Texas Church Shooting

First off, I want to say that the man was not part of Antifa. That is fake news that has been going around and we need to stop spreading it. Fake news people are like the neighborhood bully, if you ignore them they will eventually leave you alone. Stop spreading fake news and inform friends if they are doing so. If you need to use Snopes, please do it.

I haven't noticed a lot of gun debate going on so...*applause* I'm proud of both sides. You are at least waiting until the bodies are cold.

I want to extend my condolences to the church. I am so sorry that this horrible crime had to happen in the house of God. I am thankful that God served justice to the man who defiled the sanctuary. I pray that you are able to find a peace that surpasses all understanding.

As a pastor's kid, I pray for you. I grieve for you. I cannot imagine what this feels like. I am sorry for your loss.

Sam

Things girls do if they like a guy

This is just a general "just for fun" list. Not all these things are accurate for every single person. But here we go...

1. Avoid them like the plague. This is something I do all the time. If I like a guy, I try to avoid them. Makes it easier on me.

2. Flick their hair over their shoulder. I'm not sure if this is subconscious on most girl's part. I don't do it, I think it looks stupid and that you'll get whiplash from doing it often enough.

3. Try to make any sort of physical contact. I don't do this either. Not on purpose anyway. If I do it's because I'm comfortable with you and not so much a..."hello, let us become lifelong partners," type thing.

4. Try to be near them.

5. Flirt (I can't flirt my way out of a paper bag.)

6. Make an effort to look presentable. Once I get this way for a guy I'll know he is the one. xD

7. Flutter eyelashes.  This is a subconscious thing. I have done it before and so has my sister and neither of us knew we did it. Dad told us.

8. Try to like what the guy likes. (I don't pretend but I know people who have)

Those are just a few things. I'm sure there are more. 

Developing Anxiety

I am one of the few who believes anxiety is a thing. My own is on a lower level and rarely shows itself, but when it does decide to rear its ugly head in front of others, they try their best to keep me calm. I have seen the anxiety in both Christian and non-Christian friends. Sometimes it is so crippling they can't get out of bed.

When did my anxiety start? I don't have a pinpoint for when, but I have a very general idea. I started believing I couldn't do anything right when I was young. I had to have been around 8 years old when it first crossed my mind. I can't even remember what I did or who made me believe that. But I remember it crossing my mind and staying.

It went downhill from there. As I grew older my insecurities took root and nobody said anything to make me believe otherwise. I worked hard at my school and when I didn't get a perfect grade I would struggle for a few days. I would think I could be nothing more than a caretaker for my parents when they were old. Yes, I believed I would be a terrible mom as well.

I was able to keep it suppressed for a long time. The first time I realized I had anxiety was when I was in a crowd. It was during the Indianapolis Superbowl...In...2011? They had scheduled two events and it was overcrowded. I lost my group. After that, when I came home, I went to the Farmers Market with my mom. It was crowded that day and I gripped the back of my mom's coat so I couldn't get lost. My mom had seen the panic in my eyes and told me to hold onto her coat. In Wegmans she will hand me a bag or have me push the cart so I have something to do.

This happened again with crowds when I first entered college. My sister and I went into the student center and I froze. There were people everywhere. My sister saw my panic and told me to hold onto her backpack and she would lead me out. I obeyed and she led me out of the situation.

I am also always under the impression that people don't really like me. There are a rare few who I have no doubts about. I love those people because I never have to feel like anything is expected of me. I can just be me without being judged.

I tried to order food with a friend once and I got so quiet that I could barely speak. My friend spoke up for me and ordered my food because the cashier was rolling her eyes and acting rude.

My other friend recently saw my controlled panic. My card refused to work and I tried the way the Cashier said until it worked. When it was over my friend says, "It's okay, Sam. It's happened to me before too."  That was all I needed and I felt better and was able to joke about it. She also has anxiety and I think ours is close to the same.

