The Great Wall

About a month ago I was blessed with the opportunity to see The Great Wall of China.  It was the most amazing thing I have ever seen with my eyes. I took hundreds of pictures of what I saw, but the pictures just don't do justice. The wall is huge. It's about 13,000 miles long. Good luck wrapping your head around that one. We only saw about a mile worth of the wall and I still can't put into words what that was like. There are so many steps you have to climb when you see the wall. Some of the times the steps were so steep that we had to crawl up with our hands. It took around a thousand years for the wall to be built. Millions of people spent their entire lives building it. Hundreds of thousands of people died while building it and the bodies were either buried under the wall or just thrown off the ledge. Each time a new emperor took over in China, he wanted the wall built even longer. The wall was built so that the Mongolians wouldn't invade China, which might be weird to think about, because wars don't last a thousand years. Mongolians would raise of a generation of warriors, fail to invade China, raise up another generation, and went through that entire process over and over again.

Why am I talking about The Great Wall of China? Little did I know, what I saw taught me a lesson about life.

If you follow my @31reasonsblog page on Instagram, you saw the picture I posted last night and this was the caption: "To me, God's plan it kinda like The Great Wall of China. You can never fully wrap your head around it...it's easy to think that in this life, we are in charge of the path we take...over the rugged mountains, through the hills, around the obstacles...but it's not our plan it's God's. Somewhere along the road, things happen that mess up the plans "you" thought you had. God's always at work with His plan for YOU & it's not a simple and easy path. There are steps, curves, twists, hills & valleys. Trust His plan."

If you don't know, I have three tattoos. They are all hidden and can only be seen in certain circumstances. Freshmen year, I got my first one and my parents were both cool with it. They told me no more. The very next year, my brother wanted one, and I was going to take him to get it. I decided to get my second one and didn't tell my parents. They were very upset about it and had a right to be. I broke their trust and disobeyed them. I thought I had learned my lesson and wasn't ever going to get another one. They warned me that there would be serious financial consequences if I were to get another one. After my first trip to China, I wanted to get a tattoo in Chinese so badly. Well, in February, I got my third tattoo and I thought I was going to be able to keep my parents from seeing it. Which is stupid of me, because anyone knows that you can never hide anything from your parents and you should never try to. They have this sixth sense and it's the most amazing thing ever. So, my mom called me this weekend and told me she had a vision that I had gotten another tattoo, so she asked me to tell her about it. I told her and she told me the consequences. I knew the consequences going into it and thought I was going to be able to be sneaky enough. I got off the phone with my mom, and balled my eyes out. Yes, I felt bad for disobeying my parents but that wasn't what I was upset about. I was upset at the fact that I have been saving all of this money and thought that I had everything planned out. I thought I had a great plan and have worked hard at saving money my entire life. Yeah, a full scholarship for basketball is an absolutely amazing blessing, but I still wanted to have a pretty solid amount saved for once I graduate. That's not going to happen anymore which is sad, but I learned an important lesson about it. Don't get me wrong, I learned not to hide anything from my parents and to be honest and never disobey them. The biggest lesson I learned is that you should never rely on your own plan like I was doing. All my trust when it comes to my money was on myself. I worked hard for it, so I was proud that I had that much saved. I thought that everything after school was going to fall into place, because of ME. I was so wrong. You need to trust God with everything in your life.

Then it got me thinking, about how The Great Wall of China is a lot like how God's plan is. It's immaculate and breath taking. It's something you can't wrap your head around and you must only take one step at a time. I think it's easy for us to come up with our own plans. We think that everything is cookie cutter and will work just the way we want it too. The Great Wall isn't like that and neither is God's plan for us. The Great Wall has billions of steps, hills, bends, breaks, valleys, bricks, and turns. It's the furthest thing from a straight and clear path. Once we get on the path, sure it's difficult, it wears you out, tears you down, exhausts you, but I know from first hand experience that there are parts of the wall that are straight, even, and easy to walk on. How much is that like our walk with Christ? It's never easy, sometimes it sucks, but most of the time it's amazing. When I was dying walking up the stairs that I had to use my hands on, I was still absolutely in awe of everything that was around me. So when you are in those rough patches, realize that God's plan isn't always easy, but it's forever worth it.


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My mom is going to read this, I know it. I didn't share this because I wanted to get out of the consequences, I shared it because of the lessons that God seems to teach to us when it seems like we are so broken that there is nothing to be taught. God is always teaching us, some of us just have to open our eyes.

Some of you are probably wondering what tattoos I have and where. So I will tell you.

1. I have the word "relentless" in Greek on my left pec. I got it because of the book titled "Relentless." I believe that I am relentless in everything I do and it's a great reminder to me that I work hard at what I do and have been able to do a lot of things and accomplish a lot because of the work it has taken.

2. I have this symbol on my wrist. "><" which relates to John 3:30 which says: "God must increase and I must decrease." It's a perfect reminder for me that God show always me more than me, He is so much greater, so much more powerful, and worthy to be praised.

3. I have Psalm 23:4 in Chinese on the back of my achilles. The verse says: "Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil." I got it on my achilles because the verse literally talks about walking. I know that each and everyday of my life I walk through the valley of the shadow of death. There is so much evil out there and I know that I will never fear it because of God and his strength and love for me. I got it in Chinese because those trips changed my life.