Car Discrimination

I have a 1991 Toyota Corolla and I LOVE my car. I have noticed though that quite a few people do not like my beautiful baby. There is no logical reason for this, so here goes my car discrimination rant.... 

I know my car does not look like this anymore.

But it sure as heck does not look like this..

And I promise you it doesn't smell like or do this!

For a reason that I cannot even comprehend, people treat my car like it came from car hell itself. People look at the little patch of rust on the side, hear it pick up speed, notice that it was most definitely not built in the 2000's, and what do they do?? They pick up speed and pass my precious Toyota, like they think that their cars are sooo much better since they have a big fat car payment to pay each month. 

I once did an experiment to see if it was me or the car. When driving my car at the speed limit people will pass me, if I drove between 5 and 10mph over the speed limit people will STILL speed up and pass my piece of "crap." I then took my dads much nicer Toyota Camry out for the same test. While driving the speed limit people generally passed me but not every car; pretty normal. If I sped nobody passed me. Maybe one or two true speed demons, but not anything like what happens when I am driving my car. 

Let me show you that all this passing and discriminating is completely absurd! Ok so I may not have a shiny coat of paint, automatic locks, a panic button, or even automatic windows but, I do have some things that are even better.

For most people they have a handy dandy little box (picture above on the left), I hear that it can unlock your car with one simple little push of a button. I also hear that it can make your car go crazy with loud noises, honking and blinking lights......it's called a panic button. I am so blessed to have a car that does not have such panic attacks. My car is calm and simple with one key that unlocks the doors and the other one that starts the car. 

Automatic windows....if I wanted to roll down my driver side window with the system shown on the left I would probably lock and unlock my doors a few times, adjust my mirrors on accident, roll down every other window in the car and than FINALLY find the right button that would roll down my own window. By that time I might be in the ditch somewhere so I would probably not even bother ever rolling down my windows...what a sad day that would be. Thankfully I have one little crank on my door...just one. It rolls down MY window....(big sigh).....so simple and calm. Plus unlike most people I get a workout when rolling down my window! Yah that's what I thought. Be jealous.

My car not only has all the cool gadgets it also has the ability to teach a person responsibility. You see if you leave your keys in your nice fancy car it probably dings at you and won't let you lock the door. Or maybe you never have to bother turning your lights on and off. While this all may seem like a convenience, you're missing out on a lot. I have been stranded for 4 hours with a friend because I conveniently locked my keys in my car. We had a great day and made some awesome memories. I also learned my lesson though and always check for my keys now. Since I grew up with "old" cars, I have learned from a young age to always check to make sure my lights are off, so luckily for me my car's battery has never died.

How many of you have walked out of a store and thought, 'Oh crap, where the heck did I park my car??' Nope I don't know how you feel. Never have I had to wander around a parking lot for hours on end looking into every car window wondering if that is my air freshener hanging off the rearview mirror or not. I don't even have to know what row I am parked in. I step out of the store scan and start walking towards my beautiful car. 

Alright and this last point is for all those single people who think that having a newer car is going to capture the attention of those around you. I also did an experiment for this one after a day of getting whistled at, yelled at about how great my crappy car is, and being followed another day. While driving my dad's car on the other hand I got nothing. With the windows down and some music one can get a little tiny bit more attention. This is my theory though, most people notice the "crappy" cars and then you obviously want to know who the redneck is driving it. So they look at the driver and when it is not what they were expecting, but somebody totally unashamedly driving their baby, they notice.

So, for those of you out there driving their car for attention I urge you to DOWN grade. The only exception to this rule is if you are driving a beautiful jeep or a manly pick-up truck. (Yes there are sissy pick-ups, but we won't go into that rant right now.)

The cars that you think are "old" and "crappy" are generally the ones that get and give the most love, have the best gas mileage, last longer, attracts the most attention, yah you get the idea. My car is most likely better than yours. Now that you understand the beauty of "junk" cars, stop discriminating. Stop passing us just, because you think your car should be able to go faster than mine. Stop bullying them by telling them that they are pieces of crap. We understand that you are just jealous and scared of the quality of our cars, but it needs to stop. Every car deserves an equal chance in the car world!  

