Life has been speeding by and I'm blown away by how fast this semester is going. Tomorrow is the first day of October. I have so much to do before I leave and so little time, but I feel like each day is inching by. I have to fight to have motivation to go to class, and I have to struggle to try and get my homework done, but at the end of the day I'm just trying to get done. I feel like I'm slowly reverting back to who I was before college. I'm going to concerts again, hanging out with long term friends, and doing what makes me happy. I didn't realize that I'd stunted myself in some of the most crucial ways by allowing myself to flourish in other ways. Let me be clear, college was some of the best years of my life. Filled with some of the greatest memories and learning experiences of my life. As my college experience wraps up I've realized that some of these friends that I've made might be different from what I initially realized. If I wasn't quite myself when I befriended them, does that mean I've built a foundation on sand instead of rocks? I'm not really sure. I'm sitting in my class wondering what on earth I'm going to do with my life next. My list includes: Peace Corp, moving to Alaska, Teach for America, staying local and getting a job, teaching overseas.
Can I just figure out my life already, because I'm damn ready to know what's next.
Monday, September 30, 2013
Monday, September 23, 2013
Girlfriends In God: Daily Reflection
So for the last month or so I've been subscribed to this email daily reflection called "Girlfriends In God" and most of the articles are pretty great, but this one really stuck out to me, so much so that I know I will need to call on it time and time again. I post it here for that frequent reflection and reminder that we all need a little quiet in our lives
September 20, 2013
The Power of QuietGwen Smith
The Power of QuietGwen Smith
Today's Truth
The LORD is my shepherd, I shall not be in want. He makes me lie down in green pastures, he leads me beside quiet waters, he restores my soul (Psalm 23:1-3, NIV).
Friend to FriendThere are times when laundry takes over my house. Piles build up, though I try to stay on top of them. Many of the clothes are clean and even folded, but not put away. That tricky put-away-part is always hard for me.
Then there are the socks. Oh, the socks! They burden me so! It causes me to wonder. Does an unseen sock nation exist? Are sock-soldiers are on a secret mission to destroy my testimony and drive me crazy? Divide and conquer. That's what they do! Why can't socks just behave? Why can't they ever stay in pairs, and where am I supposed to put the socks that remain unmatched? Sigh.
Unmatched socks and folded-but-not-put-away-laundry tie me up in knots. Sometimes days go by before I make the time to put them away. Shameful. I know.
Is it just me?
The LORD is my shepherd, I shall not be in want. He makes me lie down in green pastures, he leads me beside quiet waters, he restores my soul (Psalm 23:1-3, NIV).
Friend to FriendThere are times when laundry takes over my house. Piles build up, though I try to stay on top of them. Many of the clothes are clean and even folded, but not put away. That tricky put-away-part is always hard for me.
Then there are the socks. Oh, the socks! They burden me so! It causes me to wonder. Does an unseen sock nation exist? Are sock-soldiers are on a secret mission to destroy my testimony and drive me crazy? Divide and conquer. That's what they do! Why can't socks just behave? Why can't they ever stay in pairs, and where am I supposed to put the socks that remain unmatched? Sigh.
Unmatched socks and folded-but-not-put-away-laundry tie me up in knots. Sometimes days go by before I make the time to put them away. Shameful. I know.
Is it just me?
I've come to realize that my days can be a lot like my laundry situation. At times they get piled up with busy. Sabbath gets squeezed out. Now, when I say Sabbath, I mean the priority of sitting before the Lord just to sit with Him… quietly… expectantly… to listen... to be restored. Though I do include God in my days and breathe prayers throughout, when I don't sit before the Lord and exercise the spiritual discipline of being quiet before God it seems that both old and new burdens can tie my heart into a big frazzled knot.
It had been one of those weeks. Knots. Knots. Knots. Then I finally remembered the power of quiet. I remembered My Restorer. As I sat in the cool still of the morning with a hot mug of coffee in my hand and the warming presence of God in my soul, the burdens of my heart began to drift away. Direction came. Joy resounded. Mercy rained. Peace… deep peace fell.
