Life of Pride
Youth is the one time when you have the opportunity to stay abreast of popular culture. After that, life speeds up and deepens. People matter more.
I don't think I was ever really young.
Know what, world at large? Human love and relationships are not about personal fulfilment or any human
need. They are about "every perfect gift coming from our Father above, in whom is no variableness, neither shadow of turning." Our baseline is nakedness. Destitution. Ignorance. Blindness, deafness, dumbness, lack of sensation, paralysis.
I am so blessed. We are all blessed, every one of us. I think I only fail to see it when I judge my lot by using another person as the standard.
Kristen Diaz and I drove to Harper's Ferry on Sunday afternoon. We ate lunch on a rock in the middle of the river, and then we explored and found the trail up to Maryland Heights. I love Kristen for her wisdom both in word and in silence. She is legally blind, and yet she walks without fear. I love her for that, too.
One cannot be truly fearless without understanding darkness. Otherwise, the proper word is 'foolhardy.'
I am a creature of Autumn. I love the majesty of aging leaves, clothing themselves in their last dignity before they die. I love the pale blue sky and the icy clouds, and the chill breeze that skitters across my arms. The air carries a subtle scent of woodsmoke. It tastes of the coming of winter and the passing of time.
In my office, a mulled cider candle simmers on a warming plate. I play tangling, dancing Celtic music through my computer speakers.
This coming Friday and Saturday I attend an Act One screenwriting seminar at McLean Bible Church. I am meanwhile trying to organize a day of filming for myself on October 27 here at PHC, during which I intend to film a 5-8 minute skit. A simple experiment, nothing more, to see if I can carry a short project through the entire moviemaking process.
This past Saturday I organized a birthday party for myself and Gabi. It was my first time initiating and putting together hospitality all by myself in an actual house. About a dozen people came. We talked, caught up, walked, did a read-aloud, and watched
Stardust. For some of us, the party lasted seven hours. It was a blessed time, and the food came out wonderfully too. I made a spinach dip out of plain yogurt, cottage cheese, fresh chopped onion, spinach, curry powder, salt, and pepper. The salad was the best part, and I shall have to repeat it in the future - organic Romaine and red lettuce tossed with avocado and tomato, and sprinkled on top with walnuts and Feta cheese. We mixed together our own vinaigrette to go along with it.
I think I like cooking and hostessing. There was that little uncertain feeling, but God is good, and I am so blessed beyond belief to have the friends I do.
"My son (daughter), despise not thou the chastening of the Lord, nor faint when thou art rebuked of him: For whom the Lord loveth he chasteneth . . . Now no chastening for the present seemeth to be joyous, but grievous: nevertheless afterward it yieldeth the peaceable fruit of righteousness unto them which are exercised thereby. Wherefore lift up the hands which hang down, and the feeble knees; and make straight paths for your feet, lest that which is lame be turned out of the way; but let it rather be healed."
'S funny. Today is my 24th birthday, and it doesn't even seem to matter. But it causes me to look back at where I was last year - smack dab in the middle of
Cyrano de Bergerac production. I was clinging to that so hard for my identity. So much has happened since. Crazy, crazy.
I am being squeezed and molded into a new shape right now. I wonder what I'll be thinking next year when I look back?
Discipline is difficult, but well worth it in the end. Again, I recall back to when I first started exercising thoroughly when I was eighteen. Oh, it was agony, especially learning good eating habits. I was so addicted to sugar. I would be compelled to buy a candy bar when I went to the convenience store, and then I would feel guilty afterwards. But after a while, I realized that I wasn't depriving myself at all. Before, I had set my sights far too low. Now my tastes have changed forever. I don't even like milk chocolate. When I want chocolate, it needs to be dark - the best dark chocolate I can find, and ideally without anything else added.
Right now I am taking this tremendous opportunity of singlehood in order to pursue Jesus in a way I haven't ever before. It feels like I'm still collecting information together, but I am also testing the waters with Scripture memorization, fasting, stronger prayers, and pushing for emotional self-control. This latter is especially tortuous. It doesn't involve cutting off all emotions, but rather, redirection. I fail miserably, but still, I am encouraged to notice improvement.
Being a single person with my life mostly in front of me still has caused me to re-evaluate a great many things that I didn't know I was taking for granted during college life. Existential questions have caused me most of my grief these last two months. What is the purpose of life, the reason for living? The only answer is grace, grace, and more grace.
We are to "love the Lord our God with all our heart, soul, mind, body, and strength - and our neighbor as ourselves." Or to put it another way, "Seek ye first the kingdom of God and His righteousness." We are to love God more and more each day and seek to become more like Him each day as individuals. And then we are to look outward to the needs of others, helping other Christians grow more like Him and pointing non-Christians to Him. Our whole reason for continued existence in this world instead of in Heaven right now with God is the people around us. And the more God shapes us to be like Him, the better use we can be to others.
Only thing is, reshaping hurts! But I "rejoice in tribulations also, for I know that tribulations work patience, and patience experience, and experience hope. And hope makes not ashamed, because the love of Christ is shed abroad in our hearts through the Holy Ghost." And my new favorite verses: "My brethren, count it all joy when ye fall into divers temptations; knowing this, that the trying of your faith worketh patience. But let patience have her perfect work, that ye may be perfect and entire, wanting nothing."
At each new bit of my life, I ask the Holy Spirit what characteristic I should pray for. For several years at PHC, the answer was wisdom. I prayed for wisdom every day. Then, during my eight months at home last year (was it only last year??), I realized that I needed something much deeper and richer than wisdom. I came into my last year of college praying to learn about love. "Love is patient; love is gentle. Love seeks not its own..." Then a few weeks ago I asked for the prayer for my new season. The answer that came back was "endurance."
Endurance. Not glamorous. Not fun. But oh, so beneficial!
It's been almost a month since I posted last, almost two months since I began working at PHC. This is life in transition; it feels to me like the longest summer of my life. I am very tired, and so many things are topsy-turvy and new that I don't even know how to interpret everything that is happening inside of me. When it all hit me, my reaction to everything was, "Bad, bad, pain!" I literally felt like I had died in some way. Thank God that I can know Him, and so I know that life comes after death for a Christian. I am stumbling blindly through, and things are getting better. In counter to a previous post, I am
not strong. I am very weak. But the good news is that the stronger bits are starting to reassemble.
I am now able to volunteer at the Purcellville Teen Center regularly every Friday night, and I'm starting to get to know the kids a little bit as people. This involves a lot more listening than talking. Tonight I'm gonna give one of the girls a beautiful little Bible I found in the PHC Bookstore. I hope she will read it. She needs some light right about now.
This weekend I am going with my friend Thea to her family's lake house in WV. I went there two weekends ago as well. It is so beautiful; I think I am in love with natural bodies of water. When I am in or near water and out in the sun, I can stop and just
be.
Last Sunday I attended Grace Community Church in the morning, Loudon Baptist Temple in the evening, and then evening worship at school after that. I was so thirsty; I drank it all in. Jesus is the answer to all questions. He heals. He does this just by being Himself, an active person who is at work. I don't have to do anything to "make" this happen. I just have to ask.
