As excited as I am to be home, it was surprisingly difficult to turn my school keys in Tuesday and leave my apartment today.  I realized today that I've been feeling moderate separation anxiety all week, and it seems that transition is always going to be a challenge for me.  Wherever I go and whatever I do, I tend to form deep attachments regardless (or perhaps because?) of how generally miserable things may be, and so parting tends to be traumatic even under the best of circumstances.

Little girl fourteen flipping through a magazine
Says she wants to look that way
But her hair isn't straight her body isn't fake
And she's always felt overweight

Well little girl fourteen I wish that you could see
That beauty is within your heart
And you were made with such care your skin your body and your hair
Are perfect just the way they are

[Chorus]
There could never be a more beautiful you
Don't buy the lies disguises and hoops they make you jump through
You were made to fill a purpose that only you could do
So there could never be a more beautiful you

Little girl twenty-one the things that you've already done
Anything to get ahead
And you say you've got a man but he's got another plan
Only wants what you will do instead

Well little girl twenty-one you never thought that this would come
You starve yourself to play the part
But I can promise you there's a man whose love is true
And he'll treat you like the jewel you are

[chorus]

So turn around you're not too far
To back away be who you are
To change your path go another way
It's not too late you can be saved
If you feel depressed with past regrets
The shameful nights hope to forget
Can disappear they can all be washed away
By the one who's strong can right your wrongs
Can rid your fears dry all your tears
And change the way you look at this big world
He will take your dark distorted view
And with His light He will show you truth
And again you'll see through the eyes of a little girl
[chorus]

I was studying Romans 3-4 this morning and was struck by the theme of transaction. We are conditioned (and perhaps naturally inclined) to use a transactional paradigm in life: trading, buying, selling, earning. But God upends the entire system...our lack of faith leads to His gain in righteousness, even though He is not unrighteous...therefore, He must be infinitely righteous (Romans 3:3-4). We are finite, though, so to some extent we have to stay within the confines of transaction. We cannot generate evil (which I like to think of as insufficiency) in order to achieve good (Romans 3:8). I sometimes fall into the psychologically comforting habit of justifying a bad situation by saying God will redeem it. He may do so, but that doesn't mean I shouldn't avoid sin in the first place. (In the words of Mufasa, "Being brave doesn't mean you go looking for trouble!")

I have a persistent habit of turning my needs into shoulds, which has caused me no small amount of unnecessary angst. This week it felt like I had to go from 0 to 724 instantly, which resulted in some major whiplash. God reminded me about the need to distinguish between my...

Most of my goals/resolutions for this quarter are carryovers from fall because, except for finishing a yearlong crochet project, I pretty much failed at all of them. I did add some new ones, though.

1. Smile more, even if I have to fake it sometimes, and gradually get to the point of actually meaning it most of the time. I realized a few days ago that I don't smile nearly as often or as genuinely as I used to, and that made me sad.
2. Spend 10-15 minutes every other day tidying my apartment. That way, I won't have to spend two hours every two weeks digging myself out from my various piles of detritus.
3. Since my spiritual discipline goals were too nebulous to be met last quarter, here is the plan from here on out. I like the structure and meditative intent of lectio divina, but I also want to just go through the Bible again in a year, and I know I don't have time to meditatively read all of it at once. So I have a Bible reading plan that will take me all the way through in one year, and I'll read the daily selection when I wake up in the morning, followed by some brief prayer time if I can manage it. (It's really hard to focus on much more at 5:15 in the morning, no matter how hard I try.) Then, either when I get back from teaching around lunchtime, or before I go to bed, I'll meditate on a short passage from the day's selection and do the entire read-react-respond-prayer cycle for that passage.
   
4. Give my best time and energy to being God's best, not my own personal obsessions. Concretely, this means working out in the evening rather than the afternoon and skipping the gym if other priorities come up. This gives me the chance to eat a proper lunch and dinner, nap if I'm lucky, and get my school work done before I am exhausted at the end of the day. This will probably also make me less cranky in my late afternoon classes, which will help in my pursuit of goal #1. Also: Bedtime by 10:30 except in extreme circumstances.
   
