Sleepless Ramblings

So the bother of jet lag and the curse of introspection strikes again. Do you ever feel like you’re too introspective? Seriously. I think it’s a fault of mine. And then I think, my, my. Excessive introspection leads to excessive self-criticism…which I can sometimes indulge in, especially about my introspective tendencies. Oh yes, laughable, really.

Not that introspection isn’t profitable. On the contrary, I gain much from it. Also the sleeplessness has proved quite helpful – I did another draft on my Worldview Team write-up, went through the hall closets and started packing for school and have made up my list of goals for the semester. I also watched 2 episodes of west wing as Susanna fell asleep in my bed…thankfully she’s not so grown up that I can’t still pick her up to put her back in hers, but she is getting there. As for self-criticism – well, I could always use some of that.

And, I just have a lot of things on my mind. It’s always a bit daunting, going into a whole new semester with new classes to be mastered (or attempted), friendships to be developed, lessons to be learned. Dreadfully exciting, though. I am exceedingly ready to go back. Mmm, yes.

Also, having just returned from two weeks of family vacation, there is much food for thought to be ruminated. Finished three more books, am quite absorbed in Watership Down, had excellent dates with each family member and I am thoroughly rested (and my nose is thoroughly fried). For what more could I ask?

The ability to go to sleep? Perhaps. I have a friend coming over in 3.5 hours to have breakfast with me…I’m making omelets. Yum. Then odds and ends, oh yes! A whole lot of packing, and then a date with my favorite little sister, Susanna. Oh how wonderful this summer has been for spending time with her. It’s such a privilege to have somebody know you that well, though it is uncanny how she can read my mind at times. Does anybody even care that I’m writing all this out? I’m enjoying it more than tossing and turning sleeplessly, though.

I could share something about what I’ve been learning…the insight that others have added to my life lately…the frequent reminders of my fragility and depravity before the Lord…but I believe I’ll spare you tonight. Besides, I have more lists to make more closets to clean out and more resolutions to resolve about how I will NOT be so introspective and excessively organized. Sounds like a fun night ahead.

PS and another reason why I haven’t posted much lately is xanga just seems to be so self-centered! I realize that, obviously, the point is to journal about your life….and I am by no means calling all you fellow xangans self-centered. I just often feel like I focus enough on myself the rest of the day. Hmm.

Contrary to how it might appear, I am keenly aware of my lack of attention to my blog this summer. Yes, I realize the last time I posted was my first day home from summer. Wow, a WHOLE lot has happened since then! (as I’m sure can be said of all of your lives. Three months is a long time!) So hmm. Where to start. Well if Bobbie and Amber were here, they would insist that I describe my summer as hanging out at Starbucks with their great advertising ploys drinking vanilla lattes in utter bliss. <smile> And while I did spend my lunch break there for a few weeks during my Certified Nurse Assistant (CNA) class back in May, my summer has contained much more than that. I will attempt to recap for you:

Books completed and begun:

·        Great Expectations

·        Common Sense

·        David Copperfield

·        The Fountainhead

·        Uncle Tom’s Cabin

·        To Kill a Mockingbird

·        For Whom the Bell Tolls (just finished it!)

·        Carry On, Jeeves

·        Can Man Live Without God – Ravi Zacharias

·        A Passage to India – E. M. Forster

·        War and Peace – Leo Tolstoy

Travels:

·        Denver, Colorado, to attend the AFA Ring Dance with a friend

·        Boston, Massachusetts, for Matthew’s Harvard graduation and week touring Boston with the family

·        Roe, Arkansas, to visit my wonderful roommate Lily and her family and also to visit my lab partner from the year, Elisa!

·        Grand Rapids, Michigan, for Matthew and Amber’s wedding!!! It was SUCH a wonderful time. Wow. Incredible. One of the happiest weekends of my life. And by happy, I mean that it was God-centered, relationally fruitful, relaxing, exciting, reminiscent, emotionally evocative, and a great reminder of the goodness and faithfulness of God.

·        Lake Junaluska, North Carolina, for our annual SE CBMC family conference where I spent the majority of the week catching up with my dear friend Jenny Davell, writing, journaling and contemplating the mysterious ways in which God leads and works.

I leave on the last trip of the summer on Sunday – two weeks of family vacation!! I am dreadfully excited. It is going to be a wonderful time to all be together before our lives take crazy directions this fall.

Random Accomplishments:

·        1000 pc Thomas Kinkade puzzle completed (with the invaluable help of several friends)

·        The redecoration of Susanna’s and my room into a beautiful dusty blue and brown! The polka dots have not yet been painted but they will hopefully be coming soon.

·        The knowledge that I definitely don’t want to be a wallpaper scraper for the rest of my life. Or even for another day. Or hour.

·        A true and deep appreciation for the difficult work of being a CNA! Phew, it is not for the queasy or the faint of heart.

·        My first real road trip! (see above) Excellent time for contemplation, intellectual learning (thanks to Piper and Ravi Zacharias), learning new ways to entertain myself while driving (which included the educational technique of driving with my left foot, just in case I ever break my right one and still want to get around) and my own personal concert with my new favorite band which leads me to my next point….

·        LEELAND! This cd was the soundtrack of my summer and I couldn’t have wished for a better one. It was incredibly revitalizing. Go out and get it. Now. Seriously. Finish my post later. J

·        Many hours of database entry for DNA and other random jobs for the ministry (just to clarify, DNA stands for Discipleship Network of America and is our family ministry – I only say this because until recently one of my friends thought that it stood for Downer News Association!! Haha)

·        Almost all 17 closets that were on my list at the beginning of the summer are finally organized…mom and I have truly bonded in this effort (as if 12 years of homeschooling hadn’t already bonded us….)