The Despised Word

I haven't been able to decide if the despised word is siblings or humility. Most of us have at least one sibling, if not more. Generally we grow up with these people and we share a huge parts of our lives with them, but we tend to have roller-coaster relationships with them. The interesting thing about sibling relationships is that these are the one relationships in life that you never decide to have. You never chose to have a sibling or siblings, you never thought; one those people would be great to grow up with. Nope they were just given. In most cases we don't have the option to get rid of our sibling relationships, so what we do with those relationships is up to us. 

I have two younger brothers, I would say that compared to allot of siblings we have a good relationship, but like all other siblings we do have roller-coaster rides. No other person has ever gotten on my nerves as badly as my brothers can, no other person has made me cry as much, laugh as much, or scream as much.  Although we do fight allot, I have learned quite a bit from my brothers. Patience, true love, trust, and compassion, just to name a few. Something that they have been teaching me over the past couple of weeks is humility. 

This seems like such a funny thing for a 10 and 13 year old to be teaching me; since most kids have only one thing on their minds....themselves. As I was watching my brothers beat each other up the other day for the dumbest reason, I thought here we go again. As one crumpled to the ground in tears, I walked in, and the accusing began. I continually ask them the same question after all of this goes down. Why do you have to be so selfish and mean to each-other?! 

After I did this for the 50th time in one day I sat back and thought to myself, why do I have to be so selfish and mean to them? Although I may not beat them up or scream at them like they do to each-other, I say little rude things to them, I shrug away an unwanted hug, I boss them around, and point out all of their short comings. Why do I have to be so selfish and mean to them? Because they can be annoying or rude to me? Because they won't listen? No because, I want my interests and needs to come before my annoying little brothers. I get an attitude of, I am older and the things that I want are and should be more important than the dumb things that young boys like to do or talk about. 

When I am doing things for others outside of me and my brothers relationship, it is much easier to practice humility. It's still not the easiest thing in the whole world because, we still do like our needs to come first but, it is generally much easier to serve others as long as they are not our siblings. Part of this may come from the fact that other people compliment us on our great acts of humility, or from the fact that we feel good about ourselves for helping others or because we simply enjoy helping others.  Although all this is wonderful; are we really full of humility if we can't even sacrifice ourselves for our own siblings? 

I can already hear people saying: "Uh Laura these are my siblings we are talking about! They are the most self-centered, annoying, and undeserving people ever. And you think that I should show them humility and love?!" YES! I have come to realize that if I want to be a truly humble person I can't just pick and chose who I want to show humility to. It doesn't matter if I get recognition for being kind to my brothers, it doesn't matter if they don't deserve is, it doesn't matter if they continue to be frustrating and bothersome, nothing matters. 

Because I do serve the person who continually shows me humility even though He is 100x better than me, I should be able to humble myself in His strength and serve those precious brats of mine even though most of me may not want to. If we want to be humble people we will first chose to be humble to those who are least deserving in our eyes, no matter what. Why? Because we want to show Christ's love and humility to all people....even our siblings. 

"Behold, how good and how pleasant it is for brothers to dwell together in unity!"

 Psalms 133:1

"This I command you, that you love one another." John 15:17

What's Your Motivation?

 Every Sunday morning thousands of people around America go to church and sit in a pew because, there is some unspoken rule that going to church on Sunday morning will save you. This unspoken rule is despised by most of the people that sit through an hour long "lecture" each week. As they walk out of the church building they let out a sigh of relief; they now get to go on doing whatever it is that they feel like doing. 

In most peoples mind the word Christianity triggers thoughts of judgmental, self-righteous and legalistic people. Although this thought is perpetuated by Christians who are all the above; these thoughts mainly come from the "Christians" who just want an excuse to justify all of their actions that they know deep down are wrong. These people go around saying things like, "Ugh you wouldn't believe how judgmental so and so is; it's a good thing God's love lets me do whatever makes me feel good." 

What these people and people all over the world don't understand is that God, is not JUST a judge, or JUST loving, or JUST compassionate, or JUST sovereign. He is all of these, plus millions of things more put all together. As human beings we have this tendency to pick and chose what we like and what makes us feel comfortable. We act like we have a choice to chose the characteristics of God that best suit us in the time and place we are in, in life. 

