Strength to carry a secret

"Oh, hey," he said casually as my classmate and I turned to leave for class, "I'm getting married in the fall, you know."

I froze with my coat half-on as my classmate shrieked in delight, rushing over to demand pictures, ask the woman's name, and hear the story of how they met. Instead of following her, I turned partly away and slowly concentrated on loading my books and computer into my blue backpack, hoping that she didn't summon me to join the conversation. I didn't have the strength today to pretend that I'd never seen these pictures before, and to look him in the eye while I asked for a story I already knew. To his credit, he didn't turn in my direction either. Even though he had given his ring to another woman, there was still something heavy and uncomfortable that sat between us whenever we spoke.

I lifted my backpack to my back and slipped past the chattering crowd. He didn't say goodbye. Neither did I.

***

In three months, the tall young man with the sparkling brown eyes who gave me my first romantic embrace will be walking down the aisle to marry the woman God created for him many years ago. On the day of their wedding, I will be working in a newsroom near Washington, D.C. I will probably steal a moment on my lunch hour to cry; because once that day is over, a short story full of sweetness and pain will be sealed and tucked up on the shelf of my heart, never again to be opened or shared with anyone who knows both of us.

On paper, there isn't much to tell. He is a doctoral student who has a desk on the other side of the aisle in our small, stuffy third-floor grad student office. The day he came to visit our program, I greeted him and his host parents warmly, telling them all about apartments and things to do in our little Midwestern town. We met officially at a poster session in the fall - I explained my research to him and noticed how nice he looked in blue. My professor-mentor noticed that I noticed.

I learned about the tragedy that had stolen his parents from him when he helped me with a class project, and I cried as he told the story. He noticed that I cried. And as the leaves changed to the reds and golds that matched the shirts he often wore, he started stopping by my desk - for a few minutes, for half an hour, for hours at a time. We talked about theology, politics, research, our childhoods, our future plans. In the middle of a rainy October night, he backhandedly messaged to ask if I might consider dating him.

If emotions are our connection to life, then I was drowned in life for the next four weeks. Passionate and sure of himself, he praised my character and faithful lifestyle, he whispered in my ear how beautiful I looked, he cautiously reached out to hold my hand, to touch my arm, to press his knee against mine as we sat together. He called me his queen and dropped comments about taking me back to his country with him, carefully watching my face to see how I would react. He could read me like a book and knew things about me that I couldn't put into words myself. The first time he pulled me into his arms and placed his hand on my waist, my entire being exploded into a firework display of fear and longing that I had never experienced before.

Things unraveled fast. My heart, filled with anxiety and brought up in the era of kissing dating goodbye, tried desperately to keep him at arm's length while I feverishly laid the "perfect husband" template over everything he said and did. Annoyed that he wanted to move the conversation from "maybe dating" to getting married in the space of a few short weeks, I didn't realize that I was doing the same thing, both of us in our first dating relationship and unable to handle the tornadoes of hope and hormones that raged inside us. Over and over, I told him to slow down, back off, go away; and over and over he came back, pleading, pressuring, poking me into anger just to get me to react to him. Finally, hiding behind my parents' firm disapproval, I called the whole thing off, informing him there was no way to bring our strong and opposing personalities into a relationship.

I have never sensed pain in another human being at the level that I sensed it in his heart when I told him my decision. He tried to convince me that it was all a fling, that he never cared for me the way I thought he did, but it wasn't true. I, too, knew things about him that he couldn't put into words himself; and I knew that his last desperate whisper when I reached up to fix his coat collar - "I want you to do that every day for the rest of my life" - was spoken from a place too deep for lies to grow. I wrote to my best friend the next day and cried, "I feel like I just cut his arm off with a chainsaw."

He left for Christmas break. I stayed home in my snowy town, taking long walks in bitter winds to cool the raging confusion and anger that burned in my heart. And I told myself the same lies that he had told me. It was all a fling. I never cared for him the way he thought I did.

***

Just like Jo's rejection in Little Women spurred Laurie to look at Amy with new eyes and see the way things should have been all along, so my friend went to spend his Christmas holidays with a beautiful girl whom he had known since they were children. As he poured out his sorrows to her, things started to rearrange themselves in his heart; and he realized that the girl who had waited for him for so many years was really the one who deserved his love after all. Christmas worked its magic, and before he came back to school, they were engaged.

I told him I was happy for him, and at first, I was. But on the early-spring evening that he waited for everyone else to go home so he could come stand by my desk and show me his fiancee's picture, he finally looked me in the eye and told me that I had been right. It was not all a cruel joke. Everything he said about falling in love with my character, being impressed by my humility, cherishing the way I love and care for others, holding my purity and modesty in high regard - all of that was true. And he confessed that, on that last evening when I had fought with every intuitive and empathic power in me to pry away his careless mask and see the truth he buried deep inside, everything I had confronted him with was true. He was lonely, and he was wounded, and he did love me in some frantic, imperfect way.

After he put his phone back in his pocket and went home, I was left sitting in an empty, sun-soaked office, wondering what I had done - and what I had lost. Why had he finally come to tell me the truth? Was he truly a manipulative Mr. Collins who showed me his heart to triumph in my fresh pain, the way my sister and spiritual mentor insisted he was? Or was he the broken, lonely, imperfect but holy and faithful man I thought he was in the beginning, trying to break the news to me gently in some clumsy concern for my heart? Were we really too strong-headed and dissimilar to have figured things out, the way my parents and mentors insisted we were? Or did I let my anxiety push me into giving up on something beautiful?

***

I will probably never know the answer to these questions; and in a few short months, I will no longer allow myself to ask them. But whatever the thing was that we burned down, some beautiful things have begun to grow in the ashes.

For one thing, I have seen myself in a completely new way and learned things about myself that I couldn't have learned any other way. I learned more about what I really want in my future relationships. My friend wanted me as a wife because I was a fellow Christian grad student whom he thought could help and support him in his doctoral journey - a normal and fine thing to hope, but also lacking the element of partnership and mutual growth that I am seeking in my future marriage. I am a woman full of dreams and ideas and desires for adventure, and I want a husband who will support my growth and development just as much as I support his. My friend never mentioned my growth or betterment once when we were together - only after he was already engaged.

