The Events of 10.11.12

I am going to tell you about my day. 

It began by me waking up at my sister and brother-in-laws house.  They are out of town and I nominated myself as their house sitter.  The best part about nominating yourself for this type of position is that it gives you the freedom to come and go as you please and host dinner parties and reunite with the bed you became so attached to after a year of living there.  My sister and brother-in-law are very gracious to give me such freedom with their house. 

I ate breakfast, made French press coffee, read my Bible and wrote in my journal and finished the entry off by saying “Jesus I pray that you would kick Satan’s butt today!  All day!  I love you Jesus!  You are so powerful!  Amen.”  (The kick Satan’s butt part is apparently a phrase that a fun, boisterous lady from my church at home says that my mom shared with me last night and I’ve decided that I like it a lot)

Then I went to work to begin a day full of a task that has pretty much been the bane of my existence for the past few weeks.  Water toys.  Kids, I realized that they are fun to play with when they are in the water.  I myself have found joy in playing on them from time to time.  But once they are out of the water and they need to be scrubbed and dried and sprayed with vinyl protectant, their fun decreases exponentially.  It takes all I have in me to not find the nearest box cutter or pocket knife or sharp rock and rip them to shreds.  They have a tendency to bring out the worst in me.

But, I knew the end was near.  So I wasn’t dreading it too much. 

In the chilliness of the morning, while listening to the Pride and Prejudice soundtrack to make the early morning experience seem more magical, we tackled the project of getting the 40-foot blob ready to be put in storage.  That experience really wasn’t too bad.

The next thing we had to do caused me to utter something to the effect of, “ I’m not big on strategy.  I don’t want to stand here and strategize about the best way to do this.  I just want people to think of an idea, do it, and if it doesn’t work, do something else until we get it done.  We just need to do.”  I think I have known this about myself for a while but having those words come out of my mouth were somehow really freeing.  I finally realized why working with certain people is so interesting and sometimes difficult for me.  Because most of the time, I don’t care about doing something the right way the first time.  I don’t want to talk about or scheme or plan.  I just want to do until we figure it out.  Hmm…this is good for me to know. 

Then it was lunchtime.  I was invited to go on a lunchtime walk with two co-workers.  I was excited to do this.  I like these people and I wanted to do this with them.  But things worked out funny and it didn’t end up working out for me to walk with them.  And that’s when the day started going downhill.  And quickly.  It was such a small thing but I took it personally and it hurt my feelings.   

I started having all these thoughts about how they probably did this on purpose to make sure I wasn’t with them so they didn’t have to be around me because they enjoy being with each other WAY MORE than they like being with me.   I felt unwanted.  Unlikable.  Ugly.  Pitiful.  I started having all these doubts about myself.  I felt like nobody liked me.  It was crap.  All crap.  I was thinking crap thoughts and I felt like crap. 

Then, the job of water toy cleaning got more complicated.  People were offering suggestions and I took it as them thinking the decisions I had made and the ideas I had were stupid.  I was frustrated and annoyed.  I ended the day feeling so defeated. 

I started the day right.  I talked with Jesus.  I read His Word and got something from it.  But I failed.  All day I was task driven and terrible.  I was a bull on a mission.  I wanted this job done.  I was sick of these water toys.  I no longer cared about being nice to the people that were helping me.  I cared about getting it done, and quickly.  I hate it when this happens.  Hate it.  But God is so good!  He is so gentle with me, with us, when we fail.

You see, there is something that I have been praying for off an on for awhile but in the last week and a half or so I have been praying even more fervently for it/about it.  I have talked to God about it a lot.  I have journaled about it a lot.  I didn’t know what to do, but I knew I needed to pray and seek the truth.   

Last night, I took a nap for a little bit.  I woke up and suddenly I felt God speaking to me saying, “Change is coming.  Change is coming soon.”   

And you know what?  Today, in that situation, change has come!  Praise God!  He is so at work!  Things are not suddenly perfect.  There is more to be done and there will be pain in the process, but change is here!  So even though I failed to be a vessel of God’s love and joy today, change is here.   

And seeing that change reminds me that God is not done with me yet.  Because he’s changing me, little by little, and some days even big chunks at a time, because he cares for me and loves me too much to let me rot in the pit I create for myself.  Praise God!     