Nothing could be farther from the truth though, God has and always will be fully God. Instead of trying to adjust God to suit our needs we have the choice and free will to accept who God has and always will be. This means that we will stop putting God in a box. Instead of focusing on just one of His characteristics we will press into Him and explore all of His characteristics. The ones that seem to hurt, the ones that are beautiful, the one that don't  fit our expectations, and the ones that we can't always understand. 

Our whole view on the world will start to change if we are trusting and leaning on the full image of God. Instead of seeing His words as a set of rules that have to be followed on Sunday mornings or whenever it feels right, we see them as an act of worship to the Creator who gave each one of us such beautiful lives. When Christ came to earth we see Him not banishing the law but, fulfilling the law. We watch in awe as He perfectly follows every word that God set in place. Surprisingly though full filling the law did not mean that he went around with a little checklist showing everybody how amazing He was for not breaking any of the laws. In fact He gets frustrated with the people that thought this. (Luke 6:1-5, Mark 3:1-6, Matthew 23, Luke 7:36-50)

Jesus came to show us that we are imperfect and that we can't fulfill the law. It is literally humanly impossible to follow the law perfectly. He also showed us that the law isn't what we thought or think it is. It is not a set of rules that if you follow you get a little gold star that you can than go and show off to every single person, telling them how amazing you are. Jesus did not come to banish the law but, to show us what the law is meant for. 

In demonstrating to us that the law was there to show us that we are imperfect and need a perfect savior, Jesus also raised the bar for us as Christians. Instead of focusing on a set of rules and regulations, He looks at us as intimately and focuses on our heart, or motivation. When we accept His invitation to live free from rules and regulations that bog us down each day we are given the opportunity to live in Christ's perfection. We no longer have to worry about following the rules to a T or being judged by those who do. Now we are focused on our motivation, which is to love Jesus. 

Instead of asking questions like: "Is this right?" Ask "Is this going to benefit those around me?" Instead of asking: "Is it wrong to say this?" Ask "Would this show others love." Instead of asking: "Can I get away with this?" Ask: "Is this beneficial to me or those around me?" Instead of focusing on the "rules" of Christianity we should be focused on a way of living. If we decide to let the only person who selflessly loves us and has our best interest at heart, with no strings attached, into our lives we will begin to truly live a free life.

Instead of letting our motivation be ourselves, money, peoples approval, work, or any number of things, we will let our love for Christ become our motivation. We will not be judgmental Christians, we will not be prideful Christians, we will not be justifying Christians, we will not be legalistic Christians; we will be Jesus Christians.  

 

"Therefore everyone who hears these words of Mine and acts on them, may be compared to a wise man who built his house on the rock. And when the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and slammed against that house; and yet it did not fall, for it had been founded on the rock. Everyone who hears these words of Mine and does not act on them, will be like a foolish man who built his house on the sand. The rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and slammed against that house; and it fell-and great was its fall." -Matthew 7:24-27

Respect

Something that has been exceptionally close to my heart is the slave trade that is going on today. I have learned and studied the slave trade until my whole soul just wants to scream, shout, and destroy the injustice in our world today. Recently though I have begun to study the perpetrator(s), not simply just the victims of the perpetrator(s). The question of; what makes a person so evil, that they could destroy a persons whole life so violently, had been floating around in my head and I needed answers. After plenty of research. I found many many reason for what drives a person to do that kind of evil. I found the core motivation in every single case was self service. It always starts with a need to serve themselves.

I took this theory of self service and started looking at it in less dramatic situations of day to day living. Every single human being is born with sin, which means we are all perpetrators. We have all done things that hurt other human beings. In our culture and cultures all over the world today we are told that if we are not happy we can and must do anything and everything to gain happiness. If our "needs" and "wants" are not getting met, we can simply just forget about everybody else's best interests and do whatever it takes to "complete" or "free" ourselves.