I also learned how important it is to find a boyfriend who values purity as much as I do. Both of us were strongly attracted to each other and desperately wanted to touch and hold each other; but in many ways, even though he couldn't stop himself from emotionally diving headlong into our relationship, my friend had more physical self-control than I did. He knew when to stand at a distance to talk with me, when to reject my requests for a hug, and also when the time was okay to flirt and touch because we were in a public place. I didn't experience the overwhelming level of temptation that I expected to, but I learned that I still need practice to get in tune with when it is and isn't safe to express affection through touch.

And lastly, I learned that it's time to start making my own decisions about my life, and not to keep making my parents make decisions for me, like I'm still a child. I'm turning 30 years old this year, yet I still almost frantically pleaded with them to tell me whether or not I should date my friend. Ultimately, even though my decision was informed by my own anxieties and frustrations, I still used my parents' wishes to shield me - not brave enough to own the decision as my own. It's one thing for me to honor my parents' wishes and seek to make them proud with my actions, but it's another for a grown woman to make her parents choose the direction of her life.

***

I've received a fellowship to work as a science journalism intern in Washington, D.C. this summer. I will be embarking soon on a real adventure - living alone for the first time, living in a metropolitan area, and getting my first real experience in the profession I have chosen. Soon, this brief and painful chapter will be far behind me. My friend will be a married man, and I will be launching out into the dreams that God has given me.

But I wanted to record the story here, because it was both too powerful and too mundanely predictable to seal away in silence forever. None of our classmates can ever know, but someone must. I have been loved; I have been desired and pursued. I have been held, and I have wept in sorrow and anger, and I have seen those same tears reflected in another's eyes. No matter the outcome, I am richer and stronger for this experience, and I pray that he is, too.

Lord, give me the bravery to carry this secret and to plant seeds of grace and love in its ashes, so that I can greet his new wife with grace, embrace their children with sincere love, and nourish their relationship as a sister and a loving friend.

Reinvented

I am alive.

I am so alive ... so full of plans and dreams. It's been such a wonderful year.

I have seen beautiful places.

I have met incredible people who have lit fires inside me.

And I am now learning how to keep those fires burning as they move on to the next part of their journeys.

I have done things I never dreamed I would.

I am asking questions I have never had to ask before - and I am being asked to answer questions that will define who I am for the next decade of my life.

I have met real journalists and real scholars who have encouraged me to keep running down the path of my dreams and to keep using the gifts and strengths that God has given me, and I am so excited to see where that path leads.

I am not the person I was a year ago.

Sometimes, I see things - places, people, journal entries - that remind me of the old bitterness, and it still hurts. But it doesn't hurt as much, and it doesn't hurt in the same way. Now I can see the part that I played in the failures that changed my life's course. I can see that I was unhealthily selfish, demanding, and unrealistic in my relationship with the man I thought I loved. Today, I'm not sure I ever loved him at all - I think I wanted him to be and do something for me that I couldn't do for myself.

I can see that what I thought were personal attacks and backstabbing by mentors I trusted was, in fact, a simple failure in communication - a misunderstanding by each of us of what the other needed to grow. I still get angry at the system that demands so many late nights and tears from its students, but I no longer blame the instructors. They were trying to teach me and guide me in the best way they knew how.

And today, I have teachers who understand me, who point out my (many!) weaknesses and shortcomings constructively, and who help me grow into the woman I should be.

I am a woman now. I am stronger, more ambitious, more curious, and more determined than I have ever been in my life.

I am asking God hard questions. I have had some pretty hard failures and fallen into some pretty serious sin-pits during the last year; but I have tried to look to Him in faith and trust Him to forgive me, to teach me, and above all, to continue loving me more deeply than I could ever imagine.

I ask the Holy Spirit to sustain my desire for His will and His glory above my own. I plead with God to work His will in my life whether I am happy and comfortable or not. I desire Him to shine through me, even when I don't understand what He is doing.

These are desires that will lead me into breathtaking depths where I have never gone before. I am terrified. But I am terribly excited.

***

I have not stopped writing over the last year, nor have I given up on my love of blogging - I've set it aside for a while to concentrate on classes and work, and also taken some of my former blogging time to use for other things, like working out. I've focused a lot this year on getting stronger, physically, mentally, emotionally, and spiritually, by going to the gym, talking more with mentors online and in person, and boosting my prayer life. Some of my ongoing challenges are making myself start going to church (the perennial struggle, grr), spending more time in the Word, learning how to set boundaries in personal relationships, and taking better care of myself in the areas of food and sleep.

I think I've mentioned it before, but I am an active member of the NerdFitness online community, and I have not only been microblogging there for the last year, but I also post more regular daily updates and goal progress - you are more than welcome to come check me out there and enjoy some pretty good stories, if I may say so.  :-)  My latest installment is just getting started, and there are links to previous chapters in my signature line.

And last month, I created a Wordpress blog that I am working on getting online ... no promises that I will keep it up regularly, but once it's up and I think I will actually keep it up, I will post the link here.  :-) 

***

I miss you guys terribly and I hope to be back in touch soon ... also, if it helps, I have not been one of those evil bloggers who comes back from a year-long absence with a husband and a cross-country move and a new hair color!  ;-)  I'm still the same me, living in the same apartment, going to the same school and still quite single!

I hope to be back in touch with more concrete updates before classes start in a few weeks - I realize that I said essentially nothing in this post, so I will try not to leave you hanging!!

All my love,

Vicki

loss, then discovery

There is a pattern throughout literature that more closely resembles real life than we sometimes realize, and that is the pattern of "loss, then discovery".

Every rags-to-riches story begins this way. The hero or heroine loses something terribly precious - often a family member or other loved one, sometimes a home or a job, sometimes a dream. Whatever it may be, the Lukes and Annes and Jos and Janes are hit with a terrible loss that shakes them to their core ... and then, something beautiful and mighty softly flows into their open, defenseless hands.

A dusty old lightsaber hits a work-worn palm. A new love springs from the ashes of death. A fresh dream is softly planted by a gentle word. The morning of hope, as our Father foretold, follows the darkness of night.

***

A day still does not go by that I don't feel the bitter pain of my messy separation from my clinical graduate program. I don't know why it continues to hurt or when it will go away, but I suspect my fellow INFP friend was right when she said it was because I've never lost anything before. I've never had a close family member die, never been rejected, and certainly never poured so much of myself into something that would end in failure.

But you see ... that day that I hid under the stairwell and wept for two hours? That only felt like the end. Just like my favorite literary characters, I was really just being dragged into the place where my story could finally begin.

