The Mammas and The Pappas got it right.

These short end-of-the-year days always make me feel hyper reflective. Perhaps it's the long stretch of hours after the sun goes down, or all of those year in review specials on TV. Either way, I am compelled to plot a new life for the coming year with an unrelenting drive like in March of the Penguins. They just kept pressing towards the spot where they always bred, stepping around their dead frozen friends and leaving food sources way behind. I'da stuck near the food if ya know what I mean.

But why this time of year? Why not obsess over renewal, say, in February? For Chinese New Year? Maybe it's because it doesn't feels like the death is fresh in February (instead we're well into the mourning period), but in late December it's easy to imagine the year circling the drain since all of nature seems to be.

So I buy a new planner and diligently fill in all the blanks. I never buy one of those refillable planners because I know my attention span may not make it past the Spring bulbs, more or less for years to come. Plus, it's exciting to buy a new one and I've found the selection of planners is pretty thin at Chinese New Year.

I am wildly uncomfortable with schedules yet enjoy writing events in my new planner, including events I do each week, as if I'm so busy I might forget. I will honestly write in "Church, 11 a.m." on Sunday morning just to put something on the page. But usually I forget to write down appointments and stuff, so I'll write it in after and then check it off as complete. I live a small life it would seem.

This year I reread the Chronicles of Narnia and was transfixed by the way Lewis wrote God into all of nature. It helped me visualize how nature yearns for the world to be made right and how if we Believers were to stop praising the goodness of God, the rocks would have to take over. (Luke 19:40) So right now, even as trees are stripped of their leaves and shrubs frostbitten melt away into mush, they are waiting for God to renew them as He always has. Oh crap. A sycamore tree has more faith than I do. Deep in it's roots are the memories of how God has always renewed no matter how bad the winter got. I can't seem to even remember how God helped me avoid that car accident yesterday.

Yet I am built for renewal as much as a pansy or a slime mold. My cells renew every six months, I am not the same as I was yesterday. (Totally stealing from Donald Miller here. Thanks buddy.) So why do I insist on believing that nothing ever changes in my life? And that this sliver of time is my only chance to lay the ground work for 2010? Maybe it is because I am built for renewal that I seek it. But no matter how I rearrange the trappings of my life, the ingredients remain the same. And let's be honest, they always will. I got what I got. The Creator of the universe, the Author of all things good choose me for this gig. Who am I to complain? It's not like He doesn't know what He's doing.

God is good. All the time. Because THAT is His nature.

With deepest regrets...

I do apologize for my two month absence from this blog. Lame, I know. Much has happened and nothing much has happened. Just know my computer decided to take a prolonged nap (until I can afford to fix it) and so my access to the internet has been inconsistent. That is however a cheap excuse to cover the fact that I haven't wanted to blog. Mostly it's been a matter too little time and too much coming at me all at once to sort my thoughts out.

So why blog at all right? It's not a requirement in this post-modern world,is it? No, but I wonder if I might not have been benefiting by writing about my spiritual walk. Since I am feeling rather adrift from God right now, I thought I'd see if this helped.

Tonight, while driving from city x to city y (about 45 min) I was thinking about this past year. It was rough. If you recall, I had some drama with that atheist guy. My sister informed me today that his ex-wife and mother to his 7 yr old daughter died. That got me to thinking about the situation. It's hard to have compassion for someone and want to be kind to them without getting into that whole mess again. Even more so, how hard it must be to lose a parent with no hope of ever seeing them again or even knowing what will happen to you when you die. (Pray for your enemies, right?)

That lead me to think about my maternal grandmother who is failing physically, for no known reason. She knows Jesus and I think is anxious to finally get to see him. I can't blame her, sometimes I feel the same. She's been a major force in my life and I am not ready to go through the process of losing her.

I did end up going on mission to Kenya. I have virtually no idea how I feel about it, to be honest. God IS good, and was very very good to take me there. I just don't know how to feel about the spiritual aspects of the mission. It left me with a lot of doubt and confusion. I've had trouble explaining how I feel about the trip, especially since people had such high expectations, but the closest I've come so far to understanding what happened is this: the closer we grow to God, the more we realize how very far we are away from Him.

Prayer Request

So...I am asking you for some major prayer support. Why? Because I am potentially not going to raise enough money for my mission trip and IF that happens, I need strength to praise God despite my disappointment. Lots of non-believers I know are aware of my plans and I want to be able to tell them that even though I am not going, God is in control of my life and that even in hardship God is worthy of praise. I suspect that will be hard for me to do without lying. But...God is amazing and perfectly capable of making sure I get the funds in time. But...if God doesn't want me to go, I won't be, even if I really really want to go! I still need to raise 75% of the money in three weeks!!! That's doable right?

