Individual Identity

Posted by FreedBird in Inspirational and tagged with , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

If someone asked you, “Who are you?” and you couldn’t answer with just your name, what would you say?

Would you say, “I’m a student?” or “I’m a business owner?” or “I’m a mom/dad/daughter/brother/sister etc?” Lately I’ve been confronted with a lot of these questions and God has been teaching me about the importance of individual identity and where you find that identity.

A few years ago I searched for my identity in everything I did. I was a student, a nanny, an artist, a beach girl, a dreamer, a friend, a daughter, a sister, then I decided I was simply just a “christian”. I thought I had finally narrowed it down, came up with the simple answer, and knew straight forward who I was for anyone who asked. Within the past couple of months I’ve been asked to go a step further and break down what even being a”christian” means, and why I do and say certain things and where this mindset came from. Lets just say, I had a little bit of an identity crisis on my hands. I was at a loss for words.

So, I went back and meditated on the core values, words, and revelations God had revealed personally to me about myself. Two words God has spoken over my life are Freedom and Adventure. When I surrendered my life to God I felt this immediate freedom, because I had been caging myself in and letting certain people and ideas hold me back. I was finding my identity in the things people had told me that I chose to believe and circumstances that had unfolded in my life. When I finally let all of that go, it opened my eyes to an abundant freedom, with no end. Freedom to dream, to act, to speak out, to not have to worry or stress- it is the feeling of letting absolutely nothing hold you back from the will of God and surrendering everything before him and being completely at peace with it. It is a feeling that I cannot describe but try so hard to put into words. Abundant freedom is what I have been given, and I speak it out like a broken record, not because I’m trying to be repetitive, but because it has been something that has radically changed my life and I cannot help but share it with everyone I come in contact with.

Adventure defined is 1. a risky undertaking of unknown outcome 2. an exciting or unexpected event or course of events esp. the exploration of unknown territory.

To live for God, is to live for adventure. You cannot aim to follow Jesus, the most radical man ever to walk the face of this earth, and not call it an adventure. Living in adventure does not mean every day has to be some extraordinary event, it’s having the eyes to see the adventure in the mundane. It’s being able to give up control, letting God have his way, and not knowing every single piece of the puzzle. When you do this God gives you new eyes to see life with a heavenly outlook instead of a worldly one. You might find yourself being pulled to make some pretty abnormal or radical decisions, you might be questioned or not understood, but that is totally ok. When you are sold out to the will of God and know that he is calling you to do something, he will give you the strength and power to hear only his voice and not be influenced by others. Stepping out in faith is supposed to be something we do continually, if we only aim to accomplish things by our own power how will we ever get the chance to see God work and bring him glory?

A few times I have been accused of being “too independent”. I’ve been thinking about this a lot lately, and I am a very independent person, but I’ve come to realize that this can be mistaken for a secure identity. Since I am confident in who I am and whose I am, I am not willing to compromise for anything less. This is not arrogance, it’s standing firm in the identity christ has given me. Some people just don’t know how to handle that and this is what God is now teaching me to deal with, because it can really hurt when someone attacks who you are as a person. But, once you establish that foundation, nothing can chip away at it.

I never want to be moving backwards I always want the fullness of everything God is willing to offer me and I will never choose to settle for just good, but always go for the great, because I have been promised abundant freedom, and made the choice to live in a constant adventure with the creator of the universe.

I have come to the conclusion that my identity is founded on being a radical follower of Jesus Christ and grounded in the words Adventure and Freedom. To solidify it my key life verses are Ephesians 3:20, John 10:10 and Genesis 22:14-17.

So…..

Who are you?

Aloooha. =]

Yahweh Yireh in the background (Genesis 22:14)

Abandon

Posted by FreedBird in Inspirational and tagged with , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

     So it has been months since I’ve written my last post and life has really changed. Since my last post I have moved back to Hawai’i, I now have my own apartment, , 4 jobs (working for different individuals), and I’m a full time student. Completely different from my last season of life where I was free-bird traveling, and being led by the holy spirit everyday. The past three months have really been a time of reflection, adjustment, confusion, and certainty all entangled together. One word however, has remained in my mind, stuck out among others, and really challenged me. That word is abandon which means to give up the control of.