***

I spent most of the summer regaining my bearings. My job started as a safe place to land for a while - the old editor was a good friend of mine; the new editor is a peaceful, ambling man who puts no pressure on me; and some of the oldest employees there have known me since I was born. I thought I was protecting myself from the inevitable pain of the past and the future - yes, I had another graduate program as my upcoming destination, but for the summer, I was going to hide behind my big desk and quietly write nice little articles for nice little publications.

Well, that plan started to fall through when my new editor somehow started believing that I was a really, really gifted writer. As in, good enough that he said so to my face, to my older team members, and finally to the department head herself. My little articles gave way to bigger articles, then stories for small magazines, then out-of-town multimedia assignments.

My shattered self-confidence didn't know what to expect from any of this; but to my surprise, I not only handled it easily, but I kept getting better. I have gone from meekly penning informational releases, to crafting feature stories with flair and even humor. Next week, I will be the official media coordinator for my first statewide event.

My editor was my mentor, pushing a lightsaber into my hands and telling me to let the Force flow through me ... and somehow, I did.

***

And would you believe that this is all still just backstory?

The biggest breakthrough of all happened just after John and Heather and I moved. I was in a terrible haze of anxiety and nerves and didn't know up from down; and one day, my mom said, "Have you ever considered transferring to study in the department where you're working?"

I think I mumbled "No, not really".

She said, "Well, why don't you? Consider it, I mean. Meet with the graduate coordinator next week and just talk to him."

"About what?" I asked.

"Writing, you goof," she replied.

So I did. I went and talked to him about writing ... for two hours. Then we talked again, about educational writing. And then we talked again about Star Trek and Irish pubs and nontraditional education (homeschooling!) and theories of communication and how to use words to change people's lives.

"Please apply," he said. "You need to be here. You need to be with us so we can help you and support you. Please, please apply. We want you. I want you."

So I'm applying.

I, the scatterbrained failure, the old child who can't find a place for herself, am going to research better ways to get informational articles and materials to people who need them. I'm going to write. I'm going to take journalism classes. I'm going to keep reading and learning from the great communicators and storytellers around me. I'm going to take this incredible gift - this gift of writing that I've carried nonchalantly around on my hip all these years - and finally, truly learn how to use it, how to become a powerful communicator who can help get knowledge to people who need it.

***

I don't know what the next step will be - I haven't the faintest idea what God has in store. But for now, I'm just content to know that He isn't finished with me yet!

My biggest ongoing challenge is to not be so engrossed in self-discovery that I neglect God's teaching and wisdom. Everything has happened so fast and surprised me so much that I spend a lot of time staring at my published articles or my face on the department website and marveling that I could find myself in such a place; but I need to keep looking forward, not get stuck looking around or inward.

The past continues to be a stumbling block for me, too. I still have a great deal of bitterness festering in my heart that I'm not sure how to get rid of. But I know I have to get it rooted out now, so it doesn't taint the excitement and hard work of the next chapter of my story.

The solution, of course, to stop looking in the wrong places is to look in the right place - toward the Word of God and toward seeking His face. I desperately want His blessing and His working in every second of the upcoming years, but I need to reflect that desire in my prayer life and devotions. I pray that He would increase my desire to know who He wants me to be, and especially Who He is.

***

I pray that the Lord would sharpen me into a vessel of His grace, and that He would write in my life a story of hope that will inspire others to keep trusting Him and not give up on His loving plan!!

What about you? Has God been creating any surprises in your life? Tell me about them so I can rejoice with you!!

~ Vicki

i will wait for love

Over the last week or so, quietly, inexplicably, I have found myself stepping back from my one-sided relationship of the last year, and looking at it.

And silently, I have admitted to myself that it wasn't as pretty of a thing as I thought it was.

I know, they never are; but the real ones, the ones that are going to last, have a strength to them that holds together all the messiness and gives them shape - a solid skeleton under the uneven, shaky, imperfect tissue that knits together the "one flesh".

This one was like a skeleton with osteoporosis. Much too fragile to stand up to the weight and blows of daily life ... because only one of us was building, and I was building haphazardly and without proper materials. It was doomed from the beginning, just like he said it was.

***

He didn't respect me or my judgment. He frequently told me - and others - that I was scatterbrained, unreliable, inconsistent, and confusing. He called me condescending names, questioned my decisions, and said he liked it when I got angry or jealous because it reassured him that I was human.

In turn, I tried to use him as a security blanket when he didn't want to be. I placed selfish demands on him by seeking attention and support when he was already fighting stress and worry; I got peevish and angry when he didn't drop everything to tend to my needs; and I tried to shame him into conforming to the ideal I had built in my head for him.

Yes, I really was that ugly. And so was he.

That's not to say that it wasn't a very special, important relationship while it lasted. God let us find each other so that we would each have someone to lean on during the pain we went through last year - my rejection and failures, his insecurities and fear. When I was able to put aside my own needs and really listen to him, and when he was able to put aside his standoffishness and really listen to me, each of us was the support and understanding that the other needed.

But while that would have been a great start for a lasting relationship, it wasn't enough to sustain it. A relationship that lasts must be built on respect, trust, selfless care, and ultimately, a desire to serve and exalt God together. Because he didn't respect me, and I didn't trust him, and because neither of us could let go of our selfish wishes for the relationship (me to warm it up, him to cool it down), it could not survive.

***

As one of my dear friends said, the good thing to come out of this relationship is that now I know I can love - which I had strongly doubted in the past. I loved him very imperfectly, it's true; but if love is the genuine desire for someone's well-being and the willingness to sacrifice for that well-being, then I did love him. For every time I caved to my pounding heart and shot him a bothersome text, there were three or four times that I pushed the phone away and left him alone. His grades and reputation were huge motivators in how hard I worked on our joint projects. And when I could make him laugh and forget about his troubles for a moment, I felt like the most powerful and successful woman in the world.

I'm not going to try to love him in this way anymore. I've made sure, the last two times I've seen him, to let him know that he can come to me anytime he wants to vent or take a break from school, and I have genuinely meant it - not as a ploy to get him to go out with me. Now he knows it; and with that promise successfully tucked in his pocket, I can leave and freely explore the big world opening up ahead of me.

I hope - I really do hope - that he will call me back every so often. I hope I can stop by his office and sit with him in the afternoon again sometime. I hope, someday, he'll give me that hug that he never quite did. But I'm not going to chase after it anymore. Love that is not freely offered is not love at all.

