13 Reasons Why #RealLifeIsBetter

#RealLifeIsBetter

This is probably the least pinnable, retweetable, or shareable blog post your gonna find. It’s not going to be crazy spreadable online, cause what I’m gonna be saying…it’s kinda like biting the hand that feeds you. Or should I say the monster that doesn’t actually feed you at all. What I’m saying is: let’s be conquerors over the internet, let’s keep social media in its proper place, let’s pursue balance and self control, let's stop reading meme’s and get back to reading books, let’s form our own opinions, let's put our phones down and spend time with real people.  Now come on doesn’t that sound like fun? Alright, so I’ll give you a little context to my new crazy radical approach to life.

On December 28^th Austin and I decided to delete all social media apps from our phones until January 2, 2014. It only took about twelve hours of detox for us to come to the conclusion that we needed some permanent changes.

Here's the top 13 reasons that came flooding in during that detox period:

1.     I don’t need to share all my quirky, clever, or cute thoughts under 140 characters with the world.

2.     It is the exception rather than the rule that thoughts under 140 characters are valuable enough to share with the world.

3.     The more I “share” the less self awareness I see in my life.

4.     If you asked our kids to draw a picture of us during lunchtime or downtime, it would be of us scrolling through our phones.

5.     When I ask myself the question, “who am I becoming?” from constant social media use, the answer is a whole lotta ME.

6.     When I ask myself who I want to be like…the answer is a whole lotta less of ME and a bunch bunch more of Christ.

7.     I don’t like your kids more than mine, I guarantee it. Yet I ignore my own so that I can look at the pictures you posted or the funny story you shared. I like my kids, so I want to soak up the most of them I possibly can.

8.     I’ve recently been vocal about my loneliness as a stay at home mom, and I just realized that a contributor to my loneliness is the false sense of belonging and community that social media feeds me. I want the real thing, and social media should only serve as one of several tools to get me to real relationships.

9.     Because no one ever gets to the end of their life and wishes for less time or more internet or cooler photos.

10.  Because my kids aren’t boring, my husband isn’t boring, and I’m not searching for anything better….so I’m going to stop living like I am.

11. Selfies. The worst thing to come from this technological era. Now listen, I have posted and will in the future inevitably post an occasional selfie. Sometimes being in a cool new place or trying out a new hairstyle or doing something really funny are all good decent reasons to OCCASSIONALLY post a selfie. But seriously the shameless self-promoting mindset that the selfie culture has conjured up is just ridiculous. Dial it back a notch…please. I’m begging.

12. Because “back in my day” when I was single and on my own in college, I have such fond memories of being ALONE. Going out to dinner…alone, going to coffee…alone, going for a drive…alone, sitting in a well light and frequently populated park….alone. I cleared my mind, I thought, I “people watched”, I dreamed for my future, I prayed through my present. Being alone is a gift that social media has stripped us of.

13. Because REAL LIFE IS BETTER than life online.

So that’s my abridged version. I hope that in my brevity I wasn’t offensive. I would be happy to elaborate on any of these points, just leave me a comment and we can open up a discussion! The internet and social media are not the bad guys of life, but when we let social media control our life….we are letting the tail wag the dog as some of my friends would say.

Here are the ways this revelation will be applied in my life:

-       -No more personal twitter account. You can follow the Bird in a twitter, and that will be getting a tad more use. But I’m cutting the Katy Tullos account.

-      - No more facebook or pinterest apps on my phone. I will be keeping my facebook because it is a great way to stay connected to friends and family, but my time will be limited to intentional times on my computer. Pinterest is the thief in the night of my time…from now on I will also be using Pinterest for intentional times for recipe searches and outfit ideas here and there.

-       -More play time with my kids (and I’ve found I’m very impressive with a tub of play dough!). I’ve found that the more available I am, the more often the kids invite me into their world. Like literally…they ask me to join them more now than they did when my phone was glued to my hand.

-       -No phone during husband/wife tv time. Hey these shows are actually pretty good and way more fun when we experience them together to the fullest.