2 Corinthians 5:17

Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come!

grace proved by guns

It's time for me to tell a story.
This is a story of something that occurred at work (Spring Hill Camps-Indiana) just yesterday.
When I think of this event, this story I am a bit horrified.  More than a bit actually.  I'm also embarrassed and frustrated.  It makes me feel like I'm really bad at my job.  I feel ill equipped to do what I'm asked to do and unable to take care of the things that I'm responsible for.  But...I'm going to practice a skill I learned from my very first boss, Jerry Suter.  I'm going to at the positive parts of this event, look for the good things that came from it.  I have to look at the positive side or this event, strung along with a bunch of other things that have happened this summer and fall, will crush me.

It all began by being partially in charge of firearms check-in for a Men's Retreat.  It was insane.  I spent the whole time chuckling to myself because of the irony of it all.  Me and one other girl (Tracy) were in charge of this.  The two people on camp that quite possibly know the very LEAST about guns.  I stood there with bugged-out eyeballs looking at the guns.  Hearing brands and words I have never heard before.  AR-15, Beretta, Muzzleloader...these were some of the unfamiliar words uttered to me.  Okay, I've heard of a muzzleloader but it seemed like such an odd thing for a man to bring to camp.  But these men would hand us their guns, sometimes in no case at all, and we would assure them that we would lock them up and they would be waiting for them at the range the next day, and then safely locked up again.

Then, that night I had to organize all of these things.  We have 3 ranges on camp.  Trap, archery, and riflery.  I had to somehow take these words that were unfamiliar and foreign and use them to figure out where these guns needed to go.  Lets just say...I learned a lot about guns in a 5 hour time span.  During this process I had the help of another girl on camp (Jess) who proceeded to google these words that were meaningless to us both, to help me figure out what was what.  We finished that up and locked the site office that now held thousands of dollars worth of firearms.  I went to bed praying that no one would have a psychotic break and decide to shoot up the whole camp.

Now lets fast forward to Sunday, the day these men left.  Surely none of them would want to leave without their guns, so Tracy and I spent half an hour towing guns from the lodge to a tent near the parking lot.  One man came up and I asked his name.  After he told me I pointed him to the area of the table that his firearm was.  Trouble is...he came with firearms.  Plural.  Not just the one that was on the table.  He said something to the effect of "Yes, I see my something (idk what he said) but I don't see my Beretta."  Upon hearing the word Beretta my mind starts spinning.  I have no idea what that is.  Is that a rifle?  A shotgun?  I have no idea!  And since I'm one of the people running this whole gun check-in/check-out process surely I can't let him know I have no idea what he's talking about.  Even though I'm sure it was written all over my face.  So I think well, I retrieved the shotguns from the range so I'm sure there are none there.  He must be talking about a rifle.  Because I didn't take the rifles.  So we decide that I will get into his car and he will drive me to the range, I will inspect the shed and we will find his gun.

So his car...its a BMW.  Surely worth more than the sum total of all of my student loans.  I get in the seat and instantly it hugs me.  We start driving off and in a lovely bell like tone, his car tells me I should really put my seatbelt on.  Its not annoying and screaming.  Its providing a nice, friendly reminder.  This car is nice.  Luxurious.  We start driving and where does he head to...the trap range.  Wait a second.  I took the guns from here last night.  And I was here in the morning and there were no guns.  I know this will be a fruitless effort.  I'm sure of it.  What do I do?  We stop, I unlock the Trap shed, and we both look in it finding no firearms at all.  Which I was fully aware was going to happen.  So I tell this man who was growing more concerned, "Lets go back to the lodge.  I'll look in the office where we were storing the guns."  Which I knew for a fact was also empty.  Sometime in this process he tells me he was reluctant to even check-in his Beretta.  The more he talked about it the more I was starting to realize that this is no Winchester rifle meant to shoot farmyard pests like groundhogs.  This is a shotgun and it is worth a lot of money.  Crap.  Where is the world is this mans gun, I wonder?

We go to the office.  Its not there.  That leaves one place.  If it is not there, surely I will be forced to empty the entire contents of our gun safe, give them to this man, and still, I will owe him $500, or more.  But this last place is not a good option...its the bed of a truck.  The bed.  Which is exposed to all of the elements.  Wind, rain, dew.  We walk to the truck and its there.  I have mixed emotions.  Relief, yes but also terror.  This man has been following me through this whole journey.  He knows his gun was in the bed of a camp truck.  His beloved Beretta that is probably worth more than the truck it was in!  He says to me, "Was it left out here all night?"  He asks this as a child whose parent forgot to pick them up from school asks. "Did you forget about me?"

My answer is honest, but uttering it is painful.

"Yes."

The disappointment on his face is plain to see.  I quickly grab some paper towels to wipe the spots of dew off the case.  This is bad.  This is really bad.  Whats the quickest way to ruin a gun?  Rust.  How is a gun exposed to this rust?  Sitting out all night in southern Indiana humidity.  I am horrified.

