thanksgiving

(some of the olive groves i used to run through in Spain)

Giving thanks to God. This might be my favorite of all holidays. I like it because it is more about focusing on what we have whereas Christmas, for example, we can often get caught up in what we don't have and what we want.

The theme of praising God has been one really close to my heart over the past 10 years. It all started when I was a depressed, insecure middle schooler, who was negative and jealous all the time. Oprah had this woman on who wrote a book called, "Simple abundance" SHe was talking about writing 5 things each day that you are thankful for. My mom talked me into trying this idea, who knew what a huge, life changing habit this would become for me, transforming my mind, attitude and life. Who knew that I would come to know God through an idea presented on the Oprah show?

Thinking of 5 things I was thankful for was certainly a challenge those first few weeks. I bought a little pad of paper and titled it, "What I have been given today, what I am thankful for today." This became known as my thankful journal.

After a few weeks someone told me they had noticed a change in me, I knew it was from this habit that i was beginning to form, so I that encouraged me to keep at it. THen a beautiful thing began to happen, I found myself being able to think of more than 5 things from each day that i was thankful for. 10 things, then 20 or 30 and eventually 80 or 100 from one day. Soon my little list of praises to God became longer and more detailed. I was even more surprised when I would be going through my day and start to see everything in a new light. A perspective of praise to God, thanksgiving to God in the moment where I was. I would notice things I never had before and think, oh, i've gotta write this down tonight!

This habit grew into a cycle, it was like the more I wrote down that i was thankful for, the more I saw in my life that I had to be thankful for. I saw God in a whole new light, one by which I had never seen him before. A good God, one who cared about my every detail, one that freely poured abundance into my life, a God who is my provider, God who is faithful, one who made me want to pour out to others in assurance that my life was full and would forever be overflowing. I knew I could give everything away and never loose a thing, only continue to be filled each day by him.

It was also cool when I would have a problem, conflict, or really needed God to provide certain things. I could open up all these journals and hold and touch and read this tangible evidence of how God had been faithful to me everyday for the past however many years. I would remember often... and it is quite easy to remember something that is written down.

The thankful journal started out to be about me and about the gifts. But over time it became all about God, teaching me about who he is and the joy of living a life that constantly praises and thanks him. The gifts were merely symbols of the motive by which he gave to me: love, pure, real, abundant love.

It has been 10 years since I started doing this and i still keep it up today. I have recorded around 50,000 different gifts that God has blessed me with since I was 15 years old. Imagine how many millions more that I haven't even written down.

I really think the key to happiness is when life isn't about self. The best way to do this is to look at God and thank him and praise him, then look at others and give from the abundance which we have been given.

rest

(These are pictures from the past couple months, my travels in NC)

I am at home. It feels so good to say that.

These past 3 and a half months have been so wonderful and so tiring. I have been traveling, driving, flying, non-stop ever since I landed on American soil back in July. I am so thankful for all the people I have been able to reconnect with and see again! I went to Kansas and saw family. I have had the best time hanging out with old friends. I went to Cape Carteret to see Susannah and Nate and to Wilmington to see Melissa and Matt. I was in and out of Charlotte for 2 months and 20 days and got to see people like Shannon, Courtney, Katie, and Kat and so many more. I was staying with a wonderful family, the Ardizzones and working a part time job which was supposed to lead to a full time position but it ended up not working out.

Three days ago I finally came home. I drove 10 hours and it felt so great to walk in the door and know that my travels are over (at least until I know when and where I will move next)

I get to be here with Mom and Dad and Amy and John for Thanksgiving and Christmas. I will take this time to reflect on the past 2 years, on Spain, on God's faithfulness through it all. I will also take this time to wait on God for where He is directing me next. But mostly I will use this time to rest. Rest, that word sounds soooooooo... like exactly what I need right now. descansarrrrrr!

Home, family, familiar... After a year and a half of living in another culture, learning a new language, experiencing another world and adapting myself to it, after 2 years of saying goodbyes and hellos and goodbyes and hellos and goodbyes again, after driving over 90 hours in the past 3 months (KS, TN, NC), after a year and a half of traveling all over Morocco and Spain and meeting soooo many different kinds of people from all around the world, after moving 12 times in the past 3 years....

now, I am at home.

working

(These are pictures of where I work)

So I started a new job on Monday! Yes, I am a worker now, like employed in the real world! I love my new job, it is a part time temporary job at Media Comm, Snap 5, and INSP until the full time position for a producer's assistant that I interviewed for at INSP opens up in the next month or two. (It is a long story how I got there, but very cool and definitely from God.)

