Just today, one of my good friends asked me to speak at the Summer Camp for her youth group. My knee jerk reaction was to say yes. So, I said yes. Then the questions came. I found myself realizing that I don’t know if I have much to say to 16 year old kids. “Drink beer kids, it’s great!” or “Have sex, just wear a condom!” Right. Maybe not the best place to start. (And for the record, I wouldn’t actually say that. I know after the Sex Post, some of you think I stand outside the school yard gate and hand out condoms to Jr. Highers. Haha.)  But after telling my friend that I would speak, I legitimately sat down and freaked out thinking, “WHAT IN THE WORLD AM I GOING TO TALK ABOUT?”

Ironically, just yesterday my mom swung by my house. She and my dad have been cleaning out their house and attic, sorting through old things, and throwing away old junk. Buried deep in the attic, my mom came across a few boxes from my high school era. Being my wonderful mom, she figured that past memories could inspire some good creativity, so she promptly left the boxes on my front porch. Nothing beats coming home to find a box inscribed with your 16-year-old boyfriend’s name, and the contents of high school youth spilling down the porch stairs.

So, as I grapple with what Jesus and God want me to tell these kids, I have been doing my homework by walking through memory lane of my own high school experiences. Read the rest of this entry »

For those of you who don’t know, a few years ago I almost got engaged. Through a series of various circumstances, we didn’t quite get that far. But, in the process I did learn quite a few things on life, love and relationships. And I’m not talking about “How to Avoid a Douche Bag” kind of things (I’m a lady and wouldn’t say those kinds of things on the internet), but I’m taking about how to be a brazen unapologetic woman in the midst of all life’s twists and turns.

You see, this guy that I had been with, I thought he was brave. I thought he was adventurous. I thought he was the greatest adventurer that I had ever known. And in response, I became brave and brazen, and an adventurer. I knew to keep up with this guy, I needed to be a woman who could handle the end of the earth and more.

But then, something happened. It turns out we weren’t in the story I thought we were. No rings would be exchanged, and we wouldn’t have the ending I wanted at that time. The story as I knew it needed me to be brave in a different way than I had imagined. 

But something I learned didn’t go away after the idea of the wedding had passed. The bravery didn’t leave. The brazen woman that I had learned to become didn’t go away. I couldn’t turn off the idea that I was going to be adventurous.

This leads me to a movie. Right, I know. Most people don’t think of their life stories in turns of Disney Movies. Or, if they do, you tend to think that they are pathetic people. But I remember, back in the time when I was thinking that I was going to get married, there was a particular movie that really displayed the kind of woman that I had decided to become.

I had just gone to the midnight showing of The Pirates of the Caribbean, At World’s End.  There was a scene in the movie that literally made me tear with ambition. I remember driving home from the theatre and making an international call. I had been so inspired from the image of bravery and womanhood that I had witnessed, that I felt like an international call was in order, even though it was expensive. I had caught him late at night, but he was willing to listen to my thoughts.

The scene I am talking about is below:

The thing that got me about this clip back then was the idea that the girl wasn’t waiting to be saved. If you notice, she was just as up and prompt with her sword as he was. He would lean on her and hold her for support as he reached to fight his own battles, needing her as much as anything. And like wise, she wasn’t wearing a dress – she wasn’t waiting in distress, she wasn’t literally needing to be saved. Instead she had her own weapon. She knew how to fight. She was just as much apart of the romance and drama as he was.

The funny thing  about that particular relationship is that it didn’t work out. I learned how to be brave, and yet, I’m not married. Which, if you ask me is just fine. But I did learn something that lasted me much longer than the relationship. I learned how to be an Elizabeth Swan. To be brazen. To have my own sword. To take off the dress and engage in the fight of life. To hold my man with as much support and strength as I could muster, knowing that the fight and the adventure were my part as much as they are his.

So, in light of the pirate ways, I toast to Elizabeth Swan. Cheers to the woman who inspired me to be a real woman long before I needed to be one. A woman who showed me feminine strength even before I knew what I was going to be strong for. Women, we are needed with spines of steel -  but yet spines of steel clothed in flesh and softness.

Let us not forget that. In the stories of adventure, we have a key role to play out. Yet, we have to brave and graceful. Not simply brave alone – but brave and beautiful…even while holding a sword and wearing pirate pants.