I'm falling in and now this feeling's getting stronger

My spring semester is finally finally finally over! All of the stress and papers and tests and packing and fitting in last times with friends...ach, I get a little stressed remembering. I'm so glad to be done, but in all of the busyness I didn't really let myself think about the summer and what it will look like. It's like a big...void almost. I'm going to camp with my church for a week and to Florida with my family, both of which will be super amazing, but the rest of the summer, I've got nothing definite. Nothing but free time. Hopefully working, doing respite work like last summer, but even that's not very sure right now.

Even when I was at school, even when I was counting the days and the tasks and the hours until I could be done, I didn't even really want to come home. I love my family and I'm so glad to be able to see them, to hang out with my sister and to see Becky and Charlotte, but all of them have other things to do where I have nothing. Becky's life is basically here, Charlotte has work and things, and my sister has a way more active social life than I ever have. That sounds more self-pitying than I'm actually feeling. I just...I don't quite know how to explain. Or at least explain in a way that I'm theoretically okay with anyone reading. There are some things I won't share over public blog. 

Maybe this is just because it's night; I tend to be more emotional at night or right when I wake up. This afternoon I had fun with myself, unpacking and playing good music loudly. Then Allyson and I went to Bashas and got food, because our parents and Zach were gone, and made some pizza bagels and rented The Lovely Bones. And it was good. It wasn't until I got tired and bored that I started being so melancholy. I don't like melancholy. I need something to do. I'm going to go crazy sitting at home all summer. I think it goes back to my last blog and feeling like I don't have a place to rest. Everything is uncomfortable or stretching or...I don't know. I explained it well to my spiritual director but I cried then thinking about it and I'm sick of crying too so I try to avoid thinking about it. That's a totally healthy way to deal, right?

I'm not a fan of uncertainty and this summer is going to be different than either of my summers in college for a few different reasons. I'm working on holding to God, really knowing that He is here with me. It's a long, slow process of learning and relearning.


Now I'm trying to get up, I'm trying to retrace
My steps back to wherever I messed up

Is forever enough?

I'm holding on...

I know you'll be there whenever I wake up

Let it go, let it be and brick by brick we can be free

Does everything in my life have to be a stretching and growing experience? This semester has definitely been one whee I've grown the most, spiritually, in friendships, in expressing myself, and in resolving conflicts but sometimes I wish some areas of my life were just areas that I could be comfortable in. Like, if I'm growing a lot closer to God and learning to depend more on Him, which is something outside my 'comfort zone,' can't I be comfortable in times with my friends? Why does being in community have to feel like a discipline and something I have to stretch myself in? When I spend time alone, I feel lonely. It just happens, quite a bit actually. Can't I just have peace and rest and comfort in that area of my life for a little while? I feel like I'm explaining this badly, but last night I was thinking about my conflict resolution skills, or lack thereof, and knowing how much I have grown this semester or even in the past couple of years, but how far I still have to grow. I guess in a way I want to not grow in things, to be unaware of my deficiencies and not trying to stretch past my comfort zone so often. I don't want to have to consciously tell myself not to be jealous or passive-aggressive or focused, whether on homework or friends or whatever. I want things that are supposed to be fun to actually be fun.

This past weekend, I went to Rocky Point with my family and it was awesome. I didn't take my computer or any homework things homework and I think I needed that. I had the weekend to chill out and go snorkeling and sit on the beach and eat burritos and wrestle my sister/break our camper. But then I didn't get a whole lot of sleep so I'm entering the worst week of my semester sleep deprived and thus less motivated and more emotional than usual. Any time I think about things I have to do on top of schoolwork, I get panicky. Even just thinking about having to pick up and fill out a job application, meet for a meeting/test for a different potential job, pick up/return library books, see how I like my new nook, hang out with a bunch of different friends, get people to sign my birthday present mug from Charlotte's mom, pack, study for finals, go to Disneyland, go to the beach.

