Thursday, April 26, 2012

A Trip to Neverland


College is like Wendy’s trip to Neverland. It’s a break from reality—a trip to a place entirely different from the life you’ve always known. But really, it’s preparing you for the reality you’re headed back to. In the midst of the crazy adventure you take on for 4 years (or 5, or 6), you learn how to handle real life. It’s a trip to Neverland.

One of my professors loves to say that college is not academic; it’s cultural. Often this is why employers don’t care so much what your degree is exactly—they just want to know you got one. A person who has spent 4 years focused so singularly on this one thing has had experiences that change him and mold him in a way others cannot replicate. I’m sorry, but community college while living at home, or getting a degree online by taking one or two classes at a time is not the same experience as living and breathing college for four years. That’s like reading Peter Pan, or seeing the play. It’s not a trip to Neverland.

College is that place we always wanted to go, but never thought we’d actually get to. It was always in the future, when we were grown up and prepared. What we didn’t realize is that college turns you into the grownup. You’re a child when you enter and an adult when you leave. Scary thought. But I’ve seen it more and more over the past few months. All these sophomores—and even juniors—in my classes seem so naïve and young. Oh, it’s not that they look so young. But they look like babies to me. They’re enjoying Neverland, living in the moment, running with Indians and fighting pirates like there’s no tomorrow. It’s exhilarating, really. Over the last four years I’ve gained a sense of freedom. I am an individual, with freedoms to do far more than I ever thought I could. I can break rules. I can speak my mind and hold my own. I can get a tattoo (and I did!). College is a place to do anything and everything, just to say you’ve done it. And to actually do it. Neverland.

But only Peter can stay in Neverland. Everyone else leaves. And when we leave, we are changed. We do not return to our reality unchanged by our experiences. In the wildness, we discovered responsibility. In the midst of our adventures, we learned to value the mundane. In doing everything, we found the few things we actually wanted to do. We entered as doe-eyed children, taking everything in. Now we’ve seen it all, and we are focused. We no longer walk down the street staring at everything around us. We walk with purpose, looking straight ahead.

We’ve grown up. 

Thursday, March 1, 2012

To Be Known

In the last month or so, my heart has been pondering the idea of what it truly is to be known by God. It’s quite a spectacular thing really, especially as a woman, to meditate on the security of being known so intimately and personally by my Creator. Not only does God hear and understand what I choose to tell Him, but everything I’m scared to say too. He does not simply see the facts, like a resume on a sheet of paper that is emailed to Him everyday, but He understands the motivations behind each thought and action I have. He sees and understands even those aspects that I am completely unaware of myself.

I first came to this realization in a new way about a month ago, in the midst of a time of repentance. For some reason, the image in my mind when it comes to repentance has always leaned more to God as Judge. As if while I confess, He is standing Judge, determining whether or not I am truly being heartfelt. Yet in one moment, it was as if Christ was whispering to my heart, “I understand.” He understands the brokenness from which my sin is most often born. And while He desires all to come to repentance, He still sees me beforehand.

I’ve also recently come to a heightened understanding of what it means to be seen and known. This is not a passive knowledge God has of me, but an active involvement He chooses to have. I have an intercessor in the person of Christ, an every present help in the Holy Spirit, and a loving Father God who always welcomes me back. Ultimately, God, in all of His Persons, is for me. He will always choose me. 

Saturday, February 4, 2012

Vanquishing Fear

It’s amazing to me how Satan works. I am fully aware that, as a believer indwelt with the Holy Spirit, the evil one has no power over me. Yet even when I am at my strongest, it seems the slightest blow can bring me to my knees.

Over the last few months, I’ve found what it means to draw strength from the Lord. As I’ve entered this last semester of my undergraduate career, I’ve found myself wondering where in the world all the time has gone. It’s as if I woke up, and I’m an adult. No more playing around, no more fiddling with plans for the future. The future is now the present, and I’m right in the middle of it. Yet I am not weakened by thoughts and plans of this future/present. I have been accepted into Liberty’s Master of Arts in English program, and I signed my contract this week for the Graduate Student Assistantship for Fall, 2012. Not only do I have the privilege of studying what I love most for another two years, but I get to do it for free! Not only do I get to broaden my teaching horizons, I get to do it at the university that has done so much for me! The faculty and students I’ve learned from and grown with the past 4 years will now be my colleagues! I am continuing to teach for The Potter’s School next year, and that is yet another blessing that seems utterly surreal. Who would have thought that less than 4 years after “graduating” from this amazing organization, I’d get the opportunity to bless others the way my TPS instructors blessed me?!

The blessings of God are abundant, and I have nothing but praise for Him.

Yet insecurities, while small in comparison to these blessings, still cripple me at times. But I’ve found that naming these fears, putting a face on them, and setting them in their place is very helpful in conquering them through the Spirit.

Perhaps the most imminent threat to my joy is this looming project: the Senior Honor’s Thesis. The draft is due in 2 days, and I feel as though writing is now more like pulling teeth. Every sentence is a chore, simply because I’m exhausted. And the underlying fear is that it will not be good enough. In fact, it will not be good at all. I will submit it to my faculty committee and promptly have it ripped apart. And while I know, logically, that this will not happen, the fear is still there, nibbling away somewhere near the back of my skull, keeping me from my best work.