When my Nana died, I lost all self-esteem. It really was amazing, I had no idea I had placed so much of myself in my grandmother. I was closer to her than most of my family. This is the hard part for me to talk about. She always built me up and never tore me down. She encouraged my dreams and hopes while trying to keep me from feeling like I was worthless. And I felt worthless a lot. It's coming up on the 5th year anniversary of her death and I'm not even close to being over it.

One thing my dad said to me when I was a kid...I was around seven. "Stop walking around like an abused animal."  I walked in a way that protected myself. If I acted small, nobody would bother me. I couldn't see (no glasses yet) before dad was saved he yelled a lot, and mom was emotional. If I could become invisible, nobody would bother me.

Here is for parents:

If your child can't complete a task, don't tell them they can never do anything in life. That is a lie and meant to cut them down. You are not allowed to treat your children like garbage because they can't live up to your expectations. That's abuse. Verbal abuse lasts forever. Stuff said to me when I was eight I still remember to this day. I don't have a grudge but I can't get rid of what was said either.

Your words have the power to destroy. Do not destroy your children's identity to make yourself feel better. "Don't stir up your children to wrath". Look it up, it's in the Bible.

Remember: Blaming Millennials for being snowflakes is crazy. Blame yourselves as you raised them. Take some personal responsibility and stop blaming the product of your bad decisions. 

My first Pet

I was around seven or eight years old when we purchased our own pet. We vowed we would take care of it, change its cage, feed it, water it...Mom ended up doing all that. Except for the watering and feeding part, I enjoyed that. I had a horrid gag reflex as a child which would often impair me from being able to do things.

Anyway, what was our first pet? That is actually up for debate. We had an African Clawed Water Frog and a Guinea Pig around the same time. The frog was named Peach and the Guinea pig was named Bubby.

We couldn't touch Peach because of the oils on our skin, the oils could kill him. So, we fed him and watched him grow. He never got very big, but he was still a great pet. When he was a baby he was clear, so we got to see his lungs, heart, intestinal system. It was really cool, best home-schooling experience ever.

Then we got Bubby. I suppose, technically, Bubby was dads' pet. But my sister and I played with him more than dad or mom. He was the best Guinea pig we ever had and the only one. He would let us hold him for hours, petting him. We would also feed him carrots and over vegetables by hand. He never bit us. Although, he started to bite some of our friends who were too rough with him.

Bubby was one of my all-time favorite pets and it brings me no end of joy that my father wants to buy one again, this time for my three younger siblings. I believe this is an excellent plan and they can care for an animal that way. Caring for an animal is a great way to learn about responsibility. 

Childhood Story #1

When I was a kid, I was the pastor's daughter of a very small church in NY state. Dad wasn't saved yet, so life was tough. It meant that there was unnecessary yelling, slamming doors, and walking on eggshells.

My sister was blissfully ignorant of the tension most of the time. She lived in her own world of imaginary friends and animals. She always has had the best stories and we all still think she should be writing.

Anyway. As a kid, I didn't really fit in. I was quiet, shy, got along with boys better than girls, and got along better with adults than kids. The other little girls told me I was weird most of the time. It was the truth, I was unusual. My vocabulary was bigger than most of theirs, my understanding of life was better, and I had a concept of death that most of them didn't even have yet. This caused me to relate more to boys than girls.

I started hanging out with two brothers. I'll call them Carl and Evert. They were my best friends for years, I hung out more with them than any of the other kids. We would talk. Just talk for hours, not even play. They could eventually coax me to play, but it would take a while and they were willing to wait.

I was never an optimistic child. My dad attributes this as his fault, we both are fatalistic in nature. We are both slowly becoming optimists, but it's taking longer than I'd like. I never assumed I'd make it to adulthood. I assumed I'd die young, like teenage years. I would come up with scenarios of cancer or other horrific deaths. So, I just figured I'd never get old enough to have kids.

Shockingly, I'm 22 now. When I hit 18 I realized I'd actually live and started trying to figure out what to do with my life. But that's not really what we're talking about.

