merry christmas, for real this time

a few weeks ago around thanksgiving time when i was in missouri visiting family, everything christmas began to happen as it does every year. christmas music, christmas advertisements, organizations fundraising to help people in need, christmas drinks and christmas cookies, santa and his reindeer and christmas trees and christmas movies nativity scenes begin to pop up everywhere. and it's beautiful, people are happy for the holidays, to be with family and to give and receive gifts, and for many, to celebrate the birth of jesus. i am spending christmas in honduras this year and even now the billboards are all about christmas, the malls and the homes are decorated with lights and trees and ornaments and santa, all the churches celebrating the birth of jesus; everything christmas you would imagine.


this year when everything christmas began to happen, i was surprised to realize that for the first time i was enjoying the christmas music and looking forward to christmastime in general. the moment i realized i was enjoying it all was when i realized how much i have dreaded christmastime for my whole life.

my family does not celebrate christmas, so every year growing up, people would inevitably ask my when we would be getting our christmas tree or what i got for christmas. sometimes i would make something up, but usually for the tree i always told people that my family didn't put up a tree because "i don't know" or "my mom doesn't like them."

there were three things that were happy for me about christmas, and that was on christmas eve every year, we would celebrate my cousin david's birthday and a lot of my mom's side of the family would come together for that. then on christmas day my mom's parents would come over and she would make a lamb roast. my siblings and i were also a part of our church's huge annual nativity outdoor musical which was a highlight of my year. so if the topic of christmas came up, i could usually talk about one of those three things and pretend like i was normal.

in general, with everyone being so happy to celebrate christmas and my family not celebrating it, i think it makes sense that a kid like me would dread christmastime. the thing is that until this year, i didn't realize that i dreaded it so much because i had gotten used to it, it was my normal. so then i began to wonder, why am i enjoying christmastime this year? i know that part of it, maybe all of it, is that i have come to believe that i don't think it's bad or sinful to celebrate christmas. and because i was taught as a child that christmas is materialism and christmas trees are bad and christmas is a pagan holiday and not the real birth time of jesus, i naturally believed that i would be doing something wrong to be celebrating it. it was always an inward battle when all my church friends would be celebrating, and i didn't know what to think, if they were sinning or not.

because over about the past year i have been working on becoming my own person with with my own beliefs and figuring out what beliefs i'm taking from my parents and which ones i'm leaving, i've realized that i love christmas and i want to join in the happiness with everyone. it is a very tangible sign to me that i am developing boundaries in my own life and am making my own decisions in confidence without guilt.

i do still feel awkward when people bring up the whole "going home to family" and make comments such as "there must be so many presents under your family's tree!" but now that i am figuring out what christmas means to me i am also figuring out an appropriate response to comments and conversations like these.

i don't appreciate the way that the US makes christmas so materialistic (as well as most countries i would think) and i personally am not about buying christmas presents or believing in santa, but i think it's a great story and i love trees and lights and decorations and music and cookies and the nativity. and i think that people should be free to celebrate it (or not!) as they wish with no judgement toward or from others.

and i think that so what if it's not the real birth of jesus, he should be celebrated any day and everyday, and if we've turned a pagan holiday into something beautiful, then i think that's great. let's keep turning more things into a celebration of him.

so merry christmas, friends, and for the first time, i mean it!

 

because he lives... good study break music for finals week!

musings

Think not that I have forgotten those for whom you pray. Think rather of the many signs that your way is know to Me. Embrace those you love, near and far, with arms of love, prayer arms. Let My love flow through your prayers to bless. Truly I say to you, My love seeks an entrance into lives that are closed to My voice. My love seeks without violating the freedom I have bestowed. My love waits, and in the meantime, I call you to believe, to expect, to love, and to pray. That is a dignity and a privilege I have bestowed on you. Do not despise it, My child.

With my peace I bless those who seek it. It is found in the unexpected places and times, for it is not a peace as the world knows it. My peace is found in surrender. To the extent that you agree with my will, you realize that peace. It may be in the midst of uncertainty, even of pain, but when your will is united with Mine, peace follows. It cannot be otherwise. 
Stress grows from your vain attempt to control your future. It comes from believing that you know the way you should go. O foolish one! I am the Way and I know the way. To surrender is to give in to My way over yours. Since my way is life and peace, does it not make sense to choose it? Great peace have they who love My way. 

