When Life Gives You Lemons [And You Hate Lemonade]

{By Hailey Sadler}
Your parents warn you about it from an early age.

You get the inkling that it might actually be true, when certain things happen – like your sibling getting way better stuff on Christmas or your friend landing the main part in the play, even though your audition was [objectively, of course] far better.

Then you grow up [some]; reality hits and it hits hard. There’s someone you love. And they die. There’s something you want really, really badly and work like a maniac for. And you don’t get it. You fail. Someone who lied and cheated wins in your place. There’s a dream you have. And it fades away, far out of your reach. There’s something you prayed for with all your heart. And it doesn’t happen. Life isn't fair.

Why?? I can honestly say that I do not know. You can shake your fist in the face of heaven or you can lie on the ground in broken subjection, crying out for a reason; you can become bitter, cynical, and decide it’s not worth loving, trying, dreaming, or praying when confronted with the bald fact that so much in life is wrong and messed up and unjust. For no apparent reason. Sometimes it seems as if that is what bothers us most. We cry out for a why, a reason in the face of the pointless pain, a thread of purpose interwoven throughout the appalling unfairness of it all. We can bear it, as long as we can believe there is a master plan behind it all, making it somehow worthwhile.

That is the other option. You can trust.

It’s not exactly something I am naturally good at. If it tells you anything, I was the child who would not stand up on the picnic table and fall backwards into the scrawny arms of her Sunday School class. Just not going to do that, sorry. It is still hard – I want reasons, I want logic, I want some sort of guarantee that I won’t be hurt if I trust [that I won’t end up with my back on the ground and my Sunday school group chorusing, “oops!”]… which defeats the purpose of trusting, I guess. But what we have to realize is, trust is not about who we are. It’s about who God is. Trust your life on who He is,  and along the way you will find that He takes away the frustration and disappointment and in its place, gives peace. Illogical, unreasonable peace that passes all understanding.

Choosing to trust is more of a journey than a destination. I know because I am still on my own journey, a journey to reconcile the two undeniable facts I see around me:

That life is terribly, terribly unfair.

 And God is terribly, terribly good.

Things don’t always make sense, and to my mind, grasping for logic, that can be hard to accept. But God is good. And someday, when the veil of mortality and constraints of time and place are torn away, and we get to glimpse this world and these lives from His vantage point,  we will suddenly be able to comprehend the reconciliation of those to facts and see how perfect His purpose was all along.

Until then, trust. You don’t have to understand it all. It won’t all make sense. But that’s ok. If you knew every reason why, it would no longer be trusting. ;)

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Guy's Perspective: Beautiful

{By Anonymous}

Taylor Swift. Carrie Underwood. Kate Upton. Kim Kardashian. Colbie Callait. Pop culture produces almost as many airbrushed female celebrities (and apparently a fascination with country stars) as it does terms to describe their physique. Chick. Hot. Doll. Sexy. Nothing short of perfection portrayed or admired. Flaws minimized or surgically addressed. Hundreds of thousands of dollars every year for one person’s outer appearance. Body has become god.

‘Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me.’ This antique cliché rears its head time and again, in every genre of life. But it almost universally accompanies some variable. ‘You really failed that last test at school.’ I need to study harder for the next one. ‘That outfit looks horrendous.’ Note to self: plaid shorts and striped tops do not go together. ‘Holy crap you shoot worse than my grandma.” I can practice kicking with the inside of my good instead of the toe.

‘You’re ugly.’ Suddenly, the variable skipped town. 

I cannot change my body absent unnatural intervention. How am I supposed to change how I look? Do I layer makeup? Do I hide behind designer clothing? How can I solve a problem I was born with? The words that could never hurt me just broke my heart. 

Regardless of the origin, self-inflicted or external, words that cut to the unchangeable core of existence hurt. They scar. They stare blankly, constant reminders of what I wish I could attain, but never will. I don’t live on a bird’s diet. I don’t have a full staff of dressing assistants. I don’t have curves like a Kardashian or hair like Rihanna (though she’s GOT to be close to exhausting the realms of the color palette). I don’t attract guys like flies to honey. I’m not on the cover of People Magazine. I’m me; plain, ordinary me. Unlovely and unloved. What did I do to get stuck with myself in the first place?

