My name is Deborah.

I am taller than most girls.
I love polka-dots.
I could jump on the trampoline for hours.
I am addicted to physically pushing myself.
I eat Oreos by the sleeve (double stuff, naturally).
I have hair that will not make up its mind.
I love accents.
I adore Mary Poppins as my babysitting hero.
I love to run, but I hate getting in shape.

I spit out shrimp.
I have a childhood loyalty to cherry pepsi.
I have seriously waxy ears.
I watch movies in Spanish, just because.
I'd rather write papers than clean toilets.
I like card-stock paper.
I'm a xenophile.

I may be whiter than sour cream.
I have had bad experiences with cilantro.
I -when re-watching movies- won't finish them sometimes because... I don't like endings.

I love Jesus. a lot.

I am happy to announce that Hope Shining now has a You Tube channel you can go to by clicking this!

Some friends and I have put together our very first video blog: "Breaking Mirrors || Identity in Christ."

(Everything - audio and all - is of our own creation).

We break mirrors.
We fill frames.
Our shoes are in glass.
And we laugh.

Please, enjoy and share with any you feel could benefit from it.

Image not copyright to Hope Shining but from the above site

She sat in front of me.

Those same eyes that had seen me in some of my darkest moments looked back at me.

She sat mere feet away,
yet it felt like a vast distance separated us.

My friend no longer seemed like the girl I once knew.

I longed to see the same smile that had reminded me of what hope feels like.
I ached to see the light come back into her eyes and to eagerly talk of our hopes and wild dreams.
She was sitting there as part of my heart was
breaking,
and I angrily asked why?

Why does my dear friend have to go down this path?
Why is she choosing to leave me in this way?
Why can't she see the darkness of the place she's has fallen to?

What do we do when our friends no longer seem to be the people we once knew?

The pain at how they hurt themselves stings.  The pain at how they've hurt us in the process feels like hydrogen peroxide poured in an already open wound.
Sadness.  Anger.  Frustration.  Hopelessness.  It all leaves a bitter taste in our mouths contrasted to the sweet friendship we once knew.

However, God's hand still works even when we cannot see it, and He always has a purpose in the pain.

When the person you knew seems gone, try these few tips that I've learned through the girl who sat in front of me:

1. Expect Altered Expectiations
The truth is, your friendship with this person has altered.  This new season in your relationship is going to bring change in your interactions.  You may have daily text-ed, facetimed often, hung out at least once a week, encouraged each other frequently, and always felt super close whenever you saw each other.
All this may no longer happen,
and the absence can leave you sometimes angry even though you might not know why.
Here's a tip: stop and examine your expectations (cause they are going to need some change).
If you and your friend are drifting apart, those habits are no longer normal and expecting them is only going to bring you constant disappointment.
To save yourself pain, you must change your expectations for how close your friendship is and how you expect your friend to treat your relationship.
Then, you may have to live with this "new normal," these new expectations, for a season.

2. Don't Light Your Own Flare
Because we live in a cause and effect world, this person's change has affected you.  You are responding in some way.  Often, when close relationships become more distant, unhealthy emotions can surface: anger at your friend for making destructive choices, frustration at being neglected and at perhaps witnessing others take your place, etc.
Get on your knees before the Father about this relationship before these emotions are allowed to surface in negative ways.  Let Him deal with your own heart, so that you are able to deal with the person in a Christ-like way.  Let Him sooth your anger and replace the hurt with His love.  
Ask Him to guard your attitude and words as you interact with this person so that you may continue to respond in love.

3.  Remember Who
You know who your friend used to be.  You know that God still has amazing plans for them and wants to use them in glorious ways.
They need you to not give up on that person who seems to have disappeared. 
Yes, your friend may not always need to be lectured that they have made so many bad choices and are going to ruin their life and such.
However, neither do they need your acceptance of their behavior.
Don't be afraid to let them know where you stand. 
Let them know that you still believe in them, that wonderful plans are in store for them, that God wants them to surrender their lives once again, but you may need to make it clear that you aren't going to bend from the Bible; you won't support ungodly choices. You may need to say no to some of what they may want you to participate in - activities that are beyond what you feel is leading a God-honoring life.  When appropriate, you can challenge them to live up to the life God has for them, as well, because His plans are the absolute best for us; He can do immeasurably more than all we ask or think (Ephesians 3:20). 

