It's Who You Surround Yourself With.

I really wish I was organized enough to sit down & plan out blog posts. Honestly for the most part I just type whatever random information comes to my mind, usually go on a small rant & then slap on a really terrible ending that isn't really conclusive at all. So if you suffer through these, bless your kind soul.


I spend a decent amount of time by myself. I don't mean that in a 'lock-myself-in-my-room' kind of way. It's just that most weekends I stay home, watching TV while my parents drift in & out of the house accomplishing grown-up things. Honestly, my baby sister has more of a social life than I do. I'm completely okay with this, seeing as how I'm a very lazy person & going out takes at least a small amount of effort.


Some weekends it's a little different. I spent the past two days with some of the most incredible friends I could ask for, & it was definitely a perfect way to spend my time. We played Guitar Hero (which I'm terrible at) & Super Mario Bros (even worse, if that's possible), watched movies & just enjoyed being with each other.


One of my friends stayed longer than the others & we found ourselves in a really deep talk about our faith. So deep that when we realized it was 1:15am, we made plans to meet up today & continue our conversation.


Sitting in the high school parking lot (with the windows down, can we take a moment to appreciate the glorious Texas weather we've been blessed with this weekend?) waiting for her to arrive, I thought about the circumstances of our get together. Most teenagers our age don't say "Hey dude, let's get together tomorrow for pizza & Jesus talk." It is done, but it's a rarity. Although second semester of my junior year was filled with lots of Bibles & Frisbees, which was pretty amazing.


My family has always told me that you become like the people you surround yourself with. I'm pretty sure this is basic knowledge & advice for anyone: Don't hang out with bad people if you don't want to be a bad person. The people I surround myself with are such a blessing & I thank God for putting them all in my life every day.


The big question is, what do you do with the people you have to be around? What about the kid who sits next to you in class, or the girl on your soccer team? What happens when you don't agree with the choices someone else makes, but you have no choice but to be around them?


The biggest place to find answers to all this is, of course, the bible. We're called to love people the way Jesus loved people. In case you weren't aware, this is a really big call. Jesus loved everyone. Like, even the weird kid in class & the friend who texts you twenty times a day & the person yelling at someone in the parking lot. Jesus loves them all.


So, wait. That means.. I have to do the same?


That's a big thing. Luckily, I have a lot of help from the way my friends treat me. Even when I'm having an awful day or I'm just being a huge jerk, they love me through it. In fact, they love me enough to tell me to snap out of it. Who I surround myself with makes a big difference on the way I treat others because I model it after the way they treat me.


Again, I'm so ecstatic about all the bestfriends I have that want to read scripture together or jam to KLOVE in the car or just sit & talk about how amazing Jesus is. Being surrounded by these people is so comforting, but remembering to step out of my comfort zone & love others who don't necessarily love (or even like) me is a challenge. I'm hoping that I can work on that & show people how awesome it is to just love radically, all the time. I'm going to fail miserably at it several times a day, but I'm going to give it my best shot.


I want to be someone you want to surround yourself with.

Jesus Prom.

"The quality of your life is tied to the quality of the love you give to others. God has placed many people around you who need to be exposed to a higher quality of love."
               -Jon Weece, Jesus Prom.


I read a lot. The summer between seventh & eighth grade I read somewhere around 30 books. English & writing have always been my strongest subjects in school, numbers are not my thing at all. Right before my Jesus summer, which I'll probably blog about at some point, I started reading Christian books. You know, like, other than the bible. Being the extremely color coordinated person I am, the Jesus books I own are marked with basically every color of highlighter Sharpie makes, & underlined terribly so that it's almost hard to read some parts. Yes, I am quite the dork. It's a thing.


One of the first Jesus books I read was Love Does. Bob Goff tells numerous tales of the absolutely incredible life he lives, and how love is something that actually does things, not just proclaims them. It's one of my top books I've ever read, religious or not, & I highly recommend it.


Going off of that, the day after Christmas I was in Barnes & Noble, Starbucks in hand (judge me), looking for new books that needed a little more color between their covers. If you go book shopping, you know how overwhelming it can be searching for a new read when you have no idea what you're looking for. Somewhere in the sea of "guides to new life" & "find the soulmate God wants" & "my dog is a prophet" I saw a spine that read Jesus Prom.


I'm sorry.. what?


Once I realized this was the actual title & not something I had made up in my brain, I picked it up. Jesus Prom: Life Gets Fun When You Love People Like God Does. I was extremely skeptical until I saw some small print at the bottom: Foreword by Bob Goff, New York Times Best-Selling Author of Love Does.


I was pretty much sold at that point.


I'm not finished reading Jesus Prom yet, but I'm pretty close. Today in class I read a few chapters that made me feel so much I couldn't wait to type out what I thought. I only want to say a little about it right now, & follow up once I've finished the whole thing. But you guys.. this book is absolutely incredible.