Denying the reality of this internal conflict – and of its external results that quickly become far too obvious – would be shallow and inappropriate. The pain, the hurt, the self-deprivation is far too real. I do not write to say the struggle does not exist, I write to say it shouldn’t.

‘Congratulations, writer!’, you say. ‘You have wasted nearly an entire page and five minutes of my time to tell me something that I already know. I know I shouldn’t worship my body. I know I shouldn’t be obsessed with reality. But ‘should’ is not reality. I can’t do it.

To borrow a weakly humorous phrase, ‘nothing is impossible. The word itself includes ‘possible.'' Escape presents a difficult road, but one that promises freedom from bondage to the deity of Body. Accepting who I am and living content in that fact is not a method tried and found wanting, but a lifestyle found publicly difficult and left untried. Do I honestly fool myself enough to believe those airbrushed figurines on magazine covers are happy? Do I honestly believe they have it made? Celebrity marriages do not last an average of three weeks for no reason. After three weeks, the thrill is gone; the emotional high; the searching for meaning. Even in their mansions with ‘friends,’ money and a perfect body, they still feel insecure. Because they wonder what would happen if they ever became less than perfect.

Body is a demanding god. It is also a treacherous one. It demands your entire focus, devotion and life, then abandons. Attachment to such a deity is not service. It is slavery. At the point where we submit to Body, our desires become insatiable. Nothing fulfills us. Perfection remains just one tuck, nip or trim away. Perfection means skipping one more meal, wearing one size smaller waist, weighing one less pound. Perfection never arrives.

You are beautiful for who you are. The bodies of airbrushed stars are just that, airbrushed. Unreal. Contrived. Those celebrities will never maintain their appearance; you shouldn’t try to reach it.

Those entities (the inhuman term used purposely) who call you ugly, who criticize your appearance, who condemn your being, are not worth your time. Don’t maintain friendships with entities who see your physique and nothing more. Their shallowness, their insincerity makes their ‘friendship’ status a liability to you. Lose it.

True friends go deeper than the skin, than the makeup or the designer brands. They see you for who you really are. They see your soul. They see your compassion, your dedication, your love, your being. Individuals truly worthy of your friendship will affirm your beauty, not because of how you look, but because of who you are. Looks change. Being rarely does. Surround yourself with people who love you, with people think you look pretty without your makeup on.         

To those of you who are surrounded by true friends, but refuse to accept yourself for who you are, know that what you think never changes the truth. Culture worships Body. Remind me the last time culture got some life issue right? Oh. Yeah. Never. I urge you to rise above the storm, see yourself in new eyes. See yourself deeper than your skin. Realize all the ones who love you. Believe that you are beautiful. You are.

Ultimately, every single one of us goes to the same place: assisted living wearing diapers (again) rocking open back gowns as top fashion (ICU) and eating all meals in mush form (also a repeat from 70-some years ago). In the final analysis, Body cannot deliver on its promise. It claims to make you beautiful; it only subjects you to unbearable loads. It offers societal acceptance; the ‘society’ that accepts you on the condition of Body is no society worth participation.

You are beautiful for who you are. You are beautiful because you are fearfully and wonderfully made. You are beautiful because your being goes beyond the paltry two millimeters of skin covering your body. You are beautiful for what you feel and how you love. True friends recognize this in you. Best friends affirm it and stand as constant reminders so you never lose sight of who you truly are.

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That Saved A Realist Like Me

{By Hailey Sadler}

The whole “is-the-glass-half-empty-or-half-full” dilemma sort of confused me as a child. When posed with it, I would always answer “half full” because that seemed to be the right answer. Anyway it seemed like the better, happier option compared to being labeled a pessimist, which always conjured up images of wet blankets and bitter old men. Secretly, though, my water-in-the-cup philosophy is more along the lines of, Ok, we’ve established that there is water in a cup, now can we please move on??

I guess I could be considered somewhat of a realist.

An interesting term, “realist” usually just means a cynic or pessimist who enjoys patting themselves on the back for the pleasing ability to accurately perceive objective reality. Poor, deluded optimists and idealists, they sniff. Yes, realists can be really obnoxious [see picture to the right!]. But that is not the point. The point is they are right. Reality is depressing, and if you view the world from a realist perspective you quickly become closely akin to the cynic and the pessimist for that very reason. Because what is reality? Reality is truth.