Finally, pray.
Pray that they will come back to the King.
Pray that they will let Him work in their heart.
Pray that they will bow in surrender to all that He has.

Prayer changes lives.

He held a cookie frosted with words of celebration:
Ansel Elgort had reached one million followers on Twitter.

She'd posted a picture of the four of them - one author and three actors - smiling with arms around each other.
Shailene Woodley had captioned it "our constellation :)" (Real life superstars in formation, apparently).

The good life - 
Adoring fans.
Friends among celebrities.
Special privileges.
Red carpets, photo-shoots, and limos.

Superstars are not the only ones who seem to have the good life, though.

She preached the word strongly, and she, too, got to travel to new places and hold the attention of arenas filled with people.

With rocker hair, skinny jeans, red lipstick and all, they had traveled all the way from Australia as they danced and sang through America.  Posting pictures of their conferences, they hashtagged their photos "partyintheUSA"

These people seem to radiate the good life, too, yet the good life reaches even more closely into our lives.

Her hair is smooth and bouncily curly while her blouse seems to epitomize style.
Her flawless conversation, better grades than you, nicer car, and cuter phone case screams to you that she
has the good life, too.

His name on the record sign in front of the school shows his athletic ability that always seems to cast a shadow on yours.  His swaggeringly confident walk and ease of manner screams to you that he
has the good life, too.

Looking from the outside, the good-life group seems to hold perfectly wonderful existences, and your life seems like little more than flaws and deficiencies.

"If only I had somebody else's life..." we say.

What are we to do?


1. Snatch those alluring possibilities and set your priority.
In reality, some of these people may really actually have a good life.  Frankly, that's awesome!  The problem comes when their happiness and success becomes a stumbling block for you and when that causes you to stop focusing on God.  Their life is not your chief concern; Your own is.  Instead of focusing on the alluring possibilities your life could have if you had someone else's life, set your priority: knowing God and making Him known with all you've got.  In order to get on track to do that, follow the steps below.

2. Wise up.
As we learn from James, being jealous of anything (including the alluring good life) and desiring to do anything to gain the good life for ourselves (selfish ambition) is not wise.  period.  In fact, it is going to lead us to disorder: we ruin relationships by our jealousy and we live short of what God has for us by being tripped up within ourselves.  Further, we are going to be lead not only to have these vile traits within us but also to do vile actions.
You've got to remind yourself of this truth when the good life's pull is strong.  Recognize that anything that leads you to forsake wisdom and sin is not good for you.  Recognize the depths of where this sin (earthly, unspiritual, demonic!) will lead you: to a vile inside and outward actions.
You've got to pray.  God will give you the strength to fight against sin!

3. Choose what you're going to make.
Truth: we are the ones who create imaginary perfect people.  Perfect people do. not. exist.
The good-life group make seem to "have it all," but people are people are people are people.  Those superstars?  Yeah.  They get sick, forget to brush their hair, and lose their temper like every other human on planet earth.  Those Christian superstars?  Yep.  They forget their keys, misplace their purse, and fight loneliness just like you do.  Those "perfect people" you see regularly?  You know they get offended sometimes, have rude moments, and forget their friend's birthday on occasion.  All people make mistakes, but it's up to us whether we let those mistakes make who we are as people.
Here's what you need to do: When the good life is pulling, face this truth: people are people, and all people are imperfect.  Next, choose not to let your own mistakes make who you are as you feel down about yourself and wish you had someone else's life.  Instead, choose to get the focus off yourself and find a way to make someone else happy as you serve the Lord with gladness (Psalm 100:2).
  