-Hal Helms

These past few weeks have been very hard for me because of the continued struggle and seemingly insurmountable setbacks being thrown at me, despite efforts to move forward with improving the dynamics and communication in my immediate family. It has been just about one year now since we started counseling with our counselor and life coach who has personally helped me come so far and helped my family develop better life skills. I was beginning to develop higher and higher hopes as I began to get my own life together and I was learning how to love my family better as a whole with all the different tensions and dynamics with so many people (14, plus my two baby brothers who aren't here with us [Nov 11 and Aug 20 are their birthdays so I'm especially thinking of them today], plus now my 8 dear little nieces and nephews). Life is hard no matter what, family is hard no matter what, and the more people there are, the more differing opinions you can have, but also I believe (at least I want to believe!) the more love there can be!
Progress was slow but sure, because we were seeking help and seeking God while learning so much about ourselves and our family and how to live life well. However, my siblings and I received new recently that my parents have decided to stop the counseling process altogether. There was potential that our counselor would only be working with the siblings and in-laws from now on (as my parents were not liking the process), so it was a literal shock to receive the news that it was coming to a sudden stop. After the shock wore off, I sat at my desk and in although I wanted to study, I burst into tears at the sadness and the seemingly hopelessness of it all. Without seeking continued help it seems that our slow progress would become so much slower and more difficult to navigate.
With the stress of needing to achieve a certain exam average on each of my tests this semester in order to be able to stay in the nursing program at my university, it all seems completely overwhelming. Totally  beyond what I can handle. I am not the brightest crayon in the box nor the sharpest tool in the shed, and although I know that God is equipping me one day at a time for what He has called me to do and has invited me to be a part of, and I know that He is allowing me to go through all of this at once, it sure feels like I cannot handle all of it. In that regard I feel like I am neglecting much of family-related things that I need to be working on because my focus has been my education right now.
I talked with my two older sisters for a while that day (we called an emergency three-way iMessage meeting), and we sorted through feelings of anger and sadness and frustration and then we reminded ourselves to never lose hope and to keep on keeping on every day, no matter the obstacles, and to laugh to keep from crying. Laughter is good medicine.

As I sort through all my varying thoughts and feelings that come each day, there are two lessons that I am learning right now.

Never give up. Never stop praying.  I cannot choose how other people will live their lives or treat me, but I can have control over my own life and not let them invade my boundaries, and I can love them where they are. God is the one in ultimate control, and I have to choose to love and respect because of Him. He knows what is happening right now, He knows everyone's hearts, He knows the future, I do not. All I can do and need to do is love in the appropriate way.
It's kind of ironic and cool that Max Lucado was the speaker this past weekend at Show Hope's annual fellowship weekend... and what did he speak on? Prayer. Simple prayer. Check out his book "before amen" if you are interested to learn more!

We are all in the same boat. In one way or another, life is hard. For everyone. Most people are suffering far more than myself in much more extreme ways. We all know the brokenness of the world, I don't need even need to explain that in any way.  I am coming to believe, however, that God does not want me to compare my sufferings or trials with others. I believe that I should trust Him through my individual circumstances and seek Him always with a heart of thankfulness. I believe that each person has unique circumstances in their lives and that the goal should be to bring about the best and to work towards honoring God always, and not comparing or ignoring problems because they seem "less than." I think every situation should be compared to God's best, and to keep working towards it.
Among my many emotions these days (and even though they seem crazy, I thank GOD that I actually have come to a place where I can feel again after several years of really not being able to do so), I have been struggling with guilt for two reasons, one is that this is somehow my fault and that if I was a better person or daughter then my mom wouldn't have left the counseling. It's a horrible feeling to think that I could have prevented this. My other bigger guilt has exactly to do with how I am learning to not compare-- I feel guilty for having these feelings and having my thoughts consumed with my own nuclear family (when not with my studies), because I feel as though most everyone else has it a whole lot worse.
My friend didn't just pass away from a heroine overdose. My little son isn't struggling with a congenital heart disease. I'm not prevented from running and dancing because of a spinal chord injury. I don't have to drop out of university because of lack of funds. This month isn't the anniversary of my dad's death. I haven't given birth to a stillborn child. I'm not being tortured for my faith or fleeing my home to seek safety. The list could goon without end. All these things are happening or have happened to the people in my life who are so close to me. But as I said before, we all the know the brokenness of the world and in each of our lives.
What I am learning though, is that we are all in the same boat in one way or another, and our feelings are the same. I may not go through what you go through, and you may not go through what I go through, but I can tell you that I believe that God goes through every struggle with us, every good day and every hard, every step of the way. He is our sustainer and He is the one hold our whole lives in His hands from beginning to end. He has given us each other to be supports to one another, to encourage each other to never give up and to keep on keeping on. To share with each other whatever we may have, the lessons we are learning.

