Why I believe in God

After one of my blogfriends wrote a post asking why people believe in God, I've spent the last three days trying to come up with reasons why I do. I came up empty, and then I realized this:

I have no reason other than the fact that my life can be divided into two perfectly distinct parts.
The 17 years that I did not believe in God.
And the 6 that I have.

I was raised with the freedom to believe whatever I wanted to believe about the world. I was taught that God was whatever I wanted God to be.
And when I was seven, I wanted God to be a long haired mermaid, kind of like this:
And when I was thirteen, I prayed my first "testing God" prayer:

"Dear God, If you are real, make my pimple go away"

I woke up the next morning, and voila! My pimple was still there, infiltrating my self-conscious thirteen year old face. I think that was the moment that I silently denounced God.
That same year I came home to my mom and dad and little sister huddled around the t.v. as the events of the Columbine school shooting unfolded. There was a girl named Cassie Bernall, who was held at gunpoint and asked by her proverbial killer if she believed in God. She said yes, and was shot to death moments later.
I could not fathom why anyone would want to die over their belief in someone they had never seen, the invisible man in the sky who did not seem to care enough to heal one measly pimple, much less save a person professing His name from imminent death.
This bothered me alot, and this time, I consciously denounced God's existence.

Thirteen year-old me.

Through high school, in my desperate attempt to find unconditional love in the world, I dated every cute boy that crossed my path. When whatever relationship I was in didnt meet my expectations, I would find myself in another one, simultaneously. Somewhere in the middle of all of this all of these weird people started showing up in my life. It started with my theatre teacher who had WWJD inscribed on everything she owned. I found this quite amusing. Then, there was the crazy guy in my U.S. History Honors class who brought me endless bags of gummy bears and told me repeatedly that God had brought him into my life.
"God?"
"Yes, God. I think God wants me to know you."
"Hmm...neat. Can I copy your homework then?"
Cole Stafford

So, I did. His name was Cole Stafford and he let me copy his homework for the rest of the school year. There was something about him that was so different, something that intrigued me....but not the way every other boy did. He seemed real, like he knew where he came from and he knew where he was going. He invited me to his house and picked all the green ones out of the gummy bear bag, because I thought they were absolutely horrid. He played the guitar for me and invited me to church 234 times. I declined, 233 times. Somewhere between the spring of my Junior year of high school and the fall of my Senior year, I decided I really liked Cole. I had never felt more sincerity or adoration from anyone, and I wanted to know where it came from. When I asked him what made him so different from everyone else, he answered with the same name everytime,
"Jesus."
"Jesus????"

Jesus? The same guy who I, for most of my life, thought was born in a manger on Christmas and died on easter and was resurrected on halloween (ghosts, holy spirit? can you see where the confusion might come into play?), and who I generally knew very little about? That Jesus?

So, I went to church with him. I may have wanted to know, but mostly I had decided that I liked Cole and he had decided that he liked me, but refused to date me unless I went to church with him.
I remember that night well. There was a McDonalds hamburger eating contest, and after three hamburgers I was ready to spend the rest of the night throwing up in the bathroom. Instead, we sat through some songs and a guy with a bible started talking about the world, and the condition of the human heart, and how we all long to love and be loved unconditionally, and how we were created with a hole in hearts and we are desperate to fill that hole and so we try to do that with drugs and alcohol and unfulfilling relationships and accomplishments and just about everything except for the one thing the hole was made for.

Things started hitting home and for the first time in my life I was hearing something true. I had felt the presence of the hole in my life for as far back as I can remember, and I had ignored the hole and tried to fill the hole and done everything except acknowledge that the hole was getting bigger and nothing I tried could fill it.

The guy with the bible went on...
We were created to have a relationship with God but we chose to be independent from God and to go our own way and live our lives however we wanted to, and that broke God's heart because he made us and made us to be with Him and walk through life with Him forever and we chose not to. So, God sent Jesus who died and carried the sins of the world in his death, and that bridged the gap between man and God and gave humans the opportunity to see the extent of Gods love and to see what He was like, and humanity was ultimately reconciled with our creator. And, if we want to, we can have a relationship with God and we can speak to him and hear him and be comforted by him and be whole again.
Something miraculous must have happened in my heart at that point, because I raised my hand when they asked if anyone wanted to commit their life to Christ.

