Got drenched

I was baptized on Sunday. Oh yeah, it is January and it has been raining all week long = freezing cold Pacific Ocean! Oh yeah, that's right. I got baptized in the Pacific Ocean! It was amazing!

I remember every specific experience in that one hour. Dear friends gathered around at the beach and surrounded us five to be baptized.

We (those to be baptized) shared our stories of how we got to this point. Souls were bared with humility and grace. Beauty. Inside and out. What a perfect and celestial setting to share such righteous words from our hearts.

We all prayed. Tears were welling up in people's eyes, hands placed on shoulders and backs, comforting, encouraging words of light and truth were lifted up. It was truly heavenly.

Then, one by one we went out to the water waist-deep and were dunked.

Now, this was an interesting moment for me. Let me try to walk with you through it by just you reading this now.

I'm walking out with my dear friend, mentor and brother to the ocean. It was so cold that it awakened me. I cannot remember being so aware of the earth than I was when I stepped into that frigid and overwhelming ocean.

Once we got knee-deep, a terrible thing happened. The waves swelled and crashed. I have never felt so cold in my life. It was like my body was about to go into shock. Yet it was so spiritual for me. I mean this is life, isn't it? It is refreshing and scary and freezing and moving sometimes... all at the same time.

We made it. I was dunked. I remember being completely submerged. I didn't notice the salt or how cold it was in that moment. I just remembered being washed clean. As soon as I came up out the water the first thing I heard was cheering coming from the shore. My brother and I embraced and I couldn't help but just weep in pure joy.

I got back to the sand and was embraced all the more by my friends, my family really, and was wrapped in dry towels (thank God!).

Forever I will remember these words, "You are the warmest thing in this ocean right now and the ocean thanks you for it. And now when you walk into a room, you will be the warmest person in it."

Thank God for the Refresh Button.

Expect More

Tonight was wonderful. The Mayan(is the place where I meet with my spiritual community and hear from our full-of-faith leader, Erwin McManus) and going to a friend's house after for burgers and conversation. It was excellent. Thank you God for real people who are in touch with their souls and serve "the least of these".

Main thought for the night (inspired by Erwin): The faith I had last year will not cut it for my life this year.

I need to be pressing forward and evolving in ways that I cannot foresee because it has to be inspired and set in motion by God. This has really put pep in my step because I am realizing that I need to step up my game. I should be living my life for others! This requires me to be completely dependent on God because I cannot give my life away without his strength. Period.

I recall a quote that I read in "Eat, Pray, Love": "Search for God like a man with his head on fire searches for water."

May we not lose our desperation for an Almighty, Powerful and Merciful God that loves fiercely.

Unfaithful

Have you ever been cheated on?

I was thinking about it today and it is so funny. The human soul knows how to feel about cheating. Why do you think Montel, Maury and Jerry Springer are still in business? I have never cheated but I have been cheated on. I remember in high school I trashed an ex-boyfriend's truck because he cheated and lied. (I was sixteen and hormonal, cut me a break - ha ha!)

In an article in GQ, it showed several statistics that men who cheat are going to keep cheating because of the conditions of their life. It justified their adultery. I read the whole article. I wanted to understand this mentality because we know that cheating is wrong, painful and goes against the rules of love! Do you not agree?

What brought this up? Well, I was reading the book of Hosea and it is about a man (Hosea) that is told by God to find himself an adulterous wife. Interesting, right? Well, he does and she bears children by Hosea but she does not stick around. She runs away to go back to her old life. Hosea, of course, gets angry (and so does God) but Hosea (inspired by God) goes back and gets her, forgives her and brings her home. This is the language he uses:

"Therefore I am now going to allure her; I will lead her into the desert and speak tenderly to her. There I will give her back her vineyards, and will make the Valley of Achor a door of hope. There she will sing as in the days of her youth, as in the day she came up out of Egypt."