***

I continue to hope that, somewhere along my journey, I find a tall, brown-eyed Jesus lover who welcomes me into his heart with warmth and understanding - someone who values and cherishes me, who looks at me with pride, not disgust. I pray that there is a man who will grow stronger and bolder when I shyly hand him my heart, who will allow me to add my strengths to his and to gently pour compassion into his weaknesses. I pray that there is a man who will raise up children with me, loving and protecting them as precious gifts from God.

I have caught a tiny glimpse of what love can be, and I see now that it is worth wanting and worth waiting for. And whether I am ever allowed to step fully into its light, I now know that the love of my friends and their husbands is worth supporting, nurturing, and protecting as a friend, not something to be feared or sneered at. Any pain or disappointment I have felt over this past year has been completely worth it, if I have truly learned this lesson.

After all - "for love is from God; and everyone who loves is born of God and knows God (1 John 4:7)". May I always value and protect this most precious gift.

snippets of real life

It's another cool, rainy Independence Day in my part of the Midwest, and I am relaxing in the softest of workout clothes with my cold feet propped up on one of the bins that is packed and ready to move to my new apartment.

Not that I'm ready, of course - quite the opposite. I am one month away from the big day, and realizing with terror that, in addition to calling banks and Internet companies to notify them of my new address, I need to hurry up and get my life's possessions into some semblance of order so I can drag them into my dad's truck and lug them up the stairs of my new home. I need to start mapping out my floor plan so I can see what other furniture I need besides a futon, a bed, and some chairs. And I need to make those all-important budgeting, cleaning, laundry, and cooking plans so I don't wake up one morning and realize that life has gone to seed in my mental absence.

One of my (much, much younger) friends grinned at me all through that litany of worries, and when I asked what was funny, he laughed and said "Now, look at you being all grown up!"

Funny words coming from a virtual child, but he's right.  :-)  I have a lot on my mind lately - besides moving, I want to celebrate my 15-pound weight loss by learning to lift weights and eat more healthfully. I joined the email list of NerdFitness.com this week, and I'm going to call the gym tomorrow and get a consultation with a personal trainer to help me start properly. I look slimmer on the outside, but I'd love to improve my strength and energy levels on the inside, too.

Spiritually, I have two areas that I need to work on right now ... the first is continuing to heal from my anger and bitterness over what happened during the school year. I was feeling low yesterday and started to throw a pity party about it again, but was quickly cut short by a "Vicki? Get over it. It's over, it's done with, no one cares anymore. You need to grow up and suck it up and move on. Get your head in the present." I was shocked and initially hurt; but I realized that she was right. There is a season for healing, but just as with a sprain or scar tissue, it's important to keep exercising and moving while I heal, not just sit and mope and expect to get better. So I'm trying hard to embrace my new direction and only think about last year when I have to, and then dwell on the positive parts, not the negatives.

My other spiritual task is to simply remember how much God loves me, and to remember that I love Him. This sounds simplistic; but after spending time recently with a dear friend who simply radiates and showers the peaceful love of God everywhere she goes, it made me take a hard look at my own shadowy heart and realize that I have been falling back on relating to Him through fear and shame, not love. In time, journeying back to peace must include greater self-discipline in guarding my devotion time and spending more time in prayer; but for now, I'm trying to let go of the guilty weight that says "you're not good enough" and respond with a breath of "you're right, I'm not - but He is, and He loves me and has chosen me".

And lastly, you may have noticed (*ahem* or they may not, you self-absorbed thing) that I removed several of my more personal posts regarding the guy friend. This is part of the moving-on process, too. I miss him and think of him every day; but standing and hanging wistfully over my balcony with baited breath will not bring him back. It's time for me to accept that if he wants to be part of my life, he will make an effort to do so - he knows he is more than welcome. But I can't keep looking back over my shoulder and wondering if he's coming or not. Life is too short to keep going back and reading a closed chapter over and over - I need to focus on writing this one carefully, prayerfully, and with all my heart; and I can't do that if I'm living in the dreams of the past.

***

I have a busy second half of the summer ahead of me, as you can see - and I haven't even mentioned the other everyday things like work, shopping, new babies, weddings, and travel! Lots of things are changing quickly and it's hard to keep up at times, and I'm definitely noticing the effects and aftereffects of stress on my body; but the changes are toward better days and I am excited for what the fall semester will hold.

What's changing in your life these days? Are you riding the waves and catching some sun ... or flailing underneath your overturned surfboard ... or like me, clinging to the board for dear life as the waves smash over my head?  :-)

Hugs and love and lots of summer sunshine and cookouts and fireflies to you, my dears!!

~ Vicki

and forgive us our trespasses

***

To forgive.

Who would know that it would take me until I was almost 30 to learn what it means to forgive?

For more than a month, I have tried to pretend that I didn't need to forgive. I have tried to pretend that I was only hurt, wounded, vulnerable, and sad - not angry. After all, I'm the nice one. The sweet-tempered one who never, ever gets angry.

Well ... I've been angry.

I have felt wronged, betrayed, and abandoned; and I have wanted to hurt them in return. I have cloaked a desire for revenge in a pretentious desire for justice. And I have stored up bitter words and actions that I have desperately longed to spew out in an acid rain shower for all to see.

Yes, certainly I have been hurt and vulnerable. But I have also been angry.

I have been holding onto this anger even past the point when I knew I shouldn't, because I convinced myself I was going to fight for some kind of justice. I told myself I was going to channel my anger to make change, to stand up for the poor defenseless students coming after me who were going to be subjected to the deception, unfairness, and harshness that I endured. Well, I still would like to do that; but - was it really for the students that I wanted to stand up and make a ruckus? Or was it really for myself, to stand up and shout to the world that I had been cheated and wronged?

***

It's time to let go.

"Forgive" is defined by the Webster-Merriam Online Dictionary as "to give up resentment of, or claim to requital for". Easton's Bible Dictionary defines "forgiveness", in reference to God's forgiveness of a sinner, as being absolved from condemnation and removed from guilt and liability.

So forgiving my professors means not being angry anymore, and it means ceasing to believe I should be repaid for the wrong they did me.

I am not going to look back at those painful days and sleepless nights and let my blood boil anymore. I am going to say: I am a fallen sinner just like the people who hurt me, and I need forgiveness just as much as they do, for offenses just as bad against others. I am not better than they are. This was God's will for me, and He never allows me to pass through pain for no reason - He will bring blessings and good fruit out of the dug-up places in my heart, as long as I raise my hands to the rain and say "Behold the handmaid of the Lord; be it unto me according to thy word".