I do not believe that I had a miraculous conversion of any kind, because my relationship with God did not become real at that point. What did occur is that I spent less time trying to fill the void in my heart with anything I could get my hands on, and more time trying to find the ultimate truth. I looked into Buddhism, Catholicism, Mormonism, and even Christianity, and I discovered that no religion was going to meet the growing need in my soul to understand the world around me. I was starting to think about some really weird stuff, like how the human brain works and the mechanics of the eyeball, and sunsets and fish and why humans are so relational and the universe outside of the planet earth.

This led me to open up the bible. In the bible, particularly in Matthew 5-7, my mind was warped by the words of Jesus. I decided that even though I didnt know what I believed about who God was, I wanted to follow Jesus. I wanted to live my life by his words and model my life after his. I wanted to love people, really love people, fully and unselfishly. I wanted to give to anyone who was in need and treat people with love, even if they had hurt me. I was raised with many of these values, but on a much lower scale, and I was slowly discovering that nobody loved people like Jesus loved people.

The problem occured when I kept reading. I had been going to church and had fallen deeply in love with the person of Christ. I was starting to meet more people who called themselves Christians and who actually resembled the Jesus in the bible. People, like Cole, who genuinely cared about other people and lived full lives that werent easily affected by the people around them, these people were so grounded and so true and I got stuck.
I discovered that the bible, and the churches preaching the bible, were saying the same thing. That Jesus is God in human form and that in order to really follow him, you have to believe that. I started talking to God about this, and somewhere along the line I realized that I had become a Christian. I was following Christ and I was making decisions based on the bible and I was trusting God with my life and my heart and my choices, and he was respinding to me. I noticed that somewhere along the line I had become a completely different person, and it was all because of the love of God that had planted in my heart.

I don't have all of the answers about the infinite depths of the universe, but I have grown deeply enamored with the Creator of the universe, the Jesus of the bible, and my mustardseed faith that grew from a tiny little seed into a flourishing tree of life.

The truth is, I hate being a "Christian." I hate being identified with the group of people that have committed heinous crimes in the name of Jesus, I hate the many times that I screw up and treat people less than they deserve to be treated, I hate knowing that the word "Christian" means a million different things to a million different people. But I love knowing that I have a purpose in this enormous world, I love that everyday I wake up knowing that I am loved by an immeasurable God who has changed everything about my heart.

Its important to note that Cole Stafford and I dated for the rest of my Senior year. We broke up because I cheated on him and then he went away to college. In May of 2007 he became a Pastor and got married. In February of 2008, he died unexpectedly. When I think about the time he was on earth and how much his short life changed mine, I am in awe. God is so big, and yet, so intricate. I have no idea where I would be if I had never met Cole Stafford. I hope my life can serve as a tribute to Cole's faith, and that I will never forgot the man who taught me how to love my creator.

If you read this entire entry, i'm impressed, and I will buy you a smoothie.

Just a speck of dust inside a Giant's eye

I am the kind of girl who makes to do lists and then eats ice cream and falls asleep. I am not nearly as intentional as I would like to be, and so often I find myself thinking of things to write on the shower wall with bathtub crayons instead of thinking about what is actually happening right in front of me. And sometimes I will come across a song that conveys my sentiments exactly, and I will wonder why I did not write the song myself and then feel grateful that I didnt because if I had I would still feel like I am the only person in the world that feels that way. And so, Kimya Dawson (who I would love to be friends with but who probably wouldn't think I am very interesting compared to the genius thought patterns in her mind) wrote this song, and I love it. And I think you should listen to it, because it feels like a love song, but isnt.