-       -Instagram will remain as is.

Will anyone out there join me in this endeavor? Let’s get back to making memories and worry a little less about capturing a bunch of half lived moments.

Stories: My Life Altering Wings Run

One of the most important moments of my life happened in a car.

I was starting my sophomore year of college and it was kickoff week. I'd been asked to go get wings with a group that I didn't typically run with. I knew David, but that was pretty much it. Austin volunteered to drive me, and since I had made it my life's work to be the one girl who wasn't impressed by him, I reluctantly agreed and rode with him. I had a point to prove. (I know this move totally has an Anne of Green Gables and Gilbert Blith vibe all over it.) But because I'm inwardly a dork and I'm not one of those "yea I mainly hang out with guys, girls just don't like me" types, I grabbed my roommate and asked her to come (what I did not know until about ten minutes later, was that she clearly had a crush on him). Just to give you an accurate picture of just how powerful the events of this car ride were I'll give you a little insight to the way I viewed Austin. Upon entering his Volkswagen GT I thought he was arrogant, self absorbed, a little shady, a lot sketchy, and very cute.  On the way there, even though he asked me to ride with him, I got booted to the backseat by my enthusiastic *ahem* roomie. They started talking about who knows what, most likely it was music because she was so cool and legit with music stuff. Then I got a mass text from an acquaintance with a joke about special needs people. I basically erupted in the back seat. I don't remember exactly what I said but it was something along the lines of "Oh my gosh. I can't believe this." But with very high volume and personal outrage and completely interrupting their music chat. I completely expected this guy, who I thought was probably like an inch deep, to tell me I was making a big deal out of nothing. At the least I expected him to do what everyone does and use the good ole “They didn’t really mean it like that,” or at least the half hearted “Well I’m sure she didn’t know you had a special needs sister.” (You should FULLY anticipate a blog post unleashing my full personal outrage and call to action on this subject.)

Do you know what this guy said? This guy who was popular and cute and had no reason to go against the norm and believe/do/care what was right? He said, “I can’t believe some people. That’s so wrong.”

Crrrrreeeekkkk. That was the sound of my heart door cracking open. This guy, this cute and popular guy, he was different. And his difference, made all the difference.

Stories: My story

This new series was born out of inspiration. Our small group has been starting off the year by sharing testimonies from each couple one week at a time. Since we are a new group, this has been such a great time of getting to know each other beyond the surface. And by great time, I mean it has been awesome. We have also found ourselves making some new friends as well as getting to know old ones a little better. There have been so many stories exchanged over the pasted few months. It’s made me get the itch for a few good stories. I’m starting with the most important one, and from there…they are in no particular order. If there is one story from my life you need to know, it is this one.

My family always went to church and I knew that my parents loved the Lord. Every morning before school I woke up to my mom putting on her make up in the living room while she watched the news with her bible study book open to the day’s study she just finished with her bible and journal stacked over it. On car rides home from youth group I would talk about certain worship songs from the night and if the lyrics for some reason didn’t sit right with me. My dad used that as an opportunity to try to explain basic theology to me. I vividly remember my dad driving on this huge dark curve in the road near Berry Middle School while he explained TULIP to me, and where our family stood with Calvinism. So now that I have gotten a little ahead of myself on the timeline, you can see that faith was a staple of my life as a child and teen.

When I was seven, I decided I was ready to follow Jesus. It’s funny because I don’t remember where I heard the gospel for the first time, but I knew that you had to pray and talk to God about it. Another thing I don’t remember any detail about is that for some reason my mom had been babysitting a couple of kids for a short amount of time in our tiny duplex. I remember being the oldest and announcing that I was going to become a Christian and asking who wanted to pray with me. Later that day I told my parents, and they decided that I should sit down with them and our pastor and talk about what that meant. Now that I think about it, it’s really sweet and touching that our pastor would do that. Our church wasn’t enormous (at the time), but it was still pretty big. I can picture the conversation with Pastor Steve happening in two different places. I vividly remember sitting in a conference room around a huge, long, shiny, cherry wood conference table. But I also remember eating Fritos in a plastic bowl on our tiny concrete porch, waiting for Pastor Steve to arrive at our home. So like I said, I don’t remember the details well at all. I do remember this little booklet that illustrated a little stick person (me) and the word “God” on two cliffs facing each other. The only way to get across the divide was by Jesus who would bridge the gap. I carried that little booklet with me everywhere. After I prayed with my dad, and knew for sure what I was actually praying about…I looked at that booklet with such happiness because I knew I was on the other side.

