Admiring Grace

When I started writing this, I wanted to be vague. To be artistic and creative. Something I haven’t done in a long while. I sent the draft to my friend regretted hitting send. It wasn’t honest. And I’m nearly positive it only made sense to me. I talked about invisible bars and sitting and patience as action. And most importantly, I washed out my pathetic attempts to almost heroic. Can I just say, capital letters, FALSE. Stupid is just stupid. No excuses. See, I had this problem for quite some time. Most of my friends new about this situation and they didn’t approve. I didn’t approve. But kept myself in a position where I felt important because part of me needed the attention. And it gets worse. I wasn’t content where I was. I wanted more and more. It wasn’t even a relationship. But I thought it could be. Maybe. In a few years. Just wait and see. Of course, I never waited too much - just enough to hang on and be aware of any changes. It was easy. Ju...

I’ve had a rather horrid realization: Just because someone already loves Jesus doesn’t mean I stop being a witness. The terrible part is I haven’t been living up to that. I tend to assume that my behavior around and toward my Christian friends can be different because “they know what I mean” or “they understand me” so much better than others or “they’ll forgive me.” More often than not all three are true. But what excuse is that? So often I am captured by how I feel and made slave to it by my own will. I hold on to how I feel and project it however I see fit. I don’t wait to see if it is beneficial. I just do it. Nike would be proud. Jesus isn’t. I heard my uncle talk about the churches in Kenya. They have this saying called the “Monday Church.” They say that to remind the Body of Christ that it isn’t just Sunday we are the bride of Christ but at all times in all things. I originally thought it was such a cool movement. Go Kenya! It hit me that I don’...

Ah the glories of a new semester. The wonder of this being the last. Rain has fallen nearly steadily since I returned to classes. Almost as if nature itself cannot console itself with the changing tides. That’s been a big theme for the past year. Change. Here I have talked a lot about how receptive I have been to it, but really that’s only a part of the picture. I don’t publish the things I’ve been learning until long after I’ve realized the lesson is there. At times I am in the midst of it still, but yet, I am far from the beginning. I’m reminded of that journey as I sit in an unfamiliar place imagining an unfamiliar scene. It would be so simple to just look out the window and picture what I’d like to be there – I so often do. But how often do I look to see what’s there? What is right before my face. Not often, I must admit. It is so much easier for me to dream of something than to admit what I have is, well, what I have. An empty sidewalk is easily a running track for...

Sensitive people get to me; in a negative way. I can’t stand the wishy-washy, back-and-forth mindset that seems to pervade their life. The “what ifs” and “if only I’d...” thoughts that consume, if slowly, entire lives, I cannot handle it. I have realized why: The mass confusion, the chaotic retracing maybes devour me regularly. Often I call it “stupid girl-brain.” And no, it isn’t always to do with a love interest, but 99 percent of the time it is about some sort of relationship (fam, friends, and love.) The stupid girl-brain has a habit of overanalyzing a situation, a sentence, a look, until every possible meaning has been taken out and looked into for accuracy – according to the stupid girl-brain. Sometimes this even includes adding expressions and words the SGB “knows” the other person meant. My baby sister would refer to this as a face palm moment and as much as I agree with her, I don’t know how to turn off my SGB. SGB: Even fries have something deep to say Even as I w...

Lately, I’ve been ranting. A lot. Mostly about wimpy Christian boys. Those guys who claim to be followers of Christ, who tell anyone they will do what God calls them to; yet they can’t get up the guts to talk to girls. Not just ask them out, speak to them. This isn’t from some desire to be in a relationship, but it’s annoying when an entire group of people avoid me. My roommate and I were talking about how guys on our private Christian campus have trouble making eye contact with us – notice, I did not say maintaining, I said making. They stare at the ground as they walk by; they look past our heads as they speak with us. These are not shy, awkward homeschoolers. These are regular, guys; guys who are even considered ‘popular.’ What The Heck. Upon talking, my roomie and I realized that between the two of us the number of Christian guys who have asked us out is zero . The only time a Christian man as shown interest in me, is after he knows I have an interest in him. Silly me...

I have learned these past years – well, mostly months – that contentment is not what we ought to seek. To be set exactly as we are is not a helpful venture. We ought to be continuously growing, seeking out what God has for us. They say that change happens to everyone, I am quite sure I have said the exact thing; yet, when it happens to you…it does not seem to matter what others say. The terror is intense. Sometimes, it takes a slap to the face to make a change, other times it takes a cross country move [I got both – within a very short period of time. To be fair, the move has been planned for a few months and it is something I have wanted to do and am enjoying fully; the slap in the face, however, wasn’t picked up by my peripheral vision and did leave a significant welt…]. The past few weeks have been packed with changes. I went from two jobs to zero, the frozen tundra to a town with “Beach” in the name, my family is halfway across the country, and my friend count has significantly...