Days 11 and 12: Wearing myself out

I think I've slept like 15 hours in the last 3 days. It's catching up with me. *Big yawn* But I did manage to pull myself out of bed for the Go New Orelans info meeting this afternoon. More on that later.

First, last night, Sar and I went to Dayton for a grocery shopping field trip with Lindsay. Sarah's job was to figure out how many Weight Watcher's points everything was and mine was to watch out for deals/coupons etc. Because I am the Penny Pinching Princess. And I love grocery shopping. I know, I know, huge geek alert.

I won the "guess how much the cart costs" game. I said $200 (it's almost full here) and it was 240 something. It would have been less if she'd followed my advice on the frozen veggies sale! :-P

Then of course today was the Trip Info meetings. It was hard deciding whether to go to the Mamelodi or New Orleans meeting today. I actually decided to go to the Go Mamelodi meeting but I headed for the chapel (which is where our meetings always were before) and lo and behold that's where the New Orleans meeting was. It actually made more sense since I already have 99% of the info for the Go Mamelodi trip and I remember not really learning anything last year that I didn't find on the website.

Anyway, it's getting closer and more exciting all the time! I can't believe I have to come up with 5,350 buckaroos between the two trips. The most aggravating part is that the money is staring at me from my bank account but it's already been committed to God for the house. It's so easy to say "Well, maybe God didn't tell me to buy a house, maybe I made it up. Maybe we should just rent another year so I have a bigger cushion and less worries." But that's just not true. And it's also really easy to worry. I mean, I worried about raising the 3,000 last year and that probably would have been easier to swing, looking back. Not only that but this time around people have already given once and I feel like all my resources are tapped, plus we're deeper into the recession, and (in feeling I needed to be 100% open with everyone) everyone knows that I have the cash because I'm using it to buy a house. The whole house thing is becoming a huge trust issue. I have to trust God knows what He is doing and isn't out to destroy me or make me a pauper or anything.

Which is ridiculous because HE IS GIVING ME A HOUSE!!!!!! That's the way I see it anyway, the way I've seen it since He first told me to buy one. I was going through Game Change and was terrified He would ask me to give all my savings to the Church. (While the idea of being a penniless missionary is appealing to me in a sense, the actuality of it is not.) Instead He told me to use it to buy a house. But I was not planning on buying a house right now. I like having that cushion in the bank for emergencies.

Like cars breaking down and asteroids hitting the earth.

The house is a very weird representation to me, there is a lot of tension around it. In one way it is a gift because, hello, I got the a-okay to buy a house, most people would think that was sweet. (Well, most people would think it's crazy I believe God said to buy a house, but barring that...) But in the other it's this huge roadblock that keeps me from knowing what comes next, or at least it keeps me from thinking I know what comes next.

The part that embarasses me most is that I like that. I like throwing my hands up and saying "Whatever, God, I don't know what I'm doing but I'm assuming you do and hoping this does not blow up in my face." It feels oddly safe. And that's embarassing because I'm supposed to be in control, you know? I'm supposed to want to control my own life. I'm supposed to be strong enough and smart enough to do that now. Or so says the world. Little by little I find myself living more and more in the Kingdom, which is so much more relaxing and enjoyable...but then being relaxed and happy makes me feel like a big lazy loser.

Oh flesh nature how I despise you and your ability to make me feel stupid and tiny. I think the cure for this current funk is a good ol' run of LoTR princesses and a nap!

Day 10 continues: Deebles comes to visit

(Ignore the mess in the background where I just threw all of my work stuff on the floor when I got home)

Today was the unveiling of a new shirt!!!! It is replacing my white shirt which I never wore. I was finding it was too hard to figure out what to wear with the white shirt because I felt like it needed a t-shirt or a vest or something.

I really wanted a picture of me while the three of us tried to diagnose why it wouldn't work. (When playing with electricity, always make sure there are people around to call 911 when you get electrocuted. Nothing worse than being the unconscious patient and no one knows how long you were down.) Anyway, that picture didn't really pan out since it would have been my two blue jean-clad legs sticking out from behind the washer and dryer while I hung upside down trying to unplug things...

Day 10: Love Songs From a Savior (yes I plagerized a title, I've been up since 5pm yesterday, I'm over it)

I have this habit of turning random songs into love songs from God. It started with Nickelback’s "Far Away" in college (I love you/I have loved you all along/And I forgive you/For being away for far too long/So keep breathing/'Cause I'm not leaving) and again with Taylor Swift’s "You Belong With Me" (I'm the one who makes you laugh/When you know you're 'bout to cry./And I know your favorite songs,/And you tell me 'bout your dreams./Think I know where you belong,/Think I know it's with me).

