Change – Page 4 – Chloe J Sayers

Legos Life Lesson

I loved playing with legos as a small child. Yet considering that I usually started my construction projects in the middle of the highest traffic area in my house, they inevitably got broken. Have you ever stepped on a Lego? Now you can understand my parents’ pain. This also might explain why I went to kindergarten so early.

Anyways, the thing with broken legos is that once I came back to see my little house lying in little pieces and bricks, I didn’t just pack them back in the box and move on to a new activity. This was a chance at something new, something bigger, something better. Soon, my dinky 10 by 15 Lego brick house became a towering hotel. with attached parking garage. and pet salon. and grocery store.

Brokenness feels like, well, it feels like your soul has just been smashed to smithereens. Everything constant about yourself that used to give you peace and security is laying in little pieces on the ground and everyone around you is complaining that they hurt their poor little feet while stepping on the sharp shards of soul that used to be you. Brokenness might feel like the end of the world.

It might just be the beginning of an even better world. Everyone thinks their little Lego house is pretty sweet until they see the 5 star Hilton made of primary colors in brick form. Perspective is everything.

Personally, I believe that you cannot have deep joy until you’ve experienced deep sorrow. You can be ecstatic, excited, happy, but without having known what it is like to be apathetic, discouraged, and dismal you don’t know how beautiful joy truly is. Joy must be appreciated in order for it to reach it’s full potential.

Maybe you are the towering hotel right now. Just don’t forget that its the lows that got you this high. If you are in shatters on the ground, feeling trampled and bruised, don’t go running back to your box to hide. Let your brokenness build you.

Change, God, Life Lessons

My Feeble Attempt

I like quotes. Mostly because they do what I never can. They take a thought, an idea, an emotion and turn it into a sentence or two. It usually takes me more like a paragraph or two. Sometimes I browse the web for quotes when its a rainy day out like today and nothing is really pressing on my shoulders right now and I need some new ideas to fill my brain with. The one above is a good example of your typical internet quote. It is decently nice. It is also decently egotistical. I browsed a bit down the comments about this one and one read: “Don’t you ever forget, You Are Perfect!”

That’s a really nice thought. A really nice thought that’s really false. You aren’t perfect. I’m not perfect. We never will be. I don’t even have a good proportion of doing things right to messing up. In fact, I’d estimate that I mess up 8.48 times for every one time that I actually do something right. But that’s just a rough guess.

I’m okay with that. I want to do better in every area of my life but there is something to be said for imperfection. It makes us vulnerable. It tears down some of judgment walls if we would just realize that everyone is just as broken as we are and we are just a group of fallen people feebly trying to hold each other up while resting in the incredible grace of the God who created and saved us.

It also makes the small perfections in life even more beautiful. The innocence of children is even more precious, the sincere smile from a stranger even more encouraging.

We are wonderfully made and known by name by an incredible God, yes. Perfect we are not.

Change, Church Life, God, Life Lessons

Church “Shopping”

I hate the term church shopping. I absolutely hate it but that’s exactly what I’ve done for the past three Sundays. First off, it assumes that I am going to church to get something for myself, like you would go to Meijers to buy food or Target to buy, well, everything. I’m not. I’m going to church to worship God and serve him.

Yet it’s so hard to know what church would be best (see, even the word best assumes some qualifications a church must meet to “suit” me and again, that is not what I want to be doing). So my subconscious starts to create a list of specifications and desires. You don’t want it to be all college students or all grandparents. You don’t want it to be all hymns or all Chris Tomlin. The sermon should be scripture-based not just a self-help guide read out loud. The list goes on and on and it makes me feel like a horrible person for even having it.

Second problem: there is some unspoken rule that you only have about 5 or 6 Sundays to “shop” churches and then you are being too particular or not receptive to the Holy Spirit or whatnot. I would absolutely love for the first church I walk into to be my home church and have a family there and feel like that this is where I need to serve God but it really doesn’t work that way. Considering there are 25+ churches in the area, this puts a lot of pressure on the preliminary church selections and really, there is only so much you can find out about a church from its website. You can’t get to know the people and see how authentic the worship is or if they will glare at you for not going to Sunday School (my experience this morning).