This is not a concept that come easily for me. I love being in control and God has always tried to break me of this by creating situations where I have to live by faith. Being a full time student now I’m forced to not work as much as I was used to working, which means a lot less money is coming through for spending and saving. Plus now that I live on my own, random things always seem to pop-up that I need to buy. For example one week, I had to buy a table, a blender, a printer, pay for my trucks registration, and I backed up into another truck which meant I had to pay for the damage. I was looking at my bank account and the numbers just weren’t adding up. So of course, I started to freak out. My boyfriend gave me very wise wisdom saying, “things always work out, sometimes you can get big sums of money out of nowhere.” I of course responded with, “Um, no you can’t, I foresee no big sums of money coming my way anytime soon.”

On the Tuesday of that week I went to say goodbye to a family I used to work for because they were leaving the island. They just so happened to be getting rid of their printer and gave it to me for free (and it was the exact printer/scanner/fax machine that I wanted!). I came home that night and there was a blender on my doorstep that another amazing woman I work for gave me because I mentioned I was going to buy a blender. The following day I called the guy whose truck I backed into and confessed. I just so happened to have went to high school with him (there are so many trucks on this island it was no coincidence I hit this particular one). He told me I didn’t have to worry about it and I was extremely, EXTREMELY grateful! Then the next day I went to buy a table and found an amazing one for only $40! Then the day came where I had to pay my registration, there was really no getting out of that one, but I did receive $200 in the mail from my mother, because she bought something for my sister and wanted to make sure she was fair to me (she’s an amazing mother/woman). So I ended up spending $140 on everything where I would have spent almost $500. After that week I felt so foolish for making the comment I stated above. This is something I constantly go through, and today I am making the conscience decision to make and effort to stop this cycle of disbelief, and then belief.  I have countless stories of how God has come through for me out of nowhere, and in the most creative ways. I mean he has really proved himself to me over and over! I keep thinking about how when I left for my around-the-world trip I left with just enough money to make it back into my mothers arms broke as a joke, and no idea how I would make it back to Hawai’i then on top of that, start college. Two weeks into my trip I received a check in the mail for $3,000 from supporters at my church, which paid for all of my plane tickets! I made the least amount of money in 2011 than I’ve ever made in my life, I wasn’t even eligible to file taxes, but I traveled the world, spent 3 months with my family, bought a used truck, and enrolled myself in college. I’m still not sure how it all came together, but I know it came from action-verb faith. Selling almost everything I owned to just go, using all of my savings, and scaring my family to death doing it all. I look back at that and don’t know how I can forget so quickly how God has always provided for me. He just wants to see the condition of our hearts, and if we are actually willing to step out in faith when our situation looks hopeless.

I have also learned to abandon strongholds, and past emotions. It’s crazy how we can go through life and not realize the things we hold onto and how much they affect us. I want to be pure, and for nothing to come in between the full life of freedom I have been promised. To do this, spiritual spring cleaning is a must (how appropriate for the actual season). The past three months I have been working on breaking spiritual ties between me, past relationships and lies about myself that I have bought into. It has been extremely tough and uncomfortable. But I will not associate myself with those things any longer, I have chosen to move forward, and declare my freedom from them.

I am a bride, from this day forward I will walk with confidence, declaring who I belong to, and who has chosen me, running like a crash of rhinos, only able to see 30 ft in front of me but abandoning my fears- giving up total control of my life.

I challenge you with some spiritual spring cleaning, what are you holding onto that is keeping you from having life to the fullest, in abundance until it overflows?

ALOOOHA!

Giving your best

Posted by FreedBird in Inspirational and tagged with , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

This past week I have been greatly challenged. Surprisingly this challenge hasn’t come from a friend, or a family member, or a catchy quote, but instead a popular christmas song. The Little Drummer Boy. Continue reading →

Heres to the crazy ones, the misfits, the rebels, the troublemakers

Posted by FreedBird in Inspirational and tagged with , , , , , , , , , , ,

I have always lived my life questioning the status quo (you can ask my parents, I drove them crazy). It’s a very important thing to do. Once you let someone else start doing all of the thinking for you, the world misses out on everything you have to offer. The human mind is an amazing thing. One thing I’ve realized from traveling (and basically just being around people) is EVERYONE thinks differently. Sometimes Suzanne and I would have a 5 minute conversation on where our train of thought was headed, just to be able to understand each other. I won’t even get into directional thinking patterns (my way is a little TOO different). Anyway, when I see someone conform to the world’s way of thinking, or tone down their personal style to make others happy, or become the sit down and shut up type people (which I refuse to be I’m so sorry), I’m truly disappointed. The truth is, you are unique, there is no one else in the world like you, and you have something to offer. So the minute you sit down and shut up, the world misses out on you and the individuality you could have brought. It’s an idea that is lost forever, or lives that will never be changed. What a scary thought. So be you, think differently, ask questions, and don’t underestimate the power of one.

