Renewal Is a Beautiful Thing

I woke up this morning with the best feeling I have felt in a very, very long time. I woke up today knowing that, somehow, everything is going to be okay. 

Lately, I have been feeling very lost. Hopeless. Depressed. Just really blah. There isn't a reason for it. Many are thinking "she's in the happiest place on earth; how can she feel like that?" I am truly grateful for my opportunities here at Disney, but that doesn't protect me from the Devil's ability to play mind games with me. 

Today I feel renewed. Although my future is unclear, I know it's going to be absolutely amazing. My God is an awesome God, and He has plans to give me a bright future. I was praying, just thanking God for reminding me that He is with me. He hasn't left. He hasn't forgotten. And I felt Him give me a special task today. It's a pretty great one.

He challenged me to let Him use me today. I want to help someone. I want to let others see Jesus in me. Not in some weird way. I want a chance to be kind to someone. I want to build someone up, not tear them down. I want to leave someone with the impression of, "wow that girl is different." I'm up for that challenge. I am so up for it. 

Friends, God is so good. He is just amazing. I can't believe that I, who am so unworthy of His mercy and love, get to be pardoned of all my sins and spend eternity with Him. I just can't express enough how in love with God I am. I have never experienced this... relief. Relief from what? I don't know... life, I guess. Knowing that I am in the arms of my Savior gives me a peace that no worldly thing can give. 

If you are feeling lost, I encourage you to stop. Stop thinking. Stop running. Just open your heart and ask God to give you a big hug. He won't refuse you. Ever. No matter what you have done, no matter where you are, He will always help you. He will always welcome you home. You don't have to scramble anymore, trying to pick up the shattered pieces of your life. God can clean that up, but you have to let Him. Just step back, and say "God, I've got nothing left. I'm tired of running, tired of hurting. Please help me." God has such a beautiful life planned for his kiddos. He wants you to live life of fulfillment. He doesn't want you to go to work dreading what the day will bring. He wants you to spring out of bed delighted to greet the day. 

You don't have to feel lost anymore. Just look up. He's right there, ready and waiting. 

How to Deal with Surprise Parties

Life is sometimes one big surprise party. 

You've just concluded a long day at work, and you're ready to go home and immediately work out, take out the trash, unload the dishwasher, cook a healthy two course dinner, and go to bed at 8:30 pm. Or get pizza, do absolutely nothing, and watch netflix until 2 am. The latter usually wins for most people. Anyways, so you get home and then SURPRIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIISE!!!!! Things pop out of your furniture and coat closet, yelling and throwing confetti on your recently (?) vacuumed carpet. 

How do you deal with it? You could put on a smile and say the courtesies such as "Oh you shouldn't have! I had no idea!", but what you're really thinking is, of course, no you really, really, really should NOT have done this. That's option A.

Option B is to stare blankly at the procession in your house, and then say "I'm sorry, I must have the wrong address", run, don't walk, to your car, and drive far, far away. 

There is Option C where you are actually excited about the surprise party, but I don't trust these people.

Now that we've go the scenario in our head, let's talk. 

Life does this right? It just throws this big, unwanted surprise party, and you're stuck with red solo cups cluttering your counters and confetti stuck in your carpet. So what do you do? Regardless of which option you go with, you will be stuck with a big mess to clean up at some point. 

My advice is to put on some rubber gloves and get Bar Keeper's Friend (you weirdos who use Comet, there it is). Your house probably needed to be cleaned anyways. 

I had some undesired confetti squished into my carpet. Now it's time to get out my vacuum and get those suckers out. It's called the renewal of the mind. 

It's time to refocus my life on what's important. God comes first. It's so easy to put God on the back burner. But I find when I do that, my life goes a little awol. It's time to dig deeper, and really fall in love with my God again.

The second thing that needs to fall back into place is my fitness. The job I have now is physically demanding, and I have used that as an excuse to allow myself to slack off on my workouts. That's not okay. Taking care of my body should be such a huge priority; the Bible even says so:

 

1 Corinthians 6:19-20 "Do you not know that your bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God. You are not your own; you were bought with a price. Therefore, honor God with your bodies."

Talk about a wake up call. I am not my own. This body was bought with a price, and I need to take care of it. I need to keep it in prime condition. All of us should, and not just by working out, but by what we put in our bodies. We should be feeding it good stuff, not junk. 

I take life one day at a time. These two priorities will keep me busy for a while. It's a lifestyle change. Making time for that one on one time with Jesus, as well as spending an hour a day improving my health. 

So I guess surprise parties aren't all bad... it can be a good turning point. But really, if you're going to throw me a surprise party, tell me about it at least two days in advance. Please and thank you :) 

When Bees Attack

The other day, I was in Mexico with Donald. It was a dreary, rainy day, and there wasn't much going on outside. I was sitting in the break room with Donald and two other women, just having a conversation with them when I noticed something falling from the ceiling. It was small. But I could tell it wasn't something we wanted in the break room with us. That's when I heard one of the women say "KADJLDKJAKLDNFOEIJA WHAT THE ***** THERE'S A ******** BEE IN HERE WHATALDKFJAIODJFAKLDFNJ;O" Use your imagination here :) 

Yes. A bee. Like "You silly human you I'm gonna sting you!" 

Now, I have never been stung by a bee. And I didn't plan on getting stung that day either. 

Luckily, one of the women had some kind of killer instinct because she killed the bee with one blow. Ding dong the wicked bee is dead. Ha, yeah right. 

Bees don't travel alone, guys. And if you kill one of their friends, they get very, very angry. One more bee flew towards us. Then another. Then another. Suddenly there was a total of five bees in a teeny tiny break room. 

Donald and I, it turns out, have the best self preservation skills imaginable. I'm not proud of this, but I, along with Donald, took off running. Not only did we run. We may have pushed one of the women out of the way. And she may have fallen behind. And she may have gotten stung. Meanwhile Donald is halfway to Norway. I've never seen a duck run so fast; it was quite impressive actually. Look at Donald Duck's feet when you get a chance; you'll see what I mean. 

Just take this as a lesson. If you are visiting Donald Duck, and a bee appears, don't expect Donald to stick around.

My Little Ray of Sunshine

On the Fourth of July I, along with Sorcerer Mickey, saw 507 families. Of those 507 families, only one of them made me smile. 

Family after family shoved an autograph book in my face, posed for a picture, and left without saying so much as "Hiya, Mickey, how are ya?" It broke my spirits. I was nearly at the end of my rope, when this angel came along. My attendant said, "Hey, Mickey, you've got another family coming from the other side!" That usually means it's a Make A Wish family. So Mickey turned, and this little boy, around eight or nine years old, came sprinting around the corner. 

"MICKEYYYYY!" he yelled as he crashed into Mickey's chest. Mickey held the little boy for a long time. The little boy pulled back and grinned up at Mickey. "How are you, Mickey? I'm sorry you have to work on the Fourth of July, but I can't wait to see your fireworks! Hey, you wanna play rock, paper, scissors?"

And that's all it took. For the next five to seven minutes, Mickey sat on the floor with this little jewel, playing everything from rock, paper, scissors to dinosaurs to tag. Mickey would have moved a mountain for this kid. The families who were waiting in line were getting frustrated, but to be honest, I didn't care. They could wait for their pictures and autographs. In those minutes, that little boy was not dying. He was not sick. He was perfect. 

And he will never know that he made Mickey cry that night. Thank you, my little ray of sunshine. Wherever you are, Mickey Mouse loves you so much.