What’s really been happening…

in my regular probably obscure terms.

My last comment from a reader was sometime in mid-March.  Alece of the powerful gritandglory.com told me:

“you sound content. hopeful. joy-filled. makes me smile.”

At the time, I thought I was really truly was content, hopeful, and joy-filled.  Maybe I was, maybe it wouldn’t last.

It didn’t.

30 days later I shattered what I knew of life-the life I had been living, at least.

The life I thought I was supposed to be living.  Turns out I had to leave that life.

And boy, did I ever leave it just maybe not the way I was supposed go.  And yet, I stayed in it too.  Same job, same house, same church, same groceries in the fridge.  In fact, I’m still here except in a new house with more cereal.

I departed my own life and I still haven’t returned.  And I don’t think I got to where I was supposed to be.

At least not yet.

And I didn’t get any better.  Contentment, hope, joy-what has that been but trying to fill hours and make it a week without crying.

Not much.

But this is me saying I have spent 228 days surviving.

Certainly not thriving dear alliterative youth pastors, not thriving.

But…through some Bible – more in a few days than I had taken in months and quiet time and some rich emails and blog posts from others, I am ready to reclaim.

And by reclaim, I mean tie it all in a knot and lay it at the feet of my Savior.

Because this is nothing if not HIS life.

Because I gave it to HIM years ago.

So I am ready.

For your prayers, verses, book recommendations, song links.

And ready for the power of the Holy Spirit to be mine again, to make me HIS, to make me content, hopeful, and joyful so that when HE looks on me, HE too smiles.

To Do THIS Month (not in fall, or next summer)

If I can do one or two things a day or even over a weekend, I should be set!

Calculate gas mileage – Looks like 26.64 this past month

Clean windshield inside and out with alcohol and then a million other cleaning agents

Hide spare car key

Organize kids’ church curriculum

Schedule kids’ church teachers for next three months

Clean trunk

Put bed pieces away/give away/ask AMPM for future plans

Finish thank you cards and set up system for future thanks

Read BC’s medical records

Organize photos

Plan small group activities for the rest of summer

Fix broken jewelry (giveaway/throwaway that which can’t be broken)

Buy and replace clip for bike helmet

Send package to Osana

Send package to Dave and Martha

Make homemade yogurt sadly  kind of failed…initial temp too low???

Use Dave Ramsey’s cash envelope system

Organize closet even better than it already is!

Updates

1.  I did not complete the Use It Up Pantry Challenge.  This is because my financial situation got steadily better with the new full-time job.  Oddly enough though, I convinced the biggest eater I know to do the Challenge and he succeeded!

2.  I got a car.  I was able to pay for it all in cash and thus did not add any new debt to my already gigantic school loans.  Let me tell you, an education is an expensive hobby-make sure it’s one you really want to take on, okay?  And for me, yes, the answer is and was yes.  The car is great, the freedom/the free time/the ability to sing along to my music are all great.  Only difficulty is finding time to read my Bible when I had great buckets of time available to me to do nothing but read it on the bus rides.

3.  Suzie got a job where I work and starts on Monday as well as moves in with me.  This initial change is great but hopefully just a portion of what is to come in my long term plans (which are just 3-6 months, someone pointed out that these really AREN’T long, but oh well).  I am trying to call anyone I can to Seattle, to live with me.  To build a community of sorts…no idea if it will happen.  Just asking others to consider it and praying about it for God’s wisdom too.

4.  Though my life has its own ups and downs, right now it’s generally a charmed one.  God did warn me that I was entering a very sweet time (back in November) and that I needed to stay focused on him.  It has begun and I have stayed on track.  Facebook is full of pictures detailing…

Eat From the Pantry Challenge

When I was in high school I loved Use It Up Challenges hosted by makeupalley.com 

I would go through all of toiletries, free soaps, sample shampoos, body spray gifts from friends and use them all up in a month.  I would keep myself from buying anything new until I had used up every single old half-filled, hidden away bottle/jar/sachet/whatever.

