How to Get People to be Nice to You

Basically, get yourself some crutches, stat.  (I just googled "stat." Your friends at Wikipedia say it's from the Latin statis, which means immediately.  If you were wondering.) Don't believe me? Please enjoy this log of nice things that people have done for me while I have been on crutches.

-told me "You rock" for walking up some stairs
-carried my food
-let me call shotgun before the car was even in sight
-opened doors
-said my name excitedly when we passed by each other
-gave up their seat for me on the bus
-let me get in front of them in line for the bus (at prime bus riding time)
-put the handicap ramp down so I could get on the bus as easily as possible
-not judged me for taking the elevator to go down or up one floor
-offered me a ride to my classes
-offered to switch beds with me
-offered to steal her ex-boyfriend's truck to take me to the doctor
-asked how I was doing
-gave me a quarter
-brought me crutches
-let me borrow various items (mixed vegetables, ibuprofen, ice pack, ace bandage, page protectors)
-told me "I hope you feel better"
-told me that I was probably capable of ice skating on one leg (it feels good to be believed in)
-offered to walk places that I didn't want to for me
-offered to carry me around

That's a twenty item list, if you weren't counting.  So, I'm just saying, invest in some crutches.  Use them when you feel a little hopeless about humans.  So, we might ignore each other and let doors close behind us most of the time, but crutch chivalry is still alive and well.

Really, though, what if we were always as nice to each other as we are to people on crutches?  I mean, I'm not about to use these things any more than I have to, but I like having people be nice to me.  Maybe we should all just view each other as if we're all on crutches.  Or maybe more like 50%, so that the other 50% could be the ones doing nice things for the crutch people.

Treat someone like they're on crutches today.

(Someone should make that into a cute graphic in white calligraphy over a picture of the outdoors or coffee or happy, attractive people or something.)

Oops, just did.  That's pinnable.  Go nuts.

Real talk, though.  God has been so cool in providing for what I need.  Within 12 hours of hurting myself, I had crutches, a ride to classes, a ride to the doctor, stuff to ice my knee with, and had received a really cool text about relying on Jesus for strength and joy from someone who had no idea that I needed it a little extra.  Also, I LOVE sleeping on the couch and I get to do it every day for at least this week, so I'm pretty content.  

Allie

Hi, Mom!

My mom misses the blog.

So I'm writing.  Except this time I'm just writing for my mom.  So, if you're not my mom and you're here, that's great, but just keep in my mind that this content might be a little bit off for you, because, well, you're not my mom.

College is good.  This semester especially - I'm pretty excited about it.  I have a couple of pretty cool opportunities coming up in the near future.  One of them involves working with the GVSU version of Humans of New York, which I'm so excited about.  The outline for what I'll be doing as a part of that is still very, very vague, but, man, I'm just so pumped anyway!

I've also recently (as in, earlier this afternoon) been offered an interview to become an RA at my school.  Interviews happen in two weeks, and whenever I get nervous I just drown that out with images of myself baking endless batches of cookies for my adoring residents.  It's pretty competitive here - there are about 200 of us going for 50 positions.  I feel like my camp counselor skills are going to come in handy, but we'll see.  Sometimes no amount of skill can white out the innate awkwardness in me that tends to rear its head in high-pressure, interview situations. 

Most of all, though, I'm excited to see what God does in my life.  I have a great community of Christian people to support me here at GV - our on-campus ministry is incredible, and I love my small group and my church.  Really, though, those things are usually the highlights of my week.  I'm blessed to have small group leaders and friends who not only teach the Bible but set an example of a life devoted to Jesus, and I am constantly thankful for that. 

God's been working around me in some very God ways, doing things that I know can only be of him.  He's calling me to live boldly, embracing the uniqueness of who I am as a child of God and proclaiming his name loudly and often.  I don't really like that last sentence, because that makes it sound like living for God like that looks like this perfect, heroic thing.  In real life, "embracing uniqueness" means being weird.  I'm still learning how that works (I always will be), and so it's almost always awkward and uncomfortable for at least one party involved (me) (let's be honest, probably both of us).  "Proclaiming his name loudly and often" equals saying "Jesus loves me" and strange times or staking out the doors of a church in order to pray for a barely-not-stranger whose name I can't remember (true story.)  Today, it ended up being sitting on the couch of my dorm room and struggling through the really tough questions with my roommate while a DIY project from earlier today crashed down over my head (literally - a shelf fell off the wall; the only casualty was the baby Christmas tree that I'm pretty sure was never going to grow anyway.)

Anyway: God's been doing stuff.  The idea that he's going to keep working and that I get to keep joining him makes me excited to get up in the morning.  The knowledge that he's already beaten any little thing that Satan wants to use to hold me back keeps me joyful beyond what makes sense based on the circumstances.  And I can rest easy knowing that he's plenty good enough to work something amazing through my awkward, muddled attempts at describing Him. 

So, that's what I'd tell my mom right now.  That, and also that I met a girl who went to the same college as my cousin the other day.  And how much I love the new skincare class opening that she texted me.  And that I love her. 

Allie

Much & Well // Loving

When I write, I really like for the words to sound pretty, frequenting thesaurus.com and my dad's vocabulary in attempts to fit the perfect variation of a word into a sentence.  Maybe it's an ego thing or maybe I'm just a true word artist or something. All that to say: I'm not sure if rhythmic, syntactical perfection is where this post is headed.  I'll probably just try to write true things and see where it goes from there. Just so you know.

I know I'm so excited about words from Philippians 1:9.  In The Message translation of the Bible, that reads:

"So this is my prayer: that your love will flourish and that you will not only love much but well."



I want to hit enter a few too many times to give those words the pedestal they deserve.  Read it again.

"This is my prayer: that your love will flourish and that you will not only love much but well."

That your love will flourish and that you will not only love much but well.

That you will not only love much but well.

Is it sinking in? How simple and complete that prayer is? It has been for me lately, so much.

Since I began caring about God on my own time, I've wrestled hard with and frozen up over that beast of: What does God want me to do? I drank in videos from the Experiencing God Bible study
and scoured the world around me for "signs," whatever those really are.  Before deciding to go
somewhere or do something, you better believe I agonized over whether my presence in the
graduation party, church picnic, or team sport in question was God's will for my life.  Because what if I was in the wrong place at the wrong time and I messed up everything forever? I don't have any stress-induced issues that I know of, but I obviously tried really hard to get some.

According to Paul, doing what God wants doesn't require such intense overthinking.  Our Creator's command, again and again, is to love.  And just that: love.

But the greatest of these is love. // 1 Corinthians 13:13

 So, no matter what I say, what I believe, and what I do, I’m bankrupt without love. // 1 Corinthians 
13:7

Love God, your God, with your whole heart: love him with all that’s in you, love him with all you’ve
 got! // Deuteronomy 6:5

Love is the rule, not the exception; the place to which God is constantly guiding us.  It's simple, and my frantic brain, weary of constant analysis, rests in Paul's prayer.

"That you not only love much but well." 

As I focus on carrying out that calling, I'm quickly learning that the simplicity of the command does not equal ease in the life it dictates. Loving is hard.  The more I try to pour out, the more often I come to the end of myself.  Relying on God to give me enough to do as He asks. And repeat.

And so in the prayer for abundant, deep love I find peace and an insurmountable challenge.  May I come to a place where I welcome both.