I ask him to look at it and he doesn't want to.  He didn't want to see the effects of this night outside in front of me.  But then he thinks if there is currently any visible damage he should probably show me.  He opens it up and it looks okay.  But he says. "The bad thing about rust is that it doesn't show up right away."  Horrified.  I. am. horrified.

He starts talking about our gun check-in procedure.  He explains that it could, and should be better.  Especially when men are bringing guns that are worth multiple thousands of dollars.  To which I agree. I completely agree.

I say I'm sorry profusely.  I am so sorry this happened.

He eventually says, "I know.  But God is good.  No matter what happens God is good.  Even if it is ruined, God is good."  I feel a little bit of relief.  I agree.  And I am thankful this man feels this way because he could be responding in such a different way.  He could be yelling, screaming at me, but he isn't.  He is disappointed, thinks this never should have happened, but he is kind.  He is gracious.  He puts his gun in his trunk knowing that the fate of its condition will pan out later.  He asks if I would like a ride back to where I was.  I say no.  I want this event to be over.  I want to get away from this man because I am so ashamed at what I had done.  I want to walk back but he says, "No, come on.  Get in the car, let me give you a ride.  I'm not like that."  He knows I feel terrible.  I walk to his car and get in it fighting back tears.  He explains that he wants this to be a teachable moment.  That improvements need to be made.  But he shows me one thing...grace.  So much grace.

So this weekend, grace was proved to me.  The grace of a man following the Lord.  And the grace of God. (Someone could have taken this gun-a greedy man or a middle or high school kid that was also traipsing around camp could have found it and hurt themselves or someone else, we could have had a monsoon of a rain storm which just days earlier, was the case, but these things didn't happen because of grace).
God is Good.  And he shows us grace every day.  Even when our pride doesn't allow us to see it.  He puts moments and events and stories in our lives to teach us more about him and ourselves.
This weekend I saw grace.  And all of it was proved through guns.      
       

In the Meantime

IN THE MEANTIME

maybe there’s no answer here,
at least one we’re ready to hear.
no string of words will satisfy.
no simple equation to edify us

here, in the meantime,
may questioning nurture life.

fear is illogical math-
an impractical skill to have.
still, we talk of our future ’til we have no voice;
we’ll try to outsmart it with noise.

but here, in the meantime,
may the unknown harvest life.

we’re conditioned to mourn our empty glass
long before it ever poured out our past.
though our patience is always in short supply,
we’ll leave our farsighted worries behind.

here, in the meantime,
in the gospel of nearsight,
may we learn to live a nourished life.

I will forever be grateful to Mrs. Malinda Cox for many things; one of them being for introducing me to Sleeping At Last.

This song I have really loved since last November.  I really liked the beginning.  The idea that there are events in life that occur that seem to have no good answers.  No answers that will often comfort or put our minds at ease.   

Now, I'm beginning to appreciate more and more parts of the song.  You see, I've been in the state of "unknown" for awhile now.  Honestly, even though I've had some stability here and there, I feel like I've been in this state since about January 2011.  Since the middleish of senior year, not knowing what I would do with myself in the "real world."  Surrounded by people who seemed to have it all together.  This frustrated me.  

But I want so badly to cherish this time.  All of my needs have been taken care of and I've had the chance to have some really great experiences.  And I'm free to do whatever I want.  Free to explore.  I'm just not quite sure what kind of adventure I'm meant to have. 

While watching a movie something the main guy in it did stood out to me.  This guy went to the same man for 34 days straight in order to get picked for the job he wanted.  34 days in a row?  Seriously?  I get rejected once by a job prospect and all of the sudden my walls of defense come up and I decide I wasn't really interested in that job anyways.  

I often wonder what I should do with the expanse of freedom that will be mine in a few short months.  

Do I get a random job for a year?  Something that just pays the bills?  Or do I need to find something, one certain thing, and pursue it like crazy until I get a job in that.  In the thing I feel at the time that I am passionate about?  

I just wonder, am I supposed to pick one thing and go for it non stop till I get it or is it okay to settle for something thats kinda sorta something I'm interested in?  

You see, I'm not the type of person that decided when I was 4 years old that I want to be a nurse or a teacher or something like that.  There are only 2 things that I have know since I was little that I want to do.  And I know that God does not want that for me right now.  For whatever reason, its not the right time yet.  So what do I do now?  

I also didn't come out of college with a degree that gives you a cookie cutter description of the type of job you are qualified for.  I have a Psychology degree.  It's a beautifully broad subject.  