The other day I was driving home from work and I noticed a truck behind me without their lights on, in the dark down pouring rainstorm and I thought some people are idiots. Next thing you know the guy sped up and started driving parallel with my car. I sighed and thought ok some guys are simply over the top. I than noticed that he had his window down and was shouting at me to roll mine down. I rolled mine down a crack, there was no way I was going to get drenched because some guy was being a ridiculous. He then proceeded to yell at me that there was something wrong with my car and that he could help me fix it if I just pulled over at the next grocery store. I rolled my window up, kept driving, and watched as he pulled into the grocery store parking lot. I stopped at the next gas station to double check my car. I didn't expect to find anything out of the ordinary and of course there was nothing wrong with it. As I climbed back into my car sopping wet and now completely angry, I started crying. Not because I was scared or shook up but, because I knew he never wanted to help me he simply wanted to help himself. I cried because, I knew that some girls would be tricked. I cried because, I hate injustice. I cried because, he devalues human life so greatly. I cried because, there are men and women like him all over. I cried because, I too sin and cause others to feel devalued and worthless.

At the very beginning of time we hear God say ALL men are created equal. We look back over the history of our nation, and see Abraham Lincoln fighting for this very thing. ALL men are created equal. Today we watch people fight for those trapped in the bonds of slavery, we watch and hear them say; ALL men are created equal. I believe that every single day, every single one of us needs to be reminded that ALL men are created equal. Every time we demand to be right, every time we decide we are more important, every time we seek to fulfill our needs and wants first, we are placing others in bondage. We are saying; "Sorry but, I believe that I am more important than you. I believe that you are not equal to my awesomeness." How can we fight for the freedom of those trapped in the slavery of our world today if we do not first practice what we preach when we say that; ALL men are created equal.

Of course we are not perfect and we do make mistakes, but if every day we woke up and decided to have an attitude of respect towards those around us; we can start freeing those around us from our prison of self service. We can say honestly that ALL men are created equal. If we work against what our culture is telling us we can begin to build a community of people who have started at the base of the issue. We have decided to learn to become selfless, respectful, patient, and free.

For where jealousy and selfish ambition exist, there is also disorder and every evil thing. But the wisdom from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, reasonable, full of mercy and good fruits, unwavering, without hypocrisy. James 4:16-17

Braided Inside-out Bun

Lots of people have asked me how I did this inside out braided bun and I am finally getting around to putting up the tutorial! Enjoy!
                    1)

1) All you need is a hair tie, three clear hair ties, and approximately six bobby pins.
                     2)

2) Put your hair into a ponytail in the middle of your head.
                   3)

3) Make a hole in your ponytail above your hair tie
                     4)

4) And flip the ponytail through the hole.
                   5)

5) That way you have a flipped ponytail.
                 6)

6) Split the ponytail into three equal parts.
                   7)

7) Begin braiding each of the three parts and secure with a clear hair tie at the end.
                  8)

8) Now you should have your three sections braided into three braids.
                 9)  

9) Now take the first braid and tuck the end into the top of the ponytail and secure with a bobby pin.
               10)

10) Do this for the second and third braids as well.
                11)

11) Secure any extra fly-aways and random ends sticking out with your remaining bobby pins
                 12)

12) Spray with hairspray and your done!

DIY Lace Headband

My newest obsession has been lace headbands but, whenever I see them at the store they are usually pretty expensive. Which nobody likes! Next thing you know I was taking matters into my own hands. There was no way I was going to spend $20 dollars for something that I knew I could probably do myself. Here's what I did. 

All you need is a shirt or tank top with the lace on the bottom. Most people have them on hand already. I got mine last year at a second hand store for like $2. I never wore it though. Also my shirt was green with cream lace but, you can do any color. 

You will also need a hot glue gun and scissors. 

To start out cut the seam on one side all the way to the armpit. Next carefully cut the lace off of the bottom. After that cut a four inch wide piece off of the tank or shirt. You should now have a long piece of lace and a long four inch wide piece of the shirt. 

Take your shirt piece and put it around your head to measure it to fit your head. If it is stretchy material cut it two inches shorter than the width of your head so that when you wear your headband it doesn't fall off. If it is not as stretchy just take one inch off. 

Now you should have you shirt cut perfectly for your head. Now this is where you get to play with it. I didn't want my headband to be four inches wide so I put the lace closer together and than cut the extra fabric away. But like I said have fun with this part. I first taped my shirt piece down to the table measured my lace to match the length of the shirt and cut it. Next I hot glued the lace to the top edge of the headband. I than took the second piece of lace I had and hot glued it right under the previous piece. Trimmed off the all the extra fabric so that everything was neat and than just got glued the two ends together. TADA! 