It wasn’t until much later in life that I was able to discern between wanting to look good for people and wanting to BE good like Jesus and for Jesus. At my last summer camp after my senior year of high school, there was a worship night out in the mountains in Colorado in May surrounding a big wooden cross. I don’t remember any of the sermon that was preached that night or any of the songs we sang. What I do remember is kneeling face down in the dirt, praying and feeling absolutely overwhelmed that Jesus, being who he was, endured death for me, just as I was. I think it was the first time as a young adult that I really let myself think deeply about the pain and sacrifice of the gospel. I will never forget the beauty of that moment. As I lifted my head from prayer, I looked up to see snow flurries falling down. I know that in Colorado, especially in the mountains, it probably isn’t that crazy for a few snow flurries to fall in May. But to me, it was like hearing God say “I’m so glad your mine.”

When I went to college, I was working out the difference of “God the Savior” to “God the Lord of all my heart and life”—I just didn’t know it yet. I had grown up my whole life with a special needs sister, and had no idea how deeply ingrained her life was into mine. I didn’t realize how different our family was, I didn’t realize how much harder it was for us to get out and do things; I didn’t realize how far reaching the differences in our daily life really were. When most kids go to college they get kind of intoxicated with the bliss of their freedom. When I went to college I got that…and then I got mad. When I realized how much freedom and spontaneity were missing from my life and my family’s life, I was mad. When I realized that my sister would never experience the ecstasy of independence that I had, I got mad.  When I realized that most people are naïve, and lots of people are plain ignorant about anything outside of perfect health, I got mad. I had many crying, screaming, ranting conversations with God. But you know what? It was the first time I had passion in my relationship with God. I kept pushing to find the Truth and find Jesus and find goodness in the midst of my confusion. There were moments I wondered if Christianity was just a cult that threw clichés solutions at trite little problems. I wanted to find the people who fought for the hard answers, I wanted to find the churches that went further than emotion, I wanted Jesus to be real and I wanted him to give me some answers. One day in the car, waiting to pick up a friend from the dorms…I got my answer. It came clear as a bell. And you know what? It brought peace beyond my understanding…because honestly when you see what it was…you will wonder why it didn’t just make me more mad.  For the (probably) one thousandth time, I shook my proverbial fist at God and asked “Why her?!” And then it came. “Because I’m bigger than her. You need to see that I’m bigger than all of it.” And that was it. As painful as it was to hear, the truth is that God is no less God because my sister has special needs and He is no less God because I don’t get how it all adds up in the end. That was when I started believing that God hadn’t forgotten or overlooked us. That was when I cracked the door open just a little bit, to believing that God could still be a big sovereign God and be good and be loving, and not heal my sister.

I want to be very clear that my process was not an over night thing. But this was the catalyst of change for me. This was when I took ownership for my own relationship with the Lord, regardless of how it looked to the outside world. This was when the grace of God stopped being about checking boxes and starting being about authenticity. Over the next few years, there were a few more catalysts of change for me. Transferring to a large liberal state school changed my approach to spiritual discipline. Moving across the country to do ministry with my husband changed the way I viewed obedience. And the list goes on.  I struggled very much when I started writing this out, because I wanted to plump up some parts and make sure that people saw that just because my story wasn’t dramatic, didn’t mean it wasn’t interesting. But the truth is that my story is somewhat simple, and yet still miraculous. This is the story of my soul’s life. 