Most recently it is the previously mentioned "Closer" by Shawn McDonald.

I often find the praise songs I really like sound a little hollow when I sing them because, while I want to be head over heals in love with my Savior, most days I just don’t feel it. However I know, based on the multitudes of Scripture, that He does feel that way every day. And being reminded of that does make me love Him more.

"Closer" (on top of being a song where I can pray about being closer to God, and where I can be reminded that my place is to be closer to those in need) has become a sort of back-and-forth between me and God.
First I tell him how my life just isn’t complete. Regardless of whether I’m popping antidepressants and guzzling multiple bloody marys at 8am to forget the previous night, or whether I’m having the time of my life, it’s true: there’s always that something that is hovering just on the horizon. The thing that whispers that there’s more to life, that this world is my home but is not my homeland. I look for the impossible, I look for great satisfaction from things that are too tiny to grant it:

looking for color in a shade of grey
looking for love in a drop of rain
trying to find change from the old mundane
but everything i do just feels the same
spending my life out in the desert
been gone so long feels like forever

And in my searching for that something extra, that echo from the motherland, that thing that will complete my life, He offers Himself because He looooooooooooves me:

i just want to be closer to you
i just want to be closer
i am yours
you can have all of me, anything, everything
i just want to be closer
a day without you is a thousand years
a day without you is a million tears

I continue to share the questions that I have and to which I also have the intellectual-Bible-college-graduate answers, but no answers that are actually satisfying. I’m too tired and run-down from the day to day living to think with my battered and poisoned heart:

tell me why do i run when i am in fear
why do i run when you are so near
been spending my life out in the weather
been gone so long and i need some shelter

And He says He’ll be that shelter. That He just wants to be with me. It's not that He wants to schedule a meeting so He can go over His laundry list of things He wants me to do/fix in my life, He just wants to spend time with me. He wants to be inseperable:

i just want to be closer to you
i just want to be closer
i am yours
you can have all of me, anything, everything
i just want to be closer
wherever you go, wherever you are
i just want to be there with you
i just want to be closer to you
i just want to be closer
i am yours
you can have all of me, anything, everything
i just want to be closer

And then in the echoing ending of the song I can hear Him saying He looks for the impossible in me, and He looks for a grand love from a creature too tiny to return His feelings with the same magnitude. But instead of being weary about it like I am, He finds an adventure and is confident He can find what He’s looking for in me.

looking for color in a shade of grey
looking for love in a drop of rain


Anyway, I know that’s not at all what Shawn McDonald had in mind when he wrote the song, but whatevs. I heard an artist on the radio last night say their favorite part of writing music is to learn the songs have taken on a life of their own and mean totally different things to different people. So maybe it’s ok.

Day 9: Wait, what day is it????

I still haven't been to bed tonight but I remembered another thing from last night I wanted to get down before I lost it again. (Like that run-on, but wait, there's more sleep-deprived goodness to come!)

Two parts, first one is quicker: Robbie told a story about his little girl and how he went to her one day and saw she was out of milk in her cup but still trying to drink out of it. He said "Give me your cup" and she pulled it toward her and said "My cup." So he tried a different way: "Hey do you want some milk?" She looked at him: "Milk." Thinking he'd won, he reached out "I'll get you some milk, let me have your cup." "My cup."
That's a pretty self-explanatory metaphor.

Part two is the long part:
We sang the song that goes like "Where you lead me, Lord, I will follow. Where you lead me, Lord, I will go. Come and heal me Lord, as I follow. Where you lead me, Lord, I will go. I will go." Well I always thought the "come and heal me" part was a little random and unrelated to the rest of the song but last night it occurred to me that in the times of my life when I was really intensely following Him, there was always some kind of attack that came alongside it.

When I orignally got right with God, I had just started trying to put my time of spiritual darkness (during which time I would pray to evil spirits, and eventually felt and physically saw them) behind me and 9/11 happened and greatly effected me.
As I drew closer to God through the end of High School, I was dealing with emotional damage from relationships with both my parents. One on it's way to better things, and the other to worse (and then better, later on).
At the beginning of my sophomore year of college I had emergency surgery and the physical pain from the year prior and fear of those few days really drove me to rely on Jesus.

