God is an Onion.

Every night I read a chapter in my bible and try to learn from it as much as possible. Tonight, in one of the most short and unlikely of passages, God taught me an important lesson that I think we as Christians kind of adopted without necessarily backing it up with scripture. Tucked away in a segment of Mark 8 God taught me that he's actually an onion. 

I know what you're thinking: what lesson have we as Christians adopted that teaches us God is an onion? Well I'll obviously explain, but first thumb through your bible to Mark 8:22 and read to verse 26 (You all can do this, it's 5 verses). Basically Jesus spits in a blind dude's eyeballs (ew, Jesus) and asks him to describe what he sees. The blind man tells Jesus that he thinks he sees people, except they kinda look like giant trees to him. Now obviously the goal of Jesus' whole little miracle he's working on here is to get the blind man to not be blind. So Jesus rubs his hands around on this guy's eyes some more and all of the sudden the man can see "distinctly", as my bible reads. 

The first thing that came to my mind when I got through this section was times of season. In my own life this looks like my first semester of college last year. In others lives this could look like a loss of a job or financial trouble or any of the other thousands of seasons we can walk through in this life. God starts us on a journey and we get to a point where we think He should be done working his magic in our lives so we open up our eyes to look around and everything around us is all wrong.  How many people have given up on faith and God all together because of this premature peek at life and a hurried evaluation of God himself. We need only to have the faith of the blind man. To close our eyes yet again and allow the hand of God to touch us in our most vulnerable of places so that when God is ready for us to open our eyes we can see distinctly. 

So God is an onion. He's a process. There is no one-step acne treatment in God's eyes. You start at "Go" and you peel back layer after layer until God is done with his handiwork, not when we decide that we're done. Let's pray for the strength to be vulnerable to God and the faith to keep closing our eyes. 

2016 (Realistic) Resolutions for Dummies

My tips, tricks, and rules of thumb that anyone can easily follow for a better 2016:

- Read the Word every. single. day. Preferably when you wake up or before you go to bed. Do this in a calm, quiet, undisturbed and undistracted environment. 

- Eat desserts. 

- Breathe. In yoga you learn to breathe during exercise to lengthen muscles. In life you breathe to lengthen patience. 

- Smile. Again, often in yoga you smile through difficult poses to remind yourself that what you're doing might be tough, but it's worth it. A simple smile can be what you need to get through the end of a pose (which also usually is the hardest point of the pose when we think "I can't do this anymore!!"). This is a valuable lesson we can carry into our own lives. 

- To follow the yoga trend, do it. Often. It keeps you fit, it increases your flexibility and even your brain power, and could be the perfect way to wind down or even to wind up. It also helps aline your spine/pelvic floor and could be the perfect exercise for those who may not be able to conventionally exercise.

- Break rules. Wear white after Labor Day and before Easter.

-  Stay humble. You may be a 10 during the work week, but never forget your Walmart sweat pants/mud face mask/ 3-day-not-washed-hair weekend days either. 

- Life is hard enough. Buy a planner and use it. 

- Be organized. The older I get the more and more I realize how useful this skill is. The more organized I am, the better I sleep. 

- Speaking of sleep, spend money on good sheets and wash them every 2 weeks at least. Stay clean, sleep better. 

- Read books of all kinds. (If 50 Shades of Grey is on your "recently read" list, you're not doing it right and you're missing out on actual pieces of literature). 

- Pray. Frequently. 

-Wear what makes you happy, not what is trending. If they happen to coincide, awesome. 

- Keep coconut oil on hand at all times. Heals sores, softens skin, strengthens hair, and is a great healthy substitute for butter. Coconut oil and duct tape are musts in life. 

- Don't be a snob. Shop at Goodwill. 

- Drink lots of water. The benefits of water are literally unlimited. 

- When the going gets tough, the tough really do get going. 

- Do hard things. Often these are the only ones worth doing. 

- Dont hide behind a social media handle. Who you are is not who you are on a screen. Be authentic. Put down your phone in the presence of others. 

- Don't sleep in makeup, no matter how tired you are. Its icky, it ages you, and no one likes second day mascara. 

- People make mistakes. Your goal is godliness. Extend the characteristics of God towards people to the best of your abilities by exercising forgiveness, grace, and mercy. 

- Don't forget where you come from. Who raised you, where you are from, and who was there when you were at rock bottom. 

- Just because someone's lifestyle doesn't line up with what we believe from the Bible doesn't mean we have a pass to keep our distance from them. Never once did Jesus do this. It is our duty to be Jesus to these people and that requires interaction and often times friendship. 

- Journal. 

- Keep a working budget and write down all of your expenditures. 

- Just because something says "organic" beside it doesn't necessarily make it healthy. Make good choices. Eat less processed food. Put some green on your plate. Be awesome. 

- If you own a black dress, you can own the world. 

Happy New Year! May 2016 be the year you actually keep your resolutions (I know, who am I kidding?)