In the same way I have been doing an Eat from the Pantry Challenge in my own home these past six weeks.  Not just because I wanted to, or because moneysavingmom.com had challenged me (yet).  But I was doing it because I had to, I didn’t have spare money for food or any extra money sadly.

Things are a bit better and I did buy a few things this week but somehow my pantry never emptied.  It may have been prophet/widow story.  I still hosted parties and fed myself and there is still food to spare.

So now, I will do it again, in January.  My rules are:

1) Shop at the store a maximum of two times in January.

2) Only buy dairy (milk, eggs, cheese, etc.),  produce (fruits/vegetables), and lasagna making items (I owe a friend a few).  I already get milk/eggs/butter delivered weekly for a good price.

3) Spend a total of $75 or less on groceries during the month of January.

Things I Have Learned Recently…

1.  If I were ever to write a book, it would basically be a plagiarism of one that already exists.  Amy Krouse Rosenthal has already written my memoir, give or take a few items, in An Encyclopedia of an Ordinary Life.  This is one of the first books I read in only a day in a very long time.

2. I always knew I was a list maker but now I believe if anyone found out just how much I list they would be a bit scared for me.  I throw away pages and pages of lists every week.  I make online lists, handwritten lists, typed lists.  I write things on to-do lists that I have already accomplished just so I can cross them out.  I make alternate lists for transportation routes and times.  I make lists of things I need to buy now, lists of things I need to buy when I have money.  Lists of how much money I have, had, have coming in soon, or soon-ish. 

3.  I put a belt on my list of things to buy when I have money.  I have only two dressy pairs of pants and one is a little big.  My old belt died recently.  I do not have money enough to buy a belt yet, but lo and behold!  I was looking for a camera battery in a drawer and found another belt I forgot I had.  Whether it came with a dress I own or my mother or whoever, it was in my drawer and fits that pair of pants just so! 

4.  I think I am really beginning to love my new job.

5.  I do not think I will ever love my commute.  If a one hour one-way trip is a world’s best for this 15 mile multiple bus ride, I will never be truly satisfied.  But…one hour is still better than the two hours it sometimes takes.

6.  Utter shameless honesty in the right time and place is a beautiful beautiful thing.  Honesty is always good but can be tough, but in the right place and time it’s pure loveliness.

Sorry for the Five Month Hiatus…And here’s one on Mustard Juice!

Let’s just say I needed time to live my life and not just blog about the living of life.  In this time I learned a lot and the topic I want to tell you about today is mustard juice and love.

I wish that I still worked at World Vision (today was my last day actually for those of you dying for updates and not on Twitter) so that I could share a devotional on this topic.  I do lead a Middle School small group now in the Rainier Valley (which by the way I moved to in September after God called me there) and I could share this with them but we’re already on themed and yet still hand- made curriculum so I’m filled up.  Thus, I am sharing it with you…my faithful friendly blog readers.

Today was a tough day.  Leaving a company I loved for years as an outsider and learned to love through cake disasters, South Africa, maternal and child health/HIV/emergencies/education (the sectors I worked in), and so much more was difficult.  I didn’t even give myself time to process these difficulties in advance as I usually do, which made the actual final walk down the stairs and out the door even harder.  I am also starting a new job Monday (praise the Lord for great work back to back) and I have been cutting my sleep short to prepare for early hours and a very long commute (can we say 3 bus rides each way?!)    These two things combined plus the rest of life have given me a very tough day.  A day where I want to do anything but love (and funny enough it’s youth group night).  I just want to take a break from giving it.  Sure, I’ll receive it by the loads but can I just pause on the handing it out, just for a little while, pretty puh-lease?