Frenzied Fussy Good Day

Today has been a really good day. Nothing huge happened. In fact, the first couple of hours were a little rough. Lily has been waking up earlier and earlier, which isn't that bad except that I had this awesome grand plan that I would start waking up 30 minutes before the kids so that I could use that time to quick shower and get dressed for the day. My plan was that with that task out of the way I could hit two birds with one stone, 1. have naptime to myself for homework and writing and 2. to train myself to become more pleasant in the morning for my poor husband's sake. Since the evening I declared my new schedule, Lily has literally beat my alarm clock by ten minutes every day (even when I set it for earlier than the previous day). I already started my day off behind schedule, then I had a super fussy baby on my hands, and then for the first time ever in this pregnancy I fell asleep without even realizing it. Thank the Lord I had already put Lily back down for her morning nap when I fell into one of my own. So when I woke up still in pajamas with yesterday's makeup and some nasty hair, I thought for sure this would not be a great day.

But with a splash of blush and a touch up of my old makeup (ok if you are reading this and thinking about how gross that is, you are a liar...either that or you haven't truly lived if you have never put a "top coat" over yesterday's mascara). We were out the door, frenzied but all safely buckled in. And then a glorious thing happened. The day went beautifully! I came home and felt energized to both write and do homework and maybe even a little clean up if I am really crazy. This post doesn't really have some huge reflective meaning or depth to it, but just to encourage you. Get out there! Live your life, go have fun, go spend time with someone new, just do something! Even when your makeup is crunchy--believe it or not it can still be a good day. My favorite news anchor growing up always ended the morning segment with the same sign off and I will leave you with the same (from Scott Sam's mouth to your ears). "Make it a great day!"

Easter is my favorite; Easter is hope

Easter is my favorite. It beats Christmas, Halloween, and definitely Valentines day. The last two...I mean duh, come on those are not really in the running to be anyone's favorite, but Christmas? Yea it beats Christmas, barely, but in my book it still beats it.

Easter is the celebration of the sacrifice and triumph that forever changed my life and I hope it changed yours too. Easter is what hope really means isn't it? No, not literally. Explaining that will take a moment, I need to step back and tell you a story. So several years ago during my college days, one of my many many "phases" was the stereotypical-enlightened-college-student-save-the-world phase. I had found a humanitarian cause that I was passionate about and decided to throw myself into it. I applied for an internship (which thankfully I did not get) and was prepared to up root and move to a third world country. My dad was patient in listening to my rants (I'm sure he knew that this too would fade just as other temporary passions had before), but then gently pointed out one very major flaw. If my plan for "saving the world" did not include and completely center itself on the gospel, then I really wasn't saving them. He pointed out that while drinking wells, and new shoes, and safe homes were all wonderful things and very worthwhile causes, if those causes had no intention of saving their soul then it was essentially improving their temporary quality of life until they spent eternity in torment. I never thought of it that way, I had never looked at life with the gospel in the center. I mean sure God and being good and reading my bible and going to church...all that was at the center, but this was the first time that it really dawned on me that without the gospel activating all of that...it meant nothing. None of the people who "needed my help" would really ever have true hope until they had Jesus.

Ok, so now we are back. Now you understand why Easter is hope (my abridged version). I love that every year we take a day and we praise the one who made us new. I love that for that day, we stop and we remember what it took to overcome sin and death, it took Jesus. Perfect, perfect, clean, holy Jesus. I love that we celebrate the event that gives us our only true "second chance" just as the flowers are budding and blooming. I love that we celebrate that Jesus came out of the tomb during the time of year when we emerge out of our winter hibernation. I even love that Easter egg hunts happen, even though they don't really hold any connection to Christ's death and resurrection, because when people are out enjoying nature they are witnessing the power of God. "For what can be known about God is plain to them. For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse" Romans 1:19-20. And I love that even when the egg-hunts get rained out (which could very well happen this year) that we can marvel at his love "he will come to us as the showers, as the spring rains that water the earth" Hosea 6:3. And I really really love that Easter is one day on a calendar, but the gospel "is the power of God for salvation to every who believes"(Romans 1:16-17) every day. Every single day, hallelujah!