Bravery

Lesson Number Twelve: I need to be brave.

You know, I don't consider myself a very 'brave' person.  Whenever I think of brave, I think, "A knight who is on his way to conquer the fire breathing dragon to save his princess."  But I've come to learn that brave is so much more than the heroic term of brave (don't get me wrong, that's still a huge part!).  I've come to find that being brave simply means to do something out of your comfort zone.  Perhaps you (whoever you is) may have a different definition (and that's okay!), but this is what I believe.  Let me explain.

The kid who stands up to the bully at school, he's brave, right?  Well, why is he brave?  "Well, he stood up for other people!" Yes, that's true.  But it's so much more than that.  He went out of his comfort zone to confront this bully.  Did this kid want to do it?  Did he feel comfortable standing up for himself and the school?  Probably not.  At least I imagine him not.  To me, that's what makes this kid brave.  The fact that he went outside of what was comfortable to do what was right.

On the less obvious side, I would also say that the person who gives up something valuable to them, but they know is bad or wrong is brave.  Like, the person who quits smoking or other drugs.  They are very brave in my eyes.  They are giving up what makes them comfortable or relaxes them.  This might be a poor example, but you get my point.

Now this leads to me.  God has been asking me to be very brave lately.  I keep finding myself wanting to go back to what's comfortable, but he's telling me "Be brave, you will get through this.  I'm here."  What more could I ever need than to have my Daddy tell me that?  He's so encouraging! With his strength, I can be brave and I don't have to hide.  And I have all my wonderful friends that he's blessed me with! I often forget how lucky I am (I really need to stop that).  

The Sailor Scouts are spot on for this lesson.  Almost every episode, the scouts are encouraging each other to Be Brave, whether it's fighting the bad guys or taking a test or confessing to a guy.  That's definitely something I need to work on.  I consider myself a pretty encouraging person, but I need to tell my friends this lesson of Being Brave.  Being brave is almost never easy (I would probably even make the argument it's never easy).  Haha, that famous quote from Lion King keeps popping into my head.  "I'm only Brave when I have to be.  Simba, being brave doesn't mean you go looking for trouble."  Kind of random, kind of not.  Well, I'll end here.  Thank you Abba, for making me brave and giving me the strength to be brave.

~Alyssa (Sailor Star Defender)

Letting go

Lesson 11: I need to let go, and let God.

Huh.  What can I say about this lesson?  Well, it's made a huge impact in my life, as I'm sure it has with every  Follower of Christ.  First, I had to let go of my life and say it's for Him.  Then, I had to surrender the little and big things in my life.  For example, I had a hard time letting go of my anger towards someone.  Forgiving him was one of the hardest things I've ever had to do and it required me to let go.  Every time I thought I let go, I second guessed myself and pulled the weight back in.  Until finally, I had enough and I was done with being angry.  The only person it was affecting was myself and the people who cared so much about me and prayed for me.  I finally let go, and let God.

Since then (oh, three/four years ago?), I thought I was pretty good at this lesson.  I didn't have a whole lot of trouble letting go, except for friendships. I had (still do) a hard time letting go of friends.  I've lost so many that it takes me a long time to let go of them.  The Scouts never had to let go of each other, why the heck can't I find someone who will stick with me no matter what? It took me over 6 years to realize that my best friend wasn't my best friend anymore.  How sad is that?  Anywho, that leads us to today.  About 6 months ago, I let go of the best thing that had happened to me since Jesus saved me, my boyfriend.  I didn't want to, and I ignored God's calling to let him go for 6-8 months.  It took 3 months at Hume for God to finally say, "Enough, listen to me.  Obey what I am telling you, I will take care of you."

After the most painful hour and half phone call, and three days of nearly starving myself, I did it.  I let him go... as my boyfriend, and only as my boyfriend.  Okay, and it took me about a month to finally accept that he was no longer my boyfriend.  And you know what?  I surprised myself.  After that short month, I was okay with him not being my boyfriend.  I was okay with just being friends.  But, I was not okay with letting him go all together.  Heck, I'm still not.  I love him, and he's the best friend I've ever had.  I told him everything (everything up until 6 months ago that is). I held nothing back from him and neither did he.  I loved that I didn't have to hide anything, he was the first person I could do that with.  So now, here I am and God's call to let him go as a friend is stronger than ever.  It's not something I can ignore.  I need to let him go, for his sake and mine.  I just pray that God will be with him and comfort him, since I won't be able to anymore.  If you ever read this (doubt he will), I love you and whoever you end up with is a very lucky girl.  I wish she was me, more than you know, but wishing hard for something doesn't make it true.  Thank you for being the best friend and boyfriend to me.

God.  You wanted me, all of me.  Well, here I am.  Use me.

