I am right in the middle of the most absurdly decadent staycation ever conceived. It spans the entire month of January and has so far been conducted almost exclusively in my pajamas. Go ahead, hate me: I deserve it.
My sweet little university in Tennessee doesn't start the regular semester until February and I have nowhere else to go so I'm holed up in my campus apartment with two out of three of my sweet abode dwellers. Some days have been entirely wasted: waking up way too late, fighting off a cold, watching too much netflix and not eating substantial food. Today is bordering on the redeemable, although I'm pushing it since it is precisely 12:15 and I still haven't showered. But I woke up before eight and made my roommates breakfast and checked things off my to-do list, so it counts for something. Today, like every other day of the new year thus far, I stick my sleepy head out the door and grimace at the blinding, blue-skyed chill of the day and retreat back indoors.
Inwardly I'm so torn between places. Part of me is right here with my kindred spirited friends, my dashing fiance, and my little church that doesn't look like much but holds me up. Part of me is in a tropical paradise where my parents just landed and are house hunting fourteen hours in the future. Part of me is in College Station, Texas, where my not-little brother is gritting his teeth and getting through the quasi-military life he signed up for. And there are other places too that drift in and out: every place I ever called home, or vowed not to forget, or made memorable friendships. Every place those memorable friendships moved to. So to neutralize them all, I stay in my cozy living room, which after all is the place closest to my coffee supply.
Books I am currently in the middle of:
This Momentary Marriage--John Piper
Harry Potter and the Order of the Pheonix--J.K. Rowling
Exile's Return--Malcom Cowley
The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society--Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Barrows
And while we're on the subject, I finally finished Gone With The Wind which I feel to be an epoch in my life, as Anne would say.
I am also pinteresting madly in anticipation for my wedding in May and the little home I will move into in 126 days. I can hardly wait!
And with that, I think I might try my hand at real life.
Friday, January 17, 2014
Tuesday, September 24, 2013
I woke up an hour after Leighton died.
While I lay on my couch listening to the rain, Leighton was driving East in a storm. While I slept in my bed she was rushed from one hospital to another. The doctors and nurses tried every technique--Leighton would have known how to perform many of them by now. She would have let her fingers display the hours put into forming muscle memory, the long nights spent poring over Health Assessment textbooks, the early mornings spent in clinicals practicing patient care and best nursing practice. She would have been satisfied that they were doing everything right, using their best judgment and carrying out snapped commands without a moment's hesitation. But still 4:00 am arrived.
When I woke up at five the rain had stopped, but the early morning darkness was cool on my bare arms. I pulled on my scrubs and splashed water on my face before pulling my hair into a professional ponytail. My stethoscope was around my neck when I got into the car and we pulled up to the hospital for clinicals. When we got there we discovered a patient's heart kept stopping--she coded a few hours later. At mid morning one student nurse took a look at her phone. There had been an accident: Leighton had died.
To me Leighton was a face and head of curly hair that I saw intermittently. She was a voice on the other side of the classroom. She was a dazzling smile, presenting herself as larger than life in pictures popping onto the screen of my laptop. But when I looked into the eyes of my classmates I saw Leighton there. I saw the source of a joke that had brightened up a gloomy day. I saw a hug being offered to a friend. I saw a sorority sister willing to drop everything for the girls she called her own. I saw a young woman waiting eagerly for her boyfriend of six years to get down on one knee.
That's why I mourn. I didn't know her, but I feel in my core that one of our own has been lost. I see friends deep in mourning because someone they loved was taken away. I see women standing tall with tears threatening the corners of their eyes whispering words about a God who comforts, who upholds us, who strengthens us when we are weary. And I allow myself the privilege of joining them; I too expose my weakest parts to death and say YOU NO LONGER HAVE MASTERY OVER US.
While I lay on my couch listening to the rain, Leighton was driving East in a storm. While I slept in my bed she was rushed from one hospital to another. The doctors and nurses tried every technique--Leighton would have known how to perform many of them by now. She would have let her fingers display the hours put into forming muscle memory, the long nights spent poring over Health Assessment textbooks, the early mornings spent in clinicals practicing patient care and best nursing practice. She would have been satisfied that they were doing everything right, using their best judgment and carrying out snapped commands without a moment's hesitation. But still 4:00 am arrived.
When I woke up at five the rain had stopped, but the early morning darkness was cool on my bare arms. I pulled on my scrubs and splashed water on my face before pulling my hair into a professional ponytail. My stethoscope was around my neck when I got into the car and we pulled up to the hospital for clinicals. When we got there we discovered a patient's heart kept stopping--she coded a few hours later. At mid morning one student nurse took a look at her phone. There had been an accident: Leighton had died.
