My New Resolution Mantra

Developing resolutions are a customary part of the preparation for the new year. My friends jokingly make fun of my nerdy New Year's resolution lists,which are often include a executive summary,S.M.A.R.T goal format,and subcategories. But last week,I developed a new resolution mantra after listening to Pastor Andy Stanley's awesome sermon four part series entitled The New Rules for Love,Sex & Dating.

This series is a must hear and presents a relevant insight about relationships,dating and marriage for today's generation.

I was truly blessed by this series and pray that you will be as well. As I continue to count down my quarterlife milestone in July, I strive to live out my 2012 resolution mantra:Am I the person that person I'm looking for is looking for?

Lessons Learned through Life's Interludes

One of the most frustrating parts of my quarterlife crisis is the many interludes. The grand pauses of waiting for life's milestone and society's indicators of success that don't magically appear in your living room after singing Mister Rogers "Waiting Song".

Recently,I have gained a new insight into handling the white pages in our life story through reading "Esther" by Charles Swindoll. He wrote about how the silent yet eloquent interlude between Chapter 4 and 5 for the book of Esther symbolizes Esther's fasting time, which she used to take time to let God guide her thoughts and frame her words before entering the presence of King Ahasuerus uninvited. But despite the interlude in this part of the story, we can see the beauty of God's invisibility,as he was working in the hearts of Esther and King Ahasuerus.

Isaiah 40:31 shares a beautiful promise about waiting:
Yet those who wait for the Lord
Will gain new strength;
They will mount up with wings like eagles,
They will run and not get tired,
They will walk and not become weary.

I want to share a excerpt from the book which the uses Isaiah 40:31 to teach us four things we learn from waiting.

1.We gain new strength.We may feel weak,intimidated,when we turn to our Lord.While waiting,amazingly,we exchange our weakness for His strength.
2.We get a better perspective.It says we will mount up with wings like eagles." Eagles can spot fish in a lake several miles away on a clear day.By soaring like eagles while waiting,we gain perspective on what we are dealing with.
3.We store up extra energy."We will run and not get tired,"Notice,it's future tense.When we do encounter the thing we have been dreading,we will encounter it with new strength-extra will be ours to use.
4.We will deepen our determination to persevere.We "will walk and not become weary." The Lord whispers reassurance to us.He puts steel in our bones so to speak.We begin to feel increasingly more invincible.


Reflection Video: This is a powerful video of Juanita Bynum's testimony through her song
I Don't Mind Waiting.
http://youtu.be/_hEiGEfm2uE

~Dani~

Cultivating a Community of Encourgement

"You got six months" is a phrase recently coined by the younger Daley cousin duo to describe the grace period my recent grad cousin has to follow his father's life stage timetable in the following tasks:

-To get full-time employment
-To get his own place
-To make his way down the aisle

After overhearing this dialogue at a recent family gathering,I chuckled in amusement and thought to myself,"Its still happens,but its not like it used to be"

As a naive freshman,I envisioned following the similar life stage path as my parental's generation of getting a ring (or if you are a old-school Adventist, a watch) followed by melodious sounds of Pomp and Circumstances and then wedding bells.

Now at age 23,I continually strive to shed my life stage/biological clock conditioning to utilize my season of singleness as a learning curve to assist in my growth in becoming the woman God wants me to be.

The article from Boundless,my favorite Christian website
"Faith for the Man He'll Become" really empowered me to accept the unique role I have in the lives of my brothers in Christ as we both experience the blooming of unrealized potential of growth. As women,we have a position to influence,encourage and counsel them as they refine and cultivate character traits to become Godly husbands and fathers and vice versa.

The book For Young Women Only by Shaunit Feldhahn and Lisa Rice highlights a perfect example of the power women have to be positive influencers through the one of my all time movies A Walk to Remember!!!

"...Although Jamie has a lot of intense and hidden things happening in her own
life,she shows that she is unique among all the girls by encouraging Landon to
follow his passions. Her encouragement eventually draws him our of his shell
and into life.At the beginning of the story,after Landon has made an immature
,costly`decision,it just takes one from Jamie to shame him and challenge him
to change."

At the end when Landon makes a selfless decision,the look on Jamie's face
says how proud she is of him. She challenges him and makes him feel he
can conquer his demons and become the man he was intended to be."

