Pushing Our Boundaries

Well, those of you that were at W.H.O. last night heard me mention many times that I want to push your boundaries this year. And it's totally true. If you want, I can give you several (ok, make that 'many') personal references who will say that I always force them into things that they would usually never do. Seriously. Some of these references are even on this blog email list and are probably sitting there thinking, "Yup. Molly always makes me do activities I don't want to do, but what's amazing is that all of those activities have been the best of my life!" Ok, so maybe not that part after the "but", but they're still my friends - so they obviously don't mind my antics too much.

Who knows, maybe one day you'll sign up for a trip with me and then I'll give you the new experience of having an overnight layover in an airport - but how can you blame me? Who doesn't like airports? And how could you be bored when we're together getting to enjoy randomness in the airport? Or you could be like my friend up in the picture and just be stuck in an empty airport waiting to pick someone up from a delayed flight until 1:30 am…who knows! Either way, I had a lot of fun during that waiting time in the airport (and I hope she did too), and I know I'll have a lot of fun with my friends who are enduring the overnight layover in Seattle with me next March.

I don't mind waiting, I don't mind being patient, and it's always those things that you didn’t plan on that turn out to be the most rewarding. When I interviewed for this job, they asked a lot of questions regarding taking trips with the youth…and I said that I had a theory for youth group trips - "it's not a youth group trip unless something goes wrong." Invariably, on all of my youth group trips (when I was a participant, not a leader), something always went wrong (or at least not as planned). A van's brakes went out, we lost something, we got lost, our youth leader fell out of a tree (not injured though), etc, etc. But it was those times that I hadn't prepared for that I remember. It was the things that we weren't ready for that were the most memorable! Sure, when you're in the situation, you may not be thinking that you enjoy your circumstances too well - but then you get out of the situation, you begin bragging about what you went through - or if you're not 'bragging' - you're at least saying to others: "you will not believe what happened!"

I found this quote on some email forward I received the other day - I don't like how it's stated in these exact words, but I was too lazy to figure out a different way to say this - and either way, I'd probably mess it up and it wouldn't get across the same message anyways. "To get something you never had, you have to do something you never did." Sounds a bit southern to me, but whatever, I think it's a nice message. To get some of our greatest memories and experiences in our lives, we need to take some leaps, have some trust, and experience something completely unknown to us. We always remember our "firsts" it seems, and we often bring up those "firsts" when we share stories.

Think about some of the "firsts" you've had in your faith life. I remember a lot of my firsts, even though I don't remember the dates or anything, they were all still pivotal moments. One is when I was at mass one Sunday with my mom, sometime during middle school, and I was always bored out of my mind at mass. It was just an obligation that I went to with my mother, I didn't 'mind' going, but I never really got anything out of it, and I was always waiting for the gifts to be brought forward, because then I knew we were about halfway done. Well, this particular Sunday, I decided to actually listen to what was going on - and I couldn't believe how quickly mass went! It was amazing! Who knew that paying attention rather that just surviving through the hour would make such a difference? Amazing. Even some small things like actually listening can be a pivotal point in our life.

So think of some of your own pivotal firsts - if you want, share some of them in the comments of this blog post (for those of you receiving email updates, you will need to go to the blog webpage and click the "comments" link at the bottom of the page). You don't need to give your name or sign up for a blog account - I have the settings so that you can leave an anonymous message! And those of you reading this who have known me for awhile, feel free to share some experiences of me "pushing your boundaries" too, if you want. :)

We have some examples in the Bible of people's boundaries being pushed (ok, there are a lot more than 'some'), and one of these includes Peter walking on water. This passage in Matthew 15:25-32 states:
"During the fourth watch of the night Jesus went out to them, walking on the lake. When the disciples saw him walking on the lake, they were terrified. "It's a ghost," they said, and cried out in fear.
But Jesus immediately said to them: "Take courage! It is I. Don't be afraid."
"Lord, if it's you," Peter replied, "tell me to come to you on the water."
"Come," he said.
Then Peter got down out of the boat, walked on the water and came toward Jesus. But when he saw the wind, he was afraid and, beginning to sink, cried out, "Lord, save me!"
Immediately Jesus reached out his hand and caught him."

Now, maybe God isn't calling you to go out and walk on water - but is God asking you to do something challenging? Maybe even something impossible without his help? Sure, Peter got a little scared, and as he began to sink, maybe he was wondering "why in the world did I ever step out of the boat?" - but God saved him before he could be harmed…and afterwards, Peter was the only person on that boat that was able to say, "I walked on water!" (of course, we live in Minnesota, so maybe we can use that line anyways - at least when it's frozen) I'm sure the other men in the boat retold that story tons of times about how their friend walked on water, and don't you suppose that some of people they told the story to said: "Why didn't you walk on water too!? That sounds amazing!!" I don't know about you, but if that was me sharing how my friend walked on water and not me, I would have a bit of regret for never taking that chance. So I invite you to try to keep your mind open to events and circumstances that may open themselves up to you…sometimes your greatest experience is the one that you were not prepared for, and after all: "To get something you never had, you have to do something you never did."

Reminder: Breakfast club tomorrow morning!! I hope to see lots of you there! If you wanted to be added to a carpool - let me know.