The Captivating Woman

Designed with purpose.

10 Things I Wish I Would Have Known at 17

17 year old me knew a lot…or at least she thought she did. The older I get, the more I recognize she didn’t have it quite as together as she thought at the time, and that there was probably a lot of sage advice she should have paid attention to.  The sci-fy nerd in me longs for the day a time machine will let me Back To The Future myself, giving that sage life advice that will save me countless hours of heartache, worry, tears and mint chocolate chip ice cream. Until that day happens, however, I’ve been given an ideal platform to share some of this wisdom in the hopes that it may save you a few hours of heartache, worry, tears and a maybe even a few of those pints of ice cream.

So without further adieu, here are:

10 Things I Wish I Would Have Truly Known at 17

  1. Your mom is right far more often than she gets credit for, and has done so much more for your entire family than you ever saw. Give her more grace than you are inclined to be passing out: she’s only human, even with her flaws she is a truly exceptional mother, she deserves it, and you will come to treasure grace more than you realize right now.
  1. Your dad is one of the biggest blessings in your life, you just don’t know it yet. Even when you do know it, you’ll have to fight through the discomfort to continue embracing it, because there will still be miscommunication, tears and heartache. It is one of the first relationships in your life (though nowhere near the last one) that will require quite a bit of work to repair a couple of decades of broken communication. The work is hard, and there will be times when you’ll want to throw in the towel, but I urge you…don’t give up. It’s worth it, I promise.
  1. You’ll come to a place where you genuinely adore your too-large-family and all of their zany, often flat-out-weird ways, but you don’t always have to agree with them. Nor do you need them to always agree with you. Say it with me slowly: I don’t always need them to agree with me, to be doing something worthwhile. You’ve got to test out your own salvation (and life) with fear and trembling, and sometimes that means that you won’t always arrive at the same conclusions they do.
  1. You were right about needing distance. Treasure your space, but don’t forget to invite people into it. You are just enough introvert that without a safe space to retreat to, it can feel like you are losing your mind. Don’t let people make you feel selfish or lazy for needing that, but don’t fully retreat into your own little hermit world either. Find healthy boundaries and stick to them. It’s lonely by yourself, and you resort to trying to be self-protective when alone too long.
  1. It’s okay to love yourself. It’s hard, and it’s often exhausting, but it’s worth doing. It’s also okay to let people in on the fact that you think there might be something wrong with the way you love yourself. You won’t get the help you need until you start to let some people in on the murky parts that you can’t fix on your own
  1. Some of the best opportunities in your life will seem entirely too big and scary for you to accomplish. You like being naturally good at things and tend to stick with the ones you excel at and shy away from the ones that make you feel lacking. Some of the stuff you attempt will fail miserably, but even more will surprise you with successes along the way. Do things that scare you, say yes to things (within reason) that aren’t totally comfortable. I am not at all advocating for throwing all reservations out the window and doing anything regardless of the consequences – your gut will save you an immense amount of potential trouble by avoiding things that are dangerous and laden with pitfalls. But there are loads of opportunities around you that are scary because you might not be good at them at first, or you might have to be vulnerable and end up getting hurt…consider doing them anyway. The list of things that is immediately terrifying to you is unfortunately long, but don’t settle for things that don’t make your heart pound a little. Be brave, and trust Jesus in scary places.
  1. You will be one of those people who love Jesus and talks about him in weird ways. You can fight it for a long time, but eventually you’ll find yourself using “troll-jesus” in an entirely affectionate way. You get called to fast a lot (which if I know you, garnered an eye roll. It’s not what I would call fun, but it never fails to produce fruit), and you end up having conversations with complete strangers about things the Lord tells you to talk about. It will weird you out, it will feel entirely too charismatic, it will be uncomfortable, you won’t always see the pay off or purpose behind it, but this life with Jesus, even when it’s weird, is most definitely worthwhile.
  1. You will also find yourself ripped from your very sheltered, comfortable existence when you actually let yourself see the agony and the joys in the rest of the world. Don’t avoid it because you are worried about who you’ll be when the chips have fallen – see it, recognize it and feel it. It’s hard and painful sometimes, but it’s the only way you recognize that God called you to be in it too.
  1. Boys. You have this ideology at this point in your life that you will be married by the time you graduate from college. You are entirely too cynical to admit this out loud to anyone, and are currently on a year long fast from boys where you start to discover Jesus in ways you didn’t know were possible. You worry if there will ever be a boy who can see you, and love you for exactly who you are. Spoiler: There is no ring by spring in your college experience. But there are some really wonderful and really atrocious friendships with men (and a few funny stories about dates you didn’t anticipate too). They will shape what you think you want in a partner, and then God comes in and changes what you thought you wanted – time and time again. You don’t realize it yet, but much of what you believe to be true about the types of guys that will be attracted to you is wrong. There are a lot of lies you have to wade through to get down to the truth, and you’ll often be quick to forget the truth at first. There is nothing wrong with you if you make it to 18 without a significant other, or 21, or even 30. Yes it’s older than your parents were when they got married, but you’ll experience so many ways that you aren’t them in the years to come, and come to see that it’s okay to set your own pace on those things. Above all – wait on Jesus to bring the right one. You’ll spend too many hours wondering if this boy or that boy is the one God is preparing for you. When the time comes, you’ll know. Jesus isn’t going to leave you hanging on that – just be patient. Use that time to discover who you are, who Jesus made you to be, and the impact you can have on the world around you by letting him make your broken parts whole.
  1. Finally, life in general pretty much ends up nothing like you thought it would. You aren’t in medical school, you aren’t a doctor. You end up in a field that has everything to do with healthy living, it just isn’t at all what you thought. You might as well begin relaxing that death grip on control now, because it’s going to be years of the Lord being far more in control than you’ll ever be, and it’s going to stress you out. There will be far too many “what comes next” moments for your comfort, but it all works out, even if you don’t see how until you’re in the thick of it. God doesn’t ditch you when things get tricky, stressful or complicated. He leads you through some questionable places, many a result of choices you made, but he doesn’t leave you to do it alone. You don’t get married as young as your original to do list said you should, but you travel, go to a bunch of concerts, eat incredible food, meet wonderful people and have so much to be thankful for. Don’t wish it away for a spouse or a job or a life in the hazy future. So many unbelievably crazy, hard and wonderful things happen in the seasons of your life that you have already deemed “wasted space”,  set aside for nothing more than waiting for life to start. Work hard,  appreciate your insatiable curiosity about everything, and above all trust that if you’re following Jesus, your life, even if it deviates far from your 10 year plan, is not wasted.