I recently started watching my nieces again since my sister went back to teaching full time. It's hard because I have to sleep on their couch three days a week and miss having my own space. But I get to do the greatest things too. Like today, I was putting Amelia down for her nap and her three year old self insisted she didn't need to sleep. She refused to pick out any books to read before nap time, so I did. I choose two books about how much God loves us. One is this amazing book called "God Gave Us You" which always makes me cry. Of course today it did as well. But not for the usual reasons-gratitude for the gift of these girls, but for a new reason.

I have been feeling that God is slowly working on my need to rely on things other than Him for comfort. My accessible apartment, for example. I love it and could not imagine moving. Even though it's been a huge blessing, I have been feeling God slowly teaching me that I would be ok without it. That I can live anywhere, accessible or not, if I have Him. Just one of many examples.

I have been aware of these changes and have recognized that the last thing I felt a need to cling to was being near my nieces. I love them so much and would hate to not be a significant part of their lives because I lived far away. I have justified my position to God by claiming that I am the main, near daily Christian influence in their lives, and how would God bring them into salvation without me?

While I was reading this book, listening to Amelia snore, I gave the girls to God. I released my need to see them, so that God's will can be done in my life. This does not mean that He has plans for me to move etc. but I know He wants me WILLING to go where ever He sends me. My Lord loves them even more than I do, so they will always be in the best of hands.

Let's just ignore the two month gap shall we?

OK? Good.

Now that we have that settled, GUESS WHAT I AM DOING??? I am planning a mission trip to Kenya in November! God, and Chris Welkley, inspired me to apply and now I have less than three months to raise nearly 4 grand. Scary for us but not so for the owner of a thousand sheep on a thousand hills, right?

I should have blogged the day I heard that they'd take me, I was so full of praise! I drove from my hometown to my sister's (about an hour and a half away) singing praise songs and crying with joy for the goodness of my Lord the whole way. Sappy I know, but I was so grateful. Shouting adoration and exaltations to one so good just doesn't seem like enough.

I will definitely keep you updated via my blog, after all I may have to ask you for money. ;)

A Chris Welkey inspired blog

OK, so yesterday I go to my local Starbucks to drink coffee and read books right? This is what the unemployed do. I notice the new barista is super slow, but I've got no job to hurry back to. So I wait patiently. Not a big deal.

After I enjoy my coffee I start to get hungry and decide to get a deli sandwich from the grocery store. I go to the counter. I see no staff. I say "hello!" Nothing. I go around to the far end and see a young woman kind of standing there and so I ask, "Can you help me?" "Oh yeah" she says with little haste. Very blank. She comes to the counter and I say, "I'd like a turkey and swiss, on sour dough, with everything." "Oh...ok" she says. She goes to bread bins, pokes a few and says "Oh, sorry we have no sourdough." I say, "Ok, just a hard french roll then." I choose this because I can SEE it, right? No she says, they don't have any. She walks back to counter leaving the plastic bins open-food sanitation is a must for me! She stands at the counter saying...nothing! Just looking at me. I say, "Well, what can you do?" She says "Sorry." I say, trying HARD to control the snark in my voice, "So there is not a single sour dough roll or single french roll in this grocery store? (long pause-nothing, so I say...) You can't just go get some off a shelf?" She says, kind of surprised, "Yeah, that's a good idea." And continues to stand there. I finally say "You don't want me to go get it right?" Snarky as all get out now. "Oh, ok" she says. She wanders off and returns within less than five minutes, so I think she's made good time. She marvels at the fact that she found a sour dough baggett in the BAKERY! Such luck! She proceeds to make my sandwich, slowly. "You want turkey?" "Yes, turkey with swiss and everything on it." "You want cheese?" "Yes, swiss." "You want mayonnaise?" Every. item. that. could. go. on. the. sandwich. was proceeded by the asking of this question.

Now, if I had perceived any sort of biological reason for her slowness, such as a disability or had I seen flame red eyes that might explain her stoned behavior I would not complain. BUT she seemed perfectly capable of normal cognitive functions and seemed pretty sober, so the fact that she's just some silly young girl who doesn't get that when one is WORKING there should be some haste drove me bonkers. That's when I thought of Chris and knew I had to blog it!

Hello? Is this thing on?

I've been doing better as a blogger, ya know, blogging more often. Yet no comment joy for me. So sad.