The Spirit of God transformed my soul, my thoughts, my goals, and my day. It was as if I had slumbered half the week away. This is where they go. This is where my burdens belong. The old ones that I've written about time and time again in my prayer journal and the new ones that are just beginning to unravel from my heart. This is where they go! I just needed to put my continuous stream of life-burdens away like the unending piles of laundry. Then: order, soulorder… peace, compelling peace… joy, divine joy and restoration… it all came.
I sat in wonder.
Still.
In His presence.
It had been one of those weeks. Knots. Knots. Knots. Then I finally remembered the power of quiet. I remembered My Restorer. As I sat in the cool still of the morning with a hot mug of coffee in my hand and the warming presence of God in my soul, the burdens of my heart began to drift away. Direction came. Joy resounded. Mercy rained. Peace… deep peace fell.
The Spirit of God transformed my soul, my thoughts, my goals, and my day. It was as if I had slumbered half the week away. This is where they go. This is where my burdens belong. The old ones that I've written about time and time again in my prayer journal and the new ones that are just beginning to unravel from my heart. This is where they go! I just needed to put my continuous stream of life-burdens away like the unending piles of laundry. Then: order, soulorder… peace, compelling peace… joy, divine joy and restoration… it all came.
I sat in wonder.
Still.
In His presence.
Convicted of my failure to remember the power of being quiet before the Lord. Of course this is where they go. I knew that. I knew that. Lord, forgive me. Oh, how I'm thankful for your daily mercy showers. I was met in my mess by the Lord my Restorer.
Each of us is invited to experience God as our Restorer. To know the renewal we long for each day. Jesus invited us personally when he said, "Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light" (Matthew 11:28-30).
When our lives get too busy – when the laundry piles up in our homes and the burdens pile up in our hearts – we often forget the power of quiet. The power of being still before God. The power of listening, expecting, soul-pouring … receiving rest from our Restorer. His presence sorts souls and never leaves an unmatched burden.
His presence never leaves an un-lifted burden.
How great is our God?
Each of us is invited to experience God as our Restorer. To know the renewal we long for each day. Jesus invited us personally when he said, "Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light" (Matthew 11:28-30).
When our lives get too busy – when the laundry piles up in our homes and the burdens pile up in our hearts – we often forget the power of quiet. The power of being still before God. The power of listening, expecting, soul-pouring … receiving rest from our Restorer. His presence sorts souls and never leaves an unmatched burden.
His presence never leaves an un-lifted burden.
How great is our God?
Take some time to power-down and be still before Him right now. Remember the power of quiet as you accept the renewal invitation of Jesus and exchange your burdens and knots for His peace and restoration.
Monday, September 16, 2013
We Need To Talk, But We Can't Talk About It Right Now
SEP. 16, 2013
By KRISTINA TEN
We need to talk, but I don’t want to talk about it. We have plenty of time. Neither of us is really in the mood right now anyway. I’ve thought a lot about how I’m going to bring it up, which approach would be softest, least confrontational, closest to just another lazy conversation about what we want for breakfast, or the difference between soda and tonic, or how it was back in college. I thought I had my angle all worked out, but I could be wrong. I worry that your heart is a skittish cat and this talk is the person who steps on its tail. I worry your cat-heart will run away licking its wounds and find another stray who will lick them, too, without loving you anywhere near as much as I do.
Seriously, let’s not even start. Let’s complain how late it is, how tired we are, how hard it is to find parking at 2:47 a.m. on a Thursday. Friday, actually. This is the underbelly of the night, that small window of time during which nothing seems quite real. It swallows entire conversations that will either be lost or off limits the next day. Thousands of promises forgotten and calories forgiven, a diet trick my roommate taught me, just so long as both are consumed before the sun comes up. Too many fingers of scotch and, later, the greasy pizza intended to soak it up.