4. Face the stars and add a little more perfect to their good life.
The desire to have someone else's life might be so strong that you need to employ the emergency technique that my friend told me the other night: 1) stop the thought train  2) count to three  3) put all your gusto into doing something else (you can go clean something, make some tea, go on a run).
After you've burned off some steam, why not conquer your problem?
(This next idea is from Priscilla Shirer who received it from a source she left anonymous due to sensitive information).  Find a picture or something that will remind you of the people you're particularly jealous of.  Then, put the picture where you'll see it frequently.  When you see the picture, you may have those bad thoughts and feelings rise to the surface but choose to find one good thing about that person.  Then, pray for them; pray that their lives would continue to be blessed.  If you see any of those people, look for ways that you can bless these in person.
I have my own set of pictures, and - let me tell you! - looking these people in the face and being thankful for them is powerful.

Finally, you have been given a life.
The God who made you His masterpiece worthy to die for gave you this life; Why not enjoy this good life you have?

People are basically going bananas.

What set them off (this time) happens to be a twenty-five chapter novel by John Green titled The Fault in Our Stars.

Its hype is on steroids.

The Fault in Our Stars quotes are attacking Pinterest,
pictures of Kleenex boxes as TFIOS movie preparation are drowning Twitter,
and posts about the wonderful qualities of Augustus Waters are suffocating Facebook.

The reasons we are all so star-struck by this book with a die-hard cult following are not what one might think, however.

Yes, tall-dark-and-hansom Augustus Waters and his well-timed intellectual metaphors may appear to be what pulls helpless victims in, but hidden galaxies exist beyond the faulty stars.

What's the real reason you love The Fault in Our Stars?

It presents twinkling enigmas that won't let you be until you face them:

1. Heroes in Oblivion 

Augustus was a little obsessed with both oblivion and heroism; even if people are continually forgotten, he so deeply yearned to make a mark on this world.  Hazel, however, urges Gus to forget about the hopelessness of oblivion, so to speak, and to be satisfied with the good in his life - he had her, their little infinity, and their forever within the numbered days; he had his family; he had his friends.
Is there, then, is a balance of these two opinions?
Augustus and Hazel Grace, both, paint a lesson onto the canvas of our minds: Never stop striving to be a hero who feels.
We may not be able to cure the world's illness completely, but neither are we to sit around and watch it deteriorate.
Neither are we, however, to get so lost in keeping it from deteriorating that we become blind to the beauty around us.
We can both love heroically creating good while loving the good around us.


2. Big Words and Deep Nerdiness || The deep well Augustus actually attracts us to
I could insert any number of quotes here which is precisely the point: Augustus Waters is a deep character whose mind is like a well filled with water where he ponders many reflections.
Some of our drastic pull to Augustus stems from this: We long for a deeper life: deeper conversations, a deeper wondering about the world, deeper experiences with the people we love. 
Usually big words, random deep thoughts, and weird quirks are categorized as nerdy and slightly bizarre, but a place deep within us is so greatly parched because causal conversations and shallow relationships don't reach its depth.
Sometimes, we need to embrace more of who we are: our weird fetishes, our quirky observations, our strange habits and dare to be deep ourselves.  Then, we'll simultaneously find ourselves filling the deep places in others.


3. When We Don't Have the Answers: Okay? Okay.
People get cancer and die young.
Parents have to deal with that heartache the rest of their lives.
Friends go blind, and people fail us.
People change.
Words can be wielded to leave scars.
The world is dripping with its own pain,
and, sometimes, the world seems like one ginormous, answer-less mess.
Hating the answer-less mess, we can slowly have the life in us drained through the holes left from the pain.
Some answers may never be apparent, frankly, so what are we to do?
"Okay? Okay."
Sometimes we simply have to accept that we may not know everything, but that's okay.  There are things that we do know, and that is what we must choose to hold on to.
We know that relationships are beautiful despite their broken tendencies.
We know that laughter is like a balm placed on the scars left from living.
We know that tears act as a cleaning agent to clear the way for new things.
We know that long walks at dusk let us feel the blessed, cool oxygen fill our lungs.
We know that the world keeps spinning.
We know that our God is good, and, ultimately, that alone is enough.
We must accept the reassurance of the simple things, the small healing bursts in the world's atmosphere of pain, okay?
okay.