5. Plan and cook complete, balanced meals. My friend gave me Mark Bittman's How to Cook Everything Vegetarian and that has been very inspiring. I've already got about a week's worth of meals on ice in the freezer, but I'll probably cook and store some more this week while I have more free time. At this point, I'm still using the calorie tracker to make sure I get the right amount and types of nutrients, but it'd be nice to get away from it once in awhile and eventually off it completely. I do have a weight loss goal in mind, but I need to pray about it some more and possibly tweak it according to my body's responses.
6. Pray specifically for a friend every other day. In order to do this, of course, I have to spend time with people, sharing in their lives, whether through phone conversations, letters, or meet-ups.
7. Pray for my mission every other day: the approval process; support-raising; lesson planning; my students, colleagues, and supporters; and the country of Niger.
8. Take my vitamins and floss every day.
9. Keep chipping away at the never-ending To Read list.
10. Write out some form of The Story.

Ambitious, I know. But, "Ah, but a man's reach should exceed his grasp - or what's a heaven for?"

"It's like He sees who you could be, and that’s what he remembers."

These words of wisdom came from a dear friend, and were brought to life for me by another friend that I've known since high school. We were catching up last night and I was telling her about how education is such a good fit for me because it combines my passions for people and for learning. I told her how I had never really paid attention to people like I do now, and how my master's program is almost like being in high school again, only this time I planned to be more socially successful. She looked at me and said, "That's funny, because I sort of always saw you that way. Everybody loved you!"

This struck me as mildly ridiculous. I never felt fully accepted by my peers when I was growing up, except for my friends, and even those relationships were not nearly as deep as the ones I have cultivated in colleges (and some of these are expansions of friendships I had in high school). Now I am very secure in my friends' love for me, but I wonder if maybe that was there all along and I just couldn't see it.

Aren't our friends sometimes better at seeing us than we ourselves are? I could have said something very similar for her. She was an avowed atheist throughout high school, but I saw the way she passionately pursued knowledge and thought, "Man, she would make such a great Christian!" And now God's gotten a hold of her and I cannot wait to see what amazing things He will do through her life. I'm not claiming to be any sort of clairvoyant about people; all knowledge is God's knowledge and sometimes He imparts what He knows about us to other people to pass on to us.

The same pattern happened during the "crucible" period of my recovery from eating disorder. Each week while I was attending my support group, I asked for God to show me something new about myself to replace the twisted images and thoughts. And He did, only they turned out to be all things that I already knew but had forgotten. A physical representation of that process was reintroducing foods like carbs and dairy...I'd tasted them all before but made myself give them up along the way. God was showing me how He saw me and how others saw me, and my weight and physical appearance were actually negligible parts of the person they saw. I still struggle with body image and probably always will, but it's been a joy learning to see myself the way others, most importantly God, see me.

1 Corinthians 13:12
For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I have been fully known.

I Can See Clearly Now
Johnny Nash

I can see clearly now, the rain is gone,
I can see all obstacles in my way
Gone are the dark clouds that had me blind
It’s gonna be a bright (bright), bright (bright)
Sun-Shiny day.

I think I can make it now, the pain is gone
All of the bad feelings have disappeared
Here is the rainbow I’ve been prayin' for
It’s gonna be a bright (bright), bright (bright)
Sun-Shiny day.

Look all around, there’s nothin' but blue skies
Look straight ahead, nothin' but blue skies

I can see clearly now, the rain is gone,
I can see all obstacles in my way
Gone are the dark clouds that had me blind
It’s gonna be a bright (bright), bright (bright)
Sun-Shiny day.

P.S. I think I'm going to get Lasik in September.

Someone

by Peggie Coletti Bohanon

Lord, send me someone sincere and true,
Someone who wholly belongs to you;
And then to me to give a part
Of a very tender and loving heart.
Full of fun yet strong and steady too,
Someone to lean on and who trusts in you.
His life in service to you he'll give,
And our lives for you we both shall live.
A gracious, exciting, understanding man,
The one for me that you have planned.
The ideal man of my life to be,
Strong of heart and soul, yet gentle with me.
He'll hold me close and always want me near,
He'll need my love and often call me dear.
I'll walk so proudly by his side,
My happiness complete when I'm his bride.
I'll open my heart to his love evermore.
Where'er he is, Lord,
Send him knocking at my door!