Let’s talk about shitty airline food and the complimentary wine they offered disgruntled passengers when my flight was delayed, delayed, cancelled, rebooked, delayed again, and finally set free. Let’s talk about how you had set alarms for 2:05, 2:10, and 2:15, forcing yourself out of bed to pick me up. How awful for you. Let’s talk about how you never keep your phone on your nightstand—you read somewhere that it emits radioactive signals that will eventually give you brain cancer—but you made an exception tonight to ensure you’d wake up. So, basically, I brought you one step closer to brain cancer. Let’s talk about that.
Let’s have a half-hearted debate the entire length of Wilshire about whether the in-flight entertainment I watched a few hours earlier has any cinematic integrity, and what role, if any, cinematic integrity plays in a movie’s success. You’ll get riled up and call your industry “The Industry,” and I’ll scoff and remind you that there are places in this world where success is one well-fed child or 500 sold copies of a poetry chapbook, not a 10,000-square-foot beachfront loft; but one and 500 are such small numbers to you. Tell me I’m on my high horse again. I’ll say I have a whole stable. Then we can ease our way out of this with witty banter: Quick, what’s your high horse’s name? Fernando. Is he primed for next month’s race? Triple crown, baby. Let’s ride this high horse to steadier ground.
Let’s talk about how much my hair has grown since the last time we saw each other, and which vitamins I take to make that sort of thing happen, and how those sound kind of familiar because maybe your ex-girlfriend took them, too. Kept them in the bathroom cabinet you shared, between your toothpaste and your aftershave. Wait. No, let’s not talk about that.
Let’s try to make the first night feel like the fourth morning. Sunday morning, now that’s really something. It’s this way every time I visit, isn’t it? We spend the first night putting out feelers: You introduce me to your roommates as “your friend from school” and I wait until your bedroom door is closed before I step up on my tippy-toes, shyly kiss you on the nose, wait to see if you give it back. Your nose. My forehead. Your cheek. My chin. Each peck is a game of chicken, a dare to be the one to unfurl a tongue first. Because when we look back on this at the end of the weekend, arguing over the definition of “harmless” as you drive me to the airport, we’ll need someone to blame.
But Sunday morning, ah. We’ll have warmed up by then, fallen into our old patterns. You’ll wrap yourself around me in a tender, six-foot question mark even though it’s 90 degrees and we’re hungover and being close to another body, with its hot breath and sweaty folds, seems an unbearable answer. You’ll take me to Roscoe’s for breakfast because I’m not sold on the chicken-and-waffles concept. The meal doesn’t seem to know what time of day it wants to be eaten, and this bothers me more than you. We’ll hold hands under the table and then, fine, on top.
I keep a crumpled diagram of your red buttons in one corner of my mind. By now, I’ll have found it, flattened it out, and traced over the faded lines warning me not to push here: whether you’ll be able to save up enough to visit next month. And here: whether you’ve slept with the friend crashing on your couch. And here: whether you think you’re going to take that gig on my birthday. And here: What would make a guy think his sex, and that alone, is worth the price of a plane ticket?
We’re not going to talk about it. We’re not. Instead, let’s stay in bed and trade hickeys. I’ll lie on your third pillow and quietly wish I knew more languages; how many different ways could I say, “Fuck you”? How many different ways could you hear, “I want to”? Bite hard, somewhere noticeable, even if it hurts, even if it’ll take a heavy scarf on a hot, hot day to cover it up. Hiss in my ear that I’ve gotten kinkier since college. It’s not that, but we can say so. Honestly, I only wanted something to remember you by; a bruise that’s blue like me and yellow like you. Something we can talk about once I’ve gone home.
By KRISTINA TEN
We need to talk, but I don’t want to talk about it. We have plenty of time. Neither of us is really in the mood right now anyway. I’ve thought a lot about how I’m going to bring it up, which approach would be softest, least confrontational, closest to just another lazy conversation about what we want for breakfast, or the difference between soda and tonic, or how it was back in college. I thought I had my angle all worked out, but I could be wrong. I worry that your heart is a skittish cat and this talk is the person who steps on its tail. I worry your cat-heart will run away licking its wounds and find another stray who will lick them, too, without loving you anywhere near as much as I do.