I just started reading Ruby Slippers, and it's so awesome but also eats up my time and I feel guilty for not doing homework or hanging out with people that I won't get to see in a couple weeks or not trying out my nook and I just need something I can enjoy, like I said earlier. I need something I can just purely enjoy and I can't find anything.

I'm so exhausted. I'm so ready for this semester to be over. I've skipped my devotions for the past week or so because I just plain need that extra time to sleep in the morning and I'm too busy or distracted during the day. I'm just plain worn out from this semester, with my class load and thinking about the future and major changes in my life and Mickey dying and reflecting and just...life. I desparately need sleep and free time and...summer. God, be with me. Get me through and give me strength until I can finally rest.

Vaya con Dios.

I'm broken inside, but all I go through it leads me to You

I should not read the Christy Miller books. Seriously. Especially the later ones, they hit too close to home for me. Never mind that her college is based on Biola (the author went there, met her husband there, and one of her sons was an RA here), but at least in some ways, her protagonist is way way too similar to me. She's shy and not too confident and reserved and loves kids and...ugh. The storyline fits too closely too. In the penultimate book of the main 12-book series, she breaks up with Todd, the guy she's liked and been sort-of dating for the entire series so that he can follow his dream and God's call to go off and do jungle missions work. Since it's a Christian series, obviously everything works out in the next book and the two of them eventually get married. But reading the scene at the end of the 11th book was different than when I read the series when I was 16. I cried when I read it yesterday. I was anticipating that scene and my reaction for the past couple days, because I knew it was coming. It was one of the scenes that's stuck with me the most since I read the series so long ago.

I don't know if I'm being too dramatic or reading too much into it, but I've thought of that scene and if that would be me some day, if I'd have to give up someone I really liked because it was God's will. I'd rather have the happy ending that Christy does than her heartbreaking middle or the emotional roller coaster that comes in the beginning of the series. She has doubts, she dates a couple of the 'wrong' guys, she gets jealous and has petty fights with her friends. It's still definitely romanticized, but I want the romanticized love life and epic story without the heartbreak, the ups without the downs.

Right now, I'm in the middle of the first of three books set after her high school graduation. She, her boyfriend, and her best friend travel around Europe after Christy's been working in an orphanage in Switzerland for a school year. I was like...I would LOVE to do that. I want to work in an orphanage, to travel around Europe with my best friends, to be so sure of God's leading and God's will. But...do I want to do it because it sounds like a 'cool' thing to do? Except it doesn't...Christy only feels stressed and drained from working in the orphanage. She decides it's not the thing she wants to do. I want that experience, to do something crazy and awesome, but most importantly to do something.

Ach I want money to not be a concern, for me to know where I'm going and why God's given me the passions I have. I want to get my master's in social work, but definitely not right after Biola. But then what do I do in the meantime? I feel like I ask a lot of questions and never get answers; the questions only pile up bigger and bigger. I think my pile of wants and wishes does the same thing...gets bigger and bigger, even the wish that my list of questions would get smaller and that I'd get a couple answers. The only answer I have now is to wait...just wait. I'm not a big fan of that answer. I want a 'better' one, with a step-by-step plan and specific instructions. Maybe this time next year I'll have a couple answers. I think my plan now is to try, to look into opportunities in what I want to do and to try or make plans based on my desires and what I think God's will might be. God needs to be the center of my hopes and dreams and plans, not me and not anyone else. I'm working towards that...slowly.

Desparately need You

I'm very conflicted about a lot of things. Tonight, or this week I guess, Biola is doing some 'Gender Impact' chapels and things. Tonight, there was one called 'Gender Myths,' a message and discussion by Jonalyn and Dale Fincher. I really liked it; I agreed with most of what they said. I guess I'll tell you what they said before I talk about my tumbling, confused thoughts.

