On Faith

This is my last weekend without coffee. Wow. I am so glad that it's almost over!! I was just thinking how a nice, steaming cup of coffee would be right now, as I sit and write...

I decided to give up coffee for Lent, on the recommendation of a friend. She had explained the tradition and the symbolism in such a way that it seemed irresistable... at the time. And so I made the committment, and began the sufferring... a whole week early! =] Not intentional. So I've been off coffee for a good long while here, and I miss it terribly. But I think I wanted to prove to myself that I could do it. And now I think I can take a moment and be proud of myself, because I've almost made it! But it definitely wasn't easy. Coffee has long been my stress relief, and I've needed it this month. It has been a very rough month.

A lot of people have said that I've been negative lately. And I don't doubt it. The truth is I am overwhelmed, and so many things are out of my control, and I don't know what to do anymore. I have felt the flood waters rising up around my face, and I think it's only natural to panic a bit when you believe you're about to drown...

I have never really understood what we're supposed to be doing here, on Earth. I thought I was writing a story, but I've become angry lately at the story I seem to have been given. I feel like when I was ten years old and they got me that bike for Christmas... I'd had in my head that it was the purple bike with the sparkles that I'd asked for, and I was equally convinced that that particular bike and I would form a unique bond and that the two of us together created the right ingredients for magic. Like Harry Potter's wand that chose him. I knew that if I only had that bike, that I could fly... I truly believed it.

Then Christmas morning rolled around... but it was a pink bike with lolipops on it that greeted me. And that bike never let me fly. It was just a bike, and I was just a girl, and there was no magic. Now, in reality, did the pink bike do everything the purple bike would have? Probably, yes. But the believing nature in me isn't 100% convinced that the purple bike with sparkles wouldn't have been able to lead me to worlds unknown... even today I'm not fully convinced of the reality of the situation.

That is perhaps one of my greatest strengths and biggest downfalls. I have been accused of not having enough faith, but it is not the truth. The truth is that I have too much faith, but in the wrong things. I will believe something longer and deeper and more stubbornly than most people could ever fathom, much less act upon. Perhaps God gave me such a measure of faith to be a writer with, and the tragedy of it is, He's also had to watch me fall time and time again because I never turn that belief back around to him. I'll give it to some guy, or some cause, or some ridiculous notion, and then get devastated by "reality," all the while becoming less likely to trust the only one who is actually trustworthy...

So far it has been a deadly cycle. And a lot of things that I had been hoping in have fallen apart lately... so it's going to be even harder to resurrect what's left of my trusting heart.

So have I been negative lately? Probably. But that's just the tip of the iceberg, the warning that things really aren't okay under all this water... that my limbs have been growing weary for some time and that I won't be able to hold myself up for much longer... This is nothing new to me, so I am surprised to see a new group of people reacting so strongly to it. I guess this is just the first time some of them have recognized this particular struggle of mine... of having faith in everything but God.

There is much more to say, but I have a lot to do today, and I just needed to get some of this out of my thoughts. It's a process, this growing to trust God. I would love for it to be more of an instantaneous transformation, but it seems to be a long, slow process instead. So I guess there's nothing I can do except take the next step along the way.

Life is What Happens When You're Making Other Plans

You'd think that after 25 years of doing this Life stuff, I'd be able to tell kinda how things work on this planet and make some sort of accurate prediction about how things are generally going to turn out. But it isn't true. This week threw me a curve ball. And I've determined I don't like curve balls!

I've mostly made it out of the old apartment, because that had been such a bad situation that I just didn't want to be there anymore. It was worth the extra money to find my own place, and here I am. It all happened so quickly, though. And then this week happened, as well, and now I feel like nothing in my life is familiar at all. Which is perhaps a good thing. Maybe God knows things I don't know just yet.

But let's see... my second night in the apartment, my car was broken into and some irreplaceable stuff got stolen. One thing in particular that wasn't even mine, so I'm trying to figure out what to do about that. The timing, as always, was impeccable, because I had just had a discussion with an old friend about how to get said item back to him, and he had responded back with some anger... whether about the item or on a more personal note, I couldn't tell. But I was asked not to contact him anymore. I was still reeling from that request, unsure of what it meant and if I had done anything to deserve it. Then his stuff gets stolen from my car, and I pretty much feel like a worthless human being. *sigh* Sometimes I wonder if its ever worth it... but I can't get into all of that now.

