Admiring Grace

My second semester of college I took a sociology class which the professor simply called “The Family.” It was a study of relationships, of marriage, of love, of families. The prof didn’t give us much homework beyond reading the text so maybe that’s why this assignment has stayed with me in the years since – or it could be possible that I was chewed out by this particular prof for not starting the paper until the night before it was due over dinner. I had the rare opportunity to learn about something so important from my father in a public setting. His big assignment was for the students to write a paper describing our family of origin followed by how we wanted our future families to be. My plan was to be ordinary. I wanted my future life to be utterly boring to onlookers. I wanted us to live our lives and go to soccer or ballet or school or church or wherever we happened to be headed without concern for much more. Part of me still likes a lot of what I wrote, but my direction was

This will be the final part of my summer series. This is by no means a full account of the lessons I learned and as I have realized these past weeks I am still in the process of understanding why May to August was so packed full of education, but I know this summer has been a turning point in many ways. Skipping ahead several weeks from my Blessed Shock I was on the road back to school. A whole twenty-six hours on the road. For those of you who have never been on a road trip, that’s a long time – especially when you are alone travelling through many states. [Thankfully, I have wonderful friends who allowed me to stay with them letting me break up the trip into three days of driving plus plenty of hang out time!] My time in the car was spent listening to Matt Chandler of the Village Church’s Galatians series , [okay, yep, again. I needed to hear it again to actually get it. Also, I highly recommend checking it out] praying, listening to some music, and being freaked out of my min

There’s a country song that talks about thanking God for unanswered prayers. I’ve always enjoyed it and looking back on my life I realize so many of my prayers were selfish and I am so thankful they did not come about as I had wished. But that’s not what I’m looking at in this point of my life. Today, well this season, I am looking at the prayers I fervently prayed that have been answered. Beyond just being answered, I even ‘got’ what I preferred. Now comes the second guessing. Should I have fought harder for option A even though I liked option B so much more? Was it because I wanted B that I let A slide by without actually attempting? Gah! This is a fun stage of life. So many choices lie before me like an endless hallway of open doors yet I know that walking through one shuts seven others. What if I don’t like the door I go through? I’ll never know if another door would have been better – not after it’s closed. I did mean it when I said I thought this was a fun stage, terrifyi