“The people who are crazy enough to think they can change the world, are the ones who do.”

This is the most inspiring video I’ve seen in awhile, narrated by a very inspiring man, Steve Jobs. Among all of the amazing things he has created his main goal was to always inspire others. Even through the things he invented people were enabled to run free with their creativity.

A MIRACLE HAPPEND TO ME TONIGHT!

Posted by FreedBird in Inspirational and tagged with , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Tonight I experienced what I am going to call a miracle from God.

I was sitting in the back row of church and listening to the sermon about following the purpose of God, and the holy spirits leading. Perviously they played a video which included several members of my church affirming a man I greatly admire, Dr.Tito. He runs La Mision in Guatemala and I got to serve  with him and his team on medical missions in 2010. I was sitting in my seat thinking about all the good so many people are doing. Now, I am going to be completely transparent about one of my major insecurities. It’s not something that is constantly on my mind, but it pops up every now and then. At this particular moment it was racing through my head. I’m scared that people who supported me to go on my mission trips, wish they hadn’t. Or people who read my stories and see my pictures think that I’m just prancing around the world, doing whatever I want and labeling it as a “missions trip”. I always try to re-assure myself to not care what other people think, that God sees what I do, knows my intentions, and was the one that told me to do it anyway. But sometimes I can’t help but feel insecure.

So I was sitting in church, thinking about all of this and started to feel really down. The pastor said something that I wanted to remember, but I didn’t have anything to write with so I went into my iphone to write it in the “notes”. I created a new note and when I was done writing went back to the main page of the notes. The note I had just written was there, along with another note titled Prayer List and dated August 25. It was a note I had started writing at the beginning of my trip in July while I was in Australia. I was meeting so many amazing people, I wanted to make sure I didn’t forget anyone so I started to create a prayer list on my ipod of all the people I met and wanted to continue to pray for. The thing is my ipod was STOLEN in Athens, Greece at the end of September (which I previously wrote about). The iphone that was in my hands was only a week and a half old, this note was dated back to August 25 and said it hadn’t been updated in 79 days. It wasn’t even connected to my itunes (my itunes is in Hawai’i). I haven’t even fully set it up yet. icloud is off so it can’t possibly link to any of my other apple devices, and even if it could on my previous ipod I had over a dozen different notes, the prayer list only being one of them, so even if somehow the note was transferred from my stolen ipod to my new iphone why weren’t any of my other notes transferred with it?? I’ve searched my new iphone and there is NOTHING else on it form my old ipod, none of my pictures from traveling, NOTHING. Just this simple prayer list, of the names of people I met while on my trip.

So I sat there mesmerized, looking at my prayer list, and then I heard this, “this is why you went on that trip.”

All of a sudden all of my insecurities were gone. I no longer cared what people thought about my travels (if anyone even does think anything! I’m probably just paranoid!). God originally told me to sell everything, to go out into the nations and encourage dreams. He told Suzanne to go for “the one” and later put that word on my heart as well. Well here in front of me I had a list of all “the ones” that I had the opportunity to meet while traveling. I look back at that list in tears now, there are 29 names on it, and even more names in my head because it hasn’t been updated in 79 days. Each of those individuals has a unique story to their lives and is equally important to my heavenly father, the king of kings. I can look at each name and remember their faces and our conversations, and you know what, it was all worth it to travel around the globe to meet them. It sounds so silly but I just feel so much love for each one of them and I know it’s not my personal love, but God’s love for them.

I’m so thankful God miraculously put this list back on my iphone at this moment. It reminded me of why I wanted to travel around the world originally. It reminded me that He was the one that moved people to support me to travel. But above all it reminded me that HE was the one who sent me, and that everyone I met on the trip was for a unique purpose.

Believe what you want. I know it was a miracle. Thank you for letting me be so transparent. Aloooha

Here are some screen shots from my ipod if you were curious. I crossed out the names on the prayer list for privacy reasons. =]