My job title is called craft services assistant. Basically I make and deliver breakfast to producers and editors. I also re-stock coffee, I wash some dishes and towels. I make sure food and towels are put out for guests that will be on the shows. I am a receptionist for an hour, and I do whatever else they need done. It's great for meeting people in the business and learning about the TV world.

I am reading "To Own a Dragon" by Donald MIller these days. There is a chapter about work. He was talking to his friend who used to dig septic systems and how he prided himself in what he did and would do it so well that no one could tell he had even dug up their yard. He tells Miller this, "There wasn't anything fun about it... but the work was honorable. It made me a better person. Nobody should be ashamed of the work they do, they should do it with pride and do it right... It taught me to take great pride in what I do, to offer people more than what they expect, to do work as unto the Lord."

Ever since my first day of work I have been thinking a lot about this verse, "Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord, not for men, since you know that you will receive an inheritance from the Lord as a reward. It is the Lord Christ you are serving." ~ Col. 3:23-24

SO as I do these simple jobs, I really try to think about it like this. I try to wash dishes like I am doing it for a meal for Jesus or deliever people's breakfast as if I am serving the Lord or set up make up and dressing rooms as if he were the guest coming to be on the show. And this is why I love my work. When done like that there is something way better than a salary awaiting. As Donald Miller put it, "The idea of work is God's invention, and it is part of our spirituality to do it... Work is worship."

blank page

I love thinking like that... you know? That every day when we wake up, the day is like a blank page. Anything can be written, anything can happen, anything is possible today. Another page in the story.

I am really at a big crossroads in my life again. I am really needing and depending on God to provide a job, roommates, and a place to live. I am waiting on God. Sometimes I feel myself getting anxious. But if I stop and remember, if I stop and look around me, if I stop and praise God in the moment... I really do see how well taken care of I have been and am even now in this moment.

I remember support raising, I remember getting to Spain with no knowledge of the language, culture or city. I remember how God provided abundantly and perfectly as he taught me the way of life there and gave me friends and the greatest apartment in the city! I remember walking thru the city and thinking, "One day I am gonna wake up and this will all be a dream." Well now that I am back, sometimes, yes I feel like that, but most the time I don't... because I have real love and real relationships that go on well beyond my year and a half in Spain. Then I remember it was real. And I remember how faithful God was thru out my journey there.

Right now I am in Charlotte, NC. I am staying at Ray and Carole Ardizzones home. When I look around this beautiful home and run past these incredible houses in this neighborhood... it really is a dream (once again). This month I don't know what will happen next month or even today for that matter. But this month I get to live in a house that feels like paradise to me while I look for jobs. God didn't just give the bear minimum, he has given me something extravagant to enjoy in this "uncertain" transition.

So I don't know the what the next chapter will be like. But I can be in the "now", enjoy it and be thankful for it and trust God that he is writing a really cool story and letting you and I be a part of it. Making our stories about Him, the greatest, most beautiful. What an honor.

through new eyes

So the other night I went to a concert with katie smith and some people. It was really cool to be in Charlotte and see a bunch of people I knew for the first time in what feels like forever! The concert was some new Christian guy that I haven't heard of because I've been away for so long.

I wish I could describe exactly what I was seeing and feeling as I was watching the concert. I was sitting on a stool and in front of and a little below me was a bunch of people standing in front of the stage. I felt like I was watching my culture through new eyes.

Before I go any further I have to describe what I have known and been seeing for the past year and a half. A culture of young people, a culture of my generation who looks at God with apathy, maybe a little bitterness and actually they don't, for the most part, even look at or consider Him. God is foreign, distant, non-existant, or a great huge tradition. Now, I know I am speaking in a very general sense. I don't know everyone's heart of course. But I was in the middle of these parties where there were thousands upon thousands of people. I talked to many young Spaniards, I learned and asked about their perceptions of God. These are actual things different people have said to me through out my time there:

"oh my gosh!! you actually go to church??? why??" "how can your dad's job be to teach people about God? I mean, what more is there to actually learn about God?" "do protestants believe in one God or many gods? is it a cult? what do they believe?" "molly, when you pray do hear from God?" "molly, it's just not logical that one man could die for all our sins." "I don't have faith in God, I have faith in myself." "molly, Spain pretends to like religion, we have all the crosses and statues of Mary, but really... Spain loves alcohol and Spain loves the party so we have all these religious holidays, but molly, no one really believes it..."