Perhaps the largest problem is that I don’t know where I should be. I’ve grown up in the same church all my life and I’m just now realizing what a blessing and a curse that was. I love that I know almost everyone and have a history there and that the worship is authentic and the preaching is sound but that’s all I’ve ever known. Do I limit myself and possibly God by choosing a church that is as North Oaksish as possible? I don’t think that is smart but I feel like I keep measuring up churches to my home church in the back of my mind. I’m in a new place of life and what was right for me last year might not be the same this year. Or it might be. I honestly have no idea. So I’m back to the drawing board, or more accurately, the praying board.

This concludes my rant on churches and the “shopping experience”. Thank you for reading.

P.S. Signs are really, really helpful and the lack of them is really, really frustrating.

About Me, Change, Life Lessons

The Essence of Me

I have a funny habit of running experiments on myself. Before you jump to any conclusions, I do not have little bubbling jars of neon liquids in my room (you’re welcome roommates) Its just that I like to gaze into the abyss that is the future, place myself there, observe how I think I’ll react to a new situation, and then see if my hypothesis is correct in post-future retrospect. That last sentence made absolutely no sense and I will now try to redeem it. Here is a practical example:

When arriving at college, the expectations and reputation that I had gathered as the Chloe of Clarkston disappeared. I knew this would be the case and so I was eagerly anticipating my actions, thoughts, friend choices, etc… to see who I would be. Turns out, I’m quite like the Chloe of Clarkston.

Instead of being disappointed that I didn’t create some whole new personality, I’m quite relieved. I am still spontaneously introverted, mysteriously happy in the morning no matter how much sleep I get, in love with my calender and post-its and color-coding, dedicated to studying to death, addicted to quality conversations, in awe of my amazing God, and loving the people around me.

Not much has changed, yet everything has changed. Everything external is different, new, and changing at a mile a minute. The essence of me; however, has been delightfully consistent. Of course, this means that I still am struggling through the same weaknesses but I have a new courage and drive to defeat them. I am completely open to change (see last post) but do not see myself surrendering my color-coding pens anytime soon. Speaking of, my calender is telling me that its time to continue my Genesis overload.

Until next time,
the Chloe of anywhere

Change, God, Happiness, Life Lessons

Life is wonderful.

I feel like I have lived a month in the past week and could probably write a good deal on first college experiences but I am currently enjoying just living life instead of dissecting it. So for now, I am putting away the scapel. This does not mean that I have nothing to say. My mind is whirling faster than it did before, just more about the width of the Fertile Cresent, how to balance equities, liabilities, and assets, and business plans then my normal introspective thoughts.

The one rather self-reflective thought that has been making its rounds however; is about the way I percieve myself and my surroundings now in contrast to what my viewpoint will be in two years, one month, five days. I certainly know that I am an incredibly different person than when I was in 9th grade, or even the beginning of 12th grade. It only makes sense then, that I will change within the next four years. I will see myself and everything else in this wonderful world very differently. I will probably look back at my state of mind right now and give myself one of those condescending little half-grins. I will probably read this in a year and laugh out loud.

I completely realize how ignorant I am about self-realization, even when I think that I have myself figured out. I used to reassure myself that I least understood myself. Now, I reassure myself that at least I know that I don’t understand myself. At least I am aware that I am unaware.

I am far too happy to end this post on that negative note. I am good, life is wonderful, and God is great.

Change, Church Life

I need a checkered bandanna.

I was driving to church the other day in my usual habit of thinking over all the things that must be thought over. I was driving along when something caught my eye. Turning onto the road was a person on a bike. I couldn’t tell their gender because they had a checkered bandanna pulled up over their mouth and a big floppy denim bucket hat on. Their orange backpack clashed with the tomato red shirt. As they turned the corner, they looked back behind themselves. I knew that look. They were watching to see if someone was following them. I don’t know if they just robbed a bank or were escaping a psychopath or just simply paranoid. All I know is that in the five seconds it took for me to take in this oddity I had this crazy yearning inside of my heart.

