the peace and calmness when it's all over. 

i don't have as much "stuff" as i used to. i recently had a friend down here put highlights in my hair. i sat in my kitchen as she dyed my hair, and then i went to my bathroom and took the foils out of my own hair, one by one, before washing it myself. eight months ago, i was in the midst of my reliance on a beautiful, overpriced salon that i visited every six weeks, spending an embarrassing amount of money on my hair. i laughed as i stood in my bathroom taking out the aluminum foil that was covering my head and found myself incredibly grateful for my $20 hair appointment. i'm not who i was. 

i'm turning 25 next week. i'm struggling a bit with it. i keep thinking that this is so hard because i'm nowhere i thought i would be when i turned 25. not even close. but i think where i thought i'd be was based on the balance of my bank account and what was on my ring finger and what was parked in the garage and the title on my business card. 

well, let me just make it clear that my bank account is consistently in double digits (sometimes single digits. sometimes with a negative sign before it), my ring finger is bare, i don't have a car here. or a garage. or a business card. 

but i've also got new standards. based on love, and faith, and learning...giving, creating, embracing, hoping, trusting, laughing and, of course, celebrating. and i feel like i'm meeting these standards pretty well, at the moment. so. hello, 25. 

and i'm welcoming this new age with a really fantastic tan, if i do say so myself. and i truly believe that life is a little bit sweeter when you're living it with a tan. 

xoxo. 

ps - this week is prayer week. please pray for breakthroughs and revelations. prayer week is generally the biggest week of breakthroughs on the school. we're doing 24/5 prayer, so it's going to be exhausting, but completely amazing (like, seriously 24 hours per day. i have a 12am-2am prayer slot...and a 2am-4am one...and a 4am-6am one...hi, starbucks. i'll be seeing you daily). during the first day of testimonies here, i just had this feeling as the students were sharing that they were going to be completely rocked on prayer week. so here's to that....

ALSO, this week requires that i actually HAVE to drive a van to and from the church for prayer slots. there's no getting out of it this time. the stick shift thing is REALLY throwing me off. i mean, how could one person possibly do all of those things at once? with the steering and all of the pedals and the shifting...it's inhumane, really. i practiced this weekend on a friend's car. there were three of us in the car, and near the end of my driving extravaganza, we were all wiping tears from our eyes from laughing so hard. seriously, i am terrible. the car was, like, bouncing through a parking lot at one point. no, seriously. bouncing. with several onlookers staring. failure can be funny, but i'm a little concerned about driving the 13 passenger van. up hills. honestly, how do drivers of manual vehicles remember all of those things to do AND do things like have a conversation or change the radio station all at ONCE? seriously incredible. 

pray for me. 

and the passengers of the van.