Talk to Strangers

Franklin County has been a sad place this week. On Wednesday, there was a car wreck involving three high schoolers. The driver lived (praise to God), but the two passengers were killed, Maleke Moon and Timothy Hartman.

I grew up with both of these guys, they’ve been my classmates since kindergarten. I’m not going to lie and say that we were incredibly close or that I have had so many memories with them… because I don’t. I mainly remember the time from kindergarten to third grade, when Maleke would always tell people we were cousins (we are distantly related by marriage, actually), and I would get so mad at him! I don’t know why, it was probably just because I was a little drama queen and had to make a big deal out of everything. Timothy was in my class at some point as well, but I just remember him being quiet and not saying much.

All I know is, there are people in our school who were extremely close to both Maleke and Timothy, and judging by their responses this week, they’ve lost a lot of joy that both of these guys brought to their life.

That’s what devastates me the most. I didn’t get to know them as well as I could have, and now I never will be able to. I hate that I wasn’t nearly as close to two guys that I’ve known for THIRTEEN years, when others may have met them last semester and known more about them than I ever did. I am ashamed for that.

Now, I know that I’m not gonna be able to meet absolutely everyone in the school and learn every single detail about their life. But if this event has taught me one thing, it’s that you NEVER know when it’s your time - or someone else’s. We lost another classmate in November 2013 in a car wreck. All three of these incidents happened to the most unexpected people in my life, people that I didn’t think of on a regular basis because I didn’t go out of my way to speak to them. These were people that I wasn’t on a deep personal level with, or people that I would say “hey” to in the hallway, but put zero effort whatsoever into a human conversation.

But again, like I said in my last post, God is so unpredictable. Because of this tragedy, I’ve realized that you need to tell everyone you love them, start conversations (even if it turns into you babbling like an idiot... believe me, I’ve been there), reach out to people sitting alone, and put EFFORT into knowing people. Not just knowing their name and their favorite color… knowing what they want to do with their life, what’s important to them, what makes them laugh, what makes them sad, what they believe in, how they communicate, ALL OF THAT GOOD STUFF.

Even though our senior class has been through a lot in the past two years, I can honestly say that we’ve all gotten closer, just by being there for each other. Especially on days like Thursday. It has kind of brought a sense of unity to our class, and the whole school, as well. It’s so overwhelming to walk down the hall, see people hurting, and seeing someone they’ve never spoken to give them a hug. Not a wimpy side hug, a REAL, 10-second, genuine hug. It’s assuring, it makes me feel so much better that I know there will be someone for me (even if I don’t know their name) if I am ever hurting.

This reminds me of a little bookmark I used to have (referring to my last post again, I had a lot of scripture-filled bookmarks in my childhood), and it was a picture of two dogs leaning against each other. I LOVED dogs, so that was the main reason I loved that bookmark, but little did I know that the verse written on it would stick with me and make it to my blog post 10 years later…

Two people are better off than one, for they can help each other succeed. If one person falls, the other can reach out and help. But someone who falls alone is in real trouble.

-Ecclesiastes 4:9-10 (NLT)

I love it. The whole thing, kinda. Hooray hooray, someone to help you succeed! It’s awesome to have someone help you up when you’ve fallen down, because then you can just let ‘em pull you on up! But there’s one part (that was what the “kinda” was for) that gives me the feels.

“But someone who falls alone is in real trouble.”

That’s terrifying. If I fall alone, then who is gonna help me up?! I mean, I can get up, but sometimes it’s tiring… probably from the planking fail. But really, who wants to be all alone? I don’t.

And no one else does either.

That’s why we’ve been put here on this wonderful, beautiful earth! To be there for people. To create relationships with people. To love people. If we want someone there for us, we’ve gotta step up and be there for others. It may be uncomfortable at first, but you may be an answered prayer for someone!

Earlier today, I actually got the chance to talk to this guy in my class. He was talking about some of the things he did in his free time, and eventually the topic came around to ghosts and demons (YOU DON’T MESS WITH THAT STUFF). At one point he asked me if I believed in ghosts and if I was a Christian, and I said “I AM a Christian, I don’t believe in ghosts, but I for sure believe in demons!” He started telling me about these paranormal experiences he has had in his life, other hints of his beliefs, and throughout the whole conversation, there was a question burning inside of me. So, I sent up a little message to God.