They talked a lot about myths or stereotypes that just aren't true and the way our culture marginalizes both genders in how we talk and think about ourselves and one another, making a path for domestic violence and rape. Those two things wouldn't come out of a culture with a healthy understanding of and respect for both genders and gender differences. They talked about a survey given to elementary school kids, in which they were asked 'what if you woke up tomorrow morning as the other gender?' Most of the girls said they'd rather still be girls but gave benefits of being boys (shooting hoops after breakfast, being chose to demonstrate a sport in PE, etc.). Most of the boys, however, were horrified. Some said they would kill themselves before they'd be a girl and said how they would do it too, whether stabbing themselves or taking a bottle of kids. Gender and differences and the apparent superiority of one is taught subconsciously and at a young age.

Ach...I have so many thoughts, relating to tonight and other books I've read and my theology class in which we're talking about women in the church and it's so frustrating. I feel so picky sometimes, picking up subtle nuances and motivation behind the phrasing of a word of the one someone uses that makes me chafe against what they say, even though I might agree with their actual point. I think I chafe against motivations behind what they say, that women should be submissive and men leaders. In my small group communication class, we talked about how the best business/small group leaders have more androgynous traits, traits traditionally attributed to both genders. It's a topic I'm interested in and have stayed up way way too late talking and debating about before. I think it's hard because the picky nuances matter. They show things about the culture and subtle ways that show what someone actually thinks and not just what they're saying. Choosing a tone or a specific word reveals cultural biases that aren't Biblical, as much as submission to God and differences between men ad women are.

I'm still not quite sure what I think and have even less confidence in my ability to articulate it correctly without frustrating myself completely or taking five pages to do so. I will say that I do believe that men and women were created by God to be different; He made our bodies obviously differently and I think He made our souls and our whole being different from one another also. I definitely don't think that means that all women are the same or all men are the same. But we reflect and show God's image differently. I think He can gift men and women equally and that we have equal access to God; it's not the man who receives God's will and the woman who follows her husband or someone that's not God. I think that God has a will for my life separate from any possible husband or anyone else. I'm still not sure if God has missions in my future or not, and I question sometimes if I'm strong enough to go alone. In a lot of ways, I look for friends and people to surround me that complement my strengths. In a lot of ways, I need someone with me who's more outgoing when I'm reserved, more of an idea person when I can focus on follow thru, more communicative and able to handle conflict. But could these areas be met in a ministry team? Ugh...maybe I should save this discussion for another time, another day, another blog. It would be another 10 pages of wondering and wandering around in circles, looking for an answer. I want to be okay in not having the answers, in being clueless and fumbling for my next step.

I want a lot of things, I have a lot of questions. I think I'm going to take them all and go to bed. Good night.

We'll just jump and see, even if it's the fortieth time...just jump and see if we can fly

