On Colors and Life.

Have you ever asked a seven year old girl what her favorite color is? I have. The results are astounding. Ask a boy and he'll give you a pretty predictable answer. He'll either like blue, orange, or red, or he'll just shrug. But ask a girl and-

She might first answer the question by asking another question: "Is rainbow a color?"  Her second answer will be highly dependant on how you answer her first question. If you answer no, then she will proceed to strategically order all the colors of the rainbow from best to worst. If you say yes, rainbow will probably be in her top five favorite colors. Just say yes. Rainbow is a color, and sparkles is a color too when you're seven.

After this she'll find every shade of any color and tell you all about it. She'll probably run around the room trying to find things to give you a good example of that tealish-blueish-purplish-not-like-that-shirt-but-like-that-blanket color. Then after all this is finished and you have a good list of ten colors (colors is used as an abstract term here), she'll search her funny little seven year old head for her list and just as you're about to ask her if she wants to play outside, she'll say, "WAIT. Did I say pinkish-purple was my third favorite color? That's not right, purplish-pink is my third favorite color. Pinkish-purple is my fourth favorite color. And I think that sparkles is my third favorite color, rainbow is my second and black is my first favorite."

Asking a seven year old girl what her favorite color is going deep into the mysterious ocean of time and space itself. I would reserve a whole afternoon for that question maybe. It wouldn't even be a waste of time though. After all, if you had to pick between sparkles and rainbows...

What I've come to realize these past two months of college is that everyone becomes a seven year old girl when they are faced with the question of what they are going to do after college.

I've been asked this question by students and adults alike. Every time I hesitate. Sometimes I say things like "Oh, I think I'll work on the downtown eastside" or "I think I'll teach English overseas." Sometimes I'll plunge into the pool of honesty and simply respond, "I don't know."

And that's the thing you guys. I don't know. Sometimes I think I know, just like the seven year old girl thinks that pinkish-purple is her third favorite color, but then I'll search my funny little head and change my mind again.

And I've talked to other people too. Nobody really knows what they're doing. To some degree we're all faking it a little bit.

Or at least I hope so. I hope that we don't have everything figured out. If we did, I think we'd be in a whole lot of trouble. If we did, I don't think that there'd be any room left for grace.

People, we're allowed to be clueless.
We're allowed to ask if rainbow is a color.
We're allowed to change our minds.

What God has been teaching me over and over again is to pursue what you are passionate about. Jesus said that the greatest commandment, the thing that we're supposed to do above everything else is to "Love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind." How do we do this? "The second is like it: Love your neighbour as yourself" (Matthew 22:37-39).

Do what you love. Do it at 110%. Use it to love God. Love God by loving everyone.

JUST LOVE, OK?

God isn't going to have a plan for my life that only involves doing things that I hate. Yes, there will be trials and sufferings, in fact that is what I am promised. But, God gave me gifts to use and enjoy for his glory.

If you love something, you should pursue it, and if you're on the wrong path, you'll start to hate it and start to love something else.

We should love each other with our whole lives because we are created in the image of God, and until we see Jesus face to face, we're the closest thing to the full image of God that it gets. And whenever we love each other, our fellow human being, created in the image of God, we love God (Matthew 25:40).

What am I going to do with my life?

Honestly, I don't know.

But if I know anything, it is that because God loves me and has given me life to the full, I need to love people.

So I'm just going to love, ok?

And that will be my life.

The First Post

And so it begins. The summer time. Sweet, sweet summer time. Yes ladies and gentlemen, we have finally arrived. It is safe to remove your seat belts and step out of the vehicle.

I have survived my first year of university.

And if I have learned one thing it is that there are no such things as mistakes. 

Except on tests. Then the mistakes are quite apparent. 

There are no such things as mistakes in life. And if there is such a thing as a mistake it is the most beautiful thing to make. Mistakes teach us what perfection cannot. Perfection is comfortable. When we are comfortable we use what we have and do something nice and cute and lovely and good and we pat ourselves on the back and that is all. But a mistake, a beautiful mess up, that is where extraordinary happens. We are tossed into a situation when we no longer have the resources, the time, the energy, the brains, the fight, and we crumple. Let's face it. When put in that kind of situation when even our own fight, our own tenacity is no longer a resource, there is not anything else to do but to crumple.

But then this really cool thing happens guys, and it's called doing something you've never done before. You get up from your crumpled little mess and take in as much of that lovely oxygen as you can in one large breath and go out and do that impossible task, and you talk to that impossible person, and all of a sudden you're doing these really cool things that you've never even known to be possible and life just gets easier. And the best part of it all is, is that it was impossible, and it still is impossible, and you're not doing it. You're not doing it because it is impossible. It was God that got you up from your crumpled little mess, and God that filled your lungs with that glorious oxygen and God using you to do that impossible task and to talk to that impossible person. And possibly the best part of making mistakes is that it is humbling. And whatever worthiness I thought myself to have for making the decision to wind me up in Mistake-Ville is lost.

And I am left staring up at the One who let me experience the impossible.