“Hey, it’s Maddy. You know that though, ‘cause… You’re God. HAHA. Anyway, I know I need to say something to this guy, but I have no idea what you want me to say. Please give me the words to say. Because you know when I open this mouth, what I say ’s a surprise to everyone (including me).”

So after this guy had gotten done with the story he was telling, I just asked him “Do you believe in God?” I know it may sound completely inappropriately timed, but it wasn’t! Sure, the question itself was a little uncomfortable, but whatever. Sometimes you just have to be uncomfortable. I mean, have you ever sat through the SAT in a chair without a back?

I have. It’s horrible.

I’m not going to go into detail about his answer, but he basically said that he did believe in God, but he didn’t necessarily have a religion. We had a really nice conversation about it, and I feel like I know him 100 times better now.

*in commercial advertiser voice*

BUT WAIT, THERE’S MORE! I was telling my teacher about the conversation later, and she said, “Wow, he has actually been sending me messages telling me to pray for him for the past month!”

So, maybe the conversation today answered some questions he was having. I don’t know, maybe it didn’t! But I DO know that God gave me the words to say to him, and that I learned from it myself, and that is awesome.

Always be there for people. Good times, okay times… and especially bad times, like this week at FCHS. Remember, two are better than one (“Maybe it’s trueeeeee, that I can’t live without you! And maybe twooooo is better than oneeee!” I love that song). Talk to people you don’t normally talk to! Heck, TALK TO STRANGERS! …...in a safe environment of course. It may seem weird, and it is - at first. But once the conversation starts, it can turn into a fun little talking session, or it may change their life.

I’ve had so many people in my life in the past week that I’m SO glad I have them there for me, so I shall share that with you now! For Jared and I’s New Year’s Resolution, we decided to have a “Sundate” every month. I kind of mentioned it in my last post, but I will expand upon it. We had a few last year, and it was when we would pick a Sunday to go out to eat, to the movies, on a fun little adventure, anything! Mainly Olive Garden. On a DATE… Get it? Sunday… Date… Sun-date... Yeah. So, with me going to college this year and everything, we thought it would be a good idea to have a tradition that we keep up every month! Our January Sundate was: ANTIQUING!

And Monday, we were out of school for MLK, so Emily, Matthew, and I went bowling! I also got to meet Emily’s dog, Izzy... Oh so precious and small.

AND, my Jared got nominated from his grade to be one of the two guys on Mr. Lion Court! He is one handsome fella. And Tam Tam is one pretty escorter.

AND AND AND, Saturday night I finally got to go see my favorite show at the Fox! NEWSIES! I had actually never seen the full show before, only pieces on YouTube. We got tickets this summer and I have been counting down the days until Saturday night! My expectations were so high, and it did nothing less than utterly surpass every earthly thing I have ever known as "amazing."

......and yes, I cried during the overture.

Do not be misled: “Bad company corrupts good character.”

-1 Corinthians 15:33

Thanks to everyone who is my good company, you rock my socks off.

Rainbows and Princesses

On Wednesday, I was blessed with a lovely little illness...

The stomach bug.

Obviously, I was being facetious when I called it “lovely,” because WHO on this planet thinks the stomach bug is lovely?! No one, that’s who. I can deal with other types of illnesses, like colds and what not, but at the first sign of nausea - I AM OUT. I would rather break an arm than have a stomach virus. And no, I am not being facetious this time.

On top of my tummy, I had a super bad cold (which I still have… *sniff*) and a super sore throat (which is finally gone, woohoo!). Needless to say, I wasn’t feeling too “Maddy.” I stayed out of school for two days, and as much as I love laying around watching What Not To Wear all day, I absolutely hate missing school itself… or should I say, “making up the work.” I actually got up Wednesday morning, got ready (and wore REAL clothes, not even a t-shirt), drove all the way to school, sat in my car with Jared for a few minutes, THEN decided to go back home and go to bed.