Life is hard. If you are looking for an optimist you won't (unfortunately, I might add) find one readily in me. I am writing to myself when I blog, I write usually because I know the words in my head to be true but at the time I do not really believe them or feel that they are true in any way. I see the sadness in my own life and the sadness all around me and the whole planet. Somedays it is hard to wake up. Somedays I wish I was never born and I don't wish it upon another human being to ever have to walk the face of this broken world. Until now, I have not been able to bring myself to admit to any of my siblings or counselors (much less the public) that I have struggled with depression for many years. With our most recent counselor I was getting close to that point, but unfortunately we didn't get that far. It is (finally) something I have forced myself to bring up with my current counselor here at school,  and it was my main goal from the start to deal with this issue, because I've had so many counselors for such a short time with whom I have just beat around the bush and never dealt with the heart of the matter. I think I gained enough courage to deal with the real stuff when it dawned on me that my options were either begin to fix it or I was going jump off a cliff. So now I feel it's appropriate to talk about the process. To be honest and vulnerable is quite freeing, but it takes quite a bit of courage, an amount that I didn't have for so many years. It's hard to believe that for so long now I could have been working on this and actually be enjoying life and wanting to wake up in morning. It's amazing what fear can do to someone. It's paralyzing.
There is and has been a sense of worthlessness and emptiness deep inside me that no amount of loving words and no amount of hugs was filling (and I want to clarify that I although I know this is a lie as I wrote about back in July, what I'm trying to get at is that knowing something is a lie doesn't necessarily make the feelings then go away). It's hard to reconcile that deep within me under everything on the surface of everyday life, I truly have been believing two opposing things: that I am worthless and a burden to others and that life is really not worth living. It's strange because it's contradictory to what the people closest to me say to me and how they love me, but that is the odd and confusing part about depression I think. It doesn't just go away by ignoring it and surrounding myself with loving people. It's something deep inside that has to be worked out, something I believe only God can truly work out.  The other opposing thing I believe at the same time is that I also believe that joy is found in God in His love for us in the brokenness, in His restoration work of making beauty out of ashes and making the sick well again, of bringing God's kingdom to earth. These are things that I believe deep inside, in the core of my being. I really don't understand how the two can coexist, maybe it's that yes, my faith in God is real and I know that He loves me, but depression, just like everything else in this broken world, exists. And God wants to heal us all, but we cannot be ignorant of the brokenness. And up until now, in this case, I have been! I am in the beginning stages of this process.. if you have any words of wisdom on this subject, feel free to help a sister out!
As I close this post that I have been composing for many days now, I will say that as I continue to become more and more honest and find more freedom in life... I just might be an optimist before I know it!

Psalm 126:5: those who plant in tears will harvest with shouts of joy.

Keep on keeping on, friends. I believe it's worth the fight.
peace
anna grace haas

All I Need

I am lost

I'm alone

I have no place to go

Oh God, could you carry me home?

You're the God who saves

Yet I still run away

I'm a prodigal with no faith

Your love is all I need

And I know just what to say

I know what to do

Do I have no faith in You?

Your love is all I need

Carry me home

Come and carry me home

Your love is all I need

-The Icarus Account 

fall days

i had a very busy week with two (successful!) midterms among other things, and although i need to spend this weekend preparing for another busy coming week, i am looking forward to a four day weekend for fall free days!!! this seems to be one of my favorite times of the year. 

this morning i was at home (my brother's home- one of my many homes :)), baking pumpkin muffins to take to camilla hall (a home for retired nuns) on monday where i will be going with my nursing class. it will be our first off-campus adventure all together in our scrubs!

it was just me and acey (my dog and loyal companion of 8 years now), and as i baked and the smell of pumpkin filled the room, we both looked out the big windows to a rainy fall day, and i accepted for the first time that fall is officially here. up until now the days have been mostly warm and sunny and i have been able to wear my summer shorts and flip flops all day long. 