Boldly and Courageously Speaking. The Truth (Part 3)

As human beings we love love love acceptance. We tend search out other people to gain acceptance or shut down if we are not getting the acceptance that we need. A few years back we had a foster baby in our home. Her name was Destiny Rose. At only six months old she had a detachment disorder. This meant that she hated being held and she would rather be alone than around all of us. Six months into her life and she already doesn't feel accepted and thinks she never will be accepted. Thankfully when a baby has this disorder you can "cure" them. But it is a difficult thing to do. I will never forget the long evenings listening to Destiny scream and flail as my mom spent hours just holding and rocking her. This is one way people react to being unaccepted. Hiding.

Another way, which I believe is a little more common, is when people chase after acceptance. Sometime we call these people desperate or needy. They are easily hurt and offended but, tend to go after every little piece of attention they can get.  These people preform, change, accept, and hide themselves for "acceptance" and "love." It's what they live for. Normally this isn't 100% their fault. They most likely have acceptance problems from when they have been denied or hurt by someone they care(d) about.

Both of these ways lead to destruction in the end and in many different forms but, the one I am going to camp on is when we break and blow up at a person. Not just any person though. The person (or people) we go to, to fulfill our acceptance needs. When we step foot into these relationships there is an idea that this person is perfect. Or that they have reached a high enough score on your checklist that they are somebody who you can rely on wholly and completely. Sadly enough every time we do this to a person it's not fair to us or them. Why? We are all imperfect! We are all going to make mistake. We are all going to mess up. We are all going to sin.

If you have an idea of how you think the person you are being accepted by should act and than all of a sudden they slip up and do something that hurts you, what do you do? This is where courageously speaking needs and should come into play. But we are in this relationship for the acceptance right? So lets just let it slide just this once. I mean we all make mistakes right?! Second chance for that person. No need to say anything. Wrong!

I have watched this time and time again. People get hurt by somebody, don't say anything, and guess what happens? The person they have been hurt by usually does it again and again and again. This can go on for years. Until finally you snap. You tell that person what a terrible horrible person they are. You finally tell them that they have hurt you a million times over. You blow up. After the major blow up there may be a quick, let's try and fix this. It hardly ever works though because, after years of simmering you have all that hurt and pain. Years of hurt, takes years to fix. Most people aren't that patient. So they move right along to the next person.

Do you see this vicious cycle? Eventually you will end up being a bitter and angry person. You may simply just close yourself off, just like Destiny. Let's back up a few years though. The person you are gaining your acceptance from hurts you. The first thing that many people have to realize is that they can't gain 100% acceptance from a person. You just can't. People are going to hurt you and you are going to hurt others. Simple fact. The second most important thing is, instead of letting that nick fester into a full on wound, put on a band-aid. Confront. Tell the person straight up. What you did hurt(s) me. Two things could happen here. One that person hates you and leaves the relationship. At least you now know that the person didn't truly care about you. Number two (and this one tends to happen more often.) That person is thankful and repentant because, you told them. They will want to know what they can do to change so that you guys can be in a healthy relationship once again.

If we don't speak up right away when somebody hurts us, we are in the wrong as well. Think about it. If you wait years and years and than all of a sudden blow up. The person that you are angry at probably doesn't even know they were hurting you in the first place. It's honestly not fair to them at all. You are lying to them. If we don't speak up and we just bury how we feel when things like that happen we are simply lying to them by not telling them whats really going on. And of course we are also lying to ourselves. Telling ourselves lies about how things will get better with time.

So if you don't want to end up being a bitter person that just holes up inside and never believes that their is acceptance and love. Go right ahead. But if you do that you will never find peace. There is healing. We were going to adopt Destiny up until the tragic court hearing when they told us that she would go back to live with her nineteen year old mother. The last night we had Destiny I can never erase from my mind. I remember my mom, tears streaming down her face as she held her little baby in her arms and rocked her to sleep in 30 minutes or less. There was no screaming, no kicking, no fighting, just peace as she drifted off to sleep knowing that she was loved and accepted.


"It is a trustworthy statement, deserving full acceptance, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, among whom I am foremost of all. And yet for this reason I found mercy, in order that in me as the foremost, Jesus Christ might demonstrate His perfect patience, as an example for those who would believe in Him for eternal life." 1 Timothy 1:15-16