There’s nothing beautiful about a stomach bug. This is about as beautiful as it got:

But it was definitely an answered prayer. I woke up Wednesday morning, gained consciousness, and thought about what I had to do every day for the rest of the week…

Wednesday: school, practice song with Jared, church

Thursday: school, voice lessons

Friday: school, work

Saturday: work, meet Kait for ice cream

Sunday: church, Sundate with Jared (we have made it our resolution together to go on a “Sundate” once a month… P.S. a Sundate is a date on Sunday.)

This is pretty much how my days go, to give you the low down (with added time for little bitty things, like getting papers signed, homework, blah blah blah). It’s not the busiest schedule ever, but it’s still busy! …..if that makes sense. I enjoy doing all of the things on my planner (which I will blog about very soon), and that’s why I make them priorities in my life! But since it’s easy for me to LOVE things, I tend to pile things up until I’m doing SOMETHING every day, and I don’t have a break to just kick back and relax.

So, after I thought through the week, I said to God, “Geez Louise, the year has just begun and I already feel like I need a break. Pleeeeeeeease make it snow or something!”

Well, God sure did answer that! He gave me a break, but not with snow - with my “lovely” malady. I ended up staying home Wednesday and Thursday. Then, after going to school Friday, I remembered that we are also out of school Monday! I asked for one day of a break, but I got three. Not in the way I asked, of course. Over the past few years, I’ve learned a little something. When you pray for something, God won’t answer it in a way you expect. In fact, it’s not even in a way you can IMAGINE. He is a clever dude. He is witty. He would definitely pass the creativity test to get into the Gifted program.

When I was in middle school, it had been raining for a few days, and I was tired of it. I said, “God, it’s been raining for like, ever. Can you please just show me a rainbow next time I look up in the sky?” It stopped raining the next day, and I looked up in the sky. NO RAINBOW. Ugh. I was so frustrated. I just wanted to see a stinkin’ rainbow! I was talking to my best friend, Abby, later, and she said, “Oh! My little brother drew this for you today at school!”

AND IF IT WASN’T A RAINBOW.

That’s right, a rainbow. Just like I prayed. After that, I prayed again (this was jokingly, because God has a sense of humor).

“God, make me a princess! That would be awesome.”

A few days passed, and I still wasn’t a princess (surprising, I know). We were having a Sunday School party for our girls group, and when I got there, there were little bookmarks spread across the table. I picked one up, and when I read it I was blown away, yet again!

It had a sparkly pink crown on it, and it read:

“I know I’m a princess, my Father is the King of Kings!

But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s special possession, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light.

-1 Peter 2:9 (NIV)

Like I said, God could dominate the creativity test.

These two stories lead back to what I said before though… God won’t answer prayers in ways you expect. Obviously, He will answer them so that things work out for your own good. So the answer may be “yes,” “no,” or there may not be one for a while… you just have to trust Him. But it makes me think back to a quote I read a year or two ago.

“It’s not selfish to ask God to bless you. It’s selfish to ask God HOW to bless you.”

I think it’s awesome how God works, as crazy as it plays out. I’m still working on letting Him do His thing without me trying to pretend like I know everything, but I still slip up often (proven by the fact that I asked him to make it snow so I could get out of school). He has bigger and better answers than you can imagine, and that’s beautiful.

Other beautiful things… I got to meet up with Kait today!

If you don’t know this, we have a motto. It’s not exactly “Hakuna Matata,” it’s actually “Hakaitlyn Mataddy.” (You gotta personalize it.) But it has to have the same meaning, of course! It means… NO WORRIES (for the rest of your dayyyyys! It’s our problem freeeeee, philosophyyyyy- yeah yeah yeah)! Perfect time for one of my favorite verses:

“Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.”

-Matthew 6:34 (NIV)

Imaginary Friends

So, cool things happened in the past two days.