I'm not going to look for ways to "make them pay". I'm not going to keep expecting someone to admit they were wrong and apologize. I am going to "accept the apology that was never offered". And I'm going to allow the Lord to gently close that chapter of my life as He sees fit, and stop dragging my heels and looking back over my shoulder, like Lot's wife.

***

I want to be mighty. 

I want to be strong and active and courageous, full of righteous power. I want to be the Christian equivalent of Luke Skywalker - I want to do hard things, deny myself, and actively fight against darkness and sin in myself and the world.

Luke Skywalker forgave. Luke Skywalker didn't go after Darth Vader to seek revenge for all of the horrible things that he had done to him; he went after Darth Vader to rescue him from the spiral of destruction that had trapped him for so many years.

And I look higher and even more importantly: Jesus forgave. Jesus Christ could have righteously punished the earth and destroyed us with the death we all deserved, but He didn't. He forgave us long before we asked. He loved us when we were completely vile and hideously deformed with sin. And He allowed Himself to be punished as though He were vile and deformed with sin, instead of us.

Who am I to hold a grudge, when I have been forgiven so much? And how do I think I can grow and get stronger if I'm letting anger and bitterness shrivel me up?

***

Well, I'm done shriveling now.

I'm done being angry. All of the professors, all of the administrators: I forgive you. I love you. I truly want the best for you. And I truly believe that God wants the best for you and me and all of us.

I forgive. Therefore, I am free.

growing up

The semester is winding down. Only the gigantic year-ending cumulative first year exam stands between me and summer vacation.

It feels so strange to be closing this chapter full of so many new beginnings. Some of them are falling like dead seeds into the ground, dormant for now, but I am confident that they will yield beautiful vegetation and shade trees and fruit one day. Some of them are still alive, fragile seedlings growing hope in the charred and dark places of my scorched heart. I don't know yet which of these tiny hope-plants will survive and thrive, and which are bound to wither away - their time and mine are in God's gentle, mighty hands. And some of them were planted just recently and they're growing strongly, bright healthy plants that promise a harvest of bountiful blessings sooner than I think.

***

This summer, I will be returning to my old writing job to take over some projects in need of a skilled hand - I hope and am determined to be that skilled hand. I'm going to see about getting involved in the music ministry at my new church - I would be thrilled to get to serve the Lord with music again!! - and finally, finally, after 10 years, get my driver's license. I'm going to keep practicing photography and looking for new ways to serve the Lord and other people through it - I was genuinely surprised how many people I've had the chance to help and bless with my new camera this semester. I'm going to wear beautiful dresses, and put a touch of pink or mauve color in my hair, and above all, I'm going to celebrate the new things that God is doing in me and through me.

***

I'm also going to be moving - for the first time, I will be moving into my own apartment! Everything has fallen perfectly into place; I know that God's timing is finally right, and I'm terribly excited - there is a dear crabapple tree that hangs its pretty branches over my balcony, and my room has a gigantic window that I can drape with romantic white curtains, and I can build bookshelves and nooks for knickknacks and have friends over for tea and old movies. I can't wait to start learning about hospitality - and the less glamorous, but equally important, joy of daily homemaking.

***

The guy friend and I have been seeing a lot of each other lately - at his request, surprisingly. I love being with him, and every time he chooses me and asks to spend time with me, I feel like I could fly to the moon. His presence in my life is definitely a catalyst for several different hard, important lessons that I'm learning - that no courtship article or marriage book has it all figured out when it comes to messy relationships between multi-dimensional people; that loving someone despite their flaws and struggles is a very Christlike thing to do, not something to be ashamed of; and most importantly, that God loves to give good gifts to us and wants us to have joyful, abundant lives, so I shouldn't be afraid to bring my requests to Him or think that He's going to slap my wrist and rebuke me for wanting a blessing. He doesn't want me to drag around feeling anxious and guilty all the time, and He certainly doesn't want "trusting Him" to look like apathetic acceptance that nothing I want will ever work out. Even if He lovingly says no and fills me with joy from a different source, He wants me to come before Him in love as a cherished daughter, and boldly ask for this hard, challenging, beautiful responsibility.

So following the example of my dear friends who are submissively but expectantly praying for other blessings in their lives - new jobs, new babies, new places - I am going to ask the Holy Spirit to guide me in two areas: Firstly, in cultivating a submissive, accepting spirit in me that authentically seeks God's glory and approval, and doesn't rebel at the thought of not getting my way; but secondly, in fearlessly watering the hope in my heart, disregarding the risk of pain, and preparing myself to be the best girlfriend I can be in case God's answer is "yes." I have no idea how one does that; but I'm starting by praying for the guy friend every day, and simultaneously trying to do better at respecting his introvert-recharge time and personal space.

***

I'm growing up, friends ... I know, it's about time (*grimace*); but it feels really good and really scary to be transitioning into decisions and opportunities that will affect other people and maybe even future generations, not just myself. It's terrifying to stand before God and ask Him if this fallen, broken, wonderful man is the one He has chosen for me. It's terrifying to think about shopping for my very own kitchen appliances and groceries and toilet-fixing gadgets. It's terrifying to see the bright excitement of the new Master's program I'm going into and wonder what hard and incredibly important service awaits me there.

But it's also beautiful. 

Tonight, I'm going to go review my notes on hearing aid algorithms and acoustic reflexes, and get myself to bed early, so I can go into that classroom tomorrow and show all those professors who didn't believe in me how much I really learned. (Or, alternatively, fail the exam bombastically and finish out my glorious failure in an appropriately dramatic burst of flaming wreckage.)

And tomorrow? Another chapter of my life-book will close, and I will step out into a brand-new one.

I may dash away a few tears, but even so, I can hardly wait.

{re: change}

I wonder how I'm going to feel in the future when I look back on the 2015-16 school year?

Right now, it feels like I have never truly lived before this year. I am honestly amazed when I step back and look at the sheer number and amount of experiences and emotions that have pounded over me and soaked me to the skin.

I have experienced physical exhaustion to the point of near-fainting and emotional exhaustion to the level of sobbing uncontrollably for three hours.  

I have thrown every iota of mental, physical, and emotional strength into something and seen it end in defeat - then I have seen hope be reborn and the Holy Spirit lift my eyes to look toward new horizons.  

I have uncovered unfairness and untruth and been their victim, and from that experience gained a desire to stand up for other students who are coming behind me.

I have discovered the strength that lies in the unchanging love of friends, and I am learning that even that strength is utterly frail and helpless compared to the ever-present love of my Father God.  