And the truth of our world does not tend towards the encouragement of optimism.

The truth is Americans who are obese [approximately 1 in 3 children in the U.S. are obese] and Nigerians who are malnourished [there are 5.75 million underweight children in Nigeria]; the truth is sickening injustices that create multitudes of “causes” and less action, chaos and turmoil, governmental abuse, corruption, economic uncertainty. The truth is culture that is seriously messed up in so many ways. It’s a world where the GDP of the 48 poorest nations is less than the combined wealth of the world’s 3 richest people. It’s a world of red lights when you want to text and Facebook statuses that make you want to cry (or gag) because of the sheer narcissism. As Big Daddy from Cat on a Hot Tin Roof would say, “The truth is pain and sweat and payin’ bills…. Truth is dreams that don’t come true, and nobody prints your name in the paper ‘til you die.”

If that was all there is to it, I think my tendency towards “realism” would make me want to pour a pack of Kool-Aid in that half-full-half-empty glass and be done with it.

But that is only one dimension of reality.

Because what is reality? Reality is Truth. Truth is the thread weaving this tangled mess we call reality into a perfect product God calls His plan. The Truth is that there is something higher than this world, bigger than all the evil, greater than ourselves, something we only snatch glimpses of, a breath of light when the clouds shift, and parting, for a moment we catch sight of heaven. It is the reality of a higher reality: God Who sees purpose where we see only pointless pain, God Who wrote the end of the story for us all to read, and Who is coming back. For us.

It is that that makes the stark circumstances of this world around me bearable. Even more than that, it makes life fully worth living, if only to catch those occasional glimpses of that higher reality, higher Truth that dovetails and completes the truth we know and weaves us all together – pessimist, realist, optimist, idealist – in His incomprehensively perfect plan. 

Amazing grace, how sweet the sound. 

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Don't Be That Girl #4 & 5: The Perfect One and the Day Time TV Guest

{Michael Vuke}

If you haven't read part one, two, or three in the "Don't Be That Girl" series, go back and read them now!

What do you mean 'emotion'?
Life isn't always perpetually bland
and perfect for you?

Part Four: The Perfect One and the Day Time TV Guest 

The last two types really go together, as different as they are; they are opposite ends on the spectrum of transparency. First up, there is the perfect girl.

Yep, guys avoid “Perfect Girls”. How do you know if you are the Perfect One? If you never show any emotion except for happiness and contentment even when your life is going down the tubes, you are the perfect girl. When you are at a close friend’s funeral, someone tries to comfort you, and your response is: “I’m fine. I don’t need to talk about it.” You are the perfect girl.

Perfect girls never get sad or lonely; they are self-sufficient and happy with their lives (but not really). On the inside, they are hurting and lonely; they experience emotions just like everybody else. Unlike everyone else though, they are ‘too strong’ to let it show. They put on a big happy mask and live a façade. They are a Barbie Doll personified.

Why do we care?

Guys avoid Perfect Girls because you can’t get to know them--there are too many walls in place for any sort of meaningful relationship to develop. Perfect Girls are always hiding something and refusing to trust others with anything, but trust is vital to a friendship. Even if a guy can’t fix your problem, some would be glad to just listen. No one likes being lied to and being given a plastic mannequin for a friend, so we avoid them altogether.

Well, if we avoid Perfect Girls because they never show any emotion or any of the struggles they are experiencing, we must flock to girls who have lots of problems, right? 

No comment necessary.

That brings us to the final type (for now) of girl that guys avoid. The Day-time Talk Show Guest. If you have ever seen an episode of Maury or Jerry Springer, you know exactly what I’m talking about. These girls have more issues than Time magazine, and they flaunt them. As soon as you meet one, you are overwhelmed with information about their problems, emotions, and friend’s problems.

How can you tell if you are one? If you are having a bad day, do you go around wailing and sobbing uncontrollably, clutching the nearest friend for comfort? If you are mad, do you rant to anyone around about that backstabbing little jerk who dared to wear the same shirt as you? If you are one of these girls, whatever you feel, think, or hear will quickly change your mood and get dumped all over your nearest acquaintance. These girls often suffer from the medical condition known as Dramaticus Queeninitus.