But instead I helped make hot dogs for dinner.  Two got a great beautiful squiggly line of mustard.  The other two got great big drops of mustard juice.  And it hit me…trying to stop loving even for a day because I feel like it is similar to a vat of mustard juice.  Sure, it’s a nice idea.  Mustardy in essence, loving in essence (why love at all if I can’t do it well today).  But it’s not real mustard, nowhere near it in fact.  Just like love isn’t true love if it doesn’t continue loving even when it’s difficult for one or two or ninety-nine of us.

And I didn’t want the mustard juice.  Nor do  my loved ones want love juice?  They want love, plain-simple-unconditional at heart-and everlasting.  Just as Jesus offers us.  He didn’t just say: Hey there, take a big whiff of eternal life and abundant life and a life of joy. He said: Here, take and receive ALL of THIS! (That’s the Jennifer Abbreviated Translation of the Gospels.)

I was convicted then and there (and hungry).  So I wrote this for you as mustard juice ran down my fingers.  What think ye?

Just a short list of things I miss from Africa…

1.  The lack of cubicles amongst my company.  We have cubicles everywhere in my WV office now and I completely hate it.

2.  The absence of cleaning staff, working in front of us.  Yes, in America there are cleaning staff but they usually come secretly/furtively and often at night so we don’t have to think about someone else doing the hard labor for us.  In Africa, the staff came in like six plus times a day, wiped your desk while you stood by the water cooler, fetched more water for that same water cooler, etc.  AKA: reminded you that you need other people to do the blue collar labor that allows you to keep doing the white collar labor you do.  And reminds you that almost everyone’s jobs are valid, useful, necessary, and important.

3.  The freedom of driving myself around.

4.  Trying to remember if I had food in the car to share with the hungry people standing on the street corners.

5.  The trees.

6.  Both of my small groups.

7.  Devotionals everyday at work, not just once a week.

We are Afraid of Fear…

In youth group recently we asked our students what their purpose was in life. One said to be strong-mentally, physically, emotionally. Oh how I resonated with that when I was his age and really all the way up through the end of my college experience. I could physically accomplish whatever I needed to and was mentally always turned on and ready to go. I always prided myself on the fact that I didn’t show fear, even under pressure. And I made sure everyone knew it.

Thankfully, and over time and gentle prodding from the Lord, I learned to relinquish some of that and to be honest with myself that there are times I can’t do it alone, or at all, and there are times I am afraid. But then I turned around and did the opposite. I started worrying about what-ifs and life questions and silly questions. And generally, I stopped telling anyone about the accumulating fears I have myself and I see my generation carrying.

My pastor just asked the young adults of our church: What concerns you or what one issue floods your thoughts? This is my response. Open, unguarded for the first time in a long time.

 I think a lot of people our age have a large number of fears. Fears that may never come true, and other fears we deal with all the time. Many may seem irrational or contradictory to others, but for us they are very true.

Fears about being lonely, unwanted, unloved.

Fears that we will never find a loving spouse or if we do that they might divorce us, or be unfaithful, or turn out to be gay. Or as bad or even worse, we might be unfaithful to them and not withstand temptation or one day feel divorce is a valid option for us.

In the same way, we are afraid that as much as we like to think we can stay pure before marriage, that we might not make it and there will be no one we can talk to when temptation comes. Most young people believe (and I agree) that the church doesn’t talk about sex and chastity enough, and if they say anything at all, they say it terribly. (I think this video from a pastor, is very powerful and should be shared with everyone whether they have tarnished their purity before or not, with lust, we all have a tarnished purity… http://twentytwowords.com/2009/04/08/jesus-wants-the-rose/ )

Fears that no older people want to listen to us or pray for us when our hearts have been broken-by people, disappointment, situations.

 Fears that our next injury will be the one that haunts us the rest of our lives, the limp in our step, etc.

We are afraid of simplicity and afraid of excess at the same time.

We are afraid of abandoning ourselves completely to something or someone because sometimes others have done that before us and it turns into an addiction. Even when some claim to give everything for Jesus, the only fruit we see of it is judgement.

We are afraid of not loving enough and at the same time we worry it was the just love everyone attitude that got the US where we are now.