To me Leighton was a face and head of curly hair that I saw intermittently. She was a voice on the other side of the classroom. She was a dazzling smile, presenting herself as larger than life in pictures popping onto the screen of my laptop. But when I looked into the eyes of my classmates I saw Leighton there. I saw the source of a joke that had brightened up a gloomy day. I saw a hug being offered to a friend. I saw a sorority sister willing to drop everything for the girls she called her own. I saw a young woman waiting eagerly for her boyfriend of six years to get down on one knee.
That's why I mourn. I didn't know her, but I feel in my core that one of our own has been lost. I see friends deep in mourning because someone they loved was taken away. I see women standing tall with tears threatening the corners of their eyes whispering words about a God who comforts, who upholds us, who strengthens us when we are weary. And I allow myself the privilege of joining them; I too expose my weakest parts to death and say YOU NO LONGER HAVE MASTERY OVER US.
Wednesday, May 29, 2013
From October 17th 2012
Let’s be honest
Some nights you need to stay up and face the rebel thoughts that flit in the back of your mind. The hours of sleep I would have gotten slip away slowly, hardly any of my homework is done, and paper and clothes are strewn around my room. The mess is minor, but I can never do anything worthwhile unless my room is in perfect order. For the first time I realize why: a messy room provokes my carefully repressed fear that, put crudely, I will never get all my crap together. I look at my life, at the way I live every day, and all I see is the lack…the lack of discipline, the lack of rightly ordered loves, the lack of deep love for Christ and his church, the lack of passion for holiness. I see the giant gaping hole and I see the sickeningly petty things that I try to drape over it to convince myself that I’m doing alright. But the truth is, I am not alright.
For a few months now I have been in a strange spot. It started sometime after I got back to the States in July and I haven’t found my way out. It’s the feeling that something is very wrong but I don’t know what it is or how to fix it; as though I fell into a deep pit but I don’t know when I fell, what the pit consists of, or how to climb out again. I am nagged by the fear that my depression is no longer just seasonal, but is creeping into the long sunny days and choking my joy. I know that something deep within me needs to shift so that I can know the Lord with the intimacy that I once enjoyed and live in beautiful freedom. I just want someone to sit me down and tell me how to get back where I need to be—to get in my face and shower me with encouragement and call me out on my sinful and unhealthy habits. I want someone to take me by the hand and help me back on my feet and then stay by my side and walk through the valley with me.
This place is lonely, but then again I am alone before God. I look to my right and left and everyone feels too far away to help me. But I know that he is God. This is not a tidy conclusion…I know I will not find answers waiting for me at the end of a blog post. But I need to be vulnerable and see my foolishness written out in words. And like David at the end of his psalms I can say “this stinks, everything is against me and I feel helpless—but you are God and that is the only answer I know.” So I will shove my clothes off the bed and crawl in with the maddening knowledge that I’m not ready for tomorrow. But I will do so knowing that the Lord is God and he acknowledges me as his own…and I will fall asleep hoping that someday, somehow, my life will truly be built upon and around that knowledge.
From September 18th 2012
Sovereign over real life
Real life is messy and busy and hard. It’s a truth, but not an uncomfortable one—actually once you accept it and settle into it, it becomes a comforting rhythm. I have three tests, a lab, and a paper all due within three days of each other. I have other random homework assignments. I have friends with broken ankles and messed up backs that I want to take care of. I have relationships to build and maintain, an apartment to clean, a dentist appointment to make, not to mention learning how to drive and seeking fellowship with my Father.
It’s real life. It’s really busy. It’s a little messy. Some days, it’s kind of hard.
But I’ve been reminded over and over again that I am called to come and die: to my pride, to my time, to my own paltry strength and self-interest. I am called to walk boldly into the impossible for “The LORD will fight for you, and you have only to be silent (Exodus 14:14)” and “You have given me the shield of your salvation, and your right hand supported me…You gave a wide place for my steps under me, and my feet did not slip (Psalm 18:35-36).”
Today, for this season, I have been called to live in Jackson, Tennessee, with it’s charming old-looking storefronts, it’s Rockabilly roots, and it’s broken and marginalized society. I have been called to pursue knowledge with passion at Union University and prepare to be a God-honouring nurse wherever He would send me next. I have been called to seek His face and His Word and fellowship with His church here, as well as seek the broken, lost, and cast-off in order to proclaim the Gospel and give myself up in service. If that’s not messy, hard, and busy I don’t know what is. But in the midst of the whirlwind there are moments of peace like this. Where I am able to sit still and feel keenly that my life is infused with purpose that I will not fully understand until I am in the Heavenly Kingdom. In this peace, I feel like I am a step closer to understanding the beauty of the Gospel and it’s implications in my life. He is so faithful to support us with gentleness, and tenderly guide us within the Impossible He has called us to.