This semester has sucked. I'll get to the positive part later, but I'm not feeling particularly positive at the moment so I'm going with that now. I hate my schedule - my days are all long an they start too early. On my best weekday, I still have 6 hours of class - 3 of the back to back to back. I'm not a fan of group projects and I should have realized before I signed up for small group communication that we'd probably be doing a lot of group work but I didn't. I have to do reflections and meditations and prayer projects for 3 different classes, which is way too much so instead of any of them being beneficial or accomplishing their intended purpose, they're just tedious and I make things up for them. Right now I'm working on a ministry-related project which I was excited for but not I hate it too. It's probably not even going to be used but I want to make it really good but that's time consuming and I don't want to do it any more.
I hate feeling like an insecure seventh grader again. Even when I know that what I'm thinking is ridiculous, it's still such a battle to convince myself otherwise. I can tell when I've been spending too much time alone because I get like this, complaining and self-pitying, but I don't know how to change it. I'm not the one that's going to go out and invite myself to do things with people. I want people to want me around so I end up sitting around and being miserable because no one indicates that they do. I've felt like I've been growing in this, but today I'm back at the bottom, at the beginning. But have I grown? Or just withdrawn and ignored any negative feelings that if I talked about them could make people mad at me? Because I know that I tend to do that and that ignoring them doesn't help at all. I hate advice. I hate people telling me what to do or what I could do or should do. I really want to break something that would break really awesomely, like throw my laptop or my cellphone against my brick wall. That would be the right amount of destructiveness. Throwing my sweatshirt on the couch isn't good enough and slamming my door seems childish, especially since it would be so loud on my hall and alert the other 60 girls that I just slammed my door.
This semester has easily been the hardest I've had so far. My semester in Uganda was hard, but I felt like I learned so much and I was trying new things and I whitewater rafted and saw elephants less than 100 feet from our safari van...it was a really different experience. This semester, I'm in the same place with the same people...learning still, but without the new experiences and everything. It's been hard for a few different reasons and overall probably good for me...but not pleasant.
The positive part I mentioned earlier is that even though this has been my worst semester of school, one that I will be glad to see the end of, it's been the one when I've grown the most especially spiritually, realizing my complete dependence on God. And yes, I'm dependent on Him even when I'm happy...but having a lot taken away from me and feeling abandoned when I need people around me the most has pushed me into God's arms. I've journaled so much more this semester, not as much as n Uganda, but more than I would have in a normal year or two. I don't know why I want to document so much negativity, but it helps. And despite how negative and depressed I feel at times, I know that I have grown. I'm not the same person I was two months ago. I'm more confused definitely, especially about my future - not knowing why God would invest in me such a heart for youth in the US and children and youth elsewhere or...well, so many why questions race around around, giving me a different answer every day. But maybe certainty or striving for contentment in my uncertainty. It's okay that I don't know what I'm doing now or what I will be doing later; God does. He knows me, my path, everything.

Please don't fight, these hands that are holding you

Grief comes to my door uninvited

With unwelcome friends 'round about

'Much work to be done here,' he muses

As his work begins, I cry out...

'Loneliness, leave me alone,

Work gently, but quickly, oh Pain!

Tears, stop flowing, you tire me so.

How long must Grief call my name?'

'Come, sit close and stay awhile

With Pain and Tears,' says he.
'Loneliness also will be here
With Sorrow and Misery.'

'Visit with Sorrow; spend time with Pain.
Let Tears become your friend.
And day by day these friends begin

To guide your Grief to its 'end.'

Sorrow turns into memories,
Time spent with pain becomes strength.
Loneliness bows to peace of mind,
And time with Grief becomes well spent.

So Loneliness, come sit with me.
Let time be our friend, of Pain.
Tears, flow freely, if you must,
While Grief softly whispers my name.

-Nancy Fitts, January 2001                           

A woman who works at Biola shared that poem that she write at the Beloved this morning, the women's discipleship group I'm a part of here at school. In our small group, Charlotte, Elyse, and I talked about the poem, about regarding grief as a friend, about not trying to hurry grief or sorrow along, about...a lot of things. One of the first things Nancy shared is that grief is a gift from God and that grief doesn't refer solely to the death of a loved one. Admittedly, there are greater and larger sorrows, but losing a relationship, giving up a dream, or facing a changing relationship can also be processes full of grief.

I don't like to think of myself as grieving. It seems...overly dramatic and more serious than I'd like to regard my life as. A period or season of grief does not seem appealing at all. No thanks God, can I have cake instead? Can't I know Your love and Your comfort without seeing all of the edges, without facing less pleasant things? Why do You choose suffering and grief to shape us? In that list somewhere in the Bible, we have perseverance, character, and hope because of sufferings...but why choose tribulation and trials as the first part of that list, the first part of the test?

I'm also in an Acts class and was reading about Saul's early life after his conversion. I think I always somehow thought that Saul was converted on the road to Damascus and then maybe a couple weeks r months later he's thrown in jail with Silas and the doors fall off of their jail cells. According to the author of the book I'm reading, he spent three years out in the desert, tried to go to Jerusalem, but the apostles ship him back to his hometown where he waits for five or six or eight years. That's eleven years or more after his conversion and amazing commission from Jesus. Eleven years of solitude definitely and probably suffering. His family probably wasn't going to accept him back home in Tarsus, so he's just hanging out...in a cave?

