Nothing In This Life Scares You
Hey y'all!!! So I recently celebrated my own personal new year: I'm 20!! I haven't quite figured out how I feel about being 20 yet. I don't feel physically older, but I feel older emotionally, mentally, and spiritually. But those are all good things, I think!
I had a fantastic birthday! I've been battling a fit of laryngitis. So I woke up with a fever and no voice but that didn't stop me from enjoying my birthday! The day started with my mom giving me her gift. As I'm sure any daughter can relate, mother's always pick THE BEST birthday cards! So after a few tears and opening the rest of my gifts we were out the door to get the day started!
I say that as if we were actually dressed, ready, and off to some grand birthday adventure at 7 AM in the morning. We were actually in our pjs, headed to one of my favorite places to get coffee in the mornings... SONIC!! Now I enjoy a good tall caramel macchiato from Starbucks just as much as the next person, however, sonic's French vanilla iced coffee has recently captured my heart (and they're $1.49 before 10 AM). I don't know if it's my my love of chomping on ice that draws me to sonic or if it is in fact that their coffee is just really, really, good. I'm thinking it's both.
After I got my cup of caffeine, it was time for breakfast. There's an awesome donut place on this side of the United States called Shipley's (it's better than Krispy Kreme!!!) and what better way to celebrate a birthday than with donuts for breakfast! Again, I haven't been feeling so well, so as we got closer the thought of all that sugar seemed to not be as attractive as I once thought. So instead, for my 20th birthday breakfast, I had 2 sausage burritos from McDonald's!!! I think the cook working that morning knew it was my birthday because the burritos were just about perfect. I sat in the front seat of my car, as my mom drove, ate my McDonald's burritos, drank my sonic coffee and looked at the world through my 20 year old eyes.
To some, this may seem simple, boring, or even nasty (McDonald's for breakfast?) but for me, it was perfect. Well, almost perfect. I needed to get home. I still needed to dance.
I have this tradition where on my birthday I turn on Stevie Wonder's rendition of "Happy Birthday", play it as loud as I can over my tower stereo, and I dance. I'm talking really get with it. I jump around with my hands as high in the air as I can get them. My hair's down because you aren't truly dancing until there's some hair flying around, right? I danced the entire 5 minutes of the song, smiling the entire time. Afterwards, I took a quick breather, wiped the sweat from brows, and got right back to my imaginary dance floor for song number two.
This year song number two was "I Lived" by OneRepublic. I chose this song because it describes me just about perfectly. I pushed play and began my jumping, hair-swinging dancing. My mom was in the kitchen and stepped out to dance with me. I smiled and sang as loudly as I could with my voice that's half gone. I was spinning around and around and around when I finally met my mom's gaze and she smiled back and yelled over the music, "Nothing in this life scares you". I stopped for a second, but got right back with my dancing. Because as soon as I was done dancing, I knew I needed to write.
I keep, even now, thinking about those words: nothing in this life scares you. If you take those words literally, of course things scare me, like spiders and such! But the more I think about it, the more I realize she's right. Nothing in this world scares me. I've visited more places, seen more things, and lived in more states in the last 2 years than I ever thought I would. I've overcome more things and fought (and won) more personal battles than I ever could have imagined I would face. I turned 18 in Oklahoma, 19 in Kansas, and now 20 in Arkansas!! How cool is that! I have dreams and goals that are so huge I could spend hours talking about them. I've worked hard; I've put in the blood, sweat, and tears to get where I am today. And the thing is, something that doesn't scare me, is I have so much further to go!!! I have so many more places to visit, I have so many more things to see, and I have so many more places to live. There are so many more people who need me. There's so many more hearts left to touch and so many more lives to impact. There's so much more. And I'm not scared. I'm 20 years old and I'm as fearless as ever.
I have no idea what my 20th year of life will bring, but I do know who is in control of my life. And it isn't me. I don't decide to be bold and fearless, because if it were up to me, I probably wouldn't be. But I do so because my strength is drawn from Jesus Christ. There's such a satisfying hope in knowing that Jesus has my 20th year of life planned out for me, all I need to do is trust Him, be fearless, and jump in.
So my hope today is that if you're not already there yet, you get to the place in your life where nothing scares you. I hope you get to the place where McDonald's breakfast burritos are the perfect birthday breakfast because you get to eat them in the car with your mom. Life is so full of adventures waiting to be had. So have them! I don't mean suddenly get over the fear of heights and jump out of an airplane. I mean trust Him, and jump in.