I must say, I also fear several aspects of the future. My friends are leaving me. And though my circle is small, it will be reduced to practically no one in just a few months. I’m so grateful for my wonderful sister/roommate who is an ever-present source of laughter and encouragement. But these wonderful friends who have stood by me for 4 years are leaving, each one going on to his or her own future, away from here. I can’t help but feel a little left behind. And I also wonder, who will take their places? Who will I watch the Bachelor/Bachelorette with on Monday nights? Who will be my new shopping buddies and movie buddies and cuddle-up-on-the-couch-to-laugh buddies? Am I really walking into this new phase of life alone?

Alone. Probably the greatest and most pervasive fear I’ve dealt with is contained within that one word. I did not think I would be that girl—the one without a man, launching herself into a very grown up world with only her dreams to guide her. I know women who are excellent at being independent. One of them is a best friend of mine. She has been a huge source of encouragement during the past few months. And while I know that I’ll take whatever comes at me, and I’ll do it all by myself if need be, I don’t really want to. I’ve never wanted to be that person. I really thought I’d do it with someone. I thought I’d have a partner in this big adventure. And now I’m just starting over—alone. I honestly don’t know how to be this person. Almost 22—yet still feeling like a little girl who really should not be left alone to wander through life. I still have those little girl dreams—that Prince Charming will come in and sweep me off my feet. But more than that, I really just want a partner. Walking alone is not what I want, and I fear I might have to do it for quite a while.

Yet God answers all my fears. For my academics, I have been equipped. I trust in Him to place new friends in my life who, though not the ones leaving, will be exactly who I need for this new phase of life. And my fear of being alone. Well, that’s simple. I’m never alone : ). And when I doubt myself, and fear the worst, I’m still not alone. So I cling to the promise God gave to Isaiah the prophet for Israel (who had far more to fear than I do, but still, it works)…

 1 But now thus says the LORD,
he who created you, O Jacob,
   he who formed you, O Israel:
Fear not, for I have redeemed you;
   I have called you by name, you are mine.
2 When you pass through the waters, I will be with you;
   and through the rivers, they shall not overwhelm you;
when you walk through fire you shall not be burned,
   and the flame shall not consume you.
3 For I am the LORD your God,
   the Holy One of Israel, your Savior.
I give Egypt as your ransom,
   Cush and Seba in exchange for you.
4 Because you are precious in my eyes,
   and honored, and I love you,
I give men in return for you,

   peoples in exchange for your life. 
5 Fear not, for I am with you;
   I will bring your offspring from the east,
   and from the west I will gather you.
6 I will say to the north, Give up,
   and to the south, Do not withhold;
bring my sons from afar
   and my daughters from the end of the earth,
7 everyone who is called by my name,
   whom I created for my glory,
   whom I formed and made.” (Isaiah 43:1-7, ESV)

I am precious, and I am loved, not because of the friends I have, or my writing, or even my relationship status, but because I am redeemed. God has promised His presence in the very midst of my trials and fears. I have been bought with a price, and I am dearly loved. So I have absolutely no reason or need to fear.

Wednesday, December 7, 2011

stare [a poem]

everyone looks
across
at a pair to stare into
brows rise
over orbs
tinted with laughter
looking
leaning
laughing
they all have eyes
to look into.

Sunday, October 23, 2011

almost had it


Yep, she gets it.

I want to go buy a bunch of old china and throw it up against a wall, just because it makes such an amazing pile of brokenness afterwards...

Wednesday, October 12, 2011

Adam, Eve, and the Question of Death

In contemplating my newfound state of singleness, I’ve been going over the biblical picture of the man-woman relationship. In doing so I’ve ended up back in the beginning of it all. Odd that I have ended up going backward in my quest to move forward. But look back I’ve found I must. And now I find myself looking all the way back.

I’ve always found it remarkable that the first love story is so simplistic. Adam didn’t date a bunch of Eves before finding “the one.” She was always the one; she was the only one. And she was given to Adam by God.

After spending two years with a man I was convinced I’d marry, life without him is utterly foreign. I almost feel as if I’m living someone else’s life. It’s not a dark and gloomy sort of life, but it’s just not mine.

All of this has led me to wonder how it was when Adam or Eve lost the other to death. Their sin in the Garden had sealed their death, but they still walked out of Eden together. In each other they held on to one blessing God had given. Both were cursed, but they endured together. Both saw their older son kill their younger, but they went through it together. Adam was cursed to toil and work over the ground, but he always came home to Eve. Eve gave birth to Adam’s children and endured the painful curse of child birth each time. But they were Adam’s children, and he was blessed through her pain.

But they died. I wonder who went first. We know they lived for several hundred years. Were they surprised when death came?

