It's Not A Sprint

My first article as an HLI America Young Scholar:

When I joined the pro-life movement a few years ago as a high school senior, I thought the task at hand was clear, but daunting: overturn Roe v. Wade.  What I didn’t realize is that the movement to end abortion is just that – a movement, a shift, a gradual realignment of our society’s priorities.  This shift not only includes our laws, but the culture we live in – a culture that accepts and promotes acts of violence against the most vulnerable and innocent.  I quickly learned that overturning the unconstitutional Supreme Court ruling would not instantly create a life-respecting utopia where every child, planned or unplanned, would be seen as a blessing.  I realized that conquering the culture of death is not a sprint; it’s a marathon.

Continue reading here.

oh today

The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of comfort and convenience, but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy.

-Martin Luther King Jr

if only my heart could yawn

Emotional exhaustion is the worst, y'all.
My heart feels like this baby right now, only a lot less cute and cuddly:

The National Right to Life Academy has been such a great experience which I will further explain another day, but the experience is, nonetheless, exhausting. Emotion wise, I have been disadvantaged since conception- females are just more emotional. Added to that, I am just pretty sensitive and it really doesn't take much to make me cry... so spending all day everyday learning about abortion and death and dying and sad things has taken its toll on my heart.

energized spirit

When I'm feeling super energized and motivated and inspired, like maybe I'm at the March for Life or getting a text saying "4 women turned around and chose life today," it's like my heart is a pizza... much like this one that some girls and I ate late Friday night:

tired spirit

Then... there's those days when you hear about the sad cases and kind of don't even have the spirit left in you to move an inch. Those days make me feel like this pizza... greasy (kidding), alone, and cold:

Last week I was definitely feeling like the leftover pizza. On Saturday morning, some of the girls went to pray outside the Planned Parenthood here and I just slept in; I don't think I could've handled that situation very well given my worn out corazon. Also, I just haven't felt like going to pray at PP in DC. I had expected that I'd go at least once, but I just really haven't felt called to that. In Austin it feels like most everyone is so unified thanks to the really wonderful peaceful example that the Austin Coalition for Life has set, but I just don't know what the atmosphere on the sidewalks is like elsewhere.

Anyways, I took the weekend to kind of just unwind and try my best not to feel sad. I think I was successful! I spent some time with myself, I spent some time with the girls, I watched some episodes of "The Office," I bought a new maxi-dress (long dress), and I planned out some activities for my favorite boy in the world who is coming to visit me next weekend. I'm kind of really excited. Trying really hard not to use 1,000 exclamation points while talking about his visit.

I got what I asked for AND he's coming to visit me!

Ironic to post this picture today because the first reading at Mass was about asking God for your heart's desires, or something along those lines, and apparently God wasn't joking when he said "ask and it shall be added unto you" and neither does Santa...

Hopefully a more thought provoking and mature post will be coming this week... there's really nowhere to go but up from here, ha ha.

a few photos

we are sho sweepy from studying sho hard

we are sho tech savvy

i am sho wired from coffee

toughen up

band aid for my soul?

I have not been feeling super awesome lately so I decided to venture out this evening to look for cheesecake because everyone knows that the best way to deal with your problems is to cover them in chocolate sauce or anything ending in "-cake." Yeah, turns out that theory is false.

Ended up in a shady little- emphasis on the word little - restaurant and ordered my cheesecake and chicken fingers (I'm like 5 years old) and while I waited for the food, the guy at the counter struck up conversation with me. We started with the weather, told him I'm from TX & here with the Nat'l Right to Life Academy, and then I opened a great can of emotional worms.
Side note: if you are a visual person, the man at the restaurant looked a lot like Tom McGowan who plays Ray's friend Bernie on "Everybody Loves Raymond." 

me: You know, I've been really shocked by the number of homeless people in D.C.
man: Oh, well they choose to be homeless, you know. I've been workin' here about 20 years and see the same people in the same places. They aren't out there trying to get jobs, but they're doing just fine for themselves.

He went on to tell me stories about homeless folks who have turned out to be frauds or have been found sleeping with huge rolls of cash in their hands and other shady stories. I'm not naive enough to think that everyone in the world is honest or that everyone living on the streets is truly in a desperate state of need, but I tend to try to give them the benefit of the doubt... but I hate finding out the sad & messed up stories. Sometimes I like to pretend that everyone is good and nice and stuff... but I'm not ignorant enough to believe it, just too emotionally exhausted to dwell on the bad things all the time. So, even after I got my food we kept chatting...

me: I've just gotten really upset lately having to see all the people on the streets, regardless of who is truly needy and who is scamming.
man: you know what, after living in the city for a while you just gotta learn to look the other way.

I HATE THAT, OKAY! I really didn't like that! This man honestly was pretty nice and seemed like he had good intentions, but, I'm sorry, looking the other way isn't going to make anyone's problems go away, sir. I just really thought that was a sad sentiment.

me: well, I'd rather be gypped by 5 people and help 1 person than not help anyone at all... ya know... it just makes me really sad lately having to pass them everywhere and not know what to do.
man: I know you're from Texas and you've got Christ on the front of your shirt, but you've gotta toughen up.

feeling so happy, omgah

I left pretty soon after that. As I walked away, the man yelled "Toughen up! You'll be fine!" but that didn't really offer me much comfort. I enjoyed the conversation, but it did leave me feeling kind of crappy and really sad. The man had some valid points and made me face some things that suck, but I probably needed to hear them. However, that doesn't mean I'm going to look the other way all the time. I've been talking to the other girls in the Academy about this a lot lately and we've all been pretty frustrated with knowing when to give to the "homeless" (I really hate using quotes on that...). It's so hard because you pass by them and you have like this tiny window to make this huge judgment and assessment of this person's life, situation, need, and the extent of their need.

where my dinner ended up.

Also, after weeks of speculation about a lady who begs in the metro station, we have "cracked that case" and know she is scamming. It's a long story, but the girls and I have been keeping track of all of our sightings of this woman and her accomplices and we've figured out that they are gypping people... honestly, like, I think they might be gypsies. Not sure if that is a politically correct thing to say or not, but it is what it is.

I wish people would just be real because the scammers out there are only further hurting those who are truly hurting already by causing skepticism towards people on the streets. I should probably stop thinking about this because it's making me frustrated even more.

Oh and to top it all off... the food from the restaurant was not enjoyable... not even the cheesecake.