Probably the most painful experience (because I dwelt on it so heavily) was right as college was starting to come to a close. Everyone close to me knows that as we all came back for our senior year of college I was on fire for God and planning on applying to physician's assistant school in Florida after graduation and beginning a new season of my life. However, shortly after arriving on campus I became infatuated with a guy and fell in love with the idea of staying in Ohio, getting my paramedic's license and settling down. Luckily (though at the time I would have sworn it was anything but) he broke up with me not long after we started dating. That was hard enough, but in the process of dating him I had changed my entire life plan and had quickly and completely thrown God's plan for me out the window in exchange for a cheaper seemingly easier and faster route to assumed happiness. ("Ha ha", we all say now, looking back.) Also in the process I had managed to hurt his ex-girlfriend-suddenly-turned-fiancee...and all hurt parties wanted revenge. So on top of dealing with your normal breakup I had to rediscover Jesus, re-evaluate my priorities, and do some heavy soul searching to figure out what I wanted from life, and deal with lots of semi-anonymous nastiness (the latter part of which I did not do well.)

Despite the pain (I still find myself picking up pieces of my heart from time to time and going "Wtf??? I thought we were over this! How did I not know I was still missing this piece?!?" Last night was one of those times. Luckily the pieces are itty bitty slivers now, that just brings me closer to God.) and confusion and the space I put between me and God for a time, it all turned out better than I could possibly have imagined.

See, I imagine that the path I was headed down would have landed me in not such a great position. I would have become a physician's assistant and probably not been able to find a job. Probably would have had a hard time gaining experience, and have gone massively into debt just in time for the economy to crash. I'd probably be living with or near my parents, in Washington DC, and knowing myself, be horribly depressed at how far behind my peers I'd fallen.
But there was no convincing me otherwise. PA school was the way for me! I didn't want to be a nurse, I wanted a higher position with more prestige and MORE ALMIGHTY DOLLAR!!!! Because we all know the more money you have, the happier you are. No better plan than that. "MY CUP!!!"
Now, I'm not one who believes God deliberately sets out to sabotage us, or enjoys putting us through crap just so on the other side He can say "See, I did it for a reason and now your life is so much better!" But I think God knew that I simply didn't know all my options and didn't really know what I wanted. He knew that I thought I wanted to be a PA more than anything in the whole world, but also knew I was wrong. So He gave me a chance (or the illusion of a chance) at the one thing I did know that I wanted more: a husband. Security. Someone to pay the bills and let me stay home and be lazy with my kids all day. (Because that is what I wanted. Not to be a wife and mother, but to be a kid pretending to be a wife and mother.) Of course I was willing to throw everything else away at a chance for freedom from worrying about a career or finances or the future (I honestly thought getting married would allow me to live with my head in the clouds. Yes, I really am rather stupid sometimes.)
So I threw out all the sub-par plans, and then my even-worse plan (that I wanted even more) got vetoed and I was left with.....nothing.

Or so it seemed. Fast forward 4 years and I'm giddy with excitement about my upcoming medical mission trips, in the process of applying for grad school and buying a house (AHHH: responsibility!!!!), have a job I really enjoy, in a city I adore, with a Church I couldn't live without, and I get to share it all with my best friend!
And to think I labeled the period of time that gave me all that as the worst months of my life.
Haha, past self, haha.

The Almighty Healer may have pulled a few strings to get me to follow Him (but don't we all do that with stubborn ignorant kids?) but I eventually chose to give up my cup and He healed me.
As I followed.

Days 7-8: Last Wednesday

I had to buy gas yesterday and found out my car got 6-8 miles to the gallon less than usual. The only thing different that I can think of is that I've been cranking the heat up every time I get in to go anywhere. It's costing about 5 dollars more every time I fill up the car, or around 7-8 bucks a month. I realized that if I don't use my heat for the rest of the winter I can give around 15 dollars more to my GoTrips. It was kind of interesting because doing the whole "What can I go without in order to give more?" thing was central to Game Change, which is technically over.

And I thought Well who said Game Change had to end?

Then the song "Closer" by Shawn McDonald came on, which is about wanting to be closer to God, but given my newfound realization that I could go without heating my car to help people I really care about, and lyrics which talk about living life out in the weather, I saw how the song could (at least in part) be about identifying with the poor. And I really like that. And it made it easier to make the decision not to turn the heat on because it reminded me that I am not entitled to a warm car, that I am blessed just to have such easy transportation, even just to have a place where the wind can't get to me.
And it reminded me (as soooooooooo many things have and continue to do) "You've been colder than this." Being cold always reminds me of my weekend experiences with Dr. Cook's classes.