Tips for Planning

If you’ve had a conversation with me, even if it’s just for five minutes, you probably already know how OCD I am. I crave organization and order, often to a fault. Because of this need to have everything together, I have developed an obsession with planners and planning. I have tried practically every kind of planner out there, watched more hours of planning videos on YouTube than I care to admit. I’m not saying I’m a planner expert by any means, but I know at least enough to give you a little advice.

  1. Find what works for you functionally. No matter how cute the planner is, if it does not offer what works for you, do not buy it (I’ve said this to myself at least a few times in the Office Aisle at Target). There are so many different types; one of them is bound to work for you. My personal favorite is the planner with the week on two pages. This offers more room for writing in daily tasks than just a monthly planner, but not too much space from a day on one page planner.
  2. Find something you actually want to look at. If it is not cute, I probably will not carry it with me. Plain and simple. If you are the same way, find something you think it cute, but do not sacrifice functionality for cute. If you find something that is plain, but functionally works for you, make it cute. A simple search on YouTube for “Plan With Me” videos will yield thousands of possibilities. I put stickers all over my planner. If it is something I want to look at, I will actually keep it open and use it everyday.
  3. Decide what you want to use the planner for. Is it for school, work, personal activities,or all of them above? Once you’ve decided, keep track. It takes 21 days to create a habit, so stick with it.
  4. Plan the week ahead. I spend every Sunday afternoon looking at the week ahead to plan out all the tasks I need to get done and place them on days that work best. I make a grocery list in my planner on the day I want to go shopping. If everything is in one place, that is when I function best.
  5. Create tasks lists daily. Even if it is something you do everyday, or every week, writing it down and being able to cross it off makes you more likely to put not-so-routine tasks in your planner and actually do them on time.

