Monday, September 1, 2008

world travel, Donald Miller, and (re)learning how to swim

important question one:
would anyone be interested in traveling with me sometime next summer? across Europe? or somewhere crazy and random like Turkey or China? or even across the western US? it's that time in our lives, you know, where we could still technically just pick up & go without worrying about who's going to watch the kids for a month, etc. i'm asking seriously, though. i'd really like to go. but we'd have to start saving now, of course :) so give me a shout!

important question two:
what does the weekend of sept. 19-21 look like for a chapel hill visit? if you are reading this--this means you! will you be around? is that a good or bad weekend as far as chapel hill goings-on? let me know, i miss y'all like you miss breathing when you're underwater!

in other news, hmmm let's see...

i (almost) officially have a job at the Christian bookstore. yay! it sounds like i will start training this week & dive right in. one really cool thing that the store manager mentioned while we were talking at my interview--there is a possibility for store employees to eventually go to work at the store's corporate headquarters in Nashville. Now, I've never particularly envisioned myself in retail as a long-term career, but THEN the manager was talking about someone he knew who went from a sales employee on the floor to a position in Nashville writing children's material for the company. Hello!Three things I would love to combine in my life's work: writing, children, and Jesus. Wow, if an opportunity like that could come out of this job, it would be a million times better than I was even expecting! Okay, right now it's a long shot and an off-hand comment, but you never know....

getting excited to meet my two's and three's at preschool this week! i must admit, i owe SOMETHING to the school of ed at UNC (shocking, i know...sorry, feel free to disregard any further jaded comments)--we had to rearrange/set-up our classrooms from a pile of toys and a few tables into a multi-center, kid-friendly learning environment. strikingly similar to our first project in the SOE. see, that year of my life wasn't wasted after all.

i auditioned for the charlotte community choir this week. it was exciting! i haven't auditioned for anything in quite some time, so it was exhilirating to go in there & perform pretty well, and even manage to stumble through some sightreading without too many bumps & bruises. i also met a really awesome girl who currently works at UNCC but is planning to shift careers into college/young adult ministry. she was so nice & friendly & i'm looking forward to meeting more people like her within this choir (and to be honest, it was a relief to see right away that there will be other young people in this group!). and i can't wait to start singing again!

i decided to give my long-neglected copy of Searching for God Knows What another go. poor Donald Miller. it's such a good book, and i made it through 2/3 of the chapters earlier this summer, but that was before my life exploded so now i'm starting over. i think it would be neat to read all books this way--twice through without too much time in between readings. gives you a chance to really soak up what the author is saying. of course, i'd say hardly any of us have the time to read for leisure at all, never mind reading one book twice over. so Don, you join my heralded list of books worthy of multi-reads, alongside such greats at the Chronicles of Narnia, Jane Eyre, and Harry Potter. You're in good company, my friend. and i really appreciate a writer who writes in such a way that it makes me want to sit down and write something too. that's a gift--I think he's using it well.

I've been doing Zumba. A lot. It really just feels good to shake it sometimes.

i'm not entirely sure what's going on between God & me right now. maybe I'm avoiding Him after the awkwardness of the Kentucky failure, though I feel at peace about what happened and trust in what God may have wanted to teach me through that . But I'm tentative, tip-toeing around the edges of things because it doesn't feel the same as it once did. It's like I had to come up for air after a deep swim in the expanse of the knowledge of God that I encountered during my four years at UNC. On the way to ministry this summer, I dove in too quickly, head-first, and hit rock bottom. Now I'm shuffling around on the dock, afraid to get back in because it might be too cold, or too deep, or too choppy, or too unfamiliar. Or I might sink again. Or step on a pointy rock. So instead of letting His waves and breakers wash over me (psalm 42), I have done nothing more than to test the temperature and make a few splashes. I don't like being out here--I want to be back in there, where I know how to swim.

i'm starting an intensive Bible study group this week called Disciple. i'm hoping this will allow me to get back into a rhythm and relationship with God, even if it's just going through the motions for the first little bit.

the cool thing is that God says He'll never leave us or forsake us (Deut. 31, Joshua 1:5). never. He didn't say, 'I'll never leave you as long as you hold up your end of the deal. as long as you read your Bible everyday and love your neighbor and pray for those who persecute you, as long as you do exactly what I tell you even when it's hard, as long as you repent & really mean it every time, as long as you have your life together if you're going to claim to be My child--THEN I will never leave you or forsake you.' NO! we stand on grace. thank God. as my dear Rachel put it so astutely: we may put God on hold...but He's not going to hang up on us, despite the annoying muzak loops and seemingly endless wait.

i hope you are enjoying your not-so-laborious day. many blessings!


2 comments:

Amanda said...

i might be up for next summer. i'll keep you posted.

it's good to hear that things are going mostly well for you right now. :) we need to talk soon

fiercest said...

you'd BETTER come september 19th!