4. Sometimes We Need to Throw Eggs and Play Blind People Video Games
Alright, I don't mean this exactly literally.  Please, don't read the above line and go egg someone's car or knock on a random blind person's door and ask to play their video games.
Just bear with me for a moment, here.
Life (as you undoubtedly have experienced) can be strangely stretching, challenging, painful, and unexpected.  Some things life gives us we cannot fully control - we aren't in full control of the city we live in, how much bosses pay us, what our families are going to say to us, or how the weather is going to be tomorrow morning, for example.  Some things life gives us are more difficult to handle than others - that untimely sickness, the sudden death of your close friend, the loss of a job.
When those times come, we need to do what we can where we can to keep living a life that finds joy and laughter despite the pain.
Augustus, Isaac, and Hazel chose to egg a car (not recommended), but a part of their action's essence is that they found a way to keep living despite the pain, and the way they found was filled with laughter and memory making with those who love them and who they love to love.
When Isaac had surgery and became blind, he altered his life-style a little; he went from playing normal video games to ones specifically designed for the seeing-impaired.  He didn't let his pain immobilize him but found ways to keep living a life filled with joy as he continued to laugh while playing with Hazel.
We can always choose to laugh and love instead of being shut down by pain.


5. We Are Metaphorically in Love 


6. When We Face Our Lonely Swing-sets  
Hazel and Augustus see the lonely swing-set and are depressed, frankly.
No longer was being used,
it looked lonely and slightly useless while reminding of days gone by.
(This slightly depressed me, as well.)
I couldn't help but think many of us have these"swing-sets" in our lives.
We have reminders of days gone by, monoliths of our past which simultaneously make our future look pretty bleak, too.
Hazel and Augustus didn't just look at the swing-set, though; they choose to take a depressing reminder and act so that good could come from the sadness.
The swing-set was able to go to kids who had a purpose for it.
Maybe we need to do the same
Maybe we need to face those reminders of the past - pleasant reminders or unpleasant - and infuse joy into barren situations and find new purposes.
We can find ways to bring new life into stagnant places.


7. Those PJS, Un-brushed Hair, Oxygen Tank and All
For everything about Hazel Grace that just wasn't normal - having cancer young, having an unusual education situation, having both a blind friend and a friend with a prosthetic leg, having an oxygen tank for a companion - John Green presented such a real character in her.
She forgot to brush her hair.
She ran out of time to change and proceeded to leave the house in her pajama pants.
She didn't have the answers.
She got a little attached to book characters.
She got angry.
However, she still was loveable - not only to Augustus but to literally millions of readers.
I think this blares a message: Nobody's perfect.  No one has it all together.  Maybe our humanness shouldn't need be hidden or excused but accepted.  Self-standards of un-reachable perfection are ridiculous.
We may find ourselves much more happy if we learn to roll with (and laugh at) our imperfect selves, not taking ourselves to seriously but just living anyway - pjs, un-brushed hair, oxygen tank, and all.


8. Just Find the Real Story.  Seriously. 
Augustus and Hazel were having a conversion covering the getting-to-know-you basics, when Augustus drops the above question.  He cut through small-talking fluff to the heart of the other person.
Why shouldn't we do the same?
Life is short as these two kids exemplify.  Why only exist on levels of shallow conversations and just as shallow relationships?  People are people and everyone is fascinatingly unique.
Life is so short, so shouldn't we get to know not only about people, but actually know people?


9. Upward Roller Coasters and Optimism  
At certain moments in life, two choices present themselves: laugh or cry.
Your choice.


10. When Life Brings Support Groups and Cliché Sayings
Just as Hazel goes to a support group she doesn't really feel gives that much support and Augustus's house is plastered with sayings that often feel trite, both of them gained from the very things that have a tendency to drive them crazy.
Hazel has a key relationship with Issac from support group, and the Augustus & Hazel relationship started there.  Those sayings were influencing Augustus more than he realized sometimes.
For us, too, the very things that seem so pointlessly annoying at times might very well be what infuse our lives with just what we need.
Why not be thankful?


11. Grenade Launching, Hurt Choosing, Pain Demanding

What a sneakily enigmatic book, right?
Brilliant.

Sometimes, our perception of the world changes.
We notice new things, and these new things bring questions.

For me now is such a time.  Now, I sit on my trampoline, my favorite haunt for thinking.  (don't bother asking why because I've no clue).