I have dared to fall in love, and felt the jagged pain of rejection cutting my heart and soul - but I have planted seeds of hope in the wounded places and watched them continue to grow, fragile and sweet and ridiculously audacious.

Defeat and hope, courage met with obstacles, injustices discovered. It's been quite a year.

***

At the advice of my mentors, and after many painful meetings and long nights of weeping, I have decided to leave my clinical program of study after this semester and move to a Master's degree program focused on health education and support. Admitting failure and letting go of my dreams and plans has been one of the most painful experiences of my life, and it will take me a long time to recover from the emotional damage of the decision and the semester in general; but God has moved in every stage of the process, and I am firmly convinced that this is His leading. There is no doubt in my mind that this is all Him, and that I am doing the right thing. Despite the sadness of failure, I am excited to see what He has planned and where He will take me next year.

This year has also been the year of my first real, complicated relationship with a man about whom I have dared to use the word love. He has cared for my heart so gently through the pain of this semester, driven me home after midnight, lifted my spirits with food and stories, carefully protected my confided thoughts, and rewarded me with the gift of his trust, his tears, and his hopes. We are a beautiful team. He calls me his confidante, his counselor, his kind and good friend ... yet for all this, he still says he does not love me in the same way that I love him. Every time he catches my eye and smiles, my heart leaps; and every time he waves and drives away, it sinks with frustration and pain.

I continue to hope. It may be futile, this tiny flower in my heart may be trampled back down again; but I continue to hope and pray. And even though I don't know what the outcome of this will be, just like the situation with school, I can say that the things I have learned through our friendship will outlast the pain, regardless of what the future holds.

***

I am a different person today than I was in August. I am no longer arrogantly enamored with my own sweetness and intelligence. I have failed, I have been the "stupid one", I have wounded others, and I have been wounded. I have learned about the depths of my own sinfulness. I have lost ten pounds and am thinking about getting my first tattoo.

I am not the same person that I was before this year.

But.

God is still the same God that He was before this year.

He has pursued my soul in a visible, vibrant, astounding way this year. He has met my collapsing soul with truth in the night when I was too weak to reach for it myself. He has nourished my soul through unexpected people and given me peace and rest in places I never would have looked for it.

I love Him. Oh, so imperfectly, so inconsistently, so unworthily of His majestic grace and all-powerful mercy; but I love Him and I am truly delighted in following Him. He is everything that I need, and even as I pick myself up and stumble away from the wreckage of my failures and broken dreams, I know that I am leaving nothing behind, compared to the glory that lies ahead in getting to know Him better, and in letting Him make me the comforting person for others that others have been for me.

Jesus Christ, the same yesterday, and today, and forever.

Amen.

when you don't know if he's the one {or, 5 ways to stay sane}

"Soooo, are you guys, like ... together?"

They have no idea what a stressful question that is. How do you slap a neat label on something as fragile and mysterious as the soft mound of a seedling just below the soil?

I just smile and shrug and say something like "Well, if we are, he hasn't told me about it, soooo ..."

I'm not being facetious. I genuinely don't know. I know that we prefer each other's company and have a lot of fun when we're together, but I also know that we are both very self-sufficient and have plenty of reasons not to start a relationship right now. For today, we are just friends. Ish.

The days, weeks, or months in which a simple friendship begins to look like something else are challenging for pretty much anyone, let alone a spinsterly homeschool alumna who has just spent the last four years of her life living and working with almost entirely women. Anxiety and questions abound, mostly all boiling down to either "is this all in my imagination?" or "oh my goodness, should I have said that?". The churned-up soil of an undefined relationship is a fertile place to grow viney worries, sticky-burr obsessions, and wild dreams that grow like invasive weeds ... as more and more of these intrusive thoughts and unexpected feelings wind around my mind and stick to my heart, their weight makes it more and more difficult to wade through each day without collapsing in nervous exhaustion.

So what's a girl to do?

***

I definitely, definitely do not have it all figured out - because my friend and I see each other every day, I feel like every morning I'm starting over, trying to understand the strange, rusty emotions that mix together weirdly in my 8AM coffee. But through this experience, I am learning some principles that are really benefiting me; and I wanted to share what I am learning in hopes that it might help someone else - not only people who might be in the early stages of a relationship as well, but anyone facing uncertainty at the beginning of a big change in their lives.

I. Pray like a daughter. I'm not talking about primly uttered prayers asking God to prepare my heart to be a perfect Proverbs 31 girlfriend, should that day come ... I'm talking about crying prayers, messy prayers, prayers about the embarrassing and scary questions that I don't know how to ask. I'm talking about scared-daughter prayers to my Father. Abba, I'm feeling angry because he didn't say goodbye before leaving ... and I know that's ridiculous because he said four times that he was really hungry ... and I'm just mad at myself for getting so stupidly mad over these stupid little things.

I guarantee that the Holy Spirit has been facepalming very hard over the confused, irrationally angry, weepy prayers that I have been mournfully tossing up to Him over these last few months ... but He has been listening and bringing me bracing truth, soothing comfort, and gentle warnings that exactly answer each unique day's heart-needs. Pray, pray, pray to God as a listening Father Who cares more about your daughter heart than even the most attentive earthly father.

II. Keep busy. The old saying "idle minds are the devil's workshop, and idle hands his tools" is truer than I wish it were. If you keep moving, the sticky burrs and vines don't have as much of a chance to stick to you - in plain English, engage yourself in good things that busy your hands and your mind, so that you don't get stuck in those horrible cyclical worries and draining fears. Put on a movie while crocheting a baby blanket for a friend or charity. Go give your bedroom a good going-over with inspirational music playing in the background. Scrub your bathtub while listening to a podcast. Doing something with both your mind and your hands will burn off some of that anxious energy and apply it to something useful - while keeping racing thoughts at bay.

III. Monitor your motivation. Maybe this is just me, but I am finding to my chagrin that what I think are my reasons for doing certain things in this relationship are not the real underlying reasons after all. For example, this evening I texted my friend to tease him a bit, as we like to do; and I told myself I was being friendly. But after firing off the text, I took a step back and truly examined my heart, and I realized that this time it wasn't really about making him smile, but about me - I feel so special when he takes time out of his busy schedule to text me, and I was seeking out that feeling because it was late in the day and I was hungry and lonely.