I've been frustrated at waiting a month. I'd like to hear from God where I'm going and what I'm doing now. I mean...a month ago Rusty and I broke up so we could both seek God's will. I sometimes feel like I'm no closer to knowing than I was then. Or what I have thought about, I don't know if I decided on it because I like the answer it gives or if it is from God. This also conflicts with the fact that God can use me anywhere, in the US or elsewhere and that no matter what I imagine or plan now, my life will not turn out like I've planned. It's a little bit...terrifying. Not knowing when waiting will be over or even how to know when it is. Paul got a visit from Barnabas inviting him to come to Antioch. What would be my equivalent?

There's been so much going on in my head; it'd be impossible to put it all down in a blog. Round and round, up and down, all over the place - those are my thoughts. I wish they'd stop, give me peace, let me just focus on other things. I wish I didn't know how badly I need to rely on God, for comfort, for strength, for everything. I wish I could still think that I'm independent, a strong woman. I wish I didn't know how weak I am, know my complete reliance on God - not only for the one time salvation but for ongoing sanctification, the ongoing process of becoming more holy and more like Christ.

Ugh. I wouldn't quite say that lie is good right now, but I do know - with my head - that growth is good and that God is good. I just wish I could learn things differently, more easily.

Trusting God

I will rejoice and be glad in your steadfast love,
because you have seen my affliction;
you have known the distress of my soul,
and you have not delivered me into the hand of the enemy;
you have set my feet in a broad place.

Be gracious to me, O LORD, for I am in distress;
my eye is wasted from grief;
my soul and my body also.

Psalm 31:7-9



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.
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.

Isaiah 43:1-2



Dependency is such a negative quality in American culture, especially in women I think. We're taught to be so self-sufficient, that we don't need to rely on other people to meet our needs. It's not attractive or okay really to admit that you need someone or something, that I can't stand by myself. I'm learning, in a not-so-pleasant way to be dependent, to rely on God. I have no idea where my future's heading, what it will look like, what I'm going to do. It's easier to believe that I can rely on myself when I can see my future, when I'm content and comfortable in my life now, when...I don't know. I wish I didn't have to learn dependence and obedience the hard way. I wish it came naturally, that it was easy and I didn't have to learn by experience. But God's will is better than mine, right? His ways, His thoughts are higher than mine. It's a slow, painful process of learning, but I know the lesson is worth learning. I have to believe that it is, that God is faithful and trustworthy. I have to believe that He has a plan and knows more than I do or...I don't know how I'd be. Well I guess if I wasn't listening to Him and trusting Him, I wouldn't be here now in this situation. I've heard before that it's easier to trust God in brokenness and in want. Painful times are often good growing periods for a lot of people and as much as I wish I grew without the pain, I'm hoping it's a good refining process.

A year from Kampala and digestive biscuits...

Uganda doesn't feel a year away. It doesn't feel like it's been a year since I walked in the red dirt across campus, learned how delicious Fanta Passion is, or was given a Lugandan name. In a lot of ways I feel like I've just assimilated back into American life too quickly, too easily. When people ask about Uganda, I never have any idea what to say. I don't know how to articulate what I learned, how much it changed me or how much more I wish it had changed me. I don't know how to change how I act, how to let the things I learned actually affect how I think and what I do. I mean, there's the fun stories about rafting/thinking I could die or the safari and being feet away fro a hippo in the campsite. But I don't know how to describe the little things, like adjusting to food and finding food that I miss so much here, to not really thinking that my host families were poor and needed a better way of life. Going to Uganda changed my view on missions, made me understand it a little less. There were mission teams that went from Biola to Uganda and Kenya and I just wanted to ask them why, to ask what they were going to do. What do we have to offer Uganda? But I still want to go, still want to do something, somewhere that matters. I'm just less sure of what that is.
My dorm room is covered with memories of Uganda, with fabric-like pictures to pictures I took and other miscellaneous decorations. The shirt I'm wearing today is one I bought there. But seeing these things doesn't change me. I made a list at the end of last semester and I wish I could read it. I want to see all of the things I was so determined to do. So many things seem superficial and wasteful, but I tend to just ignore it, to push it aside.
I miss Uganda. I don't think I'll ever be back, but I miss the experience, the people. Sometimes I want to say Ugandan things to people but they wouldn't understand. I want to tell people they look smart or...other common Ugandan phrases or sentences that took me a little while to understand before. I want people to ask me more about my semester. I...I don't know what else. I want to see how this has changed me.