It's been a slow perception-expansion as, over time, I've observed much previously unnoticed.

My observations, though, have made my heart dull with a heavy sadness that's weighed down as if by tears that don't even have to strength to push their way through.

I'm disheartened and, I dare say, maybe even a little frightened by this big world.

I'm disheartened and, I dare say, maybe even a little frightened by the fact that a great portion of humanity is so anti-God.

Evil likes to masquerade in a robe tinted with just enough light to cause questions of whether the darkness is really there.
Only because of the darkness can we truly understand what light is, however, and I am frankly seeing how deeply complicated existence can be.

Lately, it's been seeming like those robed in darkness can be awfully good at spreading light and living life as they seemingly live in a way devoted to... to living, for lack of a less elegant way to put it.  Living with a confidence in the way they are living because life is life and life is meant to be lived.

A confidence.  An assurance.  A more rich candor.

(I am sorry if this all is a little unclear.  Right now, I feel as though "my thoughts are stars I cannot fathom into constellations" (The Fault in Our Stars)).

Lately, I've wondered why we Christians, in my experience, don't more often live in a more similar way since we actually have something (or more like Someone) to put our hope in.  We actually have real confidence, a real assurance, and all the reason to live in a rich candor drowning in brotherly love.

Furthermore, we live in a broken world which needs us to be all that we can for the sake of all who exist.

Lately, though, I have marveled over us, us so seemingly stuck within ourselves: focused on how bad we are and what a mess we are and how we just need to figure out our problems so that we can go and do good and how we are so insecure and how we are so unloved.
Then, we hear how we are so loved and how we can be so secure and how our mess is okay and get fed all this warm, huggy mush meant to feed us but actually comprised of fluff which feels good going down but offers little propulsive fuel to drive us beyond our personal issues.

Don't get me wrong; sin need to be dealt with, I fully agree, and these truths are extremely powerful.  I feel that maybe they are sometimes overemphasized to our detriment, though.

We are living in a broken world which needs us to be all that we can for the sake of all who exist.

 The concept of living for the sake of the world is not foreign to Christianity: "For God so loved the world that He gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish but have eternal life" (John 3:!6).

Jesus lost himself for the sake of the world.

Why don't we, then, turn from our own issues to our broken world hoarsely crying out its pleas for healing?

Maybe it's not so much that we need to figure ourselves out but that we need to let ourselves go - let ourselves go, once and for all, surrendered into the arms of a Savior.  Maybe we need to accept that we are flawed.  We're imperfect.  We're sinners.  We're sometimes left without the answers and neat, clean fixes.  Maybe we need to accept that acceptance of those things is okay, for, are we not to count all else as loss, anyway?

"More than that, I count all things to be loss in view of the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and count them but rubbish so that I may gain Christ" (Philippians 3:8).

It's all counted loss in view of what?

What is the one exception that Paul made to his utterance of desperate abandon? >>>

"The surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord."  

Thus seeking to know Christ, we are to do what else?  Paul tells of the ministry we're propelled to in Corinthians:

"All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation: that God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting people's sins against them.  And he has committed to us the message of reconciliation.  We are therefore Christ's ambassadors, as though God were making his appeal through us" (1 Corinthians 5:18-20a).

Maybe, what we really need to do is get our eyes off our grimy selves and actually realize with our hearts and not just our heads that this is true: all else but knowing Him and making Him known as Him ambassadors is loss.

Yeah, we're hypocritical.
Yeah, we complain a good deal more than we should.
Yeah, we judge when we have no right to and wear our masks to cover our perceived imperfections.

Frankly, the world keeps spinning.

It doesn't make much sense to be incessantly spending and undue amount of time berating ourselves.

The world is spinning right. now, with you and your fleeting days contained within its atmosphere.

The world is aching to be healed through the touch only you uniquely can offer.

For the sake of the world and the sake of the One Kingdom that will outlast it, know Him and make Him know with all you've got, for all else...
is loss.

If you do not do so, it's yourself and the world who are going to suffer a loss.

Please, forget yourself by losing yourself in His arms.
Please, loose yourself for Christ on the world.
It pleads for your healing touch.