Doing It Alone (Part Two)

Yesterday, after finishing up a very long post about how I was never meant to go at life alone, I got a crazy idea to make breakfast for dinner for my little brother and me. I fried bacon (which could have been a little more crispy), made cheese grits, toast, and cereal. I was starting to get a little prideful, when all of a sudden a crack of thunder shook the house and knocked the power out. The rain outside the kitchen window was blinding. And I was home alone with a thirteen year old boy who was afraid of the dark.

Thanks, God.

Again, reminding me that I can't do it alone, my older stepbrother and his friend came home from the Fire department (where my stepbrother is a regular volunteer). Together, we found candles and lit them. My stepbrother got the oil lantern from our parents' room, lit it, and proceeded to give me instructions on how to use it (which was definitely humorous, considering he didn't know how to use it either). He made sure the kitchen, living room, and bathroom were adequately lit and asked if we needed anything. It was all very nonchalant and simple, but I appreciated it. They even taught my little brother some wrestling moves, just for fun. (I was just afraid they were going to knock down a candle and set the house on fire.) They stayed for a while before leaving again.

I can't do it alone. I would be lying if I said my stepbrother coming home to check on us and the house didn't make me feel any safer. And I felt even better when my mom came home about twenty-minutes later. It's weird to say, but I wasn't completely satisfied until my stepdad came home just a few minutes later. The funny thing is, right after he got home and found a flashlight, the power came back on.

There's something to be said for trusting other people. I've been rereading the Eldridge's book Captivating recently and it hits me hard every time I pick it up. This morning, I read about the two ways women try to deal with their wounds: becoming either dominating or desolate. The dominating woman hides behind everything she has to do. She becomes busy. She seems successful - she could be a CEO or chairman of the PTA or president of Key Club (sound familiar?). But inside, she's hurting. She's hiding. The desolate woman throws herself at men. She doesn't have a handle on who she is and often falls into abusive situations. She doesn't go for it; she doesn't go for anything. Inside, she's hurting, too. This is what women are told: "Hide your vulnerability. Hide your heart. You aren't safe."

We women are told that we aren't enough, and that we're too much, at the same time. And because of that, we tend to fall into two categories. Dominating or desolate. I see a little of myself in both. I get and stay busy. Last semester, I was stressed on multiple occasions (okay, pretty much every week). And that's the way I lived: one week at a time. Where was my time for rest? Where was my time to have fun with friends? To stay late and pray with someone? To open my heart to what God wanted to say? No, I had to be busy. I had to move from one thing to the next. I couldn't open my heart. I didn't have time.

Why?

For many reasons. One of which is that I think I can't trust people. It's easy to stay busy. To glance at a watch when things get too emotional or vulnerable and say, "I hate it, but I have to run." It's hard to trust. It's easy to run on a time schedule.

Being a woman is not being weak. It's being vulnerable. It's being humble. It's being gracefully strong. It's being gentle. It's being true. It's being adventurous. Somewhere along the line, I missed this. I decided to be busy. There's nothing alluring and inviting in a constantly busy and lonely woman. I use the word lonely because when you're constantly running, you're not relaxing in the company of friends.

Proverbs 11:16 says, "A woman of gentle grace gets respect..."

And I urge you to live in that place of gentle grace. It's beautiful. I'm learning to be real with people. It's taken 8 or 9 months to see that the people who really love me won't leave when I'm real with them. To confide in a friend pain I'm feeling, pain that is honest and raw and deep and messy, and for them to stay beside me and walk with me through it... That's the blessing that comes from being real with people. I'm learning how to do that. How to trust people. It's so hard! But it's so worth it. We were not meant to do this alone. We think we can. We think that since we were messed up and broken and lied to when we were little, people cannot be trusted anymore. So we put up walls. And one of my walls is busyness.

Sisters and brothers, I urge you. Go to God first. When your heart aches, go to Him before anything and anyone else. Give Him your ache. Let Him take it. Lay it at his feet and let Him pick you up and hold you in His arms.