I still can't handle yelling or loud noises. I'll usually end up trying to escape the noise in any way possible. This includes running away, hiding somewhere, or tuning out until it's over. This is not healthy by the way. I never recognized it as an unhealthy behavior but I do now. In college classes, if a professor seemed irritated, I would try my best not to react. I usually would withdraw within myself out of fear and it would take at least two weeks for me to be able to participate in class again. When my math professor figured that out, he did his best to hide his irritation. Whenever he spoke to me it was always in soft coaxing tones so I'd interact with him.

Since then it's gotten better, I can interact with anyone. I will explain my nervousness with crowds in another post. That one might take a little longer to explain. 

Why Service is Important

After some feedback from a friend about my tithing post I decided to write one about service before bed. This will probably have massive grammatical errors, so I apologize in advance.

If you are unable to tithe, one way to do so is by tithing your service. What do I mean by this? You serve. Period. You can mop the floors of the church, sweep, clean the bathrooms, dust, help with communion, etc. There are so many ways you can help.

One thing that bothers me the most is when the pastor is asked to do everything. And yes, I have seen this more often than I would like. It happened to my dad in a church he pastored. This was the mentality, "we pay you X amount of money. You are the pastor, you do this."  That literally meant my dad was taking out the trash, mowing the lawn, shoveling the driveway. A pastor should be able to focus on his family and the church. Don't force your pastor to do these things if you're perfectly capable of doing them yourself.

Just remember: Sometimes people won't know you served. Some of the best people I know have served in the background. Scrubbed toilets, taken out the trash, vacuumed, etc. Even just baking cookies for our fellowship meals, that is all serving. Not all service has to be public and noticed. It's nice, yes, but that's not the goal of service.

Freeing up your pastor's time to read and study the bible while taking care of his family is the best kind of service you can give. 

When all life matters but people deny that Black lives do

One thing that annoys me the most about the All Lives/Blue Lives matter response to the Black Lives Matter movement is the fact that it almost seems like they are trying to discredit Black people's struggle in life.

Yes, I agree. All lives matter, Police lives matter, Black lives matter, all life matters (including unborn life). But that doesn't negate what BLM is trying to do. They are trying to shed light on their situation and what happens every day in this country. And yes, it does happen every day in this country.

The root of this stems from slavery and the Civil Rights movement. Keep in mind that the Civil Rights movement was less than 60 years ago. So hold your tongue when you say that people are taking issue with something done 100/200 years ago. That isn't the case and I'm sick of hearing that. Into the 70s there were still some laws in place where a "black" man couldn't marry a white woman if he had more than 1% in his bloodline. This is still recent history and why you still have white people calling Black people the N word.

When a Black person says, "Black Lives Matter," and you counter with, "All lives matter," you are saying that their opinion doesn't matter, their life doesn't really matter, and you don't really care if they get killed or not. I know that's not the intention, but that's how it comes across.

Then your American nationalism gets in the way. "No one is Black, White, Asian, or African here. We're all Americans!"  Okay. That may be true, but there are people in this country who heavily relate to their ancestors. Y'all do it too. Don't pretend you don't. "I'm Scottish and proud! I'm Irish and Proud! German and Proud!"  If y'all followed up on your own logic you'd be told not to do that either. But you know, Black people are the only ones who can't do that.

Do you want to know what tells me a lot? When I try and make friends with a Black person and they are careful around me. I love when they decide not to be careful because then I get to hear different opinions, verbal dialects, and acceptance. Sometimes it leads to being flirted with, which I enjoy.

When my Black friends or Immigrant friends felt comfortable enough around me to flirt, tease, or just act normal...it was wonderful. I don't judge based on skin color. They are human and I love them for who they are. Their lives matter. Every time I hear of someone getting shot by the police, I feel sad. Sometimes I cry. Another life snuffed out by trigger-happy lunatics. (Not saying all police are like that, but there are enough.)

Please, try not to make your Black brothers and sisters feel worthless. They are wonderful people and don't deserve derision.