These are a few of my favorite things...

Occasionally I need to remind myself of things I am thankful for, particularly on days when I am prone to complaining (i.e. today). Here is my list, off the top of my head, at 12:30 am:

--rain against my window
--bubble baths
--anything chocolate
--friends who make me take myself less seriously and look to Jesus
--poetry
--biographies
--television, particularly The Office (is that bad??)
--soft blankets
--lamplight
--my car, and the fact that it has not broken down since this summer
--hymns
--an amazing family who love me and love the Lord
--my brother playing piano
--photographs of people I love and miss on my walls
--books that remind me that the world is bigger than myself
--slippers and bathrobes and anything else soft and warm and cozy
--coffee in the morning
--hot tea or chocolate at night
--having more than enough to eat
--easy forms of communication (telephone, internet, even webcam!) with far-away friends
--having a job where I get to love children
--time to rest on weekends--even when it is not enough, it is a time to rest and for that I am thankful

I have not posted in a long time, mostly because I have been a little too overwhelmed to write. I will try to post more later, but in the meantime, please pray for me to have a heart of thankfulness for the blessings I have been given and to live for God's glory and not my own, to rest in his peace and not my own efforts.

Beams of Heaven

Beams of heaven,
as I go through the wilderness below,
guide my feet in peaceful ways,
turn my midnights into days.
When in darkness I would grope,
faith always sees a star of hope,
and soon from all life's grief and danger
I shall be free someday.

Oftentimes my sky is clear;
joy abounds without a tear;
though a day so bright begun,
clouds may hide tomorrow's sun.
There'll be a day that's always bright,
a day that never yields to night,
and in its light the streets of glory
I shall behold someday.

Harder yet may be the fight;
right may often yield to might.
Wickedness awhile may reign;
Satan's cause may seem to gain.
There is a God that rules above
with hand of power and heart of love,
and if I'm right, He'll fight my battle.
I shall have peace someday.

Burdens now may crush me down--
disappointments all around,
troubles speak in mournful sigh,
sorrow through a tear-stained eye.
There is a world where pleasure reigns;
no mourning soul shall roam its plains,
and to that land of peace and glory
I shall want to go someday.

Best decision of my day: to buy this CD (Beams of Heaven, from Indelible Grace) on iTunes to listen to while I grade papers. I've loved every song, but this one especially captured my attention with its rich honesty and hope. I love the volta in the middle of each stanza (oh, that's right, I'm trying to be a cool English teacher with my snazzy literary terminology)--the change from a description of current reality to a description of anticipated reality. I think what drew me in was that the current reality is described first; it's not ignored or downplayed, or even later contradicted. I am struggling to learn to be honest about hard realities, and so honesty really resonates with me at the moment. But honesty about the current situation also does not get the final say; hope has the last word, and so remains the lingering focus. And hope seems so much sweeter when juxtaposed with the groaning and aching of reality before it. I feel like I am groaning and aching a lot recently, although this week has been a million times better than last week. My desire would be that I wouldn't just stop with admitting the ache though: that I could simultaneously admit the very real aches--of separation from my brother and other good friends, of exhaustion from my job, of fear for my students and the temptations they're facing, of sorrow for my dad and my whole family over his sickness, of frustration with my own perfectionism and people-pleasing that get in the way of loving people--and still always turn at the end of the day to hope. Hoping for hope: an interesting place to end this week and begin it all over again tomorrow.

Disappointment

"Dear God, thank you so much that today is Friday!"
--my roommate, on the car ride into work, Thursday morning

Interjections, with excitement, and emotion...

I am exhausted and need to go to bed but had to post this.

Yesterday in class, we were going over parts of speech. In an effort to make my class more engaging, I decided to try mad libs with them. I let them pick their own words and then fill in the story, and without first checking them (dumb first-year teacher move) allowed the students to read their stories aloud to the class.

As you can probably guess from the title of my blog post, one of the parts of speech they were to generate was an interjection. So one of my students read aloud to the class her interpretation of an interjection: "'OMG!' cried the student." Naturally, we all lost it at that moment.

Maybe School House Rock needs to remake their videos for the text messaging generation?

To blog or not to blog?

So a lot has been happening in the past couple of weeks, but I have not sat down to write about it yet--mostly because I know as soon as I sit down to write I will have to process, and once I start processing there will probably be lots of thinking and praying and crying and laughing and generally an utterly exhausting output of emotion involved, and I'm just not sure if I have yet worked up the courage to start that process. It always has to happen eventually, but it takes courage to let yourself start--or I don't know, maybe just to let myself start. Is this true for everyone, or is it just particularly difficult for those of us who like to stuff our emotions to the breaking point? Or would I ever reach the breaking point if I did not hold things at arms length in an attempt to "make it through the day"? It's an interesting dilemma, and every time I believe firmly that I have turned over a new leaf and figured out how to consistently process emotions without hiding them...I find myself in a new situation where there is something daunting to deal with, and I am much more comfortable going into "survival mode" than actually allowing myself to experience reality, whatever it may be, in real time.

The truth is that I really do believe that taking things moment by moment, day by day is such a truer, fuller, best way to live. I know that if I did it, I would have to depend on Jesus more than I do currently. And that scares me. Currently, I live in these cycles where I depend on myself probably for about two weeks at a time; I can trick myself into being rather "independent" for two weeks at a time. But then something happens, and I have to acknowledge how completely dependent I am and have always been on God's merciful care. It usually involves a long night of tears, and then an amazing feeling of peace and rejuvenation in the morning. I'm not sure, but I imagine it's what really falling in love is like--contentment and rest and security even at the same moment of knowing how totally vulnerable I am. But then I get cocky; I enjoy the rest but imagine that my competency has earned it for me; and then as the evidence mounts that this cannot be so, the cycle begins again until I'm once again at the place of having to acknowledge how silly I have been to imagine, and try to live, as though I were self-sufficient. I don't think I even realized how often I do this until I began writing it out, but as I acknowledge it I have to repent of it, and as I repent I begin hope and pray that God can change it. It's totally counterintuitive to me to believe that rest could come from the most exhausting part of my life--dealing with emotions--but it seems to me more and more that I always end up having to view realities in this world through the lens of paradoxes. What I see, what I do, what I resort to in order to "function" is not the true reality; what I hear of and imagine, hope, ache to be true even though it makes no sense whatsoever at times, that is the real truth.