What if Eve went first? Did Adam watch her grow tired, weary, and sick? What did her last day look like? Did she die quietly in her sleep? I can see Adam lying next to her, old and decrepit himself, his arm beneath her head, his face bowed down close to hers, sharing her last breaths. He just listens to her inhaling—feels her exhaling. Each breath comes slower and slower. Every time she exhales he wonders, “Will she breathe again? Will her chest rise again as she grasps for one more breath, one more moment to stay in my arms?” He strokes her hair away from her face and dribbles water onto her thin, dry lips. This woman, this mother of all humanity, is slowly losing her grip on life as Adam holds her. God is drawing her away.

Let me pause here and mention a thought I have repeatedly been struck by. Adam probably clearly remembered those first moments with Eve. God brought her to him, and the two were man and wife. This was in response to God seeing Adam’s loneliness. Adam has his work in the garden and he had named all the animals, but he was still alone. Adam had his job and he did the tasks God assigned him. “But for Adam there was not found a helper fit for him” (Genesis 2:20 ESV). Adam’s life was not empty and void without Eve. He had his God and he had his work. But God saw that, “It is not good that man should be alone” (2:18). So God created Eve to complete Adam’s world. She was not the sole source of his life and purpose, but without her, God’s plan was not complete.

So we go back to this theoretical moment, with Eve slipping away from Adam to be with God. Adam was suddenly facing life without her once again. Whether he had days left or years, they were to be incomplete or, as God first put it, “not good.” My heart aches for Adam in this situation. I think of my parents and the utter despair I would feel for my father to lose his partner, his helper. The aching is unimaginable.

Yet I must say I prefer this scenario to the alternative. Let us picture, for a moment, a different scene. As a woman who has known true love for a man, this picture is easier for me to imagine. What if Adam died first? What if Eve was left alone? Just thinking of her heartache makes my own heart quiver. I know what it is liked to have loved and lost. I’m in the midst of the grieving process for that loss. But I have a life a part from that love. I’m a bit more like Adam. I have God and I have tasks. I can remember a time before I had love, before I had a partner. And while I would much rather live life with him, I know I am capable of living well without him. Not so for Eve. God created Eve and brought her to Adam. She was created by God, for Adam. She had never existed without him.

But here she is in our mind’s eye, an old woman with wrinkled hands that have held her children and cared for her husband. She has endured the curse by his side for several hundred years and wept at the death of Abel. She gave Adam a son “in his own image” (Genesis 5:3 EV). They alone carried the memory of Eden in their hearts. Yet here he lay, her partner, her mate, the one for whom she was intended. And she was facing the unknown of life, whether days or years, without him. She strokes his hair and keeps him warm while God draws his spirit from the earth.

Forgive me for being overly personal, but I think I have a small understanding of how this might have been for Eve. Losing a relationship, specifically a serious, long term, romantic relationship is, for women, often a huge loss. It is a loss not of the relationship in the present, but also of the hopes and plans for the future. When a relationship ends, the potential future for that relationship ends as well. The children with her hair and his eyes cease to exist. The Christmases spent going between in-laws disappear. The image of him at the end of the aisle, waiting for her, must be extinguished. It is the loss of the future that women often find the most difficult to overcome.

Eve was facing the same loss at Adam’s death. Their time together was coming to an end and she was losing not just him, but the continuing future with him as well. She was losing her leader, her broad shoulder to cry on, and the father of her children. And she was entering into a life, no matter how long she has left, without him. My heart breaks for Eve. It aches for them both but it truly breaks for her.

I’ve gotten a taste of her possible pain over the last few weeks. This level of loss is unimaginable, and it does not hit all at once. It’s a process of realization and of mourning each significant aspect of the relationship that has suddenly ceased to exist. Knowing all of this now, and more importantly, feeling it now, I have just one genuine hope. I doubt I will ever know the reality, but I still have this hope: I desperately hope that God took Eve first. I do not think I could process the concept of Adam dying first. The loss of Adam to Eve would, I think break any woman. But for Eve, who had never known a moment with Adam, I think it would be too much. So I simply hope to God that she never experienced that—I hope beyond all hope that God took her first. 

Thursday, September 29, 2011

the discovery of food [in a new way]

So while school is ruling both the content and form of my days, I have had some time to slowly stretch my proverbial cooking wings. I have yet to create a true miracle, but nothing has wound up burnt or inedible...yet.

Here's a glimpse of what has been filling my plate the last month or so <3


Toasted turkey-bacon sandwich with provolone and swiss on fantastic Italian bread from Salad Night. With fresh strawberries, of course.


Family dinner when Em and I both needed it. Pork Roast in the crock pot, baked beans, and broccoli.


My wonderful, last minute meal idea! Orange chicken in the crock pot--we actually had all the ingredients! Served with brown rice and peas.


Wonderful recipe from the lovely Lindsay. Had to get most of the ingredients, but our stuffed chicken breasts were well worth it. 


As it baked, the wonderful smell wafted through our little place <3


Today's creation, courtesy of the leftover ingredients from the previous evening's chicken. Grilled quesadilla with spinach, grape tomatoes, and chicken.


Quite scrumptious. 

On the menu for the coming week: Mother's Stir Fry, Creamy Tortellini Soup (in the crock pot!), and Chicken Lasagna Rolls. 

I'm also considering adding afternoon tea to our daily meal menu. I think hot tea to get you through the rest of the day is a perfectly British idea ; )