Blessings

~Dani~

"Cultivate inner beauty,the gentle,gracious kind that God delights in."
1 Peter 3:4b The Message.

Friends You May Know

I have really fallen in love with Facebooking,texting,and now tweeting as much as the next guy.

It's has been great to be able to stay abreast in real time the happenings of my friends.But I was reminded last Friday when responding to a Facebook message from one of my best friends,how often I used these mediums as substitutes to connecting with my friends with the first real-time connection-that good ole Wendy Williams"how you doing"phone call.

One of the things that has really helped me the most during my initial post grad transitions is Friday night conferences with my two of my best friends aka my sistas from different misters. I truly cherish this time of endless laughing,sharing updates,and providing valuable life advice. Therefore I believe we must continually strive to be intentional in setting aside time to cultivate our friendships, as life takes us our separate ways. True friendship is truly a gift and should not be taken for granted. Let's not unconsciously place our close friends in the people you may now category.

In the spirit of cultivating friendships,I encourage you to participate in the following challenge that I found on Boundless as a task ,which is part of their summer challenge series.

Boundless Summer Challenge:Task 5
Relationship Week

1. Visit or call your closest friend. (No texting, Facebooking, tweeting, or IMing.) Ask them how YOU can be a better friend to THEM.
2. Ask if there are any areas you can improve, or ways that you can be there for them in a better way. Don't let them get off the hook by saying that you're doing just fine.
3. Spend some quality time asking questions about their life, focusing the conversation on them instead of yourself.
4. Write a comment below letting us know how it went.

* * *

The 2010 Boundless Summer Challenge began on July 8, and comes to a close on August 8. You can get an introduction to this Challenge here, you can read the official rules here, and you can visit our Facebook event page here.

Trust and Obey: Decision Making Science 101

One of the things I miss the most about my adolescence is reading all the teenyboppers novels series. My teenybopper kindred spirit's at the time was precocious ten -year- old Anastasia Krupnik, a fictional title character of a popular Lois Lowry book series. Anastasia's chronicles had a expectational and authentic way of echoing feelings felt by the the adolescent girl audience who are "just trying to grow up"

If only my future could be categorized neatly like Anastasia's at my local library or Barnes and Nobles with easy access. I could just skip over Daniella Has a lot of Decisions straight to Daniella Has The Answers,followed by Daniella On Her Own and Daniella's Chosen Career.

But every time I feel over welled by all my unique challenges of my quarter life crisis,I always have to refocus and remember that I serving a amazing God who told me in the Bible,his love letter to us that I need to let go of my Type A personality of :

• Fervent list making,
• Creating models of the top three possible outcomes of my 5 year plan
  
• Just plain post grad anxiety.

He tells us in Proverbs 3:5 to Trust in the LORD with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding.


Check out this great article that discusses trusting in God to drive your decision making science.

http://www.boundless.org/2005/articles/a0001729.cfm

Have a Happy Sabbath!
~Dani~

A New Key of Life

I rose this birthday morning with a grateful heart and full of anticipation of the next key I would encounter through this complicated melody entitled Life. Recent accidentals such as the death of my great grandmother has really helped shifted my mindset into truly being intentional in living a purpose driven life. As a recent grad,I struggled daily to identify my purpose in a the "real world"who no longer accepts my student class standing as a valid form of identification. The "real world" and my deferred friend Sallie Mae were more the ready to close the my college chapter for me and move me into new chapter . Despite my attempts to formulate my 5-year plan,the unknowns begun to become the author of my post grad life and began weighting me down emotionally and spiritually.

Through conversions with friends and family,I learned that my situation wasn't unique, for they shared that they were or had experienced similar feelings as a recent grad. Although that provided me support,I knew there had to be a term out that described all that I was feelings.My mind then flashed back to a lunchtime discussion during a summer internship about a book for recent grads entitled Quarterlife Crisis:The Unique Challenges of Life in Your Twenties. Coined in 1997 by co-author Abby Wilner, a quarter-life crisis is essentially a period of anxiety,uncertainty,and inner turmoil that often accompanies the transition to adulthood.

My goal for this blog is for it to be a oasis of interactive conversions of the unique challenges faced by the twenty-something crowd as we experience the good,the bad and the ugly of their own quarterlife crisis.

Inspirational Quote:Change is the essence of life. Be willing to surrender what you are for what you could become.~Mahatma Gandhi~

Have a blessed evening!
~Dani~