When I go for a drive I like to pull off to the side
Of the road, turn out the lights, get out and look up at the sky
And I do this to remind me that I'm really, really tiny
In the grand scheme of things and sometimes this terrifies me

But it's only really scary cause it makes me feel serene
In a way I never thought I'd be because I've never been
So grounded, and so humbled, and so one with everything
I am grounded, I am humbled, I am one with everything

Rock and roll is fun but if you ever hear someone
Say you are huge, look at the moon, look at the stars, look at the sun
Look at the ocean and the desert and the mountains and the sky
Say I am just a speck of dust inside a giant's eye
I am just a speck of dust inside a giant's eye

When I saw Geneviève I really liked it when she said
What she said about the giant and the lemmings on the cliff
She said 'I like giants
Especially girl giants
Cause all girls feel too big sometimes
Regardless of their size'

When I go for a drive I like to pull off to the side
Of the road and run and jump into the ocean in my clothes
I'm smaller than a poppyseed inside a great big bowl
And the ocean is a giant that can swallow me whole

So I swim for all salvation and I swim to save my soul
But my soul is just a whisper trapped inside a tornado
So I flip to my back and I float and I sing
I am grounded, I am humbled, I am one with everything
I am grounded, I am humbled, I am one with everything

So I talked to Geneviève and almost cried when she said
That the giant on the cliff wished that she was dead
And the lemmings on the cliff wished that they were dead
So the giant told the lemmings why they ought to live instead

When she thought up all those reasons that they ought to live instead
It made her reconsider all the sad thoughts in her head
So thank you Geneviève, cause you take what is in your head
And you make things that are so beautiful and share them with your friends

We all become important when we realize our goal
Should be to figure out our role within the context of the whole
And yeah, rock and roll is fun, but if you ever hear someone
Say you are huge, look at the moon, look at the stars, look at the sun
Look at the ocean and the desert and the mountains and the sky

Say I am just a speck of dust inside a giant's eye
I am just a speck of dust inside a giant's eye
I am just a speck of dust inside a giant's eye
And I don't wanna make her cry
Cause I like giants

And if you want to listen to it 3478 times, or once, click here.

Prodigal

I think the video says it all. I'm so grateful for what God has done in the lives and hearts of my brother(in law) and aunt who once were lost, but now are found! My cup is overflowing. I am so thankful for our family and for the way that God is constantly changing everything about this world. If you are anything like me, you are going to need a box of tissues to watch this:


Omar Andres and Tia Maria getting baptized from allie garcia on Vimeo.

"But while he was still a long way off, his Father saw him and was filled with compassion for him; he ran to his son, threw his arms around him and kissed him."

If you've ever been a part of the YoungLife prayer-a-thon, been close to Omar in the last eight years, or have known me since I met my husband, you will understand the impact this has on us. If I had any video editing skills at all, I would have added "Please come home" by Dustin Kensrue in the background. If you look up the lyrics, you'll see why.

Fireproofing

Omar and I have been taking a marriage course at church. We are on week 4 and it is such an interesting experience. See, marriage is like making a pizza. Except, in that context, we have never seen anyone successfully make a pizza. We were raised around pizzas that had way too many anchovies and were burnt and then fell splat on the floor. So, weve carefully navigated through this marriage thing for the last year and half, feeling much like Columbus, having no idea what we are doing, and we're finally discovering America. Except, unlike Columbus, we've realized that somebody has already discovered America, so rather than trying to do everything our own way and screwing up the entire new world, we are following their lead, surrounding ourselves with people who have already lived well in this place. Can you tell i've been teaching world history? Anyway, rather than commiting mass genocide, we are taking the smart road and have realized that maybe we arent the first people in the world that have ever tried to be married. The day we realized that was a turning point in our relationship, so we signed up for a marriage course.

If you've ever seen the movie Fireproof, you know what I mean when I say that we are fireproofing our marriage. Even though it is heaven on earth right now, someday we will face challenges and we are learning now how to overcome them. Together.

In the last few weeks, we've focused on how we talk to eachother. For instance, a few weeks ago I cleaned the bathroom. It was an epic event, and if we knew where to find our camera I would have posted pictures. I'm smack in the middle of The Semester From Hell, and anything I do beyond homework deserves to be scrapbooked. The day I cleaned the bathroom I did it in ten minutes, between classes. A few days later, Omar and I were in the kitchen and our conversation went a little something like this:

Omar: You really need to learn how to clean toilets.
Me: fsdfjasiouf832334#%$@#%@!!!