This woman wrote another poem that was prophetic and encouraging for my recovery from eating disorder, so I thought I'd check out the other writings on her website. Once my brain stopped bleeding from the sheer obnoxiousness of the site design, I found this poem. As I read, I agreed with everything until I got to the line I've bolded above.

This is something I have always struggled to understand. As I was praying last week, I realized that my previous relationships, actual and attempted, failed in part because I was not whole, and trying to find my wholeness in another person is a recipe for failure. But the Bible says that man had no suitable helper, so woman was created. Was Adam incomplete without Eve? Am I incomplete without a significant other?

I certainly don't feel that way...in fact I am closer to wholeness now than I ever was even in a relationship. Moreover, I see no reason to potentially jeopardize that by adding anyone else to the equation. To quote Alanis Morissette (not the most biblically aligned source on relationships, granted), I believe that one and one make two, but people (including Christians) are always going on and on about finding "their other half." The thing is, I've tried that. That's all I've ever tried, actually, and it always failed. So how do I reconcile the need to be whole in Christ with what appears to be God's design for a man and a woman to be together?

Maybe our wholeness comes from Christ but our completeness comes from a spouse. I'm not sure exactly how that works, but maybe it's like...a two-volume book. Each volume is an entire work but each is also part of a set that tells a complete story. Hmmm. Not sure how well that analogy works for me.

I am using the term "college" here to mean the time period of the last four years as well as the circumstances surrounding being a college student.
By the way, if you tagged me for 25 things or 16 things or 38.2189 things...this is my belated response.

1. For me, numbness is worse than fear or pain or hunger, because feeling those means I'm still alive. I can usually remember this in the midst of suffering...usually.
2. I process the universe through written words. This means I learn best through reading and writing. I don't retain well what I hear unless I read it or write it down simultaneously or soon after.
3. Breakfast is my favorite meal. There have been days (more often than I care to admit) when I have eaten oatmeal or cereal for two out of three square meals a day.
4. I have a pathological fear of confrontation that I am trying to overcome without becoming a pain in the ass.
5. I am not nearly as good at multitasking as I imagine myself to be.
6. Vacations should not be about cramming in as many activities into the space of twelve hours as possible. I learned this traveling with Liz to Cabo San Lucas and Atlanta.
7. One of my worst habits of action is not putting things where they belong right when I am done using them.
8. I have a rather severe teacher's pet complex, which I have fortunately never acted on.
9. "Mostly harmless" is not a good enough reason to do anything. Life is too short and offers too many choices not to think carefully and choose to do only the things that serve some distinct purpose.
10. I wish I had kept up my study and practice of music during college. When I have my own place large enough to fit it, I will have my piano shipped to me.
11. I am not God, but I often try to put myself in His place by judging or condemning myself and others. I am desperately trying to unlearn this tendency.
12. Whether or not one gets a happy ending depends entirely on where one stops reading.
13. I am extremely bad at choosing superlatives, so those ubiquitous web memes about your favorite this or that are extremely difficult for me. This is a symptom of my larger inability to make decisions. Unfortunately, I haven't actually improved much in this area; I get around by avoiding new decisions as much as possible, which is not healthy, and I am trying to turn these things over to God more.
14. Even though I usually dig in my heels when it comes to change, when things finally do change I can usually adjust pretty quickly to the new "normal."
15. I tend to be kind of nearsighted about life; I believe, mistakenly, that the way things are now is the way they have always been. Coupled with my tendency to revise my own history, this is not always wise, but fortunately I have my journals and friends to remind me about things I need to remember but would sometimes rather forget.
16. Apparently my favorite number is 4. I tell people I am either 4 years old or 84, the average of which is...44.
17. Even though (or perhaps because) I try to keep my life fairly well planned, I LOVE surprises. (Benign ones, at least.)
18. I am much more people-oriented than I used to be. I attribute this directly to being part of a community that visibly and intentionally cares after one another.
19. I am very impressionable, to the point where I have trouble taking True/False tests because I think, "Well, if someone took the time to write this on a sheet of paper, it must be true!" For the most part I regard this as a good thing because it allows me to empathize better with people (see #18) but it can be also bad because I internalize other people's [misguided] expectations and projected [negative] emotions very easily. I am slowly learning to let certain things roll off me more.
20. I like hugs. The level of physical affection that I am willing to give or receive is directly correlated to my emotional state.
21. I also really like making and giving things to people, whether it's food or cards or letters or furry pink things. (One a side note, when I read Gary Chapman's book about the five love languages, I almost got a little frustrated because I evince all of them toward various people. Then I realized this is a good thing.)
22. I love analogies and object lessons and look for them in everything I experience.
23. I tend to be very trusting of people in general and sometimes need to be clued in on "common sense" wariness. Paradoxically, I sometimes have trouble trusting specific people enough to let them fully into my life.
24. Everyone has their own cross to bear. I am learning not to compare my trials with others' and complain that someone else has it easier because they are most likely facing difficulties I simply cannot understand. I can help those whose difficulties I can understand, however, because I went through them myself. I used to grumble, "Why do I have to be hurt so that I can help others?" But the causality is quite the opposite: I can help because I was hurt but then healed.
25. I used to think the world was all black and white, EITHER/OR, but I'm finding that God is really more a God of BOTH/AND, not in a self-contradictory way but like holding different things in opposite hands. (Chesterton explains this much better in Orthodoxy.) All my life I felt like a walking contradiction and thought something was wrong with me, but realizing this has helped me move toward wholeness.