Jumping out of an airplane... you know what... I just might do that next.
"Be fearless in the pursuit of what sets your soul on fire."
Xo,
20 year old, Ashley
I had a fantastic birthday! I've been battling a fit of laryngitis. So I woke up with a fever and no voice but that didn't stop me from enjoying my birthday! The day started with my mom giving me her gift. As I'm sure any daughter can relate, mother's always pick THE BEST birthday cards! So after a few tears and opening the rest of my gifts we were out the door to get the day started!
I say that as if we were actually dressed, ready, and off to some grand birthday adventure at 7 AM in the morning. We were actually in our pjs, headed to one of my favorite places to get coffee in the mornings... SONIC!! Now I enjoy a good tall caramel macchiato from Starbucks just as much as the next person, however, sonic's French vanilla iced coffee has recently captured my heart (and they're $1.49 before 10 AM). I don't know if it's my my love of chomping on ice that draws me to sonic or if it is in fact that their coffee is just really, really, good. I'm thinking it's both.
After I got my cup of caffeine, it was time for breakfast. There's an awesome donut place on this side of the United States called Shipley's (it's better than Krispy Kreme!!!) and what better way to celebrate a birthday than with donuts for breakfast! Again, I haven't been feeling so well, so as we got closer the thought of all that sugar seemed to not be as attractive as I once thought. So instead, for my 20th birthday breakfast, I had 2 sausage burritos from McDonald's!!! I think the cook working that morning knew it was my birthday because the burritos were just about perfect. I sat in the front seat of my car, as my mom drove, ate my McDonald's burritos, drank my sonic coffee and looked at the world through my 20 year old eyes.
To some, this may seem simple, boring, or even nasty (McDonald's for breakfast?) but for me, it was perfect. Well, almost perfect. I needed to get home. I still needed to dance.
I have this tradition where on my birthday I turn on Stevie Wonder's rendition of "Happy Birthday", play it as loud as I can over my tower stereo, and I dance. I'm talking really get with it. I jump around with my hands as high in the air as I can get them. My hair's down because you aren't truly dancing until there's some hair flying around, right? I danced the entire 5 minutes of the song, smiling the entire time. Afterwards, I took a quick breather, wiped the sweat from brows, and got right back to my imaginary dance floor for song number two.
This year song number two was "I Lived" by OneRepublic. I chose this song because it describes me just about perfectly. I pushed play and began my jumping, hair-swinging dancing. My mom was in the kitchen and stepped out to dance with me. I smiled and sang as loudly as I could with my voice that's half gone. I was spinning around and around and around when I finally met my mom's gaze and she smiled back and yelled over the music, "Nothing in this life scares you". I stopped for a second, but got right back with my dancing. Because as soon as I was done dancing, I knew I needed to write.
I keep, even now, thinking about those words: nothing in this life scares you. If you take those words literally, of course things scare me, like spiders and such! But the more I think about it, the more I realize she's right. Nothing in this world scares me. I've visited more places, seen more things, and lived in more states in the last 2 years than I ever thought I would. I've overcome more things and fought (and won) more personal battles than I ever could have imagined I would face. I turned 18 in Oklahoma, 19 in Kansas, and now 20 in Arkansas!! How cool is that! I have dreams and goals that are so huge I could spend hours talking about them. I've worked hard; I've put in the blood, sweat, and tears to get where I am today. And the thing is, something that doesn't scare me, is I have so much further to go!!! I have so many more places to visit, I have so many more things to see, and I have so many more places to live. There are so many more people who need me. There's so many more hearts left to touch and so many more lives to impact. There's so much more. And I'm not scared. I'm 20 years old and I'm as fearless as ever.
I have no idea what my 20th year of life will bring, but I do know who is in control of my life. And it isn't me. I don't decide to be bold and fearless, because if it were up to me, I probably wouldn't be. But I do so because my strength is drawn from Jesus Christ. There's such a satisfying hope in knowing that Jesus has my 20th year of life planned out for me, all I need to do is trust Him, be fearless, and jump in.
So my hope today is that if you're not already there yet, you get to the place in your life where nothing scares you. I hope you get to the place where McDonald's breakfast burritos are the perfect birthday breakfast because you get to eat them in the car with your mom. Life is so full of adventures waiting to be had. So have them! I don't mean suddenly get over the fear of heights and jump out of an airplane. I mean trust Him, and jump in.
Jumping out of an airplane... you know what... I just might do that next.
"Be fearless in the pursuit of what sets your soul on fire."
Xo,
20 year old, Ashley
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