~Alyssa (SSD)

Do Not Worry

Lesson Ten: Do Not Worry

Worrying.  Yeah, I tend to do that... a lot.  I'll be the first to admit, worrying is one of my greatest weakness.  I know that it shows a lack of trust in God to worry, but sometimes I do it without even thinking.  I don't even realize that what I'm feeling is worry until I say it out loud.  It's something as a follower in Christ and a Sailor Scout in training that I'm continuously working on.  Heck, I think I could argue everyone has this issue and is working on it (okay, a good majority of people), but that still doesn't give us the excuse.  It says clearly in the Bible (Matthew 6:25-34) not to worry.

Something I've noticed about myself is that I don't tend to worry about objects or things.  I worry about people.  Whenever someone is going through a hard time, I worry about them (how their doing, what God is doing with them, etc.).  Like I said, a lot of times I do unconsciously and I don't usually realize it until someone points it out to me.  I also worry very little about myself.  Even if I'm the one more hurt from a situation, I worry more about that person's feelings.  I'll be honest, I feel like it's almost an insult not to worry about someone.  If I didn't, I feel like it's saying "I don't care about you and your situation."

But something God has shown me is that reminiscing and worrying isn't the solution.  You can still care about that person and not worry.  It's called Compassion.  Instead of worrying about people, we need to show more compassion towards them.  What I mean by compassion is saying, "I want you to know that I care about you and I'm thinking of you.  I'm here to help in any way I can."  Whereas worry says, "I hope you'll be okay and God will take care of you."  Hope?  God is taking care of the weary, of the hurt, and the broken.  There's no need to hope for what is already being done.  "To worry is to believe that God will fail." Worry shows a lack of trust in God and it's something I need to work on.  I have trust issues (just like many people in the world), and my worry clearly points that out.

Even the Sailor Scouts worry, it's not something anyone is perfect at.  It seems like in every episode, a Scout is saying to another Scout, "Do not worry."  Most of the time it's about defeating the bad guys, but a lot of times it's about little things too, like passing a test.  Now, this isn't saying that we all just need to let lose and never care.  We should care about things, it's what motivates us to get stuff done and move on in our day, but it shouldn't control our lives to where nothing good comes from it.

Abba, help me overcome my worry and my lack of trust.  I know you hold us all in your loving arms, so I do not need to worry.  Your will is what I want, no matter what that means.  I don't want to worry about my future anymore, it's too painful and it consumes my thoughts.  Take it away.

~Alyssa (SSD)

Justice

Lesson 9: God is a just God.

It wasn't until a year into my walk with Christ that I began to grasp this concept.  I heard the speech, "Accept Jesus into your life because you need him and you're a sinner."  I got that, but that was about it.  I kept thinking to myself, "But why did He have to die? Especially on the cross?  Why?"  And forget about the Old Testament, I had no clue what that was about.  I was honestly told just to read the New Testament because it's all I needed to know.  What a load of CRAP.  Anyone who tells you not to read the Old Testament doesn't understand the importance of it.  The Old Testament explains why Jesus had to come.  It explains His whole purpose, it's His back-story.

I remember the specific time in which I finally began to realize the important of the Old Testament.  I was on a winter retreat at Hume Lake with my church and Danny Strange was speaking on the Prophet Elijah.  Danny Strange said (in summary), "A price had to be paid for our sins, that's why that sacrificed animals in the Old Testament.  But it wasn't enough to pay the price.  God is a just God, that's why He sent Jesus.  So that, our sins could be paid for and we could be forgiven."  If God was only merciful, then there would be no need for Jesus.  Heck, the commandment would be worthless!  Romans 6:23 says, "The wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord."

As merciful as God is, He is also just and I think a lot of people forget that.  He is the Judge, not us.  "He deserves death because he killed/raped all those women!" or "She deserved to die because she aborted her child/did drugs/etc."  This could quickly turn into a political rant, so I'll just end with this: we all deserve death, but He gives us Jesus. On the flip side, "If God is so loving and merciful, how could he allow bad things to happen to good people?"  That's assuming there's a good person!  Everyone has done wrong and the only person who did no wrong died because of free will and justice.

People love justice, when it's someone else receiving it.  When they're getting disciplined or punished, suddenly we wish for grace.  It cracks me up that people only wish grace for themselves and justice on others.  "Oh, but it's different because there sin is SO much worse than mine."  Guess what?  All sin is the same in God's eyes.  Everyone (myself included) need to start seeing things through the Judges eyes and not the eyes of the world.  Learning that God is a just God is one of the best lessons I learned cause it broadened my eyes to who God is.

Sailor Moon is a perfect example of someone who fights for Justice.  HECK! She even explicitly says that's what she fights for 200 times (get it, once each episode... yeah.)  She fights and "punishes" those who do wrong, but she's also very merciful.  Anyone who repents, she's quick to forgive.  But when if it comes down to it, she will fight the pure evil to protect the rest of the world.

Help me see the world through your eyes, Abba.

~Sailor Star Defender (Alyssa)