Why do we care?

Do I even have to answer this one? Yeah…..no. This isn’t just guys—this is everyone. No one wants to be constantly subjected to every mood swing or bad thing that happens to you. Everyone has some junk in their lives, and we don’t mind listening or helping you remove that junk, but we also aren’t garbage disposals. We have stuff going on in our own lives. Plus, if you are that sort of girl, we can’t entrust any personal details to you, for fear that it would trigger a mood swing or that you would cry/rant/beam about it to your next friend.

Compare those last two girls (the Perfect One and the Day-time TV guest) to the Honest One. This lady isn’t afraid to be real about her life and whatever is happening, but she also knows when the appropriate time and place is to divulge personal information. She is accessible without baring her soul to everyone that walks by. The Honest One also knows what information should be shared with her guy friends, and what information should be reserved for her lady friends. She is balanced, which is something that every girl on the list of girls that guys like has in common. While there is wide variety in personalities, from quiet to adventurous, they all have some form of balance to their lives.

There you have it: 5 types of girls that guys avoid (and 4 types of girls that we like!). I say this on behalf of men everywhere: Please, don’t be that girl.

What are your thoughts on these last two types of girls? Comment below!

Michael Vuke doesn’t want to be that girl. In fact, he rather likes being a guy! He strives to become a well-rounded man, and so is pursuing his varying interests from fashion to camping to learning Japanese. Have any questions about guys/for guys? Tweet it out to @WriteandDream and it may get answered in an article! Michael blogs about his discoveries at michaelvuke.wordpress.com.

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Living is What Matters: A Journal Entry

{by Rachel Roose}

The sound of geese honking resounded in my ears as I leaned back in my chair meditating on Luke chapter twenty-one.

...Flipping to a blank page in my journal I began to write:

O Lord, I really enjoy listening to Your geese honking outside.  They make me happy! Dear Jesus, I loved the verses 14-15, & 19: ¹⁴ But make up your mind not to worry beforehand how you will defend yourselves. ¹⁵ For I will give you words and wisdom that none of your adversaries will be able to resist or contradict. ¹⁹ By standing firm you will gain life.

I will work hard not to worry but to trust You, to depend on You to fill me with wisdom for alone I am helpless, I am nothing but with You I can stand firm. Your wit far surpasses that of anyones deepest imagination. Your wisdom is not to be grasped. Your thoughts are profound and Your words a precious to me. I love You. By Your strength I will stand firm and by Your wisdom I will gain life.

Then I felt Him say: Rachel My daughter, this truth is so good. I’m so glad to hear you repeating it. Remember it is much easier to say than to do, you may know it but it is living it that matters. So be on your guard, always be ready, never let Me out of the front of your mind. Rachel, My strength and truth can arm you even today. I know you do not see anyone coming to persecute you, but through the simple things like when one of your younger siblings really irritates you. Pray to Me I will give you the right answer- this will save you from many quarrels and fill your home with much more joy and peace.

Rachel Roose is homeschooled along with her 7 brothers and 3 sisters.  She is passionate about one day serving the Lord by opening her arms to orphans.  Whether teaching dance, painting, running with her sister and mom, or preparing for the future, her aim is to encourage others to experience a personal relationship with Jesus Christ. 

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Insecurity, Authenticity, and a One-Size-Fits-All Halo

{by Hailey Sadler}

There are lots of good things to hide behind.

I was very young when I learned this important fact of life. Things like doors, sofas, or rows of clothes in the depths of a closet if you didn’t mind the smothering sensation of choking on the smell of shoes. These things came in handy if hide-and-seek was the name of the game, or you wanted to scare an unsuspecting sister into screeching. [Not that I ever did that; I was a model child.] The funny thing is, I still look around and see there a lot of good things that we use to hide behind. Things like make-up…school work…a packed social life…or spirituality...

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Defined: Our Purpose

in·side out adv. 1. with the inner surface turned outward 2. as completely as possible; thoroughly, from every perspective.

synonyms: altogether, backwards and forwards, completely, comprehensively, entirely, fully, head over heels, in full measure, outright, through and through, totally, unconditionally, unreservedly.

