So Xanga sent me an e-mail saying if I didn't write something soon they'd delete me!

So here it is :)

I am in Oregon. I have the two cats with me. They woke me up this morning because they are rascals. I'm applying to Target for the summer. Haven't heard back. Haven't heard back from Houghton either about jobs. Haven't finished my grad school application. Am going to contact a voice teacher about the summer. For the first time I feel like every once in a while I could have a panic attack :) Being graduated is stressful! I am reading the Dark Night of the Soul by John of the Cross and find it fascinating and frighteningly relevant. I'm also reading Stephen Donaldson, and trying to learn Russian. :)

How are you?

so many people sacrifice everything for a happy ending.

They pay for it with the pillars of the happy ending.

Faith, love, hope, truth...

so that all they receive for this sacrifice is the rubble of a happy ending.

People buy their lives by giving up the only One who can truly give life.

so that the life they live is dead.

The world is inside out.

Heaven help us.

The Kingdom of Heaven is within you

the King of Heaven calls to you

to give up your life that you may receive it

 to die so that your life may have meaning,

 have a foundation, and pillars and marble halls

of Truth, Love, Hope,

by Grace

as we die, we are raised to life

inside out

through Faith

is this too hard to understand?

then trust in the Lord with all your heart, and lean not on your own understanding

Lord forgive our unbelief!

Lord have mercy

Christ have mercy

Lord have mercy

on the children of an age that has called darkness light, and light darkness

"the path of the righteous is like the first light of dawn, which shines ever brighter til the full light of day"

"let him who walks in darkness, who has no light, trust in the name of the Lord his God"

"thy Word is a lamp unto my feet and a light unto my path"

"the Spirit intercedes for us with groans"

"you do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize"

"Abba, Abba, why have you forsaken me?"

"Father forgive them, for they know not..."

"This is life, that they may know You, the one true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent"

"If you confess with your mouth Jesus is Lord, and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For it is with your heart that you believe and are justified, and it is with your mouth that you confess and are saved."

"I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life, no one comes to the Father except through Me"

"My sheep know my voice"

"Speak, O Lord, for your servant is listening"

Grant us the ears to hear You, the eyes to see You, the heart to truly love You, and the voice to proclaim You by Your Spirit.

A dear friend challenged me, recently, to ask the Lord what His favorite part of me was. I resisted the idea strongly...I'm not exactly sure why...or why I was so completely sure He would tell me. What if He said, "um, no part of you right now" ..or, He told me, and I wouldn't listen, and then I would feel terrible for not listening to Him?

I finally asked, and after He showed me a few words like love and compassion, and I still wasn't getting the point, He said outright, "Your heart, your beautiful, beautiful heart." I was stunned. And, as I had suspected, I couldn't really believe Him. I spent most of the last few years kicking my heart into a corner, because it was so much easier to deal with things if it just kept quiet...I berated it, ignored it, and all the while...

I think, since I haven't written here in so long I have this strange illusion that if I say things here, no one will hear me. Hm. That's a dangerous sort of feeling to have, but I'll indulge it.

I'm going to London. In three days. I am apprehensive (okay, afraid) of a lot of things. I'm afraid I won't be a good TA. Or homeschool teacher. I'm afraid I won't sing well. I'm afraid I will be miserable because I'm so afraid of doing a bad job. I don't think I will, but there is precedence for that sort of thing! Have you ever been there? Where it's so important to you that something works out well, that you forget to trust the Lord, and even though things work out well, you're so miserably anxious that you don't enjoy it? I have. I don't want it to happen, and I don't actually think it will, but I'm kind of nervous all the same.

I'm afraid of who I'm becoming. I'm more independent now...I don't need people to know, desperately, anymore. I don't want that to make me a cold-hearted, smug, self-sufficient person though. I want to love people, and to walk humbly with God. I don't really cry anymore. Hmmm. Well, granted, this semester there were a few nearly unprecedented breakdowns :) which took me by surprise. Poor Riv and Jazzy, I broke down in such angry sobs after one argument with a lady I do love and respect, it took them several hours to calm me down. The dear lady just phrased and saw things in such unfortunate ways...it really was remarkable. Looking back I think God knew I should face the issues, and made her say all of the provoking things, it is simply impossible it could have gone that badly otherwise. But then poor Riv had the joy of hearing me doubt constantly for a couple days whether I should be at Houghton, or on this continent at all....I think I knew all along it was really that I wanted so much to run away...but there is always that lingering doubt, "what if, all these reasons I have to know God wants me here, are just points I'm rehearsing in defiance to shut out His voice? What if?" Those can be dreadful words.

Oh, and then that other conversation...I knew better than to continue insisting my points with someone much more informed and older, but I never will learn. And I knew conversations on that topic almost never go well, although hopeful Riv still thought it might. Regardless, it still hit me hard. Through the hour or so of meeting, I held myself somewhat together and then cried bitter tears of frustration. It seems when we discuss things with one another we should be able to recognize the truth even when we see it through a flawed instrument. I wish it didn't seem true so often that if anyone but me were saying it, it would come out right. Anyways. Riv came in later, and I flattered myself I'd recovered enough so I could have a sensible conversation, but she knows me much much too well, and as soon as she saw my face, she threw her hands up as if she'd been shot and cried "nooooooooo!!!!!" which right away made me feel better, but I'm afraid after laughing, I lost my composure and cried again. I don't know what I would have done without Riv, she really is my Sam! I am just silly Frodo with the silly ring whining my way through all three books :) Anyways. Perhaps I need not worry about losing the ability to cry, I do seem to have a knack for it.

There are a lot of things I'm thankful for too...I'm thankful that everything will be okay. I'm thankful, hmm, that I learned a new way to take sermon notes this Sunday. That might seem strange to you, but it is a huge relief to me. Ever since I can remember, I've had this constant battle with the verses that crowd into my mind from the Spirit to support the sermon (if it is a good one, if it is a bad one, they're contradicting it, or shaping it), the points on the paper we are supposed to fill in, and my compulsion, whenever I have a pencil in my hand, to draw. It is silly, I can't help it, and it makes me feel sheepish and guilty. But this Sunday, I finally just let my hand do what it liked, and it illustrated the sermon. Names and characteristics of Jesus, Bible verses, and a scene wove all together to form a picture of the sermon, and I finally felt as though I'd taken good notes. Anyways. I'm wordlessly grateful for the people in my life, and for the patience of God as He deals with me. And I'm truly delightedly exited to go to London. Honest. I wouldn't be so worried if it weren't so. I wish the opposites of things weren't always true at the same time

This seems like I've been typing a bunch of rambling things again. Oh well. It vanishes into the oblivion of cyberspace, and very soon no one who even read it will remember. Meaningless? No...and I don't know why! Because You read what I write. "By your words you will be acquitted and by your words you will be condemned" What an awful verse to remember! Sorry Lord. I just don't like my words very much. It isn't the verse that's the problem, it's me. Big surprise there. Adieu, Beloved Lord. I hope by your grace, one of these days I'll write something worth reading.