Home and Away Again

My mom's wanted me to do "one last update" for a few weeks now. I'm leaving for jamaica in a few days and I was reading my former/future roommate's blog because she's already there, so I decided to finally post something. I don't know if it'll be an update or if it'll be my last post. I don't want Uganda to be over. I hope it continues to affect me. Maybe. It'd probably be easier if it didn't.

Life's been...good. And less not so good. But such is life, I guess. I spent the last two weeks at summer camp with my church's junior high and then high school ministry. It was pretty awesome. I was totally exhausted after and kinked out about 20 minutes after getting home from HS camp on Friday night...around 8 pm. It was totally awesome. I started doing respite care (like babysitting for kids with developmental disorders). It's good...and government funded so I get paid way more than I'd ever charge for babysitting. I'm a cheap babysitter, because I mostly just like doing it. My church did VBS a few weeks ago and that was fun. I was in charge of games for the preschoolers. The games are all related to the Bible lessons for each day so every day I was supposed to connect the game with the lesson...I forgot about that part quite often. Oops. But I figured it didn't matter that much anyways. The kids didn't listen all that much, but they did love the games. So did I.

Um...I haven't seen my best friends nearly as much as I want to. I re-addicted myself to The Sims. The person who's asked me the most about Uganda is my little sister's friend, who asked...weird/uninformed/unintelligent questions. I'm going to be on student leadership for women's discipleship at my school next year. I have a devotional published in a book. I miss Uganda. Anytime I think about or remember it. Mostly I try to stay distracted, which hasn'y been difficult the past few weeks because of how busy I've been. This upcoming week might be harder. I've heard that Jamaica is similar to Uganda in a lot of ways and different in a lot of ways too. It's probably a lot more different than I'm expecting.

I'm...okay. Mostly good. Still assimilating too much. Maybe I'll work on integrating soon.

I'm not going to do a "last post." I don't want to tie up loose ends. My loose ends aren't tied up. I hope they're not at least. Vaya con Dios.

Don't need to wait for the answers before you step out in faith

This may very well be my last blog entry from this side of the Atlantic. We're leaving really early Thursday morning, 5 am, and driving 10-13 hours south and west to Rwanda. We drive back to UCU on May 1st and then up to Entebbe the next day, to spend 3 days doing a debrief of our semester here. My days here are numbered. I have 8 days in Uganda, split by 10 days in Rwanda, remaining. I'm still not sure how exactly I feel about going home. I've spent 4 months here, with a group of students experiencing a lot of the same sort of things. I've been stretched and I've learned a lot and gradually become more comfortable here. Now I'm about to leap back into life at home, where not a lot has changed...except me. I don't really know how I'll react to being home, to people and...life. I feel like my whole way of thinking and processing has changed and the way I view the world and politics and...everything. I'm a little...nervous. Anxious. Panicky. I've heard from other people about returning home. I know that I'll be overwhelmed.
I also have no idea how to communicate any of what I've learned, about myself or the world or life or God. It's...I don't even know. I'll just wait and see. I can't predict everything now. It'll be alright. Vaya con Dios.