Wednesday night at church, my youth leader, Shane, was teaching us about pride. We read part of Esther 3 (ANOTHER COOL THING: I just opened my Bible up to go to Esther, and the first page I flipped to was in Esther… coincidence? I think not.) and we read about how Mordecai would not bow down or pay the king honor. Apparently, everyone in that country believed that King Xerxes (I’m just going to say “King X” because I can’t actually pronounce his name in real life, so I’m not going to pretend I can through your computer screen) was not just a king, but a “divine” king. Shane then asked us what the word “divine” actually meant…

divine: “of, from, or like God.”

Basically, they looked at him like they looked at God. When Mordecai wouldn’t bow down because of his belief that there is only ONE God, King X’s buddy Haman heard about it. Haman was not just King X’s friendly acquaintance… this was his right hand man. His go-to dude. Two peas in a pod. Peanut butter and jelly. Popcorn and a movie. Mustard and ketchup. Waffles and chocolate chips (my favorite, especially if it has a wholeeee lot of butter). You get the idea! They were tight.

When Haman heard that Mordecai wouldn’t bow down to King X, he was “enraged.” So, instead of just letting it slide or calmly discussing the matter... he decides that he wants to kill all of the Jews in the kingdom.

Seems rational.

Later, Haman tells King X, which causes King X to freak out, too. Haman uses his trickery skills to exaggerate the truth and tell the king facts that make allllllllllll of the Jews look like they are no longer bowing down to him either. So, because of his PRIDE, King X agrees to let Haman do what he wants. Even though this is just a little snippet of this story, you can see that pride can cause people to do wild things - for instance, agree to kill off an entire group of people.

Now, the thing that makes the previous thing even cooler:

My Bible study group (technically I’m not in it because I’ve been too busy to physically attend… but I’m in the group message and I read along, so I’m gonna count myself) is reading Daniel right now. When I got home from church after learning about King X, I was reading Daniel 3. In this chapter, King Nebuchadnezzar sets up a ginormous image of gold for the people to worship. Everyone is commanded to fall down and worship, and if they don’t, they will be thrown into a furnace. Well, some astrologers notice that three men named Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego did not worship. The astrologers go tell King Neb, and Neb is “furious with rage” because they are not following his decrees and bowing down. He is full of pride.

I like playing this game (I call it "Imaginary Friends" if you're curious, though I doubt you were wondering) where I look at all of my friends and decide what TV/movie characters they’d be friends with. It’s pretty fun, especially when I pair completely opposite people up and imagine them in situations together. I’m LOL’ing at one right now.

*I’m going to add a list at the bottom in case anyone is interested. You may be on it… you have been warned.

Anyways, let’s decide who would be friends with each other from the two Bible stories.

Mordecai - does not bow to “divine” king

King X - furious because man does not bow to him

Haman - tattletale

Shadrach/Meshach/Abednego - does not bow to “divine” idol

King Neb - furious because men do not bow to his idol

Astrologers - tattletales

Take a moment to get your answer...

CORRECT!

...I actually have no way of knowing if you’re correct, I kind of just pulled a Dora the Explorer and assumed you yelled the right answer at your screen. Anyway, here are the answers:

-Mordecai and Shad/Me/Abed are BFFs because they share an outstanding love for God, they have impeccable faith, and they do not bow down to “divine” things other than God (HA, because nothing is divine other than God!). I imagine them all meeting up at the temple, doing a little worshipin’, then hitting up Burger King of Kings (where the slogan is: “Have it Yahweh”).

-King X and Neb are buds because they are both self-centered, narcissistic, prideful killers. They meet in smoky conference rooms to plan their next threatening decrees.

-And then there’s Haman and the astrologers... They don’t get to meet up anywhere, because of their tattletale-ness.

Let’s take an imaginary walk into the smoky conference room. The two kings are so full of themselves! They go to the extent of having people killed, just because there’s a possibility of their image being ruined. But did it really matter? Does your image really mean that much? In Daniel 5, it says,

“But when his heart became arrogant and hardened with pride, he was disposed from his royal throne and stripped from his glory.”