I saw someone stop to give money to a homeless person on the way to Last Wednesday tonight. It totally made my day.

Tonight at Last Wednesday I realized that I try to get God's approval from other people. I try to be loving and selfless and serve others, and when someone I'm trying to help lashes out at me I take it personally because I'm seeing it as God telling me I'm failing. Because clearly this person does not feel loved if they are being so awful to me. And I'm supposed to make them feel loved right? So if I'm doing my best and failing anyway, I might as well just be a bitch back, right?

Yeah, right. No. Because the command wasn't "make sure everyone feels loved" it was just "love others." Because we have no control over other people and how they feel or react. I found that so much of what I do is dependent on how the people around me are responding. Which isn't following God at all, it's following my emotions.

So, yet another thing to work on.

But it's something deeper to the core of the issue, something which all my complaining etc. is spinning off of.

God I love Crossroads.

Oh, I also got lightbulbs today.
(No I did not actually put it in there while the light was turned on.)

Day 6: Chores are not always housework

Today I began hating the project. Nevermind that it is only day 6. First of all I wanted to sleep in and I couldn't because I had to get my one pair of jeans into the washing machine. I spent almost an hour just trying to decide what to wear. By the time I had showered and picked out a top my jeans were washed and dried. Boo hiss. I went through three shirts (one of which would have been a new addition or substitution to list) and watched 6 YouTube videos on how to tie scarves.

Note I said "Eff this" to wearing a scarf today.

I did gain a better appreciation for the size of my wardrobe as well as how untrue the statement "I have nothing to wear" is. Even with my limited options on articles of clothing, I had tons to wear. The problem was actually with too many options!!!! STILL!! Do I wear a scarf? Which one? How do I tie it? Does that look good with this shirt? Can I wear the hat and the scarf? The hat and a bracelet? Is this bracelet too fancy? Is this one the right color? Are glasses too much; should I wear contacts instead? Boots or sneaks? AHHHHHH!!!!

Too much effort, very little reward. It's like cleaning. Which I also did a little of today. Or like calling the doctor's office for the 3rd time in as many months to find out why Meijer's still does not have your prescription.

I got up at 2pm intending to run errands (I need gas and two of the lightbulbs in our main living area are burnt out) before leaving with Sarah for Dayton. I was finally ready to leave the house at 5pm. Sarah's plan was to leave at 4:45. Yeah. Stupid project.

However, I did get to spend a couple hours traveling with the bestie (even if I did sleep the whole way home...again) and a couple hours reading Stephen King's The Stand. Which, by the way, is horribly slow and so far very boring. And I'm on page 471. I had to break up the monotony by painting my nails, something that usually winds up on a to-do list I enjoy it so much. And of course we ended up at Applebees with the praise band, eating a giant chocolate chip cookie sundae that I should never have considered ordering. Dang past me for having to catch a whiff of chocolate as we came through the doors! I also have a grand new plan to use Applebees as part of my fundraising for Go trips since the group eats there every Monday anyway.

Note to self: research Applebees fundraising.

Can NOT wait to get back to New Orleans and Mamelodi. Today after my shower I thought my towel smelled like South Africa so I buried my nose in it. It didn't smell like anything. Except maybe shampoo. Clearly I'm going crazy.

Just now I also found this little facebook photography gem thanks to a comment left on it by the bebe seester's boyfriend. Here's the rest of the artist's work with that theme. Warning: some are a little disturbing, but the concept rocks. I'm not sure how well this link will work. Am I the only one who hates that you can link almost anything to your facebook page but linking anything from facebook to anywhere else is virutally impossible? (Probably, but it was worth the mini-rant.)

Day 5 outfit

It was either cheat and wear pajamas all day or go the sweater dress and leggings route. The plan was not to go out at all...then I needed milk. And I refuse to be a tights-as-pants person (or at least be one in public) so I had to wear my long black coat. And my legs froze.

This would have been so much easier to do in the Spring.

In other news I spent hours trying to get my blog design done right. I finally just gave up. This is the result at which I stopped. Hope you like it :)

Days 3-5 Fruit, Blood and Music

Last two days were strictly work to sleep days. Scrubs to PJs. I'll have to pull it together later today, after I've had some time to sleep, and find something decent to wear. I'm really missing my corset the bebe seester borrowed for New Years.

However, it is official: GoTrip dates have been posted and my PTO requests have been turned into the scheduling office at work! YAY!!!!! Easy part's over, now comes the faith part.