Seriously, let’s not even start. Let’s complain how late it is, how tired we are, how hard it is to find parking at 2:47 a.m. on a Thursday. Friday, actually. This is the underbelly of the night, that small window of time during which nothing seems quite real. It swallows entire conversations that will either be lost or off limits the next day. Thousands of promises forgotten and calories forgiven, a diet trick my roommate taught me, just so long as both are consumed before the sun comes up. Too many fingers of scotch and, later, the greasy pizza intended to soak it up.
Let’s talk about shitty airline food and the complimentary wine they offered disgruntled passengers when my flight was delayed, delayed, cancelled, rebooked, delayed again, and finally set free. Let’s talk about how you had set alarms for 2:05, 2:10, and 2:15, forcing yourself out of bed to pick me up. How awful for you. Let’s talk about how you never keep your phone on your nightstand—you read somewhere that it emits radioactive signals that will eventually give you brain cancer—but you made an exception tonight to ensure you’d wake up. So, basically, I brought you one step closer to brain cancer. Let’s talk about that.
Let’s have a half-hearted debate the entire length of Wilshire about whether the in-flight entertainment I watched a few hours earlier has any cinematic integrity, and what role, if any, cinematic integrity plays in a movie’s success. You’ll get riled up and call your industry “The Industry,” and I’ll scoff and remind you that there are places in this world where success is one well-fed child or 500 sold copies of a poetry chapbook, not a 10,000-square-foot beachfront loft; but one and 500 are such small numbers to you. Tell me I’m on my high horse again. I’ll say I have a whole stable. Then we can ease our way out of this with witty banter: Quick, what’s your high horse’s name? Fernando. Is he primed for next month’s race? Triple crown, baby. Let’s ride this high horse to steadier ground.
Let’s talk about how much my hair has grown since the last time we saw each other, and which vitamins I take to make that sort of thing happen, and how those sound kind of familiar because maybe your ex-girlfriend took them, too. Kept them in the bathroom cabinet you shared, between your toothpaste and your aftershave. Wait. No, let’s not talk about that.
Let’s try to make the first night feel like the fourth morning. Sunday morning, now that’s really something. It’s this way every time I visit, isn’t it? We spend the first night putting out feelers: You introduce me to your roommates as “your friend from school” and I wait until your bedroom door is closed before I step up on my tippy-toes, shyly kiss you on the nose, wait to see if you give it back. Your nose. My forehead. Your cheek. My chin. Each peck is a game of chicken, a dare to be the one to unfurl a tongue first. Because when we look back on this at the end of the weekend, arguing over the definition of “harmless” as you drive me to the airport, we’ll need someone to blame.
But Sunday morning, ah. We’ll have warmed up by then, fallen into our old patterns. You’ll wrap yourself around me in a tender, six-foot question mark even though it’s 90 degrees and we’re hungover and being close to another body, with its hot breath and sweaty folds, seems an unbearable answer. You’ll take me to Roscoe’s for breakfast because I’m not sold on the chicken-and-waffles concept. The meal doesn’t seem to know what time of day it wants to be eaten, and this bothers me more than you. We’ll hold hands under the table and then, fine, on top.
I keep a crumpled diagram of your red buttons in one corner of my mind. By now, I’ll have found it, flattened it out, and traced over the faded lines warning me not to push here: whether you’ll be able to save up enough to visit next month. And here: whether you’ve slept with the friend crashing on your couch. And here: whether you think you’re going to take that gig on my birthday. And here: What would make a guy think his sex, and that alone, is worth the price of a plane ticket?
We’re not going to talk about it. We’re not. Instead, let’s stay in bed and trade hickeys. I’ll lie on your third pillow and quietly wish I knew more languages; how many different ways could I say, “Fuck you”? How many different ways could you hear, “I want to”? Bite hard, somewhere noticeable, even if it hurts, even if it’ll take a heavy scarf on a hot, hot day to cover it up. Hiss in my ear that I’ve gotten kinkier since college. It’s not that, but we can say so. Honestly, I only wanted something to remember you by; a bruise that’s blue like me and yellow like you. Something we can talk about once I’ve gone home.
Wednesday, September 4, 2013
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