All my single ladies...


:::::::::::::::::Girls::::::::::::::::::::::
:::::::::::are like apples::::::::::::::::
::::::on trees. The best ones::::::::::
:::::are at the top of the tree.::::::::
:::The boys don't want to reach:::::::
::for the good ones because they::::
:are afraid of falling and getting hurt.
:Instead, they get the rotten apples:
from the ground that aren't as good,
but easy. So the apples up top think:
something's wrong w/ them when in::
:reality they’re amazing. They just:::
:::have to wait for the right boy to::
:::: come along, the one who’s:::::::
::::::::::: brave enough to::::::::::::
:::::::::::::::climb all::::::::::::::::::::
:::::::::::::::the way:::::::::::::::::::
::::::::::::::to the top::::::::::::::::::

So this little burble has been around since I was in high school and I always thought this was just a lame attempt by unpopular girls (like, oh I don't know, me) to feel better about their dateless selves. I realized today though that I never believed I was truly a good apple. Deep down I saw myself as a rotten, easy-to-reach apple and couldn't understand why there still wasn't anyone reaching for me. Frustrating, yes? This quarter I need Jesus to help me see that I am the apple of his eye.

Psalm 17:8 - Keep me as the apple of your eye; hide me in the shadow of your wings.

Sarah put it this way (and I'm paraphrasing): You're a diamond, but some guys can only handle cubic zirconium because diamond is too costly. Almost instantly the phrase, "Like a diamond in the sky," popped into my head, which is funny because it's related to the proposal scenario I dreamed up this week in Atlanta while looking at this piece of art:

We go out to the country, or at least away from the city, during the summer meteor shower to stargaze. We take turns naming constellations, then he points to a specific star. "Do you know what that one is called?" "No, I don't." "I named it for you." "Really??" "Yup. That's Jennifer. Jennifer [insert his last name here]." (At this point there will probably be a great deal of squealing. And some sort of diamond involved.)

So as Twinkle Twinkle is playing through my head, I realized that I need to be my own diamond in the sky before I can expect someone else to name a star after me! Diamonds are forged in the extreme heat and pressure of the earth (or lab, which I kind of prefer just to make sure no child was harmed in the extraction of my engagement ring), and are the hardest mineral known to man. Real diamonds are rarely flawless, but that's one of the ways you can tell a real diamond from cubic zirconia or other imitations. (It's kind of like Adam was talking about at church today: the point of Christianity is not to make everyone into a bunch of spiritual Stepford wives, but to allow us to live life to the fullest both here and after we die physically. The flaws and kinks and imperfections and ROYAL SCREW-UPS OF DOOM at the very least allow us to relate to other people; they also press us closer to God if we get on the right side of it.) And to borrow a passage from Les Miserables that I read today, "Diamonds are found only in the dark bowels of the earth; truths are found only in the depths of thought. It seemed to him [Jean Valjean] that after descending into those depths after long groping in the blackest of this darkness, he had at last found one of these diamonds, one of these truths and that he held it in his hand; and it blinded him to look at it." Pray for me as Jesus grinds and polishes me...