Here and Now

Clicking the 'Compose' button. What a thrill. I'm so excited to write after a surprise period of time where I wrote nothing at all, anywhere. Work emails and small work projects aside, these are the first words to come out the end of my fingers in a long time. Writing became forced, and I couldn't do it. I had nothing to say, so I stopped.

I can't remember another time during my life with so much mental challenge crammed into a few months. They've all produced growth and change, and God is using each situation to wake me from my slumber and bring me into a world that needs more Christians who are useful and aren't just in it for the free ticket. The is is the new prayer for my life.

I bought a house on my birthday, April 17. It's an amazing story of God's goodness in the small details of my life, right down to the very neighborhood I thought might always just be a dream. Since that day, almost every interior surface has been changed -- and if it hasn't yet, it will be soon. My boyfriend is a creative and a builder extraordinaire, so I paint walls and envision and he does the rest. Home projects go much more smoothly with him a few blocks away than they did when he was in Texas, where he lived when we met.

Working for a wealth management firm was never in my plans, but it's been so rewarding. I even earned a certification (a low certification, but still, it required effort). Literally every day, I encounter something I have to figure out for the first time. When you see the world from behind the economic stage, things look very different than they do from the audience's perspective. It's been an education in politics, family dynamics, life goals, wise decisions, and the relationships that make the world go around.

God's grace has been most evident in my life through my friend Katie, who has met with me week after week since January to tell me what the gospel of Christ looks like in my life when I'm living like I believe it. Through her wisdom, I've seen how the way I think and what I choose to believe changes everything about my everyday life. If I believe that a mountain exists between God and me that I somehow have to move, I miss out on the whole reason Christ gave His life for me. I've learned that what I let myself silently think really matters. Truth and reality matter. Jesus matters, and my life matters because by God's grace, it doesn't have to be wasted.

A Bad Eye Taught Me Love

You may have heard of iritis. But probably not. It's an eye disease that creeps up out of nowhere, and you wake up one morning with a charming blind spot and an eye as red as fire. I'd post a photo, but...

This was my situation two weeks ago. It's nothing serious, except that if left untreated, you'll lose your eyesight completely. I didn't know this or I would have felt my way into the doctor's office much sooner.

I learned that, when considering a trip to the emergency room, my first thought should be who I'd call to take me there. Even when it's 2AM. I drove myself to the downtown emergency room in the middle of the night, with a bad eye. Upon walking in, I found the only other person in the waiting room to be a crazy man all huffy about receiving no service. When the security guard told him to fill out a form first, the expletives began, and he threw the clipboard and his wallet through the window at the nurse. Effective. Before I knew it, three armed guards surrounded him and the minute he reached for his pocket, they pinned him to the floor. He was escorted offsite...while his wallet remained on the other side of the window. Guess who had no wait?

The extra protection is not the only reason I should've called my family. My coworker asked me how I would respond if my mom had driven herself to the emergency room in the middle of the night when my dad was out of town, and she hadn't called me. I got hot just thinking about it. Just because I could make it there by myself isn't the point. Even though I was trying not to cause a scene by calling them, it communicated that I didn't need them or want their help.

Independence isn't always best, especially when it alienates you from people who love you and denies them the chance to do something meaningful for you. I realized that to let someone help isn't saying that I can't do it myself; it's telling them you want and need them there because it's them and you love them too.

Pardon this twisted Love Day post, but this is the kind of love I've been thinking about lately. And my eye is good as new (nothing a few steroids couldn't fix).

Comeback

Today is January 22. That should be far enough past New Year's resolution time that you don't mistake this reappearance on the blog as a resolution. But I do hope it becomes a regular part of my life again. Going places and doing things entirely filled up the last few months and left little time for thinking, and even less time for writing. Pressure from friends -- not only to write again but to make it interesting... -- has made me want to blog and not want to blog. When it's been months, it's hard not to feel like your first time back has to be this epic thought or story. All that does is keep me away longer. Today is January 22 and I'm in the mountains for the second annual Grand Lake Getaway. My friend Lindsay's family owns a house right on the lake, and they're generous to let a couple handfuls of women stay for the weekend and cook, dance, consider jumping in the canal (but deciding against it) and meet our annual quota for lounging in front of the fire while snow falls outside. Today is January 22 and the year ahead is a blank slate. I can predict that I will stay happily with my company, that I will move sometime around April, that my social life will look a whole lot different than it did last year, and that... I don't know beyond that, and those are only predictions. One of the strongest and deepest women I've met in a long time has decided to befriend me and teach me more about Jesus Christ. No one has been in my face like she has about things in my heart that need to change. I'm excited for the upcoming months and what they hold. Unknown can be frightening but it is so filled with possibility. And I'm preparing myself to write about it here, and maybe even commit to making the blog a bit more personal -- including photos. Planning to be back here soon.