So fast forward thru a year and a half of being around thousands of young people who think like this. Now I am at this Christian concert in America, loud music, lights and a crowd of young people jumping and dancing and lifting their hands and closing their eyes singing about the love of God. I was jealous, I was so jealous for the culture and people I love in Spain.

I watched........ I watched in amazement. I watched in confusion, of why it is so normal for my culture and my American generation to know God loves them and yet His love is so foriegn to so much of the world? I watched in longing, deep longing for my friends in Spain, I wanted them to see this sea of young people who knows they are loved by God. It would be so different, a first for them to see something like this. But maybe if they saw they'd know, maybe they'd believe that there is something more, maybe for the first time they would experience this kind of love, the kind that comes from a God who would actually lay down His life for us and for them. Maybe, they'd see Him through new eyes.

being back

(In the picture of John and Dad imitating Jesus and the little boy, it is funny because we have a picture of Dad holding John when he was 3 years old by this same picture, now John is holding Dad hahaha. That was on our family trip to Kansas)

My month back in the States has been good and restful and busy and exciting. I usually tell people the biggest culture shock I have of America is how friendly Americans are! I forgot things like how cashiers tell you to have a nice day after you make a purchase or how people you pass by make eye contact and smile for no reason.

I just spent a week in Colorado Springs going through a debriefing and re-entry course. I met people who were returning to the US from all over the world. I heard about so many wild and crazy and extreme lives that had been lived overseas. I can’t even fathom what so many of them have lived and been through. I met people who have lived in Afganastan, Tunisia, Bangladesh, Slovakia, Hati, Mali, Kenya, etc. A few of us girls went on a beautiful hike one day. In the car on the way home we talked about walking by the Taliban every day, African men with their spears, and good bed and breakfasts’ all with in the same 5 minutes. Hahaha... and it was normal.

I am approaching a new stage of life again. I am in transition. I actually like this stage, it is so uncertain. I have no idea what I will do next or where I will go, which means anything can happen!

So as I write this I am sitting on an airplane, the sun is setting over the clouds and I am flying back to Memphis, and soon I will go to Charlotte to look for jobs. The sky is yellow and pink and orange and purple. I remember a year and a half ago, I was anticipating going to Spain. I look back at my pictures and videos so often because I always think, “I can’t believe that really was my life!! I look back and remember God’s faithfulness and I look our across the sky and down on the world…. well some where in between CO and TN and think how big God is and how all my uncertainties, unknowns, and my passions, my dreams are in His hands. I don’t know where I am going at all… and it’s okay… for now ☺

leaving the party

(my last night in Spain my friends asked me to carve my name in a tree in their neighborhood...)

I have been at home for a week now. It has been soooo good to be at home and rest and be with my family. ALthough this time is kind of weird. I miss my daily life in Granada and my friends. But I am thankful for how well we've been able to keep in touch. I think about them a lot.

Memphis heat is different than Granada heat. It is humid, so I've had to run reeealllly early here. But it is nice, i get to watch the sun rise over a lake that I run around :) I still run with the watch I used in Spain to run and I haven't changed the hour yet, so at 7:30am here it is 2:30pm there. My watch says 2:30 as I finish my runs. I think about them all getting ready to sit down and eat a big lunch and for me, the sun is still rising.

I wonder what my friends would think of my life here... I wonder what they would think of huge parking lots, and huge churches and huge houses? I wonder how they'd re-act? I wonder what they would think of driving everywhere. I wonder... I miss them, I wish they were here with me... especially to meet all my friends here. My dad said if they came, he would treat them like they were his own children, because they loved me so well while I was in Spain.

I have never met a group of people or a culture that LOVES the party as much as these people, especially my Spanish friends. But their values in life shines through their love for the party.... Being together and enjoying life. I feel like I just left a great, huge, fun, wild, colorful, big, long party... where I was loved well.