One of the best reasons I can give for time management is being a person of integrity. When I say I am going to do something, and I do not, I look like someone who is flaky and unreliable. Even if that is not true in the slightest, I can come across that way to my employer, my friends, other people I meet.

And, for all the curious, I use a traveler’s notebook to plan in. Traveler’s notebooks have the capability of housing my journals, my work notes, AND my planner. This works best for me and my brain – a one-stop-shop for all my daily writing needs.

What works best for you? Share your planner pictures and stories in the comments below. I would love to see what you are doing. If you want to see pictures of my planner, I’ll be posting a picture everyday this week on my Instagram, @jhook37.

Redefining Broken

Have you ever heard of Nellie Willhite? I had never heard of her until last week on a trip to a Flight Museum. We were walking through the exhibit of the first airplanes of the 20th century. The tour guide led us to Nellie’s large, blue plane that had the name Pard painted on its side. Pard was her father’s nickname.

Nellie Willhite was the first deaf woman to be a pilot. She lost her hearing after a childhood illness. It was a hard time in her life and she had to adapt to it. When she was a young woman, a pilot friend of hers joked that she should become a pilot. But that joke transformed into a dream in Nellie’s heart. A few years later at the age of 35, Nellie’s father provided for her aviation lessons and bought her the plane, the wings she needed to fly and oh! How she soared!

What I find so beautiful is that her father believed in her. He believed in the dreams in her heart and knew that she was capable even in her deafness. He believed in her even when she would not. I am sure that doubt and lies ran through Nellie’s mind every time she had a dream or a goal. I am sure that there were moments in her life where she made mistakes, listened to lies, and didn’t believe in who she was. BUT my favorite part of the story is that even though she had some hiccups along the way, she ultimately put her trust in her father to help her and she accepted the gifts that he gave her. Once she did, she discovered that her “disablement” was really an enablement. She took the lies captive and replaced them with truth.

You see, my dear friend, what the world calls broken, He calls a masterpiece. What the world calls a failure, He calls chosen. What the world calls a disablement, He calls an enablement. To put it a different way, imagine if you were to grasp a glass vase and throw it on the ground right now. There would be little pieces and big shards of glass everywhere, right? It would be a mess. The world would look at it and declare it impossible to put back together. “It’s not worth anyone’s time”.

But God would look at it with excitement in His eyes and declare, “I know the plans I have for you. Plans for good and not for evil. Plans for a future and a hope.” (Jeremiah 29:11). He redefines the world’s definition of broken. He says there is purpose. Our Father gathers the pieces of our lives with His loving hands and creates something new out of the old.

You see, our God is THE Creator. He makes all things new. There are times in our lives where we wish to go back to the way things were, to the shape we used to be when we were content. But God has SO MUCH MORE for YOU! His love for you is incomprehensible! He longs to create a masterpiece out of the brokenness you see! How mind-blowing is that?!

Girl, I have experienced moments where I have given into a temptation or I have believed in a lie about myself. Afterwards, it can be so so so easy to listen to the lies that say “There is no way that vision will be a reality someday?” “You think God still loves you after what you just did?” “How could you ever get to that college?!” “You keep messing up and you will never get to that good place again.” THESE ARE LIES. THESE ARE NOT FROM GOD.

Girl, I know firsthand how broken you can feel when it seems like you keep messing up and making the same mistakes over and over again. You feel empty, lost, weak, and hopeless. You start beating yourself up about it. BUT I have beautiful truth for you today. His love and grace is not a onetime gift. It is an every time gift. His power is made perfect in weakness. Yes, you are human. Yes, you make mistakes sometimes. Yes, you get some scars. Yes, you go through trials. But God promises that He will take your tribulation and turn it into a testimony. He will take your broken moments and turn them into wings! His plan for you is to soar with the beautiful dreams that He has placed in your beautiful heart.

“Each time he said, ‘My grace is all you need. My power works best in weakness.’ So now I am glad to boast about my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ can work through me.”
– 2 Corinthians 12:9

I think being broken is beautiful. Do you want to know why? If my heart desires to shine Jesus’ light, I do not want to be a glass vase with light trapped inside. You might be able to see the light in me, but think how much brighter the light would shine if the vase was shattered and the light reflected off all the pieces, both big and small! The light would shine on every inch of the room! The pieces would reflect off each other. So do not be discouraged with a mistake you have made or a “disablement” you possess. God has a marvelous plan for that piece and He has promised you that He “works all things together for the good of those who love Him.” (Romans 8:28).  Remember, the Lord is always faithful and He will never give you an empty promise.