 We are afraid to share exactly what we think and sometimes we are afraid we stayed silent too long. We are afraid we won’t be able to have children or if we can have them, they will turn away from God or us, or we will hurt them or mess them up with our parenting.

We are afraid we will never make an impact on the world.

We are afraid of the 9-5 work week, we like to call it boring or mundane, though most of us have one.

 We are afraid that all the social networking, online friendships, dating have made us antisocial when it comes to in-person, face-to-face networking/friendships/dating. But we are also afraid we will wake up one morning and have no new e-mails, twitters, facebook wall writes, cell phone messages.

We are afraid we will never find our dream job or always be stuck with a meaningless job the rest of our lives, or worse be jobless in this economy.

We are afraid we will never be satisfied or content or pleased.

We worry that we don’t have enough education or what we have isn’t actually helpful/practical.

We worry about debt from housing, to educational loans, to credit cards.

We are afraid to have people over as our rooms are messy and our fridges sparse but we are even more afraid you will never invite us over-into your homes, your small groups, your family outings. We won’t notice the mess or the simplicity of food, we promise, we just want to be loved and a part of something again.

 We are afraid everyone in the world is as messed up as we are or we are afraid we are the only ones in the world who have flaws and cracks. Either way it can feel awful.

We are afraid we aren’t being honest with others or worse they’re not being honest with us. We crave authenticity-if you (or anyone in the church) went through a rough patch in life; marriage, child raising, school, church, love, divorce, bankruptcy, drugs, etc- TELL US. We often think we will never get through our own rough patches, but if we only knew God brought you through the fire one, two, twenty-seven times before we will feel much better.

We are afraid when our darkest times come; there will be no one to call for prayer, a conversation, a hug.

On top of all that we are afraid of the boogeyman, rapists, swine flu, earthquakes, natural disasters, death, and true open love-from God and others. That mind-blowing sort of love we don’t see on tv or in the news or maybe in our own families.

And most of all we are afraid to tell you how scared we really are these days.

I know we are told not to fear, and not to worry.  But we do.  It’s probably one of the most common sins of people today.  So how do we move on in hope, in true faith, in peace?

 Do you agree?  Am I wrong?  What do you fear?  How do you deal with it?

The Blog Post You Have Been Waiting For…Finally!

This time last week I was homeless, jobless, and sick of it. I had even cried two nights before in front of extended family about my “lifeless” life.

But by Tuesday I had two jobs and an apartment.  God is good, all the time.  And his timing is always right. 

I had starting working one of the jobs and had already moved into the apartment by the 17th, exactly four months after arriving back in America.  Funny how that worked…

I have a one month contract thru World Vision’s Middle East and Eastern Europe Regional Office.  I also will be starting a six month World Vision contract with their Seattle-ish office as soon as the paperwork is worked out on paper.  (I also am waiting to hear about a third part-time & temporary job this week-need to make up for four months without work.)

And get this…the apartment is on the same street as my parent’s house and four months residence.  The exact same side of the street.  One minute drive, four minute walk. Haha.  When I was working for Allegra for my 1.5 weeks I walked by this apartment complex and thought-How lovely it would be to live so close to family, church, and the bus line.  Now voila! the Lord provides and all for the lowest monthly rent you could ever imagine plus two and soon three great roommates!

Both current roommates were hungry to get back into church so my family and I took them on Sunday.  And our church family loved on them, even to the point of loaning one a brand-new never-worn ball gown for an upcoming event, and offerring to hem it for the aforementioned roommate.  What what?  God is good and his people are following suit.  My roommates have even told me that it was my mission to get them back into church and I am beginning to think my long dry wait was meant to hold me back from looking for housing until exactly the week this room opened up. 

I bet God used that time in lots of ways but that’s the big one I’ve found so far and it’s enough for now.

Pictures to follow.  And really I still can’t fully believe it.  Nothing for me Monday, nothing against me Tuesday-God always with me!