One of the things I mentioned in my first post was how interested I've been in the concept of love lately (& how badly I screw it up on a daily basis). It really has been on my heart & mind a lot how much love is so underestimated today. This book focuses on how nouns need verbs to function properly. A Christian (n.) is a person who loves (v.) & talks (v.), & a church (n.) is a place for people who love (v.), give (v.), & go (v.).


The quote at the top is what my mind has been thinking about since I read it. The quality of your life is tied to the quality of your love. The type of love you give out to people is directly connected to the type of life you live. I don't know about you, but based on that truth my life could definitely be a lot better. If we're called to be like Jesus, doesn't that include loving who He loved? The man who dined with the poor & spoke with the sick & used sinners as His closest companions is who we're called to model our lives after. How we would treat Jesus Himself is the same way we're called to treat those who society deems unworthy of any love at all.


The book asks what would happen if we all invited an extra person to our dinner table, someone others wouldn't necessarily expect you to hang out with. Personally, I can talk the ear off anyone I meet.. but that's if I'm willing to do so. I'm so guilty of only giving love to people who I think deserve it. I don't reach out to others like I should but it's definitely something I'm working on. They say the best way to love like Jesus is to understand how you're loved by Jesus, & I think I'm finally starting to.


I hope that with some extra effort on my part I can do a better job of loving people the way I'm loved by Jesus. Feel free to hold me accountable to that, seriously. If you ever have questions about something in a post or have something you want me to post about or just want someone to talk to in general, you know where to find me. (Twitter, obviously.)


"& you'll see why who we love is always more important than what we love."

I'm Bad At Introductions.

I know what you're all thinking. "Oh my gosh YES, another girl trying to make herself seem all sophisticated with a blog that no one is going to read." (Jordan if you're reading this, I check your blog religiously & that was not by any means meant to be offensive. I love you.)
Anyway, yes. I am trying this whole blog thing. I've really debated it, because honestly, who wants to post their personal ideas & information about their daily lives somewhere for everyone to see? Our generation is based on perfectly filtered Instagram posts & tweets we proofread more than our English assignments. How in the world am I supposed to think of things I'm okay with posting to the public when some people I consider my close friends don't even know everything about me? Well, that's a great question. At this point I'm really not sure if this whole blog thing will last, but I'm going to give it a try & we'll see what happens.
Lately, I've been really intrigued by the whole concept of love. Love is about forgetting yourself & focusing on others. I am particularly bad at this. I buy into the idea that my life is about how I look & what I wear & the things I have, but that's completely wrong. My life is about the God who created & loves me, the people He created & loves, & all the different ways I can use myself to glorify Him. I fail at this, miserably, day after day after day. But I'm working on it, & before I die I hope to be closer to God than I am to this world.
Being busy is definitely something that gets in my way of focusing on what I should focus on. As I'm sitting here typing, it's 11:48pm on a Saturday night. My sister is yelling at me to play her back in Trivia Crack, my phone has Twitter notifications popping up & I really, REALLY want to watch Netflix until I can't keep my eyes open. Obviously none of these are valid excuses, & there are more reasonable ones like school, extracurriculars & all that slightly more productive stuff. The thing is, being an eighteen year-old in a world full of social media & technology can really pull you into the normal swing of things. I don't want to be normal. I want to be stupid happy all the time. (If you know me personally, I know you're laughing at that.) I want to love everyone like they're the most important person I'll ever meet. I want to treat people better than they treat me. & above all, I want people to wonder why I act the way I do. I want to run recklessly towards Jesus, grabbing the hands of everyone I meet & bringing them with me.
I am very aware that I don't resemble any of the things I just described. I'm a complete grouch in the mornings. I have a bad habit of being rude to people who have hurt me. I'm entirely too judgmental, I don't like being told what to do, & I am just about as stubborn as they come. The list goes on & on & on. I fail at being a perfect model Christian every single second that my heart is beating. I never, ever, EVER claim to be perfect, or anywhere remotely close to perfect. Honestly, sometimes I'm afraid to even tell people about my faith because I know how many times I fail on a daily basis. But maybe someone else is afraid too. Maybe someone has struggled with the same things I struggle with, & are looking for someone to talk to about it. The thing about Christianity is it's not based on perfection, it's based on love. It's about showing people how much they're worth & how important they are. It's about reaching out to people in your community, your state, your country, & overseas. It's about not knowing what you have to say but trusting God to give you the right words. It's about watching door after door close & feeling like there's nowhere left to turn, only to remember that there is a God who knows you by name, holds you in His hand, & has set you apart for bigger & better things.
I don't know where this blog is going. I don't know what I'm going to write about or if I'll ever have anything of value for you to read. But for right now, I'm here, & I'm speaking. That's as big of an accomplishment as anything.
Oh, by the way, hey. My name is Janzen.