And when He's held for you for longer than you think you need to be held, watch for the people He's placing in your life who will walk with you step-by-step through the healing. Yeah, healing takes time. Usually it's messier than anything you've seen before. But don't forget this one thing...

You were never meant to do this alone.

Doing it Alone

It's moments like this that remind me I was never meant to do it alone. Why do I even try?

It's almost humorous. My mom and stepdad both got off work early today and drove to a nice furniture store about an hour or two away. They dropped my little brother off with me. So, he and I got suitcases down from the attic by ourselves, which was a great feat for my acrophobic brother. I packed up one of the suitcases to take back to school with me for two weeks. Then I asked him to come out with me to the "shop" behind our house to look for a bottle of car wash, since I was considering washing my car. During this time, my mom called, suggested we order pizza, and told me where the bathing suits were. We couldn't find any car wash, but my brother suggested using every kind of wax and polish and degreaser that my stepdad owns. I called my mom again and asked where to order pizza, and the only place nearby doesn't deliver and is really sketch (which my mom assured me was fine, but I disagreed).

And then I got frustrated. I remembered that I had wanted to get my car washed somewhere professionally, since I wanted it vacuumed as well. It frustrated me that I didn't remember that before I lugged my brother outside to help me look for a bottle of car wash. It frustrated me that I was hot and tired and sweaty and now wouldn't be able to wash my car. It frustrated me that my brother wanted pizza and I wasn't about to go to the sketchy pizza place alone. I just felt very frustrated and bothered and anxious.

Anxious for what?

I wanted someone to be there. Someone to put a hand on my shoulder and say, "It's okay, it's okay. This is not a big deal. You can get your car washed another time." Someone to give me a hug and tell me that they'll go get pizza. Someone to say, "Hey, I've got this."

Is that crazy?

This is something I should be able to handle on my own. And God proves to me everyday that he's with me. And that he's got everything under control.

I guess this is another reminder that I'm ready live on my own yet. I'm not ready to get married. I'm not ready to plan meals or raise a family or take care of other people or be independent yet. And I feel ridiculous saying that. I mean, I'm the adult in this situation, right? But I guess it's okay, even a good thing, that I'm not ready to be on my own yet. I've still got 3 more years in college living on campus. I bet I've got between four and ten years until marriage comes knocking on my door. I've got time. For once, that seems like a very nice thing to have.

When I was younger, I was always waiting. Waiting to get my braces off, waiting to go to high school, waiting to get a driver's license, waiting to get a car, waiting to get a job, waiting to get asked out on a date (still hasn't happened), waiting to graduate, waiting to go to college... And I guess I'm still waiting. Waiting for my next paycheck, waiting for the summer, waiting to move up a year in school, waiting to get asked out, waiting for my final grades to be posted online... It's just at this point in my life, I'm okay to wait. God wants to do something during this period of waiting.

I realized earlier that God wants to do something great in me and through me before there's a guy in my life. Sometime during this past semester I forgot about that and got all sidetracked. It's a little disheartening to look back and say, "Wow, if only I had remembered what God wanted to do! How would things have looked different?" Now, though, I can look forward and say, "How will things look different now that I'm reminding myself of what God wants to do?"

So, while God has done and is doing great things through my singleness, I'm also considering: what is God doing while I'm in this awkward stage between childhood and adulthood? Well, for one, he's teaching me what it looks like to be an adult. What it looks like to do things alone, and how I'm never really alone.

At the very beginning of my first semester of college, my car broke down, and my mom and stepdad drove the roll-back (like a tow-truck) two hours in the pouring rain to get my car and take me out to dinner. I was grateful that they came, but I was upset that I couldn't handle the situation on my own. My mom told me that of course I couldn't handle my broke-down car by myself, that I wasn't meant to. Then she gave me some advice that has really stuck with me...

Being an adult doesn't mean you don't ask for help. It simply means knowing who to ask and when to ask them for help.