What love, right?! I am astonished. If you checked yes to my first question, would you have taken your lover back who betrayed your trust and broke your heart? No way! Even though we as humans instinctively know that cheating is just wrong, we feel this innate pull to be with one person. Is that not interesting? Any outsider can understand the taxing and numbing lifestyle to be had by people who jump from one lover to the next.

It's not like we need more than one person! I mean, people can hardly make it in a marriage to just one person. You already know divorce is just as popular as weddings are, not marriage. Yes, this is an ad for marriage. More than that, the truth is that the only way one can make it through a relationship of any sort is forgiveness.
Yes, cheating is absolutely wrong. Yes, there is no excuse. But, have you not done something wrong to someone and needed a second, third, fifteenth chance? Perhaps there was no excuse for your behavior then and you can never know how much what you do affects someone. Yet, marriage in its truest form must be all about forgiveness because it is meant to last a lifetime - that is a lifetime of forgiveness!! God gives us a perfect example of this, not just in this beautiful story of Hosea but in our everyday lives! Nothing can separate us from the love of God because He will always forgive our every sin, big or little. Maybe America should take notes. Families, couples, churches, schools and children would be greatly affected by one person's choice to forgive.

When I asked my dad, who has been happily married for 30 years, what has made he and my mom make it this far and he said, "Julie, if I could wrap it up in one word it would be forgiveness." He then commenced to tell me that he has done many stupid things and my mom has forgiven him when he did not deserve it. I am not suggesting that he cheated on my mother, but I am suggesting that 30 years with someone definitely means they have brought you great joy and great pain, period.

Ultimately, I think deep down in our heart of hearts, we want one wonderful and complex, sometimes stupid, beautiful human to spend our lives with and if we behave otherwise it is an attempt seek that out without knowing that is what we really really want and need. Just like people will wander the earth and do all kinds of research to find God and ultimate truth, people will join eHarmony, go out to bars, lose weight, join clubs, churches and organizations to find "the one"! The key is forgiveness. The reality of the situation is that not matter how in love we are, or how much we adore our significant other, without forgiveness we can forget longevity of anything.

There is hope! A few verses down in Hosea, God tells this to his people,

"I will betroth you to me forever; I will betroth you in righteousness and justice, in love and compassion. I will betroth you in faithfulness, and you will acknowledge the Lord."

Amen.

The New You in the New Year

It's December 31. 10 o'clock in the eve and you are at a party, a club, bar-hopping with friends and perhaps you have been drinking. If you haven't prior to ten, then you are by now and by the time the ball drops you are feelin' a lot more of the alcohol. Meaningful conversation is not exactly the greatest commodity at the moment and you might be kissing someone... someone you dearly love or someone you hardly know. You party on into the new year and for the first few hours of a new era in your life you are intoxicated, sweaty from all the dancing, and perhaps made some choices you won't remember and your friends are glad you won't.

Ok, so maybe this scenario does not describe what your new year's eve was like but it does fit the bill for millions across the country. In part, (in small part - like the dancing, sweating and being with friends part) including me. I was with great friends in a fun city, lots to do, plenty of bars, lots of people.

Why is it that on brink of a New Era, a new decade, a fresh start we are dull, distracted, delayed, loud, emotional, or however you are when you're drunk. It's not like we do not deem this time in our lives as important and valuable. We use our vacation time, sick day(s), money we don't have to visit loved ones and get some R&R. So, why do we as Americans think this is the best way to start out the year 2010?

What if we started a New Year revolution? One person at a time. What if we planned a party where we drank whatever we chose yet our focus was on the conversation, the people, how their lives have changed in the past year and how together we can better the year to come for each other and our communities? We could give bars and party venues a run for their money! Is that not what you really want anyway?

Be the change you wish to see in the world

Right? How can we expect out of others what we cannot and will not do on our own? Are we enabling the world to head in the wrong direction by staying inactive in our own neighborhood?

So here is to a New Year and a New You!! Cheers, my friend.