I like that definition of “inside out.” But it also makes a very good definition of our purpose:

1. To live unashamedly, with the inward transformation our hearts turned outward. Not hiding it, not dressing it up in pretty church clothes, just being it.
2. To live for real for Christ: backwards and forwards, entirely, fully, totally, unconditionally, unreservedly, as completely as possible. On some days, as “completely as possible” may be not very completely at all. On some days it won't even look like living for Christ; it might look a lot more like living for yourself. And that is because... none of us are perfect. Or even close. While the whole imperfect thing can be somewhat tedious, it’s really ok... because that’s not our purpose anyway. Our purpose is to passionately pursue living for Christ as completely as possible, and to apply that purpose to every area of our lives, to our every perspective.

Being “inside-out” doesn’t mean you have to be one of those gushy people who pour out every detail of their hearts and lives to you in the first five minutes you meet them [thank goodness]. Being inside out just means that who you are with one group of friends is the same as who you are with a different group of friends. It means you don’t change what you believe or who you are for anyone else.

 It means, as difficult as it sometimes can be, there is no distinctive line between who you are in Christ and who you are in front of the world.

*******

[With over 400 hits, including quite a few international views, yesterday was a pretty exciting day as InsideOut was officially launched! I hope each of you will continue to frequent these pages and participate in conversations through the comment section.] 

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InsideOut Girls: Living For Real For Christ

{by Hailey Sadler}

Fake things drive me crazy. Fake smiles. Fake nails. Fake sales where everything is 90% off except the one thing you want to buy. Fake flowers, which always trick me. [I do like costume jewelry…which is technically fake jewels…. but hey, even then the real thing is better!] The worst, though, has to be superficiality in regards to the Church. There is just something sickening about faking what should be so real. It makes me think of  Revelations 3:16, “Because you are lukewarm, and neither hot nor cold, I will spew you out of My mouth.” I know for me, I want it to be either hot or cold, either totally for real or not at all. No lukewarm, in between, or pretending about it. Why is it, then, that this fakeness is so prevalent among Christian girls? I’ve thought about it a lot, and I’ve come to conclude that there are basically two types:

First, there is the Inside Girl. The Inside Girl is a Christian, and usually from a Christian family. But apart from the cross necklace around her neck, she walks, talks, acts, dresses, and lives exactly like her typical worldly counterpart… or at least she tries to. She cares a lot about being accepted and cool among her peers. The Inside Girl’s inner transformation has had no outward translation. Her inner life with Christ carefully does not touch the outside of her life, at least not in ways that would make her different or stand out.  

The Outside Girl is the complete opposite. For her, it is all on the outside. She is all leafy foliage and no root. The Outside Girl has a life that looks great and Godly; she knows all the “Christianspeak”, she signs her emails “joyfully His” and is probably involved in some sort of ministry. But there is no real joy in that “joyfully His”. Something is missing. She has chosen the “better part” with Mary of Luke 10:38-42 but in her heart of hearts, she doesn’t believe it is truly better. Secretly, she envies her worldly counterparts and the lives they “get” to live.

 Are you either of these girls? Both are the extremes, but do you recognize either attitude in yourself? I know I have tried elements of both at different times in my life and if you haven’t found this out already, I’ll let you in on a secret: it doesn’t work. Not really. Not if you want it to be authentic at least. It will only end up leaving you empty, unsatisfied, searching for something more. The ones who are totally and completely for real for Christ are InsideOut Girls. I have known a few. I hope you may find some of them in the pages of this blog. These girls are not always white-hot for Christ; like most people, they move constantly between these poles... being sometimes hot, sometimes, cold, sometimes lukewarm. What makes InsideOut Girls different isn't that they are consistently perfect specimens of what it means to live for Christ for real. What makes them different is that they are wholly honest and wholly unashamed.They may not be the ones who seem the most “spiritual” at first, but there is something about them that is different, something dynamic that draws you to them and makes you want whatever it is they have. They are who I want to be. They are living their lives from the inside out.

I hope you’ll join us here on our journey towards becoming InsideOut Girls who live for Christ for real in every area of our lives. It would be cliche and probably an exaggeration to say this blog will change our lives, but hopefully it will bring us all a little closer to the One who is our Goal. Because He can change our lives. And I can tell you one thing it won’t be. It won’t be fake.

Basically, if you want to smell the flowers I promise they’ll be real. 

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