They also stole my favorite coat. Is it dumb that I miss it? That I'm so upset about it? I know I have a lot of stuff, and clothes in particular, and let's be honest, I probably don't value or appreciate a lot of it the way I should. But I loved that coat. It was perfect for me in so many ways, and... I guess it just felt like a personal attack when it got stolen. Like someone was trying to hurt and violate me, not just get some stuff for free because they're too lazy to get their own job and buy their own stuff. I suppose I'm still a little angry about the situation. =] But I must remind myself that this green Earth we tread upon is not our eternal home, and we can't take our stuff with us when we go. I'm bad about getting attached to things and thinking they'll be around to make me happy forever. I'm bad about that with people too. I am constantly frustrated by the lack of permanence in this life.

So I was still dealing with the emotions of the break in, and all of that, when I got the flu and had to stay in bed for nearly 48 hours straight, with cold chills, and fever, and muscle pain, and vomiting... the whole 9 yards. So because of that, and other complications, I wasn't able to move the rest of my stuff out of the old apartment. I'm afraid my old roommate is going to be angry, and try to charge me more rent and all... I'm just ready to be done with it.

I guess you could say this was not my ideal first week in the new apartment. This wasn't really how I expected things to be. In fact, this whole year... this isn't really what I wanted for my 25th year of life. I had just always thought that things would be different. I guess I just need to bring my thoughts down from the clouds and plant them firmly into reality, so I don't keep getting hurt by my dreams and my life not matching up.

But there are good things happening in my world as well. This morning I woke up without fever (yaayy!) to the sun rising through the trees behind my apartment. MY apartment! No more people coming in and out doing whatever they want when they don't even live there. And that will be so refreshing. So I'm not ignoring that there are other things at work here, but its not wrong to grieve this lost world and allow yourself to hurt when you've been hurt by people you'd cared about.

Anyway, I've forgotten all about Daylight Savings Time, and now I'm going to be late to church!!

He...

I went to a Leap Day party this weekend. I had so much fun! Throughout the course of the evening, people would throw out quesions that everyone had to answer, and one of the questions that came up was: If you had to come up with the title for the story of your life, what would the title be?

Now the questions were all in good fun, and we made all kinds of jokes about what our titles would be. In fact, at one point we decided that my title could be: "He Said No!" because I had been joking about the cascade of rejection that had befallen me this week in regard to guys I know. It's been quite a bad week for me to be caring about people. I'm not really sure if I'm doing something wrong, or if I just need to stop trying to make friends with guys. I've had so many people tell me that that's just not a good idea, and I've ignored them for so long... and yet...

It is amazing to me... the power we have over one another. How the men in my life have affected me, motivated me, changed the way I see myself, changed who I want to be. By their affection or rejection, they have all had their say in the story of my life... they have all written their lines, for better or for worse. And I have written a line or two in their stories as well. It is scary to think about, really.

God gave us such power when he gave us one another. He made us so opposite and then said that we could live together, that we could marry and become one flesh and make babies together. And I wonder what he was even thinking sometimes, or how it ever works at all.

Who is he, I wonder? The guy that God will use to change the way I see? Who is the guy that will choose me over all the others? Who is the missing character in my story?

I love it when a couple has been married awhile, and you're having a conversation with one of them, and they're so intimate that they don't even use the others' name anymore... they'll just say "He was saying the other day..." or "have you talked to her about it?" and it always takes me a second to figure out who they're referring to, but in their mind there is no mistaking. I love that.

I want to be a "her" in a man's life. I want to find the "he" who will be so woven into my life story that he makes it into my sentences without need of a name.

He...

The one willing to say yes to "will you take this woman...?"

The one who'll write this story alongside me.

They say I am a hopeless romantic. And it must be true. All I know is, if I had to pick a title, with that in mind, I would like to call it... He.