-Daniel 5:20 (NIV)

If we are prideful and care so much about what people think of us, it tears us away from God. We get too caught up on being the “top dog” on earth, but in the end, does it matter? This thought always takes me to this verse:

“If you belonged to the world, it would love you as its own. As it is, you do not belong to the world, but I have chosen you out of the world. That is why the world hates you.”

-John 15:19 (NIV)

Because Jesus is not of this world, he was rejected by man. He was hated. Therefore, if we are hated because of our faith, then we must be doing something right! But if we’re too focused on our image and what these our fellow earthlings think of us, that automatically creates a barrier between us and God. It causes us to not be able to give our all to God.

People’s opinions, rumors, lies, and thoughts about you don’t matter. God knows the truth, so we (including myself, because obviously I needed a little “pride” lesson - due to the biblical hints God sent my way Wednesday night) need to let go of our pride, let loose, and do what we need to do to get right with God. But like my pastor said this morning, God is the one who gives us what we need, we will never be able to do anything for Him. I am so thankful for a merciful God who loves me UNCONDITIONALLY.

unconditionally: “absolute and not subject to any terms or conditions”

Dumbed down: God doesn’t need anything from us, He doesn’t ask for anything in return, He just LOVES us. Without His grace, we would be………. in trouble.

Today is a wonderful day! Wonderful sermon, wonderful Zaxby’s trip, wonderful sweatshirt/yoga pants/fuzzy sock twinning with Mama:

Wonderful napping weather, wonderful movie day, wonderful time to not worry about schoolwork, wonderful candy leftover from my Christmas stocking waiting for me to eat, wonderful laughter (brought to me by: our 3-year-old class), and of course, a wonderful wonderful Lord!

*And now, the moment you have been waiting for... the wonderful list of imaginary friends!

Jared Melton/Zach Galifianakis

This would just be hilarious.

Mama/Pioneer Woman

Mama loves the Pioneer Woman.

Daddy/Michael Scott (“The Office”)

Due to the unintentional awkward comments and jokes.

Jack McRee/Forrest Gump

I just think they would get along well, and Forrest would ask Jack a lot of questions.

Tammy Melton/Lucy Ricardo

Because Tam Tam’s a fun time and Lucy’s a fun time. They would get into something.

Abby LeCroy/Hermione Granger

Just imagine the intellectual conversation between these two...

Kait Kesler/Rizzo

Not just because she played her when we did Grease, but because she can throw down some singing and she is a daring, fun little rascal.

Reagan Floyd/Rapunzel

They could paint so many beautiful walls. And anything else artsy.

Matthew Pressley/ E.T.

I just want this to happen.

Clark Gaines/Mickey Mouse

DISNEY.

Haley Andrews/Hayley Goodfairer (“Sandlot 2”)

They are both sporty and gawgeous, HELLO.

Kaytlin Stubbs/Cinderella

Since this is the only princess she HASN’T been! (But it won’t be long, Stubbs, it won’t be long.)

Kirstin King/Megara (“Hercules”)

The sass force is strong with these two.

Charity Moon Henry/Mary Poppins

She takes care of everything, sometimes she literally “makes the job a game,” and she's occasionally just downright magical.

Barbara Fields/Barbie

She may be my grandma, but she is the most fabulous person I know. And both names start with “Barb,” so it’s basically fate.

Donna Jackson/Madea

If you know (or are) DJ… you understand.

Elizabeth Jackson/Laura Ingalls (one of my favorite characters ever)

Two hard-working people who get things done that their mind is set on.

Luke Fowler/Hermey ("Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer")

They both want to be dentists, they could go to dental school together!

Mollie Herndon/Mary Katherine Gallagher ("Superstar")

This friendship would elate my SOUL.

Uncle Dave/Uncle Jesse (“Full House”)

Uncle in a band.

Uncle Mike/Uncle Joey (“Full House”)

Other uncle who makes jokes and does impressions all the time.

Me/Leslie Knope (“Parks and Recreation”)

Due to love of waffles and excitement levels. About everything.

Okay. My imagination is sore now. I hope everyone has a beautiful day! A little verse to remember:

“Set your mind on things above, not on earthly things.”

-Colossians 3:2 (NIV)