My last night in Spain one of my friends said, "Molly I hope you know that you have left a foot print on our lives." For that I am thankful. They have certainly left one on mine. Also a beautiful kind of full circle moment for me was when I read a note that my friends had written to me before I left. A year ago, one of my closest friends there told me she didn't believe in God or that we have souls... SO I found it profound that in her letter to me it said, "Thank you for being who you are and for giving so much joy to our lives. You are unique. We will always be with you. You are the soul of the party... you are our favorite girl."

last day in spain

Last night was soooooo HARD. I had to hug and kiss my friends for the last time. I got to tell them that they have changed my life. I got to tell them that they have taught me so much about the world and about friendship. We told each other how much we loved each other, we hugged a lot and for a long time, we cried and we gave each other gifts.

I spent this entire week and weekend pretty much non stop with my friends, we spent a lot of time talking about our memories and looking at pictures and just being together trying not to think about the fact that it really is the end... that this moment really has come, that today is really my last day in Spain, that I really can't just go over to their house and eat lunch with them or go out on a Saturday night to tapas with them.

I will never forget these people or what I have learned from them. But I leave now knowing that I have loved... I have loved deeply and passionately this year and a half and that I have been well-loved by God and the friends He's poured into my life.

And I am overwhelmed with the pain of leaving and gratitude for what this has been.

Now I go home, HOME!!!

on goodbyes

(the 2 bottom pictures are from this weekend, right before I said good bye to my friend in the middle, before she left to go to London)

This is hard. I am in the last 2 weeks of my life here in Spain and my heart literally aches when I think about saying good bye to friends and places here.

Saturday I went to Loja for the last time. Loja is the hometown of the three girls I lived with when I first moved here. Thru out this year and a half I have been there about 7 times. I have gotten to meet all of my friends’ friends and families there and experience many holidays there. This weekend I said goodbye to their familes, I said goodbye to the place.

Last April I wrote a blog about one of my friend’s grandmother who lives there (you should read it bc its really funny). We met my first time in Loja which was when I couldn’t speak any Spanish. She is blind and has a hard time hearing. But my friend told me that every weekend her grandmother asks about me. She wanted to hear my Spanish because she didn’t believe my friend when she told her that I speak well now. So the other night I saw her again, a year and a half later. I sat with her grandmother on the patio and talked, more like yelled as I was sitting right in front of her face. She was hilarious, her biggest worry was that no one in my country would understand me when I get back and speak Spanish to them, I told her many times that I planned on speaking with the people in my country in English. She couldn’t quite grasp that. She asked me, “What is “pan” in English? I said, “bread.” She said, “oh how difficult! I could never say that.” Hahah but I made her try, and she got it out after us all yelling “bread, bread, bread” to her. I said, “look grandma, you speak English now!” She just laughed and said, “look how good her Spanish is.” It was so cute, I laughed a lot with her as we had our yelling conversation in Spanish on a patio in Loja.

When I said goodbye to my other friends family, I told her dad that I always think of him every time I used the word, “trunk” in Spanish because he is the one who taught that word to me. I reminded him of night after my friends graduation in Granada her parents invited me to Loja and I told them I didn’t think there was enough space in the car and he said, “that’s okay Molly, we’ll just put you in the trunk!”

Every time I start to think about the things I want to tell my friends what all they have taught me about the world, God and life, every time I start to think of my last moments with my friends here I start to feel such a mixture of the pain of leaving and gratitude for what this has been.

It doesn’t help that I am especially sentimental about these kind of things. Like how hard it was for me to leave my college because I knew a stage of life was over. Now another stage of life is coming to a close, except it is harder because this place is not just a drive a way, it is on the other side of the world. But at least I can take something with me, I can take what these people have taught me about love and life back home.

¡campeones!

"we are the champions, my friends..."

Spain won the Euro Cup last night! The whole country was a party all night long! It was sooo cool to be able to be here and celebrate with them. We all went out in the streets with our yellow and red and sang chants, waved around flags, and cheered all night. I saw on the the news today, like every plaza of every city and town in Spain were packed out with thousands and millions of people, like a sea of red and yellow. I am so proud and happy for my people here!

culture and religion

This is where I went to church this sunday. I woke up and thought how much more often will I have the opportunity to go to church in a huge monument built in the 1500's? I should take advantage of where I live while I am still here, living to the fullest. I live 7 minutes (walking) from this building.