Now, were learning how to communicate more lovingly, so the next time he confronted me with an issue about housework, it was done in a way that made me swoon.
I have been addicted to this delicious "food" for the last week or so:

It is a chocolatey, delicious, FAST, breakfast and it resulted in 4 glasses with chocolate bottoms side by side on the clean, bathroom counter next to my make-up bag. Omar saw this, and what had the potential to be World War IV in our house, became this:

(This is a beautiful cup collection. It would look better in the kitchen! I Love You!)

and a giggly wife who was more than happy to do this:

“I love being married. It's so great to find that one special person you want to annoy for the rest of your life.” -Rita Rudner

I have a secret, that is not really a secret

My best friends know this well. My family finds it amusing. Acquaintances have absolutely no idea. It is a thorn in my flesh/ immense blessing that has changed the entire course of my life, how I view human beings, and how I see myself. It is not a closet obsession with The Secret Life of the American Teenager, although that is true too.....

Its just that in the deepest parts of my soul, I find immense love and purpose in people with disabilities.

I didnt always feel this way. In fact, when I was in high school I did this ridiculous segment on the morning news called "Joke Time." Broadcasted to the entire school, my friends and I told jokes about whatever was relevant. They were usually incredibly clever, like "What do you call a seagull that flies over the bay? A BAYGULL!" I know. I have a gift. Dont be surprised if you see me on Saturday Night Live.

Anyway, once I told an incredibly offensive joke about "retards" and had to apologize on air after it got a very negative reaction from most of my teachers. My face turned bright red when I walked into my math class and my teacher reprimanded me in front of the entire class, and spent the next half hour lecturing us on the value that people with mental disabilities have to the people that love them and how much it hurts when other people make fun of them just because they have a disability.

Fast forward 6 years. I have been teaching kids with autism, downs syndrome, and mental retardation for two years. I had a God-breathed epiphany one summer which changed my mentality about people with disabilities from eh, ho hum, dont really care, to OH. MY. GOSH. I WANT TO SPEND THE REST OF MY LIFE ADVOCATING FOR AND LOVING ON KIDS WITH DISABILITIES. I WANT THEM, AND EVERYONE ELSE, TO KNOW THAT THEY ARE MADE IN THE IMAGE OF GOD AND THAT THEY ARE VALUABLE, INCREDIBLE HUMAN BEINGS.

I have another year before I will have my degree in Special Education, but I spent the entire year last year teaching in a self-contained Autism classroom. Now, I am co-teaching a class of kids with a variety of special needs, and I can honestly say that I have never enjoyed anything more. Really. There is a student in my class named C. He has autism, which in his case means that he has "abnormal" social skills even though he "looks like every other kid," whatever that means. He also astonishes me on a daily basis with the things that come out of his mouth. For example:

Me (asking about another teacher): Does she believe in God?
Mrs. S: Yes.
C (not even looking away from his computer, but with a huge sigh of relief): Phew! Good Thing!
Me: What do you mean?
C: I think God would be pretty upset if she didnt believe in Him!

Me (after a discussion on friendship and love): So, who do you guys love?
"Fuzzy": High School Musical 3!
M: My dog
E: My friends and family
C: Everybody. Everybody in the whole world.
Me: C, why do you love everybody?
C: Because everybody is a child of God, and He made them.
L: Thats so dumb.
C: IT IS NOT DUMB. ITS THE TRUTH. THE TRUTH IS NOT DUMB.

Something equally adorable/convicting happens every few minutes in my day, and man, oh, man, how did I get so lucky?

A tribute to Bob

Once there was man who made some very bad decisions, and ended up homeless and addicted to hard drugs. He was desperate for a job and a home, so he applied to work at an apartment complex. There, he was able to earn a little bit of money holding a sign out in front of the apartments to draw people in. A few months later, the apartment complex discovered that they could no longer afford to employ him, so they decided to lay him off.