Obviously, I still don't have a plan.  Believe me if I had a plan I would be sharing it because I would be so on top of the world excited about it I wouldn't be able to not share it.  

I'm just trying to trust that the Lord will be faithful.  That he has not forgotten about me.  That he has a plan for me and that he WILL provide for me when the time comes that I no longer have a job or a place to live.  That he does want to give me the desires of my heart.  His timing is not my own.  But his mercies are new every morning and his love never fails.        

here, in the meantime,
in the gospel of nearsight,
may we learn to live a nourished life.

Day Off

Today has been a day filled with many of my favorite things.  So many.  It has been fabulous.  I've loved it.
I slept in.
Watched Gilmore Girls while eating my cereal and drinking coffee from my huge mug that's as big as my face.  Then ate some M&Ms.  Cause I'm a girl.  And eating M&Ms at 10:30 in the morning is much more acceptable than eating them at 6:30 in the morning.  Not that I ever do that...I'm lying...
Bought a magazine at Walmart.
Went to a boutique in search of a good deal.  I was not successful but shopping at a boutique makes me feel like a big girl with a large sum of discretionary income.  Its fun to pretend these things sometimes.  
Went to a small, new lunch place that makes everything from scratch and looked through my newly purchased magazine while I ate.
        It was Food Network Magazine.  Which was totally worth the $4.27 in my opinion.  I enjoy it a lot.  Its not a magazine full of ads for pills or merchandise.  I hate magazines like that.
             This lunch place has homemade bread and infuses their water with delicious things like pineapple and watermelon and strawberries.  I felt healthy drinking it and it was delicious.
I talked to my good friend on my way to the outlet mall.  The conversation was refreshing and much needed.
Bought a maxi dress.  Maxi dresses have a way of making me feel like a supermodel.  I feel pretty and stand up straighter when I wear them.  Sometimes all it takes is a large amount of fabric capable of covering my entire lower body.  They're miracle workers I tell ya.
Talked to another friend while shopping.  I was looking through underwear bins in the meantime and because of the distraction of talking on the phone I was sifting through underwear for a completely ridiculous amount of time.  I then proceeded to walk out the door (kind of without thinking) and as a result did not take advantage of the 4/$10 deal on panties.  Dang.  Oh well.  It was totally worth it.  Even if people where starring at me the entire time wondering why I appeared to have some sort of underwear fetish.  I got to talk to and listen to and laugh with a good friend and that is all that matters.  
Bought a completely perfect waffle cone with chocolate and chocolate chip cookie dough ice cream.  It was hot outside and it dripped everywhere as I sat outside on a bench in front of a random store.  It was too good for me to even care I was making a huge mess.  I love waffle cones.
I'm not in Starbucks drinking Dark Roast coffee and pretending to do something important while all I'm really doing is writing this and occasionally perusing the internet.
Today has been relaxing and divine.
I feel pretty ready to conquer whatever challenges I may face tomorrow.  Which is good.  Cause I have to work on scheduling and pretend I know how to operate Excel.  Lord Jesus please help me to have a heart full of gratitude tomorrow as much as I have today even while doing tasks that can be frustrating and mundane.  You are great and deserve all the glory and all the praise all day and every day.  Give thanks to the Lord for he is GOOD.  His LOVE ENDURES FOREVER!

ATTENTION: All Men

Attention all men who do not want me to have their babies:

don't call me darlin' or ma'am. cause it makes me want to have your babies.

don't bring me a cup of coffee in the morning. cause it will also make me want to have your babies.

Attention all men who are 13, 15, 21, or 23 years older (you are TWICE my age, get serious) than me:

no, I do not want to go on a date with you. or drink wine at your apartment. but I don't know a nice way to say it to your face. and i can't lie. so my options are really dwindling here, so please do us both a favor and take my nice smile and the fact that I did not affirm the idea of going out with you as a refusal. I'm not interested! Okay?

Attention all men who do not want me to question your true manhood:

don't give an excuse every time you are corrected. and DON'T always blame it on someone else. It's not attractive and it just drives me nuts okay?!?!

Attention all foreign married men who pretend you're marriage license "doesn't count" when you are overseas:

it does. and the fact that you are trying to "pick me up" with a ring on your finger is disgusting.

Attention all men who are shorter than the average man:

you don't have to try to overcompensate for your lack in height. I promise you. Just chill.

Attention all men who: do want me to have their babies, are cute, don't smoke, know how to drive a tractor, work hard, can fix things, are funny, won't expect me to have sex before we're married and love Jesus:

where are you?