thinkthinkthink

The last few days have been good. They’ve been a bit different feeling than the others. After volunteering at the Dream Center we headed to Disneyland for the day.

Three of us earlier this year were able to get a free Disney ticket from the “Give A Day, Get A Day” program, so we split the cost of one ticket for the fourth person and decided to go.

We’d been planning for a while on buying a families Disney ticket but we weren’t quite sure how we would present the proposition. How many people could we pay for? What if they wanted a hopper? What if they already had a free ticket for volunteering? All these things had crossed our minds but didn’t really hit us until we were standing outside the Disneyland gates. After 10-15 minutes of staring at families waking by and debating who we should talk to we decided to ask one of the cashiers about paying anonymously. Just pay for the next four one-day passes and let them hand the family our business card. I mean it’s Disneyland right? I was suuuure someone had done something like this before.

Nope.

They couldn’t do that.

So we began wandering, doing our best to ease drop as people were buying their tickets. After more endless minutes of people watching and listening I wandered back over to see that part of the group had found the perfect Disney family for us :) Jason was speaking with the lady buying tickets for her group of four. As Jason ran through Love Each One’s purpose he quickly pushed the ladies credit card away from the cashier and concluded with “…so we’d like to buy your Disney tickets.” The lady stepped backwards and one of the boys in the group suddenly snapped to attention, “Hold up! Rewind! What??” The other boy asked, “Wait, what do we have to do?” When they realized we just wanted to do it for them they where thrilled! And even took a picture with us :)

So it was cool. Very cool. Just being able to pay for them. They were so surprised. Not only them, but the cashier. Why is doing something nice for someone foreign to us?

Friday we had a slow day of packing and beach walking before we took off to San Fran. However once we hit the interstate we began moving roughly one mile every ten minutes.

For some reason I just never think of traffic. I guess I’ve never lived in a city where traffic could hold you up for longer than ten minutes. So we pulled off and decided to preoccupy ourselves until six-ish when the traffic should be gone. The boys went to see the movie Babies and Ging and I went shopping. We hit the interstate again around seven and where able to get to get to the lovely Lindsey O’s house a bit late that night.

But these few days of events have made me think. We’ve been doing normal things. Things I would do if I was back home with my family or out with friends. And it’s made loving individuals feel harder. Or maybe not harder… just more uncomfortable. Going to the mall I realize I don’t make a lot of eye contact with other shoppers. I stay out of their way and they stay out of mine. If that balance is broken by an accidental shoulder bump usually an apology is exchanged. Usually. But beyond that, we don’t communicate.

But why is that? The days that we’ve gone out specifically thinking “okay, how can we show love to people”? I feel more confident in my expressions of love. I don’t want to go on this tour very purposely loving people then go back to my normal way of living after week seven. This trip shouldn’t be separate from my life. I don’t want to allow myself to fall into old ways of thinking. I wont let it happen. I want to go home and keep loving people that I see in Panera. Or at Target. Or just in my house. I want to be loving everywhere I go.

Speaking of thinking, tonight I was thinking a lot. Just about loving people that can be hard to love. About loving people who aren’t showing you love back. After mulling over these thoughts I felt exhausted. I felt worn out just thinking about loving these people that frustrate me. Loving these people that maybe don’t listen or respect me. And my inside felt like yelling and crying and shutting down. And though my head was telling me lies, my heart knew the decision I’ve made.

Jesus has loved me always. Despite all the terrible things I’ve done and all the times I didn’t listen. He doesn’t keep record of any wrongs. And he never tries to make me feel guilty. So I choose to love others the way He loves me. And without His help, I wouldn’t be able to love people that way I know I can. Loving people is hard. It can be very hard. And it doesn’t have anything to do with feelings. Nothing. It has everything to do with your decision. Your self-control. They way you decided to act or react. I know I’ve messed up. I’ve let my feelings control my tone or my body language before. But I am becoming much more aware of the decision I must make to love. I encourage you to do the same.

<3emilyy