Yeah, even adults are not meant to do it alone. It's not a measure of adulthood if I can accomplish everything myself. Obviously, becoming confident and competent mean that I'm an adult. But another measure of adulthood is my being interdependent: self-sufficient, but able to relate to adults as adults. Knowing where to appropriately find help, not doing everything without help.

And, another thing, God never called us to completely independent. He created us to know and love and need each other. That's the beauty of people. They're messy (oh, so messy!) but worthwhile. Relationships are so important and necessary to life. The good news is that God did not stick us on this earth to live alone. He gave us people, fellow believers, even. He gave us his Holy Spirit, who will be with us and in us forever. And he gave us immediate, direct contact to himself, through prayer because Jesus died and rose again for us.

So, in the end, I'm never really alone. Maybe this was just a slightly humorous, frustratingly obvious way to make me see that. Now, if you'll excuse me, my little brother and I are going to go play a board game. :)

Inevitable Change

Change happens.

It's kindof, well, inevitable.

The good news is that I serve a God who never changes. My God is always faithful, always present, always active, always unpredictably sure, and always awesome.

I feel like we often miss that. We are too easily swayed by the winds of life that we ignore God's ever-present, omnipresent, and omniscient self. The fact is that God doesn't change. He's the same forever. We change and experience new and both exciting and awful things. Because of that, we often perceive him differently at different times. God didn't change - we did. And we learned something new about him.

Change happens. We change, life changes... But God never changes. He is always the same. And he is always here.

Welcome Home

Nothing is more calming than a breezy summer evening and nothing de-stresses me more than a car ride. So, of course, the Sunday night of finals week, I'm taking the first opportunity to get off campus. I rolled down my windows, turned up the Christian radio, and drove to my favorite gas station down the only major street of the little town I go to college in. Dusk was settling in, lights were flickering on, the air smelled like summer was coming, and the breeze was so warm and inviting.

And you know what? I realized I was at home.

It was a traditional late spring / summer thing for me when I lived at my old house to drive out to the gas station or CVS for gas, milk, or something random in the evenings. It was a year or more ago, but I remember it like it was yesterday. It was like taking a chill pill or something, just to get away. I was finding my first breath of independence from my mom and brother. I remember the different routes I would take when I wanted something new. I remember getting lost that one time. I remember thinking this old guy was following me. I remember turning the radio up so loud I thought the neighbors could hear me.

And that made my old house home. I lived there for almost ten years, and it was home. The house I actually grew up in. I walked in that door a scrawny little 4th grader and walked out a confident eighteen year old. There's a little piece of me that would give seriously anything to have that back.

But now I'm a nineteen year old college student. I've got plans and goals and dreams that are suddenly both bigger and smaller than the dreams of my high school days. My hopes are so much more tangible and so much more realized, but also so much deeper now. It's a little frightening, but also a lot of fun.

Along with coming to college is the sudden realization that I've got to adjust to a new home. I don't know if you've kept up with me, but I moved from my old home of ten years to my new home this past June. However, since I've been here at college, I've only been at my new house for three or four months out of the year that my family has lived there. So, college is my home away from home.

It's taken this long, my whole Freshman year, to finally feel completely at home here. Finding a church home helped, growing a group of friends helped, diving into a student ministry helped, eating out and supporting the community helped, but I didn't feel at home until I drove down Big A Road with my windows rolled down and my radio turned up loud.

For me, it's the little things that make me feel at home and at peace. It's finding a little alcove in the rocks surrounding the waterfall on my campus. It's the look in my pastor's daughter's face when I carry her on my shoulders. It's staying up late talking with my roommate, suitemates, and future roommate. It's driving into town by myself on a Sunday evening to get gas.

Yes, I'm home. The bad news is that I leave to go back home on Tuesday. :) Oh well, there's always next semester! And I will be using this summer to spend more time at my new house and in our new city. And, of course, with my family.