So, daughter of the Most High, let’s fly with that promise and see what He does with our broken pieces!

3 Ways 2016 Can Be Your Best Year Yet

In my annual Christmas cards, I wrote this line: I pray that 2016 will be your best year yet.

I sincerely mean it. I want my friends to have amazing, abundant lives in which God has called us to (John 10:10). Our lives are not easy, but they can be rich in the Lord.

2015 was, by far, my best year and I’m hoping that 2016 will be even better. My prayer for you, my Captivating sisters, is that 2016 will also be your best year.

Here are 3 ways 2016 can be your best year.

Reason 1 – Fast

Let me honest, 2015 started on a sour note. I broke up with a guy (the first guy I had ever dated) 4 days after Christmas. There were a lot of tears entering into 2015. Hannah (one of our Captivating Woman writers) and I decided to fast for 21 days because we desperately needed to hear from God. The fast was difficult. I was hungry and emotionally exhausted. I would be awake until 3 am crying and talking with God. I felt attacked by the enemy. Statements like, “No one will date you” or “You’re not good enough” fled my mind. I had to bind those up, with Satan himself, and send it to the throne. It was powerful. I truly felt that God was on my side and that He was my protector.

For 21 days I wrestled with God, but it was amazing and good. I experienced God in such a different realm which catastrophically changed the way I viewed the Lord and how I spent time with Him. I saw Him as a Father. A Father who heals broken hearts. A Father who is intentional with His children. A Father who I can approach with a kiss.

Whatever you’re craving more than God, you might want to fast from. You can fast from food, social media, sugar, etc. You choose. Not being distracted by these things can cause you to want God even more – it creates a heathy habit of running to God.

Reason 2 – Don’t Make New Years Resolutions

I feel like a failure right at the gate when I create resolutions. I do get excited when I make resolutions, but automatically feel anxious looking at them. I probably accomplish 2 out of the 10 resolutions that I create. Automatically I put an L on my forehead. But you know what?  Change is good. We shouldn’t have a complacent lifestyle where we say, “It is what it is.” So instead of create resolutions for the whole year, create a goal for the month or the week. I’d suggest to make a small goal if you’re making a goal for the week. Make it a little bigger if you’re making a goal for the month. John Maxwell says that it takes 21 days to create a habit. Change is coming, friends. Give it some time. Work with your weeks and months. Be gracious with yourself.

Reason 3 – Create Seasons of Excitement

During the summer I decided I would say yes. Yes to what? Yes to adventure, yes to traveling hours away to be a part of workshops, yes to life. I didn’t want to let money, distance, or people stop me from doing things I’ve always wanted to try. #thesummerofyes is how I titled it. My summer was fun. I traveled to Southern California to learn brush calligraphy and I drove to Canada because, why not? God introduced a lot of new things in my life & my spirit felt refreshed.

What have you been dying to do? What are your dreams? What can you be saying yes to?

We pray that 2016 will be your best year yet. We pray for adventure & whimsy. We pray that God will speak to you in different ways and that you’re heart is ready to receive. 2016 is going to be good. 2016 is going to be fun. 2016 is going to be the year that God is going to some amazing things through women. Don’t miss it.

Meet Jessica Senbetu

I met Jessica through Cru my junior year. I remember the day exactly. I walked around the chapel where Cru was having their weekly meeting, probably 4 times. I was so nervous to go in. But I knew that I would find my friends there. I connected with Jess and we realized we were in the same major, plus we had the same class together after the meeting was over. I instantly loved Jessica. I love her personality, her humor, and her love for Jesus. She does her job so well – it was made for her. I’m excited for Jessica to share more about herself in this month’s “Meet Captivating Women.”

Where do you live and how old are you?

I live in San Jose, CA and I am 23 years old!

What did you get your degree in?

I got my degree in Recreation from San Jose State University.

