What College Are You?

The results of this one made me chuckle. Partly because the statements are fairly true to who I am. But mostly because Reed is the school that Donald Miller talks about in "Blue Like Jazz". It's the school featured in one of my favorite scenes in that book - the confession booth scene - a scene that I loved for the backwardness of grace that it demonstrated.

You Are Reed

You love learning for its own sake, even more the most people. You believe that education is all about the experience... not about the degree. You prefer to go to an institution with other serious students and accessible professors. You rather be with people who are truly interested in ideas, not in showing how smart they are.

What College Are You?

Oh What a Day....

These song lyrics to "Oh What a Day" by Ingrid Michaelson have been resonating in some ways today since I heard it again while my roommate and I were driving in the mountains. While I certainly haven't kissed a bad love relationship goodbye, I'm feeling some of the sentiment in terms of the need to move on from some other things in my life.

Oh what a day is today
Nothing can stand in my way
Now that you've shipped out from under my skin
I think I'm ready to win

Oh what a night is tonight
I think I'm ready to fight
Now that my broken bones all have been healed
I think I'm starting to feel

Something good
Something good
Now that you're gone I can roll on to something good

Oh what a way that we died
Plenty of tears were supplied
My eyes are wrung out and dry as a bone
And I taste much better alone

Something good
Something good
Now that you're gone I can roll on to something good

Oh you know I moved away
From the other side of the door
I don't have to wait anymore for you to come home
Something good
Now that you're gone I can roll on to something good
Something good

Huh.

This was another one of those days. It turned out better than I thought it might, but it was hard.

I'm really looking forward to tomorrow morning and collecting a hug from a dear friend.

And I'm thankful that I have one more day off before I return to work.

I could use a few more than that still, but I'll take what I can get.

Plans changed again

So, this weekend, I'm having to be flexible with my plans.

Have I mentioned that that is not a strength of mine? I like plans. I usually build some leeway into them, but I definitely prefer them not to change.

This time away has been harder and less restful than anticipated for a variety of reasons.

I'm looking forward to collecting a hug from a very dear friend tomorrow.

In the meantime, I'm in no shape to drive, and badly needing to get out of the city, so my roommate and I are doing a bit of shopping, and then she's volunteered to drive us to a favorite spot of mine in the mountains so we can spend the afternoon there.

Rough Day (family, emotions, and choosing to say no)

I woke out of a disturbing dream this morning, surrounding some issues with family, and a deeply personal decision I've been trying to make for the last week or so.

My family is wonderful and I love them deeply, but they can also create a constant struggle within me at times. Mostly because they find my journey with God to be unconventional, confusing, and perhaps even heretical (though I doubt they'd use that word) at moments.

I listened to my mom tonight, as she related to me how she'd heard a speaker at a conference she'd attended the last few days who had deeply challenged her and made her realize how much her upbringing causes her, even still, after many years of healing from the deep wounds of her childhood, to struggle with the idea of works vs. grace, and to lean towards works, and I wanted to scream, "I know! You instilled those same tendencies in me, and I spend my days battling with fear of failure, with the desperate need to measure up because you taught me that. I carry so much fear and shame and panic because of the things you carry, and I'm thrilled you're finding healing and feeling conviction, but I don't know how to handle that, because it just feels like condemnation of the spaces in which I exist."

I know she doesn't intend for it to be condemnation. I know that she is speaking out of love for me and desire to see me live more fully. But it feels at times like condemnation.

A little over a year and a half ago, a deeply personal moment in which I encountered God, a moment witnessed by a few dear friends, was suddenly and carelessly exposed to the world. In all likelihood it's being exposed very soon in a much more broad form. It's initial exposure caused deep hurt and shattering, not only for me, in my sudden exposure, but for some who'd known of the things leading up to it and hadn't been included, and to some extent the shattering that it caused is such that I still feel it very deeply.

I have been praying about the timing of another deeply personal moment that I have felt Jesus inviting me into since shortly after that first moment. This week it became a possibility that the timing could be sometime during these days off. And, to be honest I really wanted this to happen. But I think I'm going to choose to wait. Because of the day I've had, and the dreams. Because exposure of this moment is also bound to happen (based on the number of people who know what I've been praying about), and, while it likely wouldn't be the careless exposure of the first time, it still holds the potential to deeply hurt those whom I love, who would perhaps not understand the choice to go forward.

I'll make the final decision tomorrow morning. And my heart is breaking in the knowledge that putting this off likely means delaying this for at least another year. But right now, right in this moment, as much as I long for it, I think I need to wait.

So, I'm sobbing a little. I'm shrugging, because I'm exhausted and so very not okay. I suppose I'll be okay again at some point, but I'm not right now. I collected a hug from my roommate tonight, who didn't know what to do other than listen a bit and finally just hug me. I think I'm just going to head for bed. Curl up with my devotional book (which has been hitting hard lately too) and my bible. Maybe spend some time in the Psalms. Maybe journal or read. And pray for sleep - because after days like this it is often fleeting and filled with disturbing dreams, and tonight, tonight I'd really like it if I slept dreamlessly, or if I met Jesus in my dreams, but I can definitely do without the disturbing bits.