Still a dilemma though: as I seek to process all these emotions, do I blog about them? There's an obvious answer to this, which is, "Please not all of them!" Which I won't do--I have no desire to put my heart and soul out on the internet. But I started a blog originally (and this is embarassing but true) because I am about the most external processor I have ever met in my life, and I thought it might relieve the burden on some of my family and friends if I had another outlet to "externally process" that didn't force someone to sit across the table in the coffee shop and listen to me ramble for two hours. On the other hand, I have heard lots of people recently talk about how blogs are evidence of how self-centered we are; suddenly, my own thoughts and doubts and dreams and neuroses are important enough that I don't just record them in a journal, I publish them for other people to read and feed my own sense that the world really does revolve around me. This is troubling, and I don't feel strongly convicted either way, except I'm definitely convinced that this whole endeavor could be pretty self-centered. Or it could have tempting elements, but also be occasionally useful. We'll see. Maybe I'll call you and we'll talk for two hours in the coffee shop about it. ;)

Imposter

I realized today that in spite of all appearances, official titles, or legal statements, I am not really an adult. I may fool many people--even myself, some days--but I cannot hide the fact that underneath all the exteriors lies a child's (or childish?) heart. I know this because today, instead of taking notes in our very important staff meeting, I was picking apart a grapefruit. Don't ask me why; I just started peeling and then my obsessive-compulsive side took over and I could not stop peeling. Suddenly, all these little bubbly, gooey little pellets started popping out: the inside of a grapefruit! Turns out it is just like (drumroll, please), little grapes! Profound, I know, but it had never occurred to me before. When I made this sudden and dramatic discovery, I actually started giggling. My coworker next to me (who was probably regretting her decision to share her grapefruit) looked at me quizzically, and then with a look of slight bewilderment as I began to whisper under my breath and explain my revelation. She is too nice to glare at me; that's the only reason she didn't, because I don't think she was pleased that I was interrupting the meeting to explain to her that grapefruits derive their name becuase their fruit looks like grapes! Oops.

I keep wondering: how in the world am I going to walk into a classroom next week, look all those children in the eye, and convince them that I am the grown-up in that room?! More importantly, how will I ever convince myself?

Random Reflections from Church

My two unconnected thoughts after the church service this morning:

First, I had my first experience today with being a single person in the church directory. We're having an update to the church directory and so I took a picture--standing by myself. I waited in line with all the other families and couples who were struggling to get just one shot with everyone facing the camera, eyes open, and no funny faces. And then there was me, and all I had to try to coordinate for the photo was my own expression (which, I'll admit, can be challenging enough). And it just felt...strange. It felt lonely. It felt wrong. Not "wrong" in the sense of internal raging against a world in which I'm not married yet (although, I'll confess, there's always a tiny hint of that going on), but wrong in the sense that based on the picture, I appeared alone--and I'm not. I am not an unconnected island or entity, even within the church. I have a family, it just looks very different from the families of many other people in my church. It includes my brothers (who attend the church) and my parents (who attend another church), even though we no longer live together; it includes my roommates; it includes my community group; it includes the families for whom I babysit; it includes my Sunday School class; and so many other people. Now, I recognize I'm probably being overly concerned with the symbolism; from a practical standpoint, I understand why I have to be pictured and listed as though I am an unconnected individual. I can't picture a good alternative. But particularly given that Focus on the Family graciously sent me a free copy of a relationship magazine this weekend, which warned me against the potential of "dying lonely" if I do not get married soon, I am a little sensitive right now to the idea that "single" means "alone." My church is the body that reminds me how not alone I am, particularly on days when I am prone to feel sorry for myself. Maybe they can just print this statement underneath my photo in the directory--my long manifesto to accompany my little photograph. :)

Second, and on a more positive note, I got to serve communion today. My church has a bunch of different people stand up front and hold the "elements" (the bread and wine) while the congregation files up to receive them. The servers are on a volunteer schedule, and rotate every week. This was the first time I've gotten to do it, and I was nervous: that I would say the wrong thing, that I would drop the wine and spill it all over myself, that I would lock my knees and pass out. Thankfully, the pastor wisely gave us only one thing to say ("The body of Christ for you; the blood of Christ for you"); I got handed the bread instead of the wine (again, probably a sign of the pastor's wisdom); and I did not pass out! More than all that, however, was the unexpected beauty of getting to be the agent through whom the gift of Christ's sacrifice was given to the church. It was not my gift to give or restrict; it was my gift to receive alongside everyone; but I got to watch others receive it and help them receive it. I started out looking each person in the eye as I recited to them, "The body of Christ for you," but had to stop at a certain point because the looks on so many faces were making me want to cry. (I should note that I'm not afraid to cry in front of people, but I had to consider the people coming forward--no one likes soggy bread!) But the gratitude, the solemnity, the joy, the surprise that I saw in so many eyes reminded me of the great gift that we receive at communion, a gift whose value I too often forget. (I wonder what my eyes show on a given Sunday morning: boredom?) It was a humbling and incredibly moving experience; I can't wait to come up on the schedule again!