“I want to be that person!” my soul was screaming at me. They might have been in trouble or causing trouble but I didn’t care. They were having an adventure and they were living. Not that going to church isn’t living, this really has nothing to do with faith or religion. It’s just that my drive up this road is so incredibly routine. Here are some things I want:

I want to hold a mug full of warm tea and drop it and watch it fall and hear the ceramic crash into a million pieces and possibly cut myself on the sharp edges.

I want to throw my gum out the car window when I am done using it and not worry about littering.

I want to refuse to show up where I’m supposed to.

I want to hop on my bike and pedal and not stop until I physically can’t go any further and not bring a cell phone just to be safe and get lost and have to figure it out.

I want to do all these completely unreasonable things. Yet there is that annoying rational voice that keeps my mug securely in my hands and my gum in my mouth and my empty body at its appointments and my feet planted firmly on this mundane ground. I know this all sounds rather out of character but I’m sure you’ve felt like this before. Sadly, I am quite too sensible to show up somewhere late or not study for a test or stop being responsible and stop being me.

Change

Changed Forever

“And then my life was changed forever.”

The words dangle in the air, ready to fall into anyone’s mind that might be listening. But no one really is because we’ve heard it all before. We’ve heard the tragic childhood stories and inspirational climbs to success that inevitably climax at some event and causes one to utter that they were “changed forever”.

There is nothing wrong with this, I just feel like the forever part really isn’t necessary.

What change isn’t forever?

How can anything return completely to its original state after it has been changed? You can replicate the setting, circumstances–and if you are lucky–the people that surrounded you. Yet as time moves on, life moves on, and you have been changed. Permanently. No matter what you do to return external circumstances, you can never fully revert your mind to where it has once been. There are new ideas, thoughts, and experiences in your mind and your life will be inherently different because of that.

The smallest event can completely change your perspective on life. The life that I face right now is somehow different than the life I faced a week ago. Not because I had a momentous epiphany or a soul-bending experience, but simply because a week has passed and I now have a week’s worth of thoughts and experiences that have ingrained themselves into my brain and become a part of its permanent collection, whether I am aware of it or not.

This is not to say that we are simply helpless pawns in the face of destiny. Every small detail of life changes you somehow, whether it is a glimpse of pure beauty or a snippet of a strangers conversation. Yet we have some decisions to make. We can allow a hurtful remark to embitter us or enjoy the freedom that giving the benefit of the doubt gives back to us. We can listen to the wind rushing aimlessly or scowl as we pick up the papers it scattered.

Don’t wait for the events that society has labeled as milestones to realize that you have been changed forever.

You are forever changing.

Change, Life Lessons, Pain

You’ll play lonely games too.

“Fame! You’ll be famous as famous can be, with the whole wide world watching you win on TV.

Except when they don’t.
Because, sometimes they won’t.

I’m afraid that some times you’ll play lonely games too.
Games you can’t win ’cause you’ll play against you.

All Alone!
Wheter you like it or not,
Alone will be something you’ll be quite a lot.”
~Oh, The Places You’ll Go! by Dr. Suess~

Fame is exciting, motivating, whimsical, depressing, destructive, and wonderful. People have gone to the ends of the earth to find it and hold onto it. I love the reality check that Dr. Seuss throws in here. “Except when they don’t because sometimes they won’t”. Life can’t always be a mountain top view. Being at the top is fun, but completely unrealistic. No one gets a free helicopter ride to the peak of the mountains of life. You have to get out the grapple and hook and start climbing. And once you get there, what are you going to do? Stay there forever? In order to move on with life, you must keep moving. Sometimes that means going back down to the valleys. Sometimes that means finding an even bigger mountain to climb. However, it is times “when they don’t” praise you and applaud you that really let you live. Those are the times when you aren’t living for someone else. Those lonely games can teach the most valuable lessons. God’s will and your own personal expectations should be the only benchmarks for success. Comparing yourself to others won’t get you anywhere, expect maybe into a deep abyss of insecurity and unhapiness. Don’t go there. That is not a neccessary part of the journey. Rise above the temptation to base your own success on someone else’s failure. Or worse, the temptation to label your own efforts as worthless because of what you see others doing. It’s a waste of time, energy, talent, and a perfectly wonderful you.