Now, I'm not encouraging you to start over-analyzing everything you say and do, looking for hidden ulterior motives everywhere; because trust me, that is an even worse state to be in than an impulsive one. But when we are very emotionally invested in something - something that we really want to happen - it can be easy to let our anxious hopes mix in with our bigger intentions and make them selfish. I know this is the exact opposite of what I want to happen in this friendship, whether it grows up into the next level or not; so I need to check on myself every so often to make sure that I am still acting in love and servanthood, not in selfishness.

IV. Take care whom you confide in. This is one that I have learned the hard way. In any potentially life-changing situation, it is important to have as much constructive counsel as you can get; but the key is realizing whose counsel is constructive and whose is unhelpful or even destructive. Some of the small handful of people I have confided in have been gentle, helpful, and encouraging; but others have actually contributed to my anxiety and worry quite significantly with discouraging, negative comments. When you are dealing with something that is brand-new and very important to you - whether it's a relationship like this, or something like a new job venture, a new baby, or any other new work that God is bringing forth in your life - it is vital that you surround yourself with godly counsel that will gently encourage and correct you, not scold or question you and add to your self-doubt during a time when you're generating plenty of it on your own.

V. Enjoy being yourself. Don't forget that, even though you may be eager to spend more time with your new friend and try out this "dating" thing that everyone is so excited about, for now you're still quite single; and now is a great time to remember all the things you love about this stage of your life. That looks different for everyone; but for me, it has meant Disney marathons with my brothers, taking long walks in the slowly warming weather, and enjoying lunch with my dearest girlfriends. Life as a single grad student is a beautiful thing, and whether this works out or not, I never want to lose sight of all the blessings that I have right now, right here, in this place and this moment.

***

There is no easy way to navigate this time of life, but it helps so much to remember that God has everything under control - just like every other relationship in my life, this one is to bring glory to His name and to shape and mold both me and my friend more closely into the mold of the One we love, the Lord Jesus Christ. It's not easy to continually, moment by moment, reroute these quite-natural-but-dangerously-close-to-selfish desires into spiritual channels; but the Holy Spirit is right with me with all the resources of strength and willpower from heaven at my disposal, and He wants to keep me walking the straight path of His will even more than I want to.

My God is mighty, and powerful, and the One my soul loves. My Father, whom do I have on earth besides You? No earthly friendship compares with Your white-hot love that fills and purifies every corner of my heart and soul; and I pray again that You would surround me with Your protection and satisfy every longing that I have with the beauty, majesty, and sufficiency that only You can provide!

"Now to Him who is able to keep you from stumbling, and to make you stand in the presence of His glory blameless with great joy, to the only God our Savior, through Jesus Christ our Lord, be glory, majesty, dominion and authority, before all time and now and forever. Amen." ~ Jude 24-25

In the crossroads, in the fog

I am really struggling badly this week ... I feel like everything in my life is changing all at once, and the harder I try to hang onto the Lord and trust Him for peace and rest, the higher the waves of anxiety and fear and panic crash against me and threaten to throw me over the edge.

I've started this blog post at least eight or nine times and keep choking on it and deleting it. I can't seem to describe everything that's going on - viewed from the outside, it all looks good and quite manageable, things like visiting a new church, applying to a new program, and building relationships with new friends; but felt from the inside, I feel like a raging hurricane of violent emotions wrestled and squeezed into a very small, very weak, very scared little body.

People are noticing and privately texting me to ask if I'm okay. I say yes, I'm okay. But am I?

No. I'm not okay. Not really.

I'm scared. There is so much hanging in the balance based on what I do about these three huge choices facing me. I know that God is in control of my future; I keep running back to His promises to guide my steps and make my paths straight; in my heart, I know that He is guiding today's decisions just as He has so gently guided my stumbling footsteps in the past. But my heart is not speaking to my feelings right now. They are frantic, panicked, out of control.

What if I mess up? What if I make the wrong choice? What if I say the wrong thing? What if I make the wrong move and permanently mess up my life?

There is no way to know.

That's the hard part. If I could look at each of these decisions and say, "If I decide to do A, then B will happen; and if I decide to do X, then Y will happen", then everything would be easy. I could look at the two outcomes, decide which one would be most conducive to God's glory and my happiness, and make a choice. But I don't get to see that. I am standing at a crossroads with a heavy fog hanging over both paths, and I have to make my choices based on what I think, expect, and hope lies within that fog.

***

The one thing I know: GOD IS THERE. God is within the fog. God is within the fog; He is within the hurricane; He is within the sunshine that lies on the other side of the cloud and within the fog that hangs over the next crossroads, and the next. God is there. God knows what lies down each path.

I have faced decisions like these before; I have been terrified like this before. Every time, I made what I thought was the very best decision, based on Scripture and the guidance of my parents and counselors, and every time He worked through my choice. Have I messed up? Oh, yes, I certainly have! But I survived! I learned! I learned things about God and about myself that I wouldn't have learned the same way if I had chosen a different path - because God directs my steps and even if I make a "wrong turn," He has a lesson waiting there to make me stronger and draw me deeper into His arms.

God has not given us a spirit of fear, but a spirit of love, and of power, and of a sound mind. No matter what my feelings say, I need to believe that I can trust Him to lead me through the decisions; through the sad partings and shy beginnings; and yes, even through the mistakes and bad choices that I know I'm going to make. He already has those accounted for in His plan for my life, they will not surprise Him, and He will pick me up and hug me close and gently set me down on the right path again.

And who knows? Maybe I'll make the right choices.  :-)

Tomorrow

When Jesus said "do not worry about tomorrow," He meant tomorrow.

Somehow, I tend to interpret that as "five years from now." Don't worry about what you're going to do after grad school. Just worry about the next four years and I'll take it from there.

Sure, that's true. But if I interpret it that way, that still leaves a whole lot of stuff that I have to deal with myself. That still leaves me days like today, where I literally worried myself physically sick about whether I'm "meant" to stay in my clinical program or grab this research idea that's rattling around in my head and leap off into a Ph.D. program instead.

I need to remember - He really meant tomorrow. Do not worry about January 14, 2016. Only worry about January 13. Period.

Don't worry about your gigantic remediation meeting next week. Today's worries are sufficient. 

Don't worry about which program you're supposed to be in. Today's worries are sufficient. 

Don't worry about whether that nice guy will ask you to lunch with him tomorrow. Today's worries are sufficient. 

Don't worry about your first day back to clinic after a long vacation. Today you can practice; you can't do the clinic visit today, so only worry about the practicing. Today's worries are sufficient. 

Don't worry about organizing an on-site visit to give a speech about hearing conservation in two months. Today's worries are sufficient. 