Crossroads last night was AH-MAZING, as always. We've been in the middle of a series called "Grow up" all bout maturing spiritually. It's the only place I've found that can point out multiple flaws in me and I leave wanting to change instead of find the flaws in someone else. It's like God hand-crafted the place just for me.

Today we combed through the beginning of Ephesians 5 as part of our fruits of spiritual maturity list and I was reminded again on how many levels I fail:
No obscenities. It's a rare day at work when a Grade A Level 1 curse word doesn't cross these lips.
No coarse joking. Even this morning I made a joke about the fact that Joe spent way too long playing with one of the Child Life toys which is basically a sack of gelatin and small balls.
Thanksgiving. The number of times I leave a patient's room rolling my eyes or make a beeline to the nurses station to complain about a family far outweighs the number of times I plop down in front of a computer a cheerfully say "I have the cutest kid in there."
No greed. Regardless of what Brian says, there are in fact people out there will cop to being greedy. I am one of them. I think I can't live without the internet, am always trolling the internet for cool clothes, can't pass up on sweets in the breakroom, hoard money in my bank account and basically think about money and things way too often.

Greed is the monster I continually find on my closet, the enemy I'm constantly staring down. I hear myself chanting the world's motto far too often: "Never give up what someone else can give up." Or should give up. I rarely live by the Kingdom credo "Don't resist, give beyond!"

But like I said, I do stare the enemy down here. While I know that I should watch my mouth and complain less, I actually do take a stance against my greedy self. I can't help it. Every time I get angry about someone else's greed (which is nearly every day), I'm reminded of my own.

One of my favorite songs of the moment is "I Refuse" by Josh Wilson



I forget who Brian credited with the idea but there was a comic where one fish said to another "You can do anything you want!" Our immediate response is that that's ridiculous because they're in a fishbowl. They're limited by the walls of the tank and if you take them away so they can "do anything" what they're actually going to do is flop around, suffocate, and die. But we live our lives trying to shatter the glass of our fishbowl, trying to break boundaries to live our lives outside God's parameters. We think we know better than God how life works. We don't want to live within the confines of an alter as a living sacrifice. Again to quote Brian, "the problem with living sacrifices is they keep crawling off the alter."

We think that the price of sacrifice far outweighs any benefits to ourselves. We think the stench of blood flowing in the street from our sacrifice couldn't be overpowered by anything else. But it can. It was. When the Israelites would take their animals to be sacrificed and blood literally flowed in the streets, Jerusalem smelled like a barbeque, because the dead animals would get roasted. (Hence the references to our lives being a pleasing aroma to God.)

The fragrance of the burnt offering overshadows the smell of spilled blood.

That's what I want to remember.

Day 2: Snow Day!

Crap ton of snow means a cozy sweater and boots...though preferrably boots with traction so you don't go slip sliding through the parking lot at Kroger.

Also, as you can see, I got contacts today! I wore them a grand total of 3 hours before they drove me nuts. Perhaps tomorrow will be better.

I lasted just about as long in this outfit. You can't really tell from the picture but the bottom inch got soaked from the snow so I changed into pajama pants. That's not cheating, right? You can't exactly curl up on the couch watching Gilmore Girls in cold, wet clothes.

Day 1: Stripes, stripes and more stripes.

So I joined this trend where the point is to pick 6 articles of clothing to wear for 30 days (not counting work clothes, pajamas, underwear etc.) There's not really one overarching point but some of the aspirations are to learn to accessorize better, fight back against consumerism, stop spending so much on clothes, identify with people who have less than you do etc. I did it because it was a challenge and I like challenges. (see side bar for my 6 choices)

I will be posting a picture of me in my different outfits every day (or every day that I wear something other than scrubs and PJs...which is at least 3 days a week). Hopefully I can find something every day to be in the picture with me to represent my day as well.

For example: today I went to Mamelodi Insiders meeting where they unveiled the new plans for our South Africa trips, hence my awesome zebra picture and the itinerary (for future Mamelodi meetings) I am holding.

I was pretty lazy today, going with merely my sweater and jeans with a scarf because I am wearing this for a whopping 4 hours between sleeping and going to work.

But I am pretty STOKED about going back to Mamelodi, my home in the other hemisphere. I can't wait for another 30+ flying hours, singing in another language, waking up to lions roaring, building relationships with exhuberant people, praising God for the beautiful mountains, devouring amazing food, laughing with my fellow Crossroads-ians, putting my life in God's hands every time we get on the roads, hugging on kids, being part of changing the world...

Who wouldn't start an 8 month countdown to something like that???