I have been learning a lot about Catholicism lately (Spanish Catholicism). I think my dad would be proud because he is like Catholic church history expert!

I am learning that there is a lot I don't know and a lot I can't assume.

It is really interesting to talk to the people about their beliefs. My Spanish tutor is the one who has given me the most insight into religion and culture in Spain. Usually our class turns into just talking about our lives and her explaining things about the culture to me. She asked me to write a paper on what I believe about Jesus. I did.

She told me she believes the exact same thing except that she believes you go to heaven by being a good person. I tried to tell her that was a huge difference, she said it was a minor detail, more like personal opinion.

So I thought I would go to Mass at the Cathedral, just to continue learning and plunging into the culture. I sat in the middle of a bunch of really really old people hahaha. I thought the sermon was really good. I couldn't stop looking up at all the art work that just kept going higher and higher. It was very beautiful and reverent in there.

My Spanish tutor told me that talking about God was an off limits subject among Spaniards. Which I don't know how when they have about a million holidays where they carry statues of Jesus and Mary through the streets. The preacher at the Cathedral was telling people that it is easy to pretend like you are an atheist but how worth it it is to go out and share the gospel and with the people in their lives.

So more than anything I am learning that I have a lot to learn and it takes a long time to really know a culture and understand how they perceive things. I feel like I have gotten a glimpse into their world and even gotten to be a part of it for this past year and a half.

Here is an example of my learning the culture. There were some hot days in the end of April. So I decide to wear my very Spanish sandals. My friends looks at my shoes and goes, "ah Molly, I thought you've changed, I thought you have become more Spanish, but you are still very American." Meaning it was just too early for the sandals. I said, "But it's HOT!" She said, "But it's just not time yet." So then I waited til the middle of June to wear my sandals like the rest of the Spaniards :)

Culture intrigues me... especially this one. And I am thankful because in some ways these people and this culture have become deeply a part of who I am becoming. And I will carry this experience with me forever.

we are hot

Literally! Summer has arrived it is hot, we live with out air condition I love summertime. Sun, flip flops, beaches, abanicos, open windows, less weight of all those heavy winter clothes to carry on my body. It is light and free. Almost. It also means that my time in Spain is coming to a close. I have lived here now for a year and 4 months. Spain... I had never given that country much thought in my entire life until I felt like this is where God was leading me to. It was just a random place in the world. I remember thinking, "Spain?? wait, didn't I fail Spanish in high school? But ok I will go wherever."

I am not sure what I came here expecting to find, but I know I found something I was not expecting to find.

My dad asked me why I chose these friends I have here. I told him, I didn't choose them, they chose me. I told him they have been one of the greatest examples of Christ to me in my entire life. These people who have loved me well, these people who treated me as if I were one of them, when I am not even close to fitting in, when I didn't even speak their language. These people who have taught me an entire language (the language I failed in high school) with patience,love and lot's of humor. These people who have made the random country Spain become my home, España.

It will be so bittersweet to leave. Home, I am going home. Yet now this feels so familiar. It will be so weird to turn on the TV and hear English. I haven't even drank a Starbuck's coffee since Feb 2007. I remembered drive thru's for the first time in forever and felt like I was remembering a faint dream, another time, another place, another world.

I am learning as I often do, to be here now. To be in the moment, to savor the experience, to soak it in, to be... really be and enjoy where I am and to praise God for it. To let go of guilt of the past and worry of the future. I am here now, I am in Granada Spain, I am in Anna's apartment, it is 7:30 pm, I am wearing shorts and short sleeves, I am sweating a little... and this is where I am right now. At home on the other side of the world.

the dance

My last semester of my senior year of college I still needed to take a humanities course. I signed up for Intro to dance, like a dance history course. I loooooved that class, especially my teacher who was so weird and so cool. I don’t remember learning that much about dance itself...

It was a class room setting most days, our teacher would lecture… or inspire:) As well as break out into random tap dance or begin to sing the words of his lecture to us. Hahaha he was so serious, but it was hilarious.