·        Organization of 20 years of homeschool curricula

·        A recent interest in yoga at my local gym which has provided me with ample opportunity to acquire more flexible hamstrings and meditate on scripture as I try to “gently drape my leg over my neck, like a scarf” (haha, thanks Brian Regan)

·        The excision of three teeth of wisdom that provided me an excellent excuse to eat large amounts of vanilla pudding, take powerful drugs and sleep 18 hours a day. I’m grateful for my lil sis who was fine company in our mutually drug-induced state of incoherency, as well as for the understanding of the recipient of (hopefully) the only “drunk” text I will ever send in my life. In fact, Paul thought it was so funny he put it on his facebook profile. Wow.

·        Oh and once again, Dad’s great ability to give words of comfort in times of fear came through when he was driving Susanna and me to our surgery. He insisted on taking us to really show how much he cared about how it went and how we felt etc. In explanation, he said that he wanted to take us because when he had his wisdom teeth out, “it was the worst experience of his life.” Susanna’s face was quite priceless.

·        Countless hours of quality relational time with all seven (now eight!) members of my immediate family.

·        Numerous Greyfriars dates with my favorite little sister and best friend Susanna where she routinely beat me in rummy, whispered incredibly loudly and generally made me realize that coming home for the summer was one of the best decisions I could have made.

·        The creation of my 20-year life plan which is already taking quite a different shape than I had intended (like adding on a year to double major in Spanish and go to Spain!! So, four years of school left? wow....)

·        An abundant amount of phone conversations with many friends from college and high school that reminded me how much of an influence others have had (and are having) on my life

·        The creation and organization of my own club for which the members must be highly qualified and abide by a rigorous set of regulations….like submitting monthly dues. Whether the powers that be will ever receive more members into the club is yet to be determined….

·        An embarrassing amount of text messages sent in one month for which several people are responsible….including my roommate Lily who needed my entertainment during her highly engaging phone-answering and copy-making desk job this summer. Poor dear, one day she was so bored she texted me and asked me to write a limerick for her! <sigh> I did. It wasn’t very good.

·        The creation of five poems with various focuses and inspirations. One is entitled “The Paradox of Grace” but it’s not quite finished….not ready to share it on here yet.

·        The (partial) formation of what I learned in my Sophomore year of college…my aged readers will remember my list for the year 2004 that I did a few years ago. That one was long but this one will prob be longer when I finally finish it!

·        A sad awareness of my large capacity for wasting time. I’ve tried to be productive this summer and definitely have been in lots of ways, but alas, it is ever a struggle to use my time wisely instead of allowing the great thief of summer (ie facebook, email, movies, general laziness) to take control.

·        And lastly but actually most importantly, this summer has been an incredibly refreshing time for my relationship with Jesus. When I got back from school I was sucked dry – relationally and spiritually and definitely academically. It’s been a great time of resting my mind from memorization at least, but also reading challenging books. I also spent a lot of time contemplating what He had taught me last year and trying to synthesize in my mind a few of the key lessons I have (hopefully) learned. The list was long but spoke of how faithful He was even though I was pretty self-focused much of the time. Been studying 2 Cor and relishing the freedom we have in Christ. I find it sad to think about how long I have lived as a Christian without really being free…free from guilt, fear, condemnation, perfectionism, trying to earn justification by works…anyway, not to say that I am of course, but I am learning. Learning a lot. Grace is ever becoming more vital to how I view life and others and how I live everyday. But it’s a funny thing, because the more I understand how great my sin is, the most I see how great God’s grace is. But, contrary to previous years, that has only made me more peaceful and grateful, rather than self-condemning. And it has made me want to live fruitfully more than I ever did when I was focused on my sin. Like I said, paradoxical. I have also learned great lessons of patience, waiting on the Lord and knowing that trusting His sovereignty is the most peaceful place to be.

Well, I hope that makes up for my lack of posting the last few months. And really, how can one synthesize in a few paragraphs (or several, in my case) a whole summer? It’s been a whole new season of life as I enter my third year of college and find myself laughing and cringing at the immaturity of yesterday and the probable mistakes in my future. But the last eight months have quite possibly been the happiest season of my life. I think God gives time of such contentment to carry us through when the struggles come, and I know they will. And have. And are. I leave you with some verses I’ve been meditating on this week:

“But we have this treasure in earthen vessels, so that the surpassing greatness of the power will be of God and not from ourselves; we are afflicted in every way, but not crushed; perplexed, but not despairing; persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed; always carrying about in the body the dying of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our body.” ~ 2 Cor 4: 7-10

Whew. Finally home.

Praise the Lord I made it through last week!! My verses for it were "Encourage the exhausted, and strengthen the feeble. Say to those with anxious heart, "take courage, fear not" and "Only in the Lord are righteousness and strength" - from Isaiah 35 and 45. God sure was faithful, i am so grateful. Wow. And after sleeping about 20 hours M-F nights last week I've gotten close to 15 in the last 24!! <smile> I still feel a little out of it but I am well on my way to recovering from finals craziness and embracing summer bliss!!

It was such a reminiscent time the last few days, thinking over the last year and how I'm halfway through college, how much I have changed and grown and the amazing friendships I've built at school. I've never really needed people the way I need them now - in that I've finally begun to learn how to open myself up to people and allow them to minister to me in the midst of my need, not just after the fact. It's quite a wondrous thing to have friends who care that much about you and friends who you love to love like that as well. It was quite depressing saying goodbye - 3.5 months is a looooong time....but oh i have so many exciting things on my to do list for the summer! And yes soon you will get your very own look at it, and perhaps at my book list too. Let the summer begin!!