What three words describe you?

Passionate, creative, intuitive.

What do you do for a living?

I work full-time with a Christian missions organization called Cru (formerly known as Campus Crusade for Christ). I work with the “campus ministry” of Cru at San Jose State University reaching college students with the Gospel! It’s crazy fun! Our tagline is, “Cru is a caring community passionate about connecting people to Jesus”, and I love that vision-because it’s about changed lives, changing lives. My life was radically changed by Jesus through Cru during my freshman year of college and I was so changed that I wanted as many college students lives’ to be changed by the Gospel as well, and I wanted to be a part of that.

Give us a day in the life of Jessica Senbetu.
Let’s see…it usually starts with me waking up to the sound of my husband watching ESPN and thinking “How long has he been up? What day is it? I’m so thirsty!” Every. Single. Morning.

Once I break out of my haze I get some reading and/or praying in. This doesn’t come naturally to me, I gotta work for it. After that it’s usually straight into some type of meeting with my Cru staff teammates, staff meeting, staff prayer, check-in with my team leader. I like starting the mornings with my team, it keeps my focused and fills up my relational tank! The afternoons are usually meeting with students, sometimes that’s meeting up for coffee to talk about who Jesus is or what it looks like to follow Him, sometimes it’s going into the dorms to pray and meet students, and sometimes it’s planning to meet up with a student leader but then running into 5 other Cru students on campus and having an impromptu hangout! I love college ministry because it’s highly relational and unpredictable. God is always doing something unexpected. Lastly, the evenings are Cru meetings and small groups. This next Spring I’m helping launch a co-ed Greek Bible study, so you’ll find me on Greek row on Wednesday nights!

What’s the favorite part of your job?

My favorite part of my job is watching God change lives. I know it sounds simple, but I can just never get enough of it! This past Fall semester I personally got to see 5 freshmen girls surrender their lives over to Jesus and begin to follow Him, and that was out of 28 students who indicated decisions for Christ through Cru! Crazy! I watch students leave everything behind to follow Jesus- girls texting me at some odd hours in the night to tell me they need to break up with their boyfriend because the relationship is leading them away from Christ or that they need prayer because they just shared the Gospel with their friend from home and they can’t believe they even got through the conversation! I love getting to see answered prayers be manifested through the Spirit in real lives of college students, it’s like we’re real characters in this beautiful story God is writing.

Favorite verse?

“How, then, can they call on the one they have not believed in? And how can they believe in the one of whom they have not heard? And how can they hear without someone preaching to them? And how can anyone preach unless they are sent? As it is written: ‘How beautiful are the feet of those who bring good news!'” -Romans 10:14-15

What makes a Captivating Woman?
A Captivating Woman is a woman who lives out who she is supposed to be. Who she was created to be. She is unwavering from the woman God created in her mother’s womb and she seeks His voice because her identity is not in what she can do, but in Who gave her life.
Favorite story in the bible?

My favorite story in the Bible right now is the story of the sinful woman who broke her alabaster box at the feet of Jesus in front of the crowd. I came back to this story again and again this semester with my freshmen girls bible study and I was so overcome with emotion when it really hit me for the first time, I am the sinful woman and I need to come to Jesus. I love all the gems of historical context in this story…the box of perfume, the Pharisees, the washing of the feet…so good. This is one of my favorite pictures of how Jesus feels about mankind, so much compassion & love for us and so much hope offered to us.

Who are some Captivating Women in your life that we need to know about.
Elisabeth Elliot – wife of missionary Jim Elliot, and missionary herself who followed God’s leading with her husband into the remote villages of Ecuador to bring the Gospel to people who had never heard the name of Jesus. Her book Through Gates of Splendor is the account of their journey and their story changed my life! When I first became a Christian I wanted to be just like her!
Christena Cleveland – In 2014, Christianity Today named her one of the “33 Under 33” millennials leading the next generation of Christian faith. She is “a social psychologist with a hopeful passion for overcoming cultural divisions in groups”. I first heard Christena speak at our Cru staff conference this past summer and I was obsessed. Her strong voice for justice lit up the room, created discomfort, and got people talking. I loved how she used her voice to eloquently and unapologetically speak truth. www.christenacleveland.com