One day he took us to the stage of theater to teach us some basic dance moves. We all, with our partners tried to follow him. We stumbled all over ourselves. He called on a random girl in the class to demostrate with him. She was not a dancer, she had been stumbling just like the rest of us.

As she danced with the professor she began to look like a dancer… she just followed his lead and he made her shine. She didn’t know what she was doing. But he did. She let loose and trusted in his movements. He knew exactly how to lead her, give nudges in her back, hold her, push her and pull her in order to make her look like a dancer, to show off his expertise and to make their dance beautiful. He came to her beginner's level and worked with her pace, until she began to get it. It was like she forgot we were all watching and got caught up in the flow, the rhythm, the movements and enjoyed dancing with our professor. It looked fun.

And so that image comes back to me often whenever I am at a place when I don’t really know what to do, what voices to listen to, or what decsions to make. That is the image that comes back to me when God has me in a place of waiting on Him. When I learn to want Him more than the answers, when I learn to enjoy him more than I do the clarity in the decisions to make. His timing. His movements. His voice. The music becomes louder and the voices of people pleasing fade away. The false sense that I am in control fades away. There is a trust and a letting loose in the uncertainty and my "not knowing what I am doing”. He knows what He is doing. He is patient with me. And the steps I am learning turn into a dance, and it becomes fun.

random thoughts

random things:

We were on our way home and decided to stop and get in the field of wild flowers and take pictures.

My brother makes me laugh harder than anyone I know... well and shannon

I like not being in a hurry

walking every where is a lot better than driving every where

i miss laughing with my American friends

running for fun is a great way to start the day

i finished a beautiful piece of art work yesterday and was reminded what it feels like to accomplish something and be proud of my work.

What will it be like to come back to America?

Everyone likes the sound of their own name

My family is sooooo cool, I'm lucky

dancing releases stress

I've gone through (pretty much ruined) at least 15 pairs of shoes during this year and 4 months in Spain... from walking everywhere, it's still cheaper than a car.

"Praise is inner health made audible" C.S. lewis

I have no idea what I will do with the rest of my life after I get home from Spain.

"live care-free before God, he is most careful with you." ~ 1 peter 5 something in the message

symphony

(I didn't take these pictures but I got them in an email and thought they were worth sharing, well the last one was when I was at the beach here)

I have this theory, well it’s more like Isaiah’s and David’s theory… but stilll I think about it a lot. I think the universe is playing a great symphony of praise to God. I think all of creation is moving and dancing and singing about how wonderful and beautiful God is. I think the trees, the waves, the mountains, the clouds, the stars, the forest, the fields and the beaches are telling us about their Maker.

They have no words. But that is ok… being a communications major I can tell you that communication is 90% noverbal and only 10% verbal ☺. His creation doesn’t use confining words, it uses beats, rhythms, winds, rolling hills, shifting colors in the clouds during sunsets, crashing waves, snow capped mountains, thunder, waterfalls, and lightly falling snow to express the unfathomable: the King, the God of the universe.

Sometimes when I look at nature, I think how its’ very nature gives glory to God, it seems like it is praising God and reflecting God just by simply BEING… being what is was created to be. An olive tree, for example, doesn’t get jealous of the fig trees and try to grow figs (by the way I love olives and figs, but not together, and they are abundant here in spain). It just exsits, it grows olives and sits there all pretty and content with the other olive trees just producing olives (and olive oil of course) ☺. Just being. An ocean doesn’t try to be a waterfall, a red flower doesn’t try to be a yellow flower, it just depends on God to give it what it needs and grows. It in its being it speaks about God.

A while ago I was sitting on the beach infront of the Mediterranean Ocean. The waves looked like they were enjoying being waves. They looked like they were talking about how cool God is. I believed them. SO I started to do what they were doing… praising God, and believing that maybe I, just as I am, just being with out words or acts, enjoying being who I am, where I am could reflect God and give glory to Him, just like the nature does… as it plays its’ great symphony of praise.

“the heavens declare the glory of God,
the skies proclaim the work of his hands
day after day they pour forth speech…
their voice goes out into all the eath
their words to the ends of the world.” ~ psalm 19
“the mountains and hills will burst into song before you
and all the trees of the fields will clap their hands.” ~ Isaiah 55