Admiring Grace

Any prayer requests? That’s how my lit prof always starts class. This morning I was thinking, wishing I were there right now to shoot up my hand. Yes! I have praise! Although, I have to admit, that isn’t how I woke up. It’s finals week. I was cranky and annoyed as well as emotionally drained from writing some pretty personal stories for my two thesis classes. Like normal I reached for my phone to check the time – up before my alarm yet again. This time I had a few text messages. One friend said some things I didn’t want to hear. Just like friends to share that sort of stuff we just have to hope it’s to benefit us, not to sting. I was in a fine mood as I walked out to get started on breakfast. Scrambled eggs would help get me out of that funk right? That’s what I was praying, anyway, just before I shared my news with my roommate as she headed out to class. I brought my computer out to listen to a sermon. Recently in a crisis of emotion I told anot...

I know so many couples. People at church, from school, that I grew up with; people I see while running errands or out with my friends. So. Many. Couples. And I love it. It is so beautiful to see people living out the love they promised before God and before family and friends. What’s less great is how they talk to me, their single friend. There seem to be two spectrums. On the one side they want to set me up with all their bachelor friends and sometimes he turns out to have waited on them once at this tiny restaurant called…but he was cute at least kind of! So I should really let them try because I just really ought to be married too. A coffee outing turns into a pre-proposal they get so excited at the hope of a relationship. Thanks guys, now I don’t have to be desperate, you make it clear I am. The other side tells me the horror stories of their marriages. How he never listens and she quit being interested in him or how all marriage does is make people fig...

Everyone I talk to who is over the age of thirty says no way they would trade places with me. Not because my life is so rampant with complications, but because of this stage of life. Right now I am deciding how far I want my education to go. Where I want to live. What I want to do. Who I want to do coffee  with and who I’d prefer to avoid. Then that coffee thing turns into something and then what? Or it doesn’t and there I am with the exact same set of questions. My roommate’s father once asked me what I wanted to do in life and where - pretty basic before-college-graduation questions. So I thought. I didn’t realize I was being vague until he said that it was good I didn’t have specifics because I couldn’t really decide anything without knowing who I was going to marry. Gee thanks. He didn’t mean to be annoying or rude. But he had a valid point. A lot of my decisions now (ahem, all of them) will have their effects on the rest of my life. Throwing myself into my e...