That day, he came in from his long day of sign holding, and asked to play the piano that was on display in the apartment's clubhouse. The apartment manager agreed, and went into her office, trying to figure out the best way to fire the man. Moments later, tears streamed down her face, and she sat in awe at the sound that filled her ears. She asked the man how long he had been playing piano, and he told her that he had been trained his entire life, that it was his deepest passion. With tear filled eyes, she asked him to come into her office. Then, she told him that she could no longer afford to keep him as a sign holder.....but she would love for him to be their new property maintenance man, as long as he played piano whenever she asked.

A few days later my mother in law walked into the managers office to sort things out with my brother in laws apartment. The man was playing piano, and my mother in law was in shock at his ability. She promised my husband that she would pay for music lessons a few months ago, but we hadn't found a teacher yet. So, she asked if he knew music theory well enough to teach my musical husband. He said that he most definitely did, and would only be willing to teach him if he was willing to learn music theory, not just how to play Twinkle Twinkle Little Star.

A few minutes ago, I met Bob for the first time. He is sitting in my husband's music room, carefully instructing him on D minor. He has a bright smile, and looks almost exactly how I pictured him. He and Omar have been speaking in musical tongues for several hours now, and Omar responds to him with the reverence that a young apprentice would have towards a musical genius. Which he is. I have never heard more beautiful music in my life. I have spent only minutes with Bob, and I am able to see the resilience in his eyes. It is clear that he is passionate, and patient, and grateful for the opportunity to be here. Moments ago, when I handed him his $1.00 frozen pizza that he heated up in our oven, and asked if they needed anything else, he replied, "Cheap pizza and bottled water, what else could ya possibly need?"



To Bob, the homeless musical prodigy, thank you.

Celebrating life

I have been to more than 20 funerals in my 23 years of life. I have witnessed the aftermaths of the death of friends that I have loved dearly, a father who I never had the chance to meet, all of my grandparents, kids under the age of 18 who had so much life ahead of them, and almost every pet ive ever had. People who know me well, know that I speak of death oftentimes in a way that is morbidly candid. I have been there. I have felt the anguish of losing someone too soon. I have seen young bodies in caskets and obsessed over the idea that this isnt the way it is supposed to be.

Because it isnt.

And I have seen the effects of these tragedies on other people too. The countless myspace blogs, the letters, the tears, the days on end that are devoted to the memory of lost loved ones, the high school students who cant get through the day because the wound is so fresh. I have seen shattered hearts, as people try to pick up the pieces, and innumerable license plate frames and stickers, "in loving memory of...."

Death is powerful and tragic and unpredictable, and yet...so expected. We live in fragile, temporary, bodies, and someday we will all die. And it always hurts the people around us, and it is always tragic. Its funny how we take it though, its as if it isnt supposed to happen, and when it does, we panic. We pour our entire beings into honoring the dead. Scraps of paper become mementos and we wallow in the sorrow that comes with losing a loved one. The most common statement ive heard is "If I had only had more time." If we had more time with them, we would tell them this, or give them that, or apologize for this.

And yet, there are so many others around us that we take for granted, people we still have time with. People whose phone calls we forget to return. People whose emails we ignore and who we break plans with. We forgot how temporary we are, until someone dies and we freak out and overcompensate, and frankly, it breaks my heart.

What if we actually celebrated life? What if we celebrated the people around us and spent more time loving eachother and less time criticizing one another? What if, even for one day a year, we thanked God for one another, for allowing us to be alive and on earth for one more year? And what if, when our eyes filled with tears at funerals, it wasnt because we hadnt loved them well? What if you could look at the people around you and say, "If that person died tomorrow I would know in the deepest parts of my heart that I loved them well, spent quality time with them, served them wholly, and, man, I cant wait to see them in heaven?" What would the world look like if we loved eachother deliberately? What if we did this in loving memory of every person we've ever known?

You matter to me. And more importantly, you matter to God. From the moment of conception, and well after death, into all of eternity, every soul is valuable and worth it to Him.
And ultimately, the best way to love Him is to love eachother.
In honor of humans, I am going to write tributes to ordinary heroes, people, dead and alive, who have touched my life in an extraordinary way and would otherwise go unnoticed. I hope you will do the same. Lets celebrate life together.