Have you ever stumbled upon someone’s diary and *gasp* after looking around carefully decided to take a peek inside? I know I have – many times! Growing up with six siblings made finding a diary or journal (our boys called them “journals” to feel tougher and more manly) a relatively easy thing to do. My siblings and I started to get smart though- we would have fake-out entries that falsely admitted something dastardly. If our parents came to know of our horrible misdoings, we knew that it was time to find a new diary hiding place. When I caught my siblings reading mine, I would sneak away, let them finish, and then later I would write out the most horrible and personalized message I could come up with so that the criminal could feel my wrath. Unfortunately, between the ages of 8 and 14, the best I could come up with was
“*insert sibling’s name* I HATE YOU! YOU ARE STUPID AND DUMB AND A THIEFE! YOU’RE THE WORST AND I HATE IT WHEN YOU LYE TO ME AND STEEL MY DAIRY. YOU ARE THE WORST. STOP READING MY DIARY IDIAT!!!!!!!!!!! I HATE YOU!!!!”
It wasn’t until my later high school years that my vocabulary and spelling skills advanced…
Let me tell you this: It was quite difficult to make someone cower beneath me when I only had 10 mean words to work with (most of them being synonyms for “stupid”). Back in the day, fart was the worst word I had in my arsenal other than “shut up”…but as siblings we tried not to go there…that was pretty brutal. I still remember the worst slur I had ever concocted in my mind to use against one of my brothers…it was my holy grail…until it came out of my mouth: “JOHN, YOU’RE A…..a” the words started to feel less powerful as they were forming in my head but I had already started and had to commit or look like a fool. I continued, “….YOU’RE A POOP-FACE!!” The fighting didn’t last much longer after that insult was hurled…we couldn’t stop laughing. Anyways, I’ve become distracted. The diary wars continued on after the poop-face incident and it wasn’t until my older sister started writing in Spanish that we finally gave up on the great diary wars…I had been a 10 year subscriber to my sister’s up until that point *a moment of silence for the loss of easily-accessible sibling insight*.
All of that back story just to say this: I’m going to publish pieces of previous diaries today! Yikes! What possesses me to do this? Heaven knows. I like to learn from my mistakes though, I like to go back and see which questions finally got answered, and I love to see what came to be of all my prayer requests – you’d be surprised how many questions and prayers God has answered for me over the years.
At the end of my diaries I like to write some kind of farewell to that section of my life. Kind of a “what did I learn from this diary”/reflection time entry. This one is from January 21, 2013:
“I’ve been running through life. Above my bed, I keep a picture of myself. In the picture, I’m running from someone – probably a parent or a sibling. I’m outside in the grass and running out from the shade of a large tree. I’m wearing pink buckled dress shoes with frilly white socks that billow out the top, pink shorts with tiny white polka-dots, a white T-shirt with a fluorescent pink square logo on the front, my blond hair is pulled back in a ponytail and my “angel wings” (curly q’s of leftover hair on the side of my head that resemble angel wings) are flowing out from both sides of my face. No longer on top of my head is a Pocahontas party hat that has slid almost onto the middle of my forehead making me look ridiculously [indifferent] to my appearance. My right arm is blurred and both hands are in a fist. I’m looking behind me and to my right and my mouth is as wide-open as it goes. I’m smiling the way a baby does when it’s in the middle of a laughing spell. I look the way my soul feels when I’m spending time with God. I love that picture because it reminds me to keep running – it reminds me to keep living – it reminds me to keep laughing and chasing after joy. I know I won’t be young forever but for my sake, I hope my soul never forgets what it’s like to be in that picture. Purity, happiness, love, and sheer joy – I should never stop chasing those things.”
I love that to this day, I can still use that entry as inspiration for renewing myself and starting fresh. Seriously though… I looked like a screeching pink maniac in that picture.
The next entry was during a family visit with one of my uncles – July 2, 2013. My Uncle imparted some life wisdom before my family left. He told me, “Vashti, never be afraid to break something. Whether it be a car, a relationship, or anything else. When you break it, you get the chance to figure out how to put it back together, how to make it stronger, and how to make it better.” To this day, he is still one of the wisest men I know. Unbeknownst to me at the time, I would prove his advice to be very true in the upcoming future. Oh Vashti of the past, there is so much I wish I could tell you! Life could have been so much easier.
The last one (for this blog at least) is from May 8, 2014. It had been a rough day full of downs…as usual though, God was there for me that day. I had been at my first brother’s concert that evening and afterwards when I went to step into the car that was taking me home that night, I looked down and saw a lucky penny on the ground. I was holding back hot tears stemming from feelings of loneliness, rejection, and unworthiness (caused by a boy…dangit…story of my life). I wiped my tears away, bent down to pick up the penny, realized it was my birth year (1992), and started crying tears of relief and happiness. At that point I was reminded that I wasn’t alone in this fight called life- God sends me pennies when I need a blatant reminder of that. Out of the pain and mixed emotions of that day came this:
“Everyone is graduating, growing up, getting married, finding homes, and making plans. Everyone belongs to something, to someone, to some place. I find myself forever drifting through my life never able to pinpoint an exact location that I call home. “Home is where the heart is!” advises every happy couple. Well what if my heart has shattered? What does that say for my home? Where do you recommend I return to at the end of the day? My heart, messy, scarred, and broken as it is, yearns still for love and now for healing. I need someone who will fight for me and always treat me right. I need a hero…better yet, my Savior. Cry out to Him when you are hurting. No matter your situation, He cares.”
I wish I could say that was the only time I’d ever felt that way but I can’t – life just isn’t easy sometimes. However, because of Jesus, we can always have hope for a better tomorrow.
I met Discover Christian Church’s Pastor, Steve Murphy, at the Dublin Irish festival on Sunday, August 3, 2014 and during his sermon he said something that has so far changed my life (it’s only been 11 days so that’s pretty easy to say). He proclaimed with truth-bearing thunder “We have never been called to be successful. We have been called to be faithful!” Oh criminey. What a breath of fresh air. Do you know how stressful it is trying to get prepared for a successful World Race experience?!? I’ll spare you the troubling thought process by answering my own question- IT’S EXTREMELY STRESSFUL!! Especially as a procrastinating perfectionist.
Those two sentences have helped me relax more than any previous wisdom I’ve been offered. God would never call me to be perfectly prepared and ready for potentially the greatest adventure of my life (I doubt it- the world has yet to see the last of VASHTI WILLS!!). He knows me way too well for that – He knows I’m messy, lost, trying to figure life out, and chasing a million things at once. That’s how He wants us though – He wants us as we are. He died for us as we are. HE LOVES US AS WE ARE. His knowledge doesn’t stop with me though; He knows you just as well as He knows me. Trust me, if He can get me through 11 months of the World Race, He can get you through whatever you are struggling with. Have the patience and grace that is required of you and continue to be faithful to His calling on your life. That is what He requires of us – to be FAITHFUL not to be perfect. Rest easy in that, folks.
Also, I LOVE YOU! YOU CAN DO THE THING!
Your Sister in Christ Whether You Like Me or Not,
~ Vashti W.