yesterday i had to put away the flip flops, and it was the first time i had to run in long pants and long sleeves.

we looked out at the windy and rainy fall day, and i was thankful for the rain, being reminded that last night my friend in california asked for prayers that rain would come. 

i looked across the room at the flower bouquets drying in between the windows, and i was reminded that it has been one week since the beautiful wedding of my sister emily and her husband shami. they are in greece now for their honeymoon and then will go back to their home in rwanda. although i haven't been able to easily stop my tears this week because i do miss my sister so much, i have no words to say how happy i am for them and what an honor it is to be a part of their lives, near or far.

fall is here, emily is married, i am soon beginning the second half the semester... i am trying to embrace each new season of life and not wish for what has passed and what is not yet here. that is hard for me. it helps if i try to find what i am thankful for in the present moment because otherwise it's too easy for me to wish away these busy and most of the time very stressful days. i don't want to do that because gosh, they pass so quickly!

The Long Awaited Day is Almost Here...

Tomorrow my sister Emily and her fiancé Shami arrive from Rwanda for their wedding in three weeks!!! HOORAY! I can't remember a time in my life when I've legitimately been more excited.
Whenever I want to worry that I will get behind in my studies during the wedding week and weekend, I just get too happy and my worries go away. 
I am so so so thankful and happy for them.

http://www.theknot.com/wedding/Emily-and-Shami

Freedom

What a summer it has been.. After I arrived back to the US from Rwanda, I lived with my brother Andrew and his wife Jen and their 4 hilarious and rapidly growing children. They live near my university so I was able to work of the families that I nanny for throughout the school year on a more regular basis throughout this summer. It is really a joy to spend so much of my time with all these kids! In between nannying, I went to the beach in Cape May with my sister Sarah and and some friends and cousins, I went to Maine for the wedding of a friend, I went to Sanibel to visit friends (and the beach!), I went home to Bear Creek to see family and friends for an annual reunion, I went to Danville and northern Virginia to visit friends, and I went to Missouri to nanny and see family friends... what a summer it turned out to be! all while helping my sister Emily plan her wedding which is coming on October 4th! And during all of this I have been able to make a significant amount of progress with the process of counseling that my family is in. I am growing in my faith and continuing to learn what freedom in Christ is and who I am because of Him.

And now I am officially a junior in college. What!

I am now back on campus, getting ready to be a Teaching Assistant for the incoming pre-nursing students in the Introduction to Faith, Reason, and Justice class. As I prepare for this semester and settle in and reconnect with classmates and friends, I am also thinking of Haiti.

Today was the finale of Haiti's national music competition to promote freedom and bring about awareness to Haiti's child slavery crisis. Many people worked together to bring this even together, and I'm glad that some of my family and dear friends are there along with Chris Tomlin and some US congress people to support our friends in Haiti who are working so tirelessly in continuing to bring God's kingdom to Haiti.

The world is not an easy place to live in.. no matter where you are or who you are, none of us escapes the brokenness. Although I consistently see and experience people fighting the darkness, all over the news and social media is the chaos that sometimes feels like it is taking over the world. 

I have experienced that when I take my eyes off of Jesus, the darkness does seem overwhelming and I cannot see His light that is in fact more powerful than the darkness, and in order to bring that light to every part of the world we must keep our focus on Him!

The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness can never extinguish it. -1 John 1:5

My devotional from today was exactly what I needed to read as I have been thinking particularly about Haiti, but also every place in the world where people are experiencing all kinds of suffering, as all of us experience it in different ways.

Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil; for Thou art with me. - Psalm 23:4

My dear Child, I have no delight in the suffering of My people. I allow it only for their eternal good. Blessed are those who turn to Me in their trouble, for I am a God of mercy and compassion. The valleys through which I call you to go need not frighten you. The shadows and darkness are only for a time. Let your faith grow strong when darkness comes. Faith will overcome where daylight cannot prevail. 

(Hal Helms)

As we walk this journey, may we not forget with whom we journey-- the author and perfecter of our faith (Hebrews 12:2).

There is a song on Passion's most recent album sung by Christy Nockels called "Let It Be Jesus." These few lyrics in it have been particularly speaking to me as it goes along with all of this.

Should I ever be abandoned

Should I ever be acclaimed 

Should I ever be surrounded by the fire and the flame 

There's a name I will remember, there's a name I will proclaim

Let it be Jesus