From April 26th 2012
We and the crickets
We stood silent, we four; leaning against a lamp post, sitting on the pavement, standing upright as if in salute to the coming twilight. The lightening and the hail had shredded the cloud cover, leaving shards of varying blue, tipped with orange by the descending sun. There was a hush that could not be broken, even by the chirping of crickets or the the mumbling of a loudspeaker over at the baseball fields. We were still.
Be still and know that I am God.
The red-breasted robin began to splash around in the puddle near my feet and then lifted off past the row of cars. The muggy air gently enveloped us.
And my soul wells up with Hallelujahs.
We four worshipers saw the effect of light, how it illuminated bits and pieces of cloud and diffused colour, while letting the periphery sink into deep indigo. We saw the light and saw that it was good—and let a whispered song rise up to The Maker of light. We let the sky drown out the students walking to and fro and the traffic on the bypass. We allowed ten minutes to forget the papers and final projects that were weighing down our spirits and creating bags under our eyes.
No one wanted to speak. No one wanted to walk away. When in fellowship with the Almighty Father of Light, all other things seem insipid and fruitless. Finally, one, two slowly rose to our feet and began to shuffle back toward Heritage, keeping both eyes above us every minute.
How could we leave this temple and return to our tiny bedrooms with artificial light and frustrating responsibilities?
Because that is worship too.
From February 27th 2012
It must be February
And then there are the nights when you just want to cry, so you do. Because you secretly suspect that you have bed bugs, and there is a big test tomorrow, and you have nothing but a doughnut to eat for breakfast. And the art history text book you so enjoy talked about Byzantine art and showed pictures of home, but most of the class declared that they didn’t think the icon was all that beautiful. So you are homesick and grumpy at Americans who don’t appreciate Byzantine iconography and now you are craving Türk Kahvaltısı.
So you study furiously in the library as basketball players swagger around you and Chi O’s giggle at the next table. You secretly curse neurons, the prefrontal cortex, and action potentials and then ask God to forgive you because his creation IS rather spectacular. You are just so tired of studying it and miss the skeletal system. And you think to yourself, “what kind of fool was I to think I could be in Honors and do nursing at the same time?” and then the reasons all your friends gave you in the first place come flooding back and you sigh and turn back to neuroglia.
Your jeans aren’t washed, the dishes aren’t done and you just want your mom to come and make you dinner. And you wish you could expel the very existence of exams and papers. And you are just so tired, but you don’t want to go to sleep because then you will have to wake up and face the millions of things you have to accomplish tomorrow.
So you do what any sane person would do: you eat another doughnut.
From November 21st 2011
When God calls you on your promises
It is one thing to tell God over and over that you are surrendering. It is one thing to inform him that you trust him no matter what else happens. It is one thing to say that he can take it away at a moment’s notice and you will be alright.
It is another thing entirely when he looks you in the eye and asks you to do just that.
Giving up expectations is easier said than done. There is the temptation to ask God whether everything that had come before had just been a trick; whether it is in his divine will to mess with my head. There is the temptation to try and fit the new status quo into my own narrow perception of the universe.
But in the end, all I can do is give up and sit at his feet. And admit that I don’t have a clue what is going on and I can’t make rhyme or reason of it, but that’s okay. And ask what he has to teach me. And strain my ears to hear his whispers. And as I sit there, little phrases start to come to me, as though they were wafting in the wind.
Be still and know that I am God…
You give and take away, my heart will choose to say ‘Lord blessed be your name’…
Behold, I will allure her, and bring her into the wilderness, and speak tenderly to her…
I am the LORD your God, I will not share my glory with another….
So I let those phrases pour over as I give up and lay my head down to sleep. And I wake up no longer torn and heartsick, but quieted and cherished, singing words like,
I’ve found a sweet haven of sunshine at last
and Jesus abiding above
His dear arms around me are lovingly cast
And sweetly He tells His love.
He saw me endangered and lovingly came
To quiet my storm beaten soul
Sweet words He has spoken and bless His dear name
The billows no longer roll.
His love shall control me through life and in death
Completely I’ll trust to the end
I’ll praise Him forever and with my last breath
I’ll sing of my soul’s best friend.
The tempest is o’er
I’m safe evermore
What gladness what rapture is mine
The danger is past
I’m anchored at last
Anchored in Love Divine
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