Don't worry about finding an externship and moving away from home for the first time. Today's worries are sufficient.

I can't reach into the future and manipulate any of these things today. I can prepare for the meeting, carefully research all of my options with the two programs, pray for God's leading on the nice guy, practice my clinic procedures, read over the speech assignment, and begin praying about my externship. That's the stuff I can worry about. But as for the actual meeting and the actual guy and the actual clinic day and the actual speech and the actual externship, those are all "tomorrow" problems and they are all in God's hands, not mine. Therefore, worrying about them is not allowed, and only results in dreary wandering through a dreary day with a churning stomach and the shudders.

God is Master of all of Time, present and actively working in every second of all existence simultaneously; but He has very kindly divided this unfathomable thing into linear, bite-sized chunks we call days. One day is more than enough for me to handle - if I want to learn about faith and avoid stomach ulcers, I need to learn to let Him handle the things in the future, and just to focus on the tasks He set right in front of me. Today. Not tomorrow. Today.

Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof.

My First Semester (according to Frozen)

Hi!!! Hi hi hi! It's been such a very long time since I was on here, and my first semester of graduate school is in the books. So many of you prayed for me, thought about me, and left me encouraging comments over the course of those first 16 weeks; and I want to genuinely thank you - without your love and support, and the support of my family and friends, I genuinely do not know if I would have made it through this semester.

Because you were so kind as to care about what I was going through during this fall and early winter, I wanted to catch you up on a few of the things that happened while I was gone ... I started pouring out my tale of woe and wonder via a traditional post earlier today, but it just got wayyy too long. So, I had the brilliant inspiration to copy imitate the lovely Katherine Sophia and tell you the story of my semester in GIFs. Frozen GIFs, to be precise.

Here's the sneak preview:

***

The first week, everything was miraculous. It was so exciting to be cracking open gigantic textbooks about neuroanatomy, psychoacoustics, and clinical practice - to watch crowds of undergraduate students melt in my path and to have professors talk to me like a real adult. I was a little nervous about moving from the comfort of a full-time job back into the weekly changeableness and stress of classes again, but I loved grad school and I loved being a graduate student.

I think this slightly manufactured delight at my ascension to the halls of academia lasted about two weeks. Two weeks into the semester, things were getting harder and the outside world was seeming farther away than before. I started wanting to escape. 

But everyone else around me seemed happy, so I pushed aside those thoughts and settled in to focus and dedicate myself to my studies.

Except for a niggling feeling of impending doom or future imprisonment in the back of my head, everything was great after that, and I felt really good about life and study and clinic. My classmates and I got along well, I became very attached to my major professor, and my first graded assignments appeared promising. I was feeling optimistic.

Then I saw my neuroanatomy midterm and knew I was in a really, really bad pickle. 

Long story short (and as previously recounted), I failed it. I was the only one in my class. My professor didn't even put a number grade on it - he just basically said "sorry, I got nothing". I have never experienced panic and despair like that in my life. 

My classmates and me when we saw our grades (I'm Elsa).

Two weeks of self-loathing followed. Have you ever experienced that sad, concerned look in a parental figure's eyes when they are terribly disappointed in you and they ask "what happened?" That was the face my professor made when I came to his office after the test. Stricken. Horrified. Worried.

I studied a lot and re-took the test. This time I got a C-. I said "Meh, okay" and moved on after that.

For a while, things were better. I had a painful pep talk with my advisor who helped me analyze what had gone wrong, and helped me develop study plans to be better prepared for the next round of exams. I started realizing that I needed to study hard and really narrow down my focus if I wanted to be successful in grad school; so I did. I quit leaving my building. I slept less and ate less, and read more, wrote more, listened harder, and learned how to really study. I got to know my classmates better and started spending time with them, talking about lessons and assignments as well as learning about how they approached life and school. I thought that the low point was past and things were looking up.

But in fact, I hadn't hit the lowest point yet at all.

They say "bad news comes in threes"; and the lowest point of my semester was the day when a good friend of mine texted in desperation because of some devastating medical news she had just received, and less than 20 minutes later, my professor emailed to let me know that I had miserably failed another assignment and I needed to come meet with multiple professors to try to find the critical flaw in my thinking and study processes. Because of spending my evening counseling and looking up resources for my friend, I turned in my next day's assignment several hours late, and got an email back noting that lateness was becoming a habit with me and she was concerned about my time management skills.

If you Google the symptoms of a nervous breakdown, that was me - feeling detached from reality, emotional numbness, anxiety, obsessive thinking, debilitating fatigue. I went through the motions, even celebrated my birthday at my favorite restaurant with my classmates, and no one knew how close I was to completely losing it. But I was very close. After that horrible meeting with the director of the graduate program and the director of the university clinic, I barely made it back into the lab before collapsing and sobbing harder and more painfully than I had in a very long time.

God brought me healing that weekend by reminding me that it wasn't my grades that made me special to Him - my poor study habits, my difficulty asking for help, my ineptitude for neuroanatomy - all of these fell under the "any other creature" item in the list of things that do NOT come between me and His love. Nothing good about me makes Him love me more, and none of my flaws or sin-struggles make me any less dear to His heart. He loves me because I am His, because I have thrown myself into His arms and trusted Him to rescue me from sin. 

The massive weight of failure and inadequacy rolled off my shoulders. Nervous breakdown avoided.

My grades gradually improved over the next couple of weeks and plateaued at a "not great but borderline acceptable" level. Finals week was the first time I spent 6, 7, and 8 hours at a time doing nothing but studying. I shut out the world, sleep, and food as I wrote final papers and aggressively attacked exams. I've never devoted my whole self to my schoolwork for such a long time before, and I have to say, I'm pretty excited to know that I can do it.

And then, suddenly, they were done.

I had survived.

And now I look like this:

And this:

***

So now it's break, and now the self-evaluation, taking stock, planning ahead, and trying to get rid of my lingering eye twitch begins. There's a lot going on in my head right now ... do I even fit in this field? Am I made for something easier / more artistic? Or do I need to practice more discipline and self-denial and focus on bracing myself for the next semester?

Because as well, in between spells of planning my future, I'm also going to relax and refresh my mind, heart, and spirit so that I'm ready for whatever comes next.

Because whatever it is ... is probably going to look a lot like  ^  that.

***

And I will post about my family's Christmas festivities very soon! I hope you had a wonderful, blessed, joyful Christmas, dear friends!

Lots of love,

Vicki